We made another run to the coast from Bakersfield in our 2017 Chevy Bolt. This was a business trip. I had a half-day lecture to give at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo. So there was no dawdling to take...[more]
Presentation on Electric Vehicles for the CORE Energy Summit in Winnipeg, Manitoba 12 April 2018.
A few weeks ago I had U-haul install a 1.25-inch hitch receiver on our 2017 Chevy Bolt EV to mount a bike rack.[more]
On Monday, March 26, a coalition of about 100 people from state government, the electric vehicle industry including automakers and makers of charging stations, electric utilities and environmental...
With Tesla confirming its first quarter production and delivery results today, the company also confirmed that the Model 3 is now officially the best-selling electric car in the US.
The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) has gone live according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) press release.[more]
4 April the transfer of remaining copies of Wind Energy for the Rest of Us to a new distributor was completed.[more]
Cleveland has been a city of innovation, right from the very beginning. In 1796 Moses Cleaveland, in his westward journey from Connecticut, discovered the area around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River,...[more]
Bosnia’s maiden wind farm began producing electricity on Wednesday as part of the country’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet the renewable energy standards of the European Union it...
Presentation for CORE Energy Summit in Winnipeg, Manitoba 12 April 2018.
What's up with Canada? I've gotten two enquiries from the Great White North about Bluenergy Solarwind, a US company claiming to have developed another vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT).[more]
Celebrities like former Tonight Show host Jay Leno and actor Ed Begley Jr. endorsed the Canadian entrepreneur's product. Rowan was making national headlines with his invention. But skeptics wondered...
One of the UK’s best-known and most iconic small-scale wind companies, Gaia-Wind, has been forced into provisional liquidation and the company and outside observers are highlighting government...
Congressman Salud Carbajal announced a new bill Monday to encourage investment in renewable energy businesses in San Luis Obispo County. The bill, called the Energy Opportunity Zone Act, is targeted...
Ramping – when power plants adjust their output according to market needs – is crucial in an energy system that includes renewables. So can nuclear reactors ramp enough to accommodate significant...
The study thus basically further documents the real reason for the shift from feed-in tariffs to auctions: it wasn’t about price, as lots of people assume; the goal was to give policymakers a way to...
Inadequate levels of investment in renewable energy are a major obstacle standing in the way of the transition to a new, renewables-based energy system.
Without any official announcement having been made, French nuclear reactor operator EDF seems poised to close up to five reactors next year. What will this mean for the French energy market?
Hans-Detlef Feddersen sent me a copy of a little picture book celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bürger-Windpark Lübke-Koog. He included a DVD video of interviews with the founders of the...[more]
Benny Christensen knows his windmills. An early anti-nuclear activist and proponent of 100% renewable energy—a photo of him appears in Steven Borish’s Land of the Living—Christensen has now turned...[more]
The title, Störfall mit Charme, is a playful thumbing of the nose in German at the critics of a movement by citizens in a small village in the deepest reaches of Germany’s Schwarzwald or Black Forest...[more]
Last month, Portugal produced more than enough renewable energy to meet the country's entire electrical demand — a feat "unmatched in the last 40 years," according to the Portuguese Renewable Energy...
I am not sure if this will help reduce costs. But judging from the German experience, it will be a great way to slow down the speed of increasing the renewable percentage. That’s because any auction...
Bulgaria will seek to renegotiate long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs), including feed-in tariff contracts with renewable energy producers, obliging them to sell their entire electricity output...
It does this, rather than consuming the solar power directly, because of generous, long-term feed-in tariffs offered by the government. These mean that the €1.2 million system is providing the...
aiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) unveiled an announcement that it is increasing feed-in tariff rates by 9.09%. The FiT rate now for small scale solar installations up to 20kW for the first...
Sex sells. Always has, always will. Sex has been used to sell beer, cars, and even wind energy--well, at least articles about wind energy.[more]
The 1992 report on the project by the Centre de Recherche Energétiques et Municpales reads like so many of the others from the period. In short, the four-year project was a failure for a host of...[more]
Wind historian extraordinaire Etienne Rogier sent me a carte postale (post card) promoting a 1988 French postage stamp. The card depicts the postage stamp and an experimental Darrieus turbine.[more]
The wind turbines mean my family now has a future but it also means a better future for my local community too because the money I make from hosting them on my land is spent at local businesses. It...
Australia’s 82 operational wind farms deliver significant financial and social benefits to their host communities. Sharing these benefits equitably with local host communities ensures these projects...
Presentation for the CORE Energy Summit in Winnipeg, Manitoba 12 April 2018.
Contrary to the ideas promulgated by some opponents of wind generation, most of the substantial investment in wind farms in South Australia is not being paid for by taxpayers or electricity consumers...
At the heart of the problem has been governments’ trust in market solutions without a sharp eye on the shortfalls in market performance and without adequate leadership on the long term outcome the...
It is a meaningless concept at the least and dangerous at its worst
You know solar photovoltaics (PV) has become mainstream when you can find a solar power plant in Frankton, Indiana. [more]
GlassPoint’s technology uses thin, curved mirrors inside a greenhouse to track the sun and focus heat on pipes containing oilfield water. It was developed in Kern County and piloted in 2011 at Berry...
Spain’s CSP blazed into operation in 2008 and put 2.3 GW of thermal solar generation on the 100 GW grid system in just five years. Most was parabolic trough and about one third included thermal...
Turcas Petrol wants to double its geothermal power generation capacity in the coming years and is asking for continued government support through either the FIT or another incentive program for the...
With continued opposition to larger-scale geothermal projects, developer of small-scale projects of around 100 kW show that development is possible and successful, as cases in Beppu, Oita Prefecture...
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is planning changes on requirements for environmental impact assessments for geothermal projects in efforts to help further growth of geothermal...
