Everyone who has a cell phone knows that batteries don't last forever. For drivers of electric vehicles (EVs), or those considering one, the first question that comes to mind is, "How long will the...[more]
Long-time Sierra Club activist Harold Wood and his wife Janet bought a Chevy Volt about a year ago. Wood, a Visalia, California authority on the life and times of John Muir, the founder of the Sierra...[more]
Our 2017 Chevy Bolt EV is about 18 months old. The windshield wipers were beginning to streak so I decided to replace the wipers. Despite that the replacement wipers for the windshield were not...[more]
If GM goes through with its recently announced restructuring that would see several North America plants shut down, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that they would consider buying some of those shuttered...
As Tony Williams says, "plan the drive and drive the plan."[more]
Texas now produces four times as much wind energy as California, which has fallen to No. 4 in the United States — not a promising trend, given the state’s ambitious goal of switching to 100 percent...
Windustrious Cleveland's Sara Taylor calls for opponents of offshore wind in the Great Lakes to evolve, as others have done in past, to avoid technological stagnation.[more]
In 1980 the Department of Energy published a short film titled Wind: An Energy Alternative. The 12-minute film was produced by the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) probably in 1979.[more]
New technology to detect and prevent eagles from colliding with rotating wind turbine blades will be applied in Australia for the first time – at Goldwind Australia’s Cattle Hill Wind Farm in the...
Sheerwind-Invelox, a ducted-turbine fiasco, officially went bust in early 2018. Incredibly, there are a number of promotional videos still on line at youtube.com and on vimeo. The latter is even more...[more]
While poking around on the Internet to see if anything new had popped up on some of my favorite ducted turbine projects I came across some videos of FloDesign-Ogin that I hadn't seen before. The...[more]
I've been alerted to an error in the second edition of Wind Power (2004): Renewable Energy for Home Farm and Business.[more]
I've added several rare photos and scans Vaughn Nelson found in his files from the 1970s. Nelson, one of the wind industry's pioneers, has an extensive collection of experimental wind turbines from...[more]
President Emmanuel Macron of France depressed nuclear executives globally in late November 2018, announcing the planned retirement of 14 of 58 reactors by 2035. This was still less than was promised...
Germany is often praised as being the frontrunner in the transition to renewable energy. It is shutting down its nuclear power plants by 2022, and their capacity will be replaced by renewables....
Natural Resources Canada, a federal agency, recently announced C$29.8 million of funding for Halagonia Tidal Energy, a subsidiary of DP Energy, to develop a 9-megawatt tidal array demonstration...
With 150 GW of U.S. coal set to remain in service after 2020, the Rocky Mountain Institute aims to prove the resource is raising electricity costs.
The Nova Scotia government is moving ahead with a project that aims to harness the immense power of the Bay of Fundy’s tides, despite the uncertain future of the Cape Sharp Tidal venture.
There are some books that simply bring a smile to your face--even to someone as jaded as I. This is one of them. There is a joy in discovering what the future may hold that comes across in Ulrich...[more]
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 new draft decree includes auctions for larger wind farms and solar plants, but leaves the feed-in tariff system in place for hydro power plants of up to 10 MW, wind farms of up to 50 MW, and...
The €600 million scheme is expected to lead to the deployment of an additional 350 MW of PV capacity, and to support ground-mounted and rooftop projects relying on innovative technologies and ranging...
The European Commission has approved under EU State aid rules a measure to support innovative installations for electricity production from solar energy. The measure will further support the EU's...
France has a feed-in tariff for tidal energy of €150 MWh but SIMAC believe that its scaled-up project could see costs being brought down to around €70 MWh. As a source of predictable firm and...
his is the first renewable energy tender issued by the country. It will replace its feed-in-tariff (FiT) support scheme. The deadline for taking part in the competitive selection is December 31.
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
Minnesota’s community solar program hit a record 460 megawatts of operational capacity in November 2018. The chart above shows the progress of projects through the program since August 2015, and the...
Market research firm IHS Markit has published new figures that show the global solar market will still increase by around 11% to 105 gigawatts (GW) in 2018 despite recent cuts to China’s solar policy...
The digital version of Paul Gipe's Wind Energy for the Rest of Us has been re-launched on several platforms at $19.99, 33% off the previous e-book price.[more]
ElectraTherm utilizes Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and proprietary technologies to generate up to 110kWe of electricity from low temperature water ranging from 77-122°C.
New feed-in-tariffs for hydro-thermal and petro-thermal geothermal have been put forward that would lift maximum tariffs from up to $0.48 to $0.54/ kWh for plants sized 5 MW and below with lower...
Kenya is considering replacing its current feed-in-tariff system with an auction-based system in efforts to drive down electricity tariffs in the country. Auction systems have proven to favour price...
