Starting in 2006, the government of Norway created a target of reaching 30 Terra Watt hours of elevated annual production of energy efficiency and renewable energy by 2016. Currently, the power system in Norway is hydropower dominated. Over the last few years, due to the investment the Norwegian government has made to increase efforts in the development of
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offshore-wind
A late comer to the wind turbine manufacturing industry, Siemens AG entered the wind business six years ago when it purchased the veteran Danish wind turbine manufacturer Bonus Energy. Europe’s largest engineering firm, Siemens is also one of the world’s primary suppliers of transmission infrastructure equipment. In 2010, the company’s 3 and 3.6 MW wind
France will soon join other European countries like England, Scotland, and Denmark in generating electricity from offshore wind projects free from the environmental impacts associated with carbon or nuclear energy. This week French officials are announcing a plan to install six hundred wind turbines capable of producing 3,000 megawatts of energy.
We hear a great deal about partisan bickering in Washington, but according to a webinar I attended yesterday on power transmission, the governors of each state on the eastern seaboard of the US from Maine to Virginia are all in complete accord on the imperative to develop offshore wind. “There are a couple of extremely
Areva is a company that is best described a French based corporate industrial conglomerate with their hands in the mining trade, energy trade, and within the last several years, the renewable energy trade. The renewable energy side of Areva’s business began in 2006 when they announced the creation of the Areva Renewables Group. Since then, their
A Rhode Island company is planning to use a relatively new design for offshore wind platforms to build a large wind farm 18 to 27 miles off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Deepwater Wind’s proposed wind farm, which would use four-legged platforms to support large wind turbines, could be located in water up to 52 meters (170 feet) deep. That is more than
While the construction of wind farms has broad public support across the UK — more than 75 percent of people recently polled said they would be in favor of plans to build a wind farm close to where they live — only one-quarter of wind energy projects are winning public approval.
The U.S. could generate 20 percent of its electricity from wind energy by 2030 if it develops offshore wind farms in the coastal waters of 26 states, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Developing the nation’s offshore wind potential would also create $200 billion in “new economic activity” and 43,000 jobs, according to the
rAccording to Agence France Presse (AFP), the French government will launch next month a tender for contracts of 10 billion euros ($12.6 billion) to build 3,000 MW of offshore wind capacity.
600 wind turbines will be implemented within five to ten sites in Normandy, Brittany and the regions of Pays de la Loire and
New Jersey passes law to encourage the development of 1,100 megawatts of new offshore wind energy capacity.
As the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind farm in Massachusetts fends off some last ditch legal challenges to become the first offshore wind farm in the U.S., New Jersey passed a law last week that would
In 2010, for the third consecutive year, new wind power installations in the European Union will have roughly the same amount of electricity-generating capacity as newly built natural gas power plants, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).
About 10 gigawatts of new wind power capacity is expected to be added in 2010, which would boost total installed capacity to about 85 gigawatts, according to the trade organization.
Natural gas remains the EU’s leading source of generating electricity, producing about 119 gigawatts in 2007, according to industry data.
Whenever you suggest that renewables could one day supply a large proportion of our electricity, scores of people jump up to denounce it as a pipedream, a fantasy, a dangerous delusion. They insist that the energy resources don’t exist; that the technologies are inefficient; that they can’t be accommodated on the grid; that the variability of supply will cause constant blackouts.
I suspect that no amount of evidence will sway some of these people. There’s a large contingent which seems to hate renewables come what may.
Two Tales of Ocean Energy: Major events in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico laid out the U.S.’s energy choices in stark contrast. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill made landfall in Louisiana, a week after the offshore rig caught fire and sank. Oyster beds and wildlife are at risk, and the spill may grow to be one of the largest in U.S. history. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave the green light to the Cape Wind installation, the first offshore wind farm to be approved in U.S. waters. Its 130 turbines, projected to be up and running by 2012, will provide 75 percent of the electricity needed on Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket Sound.
Climate Bill Stalls: The U.S. Senate’s version of a climate bill was yanked at the last moment when Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, withdrew his support to protest the Democrats’ sudden crusade for immigration reform. No definite plans for a new bill have emerged.
A period of extremely cold, windless weather has brought home to the British the drawbacks of relying on wind power and the need to keep a supply of natural gas in reserve. While the cold spell has strained natural gas supplies, leading in some cases to cutoffs to industrial users, it also has highlighted the unpredictability of wind power. Although Britain’s wind farms are supposed to provide 5 percent of the country’s electricity, they were in fact only providing 0.2 percent during the recent run of frigid, still days.