Three years after unveiling his plan for U.S. energy independence, which won praise from environmentalists for its reliance on wind power, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is back with a proposal to convert the U.S. trucking fleet to natural gas. But as his new plan gains traction, questions arise over how green it really is.
Remember the Pickens Plan?
In a report issued by Clean Edge, Inc. on March 14th, combined revenue for solar, and wind power, along with biofuels, increased 35.2 percent over the last year, leaping from $139.1 billion to 188.1 billion. And in the ten years since the market research firm specializing in the clean tech sector has been releasing annual industry reports, solar power alone has exceeded
I’ve added a hot new business plan to the list I’m now featuring. I spoke yesterday with Joe Speace, CEO of “Project Renewable Energy” near Kansas City, whose raising capital for a wind farm that will feature compressed air energy storage (CAES). This looks quite strong.
Storage will be a big deal soon, as the
It may seem like wind farms are a relatively new form of green technology, but they have actually been around for years—decades, even.
In fact, the UK’s first commercial wind farm, located at Delabole in Cornwall, celebrated its 20-year anniversary with a multimillion-pound renovation. Delabole
How great is it when one good thing creates a bunch of other good things? According to national averages provided by the American Wind Energy Association, the 201-megawatt Nobles Wind Farm in southeastern Minnesota created approximately:
• 200 construction jobs
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.
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
Last week Deepwater Wind announced that it has applied to federal authorities to build what it what is supposed to be the largest offshore wind farm in the U.S.
The application was made in late October to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) to lease a 270-square-mile area
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 South Korean government will help fund construction of a massive offshore wind farm that proponents say would generate about 2,500 megawatts of electricity and give the Asian nation a foothold in the emerging renewable energy industry.
In recent years, China has taken some rather impressive strides in the development of their renewable energy systems. For a nation that has long been criticized for their extraordinarily high levels of industrial pollution, outdated power systems, and a reluctance to move forward, China’s progress has been so incredible that many are beginning to
This month one of the biggest proposed sustainable business projects in the world cleared another hurdle, when it secured a $1.3 billion stimulus loan from the US Department of Energy. Once complete the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm, to be located in eastern Oregon, will consist of 338 wind turbines capable of generating 845 megawatts of electricity—more than the
California, as the Global Cleantech 100 list published in the Guardian confirms, is still hot. Thirty-two of the rising stars in solar panels, energy efficiency, biofuels and more are based there.
But while the sunshine state and the US as a whole are still world leaders in innovating and selling green technology, as this map shows, it’s also clear the Earth’s axis for