Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Which way will the wind (power) blow in 2010?
The United States became the No. 1 wind power market in the world in 2008. But under the credit crisis in 2009, the building of new wind farms slackened and the United States ceded its top global spot to China.
With the demand for renewable energy still growing, the American Wind Energy Association is eyeing 2010 as a critical year. Here are some of their top trends to watch for:
Second to natural gas: Wind power generates only 2 percent of the U.S. electrical supply. But new wind power generation in the United States has been second only to natural gas generation in terms of new capacity built each year since 2005. Watch for the industry to work to keep that spot.
Wind turbines ratchet up the power: General Electric won a $1.4 billion contract in December to supply 338 turbines for a massive new wind farm in Oregon being built by energy producer Caithness Energy LLC. The size of the turbines — 2.5 megawatts — forecasts a shift to larger turbines, driven by economics, the wind group said. “Taller turbines with larger swept areas produce more power at a lower cost per kilowatt-hour.”
Market for small projects grows: The trade group predicts small wind projects for homeowners and small businesses will see record growth, fueled by an expansion of a 30-percent investment tax credit.
Industry seeks advice on where to put projects: Wind farm developers have to win regulatory approval for their projects, which have sparked conflict with conservationists at times. To ease the process of clearing those hurdles and finding sites for projects, the industry is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plus other federal agencies and nonprofits to get more clarity on wildlife surveys and other required studies. Will more guidelines be enough to speed up the development?
States, regions work on transmission: The industry is looking to states and regions to move toward investing in transmission needed to move electricity from often remote wind farms to the cities that use the power. The trade group is eyeing the Midwest in particular and whether its independent system operator that manages the regional power grid for 15 states and one Canadian province follows Texas and the Southwest region in how it invests in new transmission lines.
Another reason for bats to like Halloween
Halloween is just around the corner, and it may be better than most years for one of Earth’s most unpopular species: the bat.
Something sinister is happening to bats in the United States — not only are their numbers declining due to a mysterious malady, but large numbers of them are also being caught mid-flight in the spinning wind turbines that are cropping up rapidly across the nation.
The furry flying critters may get help this month thanks to an unlikely group of conservationists, wind energy companies and the U.S. government, who say they are undertaking a big effort to lower the number of bats killed by wind turbine blades.
The group, called the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, is studying whether stopping wind turbines during low wind conditions will reduce bat deaths at U.S. wind farms. It is also evaluating how much electricity is lost by the shutdowns.
The effort to curb bat fatalities at U.S. wind farms comes as wind power is expanding and North American bat populations are in decline due to a mysterious illness known as White-nose Syndrome.
Conservationists have long worried about the danger of birds colliding with wind turbines, though some studies have shown that the number of birds that die from hitting turbine blades is low compared with kills from vehicles or buildings. The bat study “represents a new area of investigation for the wind industry,” according to Andrew Linehan of Iberdrola Renewables, which offered its Casselman Wind Power Project site in Pennsylvania for the experiment.
According to the BWEC, bat fatalities occur mainly on nights when the wind is scarce and turbines are operating at low power. Scientists believe, therefore, that shutting down the turbines when there is little wind could significantly reduce bat deaths with only a modest reduction in power production.
I wonder if anyone has done any tests to determine whether vertical wind turbines are as dangerous to bats as the much more common horizontal ones. Also, the previously suggested idea about adding ultrasonic transmitters to the blades is a good one and should be tried.
