http://www.windaction.org/ facts, analysis, exposure of wind energy's real impacts en-us Windaction hourly 1 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.windaction.org/articles/16830 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:37:30 GMT http://www.windaction.org/articles/16830 http://www.windaction.org/articles/9466 Wed, 09 May 2007 11:48:59 GMT German renewable energy group WPD's said Wednesday it was planning erecting a 500-600-megawatt offshore wind power park off Korsnäs on Finland's Gulf of Bothnia coast. If built, the generators would quintuple Finland's wind power generating capacity. http://www.windaction.org/articles/9466 http://www.windaction.org/articles/8136 Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:37:08 GMT Clare County Council has approved the seventh wind farm in the county despite some local opposition. This follows German company Pro Ventum securing planning permission for a €10 million six-turbine wind farm at Tullabrack near Kilrush. It is the second wind farm that the company has secured permission for in the west Clare area and the previous proposal also faced opposition. Currently there are two wind farms operational in the county - the Pro Ventum wind farm at Monmore and the second 11-turbine wind farm near Connolly in mid-Clare. http://www.windaction.org/articles/8136 http://www.windaction.org/articles/7449 Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:44:10 GMT Deep-water wind farms will top the agenda when U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., leads a congressional delegation to Germany this spring. The trip will involve discussions of a variety of energy issues, said Delahunt, chairman of the bipartisan study group that includes current and former members of Congress. But of particular interest to Delahunt, who represents Cape Cod and the Islands, are German renewable energy companies - including one involved in building a test deep-water wind farm off the German coast in the North Sea. Some of the companies in this project ‘’are beginning to talk about a need for American subsidiaries,'’ Delahunt said. ‘’What better place than Massachusetts for this kind of foreign investment? Wind is to the Northeast, what oil is to Saudi Arabia,'’ he said. http://www.windaction.org/articles/7449 http://www.windaction.org/articles/6743 Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:54:54 GMT The German utility company EON has unveiled plans to build a wind farm off the Scottish coast, which it said would be the biggest UK installation of its kind, with an aggregate capacity of 180 megawatts. The 338 million pound investment, which is expected to become operational in the spring of 2009, will produce 550 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. http://www.windaction.org/articles/6743 http://www.windaction.org/articles/6675 Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:26:06 GMT After killing nuclear energy and coal-fired power plants, Germany is now taking aim at its own green policies, says the Wall Street Journal. After building nearly 20,000 windmills, Germans are now regulating them well beyond economical sense: http://www.windaction.org/articles/6675 http://www.windaction.org/articles/6674 Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:21:52 GMT E.ON is planning to build a large offshore wind farm in the North Sea. This was announced by the company today at the 5th Maritime Conference of the German Environment Ministry in Hamburg. The wind farm will be built roughly 40 kilometers (approx. 25 miles) to the northwest of the East Frisian island of Juist. To this end, E.ON has now taken over the Offshore Wind Park Delta North Sea project from the Enova Group. The sea area selected has already been designated as particularly suitable for this purpose by the Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH – German Federal Agency of Maritime Shipping and Hydrography). http://www.windaction.org/articles/6674 http://www.windaction.org/articles/6649 Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:15:24 GMT A group of four European energy companies on Friday revealed plans for a subsea electricity cable to bring more power from Germany to Norway from 2011. The 700 megawatt (MW) cable which would boost power flows between continental Europe and the hydropower reliant Nordic region would cost 500 million euros (USD 659.8 million), the consortium said in a statement issued in Germany. The cost would be shared equally by Agder Energi and Lyse of Norway, EGL of Switzerland, and northern German utility EWE, a spokeswoman for EWE said. http://www.windaction.org/articles/6649 http://www.windaction.org/articles/6647 Fri, 01 Dec 2006 13:08:38 GMT The German government and the country’s energy companies have launched a massive joint offshore wind park project aimed at overcoming the source’s technical insecurities. Last month, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel gave the green light to build the first German offshore wind energy test park in the North Sea. http://www.windaction.org/articles/6647 http://www.windaction.org/articles/5510 Tue, 03 Oct 2006 11:40:38 GMT The German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel gave the green light to a project that will see the construction of 12 offshore windmills in the North Sea. The move will go someway to reversing the country’s lag in the development of offshore wind farms, he said. Each windmill will generate 5 megawatts of electricity and will be ready for commercial use at the beginning of 2008, Gabriel said. The farm will be located 45 km off the island of Borkum. http://www.windaction.org/articles/5510 http://www.windaction.org/articles/7013 Wed, 20 Dec 2006 18:42:30 GMT
Eventually, the pedal of wishful thinking and political demagoguery will meet the renitent metal of reality in the form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (85) and public resistance, as it has in Denmark and Germany. Ironically, support for industrial wind energy because of a desire for reductions in fossil-fueled power and their polluting emissions leads ineluctably to nuclear power, particularly under pressure of relentlessly increasing demand for reliable electricity. Environmentalists who demand dependable power generation at minimum environmental risk should take care about what they wish for, more aware that, with Rube Goldberg machines, the desired outcome is unlikely to be achieved. Subsidies given to industrial wind technology divert resources that could otherwise support effective measures, while uninformed rhetoric on its behalf distracts from the discourse.and political action-- necessary for achieving more enlightened policy. ]]> Rube Goldberg would admire the utter purity of the pretensions of wind technology in pursuit of a safer modern world, claiming to be saving the environment while wreaking havoc upon it. But even he might be astonished by the spin of wind industry spokesmen. Consider the comments made by the American Wind Industry Association.s Christina Real de Azua in the wake of the virtual nonperformance of California.s more than 13,000 wind turbines in mitigating the electricity crisis precipitated by last July.s .heat storm.. .You really don.t count on wind energy as capacity,. she said. .It is different from other technologies because it can.t be dispatched.. (84) The press reported her comments solemnly without question, without even a risible chortle. Because they perceive time to be running out on fossil fuels, and the lure of non-polluting wind power is so seductive, otherwise sensible people are promoting it at any cost, without investigating potential negative consequences-- and with no apparent knowledge of even recent environmental history or grid operations. < > < > Eventually, the pedal of wishful thinking and political demagoguery will meet the renitent metal of reality in the form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (85) and public resistance, as it has in Denmark and Germany. Ironically, support for industrial wind energy because of a desire for reductions in fossil-fueled power and their polluting emissions leads ineluctably to nuclear power, particularly under pressure of relentlessly increasing demand for reliable electricity. Environmentalists who demand dependable power generation at minimum environmental risk should take care about what they wish for, more aware that, with Rube Goldberg machines, the desired outcome is unlikely to be achieved. Subsidies given to industrial wind technology divert resources that could otherwise support effective measures, while uninformed rhetoric on its behalf distracts from the discourse.and political action-- necessary for achieving more enlightened policy. http://www.windaction.org/articles/7013 http://www.windaction.org/articles/7621 Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:57:46 GMT From Barton, Vermont, to the German border with Denmark and from the shores of Lake Huron, to the Romney Marches of southern England, wind power advocates are fighting crosswinds from local residents. In Barton in mid-January, a referendum overwhelmingly rejected the wind power turbines that were planned near this upper Vermont community. ...In Germany, where one-third of the world's current wind power is generated, doubters have provoked a loud debate. The company that owns the grid that includes nearly half the wind-farms in Germany reported its wind farms generated only 11 percent of their capacity. The company said the winds vary so much the wind farm had to be backed 80 percent by the conventional power grid. http://www.windaction.org/articles/7621