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Map produced by National Renewable Energy Laboratory for U.S. Department of Energy James Wimberley over at The Reality Based Community takes a look at the geographic distribution of solar, wind and geothermal sites in this country, using some nifty maps from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and considers some implications, including political ones. [...] The Oil Drum Obstacle 1: Wind energy is dependent on large subsidies. All renewable energy is. Most big wind and solar farms are backed in some way by the government. Obstacle 2: Wind energy is more variable than electricity produced by fossil fuels and nuclear. This is also true for solar. Variable power requires [...] It’ll be the biggest wind farm in the Americas. Austin now has the biggest solar plant in Texas at 300 MW while San Antonio plans 400 MW more in the next five years. Texas leads the country in wind power and is now moving fast on solar too.
From the cover of their annual report And more is coming from Scottish and Southern Energy Deploy huge offshore wind farms in the deep waters of the Gulf of Maine that could power the entire State by 2030—with an equal amount of energy left over to sell. Maine is ideally suited. It is out of range of most hurricanes and close to urban centers. The waters are deep, so one [...] The Department of the Interior has approved the Tule Wind Power Project. Now it needs the approval of the “California Public Utilities Commission, Bureau of Indian Affairs, California State Lands Commission and County of San Diego” and needs them quickly so they can build it before tax credits expire at the end of 2012. WindFlip tows the turbine out almost horizontal – and then when it gets to the site, tilts it up into position – using only the weight of seawater to do it. CleanTechnica has the details on this innovative technology to tow and install behemoth floating offshore wind turbines. This is of course happening in [...] The Midwest’s Wind Power Hub from Energy NOW on Vimeo. Clean Technica has more. (And who knew Minnesota was windy?) |  | ||||
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