Tag Archives: wind turbines

Will green mind share lead to green market share?

Posted: December 31st, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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A couple interesting year-end articles popped up today that speak to the issue of Americans’ acceptance of renewable energy and its prospects for replacing fossil fuels going forward.

First, on Forbes.com, environmental and green tech writer Todd Woody writes on the findings of a Dow Jones-Factiva study of mentions of renewable energy and green technology in major media over the past 10 years. Exactly which major media we are talking about — U.S., global, print, broadcast, online — is not made clear.

Solar energy, for example, went from 3,984 mentions in 2002 to  41,651 mentions this past year, a 950 percent jump.

The rest of the list –

Biomass: 2002 mentions — 4,874; 2012 mentions –39,824, a 720 percent increase

Wind power: 2002 mentions — 8,568; 2012 mentions — 61,554, a 620 percent increase

Geothermal: 2002 mentions — 861; 2012 mentions –4,529, a 420 percent increase

The point, Woody said, is that while renewables may lag in market share, they are making progress in mind share.

At the bottom of the page, you will also find a terrific photo gallery of 30 energy trailblazers all under 30 years old — for example, 20-year-old Eden Full, who is developing a solar tracking and water filtration system for developing countries and is now testing it out in Uganda.

Eden Full, 20

Robert Conrad, 23, turned down Ph.D programs to work on a machine vision system that crunches data to help detect hawks, eagles and other birds near wind turbines.

Russell Conard, 23

Now that’s a young man we need at the Coachella Valley iHub!

 Meanwhile, on Greentech Media, Herman K. Trabish reports on a computer study from the University of Delaware showing that the U.S. could meet 99 percent of its power needs from renewable sources by 2030 at no increased costs.

” With storage, according to report co-author Cory Budischak, ‘we can run an electric system that today would meet a need of 72 gigawatts 99.9 percent of the time, using 17 gigawatts of solar, 68 gigawatts of offshore wind, and 115 gigawatts of inland wind.’”

The issue of reliability — keeping the lights on — is covered by a combination of storage, geographic distribution and the sheer abundance of free sun and wind energy. Basically, if you’ve got enough wind and solar installations across the country, the wind will always be blowing and sun shining in enough places to produce the needed power, as Trabish writes:

“So much free fuel from renewables would be available across the geographically dispersed 72 gigawatt . . . grid region that it would not only almost eliminate the need for natural gas reserves, but would also keep the power price low and minimize the need for incurring the cost of battery storage.”

Which is all to say, as we go into the new year, if the mind share is there — including the creativity and passion of our best and brightest young innovators – the market share will follow.

Desert Mirage team takes 2nd in national KidWind competition

Posted: May 1st, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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Great news from Arthur Kimball at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal — the school’s KidWind team, sophmores Arturo Gutierrez and Jesus Gutierrez (who are not related to each other), took second place in the national KidWind competition in Washington, D.C. April 27-29.

The KidWind program is aimed at getting K-12 students interested in  science, technology, engineering and math – referred to as  STEM — through having them design model wind turbines. The Desert Mirage team went to D.C. after taking second place in a regional competition here in the Coachella Valley.

Unfortunately, only four high school teams were in competition at the national level , versus many more teams from elementary and middle schools, Kimball reported. Still the Desert Mirage students’ second place was no easy deal; they were up against some top private schools, such as National Cathedral School from D.C., an elite girls’ school, which took first place.

“The competition was stiff,” Kimball said. “But they could indicate their learning by looking at other teams’ designs and making suggestions.”

The students and teachers also had time for a day of sightseeing, taking in the Smithsonian Space and Aeronautics Museum — where they were fascinated by propellers, Kimball said — as well as the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and all the monuments.

And, Kimball said, they’re already looking forward to next year’s competition, when the KidWind organizers promised at least one high school team from each of the 20 states now participating in the regional competitions.

“Now we know what we’re doing, we’re going to bring the heat,” he said.

 

Desert Mirage wind kids head to DC

Posted: April 19th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , ,
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Today’s Renewable Energy Roundtable at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus started out with a presentation on some of the programs underway at area high schools to get kids interested in and prepared for careers in green energy and technology.

Arthur Kimball, who has started a green academy at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal, reported on the impact of the recent KidWind competition — in which area high school teams competed in designing and building model wind turbines. A Desert Mirage team placed second, making them eligible to go to Washington, D.C. for a national competition, April 27-29.

The winning students have since gone to Saul Martinez Elementary School in Mecca to teach a group of 5th graders about wind power and turbine building, but Kimball said, the word quickly spread around school and soon, everyone was trying to crowd into the cafeteria where the wind presentation was taking place.

The only solution was to ask the Desert Mirage students back for a schoolwide presentation.

Kimball sees the upcoming trip to D.C. as a chance for his kids to get an even better idea of the career and education opportunities available to them in green tech. He did a little ad hoc fundraising at the roundtable because, he said, while his program is state funded, none of the money can be used for out-of-state trips. 

After announcing he was short $2,500 to for the trip, a basket was quickly passed — knocking close to $500 off the shortfall.

Anyone who wants to chip in can call Arthur Kimball at 909-633-5211.

Wind turbines in the high desert

Posted: August 8th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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I took a drive up to Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown on Saturday to attend a meeting of a recently formed group called Save Our Desert, which is organizing fast and furious to oppose a company that is looking to put wind turbines on ridgeline locations in Pipes Canyon.

The company, Element Power, is a global renewable energy firm with U.S. offices in Portland. It has already gotten permission from the Bureau of Land Management to put up test towers topping out at 197 feet on Black Lava Butte, a moutain that rises more than 4,700 feet above see level.

The towers are part of a feasibility study the company is performing prior to deciding on whether to submit an application for the full project. I have not talked with the company yet, so have not heard their side. The environmental impact study they filed to put the test towers up is on the Save Our Desert website.

Black Lava Butte in Pipes Canyon

Cherry Good, a local resident who is one of the main movers behind the group, spoke at the meeting on Saturday, detailing a long list of ojbections to putting large turbines in Pipes Canyon.   She started with the turbines’ impact on the desert plants and animals and kept rolling through the noise and fire hazards associated with wind turbines and the impact on property values.

Other concerns revolve around the canyon’s isolation. The key criteria for renewable energy development on public lands are a site’s proximity to existing infrastructure — that is roads and power generation needed for construction — and transmission lines, needed to take the power to urban markets.

 Just putting the test towers on the buttes required flying them in by helicopter because no roads exist. Construction would require paving a road through the canyon, which Good said, is not very wide.

Test wind tower in Pipes Canyon (Photo from The Press-Enterprise)

“The center of Pipes Canyon would cease to exist,” she said.

Getting construction material up to Pioneertown would also be a challenge, as anyone will tell you who’s driven up the two lanes of  Pioneertown Road behind a slow-moving trailer — as I did Saturday.

If this project goes forward, it might not be the only one looking to put mammoth turbines on pristine ridgelines.  Closer to home there’s the Cabazon Ridge project, which would put a string of wind turbines  on private land along the ridge lines of Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument, on the south side of Highway 111 going into Palm Springs.

There are already lots of turbines on the north side of 111, but the southside is where the mountains rise up, pristine and jagged. Cabazon Wind Energy LLC, which has filed an application with the BLM, wants to put somewhere between 42 and 52 wind turbines, all more than 400 feet tall, on the ridgelines.

This project has not gotten a lot of public attention and therefore has not sparked the kind of opposition Save Our Desert is currently mounting.  I’m going to be gathering more information on both projects for a future article.

The people at the meeting in Pioneertown are dead set against the turbines and angry that the test towers were erected with no advance notice from the BLM or Element Power. These are the same folks who organized to defeat the Green Path North transmission project, an effort by the Los Angeles Department of  Water and Power to build a transmission line across the desert to bring renewable energy to the city.

Most of them moved to the high desert because of their love of desert landscapes and isolation from the rush of modern of life.  Many of them already live off the grid, powering their homes with solar and wind energy.

Which is all to say when these people get organized they are a force to be reckoned with, and they know it.

“I don’t like the idea of speculators coming in here for profit and to make a cash cow out of Pioneertown,” said Randy Bristow, who’s lived in Pipes Canyon for more than 10 years.  “This is a California scenic route. It’s beyond me that anyone would think about tampering with our desert.”

“We live two miles from the buttes,” said Max Thomas, a yoga teacher who’s lived in the high desert for 12 years and is off the grid. “To think that we would have to look at 400 foot towers on those beautiful mesas makes me sick. I’ll fight to the death to stop it.”