Jun
18
Ready to Catch Some High Winds?
June 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Several technologies have been proposed that hope to harnessing wind power from high altitudes. Two basic approaches have been proposed. The mechanical energy can be transmitted from high altitude to the Earth’s surface, where generators would produce the electricity at the ground or electricity could be generated aloft and transmitted to the surface using the [...]
Mar
25
More Power From Slower Wind
March 25, 2009 | 3 Comments
As Keith Johnson put it in the blog entry at the Wall Street Journal, “Plenty of clean tech’s advances are all about glitz. But sometimes the real advances come when companies start looking down market,” he meant that developing into the less than prime locations can pay off with better technology that works both in [...]
Sep
5
Home Sized Wind Turbines May Get Affordable
September 5, 2008 | 1 Comment
Wind turbines at home and small business size could be major markets in the coming years. The Wall Street Journal reports that some people like celebrities, politicians and well to do early adopters are buying what are today quite expensive wind turbines for personal satisfaction or to send a public message. Jay Leno has one [...]
Sep
2
Geothermal Reality Check
September 2, 2008 | 1 Comment
The MIT report that discusses and maps the U.S. geothermal potential (a large pdf file) may be a seminal work that still needs attention. The problem might be the scenario, pumping water down multiple wells to deep hot rocks and bringing it back heated for conversion to power. Most people expect that the water coming [...]
Aug
18
Renewables Grow Up From Being a Carrot to Carrying a Whip
August 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Congress can’t get the alternative energy credits renewed and on the books for the (I’ve lost count) time. By itself the missing tax credits will be a problem. But the price of coal, oil and natural gas will still be their own undoing as primary fuel sources.
It’s about the money. Alternatives such as solar thermal [...]
Aug
13
Research For Teaching How To Buy Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles
August 13, 2008 | 3 Comments
John Axsen and Ken Kurani at the University of California’s Institute of Transportation Studies completed what may become a landmark in getting good handles on the personal vehicles available for purchase in the coming years in the form of plugin hybrid electric vehicles. (A pdf download)
What the study learned is the state of consumer knowledge [...]
Jul
17
Picking on the Pickens Plan
July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
“Ah! Out with the sharp knives mates.” T. Boone Pickens has his idea of launching wind power so strongly made and out so fast that natural gas could be used for cars instead of some of the gasoline we’re using. Can it stand the test of close examination? Make no mistake; this Pickens fellow is [...]
Jul
4
It’s the 4th of July and the celebration is on for freedoms thought through and made real for the American portion of mankind now some 230 years on. There is a list of complaints about federal efforts to cut those freedoms back, but on the whole we’ve slipped but a little. The scary one though, [...]
Jun
20
Storing The Power Of The Wind
June 20, 2008 | 2 Comments
The wind blows at its own time and not necessarily when people need the power from the turbine. That makes energy storage for wind power production an important field. Wind turbines are going up at incredible rates worldwide and offer another problem besides the storage issue – the intermittentcy in very widely disbursed wind farms [...]
May
16
A Gust Of Energizing Wind From Government
May 16, 2008 | 1 Comment
Wind power got a boost midweek with the U.S. Department of Energy report that condensed to the bare headlines is suggesting that the U.S. is ready to get to 20% of electrical power generation from wind in 2030 or just 21 years out. It’s kind of a landmark to get such notice. A Federal [...]
