With SoCal Edison the hits just keep coming, as the utility has signed a new contract to receive up to 909 megawatts of wind power from DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy.

To be built between 2011 and 2012, the Caithness Shepherd’s Flat project in North-Central Oregon will involved 303 wind turbines across 30 square miles. This will make it one of the world’s largest fully permitted wind farms, but it won’t require any additional or upgraded transmission lines, speeding the time frame for operation.

The project is expected to generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours per year of renewable energy - more than 10% of SCE’s total renewable energy portfolio.

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With all of the sunshine that we get here in Southern California, we should have solar panels everywhere soaking up all of the free (and clean!) energy. Fortunately for us, SoCal Edison leads the nation in the purchase of renewable energy, a pursuit that helps to spur development projects to provide it.

Just this week, the utility announced that it had signed a new contract for an additional 245 megawatts of solar power with Pasadena-based eSolar. But this isn’t just another massive installation of photovoltaic panels - it’s the nation’s first commercial project to use “power tower solar thermal technology.”

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When you think about New Jersey, wind power probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, a growing number of communities are working to change the image of the state as a factory and freeway-filled wasteland into one of a sustainable energy empire.

As The Star Ledger reports, the township of Montclair recently installed two wind turbines that will generate 2,000 watts of energy—enough to power one of the town’s water supply tanks. While that may not seem like a huge achievement, consider this: The tank holds 2.5 million gallons of water.

And Montclair’s wind power effort isn’t even close to the only one in the state. In fact, New Jersey is plotting one of the most ambitious wind energy projects in the country.
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Nebraska’s location in the U.S. makes it one of the most promising states in terms of wind energy, only it’s been something of an underachiever till now. But the public utility Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) hopes to change that, and has made a move this week aimed at boosting the state’s wind energy production.

NPPD this week signed a contract under which Grand Forks, North Dakota-based National Wind Assessments will set up and monitor 10 60-meter-tall meteorological (met) towers to collect regional wind data and determine which are the best places in Nebraska to put up wind farms. The towers will need to be in operation for about a year before NPPD can make the best decisions about where to locate wind-power facilities.

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I’ve always wondered why wind energy in Florida never seemed to get much attention. After all, there’s a good steady breeze every time I go to the beach and, even in my backyard (which is 2 miles off the coast), I have a little colorful garden spinner that’s whirring almost constantly.

Still, every wind-energy potential map of the U.S. I’ve seen appears to leave the Sunshine State a pure blank. Some maps don’t even note any potential for offshore energy, which strikes me as especially odd.

Turns out, wind energy in Florida might have some promise after all. This year’s renewable energy technologies grants from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection include two note-worthy investments in wind: $2.5 million for Florida Power and Light (FPL) to build the state’s first wind-energy facility in St. Lucie County, and $123,868 to Progress Energy Florida to install small-scale, inland wind-evaluation turbines at five different locations in the state.

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August 30, 2008 - Australia, the United States and Iceland have signed the charter of the International Partnership for Geothermal Technology, designed to facilitate shared knowledge and build strategic partnerships for the development of geothermal energy. The framework brings international collaboration on the diffusion of policy and the technical aspects of advanced geothermal systems (EGS) such as deep drilling and geothermal energy conversion.

“Enhanced geothermal systems have the potential to be the world’s only ever-present form of baseload renewable energy,” said Deparment of Energy Acting Assistant Secretary Katharine Fredriksen. (more…)

[social_buttons]Over in the TalkClimateChange section of the new Green Options Discussion Forums in April, my colleague Mark Seall wrapped-up a “Live Debate” on the merits of nuclear power. In addition to the excellent and informed discussion with nuclear experts and environmentalists, there was also a reader poll that concluded with some rather unexpected results. Nearly 75 percent of the respondents believe that nuclear power is good because it is a source of “abundant carbon free energy.”

Yes, this is a reader poll, and it is not a statistical representation of the public attitude of any country in particular. But it is striking that the 133 readers who did vote, were all doing so from a blog network called Green Options. Get it? Simply put, the public attitude towards nuclear power has undergone a seismic shift in recent years. This evidence indicates that this is not the same environmental movement that emerged in the early 1970’s.

But as consumed as I am with energy issues and the politics that surround them, I remain somewhat agnostic about nuclear power. Why is that? There’s no simple answer. Part of it is not wanting to reconcile the tensions between nuclear power as a low-carbon alternative with the ecological dangers of mining uranium and the big issue of transporting and storing nuclear waste. [If you want to know more about the specific dangers and problems facing nuclear power, Judith Lewis has written an excellent article in the most recent issue of Mother Jones addressing these issues in great depth.]

I would also argue that the reason I (and many other greens my age) are not particularly averse to nuclear power is because the pressing environmental issues that were building blocks to my own environmentalism were generally not related to nukes. (more…)

The giant wind turbines on the west coast of Ireland stand not only on the geographical limits of Europe, but also on the cutting edge of a revolutionary technology that makes wind power more reliable and valuable. The 32 megawatt (MW) Sorne Hill wind park will be Europe’s first to integrate a large scale battery back-up system that ensures a reliable supply of electricity regardless of how the wind blows.

“The battery enables large amounts of energy from wind or solar power to be stored, managed, controlled and sent into the electricity grid when it is needed. It doesn’t matter whether the wind is blowing or not; the battery makes the electricity output predictable and reliable,” said Tim Hennessy, CEO of VRB Power Systems, the battery manufacturer based in Vancouver, Canada.
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Texas comes out on top in the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) 2007 rankings of wind energy leaders, not only in its overall total number of wind turbines but in the amount of new capacity added last year.

Texas wind turbines generated 4,446 megawatts of energy in 2007 — enough to power nearly 1.2 million homes. The state added 1,618 megawatts of new wind power capacity last year, more than double the amount of second-place Colorado.

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In 2007, an enjoyable summer and fall pastime for me was sitting, newspaper in hand, on the bank of New York City’s East River in Brooklyn, looking out over the water and staring awestruck at the Manhattan cityscape. Never did I imagine that spinning somewhere in the water were hydroelectric turbines generating enough tidal energy to supply nearly a third of the power needed to run a parking garage and supermarket on Roosevelt Island. I found out about this project in a February 11 Wall Street Journal article entitled Nine Cities, Nine Ideas.

Mister Bloomberg helped jumpstart this “green” project on June 11, 2007 in an effort to move forward in his goal of cutting Gotham’s green-house-gas emissions by 30%. This goal is part of a larger list of goals outlined in PLANYC 2030, a most ambitious plan to change the city’s urban environment in some big ways. (more…)