In the post “Assessment 101,” I mentioned that Scott Eichelberger and his ilk get a lot of grilling while staffing the 3TIER booth, and not just about the location of the restrooms, or which booths give away the best tchotchkes. People want to know how our method, numerical weather prediction (NWP), compares to other techniques. Many of our competitors are using a method called measure, correlate, predict, or MCP. Here’s the skinny on some key differences between the two.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the Department of Energy released a report titled, “20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply.” You can visit the report’s website to download the 4MB pdf, or read the press release on the DOE site. The report resulted from a collaboration among government, industry, and environmental groups. From the DOE press release:

The analysis concludes that reaching 20 percent wind energy will require enhanced transmission infrastructure, streamlined siting and permitting regimes, improved reliability and operability of wind systems, and increased U.S. wind manufacturing capacity. Highlights of the report include:

1. Annual installations need to increase more than threefold. Achieving 20 percent wind will require the number of annual turbine installations to increase from approximately 2000 in 2006 to almost 7000 in 2017.
2. Costs of integrating intermittent wind power into the grid are modest. 20 percent wind can be reliably integrated into the grid for less than 0.5 cents per kWh.
3. No material constraints currently exist. Although demand for copper, fiberglass and other raw materials will increase, achieving 20 percent wind is not limited by the availability of raw materials.
4. Transmission challenges need to be addressed. Issues related to siting and cost allocation of new transmission lines to access the Nation’s best wind resources will need to be resolved in order to achieve 20 percent wind.

The report does not mention production tax credits for wind (and other renewables), which are due to expire at the end of this year. The Senate has approved a year’s extension; The House is still mulling it over.

The title of this post is an old maxim for writers, a reminder that an example is much more compelling to readers than a factoid.

Fact: Despite turbine shortages, installed wind energy in 2007 far outpaced projections, according to the Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Sign Update (password required, so here’s a summary). The United States added 5,244 megawatts, bringing our total wind capacity to 16,818 megawatts – second to the world leader in wind, Germany.

Example: Much as I would love to travel America to chronicle the growth of wind power (Wait. Can I do that? Is there funding? Call me!), for now we’ll be content to look at some news from a locality affected by the wind power boom. Read the rest of this entry »

Canada’s Energy-TV recently aired a feature on our REmapping the World initiative, starring Ken Westrick and some truly beautiful footage, especially of offshore wind turbines. (I really do think they’re lovely, in a Bauhaus sort of way.) You can learn more about REmapping the World here.

The inventors of the silicon solar cell were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio late last week, along with 13 others, whose creations range from Styrofoam to Bose noise-reducing headphones (which I credit for preventing me from committing capital crimes while doing time in a cubicle as a writer for SuperMegaCorp).

First unveiled in 1954 and boasting 6 percent efficiency, the first modern solar cell was patented in 1957 by AT&T’s Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson. Patent number US2780765 describes their “Solar Energy Converting Apparatus.” In addition to converting solar energy to electricity, the technology developed by Chapin, Fuller, and Pearson is credited for making possible space exploration, fiber optics, and many science fair projects.

The three gentlemen were inducted in the Hall of Fame posthumously.

Unlike many tech firms, which keep the brains of their operations sequestered in dimly lit cubicle farms veneered with the orange dust of long-gone Cheetos stuck to spilled Mountain Dew, 3TIER lets its scientists out in public. Many of the questions Scott Eichelberger, our assessment tsar, fields when he’s staffing the 3TIER booth at meetings have to do with how we perform our weather modeling magic, and where the data comes from. In fact, I had the same questions. Lucky for me, Scott is a kind and patient person, and a gifted explainer.

The most surprising thing I learned from Scott is that the computer model 3TIER uses for assessment, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, is a free program produced and constantly improved by government and research institutions. I could download a copy for my laptop. The data set with which we begin each model run also is freely available, a gift to the planet’s people from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR).

Of course, amateur that I am, the output from my Home Wind Assessment Kit would be useless hokum, indicating that glaciers had just retreated from my yard. Read the rest of this entry »

Tanzania will host the first wind farm in sub-Saharan Africa, and my heart swells with pride. I visited Tanzania last year, and while I tend to fall hopelessly in love with every foreign destination I visit, this trip really made me consider tearing up my return ticket.

Although my thoughts mostly ran to the stunning scenery and charismatic megafauna we saw on safari, Tanzania’s energy struggles were obvious: When we deplaned in Arusha (straight onto the tarmac; there are no air conditioned jetways at Arusha Airport), I was stuck by the heavy aroma of coffee tree trimmings being burned for domestic cooking. Tanzania gets most of its electricity from hydro installations, but very little of the country is connected to the grid. And without much diversity in its energy portfolio, the few Tanzanians who are on the grid are in the dark when droughts drain reservoirs.

The lodges we stayed in had electricity for just part of each day, usually powered by diesel generators. I worried that Tanzania’s ecotourism industry might soon be jeopardized by a pollution problem of its own making. Fortunately, solar seems to be catching on, if the many dusty solar contractors’ pickup trucks that I saw are any indication.

Solar seems the obvious choice for sub-Saharan Africa but it turns out there’s wind aplenty, too. When 3TIER unveiled the global 15 kilometer wind map in early March, some of our staffers were pleasantly surprised at the wind potential in the Horn of Africa, and it seems those wind speeds extend to the southwest in bands along the high escarpments of the Rift Valley.

Last year, the World Bank committed $111 million to improve Tanzania’s power system, which includes money for renewable and off-grid projects in rural areas. Looks like Tanzania won’t build the coal-fired plants that were called for in 2006, when droughts caused country-wide black outs.

If, like me, you think extracting the bitumen from the Alberta tar sands for oil is an object lesson in unsustainability, you’ll be glad to know that 3TIER has added Canada to the FirstLook 5 kilometer-resolution wind map portfolio.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association reports:

In the past few years, wind energy production in Canada has grown to 1,856 MW. While this is encouraging, Canada still has vast untapped wind resources available. In fact, there is the potential in Canada for wind energy to meet a full 20% of all our electricity needs.

3TIER wind maps are now available for Alaska, too. The Alaska Energy Authority “lends out” met towers and data collecting equipment to communities that want to find out if they have the potential for municipal wind projects. I applaud Alaska, a state so rich in oil that its denizens get a divided check each year, for its commitment to renewable energy.

Some other states, like Ohio and Texas, have met tower loaner programs. Have any readers made use of them?