In today’s Financial Times, Ken Westrick closes out an article on the uncertainty in the American wind industry (thanks to the filibuster of HR 6049, see previous post) with his characteristic well-reasoned optimism:

“We put a man on the moon – we can do this,” Mr. Westrick says.  

The rise in the oil price to almost $140 a barrel in recent days will only increase that incentive. “I can tell you what the fuel cost for wind will be in 20 years: It’s going to be zero. That’s a guarantee.”

See “US seeks to breathe life into wind power.” (Free registration may be required.)

Most of the big commercial wind turbines are hopped-up versions of a design that’s nearly 800 hundred years old. As the wind industry has exploded these past few years, so has the number of wind turbine designs. Here’s a round up of just a few of the latest innovations. Mind you, these are not endorsements. This post is for infotainment purposes only!

The BroadStar AeroCam claims to be a lower cost, lower wind speed alternative to traditional horizontal axis turbines that is suitable for use in populated areas.  

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Here’s a fist bump to EcoGeek for their June 5 post about 3TIER, “A Giant in Wind Forecasting Awakens.” 

If you’re not reading EcoGeek regularly, you should. It’s a great mix of sustainability ethics, news, and brainy delights. Or, as they put it so much better themselves: ”Science, technology gadgets and…baby seals.”

Bolivia, rich in natural gas and hydropower potential but with one of the lowest rural electrification rates in South America, will soon have its wind resources mapped at a resolution of 2 kilometers. 3TIER recently was engaged by the IFC (part of the World Bank Group) to develop the Bolivia map, which should be released later this year. The project complements our REmapping the World initiative by accelerating the delivery of reliable information about available wind resources. Like the 5-kilometer-resolution Mexico map we released yesterday, the Bolivia map will be viewable for free online via FirstLook.   

Yesterday at WINDPOWER we announced that 3TIER provides forecasts for a third of the wind energy watts in the United States.

One third. 33%.

I think that’s astonishing. A modest-sized company with “an office full of PhDs” (according to Ars Technica) is forecasting more than 6,000 megawatts of wind power, and that’s not counting our clients abroad. Of course, it’s precisely because we have an office full of PhDs that we’re the go-to kids for accurate forecasts. For further reading on our methods, see Forecasting 101.

Today at WINDPOWER, 3TIER announced the online release of a 5-kilometer-resolution wind map of Mexico. If you’re in Houston, visit us at booth 1253 for a North American wind poster. Like the online map, the poster is free.

If you’re not in Houston, you can check out the 5 km Mexico wind map on our FirstLook site. This release is part of our REmapping the World project, which provides free, accurate information on renewable energy resources. The 15 km world wind map was released in March 2008; now we’re steadily producing maps of the globe at higher resolutions, country by country.

Stay tuned: We’ll be making more announcements from Houston this week.

Sean Penn and his jury of film luminaries have left Cannes. The curtains have been drawn across the festival screens, the empty bottles of Cristal have been swept away, the yachts are being moored and polished. But grieve not! The stars will come out again in June for Cannes Lions 2008, the International Advertising Festival.

Will renewable energy once again feel the love?

The 2007 winner for best television ad from Germany was “The Power of Wind,” a spot produced for EPURON, a developer of utility-scale renewable energy projects, by the agency Nordpol+Hamburg. Ever wondered what a Wim Wenders-Marcel Marceau collaboration might produce?

Now you know. Hat tip to the Gristmill blog. 

Oh, and let me know if you really like wind-related short films. (And hey, who doesn’t?) I might have something else to share with you.

Everyone’s busy preparing for the trip to Houston from June 1 to 4 for WINDPOWER, the annual party thrown by the American Wind Energy Association. If you’ll be there, come see us at booth 1253, and pick up a free world wind map poster with a special surprise on the other side.

And look for us in the following sessions:

Wind Forecasting 101
Sunday, June 1, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Pascal Storck will chair the seminar; Eric Grimit will help instruct.

Applications in Wind Energy Forecasting
Tuesday, June 3, 2008, 1 to 2:30 p.m.
Cameron Potter will moderate this panel discussion.

Future Topics for Utility Evaluation of Wind Generation
Tuesday, June 3, 2008, 1 to 2:30 p.m.
Eric Grimit will present “A Prototype Day-Ahead Forecast System for Rapid Wind Ramp Events.”

Understanding Project Operational Results
Wednesday, June 4, 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Cam Potter will present “Non-Deterministic Wind Speed to Power Output Conversion.”

Browse or search the entire WINDPOWER conference program for other things to do and see in Houston.

“I do wind energy forecasting,” says Kristin Larson, one of the 3TIER power prognosticators. What Kristin likes most about her job is that “there’s always new weather, always ways to do better forecasts,” she says. “I like making the customers happy.”

Most of our forecast clients are power operators who rely on us to help them prepare for the inherent intermittency of wind. In other words, while power companies are expected to keep the lights on no matter what, the wind doesn’t always blow. Fortunately for me, surfing the internet on my front porch on a calm day, wind isn’t the only power generator in a utility company’s mix: If the wind is down, they will switch to another source of energy. For lots of reasons, not the least of which is preserving expensive fossil fuel if they can, utilities like to know with some precision when they can rely on wind, and when they can’t.

Short of ensuring constant winds — which we’re pretty sure Kristin, despite her superpowers, cannot do — Kristin makes customers happy by providing accurate predictions. “We tell clients how much power they will get from their wind farms over the next couple of hours to a week,” Kristin says.
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Now that you’ve got the 411 on our assessments, you’re probably wondering how that’s different from forecasting, the other thing on which we spend a lot of time and computing power.

In short, an assessment analyzes lots of past data to tell you what the weather was like, whereas a forecast tells you what the weather will be like. “Assessment is ‘hindcasting,’” Scott Eichelberger says. Which means forecasting is … well, you know what it is. Scott didn’t give me a pithy one-liner for forecasting.

Who uses our assessments? Developers who are prospecting for sites for new installations, financiers wanting to know the power-producing potential of a site, and builders who want weather data to help guide which equipment and technology they use. FirstLook assessments are available for wind and solar, whereas the more detailed FullView assessments cover wind.

Who wants forecasts? Usually, energy site and utilities operators who need to plan which sources of power they will call upon in order to ensure a steady supply to the grid. We currently forecast for wind and hydro. I’ll cover forecasting in much more detail in upcoming posts.