Moving Like Water

I’m not going to spend a ton of time on this one, but wanted to highlight this post from metaefficient on what they’re saying is the world’s largest wind turbine. The wind generator is built by German company Enercon and boasts up to an amazing 7 megawatts of capacity.

It’s being installed in Emden, Germany and no matter what you think about the prospects of wind power as a basis for a power grid, you have to admit this is pretty cool.

One of the stories I missed while I was out over the holidays was some reporting done on the remarkable growth of wind power over the past year.

Check out this snip from the government:

The U.S. wind energy industry installed 5,244 megawatts (MW) of wind power capacity in 2007, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The rapid growth shatters all previous records and boosts the total U.S. wind power capacity by 45% in only one year. The growth even exceeded AWEA’s expectations for 4,000 MW of new capacity, a prediction made just two months ago. In fact, wind power provided 30% of the new generating capacity installed in the United States in 2007.

Dry language aside, this illustrates a couple different points:

1. The economics of wind power are making sense.
Certainly it could also mean that we’re in some sort of bubble situation, but given that we’re seeing actual windmills stuck into the actual ground, it seems a bit more tangible than either dotcom bubble business models or theoretical real estate property value gains.

2. There’s a capacity need.
Now this might be driven by the desire to move some of our energy overhead to renewable sources, but it also may mean that we need more capacity to keep up with growth. Or, it simply might mean that it’s cheaper (see point 1) to build and install a windmill than it is to produce other forms of power.

Either way this seems like great progress to me.

Special Thanks to Ian Robinson for the excellent drawing.

If there’s one big challenge with the wind power industry, it’s local opposition. Everyone loves wind power — somewhere else. But this old, but interesting ecogeek post shows a new approach that’ll turn the most hard-core neighborhood opposition into a contest over who gets the windmill.

The very interesting, artful windmill “trees” come from an art exhibit put on by the American Wind Energy Association. Take a peek:

I like them, but then I think your typical windmill design is attractive as well.

Via my father, an incredibly cool and interesting skyscraper concept. Apparently being planned for development in Dubai the building actually has rotating floors — watch the sunrise in the morning and the sunset in the evening — from the same room.

But the cool thing to me about the design are the wind turbines sandwiched between the floors. You can see them in the image above. The builders promise that the building not only develops its own power but will generate enough power to light up the neighborhood around it as well.

How ironic is it that one of the most environmentally friendly buildings I’ve seen in awhile will be developed in the middle of oil country?

 
Here at Moving Like Water, we’re always on the lookout for new developments that may hold big implications down the road. The Windbelt, an invention created by Shawn Frayne, Instead of spinning a turbine, the windbelt oscillates when touched by wind movement.The beauty of the device is its simplicity. Locals in third world countries could repair the device on their own and the affordability could make for wide deployment.

Rather than reading about it, let Frayne tell you about it himself here.

The media and Washington, DC seem to have finally figured out that the Bush economy is completely broken. Anyone paying attention could tell that it’s been limping along with artificially generated cash from refinances and low prices stemming from Chinese products. Getting an influx of cash (basically a loan) from one’s home pumps a lot of money into the economy. Then look at how cheap the basic needs of living are these days. Food is ridiculously cheap. Basic clothing needs (socks for example) cost far less today than they did even 10 years ago as a percentage of income. How is this possible? Lots of reasons that I’m not qualified to understand, let alone explain, but it’s pretty easy to see if you follow the money that business tax breaks have created massive corporate profits and government debt. China is raking in the dough while their people are overworked and underpaid.

No one rational thought any of this was sustainable. But game theory takes over and suddenly we’re all trapped in a system we can’t escape from. But finally the word “recession” has hit the media and the government is spooked. Enter the inevitable stimulus package.

Naturally Bush wants more goodies for his corporate masters. Democrats are wanting to hand out checks as a tax rebate. The figure being discussed is between $100 billion and $150 billion. Should be about $500 and if you make $85,000 or more it’s not for you. To me, this is crazy. We’re already bankrupt and they want to print more money? This is nuts.

The right move in my opinion is to take a page from FDR’s book. We don’t need more cheap calories zipping through our system without building us up. We need healthy, nutritious calories. Work with nature, not against it (including human nature). People want jobs, not a handout that won’t last a month. $100 billion would go a long way toward building a new industry. And it would save homes and businesses even more as they spend less on utlility bills. And that wouldn’t be for a month or two. It’d last forever.

 Special Thanks to Connor Robinson for the wonderful picture.

Lately I’ve noticed a ton of renwable energy imagery being used in advertisements. Maybe it’s a case of seeing what you’re thinking about, but I doubt it. I really think renewable energy has cachet right now. It’s forward-thinking, it’s cool. Especially the oh-so-visually-interesting wind turbines. Reminds me of the frequent use of Vespas in ads in recent years.

I’ll keep my eyes out for more and post them here if I see anything interesting.

And, naturally I have to give props to Aveda for committing to producing its products with wind power. Now before you start conjuring up images of power plants atop Aveda factories, you do need to read their fine print. From their Web site:  

Our funding of new wind turbines generates enough wind energy to offset 100% of the electricity use by our primary manufacturing facility in Minnesota, USA.

I guess that’s good…?

I visited two different islands over the past several weeks and both sparked some thought about sustainable living. Islands are interesting because they represent our planet in microcosm. They’re almost like big biospheres.

The island on the left is San Juan Island, a member of the San Juan Island chain here in Washington State. The island on the right is the famous Oahu, home of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. I was on San Juan Island over the New Year’s holiday and was in Hawaii for just a few days in December.

Islands that were populated before the arrival of western society were great examples of sustainable communities. They grew enough food for their populations (and obtained seafood). They needed to keep waste materials under control. Because they were isolated, viruses were rare if not unheard of.

While we drove through some open territory on Oahu, it became oddly apparently how little (if any) energy production actually takes place on the island. And, of course, I began to daydream about the possibilities. Could they ban all gas-powered automobiles and switch to all-electric? The island is almost small enough that you could get away with it. If you supplied free electricity for everyone, would that be enough to make it happen? The state of Hawaii uses oil to generate 78% of its electricty, according to the Star-Bulletin (Note: data from 2001). In fact, it looks like Oahu generates none of its energy from renewable sources (there is some methane generation occuring, but in true MLW fashion, we’ll consider the burning of anything a non-sustainable solution). This is crazy. First of all, to be so reliant on oil tankers rolling into the home of some of the most sensitive ecological area in the world, not to mention the most beautiful beaches is just nuts. And don’t forget about those tourist dollars you’re risking. What’s more, there’s plenty of wind rolling across the islands. Oh yeah, and that thing so many of us go there to see — the sun.

Meanwhile, while I was on Oahu, I picked up an issue of Honululu Weekly, a free alternative paper. The cover story was about a controversy over Biofuel production. A company is interested in growing albizia trees to use for biofuel. The tree is apparently a non-native invasive species that grows quite well in Hawaii. Anyway, lots of politics of land use, water rights, etc. The unfortunate thing is that while biofuel might be an important part of the mix for Hawaii, wind and solar seem to be completely ignored. Instead of planting albizia, they should be planting windmills.

The other island, San Juan, was quite similar. I didn’t see any obvious evidence of renewable energy activities on the island. Their utility reports 84% of their power comes from hydro-electric, which tells me that they get power from the mainland. Basically a pretty standard grid buy. That’s pretty unfortunate because, like Hawaii, they have massive amounts of wind and wave possibilities available. Although, unlike Hawaii, they don’t have such a massive influx of tourist dollars to spend. There’s such an opportunity here to take destinies into one’s own hand, but it seems the cheap easy solution wins out every time. Perhaps the magic of high prices will get us there or perhaps bold leadership, but either way, let’s hope it’s soon.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, it looks like Hawaii is making a big investment in Solar Power. Greenbang says a BusinessWeek article points to the big investment, although I couldn’t find the link. But looks like good news!