Stories tagged wind
Gone with the wind?
in Earth and Space Science, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, Energy Transformations, and Motion
Wind energy harvest farm: Palm Springs, California
Courtesy Mark RyanIs the wind being knocked out of the sails of the wind energy industry? A study to be published this summer in Journal of Geophysical Research seems to be pointing that way. Wind measurements in the Midwest and eastern parts of the United States in particular have shown a decline in the energy source.
Two atmospheric researchers, Sara Pryor (no relation to Science Buzz’s own Liza Pryor – or is she?) of Indiana University, and her co-author Eugene Takle, a professor at Iowa State University say their research shows a distinct drop in wind speed in areas east of the Mississippi River, especially around the Great Lakes. Wind speeds there have diminished 10 percent or more in the past decade, and an overall decline in wind has been taking place since 1973.
Global warming may be the cause. Differences in barometric pressure drive wind production. In a global-warming environment, the Earth’s polar regions warm more quickly than the rest of the globe, and narrow the temperature difference between the poles and equatorial regions. That reduced difference in temperature also means a reduced difference in barometric pressure, which results in less air movement (wind).
Peak wind speeds in western regions of the US such as Texas and portions of the Northern Plains haven’t changed nearly as much. Pryor speculates the reason the Great Lakes area shows the greatest decrease may be because wind travels more slowly across water than ice, and in recent years there’s been less ice formation on the Great Lakes. Changes in the landscape such as trees and new construction near instrument stations may have also skewed the research. Still, wind speed studies done in Europe and Australia showed similar declines there, adding credence to the Pryor and Takle findings.
There are detractors to the study. Jeff Freedman, an atmospheric scientist with a renewable energy-consulting firm in Albany, N.Y., says his research has revealed no definite trend of reduced wind speed. And even though research hasn’t been published yet, some climate models studying the effects of global warming seem to agree with Freeman’s findings.
But if Pryor’s and Takle’s study proves to be true, it could mean big losses to the wind energy industry, since a 10 percent drop in peak winds would mean a 30 percent change in how wind energy is gathered.
Tags : 
Windpower leader
Courtesy ecstaticist
The United States overtook Germany as the biggest producer of wind power last year, new figures showed, and will likely take the lead in solar power this year, analysts said on Monday. Wind accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation installed last year in the U.S.
Another interesting change:
The wind industry now employs more people than coal mining in the United States. (click links in red to learn more).
Some of Liza's RSS feeds
Courtesy Liza Pryor
"Stanford creates 100 million dollar energy research center"
"Stanford University is creating a 100-million-dollar research institute that will focus on energy issues, including the search for ways to reduce global warming, officials said."
"Home turbines fail to deliver as promised, warns British study"
"Home wind turbines are only generating a fraction of electricity promised by the manufacturers while some even fail to yield enough energy to run the turbine's electronics, a British study warned on Tuesday."
"'V-wing' turbine gets study cash"
"An unusual design of wind turbine with a pair of giant vertical wings could one day be generating electricity for the UK Grid."
"China's BYD to bring plug-in hybrid, electric cars to US in 2011"
"China's BYD Auto announced plans Monday to enter the US market in 2011 with a range of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. It would likely be the first Chinese automaker to enter the highly-competitive US market and beat many established automakers in offering an extended-range electric vehicle to US consumers."
"A bicycle evangelist with the wind now at his back"
"For years, Earl Blumenauer has been on a mission, and now his work is paying off. He can tell by the way some things are deteriorating around here."
Jobs in the wind
Courtesy BIGRED_50
Local economies benefit from global crisis
Buying locally not only saves transportation costs, but also puts money into local economies. Wind turbine gearbox manufacturer, Moventas, based in Finland, is going to build components locally. In addition to about 90 jobs and an initial annual payroll of roughly $4 million, the construction of the $9 million dollar facility will mean more employment for Faribault area workers. Faribault Daily News
Iowa benefits, too
In Newton, Iowa, TPI Composites opened a wind turbine blade manufacturing facility that hopes to provide 500 jobs. The Faribault factory hopes to add 30 jobs per year to total 200. Click here to read about more wind energy jobs created.
Bailout package includes renewable energy incentives
The American Wind Energy Association was relieved by the passage of the Economic Stabilization Act.
These tax credits are essential to the continued growth of wind energy, to the economic and energy security of the United States, and to a successful beginning in the fight against global warming.
Solar gains longer term benefits
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) also was happy to see the legislation extend the 30-percent federal investment tax credit for both residential and commercial solar installations for 8 years.
“This long-term extension of the solar tax credits will create a domestic solar industry with hundreds of thousands of jobs while providing clean, affordable, carbon-free energy to millions of American families, businesses, and communities.” SEIA press release
Electricity from wind was cheaper: I saved 44 cents on my July electric bill because 100 per cent of my electricity is from wind power.
Courtesy ARTiFactor
I saved money because my electricity comes from wind
About two years ago I signed up for Windsource (click to see my Buzz writeup). Windsource is an Xcel Energy program that allows customers to have all or part of their electricity come from wind (click here for details about windsource charges).
Benefits of wind energy
I did not sign up for Windsource to save money. I was willing to pay extra for wind generated electricity because wind energy has multiple benefits.
- No carbon dioxide emissions
- No sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, or mercury emissions
- No water consumption requirement
- Creates jobs
- Creates income for farmers
- Wind is forever (renewable)
- Wind energy reduces need for importing energy and exporting dollars
Want to help promote wind energy?
Renewable energy credits have provided incentives for investments in wind energy. A federal production tax credit (PTC) has an expiration date less than five months from now. If you agree that continuing incentives for renewable energy is wise,
Urge your Members of Congress to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC)
Click the link above for help on how to take action.
MIT breakthrough in electric storage problem
Splitting water to store electricity: A snapshot showing the new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT.
Courtesy MIT/NSF
Saving up energy for use at night
Want to be energy independent? Solar and wind energy are great but what do you do when the sun goes down and the wind doesn't blow? Batteries with the needed capacity are very expensive.
Energy can be saved up by breaking water apart into hydrogen and oxygen
Using a surprisingly simple, inexpensive technique, chemists have found a way to pull pure oxygen from water using relatively small amounts of electricity, common chemicals and a room-temperature glass of water. At night that oxygen can be combined with hydrogen (also extracted from water) in a fuel cell to make electricity.
The new process, enabling water to more easily be split, is to use a catalyst consisting of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water.
"When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced."
"The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up. That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," Danial Nocera (MIT news office)
Within ten years
Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electric vehicles will also power up from this home system.
Learn more: MIT News
Tornado damage: Garage doors may be a key to how severely a house collapses
It's still at the observational stage, but investigators are looking at the link between strength of garage doors and the amount of damage a home incurs from a passing tornado. After reading this Star-Tribune story, it sounds like a case of the general public connecting the dots before the scientific community.
From time to time as I gather up the questions from the on-site Scientist on the Spot features we find some good questions that don’t connect well to the featured researcher. Here are some of those questions.
Why are stars circles?
Iapetus' equatorial ridge
Courtesy NASAI am assuming you mean, why are they round or spheres? It’s because of gravity. The larger something is (or the more mass something has) the more gravity it has. That gravity pulls equally in, so that’s why stars and planets are round, gravity makes them that way. The fancy-pants scientific name for this is isostatic adjustment.
But the Earth, for example, is not a perfect sphere – it bulges out in the middle because of its rotation. Smaller asteroids are oddly shaped because they don’t have enough mass to produce the gravity necessary to pull them into spheres. Some planets are oddly shaped too, and scientists are not sure exactly why. Saturn’s moon Iapetus is a great example. It is for some reason shaped more like a walnut and has an equatorial ridge that scientists cannot come to a conclusion as to how it formed.
What is a pimple?
Well, our skin has pores which are connected to glands that produce sebum – like an oil. Sebum is a good thing - it acts to protect and waterproof our skin, and keeps it from becoming dry. When these pores get blocked by dirt or dead skin (which we shed constantly) the secretions of sebum that would normally come from the pore are blocked and build up. These can become infected with bacteria which causes pimples to form.
The harder question is for me – to pop or not to pop. I can’t resist popping a pimple – it is a character flaw that has resulted in me sporting many a wound worse than the original zit. A great “how to pop a pimple” step-by-step is posted here.
Why do beans make us fart?
When food gets to your large intestine it is eaten by the 200+ different species of bacteria that live there and target parts of the food our stomach and small intestines can't digest, and gasses such as methane, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide are produced as a by-product. Beans contain several sugars that we can’t digest, so lots of gas is produced by bacteria eating the otherwise indigestible material.
What is the scientific name for a pig?
What is the moon?
The big whack
Courtesy NASAYou mean besides being the only natural satellite of the Earth and the cause of the tides and so forth?
I think that the Earth collision theory (also known as the Big Whack) for the creation of the moon is the coolest, and is the one that is the most accepted today. The hypothesis goes that a Mars-sized (Mars is less than half the size of the Earth) planet collided with Earth a looooooooooong time ago and the debris that was created orbited around the damaged Earth and formed into the moon through a process called accretion – or the growth of large bodies like the moon by gravitationally attracting more matter. So the little bits of debris were attracted to bigger and bigger bits as the bigger bits had more gravity. As we learned above, the spherical shape arises from gravity as well. It is believed that as a result of the collision the smaller planet (Theia) was destroyed, ejecting its mantle into space while its core sank into Earth’s core.
Did you know that the moon is in synchronous rotation with the Earth? That means it keeps nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times.
Noted hurricane forecaster Dr. William Gray has offered up his 2008 Atlantic hurricane season predictions. (The season begins on June 1 and runs through November 30.)
Hurricane Katrina, 8/29/05: This image was taken by NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES).
Courtesy NOAA
Gray's team, working out of Colorado State University, is predicting an above-normal season, with 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 major hurricanes (category 3 storms or higher). Why? A La Nina pattern creates cool water conditions in the Pacific and warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern Atlantic. Warm sea surface temperatures are critical to the formation of hurricanes.
What's "above average"? An average hurricane season produces about 10 tropical storms and 6 hurricanes. In 2007, 14 tropical storms formed, and 6 of those strengthened into hurricanes. But 2005, of course, was a record-shattering year, with 28 storms, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Here's the Science Buzz feature on hurricanes.
Buzz thread on Hurricane Katrina, started on 8/29/2005.
Buzz thread on Hurricane Rita, started on 9/22/2005.
Buzz thread on the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season
Buzz thread on the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season
Do you know about the 1938 hurricane that crashed into New England?
Share your natural disaster stories.
And, lastly, here are the hurricane names for 2008:
- Arthur
- Bertha
- Cristobal
- Dolly
- Edouard
- Fay
- Gustav
- Hanna
- Ike
- Josephine
- Kyle
- Laura
- Marco
- Nana
- Omar
- Paloma
- Rene
- Sally
- Teddy
- Vicky
- and Wilfred
A solar powered telephone: And you thought the Death Star was sinister? Well that never destroyed our planet, so no. (photo by redjar on flickr.com)According to Dr. Jesse Aubusel, the Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, renewable energy isn’t a super good idea. That is to say, he thinks it’s a pretty bad idea.
Using math and numbers, Dr. Aubusel figures that the amount of land necessary for “green” energy sources makes them extremely impractical, especially when compared to nuclear energy. According to Aubusel, were we to flood all of Ontario (900,000 square km), it would only provide 80% of the energy that Canada’s 25 nuclear power stations could produce. I guess that’s the end of my plans to flood Ontario. Or, to provide enough electricity for New York City, all of Connecticut would have to be turned into a wind farm (although, who’s to say that Connecticut would mind). Also, to grow a single pot of basil, it would take more dirt than there is in my whole room. So no basil.
Aubusel, in this article, always brings the issue back to the matter physical space required for renewable energy, and the number of watts produced per square meter. “Nuclear energy is green,” he states. He’s not referring to its radioactivity, I think, so much as to its relatively small physical footprint, and the potential to use already existing infrastructure.
It might seem to some that this is a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but we should all make sure that we’re doctors before we disagree.
When asked if he could imagine technology that uses and creates energy more efficiently than those he based his research on, Doctor Aubusel states, “No.” When asked if he could possibly try, he replied, “That’s not really my style.”
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