News
July 23, 2010
From Renewable Energy World.com: One hundred and eighteen new offshore wind turbines were fully connected to the grid in the first half of 2010 according to new statistics released today by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). Those 118 turbines have a capacity of 333 megawatts (MW) – well over half the 577 MW installed offshore last year – showing continuing strong growth in offshore wind power despite the financial crisis.
In addition, 151 turbines (440 MW) were installed but not yet connected to the grid, EWEA revealed this week. Overall 16 offshore wind farms totalling 3,972 MW were under construction. Of these, four became fully operational: Poseidon in Denmark, Alpha Ventus in Germany, Gunfleet Sands and Robin Rigg in the UK. Read more
July 22, 2010
From Alaska Dispatch: According to the Kodiak Daily Mirror, Island Seafoods, a small fish processor on Shelikof Street in Kodiak, is hoping to boost the marketing of its product by touting its connection to sustainable energy, via Kodiak’s Pillar Mountain wind farm. “We’re going to have a green label that says something like, ‘Sustainable fish produced by clean, sustainable wind turbine energy,’” Island’s general manager John Whiddon told the Mirror. The processor uses about the same amount of power from the wind turbines as homes and other businesses on Kodiak do, but because it doesn’t use more than the wind farm produces, the label could reasonably apply, the Mirror reports. The effort will also be a boost of publicity for Kodiak Electric Association, the co-op that owns the wind farm, and there is discussion of a marketing partnership between it and Island Seafoods, and perhaps other processors involved in processing the lower energy-intensive fisheries. ““I doubt this would work as well for pollock,” noted KEA’s president. Read more here.
REAP note: REAP has reported extensively on Kodiak Electric Association’s successful wind farm. The turbines, installed last July, are now generating almost 9% of the utility’s electricity and have cut diesel fuel use in half by more than 900,000 gallons. That adds up to a savings of more than $2.3 million in the first year for a project that cost just over $21.4 million. Plus the utility is now far more insulated against price spikes in the cost of diesel. The utility also uses hydropower, and along with the wind, is generating 89% of its electricity from renewable sources. Kodiak Electric Association was install the turbines thanks in part to a $4 million grant from the state’s Renewable Energy Grant Fund, which REAP helped get created.
July 21, 2010
By Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic Monthly: Energy markets are weird. Though we talk about renewable energy sources being “competitive” with traditional power plants, the price people pay for electricity varies widely. People in New England pay almost twice as much for electricity as their cousins in Kentucky or Montana. On that spectrum, the strangest places to buy some kilowatt hours are the noncontiguous states Alaska and Hawaii.
Take the town of Gustavus, Alaska, about 50 miles northwest from Juneau. For decades, a generator has been burning thousands of gallons of diesel to generate electricity. Because of the high cost of fuel transport and plant operation, residents of the town were paying several times the national average price of about 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
But that generator’s been switched off now in favor of a microhydroelectric plant, reports the innovative online-only news site the Alaska Dispatch. Read more
July 20, 2010
REAP note: Before switching to hydro, Gustavus was burning about 20,000 gallons of diesel a month.
By Craig Medred of Alaska Dispatch: FALLS CREEK — At the end of a three-mile road to nowhere, on the southern edge of one of North America’s wildest national parks, the sound of a clean, environmentally friendly energy future is drowned out by the noise of a gurgling salmon stream. Just feet to the side of that stream, a hydroelectric turbine for Gustavus Electric Inc. spins in a small metal building not much bigger than a farmland garage.
Any day, salmon will start spawning in the gravels beside the power plant which takes its water from behind a 12-foot cement wall high above two towering waterfalls on a creek that headwaters in the Fairweather Mountains of Glacier Bay National Park, then diverts that water 600 feet downhill through about two miles of buried pipe to generate electricity before putting the water back into the stream at the upper limit of where salmon spawn.
The dream of electrical engineer Dick Levitt, the project is about as environmentally friendly as man can get. There is no towering dam cutting off passage to fish. There are no spinning windmill blades to kill birds. There are no banks of solar cells covering the floor of a valley. And there is, because of this project, no longer an exhaust-spewing diesel generator burning costly fossil fuels in the 400-plus community of Gustavus with a summer population at least twice that. Read more
July 16, 2010
From UAF news: After two years of design and development, oceanographers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are installing a new alternative energy device along the arctic coast of Alaska. The device will provide power to scientific instruments in remote areas, where sources of electricity are often scarce. “In principle, the device means that we can deploy the radar systems anywhere along Alaska’s coast,” said Tom Weingartner, professor of physical oceanography and the principal investigator for the project. The device, called a remote power module, is equipped with four wind turbines, a solar array and a backup generator. The wind and solar energy provide five days’ worth of battery charge. If the batteries get low, the module recharges using a biodiesel generator. Read more
July 16, 2010
From Hydroworld: U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at increasing the production of electricity from renewable hydropower and creating jobs in America’s energy sector. The “Hydropower Improvement Act” and the “Hydropower Renewable Energy Development Act” would boost federal support for hydropower projects.
The Hydropower Improvement Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash; Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash; and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, aims to increase the capacity of our nation’s hydropower sources to generate clean, renewable electricity by up to 75,000 megawatts. Read more
July 13, 2010
Small town Tanana, Alaska is off the grid. The city of about 300 people lies 132 mostly roadless miles from Fairbanks, making it easier to reach by airplane than by car.
From the U.S Department of Energy: That means Tanana has to burn diesel to create electricity, pushing up the cost to 76 cents per kilowatt hour – at least 13 times the standard in the lower 48. These high costs make something as simple as powering streetlights very expensive. To save money and energy, Tanana applied for and received a $20,000 Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The money will allow Tanana to replace its older high-pressure sodium streetlights with newer and more energy-efficient LED streetlights.
“Our streetlights right now use about 150 watts. The two brands we’re looking at, one is a 25-watt brand that produces more light than the 150-watt lights currently do, and the other uses about 38 watts,” says Al “Bear” Ketzler, Tanana’s city manager. “So with either product… there’s a 300 percent savings.” Read more
July 11, 2010
By Brielle Schaeffer of the Peninsula Clarion: The Kenai City Council unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday supporting the development of wind and alternative energies, energy efficient projects within the city and open meetings with other local governments on the Peninsula.
“I support the resolution on the compact for climate change,” said Nadia Daggett, North Kenai resident and owner of Alaska Wind Industries, who testified at the meeting. “I think this is a great step for us.”
This resolution was a substitute for the originally amended resolution supporting the Alaska Coastal Communities Global Climate Change Compact and the Tri-Borough Commission’s proposed State of Alaska Energy Policy. The controversial compact had Kenai residents riled up last winter and ultimately caused the city council to facilitate a town hall meeting for residents in May. Mark Schrag, Kenai resident who attended the town hall meeting, showed up to council chambers Wednesday to show his support too. Read more
July 10, 2010
By Mark Masteller in the Anchorage Daily News: Thanks to clever marketers, if I said I had a problem with ED, you might immediately have an idea what I’m talking about. But I have a problem with EE. It’s no cause for embarrassment — EE is a great thing. EE can save you money, create jobs, help protect our environment and safeguard our children’s future. Unfortunately, many people just don’t find EE that exciting.
EE is energy efficiency, and if you’re a building or business owner you needed EE yesterday. It’s the cheapest way to boost your profit margin, and in these tough times who doesn’t want that? Oil spewing in the Gulf presents yet another reminder of our unsustainable addiction to fossil fuels, amplifying calls to move toward “clean” energy systems. Energy costs in Alaska can stifle economic development, especially in rural areas. Renewable energy generation — wind, solar, hydro, geothermal — is crucial to Alaska’s clean energy future, and this is what most people think of first when looking for truly sustainable energy solutions.
But the critical first step toward making renewable energy systems a reality is EE. It’s the quickest and cheapest way to reduce fossil energy use. At the recent Business of Clean Energy conference one entire day dealt with EE; the conference organizers at Renewable Energy Alaska Project clearly understand the role EE plays in transitioning to a clean energy future. Read more
July 10, 2010
By Lori Tipton at KTUU-TV: Exploratory drilling is under way in King Salmon to determine the potential for geothermal energy. The Naknek Electric Association, an energy co-op, is testing a geothermal well to see if developing the renewable resource is feasible. The geothermal project’s test well took more than 10 years to come together, at a cost of more than $20 million. If it proves to be successful, the association could provide affordable renewable energy to communities and villages across Bristol Bay.
“It’s a new industry for an electric co-op,” said Donna Vukich, the association’s general manager.
“It’s the first well out here, so we’re just trying to take all the information in,” said the association’s Stanley Burton. Read more
Page 3 of 37«12345678910»More »Last »
