President Obama’s promise to find and utilize alternative energy sources to help America become free of its dependence on foreign oil is starting to see some results, particularly in the renewable energy source that wind power provides. Last year, the Unites States upped it’s wind-power capacity to 25 gigawatts (GW), which dethroned the previous leader, Germany, as the world leader in wind power, according to new data from the Global Wind Energy Council.
America added 8.4GW of installed power in 2008, more than any other country. The most polluted nation in the world, China, is trying to salvage itself and is also investing heavily in wind power, nearly doubling its capacity for the fourth year running. Global capacity grew by 29% last year, the highest annual increase for six years.
As a downside to this seemingly good news (because isn’t there always a downside) the economy and credit crisis occurring right now is hurting the growth of these new clean energy industries. Factories which were building machinery for these industries have announced big layoffs in recent weeks, and trade groups are projecting 30 to 50 percent declines this year in the installation of new equipment, barring more bail-out help from the government. Wind and solar companies have tried to convince Congress to adopt measures that could help the market, but even if a favorable stimulus bill passes, it’s unlikely that the industries in question will experience a swift recovery.
Our friends at Eco Geek are reporting that the Scottish government is investing in the mapping of potential sources of tidal power. The project is being called the Marina Spatial Plan and will map the tidal and wind energy of the northern parts of Scotland. It will also go the extra step of analyzing the seabed, water depth and distance to shore so it’s definitely being done with the instalment of devices to harness the energy in mind.
Based on this map of the world’s wind power, Scotland has more than it’s fair share of the stuff to harvest. I’m no tidal expert but it’s probably safe to say that the tidal energy of northern Scotland will prove to be pretty fruitful as well.
The mapping of renewable energy sources is an important and growing component to the whole renewable energy industry. Currently the wind power industry is looking for assistance from the U.S. federal government to expand wireless Internet in rural areas to help gather information from wind turbines with wireless Internet capabilities. With info coming directly from the wind turbines themselves extremely detailed wind maps would become available to the industry.
Watch this new time-lapse video of the construction of 3 wind turbines at Bristol Port. The turbines will produce over 15 million units of new green electricity annually, enough to save around 13,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year for the next 30 years!
Canada’s biggest wind farm is situated near Shelburne, Ontario and has a capacity of 199.5 MW. The developer of the project, Canadian Hydro, is expecting the 133-turbine farm to have a yearly output of 545 GWh, which is enough to power 70,000 homes. All of that electricity will be sold to the Ontario Power Authority. This is just one step in Canada’s plan to shut down all coal power plants by 2014 and will be relying on wind and solar power to step in as renewable energy sources.
