The Rural Voice, 2003-03, Page 12Robert Mercer
Wind generation picks up speed
Robert
Mercer was
editor of the
Broadwater
Market Letter
and
commentator
for 25 years.
The only place you used to see
windmills was in the yard or back -40
to lift moisture from a well to water
the livestock. Now the windmill
industry is growing at a 30 per cent
per annual rate for commercial and
residential use on the electric power
grid.
This is good news in comparison
to all the negative information we get
fed by local and national media on a
pending oil price spike. So when I
was reading a chapter out of the
Worldwatch Institute annual report
on alternative electrical generating
sources, it was great to find a positive
story.
This overview of development in
the renewable energy technology,
especially wind generation, was
positive. They also pointed out that
the U.S. (the world's largest CO2
polluter) was the only country to have
shown a decline in total wind
generat-ing capacity over the last
decade.
By contrast on the other side of the
Atlantic, the European Union has a
policy goal of having renewables
generation at 22 per cent of Europe's
electricity demand by 2010. Because
of this shift in thinking from a "fossil
fuel" based economy to one that is
more sustainable — more than 80 per
cent of all the new wind -power
generation built in the first half of
2002 was in Germany, Spain and
Italy. These three countries all have a
program of guaranteed minimum
prices for this energy output.
Some of the most positive
information in the Worldwatch
Institute report was the extent to
which wind generation technology
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has improved. The size of the market
and the rapid expansion in demand
has brought down the costs of
generating wind powered energy
delivery from 44 cents per kWh in
the 1980s to 4 to 6 cents per kWh in
good sites today.
Wind generators are now lighter,
have flexible blades (the U.S. is
testing a unit with only two blades),
can run at variable speeds, use direct
drive and are taller with more
capacity.
Wind farms in Europe have grown
and taken an innovative step towards
off -shore generation where the wind
can be stronger and less broken up by
the landscape. Total generation in
Europe is quoted at being able to
power 14 million households. That is
about the same as the population of
Canada at 2.5 people per household.
Europe is showing a distinct thrust
to break their dependency on
imported oil.
The other major source of
renewable energy is from the sun
through the use of photovoltaic cells.
We may not hear too much about
these units in the farm press, but they
can alter the power/energy landscape
in rural areas that are off the grid,
even the back -40.
The best use of these generating
units is where the sun is constant and
hot, and the demand greatest for
cooling at a time when the price of
electric power the most expensive.
For the home -sized units the
current estimate is that a rooftop unit
in a good location has a four-year
payback with a 30 -year life.
The world, with some notable
exceptions, is moving in the direction
of a more sustainable energy
generation framewprk. The report
says that we are using 10 times as
much wind power generation as a
decade ago and seven times as much
solar power.
The Worldwatch publication
seemed to think we are "in the early
stages of an inevitable transition to a
sustainable energy use future". I
would hope so for the generations to
follow us. It could happen if the
hydrogen fuel cell can become
economical for widespread use in the
automobile.0