Category Archives: Wind energy

Clean energy, Renewable energy, Wind energy

Officials hope 1st US offshore wind farm will boost industry

Repost from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Officials touring site of 1st US offshore wind farm hope milestone will boost industry

By Jennifer McDermott, AP, July 27, 2015 — 3:00pm
The first foundation jacket installed by Deepwater Wind in the nation’s first offshore wind farm construction project is seen Monday, July 27, 2015, on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off Block Island, R.I. Deepwater Wind will consist of five turbines producing a total of 30 megawatts of electricity. STEPHAN SAVOIA — AP Photo

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — Construction has begun off Rhode Island’s coast on the nation’s first offshore wind farm, a milestone that federal and state officials say will help the fledgling U.S. industry surge ahead.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said Monday that lenders, regulators and stakeholders can now see a path forward.

“It’s great to witness a pioneering moment in U.S. history,” she said during a boat tour of the site. “We are learning from this in what we do elsewhere. I think it will help the country understand the potential that exists here.”

Deepwater Wind is building a five-turbine wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island, which it expects to power 17,000 homes as early as next year. It began attaching the first of the steel foundations to the ocean floor Sunday. The first one touching the seabed is known in the industry as the “first steel in the water.”

Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said it was a “spectacular” moment. The company took officials and project supporters to the site by boat Monday to celebrate.

They saw the first of two steel pieces for the first foundation in the water. It has four legs and braces like a stool and rises about 30 feet above the waterline. An installation barge with a large crane was next to it, and two barges carrying additional foundation components were nearby. The foundations will be installed by mid-September, Grybowski said.

The wind farm should be operational in the third quarter of 2016, Grybowski said. Deepwater Wind also plans to build a wind farm of at least 200 turbines between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.

“We want to build more and larger offshore wind projects, up and down the East Coast,” Grybowski said.

Gov. Gina Raimondo said Rhode Island is a leader in a fast-growing industry that is creating jobs.

“It’s the beginning of something great in Rhode Island,” Raimondo said.

The offshore wind industry is far more advanced in Europe. Developers and industry experts say it has been slow to start in the U.S. because of regulatory hurdles, opposition from fossil fuel interests and the trials and tribulations of doing something for the first time.

Cape Wind received approval five years ago to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm, a 130-turbine project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That project stalled after opponents challenged it in court.

While there have been setbacks, Jewell said the federal government has now sold nine leases for offshore wind projects in federal waters. The government is poised to auction a new lease off New Jersey this year and is assessing potential sites off multiple states. The Block Island wind farm is in state waters.

“This is an important first step, important momentum. A lot is happening across the country,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, director if the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

One hurdle, however, is that the renewable energy industry has to fight, regularly, to keep the tax credits and incentives it has, while the well-established oil and gas industry has tax credits it no longer needs, Jewell said. She said that should change.

Several environmental leaders also made the trip. Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said it was overwhelming to see the start of construction.

“To see it in American waters fills me with patriotic pride,” he said. “This idea that we could create a new industry and tens of thousands of jobs, spur manufacturing and protect wildlife, it’s just an incredible opportunity.”

Clean energy, Fossil fuels, Natural gas, Solar energy, Wind energy

America’s new and improved energy mix

Repost from Fuel Fix
[Editor:  Significant quote: “Since 2008, wind and solar energy capacity in the U.S. has tripled. A new report from the Energy Information Administration found that electricity generated from wind and solar grew a lot faster than electricity generated by fossil fuels last year.”  – RS]

Guest commentary: America’s new and improved energy mix

By Paul Dickerson and Thomas R. Burton III
Mintz Levin, April 25, 2015 8:00 am
(Sam Hodgson/Bloomberg)

Not too long ago, America was governed by an either/or energy market. Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, the rise and subsequent demise of solar energy as a viable energy alternative was directly related to the jump and collapse in crude prices before and after the OPEC oil embargo. Solar was resuscitated – along with a host of other nascent alternatives – in the first decade of this century when oil prices spiked once again. Plenty of pundits warned that investments in solar, wind and other energy alternatives would prove short-sighted when the price of oil finally retreated.

But something significant happened along the way: demand for energy alternatives became untethered from oil and natural gas prices. At a time when the price of crude oil has plunged by more than half and natural gas prices have plumbed two-year lows, growth in energy alternatives has actually accelerated. Since 2008, wind and solar energy capacity in the U.S. has tripled. A new report from the Energy Information Administration found that electricity generated from wind and solar grew a lot faster than electricity generated by fossil fuels last year. So-called distributed generation – a better proxy for real-time demand because it measures installations such as solar panels by end users and not utilities – exhibited even faster growth. In fact, by the time you’ve read this, another new solar project will have come online (it happens every 150 seconds).

A host of drivers help explain why these energy technologies are holding their own this time around. Whether you agree with them or not, growing concerns about climate change and energy’s role in it has created generous federal and state incentives for energy sources that aren’t derived from fossil fuels.

Incentivized by these policies, public and private sector innovation has driven down the cost of these technologies so they can increasingly compete on price even as their subsidies expire. Wind energy’s dramatic success here in Texas is a key reason why state senator Troy Fraser, a key proponent of Texas’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, recently argued that those programs have accomplished their objective and are no longer needed.

Finally, innovation has migrated to the industry’s financing models. Previously, much of solar’s growth was driven by technology advancements. More recently, however, growth is being driven by financial improvements such as more flexible leasing models, a greater availability of capital that lowers costs for installers, and better analytics that enable installers to target customers more effectively. The result has been a rapid change to the competitive landscape, which has transformed and invigorated the market.

By now you might be wondering: Why does this matter to me? The answer is because there are huge implications from diversifying our nation’s energy supply.

The first benefit is the ability to hedge our energy positions when the price of one technology soars. Much in the way that investors are adding alternative investments to complement their holdings in stocks and bonds, a national energy portfolio that can draw on solar, wind and other alternatives is much less susceptible to downside risks. While still a small piece of the overall energy pie, these energy technologies give us a degree of flexibility in weathering market fluctuations. This flexibility makes us less reliant on any one energy source, putting downward pressure on the prices we pay to heat or cool our homes or fuel our cars.

The second big benefit is ensuring the reliability of our energy supply. Solar and wind technologies need to work in concert with 24/7 solutions such as natural gas since they can’t produce energy all of the time. Having access to more alternatives gives our electricity grid operators the flexibility to prevent or work around disruptions, use real-time usage data to identify and tap the most efficient energy sources at all times, and continue to meet our growing energy demands. Of course, we still have some work to do in this respect, and we urge federal and state legislators to continue to support programs that help develop the technologies needed to seamlessly integrate our growing array of energy choices.

A third reason, one that we are painfully familiar with as much of Texas remains gripped by drought, is water. One of the biggest demands for water is power generation, and as people continue to move to Texas, demand for electricity will continue to rise. By developing wind and solar sources, we will ease the burden of that growth on our already stressed water supplies.

Finally, a nation with greater flexibility in the way it meets its energy needs is one far less prone to the will or whims of others. In recent years, the term “energy independence” has been thrown around a lot. It’s a laudable goal, but we can’t achieve it by drilling alone. Before we can have true energy independence, we first must have energy diversity.

Thomas R. Burton III is the founder and chair of the Energy & Clean Technology Practice at Mintz Levin in Boston. Paul Dickerson, of counsel at the firm, is a former chief operating officer at the US Department of Energy.
Compressed natural gas, Fossil fuels, Liquid natural gas, Renewable energy, Solar energy, Wind energy

Q&A: For vehicles, oil’s days are numbered

Repost from the Houston Chronicle
[Editor: Interesting and possibly a “realistic” view, but not very optimistic when it comes to a progressive timeline for change….  – RS]

Q&A: For vehicles, oil’s days are numbered

By Collin Eaton, November 21, 2014
Henrik Madsen expects “a transformation in that oil will lose its position in transportation.”

One day, crude oil will lose its grip on cars and trains and ships, but with costs to produce alternative energy still high, a change that big will likely take many decades. How long is anyone’s guess, says one man with a head start on most prognosticators.

Henrik Madsen, the CEO of Norway’s international shipping and oil field equipment classifier DNV GL, says the commercial automobile market is the last bastion of crude oil, after its disappearance from power plants and heating fuels in the second half of the 20th century. Its days in vehicles and vessels are numbered.

Searing cold liquefied natural gas – don’t spill it, it’s minus-261 degrees – and compressed natural gas are elbowing their way into crude’s territory, powering some large trucks and locomotives, and finding prime real estate aboard big tankers as international demand for gas surges.

LNG’s advance in vehicles is likely good news for those counting on the earth’s resources in coming decades, Madsen says. Oil, he added, is too precious to burn in a combustion engine, and should be reserved as a feedstock for ingredients to make high-end products including clothing, plastics, coatings and pharmaceuticals.

Energy

The emergence of alternative energy sources in transportation isn’t great news for oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia whose economies are linked to crude-pumping wells, he said.

“They might be a little bit afraid of shale oil, but I think they’re more afraid of the use of oil in transportation disappearing,” Madsen said.

DVN GL has an office and oil and gas operations in Katy. Madsen, recently in Houston, spoke with the Chronicle about the pivot to LNG and compressed natural gas fuels in trucking, and the early signs that point to a future of lower oil consumption. Edited excerpts follow:

Q: You describe the “energy trilemma” as the balance between protecting the environment while retaining affordable energy costs and ensuring we have enough energy. Where is that effort today?

A: I think everybody agrees we need many energy sources in the future. We need oil, gas, coal, wind, solar, geothermal. One of the things we’re focused on is how we use the different forms of energy. We think there will be a transformation in that oil will lose its position in transportation. On the trucking side in the U.S., that transformation is happening fast, because the price of LNG is 10, 20 percent of the price of diesel. You’ve seen some train companiesconsider using gas instead of diesel, you’ve seen it in the oil field service sector, where they’re using gas to drill for shale oil.

Q: Expand on what’s driving this.

A: In terms of emissions, you will reduce local pollution a lot. But primarily it is because gas is much cheaper. From a technical point of view, this major change would not be impossible, say over a 20- to 30-year period. But at the same time, it will be as the cost of transportation fuels goes up, so how slow the transformation will be is anybody’s guess.

Q: Do you envision less oil exploration in the future?

A: That may be 30 or 40 years from now. I think consumption will be lower then. But people don’t talk much about that. They’re talking about how we’re at peak oil and how we can find more oil and so on, instead of looking at what it’s used for. I personally think it would be nice to reserve oil for high-value products.

Q: What are the safety concerns related to using LNG as a transportation fuel?

A: It’s very cold, so if you spill it on a ship, the steel will crack. LNG can burn but it doesn’t explode, so LNG is remarkably safe. They’ve been transporting LNG around the world in tankers for 40 years and there have not been any fatalities.

Q: Are renewable energy sources growing fast enough?

A: Many people talk the growth down, but at least in Europe there’s still a high growth in renewables, and there’s also high growth in the U.S. I think the International Energy Agency constantly underestimates the growth. If you look at solar now, prices are coming down much faster than we thought, and it’s actually competitive for local production. Onshore wind costs are coming down and we’re trying to drive offshore wind costs down.

Q: Is wind held back by its reliance on subsidies?

A: They don’t need subsidies. The more they talk about subsidies, the more everybody thinks they’ll need subsidies forever and that it’s not a long-term solution, which is actually wrong.