[GBlist] News on Wind Energy

[Sarah Holland/David Foley <hollandfoley@acadia.net>]

FYI
---

> Published on Wednesday, January 16, 2002 by Inter Press Service
> 
> Wind Is Fastest Growing Power Sector
> 
> by Danielle Knight
> 
>  
> WASHINGTON - Electricity generated by wind power worldwide jumped 31 percent
> last year, making it the fastest growing part of the energy sector, according
> to new estimates by industry and environmentalists.
> 
> The Washington-based Earth Policy Institute says global wind electric
> generating capacity rose from 17,800 megawatts in 2000 to 23,300 megawatts in
> 2001 - enough to satisfy the needs of 23 million people.
> 
> ''Abundant, inexhaustible, and cheap, wind promises to become the foundation
> of the new energy economy,'' says Lester Brown, president of the advocacy
> group. Since 1995, world wind-generating capacity has increased by 487
> percent, he adds.
> 
> Environmentalists like Brown have been strong supporters of wind energy
> because unlike nuclear and fossil fuels, wind does not produce pollutants,
> heat-trapping greenhouse gases, or hazardous wastes.
> 
> According to the European Wind Energy Association, a Brussels- based industry
> group, wind-generating capacity in Europe has increased by about 40 percent
> per year for the past six years.
> 
> ''Today, wind energy projects across Europe produce enough electricity to meet
> the domestic needs of five million people,'' says a statement by the
> association.
> 
> One megawatt of wind-generating capacity typically will satisfy the
> electricity needs of 350 households in an industrial society, or roughly 1,000
> people.
> 
> Germany leads the world in wind power capacity with 8,000 megawatts, nearly
> one-third of the total. It added 1,890 megawatts in 2001.
> 
> The United States, which launched a modern wind power industry in the west
> coast state of California in the early 1980s, is second with 4,150 megawatts.
> It added 1,600 megawatts in 2001, a 63 percent jump in generating capacity
> since 2000.
> 
> Wind power is one of the cheapest methods of generating electricity in the
> United States, according to calculations by the Earth Policy Institute. The
> cost of wind-generated electricity has fallen from 35 cents per kilowatt-hour
> in the mid-1980s to four cents per kilowatt-hour at prime wind sites in 2001,
> it says.
> 
> Spain is in third place, with 3,300 megawatts coming from wind power. Denmark,
> fourth in line with 2,500 megawatts, now gets 18 percent of its electricity
> from wind.
> 
> As a result of the increase in wind power generation, investment in wind
> turbine manufacture and wind development has been highly profitable.
> 
> ''While high-tech firms as a group suffered a disastrous fall in sales,
> earnings, and stock value in 2001, sales in the wind industry soared,'' says
> Brown.
> 
> At the Danish-based firm Nordex, one of the world's largest turbine
> manufacturers, for example, turnover during the first nine months of 2001 was
> up 19 percent and new orders were up 56 percent.
> 
> Despite this recent surge, Brown says development of the Earth's wind
> resources has barely begun.
> 
> ''In densely populated Europe, there is enough easily accessible offshore wind
> energy to meet all of the region's electricity needs,'' he says.
> 
> Wind-generated energy capacity is expected to continue to grow in the future.
> The European Wind Energy Association recently revised its 2010 wind capacity
> projections for Europe from 40,000 megawatts to 60,000 megawatts. The American
> Wind Energy Association points out that 60,000 megawatts is equivalent to 20
> to 25 new 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants.
> 
> France announced in December 2000 that it would develop 5,000 megawatts of
> wind-generating capacity during this decade.
> 
> Offshore wind projects are now very popular in many countries in Europe. Early
> in 2001, Britain sold offshore lease rights for an estimated 1,500 of
> wind-generating capacity to several different bidders, including Shell Oil.
> 
> Ireland approved plans last week for the construction of the world's largest
> offshore wind farm, with 520 megawatts of energy output, to be built on a
> sandbank in the Irish Sea south of Dublin. When completed, the 200 turbines
> are expected to produce 10 percent of the country's electricity needs.
> 
> ''Today heralds the dawning of a new age of clean, green energy, harvested
> from two plentiful renewable sources, the sea and the wind,'' said Frank
> Fahey, Ireland's Marine Minister, at a lease signing ceremony in Dublin.
> 
> In the United States, wind power has been growing ''by leaps and bounds,''
> according to Brown. The 300-megawatt Stateline Wind Project under construction
> on the border between the western states of Oregon and Washington will be the
> world largest ''wind farm.''
> 
> Several developing countries have also jumped on the wind power bandwagon.
> Argentina said it would develop 3,000 megawatts of wind- generating capacity
> in Patagonia.
> 
> A report from Beijing in May indicated that China would develop up to 2,500
> megawatts of wind-generating capacity by 2005. Earth Policy Institute's Brown
> says China could easily double its current electricity generation from wind
> power alone.
> 
> Wind power advocates argue that governments need to do more to encourage wind
> farms and other renewable energy sources.
> 
> U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed national energy strategy, a version
> of which passed by the House of Representatives, for example, calls for
> extending federal wind energy production tax credit and for a review of
> previously proposed cuts in federal renewable energy research and development
> funding. 
> 
> But environmentalists and the wind industry argue that the energy plan focuses
> too much on fossil fuels, especially coal, even though world coal use has
> declined some 11 percent since 1996. Further action, they say, is needed to
> develop a serious wind energy agenda.
> 
> ''There is still much to be done if we are to have an energy policy that is
> truly balanced among conventional energy sources, efficiency, and
> renewables,'' says Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind
> Energy Association.
> 
> Copyright 2002 IPS

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232 Beech Hill Rd.
Northport, Maine 04849 USA
p: (207) 338-9869 f: (207) 338-9859 e: hollandfoley@acadia.net


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