The United Kingdom – An Island Nation Serious About Cleanly Harnessing Their Natural Resources

On Thursday September 23, 2010, off the coast of Kent, where the English Channel meets the North Sea in southeastern England, the world’s largest offshore wind farm went online. The Thanet Offshore Wind Farm consist of 100 wind turbines covering an area of 13.5 square miles (35 square kilometers), each turbine is 115 meters tall, generating enough electricity for 200,000 homes a year. The Swedish energy company Vattenfall which invested about 880 million pounds ($1.38 billion), operates the wind farms. The construction took just over two years and expected to operate for at least 25 years. (more…)

American Wind Projects

The U.S. wind industry is on its way to charting another record-shattering year of
growth. That capacity will generate over 60 billion kWh of electricity in 2009,
enough to serve over 5.5 million American homes and eliminating the burning of

* 30.4 million short tons of coal (enough to fill two 1,000-mile-long coal trains),
* 91 million barrels of oil per year, or
* 560 Bcf of natural gas (about 9% of the natural gas used for electricity generation)

Hull, Massachusetts – Offshore Wind Turbines
This resort town, population 11,000, plans to moor four 260-foot-tall turbines a (more…)

If you do not think that there is a movement beginning, you are wrong!

A little town very close to me here in deep East Texas, Lindale, has decided
they need to develop some opportunities to grow the city.  They are now working
with Decker Energy International, Inc., a Florida based privately held company,
to assist them in building a 35-50 megawatt wood-fired biomass power plant.
This plant will have 25 full time jobs.  Along with more jobs to build it. Yeah!

The proposed site is 43 acres that is currently owned by the Lindale Economic
Development Corporation (LEDC) which will also be part of the Lindale
Industrial Park.  This project will cost the city about $130 million. (more…)

Wind Turbines

The tallest wind tower in America — 345 feet — is in Scurry County,
Texas at Enel North Americas Snyder Wind Project. By comparison, the
Statue of Liberty is 305 feet.

The tips of a 300 foot diameter wing spread are moving at about 100 mph.
The blades revolve about 21 times per minute.

Who taps the wind?

Germany leads all nations in production of wind power. It also has a huge
investment in solar power. Both technologies are heavily boosted by tax
incentives.

Below are the World Wind Energy Association’s rankings of wind power by
megawatts installed:

Germany 22,247
United States 16,819
-Texas 4,356
- California 2,439
Spain 15,145
India 7,850
China 5,899

Wind through the home:

All homes need adequate ventilation. Without it, contaminants such as
formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), unpleasant orders can
linger, radon gas can accumulate, and excess moisture will cause mold
growth.

In the past most homes got adequate ventilation from the natural air moving
through the unsealed windows and doors, etc. But with improved housing
technology, uncontrolled ventilation has been drastically reduced to such
an airtight degree that it’s necessary to compensate by installing a whole
house ventilation system. You may remember attic fans, same thing, just
new and improved.

Most applicable in cold climates during the summer. Not advisable in warmer
climates with humid summers because the fan can draw moist air into wall
cavities, where it may condense and cause moisture damage. However, even
in those locations, they can be run in the fall and early spring.

Whole house ventilation systems creates healthy home enviroments and are
extremely energy effiecient especially compared to air conditioning.

Just as there are huge wind farms now providing backup power for conventional
electricity generation, central solar power towers will likely do the same in
the future.  The facilities generate electric power from sunlight by focusing
concentrated solar radiation on a tower mounted receiver.  Hundreds of
thousands of small sun-tracking mirrors reflect sunlight to the receiver.  In
some technologies, liquid salt is pumped and heated through the receiver and
then stored until power is needed from the plant.  The molten salt is then (more…)