October 25, 2004

Wind Harvest Company Wind News
A compilation of story leads from around the world.
By:  Kevin Wolf

Note:  These story titles and lead paragraphs predominantly come from Energy Central's daily posting of the world's energy stories. Others are sent to me by subscribers of Wind News.  Energy Central requires paid membership to read full stories.  You can often paste the headline into the Google search engine and find the original source of the story.   When I have them, I will include the URL.  Please send me stories that you find, and I will add them into the next edition of Wind News.  Thank you. Kevin
<><><><><><>

NISSAN WIND TURBINE PLAN

  Car manufacturing giant Nissan is to take a greener approach at
  its North-East plant. Nissan has applied for permission to install
  seven wind turbines to power its Washington site.
************

CONNECTICUT RESIDENTS CAN USE 'CLEAN POWER' WHILE STICKING WITH
CURRENT COMPANY

  Electricity customers can stay with their current power companies
  and still sign up for "green power" under a final decision by the
  Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control released Wednesday.
************

LAW ON RENEWABLE ENERGY IN PIPELINE

  China's continued power shortage is pushing the government to take
  additional action - including legislation - to promote the
  development of renewable energy.
************

FPL TO BUILD NEW TEXAS WIND FARM

  FPL Energy LLC said Tuesday it plans to build and operate a 114-
  megawatt wind farm in Taylor County, Texas, near Abilene.
************

MASSIVE WIND FARM PLAN FOR UK

  A SPANISH company is to provide a major boost to renewable energy
  production in the UK by building wind farms across the country, it
  emerged today.
************

BRAZIL TO TRIPLE NATURAL GAS CONSUMPTION BY 2010, MINISTER SAYS

  Brazilian energy officials expect their country to consume 117
  million cu m/day (cmd) of natural gas by 2010, compared with
  today's average of 35 million cmd.
************

Plans for Huge Wind Turbines Jolt Kansans
By JIM CARLTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 14, 2004; Page B1

COTTONWOOD FALLS, Kan. -- When an energy company approached Jane Koger about putting some wind turbines on her ranch, she was elated. The fourth-generation Kansan was familiar with wind energy: Some years before, she had erected an 84-foot-high windmill on her property near here to provide all of her electricity needs.

But when she later discovered the company planned to build dozens of turbines more than 300 feet high for miles around, she was appalled -- so much so, she says, that she returned her $500 retainer check. She stood to make about $2,000 annually from the company, FPL Energy, for each turbine placed on her property. "It wouldn't matter if the turbines made me a million dollars, if the thing I loved was destroyed in the process," Ms. Koger says.

Across the Kansas Flint Hills, farmers and ranchers are up in arms over plans by wind developers to erect hundreds of spinning turbines astride hills and ridges that encompass the largest expanse of tallgrass prairie left in North America. Situated between Kansas City and Wichita, the Flint Hills are a weekend sanctuary for many city folks, an oasis of untilled land in the Midwestern Wheat Belt.

But that proximity to populated areas and the fact the Flint Hills is an extraordinarily gusty place have made the region a target for wind-energy developers. Over the past three years, developers have floated about two dozen wind-farm projects, each potentially containing as many as 100 wind turbines.

The issue has split the environmental movement: Local chapters of the Audubon Society and Nature Conservancy say the turbines would befoul the landscape and harm wildlife, while Kansas Sierra Club leaders argue that exploiting wind power here will help reduce America's reliance on fossil fuels. "The view that there should be none is elitist," says Charles Benjamin, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club in Kansas. Counters Ron Klataske, executive director of the Audubon of Kansas: "It's sad that the Sierra Club would mislead their membership that this is green energy, when it causes destruction."
************

Environmentalists Tout Wind Power Over Crop-Based Fuels
By MAYA JACKSON RANDALL
October 15, 2004 4:09 p.m.
    Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -- Environmental experts on Friday said they have low expectations for fuels such as ethanol that are produced from crops and instead touted wind power as a promising energy source of the future.

Farmers, over the long run, are going to be faced with water shortages and rising temperatures due to global warming, said Lester Brown, president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute.

That said, "biological sources of energy are probably going to be limited over the long-term."
Brown was one of several environmental authors speaking at a press briefing in Washington about the outlook for the environment.

His comments on biofuels come just a few days after Congress passed a major tax bill that includes federal tax incentives for producers of wind power as well as producers of ethanol, a fuel produced mainly from corn, and biodiesel, which is mainly derived from soybean oil.

But Brown says not all of those renewable resources are equal.

The real benefit in the bill will likely come from the tax incentives aimed at companies involved in producing energy from wind, he said. Brown said wind power is attractive for six reasons: it's abundant, cheap, widely distributed, inexhaustible, clean and climate benign.

"No other energy source has all of those attributes," he said.  Plus, three states - North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas - already have enough wind energy to satisfy all of the country's energy needs, he said.
snip
************

Not Just Tilting Anymore
Higher Fuel Costs, Tax Credits, Better Technology Whip Up Hopes for Wind Power Again
By REBECCA SMITH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 14, 2004; Page B1

Arden and Muriel Bergan watched intently as workmen installed wind turbines on their Iowa farm two years ago, as a whipping wind made it difficult to align the 87-foot blades with bolt holes at the top of a 327-foot tower. "It was a regular circus act," Mr. Bergan says.

Getting circumstances to line up for the wind industry has been equally daunting over the years. With bigger, better turbines that produce electricity at competitive prices, the industry should be enjoying an unprecedented boom. Yet each time it gains momentum, something comes along to thwart progress, with the most recent hiccup being the expiration of a federal tax credit at the end of 2003 that stalled $2 billion of projects.

A bill re-establishing the tax credit passed both houses of Congress in late September, however, and President Bush signed the measure earlier this month, providing a 1.8-cent credit for each kilowatt hour of electricity produced by qualifying turbines built by the end of 2005 for a 10-year period. Many industry watchers believe the tax credit could stimulate the growth that's been predicted, for years, but never fulfilled.

Better technology and government stimulus, along with high prices for competing types of power generation, are driving renewed optimism about wind power. With prices for the fossil fuels used in conventional power plants hovering near record levels, wind power is the cheapest source of energy that can be built now. Newly built wind farms are "beating the socks off of any other new source of generation," says Ryan Wiser, an energy economist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

A modern wind turbine can produce electricity for about 2.5 cents to four cents a kilowatt hour, including government subsidies, so the biggest turbines compete effectively against modern natural-gas-fired power plants, though they won't run as many hours of the day due to the variability of wind. Assuming natural gas at $6 per million British thermal units, a kilowatt hour of electricity from a newly built gas-fired plant costs at least 5.5 cents a kilowatt hour, including both fuel and capital costs. Natural-gas plants have led the sector in recent years because they can be constructed quickly, are clean burning and operate reliably.

Costs have come down for wind power while they have been pushed up for gas-fired plants by higher natural-gas prices. High oil prices have had less effect on the power industry than in the past because many generators shifted to other fuels as a result of the oil shocks of the 1970s.
Demand for wind power also is being driven by state laws that require utilities to obtain set percentages of their electricity from renewable sources by certain target dates. The amounts and deadlines vary, but 17 states now have such laws in place, with New York being the latest addition. Some states, like Wisconsin, already have met their initial targets and are considering raising the goals.

If the states achieve their targets, as much as 22,000 megawatts of renewable energy could be created in the next decade, doubling today's installed base from such things as solar, wind, biomass and small hydroelectric projects. Wind-power capacity has tripled since 1998 to about 6,400 megawatts and the cost of its electric output has fallen about 90% since the early 1980s. Lawrence Berkeley's Mr. Wiser says that if the nation eventually garners 15% to 20% of its power from renewable sources, up from about 2% today, "it might produce a 10% reduction in the price of natural gas" as demand for gas moderates, saving consumers billions of dollars a year.
************