U.S. Fish and Wildlife updates guidelines for wind-farm development

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Excerpt: In March, 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) released its final Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines. These present a tiered approach for the consideration and analysis of potential impacts to wildlife and habitat from onshore, wind-energy development. The five-tier process and other guid …

Canadian bird and habitat guidelines amended

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Excerpt: Canada’s Ministry of the Environment (MOE) recently decided to proceed with certain changes to Birds and Bird Habitats: Guidelines for Wind Power Projects (2010) (Guidelines). The main amendments incorporated into the Guidelines include: The threshold for bird mortality has been lowered to 14 …

Sensor and Web companies team to display weather data and more on Web

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Excerpt: Atmospheric Systems Corporation (ASC) and Vista Engineering are working to streamline wind instrumentation data to end users. Vista’s Engineering’s web-based Vista Data Vision (VDV) lets users collect data from multiple sites and view it from a single dashboard. VDV creates web based graphs …

2012 Iowa Wind Energy Conference

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Excerpt: The Iowa Wind Energy Association is planning its 5th Annual Wind Conference April 9 to 11th, 2012 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Iowa has achieved over 20% of its electrical generation from wind energy, the highest nationally, and has become a role model for the same goal nationally. Th …

Commentary: Five reasons for optimism in wind, and more

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Excerpt: This edited commentary comes from Jukka-Pekka Mäkinen, president and CEO of  permanent-magnet-generator manufacturer TheSwitch   The Switch came to the market five years ago on a mission to bring better drive train technology to wind power generation and allows more energy per turbi …

World nuclear power output slowing

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Excerpt: Due to increasing costs of production, a slowed demand for electricity, and fresh memories of disaster in Japan, production of nuclear power fell in 2011, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report from the Worldwatch Institute. Despite reaching record levels the previous year, glob …

MIT profs look offshore for better wind

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Excerpt:   This article comes from MIT News   Of all the zero-carbon energy sources available, wind power is the only one that’s cost-competitive today: A 2006 report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration put the total cost for wind-produced electricity at an average of $55.8 …

U.K. firm has solution to radar-wind farm interference

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Excerpt: Cambridge Consultants, creator of several successful high-tech start-ups, announced the spin-off of Aveillant with venture investment from DFJ Esprit and AIFCL, the wind industry fund. Aveillant’s technology will remove concerns about aviation safety and air defense that are holding back growt …

Wind-farm-design software refines uncertainty and loss estimates

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Excerpt: A renewable-energy-consulting and information firm has released openWind Enterprise 1.3, software that further refines the wind farm design process with improved loss and uncertainty estimates. In addition to an ability to optimize for cost of energy and assess deep array impacts, current Enterp …

Tiny bird kills big wind project

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Excerpt: State legislatures in Washington once called a proposed wind farm on Radar Ridge near Naselle "a great idea." But state legislator Dan Takko added, "it's got all the good things going for it, except for that little bird." The little bird is the marbled murrelet, a threatened species since 1992. …