All posts tagged: Wind power

What Are Rare Earth Metals, the Exports Halted by China?

What Are Rare Earth Metals, the Exports Halted by China?

Published by skeptic

For years, the Chinese government has worked to control the export of rare earths, a group of metals used in an array of products, as common as semiconductors and lights. Now, in its trade war with the United States, China is moving to limit the market for these metals even further, which could have disastrous consequences for American manufacturing and military power. So, what exactly are these metals, and why are they so important? What are rare earths? There are 17 types of metals known as rare earths, which span the periodic table and are crucial to industries like technology, energy and transportation. With names like terbium, praseodymium and dysprosium, the metals are important ingredients for some of the most advanced technologies. Rare earths can be sorted into two kinds: heavy and light. Heavy rare earths have a greater atomic weight and are typically more rare, meaning they sell in smaller quantities and are prone to shortages. Light metals, by contrast, have a lesser atomic weight. The two most important are neodymium and praseodymium, which …

Trump’s Day One Executive Orders Will Worsen Climate Crisis

Trump’s Day One Executive Orders Will Worsen Climate Crisis

Published by skeptic

On his first day in office, President Trump has signed a slew of executive orders that will set the United States on a radically different environmental path from the Biden administration. The executive orders and memoranda take the first steps to fulfilling many of Trump’s promises from the campaign trail: Withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement, drilling more oil and natural gas, and repealing multiple Biden-era environmental directives and departments. While Trump’s day-one executive orders are far-reaching, it’s not yet clear how they will be implemented or how quickly they will be felt. Executive orders direct government agencies how to implement the law, but they can be challenged by courts if they appear to violate the US Constitution or other laws, as happened with Trump’s travel ban executive order in January 2017. Trump’s executive orders do, however, send a clear signal about his administration’s environmental priorities: Extracting more fossil fuels, weakening support for green energy, and stepping away from global climate leadership. Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement This executive order instructs the US Ambassador …

It Takes Guts to Fix Wind Turbines for a Living

It Takes Guts to Fix Wind Turbines for a Living

Published by skeptic

Maybe you think they’re majestic. Maybe you think they’re an eyesore. No matter how you feel about wind turbines, there’ll be a lot more of them in coming years. And someone will have to keep each one of them spinning. In fact, wind turbine repair technician is estimated to be one of the fastest-growing jobs in the US this decade, with at least 5,000 new roles by 2032. One onshore wind veteran who’s been doing the work for 13 years spills to WIRED about what it’s like. First things first: If you hate heights, being a wind turbine technician is probably not the career for you. Sure, we’ve had people who aren’t comfortable with heights be successful in the job. But I can safely say you’re climbing up 300 feet a day. (Sometimes literally: Older wind farms have turbines that you get up using ladders, although most places now use an elevator or trolley system.) A mechanical background or an electrical background is helpful. I got a job with a builder right out of high …

A cargo ship’s ‘WindWing’ sails saved it up to 12 tons of fuel per day

A cargo ship’s ‘WindWing’ sails saved it up to 12 tons of fuel per day

Published by skeptic

A shipping vessel left China for Brazil while sporting some new improvements last August—a pair of 123-feet-tall, solid “wings” retrofitted atop its deck to harness wind power for propulsion assistance. But after its six-week maiden voyage testing the green energy tech, the Pyxis Ocean MC Shipping Kamsarmax vessel apparently had many more trips ahead of it. Six months later, its owners at the shipping company, Cargill, shared the results of those journeys this week—and it sounds like the vertical WindWing sails could offer a promising way to reduce existing vessels’ emissions. Using the wind force captured by its two giant, controllable sails to boost its speed, Pyxis Ocean reportedly saved an average of 3.3 tons of fuel each day. And in optimal weather conditions, its trips through portions of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans reduced fuel consumption by over 12 tons a day. According to Cargill’s math, that’s an average of 14 percent less greenhouse gas emissions from the ship. On its best days, Pyxis Ocean could cut that down by 37 percent. In …

‘Farming is a dirty word now’: the woman helping farmers navigate a grim, uncertain future – podcast | News

‘Farming is a dirty word now’: the woman helping farmers navigate a grim, uncertain future – podcast | News

Published by skeptic

In a moment of crisis for the industry, Heather Wildman tours the country helping farmers face up to the toughest of questions – not just about the future of their business, but about their family, their identity and even their mortality. By Bella Bathurst How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know Source link

World’s biggest onshore wind turbine blades unveiled in China

World’s biggest onshore wind turbine blades unveiled in China

Published by skeptic

Blades that will form part of the world’s largest onshore wind turbines SANY Renewable Energy The world’s largest-ever onshore wind turbine blades have been manufactured in China. At 131 metres in length, each foil would dwarf Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty. Once installed in central China in the coming months, each of the structures, including a 15-megawatt turbine and three blades, will have a diameter of over 260 metres. The SY1310A onshore wind turbine blade was made by SANY Renewable Energy at its factory in Bayannur in northern China. The company said in a statement that the increased blade length meant greater demands for stiffness and strength as well as the need for protection from extreme weather events such as lightning. “The blade has applied multiple advanced technological innovations including a high-performance airfoil with a thick blunt trailing edge, optimized airfoil layout, and overall increased thickness,” it said. Peter Majewski at the University of South Australia says the advantage of such large wind turbines is that the bigger they are, the fewer are …

The US Has Big Plans for Wind Energy—but an Obscure 1920s Law Is Getting in the Way

The US Has Big Plans for Wind Energy—but an Obscure 1920s Law Is Getting in the Way

Published by skeptic

The reason for the Jones Act’s longevity, says Colin Grabow, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is that while it tends to benefit only a few people and businesses, the act goes unnoticed because there are many payers sharing the increased costs. The Jones Act is one in a string of protectionist laws—dating back to the Tariff Act of 1789—designed to bolster US marine industries. The Jones Act’s existence was meant to ensure a ready supply of ships and mariners in case of war. Its authors reasoned that protection from foreign competition would foster that. “Your average American has no idea that the Jones Act even exists,” Grabow says. “It’s not life-changing for very many people,” he adds. But “all Americans are hurt by the Jones Act.” In this case, that’s by slowing down the United States’ ability to hit its own wind power targets. Grabow says those most vocal about the law—the people who build, operate, or serve on compliant ships—usually want to keep it in place. Of course, …

Big offshore wind farms are now transmitting sweet, sweet battery juice to the US grid

Big offshore wind farms are now transmitting sweet, sweet battery juice to the US grid

Published by skeptic

Offshore wind turbines at two commercial-scale sites are now sending power to the U.S. grid. Moments before midnight on Tuesday, a single turbine near Martha’s Vineyard delivered 5 megawatts of renewable energy to the New England grid, developers said. The turbine is one out of 62 planned for Vineyard Wind 1, an offshore site owned by utility company Avangrid and wind energy investor Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The firms wanted to deliver offshore wind power via the site before the end of 2023; they missed that goal by just a few days. Still, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey called it a “historic moment.” Healey said in a statement that the farm will soon crank out “power equivalent of over 400,000 Massachusetts households.” Avangrid and CIP say the site will feature five turbines by “early” this year, to power up homes — and presumably some electric-vehicle batteries — in the otherwise natural gas-reliant state. The Vineyard Wind news comes about a month after another offshore site near Montauk Point, New York declared a similar breakthrough. Dubbed South …

One of Biden’s Big Climate Bets Follows an Old Logic

One of Biden’s Big Climate Bets Follows an Old Logic

Published by skeptic

In a way, the story of American natural gas is a particularly American story, one of entrepreneurial hustle, booms and busts, and a will to find opportunity where nobody’s looked. Of resourceful self-preservation for the sake of self-preservation alone. Of supply needing demand, and of manufacturing that demand through the means at hand, even if the logic is sometimes tough to follow. Natural gas has fueled American homes, American electricity, and, more recently, American plastics, an industry more usually fed by oil. As the grand ambitions for that last endeavor have begun to show signs of waning, the industry has once again pivoted, this time to embrace its potential as part of America’s climate future. When the Biden administration announced this year that its build-out of facilities for hydrogen—a fuel that could help reduce emissions from heavy industry—would have a starring role for natural gas, it was hardly a surprise: The industry appears to have worked hard to ensure its place. The gas industry has had plenty of practice making a case for itself. A …

solar-power-duck-curve-waste – The Atlantic

solar-power-duck-curve-waste – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

In Los Angeles, where I live, the rites of autumn can feel alien. Endless blue skies and afternoon highs near 90 degrees linger long after Griffith Park opens its Haunted Hayride. When the highs dip toward more seasonably appropriate numbers, they’ll be accompanied by one of California’s unfortunate traditions: wasted clean energy. During the fall and spring, cloudless afternoons produce a spike in solar power at a time when milder temperatures necessitate less air-conditioning. When that happens, the state’s solar farms make more energy than the state can use, and some panels are simply turned off. This maddening problem—a result of what energy wonks call the “duck curve”—has been getting worse as the amount of available solar power outpaces the state’s ability to move that power around. In early 2017, just more than 3 percent of the state’s solar was wasted this way. The total reached 6 percent by 2022, according to California’s grid operator, and 15 percent in the early afternoons of March 2021. Wind power also can be wasted if the weather is …