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Update 2-Wind power could make Norway "Europe's Battery"

Sunday, March 23, 2008

OSLO, (Reuters) - Norway could become "Europe's battery" by developing huge sea-based wind parks costing up to $44 billion by 2025, Norway's Oil and Energy Minister said on Monday.

Norway's Energy Council, comprising business leaders and officials, said green exports could help the European Union reach a goal of getting 20 percent of its electricity by 2020 from renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro or wave power.

"Norway could be Europe's battery," Oil and Energy Minister Aaslaug Haga told Reuters after she was handed the report, which will be considered by the centre-left government in coming months.

"The thinking is that Norway is blessed, is lucky, to have big energy resources. There is undoubtedly a large potential for wind power," she said. Norway says it has the longest coastline in Europe, from the North Sea to the Arctic Barents Sea.

The 30-page report, mapping out a big shift for the world's number 5 oil exporter, said: "Norway ought to have access to up to 40 terrawatt hours of renewable energy in 2020-2025, of which about half would come from offshore wind power."

Sufficient wind parks -- totalling 5,000 to 8,000 megawatts installed capacity -- would cost between 100 billion Norwegian and 220 billion Norwegian crowns ($43.89 billion) assuming prices of 20-28 million crowns per installed megawatt.

The energy would be equivalent to up to about eight nuclear power plants. Norway pumps about 2.2 million barrels of oil per day -- $44 billion represents the value of about half a year's output.

WIND, HYDRO

Haga said offshore wind parks -- which would stop on calm days -- could be supplemented by hydro-power reservoirs which can be turned on and off to turn them into a battery storing power. Norway has about half Europe's reservoir capacity.

"We can deliver a product whether the wind is blowing or not," she said. Haga will meet EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs in Brussels on Thursday, partly to discuss the report.

It said Norway still needed new laws, competitive subsidies and more infrastructure. Norway sometimes has problems supplying even its own electricity needs with its existing hydro-power.

And it said that Denmark, Germany and Britain had done much more to develop wind power, both on land and in shallow waters. Norway's advantage was wide experience from deeper offhore oil and gas installations.

StatoilHydro (STL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said last week that it will invest $80 million to build the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine to start up in 2009. Power from such installations is likely to be more costly than on land.

The report said that Norway would have to agree long-term wind supply contracts with EU countries, including access to EU subsidies. But Haga also said: "I don't expect Europe to subsidise Norwegian wind power producion."

"It's not a first choice to import power," said Steinar Bysveen, who led the report. He said EU nations such as Germany might need imports because of a lack of space to build wind parks at home and plans to phase out nuclear power.

The Energy Council report said that 40 terrawatt hours of electricity from wind could cut 20 million tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for stoking global warming. Norway's 2007 emissions were 55 million tonnes.

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

As published on
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL2648359020080526?sp=true

© 2008, Endurance Windpower.
www.endurancewindpowerinc.com

Update 2-Wind power could make Norway "Europe's Battery"
Posted by Endurance Windpower on Sunday, March 23, 2008


Out of thin air: Successful wind confab in Houston points up Texas' growing role in alternative energy development

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Texas (Huston Chronicle)Although it tops the nation in the volume of man-made greenhouse gas emissions fueling global warming, Texas has taken the lead in developing an antidote. From nearly zero a decade ago, electricity generated by wind constitutes more than 60 percent of new energy capacity in the Lone Star State.

With 5,300 megawatts of wind-generated electricity on line, Texas is ahead of the next biggest producing state, California, and is poised to supersede a number of nations in developing an energy source that is free of pollution and does not consume precious water, saving billions of gallons a year.

In recognition of Texas' lead, the American Wind Energy Association brought its annual conference to the George R. Brown Convention Center, attracting 12,000 attendees, almost double the previous year's record number of participants. Nearly 800 exhibitors showcased products and equipment, including the massive turbines that are the signature image of the expanding wind farms in West Texas. In an indication of where the industry winds are blowing, Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems announced at the conference that it will establish in Houston next year its first American research and development facility.

Critics attack state and federal support for wind energy as a waste of public dollars for a technology that can never be competitive with more conventional sources such as coal, natural gas and nuclear. However, when a savvy Texas investor such as T. Boone Pickens launches a $12 billion project in the Panhandle to build the world's largest wind farm, it's clear that the technology is moving into the mainstream.

In Texas, wind farms swell traffic at the Port of Houston and revenues for farmers and school districts. They provide thousands of jobs. According to industry representatives, research into efficient vessels to store electricity will soon reduce the technology's principal drawback - the variable flow of electricity produced from wind.

Houston Mayor Bill White, whose administration has pushed a host of environmental and alternative energy initiatives, welcomes the growing pre-eminence of the city and state in wind energy technology. "Our goal is that Houston will not just be the energy capital of the world," said the mayor, "but for renewables and energy efficiency."

Although the Houston gathering produced upbeat predictions from wind industry leaders about continued growth, there is a cloud on the horizon. Congress has failed to agree on an extension of the federal wind-production tax credit that has been instrumental in making wind competitive with less expensive and polluting fuels such as coal.

The tax credit of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour established in 1992 and periodically extended is set to expire at the end of the year. Last year it provided $690 million in subsidies to producers of renewable energy. Although a majority of legislators support the wind subsidies, Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate are split on how to finance the provision. The House faction wants to tax hedge fund managers and other sources to pay for it. The GOP senators oppose any tax increases.

The Texas congressional delegation should work to achieve a compromise that extends the wind-production tax credit for years. At a time when the state is establishing itself as a international center of wind energy investment and development, federal support is essential to maintaining the momentum behind the expansion of this clean source of energy.

As published on-
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5817401.html


Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

© 2008, Endurance Windpower.
www.endurancewindpowerinc.com

Out of thin air: Successful wind confab in Houston points up Texas' growing role in alternative energy development
Posted by Endurance Windpower on Thursday, March 13, 2008


Will using more wind energy help to prevent global warming?

Monday, March 10, 2008

American Wind Energy Association
Yes! Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important of the global warming pollutants which are changing our climate. According to experts, if we are to avoid dangerous levels of warming, we must cut our CO2 emissions by 80-90 per cent by 2050. That means switching to forms of energy generation that do not produce CO2.

Wind power is a clean, renewable form of energy, which during operation produces no carbon dioxide. While some emissions of these gases will take place during the design, manufacture, transport and erection of wind turbines, enough electricity is generated from a wind farm within a few months to totally compensate for these emissions. When wind farms are dismantled (usually after 20-25 years of operation) they leave no legacy of pollution for future generation.

Given the scale of the CO2 cuts needed, wind power--as the least expensive, most developed renewable energy technology and the fastest to build--is the best placed renewable technology to deliver carbon emissions reductions on a large scale, quickly.

Will using more wind energy reduce health care costs?

Yes! In 2000, the Harvard School of Public Health looked at the human health effects from two fossil-fuel-fired power plants in Massachusetts. It estimates that the air pollution from the plants causes:

* 159 premature deaths
* 1,710 emergency room visits
* 43,300 asthma attacks

each year. Replacing as much of this electricity as possible with wind energy would clearly lower associated health care costs.

As published on
http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_environment.html#What%20are%20the%20environmental%20benefits%20of%20wind%20power

© 2008, Endurance Windpower.
www.endurancewindpowerinc.com

Will using more wind energy help to prevent global warming?
Posted by Endurance Windpower on Monday, March 10, 2008


© 2008 Endurance Wind Power Inc.

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