QUICK NEWS, 11-17: 200 MW PV SUN PLANT APPROVED; LOOKING FOR GEOTHERMAL; HOW WIND WILL PROTECT BATS; HOTTER EARTH SLOWER WIND

200 MW PV SUN PLANT APPROVED
Sempra Generation receives approval to build southern California solar plant; Rosamond Solar to create 300 construction jobs
November 10, 2010 (Sempra Generation)

"Sempra Generation…received unanimous approval from the Kern County Board of Supervisors to construct a new photovoltaic solar power plant in California’s Antelope Valley.

"Located in the high desert about 90 miles north of Los Angeles, Rosamond Solar will generate up to 200 megawatts (MW) or enough electricity to power about 76,000 average homes for a year…"

One of Sempra's first trials of PV, a 48 MW combined natural gas and solar facility in Nevada. (click to enlarge)

"Sempra Generation anticipates breaking ground on Rosamond Solar in 2012 with completion targeted for 2013. The project will create approximately 300 construction jobs and up to eight new long-term positions to operate the facility."

A section of Sempra's reigning PV size queen at Boulder City. (click to enlarge)

"Rosamond Solar will be built on privately owned, former agricultural land near an existing major transmission line corridor. The project will use photovoltaic solar-panel technology that does not require water to generate electricity.

"This is Sempra Generation’s fourth utility-scale solar power project. The company expects to complete construction on the largest photovoltaic solar facility in the U.S. later this year in Boulder City, Nev., and recently announced plans to launch the first phase of a 600-MW photovoltaic solar project outside Phoenix in 2011…"


LOOKING FOR GEOTHERMAL
Geologists to study New England geothermal energy
November 13, 2010 (AP via Boston Herald)

"Geologists from Massachusetts and Connecticut are teaming to study whether hot rocks miles below New England’s surface could produce geothermal energy.

"The federal Department of Energy has awarded a three-year, $441,000 grant to three scientists to research the geothermal energy potential of underground granites and gneisses."

Identified U.S. geothermal resources are mostly in the West - so far. (click thru for NREL's study on U.S. geothermal resources)

"About 450 rock samples will be collected across Massachusetts and Connecticut, then crushed at a lab and analyzed over the next three years…

"Alternative energy advocates say using geothermal energy saves electricity and is environmentally friendly."


HOW WIND WILL PROTECT BATS
Study: Curtailing Turbine Operations Shows 93% Reduction In Bat Mortality
11 November 2010 (North American Windpower)

"The second year of research to study the interaction between bats and wind turbines at the Casselman Wind Power Project shows that increasing cut-in speed of the turbines - the minimum wind speed necessary for turbines to begin spinning and producing electricity - during low wind periods in the late summer and early fall reduced bat mortality up to 93%. [Report on the first year study here.]

"The study was published online in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a journal of the Ecological Society of America…Iberdrola Renewables, the owner of the Casselman wind farm, partnered with independent conservation group Bat Conservation International (BCI) to implement the study at the southwestern Pennsylvania wind power project."

click thru to watch videos

"BCI's work is being conducted through the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, which is a coalition of the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and BCI. The cooperative's work focuses on identifying and addressing potential wind energy impacts on bats."

click thru to watch videos

"From late July to mid-October in 2008 and again in 2009, Iberdrola Renewables, working with BCI researchers, conducted a controlled experiment in which selected wind turbines at the Casselman project were stopped during relatively low wind speed nights…

"Although it was crucial for this study, curtailing turbine operations is not likely to be the complete solution to reducing the impact on bats in all circumstances or locations, but it may be a practical solution at some northeastern U.S. sites where elevated bat mortality has been a concern…"


HOTTER EARTH SLOWER WIND
Rising temperatures threaten wind energy: study
November 9, 2010 (CBC News)

"As global temperatures rise, wind speeds drop, says a Texas researcher who has calculated by how much and points out it will mean less wind for powering turbines.

"The conundrum is that while wind is promoted as a renewable source of energy, greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels impede the ability to produce clean electricity from wind…Wind is created when warm and cool air meet [and winds are stronger when the temperature contrast is bigger], said climate researcher Diandong Ren of the University of Texas at Austin…"

from the Ren paper - click thru for complete info

"Ren's [Effects of global warming on wind energy availability], appearing in the current issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, explains that prevailing winds in the "free" atmosphere (about 1,000 metres up) are maintained by the contrast in temperatures between the polar regions and lower latitudes.

"But with global warming, temperature contrasts drop because polar regions tend to heat up faster. As the temperature contrasts weaken, so too do winds…Ren calculates that a 2 C to 4 C temperature increase at Earth's mid to high latitudes would result in a four to 12 per cent decrease in wind speeds in certain high northern latitudes."

from the Ren paper - click thru for complete info

"Wind turbines are powered by wind at lower altitudes, where local topography such as mountains, valleys and even tall buildings influence its strength. But Ren said his study [assumed that changes in the upper atmosphere are consistent with changes in the lower layer]…"

[Ren, on the lesson learned:] "[The answer is not to give up on wind but] to invest in more wind turbines to gain the same amount of energy. Wind energy will still be plentiful and wind energy still profitable, but we need to tap the energy source earlier."