QUICK NEWS, August 17: BRYCE BUNGLES WIND FACTS; DOI APPROVES GIANT PV PLANT; WIND PROTECTING BIRDS; SUN STORAGE BREAKTHROUGH

BRYCE BUNGLES WIND FACTS
Fact check: Bryce whiffs on wind power and Texas heat wave
August 12, 2011 (Into The Wind)

"…Robert Bryce… may want to check in with the company that operates the Texas utility system to get his facts straight…[T]he Texas system operator, ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), has been very clear that wind energy was the crucial factor keeping the lights and AC on for hundreds of thousands of Texans during last week's power shortages…

"… [Trip Doggett, ERCOT CEO] said… recently installed coastal wind farms — as opposed to the larger West Texas wind generation — provided crucial power at just the right time…[as] unexpected failures at around 20 fossil-fired power plants cut approximately 5-7% of the generating capacity the grid operator had been planning to use…"

click to enlarge

"…[A] similar event occurred back in February, when around 80 mostly fossil-fired power plants experienced unexpected outages due to cold weather, which caused the lights and heat to go out for millions of Texans. Luckily wind energy output was there to save the day, keeping the lights on for around a million Texas households. If Mr. Bryce weren't on the payroll of the Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries-funded Manhattan Institute, he might have shown more thanks for wind energy keeping his lights on twice now in recent months.

"… Mr. Bryce's prescription for using more fossil-fired power plants instead of wind would have actually made Texas's power system less reliable…[W]ind energy is currently beating fossil fuel energy 2-0…"


DOI APPROVES GIANT PV PLANT
550 MW Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Receives Approval From Secretary Salazar
11 August 2011 (Solar Industry)

"U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Ken Salazar has approved the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, a 550 MW solar PV project to be built in the California desert east of Palm Springs. The decision authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to offer Desert Sunlight Holdings a right-of-way grant to use these public lands for 30 years…

"The solar facility will create more than 630 jobs at peak construction and infuse an estimated $336 million into the local economy…"

click to enlarge

"Located on approximately 4,100 acres of public lands, the project will be developed and operated by Desert Sunlight Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of First Solar Inc. The facility will use First Solar's thin film technology. An on-site substation and a 230 kV generation tie line will connect the project to the Red Bluff substation, which will convert the power from 230 kV to 500 kV for transmission on Southern California Edison's regional grid.

"The Desert Sunlight project underwent extensive environmental review and mitigation…The proposed project's total footprint was reduced from 19,000 acres down to 4,144 acres…[and] BLM is requiring that Desert Sunlight provide funding for acquisition and enhancement of more than 7,500 acres of suitable habitat for desert tortoise and other sensitive wildlife species to help mitigate the project's potential impacts…[T]he U.S. Department of Energy granted Desert Sunlight a conditional commitment of a $1.88 billion loan guarantee."


WIND PROTECTING BIRDS
Birds and blades: cutting the losses
Jason Deign, 15 August 2011 (Wind Energy Update)

"Recent data indicates that wind turbines account for just one out of every 10,000 bird deaths…If a turbine is sited on a migration path, however, or on a route used by birds or bats between roosts and feeding sites, it can become a serious cause of wildlife mortality. Moving at speeds in the order of 90 metres a second, rotor tips knock birds out of the air before they can react.

"Bats appear to have even greater trouble with turbines, even though they use echolocation that, in theory, can help them avoid fast-moving objects…[E]xperts believe the sound and pale colour of rotors may attract insects at night, which increases the chances of bat strikes."

click to enlarge

"…Reports published by [the Centre for Sustainable Energy and the American Wind Energy Association] indicate that while turbine bird and bat kills can and do occur anywhere, two wind farm developments in particular have given the industry a bad reputation in this respect…the California Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area…[and two
installations in Spain’s] Campo de Gibraltar mountains have affected bird populations…

"In both cases the turbines involved were older designs which are thought to be harder for birds to avoid, and were sited on obvious avian flight paths. But their impact on the industry has been significant…[because] scaremongering is rarely based on fact…So the message for wind farm operators is that they need to do their homework before selecting a site…"


SUN STORAGE BREAKTHROUGH
Solar thermal storage: MIT breakthrough on solar triggered, reversible heat storage
Rikki Stancich, 12 August 2011 (CSP Today)

"…Rather than storing solar energy as heat, [Jeff Grossman] and Alexie Kolpak at MIT have developed a method of storing energy in a chemical form, by combining a compound called azobenzene with tiny tubular structures of pure carbon (carbon nanotubes) to produce a material capable of reversibly storing solar energy…"

[Professor Jeff Grossman, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:] “…[The] carbon nanotube serves as a template for the azobenzene molecules, making the pack together on the surface of the nanotube…in a way they would not normally order, either in a liquid or a solid phase…[It] gives us the opportunity to control the photochemistry of the azobenzene molecule in completely new ways…[and] turn this ordinary chromophore into an appealing material for solar thermal fuels.”

(from Grossman/Kolpak - click to enlarge)

[Professor Jeff Grossman, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:] “…[The] resulting fuel is transportable and can be made to store the energy for long periods of time (even years). Until it is ‘activated’ the molecule will simply remain in its excited state, not releasing any of the energy…”

[Professor Jeff Grossman, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:] “…The density of energy storage in the fuel is about the same as the best lithium ion batteries, but of course it should be noted that this fuel is also rechargeable by sunlight. The same material both converts and stores energy, and our predictions show that it could do so for >10^4 cycles…”