QUICK NEWS, 10-31: LIVING WITH FRACKING; FORECAST FOR CALIFORNIA IS SUN; GE DEBUTS ADVANCED TURBINE

LIVING WITH FRACKING
Fracked: A Personal Account of Living on the Shale
Libby Foust, October 26, 2011 (The Clean.Org)

"Nothing can prepare a person for the reality of high-volume "fracking"; certainly not the coaxing of suave salesmen who convince landowners to sign leases by telling them that they've won ‘the natural gas sweepstakes.’ And certainly not their description of benign completed gas wells that stand in green meadows, silently pumping money out of the ground.

"When the frackers come, they arrive like an invading army…Trucks by the hundreds, tankers, dump trucks, drilling rigs, fracking rigs. Five-acre drilling pads were bulldozed in the middle of farmers' best fields, million-gallon ponds were installed, roads were built, woods and fields were trenched and bulldozed for tie lines…"

Marcellus shale fracking vehicles at a staging site(click thru for more info)

"…Drilling rigs went up at an unbelievable rate. From one spot on our farm, I counted eight rigs.

"Then the generators started. You could hear them a half-mile away…Then the pumping stations - small, industrial sites with buildings and pipes sticking up out of the ground…[at] the site of some of the first Marcellus wells in Bradford County, Pennsylvania…"


FORECAST FOR CALIFORNIA IS SUN
Research Firm Forecasts California Market To Continue Growth
20 October 2011 (Solar Industry)

"…[R]esearch firm IHS iSuppli [reports] U.S. solar installations are predicted to rise 166% this year, led by California, which will account for nearly 1 GW of new capacity…New Jersey is expected to be second with 260 MW, followed by Arizona with 240 MW. New Mexico and Nevada round out the top five…[A]n additional 1.2 GW of solar will come online in California in 2012."

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[Troy Dalbey, managing director of North America, Upsolar:] "California's representation in the U.S. solar market reached 45 percent this year, up from 38 percent in 2010. With so much activity and growth, the state is ripe with opportunities for sales and strategic partnerships…"


GE DEBUTS ADVANCED TURBINE
GE Marks Northern European Debut of 2.75 Megawatt Wind Turbine Technology in Scotland
October 26, 2011 (GE)

"Supporting Scotland’s goal to produce 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, GE… is supplying nine of its 2.75 megawatt wind turbines for the Little Raith Wind Farm project that recently began construction near Lochgelly in Fife, Scotland. The project marks the commercial debut of GE’s 2.75 megawatt wind turbine technology in Northern Europe.

"Little Raith is the first commercial wind farm to be built in Fife, which is Scotland's third largest local municipality by population. The nine-turbine wind farm will have an installed capacity of 24.75 megawatts of green energy, which represents an important step in reducing Fife’s carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2013 as the county works to increase its production of cleaner energy."

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"GE expects to complete the wind turbine installation by 2012 for Manchester, United Kingdom-based Kennedy Renewables, which owns the Little Raith project…GE also will provide Kennedy Renewables with customer support for the Little Raith project under a five-year, full service agreement…

"…GE’s ecomagination-qualified 2.75 megawatt wind turbine technology is the latest in the company’s portfolio of multi-megawatt wind turbines developed to suit a variety of wind regimes, including the windier climate of Scotland…The evolution of GE’s multi-megawatt turbine design began with the 2.5 megawatt turbine introduced in 2004. GE’s 2.5-100 rotor [as well as the 2.75 megawatt 100] and the 2.75-103m rotor…[were designed] with high reliability [permanent magnet generators]…"