But now it’s TGI(WB)F! So let’s party with a master:
http://www.worldgallery.co.uk/art-print/The-Bird-And-The-Shark–1947–Silkscreen-print–80332.html
Henry Matisse’s Shark and the Bird
An artistic throw down to Susan Kay of the Drunkablog fame. Susan and John have a huge art collection including several rare and valuable Oller’s.
Well actually it doesn’t. But it will definitely change our lifestyles and our foodchain. But not really the way either the right or the left think or at least want you to believe. Believe me I am not being callous when I simply say that lots of people will die. There is no denying that and if we let it CHAOS could insue. But I don’t it will happen that way. One way or another we will either very quickly get a lot more renewable energy sources in place or we as a nation will be forced to return to a small farm society. The Saudi’s know for sure what is coming because they just anounced another huge solar project. Something like this:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D07E1D71639F932A35752C1A965948260
TWO years ago, this village of 3,000 people, only 20 miles from Riyadh, the capital of this kingdom, had no electricity. Today, villagers proudly display their televisions, toasters and other accouterments of an electrified society.
But when Saudis here turn their lights on at night, they are using energy generated not by their country’s vast oil reserves, but by the sun.
This village and two others nearby are the first in the kingdom, or anywhere, to be powered continuously and primarily by solar power.
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I realize that yesterday I gave sort of a short shift to the Peak Oil people. I kinda acted like everyone in the audience would know what that is. So here are some of their more promenant sites:
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Please note the bell shaped curve above. That is their arguement in a nutshell. In other words demand has exceeded the ability of the oil producers to provide oil. That ability to produce will eventually “fall off” as the supply ends and prices will go through the roof (read: become prohibitive). So what does that mean for the now Industrialized Foodchain?
In Michael Pollan’s 2006 book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he lays out huge problems with our corporate food chain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore’s_Dilemma
Industrial
Pollan begins with an exploration of the food-production system from which the vast majority of American meals are derived. This industrial food chain is largely based on corn, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose and ethanol. Pollan discusses how the humble corn plant came to dominate the American diet through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors. The role of petroleum in the cultivation and transportation of the American food supply is also discussed.
A fast food meal is used to illustrate the end result of the industrial food chain.
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In fact a scientist said that if humanity quit using nitrogen fertilizer it would be like taking EVERY automobile in the WORLD off the road.
However its interesting that he actually fails in what he sets out to do. His goal was actually to grow throught the progression of Industrial—> Small Farm—> Vegan—>Make my own meal. He wanted to make the point that Vegatarion was the way to go to save the planet from us humans. His thought being that he would make up a giant tofu salad at the end of the book. It did not go that way, because he quickly discovered that going meatless is tougher than he thought AND that it would take MORE energy inputs than we currently use to take the whole USA vegatarian. In other words we omnivores by DESIGN (duh) and we can’t change that by wishing it to be so. In the end he makes his meal and includes fish in it to show that heh you can “eat locally”. Hunting animals is a lot tougher than fishing. But heh he does not say how long it took to catch the one he shared.
Next – On to King Corn.
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Since the Peak Oil people have managed to scare the begeezus out of the whole world. I though that it was time to engage in a meditation on the Relationship between Food and Energy. Having sat through similar meditations on Religion and Energy Conservation (18 posts) and Energy Policy and the Presidential Candidates (17 posts) I can assure you this will not take more than 3 or 4 posts and will probably include Weird Bird Friday.
But let’s start with Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Delimma and a film, King Corn, by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, to take an initial pass at the problem.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/
http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php
But before we do let’s do a little thought experiment because King Corn and the Omnivore’s Dilemma both ultimately fail in what they hope to accomplish. In fact, I think that the high price of oil right now is being manipulated by the producers, the futures market and the refiners and it will come down. But as I have said to the Peak Oil people all along, we are maybe at the “oil Plateau”, but we are not at the “decline” part of the curve. It WILL COME. Thus, it is good to think about the situation to see what may happen.
As an aside here for another second. I have actually thought about farming for alot of my life because I believe that the world is warming because of our release of greenhouse gases, and that warming will destabalize our weather. That in effect would disrupt the farmers and thus the food supply. Under the “Peak Oil” senario what would happen is that all of the energy inputs into our industrial linear monocultural food chain would be withdrawn. This means no fertilizers, and no transportation for the food grown. Or maybe foods that can travel less distances. But eventually this would leaves us with no fuel to drive the tractors to plant the seeds and a loss of refrigeration. Or at least the type of refrigeration we are used to. If you believe their worst case senarios this could happen rather quickly. Think, as one of their leading bloggers recently said, about the impact of gasoline that costs 100$$ a gallon. I live about 6 or 7 miles from Springfield and I can tell you I would be walking to town at that point.
Still would we all die? If you mean ALL as Humanity, yes many of us would die if the worldwide food chain were disrupted. But think about it in another way, food would become trapped in the producing and exporting nations. So those countries would be awash in the foods that they produce. As we have seen in this last round of oil price increases the poorer countries of the world would face food riots, mass starvation, disease and death. In a moral cataclysm, the question for the 3rd world would be what to do with the bodies. Burying them would be dumb, burning them even worse…but should we recycle dead humans? Maybe we need to think about that.
In much of the world and even in parts of the third world what would happen is that we all would have to become hunters and gathers again. I am not saying that lives would not be lost, and that tremendous tumult would not result but at least initially we all would have to become small plot croppers like we did during WWII. When I mention Victory Gardens to the PO (peak oil) folks they go ballistic. They jump up and down and shout, “It’s the population stupid.”
So if the ALL in We Are All Going To Die is we folks in the US of A then let’s look at it. In 1940 there were 133 million people in the US, now there are roughly 280 million people. So a simple analysis could say that 150 million people here would die. That is to die back to the point where Victory Gardens were effective. But I have my doubts about that. Looking at the worst disaster to hit this country, the Flu Pandemic of 1918 the US suffered a net loss of population of 60 thousand people. That was .06% of the population.
I also am intellectually opposed to “science fiction” posturings where the rich rule the world and the poor eat Solent Green. Nonetheless I am not naïve enough to assume that millions won’t die here. The Pandemic actually wiped out a birth rate producing 1.5 million people a year before it “went negative”. Would we survive as a capitalist democracy? That is a much bigger question. It would be imperative in that first farming year that fuel prices spiked that every scrap of food grown is preserved. Capitalists might not be willing to pay the cost of that. Would many of us end up eating field corn or something made out of it. Heck yes. Would our livestock have to get by on grass? Oh yah. Would the megacities empty. I don’t know, but again the problem is corporate land ownership. That land would have to be expropriated to put small producers on it. Is democracy up for the test? It may have no choice.
Would I survive as a country boy living in the middle of Illinois? Yes, I believe I would. Country Boys Will Survive. God, I have always wanted to say that.
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/uranium.html
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is a part of the US Public Health Service (PHS). The PHS and NIOSH have conducted a series of studies since 1950 on the health of uranium miners. The following has information about the results of the latest study.
The PHS began the study in 1950 because of concerns that uranium mining causes lung cancer. (We know that miners were not informed of these concerns at the time). We call it a mortality study because it looks at whether miners have been dying of certain diseases at a higher than normal rate.
NIOSH researchers took over the study in the 1970s, and it has been “updated” several times. The following describes the results of the most recent update.
The mortality study did not include all uranium miners. The study group was only made up of uranium miners who worked underground for at least one month. Also, each miner must have taken part in at least one of the medical exams conducted by the PHS between 1950 and 1960.
First we obtained miners’ work histories. We obtained smoking histories from the medical exams. Next we used death certificates to find out what miners died from. Then we compared the death rates in miners to death rates in the general population of the mining states. The rates in the general population gave us the number of expected deaths in miners. When the number of deaths in miners is greater than the expected number, then an association with mining is suspected.
Because death rates are different for people of different races, we did one study on 3,238 white miners. We did a second study on 757 Native American, African American, and Asian miners. (All but 4 of the 757 miners were Native Americans, mainly Navajo). The following will review the results from each study.
From the start, radioactive radon gas and radon “daughters” in the air were suspected as the cause of the lung cancer. Radiation can be thought of like invisible radio waves (only radio waves are harmless) or like specks of dust so tiny they are invisible. We estimated how much of the radon daughters each miner was exposed to by a unit called the working level month. We then looked to see if death rates increased with higher working level months.
This exposure-response relationship is strong evidence of an association between disease and exposure. It is used to show that the longer a miner is exposed to radon gas, the greater may be the risk of lung cancer.
The study looked at all causes of death. Only the causes of death listed below were significantly above normal. The results for all other causes of death were within the normal range.
The study looked at all causes of death. Only the causes of death listed below were significantly above normal. The results for all other causes of death were within the normal range.
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16931
SIDEBAR – April 2, 2007
At least 89 people died on the job in the Interior West’s oil and gas industry from 2000 to 2006, in a variety of accidents, including 90-foot falls, massive explosions, poison gas inhalations and crushings by safety harnesses. Some states choose to have the federal government handle worker safety regulation, and some create state agencies to handle it; all the agencies tend to go by the nickname OSHA, after the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Some fines in the cases listed below are not directly related to fatalities; sometimes investigators notice unrelated safety violations when they visit workplaces where workers have died.
This list is almost certainly incomplete, due to loopholes in requirements for reporting fatalities.
The list below includes the victims’ names, age at time of death, date of the accident, company(s) involved, a description of the accident, and fines, if any. Names with hotlinks connect to .pdf’s of complete OSHA incident reports.
Ricky Erb, 19 11/27/06 Schneider Energy Services
Head injury, blown out of 5-foot hole when a reportedly 40-year-old pipeline Pending ruptured. He and rest of crew were using a cutting tool to open the pipeline, and they didn’t expect it to contain pressurized gas.
Jacob Farmer, 19 11/16/06 Leed Energy Services Inc.
Struck by falling pulley on a well-servicing rig. The victim’s father works in oil and gas. Pending
Phillip Smith, 44 11/6/06 Easy Street Crane Service
Crushed by truck. Pending
Joshua Arvidson, 24 1/25/06 Calfrac Well Services Ltd.
Engulfed by 40,000 pounds of sand in a storage bin. $27,825
Zac Mitchek, 42 11/25/05 Patterson-UTI Drilling Co.
Electrocuted while doing maintenance on a light plant for a drill rig. $11,900
Larry Hill, 42 11/7/05 Union Drilling Inc.
Fell 55 feet from platform on drill-rig derrick while handling hoisted drill pipes. OSHA said the company did not ensure that the worker was using proper fall-protection gear. $19,990
Randall Taylor, 62 8/14/04 Wolverine Drilling Inc.
Crushed by pulley system that collapsed from top of derrick while rig was trying to lift 270,000 pounds of drill pipe from a hole 8,400-feet deep. OSHA issued violations for unrelated problems. $4,560
Scott Nelson, 26 6/1/04 Union Drilling Inc.
Crushed when the top of a drill rig collapsed. OSHA estimated the rig was built in the 1970s and said a faulty weld failed under the strain of more than 300,000 pounds of drill pipe. $18,225
http://www.usmra.com/disasters_80on.htm
| Fatalities Occurring at Underground Coal Mine Disasters Since 1980 |
|
||||||||||||
| Date | Company and Mine | State/City | No. Killed |
|
|||||||||
| 09/15/80 | Ziegler Coal Co. Spartan Mine |
IL, Sparta | 3 | ||||||||||
| 10/27/80 | Frank Crawford Coal Co. No. 1 Mine |
KY, Woodbine | 3 | ||||||||||
| 11/07/80 | Westmoreland Coal Co. Ferrell No. 17 |
WV, Uneeda | 5 | ||||||||||
| 04/15/81 | Mid-Continent Resources, Inc. Dutch Creek No. 1 |
CO, Redstone | 15 | ||||||||||
| 06/03/81 | Grays Knob Coal Co. No. 5 Mine |
KY, Grays Knob | 3 | ||||||||||
| 12/03/81 | Elk River Sewell Coal Co. Stillhouse Run No. 1 |
WV, Bergoo | 3 | ||||||||||
| 12/07/81 | Adkins Coal Co. No. 11 Mine |
KY, Kite | 8 | ||||||||||
| 12/08/81 | Grundy Mining Co. No. 21 Mine |
TN, Whitewell | 13 | ||||||||||
| 01/20/82 | RFH Coal Co. No. 1 Mine |
KY, Craynor | 7 | ||||||||||
| 08/24/82 | Island Creek Coal Co. VA Pocahontas Mine |
VA, Oakwood | 3 | ||||||||||
| 06/21/83 | Clinchfield Coal Co. | VA, McClure | 7 | ||||||||||
| 07/04/83 | Helen Mining Co. Homer City Mine |
PA, Homer City | 1 | ||||||||||
| 02/16/84 | Penna. Mines Corp. Greenwich Collieries No. 1 Mine |
PA, Green Township | 3 | ||||||||||
| 09/12/84 | Bon Trucking Co. Berger No. 2 Mine |
KY, Evarts | 4 | ||||||||||
| 12/19/84 | Emery Mining Corp. Wilberg Mine |
UT, Orangeville | 27 | ||||||||||
| 08/19/85 | R & R Coal Co. No. 3 Mine |
KY, Woodbine | 3 | ||||||||||
| 12/11/85 | M.S.W. Coal Co. No. 2 Slope |
PA, Carlstown | 3 | ||||||||||
| 02/06/86 | Consolidation Coal Co. Loveridge No. 22 Mine |
WV, Fairview | 5 | ||||||||||
| 07/09/86 | Freeman United Coal Co. Orient No. 6 Mine |
IL, Waltonville | 3 | ||||||||||
| 01/04/89 | Cumberland Valley Contractors CV-2 Mine |
KY, Middlesboro | 3 | ||||||||||
| 09/13/89 | Pyro Mining Co. William Station Mine |
KY, Sullivan | 10 | ||||||||||
| 07/31/90 | Granny Rose Coal Co. No. 3 Mine |
KY, Barbourville | 3 | ||||||||||
| 02/13/91 | J & T Coal, Inc. No. 1 Mine |
VA, St. Charles | 4 | ||||||||||
| 03/19/92 | Consolidation Coal Co. Blacksville No. 1 Mine |
WV, Blacksville | 4 | ||||||||||
| 12/07/92 | Southmountain Coal Co. No. 3 Mine |
VA, Norton | 8 | ||||||||||
| 07/31/00 | RAG American Coal Holdings, Inc. Willow Creek Mine |
Helper, Utah | 2 | ||||||||||
| 09/23/01 | Jim Walter Resources No. 5 Mine |
AL, Brookwood | 13 | ||||||||||
| 01/22/03 | McElroy Mining CompanyContractor: Central Cambria Drilling | WV, Cameron | 3 | ||||||||||
| 01/02/06 | International Mines Corp. Sago Mine |
WV, Tallmansville | 12 | ||||||||||
| 01/19/06 | Massey Energy Aracoma Mining Co. Alma Mine No. 1 |
WV, Melville | 2 | ||||||||||
| 05/20/06 | Kentucky Darby LLC Darby Mine No. 1 |
KY, Holmes Mill | 5 | ||||||||||
| 08/06/07 08/16/07 |
Genwal and Murray Energy Corp. Crandall Canyon Mine |
UT, Huntington | 6 3 |
||||||||||
| Total 197 | |||||||||||||
Unfortunately I found this out initially from a website that advertises fraud. They are very happy about all those “run your car on WATER Scams”, so happy that they pick the TOP 3 for you. These creeps should be in jail. Another sad thing is that they are WAY better than me at finding cool energy technology. For that reason alone I WILL not tell you their website, but I will post their text from last year.
The Human Powered Car
August 10th, 2007
Seattle company HumanCar®, founded by Charles S. Greenwood PE, has been developing human powered vehicles for over 30 years. Their showcase creation is the human car, a 4-wheel, 4-passenger vehicle that can achieve remarkable speeds of 60+ mph! Unfortunately the car is not available to the public, the orginal prototype cost $250,000. The stated goal of the project is to develop efficient transportation alternatives that inspire a “sense of an evolving socioeconomical model”. According to HumanCar®, “The time is drawing near when all of the elements – manufacturing, marketing, and product optimization – come together in a cost effective and aesthetically pleasing form.”
For the reel deal, you can go here though I left the link above hot too:
Normally I would post chucks of their website. But it’s all done in Adobe Flash and PDF advanced file types that I can not copy. Fortunately they have a press release so I hope to do something with that.
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OKOK due to technival difficulties which transcend the time I have spent on this…NONE of the Press materials came through unscarred. It was transmitted as a ZIP file. I can’t even give you a real address because there is no “contact us” thingy…Maybe these guys aren’t so bright after all…While you wait here are 2 You Tubes about it which are basically the same…one is longer than the other..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=369463415941480101
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xp-923G8i4
Finally something by the inventor himself:
Charles Greenwood P.E. Inventor and Engineer of HumanCar® Inc welcomes you to join us for the launch of the Imagine™ LMV HumanCar®.
The Imagine™ LMV is rocking the world. Get involved. Imagine™ Electric Hybrid Pre-Order Information – The HumanCar® Imagine™ features an exoskeletal safety cage chassis, dual electric motors, variable human power input, Body-Steering™ patented chassis and SyncGuideway™ compatibility as standard equipment. It retails for $15k base. Feel free to email us here for a free pre-order number.
First 100 vehicles “Launch Series” Pre-Orders accepted now. Limited production prototype models are currently in build cycles. We are 6 to 12 months out from scale delivery. (HumanCar Inc. makes three models- the FM4 “Troublemaker”, The Rod, a 10 second 189-mph hybrid race car and the Imagine™ the revolutionary electric/human hybrid)
HumanCar® Inc. developing international appeal and The Great Change.
HumanCar vehicles may be used to generate power or transport people.
Deep Forest OREGON, USA: The evolutionary HumanCar® LMV Imagine™ street-legal dual electric motor/human hybrid vehicle in production, ” represents the entry point to the great change” says Chuck Greenwood CEO of HumanCar Inc. ” people globally will be able to solve critical resource problems locally and create individual efforts to reduce and regenerate their own power.”
He goes on to say that SBS Communications of Seoul just shot a documentary at a HumanCar R/D Center. “They were interested in the spiritual aspect and understood when the inventor and engineer of the project, my father Charles Samuel Greenwood, described how pure chi energy is charged to the heart chakra, it was magical. Thus is the nature of the project. The concept that one four-passenger human power interface can generate well over 2k Watts, enough to power a home or help maintain a charge for transportation is magical. The fun part is, it’s a reality” Mr. Greenwood chimes “As a part of the release this February we wanted to supply a FAQ that will answer new followers to the project’s questions.”
An Interview with Mr. Charles Samuel Greenwood P.E. inventor of the HumanCar.
How many bicycles were used to make the FM-4?
No Bicycle parts are used in the FM-4.
Where are the pedals?
The TWASTA Patent (Team Work and Strength Training Apparatus) defines a mobile – or stationery – full body work out device, for multiple participants. There are no pedals.
How does it handle?
BodySteer utilizes more degrees of freedom than leaning – like riding a motorcycle. High speed handling is critical to the safe performance of any vehicle. Why make a 200 MPH chassis/suspension system? Why not? BodySteer is at least as effective as wheel steering – some would say much more effective.
Then why have both front occupants steer?
Part of the fun of teamwork is to share tasks. Think of it as Pilot and Co-Pilot. Either can control the vehicle, but there is an exotic sensory input when you feel the others sharing the activity. Dominant/Submissive arrangements work, and so does real-time cooperation.
Do you need a full team?
Three people works quite well. Of course, with one or two people you are probably going to want auxiliary power.
Can you tell who is slacking and who is jacking?
Instantly.
Why does the FM-4 prototype not have a motor on it?
(Don’t answer that question. Make them go to the site and see.)
We’re hot rod builders, dirt bike riders, bicycling enthusiasts, and we love all kind of sports, with or without machines, with or without electronics. We love healthy people. You and your family will power yourselves down to the store and back. Then watch for some real exciting radical hardware.
____________________XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX______________________
Contact:
HumanCar Inc.
206 280 4772 mobile
http://www.humancar.com/
thehumancar@gmail.com
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:}This is One of the Cool Sites I visit often. If for no other reason than to check the falling price of Solar Photovoltaics.
Some of the links are active below, if you want to use them but it’s easier to just go there and do that.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/index.asp
|
WORLD SOLAR ENERGY NEWS HEADLINES |
Latest News….
May 5, 2008
Munich, Germany: Centrosolar and Qimonda in Cell Manufacture Joint Venture May 2, 2008
Boading, China: Yingli Signs Module Contract with Eiko Trading May 2, 2008
Novato, CA, USA: iPower Completes PV System for Flora SpringsMay 2, 2008
Albuquerque, NM, USA: SkyFuel Secures Funding for Solar Thermal Power Technology
voltaic Module Survey Retail Prices (DEC 2001 – MAY 2008)
Photovoltaic Module Survey Retail Prices (DEC 2001 – MAY 2008)
Photovoltaic Module Survey Retail Prices (DEC 2001 – MAY 2008)
|
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| PRICE SURVEY: MAY 2008 |
| Solar Electricity |
21.29 cents per kWh UNCHANGED |
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:
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| SITE NAVIGATION | ||||
| MEDIA | ||||
| SITE SEARCH |
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We installed the most generation capacity in the nation in 2007! Yahoo
http://www.illinoiswind.org/news/index.asp
News
Section 9006 Program Funds for Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements
This message is from Molly Hammond, USDA Rural Development- Illinois, April 7,2008USDA published a notice yesterday (4/6/08)in the Federal Register announcing it is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2008 to purchase renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements for agriculture producers and rural small businesses in eligible rural areas. Funding will be available in the form of grants, guaranteed loans, and combined guaranteed loans and grant applications. For FY 2008 there is approximately $15.9 million in funding for competitive grants and $205 million in authority for guaranteed loans. Funding for grant and loan combination packages will be funded from the same allocation as loan guarantees.I have attached the Federal Register document to this email. Please read it carefully. Pay particular attention to the mention of the Environmental Assessment. The environmental process should begin right away. Please contact me for information on environmental requirements for specific projects. This year there will be two competitive grant cycles. The first deadline is April 15, 2008. Applications that are not funded in the first competition will automatically be considered under the second competition. Grant applications in the second cycle are due no later than June 16, 2008. Loan applications and grant/loan combination applications will be evaluated on a bi-weekly basis until June 16. These will be funded on a first-come first-serve basis. I would suggest submitting a combination application as soon as possible. Please note that combination applications must score at least 84 points to remain eligible.
Please see the following websites for more information on the program:
http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/farmbill/index.html – Section 9006 website
A copy of the regulation can be found at the above website, but a more reader-friendly version is available at this link: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/regs/regs/pdf/4280b.pdf
Application templates and other useful items can be found at the Environmental Law and Policy Center website. Please note that this is not a USDA Rural Development website.
www.farmenergy.org
http://www.agmrc.org/agmrc/provider_search.asp – Link to a list of grant writers.
I look forward to working with you, and feel free to contact me with any questions.
Molly K. Hammond
USDA Rural Development – Illinois
Business Cooperative Specialist
Phone: 217-403-6210
Fax: 217-403-6215
But Illinois is not without resistance.
Rail splitter project may
`
be caught in turbulence
By TIM LANDIS
BUSINESS EDITOR
tim.landis @sj-r.com
One of the nation’s largest developers of wind energy hopes to have 67 turbines churning out electricity by the end of this year along a stretch of interstate highway about 50 miles north of Springfield.
The $175 million to $200 million Rail Splitter Wind Farm would produce enough power to meet the annual needs of 30,000 homes.
“Assuming we get approval, we hope to begin construction in May and to have the project online by the end of this year,” Bill Whitlock, a project manager for Horizon Wind Energy, said Wednesday.
Whitlock said the company plans to file for a construction permit in Logan County or,-Monday, and already has filed in Tazewell County for the right to build on 11,000 acres of farmland shared by the two counties.
The site is on both sides of Interstate 155 near the community of Delavan, between Lincoln and Peoria. Whitlock said 38 of the 380-to 390-foot towers — the state Capitol, by comparison, is 361 feet to the top of the dome — would be in Tazewell County and 29 would be in Logan County.
Whitlock said the company also continues to negotiate leases with farmers whose land is needed and is exploring markets for the power.
Horizon Energy’s first major project in central Illinois, the 240-turbine Twin Groves Wind Farm near Bloomington, ran into a variety of legal challenges, including from landowners, before it began producing electricity last year. The U.S. Department of Energy r nois at 16 among the top 20 states for wind-energy potential.
But the head of the Illinois Wind Working Group — a consortium of utilities, rural electric cooperatives, farm organizations and economic development agencies — said Wednesday he expects commercial wind farms to remain controversial.
“There are probably going to be lawsuits, and counties really have to be careful to make sure they follow legal procedures,” said David Loomis, who also is an associate professor of economics at Illinois State University in Normal.
Even on a residential scale, wind turbines can be a touchy subject with neighbors, according to Bill Fabian, owner of Midstate Renewable Energy Services in Champaign. The home-based business has sold about a dozen residential turbines the past two years.
“You always have the proximity issue with neighbors who may not be as enthused about wind power as you are,” Fabian said.
He said the typical home unit costs $15,000 to $19,000. The tower is usually 60 feet, tall enough to get above most treetops.
“I think it’s going to remain mostly a niche market for residents who can not only afford it, but have the commitment to make it work,” he said.
Officials in Logan County have estimated the Rail Splitter project could generate about $234,000 in tax revenue the first year. The Tazewell County Zoning Board of Appeals has set three public hearings in April on the proposal.
GateHouse News Service contributed to this report. Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536.
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But Sangamon County? The leader in all things innovative? Not so much…
Flat ground won’t work
By TIM LANDIS
BUSINESS EDITOR
tim.landis@sj-r.com
It isn’t for a lack of wind. But Sangamon County is considered too flat in most spots when it comes to commercial wind development.
Nearly a year and a half since the county approved rules for wind-turbine construction, exactly two permits have been approved. Both were for what amounted to do-it-yourself home projects in the wind industry.
“It was for two mini-systems,” said county zoning and building administrator Randy Armstrong.
The wind rules were approved in the fall of 2006 after a commercial developer approached the county about the possibility of a local wind firm. After the initial inquiry, nothing more was heard, Armstrong said.
“They said they were interested, so we thought maybe we’d better get something on the books,” he said.
The director of the Illinois Wind Working Group at Illinois State University explained that potential turbine sites are graded ,m a scale of 1 to 7. The higher the number, the more suitable the area for commercial wind development.
“Most of Illinois is a class 3-plus or a 4. Usually, a class 3 or 4 is the minimum they’d consider to be commercially viable,” David Loomis said.
Loomis said Illinois also has the advantage of large population centers that make it financially feasible to build projects at lower wind speeds compared to sparsely populated states such as North Dakota that rank at a “6” or higher.
But he said the suitability of terrain varies considerably, even from county to county.
“If you look at McLean County (Bloomington-Normai), you’d say, ‘Gee, it’s as flat as Sangamon County. But in reality, there’s a slow rise upward, and it ends in a ridge on the eastern side of our county,” he said.
The Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative, based in Auburn, is waiting for equipment to begin construction of a single wind turbine on a reclaimed coal-mine site about 30 miles south of Springfield, along Interstate 55 at Farmersville.
The turbine would supply about 500 homes.
Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536.
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The nice people at Solar Power Rocks asked me to link up with them. AWWWWW somebody else loves CES! Anyway they are going to explain html LINKS to me so I can try to do it.
http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/
In the mean time this is todays post:
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Dave Llorens
Dan Hahn
Wear us out!
Posted on April 16, 2008 by Dan Hahn.
Categories: Solar Trends.
We’ve noticed that there’s been quite a bit of chatter and advertising dollars thrown into solar in the bay area over the past year or so. For instance, we were just at a San Francisco Giants game last week and couldn’t help but notice the numerous PGE ads for their solar installation at AT&T park urging homeowners to consider the switch to solar. Glitzy ads from large oil companies (ahem, right right, “energy companies”) also emblazoned large billboards with solar elements. Well, the incentives in California are so good, that we started to wonder how many homeowners out of total in the bay area are already on board. So, it’s time for some good ol’ fashioned data analysis of the Bay Area residential solar market. The figures below were generated from data sourced by one of Dave’s colleagues. See the sources below for more info on their lineage.
As you can see from the image above, Contra Costa county accounts for just about half of the solar installs in the bay area over the past 3 years. The other counties pale in comparison. However, you can see from the chart below that there is a substantial way to go to penetrate the rest of the bay area market. While Contra Costa county does account for half of those installs, consider that that county is only about 2% saturated!
Key Assumptions
1. Size, Installed Price and # of installs numbers based on solar installs from 11/05 -1/08 –See
http://www.energy.ca.gov/renewables/emergingrenewableslindex.html
2. Population and Households data based on 2006 ACS Census estimates –See
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/ for details
3. Penetration calculated as % of households with solar.
