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According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the capacity the US has for generating wind power is expected to increase 45% in 2008. America’s currently installed capacity stands at 19,549MW, up a total of 2,726MW from the end of 2007. Thanks to this number, AWEA is announcing that America is now the US world leader in wind electricity generation.
However this is an announcement based on stats that AWEA is hoping the rest of the world won’t look at too hard.
According to AWEA’s second quarter 2008 market report, they bill the US as the new world leader in the generation of wind power electricity. Looking at Germany’s capacity, for example, sees them with a total of 23,000MW, but never using that full capacity. Apparently the winds in America are stronger, and thus max out the US capacity.
But one important little factoid has been left out of this announcement, allowing the AWEA to make a perfectly legitimate statement, but based in marketing reality.
The US may have a capacity of 19,549MW, expected to grow another 4774MW by the end of this year, but it also has a population of 304.8 million people living on a total area of 9.8 million square kilometers of land. Germany, on the other hand, has only a population of 82 million and a total area of 357,000 square kilometers.
Via
CleanTecnica
Chemically, biogas is the same as natural gas from fossil fuels, but its manufacture relies on a process where bacteria feed on fecal waste for about three weeks in an oxygen-free chamber. The result is two-thirds methane and one-third carbon dioxide, as well as a nutrient-rich residue that can be used as soil or construction material.
Once the methane is purified, it is pumped through Goteborg's network of gas pipelines to specialized filling stations, where it is pressurized for delivery. Any car with an engine and tank configured for compressed natural gas can use biogas.
After each fill-up, the corresponding amount of biogas is injected into the natural gas grid as an offset, said Bo Ramberg, chief executive of FordonsGas, which is based in Goteborg and operates the largest chain of biogas filling stations in Scandinavia.
Ola Fredriksson, an engineer at Gryaab, the sewage facility in Goteborg, said that what an average person flushed down the toilet each year created enough biogas to drive 120 kilometers, or 75 miles.
"If the oil price keeps on going up, and people are prepared to pay more for renewable energy, then it will make our company interested in producing more biogas," he said. "We have the capacity.'
More on the
Herald Tribune.
I have seen the future, and it works.
O.K., I know that these days you’re supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of “old Europe.”
But we’re living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records, in which the idea that global oil production will soon peak is rapidly moving from fringe belief to mainstream assumption. And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices — gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon — have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world.
If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much.
Notice that I said that cars should be fuel-efficient — not that people should do without cars altogether. In Germany, as in the United States, the vast majority of families own cars (although German households are less likely than their U.S. counterparts to be multiple-car owners).
But the average German car uses about a quarter less gas per mile than the average American car. By and large, the Germans don’t drive itsy-bitsy toy cars, but they do drive modest-sized passenger vehicles rather than S.U.V.’s and pickup trucks.
Read on, from the
NY Times.
