A Mightier Wind
Wind turbines may soon be ready to compete with conventional power
By Brad Stone
Newsweek International
Sept. 6-13 issue - If Jim Dehlsen ever needs to remind himself why, at 67, he's still trying to save the world, all he has to do is glance outside his window. The offices of his three-year-old firm, Clipper Windpower, look across the tranquil Santa Barbara Channel and, in the distance, to the remote marine sanctuary of Santa Cruz Island. Marring that view are eight oil rigs jutting into the ocean mist. In 1969 a well underneath one platform ruptured, releasing 750,000 liters of crude into the harbor, coating beaches and killing thousands of birds. Today, the oil rigs represent to Dehlsen America's dependence on fossil fuels. "We're not only depleting those resources but reaching the limits of what the planet can absorb, in terms of emissions," he says. "And that is clearing the way for the return of wind power."
Not long ago, wind power was the domain of fringe scientists and environmentalists. In the 1970s the idea of harvesting the wind's kinetic energy and converting it into electrons was not only expensive but impractical: the first rickety, garage-built turbines often self-destructed in storms. The industry grew in the '80s and '90s, but wind was still too costly, generating power at more than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, versus less than five cents for coal and other fossil fuels. Even today, wind power feeds less than half of 1 percent of America's ravenous energy appetite, and about 5 percent of Germany's and Spain's.
But the industry is maturing and growing quickly—and is beginning to find its place as one viable element in the energy puzzle. Dehlsen is one of its pioneers. His first wind company, Zond—founded in 1980 and sold to Enron in 1997—was synonymous with many early breakthroughs. The firm was the first to add wind energy to the California electricity grid and to bring scientific rigor to the locating of wind farms and development of wind turbines. In recent years much bigger companies like General Electric, which bought what was left of Zond after Enron imploded, have entered the field alongside Denmark's Vestas, which last year merged with rival NEG Micon to create a European wind giant. With rapidly improving technology and major corporate muscle behind wind power, costs are falling: wind contracts now average three cents per kilowatt hour (with tax subsidies), cheaper than coal and comparable to natural gas and oil. Because the wind is uncontrolled—it doesn't always blow—the challenge is to drive costs down further. Still, says Bob Thresher of the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab, "Wind is the first renewable technology that is very nearly competitive in the market for bulk power generation."
For his part, pioneer Dehlsen has returned to the fray with Clipper, which seeks to replay Zond's original game plan: broker new wind farms around the world, and use the revenues to fund advancements in wind technology. Clipper is currently opening farms such as Iowa's Flying Cloud, a 44-megawatt wind plant activated in July, with turbines purchased from General Electric. Phase two, beginning later this year, will see Clipper unveil its own envelope-pushing turbine design. The C93 Liberty is a 2.5-megawatt turbine with a rotor span of 93 meters; it features a sophisticated mechanism to distribute the torque from high-speed winds among four onboard electricity generators. That, Dehlsen boasts, will translate into the most efficient turbine in the industry, making wind power even more attractive when compared with new coal and natural-gas power plants. The new turbines are also optimized for use in regions of moderate winds, which would allow wind farms to be located closer to transmission grids than they typically are today. GE and others are working on similar advances, including larger machines for offshore sites.
New technology alone isn't going to revolutionize an obstinate energy industry. Politics, as much as innovation, governs new energy policy. While European governments heavily subsidize wind production, the United States still funnels far greater resources into tax breaks for oil companies, and has even recently allowed the wind-production tax credit to expire. (Dehlsen and others think Congress will eventually renew the wind tax credit.) Then there's the perennial NIMBY problem: no one wants to open their window shade and see a new industrial turbine creaking in the breeze.
But the most important task, Dehlsen thinks, is to continue to drive costs down and efficiencies up, so that the attraction of wind becomes irresistible. Dehlsen says the cost of wind needs to fall below three cents per kilowatt hour—without tax credits—to truly break society's addiction to fossil fuels. "It's still not there, but we're getting close," he says. He's putting in long days and full weeks, traveling frequently and trying to raise another round of investment dollars for Clipper. (The com-pany has already raised more than $18 million in capital.) He plans to open a wind farm in Oaxaca, Mexico, the largest in Latin America, and in 2006 Clipper will introduce a new turbine with retract-able rotors, so that the size of the turbine can be altered to match the speed of the —wind. (In low winds, longer blades are more productive.) As for the future of the planet, Dehlsen is less sanguine. He plies a visitor with several tracts on climate trends and laments America's insatiable thirst for fossil fuels. The evidence is right outside his window.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5852675/site/newsweek/
The Too Slow Flow
Why Indonesia could get all its power from volcanoes—but doesn't
By Peter Janssen
Newsweek International
Sept. 6-13 issue - American giants like ChevronTexaco and Unocal began exploring the vast energy potential trapped in Indonesian volcanoes two decades ago, when Jakarta opened the sector to foreign investors. An archipelago of 17,000 islands spanning three time zones, Indonesia sits on the Asian-Pacific "ring of fire" and boasts the world's highest density of volcanoes—about 500—of which 128 are still active; 65 of these are listed as "dangerous." The upside: volcanoes make Indonesia the only large nation in the world with the potential to generate 100 percent of its electricity from clean, endless stores of geothermal energy. Yet 20 years on, the country has just a few small geothermal plants, including one run by a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco called Amoseas Indonesia Inc.
That may be about to change. In June Indonesia ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, making it eligible for millions in subsidies for projects that cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Amoseas has applied for approximately $5 million in credits that could make or break a planned $100 million expansion of its operations on the Darajat volcano in West Java, more than doubling output to 330 megawatts, enough to power a medium-size city. That's not much, but it would be a step toward reviving Indonesia's geothermal master plan.
Under President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia is finally building some reform-minded momentum, seven years after the Asian financial crisis derailed an early-1990s plan to develop 11 geothermal plants producing 3,417 megawatts. Tapping a volcano involves drilling wells to reach the hot steam created by underground lava flows; risks are fairly high, and the payback period is long. When the '97 crisis toppled Indonesian dictator Suharto and sent the economy into a spin, seven of the 11 contracts were suspended. But now several are being restructured, led by the Amoseas deal.
Multinationals had several complaints about the way Suharto did business, some of which have been cleared away. A 2001 law ended the requirement that geothermal exploration be conducted in partnership with the state oil company, Pertamina. Under Suharto, Indonesia also required developers to take on a local partner, which often meant one of the dictator's sons, Tommy. Today Tommy is in prison for masterminding the murder of a judge, but the partner rule remains. So, too, do subsidies that continue to undercut alternatives. Until those biases are removed, geothermal "won't take off," warns Emil Salim, a former Environment minister.
Amoseas entered into a contract with Pertamina in 1984 to develop Darajat, and has not yet recovered its initial investment. Company officials say the expansion plans depend on getting Kyoto credits; geothermal plants emit 1,800 times less carbon dioxide than coal-burning plants and 1,600 times less than oil-burning plants. Once again, that's being delayed by bureaucracy; Indonesia has yet to set up an agency to handle applications, as required by the United Nations, which oversees the credit system. It may take years, if not decades, before the country can burn through the red tape and tap its volcanoes.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5852678/site/newsweek/