Scientists at Stanford University are looking at a way to connect North America’s wind farms, making wind power less intermittent than its source.
This entry on the ZDNet blogs says they’re trying to find a way to literally connect the dots you see on the map (wind speeds at 80 meters in the year 2000) on the right:
This research about connecting wind farms has been led by Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Cristina Archer, a consulting assistant professor at Stanford.
Besides providing a steady production of electricity, connecting wind farms would present other cost benefits by “reducing the total distance that all the power has to travel from the multiple points of origin to the destination point” and by combining all the power on a single transmission line.
Here is Archer’s somewhat optimistic conclusion. “Archer said that if the United States and other countries each started to organize the siting and interconnection of new wind farms based on a master plan, the power supply could be smoothed out and transmission requirements could be reduced, decreasing the cost of wind energy. This could result in the large-scale market penetration of wind energy — already the most inexpensive clean renewable electric power source — which could contribute significantly to an eventual solution to global warming, as well as reducing deaths from urban air pollution.”
Their findings are soon going to be published by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) has unveiled a five-year, $50 billion energy plan akin to the Apollo project that put men on the moon during a campaign stop in Iowa.
General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy have invited the media to ride in the vehicles participating in the Challenge X Competition… a multi-year engineering competition that has 17 university teams from across North America in a real-world engineering experience to develop GM vehicles in the company’s global vehicle development process. The idea is the teams will create advanced propulsion technology systems that increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact through hybrid, plug-in, or fuel cell systems, powered by alternative fuels such as biodiesel, ethanol and hydrogen.
A state program administered by the Iowa Department of Economic Development has handed out $563,800 to 21 Iowa retailers installing pumps for E-85 and biodiesel fuel, terminals installing biodiesel storage tanks and blending equipment, and tank wagons for farm delivery having dedicated compartments for E-85 and biodiesel.
There´s no denying the capability for the use of ethanol is a few steps ahead of the infrastructure for accessing the alternative fuel. But, that doesn´t mean consumers can´t fill up their flex-fuel vehicles with E85 without ease. Simply log on to 
And while the amount of turkey grease that Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises collects this Saturday isn’t likely to cut our dependency on Middle Eastern oil, the company is still hopeful its post-Thanksgiving drive will be beneficial.
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