Chile is essentially a very long coast, with mountains in the back with nice people between the two that have set up the most stable state in Latin America. A great environment to install wind turbines. If you add to that the presence of enough local skilled workers, with a good safety culture – essential in the industry – that comes from the mining sector, and a good grid, then you would for sure assume that there are already plenty of wind farms up and running.

Well no. As of last December, only one was operational: a mere 18 MW owned by Endesa (of all utilities). The main reason of this seems to be the lack of a wind cartography.

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Wind farms in Morocco boast a 40% load factor, and the standard price for electricity is comparable to the European feed-in-tariffs. That looks like a great place to invest, right? On top of that, you can benefit from the Clean Development Mechanism and sell carbon credits. So why isn’t  the market growth even stronger?

Well, the first issue is the weakness of the local demand. This implies that investing South of the Mediterranean is essentially an export business to the EU, which requires that proper power lines be in place. There you start to need international cooperation, which is always a slow process. Fortunately the Union for the Mediterranean was launched last year, as an effort to do just that. However, the implementation has been cumbersome because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Until recently, T. Boone Pickens was better known for greenmail than green energy. Pickens – oilman turned corporate raider -  leveraged Mesa Petroleum and Michael Milliken’s junk bonds to make billions during the 1980’s hostile takeover craze.

But with his recent $10 billion tilt toward Texas wind farms and solar, who’s to say whether Pickens is an energy visionary  or just the consummate frontrunning egomaniac? One thing is certain: Pickens has always had a plan, and he’s been spotting trends and making fortunes in energy for over half a century.

The “Pickens Plan”  is basically a $58 million marketing campaign to wean the US off foreign oil  within 10 years by using natural gas for vehicles, and wind and solar for utilities – and for Pickens to receive as much credit for it as possible.

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Vincent’s post from the The European Wind Energy Conference got me thinking about U.S. offshore wind potential.

Wind on the water has been all the buzz in Michigan. The state’s portion of the Great Lakes has the potential to produce an astounding 322,000 megawatts of electricity from wind, according to a study earlier this year from the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University.

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Ironic that these pictures come out during lent.

According to the Bible (and the Torah and the Koran), you shouldn’t show the world you are suffering while you are fasting. It should be your own private affair.

Similarly, I don’t think you should wear your green “stripes” by driving around in an aesthetic train wreck (think Toyota Prius and Honda Insight), it is the equivalent of personal green washing to make up for your potentially otherwise extravagant lifestyle (sorry Sanjay, David, Josh… and all my other Prius buddies).

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Developing offshore wind farms is clearly for the big guys, so what’s in it for entrepreneurs? With high CAPEX, high risk in the installation phase and then high APEX, this is not for your friendly neighborhood developer.  This is still an early stage industry, with high costs and suboptimal technology, but the need and the value propositions are clearly there, and the EU just poured EUR 500m into it.

Allan Jespersen, Sr Sales Manager at Vestas Offshore, detailed to me the constraints to erecting an offshore farm and they are quite daunting. The North Sea being today the main market, Vestas is almost at home. But even then the rough conditions in which the turbines are operated (stronger winds, corrosion), the difficulty to access and the distance from the grid make quite a combination of challenges.

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I’m excited to announce a new service that we have just launched today: CleanTechies now provides CleanTech professionals and career changers with Professional Resume Writing Services. If you are a job seeker, we will help you identify and leverage your most relevant skills and experiences. Even if you are a career changer with only limited CleanTech experience, our professional resume writers are here to help you. With expertly written resumes and cover letters that highlight your strengths, you will have the confidence to successfully pursue careers in this new economy.

Take a look at our new Professional Resume Writing Services pages.

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by agathabrown, turtleanddove

The current cap is 10 percent. An ethanol trade group called Growth Energy has formally requested an increase to 15 percent, saying it will create more than 100,000 jobs and pump more than $24 billion into the economy, Reuters reports. There’s also the added benefit of increasing the demand for ethanol by 6 billion gallons a year, MSNBC says.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying whether a higher blend would harm older cars. Some newer vehicles are designed to run on E-85 (an 85 percent blend).

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The European Wind Energy Conference (EWEC) was held last week in Marseilles, welcoming 7,500 participants over 4 days. The whole industry was there, participating in a massive competition of glossy brochures and freebies, but also hard business.

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Last week, Steve shared his thoughts on online social networking – something he believes “allows for a wider understanding, access and appreciation of what’s happening” in our industry. If you’re an avid online networker (or want to become one), join in the discussion, and let us know what you think. Of course, offline social networking continues to exist in parallel, and maybe it’s the more effective way after all… Meeting in person has a big advantage over meeting virtually – only physical interaction tells you if you really like somebody. While you can easily exchange information on the internet, talking to somebody face-to-face usually leaves a bigger mark (both on you and your counterpart). At the end of the day, we like to share experiences and thoughts – not necessarily in a chat room, but ideally over a cup of coffee.

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