Oregon renewable energy statistics

In the third quarter of 2010 Oregon was nation's leader in new wind energy projects.

Oregon currently has 2095 megawatts of installed wind power capacity, which means the No.4 spot in United States, behind Texas, Iowa and California.

Oregon is nation's solar manufacturing leader, followed by Ohio and Massachusetts.

Oregon currently accounts for 3% of nation's solar energy jobs.

Oregon currently has around 340 MW of installed solar power capacity.

In 2009 Oregon added 691 MW of new wind power capacity.

In 2009 wind power accounted for around 7% of total electricity generated in Oregon.

In first half of 2010 Oregon added 5MW of new solar power capacity.

Oregon currently gets around 42% of its energy from hydroelectric power.

Oregon currently accounts for more than 1000 nation's solar energy jobs.

According to American Wind Energy Association Oregon has potential to install over 27,000 megawatts of onshore wind power.

There are currently 15 active geothermal energy projects In Oregon with the total capacity of 473 megawatts.

Wave energy basics

Introduction
Wave energy is renewable energy source which could in years to come become a very interesting energy option to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and improve our energy security. Harnessing wave power is yet to become commercially viable, though we are talking about one of the most abundant energy resources on our planet(the useful worldwide wave resources have been estimated to be greater than 2 TW).

What's good about wave energy?

Wave energy is clean, environmentally friendly renewable source of energy. There are many areas where ocean winds blow with required consistency and power to efficiently harness this form of renewable energy. Wave power has enormous potential, and also waves are quite predictable, up to five days in advance, which should make harnessing wave energy lot easier.

What's not good about wave energy?

Expensive technology that has just only started developing. Rough weather conditions require powerfully built wave energy projects which leads to high initial costs. The potential disruption of nearby marine ecosystems (noise and visual pollution).

Wave energy on global scale

Wave power is yet to have some impact on global scale, and currently there have been only few wave power project worthy to mention, like for instance the Aguçadoura Wave Park in Portugal. Harnessing wave energy must become commercially viable prior to being used on global scale.

Wave energy in United States

In the United States, the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative is funding the building of a commercial wave-power park at Reedsport, Oregon. US is currently not paying much attention to this renewable energy source.

Wave energy farms

As already said before the most famous wave farm in the world is the Aguçadoura Wave Park wave farm in Portugal, which was the world's first commercial wave farm. Currently world's largest working wave-energy system, was launched in Scotland's Orkney Islands in 2009 that has a peak power output of around 2MW.

Wave energy environmental impact

Harnessing wave energy has overall positive environmental impact, and the only possible negative consequences could be in form of noise and visual pollution, that could somewhat disrupt marine life in nearby area.

Wind power development in Canada - Overview

Wind power development may be slowing down in United States and EU but in Canada wind power is looking better than ever, and Canada is well on the right track to achieve a year of the record growth. Demand for wind power in Canada is bigger than ever with many new wind farms spreading across the country.

According to the latest reports from the Canadian Wind Energy Association, over 1,000 megawatts of new wind energy capacity is expected to be installed in Canada in 2011, so far the record year has been 2009 with the total installed wind power capacity of 950 megawatts.

Such strong development of wind power will not only bring many environmental but also many economic benefits for Canadians, for instance many new well payed green jobs.

Many new wind energy projects have been approved in the last couple of months, and more than 6,000 megawatts of new wind power capacity is expected to be installed over the next five years across the Canada.

Canada currently has around 3500 MW of installed wind power capacity, and by the end of this year this number should increase to more than 4000 MW, meaning that by the end of this year Canada will have enough wind capacity to provide power for close to 1,5 million homes.

It also has to be said that every Canadian province is generating at least some wind power, and that the leading provinces in wind power development are Quebec and Ontario. Over the next five years Quebec should add 3000 megawatts of new wind power capacity, and Ontario 1500 MW. This, together with new wind projects in other provinces should increase the share of wind power in Canada's total energy demand to 5% by the 2015. Currently, this percentage is at about 1,5 percent.

A supportive government policy is one of the main factors that have laid the foundations for this strong development of Canadian wind power sector. Canadians want more clean environmentally friendly energy sources instead of fossil fuels, and wind power may turn out to be a main driving force that will turn Canada into clean energy economy.

Americans want more clean energy and new energy policy

71 percent of Americans believe that US needs to lead in clean energy race, in terms of clean energy jobs and technologies." However, US will have tough time achieving this because China has taken convincing lead in global clean energy race, and Chinese are certainly not slowing down, in fact they are constantly increasing tempo, and US certainly has a lot of catching up to do. China is currently world's largest manufacturer of both wind turbines as well as solar panels, and accounts for more than one million clean energy jobs.

Over 56% of Americans agree the use of federal dollars to either directly support or to guarantee loans for the development of renewable energy sources, such as wind energy and solar energy. However, there are also 23% of Americans that would rather pick nuclear energy instead of renewable energy sources.

75 percent of Americans want energy policy that promotes clean power. Such policy would no doubt encourage innovation, create new jobs and make foundations for a stronger economy.

79 percent of Americans want clean energy revolution in form of orderly phasing out of fossil fuels and the phasing in of clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

The worrying discovery was the fact that 71 percent of Americans have only very small degree of confidence that current elected officials in the United States will act decisively on energy issues. However, if you analyze latest political moves regarding national renewable energy policy, it is easy to see why very few Americans have trust in US officials.

These were some of the most interesting findings coming from major new survey of more than 1,000 Americans conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute.

These results clearly suggest that Americans want more clean, renewable energy, and that they are not satisfied with the current US energy policy, especially with China's dominance in clean energy race.

Iowa renewable energy statistics

Wind power is the most important renewable energy source in Iowa, and at the end of 2009 Iowa had 3670 MW of installed wind energy capacity, enough to power around 900,000 homes.

Iowa is currently the second ranked US state in installed wind power capacity, behind the Texas.

Iowa is 7th ranked US state in available wind energy potential.

In 2009, Iowa became the first US state that has more than 10% of its total generated electricity coming from wind power.

Iowa is the current nation's leader in ethanol production, producing about 3.3 billion gallons of ethanol per year, this is around 26% of total US ethanol production.

Iowa is second largest biodiesel producer in United States, and in 2009 Iowa's biodiesel refineries produced 73 million gallons of biodiesel. The full capacity of Iowa's biodiesel refineries is 320 million gallons.

Wind power currently generates about 15% of total electricity in Iowa.

At the end of 2009 Iowa had 400 MW of wind energy capacity under construction.

Each 1,000 megawatts of wind generation installed in Iowa has resulted in about $6 million in property taxes for counties.

Wind power manufacturing industry currently employs close to 3,500 people in Iowa.

China wind energy statistics

China is currently the second largest wind power producer, and at the end of 2009, wind power in China accounted for 25.1 GW of electricity generating capacity. If current trend continues China will in 2011 overtake US, and became the world's largest wind power producer.  China's installed wind farm capacity is expected to grow from present 25,800 MW to over 150,000 MW in 2020.

At the end of 2009 China had around 80 operational wind farms. In 2009 China built its first offshore wind farm, close to Shanghai Dongdaqiao, with a capacity of 102 MW. In fact, China plans to generate up to 30,000 megawatts of power from offshore wind farms by 2020.

In the last 5 years, China has each year more than doubled its wind power capacity, and the biggest growth occurred in 2009 when China added 13,800 MW of new wind power capacity.

China is also the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer. The latest numbers suggest that China manufactures 2 wind turbines per hour.

China still doesn't have enough transmission lines to support the growth of wind power industry, and according to recent data from the China Power Union, only 72% of China’s total wind power capacity was connected to the grid. This is the main reason why Chinese have embarked on a $60 billion effort to upgrade the country’s electricity transmission system over the next 10 years.

Wind power still accounts for only 1 percent of China's total electricity consumption despite the very strong growth in the last couple of years.

In 2000, China only had 350,000 kW of installed wind power capacity.

In 2009, around 50% of the large capacity windmills installed in China were manufactured in Denmark.

What types of energy are used in the US?

Up until recently US was the world's largest energy consumer but still only a small number of Americans actually knows what nation's energy use looks like, though majority knows that fossil fuels supply most of nation's energy demand.

In 2009, fossil fuels supplied around 84% of nation's energy demand, with 40% of this energy coming from petroleum (oil). On the other hand, coal, another member of the fossil fuel triad was the major source of US electricity accounting for around 49% of total US generated electricity. The third member of fossil fuel triad, natural gas, supplies around 23% of US energy demand, with many energy experts expecting natural gas share to grow in years to come, especially after the recent shale gas popularity.

These numbers imply that fossil fuels are still the most important energy sources in United States, and that renewable energy industry still has plenty to do in order to challenge oil, coal and natural gas.

When it comes to renewable energy sources in United States then it has to be said that hydropower and biomass are the two most dominant renewable energy sources in the world, though it also has to be said that wind power is lately experiencing the biggest growth of all renewable energy sources.

Hydropower currently statisfies around 7% and biomass around 4% of nation's energy demand. As said above wind power is currently the fastest growing renewable energy source in United States, and nation has even set a goal of achieving 20% of electricity coming from wind by 2020. If the current growth of wind power installations continues this goal should be achieved with relative ease, especially if US decides to develop strong offshore wind energy sector.

The much talked about solar power is still only making headlines in media instead of actually having significant impact in nation's energy use. Many Americans believe in solar power as the best possible renewable energy option but despite this solar power satisfies less than one percent of nation's energy demand. This is mostly because solar panels are still relatively expensive, and somewhat inefficient compared to efficiency of fossil fuels, which makes solar energy a too expensive renewable energy option for many Americans.

US is global leader in installed geothermal capacity but this doesn't mean much when it comes to energy use because geothermal energy currently meets less than 1% of nation's energy needs, which is way too little given the geothermal potential of some US states such as California and Nevada.

Given the current situation it is realistic to expect that fossil fuels will continue their dominance when it comes to nation's energy use because renewable energy needs time to develop desired efficiency and costs. Without reaching competitiveness in terms of efficiency and costs renewable energy cannot seriously challenge fossil fuels, even with the strong federal and local support.