Living in the hydro-rich Pacific Northwest it is hard to imagine rationing showers and lawn watering in order to have a few hours a day of electricity, but that is what is happening in Venezuela right now.

One of the severest droughts in decades has given Venezuela’s socialist president a political nightmare as hydro-electrical power dribbles to a standstill, unleashing blackouts, rationing and protests. The waters behind the Guri dam, which supplies more than half the nation’s power, have touched perilously low levels.

Nevertheless, with energy production requiring as much water as agriculture and once mighty rivers like the Rio Grande no longer reaching the ocean and energy usage expected to grow beyond existing capacity, unless we decentralize now, it will happen here.

There are many reasons I focus upon wind energy, not the least being the ample supply…this from the November 2009 Scientific American.

Plenty of Supply
Today the maximum power consumed worldwide at any given moment is about 12.5 trillion watts (terawatts, or TW), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The agency projects that in 2030 the world will require 16.9 TW of power as global population and living standards rise, with about 2.8 TW in the
U.S. The mix of sources is similar to today’s, heavily dependent on fossil fuels. If, however, the planet were powered entirely by WWS, with no fossil-fuel or biomass combustion, an intriguing savings would occur. Global power demand would be only 11.5 TW, and U.S. demand would be 1.8 TW. That decline occurs because, in most cases, electrification is a more efficient way to use energy. For example, only 17 to 20 percent of the energy in gasoline is used to move a vehicle (the rest is wasted as heat), whereas 75 to 86 percent of the electricity delivered to an electric vehicle goes into motion.

Even if demand did rise to 16.9 TW, WWS sources could provide far more power. Detailed studies by us and others indicate that energy from the wind, worldwide, is about 1,700 TW

Another reason I favor wind is that wind is the only renewable energy source that does not require any water during the production of electricity. Even solar requires massive amounts of water when used in a centralized system.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, to generate one kilowatt hour of electricity from nuclear power 2.3 litres of water are needed. Coal requires 1.9 litres and oil consumes 1.6 litres…Some CSP technology utilises rows of curved mirrors focus heat onto a tube filled with oil which boils water to make steam, in turn spinning a turbine a turbine – this is called a trough system. Another uses reflective mirrors called heliostats to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto liquid-filled tubes used to generate steam and spin turbines.

In the case of trough technology, the water footprint is considerable – around 3.6 litres per kilowatt hour.

This video produced in England shares the benefits of decentralizing even if still using fossil fuels.

Rogue River Wind is very proud to announce the successful development of a high bandwidth wind powered generator capable of working in turbulent, gusty wind at all speeds utilizing the increased aerodynamic efficiencies of ducted fan technology. To be specific what we mean by high bandwidth is that unlike typical power curves where the turbine only produces power between 22 and 29mph for example, the LIM turns on at 8mph but more importantly continues to produce power at 80 or 90mph. Since the power output of a turbine is proportional to the cube of the velocity, every time you double the wind speed you get 8 times the power.

We did it. We will be build one more pre production prototype before beginning the full production V-LIM here in Oregon but what is most exciting is the scalability of the generator.

With a few adjustments generators now being purchased with American tax dollars from China could be built right here in the US with much higher efficiencies and providing American jobs. Something to think about with respect to the new $1.4B Oregon Shepherd’s Flat wind farm slated for 2012. While the LIM generator coupled to the standard open bladed wind turbines will not operate at a high bandwidth because open bladed fans simply cannot, the generator can be stacked and perform much better than the Chinese generators based upon 1930’s technology…. AND MADE IN AMERICA!

We will be making some noise about these jobs going offshore when we can build them right here, providing long term family wage jobs in Oregon, in the coming days and weeks. Please watch the news and contact your representatives to keep American tax dollars in the US.

It has been painful, it has been hard, but boy am I a happy camper!

Coos County and the entire Southern Oregon Coast, without question, is an exquisitely beautiful area, so six years ago I thought this would be a wonderful place to raise my daughters. Within a year, however, some hard realities and culture shocks began to set in.

At first they weren’t so out of the ordinary, I mean everyone knows old people often have too much time on their hands and meddle in other peoples lives, it happens everywhere. The news is riddled with daily accounts of bad cops and incompetent police work around the globe, not just here. The term ‘good old boy’ system wasn’t coined in Coos County and it is no surprise the system thrives here as well as elsewhere.

Elected officials misuse public money and mistreat public employees everywhere, not just in Coos County. Crimes against women are committed everywhere, everyday, not just here. Hard economic times, poor financial planning and lousy business ethics don’t necessarily go hand in hand but they each happen everywhere not just here.

Still there is some other element, some indefinable undercurrent, some unquantifiable but nevertheless measurable resistance, some low amperage buzz always in the background, a niggling impediment to a peaceful and productive life. Coos County has a certain meanness to it. Coos County takes a strange delight in the suffering of others, schadenfreude it is called.

Not that the county and the communities that make it up aren’t changing. Long time incumbents have found themselves replaced with fresh blood, despite an electorate with a below average literacy rate. Some new blood is moving to the area and more importantly some of the old blood, the ‘good old boys’, are grudgingly relinquishing control or passing on. But old habits are hard shaken and the inevitable reaction to fight tooth and nail to maintain power manifests as a mean disregard for anyone perceived as a threat. The despicable handling of the Coos County Road Department layoffs last New Year’s Eve and the recent forced departure of Coos Bay’s city manager are two good examples.

Since moving here I have made some lifelong friendships and had some wonderful adventures but in a nutshell, Coos County is not a good place to raise bright, imaginative and highly gifted children, especially daughters. Despite recent events for which I heap strong praise on local law enforcement for speedy resolutions, Coos County is not a safe or nurturing place for women.

After witnessing the treatment of citizens and employees by local leadership across the county, it isn’t somewhere I want to do business either. In fact, whereas this area made everything harder, set up endless hurdles for me, my children even my damaged veteran son and made almost no effort to support a gift that would have provided $2M in annual revenue for the schools, my little company is now being greeted with an abundance of solid technical support, years of experience and downright goodwill and optimism. A breath of fresh air.

These last several weeks, much to the chagrin of my kids, I have been commuting daily or living in hotels while completing the V-LIM generator outside the strange cosmic influences of Coos County. With a lot of help, we have made less than concentric components concentric, we have laboriously measured and narrowed the gap between magnets and coils. We have remade parts and then remade them again and I have learned the glaring difference between an artisan, an assembly firm and a real manufacturer with years of experience.

We have designed the testing procedure and believe we have located a state of the art digitizing oscilloscope to measure flux fields, resistance, inductance, voltage, amperage and, oh yes, kilowatts output. We now are, I am now ready…

… except to post this I have to find some decent cell coverage or a good internet connection. Guess you can’t have everything.

Friday, I will be speaking at the EconVergence all about decentralizing and empowering communities with local owned power generation. Noam Chomsky will be speaking that same evening, all at the First Unitarian Church in Portland. Monday we moved the LIM stator using a very substantial forklift as seen in this cell phone photo.

Been suffering from a bit of information overload, lately. Must admit, everything I am learning is of utmost interest to me and I love reading more and more on my favorite subjects, energy, economics (which I used to hate) and ecology. There is no limit to the information available and I am tasked by virtue of business demands to disseminate all of it into a comprehensive plan and series of articles.

Doing all this cuts into my personal life, however, and compounded with all the travel I find myself getting further and further behind on everything including my salvation, exercise and family and friends. Schedules are looking to get worse before they get better so I am not too sure how well I will keep up with this blog although I will be publishing the articles mentioned above here as well as elsewhere.

One thing to note, my experiment with barefoot running seems to be working though I have only logged 12 barefoot miles so far. For other runners, I suggest you give it a try as it completely takes the pressure off your hips and lets your foot perform like a foot is supposed to perform. Pretty cool!

Sorry for not keeping up with the blogosphere lately but I have been mega busy working on decentralized energy projects and today took my daughters’ father to the hospital. The hospital will keep him for a couple of days to get his heart back on track and we are hopeful for a full recovery.

Hopefully things will settle down soon and I can catch up on all the local news here.

The V-LIM wind generator is working to completion in Portland and we can’t get it done too soon as we have pending orders awaiting only the data collected from the field tests.