Currently, the County is being wooed by Oregon Resources Corporation to sign away mineral rights on some 6,000 acres of publicly owned timberland. ORC offers to pay a royalty of 3 or 3.5% or approximately $1.5M annually at some point in the future. ORC talks about providing 70 jobs at some point in the future. ORC expects the County to upgrade a section of W Beaver Hill Road to industrial grade status at a cost of $450k.

If the County has done an economic impact analysis of entering into the mineral rights business it has yet to be provided to the public. Requests to see the return on investment to the public for the $450k road improvement and the additional costs of other county services required to maintain strip mining in Coos County, have not been answered. It appears the County is actively considering investing public resources in a risky strip mining activity without any idea if and when the public will see a return.

So I have a suggestion. Last year, I submitted an appropriation request to Congress, courageously carried to committee by Peter DeFazio, that would have helped fund a publicly owned 5MW renewable energy micro-grid that would have generated $2M in net annual revenue for local schools. It was called the Western Oregon Wind project or WOW and while as an earmark, it was not funded in appropriations the model would have created or saved 196 family wage jobs and without tearing up timber property or wearing down roads.

The WOW business model is not technology dependent. Electricity is an essential service and producing power locally even with fossil fuel power generation would earn revenue, however, given Coos County has the equivalent of billions of barrels of oil under the ground in wind resource, it would be wise to start drilling it. More importantly, even with low PUC set rates of .07KWH the ROI can be as quick as four years.

In short, Coos County could earn more money and create more jobs by importing less power than it can by privatizing our public resources and signing a deal with ORC and know when to expect a return and how much. Coos County could develop two or three or ten such microgrids and not only fund all of our schools, law enforcement, health and public services, create hundreds if not thousands of jobs and draw tourists just wanting to see how it is done.

Oregon has enough renewable energy resources, with geothermal, wind, PV and micro-hydro to generate 184% of its power needs. Read this report from Energy Self Reliant States.

Why is Coos County exerting so much effort on the handful of jobs promised by LNG and chromite mining when the real future is renewable sustainable energy? We have the resources. We have the technology, geothermal as a base line, wind, solar and CHP for peaks. The technology is affordable, typically 40% less capital cost than centralized power production and it doesn’t require $1M/mile transmission lines. We even have the financing. WOW or its equivalent earns enough to cover debt service and still net $2M annually, and never has there been more money available for renewable energy than right now. We have everything we need to be a self sustaining strong local economy it seems, except the political will.

Just in case you didn’t see it you can read it here

Mary Geddry, CEO of Coquille-based Rogue River Winds, said the ultra-efficient, low-profile, sturdy wind turbine with a built-in generator called the V-LIM, is generating interest.

She’s gearing up production. But don’t expect any local manufacturing jobs to spin out of it — at least not anytime soon.

“There just isn’t the infrastructure in Coos County at this time,” she said.

After attempts to get the V-LIM off the ground locally failed, Geddry relocated the project to Portland where a prototype was in the works, before she again relocated it to Cottage Grove where it was completed and may be manufactured.

She said some manufacturers in Alaska and the East Coast have expressed interest in producing it, as well.

Federal agencies including the DoD are under heavy pressure to meet 25% of their energy needs from renewable sources.

Driven by new government requirements that call for each military branch to purchase or generate at least 25 percent of the energy they use from renewable sources by 2025, the project is funded by a $4 million federal investment under the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill…

One factor causing concern with wind energy is the belief that traditional wind turbines interfere with radar, hence the interest in a low profile system like the V-LIM.

The first power curves for the V-LIM are done and I will publish them here after some additional verification soon. We have learned a lot from these tests, have changed the magnet topology for a more focused flux and will segment the stator for faster saturation in the production models. Even without these changes we outperform our competitors and after such a long hard struggle, I can’t tell if I am happy or just relieved to be past this point. Am definitely exhausted.

More data soon to come, here and at Rogue River Wind.

This week I filed my patent with the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) through the World Intellectual Property Organization. The USPTO allows an inventor the option of whether to publish the application or not, I chose not to to avoid the IP being exposed as long as possible. The PCT does not afford such an option and the patent is now ‘out there’ for all to see.

The consequence of this is that organizations that monitor new filings have flooded me with inquiries. All to the good but coming at a time when we are fine tuning the generator to spin up and test.

Needless to say, as a new inventor, I am pretty excited.

As noted here before, the Chinese have a near monopoly on the production of high-gauss neodymium magnets crucial to the production of electricity. Now, a once abandoned mine in Mountain Pass, California is being reopened to try and minimize the dangers of geopolitical concerns and the supply of rare earths.

These minerals, such as samarium and neodymium, are prized for chemical properties that make them indispensable in a variety of industrial and military uses, including polishing glass, oil refining and manufacturing missile guidance systems.

They also play a crucial role in the development of “green” technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Heat-resistant magnets made with rare-earth alloys are key components of the electric motor in the Toyota Prius, for example.

Mining operations ceased at Mountain Pass in 2002 amid environmental concerns and cut-rate competition from China, although processing of previously dug ore continues. [Emphasis mine]

Given my company, Rogue River Wind, Ltd, hopes to manufacture our products in the US we are hopeful that environmentally safe mining practices can be maintained in Mountain Pass to provide the neodymium magnets we presently buy from China.

Monday we will be moving the V-LIM wind turbine/generator prototype to a super secret location for some adaptations and testing. It has been a long hard slog getting to this point and we are both exuberant and exhausted. Will post pictures in a few days.

Many people have been asking me for updates on the V-LIM wind turbine and the Western Oregon Wind (WOW) project. After trying for almost two years to build the prototype in Coos County late in April it became apparent the project would have to be moved to Portland. The move was necessary in order to complete the LIM within a reasonable time period, stay within some semblance of a budget and maintain tolerances and achieve the best possible structural integrity.

To date every part fabricated in Coos County had to be replaced for one reason or another. Ceramic coatings applied to the stator and coils failed causing multiple shorts and every coil has been rewound. The axle has been redesigned and remade, bearings replaced, the support yoke completely reconfigured for strength and a proper base built.

All this has tripled the original cost projections and put Rogue River Wind, Ltd almost one year behind schedule.
Despite these costly setbacks the first spin tests for the LIM and the direct drive DC generator designed with the assistance of Portland State University and Dr Gerald Sheblé will take place in about ten days. Dr Sheblé, now living and working for the University of Portugal in Porto, is in the US to preside over the testing.

Also assisting with the electrical engineering and the incorporation of a unique new capacitive inverter grid intertie circuit allowing the LIM to ‘plug and play’ is Dr Stanley Marquiss. Dr Marquiss is the inventor of the ducted fan wind turbine from which much of the patentable aerodynamic features of the V-LIM evolved.

The WOW project did not pass the House Energy and Water subcommittee, however, Congressman DeFazio has encouraged us to pursue the matter in the Senate. If the Senate includes funding for the project in its annual Energy funding bill, Mr. DeFazio will support the mark when the bill is conferenced by the House and Senate.

WOW can still be accomplished but without the federal appropriation must rely upon tax credits and incentives to finance the project and will require private not public ownership of the project. Rogue River Wind is already heavily committed to developing similar projects with partners in other states precluding any private efforts in Coos County at this time.