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Grant helps innovation in wind energy take flight
If there’s one state in which wind energy research can thrive, it’s Colorado. Though some researchers say clean energy isn’t always a viable option for some states, wind energy accounts for about 5,000 of the state’s jobs and nearly 14 percent of its local energy production. With its steady flow of innovations and job opportunities, clean-energy industry could arm the state with a viable alternative to supplement its suffering oil and gas industry.
The past couple weeks have been an especially fruitful period for the state’s wind energy industry. Sen. Michael Bannet has continued pushing for a production tax credit that would give wind energy producers a 2.2 cent credit per kilowatt hour of electricity generated, which he hopes will help cut back production costs.
Colorado’s wind energy industry received an additional boost through its inclusion in the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). Led by the University of Tennessee, the institute is funded by a $70 million federal grant and $180 million worth of non-federal grants to facilitate advances in advanced composites— materials such as carbon fiber valued for their strength and light weight.
Colorado institutes such as Coors Tek, University of Colorado and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will be among IACMI’s 122 partners, bringing in a total of $14 million worth of grants to the state.
“We are delighted that Colorado is one of the six member states of the institute,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a Denver Business Journal article. “… The integration of our regional and industry planning efforts through the Colorado Blueprint has afforded us the opportunity to leverage federal initiatives such as this. With today’s announcement, we successfully reached another goal—to accelerate our state’s advanced industries.”
NREL reaches strives for bigger possibilities
Advanced composites play an integral role in the Colorado’s wind energy, an industry for which the state serves as a research hub.
“Virtually all the blades on wind turbines are made out of composite materials, mainly fiberglass,” said Fort Felker, Director of NREL’s Wind Technology Center in Boulder. “It has tremendous properties that make it very attractive for turbine blades; it’s strong, it’s light-weight, and you can mold it into the very complex shapes that are required for the wind turbine blades to have maximum aerodynamic performance.”
Felker hopes to use funding from the institutes for projects that will help Colorado “take one step forward as a global leader in wind technology.” One such project aims to tackle one of the industry’s most restricting factors: turbine size.
“Right now, the size of the wind turbine is largely limited by the largest piece of the largest blade that you can safely and inexpensively move from the factory to the site of the wind plant,” Felker said. “So, there are limitations on the width, size and weight of an object that can be moved over the roads of over the rail lines, and it limits the size of the wind turbines that we’re able to deploy.”
To facilitate possibilities for bigger blades, Felker hopes to develop a solution that would allow blades to be transported in two or more pieces and connected from the inside using sturdy, lightweight and low-cost joints.
“You could assemble [the blades] there at the wind plant, thereby allowing us to have much larger rotors that would still be compatible with our existing transportation constraints,” Felker said. “The bigger the rotor disc is, the more of the energy that’s in the wind can be captured. So, if you could develop a technology to allow you to have a reliable two-piece blade instead of a single piece as is currently done, then you could potentially double the rotor, and that would allow the turbine to capture four times as much energy.”
NREL will also use funding to develop recyclable wind turbine materials. Once a turbine reaches the end of its useful economic life—typically 20 to 30 years—the materials could then be reused to construct a new cycle of wind turbines.
Mines to develop sustainable turbines
Research to improve wind energy technology is also a priority for the Colorado School of Mines, which will receive $1 million from the institute for the next five years—one of the largest grants the school has received from a single investor.
A professor of chemical engineering and faculty in the Materials Science Program at Mines, John R. Dorgan develops new materials to construct wind turbine blades, which span 60 meters in length at weigh close to 10 tons. His research with the grant will centralize around specialized thermoplastic technology that utilizes ring-opening polymerization.
“Thermoplastic use reduces weight and costs, enables the production of segmented blades, and facilitates recycling of the plastic composites at the end of their service life,” Dorgan said. “It creates additional manufacturing jobs in the conversion of the reclaimed materials and significantly improves important sustainability metrics.”
Right energy source for the right place
In the midst of what seemed like a universal struggle for the oil and gas industry against low gas prices, Colorado ranked the fourth lowest in the nation last week.
Though the suffering oil and gas industry might present an opportunity to hone in on alternative sources of energy, Felker doesn’t foresee wind energy threatening fracking operations.
“It’s almost impossible to predict about what the future will hold,” he said. “I think the United States is greatly strengthened by the diversity of its energy supplies, I really don’t see that changing; I think we’ll continue to see solar in some places, where that’s economic, and natural harvested in other places where that’s economic, and wind energy harvested where it makes sense. I think that strengthens the whole nation and I anticipate that there will be investments made in all of these energy sources.”
ช่วยแปลหน่อยคะ
Grant helps innovation in wind energy take flight
If there’s one state in which wind energy research can thrive, it’s Colorado. Though some researchers say clean energy isn’t always a viable option for some states, wind energy accounts for about 5,000 of the state’s jobs and nearly 14 percent of its local energy production. With its steady flow of innovations and job opportunities, clean-energy industry could arm the state with a viable alternative to supplement its suffering oil and gas industry.
The past couple weeks have been an especially fruitful period for the state’s wind energy industry. Sen. Michael Bannet has continued pushing for a production tax credit that would give wind energy producers a 2.2 cent credit per kilowatt hour of electricity generated, which he hopes will help cut back production costs.
Colorado’s wind energy industry received an additional boost through its inclusion in the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). Led by the University of Tennessee, the institute is funded by a $70 million federal grant and $180 million worth of non-federal grants to facilitate advances in advanced composites— materials such as carbon fiber valued for their strength and light weight.
Colorado institutes such as Coors Tek, University of Colorado and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will be among IACMI’s 122 partners, bringing in a total of $14 million worth of grants to the state.
“We are delighted that Colorado is one of the six member states of the institute,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a Denver Business Journal article. “… The integration of our regional and industry planning efforts through the Colorado Blueprint has afforded us the opportunity to leverage federal initiatives such as this. With today’s announcement, we successfully reached another goal—to accelerate our state’s advanced industries.”
NREL reaches strives for bigger possibilities
Advanced composites play an integral role in the Colorado’s wind energy, an industry for which the state serves as a research hub.
“Virtually all the blades on wind turbines are made out of composite materials, mainly fiberglass,” said Fort Felker, Director of NREL’s Wind Technology Center in Boulder. “It has tremendous properties that make it very attractive for turbine blades; it’s strong, it’s light-weight, and you can mold it into the very complex shapes that are required for the wind turbine blades to have maximum aerodynamic performance.”
Felker hopes to use funding from the institutes for projects that will help Colorado “take one step forward as a global leader in wind technology.” One such project aims to tackle one of the industry’s most restricting factors: turbine size.
“Right now, the size of the wind turbine is largely limited by the largest piece of the largest blade that you can safely and inexpensively move from the factory to the site of the wind plant,” Felker said. “So, there are limitations on the width, size and weight of an object that can be moved over the roads of over the rail lines, and it limits the size of the wind turbines that we’re able to deploy.”
To facilitate possibilities for bigger blades, Felker hopes to develop a solution that would allow blades to be transported in two or more pieces and connected from the inside using sturdy, lightweight and low-cost joints.
“You could assemble [the blades] there at the wind plant, thereby allowing us to have much larger rotors that would still be compatible with our existing transportation constraints,” Felker said. “The bigger the rotor disc is, the more of the energy that’s in the wind can be captured. So, if you could develop a technology to allow you to have a reliable two-piece blade instead of a single piece as is currently done, then you could potentially double the rotor, and that would allow the turbine to capture four times as much energy.”
NREL will also use funding to develop recyclable wind turbine materials. Once a turbine reaches the end of its useful economic life—typically 20 to 30 years—the materials could then be reused to construct a new cycle of wind turbines.
Mines to develop sustainable turbines
Research to improve wind energy technology is also a priority for the Colorado School of Mines, which will receive $1 million from the institute for the next five years—one of the largest grants the school has received from a single investor.
A professor of chemical engineering and faculty in the Materials Science Program at Mines, John R. Dorgan develops new materials to construct wind turbine blades, which span 60 meters in length at weigh close to 10 tons. His research with the grant will centralize around specialized thermoplastic technology that utilizes ring-opening polymerization.
“Thermoplastic use reduces weight and costs, enables the production of segmented blades, and facilitates recycling of the plastic composites at the end of their service life,” Dorgan said. “It creates additional manufacturing jobs in the conversion of the reclaimed materials and significantly improves important sustainability metrics.”
Right energy source for the right place
In the midst of what seemed like a universal struggle for the oil and gas industry against low gas prices, Colorado ranked the fourth lowest in the nation last week.
Though the suffering oil and gas industry might present an opportunity to hone in on alternative sources of energy, Felker doesn’t foresee wind energy threatening fracking operations.
“It’s almost impossible to predict about what the future will hold,” he said. “I think the United States is greatly strengthened by the diversity of its energy supplies, I really don’t see that changing; I think we’ll continue to see solar in some places, where that’s economic, and natural harvested in other places where that’s economic, and wind energy harvested where it makes sense. I think that strengthens the whole nation and I anticipate that there will be investments made in all of these energy sources.”