Texas Renewable Energy Assessment is out

The new State Energy Conservation Office report regarding the Renewable Energy Potential of Texas is now available online at:

http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/publications/renewenergy/

This report is an update from the original 1995 report. As another major reference

Myself and Dr. Michael Webber are co-authors on the chapter regarding energy from water resources in Texas. This water chapter is not that exciting for Texas, but we do describe some of the latest concepts in the chapter. You can also see how much (really how little) electric generation comes from hydropower while you recall the large impact that the Colorado River hydropower facilities on the quality of life for those in the Hill Country. Thank LBJ for lobbying ... or whatever he did to "get things done" ... for those back in his early days.

For further general reference, also see the State Comptroller's Texas Energy Report on overall energy resources and usage in Texas.

Ethics: Allocation factors for renewable energy systems

I recently wrote for Worldchanging about how allocation factors can possibly be representative of our ethics. Allocation factors are the fraction of the energy input into a renewable system, usually for analyzing biofuels, that is associated (or allocated) to each of the products.

For example, the main product from corn ethanol is the ethanol, and coproducts are distillers grains for cattle feed. Because these allocation factors can be based upon the energy, mass, or economic content of the coproducts, different analyses of the same process results in different outcomes in terms of the sustainability or renewability of the process. One of the major issues is that what is economically most attractive is often not the most energetically efficient. A possible policy goal could be to guide these two concepts together.

Click allocations factors and ethics to go to Worldchanging website for the article, or read text below:

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Moving toward a sustainable, or renewable energy-based economy, stresses the views of how people value their time and exertion. Our system of economics puts value on products and services that allow people to spend less time and/or exertion while performing a task. This value system is exactly why fossil fuels have been the driving factor for increases in accumulation of material goods and leisure time over the course of the industrial revolution.

Historically, fossil fuels have had such high energy density (and energy return on that invested to mine them) that we haven't worried too much about how to allocate the energy invested. When a barrel of oil is refined or a cubic foot of natural gas is burned, it has been obvious that we can produce more products and spend more time in leisure or progressive work. It is because of the concerns of fossil resource scarcity together with environmental effects (air pollution, greenhouse gases and climate change, etc.) that alternatives to fossil resources are sought.

By contrast, when it comes to renewable energy products, particularly biofuels, we've applied intense scrutiny to figuring out the energy return on total energy (or fossil energy) invested because the returns are not as easily determined as being sufficiently greater than one. Part of this scrutiny is because of the inherently lower energy density of carbohydrates (i.e. biomass) versus hydrocarbons (i.e. fossil fuels). Another part of the scrutiny derives from the knowledge that fossil fuels currently permeate the vast majority of the manufacturing and agricultural practices of the industrialized world, and understanding the optimal manner in which to deal with their reduced presence, and possible absence, is not obvious.

Allocation factors are an example of the struggle of society to understand the value of output of renewable energy systems and processes. The allocation factor is a term used to describe how much of the total energy input to a renewable energy system should be “allocated” to, or associated with, both the primary product output (e.g. ethanol, biodiesel, biocrude, etc.) as well as any process coproducts. These allocation factors are also used to assign greenhouse gas quantities to compare competing energy systems. Renewable energy systems that output electricity, such as photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines, are fairly straightforward in giving an allocation factor of one. That is to say, all of the energy and material inputs that go into manufacturing, operation, and maintenance of the system are used to produce the only output: energy in the form of electricity. There is no product other than the electricity.

Assigning an allocation factor for biofuel production is more difficult. Biofuels originate from some form of biomass (e.g. corn, soybeans, cellulose, etc.) that can be used for multiple purposes (e.g. food and fuel) and the extracting them creates output products besides the fuel itself, termed coproducts. For example, in the typical processing of biodiesel from soybeans, the major outputs are the primary product of biodiesel plus the coproducts of soy meal and glycerin [1]. Fossil fuels have similar product/coproduct distinctions (e.g. natural gas for fertilizers and petroleum for plastics), but because we know there is no long term sustainable use of them, there has been no need to scrutinize how we derive their various products.

So a question arises: for every unit of energy input from field to fuel, how much of that input should be responsible for each product? To answer this question, there are multiple proposed allocation concepts. The different allocation methods for coproducts are three non-energy methods and three energy-based methods [2] that are designated by whether the energy consumption of the processes is allocated according to:

Non-Energy Methods
• the 100% principle such that all energy consumed is allocated to the primary product (e.g. biofuel).
• the mass fraction of each of the products,
• the economic market value of each of the products,

Energy-based Methods
• the energy content (calorific value) of each of the products,
• the energy displaced by each of the products with respect to an existing or customary way of producing the product, or

100% Principle
Allocating 100% of energy inputs to renewable energy systems is the most simplistic and uninformative. There are no decisions to be made, and it removes the capacity for society to learn how to use all available resources and technologies while reusing and recycling as much as possible. On the other hand, its simplicity easily allows policymakers and consumers to understand the impacts and benefits of renewable systems. Essentially, the 100% principle is the extreme case that assumes no useful coproducts are possible, or that coproducts are free in terms of monetary or energy input.

Mass Fraction
Allocating by mass fraction is very straightforward and easy to understand. Techniques that minimize coproducts should be viewed as positive since otherwise, they would not be coproducts but instead the primary product. We can likely assume the primary product is the most market viable, at least at the time the renewable energy project is begun.

Market Value
Using market value to allocate coproducts is the method most akin to the free market principles. Brazil’s past and continued focus upon sugar cane as a cash crop theoretically enables their companies to decide how much sugar versus ethanol to produce from the same crop. If one price is up, they can focus on that product versus the other. Currently, the ethanol price is up as a group of Brazilian companies has arranged the first “practical application of verified sustainable ethanol” trade with Sweden [3]. Thus, a market value of coproducts potentially allows a producer to tune his process according to the rather short time scales of commodity fluctuations. The main drawback of this method is that market prices change, and what could be a good energy balance one day could be a poor one a week later [1].

Energy Content (calorific value) of Products
Focusing upon the energy content of the products seems like a fundamental method because the purpose of renewable energy systems is to produce a product with high energy content. The primary product should in fact contain more energy than the coproducts, otherwise the system may have to be reanalyzed in terms of thermodynamic efficiency. This suboptimal energy content ratio could possibly occur if there is pressure to tailor a biofuel to existing infrastructure (which would be a pressure from the market). The difficulty with this method is that it does not indicate the effort required to achieve the energy intensive fuel or product. For instance, lasers contain high power concentrated in a tight beam, but much power is required to get the energy in that form.

Process Energy Input
Allocation due to the energy input into the renewable system seems like a logical choice because we are, after all, trying to figure out how to allocate the energy consumed in the renewable energy process. However, this allocation method can be somewhat confusing when the primary product and one or more coproducts results from the same subprocess. For example, if there is an unavoidable coproduct that results from the feedstock processing steps, how much input energy went into that unavoidable byproduct? What if the coproduct has no use, meaning it is actually a waste? Nonetheless, this method can often be more straightforward as in the case with wet-milling corn ethanol since during pre-treatment the starch (used for ethanol) is separated from the grain (used for coproducts), and thus subsequent energy used for processing the grain can easily allocated to the coproducts.

Energy Displaced (energy for replacement coproduct)
Allocation due to the energy displaced is an inherently comparative methodology. It requires diligent astute knowledge of the field of the product in order to know the energy input into replacement products. Also, an equivalent replacement product must exist. Here, the energy required for producing the primary product is reduced by the amount of energy required for the replacement product. For instance, Shapouri assumes that animal feed products (e.g. DDG) produced from corn ethanol processing can directly replace soybean meal. A difficulty arises if soy meal, itself a possible coproduct from biodiesel production, might use corn-based animal feeds as a replacement product as well. They can’t both replace each other. So there can be multiple choices of replacement products that can provide a range of answers for the primary product.

Can these allocation factors reveal something about culture, society, and how we value our energy and time? Is there a correct or more ethical method?

Pradhan et al. suggest that the correct method depends upon the question being asked. If renewability is the question, they say the mass fraction should be used, but if economic sustainability is to be determined, then the market value allocation approach should be used [1]. For philosophers who like to find the ultimate truth, this solution is rather non-satisfactory, and it avoids the question of whether the market should recognize that energy return on energy invested (EROI) is the major driver for economic growth or if economic growth potential is the driver for the choice of energy resources. The tail can’t wag the dog, but hopefully with enough flow of accurate information the EROI and economic return will continuously feedback to each other and arrive at the same solution.

[1] Pradhan, A.; Shrestha, D. S.; Van Gerpen, J.; and Duffield, J. 2008. The Energy Balance of Soybean Oil Biodiesel Production: A Review of Past Studies. Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. 51 (1): 185-194.

[2] Larson, E. A review of life-cycle analysis studies on liquid biofuel systems for the transport sector. Energy for Sustainable Development. June 2006, Vol. X, No. 2: 109-126

[3] Guardian, UK. June 25, 2008. Brazil signs deal to export sustainable ethanol. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7609299.

Leaving fossil fuels in the ground vs. using them all up now

I wrote a think piece for Worldchanging playing off one of the basic arguments against climate mitigation (we'll be richer in the future and more capable of dealing with any effects) with the idea of leaving fossil fuels in the ground (will we also be more capable of using fossil fuels in the future, and should we strive to leave some?).

One thing that did not get into the article in time (but came the day after I submitted it!) was the fact that the Saudi King himself made reference toward specifically leaving some of their new found reserves for future generations! How is that for some new thinking!

Visit the site to read the commentary (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007962.html), or see below.

NOTE: As one of the early bloggers notes, nuclear energy has a wide range of possibilities (over carbon-based fossil fuels), and those were too much to go into for one article, aside from the fact that I am definitely not an expert on nuclear materials, for fission or fusion (always 50 years away!).

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Success is Winding Up with Oil in the Ground

Will we always be more capable in the future?

One basic economic argument against substantial climate change mitigation investments often centers on the concept that, because of monetary discount rates and historically-proven continuous economic and technological growth, society will be both ‘richer’ and more capable of dealing with possible negative effects in the future. Proponents of this argument often use it to reason that mitigation is simply too economically costly to pursue.

Can the same argument hold for production of fossil fuels? That is to say, if we are going to be richer and more capable in the future, won’t we have a better use for all energy sources, including fossil fuels? And will part of our ability to deal with societal issues, such as those caused by climate change, be predicated upon having available energy? If the answer to these questions is “yes”, then we should keep our fossil fuels in the ground.

The reason that the idea of preserving fossil fuels and ecosystems for future generations is not widely held is that the pattern since the industrial revolution of the 1800s shows us that energy consumption is highly correlated to economic growth, and thus the ability to become ‘richer’ (Figure 1). But recently Ecuadorian officials have proposed that the international community pay approximately half of the assumed value an oil deposit that lies beneath the Yasuni Amazon ecological reserve in order not to extract the oil [1]. Is this a beginning to question the present value of fossil fuels?

In the United States before the industrial revolution, the labor of 95 out of 100 people were required to feed the population of 5 million. Today, the less than 3 out of 100 are required to feed the US population of over 300 million - with food to spare for export. How is this possible? Fossil fuels provide high energy density storage sources that literally take the place of labor, and since their large scale use, we have used them to accumulate knowledge in how to further reduce physical labor. The huge reduction in farming labor over the last 200 years has resulted in “extra” hours for people to get paid to do things like drive around taking photos of celebrities for gossip magazines.

Because fossil fuels are limited and have provided us with the luxury of excess time, a major goal of society should be to break the causation between increasing fossil fuel consumption and increasing human development. I say human development and not economic growth, because the social aspect of economics is only a part of human development [2]. Extracting more fossil resources by consuming more fossil energy only buys more time to learn how to design and implement sustainable energy systems.

The laws of diminishing returns for fossil fuels cannot be avoided on the time scale of human civilization. Human civilization operated on a 100% sustainable energy a few hundred years ago, and after fossil fuels become completely uneconomical in hundreds of years more, we’ll again operate on a 100% sustainable energy system. The question is: what is that next 100% sustainable system going to look like?

Will it not be a success if human society finds an acceptable sustainable arrangement where we have excess fossil fuel reserves still lying in the ground? That is to say, we could define success as solving the energy and development problem before running out of economical fossil energy resources. Why consume the last of fossil energy reserves? Since reserves are partially defined by the economics of extraction, they are also partially a measure of our culture in how we value things, including energy resources, food, and social goods. If we want future human civilization to live in a manner better than the time before fossil fuels, that demands using our fossil fuels today such that we learn not to need them in the future.

Today we can’t make a photovoltaic solar panel without fossil-powered electricity manufacturing plant. We couldn’t build a hydroelectric dam without fossil-powered vehicles and cement plants. We can’t make and install a wind turbine without fossil-powered steel factories and transport systems. We need to track the progress, or lack thereof, of the ability of renewable energy systems to make themselves.

We didn’t need Nobel Prize Chemist Richard Smalley to tell us that the sun is the only source of energy for a sustainable human society. What we do need is everyone focused on the issue of both cultural and technological adjustments to make the most of solar direct (sunlight) and indirect (wind, waves, crops) energy.

Carey King, PhD, works at the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology. This is his first contribution to Worldchanging.

notes:

[1] Pearson, Natalie O. Ecuador Plans to Nix Exploitation of 1B Bbl Oil Deposit. Dow Jones Newswires. March 03, 2008. Available at: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=57679.
[2] Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. First Anchor Books, 1999.

Shell CEO Talks of peak "easily accessible supplies of oil and gas" by 2015

As posted on other blogs (The Oil Drum and The Energy Blog) Jeroen van der Veer, the Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has suggested that the "easy oil" will not keep up with demand by 2015, and that a "blueprint" future energy scenario is preferable to a haphazard strategy. Now one of the world's largest companies says peak oil is within 7 years. Anyone want to work on battery and capacitor technology!?!

Use the title link to go to the Shell website for the statement, or just read below:

Two Energy Futures

* By Jeroen van der Veer

By 2100, the world’s energy system will be radically different from today’s. Renewable energy like solar, wind, hydroelectricity, and biofuels will make up a large share of the energy mix, and nuclear energy, too, will have a place. Humans will have found ways of dealing with air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. New technologies will have reduced the amount of energy needed to power buildings and vehicles.

Indeed, the distant future looks bright, but much depends on how we get there. There are two possible routes. Let’s call the first scenario Scramble. Like an off-road rally through a mountainous desert, it promises excitement and fierce competition. However, the unintended consequence of “more haste” will often be “less speed,” and many will crash along the way.

The alternative scenario can be called Blueprints, which resembles a cautious ride, with some false starts, on a road that is still under construction. Whether we arrive safely at our destination depends on the discipline of the drivers and the ingenuity of all those involved in the construction effort. Technological innovation provides the excitement.

Regardless of which route we choose, the world’s current predicament limits our room to maneuver. We are experiencing a step-change in the growth rate of energy demand due to rising population and economic development. After 2015, easily accessible supplies of oil and gas probably will no longer keep up with demand.

As a result, we will have no choice but to add other sources of energy – renewables, yes, but also more nuclear power and unconventional fossil fuels such as oil sands. Using more energy inevitably means emitting more CO2 at a time when climate change has become a critical global issue.

In the Scramble scenario, nations rush to secure energy resources for themselves, fearing that energy security is a zero-sum game, with clear winners and losers. The use of local coal and homegrown biofuels increases fast. Taking the path of least resistance, policymakers pay little attention to curbing energy consumption – until supplies run short. Likewise, despite much rhetoric, greenhouse gas emissions are not seriously addressed until major shocks trigger political reactions. Since these responses are overdue, they are severe and lead to energy price spikes and volatility.

The Blueprints scenario is less painful, even if the start is more disorderly. Numerous coalitions emerge to take on the challenges of economic development, energy security, and environmental pollution through cross-border cooperation. Much innovation occurs at the local level, as major cities develop links with industry to reduce local emissions. National governments introduce efficiency standards, taxes, and other policy instruments to improve the environmental performance of buildings, vehicles, and transport fuels.

Moreover, as calls for harmonization increase, policies converge across the globe. Cap-and-trade mechanisms that put a price on industrial CO2 emissions gain international acceptance. Rising CO2 prices in turn accelerate innovation, spawning breakthroughs. A growing number of cars are powered by electricity and hydrogen, while industrial facilities are fitted with technology to capture CO2 and store it underground.

Against the backdrop of these two equally plausible scenarios, we will know only in a few years whether December’s Bali declaration on climate change was just rhetoric or the start of a global effort to counter it. Much will depend on how attitudes evolve in China, the European Union, India, and the United States.

Shell traditionally uses its scenarios to prepare for the future without expressing a preference for one over another. But, faced with the need to manage climate risk for our investors and our descendants, we believe the Blueprints outcomes provide the best balance between economy, energy, and environment. For a second opinion, we appealed to climate change calculations made at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These calculations indicate that a Blueprints world with CO2 capture and storage results in the least amount of climate change, provided emissions of other major manmade greenhouse gases are similarly reduced.

But the Blueprints scenario will be realized only if policymakers agree on a global approach to emissions trading and actively promote energy efficiency and new technology in four sectors: heat and power generation, industry, transport, and buildings.

This will require hard work, and time is short. For example, Blueprints assumes CO2 is captured at 90% of all coal- and gas-fired power plants in developed countries by 2050, plus at least 50% of those in non-OECD countries. Today, none capture CO2. Because CO2 capture and storage adds costs and yields no revenues, government support is needed to make it happen quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions. At the least, companies should earn carbon credits for the CO2 they capture and store.

Blueprints will not be easy. But it offers the world the best chance of reaching a sustainable energy future unscathed, so we should explore this route with the same ingenuity and persistence that put humans on the moon and created the digital age.

The world faces a long voyage before it reaches a low-carbon energy system. Companies can suggest possible routes to get there, but governments are in the driver’s seat. And governments will determine whether we should prepare for bitter competition or a true team effort.

Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc, is Energy Community leader of the World Economic Forum energy industry partnership in 2007-2008 and chaired this year’s Energy Summit in Davos. He also chairs the Energy and Climate Change working group of the European Round Table of Industrialists.

Peak Energy, Coal Reserves, and Climate Change

The blog The Oil Drum has posted a writing by Dave Rutledge, the Chair for the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech. In this post and in a YouTube video Rutledge makes a few basic claims or revelations, that if correct, should profoundly affect how we (the United States and the World) treat the issues of energy supply and climate change. Also see a webpage posted by Dave Rutledge where you can download his power point presentation and Excel files.

The three basic points he makes are:

1. Coal reserve estimates are inaccurate, outdated (derived and unchanged significantly since 1974), and in need of revision quite a bit downward. He references a National Academies report that discusses the need for new and accurate accounts of coal reserves and resources.

2. Hydrocarbon (oil and natural gas) and coal resources are well below those that are use by the IPCC climate models to estimate future global warming. The end result is that there is not enough mineable fossil fuels to cause the warming and sea level rises that are being predicted. For example, in some IPCC models, oil production is assumed larger in 2100 than today. Is this possible? Does this mean the use of tar sands and oil shale, or is using those resources even not enough? Rutledge's discussion of this concept makes it seem unlikely that new sources will take up the slack.

3. For climate change reasons, or fossil fuel depletion reasons, work on implementation and research and development into renewable energy systems is an imperative. I'll add not energy efficiency per se, but energy reductions that still enable us, as humans, to continue to be healthy and interact culturally as needed to have good lifestyles.

I will not further discuss this topic as one should refer to the links within this post for further information from the Dave Rutledge himself.

New Energy Bill

The US Congress passed an energy bill yesterday and Bush signed it into law. It is both a step backward and forward for energy policy. See this CS Monitor article for a synopsis.

Creating a higher CAFE standard to get to 35 mpg by 2020 is certainly a good step forward, and it has been a long time coming. The biofuels mandate is a marginally good idea. The emphasis on corn ethanol is not the greatest due to the environmentally unfriendly aspects of using a tremendous amount of irrigated water (200-2,500 gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol) consumed and fertilizer runoff into the Gulf of Mexico. To most engineers who study the problem, I would say they believe biofuels must be non-irrigated and farmed in a way that sustains the nitrogen cycle, and not only the carbon cycle we hear so much about.

The removal of the renewable energy production tax credits for wind, solar, etc. is disappointing, but it has lapsed and been restarted three times already in its brief history. What we really need is a PTC scheme that sets it at a medium to high level (note: it was 1.9 cents/kWh) and has it steadily decrease in a set manner which cannot be changed. This gives businesses the ability to know the future of this kind of incentive such that they can invest in infrastructure that must be amortized over several decades.

The CS monitor article mentioned above does point out one thing that I think is good: energy policy might now be, as it should, a perennial subject. That doesn't mean that energy policies should change every year, it just means they should be evaluated every year.

Google's Energy Ventures - Can Computer/Programming Companies Tackle the Commanding Heights?

The "Commanding Heights" of the economy were what Vladimir Lenin referred to as the segments and industries in an economy that effectively control and support the others: energy, banking, and transportation/shipping. Google and other so-called 'tech' companies (note: it is a misnomer to call technology only concepts that involved computers and programming) are aiming at solving both their own and others' energy cost problems.

In all likelihood, companies venturing in this space see their future growth limited if energy does not stay cheap and abundant. Venture capitalists see the large amount of dollars possible for finding the next major contributor to the energy mix. But tackling the Commanding Heights takes a lot of physical capital - the steel, silicon, wires, etc. that actually exist on the ground somewhere - and the paybacks times are historically slower than what Google and others are used to.

In the case of Google, their servers have grown at such a rate that they likely see limitations in their ability to continually increase their offers for free hosting services. Since providing the energy to power servers is critical to many of Google's business aspects, they Google executives have decided it is worth their while to try to solve the problem for themselves. They likely can do that, but making a new renewable energy technology (besides wind power) go mainstream will be tough, but I'm glad they are taking this challenge.

The fact is, that for almost any building in the United States, putting photovoltaic panels (for example) at the facility to offset electricity purchases will provide a payback on the investment within the lifetime of the building, and likely in less than 15 years, and possibly in less than 10 years depending upon location and incentives. The reason why this is typically not done (except on government buildings) is that there are other investments to be made with the same money that have higher paybacks in shorter time frames: this is the crux of the issue.

As long as the paybacks in energy investments take longer than other investments, companies will fulfill their fiduciary duty to make the non-energy investments. Energy simply does not cost enough to change the economics. Making renewable energy generation cost less than coal can be done by two ways: (1) cheaper renewable energy and/or (2) more expensive coal energy. The latter is not likely to happen anytime soon, even with a possible future carbon, or carbon dioxide, price. One way for the former to occur is to allocate semiconductor factories toward building solar cells instead of microchips. But then this means more expensive servers (because of less supply of chips and processors) for Google ... a catch 22.

Pros and Cons of Wind Energy

Here is a link to another article in an ever increasing list of discussions about wind power and its pros and cons. More and more negative or problematic points about wind energy are surfacing, and it is mostly because wind energy is starting to have a measurable impact instead of just being 'in the noise' of the electricity generation mix.

Essentially, because utility and grid operators don't know exactly when wind power will be getting generated due to the unpredictability in wind speed, there are additional actions that need to be taken in operating a reliable electric grid. As the amount of installed wind capacity (the MegaWatts installed if all wind generators were operating at maximum power) gets to over 10% of the entire grid capacity (wind, nuclear, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, etc.), the other electrical generators are required to operate to account for the increased wind capacity. This assumes, of course, that you are going to allow the full available wind power onto the grid at any given time.

A study by GE (see http://www.ercot.com/meetings/ros/keydocs/2007/1022/Variablity_and_Predictability_draft_dlvd_2a.zip, or link on page http://www.ercot.com/calendar/2007/10/20071022-ROSWIND.html), done for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)
shows that the dispatchable generators (those that can be turned on at any time) have to be able to ramp up and down faster the more that wind is integrated into the grid. Interestingly, the predictability of the total load that needs to be served by the dispatchable generators stayed about the same as without wind. This is because there is already enough uncertainty in the electricity demand throughout the day such that the added uncertainty of wind generation was not incredibly influential.

Basically, with more wind, we are deciding how many other additional aspects (higher generation ramp rates, more transmission lines, etc.) we are willing to deal with to have a clean source of electricity. The fact that wind energy is getting questioned for its newly-perceived (though not new at all) drawbacks is a testament to the wind industry already solving many problems to become a mainstream source of electricity.