Spain is truly an international leader in the development of renewable energy and already produce the third most wind energy in the world and the second most solar energy. Despite this, Spain’s massive coastline has remained untapped as a wind energy resource, until now.

Last week the Spanish government announced that they intend to divest themselves entirely of nuclear power and in order to do this they would increase investment in wind power through installations along the 5,000 miles of Spanish coastline.

The coastline has officially been approved to be mapped out for all relevant factors for establishing wind farms including wind speed, ecological factors and boat traffic.

Earlier this year Spain brought attention to the value of wind energy when they set a record for wind power generation with 11,180 megawatts from a strong wind. To put it into perspective, that much wind power was enough to meet about 40 percent of all of Spain’s energy demands at the time.

First of all, Dong Energy? Seriously? Hahahahaha. OK, I’m over it. Sorry about that.

Dong Energy has recently signed a deal with Siemens… Bwahahahaha… Siemens? Really? Siemens is supplying Dong! Man, you just can’t make this stuff up. OK, sorry, back to your regularly scheduled wind power news.
Dong Energy is all set to erect (giggle) up to 500 offshore wind turbines in Northern Europe thanks to a recent agreement with Siemens AG. The wind turbines in question will have a total capacity of 1,800 megawatts and each will have an individual capacity of 3.6 megawatts.

CEO of the Renewable Energy Division of Siemens Energy René Umlauft, said this marked one of the biggest orders ever for Siemens (snicker).

Both Dong and Siemens made history together when they constructed the world’s first offshore wind farm at Vindeby in Denmark. Thrusting the mighty structures forth into the wide open sky, glistening with the condensation, the ocean pounding against their mighty girth… damn it!

The primary operator of North Texas’ electrical grid, Oncor Electric Delivery, has secured a contract to install $1.3 billion worth of electrical transmission lines to join the massive wind farms of West Texas to the State’s grid.

As the American state with the most wind power generation (8,000 megawatt capacity), Texas is seeing a steep increase in the percentage of its power coming from wind farms. In 2007 wind power accounted for 2.9 percent of the electricity generated in Texas and last year it grew to 4.9 percent. Not bad for the oil heartland of America.

With the wind industry booming, many owners of wind farms built during California’s wind boom of the 1980s are thinking about upgrading their wind turbines. However, with everyone thinking greener these days, many are finding alternatives to sending their worn-out wind turbines to the junk yard.

An increasing number of new companies are buying up the old turbines on the cheap, overhauling them and reselling them at cheaper prices. Portland-based Nexion DG, for example, offers recycled wind turbines that the company salvaged from California wind farms.

“To go out and build a new turbine of the size we’re working with, it would end up costing twice as much,” said Matt Stein, director of operations for Nexion DG. “And anybody building components for new wind turbines is focusing on the 1 megawatt-plus turbines because that’s where the action is.”

Perks for customers of recycled wind turbines include cheaper prices as well as shorter waiting times, around two months for a rebuilt machine, rather than a year for a new one.

The West Virginia Gazette is reporting that 14 people were given tickets today while protesting Massey Energy’s  plans to blast apart Coal River Mountain in Southern West Virginia. Massey Energy has plans to mine at least 6,000 acres of the mountain, almost 10 square miles.

This morning, five activists chained themselves to bulldozers at a Massey Energy strip-mining operation in protest. A sixth person was also cited, even after identifying themselves to police as a member of the press. Another eight were cited after they delivered a letter to Massey Energy President Don Blankenship, but then refused to leave the Massey property.

The group, who call themselves “Climate Ground Zero and Appalachian Mountain Justice” and have who run  the Coal River Wind Project campaign,  are attempting to stop Massey’s mountaintop removal plans. The group hopes that a wind farm would be put at the site instead.

At the mining site, the activists hung one banner that said, “Windmills, Not Toxic Spills” and attached windmill blades to an excavator at the Massey operation.

“They shouldn’t allow the wind potential on Coal River Mountain to be destroyed, and the nearby communities endangered, for only 17 years of coal,” activist Rory McIlmoil said. “There is a better way to develop the mountain and strengthen the local economy that will create lasting jobs and tax revenues for this county, and that’s with wind power.”

A new wind farm is being built in Kenya that will be large enough to produce a full 30% of the country’s energy needs. Kenya has experienced a growing demand for power with an average increase of 8% per year.

The Kenyan wind farm will produce 300 megawatts of power and is a private venture which is seeing about 30% of the cost coming from the African Development Bank.

This adoption of wind energy and other forms of renewable energy in Kenya and throughout Africa is great to see since it offers hope that Africans will bypass the whole stage of dirty power and get right into renewable forms like geothermal power plants and wind and solar energy.

President Barack Obama faces a real political bind. Senator Edward Kennedy, who was an early backer of Obama and who suffered a seizure at his inauguration, is on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to a Cape Cod wind farm, Cape Wind.

Kennedy, a resident of Nantucket, has fought against the wind farm for eight years, arguing that it will cause radar interference to boats and planes, hurt wildlife and hinder the ocean views from Cape Cod, and has sued to stop the project. Kennedy owns an oceanside home that would have a direct view of the proposed 125 wind turbines that would stand 440 feet above sea level. However, Kennedy maintains that his spoiled view is not why he opposes the project.

However, a strong advocate for Cape Wind is Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a close friend of Obama. Patrick believes that this wind farm will be instrumental in making  his state a leader in alternative energy.

Obama has made it known that he is also a strong supporter of wind power. Obama pledged that the nation would “harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories” in his inaugural address. He also visited an Ohio wind turbine factory.

“There would have to be some extraordinary reason to not make a favorable decision, aside from deference to Ted Kennedy,” a project ally told the media. “And if deference to Ted Kennedy is what delays this project, this means that deference is being paid by the president himself—and [that he’s] doing so at the expense of his pledges on energy policy.”

Canadian provincial governments have been making a big push to help wind energy flourish. The most recent example comes out of Ontario which just signed contracts to build six large wind farms. The farms will provide nearly 500 more megawatts to for the province.

While this is great news for the wind energy industry the sector is still looking for more assistance from next week’s federal budget.

This recent push into wind power started last year when Quebec approved $5.5 billion in wind power projects in the province. Enough to provide 2,000 megawatts by 2015.

Then it was Manitoba Hydro’s turn as they signed a deal to buy power from a 300 megawatt wind farm (the largest in Canada) for the next 25 years.

Beautiful British Columbia will be next since they are expected to approve as much as 1,000 megawatts worth of renewable energy contracts in the spring, much of which will be provided by wind farms.

This has proved invaluable to the wind power industry since securing such long-term contracts since it allows the companies to ease investor’s fears by providing the security of guaranteed income over an extended period.

Last night Spain beat it’s wind power peak performance record with 11,175 megawatts, breaking its record of 10,880 set in April of 2008.

Spanish wind farms also set a record for the amount of electricity they produced in a given day with 234,059 megawatt-hours – amounting to an impressive 26 percent of the countries power demand.

Spain has been one of the leaders in wind power growth along with the U.S. and China. Although it is dismally behind the greenhouse gas emission levels called for by the Kyoto protocol, it is working hard to meet them via wind power.

Currently wind farms in Spain produce approximately 16K megawatts, but the government’s aggressive foray into the wind power industry means that they expect that number to climb to 20K by 2010 and 40K by 2020.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has set a goal of developing 2,000 megawatts of wind power capacity by 2020.

“With the growing interest in wind turbines we see in communities across the Commonwealth [of Massachusetts] and the abundant wind resource we have off our coast, wind power is going to be a centerpiece of the clean energy economy we are creating for Massachusetts,” said Patrick.

It is expected that an offshore facility will make up part of the 2,000 MW, with the U.S. Minerals Management Service this week, with the release of its favorable environmental impact statement on the Cape Wind project.

Massachusetts and Texas have been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for two Wind Technology Testing Centers in the country. The Governor noted how this move will not only make Massachusetts and Texas hubs for wind power research, but also boost the potential economic gain of technology development, entrepreneurship and jobs.