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Resorts around the world continue to impress me with their commitment to sustainable practices — but Rosalie Bay Resort on the island of Dominica in the Caribbean is truly a standout.

Five years in the making, the 22-acre getaway was built on principles of conservation and preservation, surrounded by an undisturbed natural setting of mountains, lush forests, and gardens. In addition to solar panels, the resort also features a Norwin Turbine 225 kW — which provides some 70% of the power used by the 28 beautiful rooms in nine cottages. With these renewables in place, Rosalie is effectively self-sustaining; an epic achievement that’s yet still rare in today’s world of “green resorts”.

“Nature should be preserved and shared,” said Dr. Ken Watson, general manager. “Rosalie Bay Resort was designed to be environmentally sustainable while showcasing one of the most beautiful natural settings in the Caribbean. Many resorts claim to be green, but we’ve made a legitimate commitment with the wind turbine being the centerpiece of our pledge.”

Don’t take my word for it, hit the official site to check out the beauty of Rosalie. Rates start at a very reasonable $185/night and include continental breakfast, coffee & tea.

Go to The Oil Drum for the rest:

The NREL/GE Energy WWSIS study appears to be built on several questionable assumptions, each allowing the modeled system (of up to 30% wind/5% solar in the West Connect within the great Western Interconnect) to withstand the inherent difficulties of large scale renewable integration. The primary issue, consistent with my dissertation research, is that the authors assume that we can afford to massively overbuild the capacity of the system, adding the large percentages of renewable generation on top of newly built and existing plants. This allows one to be able to ignore the hourly or sub-hourly periods with extremely low output from renewables, as well as the days or weeks at a time during the summer when wind production is well below yearly average output levels. An ample reserve is at the ready to step in when renewables perform poorly. Secondly and equally important, the authors assume that coal plants, which have traditionally run in a base load capacity, will be able to be operated very flexibly – on par with combined cycle gas plants. This allows the authors, on one hand, to state that electricity prices will be kept low, because we will still be able to burn less expensive coal as our primary non-renewable source of electricity (instead of having to switch to more expensive natural gas), but also to claim increased upside flexibility in the system to deal with periods where wind and solar output decrease rapidly and reserves need to be brought on line. Next, like previous studies, the authors assume that there is an “away” to export excess generation to during times of overproduction. By assuming that the greater Western Interconnect is available to absorb excess production (by economic dispatch and regional grid management), the authors assume minimal to no curtailment in wind production needed in periods of overproduction. If on the other hand balancing is limited to smaller areas, the authors admit that the system might not be stable.

It is my opinion that this study is far from conclusive in its assertion that very high penetrations of wind and solar electricity generation are feasible in the Western Interconnect. Although the authors of the study performed a very detailed analysis, it is one that I feel is based on technological, bureaucratic, and political optimism.

Students from SUNY-ESF will be taking over Groovy Green next week.  Get the perspective of the future environmental leaders of America (and places beyond).

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Come back and see us next week, starting Thursday 11/18/10 and see what they have to say.

ED: the dog ate my homework.  Check back next week!

Oil is spilling at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil slick covers an area of nearly 4,000 sq. miles and growing. It is shaping up to be one of the worst man-made disasters to ever strike the planet. To put the leak in perspective, 5,000 barrels a day is 0.00026% of the U.S.’s daily oil consumption. We “spill” the remaining 99.99974% of that oil into the atmosphere each day.

We’ve seen mega-turbines before — but never one with an output of 10MW, and certainly not one that floats!

When completed, the world’s largest turbine will stand at roughly 533 feet with a rotor diameter of 475 feet. At three times more powerful than current turbines, it will be able to power over 2,000 homes. From Treehugger,

It will be built by the Norwegian company Sway and tested first on land in Oeygarden, southwestern Norway. Unlike most offshore wind projects where turbines rest on the seafloor, Sway turbines float. This means further offshore development where winds are stronger and more consistent.

The floating tower is a pole filled with ballast beneath the water creating low center of gravity. Anchored to the seabed with a single pipe and a suction anchor, it can tilt 5-8°, and turn around with the wind.

It’s expected that the prototype will cost close to $70 million and be completed sometime in 2011.

We love raucous festivals like Burning Man and music jamborees like Bonaroo, but we’ve never heard of one that combines the spirit of these events with the mission to actually accomplish something. Like building a build a micro wind turbine farm.

Such is the idea behind “Villages in the Sky: DIY World Change” — a a family-friendly renewable energy and sustainability celebration located in the Ozarks and scheduled for June 2010. Unlike gatherings that strive to leave things the way they were before anyone arrived, Villages in the Sky is looking to take advantage of crowd sourcing to create a better place than existed before. Participants will help build a micro wind turbine farm and bio-mass systems as well as giant play structures (zip lines, tree houses, ropes courses, etc). The entire event is internally cash free event which promotes a volunteer ethic and strangers working cooperatively for a shared goal. In fact, the main goal is to leave behind the beginnings of a locally self sufficient eco-village. Perhaps even one inspired by the Ewoks. From the website,

“Villages in the Sky is about more than wind mills and climate change. It is a full celebration of the element of air. Everything from paper airplane contests, to bubble blowing, to frisbees, to zip lines, to tree house villages complete with connecting bridges are being considered and encouraged.”

The VIS site is a 40 acre portion of the over 1000 acres owned by host East Wind Community in the Ozark mountains of south western Missouri. In other words, bring your GPS.

Right now, the event organizers are looking for help with funding and currently are in the hunt a $5K grant over at Brighter Planet. You can check out more details on the proposed plans — and help vote them through here!

2010 will most likely go down as the year electric cars were (once again) made available to the public through Big Auto. Both Nissan and Chevy have plans to release the Leaf and Volt respectively — and both focus on getting energy from being plugged in. (Although the Volt can charge its battery utilizing its small “range-extender engine”, but then what’s the point of having an electric car?)

If you’ve got the deep pockets for one, the most conventional way of charging the vehicle will be to simply plug it into an ordinary wall socket. Charging a Nissan Leaf would take up to 16 hours, and charging a Volt would take eight. If you’re in a hurry, however, the best thing to have on-hand in the garage is a “quick charger” — which pushes a much more considerable amount of juice to your car. Instead of 8 hours, you can now have a fully charged Volt in under 2.5 hours.

Unfortunately, having a quick charger installed in your garage is not something just anyone can do. From CNN Money,

“The equipment has to be fully approved, installed by a competent professional, and in most cases, a city or state inspector will have to approve it all.”

In some instances, users had to jump through hoops that amounted to a month or more of waiting for the right installer/inspector to visit their home. “But the broader market of car buyers are likely to be turned off by any additional hassles”, said Charlie Vogelheim, executive editor of Intellichoice.com to CNN. “They all become detriments to making the sale,” he said. “That’s the type of thing that slows it down going into the mainstream.”

Companies like Nissan and Chevy are attempting to alleviate such potential issues by working with city and state governments now — so that later in 2010, when new customers attempt to order quick chargers and get them inspected, they’re not met with blank stares. As Sebastian Blanco, editor of Autobloggreen added, “Little setbacks will not be enough to hold back the tide of people who really want these cars.”

Dell has just put the finishing touches on its latest green addition to the company’s corporate headquarters in Round Rock, Texas. Called a “solar grove”, the solar-powered parking lot not only produced carbon-free energy for the building, but is also ready to power plug-in vehicles — should any Dell employee currently be lucky enough to have one. From AutoBlogGreen,

The Solar Trees®, located in the Dell employee parking lot, will simultaneously shade 50 parking spaces and generate clean electricity directly from the sun. In an example of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, the solar arrays also incorporate two Envision Solar CleanCharge™ solar charging stations utilizing Coulomb ChargPoint™ for Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs). Photos can be viewed here. “Dell’s commitment to environmental sustainability is a beacon to organizations worldwide. We’re proud our Solar Trees® and CleanCharge™ solar charging stations can help serve as visible symbols of their environmental stewardship. The future of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles has arrived and our experience in solar innovation has allowed us to lead the market in the development of solar charging stations,” said Robert Noble, CEO & Chairman of Envision Solar.

The Solar Grove is expected to produce more than 130kW of clean energy. Check out the full press release here.

In what’s sure to give inane homeowner’s associations across suburbia hope, Dow Chemical on Monday announced a massive push into the solar shingle business – with a roll-out of their new integrated solar cells expected around 2011. Jetson Green delves into the benefits saying, “The POWERHOUSE Solar Shingle is made with CIGS photovoltaic cells in a proprietary shingle design.  Roofing contractors won’t need any particular knowledge of solar array installations, and installations should be quick because conventional roofing shingles and Solar Shingles can be applied at the same time.”

Dow loaded their press release with some pie-in-the-sky numbers saying that they expect the solar shingle industry to potentially reach $5 billion by 2015, and $10 billion by 2020. Obviously, while not as efficient as their panel brethren, homeowners may find the aesthetics much more appealing. If costs can come down, perhaps Dow’s numbers might be on target. Then again, we’ve been dreaming about a solar suburbia for awhile now — and in the current economic shitstorm — such hopes might need to be delayed. Read up more on Dow’s announcement here.