nuclear-news

Renewable energy – both practicable and popular

The study was released just days after a new poll from Elon University in Elon, N.C. found overwhelming public support in North Carolina for developing the state’s renewable energy capacity. Nearly 80% of the poll’s respondents said they favor new wind energy facilities in the mountains or on the coast, while more than 83% favor construction of solar facilities.

Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy’s limits, FACING SOUTH, 9 March 2010, “……groundbreaking study out of North Carolina … suggests that backup generation requirements would be modest for a system based largely on solar and wind power, combined with efficiency, hydroelectric power, and other renewable sources like landfill gas.

“Even though the wind does not blow nor the sun shine all the time, careful management, readily available storage and other renewable sources can produce nearly all the electricity North Carolinians consume,” said author John Blackburn, professor emeritus of economics and former chancellor at Duke University in Durham, N.C.. He’s also the author of the books “The Renewable Energy Alternative” and “Solar in Florida.”

The study was published last week by the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, whose executive director, Arjun Makhijani, called it landmark research. “North Carolina utilities and regulators and those in other states should take this template, refine it, and make a renewable electricity future a reality,” he said….
“This goes to the heart of the argument by power companies that have long dismissed solar and wind as future technologies,” said Jim Warren, executive director of the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, a Durham, N.C.-based nonprofit that provided research assistance to Blackburn.

The study was released just days after a new poll from Elon University in Elon, N.C. found overwhelming public support in North Carolina for developing the state’s renewable energy capacity. Nearly 80% of the poll’s respondents said they favor new wind energy facilities in the mountains or on the coast, while more than 83% favor construction of solar facilities.

ISS – Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy’s limits

March 9, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | energy efficiency, renewable energy, renewables, solar