Suddenly, wind power as an energy source looks more feasible than it did just a few weeks ago.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has discovered a new way to store energy produced from solar power so that the energy is still available when the sun goes down. A July 31 news release from MIT says that the method is a “simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process.”
This is potentially a big deal because there’s a big problem with the fashionable, “green” methods for producing energy: They only work part of the time. You can’t get energy from solar after sunset, and wind turbines stop moving if the wind isn’t blowing. There is no good, cheap method for storing really large amounts of electricity.

That’s why although wind and solar power is growing, the U.S. still has to rely on coal plants, nuclear power and other conventional power sources to provide sufficient power.

Wind power has been touted as a key to economic development in for the Lake Erie Coast — because we can make the wind turbine components, but also because we can produce the power, too.

A new report by produced for the Erie County Economic Development Corp. by AngelouEconomics says the county should work to become a wind power hub. An article by Harvey Wasserman at RenewableEnergyWorld.com says that “standardized wind maps of the Great Lakes region show one of the most concentrated potential green energy resources in the world.”

The MIT news release dwells on the solar angle. But I asked the news release’s author, Anne Trafton, if the discovery couldn’t make wind power more practical, too.

“The researchers who developed this are focusing on solar, but it could in theory also be used to store energy produced by wind turbines,” she replied.

I’ll have more on this in an article in the Sunday paper.

That is where developers are looking to build more than 100 wind turbines taller than the Statue of Liberty, side by side, on 18 miles of the George Washington National Forest.

FreedomWorks, a company with projects in four states, wants to generate electricity for the power-hungry Washington area and beyond, despite concerns about disturbing wildlife, spoiling untouched lands, and creating noise and light pollution.

As the United States searches for ways to lessen its dependency on foreign oil, wind energy is getting a second look in states such as Virginia that had not embraced it.

The national push, along with new state financial incentives for renewable energy, has prompted more interest in wind turbines in Virginia.

“Wind is catching fire,” said Preston Bryant, Virginia’s secretary of natural resources. “It is literally all the rage.”

Virginia is one of a dozen states, most of them in the Southeast, with no wind farms. But that might change this year.

The State Corporation Commission has approved a request by another company to build 19 turbines in remote, mountainous Highland County, known as Virginia’s Switzerland. That is expected to produce enough electricity to power 15,000 homes in the mid-Atlantic. Construction is expected to begin this year.

Two smaller projects would power Tangier and Wallops islands off the Virginia coast. And Dominion Virginia Power, the largest energy provider in the state, with 2.3 million customers, is working with BP Alternative Energy North America to build and operate wind farms in Virginia. No locations have been announced.

“There is a lot of really good opportunity in Virginia,” said Frank Maisano, a lobbyist for 13 wind developers in the mid-Atlantic states, including Virginia and Maryland.

But the new push for wind energy in Virginia has highlighted a conflict within the environmental community.

Some groups, which have long clamored for more renewable energy sources and encouraged wind power instead of a new coal-burning power plant in southwest Virginia, oppose the FreedomWorks project, the largest wind proposal in the state, because of the potential harm to plants and animals.

“We are strong advocates for renewable energy and wind energy,” said Glen Besa, director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. “But we would like to see it developed responsibly.”

Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, one of the few groups that supports the FreedomWorks project, said the problem in Virginia is that by the time developers came, their opponents were well-organized.

But, Tidwell said, he thinks opponents in Virginia will change their minds about wind energy when they see a wind farm for themselves and that it is harmless. “Acceptance will grow,” he said.

More than half of Virginia’s energy comes from coal, a third from nuclear and a small amount from gas, oil and other sources. The state’s energy needs are expected to grow by about 1 million homes in the next decade.

Last year, Governor Timothy Kaine presented a plan that calls for in-state energy production, including wind, to increase 20 percent. Some experts have estimated that wind energy in Virginia, on land and offshore, has the potential to produce as much as 20 percent of the state’s electric needs.

Today, wind power generates enough electricity in 34 states to power 5 million homes - slightly more than 1 percent of the US electric supply, according to the American Wind Energy Association in Washington.

The American Wind Energy Association is pulling its 2009 convention out of Minneapolis because there’s not enough space to hold it here, the group said Friday. The move will leave a big hole in the city’s summer convention schedule next year, and convention officials called the loss “devastating”.

Randall Swisher, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based trade group, said in a statement that AWEA is investigating other locations for the trade show because “the demand for show floor space in 2009 exceeds the entire available exhibition space in the Minneapolis Convention Center.”

Additionally, “hotel space would be problematic, forcing attendees to commute to the conference center from far outside the city,” Swisher said.

The conference had been scheduled June 7-10, 2009 in Minneapolis. The city was selected in 2006 to host the conference, partly because of Minnesota’s prominent role in wind power development and because of the “outstanding” facilities provided by the city, he said.

“We deeply regret any inconvenience that this decision has caused, and understand the disappointment of the many AWEA member companies and supporters in the state. We also deeply regret not being able to hold the Windpower 2009 Conference & Exhibition in a state that is one of the outstanding leaders in wind power,” Swisher said.

He specifically commended Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak for their efforts.

AWEA is now studying a new location for Windpower 2009. It plans to make a formal decision on the move soon.

The loss of the conference is a blow for Minnesota, which bills itself as the third-largest state in the country for wind-power capacity.

Meet Minneapolis, the nonprofit group that runs the Minneapolis Convention Center, said in a November 2007 press release that the Windpower trade show would attract 5,000 attendees, generate 7,850 hotel room nights and deliver an economic impact of $5.69 million for the region. Friday, officials said that the impact would have been even bigger.

“Our community has suffered a devastating loss of more than $15 million in direct delegate spending that cannot possibly be fully mitigated within the 10 months between now and when the convention would have taken place,” said Melvin Tennant, president and CEO of Meet Minneapolis. “We have already initiated a number of aggressive short-term sales initiatives to help fill our hotels and convention center with meeting business to lessen the impact of the cancellation.”

This summer’s AWEA conference, held June 1 to June 4 in Houston, attracted 13,000 people, nearly doubling the 2007 attendance of 7,000. It gave Houston’s economy an estimated $12.8 million boost, according to a story in the Houston Business Journal.

A San Marcos company wants to take advantage of the already built towers and harness the wind that blows past these towers as a way to generate energy throughout texas.

Clearshot Services, a company out of texas that has been in business for over 7  years is looking to build wind power into numerous types of towers, everything from cell phone towers to meteorological towers.

“What we hope sets us apart is we’re not going to limit ourselves to one segment of the business,” President Eric Chase says. “As the market grows, companies will look for larger aggressive firms who can handle bigger projects.”