Text-Only Version
Habib Dagher, Director, Advanced Engineered Wood
Composites: "But it's more than just generating wind, it's how to
use the wind. How to take that wind and how to make the best use of
that electricity. We're proposing very efficient ways to store and
utilize that electricity that have profound effects on the
efficiencies--we're talking about efficiencies on the order of two
to four that could be achieved by using, essentially, heat pumps.
Heat pumps, the ground-loop heat pumps--as you know, the temperature
10 feet or below the earth stays close to 45 degrees farenheight--it's
a wonderful place to get some calories and bring them into the
house. You don't have to generate those calories--they're there. And
that's what we're trying to do here--we're trying to use the
electricity we generate from wind and bring it into the house, shift
it into the house, rather than generate it using electricity, and
that can get you, depending on the time of the year and the
temperature outside, two to four times the benefits.
"Another major advantage is storage. If you look at plug-in electric
vehicles--we've all been talking about them, but one thing we
haven't talked about is that the majority of our energy usage
actually is in transportation. Fifty percent of the energy budget
for the family in Maine is in transportation, 40 percent is in
heating. So, if we can cut that transportation part out by using
electric plug-in vehicles and use them as a distributed battery that
can store energy at night. When you go to plug in your car, the wind
can be high, it can be low, and you can still charge your car. Then
you can use it the next day, so it's a wonderful distributed battery
that can be used to distribute the intermittency of the wind.
"Are we the only ones who are doing this? If we look across the
Atlantic, unfortunately, the Europeans are way ahead of us. Again,
they've been scratching their heads long before we have, they've
been paying $7-$8 a gallon long before we have, so they're looking
at solutions. In Europe, there are plans by 2030 to generate 150
gigawatts of off-shore wind capacity for Europe. One hundred fifty
gigawatts--that's chart 16. They're calling wind energy and
off-shore wind the third industrial revolution. They've created over
300,000 jobs in Europe in wind and wind-related businesses. We can
do the same by driving in the direction of renewables as well.
"The question is, what is it going to take to go off shore? If you
look at going off-shore, it's almost like a reverse Darwinian
motion--we're actually going from land with wind technology over to
off-shore. What it's going to require is developing floating
platforms because the continental shelf in the United States drops
off very quickly. 90% of that wonderful wind resource sits far
off-shore and in deep water, so we need to develop these
tension-like platform type solutions, and you can see of these
structures on page six. We need an R & D program to be able to
transfer some of that technology from Europe up to the United
States, and also to transfer decades of deep-water off-shore
drilling experience into the wind energy market.
"We have a detailed $100 million R & D plan that we're proposing
that's in your sheets, but I'd like to summarize here very quickly.
Off-shore wind is a wonderful U.S. natural resource. It sits close
to where people need it--if you look at where the population centers
are, we don't have to build large transmitters to get to those
locations. We need your support to create a national off-shore wind
energy initiative. A Manhattan plan for wind energy that can double
the Pickens plan. We're ready to lead that in the state of Maine
because we're in the eye of the heating hurricane. That's where
Maine is right now. We're prepared to lead the nation and we're
ready to do so if a national program is created. The other thing
we'd like your help on is to develop the financial incentives--the
PTC's--make sure those stay in place. And also develop a policy
framework to allow the off-shore wind developments to take place.
Thank you very much."
Senator Joseph Lieberman: "Thanks very much, doctor, that was
actually very exciting testimony."
