Yesterday I hopped down to LA for the first day of WINDPOWER 2007, the wind energy industry’s annual conference and trade show. It’s not an event that will make a lot of waves in the media (despite high-profile speakers), but I wanted to provide GO readers with an inside look at how the wind industry sees itself and what that means for the rest of us. However, it’s such a huge event that even one day’s coverage demands multiple posts. I apologize for not getting part one up earlier, but here it is.

EcoGeek’s Ransom Riggs sat next to me at the morning press briefing featuring Sen. Tom Daschle, head of conference sponsor AWEA, Randall Swisher, and other energy big-wigs. Ransom's writeup provides a good overview of conclusions coming out of the briefing and the message of the conference in general, so we asked the EcoGeek if we could feature Ransom’s overview in addition to my thoughts and analysis.

Looking down on the showroom from the press room, the wind industry's largest gathering was a sight to behold. Whereas Greenfest Chicago called the ‘green’ world together to speak to tens of thousands of consumers, WINDPOWER 2007 has brought 7,000 wind energy professionals to a showroom about the same size, with the extra space filled by glitzy, expensive (and effective) marketing displays.

Similarly, WINDPOWER replaces Greenfest’s impassioned speeches with multiple themed tracks of seminars and panels for the various types of stakeholders at the event. I hopped around to as many sessions as I could, and every speaker I heard had a particular expert perspective on wind power's potential to help mitigate and solve many of the problems facing our present and future. I'll save the real analytical meat for part 2 of my coverage, but for now, some highlights:

• acclaimed scientists picked apart myths and bogeymen about using and expanding wind energy;
• engineers beamed at new technologies that are ready to make a huge difference in energy production given continued investment growth and economies of scale;
• regulators warned that transmission capacity is emerging as a bottleneck for harnessing the best and most plentiful wind resources, although there remains lots of wind that can be exploited with today’s transmission infrastructure;
• every question about how best to bring wind power to scale (AWEA would like to see 300GW of capacity installed by 2020) had a single answer: stable, supportive long-term government policies that will signal investors that the opportunity profit from wind energy is here to stay.

Until I have time to tackle each of these points and others in greater depth over the next few days, GO and EcoGeek aren’t the only online media outlets providing coverage of the happenings at WINDPOWER 2007. Renewable Energy Access definitely wins the award for most frequent updates from the conference. In keeping with REA’s industry professional focus, most of their updates look like press releases from one of the 400+ exhibitors, but there’s some good, meaty info in their coverage nonetheless. Also, my buddy Summer Bowen of BTC Elements (who kindly chauffered me around at the last event I attended in LA, Phoenix Motorcar’s SUT launch) covered the event for Treehugger (link to come). Lastly, I can’t forget NewEnergyNews. If I’m forgetting any bloggers who are providing their take on the action, or if any of you at home have feelings about wind power or policy you’d like to share, leave a comment below.

It's nights like this I'm glad I moved to Berkeley to start Green Options. Although it was only a few hundred people packed into the First Congregational Church, authors Bill Mckibben and Michael Pollan were there to talk about the mid- to long-term fate of our way of life, and what we need to be doing now to minimize the disaster, and ensure a reasonable quality of life for future generations. I feel like this is a conversation that more people should hear about, no?

First off, I was impressed with the format Global Exchange came up with for the event. A short summary of McKibben's book, Deep Economy, a long, lively conversation between the two authors, and then a well-organized Q&A. Maximum variety, maximum information. Other book tours/speakers series take note. As such, I have a hunch that my paraphrased notes will give you more information, quicker, than me writing prose about the subjects these two covered. So, here goes:

McKibben's Introduction of Deep Economy

The book critiques the dominant paradigm of growth as the ultimate economic goal. A model that relies on growth can't continue. A quick check of what would happen if China and India continue at their current rates of growth shows that resources would collapse before they reached current American consumption. (He had detailed examples, but if you want them, read the book)

Despite what ads tell us, more widgets no longer make us happy. Economists have started to realize that 'utility' is no longer an entirely sufficient term, as more does not equal happier. Although more generally does = happier in underdeveloped countries, human satisfaction surveys have shown a 50-year decline in American 'happiness' despite increasing levels of consumption. And in western Europe, happiness levels have not declined, even though they have moderated their consumption.

Why?

There is a loss of social connection, supported in the data. Average numbers of close friends per person has dropped in the US; many other indicators. Again, I guess, read the book.

Solutions to both the problem of growth and the problem of lost social connection: smaller communities, utilizing local resources.

Example: the supermarket vs. the farmer's market. A duel. Which one fosters more community? Which one requires more energy to feed you?

Community: Sociologists who strolled many a supermarket and many a farmer's market and tallied their results found that there was a ten-fold difference in the level of interaction between shoppers. (I have to agree with Bill here. And besides, my degree in Sociology compels me to dwclare it valid science)

Energy: On average, food eaten from a supermarket takes 5 to 15 times more energy to get a given amount of calories in your stomach than a local farmer's market.

Winner: Farmer's market, on both counts. (I'm not saying I'm a good enough cook to get all my food there, but why buy produce that's been sitting in a plane and then a truck when I can get local stuff picked that morning?)

Dialogue between Bill McKibben and Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma

(Warning: the following is even more heavily edited and paraphrased than the last section)

MP: This is fine to tell a culture that already has so much, but what about all the people around the world who are striving to achieve the consumptive example we've set? Can we just tell them not to want stuff? What do we do?

BM: Our chief export is the image of the American Dream through TV and film, but there simply aren't enough resources to accomodate the demand. Going back to the topic of food, there are lots of innovative, sustainable practices that are more productive. One problem is that we've confused 2 kinds of productivity, yield/$ invested and yield/acre. The industrial food economy relies exclusively on the prices of inputs, and aims to maximize yield/$. Small farms that produce a variety of crops and animals can yield more per acre than vast monoculture tracts, without degrading the soil or polluting watersheds. (This is a big deal, people)

MP: But don't we need industrialization of food to maximize efficiency as the world's population continues to rise?

BM: If that growth in efficiency could be sustained forever, that's one thing, but history shows that gains are always temporary, lead to more problems, and require more chemicals, more inputs, to keep pushing yields up. Working with the uniqueness of local ecosystems, rather than trying to destroy them, keeps giving good yields year after year, no matter what the price of natural gas-fueled fertilizer is. It's not like eating localy is some crazy idea: "it's worth remembering that 50 years ago everyone ate locally, and 90% of people worldwide still do."

MP: There's talk of another revolution in agriculture, this time based around genetically modified organisms (GMOs) instead of chemicals.

BM: The metrics by which we measure success need to change. We're so convinced that the ends we puruse are correct just because they're possible. To frame a push for sustainability or organic farming as giving up modernity is wrong. It's more a question of trajectory: what course we choose, what we invest in as a society, and how we lead the world. China and India could follow either the European or American model of development, and if they all decide they want to drive their Hummers to the suburbs, it's game over. (Note: his actual quote was "…Plan A isn't possible. If that's all we can think of, we're going to drive off a cliff.")

What, no more?

This is long enough already, so I'll spare you the Q&A (unless the comments explode with requests), but there is one last thing. Bill McKibben, as a writer and professor in rural Vermont, has close ties to his community, and strongly believes that community action is the only way to create enough pressure (well, at least until the frequency of disasters and weather weirdness increases) to compel government to act in the interest of our society. He's using the power of the internet to build a National Day of Climate Action, to be held on April 14th at hundreds of rallies across the country. If you want to get involved (there are over 950 events currently planned), go to the Step It Up 2007 website at stepitup07.org.