UPDATE 2-Wind power could make Norway "Europe's battery"

Norway could become "Europe's battery" by developing huge sea-based wind parks costing up to $44 billion by 2025, Norway's Oil and Energy Minister said on Monday.

Norway's Energy Council, comprising business leaders and officials, said green exports could help the European Union reach a goal of getting 20 percent of its electricity by 2020 from renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro or wave power.

"Norway could be Europe's battery," Oil and Energy Minister Aaslaug Haga told Reuters after she was handed the report, which will be considered by the centre-left government in coming months.

"The thinking is that Norway is blessed, is lucky, to have big energy resources. There is undoubtedly a large potential for wind power," she said. Norway says it has the longest coastline in Europe, from the North Sea to the Arctic Barents Sea.

The 30-page report, mapping out a big shift for the world's number 5 oil exporter, said: "Norway ought to have access to up to 40 terrawatt hours of renewable energy in 2020-2025, of which about half would come from offshore wind power."

Sufficient wind parks -- totalling 5,000 to 8,000 megawatts installed capacity -- would cost between 100 billion Norwegian and 220 billion Norwegian crowns ($43.89 billion) assuming prices of 20-28 million crowns per installed megawatt.

The energy would be equivalent to up to about eight nuclear power plants. Norway pumps about 2.2 million barrels of oil per day -- $44 billion represents the value of about half a year's output.

WIND, HYDRO

Haga said offshore wind parks -- which would stop on calm days -- could be supplemented by hydro-power reservoirs which can be turned on and off to turn them into a battery storing power. Norway has about half Europe's reservoir capacity.

"We can deliver a product whether the wind is blowing or not," she said. Haga will meet EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs in Brussels on Thursday, partly to discuss the report.

It said Norway still needed new laws, competitive subsidies and more infrastructure. Norway sometimes has problems supplying even its own electricity needs with its existing hydro-power.

And it said that Denmark, Germany and Britain had done much more to develop wind power, both on land and in shallow waters. Norway's advantage was wide experience from deeper offhore oil and gas installations.

StatoilHydro (STL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research) said last week that it will invest $80 million to build the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine to start up in 2009. Power from such installations is likely to be more costly than on land.

The report said that Norway would have to agree long-term wind supply contracts with EU countries, including access to EU subsidies. But Haga also said: "I don't expect Europe to subsidise Norwegian wind power producion."

"It's not a first choice to import power," said Steinar Bysveen, who led the report. He said EU nations such as Germany might need imports because of a lack of space to build wind parks at home and plans to phase out nuclear power.

The Energy Council report said that 40 terrawatt hours of electricity from wind could cut 20 million tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for stoking global warming. Norway's 2007 emissions were 55 million tonnes.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Editing by William Hardy,

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2008 May 27

Phoenix at Mars
Credit: Phoenix, HiRISE, NASA, JPL-Caltech, Univ. Arizona

Explanation: The Phoenix lander's footpads are about the size of a dinner plate. One of three is shown at the right, covered with Martian soil after a successful soft landing on the Red Planet on May 25. Amazingly, the left panel image is of the spacecraft during its descent phase, captured by the HiRISE camera onboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter -- the first image ever of a spacecraft descending to the surface of another planet. Taken from 750 kilometers above Mars, the picture shows Phoenix suspended beneath its unfurling, 10 meter-wide parachute, against the much darker Martian surface. The lander is still attached to its protective backshell. Phoenix released its parachute at an altitude of 12.6 kilometers. Using rockets to further reduce its speed for landing, Phoenix now rests in the northern polar region of Mars at about 68 degrees latitude.

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Engineering researcher seeks answers to asteroid deflection

Contacts:
Bong Wie, Aerospace Engineering, 515 294-3124, bongwieiastate.edu
Mary Jo Glanville, Engineering Communications and Marketing, 515 294-8787, mglanviliastate.edu

Ames, Iowa—An Asteroid Deflection Research Center (ADRC) has been established on the Iowa State campus to bring researchers from around the world to develop asteroid deflection technologies. The center was signed into effect in April by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.

“In the early 1990s, scientists around the world initiated studies to assess and devise methods to prevent near-Earth objects from striking Earth,” said Bong Wie, the Vance D. Coffman Chair Professor in Aerospace Engineering and director of the center. “However, it is now 2008, and there is no consensus on how to reliably deflect them in a timely manner,” he noted.

Wie, whose research expertise includes space vehicle dynamics and control, modeling and control of large space structures, and solar sail flight control system development and mission design, joined the Iowa State faculty last August. “I am very happy that Professor Bong Wie has joined the faculty at ISU,” said Elizabeth Hoffman, executive vice president and provost. “His work on asteroid deflection is exciting and of great importance.”

The ADRC will host an International Symposium on Asteroid Deflection Technology in fall 2008. Scientists and engineers from NASA, the European Space Agency, academia, and the aerospace industry will be invited to the Iowa State campus to formulate a roadmap for developing asteroid deflection technologies.

Despite the lack of an immediate threat from an asteroid strike, scientific evidence suggests the importance of researching preventive measures. Sixty-five million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid struck near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and created the 106-mile-diameter Chicxulub Crater. Most scientists now believe that a global climate change caused by this asteroid impact may have led to the dinosaur extinction. Seventy-four million years ago, a smaller one-mile-wide asteroid struck in central Iowa, creating the Manson Crater. Now covered with soil, it is the largest crater in North America at more than 23 miles across.

Just 100 years ago, June 30, 1908, an asteroid or comet estimated at 100–200 feet in diameter exploded in the skies above Tunguska, Siberia. Known as the Tunguska Event, the explosion flattened trees and killed other vegetation over a 500,000-acre area. But if the explosion had occurred four hours later, it would have destroyed St. Petersburg or Moscow with an equivalent energy level of about 500 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.

The potential for such devastation has astronomers scanning the skies to find and track asteroids that pose a danger, and it has Wie initiating this concerted research effort now before any asteroids are discovered heading toward Earth.

Last November, NASA reported 900 known potentially hazardous objects (PHOs), most of which are asteroids. PHOs are defined as objects larger than 492 feet in diameter whose trajectories bring them to within about 4.6 million miles of the Earth’s orbit. NASA scientists estimate the total population of PHOs to be around 20,000. “However,” Wie said, “the asteroid we have to worry about is the asteroid that we don’t know.”

“Developing technologies that can be used to prevent or mitigate threats from asteroids while also advancing space exploration is a challenge we accept as we work to assure a high quality of life for future generations,” said Mark J. Kushner, dean of Iowa State’s College of Engineering. “This research center serves as an excellent opportunity to provide leadership on an issue that has worldwide implications.”

According to Tom Shih, professor and chair of aerospace engineering, “the potential for a major catastrophe created by an asteroid impacting Earth is very real. It is a matter of when, and humankind must be prepared for it. Our aerospace engineering department strongly supports Professor Bong Wie’s effort in establishing this center to address the engineering and science issues of asteroid deflection.”

Both high-energy nuclear explosions and low-energy non-nuclear alternatives will be studied as deflection techniques. The nuclear approach, which is often assessed to be 10–100 times more effective than non-nuclear approaches as stated in NASA’s 2007 report to Congress, will be researched to verify its effectiveness and determine its practical viability, according to Wie.

“A 20-meter (66 feet) standoff distance is often mentioned in the literature for a maximum velocity change of a 1-kilometer (0.6 mile) asteroid. However, we have to determine how close the nuclear explosion must be to effectively change the orbital trajectories of asteroids of different types, sizes, and shapes,” Wie explained. “We will develop high-fidelity physical models to reliably predict the velocity change and fragmentation caused by a nuclear standoff explosion.”

The non-nuclear alternatives include kinetic impactors and slow-pull gravity tractors. Wie, who has previously worked on solar sail technology as applied to asteroid deflection, will present his recent study, “Multiple gravity tractors in halo orbits for towing a target asteroid,” at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Astrodynamics Specialists Conference in August. His paper has been accepted for publication in the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics.

The chances of having to use deflection technologies on an asteroid in the near future are admittedly remote. Scientists estimate the frequency of an extinction-class (6 miles in diameter or larger) object striking Earth as once every 50–100 million years, and for a 200-foot or larger object as once every 100–500 years.

The technologies that will be developed, including precision orbital guidance and navigation and control, however, have other applications as well. These may include future advanced space vehicles that will carry astronauts to an asteroid or Mars and homeland security applications.

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