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Harnessing wind power: the new race to the moon Larry Viterna`s ambitions soared skyward just about the time man`s feet hit the moon. Like many young people around the world watching the 1969 lunar landing on television, Viterna was riveted. Unlike many, he vowed to work for NASA to help build the next big thing for outer space.
So it came as a bit of a shock to Viterna, when he graduated college in 1977 with the requisite mechanical engineering degree, to find himself at NASA`s Cleveland labs ensconced on the front lines of a very different challenge: the race to harness the wind.
Tiny in scope compared with the moon race, the quest for wind power briefly flared big and bright in America`s priorities. Fueled by millions in oil-embargo-inspired federal funding, NASA Lewis (now NASA Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland led the way - before the venture lost its spark as oil prices fell.
Now it`s back to the future for Viterna and the country. The era of oil may not be over, but the era of low-cost energy probably is, in the view of many from Washington to Detroit.
As a result, the quest for radical new approaches to sustainable energy could well become this century`s race to the moon. Viterna is ready. He has returned to Cleveland, where one of his missions as chief of strategic management at NASA Glenn is to look to the past to build the wind power of the future.
He`s not alone. The rush to cash in on the next big thing in wind, solar, biomass, hydrogen and engineered energy-producing organisms extends from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.
Billions in private entrepreneurial funds, federal seed money and state grants are sloshing into the field - from Cleveland to the coasts. The founders of Google put their own money in solar and electric car start-ups. Microsoft Research has a team looking at collaborative opportunities in carbon climate eco-science and related fields.
"This is our generation`s moon shot," said Robert Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, as he announced a $500 million grant from British Petroleum and $70 million in California funds earlier this year. The money establishes an Energy Biosciences Institute in collaboration with the University of Illinois and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, wrapping recent strides in nanotechnology, genetic engineering and microbiology into the search for the next generation of environmentally friendly, high-tech biofuels.
Princeton University already has a multimillion-dollar Carbon Mitigation Initiative, funded primarily with grants from BP and Ford Motor Co. And now Cleveland is cashing in, with a multimillion-dollar Cleveland Foundation grant to Case Western Reserve University for its new Great Lakes Institute for Energy Innovation, focused on fuel cells and other areas in which the university already has an edge.
Norman Tien, dean of Case`s engineering school, says Cleveland is capitalizing on its lead in hydrogen fuel cell design, its prime location for wind-power testing and the university`s multidisciplinary approach across a range of specialized expertise that can be applied to rethinking the electrical grid to improve end-use efficiencies and performance.
"The ones that will be successful are the ones that are positioning themselves now - and we have a lot of competition already," added Tien, who came to Cleveland two years ago from the University of California at Davis.
State government needs to show commitment. The stiff competition among states for wind and solar investments is one reason why alternative energy advocates are pushing so hard for Ohio to include a robust portfolio of renewable energy mandates in its pending energy bill - as more than 20 other states already have.
Gov. Ted Strickland`s original proposal and the version of the bill that emerged from the Ohio Senate this fall included only a weak requirement - pushing off until 2025 the deadline for utilities to include a 25 percent "advanced energy" portfolio in their power mix, half of which would come from sources other than coal and nuclear.
A stronger mandate would reassure wind and solar investors of the state`s commitment. However, creating a critical mass in Northeast Ohio of technological effort, expertise and investment could be far more important than legislation in securing for Cleveland an international reputation for energy innovation - including as a test bed for deep-sea wind farms.
"Unleash the horses, and start really facilitating things to allow [the experts] to do what they`re best at," said Tien, the Case engineering dean. Viterna already sees wind power as the mother lode for the next great leap forward for NASA and for Cleveland. It`s an effort that combines not-yet-patented NASA breakthroughs from the late 1970s onward with the entrepreneurial zeal, manufacturing acumen and commitment of a broad range of Clevelanders, from the county prosecutor to technology executives at local Fortune 500 firms, including Lubrizol Corp. and Parker Hannifin Corp. All have banded together in a joint effort to promote wind energy here. To read full article, click here.
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