Anaheim, California – WindPower 2011
May 23, 2011
Hey, I’m at WindPower 2011 in Anaheim, right by Disneyland. For those who aren’t familiar with 
WindPower, it is the annual conference put on by the American Wind Energy Association (better known as AWEA). It is the big kahuna of wind conferences and has a worldwide following. Basically 20,000 ish wind energy industry folks come together to learn, network, and sell their services/products.
The conference officially kicked off this morning with a big name: Ted Turner. He talked onstage with the CEO of AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) for 10 minutes plus about his thoughts on energy and environmental issues. He is big on wind, solar, and geothermal, and is blunt that fossil fuels are way past their time. Earl Blumenauer, a congressman from Portland, Oregon, spoke next, as he was the recipient of the AWEA wind champion award. He was rocking a nifty bow tie and a neon green bike lapel, and had some insightful things to say about false political divisions and shortsightedness. To wrap up, the governor of Montana, Brian Schweizer, came on out and shared a number of interesting stories – the end point being that fossil fuels are limited and we’ll need something else.
The rest of the day was educational seminars, or one could mill about the enormous exhibition hall. By enormous, I mean 18 football fields big, so big that over 1,000 exhibitors, some with booths larger than a house, fit comfortably inside. I spent some time wandering the hall yesterday, before it was busy, and picked up some nice freebies. Unfortunately I don’t have much room in my suitcase, so I’m not really sure how everything will get home….Anyways, I did learn a bit about wind project development and some of the issues it faces in the educational sessions.
-John Howard