Pasqualetti speaks at Washington D.C. Wind Siting seminar and at National Wind Technology Center

Professor Martin J. (‘Mike') Pasqualetti recently gave two presentations about wind energy to national-level audiences. First, he attended, as an invited speaker, the State of the Art in Wind Siting seminar in Washington, D.C. on Oct 20, 2009. The two-day meeting was organized by the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC). The NWCC is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Idaho National Laboratory.

Mike's presentation stressed the importance of measuring and considering social barriers to wind power as compared to more technical issues. He drew his comments from his experience in wind energy research in California, Virginia, Scotland, and Mexico. For more information about the meeting: http://www.nationalwind.org/events/event.aspx?EventId=20

In addition, Dr. Pasqualetti presented the keynote address at a meeting of the International Energy Agency and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory on Oct. 28 at the National Wind Technology Center in Colorado. His presentation focused on a historical perspective of the public perceptions about wind energy. He included examples from California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Scotland, and Mexico. His principal conclusion was that too much attention is being spent tracking down relatively minor worries about wind power in the landscape, at the expense of more detailed attention to how people perceive the ways wind power will interfere and benefit with their way of life. In most, but not all, places wind power is a relatively benign landscape change.