This is a guest post by Kris de Decker. Kris is editor of Low Tech Magazine. Rembrandt and I saw a somewhat similar story in the Dutch version of Low Tech Magazine, and Kris was kind enough to put together this story in English for us.

The machines face two fundamental problems: there is not enough wind at low altitudes in a built-up environment, and the energy production of a wind turbine declines more than proportionately to the rotor diameter. Wind power rules, but small wind turbines are a swindle.

While it is early in the morning in Europe the following picture shows the impact of the volcano in Iceland on European air traffic (as of Thursday), if you compare Northern (none) and Southern (60) European flights. The blue crosses are airports. The volcano has already had a stunning impact on Europe, although articles about it are already dropping below the lead headlines.

There is a thought that the plume may last another five days, and even though the cloud is largely invisible to those who are being impacted by it, the damage by neglecting these precautions could be severe. And given that the British election is on May 6th, the impact of a sustained eruption on the debates in the UK, and the result may go beyond just limiting the travel of those who would campaign, to become more dominant with the length of the flight curtailments and the responses to help resolve what are likely to be growing transportation problems.

This is a guest post by Steve Piper. Steve has a M. S. in Public Management and has been a consultant in the utilities business (primarily electricity) for the last 20 years.

A couple of months ago, posters on The Oil Drum raised the question of whether installing large amounts of grid-connected power at the residential level (solar panels, small wind turbines, and the like) would disrupt the grid.

There is a standard (IEEE 1547) covering safe interconnection of small power facilities to the grid. Comparing the amount of increase likely in solar panels and in residential wind turbines with the allowances for disruptions of various types in standard IEEE 1547, it appears that the adding these devices should not be unduly disruptive. The only exception might be in areas with unusually high grid penetrations of these auxiliary devices.