Renewable Energy World: Quiet Revolution VAWT Total Flop, Says German Paper

The Rheinischen Post reported that the installation of a small vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) was a total flop and removed.

The Quiet Revolution 5 VAWT was installed in 2012, and in the 3.5 years the turbine was in operation, the school encountered many problems with the Darrieus turbine.

What we can learn from this is that we don’t need any more “experiments.” We’ve been there, done that -- two or more decades ago. That contemporary marketers (hustlers?), engineers, and small wind advocates should examine their motives and their understanding of the history of wind energy and why we put wind turbines where we put them.

The Advertiser: Buy Back Feed-In Tariffs for Storage, Says SA Entrepreneur Simon Hackett

Technology entrepreneur Simon Hackett has urged state government to consider buying back generous solar feed-in tariffs from householders in exchange for home storage batteries.

Mr. Hackett, who is executive chairman of Queensland-based battery company Redflow, and the founder and former owner of Adelaide-based internet service provider Internode, said feed-in tariffs had kick-started the solar industry, but now were a large liability for governments.

In the case of South Australia, people who signed up to install residential solar systems before August 31, 2010 have been guaranteed payments of 44 cents per kilowatt-hour from the state government for the electricity produced from their solar panels until 2028.

The Verge: Harley-Davidson’s All-Electric Motorcycles Will Be On the Road Within 5 Years

Iconic American motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson is known for chrome, freedom, and big, beefy V-twin engines -- but soon, it'll also be known for something very different.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal, Harley Senior VP Sean Cummings says that it'll put an all-electric motorcycle on the road within five years. You might recall that the Wisconsin-based company built a limited number of LiveWire electric prototypes in 2014, letting media and customers go for test rides, but those bikes were never sold to the public and were never intended for a production run. Still, LiveWire's existence suggested Harley was pretty serious about exploring the notion of an EV motorcycle -- and apparently, the customer response was positive.

The News & Observer: Slow Start for $150 Million Renewable Energy Program

A $150 million ratepayer-supported renewable energy program remains almost entirely untapped.

The Green Energy Market Securitization program was rolled out with the prediction that money raised through bonds would be spent by November, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

Over 99 percent of the funds are untouched, and only 11 solar systems have been installed since the program started in summer 2015.

Climate Central: May Marks One More Record Hot Month for the World

The streak continues: May saw record-breaking warm temperatures for the globe, according to NASA data released Monday.

It’s now even more likely that 2016 will be the hottest year ever recorded, despite the demise of one of the strongest El Niños on record.

NASA put May at 1.67°F (0.93°C) warmer than the 1951-1980 average for the month, the first month since October 2015 to be less than 1.8°F (1°C) above average in NASA's dataset, which extends back to 1880.

So far this year, every month has been record warm. February and March actually set consecutive records for the most anomalously warm month, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). February retained that record by NASA’s reckoning.