Green Options

As the US finally moves into manufacturing our own clean energy, a new kind of engineering is starting to move to the forefront. Manufacturing processes engineering. Under the direction of associate professor Vinay Dayal; Iowa State U students are trying to find the way to make wind turbines roll off US assembly lines more efficiently. If we can work out cheap production processes here, we can build parts here.

The university is using a $6.3 million fund from the US Department of Energy, TPI, and and the Iowa Power Fund and has the assistance of scientists from Sandia National Labs and TPI, which operates a local turbine blade factory. Initially they are trying to see how they can boost the speed of the manufacturing process by increasing automation and by automating quality control.

They could improve the productivity of turbine blade factories by as much as 35%.

One of the poachers involved in the recent killing of a critically endangered Sumatran tiger inside Jambi’s Rimbo Zoo has been arrested.

Last month, when Sheila the tiger was poisoned and then skinned inside her enclosure, authorities feared the incident was a horrifying new development in the illegal trade in tiger skin and body parts.

Tragically, they were correct: Now that one of the men who killed Sheila has been arrested, police questioning has revealed that the murder was financed by a Palembang “businessman.”