Tested on the California/Nevada border, the Ecotricity Greenbird broke the land speed record for wind-powered vehicles.  The Greenbird clocked in at a top speed of 126.4 mph and maintained a speed of 126.2 mph for three seconds.  The previous record was 116mph.

The Greenbird is a collaboration between Ecotricity and engineer Richard Jenkins.  Ecotricity is an independent green electricity company based in the UK founded and owned by entrepreneur Dale
Vince.  Jenkins is the founder of the Windjet project and has a wide range of skills in engineering, design, piloting, and construction experience.  Both sides are innovative, experienced, and have a passion for wind energy as a solution for transportation and utilities.

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In a news update that should surprise no one, officials now say that the destruction of a £1 million wind turbine in the UK last month was not caused by a UFO. Despite local reports of a “massive ball of light with tentacles going right down to the ground”, the turbine’s manufacturer believes that material fatigue is responsible for a 65 foot blade flying off the device.

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As we reported earlier this week, a broken wind turbine in the English county of Lincolnshire has officials completely baffled as to what may have caused one turbine blade to break-off and another to have a large, mysterious bend about half-way down its 20 meter length [not pictured here].

Some witnesses say they saw unusual flickering and cascading lights in the area a few hours before the turbine blades apparently broke at around 4 A.M. And that was all that British tabloid, The Sun, needed to publish Thursday’s front page headline: “UFO hits wind turbine.”

The Sun reports that one witness, John Harrison, looked out his window and saw a “massive ball of light with tentacles going right down to the ground” over the wind farm. “It was huge,” said Harrison, “with the tentacles it looked just like an octopus.”

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Several residents of a remote English village have reported sightings of a bizarre tentacle-shaped UFO above a local wind farm, on the night before a wind turbine was mysteriously destroyed.

Engineers from energy suppier Ecotricity are investigating why a blade more than 20 meters (66 ft) long fell off the turbine at a wind farm in Conisholme Fen, Lincolnshire, early on Sunday morning. In the meantime, locals are coming to their own conclusions after many of them saw strange flashing tentacle shaped lights above the wind farm on the night before the damage occurred.

John Harrison, a resident of nearby Saltfleetby, said he looked out of his window on Saturday night to see “a massive ball of light,” and “tentacles going right down to the ground” over the site. “It was huge” he said “At first I thought it must have been a hole where the moon was shining through but then I saw the tentacles – it looked just like an octopus.

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“(I)t’s an irony not lost on us while that while Greenbird is intended to show how the world might be getting around when fossil fuels run out — the changes that fossil fuels are causing to our climate right now appears to be the very thing that has stopped us,” writes Ecotricity founder Dale Vince on his blog, Zerocarbonista.

Image credit: Greenbird

Ecotricity founder Dale Vince and Richard Jenkins, an engineer, will attempt to break the world land-speed record for a wind-powered vehicle on Australia’s Lake Lefroy in the coming days. The current record is 116.7 mph.

According to Vince, the Greenbird uses technology found on Formula 1 vehicles and aircraft to achieve high speeds without an engine. The vehicle uses solid sails similar to those found on aircraft wings. The Greenbird, which is made of carbon composites, can transfer up to one ton of side force into the ground, and is so efficient that it can travel three to five times the true wind speed on land.

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