Green Options

Mini turbines will be installed inside the UK’s gas pipeline grid later this year in an attempt to gather energy from pipeline pressure. The set-up will be tested in east London and should produce 20MW by 2010. If successful, future installations across the country could produce up to 1GW. That’s the same amount of power produced by a coal or nuclear power station.

The United States’ first hydrokinetic turbine was recently installed in the Mississippi River. The turbine, which harnesses power from moving water, is downstream from a hydroelectric-plant dam.

Virginia-based Catch the Wind has an innovative solution for improving wind turbine efficiency— laser beams. The company’s fiber-optic laser system gives turbines up to 20 extra seconds to adjust to changes in gusts and wind direction. That may not sound like much, but Catch the Wind claims that its system can improve turbine output by 10 percent.

Utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) has confirmed plans to build a massive 909 MW wind farm in Oregon. When completed, the facility will be one of the largest fully permitted wind power sites anywhere in the world.

The installation will be located in Morrow and Gilliam counties in North-Central Oregon, and will consist of 303 3MW wind turbines spread across a 30-mile radius. The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, will generate around two billion kWh of energy, roughly 10 per cent of SCE’s total alternative energy portfolio.

Earthfirst Canada has announced that British Columbia’s first commercial wind turbine—a 3 MW Vestas V90— was fully assembled on October 6th about 50 kilometers northwest of Chetwynd, British Columbia.

Japanese telecommunications company NTT claims that it is developing shoes that generate electricity upon movement. The shoes generate 1.2 watts of electricity— enough to power an iPod forever if the wearer doesn’t stop walking.

We’ve written about vertical axis wind turbine company Helix Wind before at Green Options. In addition to being quiet, solid, and easy to place in urban areas, the company’s turbine is also aesthetically attractive. And if pictures don’t convince you, maybe a video of the turbine in action will.

If all goes to plan, solar panels placed at the bases of the wind turbines will feed power through the farm’s existing grid.

Wind-energy purveyors Moncada Energy Group hope to install thin-film solar panels at its existing wind farms by the end of next year. The solar panels could increase power production at Moncada’s farms from 105 megawatts to over 500 megawatts, with the panels overtaking the production from the turbines [...]

Last week, E.ON Climate and Renewables officially opened its massive new wind farm in Roscoe, Texas. The site is now capable of generating an impressive 335.5 MW of electricity, a figure set to rise to 781.5 MW when the farm is completed in mid-2009.

When finished, the Roscoe site will become one of the world’s largest wind farms, boasting a total of 627 wind turbines capable of powering more than 250,000 of the state’s homes.

The construction of  31 offshore wind farms, to be ready by the year 2012, is not being totally accepted by Spaniards.

People from Cadiz, Galicia and Tarragona, Spain, are not very comfortable with the project. The objection: offshore wind farms may spoil the view.

Certainly big wind turbines make the landscape uglier, not only in the mountains but also in the sea, at least if they are not well planned.

Urwerk is getting a lot of notice right now. Not for it’s quirky company name, but for it’s UR 202 wind-powered watch that is quite the hit among high rolling technophiles, stylephiles and ecophiles alike. The watch, which uses compressed air from integrated wind turbines and kinetic energy to keep ticking, is made by third generation Swiss watchmaker, Felix Baumgartner and his design partner, Martin Frei. The pair, who met in 1995, [...]