Green Options

Joining the ranks of such green notables as San Francisco and Portland Oregon, the U.S. Air Force has made the top 20 List of On-Site Green Power Purchasers.  The quarterly list is a subset of the U.S. EPA’s Green Power Partnership program.  It includes organizations, businesses or government entities that purchase sustainable power from sources based in the U.S.A., either directly or through the use of Renewable Energy Certificates.

Wind farms in Italy threaten to wipe out the Golden Eagle, farmers` organisation Coldiretti and national environmental organisations declared recently. As concern about climate change and sustainable, eco-friendly alternative energy grows, it‘s surprising that an industry with so much potential – the wind industry – is under fire from environmental groups.

Danish scientists are developing a new wind turbine blade that mimics the stability found in hawk wings during highly-turbulent wind events.

The tremendous dynamic loads put on large wind turbine blades shortens the life of fiberglass blades, adding to the total cost of large-scale wind energy development. But researchers at the Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy in Denmark are developing an elastic component for the trailing-edge of large wind turbine blades that could drastically lengthen the life of those blades, thereby reducing the frequency and likelihood of breakage — and ultimately reducing cost.

The planned closure of a wind turbine manufacturing facility on England’s Isle of Wight moved several workers to seize control of the plant on Monday night.

[Update: July 21, 11:36pm GMT: Since workers first seized the plant on Monday night, 5 more workers slipped police lines to join the 25 workers already occupying the administrative offices at a Vestas Wind Systems plant on the Isle of Wight. Some food also made it inside, but police reportedly now have that route blocked.]

According to reports, 25 workers facing imminent termination at a shuttering wind turbine plant entered the administrative offices of the Vestas Wind Systems factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, at around 7:30 on Monday night. The workers vowed to remain there until the government discusses their proposal to save it from closure by nationalizing the plant.

Wyndham Worldwide’s new headquarters in Parsippany, N.J. is all about renewable resources. According to Green Lodging News, the new facility is powered 100% by wind energy. The building opened in 2009 and they expect to receive a LEED Silver award.

According to Environmental Leader,

Faith Taylor, vice president, sustainability and innovation for Wyndham Worldwide, told the news site, “We really wanted to walk our green talk. We took the LEED initiative to

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Made in the USA is back.  Nordex USA, Inc., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wind turbines, has just announced that it will build a manufacturing plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  The plant is expected to begin producing turbines in 2010 and create approximately 600 jobs.  With a typical wind turbine requiring about 8,000 components, that could mean a ripple effect in related jobs in the supply chain.

I like maps. They can be a powerful tool for visually representing the scope of change.

In late 2008, just a few months after the United States’ installed wind energy capacity topped 20,000 MW, the U.S. became the largest wind power producer in the world. And in 2008, thanks to a (mostly) robust economy and a healthy tax benefit for the utility-scale generation of renewable energy, the U.S. added more new wind energy to the grid than did any [...]

Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It could be many things: God, love, E.T., or even Michael Jackson. But today, right now, it is wind. Wind has always been around. I think that few would argue with that. But wind power, on the other hand, has been hidden from mankind’s view for centuries. But now wind power is on the rise, especially in America. And a new report shows that wind power is more popular than the Beatles…or not.

The Department of Energy (DOE) issued a report today, which came on the same day that Secretary Chu announced the selection of 28 new wind energy projects for up to $13.8 million in funding – $12.8 million of which will be Recovery Act funds.

With the historic passage of climate legislation through the House of Representatives, many concerns have trickled forth. Does the climate legislation do enough? Will it even work? Does it have the right aim? With the issuance of similar concerns have come proposed solutions and substitutions. The republicans have proposed that 100 nuclear power plants be built by 2030 in place of the proposed cap-and-trade climate bill. I’ve recently written two articles on the republican “solution” to both the climate and [...]

Coming in at second place in the world in energy consumption - second only to the United States - the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the world’s most populated nation, is looking for ways to shift to renewable energy. This desire to increase renewable energy sources and cut greenhouse gases has led the PRC to promote private investments in renewables.

Concept incorporates vertical-axis wind turbines directly into transmission towers already dotting the landscape.

Three Frenchmen, architects Nic­ola Delon and Julien Choppin, along with engineer Raphaël Ménard, believe they have stumbled upon a scalable design that would not only allow wind turbines to work in virtually any landscape, they believe it avoids some of the aesthetic hurdles normally facing large wind farms. The Wind-it concept would fuse vertical-axis wind turbines directly into new or existing electricity transmission infrastructure.

The team estimates that if a third of France’s high-voltage electricity towers were renovated with turbines, they could rival the power generation of two nuclear reactors, or about 5 percent of the country’s energy needs.