We’re No Longer Asking. Give Us 100% Clean Energy in 10 Years.

We’re no longer asking. Give us 100% Clean Energy in 10 years.

Link [We Can Solve It.]

Biggest Wind Turbines in the World Being Built in Colorado

The Bush administration might be doing everything in its power to derail the environmental movement, but that’s not stopping our country from moving right along in their efforts to produce wind turbines.  And not just any wind turbines – the biggest wind turbines in the world.  Billions of dollars of private equity have been dedicated to new renewable energy technology including solar and wind.

Trend Hunter magazine’s photo of a piece of one of these wind turbines, currently being built in Colorado, resembles a giant gray whale.  Holy bigass turbine!  Like Trend Hunter, we can’t wait until Obama settles into the Oval Office and starts funneling money into green tech.  There’s a whole wide world of clean, environmentally friendly technology out there just waiting to be developed.

Link [Trend Hunter]

High-Flying Kites Could Produce Enough Energy for a City

Kites aren’t just toys anymore – they could be a new form of renewable wind energy that has the potential to power not just one house, not just a city block, but an entire city. Delft University of Technology scientists have developed a way to harness energy from kites, tethering a 10 square meter kite to a generator. They were able to produce 10 kilowatts of power – enough to power 10 homes. They plan to scale the experiment with a 50 kilowatt kite and a 100 megawatt version to be called the Laddermill, which could potentially power 100,000 homes.

From Inhabitat:

The promise of kite power lies in its inexpensive materials and its potential to harness enormous amounts of power, since high altitude winds can carry hundreds of times more energy than those on the ground. Airborne kites produce power by pulling on a ground-bound generator, which reels the kites back once they reach their maximum height. Also, unlike a field-full of wind turbines, kite power requires a minimal amount of land use.

Check out video of the test flight below. It’s amazing how many brilliant solutions are possible when researchers have the drive and the funding. Wind and solar power have so much potential beyond PV panels and turbines, and we’re just beginning to see what might provide clean, renewable power in the future.

Link [Inhabitat]

Fisherman Returning to Use of Sails as Fuel Costs Rise

Commercial fishermen are going back to the good old days of free fuel in response to the rising costs of diesel. By free fuel, of course, I mean wind power – they’re outfitting their boats with auxiliary sails to cut the amount of diesel they go through. Soon, however, they won’t have to rig their ships – a new generation of vessels is being developed that will rely almost completely on sails.

From The Telegraph:

Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said a number of skippers were now using sail power to help them travel the long distances between port and their fishing grounds.

“Skippers are putting on foresails while steaming to fishing grounds offshore,” he said. “The whole cost structure of the industry has shifted so dramatically as a result of fuel price rises, and in response, vessels are looking at what they can do to reduce costs.

“Fleets are going to have to find ways of reducing fuel dependency. Everyone is looking for the optimum steaming speed and people are looking at a whole range of measures, including sail.”

Auxiliary sails were common until the 1980s, when engines became more powerful and fuel was plentiful and cheap. One fisherman interviewed for this article said that with his auxiliary sails, engine revolutions were reduced from 1300 to 900 on a 3-hour trip, and they still made the same speed.

It’s pretty awesome that fisherman are going back to wind power – I wonder if pirates will soon do the same. Hey, a bottom line’s a bottom line.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: Flickr user mikebaird

Crazy People Base Jumping Off Wind Turbines

Base jumping off wind turbines – I guess it was bound to happen. While some people might think this is totally awesome – dare I say, rad – it makes me want to cling to the ground for dear life. The idea of standing on the top of a wind turbine is enough to squeeze my stomach into painful little knots, let alone the idea of actually jumping off one.

That, my friends, takes some serious balls!

Link [Groovy Green] + [YouTube]

Wind-Powered Phone Charging Stations at Glastonbury Festival

Attendees at the Glastonbury Festival in the UK last weekend had a cool, sustainable way to keep their cell phones charged up: freestanding wind-powered charging stations. The stations, called ‘Recharge Pods‘, were available free of charge.

Springwise has it:

Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It’s actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year’s festival through a partnership with Gotwind, and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival, furnishing power equivalent to what would be needed to power a DJ booth for Groove Armada for 88 hours. The recharge pod will be stationed within the Pennard Hill camping grounds at Glastonbury throughout the weekend of June 27–29, when the event takes place.

How awesome! Fun and green, we need lots more of that. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets people (especially young people) excited about sustainability.

Link [Springwise]

Rotating Wind Power Skyscraper to be Built in Dubai

Bloody hell! (Oh, how I wish I could use that in conversation without sounding like an asshole.) That is one sexy building in more ways than one. From David Fisher’s Dynamic Architecture firm comes the Rotating Tower, a self-sufficient sun and wind powered design that will be built in Dubai. Construction is set to begin this month.

Inhabitat has the details:

The Dynamic Architecture building has been aptly named Rotating Tower as the floors would be capable of rotating around a central axis. It will be continually in motion, changing shape and giving residents the ability to choose a new view at the touch of a button. The form of the building would constantly change as each floor rotates separately giving a new view of the building as it turns. According to Fisher, the building ensures a very high resistance to earthquakes as each floor rotates independently.

The new tower is the first building of its size to produced in a factory. Each floor, made up of 12 individual units, complete with plumbing, electric connections, air conditioning, etc., will be fabricated in a factory. These modular units will be fitted on the concrete core or spine of the building at the central tower.

With so much wealth concentrated in Dubai, I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more green innovation coming out of this little country. Imagine the possibilities that are still out there even after incredible inventions like this are conceived and built. This takes the shiny, cool sci-fi future of your childhood dreams and wraps it all up in a green package that can help take us out of the age of oil and into a new era.

Link [Inhabitat]

New Firewinder Light Uses Wind Power

Years ago, ‘green’ things were known for being pretty boring. I can recall sitting through a demonstration at a power plant on a third grade field trip, desperately wishing I was someplace else while someone in a hard hat lectured to us about turning off the lights. Most of America feels the same way about all of the eco-education that’s going on right now, and that’s part of the problem. Green stuff isn’t thought of us fun. That’s why people like the inventor of the Firewinder make me happy.

From Firewinder:

Firewinder® is The Original Windlight™ – A decorative, 100% wind-powered outdoor light which harnesses the power of the wind from whichever direction it blows, to create a simple yet magical visual effect with a universal appeal.

Easy to install, you simply hang it up from a tree in your garden, on your roof terrace or mount it to a post or wall and watch it light up and glow every time the wind blows!

Firewinder’s patent pending technology elegantly transforms wind into light to enable the visualisation of the abundantly free energy in the wind as a mesmerising, endlessly upward spiralling helix of light.

It is pretty cool looking. Things like this would be a great help toward getting the general public to buy ‘green’. There’s a perception that green isn’t pretty or exciting, and that’s proving more and more to simply not be true.

Link [Firewinder]

Rock Port, Missouri Proves that Wind Power Really Works

Wind turbines haven’t just provided Rock Port, Missouri with 100% of their power. They’ve provided an extra 23% on top of that – enough to sell some to other cities.

Rock Port, Missouri, is a small city of 1,300 people, and they just made history by being the first city in the US to be 100% powered by the wind, also making them #1 in the US for percentage of renewable energy. The Loess Hills Wind Farm, built by the Wind Capital Group, employing 500 workers from 20 states for about a year, is expected to produce about 16 million kilowatt hours annually, while Rock Port only uses 13 million. The excess wind power will be sold to other communities in the area.

They’ve provided a great example for the rest of the nation. It’s time to start doing this in more cities. Of course, there are always those people that will complain that wind turbines are ‘ugly’ – the whole Not in My Backyard thing. Personally, I think they’re beautiful because of what they stand for: renewable energy. Doesn’t that mean more than having ‘eyesores’ in your city?

Link [Treehugger]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Reuters Reporters Can’t Believe Billionaire Oilman Is Investing in Wind to Make Money

With a name like T. Boone Pickens, Jr., how could you not grow up to be a billionaire oilman?

80 year old T. Boone made his billions over the decades by growing his oil company through a flurry of mergers and acquisitions and is now setting his sites on the wind. His plan calls for spending $10B to build the worlds largest wind farm in Texas.

I found this news in a Reuters story, author Chris Baltimore seems blown away that someone actually expects to make money by doing something green. Check out:

But Pickens is not out to save the planet. He intends to make money.

Golly gee, a businessman invests in a green business and isn’t doing it to make the world a happier and shinier place? He actually will make money? Stop the presses, 1999 wants it’s storyline back.

Link [Reuters]

Heidi Fleiss is Opening The Greenest Little Man-Whorehouse in Vegas

According to the February issue of Elle, Heidi Fleiss’s plans for a wind-powered Man-brothel are still in the works. So while its going to be an eco-friendly bordello, Fleiss will effectively add both men and and Mother Earth to the list of tricks she can whore out for a dime as she plans to sell the wind power generated from the Studfarm back to the grid.

Ladies looking for a refreshing girls getaway of manis, pedis and unbridled lust can look at the Earth-friendly set up as a delightful kind of eco-penance for paying for sex. The only set back right now is that Fleiss is waiting for the federal trial of of her ex-pimp to blow over. Also, she lives alone in a rented house in the dessert. With 24 parrots. That she inherited from a desert Madame that died in a trailer. Should be a class act, this Green Sausage Store.

Link [Elle]

Video: Danish Wind Turbine Explodes in High Winds

When wind turbines attack!

Check out this wind turbine exploding in Denmark in some kicking high wind. Wind turbines have mechanisms to stop the blades from spinning when it gets super gusty but this one obviously malfunctioned. Yikes!