Radar Could Save Bats from Death by Wind Turbine

In the epic battle of conservationists vs. clean energy advocates, a compromise may have just been reached – at least, in terms of the protection of bats. Scientists have discovered that radar may help keep bats away from wind turbines. Researchers and conservationists have raised concerns in the past about wind turbines inadvertently killing the creatures.

From MSNBC:

For instance, in 2004, over the course of six weeks, roughly 1,764 and 2,900 bats were killed at two wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, respectively. The bats might not be killed by the wind turbine blades directly, but instead by the sudden drop in air pressure the swinging rotors induce, which in turn cause their lungs to over-expand and burst surrounding blood vessels.

A student at the University of Aberdeen first noticed that bats shied away from radar installations while driving past them. He was holding a bat detector out the window to scope out bat activity on the drive back home from out in the field. (Bat detectors are gadgets that scan for ultrasonic bat calls.)

You might think bats wouldn’t be affected by radar because they use sound waves to navigate in the dark, but researchers installed small portable marine radar units at 20 bat foraging sites inScotland and after monitoring bat presence, found that the radar reduced bat activity by 30 to 40 percent. The radar didn’t keep insects away, suggesting that the radar works as a deterrent, not by chasing away bats’ food.

Scientists hope that they’ll be able to design a radar system that would reduce bat activity near wind turbines by 80 to 90 percent. That would certainly be a big victory for both sides of the conservationists vs. clean energy battle.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

FactCheck.org Debunks 6 Common Eco Myths

When you want to check whether the rumors flying around about a politician or piece of legislation are true, what’s the first site you visit? Chances are, it’s FactCheck.org, which recently won a well-deserved ‘People’s Choice’ Webby award. In honor of their win, The Daily Green has compiled 6 eco myths recently debunked by FactCheck.org.

1. There’s enough wind power in the Atlantic to offset all the electricity we now get from coal.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made waves when he said the U.S. East Coast was so rich in wind that offshore wind farms could produce as much electricity as every U.S. coal-fired power plant. It sounds great. Coal, which produces roughly half our electricity, is a major source of pollution that causes smog, acid rain, mercury contamination and global warming; wind power causes none of these. Unfortunately, it’s just not true, according to Factcheck.org. “We calculate that converting wind to enough electricity to replace all U.S. coal-fired plants would require building 3,540 offshore wind farms as big as the world’s largest, which is off the coast of Denmark,” Factcheck.org reported. “So far the U.S. has built exactly zero offshore wind farms.”

2. Congress is outlawing your backyard organic garden.
A vast campaign, spread via e-mail, Facebook and elsewhere, has tried to convince people that a food safety bill being considered in Congress will wipe out organic farming as we know it, and even possibly make it illegal to have a garden in your backyard. According to Factcheck.org, though, there’s hardly anything to worry about. “We suppose in the grand realm of all that’s possible, or more likely a futuristic B movie, federal bureaucrats could decide that public safety calls for inspections of every backyard garden in the nation, leading everyday citizens to surreptitiously cultivate tomato plants in a closet with a sunlamp, lest they get busted by the cops,” Factcheck.org concluded. “But we kinda doubt it.”

3. “Clean coal” is a reality, or at least a possibility.
During the presidential campaign and beyond, as the coal industry and the Waterkeeper Alliance (yay Gloria Reuben!) and other environmental groups have engaged in an epic advertising battle, Factcheck.org has been tamping down enthusiasm for clean coal, which is an expensive concept for removing carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants, not a reality. “There are no commercial ‘clean coal’ plants operating currently in the U.S.,” Factcheck.org reported. “The larger question posed by these dueling ad campaigns is implied rather than stated outright. Can coal can be ‘clean’ in the future? Is ‘clean coal’ a laudable, achievable goal as Obama and the coal miners and electric utilities would have us believe? Or is it a ridiculous oxymoron on par with ‘controlled chaos,’ as Gore and other environmental groups suggest?”

Get the other three myths – which include Congress outlawing second-hand clothing, the EPA taxing cows and a supposed giant oil reserve in the Western U.S. – over at The Daily Green.

Link [The Daily Green]

Offshore Wind Power Could Replace Coal, says Salazar

Wind power has the ability to not just supplement but possibly entirely replace coal-fired power plants if it were fully developed off the East Coast, says Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.  Salazar spoke on Monday at a public hearing in Atlantic City on how America’s offshore areas can be used to meet our energy needs.

And who was the first to pipe up that this is impossible, but a coal industry group?

From Yahoo News:

“The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility,” he said. “It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now.”

Salazar said ocean winds along the East Coast can generate 1 million megawatts of power, roughly the equivalent of 3,000 medium-sized coal-fired power plants, or nearly five times the number of coal plants now operating in the United States, according to the Energy Department.

Jason Hayes, a spokesman for the American Coal Council, said he was puzzled by Salazar’s projections. He said wind power plants face roadblocks including local opposition, concerns about their impact on wildlife, and problems in efficiently transmitting power from far offshore.

“It really is a stretch,” he said of Salazar’s estimate. “How you put that many new (wind) plants up, especially in deep water, is confusing. Even if you could do what he said, you still need to deal with the fact that the best wind plants generate power about 30 percent of the time. There’s got to be something to back that up.”

Salazar’s spokesperson clarified that the secretary does not expect wind power to be fully developed, but was speaking about its potential. Of course, it would take time – but the point is that it’s possible. And, given the environmental benefits, why shouldn’t we push wind power technology to its limits? Unless [shudder] a Republican wins the next election and we’re back to Bush-era policies within 5 years, the coal industry is already speaking from beyond the grave and they know it.

Link [Yahoo]

Photo credit: EarthFirst composite/Wikimedia Commons

Wind Powered Vehicle Breaks World Speed Record

You might not think a wind-powered vehicle could go very fast, but if so, Richard Jenkins’ ‘Greenbird’ just proved you wrong. The ‘Greenbird’ hit a staggering 126.1 miles per hour, breaking the world record and stunning onlookers at Ivenpah Lake in Nevada last weekend.

From Inhabitat:

The Greenbird is a carbon-fiber composite vehicle that is exclusively wind powered, making it essentially an earthbound sailboat. There were challenges involved, since at high speeds the vehicle tends to, well, take off. To counter this problem the vehicle incorporates specific design solutions, such as wings similar to those found in fomula one cars.

So now that he has achieved his first goal, what is next? Well, believe it or not, he will now try to break the record again – only this time, he will do so on ice.

So, how does it work? The Greenbird website explains:

The most basic principle of wind-powered vehicles is harnessing and optimising airflow. Just as airflow over an aircraft’s horizontal wing pushes the aircraft up, the flow of air over The Greenbird’s vertical sail pushes the vehicle forward.

The Greenbird utilises a combination of technology, usually found on aircraft and Formula One, to achieve staggering efficiency. Made from carbon composites, the vehicle takes huge forces at top speed, being able to transfer up to one ton of side force into the ground.

A phenomenon called ‘apparent wind’ allows the vehicle to travel faster than the wind. Learn more about it at the Greenbird website, and check out the video of the vehicle in action below.

Link [Inhabitat] + [Greenbird]

Generating Wind Power in Your Backyard

Ever wonder if you could generate wind power in your own backyard? You don’t have to have a ton of land or extremely windy conditions to benefit from a wind turbine. Smaller models around 15 feet in diameter perched atop a 40- to 100-foot tower are popping up at homes, farms and businesses all over the country. Green Living Ideas gives us the scoop on how to determine whether wind power is right for your property, and how to get started.

From Green Living Ideas:

Many models of residential-scale wind turbines can be connected to the electric grid so that a consumer has power even when the wind isn’t blowing.  Grid interconnection also means that if the consumer doesn’t use as much electricity as the turbine produces, the excess can be fed backwards into the grid for credit on the consumer’s monthly electric bill.

Small wind turbines are also popular choices for people who live in remote locations, away from the electric grid.  Uses for these off-the-grid turbines include powering cabins, pumping water on farms, and even powering accessories on sailboats.  For these applications, the turbine charges batteries to supply electricity even when the wind doesn’t blow.

Small wind systems are most practical for individuals or businesses located in areas with above-average wind speeds, and with at least half an acre of open land to allow the wind to “stretch its legs.”  Regions where electricity prices are also especially high make small wind systems an attractive investment.

Green Living Ideas also offers information about pricing, zoning, and preparing neighbors who might be opposed to the idea.

For those who can afford the initial expense, wind power is a great way to generate your own energy and lessen your dependence on fossil fuels, and hopefully it will become more affordable through tax credits in the future.

Link [Green Living Ideas]
Photo credit: Symscape.com

3M Jumps into the Wind Power Business

Adhesive company 3M may not seem like a logical fit with the booming business of wind power, but they’ve found a smart way to profit from the alternative energy industry.  The company has released a new line of fillers and protective coverings that extend the life of wind turbine blades.  The Wind Tape product line is part of 3M’s new Renewable Energy division.

From Finance and Commerce:

“About two years ago, we started an effort to search for wind-energy business partners,” said Dr. Mike Strommen, global wind-energy segment leader for the company’s renewable energy division. “Of our 55,000-plus products, many of them would be a natural match for the wind industry.”

3M quietly rolled out clear and opaque Wind Tape in mid-2007 – one year before the formation of the Renewable Energy division that includes solar and wind power was announced.

Designed to protect the leading edge of 120-foot, 12-ton fiberglass turbines, 3M’s Wind Tape comes in eight-inch wide, 54-foot rolls that cost at least $288.

That’s pretty expensive for a roll of tape, but Strommen said many turbine blades with a factory finish have significant damage after just two years of generating electricity.

“It has a lot to do with wind and erosion control,” he said. “Wind (turbine) blades spin at 180 miles-per-hour. Remember that these blades are composite materials. After a year or two years of use, you can get erosion or pitting at the leading edge of that (turbine) blade.

Very smart, 3M, very smart. It just goes to show that there are thousands of ways that companies can secure a piece of the green pie for themselves – it just takes a little creativity.  Wind tape.  Who woulda thunk it?

Link [Finance and Commerce]

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]