Promote Clean Renewable Energy/ Have A Kite Festival!

What better way to promote clean renewable energy – specifically wind energy? Have a kite festival, of course!

By: Elena Christopoulos/  'The Wind    Guru'

I know what you are thinking. A kite festival? What on earth does that have to do with spreading the message of environmentalism? Actually, from my perspective, it is an absolutely brilliant idea.
Why? To educate the children!

That’s right. Educate our children. Have an event that is fun, exciting and accessible by public transit. It will include hundreds of kites in the air, expert fliers, kite boarders on the lake, workshops for kids to make their own kites, free handout kites and more. This event is focusing on our future, our children.

Now, I don’t have kids, but many of my friends do and I have spent many days on the beaches of Toronto, Santa Monica and the Greek Isles enjoying an afternoon with kites and watching a child smile as their kite soars up into the sky. I actually feel a bit nostalgic as I write this and it brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. Have the children design their own kites and watch them fly. I am oh so curious as to what they will say.

Why nostalgic? Well, growing up in Europe I remember nagging my parents to bring our cloth bag as we went to the market to shop. As my parents shopped, I would have loads of fun in the daycare at the shop painting the cloth ‘shopping’ bag. There were no plastic bags — only cloth bags designed by kids. I remember how proud I was when my parents would carry ‘my’ bag to the store. I never grew up with plastic bags and to this day think how easy could it be to implement the same idea in North America. Well, it will come soon. This festival has the same look and feel of simple innovative ‘green’ ideas. And yes, I still have one cloth bag.

The location of the kite festival is in birds eye view; pardon the pun, to the first urban North American wind turbine located in downtown Toronto.

Will the children say that the turbine is an eye sore? Will they complain about the noise? Will they even hear it? Can we curtail NIMBYISM? Even for one day? Will one child, just one child, be inspired to ask what can be done next? Will they dream? Will faith be restored? I hope. I really hope so. I have been told that permits are a go and the kite festival will be right on the waterfront. This festival will showcase the pressing need for more green energy awareness. Where massive high rises and nature meet, a festival will flourish.

With so much negative news about the environment, I thought I would spread a positive word or two and I hope you pass this event on as well.

Please help make this event happen. I understand corporate sponsors are being sought out who want to support green energy and be part of a fun community event! Please contact http://meslin.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/clear_skies.pdf to find out more information about how you can get involved.

The Clear Skies Kite Festival will be held on October 2nd 2010 at Woodbine Beach in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

I look forward to seeing you there, with my kite and cloth bag.

"Roadable Aircraft" Available By 2011

Flying car should be available next year


June 30, 2010 by Lin Edwards

The Federal Aviation Administration in the US has given approval to the Transition, a two-seater flying car developed over the last four years by Massachusetts Company, Terrafugia.

The flying car, or “roadable aircraft” as the company calls it, was designed by a team of engineers trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It can drive like a car at normal highway speeds but can also unfold its wings and fly.

The vehicle runs on normal unleaded gasoline and has a cruising speed in the air of around 185 kph (115 mph). Its flying range is 740 kilometers (460 miles). When driven like a car with its wings folded the fuel consumption is around 7.85 liters per 100 km (30 mpg). The use of normal fuel instead of a reliance on aviation fuel will make the Transition the most environmentally friendly plane in the air. The vehicle will have features of regular road vehicles, such as crumple zones and airbags.

On the road, with its wings folded, the Transition is driven by a conventional front-wheel drive, and can fit in a regular sized garage. When it is ready to take to the air via an airport, airstrip, or suitable flat land, the wings are folded out and the rear-facing propeller engaged to enable the vehicle to take off. It needs a runway of just over 500 meters (one third of a mile).

Federal approval of the vehicle was delayed because its weight of 600 kg (1,430 lb) was over the limit for a light sport aircraft (LSA), but the Transition has now been granted a special exemption to allow it to fly legally. The additional 50 kg in weight allows the vehicle to include safety equipment needed to meet federal motor vehicle standards in addition to aviation standards.

The vehicle has better crash survivability than a normal light sport aircraft because of the safety features such as the safety cage and crush zones required for driving on the roads, but it is also safer because if the weather turns bad the plane can land and drive home instead of flying through unsafe conditions.

The Transition is not as fast as traditional small aircraft and does not have as great a range or cargo capacity (Transition can carry just 195 kg (430 lb), including passengers and fuel), but the less stringent requirements for flying light sport aircraft may make it attractive to people who would not normally consider training for a full pilot’s license. Training for a light sport aircraft license in the US requires only 20 logged hours in the air.

The retail price of the Transition is expected to be $194,000 and Terrafugia expects the vehicle to be available by the end of 2011. The company has already received 70 orders.

New USDA Report

New USDA Report Provides Roadmap to America's Renewable Energy Goals


June 25th, 2010

USDA should be commended for taking a big step this week that that will put the nation on the road to a clean energy future. The department issued a report Wednesday that offers a roadmap for meeting the nation’s renewable energy goals. The report outlines both the current state of renewable transportation fuels efforts in America and a plan to develop regional strategies to increase the production, marketing and distribution of biofuels. The report provides information on current production and consumption capacities, as well as projections to meet the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) mandate to use 36 billion gallons of biofuel per year in America’s fuel supply by 2022.

The report marks an opportunity for America to reaffirm a commitment to reducing our dependence on foreign oil by identifying the numerous biomass feedstocks available for developing biofuels and advocating greater investment in their research and development. In addition to feedstocks, the report also specifically looks at sustainable production and management systems; efficient conversion technologies and high-value bioproducts; and decision support and policy analysis tools.

The report provides data showing the significant impact the ethanol industry will continue to have on job creation, estimating that as many as 40 direct jobs and additional indirect jobs are created with each 100-million-gallon ethanol facility built.

A unique aspect of the report is a USDA plan for regional strategies that allow the placement of biorefineries in areas of economic distress. By leveraging of regional resources, including transportation, labor and feedstocks, the strategy provides greater potential for economic benefit for impacted rural areas. The department mapped out the regions based on the biofuel feedstock crops that will be prevalent in those areas, each based on historic planting data and weather, soil and water conditions.

The department estimates that meeting the RFS2 will require an investment of some $168 billion over the next 12 years, assuming that construction costs will run an average of $8 per gallon of capacity. However, the department acknowledges the cost estimates are high because the roadmap does not take into account any advances in technology. The roadmap rightly points out that “the RFS2 is predicated on challenging the industry to create newer, cleaner fuels,” and that “the agricultural sector as a whole is incredibly productive and has consistently outpaced productivity increases in other sectors, in part, due to its investment in technology.”

In a conference call with reporters announcing the roadmap, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the current, corn-dominated ethanol industry “provides a solid foundation” upon which to build the biofuel market expansion necessary to reach the 36-billion-gallon RFS in 2022. The document makes the case that the future of renewable energy rests on products other than corn in the manufacturing of ethanol, including wood fiber, algae, municipal waste, grasses and crop residue. The report says these renewable resources can be grown in areas with high demand for ethanol and reduce the need to transport fuel from the Midwest.

Vilsack’s    “absolute” confidence in the industry’s capabilities of meeting current and future goals reflects the kind of support stakeholder need to achieve a clean energy future that maximized the use of sustainable biofuels. It is important that USDA back strong words with strong action, including the development of of loan guarantee programs that are structured to provide the greatest benefit to next-generation biofuel companies. It is also important for the Obama administration to support legislation that sets a mandate on the sale of flexible fuel vehicles, and to expedite a twice-delayed EPA approval of E15 fuel blends in 2001-model and newer vehicles.

The USDA biofuels roadmap promotes strategies that play to the strength of farm communities and can offer a strategy for boosting our rural economy. Stakeholders and policy makers should use take the roadmap and move forward together to optimize the role of America’s croplands and forestlands in meeting our nation’s energy needs.

Wind Power In Stormy Waters

Wind Power In Stormy Waters


14 kilometres off Denmark’s West coast in the North Sea, in some of Europe’s roughest waters, the world’s first major offshore wind power plant has since December 2002 produced enough energy to run 150,000 Danish households. Eighty 2.0 MW turbines from the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturer Vestas are sited across an area of 20 sq. km.

With a water depth between 6.5 and 13.5 metres and frequently rough conditions, the Horn’s Reef project (named after the area in the North Sea) is a dream come true, as well as a challenge which has demanded a combination of experience and new thinking.

“There are other offshore wind parks in the world but everybody agrees that Horn’s Reef is the first ’real’ offshore wind park because of its size and its placement in the North Sea. So far, all other offshore parks have been placed close to land in protected waters“, says project manager Jens Bonefeldt of the engineering company Tech-wise. “The North Sea is considered to be one of the roughest stretches of water in the world.”

The Horn’s Reef project has proved innovative on several fronts. The turbine foundations, which were supplied by MT Højgaard, are mono-pile foundations that have been installed in the seabed by a huge hydraulic hammer. Vestas itself has been responsible for setting up the turbines. In cooperation with the transport company A2SEA, Vestas created a special ship which can hold steady while the turbines are being set up, and besides that has also developed a brand new on-line monitoring system.

The turbines on Horn’s Reef are serviced by specially trained technicians. If conditions are too rough for them to reach the turbines by sea, they can be flown out to them instead. This is possible because the nacelles are equipped with special platforms on the top, so that the technicians can be winched down onto the turbine. All the necessary tools are inside the nacelle, and there are bunks for an overnight stay should it be necessary. There are food rations, a radio, lifejackets and other emergency equipment.

Just as servicing offshore turbines presents an extra challenge, the same can be said of monitoring them. All the turbines at Horn’s Reef are equipped with an advanced remote monitoring system called VestasOnline™. The new system is able to process and transfer large amounts of vital data to the wind farm’s main control centre – and then operate the wind farm as a power plant.

“The new system is a great advance in wind farm management and makes it possible to manage remote sites, both onshore and offshore,” Jens Bonefeldt says.

During the installation of Horn’s Reef, Vestas has been building up further expertise in its Offshore Knowledge Center. “The great thing about Horn’s Reef is that up to now, most of our offshore knowledge has either been quite theoretical or has come from very small projects in protected waters,” says Egon Poulsen, head of Offshore at Vestas Group. “At Horn’s Reef, we have actually had a chance to test our vision and all the theories, and most of the planning was pretty much on target.”

The proof, according to Egon Poulsen, is a new contract for the first offshore wind farm in the UK. The farm will be installed during the summer of 2003, 7 kilometers off the coast of Wales near Rhyll, where the average water depth is 12 meters and the tide-water difference is 8 meters. The farm, which will comprise 30 Vestas V80-2.0 MW will be owned and operated by National Wind Power Ltd. The farm is the first of 18 projected offshore wind farms that are being planned for installation around Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

EPA To Use Mushrooms to Break Down Oil

EPA To Use Mushrooms to Break Down BP’s Oil?


Published on June 10th, 2010 by Matter Network
By: David Ferris

The EPA may experiment with using containment booms made out of mushrooms to break down oil gushing from the Gulf, according to a leading mushroom scientist.

Paul Stamets, a pioneering mycologist, said he had been contacted “at the highest levels of the EPA” to discuss using long, floating cylinders of fungi to break down hydrocarbons floating in the Gulf from the BP oil disaster.

Stamets has experimented with a species of oyster mushroom, pleurotus ostreatus, that can withstand saltwater and establish itself on straw. Applied to diesel-contaminated soil, it cut the dirt’s oil content from 10,000 parts per million to 200 parts per million within 16 weeks.

However, mushrooms have never been deployed en masse to contain oil in the ocean, and many hurdles remain. A source of mushrooms and a local source of straw or shredded wood haven’t been located, and fungi need both time and expertise to reproduce in the massive numbers that would be needed to make a dent in such a large spill.

Oyster mushrooms break down simple oil molecules immediately but take longer with more complex hydrocarbons. This means that mushrooms might need to be deployed on the same slick several times in order to break it down, Stamets said.

Early in the spill the use of “hair booms,” cylinders of hair stuffed into used nylons, showed promise, but the use of them was curtailed for a simple reason: when soaked, hair sinks!

Personal Note:  (Gosh, wouldn't you think they'd known that going in?)

Can A Coal-Carrying Railroad Be Green?

Can a coal-carrying railroad be green?
Written by: Marc Gunther


Recently, FORTUNE magazine sent me to Omaha to write this story about the Union Pacific, America’s biggest railroad. Impressive company in a fascinating industry without which our lives would be very different.

Here’s how the story begins:

The strawberries on your cereal. Your laptop, cell phone, and TV. The coal that’s burned to power them. The car you drive. The roof over your head. We may work in a knowledge economy, but Madonna had it right: 'We live in a material world.'

That’s why the Union Pacific railroad, No. 164 on the Fortune 500, has played a vital role in the U.S. economy since 1862. With $14.1 billion in revenue last year, the UP, which is based in Omaha, is America’s largest railroad. Close behind is its chief rival, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) (2009 revenues: $14 billion), headquartered in Fort Worth, which was acquired this year by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) for $26.4 billion. The deal put a spotlight on the often troubled railroad business — in a good way. “It was a vote of confidence in the industry,” says Jim Young, the 53-year-old chairman and CEO of Union Pacific. “He sees the long-term value in the rail franchise; how unique it is in America.”

The story goes on to talk about how Young led a turnaround at the railroad, which suffered from lousy service, not once but twice, in the late 1990s after its merger with the Southern Pacific and again in 2004-2005 when the company cut back too deeply on equipment and staff and wasn’t prepared for a burst of economic growth. As Young told me: “We were the best marketing arm of our competitor.” The UP’s competitors include the Burlington Northern, which also operates in the West, and interestingly, long-haul trucks.

In its battle for market share with trucks, the railroad industry is touting its environmental advantages. They are real. While my 'FORTUNE' story didn’t get into much depth on the topic, Young and his colleagues spent a fair amount of time telling my why the UP is an environmentally-friendly way of moving goods around the country. On its website, under the headline 'A Green Railroad', the company says:

"Did you know that railroads are one of the most environmentally friendly modes of freight transportation? It’s true. Freight trains are almost four times more fuel-efficient than over-the-road trucks and have less impact on greenhouse gas emissions than trucks."

The UP has gone to great lengths to cut down on its fuel use, as I reported in the magazine:

"The Union Pacific has also become more efficient. Trains are longer. On average, 5,800 feet, or more than a mile long; and instead of just pulling the freight cars, locomotives are distributed throughout the trains so that they push as well. Information technology helps too: Locomotives with GPS track the fuel efficiency of every engineer, and those who use the least fuel get a share of the savings, between $200 and $400 a month."

That has enabled the Union Pacific, with the rest of the railroad industry, to tell a nice-sounding environmental story: The rail industry as a whole carries about 43% of all freight (as measured in ton-miles), but trains consume just 7% of the energy used to move freight. Trucks, by contrast, move 31% of the tonnage but use 66% of the energy. UPS, a big customer of Union Pacific, uses trains rather than trucks to move ground packages that travel 750 miles or more. “The economies of steel on steel are better than rubber on concrete,” says Kelley Anderson, general manager for rail at UPS.

There’s much more to UP’s greening. The locomotive in the photo at the top of this blog, known as a Genset, was designed by the railroad for use at its yards. Mike Iden, UP’s Director of Freight Car and Locomotive Engineering, who has led many of the efficiency efforts told me: “It’s an ultra low emitting yard-switching locomotive. It’s based on technology developed by the U.S. Department of Energy to improve diesel truck emissions."

So what’s wrong with this "green" story? Well, the UP carries a lot of coal, America’s dirtiest fuel! As much as 10% of the coal burned by utilities, by one estimate. You can’t really blame the railroad for this, no company can be expected to turn away its most important customer!

But the Union Pacific also has opposed legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions and put a price on carbon. This is interesting because anything that raises the cost of fossil fuels will give the railroad a competitive advantage over less efficient trucks. "So what’s the problem with the climate change bills?", I asked Young. He told me he was worried about the effect of the legislation on coal, the economy and jobs;

"I’m concerned about what it means to coal, long-term, and what it could do to the cost of electricity in America, and moving jobs offshore."

The Midwest has some of the lowest costs of power in America. Google built a new data center right over here on the Missouri River. They did it because the cost of power is so low.

Coal’s got to be part of the energy equation, long term…The cost of the renewables? You’ve seen the math.

Well, yes, I’ve seen the math and the EPA estimates that the Senate legislation to regulate carbon emissions would cost an average family about $79 to $146 a year. This seems like a reasonable price to pay to offset the potential costs of global warming. Young obviously disagrees, as do many people in the coal-dependent heartland.

Which is why it’s so hard to get Washington to act on climate change.

Nine Real Ways You Can Stand Up To BP

We are all responsible for the BP oil spill. While BP might have cut corners to compromise safety standards, there’s one undeniable reason the company was drilling miles below the Gulf: To satisfy our insatiable desire for oil. For each time we chose to drive one-quarter mile instead of walk, BP was drilling away to make our lives a little more convenient. Until we live in a solar energy paradise, those passionate among us should strive to give up a few conveniences for the chance to stop rapid global warming, prevent future oil spills and leave the Earth just slightly more intact for future generations.
Simply put, protesting at a BP gas station won’t change our oil addiction.

Here’s a list of simple ways to cut your own oil use. I live in a car mecca known as Los Angeles, so I can attest that it’s not always easy. But, to start, you can make your changes incrementally rather than drastically. Before you realize it, you’ll be walking or biking everywhere and your gas-guzzling days will be a distant memory. And you’ll be much better prepared for the inevitable era when we really do run out of oil.

1. Drive less. Americans burn 20 million barrels of oil a day, mostly to transport ourselves around. Try taking public transit, telecommuting or carpooling. Or use the most energy efficient option—yourself. Simply walk or bike (and don’t forget your bike helmet).

2. Still driving? Keep your car looking its best -- and I don't mean frequent trips to the car wash. Take fuel-saving measures such as fully inflating your tires, getting your tune-up, emptying your trunk, and driving more slowly.

3. Observe Meatless Monday. Raising one cow on a factory farm uses 35 gallons of oil. If you cut down your meat consumption once a week, that's equivalent to not driving 1,000 miles annually.

4. Eat local. The average meal travels a whopping 1,500 miles to get to your plate. By eating locally, you’ll support farmers in your community, eat fresh and delicious seasonal food, and cut your oil consumption all in one go.

5. Eat organic. Conventional foods are covered in toxic oil-derived pesticides and agro-chemicals. By opting for organic foods, you’re cutting your oil use, helping keep our air a bit cleaner, and protecting the health of farm workers.

6. Use less plastic. Plastic production represents 8 percent of the world’s total oil use, and every single plastic item will be with us anywhere from 1,000 to 1 million years.

7. Choose green energy. Support clean, green options like wind and solar. You can often choose to purchase green power in your home state.

8. Support national climate change legislation. We can all do our part to cut our oil use, but Congress needs to do its part. Support policies that will provide genuine, long-term solutions to reduce our oil use and address global warming. In many states, oil groups are fighting to overturn existing state-level policies or block new ones. State legislators need to hear your voice too.

9. Say 'NO' to offshore oil drilling. We can’t afford another Gulf tragedy. Tell the Obama Administration to end all new offshore oil drilling.

Moving Wind Turbines In A New Direction

Moving Wind Turbines In A New Direction

Published on June 29th, 2010 by Josh Kennedy

Recently, CleanTechies had the pleasure to speak with Phillip Ridings, CEO of Dragonfly Industries, Inc. We talked about the the company, its products, and what its products may mean for the clean tech sector. If Dragonfly lives up to it’s reputation it could easily revolutionize the wind industry.

CleanTechies: Phillip, can you tell us a little about the designs for the Dragonfly Turbine and MantaRay Power stations and what kind of plans you have for their future?

Phillip: Dragonfly is our land based wind turbine and MantaRay is our new water turbine so we can build one of the first Off Shore Power Stations! This product was conceived after the oil spill in the gulf. Not that we can fix the problem, but there are over 3800 Oil Rigs along the Texas/Louisiana coastline many people are not even aware of. We also know that not all of them are still producing oil so we would like to re-purpose them and turn them into one of the first “Off-Shore Power Plants” using MantaRay Water Turbines below the gulf stream waters and Dragonfly turbines above. The gulf stream has a constant flow and the natural wind power and underwater currents throughout the gulf which would be a perfect fit for this exciting conversion.

CleanTechies: Can you tell us how shrouded turbines are different from conventional 3 bladed turbines?

Phillip: Shrouded (ducted) designs come in many shapes and sizes, the concept is to create a focal point for air flow and force more air to pass over the standard turbine prop blades. The idea born in 1957 when they started working with different airfoils… but nothing was built until the mid 90’s! In a CFD (computer fluid dynamics) modeling tests on wind turbines H.Grassmann, M.L.Ganis, Dipartimento di Fisica, Univ.di Udine, Italy published this report. This testing proved once and for all Betz Law only applies to all rotor or prop driven wind turbines where the relative speed of the air can not be increased. This is what Dragonfly does better than any another other shrouded (ducted) design with its “Body Ring Airfoil”, which accelerates the relative speed of the wind. There have been many designs and concepts already tested but most of them were too heavy, bulky and not cost effective enough to be considered as a better working solution compared to the 3 bladed systems of its day. In most cases all shrouded systems produced about 2.4 times more energy then a conventional wind turbine but the cost was the deciding factor even though it produced 60% more power than any 3 bladed conventional system today. Every shrouded or ducted system was on the right track, they just didn’t take the design far enough.

Let me explain – when you look at any ducted wind turbine… the tail on every design is flared out! This is because as the air passes over the spinning props it creates more air turbulence behind it. When they tried to streamline the design and close the cavity, the vortices’s and turbulence was so bad it would shake the unit apart! The only answer was to expand the tail section to allow all this turbulent air to flow out freely and as fast as possible. What they didn’t know back then is, the answer to harnessing all this extra potential energy is accomplished by adding a simple diffuser within the design. This is what Dragonfly does but we decided there was enough potential energy in that turbulent air to harness even more power. We can’t change the volume of air coming in the unit and the thinking was that there would not be enough energy to harness more power… wrong! By reducing the size of the next generator by 25% all we are doing is compressing that same volume of air and creating a “ velocity profile” like your average garden hose nozzle. The smaller you make the opening the faster that same volume of air has to pass through the system and out the tail! We discovered we can have as many as 3 units compressing that large volume of air and it increases the winds energy. As a result the air flow speed passing over the third section is almost as fast as the relative speed of the wind! But you need to look at every wind turbine today and ask yourself one Question: “Does this turbine accelerate the relative speed of the wind, Does it make the wind flow faster?” If the answer is “no” then your looking at a system that will never produce more then 40% of the winds potential energy, which is the maximum amount of energy three bladed turbines can extract from the wind. So when you look at the cross section of Dragonfly it suddenly hits you by adding more generators not only did we create a very unique diffuser but we have a built-in, redundant system of creating energy, our own built in “backup system” to insure you still have power if one goes out!

Every 3 bladed wind turbine is using a simple “airfoil” to catch the wind. Conventional turbines today also work with a rotor hub to gearbox to generator configuration and this is why they loose so much of the winds potential energy, over 50% of this energy is lost on every system designed like this. Dragonfly’s configuration is very different and is using airfoils built into the body of the nacelle. We are not losing any of the winds potential energy because we have shortened the steps in harnessing wind with our Body Ring Airfoil to Generator design! This is a much better way to harness the winds energy using Bernoulli’s principle in fluid dynamics by redesigning an integrating our “Prop” into the body of the nacelle. This new concept increases the relative speed of the wind over a secondary blade system. The engine core inside the Body Ring Airfoil uses smaller more efficient turbine blades connected directly to the generator. The blade system we use is similar to those found in today’s Jet Engines for a faster air to power ratio! This unique design maximizes the air flow 2.4 to 4 times more than any conventional wind turbine and this translates into more efficient renewable electrical energy production!

CleanTechies: You mentioned that your designs are safer for the environment and wildlife. Can you give some detail on what makes it safer for birds, bats and other wildlife?

Phillip: Dragonfly’s unique design also reduces the impact on nature, individual owners and community concerns across the board! To tell you the truth we didn’t start out to design a wind turbine that would solve all the problems currently facing 3 bladed systems today. It’s just the fact that Dragonfly’s unique design simply negates them! What makes Dragonfly safer is we are not using huge blades that are exposed! Our blades are on the inside of the body! Less exposure and less likely to damage anything or anyone! Ironically, any bird or bat could actually fly directly in front of a Dragonfly. People, at first glance, may think it would suck the birds or bats inside, this is where we differ from conventional jet engines as there is no suction associated with Dragonfly Turbines as we are just using the relative speed of the wind so any bird or bat could fly directly in front of our unit and not be harmed. To ensure this we can add a dome of wire mesh to the intake to prevent this from happening in known migratory areas. Any bird would have to fly directly inside the system in order to be harmed. Unlike flying through an open field of wind turbines birds and bats are not even aware of the dangerous props spinning around them. Flying along in formation as a huge blade reaches up another 150ft or so and cuts through the migrating flock. Dragonfly however has nothing exposed to hurt anyone or anything! It was suggested that we add perch poles extending outward for some birds to either build a nest or use it to rest on. As I said we didn’t set out to design a solution, but its nice to know the solution has presented itself to Eco-Friendly groups who plan to endorse Dragonfly in the future! I would like to challenge you to find any flaw with this design concept – if you do please let me know! As of today I think we have the best wind turbine your money can buy!

CleanTechies: Do you plan to build smaller turbines for home use or will you focus on larger turbines for community based power plants?

Phillip: Yes, we do. Its called our “Firefly” division. These will be units that are 2ft in diameter and smaller! Meaning if we can figure out just how small we can make them and still produce energy you’ll find a Firefly in your neighborhood in the near future. One of the areas we want to look into integrating Firefly into is electric cars. Integrated into an electric cars battery system. lets say you had two batteries. As the car drains one Firefly is charging the other and vise versa. Dragonfly feeds the wheels and keeps the battery system charged which would extend the electric cars range.

This is not the only market for a smaller Dragonfly. If you need a power source on your boat, RV, or cabin in the woods I’m sure we can put a Dragonfly, MantaRay or Firefly there! Because of its unique design we are finding new uses and ideas every day. We even have one for remote cell phone towers where gasoline is not readily available, but wind is! Frank Martin has joined the company to take Dragonfly into a Nano Market, and to figure out just how small can we make them and still produce power! He wants a Dragonfly in every computer using a fan… take that known energy, force feed it through a small Dragonfly to power your monitor! Right there you’re saving money using your own computer! It’s only limited to your own imagination or where ever energy is needed. In today’s world it’s the back bone of life, you can’t go through a day without it!

CleanTechies: How far away are we from seeing Dragonflies for sale at a local dealerships?

Phillip: We plan to start setting distribution systems up within a year. Right now we are focusing more on the orders we already have and the funny thing is we don’t even have our prototype ready to show anyone yet! All of this was built on the computer fluid dynamics tests that has given us our “proof of concept”.

CleanTechies: Do you have any financial estimates as to how quick a customer will see a return on their investment given today’s power costs?

Phillip: There are variables but our rough “guesstimate” tells us that our commercial systems will pay back in 5 years and most of our residential units with the federal and state incentives on wind today should be 3-5 years and every little bit helps! Our long term goal is to help the average home owner and we want to help you wipe out another utility bill and under Federal law see a faster return by generating energy for the power grid and receiving a check each month. If you plan to stay exactly where you are you’ll always be paying an electric bill or if you invest now and have something attached to your home that generates an income in a few years instead of draining it! This is where so many wind turbines want to be… but very few even come close. At best they can only cover 15 – 35% of a home owners energy needs and are forced to supplement that with solar. Our goal is to finally give the public something that pays for itself and generates an income in a few short years! It’s really up to the customer on where they want to be in 3, 5 to 10 years time.

Unit pricing for a turn key system should start about 15K up to 25K with options. For small businesses its starts at 30K up to 45K and then we have our commercial models that will one day replace wind farm systems! I’m sure somewhere in there we are going to make something in between the small business and commercial units because there’s another growing market and Dragonfly is going to fill it!

BP Oil Disaster Creates Jobs

Hey! An economic upside to this whole mess!
(sarcasm!) :(
PENSACOLA, Fla. - Kim Gamez, a grandmother of three and a cook laid off a year and a half ago, works the graveyard shift outdoors, shoveling tar balls off the once-pristine beaches of the Florida Panhandle.

"It's two birds with one stone," Gamez, 51, said during a break from cleaning a Perdido Key beach. "I'm doing something for the beach, and I'm able to support my grandkids." For a while, she sent out three resumes a day looking for a job that would match the $11.90 she used to make at Pensacola Regional Airport. Her new job pays $18 an hour.

The catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has cost thousands of coastal residents their livelihoods. But it also has created hundreds of unexpected jobs for unemployed people to clean up shores marred by oily tar.

Trying to earn some goodwill after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, BP is hiring about 6,850 people - most of them unemployed - in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama to scour miles of white-sand beaches for tar that washes ashore in blobs, mats and patties.

As of Tuesday, nearly 1,500 jobless workers had been hired in Escambia County, Fla., where Pensacola Beach is, and in Okaloosa County, Fla., home to Destin and Fort Walton Beach, said Howard Miller, BP's community outreach liaison in Pensacola.

Machinery could clean up some of the tar, and some Panhandle officials have bashed BP for not deploying that equipment more quickly. But thick tar could clog mechanical rakes, and machines can't distinguish between oil-spill debris and eggs laid by turtles or shore birds.

Also, mechanical equipment would not create as many cleanup jobs, which have generated eager interest in the Panhandle, where the economy was finally picking up before the spill.

Since then, about 5,000 applications for cleanup jobs have flooded the Pensacola office of Workforce EscaRosa, the unemployment agency that serves Florida's two westernmost counties, said Kathy Karshna, assistant director of the agency's work-force development board. Escambia's unemployment rate in May was 10.3 percent; Santa Rosa's was 9.2 percent.

The work is grueling and physical. Cleanup workers take on 12-hour shifts, either in the oppressively hot days or the cooler nights, clad in long pants and sneakers or steel-toed boots covered in yellow plastic that workers call "chicken feet."

Some beachgoers have complained that workers spend too much time resting under blue tents along the beach and not enough time clearing the shoreline. BP contractors respond that they follow federal regulations on how long workers can be exposed to the sun.

During the day, the heat index regularly climbs above 100 degrees, sometimes forcing workers to "go black" and work for only, say, 15 minutes at a time before taking a longer break to avoid overheating. From sunset to sunrise, the temperature drops, but it also is more difficult to spot the oil blobs.

On a recent evening, Gamez and dozens of others worked under two sets of mobile lights brought in to illuminate a stretch of the beach, the lights carefully placed so as not to point toward the water and disturb sea turtles. Some workers also have small lamps attached to hats.

"At night, you see all the sand crabs," Gamez said. "You feel like you're on Discovery Channel."

Solar's Strange Bedfellows

Solar’s Strange Bedfellows:


Not long ago, it would have been unthinkable for a big utility company to encourage homeowners to put solar panels on their roofs.
If people generate more of their own electricity, after all, utility companies will sell less, they’ll need to build fewer power plants and, at least under traditional regulatory regimes, they’ll make less money.

That’s changing, as evidenced by a deal announced today by PG&E Corp., the $13.4 billion a year utility company based in San Francisco, and SunRun, its much smaller San Francisco neighbor, whose business is providing financing for home solar systems. Pacific Energy Capital II, a unit of PG&E, will provide $100 million in tax equity project financing to fund SunRun’s installation of more than 3,500 new home solar installations across the nation, the companies said.

In plain language, that means that the utility company will, in partnership with SunRun, pay the upfront costs of solar panels in exchange for tax credits and a share of future payments from the homeowners who install them. SunRun is one of several companies trying to take some of the risk and complexity out of home solar by paying the upfront costs (which can mount to $20,000 to $50,000) and managing the installation hassles for its customers. (See my 2009 blogpost SunRun: A new deal for solar for more.)

This is the second investment this year by PG&E in a home solar firm. Back in January, the utility invested $61 million with Solar City, which competes with SunRun. Generally, PG&E is bullish on solar, although most of its investments have been in centralized solar thermal or solar photovoltaic plants, as opposed to distributed, rooftop panels. It’s ranked No. 1 in the Solar Electric Power Association’s utility solar rankings. (PDF, download.)

Nor is PG&E alone in promoting distributed solar. As I reported yesterday, New Jersey-based PSEG has a solar loan program for homeowners although it doesn’t cover the full costs of installation.

So why would a utility like PG&E Corp. finance a competitor? Partly because it expects to make money on the deal, partly to better understand the solar business and partly because if the utility companies doesn’t get into the home solar business, someone else will.

As Brian Steel, director of corporate strategy and development at PG&E told Forbes:
"We’re happy with the financial returns. And by investing in these assets it gives us an opportunity to learn in a way we wouldn’t have otherwise. When you get down in the weeds, the difference in what one learns is stunning."

Ed Fenster, the CEO of SunRun, told me much the same thing when we spoke about the deal: “This is going to happen with them or without them. If it happens with them, they are earning a return on it.”

None of this would be likely, it’s safe to say, if California hadn’t taken a smart approach to utility regulation by decoupling a utility’s financial returns from the amount of electricity it sells. That enables utilities to make money by serving their customers’ energy needs, even if what they are selling is energy efficiency or distributed power.

Still, it’s important to keep all this in perspective. SunRun and rooftop solar are still small businesses. SunRun signed up about 1,000 customers in the first quarter of this year, and it has about 4,500 customers in all, Fenster told me. Still, he said, even though California’s subsidies for solar are declining, the company’s growth rate is accelerating–no small feat in this sluggish economy. The PG&E deal will enable the company to fund solar systems in at least five states, he said, including California, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts and New Jersey. All offer solar-friendly subsidies.

Because the Gulf oil disaster is on everyone’s mind these days, I asked Ed if he thinks it will have any impact on his business. Americans don’t burn much oil to make electricity, but we do use natural gas, which may have been a factor in the explosion. What’s more, if electric cars roll out later this year as planned, electricity may become an alternative transportation fuel, albeit on a small scale.

“The BP tragedy may very well lead people to think harder about renewable energy,” he said.

Let’s hope so!

The "Birds" are Dangerous....

By: Paula Kolmar:
BP Oil Blog Post- 20 June 2010

Michelle is a specialist in caring for seabirds, and she's an expert in rescuing and rehabilitating seabirds injured by oil spills. We are fortunate to be able to have Michelle caring for injured birds in Alabama as part of the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas spill.

I wanted to understand why authorities repeatedly have warned the public not to handle injured birds, but instead instructed people to report the location of injured birds and leave it to specialists to rescue the animals. One look at a distressed, oiled pelican arriving at the center answered part of my question. The birds are dangerous and can be aggressive when under stress.

Michelle has an endless compassion for seabirds, even though she says they hate her. Wild and free seabirds diving for fish in the Gulf of Mexico or just floating on the water become heavily distressed when oil gets on their beaks, feathers and feet or if they eat something oiled. It gets worse as they are transported in a car or van to the wildlife hospital. By the time humans begin to handle, tag and clean them, the birds are disoriented, afraid, confused and angry. As a result, Michelle says they can be dangerous to people, other birds, and themselves.

Understanding what an animal is going through - plucked out of sticky oil and put into the world of man - gives Michelle the passion and staying power to get the seabirds ready for release as quickly and safely as possible. Watching her and the staff care for them, I can see that it is a heartbreaking experience. More importantly, the work must be performed by people trained to collect and treat the seabirds without endangering themselves or adding further distress to the birds.

One bird rescued, is one victory. Over the coming months, there will be many victories and some painful losses. Michelle, and center managers like her all along the Gulf Coast, are using every ounce of their experience, skill, and compassion to assure far more victories. They will do so for as long as it takes.
 
IMHO: It will NEVER be righted!

Mountainside Challenge and Retreat

Wind power: Urbana business installs county's first windmill


Originally published March 31, 2010 By: Karen Gardner

Trevor Riopelle of ReDriven Power Inc. installs a cap to a 10-kilowatt windmill Tuesday before it was raised by a hydraulic lift into position at Mountainside Challenge and Retreat Center in Urbana.

Urbana - Mountainside Challenge and Retreat Center is Frederick County's first business to take on wind power, according to owner Joe Richardson. The 80-foot tower for the 10-kilowatt windmill was installed Tuesday, raised by a hydraulic lift. It took hours to get the windmill ready, although the blades were lifted into place in only a few minutes.

Richardson has been planning to put wind energy at the Urbana location for several years. Last spring, he ushered John Darnell, energy and environment project coordinator for U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who represents Frederick County, around his property and pointed out where he hoped to build his windmill.

Tuesday, that dream became a reality.

"We consume about 100,000 kilowatts (of electricity) a year at Mountainside," Richardson said. "We were hoping this will reduce that by 30 percent, but we've been told it may reduce that by 50 percent."

The windmill will gather power from the windy hillside and convert that energy into electricity. Cables will send the energy into the local power grid, which will in turn credit Mountainside with the electricity. Mountainside hosts school field trips and a nature-focused summer day camp for children, as well as corporate retreats.

The type of windmill being installed at Mountainside is for areas with relatively low wind levels, according to Trevor Riopelle, ReDriven's spokesman. Richardson said Mountainside's ridgetop location provides fairly steady 10 to 20 mph winds. "In the course of one day, we installed the base, leveled it and used a hydraulic system to lift the blades," Riopelle said at Tuesday's installation. "These aren't Tinkertoys," he said. "These are large, healthy systems." The system costs about $22,000, without the cost of the tower. Much of that cost can be recouped through tax incentives which may be coupled with utility provider rebates, as well as savings realized on electric bills.

Richardson is also having a solar array installed at Mountainside, a former farm that is four miles from Sugarloaf Mountain. The retreat uses composting toilets. He is planning to have a meeting center built with eco-friendly materials and geothermal heating and cooling. A cistern collects rainwater for gardens, and water washed down the drain is collected, also for use in the gardens.

Richardson was excited on Tuesday. "This is my baby," he said. "I've wanted this for a while."

25x'25 - Why 25x'25 Is Good for Agriculture and Forestry

25x'25 - Why 25x'25 Is Good for Agriculture and Forestry

Green Home Adds Wind Turbines

'Green' home adds wind turbines

By: Jim Waymer • Florida Today • June 26, 2010

INDIALANTIC — A husband, a wife and his mother hope the twists and turns atop this "green" roof will keep them all cool this summer. When the wind dies, solar panels and two wind- and sun-charged 12-volt batteries do the job. It's a unique hybrid concept, energy experts say, and could yield big savings on one of Florida's biggest energy drains.

On Friday, workers used a crane to lift two wind turbines onto Florida's Showcase Green Envirohome, a "near-zero" energy-use home being built at 216 Coral Way. They also propped four low-energy-use air conditioners on the house's sides.

Nonnie Crystal and Mark Baker hope by late this summer to move themselves and Baker's mother into what they say will be among the most energy efficient homes in Florida, America, maybe the world. It's been an expensive proposition they've accomplished with a lot of brokering with companies that want to showcase their environmentally friendly products. But, they say, it's well worth any cost.

"You could honestly say the most expensive way to build a home is the way we did it," Crystal said, stopping short of giving a figure. "It's a science experiment."

Crystal researched the technology, most of which they get free, in exchange for allowing walkthroughs to showcase the products. Baker's the builder. Because of the novelty, they design and engineer some of it as they go. They plan to gather the data to prove the energy savings, so others can do the same. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection also is monitoring several aspects of the project.

The wind turbines, the V-100 and V-200 Energy Ball, are made by Home Energy Americas, a Texas-based company. They start collecting wind energy at winds of only about 4 mph, compared to most turbines that need about twice that amount. The V-200, alone, which they got for free, costs $14,000 to $18,000 installed and is rated at 2.25 kilowatts, so it can produce that much power per hour in 35 mph sustained winds. They run quieter than most wind turbines, so neighbors won't hear them, said Michael Lanham, chief operating officer for Home Energy Americas. "The vibration is nearly zero," he said.

Lanham also said they're safe for birds, which can see them better than the typical wind turbines that resemble airplane propellers. "The faster it spins, the solider it looks," he said.

Frances started it

Crystal and Baker's vision began with a microburst from Hurricane Frances, which in 2004 tore the roof off his mother's Indialantic home. Hurricane Jeanne finished it off.

They're building the Florida's Showcase Envirohome on the footprint of the original 1967 house that Betty Baker Farley, 77, bought in 1970 for about $27,750. The storm provided fertile ground for mold -- which made the home uninhabitable -- and an opportunity for Baker and Crystal. They drummed up 40 sponsors and used his mother's insurance claim. Last year, they installed a septic tank and drain field that a University of Central Florida researcher says can cleanse 90 percent of the nitrogen and almost all the phosphorus from wastewater, using recycled tire crumbs, sawdust and sand. They plan a 60-square foot "green wall" inside the home to be irrigated with gray water, which has been used in the home. The wall generates oxygen and removes volatile organic compounds from indoor air.

An experiment

The home has become an ongoing experiment for University of Central Florida research into green building and stormwater management. "They're doing a lot of good things there, it looks like," said Frank Leslie, adjunct professor in Florida Tech's department of marine and environmental systems. But he reserves a bit of skepticism about the wind turbines, which he says studies have found don't produce much energy because they're too low to the ground. Baker and Crystal were limited by the county's 35-foot height limit. But they say no tall buildings or tall trees obstruct wind there, and they measured winds that were consistently between 18 and 33 mph last year. "We are the tallest house in the neighborhood and we are on the coastline," Crystal said. Danny Parker, a researcher at the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, called it 'novel'. "So many projects like this are going on now," he said. "There's not really a lot of them in Florida, but there's a heck of a lot of them out in California."

Saving the lagoon

The couple also plans to spare the Indian River Lagoon by allowing close to zero rainwater to run off their lot. They also hope to be water-neutral as well as carbon-neutral, using a soil-covered cement board section of roof planted with daisies, honeysuckle and mustard plants. The "green, living" roof drains rain into a whole-house graywater system that reuses shower and clothes washer water to sprinkle the lawn and flush toilets. The stormwater system, designed by University of Central Florida's Stormwater Management Academy, will capture close to 90 percent of the rain.

"Our passion is not, 'Hey, build one like us.' Our passion is education," she added. "I want people to get in and see the technologies as soon as we can."

After construction is complete, Baker and Crystal plan to offer tours to school groups. Baker and Crystal want to prove green building concepts work. Crystal said the BP spill could help to accelerate "green" building. "I think there's a cry, with the impetus of the oil disaster," she said. "I don't think we need to perform unnecessary surgery on Mother Earth."

Watch the video here:
http://www.floridatoday.com/section/videonetwork?bctid=104510110001

FOX News Whistle blowers. UNBELIEVABLE!!!