Installing wind turbines on the high seas is the holy grail for generating renewable energy. It’s there that powerful winds blow strong enough to potentially power the whole world without an iota of carbon pollution.
Nearly 30 years after towering turbines began cropping up in European waters, the United States is finally producing its first drops of offshore wind power. As of this week, Rhode Island’s Block Island Wind Farm is officially online and producing carbon-free juice for the New England grid.
Offshore wind power is taking off in Europe, but we’re still coming to grips with the environmental impacts of sticking gigantic steel towers in the oceans. One effect of these clean energy behemoths, however, seems indisputable: sediment plumes.
Congratulations, kilt-wearers, and descendants of William Wallace! Your country’s seas are about to become the proud guardians of the world’s largest floating wind farm.
Smog-filled days may be a part of life in Beijing for now, but China is cutting coal and growing its wind and solar energy capacity fast, according to figures released yesterday by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics.
The DOE wants to step up its wind energy game in a big way. And I mean big. Sandia National Laboratories has been tasked with the challenge of designing an offshore wind turbine that can spin out 50 megawatts of carbon-free juice—using 650 foot blades that harness the fiercest winds on Earth.
The price of wind and solar is steadily dropping, leading researchers to conclude that CO2 emissions from power production in the US could be significantly reduced within 15 years. And to distribute this energy, they’re calling on America to build an “electron superhighway.”
As the world’s top carbon offenders attempt to one-up each other with commitments in Paris this week, one country is quietly snickering from the sidelines. That’d be Uruguay, which already sources a staggering 94.5% of its electricity from renewables.
The Netherlands has an ambitious new energy goal: The country wants its entire electric rail system to run on 100% wind power within three years.
According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, about 2.3 percent of America’s power is generated by wind. But wind power is becoming wildly popular all over the world. What would happen if a company put up so many wind turbines that they actually changed the climate on Earth? That’s the subject of this…
A mere 12 miles from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will soon sit a 620-foot, 1,500-ton windmill atop a 5,000-ton podium. It’ll be the biggest floating wind turbine on Earth, and it could usher in a new age of green energy for a region largely fed up with nuclear energy.
If life in a future megacity isn’t for you, your hour of escape is fast approaching. Especially if you don’t mind living alone in a 14 x 7 x 7-foot pod. Well, what if I told you the view was fantastic?
3D printers are a technology with tons of potential applications, we just have to dream them up. Polish 3D printer manufacturer Omni3D decided to dream big with its wind power project. The team hopes to create an easily portable wind turbine that can pump out up to 300 watts of energy. Not enough power to keep your…
Here's the sad, dark truth about our aging electrical grid: The way we generate power is not sustainable and needs to change. Here's the other sad, dark truth: As the U.S. becomes more reliant on renewable energy like solar and wind, our electricity bills are going to go up. Way up.
It looks like a UFO, and soon there could be dozens hovering silently over your city. This futuristic wind turbine is designed to take advantage of high winds and deliver huge amounts of power to the ground via thick cables. And it's about to be tested in Alaska.
Behold the Pertamina Energy Tower, a U.S.-designed building that's slated for construction in Jakarta, Indonesia. Reaching a height of a half-kilometer, the tower will harvest its own wind energy through an opening at its peak.
Looking for an alternative to turbines for capturing wind energy, Belatchew Arkitekter has proposed adding a hairy addition to Stockholm's Söder Torn. It would serve as more than an architectural toupee, capturing energy through the movement of all those tiny straws.
You're peering down the main supporting tower of Siemens' latest offshore wind turbine—which just happens to be the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world.
Wind farms simply aren't reliable sources of steady power, which is why many rely on enormous battery systems to store excess current for times when the wind isn't gusting enough to meet our energy demands. Problem is—the production of these batteries is itself a drain on resources. So what if, instead of lithium…
We recently caught wind of the high-flying turbine blimps that could cut our energy costs by up to 65 percent. Now we get to see a prototype of this glorious feat of human engineering in action. This is not science fiction; the future is here.
