Texans turn to turbines

Lovely little photo story on the New York Times today, explaining how Texans are investing in some gigantic wind turbines.

It’s such an incredible sign of the times - one of the great oil capitals of the world moving to wind power.

Greenbang was surprised to learn Texas surpassd California as top wind-farm state in 2006, with enough wind power for 100,000 homes.

“Texas has been looking at oil and gas rigs for 100 years, and frankly, wind turbines look a little nicer,” said Jerry Patterson, the Texas land commissioner, whose responsibilities include leasing state lands for wind energy development. “We’re No. 1 in wind in the United States, and that will never change.”

UCLA ZIFs up carbon capture problem

What is beauty to you? The lovely ladies of Zoo magazine, perhaps, or the smile of a young child. To scientists at UCLA it’s a new material which can help grab carbon emissions before they reach our atmosphere.

The structure of the materials - called zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIFs - are “quite beautiful” according to one of the researchers, Omar M. Yaghi. Good looks aside, the ZIFs have some serious potential due to their ability to stop any gas of their makers choosing exiting into the atmosphere - a perfect fit for emission-heavy power stations.

Here’s more from UCLA:

revolving door allow certain molecules — in this case, carbon dioxide — to pass through and enter the reservoir while blocking larger molecules or molecules of different shapes.

“We can screen and select the one type of molecule we want to capture,” Phan said. “The beauty of the chemistry is that we have the freedom to choose what kind of door we want and to control what goes through the door.”

“The capture of carbon dioxide creates cleaner energy,” Yaghi said. “ZIFs in a smokestack would trap carbon dioxide in the pores prior to its delivery to its geologic storage space.”

In ZIFs 68, 69 and 70, Banerjee and Phan emptied the pores, creating an open framework. They then subjected the material to streams of gases — carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, for example, and another stream of carbon dioxide and nitrogen — and were able to capture only the carbon dioxide. They are testing other ZIFs for various applications.

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Tesla gets $40 million for sedan

Tesla, one of the most talked about eco-car companies and, for that matter, one that shares its name with an awful late 90s rock band, has hooked up with an additional funding round of $40 million.

(Greenbang went to visit Tesla in California last year - check out the film.)

The round was co-led by Valor Equity Partners and Elon Musk, entrepreneur and Chairman of Tesla Motors.

Tesla said the cash will be used to work on a producing a five door sports sedan, due out by 2010, as well as more work on the Tesla Roadster and getting a sales and service infrastructure up and running.

Elon Musk, Chairman of Tesla Motors, said: “The Roadster now in production is just the first of a series of models from Tesla, soon to be followed by our 4 door sports sedan. Eventually, Tesla Motors will offer a full line of electric vehicles, leading the way in the changeover from gasoline cars to an electric future.”

Renault joins €100 million car recycling venture

The details are a bit light on this one, so Greenbang will just bring you what she can. Possibly with a cup of tea and a lemon slice, if she’s feeling generous.

A few press outlets are reporting that Renault is getting into bed with Sita, a division of waste company Suez, to create a car recycling venture, with the venture then taking over a majority stake in car-recycler Indra.

The whole thing is planned to cost around €100 million and the companies are hoping to cash in on European Union requirements that stipulate 95 percent of cars be recycled.

Microsoft bird-watching in the name of climate change

There’s something unsettling about watching animals for too long, don’t you think? If Greenbang watches any of the higher apes for long enough, then she becomes convinced that they are actually planning a takeover of the world ending in our slavery. Too much Planet of the Apes as a child, Greenbang presumes.

Software giant Microsoft has however been developing systems to monitor Britain’s wildlife in general, in collaboration with scientists at the University of Oxford and the Freie Universität, Berlin. The system will be watching the seabird the Manx Shearwater in particular, and how flocks of the little blighters get affected by changes in their environment like pollution.

The birds will be tagged with RFID chips and wireless sensor networks will be put up in their burrows, sending information on the birds’ comings and goings, temperature, pressure, movement and weight back to scientists, while GPS will let the white-coated ones know where the Manxs have been at night, the dirty stopouts.

The idea behind the tech shenanigans is to get an idea of when things are going wrong with the species early on and step in to fix it.

Here’s more from the software people:

The team are now investigating how the technology can be used in a range of different sensitive ecosystems around the world, such as rainforests and cloud forests, to provide scientists with a much better understanding and an early warning system of how vulnerable species are responding to environmental change.

In this stage of the project on Skomer Island, which will be completed this summer, the team believes that insights already gained about the use of this new technology will enable them to gain a much more detailed understanding of Manx Shearwaters’ behaviour, and the effect of changes to the birds’ environment and their behaviour at an individual and population level. Also, it is expected to inform future development and uses of the technology to better monitor, understand and predict changes occurring in sensitive ecosystems around the world, such as rainforests.

Centrica unveils £3 billion windy plans

According to reports, Centrica is thinking that wind is the way forward and is thinking of getting into the wind farm business itself. And Greenbang thought normal farmers had it tough. Imagine having to milk a turbine.

Centrica’s CEO Sam Laidlaw said at the company’s annual results day that wind could feature in the power company’s plans. However, Laidlaw said the EU should think about getting involved. With its wallet.

Forbes quotes the man himself as saying:

“To reach the new EU targets it is vital that there is a supportive market and a planning framework in place that incentivises energy companies to build these offshore wind farms.”

According to Forbes, Laidlaw also revealed it’s got plans to build 1.5 GW of wind capacity in the future, with a price tag of £3 billion.

Jurdy: Recycling comes around

“Do as I say, don’t do as I do…”

Greenbang tracks the explosion of the environmental industry, reporting on news of green innovation and thought leadership.

We blog on this rather than the environmental problems of the world because we are interested in the answers to climate change.