US Military Becoming a Leading User of Green Technology

I found this article on CNN and it is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. The short story is that a lot of the attacks that the USA military faces is on oil convoys. The reason for this is that most of the bases in the theater of way are being run off generators so they are constantly needing oil deliveries all over Iraq and Afghanistan. This has led to a high percentage of fatalities guarding these convoys. This has led to the USA military paying about $40 a gallon for fuel. This explains why the USA military is investing in some green technologies to power their forward bases.

Potential New Design for Wind Farms

A few weeks back Science Daily had a good article a few weeks back on improved wind farm designs. Typically wind farms are designed so that each turbine is spaced a certain distance apart from each other. Research over 30 years ago had provided those guidelines but the California Institute of Technology has done some new research and it may show that placing the turbines closer together may provide overall system gains. This would significantly help in the development of wind farms as the current line of thinking was that improvements would come from larger turbines. With these larger turbines the complexity of the projects has gone up as well the cost.

Wind Power Research Center

Groundbreaking began in Ohio for Research and Development center for Wind Turbines. The hope for the facility is to design the equipment for the turbines. The facility will be 18,000 square feet and eventually employ 65 people. Timken is providing nearly half of the funding for the project with the rest coming from local and state jurisdictions in Ohio. With this new facility Timken will be able to adequately evaluate new designs while subjecting them to conditions seen in the field and make real time determinations as to how the parts are performing. This facility will be focused on gearbox systems for installation in wind turbines.