Travelers on Germany’s A9 Autobahn are likely to do some double-takes this holiday. That giant light isn’t an alien–it’s the world’s largest spinning Christmas star.

Power giant Siemens contracted multimedia artist Michael Pendry for the massive project done in partnership with Munich City Utilities. A crew attached 3,000 tiny, colored LEDs on each of three turbine blades using special adhesives. The lights glow in different patterns as the blades rotate, putting on a show evenings and early mornings through January 6, 2010. Since the turbine is part of a local smart grid system, clean energy is powering the lights.

Hat tips to Jacob Gordon at TreeHugger and Bridgette Meinhold at Inhabitat for bringing this star story to light. Maybe next year power companies here in the States will see their turbines as canvases.

Do you know who the top ten countries are as far as wind farms is concerned?

1. Germany
2. United States
3. Spain
4. India
5. China
6. Denmark
7. Italy
8. France
9. United Kingdom
10. Portugal

Interesting list but what do you think?

….  as the green world turns!

If you are looking on how to break into the new green movement but are not sure on
how to start.  Well, the Mitchell Technical Institute is providing a training
course, it is located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and it is offering a degree
in wind turbine technology.

They talked with utility providers and firms that are putting up the wind farms
and tried to determine what it is they need for a worker.  There probably are fewer
than two dozen such programs in the nation.

Starting next fall, students can choose between a one-year program that grants a
diploma to be a wind turbine technician and a two-year degree that qualifies them
for more advanced work. (more…)

We Americans plug in, text, log on, tune in (tv) and tune out (music). We use
13 times the power than just 60 years ago. Electricity is truly the life blood
of the U.S. Economy. Back in 2003, New York and surrounding areas really realized
how important electricity is. 50 million folks lost their power in minutes.

Building a national grid may be on top of President Obama’s list of things to
do. One idea is a power network, modeled like the interstate road system
that was thought up by President Eisenhower. Some folks feel that moving
power the same way could help out in the long run. This system would supercede
the 200,000 miles of power lines and 500 different owners.

Wind farms that have been cropping up everywhere need to have transmission lines
to the surrounding cities, towns, and villages. The same is true for solar, (more…)

Just as there are huge wind farms now providing backup power for conventional
electricity generation, central solar power towers will likely do the same in
the future.  The facilities generate electric power from sunlight by focusing
concentrated solar radiation on a tower mounted receiver.  Hundreds of
thousands of small sun-tracking mirrors reflect sunlight to the receiver.  In
some technologies, liquid salt is pumped and heated through the receiver and
then stored until power is needed from the plant.  The molten salt is then (more…)