The entire world seems to be turning green. While some big shot oil companies and other modern moguls drain the life-force from our already bleeding planet, green entrepreneurship is being established as an honorable and efficient business model. There is just something more settling about a business whose goal is to help, rather than one whose ultimate goal is to become wealthy. This environment-friendly brand of business resonates with customers and lets them know that someone out there actually cares.

Green power marketing, among other things, offers utilities and power marketers a way to differentiate their numerous products. To date, utility experience with green pricing has been quite mixed. While some programs have met their goals rather easily, others have been unable to educe significant customer response, and have even encountered resistance from environmental and consumer groups. The common thought is that even though the marketing is “green”, it’s an unfair practice that wishes to take advantage of our planet and its many residents.

(more…)

With the growing demand for alternative power sources, scientists and different manufacturers are starting to piece together different types of green equipment. You now have solar powered devices small enough to run a laptop computer and large enough to power entire office buildings. Solar and wind powered jets have soared through the sky and incredible heights and speeds, all while leaving every drop of oil and gas on the ground. These incredible advancements are made possible by peoples’ dedication to save our planet. But even though we have new devices which create energy in many different ways, some have stayed the exact same for many years. 

A wind turbine is a very simple piece of equipment. It is a rotating machine that converts the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy for our use with everyday electrical needs. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, then the device is referred to as simple a windmill. But if the mechanical energy is then converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind turbine. Wind machines have been around since 200 B.C., when the Persians used them for grinding grain. They then moved from the Roman’s, to the Dutch, and ultimately to Cleveland, Ohio where the first windmill was used to produce electricity.

What a lot of people don’t know is that wind energy is also a form of solar energy. The sun’s radiation heats different parts of the earth at different rates. This in turn causes portions of our atmosphere to warm differently. The hot air rises and reduces the atmospheric pressure of the earth’s surface. And when the cooler air is drawn in to replace it, the result is wind. A wind turbine system is pretty basic in design. There are only two main designs of turbines: vertical-axis and horizontal-axis. Horizontal wind turbines are the most common, constituting nearly all of the utility –scale turbines in the global market. Utility-scale turbines produce 100 kilowatts kW, or larger.

  (more…)