This video of vintage wind turbines is super cool. EnergyNOW reports that the U.K. started supplementing its energy needs with wind power during World War II, then kept using wind for daily needs -- like shop window lighting -- after the war was over.

Eeek. A huge crack has opened up in the hull of the ship leaking oil off the coast of New Zealand, and the ship could break up apart "at any point," according to Maritime New Zealand. In the U.S., the Justice Department had to sue Transocean to force the company to answer government subpoenas related to the Macondo well spill. Can we feed people without killing the planet? Yes, says a new study, but it’ll take money, planning, and eating less meat. The EPA is speeding up Great Lakes clean-up efforts. Offshore wind is doing its thing, trying to get …

In the department of cool inventions you'll probably never use, the inventor of the Segway has come up with an idea for an inflatable wind turbine. Its main advantage is that it's mobile: imagine parking your EV and sending your inflatable wind turbine up into the sky to charge it while you're at work. It could be moved to take advantage of the best winds as they shift, and, more to the point, It could also be mounted on top of a building or on the side of the road in order to double as a billboard. Like the Segway, …

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. This morning, President Barack Obama bashed the Republican argument that the United States can no longer compete in global manufacturing. Earlier this week, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) said that the bankruptcy of Solyndra means that the United States should surrender the clean-energy race to China. "We can't compete with China to make solar panels and wind turbines," Stearns told NPR, because one advanced-technology solar company that had received private and public financing had closed shop. "I'm not going to surrender to other countries," Obama shot back in today's press conference, after noting that Stearns, like dozens …

Particularly in the wake of Solyndra, solar power gets a ton of attention. It's at that interesting stage of development where big innovations and big failures lurk around every corner -- lots of stories to tell. As sexy as solar is, though, wind power has grown faster and is a much larger, more mature industry. This is from IEA's Renewables Information 2011: Even as conservatives attack clean energy and the promise of green jobs, wind power has provided a growing source of domestic manufacturing. A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (available via AWEA) goes over the numbers: …

How much will switching to renewables raise your utility bill? How about NEGATIVE ALL OF IT? In Germany, wind and solar projects have regularly been generating so much surplus energy that utilities are paying consumers to take it off the grid. High winds -- although not that high, only 15 mph -- led to negative-price wind energy for nine hours on July 24, bringing Germany's total to 31 hours of below-zero-cost energy this year.  The companies hate this, obviously. Bloomberg's reporting about the phenomenon is all "OH GOD WIND CAUSES ECONOMIC DOOM": The gross margin at a coal power plant after …

Wind turbines in Iowa, which leads the country in wind energy consumption.Photo: Theodore ScottCross-posted from Midwest Energy News. Minnesota wind developer Dan Juhl has seen the scenario before. The wind production tax credit -- seen as a key incentive to bringing new wind energy projects online -- nears its expiration date, expires without legislative action, and then comes barreling back, reviving the industry after a period of stagnation. It's a sequence of events that has played out three times in the last decade, most recently in 2003, and is unfolding again today. The current tax credit, which provides developers with …

Photo: Vlasta JuricekCross-posted from Midwest Energy News. There's no denying that wind turbines make noise. A giant rotor blade the size of an aircraft wing swooshing through the air is going to make a noticeable sound, particularly in a quiet, rural setting. And it's an often-repeated claim of wind farm opponents that this noise can lead to a whole host of health issues, including headaches, tinnitus, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. Health fears, among other objections, have sometimes been cited by local governments as they establish large setbacks, moratoriums, or other restrictions on wind farm development. But a new study published …

Click here for a larger version of this image. The way we distribute subsidies for energy, it doesn't seem like we're all that enthusiastic about winning the future, says venture capital firm DBL Investors. (They created the handy chart pictured above.) A new report from DBL lays out just how much of an uphill battle renewables have when competing with so-called "mature" technologies, where by mature we mean "has a robust lobbying apparatus and a demonstrated track record for warping government policy in their favor." A second graph from the same report shows that nuclear power was granted unprecedented access …

A new plan for a massive shift to renewables could move Japan away from nuclear permanently, even as it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs for the country's ailing economy. The plan, which was crafted by Greenpeace, the German Aerospace Center, and the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, has the country getting off nuclear completely by 2012. That would involve energy conservation measures equivalent to 10 to 12 nuclear reactors, or about 11,000 megawatts (MW), and a ramp-up of wind power generation from 3,500 MW to 47,200 MW by 2015. Throw in some solar panels -- enough for about 20 …