The newest building concept to spring from the mind of eco-designer and artist Michael Jantzen is a testament to the power of renewable energy. His monumental Wind Farm Celebration Center is designed to serve as a visitor center and is very appropriately powered by an awe-inspiring 1.5 MW wind turbine that sprouts up from the structure like a blooming flower.

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Post tags: "wind power", building concept, celebration center, concept, michael jantzen, wind farm celebration center

The Birds and the Bees have inspired one startup to send forth a hovering turbine. Green Wavelength, “committed to finding ways of applying nature’s solutions to our man-made energy problems,” presented its xBee prototype to an entrepreneurial buzz at The Perfect Pitch 2009. This biomimetic windmill sports 19-ft. wings of aluminum and carbon fiber that rotate to and fro — à la bumblebees, hummingbirds and dragonflies — to produce 1-10 kW of wind power suitable for homes and small businesses.

+ Green Wavelength

Via TreeHugger

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Post tags: "wind power", bumblebee turbine, green design, green wavelength, renewable energy, sustainable design

Rooftop solar panels are unlikely to elicit complaints from neighbors–they’re silent and relatively unobtrusive. But loud rooftop wind turbines? That’s where the virtually NIMBY-proof Ridgeblade turbine comes in. The turbine, designed by a former Rolls Royce turbine engineer at UK-based The Power Collective, boasts a sleek profile that is both powerful and visually pleasing.

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Post tags: "wind power", "wind turbine", green design, power collective, renewable energy, ridgeblade, sustainable design, wind energy

It’s easy enough to monitor home power consumption, but few people think about the energy impact of talking on cell phones for hours on end. After all, cell towers have to be powered by something, and in many cases that something is coal or other expensive on-the-grid sources. Enter Helix Wind Corporation, a wind turbine company that is aiming to both cut down on cell phone tower operating costs and lower the CO2 impact of cell phone use with wind-powered cell towers.

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Post tags: "wind power", alternative energy, eltek nsg, helix wind, wind energy

Wind power is the fastest growing source of renewable energy in Europe, so it’s no surprise to learn that Denmark is launching the world’s biggest offshore wind farm this week. Using 91 turbines scattered across 35 square kilometers, the Horns Rev 2 farm, built by Danish utility company Dong Energy, will be able to produce 209 megawatts of power – enough for a staggering 200,000 homes.

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Post tags: "wind power", Denmark, dong energy, EU, horns rev 2, offshore wind, wind energy

Michael Jackson will live on forever in our hearts through his music, but he also deserves a thriller of a memorial fit for a true king! In the wake of his untimely death, our friends at Bustler held a competition to design the Baddest memorial ever. Live Forever: The Michael Jackson Monument Design Competition yielded some impressive designs. Some were gaudy and a little ostentatious, and others even bordered on the line of inappropriate, but our absolute favorite was a blinged-out, gold-plated, and renewable energy-fueled disco dancefloor in a undisclosed remote desert location. What better way to immortalize the King of Pop?!

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Post tags: "wind turbine", gold plated wind turbine, live forever, live forever memorial, michael jackson, michael jackson memorial, remote dance party, renewable energy

Is it possible that the designers of NYC’s city seal peered into the future to see how important wind energy would be to us in the year 2009? Most likely not, but their decision to include a windmill in the city’s crest did provide the perfect inspiration for Philadelphian firm Austin + Mergold LLC to rethink the Bronx’s Grand Concourse in a recent architectural competition held by the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The project envisions the wide, urban avenue as New York’s newest monument to clean energy, lined with an army of powerful weblike wind turbines – a.k.a. The Grand Resource.

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Post tags: austin +mergold, bronx, bronx museum of the arts, grand concourse, grand resource, new york city, sustainable design, wind energy, wind turbines

Arcology may sound like a made up word – probably because it is. A hybrid of architecture and ecology, it is essentially a mega city which packs a ginormous population into one hyperstructure – think Death Star, Zion in The Matrix or the Anthill of Antz fame. Now, a real-life group of ambitious designers has taken their looming pyramidal arcology and placed it smack dab on the Mississippi River as a proposal for the rebuild of New Orleans which is currently in progress. This 30 million square foot beast-building with an array of green features is aptly named NOAH (Get it? Noah and the Arcology?), and is meant to house 40,000 mostly human residents.

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Post tags: green arcology, green buildings, hyperstructures, new orleans arcology, New Orleans Arcology Habitat, noah

What if we could take our huge chunks of boring, bland freeway shoulder and turn them into energy, food and big bucks? That’s what this finalist in our Reburbia Competition to redesign the suburbs proposes in his ambitious and financially-focused vision of the future: Inter Estates. These super-modern homes are vertically perched way atop highway-lining vertical neighborhoods that could be the wave of the future.

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Post tags: advertising campaign, billboards, freeway reclaimation, highway residences, interestates, reburbia, redesign suburbia, suburban farming, Urban Farming

As designers strive to create a more sustainable future, we’re thrilled to see designs that integrate a variety of renewable energy technologies into objects we encounter in everyday life. This innovative hybrid wind and solar powered street lamp is just such a solution – not only does it use renewable energy to provide light, it’s a stylish update to an everyday object that is capable of operating completely off-grid. The hybrid streetlamps consist of a solar array topped with a wind turbine, and they are capable of generating up to 380 W of power.

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Post tags: "wind power", "wind turbine", hybrid, lamp, LED, pv, pv solar, Solar Power, street lamp

Solar Ivy (or SMIT Grow) is a spectacular system of thin, fluttering solar panels that generate energy by sparkling in the sunlight. The wind and solar power generating photovoltaic leaves can be easily integrated on the side of a building to produce energy. The concept, designed by Brooklyn based SMIT (Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology), consists of a layer of thin-film material on top of polyethylene with a piezoelectric generator attached to each leaf. When the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, energy is being generated via Solar Ivy.

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Post tags: modular, piezoelectric, piezoelectric generator, renewable energy, SMIT, solar, solar ivy, Wind Power

How much wind power is available way up high in the sky? Turns out a lot, according to new research from the Carnegie Institution for Science and California State University. Researchers there recently crunched 28 years worth of data and discovered not only that high altitude winds contain enough energy to meet the world’s global energy demand 100 times over, but they also determined that the best places to capture that wind are over population centers in East Asia and the eastern US. Which means New York City is a prime candidate for high altitude wind energy captured by tethered kite wind turbines.

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Post tags: alternative energy, concept, high-altitude, kite, kite turbines, manhattan, new york city, renewable energy, research, sustainable design, wind energy, wind tubine

The Firewinder is an innovative outdoor light solution, powered entirely by the wind! Inspired and developed by young British inventor Tom Lawton, the Firewinder spins as the wind blows, turning into an eco-friendly night light. Lawton developed the light with a wish to highlight the invisible beauty and endless resource of alternative energies, and what a great job he did! Find out more about the Firewinder light here, and get your hands on one from the Guardian EcoStore for a mere £99.95.

+ Firewinder

+ Guardian EcoStore

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Post tags: energy efficient lighting, Firewinder, green design, LED lighting, Light, London Design Festival, Renewable Energy, sustainable design, Tom Lawton, Wind Power, wind powered lamp

Today Metropolis Magazine officially announced the winner of their 2009 Next Generation prize! Titled Wind-it, the brilliant project aims to give our existing energy grid a much needed boost by installing wind turbines in ailing electrical transmission towers. The project is designed for France, but creators Nicola Delon, Julien Choppin, and Raphael Menard believe it could be integrated everywhere, from China’s Sichuan Province to the streets of New York City.

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Post tags: "wind power", alternative energy, france, metroplis, wind energy, wind-it

Traditional three-blade turbines are great if you have lots of space to play with, but the Optiwind Compact Wind Accelerating Turbine is ideal for high-density, low-wind areas. The turbine’s series of small, five bladed fans funnel in wind and accelerate it, thereby cranking up wind speeds to generate more power.

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Post tags: "wind power", alternative energy, jellyfish, optiwind, renewable energy, turbine, wind energy, Wind Power