Some people say these wind turbines look like corkscrews or a piece of Twizzlers candy. And these uniquely designed wind machines cost about a third the price of conventional wind turbines, according to the Canadian startup company that is building and marketing them. Windaus Energy of Brantford, Ontario, says its wind turbines can be easily scaled for use in residential backyards or large commercial wind farms. In addition to their lower cost, they appear to address some, but not all, of the issues that have riled opponents of wind power. "We have interest from all over the world," said Maurice Deschamps, a former crane operator who is president of Windaus Energy -- pronounced win-DAY-us. "I get it from Argentina, China, India, all over." His wind turbines have no "swoosh" noise and do not kill birds or bats, two problems that have made existing wind-turbine designs controversial, he said. The bird-friendly claim has not been independently verified, and some people are skeptical. Nevertheless, the Windaus turbine doesn't have the typical propeller blades used on conventional wind turbines, such as the ones along the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Somerset County. These blades range in length from about 100 to 300 feet. Instead, Windaus employs a vertical column with three twisting wings made of a light but strong composite material. The wings catch the wind from any direction and operate at lower wind speeds.

Wind turbine manufacturer Clipper Windpower tumbled from recent highs today after it announced an issue relating to machining tolerances in its gearboxes and a short delay in turbine deliveries. As a result of the issue, the group said it has decided to introduce an additional measurement process during machining to ensure gearbox tolerances are met.

Texas is in a nationwide race for a giant new U.S. Department of Energy-backed wind turbine research and development center.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The lawmaker set to head the U.S. Senate called on Wednesday for more incentives to expand geothermal power production, and accused the White House of being slow to support renewable energy. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who will be the chamber's majority leader once Democrats take control of Congress in 2007, said U.S. energy companies need more incentives to produce geothermal power, which uses heat pockets beneath the earth's surface to turn water to steam, powering turbines and generating electricity.

Knight & Carver will make conventional turbine blades at first. But earlier this month, it made a single curved blade designed to tap into low-speed winds not captured with current technology. South Dakota is one of the windiest places in the nation, yet it trails neighboring states in developing wind energy. The new facility is part of an effort to find a niche in the emerging industry while bringing technology jobs to rural areas.

Greenblatt noted that while wind power could produce impressive amounts of peak energy during strong gusts, the biggest problem was wind power’s intermittency. The problem could be addressed by a process called compressed air energy storage, where excess energy could be used to pump compressed air into underground storage facilities that could include abandoned mines. When the wind was not blowing, he said, the compressed air could be tapped and combined with the burning of natural gas to create high-efficiency electrical generators approximating the efficiency levels of coal-fueled power plants.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In the quest for oil-free power, a handful of small companies are staking claims on the boundless energy of the rising and ebbing sea. The technology that would draw energy from ocean tides to keep light bulbs and laptops aglow is largely untested, but several newly minted companies are reserving tracts of water from Alaska's Cook Inlet to Manhattan's East River in the belief that such sites could become profitable sources of electricity.

FINANCIAL TIMES: There has been some recent legislation on Co2 reduction. I wonder if you see that as one of the big developments of late, and what its significance is.

JEFFREY IMMELT: Yes. I think if you look at what some of the states are doing, California for instance, or even what's happening around the world, what's talked about in the UK, I think that's going to change the way people look at technology and it's going to change the way people look at energy policy in the future. It tends to be the way change starts. I would say in many ways some of the things that have happened in Europe over time have tended to drive technology. For instance, when Europe said it was going to have 10 per cent renewables that's what really opened up the world of wind energy and solar and things like that, so I think it's very meaningful.

ATLANTA -- GE Energy (NYSE: GE) today announced it has surpassed 5,000 installations for its 1.5-megawatt wind turbine, one of the most widely used machines in the global wind power industry.

WASHINGTON - Thanks to the high prices of oil and natural gas, the electricity industry is turning back to coal, America's oldest and most abundant fossil fuel, to drive a new generation of power plants. The upshot is that even as politicians take the threat of global warming more seriously, the problem may get much worse. Utilities are proposing to build 154 coal-fired power plants in the next 25 years, according to "Coal's Resurgence in Electric Power Generation," a recent Department of Energy report. Most of those new plants would use conventional coal-burning technology, which would increase carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. coal plants by more than 50 percent by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration, the analytic division of the Energy Department. A traditional coal plant produces three to four times more CO2 -- a potent "greenhouse gas" that traps the sun's heat and helps raise the Earth's temperature -- than comes from a modern plant that uses natural gas as its fuel.

Solar panels were perfected decades ago. Turning corn into fuel uses the most basic science. As for wind power, windmills have been around for more than a thousand years. AP photo Today's wind turbines are adapted from aerospace and are used to generate electricity. Like with solar, they suffer from a perception problem. Yet, we're still burning gas and coal and obliterating forests. Why the long delays in getting alternative technology to the market? The reasons are a brew of cost, perception and politics.

Critics argue that the cuts will hurt the country’s renewable energy initiative. Although geothermal plants produce less than 1 percent of nation’s electricity, experts believe there is significant potential to expand geothermal production. However, President Bush cut the research because he believes that private industry should take on the role of investing in geothermal and hydropower plants.

OSLO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Wind power could generate almost 30 percent of the world's electricity by 2030 and is growing faster than any other clean energy source, a wind business group and environmental lobby Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

An MIT researcher has a vision: Four hundred huge offshore wind turbines are providing onshore customers with enough electricity to power several hundred thousand homes, and nobody standing onshore can see them. The trick? The wind turbines are floating on platforms a hundred miles out to sea, where the winds are strong and steady.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Northern Power, a subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: DESC - News), a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to continue development of key modular construction technologies necessary to build 5-megawatt to 8-megawatt wind turbines. In announcing the $750,000 award, Northern Power said the project builds on a Phase 1 SBIR design study recently completed by the company, which confirmed the viability of these enabling, modular construction approaches.

The long awaited answers to the questions of how the nation will cope with the rising energy costs are finally set to be answered at the 29th World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC) this Wednesday, September 13th at the Washington, DC convention center.

Canadian manufacturer of solar cells and modules Photowatt (PHWT) filed to go public last week; its prospectus contains an overview of the renewable energy industry, and trends in solar energy. The excerpt below is from the company's F-1 filing:

Can the United States, the first nation to put a man on the moon, develop deepwater wind turbines capable of harnessing the ocean’s vast wind resources? The answer is "yes." Unfortunately, it’s not the right question, because the real puzzler is whether deepwater technology can be made cost-effective. If it can - and experts believe the answer to that question may be at least a decade away - deepwater wind farms could offer a real alternative to fossil fuels or nuclear energy.

Owens Corning, a supplier of fiber reinforcement materials to the wind energy market, has launched a new Web log for designers, engineers and other technical professionals who work with composite materials in wind energy.

An MIT researcher has a vision: Four hundred huge offshore wind turbines are providing onshore customers with enough electricity to power several hundred thousand homes, and nobody standing onshore can see them. The trick? The wind turbines are floating on platforms a hundred miles out to sea, where the winds are strong and steady.