Traffic Hurt By "Wind Gazers"

For those of you that actually read my blog over the holiday weekend, you will know that I drove through Indiana on Friday as well as Sunday. Anyone that has driven through Indiana knows that the entire state is relatively boring in terms of scenery.

For as far as the eye can see you are overwhelmed by cornfields and nothingness (with the exception of Indianapolis which lasts for all of 10 minutes). However, the wind farms on 1-65 have broken up this sprawling boringness of the flat land with towering beacons of clean energy.

It really is impressive to see hundreds of these wind turbines moving at once, especially when you consider that each one of these things costs upwards of $2 million. Another cool aspect of this particular wind farm is its incredibly close proximity to the highway that the video below demonstrates.

However, there may be one small draw back for these wind farms in Indiana. I didn’t notice this on Friday because the roads were so empty, but on Sunday when everyone was heading back home from their holiday weekend the traffic was noticeably slower once we entered the wind farm.

Up until these farms traffic was chugging along at 70-75 mph, but once we entered the wind turbine fields, traffic dropped to around 60 mph. This doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but it was noticeably slower.

This is probably because many people are just not used to sprawling fields of towering pinwheels, and traffic probably wasn’t helped by people like me that were taking pictures and videos with their cell phones. Once we passed through the farms traffic jumped back up to its regular pace, but it was very interesting to witness these changes in speeds.

I'm just as guilty of taking pictures while driving.

I imagine (and hope) that as time goes by and these wind turbine fields become more of a standard sight people won’t be as distracted and almost mystified by these turbines – I just wonder how long that will take.

Sustainable Architecture: Taiwan's Green Building

The other week I talked about an energy efficient building down in Miami and how it is defying the view that ecologically friendly building practices are not as pleasing to look at as other ‘traditional’ forms of architecture.

I believe that post speaks for itself and supports my point, but today I wanted to highlight a building that is going to be in constructed in Taiwan because it is truly groundbreaking in design.

This building is set to be constructed in 2012 and will have a minimal ecological footprint as it is designed to collect and purify its own water from rainfall and will be heated through geothermal power.  It will also generate electricity through solar and wind powers.

Most notably, the design looks like something out of a video game (probably because it was inspired by them according to Romanian architect Stefan Dorin). As you can see from the above picture, the building looks similar to a tree and its leaf-like observation pods will move up and down the ‘trunk’ of the structure.

This is a great example of how green architecture can be really cool while also stimulating the local economy through increased tourism.

I’m fully aware of how our markets aren’t exactly friendly towards new construction projects in America at the moment, but it would be great to see some cities eventually follow Taiwan’s lead and invest more in these cleaner and edgier buildings.

Sunday Comics

I know I have been poaching off of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal a lot lately, but come on - how great are these comics?

Also, I want to thank a reader I'm going to call "Meg" for the following photoshopped picture which is a play on last week's awesome post of a seal photo-bombing a photo.

Have a great Sunday!

Google Is The Best

Yesterday I drove through Indiana which has fields of wind turbines visible from I-65, which truly is a cool site.  It is hard to understand why people think that these turbines are so ugly, especially after you drive through Gary, Indiana which is infinitely less aesthetically pleasing.

This caused me to think of probably the understatement of the century:  Google is great.

Clearly, on the internet front, Google reigns king.  However, it looks like Google is planning on being a large contributor to our nation's energy system in the future.

Recently, Google has decided to be a major investor in a 350 mile cable on the east coast of the United States which will support up to 6,000 MW of off-shore wind energy.

The price tag of the entire project will be $5 billion and will help power around 1.9 million homes with clean energy.  Google has already invested tens of millions of dollars into this project and will continue to do so as the project is developed.

Google clearly recognizes that there is a lot of money to be made in this arena which informs their large initial investment, so one can hope that other large companies follow in their footsteps.