With the spark of a road flare, engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory lit its new, smoke-free Renewable Fuels Heating Plant today. The $3.3 million project is the Laboratory’s latest step toward operating as a net-zero energy facility.

The RFHP will heat NREL’s South Table Mountain Campus laboratory buildings by burning woody biomass, including wood chips from trees lost to the region’s mountain pine beetle epidemic. [Read more]

I was just tipped off that the folks over at ZapRoot just produced a new video in which two of my posts play a semi-leading role. Called “5 Green Obama Dreams” the punchy piece includes a section on Green Gadgets and beginning roughly at the 3 minute mark, features two posts I wrote for CleanTechnica; one on the hi-res renewable energy resource maps from 3TIER, and one about the Husqvarna solar-powered lawnmower. Big ups to ViroPop and ZapRoot for all the love in another one of their entertaining videos. Watch it:

Doesn’t it seem fitting that Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, should be the maker of the world’s largest wind turbine?  Well, they’re not - at least not yet. As I reported a few weeks back at CleanTechnica, Vestas has revealed plans (pdf) for a new research and development center on the Isle of Wight (UK) that will test what company officials are calling “the world’s longest turbine” blades.

While officials did not say exactly how long the new prototype turbine blade will be, their largest turbine currently in production, the V-90, has blades that measure 44 meters in length. The largest wind turbine currently in operation is the 6MW Enercon E-126, which has a rotor diameter of 126 meters (413 ft). Read the rest at CleanTechnica…

On the same day that job data showing Colorado had the highest unemployment rate in three years, Colorado officials announced a major expansion for Vestas Wind Systems in what will eventually become the state’s largest renewable-energy venture.

Vestas, the world’s largest wind-energy manufacturer selected Brighton to be the location of its new $290 million wind turbine complex. The 178-acre Brighton site will make blades and assemble the nacelles that wind turbines use to generate power. The project is expected to create 1,350 new jobs. [Read more]