Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has put in the largest ever order for wind turbines coming in at $2 billion. Picken’s order consists of 667 wind turbines from GE, with each turbine costing $3 million. Pickens is planning to use his turbines to create the world’s largest wind farm in Texas. As if $2 billion wasn’t enough, Pickens has said that this is just the first order and is just one quarter of the total amount he plans to buy.

An expert has warned that wind farms pose a larger problem than just being an eyesore for some people – they have the potential to cause epileptic fits.

According to Professor Arnold Wilkins, the flickering of sunlight which occurs as the blades turn, can trigger seizures in more vulnerable members of the public. Professor Wilkins is calling for the risk to be considered when building wind farms.

Melting ice is causing problems in Southern Chile – last week, melted ice caused a glacial lake to fill and then empty suddenly, causing a small tsunami as it rolled down through a river. Luckily, no-one was injured during the freak occurrence.

Scientists have said that Colonia glacier’s melt is increasing thanks for rising world temperatures. The increased melt filled the Cachet Lake and put increasing amounts of pressure on the ice sheet. The water then bored a five mile tunnel through the glacier before landing in the Baker River. Remarkably, the flow was so strong that the water actually moved against the river’s normal currents.

Solar panels are a great way to produce renewable energy for the home, however solar panels are often costly and difficult to install. However, this might be about to change – a team from the Swansea Solar Paint project have been working on a way to paint solar calls onto steel.

The team initially were looking into ways to making steel last longer. One of the areas they researched was the degradation of paints on steel surfaces and they soon reaslised that using some form of solar panel would not only help steel’s life expectancy, but could also help the building’s energy requirements.

British newspaper The Times recently devised a test to see if the Toyota Prius’s green credentials were really as great as they are made out to be. To do this, the Times team decided to pit the Prius against a BMW 520d on a run to Geneva.

The Prius has been the car of choice for the majority of greenies for a while thanks to it’s massively heralded green credentials – in fact, more than a million Prius’s have been sold worldwide since it’s introduction to the motoring public in 2007. Celebrities have also been flocking to buy it, with Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio both seen behind the wheel of one.

According to the UN Environment Program, glaciers are shrinking at record rates and there is the risk that many could disappear within the next few decades.

Researchers have been measuring glaciers around the world for the past few years and discovered that ice loss from the glaciers reached record levels in 2006. There are big concerns over some of the ice loss, particularly around India whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers and would be severely affected if the glaciers disappeared. The west coast of North America also receives much of it’s water from mountain glaciers in ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada.

Using solar power to heat water is not a new idea – and it actually does the job rather well. Now, a Dutch company has invented a new year-round system which covers winter heating requirements and summer cooling.

Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV have taken the solar heating and storage concept and applied it to roads. Asphalt gets incredibly hot during the summer months therefore is a logical choice for placing heating pipes. These pipes then connect the heated water into underground storage areas. During the winter months, the heated water is used to heat buildings and keep the road from freezing. When the water has cooled, it is moved into a cool storage area which then provides cool water for air conditioning systems.

New research by the University of Minnesota has shown that using higher blends of ethanol (20%) blended with petrol does not cause damage or performance problems for standard petrol engines.

Over half the petrol already sold in the US is blended with 10% ethanol (E10). Higher blends have not been tried yet because there were some concerns that higher blends could cause engine damage and degrade the performance of a car – very high blends of ethanol (up to 85% - E85) will only work properly in engines which have been specially converted to run on ethanol.

Kivalina, a small Alaskan village home to the federally recognised tribe the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, is suing two dozen oil, power and coal companies over global warming. The village claims that thanks to the large amounts of greenhouse gases being released by the companies, they have made a massive contribution to global warming, and the village’s existence is threatened because of the warming climate.

Kivalina is a traditional Eskimo village with around 400 inhabitants and is located around 625 miles north-west of Anchorage on an eight-mile barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and Kivalina River. In the past, sea ice has protected the community and most of the economy is based on industries such as salmon fishing.

Richard Branson oversaw a successful trial of a Virgin 747 plane partially running on biofuel blends over the weekend. However, he admitted that the fuel tested probably couldn’t offer a green solution for airlines.

Boeing and Virgin trialled the biofuel in a joint operation – the biofuel itself was derived from coconuts gown in the Philippines and babassu palm oil. Babassu palms grow wild in Brazil and the fuel derived from these trees is therefore sometimes deemed more ‘eco friendly’ than other biofuel resources.