Engineering Trends: Alternative Energy

This week WindPower Engineering announced its list of 2010 Innovators in Wind Power, to recognize and celebrate the influence of innovators of wind energy.

Included in the list, is “the grandfather of American wind energy,” Dr. Robert Thresher (OR A ’62). Dr. Thresher “has dedicated most of his life to advancing wind energy technology and promoting the benefits of wind as a clean renewable source of energy.”

He is currently a Wind Energy Research Fellow at NREL.
To learn more about Dr. Thresher’s contributions and accomplishments, read the full article.

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Yueh-Lin Loo (PA D ’96), associate professor of chemical engineering at Princeton University, led a research team in the development of “a new technique for producing plastics that could reduce the costs of manufacturing solar panels.”

The findings were recently published in the online March issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read the article from European Plastics for more information on how Loo and her team are using plastics in a new way to maintain high electrical conductivity.

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U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced last week that stimulus funds were being awarded to support smart grid and workforce-training programs.

The University of Minnesota and St. Paul College are set to receive funds from the U.S. Department of Energy “to revitalize electrical power engineering education programs and retrain employees from other industries.”

University of Minnesota will be part of “a nationwide consortium of 80 universities in re-energizing education and research programs, including a new focus on wind and solar power.” Read the full article for more

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