Results tagged “windpower”

Sugar Grove-based Chicago Industrial Fasteners LLC announced a new partnership with Spain's Matz-Erreka SCL to market and distribute large bolts and rods for wind turbines. The agreement, which will bring the high-strength bolts that are used to hold together and anchor wind turbines from Spain to the United States, is expected to help CIF expand its wind power parts business in the U.S. While CIF will import the parts initially, the plan is to shift production to Sugar Grove, creating “conservatively 10 to 20 jobs,” according to John Price, the firm's president. Figuring in both transportation costs and the exchange rate, “we can be a lot more competitive if we don’t have to ship it from Spain.”

A group of wind power companies are gathering this week at McCormick Place as the Windpower 2009 convention kicks off (blows off?) and even Governor Quinn made an appearance as Illinois makes a bid to become a major player in the wind power producing game. Josh Magee of Emerging Energy Research, though, says Illinois has a lot of catching up to due. Check out the whole story over at WBEZ.

Yesterday was Earth Day, so to demonstrate the need for more clean energy, some people from Greenpeace attached 16-foot mini stationary windmills to the railing on the west side of the Michigan Avenue bridge. They were put up around 9:00 a.m., and they were taken down by 11:00 a.m. because the organization did not have a city permit. Also, CDOT spokesperson Brian Steele said that the windmills were a danger to pedestrians and to the movable bridge's delicate weight balance. (Uh, just how delicate? Should we be worried?)

One of our fellow employees, a lifelong Chicagoan, brought a book to work one day. Unaware that taking in external knowledge was allowed at our office, we took a gander. It was a pictorial book about the Cows on Parade exhibits from 1999, before we ourselves became a permanent fixture in the city. While we thought the cows themselves kind of cheesy (no pun intended), we enjoyed the idea of public art on such a...

Green Chicago: a phrase many of us have heard touting our city as a beacon for environmentally-conscious initivaties.

* Before you start commenting, we're just having fun with the topic, we know that Chicago isn't called the Windy City because of the actual wind.