Looks like the new TXU is really moving in a green direction.  This is what I was looking for, so let’s hope similar news follows in the future.  Today TXU Wholesale, a subsidiary of TXU Corp. (NYSE: TXU), announced the purchase of about 209 megawatts of wind power from Airtricity.  This will be Airtricity’s third project in Texas and it will use 209 1.0-MW Mitsubishi 1000A turbines.  In total, the purchase now brings TXU’s investment in wind to 914 MW (powered by 965 turbines).  The farm, known as Roscoe Wind Farm, is currently under construction 45 miles southwest of Abilene, Texas.  By my BOE calculations, this news means that the portion of wind in TXU’s total energy portfolio (18,100 MW) is about 5.05%.  Five percent of TXU’s energy is generated from wind.  It’s not cheap, but this is the direction we need to go.  Nice work. 

Good Links:
+$300,000,000 Facility Will Provide Power to TXU [doc][Airtricity]
+TXU Adds to Wind Energy Portfolio with 209-MW Deal [TXU]

Let’s face it, less is more.  What you see is the micro compact home, aka m-ch, which is a 76 sf home designed by Richard Horden, a professor at Technical University of Munich (TUM).  m-ch was designed to meet the growing demand for short-stay living.  I think Horden’s on to something.  Right now, there’s a horde of 7 m-chs that TUM students and staff occasionally stay in.  But there’s also a 16-unit village of m-chs being developed for a site near Vienna, Austria. 

What’s great about the m-ch is its high-tech design.  It’s all geeked out with the latest in electronics and technology.  Future models plan to use solar panels and horizontal-axis wind turbines to make the home self-sustaining.  For $96,000 (delivery + installation anywhere in Europe), you get a sliding table for 5, two 7.5 foot beds, shelves and drawers, an electrical systems control panel, bathroom and shower, and a kitchen with a microwave, fridge/freezer, sink, waste unit, and work surface.  For a quick jaunt and a little fun, what more could you ask for?  Via Wired.  Cool images below the fold. 

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I’m in the middle of a hellish end to law school finals.  I have some good content in the works, but need to sort through it + make it shine, so keep your eyes open for stuff later in the day.  For those of you aren’t familiar with the face behind Jetson Green, I’m at the end of my 4th year of grad school getting both JD + MBA degrees.  The MBA part finished last week.  I need to polish up my paper on lead paint public nuisance litigation for Friday and make it through the night studying for constitutional law.  Next week is graduation and we’re moving the very next day for Salt Lake City.  Posting will be erratic, but will come even if it’s at 4:00 am sometimes.  How ’bout them Jazz?  Who would’ve thought I’d leave the playoff-less Dallas for the playoff-full Salt Lake City? 

1. USGBC Now Allows Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Points under LEED Innovation in Design Category.
2. Britain Assesses the Pros and Cons of Green Homes. 
3. Baltimore is One Step Closer to Becoming Next City to Require Developers to Incorporate Green Building Standards into Projects. 
4. New Exelon HQs Becomes Largest Office Space in the World to be LEED-CI Certified at the Platinum Level. 

If you’re like me, you don’t have The Sundance Channel and you buy each episode of Big Ideas on iTunes for $1.99.  I downloaded the last episode called "BUILD" and liked it so much, I’m going to buy a copy of the video on iTunes for the first 5 people to comment in this post.  It’s really good.  In an information-packed 25 minutes and 38 seconds, the producers take us through Michelle Kaufmann’s prefab factory, the process of building a Glidehouse, Carlton Brown’s green multifamily housing in New York, the advantages of green building, the future of green building with technology, and Mitchell Joachim’s fab tree hab. 

Note – I’ll use the email that you comment with to gift the episode to you through iTunes.  This is not a Sundance promo, this is JG promoting modern, green building.