Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence, and William Kamkwamba has it in spades. At age 14, while many of us were sneaking out of classrooms, William was struggling to sneak into them — his family was unable to afford the $US80 annual tuition. As is bound to happen to most students, he was caught. But instead of being sent to detention, he was barred from the school. In a show of the driven man he would become, he didn’t allow that to hinder him and instead started spending his days in the local library. While there, he encountered a book called Using Energy:

Using Energy described how windmills could be used to generate electricity. Only two percent of Malawians have electricity, and the service is notoriously unreliable. William decided an electric windmill was something he wanted to make. Illuminating his house and the other houses in his village would mean that people could read at night after work. A windmill to pump water would mean that they could grow two crops a year rather than one, grow vegetable gardens, and not have to spend two hours a day hauling water. “A windmill meant more than just power,” he wrote, “it was freedom.”

This book is what changed his life. And I don’t mean that as an exaggeration. It was truly what made a difference in his life. Because of that book, and the potential he saw in its ideas, William began to build:

William scoured trash bins and junkyards for materials he could use to build his windmill. With only a couple of wrenches at his disposal, and unable to afford even nuts and bolts, he collected things that most people would consider garbage-slime-clogged plastic pipes, a broken bicycle, a discarded tractor fan-and assembled them into a wind-powered dynamo. For a soldering iron, he used a stiff piece of wire heated in a fire. A bent bicycle spoke served as a size adaptor for his wrenches.

Imagine that. A young boy being so motivated by ideas and the sheer need to build something life-changing that he discovered materials and uses for them which most of us wouldn’t even dream of. As Mark Frauenfelder put it:

For an educated adult living in a developed nation, designing and building a wind turbine that generates electricity is something to be proud of. For a half-starved, uneducated boy living in a country plagued with drought, famine, poverty, disease, a cruelly corrupt government, crippling superstitions, and low expectations, it’s another thing altogether. It’s nothing short of monumental.

After completing his first windmill, William “went on to wire his house with four light bulbs and two radios, installing switches made from rubber sandals, and scratch-building a circuit breaker to keep the thatch roof of his house from catching fire”. His project had the attention of village locals early on, but at this point he gained the attention of TED, Technology Entertainment Design, through whom he was introduced to individuals willing to contribute to his plans to “electrify, irrigate, and educate his village, as well as pay his tuition at the prestigious African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg.”

In short: A young man struggled to educate himself, to build something his village needed, and in the end made a difference to the entire locale and gained the education he’d always wanted. Yes, it’s a fluffy, feel-good story with a happy ending. What should you take from the it? Maybe that there’s hope in the bleakest of situations, maybe that your teachers and parents were right about the power of education, maybe just that I’m a sappy bookworm with a soft spot for happy endings. No matter, if you wish to learn more, you can read the recently released The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, check out William’s blog, or peek at this video from before he ever wrote his autobiography. [GOOD via Boing Boing]

The Kinesis K3 power generator updates their previous K2 unit with a new power source: In addition to its windmill and solar cells, it can now charge its internal battery with external electricity sources.

Sounds a bit weird and anti-green, but for some reason now you can charge its 4,000 mAh battery using a USB adaptor or a car cigarette lighter. Why would you like to do a single charge with an external power source when you can just leave it by the window to have it fully charged is beyond me.

According to the company, one hour of sun and wind will provide you with 30 minutes of talk time in a mobile phone. Fully charged, the K3 can load the battery cells for an average mobile phone five times, or an MP3 player more than ten times.

At $US100 it is a bit on the expensive, but if their specs are correct, it looks pretty useful for emergencies. [CNET]

Yes, it’s not a propeller, unless those little bugs in fluorescent vests are gremlins. They are workers about to mount a gigantic propeller on a power windmill turbine. The windmill is one of the two currently being installed in the city of Hamburg, Germany, and it’s capable of generating 6 megawatts of energy. Not enough to travel in time, but amazingly cool anyway.

And you thought this one was big. [Big Picture celebrates Earth Day]

New wind projects made up 42% of the U.S.’s total new power-producing capacity added last year, adding 8.4GW of new facilities into the grid. That brought the U.S. total up to 25GW, one more than Germany’s 24GW.

These figures are coming in from even before the “Obama bounce” expected from the new president’s vows for more clean energy initiatives. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee approved $US31 billion in tax breaks to boost alternative energy supplies and efficiency. [Ars Technica and Scientific American]

That’s an Eurocopter EC135, which is being used by Bond Air Services to do windmill farm maintenance in the United Kingdom. I’m sure they stop the windmill before going up–unless the stop mechanism is the thing that is broken–but looking a the scale of that little man going down, it’s quite scary anyway.

And here I was, thinking they had elevators or really long stairs inside.

Update: As you can see in the crazy video, the reason is that these wind turbines are in the middle of the sea. [Flight Global--video thanks to Gitemsteve]

The Army plans to increase efficiency and serve as a model for the military and the nation when it comes to the operation of our housing, buildings, and forward operating bases. The Army will use its considerable purchasing power to push green projects that might not otherwise receive needed money.

One of these projects is the installation of a 500 megawatt solar thermal plant in Ft. Irwin, an Army base located in the Mojave Desert. Another, the purchase of 4,000 Small Neighbourhood Electric Vehicles similar to the Peapod, which will always beat the SUVs currently in use at these bases.

The effort will have to be really serious, as their energy costs have increased a full 40% during the last seven years, even while they have cut consumption by almost 8%. According to their latest numbers released this week in Washington, D.C., right now they are spending $US2 billion on fuel every year. However, most of it goes to feeding the generators that power the temporary bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, so no matter how much money they spend on saving energy at home, they still will have to feed the monster around the world. [DODBuzz]

The maps are especially important as floating wind farms become more technologically possible. Ocean wind farms have less environmental impact than onshore wind farms and also tend to be more efficient, since winds are stronger over the water and there are no hills or mountains to block a heavy gust’s path. Placed in the correct areas, the farms could harvest up to 500 to 800 watts of wind power per square meter.

One area with extremely high winds is located off the coast of Northern California near Cape Mendocino, where northernly zephyrs are deflected to create a local wind jet that blows year-round. Similarly, Tasmania, New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego in South America have the potential to utilise similar jets. [NASA via Treehugger]

The Kazadokei is made by One Percent products, so only 100 units will be produced at probably some insane price. [Dezeen]