wind turbines

Honolulu Int’l Airport testing wind power

Air Travel, Energy, ,

In October 2006, an earthquake knocked out all the electricity on the island of Oahu and closed down the Honolulu Airport, which had inadequate back-up generators.

Now the state of Hawaii is testing a series of wind turbines that should generate enough power to keep the airport operating should there be another emergency situation.

HONOLULU AIRPORT WIND GENERATORS

You can read the details of the project in the Honolulu Advertiser.  But even if you’re not at all interested in kilowatts, turbines and voltage, take a look at the photo gallery that accompanies the article.   As you can see from these photos, those wind turbines are really quite pretty.

honolulu airport wind turbines 2

Travel tidbits: Nix the baggage handlers; MSP wind turbines; DTW’s ambulances

Baggage, Energy, , ,

Would you load your own baggage?

baggageYou book online, you print out your own boarding pass, why not load your own luggage on the plane? According to a Reuter’s report:

Europe’s largest low-cost airline Ryanair is looking at the possibility of getting passengers to carry their luggage all the way to the plane, cutting out the need for baggage handlers.

“We would say to passengers… take your own bag down through airport security, leave it at the bottom of the steps, we put it in the hold and on arrival we deliver it to the aircraft steps and you take it with you,” CEO Michael O’Leary told a news conference on Thursday.

Good idea or not?

MSP going greener

msp-wind-turbines

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is doing its part to save the earth – and some money – by installing and testing ten 1 kilowatt wind turbines

And the folks at Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) had a little party to celebrate the arrival of these new ambulances, which will be put to use on the average half dozen or so EMS runs that occur at the airport daily.

dtw-ambulancesLet’s hope you don’t actually have to see the inside of one of these buses, but if you do it may be comforting to know that the word at the airport is that the stretchers are “awesome. Totally hydraulic. The firefighters don’t need to lift stretchers up and down when transporting a patient.”