Canadian autoparts makers becoming green machiners

Tyler — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:30:57 +0000

While travelling in New Mexico earlier this month I got a chance to spend the day at Sandia National Laboratories, which kindly made several of its scientists available to talk about the latest developments around solar, wind, battery, water, and fossil fuel technologies. During a walk of the lab’s solar test facility, I saw several Stirling Energy System heliostats, which concentrate solar heat onto a Stirling engine to generate electricity. I learned the engine is manufactured by Ontario-based Linamar Corp., and upon returning to Toronto also learned that Linamar had just signed a 10-year, $3.6 billion deal to manufacture the first made-in-Ontario wind turbine nacelles based on a unique design by startup CWind. Here’s a story on Linamar’s latest green manufacturing activities that appeared Saturday in the Toronto Star.

Also, here’s a story I wrote in MIT Technology Review updating Sandia’s very cool “Sun-to-Petrol” project.

Clean Break » Sandia National Laboratories

Canadian autoparts makers becoming green machiners