Wind power testing site gets green light

HOUSTON -- The University of Houston has completed an agreement with the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to design, construct and operate a state-of-the-art wind turbine blade testing facility in Ingleside, Texas. UH will receive technical and operational assistance from NREL as well as $2 million in equipment for the Gulf Coast testing site. Construction is expected to be completed in 2010. The Texas-NREL Large Blade Research and Test Facility (LBR&TF) will be able to perform full-scale testing of turbine blades up to 70 meters in length.
 
In addition to UH, the alliance includes The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, West Texas A&M University, Rice University, Lamar University, New Mexico State University, Old Dominion University's Batten College of Engineering and Technology, the Houston Advanced Research Center, the Texas General Land Office, the State Energy Conservation Office, the Texas Workforce Commission, and 12 wind energy companies and suppliers, including Houston-based BP Alternative Energy, Shell Wind Energy, and Dow Chemical and Huntsman International. Schools say a feminine touch is critical to the future of engineering

(Virginia Business, July 1, 2008)

Sharnnia Artis had all the right attributes for a budding engineer. She excelled in math and science classes and was extremely inquisitive, always wanting to know how things worked. Still, as a young African-American girl growing up in Chesapeake, Artis knew no engineers and had little sense of what the job might involve. The idea of becoming an engineer didn't occur to her until her junior year in high school. That was when she learned about a summer camp at Virginia Tech that gave girls a chance to learn the basics of engineering. She decided to give it a try. "I realized during that time that I could design and develop products and solve problems that would have an impact on the quality of people's lives," she says.

ODU is relying on female engineers at NASA and local companies to mentor women engineering majors and to talk to high school students. Virginia Tech will continue its summer camps for high school girls, but it hopes to bring prospects to campus at least once a semester to learn more about engineering.