When GCube, the insurance services provider, had to cover a claim to replace wind energy equipment last year, it found a way to put the damaged parts to use. GCube donated the turbine to Laramie County Community College in Wyoming. The used but working equipment was valued at $600,000 but the donation was part of a long-term company initiative to give engineering students hands-on eperience of wind energy technology.

The college, could not have afforded to buy the kit itself. Just bringing the 36-tonne unit to campus, installing it and building a catwalk around it so that students could learn how to maintain it, has cost the college more than $100,000 (€68,000, ￡62,000).

As schools across the US start to build renewable energy programmes, hands-on experience is increasingly sought after. The Obama administration has pledged to pour funds into renewables, with an economic stimulus package that includes $56bn in grants and tax breaks for US clean energy projects over the next 10 years and a budget of $15bn a year to fund renewable energy programmes such as biodiesel, ethanol, solar and wind energy, as well as hybrid vehicles.