Britain’s Queen Elizabeth invests in a wind turbine of truly regal scale; a new website strikes back at “clean coal,” and a better way to grow green goo. We’re ready to kick-off the Memorial Day Weekend with your Friday edition of The Daily Five.

Queen goes green with world’s largest wind turbine: She’s ruler of the realm and defender of the faith — and soon to be an investor in the world’s largest wind turbine. The estate of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II announced this week that they’ll help underwrite the construction of a monster 7.5 megawatt offshore turbine, to be located somewhere along Britain’s northeast coast. The truly royal-scale project will be fabricated by London’s Clipper Windpower, and should be operational in 2010. (Reuters)

How Clean Coal Cooks Your Brain: Coal is Dirty is a brand-new environmental website officially launching today, managed by the DeSmog Project, Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace USA. The keynote article is written by Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of Big Coal. It points out that — so far — the term “clean coal” is merely a slogan, not a technology. There’s also a faux companion site, Coal Is Clean.

Consumers in no rush to buy big, hybrid SUVs: Chevy’s Tahoe Hybrid and the hybrid GMC Yukon were announced with great fanfare last year as an alternative for families who want hulking vehicles with modest gas mileage. But it seems that buyers are so far taking a pass, opting for more fuel-efficient vehicles, instead. Industry analysts point to two possible reasons for slower-than-anticipated sales: the Tahoe and Yukon hybrids may provide a small amount of relief at the pump, but they both retail in the $50 thousand dollar class. And consumers are increasingly shy of the stigma attached to owning an SUV. GM has only sold about a thousand units of the two models in the last 60 days. (MSNBC)

Bay Area’s Carbon Tax, the Nation’s First, Rankles Big Oil: San Francisco this week became the first U.S. municipality to levy a carbon tax, charging businesses in a nine-county area 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide emissions. Most of the $1.1 million in anticipated tax revenues would be paid by heavy industry, such as oil refineries. Unsurprisingly, groups such as the Western States Petroleum Association are already scrambling lobbyists and lawyers. Spokesman Dennis Bolt says his organization intends to challenge the authority of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to levy such a tax. (Earth2Tech)

Green Star Creates Breakthrough Micronutrient that Boosts Algae Growth: The race is on to replace food-based biofuels with those derived from things like cellulose and algae. A company called Green Star has discovered a micronutrient they claim boosts daily algae growth by over a third and increases the total biomass quantity in a growth cycle by well over 100 percent. The next step is making samples available to universities and researchers to test against different varieties of algae. (Treehugger)

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