The energy conservation exposition 2010 (ENCON EXPO 2010) featuring energy-efficient products and renewable energy will take place in Ho Chi Minh City from November 25-28.

Who would have imagined that teabags can be used for purposes other than those of packaging tea leaves, and filtering their flavors? No one else except South Africa’s Stellenbosch University scientists led by Eugene Cloete, who invented a kind of teabag which, instead of filtering tea impurities, purifies water at the lowest price and energy consumption possible.

Cassava is widely known as a popular food used for breeding activity and in some other food processing industries. Few people, however, know that cassava is now the main material for producing the E5 bio-gasoline. While preparing for the market introduction of E5 bio-gasoline, Petrol Viet Nam Corporation and PV OIL have already set up a plan to plant cassava to use as raw material for production of clean gasoline.

According to the researchers at Edinburgh Napier University, whisky is being used to develop a new biofuel, which could power cars and even airplanes in a few years. They found a new way to produce biofuel from two main byproducts of the whisky distilling process: “draff”, the spent grains and “pot ale”, the liquid from the copper stills.

When you think of electric cars, you generally mean two terms in which they exist: autonomy vs charging infrastructure. These two words compete with each other to a certain point, because higher autonomy means less infrastructure needed, hence faster adoption by the market.

Finns get almost one third of their electricity second-hand, after industrial users have had first dibs at it. Vesa Koivisto of Fortum (the largest utility in Scandinavia) told me that paper mills actually supply about one third of the electricity on the grid. Why?

This has led to the increased production of PV cells not only in Europe but also in Taiwan and china. China alone produces 2GW solar cells annually. In February 2010 the price of electricity using PV panel is $4.27 per watt. Today the price of photovoltaic cells of different companies is different. The General electric solar panel costs $ 228 to $385. This trend would decline with more competition.

Chi Thanh Ice Manufacturing Ltd based in My Tho, Tien Giang is specialized in providing ice for offshore fishing vessels. The technological process mainly uses electric. So energy saving solutions mainly focus on electric efficiency, especially in key consumption areas such as compressors and heat pumps.

Intimex Thanh Chuong Tapioca Factory, under Nghe An Intimex branch, was put into operation in 2004. The factory has increased the capacity twice: from 60 to 120 tons per day and from 120 to 180 tons per day. Its coal consumption and the rate of raw cassava over cassava products used to be much higher compared to other factories in Vietnam which have similar scale. Consumption of the company in 2008: 3.7 million kWh of electricity per year; 2.8 million kilograms of coal; 27,000 kilograms of diesel oil. After joining the Component of Cleaner Production in industry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, leaders of the company has made several concrete measures in energy efficiency.

In production of bricks with semi plastic technology, a specialized machine system is used to process the raw materials, mixing them together into a specific blend used for each particular type of product such as building bricks, roofing tiles or floor tiles. After that, the mixture is shaped and transferred to the kilns for burning.

The first building construction using non-fired building materials in Ha Noi is the Keang Nam 70-storied building. The owner of this project has transported the entire discarded constructional materials and soil from digging the foundation to Hue Quang Commerce and Technology Joint stock company (Hue Quang Company). This company will buy the discarded soil from Keang Nam to produce non-fired eco bricks and sell them back to Keang Nam. This is regarded as the model that sets the trend of using environment friendly materials in Vietnam.

In the under developed countries like India and Bangladesh masses ride bicycle rickshaw to carry commuters. This practice has been in use from centuries and this has become their culture now. In India the pedal power industry still accounts for 18 percent of the total industry. India has the largest bicycle industry after china. Along with the energy benefits that pedal power offers, bicycle has proved to be the great ride.

An innovative clean energy collaboration between auto manufacturer Ford, utility Detroit Edison and energy storage systems builder Xtreme Power plans to bring to Michigan one of its largest solar energy systems, which will be used to help in the production and usage of electric vehicles. The system will be installed at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant.

According to statistics, currently, the number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Da Nang accounts for about 90% of total enterprises. Annually, the energy consumption of Da Nang is about 800 million kWh, in which, commercial electricity for production is about 700 million kWh. Besides, in the production process, large amounts of FO and DO oil used are also increasing every year.

Many simple methods can be applied to save at least 5-10 percent of electricity consumption, for example turning off electrical equipment when use is not necessary or operating air conditioners at suitable temperatures. However, many companies still ignore these simple methods.

The federal government has turned to a 130-year-old Hawaii sugar grower for help in powering the Navy and weaning the nation off a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. It will spend at least $10 million over the next five years to fund research and development at Maui cane fields for crops capable of fueling Navy fighter jets and ships. The project also may provide farmers in other warm climates with a model for harvesting their biofuel crops.

"The total electricity bills that all households in Vietnam have to pay is VND5,200 billion/year. If each household just saves 10% of their electricity consumption, the amount saved will be a really big number.

There are two types of CFLs in use. One is the integrated and the other is non-integrated. The two main parts of a non-integrated CFL are a gas filled tube called bulb or burner and magnetic or electronic ballasts. An electric current from the ballast flows through the gas filled tube (mercury vapour) causing it to emit UV light.

Implementing the national target program on energy conservation and Decision of Tien Giang People's Committee on the implementation of energy efficiency in local area in period 2008 – 2015, Energy Efficiency Center - Department of Industry and Trade has organized various activities to promote efficient energy use in industry, especially in small and medium enterprises. In order to raise awareness of energy efficiency in the office, Tien Giang has used many bold solutions in a number of office buildings.

Two heavy-duty manufacturing powerhouses, Peterbilt and Eaton Corporation, have teamed up to give garbage trucks a fuel saving green twist. This spring, Peterbilt announced its new Model 320 Hybrid which uses Eaton’s new hydraulic hybrid system to achieve up to 30% in fuel conservation, along with a consequent reduction in emissions and greatly reduced maintenance costs, too. Now four of the sustainable behemoths are set for their first run in Michigan, in the green-minded city of Anne Arbor.