In honor of Blog Action Day on the topic of water, here is a bit of good news about a new low-cost, energy efficient method for purifying drinking water without the use of chlorine. Scientists at Stanford University have developed a new kind of water filter that uses a combination of silver, cotton, and electricity to kill up to 98 percent of E. coli bacteria in contaminated water. The system was recently described in the American Chemical Society journal.

With rapid industrialization, the world has seen the development of a number of items or units, which generate heat. Until now this heat has often been treated as a waste, making people wonder if this enormous heat being generated can be transformed into a source of electric power. Now, with the physicists at the University of Arizona finding new ways to harvest energy through heat, this dream is actually going to become a reality.

After renewing the house, Mr Hieu and his wife decide to reuse the decorative since they thought it is still very new. However, being put into use, the chandelier has caused a complicated problem as it consumes a lot of electricity and is very hot. The chandelier has three tiers, with about 26 40W bulbs, so it consumes 1.040W per lighting hour. Then the chandelier has been“retired” once again after a month.

According to the latest data from the Bundesnetzagentur, Germany's solar industry added another 1,000 MW during July and August. This brings the total for the eight-month period from January through August to 4,900 MW from nearly 175,000 solar installations.

The cells that power the bicycle use sodium silicide, a powder similar to sand. In combination with water, the substance “instantly creates hydrogen gas”, that is further on used to generate energy. Moreover, excess electricity is stored in batteries that are safe and fully recyclable.

Struggling to tackle the acute power crisis in the state, Shobha Karandjale, the new energy minister, is planning to encourage energy conservation as purchasing electricity is proving to be a costly affair. The government spends an average of Rs 350 crore a month to purchase power from private producers to meet the power crisis.

The latest official figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) could provide insight into how energy saving aspirations across the UK have affected power consumption. In its second quarter 2010 report, DECC notes a 24 per cent fall in primary electricity consumption across the country.

According to the Danish climate commission, the country will gets its electricity from wind farms, developing an energy network entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050. The committee also said that biomass and wind energy could meet the bulk of the country’s energy requirements.

The conference is to assess the results of the phase II of the project "Production of small scale electricity from biogas" in some central provinces, conducted by the air engine researching team of the University of Da Nang (UD) with the support of Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) through the Go Green program.

Solar cells currently used are mostly bulky and made from silicon and other non-recyclable materials, hence they’re not as green as they should be. Mimicking nature might be a solution to this problem. More exactly, North Carolina State University researchers have prototyped a water-based solar cell, mimicking the functioning of a leaf, to produce electricity.

Designers have come up with a new portable wind turbine that is very easy to be transported and put into function by just one person. Dubbed the “Mobile Wind Turbine”, it includes a hybrid carrier that uses electricity harnessed from wind energy to run.

Designed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and fine-tuned by researchers at MERSTech in partnership with the ONR's office in Tokyo, the Magnetic Energy Recovery Switch (MERS) harnesses and recycles residual magnetic power that is produced by electrical current. By using a device that controls the flow of electricity, light bulbs can now maximize their potential. The proposal for the expanded experiment is scheduled for completion in October.

Chris Huhne threatened to get heavy-handed with gas and electricity providers on Tuesday, warning that he would step in if the industry failed to tell customers about price rises.The energy secretary hit out at providers who “put up their prices without telling you for three months”.

A team of Ukranian and American scientists have discovered that by using structures called ferroelectric nanowires, they can generate electricity from a temperature difference. This concept is now new, but rather uses different approaches and materials. It can harvest energy by using the temperature difference between materials and/or ambients.

The two researchers tried to combine spintronics (electronics that use the spin of electrons to read/write data) with thermoelectricity, which transforms heat into electricity through the Seebeck effect. The spin-Seebeck effect (the conversion of heat to spin polarization) had been observed in action in 2008, but only on a metal rod, not on a semiconductor. They called their new heat-to-electron spin discovery “thermo-spintronics.”

Chicago-based Invenergy Wind will build a farm equipped with 125 giant wind turbines on o surface of about 30,000 acre in Gratiot County, Michigan. Being considered Michigan’s largest, the $440 million project will produce 200 megawatts of energy by the end of next year, enough to supply electricity for more than 54,000 homes.

Summerhill Group, which is representing Ice Energy’s Ice Bear product in Canada, probably wishes the system has had more traction. Basically, the Ice Bear system uses off-peak electricity to create large blocks of ice, and then uses that ice during summer peak times to provide cooling — the idea being that it offsets the need to run air conditioners at times when electricity is most expensive.

A team of researchers from the University of Nevada at Reno is out to prove that sludge from a wastewater treatment plant can be dried, powdered, gassified as biofuel, and then burned to generate electricity, which in turn can run equipment at the same treatment plant. Talk about having your cake and eating it, too! The question is whether the researchers can make their sewage sludge-to-biofuel process operate at a cost low enough to compete with the price of conventional fuels.

Energy supplier EDF have unveiled a new gadget that allows consumers to turn off their appliances from anywhere in the home. The wireless EcoManager enables householders to control and switch off their microwave ovens, TVs and stereos from any location, allowing them to cut needless energy use and save money on their bills in the process.

The project on construction of a wind power electricity plant on Phu Quy Island has been implemented by the PetroVietnam Power Corporation. The project costs VND335 billion. The plant has capacity of 6MW and includes three 2MW turbines. The plant produces about 25.4 million of kWh annually. It will connect with the 22kV network and work smoothly with the diesel power plant located on the island. The project occupies permanent and temporary areas of 0.74ha and 0.87ha respectively.