The consortium, which includes Oak Ridge National Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California-Davis, The Dow Chemical Company, Honeywell and General Electric, will receive $12.5 million from the US Government, matched by at least $12.5 million from the partners, and $25 million from Chinese counterparts over the next five years.

The schools superintendent dubbed her the Princess of Darkness. Co-workers have nicknamed her the Queen of Green. Just don't call Susan Warren a spendthrift. The Freedom High School art and yoga teacher has an improbable second set of job duties these days: Identify situations in which the school district is wasting energy -- and eliminate them.

A Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle seen here October 7 charging at a solar-powered charging station in Detroit, Michigan. More than 5,300 charging stations will be installed in Michigan as the birthplace of the US auto industry prepares for the introduction of electric cars.

Municipal governments looking to tap into New Jersey’s cost-saving energy audit or “Direct Install” programs can get the assistance they need under a shared services program unveiled by the Burlington County Freeholders in cooperation with the county Bridge Commission.

The city may enter a three-year contract aimed at saving the city an estimated $3 million on electric power acquisition and distribution over 12 years for $1.8 million over three years. The proposed agreement would be made with non-profit American Municipal Power Inc. (AMP) to operate an energy efficiency program called Efficiency Smart Power Plant. Cuyahoga Falls has its own municipal electric system and purchases power through AMP.

South Yorkshire is the greenest part of Yorkshire, according to The Energy Saving Trust. The Trust says that since April people in South Yorkshire have installed more renewable energy systems than the rest of the region put together. There are now a total of 426 installations in the county - most of them in Sheffield, followed by Rotherham, Barnsley, and then Doncaster. That compares with 199 installations in West Yorkshire, 78 in North Yorkshire and 40 in the Humber.

China's top economic planner is proposing graduated tariffs on residential electricity use as part of the nation's efforts to save energy, the National Development and Reform Commission said Saturday on its website. "A graduated mechanism will improve China's power tariff structure and spur energy conservation," the economic planning body said.

In these difficult economic times for Island contractors and associated trades, builders have adapted. From grand, expensive, multi-year construction jobs, some have changed pace to accept small-scale renovations or additions. Some who have been the lead builders on big projects have taken work as subcontractors. Some have turned to specialization, including specialization in energy conservation and renewable energy techniques.

Britain held its first free eco-car show last month on London's famous royal driveway, The Mall. The event was held as part of HRH Prince Charles's latest sustainability initiative “Start”, which aims to promote positive steps to leading a sustainable lifestyle, and was opened by his “Garden Party to Make a Difference”.

A long list of sustainability measures saved School District 43 more than $1.2 million in the past year. But the district will soon need to fork over extra cash for carbon offsets, since the provincial government requires the public sector be carbon neutral by the end of 2010.

NHS staff are being urged to switch off unnecessary electrical appliances to help make savings of £100,000 a year. Staff at NHS Worcestershire and the Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust are doing their bit as part of Switch It Off Week, which starts today.

Just like a regular medical checkup can help promote good health, a home energy checkup can help promote energy efficiency and reduce energy use. Reliant Energy customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex can sign up for a free home checkup to help make sure their homes are in good energy shape for winter and next summer.

Lockheed Martin and Rice University scientists have recently discovered how to use the all-abundant silicon to make battery electrodes that could hold up to 10 times more lithium and enhance the battery’s overall capacity from 300 mAh/gram to more than 3,000 mAh/gram. This could lead to an unprecedented rise in storage capacities for electric car batteries, in a crucial moment for their development.

Florian Bailly, a French cyclist, completed a 12 countries and two continents tour on a custom-made solar bike this week. The 10,000-kilometer journey, from France to Tokyo, lasted two-thirds less than it would have taken on a normal bike.

Enbridge in partnership with First Solar have designed the most impressive and largest photovoltaic facility in the world, an 80-megawatt solar project and have recently presented it in Ontario, Canada.

October is National Energy Awareness Month, and to celebrate this joyous eco-occasion, we’ve compiled a list to help you reduce your energy consumption and shrink your footprint even more. Switching to fluorescent lighting and turning the thermostat down are great energy saving starters, but if you’re looking to go the extra mile to save energy in your home, these tips are for you.

Last week, Enbridge and First Solar announced that the Sarnia Solar Project, an 80-megawatt (MW) solar project in Ontario, Canada was fully installed and commercially operating. Sarnia Solar Project is now the largest operating photovoltaic facility in the world.

A new discovery at Rutgers University looks likely to lead to the creation of efficient and inexpensive solar cells made of plastic. The researchers discovered that excitons - energy-carrying particles generated by packets of -can travel on the order of a thousand times farther in organic semiconductors than previously thought.

According to a new study of food waste in the U.S., it takes the equivalent of 1.4 billion barrels of oil to produce get a year’s worth of food to the market, but about 350 million barrels of that goes down the drain in the form of wasted food. The study, reported by The American Chemical Society, is noteworthy not only for what it includes about food-related energy, but also for what it leaves out.

An Israeli firm called R-Jet Engineering has designed a new jet engine that could lower the fuel consumption by 25%. Just like current jet engines are twice as efficient compared to those built in the 1960s, this one, if applied on commercial airplanes, could offer significant savings in fuel and greenhouse gases.

Although electric cars aren't exactly new, the first ones having been built in the late 1800s, they've taken a while to catch on. In recent times, consumers were limited to odd-looking vehicles that couldn't go far or fast---except for those few individuals with enough money to buy the luxury Tesla sports car.

It’s known from high school that aluminum can split water in hydrogen and oxygen, with aluminum hydroxide as byproduct. A team of Purdue University researchers has developed a mechanism that uses this reaction between aluminum, water and a liquid alloy to extract hydrogen directly from seawater and use it in boats and ships.

Getting the real prototype built has been a challenge. Kitegen Research had to abandon the initial plans of building the first prototype near the town of Berzano, not far from Torino, in Italy, after almost a year of trying to persuade the local NIMBY contingent. That has generated almost one year of delay; since everything had to be moved to the new site and a completely new set of permits had to be obtained.

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.

Toyota Motor Corp officials have recently announced that the company plans to introduce two new versions of its Prius Hybrid into the auto market. The vehicles will be unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show, scheduled for Jan 2011. This way, Toyota hopes to bolster their dominance of the electric and hybrid vehicle market in the U.S.