With a stalled Green energy movement that seems to have convinced few people that it can actually replace our dependence on fossil fuels, Tom Rand thinks it's time to move the goal posts. An engineer who is also a venture capitalist who puts his money where his mouth is, his challenge is simple: America can either pioneer green energy as an investment that will pay off for centuries to come, or wind up paying someone else for the same solutions down the road.

The inventor says his device can cut the energy use by 25%. Moreover, it can prove itself healthy for those who suffer from asthma, allergies, of whatever age or sex. CleanAir supposedly removes particles, viruses, ozone, bacteria, organic solvents, hydrocarbons and cigarette smoke from the air.

Governor Pat Quinn announced that Illinois residents now have a second chance to receive a discount on their purchase of ENERGY STAR-qualified appliances on Sept. 24, during the Illinois ENERGY STAR Replacement Appliance Rebate Program.

All new investments must undergo independent assessments and government reviews on whether they are energy-saving or not before being approved by regulators, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, said yesterday in a statement on its website.

Within two years, three White Sands Missile Range employees have saved more than 4,000 miles of use on their vehicles by riding their bicycles to and from work at least twice a week. Shane Cunico, Phil Simpson and Kurt Austin, who all work at Army Research Laboratory at WSMR, have been riding their bicycles together to work for the last 18 months.

Vertical axis wind turbines have recently been revived by a few innovations made to them by scientists all over the world. Sauer Energy is one of them, and their turbine has a high efficiency because it’s designed to maximize the drag, so the blades are moved more efficiently by the wind.

Engineering researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University have demonstrated the low-temperature efficacy of an atomically dispersed platinum catalyst, which could be suitable for on-board hydrogen production in fuel-cell-powered vehicles of the future.

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.

Adobe, the software giant, has installed 12 100-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cells, or Energy Servers, from Bloom Energy at the Adobe headquarters. The cumulative 1.2 megawatts of power that the fuel cells generate will provide Adobe with about one-third of the power it needs to run the building.

Last year, the Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) company has developed a tidal power generator that has now been connected to the energy grid at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii as part of the firm’s program with the US Navy to test wave energy technology, giving the US their the first-ever grid connection for a wave energy device.

The phase-out of incandescent light bulbs is part of the EU's strategy to cut greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020. Replacing the old lamps with more efficient models is expected to reduce energy consumption for lighting by 60% in the EU, equivalent to saving 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year.

Ahead of the 2020 deadline for constituent parts of the UK to hit renewable power targets, Scotland has raised its ambitions for real-terms energy saving by switching to eco-friendly alternatives.

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.”

The new nano-ceramics would be key components in the next generation of capacitors. Like batteries, capacitors store energy, but there the resemblance ends. Batteries are designed to collect energy over a relatively long period of time, then release it at a low, constant rate. Capacitors charge and release large amounts of power very quickly. The basic principle has been around since the 18th century, but until recently one roadblock has been how to reduce them down to an efficient size.

Light behaves differently in macro- and nano- scale environments, and this could be a starting point for those researchers who want to improve the solar cells’ efficiency. It was a starting point for some Stanford engineers, who found out that light ricocheting inside an ultra-thin polymer film solar cell behaves differently than if the film wasn’t so thin. The difference is enormous.

The two companies, in cooperation with PetersenDean Roofing and Solar Systems, announced a partnership earlier this year to pre-install solar panels at no additional cost to homebuyers at The Preserve new home community. Last Friday, September 17, Toll Brothers hosted the official ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the community to the public.

The UK environmental group Carbon Trust and Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory have jointly formed a new company called Eight19 concentrating on the development of new organic photovoltaic (PV) technology that could make the installation of solar cells cheaper and easier.

One day, man-made buildings will mimic the human body in the relationship with the exterior. Penn State University researchers are about to study and implement a model that uses the sensitivity and flexibility of human cells to build “skins” that will give buildings the possibility to self-adapt to the exterior, to regulate their energy use according to changes in the environment.

We all know LED as being the flagship of green lighting, but what if those so-called “efficient” LEDs turned out to be even more energy-effective under certain conditions? The Kyoto University, in collaboration with Stanley Electric Co Ltd found a way to increase the emission intensity of silicon-based thin films by several times.

Being gifted with many active volcanoes, Central America wants to tap them for producing green energy which will cut its dependence on oil imports and also help reduce the CO2 emissions. Because the region is placed above shifting tectonic plates in the Pacific basin, it has great potential for geothermal power produced by heat stored deep in the Earth’s crust.

Recently-invented e-readers, though, do not have this issue, since they only use ambient reflections as their source of energy – mostly like regular paper. Still, current e-readers are limited to black and white, since their electrophoretic displays only know how to let light pass or block it.

Authorities have pledged to speed up construction of green buildings in response to the surge in building energy consumption that has resulted from the country's rapid urbanization. Li Bingren, chief economist at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MHURD), said at a press conference Monday that authorities had made numerous efforts to save energy and reduce emissions, yet energy use efficiency remains low.

The King of Malaysia presented the trophy to the grand winner David Wendell, left, at the Earth Awards at Marlboro House in London on Thursday. David Wendell wants to revolutionize renewable energy by taking a page out of nature’s book, and improving it. His new technology captures carbon and transforms it into sugar — something that plants do naturally — more efficiently using artificial photosynthetic foam.

Doug Natelson and graduate student Dan Ward, from Rice University, have discovered how to make a light-harvesting antenna from two gold tips separated by a gap only a few nanometers wide. As light source they used a laser, whose rays, once trapped in the gold tips, get concentrated into a tiny space, increasing the light intensity in the gap by a thousand times.

The thing on the left is a snail, and it’s called abalone. Aside the fact that it’s edible, the abalone taught Angela Belcher, from MIT, how to turn carbon dioxide into rock-solid construction materials and thus sequester the gas for hundreds of thousands of years, instead of burying it underground, which is not as safe and as useful.

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.