According to executives of Pacific West Energy LLC, one of the last players standing, securing the acreage needed to start production has been the high hurdle to overcome. Signing a preliminary accord on a biomass plant -- which could broaden its revenue stream -- is a promising step, but success still hinges on land acquisition and other complications being cleared.

One early adopter was the Kyocera Corporation of Japan, which tasked Envision Solar with the construction of its first large-scale “solar grove” in 2006 at its United StatesSan Diego, where a 235-kilowatt carport harnesses 1,400 of Kyocera’s own solar photovoltaic modules. Other major installations soon followed at Dell Computer’s headquarters in Round Rock, Tex

Many passionately believe that clean coal is not the answer to decreasing carbon emissions or increasing the supply of energy. In fact, since Obama's decision to set aside $2.4 billion dollars "to lead the world in CCS technologies," disagreements (and for that matter, debates) have surfaced about its legitimacy as a true carbon-fighting, energy-producing solution.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a report on June 23 detailing regional strategies to increase biofuels production to meet the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) mandate for U.S. consumers to use 36 billion gallons of biofuel per year by 2022.

A fresh-water wind farm is taking shape at Lake Erie and when completed will provide 20 megawatts and get on to about one gigawatt power by 2020. Huge individual turbines 300 feet tall, to be built by GE will be erected off Ohio, Cleveland. Better designs: These are special gearless super-efficient turbines, with three 176-foot long blades, which run with the help of a giant ring of magnets. The blades are longer due to strategically placed carbon fibre, and lighter too. Many moving parts like gearbox, coils and starter brushes are eliminated with resultant reduced maintenance. The giant magnetic ring array helps the turbine generate power even at very low speed.

The Eindhoven University of Technology from The Netherlands, with a EUR 1.2 million help from the Dutch government wants to develop ultra-efficient solar cells that are also cheap. They envision their cells having a 65% efficiency, something even the satellites would envy.

"Also we need to have some kind of social mechanism to watch whether the nuclear community is doing the correct thing or not... mass media for instance," Suzuki said on the sidelines of an international conference on technology and safety in nuclear power plants.

Really amazing are the innovative ways solar power is put into use. Now a team of scientists working in Sandia National Laboratories is focusing on exploring basic steps to make synthetic liquid fuel with the help of solar panels. The goal is that this will help considerably reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

There’s a lot of talk about making power meters and the electric grid “smart” enough to handle additional energy from solar panels. National Semiconductor wants to make the solar panels themselves smarter. They’ve developed a chip that integrates into the junction boxes of solar panels, optimizing power production.

A global aluminum company called Norsk Hydro is supporting green jobs in the U.S.U.S. Two of the company’s southeastern U.S. facilities will supply aluminum frames and other parts for a new hybrid concentrating solar facility for Florida Power & Light.

In H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, tiny organisms found in nature save the world from powerful high tech invaders that have overwhelmed mankind’s powerful high tech weapons, and in a classic case of life imitating art, there they go again.

The temperature at which they superconduct is pretty low and hard to get for the moment – only 30 °K (-243°C). Magnetic fields have proved themselves to change the material’s electrical resistance in an unexpected manner.

A solar-powered plane is getting ready to hit the skies once again - this time, at night. It will be the first ever manned night flight on a plane propelled exclusively by solar energy. Solar Impulse will lift off from an airfield in Switzerland, on a sunny day sometime at the end of June.

U.S. policymakers can't count on that kind of dedication as they map out the electric-car future. President Barack Obama aims to get a million electric cars and plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads by 2015 to ease U.S. reliance on imported oil and cut carbon emissions. The first two mass-market electrics, Nissan's Leaf and the Chevy Volt, are set to hit the streets this fall.

A research team at the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) has developed a powerful new tool that promises to unlock the secrets of biomass degradation, a critical step in the development of cost-effective cellulosic biofuels. The details of this method were published online on June 11 in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Yes, the day is not far off when reaching for sky is the new motto for generating cost-effective renewable energy. Initially it was considered to be technically non-viable to tap high-altitude winds.

But now Sanyo’s lithium-ion battery technology has made it possible for Mira EV to travel 1003.184 km without a recharge. Traveling for 27.5 hours, at 40 km/h average speed, from May 22 to May 23, 2010, the trail run by Mira EV was powered by putting together 8320 cylindrical lithium-ion 18650-type batteries.

“Next-generation U.S. biofuel capacity should reach about 88 million gallons in 2010…” This is primarily a result of the expected start-up of a next-generation renewable diesel plant. I have reported on this technology before, as well as the efforts of first-generation biodiesel producers to slow it down and protect their own interests.

When we pay our electricity bill, we are paying for more than just the operation of wind turbines or nuclear power stations. What with rental for the electricity meter, costs for using the power grids, value-added tax and a tax on electricity, coupled with a surcharge for the preferred sourcing of green power, the final price we pay is effectively double the generation cost.

France’s oil company Total, one of the six ’super major’ oil companies in the world, and Spain’s Abengoa Solar will join hands with Abu Dhabi-based alternate energy company Masdar to build this power plant which would span 2.5 square meters ( one square mile). The project will be located in Madinat Zayed, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi.

The "D 'double bubble' series" has been designed as a potential successor to Boeing's short to medium range 737, while the "H 'hybrid wing body' series" is seen as an eventual replacement for Boeing's 300-passenger 777.

Millions of heart patients worldwide have benefited from the implantable cardiac defibrillators powered by Takeuchi's silver vanadium oxide battery. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she is developing new cathode materials for improved implantable cardiac defibrillator batteries, with her latest advances on this project recently published in the Journal of Power Sources.

While South Africa introduced a generous feed-in tariff of ZAR1.25/kWh (EUR0.134/kWh) for wind power last year (Windpower Monthly, May 2009), the system is not yet in place for independent power producers to sign power purchase agreements with state utility Eskom.

The international drivers for energy efficiency are based in cost savings, suggesting that the sluggish economy could be a driver for companies to grab low-hanging fruit to help their bottom line. While energy management is important in every country, some emerging economies outstripped Europe and the U.S. when it came to how high they ranked.

Olympic Delivery Authority weighs up solar and biomass options after pulling plans for onsite wind turbine. The developer of London's Olympics Park has returned to the drawing board to find a suitable renewable energy system after this week scrapping high profile plans to install a wind turbine at the Stratford site.

Electricity is a powerful tool for building modern societies and plays a critical role in eradicating poverty and boosting economies. Yet, according to U.N. estimates, 1.5 billion people—nearly a quarter of the world's population—live without access to reliable power.