Officials with the Robins Air Force Base Energy Office are conducting feasibility on the use of plasma arc technology, which offers environmentally safe measures for waste disposal. "The process can take nearly any material and convert it to energy," said Judith Middlebrooks, an engineer with the Energy Office. "It uses extremely high temperatures to turn products into mostly hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Plastics are really great, but most any organic compound will work."

Statistics from the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Energy (MoME) indicate that the country spends about Ethiopian Birr 10 billion (US$800 million) annually to import petroleum products for domestic consumption. The figure, according to the MoME represents more than 90 percent of Ethiopia’s earnings from foreign trade each year. Were the country to tap some of its renewable energy potential, the energy independence it would achieve as a result, would be a boon to the economy.

This will be enabled by an agreement, which was signed Monday in Skopje by the governments of Macedonia and Germany, envisaging financial assistance for the second stage of the energy efficiency program and a loan contract signed by the Macedonian government, ELEM company and KfW bank for realisation of the project rehabilitating six hydro power plants.

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico wraps up its final day, discussions continue over some crucial issues such as the need to simultaneously reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and provide the world with more energy. While no one expects major progress towards a comprehensive binding treaty, Mexican officials say they do see progress in some areas and that the conference is providing an opportunity for many governments and environmental organizations to share ideas and forge agreements of their own.

Tax credits for ethanol and other biofuels were among issues under debate for a sweeping tax bill, Democratic senators said on Tuesday, with ethanol subsidies due to expire in three weeks. "There are provisions not yet included which I think are important" said Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate's tax-writing committee. Asked about a possible 36-cent a gallon tax credit for ethanol, Baucus said, "I don't know yet."

The UK Government today publishes its Energy Bill, which lays out the details of how the proposed Green Deal will work to make energy efficiency available to all. The bill confirms that businesses as well as homes will be able to participate in the Green Deal, when it starts in 2012.

An act as simple as replacing a light bulb could lead to billions of dollars in electricity savings, a new assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme shows. It studied the advantage of switching from obsolete incandescent lamp technology to compact fluorescent lamps or C.F.L.’s.

A day after Energy Secretary Steven Chu's "Sputnik speech," in which he warned that China was investing billions in renewable energy while American politicians bickered over small-potatoes stimulus spending on green technology, a report from Ernst & Young released Tuesday confirmed Asia's ascendancy.

Adding 265 gigawatts of wind-sourced electricity into the European grids by 2020 is expected to save 41.7 billion euros in electricity costs annually. Market trends and limited infrastructure stand in the way of wind power growth in Europe, stopping the inflow of billions of euros in power savings, according to a new report by the European Wind Energy Association.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said a fund it established to develop large capacity solar projects will increase the renewable energy resource to 3GW by mid-2013 in the Asia and Pacific region. Haruhiko Kuroda, president of ADB, said governments in Asia and the Pacific should invest in solar energy to help ensure their growth is environmentally sustainable.

The future, according to MiaSolé, a Californian start-up, is unrolling at one centimetre a second in a bland-looking building in Silicon Valley. Despite the location, and the fact that most other solar cells are made from silicon, MiaSolé’s cells are not. Ribbons of steel a metre wide and half a hair’s width thick spool through vacuum chambers in which they are sputtered with copper, indium, gallium and selenium—collectively known as CIGS. Out of the end comes a new type of solar cell which promises to be both efficient and cheap.

While in general terms wind energy does not represent a threat to wildlife, poorly sited or designed wind farms can have a negative impact on vulnerable species and habitats That's why the European Commission has published today guidelines for wind energy development in protected natural areas. The guidelines apply to the Natura 2000 network, a cornerstone of EU biodiversity policy and a key tool to achieve the EU target of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2020.

The report calls for a permitting process that's friendlier to offshore wind power, establishment of priority zones for offshore wind, more research on offshore wind technologies, and efforts to promote quality jobs, especially in manufacturing, that would result from that industry.

On the second day of his two-day state visit to Malaysia, President Lee Myung-bak held a one-on-one meeting with his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak, on Friday. During the summit the two leaders reviewed and reflected on the 50 years of diplomatic ties and discussed measures to promote cooperation in a wide range of sectors including green technology, nuclear power generation and the joint exploration of markets in third countries.

Reducing energy consumption through more efficient buildings, power plants and vehicles is still the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but projects are often hampered by unclear policies from governments, said speakers at a business forum on the sidelines of the U.N. climate conference.

Turkish Energy Minister, Taner Yildiz, welcomed the recent progress in Turkey’s first nuclear power plant project that will be built by Russia and underscored Ankara’s determination to develop nuclear energy through foreign partnerships. Yildiz told reporters that Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, signed the inter-governmental agreement, which was recently ratified by both houses of the Russian parliament.

Head of government's environmental transport policy urges businesses to enrol employees on subsidised eco-driving courses The head of environmental transport policy at the Department for Transport (DfT) has criticised the apparent lack of corporate interest in a government-backed scheme encouraging people to drive in an environmentally friendly manner.

Industry experts have warned that the long term trend for energy prices looks set to rise by as much as 10 per cent over coming years. With increasing energy costs, all farm businesses continually need to assess energy use and identify energy saving opportunities, many often will require little or no need for capital spend.

Powered by the world’s most advanced permanent-magnet motor, the light rail locomotive uses hydrogen as the energy source for the fuel cells powering the synchronous motor and frequency converter, units which have been independently developed by the China North Vehicle Yongji Electric Motor Corporation.

Ireland has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, starring in a soap opera of EU intrigue and enforced bank bailouts. In Dublin recently for the first time in years, I heard some good news in the midst of all the gloom. The country has a head start on most of the world in capitalizing on one of its few plentiful resources: renewable energy.

Men covered in clothing from head-to-toe and wearing protective breathing masks have been wandering the premises of some Tybee Island city buildings. But the buildings - which include city hall, the fire department's administrative office and the YMCA - have not been contaminated by some dangerous toxin.

Clean Currents will partner with Solar Cookers International to purchase and distribute the solar cookers, which will address the locals’ basic needs in boiling water and cooking food. Residents in the mid-Atlantic region who will purchase wind power off the grid can send solar cooking kits to locals in Haiti as Christmas gifts through Clean Current’s annual holiday giving campaign.

As countries such as China, the United States and Germany plow billions of tax dollars into renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, Canadian energy companies say the federal government urgently needs to develop a national strategy to grab a piece of the global clean-energy market, which attracted $162 billion US in investment last year.

The creative juices of designers are now flowing into mice and keyboards that are becoming sleeker, smaller and more power-efficient. Microsoft and Logitech have blended eco-friendly technology and space-saving designs in their new mouse and keyboard products.

The solar industry called on Congress on Tuesday to extend a contentious grant program in the lame-duck session that it says produced 20,000 solar jobs in a year and half and helped to jump-start the U.S. clean energy economy. The U.S. Treasury's "Section 1603" Renewable Energy Grant Program, part of the $787 billion anti-recession stimulus of 2009, is slated to run out at year's end.

Businesses can save upto 30 per cent in power cost and carbon emission by moving to the internet based-cloud technology, a Microsoft study today said. "Businesses that choose to run business applications in the cloud can help reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by a net 30 per cent or more versus running those same applications on their own infrastructure," Microsoft India Director (Server Business) Pallavi Kathuria told PTI.