The legendary competition between the branches of the U.S. armed forces has taken on a sustainable twist. Take portable solar power, for example. The Marines just introduced a portable solar power system this spring, and a few weeks later the Air Force kicked in with a portable solar system of its own.

Philadelphia subway trains are the next to jump on the energy innovation bandwagon, by using the energy they create from braking to help power other trains and possibly even the electric grid.

Researchers around the world are trying to find new ways to reduce the time required to recharge the electric cars’ onboard batteries. Now, a group of fourteen students from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany have come up with a prototype electric car that is powered by electricity but unlike other electric vehicles, it doesn’t need a recharge.

There's no "one-size-fits-all" approach to going solar, but whichever option a homeowner chooses, he's almost certain to save money in the long run. And he can begin reducing his carbon footprint immediately, whether he opts for solar thermal or photovoltaic.

MIT rsearchers have created tiny solar cells that can repair themselves after damage from the sunlight they're designed to process. The team was inspired by the way plants constantly break down their light-capturing molecules and reassemble them from scratch, so that the basic structures that capture the sun's energyare regularly renewed.

An MIT team has managed what amounts to artificial photosynthesis, using a modified virus and sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The hydrogen can then be stored and used to generate electricity using a fuel cell, or to make liquid fuels for cars and trucks.

A new hybrid gas-wind turbine called SmartGen has been designed to work on low winds based on a system that turns the turbine with compressed air from a compressor running on biogas. The Colorado company that introduces this concept is expecting to create wind turbines that generate turbines even when there is almost no wind.

The announcement of these pioneering commercial commitments was made recently at a meeting of the Chattanooga Area Advisory Board for the EV Project at EPB. There will be 37 such Blink™ smart charging stations deployed in the metropolitan area at publicly accessible sites designated through the “EV Micro-Climate process.”

At the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (Valencia, Spain), Imec presents several large-area silicon solar cells with a conversion efficiency above 19%.

Watch out everybody, turbines are growing. According to the 2009 Wind Technologies Market Report (WTMR) released this August by the US Department of Energy, a turbine’s average nameplate capacity (the maximum output a turbine can produce), hub height (distance from the ground to the spot where the blades converge), and rotor diameter (diameter of the circle traced by the blades as they rotate) have all increased during the past year.

Hyundai will have a fuel cell electric vehicle on the market by 2012, according to a report by All Cars Electric.com. That should really help Hyundai hit its fleet goal of 50 mpg by 2025.

Neo Solar Power Corporation, one of the leading solar cell makers has recently unveiled its new plant within The Southern Taiwan Science Park, according to The China Post. The new factory is expected to have a 3.4 GW capacity, almost 1 GW more compared to the capacity produced by all Taiwanese manufacturers.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States -- Turkey plans to connect to the European electrical grid this month using GE's smart grid technology. The Turkish Electricity Transmission Company (TEIAS) will now be able to buy and sell power in the European electricity market, hopefully expanding the reliability and availability of energy, especially renewable energy, throughout all of Europe.

As we're faced with an increasingly large world population and ever-dwindling resources the race is on to produce cars that not only produce zero tailpipe emissions, but ones that are green to manufacture too.

Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber today announced the State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP) will open Tuesday, Aug. 24 at noon CDT. Rebates will be available on a first-come, first-served basis for qualifying Energy Star heating and cooling appliances, funded out of $5.9 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars.

Dust, dirt, and the occasional bird-bomb can chip away at the efficiency of solar panels. Hand washing is fine for home-scale installations but that can add up to a huge problem for large installations that cover multiple acres of ground or roofs. Now scientists from Boston University have come up with a solution: self-cleaning solar panels based on technology used in missions to Mars.

Struggling Japanese Automaker Suzuki hopes it will fare better in India than it has in the US. To help make sure it does, Suzuki introduced Indian press to a full line-up of clean-burning CNG vehicles earlier this week.

The company has a thin film assembly line with an annual capacity of 40 MW. The company also has several manufacturing facilities around the country and exports solar panels to Germany, Italy in addition to setting up solar installations within the country.

"This is the first demonstration of a new class of biofuel cells," said Shelley Minteer, Ph.D., who presented the report. "When further developed, these devices have the potential for replacing disposable and rechargeable batteriesin a wide variety of consumer electronics and other products. It is the first such device based on one of the microscopic parts of the billions upon billions of cells that make up the body."

"Our research could pave the way for turning electricity from the atmosphere into an alternative energy source for the future," said study leader Fernando Galembeck, Ph.D. His research may help explain a 200-year-old scientific riddle about how electricity is produced and discharged in the atmosphere. "Just as solar energy could free some households from paying electric bills, this promising new energy source could have a similar effect," he maintained.

The left side of the chart shows the different sources of energy and the amounts produced. Following the flow of energy from left to right, the pink boxes show where the energy is consumed (electrical generation, residential, commercial, industrial and transportation) while the shades of gray show the amount of energy lost or rejected – often through heat loss. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

A new joint venture research work at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, supported by Department of Energy and DARPA has come up with a new solar energy conversion process that can potentially double the efficiency of solar cells. Stanford engineers have discovered this new and totally different process to harvest energy from sun.

Even though wind energy is a clean and cost-effective source of energy, it does have one slight drawback: no one can control when the wind blows. This occasionally leads to difficulties in matching consumers’ demand for energy with the available supply.

A group of engineers at Bridgestone America’s Technical Center in Akron, along with students from DeLaSalle School in Kansas City have recently developed a new all-electric car which has been successfully tested on Bridgestone’s Texas Proving Grounds.

Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC), an industry leader in tidal, river and deep-water ocean current energy technology and projects, announced today that its Beta Power System, the largest ocean energy "power plant" ever installed in U.S. waters, has successfully generated grid-compatible power from tidal currents at its Cobscook Bay site in Eastport, Maine.

One of the largest orchards in Massachusetts has just cut its utility bill 80% with a $1.1 million 220 KW solar power plant. The state of Massachusetts helped Carlson Orchards with grants totaling $595,000 to help in the installation of the 1,050 solar photovoltaic panels.