Who would have imagined that teabags can be used for purposes other than those of packaging tea leaves, and filtering their flavors? No one else except South Africa’s Stellenbosch University scientists led by Eugene Cloete, who invented a kind of teabag which, instead of filtering tea impurities, purifies water at the lowest price and energy consumption possible.

According to the researchers at Edinburgh Napier University, whisky is being used to develop a new biofuel, which could power cars and even airplanes in a few years. They found a new way to produce biofuel from two main byproducts of the whisky distilling process: “draff”, the spent grains and “pot ale”, the liquid from the copper stills.

When you think of electric cars, you generally mean two terms in which they exist: autonomy vs charging infrastructure. These two words compete with each other to a certain point, because higher autonomy means less infrastructure needed, hence faster adoption by the market.

Finns get almost one third of their electricity second-hand, after industrial users have had first dibs at it. Vesa Koivisto of Fortum (the largest utility in Scandinavia) told me that paper mills actually supply about one third of the electricity on the grid. Why?

This has led to the increased production of PV cells not only in Europe but also in Taiwan and china. China alone produces 2GW solar cells annually. In February 2010 the price of electricity using PV panel is $4.27 per watt. Today the price of photovoltaic cells of different companies is different. The General electric solar panel costs $ 228 to $385. This trend would decline with more competition.

In the under developed countries like India and Bangladesh masses ride bicycle rickshaw to carry commuters. This practice has been in use from centuries and this has become their culture now. In India the pedal power industry still accounts for 18 percent of the total industry. India has the largest bicycle industry after china. Along with the energy benefits that pedal power offers, bicycle has proved to be the great ride.

An innovative clean energy collaboration between auto manufacturer Ford, utility Detroit Edison and energy storage systems builder Xtreme Power plans to bring to Michigan one of its largest solar energy systems, which will be used to help in the production and usage of electric vehicles. The system will be installed at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant.

The federal government has turned to a 130-year-old Hawaii sugar grower for help in powering the Navy and weaning the nation off a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. It will spend at least $10 million over the next five years to fund research and development at Maui cane fields for crops capable of fueling Navy fighter jets and ships. The project also may provide farmers in other warm climates with a model for harvesting their biofuel crops.

There are two types of CFLs in use. One is the integrated and the other is non-integrated. The two main parts of a non-integrated CFL are a gas filled tube called bulb or burner and magnetic or electronic ballasts. An electric current from the ballast flows through the gas filled tube (mercury vapour) causing it to emit UV light.

Two heavy-duty manufacturing powerhouses, Peterbilt and Eaton Corporation, have teamed up to give garbage trucks a fuel saving green twist. This spring, Peterbilt announced its new Model 320 Hybrid which uses Eaton’s new hydraulic hybrid system to achieve up to 30% in fuel conservation, along with a consequent reduction in emissions and greatly reduced maintenance costs, too. Now four of the sustainable behemoths are set for their first run in Michigan, in the green-minded city of Anne Arbor.

A forty acre, six megawatt solar power plant is providing the energy to run a water treatment operation at a Superfund site in California, and the U.S. EPA is so pleased with the results that they’ve produced a detailed case study to help promote similar projects across the country.

The new bus shelter was designed and installed by Solade Concepts based in Corona, CA. The solar structure consists of products and solutions proposed by Go Green Solar, based in Los Angeles, CA, which include six SANYO HIT-210NKHA6 210-watt HIT Power® solar panels with six Enphase Energy M210-84-240-S12 micro inverters and a LED lighting solution in an on-grid solar system.

Some of the major companies submitting bids for this project are Reliance Industries’ Solar Energy Group, Wipro Ecoenergy and construction giant Punj Lloyd. This is a novel initiative by the Indian government which is trying to initiate a massive country-wide solar energy revolution which could eventually result in ballooning of the total installed capacity to 20,000 MW in the next 12 years.

A newly developed A/C refrigerant developed by Honeywell for the European market to have 99.7% lower global warming potential (GWP) will be used by GM to cool its entire fleet of 2013 models. The new low emission coolant was developed by Honeywell initially to meet EU standards which have long been much more strict than US NHTSA standards governing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

DuPont, a science-based products and services company has created a new polymer-based separator for lithium-ion batteries that will improve their life and power and make them perfectly suited for electric and hybrid vehicles.

One relatively new player in the U.S. solar parking lot field is EEPro, an offshoot of the German company EEPro GmbH, which started up operations in North Carolina last year. Its main product consists of photovoltaic units mounted on steel frames, which dovetails neatly with support for renewable energy by the United Steelworkers and other labor groups that see a rich trove of new green jobs in the emerging green economy.

Mercedes-Benz has already started the production of a small series of 100 Vito E-CELL electric vans and according to the company, another 2,000 units are planned for 2011.The van, targeted for particularly environmentally sensitive areas and for inner-city operations, is based on the long-wheelbase Mercedes-Benz Vito with a typical roof.

International Green Energy Expo Korea 2010 was chosen as the venue where SunPods SP-300 was first displayed. This is the first factory built-to-order solar-powered integrated electric-vehicle charging station – ready for powering up immediately. This ready-to-use solar power platform from SunPods is called EV Plug-N-Go.

DOE announced on July 22 the creation of the Fuels from Sunlight Energy Innovation Hub to develop revolutionary methods of generating fuels directly from sunlight. The Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), led by the California Institute of Technology in partnership with the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will operate the initiative.

Success greets the research team of National Research Council’s National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) and the University of Alberta. The plastic solar cells have now an operating life of 8 months instead of mere hours. And they are low-cost, environmentally efficient, unsealed plastic dollar cells – a green energy source.

Wednesday Hawaiian Electric Company asked the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission to approve a proposal for an Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Rate Pilot Project with reduced rates to encourage early adoption of electric vehicles and help make Hawaii EV-ready.

The USC team's graphene organic photovoltaics, recently discussed in the journal ACS Nano, have a host of benefits: They're flexible, cheap to produce, are easy to manufacture, and they're light-weight. And while they're considerably less efficient than silicon cells, they offer unique applications.

According to a new study, the Caribbean islands represent one of the perfect location for the development of renewable energy. Qualibou believes that by drilling in the right places, they can build a geothermal plant capable to produce about 150 megawatts of geothermal power.

The rise of the electric vehicle segment, as well as the industries which support it, is making companies not usually linked with EVs get into the heat of the moment and announce their involvement in the market.The chargers, announced by ECOtality this week, will be offered in two models, one for in-home use (residential wall-mount ) and one for commercial use (stand-alone charger). The chargers are currently undergoing testing for Underwriters Laboratories (UL) certification.

Honolulu-based Natural Power Concepts has recently designed a mobile, retractable-blade wind turbine that is capable to generate both solar and wind energy. Being equipped with solar panels, this turbine becomes one of the newest inventions in the alternative energy field.

In order to help India’s rural masses who lack electricity, Vodafone Essar Ltd. recently developed a solar-powered mobile phone. According to officials, there are almost 20 million new mobile subscribers each month in India. The problem is that many of them live in rural areas, where the energy supply can be patchy at best.