"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.

A team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is developing a technique to create some of the ingredients for synthetic fuels from carbon-containing gases. Their cerium-oxide-based system can convert CO2 into carbon monoxide, and can also turn water into hydrogen.

Talk about natural resources—it turns out that just about any kind of plant or animal waste, and many kinds of garbage, can be turned into biofuels or other sources of clean energy for cars, trucks, or industry. Here are some of the least expected possibilities being tested.

The wind industry is trying to find a solution to the problem by working with environmental groups, federal regulators, and other interested parties. They are trying to develop methods of measuring and mitigating wind energy’s effect on birds. The Fuller Wind Turbine offers hope to bird lovers and environmentalists.

Under the leadership of Yiannis Levendis, distinguished professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, a team of undergraduate and graduate engineering students developed a waste combustor, which breaks down non-biodegradable plastics to create an alternative source of fuel.

EU’s ‘Clean Sky’ – the 1-6 billion euro research project – with 86 participating partners from 16 nations – has goals like developing unique application-specific technologies and evaluation and advancement of the entire aeronautic system.

The Japanese giant said it would invest seven billion yen (76 million dollars) by March 2012 in facilities in its domestic production centres to test how to maintain stable power from fluctuating renewable energies.