A new study reported in the journal Applied Physics Letters in August this year (published by the American Institute of Physics), explains how solar energy could potentially be collected by using oxide materials that have the element selenium. A team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, embedded selenium in zinc oxide, a relatively affordable material that could make more efficient use of the sun’s power.

On Aug. 17, the Clean Across Canada tour departed from Cape Spear National Historic Site in St. John's, Nfld., on a 28-day coast-to-coast tour. This journey took the Mitsubishi i-MiEV approximately 7,500 kilometres and culminated on Sept. 11 in Victoria, B.C., at which point the i-MiEV and support vehicles returned to Vancouver to participate in the 2010 EV Conference from Sept. 13 through Sept. 16.

This technique has an enormous potential. Only in the United States, for instance, the total surface of roads, highways and open parking lots is estimated in over 100,000 square kilometres. The proposal comes from an American company which, using funds granted by the US Federal Highway Administration, is designing resistant photovoltaic panels on which cars can drive, with tiny prisms built into the surface in order for tyres to grip.

Vattenfall's Thanet farm set to open as National Grid confirms wind-generated electricity has hit a new peak. The world's largest offshore windfarm, which cost over £750m to build, is poised to open off the coast of Kent, with 100 turbines producing enough electricity to supply heat and light for 200,000 homes.

The Swiss manufacturer Trunz Water Systems and a California-based reverse osmosis company, Spectra Watermakers have developed a new eco-friendly water purifier designed for use in disaster stricken areas where conventional energy sources are unavailable or too expensive. The new system, called the Solar Container, is capable of generating more than 8,000 gallons of potable water per day and is powered by renewable wind and solar energy.

Researchers from Korea are working on a new technology that can power your cellphone with sound. They have turned zinc oxide (the main ingredient of calamine lotion) into a tiny material that converts sound waves into energy through piezoelectricity.

The University of Cambridge has come up with a low cost organic solar cell that opens up some intriguing new possibilities in solar energy design. Although the Cambridge team is focused on bringing large scale photovoltaic devices to the market, the new technology could also lend itself to a smaller canvas, yielding such products as solar-energy generating umbrellas and canopies. For that matter, even small objects like plastic cups and straws could some day double as mini solar power generators.

The nanotube antenna focuses all of the excitons resulted from the collision of photons with the material, towards its center. Asolar cell using this kind of technology would have to have a core of semiconducting material built inside the nanotube antenna

Massive fit-out works both above and below ground will begin in the next six months as landowners move to upgrade their property portfolios. This will add to the already burgeoning construction on at least five big sites in Sydney's central business district.

Toyota Motor Corp. aims to introduce an electric vehicle in China, Vice Chairman Katsuaki Watanabe said Thursday. Noting that the automaker is on track to enter the broader electric vehicle market in 2012, Watanabe said, "We're favorably considering a move into China as well."

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.