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For students from Hocking College's alternative energy and vehicular hybrids program spending the quarter on the Andros Island in the Bahamas was no spring break. Applying what they have learned about wind, solar thermal, solar PV and micro-hydro power systems, their goal was to make the village of Forfar totally self-sustainable.

A new energy concept called a solar tower could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes. Looking like a giant smokestack, it would release no noxious fumes - just sun-heated air.

The Orange County Convention Center's massive rooftop will soon shoulder the largest solar project in the Southeast. County officials approved a $7.3 million plan Tuesday to blanket the roof of the nation's second-largest convention center with panels that can turn sunshine into energy, without producing pollution.

The most renewable and most powerful resource on the planet is certainly solar energy. From solar collectors for water heating to photovoltaic panels for electricity, the sun has a lot to offer.

I apologize for being out of pocket lately, and that trend is going to continue at least through this week. I have a staff meeting all week, and then I fly back to Europe next Monday. So, my posting will be sporadic until then. However, I want to call your attention to a new website that discussed solar thermal in depth. The site just went live, and the topic is covered in detail. The site is: http://www.solar-thermal.com/

James Dyson is working on a solar-powered car to match the success of his bagless vacuum cleaner. Engineers at the entrepreneur's Wiltshire HQ are developing a lightweight electric motor that could power a family saloon for hundreds of miles.

My experience in the Florida solar energy business is that most contractors fail to apply for and receive permits.

You will be amazed to see that your vehicle can run on solar power and therefore save on gas. If your vehicle runs on solar energy, you can drive miles in your vehicle without any tension of refilling at the gas station.

There are many ways for people to incorporate alternative energy sources into their lives. The three main types are solar, wind and hydro power.

The ocean harbors abundant energy in the form of wind, waves and sun. All of these could be sampled on something called an Energy Island: a floating rig that drills for renewables instead of petroleum.

With the passing of its Renewable Energy Act - legislation that spent 19 years in limbo - the Philippines can save over US$2.9 billion, a WWF and University of the Philippines study has found. The savings would come from increasing the country's renewable energy share in its power generation mix from 0.16 per cent to 41 per cent from wind, solar, ocean, run-of-river hydropower and biomass.

Reuters has a report on Australian wave power company Carnegie Corp and the vast potential for wave power in southern Australia - Aussie firm sees buoyant future in wave power. For millennia, Australia's rugged southern coast has been carved by the relentless action of waves crashing ashore. The same wave energy could soon be harnessed to power towns and cities and trim Australia's carbon emissions. "Waves are already concentrated solar energy," says Michael Ottaviano, who leads a Western Australian firm developing a method to turn wave power into electricity. "The earth has been heated by the Sun, creating wind, which created the swells," he told Reuters from Perth, saying wave power had the potential to supply all of Australia's needs many times over.

Brian Keane, who leads a nonprofit called Smart Power, wants to do for renewable energy what the "Got Milk?" campaign does for milk and what the "Fabric of Our Lives" campaign does for cotton-he wants to make wind and solar and hydropower and geothermal energy really cool, and get more people to buy them. Here's one way he is going about it, with a little help from a friend:

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Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick structure called "graphene" as a new carbon-based material for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices, perhaps paving the way for the massive installation of renewable energies such as wind and solar power. The researchers believe their breakthrough shows promise that graphene (a form of carbon) could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors, which are manufactured using an entirely different form of carbon. "Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power," says Rod Ruoff, a mechanical engineering professor and a physical chemist. "There are reasons to think that the ability to store electrical charge can be about double that of current commercially used materials. We are working to see if that prediction will be borne out in the laboratory."

The decision by Iraq to invite interest in a number of solar independent power producer (IPP) projects is not the first time that Baghdad has sought to push ahead with competitively tendered IPP schemes.

While the use of solar cells is become increasingly widespread, the silicon technology used in many types is becoming obsolete. JP Casey looks at concentrated solar power, micro-trackers and perovskite compounds as innovations that could potentially improve solar efficiency.

In Latin America, the dynamic trend in energy consumption observed in 2010 (+5.1%) stopped in 2011 (+0.8%), following the sharp slowdown in Brazilian energy consumption (+1.4%, from +10% in 2010). Primary energy increased by 2% (+20 Mtoe, of which +16 Mtoe in Colombia, where crude oil production grew by 18%). In 2011, the energy intensity of the GDP dropped by 3.7% (30% below the world average).