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When there is an aquarium present, anyone usually want a good air mattress pump. It is almost always found powering or perhaps close to the aquarium tank because it works well this way with the garden hose smaller in length.

Keeping the backyard pool fresh and sparkling clean is a lot of hard work, it also needs a lot of chemicals. These chemicals are hard on our hair, our eyes, our skin and our clothing as well. They are also bad for the environment.

A neighborhood produce co-op is a way to get the community working together. It is also helps some of the less fortunate families in the area to be able to get sufficient food to feed their families.

The work of a landfill gas plant operator involves correctly using and handling power plants, such as those that are built around reciprocating engines that are used for converting methane gas.

Energy engineering usually refers to a mixture of engineering disciplines, such as electrical and mechanical engineering, in such a way as to work on the problems of collecting and using energy resources to meet our needs.

The development of geothermal energy in Australia is a step closer with the launch of an industry framework today. Geothermal energy is produced by harnessing the heat of so called 'hot rocks' buried kilometres underground. The framework has brought together industry, researchers and governments to work out how to make geothermal a genuine baseload power alternative.

Scientists have found that a polymer material is an excellent catalyst in a process to produce hydrogen fuel using sunlight and water. The material meets the basic requirements for an ideal catalyst -- including being abundant, easy to work with, and non-toxic -- and could help this "green" alternative-energy production method become mainstream. Creating hydrogen gas by splitting water (H2O) molecules with solar energy is a promising way of generating hydrogen fuel, which, by either being burned directly or used in fuel cells, can power many types of vehicles, including automobiles, buses, and even airplanes. The study's corresponding scientist is Xinchen Wang, a chemist affiliated with the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, and Fouzhou University in Fouzhou, China.

Energy independence is still only a hypothetical goal for the U.S., but the owner of a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut says he has already achieved that feat and is offering his work as a model. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and numerous medical devices, jokingly refers to his North Dumpling Island as an independent nation and himself as Lord Dumpling. Kamen claims to have his own currency and offers visas to visitors to the tiny island a few miles from Mystic, where he is the only resident.

A new kind of silent hero has joined the fight against climate change. Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a gritty, working-class town outside Barcelona, has placed a sea of solar panels atop mausoleums at its cemetery, transforming a place of perpetual rest into one buzzing with renewable energy. Flat, open and sun-drenched land is so scarce in Santa Coloma that the graveyard was just about the only viable spot to move ahead with its solar energy program. The power the 462 panels produces - equivalent to the yearly use by 60 homes - flows into the local energy grid for normal consumption and is one community's odd nod to the fight against global warming.

Here's a wave power technology which you may not have heard of: It's called the Searaser and (though only in prototype stages, I've got some reservations about how well it may scale up, as well as the name which somehow I always see as 'Sea Eraser') it may be worth watching. The principle is fairly simple and proven in a different context: Use the Searaser to pump quantities of sea water up a hill where it can be stored in ponds until needed and then released downhill to drive hydroelectric turbines to create power. This is how the Searaser works:

Lonnie Johnson has some impressive hard science credentials. He's worked for the Strategic Air Command and for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, outfitting missions to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He holds about 100 patents, many of them in that arcane spot where chemistry, electricity and physics cross into the marketplace. And his latest invention appears to do the impossible: generating electricity with no fuel and no moving parts. But he's still known as Mr. Squirt Gun. Even among the geniuses who gathered to honor him and his new thermo-electrochemical converter at a "Breakthrough Awards" banquet in Manhattan this month, the Atlanta scientist's new invention was ignored when his most famous device was revealed.

Researchers at Ohio State University have accidentally discovered a new solar cell material capable of absorbing all of the sun's visible light energy. The material is comprised of a hybrid of plastics, molybdenum and titanium. The team discovered it not only fluoresces (as most solar cells do), but also phosphoresces. Electrons in a phosphorescent state remain at a place where they can be "siphoned off" as electricity over 7 million times longer than those generated in a fluorescent state. This combination of materials also utilizes the entire visible spectrum of light energy, translating into a theoretical potential of almost 100% efficiency. Commercial products are still years away, but this foundational work may well pave the way for a truly renewable form of clean, global energy.

WorldChanging has a brief post pointing to a symposium on urban life after oil - Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil. A number of great journalists were covering last weekend's Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil symposium in Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania School of Design and Penn Institute for Urban Research hosted this conference, which was organized with support from the Rockefeller Foundation to address the need to re-imagine and rethink how cities are designed and organized in a future without oil. Our own Alex Steffen gave a mainstage talk at the international event, which featured a number of thinkers whose work we've written about before here, like Bull Dunster, Elizabeth Kolbert, Robert Socolow, Andy Revkin, William J. Mitchell, David Orr, Neal Pierce, Bill Rees, Thomas Campanella, Harrison Fraker, and ARUP's Sir Peter Head. From brief recaps of plenaries and workshops to lengthier discussions of the theories presented (and their presenters), the pieces posted to the Next American City liveblog offer a taste of what was seen and heard at this innovative gathering of great minds.

Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world's largest solar cell factory in California and the world's largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt.

Hydrogen cars get no respect. A lot of people consider them the stuff of science fiction, a technology as vaporous as the stuff that drives them. But despite some hurdles even Liu Xiang couldn't clear -- creating a fueling infrastructure comes to mind -- Uncle Sam and the big automakers love hydrogen cars and are driving across the country in a fleet of them to prove they work. Even if they're occasionally hauled on trucks.

The current energy crisis has made American voters look more favorably on a wide range of ideas that can be used to deal with our energy problems. But voters don't favor all of these ideas equally; they have clear views on which approaches they think will work best. Consider these data from a recent Quinnipiac University poll of voters in four key swing states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

For coal, the future of both extraction and consumption depends on new technology. If successfully deployed, innovative technologies could enable the use of coal that is unminable by gasifying it underground; reduce coal's carbon emissions; or allow coal to take the place of natural gas or petroleum. Without them, coal simply may not have much of a future. Are these technologies close to development? Are they economical? Will they work?

If electric vehicles aren't your thing, then you may be pleased to hear that at least one company is working on giving that tried and true internal combustion engine a major boost. Artemis, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based company, has developed a hydraulic hybrid transmission that could potentially double the mileage of most vehicles -- by accident, as it happens. The firm's original goal had been to simply reduce CO2 emissions on the highway by 30% (a goal it also achieved).

All Incentives for this State DSIRE Home Pennsylvania Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency See Federal Incentives See All Summaries See Homeowner Incentive Summaries Only Financial Incentives Local Grant Program * Metropolitan Edison Company SEF Grants (FirstEnergy Territory) * Penelec SEF of the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies Grant Program (FirstEnergy Territory) * Sustainable Development Fund Grant Program (PECO Territory) * West Penn Power SEF Grant Program Local Loan Program * Metropolitan Edison Company SEF Loans (FirstEnergy Territory) * Penelec SEF of the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies Loan Program (FirstEnergy Territory) * SEF of Central Eastern Pennsylvania Loan Program (PP&L Territory) * Sustainable Development Fund Commercial Financing Program (PECO Territory) * West Penn Power SEF Commercial Loan Program Property Tax Assessment * Wind-Energy System Exemption State Grant Program * High Performance Green Schools Planning Grants * Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) - Grants * Pennsylvania Energy Harvest Grant Program State Loan Program * Keystone Home Energy Loan Program * Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) - Loans and Loan Guarantees * Small Business Pollution Prevention Assistance Account Loan Program Utility Loan Program * Adams Electric Cooperative - Energy Resource Conservation (ERC) and Supplemental Loan Program Alternative Fuel and Vehicle Incentives * U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center Rules, Regulations & Policies Building Energy Code * Pennsylvania Building Energy Codes Generation Disclosure * Fuel Mix Disclosure Green Power Purchasing/Aggregation * Montgomery County - Wind Power Purchasing * Pennsylvania - Green Power Purchasi

Clean energy. It's real. It's here. It's working!