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British inventors have designed a washing machine that takes eco-friendliness to a new level: it uses just a single cup of water to wash a load of clothes. Instead of water the Xeros machine uses thousands of special plastic chips (about 44 pounds' worth) in each wash, and when that single cup of water is heated, these chips absorb the dirt-including tricky stuff like coffee and lipstick. The chips are removed when the wash ends, and can be reused up to 100 times. Though it's still in prototyping, the inventors are intending to commercialize their machine, and it may even hit the shops next year for a price similar to conventional machines.

We also believe that people make better choices when they have information to help them, especially if the information is easy to understand and easy to find. Determining the greenness of a product can be a complex task; to form an accurate picture, the following kinds of questions must be answered: * The materials within the product: Are they harmful to the environment? Where were they sourced, and at what environmental cost? Are they renewable resources? Are the materials recycled? How much transportation is involved in getting the materials to the manufacturer? * The manufacturing process: How much energy was consumed in creating the product? What kind and how much waste is created in making the product? Is this waste reused in any way? If not, how is it disposed? * Product usage: Does using the product release any pollutants into the environment? How much energy is consumed while using the product? What is the average life expectancy of the product? * Product disposal: Can the product be recycled? Does the manufacturer have a recycling program? Is the product bio-degradable? Considering all these factors is enough to make anyone's head spin! That's why Greener One created a way for people to compare products on an environmental basis and to share product information with one another. A variety of factors for each product are converted into a simple "green index" score that can be easily understood by anyone. How Green Index is Calculated Greener One was created by a group of technology veterans committed to the idea that people who are empowered with information can change the world. We put the tools in your hands to make the right decisions, to share your knowledge and to open conversations with companies about the products that they produce. Everything you consume has an impact; Greener One gives you the knowledge to determine the size of your environmental footprint.

The disconnect between peak oil concerns and the presidential race is almost total. As prices at the pump rise, each candidate is now talking about their so-called solutions to the problem. Despite clear new warning signs from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Nigeria that peak oil is nigh, the candidates remain unwaveringly oblivious to the true causes of rising fuel prices, preferring instead to dwell on irrelevant-actually, counterproductive-measures like suspending the federal gas tax during the summer months or taxing Big Oil. This is akin to putting a band-aid on a melanoma.

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.

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire energy investor Boone Pickens, founder and chairman of BP Capital LLC, speaks at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles about the outlook for oil, U.S. energy policy, and alternative energy including wind and solar power. Brian Sullivan moderates. (Source: Bloomberg)

Geothermal Energy We have found the company that is ready to lead the way on this exciting new energy technology. The company is one of the world's leading vertically integrated companies in the field of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is one of the cleanest, most abundant sources of energy on the planet and now is the time to know as much as possible about this great new investment. This companies technologies and its subsidiaries engage in the geothermal and recovered energy power business. Before we get into the details of this business, lets take a closer look at what geothermal energy really is.

The government plans to announce policy measures aimed at halving the price of solar power generation in the next three to five years as part of its action plan on greenhouse gas emissions, government sources say. According to the sources, the measures will form part of an action plan designed to bring about a 60 percent to 80 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and thereby create a low carbon-emission society.

We are familiar with the notion of getting an expert second opinion when an expert medical specialist has diagnosed life threatening circumstances. However a second opinion that is a bit more optimistic simply decreases the perceived odds of death somewhat - the dire initial prediction remains.

Texas, headquarters of America's oil industry, is about to stake a fortune on wind power. In what experts say is the biggest investment in the clean and renewable energy in U.S. history, utility officials in the Lone Star State gave preliminary approval Thursday to a $4.9 billion plan to build new transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from gusty West Texas to urban areas like Dallas.

EPTV Executive news roundtable -- Corporate energy efficiency (video) Energy Policy TV Judi Greenwald, Director of Innovative Solutions, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, is interviewed about a partnership between the Pew Center and Toyota to undertake a study and project to improve corporate energy energy efficiency nationwide. Such improvements are aimed at reducing corporate carbon emissions. (23 July 2008)

We have been, for quite some time, up against a corporate-funded, what I have called global warming denial machine, or disinformation campaign, whose fundamental aim has been to create an exaggerated sense of scientific uncertainty about human-driven global warming and its consequences.

Christian Science Monitor has published a totally charming story about how Dr. Frank E. Fish was inspired to "bio-mimic" a fan blade design, upon viewing a Humpback Whale sculpture in a Boston MA gift shop. There are prospective efficiency gains from re-designed wind turbine blades, also, based on this "discovery".

Is the double-nickel speed limit ready for a comeback? Congress thus far has shown no movement toward resurrecting the 55-mph speed limit, but one of the Senate's senior members - Republican John Warner of Virginia - says it's time to start the conversation about an energy-saving national speed limit to help spare Americans from usurious fuel costs.

Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains. When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.

T. Boone Pickens is a billionaire oil man and a career corporate raider who loves George Bush so much he donated $250,000 to his 2004 inaugural ball. He was, and still is, fully behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq and makes no bones about it. So why is he now pushing for the use of alternative energy sources like wind and solar in his Pickens Plan?

The cost of operating an automobile has intrigued me since I started riding a bike as an adult. From asking owners, I estimated in 1965 that a car cost about 25¢ a mile to operate, which caused a fellow student to scream at me. In the late 70's, when I was an owner, I figured the operating cost at 14¢ a mile, which was unrealistically low. We tend to believe what we want to believe.

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 head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lied to Congress about his rejection of a request from California meant to curb global warming emissions, Sen. Barbara Boxer said on Tuesday. Boxer, a California Democrat who has called for EPA chief Stephen Johnson to resign, made the statement at a hearing on regulation of greenhouse gases under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

ON a strip of Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, a futuristic experiment posing as an ordinary fuel station may be bringing the world one step closer to the hydrogen age. From the moment engineers started dreaming about hydrogen as an alternative to oil, they faced a nagging question: What should come first - the fuel-cell car or the hydrogen pump?