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Does it make sense to solar power everything? It leads to many small, and relatively expensive installations. Wouldn't it be more effective to go for a battery & plug-in concept where possible. One would loose the inflight recharging of the solar airplane, but for everything else, the plug-in concept probably provides benefits.

In addition, the lifetime of cars, for example, is much lower than the one for solar panels. Why integrate both?

Yes, I agree that there is too much emphasis on the novel in attempt to solve climate change. Creating technology for the designer label market to sell goods to the rich who want to tell their friends they are green. The same investment in a solid developed renewable method could yield a hundred times the reduction of carbon or more...

Charles Bremner, Times, UK offers up some great news for air travelers. The dream of inexpensive, ecofriendly aviation has come closer to reality after a French test pilot achieved the first flight in a conventional light aircraft powered by an electric motor. The Electra, a wood-and-fabric single-seater, flew for 48 minutes for 50km (30 miles) around the southern Alps, winning a global race to apply battery power to a fixed-wing standard aircraft….Electric power for larger aircraft, including airliners, is also on the horizon, with research by Nasa and Boeing into the holy grail of the field: hydrogen-fed fuel cells. These will drive electric motors with power like those on French high-speed trains.

What's the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage -- so we can have power on tap even when the sun's not out and the wind's not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: "We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap."

The Ampera is an electric vehicle that can operate in a wide range of weather climates. It is powered by electricity at all times and speeds. For the first 40 - 80 km, power is supplied by the electricity stored in the 16-kWh, lithium-ion battery. While driving on electricity delivered by the battery, the Ampera drives free of gas- and tailpipe-emissions.

Sure, regenerative braking - the process that converts the energy typically wasted as heat when slowing down and storing it as electrical power in batteries - is a terrific energy saving solution. Many hybrid cars, such as the Prius, use regenerative braking and it's starting to appear aboard hybrid diesel/electric trains as well. But more efficient still is to maintain your momentum and dispense with a train's need to make stops

Hino, Toyota's truck division, is experimenting with wireless charging. In spite of inefficiences that may exist, Hino should be applauded for pushing the envelope. However, unfortunately for the future, it seems logical that only larger sponsors such as Toyota can afford this type of approach.

REGENERATIVE BRAKING is widely practised, but there have to be other trains around to absorb the surplus power being fed back into the catenary or third rail. Processing the output from trains and pushing it back into the local grid is possible with an AC power supply, but very expensive with DC traction. Too often, power produced by traction motors in braking mode ends up heating resistor banks. The elegant alternative is to store the braking energy on the train. This not only avoids the electrical complications of regenerating through the traction power supply network. It reduces the rated power requirement of that network by lopping demand peaks during acceleration, saves energy by reducing losses in the catenary or conductor rail, and by limiting voltage drop it allows substations to be further apart. NiMH batteries have the necessary energy storage density in terms of kWh/kg, and are slightly more expensive, but their life in terms of charge/discharge cycles in no way matches the LRV requirement for 2million cycles over 10 years. Flywheels have been tried but never caught on for several reasons.

That's why a small server-farm company called AISO.net (for "affordable Internet services online") has gone completely off the grid. Located 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles in the desert hamlet of Romoland, AISO.net has flanked its 2,000-square-foot building with two banks of ground-mounted solar panels, which generate 12 kilowatts of electricity. Batteries store the juice for nighttime operation.