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Boston University's College of Engineering is launching a program, under a National Science Foundation grant, to develop the next generation of wireless communications technology based on visible light instead of radio waves. Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power light emitting diodes, or LEDs, to create "Smart Lighting" that would be faster and more secure than current network technology.

Improvements in energy efficiency over the past three decades have played a key role in limiting global increases in energy use and CO2 emissions. For IEA countries, energy efficiency gains since 1990 have led to annual energy savings of more than 16 EJ in 2005 and 1.3 Gt of avoided CO2 emissions. However, the recent rate of efficiency improvement has been much lower than in the past. The good news is that a large potential remains for further energy and CO2 savings across all sectors. In industry alone, the application of proven technologies and best practices on a global scale could save between 1.9 Gt and 3.2 Gt of CO2 emissions per year. In public power generation, if all countries produced electricity at current best practice levels, CO2 savings would be between 1.8 Gt and 2.5 Gt.

Providing electricity to people in countries where either the grid is not reliable, or nonexistent and unlikely ever to be built, can make a huge difference in people’s quality of life in very practical ways. We’ve written before about companies such as D.Light Design which have solar-powered replacements for kerosene lanterns , and efforts to bring small-scale solar panels to off-grid villages in Laos. Hand cranked cell phone chargers, radios and flashlights are other proven options that have received attention.

An international team led by Physics and Chemistry teams from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and directed by Professor Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia, has achieved, by means of a controlled chemical process, that atoms of gold, silver and copper - intrinsically non-magnetic (not attracted to a magnet) - become magnetic. The article has been published in the February issue of the prestigious international magazine in nanotechnology, Nanoletters (Vol.8, No. 2, 661-667 (2008).

Are we releasing more greenhouse gas emissions by using more fossil-fuelled heating to make up for the heat that we're not getting from CFLs and LEDs?

But if you're in a state or province that uses more emission-free hydroelectric power and nuclear power, then it might make sense to keep on using that Edison-style bulb during the winter.

Wind Power Growth Surpasses Projections Washington, D.C., United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] Global wind power capacity rose 27 percent in 2007 to more than 94,100 megawatts (MW), led by capacity additions in the European Union, the United States, and China, according to the latest Vital Sign Update from the Worldwatch Institute.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - World annual investments in renewable energy will top $100 billion for the first time in 2007, led by wind power, according to a report issued at United Nations climate talks on Saturday.

Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones, and countless other devices. The new version, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travelers.

We have previously discussed a secretive Texas company called EEStor, who are reported to be working on a new type of ultracapacitor that can hold 10x the energy in 1/10th the weight of typical batteries, at a fraction of the cost. They have an agreement to produce caps for Zenn electric cars but to date have not shown any prototypes. This has led some to suspect EEStor as not having the technology they report. Today, however, Lockheed Martin, the major U.S. military equipment manufacturer has announced a partnership agreement with EEStor to develop energy applications.

The 1958 television episode looks toward the future of American transportation. Once you dig past the kitschy sci-fi aspects, this auto-pian vision terrifyingly reveals the values which have led us to our current predicament. Everything becomes super-highway accessible – from the steepest mountains of the U.S. to the Sphinx in Egypt.

For computer experts focused solely on performance, June and November mark the twice-yearly release of the TOP500 list, which ranks the world's supercomputers in terms of "teraflops," or trillions of calculations per second (the "flop" comes from "floating-point operations," a technical term for computer calculations). That list is currently led by a supercomputer at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) that has a peak speed of more than 596 teraflops. But the November 2007 list of supercomputing speed freaks was accompanied by a newcomer, the Green500 list, which reworks the TOP500 list in terms of energy efficiency. The Green500 list ranks the 500 fastest supercomputers by megaflops per watt, that is, by how many thousands of calculations are performed per watt of energy consumed.

One of the images I use to explain what’s going on with cars is the TV analogy. Just a few years ago, buying a TV was pretty simple. You picked a size and brand, which features you wanted, and shopped for the best deal. Now, it’s far more complicated thanks to 720 and 1080 resolution HDTV, plasma vs. LCD vs projector vs. LED projector technology, etc.

Fears over energy security and climate change have led to record investment in renewable energy. But a major problem threatens to stall progress towards a more sustainable future: national electricity grids are far from ready to cope with the variable output from the new technologies. A solution might be at hand, though, and would not involve radical changes to the existing infrastructure. Treating groups of dispersed power sources, such as solar and wind generators, as a single entity could solve the problem, creating the virtual equivalent of a single large power station.