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MONTEFALCONE, Italy, July 23 Israel-based Millennium Electric TOU Ltd. has completed construction of Italy's first solar power station. The 50-kilowatt plant is part of an order for a nationwide network of solar power stations, which will generate an aggregate 10 megawatts, Globes Online reported. The company is scheduled to complete the project in five years. The first solar power station will begin operating immediately. The power station was built in Montefalcone in southern Italy for ES Energy, which operates a multi-megawatt wind driven turbine power station on the site. The present contract deviates from Millennium Electric's business policy in that the company usually only signs contracts through which it both builds solar power stations using its technology for the customer, as well as shares in the power station's sales.

WTC, a Munich, Germany-based consulting company, has tracked down more than 130 international manufacturers which are involved in the thin-film solar cell production process-from the cutting edge pilot lines to the major manufacturing plants-and has created a solar cells database listing.

Very interesting presentation at the TED Conference.  Not quite a nuclear battery, but a really good redesign of nuclear power systems. excerpt: "Instead of finding a new way to boil water, Wilson's compact, molten salt reactor found a way to heat up gas. That is, really heat it up. Wilson's fission reactor operates at 600 to 700 degrees Celsius. And because the laws of thermodynamics say that high temperatures lead to high efficiencies, this reactor is 45 to 50 percent efficient. Traditional steam turbine systems are only 30 to 35 percent efficient because their reactors run at low temperatures of about 200 to 300 degrees Celsius. And Wilson's reactor isn't just hot, it's also powerful. Despite its small size, the reactor generates between 50 and 100 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 homes, according to Wilson. Another innovative component of Wilson's take on nuclear fission is its source of fuel. The molten salt reactor runs off of "down-blended weapons pits." In other words, all the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium collecting dust since the Cold War could be put to use for peaceful purposes. And unlike traditional nuclear power plants, Wilson's miniature power plants would be buried below ground, making them a boon for security advocates. According to Wilson, his reactor only needs to be refueled every 30 years, compared to the 18-month fuel cycle of most power plants. This means they can be sealed up underground for a long time, decreasing the risk of proliferation. Wilson's reactor is also less prone to proliferation because it doesn't operate at high pressure like today's pressurized-water reactors or use ceramic control rods, which release hydrogen when heated and lead to explosions during nuclear power plant accidents, like the one at Fukushima in 2011. In the event of an accident in one of Wilson's reactors, the fuel from the core would drain into a "sub-critical" setting- or tank-

"U.S. Wind Market Grew by 39% The U.S. wind industry brought in a historic year in 2009, installing nearly 10,000 MW of new wind. During one of the worst financial crises in recent history, the wind market grew 39% in 2009, bringing new major developers and turbine manufacturers to the market, making the "top ten" rankings an ever-changing list. The AWEA Finance & Investment Workshop offered insights on how to position your company to gain from the tremendous wind industry growth. The expert speakers, presenters, and financial gurus shared the successes of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and how creative uses of new policies could create investment opportunities for 2010. "

Energy efficiency is low hanging fruit in the clean energy movement. Low-grade waste heat may not have the allure of shiny solar panels or a row of wind turbines, but it presents an opportunity that is too good for Michael Newell, CEO of Ener-G-Rotors to pass up. The company is developing a product that generates electricity from low-grade waste heat.

It's gone before you even knew it was there: As energy is unlocked from fuels at power plants, two-thirds of the energy consumed to create electricity is lost. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that conversion efficiency will never be 100 percent, because heat is lost at every step of the conversion process. But new technologies may be able to greatly increase conversion efficiency, moving from an overall rate of 36 percent to closer to 50 percent. At present, coal - in all its carbon-belching inefficiency - is king because it's cheap. Still, the use of natural gas to create electricity has been rising rapidly, in part because of more-efficient gas turbines. Natural gas prices have been climbing, however, and coal prices could rise as well.

Geothermal resources have been successfully utilized in many locations worldwide with significant economic rewards, but geothermal energy for electrical power is currently an untapped, power source in the Canadian energy market and specifically in Canadian oilfield operations. At present, this hot water resource is readily available through the existence of numerous deep, end-of-life oil and gas wells in the Canadian Foothills and the use of the hot water resource for electricity production has the potential to increase energy efficiency and offer carbon offsets for the oil and gas companies.

The storage of cold with ice slurries - a special type of thermally multi-functional fluids or phase change slurries (PCS) - is discussed. At first an example of a calculation of a thermal energy storage tank in an ice slurry system with a peak load demand is presented.

A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69% of the US's electricity and 35% of its total energy by 2050, according to Scientific American. However, $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050 would be required to fund the infrastructure and make it cost-competitive, the publication says in "A Solar Grand Plan" presented in its January 2008 issue.