If plug-in hybrid cars become popular, the cars could potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on foreign oil. But will they cause electricity prices to zoom?

South Africa's power crisis today forced the world's three largest gold mining companies to shut down their operations as the government called the rolling blackouts across the country a "national emergency" and threatened to ration electricity.

The South African government has told millions of people left in the dark by rolling power cuts that have swept the country over the past week, and which are likely to go on for years, to look on the bright side. The blackouts are the result of surging demand for power caused by a booming economy, it says. But as the lights go off more frequently and for longer periods, the national mood has darkened.

A French-designed car that's propelled by compressed air and claims speeds of more than 60 miles per hour is expected to go into commercial production as early as this summer,

The World Future Council (WFC) announced this week the release of a new website designed to provide policy makers, regulators and advocates with comprehensive information on renewable energy adoption policies in order to speed up the procurement of clean energy around the world.

Airtricity Announces Sale to SSE

UK and European governments should not have pursued targets to increase the use of biofuels without putting in place "robust" measures to prevent environmental damage, MPs said today. [Follow 'Are biofuels sustainable?' near bottom of page for full report (45pp)

Irish Energy Minister Eamon Ryan has announced a program of activity, grants and supports to develop ocean energy in Ireland. Over EUR 26 million in targeted funding will go to the sector over the next three years. The Minister also announced a significant boost for the future of the sector with the first ever, guaranteed price for wave energy.

Back in October, we called Miasole, which makes copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells, about a rumor that the company cut about 50 employees and planned to close its Shanghai operation. Today, VentureWire wrote that sources outside the company say Miasole has laid off 40 employees. Miasole did not comment on the story. Sources in the CIGS world however have been telling us that they had been receiving resumes from Miasole employees for the past several weeks. So even if people haven't been laid off, employees seem to be restless.

Deeya Energy, which makes large flow batteries to provide backup power to industrial plants, raised $15 million in a second round of financing, according to Venture Wire. The company earlier raised $7.5 million and is building manufacturing facilities in India. What is a flow battery? It's a battery with tanks of electrolytes that effectively let the battery store more energy than normal batteries. The electrolytes flow or circulate through the system. The larger the tanks, the more electricity it can store.

By using direct current, rather than drawing electricity from outlets that supply alternating current, data center managers can reduce their energy consumption by up to 40 percent, according to the company.

Displays that use organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are more vivid than liquid-crystal displays, have much faster refresh rates, and draw less power, but so far, manufacturing difficulties have limited them to small sizes fit only for handheld devices. On December 1, and only in Japan, Sony released the world's first OLED television, featuring an 11-inch panel with a layer of light-emitting organic material just several hundred nanometers thick. Initially, Sony plans to manufacture 2,000 of the TVs per month.

...offshore wind is at least as much about offshore technologies as it is about wind technologies.

Global wind plant is set to more than triple by 2015, with cumulative installed base expected to rise from approximately 91 GW by the end of 2007 to over 290 GW by the end of 2015, according to recently-released global wind energy country forecasts from Emerging Energy Research (EER), a leading advisory and consulting firm analyzing clean and renewable energy markets on a global basis.

"Lithium Energy Japan" to produce large capacity and high performance lithium-ion batteries. ...automated mass production lines within a 7000m2 facility at GS Yuasa's Kyoto's head office plant, capable of manufacturing 200,000 cells per year. Operations were slated to commence by 2009.

The target was greeted with wide skepticism, including from the Renewable Energy Foundation, which accused the government of "green exhibitionism".

But note that Nick Jenkins supported the idea on TV News without reservation! Note also that around 40% - 13GW - of this generation would be off the coast of Scotland. The interconnectors to England (where the demand is) are about 2.5 GW and already fully loaded. Nobody talks about the need for connection.

Thousands of new offshore wind turbines could power every home in Britain by 2020, the government announced today, as it set out new wind-energy plans. John Hutton, the business secretary, proposed the creation of up to 33 gigawatts of offshore wind energy. He called for companies to invest in large-scale farm development to generate enough power for up to 25m homes in the next 12 years. That would require around 7,000 turbines, or one every half-mile. He admitted that "tough choices" would have to be made if the UK wanted to respond to climate change and become more self-sufficient.

CeeLite, a Blue Bell, Pa.-based start-up has devised a thin, bendable light source that can be integrated into walls or wrapped around poles. The company is in the midst of trials with 32 cities, which are putting signs equipped with CeeLite's light on the sides of its buses.

Search giant Google on Tuesday pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. The effort, dubbed RE), calls for Google to invest in companies developing clean-energy technologies and for Google itself to next year invest tens of millions in research and development in renewable energy.