Lenovo reinvigorated the desktop PC space today with the ThinkCentre A61e, an ultra small form factor desktop that combines a small footprint the size of a telephone book, choices of energy efficient, 45-watt AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 dual core and AMD Sempron™ single core processors and an affordable price tag starting at $399(1).

The Scottish Government has approved plans for the second largest wind farm in Scotland, capable of generating power for 120,000 homes. The project will be created at Harestanes, near Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway, and comprise of 71 turbines.

Two new branches of high street chain Marks & Spencer in Scotland are to be powered by windmills. The new shops, in Glasgow and Galashiels, have been branded the company's first "green" stores and include a series of eco-features aimed at reducing their carbon footprint.

The numbers don't seem to add up, but ...

The World Bank hopes to bring modern lighting to one-fourth of Africa's people by developing markets for products not hostage to fossil fuels or the continent's lamentable electricity grid. The bank and its private investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), say their "Lighting Africa" programme aims to bring light to 250 million sub-Saharan Africans cut off from existing power infrastructure by 2030. "Modern lighting will mean improved air quality and safety for millions of people in Africa," S. Vijay Iyer, the bank's energy sector manager for Africa, said in a statement. "It will mean longer reading hours for students and longer business hours for small shops."

Mariah Power's Windspire is a neat looking 1kW vertical axis wind turbine that provides an aesthetically pleasing wind power option. It is appropriate for rural, urban, and residential environments alike, and at 30 feet and producing only 25 db, it conforms to typical residential and urban zoning restrictions.

'Dutch ex-astronaut and Physicist Dr Wubbo Ockels successfully demonstrated his Laddermill in a field near the university city of Groningen, The Netherlands, on August 29th. His radio-controlled high-flying energy kite, created 10.5kW of electrical energy.'

A new process for using aluminum alloys to generate hydrogen from water could make fuel-cell vehicles more practical,

.....the World Renewable Energy Network (WREN), ... described its own policy committee chairman as an "oil and gas" expert, his views as "stupid" and his theories akin to imposing a Communist-style command economy.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission approved a negotiated settlement last week between wind developers and Idaho Power Co. over who should pay for transmission upgrades required to accommodate about 200 megawatts (MW) of new wind generation planned in Idaho's Magic Valley region.

There is no shortage of wind in the densely-populated Netherlands but there is a shortage of space and in a nation which likes its houses small and its gardens cosy, opposition to [onshore] wind farms is immense.

Wind power is the fastest growing renewable energy sector in Britain. The government is investing massive amounts of money in its future; but experts interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth programme claim the power of the wind to deliver electricity is being overestimated by companies keen to cash in on big subsidies.

Turbine blades turning at excessive speeds might have caused last weekend's fatal tower collapse at an Eastern Oregon wind farm, according to a spokeswoman for the manufacturer.

IT'S a noise wall with a difference. Drivers heading along the Tullamarine Freeway from the city to Melbourne Airport, or towards Bendigo, can see it.

In their prototype production line, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) have successfully completed a multi-crystalline solar cell with rear side contacts. The Freiburg, Germany-based researchers will be presenting their findings in September at the 22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, September 3-7, in Milan, Italy.

Some 25,000 villages in India will get solar energy by 2012 as part of the government's plan to promote clean energy in the country, Minister for New and Renewable Energy Vilas Muttemwar said here Wednesday. "With such a vast pool of renewable resources available, the government wants to provide energy in every village and lighting in every house," Muttemwar said in his address at an event to mark Energy Day in memory of late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The Green Grid, a non-profit consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems, has announced its technology roadmap and key deliverables for 2007. For the next several months, The Green Grid will focus on data collection through the documentation of existing standards and the evaluation of metrics; data assessment through a market study of current efficiency practices; and technology proposals that outline The Green Grid's recommendations for the future of energy efficient data centers.

Octillion Corp. has announced that a published research study has demonstrated that the same silicon nanoparticles used in development of the company's first-of-its-kind transparent glass window capable of generating electricity, are able to drastically increase the power performance of conventional silicon solar cells.

Researchers from SRI International recently completed the first ocean tests of a system that uses a so-called artificial muscle to generate power from the motion of a buoy riding up and down on the waves. The prototype produces very little electricity but the researchers say that wave farms based on the technology could eventually rival wind turbines in power output, providing a significant source of clean energy. The SRI system is not much more than a sheet of rubber attached to a weight. It has "the mechanical complexity of a rubber band," says SRI senior researcher Roy Kornbluh.

The paper itself is flawed suggesting that virtualisation can reeduce the number of servers required to 7% - enough to handle the average processing load. Webusers want instant reaction during the peak - for that you need spare capacity. Is this a surprise?

The Internet doesn't produce belching smokestacks or toxin-spewing drainpipes. Instead, the environmental impact of the data centers that power the Web and private networks is about as visible as the electrons moving around a company's servers. But visible or not, the ecological and economic costs of those servers are massive. A report released last week by the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that U.S. data centers (collections of computers used to power businesses' and government agencies' IT infrastructures and Web sites) consumed around 61 billion kilowatt-hours in 2006 at a cost of about $4.5 billion. That's about 1.5% of total U.S. electricity consumption, more than the electricity used by American televisions, or equivalent to the output of about 15 typical power plants

The world largest thin-film rooftop photovoltaic power plant was connected to the grid Wednesday after four months of construction. Over 37,000 First Solar thin-film modules have been installed on the 90,000 sqm large rooftop of a logistic centre in Ramstein, Germany. Three inverters convert the continuous current into alternating current. Under the supervision of COLEXON up to 40 mechanics and electricians were working at the construction site. Thorsten Preugschas, board member of RPSE AG, is proud of the success:" With this landmark project we were able to confirm our strong position as a project developer, demonstrating high product and service quality, a quick implementation and excellent price-performance ratio for our costumers." The solar power plant will produce about 2.4 million kWh per year. Based on a feed-in tariff of 46.3 cent/kWh the installation will earn over 1.1 Mio Euro per year. This also accounts for saving of 2 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.