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" Renewable energy sources could be used at scale by 2050 if supported by an efficient European transmission grid and a single European power market united with similar grids and markets in North Africa. This is shown in a new report released last week by PricewaterhouseCoopers. A group of energy and climate experts from the company in collaboration with researchers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research (PIK), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the European Climate Forum (ECF) have examined possible transformation paths for the European and North African power sector. A transformation of the power sector based on one hundred percent renewables would address energy security and supply concerns while decarbonising electricity generation and at the same time reduce energy poverty, the report says."

The benthic microbial fuel cell (BMFC) was developed some time ago by The Naval Research Laboratory to power marine-deployed applications. This battery draws power from organic matter residing in sediment on the seafloor, oxidizing it with oxygen in overlying water. This power source is non-depleting and therefore perfectly suited to power hard to access sensors and similar devices.

"The team's research yielded a novel solution that combines the strengths of batteries and supercapacitors while also negating the scalability problem. The "electrochemical flow capacitor" (EFC) consists of an electrochemical cell connected to two external electrolyte reservoirs - a design similar to existing redox flow batteries which are used in electrical vehicles. This technology is unique because it uses small carbon particles suspended in the electrolyte liquid to create a slurry of particles that can carry an electric charge."

According to the Energy Saving Trust, the new tariffs are expected to provide a rate of return of between 4.5% and 8% for a typical well sited 4kW domestic installation.  - is this right? Research by DECC has shown that solar PV uptake is highest...

website includes a few things but importaint to my research is the hydrolic frackling paragraph also has some stuff about net energy use and how it has affected the economy in the past

A recent study by Logan group at Penn State University also demonstrated similar findings in that the energy contained in hydrogen gas not only can offset the energy used for the desalination process but has surplus that can be used for downstream processing.

Several years ago even the mobile phones were very expensive, not to mention computers and airplane flights.

The example of mobile phones is of little relevance here, because cost reduction is driven by the scaling laws of microelectronics. However, the reducing cost of flights - in a way the ultimate energy application - offer a good benchmark. What will happen to flights though if commodity and energy prices go up in the long run?

a report published today in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology details research from scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which estimates that electricity demand could outstrip supply by as much as 17 percent on the hottest days in the coming decades.

Aren't the terms '50' and 'Manhattan project' in the same sentence an apparant contradiction. If we have to invent the atomic bomb 50 times, we'd be in real trouble.

Green roofs - where traditional roofs are replaced with plants and a watering system - optimise the energy consumption of buildings and have other advantages, say Spanish researchers.

IBM and researchers from Harvard University launched a joint effort today to identify more efficient and lower-cost solar cell materials using distributed computing. Leveraging small amounts of computing power from potentially hundreds of thousands of personal computers, this latest addition to the company's World Community Grid platform will process more than 1 million configurations of atoms over the next two years in search of an organic molecule that can be used to make materials for an ultra-efficient plastic photovoltaic cell.

An exciting piece of solar research from MIT was published today in Science. researchers at the university have created a new way to harness solar power that should hopefully reduce the cost of installations massively by using normal windows as solar generators.

Biofuels production will create an estimated total of 123,000 jobs by 2012, according to a report released last week titled U.S. Economic Impact of Advanced Biofuels Production by Bio Economic Research Associates. The report estimated that advanced biofuels production will create 383,000 jobs by 2016 and 807,000 jobs by 2022.

Six page article from 2003 provides an in depth discussion on existing and Future Nuclear Systems:  "In Response to the difficulties in achieving sustainability, a sufficiently high degree of safety and a competitive economic basis for nuclear power, the U.S. Department of Energy initiated the Generation IV program in 1999. Generation IV refers to the broad division of nuclear designs into four categories: early prototype reactors (Generation I), the large central station nuclear power plants of today (Generation II), the advanced lightwater reactors and other systems with inherent safety features that have been designed in recent years (Generation III), and the next-generation systems to be designed and built two decades from now (Generation IV) [see box on opposite page]. By 2000 international interest in the Generation IV project had resulted in a nine-country coalition that includes Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. Participating states are mapping out and collaborating on the research and development of future nuclear energy systems."

A team of researchers at Rice University have discovered a way to improve the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries: use carbon-nanotube/metal-oxide arrays as electrode material.

The Video Learning Center explains that conventional silicon solar cells operate by reacting with photons in light and create free electrons which flow as current in a circuit. But these electrons only remain free for a very short time. The material the OSU researchers created is not only able to capture all visible light, but also to free electrons for 7 million times longer than silicon. As a result more electricity is capable of being produced than ever before.

Now the Amercian Water Works Association Research Foundation (AWWARF) is to undertake a project to assess the potential impact underground carbon storage has on the quality of groundwater supplies.

Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology developed a new type of small-scale electric power generator, based on stretching and releasing zinc oxide wires encapsulated in a flexible plastic with two ends bonded.