Energy Industry

We all know that sooner or later all automobiles are going to be either hybrid, electric or hydrogen powered. The one drawback that many of us look at is the overall appeal of the cars. Very few models that are being put out are really all that attractive. For those of us that like to put the pedal down every now and again, there are very few options to consider. That is about to change in a big way. BMW has recently hit the board with their prototype that is just flat out sexy. View Comments

Everyone is excited about hydrogen cars, but there is always the challenge of how they are going to fill up. Most cars are restricted by the distance that they can travel on a full tank and nothing more. Few places, especially on the East Coast, offer a refueling station to allow the cars to travel any further. If the hydrogen highway plan comes to fruition, that will finally change. View Comments

Every time we turn around we are seeing something new and exciting in renewable energy forms and Aquamarine Power is the latest in a long line of energy sources to be pumped up about. Aquamarine Power is a company that is developing wave energy. This is a source of energy that has barely been tapped into and they are one of the leaders in developing it. View Comments

Consumers surely remember the days of seeing pictures off all the funny looking electric cars. They looked like something out of the Jetson’s and were hardly something any of us would be caught dead in. Say goodbye to those old stereo types because the Volkswagon E-Up is raising the bar in electric car technology. View Comments

The carbon footprint that automobiles leave is about to change, and that change is going to happen much sooner than we think. While it is unlikely that the Micron will replace every car on the road, it will present a very interesting alternative to daily travel. This unique design is eye catching and more importantly, totally emissions free. Make no mistake about it, the Micron is the future of the automobile. View Comments

Reputed companies are always conscious about their brand image and what a great way to build great brand by taking clean and green route! Bell Lab is the division of the Alcatel-Lucent. Currently Alcatel-Lucent is trying to invest in their communications networks to make it 1,000 times more energy efficient. They have launched a five year program known as "Green Touch." Members affiliated with the Green Touch are AT&T, and China Mobile from industry; MIT and Stanford University from the academic world; and The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control from government. Industrial laboratory members are Bell Labs, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Freescale Semiconductor. The project has received the nods of ascent from United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and the British, French, South Korean and Portuguese governments. View Comments

UK's energy and climate change minister, Lord Hunt shares his opinion, "We recognise that the North Sea has huge resources, we are exploiting those in the UK quite intensively at the moment. But there are projects where it might make sense to join up with other countries, so this comes at a very good time for us." Lord Hunt is talking about several North Sea countries that have coalesced for a good cause. They are aiming to create a clean and green supergrid. This supergrid will be connected to wind farms of Scotland, solar panels of Germany and hydro-electric dams of Norway. This project will be ready soon and then the first green European electricity grid will become a reality. They have expanded a network of thousands of kilometers of highly efficient undersea cables. These network cables will cost around €30bn. This way renewable energy generated in any of the North Sea countries will be available to many. View Comments

A biofuel is tricky to define because the usual fossil fuel we use, is in a way biofuel too. But we can safely say that most of the biofuels don’t add up their quota of carbon dioxide to the environment. The biofuels are therefore considered to be "CO2 neutral." Researchers from the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University have developed a new method to increase the quantity of oil in tobacco leaves. So that oil in tobacco leaves can be utilized as biofuels in future. Their paper was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal which is an online journal. View Comments

Nowadays students are not oblivious to the hazards of global warming. They are quite keen on pursuing a ‘clean energy’ career. Now the concern about climate change is stimulating more undergraduate students to show interest in science and engineering. We can watch the trend of the rising interest in renewable energy. As leaders from various schools such as Arizona State University, Indiana University and the University of Colorado confirm that energy and sustainability are the hottest topics for their students. But another fact which can’t be guaranteed is whether their keenness for renewable energy will remain so into graduate school and further on in life. View Comments

China is often dubbed as a heavy user of fossil fuels and polluter or a climate killer. Because it meets the 70% of its power needs by exploiting coals. But they are making changes on the environment front too. Slowly and steadily they are choosing wind and solar power as their source of energy. China has earned the distinction of having the world’s largest solar-powered building. It is situated in Dezhou, Shangdong Province in northwest China. The building covers an area of 75,000-square-meter. The office building is modelled after the sun dial structure. View Comments

These days the world is looking at Copenhagen Summit, its agenda and how much carbon footprint it is generating. At the same time the most climate-friendly childcare center in Denmark is being established in Hørsholm. Hørsholm is situated in the north of Copenhagen. This childcare center will be opened in November 2010. The nursery, has been commissioned by Hørsholm Council in cooperation with VKR Holding. This childcare center is designed by Christensen & Co. Architects. This center will boast of state-of-the-art facilities and will generate more energy than it consumes. View Comments

The World Bank will invest $5.5 billion for North African solar power projects. They have announced that initially World Bank will put in $750 million dollars from the Clean Technology Fund with the remaining amount will be arranged from other sources. World Bank is expecting to complete these projects by 2015. They are willing to include five countries in this project and hoping to triple world wide concentrated solar power technology (CSP) capacity. This relatively new technology uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a single point, heating water to drive turbines. Construction of the 11 facilities in the project is scheduled to begin in 2011. It is expected that the North African project will generate a total of 900 MW in capacity by 2020. View Comments

Villagers of Wagharwadi till now knew how to make most of the daylight. This village is in Maharashtra, India. They used plastic plates as skylight. This kind of skylight helped women to recognize the ingredients stocked in their kitchens. After evening, villagers depended on candles and kerosene lamps. If some emergency or calamity forced to get some more light in the night they resorted to burning dry twigs. People living in the developed countries would find it a bit difficult to imagine such a situation. View Comments

In close association with sister company Jaguar, Land Rover has been working a hybrid system to improve the brand’s eco-conscious image. Land Rover has recently declared that they are going for a new Range Rover Sports Hybrid. They are taking care of the carbon emissions. According to them this car will emit just 100g/km of CO2 and will have an all-electric range of 20 miles. If it can be achieved, the low CO2 figure will be a noteworthy breakthrough for the luxury brand. This low carbon emission will put the Range Rover Sport’s carbon emissions in an equal category with those of smaller, lighter vehicles like the Citroën C1 and Ford Focus Econetic which emits 148g/km of CO2. Land Rover is planning to launch five prototypes of the vehicle next year ahead of a 2012 sales launch. View Comments

If we try to observe which states are going solar we will find an interesting bend. Many states in U.S.A. are not the sunniest one but still they are opting for solar energy. It’s natural for sunny California to go for solar energy. South Florida is a focus of solar activity because it enjoys a balmy weather and a progressive bend of mind. If we study the energy maps of parts of the Phoenix we will find that they are also opting for the solar energy. If we care to look into the demographics we will find that people want clean and green energy like solar energy while living in shady area. Why? The answer lies in the economic status. They have money to spend and possess progressive thinking. View Comments

Stephens-Romero is a UC Irvine doctoral candidate in the Advanced Power & Energy Program. His 2060 analysis was published online recently in Environmental Science & Technology. Stephens-Romero is painting the picture of future for our benefit, "For the first time, we can look at these future fuel scenarios and say how they're going to impact things like ozone and particulate matter, which have severe effects on people's lungs and quality of life." View Comments

Sometimes slight modifications in existing machines do wonders for fuel saving. A simple attachment of a tapering protrusion at the back of a truck can save up to 7.5% in fuel consumption. This is a significant amount of fuel saving with a simple alteration. This fuel saving is possible due to dramatically-improved aerodynamics. It has been verified by road tests conducted by the Dutch PART (Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport) public-private partnership platform. View Comments

Now the prestigious and successful business units are competing to become green in their operations. FedEx Express which is a subsidiary of FedEx Corporation expressed its commitment to purchase 51 extra gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles from Azure Dynamics Corporation. Scott Harrison, CEO of Azure Dynamics says, "We applaud FedEx for its continuous effort to conserve resources and minimize its environmental impact and we are delighted that FedEx has again chosen to use Azure’s Balance Hybrid Electric gasoline drive train." View Comments

There is an obvious push on not only using less energy, but in finding other forms of energy that will allow the world to recover from the years of literally pillaging its natural resources. Germany has been using some pretty innovative techniques to lead the way and their designers are coming up with more energy efficient homes all the time. However, with the promotion of using a smart grid Germany hopes to make people even more aware of the energy that they are using and more importantly, wasting. View Comments

Two things are certain for the future: electric cars will become more popular and solar power will continue to grow as a viable source of energy. Because of this, the world is looking to industry leaders not only in the energy business, but to other major corporations that can have a major impact on the world’s power usage. Dell has stepped up to the plate and hopefully the Dell solar trees parking lot is a sign of greater things to come. The Dell solar parking lot by Envision Solar is a very innovative way that Dell has implemented solar powered lights and it is something that is immediately making an impact. The solar trees serve not only the purpose of gathering the suns energy as a viable energy source, but even provides shade over about 50 parking spaces as well! The lot was made viewable from the highway so Dell can let everyone know that solar power is the way to go. View Comments