Governor Pat Quinn announced that Illinois residents now have a second chance to receive a discount on their purchase of ENERGY STAR-qualified appliances on Sept. 24, during the Illinois ENERGY STAR Replacement Appliance Rebate Program.

All new investments must undergo independent assessments and government reviews on whether they are energy-saving or not before being approved by regulators, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, said yesterday in a statement on its website.

Vertical axis wind turbines have recently been revived by a few innovations made to them by scientists all over the world. Sauer Energy is one of them, and their turbine has a high efficiency because it’s designed to maximize the drag, so the blades are moved more efficiently by the wind.

Engineering researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University have demonstrated the low-temperature efficacy of an atomically dispersed platinum catalyst, which could be suitable for on-board hydrogen production in fuel-cell-powered vehicles of the future.

Adobe, the software giant, has installed 12 100-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cells, or Energy Servers, from Bloom Energy at the Adobe headquarters. The cumulative 1.2 megawatts of power that the fuel cells generate will provide Adobe with about one-third of the power it needs to run the building.

Last year, the Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) company has developed a tidal power generator that has now been connected to the energy grid at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii as part of the firm’s program with the US Navy to test wave energy technology, giving the US their the first-ever grid connection for a wave energy device.

The phase-out of incandescent light bulbs is part of the EU's strategy to cut greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020. Replacing the old lamps with more efficient models is expected to reduce energy consumption for lighting by 60% in the EU, equivalent to saving 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year.

Ahead of the 2020 deadline for constituent parts of the UK to hit renewable power targets, Scotland has raised its ambitions for real-terms energy saving by switching to eco-friendly alternatives.

A delegation representing 15 Finnish enterprises said here on Tuesday they wanted to look for local partners to develop renewable energy, wastewater treatment, industrial waste management and other environmental technologies. Some of the Finnish companies introduced their clean technologies at a seminar held here on Tuesday were Neste Oil Corporation, Cargotec, GD Power, Kemira, Fincumet, YIT and Outotec.

Realizing that natural resources are limited, Holcim Vietnam Limited since 2003 has aimed at sustainable production development by increasing the use of waste materials as main energies to replace fossil fuels at its Hon Chong cement plant in Kien Giang Province.

Apart from awareness in all the company, LaVie has also decided to invest in new technology as a way to reduce energy consumption. The deputy general director reveals that her company will replace all energy-consuming air compressors by smaller ones that fit the capacities of the current production lines. In addition, it has changed its lighting systems to LED lamps, and reduced water use as a way to cut energy consumption as well.

The new nano-ceramics would be key components in the next generation of capacitors. Like batteries, capacitors store energy, but there the resemblance ends. Batteries are designed to collect energy over a relatively long period of time, then release it at a low, constant rate. Capacitors charge and release large amounts of power very quickly. The basic principle has been around since the 18th century, but until recently one roadblock has been how to reduce them down to an efficient size.

Light behaves differently in macro- and nano- scale environments, and this could be a starting point for those researchers who want to improve the solar cells’ efficiency. It was a starting point for some Stanford engineers, who found out that light ricocheting inside an ultra-thin polymer film solar cell behaves differently than if the film wasn’t so thin. The difference is enormous.

The two companies, in cooperation with PetersenDean Roofing and Solar Systems, announced a partnership earlier this year to pre-install solar panels at no additional cost to homebuyers at The Preserve new home community. Last Friday, September 17, Toll Brothers hosted the official ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the community to the public.

From 2006 to 2010, the project "Promoting Energy Conservation in Small and Medium Scale Enterprise - PECSME", funded by the Global Environment Fund and managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology, has implemented 201 projects in the brick manufacturing industry, 144 projects in ceramics - porcelain, 81 projects in the food processing industry, 35 projects in the textile-garment and 38 projects in the paper industry.

At the Vietnam - Russia Intergovernmental session which was held in mid-September, the Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang, and Russian Minister of Industry and Trade V.Khristenko officially signed the Roadmap for the implementation of Vietnam - Russia cooperation projects in energy sector (Energy cooperation roadmap).

According to "Nikkei" of Japan issued on 22nd September, the Itochu Corporation of Japan and Qatar Petroleum are having final discussions on building a petrochemical production complex in Vietnam. According to Qatar Vice President and Minister of Energy, these two groups would build a petrochemical production complex in Long Son (Vung Tau) with a total investment of about $ 4 billion.

The UK environmental group Carbon Trust and Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory have jointly formed a new company called Eight19 concentrating on the development of new organic photovoltaic (PV) technology that could make the installation of solar cells cheaper and easier.

One day, man-made buildings will mimic the human body in the relationship with the exterior. Penn State University researchers are about to study and implement a model that uses the sensitivity and flexibility of human cells to build “skins” that will give buildings the possibility to self-adapt to the exterior, to regulate their energy use according to changes in the environment.

We all know LED as being the flagship of green lighting, but what if those so-called “efficient” LEDs turned out to be even more energy-effective under certain conditions? The Kyoto University, in collaboration with Stanley Electric Co Ltd found a way to increase the emission intensity of silicon-based thin films by several times.