"This is the first demonstration of a new class of biofuel cells," said Shelley Minteer, Ph.D., who presented the report. "When further developed, these devices have the potential for replacing disposable and rechargeable batteriesin a wide variety of consumer electronics and other products. It is the first such device based on one of the microscopic parts of the billions upon billions of cells that make up the body."

"Our research could pave the way for turning electricity from the atmosphere into an alternative energy source for the future," said study leader Fernando Galembeck, Ph.D. His research may help explain a 200-year-old scientific riddle about how electricity is produced and discharged in the atmosphere. "Just as solar energy could free some households from paying electric bills, this promising new energy source could have a similar effect," he maintained.

Đầu tháng 8, xăng sinh học (E5) “made in Vietnam” chính thức bán ra trên thị trường. Ít ai biết hơn 50% sản lượng xăng E5 đó đã được sản xuất từ Nhà máy Cồn ethanol Đại Tân (Đại Lộc-Quảng Nam). Đây là một bước đi quan trọng cho giải pháp tìm kiếm năng lượng sinh học thay thế của Việt Nam trong thời đại hiện nay…

Sa mạc đầy nắng là nơi lý tưởng cho việc đặt các tấm pin năng lượng để khai thác nguồn năng lượng gần như vô tận từ Mặt Trời. Nhưng cát và bụi bám lên bề mặt của các tấm pin làm giảm hiệu quả sản xuất điện năng của chúng đến 40%. Các biện pháp vệ sinh không khả thi ở nơi hiếm hoi về nước. Giải pháp sau cùng tỏ ra hữu hiệu nhất là dùng các tấm pin năng lượng có khả năng tự 'thổi' bay bụi khi chúng bám đến một lượng nhất định. Đây là công trình nghiên cứu của giáo sư Malay K. Mazumder dựa trên công nghệ được ứng dụng trên sao Hỏa.

The left side of the chart shows the different sources of energy and the amounts produced. Following the flow of energy from left to right, the pink boxes show where the energy is consumed (electrical generation, residential, commercial, industrial and transportation) while the shades of gray show the amount of energy lost or rejected – often through heat loss. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

A new joint venture research work at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, supported by Department of Energy and DARPA has come up with a new solar energy conversion process that can potentially double the efficiency of solar cells. Stanford engineers have discovered this new and totally different process to harvest energy from sun.

Even though wind energy is a clean and cost-effective source of energy, it does have one slight drawback: no one can control when the wind blows. This occasionally leads to difficulties in matching consumers’ demand for energy with the available supply.

In the 1990s, the solar energy technology was introduced into Vietnam through projects funded by the governments of Spanish, Dutch, French and German. Many solar energy projects have been put into application since then, mainly to meet electricity needs of people in remote and rural areas, where the national grid has not reached. Unfortunately, those above projects are only in pilot scale.

A group of engineers at Bridgestone America’s Technical Center in Akron, along with students from DeLaSalle School in Kansas City have recently developed a new all-electric car which has been successfully tested on Bridgestone’s Texas Proving Grounds.

Before joining the cleaner production component in the industry (CPI), during the production process, Ngoc Lap tea factory used to encounter major environmental problems such as high concentration of dust, noise pollution, and smoke from burning coal, which directly affected the working conditions of employees, worsen living condition in the neighborhoods and schools near the factory. The amount of carbon dioxide emission from the plant is about 2,500 tons per year.

Two co-authors Nguyen Trong Kien and Nguyen Van Hoang of Nguyen Hoang Tuy Company (Ho Chi Minh City) have successfully implemented a system for remote control and supervision of public lighting, detection of electrical leak system via SMS. Accordingly, in addition to remote controlling lighting of public lamps, the system is also capable of detecting current leakage status and reporting to the management department for prompt react.

Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC), an industry leader in tidal, river and deep-water ocean current energy technology and projects, announced today that its Beta Power System, the largest ocean energy "power plant" ever installed in U.S. waters, has successfully generated grid-compatible power from tidal currents at its Cobscook Bay site in Eastport, Maine.

One of the largest orchards in Massachusetts has just cut its utility bill 80% with a $1.1 million 220 KW solar power plant. The state of Massachusetts helped Carlson Orchards with grants totaling $595,000 to help in the installation of the 1,050 solar photovoltaic panels.

One purpose of developing solar power technology is to support the load for the national grid and enable consumers to use EVN’s electricity at peak hours with price of off-peak hours (price of grid electricity at night is only 500 dong per Kwh, while during peak hour it is about 2000 dong, calculated accumulatively).

The Prime Minister has approved a VND3trillion project to train and develop human resources for the atomic energy field from now until 2020.

Cassava is widely known as a popular food used for breeding activity and in some other food processing industries. Few people, however, know that cassava is now the main material for producing the E5 bio-gasoline. While preparing for the market introduction of E5 bio-gasoline, Petrol Viet Nam Corporation and PV OIL have already set up a plan to plant cassava to use as raw material for production of clean gasoline.

According to the researchers at Edinburgh Napier University, whisky is being used to develop a new biofuel, which could power cars and even airplanes in a few years. They found a new way to produce biofuel from two main byproducts of the whisky distilling process: “draff”, the spent grains and “pot ale”, the liquid from the copper stills.

When you think of electric cars, you generally mean two terms in which they exist: autonomy vs charging infrastructure. These two words compete with each other to a certain point, because higher autonomy means less infrastructure needed, hence faster adoption by the market.

This has led to the increased production of PV cells not only in Europe but also in Taiwan and china. China alone produces 2GW solar cells annually. In February 2010 the price of electricity using PV panel is $4.27 per watt. Today the price of photovoltaic cells of different companies is different. The General electric solar panel costs $ 228 to $385. This trend would decline with more competition.

Intimex Thanh Chuong Tapioca Factory, under Nghe An Intimex branch, was put into operation in 2004. The factory has increased the capacity twice: from 60 to 120 tons per day and from 120 to 180 tons per day. Its coal consumption and the rate of raw cassava over cassava products used to be much higher compared to other factories in Vietnam which have similar scale. Consumption of the company in 2008: 3.7 million kWh of electricity per year; 2.8 million kilograms of coal; 27,000 kilograms of diesel oil. After joining the Component of Cleaner Production in industry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, leaders of the company has made several concrete measures in energy efficiency.