Dear Germany, When You Get To The Green Future, Please Throw The Rest Of Us A Rope!

Hailing from Freiburg, Germany, Rolf Disch is a renowned architect that has put his little city front and center on the eco-map. Literally transforming Freiburg into Germany’s eco-capital where about 35% of residents don’t own a car and new homes routinely incorporate photovoltaic panels. And now, a popular destination for tourist world-wide seeking the reality of sustainable architecture and the inspiration for better eco-friendly housing options for their future. (more…)

The Ability of Light to Produce Electrons, and Thus Electricity, Has Been Known For Over 100 Years.

At the Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratories, scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used. (more…)

REC – An All In One Solar Company

Headquartered in Oslo – Norway, the REC Group is the world’s largest producer of silicon materials for photovoltaic (PV) applications and PV wafers, as well as a significant producer of cells and modules.

Simply put, one stop shopping in the photovoltaic manufacturing world. (more…)

Smart Water

A standalone desalinator needs 17 gallons of diesel fuel and 66.5 kilowatts of
electricity to make 1,000 gallons of freshwater, but now, the Solar Cube, (made
by Spectra Watermakers in California), churns out 1,500 gallons of drinking water
on just 22 kilowatts of its own solar and wind power. The innovation is a pump
that triples efficiency by recapturing hydraulic pressure during the filtering
process. Solar Cubes are now bringing freshwater to remote regions and places
short on infrastructure and electricity without paying the CO2 price – way cool. (more…)

Energy efficiency boom leads 9 clean technology predictions for 2009

SHANGHAI, China, December 4th, 2008 – Continuing an annual tradition, the Cleantech
Group™, founders of the cleantech investment category and providers of leading global
market research and financial services for the cleantech ecosystem, today issued nine
predictions for clean technology markets in 2009, forecasting progress in some sectors,
but delays and setbacks in others.

A reflection of undercurrents in the global clean technology category from the company’s
conversations with industry and government leadership worldwide, the nine predictions
include a global focus on energy efficiency as a job creation and economic engine, and an
increase in valuations of global wind companies. (more…)

Research and development in the area of OLED’s has been fast and furious
in the past few years. Numerous universities and corporations have leaped on
this exciting green innovation. OLEDs are organic light-emitting diodes,
organic because it relies on carbon-based polymers and molecules rather than
inorganic semiconductors such as silicon (like the standard LED.

Even the U.S. Department of Energy has jumped into the fray, which reports
approximately 22 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States goes
toward lighting. It’s a $58-billion-a-year bill and growing.  Through its
solid-state lighting research program, the energy department hopes to develop
commercially acceptable lights that will need 50 percent less electricity (more…)

Research scientist at two different universities are on the same path to
developing an inexpensive process that will allow you to paint on or print
out your own solar cells. Imagine, a simple and inexpensive energy alternative
for households around the world.

Last year it was reported that researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology
(NJIT) developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on
flexible plastic sheets. Lead researcher, Professor Somenath Mitra said, “The
process is simple, someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these
solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap (more…)