Cleantech and Environmental News – Latest Headlines

Kuwait invites bids for first solar energy project

Kuwait invited bids on Wednesday to build a solar farm to produce 70 megawatts of electricity by 2016, the first phase of a plan to generate 2,000 megawatts from renewables in 2030, the project supervisor said.

June 12, 2013 Read more

Small and medium-sized companies sharing fleets of electric vehicles

Imagine a number of different companies sharing a single fleet of electric vehicles... Fraunhofer IAO and eight project partners are busy working out just how to make this vision a reality.

June 11, 2013 Read more

Turning a building green is a question of control

Managing the building's different energy processes is key to ensure both higher energy efficiency and users' comfort, but users hold part of the responsibility.

June 11, 2013 Read more

Wood not so green a biofuel

Using wood for energy is considered cleaner than fossil fuels, but a Dartmouth College-led study finds that logging may release large amounts of carbon stored in deep forest soils.

June 11, 2013 Read more

Testing artificial photosynthesis

Berkeley Lab researchers develop fully integrated microfluidic test-bed for solar-driven electrochemical energy conversion systems.

June 10, 2013 Read more

Study provides a new framework for understanding the energetics of ionic liquids

A new study by researchers at UC Santa Barbara provides clues into the understanding of the behavior of the charged molecules or particles in ionic liquids. The new framework may lead to the creation of cleaner, more sustainable, and nontoxic batteries, and other sources of chemical power.

June 7, 2013 Read more

Innovative solar cell structure stores and supplies energy simultaneously

In a quest for a smaller, more self-sustaining solar power source, a University of Wisconsin-Madison electrical engineer has proposed a design for solar panels that can simultaneously generate power from sunlight and store power reserves for later, all within a single device.

June 7, 2013 Read more

Common sense won't help you understand climate

Unfortunately, many of the systems we need to understand, such as the climate, ecosystems and financial markets, are complex. Complex systems often behave in very nonlinear ways, meaning that common sense and intuition fail.

June 7, 2013 Read more

Borehole thermal energy storage system integrated in solar heating network

Solar thermal energy meets half the heating requirements in the residential area.

June 6, 2013 Read more

New all-solid sulfur-based battery outperforms lithium-ion technology

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics.

June 5, 2013 Read more

Sopcawind, a tool for optimising wind parks

The European Sopcawind (Software for the Optimal Place Calculation for Wind-farms) project has designed the Sopcawind Tool web application.

June 5, 2013 Read more

Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade

Global temperature report: May 2013.

June 5, 2013 Read more

Roman seawater concrete holds the secret to cutting carbon emissions

Scientists have discovered the properties that made ancient Roman concrete sustainable and durable.

June 4, 2013 Read more

Crash-testing lithium-ion batteries

Laboratory crash tests show both vulnerabilities and ways to improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries used in electric and hybrid vehicles.

June 4, 2013 Read more

Ultrasound 'making waves' for enhancing biofuel production

All chefs know that 'you have to break some eggs to make an omelet', and that includes engineers at Iowa State University who are using high-frequency sound waves to break down plant materials in order to cook up a better batch of biofuel.

May 31, 2013 Read more

US shale-gas and European renewables: Divergence and cooperation in alternative energy

That the United States and Europe have been following different energy policies over the past few decades won't come as a surprise. However, according to one researcher, their divergence - with the US leading 'the shale gas revolution' and Europe investing heavily in modern renewables - is a good thing for the development of both alternative-energy sources.

May 30, 2013 Read more

Identifying hotspots: Climate Impacts World Conference

Researchers identified a number of hotspots both of global climate change impacts and the science that deals with them. New analyses presented at the Impacts World 2013 Conference this week in Potsdam, Germany, revealed that the Amazon region, east Africa and the Mediterranean will experience serious change if greenhouse-gas emissions continue unabated.

May 30, 2013 Read more

Pioneering system for measuring offshore wind farms set up in Badalona

Neptune, a pioneering system that performs offshore wind measurements, has begun to operate today at the Petroleum Bridge in Badalona. It consists of an eOLOS buoy to measure velocity profiles and wind direction high above sea level, and NEPTool, a tool that predicts wind speed, sea currents and waves in the short and long term with high spatial and temporal resolution.

May 30, 2013 Read more