Cleantech and Environmental News – Latest Headlines

Bringing climate-change lessons out of the lab

McGill University Biology Professor Catherine Potvin, a renowned expert on climate change and tropical-forest ecology, will begin sharing insights from her laboratory|s research through a novel series of videos to be made available online starting this week.

April 3, 2013 Read more

Hydrogen storage for energy efficient buildings

Accounting for some 40% of all energy consumption, the building sector is one of Europe's most energy consuming. And as the vast majority of this power comes from fossil fuels, increasing energy efficiency, reducing CO2 emissions and using Renewable Energy Sources (RES) has in recent years become priority.

April 3, 2013 Read more

WWF: Maintenance of fossil fuel subsidies is a global scandal, supporting IMF findings

The continued maintenance of fossil fuel subsidies is a global scandal and governments should work to transform these subsidies into financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy, says WWF, responding to a report released last week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

March 30, 2013 Read more

Bacterial boost for clean energy

Joseph Miceli, a researcher at ASU's Biodesign Institute, studies specialized microorganisms known as anode respiring bacteria (ARB). Rather than investigating their role in health and disease however, his research explores the ability of these microbes to clean up waste and produce useful energy in the form of electricity or hydrogen.

March 30, 2013 Read more

Picking apart photosynthesis

New insights from Caltech chemists could lead to better catalysts for water splitting.

March 29, 2013 Read more

'Waste heat' may economize CO2 capture (w/video)

In some of the first results from a federally funded initiative to find new ways of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants, Rice University scientists have found that CO2 can be removed more economically using 'waste' heat - low-grade steam that cannot be used to produce electricity.

March 28, 2013 Read more

Discovery opens door to efficiently storing and reusing renewable energy

Two University of Calgary researchers have developed a ground-breaking way to make new affordable and efficient catalysts for converting electricity into chemical energy.

March 28, 2013 Read more

U.S. Dept. of Energy launches the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has unveiled a new initiative to support American manufacturing of clean energy products, including solar technologies and batteries, with a focus on improving productivity.

March 28, 2013 Read more

UCSB summit draws key leaders to discuss innovations in energy efficiency science and technology

The 2013 Summit on Energy Efficiency will bring together leading experts to discuss the latest innovations in materials science and technology for energy generation, energy storage, lighting, and electronics.

March 27, 2013 Read more

Making 'the cloud' greener

As the world becomes increasingly digital, demand for data centres is booming - and so too is their energy consumption. Data centres worldwide produce around half the volume of emissions of the global aviation industry and more than the total emissions of the Netherlands. EU-funded researchers are developing ways to reduce data centres' environmental impact.

March 27, 2013 Read more

Australia and China agree to work together on carbon markets

Experts from the University of New South Wales will begin work with leading Chinese universities in a landmark collaboration to be announced in Sydney this week.

March 27, 2013 Read more

China's power utilities exposed to water disruption

China's 'Big Five' power utilities have hundreds of gigawatts of thermal power plants in water-stressed areas and face retrofit costs of up to $20 billion to improve their resilience, new report finds.

March 27, 2013 Read more

What's going on with Chinese solar?

The bankruptcy of Chinese solar energy company Suntech Wuxi is being depicted in the media as a sign of chaos in the solar industry.

March 27, 2013 Read more

Meeting the computing challenges of next-generation climate models

Berkeley Lab hosts international workshop as climate scientists find themselves in a deluge of data.

March 26, 2013 Read more

Discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from CO2 in the atmosphere

Researchers at the University of Georgia have found a way to transform the carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere into useful industrial products. Their discovery may soon lead to the creation of biofuels made directly from the carbon dioxide in the air.

March 26, 2013 Read more

Researchers make breakthrough in race to create 'bio-batteries'

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have made an important breakthrough in the quest to generate clean electricity from bacteria.

March 26, 2013 Read more

Using fluctuating wind power

Researchers propose a new strategy to optimize power-generation efficiency and so better control wind farms.

March 25, 2013 Read more

A marine animal to feed your eco-car

The marine animal tunicate can be used both as biofuel and fish food, according to research from Norway. On the ocean floor, under the pier, and on ship ropes -- that's where the tunicates live. Tunicates are marine filter feeders that serve as bacteria eaters and as a foodstuff in Korea and Japan. But in the future they may become more prevalent.

March 25, 2013 Read more