The standard solar cell uses silicon oxide, which is expensive and environmentally toxic. One of the promising alternatives is the so-called “Grätzel cell”, a cheaper, cleaner alternative based on more abundant titanium oxide. However, they don’t last long because this type of dye-sensitized cell uses an electrolyte made (more…)

The Olympic torch has arrived in the U.K. and is now making its way to London for the 2012 Summer Olympics. This capital city is striving to keep its pledge to ensure that these Games will include social innovation and be the greenest games ever. A new progress report, ‘Delivering Change’ was released this April suggests the London planning committee is (more…)

AT&T is a well known American multinational telecommunications corporation and second largest mobile telephony and fixed telephony provider in the United States. Its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas and it is the largest non-oil related company in the state as well as the largest headquarters. Forbes magazine, in 2011, listed AT&T as the fourteenth largest (more…)

I just read the Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac and noted that it’s the birthday of May Swenson, an author of the 20th Century who once wrote to a friend, “Not to need illusion—to dare to see and say how things really are, is the emancipation I would like to attain.”

It’s true that we force-fit the facts into our theories. (more…)

Europe’s ‘economic powerhouse’ can add solar to its epithet. Germany’s solar power plants reached a generation milestone of 22 GW of electricity per hours. That is the same as 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity.

According to a Reuters report, that amount of (more…)

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has vetoed critical revisions to the nation’s Forest Code that environmental advocates said would lead to rampant deforestation of the Amazon.

Speaking to reporters, government officials said Rousseff had vetoed 12 of the 84 articles in (more…)

If you’ve been thinking about brushing up on your knowledge of alternative energy, Stanford University may have the opportunity you were looking for.

The university is offering an online program called Energy Innovation and Emerging Technologies exploring emerging technologies that offer a new way (more…)

With a PUC vote on the horizon, the final tally is in! Solar, environmental, public interest and science groups banded together to help Californians send nearly 60,000 messages asking the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to expand a popular clean energy program called net metering. (more…)

Who among us has not eagerly described the smart meter to a non-energy person only to be greeted by a blank stare, or worse the retort: “Why would I want to track my electricity costs all day?”

You try to explain the profound applications: smart appliances that talk to the power grid, consumer (more…)

BELECTRIC, a German solar power company, has helped the solar industry achieve a historic milestone with the installation of more than 1 GW of photovoltaic solar power. The amount corresponds to the system output of a large conventional power plant.

“This is an outstanding event for BELECTRIC and the (more…)