Capturing excess heat to convert it into electricity can help the world become more energy-efficient, but currently technologies are expensive and not efficient enough. Panasonic is hoping to change that in the coming years with a tubular thermoelectric technology it has developed to tap wasted heat from sources such as hot springs and factories and (more…)

Two office buildings in Norway are being retrofitted so they will generate more power than they use when the project is completed next year.

The three- and four-story buildings, in the town of Sandvika, near Oslo, will generate geothermal and solar energy on site, making the buildings “energy (more…)

The continuing expansion of renewable energy technologies, advances in energy efficiency, and the rapid shift from coal to natural gas for generating electricity combined to bring down U.S. carbon dioxide emissions last year to their lowest levels since 1994, according to a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. (more…)

People all over the world respect the U.S. military, but not just for the justice they bring against criminals and enemies of the state. The U.S. military is also famous for their innovations beyond the realm of war; for example, the care to which they give their troops and their contributions to civil engineering are extraordinary. (more…)

California power utilities are now achieving more than 20 percent of the state’s electricity needs with renewable energy sources, state regulators say. In its latest quarterly report, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said that the state met 20.6 percent of its electricity demand with renewable sources — including wind, solar, and geothermal — (more…)

Japan’s struggle over its energy future was on display over the last two days as the government okayed restarting operations at two nuclear power plants while also approving an ambitious renewable energy feed-in tariff in which utilities will pay a premium for electricity generated by solar, wind, and geothermal power. (more…)

New Zealand is quietly becoming an alternative energy powerhouse. Industrial Info, a provider of global industrial market intelligence, currently tracks 25 local renewable energy projects in the planning and engineering phase that are scheduled to begin construction from 2012 onward. The projects total more than US$4.87 billion in investment value and (more…)

The developing nations resting on the continent of Africa have become in recent years popular destinations for applying clean technologies, including renewable energy. Because of the excessive cost associated with transporting electricity from power plants, small-scale geothermal, wind, and solar devices have (more…)

Madrid is the magnificent capital city of Spain, a European country that resides along the Iberian Peninsula. It is thought of to be a major global leader within the clean technology industry, including the fields of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and environmental sustainability. While it is a capital of a (more…)

Geothermal (Ground-Source) Heat Pumps (GHPs) make use of a completely different set of principles than the kind of geothermal we commonly discuss. Where the latter relies on the transfer of thermal energy from one fluid to another, like an egg placed in boiling water, the former relies on the principles of (more…)