I attended a green energy conference nearly a decade ago in Washington, D.C., where several speakers expressed astonishment at the audience’s clothes. People were dressed in business attire. Where were the ponytails? The Birkenstocks?

The event marked a new age for green energy, the (more…)

Japanese geologists say they have located vast deposits of rare earth minerals — crucial to the production of high-tech electronics and components of the emerging green energy industry — 2 to 4 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

A team led by University of Tokyo researcher (more…)

Few places in the U.S. are as well suited to developing renewable energy as the contaminated sites known as “brownfields.” But as communities from Philadelphia to California are discovering, government support is critical to enable solar and wind entrepreneurs to make use of these abandoned lands. (more…)

“A gradual contraction into more sustainable patterns of resource use is not the norm for a society that is exploiting the environment. The norm is a last-ditch effort to maintain outward displays of power, and then a sudden, and dramatic, collapse.” That’s one of the foreboding statements with which Steve Hallett and John Wright punctuate their (more…)

What if the ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide that are heating up the atmosphere could be used to produce an abundant supply of liquid fuels? The U.S. government and private labs are pursuing that Holy Grail of renewable energy — but for now the cost of large-scale production is prohibitive. (more…)

For the past 40 years, Denmark has been synonymous with world-class green high-tech solutions. It began with wind technology as a solution to the 1970s oil crisis, but since then the Danish cleantech sector has evolved and now offers technologies within all types of sustainable energy, climate-friendly (more…)

In the recent weeks after Japan was ravaged by one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history and the tsunami that resulted, Fukushima has been used around the world as a rallying cry for those against the further development of nuclear power and in favor of renewable energy. While one energy crisis has been going on in Japan, however, there is one green energy story (more…)

As of March 15, Ontario’s green energy producers will be subject to a new set of fees for applications they make for feed-in tariff (FIT), microFIT, and other renewable power projects. The province has a rapidly-expanding market for solar, wind, and other clean power sources that has created thousands of kilowatts (kW) of green energy and boosted the careers of workers in these (more…)

A Dutch architectural company wonders if wind turbines can be transformed into objects of desire.

As desperate as the world is for consistent, renewable energy, some people have voiced opposition when the construction of a wind farm is proposed in their area. Apparently, everyone wants to reap the (more…)

In a move that will shake the global PV industry like an earthquake, the Italian Government approved on 3rd March a long awaited Renewable Energy Decree that marks an unanticipated, early end to its incredible solar race. After months of intense negotiations with Parliament and Industry representatives that seemed to have reached positive results, the Italian (more…)