One man showed the world, just how possible it is to circumnavigate the globe using renewable energy, Louis Palmer, a Swiss teacher. Five teams from four continents have picked up the trail and Palmer’s shining example and will set out on a race, all around the world, using electric vehicles. The Zero Emissions Race will have competitors from Australia, Germany, South Korea and Switzerland, starting off the race at Geneva and crossing the checkered flag there. To complete this journey, 18,642 miles (30,000 kilometers) will be traveled by road, all powered by electricity. Using solar panels to power up the vehicles, the racers will make around 150 stops in different cities around the globe and inspire people to go green! We wish the Zero Emissions Race competitors all the luck they’ll need while overcoming this green journey.

[Treehugger]

A place for recreation and a chance to get closer to the oceans, marinas now go green too. The Marina Industry Association of Australia, or the MIAA, is planning to wipe out the carbon footprint left behind by marinas. Since marinas sell fuel and indulge in a few other carbon footprint stamping activities, certified carbon credits can be brought instead to clean up its act. Marinas nowadays are also playing a hand in the treatment and recycling of waste water, which can then be used for washing vessels and equipment. Take the Gold Coast City Marina on Queensland's Gold Coast for example. This marina has implemented a rainwater harvesting system, in which water is collected and stored in large above ground tanks and pumped for use using taps.

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Automobile manufacturer Nissan recently joined hands with Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the same under terms that the firms together will develop a CO2-free island off the coast of Japan's southern end. Christened simply as the "Development of a CO2-Free Island," this project will help promote the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy on the island of Yakushima in Japan. The island boasts some amazing and breathtaking views and is filled with rich sceneries, century old trees and can easily generate energy from hydropower. Nissan also hopes that the vehicles it plans to develop for the future will be used on this island

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Writing on a wall and putting up pictures there hasn’t been so much fun, until Facebook, the good old social networking site that has turned out to be the newest addiction of the 21st century. Well, all said and done, Facebook is a great way to socialize from your PC. This isn’t really green though, and Greenpeace has brought it to the world’s notice. Constantly pinching Facebook for not being as green as it should really be, Greenpeace yet again has raised an eyebrow at the website that plans to expand its under-construction data center in Prineville, Ore. The current phase of the data center will be 147,000 square feet, to be completed by spring 2011, while the extension will boast an additional 160,000 square foot of facility space.

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After destroying most of its surrounding environment, the Macondo in the Gulf of Mexico has finally and successfully been clogged up. A cementing of the well was done, with cement and mud being used to clog up, using what will be the world’s most expensive plug. Out of the big bucks spent for this one, BP poured in an astounding 6 billion dollars used to try to contain and clean-up the oil spill. The expenses also included payouts in grants to the Gulf States, claims paid, and federal costs. The oil spill has indeed had a terrible impact on the environment, a disaster, with 5 million barrels of oil leaking and creating havoc over 87 days.

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You probably might have watched the newest sensation to hit theaters across the globe, Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, a movie that somewhat confuses you to the point of praise. Movie reviews aside, the shooting of this one was a green affair. Leonardo recently uploaded a bunch of pictures on Facebook, capturing the solar panels that were used to power up this movie. Some of the generators, according to the star, were all powered with energy from the sun. And the fact that a movie star for a change practices what he preaches, and actually cares so much for the environment, tends to inspire a greener thought.

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Well, there’s a lot more green news from India, this time from the President’s place of residence, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, wherein resides the President, Pratibha Patil, who just completed three years in office. The building was awarded an International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001:2004 Certificate, owing to the fact that it is now the country's first urban habitat with excellent environmental management systems. President Pratibha Patil has more reason to smile, taken that her home uses a bunch of energy-saving measures, waste segregation and recycling program, involving a self-help group of women.

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We’ve just stumbled across some bad news from China, the country we love for its innovativeness and technologically sound population. The country has exceeded the United States, turning into the world’s largest energy-consuming nation. According to a data report by the International Energy Agency, china is fast turning into an economic superpower and an industrial giant, at a cost, which indirectly will take its toll on the environment. An increased power consumption rate causes extra energy need. This obviously darkens carbon footprints. Owing to China’s rise in the world economy, oil and coal prices have increased too! Just last year, the nation guzzled 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent, 4% more than the U.S.

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Now who’d think all that extra renewable energy would actually leave people in trouble too? Remember what mother would say? “Too much of a good thing isn’t good anymore”. And that’s just what has occurred this time. Tapping wind energy pretty much seems to be the right way to power up, with help from solar energy and similar renewable energy sources. But at times, all this energy is a bit too much to handle. May 19th, a thousand wind turbines in the Columbia River Gorge spun to glory, in a single hour, creating as much energy as two nuclear power plants. The Bonneville Power Administration control room in Vancouver was in a tizzy, as the grid and its powerlines struggled to cope with all this extra energy.

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The world is finding more and more uses for solar energy today, more than even those the sun himself would every dream of. Exploiting the sun of its generousness seems to be the best way to power up our lives today. Solar energy will now be used to clear up the air too, helping out our green leafed friends with the process of ridding the atmosphere of CO2. Carbon sequestration and subsequent storage in geological formations seem pretty much possible today. Now if those words seem too out-worldly for you, here a simpler version. Using solar energy to capture CO2 out of the air and convert it into solid carbon is much easier today, thanks to some new developments. And the captured carbon isn’t going to land up in a stockpile of waste. It has its uses too, including the formation of hydrocarbons that can be re-used to make fuel or plastics.

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Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Every destructive hurricane has something beautiful come to life in its aftermath. Well at least the hurricane Katrina did. New Orleans is busy building back its bubbling community after having suffered the wrath of the terrible forces of nature. This time though, they seem intent on respecting nature a lot more than they used to. American BuildingStudio thinks this really to be a good time for New Orleans to go green, while being built up again. Rainwater harvesting, solar power and gray water reuse could help out a lot. Keeping that as a thought, the New Orleans Botanical Garden recently commissioned a small demonstration pavilion to show how technologies make the life of a homeowner simpler, cleaner and greener.

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An oil baron probably wouldn’t support a green cause, like the promotion of solar energy, unless he really had a green heart. Well, if you do remember the scheming oil baron from Texas on the television show “Dallas”, here’s news for you. The actor, Larry Hagman chooses to play J. R. in an advertising campaign now that will promote SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker, and solar energy too. The commercial has Hagman speak about his switch to solar energy, with him walking past a portrait of J. R. in younger days and a TV showing images of an offshore oil rig and blackened waters, probably a news report on the Gulf disaster.

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The United States Army is going green, greener than the green on their green camouflage uniforms that is. And to do so, the force is soon to release a list of five candidate installations for conversion to net-zero status. In short, the force will have five of its bases go completely green, self-sufficient, and plugged off the grid. As a start, four army houses at Fort Bliss base in Texas will pull the plug from the grid, and the families in them will keep note of the affect. The Fort Bliss has currently shed three megawatts of power consumption and is looking forward to do more. It aims to go net-zero, meaning that it will create as much energy as it consumes.

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Americans are in need of employment, clean energy and a better environment too. And an answer to all this comes in form of the Department of Energy’s $1.8 billion award to Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing as a funding for new solar power plants. This is part of the $862 billion the United States has kept aside to reduce oil dependency, protect the environment, and create sustainable jobs. Based in Arizona, Abengoa Solar, will build the world’s largest solar power plant that will keep away 475,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Ground breaking will start from this fall, with construction completion dates set in mid-2013.

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Putting out fires is what the guys at the fire station do, while the unbeatable flame, the burning sun, now powers up their work place. The state’s first solar-powered fire station at West Sayville, New York, is all set to go greener with a lot more solar power and is gearing up for an extension of its solar-energy system. The West Sayville-Oakdale Fire District, as announced by U.S. Representative Steve Israel, will receive funding for a 10-kilowatt solar array that will help reduce the fire station’s electricity bill by a sweet $2,000 per year.

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