China boasts the fastest growing economy in the world. It is also one of the most populous and also considered to be the most resourceful. So when such a country takes a leap into thinking green, the developed side of the world needs to pay attention and follow the lead. The State Grid Corporation of China and BYD have unveiled what they claim to be the world’s largest battery energy storage station. It combines 40 mega-watts of renewable energy generation, 36 mega-watt-hours of energy storage and a smart power transmission system. The project’s aim is to provide a ‘stable solution for transferring vast amounts of renewable electricity safely to the grid on an unprecedented scale’.

More...

Let us be honest – a laptop is something that is growing to be a necessity, much more than just a want or luxury. While companies race to develop technologies to meet consumer requirements and comfort, few pay attention to the environment it adversely affects. Non-profit organization One Laptop Per Child has launched its XO 3.0 tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, claimed to be inexpensive, use little energy and brave extreme weather conditions. The tablet can be powered by solar power and the like. Its features include the Marvell ARMADA PXA618 SOC processor, Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, standard or Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display, and supports Android and Linux operating systems. The organization intends to ‘get a low-cost, low-power laptop in the hands of every student on the planet’, especially those in developing countries. By March, they plan to ship more than 75,000 units of the XO 1.75 laptop to students Uruguay and Nicaragua. Source:

While New York sees it every year, the rest of the world has awed at its magnificence through movies. The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is a legendary icon and every festive season since 1933 has been more colorful in mid-town Manhattan with scintillating lights from this majestic tree. This year, the 74-foot Norway Spruce is lit up with 30,000 LED solar powered bulbs. Combining brilliance with an eco-thought, this year’s tree will further serve heart-warming causes, namely, having the wood provided to homes for Habitat for Humanity. Also, the tree’s pulp will be used to make paper for children’s books. This is what a festive season signifies – a big heart and concern for the mankind at large.

More...

As you read this, four robots are flying over land and seas from the Silicon Valley towards Australia and Japan in a bid to break a record as well as help bring the scientific world a level of data of oceans that has never been attained. The Wave Gliders built by Liquid Robotics hopes to set the Guinness World Record for the longest distance traveled on the surface of the Earth by a robot. These robots are autonomous and self-powered. They are designed to move by "flapping" wings that are propelled by wave action. Further more their various sensors are powered by solar.

More...

Japan’s Sharp has made a world record with the world’s highest solar cell conversion efficiency. It will feature a stacked three-layer structure. The cells make use of these photo-absorption layers that are made from compounds which comprise of two or more elements. This technology was the outcome of a research and development initiative that was promoted by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

[Ubergizmo]

Nissan has been awarded the 2011 World Car of the Year for its electric vehicle Nissan Leaf. The car is ranked as the most efficient EPA certified vehicle in the US for all fuels. The company is very serious about its environmentally friendly products and has implied this on their head quarters as well. It recycles rainwater and has a magnifying glass on the roof which directs sunlight into the building improving the natural lighting as well as regulating the temperature in the building. It also has 500 solar panels located on the roof that helps power a storage battery system for electric cars that allows people to charge their cars at the building. Nissan is aiming at promoting these solar storage batteries which allows home owners to capture the sun’s energy and store it to power their house as well as their vehicles.

More...

The KOA Convention starting on November 6 in Las Vegas will unveil a unique environmentally friendly park model cottage. The new off-grid solar-powered model cottage by Cavco Industries has Emerald status rated by NTA Inc. The unit is built with 2-by-6 sidewalls and features cork flooring, formaldehyde-free fiberglass wall insulation and phase change insulation in the ceiling, environmentally friendly adhesives, sealants and coatings to maximize insulation and improving indoor air quality as well as composite decking, an instant hot-water heater, a dual flush toilet that uses about 1.2 gallons per flush, Energy Star appliances and energy-saving LED lighting. It comes with solar panels but if there is lack of sun, it can receive electricity from wind turbines and even hydroelectric power. If none of this helps, it also has a 6-KW Generac battery charging system for backup power.

More...

Phil Pauley has unveiled a new hybrid solar and wave energy generator called Marine Solar Cells (MSC) aimed at creating a clean, sustainable and economically viable source of energy. The solar-wave plant will help to capture large-scale renewable energy and can also be helpful in offshore energy generation and local marine conservation. The unit captures wave energy through natural buoyancy displacement and solar energy through photovoltaic cells. The cells require minimal maintenance and help generate higher energy yields.

More...

Batman would have wanted one of these. Maybe for its looks, but for the common man with no super powers to boast, this is a pretty neat recycled BMW lookalike. In the city of Perm in Russia, this car was spotted featuring recycled tires and with wings. It is artistically done and makes you awe at the effort and thought that has gone into it. There isn’t much more than this we know about this winged model. But this is art and here it is to stare and admire in all its glory.

More...

Toyota has shown that it is electrically-charged. Its TMG EV P001 has broken the existing lap record for an electric vehicle on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 7 minutes, 47.79 seconds and zooming past Nissan GT-R, Porsche 911 Turbo and Peugeot's EX1. This news is supposed to help boost the EV P001 sales which will begin next year. This is like the final tests the company did to check whether the car could perform in extreme circumstances. Its powertrain includes components from Rational Motion and EVO Electric.

More...

BMW has released its new eco-friendly LPG-powered Hurricane M5 GS, which claims to be the fastest LPG-powered car in the world – with its ability to go from zero to 100kmph in 4.6secs. Tuning specialists G-Power has equipped the car with one fully sequential five-cylinder LPG system per cylinder bank. The reason they used LPG was, as they explained, because LPG cheaper than petrol and also reduces CO2 emissions by around 15 per cent. The car features a V10 engine producing 660 horsepower and 650Nm of torque at 5,500 rpm. It can reach up to 200kmph and other features include a G-Power RS coil-over sport suspension, high performance braking system, 20-inch Silverstone Clubsport alloys and 255/35 front and 285/30 rear tires.

More...

It had to happen eventually and the time is now. Apple is going green for its iPhone, iPad and MAC users by patenting portable solar powered devices. They are trying to find out a way to ‘reliably’ charge rechargeable batteries in these devices. The patent inserts a power control circuit between the solar power source and the battery. To deal with the unreliability of the sun’s powers, the invention also is smart enough to monitor the bad electrical power dribbling from the solar cell and polish it for the rechargeable cell.

[iPhoneapples]

It’s in New York and so it is great news! US Energy has finalised a $17.1 million loan for the construction of a 20 megawatt energy storage system using advanced lithium ion battery. The AES project will be located in Johnson City and will improve stability for the associated mains power grid and reduce carbon emissions. This project will use battery technology and a new software to provide the same regulation currently being used but at a lower price.

More...

Until now we have heard of how sunlight could be used as a form of alternative energy. Here is a ‘break through’ in science – American and Swiss researchers from California Institue of Technology and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology respectively, have found out a way to make fuel from sunlight. They developed a prototype device that directly converts the sun’s rays into fuels that can be stored. This energy can then be used at night when there is no sun or even be transported to areas with no sunlight. It uses a quartz window and cavity to focus the sunlight into a cylinder which is lined with cerium oxide, is an oxide of the rare earth metal cerium and is a pale yellow-white powder. It can attract and hold water molecules from the surrounding environment and also absorbs a small amount of carbon dioxide. As the sunlight heats the ceria, it breaks down the water and carbon dioxide pumped into the cylinder to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen that can be converted to a liquid fuel.

More...

What a thoughtful Christmas gift! For folks in Japan that is, for the rest of the world’s green-loving book worms, maybe a birthday gift. Japan is launching the KDDI biblio leaf SPO2 e-reader tomorrow, on Christmas Day. A few of the e-reader features are a 6-inch E Ink display, a microSD expansion slot, a stylus and in-built 3G. The device has a battery life of up to 13,000 pages thanks to the small solar panel located on its bottom right. So if you are located in one of the hotter regions of the globe, the more you sit and bask in the sun for a perfect tan, the more enlightened you can be by reading. The e-reader uses the LISMO Book store and currently provides 20,000 titles which the company explains will increase by five times by the year 2012.

More...