What do fireflies, nanorods, and Christmas lights have in common? Someday, consumers may be able to purchase multicolor strings of light that don't need electricity or batteries to glow. Scientists at Syracuse University found a new way to harness the natural light produced by fireflies (called bioluminescence) using nanoscience. Their breakthrough ( Read more... )

Solar cookers are great and all, but they need the sun to function. This means you can't use them to cook the evening meal after the sun has gone down, or cook breakfast before the sun as come up...and that seriously limits the use of solar cookers in the places where they can do the most good ( Read more... )

Europe is having a love affair with offshore wind-energy farms, and no wonder. The wind is stronger and steadier out at sea than it is on most land areas, and you can build turbines close to population centers without having to compete for real estate. Wind power is also one way to meet the world’s growing energy needs without fouling the ( Read more... )

Small farms may be better for food security and biodiversity
We often assume the only way to feed the world's rapidly growing human population is with large-scale industrial agriculture. Many would argue that genetically altering food crops is also necessary to produce large enough quantities on smaller areas to feed the world's people.

But recent ( Read more... )

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Southampton to be energy industry hub

SOUTHAMPTON is poised to become a major hub for the renewable energy industry as new, multi-million-pound plans gather pace to develop an enormous wind farm in the Channel.

Quick to spot the lucrative potential of an emerging market, organisers of this week’s Seawork 2010, the biggest exhibition of its type in ( Read more... )

Imagine if you could generate electricity using nuclear power that emitted no radioactivity: it would be the answer to the world's dream of finding a clean, sustainable energy source.

That is the great hope raised by researchers who believe they have found a radical new path to the ultimate goal of solving the world's energy crisis through nuclear ( Read more... )

Bacteria can be used to turn dirty salt water into electricity and drinkable water, according to new research from scientists at Penn State University and Tsinghua University.The research presents a new spin on microbial fuel cells, which have been used in the past to produce electricity or store it as hydrogen or methane gas ( Read more... )