• Smarter electric grid key to saving power, I

    Power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter; it will stop being merely a passive supplier of juice; installing smart controls in homes would allow consumers to decide how much energy they need at what price

  • Straw power planned

    With more and more companies turning to biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, a debate has erupted over the food-energy trade-off involved; a Welsh company bypasses this debate by planning to generate energy from straw

  • Partnership to produce sugarcane-based diesel

    High corn prices have driven California-based biofuel specialist Amyris to join with a Brazilian company to produce sugarcane-based diesel

  • Modernizing the U.S. electrical grid

    The U.S. Department of Energy will invest $50 million in demonstration project aiming to improve efficiency in the U.S. electricity grid

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  • How much water is needed to produce various types of energy?

    Most of the energy we consume requires the use of water for its generation; water is a dwindling resource, so researchers wanted to know how much water is required to produce different types of energy

  • NTR invests in SES

    Irish renewable energy company buys controlling interest in SES; SES is developing two of the world’s largest solar generating projects in the Imperial Valley and Mojave Desert

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  • Paris airport first in Europe to use geothermal power

    Paris-Orly airport sits on a hot water table where the water temperature reaches 74 degrees C (165 degrees F) at a depth of 5,500 feet; management thought it would be a good idea to build a geothermal station to exploit this source of energy

  • Ontario invests in harnessing river flow for energy

    New York City already has it: A Free Flow Turbine in the East River which will generate 10 MW when the project is completed; now Ontario wants to place a three-blade, horizontal-axis turbine on the floor of the St. Lawrence River

  • USGS says Bakken Formation holds large recoverable oil, gas reserves

    U.S. Geological Survey assesses Bakken Formation to Hold 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil — 25 times more than 1995 estimate; in addition, assessment also identified 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids

  • Energy from vortices

    When water flows over an underwater obstacle, whirlpools or vortices form alternately above and below it; the vortices create a tugging effect, so the result is an alternating force that yanks the object up and down; Wolverines researchers want to harness the power of vortices to generate energy

  • The future of U.K. nuclear power

    In the last five years the U.K. government has been vigorously promoting the idea of a U.K. nuclear power revival; John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform explains the government’s policy

  • Next-generation nuclear fuel may be too hot to handle: report

    It sounded like a good idea: Enrich the uranium used to power nuclear reactors further so that operators will be able to extract more electricity from a given amount of fuel; trouble is, burn-up rates above a certain point would violate U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety standards unless new methods were devised for packaging the fuel

  • Clean Diesel licenses WMF technology to China's Headway

    The U.S. EPA gave Clean Diesel’s Wire Mesh Filter technology high marks, and China needs it: At the beginning of the year it signed up to the Euro IV PM emission standards for light and medium duty trucks; a clean diesel technology will allow it to meet the treaty’s standards

  • NRG, Toshiba to promote ABWRs

    There are serious questions about the security of Boiling-Water Reactor (BWR) design and construction, questions which Advanced Boiling-Water Reactor (ABWR) design was supposed to answer; not everyone is convinced; NRG Energy, Toshiba to promote and build ABWRs in the United States

  • Saudis set up special force to protect critical insrastructure

    In February 2006 al Qaeda terrorists tried to blow up the world’s largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq; the Saudi government responded by setting up a 15,000-strong special force to protect oil, gas, and water desalination infrastructure