“ In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.”

Solar revolution

Via City of Sound:

The windy city

“ Power generation is not a one way street: the more power it produced the more it cost the environment. This realisation has changed our view of almost everything that consumes power, but not so much computers. Only recently have they become numerous enough to make an energy difference to our world, and more recently still, their power consumption has rocketed. ”

The push for greener PCs

“ A revolutionary new environmental biotechnology - the Microbial Fuel Cell - turns the treatment of organic wastes into a source of electricity. Fuel cell technology, despite its recent popularity as a possible solution for a fossil-fuel free future, is actually quite old. The principle of the fuel cell was discovered by German scientist Christian Friedrich Schónbein in 1838 and published in 1839. Based on this work, the first fuel cell was developed by Welsh scientist Sir William Robert Grove in 1843.”

From waste to power in one step

“ Most of us would love to run our homes on solar power - if only it wasn't so unreliable, cumbersome and expensive. But thanks to a pioneering factory in Wales, those objections may not apply for much longer.”

Solar power

“ Today, if you wanted eco-friendly illumination, you would have solar panels generate power during the day to run your T8 fluorescent bulbs at night. But what if you could just store daylight itself and save it 'till later?”

Things That Should Exist: Light Storage

“ The idea of gaining light from pedal power is not exactly new - kids have been riding bikes with dynamo-powered lights for years, and you can buy watches that never stop working as long as you remember to move your arm. But the Hong Kong scheme is one of a new wave of energy recapture ideas aimed at harnessing the surplus power of casual activities.”

Turning sweat into light

“ The viability of harnessing waves as a lucrative renewable energy source received a boost last week following the announcement that the world's first commercial wave energy project will begin delivering wave-generated energy to the north of Portugal later this month.”

New Wave Energy Project

This piece of news dates October 2006, I just found out about it via 3 Quarks Daily. I think that it should have had a much bigger news coverage.

“ Peak Oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production. Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, one that has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half. The rate of oil “production”, meaning extraction and refining (currently about 84 million barrels/day), has grown in most years over the last century, but once we go through the halfway point of all reserves, production becomes ever more likely to decline, hence “peak”. Peak Oil means not running out of oil, but running out of cheap oil. For societies leveraged on ever increasing amounts of cheap oil, the consequences may be dire. Without significant successful cultural reform, economic and social decline seems inevitable.”

Peak Oil primer

Powering Up, One Step at a Time

“ British engineers are converting street vibrations into electricity and predict a working prototype by Christmas capable of powering facility lights in the busiest areas of a city. “We can harvest between 5 to 7 watts of energy per footstep that is currently being wasted into the ground” says Claire Price, director of The Facility Architects, the British firm heading up the Pacesetters Project. “And a passing train can generate very useful energy to run signaling or to power lights.” Like solar and wind proponents, vibration harvesters argue that abundant, clean energy is all around us and goes to waste. The challenge is how to store the power efficiently so it provides a continual output even if the vibrations from footsteps or passing trains temporarily taper off.”

I don't really know how feasible vibration harvesting is but I agree with any research for alternative forms of energy.

On the Guardian: race to the world's energy hotspots

Like vultures flying all around a dying animal. Except, when the animal dies, we are likely to follow..