Bright winter sun dissolves a blanket of snow on barn roofs to reveal a bold new sideline for Jean-Luc Westphal: besides producing eggs and grains, he is to generate solar power for thousands of homes. Economic crisis has cast doubt on funding hopes for many big renewable energy projects, but the giant panels built into [...]
Alternative Energy
Start-Up Plans Electric-Car Network
SAN FRANCISCO — Better Place, a start-up company developing technology to support electric cars, Thursday announced plans for a $1 billion network to charge electric cars in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of a broad push into the U.S. The closely held Palo Alto, Calif., company, founded by former SAP AG executive Shai [...]
Green supercars offer high performance with clean conscience
As America scrambles to pay for ever-more expensive gas and abandons buying new SUV guzzlers in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, automakers are scrambling even harder to produce the high-mileage, lower-emissions vehicles they think people will buy. But how are the makers of supercars, whose engines environmental experts say emit about three times the [...]
Methanol: Renewable energy could power tomorrow’s cars
For those fed up with the stark reality of high gas prices, the idea of powering a car on fuel made from cheap, abundantly available and completely renewable sources like municipal garbage or even seaweed must seem a pipe dream. But according to Frank Markus, technical director for Motor Trend magazine, the notion of vehicles [...]
Miniature solar cells power up
Miniature solar cells – about a quarter the size of this ‘o’ – have been tested in the US as a power source for microscopic machines. Xiamei Jiang and colleagues at the University of South Florida made an array of 20 such cells, to show they could power a tiny sensor for detecting dangerous chemicals.