Natural gas is considered an important part of the energy mix by many on the right and left because it can not only provide baseload power (generate a consistent amount of electricity reliably all the time), but natural gas can be used to fuel peaking and backup power plants which can be started quickly enough to backup malfunctioned power plants and avoid long blackouts in the event of a power shortage.

Trina Solar has set what looks to be a new world record for electricity produced by a multicrystalline solar PV module. A 156 x 156 millimeter, 60-cell module produced a peak 274 Watts of electrical power in laboratory testing, a result confirmed by TUV Rhineland.

A team of researchers at Michigan State University has solved the mystery of how Geobacter bacteria found in soils manage to clean up nuclear waste and generate electricity at the same time. Going a step further, the team genetically engineered a Geobacter strain that does an even better job of it.

There are two ways to lower the cost of producing energy through photovoltaics – more efficient solar cells (more power per square foot) and lower production costs (lower cost per square foot).

MicroGen Systems has been working on electricity-generating chips designed to power wireless sensors like those used to monitor tire pressure and environmental conditions.

Living on active volcanic islands has its downsides and its upsides. When it comes to the plus side, there’s the potential to use geothermal energy to produce significant amounts of cheap, clean, renewable electrical power. And that’s what’s happening on the ‘Big Island’ of Hawaii, where Ormat Technologies‘ Puna Geothermal Venture is producing about 20% of the electricity consumed on the island, eliminating the need to buy and burn some 144,000 barrels of oil a year.

In an undercover investigation, the Humane Society detailed the suffering endured by female breeding pigs.

Although touted by China as “conservation”, the country’s notorious tiger farms are actually commercial enterprises engaging in the internationally banned business of selling products derived from tigers.

Today’s fishwrap is tomorrow’s biofuel: a research team from Tulane University has found a low cost, energy efficient way to recycle ordinary newspapers into butanol biofuel, which can be used as a drop-in replacement for gasoline. The secret ingredient is a bacteria found in animal droppings, which naturally produces butanol as it digests the news.

Kinetic energy harvesters that could power electronic devices simply by walking have been in the hopper for a while now, and it finally seems to be on the verge of breaking into the commercial market.

More scalable innovation is taking place in the manufacture of high-grade plastics without petroleum.

Another oil spill — the worst in the North Sea in a decade according to several media sources. I didn’t bother to call Donald Trump when news of Shell’s North Sea oil spill broke on this side of the pond. He’s not taking my calls.

If I did though, I would have asked him if he found it ironic that a week after publicly berating Scotland for wan