An incredible new printer at the University of Melbourne has allowed researchers to print solar cells up to the size of an A3 sheet of paper. Developed in collaboration between the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC), CSIRO, and the University of Melbourne, the solar cell printer makes renewable energy even easier to source.

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Post tags: CSIRO, eco design, green design, largest solar cell printer, solar cell printer, sustainable design, university of melbourne, Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium

Researchers at SUNY Buffalo are working on a new generation of liquid solar cells that may one day be as cheap as paint. Although they would be significantly less efficient than conventional solar cells made with either amorphous silicon or cadmium telluride, these new plasmonic-enhanced photovoltaic solar cells containing metal nanoparticles are less costly to produce and can be applied to much bigger surfaces.

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Post tags: clean tech, green technology, liquid solar cells, liquid solar cells as cheap as paint, more efficient liquid solar cells, Plasmonics, pv cells, Solar Power, SUNY Buffalo, university at buffalo

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Post tags: "natural materials", clean tech, Daylighting, eco design, green design, iPhone, Justin Capra Foundation for Investments and Sustainable Technologies, modular design, natural light, Prefab, remote controlled, renewable energy, romania, smart energy, Soleta zeroEnergy One, sustainable design, tiny home

Yale researchers recently discovered a way to boost the efficiency of solar cells by a whopping 38 percent by coating them with a fluorescent dye. Polymer solar cells are popular for their low cost, low weight, large area and mechanical flexibility, according to Physorg, but they only convert roughly 50 percent of the solar energy absorbed into usable electricity. The organic squaraine dye improves light absorption and recycles electrons, thereby hastening the light to energy conversion process.

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Post tags: "solar energy", alternative energy, cleantech, Förster resonance energy transfer, renewable energy, solar cell efficiency, Solar cells, solar research and development, Squaraine dye, Yale University solar research

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Post tags: "solar energy", alternative to rooftop solar, clean tech, eco design, Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference, green design, nrg energy, off-grid energy solutions, renewable energy, solar canopy, Solar Power, sustainable design

Read the rest of 13 Things We Learned from Some of the World’s Smartest People at Fortune Brainstorm Green 2013

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Post tags: adam lashinsky, andy ruben, andy serwer, aron cramer, Bea Perez, Beyond Meat, brian dumaine, brightfarms, Clarence Otis, Coca Cola, coca cola Chief Sustainability Officer, Cynthia Warner, dan akerson, Darden Restaurants, dean kamen, ebay, Fortune, Fortune Brainstorm Green, fortune green, Fortune Magazine, General Mills, geoff colvin, GM, hannah jones, harrison ford conservation international, Harrison Ford harrison ford green, ikea, iPod inventor, jib ellison, Joe Taylor, John Donahoe, Ken Powell, leigh gallagher, linda greer, marc gunther, natalie allen, nest, Nike, NRG, panasonic north america, Patagonia, Peter Seligmann, pk clean, priyanka bakaya, Procter & Gamble, rick ridgeway, Robert McDonald, Rosalind Brewer, Sam's Club, Sapphire Energy, Steve Howard, surepure, teresa law, Tony Fadell, will sarni, Will.i.am, Yerdle

Urban Green Energy Inc has installed 120 solar and wind-powered streetlights in PingQuan, situated in the Hebei province of China. Instead of opting for costly traditional lights that would have needed to sink wires into the ground and connect to the grid, the city chose a more sustainable route. Each Sanya light is equipped with a HoYi! wind turbine and two 280 watt solar panels, allowing them to function completely off-grid.

Read the rest of UGE Rolls Out Solar and Wind-Powered LED Streetlights in PingQuan, China

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Post tags: "wind power", china, hebei, hoyi!, hybrid, LED, New York., pingquan, sanya, solar, streetlight, turbine, urban green energy inc

Metallurgists at the University of Utah have cooked up an ingenious way to produce solar cells using something that nearly everyone has right at home: a microwave oven. Scientists used a basic microwave, one that was previously used by students to heat up food, to create a nanocrystal semiconductor. Creating a typical semiconductor requires a lot of time and can be toxic. But this new method is cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than ever before.

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Post tags: green metallurgy, green solar cell material, green solar technology, Metallurgy innovations, Michael Free, microwave cells, Microwave Semiconductor, Microwave Solar Cell Material, microwave technology, Prashant Sarswat, solar cell innovations, University of Utah Science

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", Antarctic, Brazilian Antarctica, clean tech, Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station, conservation, eco design, Estudio 41, green design, Keller Peninsula, prefabricated design, research, science, Solar Power, sustainable design, thermal loss, weather proof, Wildlife

Inhabitat is reporting live from the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference today, where Verizon just announced a massive $100 million solar and fuel cell energy project that will provide power to 19 of its U.S. facilities. The project is expected to be complete next year, and it’s poised to generate more than 70 million kilowatt-hours of electricity – that’s enough to power more than 6,000 single-family homes each year.

Read the rest of Verizon Announces $100 Million Green Energy Project to Power 19 US Facilities

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Post tags: "solar energy", eco design, fuel cells, green design, green energy, Solar Power, sustainable design, verizon, verizon fuel cells, verizon green energy project, verizon launches green energy project, verizon solar power, verizon sustainability, verizon wireless

San Diego-based bioprinting company Organovo has successfully created functional 3D-printed livers—albeit very, very tiny ones. At half a millimeter deep by four millimeters wide, the livers will likely be used for medical tests, but Organovo hopes that they will soon produce full-sized livers that could do away with agonizing waits on long transplant lists.

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Post tags: 3D printing, artificial organs, autodesk, bioprinting, organovo, print living tissue, printed livers, printed organs, synthetic tissue

Panasonic will celebrate its 100th anniversary by donating 100,000 solar lanterns to help some of the one billion people without access to electricity in developing countries across Asia and Africa by 2018. The company has already donated 3,000 lanterns to non-profit organizations in Myanmar and 5,000 lanterns to those in India over the last couple of months, and a refugee camp in Kenya is set to receive 2,000 lanterns in the coming weeks.

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Post tags: "clean energy", affordable energy, air pollution, carbon emission reduction, fossil fuels, green tech in developing nations, green technology, humanitarian initiative, kerosene lamps, Panasonic solar lanterns, renewable power in developing nations, solar lamps, solar lanterns, Solar Power

Despite significant gains in both large scale solar and wind energy throughout the globe, a new report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) states that the rapid uptake of renewables is not enough to stop global warming. The goal of keeping global temperatures from rising above two degrees celsius – considered by scientists to be crucial to maintaining some kind of normality – is still a long way off, because most of the world’s energy is still derived from coal.

Read the rest of IEA Report States Clean Energy Uptake is Too Slow to Calm Global Warming

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Post tags: "solar energy", biofuel, carbon capture and storage, ccs, Climate Change, coal, dirty energy, Environment, global warming, IEA, International Energy Agency, News, nuclear, renewable energy, two degrees, wind energy

When tires reach the end of the road, they often wind polluting the environment in landfills. In Europe alone, 3 million tons of tires are produced each year – and 60-70% of them are dumpstered. To take advantage of this untapped resource the EU has created the TyGRe Project, which is researching ways that old tires can be turned into new sources of synthetic fuel and precursors to electronic components.

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Post tags: Ceramics, electronics, enea, EU, fuel, italy, portici, Recycle, silicon carbide, syngas, tire, trisaia, tygre project

From cell phones to electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries are the power pack of choice. They are capable of keeping large amounts of energy in a small space with relatively little weight, making them an efficient means of saving and delivering electricity. Researchers led by Maksym Kovalenko from the Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich and Empa have developed a battery using tin nanocrystals for the anode that enable twice as much energy to be stored.

Read the rest of Tiny Tin Nanocrystals Help Form the Lithium-Ion Battery of the Future

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Post tags: anode, electrolyte, EMPA, ETH Zurich, lithium ion battery, maksym kovalenko, nanocrystal, nanomaterial, tin

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Post tags: clean drinking water, developing world, eco design, green design, humanitarian design, LIFESAVER Jerrycans, potable water, social design, water purification, water scarcity, water shortages

Wind turbines offer a great way to generate clean power, but they doesn’t exactly work in a city. So Professor Farzad Safaei, Director of the University of Wollongong’s ICT Research Institute, decided to do something about it. Safaei has created a wind turbine that can be installed on skyscrapers or large apartment buildings and can generate energy even safer, quieter and more affordably than current turbines.

Read the rest of PowerWINDow: New Bird-Safe Turbine Can Generate Clean, Quiet, Affordable Wind Power in Cities

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Post tags: city wind power, green energy inventions, Green Power innovations, ICT RESEARCH INSTITUTE, PowerWINDows, Professor Farzad Safaei, University of Wollongong, UOW Australia, wind energy, Wind power in the City, wind turbine alternatives, Window Turbines

In the global effort to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, scientists have been looking towards algal biofuels as renewable sources of energy. Microalgae is capable of using sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce energy-rich molecules, create bioplastics, and act as a replacement to petroleum. Most current methods of growing the tiny plants are inefficient due to the large amounts of water and energy required, but Dr. Hail Berberoglu and Thomas Murphy from the University of Texas at Austin have developed a system that mimics the structure of trees called the Surface Adhering Bioreactor (SABR). By imitating the way vascular plants transport water and nutrients, they were able to greatly increase the efficiency of the cultivation process.

Read the rest of Researchers Design Synthetic Trees to Produce Algal Biofuels and Water

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Post tags: algae, biofilm, biofuel, dr. hail berberoglu, fossil fuels, sabr, surface adhering bioreactor, suspended growth bioreactor, thomas murphy, University of Texas at Austin

Read the rest of Recycled Cooking Fat to Power Equivalent of Nearly 40,000 London Homes

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Post tags: "clean energy", 20C, cooking oil, desalination plant, London, recycled fats, recycled oil, renewable energy, Thames Water, UK, vegetable oil, world's largest fat-fueled power plant

If you like vinegar, kombucha, durable textiles, and also enjoy driving your car, then welcome to the future of biofuels and supermaterials! Dr. R. Malcom Brown Jr. has pioneered research that uses bacteria to produce nanocellulose and biofuel in blue-green algae. His team reported their findings at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). If they can complete the final steps of their work, they will soon be able to create blue-green algae with foreign DNA that can create fuel and nanocellulose cheaply, efficiently, and on an industrial scale. As an added bonus, it would also absorb carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming.

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Post tags: acetobacter xylinum, acs, American Chemical Society, bacteria, biofuel, blue-green algae, cyanobacteria, dr. david nobles, dr. r. malcom brown jr., kombucha, nanocellulose, nata de coco, University of Texas at Austin, vinegar