Thermoelectric materials are used to convert heat into electricity. These devices have applicability in all kinds of industries and machinery, ranging from cars to coal-fired power plants. The world's greatest automobile manufacturers, BMW, Ford and GM have committed themselves to equip test cars with prototype thermoelectric devices by the end of this summer and see how they'll behave.
Lately, nuclear power has proven itself vulnerable not to terrorist attacks, but to nature itself. Disasters such as the well-known from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan raise questions about how safe nuclear power really is and how current and future plants will be able to cope with climate change.
It's not every day that you see a case of "acting-like-you-preach" scenario of companies living green themselves, but South Korea has built the first zero-emission business center ever. The building is home to a climate change research center and is based exclusively on renewable energy, provided by 66 different types of green technologies, including solar and geothermal.
There are towns in the UK which dream of sustaining themselves out of their own production of electricity. Wadebridge in Cornwall is one of them: 10 solar systems installed, 100 more to go! The town has already begun the 2015 race, meaning 15,000 MWh each year. If they manage that, then they become eligible for feed-in tariffs: profitable contracts that buy the clean energy and add it up to the grid at a good price.
Besides being very pricey, solar power plants simply discourage by the fact that the sun is not always there when you need it: what happens if you need to switch on the light in your kitchen to drink water at 2 A.M. in the morning? Or on a cloudy day, for that matter?... Thanks to SolarReserve and the Obama administration funding it you may never have to go through that.
A recent United Nations report says that by 2050 up to 80 percent of the global energy could be supplied from alternative resources if public policies will come up with proper incentives.
The Japanese who will want to build up a new home will probably be forced to install solar panels on their rooftops. Naoto Kan, the Japanese Prime Minister, is about to announce this intention at the G8 summit in Deauville, France.
A couple of years ago I was mad about getting a Toyota Prius, by then the only hybrid car on the market. A few years later I changed my mind to the gorgeous design and good fuel consumption of Honda Civic's 2007 hatchback. But that's not the only reason I did not go for a hybrid... yet.
Of course flying is the ultimate means of transportation and of course the wheel seems a bit outdated if you look at the airplane. Nevertheless, flying automobiles or trains would kick the transportation industry and change the way we move, just like this experimental prototype, that is half airplane and half train.
Japan is planning to switch from nuclear power to renewable energy in the near future. This news probably doesn't come as a surprise, given the country's recent nuclear disaster. The population itself is so shaken with the events that two thirds of it are now supporting the government's project to invest in wind and solar power. The idea is to make Japan rely entirely on renewable sources by 2050, which is a pretty high standard from what it has today.
