Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving.

“The energy issue is an essential component for our sustainable development to assure the wellbeing and progress of the current and future generations,” says Emilio Rappaccioli, Nicaragua’s minister of energy and mines.

Ortega worked with Nicaragua’s private sector and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez to fix its immediate energy problem by installing an additional capacity of 343 megawatts of power – 41 percent more power than Nicaragua was producing five years ago.

That means that for the first time in more than a decade, Nicaragua is producing a comfortable surplus of energy.

The 41-percent efficiency rating is one of the highest recorded at this (light) concentration, and is challenged only by Stanford University spinoff Solar Junction’s multijunction GaAs cells, confirmed at 43.5 percent efficiency. The company is hoping for a DOE loan guarantee to expand production.

The first transatlantic flight powered by biofuel landed Saturday at Paris-Le Bourget Airport after a seven hour flight from New Jersey.

One-quarter of the fuel used to carry the Gulfstream G450 jet across the Atlantic Ocean was biofuel derived from camelina. A 50/50 blend of camelina-based Honeywell Green Jet Fuel and petroleum-based jet fuel powered one of the plane’s two Rolls-Royce engines.

Solar Is Getting Cheaper, but How Far Can It Go?

Here Comes the Sun

California Solar Industry Booming: Report Finds State’s Solar Capacity Has Doubled Over Past Five Years

The usual take on solar power is that it’s a niche energy source, too pricey and erratic to meet more than a sliver of our electricity needs. Bill Gates has mocked solar as “cute.” But, as Paul Krugman reminds us today, that’s changing far more quickly than people realize. “In fact,” Krugman writes, “progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, ‘there’s now frequent talk of a Moore’s law in solar energy,’ with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.”

Seventy-eight wind power projects won contracts in last week’s energy auctions held by Brazil’s National Electric Power Agency, totalling 1,928MW and priced at approximately 99.5 reals (£37.4) per MWh.

By comparison, the average price for power generated with natural gas is currently 103 reals (£38.7) per MWh in Brazil, while the average price for energy determined through the auctions was 102.07 reals per MWh.

Olives are being looked at as a renewable energy source, since its wood produces 2.5 times more energy than others, the smoke it releases has no negative impact on neighbors or the environment, and the ash left can be used for fertilizing gardens.