renewable energy

A senior official at the International Energy Agency turned whistleblower just prior to the release of a major IEA report, and claimed that the international organization has downplayed a looming oil shortage to appease the U.S. and prevent panic buying.

The anonymous whistleblower apparently told his story to The Guardian on the eve of the new World Energy Outlook report that went public Tuesday. He alleged that the international watchdog has bowed to U.S. pressure to underplay the decline of existing oil fields and overplay the possibility of tapping new fields.

Clean tech has seen a boost as the U.S. pours government funding into renewable energy, and China looks set to reap much of the benefits. Latest example: a Chinese wind-turbine company has just become the exclusive supplier for one of the largest wind-farm developments in the U.S.

Algae have come a long way in our post-fossil-fuels energy situation: Now the same green scum that covers water and other surfaces could soon be enlisted to make biodegradable green plastics for your picnic cutlery.

Darpa's addiction to out-of-this world schemes has rubbed off in the best way on the government's more peaceful push for an energy revolution. Liquid metal batteries, bacteria that convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into gasoline, and artificial enzymes for carbon capture represent just a few of the 37 projects that have received $151 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's new ARPA-E agency.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (Arpa-E) takes its inspiration from the Department of Defense's mad science lab Darpa, and has $400 million in initial funding to help seed a number of cutting-edge projects over the next two years. Among the first round projects, 43 percent are small businesses, 35 percent are educational institutions, and 19 percent are large corporations.

A supermarket in the UK is using a novel way of harnessing energy from their customers. Embedding their parking lot with weight-sensitive plates, cars impart kinetic energy as they pass through, which is then collected and used to power their cash registers.

When a car drives by, plates are depressed and the motion is passed along hydraulics to a generator, which produces 30kw of energy an hour. If one parking lot can power cash registers, imagine packing roads with this technology and how much energy can be recollected from all the world’s drivers?

What if you knew that a ten-minute podium presentation could alter your life's course for decades? Seasoned entrepreneurs sweat out this kind of tension when they make elevator pitches to venture capitalists. But at the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards Summit, the presenters on the hot seat are all between 14 and 18 years old.