Vote for Your Favorite Sustainable Ideas in the Wild Energy Design Competition

Hey green design aficionados! The Wild Energy design competition to find creative ways to power New Zealand’s land of lush green national parks, rivers and deep blue oceans has received a ton of clean energy ideas and it’s up to you to choose the winner. Vote here!

Portugese Scientists Create Water-Powered Paper Battery

Scientists at the Faculty of Science and Technology in Lisbon, Portugal have created a new breed of paper battery that can be charged with one of the planet’s most abundant resources – water. The center, also known as CENIMAT, is dedicated to developing new ways to power gadgets and small electronic devices and this water-powered paper battery is their latest innovation.

A Tequila Based Biofuel? Cheers to That!

Tequila! It makes this writer happy! But could the plant that powers most frat parties also soon power our world? According to researchers from the University of Illinois, the Agave plant that is used in making tequila could be an excellent source of biofuels. In a report published in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy, two Agave species are capable of producing yields of biofuels that far surpass those from biofuel feedstocks such as corn, wheat, soybean, and sorghum. Scientists have said that in 14 independent studies, it was concluded that Agave had “high biofuel potential”.

India to Install Solar-Powered Cell Phone Towers This Year

Mobile communications are a big business in India, but they traditionally tend to be powered by coal. However Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL) is set to change all that — they just announced plans to roll out a set of solar powered cell towers outfitted with batteries made by US-based Boston Power. The WorldGSM communication stations are not tied to the grid and are designed to operate on energy provided by a few solar panels.

Netherlands to Roll Out Energy-Generating SolaRoad Bike Path

Paving new bike paths is a great way to encourage carbon-free transportation and cut car emissions, and now The Netherlands is getting ready to roll out an energy-generating solar cycle path. The project, known as SolaRoad, has been developed by the TNO research institute along with the Province of North Holland, the Ooms Avenhorn Group and Imtech. It is currently slated to be constructed in the town of Krommenie, near Amsterdam.

Ben & Jerry’s Factory in the Netherlands to be Powered by Ice Cream!

Ben & Jerry’s, the iconic American ice cream brand, has teamed up with Paques, a biotechnology company, to install a bio-digester in their Hellendoorn ice cream factory in the Netherlands. The new bio-digester will take excess food product that is wasted during the making of ice cream and turn it into power to provide energy for the factory. The bio-digester will cover 40% of the factory’s green energy requirements — will it make the ice cream 40% more delicious too?