We go to a lot of unhospitable regions, like Alaska, to get our energy today, so how about the warm, welcoming waters of Australia?

This is a story about a company that's switching from oil to energy from the sea ... because it's infinite, completely renewable and nonpolluting. Every scrap of energy is going to be needed, says the company's founder .. including that from the oddest places.

Filed under: energy, ocean, and waves

Will the world heat up like a furnace or cool down like an icebox? Scientists are divided, and recently there has been more doubt on this issue than ever.

But it's reassuring that in places where the climate is warming, birds and people are adopting to the new conditions. A University of Oxford stufy, for example, showed that some birds are laying eggs earlier to take advantage of the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

In Iceland, meterologist Tómas Jóhannesson says “It’s not surprising that the warming effects of climate change can be beneficial for a cold country like Iceland".

I think that's true of the United States as well. Most of the US could use warmer winters.

Filed under: winter, iceland, global warming, and energy

This CNN article lists five promising future energy projects, from solar panels on top of Google's office buildings (left) to harnessing the ocean's tidal forces.

All these could someday power your Tesla Roadster or GM Volt.

Filed under: energy, power, and electricity

We covered this about a week ago, but this article has more detail on how environmentally friendly biofuels from genetically engineered bacteria will work.

"By swapping natural genes in yeast and bacteria for synthetic ones, scientists have tricked the microbes into producing hydrocarbons—creating, in essence, billions of tiny refineries to turn simple sugars into environmentally friendly diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and biocrude."

This looks like an exciting breakthrough - fuel that works just like gas or diesel in a car, but is non-polluting and based on renewable resources.

We do live in interesting times and sometimes, unlike the Chinese proverb, that's GOOD news.

Filed under: biofuels, diesel, energy, and generic engineering

This compressed air powered car is a cool innovation from India. You can fill the tank at filling stations with special compressed air pumps for about $2 or fill it with a home air compressor in about four hours. It doesn't say how much that is, but it sounds comparable to an electric car which is very, very cheap.

How cheap? At $2 to fill up and a 125 mile range, it would cost about $0.016 per mile in fuel. A Toyota Prius feels like a fuel hog - at $4 per gallon and 50mpg, it would cost $ 0.08 per mile in fuel.

And if you didn't guess already, compressed air is, well, compressed air and so there is no tailpipe and no emissions. Cost in India is about $12,700.

Unfortunately this car is made of extremely lightweight materials that would not be durable in crashes and so it's unlikely to be legal in the US.

At least not yet.

Filed under: air, car, green, energy, and electric

How much fuel do you have left when that pesky reserve light goes on?

Tankonempty.com will tell you, complete with votes, stories and more good stuff.

Unscientific but very interesting.

Filed under: gas, energy, and tank

Every day, thousands of trucks rumble through Oakland, spewing pollutants on their way to the giant port.

Inventor Terry Kennedy decided to do something about that. He invented a clever device that takes advantage of the weight of the trucks to apply pressure to a plate. This pressure creates a liquid flow that turns a turbine and generates electricity.

Enough for the equivalent of 1,700 homes.

So as the trucks spew their pollutants, they are also contributing energy that helps the Port of Oakland go green. The invention now furnishes about 5% of their electricity needs, which may sound like nothing - but still amounts to a pretty penny each year.

The "Dragon" is spreading fast to other ports and communities, as the idea literally makes something out of nothing, and costs relatively little to install.

Great idea!

Filed under: dragon, trucks, pollution, traffic, energy, and green

If you're like me, you don't particularly like pumping your own gas. It seems like something someone else should do, right?

Well, how about someTHING else?

Meet the Tank Pitstop, an automated robot, developed in the Netherlands, which automatically fills your tank. Click on the link to see it in action.

Filed under: tank pitstop, fuel, and energy

This article was originally titled "craziest" but to me a lot of these are pretty cool.

My favorite is the air conditioner that freezes water during the night, when it's cooler and electricity is cheaper, and lets it melt during the day, feeding the heat exchanger to cool the house. Users have experienced around a 30% energy savings with this technology.

Visit the link to see a solar powered cellphone, bamboo clothing, an electric roadster and more. (The image is of the solar cellphone, since the green air conditioner doesn't look like anything special.)

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Filed under: green technology, green, and energy

Want to get rid of all that stray CO₂ you're injecting into the atmosphere? Well, why not make lemons out of lemonade? Feed it to algae, have the algae produce biodiesel and we all win.

Perhaps best of all, this is no tiny pilot project - if this works, it goes to full scale almost immediately.

Filed under: biodiesel, energy, fuel, and automotive