Italy’s Milano Fiera trade fair facility has announced that it will soon be getting the world’s largest solar rooftop solar array.

The photovoltaic system will cover 270,000 square metres of the roof, and carry a peak capacity of 18 megawatts. The system is due for completion next year. Zaragoza, Spain’s General Motor’s factory, currently holds the record for largest rooftop solar plant at 12 megawatts.

The Trade Fair is calling for bids to build the plant at an estimated cost of 70-80 million euros. The winning bidder will pay the Milan fair a rental fee in return for which it will be able to market the power generated.  Italy introduced an incentive scheme in 2007 for solar power that guarantees operators up to 0.49 euros per kilowatt hour produced for 20 years.

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Joule Biotechnologies Inc, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has revealed details of a process that it says can make 185,000 litres of biofuel per hectare per year. If this yield proves realistic, it could make it practical to replace all fossil fuels used for transportation with biofuels. The company also claims that the fuel can be sold for prices competitive with fossil fuels.

Joule Biotechnologies grows genetically engineered micro-organisms in specially designed photobioreactors. The micro-organisms use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into ethanol or other hydrocarbon fuels.

The company says that while conventional, corn-based biofuels can supply only a small fraction of the United States’ fuel because of the amount of land, water and energy needed to grow the grain. The new process, because of its high yields, could supply all of the country’s transportation fuel from an area the size of the Texas panhandle.

"We think this is the first company that’s had a real solution to the concept of energy independence," says Bill Sims, CEO of Joule Biotechnologies, "and it’s ready comparatively soon."

The company plans to build a pilot-scale plant in the southwestern U.S. early next year and it expect to produce ethanol on a commercial scale by the end of 2010.

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Scientists are encouraging people to hang out in cemeteries in a bid to fight climate change.

The idea is that by monitoring the effects of acid rain on marble headstones, researchers will be able to find out more about pollution levels.

Professor Peter Cawood, president of the Geological Society of Australia, says the EarthTrek project will be recording the changing environment for an ongoing period.

"The negative effects of climate change are creating stress and gravestones are recording that stress in a sense," Professor Cawood said. "The beauty of gravestones is we have a time when the clock starts in that we know when the gravestone was planted in the ground."

The international project, which started in the US earlier this year, has now been rolled out to the UK and Australia.

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The first generation of nuclear power plants were the experimental plants ot the 1950s and early 60s, which were also used to power nuclear submarines. The second generation were the commercial plants from the later 1960s to the 1990s.

After the Three-mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, a third generation of nuclear plants was developed. These emphasise improved fuel technology, superior thermal efficiency, passive safety systems and standardized design for reduced maintenance and capital costs and longer life (60 years compared to 40 years for Generation 11 reactors). However, the technology is basically the same as in older reactors.

Most of these are "light water reactors" meaning that they use ordinary water for cooling and to transfer the heat from the nuclear reation to the turbines that generate electricity. Most do this by making steam; most of the rest use pressured water.

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The Italian senate has voted 154-1 to overturn a 22-year-old prohibition on new nuclear power stations. Their decision is line with those taken recently in several other European countries as a means of reducing their carbon dioxide emissions.

Sweden has lifed its 29-year ban on new nuclear plants, Spain has begun to reverse its 25-year old policy of phasing out nuclear power. The Netherlands abandoned its policy of phasing out nuclear power in 2005. Germany’s coalition government is continuing the policy, introduced in 2001, of phasing out nuclear power by 2020 but Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised to abandon the policy if she wins elections in September. The UK government has reaffirmed that atomic power is central to the strategy for building a low-carbon Britain and is considering plans to build the first new reactors in over 20 years.

France, which gets 77% of its electricity from 59 nuclear power plants, is buillding an improved third generation "European Pressurised Reactor" in Normandy. The project is intended to be a prototype for up to forty power plants. Italy is already undertaking a feasibility study to construct four of the plants.

Europe currently has a total of 165 nuclear rectors with six under construction and several more planned.

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The recent G8 meeting in in Italy unveiled a plan to commit $US 20 billion over three years to funding the development of agriculture to tackle persistent food shortages particularly in Africa.

One of the most promising areas of reserch is the use of "fertilser trees". These are varieties of shrubs that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil - restoring nutrients and potentially doubling or trebling harvests.

According to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, "fertiliser trees" are among the most promising means for achieving the goal of halving global hunger by 2015.

A major project to evaluate the use of fertiliser tress was begun in Malawi and other southern African countries in 2007. Some 200,000 farmers in Malawi are involved in the project.
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Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that it is developing a electric gullwing super sportscar.

The gullwinged electric SLS AMG will have four in-wheel electric motors with a combined peak output of 392 kW and a maximum torque of 880 Nm. It will accelerate from zero to 100 km/h in around 4 seconds putting it on the same high level as the SLS AMG with a 6.3-litre V8 engine.

Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz, is also a major shareholder in Tesla Motors and the two companies are working together on a "Smart EV" project.

The 1955 model of the original Mercedes Gullwing

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Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new method for capturing significantly more heat from low-temperature geothermal resources. A technical and economic analysis conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has estimated that enhanced geothermal systems could provide 10 percent of the United States’ overall electrical generating capacity by 2050.

Their technique uses the rapid expansion and contraction capabilities of a new liquid, called a biphasic fluid, developed by the research team. To improve efficiency, the scientists have added nanostructured metal-organic heat carriers, which boost the power generation capacity to near that of a conventional steam cycle.

The researchers expect to have a functioning prototype generating electricity by the end of the year.

Ironically, development of the technique came out of research aimed at finding nanomaterials for capturing carbon dioxide from buring fossil fuels.

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A dozen major companies have signed a memorandum of understanding to proceed with planning the construction of the huge Desertec solar power project.

The Desertec project would involve the construction of thousands of solar power plants in North Africa and the Middle East to supply 15 percent of Europe’s electricity by 2050. The anticipated cost of the project is $us555 billion.

Participants include German engineering company Siemens, German insurer Munich Re, Deutsche Bank, German utilities RWE and EON, Spain’s power company Abengoa, Swiss electricity grid builder ABB, Algerian firm Cevital, European bank HSH Nordbank, engineering company M+W Zander, and solar firms Schott Solar and Solar Millennium.

The signing of the Desertec agreement has prompted calls for a similar project for Australia. The University of Adelaide’s Professor Derek Abbott described Australia as the “perfect” country for a similar operation, saying its dry plains and abundant sun could potentially solve the world’s energy needs.

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ExxonMobil and biotech firm Synthetic Genomics have announced a new alliance to produce fuel made from photosynthetic algae. ExxonMobil expects to spend more than $600 million on the initial phase project.

Exxon Mobil’s collaboration with Synthetic Genomics will last five to six years and will involve the creation of a new test facility in San Diego. After that, ExxonMobil could invest billions of dollars more to scale up the technology and bring it to commercial production.

ExxonMobil has launched the partnership after years of being publicly opposed to investing in renewable energy. Now Emil Jacobs, Vice President of Research and Development at Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering Co says that "The world faces a significant challenge to supply the energy required for economic development and improved standards of living while managing greenhouse gas emissions and the risks of climate change".

"It’s fair to say that we looked at all the biofuels options," Jacobs said. "Algae ended up on top."

Riggs Eckelberry, president and CEO of OriginOil commented that "Algae is the feedstock to overtake petroleum. It’s the real alternative to petroleum."

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