News

The inventor of organic solar cells is hitting headlines again with the latest achievement in the field of organic photovoltaics: an efficiency figure of 15 percent.

A new take on the EC's research funding.

Starting next year Horizon 2020, the European Union research programme, will make around € 70bn in funding available over 7 years.

"The bottom line is that oil companies only invested a drop in the bucket [in alternatives] even in the heyday of the early 1980s," says Douglas Cogan of ESG Research. "Most of the largest [oil company] investors have dropped out in recent years, following the precedent that Exxon set 30 years ago."

An American woman plans to spend the next four to six months abstaining from food of any kind and living on only light, water and tea.

The market value of refined helium gas has nearly doubled over the past five years, even as the Standard & Poor’s benchmark commodities index, the GSCI, has fallen by some 20 percent.

An American couple has found a surprising alternative to conventional asphalt motorways: solar road panels. In addition to providing electricity, saving oil and melting fresh snow, it could also prevent accidents.

A group at Panasonic has developed the Artificial Photosynthesis System, which produces organic materials with a world-leading efficiency in terms of solar energy conversion. The recently achieved efficiency, 0.2%, is on a par with that for real plants used in biomass energy.

Levels of deadly pollutants up to 40 times the recommended exposure limit in Beijing and other cities have struck fear into parents and led them to take steps that are radically altering the nature of urban life for their children.

It would appear that (apart from Tesla, for now) that anything related to electric cars is going up in flames. From Fisker's FUBAR and Chevy's Volt dysphoria to A-123 Systems (the Lithium-Ion battery-maker) and now Coda--among an emerging crop of California startups seeking to build emission-free electric cars.