High oil prices, energy security considerations and fears about global warming have helped revive interest in renewable energy sources like biofuels, which burn cleanly and can be produced from plants.

Intel Corporation said it will purchase more than 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy certificates as part of a multi-faceted approach to reduce its impact on the environment, making Intel the single-largest corporate purchaser of green power in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A national team of scientists led by experts at Durham University are embarking on one of the UK’s largest ever research projects into photovoltaic (PV) solar energy.

A new analysis has concluded that use of existing biotechnology in the production of so-called bulk chemicals could reduce consumption of non-renewable energy and carbon emissions by 100 percent. The study appeared in the Nov. 15 issue of ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

As part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Sony Corporation is actively promoting the use of solar, wind, geothermal and biomass power generation across Sony Group companies in Japan and around the world.

Microbes could provide a clean, renewable energy source and use up carbon dioxide in the process, suggested Dr James Chong at a Science Media Centre press briefing.

All UK homes could be powered by offshore wind farms by 2020 as part of the fight against climate change under plans unveiled by John Hutton.

On Tuesday, Google announced a new strategic initiative aimed at producing electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal power that is cheaper than electricity produced from coal. Google plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on research and development in 2008, and to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to bring energy projects to market.

The British aid agency Oxfam has warned the European Union (EU) that its plan to use more biofuels could prove disastrous for some of the world's poorest people.

University of Minnesota researchers contributed to a national effort to sequence the genome of an ancient, one-celled organism that will help advance research in a broad range of areas, from biofuels to restoring the environment to understanding a variety of human diseases.

The wisest energy strategy for the United States, and indeed other countries facing similar challenges, is to move away from their reliance on large-scale centralized coal and nuclear plants, and instead, invest in renewable energy systems and small scale decentralized generation technologies.

The development of wind power promises much in terms of providing us with renewable energy for the future and wind turbines could be the most effective way to harness that power. Danish researchers now suggest that in order to assess the overall environmental impact of wind power, however, the finite lifespan of wind turbines and the need to replace and recycle them must be taken into account.