A team of US chemical engineers has extracted photosynthetic molecules from plants and attached them to thin sheets of gold, creating a photosynthesising cyborg.

Taylor Dinerman shows how space solar power can help landlocked and resource-poor countries escape the "economic chains forged by geography."

As the price of fossil fuels soars, private companies from Hawaii to Japan are racing to build commercial Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) plants which generate energy by exploiting the difference in temperature between seawater near the surface and deep down.

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.

After three decades without starting a single new plant, the American nuclear power industry is getting ready to build again. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 21 companies say they will seek permission to build 34 power plants, from New York to Texas.

Daniel Botkin argues that nuclear power is inadequate to secure energy independence or to help realistically combat global warming.

Nuclear power could provide up to four times more electricity by midcentury than now if the industry can soothe concerns about its safety and the disposal of radioactive waste, according to a research group for the industry.

The Army says it wants to build what could be the world's most powerful solar power plant, as part of a far-reaching effort to cut back on the service's dependence on fossil fuels. The question is whether the Army will actually make good on its green promises.

Growth in the construction of new nuclear plants worldwide is at risk because of the global financial crisis, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday, adding that short-term projects like oil drilling are more likely to go ahead.