Electical Contractor

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) has certified the 10,000th LEED commercial project. Created in 2000, the LEED green building program has become a mainstay in sustainable building certification.

The expected growth in vehicle electrification poses a challenge: What will happen to the battery systems after they reach the end of useful life in a vehicle?

Although the worldwide economy continued to sputter in 2010, there was at least one bright spot on the global stage. According to a recent study, renewable power showed its perseverance last year, fighting off headwinds and gaining traction.

Fuel cells may not be commonplace, but they are more commercially available than ever before. Their burgeoning success in providing power can be found in standby, prime and distributed generation mobile and vehicle applications.

Some proponents of renewable power feel that, in the not too distant future, these energy sources could provide far more power worldwide than previously imagined.

As cars become more energy- and emissions-efficient, so are the factories that make them. General Motors recently announced two such projects that will bring renewable energy and more sustainable operation to its Michigan automobile assembly plants.

The devastating March earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a meltdown at the country’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, and triggered the latest cycle of drama in the ongoing and tumultuous affair with nuclear power.

A new design for thin-film solar cells that requires significantly less silicon and may boost the efficiency is the result of an industry/academia collaboration between Oerlikon Solar in Switzerland and the Institute of Physics’ photovoltaic group at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Light has both electric and magnetic effects, but until a recent discovery by physicists at the University of Michigan (UM), scientists believed the magnetic properties of light were so weak that it would be useless for practical applications.