BBC News -- The technology behind solar energy is constantly evolving. Portable devices that charge up gadgets from the sun are becoming smaller and more powerful.

A new generation of portable solar chargers can plug straight into a laptop and provide up to a quarter of its power needs while in use.

The Solargorilla charger by Powertraveller, for instance, can also level out the electrical spikes caused when clouds obscure the sun.

Jerry Ranger, head of Powertraveller, says the charger is able to convert a high percentage of the sunlight's energy in a more compact way than previous devices.

"You can get the power output if you get a massive great big panel but clearly that's impractical so we've needed to get it down to a size that's portable," he told BBC Click.  (read more)

The Street -- NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Crude oil continued its slide below $80 a barrel to end the week, even as natural gas and gasoline prices managed to make gains on Friday.  (read more)

MSNBC -- Electric sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.

An IPO filing from the six-year-old U.S. start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, is expected any day, said one of the sources. The person did not give a specific time frame, although IPOs typically take several months.

Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes declined to comment on what he called "rumor or speculation."

 (read more)

MSNBC -- Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics.

The skeptics have seized upon e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Britain as evidence that scientific data have been rigged to make it appear as if humans are causing global warming. The researchers, however, say the e-mails have been taken out of context and merely reflect an honest exchange of ideas.

University officials confirmed the data breach, which involves more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents, but said they could not  (read more)

Bloomberg -- Harley-Davidson Inc., the biggest U.S. motorcycle maker, reached a tentative labor agreement that would keep open a York, Pennsylvania, factory while reducing the number of union workers by almost half.

The seven-year accord calls for the plant, Harley’s biggest, to focus on assembly, metal fabrication and paint operations with an hourly workforce of as many as 1,100 employees, a drop from 1,950 now, said Bob Klein, a spokesman.

“The proposed agreement provides a competitive wage and benefits package that is among the best in the area while at the same time meeting the company’s need for significantly greater cost competitiveness, flexibility and efficiency,” the Milwaukee-based company said in an e-mailed statement.

 (read more)

UPI Asia -- Tokyo, Japan — In the wake of last year's soaring crude oil prices, coupled with a growing environmental awareness, the development of alternative energy sources is moving into high gear. Among next-generation energy sources, hydrogen is proving to be a favorite.

Japan started selling the world's first household hydrogen fuel cell this year, and stands on the verge of selling fuel-cell vehicles. But there are still difficult challenges involving the manufacturing, storing and transporting of hydrogen. For these reasons, some experts say the advent of the hydrogen economy might be a pipedream.  (read more)

Central Valley Business Times -- Slowly but steadily, gas prices dropped by another small amount over the past week throughout California, although prices remain about 60 cents per gallon higher than one year ago, according to price surveys Friday.

“At the moment, the biggest factor driving prices downward seems to be the seasonal dip in demand,” says Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of Southern California. “Prices traditionally drop this time of year along with temperatures, which will be a little help for Thanksgiving travelers’ budgets.”

California’s statewide average price for a gallon of self-ser4ve regular on Nov. 20 is $2.943, third highest in the nation, surpassed only by Alaska and Hawaii.  (read more)

Popular Science -- With its annual output of over 330 million tons a year feeding animals, running cars, and decorating South Dakota tourist attractions, maize is clearly Americas most important crop. That's why the newly published complete corn genome could drastically change the food, automotive and plastic industries. Already, scientists have identified genes that could boost yield, change the cell wall to make more biofuel, or raise the nutritional value of this vital cereal.  (read more)

bloomberg.com -- BP Plc, Europe’s second-biggest oil company, has invested $3 billion in alternative energy globally and is on course to meet its commitment made in 2005 to spend $8 billion, said a company official.

London-based BP will focus mainly on wind power projects in the U.S., solar in India and China and biomass in Brazil, BP China President Chen Liming said at a Beijing conference today.

BP’s alternative energy unit earmarked $8 billion of investment in the decade through 2015. Expansion in biofuels, along with solar, wind-power and carbon-capture and storage projects, will help the company cut greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming, Katrina Landis, who heads the unit, said in September.

BP has secured possible sites for as many in 100 wind projects with a potential  (read more)

CBC News -- A potential strike at an automotive parts plant in Lakeshore, Ont., has put the region's auto community on edge.
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Officials and workers at Johnson Controls have been in talks over a new contract since Monday, but workers say they'll walk off the job if they don't reach a collective agreement by midnight Friday.
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If Johnson's 120 workers strike, thousands of workers at Chrysler's Windsor assembly plant and other parts suppliers could be affected.
 (read more)

Wicked Local -- Natick, Mass. - As we prepare for colder temperatures, your BBB offers advice on how to keep the cost of heating your home affordable over the winter months.

“Heating your home throughout the New England winter can become costly if you aren’t careful,” said Paula Fleming, vice president of communications and marketing for BBB. “Following these few steps can go a long way in heating your home affordably, saving money better spent elsewhere this season.  (read more)

EurActiv -- Alternative fuels could bridge the transition to low-carbon road transport as electric cars remain a thing of the future, a roundtable at the European Parliament heard yesterday (18 November).

The shift from fossil fuels to a sustainble transport model for Europe's roads will take decades, MEP Vittorio Prodi (S&D, Italy) told policymakers and car-industry representatives.

"The increased presence of immediately available gaseous fuels such as LPG and natural gas can play an important role in this process, helping to cut CO2 and pollutant emissions today and forming a bridge towards other technologies that will emerge in the future," he stressed.  (read more)

Canada.com -- Ford's Fusion, already a solid entry in the mid-sized sedan segment, gets added appeal for 2010 with the introduction of a hybrid model. It should be noted that this is no token nod to pacify the greenies -- the Fusion Hybrid is the real deal and more than capable of taking on the hybrid technology leader, Toyota.

For some buyers, it's important to make a statement with their choice to go the hybrid route, hence the unique look of the Toyota Prius and the next-generation Honda Insight. Their owners have made a deliberate decision to go green, are proud of it and want the world to know.

Then there are those who prefer to be less obvious, opting for a more conventional-looking sedan with a hybrid powertrain, such as the Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima and the Fusion.  (read more)

Houston Chronicle -- WASHINGTON — Utilities harnessing power from the wind and sun are up against a major challenge: how to store electricity so that it can be delivered to customers when the air is still and the sun has set.

“Cheap energy storage is sometimes called the ‘holy grail' of renewable energy,” observed Steven Kline, a vice president for the San Francisco-based utility PG&E. It is the key to unlocking the full potential of wind, solar and other intermittent renewable power sources.

So far, it has been an elusive goal. Companies have been searching for the best way to store massive amounts of electricity so that it can be dispensed on demand — like the energy contained in cell phone batteries, just on a vastly different scale.

Now, the federal government is aiming to spur a solution.  (read more)

REUTERS -- NEW YORK/HOUSTON -- By Joshua Schneyer and Bruce Nichols - Analysis -- Saudi Arabia's new method of pricing oil bound for the United States reflects the world's growing reliance on sour crude, which is harder to refine.

The sour grades of crude may eventually displace tried-and-true light, sweet crude to become a benchmark.

That could help producers and refiners manage risk as they deal with increasing volumes of higher-sulfur oil, and it may also cut speculators' influence on oil prices, analysts said.

Starting in January, Saudi Arabia will price U.S.-bound barrels against the Argus Sour Crude Index of three sour crudes produced in the U.S. Gulf. That will end 15 years of pricing against West Texas Intermediate, the reigning light, sweet benchmark.

The vast majority of oil futures contracts are based on WTI and Europe's Brent oil. . . .  (read more)

Bloomberg.com -- Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Auto supplier NTN Corp. knew its gasoline engine parts wouldn’t be needed in Nissan Motor Co.’s Leaf electric car. So the component maker’s engineers built a mock model to test a motor-and-brake system it developed for electric vehicles.

“If old-guard companies like us just continue along the same beaten path, things will become difficult,” Chairman Yasunobu Suzuki said. “I told our engineers to try everything.”

As Nissan and General Motors Co. prepare to introduce battery-powered cars next year, traditional auto suppliers like Osaka-based NTN are trying to adapt by creating new lines of business. Engine components account for as much as 40 percent of a typical car’s total parts, so some suppliers are scrambling to come up with new products, said Takeshi Miyao,  (read more)

nytimes.com -- Suntech Power, China’s largest solar panel manufacturer, plans to open its first American plant near Phoenix, the company announced on Monday. It would be the first time a Chinese solar company has built a manufacturing plant in the United States, experts said.

The plant will begin production in the third quarter of 2010 and will build panels from solar cells shipped from China. Those cells, in turn, contain substantial amounts of a substance called polysilicon manufactured at a factory in Texas.

Roger Efird, a managing director of Suntech, said in a telephone interview that shipping costs were an important factor in the decision to put a factory in the growing American market. Solar panels, with substantial amounts of glass and aluminum, are heavy, he said.

“As the price of solar  (read more)

AZCentral.com -- Arizona has wooed and won China's king of solar.

Zhengrong Shi, the son of dirt-poor peasant farmers who built Suntech Power into a multibillion-dollar giant in less than a decade, has chosen metro Phoenix as its first manufacturing site in the U.S.

Arizona didn't score this coup in one fell swoop; it happened through a series of right decisions and relationships nurtured over time.

"There's a big mix of stars aligning," said Rob Melnick, executive dean and professor at the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

Barry Broome, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, credited the success to four equal factors:

• The tax incentive legislation, Senate Bill 1403.

• A policy of the Arizona Corporation Commission that requires that 15 percent  (read more)

ABS CBN News -- MANILA – A marathon that is not based on speed, breaking records and finishing first is set to kick off next year in Malaysia, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation (PSPC) announced Wednesday.

The Shell Eco-marathon (SEM) Asia will instead declare as winner the vehicle that has traveled the farthest distance using the least amount of fuel.

The inaugural SEM will be held from July 8 to 10 at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur. A total of 107 teams will come from participating schools in Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Pakistan, Iran, Singapore, China, Malaysia, India and the Philippines.  (read more)

CNN -- If you could use a car now and again but don't want to buy one, German automaker Daimler has a possible solution for you. At least if you live in Austin, Tex.

For now, the program involves 200 Smart ForTwos and is available only to Austin's 13,000 city employees. The program will be opened to other participants "at some point," Daimler said in a press release.

Austin city employees can rent a Smart ForTwo for cross-town trips for 35 cents a minute. When they're done, they leave the car at a parking space near their destination for someone else to use. The 35 cent-per-minute rate includes gas and insurance. The cars can be used for either work or personal trips.

Daimler, which makes the Smart car, already operates a similar program in the city of Ulm, Germany and, on Tuesday, ...  (read more)

WA Today -- Cars could soon be running on a biofuel produced from a common legume tree.

A team of experts at the University of Queensland (UQ) has been studying 20,000 pongamia pinnata (Indian beech) trees lining Brisbane's streets as a green and cost-effective alternative to dwindling fossil fuels.

Pongamia trumped all other biofuels, including sugarcane and sorghum, the UQ's head legume researcher Professor Peter Gresshoff told energy experts at a national climate change symposium in Brisbane on Tuesday.  (read more)

Digital Journal -- Plants created the hydrocarbons which are polluting the world. Now they’re about to provide the hydrogen, without the carbons. Scientists have duplicated the photosynthetic processes of algae.

Using nanotechnology, with a platinum catalyst, they’ve produced hydrogen. Algae are the simplest plants. They reproduce in trillions on a few photovolts of sunlight. As clean energy goes, including production processes, it can’t get a lot cleaner than this.

Professor of biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology at UT Knoxville Barry Bruce successfully isolated the photosynthetic processes of various species of algae. Using the platinum catalyst, these materials can produce a “steady supply” of hydrogen.  (read more)

Electric -- It now seems that scientists have come up with a way to turn coal and waste into cleaner fuel. This would be done by trapping millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide, and thus, keeping it from entering into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Scientists have now named this new process gasification. This is something that is already used to clean up dirty materials before they are used to generate electricity or to make renewable fuels. Overall, the technique involves heating organic matter up to produce a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide called syngas.  (read more)

The Detroit Free Press -- As if we needed more proof that America's politics are poisoned beyond belief, now we have Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, pouncing gleefully upon news of General Motors Co.'s $1.2-billion third-quarter loss, in a harebrained attempt to score political points.
 (read more)

Detroit Free Press -- Ford has successfully used the improved fuel efficiency and new look of the Fusion to win new customers.

The automatic 2010 Ford Fusion S gets a combined 27 miles per gallon, which is better than a similar model of the Toyota Camry, which gets a combined 25 m.p.g., and the Honda Accord, which gets 25 mpg
 (read more)