Switzerland’s Berghotel Muottas Muragl is the First Energy-Plus Hotel in the Alps

The incredible Berghotel Muottas Muragl is not just a favorite mountaintop resort for some of the world’s most avid skiers – it’s also the first energy positive hotel in all of the Alps. The 104-year-old lodge just completed a year’s worth of renovations that incorporate renewable energy and sustainable living. Although the building doubled in size, its numerous solar panels, geothermal heaters, and low-impact materials have decreased the hotel’s energy consumption 64% and put it on the map as one of the most luxurious green escapes in Europe.

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Air-powered bike for the future

Design student Dean Benstead has produced a bike that runs on nothing but compressed air.

He says that with further development there is a place in the future for compressed air as an economical and environmentally-friendly option.

“I wanted to explore the viability of compressed air as an alternative fuel, and my childhood experiences riding dirt bikes led me to design the motocross bike based around the Engineair engine,” says the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Industrial student.

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WaveRoller Arrives in Portugal for Long Awaited Tests

The WaveRoller arrived on January 2nd at Portugal’s Peniche Shipyard for a much anticipated pilot test this summer off the coast of Portugal, one of the best testing sites in Europe for ocean energy. The scaled-up version for the pilot test is to be tested in the same waters near the sea shore of Peniche where its smaller prototype showed promise (Previous: WaveRoller Uses Swinging Door for Underwater Wave Energy.)

Wave energy involves very large machines that must survive harsh underwater conditions. Even this pre-commercial version weighs 280 tons, and the test has been financed by the European Commission.

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Solar Arrays for the Marine Corps & Obama’s Marine One Helicopter Hanger

Americans have recently voiced support for solar energy, and the latest installation at the Marine Helicopter Squadron 1’s greenside hangar in Quantico seems to support that — it’s a 120-kilowatt solar array powered by 500 solar panels putting out a total of 150,000 kWh per year.

The solar array will be installed by FLS Energy and the solar panels will be provided by Suniva, which was chosen by FLS Energy CEO Michael Shore specifically because of its panels’ high efficiency and because it builds American. (Suniva’s panels contain more than 80% U.S. content, according to Suniva.)

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Germany Installs More Solar Panels in December 2011 Than US Did All Year

Some more astonishing stats on the progress Germany is making on solar power thanks to good, steady and predictable renewable energy policy: Greentech Media shares the astonishing fact that in the month of December alone Germany installed 2 GW of solar PV. For the whole of 2011, Germany installed 7 GW.

The US managed to install 1.7 GW in the same time period—which isn’t to knock US installation rates so much as to further highlight the massive Germany push to install more PV before the feed-in tariff for it drop as planned.

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The World’s 6 Coolest Solar Powered Projects

Solar power is arguably the cleanest and most abundant renewable energy source available to us. It is therefore no surprise that all around the world, architects and designers are incorporating solar technology into new buildings and projects to make them as green as possible. We scoured the globe for some of the coolest solar projects constructed or in the works — from the largest solar-powered office building in the world to Enviromission’s solar towers to the PVs that top off the Vatican. Hit the jump for our 6 favorite projects!
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Video Solar Powered Chariot Robot Brings Ancient Rome and Green Technology Together

The Maker Faire is a place where weird and wacky inventions are welcomed and championed, which is surely why Bob Schneeveis and Grant Grundler decided to debut their crazy solar powered electric chariot there. The chariot is a modern-day renewably powered take on the ancient Roman cart which is pulled around by a roller blading robot who glides with the greatest of ease. Video of the chariot in action after the jump.

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Is Google looking to revive the ailing planet with investments in clean energy

Renewable resources and non renewable resources are at two ends of a tug-of-war battle. While the latter is presently being used to an exhaustive extent, the former is still trying to find a prominent place in the list of energy sources. Conventional sources like coal have been used for a number of decades to power industries and homes. Its abundance and cheap cost is what propelled many to turn to it in the first place. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries saw huge amounts of coal being used to drive countries like Britain to the forefront of progress. Earlier, this natural resource was used in small quantities and coal could be mined from close to the surface of the earth. However, as demands increased, there was a need to drill ever deeper.

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Chinese Automaker BYD Unveils World’s Largest Battery for Renewable Energy Storage

BYD is already being known as China’s main producer of electric cars. They also produce their own ferrous batteries for the cars, which they now use to store wind and solar power in what represents the world’s largest renewable energy storage based on batteries.

Having the size of a football field, the huge battery bank can store 36 megawatt-hours of power. The State Grid Corporation of China is the project’s beneficiary, seeking to improve their renewable installation’s efficiency by 5 to 10 percent.

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