London's Blackfriars Tube station is on its way to becoming the world's largest solar bridge. Stretching across South Bank a stone's throw from the Tate Modern, the busy station, built by Solarcentury, has already reached the halfway point to completion. Construction on the world's largest solar bridge began on October 2011. Blackfriars Tube station is still fully functioning, ferrying Londoners and tourists from the popular South Bank promenade to areas all over the city. Yet construction is still underway across the bridge's rooftop. Heavy scaffolding is slowly being removed to reveal the 4,400 solar panels that will serve the station, pumping 900 thousand kWh of solar energy back into the grid each year. The solar powerhouse will also reduce CO2 emissions by 511 tons per year, all while promptly serving commuters with uninterrupted service around the city. The gorgeous Victorian bridge is the only bearing solar panels along the River Thames. With stellar city views, boats pass under the bridge's arches throughout the day, while the station serves 24 trains per hour. Pedestrians strolling along the South Bank walk way pass under the historic bridge, check out the progress of its solar modernization. The idyllic scene could be just a glimpse of London's future. With over 100 bridges crossing the River Thames throughout the city, adding additional solar arrays on any of them could drastically reduce the city's consumption of fossil fuels, and ensure a source of clean energy for generations to come, reducing emissions and overall carbon footprint.

Researchers at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia have developed a sodium-ion battery that could make renewable energy technologies more affordable. The salt battery can be used in place of more expensive lithium ion batteries to store solar and wind energy so as to provide continuous power even on cloudy or windless days. According to project leaders Drs Manickam Minakshi and Danielle Meyrick, the battery "has excellent potential for large-scale use, including storing energy from wind turbines and solar farms for later feeding into local electricity grids, as well as use in industry". As we look to transition to renewable energy sources such as solar energy and wind power we are faced with a number of problems. Currently wind turbines and solar panels are dependent on weather conditions; wind turbines don't operate on a still day, while solar panels can't be used at night or during cloudy weather. It can leave the electricity demand unbalanced with the energy supply generated by renewables. These limitations require the storing of excess energy where possible so as to remain entirely off-the-grid, and the new water-based sodium-ion battery is the most affordable, low-temperature energy storage created so far. Previous storage batteries have been using rare and expensive compounds like molten sulfur and liquid metals, making the price too steep for commercialization. Unlike its predecessors, the new battery is based on globally abundant and affordable sodium, whose chemical properties are similar to the widely-used lithium. The next challenge was to find a material for cathodes and anodes capable of accommodating sodium's ionic size. After extensive testing, Drs Manickam Minakshi and Danielle Meyrick have found that using manganese dioxide as the cathode and a novel olivine sodium phosphate as the anode gave best results. Claiming that this breakthrough will make renewable energy more accessible in developing countries, Dr Manickam Minakshi states that the "research has reached the stage where we're ready to move beyond our lab towards larger-scale commercialization".

Singapore's latest development will finally blossom later this month, with an imposing canopy of artificial trees up to 50 meters high towering over a vast urban oasis, reported The CNN. The colossal solar-powered supertrees are found in the Bay South garden, which opens to the public on June 29. It is part of a 250-acre landscaping project -- Gardens by the Bay -- that is an initiative from Singapore's National Parks Board that will see the cultivation of flora and fauna from foreign lands. The man-made mechanical forest consists of 18 supertrees that act as vertical gardens, generating solar power, acting as air venting ducts for nearby conservatories, and collecting rainwater. To generate electricity, 11 of the supertrees are fitted with solar photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into energy, which provides lighting and aids water technology within the conservatories below. Varying in height between 25 and 50 meters, each supertree features tropical flowers and various ferns climbing across its steel framework. The large canopies also operate as temperature moderators, absorbing and dispersing heat, as well as providing shelter from the hot temperatures of Singapore's climate to visitors walking beneath. Bridges dubbed "skywalks" have been erected connecting several of the higher 50-meter supertrees, letting visitors stroll between them and view the gardens from dizzying heights. The horticultural heaven also boasts two green conservatories in close proximity -- the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome -- climate-controlled biomes inspired by the shape of an orchid flower, which project organizers hope will become the park's main attractions. The biomes are the equivalent size of four football fields and will become the new home for 220 thousand plants from almost every continent. Designed by Grant Associates, the project is part of a redevelopment scheme to create a new downtown district in the Marina Bay area, on Singapore's south side. Project organizers hope the completed Gardens by the Bay will become an eco-tourist destination showcasing sustainable practices and plants from across the globe. Launched seven years ago by Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the horticultural oasis will be a contrast to the country's extremely dense urban environment, forming part of the government's overall strategy to transform Singapore into a "city in a garden."

The outlines of a massive solar thermal power plant-the largest ever-are starting to appear in the wilderness outside of Las Vegas. The US$ 2.2 billion project, which is being built by NRG Energy, Google, Oakland, California-based BrightSource and Bechtel, the engineering and construction contractor for the project, stretches over 14.5 million square meters near Ivanpah in Mojave Desert, California. When it's finished, it will generate 377 megawatts of electricity on sunny days and it will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US. The project has been a long time coming. BrightSource first filed an application for the project in the summer of 2007. Approval took three years and official construction started in October 2011. Crews began installing the hundreds of thousands of mirrors in February of this year. Construction was temporarily slowed to accommodate the care and relocation of desert tortoises-a threatened species-found in larger numbers than expected. The project, which will generate electricity by using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to heat up water and drive steam turbines, is now expected to be finished next year in 2013. The Ivanpah solar thermal power plant will generate power the same way as traditional power plants - by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. However, instead of using fossil fuels or nuclear power to create the steam, this plant uses the sun's energy. By this way, the plant will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 400 thousand tons annually, which is equivalent of taking more than 70 thousand cars off the road. Besides this, in order to conserve scarce water resources, the plant employs an air-cooling system to convert the steam back into water in a closed-loop cycle. By using air-cooling, the new technology uses more than 90 percent less water than older technology parabolic through plants with wet cooling. Even as the project nears completion, the future of solar thermal power plants is in doubt. That's in large part because prices for solar panels-which convert sunlight to electricity directly-have dropped quickly in the last few years, causing at least one company to abandon plans to build solar thermal plants in favor of making ones that use solar panels. At least, solar thermal has one great strength compared to many other types of solar power: the heat it produces is easy to store, so electricity can be generated even after the sun goes down, and power can be dispatched to the grid whenever it's most needed. But the picture may change, as according to The CNNMoney, the US Department of Commerce last month announced it would impose punitive tariffs as high as 250 percent on panels imported from China after finding that Chinese companies have been "dumping" them at prices below production costs. As we reported earlier, on May 2011 took place ground breaking ceremony of the world's largest Blythe Solar power plant. Once construction is completed, the site will feature four solar thermal power plants with a total generating capacity of thousand megawatts of electricity. Latest development for Blythe Solar is very much unfavorable. As reported the Forbes, developer companies of the project Solar Trust of America and the Solar Millennium Group filed for bankruptcy, the former in USA and the latter in Germany.

As reported by inhabitat.com, today Japan will become completely nuclear free for the first time since 1970 as it shuts down the Tomari nuclear reactor on the island of Hokkaido. One by one the country's 54 nuclear reactors have been shuttered for maintenance, but they have not reopened because of the public's fears over their safety. Anti-nuclear demonstrators plan on celebrating Tomari's shutdown, but one consequence Japan faces is a 15 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions because of its increased reliance on fossil fuels. Nuclear power provided Japan with about 30 percent of its electricity needs before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 16,000 people and damaged the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. As additional nuclear power plants were closed last year, Japan endured its hot and humid summer by running factories on nights and weekends while office workers relied on fans instead of air conditioning to keep cool. But despite nationwide conservation efforts, Japan still suffered from a massive shortage of electricity, so power plants running on oil and natural gas stepped in to meet the country's energy needs. As a result Japan will produce an additional 180 million to 210 million tons of emissions this year. The increasing reliance on fossil fuels has not only challenged Japan's emission targets, but also affects Japan's export-driven economy. For the first time in over 30 years, Japan rung up a trade deficit this year because energy companies and utilities spent billions on oil and gas imports to meet the continued demand for power. Japan's government is trying to convince the public that nuclear energy still has a future, but citizens are still skeptical about its safety. A recent poll showed about 60 percent of the public opposed the government's wish to reopen two nuclear reactors in western Japan. Local officials have been especially vocal in their opposition to restarting nuclear plants in their cities and towns unless Japan's central government can provide assurances beyond what is currently required by law. Meanwhile Japan's economy is still stagnant, and the country's options are limited. Renewable energy options like solar only make up one percent of the country's overall energy portfolio, despite several ambitious projects that are currently in the planning stage.