By building and operating a $1.5 billion dollar, 290 megawatt solar concentrated power plant, Lockheed Martin,
is moving into the renewable energy sector. The plant will be located
75 miles west of Phoenix and constructed in conjunction with Starwood Energy Group, which has a contract to sell the electricity to Arizona Public Service when the plant is completed in 2013.
Scientists at MIT are working on a distributed solar system that uses electricity from roof-top photovoltaic panels to power a water-splitting electrolyzer that will create and store hydrogen and oxygen. The stored hydrogen and oxygen then can be recombined later in a fuel cell for power at night. The process is artificial photosynthesis, a bio-mimicry model that duplicates the chemistry of plants.
By making the blades on wind turbines more efficient, scientists at Purdue University hope to increase the amount of energy each turbine produces. With slight modifications to the blade, turbines would be able to operate when wind speeds are too low or too high for current models.By 2013 the demand for green packaging, (material made of recycled content, reusable or bio-degradable material) is expected to be $43.9 billion according to the research company, Freedonia Group. In their study, the rate of growth of the green packaging industry is forecast at 3.4% per year.






