The government has given the green light to a scheme which will see smart meters being installed into all of the UK’s 26 million homes. Although touted for some time, the approved plan will see British Gas and other energy suppliers given responsibility for installing the meters, which will allow consumers to monitor their own energy use, as well as allow the energy companies to read consumption levels remotely.

The ability to read meters remotely will forego the use of estimated bills, while the consumers’ ability to monitor their gas and electricity usage will help in their efforts to adopt a greener lifestyle.

But the estimated £8.5bn outlay threatened to usurp the announcement, with critics warning that energy companies may pocket the benefits rather than passing them back to the consumer by way of cheaper fuel. The Department of Energy and Climate change believes the expected savings to be in the region of £14.5bn – dwarfing the outlay costs – due to reduced administrative costs.

While the plans were welcomed by power companies and industry bodies, consumer groups and energy consultants voiced concerns that the smart meter rollout was being placed into the hands of a sector that had already come in for fierce criticism over high charges, and allegedly not passing on previous benefits to customers.

“We’re concerned that consumers could be saddled with the entire multibillion pound bill for a project that’s going to save the industry hundreds of millions of pounds a year,” said Martyn Hocking, editor of Which? magazine.

British Gas, however, believe that the government estimate of 2% saving on energy per household was conservative and the actual saving could be considerably higher after research in the United States suggested that customers’ energy use could be cut by as much as 20% by using smart metering technology.

The company also believes the roll-out of smart meters could create up to 2,600 additional jobs by 2012.

Watermelons could become the latest source of biofuel according to a report in the Telegraph online.

The report claims that scientists in the United States have discovered that around 50 percent of the fruit contained enough natural sugar for distilling into ethanol, which could provide valuable biofuel.

Retailers in the United States alone reject some 360,000 tonnes of ‘substandard’ fruit each year – fruit that is misshapen or blemished – which researchers suggest could produce nearly two million gallons of biofuel each year.

Currently, imperfect watermelons are ploughed back into the soil but a study into the potential of the fruit’s juice as a source of potential fuel by the US Department of Agriculture suggested the fruit could overtake chip fat, rapeseed oil and other sources of biofuel. Almost one fifth of the United States’ annual watermelon crop is left in the field due to imperfections and around twenty gallons of fuel could be produced per acre of fruit, according to the report published in the Biotechnology for Biofuels journal.

“We’ve shown that the juice of these melons is a source of readily fermentable sugars, representing a heretofore untapped feedstock for ethanol biofuel production,” said Dr Wayne Fish, the leader of the research team.

The UK arm of the World Wildlife Fund has a very helpful walk through of The Power of Scotland Renewed Report. They explain that Scotland could be 100% renewable in only 20 years.

If accurate it means that through renewable energy could be the complete solution for climate change and the future for some parts of the world.

The report was commissioned by Friends of the Earth Scotland, WWF Scotland, RSPB Scotland and the World Development Movement and so comes from pro-renewable founding but was based on research by Garrad Hassaan who remains independent.

There’s a whole bunch of quotes from the green charities that do a good job at summing up this side of the debate.

The CEO of Friends of the Earth Scotland, Duncan McLaren, said; “This report shows how Scotland’s energy sector can make these targets a reality. It is vital that we grasp the new economic and job opportunities that would come with a sustainable energy future.”

Head of Scottish Campaigns for the World Development Movement, Liz Murry said; “Developing countries need to see rich countries not only committing to reduce emissions, but also bringing in policies now to ensure those emissions reductions happen. Our report shows that the Scottish Government can do this by ruling out coal in Scotland and embracing energy efficiency and renewables.”

Director of WWF Scotland, Dr Richard Dixon, said; “”Scotland has the best renewable energy potential of any country in Europe and we should be aiming high. This new report provides us with a clear description of how to set ourselves on the path to 100% renewable power.”

Head of Planning and Development, RSPB Scotland, Aedan Smith, said; “Given the importance of addressing climate change, which is the largest threat to biodiversity and sustainable development, we welcome the findings of this report that demonstrates that the Government’s targets for emissions reductions and renewable energy can be met without environmental harm.”

A new Sainsbury’s store to open in Gloucester is to have its checkouts powered by its customers.

Kinetic road plates in the car park are expected to produce 30kW/h of clean electricity that will be directed into the store every time a vehicle passes over them. This energy will be more than enough to power the checkouts in use.

Sainsbury’s motto – try something new today – is particularly apt as it is thought to be the first store in Europe to use this technology.

The new supermarket also has other green methods in place including using rainfall to flush the toilets, solar panels to heat the hot water and more than 90% of the construction waste of the new Sainsbury’s was recycled.

Alison Austin, Sainsbury’s environment manager, said: “This is revolutionary. Not only are we the first to use such cutting-edge technology with our shoppers, but customers can now play a very active role in helping make their local shop greener, without extra effort or cost.

“We want to continue offering great value but we also want to make the weekly shop sustainable. Using amazing technology like this helps us reduce our use of carbon and makes Sainsbury’s a leading energy-efficient business.”

The best ideas are always the ones that seem so obvious they make you wonder why you didn’t come up with them yourself.

Metropolis Magazine’s 2009 Next Generation winners – a competition to design solutions to rising energy costs – have come up with a beautiful idea, called Wind-It.

French creators Nicola Delon, Julien Choppin and Raphael Menard submitted designs to include wind turbines inside the numerous broken pylons that dot their countryside. Because the towers are already linked up to the grid they could easily send their electricity to where it’s needed with one refurbished tower providing enough energy to power between one room and 20 houses depending on location. For winning the design competition, the team have been awarded $10,000 to share.

As well as broken electrical towers, these turbines can be implemented in new towers to give a boost to the travelling electricity. The designers estimate that if one third of France’s towers produced their own power that would give the equivalent of two nuclear reactors.

France has stated its ambitions to quintuple its wind power output by 2020 so this design has been timely.

The stumbling block, as always, is money. Pylons aren’t designed to accommodate wind turbines and this design is more expensive than their propeller counterparts. However, with many people objecting to wind turbines because of their effect on landscapes, this may end up becoming a compromise to those who object to large scale wind farms.

Australia has set aside a budget of A$4.65billion to spend on a clean energy initiative and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that A$1.4billion of that is to be spent on what will be the world’s largest solar power station. This 1000-megawatt plant will be three times larger than the current biggest, which is in California.

Applications for tender will be open later in the year with the successful bids being known in the early part of 2010. The project will eventually lead to a network of solar power stations that takes in Australia’s sunniest spots as well as the current national grid.

Australia currently gets around 85% of its energy from coal, so this new move is being seen as a positive step towards a greener future.

Mr Rudd said: “Why are we doing this? We are doing it in order to support a clean energy future for Australia, we’re doing it to boost economic activity now and we’re doing it also to provide jobs and much needed opportunities for business as well.”

Australia is also set to become a full member of the International Renewable Energy Agency. IRENA currently has more than 80 countries signed up and the organisation is set to hold its first meeting in June.

This news comes in the same week that Pennsylvania governors announced that anyone in the state installing solar technologies will be rewarded with 45% off the price.

A quarter of London households are to be powered by a wind farm, known as the London Array, in the Thames Estuary by the year 2012.

The wind farm – being built by a consortium of E.ON, Dong Energy and Masdar – is to be the biggest offshore farm of its kind. Work on the £2billion project will start this year before beginning to produce electricity in 2012.

There had been doubts over the project – which was first muted in 2006 – especially when one of the major financiers, oil company Shell, pulled out in 2008. Masdar stepped into the vacant spot but even with their funding the project would not have been able to go ahead without changes to the Budget announced last month, with a boost to the Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) incentive scheme.

The ROC came into effect in 2002 to encourage the generation of electricity in the UK from renewable sources. The most recent goals set ask for 15.4% of the UK’s energy to come from green sources by the year 2015. The London Array alone would account for just below 7% of this target.

Ed Miliband, energy secretary, said: “The London Array sends an important signal about the UK renewables market and the confidence of major suppliers, and vindicates the decision in the Budget about the ROCs.”

It is concept that has been considered by many, but a gym in the US is one of the first to utilise the idea of humans generating the electricity that powers the facilities of the gym. The Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon, uses specially-adapted exercise bikes that recycle energy generated from the people using them.

Similar to the concept of how a windmill makes energy, the gym owner, Adam Boesel, decided that he could apply this to the exercise bikes used in the gym. Therefore, using a device known as the Human Dynamo – which is connected to a battery that stores the energy generated from those who are pedalling – the energy captured in this box can then be used to power any facilities used in the gym.

For example, large spinning group classes which involve many people exercising at the same would prove an ideal environment to utilise the Human Dynamo. However, because of the technology behind this, it is likely to be costly to purchase, which for many gyms may not prove very appropriate due to the tight economy of recent times.

Whilst they may not be financially viable for many gyms, once do they become more affordable then environmentally friendly exercise equipment is sure to become a more attractive and cheaper alternative for gyms, as it can help to save energy costs in the long term. This is in addition of course, to helping the environment.

So, next time you are on an exercise bike, think about how the gym could one day be helping you to green your exercise routine!

A new company formed through researchers at the University of Leeds could be changing the way washing machines function.

Inventors at the university have found a way of cleaning clothes while using only two per cent of the water used by a conventional washing machine, roughly equivalent to one cup of water. The lack of water also means the clothes come out practically dry, reducing any need for a tumble dryer.

In the UK alone, the average household uses around 21 litres of water each day washing clothes. In total this accounts for around 455 million litres of water daily, or 145 Olympic swimming pools. Xeros’ new washing machine will hopefully change this, reducing the need for large water usage.

Company founder Professor Stephen Burkinshaw says: “The performance of the Xeros process in cleaning clothes has been quite astonishing. We’ve shown that it can remove all sorts of everyday stains including coffee and lipstick whilst using a tiny fraction of the water used by conventional washing machines.”

The new technology focuses on using chips to pound the dirt and stains out of the clothing. Whether or not this method affects the durability of the clothing hasn’t been covered, however, the invention has attracted a lot of attention from the industry and, according to Xeros, we could be seeing these readily available as early as 2009.