Metropolis Magazine just announced the winner of their 2009 Next Generation Design Competition where the entrants were challenged to "fix our energy addiction." A team of French designers have won the prize with an innovative, practical way to create renewable energy wind farms.

Their Wind Turbine Towers, called Wind-it, install wind turbines in out-of-use electrical transmission towers. The idea is simple and elegant. Becuase the turbines are installed into the old electric transmission towers, it is easy to get the power into the power grid.

Dr. J. Craig Venter and the team of scientists at his institute are at the forefront of synthetic biology. They are working on, among other things, the creation of a bacterium that will both pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and create natural gas. You might think this sounds like a far off dream, but they are optimistic they can get this done sooner rather than latter.

Dr. Venter's track record makes the claim more noteworthy. Here's a list of thing's Dr. Venter has accomplished already:

In a trial by AT&T, consumers in Atlanta can get a "netbook" for $50 when you sign up for their internet service. The netbook differs from a regular PC because the netbooks are much thinner and smaller and are configured with less features than a regular PC. They are designed to be inexpensive. The also won't run out of battery nearly as fast.

Is this a game changer? DisplaySearch, a unit of the NPD Group comments, "With the economic crisis on everyone's minds, many buyers are adjusting their discretionary spending and purchasing mini-notes as lower-priced alternatives to notebook PCs." The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that the market for netbooks will be growing by 65 percent this year compared to 3 percent for regular PCs. The New York Times suggests that the netbook could control 10 percent of the PC market by the end of 2009.

Wayne Campbell and Ashton Partridge of Massey University in New Zealand have made efficient solar cells made from organic dyes. The dyes used in the solar cells are efficient, made at low cost, and can even generate electricy on a cloudy day. These cells are made from a biological pigment called porphyrin, a component of chlorophyll.

What is more exciting is that the dye Cambell and Partridge developed makes a dye-sensitized solar cells far more pratical to produce. There has been a lot of research in this area since the early 90s when Micheal Graetzel at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technolgy first created such a device using dyes that contained the metal ruthenium. The issue with Graetzel's device is that ruthenium is not plentiful enough to pratically mass product.

So What is the catch?

1) Refurbished hearts

More than 22 million people have heart failure. Even with the major advances in treatment for heat failure, over 50 percent of these people die within five years or learning of the condition.

Dr. Doris Taylor, the Medtronic-Bakken Chair in Cardiac Repair and the Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota , is researching another alternative. She researches using stem cells, genes, and devices to create new cardiac and vascular technologies.

What Dr. Taylor and her team have been able to do is to strip a rat’s heart of all cells and then to put the living cells from a healthy rat back into it. The new cells divide and can create the tissues needed to reform the heart and, miraculously, the new heart starts beating.

UK University researchers have been working with the steel industry to create a “solar paint”, where solar cells are applied to sheets of steel. Production of this solar paint is set to begin very shortly. With the power conversion efficiency reported above 10 percent, the potential energy generation of this new technology is staggering. “If the solar cell paint can be successfully brought to the market, it could spell big changes when it comes to the future production of electricity,” said Steve Fisher of the Corus Group, a European steel manufacturer.

E-Fuel Corp has a patent-pending technology they are releasing in a product called the EFuel100 MicroFueler™. The product is advertised as making "home ethanol distillation possible, cost-effective, and safe." This personal ethanol machine uses sugar to produce the ethanol. The sugar comes in 50Lb bags and can be delivered to your door or you can buy yeast if you have your own sugar supply.