Observant readers might have noticed that I missed last weeks renewable energy roundup. I confess I was weak and needed the sleep. Excuses are for people who can’t lie, enough excuses! This weeks roundup will be super-sized to make up for my lack of goodness last week. Here we go!

Want to bring the Internet to people who live very very far away from any sort of Internet infrastructure. You my friend need one of these.

Speaking of solar, it seems something as simple as solar flashlights can have an amazingly positive effect on peoples lives.

At 10 p.m. in a sweltering refugee camp here in western Ethiopia, a group of foreigners was making its way past thatch-roofed huts when a tall, rail-thin man approached a silver-haired American and took hold of his hands.

The man, a Sudanese refugee, announced that his wife had just given birth, and the boy would be honored with the visitor’s name. After several awkward translation attempts of “Mark Bent,” it was settled. “Mar,” he said, will grow up hearing stories of his namesake, the man who handed out flashlights powered by the sun.

Since August 2005, when visits to an Eritrean village prompted him to research global access to artificial light, Mr. Bent, 49, a former foreign service officer and Houston oilman, has spent $250,000 to develop and manufacture a solar-powered flashlight.

His invention gives up to seven hours of light on a daily solar recharge and can last nearly three years between replacements of three AA batteries costing 80 cents.

Over the last year, he said, he and corporate benefactors like Exxon Mobil have donated 10,500 flashlights to United Nations refugee camps and African aid charities.

Another 10,000 have been provided through a sales program, and 10,000 more have just arrived in Houston awaiting distribution by his company, SunNight Solar. (via)

The packaging is the product, I like this a lot.

More solar news, this time it seems the people who make computer chips are working towards making better solar cells. Can’t wait till my 3ghz solar panel comes out.

We must stand strong my friends, for the big oil/gas/coal companies do NOT want wind power to replace them. Have they gone so far as to introduce backroom legislation that would grind the wind industry to a halt?

The first solar planes could soon by crossing the north American continent, is a round the world flight far off?

Sandia has invented a way to make solar parabolic trough collectors even better, swell.

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An NPR show featuring Wendy Williams co-author of the new book on Cape Wind.

Make your own solar thermal hot air panel, all you need is some old pop cans.

CitiBank is investing 50 billion to stop global warming. At least some of that money probably comes from all the interest I have paid on my college loans. Sharks I tell you, sharks…