It’s every good American’s dream to be able to hop into your car and drive. And drive and drive and drive. Without having to fill up: no stopping, no emissions, no nothing. Just lots of lovely driving through prairies, towns, cities, forest, canyons .. heck, whatever takes your fancy so long as you’re driving.

Well, now it’s possible with one important caveat … you have to be underwater.

After five years of development the Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging (SOLO-TREC) underwater vehicle has just completed three months of extensive testing off the Hawaii islands.

Like any good piece of kit with totally renewable power, it’s been patted on the head and sent off on an extended mission, to see just how long it can keep on going without intervention .. months perhaps, possibly even years.

How it keeps going for so long is, like any great bit of clean tech, astounding in is simplicity and sublime in its execution.

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Swiss company BKW has revealed that it plans to launch a 20-30 meter long solar-powered submarine. The vessel, to be used as a tourist attraction, will feature a huge ‘living-room’ style passenger area, as well as 60-70cm viewing portholes.

Under the plan, called Project Goldfish, a team of engineers will build a submarine, capable of carrying 20-30 passengers and two crew, at a depth of up to 300 meters across Lake Thun. Since it operates underwater, the team have figured that it’s pointless attaching solar panels on the sub itself. Instead, the vessel will fully recharge at a floating solar platform on the surface of the lake, kitted out with 300m2 of solar collectors, capable of supplying up to 30kW of renewable energy.

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Vandergrift, PA is ditching its longtime reputation as a steel town to become a model of sustainability. First up in the transition: installing a grid of electricity-generating smart materials on the bottom of the Kiskiminetas River. The town hopes that the grid—along with a healthy dose of energy conservation efforts—will generate between 20 and 40 percent of the town’s electricity.

The underwater grid will consist of flexible strips of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), a material that generates electricity upon movement. In this case, currents in the river will provide the grid with the necessary undulations.

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