Green technology through the ages

A dozen of the most promising applicants will be invited to present their idea to a high-calibre panel of experts in front of a live audience at Manchester Town Hall on the weekend of 4 and 5 July. The panel will rate the various ideas in terms of their feasibility, impact and commercial potential. The results of this landmark event will form the basis of a report. For more information, visit The Manchester Report Photograph: MIF

A Detroit Electric, an early electric car, travels a mountain road from Seattle to Mount Rainier, circa 1919 Photograph: Corbis

6 August 1882: The operation of a solar-powered printing press, which produced copies of Le Chaleur Solaire by Augustin Mouchot, a newspaper that he created especially for the event. The press rattled off 500 copies an hour. The experiment was conducted in the Garden of Tuileries, Paris, for the festival of L'Union Francaises de la Jeuenesse Photograph: Corbis

An undated illustration (circa 1870) of Captain John Ericsson's new solar engine, which used concave mirrors to gather sun radiation strong enough to run an engine Photograph: Corbis

1773: Franklin Stove diagram by Martinet. Benjamin Franklin is believed to have designed the first energy efficient stove. The Franklin circulating stove was said give off twice the amount of heat as a normal fireplace using much less wood. Wood fuel was beginning to run out in Philadelphia where Franklin lived Photograph: Corbis

1 May 1899: Laurels for Camille Jenatzy (in driver's seat), the first man to exceed 62 mph at Acheres, near Paris. The car, christened Jamais Contente, was an electric vehicle of his own design Photograph: Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive

The Windmills display at the World Fair of 1893 in Chicago, which was a grand spectacle to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival Photograph: Roger Viollet/Getty Images

1916: A windmill attachment for boats to act as an additional sail and provide means of generating elctricity on board, designed by Edward Niklaus Breitung Photograph: M. J. Rivise Patent Collection/Getty Images

1941: A man adjusts a wind electric generator on the Calf of Man, a small island off the southern tip of the Isle of Man Photograph: Corbis

1984: "Eggbeater" Windmills in Alameda County, California, USA Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis

1893: The first diesel engine Photograph: Corbis

The inventor and physicist Thomas A Edison stands next to his American Barker electric car, circa 1895 Photograph: Corbis

Senators Edmund Muskie, foreground, and Warren G Magnuson demonstrate electric-powered scooters after a Senate hearing on early battery powered vehicles, 13 March 1967, Washington, USA Photograph: Wally McNamee/Corbis

1960, London: Charles Alexander Escoffery demonstrates how his solar-powered car, a 1912 Baker Electric Model, gets its energy from the solar panel on top of the car's roof Photograph: Corbis

1975, Rosemount, Minnesota, USA: Solar panels collect energy from the sun atop the roof of a house designed by University of Minnesota architecture students. Another source of energy stands behind the house: a wind generator atop a 65 foot tower. Turf insulates the roof of the house, cooling it in summer and retaining heat in winter. Inside, a waterless toilet uses aerobic bacteria to break down waste within a period of six months Photograph: Corbis

One of the original Passive Houses at Darmstadt, Germany Photograph: Passivhaus Institut

1990: Geothermal electrical power station at Wairakei, New Zealand Photograph: Tim Graham/Getty images

Workers in a boat near an off-shore electricity generator based on wave power off Portugal's Atlantic coast near the northern town of Povoa de Varzim. Portugal has launched a wave-energy farm that uses floating tubes - their bobbing motion pumps hydraulic fluid to drive generators Photograph: Joao Abreu Miranda/AFP

An engineer displays a sheet of 'thin film' solar cells at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Thin film solar panels, are relatively low in cost and are highly adaptable because of their flexibility, have quickly come to dominate the US market in the past two years Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images