The Cleantech Week in Review, Pt. 2: A game-changing energy storage discovery from MIT; vertical farms are on the rise; and calculating urban walkability.

‘Major discovery’ from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Thursday published a report claiming a breakthrough in energy storage which could prove genuinely game-changing. Researchers have discovered a photosynthesis-inspired process which allows electricity generated by solar panels to split water into its hydrogen and oxygen components. These could be later burned or recombined in a fuel cell to produce energy. The MIT process utilizes a non-toxic catalyst to achieve the gas-splitting reaction. Storing solar photovoltaic power has been a chief obstacle to its widespread adoption. (MIT)

Vertical Farm Plans Keeps Growing: Vertical farming continues to create interest as an alternative tp the sprawling farm system which now produces most of our food. The Big Think Blog features a video interview with Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier, discussing the basics of multi-story vertical farming in urban areas — alongside the people who will eventually consume the food. New York, Oregon, and Toronto are all considering pilot vertical farming projects. (Big Think Blog)

BP-Rio Tinto JV Files Application for Hydrogen Power Station with CCS in Kern County, California: A joint venture of BP Alternative Energy and Rio Tinto has filed an application for the United States’ first hydrogen power plant. The facility will still depend on fossil fuels, using petroleum coke to generate hydrogen. But the facility will eventually be capable of generating nearly 400 megawatts of power — enough to supply 150,000 homes. (Green Car Congress)

Plans to build Geelong-Melbourne-Frankston monorail: Melbourne, Australia, is closer to building a maglev rail system. City leaders on Tuesday gave the nod to a German company’s plan for a high-speed magnetic rail monorail system linking two airports and three cities. How fast is high speed? The projects design requirements have the monorail operating “silently” at 155 miles per hour in urban settings, and twice that between cities. (The Herald Sun)

America’s Most Walkable Neighborhoods: Walking may low on the list of environmental technologies — but now there’s a high-tech way for planning walking routes and browsing the environment. Walk Score catalogs essential services within an easy walk of any mappable address. It will also do route planning. How’d we do here at EcoTech Daily? Not so well: our community scored an embarrassing 38 out of 100 possible points, ranking it as “car dependent.” Let everyone know how your town fares!