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First Major Step towards Energy conservation – World Bank musters $5.5 billion for solar projects
Dec 9th
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The World Bank announced Wednesday 5.5 billion dollars would be invested in solar energy projects in five countries of the Middle East and North Africa in a bid to combat climate change.
The Washington-based bank’s Clean Technology Fund approved financing of 750 million dollars on December 2 to boost the use of concentrated solar power, an advanced technology that concentrates sunlight to harness energy.
The fund’s financing “will mobilize an additional 4.85 billion dollars from other sources, to accelerate global deployment of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP),” the development lender said in a statement.
The Clean Technology fund will invest in the CSP programs More >
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Loading ...Company plans 500 megawatt wind farm in Montana
Dec 1st
BILLINGS, Mont. – A Minnesota company has partnered with a Montana developer to pursue more than 500 megawatts of community-owned wind power in central Montana.
National Wind of Minneapolis and Montana Wind Resources of Billings said Monday the project would be built in phases of at least 100-megawatts each over the next five to eight years. Landowners in Judith Basin, Wheatland, Golden Valley and Fergus counties would share in any revenues.
The companies say a separate entity — Judith Highlands Energy LLC — will manage the project, which they describe as the first large, community-owned wind farm in Montana.
The latest entry into Montana’s More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Electricity-hungry Vietnam looks to join nuclear club
Nov 28th
HANOI (AFP) – Vietnam is expected to take a key step towards meeting its burgeoning appetite for electricity by paving the way for its first nuclear power plant, but debate is still raging over the controversial project.
Parliament in the fast-growing communist state is set to vote at the end of November on the project — which lawmakers have been mulling for more than a decade — after legalising the use of nuclear power in 2008.
Vietnam’s atomic energy commission estimates that nuclear power could meet as much as 30 percent of the nation’s energy needs by the middle of the century, compared with less More >
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Japan eyes solar station in space
Nov 10th
TOKYO (AFP) – It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan’s space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.
The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.
With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies and this year set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But Japan’s boldest plan More >
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Toyota unveils new hybrid-only model
Nov 5th
TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp. has unveiled a more expensive and bigger hybrid-only model than its hit Prius, underlining the Japanese automaker’s ambitions to make green technology more widespread.
The “Sai” sedan is Toyota’s second hybrid-only model after the Prius. Toyota offers hybrid versions of other car models.
Sai, which means “talent” and “color,” will be sold only in Japan, starting Dec.7, targeting monthly sales of 3,000 vehicles. No global sales plans have been decided, the world’s biggest automaker said Tuesday.
Hybrids get better mileage than regular gasoline engine cars by switching between an electric motor and a gas engine. Other automakers are also beefing More >
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UN cautions over biofuels green credentials
Oct 27th
NAIROBI (AFP) – The use of biofuels as a source of clean energy may lead to higher carbon emissions, but can also yield significant cuts if production is properly managed, the UN Environment Programme said Friday.
As such, governments should assess energy needs, effects on climate, land and water use as well as agriculture if biofuel projects are to be beneficial.
Citing a report by its Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, the UN body noted that Brazil’s biofuel production can lead to between 70 and more than 100 percent emission reduction when substituted for petrol.
But some biofuels — produced for example from oil More >
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The 21st Century Television – Less Power Consumed
Oct 24th
The 21st Century home is packed to the rafters with electrical devices, from labour-saving kit in the kitchen to widescreen TVs and computers.
Even the simple act of illuminating our homes requires power.
Some of the major manufacturers at the Japanese technology fair Ceatec suggest that alternative energy sources like wind and solar power could become commonplace as wind turbines and solar panels become cheaper.
But short of pulling the plug and switching off our creature comforts, reducing the amount of energy we use seems to be the goal of the big players.
Pretty much all of the consumer kit is making claims to More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Lower-cost Solar Cells To Be Printed Like Newspaper, Painted On Rooftops
Oct 17th
There may soon be cheaper solar cells with nano particles “ink” that allows them to be printed, such as newspaper or painted on the walls of buildings or roofs absorb sunlight to produce electricity.
Brian Korgel, a University of Texas at Austin chemical engineer, is hoping to save costs one tenth of their current price by changing the standard method for producing solar cells – elimination phase gas in a vacuum chamber, which requires high temperatures and slightly more expensive.
“That is essentially what is needed for solar-cell technology and photovoltaic solar energy widely adopted,” said Korgel. “The day offers an almost More >
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