Japan may invest $1.93 billion in climate fund

March 3, 2008 (Reuters) – The fund, to be set up jointly with the United States and Britain, is expected be the largest ever of its type, with total investment of about 500 billion yen ($4.82 billion), the Nikkei said.

By investing in technologies such as wind and solar power in less developed countries, participating governments hope to encourage private finance to follow suit, the newspaper said without identifying its sources.

The British government last year announced 800 million pounds in support for the fund over three years, while the United States said this year it would provide $2 billion, also over three years, the Nikkei said.

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Transport fuels from New Zealand biomass a reality

March 3, 2008 (Scoop) – Biofuels generated from New Zealand-grown softwood feedstocks have been identified as a feasible, large scale option for meeting both the low-carbon transport vision of the Government’s 2007 Energy Strategy (NZES) and Biofuels Sales Obligation (BSO), say the authors of a report by the New Zealand Lignocellulosic Bioethanol Initiative.

China Goes Climate Cool

Spring 2008 (YES! Magazine, Anna Fahey) – Last summer, Chinese President Hu Jintao toured the country in short sleeves to show that his countrymen could turn their air conditioners down. In China, conservation is “in.” Fashions do change.

Global warming denial is out of vogue. Unfortunately, though, the climate change do-nothing set is sporting a new line: “Why should we bother fighting climate change when China’s emissions are increasing?”

Need to focus on sustainable power generation stressed (Pakistan)

February 12, 2008 (The International News) – A household can lit a candle or an emergency light to illuminate the house, but it does not work for the industry, as it requires uninterrupted power supply. Industry is facing a production loss due to current power crisis.

Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) President Shaikh Fazal Jaleel told The News that there was 50 per cent decline in production due to power breakdowns. When asked whom he considered the biggest enemy of investors in Pakistan; the so-called terrorism or energy crises; “energy crises,” he said.

3-Pronged Profits from China’s Worst Winter

February 10, 2008 (Seeking Alpha) – It was the worst winter in half a century in the Middle Kingdom, throwing China into a coal energy crisis and giving us several ways to play China’s power problems.

You probably saw the unbelievable photos like this one:

Those are some of the hundreds of thousands of travelers stuck at a train station in Guangzhou, one of the industrial capitals of the new China. Guangdong (better known to English speakers as Canton), where Guangzhou is located, is the richest province in the country, an export titan and magnet for tens of millions of migrant workers from other parts of China.

These folks sat on their haunches for days on end, waiting for crews to clear the country’s iron roads and let them get home for maybe the only time this year – this week’s Lunar New Year celebration.

Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank raise US$130 million for ReneSola (SOL)

January 29, 2008 (MarketWatch) – ReneSola, the China manufacturer of silicon wafers for solar power cells, priced its U.S. stock offering at a discount Tuesday and the shares rose in the open market. The company debuted in the U.S. in the wake of recent weakness in alternative-energy shares.
ReneSola offered 10 million American depositary shares at $13 each, raising $130 million via underwriters Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities. The stock closed at $12.99, down a penny, in its first day of trades. The IPO priced at a 9.7% discount to the company’s closing price Monday on the AIM market on the London Stock Exchange, according to Renaissance Capital.

Letter from Shell CEO

From: Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive
To: All Shell employees
Date: 22 January 2008 Subject: Shell Energy Scenarios

Dear Colleagues

In this letter, I’d like to share reflections about how we see the energy future, and our preferred route to meeting the world’s energy needs. Industry, governments and energy users – that is, all of us – will face the twin challenge of more energy and less CO2.

This letter is based on a text I’ve written for publication in several newspapers in the coming weeks. You can use it in your communications externally. There will be more information about energy scenarios inthe months ahead.

By the year 2100, the world’s energy system will be radically different from today’s. Renewable energy like solar, wind, hydroelectricity and biofuels will make up a large share of the energy mix, and nuclear energy too will have a place.

Mankind will have found ways of dealing with air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. New technologies will have reduced the amount of energy needed to power buildings and vehicles.

2007: Did We Reach the Tipping Point?

January 7, 2008 (Renewable Energy Access) – At the beginning of each year, as the renewable energy industry looks back on its progress over the previous 12 months, the phrase “tipping point” always seems to enter the discussion. But how will we know when renewables have truly hit that tipping point?Will one quarter of the world’s electricity come from renewable resources? Will more investment go into clean energy than into the fossil energy industries? There’s no agreed upon standard for how to define a turning tide, but one thing is certain: 2007 clearly proved that there is a major change underway in how the world produces and consumes energy.

“If 2007 isn’t the tipping point, we are close to that,” says Janet Sawin, Director of the Energy and Climate Change program at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC. “This has been a truly remarkable year, and we’re seeing impressive development figures worldwide.”

According to a REN21 2007 Renewables Global Status Report due out in February, there are now 237 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generation capacity from renewable resources online around the world.

When breaking that total capacity down among technologies, wind leads with 93 GW of total installed capacity; small hydro has 73 GW; biomass has 44 GW; geothermal has 10 GW; and PV has just under 8 GW of total installed capacity. While renewables still only make up around 5.5% of the world’s 4,300 GW of total electrical generation capacity, the REN21 report concludes that the industry “has clearly become mainstream” over the last decade.

US energy dept keen on bio-mass for India

November 22, 2007 (Rediff News) – The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), US Department of Energy, is in talks with several Indian government departments for creating a bio-mass roadmap for India similar to the one being planned with China. 

 

The US department has also begun to undertake pilot projects in West Bengal for setting up green buildings.

World’s only Solar Taxi reaches India

October 25, 2007 (EcoFriend.org) – What better way than to spread the awareness about climate change and global warming than to go round the world in a solar taxi.

This chic-three wheeler is the brainchild of Louis Palmer, and it took 3 years of develop this eco-friendly taxi using cutting-edge technology. The solar cells in this taxi have been provided by a leading manufacturer of silicon solar cells, Q.Cells, and the batteries are high efficiency ZEBRA batteries, specifically designed for electric vehicles. The Solar Taxi has a lifespan of approximately 200,000 – 300,000 km. It is expected that if it is mass produced it would cost approximately €10,000 ($14,000 / £7,000).