Stockholm (AFP) Dec 03, 2006 - There is an inexhaustible supply of wind to drive their blades, but materials needed to make wind turbines are limited and the industry fears it will fail to keep pace with growing demand for the clean energy source. We do whatever we can but it's impossible to increase our (production) capacity overnight, a spokesman for the Danish group Vestas told AFP.
Beijing (XNA) Dec 01, 2006 - China will give priority to hydropower development in western regions with rich water resources, said an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). China has finished a national survey of water resources and estimated a potential of 500 million kW of hydropower based on those resources, said Zhang Guobao, NDRC deputy director.
St. Petersburg, Russia (RIA Novosti) Dec 01, 2006 - Russian and Ukrainian scientists have agreed to cooperate in a project to investigate the sun's future impact on global climate change, a Russian scientist said Thursday. The project, dubbed Astrometry, and using equipment on the International Space Station (ISS), aims to investigate cyclical changes in the physical processes of the sun and their influence on the Earth, and on human activity.
Parsippany NJ (SPX) Nov 29, 2006 - DRS Technologies has announced that it has received $6 million in funding to develop a High-Speed Permanent Magnet Electric Generator prototype for the U.S. Navy, bringing the total value of the generator contract to approximately $12 million. The resulting prototype will be scalable in power output and applicable to multiple platforms for the support of main and auxiliary power generation.
Paris (AFP) Nov 29, 2006 - Shares in a French wind-power company were launched here on Wednesday and gained 19.0 percent in the first hour of trading, driven by enormous investor interest, dealers said. The company being floated was EDF EN, an offshoot of the French electricity group Electricite de France (EDF), the biggest generator of nuclear power in the world.
Geneva, Switzerland (SPX) Nov 29, 2006 - CERN took delivery of the last superconducting main magnet for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on 27 November. This completes the full set of 1624 main magnets2 required to build the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
Moscow (AFP) Nov 29, 2006 - The international consortium developing the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in eastern Russia should prepare for a range of economic penalties over feared environmental damage, Russian Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev warned on Wednesday. The economic sanctions which will be imposed without fail will not be just fines but a package of economic measures, the minister said according to news agency ITAR-TASS.
Chapel Hill NC (SPX) Nov 29, 2006 - Scientists now understand how an important protein converts chemical energy to mechanical force, thus powering the process of cell division, thanks to a new structural model by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers. The structural model helps solve a scientific mystery: how the protein dynein fuels itself to perform cellular functions vital to life. These functions include mitosis, or cell division into identical cells.
Champaign IL (SPX) Nov 28, 2006 - Since it was discovered to be superconducting over a decade ago, the pairing symmetry of strontium ruthenium oxide has been widely explored and debated. Now, a team of researchers led by Dale Van Harlingen at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say the debate is over. We have pretty unambiguous evidence for 'p-wave' symmetry with a complex order parameter that breaks time-reversal symmetry in this ruthenate superconductor, said Van Harlingen, a Willett Professor and head of the department of physics at Illinois.
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 28, 2006 - Think for a moment about what you have done so far today - made a cup of tea, driven to work, sent an e-mail or text? Each of those activities is dependent on oil, from fuel for transport to the plastic parts of your kettle, car, keyboard and mobile. Development of our high-impact consumer lifestyles is accelerating even as fossil fuel supplies are dwindling, and the environmental impact of their use becomes ever more apparent.
Beijing (AFP) Nov 27, 2006 - China has kicked off construction of a giant dam on the upper parts of the Yangtze as part of a plan that will eventually rival the Three Gorges project in size, state media reported Monday. The 28.9-billion-yuan (3.7-billion-dollars) Xiangjiaba project, in southwest China's Sichuan province, will have six million kilowatt of installed capacity when completed in nine years, the China Daily said.
Manila (AFP) Nov 27, 2006 - Southeast Asian nations are to reduce their dependence on conventional fuels and explore stockpiling oil as part of a sweeping energy program, according to details of a draft pact obtained by AFP. The draft is to be signed by the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) when they meet with their counterparts from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand in the second East Asian summit next month in the central Philippine province of Cebu.
Sao Paulo (AFP) Nov 24, 2006 - Programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are blossoming in Brazil, with the carbon credit system winning interest from companies in industrialized countries. Brazil ranks second among developing countries, behind India and ahead of Mexico and China, in the number of these investments, though under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change it is not required to cut emissions of its greenhouse gases.
London (AFP) Nov 24, 2006 - The European Commission on Wednesday will require some EU member states cut the number of carbon permits they give local companies in preparation for the second phase of the EU's carbon trading scheme that runs from 2008 to 2012, the Financial Times said on Friday.
London (AFP) Nov 24, 2006 - British finance minister Gordon Brown backs substantially increasing taxes on air travel, and gas guzzling cars, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Citing unnamed British civil service sources, the newspaper said that Chancellor of the Exchequer Brown supports indirect taxation on some of the biggest carbon emitters as a way to change behaviour.
Sydney (AFP) Nov 23, 2006 - The Australian government said Thursday it would pump 60 million dollars (46.5 million US) into the world's biggest carbon capture and storage system, aimed at cutting a major gas plant's environmental impact. Owners of the Gorgon gas project, which sits in a sensitive nature reserve off the West Australian coast, plan to bury 125 million tonnes of carbon dioxide -- two-thirds of what the plant would emit over its 20-year lifespan.
