CleanTechnica

In an attempt to step up pressure on the developing countries to take up ambitious emissions reductions and forcing them to move to renewable energy sources for power generation, a high ranking US official has written to the World Bank recommending it to stop financing coal-fired plants in the developing countries.

In a letter written to the World Bank, the United States Executive Director at the World Bank Group, Whitney Debevoise said that multilateral development banks like the World Bank have the responsibility of building a financing framework that ensures mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and strengthens the developing countries economies against climate change. Read the rest of this entry »

In a fortuitous discovery, chemists have stumbled on a catalyst that strips carbon dioxide from the air and converts it into a useful compound.

Published in the most recent issue of the journal Science (sub. req’d.), researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands have discovered a copper-based catalyst that can literally pull carbon dioxide out of thin air.

Researchers say the copper-based compound is not ready for primetime–removing carbon dioxide on a large scale–but they hope that the catalyst could one day remove the ubiquitous greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, turning it into organic chemicals. Read the rest of this entry »

The deadline for agreeing to the Copenhagen Accord may have been dropped, but the pressure to agree to the Accord and to announce commitments to create cleaner energy sources and reduce pollution is still on.

The US Climate Action Network (USCAN) is making it easier for all of us to follow all of the countries’ commitments through a useful chart of their pledges, how their 2020 targets compare to their 1990 pollution levels, their per capita CO₂ emissions, and other information.

The chart also lists those countries which reject the Copenhagen Accord.

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31st January was the deadline for countries to submit their proposals for reducing carbon emissions, however, only a handful of countries have submit proposals and officially agreed to the terms of the Copenhagen Accord which has led the United Nations to drop the deadline.

The major players in the climate change fray like India, China and the United States, are yet to come up with proposals and national mechanisms for reducing their carbon emissions. Only Brazil, Japan and the European Union have announced their plans to go ahead with emission reduction measures irrespective of the outcome of future climate treaty negotiations. Read the rest of this entry »

Joint New Zealand-U.S. project begins harvesting steady Antarctic winds on Ross Island.

Besides the heavy snow, unrelenting wind, and bone-chilling temperatures, what’s the most difficult part of building a wind farm in Antarctica? The lack of daylight in the winter means construction can only take place in the summer months. And with only one supply ship a year, you better not forget any parts.

On Saturday, the $7.4-million Ross Island Wind Farm in Antarctica began feeding electricity at full power for the very first time. The new wind farm can generate up to one megawatt of electricity and will cut diesel use at New Zealand’s Scott Base and the U.S.’ McMurdo Station by 120,000 gallons and reduce carbon dioxide output by 1,370 tons annually, according to New Zealand’s state-owned Meridian Energy, the project’s developers. Read the rest of this entry »

This is one I haven’t seen floating around yet. Personal carbon credits.

A new website helps you to cash-in on reducing your carbon emissions through home solar panels, wind turbines, more energy efficiency, etc. And it is up and running.

You reduce your home energy usage, report it to them, and get money back on PayPal.

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Noting the failure of the Copenhagen Talks to produce an internationally agreeable climate change treaty, the European Union is looking to push for more concentrated negotiations at the G20 meetings. The EU reportedly feels that taking the G20 route would help iron out the major issues between the developed and developing countries which were one of the major reasons for the shameful failure of COP15.

The G20 includes developed nations like the US and Australia as well as developing countries like India and China could prove crucial to in the formulation of a final framework treaty. Precious time was lost at Copenhagen as a plethora of discussion drafts were presented by various groups of countries. The G20 could prove beneficial in that it could produce a draft treaty formulated by by developed and developing countries which could be signed by the world leaders at COP16 at Mexico City this December. Read the rest of this entry »

The first round of federal ARPA-E funding for future energy kick-started a stunning range of 37 different projects last year, from fuel-secreting bacteria to liquid batteries and a way to create solar energy by mimicking photosynthesis.  Now the agency has launched a new round that narrows the target down to just three carefully defined areas.

ARPA-E is the federal agency created by Congress in 2007 to propel the U.S. into a new energy future, whereupon the previous administration promptly allowed it to languish.  That was then, this is now: breathing life into ARPA-E has been a top priority of the Obama administration.  To introduce the new round of funding ARPA-E has called for the U.S. to move away from fossil fuels and “change course with fierce urgency,” so let’s take a look at how that goal dovetails with the new target areas.

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This month Europe’s first electricity super-grid dedicated to renewable energy will become a political reality, as part of Europe’s plan to meet its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2020.

Nine countries will draw up formal plans to link up a super-grid of powerful clean energy projects strung out all around the North Sea in order to ship renewable power to the mainland.

The huge new undersea transmission cable will connect up Scotland’s off-shore wind turbines off the coast of Scotland, and solar from Germany, hydro power from Norway and wave power off the coast of Belgium and Denmark.
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Part of the irrational fear of Cap and Trade is based on the idea that some Wall Street Fat Cats (or Al Gore) will make out like bandits selling derivatives in carbon certificates. So I bet you never imagined that the most popular pledge gift for public radio subscribers would turn out to be… retired carbon certificates!

WAMC in Albany New York was given 600 carbon certificates to give listeners who called in and pledged their support for the radio station with a $100 pledge. They imagined would make for a rather dull pledge gift. After all, everybody disapproves of Cap and Trade, and nobody understands it.
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