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SOLAR SAFEWAY STORES
Safeway has announced a new project to power 23 California stores with renewable solar energy. The company installed solar panels atop a newly renovated Safeway Lifestyle store in Dublin, California and plans to extend the program to nearly two dozen stores as part of a broader renewable energy intiative. Solar equipment at the store, and other planned locations, will produce approximately 7,500 megawatt hours of electricity per year, enough to provide 20 percent of the stores’ average power usage and up to 48 percent
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PG&E GIVE AWAY BULBS
Pacific Gas & Electric gave away one million compact fluorescent light bulbs, (CFLs) during the month of October to help its central and Northern California customers become more energy efficient. The giveaway could potentially generate a collective saving of more than 400,000 megawatt hours and prevent the emission of more than 200,000 tons of greenhouse gases not emitted over the lifetimeof the CFL. This is the equivalent of powering almost 60,000 homes in Northern California for a year, or removing 31,000 cars from
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MALDIVES MAY SINK
Unless the world starts taking climate change seriously and cuts greenhouse emissions, the Maldives could become uninhabitable this century, the president of the Indian Ocean archipelago says. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has been telling the world for 20 years that his cluster of 1,200 tiny islands is imperilled by climate change. With a UN panel forecasting world sea levels likely to rise up to 59cm by 2010 due to global warming, the clock is ticking.
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THE ECOLOGICAL WAY OF FILLING YOUR TANK
The fair trade organisation Gebana and Migrol have just launched the first fair trade organic fuel. Biofuel causes 70 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than conventional diesel. Migrol supplies petrol stations, and Gebana ensures that small farmers and their families make a profit. Depending on the product, prices are guaranteed to be between 20 percent and 70 percent more than the local market price. They also enter into long-term contracts, and benefit from up-front financing and reasonable conditions of employm
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FRENCH CAR MAKERS DRIVE INTO GERMANY
French carmakers are staging a fresh assault on the German market, the biggest and most profitable in Europe. Renault and PSA Peugeout Citroen have both tried to cut their dependence on Europe recently, but that does not mean they are focussing all their attention on emerging makets such as Brazil and India.
At Renault, the new Laguna model marks the diamond-badged carmakers new foray into the luxury market of cars that sell for more than 27,000 euros. The segment has attractive profit margins for the still weak-perf
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NEW CLIMATE CHANGE PAPER IS PUBLISHED
Research released by the government has revealed that the world is becoming more humid under climate change and exacerbating global warming.
Scientists from the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have found strong evidence of human influence on changes in global surface humidity.
In a paper published in the scientific journal Nature, the scientists explore and identify the causes of changes in humidity over the last 30 years.
Surface humidity is a measure of th
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US AND CHINA SIGN AGREEMENT TO INCREASE INDUSTRIAL ENERGY EFFICIENCY
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs Karen Harbert and Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) Chen Deming, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to increase cooperation and energy efficiency in China’s industrial sector recently, which accounts for 70 percent of the country’s total energy demand. This MOU, titled Industrial Energy Efficiency Cooperation, follows discussions this week at the third U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialog
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DUTCH TO BUILD TOWERING WIND TURBINES OFF NORTH SEA COAST
There is no shortage of wind in the densely-populated Netherlands but there is a shortage of space and in a nation which likes its houses small and its gardens cosy, opposition to wind farms is immense.
That is why a new Dutch wind farm is being built so far out to sea it is barely visible on the horizon, reducing the visual impact of its 60 turbines to virtually nil whilst at the same time harnessing higher offshore wind speeds.
Offshore wind farms are likely to appear more and more frequently off European coastl
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INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT TO ACCELERATE PHASE-OUT OF GREENHOUSE GAS CHEMICALS
The world will strengthen action to protect the ozone layer by reducing the production and consumption of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) thanks to an agreement of Montreal Protocol countries, which will also create important benefits for the climate.
The agreement came at the conclusion of the 20th anniversary meeting of the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that has already delivered a complete international phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and major reductions in other substances that deplete the
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E.ON PLANS GIANT BATTERY TO STORE THE POWER OF 10 MILLION AA’S
The British arm of German utility E.ON has said it is developing a giant battery to store wind and solar power for times of high demand.
The prototype will be the size of four large shipping containers and contain the power of 10 million standard AA batteries - 1MW of electricity for four hours, said E.ON UK.
The battery should be operational by late 2009 and will help solve one of the main problems of wind and solar power, added the power firm, which has around 8.1 million electricity and gas customers.
“Green
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Supposedly the construction
materials of the future, composites are increasingly seen in
applications where optimum efficiency is paramount including
aircraft construction and renewable energy. As two research
examples show in this video, composites really are the future
for efficiency.
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