News Roundup
‘Scientists at the University of Calgary have found a way to reduce bat deaths from wind turbines by up to 60 percent without significantly reducing the energy generated from the wind farm.’
via Scientists Find Successful Way To Reduce Bat Deaths At Wind Turbines.
‘SAN FRANCISCO Reuters – Global investment in clean technology roared back in the third quarter, driven by solar power and a public offering that underscores growing enthusiasm for the sector, Greentech Media reported on Monday.’
via Clean tech investments soar worldwide: report | Green Business | Reuters.
‘A Phoenix company said it has created a solar cell that combines gallium-nitride with silicon, an unusual approach that achieves an efficiency of 25 percent to 30 percent.’
via Greentech Media: Nitride With Silicon: Think Solar Cells With 30% Efficiency.
‘WASHINGTON Reuters – World leaders pledged last week to step up efforts to reach a U.N. deal to fight climate change, but they will have to match rhetoric with rapid action to break a crippling deadlock before a December deadline.
via Promises? Leaders must act to spur climate talks | Green Business | Reuters.
‘Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.’
via New Analysis Brings Dire Global Warming Prediction – washingtonpost.com.
‘LOS ANGELES Reuters – California said it had approved the most aggressive energy efficiency plan among U.S. states on Thursday, earmarking $3.1 billion to retrofit homes and other programs that will cut power needs equivalent to three medium-sized power plants.’
via California sets biggest energy efficiency plan | Green Business | Reuters.
‘LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The United States will add 6,000 megawatts in wind power this year, down nearly 30 percent from last year as the credit crisis slowed expansion of the renewable energy source, an industry group said on Thursday.’
via Recession slows U.S. wind power growth rate | Green Business | Reuters.
OSLO/LONDON Reuters – A summit of world leaders has dimmed hopes for a strong new U.N. climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen in December, with details looking ever more likely to be left for 2010.
via U.N. climate summit dims hopes for Copenhagen pact | Green Business | Reuters.
‘UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – China laid out a plan to curb carbon emissions by 2020 and U.S. President Barack Obama called on all nations to act now to tackle global warming, as world leaders tried to inject momentum into climate change talks.’
via China and U.S. try to jumpstart U.N. climate talks | Green Business | Reuters.
‘These new measurements, based on 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, confirm what some of the more pessimistic scientists thought: The melting along the crucial edges of the two major ice sheets is accelerating and is in a self-feeding loop. The more the ice melts, the more water surrounds and eats away at the remaining ice.’