One of the world's largest solar energy farms has opened in Southern California's desert, with 160,000 homes now able to power lights and appliances through sunlight converted into electricity, federal officials said on Tuesday. The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, located in Riverside County about 170 ...
Australian wind farms face $13 billion wipeout from political impasse
Australia faces an exodus of 17 billion Australian dollars ($13.3 billion) in investment from its wind-farm industry because of a political deadlock, threatening to deal the country a major economic blow and kill hopes of meeting a self-imposed clean energy target. Some 44 Australian wind-farm ...
Global warming deal gains steam as Modi signals shift on climate change
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India is ready to expand its use of renewable energy as a way to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, a signal that his government is moving toward joining an international deal on global warming. After a meeting with U.S. President Barack ...
¥131 billion earmarked in upcoming budget for renewable energy
The Abe administration decided Wednesday to boost efforts next year to promote renewable energy following the Fukushima nuclear crisis, after the feed-in tariff system, which guarantees above-market rates for selling energy produced from clean sources, ran into trouble only two years after its introduction. The ...
Materials that may be cheaper and more efficient than silicon at converting the sun's rays into electricity could be key to the next generation of solar power, scientists say. Though years away from being used to commercially produce solar cells, perovskites, named for a 19th-century ...
Nuclear motive suspected in feed-in tariff reforms
Renewable power in Japan wavers as critics flag “reforms” to the feed-in tariff system as a bid to discourage the scorching growth of renewable energy providers.
Seven utilities only capable of accepting 58% of solar power energy
A study has found that seven of the nation's utilities lack the transmission network capacity to accept all of the solar power energy that suppliers plan to generate under the feed-in tariff system, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday. Combined, they can ...
Japan to relax overly tight restrictions on hydrogen stations to make them cheaper to build
The government aims to halve the cost of building hydrogen filling stations by 2020 by relaxing safety regulations, sources said Wednesday. High costs have been a major reason why companies have avoided investing in hydrogen facilities, threatening the government's goal of establishing 100 stations nationwide ...
Weak spot found in ultra-strong graphene, possibly revolutionizing fuel cells
In a discovery that experts say could revolutionize fuel cell technology, scientists in Britain have found that graphene, the world's thinnest, strongest and most impermeable material, can allow protons to pass through it. The researchers, led by the discoverer of graphene, Andre Geim of Manchester ...
Denmark considers phasing out coal by 2025 in big green shift
Denmark should ban coal use by 2025 to make the Nordic nation a leader in fighting global warming, adding to green measures ranging from wind energy to bicycle power, Denmark's climate minister said on Saturday. Denmark has already taken big steps to break reliance on ...
Japan rises to challenge of becoming 'hydrogen society'
Since the 2011 onset of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has had to drastically revise an energy policy that had long heralded atomic power as its main source of energy. The new energy policy announced in April outlines plans to decrease Japan's nuclear dependence as ...
Putting off environmental sacrifice
Are environmentalists who want society to divest itself of fossil fuels hypocrites if they don't adopt a radically reduced carbon lifestyle themselves?
