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Wales has laid down the gauntlet to Scotland and Northern Ireland in the race to develop tidal energy technology. Last week, Cardiff-based Tidal Energy Limited (TEL) announced plans for a 1MW trial installation at the Ramsey Sound in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. The company hopes its DeltaStream horizontal turbines will be in the water by summer 2010, making them Wales' first signifcant tidal install. TEL says its 12-month test project will use technology that's proven to be grid-compliant, enabling it to connect to the national grid and earn an income from generated power.

Clean energy company Econcern will partner with China National Offshore Oil Corp and Sinohydro to invest 863 million euros ($1.09 billion) to build four Chinese wind farms, the companies said on Tuesday. Construction of the wind farms, which will generate around 720 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, will begin in 2009, Netherlands-based Econcern said in a statement.

Spain has set a record this week by powering 29-40% of its electricity needs from wind energy. A huge 11,180 MW was generated on Thursday when high winds blew through north west Spain. When demand was lower early in the morning, wind energy supplied 40% of the country's requirements whilst later on when demand rose, wind energy supplied 29%. This year wind turbines have supplied 11.5% of electricity demand in Spain positioning the country as the third biggest producer of wind energy next to Germany (second) and the US (first). There is a national target of reaching 20,000 MW by 2010. This compares with a figure of just 7300 MW likely to be operational in the UK by 2010 (the number currently built or with planning consent). Companies with a significant presence in Spain are Iberdrola, Acciona and Endesa.

One man in the classroom earned more than $100,000 framing tract homes during the building heyday. Another installed pools and piloted a backhoe. Behind him sat a young father who made a good living swinging a hammer in southern Utah. But that was before construction jobs vanished like a fast-moving dust storm in this blustery high desert. Hard times have brought them to a classroom in Kern County, about 120 miles northeast of Los Angeles, to learn a different trade. Tonight's lesson: how to avoid death and dismemberment. This is Wind Technology Boot Camp at Cerro Coso Community College, where eight weeks of study and $1,000 in tuition might lead to a job repairing mammoth wind turbines sprouting up across the nation.

WorldChanging has a post on a Rocky Mountain Institute backed initiative to pave the way fro smart grids and electric vehicles - Project Get Ready Aims to Create Electric Vehicle Revolution. Creating a well functioning smart grid - cyclically connected to smart vehicles and buildings and houses, as well as personal and public renewable energy systems - will be no small infrastructure feat. Utility providers, technology innovators, neighborhood councils and local governments will need to come together to provide needed support -- both monetarily and ideologically. Although U.S. President Obama and the recently passed stimulus plan are pushing the renewable, electric energy revolution forward, residents across the nation might need more motivation to make the leap from fossil fuel users to plug-in pioneers. A new project, headed by "think-and-do" tank the Rocky Mountain Institute, is offering to help city leaders provide community members with that extra inspiration. The initiative, Project Get Ready, supplies a menu of strategies that are meant to help cities prepare for the "plug-in" transition. According to RMI, problems related to individual hesitancy toward purchasing electric vehicles and investing in the infrastructure itself, can "be overcome if cities/regions become ecosystems that welcome electric vehicles."

The world needs a "revolution" in science and technology to solve global warming, says Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, made the remarks in today's New York Times. The article was short on specifics, but Chu, former director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said Nobel-level breakthroughs were needed in electric batteries, solar power and crops that could be turned into fuel. "Science and technology can generate much better choices," Chu, a long-time proponent of alternative energy development, told the newspaper. "It has, consistently, over hundreds and hundreds of years." Among the points he made:

Imagine cars with no tailpipes and no direct carbon emissions into our atmosphere - powered by an electrical energy system getting cleaner by the year through Renewable Portfolio Standards in effect in California and across the nation. More than a decade ago, I was one of the original owners of the EV1, an electric vehicle produced by General Motors (GM). When GM discontinued the series and reclaimed all of the EV1s, it was a major setback for the American car industry. Instead of leading the charge to create a new generation of vehicles - America fell behind.

The sun blasts Earth with enough energy in one hour-4.3 x 1020 joules-to provide all of humanity's energy needs for a year (4.1 x 1020 joules), according to physicist Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The question is how to most effectively harness it. Thin-film solar cells may be the answer: One recently converted 19.9 percent of the sunlight that hit it into electricity, surpassing the amount converted into power by mass-produced traditional silicon photovoltaics and offering the potential to unleash this renewable energy source.

BEIJING, April 28 -- CHINA is looking to expand wind power generating capacity to 100,000 megawatts by 2020, or fivefold the previous target, an industry official said. "The NDRC has just recently completed an internal meeting to discuss the possibility of increasing wind power capacity to 100,000MW," Shi Pengfei, vice president of Chinese Wind Energy Association said, referring to the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top industry planning body. "It's not 20,000MW or 30,000MW as previously targeted."

WASHINGTON (April 23, 2008) - An investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency released today found that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists reported that they experienced political interference in their work over the last five years. The study, by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), follows previous UCS investigations of the Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and climate scientists at seven federal agencies, which also found significant administration manipulation of federal science.

it is clear that soaring oil prices are undermining the benefits of debt cancellation in some countries, especially poor oil-importing nations.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues "America's future" lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas off our coasts, in our western lands, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here's what the ad says:

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander came to Oak Ridge on Friday to promote a five-year project aimed at making America energy independent and more environmentally friendly within a generation. Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, is comparing his proposal to the World War II-era Manhattan Project, when the nation worked feverishly and secretly to develop atomic weapons. Oak Ridge's people and facilities played a key role in that project.

Washington, DC-Nevada Senator Harry Reid joined other Democratic senators at a press conference today to unveil the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008, a bill that addresses the root causes of high gas prices. Seven years of the Bush Administration's disastrous energy policies have enriched Big Oil and market speculators at the expense of American consumers. Democrats are committed to providing relief to consumers and strengthening our economic, energy and national security.

"Wind energy could generate 20 percent of the electricity needed by households and businesses in the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but it would require up to $90 billion in investment, according to a government report released on Wednesday. For the 20 percent wind scenario to work, billions must be spent on installing wind towers on land and sea and about 22,000 miles of new high-tech power lines to carry the electricity to cities, according to the study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory."

Bayer has honored the Professor Eberhard Jochem of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) for "pioneering technical and economic contributions to energy efficiency." Professor Jochem's commitment to environmental causes dates to his childhood, when he observed a cloud of pollution darkening his home while returning to the Ruhr district of Germany from a trip through the Netherlands by bicycle. Professor Jochem believes that a "commercially profitable 80 percent boost in energy efficiency in the industrialized nations" is possible before the end of this century. By combining his theotical and practical expertise, Professor Jochem has proven that hypothesis, making him a particularly effective advocate for energy efficiency. The key contributors to this tremendous goal are described further below.

The LA Times has an article on a new report noting that wind power could meet the entire electricity demand in the US - Wind turbines could more than meet U.S. electricity needs, report says. Wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation's current demand, the Interior Department reported Thursday. Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters -- the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines -- could produce at least 20% of the power demand for most coastal states, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, unveiling a report by the Minerals Management Service that details the potential for oil, gas and renewable development on the outer continental shelf. The biggest wind potential lies off the nation's Atlantic coast, which the Interior report estimates could produce 1,000 gigawatts of electricity -- enough to meet a quarter of the national demand.

Technology Review has an article on a startup that says its "solid polymer electrolytes will mean cheaper, more-reliable batteries" - Better Lithium-ion Batteries. A new incarnation of lithium-ion batteries based on solid polymers is in the works. Berkeley, CA-based startup Seeo, Inc. says its lithium-ion cells will be safer, longer-lasting, lighter, and cheaper than current batteries. Seeo's batteries use thin films of polymer as the electrolyte and high-energy-density, light-weight electrodes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is now making and testing cells designed by the University of California, Berkeley spinoff. Lithium-ion batteries are used in cell phones and laptops because they are smaller and lighter than other types of batteries. They are also promising for electric and hybrid vehicles. However, conventional materials and chemistries have stopped them from being used extensively in cars.