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Concerns over the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest resurfaced at the weekend after it emerged that deforestation jumped by 64% over the last 12 months, according to official government data. Brazil's National Institute for Space Research this week said that around 3,145 square miles - an area half the size of Wales - were razed between August 2007 and August 2008.

As soon as I have finished this column I will jump on the train to Kent. Last year Al Gore remarked: "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants." Like hundreds of honorary young people, I am casting my Zimmer frame aside to answer the call. Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - or the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse.

The search for sustainable energy will dominate the twenty-first century. This unit provides an introductory overview of the present energy systems and takes a brief look at where the world may find energy in the future - cleaner use of fossil fuels or renewable energy sources?

SELLAFIELD HAS the world's biggest stockpile of plutonium and uranium and storage tanks contain highly volatile radioactive waste "more dangerous" than the Chernobyl reactor, according to a study published today. The study, Voodoo Economics and the Doomed Nuclear Renaissance, also says the British government is now unlikely to meet its 1998 commitment under the Ospar Convention to reduce "close to zero" Sellafield's radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea by 2020.

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

An indigenous Panamanian tribe has driven its king into exile over his approval of a £25m hydro-electric project in its jungle realm. The Naso tribe, whose millennia-old royal inheritance system is recognised by the state, banished King Tito Santana for opening the kingdom to developers.

James Dyson is working on a solar-powered car to match the success of his bagless vacuum cleaner. Engineers at the entrepreneur's Wiltshire HQ are developing a lightweight electric motor that could power a family saloon for hundreds of miles.

Provides information on where both McCain and Obama stand on energy issues.

An update on the bio-fuels question Barack Obama has, as have many of us, changed his view on bio-fuels according to this Wired Magazine article

A leading energy body is calling for a $45 trillion (£23 trillion) green revolution to tackle global warming. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said nations must spend 1% of annual economic output on new technology to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday.

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

A fuel station producing enough hydrogen to run householders' homes and cars has been unveiled today. The British invention, due to go on sale within two years, is roughly the size of a heating boiler and will cost under £2,000. Its creators say it will revolutionise commuting, help homeowners slash energy bills, and give easy access to a fuel that does not produce carbon dioxide emissions, helping to combat climate change.

At first glance, they look like a couple of giant inflatable garden chairs that have washed out to sea But they are, apparently, the ultimate solution to rapidly rising sea levels. This computer-generated image shows two floating cities, each with enough room for 50,000 inhabitants.

Wind supplied more of Britain's electricity that water for the first time last year, while power generators preferred gas to coal and nuclear output continued to decline, according to new government data. Five percent of Britain's electricity came from renewable sources in 2007, up from 4.6 percent in 2006, as more wind farms started feeding clean electricity into the network, helping cut the country's carbon emissions.

The global power industry must take the lead in making energy efficiency a way of life, says Jonathan Leake Six kilograms of carbon dioxide a day. If that sounds like little more than an obscure scientific measurement, think again. In the years to come it's a figure we may have to get used to. Why? Because, say climate scientists, that's the maximum daily amount of carbon dioxide each of us can generate if humanity is to have a chance of keeping the rise in global temperature below 2C.

Eastern Europeans and others seeking to use the current financial meltdown as an excuse to roll back climate commitment have failed (for now). The BBC reports: European Union leaders agreed to stick to their plan to cut greenhouse gases - despite a surprise demand by Poland and six other member states to drop them to ease the impact on industry struggling with the global credit crunch. Speaking at the end of a two-day summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: "The deadline on climate change is so important that we cannot use the financial and economic crisis as a pretext for dropping it."

Abu Dhabi has taken a 20% stake in the London Array - the £3bn project to build the world's largest offshore wind farm in the Thames estuary. Masdar, part of Abu Dhabi's multibillion-pound drive to develop green energy technologies, is buying part of the 50% stake in the project held by the German-based utility E.ON.

A MAJOR criticism of wind farms is that they are intermittent. Wind does not blow consistently and, as a result they do not provide a continuous supply of power, but must be backed up by conventional fossil fuel plants. However, a renewables firm believes it has hit on a solution, and is hoping to use it in Scotland. A hydrogen plant would store energy from the wind farm, creating a reserve that could be dipped into on demand, so that even when the wind was not blowing, an electricity supply would be available.

Japan has announced plans to build its first new geothermal power stations in nearly two decades in a bid to tap the nation's domestic energy sources. A string of geothermal power plants are to be developed by a number of firms keen to capitalise on the active volcanic landscape that spans the country, while the government is also currently compiling guidelines supporting the development of such energy sources. Home to 108 active volcanoes - ten per cent of the world's active volcanoes - Japan is in a prime position to tap into underground geothermal energy sources. As a nation with few natural resources, Japan has long been dependent on importing substantial quantities of crude oil and natural gas. The country's renewed focus on geothermal energy marks a desired shift away from its dependency on imported energy sources which has made it susceptible to increasingly volatile prices.