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The facility is being built in the UK for E.ON at Holford, Cheshire, UK, and will store gas in eight salt caverns deep underground. The processing plant consists of several gas compressors which optimise the pressure of gas stored and withdrawn from the caverns into the National Grid Transmission System. Designed to hold over 160 million cubic metres of gas, the plant will be controlled by ABB Extended Automation System 800xA and integrated with the telecoms systems providing a single point of access and control for operational personnel.

Interesting article over on Wired about Kirk Sorensen and the community served by his Energy From Thorium blog. To hear these people tell it, thorium fission in fluid fuel reactors offers an idyllic vision of a boundless-energy-from-the-atom type future no one has really believed in since the early 50s. Thorium, reportedly, is abundant, safe, highly efficient as a nuclear fuel, and produces waste that is radioactive only for a few hundred years instead of tens of thousands.

ComEd, the electric service provider arm of Exelon Corporation (which delivers electricity to about 70 percent of northern Illinois), is planning a distributed solar array that will involve outfitting 100 Chicago-area homes with solar photovoltaic panels, and retrofitting at least 50 of those with “smart” meters, net metering, battery backup and a grid-tied status that enables them to send unused electricity from their solar energy systems back to the grid.The aim, according to ComEd, is to convert each home into a “mini-utility” in an attempt to prove that individual homes can act as power generators, buying and selling electricity in real-time, according to ComEd Environmental and Marketing VP, Val Jensen.

AHAM lists the following six key features associated with smart appliances: Dynamic electricity pricing information is delivered to the user It can respond to utility signals Integrity of its operation is maintained while automatically adjusting its operation to respond to emergency power situations and help prevent brown or blackouts The consumer can override all previously programmed selections or instructions from the Smart Grid, while ensuring the appliance‘s safety functions remain active When connected through a Home Area Network and/or controlled via a Home Energy Management system, smart appliances allow for a total home energy usage approach. This enables the consumer to develop their own energy usage profile and use the data according to how it best benefits them It incorporates features to target renewable energy by allowing for the shifting of power usage to an optimal time for renewable energy generation, i.e., when the wind is blowing or sun is shining According to a research piece written by Zpryme, the smart appliance market is projected to grow from $3.06 billion in 2011 to $15.12 billion in 2015, with the U.S. accounting for 46.6 percent of that in 2011 and 36 percent in 2015. By contrast, China is expected to have an 11.6 percent share in 2011 and an 18.2 percent share in 2015. What's more, there are some strong drivers to smart appliance investment: Pricing: Bringing smart appliances to the mainstream means aligning ecological innovation with affordability Environment: With the build-out of metering and real-time pricing, consumers will see economic and environmental incentives for reducing power consumption first hand with their smart appliances Energy efficiency: When a consumer buys an appliance, they commit to paying both the first cost and the operating cost for the life of the product. And over the existence of the appliance, the energy cost to run it could be significantly greater than the initial cost Smart grid build-out: Smart appliance growth relies heavily on how quickly smart grid infrastructure can be rolled-out and readily accessible to communities Government subsidies: Like the Cash for Appliances program in the U.S., governments could and should play an active role in furthering the smart appliance agenda

These restrictions are beginning to subside with the advent of virtual net metering (VNM). VNM is an electric tariff that allows for the net-metering credits from a single solar generating system to be distributed among multiple electric service accounts.

So what do the world’s great investors have their eyes on in Africa, in addition to the usual natural resources – minerals, petroleum and timber – that they’ve always coveted? In a word, land. Lots of it. The land-grabbing 'investors' are purchasing or leasing large chunks of African land to produce food crops or agrofuels or both, or just scooping up farmland as an investment,

At the moment, the grabbing of Africa’s land is shrouded in secrecy and proceeding at an unprecedented rate, spurred on by the global food and financial crises. GRAIN, a non-profit organisation that supports farm families in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, works daily to try to keep up with the deals on its farmlandgrab.org website.[vi]

Apart from the African governments and chiefs who are happily and quietly selling or leasing the land right out from under their own citizens, those who are promoting the new wave of rapacious investment include the World Bank, its International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and many other powerful nations and institutions. The US Millennium Challenge Corporation is helping to reform new land ownership laws – privatising land – in some of its member countries. The imported idea that user rights are not sufficient, that land must be privately owned, will efface traditional approaches to land use in Africa, and make the selling off of Africa even easier. GRAIN notes the complicity of African elites and says some African 'barons' are also snapping up land.