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As the world's fifth-largest exporter of oil and Western Europe's biggest exporter of natural gas, Norway has found itself under increasing pressure to improve its environment profile. The new plan includes offsetting Norwegian emissions by stopping deforestation in developing countries and planting trees. On the domestic front, money is to be earmarked for investment in renewable energy and new taxes on fuel introduced as part of a 'carrot and stick' strategy promoting more environmentally friendly behaviour and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

become a leader in the global technology race in the new experimental and costly technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS)

In the cleantech market there are a lot of very smart, worthy ideas for energy techs aimed at residential applications:  energy efficiency plays, distributed generation and backup power plays, etc

An aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency in the United States over the next 18 years could cut the nation's growth in energy use by 50% or more, according to a new report. The report, "Vision for 2025: Developing a Framework for Change," was prepared by the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Leadership Group, which comprises more than 60 leading organizations, with DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting as facilitators. The report sets a goal of achieving all cost-effective energy efficiency improvements throughout the United States by 2025. If that goal is achieved, the nation will spend $100 billion less for energy in 2025 than it would otherwise and will avoid emitting 500 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. The nation will also achieve $500 billion in net savings from its energy efficiency investments.

Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan said late Friday that it made the investment because of Railpower's "market potential" and what it sees as increasingly stringent environmental regulations targeted at the rail sector.

Anyone thinking that "going green" will be simple and quickly profitable, even after the low-hanging fruit of highly-attractive projects is exhausted, ought to read this article

the current price of a REC is too low to encourage the construction of more renewable power projects.

The Guardian reports this morning on a private report to Gordon Brown that suggests that Britain should oppose binding target for renewable energies in Europe (20% of all energy by 2020, as agreed earlier this year at this spring's EU Summit). The Guardian flags the juicy political bits ("work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets", "a potentially significant cost in terms of reduced climate change leadership"), but also provides some of the apparent underlying reasons provided, which are worth commenting upon: it undermines the carbon-trading scheme which "allows wealthy governments to pay others to reduce emissions"; it costs too much money (£4 billion a year to get to 9% by 2020); it does not help push for new nuclear plants as it "reduces the incentives to invest in other carbon technologies like nuclear power"; Let's say it plainly: each of these arguments is stupid, short-sighted and, quite simply, false. Let me take you through them in turn (under the fold).

Now they have developed the ideas in a new book, "Break Through:From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of the Possible," which subordinates regulation and carbon-trading to massive government investment on a scale of Apollo, the Manhattan Project, not to mention Iraq.

Hochtief believes that in the future, geothermal energy will play a very important role in power generation. Theoretically, geothermal energy plants could cover Germany‘s annual electricity consumption 600 times over.

The way this Icelandic investor sees it, the U.S. has the potential for a six-fold increase in its installed geothermal capacity, which would double existing global capacity. "Glitnir estimates that investments of $9.5 billion (U.S.) are required in projects currently under development, and that further $29.9 billion are needed between now and 2025 to develop and harness future resources,"

Investment of $20.2 trillion will be required by 2030 under the IEA alternative energy scenario, increasing nuclear capacity by 41% to 519 GWe and reducing energy demand by 10% and CO2 emissions by 16% compared with projections on present basis. Of this amount, $11.3 trillion will go for electricity: $5.2 trillion for generation, and the rest for transmission and distribution.

Fortunately for these investors, the myths have already been separated from the facts. And that's what we've done for you here.

Auction 100 percent of emission allowances. • Use the revenues from auctions to: Support clean energy technological development, including research and development funding and early market support for clean technologies. Invest in energy efficiency improvements to reduce the cost of the program to consumers. Provide direct consumer rebates to alleviate any increases in energy costs that result from the program.

They're sending out an open call asking inventors and entrepreneurs to pitch them on products and services that would speed the commercialization of plug-in hybrids. There's $10 million in investment capital waiting to be divided among the winners.

One can see where the Minister is coming from. Current electricity prices are too low to fund new investment necessary to restore supply security. Average generation prices of around 12 c/kWh are less than half the cost of new coal-fired generation plant. The recently installed turbines, which are keeping the lights on over the Cape winter, produce power at a cost much higher than even the highest industrial tariff.