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"Australia's largest concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar power plant was officially opened today, with the Victorian energy minister joining executives from the plant's developer, Solar Systems, to cut the ribbon on the 1.5MW demonstration facility in Mildura. The demonstration of the "dense array" solar technology of parent company Silex Systems is a fore-runner for what is expected to be a 100MW power plant, with construction slated to begin in 2014. Another 1MW demonstration plant is being built in Saudi Arabia, with hopes of further development as that country pushes into the start of a $100 billion solar spending program"

We already know that our traditional thermoelectric power sources, namely coal, are having a negative impact on our planet's climate. But, as it turns out, the reverse is also true - research has found that worldwide warming is reducing the amount of cooling water that can be used in coal and nuclear plants, and this is already causing problems for electrical grids in the US and Europe.

"A coal-fired power station in Canada is launching carbon capture and storage on a commercial scale. Could this make burning fossil fuels guilt-free?"

"The largest coal company in the world, Coal India, is aiming to cut its own utility bills by installing solar photovoltaic panels at its facilities across the country. The coal giant is seeking proposals from solar energy companies to build a modular 2 megawatt solar plant on 9 acres of its own land. This plant could be scaled to export power to the grid."

"The recent start of construction on the first of two large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants in outback New South Wales shows the importance of renewable energy targets and funding. The first, currently being built at Nyngan, will be the largest solar PV farm in the southern hemisphere, producing 103 megawatts at peak capacity. "

"Electricity generated by Australia's highly polluting brown coal power plants has fallen 14 per cent since introduction of the carbon price, while renewable power has soared."

"Yesterday saw the launch by Prime Minister David Cameron of the world's largest offshore wind power plant, the London Array, located in the Thames estuary, approximately 20 kilometres off the Kent and Essex coast.  Owned, developed and built by a consortium consisting of Dong Energy, E.ON and Masdar (Abu Dhabi's state backed renewable energy company), it has a total capacity of 630 megawatts (MW) and will generate enough power to supply 500,000 British households with clean electricity.  It is estimated to reduce annual CO2 emissions by approximately 900,000 tons, equivalent to the emissions of 300,000 passenger cars. Construction involved over 75 organisations and 6,700 people."

"One of the world's most advanced solar power companies has shelved plans to develop electricity plants for the public market in Australia because of the Government's apparent hostility to renewable energy. Solar Reserve, based in Santa Monica, California, has pioneered a technology that combines mass-scale solar power generation with storage, allowing energy from the sun to be "time-shifted" and used 24 hours a day."

"A CSIRO test plant in Australia has broken a world record and proved solar power could efficiently replace fossil fuels."

"Godawari Power & Ispat started Asia's biggest solar-thermal plant as India limps toward clean-energy targets with prices almost half the global average."

Also the chart below taken from a Climate Spectator article by Dr Jenny Riesz is one of the most illuminating. It shows the cross-over point between the cost of wind and a gas combined-cycle power plant depending on gas and carbon prices. While it is slightly out of date with the cross-over between wind and gas now about $1 per GJ lower than indicated, it still provides a good illustration of how gas and the carbon price influence the economics between wind versus gas.

"Materials scientists and electrochemists the world over are joining forces to create new types of batteries that perform better and last longer, are more reliable and demand less of the environment. The latest in a line of promising developments plugs into the properties of certain plants, crops and biological wastes."

"Buried in a little-noticed rule on microwave ovens is a change in the U.S. government's accounting for carbon emissions that could have wide-ranging implications for everything from power plants to the Keystone XL pipeline. The increase of the so-called social cost of carbon, to $US38 ($A40) a metric ton in 2015 from $US23.80, adjusts the calculation the government uses to weigh costs and benefits of proposed regulations. The figure is meant to approximate losses from global warming such as flood damage and diminished crops. (That figure also compares with the $A23 per tonne carbon tax in Australia.)"

America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age.

"Remember carbon capture and storage? Five years ago, the idea of grabbing the carbon dioxide from coal and gas power plants and burying it deep underground was considered an essential technology for curbing the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. A diagram of how various sorts of carbon capture might work. (Congressional Budget Office) But carbon capture hasn't fared well in the years since. Since 2008, world governments committed at least $25 billion to fund large-scale demonstration projects, the Financial Times reports. And we have remarkably little to show for it so far."