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Mainstream Renewable Power, a renewable energy company led by Airtricity founder Eddie O'Connor, has announced the successful closing of a €40 million [US $59.6 million] equity fundraising in which Barclays Capital have invested €20 million [US $29.8 million] for a 14.6% stake in the company. The board, management and staff of Mainstream, as well as close associates of the company, have invested an additional €20 million [US $29.8 million]. Together with the initial seed capital of €32 million [US $47.75 million], this brings the total equity raised to date to €72 million [US $107.43 million]. The company is also planning a major fundraiser later this year, with Barclays Capital committing to invest a further substantial amount at that stage. As part of the deal, Mark Brown, head of Barclays Capital Commodities Principal Investment team has been appointed to the board of Mainstream. The money will be used to fund the company's international expansion plans across Europe, North and South America and Australia and will be used to secure the supply of turbines to be delivered in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In June, Mainstream announced its plans to build an initial pipeline of 240 megawatts of projects in Chile with its partner Andes Energy.

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars have received a great deal of attention over the years as a clean alternative to petroleum-based transportation, producing only water for exhaust. Certainly the technology is known. Demonstration vehicles have been produced by several manufacturers and Honda is starting to roll out a fleet of 200 FCX Clarity fuel-cell cars, available for lease to select customers for US $600 per month. These autos are costing Honda hundreds of thousands of dollars each though, according to Honda's president Takeo Fukui (Wall Street Journal, June 16 2008), and it will take another decade before their cost falls below US $100,000. Although fuel-cell cars remain a long way from providing commercially viable transportation for the vast majority of people, cars are not the only application for fuel cells. Fuel cells are reaching commercial viability sooner in other applications such as portable electronics, including laptops, cell phones, MP3 players and games, aiming to supplement the ability of batteries to power these mobile devices for extended periods of time. There are a number of reasons why fuel cells may prove more competitive in portable electronics than in cars, including the favorable cost, lifetime requirement and easier distribution in this market. One of the companies developing fuel-cell technology for portable electronics is Polyfuel, using its proprietary hydrocarbon membrane technology for direct methanol fuel cells. The cost of power for portable electronics, according to Polyfuel president and CEO Jim Balcom, is up to US $10,000 per watt, compared with US $20-50 for autos, making portable electronics a much more attractive market than cars initially.

Hewlett-Packard said on Monday it plans to buy Colubris Networks, furthering the consolidation of wireless networking companies. Financial terms were not disclosed. HP said the deal should close by the end of fiscal 2008, which occurs in October. Colubris, founded in 2000 and based in Waltham, Massachusetts, sells wireless access infrastructure products based around the 802.11n wireless standard, which can match or best the speeds of a plugged-in broadband connection. But the upgrade to 802.11n poses many issues for it to work efficiently. Colubris has centered many of its products around the predicted upgrade of those networks over the next few years. Colubris also sells wireless security and network management products. HP said products from Colubris will be incorporated into its ProCurve Networking portfolio, which will improve HP's ability to serve the health-care, transportation, manufacturing and education markets, among others. In June, Belden said it would buy WLAN vendor Trapeze Networks for US$133 million

LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Australia's Minara Resources Ltd (MRE.AX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Thursday it had to defer its Australian $300 million ($273.5 million) nickel expansion plan due to high costs and reported an 80 percent drop in profits for the first half year. Minara, Australia's second-largest nickel miner after BHP Billiton Ltd/Plc (BHP.AX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(BLT.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), posted a net profit after tax for the half year to 30 June 2008 of $50.9 Australian million, down from $245.9 Australian million in the same period in 2007.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - EMED Mining (News) Public Ltd., a European-based minerals exploration and development company, said Spain's largest mine, the Rio Tinto (News) (News/Aktienkurs) Mine, is advancing towards copper production restart. The AIM-listed company said in its mining quarterly report, for the three months to June that recruitment of a large workforce and mobilisation of a mining contractor is expected to proceed in the first half of 2009 and production six months later.

Japan's Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co Ltd will invest 500 million ringgit to build a new plant for making copper foils in Malaysia, a newspaper reported on Friday. The new plant, specialising in high-productivity 12-micron and thinner copper foils, will have a production capacity of 1,200 tonnes a month once fully operational, the Business Times said. Construction work on first phase of the plant, with a capacity of 700 tonnes a month, will begin in November and will be completed by June 2010, it quoted Masayuki Misawa, managing director of Mitsui Copper Foil Sdn Bhd, in which the Japanese firm is a stakeholder, as saying. Work on the 500-tonne a month second phase will start immediately after that, he said. The new plant is being constructed in Shah Alam, next to an existing facility of the company which has a monthly production capacity of 1,600 tonnes.

MOSCOW, June 30 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's electricity monopoly will cease to exist on Tuesday when wide-ranging reforms to the electricity market come into effect.

China's imports of unwrought copper and semi-copper products were down almost 13% month on month in June and by 18% year on year. This downturn in imports is said to have been expected, as June is traditionally a slower month for copper consumption. It does not therefore necessarily mean a downturn in Chinese demand especially as China has been importing increasing amounts of copper concentrates and scrap over the past few months. Over 1.3 million tonnes of unwrought copper and semi-copper products were imported to China in the first six months of 2008, a year on year decrease of 12%. It is believed that stocks have built up in warehouses following too many imports in 2007. Chinese copper imports are however expected to recover towards the end of July and August and will be assisted also by the running down of the built up stocks in the warehouses.

MOSCOW, June 24 (RIA Novosti) - Metalloinvest and Interros financial holding are proposing that billionaire Viktor Vekselberg's Renova join forces to create a major mining and metals company, Metalloinvest's owner Alisher Usmanov said on Tuesday.

According to Malhan, mega projects and expansion plans are being reviewed, with the corporate sector now focused on managing costs and reducing borrowings. "We are just at the beginning of the problem in India. I expect January to June 2009 to be the worst period. Early signs are emerging from the way budgets are now being designed, with hiring decisions only passed if the need is critical and travel either completely discouraged or downgraded to economy class only", says Sunit Mehra, managing partner, Hunt Partners India.

Nexans and Bruker HTS announced that a high temperature superconducting distribution level cable project has been successfully completed. The project, called Super 3C, commenced in June 2004 and was finalised in December 2008. It was financed by the European Union and the investment amounted to 5.2 million euros. The cable achieves power transmission of 17 megawatts and it features second generation high temperature superconducting tapes.

Fujikura Dia Cable (FDC), the joint venture of Fujikura and Mitsubishi Cable Industries, announced a 14% year-on-year decline in their building cables shipment for the period April-September 2008. FDC describe the current situation as a difficult one, especially due to weak demand. The manufacturer, facing decreased inventory value due to falling copper prices, has to sell at relatively low prices reducing profit margins. FDC cable shipments fell by 8% in 2007 and the initial target for 2008 was to grow back to the 2006 level. However, this was revised down because of sales results. Overall profitability is also affected by rising prices of insulating and sheathing materials.

Japanese electric wire and cable manufacturer Fujikura Ltd reported consolidated financial results for the first quarter ended 30 June 2009. The company achieved sales of ¥112.93b (US$1.19b) for the first quarter, 28.7% lower than the same period a year ago. Operating income for the first quarter was ¥1.84b (US$19.4m), 50.3% lower than the year-ago level. Net income for the same period was ¥111m (US$1.17m), 94.3% lower than a year ago. The company is expecting to make a net loss of ¥800m (US$8.43m) for the first half ending 30 September 2009.

Companies wishing to develop the world's third largest Udokan copper deposit have requested the tender be postponed for a month. All requests will be accepted by mid-June, and the tender's results announced on August 14. According to off-the-record reports, this was mostly done in the interests of an alliance between the state-owned defense industry super-corporation Rostekhonologii, nickel giant Norilsk Nickel and one of Russia's fastest growing mining and metallurgical holdings Metalloinvest because they have so far failed to coordinate joint operations.

Part of the growing trend for nearly every electronic device to be able to communicate with others, smart grid and advanced metering startup Trilliant has taken $40 million in its first official venture funding.\n\nTrilliant, like competitors Ambient, Silver Spring Networks, SmartSynch and others, makes wireless communication devices for utility meters. When enough are present in an area, they can form a mesh network capable of communicating moment-to-moment use information back to utilities, and to the homes and businesses they're installed within. (Some can also communicate via hardwired connections.)\n\nThe company is one of the oldest to try to tackle the problem. I covered it in more depth in June. The problem with looking at the field is that, at first glance, all the contenders seem to be pretty much identical; broadly speaking, each is approaching the same problem, that of trying to get more information about usage to consumers and utilities, in more or less the same way.

BHP Billiton has warned that copper production at its majority-owned Escondida mine in Chile will fall by 30 per cent in the year ending June due to declining ore grades and electrical faults at the processing mill.

Led by China, the developing nations of the world now consume more energy than the industrialized countries, according to the 2009 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. BP released its annual review of world energy use on June 10, noting that industrialized countries reduced their energy consumption by 1.3% in 2008, led by a 2.8% drop in the United States, marking the country's steepest single-year decline since 1982. That decrease was counterbalanced by increasing energy use in developing countries, which caused global energy consumption to increase by 1.4%.

Copper production rises in Iran Tehran, June 1, IRNA - The Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) reported on Monday that the production level of copper has increased in Iran in recent years.

Japanese electric wire and cable manufacturer Fujikura Ltd reported consolidated financial results for the first quarter ended 30 June 2009. The company achieved sales of ¥112.93b (US$1.19b) for the first quarter, 28.7% lower than the same period a year ago. Operating income for the first quarter was ¥1.84b (US$19.4m), 50.3% lower than the year-ago level. Net income for the same period was ¥111m (US$1.17m), 94.3% lower than a year ago. The company is expecting to make a net loss of ¥800m (US$8.43m) for the first half ending 30 September 2009.

SureWest had said it was contemplating such services when the company began offering broadband via bonded ADSL2+ in its incumbent territory last fall, including 10-megabit-per-second services. The company already offers IPTV through its fiber-to-the-premises network, but its bonded ADSL2+ customers have so far only had access to SureWest's voice and data services. (The company has offered IPTV over copper on a very limited basis even before it began line bonding. It offers IPTV over copper to about 2500 customers today, mostly to those with short loops and modest standard-definition video needs.) The new copper-based IPTV services, which will be available to 15,000 homes in December and another 10,000 by next June, are enabled in part by the company's recent switch from Minerva middleware to Microsoft's Mediaroom and by its use of MPEG-4 encoding for video compression.

Sumitomo Wiring Systems (SWS), a subsidiary of Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) to manufacture automotive wiring harnesses and components, will start commercial production of aluminium-conductor wiring harness at Suzuka plant, Mie, Japan in autumn 2010 to supply Japanese major automaker. SWS changed layout of Suzuka plant partially and introduced productive facilities specialized to aluminium wiring harness in June. In future, SWS aims to increase aluminium wiring harness ratio to 20-30% of the total wiring harness production.