METI to revoke approval for solar power projects

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140214_38.html

Feb. 14, 2014 – Updated 12:52 UTC

Japan’s industry ministry is expected to retract its approval for about 670 solar power generation projects.

The ministry says these projects are unlikely to start operation in the near future. It approved them as power generators under a new power trading system that started in 2012.

Power utilities are, according to the new trading system, required to procure electricity generated from approved renewable energy sources at fixed prices.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry says it had given the thumbs up to about 196,000 solar power projects by the end of last October, but that only about 40 percent of them are in service.

It surveyed 6,045 projects it certified in the business year ending in March 2013. These projects were supposed to generate at least 400 kilowatts of electricity or more. It found that 4,699, or more than three-quarters, were not generating power.

Of these, 672 did not have the necessary land or equipment, or did not respond to the survey.

The ministry has decided to revoke approval of these projects next month after interviewing their operators.

The ministry suspects that to raise profits some operators have been delaying the set up of solar panels until prices fall further.

The ministry will also consider reviewing the current system as it didn’t set time limits for starting power generation after getting approval from the government.

Nukes over wind turbines? UK Research & Development policies are warped

10:50 10 February 2014 by Stuart Parkinson

http://actionawe.org/nukes-over-wind-turbines-uk-rd-policies-are-warped/

Weapons of mass destruction get five times as much public research cash in the UK as renewable energy. Time for a rethink, says Stuart Parkinson

The scale of a nation’s public spending on different areas of research and development can be very revealing. For example, what sort of a nation would spend five times as much on developing weapons of mass destruction – including delivery systems – than on the R&D for renewable energy that is so central to tackling climate change? Figures just published reveal one such nation to be the UK.

Using data from freedom of information requests, campaign group Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), of which I am executive director, has pieced together recent R&D spending by the UK government on a series of major weapons systems and compared them with public R&D spending on measures to tackle major drivers of armed conflict, such as resource depletion, social and economic injustice, and climate change. This is the first time such an analysis has been carried out – for the UK or indeed anywhere else. What we have uncovered is deeply disturbing……

More here

https://nuclear-news.net/2014/02/14/nukes-over-wind-turbines-uk-research-development-policies-are-warped/

February 14, 2014 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized