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Solar power plants for Japan

Sojitz Sees Beyond Rare Earths to LNG, Solar in Non-Atomic Japan, Bloomberg by Yuriy Humber & Ichiro Suzuki – Dec 13, 2012  “….Another way for Sojitz to meet the changing energy needs of Japan will be via renewables.

Solar Power

Sojitz wants to build five solar power plants totaling about 100 megawatts, including on the northern isle of Hokkaido and in Kagoshima prefecture, western Japan, Sato said. The trader aims to register the projects with the government by the end of March, he said.

Japan introduced this year the world’s highest payment rate for renewable energy, known as a feed-in tariff, as a way to stimulate investments in solar, wind and biomass generation and ease reliance on nuclear power. The tariff rate will be revised from April.

“With a fixed feed-in tariff the economics set up has become very easy to understand,” Sato said.

The current low cost of raw materials for solar panels and Sojitz’s experience with three solar energy projects in Germany should help the trader set up an efficient business in Japan, Sato said. The company has since sold one of the projects, he said.

Sojitz commissioned a 24 megawatt solar plant in Mixdorf in July 2011 and completed a 3 megawatt station in Betzweiler in May 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-14/sojitz-sees-beyond-rare-earths-to-lng-solar-in-non-atomic-japan.html

December 14, 2012 Posted by | Japan, renewable | Leave a comment

Wind energy taking off in a big way, in China

China’s Wind Power Sector Set for Rapid Development after Year of Stagnancy Renewable Energy World, By Liu Yuanyuan,  December 11, 2012   BEIJING — China’s wind power sector, after stagnating for nearly a year, is expected to experience rapid development as local governments launch favorable policies. Continue reading →

December 14, 2012 Posted by | China, renewable | Leave a comment

North Korean propaganda film contains some disturbing truths

YouTubePROPAGANDA | FULL ENGLISH VERSION (2012)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NMr2VrhmFI&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6NMr2VrhmFI&has_verified=1 Published on 13 Jul 2012 Here is the formal statement I gave to Federal Police on 16 June 2012:

On a trip to visit family in Seoul in April, I was approached by a man and a woman who claimed to be North Korean defectors. They presented me with a DVD that recently came into their possession and asked me to translate it. They also asked me to post the completed film on the Internet so that it could reach a worldwide audience. I believed what I was told and an agreement was made to protect their identities (and mine).

Despite my concerns about what I was viewing when I returned home, I proceeded to translate and post the film on You Tube because of the film’s extraordinary content. I have now made public my belief that this film was never intended for a domestic audience in the DPRK. Instead, I believe that these people, who presented themselves as ‘defectors’ specifically targeted me because of my reputation as a translator and interpreter.

Furthermore, I now believe these people work for the DPRK. The fact that I have continued to translate and post the film in spite of this belief does not make me complicit in their intention to spread their ideology. I chose to keep posting this film because – regardless of who made it – I believe people should see it because of the issues it raises and I stand by my right to post it for people to share and discuss freely with each other.

Sabine

I have translated this film, laid in the English voice over and subtitles, and on legal advice have blurred the identity of the presenter and/or blacked out certain elements.

0:00 Introduction
6:54 Creating Ideas & Illusions
16:48 Fear
19:35 Religion
25:00 Beware the 1%
28:10 Emulating Psychosis
31:21 Rewriting History
41:15 The Birth of Propaganda
45:49 Cover Ups and Omissions
54:10 Complicity
58:05 Censorship
1:01:50 International Diplomacy
1:06:14 Television
1:08:11 Advertising
1:14:36 The Cult of Celebrity
1:22:34 Distraction
1:28:01 Terrorism
1:35:00 The Revolution Starts Now

Please share and discuss with as many people as you can, and if you have questions for me or want to discuss the content further, please do so below or go to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Propagandafilm/427263763965283

December 13, 2012 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

USA could get 99.9% of its energy from renewable sources

renewable-energy-pictureRenewables Could Provide 99.9% Of Power By 2030
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3509 by Energy Matters, 13 Dec 12, Scientists state a well-designed combination of wind energy, solar power, battery and fuel cell storage could almost always provide more electricity than required at a cost comparable to today’s electricity expenses.

Research carried out by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College determined renewables could economically fully power a utility scale electric grid 99.9 percent of the time by 2030 – and without government subsidies. Continue reading →

December 13, 2012 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

New solar fabric will light up your clothes

Japan researchers invent solar-cell fabric, Herald Sun,  From: AAP  December 12, 2012 CLOTHES that could literally light up your life were unveiled Tuesday by Japanese researchers who said their solar-cell fabric would eventually let wearers harvest energy on the go. Continue reading →

December 13, 2012 Posted by | decentralised, Japan | Leave a comment

Solar power enables vegetables to be grown in the Sahara

Cucumbers In The Sahara – Thanks To Solar Powerby Energy Matters, 10 Dec 12The first cucumbers produced in the Sahara desert using seawater and solar power were served up to participants at UN Climate Negotiations in Doha.

Cucumber may be a warm-season vegetable, but the Sahara desert is a rather extreme environment even for this sun loving plant as it is also quite thirsty.

The Sahara Forest Project has combined saltwater-cooled greenhouses, concentrated solar power (CSP), solar panels and desalination technologies to produce the crop from what is otherwise barren land. Salt created from the process is on-sold to third parties. Key to the project is not so much any individual technology, but how they work together….. http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3507

December 13, 2012 Posted by | AFRICA, renewable | Leave a comment

The Work and Spend trap – how we all fell for the consumerist con

One analysis at the University of Melbourne sought to discover the reasons why people are increasingly compelled to work more than 50 hours a week.

 The correct answer was consumerism. It was the “work-and-spend” trap, an endless cycle characterised by the desire for higher living standards, linked with greater levels of debt that can only be managed by working longer and harder.

consumer-societyA frenzy of consumerism   http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/blogs/work-in-progress/a-frenzy-of-consumerism-20121207-2ayut.html#ixzz2EgEa2wIK The Age, December 7, 2012 James Adonis There was something quite tragic about  There was something quite tragic about the Click Frenzy
frenzy, wasn’t there? The same could be said about the Black Friday stampedes in the US, It’s tasteless consumerism to the max, turning ordinary people into ravenous and mindless shoppers, with flow-on effects in the workplace.

But first, let’s go back to 1929. In an article written for Nation’s Business magazine, Charles Kettering – a director of General Motors Research – opined on the need for companies to keep consumers dissatisfied. The moment people are happy with what they have, “almost immediately hard times would be upon us”, he wrote.

And so it is that marketers persevere with advertising to convince us we’re not sexy enough, popular enough, smart enough, or (whatever) enough, unless we purchase what they’re selling. Continue reading →

December 10, 2012 Posted by | ENERGY, social effects | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia, Qatar to become, well, the Saudi Arabia of solar power

solar-concentratedGulf riches could supercharge concentrated solar, REneweconomy,  By Giles Parkinson   10 December 2012 The concentrated solar power (CSP) sector is expected to finally spring to life – and begin its long-awaited journey down the cost curve – as the oil and gas-rich Gulf nations deploy their massive sovereign wealth in solar technologies.

At the climate change talks in Doha, both Saudi Arabia and the host country Qatar reinforced their intentions to invest tens of billions of dollars into large-scale CSP – which includes solar thermal and concentrated solar PV technologies. The biggest oil and gas exporters in the world want to become, well, the Saudi Arabia and Qatar of the solar industry too. Continue reading →

December 10, 2012 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, renewable, Saudi Arabia | 1 Comment

Huge solar energy installation in New York

sunBig New York install marks new era for renewable energy firm, Clean Energy Authority.com December 09, 2012  by Amanda H. Miller  While one of the largest rooftop solar installations in New York marks a shift in the state’s energy policy, it’s an even bigger milestone for the company that installed it.

The 1-megawatt solar installation that covers a rooftop the size of two football fields in Yonkers, New York, is Half Moon Ventures first solar installation ever.

The Illinois company decided a couple years ago to shift its course completely. It had been focused on utility-scale wind energy projects. “We decided strategically that it was time to exit that business,” said Half Moon CEO Michael Hastings.

Since then, the company has focused on developing smaller renewable energy projects for municipalities and corporations that are used to paying high rates for power. “The onsite generation market is markedly better than the utility-scale market,” Hastings said….. http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-news/big-new-york-install-marks-new-era-120912

December 10, 2012 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Advance in solar clothing – solar fibre

Solar Fibre A Stepping Stone To True Solar Clothing by Energy Matters, 10 Dec 12 We’ve already seen clothing with embedded flexible solar panels, but soon the clothing itself may be the solar cell.

The solar vest and urban chic solar clothing‘s days may be numbered (some might say thankfully). Solar panels being woven onto fabric could become passé if a new silicon-based optical fiber with solar-cell capabilities works out.

An international team of chemists, physicists and engineers lead by Penn State’s Professor John Badding have created a fibre that can convert solar radiation into direct-current electricity.

The material, thinner than the width of a human hair, is created using high-pressure chemistry techniques to deposit layers of crystalline silicon semiconductor materials directly into tiny holes in optical fibers…… http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3506

December 10, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, decentralised | Leave a comment

The dirty secret of “Cloud Computing” – massive energy use and waste

eyes-surprisedMost data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show.

Worldwide, the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants

“This is an industry dirty secret, and no one wants to be the first to say mea culpa,”

“We’re what’s causing the problem.”

highly-recommendedTHE CLOUD FACTORIES. NYT, By JAMES GLANZ  September 22, 2012 Power, Pollution and the Internet “…… Today, the information generated by nearly one billion people requires outsize versions of these facilities, called data centers, with rows and rows of servers spread over hundreds of thousands of square feet, and all with industrial cooling systems.

They are a mere fraction of the tens of thousands of data centers that now exist to support the overall explosion of digital information. Stupendous amounts of data are set in motion each day as, with an innocuous click or tap, people download movies on iTunes, check credit card balances through Visa’s Web site, send Yahoo e-mail with files attached, buy products on Amazon, post on Twitter or read newspapers online.

A yearlong examination by The New York Times has revealed that this foundation of the information industry is sharply at odds with its image of sleek efficiency and environmental friendliness Continue reading →

December 8, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, ENERGY | Leave a comment

In France, wind energy is now cheaper than nuclear

wind in France is paid only €0.08 per kWh ($0.10 per kWh) and clearly competitive with new nuclear.

Wind energy now cheaper than nuclear in France http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/wind-energy-now-cheaper-than-nuclear-in-france-92181 REneweconomy, By Paul Gipe on 5 December 2012
Liberation reports that for the second time in a little more than a year the cost of a new reactor under construction at Flamanville, France has risen dramatically. Continue reading →

December 8, 2012 Posted by | France, renewable | Leave a comment

Time that the Left woke up to the scourge of consumerism

So if you can, work less, so others can work more, on some days buy nothing – expect the New Statesman, of course. Otherwise buy less, buy better, but buy time, love, care, compassion, freedom and some control over your life and your society the only way you can – by doing it not as a consumer but as a citizen

consumer-societyWhy is the left silent on the scourge of consumerism? Labour must look beyond the politics of more and recognise that the good life cannot be bought off a shelf. New Statesman, BY NEAL LAWSON  29 NOVEMBER 2012 Did you do it – by accident or design? Did you manage to buy nothing on Buy Nothing Day last Saturday? What do you mean you didn’t know you it was Buy Nothing Day? Too busy Xmas shopping?

The idea that an issue can only be raised by dedicating one day out of 365 to it is just one indication of how we flag-UKhave become a consumer society.  Being a consumer society doesn’t mean that all we do is shop,  rather it suggests that knowing ourselves and others by what we consume is the prime way in which society now reproduces itself.  It is the dominant way of being, just as work once was, when we knew ourselves, and others, primarily as producers. We were what we did.
Now we are what we buy.

I don’t know the ‘Buy Nothing Day’ people but I’m guessing the problem isn’t consumption per se. We have to consume to live. The problem is one of balance. What is the damage being done to us, our society and the planet by consuming too much? And the issue is not the inability
of capitalism to balance its need for expanding profit and our
individual, collective and environmental needs, capitalism can’t do
balance. The problem is that our politicians have given up trying to
secure that balance through regulation……..

Continue reading →

December 1, 2012 Posted by | ENERGY, UK | Leave a comment

Stunning growth in solar energy employment in USA

The three year Census series paints a stunning picture of solar job growth. Since 2010, employment in the U.S. solar industry has grown 27percent – eight times faster than the overall economy during the same period

The Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census 2012 Finds Installers Leading the Way More than 8,500 installation jobs created in the past year, continued industry wide growth expected in 2013 ALBANY, N.Y. (PRWEB) November 14, 2012 The Solar Foundation (TSF), an independent nonprofit solar education and research organization, today released the full version of its third annual National Solar Jobs Census at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s Clean Energy Workforce Education Conference. In early November, TSF announced that the Census found that the U.S. solar industry now employs 119,016 Americans, a figure which represents the addition of 13,872 workers and a 13.2 percent employment growth rate over the previous year.

The three year Census series paints a stunning picture of solar job growth. Since 2010, employment in the U.S. solar industry has grown 27percent – eight times faster than the overall economy during the same period, Continue reading →

November 27, 2012 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Renewable Energy – a job provider for millions of Indians

Indian Renewable Energy Sector to Create 2.4 Million Jobs by 2020 http://theenergycollective.com/energyjobline/147291/indian-renewable-energy-sector-create-24-million-jobs-2020 by C. Dominguez November 24, 2012 India’s renewable energy sector is to create up to 2.4 million jobs by 2020, according to a report jointly commissioned by environmental group Greenpeace, the Global Wind Energy Council and the European Renewable Energy Council.
To date, the sector employs 200,000 people, but this could jump 14 times by 2030 with the right policies and investments in place, stated India Energy [R]evolution report.
By 2050, about 92 percent of India’s energy infrastructure will be based on renewable energy sources. Renewables such as wind, solar thermal energy and photovoltaic, will comprise 74 percent of electricity generation. Continue reading →

November 27, 2012 Posted by | employment, India, renewable | Leave a comment

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