In a sign that Japan is to restart its idled reactors, Areva, the French energy group said it was preparing to send the first nuclear fuel shipment to Japan since the Fukushima disaster of March, 2011.
The shipment of mixed oxide fuel (MOX) is likely to be controversial in Japan, where public opposition to nuclear power and reactor restarts remains strong in the run-up to the second anniversary of the March 11, 2011 catastrophe.
China's inexorable demand for energy has seen it sign a slew of multi-billion deals in the past in the past week or so, reflecting the new complexities of the international energy market. They add to new calculations by analysts that China is set to produce enough crude oil outside its borders to rival OPEC members such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol said last year's USD35 billion foreign energy company buying spree by Chinese companies will produce the equivalent of Kuwait's output by 2015.
In his FY2014 budget speech yesterday India’s finance minister, P Chidambaram, announced two measures to address the dramatic slowdown in the development of new wind power generating capacity.
From the beginning of April the country will reinstate the generation-based incentives for wind energy — to the tune of 50 paise (1 US cent) per kWh – that were scrapped in last year’s budget. The central government is allocating 8 billion rupees (USD147 million) to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in FY2014 to support the subsidy.
Researchers have developed a more accurate model for predicting the amount of summer rainfall and number of tropical storms in East and South-East Asia.
The study, published last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, advances understanding of the East Asian summer monsoon, a weather system that affects agricultural production and the lives of billions of people across the continent.
Researchers say the model could “significantly improve” monsoon and rainfall predictions in the region, which could aid governments and disaster-management specialists.
The concept of clean coal doesn’t get a lot of respect from environmentalists who tend to describe it as an oxymoron (like “military intelligence”). A research team at Ohio State University in the US has, however, pioneered a new combustion technology which is now ready for larger scale testing, having successfully produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction over 203 hours of continuous operation.
Asia is expected to become the world's second-largest natural gas market by 2015, even though it is dominated by long-term contracts in which prices are linked to that of oil which keeps prices much higher than those in other parts of the world, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In the report the IEA shows how the Asia-Pacific region's natural-gas market can evolve from one oil-linked prices, which has raised serious questions about the sustainability of the system and its effects on Asian competitiveness, to one featuring a more competitive and dynamic network of trading hubs in which prices better reflect local gas demand and supply.
China’s top environmental watchdog has rejected a request to publish findings of a high-profile national survey on soil pollution, citing "state secrecy". It is a decision which both legal and environmental experts are calling irresponsible.
With public health at risk – as contaminated land jeopardizes food safety and can cause cancer or other health problems for local residents – critics are asking just what, in its five-year study into ground contamination, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has to hide.
The chickens from China’s decades-long custom of turning a blind eye to the damage inflicted on its environment in return for developing an economic powerhouse are finally coming home to roost as an increasingly-agitated populace demands action from its leaders.
With suffocating smog in Beijing and other major cities still making headlines around the world, renewed focus is now being turned on China’s deplorable fresh water conditions as the government scrambles to show it is in control by issuing reams of new standards on industrial pollution and promising to punish violators.
Despite plans to invest up to USD850 billion over the next ten years in a bid to improve filthy water supplies, experts warn of minimal impact on the damage caused by decades of pollution during China’s rapid economic growth. Rather than more cost-effectively preventing pollution at source, money is being poured into water treatment and desalination.
The central government has earmarked 4 trillion yuan (USD650 million) for investment in rural water conservation projects between 2011 and 2020 – four times as much as was spent in the previous decade.
The Thai government faces a legal challenge to the bidding procedures for a THB350 billion (USD11.7 billion) water-management scheme – drawn up in the wake of massive flooding in 2011 - over concerns about the likelihood of corruption in the contract process.
The major elements of the scheme have also been criticized by a Japanese expert as being unnecessary, which will reinforce local concerns that – like many major infrastructure projects in Thailand – it is a boondoggle designed to line the pockets of politicians and bureaucrats.
China is to introduce a set of new taxation policies designed to preserve the environment, including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Finance (MOF). This is in addition to establishing seven pilot carbon markets this year with the goal of creating a national cap-and-trade scheme by the end of 2015.
In an article published on the MOF's website Jia Chen, head of the tax policy division, said the government will collect the environmental protection tax instead of pollutant discharge fees, as well as levy a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.
In a country well used to the everyday reality of water pollution, revelations that industrial companies have been illegally pumping hazardous waste underground for years has shocked many in China.
Underground water pollution is a serious matter in China because groundwater-based sources account for a third of the country’s total water resources. Experts say that 90 percent of the nation's groundwater contains varying degrees of pollution, with a massive 60 percent being heavily polluted.
According to the NPD Solarbuzz Q1’13 Asia Pacific Major PV Markets Quarterly report, PV demand in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region is forecast to grow to by 50 percent year-on-year 13.5-GW in 2013.
China, Japan, India, and Australia will remain dominant for PV demand in the region, accounting for 90 percent of demand in 2013, however, discrete end-market demand environments are now evolving in each of these countries.
A partnership between the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ - German Agency for International Co-operation), BASF and Cargill plans to improve the livelihoods of 2,500 coconut growers in the Philippines. The partnership is co-financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development through its program develoPPP.de.
The program focuses on smallholder coconut growers in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, aiming to raise farmers’ incomes by improving productivity and coconut oil quality.
Scientists from Norway and Nepal say they are ready to launch a plan to manipulate the breeding cycle of carp stocks and get the fish species to spawn more than once a year to improve food security in the Himalayan country.
The plan for a low-cost system for off-season fry production was announced last month at the first annual review of the USD3.3 million, four-year, Fish Farming Development (FFD) project that was launched in April 2012.
In a groundbreaking study issued by the World Future Council the future usage loss resulting from current oil, gas and coal consumption has been put at between USD3.2 and 3.4 trillion per year.
Opponents of renewable energy claim conventional energy sources are cheaper on the whole, but the new World Future Council report asks what costs are incurred when renewable energies are not used.
Growth in China, Japan and an awakened US, together with a still healthy European market, saw the world’s total installed solar PV power capacity rise to 101-GW in 2012, according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA).
The association said about 30 to 32-GW of new solar power capacity was completed worldwide last year, compared with almost 30-GW in 2011. Its new figures revealed a shift in the global market demand as emerging economies picked up some of the slack caused by a slowdown in European countries.
The Asia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) – one of the world's largest paper companies – has pledged to stop its suppliers cutting down natural forests in Indonesia. It hopes this will help preserve the threatened habitats of endangered species, increase respect for the rights of the region’s indigenous peoples and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from carbon-rich peatland.
APP worked with environmental NGOs Greenpeace and the The Forest Trust (TFT) on the plan, which came into effect at the beginning of February.
There's been a debate rumbling on in the US environmental press as to how 'green' President Obama will be during his second term. There are some indications that he might be trying to outflank political opponents in subtle renewable policies, after having been dealt several body blows in previous policy fights.
Apart from having the apparently minor side-effect of trying to preserve the global ecosystem, any major policy edicts from the White House can have major economic benefits for international companies, and those in China in particular.
A subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Geely Holdings plans to make low-speed electric vehicles (EVs) under an agreement with Kandi Vehicles.
Geely's 50-50 joint venture with the NASDAQ-listed company ties China's cheap car maker, with a low-speed EV specialist. Starting with capital budget of CNY1 billion (USD160 million), the joint venture plans research and development, production, marketing and sales of electric vehicles on the Chinese mainland.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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