India

Following on from the publication of a draft Japanese Government plan for the commercialization of methane hydrate deposits 10 years from now, Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) announced yesterday that it has it produced gas in the world’s first offshore test to extract the fuel from the frozen depths. The experimental gas field is in the Nankai Trough, about 50-km off the coast of Honshu, Japan's main island. JOGMEC estimates that the surrounding area holds at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters of methane hydrate, the equivalent of 11 years’ of Japanese natural gas imports.

India plans to adopt a new Viability Gap Funding (VGF) model for the second phase of its Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), according to media reports.

India’s Welspun Group has received 8.85 billion rupees (USD 161 million) from lenders including the Central Bank of India to finance the country’s largest solar project.

Few visitors to the subcontinent will be surprised by the revelation from India’s Vice President, Hamid Ansari, that just 20 percent of the country’s sewage is treated, complicating the cities battle by Indian cities for water resources.

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.