(Reuters) – Taiwan aims to transform several of its outlying islands into models of green energy production as part of a 10-year effort to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions, the government said on Monday.

Industrialized Taiwan, a major semiconductor, chemicals and steelmaker, will invest heavily in wind power on the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait. The aim is to raise renewable energy production to half total consumption of the 90,000 population, officials said.

On the Kinmen islets, also known as Quemoy, T$3 billion ($90 million) will be spent to develop solar power, recycle water and push eco-friendly architecture for the 70,000 people who live there, the Environmental Protection Administration said.

The agency said it was hoped the investments could deliver a rapid transformation of the energy supply on the islands and help drive efforts on the more industrialized main island, with a population of 23 million. (more…)

Lessons from the Deep: If the unstoppable hose at the bottom of the Gulf has taught us anything, it’s that we don’t know much about the ocean. Don’t know how to stop a leak, don’t know whether deepwater oil floats or sinks — and know even less than we thought about the oceans’ role in global warming. This week Yale Environment 360 reported that the last Ice Age may have ended when a giant belch of carbon dioxide erupted from seabed. Add similar revelations about the world’s bajillions of microbes, and it seems we know almost nothing at all. (more…)

Frontenac County, north of Kingston, Ontario, has launched a new Green Energy Task Force in order to “provide opportunities to citizens, farmers, businesses, and local governments of Frontenac County to be involved in and invest in the green economy, particularly through the development of community energy projects.” Councillors from each of the Frontenac townships will sit on the newly created task force, but the county will also seek citizen appointees with specific expertise in the solar and wind industries. (more…)

A couple of weeks ago, scientists from the J. Craig Venters Institute (JCVI) announced that they had created the first organism with a synthetic genome. President of the institute Craig Venters sees this as the first major step towards creating synthetic organisms that will produce anything from cheap medicines to advanced biofuels.

This synthetic organism, a bacterium, contained a complete genome that had been created by combining thousands and thousands of Mycoplasma mycoides gene base sequences in several stages. (more…)

Jonathan Hiskes recent Grist post is an excellent exploration of a schism in the environmental community over the long awaited American Power Act i.e. the Kerry/Lieberman and one time Graham bill. Earlier in May, I took a day off from my day job, put on my private citizen hat and joined the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington, DC for a day of lobbying in support of the bill. (more…)

The End of the World…Or the End of the World As We Know It? The Gulf oil nightmare deepened, as crude oozed deeper into Louisiana’s wetlands and British Petroleum sputtered in its attempt to “top kill” the leak. Yet as the Deepwater Horizon officially surpassed Exxon Valdez to become America’s worst oil spill, another, quieter event seemed destined to compete with it in the history books. Craig Venter created a bacterial cell that is, as he called it, “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.” (more…)

On the heels of 694 recently approved renewable energy projects in the province, Ontario Solar Academy (OSA) has established itself a new 8,000 square foot facility in Vaughan, a city just north of Toronto. The move allows OSA to run three times as many training classes every month – an expansion deemed increasingly necessary due to capacity constraints and renewed interest in green careers across the province.

Since its launch earlier this year, OSA has graduated over 75 alumni, with another 27 slated for May.  The Academy’s 5-day solar training courses have consistently sold out in advance. David Gower, Associate Director of OSA, explains, “To ensure our students master the necessary installation and safety principles, we must keep class sizes small.  The only way to meet demand is to expand the number of solar courses we offer.”

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It is that time of year again, the sun is shining and solar panels are soaking it up. And Grid Alternatives’ Solarthon on July 31st in the Bay Area is proving to be bigger and better than ever. Solarthon is a solar block party and fundraiser where GRID Alternatives Bay Area will be leading individual and corporate work crews to install solar panels for several low-income families in one neighborhood in one day. (more…)

Whenever you suggest that renewables could one day supply a large proportion of our electricity, scores of people jump up to denounce it as a pipedream, a fantasy, a dangerous delusion. They insist that the energy resources don’t exist; that the technologies are inefficient; that they can’t be accommodated on the grid; that the variability of supply will cause constant blackouts.

I suspect that no amount of evidence will sway some of these people. There’s a large contingent which seems to hate renewables come what may. (more…)

The widespread adoption of energy efficient light bulbs, fans, refrigerators, air conditioners, and irrigation pumps can overcome India’s electricity shortage by 2013 and significantly reduce the country’s rapidly growing carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report. The study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said such simple energy efficiency measures could add $608 billion to India’s gross domestic product by 2020 because they would eliminate the chronic energy shortages that frequently force businesses and factories to reduce production. (more…)