With an eye on Ontario, Conergy and Sustainable Energy Technologies have partnered up to supply Sunergy inverters to one of North America’s most active solar markets.  Over the next year, the two companies hope to produce 3MW of clean energy, spread across a number of different projects.  First on the list is a 75kW rooftop installation on Brampton’s Metex Heat Treating facility.

In high-tech industries, it is not uncommon for such partnerships to emerge, with each side enjoying greater access to knowledge and skills outside of its core expertise.  According to Conergy’s Managing Director (more…)

Earlier this year, the United States’ government announced several grants going towards algae research, one of the largest going towards the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts. This consortium received $44 million and is headed by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. In addition to this investment, other areas of the government have financially vested themselves in algae biofuels as well.

However, it seems that the U.S. government isn’t done investing in the future of algae fuels. Just last month, the government announced that it will be investing even more into the algae research field, $24 million more to be precise. This grant will be split between three different consortiums, each focusing on a different area of research. (more…)

President Obama took the occasion of Independence Day to announce that the federal government will authorize $2 billion of Recovery Act funding to support the solar industry. Administered by the Department of Energy, the funds will target two companies: Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.

Abengoa – an international solar firm with its roots in Spain—plans to build the world’s largest concentrating solar power plant in Arizona. The company says the facility, dubbed the Solana Project, will produce enough energy to power 70,000 households.  The plant will use thermal storage equipment to parabolically recover energy for a 280 MW output capacity. The administration says the project will create 1,600 construction jobs. (more…)

The reporting of greenhouse gas emissions by major sources of these pollutants is gaining momentum.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing requirements under its national mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting program for underground coal mines, industrial wastewater treatment systems, industrial waste landfills and magnesium (more…)

The Chinese government has applied for the rights to conduct deep-sea mining for valuable metals in the international waters of the southwestern Indian Ocean. Using remotely operated underwater vehicles, China identified a reserve of sulphide deposits near a pocket of hydrothermal vents, located more than 5,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. They hope to mine valuable metals — including copper, nickel, and cobalt, which are used in the production of high-tech products such as cellphones, laptop computers and batteries. (more…)

(Reuters) – The messages are tense, angry, cajoling.

Written between 2008 and January 2010 and sent between lobbyists, scientists and high-ranking European civil servants, they hint at the intense emotions in the debate over one of Europe’s most contentious environmental issues: the use of biofuels, long touted as an alternative to carbon-emitting petroleum.

But it’s not how the emails are written that’s important. It’s what’s in them — and (more…)

German officials are trying a novel approach to monitor air quality at airports — so-called “biomonitoring” by honeybees. In an effort to gauge air pollution levels from jet exhaust and ground transportation vehicles at Düsseldorf International Airport and several other airports nationwide, officials test honey from honeybees kept at the airports. In a recent test of honey collected from some 200,000 honeybees, officials confirmed that levels of some hydrocarbons and heavy metals were well below national safety standards. The honey, called Düsseldorf Natural, is then given away as gifts. (more…)

As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announced nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies. Abengoa Solar has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in Arizona, which will create about 1,600 construction jobs with over 70 percent of the construction components and products manufactured here in the USA. When completed, this plant will provide enough clean energy to power 70,000 homes. (more…)

The U.S. market for small-scale wind turbines on homes and small businesses grew 15 percent in 2009, with 20.3 megawatts of new capacity added nationwide, according to a new report. That new capacity represents about 10,000 new units, and bumps the total capacity created by small wind projects (100 kilowatts or less) to about 100 megawatts nationwide, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), an industry organization. (more…)

After a meeting between President Obama and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, leading Senate proponents of climate and energy legislation say the only climate bill with a chance of passage this year would be a measure placing a cap on the carbon dioxide emissions of electric power utilities.

At least two Republican senators — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine — involved in Tuesday’s meeting with Obama said they would support placing a cap and price on the CO2 emissions of utilities, provided that most or all of the proceeds were rebated to taxpayers.

A key sponsor of climate and energy legislation in the Senate, John Kerry (D-Mass), suggested he might be willing to drop his move to place a cap and a price on CO2 emissions throughout the economy in favor of a more limited bill capping the emissions of electric utilities. (more…)