In the last few weeks both Shell and BP have pulled out of developing off-shore wind developments in the UK due to better incentives and support from the US government in the form of tax breaks and incentives.

The same is true for Spain where in the last few years the country has been unprecedented growth in wind farms along the majority of the eastern part of the country. Then just as the country was seeing clean and green as a way forward – they remove the tax break for further development. Almost overnight the work stops, new planned sites are abandoned and people are laid off.

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Solar panels aren’t for hippies and space stations any more…  The Vatican has replaced the panels on the roof of the Paul VI Hall with PV modules.

The modules were made according to the specs of the original tiles planned by the building’s architect, Pier Luigi Nervi. We tend to conveniently forget, but the “Church” has a long history of supporting science (not always… refrain from the obvious in your comments please!) – in that vein the inauguration ceremony will take place at the headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

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What first sounds ironic makes sense at second sight: Instead of having to fly thousands of miles to get to a conference, participants save energy and costs by simply staying where they are. The Virtual Energy Forum makes it happen by choosing the internet as its event location. No expensive plane tickets, cab rides and hotel rooms are necessary to attend the event, thereby reducing not only the carbon emissions, but also the expenses typically involved in a global conference like this. Cheaper, more efficient and less impact on the environment? What an example of CleanTech!

CleanTech at work
CleanTech products and services are based on innovate technologies that optimize the use of natural resources by offering cleaner or less wasteful and more economic alternatives to traditional products and services. In that context, The Virtual Energy Forum makes great economic sense – for both participating companies and attendees – as investments are smaller and opportunity costs lower than at a traditional conference. The forum is expected to have 5,000 attendees and save 6,500 tons of CO2 emissions (or 14.5 million pounds) that would be generated by travel and production for a conventional event of that size. The environmental impact and the cost for participating in the online event is tremendously low.

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