A group of us from the NRDC teams in Beijing, San Francisco, and D.C. just visited Shanghai, China to discuss opportunities to collaborate on helping turn an old iron and steel alloy plant into a new "clean energy development zone." The site is one of 12 old industrial sites that China is planning to turn into clean energy development zones. NRDC's China Program will be working with this project to make it as energy-efficient as possible.

A new institute is being launched to help Idaho residents and businesses conserve power and save money. The Institute will evaluate energy-saving technologies to see which ones work best. The program will be run by the Idaho Falls' Center of Advanced Energy Studies, and Otter says it will play an important role in Idaho's energy future.

Dr. Nguyen The Hung from the Institute of Physics under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology has contributed to the efforts to realize the above objective by creating a type of power generator using natural light. In 2008, Dr. Nguyen The Hung and his colleagues began a research project aiming to manufacture a type of power generator system using solar energy according to the absorption diffusion principle (with natural light engine).

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is optimistic that Asia can get the 10 trillion US dollars it needs to finance sustainable energy projects over the next 20 years. The projects will include more efficient use of coal and oil as well as greater reliance on renewable power sources such as wind and solar energy.

General Electric has created new halogen compact fluorescent light bulbs, GE Reveal and GE Energy Smart Soft, that unlike typical fluorescents (CFLs), contain less mercury (only 1 milligram) and don’t take time to warm up, being more efficient.

The European Hydrogen Association (EHA) and the European Regions and Municipalities Partnership for hydrogen and fuel cells (HyRaMP) have called for accelerated support from the EU, national and local governments to ensure a sustainable build-up of hydrogen infrastructure in Europe. Both organizations stress the need to integrate hydrogen infrastructure development into the EU’s current energy and transport infrastructure plans.

The Metropolitan building (235 Dong Khoi, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City), with the main function of an office for rent, was built in May 1996. Since 2004, seeing the importance of saving electricity in terms of economy as well as environment, the Directorate of the building has invested in renovating energy using equipment to save costs and meet development demand. With investment solutions, the annual power consumption of the building has been reduced by about 11.9%.

Regular innovation to improve productivity and product quality is the target that leaders of the company has always aimed at. With that target, in November 1998, the company invested in the mechanized blast furnace cement production line of China with the design capacity of 60,000 tons per year. In 2002, the company invested in an additional synchronous production line, increasing the total design capacity of the two lines to 120,000 tons per year. Currently, each year, the plant manufactures and supplies more than 300,000 tons of cement to the main markets in Hanoi and surrounding areas.

Making a cellphone battery last ten times longer is a first target for a large research project that IBM, Infineon and a number of European universities unveiled on Wednesday. The new research project, called Steeper, also aims to decrease the energy needs of other electronic devices like TV sets or supercomputers by 10 times when active, and to virtually eliminate power consumption when they are in standby mode.

Tomtempower, tên đầy đủ là công ty trách nhiệm hữu hạn Totempower Energy Systems là một công ty mới thành lập hoạt động trong lĩnh công nghệ sạch. Công ty này vừa cho ra mắt một phương pháp để các hộ gia đình có thể dễ dàng sở hữu năng lượng gió phục vụ cuộc sống hàng ngày. Công ty đang phát triển những tuabin gió cực nhỏ được thiết kế cho không gian hẹp và không có hiện tượng lắp đặt gián đoạn.

A new clean tech company called Totempower Energy Systems Ltd. has come up with an easy way to put wind power within the grasp of everyday homeowners. The company is developing new micro-wind turbines that are designed for close quarters and non-disruptive installation, but the real key to getting more micro-wind turbines into consumers’ hands is the company’s “ease of ownership” plan which provides a soup-to-nuts service including site selection and connecting the turbine to the home electrical system.

MIT researchers are hopeful of capturing and releasing solar energy with the help of thermo-chemical technology. Scientists were already working on this technology in seventies but this project was aborted due to its expensiveness and termed as too impractical to achieve. But MIT researchers are now gearing up to take this thermo-chemical technology that is supposed to convert solar energy into electrical energy.

The People’s Committee of Ninh Thuan Province recently presented a master plan for socioeconomic development to 2020 with a vision towards 2030, with an ambition to turn Ninh Thuan into an energy center of the whole country and to list its name among the 20 rich provinces of Vietnam.

VietnamPlus and Siemens signed a partnership agreement in Hanoi on Oct. 21 whereby VietnamPlus will be the media sponsor for Siemens Green Technology Journalism Award 2010. This award is created for the first time in ASEAN in order to acknowledge and reward journalists for excellent reporting on energy efficiency, industrial productivity and sustainability issues. It is open to print and online media from Indonesia , Malaysia , the Philippines , Singapore , Thailand and Vietnam.

A New Zealand firm is hoping to beat rivals to Britain's lucrative boiler replacement market with its energy-efficient product and says an IPO (initial public offering) in Europe could be on the cards as it ramps up production. Whisper Tech, controlled by New Zealand state power group Meridian, expects to be profitable within a year and is examining its funding options over the next 12-18 months as it moves into mass production.

The Coca-Cola company has been introducing more electric vehicles and other low-emissions trucks into its massive fleet, and now researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University are developing yet another alternative energy option. The team has been working on a solar powered air conditioning system that would significantly reduce or eliminate beverage delivery truck emissions related to cooling.

The United States is on the verge of a solar boom that could provide 4.3 percent of the nation's electricity by 2020, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. There's just a 12-figure catch: Investors need to put $100 billion into the solar industry to keep the generation of solar electricity growing by 42 percent a year for the next decade to expand capacity from the current 1.4 gigawatts to 44 gigawatts.

Weighing under 454 kilos (1,000 lbs), the Honda Air is run by a compressed air motor, with the energy held inside compressed air in pressurized tanks. It’s “programmed” to have an autonomy of around 100 miles and has a pneumatic regulator system.

A few days ago, the Israel-based energy company ZenithSolar has officially unveiled its 3rd generation Solar Z20. Being installed in Kibbutz Yavne in central Israel, the solar energy generator is a combined heat and power system, able to deliver 72% efficiency.

The first factory to manufacture the Nissan Leaf, in Oppama, Japan, started producing functional units on October 22. The first shipments will be made to Japan and the US this November and to Europe starting December. The Nissan Leaf uses lithium-ion batteries made by Automotive Energy Supply Corp, the joint venture between NEC and Nissan.