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-- a _kt75 | note Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes NEW : Preview the Notes The next issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management will be released early April 2014. The original content structure of the notes  Technology,  Research,  Politics&Society will be completed by the new section Energy As previously, abstracts of newly published - but also not yet published - articles addressing the above sections and concentrating on water management and related topics are welcomed. The contributions should range in the order of 200-400 words (in exceptions and if acceptable larger contributions are accepted as well), they must be written in English (well formulated) and they must be provided along with the complete references. Submit your contribution until 29th February 2014 , either as .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt-document to notes.kt75@g

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes Scientists in Shanghai are attempting a breakthrough in nuclear energy: reactors powered by thorium, an alternative to uranium. The project is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a government body with close military ties that coordinates the country's science-and-technology strategy. The academy has designated thorium as a priority for China's top laboratories. The program has a budget of $350 million. And it's being spearheaded by the influential son of a former Chinese president. But even as China bulks up its military muscle through means ranging from espionage to heavy spending, it is pursuing this aspect of its technology game plan with the blessing - and the help - of the United States. China has enlisted a storied partner for its thorium push: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The U.S. gove

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes Global carbon markets traded a total €38.4 billion worth of allowances and credits during 2013, a 38% decrease from the €62bn the previous year, in a continuation of the decline that started after the market peaked at €96bn in 2011. Since then, the key European reference price of emissions has fallen from €18 to €5 per tonne of carbon dioxide. Last year also saw a decrease in terms of volumes – from 10.7 billion to 9.2 billion emission units – the first drop in traded volumes since 2010, according to analysis published today by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, the leading provider of market intelligence, news, analysis and forecasting for the energy and environmental markets.The decline is most dramatic for the UN-led ‘flexible mechanisms’ that were created to incentivize emission abatement investments such as renewable e

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes Despite predictions all through 2013 suggesting that Japan would walk away the dominant solar PV market, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that China “outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts” to install a record 12 GW of photovoltaic projects in 2013. In fact, a massive boom at the end of the year could even have pushed the nation’s market up to 14 GW, a phenomenal feat considering that no country has never added more than 8 GW in a year. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) had predicted that Japan would come out on top in 2013, ahead of China and then the US, but with a feed-in tariff for large PV projects ending on the first of 2014, the year-end rush will not be wholly understood until March. “The 2013 figures show the astonishing scale of the Chinese market, now the sleeping dragon has awoken” sai

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes There has been a huge increase in Chinese dam projects in South America, which has expanded China's geopolitical clout in the continent but also drawn allegations of poor corporate social responsibility. "China's involvement in hydropower development in Latin America has grown significantly since 2010. It's fair to say that Chinese dam-building companies are targeting the Latin American market," said Grace Mang, China programme director at International Rivers, a green non-governmental organisation in the United States. Before 2010, International Rivers was aware of only two Chinese hydropower projects in Latin America, both in Belize, Mang said. Now, there are 22, of which three are completed, seven are under construction and 12 are on the drawing board. The three completed Chinese dams are in B

-- a _kt75 | reprint India added just over 1 gigawatt of solar energy to its electrical grid last year, a major milestone that nearly doubles the country’s cumulative solar energy capacity to 2.18 gigawatts. After a slow start to the year, solar installation picked up rapidly — a good sign that India will be able to meet its ambitious solar targets going forward. India hopes to install 10 GW of solar by 2017 and 20 GW by 2022. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, launched in 2010 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, aims to help the country achieve success with solar energy deployment. India is currently in the planning stages of building the world’s largest solar plant, which would generate 4 gigawatts in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. “This is the first project of this scale anywhere in the world and is expected to set a trend for large-scale solar power developments,” Ashvini Kumar, director of Solar Energy Corp, one of five public utilities that will run the plant,

-- a _kt75 | reprint The European Union scaled back its long-term climate and energy ambitions on Wednesday, proposing less stringent targets than in the past, because of tougher economic conditions and the need to curb rising energy costs. The European Commission – the bloc’s executive – said EU governments should face a single binding target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 to a volume that is 40 percent lower than 1990 levels. That represents a doubling of the goal in the existing 2020 target, but it is still below what some scientists and environmentalists say is needed to prevent the worst effects of climate change and is less than some policymakers wanted. “What we are presenting today is both ambitious and affordable,” Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told a news conference in Brussels as the goals were unveiled. The Commission’ 2030 strategy statement reflects a new sense of pragmatism at a time when European growth is slow and the EU’

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet Investment in low carbon technologies fell 11 per cent in 2012, according to a new report by market analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which also shows China has overtaken the US as the world's largest contributor to renewable energy. The report [ 1 ] shows that investment in low carbon technologies is actually holding up pretty well after warnings from the report's authors last January that 2012 would be a "challenging year" for the sector. We took a look at some of the figures to find out how tough economic conditions and investor uncertainty over renewable energy policies in the UK have changed the investment landscape. Overall investment drops The report [ 1 ] shows that overall global investment in low carbon energy dropped by about $30 billion in the space of a year. Comparing investment last year to 2011 may be unfair, as 2011 saw the highest ever rate of investment in the sector. But it is only the second t