Toyota Prius revamped with solar power roof
Toyota Prius revamped with solar power roof
Latest model, launched in August, features new generation of eco-innovations including using panels to run cooling fans
The new Toyota Prius, due to launch in the UK for summer 2009. Photograph: PR
Nowhere is the greenhouse effect more noticeable than inside a car on a hot day. But the new Toyota Prius comes with new green technologies including cooling fans run by optional solar panels on the roof.
Even when the car is off and locked, these fans whir around, so when you step back into it you don’t need to crank up the power-hungry air conditioning. And the air-con system on the 2010 Prius (which confusingly was released in Japan last month and is due for release in the UK on 1 August) is more efficient to boot.
China launches green power revolution to catch up on west
China launches green power revolution to catch up on west
• Plan to hit 20% renewable target by 2020
• $30bn for low-carbon projects
- The Guardian, Wednesday 10 June 2009
- Article history
China’s ambitious wind and solar plans represent a direct challenge to Europe’s claims of world leadership on cutting carbon emissions. Photograph: Keren Su/Getty
China is planning a vast increase in its use of wind and solar power over the next decade and believes it can match Europe by 2020, producing a fifth of its energy needs from renewable sources, a senior Chinese official said yesterday.
Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of China’s national development and reform commission, told the Guardian that Beijing would easily surpass current 2020 targets for the use of wind and solar power and was now contemplating targets that were more than three times higher.
In the current development plan, the goal for wind energy is 30 gigawatts. Zhang said the new goal could be 100GW by 2020.
A Call to Action on Peak Oil
A Call To Action on Peak Oil
We are being lulled to sleep by temporarily low oil prices caused by the global financial crisis. In fact, low prices may lead to an increased level of consumption and accelerated exhaustion of oil reserves.
“Peak oil,” the point at which global oil production peaks and then rapidly declines, is still not sufficiently on the minds of the American public and policymakers. We don’t know exactly when peak oil will arrive, but it is very likely to occur within ten to twenty years. Some say that it may even be here now – the US Army Corps of Engineers, for example, wrote in a 2005 report: “We are at or near a peak in global oil production.” Peak oil should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind – here’s why:
The Amazon is dying
The Amazon is dying
The Brazilian government is legalising deforestation and western superbrands are benefiting from it. This needs to stop
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- guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 June 2009 13.30 BST
- Article history
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, writing in the Guardian in March, offered us these words of hope: “No country has a larger stake in reversing the impact of global warming than Brazil. That is why it is at the forefront of efforts to come up with solutions that preserve our common future.” Lula’s words are fine. But we are still waiting for real action.
For the last 10 years, Greenpeace has been working in the Amazon alongside communities to protect the rainforest. Last week, Greenpeace released a report which was the result of a three-year investigation into the role of the cattle industry in driving illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The report, Slaughtering the Amazon, reveals the devastating impacts cattle ranching is having on the climate, biodiversity and local communities.
Green energy overtakes fossil fuel investment,says UN
Green energy overtakes fossil fuel investment, says UN
Clean technologies attract $140bn compared with $110bn for gas, coal and electrical po
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 June 2009 17.18 BST
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Green energy overtook fossil fuels in attracting investment for power generation for the first time last year, according to figures released today by the United Nations.
Wind, solar and other clean technologies attracted $140bn (£85bn) compared with $110bn for gas and coal for electrical power generation, with more than a third of the green cash destined for Britain and the rest of Europe.
The biggest growth for renewable investment came from China, India and other developing countries, which are fast catching up on the West in switching out of fossil fuels to improve energy security and tackle climate change.
Good rains short lived
Good rains over southern west Australia and inland NSW and Queensland have raised expectations of a good wheat crop this year, but scientists are worried that dry conditions will return again next year. Most of Australia’s wheat growing areas have received sufficient rainfall to see the wheat seeded and growing before the winter sets in Continue Reading →