Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Gas Natural SDG SA natural gas supplier is based out of Barcelona, Spain. It ranks fifth among the renewable-energy producers. It lags behind Iberdrola SA, Acciona SA, EDP-Energias de Portugal SA and Enel Green Power
The HP technology based WDaaS is an integrated service offering which uses the desktop virtualisation technologies of Citrix and Microsoft and provides plug and play desktop and application virtualisation capabilities.
The offering is built on HP Converged Infrastructure for enterprises that want to deploy desktop virtualisation on-premises.
WDaaS will offer a pre-configured appliance (hardware, software and services) that can be managed remotely by Wipro.
In addition, for enterprises seeking a hosted or cloud offering, Wipro delivers desktops and applications as a service from a dedicated private cloud environment in its own datacentres or by leveraging cloud infrastructure providers.
Wipro IT general manager R Srinivasan said desktop and application virtualisation enables transformation of the end user computing in an enterprise.
"The ROI can be achieved through improved worker utilisation, enhanced productivity, distributed workforce, optimised office space allocation and reduced desktop management overhead," Srinivasan said.
"WDaaS offers us a convenient way to take advantage of this technology without the need to go through a complete learning curve on another new technology with our own staff; it allows us to take advantage of the investments done by the core team."
Its previous owner, a company called Trafigura, tried to offload its on-board toxic material in Amsterdam. It was detected in time and when the authorities imposed heavy charges for proper disposal, the company decided to instead send the ship to Africa. After trying its luck in Nigeria, the company finally found a dealer in Ivory Coast to dump the chemicals off board.
Hundreds of tonnes of toxic chemicals were poured into the country's largest city, Abidjan. NGO Shipbreaking Platform said the toxic dumps lead to the death of 16 people and thousands of people falling ill.
Paris based International Energy Agency says carbon emission in 2010 at a record high. China, India, Brazil and South Africa have huge demand for power, which is leading to high emissions from power plants
Shares of Taewoong Company, OCI Company, Hanwha Chemical Corporation rise in South Korea Exchange as there is speculation the demand for renewable energy will increase as German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that nuclear reactors will be phased out
Dr. Nikhil Gupta works with New York University’s Polytechnic Institute. Scientists have developed a method by which they can develop lightweight material from fly ash, which can be used as car parts. Fly ash is a byproduct of coal
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited based out of Australia, will sell BlueGen natural gas fuel cells to Ausgrid as a part of the ‘Smart Grid, Smart City’ project, which will be installed in, homes in Newcastle. Share prices rose in Australian stock exchange.
ERP market evolving and changing. Players like SAP, Oracle , Microsoft are dominating but smaller players like Infor, Lawson, Baan, Syspro are catching up.
Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (IISEF) held in Los Angeles, California, which was concluded held earlier this month, two students Sri Ramakrishna High School in Puttur were awared the third place in environment category for eco ink
Cities like Los Angeles, Portland and Johannesburg are working with General Electric Co. (GE) and Siemens AG, Johnson Controls Inc. and Honeywell International Inc. for improving infrastructural efficiency to comply with United Nation’s ( UN ) climate change objectives
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government announced that Germany would close all nuclear power plants by 2022. France has been critical of Germany’s decision. French Industry Minister Eric Besson says it might prove to be a costly and polluting move
A PM-chaired meeting could now take it to the next level by deciding to issue guidelines on bank finance for all infrastructure projects to disaster preparedness. The move would be of particular relevance for power, ports and airports, which are worst hit in case of calamities. Apart from lending, there is also focus on enhancing disaster risk coverage through moves such as catastrophe bonds and specific reinsurance which would be used to pay compensation to victims.
Clean Energy Council group of Australian energy companies like AGL Energy Ltd. (AGK) and TRUenergy Holdings Pty have joined hands with Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett
Monday, May 30, 2011
Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group says in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo that world will soon see another financial crisis because derivative market still huge and not well regulated
“Cloud computing allows companies to rethink IT and reinvent the way they do business. Our goal is to make CIOs feel comfortable harnessing these capabilities,” said Mr Akash Saxena, Vice-President, Offerings Management and Development, Global Technology Services, IBM, India/South Asia.
Holly J. Benjamin, a co-author of the study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics say most children do not need sports drinks. Sports drink like PepsiCo Inc.’s Gatorade and Coca-Cola Co. (KO)’s Powerade, are very popular with athletes.
Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal raises concern that high price of oil may spur investments into alternate sources of energy. He feels the price of oil should be around $70 to $ 80 a barrel.
President Barack Obama has visited Joplin, Missouri and attended a memorial service on the campus of Missouri Southern State University. He referred to how leaders at the Group of Eight summit have expressed their solidarity.
Sinovel Wind Group Company’s unit will invest $30 million in the Hong Kong initial public offering ( IPO ) of Huaneng Renewables Corporation a unit of China’s biggest power producer. GE has already planned to invest in the IPO.
German firm Roth & Rau AG that makes equipments for producing solar cells has agreed to a takeover bid by Meyer Burger Technology AG. Gutekunst Holding has increased its stake in the firm to 15.06%. KLK Holdings Ltd. of Cyprus has 10%. Shares rising in Frankfurt trading.
Lanco Infratech Ltd. will soon emerge as India’s biggest builder of solar power plants, is scouting targets for overseas acquisition. Morgan Stanley says the market will hot with merger and acquisition like Total SA bought SunPower Corporation.
Polish utility firm PGE SA has a renewable energy unit, which has agreed to buy a 48 megawatt wind farm from Gamesa Energia SAU.
Jean-Michel Germa was the head of La Compagnie du Vent wind-power unit of GDF Suez SA has sued GDF for 485 million euros for his removal from the position
Germany’s ruling coalition headed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s have decided to shut all nuclear power plants by 2022. German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen has disclosed the timelines. Germany is trying to move out of nuclear power after accident of Fukushima, Japan due to earthquake and tsunami
China’s Standardization Administration says that electric bicycle should weight more than 40 kilograms and should go more than 20 kilometers an hour. If the bicycle is not adhering to this standard the provinces and municipalities are not issuing licenses.
Factory farming and animal abuse investigations are marked by Tipster Mark in a new project by Animal Visuals. to Mark the project tries to bring attention to the pending "Ag-Gag" anti-photography bills currently pending in Iowa and New York.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
General Electric’s ( GE ) 7FA turbines are powered by natural gas and can reach 75% of the peak output of 211 megawatt in just 10 minutes. These turbines can complement the power grid and renewable sources of energy like wind and solar
"From poaching for their ivory to habitat loss, every issue to conserve the elephant needs to be addressed", said Mr.Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister.
Wildlife experts say both the African and Asian elephant face numerous threats and a combined effort from all countries was needed to ensure the animal's long-term survival.
The meeting was attended by delegates from Botswana, Congo, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Thailand. India is home to an estimated 25,000 Asian elephants but their numbers are falling due to poaching and habitat destruction.
Australian Koala Foundation is trying to save koala from extinction, CEO Deborah Tabart has approached the senate to list koalas under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Loss of habitat as forest cover reduces, Sexually transmitted diseases ( STD ) and changing climate threaten the species.
Germans have a massive protest against Nuclear Power. The CDU and Red-Green do flip flop over banning Nuclear Power plants in Germany after Fukushima Nuclear Power plant accident.
Canada, European Union ( EU ), China and Malaysia seems to have left U.S. behind in banning BPA from baby products.
U.S. based Styrene Information and Research Center and the American Composites Manufacturers Association have written a letter to secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius remove Styrene from 12th Report on Carcinogens – authored by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), an inter-agency program administered by HHS
U.S. Senate Energy Committee has not passed a couple of bills. Democrats and have been critical of Senator Lisa Murkowski, the committee’s ranking Republican saying that Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission claiming that he has been procrastinating on these critical measures reported by the Hill.
Top Democrats like Reps. Henry Waxman, Diana DeGette and Edward Markey are on the House energy and natural resources committees want to hold discussion with Republicans on hydraulic fracturing also known as fracking. The state senate of Texas has passed a bill on fracking
According to E&Y's quarterly Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, China is the most attractive country for renewable energy installations based on the size of its national renewable energy markets, renewable energy infrastructures, and suitability for individual technologies (i.e. wind and solar). The country has held the top spot since August 2010 thanks to some ambitious targets (11.3% of energy generated by non-fossil fuels by 2015) and support for shallow water offshore wind--something the U.S. has had plenty of trouble with .
We can see evidence of China's attractiveness in the amount of money invested in the country's clean energy sector--in 2010, private renewable energy investment in the country grew by 39% from the previous year to $54.4 billion in funding.
The U.S. isn't failing too badly, though. The country is in second place due to its support of utility scale solar (like all those giant solar projects in the desert). But the U.S.'s score hasn't budged since last quarter, mainly because the future of its clean energy policy depends on whether Obama's 2012 budget increases for renewable energy pan out. India, Germany, and Italy round out the top five for their support for solar and wind.
Perhaps the unluckiest country in the rankings is Japan, which dropped three spots to number 18 because of its focus on natural gas and oil imports--mostly a result of the Fukushima disaster that took a portion of the country's nuclear capacity offline. Unfortunately, that doesn't make Japan a particularly attractive country for renewable energy dollars (though this may be about to change with reported plans for massive solar installations).