Now that would be a brutal blow for any industry battered by a vicious recession. But it's particularly bad news for the American wind industry, which had defied the downturn by installing a record 10,000 megawatts of new capacity in 2009. New wind capacity had grown an average 39 percent annually over the previous five years and represented 39 percent of all new electrical generation that came online last year.

On days with little wind, Europe may have to rely on Norwegian reservoirs to keep its wheels running smoothly in the future. On the Continent, the concept of Norway as Europe's green battery has caught on -- but is it feasible in practice? The Centre for Environmental Design of Renewable Energy (CEDREN) -- one of Norway's Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research -- is carrying out the HydroPEAK project to study whether Norway could truly provide Europe's balance power.

Council wardens are getting on their bikes to improve efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint created by work vehicles. East Staffordshire Borough Council is adopting power assisted cycling to enable wardens to travel economically through the borough. Supplied by Lichfield-based electric bike specialist PowaStation, the electric bike enables staff to cover far greater distances than using a traditional cycle.

On November 1st, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development organized a workshop to prepare the development program for biogas. This is the “Quality and Safety Enhancement of Agricultural Products and Biogas Development Project” (QSEAP, VIE 39421), which was signed between the Government of Vietnam and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Hanoi in June 2009.

Phó Thủ tướng Hoàng Trung Hải đã thông báo với ông Yvo De Boer và các cộng sự về những bước đi của Việt Nam đối với vấn đề biến đổi khí hậu. Rút kinh nghiệm của nhiều nước, các ngành đã xây dựng chiến lược phát triển dài hạn và được cập nhật theo thời gian. Việt Nam đang từng bước điều chỉnh lại cơ cấu ngành năng lượng từ việc sử dụng các nguồn nguyên liệu truyền thống sang sử dụng năng lượng mới, năng lượng tái tạo, cụ thể là đến năm 2015 sẽ đạt 5%, năm 2020 là 8%.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the contests have attracted more than 100 buildings, 77 among which meet demands of organization board. Thirty three buildings of those have given domestic prizes and five won the prizes at ASEAN level. In the past, most of buildings were in the south. This year, many of buildings including schools and hospitals are located in the north.

South Korea is set to become home to a new $8.2bn offshore demonstration wind project, according to local media. The project, which is slated to be the largest in the Yellow Sea, will be used to test 20 turbines produced by local manufacturers in South Korea, its regional government has confirmed.

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.

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.

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.

Solar panels are usually mounted in series, to sum up their voltages, and the resulting power is sent to a large inverter, which transforms the DC voltage into AC. One big issue with this scheme is that if shade falls on one panel, or it gets dirty, the inverter lowers the current of all the other panels, and causing power losses through inefficiency.

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.

The Centre for Bio-technology Research and Application complex now under construction in southern Dong Nai Province is expected to be one of the leading centres of its kind in Southeast Asia, according to Nguyen Quan, deputy minister of Science and Technology. Expected to be completed within the decade, the 227-ha complex is being built in Xuan Duong Commune in Cam My District.

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.