08:52, February 29, 2008
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, announced on Thursday the start of a groundbreaking program to cut carbon emissions from London's buildings by 25 percent.

World leading energy service companies Dalkia and Honeywell were selected to help cut energy use in Greater London Authority buildings.

The move made London the first city in the world to have completed the municipal tender process and appointed a company following a deal developed by the Clinton Climate Initiative for the C40 group of cities at the New York Large Cities Climate Summit in May 2007.

Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:30pm EST
By Nichola Groom

LOS ANGELES, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Utility company Xcel Energy (XEL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it will begin testing a battery to store wind energy so it can be distributed consistently, no matter if the wind comes in strong gales or light breezes.

The one-megawatt (MW) battery, when fully charged, could power 500 homes for over 7 hours, Xcel said.

"We are going to use it to shape the output of the wind farm," Xcel Director of Corporate Planning Frank Novacheck said in an interview, adding the battery would serve as a sort of "shock absorber" that will charge when the wind blows and supplement power flows when there is little or no wind.

February 29, 2008

After several employees of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory acknowledged falling prey to nefarious emails that sought to infect their computers and steal corporate information, they were then told it was part of a broader espionage scheme. The government research organization said that it had been one aspect of a "sophisticated cyber attack" to gain access to several national laboratories and institutions.

No business is immune. While most of the attention is on beefing up information technology units to deal with cyber threats, many smaller-to-mid-sized companies are losing ground to criminals using ordinary techniques. Indeed, industrial espionage can range from stealing intellectual property to trade secrets to marketing materials -- all of which could be obtained by combing through unprotected documents.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Michigan is losing jobs every day that it fails to pass a law requiring that some of the state's electricity come from wind and renewable sources, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday.
"We need to get this done and get it done now," the Democratic governor told reporters. "The urgency of this cannot be overstated."

Granholm wants the Legislature to pass bills in March requiring that 10 percent of electricity be from renewable resources by the end of 2015. She said at least two dozen states have such a standard and are attracting the jobs Michigan needs.

"This ought to be through both (the House and Senate) in March. If it's not, something is wrong," she said.

The governor stressed she is encouraged by the Legislature's work on the issue. But she also warned that a major multinational wind manufacturer that may bring up to five plants to Michigan to build turbine components could look elsewhere if the renewable energy portfolio, or RPS, is not passed.

Monday, February 25, 2008

OTTAWA - The average Canadian would see a 50 per cent income tax cut if the federal government phased in a new tax to crack down on activities that produce the pollution linked to global warming, a new report said Monday.

"There is a lingering misconception that a carbon price is nothing more than a tax grab," said the report, Pricing Carbon: Saving Green - a carbon price to lower emissions, taxes and barriers to green technology.