A new report from the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) on the implementation of the EU Commission's 2018 code of practice on disinformation reveals "significant weaknesses" linked to the lack of transparency and voluntary approach. ERGA proposes shifting from the current flexible self-regulatory approach to co-regulatory. The code targeted companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Denmark is set to reopen shopping malls, cafes and restaurants from next Monday (11 May) when older children will also return to school as the country enters the second phase of easing its coronavirus lockdown, Reuters reported. Daycare centres and primary schools were allowed to open their doors two weeks ago, followed by other small businesses. Daily infections and hospital admission have been steadily decreasing.

Doctors and nurses around the world are asking tech giants to correct the record on health misinformation and tweak their algorithms which decide what people get to see on social media platforms.

Alaska’s 720,000 people live in over 200 “energy islands” with no electricity grid connection to each other nor to North America. Smaller communities have no road connection to each other, the rest of Alaska, or the continent. Most energy is imported: diesel for electricity generation and heat; gasoline for transportation. All Alaskans might obtain an annually-firm supply of most of their energy, for all purposes, by converting Alaska’s diverse, stranded, renewable energy (RE) resources to liquid anhydrous ammonia (NH3) fuel, transporting and storing it at low cost in common steel propane tanks, recovering the RE via stationary combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plants, in internal combustion engine (ICE) and combustion turbine (CT) gensets, and via fuel cells, and as transportation fuel. Alaskans could achieve a significant degree of community energy independence, and perhaps export their abundant, stranded renewables as “green” liquid NH3 fuel. Solid state ammonia synthesis (SSAS) appears promising.

Bio-energy forest plantations will supplement woody biomass from other sources such as logging residues. In the southern U.S., projections are for an increase of up to 25 million “new” tons of woody biomass demand for bioenergy. To supply this woody biomass demand will require purpose grown plantations of various species including pine, eucalypts, sweetgum, hybrid poplar and cottonwood, amongst others. Forest plantation yields can be 8-15 green tons/acre/year on rotations of 5-12 years. Utilization of this renewable and sustainable biomass resource will be as feedstock “designed” for a large number of bio-energy applications.

AlgaEnergy SA, part-owned by Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Repsol SA, is in talks with potential partners to set up a plant in Mexico to supply the American markets with biomass made from algae.

Suez Environnement, Europe’s second-biggest water company, and Chinese partners agreed to build an incinerator near Shanghai to treat hazardous and medical waste that will generate steam and supply energy.

Drax Group Plc, Dong Energy A/S and SSE Plc will get guaranteed power prices for U.K. biomass and offshore wind plants, the first renewable energy projects to benefit from a new aid program.

The Obama administration is considering cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants by reaching beyond the plants themselves — an unusual approach that could run afoul of anti-pollution laws.

Spain set new rates for electricity suppliers that use renewable sources, waste and co-generation based on a “reasonable return,” formally ending a subsidy system dating to the 1990s that had spun out of control.

The European Commission approved the U.K. government’s renewable energy contracts and so-called capacity payments, saying the program that benefits power plants complies with state-aid rules.

Gevo Inc.’s biofuels plant in Minnesota, which has suffered production delays because of contamination, may break even by the end of 2014 as output of ethanol and isobutanol from agricultural waste increase.

Scotland’s Macallan whisky distillery is set to get most of its heat requirement from a combined heat and power plant part-funded by the government.

Chevron Corp.’s attempts to turn plants into alternative fuels for profitable, large-scale production have failed.

Extracting energy from “processed poo” to help power homes in the Birmingham area is what Severn Trent Plc, Britain’s second-largest publicly traded water company, is now doing to generate a cost-saving renewable gas.

Brazil, known as a leader in the bioenergy scene, continues to show its dominance in the industry with plans for a new cellulosic ethanol plant and a 150-MW woody biomass plant, the nation's largest.

In many countries, needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have led to increased installation of intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

Germany’s utilities, battered by the country’s shift to wind turbines and solar panels, would be glad to sell you a power plant on the cheap. They’ll even pack it up and ship it to another country.

Africa’s first grid-connected biogas plant will begin supplying power by March 1, according to Johnnie McMillan, managing director of Tropical Power Kenya Ltd.

Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.

Japan anticipates that by 2030 clean energy such as solar and hydro will generate slightly more of the nation’s electricity than nuclear power plants.

The Obama administration is set to pledge $100 million Friday to expand the use of special fuel pumps that allow drivers to blend more ethanol into their gasoline, according to people briefed on the announcement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has long championed these so-called blender pumps, may unveil the plan on the same day that the Environmental Protection Agency announces quotas for the use of renewable fuels. With ethanol makers facing a possible cut in their quota below the statutory level of 15 billion gallons, the grant program will let the administration of President Barack Obama demonstrate that it still supports the fuel, which in the U.S. is produced mostly from corn.

“Blender pumps are a huge part of the equation when it comes to the deployment of the second generation biofuels, because investors need a market to invest in,” said Brooke Coleman, the executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Council. “It allows the consumer to choose based on price.”

The grant program would be fast-tracked to states to help defray the cost of installing the pumps, which allow drivers to choose how much ethanol they want to mix with gasoline pumped into their tanks, said the people, who asked not to be identified before the formal announcement.

The USDA, which in 2011 said it wanted to get 10,000 blender pumps installed, has scheduled an announcement Friday on biofuels infrastructure. USDA spokesman Cullen Schwarz said he couldn’t comment on the announcement.

Quotas Overdue

The EPA is scheduled to issue renewable fuel quotas for 2014, 2015 and 2016 before June 1, and the two people said that announcement will also come Friday. The EPA abandoned its proposal for quotas last year, after ethanol makers bristled at the attempt to cut quotas based on the argument that more than 10 percent ethanol couldn’t be absorbed by the domestic market.

Separately, production of cellulosic ethanol -- a fuel made from wood, grass and other plant material -- is far below the 3 billion gallons set in the legislation for this year. Taken together EPA will have to propose some cuts, analysts say.

“The statutory volume targets of the RFS are now totally implausible, so something has to give,” Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a report released Thursday. “Whatever they do will likely be challenged in court, so the final answer to these questions may take some time to shake out.”

--With assistance from Alan Bjerga in Washington.

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said 13 percent of power stations burning lignite, a cheap form of coal, would be phased out by 2021 under a program to cut power industry pollution. The government abandoned talks on proposals to impose a climate-change fee that the industry said would have forced mines and plants to close, threatening jobs.

The World Bank has approved US$390 million in additional financing to be used by Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority for extensions of its Tarbela hydroelectric plant.

Chile's Schwager Energy and China-based Shenyang Yuanda Commercial & Investment Co. signed a memorandum of understanding on Nov. 3 to build the 3-MW Los Pinos run-of-the-river hydroelectric plant in southern Chile's Lagos region, according to BN Americas.
 

Dating apps may get all the press, but NerdWallet has been refining the art of financial matchmaking for more than a decade. The company provides its members with sound financial advice generated by machine learning algorithms. But as computing has advanced, so has NerdWallet’s ambition. Now the company is using AI to better match casual Read article >

The post Banking on AI: NerdWallet’s Recommendation Engine Matches Customers with Relevant Financial Products appeared first on The Official NVIDIA Blog.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

The Alexander Devine Children's Cancer Trust v Millgate Developments Ltd and others [2018] EWCA Civ 2679 The Court of Appeal has refused to allow a property developer to modify a set of restrictive covenants, reversing the decision of the Upper Trib...

(1) Giles Duncan Fearn (2) Gerald Kraftman (3) Ian Mcfadyen (4) Helen Claire McFadyen (5) Lindsay Urquart –v- The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery [2019] EWHC 246 (Ch) The High Court has dismissed a claim by residents of luxury glass-fron...

Blue Manchester LTD v North West Ground Rents LTD [2019] EWHC 142 (TCC) The High Court confirmed earlier this year that landlords must consider aesthetic appearance when assessing repairs as they may be obliged to reinstate original design features....

Windsor-Clive v Rees [2019] EWHC 1008 (Ch) In considering the scope of a landlord’s reserved right to enter premises let to their tenant “for all reasonable purposes”, the High Court has held that the right to do so must be...

Modification and discharge of restrictive covenants! In the matter of an application by Paul Holden (2018) Many properties are bound by restrictive covenants, which restrict the use to which the property in question may be put.  Restrictive cov...

Fouladi v Darout Ltd and others [2018] EWHC 3501 (Ch) A nuisance is caused by a person doing something on his own land, which he is lawfully entitled to do but which becomes a nuisance when the consequences of his act extend to the land of his neigh...

Deepak Abbhi v Richard John Slade (trading as Richard Slade & Co) [2019] EWCA Civ 2175 The Court of Appeal recently unanimously held that an oral promise by a son-in-law to give money to his father-in-law to pay legal fees was an indemnity and n...

From Gourmet 2009. Delicious. The dough cooks so well on the grill. -- posted by Vicki Kaye

On 20th March, we held the 'Coronavirus Insights and practical solutions for landlords' webinar. 

COVID-19 is creating a fast-changing and uncertain landscape. Many prospective tenants will be undertaking fit out works under their agreements for lease. Our webinar held on 31st March highlighted some important practical steps that could be taken ...

It is estimated that there are currently hundreds of millions of pounds sitting unclaimed in UK bank and building society accounts. This forgotten money is a drain on the resources of financial institutions, when it could potentially be put to good ...

There are some important changes to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) coming into effect in April this year. The CPR is a set of rules that govern all civil court cases in England and Wales. General pre–action conduct The use of pre-action pro...

Sponsors of Tier 2 migrants will be aware that they are obliged to retain certain documents for every sponsored migrant for a set period of time as part of their sponsorship duties. The specific documents that sponsors are required to retain and the...

Eversheds Sutherland has helped to secure Electricity Act 1989 consent from the Scottish Ministers and deemed planning permission for Limekiln Wind Farm, a 21 turbine wind farm with an estimated generation capacity of 64MW based in the Highlands. T...