RenewableUK highlighted last week that Great Britain’s onshore and offshore wind farms generated more electricity than any other source of power last week.

In a first for the country, Germany generated 54.5 percent of electricity from renewable energy in March 2019. This is according to data collected by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

Yesterday, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) unveiled the 14th edition of its Global Wind Report, which it says has been completely revamped.

Fossil fuels, long regarded for their high-energy return on investment, are not as efficient as once thought. In fact, their final yields are not much better than those of renewable options, according to a new study.

MORE THAN 170 NEWS OUTLETS from around the world have now signed up for Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by CJR and The Nation aimed at strengthening the media’s focus on the climate crisis.

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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.

An Obama administration proposal last month to cut quotas for renewable fuels led to a rout in ethanol credits and handcuffed the industry’s growth, biofuel groups said Thursday.

Zia Ullah, Head of the Firm’s Corporate Crime & Investigations practice, and Ruth Paley, Of Counsel, take a look at the Law Commission’s report into SARs reform published this morning, and consider the implications for the regulated ...

National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise has expressed her disinterest in participating in any virtual meeting over the platform Zoom as the national legislature came under criticism on social media for opening itself to hacking.

The volume of welfare budget set aside by local governments has surpassed the 50-trillion-won level for the first time in history to 53 trillion won (US$46.9 billion). This is 59 percent higher than what it was five years ago. According to the 2017 Statistical Yearbook published by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on September 4, the aggregate welfare budget of local government for the first six months of the year was 52,601.4 billion won, up 6.2 percent (3,081.7 billion won) from the ...

The UK’s new Consumer Rights Act ( the “CRA” ) becomes effective on the 1st October 2015. As we have previously mentioned whilst this consolidates existing UK consumer law it also brings in some significant changes to the laws appl...

On 8 October 2019, the Government announced changes to the UK’s temporary tariff regime for certain products in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Under the proposals, which were first published on 13 March 2019 , the Government intended to introd...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's capital has shut down more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars and discos after dozens of coronavirus infections were linked to club goers who went out last weekend as the country relaxed social distancing guidelines. The measures imposed Saturday by Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon came after the national government urged entertainment venues around the nation to close or otherwise enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring employees to wear masks. Park said the entry bans on the facilities will be maintained until the...

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is President of the Republic of Ghana and Co-chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Eminent Group of Advocates for the SDGs and Erna Solberg is Prime Minister of Norway and Co-chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Eminent Group of Advocates for the SDGs

The post Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, SDGs are Even More Relevant Today Than Ever Before appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Discoveries at Boncuklu Tarla in the southeastern province of Mardin are around 1,000 years older than those in Göbeklitepe

As 2020 was declared the Year of Patara, interest increased in the ancient city, located between the resort districts of Kaş and Fethiye

[Dalsan Radio] The International Rescue Committee has warned that many cases are going untested and undetected. Somalia has faced decades of violence and cycles of drought and floods, leaving its health care system ill-equipped to respond to this outbreak. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been preparing for the spread of coronavirus by training health care staff to screen patients for symptoms and safely isolate potential cases.

Many of the mysteries surrounding the super-spy have been revealed over the years, others we might never learn, but Cohen’s courage and fate have returned to public consciousness lately.

No one caught breaking mandatory quarantine

The low reporting in some countries and civil conflicts across the region mean that the number of cases is continually undercounted.

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett seems to have identified the expulsion of Iran from Syria as a clear and achievable goal.

The Iranian Foreign Minister mentioned that the Parsis are in fact Zoroastrians who migrated to India centuries ago.

More than 12,000 Iranian lawyers have protested to a draft bill that undermines their independence and in effect replaces the Iranian Bar Association with a group of judiciary officials appointed by the government. Based on the draft the Judiciary will form a new body named the ";Supreme Council for the Coordination of Lawyers' Affairs"; that will be based at the Judiciary branch of the government ";to coordinate matters relating to attorneys.";

It may seem a nice romantic sentiment to characterize love as uncontrollable passion, but those who think carefully about it will realize that such “love” is both selfish and irrational. It is far from the biblical concept of love.

Authorities in the southern US state of Georgia said Friday they had “more than sufficient probable cause” to charge two white men over the killing of an unarmed black jogger, but did not explain why it took 74 days for the suspects to be detained.Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were arrested late Thursday and charged with murder and aggravated assault in the February 23 death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery.Arbery’s death in the coastal city of Brunswick, captured in a video that…

The night of March 6, 2020, started much like every other night for boxing camp owner Pitak Kaewprapol – with a visit to a fight.Pitak and thousands of other Muay Thai fans had packed the New Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok to watch an evening of kick-boxing, ignoring a government order just three days earlier requiring large gatherings to be cancelled or postponed.Like many others among the crowd of fans, tourists, celebrities, trainers and promoters who packed the 5,000-capacity stadium,…

The eyes are an important route for the coronavirus into the human body, according to University of Hong Kong research which found the strain was up to 100 times more infectious than severe acute respiratory syndrome and bird flu in two facial orifices tested by the public health experts.Laboratory tests revealed the “virus level” of SARS-Cov-2 – the strain of coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease – was far greater than for Sars in the upper respiratory airways and conjunctiva, the cells…

Hong Kong’s Canto-pop “dancing king” Aaron Kwok Fu-shing’s online charity concert on Saturday afternoon to help the city’s struggling dancers attracted about 2 million viewers and raised more than HK$1 million, amid local signs of an easing coronavirus threat.Kwok’s onstage moves are known to be inspired by Michael Jackson. The one-hour performance by the singer-dancer-actor, 54, flanked by about 100 dancers, was live-streamed on multiple channels on social media from 5pm to 6pm.He performed on…

A top police officer told me an interesting story about the siege of Polytechnic University last year, when anti-government protesters of the militant persuasion had occupied the campus. He recalled intercepting and arresting a group of youngsters trying to flee the war zone and how he was struck by the reaction of a petrified teenager among them when she was being booked. “Absolutely terrified, shaking,” was how he remembered her. “She thinks I will take her around the back and shoot her…

Neetu Kapoor wrote Mukesh Bhai, Nita Bhabhi, Akash, Shloka, Anant and Isha - you have been our guardian angels on this long and trying experience.

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt are more cordial than ever before

PARIS: In his ninth-floor office on Paris’s Avenue Montaigne, Europe’s wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, is spending long hours plotting a post-virus future for his luxury goods empire, LVMH. At 71, the billionaire has lived through several crises, but none quite like this one, with his...

Digital or financial technology – including mobile internet access, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big data – can make international trade more efficient and support financing options.

The global response to COVID-19 should also be a springboard for action on climate change resilience so we can narrow the divide between rich and poor and keep everyone safe.

Around 500 migrants are arriving at the Colombian border city of Cúcuta every day intending to return to Venezuela. As of April 15, a total of 34,000 people had passed through the city.

Iran warned Saturday that coronavirus infections were rising in the southwest despite falls in other regions, as it announced more than 1,500 new confirmed cases.

BANGALORE: Global private equity funds more than doubled their investment in India’s real estate sector in the quarter to March as they foresee an improvement in economy leading to stable long-term yields, according to a report by brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. PE funds invested Rs 2,800 crore in the country’s commercial and residential real estate during the period, a 145% jump over the year-ago quarter, the report said. “This is the highest quarterly private equity investment since Q2 of 2009 by private equity funds in the realty sector, driven by huge investment in commercial real estate and steady fund raising by developers in the residential asset class,” it said. Sanjay […]

The particle physics discoveries have dried up but in politically uncertain times CERN's cooperative model is an example to the world, says its chief Fabiola Gianotti

The US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani has raised fears of nuclear conflict, but Iran has been on the road to building nuclear weapons for some time

The late Devonian mass extinction around 375 million years ago may not have really happened, according to an analysis using machine learning

The genomes of 2514 new viruses have been identified in DNA recovered from human and animal cells, many of them belonging to wholly new families

The worst invasion by desert locusts in decades has hit Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. The swarms are destroying crops and could cost millions of dollars to contain