World:
¶ A team from the University of Wollongong won a worldwide competition for a zero-emissions solar house by refitting a humble cottage made of fibrous cement sheet. Criteria for the competition are comfort and generating more energy than the house consumes. [ABC Online]
¶ Germany, Europe’s biggest electricity market, is beating up its traditional utilities as renewables take more market share. RWE AG and EON SE are getting hurt by falling power prices and a shrinking market share this year. They both may need to raise capital. [Businessweek]
¶ The Philippine Department of Energy expects an additional 5,905 megawatts of renewable capacity under a new law. Of 347 projects, there are 177 hydropower plants, 39 geothermal plants, 37 wind farms, 34 solar farms, 29 biomass plants, and 3 ocean energy projects. [Philippine Star]
¶ Workers at Fukushima Daiichi say they do not trust that TEPCO will be able to handle the situation. They believe that another serious accident is inevitable, as power outages and unexplained steam incidents have been part of their lives the past few months. [The Japan Daily Press]
¶ Ten workers at Fukushima Daiichi were exposed to radiation from contaminated cooling mist. The workers were waiting for a bus when they were sprayed, according to TEPCO. It was unknown how the mist became contaminated. [Businessweek]
US:
¶ IBM announced an advanced power and weather modeling technology to help utilities increase the reliability of renewable energy resources. It combines weather prediction and analytics to forecast the availability of wind power and solar energy accurately. [RTT News]
¶ There appears to be a competition among the branches of the US military as the services work on being green. This trend will only going to intensify going forward. Considering that the US military is the world’s largest fossil-fuel consumer, this is going to matter. [DailyFinance]
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