Staff analysis

A major collaborative research venture wants to smarten the electric grid in Australia. The trouble is, $3 million over three years may make for good PR, but doesn't deliver the kind of serious money needed to tackle the big challenge.

This week, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research in Australia outlined a three year, $3 million collaborative research venture between government and university research centers focused on developing technology for a smart grid.

Australian government officials refer to the project as the Intelligent Grid Cluster. It's designed to spur innovation and help tackle the monumental challenges of building a next generation smart grid.

No, not Freedom Fries. It's the Freedom Prize.

Backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Freedom Prize Foundation is putting up more $4 million in awards for new renewable energy technologies.

Freedom Prizes of $500,000 to $1 million will be awarded for innovative deployment of existing technologies in five categories, including industry, military, schools, government and community.

The Freedom Prize was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which authorized the DOE to support the foundation, but co-founder Josh Becker told the Cleantech Group it was a long road to get to this point.

The rock to rule the world.

It sure is a sign of the times when a Chinese fabric company has a polysilicon producing subsidiary.

Jiangyin, China-based JiangSu Sunshine Co., also known as China's largest wortsted and wool fabric company—which produces 350,000 premium men's suits a year—has apparently advanced $121.4 million with the intention of buying polysilicon making equipment for its subsidiary Ningxia Sunshine Silicon Co., which plans to output a relatively paltry 4,000 tons of polysilicon per year compared to larger plants.

This bit of news comes at an interesting time for polysilicon.

Poor little guys, free ranging about, waiting for their dinners.

Today the NCC—that's the U.S. National Chicken Council, not to be confused with this NCC, this NCC or this NCC—said it is seeing ‘severe harm’ from the U.S. ethanol mandate.

Observer, left, ponders barrel run at the Tarbela Hydropower Dam, in Pakistan.

For as little as $2.2 billion dollars and a whole lot of CO₂-emitting concrete, you too can build your very own "clean power" four turbine dam in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Water and Development Authority (WAPDA) is working to ensure its Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project and other hydroelectric dam projects are seen through fruition.

Sorry men. No green briefs for you just yet.

Yes, you read that correctly. Carbon neutral panties are here!

Marks & Spencer (M&S), the U.K.’s largest clothier, can now officially say its undergarments are ‘green’. While the announcement was a few months shy of making this year’s St. Patty’s day, the company is officially selling its carbon neutral bras to U.K. shoppers.

Even the biorefineries are big in Texas.

It never ends, does it?

Today Houston, TX-based GreenHunter Energy (AMEX: GRH) announced celebration plans for next week's opening and tap-turning (as they say) of its new biodiesel refinery—which it claims is the 'nation's single largest' to date.

New Cooler? Or Cooler Classic?

At an inaugural Greenpeace Business Lecture in Beijing yesterday, Coca-Cola’s (NASDAQ: COKE) chief Neville Isdell promised the Atlanta-based company would further decrease its carbon footprint by purchasing 100,000 compressed carbon dioxide beverage coolers.

Yes, you read that right—CO₂ beverage coolers.

It's not just the World Bank that's calling foul on the biofuel industry these days (see World Bank says food prices hit by biofuels).

Now a Jamaican musician is hitting the airwaves with a song calling for an end to biofuels, saying the alternative fuel is behind the recent global food crisis.

"The message of hunger and deforestation must be highlighted to the world and the unconcerned so that they stop the madness," said the singer known as Livebroadcast on his website.

A group calling itself the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) chose today, Earth Day, to rain on the climate change parade.

The ICSC cannily chose the day to release the names of 500 “climate realists” who endorsed its Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, which calls on world leaders to “reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” and Al Gore’s popular movie, An Inconvenient Truth.”