The joint venture offered $4.04 a share for the Australian energy company, which produces natural gas from coal beds.  permaLink:1268104000-1699

Royal Dutch Shell set out to cement its position in Australias coal seam gas industry yesterday, joining Chinas largest listed oil company in a 2 billion takeover bid for Arrow Energy.  permaLink:1268093000-2656

Fitch Ratings has assigned a AA+ grade to CPS Energys planned $378.8 million gas and electric revenue bond offering.  permaLink:1268066000-7656

India will tax the use of coal to help pay for renewable fuels In a landmark announcement the Indian Finance Minister, in his annual Budget speech, put forward the proposal of setting of National Clean Energy Fund which would be constituted through tax levied on coal usage in the country. The quantum of tax would be INR 50 per ton of coal used, which would generate an annual revenue of around $600 million. The announcement is extremely important and a major step in Indias endeavor to promote renewable energy infrastructure. India is heavily dependent on coal for power generation with 75% of the power generated coming from coal-fired power plants. Thats one way to help support a fledgling biodiesel business in India, but things are not so simple in the USA, I dont our government has as much power to tax a business as does the largest democracy, India. From the UK: Idling may get you nowhereand a fine Local governments in the UK are certainly pro-active when it comes to cracking down on CO2. In 2008, the West Sussex Council in the UK considered leveling 20 fines against drivers who sit in traffic jams with their engines running. There's an environmentally-sound reason to turn off your engine when stopped, even if it makes driving a bit more of a hassle. After all, if you let the engine run for ten seconds without moving, you would use less fuel had you turned the car off and then back on again (at least, if you're talking about the average recent model year vehicle). No matter what fuel you are using in your vehicle, unless it is a hybrid you are wasting fuel when you let the engine idle, and as a California driver, I have often been stuck in traffic. But a fine for idling? Book review on Biodiesel America by Josh Tickell Since the biodiesel industry is in a struggle for the extension of its $1 per gallon tax credit, I thought Id spend some time learning more about biodiesel. This week, I read Biodiesel America, by Josh Tickell, who also produced the award winning film, FUEL . While the book is a tad bit dated....  permaLink:1267644000-1250

An imminent announcement of money for two companies to produce detailed plans for the innovative power stations will take Britain closer to commercial carbon capture and storage technology  permaLink:1267574000-9688

Kenneth Green is a noted conservative. He is an environmental scientist and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a leading conservative think tank. In a recent editorial published in US News & World Report, Mr. Green asserted that green energy jobs cannot come from the Obama administration's big government meddling. The basis of the argument is simply that only consumer demand for goods and services can actually create jobs, and that government subsidies only prop up one industry while stealing jobs from another, resulting in net job destruction within the national economy. It's an argument hashed and rehashed hundreds of times by free market conservatives, but one that holds little weight anymore (as, ironically, consumer demand for green energy skyrockets) and becomes laden with hypocrisy (if, perish the thought, subsidies for conventional energy sources were to be cut). Whether government meddling has created it or not, let me reiterate that consumer demand for green energy and green products is skyrocketing. Remember that it was consumers (voters) and their local and state governments who, while the federal government sat comparatively idle, bought organic foods, sought out energy efficient products, embraced new forms of energy and brought the green energy movement to the forefront of American thought and culture. Meanwhile, the so-called free market sat by and watched our energy infrastructure fall to pieces, facilitated shipping our manufacturing jobs overseas and created the ridiculously convoluted bubble of speculation that now defines our unsustainable economy. Since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, millions of jobs have been lost to slashed import tariffs , offshore tax havens, free trade zones and corporate globalization. Little has been done to curb that trend, until now, when a little is being done. But a little is too much for conservatives like Kenneth Green. Would Mr. Green have stood against the coal industry when our electric grid was being built over a century ago? After....  permaLink:1267512000-3516

Its Wednesday evening, so Alexander Slocum is hard at work cooking up a huge batch of spaghetti, green beans and garlic bread in a cramped kitchen on the top floor of MITs Building 24. That might not be most peoples image of how an MIT professor spends part of his workday, but its something Slocum does every Wednesday for a hungry and appreciative group of a few dozen freshmen. Food is a great conversation catalyst, Slocum explains with a smile as he lays out the dinner on a set of long tables and the students eagerly line up. The students are all part of the Experimental Study Group, a program celebrating its 40th year at MIT. As an alternative that allows about 50 freshmen to satisfy their General Institute Requirements in an atmosphere of small, personalized classes and peer learning in small study groups, ESG generally provides a sense of community and camaraderie more typical of a small college. Slocum, director of the program since 2002, is also an alumnus of ESG himself. Slocum 82, MS 83, PhD 85, the Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering, loves to tinker and build, but most of all he loves to ignite that same passion for creating new devices in other people. His enthusiasm is one reason he was named Massachusetts professor of the year in 2000, among many awards he has garnered for both research and teaching. For more than a decade, his was the funny and effervescent voice announcing the play-by-play for MITs famed annual student competition of remotely operated robots, held every year as the culmination of class 2.007, Introduction to Design and Manufacturing. And when President Barack Obama came to campus last fall and toured labs, Slocum was the researcher who greeted the president wearing (as he usually does) a vibrant Hawaiian shirt and who explained to the commander-in-chief his novel concept to store some of the energy harvested by offshore wind farms. Devices for doctors One of the programs Slocum has been especially interested in is a class that he evolved from a class....  permaLink:1267506000-7593

NEW DELHI, March 1 -- The Indian government proposed a coal tax Friday aimed at creating a fund to promote clean energy.  permaLink:1267464000-3594

LampM Energy Limited LME announces the successful completion of its acquisition of LampM Coal Seam Gas Limited LMCSG. The necessary shareholder approvals for the acquisition were obtaine  permaLink:1267427000-2832

The Short-Term Energy Outlook of EIA reports... "CO2 emissions from fossil fuels fell by an estimated 6.3 percent in 2009. Emissions from coal led the drop in 2009 CO2 emissions, falling by nearly 11 percent. Declines in energy consumption in the industrial sector (a result of the weak economy) and changes in electricity...  permaLink:1267422000-6230

Combined profits for the oil and gas, and petroleum and coal industries were up 8.6% to a total of $7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, due mainly to rising oil prices and sales volumes, says StatsCanada.  permaLink:1267211000-1328

As the cleanest fossil fuel, natural gas has been hailed as the ideal bridge between today's oil-and-gas economy and an alternative-energy tomorrow. It fell out of favor last year, however, after environmentalists claimed that a crucial drilling technique needed to access massive U.S. shale reserves disturbed residents and polluted drinking water. Several states and Congress have since been mulling a set of crackdowns, while politiciansnot wanting to offend green voters and King Coal alikehave downplayed natural gas in leading climate bills. But salvation may come from an unlikely source: the Gulf of Mexico.  permaLink:1267199000-7109

India Talkies India to Start Clean Energy Fund by Taxing Coal Use BusinessWeek Heat pumps used to tap geothermal energy will be exempt from import duties, he said. The budget proposals fulfill the government's intent to encourage... Our clean world Livemint all 49 news articles »  permaLink:1267197000-5781

India to Start National Clean Energy Fund By Taxing Coal Use BusinessWeek Heat pumps used to tap geothermal energy will be exempt from import duties, he said. The budget proposals fulfill the government's intent to encourage... and more »  permaLink:1267183000-8516

Coal-fired power plants produce over 100 million tons of fly ash and other combustion wastes every year. Although some of this material is recycled there is still a huge disposal and handling problem. Many people want more regulation of coal combustion wastes.  permaLink:1267163000-8794

Energy outfit gets an upgrade from an analyst who is bullish on prices.  permaLink:1267131000-0859

Partners in the Australia Pacific LNG venture Origin Energy and ConocoPhillips have agreed to supply gas to a rival coal bed methane (CBM)-fed liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Queensland run by Britain's BG Group.  permaLink:1267056000-9199

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 24 -- At least 13 coal miners are dead after a methane gas explosion collapsed a tunnel in northwestern Turkey Tuesday night, government officials said.  permaLink:1267016000-2266

It may be Europes biggest coal-fired power station, but Draxs management is already mapping out a future without coal.  permaLink:1266970000-0781