Cleantech news you might have missed: 22 Jan. 2009

Can’t keep up with all the developments in cleantech? Here are some news stories you might have missed:

• Carbon capture and sequestration technologies are too expensive to be viable as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, leading cleantech venture capitalist Vinod Khosla told attendees at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. Khosla’s preferred solution: turning carbon dioxide into carbonate cement for building.
• Intel has started tapping solar power with a 64-panel array near one of its manufacturing facilities in New Mexico, Earth2Tech reports. While the electricity generated is currently going into the grid — and to a bank of computers for testing purposes — the company says it eventually hopes to use solar energy to supplement its data center energy supplies at peak hours.
• Bright Automotive, a creation of the Rocky Mountain Institute think-tank, plans to unveil a 100-mile-per gallon (42.5 kilometers per litre) plug-in hybrid vehicle at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Norway this May. The as-yet unnamed car is designed to be both light-weight and affordable, according to the company.
• The Lake Turkana Wind Power consortium is preparing to install a 300-megawatt wind farm in northwest Kenya. Expected to begin producing energy in June of next year, the 353-turbine installation could provide up to 30 percent of Kenya’s electricity needs, the group says.
• General Electric says it will work with clean-energy group Masdar to create an Ecomagination Centre in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, planned as “the world’s first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city completely powered by renewable energy.” The centre will support research and development of clean energy technologies and energy-efficient products.
• Tesco recently opened what it says is the UK’s most energy-efficient store. The 52,000-square-foot (4,831 square metres) shop in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, boasts a carbon footprint 70 percent smaller than a comparable store built in 2006, according to Tesco. Innovative features include a lighting system that dims automatically when natural light increases, a timber (rather than steel) frame and a power plant that uses sustainable fuels and harnesses waste heat.
• Declining energy prices have driven the cost for EU carbon dioxide emissions allowances to a record low, Nature reports. As of 19 January, allowances for one tonne of carbon dioxide sold at €11.65, down from last summer’s high of more than €30.