Cleantech ticker: 10 June 2009

Cleantech news as it happens — check back for regular updates:

• On 8 June, the solar observatory Sunrise was launched from the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, Sweden. A gigantic helium balloon, carrying approximately 1 million cubic metres of gas, is now carrying the largest solar telescope ever to lift off from the Earth’s surface;
• Is there a relation between rising mortgage delinquencies in the US and the investment plans of a utility in Europe? The answer turns out to be an unfortunate “yes,” according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan;
• Most people’s experience with 3D involves wearing tinted glasses in a cinema. But a new technology, which does not require glasses and may enable 3DTV, is being developed by European researchers;
• URS Corporation and NRG Energy, Inc. have completed their previously announced sale of German mining and power business MIBRAG to a joint venture comprised of CEZ, a.s. and J&T Finance Group, a.s. CEZ is the largest electricity producer in the Czech Republic and holds a leading position in the Central European electricity market;
• A five-year research project between a London university and Indianapolis Museum of Art has produced a museum exhibition billed as the first survey of contemporary European design;
• The Technical University of Denmark, the Technische Universität München and Eindhoven University of Technology are starting a graduate school in Sustainable Energy Technologies;
• Scientists at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, have developed a new type of fish-shaped, bionic robot as an alternative means of marine propulsion that might replace ships’ screws in sensitive waters;
• Imagine a world in which everything that you own is numbered and catalogued. All your shoes; every piece of clothing. A world in which nothing can be regarded as private, but where everything can be traced back to you. Take a step further in your thinking and you have a universe in which every movement is also registered. How many times did you visit the off-licence last month, and how many litres of milk did you buy last Saturday? This situation is not far off, if we can believe Kathrine Albrecht, an expert on personal data protection;
• The UK’s premier printable Electronics Technology Centre (PETEC) has purchased Optomec’s aerosol jet deposition system to be used to prototype organic thin-film transistors;
• Micropelt GmbH, Freiburg, a Germany-based specialist in thin film thermoelectrics, has announced the appointment of Wladimir Punt as VP sales and marketing.