Cleantech ticker: 29 April 2009

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

• Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos will join leading low carbon innovators for a roundtable discussion on designing our low carbon transition, and fast tracking low-carbon technology development;
• London’s first ever City Charter commits the Mayor and London’s 33 local authorities to work together more closely to address such issues as the economic downturn, funding for the capital, policing and youth crime, transport and climate change;
• Volvo’s new hybrid buses are taking to the road and carrying passengers for the first time in the Swedish city of Göteborg, Energy Efficiency News reports;
• Autodesk has named Green Ocean Energy Ltd. of Aberdeen, Scotland, as the Autodesk Inventor of the Month for April 2009. Green Ocean successfully used Autodesk Inventor software in the development of the Ocean Treader and Wave Treader, floating devices that convert the motion of the ocean into clean, renewable energy;
• The CATER (“Computerized automotive technology reconfiguration system for mass customization”) project, supported under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) with €3.35 million in financing, is developing an improved way to efficiently present customisation options to shoppers: virtual reality and emotional design;
• The US Department of Energy will invest $777 million in 46 new Energy Frontier Research Centres over the next five years as part of President Barack Obama’s plans to reinvigorate American science. Berkeley Lab will be home to the Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2, led by Don DePaolo, director of the Earth Sciences Division, to study carbon dioxide storage deep underground;
• The likelihood of consumer behaviour being transformed by making green activity “normal” was one of the key themes discussed at a Kingston University conference “The green agenda: are we engaging the consumer?” held on Earth Day, Wednesday 22 April.