Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Climate Hustle, Latest Global Warming Denial Documentary, Set For World Premiere In Paris During COP21

Starting on November 30 and lasting until December 11, the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21), i.e. the annual meeting of all countries that want to take action for the climate, will meet in Le Bourget, France. They are meeting to try and agree to a global legally binding climate treaty to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, which is the agreed upon target that scientists say the world cannot exceed if we are to avoid catastrophic runaway climate change.

Arriving at the end of the meeting are climate deniers from Heartland Institute, Committee for a Constructive... Read more..

Soon, windmill project in Jaisalmer to power trains

Now, trains in state are set to run on wind energy. To promote non-conventional energy sources, the Railways with an investment of Rs 160 crore has set up wind power project at Dangri village at Fatehgarh sub-division of Jaisalmer district.

The 25MW project is ready for generating power and is likely to be inaugurated by Union rail minister Suresh Prabhu on November 22.

According to high official sources of railway electrical section, the Union rail ministry to reduce diesel consumption and fuel expenses, is working on an action plan for running engines and trains on non-... Read more..

Pre-COP21 Meeting Jumps Some Review and Finance Hurdles

High-level government officials and ministers from more than 70 countries attended a meeting Monday and Tuesday of this week. It served as a precursor to the upcoming 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The pre-COP21 meeting aimed to “provide the necessary political guidance to the ADP negotiating process and to come up with proposals for common ground on some of the key political issues... Read more..

Modi set to agree smart cities partnership with UK

The UK and India are set to agree a new partnership to develop three smart cities in India, as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to London, which begins today.

The announcement is expected to be just one of many lucrative trade deals likely to be agreed between the two countries during Modi's time in the UK, which will focus on deepening economic ties between the two countries.

It is the first visit to the UK by an Indian prime minister for a decade. British Prime Minister David Cameron said the trip marked an "historic opportunity" for the two... Read more..

Tandem Perovskite-Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency Record Broken

A new tandem solar cell featuring monolithic perovskite and silicon has produced electricity with record efficiency, reports Helmholz-Berlin.

“Teams from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, have been the first to successfully combine a silicon heterojunction solar cell with a perovskite solar cell monolithically into a tandem device.”

THZB reports this hybrid tandem cell has shown an efficiency of 18%, and... Read more..

IL&FS Energy to raise solar power capacity

IL&FS Energy Development Co Ltd, the power generation and infrastructure development arm of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd, proposes to rapidly ramp up its solar power generation capacity.

“After having done about 1,004 MW in wind energy, we now want to ramp up in the solar space. The structuring, and in what way it will be done, is being discussed internally,” Sunil Wadhwa, Managing Director, IL&FS Energy, told BusinessLine.

Win-win situation

“We believe there is a good market for selling solar power directly to... Read more..

Dewas water supply project to be recast

The Madhya Pradesh government is planning to restructure India's first water supply project dedicated to industrial units at Dewas.

The project will allow a private player to lift water from an intake well on the Narmada-Kshipra river link nearby. State government sources said the project would be re-auctioned through the Swiss Challenge method, allowing the existing supplier a first right of refusal, after a Cabinet nod.

Welspun Projects is operating the project but does not have sufficient water supply. "The project will be restructured soon once the Cabinet okays it," a... Read more..

Coal India has created more green cover than it has destroyed

An arm of State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) claims that the organisation’s afforestation efforts have more than made up for the deforestation caused by its mining activities.

For the sceptical, a recent satellite survey by the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre, an arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, offers proof.

“For every hectare of forest damaged or destroyed by mining activity, we have recreated 2.5 times of forest,” said AK Debnath, Chairman and Managing Director of the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Ltd (CMPDI).

CMPDI is a... Read more..

India Is Caught in a Climate Change Quandary

India is home to 30 percent of the world’s poorest, those living on less than $1.90 a day. Of the 1.3 billion Indians, 304 million do not have access to electricity; 92 million have no access to safe drinking water.

And India is going to be hammered by climate change.

The livelihoods of 600 million Indians are threatened by the expected disruption of the southwest monsoon from July to... Read more..

Green bond issues surpass 2014 total to set new record

The green bond market has edged past last year's record issuance with almost $36.7 billion of new issues so far this year, and more believed to be on the way.

Solar Car Built By 63-Year-Old Dropout Going Across India

A 63-year-old man by the name of Syed Sajjad Ahmed is planning to make an incredible 1,740-kilometer (~1080-mile) journey from Bengaluru to Delhi, India, in a self-made solar-powered vehicle over the coming months, according to recent reports.

The exact journey that the Kolar native will make will be from Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru, to Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi. The trip will go through “Hindupur, Ananthpur, Kurnool, Mahaboobnagar, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Itarsi, Jhansi and Agra.”

The plan is apparently for Syed to arrive in Delhi just in time for the India International Science... Read more..

Indian States Agree To Abolish Charges On Renewable Energy Transmission

India plans to have an installed renewable energy capacity of 175 GW by March 2022. But this target cannot be achieved without a widespread transmission network, as not all Indian states are equally blessed with renewable energy resources.

Last month, the Indian Minister for Power, Coal, and Renewable Energy announced that his department is planning to remove the charges levied on inter-state transmission of electricity from renewable energy projects.

... Read more..