Charlotte So in Auckland, SCMP – Updated on Dec 31, 2008 New Zealand’s national carrier is hailing a successful trial flight of a Boeing 747-400 jetliner using jatropha oil as proof that biofuels can be viable in future. The trial, a joint programme with the aircraft maker, Rolls-Royce Group and Honeywell International’s UOP unit, tested [...]
Posts from ‘December, 2008’
Substation Uses 15pc Less Power With Roof Garden, Sun And Wind
Ng Yuk-hang, SCMP – Updated on Dec 26, 2008 Two windmills on the roof of a grey building in Marsh Road, Causeway Bay, might not mean much to the casual observer but they are clues to the unique character of what Hongkong Electric calls the “first green substation in Hong Kong”. The Marsh Road substation, [...]
Clean Coal Best Way To Fuel Asia’s Growth
Frank Ching, SCMP – Updated on Dec 23, 2008 As China this month celebrates 30 years of extraordinary growth, it is also keenly aware that it has had to pay a steep environmental price – in terms of the health of its people because of severe pollution of its air, water and land. Pan Yue, [...]
Backing Bridge
SCMP – Updated on Dec 21, 2008 The Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge is a proposed series of bridges and tunnels that would connect the west side of Hong Kong with Macau and the neighbouring city of Zhuhai , on the west side of the Pearl River Delta and part of the mainland’s southern industrial powerhouse. This [...]
Energy Goals To Be Overhauled – Nuclear And Wind Power Expected To Get Far More Emphasis For 2020
Stephen Chen, SCMP – Updated on Dec 20, 2008 China’s midterm energy development goals are tipped to change radically early next year with a surge in nuclear and wind power plants. As the central government pushes infrastructural projects to stimulate the economy, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is revising the 20-year road map [...]
On Other Matters …
SCMP – Updated on Dec 17, 2008 I refer to the letter by E. Delannoy (Talkback, December 9), criticising the MTR Corporation’s strategy on saving energy. He asked why it was “shutting down a number of escalators in stations at certain hours”, but still keeping the air conditioning at cold temperatures inside its carriages [from [...]
Hopewell Centre to Turn off Lights
SCMP – 12 December 2008 Decorative lights facing The Peak on the outside of the Hopewell Centre in Wan Chai would be turned off each night after the Symphony of Lights to reduce light pollution, but those facing the harbour would remain on, Hopewell Holdings (SEHK: 0054) said. But all lights would remain on for [...]
Mainland Power Output Slumps 7.1pc As Plants Shut
SCMP – 12 December 2008 China’s power production slumped 7.1 per cent last month, the biggest decline in more than seven years, as factories shut because of reduced exports, preliminary data from the nation’s largest power distributor showed. Electricity output fell to 252.6 billion kilowatt-hours in November, according to statistics in an internal newsletter published [...]
TRUenergy Puts On Hold A$2b Plan
Bloomberg in Sydney – Updated on Dec 12, 2008 TRUenergy, the Australian electricity and gas supplier owned by CLP Holdings, said it had A$2 billion (HK$10.25 billion) of proposed investments that hinged on the design of the nation’s emissions-trading system. The spending on gas-fired power plants would not proceed if the design of the carbon-trading [...]
Degrees of Comfort
SCMP – Updated on Dec 12, 2008 Of the government’s initiatives to get us to be more environmentally responsible, perhaps the most effective has been the one espousing that office air conditioners be set at 25.5 degrees Celsius. It is a number many people seem to be aware of, as a quick straw poll proved. [...]