Format: Aside

Sep 19

IEA 2012 key energy data released

The International Energy Agency’s has made available its latest annual publication of energy data – Key World Energy Statistics 2012 here.

Sep 19

Emilia Romagna to get record aid from EU Solidarity Fund after two hearthquakes in May

It is the biggest EU aid allocation since the Fund was set up in 2002, and will “help this highly productive region get back on its feet,” said on  Wednesday Johannes Hahn, EC Commissioner for Regional Policy to ANSA. The EU Solidarity Fund grants aid of up to 1bn euro a year to EU member …

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Sep 15

Increase of land with protected state required in the world

Land and waters protection should raise to 17% and 10% respectively by the end of this decade, according to a report by the United Nations environment programme (Unep) and others, published at the 2012 edition of the World Conservation Congress. An area more than twice the size of Argentina would have to be designated on …

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Sep 14

Germany’s halt to €5tn bank guarantee idea

An ambitious blueprint to guarantee the whole amount of deposits in eurozone banks have been stopped by German objections, Financial Times revealed today. EU officials agreed a eurozone banking union with regulation and control shifted to Brussels, and the guarantee over deposits was intended as a first move in that direction. In the first drafts …

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Sep 13

New bid for the Alcoa’s plant in Sardinia

KiteGen Research, an Italian company specialising in troposhperic wind generators has presented a bid to the Italian Government to acquire the plant being dismissed by Alcoa in Sardinia (the largest energy consumer in Italy). Their plan would partially convert the production and obtain 100% of the required energy for the operations from tropospheric wind, with …

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Sep 13

Dark energy, the mysterious cosmic force

Dark energy, the mysterious cosmic force thought to be the fuel behind the accelerating expansion of the universe, is real, according to an Anglo-German team of astronomers after a two-year study. However, the scientists declare to have no idea of what it consists of (Reuters).

Sep 13

The German Constitutional Court’s “yes-but” answer to the ESM Treaty

The conditional approval of the ESM’s rules by Karlsruhe judges limits the secrecy of bailout agreements, in the name of the citizens’ right to be informed. It comes after 37.000 Germans signed the petitions against unlimited funding to ESM by Germany. The Court’s decision orders the two Chambers of the German Parliament be fully informed …

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