A groundbreaking ceremony is hosted last week in celebration of the start of construction of Japan's largest solar and wind power plant, located in Tahara City. The major project will be spread over 800 thousand square meters and is estimated to generate 67.5 thousand megawatt hours of electricity each year which would be enough to power 90 percent of the homes in Tahara City with green energy. It is also thought that the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions each year will be approximately 32 thousand tones. The solar and wind power plant is part of a collaboration of seven firms (Mitsui Chemicals, Mitsui & Co, C-Tech Corporation, Toagosei Co, Toshiba Corporation, Toray Industries, and Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co) who initiated the project last October, with permission granted in September 2012. Design and construction on the plant is US$ 225 million with the majority of the money being sourced through loans from the Development Bank of Japan. The participating companies will maintain a cooperative technological relationship with the Chubu Electric Power Co., and will acquire new technology and knowledge unique to the nation's largest solar energy generation facility.

Researchers at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia have developed a sodium-ion battery that could make renewable energy technologies more affordable. The salt battery can be used in place of more expensive lithium ion batteries to store solar and wind energy so as to provide continuous power even on cloudy or windless days. According to project leaders Drs Manickam Minakshi and Danielle Meyrick, the battery "has excellent potential for large-scale use, including storing energy from wind turbines and solar farms for later feeding into local electricity grids, as well as use in industry". As we look to transition to renewable energy sources such as solar energy and wind power we are faced with a number of problems. Currently wind turbines and solar panels are dependent on weather conditions; wind turbines don't operate on a still day, while solar panels can't be used at night or during cloudy weather. It can leave the electricity demand unbalanced with the energy supply generated by renewables. These limitations require the storing of excess energy where possible so as to remain entirely off-the-grid, and the new water-based sodium-ion battery is the most affordable, low-temperature energy storage created so far. Previous storage batteries have been using rare and expensive compounds like molten sulfur and liquid metals, making the price too steep for commercialization. Unlike its predecessors, the new battery is based on globally abundant and affordable sodium, whose chemical properties are similar to the widely-used lithium. The next challenge was to find a material for cathodes and anodes capable of accommodating sodium's ionic size. After extensive testing, Drs Manickam Minakshi and Danielle Meyrick have found that using manganese dioxide as the cathode and a novel olivine sodium phosphate as the anode gave best results. Claiming that this breakthrough will make renewable energy more accessible in developing countries, Dr Manickam Minakshi states that the "research has reached the stage where we're ready to move beyond our lab towards larger-scale commercialization".

The Chinese government has recently launched a series of "eco-friendly" communities in a number of cities with the intention of promoting a more sustainable culture among the people. The communities feature green spaces, solar panels and other alternative energy sources and encourage inhabitants to develop sustainable habits. China is building more eco-cities designed to be low-carbon and energy-saving than any other country, according to a survey by the University of Westminster in London, USA Today reported. America came second in the study. One of the biggest ecologically friendly cities will be Tianjin Eco-City, a joint development between the Chinese and Singaporean governments that will cover almost 30 square kilometer of wasteland and salt pans near Tianjin, a major port city southeast of Beijing. More than thousand people will move in this year, joining 100 residents and it is expected to reach a population of 350 thousand people within the next ten years. According to Inhabitat, designed by Surbana Urban Planning Group, the city is being built just 10 minutes away from the business parks at the Tianjin Economic-Development Area, making for a commute that should be a breeze with the development's advanced light rail transit system. Eco-City will make use of the latest sustainable technologies such as solar power, wind power, rainwater recycling, and wastewater treatment/desalination of sea water. In order to reduce the city's carbon emissions, residents will be encouraged to use an advanced light rail system, and China has also pledged that 90 percent of traffic within the city will be public transport. The development also features some beautiful public green spaces. As reported USA Today, in recent years, more than 200 Chinese cities have announced they will build large housing developments that seek to reduce energy use and motor vehicle use and thus the amount of carbon put out by power plants and tailpipes. Some projects have stalled, while others appear to be promotional gimmicks by commercial developers. Some innovations fizzled, such as the roof gardens suggested by Singapore. They died in the district's polluted soil and windy, dry climate. Some partnerships are going nowhere. The Shanghai government and British design firm Arup have failed to complete a promised eco-city in Dongtan. The project near Shanghai appears stalled as does Wanzhuang, another Arup eco-city near Beijing.

Singapore's latest development will finally blossom later this month, with an imposing canopy of artificial trees up to 50 meters high towering over a vast urban oasis, reported The CNN. The colossal solar-powered supertrees are found in the Bay South garden, which opens to the public on June 29. It is part of a 250-acre landscaping project -- Gardens by the Bay -- that is an initiative from Singapore's National Parks Board that will see the cultivation of flora and fauna from foreign lands. The man-made mechanical forest consists of 18 supertrees that act as vertical gardens, generating solar power, acting as air venting ducts for nearby conservatories, and collecting rainwater. To generate electricity, 11 of the supertrees are fitted with solar photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into energy, which provides lighting and aids water technology within the conservatories below. Varying in height between 25 and 50 meters, each supertree features tropical flowers and various ferns climbing across its steel framework. The large canopies also operate as temperature moderators, absorbing and dispersing heat, as well as providing shelter from the hot temperatures of Singapore's climate to visitors walking beneath. Bridges dubbed "skywalks" have been erected connecting several of the higher 50-meter supertrees, letting visitors stroll between them and view the gardens from dizzying heights. The horticultural heaven also boasts two green conservatories in close proximity -- the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome -- climate-controlled biomes inspired by the shape of an orchid flower, which project organizers hope will become the park's main attractions. The biomes are the equivalent size of four football fields and will become the new home for 220 thousand plants from almost every continent. Designed by Grant Associates, the project is part of a redevelopment scheme to create a new downtown district in the Marina Bay area, on Singapore's south side. Project organizers hope the completed Gardens by the Bay will become an eco-tourist destination showcasing sustainable practices and plants from across the globe. Launched seven years ago by Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the horticultural oasis will be a contrast to the country's extremely dense urban environment, forming part of the government's overall strategy to transform Singapore into a "city in a garden."

The outlines of a massive solar thermal power plant-the largest ever-are starting to appear in the wilderness outside of Las Vegas. The US$ 2.2 billion project, which is being built by NRG Energy, Google, Oakland, California-based BrightSource and Bechtel, the engineering and construction contractor for the project, stretches over 14.5 million square meters near Ivanpah in Mojave Desert, California. When it's finished, it will generate 377 megawatts of electricity on sunny days and it will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US. The project has been a long time coming. BrightSource first filed an application for the project in the summer of 2007. Approval took three years and official construction started in October 2011. Crews began installing the hundreds of thousands of mirrors in February of this year. Construction was temporarily slowed to accommodate the care and relocation of desert tortoises-a threatened species-found in larger numbers than expected. The project, which will generate electricity by using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to heat up water and drive steam turbines, is now expected to be finished next year in 2013. The Ivanpah solar thermal power plant will generate power the same way as traditional power plants - by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. However, instead of using fossil fuels or nuclear power to create the steam, this plant uses the sun's energy. By this way, the plant will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 400 thousand tons annually, which is equivalent of taking more than 70 thousand cars off the road. Besides this, in order to conserve scarce water resources, the plant employs an air-cooling system to convert the steam back into water in a closed-loop cycle. By using air-cooling, the new technology uses more than 90 percent less water than older technology parabolic through plants with wet cooling. Even as the project nears completion, the future of solar thermal power plants is in doubt. That's in large part because prices for solar panels-which convert sunlight to electricity directly-have dropped quickly in the last few years, causing at least one company to abandon plans to build solar thermal plants in favor of making ones that use solar panels. At least, solar thermal has one great strength compared to many other types of solar power: the heat it produces is easy to store, so electricity can be generated even after the sun goes down, and power can be dispatched to the grid whenever it's most needed. But the picture may change, as according to The CNNMoney, the US Department of Commerce last month announced it would impose punitive tariffs as high as 250 percent on panels imported from China after finding that Chinese companies have been "dumping" them at prices below production costs. As we reported earlier, on May 2011 took place ground breaking ceremony of the world's largest Blythe Solar power plant. Once construction is completed, the site will feature four solar thermal power plants with a total generating capacity of thousand megawatts of electricity. Latest development for Blythe Solar is very much unfavorable. As reported the Forbes, developer companies of the project Solar Trust of America and the Solar Millennium Group filed for bankruptcy, the former in USA and the latter in Germany.