A seawater desalination equipment production line designed by Qingdao Hua Xuan Water Company was recently granted 7.8 million yuan ($1.3 million) in government funding. The project is China's first seawater desalination equipment assembly line. Upon completion in 2015, the project will help reduce the country's dependence on exported osmosis membranes, a tool for seawater desalination. Seawater desalination ...

India reinstated the wind farm subsidy after its expiry last year led to a 42% plunge in turbine installations. The Cabinet approved the proposal to revive the generation-based subsidy for wind farms of US$8.20 a megawatt hour. It also agreed to raise the cap on the total subsidy a wind farm can claim over 10 years by 61% to US$163,000. Wind farms built between 2012 and 2017 will be eligible for the subsidy ...

Xylem has won a contract to provide a Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) pretreatment system to help ensure an uninterrupted potable water supply to Abu Dhabi Emirate and the east coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The source water in the Gulf of Oman is subject to harmful algal blooms (HABs) sometimes termed ‘red-tides’; large concentrations of potentially toxic aquatic microorganisms. Xylem’s Leopold Cla ...

Authors of a new study published in Nature Communications reported that membrane filtration using plasma-modified ultralong carbon nanotubes could be used in rechargeable, point-of-use potable water purification devices with superior desalination, disinfection, and filtration properties. Their paper was published online Aug. 13. The researchers include Associate Professor Hui Ying Yang from Singapore Univer ...

Red tides are toxic to both coral reefs and desalination plants in the Arabian/Persian Gulf,  so Masdar Institute has teamed up with government-backed Bayanat for Mapping and Surveying Services to predict and protect against harmful algae blooms. Masdar’s research wing is less popular than its world-changing renewable energy initiatives, but they’re the first government-backed organization to dig deeply for ...

Gopal Saxena, the chief executive of a power distribution company run by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, which is controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, faces a tough choice. He could break a mandate to supply around-the-clock electricity to 1.8 million customers in south and west Delhi, or he could wait for two power utilities to make good on threats to cut off supplies to his company unless they are p ...

Siemens Ltd. has won two contracts aggregating to Rs.144 crore from the Rural Electrification Board, Bangladesh, to construct 38 new 33.11kV substations. The projects are funded by Japan Bank for International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and are to be delivered on a turnkey basis. The substations would be located in the Rajshahi and Barisal zones in western Bangladesh. The projects involve installing new and ...

NTT DoCoMo Inc. will introduce environment-friendly fuel cells at cellphone base stations across the country as emergency power sources in the event of a disaster, company officials said Friday. Among its base stations, just one in Tokyo currently has fuel cells. Japan’s largest mobile phone carrier will select other base stations by the end of this year for the introduction starting in 2014, the officials ...

The South Korean government on Sunday announced plans to encourage the use of energy storing equipment as well as an overhaul of electricity rates in order to prevent possible power shortages. The move follows a series of power shortage warnings, including the year's first level-3 warning, last week. Under its plans, the government will first encourage the use of the so-called energy storage system (ESS) an ...

A prototype of India’s first floating solar power station could soon be coming up in the pond of Victoria Memorial. If the plan proves to be a success, such floating solar power stations could also be set up in the water reservoirs and dams of hydroelectric power stations thereby increasing their output. “Developing a floating solar power station would prove to be a revolutionary step as it could solve the ...