Britain boosts green city vision

Plans to enhance the environmental sustainability of British cities received a dual boost, as London unveiled proposals to create a hydrogen refuelling network across the capital and the government awarded £7.6 million (R84 million) to eight smart grid research projects, reports Computing.co.uk.

The London Hydrogen Partnership has unveiled plans to deliver at least six refuelling sites for hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2012, as part of an initiative designed to ensure there are more than 150 hydrogen-powered buses, taxis, cars, delivery vehicles and motorbikes on the city's roads within two years.

The agency says it was continuing with work to build its first refuelling station in east London and expected hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses to begin running along the RV1 route before the end of the year.

One of the biggest challenges facing newly formed green-tech companies, and the field overall, is a lack of people with the appropriate technical and business skills, states CNET News.

That's not surprising given that so many industries, such as energy storage or solar, were relatively quiet the past two decades.

To meet that skills gap, people from IT and other fields are streaming into green tech, much the way people jumped into telecom or Internet software development in the past, suggest experts.

The US is lagging Turkey, Brazil, China, the UK and Italy in clean tech investment growth, suggests a new report, writes Nasaq.com.

The Pew Charitable Trusts reported that America is well behind both developed and developing nations in clean energy uptake.

In 2009, for example, China's clean energy investment totalled $34.6 billion, nearly double the $18.6 billion invested in the US.