EU funds green tech race

The European Union (EU) has started a competition for about EUR4 billion ($5.6 billion) of funding to help companies compete in the green technology race against China, Japan and the US, writes Reuters.

All eligible projects should be up and running by 2015. Big winners are likely to include power generators such as Germany's E.ON and engineers like Alstom of France. "These and other green technologies are an increasingly important source of future economic growth and jobs," EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard said in a statement.

The funding was agreed in 2008 to support carbon capture and storage technology - a method of burying planet-warming gases, which many power producers say is a potential silver bullet to curb climate change.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has extended its Green Technology Pilot Programme to accelerate the review of patent petitions for green technologies defined as those pertaining to environmental quality, energy conservation, development of renewable energy, and greenhouse gas emission reduction, says TechCrunch.

Applications are usually reviewed in the order they are received by the patent office, leading inventors and companies to delay commercialisation of their technologies. According to the report, this programme lets green tech patents jump the queue without any extra fees or paperwork, and the USPTO hopes it will reduce average pendency times for green technologies by a year or more.

The programme went live in December 2009 and was to expire on 8 December this year, but the USPTO revealed a deadline extension until 31 December 2011. So far, the USPTO has received 1 595 patent petitions and granted 790 of them under the Green Technology Pilot Programme.

Making a strong pitch for India's Uttar Pradesh (UP) as a growing industrial destination, chief secretary Atul Kumar Gupta invited more entrepreneurs to invest money in the state, and especially Green IT, reports the Times of India.

Gupta was in Delhi to inaugurate UP's stall at the two-week Clean and Energy Efficient Technology, Products and Services fair at Pragati Maidan, which began on Sunday.

Industries showcasing their products and technologies at the event include those producing products and services in areas of green energy, waste management, pollution control, gas-based filtration plants, reverse osmosis systems and power-saving devices.