US invests $100m in green tech

The US Department of Energy is making $100 million available for advanced energy-related research projects, with a considerable focus on the production and storage of solar electricity, writes SunPluggers.

The money, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is intended to accelerate innovations in the development of green technology, create new jobs, and increase the nation's ability to compete in the transformation of global energy systems.

Project funding will be overseen by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy.

Samsung's components arm is talking energy savings, pushing the green angle hard with a line-up of reduced-consumption storage, memory and monitors, reports Network World.

Samsung calls its new strategy PlanetFirst, and uses the slogan 'Digital DNA for green computing'. The firm claims that significant energy savings can be achieved by a number of inexpensive measures that do not compromise on performance.

The company says DDR3 memory is key to cutting power consumption. It calculates that energy use can be reduced by up to 63% by switching from DDR2 to DDR3 memory.

The Chinese government is working on a 10-year initiative that will see 15% of the country's electricity generated from low-carbon sources by 2020, according to Computing.co.uk.

Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, says the plan, which would see billions of dollars invested in wind, solar and nuclear power, is set to be unveiled in the coming months.

He states that the recently formed National Energy Commission, the overarching body for energy policy led by premier Wen Jiabao, will hold its first meeting soon.