Only state-owned companies took part in a tender this month to build wind farms, highlighting shortfalls in the country's investment plan to promote clean energy sources.

Touted as an alternative energy source that does not emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, wind power has spread quickly. The combined capacity of wind power turbines nationwide broke the 1-million-kilowatt mark last fiscal year ended March. Regional electric utilities, however, argue that a surge in the supply of wind-generated electricity could degenerate the quality of electricity.

The [Japanese] Environment Ministry is urgently trying to find ways to stop migrating birds from crashing into wind turbines amid government plans to dramatically increase this form of power generation.

But the RPS law has not been effective to increase wind power because electric power companies are negative about such power generation. "Output is unstable because it depends on wind, obstructing stable power supplies," said an executive at a power company.

Environmentalism is no longer the province of the left. Conservative politicians and big business have both jumped on the bandwagon.

The Environment Ministry has decided to ease restrictions on wind power generation within national parks and promote clean energy supplies in an effort to combat global warming, government officials said Friday.

MADRID: Even as Britain, following a detailed review, mulls the need for increased nuclear capacity, Spain has the bit between its teeth as it champions renewable energy.

The lure of China's huge but underexploited market, the government's drive for renewable energy and low production costs for exports to fast-growing bigger markets in the United States and Europe have foreign and domestic firms rushing to set up wind farms or build production plants across the country.

With 20% of the world's population, China now consumes 10% of the world's energy. This would suggest that just to come up to the international average, China will need to double its energy consumption. With an economy growing at 9% per year, China is on track to do just that, and consequently they are developing every source of energy they possibly can.

Tsukuba, the town that prides itself as Japan’s most hallowed scientific research centre, is the site of perhaps the world’s worst electricity wind farm: in the 12 months it has operated, its windmills have consumed 43 times more power than they have generated.

The project to make Tsukuba a self-sufficient showpiece for green energy has failed, heaping scorn upon the central government programme to test alternative sources. It is likely to be used as ammunition by sceptics elsewhere, including Britain, where the Government this week published its energy review. Tsukuba is now locked into a spiral of civil litigation, criminal investigations and an unprecedented attack on the academic reputation of Waseda University, Japan’s most respected seat of learning.

Chinese developers unveiled the world’s first full-permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) wind power generator at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 held June 28 in Beijing, according to Xinhua News..

A breeze of just over 5 kms an hour is sufficient to start the machine, which means it can operate for many more hours than traditional wind turbines, said Zeng Zhiyong, president of the Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology which developed the turbine with the help of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou.

The protest erupted over plans for a wind-power plant that used village lands and required significant landfill in a bay where the people have for generations made a living fishing. Before that, nearby village land had been used for the construction of a coal-fired power plant.

Police said the wind turbine generator of the unit exploded last night and caught fire. The splinters from the turbine, located a few kms from the Koodankulam Nuclear Power project site, spread over one sq km after the explosion.

President Vladimir Putin is reportedly planning to increase the number of nuclear reactors in Russia from 29 to 59 and to upgrade old power stations to extend their lives. Mr Putin is expected to provide more details of the rebirth of nuclear at the forthcoming G8 summit of leading economies in St Petersburg next month.

Hamatombetsu, Japan (ANTARA News) - Increases in the generation of wind power, introduced nationwide as an environment-friendly energy, are hitting a snag as enterprises are reluctant to do the business because electric power companies are negative to buy such power....."Output is unstable because it depends on wind, obstructing stable power supplies," said an executive at a power company.

Most experts also believe that, using current technologies, there isn't enough land to make a serious dent in oil consumption. Some scientists say production will consume more conventional energy than it will save, and environmentalists came out this month against plans by Indonesia to convert millions of acres of rain forest on the island of Borneo into palm oil plantations.

Cracks are developing among environmentalists. They hate nuclear power but like renewables. Sun is not always reliable. Wind, often lazy and slow. They are unreliable and add totally a small percentage. If we need power that is always available, we have to have it from coal or natural gas or nuclear.

Britain and Sweden are on target for reducing global-warming gases, but other countries will have to toughen policies and rely on "carbon trading" to achieve their Kyoto Protocol goals by 2012, says a new U.N. report.