Norway has announced plans to invest NOK 20 billion ($3.1 billion) of its government pension fund in clean technology over the next five years.

According to Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen, the fund will focus on investments “that can yield indisputable benefits,” including clean energy, carbon capture and storage, waste and pollution management and energy efficiency improvement.

Particular attention will be paid to projects promoting sustainable growth in emerging economies, said Halvorsen.

The plan also includes a climate-change study in relation to financial markets.

“In the same way as the Stern Review provided important knowledge about the impact of climate change on the general economic development globally, work of a similar nature might shed light on the effect on financial markets more specifically,” said Halvorsen.

The project is the latest in a series of changes to investment criteria for the $300 billion pension fund, which has stopped backing tobacco-producing companies and evaluates corporate governance and attitudes to environmental issues when weighing potential investments.

Even with turmoil on financial markets, venture-capital money is still flowing to new energy technology ventures.

• Intel Capital has invested in three Chinese clean-tech investments, according to published reports.

The venture-capital arm of the chip giant put $20 million into Trony Solar Holdings, a large solar and wind power developer in China, according to reports. They represent Intel Capital's first clean-tech investments in China.

Intel Capital invested in SpectraWatt, a solar company spun out of Intel earlier this year, and smart-grid firm GridNet. It set up a $500 million fund for clean-tech deals in China.

"We think innovation is the way to help companies out of this financial crisis," Cadol Cheung, head of Intel Capital in Asia Pacific told reporters on Tuesday. "We have no plan of slowing down our investment pace."

• Ice Energy has raised $33 million as part of a second round of financing. The funding, led by Energy Capital Partners, also includes up to $150 million in project development financing.

Ice Energy makes rooftop air conditioners that make ice as a way to lower the cost of operating them.

During off-peak hours, such as the middle of the night, machines freeze water. During the day, the ice cools refrigerant to run the air conditioner, cutting down on the electricity they would otherwise need.

The ice storage can shift the demand to off-peak times by as much as 40 percent, according to the company. For that reason, the company is marketing its products to utilities which are looking for ways to reduce peak demand to avoid construction of new power plants.

•  Blue Source said that Goldman Sachs will take an equity stake in the company and finance carbon offset projects.

Blue Source identifies and runs projects that reduce greenhouse gases, such as methane-capture at landfills and carbon capture and storage at oil wells.
Goldman Sachs will market and trade the carbon offsets from Blue Source projects in carbon emissions trading markets, according to the companies.

•  General Electric reports that it is investing $30 million in lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems, part of a planned $102 million series E round.

GE is now the largest investor in the company with a nine percent stake after having put in $55 million. The two companies are working on different projects, including integrating A123 Systems' batteries in the Think all-electric town car and a hybrid bus platform.

Both GE and A123 Systems are pursuing the market for power grid storage as well.

An ambitious growth plan for wind energy laid out by the Department of Energy (DOE) and industry concludes that wind could generate 20 percent of U.S. power needs by 2030, matching what nuclear power provides today.

The Associated Press wrote in a May 13 storythat to reach the 20 percent level would require 75,000 new wind turbines and a major expansion of the electric grid system to get power from high-wind areas to low-wind areas. Wind provides about 1 percent of U.S. energy today. Please login or register to see the full article

While we do not want to underestimate the serious nature of greenhouse gas emissions, we wish to bring attention to another important cause of global warming: the global water crisis.

The world is running out of water. Humans are polluting, depleting, and diverting its finite freshwater supplies so quickly, we are creating massive new deserts and generating global warming from below.

In many parts of the world, surface waters are too polluted for human use. Ninety per cent of wastewater in the Third World is discharged untreated. Eighty per cent of China's and 75 per cent of India's surface waters are too polluted for drinking, fishing, or even bathing. The story is the same in most of Africa and Latin America. Please login or register to see the full article