Recently I wrote a letter to the Financial Times (published 16 May) on the costs of nuclear power compared to renewable technologies.  My purpose in writing was to correct a statement which Steve Radley, Director of Policy at EEF (a UK manufacturers organisation), made in a letter published in the Financial Times 11 May.

In it Radley claimed that “most renewable energy technologies are likely to remain considerably more expensive than alternative forms of low-carbon generation such as nuclear”. This is misleading because – although nuclear may or may not be cheaper than some less developed renewable energy sources – wind accounts for over 70% of renewable energy capacity installed in Europe in the last decade.

Sarah Azau, EWEA’s very own Senior Communication Officer, is putting herself to the test on 29 May when she’ll take on the challenge of the Brussels 20km half-marathon to raise money for Renewable World.

Renewable World – EWEA’s chosen charity – works to bring renewable energy to small, energy-poor communities in developing countries that may never have had electricity before. Pumping clean water, powering homes, schools and health centres and running small businesses in a sustainable way are the main achievements of the charity’s projects.

UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne told Parliament on Tuesday that the Government has agreed greenhouse gas emissions in Britain will fall at least 50% over 1990 levels by 2027.

Huhne’s dramatic announcement that the agreement will become law puts Britain in place to become a world leader in the fight against climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.

It also sets in motion the likelihood that increasingly larger amounts of emissions-free electricity generated by wind power and other renewables will be used in the UK to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide currently being pumped into the atmosphere.

Renewable energies could meet nearly 80% of the world’s energy demand by 2050 – that was the main message contained in the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on renewable energy launched last week. The message was spread far and wide: here is a selection of the media coverage from around the globe.

Shaken to its core by the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has announced that wind power and other renewables will play a much more important role in providing electricity to the world’s third largest economy.

Wind, solar and biomass should become a new pillar of Japan’s energy policy while recent plans to increase the number of nuclear power plants operating in the nation should be now be dismissed, Kan said Tuesday.