Nearly half of electricity from renewable resources by 2030

Germany plans to boost the percentage of electricity generated by renewable resources to 45 percent by 2030 in a bid to curb global warming, environment minister Sigmar Gabriel said Thursday.

Gabriel told reporters that a progress report on a renewable energy law (EEG) passed in 2000 showed that the country had already surpassed the quota of 12.5 percent set for 2010.

He said Berlin was now setting a more ambitious target to produce at least 20 percent of electricity used in the country with renewable resources such as wind and solar power by 2020 and 45 percent by 2030.

“We can and must raise the bar for 2020 to generate at least 27 percent of all the electricity used with renewable resources,” Gabriel said.

“This is the only way we can make a significant contribution to reaching our ambitious EU goals that we passed under the German presidency in March.”

Berlin held the rotating EU presidency for the first six months of this year and made curbing climate change one of its top priorities.

The European Union set a goal in March of a 20-percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, but Germany is aiming to cut up to 40 percent.

Gabriel said Germany had prevented 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being spewed into the atmosphere last year thanks to renewable energy sources, adding that there were now 214,000 jobs in fields such as wind and solar power.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday at a meeting of political officials, industry representatives and environmental campaigners that Germany would seek to increase energy efficiency by three percent a year until 2020.

She cited fuel-efficient cars, houses with innovative heating systems and energy-saving household appliances as areas the government wanted to see developed.

Microsoft plans big Vancouver, B.C., software center

Microsoft announced this morning that it will open a software development center this fall in the Vancouver, B.C., area, with room for hundreds of workers.

The company cited Vancouver’s proximity to Redmond, its status as “a global gateway with a diverse population” — and a third reason that could stir further controversy among U.S. policy makers and technology workers: Microsoft said in its news release that the office will help it “recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S.”

That was a reference to current limits on the number of foreign technology workers allowed into the country. Microsoft has long called for lifting the federal cap on H-1B visas, to help international recruiting efforts. In response, tech workers and unions in the U.S. contend that Microsoft and other companies aren’t taking full advantage of the domestic work force.

The issue was in the news again last week due to the latest failure of immigration reform, which included provisions to relax the limits on H-1B visas.

However, Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said this morning that the Vancouver office has been in the works for some time and immigration issues weren’t the primary factor in creating the facility. He said the company would be opening the center even if the H-1B challenge didn’t exist.

Microsoft has many locations around the world, many of them for sales and marketing, but also software development centers in places such as India, Ireland, Denmark and Israel. However, the Vancouver plans are notable because they will give the company a large software development center less than three hours from Redmond, by car.

The precise location in the Vancouver area hasn’t been officially set, but the company expects to have capacity for about 200 people to start, with room to grow, Gellos said. Microsoft currently employs about 900 people in Canada, and that figure could now double over the next few years, he said.

The company hasn’t yet determined what types of software development will take place in the Vancouver office. In addition to new hires, Gellos said, the office may include some people who want to relocate from Redmond, such as Canadians interested in returning to the country.

Saudi Telecom to enter Indian mkt soon

Saudi Telecom expects to soon receive Indian government’s go-ahead to enter the country through its recent 25 per cent stake buy in Malaysia’s Maxis Communications, which owns 74 per cent of Chennai-based Aircel.

“The details of the deal, which will enable us to enter Malaysian and Indian markets, will be available within a week from now,” Saudi Telecom spokesman Saud ibn Dafer Al-Qahtani said.
The USD three billion deal, announced on June 26, gives the Saudi company an 18.5 per cent indirect stake in Aircel Cellular.

Aircel will have to seek Foreign Investment Promotion Board’s approval for this change in shareholding.
The deal is similar to that of Egyptian telecom operator Orascom’s acquisition of 19 per cent stake in Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom International (HTIL) two years ago, which gave it an indirect 10 per cent stake in Hutch Essar — the then Indian business of HTIL.

While Maxis controls majority shares of Aircel, the balance 26 per cent is held by Reddy family of Apollo Hospitals group.

Aircel right now has eight circles and has applied for pan-India licence from the government depending on the availability of spectrum

Nasa to study Sunita William’s tests

US space agency Nasa scientists plan to spend next 12 to 18 months analysing the results of experiments conducted by Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams during her stay in space.

The study of a group of experiments she dubbed “lava lamp” will help engineers design more efficient fluid management systems, such as fuel tanks, cooling systems and water recycling systems, for future space missions, Nasa said.

“I call it the ‘lava lamp’ experiment because some of the fluid is pink, and we hang out watching it with video and pictures,” Williams wrote in her mission log at the International Space Station. “If only we had a black light.” While these Capillary Flow

Experiments (CFE) are mesmerising, they actually have nothing to do with lava or lamps. They are a suite of three experiments designed to investigate how fluid flows in microgravity.

On Earth, fluid management systems rely on gravity. In a car, for instance, a pipe runs from the bottom of the fuel tank to the engine. Gravity positions the fuel at the bottom of the tank, and the fuel pump forces it through the pipe and up to the engine. But in space, where gravity is virtually absent, fluids aren’t so predictable. Propellants float around inside of tanks, and water drops bounce about recycling systems.

During her long stay aboard the station, Sunita Williams worked with the Capillary Flow Experiments more than twice as many times as any other astronaut, earning herself a regal title from the team.

Dark chocolate lowers blood pressure

Dark chocolate can reduce blood pressure but over-indulgence in it can cause harm, suggests a new study by researchers in Germany. Chocolates are made from cocoa – the dried and partially fermented fatty seed of the cacao tree.

Cocoa contains flavonoid, a type of chemical that researchers say has been shown to improve blood flow and reduce blood pressure.

Researchers at the University Hospital of Cologne studied 44 people with raised blood pressure, putting them into two groups. One ate six grams of dark chocolate daily, the other the same amount of white chocolate.

The people were between 56 to 73 years with either upper-range pre hypertension (blood pressure between 130/85 and 139/89) or stage 1 hypertension (blood pressure between 140/90 and 160/100).

None of those eating dark chocolate registered changes in body weight or their levels of glucose and lipids, the researchers wrote in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA).

Their systolic blood pressure – the upper reading which measures the force of blood as the heart beats – fell by 2.9 mm and their diastolic blood pressure – the lower figure taken as the heart relaxes – reduced by 1.9 mm.

The suggestion that cocoa is beneficial for health is not new and previous research had also suggested it could bring down blood pressure.

However, it had been thought that large quantities were needed to achieve the desired effect and that the benefits would then be offset by the consequences of consuming the high levels of fat and sugar associated with cocoa products.

But the researchers said they have now shown that benefits can be achieved with a small amount – 30 calories worth of chocolate.

They noted that the blood pressure reduction was small but stressed that the effects were clinically noteworthy.

A 3 mm reduction in blood pressure could “reduce the relative risk of stroke mortality by 8 percent, of coronary artery disease by 5 percent, and of all cause mortality by 4 percent,” the researchers said.

They also stressed that asking people to consume a couple of chunks of chocolate a day was far easier than encouraging “complex behavioural changes” to help them reduce their blood pressure.

However, the British Heart Foundation’s nutritionist Sara Stanner warned that it was “important to remember that chocolate is also high in fat and calories so over-indulgence is not good for your heart.”