13.6: The per cent increase in electricity prices in Melbourne for the September 2012 quarter – since the introduction of the carbon tax. Well short of previous September quarter jumps of 19 per cent and 21 per cent.
615 million: The US-dollar amount that concentrating solar thermal power firm BrightSource Energy has raised, in total, in equity financing, including a recent raising of more than $80 million, which the company revealed this week.
50 billion: The US-dollar amount worth of gas that is wasted annually through the oil mining practice of gas flaring, a practice which, according to new figures released this week, contributes as much to climate change as a major economy like Italy.
100: The percentage of new US electricity capacity that was either wind or solar energy, added in the month of September.
100: The percentage of its energy consumption that Swedish furniture retailer IKEA plans to source from renewable energy – most of it from plants owned by IKEA, too – by 2020.
1.5 billion: The € amount that IKEA will be spending on renewable energy investments – particularly wind and solar – to help achieve the above goal.
22,000: The number of pigs that make up Australia’s first carbon farming piggery, which was registered and launched on Thursday at Blantyre Farms in Young, NSW. The pigs’ owners say they are generating “more than enough” clean energy to power the entire property and they no longer pay a cent for electricity.
90: The number of (Siemens’ gearless) wind turbines that will make up South Australia’s Snowtown II wind farm – set to be the state’s largest, at 270MW – which commenced construction this week.
67: The percentage of respondents to a UK survey who said they would rather have a wind farm within two miles of their home than a shale gas well. 11 per cent said they would rather the gas development. The UK-wide ICM survey also found that only nuclear power and coal were less popular than shale gas developments.
6: The number of years’ jail six Italian earth scientists were sentenced to this week, having been found guilty of causing 29 of the 309 deaths caused by the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.
