The United States and dozens of other countries have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward clean energy initiatives to help battle climate change, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said on Tuesday. Meeting in Washington, D.C., for a two-day conference, delegations from 24 countries representing 80 percent of global energy consumption promised 11 initiatives that would mean building fewer power plants and using more clean energy. "We know the clean energy challenge won't wait, and we won't wait either," Chu said. With the U.S. Senate virtually gridlocked on passing an energy and climate change package this year, the Obama administration is under pressure to provide leadership in global climate talks that are making little progress.
Visitors to the West Bank town of Hebron this summer might find a strange-looking white vehicle motoring through its streets – the first Palestinian solar-powered car. The product of an environmentally friendly project for Palestinian engineering students, the car is bedecked with banks of solar panels and doesn't manage to reach a speed much above 19mph (30kph) – but it is being lauded as a feat of creative engineering in the face of limited funds and scant resources.
The Bavarian brand has a borrowing plan to circumvent the problem of short range in electric vehicles. BMW says it will "loan" its electric car customers a petrol-powered vehicle for longer journeys. The approach involves a special leasing deal that allows customers to use an electric vehicle but occasionally drive other cars in the BMW range. The marketing ploy is designed to overcome buyer concerns about the limited range of electric vehicles, which is typically less than 160 kilometres. BMW's radical new leasing model would be based around its electric Megacity car, due for release in 2013. It would encourage customers to swap and change between the Megacity and other cars in the BMW range to suit their lifestyle needs.
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