The study examines the hypothesis that citizens with higher social capital score may have better performance on CO2 reduction and energy saving. For that purpose, WEB-based survey is conducted and 1500 responses are obtained. To calculate social capital, the concept of Japan Cabinet Office's SC Index is also used as the reference.

Recently the fuel ethanol production from crops has attracted much attention not only in the US, EU and Brazil, but also in Japan because the bio-ethanol is perceived as being "carbon neutral" and useful as a countermeasure against global warming.

What do a small Italian village, a community of millionaires in Oregon and a town in Austria have in common? Nearly all of their electricity needs are supplied by renewable energy. They are by no means the only ones. A growing number of communities are working towards using only electricity generated by renewables.

THE price of a cup of coffee. That's one estimate of what it will cost each American every day for the next 20 years to break the fossil fuel habit of generations and turn to renewables instead. A daily outlay of a shade under a couple of dollars does add up to trillions over the decades, but is it really that much to ask? (Editorial)

At first glance, geothermal energy seems almost too good to be true. It's clean, inexhaustible, provides predictable 24-hour power and you can get it just about anywhere. There is a snag, however. Outside of geologically blessed places like Iceland, Japan and New Zealand, where volcanically active rocks are close to the surface, the Earth's heat is locked away under several kilometres of rock.

Wind power has used the economic route to be viable In major wind power producing countries like Denmark and Germany, wind power is promoted through preferential tariffs and a larger incentive is given to wind farms with high plant load factor. In Denmark, wind power had a fixed preferential feed-in tariff. Today, it is sold there in a liberalized electricity market at competitive