Germany's cabinet on Wednesday adopted a plan to speed along the construction of offshore wind parks in the North Sea, paving the way for a targeted 25,000 megawatts of capacity to come on line by 2030.

Government officials here are reviewing the safety of a geothermal energy project that scientists say set off an earthquake in mid-August, shaking buildings and frightening many residents of this small city.

First Solar Inc said on Tuesday it plans to build the world's largest solar plant in China in the first major foray by a U.S. company into the Asian nation's fast growing alternative energy sector.

A pioneering German wind power plant's new high-tech equipment, to capture higher winds further offshore and for longer periods, is exciting the industry.

The Alpha Ventus wind park started this month and operates 45 km off the German-Dutch coast. Existing European wind parks operate only 20 km offshore at the most.

President Obama wants to make the United States

The German Cultural Centre in Colombo (Goethe- Institute), the Ruhuna University and Ambewela farms are joining together to construct an industrial level bio gas plant for the first time in Sri Lanka with the assistance of German scientists to generate electricity.

- A project linking solar power from the Sahara to energy users in Europe and North Africa could create 240,000 German jobs and generate 2 trillion euros ($2,822 billion) worth of power by 2050, a study published on Thursday found.

The first biofuels produced using new generations of biomass raw materials could be available in commercial volumes from 2010 at the earliest, German junior Environment Michael Mueller said on Monday.

But the exact time scale was still unclear, Mueller said at the European Biomass conference in Hamburg.

Germany's lower house of parliament on Thursday gave final approval to government proposals to cut the target amount of biofuels to be blended into fossil fuels this year.

The lower house approved a plan to cut the 2009 blending target to 5.25 percent biofuel content in fossil fuel in 2009 from the 6.25 percent originally intended.

The possibility of component replacement and extending the lifetimes of existing plants are very attractive to utilities, especially given lingering public opposition to constructing new nuclear plants, while some governments see them as a way of limiting carbon emissions and power price rises.