December 1, 2006—The US State Department announced recently that the US and its five partners in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate have endorsed detailed action plans and nearly 100 collaborative projects.
The Partnership is a US-led effort to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies through a voluntary public-private partnership among six major Asia-Pacific nations: Australia, China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.
While many of the projects involve fossil fuels or relate indirectly to energy use, 44 projects relate directly to energy efficiency and renewable energy. These include 25 renewable energy and distributed generation projects, which will touch on solar energy, hydropower, biomass gasification, biofuel-powered generators, biodiesel, geothermal power, hydrogen-fueled generators, fuel cells, and combined heat and power systems.
The 19 energy efficiency efforts include one project for aluminum recycling; 10 projects related to efficient appliances and buildings; one project for generating power from a cement plant’s waste heat (including a demonstration project in Australia); one project on utility demand-side energy management; and six projects in energy-efficient steel production.
