India

Something’s brewing in Bihar. After decades of being India’s most notoriously 'backward' state, the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has tempered corruption, built roads and spurred development. Given the impressive achievements of his previous term, it's no surprise he rode to overwhelming victory in recent elections.

The newest report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in cooperation with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a clean tech analytics firm, shows that the combined impetus of stimulus funding, feed-in tariffs (FiTs) and renewable portfolio standards (RPS) generated a record $211 billion globally in 2010 in renewable energy investment.

As the decade comes to an end and a new one begins, Asian countries have established themselves as the driving forces in renewable energy.

United States Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern held a press conference yesterday to brief the country and the world on the success' of the Climate Change Conference in Cancun.

A report released by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that investment in clean power projects could rise as high as US$2.3 trillion at the end of the next decade.  

Another week and another report on the prospects for commercial algae-based biofuels. 

• Last week, research/marketing consulting firm Pike Research, based in Boulder, Colorado, predicted that 61 million gallons of algae-based biofuels per year at a market value of $1.3 billion ($21 a gallon) would be produced by 2020. 

• On Tuesday, the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) in Berkeley, California, funded by BP plc (NYSE: BP), conjured a scenario in which algae-based oil could be produced at $5.71 to $7.86 per gallon.

India has announced plans to create an additional 35 gigawatts of renewable power generation by 2015.

With a price tag of about US$55 billion, India, which currently generates 16.5 megawatts of renewable power, will seek funding from private firms.

Thorium – a chemical element named after the Norse god of thunder – is an emerging nuclear feedstock that is catching the interest of scientists, energy experts and policymakers around the world as an alternative to uranium-based nuclear energy.

2,000 villages in Orissa, India will receive their electrical power from "non-conventional" energy sources, the government has announced.

Here are the Top 10 Renewable Energy News Stories You May Have Missed this Week.