© rulhaf

Of course, I'm not saying that literally–though I love many hues of the color green! It's that I'm noticing that my perspective has really taken on a default setting, so to speak, of considering the eco-friendly aspects of things that I buy. This could be, for example, cleaning products, furnishings for my home, or fashion that I wear. When a coworker was looking for sleeper sofas from Fashion for Home, we started talking about the fashionforhome.co.uk, and every where, as much as possible. These may seem like small things, but if you think of how many people there are, if most of us do our bit, that would really make for some change.

© UK in Israel

According to a recent report, the tide has turned against renewable energy projects. There are several reasons behind this shift which are interlinked, including the state of the global economy, government finances, difficulties in funding, and regulatory uncertainty. Prior to the financial crisis in 2008, renewable energy projects were being avidly pursued by governments across Europe, the US and China.

Wind farms and solar power grids, for example, were seen as 'green gold', especially in the face of the record high oil prices the world faced pre-crisis. But things changed very quickly as credit lines tightened and have remained that way for three years. There has been ongoing consolidation in the sector during this time through increased M&A. The crisis left many government balance sheets in bad shape, and this has led to reduced tax and regulatory incentives for the development of renewable energy projects.

© batmoo

Bill Gates is known for thinking big, so when it comes to green products and technology his opinion is that individual solar panels, energy efficient light bulbs, appliances and hybrid cars are not going to be enough to meet global demand for energy. That's because of the massive demand expected to come from rapidly developing economies going forward. Gates has a novel solution, which involves richer countries funding basic research and solutions which can be deployed in developing nations to produce renewable energy on a large scale, such as deserts filled with solar panels or nuclear power.

Towards his goal of total decarbonization in industrialized nations, Gates puts a lot of faith in solar and nuclear technologies. And he's put his money where his mouth is, investing millions in Seattle-based nuclear firm TerraPower, which designs a reactor fueled b depleted, rather than enriched, uranium. This reactor should produce a thousandth of the waste that a typical nuclear plant would, and run for 50 years without refueling.