GUMI, North Gyeongsang Province (AFP) ― A South Korean city has begun testing an “electrified road” that allows electric public buses to recharge their batteries from buried cables as they travel. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, which developed the system, said Thursday it would be tested over the next four months on a 24-kilometer route in the southern city of Gumi. Pic...

HONG KONG (Reuters) ― Three quarters of China’s solar-grade polysilicon producers face closure as Beijing looks to overhaul a bloated and inefficient industry, resulting in fewer but better companies to compete against Germany’s Wacker Chemie AG and South Korea’s OCI Co Ltd. The polysilicon sector, which has around 40 companies employing 30,000 people and has received investment of 100 billion y...

PUERTO AYORA, Ecuador (AFP) ― Scientists will try to revive two species of giant Galapagos tortoises thought to have been extinct by breeding genetic relatives in captivity, experts leading the effort said. The Galapagos Islands, located 1,000 kilometers off Ecuador’s Pacific coast, are famed for the large number of species that have developed there in isolation. New research techniques have re...

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Efforts to curb global warming have quietly shifted as greenhouse gases inexorably rise. The conversation is no longer solely about how to save the planet by cutting carbon emissions. It’s becoming more about how to save ourselves from the warming planet’s wild weather. It was Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent announcement of an ambitious plan to stave off New York City’s risin...

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Disparate interests ranging from environmental activists to businesses and industry are lining up to support a first-of-its-kind deal between the U.S. and China to phase out a chemical blamed for climate change. Although it took most proponents by surprise, the deal was in the bag before President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at the California desert re...

A group of conservationists in the U.S. posted an ad containing messages toward South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye on the New York Times on Tuesday. The ad was produced by Protect the Palisades, which opposes Korean tech firm LG Electronics’ plan to build a 44-meter-high corporate headquarters in Palisades, New Jersey, that boasts beautiful vistas. Started by the words “President Park Geun-h...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) ― The cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, survived mass extinction during the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But it has taken just the last few decades for man to place the hunter on the endangered species list, with experts warning it could disappear from the wild by 2030. Unlike rhinos and elephants, the cheetah is not a target in Africa’s poaching bloodbath. But it i...

WANNING (AFP) ― Rumbling earthmovers carve out a seaside golf course among fallen palm trees on a Chinese island, after authorities silenced the man who spoke out against destroying the tropical forest. Vast swathes of Hainan in the South China Sea have been cleared ― a quarter of its woodlands in the last decade according to environmentalists Greenpeace ― for golf courses and exclusive hotels i...