Top 10 Energy Events in 2009 (journal article)
from Beijing Review, No 6 Feb 11 2010
"Recently, China's State Council decided to set up the National Energy Commission led by Premier Wen Jiabao to step up strategic policymaking and coordination. As a closely related topic to the national economy and people's livelihoods, the energy issue has always attracted considerable attention. The country's energy industry also witnessed a series of significant changes in 2009. The top 10 energy news events of 2009, as selected by the Economic Information Daily under Xinhua News Agency, are in this article."

Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant (journal article)
from Issues in Science & Technology Vol. 26 Issue 2 Winter 2010, pp. 81-84
"The article focuses on the competition regarding clean energy markets of Asia and the U.S. It speculates that Asian countries China, Japan and South Korea will outperform the U.S. for clean energy market dominance due to its big government investments as a support for research and innovation, domestic markets, manufacturing capability, and related infrastructures. It projects that the U.S. will be out-invested by those Asian countries with three-to-one margin in 2015 albeit the passing of the former's climate and energy legislation bill. It notes that the Chinese government provides free land, research and development (R&D) money, and loans with lower interest rates for clean technology firms than the U.S. Several graphs are also presented depicting the energy-related data of the countries."

A Green Grid Rolls off the Blueprint - special report
from China Today, November 2009
"The Renewable Energy Law of 2006 has put the development of China's new energy industry onto the fast track. Government investment in this sector has grown at an annual rate of 20 percent over the past few years. In 2008 support for new energy enterprises reached RMB 3.8 billion. This is just the beginning for this industry....
China plans to increase the share of renewable energy in the total amount of energy consumption from the current 9 percent to around 40 percent by 2050. According to Wang Jun, director of the New and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Bureau, this is not merely expediency in the face of unpredictable oil prices on the international market. More important than that, the application of green energy will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and have a significant impact on global climate change."

Innovation nation : how America is losing its innovation edge, why it matters, and what we can do to get it back [book]

Author: John Kao

Examines the world's innovation hotspots: Singapore, Denmark and Finland, and then presents a plan for a national innovation strategy which would harness the United States talent and resources, and change the way innovation occurs.

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The Blue Revolution (journal article)
by Colin Chartres
from Australasian Science, December 2009
"Water scarcity is going to be one of the critical limitations on agricultural production and our ability to feed the growing world population. However, the overall productivity of water use can be increased to help cope with increasing food demand."

Oil Information 2009 [online]
International Energy Agency (IEA)

"The International Energy Agency's comprehensive annual reference book on current developments in oil supply and demand. The first part of this 2009 edition contains key data on world production, trade, prices and consumption of major oil product groups, with time series back to the early 1970s. The second part gives a more detailed and comprehensive picture of oil supply, demand, trade, production and consumption by end-user for each OECD country individually and for the OECD regions. Trade data are reported extensively by origin and destination."

Green building market in Singapore [online]
Author: International Business Strategies
"The market potential in Singapore for technologies, systems and equipment used in the construction of environmentally sustainable buildings (green buildings) is becoming stronger. This covers all types of systems and products to improve energy and water efficiency of a building, technologies and equipment that improve indoor air quality, construction systems that reduce noise and air pollution, as well as recyclable building materials." - summary.

Export growth, foreign direct investment and technological capability building under the maquila model: winding roads, few intersections (journal article)
by Ramón Padilla-Pérez and Jorge Mario Martínez-Piva
from Science and Public Policy, May 2009
"In the 1980s and 1990s, Central American countries and Mexico moved towards a new growth model based upon the primacy of exports and foreign direct investment (FDI). The existing literature acknowledges that the expansion of international trade and FDI may be an important factor for developing local technological capabilities. However, in Central America and Mexico a fragile relationship between international trade and FDI growth and the development of technological capabilities has been observed, due to the low local content of exports, weak integration of multinational enterprises and local industry, the specialization of exports in the less knowledge-intensive activities of the value chain and weak absorption capacities. Science, technology and innovation policies have been rather passive and followed a linear approach, undermining the potential benefits arising from FDI and international trade. "

OECD reviews of innovation policy : China [online]

Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
"Assesses the current status of China's national innovation system and policies, and recommends improvements required in both the policy and institutional environments for China to succeed in promoting innovation through a market-based approach." - abstract.

Balanced national development policy in Korea : theory and practice [book]

Author: Korea. Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development

Outlines how South Korea's change in economic policy has resulted in a knowledge-based economy where innovation and economic growth occurs in regional areas, and not just in metropolitan areas.

The Contribution of foreign direct investment and the mining industry to the welfare of Australians [online resource]

Authors: Brian S. Fisher & others, Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA)

Most Australians are sceptical about foreign ownership. This paper challenges that view and presents the reasons why foreign investment is good for Australia's economy, particularly in regard to the mining industry.

Small technologies, huge prospects
Nano and micro technologies are set to play a critical role in the future of the manufacturing industry (journal article)
by Stephen Moore
from Australian Manufacturing Technology, November 2008
"Countries that engage in nanotechnology will dominate and trade successfully; countries that don't will be pushed into commodities or commoditised businesses based on price only".
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