In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.

The disparity between what BP promised in its March 24 filing with federal regulators and the amount of oil recovered since the April 20 explosion underscores what some officials and environmental groups call a misleading numbers game that has led to widespread confusion about the extent of the spill and the progress of the recovery.

July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Kenya, whose economy is the biggest in East Africa, has the potential to produce 300 megawatts of electricity from agricultural residues such as bagasse from the sugar industry, Assistant Energy Minister Mohamed Mahamud said.

The country, which gets 1 percent of its energy requirements from renewable sources, produces 38 megawatts from bagasse, the fiber that remains once juice is extracted from sugar cane, Mahamud told a Brazilian business and government delegation, led by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Nairobi, the capital.

"It is our desire to learn from the Brazilians best practices on bio-fuels in addition to other forms of renewable energy," he said.

As an ever increasing number of people around the world become connected by mobile communications networks, the challenges to providing electricity to these expanding networks are becoming greater as well. In particular, developing countries are seeing unprecedented growth in wireless subscribers, however many of the base stations in these areas are in remote locales that have limited or no access to grid power.

Renewable energy from solar panels and small wind turbines offers a viable alternative to diesel generators in these remote off-grid sites, and a new report from Pike Research forecasts that renewable energy will power 4.5% of the world's mobile base stations by 2014, up from just 0.11% in 2010. ­In developing countries, the percentage will be even higher - the cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts that 8% of base stations in those regions will utilize renewable power by 2014.

July 6 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world's biggest polluter, needs to pick up the pace of increasing the nation's capacity to produce power from renewable energy sources for 2020 targets to be met, a government official said.

The country must increase the pace of capacity expansion by 50 percent, Li Zuojun, vice director of resources and environment at the State Council's development research center, said at a conference in Shanghai today.

China aims to boost the share of non-fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020 to rely less on more polluting sources such as coal. The 2020 renewable energy capacity targets include an installed capacity of 100 gigawatts of windpower and 20 gigawatts of solar units, Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, said in May.

The Gulf oil disaster has created some impetus in Congress to reduce the lavish subsidies granted to oil companies to incentivize and spur domestic production. Multiple bills are under consideration that would rescind billions of dollars in tax breaks and other handouts to Big Oil. But the industry's lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, isn't about to let these giveaways go without a fight.

API launched television ads in ten states this week to attack what they classify as "new taxes on the oil and natural gas industry." Actually making oil companies pay their fair share like other industries, API claims, would have a "devastating effect on our jobs, economic recovery and our energy security."

Washington - -- While the BP oil spill has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent U.S. history, a biofuel is contributing to a Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" the size of New Jersey that scientists say could be every bit as harmful to the gulf.

Each year, nitrogen used to fertilize corn, about a third of which is made into ethanol, leaches from Midwest croplands into the Mississippi River and out into the gulf, where the fertilizer feeds giant algae blooms. As the algae dies, it settles to the ocean floor and decays, consuming oxygen and suffocating marine life.

The chess game of climate politics -- or, more specifically, of putting a binding limit on climate-changing pollution from dirty fuels -- is at a moment of great uncertainty. President Obama continues to push for putting a price on carbon, and Senate action may come in July or August. But there's every chance that a US climate law (which would trigger Canadian action and advance Northwest sustainability more than any other single thing) will prove a bridge too far in 2010.

So it's a good time to think through contingencies, to identify paths on which the movement for a fair and effective climate/clean-energy policy can still travel forward, even if the Senate fails to act this year. In the end, the shortest path may cross the thicket of Senate rules reform. Perhaps surprisingly, that passage may depend on the persuasiveness of the junior senator from New Mexico -- and how much help he gets from Northwest Senators.

A motor rally due to attract thousands of spectators to south Wales has been postponed due to a tree disease.

The route of the Swansea Bay Rally runs through forests near Resolven and Rhondda that have been hit by the Phytophthora ramorum infection.

Also known as as "sudden oak death" it kills many of the trees it infects and can be spread by tree needles and soil clinging to people or vehicles.

Meanwhile, a £600k support package has been announced to fight the disease.

The rally was due to start and finish outside Swansea Museum on 17 July.