Henrik Piski, Spokesperson of IT and Telecommunication of Alternattiva Demokratika, the Green Party of Malta

Today, Arnold Cassola, Victor Galea and I met with Julian Vassallo, EU Parliament office director in Valletta, regarding the discrimination against EU residents in Malta.

Probably without even realising it, the Electoral Office in valletta is discriminating against EU residents in Malta by not accepting to register EU citizens in the electoral register for the forthcoming European Parliament elections while Maltese citizens resident in Malta can register any day for this electoral register. This is a blatant act of discrimination sicne Maltese and EU residents have the same rights as regards voter registration for the European Elections.

Dr. Julian Vassallo took its concern very seriously since the European Parliament and its Offices in member states have every interest in ensuring that no obstacles are placed before EU citizens wishing to exercise their right to vote in European Elections.

He stated that consultations with the Electoral Commision on this issue are on-going and that he believed that if the necessary human and other resources are put into place there was still enough time for all non-Maltese residents wishing to be registered to vote in the June 2009 European Elections to do so.

Dr. Vassallo insisted that parallel to ensuring that the legal and practical arrangements in place the Valletta European Parliament Office will be embarking on a “bring out the vote” information campaign which will also target non-Maltese residents. A multilingual helpline for the EP Elections is also planned. Meanwhile any inquiries from the public can already be addressed to the EP Valletta Office (epvalletta@europarl.europa.eu or Tel 21 235075).

The government should publish the financial results of Malta Shipyards Ltd for the year 2007 in the wake of imminent privatization plans. In the current debate, it is not understandable why financial performance figures of the company are kept under the table.

Being a public company, the management is also accountable to the public. The Government Finance Data for the period of January to June 2008 published by the National Statistics Office on the 25th July 2008 does not clearly indicate the actual finacial situation of Malta Shipyards Ltd. The anuual return submitted on the 6th december 2007 to MFSA does not contain any figures.

The workers and the public have a right to be informed about the performance and the liabilities of the company. The government must give a clear picture of the financial burdens which might incur to the tax payer.

Solar power is currently a daytime-only energy source because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With this announcement, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers say they have discovered a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have developed a process that will allow the sun’s energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power a house or electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan’s process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it’s easy to set up, Nocera said. “That’s why I know this is going to work. It’s so easy to implement,” he said.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

“This is just the beginning,” said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution project and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. “The scientific community is really going to run with this.”

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The complete article can be found at http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53214