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  • Chile Passes Tax Breaks for Solar Power

    Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

    The Chilean Congress today passed a law that would allow construction companies to to take a credit from their interim payments required under Income Tax Law equal to all or part of the value of solar thermal systems (solar water heating systems) and their installation they mount in buildings intended for housing (houses or apartments) […]

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    Caixa Creates Label for Sustainable Housing

    Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

    Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF, popularly known among Brazilians as simply “Caixa”), Latin America’s largest public bank, is already involved in promoting green building though its insistence on construction using certified wood and its concessionary financing for the installation of the solar panels and water heaters in Brazil’s recently announced “My House My Life” Program to […]

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    Caixa to Help Fund Solar Water Heater Installations

    Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

    Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF, popularly known among Brazilians as simply “Caixa”), Latin America’s largest state-owned bank, has affirmed that as part of the “Green Protocol” of commitments signed last year with the Environment Ministry (MMA), it will through its weight (and funding) behind projects that promote sustainable housing.  In addition to its new sustainable housing […]

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    The Status of Global Renewables

    Saturday, May 16th, 2009

    The Vienna, Austria-based Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) has just released its latest review of the global state of adoption of renewable energy sources — solar (both photovoltaics and passive systems, such as solar water heaters), wind, geothermal, wave, biofuels and small hydro (REN21 excludes large hydropower projects from its review). […]

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    São Paulo to Put Solar Water Heaters in State’s Social Housing

    Thursday, May 7th, 2009

    The Housing and Urban Development Company (Companhia de Desenvolvimento Habitacional e Urbano – CDHU), São Paulo state’s public entity that build public housing, just signed a contract with six manufacturers of solar water heater kits to have such units installed in 15,000 houses that the CDHU is building or will build for low-income families in […]

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    One Million Environment-Friendly Homes

    Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

    If you have followed Brazil much in recent years, President Lula’s interest in building “popular housing” for low-income households will not surprise you, and if you read The Temas Blog, you know that many of those being built already are fitted with solar water heaters on their roofs. But the Lula Administration is now taking […]

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    Mexico City’s Sustainable Housing Units Program

    Thursday, January 15th, 2009

    Mexico’s Federal District (DF) — essentially Mexico City and its environs, where a large percentage of Mexico’s population resides — has launched a Sustainable Housing Units Program.  The program will finance the installation of solar water heaters in housing, not only to reduce residential electricity and gas consumption (and thus homeowner’s utility bills by as […]

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    The Largest Solar Water Heater Made With PET Bottles?

    Saturday, August 9th, 2008

    One of the most popular posts here on The Temas Blog was the one introducing the solar water heater made of used PET bottles and aseptic cartons (mostly Tetra-brik) promoted by Paraná’s (PR) Zero Waste (Desperdício Zero) Program. Not far behind in popularity has been the follow-up post about how the Program is spreading the […]

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    Tetra-Pak Chooses to Deal

    Thursday, July 26th, 2007

    Synopsis in English: In May the environment officials of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná called in Tetra Pak officials and told them to come up with a proposal to solve the post-consumer waste problem in that state associated with their long-life (aseptic) packaging — or face drastic action by the government, such as banning […]

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    A Solar Water Heater Made of PET Bottles

    Monday, July 2nd, 2007

    Synopsis in English: The government of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná has been conducting an interesting experiment in environmental design utilizing waste materials. Since August 2006 state agencies have sponsored projects to construct solar water heaters constructed from used PET bottles and “long life” (aseptic) milk packaging. So far some 3,000 such heaters have […]

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