European Union nations must nearly double investment in power grid building in the decade after 2020 if it is to get on the path to carbon-free electricity by the middle of the century, think-tank the European Climate Foundation (ECF) said on Monday.

China is currently involved in 289 hydroelectric projects worldwide, as reported by International Rivers. Most of the dams are planned for hydropower, and over half are considered 'large' projects. The list includes completed dams, one currently under construction, and ones in early planning stages.

(Reuters) - The Fukushima disaster could lead to a 15 percent fall in world nuclear power generation by 2035, while power demand at the same time could rise by 3.1 percent a year, according to a draft copy of the International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook.

Following the Japanese crisis, many countries put their nuclear power plans on hold or under review, and some, including Germany and Switzerland, opted out of the technology entirely.

For decades, electric companies have swung into emergency mode when demand soars on blistering hot days, appealing to households to use less power. But with the rise of wind energy, utilities in the Pacific Northwest are sometimes dealing with the opposite: moments when there is too much electricity for the grid to soak up.

China has urged the UN's nuclear watchdog to help developing nations to build safer power stations.

Deputy UN envoy Wang Min also said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) needed to use its position to boost international co-operation.

The Czech Republic is poised to build on its position as central Europe's nuclear hub, seeking greater energy security and shrugging off the concerns of environmentalists and other opponents.

It is a cool-headed approach, in the wake of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant earlier this year which has prompted Germany, the Czech Republic's neighbour, to phase out nuclear power by 2022.

Italy and Switzerland have also put nuclear power plans on ice.

Experts in Japan have warned it could take more than 30 years to clean up the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

A panel set up by the country's nuclear energy commission said the severity of the accident meant it would take decades to remove melted fuel rods and decommission the plant, located 150 miles north of Tokyo.

The European Commission's plans to class fuel from oil sands, including Canada's, as highly polluting are based on science and it will proceed with talks with EU member states to implement the measure, its climate commissioner said on Thursday.

The Mekong and Irrawaddy rivers, though unconnected and hundreds of miles apart, are both integral to life in Southeast Asia, supporting millions of people and more than 1,200 species of animals, including freshwater dolphins and-in the Mekong-giant catfish.

Now, in an energy-hungry age on the continent, the rivers share another distinction, as wellsprings of financial temptation for the struggling countries that rely on their flow, Laos and Myanmar (Burma). Both countries are grappling with decisions on whether to build massive hydropower dams on the two significant rivers. The projects could put fragile ecology and associated livelihoods at risk, but the dams could help the two countries reap billions of dollars by exporting the megawatts to China and Thailand, two neighbors with rapidly growing energy demand.

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