Search Results for: Germany

BY ANDREW CAVE

Food commodity prices are seldom out of the news nowadays, due to a mushrooming global population, the food-for-fuel controversy, an increasing focus on sustainability and the continued growth of the organic sector. However, beyond the generality of crop prices spiralling to new highs in 2007 and 2008 and then plummeting – in some cases – back to where they were before the boom, the picture is far from uniform.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud office OLAF probed a flood of fraud allegations about Bulgaria and Romania in 2008, worsening these new EU member states’ reputation as graft centres. There were 142 tips of financial fraud and misdemeanours about Bulgaria made to OLAF last year, and 87 on Romania – way above other countries (Germany, Italy and Poland being the subject of the most tips amongst remaining member states).…

BY LEAH GERMAIN

A BREAKTHROUGH energy project from EU research programme EUREKA is turning spent grain from beer production into renewable brewery-operating power. By harnessing its latest energy, German and Slovakian developers have created technology that can significantly reduce energy costs for brewers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN ATTEMPT by an international group of polymer exporters and importers to avoid having to register under the European Union’s (EU) REACH chemical control system the monomers used to make their products appears to have failed.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has now made an important ruling that confirms the need for importers and EU manufacturers of polymers to register "reacted monomers which are integrated in polymers."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ACQUISITION of German metal surface coating producer Tinox GmbH by fellow German companies Almeco GmbH and MAGE Industrie Holding AG (MAGE) has been approved by the European Commission, without conditions. Brussels assessed the deal using its competition authority powers, because the companies trade outside Germany.…

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; KARRYN MILLER, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

IT almost seems commonsense to say that an industry providing such a human product as clothing has to take account of cultural sensibilities in target markets.…

By Leah Germain

Making beer is a hot smelly process, as any home brewer will testify. But what is to be done with the steaming left-over grains from a brew: turn it into energy and biogas of course – say German and Slovakian researchers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project is trying to outmode traditional stamping of auto structure parts by integrating three new formation techniques in a seamless production system.

The Euro 6 million PROFORM project participants aim to unveil its technology at a conference next year.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

IT was to be the booster rocket for the European hydrogen and fuel cell industry – a Euro 1 billion package to support development of the technology and putting it on the market. Launched on last October in Brussels, the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) linked the European Commission, European industrialists and the research community to a common goal of mass-marketing these promising technologies before 2020.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A PLANNED law authorising a series of carbon capture and storage projects across Germany has been postponed until after the next German federal elections, due September 27. The ruling Christian Democrats could not reach agreement over the legislation with their Social Democrat grand coalition partners.…