The Belarus government has teamed up with Irish firm Greenfield to build one of Europe’s largest bioethanol plants which would convert crops grown on contaminated land into fuel. Tags: Biofuels Belarus bio-ethanol biofuel Chernobyl crop Edie Greenfield plant Land blighted by the nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl disaster could be cleaned up by growing biofuel crops, scientists say. MORE

The 66 new partners come from 19 countries, six of which are new to the consortium: Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Israel. The University of Sunderland (UK), working with a consortium of five other research partners from Italy, Spain and Germany, has been selected for funding by the €1-billion (US$1.4-billion) Graphene Flagship research initiative in Europe ( earlier post ) for their iGCAuto proposal. MORE

100 includes the 27 Member States of the European Union, the European Union itself, as well as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Malaysia, Montenegro, Norway, Russian Federation, Serbia, Switzerland, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Tunisia and Turkey. Generic format of the approval mark pursuant to Regulation No. 100. “1” 1” is replaced by the distinguishing number of the country which has granted/extended/refused/withdrawn approval. MORE

BelAZ (based in Belarus) wanted this to not only be the biggest truck in the world but also to carry 25% more payload than the world’s biggest dump truck at the time. The world’s biggest truck—the more than 800-ton GVW BelAZ 75710 mining truck—is powered by an electric drive system comprising four electric traction motors from Siemens, each with an output of 1,200 kilowatts (approximately 1,800 hp). MORE

The most bizarre example is Geely, owner of Volvo and Polestar, two brands that are heavy on plugins, and inclusively Geely itself is leading plugin markets in places like Russia and Belarus, and yet, in its home market, it has less than 1% share. 11% share! MORE

The amendment to Regulation Nº 49 (which covers the emission of pollutants by heavy duty vehicle engines) of the 1958 UNECE agreement on vehicle type approval and its mutual recognition will allow all non-EU parties to the agreement, including Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Malaysia, Montenegro, Norway, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and Ukraine to apply these new ceilings. MORE

Following the success of the Estonian project, the same queuing service has been implemented at five Lithuanian border crossing points and at one Finnish border point on crossings to Russia and Belarus. An innovative solution for managing traffic queues at international borders is the winner of the 2015 Transport Achievement Award offered by the International Transport Forum at the OECD. MORE

Belarus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, Serbia and Ukraine will experience a net inflow of migrants over the decade, helping to offset population losses caused by an excess of deaths over births. The world’s population is expected to increase by 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from 7.7 billion currently to 9.7 billion in 2050, according to a new United Nations report. MORE