Government and Tories promise green investment

UK Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has announced that Nissan is investing £420 million in building 50,000 electric cars in Sunderland from 2013. The new cars, the LEAF model, will be built in the North East, Japan and the USA. The UK Government will put up a £20 million grant and the European Investment Bank has provided £200 million in loans, safeguarding over 2000 jobs in the region. Nissan has also committed to produce 60,000 lithium batteries for itself and Renault in Sunderland. Conservative party leader David Cameron is set to announce plans for a new Green Investment Bank to finance offshore wind farms and new nuclear reactors if they are elected. In a package of measures that will have far reaching implications for industry and consumers, Cameron is also expected to call for a floor price in carbon to be set to stimulate a demand for cleaner forms of energy.  Loosely based on Germany's KfW Bank, which  invested almost £20 billion in environmental projects in 2009, the Tories see the Bank as a way of bringing together existing funding such as the Carbon Trust and the Marine Renewables Deployment Fund together under one roof have the Bank and act as an intermediary  to help and package green investment opportunities.