NewEnergyNews: 01/01/2007

SATURDAY VIDEOS:

THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT FRIDAY, 7-10:

ACTIVISTS WANT ACTION

WILL THE U.S. DO CAP&TRADE FOR COPENHAGEN? FOR CHRISTMAS?

PLUG IN VEHICLE PROGRESS TRACKER

A FIGHT FOR NEW ENERGY TRANSMISSION

BUILD WIND INTO TRANSMISSION TOWERS

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

CONTROLLING THE TRUTH ON CLIMATE CHANGE

What ELSE might they not be telling? Maybe opinions (see next post down) would be different if the truth were more widely known.

White House Suppresses Evidence of Climate Changes?
Jennifer McMahon, January 31, 2007 (ToTheCenter.com)
- A group of Scientists are now accusing the Bush administration of hiding evidence of climate changes from the public...at least 150 federal climate scientists have personally experienced political interference...

- Rick Piltz, a former climate change official testified that a Whitehouse aid once edited a report on climate change, and even deleted some sections. Piltz, who co-coordinated and edited reports on climate change, said he resigned from his post in 2005 to protest...
- Chairman for Oversight and Government Reform Center Henry Waxman says everyone has a right to their own views about the seriousness of climate change, but not the right to their own science...
- The Whitehouse has come out swinging against the claims, saying the interference allegations are entirely false and insisting it is focused on making progress with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- The testimony comes ahead of the release on Friday of a landmark report on climate change science that will say there is a 90 per cent certainty that human activity is changing the world's climate and temperatures will rise by 3 degrees Celsius by 2100...from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body convened by the United Nations...on research carried out over six years by more than 2,500 scientists...

Scientists Criticize White House Stance on Climate Change Findings
Cornelia Dean, January 31, 2007 (NY Times)
Warming data allegedly manipulated
William Neikirk, January 31, 2007 (Chicago Tribune)
White House climate documents sought
Richard Simon, January 31, 2007 (LA Times)
Panel Hears Climate 'Spin' Allegations
H. Josef Hebert, January 31, 2007 (AP via UK Guardian)

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

NUCLEAR: A POLL SUPPORTS IT, MSNBC PROFILES IT

The nation that invented pet rocks, made Paris Hilton a star and loves reality TV reminds us that everybody has, among other things, an opinion:

Americans favor nuclear energy
Ben Lando, January 26, 2007 (UPI)
- A new UPI/Zogby International interactive poll found most Americans support more nuclear plants to power the country…

- A prominent nuclear opponent, however, says nuclear power is both dangerous and expensive and will detract from renewable energy…
- 61.8 percent either "strongly agree" or "somewhat agree" that new nuclear plants should be built. Another 29.1 percent either "somewhat disagree or strongly disagree" …
- Of those who agreed new plants should be built, 63.1 percent said they would "support" a plant build in their community, 14.4 would "oppose" a plant in their community and 22.5 percent were not sure…
- There are 103 nuclear reactors at 65 nuclear plants feeding about 20 percent of U.S. electricity demand. There has not been a new reactor licensed since 1979 and with U.S. energy demand increasing, nuclear's share will decrease if new plants aren't built. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects about seven new reactor applications in 2007, eight in 2008 and a total of more than 30 in the coming half decade…

- …nuclear power is being looked at while the somewhat turbulent oil and natural gas prices reached record highs recently and the threat of climate change has become more widely accepted…
- As part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the nuclear industry was given federally backed insurance against regulatory process delays and indemnification from nuclear incident liability, tax credits, and federal loans for the first applications to traverse the NRC's new combined construction and license permitting process.
- Nuclear Power 2010 and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership are also two Bush programs designed to spur the U.S. industry…

- 50 percent of those polled gave Bush's energy policy a "poor" rating and 63.1 percent either "somewhat disagree" or "strongly disagree" it "will meet our needs in the coming decades."
- …a 2000 report by the Renewable Energy Policy Project that said nuclear energy received $145.4 billion of the $151 billion in federal subsidies doled out to "electricity-generating technologies (excluding hydropower)" between 1943 and 1999. Wind, solar and other renewable energy sources can't compete…
- The poll found 62.7 percent "somewhat agree" or "strongly agree" nuclear power is safe, though most trust state and local governments (which have little safety oversight) more than the federal government to ensure nuclear plants are safe. The energy industry received the lowest marks.

A masterly profile of what we're dealing with:

Industry on verge of rebound
Mike Stuckey, January 23, 2007 (MSNBC)
- Buoyed by billions of dollars in subsidies pushed through Congress by the Bush administration, the U.S. nuclear power industry says 2007 is the year its plans for a “renaissance” will reach critical mass…

The nuclear renaissance man
Mike Stuckey, January 24, 2007 (MSNBC)
- On a cool morning last August, the senior U.S. senator from New Mexico hefted a shovel of desert earth and…[dedicated] a $1.5 billion uranium enrichment facility in his state's southeast corner…If the renaissance that the U.S. nuclear power industry predicts for itself is indeed occurring, then Pietro “Pete” Vichy Domenici, the son of Italian immigrants, may be seen as both its Michelango and its Machiavelli. And the New Mexico uranium plant is just one piece of deft political artwork the conservative Republican has brought to a nuclear industry that has showered him with praise — and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions…

Reality check for cartel plan
Mike Stuckey, January 24, 2007 (MSNBC)
- …Piketon is one of 11 communities recently awarded a total of $16 million in study grants by the U.S. Department of Energy. The grants are to be used to determine if they would be suitable sites for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, a hotly debated proposal that proponents promise will change the world.
- Unveiled by the Bush administration early last year, GNEP envisions a system in which developing nations would receive nuclear power plants and fuel from the West in return for agreeing not to develop their own nuclear technology. The plan hinges on the controversial element of reprocessing spent nuclear rods to produce fuel that can be burned at GNEP plants, an activity that has never been done commercially in the United States…supporters say not only will it power up the Third World, it will boost the U.S. nuclear industry, greatly reduce nuclear waste and air pollution and avoid the further spread of nuclear weapons.
- Opponents say the program has the same problem as conventional nuclear power: It’s impossibly expensive. But it’s GNEP’s added element of nuclear fuel reprocessing, shelved for more than 30 years as unsafe and unnecessary in the United States, that really inflames critics…
The French connection
Mike Stuckey, January 25, 2007 (MSNBC)

- With help from the allies it funds in Congress and legions of highly paid lobbyists, the U.S. nuclear power industry won billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies for its promised “renaissance.” But the biggest winner of all could be a French firm that most Americans have never heard of.
- That’s because Areva, an atomic energy giant owned by the French government, appears to be better positioned than any of its competitors to benefit from growth in the U.S. nuclear industry and increased federal spending on it…

Does nuclear power now make financial sense?
John W. Schoen, January 26, 2007 (MSNBC)
- …Now, nearly three decades after the last new plant was approved, proponents of nuclear power say the economics of atom-splitting energy have dramatically improved. In fact, they argue, financial forces have become a driving force behind a new enthusiasm for nuclear energy as the power industry scrambles to meet growing demand for electricity with an aging fleet of generating stations.
- But the industry still needs to raise tens of billions of dollars before the proposed round of new plants can be built. That means persuading Wall Street investors to put up the money and state utility regulators to bless the higher rates needed to pay for these multi-billion-dollar projects…

A reminder: GE owns NBC (and MSNBC) and is a major player in the power industry, owning all kinds of energy, including nuclear.

Monday, January 29, 2007

ALL FOR OIL?

It might be a little more complicated than that, but not to the majority of Americans.

Americans say Iraq War over oil
Ben Lando, January 25, 2007 (UPI)
- Most Americans think President Bush invaded Iraq at least partly because of its oil -- a war more than half rate him as "poor" in handling and nearly all say has affected the price of gas at the pump.

- The UPI/Zogby International interactive poll…found 32.7 percent considered Iraq's oil supply a "major factor" and 23.7 percent "not a factor" in the decision to invade the country…40.7 percent were split…2.9 percent were "not sure."
- …Iraq's draft oil law -- still mired in factional fighting -- …is one of Bush's benchmarks for success for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and if the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds agree on it, it is seen as a pathway for easing tensions…
- Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven crude reserves, third most in the world, and analysts say much more is undiscovered. But its industry suffers from decades of misuse and mismanagement, U.N. sanctions and war.
- A federal hydrocarbon law that would lay the groundwork for investment and contracts for further exploration and extraction of Iraqi oil and gas is stuck in a skirmish between the central and regional powers over control and revenue sharing…
- A former U.S. official close to Iraq oil law negotiations told UPI on condition of anonymity "there's a lawyer there that works as part of our (U.S.) efforts ... he's an oil lawyer," adding "does that mean we're going to write that agreement? No."

- "Our policy since the beginning of the war is that it's their oil, it's their decision," said Michael Makovsky, special assistant in the Office of Secretary of Defense on Iraqi energy policy from 2002 to 2006…
- But U.S. eyes have been on Iraq's oil since before the war…Documents obtained in a 2002 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch found Vice President Dick Cheney's secret Energy Task Force included maps and charts of Iraq's oil infrastructure and projects as well as a list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."
- A pre-war oil and energy working group of the U.S. State Department's Future of Iraq project also focused on Iraq's oil sector.
- The U.S. Agency for International Development in 2004 announced an Iraq contract with McLean, Va.-based consultant BearingPoint for "broad economic reform," BearingPoint spokesman Steve Lunceford told UPI Oct. 18…it included "privatization of the oil industry."

- …Current Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani met with international oil company officials last July at the U.S. Energy Department to talk about Iraq's oil sector.
And this month, despite federal oil law negotiations still ongoing, Bush commented numerous times on what should be done with the oil revenue…
- "The Bush administration has consistently placed enormous pressure on the al-Maliki government to pass an oil law that would open Iraq from a nationalized oil system to one that would transform to allow private foreign investment and the only thing being debated at this point is the extent private companies would have access to the Iraqi oil market," said Antonia Juhasz, visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and author of "The Bush Agenda."
- …When asked to rate Bush's handling of the war, 55.3 percent in the UPI/Zogby poll said "poor" and only 7.3 percent said the war had "no impact" on U.S. gas prices.

GREENPEACE SPEAKS

Greenpeace sees hope still.

Renewables and Climate Change
Stefan Nicola, January 26, 2007 (UPI)
- A new Greenpeace study on climate change calls for an immediate global push of renewable energy sources to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change.

- The report "energy (r)evolution," compiled by Greenpeace, top scientists from around the world, and the European Renewable Energy Council, an industry group…urges the world's governments to act fast if the average temperature increase compared to the Earth's 1990 value is to be kept below 3.6 degrees, the cap above which "catastrophic" effects of global warming would devastate the globe…
- Together with energy-efficiency measures, renewable energy sources are able to account for half of the world's total energy needs, the report says. That would also result in a bisection of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions…
- The current global warming stands at roughly 1.4 degrees, but observers say the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC] report will publish more dramatic numbers…

- The report presents an alternative outlook than the business-as-usual scenario from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which expects a doubling of global energy demand by 2050. Eighty percent of that demand would be met by fossil fuels, meaning that the amount of CO2 would also double -- the 3.6 degree-limit could not be reached…
- [The Greenpeace “road map”] said…energy efficiency measures needed to be pushed…Better insulation standards for houses could save…industry could cut consumption by 11 percent by using more efficient machinery. Another 5 percent could be saved by changing old lights to more efficient bulbs…
- That way, the energy (r)evolution scenario would reduce primary energy demand…50 percent of that reduced primary energy demand in 2050 can be met with renewable energy sources, mainly by pushing biomass, but also solar, wind and hydro energy. Natural gas would become the dominant fossil fuel source, as it produces significantly less CO2 emissions than coal, an energy source to be phased out.
- Because of problems with end storage…nuclear energy, while producing no greenhouse gas emissions, is also to be phased out.
- Oil is to be used only in the transportation sector…

- Experts agreed that to make the scenario come true, concrete political measures had to be taken…governments had to formulate "binding worldwide targets for the share of renewable energy sources," in a country's energy mix…Nuclear and fossil fuel energy subsidies, which the United Nations estimates at over $320 billion, are to be abolished or at least significantly reduced…greenhouse gas emitters…would have to pay a tax based on the level of emissions…The study expects a ton of CO2 in 2050 to cost $50, as opposed to the current $4.50. Oil, now at roughly $55, in 2050 will cost $100…
- Based on these numbers, the energy (r)evolution model is even cheaper than the business-as-usual scenario by the IEA [quadrupling costs…the Greenpeace scenario would only triple costs…

Sunday, January 28, 2007

PRESIDENT CALLS FOR BIOFUELS…

Analysis: Backing for biofuels high
Krishnadev Calamur, January 23, 2007 (UPI)
- President Bush on Tuesday called for a 20 percent cut in U.S. gasoline consumption, a plan that would see a spike in the increase of alternative fuels…
- Biofuels such as ethanol are expected to make up the gap, along with fuel-economy standards for cars…

- The call comes a year after Bush's last State of the Union speech where he famously said "America is addicted to oil" and called for new fuels such as ethanol to make the nation more energy independent. Since then, much of the American public, aided by rising gas prices, has come around to Bush's thinking…
- [A new UPI/Zogby International interactive poll conducted Jan. 16-18]…showed that 61.1 percent of those surveyed said renewables would replace less than 25 percent of fossil fuel use; 21.9 percent said it would replace 26 percent to 50 percent…the poll found that the majority of those Americans surveyed thought biofuels would most likely replace fossil fuels in the future…

- …the poll showed that nearly half the U.S. public (49.9 percent) thought Bush was doing a "poor" job handling energy issues; 9.4 percent said his performance on energy issues had been "excellent" and 23.6 percent said it was "good."
- [Mark Emalfarb, chief executive officer of Dyadic International, Inc., a Jupiter, Fla., company that has developed high-efficiency enzymes that have lowered the cost of converting biomass into fermentable sugar and, consequently, cellulosic ethanol] said the focus would have to be on biomass rather than corn because increased demand for corn -- both as food and ethanol feedstock -- has driven corn futures to double over the past year…
- Still, ethanol from biomass is not yet commercially feasible and will likely require government incentives…
- Richard Hamilton, president and CEO of Ceres, Inc., a Thousand Oaks, Calif., company that develops first-generation energy crops that will be planted as feedstock for ethanol production, says he believes the 60 billion gallons is a realistic goal if ethanol is produced from cellulosic sources instead of corn…

- [In] Brazil…the military government in the 1970s introduced ethanol from sugarcane as a fuel and subsidized it…for the next nearly three decades…until it became cost-efficient…
- The UPI/Zogby poll found that more than half (55.3 percent) favored increased government action in research and development of alternate energy sources; 3.2 percent said they backed publicly funded campaigns to raise awareness of alternate energy while 11.7 percent said they supported tax breaks for small businesses that use alternate energy…

…EXPERTS RESPOND

E3 Biofuels: Responsible Ethanol
Robert Rapier, June 26, 2006 (R-Squared Energy Blog)
- If we could make sufficient ethanol with little or no fossil fuel inputs, ethanol could be a very important piece of a post-petroleum future. If ethanol could be produced with an
EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) of 3 or 4, as opposed to the current 1.0-1.3 or so, then ethanol begins to look attractive from a sustainability standpoint.

- My opposition to ethanol is due to the way we typically make it in the U.S., and is specifically focused on grain ethanol. We take fossil fuels and basically recycle them into ethanol in a very inefficient manner…
- Cellulosic ethanol may ultimately provide ethanol at a substantially better energy return…
- There are even some places in the U.S. where ethanol could provide a (mildly) sustainable solution even as it is produced today…
- E3 Biofuels...concept is this: Grow corn, produce ethanol, feed the byproducts to cattle, harvest the manure, produce methane from the manure in a biodigester, use the methane to fuel the boilers, and use the remaining solids to fertilize the soil. This is ethanol production in more of a Brazilian mold (i.e., byproducts

are used to fuel the process)…supplemental natural gas will be needed, but due to the manure-produced biogas, the amount is estimated to be substantially less than for a typical grain ethanol plant…fossil fuel usage is estimated to be 75% less than that of a standard grain ethanol plant…If the process works as advertised, the EROEI could reach 4 or 5 to 1, or even higher for the same process in Iowa where corn irrigation is not required…if ethanol is going to be part of the solution to diminishing oil supplies, E3 Biofuels is the first in the U.S. to show the way toward making ethanol in a more sustainable manner…As a long-time ethanol skeptic, the approach by E3 Biofuels is the first U.S. grain-ethanol process that I endorse.

Editorial: Thoughts on the performance and potential of ethanol
- Is ethanol better than dino-juice? I would say yes. Even in it's corn-derived stage here in the U.S., it burns off less carbon than gasoline…it would be better in a cellulosic-derived form, but let's work with what we have here…

- The ethanol Americans can buy comes from here in the U.S., and is generally made by workers here too. Is that necessarily a bad thing? It helps our economy in its present form. I will not delve into how it impacts the land it is grown on, or in the price of corn. We all know that. But, I would still give it preference over gasoline imported from somewhere else…In a nutshell, it is better than petroleum, right here and right now; it could be even better and hopefully will get there.
Now... performance comes into play… I am writing articles on two turbocharged Dodge Vipers…they run on ethanol…Over 1000 horsepower! … not a bad thing.
- Lastly, I will go on record here and say that I think the future of transportation should be electric. I would rather see money being spent on batteries and capacitors than on hydrogen and ethanol. Here is why: We can go electric now. Most of us could get by with a vehicle that can go, say, 100 miles a day on electricity without using gas…Perhaps the future is hydrogen. Nobody knows for sure yet…I am not writing off any new technology right now. But, let's start fixing the problem now with electricity and ethanol\biodiesel hybrids, then go to the next tech if and when we are ready…

HOW ABOUT HOMEMADE HYDROGEN?

Link submitted by the fine engineer, author and energy reporter Forbes Bagatelle-Black.

The Solar-powered Home Hydrogen Fueling Station
Green Wombat, January 25, 2007 (Green Wombat.com)

- …[Dr. Sukhvinder Badwal, a fuel-cell scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO] leads a team that is developing a solar-powered home hydrogen fueling station that can be installed in a corner of your garage.
- It’s about the size of a filing cabinet and runs on electricity generated by standard-issue rooftop solar panels. The first version of the home fueling station is expected to produce enough hydrogen to give your runabout a range of nearly 100 miles (150 kilometers) without producing a molecule of greenhouse gas…

- The solar-fired fuel-station-in-a-box overcomes two big obstacles to the much-hyped hydrogen economy. One is the multibillion-dollar expense of building national networks of pipelines and fuel stations to replace the corner Chevron (CVX). The other is the fact that today most hydrogen is produced by burning fossil fuel to create hydrogen gas—not exactly a clean and green process. The home hydrogen fuel station solves those problems in one package that Badwal hopes will ultimately sell for about $500. Commercial trials are expected to begin in two years…

- Honda (HMC) also has been working a solar-powered hydrogen fuel station… designed to provide heat and electricity for the house as well as fuel for cars…still being refined and the company has not yet announced a time table…
- For Badwal, using renewable energy - solar panels or a small wind turbine - is key…the real impact of the home fueling technology could be in China and India, where efforts to combat global warming could be doomed by the explosion in the car-buying middle classes…He sees the potential for CSIRO's hydrogen technology to be distributed to villages in the developing world, eliminating the need for big, expensive and dirty coal-fired plants…

Saturday, January 27, 2007

PRESIDENT CALLS FOR CONSERVATION

Maybe he really HAS stopped listening to Dick Cheney!

Government should cut energy use as example: Bush
Matt Spetalnick, January 24, 2007 (Reuters via Yahoo News)

- President George W. Bush urged the federal government on Wednesday to take the lead in reducing energy consumption and using alternative fuels, as he pushed his State of the Union call for U.S. energy independence from foreign oil…
- Bush set a goal of reducing U.S. gasoline use by 20 percent over a decade, mostly through a large increase in the use of home-grown fuels such as ethanol…
- "We're going to reduce the gas consumption in the federal fleet by 20 percent over 10 years. We're going to be joining with America, we set the goal," Bush said.
- He toured an experimental greenhouse for the production of cellulosic ethanol, a fuel made from grasses, wood chips and other nonfood agriculture products…
- Environmentalists said Bush's call for reducing gasoline consumption was a positive step but not enough…

- Dupont is among 10 major U.S. corporations that have joined with environmental groups to urge the president and Congress to pass laws curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases.
- Bush said new technologies should be the focus…Bush advocated nuclear power as a source of cleaner energy…Bush also called for overhauling the Corporate Average Fuel Economy system to allow for cars with greater fuel efficiency.

Here’s an “overhaul”: the November, 2006, election. Here’s a “new technology”: the November, 2008, election.

TERMINATING EMISSIONS

Schwarzenneger signs Calif. carbon emissions cut
January 18, 2007 (Reuters via Yahoo News)
- California Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger signed an executive order on Thursday to reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels, a move intended to widen the development and use of alternative vehicle fuels in the nation's biggest state. The order, the first of its kind in the United States, sets a standard to cut carbon levels in vehicle fuels by at least 10 percent by 2020…

- Schwarzenegger said new alternative fuels such as ethanol blends, compressed natural gas and hydrogen will help to stabilize prices at the pump and ease dependence on foreign oil.
- The Republican governor was surrounded by some new alternative-fueled taxicabs, SUVs and other vehicles, state lawmakers, and representatives from environmental groups, fleet vehicle owners, and alternative fuel producers…
- Rick Zalesky, Chevron's vice president for biofuels, said Chevron "pledges its full commitment and support" to help California meet the program goals.

- The company has alternative fuel programs under way, including three fueling stations for hydrogen-powered cars and research and development projects with the University of California…
- California's Air Resources Board will put the new fuel regulations into effect no later than December 2008…working with the state's Environmental Protection Agency and the California Energy Commission to work out the details…

WORLD’S FIRST CARBON-NEUTRAL RETAIL PRODUCT

TerraPass to offer ‘carbon neutral’ pressure washer
Sarah Jane Tribble, January 22, 2007 (San Jose Mercury News)
- …TerraPass announced today that a pressure washer offering consumers a way to become more ``carbon neutral'' will be sold at Sam's Clubs nationwide by the end of this month…

- The pressure washers, built by Karcher USA, are the first retail products in the U.S. to be marketed as carbon neutral, according to TerraPass.
- A ``very small'' amount of each pressure washer's $499 price-tag will go to TerraPass to fund projects such as wind farms…The money also will offset the 285 lbs. of greenhouse gas pollution produced by the washer over two years…
- Opponents of the movement argue that such carbon neutral programs just make it easier for some consumers to pay off the guilt of using power hungry products, instead of becoming more energy efficient.

- The pressure washer will feature special packaging to highlight its environmental benefits to customers, and comes with a booklet recommending 10 energy-saving home projects…if the pressure washer sells well during a 12-month test period, Sam's Club will extend the program to other products, particularly those that use gasoline.
- As concern grows about the effects of global warming, companies like PG&E, Ford and Expedia have started offering their customers ways to pay down on the amount of carbon produced from their home energy use, daily commute or airline travel.
- Web sites such as nativeenergy.com, climatetrust.org and terrapass.com are growing in popularity as a way for consumers to calculate their daily carbon output and pay to offset it.

CARBON OFFSETTING TO BE REGULATED

UK to tackle bogus carbon schemes
18 January 2007 (BBC News)
- The UK government is to set standards for carbon offsetting schemes to bring "greater clarity" to the industry.

- The move comes as…carbon offsetting schemes have been attacked for a lack of transparency and inconsistent prices.
- Environment Secretary David Miliband said the voluntary standards would help consumers pick "genuine" projects…
- There are a number of ways that consumers can offset their carbon emissions…paying for trees to be planted…buying energy-efficient light bulbs for…developing nations.
- The worry for the government has been that the benefits of many of the projects have proved difficult to verify and may be open to abuse.
- The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has named just four offset providers that meet its new guidelines - Pure, Global Cool, Equiclimate and Carbon Offsets...

- The new standards will be based only on projects that can be certified, including flexible schemes agreed under the Kyoto Protocol…
- …a hitherto confusing industry is being examined and made more clear…UK charity Pure, for example, does not run any projects itself, but invests donor money into certified credits.
- The code of practice proposes that offset providers supply consumers with clear information and transparent prices…
- Environment Secretary David Miliband said offsetting "isn't the answer to climate change…The first step should always be to see how we can avoid and reduce emissions…”

Friday, January 26, 2007

DAVOS GURU: TAX AND TRADE CARBON

TAX IT:

Stern favours world carbon tax
Edmund Conway, January 25, 2007 (UK Telegraph)
- Sir Nicholas Stern has spoken out in favour of a global carbon tax, warning that global warming represents "the biggest market failure the world has ever seen".

- The former World Bank chief economist and author of the Government-commissioned report on the economic effects of climate change, said environmental taxes should play an essential role in combating global warming.
- In a debate at the World Economic Forum, Sir Nicholas…argued that environmental taxes – such as those on transport and energy – should not be discounted in favour of worldwide carbon markets…
- Climate change has already become the most hotly-debated subject at the meetings in Davos this year, and the debate in which Sir Nicholas took part was one of the most eagerly awaited…

- Sir Nicholas said that ruling out green taxes was "a risk we cannot take…Unless we act quickly and effectively, we will not bring down carbon emissions…we must cut our emissions from current levels by around 40pc…The market hasn't worked because we haven't fixed it…Equity demands that the rich countries, who are largely responsible for this problem, do more about it…”
- Sir Nicholas said he was not proposing a treaty in which countries around the world agree on a particular tax plan but said by discussing the issue, countries could align their fiscal policies.
- However, he said it was essential to have a market structure which could determine the price of carbon.
- The debate's panellists also included Vinod Khosla, founding chief executive of Sun Microsystems, who argued against the proposition that nuclear and clean coal technologies were the only long-term rivals to oil…Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, chair of the UK Atomic Energy Agency…said it would be foolish to rule nuclear power out, adding that it had a key role to play in green power generation in the coming years.

TRADE IT:

Climate change expert seeks expansion of carbon trading
James Kanter and Alan Cowell, January 25, 2007 (International Herald Tribune)
- The foremost European expert on climate change, Nicholas Stern, called Thursday for a huge expansion of carbon trading with China and India, and described 2007 as a "year of opportunity" to step up efforts to tackle global warming.
- Stern, who is the chief economist for the British government and an author of an influential report on climate change, said during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the program [by which businesses in wealthier countries in Europe and Japan pay to reduce pollution in poorer ones as a way of staying within government limits for emitting climate-changing gases like carbon dioxide] must "be capable of operating on a much bigger scale than it does at the moment." Stern said he saw "a wonderful market opportunity" and that trade under the program could be raised to $30 billion a year from the current level of about $1 billion.

- Critics of the program complain that the reductions are hard to verify and that it mostly enriches a few bankers, consultants and factory owners.
- Stern gained international stature last year when Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain presented his report on climate change, the Stern Review, which said that tackling global warming now would be far less costly than taking action later…
- Kevin Smith of Carbon Trade Watch, a not-for-profit research group with a branch in London, said factories in China can sell large amounts of credits by installing equipment often required anyway…
- Yuriko Koike, a delegate at Davos who is a special adviser to the Japanese prime minister and a former minister of the environment…supported Stern's call for an expansion of the program as it created "a win-win situation" benefiting businesses in Japan and China, and helped combat global warming.
- Stern acknowledged that the design of the current verification procedure, which is overseen by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, had flaws.

- But he said that the program remained the most potent tool to bring down emissions in countries like China, which is poised to overtake the United States as the world's leading polluter by 2009…
- Stern also said the program was the fairest way for the rich world, which is responsible for 75 percent of the existing level of greenhouse gases, to help finance the majority of emissions reductions…
- Although questions remained about whether existing institutions could do the job of overseeing such a vast expansion of carbon trading, Stern suggested that the World Bank and three United Nations bodies, including the climate change monitor, could take on the expanded verifications role…
- "I think you see change across America," said Stern, praising ambitious targets set by California to lower emissions, the fledgling carbon-trading programs among a group of states in the northeast of the country, and the pledge this week by President George W. Bush on energy efficiency…

INVESTING IN CHINA: NEW ENERGY CAN BE BIG MONEY

A Light Bulb Goes on, and China Starts Thinking ‘Alternative Energy’
Matt Richtel, January 19, 2007 (NY Times)
- …Seed investors are financing, or considering financing, start-ups in China that are developing equipment for wind and solar power, clean water and food alternatives and technology to promote energy efficiency…there is a growing number of investors who believe that the potential reward in China is worth the tremendous risk.

- China has voracious energy needs and “the most serious environmental problem in the world,” said Jerry Li, a consultant in Beijing who matches venture capitalists with entrepreneurs. “There is a huge demand for investment” in alternative solutions, he said.
Mr. Li is the first director of Cleantech China, a joint venture beginning this month between Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Cleantech Venture Network, a blossoming North American trade and research group for venture capitalists investing in alternative energy technology…
- From June 2005 to June 2006, American venture capitalists put $100 million into China-based start-ups focused on alternative energy, double the investment in the period a year earlier…

- But the challenges are immense…China has a hard-driving, fossil-fuel-centered economy that has so far done little to diminish its reliance on those fuels.
- And venture capitalists have still not entirely figured out how to manage investments from such a distance, and across cultures, and, pointedly, how to get their money out once they’ve built the start-ups into viable companies…
- Mr. Li said that within six months, he expected to have a database of some 300 Chinese start-ups seeking investment partners…
- Mr. Li said the big challenge facing American venture capitalists is not so much finding viable technology as it is finding capable managers…

NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENTS

They don’t get much bigger than Duke Energy so when Duke goes Nuclear, something’s probably coming.

Duke CEO joins Nuclear Energy Institute board
January 11, 2007 (Charlotte Business Journal via Yahoo News)
- The Nuclear Energy Institute has added Duke Energy Corp. Chief Executive Jim Rogers to its executive committee and board of directors…

- All U.S. nuclear power plant licensees and selected representatives of other companies involved in nuclear technologies are members of the NEI board…
- The NEI, based in Washington, D.C., establishes policies that promote the beneficial uses of nuclear energy and technologies, and the executive committee sets broad policy for the industry.

Rogers was among the CEOs urging Congress to enact Carpon-Cap-and-Trade legislation. Because his company is going big on nuclear? And, as the Germans are being told, you’ve got to go big on nuclear to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Berlin warned on phasing out nuclear energy
Bertrand Benoit, January 22, 2007 (Financial Times via Yahoo News)

- Germany will miss its CO2 emission targets, face rising electricity prices and become "dramatically" more reliant on Russian gas if it keeps to its policy of phasing out nuclear energy…
- [A] 60-page paper by Deutsche Bankwill add to the pressure on Angela Merkel, chancellor, to renegotiate the phase-out deal agreed by the previous government in 2000, despite her pledge not to reopen the controversial debate.
- Rising concern about global warming and energy security have sparked a lively dispute…

- Without nuclear energy, the bank says, the chancellor faces a painful choice between the three goals she has set herself - to reduce emissions, cut reliance on Russian fossil fuel and keep energy prices in check…
- A spokesman for the environment ministry said Germany's goal of cutting CO2 emissions by 40 per cent of their 1990 level by 2020 "can be achieved without nuclear energy. But of course, nobody ever said it would be easy."
- …With nuclear covering 25 per cent of Germany's electricity needs - and taking into account rising electricity demand and the need to replace old fossil-fuel plants - DB calculates 42,000MW of new plants will be needed by 2022.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

BIG BUSINESS WANTS CARBON CAP-AND-TRADE

Top US firms to urge Congress to fight global warming
January 22, 2007 (AFP via Yahoo News)
- Some of corporate America's biggest names, including Alcoa, General Electric and DuPont, will urge the US Congress next week to act swiftly to help offset global warming…The United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), of which the three corporations are key members, said its members would issue a call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the findings of a year-long report…

- The USCAP report will be issued a day before US President George W. Bush delivers his annual State of the Union speech…
- The US president has said he does not support mandatory government emission caps on US industry and his administration withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol…
- The group said the cornerstone of its approach would be to recommend "a cap-and-trade program" to trim greenhouse gases "to a level that minimizes large-scale adverse impacts to humans and the natural environment."
- USCAP also groups BP America, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, FPL Group, Lehman Brothers, energy group PG and E, PNM Resources and the non-governmental Environmental Defense group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the World Resources Institute.

- Large US corporations have begun showing heightened concerns about global warming in recent years, especially since Hurricane Katrina…
- US insurers State Farm and Allstate are not seeking new home insurance business along wide stretches of the US East Coast amid fears of bigger hurricanes…the chairman of the London-based Lloyd's insurance market, Peter Levene, urged governments and businesses to not delay acting on the threat of global warming.
- Levene said Lloyd's is planning for fresh disasters, but questioned whether US lawmakers were seriously heeding the dangers posed by climate change.

JUST PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC?

Energy Rhetoric, and Reality
Editorial, January 25, 2007 (NY Times)
- For six years, off and on, President Bush has been talking about the need for alternative fuels and conservation to make the country less beholden to unreliable sources of foreign oil. Yet all he has to show for it is a growing dependence on foreign oil, a growing climate problem and an increasingly cynical public…

- Mr. Bush was true to form on one subject. The White House had promised nothing on global warming, and he delivered nothing. He mentioned “global climate change” but showed no sense of urgency on the issue…
- …he did suggest that his proposals for alternative fuels and more efficient automobiles could also help reduce greenhouse gases. But these gains would be marginal…

- Mr. Bush…offered no specifics on where these 35 billion gallons in alternative fuels are going to come from. Corn ethanol, a favorite of farm state politicians, cannot be expected to provide more than 15 billion gallons without driving up food prices. Cellulosic ethanol, made from grasses and woody material, shows great promise. But there is no commercial refinery in operation today, and there is not expected to be one for several years. Hydrogen, a longtime Bush favorite, is even further down the road…refining and then burning a gallon of gasoline derived from coal would send nearly twice as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a conventional gallon of gasoline…Trying to sequester the carbon dioxide underground during the refining process would be hugely expensive…
- Despite growing interest among venture capitalists in environmentally friendly technologies, it seems unrealistic to depend on the private sector alone. Washington must help. But federal research and development spending on energy has been in free fall for more than 20 years…
- Once again, we fear that very little will change…

WIND GETS ENDORSED

Audubon Society supports wind energy
(December 21, 2006 (UPI)
- The president of the National Audubon Society has said he backed wind power.
- Previously, members of the bird-loving organization were skeptical of the massive turbines used in wind power that frequently caught birds in their blades…"Modern wind turbines are much safer for birds than their predecessors, but if they are located in the wrong places, they can still be hazardous and can fragment critical habitat," said John Flicker, president of the NAS…

- the advocacy also stems from the misconception that just because you can't see the carcasses around coal-fired plants, doesn't mean its impossible that more birds aren't being killed there…
- Birds are much more likely to be killed by buildings, vehicles, cats or pesticides than turbines. The latest concern for birds among scientists is global warming, reported Carl Levesque of the [American Wind Energy Association]…
- The AWEA has worked with avian and other environmental groups in the past to try and build support for wind energy, including the forming an initiative called Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative.

ANALYSIS:

Is wind power for the birds?
Kristyn Ecochard, December 22, 2006 (UPI)
- Despite a recent endorsement from the National Audubon Society and improvements in bird-friendly technology, there is still some opposition to wind power…
- Research showing prospective effects of climate change on bird populations demonstrated a need for prevention, one approach being renewable energy. The NAS has acknowledged the possible advantages of wind, while still encouraging extensive preconstruction research…National Wind Watch and the Humane Society remain skeptical.
- The Audubon statement came as a shock to some bird lovers since wind turbines kill between 2,300 and 6,600 birds every year…opponents say that bird and bat deaths, as well as noise pollution, environmental damage and poor aesthetics are not worth the potential benefits. Some even question the effectiveness of wind turbines…
- Urgency from the scientific community, however, has caused growth in the wind industry…aside from Altamont Pass, bird impact has been relatively low…
- Precautions can still be taken to protect wildlife. Vertical axis turbines, which are close to commercialization, are a promising as a safer technology. Terra Moya Aqua Inc. has a model that has not been known to kill any birds or bats and is also quieter…

- Wind farms that have red flashing lights on the turbine blades or sites that were studied previous to construction had lower [bat] fatality rates…
- The Fish and Wildlife Service recommends a three-year preconstruction study to understand implications for animals…the ongoing Ohio Wind Project has been studying the placement, as well as the speed and size, of turbines…Another site credential is that it's not on a migratory path…

SOLAR GETS ACTIVE

Make 'em listen!

Solar World: Solar Gets Political
Leah Krauss, January 18, 2007 (UPI)

- Energy industry lobbyists and political action committees, long familiar fixtures in the halls of the Capitol, will be joined in the 110th Congress by a new kid on the block…
- Solar's first [Political Action Committee] registered with the Federal Election Commission in the spring of 2006 and made its first campaign contributions in the most recent election cycle…
- The PAC made $10,500 in contributions to the campaigns of 19 House and Senate members, including 10 Democrats and nine Republicans…and raised a total of $21,000 by the end of 2006…
- The solar PAC has an advisory committee that represents companies with different kinds of solar energy technology…the solar PAC advisors will spend time planning their moves for each election cycle.
- The creation of the PAC "serves as notice that the (solar energy) industry is maturing as a political constituency and as a power player in Washington," [it’s spokesman] said…

- Energy industry political pressure can be strong: Oil industry lobbying and contributions were instrumental in scoring a filibuster-proof amendment to the 2006 Senate budget resolution to allow for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge…The watchdog group said that a collective called the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, a coalition of more than 1,200 energy producers, transporters and consumers, helped land the Alaskan drilling permit by posting "a Web site…
- [Solar Energy Industry Association]'s goal of extending solar tax credits -- both in scope and in time limit -- certainly seems within reach if the solar industry can pull together a lobby like Big Oil's…

- oil companies dwarf the solar industry when it comes to donation clout. However, most publicly traded solar energy companies recorded strong gains in 2005 and 2006…
- Investment banking giant Merrill Lynch also recently announced that it would cover solar stocks -- another indicator the industry is becoming more powerful…
- "The solar PAC will contend with more novel regulatory, technical and financial issues than other energy industry PACs," [an energy industry attorney recently predicted]…

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

ELECTRIC!

From our great friend Forbes Bagatelle-Black, to whom we send hardiest congrats on the new heir!

Next Glimpse Inside the eBox; AC Propulsion’s Scion xB electric car conversion keeps getting better
Forbes Bagatelle-Black, January 13, 2007 (EV World)

- When Tom Gage, president of AC Propulsion (ACP), showed me an eBox in August, 2006, it looked good. The eBox is an electric vehicle conversion done by ACP. It uses a Scion xB as the base vehicle and replaces the internal combustion engine with an electric drivetrain similar to the one ACP developed for their ground-up vehicle, the tZero.
The first eBox Gage showed me demonstrated that ACP is serious…
- ACP brought a newer eBox to the [Alternative Car Expo in Santa Monica, California]…It looked like a vehicle that could have been sitting on a showroom floor…
- The interior seemed flawless. All switches and gauges were sleek and smooth. The carpet installation was professional.
- The engine compartment was “clean enough to eat off,” with a beautifully-finished controller dominating the view under the hood. All the electronic and mechanical components looked as though they had been assembled on an automotive production line…if looks are any indication, this vehicle is absolutely ready for marketing…

- Gage…told me that the most significant design change on the new vehicle involved moving the battery pack down and back. Doing so brought the weight distribution closer to the ideal 50% on the front wheels/50% on the rear wheels value. It also lowered the vehicle’s center of gravity to further improve handling.
- The new eBox came equipped with a custom-made gear box which results in 10% better acceleration versus previous models. The top speed is still plenty fast..electronically limited to 100mph at a motor speed of 13,000 RPM…
- “A lot of people are concerned about the price,” Gage explained, “It’s a $55,000 conversion and you’ve got to bring your own car, which is another $15,000, so it’s a $70,000 car. But I think most people who drive it and can afford it agree that it is worth it, not only for the environmental efficiency and energy benefits, but just for the sheer driving pleasure.”
- …a few companies have recently introduced plans for two-seat electric sports car in the $70,000-$100,000+ price range, but the eBox offers similar perfomance on a platform that can carry five adults. And the eBox is currently taking orders for delivery in 2007…. The eBox [could haul my whole family of four] without any struggle…that it can blow away a Mustang GT is only icing on the cake.

FUTURE ELECTRIC OR DETROIT BOONDOGGLE?

As Plugs and Cars and AutoblogGreen report regularly, the plug-in hybrid is coming, but is DOE really going to get behind it?

Energy Grants Back Plug-in Cars, Ethanol
Sholnn Freeman, January 24, 2007 (The Washington Post)

- The Department of Energy announced yesterday $17 million in grants to support the development of battery technology for plug-in hybrid vehicles and ethanol, two areas in the energy debate where officials in Washington and Detroit are closely aligned.
- The money will be offered as two grants, one for $14 million for the plug-in technology and the other for $3 million for ethanol. The money for battery development is intended to improve the technology's performance. The $3 million in ethanol grants will support engineering advances to improve how flex-fuel engines use the E85 blend…
- Detroit automakers have asked the Bush administration for hundreds of millions of dollars to help develop hybrid cars. They say they need government support to complete research and development into lithium-ion battery technology, a crucial component in bringing the cars to the market. Detroit auto executives, who have pledged to build millions of ethanol-capable vehicles, have also pressed the government to encourage a significant expansion of ethanol fueling stations.
- President Bush announced mandatory increases in the supply of renewable fuels in his State of the Union address last night.

- Foreign automakers are stepping up complaints that U.S. government policy is unfairly backing ethanol and plug-ins at the expense of diesels and traditional gas-electric hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius…
- Dieter Zetsche, chairman of DaimlerChrysler, said vehicles powered by diesel engines get 20 to 30 percent better fuel economy than gasoline-powered cars and cut by 20 percent emissions of carbon dioxide…
- [Alexander Karsner, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy] said in his remarks that major automakers will have to push much harder into new technology to reduce dependence on foreign sources of fuel…He said that advanced technology should be sold to mainstream consumers, not as luxury vehicles or niches in the marketplace. "We need millions of cars on the road," he said.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

NOMINEES

List of Nominees
January 23, 2007 (NY Times)
- Here is a complete list of the 79th Annual Academy Award nominations announced this morning at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Calif…

- BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
“Deliver Us From Evil,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Iraq in Fragments,” “Jesus Camp,” “My Country, My Country.”

And the winner is...

Al Gore “Thrilled” by Oscar Nominations
Beth Fouhy, January 23, 2007 (AP via Breitbart.com)

- Who says politics is show business for ugly people? "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's film on the perils of global warming, scored two Oscar nominations…for best documentary feature and best original song.
- …the film's director, David Guggenheim, won the nod, as did singer Melissa Etheridge for the song "I Need to Wake Up"…
- "The film ... has brought awareness of the climate crisis to people in the United States and all over the world," Gore said in an e-mail statement. "I am so grateful to the entire team and pleased that the Academy has recognized their work. This film proves that movies really can make a difference."

- Aides say the former vice president plans to walk the red carpet with Hollywood's beautiful people at the Academy Awards ceremony…
- "An Inconvenient Truth" has been a critical and box office success, bringing in more than $24 million to make it the third highest- grossing documentary in history. A companion book has been on national best-seller lists for months…
- Gore…said he's not planning to run for president again but also has not ruled it out.

Aybody chanting "Draft Gore" yet?

Monday, January 22, 2007

TROUBLE IN THE CARBON TRADING GAME

Concern as carbon traders scoop billions
Fiona Harvey, January 17, 2007 (Financial Times of London via Yahoo News)

- Companies offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits on the international carbon markets have been warned to verify that their investments are going towards genuine projects to reduce emissions.
- An increasing number of companies…are choosing to become "carbon neutral", meaning they have no negative impact on the climate…by reducing a company's emissions through energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy, and then "offsetting" the remainder.
- Offsetting requires the company to measure its remaining emissions and invest in emissions reduction projects outside the company that cut an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. These projects range from tree-planting to building wind farms in developing countries.

- Companies can do this through third party offsetting specialists. However, environmental activists and the British government said companies must do more to ensure their offsetting partners were investing in projects that were yielding real improvements in emissions
- Concerns are mounting that factories in China and carbon traders are exploiting a loophole in international climate change regulations…to make billion-dollar profits from the greenhouse gas emissions trading markets.
- Chemical plants are reducing the amount of HFC gases that they release…and receiving "carbon credits" in return. A credit can fetch $5 to $15 on the international carbon market.

- The equipment to reduce HFC gases is relatively cheap to install, at $10m to $30m for a typical factory…Installation can then generate carbon credits…sold for billions…
- Friends of the Earth, the environmental pressure group… highlighted other potential problems such as a "lack of verification" from some offsetting schemes, and the danger that projects were being imposed on developing country communities with no consultation…"Tree-planting schemes are particularly problematic and should be ruled out of any offset scheme."

- …The international trade in greenhouse gas emissions is divided into…the regulatory market and the voluntary market. The regulatory market is the trade in emissions set up under the Kyoto protocol on climate change, and under the European Union’s emissions trading scheme…is the only mandatory emissions trading scheme in the world...is overseen by the United Nations, which uses a complex methodology to ensure that emissions reductions genuinely occur…But this process is slow and bureaucratic, and produces a limited number of "certified emissions reductions".
- …the voluntary market is largely unregulated but companies can find it much easier to purchase emissions reductions. However, there are some standards which companies can insist on, such as a Voluntary Carbon Standard produced by the International Emissions Trading Association and the Climate Group.

ALL IN THE ENERGY TRADING GAME

A Fast New Financial Game Called Energy
January 19, 2007 (Business Week via Yahoo News)
- Energy consultant Peter C. Fusaro, chairman of New York-based Global Change Associates Inc. and co-founder of the Energy Hedge Fund Center, was among the first to notice the growing role of hedge funds and other financial players in the energy sector two years ago…

- Traders are attracted by volatility. In the 1990s we had pretty flat markets. We didn't have a lot of trading volume. Now we're seeing bigger price moves, $2 a day. We never saw that before…
- The trigger was availability of talent. Enron went down in 2001. Utilities started exiting energy trading. You had this meltdown of natural gas and power trading. Some of these folks started their own hedge funds, and some were hired by hedge funds….
- We had higher energy prices beginning in 2004. People wanted to come into energy because it was headline news.
- Banks are really the biggest player in this market. They have the capital base, the global positioning, the traders. They have the relationships, they're in project financing…
- This is a financialization of the energy markets, and it's immature. We size it at $3 trillion, compared to, say, $26 trillion in interest rate swaps. Energy is the world's largest business, at $4 trillion. It should trade at 6 to 20 times the physical market. The growth potential is enormous…

- Energy is a risky business. You've got headline risk, weather risk, geopolitical risk--it just goes on…There's no risk to the financial market ...but (hedge fund investing) is too risky for small investors. This is big money that should know the risks and afford to lose it. Energy trading is a zero-sum game…
- London's Intercontinental Exchange…launched West Texas Intermediate crude futures last February. It was the biggest launch ever in trading contracts, (and) a lot of it was hedge-fund-driven…If you're trading on the commodities floor, people know your positions…the size, the direction, the scale, the length of the trade. You don't know any of that in cyberspace…
- The global carbon emissions market was about $25 billion for 2006, and it's doubling every year. Once the U.S. enters a carbon-trading regime, the uplift will be incredible…[The money’s] coming from high-net-worth (individuals) and private equity. There's unprecedented interest in clean energy. ...When you put that together with the world's largest business--energy--it's going to be huge. It's absolutely a new asset class.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

BIOFUEL FROM TERMITE GUTS

Why Termite Guts Could Bring Better Biofuels; Sequencing the genomes of microbial ecosystems could lead to better biological machines
Emily Singer, January 17, 2007 (MIT Technology Review)

- Scientists are sequencing the genomes of entire microbial communities in the hope of uncovering new genes and organisms that can create fuel, mine metals, or clean up superfund sites. Known as metagenomics, the field relies on studying bits of DNA from a variety of organisms that live in the same place. Thanks to ever-improving sequencing methods, the number of metagenome projects is growing, giving scientists myriad new genes to explore…
- Microorganisms make up an immensely important and often overlooked part of the environment…Microbiologists would like to better understand these communities, so they can co-opt useful genes or organisms, such as those that remove pollutants from soil, or better control microbial communities, such as those that live in our mouths or gut…

- Scientists can extract the DNA from, say, a drop of seawater or a sample of sludge from a sewage-treatment plant and then sequence that DNA, deriving genomic clues to all the organisms living in that environment…
- Assembling the random fragments of DNA generated during sequencing can be a challenge--even impossible in some cases… So rather than fully assembling these genomic puzzles, scientists try to understand the individual pieces, or genes. Identifying the genes that allow the microbes in the termite gut to digest wood, for example, could lead to better biofuels. Converting cellulose in trees and grasses into the simple sugars that can be fermented into ethanol is a very energy-intensive process…[Jim Bristow, director of the community sequencing program at the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute, in Walnut Creek, CA.] says…"Termites are the world's best bioconverters."

- Researchers…have already identified a number of novel cellulases--the enzymes that break down cellulose into sugar--and are now looking at the guts of other insects that digest wood, such as an anaerobic population that eats poplar chips. The end result will be "basically a giant parts list that synthetic biologists can put together to make an ideal energy-producing organism," says [Philip Hugenholtz, leader of the microbial ecology program at the Joint Genome Institute]...

HALOPHYTES: AIRPLANE BIOFUEL FROM DESERT SALTWATER PLANTS

Making the desert bloom – with fuel-yielding plants
Kerry Ezard, January 16, 2007 (Flight International via
AutoblogGreen)
- A NASA scientist is confident that within five years commercial aircraft could be powered using a type of biofuel derived from saltwater plants, or halophytes, grown in desert areas and irrigated using sea water. While the concept may sound far-fetched, engine manufacturer General Electric says it is following developments in this area "with interest", and a major oil company, which prefers to remain anonymous, says it is considering the idea…

- Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, says 22 countries are carrying out small experimental activities into the cultivation of halophytes…"nobody is doing this type of biomass for aircraft"…Nevertheless, Bushnell sees "no stoppers" to augmenting halophyte-derived biomass to produce biofuels capable of powering aircraft…"What's nice about biofuel is that it can use the existing infrastructure used by the oil companies and can be available much sooner than hydrogen, which would require changes to infrastructure and is, therefore, much further into the future."

- Fuels such as biodiesel can be produced from biomass ranging from cow manure to wood chips. The advantage of developing biofuel from halophytes as opposed to other types of biomass is that saltwater plants are not dependent on fresh water, which is in increasingly short supply, and can instead be irrigated using plentiful sea water…following irrigation, the salt from the sea water "should leach back into the ocean" without causing problems to agriculture.
- Suitable areas…for cultivating halophytes include the Sahara desert, Western Australia, south-west USA, parts of the Middle East and parts of Peru…an area smaller than the Sahara desert could yield enough biomass to replace the world's fossil fuel requirements…as these plants are grown in the desert, they will produce a cooler, wetter land surface, which could lead to rainfall in areas of the world where rainwater is in short supply.

- GE Aviation manager of advanced combustor engineering Timothy Held believes some progress can be made within five years on testing biofuels derived from halophytes for use in commercial aircraft engines, but he says that the entire process of developing and producing the fuel will take longer…While biodiesel has been used by GE to operate marine gas turbines, it is not suitable for aircraft engines because of its poor low-temperature properties, but…a fuel derived from bio-oil by conversion to a paraffin-based product has a significant chance of becoming a viable aviation fuel…

Friday, January 19, 2007

IRAQ'S OIL TROUBLE, Parts 1 & 2

A superb study by UPI's Ben Lando capturing all the tragedy and uncertainty.

Part 1
Ben Lando, December 14, 2006 (UPI)

- Iraq faces increasing security problems and a growing petroleum smuggling racket that is draining chances of rebuilding after nearly four years of war.

- Meanwhile Iraq's electricity and oil infrastructure -- which also depend on each other -- need at least $80 billion to fix…
- With nearly its entire federal budget dependent on oil revenues, the $700 million a month the Oil Ministry estimates is lost to oil and petroleum products smuggling is a major loss…
- An estimated 100,000 barrels of oil is smuggled from Iraq each day…
- Lacking management, auditing and metering mechanisms in Iraq's oil industry, petroleum products such as gasoline are also being taken from the country in unknown quantities…
- Iraq is producing about 2 million barrels per day, down from 2.6 million barrels before the war, despite having the third-largest reserves in the world. It exports about 1.7 million…
- Smugglers come in many forms, function and purpose in Iraq, all of which seem to be present in Basra…also home to the second-largest petroleum refinery in the country and the main port for legal and smuggled oil…
- Some of the oil bounty is embezzled by industry insiders…the most popular tact is redirecting or stealing trucks or tankers, be it by gangs and thugs or militia's loyal to political parties.
- It's…sent to markets like Iran, Turkey and Syria and sold at market price (sometimes even back to Iraq)…
- regular attacks and irregular electricity have mostly brought northern production to a halt and hampered delivery of oil from the oil-rich and relatively violence-free Kurdistan region.
- The south is starting to feel a change as security worsens and a fight for power escalates. Smuggling is a means for paying the bills or building a [political] base…

- Basra's political parties -- almost all of which are Shiite factions -- battle for control over smuggling rights and other control. They must also align themselves or take on other groups like the Marsh Arabs or gangs looking for money or power…
- Iraq's electrical system needs between $50 billion and $60 billion, not the $20 billion the World Bank estimated...
- Baghdad averages six to seven hours of electricity daily, more than half its capacity, because transmission lines are "interdicted" -- government-speak for attacked…
- Iraq's oil production and refining ability -- already punched by age, sanctions and war -- remains offline when it doesn't get the electricity it needs. It needs at least $20 billion in investment.
- The government is sitting on a $15 billion budget surplus, partly because anti-corruption measures have scared Iraqi officials from approving reconstruction contracts…also because…the government must make a judgment call on doling out reconstruction money, given the very real chance the project may be attacked…

Part 2
Ben Lando, January 19, 2007 (UPI)
- When a joint British and Danish force launched a security raid last week in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and home of the second-largest oil refinery, it also arrested alleged leaders linked to a petroleum smuggling ring.
- Both smuggling and security are a growing problem in Iraq, not always mutually exclusive, but fueling the post-Saddam Iraq.
- "It all ties together," said Juan Cole, professor of Middle East and South Asian history at University of Michigan and an Iraq expert, who warns that if Basra spirals downward, the whole country will follow…
- Controlled by Shiites experiencing an increase in power struggles, Basra is Iraq's main legal oil export and smuggling port.
- The Basra Provincial Council is mostly comprised of members of three Shiite parties that also compete on the national level: al-Fadila, Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Sadr Movement.

- And they face off with Marsh Arabs, a long disenfranchised and sidelined people, not to be overlooked in either the smuggling or the fighting.
- Living on stilts in the marshes outside Basra, Marsh Arabs had key access to the Persian Gulf and Iran. "A lot of their activity was smuggling," Cole said…a drought sucked much of their water at the turn of the century, and Saddam Hussein finished it off, expelling them into area shanty towns and into Basra. This created tensions with the local Shiite factions, which are still playing out.
- The estimated 500,000 Marsh Arabs, previously a mostly isolated community, live by their own rules still, Cole said, "acting like a mafia family in Basra ... competing with party militias who are also engaged in the same type of smuggling."
- Some Marsh Arab factions have aligned with the Mahdi Army, the militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadr Movement…the operation last week in Basra netted five leaders of various tribes or factions…British troops in the province…are having an increasingly difficult time as smuggling turf wars intensify…
- the head of a Marsh Arab tribe was among [the detainees] and vowed revenge.
- The parties are all jockeying for control of Basra…as well as its oil reserves, and are reported to have begun infiltrating oil companies…The oil infrastructure isn't being attacked…
- in the north…militias of the Sunnis, who have little to no oil, are bent on hurting Kurds who have oil resources and are pushing for autonomy. They sabotage the main pipeline to Turkey as well as smuggle petroleum headed to cities like Baghdad…
- Oil revenues fund more than 96 percent of Iraq's budget; smuggling -- a $700 million monthly toll, the Oil Ministry estimates -- weakens the central government and prevents it from funding both security and reconstruction projects…

- It's a situation pegged on both political and economic developments, and the reactions of armed leaders alternately empowered or backed against a wall…no one knows where it will end up…there are a mix of interests engaged in Basra that will play out in its future: militia factions and criminals…Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia; the city, provincial and central governments; and the coalition troops…
All this operates under the umbrella of "shifting allegiances and uncertain alliances ... intensely competitive and playing for keeps" in the power vacuum created since 2003…
- The fight over oil -- between regions and the central government; among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds; between rival smugglers -- "highlights the insecurities that are ingrained in Iraqi society" after decades of corruption and oppression, [said] Qubad Talabany, the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the United States…"Every community is insecure…Every community is mistrustful of each other."

Thursday, January 18, 2007

RETAIL GOES GREEN

Wal-Mart to Open New Line of Energy-Saving Stores
January 18, 2007 (AP via Yahoo News)
- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, will open the first of a new line of energy-efficient stores in Kansas City, Mo., Friday that uses 20 percent less energy than other Wal-Mart Supercenters…the first in a series of "high-efficiency" stores that use technologies from two test "green" stores opened in 2005…

- …innovations include heating and cooling systems that recycle heat from refrigerators and freezer cases with higher-efficiency LED lights and sensors that turn off those lights when no customers are around…
- Wal-Mart said the new type of stores will move it closer to achieving its environmental goals…using less energy and producing less waste.
- Since late 2005, Wal-Mart has been taking the environmental offensive at a time when it is under attack from organized labor and other groups for its business practices, including employee pay and health benefits.
- Wal-Mart…is the biggest private user of electricity in the world and has huge potential to cut back on greenhouse gases from fossil fuels burned to create electricity…
- the more efficient heating and cooling systems and refrigerators were being retrofitted in existing stores. About 400 stores received the technology last year and another 400 are planned this year and each of the following years…through…2,200 Supercenters, which combine a discount store with a full grocery section, over 1,000 discount stores, 576 Sam's Club membership warehouses and 100 Neighborhood Market grocery stores…
- installation of the new equipment in new or existing stores pays for itself in about two years through lower utility costs.

Long before Wal-Mart was a household name, every Brit knew the cheapest place for knickers was Marks & Sparks.

M&S unveils carbon-neutral target
- High Street chain Marks & Spencer has announced a £200m, five-year plan to make the company carbon neutral…its "eco-plan"…will cut energy consumption, stop using landfill sites and stock more products made from recycled materials…

- M&S said the carbon savings it aimed to achieve under its plan would be like taking 100,000 cars off the road each year.
- As well as cutting energy and using more renewable materials, M&S will aim to source its food from the UK and the Republic of Ireland as a "priority" in an attempt to reduce air freight.
- Labels will identify food that has been flown into the UK.
- M&S was advised on its new environmental policy by former Friends of the Earth director Jonathon Porritt…"This plan raises the bar for everyone else - not just retailers but businesses in every sector," said Mr Porritt.
- Under its plan, much of the chain's polyester clothing will be made from recycled plastic bottles, instead of oil, and millions of garments will be made from fair trade cotton…
- M&S will also trial the use of food waste to power its 500-plus stores across the UK.
- The company's share price has risen steadily over the past 15 months as its fortunes have improved…

TIDBITS

CALIFORNIA SUN
Californians bask in solar energy
January 4, 2007 (UPI via PhysOrg.com)
- Soaring energy costs, environmental consciousness and financial incentives have combined to make solar panels part of the California housing landscape.
- Homeowners see solar panels as a way to be green and save some green…Architects are incorporating solar systems into custom home designs…developers can provide solar systems and solar-ready wiring…

- The trend began after the state legislature approved the California Solar Initiative, a solar program that offers homeowners rebates in addition to the federal tax credit of up to $2,000…
- If it works as planned, the initiative will spark the installation of 3,000 megawatts of solar electrical generating capacity over the next 10 years…That's equivalent to 30 small natural gas-fired power plants.
- Several other states in the Northeast and the Southwest have solar projects in place…

GERMANS MOST RENEWABLE
German Renewable Energy Usages at Record High in 2006
January 5, 2007 (Reuters via Planet Ark)
- Renewable energy usage will rise further in Germany this year after reaching its highest ever level in 2006…

- Renewable energy sources accounted for 7.7 percent of total energy consumption in Europe's biggest economy last year, up from the 2005 level of 6.8 percent…That equates to supplies of about 200 billion kilowatt hours, or the power, heating and fuel consumption of 10 million households…
- In 2006, consumption of electricity alone from renewable sources, including solar and wind power, rose about 11 percent to 71.5 billion kilowatt hours, accounting for 11.6 percent of Germany's power market…the strongest growth in renewable energy consumption in Europe, although Austria and Scandinavian countries were ahead in terms of the proportion of overall energy used.

DESKTOP CONSERVATION
HP researchers tout new tech to save energy in computer chips
January 17, 2007 (AP via KESQ NewsChannel3.com)

- Hewlett-Packard researchers say they've found a way to integrate nanotechnology and traditional circuitry in a development that could help companies dramatically reduce the amount of energy their chips use…
- Scientists say the advance could help a wide range of companies -- from automakers to cell phone companies to even toy makers -- build vastly smaller chips into their products that can be reprogrammed and upgraded…

ATTENTION UNIVERSITIES!
Energy research on the rise; Virginia universities urge state to put up $15 million a year to help capture projects
January 12, 2007 (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
- Virginia needs to be ready with money and other resources to cash in on the growing demand for energy research, the state's universities say.

- An energy plan adopted by the General Assembly last year called for a study of energy research and development in Virginia…conducted by the Center for Innovative Technology…
- It found a broad range of energy research under way in state universities, federal laboratories in Virginia and private businesses…Existing research covers such areas as waste to energy, energy efficiency, solar photovoltaics, wind, clean coal, nuclear and tidal energy.
- Virginia is well-positioned to capture more research dollars because of expertise, the research's natural ties to industries such as coal and natural-gas production, nuclear technologies and maritime and agricultural businesses…A lack of overall vision and focus, lack of coordination among universities and unavailability of state funds to match and take advantage of research grant offerings stand in the way of increasing researchsaid the energy department's Steve Walz, director of administration]…
- The institutions would like to see the state put up $15 million a year to help capture federal and nonfederal, cost-sharing research projects. Additional investment is needed in research equipment as well…Projects also should have a strong economic development component and some should be in Virginia's less well-to-do areas…
- U.S. Department of Energy grants are extremely important to Virginia…States that win DOE grants will jump far ahead of other states…

OIL “FAMILIES” SHARE TERRITORY
Had a sit-down, talked it out, not going to the mattresses…
Gazprom, Chevron join up for Russian energy project
January 11, 2007 (AFP via Yahoo News)

- Gazprom and Chevron, two of the world's biggest energy producers, have set up a joint venture for oil projects in Russia, the two companies said…
- The joint venture will be called Northern Taiga Neftegaz…
- Chevron's subsidiary will initially own 70 percent of the joint venture. Gazprom will eventually increase its share to more than 50 percent…
- The joint venture was set up "to facilitate our companies' cooperation on technically and commercially feasible projects", Sergei Kuznetsov, head of public affairs at Chevron Neftegaz, said…

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

DEFINITELY A PROBLEM: SURGE ON OIL

Bush’s ‘surge’ on Iraq’s oil
Ben Lando, January 16, 2007 (UPI)
- It is unknown if President Bush's last-ditch effort to turn around the downward spiral that is today's Iraq will have any affect on its struggling oil sector. But the oil sector, like Iraq, suffers from factional and sectarian fighting and an overall dangerous security situation. Oil revenue funds 96 percent of Iraq's budget, a vital factor for the country with the world's third-largest oil reserves.

- Bush's plan is for about 21,000 more troops to target growing violence in and around Baghdad and Anbar Province.
- In the north, where a quarter of Iraq's oil is produced, Sunni militia attacks have shutdown the export infrastructure and hindered refining. None of Bush's "surge" plan will address that, directly or indirectly…
The Shiite south [which produces the bulk of Iraq's 2 million barrels a day and is the sole exporter] has seen relative stability…much of the [Basra] population is someway involved in producing oil and shipping out most of Iraq's 1.5 million barrels of daily exports -- either as legitimate parts of the oil sector or in the growing oil smuggling trade.
- While Bush's plan is to target people or organizations in the Baghdad area, those who have followers in the south ready to rise up could pose a problem for security in the country and send shockwaves through global oil markets…

- "…an offensive that took on Shiite militias… is unlikely…” [Charles Esser, energy analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group] said, since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is to have a role in the "surge" and "the Shiite militias in the south are financially connected to the petroleum trade."
- …Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric whose power grows daily and who was recently folded into the political process, could be in the crosshairs.
- "If they target Moqtada himself, all hell will break loose," said Juan Cole, professor of Middle East and South Asian history at University of Michigan and an Iraq expert.
- Douglass Macgregor, a retired U.S. Army colonel and now a defense and foreign policy consultant, says Sunni militias will just "melt away"…regroup…target U.S.-led coalition forces at a weaker point…
- Sadr's…reach isn't known. But, Cole says, the 500,000-strong Marsh Arabs, who have deep roots in Basra, have now aligned with Sadr and his Mahdi Army…
- The "surge" may not focus on Sadr's attacks on Sunnis. It could focus on other Shiite militias, perhaps even splinter groups formerly aligned with Sadr who have a strong presence in Basra and are causing havoc in Baghdad…

- If violence escalates in the south, especially in and around Basra, the largest port, and Iraq's largest oil fields, the already hurting industry might be inoperable, [Greg Priddy, an energy analyst for the Eurasia Group, a global political risk advisory and consulting firm] said.
- "The most likely point at which petroleum becomes involved in this would be possibly Mahdi Army attacks on U.S. military fuel convoys bringing fuel up from Kuwait and Basra to U.S. bases up north," Cole said. "If that happened, that would be pretty serious, of course. You can't run tanks and helicopter gunships without fuel…If things got out of hand between the U.S. and the Sadr movement those fuel convoys could be targeted," he said.

MAYBE A SOLUTION: INTERNET CARBON TRADING

Market-based solutions are the only ones big enough to resolve Big Energy issues AND they are most easily manipulated by Big Players.

Trading Greenhouse Gases and Carbon on the Internet, Part 1
Andrew K. Burger, January 11, 2007 (E-Commerce Times)

- Formed in May 2000, the InterContinental Exchange capitalized on the rapid development and growth of large-scale electronic trading systems platforms…
- Focusing on commodities and energy contracts before the latest boom in prices has put the exchange in an enviable market position…
- a multibillion dollar global market has grown up around the issuance, verification and trading of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions reduction credits…
- state governments across the U.S. are now moving with some urgency to introduce state and regional carbon and GHG emissions reduction credit and trading systems…
- the overall carbon market is now worth more than US$21.5 billion…

- The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the InterContinental Exchange (ICE) are already in the thick of it…
- ICE announced earlier this month that it expects to close on its planned merger with the New York Board of Trade in mid-January and launch side-by-side trading of the NYBOT's benchmark agricultural commodities on ICE's electronic trading platform for a Jan. 19 trade date.
- With the introduction of the ICE-ECX CFI futures contracts, the two exchanges have joined to provide what has become the predominant centralized marketplace for risk management and trading of EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowances…
- the CCX has moved quickly to establish a presence in Canada with the formation of The Montreal Exchange (MCeX), putting itself in excellent position to facilitate the needs of businesses and government as Canada moves forward with plans to adopt nationwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and renewable energy legislation…

- At first glance, the membership rosters at the CCX and ICE span what seems an odd and eclectic mix of trading counterparties. Members run the gamut from aerospace, automotive equipment, chemicals, electronics and semiconductor manufacturers…to electric power generators and technology providers…
- Retailers such as Safeway have joined the CCX, as have forest products and renewable energy companies…
- Environmental services organizations, municipalities and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are also market participants…
- A range of specialized, boutique and diversified financial services companies have also joined the exchange as liquidity providers and offset aggregators…

- Wasatch Integrated Waste Management on Dec. 19 became the first organization in Utah to join the Chicago-based CCX…In 2002, Wasatch completed Utah's first landfill gas-to-energy project, as well as the first landfill gas-to-energy project completed under a DOE (Department of Energy) Biomass super ESPC (energy saving performance contracting) agreement in partnership with Hill Air Force Base…Wasatch captures methane, generated by waste decaying in the landfill, and either destroys the methane in a flare or ships it to HAFB, where it is used as fuel to run two generators that produce about 1.4 megawatts of electricity…
- Wasatch…can originate carbon reduction credits as it eliminates methane from the landfill. GHG emission reductions in excess of the 6 percent commitment and additional offsets can be sold to other CCX members on the CCX emissions trading platform. The company is now moving forward to complete its baseline and annual emission inventories and will then need to have the reductions verified…

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

SAVE ENERGY

Energy Efficiency: ‘On’ Is Not ‘Off’
Paul Grover, January 2007 (GreenBiz.com)

- …most people use the terms "efficiency" and "conservation" interchangeably. When we understand how they are different, solutions to our energy and environmental problems become much clearer…
- Engineers originally created the term "efficiency" to quantify machine performance. Efficiency is “the ratio of (useable) energy developed by a machine to the energy supplied it…If we put 100 units of electricity into a motor get back 60 units of motor energy to use, that motor has an efficiency of 60%.
- Energy efficiency numbers tell us which equipment delivers “more bang for the buck.”
- Energy efficient equipment must be on to produce savings and the longer it's on, the more we “save.”…If we buy a Prius hybrid, we are driving a very high efficiency vehicle. The more we drive, the more we “save” and there is no discussion of how many miles we might drive in a year. But who is more environmentally responsible, the Prius owner who drives 40,000 miles a year or the person who purposely and carefully drives a less efficient car only 10,000 miles a year?

- Energy conservation is quite different…We “conserve” by turning equipment off when it is not needed and by optimizing the operation of equipment so that is runs only when needed. The goal of energy conservation is to minimize resource use and eliminate waste…
- After we turn on a light, our concern is how efficient the bulb is…When we turn that light off, we conserve electricity whether the bulb is energy efficient or not.
- If energy efficiency is our only concern and we do not practice conservation, lights can be on night and day and, as long as the bulbs are energy efficient, we are using electricity efficiently…Efficiency without conservation can waste a lot of electricity. Of course we need both conservation and efficiency, but which comes first?

- …without conservation, resource use increases…turning things off can be surprisingly difficult…larger commercial buildings are controlled by computers called energy management systems…It takes considerable instrumentation and skill to analyze what’s on, if it’s running optimally, when it needs to be on and how to safely turn it off when not needed…already energy-efficient clients reduce their electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions (from not using the electricity) by 40%…This is good news for our environment, the changing climate, our health, and it decreases our dependence on foreign energy resources…We can save energy using both conservation and efficiency techniques, but our efficiency efforts will be undermined unless we practice “Conservation First.”

BIG WIND

For BP Alternative Energy, there's always the other side of the coin: While it expands the "Beyond Petroleum" campaign, the petroleum branch of the company is often making headlines like those today about the Texas City disaster. The backstory here.

BP Division Set to Begin Wind Projects; Sails Unfurled, BP Alternative Energy Launches 5 Wind Power Projects
January 12, 2007 (AP via Yahoo News)

- BP Alternative Energy North America Inc., a subsidiary of BP PLC that combines the company's oil and gas interests in low and zero-carbon power generation, on Friday said it plans to begin construction this year on five wind power generation projects…it will put wind turbines at sites in California, Colorado, North Dakota and Texas. Collectively the projects will generate about 550 megawatts of electricity. When complete, the projects will exceed the company's previously announced target to build 450 megawatts by the end of 2008…
- BP Alternative Energy has already started construction in Weld County, Colo…The 300-megawatt wind power generation project will have 274 wind turbines…expects it to start operating in the second half of 2007…should generate enough carbon-free electricity to power 120,000 homes.
- BP says its US wind portfolio has the potential to develop almost 100 projects with a total generating capacity around 15,000 MW…

NEW COAL

NRG Energy Issues Statement Re: Commitment To IGCC And Reducing Carbon Profile
January 12, 2007 (NRG Energy, Inc. via EletricNet.com)
- In response to an email distributed publicly by TXU Corporation’s Media Relations group, NRG Energy, Inc. has issued the following statement from David Crane, President and CEO…
- “NRG’s commitment to the deployment of IGCC [integrated gasification combined cycle]is driven by several facts.

- First, global warming is one of the most significant challenges facing mankind.
- Second, the power sector is responsible for a significant part of the global emissions of greenhouse gases, and must play a leading role in reducing those emissions.
- Third, coal is—and will remain—the premier energy source for power generation purposes in the United States for the foreseeable future. This means it is incumbent on us to find ways to convert coal to electricity while dramatically reducing its carbon emissions.

- “We have proposed IGCC projects in response to “clean fuel” Requests for Proposals issued by the States of New York and Delaware…In both cases, we expect to win the projects and bring them to successful completion using state-of-the-art, carbon capture capable IGCC technology…
- Connecticut asked for power in a time frame which could not be achieved by an IGCC plant, or for that matter, by a traditional coal plant…
- “We recognize that a public debate is now occurring in the State of Texas regarding what type of generation should be built in order to fuel Texas’ robust growth and continued economic prosperity. We want to be part of that debate, and indeed we believe the blend of new nuclear, gas and coal-fueled plants which we have proposed in our ‘Repowering Texas with NRG’ program represents the best approach to affordable and reliable generation produced in an environmentally responsible manner…both in terms of air emissions and water usage…

More on IGCC here.

EXPENSIVE URANIUM

"I Have Never Seen Any Market Like This One..." -- James Dines, The Original Uranium Bug
Jay Taylor, December 26, 2006 (321energy.com)
- ...I have been around as an adult watching markets since the late 1960s and I would have to agree with James Dines that there has never been a market like the current uranium market…even when oil and gas markets have run through considerable corrections, uranium prices have just kept on rising…let’s quickly review the forces at work behind the rise of U3O8 (yellow cake)…

- Nuclear power plants must have uranium as fuel…
- even at the current price of $72 per pound…uranium would need to rise to $500 before it would begin to equate to the cost of fuel for natural gas driven power plants.
- Uranium production from mines is currently meeting only about 60% of annual consumption to fuel existing 440 nuclear reactors around the world…the stockpile of uranium that resulted from the disassembling of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union is rapidly drawing down.
- There are no significant new supplies of uranium scheduled to come into production until 2010 or later, but by then there will be new nuclear power plants hungry for additional sources of uranium. Just this past week China announced that it is hiring General Electric to build four new nuclear power plants and Toshiba to build three…there are dozens more power plants on the drawing boards in China and India and elsewhere…

- total production from mines has been inadequate to meet demand since 1985. Prices continued to fall as new supplies from disassembled weapons hit the market. But now, with those stockpiles being consumed, there is an increasingly panicky atmosphere in the uranium markets…
- Cigar Lake was to have supplied the world with about 24% of its annual uranium supply. It is likely [due to flooding] that this mine will be at least one year behind schedule if not more…
- The market forces above are not only bullish for uranium but I believe make this metal almost recession proof…with a major portion of the world’s electricity being supplied by nuclear power plants, and with those plants needing to keep supplying electricity even in a major economic decline, and with supplies of uranium dwindling, it is hard to see how uranium prices would fall…

GREAT ARGUMENT

Blogger vs Boston Globe columnist on Global Warming. Blogger advocates for reality-based skepticism of techno solutions. Columnist advocates for hopeful technologies. Learn about new nuclear and spraying the sky with salt water. Its what makes blogging grand.

Is Al Gore Just As Wrong As ExxonMobil?
Mark Kleiman, January 16, 2007 (Huffington Post)

In her latest column for the Boston Globe, Cathy Young, a contributing editor at the libertarian magazine Reason, picks up on my post from the Reality-Based Community about why those most concerned about global warming as a problem are reluctant to look seriously at reflecting more sunlight back into space as part of the solution…
- Young and I don't agree nearly as much as the column suggests. In addition, I think her column misstates the relationship between the global warming issue and nuclear power generation…
- … the stubbornness of the right in denying the problem has robbed it of credibility when it comes to discussing solutions…
- She also attributes to me the thought that "those on the left who embrace environmentalism as their substitute religion don't want to hear about scientific and technological solutions to climate change ... that do not include stepping up regulation and curbing consumption." That's a considerable overstatement. Solar power, wind power, biofuels, hybrid automobile engines, "green" building techniques, and carbon sequestration are all basically technical rather than regulatory approaches; there's quite as much techno-optimism among environmental enthusiasts…

- Young lumps nuclear power in with the geoengineering solutions that were the focus of my post. That, it seems to me, is a mistake…nuclear power is on the table in the global warming discussion, albeit much to the dismay of the Nader-types. I think that's a good thing. But nuclear power resembles emission limitation in one crucial respect: it operates on a very long time-scale…
- If you really think that the Gulf Stream might stop running ten years from now, as Gore suggests in his movie (as I understand it, such a catastrophe isn't likely, but can't be ruled out), or that Antarctica is getting close to a tipping point that would lead to massive glacier loss and a big, quick rise in the sea level, nuclear energy holds out no hope whatever of making a sufficient difference in the requisite amount of time. Neither does the Kyoto Protocol.

- By contrast, albedo-increasing measures act quickly. If we increase the albedo of the planet by spraying seawater on ocean clouds to make them shinier and thus reflect more sunlight back into space, the temperature impact is as immediate as the spraying itself (and lasts only until the salt falls back into the ocean, which reduces the risk of oversteering)…
- I argued for a symmetry between environmentalist opposition to albedo-increasing efforts to fight global warming and religious opposition to using condoms to fight the global AIDS epidemic…Young argues that distortions of the truth by those concerned about global warming are symmetric with distortions of the truth by those who deny that it's a problem…Whether or not I made out my case, I don't think she made out hers…

Monday, January 15, 2007

SENATE TO BRING CARBON CAPS?

Congress to reconsider caps on carbon; McCain, Obama among sponsors of bill to curb global warming
January 12, 2007 (AP via MSNBC.com)

- Potential presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama are joining with newly independent Sen. Joe Lieberman on a plan they say would reduce annual global-warming gases by two-thirds by mid-century…intended to cut the heat-trapping emissions by 2 percent a year…sure to produce a contentious debate on climate control in the new Democratic-run Congress and draw strong opposition from the White House and industry…

- McCain, R-Ariz., Obama, D-Ill., and Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, are calling for mandatory caps on greenhouse emissions for power plants, industry and oil refineries. Their plan would require releases of heat-trapping gases to return to 2004 levels by 2012 and to 1990 levels by 2020…U.S. emissions of [CO2] have increased an average of about 1 percent year since 1990…

- As a compromise, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee is preparing a more modest bill that would slow the growth of greenhouse gases. Under the proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., annual emissions would continue to increase until 2030 and then perhaps decline.
- McCain and Lieberman…legislation was defeated in the GOP-controlled Senate; Bingaman withdrew his after it became clear he lacked the votes for passage.

More on carbon caps here and here.

ASEAN ENERGY PLAN

ASEAN = Association of Southeast Asian Nations

At Summit, Asian Nations Sign Energy Accord
Carlos Conde, January 15, 2007 (NYTimes)
- Leaders from 16 Asian nations signed an energy security accord today that they said would reduce the region’s dependence on fossil fuels and promote the use of alternative energy sources.

- Japan, one of the signatories, pledged $2 billion in aid to Asian countries to improve energy efficiency and to adopt technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- The leaders at the summit also tentatively endorsed a Japanese proposal for a pan-Asian free-trade zone that would include India, Australia and New Zealand. The proposal apparently overcame Chinese objections…
- Japan’s proposal this year would include all 16 countries taking part in the summit: Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. Together they are home to about half the world’s people. The free-trade area would lower and harmonize tariffs and trade rules…
Helen Clark, prime minister of New Zealand, said at the summit that her country would vigorously support the proposal…

- But environmentalists in the region have said that the pact offers no meaningful goals, and that it compares poorly with the
European Union’s new energy policy…The European policy calls for a 20-percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions over 13 years…
- Aside from the $2 billion in Japanese aid announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, there was no discussion of how to pay for the steps called for in the energy declaration.
- The declaration urges Asian countries to “consider” the use of hydropower, nuclear power and biofuels like ethanol as an alternative to crude oil and natural gas. But it acknowledges that “fossil fuels underpin our economies, and will be an enduring reality in our lifetimes.”
- The signatories promise in general terms to “improve the efficiency and environmental performance of fossil fuel use,” and reduce their dependence on conventional fuels by encouraging energy efficiency and conservation…

- Seven of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the core group organizing the summit meeting, have significant oil and gas reserves. In addition, Australia and India, which are attending the summit as nonmembers, have large coal deposits…
- energy security remains a major concern…Asean nations produce 11 percent of the world’s oil, they consume even more — 21 percent — making them as reliant on Middle East oil imports as the United States is…This year’s summit has been hailed by participants as more productive than usual…Chinese and Japanese officials said that the summit offered an opportunity to repair relations with the 10 Southeast Asian nations…frayed recently by lingering territorial disputes and by sensitivities over Japanese commemorations of Word War II…The summit has also produced agreements on fighting terrorism, protecting migrant workers and future economic integration.

BRAINERS

My alma mater did a study to find this out:

Lengthening Daylight Saving Time Won't Save Energy, Study Says
Greg Chang, January 10, 2006 (Bloomberg)
- Springing forward may not help save energy, according to a study by the University of California at Berkeley.

- U.S. plans to cut electricity usage by lengthening daylight saving time may backfire, the report said. Lengthening daylight saving time by several weeks was included in energy legislation passed in 2005.
- Extending daylight saving time may actually result in increased electricity demand as additional usage during morning hours cancels out the reduced demand in the evening…
- Daylight saving time in the U.S. will begin the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November starting this year. It previously began on the first Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday in October.

And here's another no-brainer the brains figured out:

Wind energy can inflate jobs picture, group says
Anne Paine, January 10, 2007 (The Tennessean)
- Tennessee could get more jobs if a federal tax credit is extended - as proposed - for the wind energy industry…

- Several Tennessee businesses involved in the commercial design and building of wind towers could benefit from an extension…
- Cities could gain an increased tax base and more jobs from new companies and expansions of companies that include tower manufacturer Aerisyn Energy and wind contractor Signal Wind Energy in the Chattanooga area, construction company Barnhart Cranes and Rigging in Knoxville and tower manufacturer Thomas and Betts Corporation located in Memphis.
- The federal tax credit has been extended in the past in two-year increments. A long-term production tax credit extension is "an investment in fighting global warming and increasing American energy security," American Wind Energy Association representatives said.
- Tennessee's rural areas could get a boost, too…"Counties along the Cumberland Plateau and Appalachian Mountains have a wind resource that supports commercial wind development in environmentally appropriate locations, providing a substantial increase to the county tax base."

Friday, January 12, 2007

THE EUROPEAN UNION ENERGY PLAN

Here it is: What we here in the US will be referring to for the next decade as "The Europeans already do that, why don't we?"

EU unveils vast energy plan to diversify supplies, protect environment
Leigh Thomas, January 10, 2006 (AFP via Yahoo News)

- The European Commission unveiled a vast plan to diversify EU energy sources, slash carbon emissions and boost competition in the face of tension over Russian oil and gas supplies and global warming fears.
- Calling for a "post industrial revolution," the European Union’s executive arm said the 27-nation bloc "needs new policies to face new realities." Some provisions of the proposal drew immediate objections from France and Germany…
- The main planks of the package, which the commission hopes EU leaders will endorse at a summit in March, include plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 and to spur competition by demanding that big energy companies separate production and distribution operations.

- Environmentalists charged that the emissions target was not ambitious enough however, while some EU governments, notably France, balked at the prospect of energy companies having to break up their operations to boost competition…
- If policies were not changed, the EU's energy import dependence would rise from 50 percent currently to 65 percent in 2030…
- Boosting the use of renewable energy could be one option for easing reliance on foreign supplies with the commission proposing that member states commit to meeting 20 percent of their needs with sources like wind and solar energy by 2020…
- The French objection focused on a commission call for the "unbundling" of production and distribution…
- The commission found that competition was in particular stifled by big energy groups with supply, generation and network activities that reduced potential competitors' access to critical market information…

More about the new policy from the Reuters report:

EU puts climate change at heart of energy policy
Jeff Mason, January 10, 2007 (Reuters via Yahoo News)
- The European Union put climate change at the heart of a broad new energy policy on Wednesday as it moved to boost renewable fuels, cut consumption and curb its dependence on foreign suppliers of oil and gas…
- The fight against global warming featured strongly in the plan announced by the Commission and which will also require approval by EU governments…
- Brussels also challenged developed nations around the world, including the EU, to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2020.
- The EU has repeatedly said the United States -- the world's biggest polluter -- and other major economies will have to join in to make the fight against climate change successful…
- The Commission's report said shutting nuclear reactors will make cutting greenhouse gas emissions harder.
- Germany's government is phasing out nuclear power production in the country, although Chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested that plan might have to be reconsidered.
- The Commission also proposed that 20 percent of EU power should come from renewable sources, such as wind, by 2020. That compares with an existing target of 12 percent by 2010 which the bloc is likely to miss.
- The new plan also says biofuels should account for a minimum of 10 percent of fuel used by vehicles by 2020…

The BBC News summary:

At-a-glance: EU energy plans
January 10, 2007 (BBC News)
- The commission is aiming for a new "industrial revolution" leading to a low-carbon economy. It is based on three pillars:
1. Competitive markets
- Separating energy production from energy distribution by boosting competition and curbing the power of Europe's energy giants
- Strengthening independent regulatory control of the energy sector
2. Getting off carbon
- At least 20% of all EU energy should come from renewable sources by 2020 and 10% of vehicle fuel from biofuels, and these targets should be made binding for the first time
- The EU should also increase by at least 50% its annual spending on energy research for the next seven years
3. Efficiency

- …boosting the efficiency of energy use by 20% by 2020
- …the use of fuel-efficient vehicles is accelerated; tougher standards and better labelling on appliances; improved energy performance of the EU's existing buildings and improved efficiency of heat and electricity generation, transmission and distribution
- …a new international agreement on energy efficiency, based on a 30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by all developed nations by 2020.

NOBODY LIKES IT?

This might be the very definition of a political success:

Both Businesses and Greens Blast EU Energy Program
Carolyn Henson, January 10, 2007 (Dow Jones Newswires via Nasdaq.com)
- Business warned of lost competitiveness and environmentalists of a lost opportunity Wednesday after the European Commission published a far-reaching package of proposals to tackle global warming and secure future energy requirements…

- Nuclear power was another dividing point. While business supported the commission's call for the nuclear option to remain open, environmentalists are seeking an end to nuclear energy, pointing to the risk of serious accidents and the nuclear waste legacy…
- One group was positive, however - consumers. They saluted E.U. Antitrust Commissioner Neelie Kroes' call for the energy production and supply networks - often owned by just one dominant energy company - to be separated, or " unbundled" in the jargon, as a key way to improve competition…

- Some specific industries welcomed particular parts of the program, seeing opportunities for growth. The call for speeding up development of low-emission technologies such as carbon capture and storage was strongly welcomed by chemical industry groups, which said they had a "crucial part to play"…

Thursday, January 11, 2007

THE CRUX OF THE DILEMMA: CHINA

They know what the problem is and they can't stop themselves from making it worse--sounds like an addiction, doesn't it?

China fails to meet energy and pollution targets
January 10, 2007 (AFP via Yahoo News)
- China failed to meet targets to improve energy use and cut pollution last year, state press has said, underscoring the difficulty of protecting the environment amid the nation's frantic economic boom.
- China had set 2006 goals of reducing energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by four percent and cutting emissions of pollutants by two percent, but both goals were missed…
- The National Development Reform Commission, China's planning agency, has not revealed the extent to which the goals were missed…energy consumption actually increased by 0.8 percent per unit of GDP during the first half of the year, while emissions of several key pollutants also grew…

- only Beijing and five other provinces or municipalities fulfilled their energy efficiency and pollution emission goals…
- China produced more than 12 billion tons of industrial waste-water in the first half of 2006, up 2.4 percent…
- A major index of water pollution called the chemical oxygen demand (COD) increased by 3.7 percent in the first six months…
- Emissions of the air pollutant sulfur dioxide rose 4.2 percent…
- more than 70 percent of rivers and lakes were polluted, while underground water supplies in 90 percent of Chinese cities were contaminated.

THE CRUX OF THE DILEMMA: INDIA

Could somebody say something to these folks about global warming? Hey, Al…

Analysis: India deregulates coal sector
Kushal Jeena, January 10, 2007 (UPI)
- India has decided to deregulate its coal industry to encourage private investment and solve the coal production problem, which is not keeping pace with country's rising energy demands.

- India heavily relies on coal -- it's most plentiful energy source -- to power the country and is a major global producer…But as the economy of the second most populated country of the world grows, so does its demand for power…
- Coal experts expressed serious concern over the fate of India's coal sector and recommended the government act immediately to save the industry by deregulating it and inviting private participation…Half of the country's power generation plants are currently running at half capacity and in need of a coal supply…

- Coal is the main source for 70 percent of India's power generation. India's economy is booming, increasing the demand for power and the need for more coal.
- It is world's third largest coal producer after China and United States…
- With the initiation of the deregulation in the coal sector, international and domestic power companies have shown interests in investing in Indian coal sector…
- The government's move to deregulate the industry was welcomed by the country's private power majors like Reliance Industries, Essar and Tata Power…

CARBON OFFSETS: DILEMMA RESOLUTION?

Do carbon offsets live up to their promise?
Moises Velasquez-Manoff, January 10, 2006 (Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo News)
- In 2006, "carbon neutral" became the New Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year, evidence not only of the "greening" of our culture, but of our language as well…climate concerns may soon "green" our wallets as well…2007 is poised to see the industry of carbon neutrality - so-called carbon offsetting - grow dramatically…

- The consumer pays a third party to remove a quantity of carbon (in the form of a greenhouse gas) equal to what he or she emits. But how voluntary carbon offsets actually work is unclear at best, and potentially fraudulent at worst…No current certification or monitoring system has any teeth, and there is no easy way to confirm that offsetting companies are doing what they promise…
- The first-ever ranking of carbon offsetters recently released by Clean Air-Cool Planet, a nonprofit in Portsmouth, N.H., graded 30 companies on a scale of 1 to 10; tellingly, three-quarters scored below 5. Critics, meanwhile, question whether the carbon market might be a dangerous distraction at a time when decisive action is needed to avert climate catastrophe…
- Many companies have nonetheless moved to make carbon neutrality part of their 21st-century brand identity. Travelocity and Expedia now offer customers the option of offsetting carbon emissions associated with their trips for a few extra dollars. In 2005, "Syriana" became the first carbon-neutral movie. In 2006, "An Inconvenient Truth" followed suit to become the first such documentary. With the purchase of 170,000 tons of carbon offsets, HSBC declared itself the first-ever carbon-neutral bank. Other companies, including Google and Ben & Jerry's - not to mention musical groups such as the Dave Matthews Band - are moving toward, or have arrived at, various levels of carbon neutrality…

- The volume of metric tons of carbon traded on the voluntary market doubled last year over 2005. It's widely expected to double again in 2007…
- Carbon markets fall into two broad categories:
- 1. The cap-and-trade system. Countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the global treaty on climate change, participate in this system by setting a limit, or cap, on greenhouse-gas emissions. Those companies that emit less than their allotment receive credits that they can sell on carbon exchanges. Those that emit more must purchase credits in order to avoid financial penalties. (The voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange also operates this way.) Proponents of this system trust the innovative power of the free market to promote energy efficiency.

- 2. The voluntary carbon market. In the United States, the market for carbon offsets is voluntary, driven primarily by corporations seeking to enhance their brand identity or to familiarize themselves with what they consider to be an inevitability…
- There are many ways to remove carbon from the air, each operating on a different time scale and all of them of different "quality." You can capture greenhouse gases by planting trees. You can also prevent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere by burning methane released from animal manure and landfills. (As a greenhouse gas, methane is 23 times more potent than CO2.) Or you can preempt its release by building alternative-energy sources such as wind- and solar-power devices…
- Unless you're willing to visit Uganda in 20 years to verify the existence of a new tree, a carbon offset is arguably invisible…
- CA-CP's "A Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers"…ranks offsetting companies on factors like transparency, third-party certification, their efforts to educate consumers, and how well they prove they're not selling the same carbon offset more than once…

- Two San Francisco organizations, Business for Social Responsibility and Ecosystem Marketplace, recently joined forces to write guides on the voluntary carbon market, and Ecosystem Marketplace is about to release a book on the topic. This spring, the Center for Resource Solutions in San Francisco plans to release a certification standard it hopes will be universally adopted…
- But while experts disagree on the effectiveness of the carbon market at averting global warming, nearly everyone agrees on two points. First, the fact that people are beginning to factor in the cost of their carbon footprint when doing business is good…
- Second, the more money invested in renewable energy, the better…

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

CARBON TRADING: GOOD FOR THE FARMERS...

Environmental carbon trades offer farmers potential cash
Mike Stark, January 4, 2007 (Billings Gazette)
- Someday soon, farmers in Montana may get extra cash for their environmental good deeds.

- Those that don't till their fields or take other steps that keep carbon in the ground - thus reducing carbon dioxide contributing to global warming - should soon be able to sell those "carbon credits" at the Chicago Climate Exchange.
- No one will get rich, but the practice will set the stage for the day when the United States places a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions and more corporations look for ways to buy credits to offset emissions…the Chicago Climate Exchange will soon allow Montana, Wyoming and Colorado farmers to bundle their carbon credits for sale…
- about 20 Montana farmers have shown interest…Most are wheat farmers who already are planting crops without tilling the soil, which can be more labor-intensive and sometimes involves cutting slots in the field and dropping in seeds…

- Part of the difficulty is that prices are still relatively low and fluctuating, and describing exactly what a carbon credit is - a unit equal to 1 metric ton of carbon - can seem a little abstract…under current prices, a farmer could get $250 to $350 a year for 100 acres that meet carbon sequestration standards…

How it works:

- The Chicago Climate Exchange, operating since 2003, is an attempt at a market-based approach to reducing carbon dioxide…More than 200 corporations, cities and other entities buy carbon credits at Chicago Climate Exchange. Most use the credits to offset emissions in countries operating under the Kyoto Protocol…

- The United States is not a signatory to Kyoto, but increasingly American agriculture is looking to be a bigger player in sequestering carbon and selling credits…

Why it works:

- In Montana, the focus is on storing carbon dioxide deep in underground geologic seams or keeping it in farm soils.
- Plants get carbon dioxide from the air and use the carbon to grow leaves, limbs and other body parts and release the oxygen during photosynthesis.
- Carbon compounds stay in the soil after the plants die and material breaks down. When a plow runs through the soil, it speeds up the decomposition, and the carbon combines with oxygen in the area, releasing carbon dioxide.

- Farming without tilling allows the carbon to stay in the ground. Certain forestry practices and planting alfalfa, grasses and other perennials can also keep carbon from escaping into the atmosphere…
- Right now, the price for a ton of carbon dioxide is around $4. In Europe, prices are dramatically higher where carbon trading is more active.
- No one knows for sure when there will be a mandatory cap on carbon emissions in this country, but most expect it will eventually happen…Montana could be in a good position to sell its carbon credits as demand and price go up…

...AND GOOD FOR THE CHINESE

China benefits from rise in carbon-credit trading
January 8, 2007 (Dow Jones MarketWatch.com)
- Chinese corporations and the government, through tax receipts, are major beneficiaries of the new system of trading in global carbon credits…

- The nation has become the world's largest source of developing-world carbon credits purchased by Western firms…
- The global market for carbon credits was valued at $21.5 billion in the first three quarters of 2006, roughly double the value during all of 2005…
China, which ranks behind the U.S. as the world's second-biggest emitter of gases that cause global warming, stands to earn about $1 billion in tax revenue from the trade over the next few years…
- China's rise as a leading player in the field has been facilitated by a selective tax and corporate-regulation policy. That policy has drawn fire from critics who say it reflects an attempt to cash on the lucrative new trade…China has mandated that only companies with majority mainland ownership can own projects generating carbon credits.

- Additional concerns are that Beijing has effectively imposed minimum prices for carbon credits and that it is using selective tax rates on carbon credits to help channel foreign investment toward projects that are deemed to improve its energy security…
- Capping greenhouse gas emissions [and the global trade in carbon credits is] viewed as important in reducing the build-up of gases that lead to global warming.

AND GOOD FOR ARNOLD!

An enthusiastic endorsement of Arnold's newest green proposals from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Bold move on global warming; A WORLD FIRST: Governor to order new standard to reduce carbon content of motor fuels
Greg Lucas, January 10, 2007 (San Francisco Chronicle)
- California will create the world's first global warming pollution standard for transportation fuels, ratcheting down fuel carbon content 10 percent by 2020 under a plan put forward by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Tuesday in his State of the State address.

- The new standard could have implications for the auto industry and change the way gasoline is produced around the globe. Environmentalists hailed it…
- Advocates of the proposal said competition from alternative fuels and a reduction in dependence on oil would prevent gasoline prices from rising, but oil companies said changing the mix of fuels to reduce carbon emissions would carry a cost…
- The plan gives the makers of gasoline and diesel fuel discretion…They can either reformulate their fuel or increase use of alternative fuels such as ethanol, natural gas and hydrogen…
- "Our cars have been running on dirty fuel too long. Our country has been dependent on foreign oil for too long. I ask you to set in motion the means to free ourselves from oil and from OPEC," Schwarzenegger told a joint session of the Legislature.
- Schwarzenegger plans to issue an executive order requiring the state's Air Resources Board to draft rules for a new carbon fuel standard, which would take effect in January 2010. His authority to do that comes from landmark legislation signed last year aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions across a wide spectrum of industries…
- Although the European Union is weighing a similar rule on carbon emissions, California would be the first government to create one…
- The new standard [the equivalent of taking 3 million cars off the road by 2020] is expected to reduce emissions by 13 million metric tons, more than half of the 24 million metric tons of carbon dioxide the state will need to eliminate to meet 1990 vehicle emission levels.
- Transportation accounts for 40 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in California.
- Schwarzenegger has made combatting global warming a centerpiece of his administration…Schwarzenegger's predecessor, Gray Davis, signed the nation's first bill to curb carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes in 2002…A legal challenge to the law by the auto industry has threatened that timetable…
- Automakers have pledged by 2012 to have half their vehicles run on flex fuel, allowing the use of either gasoline or ethanol. Building more hybrids and more natural-gas-powered vehicles also would help reduce emissions…

- Under the proposal, makers of gasoline and diesel fuel that do not reach the 10 percent reduction could buy credits from companies exceeding the standard. The credits would be used to reach compliance…

And a calmer evaluation for The New York Times:

Schwarzenegger Orders Cuts in Emissions
Jennifer Steinhauer and Felicity Barringer, January 10, 2007 (NY Times)
- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he would ask regulators to require the state’s petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers to cut by 10 percent the emissions of heat-trapping gases associated with the production and use of their products.
- The order for cuts, which the governor wants completed by 2020, follows California’s trademark pattern of hitching its environmental aspirations to its market muscle. It also represents one of the first examples of a state or a national government regulating the fuel in its passenger vehicles as part of a strategy to reduce both emissions that contribute to climate change and dependence on foreign oil…
- “Our country has been dependent on foreign oil for too long,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in his address. “I ask you to set to motion the means to free ourselves from oil and from OPEC. I ask you to encourage the free market to overthrow the old order. California has the muscle to bring about such change. I say use it.”
- The executive order asks state air regulators to take up the governor’s challenge. The California Air Resources Board will be responsible for drawing the blueprints to carry out the order, with the help of advisers from the University of California, Berkeley.
It is the first example of the practical impact of a deal made last summer between the Legislature and the governor to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 25 percent by 2020. The transportation sector is responsible for about 40 percent of the state’s carbon dioxide emissions…and cars make up about half that amount.

- The 10 percent cut in emissions would be accomplished, experts said, largely through the use of alternative fuels, like ethanol and other gasoline blends, which would be provided by the refineries and other producers…
- Environmentalists expected the order to turbocharge the market demand for corn-based ethanol and biodiesel fuels, and for natural gas, and to jump-start the introduction of experimental fuels like cellulosic ethanol, which is made from plant waste or nonfood crops like switch grass or wood chips…The companies or industries that stand to benefit financially from his plan include producers of corn-based ethanol, biodiesel and other, more experimental forms of renewable fuels…
- two otherwise identical gallons of ethanol could have different greenhouse-gas ratings, if one were refined using carbon-intensive coal-fired electricity, while the other was refined using relatively carbon-light electricity from natural gas…
- The governor’s staff said his mandate had the support of the oil industry. But that support was clearly not unanimous…The auto industry, in turn, believes California has asked plenty, and has sued the state over environmental rules…

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

TO CATCH THE WIND

A brief chat with John Bilsten of the Iowa Wind Energy Park (see Wind Storage?) confirmed the intent of the project, which is to extend the economically viable energy capacity of Algona Municipal Utilities. Bilsten talked about a variety of forms of energy. “We will continue to diversify our portfolio of generation. We are about the people of Iowa. They want us to do the right thing and that includes being stewards of the land." A little-explored dimension of energy development, Bilsten's project intends to make wind energy more economically viable by storing off-peak generation in the form of compressed air at very low prices and reselling it during peak demand at higher prices. And it is also developing ways to use compressed air stored wind energy in conjunction with biofuels, making both more economically viable.

Here's more on the subject from around the web:

SECO (State Energy Conservation Office) in Texas published findings as of June, 2005:
Compressed Air Energy Storage
- …SECO conducted a study to determine what benefits compressed air energy storage (CAES) would have for the transmission challenges…Air is stored in airtight salt domes to be used later to generate electricity…
- The CAES process uses caverns left behind when miners finish mining and clearing salt domes…generators compress air into the cavern and hold it under pressures between 1,000 and 1,500 pounds per square inch (PSI). By comparison, scuba tanks hold air at about 3,000 PSI. When electricity demands are greater than wind generation, plant operators bring air from the cavern back to the surface, where it is heated with natural gas, causing it to expand and rush through turbines that power a generator. Electricity created by the generator can then be delivered to customers. Because the air has already been compressed, less gas is needed to produce power during periods of peak demand…
- The study was able to show significant benefits…CAES can add value [by]…significantly [improving] the delivery profile of renewable energy to the grid…[ameliorating] the impacts of wind energy on system ramping…[providing] transmission benefits in excess of the cost of any transmission upgrades required by the CAES plant itself.

Also from the Texas site:

Improving the technical, environmental and social performance of wind energy systems using biomass-based energy storage
Paul Denholm, National Renewable Energy Lab (August, 2005)
- [Abstract:] A completely renewable baseload electricity generation system is proposed by combining wind energy, compressed air energy storage, and biomass gasification. This system can eliminate problems associated with wind intermittency and provide a source of electrical energy functionally equivalent to a large fossil or nuclear power plant. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) can be economically deployed in the Midwestern US , an area with significant low-cost wind resources. CAES systems require a combustible fuel, typically natural gas, which results in fuel price risk and greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing natural gas with synfuel derived from biomass gasification eliminates the use of fossil fuels, virtually eliminating net CO2 emissions from the system. In addition, by deriving energy completely from farm sources, this type of system may reduce some opposition to long distance transmission lines in rural areas, which may be an obstacle to large-scale wind deployment.

A Department of Energy evaluation of the concept concludes:
- CAES is really a hybrid storage/power production system. The system stores compressed air that is fed into a natural-gas-fired combustion turbine, allowing the turbine to operate at high efficiency. At present, the only existing CAES systems are combined with large central-station power plants. However, the technology could potentially be applied to distributed energy by using a small air compression station with a gas cylinder that feeds a single combustion turbine or a modified microturbine. The case study presented here is of the only CAES facility in the United States at present.

The D.O.E. page links to:

Facts about the Nation's First Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) Power Plant
- Second commercially owned [CAES] in the world. World's first CAES plant is a 290 MW facility located in Huntdorf, Germany.
- First CAES plant in the United States.
- First in the world to use fuel-efficient recuperator, which reduces fuel consumption by 25 percent.
- One full charge from the 110 MW CAES plant provides enough electricity to supply the demands of 11,000 homes for 26 hours.

- Off-peak electricity is used to compress air in the cavern. Top of solution-mined salt cavern is 1,500 feet underground. Bottom of cavern is 2,500 feet underground.
- 10-million-cubic-foot air storage cavern is 220 feet in diameter and 1,000 feet tall.
- At full charge, air pressure is 1,100 pounds per square inch. At full discharge, cavern air pressure is 650 pounds per square inch.
- The cavern walls do not move as the pressure changes inside. The cavern walls have a strength of 50 times that of the maximum air pressure produced by the CAES plant. Compressed air flows through the CAES plant generator at a rate of 340 pounds of air per second, which is as fast as a wide-body jet engine.
- The fuel consumption during generation is equal to 4,600 Btu (HHV) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. There are about 20,750 Btu in each gallon of gasoline.
- The electricity consumed during compression is 0.82 kWh of peak load generation.

There is also, on the Texas site, a link to a superb Princeton University powerpoint presentation:
Toward optimization of a wind/compressed air energy storage (CAES) power system

Also:

Compressed air wind energy storage
Bryce Finley, 27 November 2005 (Energy Bulletin)
- Certainly, two of the hurdles to relying on wind power for producing energy are the intermittent nature of the wind itself, and the fluctuating prices producers get for feeding the resulting power into the grid.
- One minute the wind is blowing (at a high enough rate to make power) and the next it isn’t…sometimes when the wind is blowing, power is selling for the lowest possible price, and when the turbines are still, power is worth the most…
- While wind power generation may be the fastest growing segment of the renewable energy business…Building wind farms is expensive, and relying on them to generate either a sufficiently steady source of power for the world - or revenue for the operator - is a sketchy affair…
- Systems for storing wind energy created when the going is good and releasing it for use when the turbines aren’t humming are being worked on…
- In a 2003 paper entitled “Large Scale Energy Storage Systems”, six students of engineering at Imperial College London noted that compressed air energy storage (CAES) systems typically relied on plants burning fossil fuels to compress the air stored in large underground caverns, which then used this air to produce energy at peak hours…
this air was mixed with natural gas and itself burned in a turbine to create the electricity…
- The researchers also noted that another approach, called compressed air storage (CAS) would hold the compressed air in man-made vessels…A few years later, this is exactly the road now being taken by…a Vancouver, B.C. company, Encore Clean Energy Inc…
- Encore will make use of its core technology, the Magnetic Piston Generator (MPG), as the turbine for its wind energy storage systems…MPG is a unique pressure-driven linear engine designed to generate electricity with higher fuel efficiency and lower emissions than conventional internal combustion engine-powered electric generators or even hydrogen fuel cells…The MPG can use many different sources of energy - one of them the compressed air from these proposed wind energy storage facilities - to generate the pressures required to propel the MPG's "Magnetic Piston" at high velocities, back-and-forth, through a linear alternator to generate power according to Faraday's Law of Induction…There are difficult engineering tasks associated…These problems include the high pressure needed for commercially meaningful output and the resulting low temperatures of the air if not reheated.
- Compressing the air in the first place, at least, is not one of the problems Encore envisions…
- if a wind facility made a certain amount of power at non-peak times, only about 25% of it would be used in compressing the air in the first place, leaving 75% of the initial production available for resale later at higher prices [so] “…non-peak intermittent wind power generated at…3-cents/kWh…sold during peak-demand times at prime peak prices of >10-cents per kWh…[generates]…a 250% improvement in gross revenues…”
- “This retrofit wind energy storage solution should enable wind farm owners to earn the highest prices for the power they generate and give local utilities the kind of peak, on-demand, power availability that Utilities pay the most for, but which up until now, current wind farm owners could not reliably guarantee…”

See also: General Compression

And, from energy expert Robert Rapier:

Compressed Air Energy Storage
- I have always been a big fan of wind power. But one of the knocks on wind is that it is intermittent….I have seen it claimed that 2,000 megawatts of installed wind energy still requires 1,800 megawatts of standby power for when the wind isn’t blowing…
- Clearly a storage system is needed…Imagine my surprise this weekend to learn that while I have been daydreaming about a wind energy storage system, someone is in the process of doing it…Members of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities have invested in a proposed power plant that would use wind turbines to drive compressed air into underground aquifers. The air would be released to generate electricity when needed…
- The plant will use power from its own wind turbines, supplemented by cheaper electricity bought at off-peak times, to force air into rock formations at least 2,000 feet underground.
- Current plans call for pressurized storage of tens of billions of cubic feet of air in rock formations deep underground…Only two other underground compressed air plants are in operation. A plant in Huntorf, Germany, was built more than 23 years ago and a plant in McIntosh, Ala., is 11 years old. Both store compressed air in underground salt caverns.
- Iowa's project is unique in that it would use wind power to store the air and combine it with massive underground storage capacity.

- The Germany and Alabama plants store hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of air in a thermos-bottle shaped container installed in the salt mines. The Iowa project would use naturally occurring pockets embedded in sand or sandstone formations sealed by shale or other rock…
- You need some kind of large, airtight, underground cavern. There are a lot of these in the United States, but they need to be located near a source of wind. Although, now that I think about it, I see no reason such a system couldn’t also be paired with solar or tidal generation systems, storing their excess energy using the same concept…
- The [Iowa] plant is scheduled to come online in 2010. I wish them great success, and look forward to hearing reports after they start up.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

WIND STORAGE?

Wind energy/storage plant slated for Dallas County
David Elbert, January 5, 2007 (Des Moines Register)
- Iowa’s municipal utilities announced plans Friday to build a $200 million power plant west of Dallas Center that will store wind energy in the ground and use it to generate up to 268 mega-watts of electricity.

- The announcement culminates more than four years of study and research…Construction of the Iowa Stored Energy Park would begin in 2009 with completion of the plant expected in 2011…
- Financing would be similar to methods used to build other utility power plants…pre-sell contracts to municipal utilities and others…sell bonds
- The site is roughly 40 acres…3,000 feet below the farmland is a porous rock structure that extends out for about a mile or more and has the capacity to hold compressed air pumped into the ground. That capacity is the key to the storage facility…electricity will be generated by wind energy farms at remote sites and will be carried by transmission lines to giant compressors…The compressors will pump the air into the ground, where it will be stored under pressure in the porous rock. The pressure is created by displacing air that is already in the rock. Air is contained within the rock by a surrounding solid rock cap.

- The air can be converted back into electricity by releasing the pressure, allowing the air to drive turbines that create electricity.
- The project would employ 300-400 workers during construction and create about 20-40 permanent jobs. The permanent jobs would be skilled jobs with good pay…
- Only two similar wind storage plants are currently in existence. One is in Germany and the other in Alabama. Both are about half the size of the plant planned for Dallas County…

IN COMES A BIGGIE

A Future With Wind
Elizabeth Olson, January 6, 2007 (NY Times)

- AES, the big power company, is branching out to wind power generation and other alternative energy. The company, which generates and distributes electricity in 26 countries, is also entering the $28 billion carbon trading market, where credits are exchanged to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions. Its chief executive, Paul Hanrahan, sat down in his office at the company’s sleek new headquarters in Arlington, Va., to discuss these developments…

- We saw that alternative energy was attractive from the environmental standpoint and from the energy security standpoint. And it is really the area with the highest growth potential. The wind industry is expected to triple in size by 2015, so it’s going from about 73 gigawatts to over 200 gigawatts…
- We are in 26 countries, and by buying a company in a region we can take that skill set the company has and expand it globally…we bought a U.S. wind company, and we’re developing U.S. wind projects as well as expanding into countries like Bulgaria, Scotland and France. And we’re looking at new projects in India, China and the Czech Republic…
- AES has had record revenue recently — a 14 percent increase to $3.15 billion in the third quarter…We are one of the few global power companies that not only is operating in developed countries but also in emerging markets, which, with respect to electricity, have much higher growth rates…it allows us as a company to grow much faster…
- We have dramatically reduced the amount of debt, and in various locations we’ve refinanced dollar debt with local currency debt so we don’t have that same kind of foreign currency exposure…

- We have three [liquefied natural gas] terminals in development right now. The U.S. is running out of natural gas — production is declining and demand growing — so the expectation is that the import levels will go from 3 percent today to about 24 percent in 2020…
- We developed…a way to mitigate carbon emissions from our plants…in the early ’90s. For example, for our power plant in Connecticut, we planted 50 million trees in Guatemala. This new effort is a continuation of that theme, but looking at it now not as a social responsibility project but as something that has profit potential given that people are buying these credits in Europe and are likely to continue buying them…
- For countries with coal as an indigenous resource, [AES clean technology] has a lot of potential because you can do a lot to reduce the particulate emissions and the sulfur nitrogen emissions which cause acid rain. You can reduce the carbon emissions from a power plant very cheaply, so we think there is a lot of potential to produce electricity in an environmentally responsible way…

AES EXEC BACKS ELECTRIC DRIVE

AES executive joins alternative energy group’s board
January 5, 2007 (Washington Business Journal via Yahoo News)
- AES, one of the largest power companies in the world, is bringing its muscle to a national group that's an advocate for alternative energy.

- Robert Hemphill, executive vice president of Arlington-based AES, will serve on the board of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, which represents organizations involved in battery, hybrid and fuel-cell technologies.
AES…is the fifth energy company to have a representative on the D.C.-based association's board…members also include Georgetown University and auto giants General Motors and Toyota…
- AES plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next three years in alternative energy, including wind-generated power, global climate change and liquefied natural gas.
"We see electric drive as a practical way to meet our transportation needs while also supporting the environment," Hemphill says…

Friday, January 05, 2007

HONDA GOES SOLAR

Another one from the prolific Leah Krauss:

Solar World: Honda enters solar market
Leah Krauss, December 7, 2006 (UPI)

- Japanese automaker Honda followed DuPont, General Electric and others to become the latest company to make solar cells…Honda dabbled in solar before officially unveiling Honda Soltec…The wholly owned subsidiary is a $35 million investment for the company…Honda Soltec will produce thin film solar cells made from a compound of copper, indium, gallium and diselenide -- known in the solar business as CIGS…
- CIGS solar cells require about 50 percent less energy to produce when compared to the production of crystalline silicon cells…Highly refined silicon is the main ingredient of 95 percent of solar cells -- including the newer "thin film" cells, which use much less material than a regular photovoltaic panel.

- Silicon is a proven technology, but it is also an expensive component of the solar cell.
- Though companies often cite environmental reasons for developing and selling solar technology, it is also a smart business move. While the average gain for the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ indices was 1.25 percent in 2005, eight publicly traded U.S. solar companies gained 134 percent on the stock market…
- Solar is just one of the energy sources provided by General Electric's GE Energy. The company has a varied renewables portfolio that also includes wind, hydro and biomass energy, and together with its thermal energy sources, the company is a $16.5 billion dollar business.
- DuPont, meanwhile, boasts "more than 20 years of experience in (photovoltaic) materials development, applications know-how, manufacturing expertise and global market access."
- Though the market is rife with companies dedicated to solar…DayStar Technologies, Inc., Evergreen Solar Inc., Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy Fund, Sunpower Corp. and Suntech Power Holdings…solar energy experts have told UPI that the entry of "regular" companies into the solar market proves there's money to be made there…

OPEC GOES AFRICAN

Two days after this announcement, a major new field was announced off the Angolan coast. Coincidence?

Enlarged Membership to Boost OPEC’s Clout on Oil Market
Tai Beiping, January 2, 2007 (Xinhua News Agency via Rigzone)
- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started enlargement for the first time in over 30 years by admitting Angola at the beginning of 2007, and was poised to tighten the cartel's grip on the world oil market.

- With an estimated daily output of some 1.4 million barrels, Angola is Sub-Saharan Africa's second biggest oil producer just after Nigeria.
- Possible new members also include Sudan and Ecuador…the three countries could boost OPEC's output by 2 million barrels per day (bpd), or 6 percent, and bring 10.5 billion barrels of proven reserves to the organization which already boasts 75 percent of the world's total.

- Analysts said the enlargement would further increase OPEC's influence on the world oil market…at a time when challenges are perceived from such producers as Russia, Mexico and others.
- Russia has become the world's second largest oil producer…Mexico and some non-OPEC African oil-producing countries are also rising to squeeze market share…
- The International Energy Agency said that absorbing Angola, Sudan and Ecuador could impede investment by foreign oil companies in the three countries and slow the growth of spare production…

- OPEC members -- Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Iraq and the newcomer Angola, regulate their oil exports and are assigned production limits under the quota system at the heart of the organisation…
- The organization cut output in November, 2006, from 27.5 million bpd to 26.3 million in a bid to control oil prices, but the effects were unapparent and some members kept producing above their quotas…Whatever changes the enlargement would bring, analysts said that OPEC members would defend the price level of 60 dollars a barrel.

TEAPOT DOME AGAIN?

The biggest American political scandal before Watergate involved the Secretary of the Interior taking cash from oilmen for drilling rights. How high up will this investigation lead?

U.S. Interior Officials’ Ties to Oil Probed
January 2, 2007 (AFX News Ltd. Via Rigzone)
- Federal investigators are looking at whether Interior Department officials played favorites or took money from companies vying for big oil and gas contracts.

- The probe is the latest in a series of investigations into Interior's handling of $10 billion a year in royalties paid by companies on the $60 billion in oil and gas they produce from leased public lands…
- Those royalties are the federal government's second-biggest source of revenues, behind only taxes. Other investigations are looking at multibillion-dollar shortfalls in royalty payments.
- The Justice Department is investigating the allegations based on the work of the Interior Department's inspector general's office, an internal watchdog…

- The Minerals Management Service helps oversee a program the Bush administration has promoted that allows companies to pay "in-kind" amounts of oil and gas, rather than cash royalties, for drilling federal lands. Such payments total about $3.7 billion in oil and gas a year…Interior sent most of the oil and gas to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but lately has sold it by hiring private companies that solicit bids. Through that bidding, companies offering the highest premium over daily market prices is supposed to win the oil-trading contract…

- "The allegation that any senior official who is responsible for collecting royalties from companies that drill on public lands is also taking money from those companies as a consultant is beyond a conflict of interest, if true, it is a crime," [said Massachusetts Democrat Representative Ed] Markey, a senior member of the House Resources Committee…"The Interior Department is riddled with people who got their jobs because they were close to the oil industry and could be expected to tilt every decision accordingly," he said. "Royalties owed to the government from production on public lands have become the currency of cozy cooperation between industry and its special friends in the Interior Department."
- Markey promised that Democrats taking over Congress in January will fully examine the royalties program…
- Efforts to reach the Interior Department on Saturday for comment were unsuccessful.

Everything you always wanted to know about TEAPOT DOME.

FUSION ILLUSION

THIS is what they get together on?

International Nuclear-Fusion Research Pact Signed in Paris
November 21, 2006 (AP via Fox News)
- Nations representing half the world's population signed a long-awaited, $12.8 billion pact Tuesday for a nuclear fusion reactor that could revolutionize global energy use for future generations.

- The ITER project by the United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea will attempt to combat global warming by harnessing the fusion that runs the sun, creating an alternative to polluting fossil fuels.
- But the project is still only experimental and will take decades to get going — and environmental groups say it may not even work.
- French President Jacques Chirac, who hosted the signing at the Elysee Palace in Paris, praised the attempt to "tame solar fire to meet the challenge of ecological energy…"
- Raymond Orbach of the U.S. Department of Energy said, "This energy represents the hope of the world."…
- The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor will be built in Cadarache in the southern French region of Provence, near Marseille…about 10,000 jobs…about eight years to build…Some 400 scientists from around the world…a demonstration power plant in Cadarache around 2040. If it works…10 percent to 20 percent of the world's energy could come from fusion by the end of the century.

- The EU will pay 50 percent of the cost to build the experimental reactor, with the six other parties contributing 10 percent each.
- Fusion, which powers the sun and other stars, involves confining hydrogen at extreme temperature and pressure…At…180 million degrees, the gas undergoes nuclear fusion, releasing energy that can be harnessed to generate electricity…one quart of sea water would be able to generate energy equivalent to a quart of oil or two pounds of coal…
- French anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire…warned that the project will still produce radioactive waste, though less than conventional nuclear reactors.
- Environmental activists, who generally oppose nuclear power, have argued that the project is too costly and would divert attention from current efforts to fight global warming.

Ya think?

Wikipedia on Nuclear Fusion:
- Fusion power refers to power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and release energy. The largest current experiment, JET, has resulted in fusion power production slightly less than the power put into the plasma, maintaining an output of 16 MW for a few seconds. In June 2005, the construction of the experimental reactor ITER, designed to produce several times more fusion power than the power into the plasma over many minutes, was announced. The production of net electrical power from fusion is planned for the next generation experiment after ITER...
- The likelihood of a catastrophic accident in a fusion reactor in which injury or loss of life occurs is much smaller than that of a fission reactor...In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create less damaging biologically, and the activity "burn off" within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities.
- It is far from clear whether or not nuclear fusion will be economically competitive with other forms of power...The low estimates for fusion appear to be competitive with but not drastically lower than other alternatives. The high estimates are several times higher...vast sums have been and continue to be invested in research...

- An important aspect of fusion energy in contrast to many other energy sources is that the cost of production is elastic. The cost of wind energy, for example, goes up as the optimal locations are developed first, while further generators must be sited in less ideal conditions. With fusion energy, the production cost will not increase much, even if large numbers of plants are built. It has been suggested that even 100 times the current energy consumption of the world is possible...
- Fusion power has many of the benefits of long-term renewable energy sources (such as sustainable energy supply and no greenhouse gas emissions) as well as some of the benefits of such relatively finite energy sources as hydrocarbons and nuclear fission (without reprocessing)...

Thursday, January 04, 2007

SOLAR SOARING

From Leah Krauss, one of my favorite writers:

Solar World: A sunny 2006 for solar
Leah Krauss, December 29, 2006 (UPI)
- The past year has seen landmark legislative support for solar in the United States; testing on the world's largest solar dish in Israel; and the announcement of solar projects in locations as far-flung as Central America, southeast Asia and Africa.

- And despite high prices driven by demand for silicon, the main ingredient in most solar panels, solar energy firms sported big gains in the stock market and in their quarterly earnings reports.
- Perhaps the most dramatic developments in the global solar energy industry happened in the United States in 2006. The country that uses most of the world's energy finally put its efforts behind a comprehensive renewable energy program as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which took effect January 1, 2006. Though many individual states already had tax breaks for solar in place, the Energy Policy Act introduced the first federal solar tax credit, encouraging businesses and homeowners to put photovoltaic panels on their roofs and to start using the sun to heat their water…
- Rhone Resch, the president of the Washington, DC-based Solar Energy Industries Association, told United Press International that getting Congress to enact sweeping solar incentive programs was the "No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 priority" for the industry in 2007. The association has hired a tax lobby firm, plans to increase its staff and its grass roots campaign, and to pour money into a media budget in the coming year…
- solar industry growth in [Germany] is slowing, but still leads the world…

- Solar technology also saw several important developments, such as increased interest in ultra-thin photovoltaic material through nanotechnology, and new efficiency records in concentrator photovoltaic technology…Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab announced that it had surpassed the 40-percent mark for concentrator photovoltaics -- a development that some compared to the athletic signifigance of running the first-ever four-minute mile…
- Several publicly traded solar companies -- including United Solar's parent company, Energy Conversion Devices -- gained more than 100 percent on the markets in 2005, and 2006 is likely to be an equally profitable year…

- In an article for Renewable Energy Access, [J. Peter Lynch, a financial consultant and an expert on the renewable energy industry] compared the average growth of seven public solar companies and one "clean energy" company with the average growth of three well-known indices: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ.
- The indices gained an average of 1.25 percent. The solar companies, on the other hand, grew by an average of 134 percent…DayStar Technologies posted 332 percent growth for 2005, Evergreen Solar gained 213 percent and Distributed Energy Systems Corp. rose 160 percent…

SON OF SUN

Thanks to Diane Liepins for the tip on this story.

He’s still following the sun
Lee Romney, January 3, 2006 (LA Times)

- IN the beginning…the mid-1970s, there was no solar energy industry…only a small collection of "experimenters, forward-thinking people, inventors." Even eking out a living was an impossibility: [Gary] Gerber survived, courtesy of a side gig selling cheese from his Volkswagen van…Three decades later, his Sun Light & Power can barely keep up. A frenzied demand for solar power, or photovoltaic, installations has eclipsed the water heater portion of the business, and since 2002, sales have ballooned by about 66% annually — to more than $11 million in 2006…
- Once the domain of hippies…renewable energy is now a pillar of California politics…Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed the California Solar Initiative…to help bring solar power to a million rooftops, as well as a landmark greenhouse-gas reduction law…

- Cities in the Bay Area — California's alternative-energy hotbed — are tricking out public buildings with solar panels, outfitting municipal vehicle fleets with the latest plug-in hybrids and tweaking building codes to require energy-efficient features in new construction. Large companies are scrambling to certify their buildings as "green."
- And across the state, in locations not at all off the beaten path, solar installations on homes and small businesses have soared, thanks largely to rebates for systems tied into the state power grid…1998 saw 87…the number exploded to more than 5,600 in 2006…

- FOR Gerber, 53, it is a head-spinning state of affairs…Curly-haired and soft-spoken, Gerber today looks the part of a steady engineer in his pressed khakis and checkered button-down shirt, four pens aligned in his front pocket. But he remains at heart a zealot, committed to renewable energy down to the solar watch on his wrist…he is among a handful of believers who came of age in the mid-'70s boom, survived the gloom of the '80s and '90s and emerged to thrive in today's market…
- Solar power has had previous brushes with the mass market: In 1891, Clarence M. Kemp designed the first commercial s

WAL-MART STEPS UP

Wal-Mart readies large-scale move into solar power
Martin LaMonica, January 3, 2007 (CNET)
- The company put out an RFP (request for proposal) last month to solar electric suppliers and expects to receive responses early this month…The move is part of a long-term plan to convert to renewable energy sources.

- Wal-Mart is keeping the details of the proposal under wraps…it could amount to a significantly large installation--on the order of 100 megawatts of power over the next five years…the Wal-Mart proposal called for a system that could be replicated across its stores in five states and make use of available roofing space.
- Wal-Mart has set up experimental stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colo. These stores are already using renewable power sources, including solar and wind…
- the move is significant as an indicator of growing corporate interest in sustainable practices and technologies…Installing solar power is a well understood--and potentially visible--way to use renewable energy. Aided by government incentives such as tax breaks, solar electric systems are becoming more cost-effective as solar companies devise new technologies and target specific markets.

- Google is using a flat-panel solar power system installed by a subsidiary of Energy Innovations, a company that specializes in solar systems for flat roofs like those found in office parks.
- Microsoft, too, has gotten into the solar game. Last year, it equipped its Silicon Valley headquarters with more than 2,000 solar panels capable of generating 480 kilowatts at peak capacity…
- Renewable energy is central to Wal-Mart's environmental efforts as well. The company has a vice president of corporate strategy and sustainability, Andy Ruben, and its corporate policy is to reduce its "carbon footprint" and greenhouse gas emissions.

- Its three specific, long-term environmental goals are: using 100 percent renewable energy; creating zero waste and selling products from sustainable resources…
- Wal-Mart president and CEO Lee Scott provided more detail on the company's short-term goals, including a commitment to invest $500 million a year in energy efficiency and technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…by 20 percent in the next seven years…

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

REALITY-TV GOES GREEN

Veronica Mars’ Ed Begley Jr.Turns Reality-TV Green
Raven Snook, January 1, 2007 (TV Guide)
- ...Ed Begley Jr. was recently killed off Veronica Mars…A veteran character actor who came to fame — and collected six Emmy nods — as St. Elsewhere’s bumbling Dr. Victor Ehrlich…is also a longtime environmental activist intent on helping the planet...

- Unlike many of his entertainment peers who ride around in gas-guzzling SUVs and live in mansions, Begley resides in a modest solar-powered home, drives an electric car and even takes the bus…His blonde-bombshell, image-conscious actress wife, Rachelle Carson…often finds herself at odds with his green lifestyle. Their hilariously contentious relationship is showcased in Living with Ed, a six-part HGTV reality show that will air Sundays at 10 pm/ET beginning Jan. 7…

Ed Begley Jr.: …Rachelle is my bashert, as they say [in Yiddish]. My destiny…Growing up in smoggy L.A. is what inspired me to become an activist. By 1970, I'd had a bellyful of it, so I said, "Enough already. I'm going to buy an electric car."
…The truth is, [Rachel] really does care about the environment. But she also wants everything to look good…We've influenced each other and kind of met in the middle. Like, I had this draught-tolerant garden, but she complained that it looked like the Addams' Family yard, so we had it relandscaped. It's still draught-tolerant, but now it looks nice…Hopefully viewers will enjoy our shtick while getting tips on how to live simply, so that others can simply live. That's my goal.

AMERICAN CARBON MARKET?

U.S. Companies Explore Ways to Profit From Trading Credits to Emit Carbon
Claudia H. Deutsch, December 28, 2006 (NY Times)
- While the trading of credits to emit carbon is under way in bits and pieces and California has moved to cap its production of greenhouse gases, no one expects nationally imposed limits to go into effect in the United States soon. Most experts see 2010 as the earliest possible date.

- Even so, a rapidly growing number of American companies are preparing for what they think will be a booming market after rules are approved…
- EcoSecurities, which has spent seven years investing in the reduction of greenhouse gases in Europe, is setting up a New York office to expand into the United States…Morgan Stanley plans to spend almost $3 billion to trade carbon credits on greenhouse gases over the next five years…American Electric Power has started including the value of carbon credits when it compares the costs of traditional coal-burning plants with more expensive, cleaner ones.

- Carbon trading is common in Europe and parts of Asia, where many countries operate under the Kyoto Protocol…The United States has refused…Most of the countries operate under a “cap and trade” system in which nations allot companies the right to emit a set amount of greenhouse gases. Companies that emit less than allowed, or that build new clean-burning plants, get credits they can then sell to companies that need them to meet the standard because they are emitting more than their allowable amount.
- For now, trading in the United States is voluntary: 225 companies that have made promises to reduce greenhouse gases by 6 percent by 2010 are trading carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. Prices for the credits started around 90 cents per ton of carbon when the exchange was established in 2002; they now trade around $4.
- Most experts said trading would pick up in California, which has passed greenhouse gas rules (they are being challenged in court), and in the Northeast, where a coalition of states are following California’s lead. But once national rules pass, as many experts predict, the market is expected to explode…
- GE Energy Financial Services is already negotiating to invest in projects that keep methane from escaping from landfills and coal mines, and it will take ownership of many of the resulting carbon credits…Insurance companies and consulting firms see the potential for profit, too. Marsh, [a unit of Marsh & McLennan], which is in both those businesses, is helping clients assess the risks and potential rewards of carbon abatement projects…

- For many companies, though, the motivation has less to do with the potential for profit. American Electric Power, one of the climate exchange’s 14 founders, joined partly to influence national policy…Once emissions rules are in place…it may make more economic sense to earn carbon credits by planting a forest or capturing methane from agricultural holding ponds than to cut emissions by switching a carbon-spewing coal plant to natural gas. Conversely, carbon credits can add to the economic viability of converting coal to gas, efficient turbine components and other clean technologies with high upfront costs.
- The Chicago exchange is being watched for early signs of glitches in its trading systems so those glitches can be ironed out…In particular, companies are already worrying about how Congress will establish baselines, the emission levels from which mandated reductions will be calculated. In Europe, prices for credits plunged this year because too many credits were issued, producing a glut…

EUROPEAN CARBON MARKET BOOMING

Lt's get those free markets to work!

European carbon trading hits record level in December
January 3, 2007 (AFP via Yahoo News)

- The European market for trading in carbon dioxide permits, Powernext Carbon, recorded its highest volume of trading in December with 5.8 million tonnes negotiated…Over the year, 31.4 million tonnes were bought and sold, making the Paris-based market the biggest carbon exchange of its kind.
- The price of a permit for one tonne of carbon dioxide was below 5.0 euros on Wednesday, from 15 euros at the start of 2006.
- Powernext Carbon is part of a system in the EU to reduce carbon dioxide pollution in which energy providers and industrial companies are assigned emissions quotas.
Companies wishing to emit more carbon dioxide than their allocated quota have to buy permits from companies with a surplus, thereby creating an economic incentive to reduce pollution.

- During 2006, news that companies had emitted less carbon dioxide than previously forecast and reports that European governments had been too generous in issuing pollution rights led to a sharp fall in the price of CO2 permits.

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