MORE SUNDAY WORLD, 6-28 (WIND TO REPLACE NUCLEAR IN UK; AUSTRALIAN STATE GOES WITH F-I-T; BANGLADESH MICROLOANS BUY OFF-GRID NEW ENERGY)

WIND TO REPLACE NUCLEAR IN UK
Wind Power Will Overtake Nuclear in U.K., BWEA Says
Mike Anderson, June 24, 2009 (Bloomberg News)

"The British Wind Energy Association [BWEA] predicted the industry will produce more U.K. power than nuclear reactors in the next decade and said competition and investment are needed to bring down costs…[BWEA] with 499 members in the wind- and tidal-energy industries, released two reports…calling on the U.K. to set policies to connect producers of renewable energy to the country’s power grid.

"Britain will have installed offshore wind capacity of as much as 9 gigawatts by 2015, the report said. Wind generation has the potential to provide electricity to every U.K. home by 2020, it said."

The UK will choose the latter. (click to enlarge)

"The wind industry is suffering from increasing capital costs and needs three to four manufacturers competing to bring down construction costs, the association said. Costs of building wind capacity are forecast to rise for the next few years and then decline from current levels until 2015, the group said…

"Companies developing wind capacity in the U.K. include Iberdrola SA’s Scottish Power Ltd. and Vattenfall AB, Sweden’s largest utility."


AUSTRALIAN STATE GOES WITH F-I-T
Solar power to the people
Andy Parks, 25 June 2009 (The Northern Rivers Echo)

"The [New South Wales] NSW Government has announced details of a solar feed in tariff scheme that will begin on January 1 next year. Under the scheme people who produce solar electricity and feed it back into the grid will be paid around four times the average price of electricity.

"The scheme will be available to systems up to 10 kilowatts in size, which Climate Change Minister Carmel Tebbutt said would cover households, small businesses, some community organisations and some schools…"

click to enlarge

[Carmel Tebbutt, Climate Change Minister, New South Wales:] “While the scheme will initially apply to roof-top solar panels, we will consider the inclusion of micro wind turbines and community solar farms…”

[Gordon Fraser-Quick, Co-ordinator, Solar Roll out program:] “Financial benefit must not be the principal driver in our investment decisions about the sources and forms of energy and appliances we choose to use, (but) the feed in tariff system will encourage even more climate friendly renewable energy infrastructure and the added economic return on investment will be a spur…”

Reason #2 for New Energy incentives in Australia: They can do much better. (click thru for the full report on Australia)

"[Fraser-Quick ] said on the downside it was unfortunate that the scheme is limited to sites where the total energy use is below 160 megawatt hours per annum…

"The Opposition’s spokesperson for Climate Change, Catherine Cusack, said the scheme was “too little, too late” and would not deliver the kick start the renewable energy industry needed in NSW…[and] said the coalition would introduce a gross tariff that pays for all the electricity produced (not just left-over power that goes back into the grid), would not cap the scheme at 10KW so large businesses could also participate and would open the scheme to all renewable energy including small scale wind, hydro and gas, not just solar."


BANGLADESH MICROLOANS BUY OFF-GRID NEW ENERGY
Better lives in Bangladesh – through green power; The environmental arm of a Nobel Prize-winning community development bank brings solar power, biogas, better stoves, and economic opportunity to rural residents.
Lisa Schroeder, June 24, 2009 (Christian Science Monitor)

"Here in the Bangladesh countryside, amid the emerald-green rice paddies and farmers threshing crops with their bare feet, are beige cows, giant haystacks… and solar energy panels – 200,000 of them scattered throughout the country…part of an innovative program conducted by Grameen Shakti, the environmental arm of Grameen Bank, which won a Nobel Peace Prize for its pioneering use of microloans in Bangladesh…Its projects also include biogas production, improved cookstove technology, and solar power training centers for women.

"Grameen Shakti (meaning “village energy” in Bangla) was started in 1996 as a way to bring electricity and better living standards to the country’s rural poor…When Grameen Shakti began, about 120 million people in the country didn’t have access to a source of electricity…Most were poor rural residents living in primitive conditions. By providing electricity to them, the organization hoped it would also help increase education rates and economic opportunities…Now, 13 years after the program’s inception, its efforts reach almost 2 million people in every part of Bangladesh."

A Grameen Shakti rooftop solar installation. (click thru for more on Grameen Shakti)

"Grameen Shakti first focused on solar panels…[N]ot only are solar panels portable, they are also better for the environment and more reliable than the nation’s present energy grid, which is not only unavailable to most areas outside cities but also prone to frequent blackouts.

"Traditionally, most rural dwellers rely on kerosene or candles as energy sources. But they’re costly, give negligible light, and emit fumes…Grameen Shakti used microcredit loans for disseminating the panels. Buyers make down payments of 15 to 25 percent and then pay off the loans in two or three years…The cost of the panels is offset by the buyers’ lower energy costs…[S]hop owners who purchase a solar panel system no longer have to buy candles in order to stay open at night…Now that they have reliable electricity, the children can study in the evening and don’t have to breathe kerosene fumes…

"…[W]hen women improve their lives, the whole family benefits…[I]n this Muslim society, and especially in the conservative rural areas, women are home alone during the day and aren’t allowed to let in male technicians unless a male family member is present…[F]emale technicians would automatically eliminate this issue…So women’s engineering technology centers were created…"

A Grameen Shakti biogas cookstove. (click thru for more on Grameen Shakti)

"Down a dirt road…behind a large chicken coop…[is] Mrs. Mohammad Abdur Razzak’s underground biogas plant. It’s another project initiated by Grameen Shakti…Razzak hoses her poultry coop’s waste into the connected chamber, where it ferments and creates biogas, which is released into a pipe that’s connected to her cooking stove…Since Razzak’s animals produce more gas than she uses, she makes an extra $71 per month by renting 10 cookstoves and the excess gas to her neighbors…The leftover slurry…is sold to local farmers for use as organic fertilizer.

"A 2006 World Bank study found that rural women and children under the age of 5 had the most exposure to indoor pollution from wood-burning cookstoves. To help alleviate this, Grameen Shakti designed a more fuel-efficient stove that produces less smoke and costs less to use…It burns half the wood of a traditional stove, the smoke is funneled away from the cooking area via a pipe, and the ashes can be used as fertilizer…"