Jonathan Clayton in Chimoio, Mozambique 2 Rows of neatly planted bush-sized trees stretch away to the horizon. Harry Stourton surveys the scene with pride. “Here, look at these,” the 38-year-old pioneering British businessman says, holding out a handful of jatropha fruit pods, the size of large grapes.
It is barely 14 months since Sun Biofuels planted its first crop of jatropha curcas, a little-known oil-bearing plant originally from Central America. Now the British-based renewable energy company is set to extract its first output and, possibly, revolutionise the green energy business.
The fast-growing plant produces seeds with an oil content ranging from 20 to 45 per cent. If it can be harvested commercially, it has the potential to transform the biofuels industry and provide poor African countries such as Mozambique with a new source of economic investment.
Demand for green energy is set to soar. From next year, European Union legislation will require that all transportation fuels contain a 10 per cent biofuel component. Last week China reiterated its plan to source 15 per cent of its diesel and petrol from renewable sources by 2020. Existing sources, among them rape and sunflower seed, cannot meet these targets. Jatropha could be the answer.
“It presents a massive opportunity for investment, employment and development for developing countries such as Mozambique. They have the capacity to become major suppliers to this fast-evolving industry,” according to Mr Stourton, the business development director of Sun Biofuels.
So the company has invested $7.5 million (£5 million) planting the crop on 5,000 hectares. It has a similar project under way on 8,000 hectares in Tanzania.
“In Mozambique,” Mr Stourton said, “our farms are former tobacco plantations. After the collapse of that industry, we moved in to plug the gap, creating thousands of jobs, bringing social projects and improving access to health and better education. So where once was grown a drug, we now cultivate clean energy.”
Jatropha, brought to Africa in the 19th century, grows wild across the continent. It requires far less water than other oil seed crops and its oil-bearing content has been known for years: in colonial Mozambique, Portuguese settlers used it in street lamps. Its quality is not in doubt, but Sun Biofuels has poured resources and manpower into making its production commercially viable. Yields vary enormously and even adjacent plants flower at different times, making mechanical picking difficult.
“This is pioneering work. The challenges are incredible. We have to find out more about what exactly makes this plant tick, what makes it flower and fruit — how much and when? These are all still enigmas,” Noel Myburgh, a South African plant breeder hired by the company to oversee field research, said.
Every jatropha plant currently produces about 3kg of seed per year, which translates roughly into seven tonnes per hectare. That results in two to three tonnes of oil.
Mr Stourton, an incurable optimist and advocate of renewable energy, said that could be more than doubled. “When palm oil grew wild in the jungle, it produced some four tonnes a hectare; with management, that went to thirty. With selection and crop service techniques, modern fertilisers, pest controls and so on, we would expect a significant increase in jatropha yields.”
If that happens, the plant could take off. International airlines are set to join the emissions trading scheme in 2012 and will have to pay large penalties for air pollution. They are desperate to increase the green component in aviation fuel and this year Lufthansa, which has sent a delegation to Sun Biofuels’ Mozambique project, will become the first airline to operate a daily flight between Hamburg and Frankfurt on a 50 per cent bio-jet fuel blend.
Sowing the seed
• Jatropha produces seeds, below, that have an oil content of up to 40 per cent
• The plant will grow in tropical and subtropical climates and in poor soil
• A jatropha bush can live for up to 50 years and is capable of producing a seed crop in its second year of growth
• Supporters of Jatropha claim that the plant is capable of producing four times more fuel per hectare than soya beans can and about ten times more than a crop of maize
• The jatropha plant is a native of Central America and was discovered and then brought to Europe by Portuguese explorers during the 16th century
• Air New Zealand, Continental Airlines and Japan Air have completed test flights using a 50-50 mixture of jatropha oil and jet fuel in their aircraft
• India leads the way in using oil from the jatropha plant and has set aside about 11 million hectares for plantations to grow the plant
• Mission Energy, which is based in Sydney and is one of the world’s largest jatropha companies, is in talks over an all-share offer for London’s D1 Oils, the AIM-listed specialist in jatropha
Source: Times research
Monday, 31 May 2010
China's first photovoltaic product market to open in June
21:22, May 28, 2010
China's first photovoltaic product market will start operation in June in Xinyu City, east China's Jiangxi Province.
The market is expected to attract more than 500 photovoltaic companies.
Annual trading volume of the market is estimated to reach 200 billion yuan.
Source: Xinhua
China's first photovoltaic product market will start operation in June in Xinyu City, east China's Jiangxi Province.
The market is expected to attract more than 500 photovoltaic companies.
Annual trading volume of the market is estimated to reach 200 billion yuan.
Source: Xinhua
Toyota Prius ‘Alpha’ MPV Launching In 2011
Michael Larner May 30th, 2010
By Michael Larner
May 30th, 2010 Having sold over 1.6 million Priuses (Prii? Priores?) since its initial release in Japan in 1997, Toyota has finally realized two things: (1) that hybrid technology can be profitable, and that, more importantly to their sales numbers, (2) not everybody is willing to forgive the Prius its awkward looks just to make a fashion statement. Beginning next year, Toyota is planning on expanding the Prius lineup to include other body styles built on the hybrid’s platform. First in development is a compact MPV called Alpha. The new model, reportedly scheduled to go on sale around March 2011, will be the first of many new Toyota models built around Prius technology. About one foot longer than the Prius hatchback, the Alpha is expected to provide seating for seven. Due to its increased size and weight, the Alpha should be slightly less fuel efficient than the current Prius, which gets an EPA rated 50 mpg. Also, the Prius Alpha should be the first production hybrid Toyota to use lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are known for being more powerful than their nickel-metal hydride counterparts, but they’re also more expensive. As such, a shorter, five-seater version of the Alpha, which may look similar to the Toyota Hybrid-X Concept from 2007, is also reportedly in the works, but will probably include the less expensive nickel-metal hydride batteries.
2007 Toyota Hybrid X Concept
Having sold over 1.6 million Priuses (Prii? Priores?) since its initial release in Japan in 1997, Toyota has finally realized two things: (1) that hybrid technology can be profitable, and that, more importantly to their sales numbers, (2) not everybody is willing to forgive the Prius its awkward looks just to make a fashion statement.
Beginning next year, Toyota is planning on expanding the Prius lineup to include other body styles built on the hybrid’s platform. First in development is a compact MPV called Alpha. The new model, reportedly scheduled to go on sale around March 2011, will be the first of many new Toyota models built around Prius technology. About one foot longer than the Prius hatchback, the Alpha is expected to provide seating for seven. Due to its increased size and weight, the Alpha should be slightly less fuel efficient than the current Prius, which gets an EPA rated 50 mpg.
Also, the Prius Alpha should be the first production hybrid Toyota to use lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are known for being more powerful than their nickel-metal hydride counterparts, but they’re also more expensive. As such, a shorter, five-seater version of the Alpha, which may look similar to the Toyota Hybrid-X Concept from 2007, is also reportedly in the works, but will probably include the less expensive nickel-metal hydride batteries.
By Michael Larner
May 30th, 2010 Having sold over 1.6 million Priuses (Prii? Priores?) since its initial release in Japan in 1997, Toyota has finally realized two things: (1) that hybrid technology can be profitable, and that, more importantly to their sales numbers, (2) not everybody is willing to forgive the Prius its awkward looks just to make a fashion statement. Beginning next year, Toyota is planning on expanding the Prius lineup to include other body styles built on the hybrid’s platform. First in development is a compact MPV called Alpha. The new model, reportedly scheduled to go on sale around March 2011, will be the first of many new Toyota models built around Prius technology. About one foot longer than the Prius hatchback, the Alpha is expected to provide seating for seven. Due to its increased size and weight, the Alpha should be slightly less fuel efficient than the current Prius, which gets an EPA rated 50 mpg. Also, the Prius Alpha should be the first production hybrid Toyota to use lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are known for being more powerful than their nickel-metal hydride counterparts, but they’re also more expensive. As such, a shorter, five-seater version of the Alpha, which may look similar to the Toyota Hybrid-X Concept from 2007, is also reportedly in the works, but will probably include the less expensive nickel-metal hydride batteries.
2007 Toyota Hybrid X Concept
Having sold over 1.6 million Priuses (Prii? Priores?) since its initial release in Japan in 1997, Toyota has finally realized two things: (1) that hybrid technology can be profitable, and that, more importantly to their sales numbers, (2) not everybody is willing to forgive the Prius its awkward looks just to make a fashion statement.
Beginning next year, Toyota is planning on expanding the Prius lineup to include other body styles built on the hybrid’s platform. First in development is a compact MPV called Alpha. The new model, reportedly scheduled to go on sale around March 2011, will be the first of many new Toyota models built around Prius technology. About one foot longer than the Prius hatchback, the Alpha is expected to provide seating for seven. Due to its increased size and weight, the Alpha should be slightly less fuel efficient than the current Prius, which gets an EPA rated 50 mpg.
Also, the Prius Alpha should be the first production hybrid Toyota to use lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are known for being more powerful than their nickel-metal hydride counterparts, but they’re also more expensive. As such, a shorter, five-seater version of the Alpha, which may look similar to the Toyota Hybrid-X Concept from 2007, is also reportedly in the works, but will probably include the less expensive nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
New Generation Biofuels Files a Patent Application on New Glycerin-Based Biofuel
COLUMBIA, Md., May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Renewable fuels provider New Generation Biofuels Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: NGBF) ("NGBF" or the "Company") today announced they have filed a patent application on their new glycerin-based biofuel.
"We are excited to add this technology to our intellectual property portfolio," said Cary J. Claiborne, CEO and President of NGBF. "This new technological development allows us to use glycerin as a primary feedstock to formulate our highly stable new biofuel which complements our existing products and will be an additional offering we have for the markets we serve."
"This new patent pending technology offers another effective biofuel solution for our customers' environmental and performance challenges," added Chief Technology Officer Dr. Andrea Festuccia. "It is formulated, as are our other technologies, to reduce emissions while providing physical product properties that are desirable for many of our customers' needs. The low viscosity and temperature characteristics such as an extremely low pour point should be very attractive for many of the markets we serve. In addition, converting from existing liquid fuels to our technology should require little if any modifications to existing fuel combustion systems."
"As a biofuel technology company we have a very aggressive and focused research and development program led by Dr. Festuccia that addresses a number of important and differentiating areas," stated Mr. Claiborne. "From our wide array of approved feedstocks addressing security of supply and cost issues to new patent pending products such as this new glycerin-based biofuel technology, Andrea and his team provide technology that creates unique solutions for our customers. Our R&D programs make a difference."
About New Generation Biofuels Holdings, Inc.
New Generation Biofuels develops renewable fuels technology and is a renewable fuels provider. New Generation Biofuels also holds an exclusive license for North America, Central America and the Caribbean to commercialize proprietary technology to manufacture alternative biofuels from plant oils and animal fats that it markets as a new class of biofuel for power generation, commercial and industrial heating and marine use. The Company believes that its proprietary biofuel can provide a lower cost, renewable alternative energy source with significantly lower emissions than traditional fuels. New Generation Biofuels' business model calls for establishing direct sales from manufacturing plants that it may purchase or build and sublicensing its technology to qualified licensees.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements concern our operations, prospects, plans, economic performance and financial condition and are based largely on our current beliefs and expectations. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements The risks and uncertainties related to our business include all the risks attendant a development stage business in the volatile energy industry, including, without limitation, the risks set forth under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009, and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Media Contact: Bryan McPhee ph: (410) 652-1159 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (410) 652-1159 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
bkmcphee@newgenerationbiofuels.com
"We are excited to add this technology to our intellectual property portfolio," said Cary J. Claiborne, CEO and President of NGBF. "This new technological development allows us to use glycerin as a primary feedstock to formulate our highly stable new biofuel which complements our existing products and will be an additional offering we have for the markets we serve."
"This new patent pending technology offers another effective biofuel solution for our customers' environmental and performance challenges," added Chief Technology Officer Dr. Andrea Festuccia. "It is formulated, as are our other technologies, to reduce emissions while providing physical product properties that are desirable for many of our customers' needs. The low viscosity and temperature characteristics such as an extremely low pour point should be very attractive for many of the markets we serve. In addition, converting from existing liquid fuels to our technology should require little if any modifications to existing fuel combustion systems."
"As a biofuel technology company we have a very aggressive and focused research and development program led by Dr. Festuccia that addresses a number of important and differentiating areas," stated Mr. Claiborne. "From our wide array of approved feedstocks addressing security of supply and cost issues to new patent pending products such as this new glycerin-based biofuel technology, Andrea and his team provide technology that creates unique solutions for our customers. Our R&D programs make a difference."
About New Generation Biofuels Holdings, Inc.
New Generation Biofuels develops renewable fuels technology and is a renewable fuels provider. New Generation Biofuels also holds an exclusive license for North America, Central America and the Caribbean to commercialize proprietary technology to manufacture alternative biofuels from plant oils and animal fats that it markets as a new class of biofuel for power generation, commercial and industrial heating and marine use. The Company believes that its proprietary biofuel can provide a lower cost, renewable alternative energy source with significantly lower emissions than traditional fuels. New Generation Biofuels' business model calls for establishing direct sales from manufacturing plants that it may purchase or build and sublicensing its technology to qualified licensees.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements concern our operations, prospects, plans, economic performance and financial condition and are based largely on our current beliefs and expectations. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements The risks and uncertainties related to our business include all the risks attendant a development stage business in the volatile energy industry, including, without limitation, the risks set forth under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009, and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Media Contact: Bryan McPhee ph: (410) 652-1159 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (410) 652-1159 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
bkmcphee@newgenerationbiofuels.com
The Water Cost of Carbon Capture
Coal power's carbon savior could double its water woes
Photo: Volker Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images
BY Samuel K. Moore // June 2010
Despite all the talk of moving to greener energy sources, coal will be with us for the foreseeable future. It’s just too cheap and plentiful. But if we’re really serious about cutting carbon dioxide emissions, coal plants everywhere will need to substantially reduce the billions of metric tons of CO2 they annually emit into the atmosphere. The big hope is that in the next few years the plants will begin capturing and storing a large portion of that CO2 deep underground, in the oceans, or in mineral form.
But the technology needed to capture carbon has a huge downside: It could nearly double the amount of water a plant uses for every kilowatt of electricity it delivers—easily erasing any gains from techniques aimed at conserving water.
"This technology was not developed in a water-constrained environment," says Jared Ciferno, technology manager for the existing plants program of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). "The bottom line is that [carbon] capture takes energy, and that translates to additional water use."
Just how much water is pretty shocking. By 2030, the addition of carbon-capture technology would boost water consumption in the U.S. electricity sector by 80 percent, or about 7500 megaliters per day, according to research at NETL, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. For plants in water-stressed areas, that’s a deal breaker. "It is not likely that there is enough water supply available to any of our plants to allow for double the water use," says John Coggins, manager of resource planning at Salt River Project, a water and energy utility in Arizona.
The 80 percent figure assumes that the electricity generation lost to powering the carbon-capture system is made up for by adding more water-cooled coal-fired power. In other words, for a 550-megawatt plant to both capture its carbon and still deliver 550 MW of electricity, it would need to add more than 125 MW of additional generating capability to cover the energy used in capture. If you don’t make up for the lost generation, or make it up in some way that requires no water and emits no carbon—with a wind farm, say—the additional water consumption is more like 40 to 50 percent, according to NETL’s Ciferno.
That’s still a lot of water. For coal power plants, the state-of-the-art carbon-capture technology is known as amine-based wet scrubbing [see "Catching Carbon," above]. It’s basically the technology that puts the fizz in your Fanta. First, the plant’s flue gas is scrubbed of sulfurous nasties; what’s left is a mixture of nitrogen, water vapor, and CO2. An amine solution then reacts with the CO2, yielding a gas stream of mostly nitrogen, which goes out the smokestack, and a CO2-rich amine solution. The solution is heated to strip the CO2 from the amines. The CO2 is then cooled and compressed for storage, and the amines cycle back to pick up more CO2.
Why does this process demand so much water? It’s all about the cooling. The power plant’s cooling tower carries heat away by evaporating water. Cooling the amines for CO2 absorption—which generates heat in itself—leads to an additional load on the cooling tower, causing more water to be lost. And compressing the CO2 to the supercritical conditions needed for storage requires cooling, too. (A less-water-intensive process would be used for integrated gasification combined cycle and oxyfuel plants, but the former technology is used in only a slim minority of generators, and the latter is not yet in operation [see "Restoring Coal’s Sheen," IEEE Spectrum, January 2008].)
To really reduce CO2 emissions, says Ciferno, less thirsty forms of carbon capture will have to be developed. His lab is now focused on reducing the amount of energy involved, betting that this will take care of carbon capture’s water woes, too. With a budget of about US $50 million per year and 40 projects, NETL has perhaps the biggest R&D program in this area. The goal is commercial-scale technology by 2020 that can capture 90 percent of a coal plant’s CO2 while increasing the cost of generating electricity at that plant by less than 35 percent.
Industrial firms already have several pilot projects capturing small streams of CO2 at plants in Europe and the United States. However, none have yet been scaled up to the size that would make a noticeable difference in a plant’s water consumption. France’s Alstom Power, for one, uses chilled ammonia instead of amines, which the technology company says should be more energy and water efficient. Alstom tested the process last year with a 20-MW pilot plant at American Electric Power’s New Haven, W.Va., generating station. AEP now plans to use it to capture carbon from 235 MW of the New Haven plant’s 1300-MW capacity, starting in 2015.
Germany’s Siemens Energy has also developed an alternative technology, which relies on amino-acid salts instead of amines. Amino-acid salts pick up more carbon than amines do, so you need to pump and cool less material, says Tony DoVale, president of Siemens Environmental Systems and Services. So far the process has been demonstrated to capture carbon while leaching only 9 percent of a plant’s power, compared to amine technology’s typical 20 percent. That "would ultimately imply half the cooling load," says DoVale.
Of course, unless plant operators are compelled to capture carbon, these energy and water costs won’t be borne at all. "Why would you put on a piece of equipment that puts 10 percent of a plant’s output away if you didn’t have to?" says DoVale.
This article originally appeared in print as "The Carbon Capture Conundrum."
Photo: Volker Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images
BY Samuel K. Moore // June 2010
Despite all the talk of moving to greener energy sources, coal will be with us for the foreseeable future. It’s just too cheap and plentiful. But if we’re really serious about cutting carbon dioxide emissions, coal plants everywhere will need to substantially reduce the billions of metric tons of CO2 they annually emit into the atmosphere. The big hope is that in the next few years the plants will begin capturing and storing a large portion of that CO2 deep underground, in the oceans, or in mineral form.
But the technology needed to capture carbon has a huge downside: It could nearly double the amount of water a plant uses for every kilowatt of electricity it delivers—easily erasing any gains from techniques aimed at conserving water.
"This technology was not developed in a water-constrained environment," says Jared Ciferno, technology manager for the existing plants program of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). "The bottom line is that [carbon] capture takes energy, and that translates to additional water use."
Just how much water is pretty shocking. By 2030, the addition of carbon-capture technology would boost water consumption in the U.S. electricity sector by 80 percent, or about 7500 megaliters per day, according to research at NETL, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. For plants in water-stressed areas, that’s a deal breaker. "It is not likely that there is enough water supply available to any of our plants to allow for double the water use," says John Coggins, manager of resource planning at Salt River Project, a water and energy utility in Arizona.
The 80 percent figure assumes that the electricity generation lost to powering the carbon-capture system is made up for by adding more water-cooled coal-fired power. In other words, for a 550-megawatt plant to both capture its carbon and still deliver 550 MW of electricity, it would need to add more than 125 MW of additional generating capability to cover the energy used in capture. If you don’t make up for the lost generation, or make it up in some way that requires no water and emits no carbon—with a wind farm, say—the additional water consumption is more like 40 to 50 percent, according to NETL’s Ciferno.
That’s still a lot of water. For coal power plants, the state-of-the-art carbon-capture technology is known as amine-based wet scrubbing [see "Catching Carbon," above]. It’s basically the technology that puts the fizz in your Fanta. First, the plant’s flue gas is scrubbed of sulfurous nasties; what’s left is a mixture of nitrogen, water vapor, and CO2. An amine solution then reacts with the CO2, yielding a gas stream of mostly nitrogen, which goes out the smokestack, and a CO2-rich amine solution. The solution is heated to strip the CO2 from the amines. The CO2 is then cooled and compressed for storage, and the amines cycle back to pick up more CO2.
Why does this process demand so much water? It’s all about the cooling. The power plant’s cooling tower carries heat away by evaporating water. Cooling the amines for CO2 absorption—which generates heat in itself—leads to an additional load on the cooling tower, causing more water to be lost. And compressing the CO2 to the supercritical conditions needed for storage requires cooling, too. (A less-water-intensive process would be used for integrated gasification combined cycle and oxyfuel plants, but the former technology is used in only a slim minority of generators, and the latter is not yet in operation [see "Restoring Coal’s Sheen," IEEE Spectrum, January 2008].)
To really reduce CO2 emissions, says Ciferno, less thirsty forms of carbon capture will have to be developed. His lab is now focused on reducing the amount of energy involved, betting that this will take care of carbon capture’s water woes, too. With a budget of about US $50 million per year and 40 projects, NETL has perhaps the biggest R&D program in this area. The goal is commercial-scale technology by 2020 that can capture 90 percent of a coal plant’s CO2 while increasing the cost of generating electricity at that plant by less than 35 percent.
Industrial firms already have several pilot projects capturing small streams of CO2 at plants in Europe and the United States. However, none have yet been scaled up to the size that would make a noticeable difference in a plant’s water consumption. France’s Alstom Power, for one, uses chilled ammonia instead of amines, which the technology company says should be more energy and water efficient. Alstom tested the process last year with a 20-MW pilot plant at American Electric Power’s New Haven, W.Va., generating station. AEP now plans to use it to capture carbon from 235 MW of the New Haven plant’s 1300-MW capacity, starting in 2015.
Germany’s Siemens Energy has also developed an alternative technology, which relies on amino-acid salts instead of amines. Amino-acid salts pick up more carbon than amines do, so you need to pump and cool less material, says Tony DoVale, president of Siemens Environmental Systems and Services. So far the process has been demonstrated to capture carbon while leaching only 9 percent of a plant’s power, compared to amine technology’s typical 20 percent. That "would ultimately imply half the cooling load," says DoVale.
Of course, unless plant operators are compelled to capture carbon, these energy and water costs won’t be borne at all. "Why would you put on a piece of equipment that puts 10 percent of a plant’s output away if you didn’t have to?" says DoVale.
This article originally appeared in print as "The Carbon Capture Conundrum."
Frustrated EU carbon traders play waiting game
Fri May 28, 2010 12:06pm EDTCOLOGNE Germany (Reuters) - Major changes proposed to the European Union's emissions market could dramatically alter the landscape for traders, who are increasingly frustrated by regulatory uncertainty and political stalemate.
Gulf Oil Spill
A deeper 2020 EU greenhouse gas reduction commitment, qualitative and quantitative restrictions on carbon offset eligibility and details on carbon permit auctioning in the scheme's third phase are among the decisions expected to be made this year by the 27-nation bloc's executive.
But policymakers at this week's annual Carbon Expo conference in Cologne were tight-lipped, and the uncertainty caused gloom among traders.
"Obviously the mood would be better with more regulatory certainty," Emmanuel Fages, carbon analyst at Societe Generale/orbeo, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
"Firms for whom carbon is a core activity remain resilient but they are experiencing a difficult context post-Copenhagen."
The market's momentum has already been stalled by failed U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen last year, delays to a U.S. climate bill and scandals including tax fraud and permit theft that rattled the $118 billion EU scheme in 2009.
Carbon prices have also dropped from 2008 highs due to lower European industrial output as a result of the global downturn.
Despite the uncertain investment climate, organizers said attendance at the conference was strong again this year at around 3,000 people.
DECISIONS, DECISIONS
The EU Commission said on Wednesday it would consider deepening its 2020 target to 30 percent below 1990 levels, from a 20 percent currently, if other nations adopt deep cuts themselves.
A decision will likely be made before this year's U.N. climate talks in Mexico. If approved, it would mean the EU carbon permit supply would be slashed, and that could push prices up to between 30-50 euros, from around 15 euros now.
The move, expected to cost around 81 billion euros ($99.2 billion) annually by 2020, could have grave implications for EU industry, especially the top emitting power generators which get most of their emissions permits for free.
In the scheme's third phase (2013-2020), most utilities will be required to buy their permits at auction, but details about the auctions or the total number of permits on offer have also not yet been decided, meaning utilities that forward sell power are limited from hedging their positions with Phase 3 credits.
"The one positive thing about auctioning should serve to lift the gloom because the market is going to get bigger," said Louis Redshaw, head of carbon markets at Barclays Capital.
INVESTMENTS SLOWING
More uncertainty surrounds the future of the Clean Development Mechanism, one of the carbon finance schemes under the Kyoto Protocol climate pact.
With Kyoto's first leg expiring in 2012 and no successor pact yet in place, the fate of the CDM and the carbon offsets, called Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), it generates through clean energy project investment is in question.
"Investments are certainly slowing as a consequence. We don't necessarily know what types of CERs we can use, but there are plenty of clues," Redshaw said.
The EU has already committed to allowing a set quota of CERs, which serve as a cheaper alternative for participants to buying EU carbon permits, into its trading scheme through 2020.
But leaked EU documents show the Commission is considering several different proposals that could further shrink investment in the CDM, which fell to $2.7 billion in value last year from $6.5 billion in 2008, according to the World Bank.
One idea was to restrict CERs from certain types of projects from being used for compliance in the EU, for example from large, lucrative industrial gas cutting projects. A more recent one is to introduce a multiplier rate for using some CERs, for example two industrial gas credits would be equal to one renewable energy CER or one CER from a least developed country.
Traders say both are unrealistic and unfair, arguing that all tonnes of displaced CO2 are identical, whether they come from investing in cutting a chemical plant's emissions or from building a wind farm.
"The whole thing was sold to the European Parliament as being to do with CER quality issues, but now it seems to revolve around profitability," said Miles Austin of lobby group Carbon Markets and Investors Association.
AMERICAN BOOST
U.S. climate legislation is one area outside the EU where, if progress were made, traders said could provide a boost to the stalled development of a global carbon market.
Two U.S. Senators unveiled their American Power Act earlier this month, which was quickly backed by President Barack Obama and aims to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The bill, similar to legislation passed in the House of Representatives last June, faces looming deadlines with mid-term elections set for November, and fierce opposition from Republicans and some Democrats.
"There's a mixed bag of views on the likelihood of U.S. cap and trade," Redshaw said. "We are relatively bullish, but 'relative' doesn't mean a great deal."
(Additional reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by William Hardy)
Gulf Oil Spill
A deeper 2020 EU greenhouse gas reduction commitment, qualitative and quantitative restrictions on carbon offset eligibility and details on carbon permit auctioning in the scheme's third phase are among the decisions expected to be made this year by the 27-nation bloc's executive.
But policymakers at this week's annual Carbon Expo conference in Cologne were tight-lipped, and the uncertainty caused gloom among traders.
"Obviously the mood would be better with more regulatory certainty," Emmanuel Fages, carbon analyst at Societe Generale/orbeo, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
"Firms for whom carbon is a core activity remain resilient but they are experiencing a difficult context post-Copenhagen."
The market's momentum has already been stalled by failed U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen last year, delays to a U.S. climate bill and scandals including tax fraud and permit theft that rattled the $118 billion EU scheme in 2009.
Carbon prices have also dropped from 2008 highs due to lower European industrial output as a result of the global downturn.
Despite the uncertain investment climate, organizers said attendance at the conference was strong again this year at around 3,000 people.
DECISIONS, DECISIONS
The EU Commission said on Wednesday it would consider deepening its 2020 target to 30 percent below 1990 levels, from a 20 percent currently, if other nations adopt deep cuts themselves.
A decision will likely be made before this year's U.N. climate talks in Mexico. If approved, it would mean the EU carbon permit supply would be slashed, and that could push prices up to between 30-50 euros, from around 15 euros now.
The move, expected to cost around 81 billion euros ($99.2 billion) annually by 2020, could have grave implications for EU industry, especially the top emitting power generators which get most of their emissions permits for free.
In the scheme's third phase (2013-2020), most utilities will be required to buy their permits at auction, but details about the auctions or the total number of permits on offer have also not yet been decided, meaning utilities that forward sell power are limited from hedging their positions with Phase 3 credits.
"The one positive thing about auctioning should serve to lift the gloom because the market is going to get bigger," said Louis Redshaw, head of carbon markets at Barclays Capital.
INVESTMENTS SLOWING
More uncertainty surrounds the future of the Clean Development Mechanism, one of the carbon finance schemes under the Kyoto Protocol climate pact.
With Kyoto's first leg expiring in 2012 and no successor pact yet in place, the fate of the CDM and the carbon offsets, called Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), it generates through clean energy project investment is in question.
"Investments are certainly slowing as a consequence. We don't necessarily know what types of CERs we can use, but there are plenty of clues," Redshaw said.
The EU has already committed to allowing a set quota of CERs, which serve as a cheaper alternative for participants to buying EU carbon permits, into its trading scheme through 2020.
But leaked EU documents show the Commission is considering several different proposals that could further shrink investment in the CDM, which fell to $2.7 billion in value last year from $6.5 billion in 2008, according to the World Bank.
One idea was to restrict CERs from certain types of projects from being used for compliance in the EU, for example from large, lucrative industrial gas cutting projects. A more recent one is to introduce a multiplier rate for using some CERs, for example two industrial gas credits would be equal to one renewable energy CER or one CER from a least developed country.
Traders say both are unrealistic and unfair, arguing that all tonnes of displaced CO2 are identical, whether they come from investing in cutting a chemical plant's emissions or from building a wind farm.
"The whole thing was sold to the European Parliament as being to do with CER quality issues, but now it seems to revolve around profitability," said Miles Austin of lobby group Carbon Markets and Investors Association.
AMERICAN BOOST
U.S. climate legislation is one area outside the EU where, if progress were made, traders said could provide a boost to the stalled development of a global carbon market.
Two U.S. Senators unveiled their American Power Act earlier this month, which was quickly backed by President Barack Obama and aims to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The bill, similar to legislation passed in the House of Representatives last June, faces looming deadlines with mid-term elections set for November, and fierce opposition from Republicans and some Democrats.
"There's a mixed bag of views on the likelihood of U.S. cap and trade," Redshaw said. "We are relatively bullish, but 'relative' doesn't mean a great deal."
(Additional reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by William Hardy)
Indian electric car market changing
Published: May 28, 2010 at 4:35 PM
ArticlePhotosListenComments.Share NEW DELHI, May 28 (UPI) -- One of India's largest utility companies has bought a controlling stake of 55.2 percent in electric car maker Reva, the Financial Express reported Friday.
The purchase by Mahindra and Mahindra, represents an optimistic view of India's domestic automobile market, as domestic car ownership is less than 10 for every 1,000 citizens.
A senior official of apex auto body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association, speaking off the record, said that there is currently a small domestic market for electric cars in India, observing: "Customers first look for value for money. As electric batteries are very expensive, costs of the vehicle also shoot up."
PricewaterhouseCoopers India automobile analyst Abdul Majeed was more optimistic, noting: "Just like we have petrol/diesel pumps across the country, charging stations also have to come up for electric vehicles. The current generation is a lot more sensitized about the environment than previous ones. In the years ahead, the electric form of vehicles will become a lot more popular. We are already seeing the trend globally."
ArticlePhotosListenComments.Share NEW DELHI, May 28 (UPI) -- One of India's largest utility companies has bought a controlling stake of 55.2 percent in electric car maker Reva, the Financial Express reported Friday.
The purchase by Mahindra and Mahindra, represents an optimistic view of India's domestic automobile market, as domestic car ownership is less than 10 for every 1,000 citizens.
A senior official of apex auto body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association, speaking off the record, said that there is currently a small domestic market for electric cars in India, observing: "Customers first look for value for money. As electric batteries are very expensive, costs of the vehicle also shoot up."
PricewaterhouseCoopers India automobile analyst Abdul Majeed was more optimistic, noting: "Just like we have petrol/diesel pumps across the country, charging stations also have to come up for electric vehicles. The current generation is a lot more sensitized about the environment than previous ones. In the years ahead, the electric form of vehicles will become a lot more popular. We are already seeing the trend globally."
Britain to export fuel made from household waste
Britain is dumping its rubbish on other European countries as councils struggle to deal with the growing waste mountain.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 2:44PM BST 28 May 2010
The UK faces massive fines if landfill is not reduced over the next few years but recycling rates remain low.
In their search for new ways to dispose of household rubbish, councils are to export fuel pellets made from the contents of hundreds of thousands of bins to countries like Holland and Germany.
Snow Britain: 'Vast majority' of bin collections back in action
Landfill levy could lead to £50 rise in council tax after Budget
More households face fuel poverty, warn Government advisers
China risks protectionist bonfire over Rio Tinto arrestsBecause the European nations have been more sucessful in encouraging their citizens to recycle, they are faced with a shortage of material they can burn to power factories and heating systems.
The first export of 40,000 tonnes has been given the go-ahead by the Environment Agency and it is expected more shipments will follow.
Local authorities claim it is a cost-effective way to get rid of waste rather than paying landfill tax.
But environmentalists pointed out that councils are still paying for the waste to be exported and argued that it was bad for climate change and tax payers.
Officially it is illegal to export waste to other countries for dumping, though products like plastic and paper can be sent to countries like China for recycling.
Waste from industrial processes like wood chips is also sent abroad for burning and hazardous waste has turned up in other countries - although this was exported illegally.
The Waste firm Shanks is exporting 40,000 tonnes initially as part of a 25 year £47 million contract to get rid of waste for the East London Waste Authority(ELWA).
The Environment Agency said the shipment has been given the go-ahead because it is "refuse-derived fuel" or RDF that will go towards generating energy, rather than waste.
The 'RDF' is made up of the rubbish dumped in black bin bags around East London, including paper and plastic that could have been recycled. It will be used to power Amsterdam's district heating network.
Mark Ash, Operations Manager at ELA, insisted that as much waste as possible is collected for recycling and materials are also removed for re-use later on in the process.
While ELWA pay for the waste to be dealt with, he said the councils still have to pay a portion of landfill tax so any reduction in landfill is good for the taxpayer.
Wiltshire Council also have a contract that could see waste exported to Germany for burning.
But Dr Michael Warhurst of Friend of the Earth said sending rubbish to another country for burning in incinerators was a waste of money and fueling climate change.
He said burning plastic produced pollution and transporting the rubbish also increases greenhouse gases.
"It is one thing to export rubbish for recycling, it is another to just dump it in an incinerator in another country," he said.
"It is much better from a climate change or resource efficiency point of view to be taking more recycling. We should be recycling this material rather than just dumping it in an incinerator."
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 2:44PM BST 28 May 2010
The UK faces massive fines if landfill is not reduced over the next few years but recycling rates remain low.
In their search for new ways to dispose of household rubbish, councils are to export fuel pellets made from the contents of hundreds of thousands of bins to countries like Holland and Germany.
Snow Britain: 'Vast majority' of bin collections back in action
Landfill levy could lead to £50 rise in council tax after Budget
More households face fuel poverty, warn Government advisers
China risks protectionist bonfire over Rio Tinto arrestsBecause the European nations have been more sucessful in encouraging their citizens to recycle, they are faced with a shortage of material they can burn to power factories and heating systems.
The first export of 40,000 tonnes has been given the go-ahead by the Environment Agency and it is expected more shipments will follow.
Local authorities claim it is a cost-effective way to get rid of waste rather than paying landfill tax.
But environmentalists pointed out that councils are still paying for the waste to be exported and argued that it was bad for climate change and tax payers.
Officially it is illegal to export waste to other countries for dumping, though products like plastic and paper can be sent to countries like China for recycling.
Waste from industrial processes like wood chips is also sent abroad for burning and hazardous waste has turned up in other countries - although this was exported illegally.
The Waste firm Shanks is exporting 40,000 tonnes initially as part of a 25 year £47 million contract to get rid of waste for the East London Waste Authority(ELWA).
The Environment Agency said the shipment has been given the go-ahead because it is "refuse-derived fuel" or RDF that will go towards generating energy, rather than waste.
The 'RDF' is made up of the rubbish dumped in black bin bags around East London, including paper and plastic that could have been recycled. It will be used to power Amsterdam's district heating network.
Mark Ash, Operations Manager at ELA, insisted that as much waste as possible is collected for recycling and materials are also removed for re-use later on in the process.
While ELWA pay for the waste to be dealt with, he said the councils still have to pay a portion of landfill tax so any reduction in landfill is good for the taxpayer.
Wiltshire Council also have a contract that could see waste exported to Germany for burning.
But Dr Michael Warhurst of Friend of the Earth said sending rubbish to another country for burning in incinerators was a waste of money and fueling climate change.
He said burning plastic produced pollution and transporting the rubbish also increases greenhouse gases.
"It is one thing to export rubbish for recycling, it is another to just dump it in an incinerator in another country," he said.
"It is much better from a climate change or resource efficiency point of view to be taking more recycling. We should be recycling this material rather than just dumping it in an incinerator."
How green are Feed-in-Tariffs?
The Feed-in Tariff system promises to turn your house into an energy-generating hub. But does it deliver?
Lucy Siegle The Observer, Sunday 30 May 2010
In China it is illegal to be without a solar panel on a certain-sized home. It's the type of policy that works better in a totalitarian state, so here in Britain we are to be enticed to turn houses into energy-generating hubs courtesy of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) system.
For every watt you generate you are paid a guaranteed sum – on a £12,500 photovoltaic (PV) solar panel system generating 2.5kW, this adds up to 41.3p per kWh generated. On top of that, you can export all unused energy back to the grid. Voilà – a house that generates power and income. Wall-mounted turbines in urban areas have been roundly rubbished as "eco bling" but still qualify under the FITs – be prepared for rigorous feasibility studies on wind speeds. You've got more chance in Orkney than Notting Hill.
It's not quite all systems go. Hydroelectric and anaerobic digestion also qualify, but the former only works if you happen to own the rights to a fast-flowing river nearby (with the requisite drop), and the latter if you keep livestock. For most of us, micro-generation means solar PV – so you need a south-facing, non-shaded roof. You also need a lot of cash for the initial outlay. Much-trumpeted loans by the previous government appear to have been put on ice, and George Monbiot suggests this is an indirect and expensive way of reducing a tiny amount of carbon emissions. Feed-in Tariffs will not save the planet.
Lucy Siegle The Observer, Sunday 30 May 2010
In China it is illegal to be without a solar panel on a certain-sized home. It's the type of policy that works better in a totalitarian state, so here in Britain we are to be enticed to turn houses into energy-generating hubs courtesy of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) system.
For every watt you generate you are paid a guaranteed sum – on a £12,500 photovoltaic (PV) solar panel system generating 2.5kW, this adds up to 41.3p per kWh generated. On top of that, you can export all unused energy back to the grid. Voilà – a house that generates power and income. Wall-mounted turbines in urban areas have been roundly rubbished as "eco bling" but still qualify under the FITs – be prepared for rigorous feasibility studies on wind speeds. You've got more chance in Orkney than Notting Hill.
It's not quite all systems go. Hydroelectric and anaerobic digestion also qualify, but the former only works if you happen to own the rights to a fast-flowing river nearby (with the requisite drop), and the latter if you keep livestock. For most of us, micro-generation means solar PV – so you need a south-facing, non-shaded roof. You also need a lot of cash for the initial outlay. Much-trumpeted loans by the previous government appear to have been put on ice, and George Monbiot suggests this is an indirect and expensive way of reducing a tiny amount of carbon emissions. Feed-in Tariffs will not save the planet.
UK's first 'conservation credit' scheme launched
Sale of shares in £100m project to restore land at headwaters of Thames is first step in what could become a biobanking industry worth billions
Juliette Jowit guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 May 2010 12.06 BST
The first UK project allowing builders to buy "credits" in conservation schemes, to offset the damage they are doing elsewhere, has been launched.
Conservation credit – or biobanking – schemes have been trialled in the US, Australia and South Africa and experts believe the industry could become worth billions of pounds in Britain.
The initial step is the sale of shares in a £100m project to restore and reconnect fragmented wetlands, woodlands and grasslands around the headwaters of the river Thames in the west of England.
The shares are being sold by the Environment Bank, a company that helps deliver "mitigation and compensation schemes associated with planned development".
Although buying credits will be voluntary, the company said it expected developers would want to get involved. Investing in conservation would allow them to meet environmental standards attached to planning permission for development sites, without giving up as much land, and thus potential income.
The idea of conservation credits has received backing from the new prime minister, David Cameron, and it is expected to be supported by a report this summer for the UN on the costs and benefits of looking after ecosystems and biodiversity.
However, environment groups have a number of worries, including the possibility of developers paying for schemes which would have happened anyway. They also fear that public funds will be taken from conservation projects when private money is funnelled in and are concerned that the benefits of a specific conservation project should be at least equal to the loss of biodiversity on the development site.
Rob Gillespie, a town planner and the Environment Bank's managing director, said he and Professor David Hill, an ecologist and member of the government's wildlife and countryside agency Natural England, set up the company three years ago because they were dismayed by the poor quality of conservation work done as a result of current planning agreements, which are usually limited to small fragments of land.
"Nobody wants them, nobody wants to pay for them, they become loitering areas and, added together, they have no benefit," said Gillespie. "We started thinking this can't go on as it does: we have got to find a more credible way of balancing the impact of development with good-quality environmental mitigation ...
"Why not have conservation credits, landscape-scale, which deliver much more bangs for the bucks. Let the developers get on with what they are good at: they are not good at conservation."
He added: "We're not suggesting taking the brakes off the planning system. This is not a licence to trash."
The scheme in the west of England is the first launched by the company, which is working up a portfolio of other projects around the country, covering a variety of habitats. For the Thames scheme, the company is working with Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, and talking to other trusts in Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, as well as the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust charity.
In response to the concern that public funding would dry up when private developers paid for schemes, Gillespie said there was already a risk that huge public spending cuts meant government money was likely to be axed anyway. "We may be stepping in to replace public sector finance," he said.
Developers of projects from housing to nuclear power stations or ports would be encouraged to invest in schemes in the same region as their business, so that local communities would be close to the benefits, said Gillespie.
He also said that the initiative was not intended to allow any relaxation in planning laws, such as proof that a development is needed and stronger protections for more important sites.
In the US, which is at the forefront of biobanking schemes, $3bn (£2.1bn) was raised for wetlands alone in 2008, said Hill.
When the Guardian first revealed the Conservative policy supporting biobanking last year, Hill said housebuilders had indicated they would be willing to pay about £5,000 per new home built if a scheme similar to the Tory proposals was up and running.
"Multiply that by 240,000 homes a year to be built: you suddenly realise the figures that could go into the natural environment go into the 100s of millions [of pounds]," he added.ends.
Juliette Jowit guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 May 2010 12.06 BST
The first UK project allowing builders to buy "credits" in conservation schemes, to offset the damage they are doing elsewhere, has been launched.
Conservation credit – or biobanking – schemes have been trialled in the US, Australia and South Africa and experts believe the industry could become worth billions of pounds in Britain.
The initial step is the sale of shares in a £100m project to restore and reconnect fragmented wetlands, woodlands and grasslands around the headwaters of the river Thames in the west of England.
The shares are being sold by the Environment Bank, a company that helps deliver "mitigation and compensation schemes associated with planned development".
Although buying credits will be voluntary, the company said it expected developers would want to get involved. Investing in conservation would allow them to meet environmental standards attached to planning permission for development sites, without giving up as much land, and thus potential income.
The idea of conservation credits has received backing from the new prime minister, David Cameron, and it is expected to be supported by a report this summer for the UN on the costs and benefits of looking after ecosystems and biodiversity.
However, environment groups have a number of worries, including the possibility of developers paying for schemes which would have happened anyway. They also fear that public funds will be taken from conservation projects when private money is funnelled in and are concerned that the benefits of a specific conservation project should be at least equal to the loss of biodiversity on the development site.
Rob Gillespie, a town planner and the Environment Bank's managing director, said he and Professor David Hill, an ecologist and member of the government's wildlife and countryside agency Natural England, set up the company three years ago because they were dismayed by the poor quality of conservation work done as a result of current planning agreements, which are usually limited to small fragments of land.
"Nobody wants them, nobody wants to pay for them, they become loitering areas and, added together, they have no benefit," said Gillespie. "We started thinking this can't go on as it does: we have got to find a more credible way of balancing the impact of development with good-quality environmental mitigation ...
"Why not have conservation credits, landscape-scale, which deliver much more bangs for the bucks. Let the developers get on with what they are good at: they are not good at conservation."
He added: "We're not suggesting taking the brakes off the planning system. This is not a licence to trash."
The scheme in the west of England is the first launched by the company, which is working up a portfolio of other projects around the country, covering a variety of habitats. For the Thames scheme, the company is working with Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, and talking to other trusts in Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, as well as the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust charity.
In response to the concern that public funding would dry up when private developers paid for schemes, Gillespie said there was already a risk that huge public spending cuts meant government money was likely to be axed anyway. "We may be stepping in to replace public sector finance," he said.
Developers of projects from housing to nuclear power stations or ports would be encouraged to invest in schemes in the same region as their business, so that local communities would be close to the benefits, said Gillespie.
He also said that the initiative was not intended to allow any relaxation in planning laws, such as proof that a development is needed and stronger protections for more important sites.
In the US, which is at the forefront of biobanking schemes, $3bn (£2.1bn) was raised for wetlands alone in 2008, said Hill.
When the Guardian first revealed the Conservative policy supporting biobanking last year, Hill said housebuilders had indicated they would be willing to pay about £5,000 per new home built if a scheme similar to the Tory proposals was up and running.
"Multiply that by 240,000 homes a year to be built: you suddenly realise the figures that could go into the natural environment go into the 100s of millions [of pounds]," he added.ends.
Government's chief scientific adviser hits out at climate sceptics
Professor John Beddington dismisses 'unreasonable' comments from groups including Nigel Lawson's thinktank, as Royal Society responds to critics with new climate science guide
• UK Royal Society revives confusion as US concludes climate change certainty
James Randerson guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 May 2010 16.16 BST
The government's chief scientific adviser has hit out at climate sceptics who attack global warming science on spurious grounds.
The statements from Professor John Beddington appeared to be a veiled attack on the former Tory chancellor and arch climate sceptic Nigel Lawson.
Beddington said that he had met Lord Lawson to brief him about the science of global warming.
His comments came as the Royal Society announced that it would publish a new guide to climate science for the public following criticism of existing statements on the topic, reportedly from 43 of the society's 1,489 fellows.
"It has been suggested that the society holds the view that anyone challenging the consensus on climate change is malicious – this is ridiculous," said Professor Martin Rees, the society's president.
"Science is organised scepticism and the consensus must shift in light of the evidence.
"In the current environment we believe this new guide will be very timely. Lots of people are asking questions, indeed even within the fellowship of the society there are differing views."
In his first interview since the election, Beddington agreed that true scientific scepticism was healthy and must be encouraged but he criticised individuals and organisations that cherrypicked data for political ends.
"There is no doubt that there are organisations and individuals who will choose to characterise the science as being nonsensical on the basis of what are not reasonable criticisms," he said.
He highlighted the spurious argument that because the UK winter had been so cold, climate change science must be wrong.
Beddington said there was a difference between weather and climate. "The fact that we have had a very cold winter in Britain does not mean that the climate is not getting warmer," he said, adding that rejecting global warming on those grounds was wrong. "This is just not science. This is commentary," he said.
Lawson's thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has deployed similar arguments to downplay the significance of climate change.
Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who is the foundation's director, said in December last year: "We look out of the window and it's very cold, it doesn't seem to be warming."
Lawson has said that "global warming ... is not at the present time happening". Peiser has previously said the GWPF does not challenge climate science but concentrates on examining policy implications.
Beddington, who gave a public lecture on climate change at the University of York yesterday, was also highly critical of the mistakes made by the UN's climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he called "fundamentally stupid statements".
Referring to the incorrect claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, he said: "Nobody in their right mind would see that as even a scientific statement. There's no uncertainty, there's no caveats." But he added that overall the IPCC report had a "remarkably small number of problems".
Beddington said that he had yet to have a formal meeting with David Cameron or Nick Clegg, but he said the coalition government faced a slew of scientific and engineering issues.
"Just about anywhere I look around the portfolio of government problems in any department, there are big issues of science and engineering including social science," he said.
He highlighted climate change, obesity, the volcanic ash cloud and vigilance to pandemic influenza as pressing problems for government to address.
He said he would advise Cameron to shield funding for scientific research from future spending cuts as far as possible.
"If you then think about how the UK as an economy is going to compete in the future, the underpinning of science and engineering having the best quality students, the best quality scientists and engineers is absolutely imperative."
When asked about the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, Beddington said there would be lessons for the UK.
"I think we need to understand it," he said. "I think deep offshore [drilling] presents formidable engineering problems as you can see from the attempt to actually deal with it.
"I think that one will have to be asking questions about the appropriate levels of regulation that are operating in licensing deep offshore drilling in the North Sea."
• UK Royal Society revives confusion as US concludes climate change certainty
James Randerson guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 May 2010 16.16 BST
The government's chief scientific adviser has hit out at climate sceptics who attack global warming science on spurious grounds.
The statements from Professor John Beddington appeared to be a veiled attack on the former Tory chancellor and arch climate sceptic Nigel Lawson.
Beddington said that he had met Lord Lawson to brief him about the science of global warming.
His comments came as the Royal Society announced that it would publish a new guide to climate science for the public following criticism of existing statements on the topic, reportedly from 43 of the society's 1,489 fellows.
"It has been suggested that the society holds the view that anyone challenging the consensus on climate change is malicious – this is ridiculous," said Professor Martin Rees, the society's president.
"Science is organised scepticism and the consensus must shift in light of the evidence.
"In the current environment we believe this new guide will be very timely. Lots of people are asking questions, indeed even within the fellowship of the society there are differing views."
In his first interview since the election, Beddington agreed that true scientific scepticism was healthy and must be encouraged but he criticised individuals and organisations that cherrypicked data for political ends.
"There is no doubt that there are organisations and individuals who will choose to characterise the science as being nonsensical on the basis of what are not reasonable criticisms," he said.
He highlighted the spurious argument that because the UK winter had been so cold, climate change science must be wrong.
Beddington said there was a difference between weather and climate. "The fact that we have had a very cold winter in Britain does not mean that the climate is not getting warmer," he said, adding that rejecting global warming on those grounds was wrong. "This is just not science. This is commentary," he said.
Lawson's thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has deployed similar arguments to downplay the significance of climate change.
Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who is the foundation's director, said in December last year: "We look out of the window and it's very cold, it doesn't seem to be warming."
Lawson has said that "global warming ... is not at the present time happening". Peiser has previously said the GWPF does not challenge climate science but concentrates on examining policy implications.
Beddington, who gave a public lecture on climate change at the University of York yesterday, was also highly critical of the mistakes made by the UN's climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he called "fundamentally stupid statements".
Referring to the incorrect claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, he said: "Nobody in their right mind would see that as even a scientific statement. There's no uncertainty, there's no caveats." But he added that overall the IPCC report had a "remarkably small number of problems".
Beddington said that he had yet to have a formal meeting with David Cameron or Nick Clegg, but he said the coalition government faced a slew of scientific and engineering issues.
"Just about anywhere I look around the portfolio of government problems in any department, there are big issues of science and engineering including social science," he said.
He highlighted climate change, obesity, the volcanic ash cloud and vigilance to pandemic influenza as pressing problems for government to address.
He said he would advise Cameron to shield funding for scientific research from future spending cuts as far as possible.
"If you then think about how the UK as an economy is going to compete in the future, the underpinning of science and engineering having the best quality students, the best quality scientists and engineers is absolutely imperative."
When asked about the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, Beddington said there would be lessons for the UK.
"I think we need to understand it," he said. "I think deep offshore [drilling] presents formidable engineering problems as you can see from the attempt to actually deal with it.
"I think that one will have to be asking questions about the appropriate levels of regulation that are operating in licensing deep offshore drilling in the North Sea."
Friday, 28 May 2010
A historic moment for anyone who cares about the environment
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Friday, 28 May 2010
Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party. It is the first time in decades a new national party has taken a seat at Westminster
History doesn't always come in thunderclaps or cheering crowds, and yesterday it was made with very little outward fuss when a woman in a pale blue trouser suit got to her feet from a green leather bench and began to speak.
It was precisely 3.30 in the afternoon, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, Hugh Bayley, had just issued a two-word invitation: "Caroline Lucas." And with that, the first MP of the Green Party, in fact the first MP of a new national party for many years, began her maiden speech and her party's political life at Westminster. Henceforth, the environment has its own representation in our politics.
It had been a long journey to get there, she said. Indeed it had: nearly 40 years from the Green Party's origins as the Ecology Party in the 1970s, and nearly 20 years in the case of Ms Lucas herself, who began her rise in the party at the moment of the Greens' false dawn: in the Euro elections of June 1989, when they got 15 per cent of the UK vote, burst on to the national political scene, and then blew it.
Thrust into the spotlight, such were the antics of the Greens' grassroots, rejecting the "cult of leadership" and insisting that the party spoke with several voices at once – I listened to the debates with an inward groan at Green Party conferences at places like Wolverhampton and Bridlington – that by the mid-1990s they had dissipated their credibility entirely and had become little better than a political joke. Caroline Lucas has led the way back to reality, and to the realisation of the truly noble aim of having a politics based on concern for the Earth, as much as on concern for equality, or freedom – the ideal of Petra Kelly of Germany's Die Grünen, the charismatic inspiration for Green parties the world over.
I have followed her long journey closely over those two subsequent decades, and many key moments are etched on my mind. There was a midnight meeting in Oxford in 1992 with a troubled Petra Kelly herself, shortly before she was murdered by her partner; a 4am moment of euphoria in Winchester Town Hall in 1999 when Ms Lucas was elected as the Greens' first Euro MP; the moment in 2007 when she was adopted as candidate for Brighton Pavilion, the one parliamentary constituency where the Greens had a realistic chance of success; her winning of the fight for the party to have a single leader, in 2008, and then the securing of the post for herself; and finally the election night marvel at 5.45am in Brighton's conference centre on 7 May, when she and her supporters realised that they had broken through the wall into Westminster.
That was an unforgettable occasion of cheers and wild delight – in a weird way, it was like witnessing a baby being born – but somehow even that was eclipsed for me by yesterday's event, calm, composed and routine.
It was so routine, in fact, that I was the only observer in the Press Gallery, apart from two guys from Hansard, the official recorder of parliamentary debates, and a chap from the Press Association, the national news agency. There were 31 people in the public seats, and fewer than 50 MPs in the chamber. There was no roll of drums. There was no fanfare. But when this 49-year-old former Oxfam adviser got to her feet, I could not suppress my own sense of history being made; for here it was. It was real, after all, it was really happening: the voice of the environment was at last being heard in the Mother of Parliaments, long after it had resounded through every other national legislature in Europe.
You had to go back several decades, she said, to the election of the first Nationalist MPs in Scotland and Wales, to find the last maiden speech from a new national political party.
She went on: "And perhaps a better comparison would be those first Socialist and Independent Labour MPs, over a century ago, whose arrival was seen as a sign of coming revolution. When Keir Hardie made his maiden speech to this House, after winning the seat of West Ham South in 1892, there was an outcry, because instead of frock coat and top hat, he wore a tweed suit and a deerstalker... but what Keir Hardie stood for now seems much more mainstream: progressive taxation, votes for women, free schooling, pensions, and abolition of the House of Lords.
"And though the last of these is an urgent task still before us, the rest are now seen as essential to our society. What was once radical, even revolutionary, becomes understood, accepted and even cherished."
MPs in their maiden speeches traditionally sing the praises of their constituencies, and Ms Lucas followed Tom Greatrex, singing the praises of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, and Angie Bray, lauding the virtues of Ealing Central and Acton, in making sure the Commons knew the virtues of Brighton. In fact, the bohemian bit of the Sussex seaside resort, centred on the Pavilion constituency, is the Greens' spiritual home, and Ms Lucas hinted at this, remarking: "You have to work quite hard to be a 'local character' in Brighton" before going on to praise the Lanes, the Conference Centre, the Pier, the Royal Pavilion, the entrepreneurial spirit of the people, the beauty of the Sussex countryside, and the achievements of her predecessor, the Labour MP David Lepper.
But the markers she put down about her future activities constituted the meat of her speech. Climate change would be a major concern, she said, and she went on: "Politics needs to renew itself, and allow new ideas and visions to emerge. So I hope that if, and when other new political movements arise, they will not be excluded by the system of voting. Reform here, as in other areas, is long overdue." Electoral reform, she said, "means more than a referendum on the Alternative Vote: it means the choice of a genuinely proportional electoral system."
Furthermore, she told the House, one of the things a single MP could do was raise issues which could not be raised elsewhere, and despite the tradition of maiden speeches being non-controversial, she broached the issue of the commodities trading group Trafigura and the shipping of hazardous waste to Ivory Coast – an issue which was not being reported in Britain, she said. She added: "These are the kind of issues I would like to pursue."
The House of Commons has been warned.
Extracts from the maiden speech
Our message
"If our message had been heeded nearly 40 years ago, I like to think we would be much closer to the genuinely sustainable economy that we so urgently need, than we currently are today."
Climate change
"I have worked on the causes and consequences of climate change for most of my working life, first with Oxfam – for the effects of climate change are already affecting millions of people in poorer countries around the world – and then for 10 years in the European Parliament. But if we are to overcome this threat, then it is we in this chamber who must take the lead."
Single MPs
"Both before the election and afterwards, I have been asked the question: what can a single MP hope to achieve? I may not be alone in facing that question. And since arriving in this place, and thinking about the contribution other members have made over the years, I am sure that the answer is clear, that a single MP can achieve a great deal."
Friday, 28 May 2010
Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party. It is the first time in decades a new national party has taken a seat at Westminster
History doesn't always come in thunderclaps or cheering crowds, and yesterday it was made with very little outward fuss when a woman in a pale blue trouser suit got to her feet from a green leather bench and began to speak.
It was precisely 3.30 in the afternoon, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, Hugh Bayley, had just issued a two-word invitation: "Caroline Lucas." And with that, the first MP of the Green Party, in fact the first MP of a new national party for many years, began her maiden speech and her party's political life at Westminster. Henceforth, the environment has its own representation in our politics.
It had been a long journey to get there, she said. Indeed it had: nearly 40 years from the Green Party's origins as the Ecology Party in the 1970s, and nearly 20 years in the case of Ms Lucas herself, who began her rise in the party at the moment of the Greens' false dawn: in the Euro elections of June 1989, when they got 15 per cent of the UK vote, burst on to the national political scene, and then blew it.
Thrust into the spotlight, such were the antics of the Greens' grassroots, rejecting the "cult of leadership" and insisting that the party spoke with several voices at once – I listened to the debates with an inward groan at Green Party conferences at places like Wolverhampton and Bridlington – that by the mid-1990s they had dissipated their credibility entirely and had become little better than a political joke. Caroline Lucas has led the way back to reality, and to the realisation of the truly noble aim of having a politics based on concern for the Earth, as much as on concern for equality, or freedom – the ideal of Petra Kelly of Germany's Die Grünen, the charismatic inspiration for Green parties the world over.
I have followed her long journey closely over those two subsequent decades, and many key moments are etched on my mind. There was a midnight meeting in Oxford in 1992 with a troubled Petra Kelly herself, shortly before she was murdered by her partner; a 4am moment of euphoria in Winchester Town Hall in 1999 when Ms Lucas was elected as the Greens' first Euro MP; the moment in 2007 when she was adopted as candidate for Brighton Pavilion, the one parliamentary constituency where the Greens had a realistic chance of success; her winning of the fight for the party to have a single leader, in 2008, and then the securing of the post for herself; and finally the election night marvel at 5.45am in Brighton's conference centre on 7 May, when she and her supporters realised that they had broken through the wall into Westminster.
That was an unforgettable occasion of cheers and wild delight – in a weird way, it was like witnessing a baby being born – but somehow even that was eclipsed for me by yesterday's event, calm, composed and routine.
It was so routine, in fact, that I was the only observer in the Press Gallery, apart from two guys from Hansard, the official recorder of parliamentary debates, and a chap from the Press Association, the national news agency. There were 31 people in the public seats, and fewer than 50 MPs in the chamber. There was no roll of drums. There was no fanfare. But when this 49-year-old former Oxfam adviser got to her feet, I could not suppress my own sense of history being made; for here it was. It was real, after all, it was really happening: the voice of the environment was at last being heard in the Mother of Parliaments, long after it had resounded through every other national legislature in Europe.
You had to go back several decades, she said, to the election of the first Nationalist MPs in Scotland and Wales, to find the last maiden speech from a new national political party.
She went on: "And perhaps a better comparison would be those first Socialist and Independent Labour MPs, over a century ago, whose arrival was seen as a sign of coming revolution. When Keir Hardie made his maiden speech to this House, after winning the seat of West Ham South in 1892, there was an outcry, because instead of frock coat and top hat, he wore a tweed suit and a deerstalker... but what Keir Hardie stood for now seems much more mainstream: progressive taxation, votes for women, free schooling, pensions, and abolition of the House of Lords.
"And though the last of these is an urgent task still before us, the rest are now seen as essential to our society. What was once radical, even revolutionary, becomes understood, accepted and even cherished."
MPs in their maiden speeches traditionally sing the praises of their constituencies, and Ms Lucas followed Tom Greatrex, singing the praises of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, and Angie Bray, lauding the virtues of Ealing Central and Acton, in making sure the Commons knew the virtues of Brighton. In fact, the bohemian bit of the Sussex seaside resort, centred on the Pavilion constituency, is the Greens' spiritual home, and Ms Lucas hinted at this, remarking: "You have to work quite hard to be a 'local character' in Brighton" before going on to praise the Lanes, the Conference Centre, the Pier, the Royal Pavilion, the entrepreneurial spirit of the people, the beauty of the Sussex countryside, and the achievements of her predecessor, the Labour MP David Lepper.
But the markers she put down about her future activities constituted the meat of her speech. Climate change would be a major concern, she said, and she went on: "Politics needs to renew itself, and allow new ideas and visions to emerge. So I hope that if, and when other new political movements arise, they will not be excluded by the system of voting. Reform here, as in other areas, is long overdue." Electoral reform, she said, "means more than a referendum on the Alternative Vote: it means the choice of a genuinely proportional electoral system."
Furthermore, she told the House, one of the things a single MP could do was raise issues which could not be raised elsewhere, and despite the tradition of maiden speeches being non-controversial, she broached the issue of the commodities trading group Trafigura and the shipping of hazardous waste to Ivory Coast – an issue which was not being reported in Britain, she said. She added: "These are the kind of issues I would like to pursue."
The House of Commons has been warned.
Extracts from the maiden speech
Our message
"If our message had been heeded nearly 40 years ago, I like to think we would be much closer to the genuinely sustainable economy that we so urgently need, than we currently are today."
Climate change
"I have worked on the causes and consequences of climate change for most of my working life, first with Oxfam – for the effects of climate change are already affecting millions of people in poorer countries around the world – and then for 10 years in the European Parliament. But if we are to overcome this threat, then it is we in this chamber who must take the lead."
Single MPs
"Both before the election and afterwards, I have been asked the question: what can a single MP hope to achieve? I may not be alone in facing that question. And since arriving in this place, and thinking about the contribution other members have made over the years, I am sure that the answer is clear, that a single MP can achieve a great deal."
The Energy Debate - The fox trick and the Greek defence
The day's main event was the clash of Chris Huhne's abstract nouns with Ed Miliband's attempt to enthuse Labour backbenchers
Simon Hoggart The Guardian, Friday 28 May 2010
The day's main event was the debate on energy, featuring Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem cabinet minister, and Ed Miliband, who is running for leadership of the Labour party. Huhne had to demonstrate that he was a loyal member of the Conservative administration. The Tories are all in favour of nuclear power stations, which need to be built lickety-split, as we have few energy supplies left, and within a few years the government will be handing out exercise bikes hooked up to the mains and we will have to pedal frantically if we want to watch Match of the Day – or boil an egg.
The Lib Dems, by contrast, are totally opposed to nuclear power. Without the spirit of goodwill that has created the coalition, this might have been a problem. Instead, they have gone for what I think of as the fox hunting compromise. Fox hunting is now illegal, yet carries on much as before. In that way, everyone is happy, except the foxes. In the same way, the coalition parties are agreed that nuclear power should get an immediate go-ahead. On the other hand, it will have to be financed entirely by private money, with no state aid. This means no nuclear power stations will actually be built. The world will gaze in wonder at this cunning arrangement, and will continue to gaze until the lights go out.
Huhne is a former member of the European parliament, and it shows. He loves the kind of phrase that is constructed out of abstract nouns, selected to make it easy to translate into 20-odd languages. "Preventing habitat degradation"; "exploring new international sources of funding"; "decarbonising our economy" and the sonorous "2001: United Nations Year of Biodiversity". Presumably some young civil servant had the job of putting the speech together at random from a box of cards marked "Energy and Conservation Bingo". Huhne read it out with an air of passionate conviction. Somewhere, you felt, an interpreter was falling asleep.
Miliband had the opposite problem. He needed to enthuse and excite. The message to Labour backbenchers had to be that he was the chap who would maintain a ferocious attack on the coalition, the leader who would never apologise for the last 13 years but restore his party's morale. The difficulty is that most MPs agree on climate change. "The other side are more or less right!" is never going to be a great battle-cry, so he slid over the topic as fast as he could.
His main assault was on the Lib Dems, who have had to support policies they explicitly ran against. "Being a Lib Dem in opposition meant not having to choose … being a Lib Dem in government means not having to choose either!" Huhne interrupted to say that the government couldn't spend money because we were in a worse position than Greece. "Aha!" cried Miliband, "the Greek defence! You don't need to keep your promises, because of something that happened in Greece!" A far away country of which we know quite a lot.
Meaningless, of course, but it won't half cheer up the Labour party.
Simon Hoggart The Guardian, Friday 28 May 2010
The day's main event was the debate on energy, featuring Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem cabinet minister, and Ed Miliband, who is running for leadership of the Labour party. Huhne had to demonstrate that he was a loyal member of the Conservative administration. The Tories are all in favour of nuclear power stations, which need to be built lickety-split, as we have few energy supplies left, and within a few years the government will be handing out exercise bikes hooked up to the mains and we will have to pedal frantically if we want to watch Match of the Day – or boil an egg.
The Lib Dems, by contrast, are totally opposed to nuclear power. Without the spirit of goodwill that has created the coalition, this might have been a problem. Instead, they have gone for what I think of as the fox hunting compromise. Fox hunting is now illegal, yet carries on much as before. In that way, everyone is happy, except the foxes. In the same way, the coalition parties are agreed that nuclear power should get an immediate go-ahead. On the other hand, it will have to be financed entirely by private money, with no state aid. This means no nuclear power stations will actually be built. The world will gaze in wonder at this cunning arrangement, and will continue to gaze until the lights go out.
Huhne is a former member of the European parliament, and it shows. He loves the kind of phrase that is constructed out of abstract nouns, selected to make it easy to translate into 20-odd languages. "Preventing habitat degradation"; "exploring new international sources of funding"; "decarbonising our economy" and the sonorous "2001: United Nations Year of Biodiversity". Presumably some young civil servant had the job of putting the speech together at random from a box of cards marked "Energy and Conservation Bingo". Huhne read it out with an air of passionate conviction. Somewhere, you felt, an interpreter was falling asleep.
Miliband had the opposite problem. He needed to enthuse and excite. The message to Labour backbenchers had to be that he was the chap who would maintain a ferocious attack on the coalition, the leader who would never apologise for the last 13 years but restore his party's morale. The difficulty is that most MPs agree on climate change. "The other side are more or less right!" is never going to be a great battle-cry, so he slid over the topic as fast as he could.
His main assault was on the Lib Dems, who have had to support policies they explicitly ran against. "Being a Lib Dem in opposition meant not having to choose … being a Lib Dem in government means not having to choose either!" Huhne interrupted to say that the government couldn't spend money because we were in a worse position than Greece. "Aha!" cried Miliband, "the Greek defence! You don't need to keep your promises, because of something that happened in Greece!" A far away country of which we know quite a lot.
Meaningless, of course, but it won't half cheer up the Labour party.
How to have an ethical barbecue
Forget gas grills, use sustainable charcoal – and give squid a go
Rebecca Seal guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 21.00 BST
Last year, in spite of the dire summer, we hardy Brits had 120m barbecues, making us the barbecue capital of Europe, according to the National Barbecue Association. The "alfresco eating industry" is worth £7bn annually (presumably companies making rainproof gazebos and waterproof fleece are also doing well), but, unfortunately, few of us realise how environmentally unfriendly a traditional barbecue can be.
Those who think an outdoor gas grill is the green solution are quick to point out that charcoal releases more than 100 times as much carbon monoxide as gas. But although it's true that gas is a more efficient fuel for cooking, charcoal is carbon neutral as it releases carbon tied up temporarily in the tree it was made from. Gas, whether propane or butane, is a fossil fuel, and so is a net contributor to global carbon levels. Electric grills are little better, if you know that your electricity doesn't come from a coal-fired power station. Green credentials apart, electric barbecues are a cheat; having an electric grill outside is akin to hauling your hob out on to the patio, plus it's difficult to get that distinctive barbecue flavour from anything but charcoal.
Most charcoal briquettes are made from hardwood culled from tropical forests that could do with being left alone. And they are also usually doused with firelighter solutions which can taint your food. The solution is to buy British lumpwood charcoal from sustainable sources, such as coppiced trees in managed woodland and forests. Sarah Mooney from Bioregional, an entrepreneurial charity that sells British charcoal (available from Homebase and Sainsbury's, from £7 a bag), says: "Our charcoal has a more open structure than hardwood charcoals, so it doesn't need to be impregnated with lighter fuel. It burns for far longer so, although it's a bit more expensive, you'll use much less." Start your barbecue using twists of rolled-up newspaper, with the charcoal stacked on top, or natural firelighters such as those from If You Care (available from goodnessdirect.co.uk, 72 for £3.97), which are made from wood and vegetable oils.
When it comes to the barbecue itself, it's good to use a lid and adjustable vents as they help control the temperature. Try something that's designed to use as little fuel as possible, such as the Cobb. You could also build your own barbecue using an oven rack and some old bricks, or an old oil drum cut in half – you'll have to weigh up the ethical points scored by not buying something new against less efficient cooking. Avoid foil single-use barbecues as they use impregnated briquettes and rarely get recycled. Rather than using paper plates, stock up on crockery from charity shops or buy palm leaf plates that biodegrade (25 plates, £11.99).
Finally the food. There are far more interesting and ethical things to cook than cheap beefburgers, sausages, or Day-Glo chicken. Ben Spice, head chef at Acorn House and Water House, two of London's most environmentally friendly restaurants, suggests farmed tilapia fish or arctic char. "Unlike lots of farmed fish, tilapia is not fed dried fishmeal (which could have come from all sorts of untraceable, endangered fish), but sustainable organic matter. Similarly, farmed arctic char, a pale pink fish halfway between salmon and trout, barbecues well and is also fed on traceable fish meal. M&J Seafood is good for both."
Both he and Henry Dimbleby, a restaurateur and founder of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, agree that squid is also a great choice. "It's the most sustainable fish at the moment, as we have overfished their predators and they're multiplying with abandon," says Dimbleby. Spice also recommends pollock now, sardines and mackerel later in the summer, and crayfish any time. "American crayfish invading our waters are eating all the fish eggs, so they are good things to eat if you can find them." He always goes for lamb over beef. "Lamb has to be grass fed and is never stuck in a barn in the dark." For vegetables, "Do whole Portobello mushrooms stuffed with lemon, basil and feta or garlic and mozzarella and in August, try wrapping a whole globe artichoke in foil and cooking slowly in olive oil and its own juices."
All we need now is for last weekend's barbecue weather to come back.
Rebecca Seal guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 21.00 BST
Last year, in spite of the dire summer, we hardy Brits had 120m barbecues, making us the barbecue capital of Europe, according to the National Barbecue Association. The "alfresco eating industry" is worth £7bn annually (presumably companies making rainproof gazebos and waterproof fleece are also doing well), but, unfortunately, few of us realise how environmentally unfriendly a traditional barbecue can be.
Those who think an outdoor gas grill is the green solution are quick to point out that charcoal releases more than 100 times as much carbon monoxide as gas. But although it's true that gas is a more efficient fuel for cooking, charcoal is carbon neutral as it releases carbon tied up temporarily in the tree it was made from. Gas, whether propane or butane, is a fossil fuel, and so is a net contributor to global carbon levels. Electric grills are little better, if you know that your electricity doesn't come from a coal-fired power station. Green credentials apart, electric barbecues are a cheat; having an electric grill outside is akin to hauling your hob out on to the patio, plus it's difficult to get that distinctive barbecue flavour from anything but charcoal.
Most charcoal briquettes are made from hardwood culled from tropical forests that could do with being left alone. And they are also usually doused with firelighter solutions which can taint your food. The solution is to buy British lumpwood charcoal from sustainable sources, such as coppiced trees in managed woodland and forests. Sarah Mooney from Bioregional, an entrepreneurial charity that sells British charcoal (available from Homebase and Sainsbury's, from £7 a bag), says: "Our charcoal has a more open structure than hardwood charcoals, so it doesn't need to be impregnated with lighter fuel. It burns for far longer so, although it's a bit more expensive, you'll use much less." Start your barbecue using twists of rolled-up newspaper, with the charcoal stacked on top, or natural firelighters such as those from If You Care (available from goodnessdirect.co.uk, 72 for £3.97), which are made from wood and vegetable oils.
When it comes to the barbecue itself, it's good to use a lid and adjustable vents as they help control the temperature. Try something that's designed to use as little fuel as possible, such as the Cobb. You could also build your own barbecue using an oven rack and some old bricks, or an old oil drum cut in half – you'll have to weigh up the ethical points scored by not buying something new against less efficient cooking. Avoid foil single-use barbecues as they use impregnated briquettes and rarely get recycled. Rather than using paper plates, stock up on crockery from charity shops or buy palm leaf plates that biodegrade (25 plates, £11.99).
Finally the food. There are far more interesting and ethical things to cook than cheap beefburgers, sausages, or Day-Glo chicken. Ben Spice, head chef at Acorn House and Water House, two of London's most environmentally friendly restaurants, suggests farmed tilapia fish or arctic char. "Unlike lots of farmed fish, tilapia is not fed dried fishmeal (which could have come from all sorts of untraceable, endangered fish), but sustainable organic matter. Similarly, farmed arctic char, a pale pink fish halfway between salmon and trout, barbecues well and is also fed on traceable fish meal. M&J Seafood is good for both."
Both he and Henry Dimbleby, a restaurateur and founder of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, agree that squid is also a great choice. "It's the most sustainable fish at the moment, as we have overfished their predators and they're multiplying with abandon," says Dimbleby. Spice also recommends pollock now, sardines and mackerel later in the summer, and crayfish any time. "American crayfish invading our waters are eating all the fish eggs, so they are good things to eat if you can find them." He always goes for lamb over beef. "Lamb has to be grass fed and is never stuck in a barn in the dark." For vegetables, "Do whole Portobello mushrooms stuffed with lemon, basil and feta or garlic and mozzarella and in August, try wrapping a whole globe artichoke in foil and cooking slowly in olive oil and its own juices."
All we need now is for last weekend's barbecue weather to come back.
Pedal or throttle? The lure of the electric bike
They might not be for everyone, but pretend to pedal and it's great fun shocking the Lycra crowd with your unexpected speed
When this blog's Helen Pidd tried out an electric bike, the Gocycle, almost a year ago, she did promise "a proper comparison of different models".
We might not have been fast but we've made it – over the past couple of weeks myself and two colleagues have been testing out three examples of that curious half-way point between the bicycle and the moped. You can hear more about the experience in the next Bike Podcast, out on Tuesday.
Below are some details about the three models, but firstly an observation as someone who had never previously tried out an electric bike: they really are great fun.
There's something deliciously indulgent about, for once, not standing up in the pedals to set off from traffic lights but simply twisting a throttle and gliding away. Travelling up hills, meanwhile, feels almost mystical.
Another immediate thought is that the electric habit soon becomes addictive. All three bikes are set up such that you can either have "pedal assistance", an extra electrical kick as you ride normally, or full on, twist throttle-provided, non-human power. Such was the novelty that within minutes I'd abandoned any thoughts of self-propulsion.
The other half-illicit thrill came while riding a test machine which looks, at first glance, like a slightly standard, if chunky, mountain bike, particularly as my legs covered the frame-mounted battery. It was huge fun to park myself at red lights amid a horde of Lycra-clad whippets and puzzle them by accelerating away in pole position, legs spinning to simulate riding while the traffic roar drowned out the milkfloat whine.
That artifice, incidentally, also brings a drawback: drivers and fellow cyclists alike tend to make a lot of visual assumptions about how fast you will travel on a bike and act accordingly. When you resemble a tortoise but speed like a hare you need to be on your guard.
So before we get into the details, the inevitable question: would I swap my traditional bike for one? No – I enjoy cycling too much, it keeps me fit, and I get slightly dizzy thinking how nice a real bike I could buy with the £1,500-plus price tag of a posh electric machine.
A better question is whether I can see why others might use them, and that's a definite yes. You might, say, have an injury, or want to build up your fitness gradually. You might even have a long, hilly commute and prefer not to arrive in the office freshly steam-bathed. Or you might just find them a whole lot of fun.
Bikes provided by Electric Bike Sales
Smarta LX
The cheapest of the bunch, but still a shade under £900, this looks more or less recognisable as a bike, even with the sturdy, moped-esque kick stand. It has a claimed top speed of 15mph – the most allowed in the UK for an electric bike on the road – and can supposedly do 40 miles between charges. The least powerful and arguably the least fun of the three bikes we tried out, it would still work very well as a commuting workhorse, particularly given the (relatively) modest price.
Wisper 905 SE City
More upmarket and speedy – but at £1,500 almost double the price – this was the lightest machine on test at 21kg, still about the weight of two decent traditional bikes. This was the model I tried on my commute for a few days, and it does pull away from traffic lights with a satisfying zip, while still looking recognisably bike-like.
Ultramotor A2B Metro
Or as we testers (and, apparently, the people at Electric Bike Sales) call it, 'the Beast". This is, essentially, an electric moped with pedals and gears attached so the law still sees it as a bike. The throttle shoots you to 15mph and there is also a very tempting button marked "boost", officially to be used only when off road, which takes you to something past 20mph. I did try pedalling this without the motor, and at around 37kg it felt like trying to cycle a Harley Davidson. Huge fun, but not cheap at all at just under £2,000.
When this blog's Helen Pidd tried out an electric bike, the Gocycle, almost a year ago, she did promise "a proper comparison of different models".
We might not have been fast but we've made it – over the past couple of weeks myself and two colleagues have been testing out three examples of that curious half-way point between the bicycle and the moped. You can hear more about the experience in the next Bike Podcast, out on Tuesday.
Below are some details about the three models, but firstly an observation as someone who had never previously tried out an electric bike: they really are great fun.
There's something deliciously indulgent about, for once, not standing up in the pedals to set off from traffic lights but simply twisting a throttle and gliding away. Travelling up hills, meanwhile, feels almost mystical.
Another immediate thought is that the electric habit soon becomes addictive. All three bikes are set up such that you can either have "pedal assistance", an extra electrical kick as you ride normally, or full on, twist throttle-provided, non-human power. Such was the novelty that within minutes I'd abandoned any thoughts of self-propulsion.
The other half-illicit thrill came while riding a test machine which looks, at first glance, like a slightly standard, if chunky, mountain bike, particularly as my legs covered the frame-mounted battery. It was huge fun to park myself at red lights amid a horde of Lycra-clad whippets and puzzle them by accelerating away in pole position, legs spinning to simulate riding while the traffic roar drowned out the milkfloat whine.
That artifice, incidentally, also brings a drawback: drivers and fellow cyclists alike tend to make a lot of visual assumptions about how fast you will travel on a bike and act accordingly. When you resemble a tortoise but speed like a hare you need to be on your guard.
So before we get into the details, the inevitable question: would I swap my traditional bike for one? No – I enjoy cycling too much, it keeps me fit, and I get slightly dizzy thinking how nice a real bike I could buy with the £1,500-plus price tag of a posh electric machine.
A better question is whether I can see why others might use them, and that's a definite yes. You might, say, have an injury, or want to build up your fitness gradually. You might even have a long, hilly commute and prefer not to arrive in the office freshly steam-bathed. Or you might just find them a whole lot of fun.
Bikes provided by Electric Bike Sales
Smarta LX
The cheapest of the bunch, but still a shade under £900, this looks more or less recognisable as a bike, even with the sturdy, moped-esque kick stand. It has a claimed top speed of 15mph – the most allowed in the UK for an electric bike on the road – and can supposedly do 40 miles between charges. The least powerful and arguably the least fun of the three bikes we tried out, it would still work very well as a commuting workhorse, particularly given the (relatively) modest price.
Wisper 905 SE City
More upmarket and speedy – but at £1,500 almost double the price – this was the lightest machine on test at 21kg, still about the weight of two decent traditional bikes. This was the model I tried on my commute for a few days, and it does pull away from traffic lights with a satisfying zip, while still looking recognisably bike-like.
Ultramotor A2B Metro
Or as we testers (and, apparently, the people at Electric Bike Sales) call it, 'the Beast". This is, essentially, an electric moped with pedals and gears attached so the law still sees it as a bike. The throttle shoots you to 15mph and there is also a very tempting button marked "boost", officially to be used only when off road, which takes you to something past 20mph. I did try pedalling this without the motor, and at around 37kg it felt like trying to cycle a Harley Davidson. Huge fun, but not cheap at all at just under £2,000.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Fusion reactor costs ballooning
Published: May 24, 2010 at 4:21 PM
BRUSSELS, May 24 (UPI) -- An international scheme to build a nuclear fusion reactor in France has come under fire due to ballooning funding concerns.
Overall costs for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor have risen from an initial $6 billion estimate in 2006 to around $18 billion, German news magazine Der Spiegel reports.
The research reactor is to be built by 2015 in Cadarache in southern France by a consortium including the European Union, China Japan, Russia, India and the United States. It is then to operate for another 20 years. The aim of ITER is to show that atoms can be fused together inside a reactor to produce electricity. Conventional nuclear power reactors do the opposite, harnessing energy released from splitting atoms apart.
The EU, which at the start of the project pledged to shoulder 40 percent of the costs, said its share has grown by more than $1.7 billion to at least $9 billion.
Der Spiegel reports that new technical and safety standards have caused the cost increase. The commission is now mulling to pass on the additional costs to member states, which are not amused.
The commission's proposals, which include demanding guarantees from member states to shoulder all additional costs until 2020, "are not acceptable," the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted a German diplomat as saying. France and Germany have already suggested ways to cut costs by some $740 million, he said.
Germany has said that it wants to support ITER but not at just any price.
Brussels aims to secure the additional funds before June 18 talks with the additional partner countries.
Observers hope that nuclear fusion can one day produce CO2-free base-load power on a large-scale.
Once the technical challenges -- and there are many -- are overcome, fusion power has potential advantages including the existence of abundant fuel, a relatively safe energy generation producing only low-level waste and no production of greenhouse gases.
But critics say the international community is investing too much money into an energy source that might never, or at least not anytime soon, benefit the ordinary population in the form of large-scale energy generation.
A 2006 editorial in New Scientist magazine said that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."
BRUSSELS, May 24 (UPI) -- An international scheme to build a nuclear fusion reactor in France has come under fire due to ballooning funding concerns.
Overall costs for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor have risen from an initial $6 billion estimate in 2006 to around $18 billion, German news magazine Der Spiegel reports.
The research reactor is to be built by 2015 in Cadarache in southern France by a consortium including the European Union, China Japan, Russia, India and the United States. It is then to operate for another 20 years. The aim of ITER is to show that atoms can be fused together inside a reactor to produce electricity. Conventional nuclear power reactors do the opposite, harnessing energy released from splitting atoms apart.
The EU, which at the start of the project pledged to shoulder 40 percent of the costs, said its share has grown by more than $1.7 billion to at least $9 billion.
Der Spiegel reports that new technical and safety standards have caused the cost increase. The commission is now mulling to pass on the additional costs to member states, which are not amused.
The commission's proposals, which include demanding guarantees from member states to shoulder all additional costs until 2020, "are not acceptable," the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted a German diplomat as saying. France and Germany have already suggested ways to cut costs by some $740 million, he said.
Germany has said that it wants to support ITER but not at just any price.
Brussels aims to secure the additional funds before June 18 talks with the additional partner countries.
Observers hope that nuclear fusion can one day produce CO2-free base-load power on a large-scale.
Once the technical challenges -- and there are many -- are overcome, fusion power has potential advantages including the existence of abundant fuel, a relatively safe energy generation producing only low-level waste and no production of greenhouse gases.
But critics say the international community is investing too much money into an energy source that might never, or at least not anytime soon, benefit the ordinary population in the form of large-scale energy generation.
A 2006 editorial in New Scientist magazine said that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."
MIT plugs 'living lab' in energy efficiency
by Martin LaMonica
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is out to prove that green buildings don't have to be all that high tech.
MIT and utility Nstar on Wednesday announced an energy efficiency initiative to cut its electricity usage by 15 percent over the next three years. If met, the reduction will be 34 million kilowatt-hours, or about the same as 4,500 homes in Massachusetts in a year.
The efficiency push, which MIT hopes will be a model for other institutions, is an offshoot of the MIT Energy Initiative launched five years ago, which has helped make MIT a vibrant source of clean-energy technology research and development. The university wanted to create a "living lab" for clean energy and efficiency, students and school administrators said during a press conference here.
The measures that MIT facility managers plan to take at its campus here, for the most part, won't include cutting-edge technologies. Instead, the reductions will come by modernizing existing equipment, with a focus on lighting and on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).
The total investment will be about $13 million over three years. The payback period will vary depending on the project, from less than one year to about eight years, according to MIT. The school plans on reinvesting the savings into more efficiency programs.
About half of the electricity reductions will come in the form of more efficient lighting systems. The university will put in new lighting products, such as more efficient LEDs, and use lighting controls, such as sensors to detect daylight or when a person comes into a room, explained Peter Cooper, the manager of sustainable engineering and utility planning at MIT.
"LEDs are really advancing every year and you can buy more reliable, proven products," Cooper said, although MIT plans to put in florescent bulbs as well, which are also getting more efficient.
A significant amount of the electricity reduction will come from modernizing the HVAC systems. MIT will put in variable-speed drives in the motors that run the air handling systems and will install a sensor system from Aircuity to monitor air humidity and carbon dioxide level, which indicates how many people are in a room.
That data, which will be fed to the Carrier building energy management system, will help determine how much conditioned air needs to be moved around. Typically, HVAC systems are designed for maximum room occupancy and run at the same rate all day and night. With the air data, the building management system can be programmed to slow down at night or to reduce the amount of air that gets pulled in if, for example, it's very humid outside.
MIT has done HVAC improvements in the past and found that about two-thirds of the energy savings come from less heating and about one-third from less electricity use by fans and motors, Cooper said.
NStar provides an incentive, in the form of a payment to MIT, for the investments in efficiency, which is funded by a small surcharge on ratepayers, said Andrew Coffin, a program manager for NStar. The utility is interested in reducing its peak-time demand, which means it can defer investments in new power generation. State regulators have also set "aggressive" targets for energy efficiency at utilities, which is also driving the utility to run efficiency programs, Coffin said.
Although many of the efficiency savings are expected to come from upgrading to new equipment, MIT is also working on changes in behavior to cut usage. For example, the university's labs consume two to three times as much as average buildings. By closing the sash on fume hoods after experiments, students can save the equivalent of two homes' energy use, while improving safety, Cooper said.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is out to prove that green buildings don't have to be all that high tech.
MIT and utility Nstar on Wednesday announced an energy efficiency initiative to cut its electricity usage by 15 percent over the next three years. If met, the reduction will be 34 million kilowatt-hours, or about the same as 4,500 homes in Massachusetts in a year.
The efficiency push, which MIT hopes will be a model for other institutions, is an offshoot of the MIT Energy Initiative launched five years ago, which has helped make MIT a vibrant source of clean-energy technology research and development. The university wanted to create a "living lab" for clean energy and efficiency, students and school administrators said during a press conference here.
The measures that MIT facility managers plan to take at its campus here, for the most part, won't include cutting-edge technologies. Instead, the reductions will come by modernizing existing equipment, with a focus on lighting and on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).
The total investment will be about $13 million over three years. The payback period will vary depending on the project, from less than one year to about eight years, according to MIT. The school plans on reinvesting the savings into more efficiency programs.
About half of the electricity reductions will come in the form of more efficient lighting systems. The university will put in new lighting products, such as more efficient LEDs, and use lighting controls, such as sensors to detect daylight or when a person comes into a room, explained Peter Cooper, the manager of sustainable engineering and utility planning at MIT.
"LEDs are really advancing every year and you can buy more reliable, proven products," Cooper said, although MIT plans to put in florescent bulbs as well, which are also getting more efficient.
A significant amount of the electricity reduction will come from modernizing the HVAC systems. MIT will put in variable-speed drives in the motors that run the air handling systems and will install a sensor system from Aircuity to monitor air humidity and carbon dioxide level, which indicates how many people are in a room.
That data, which will be fed to the Carrier building energy management system, will help determine how much conditioned air needs to be moved around. Typically, HVAC systems are designed for maximum room occupancy and run at the same rate all day and night. With the air data, the building management system can be programmed to slow down at night or to reduce the amount of air that gets pulled in if, for example, it's very humid outside.
MIT has done HVAC improvements in the past and found that about two-thirds of the energy savings come from less heating and about one-third from less electricity use by fans and motors, Cooper said.
NStar provides an incentive, in the form of a payment to MIT, for the investments in efficiency, which is funded by a small surcharge on ratepayers, said Andrew Coffin, a program manager for NStar. The utility is interested in reducing its peak-time demand, which means it can defer investments in new power generation. State regulators have also set "aggressive" targets for energy efficiency at utilities, which is also driving the utility to run efficiency programs, Coffin said.
Although many of the efficiency savings are expected to come from upgrading to new equipment, MIT is also working on changes in behavior to cut usage. For example, the university's labs consume two to three times as much as average buildings. By closing the sash on fume hoods after experiments, students can save the equivalent of two homes' energy use, while improving safety, Cooper said.
'Bacterial pockets' could be mini factories for biofuel
Researchers have cloned specific genes in E Coli bacteria, above, which cannot naturally produce so-called microcompartments
IN Cork and Kent have succeeded in making specialised compartments in bacteria that pave the way for a new method for manufacturing medicines, writes BETH O'DONOGHUE
The research proves yet again that the best things really do come in small packages. “The way it works is that bacteria can be manipulated to construct internal pockets inside themselves that work as mini factories (bioreactors) where biofuels and medicines could be produced,” says Prof Michael Prentice, professor of microbiology at University College Cork who led the Cork-based research.
Animal and plant cells have built-in structures called organelles, which keep different cell reactions separated. Being smaller and less complex than human cells, most bacteria do not contain these microcompartments, Prentice explains.
Researchers in Ireland funded by Science Foundation Ireland, and at the University of Kent by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, cloned specific genes into E coli bacteria which cannot naturally produce the microcompartments.
The E coli could then produce empty microcompartments that consisted only of a protein shell. The scientists managed to produce individual microcompartments that filled up to 70 per cent of the bacterial cell’s total volume.
Bacteria are already used as inexpensive and effective factories for chemicals and medicines ranging from insulin to food preservatives. The production of these microcompartments is particularly exciting because they separate specific reactions away from the rest of the cell’s activities, Prentice explains.
This increases efficiency when using the microcompartment because it prevents interactions with other compounds in the cell. It also makes it easier for scientists to target and manipulate specific processes. Having these microcompartments enables bacteria to produce toxic substances such as antibiotics that are too harmful to be produced in the main bacterial cell area.
As the scientists write: “The [microcompartment] meets all the criteria required of a nanoscale bioreactor.” This includes their minute size, the ability to keep the manufactured substance in one area and preventing the substance from being contaminated by the rest of the cell contents.
For all these reasons, the study’s success in creating empty microcompartments has very exciting implications for the Irish biotechnology industry. Products produced in these “mini factories” may include vitamins, medicines and designer chemicals, he says.
A solution to the looming energy crises may also be held within these bacterial pockets. The production of energy products such as ethanol and hydrogen gas in the microcompartments would reduce our dependency on oil- based products, he suggests.
Prentice points to Lactobacillus reuteri as another promising bacterium offering possibilities for future research. Under very specific circumstances, L reuteri forms these microcompartments by itself, using them to produce antibacterial compounds. These antibacterial substances are produced to kill other bacteria competing with L reuteri for nutrients.
It is expected that further studies will enable scientists to develop medicines for humans using similar methods, he says. “The next step forward is to investigate the shape of these compartments and how theyre assembled,” says Prentice.
IN Cork and Kent have succeeded in making specialised compartments in bacteria that pave the way for a new method for manufacturing medicines, writes BETH O'DONOGHUE
The research proves yet again that the best things really do come in small packages. “The way it works is that bacteria can be manipulated to construct internal pockets inside themselves that work as mini factories (bioreactors) where biofuels and medicines could be produced,” says Prof Michael Prentice, professor of microbiology at University College Cork who led the Cork-based research.
Animal and plant cells have built-in structures called organelles, which keep different cell reactions separated. Being smaller and less complex than human cells, most bacteria do not contain these microcompartments, Prentice explains.
Researchers in Ireland funded by Science Foundation Ireland, and at the University of Kent by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, cloned specific genes into E coli bacteria which cannot naturally produce the microcompartments.
The E coli could then produce empty microcompartments that consisted only of a protein shell. The scientists managed to produce individual microcompartments that filled up to 70 per cent of the bacterial cell’s total volume.
Bacteria are already used as inexpensive and effective factories for chemicals and medicines ranging from insulin to food preservatives. The production of these microcompartments is particularly exciting because they separate specific reactions away from the rest of the cell’s activities, Prentice explains.
This increases efficiency when using the microcompartment because it prevents interactions with other compounds in the cell. It also makes it easier for scientists to target and manipulate specific processes. Having these microcompartments enables bacteria to produce toxic substances such as antibiotics that are too harmful to be produced in the main bacterial cell area.
As the scientists write: “The [microcompartment] meets all the criteria required of a nanoscale bioreactor.” This includes their minute size, the ability to keep the manufactured substance in one area and preventing the substance from being contaminated by the rest of the cell contents.
For all these reasons, the study’s success in creating empty microcompartments has very exciting implications for the Irish biotechnology industry. Products produced in these “mini factories” may include vitamins, medicines and designer chemicals, he says.
A solution to the looming energy crises may also be held within these bacterial pockets. The production of energy products such as ethanol and hydrogen gas in the microcompartments would reduce our dependency on oil- based products, he suggests.
Prentice points to Lactobacillus reuteri as another promising bacterium offering possibilities for future research. Under very specific circumstances, L reuteri forms these microcompartments by itself, using them to produce antibacterial compounds. These antibacterial substances are produced to kill other bacteria competing with L reuteri for nutrients.
It is expected that further studies will enable scientists to develop medicines for humans using similar methods, he says. “The next step forward is to investigate the shape of these compartments and how theyre assembled,” says Prentice.
‘Smart’ appliances to ensure a smooth power supply
Ben Webster, Environment Editor An energy-saving trial that will shut down home appliances when peaks of demand threaten to overwhelm the network began this week.
About 300 homes in Sandwell in the West Midlands have received fridge-freezers that turn themselves off when the grid is overstretched. Altogether, 3,000 homes will take part in the two-year trial, run by npower.
Energy companies plan to offer grants and cheaper tariffs to encourage all households to switch to such appliances. If all homes had smart fridges, Britain’s annual emissions would fall by two million tonnes, the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road or closing a large coal-fired power station.
The technology, which is known as “dynamic demand”, works by monitoring second-by-second changes to the frequency of the national grid. When the frequency drops below 50Hz, the system starts to switch off appliances and continues until the frequency returns to normal .
Some large industrial customers, such as steel works, already have contracts that allow the national grid to disconnect them at times of peak demand in return for cheaper energy bills. The Sandwell trial is extending the idea to domestic appliances and measuring how much carbon dioxide will be saved for each additional home that joins the scheme.
Npower said that customers would not notice the system working and would be in no danger of losing the contents of the fridges and freezers.
A spokesman said appliances would switch themselves back on if their temperature rose above the recommended level.
He said the same technology could be used to control the charging of electric cars, which will begin to be mass-produced by the end of this year and will become eligible from January for £5,000 government grants. The emissions savings from switching to electric cars will depend on how successful power companies are in managing the potentially huge increase in demand for electricity.
Electric car owners will be able to negotiate a cheaper tariff in return for allowing their energy company to control when their batteries are charged.
The driver will simply plug in and specify when the car will be needed. The grid will ensure that the battery is full at that time.
Paul Lazarevic, managing director of RLtec, which supplied the dynamic demand technology for the trial, said the grid could even draw power back from electric car batteries in order to respond to surges in demand.
However, he said more research was needed into what effect this would have on the life of the batteries.
The npower trial is being conducted under the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target scheme, which obliges power companies to reduce energy consumption in the home by promoting efficient technology.
Meanwhile, Sony has launched a smart television that automatically dims and reduces power consumption when viewers look away from the screen.
The Bravia LX900 has a camera that uses face recognition technology to detect when viewers are looking down to read a book or have fallen asleep.
About 300 homes in Sandwell in the West Midlands have received fridge-freezers that turn themselves off when the grid is overstretched. Altogether, 3,000 homes will take part in the two-year trial, run by npower.
Energy companies plan to offer grants and cheaper tariffs to encourage all households to switch to such appliances. If all homes had smart fridges, Britain’s annual emissions would fall by two million tonnes, the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road or closing a large coal-fired power station.
The technology, which is known as “dynamic demand”, works by monitoring second-by-second changes to the frequency of the national grid. When the frequency drops below 50Hz, the system starts to switch off appliances and continues until the frequency returns to normal .
Some large industrial customers, such as steel works, already have contracts that allow the national grid to disconnect them at times of peak demand in return for cheaper energy bills. The Sandwell trial is extending the idea to domestic appliances and measuring how much carbon dioxide will be saved for each additional home that joins the scheme.
Npower said that customers would not notice the system working and would be in no danger of losing the contents of the fridges and freezers.
A spokesman said appliances would switch themselves back on if their temperature rose above the recommended level.
He said the same technology could be used to control the charging of electric cars, which will begin to be mass-produced by the end of this year and will become eligible from January for £5,000 government grants. The emissions savings from switching to electric cars will depend on how successful power companies are in managing the potentially huge increase in demand for electricity.
Electric car owners will be able to negotiate a cheaper tariff in return for allowing their energy company to control when their batteries are charged.
The driver will simply plug in and specify when the car will be needed. The grid will ensure that the battery is full at that time.
Paul Lazarevic, managing director of RLtec, which supplied the dynamic demand technology for the trial, said the grid could even draw power back from electric car batteries in order to respond to surges in demand.
However, he said more research was needed into what effect this would have on the life of the batteries.
The npower trial is being conducted under the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target scheme, which obliges power companies to reduce energy consumption in the home by promoting efficient technology.
Meanwhile, Sony has launched a smart television that automatically dims and reduces power consumption when viewers look away from the screen.
The Bravia LX900 has a camera that uses face recognition technology to detect when viewers are looking down to read a book or have fallen asleep.
EDF to press ahead with nuclear plans after assurances from Chris Huhne
Energy and climate change secretary "will take pragmatic approach" to new power stations, says EDF's Vincent de Rivaz
Terry Macalister The Guardian, Thursday 27 May 2010
EDF Energy will announce today that it has received sufficient reassurances from the energy and climate change secretary, Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, to continue planning for a new generation of nuclear plants in Britain.
There were fears that the Lib Dems' manifesto commitment to halt the construction of any more nuclear reactors, and recent sceptical signals from Huhne, could derail its £20bn building programme.
But Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of EDF in Britain, will tell a conference he is convinced that both sides are committed to the same goal: new reactors without subsidies and at a viable cost.
"What has emerged very quickly from the coalition government is clarity over its commitment to deliver a low carbon future, together with a commitment that new nuclear will play a part in the new administration's plans," de Rivaz will say. "Chris Huhne … has already provided important reassurances that he will take a pragmatic approach to new nuclear power as long as it can be built without subsidy.
"The commitments from the coalition government envisage a proper role for nuclear and have reassured us at EDF, as we contemplate the very serious investment we are proposing to make in nuclear power in the UK," he will add in a speech to the Global Energy Capital Market Conference in London.
EDF says it has been particularly pleased by comments about the introduction of a floor to the carbon price plus a commitment to speed up the planning regime for new energy infrastructure through a clear national policy statement. The company, an arm of the huge, largely state-owned, French utility EDF, insists that it is happy to build new reactors without otherwise relying on any handouts from the Treasury, even for waste or decommissioning.
EDF wants to build four new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk that would generate enough power to light 40% of Britain's homes or the equivalent of 13% of all UK electricity, but the final decision on whether to proceed is not due to be taken until 2011.
"We've made it clear to the prime minister and the secretary of state for energy and climate change that EDF Energy will spearhead the nuclear renaissance in the UK without the need for public subsidy. That is important to the government. It is important for us," de Rivaz will say. "We operate in a market where the costs for waste and decommissioning are met by nuclear operators through an independently assessed, ring-fenced fund, a requirement further underpinned in this year's Energy Act … Together with other operators we will continue to make regular payments into those funds, to protect ordinary creditors against any associated prospective costs."
De Rivaz says that latest public opinion polls show growing support for nuclear power even from Lib Dem supporters, who have traditionally been among the most negative towards it. And he will quote from a new report published by Parsons Brinckerhoff Power that suggests power can be generated much more cheaply by nuclear than by competing technologies.
"Their data shows that with typical generation costs in the range of £55-£86 per megawatt hour [MWh], new nuclear is well placed in helping keep low carbon energy affordable in the long term," he will say. "That compares particularly favourably to other low carbon technologies. Offshore wind represents a generating cost of up to £204 per MWh and carbon capture and storage technology up to £154 per MWh."
Terry Macalister The Guardian, Thursday 27 May 2010
EDF Energy will announce today that it has received sufficient reassurances from the energy and climate change secretary, Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, to continue planning for a new generation of nuclear plants in Britain.
There were fears that the Lib Dems' manifesto commitment to halt the construction of any more nuclear reactors, and recent sceptical signals from Huhne, could derail its £20bn building programme.
But Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of EDF in Britain, will tell a conference he is convinced that both sides are committed to the same goal: new reactors without subsidies and at a viable cost.
"What has emerged very quickly from the coalition government is clarity over its commitment to deliver a low carbon future, together with a commitment that new nuclear will play a part in the new administration's plans," de Rivaz will say. "Chris Huhne … has already provided important reassurances that he will take a pragmatic approach to new nuclear power as long as it can be built without subsidy.
"The commitments from the coalition government envisage a proper role for nuclear and have reassured us at EDF, as we contemplate the very serious investment we are proposing to make in nuclear power in the UK," he will add in a speech to the Global Energy Capital Market Conference in London.
EDF says it has been particularly pleased by comments about the introduction of a floor to the carbon price plus a commitment to speed up the planning regime for new energy infrastructure through a clear national policy statement. The company, an arm of the huge, largely state-owned, French utility EDF, insists that it is happy to build new reactors without otherwise relying on any handouts from the Treasury, even for waste or decommissioning.
EDF wants to build four new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk that would generate enough power to light 40% of Britain's homes or the equivalent of 13% of all UK electricity, but the final decision on whether to proceed is not due to be taken until 2011.
"We've made it clear to the prime minister and the secretary of state for energy and climate change that EDF Energy will spearhead the nuclear renaissance in the UK without the need for public subsidy. That is important to the government. It is important for us," de Rivaz will say. "We operate in a market where the costs for waste and decommissioning are met by nuclear operators through an independently assessed, ring-fenced fund, a requirement further underpinned in this year's Energy Act … Together with other operators we will continue to make regular payments into those funds, to protect ordinary creditors against any associated prospective costs."
De Rivaz says that latest public opinion polls show growing support for nuclear power even from Lib Dem supporters, who have traditionally been among the most negative towards it. And he will quote from a new report published by Parsons Brinckerhoff Power that suggests power can be generated much more cheaply by nuclear than by competing technologies.
"Their data shows that with typical generation costs in the range of £55-£86 per megawatt hour [MWh], new nuclear is well placed in helping keep low carbon energy affordable in the long term," he will say. "That compares particularly favourably to other low carbon technologies. Offshore wind represents a generating cost of up to £204 per MWh and carbon capture and storage technology up to £154 per MWh."
Norway hopes to unlock climate cash to fight tropical deforestation
Norway has announced $1bn in aid to protect forests in Indonesia and hopes to forge a partnership to fight climate change
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 17.19 BST
Norway hopes to boost aid to fight tropical deforestation at a conference tomorrow, and to set in motion a partnership to unlock cash pledged at the Copenhagen summit to help slow climate change.
Norway says developed nations have promised $500m (£347m) to fight deforestation by 2012 on top of $3.5bn agreed at Copenhagen, and new pledges at the conference may bring the total aid closer to $5bn.
Fifty nations will take part in the Oslo meeting, to be attended by Britain's Prince Charles and the financier George Soros, to forge a "partnership" between donors and countries from the Amazon to Congo basins for protecting forests.
Plants soak up carbon dioxide as they grow, helping to curb the increasing rise in carbon levels.
"Reducing deforestation is the biggest, fastest, cheapest way to cut carbon emissions," the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters yesterday.
Norway, rich in oil, also formally announced $1bn in aid to Indonesia to help protect forests in the south-east Asian state, using money Oslo previously had pledged as part of its effort to combat climate change.
The partnership between donors and forested developing nations will be one of the first signs of action against climate change after the Copenhagen summit failed to deliver a legally binding deal on man-made emissions.
But rich nations did agree to provide $30bn from 2010-12 to help poor countries, rising to at least $100bn a year from 2020.
The United States, Australia, France, Japan, Britain and Norway agreed on $3.5bn from 2010-12 to save forests.
But getting the climate aid flowing has become tougher as many governments of rich countries face sharp cuts in public finances to save their economies from mounting debt problems.
"$4bn is a very good start but clearly bigger amounts will be needed in the years ahead," Erik Solheim, Norway's environment minister, told Reuters. "You cannot expect poor nations to bear the cost of reducing deforestation without the support of big polluters like Europe, the United States, Japan and others."
Deforestation – mainly by countries making way for farms, roads or towns – accounts for about 15-20% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
Business groups say that the proposed partnership should do more to involve the private sector and encourage markets to trade carbon dioxide stored in forests, while environmentalists want stronger strings attached to any cash.
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 17.19 BST
Norway hopes to boost aid to fight tropical deforestation at a conference tomorrow, and to set in motion a partnership to unlock cash pledged at the Copenhagen summit to help slow climate change.
Norway says developed nations have promised $500m (£347m) to fight deforestation by 2012 on top of $3.5bn agreed at Copenhagen, and new pledges at the conference may bring the total aid closer to $5bn.
Fifty nations will take part in the Oslo meeting, to be attended by Britain's Prince Charles and the financier George Soros, to forge a "partnership" between donors and countries from the Amazon to Congo basins for protecting forests.
Plants soak up carbon dioxide as they grow, helping to curb the increasing rise in carbon levels.
"Reducing deforestation is the biggest, fastest, cheapest way to cut carbon emissions," the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters yesterday.
Norway, rich in oil, also formally announced $1bn in aid to Indonesia to help protect forests in the south-east Asian state, using money Oslo previously had pledged as part of its effort to combat climate change.
The partnership between donors and forested developing nations will be one of the first signs of action against climate change after the Copenhagen summit failed to deliver a legally binding deal on man-made emissions.
But rich nations did agree to provide $30bn from 2010-12 to help poor countries, rising to at least $100bn a year from 2020.
The United States, Australia, France, Japan, Britain and Norway agreed on $3.5bn from 2010-12 to save forests.
But getting the climate aid flowing has become tougher as many governments of rich countries face sharp cuts in public finances to save their economies from mounting debt problems.
"$4bn is a very good start but clearly bigger amounts will be needed in the years ahead," Erik Solheim, Norway's environment minister, told Reuters. "You cannot expect poor nations to bear the cost of reducing deforestation without the support of big polluters like Europe, the United States, Japan and others."
Deforestation – mainly by countries making way for farms, roads or towns – accounts for about 15-20% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
Business groups say that the proposed partnership should do more to involve the private sector and encourage markets to trade carbon dioxide stored in forests, while environmentalists want stronger strings attached to any cash.
EU climate target analysis bears scars of industry lobbying
Industries that stand to benefit from the European emissions trading scheme must counter arguments that higher targets mean greater cost
Bryony Worthington guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 17.59 BST
Analysis from the European commission today that sets out options to move beyond a 20% cut by 2020 bears the scars of an uncomfortable fight between different factions.
Those who have yet to accept the fact that weaning ourselves off imported fossil fuels and investing in a new clean energy system will boost the European economy have had their knives out. Although they haven't been able to challenge the fundamental analysis that it is now much cheaper and easier to reach more challenging targets, they have been able to substantially water down the document and add some special pleading on behalf of the old industries of Europe.
We are told the recession means there is less money available to invest in the measures that will be needed to meet reduction targets. But the reality is that thanks to the existence of the European emissions trading scheme (ETS), a new source of windfall profits has grown up in Europe that benefits precisely the same heavy industries that are vociferously opposing progress. Emissions in Europe are now capped and the permits issued to enable compliance with these caps are now assets with a tradeable value.
These assets have been unequally distributed, giving heavy industry generous surpluses while the power sector has been given substantially fewer than it needs. Falling emissions due to the recession means that companies across Europe have been quietly amassing large volumes of surplus permits that by 2012 could be worth around €18bn at today's prices. Of course this fact is quietly ignored by industry lobbies.
The other complaint seems to be that in these times of financial difficulty we should not be contemplating further burdens on the economy. Superficially, this sounds like a persuasive argument – except that it is woefully simplistic. The "cost" imposed by taking action to climate change is recycled back into the economy. The sale of permits to industry raises revenue for investment in new infrastructure, technologies and jobs. Energy prices will rise to fund this investment, but this also encourages investment in increased resource productivity that will have both short and long-term benefits for the economy.
If there is one issue that the industry lobby should be agitated about it is the massive flow of finance that currently leaves Europe to be received by chemical companies in India and China for cheap emissions offset projects. For this to continue as the primary means by which we meet our targets is clearly not sensible. The commission's paper raises the idea of changing these rules and this is a welcome acknowledgement that the short-term benefit of access to cheap overseas reductions is not in our long-term interests since it diverts cash away from much-needed investment here.
Within the paper there are other very sensible suggestions for how a move to 30% can be achieved – such as removing 1.4bn permits from the currently oversupplied ETS. This decision needs to be decoupled from the highly political debate about the equivalence of action in other countries and made unilaterally to rescue the scheme from irrelevancy.
Over 70% of all installations now have more permits than they need – continued high allocations will all but kill the need for investment in the EU until 2017 at the earliest. It would be a great shame if knee-jerk reactions against anything that ushers in change prevents the recommendations in today's paper from being adopted. All those industries that stand to benefit from the proposals must help to counter the arguments that defend the status quo.
• Bryony Worthington is the founder of sandbag.org.uk, a not-for-profit organisation seeking to engage civil society in improving emissions trading policy
Bryony Worthington guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 17.59 BST
Analysis from the European commission today that sets out options to move beyond a 20% cut by 2020 bears the scars of an uncomfortable fight between different factions.
Those who have yet to accept the fact that weaning ourselves off imported fossil fuels and investing in a new clean energy system will boost the European economy have had their knives out. Although they haven't been able to challenge the fundamental analysis that it is now much cheaper and easier to reach more challenging targets, they have been able to substantially water down the document and add some special pleading on behalf of the old industries of Europe.
We are told the recession means there is less money available to invest in the measures that will be needed to meet reduction targets. But the reality is that thanks to the existence of the European emissions trading scheme (ETS), a new source of windfall profits has grown up in Europe that benefits precisely the same heavy industries that are vociferously opposing progress. Emissions in Europe are now capped and the permits issued to enable compliance with these caps are now assets with a tradeable value.
These assets have been unequally distributed, giving heavy industry generous surpluses while the power sector has been given substantially fewer than it needs. Falling emissions due to the recession means that companies across Europe have been quietly amassing large volumes of surplus permits that by 2012 could be worth around €18bn at today's prices. Of course this fact is quietly ignored by industry lobbies.
The other complaint seems to be that in these times of financial difficulty we should not be contemplating further burdens on the economy. Superficially, this sounds like a persuasive argument – except that it is woefully simplistic. The "cost" imposed by taking action to climate change is recycled back into the economy. The sale of permits to industry raises revenue for investment in new infrastructure, technologies and jobs. Energy prices will rise to fund this investment, but this also encourages investment in increased resource productivity that will have both short and long-term benefits for the economy.
If there is one issue that the industry lobby should be agitated about it is the massive flow of finance that currently leaves Europe to be received by chemical companies in India and China for cheap emissions offset projects. For this to continue as the primary means by which we meet our targets is clearly not sensible. The commission's paper raises the idea of changing these rules and this is a welcome acknowledgement that the short-term benefit of access to cheap overseas reductions is not in our long-term interests since it diverts cash away from much-needed investment here.
Within the paper there are other very sensible suggestions for how a move to 30% can be achieved – such as removing 1.4bn permits from the currently oversupplied ETS. This decision needs to be decoupled from the highly political debate about the equivalence of action in other countries and made unilaterally to rescue the scheme from irrelevancy.
Over 70% of all installations now have more permits than they need – continued high allocations will all but kill the need for investment in the EU until 2017 at the earliest. It would be a great shame if knee-jerk reactions against anything that ushers in change prevents the recommendations in today's paper from being adopted. All those industries that stand to benefit from the proposals must help to counter the arguments that defend the status quo.
• Bryony Worthington is the founder of sandbag.org.uk, a not-for-profit organisation seeking to engage civil society in improving emissions trading policy
Europe's climate chief under pressure over 'missing' emissions traders
• €5bn fraud investigation centres on Danish carbon registry
• Carbon trading abuses suspected last summer
• Connie Hedegaard failed to act promptly, allege critics
Felicity Carus guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 May 2010 18.01 BST
The EU's climate chief is facing pressure to explain her failure to crack down on a loophole that allowed alleged fraudsters – a large number of them based in Britain – to make millions of euros through Europe's emissions trading scheme.
Confidential documents seen by the Guardian show that Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, had been informed about fraudsters targeting the Danish carbon registry to enable them to trade in credits last summer, as the UK and the Netherlands were clamping down on the fraud by scrapping VAT on carbon trading.
An MEP last week lodged an official question asking what happened to the Danish registry while Hedegaard was climate minister, and what is being done across Europe to combat carbon fraud.
Denmark is now at the centre of a Europol investigation into carbon fraud worth €5bn (£4.3bn). An estimated 116 arrests have been made so far, around 30 of them in the UK.
Previously, Hedegaard had denied knowing about the suspected fraud until a Danish newspaper reported it in December. "I was never informed about this until last autumn when Ekstra Bladet looked into the fraud," she told the Guardian.
But the confidential climate ministry report seen by the Guardian, entitled VAT Fraud in the European CO2 Quota Register Including the Danish, appears to have been signed with Hedegaard's initials, indicating she was made aware of the problem in August last year.
"The tax department this spring became aware of fraud in the EU with VAT in connection with trade of CO2 quotas and credits. In particular Denmark seems to be the target of VAT fraud," it said.
An appendix attached to the report also dated in August from the Danish tax authorities said that suspicious trades had been identified, most of them linked to the UK. "For now we have two cases with an estimated loss in total of 3.8m Danish kroner [£440,000]. The trades are primarily performed by UK operators with Danish VAT numbers."
"There is still no clear image of how the fraud is organised, but there has been the common feature that the companies involved in the first suspicious transactions were companies from other EU countries that merely held accounts in the Danish quota registry."
Hedegaard, who is now in charge of the EU's carbon market and battling for deeper cuts in Europe's carbon emissions, admitted having seen the confidential document. But she denied she should have acted last summer because "it was a VAT fraud issue".
When invited to clarify her position after a speech she gave at the International Institute for Environment and Development last Tuesday (11 May) she admitted seeing the confidential document, but she denied she should have acted last summer because "it was a VAT fraud issue".
"The whole paper did not hint that there should be a special problem that as a minister I should look into because they didn't know that at the time. It was just a normal criminal thing – somebody making fraud on VAT."
In July last year, the Danish Energy Authority was told by the European Commission to tighten up its procedures for account holders, but only applied the requirements on new accounts.
The number of accounts on Europe's largest registry has since plummeted from 1,200 to 140 and suspected fraudulent trades worth at least €2.11m were made by account holders on the carbon registry even as late as December.
In so-called missing trader fraud, bogus traders open an account in a national carbon registry, buy emissions allowances in one EU country VAT-free and sell them on with VAT added. The trader pockets the VAT without paying it to the national exchequer and the trader goes "missing".
The Danish carbon registry appears to have been targeted because account holders did not need to supply basic information such as VAT numbers. The regulations were simplified in 2007, the year that Hedegaard became Denmark's climate minister, so that the only means of verification for accounts was an email address.
The controversy over the Danish registry comes as Hedegaard faces a battle over a push to increase the EU's commitment to cut carbon emissions from 20% to 30% by 2020, and criticism over draft rules for the quantity of emissions allowed in the crucial third phase of the EU ETS, which includes safeguards to protect the market against misuse by governments and criminal activities.
Danish MP Ida Auken, who has tabled questions on the Danish registry before parliament to the current climate minister Lykke Friis, said: "A third grade child could read this and say there is something wrong with the Danish registry. If the minister had acted straight, she would have stated clearly that a big mistake was made in the Danish registry during her time as minister."
Auken added that although Hedegaard may have genuinely been underinformed by government departments she could have taken decisive action. "Whether her officials had made her aware of the mistakes or not plays a role regarding what she knew at which point, but not in that she as minister carries the responsibility."
Jorgensen, a social democrat MEP, said he was confident that although this time "Hedegaard and her colleagues are taking it extremely seriously", national carbon registries should be administered by tax authorities who are used to dealing with tricky technical revenue issues.
But he added: "My fear is that they [environment directorate general] haven't got the means to deal with it fully. There needs to be a full presentation of solutions before I am satisfied.
"Even though she is not from my political family, I'm not criticising her as a person but I want to put pressure on her to deliver on her administration of the EU ETS."
• Carbon trading abuses suspected last summer
• Connie Hedegaard failed to act promptly, allege critics
Felicity Carus guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 May 2010 18.01 BST
The EU's climate chief is facing pressure to explain her failure to crack down on a loophole that allowed alleged fraudsters – a large number of them based in Britain – to make millions of euros through Europe's emissions trading scheme.
Confidential documents seen by the Guardian show that Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, had been informed about fraudsters targeting the Danish carbon registry to enable them to trade in credits last summer, as the UK and the Netherlands were clamping down on the fraud by scrapping VAT on carbon trading.
An MEP last week lodged an official question asking what happened to the Danish registry while Hedegaard was climate minister, and what is being done across Europe to combat carbon fraud.
Denmark is now at the centre of a Europol investigation into carbon fraud worth €5bn (£4.3bn). An estimated 116 arrests have been made so far, around 30 of them in the UK.
Previously, Hedegaard had denied knowing about the suspected fraud until a Danish newspaper reported it in December. "I was never informed about this until last autumn when Ekstra Bladet looked into the fraud," she told the Guardian.
But the confidential climate ministry report seen by the Guardian, entitled VAT Fraud in the European CO2 Quota Register Including the Danish, appears to have been signed with Hedegaard's initials, indicating she was made aware of the problem in August last year.
"The tax department this spring became aware of fraud in the EU with VAT in connection with trade of CO2 quotas and credits. In particular Denmark seems to be the target of VAT fraud," it said.
An appendix attached to the report also dated in August from the Danish tax authorities said that suspicious trades had been identified, most of them linked to the UK. "For now we have two cases with an estimated loss in total of 3.8m Danish kroner [£440,000]. The trades are primarily performed by UK operators with Danish VAT numbers."
"There is still no clear image of how the fraud is organised, but there has been the common feature that the companies involved in the first suspicious transactions were companies from other EU countries that merely held accounts in the Danish quota registry."
Hedegaard, who is now in charge of the EU's carbon market and battling for deeper cuts in Europe's carbon emissions, admitted having seen the confidential document. But she denied she should have acted last summer because "it was a VAT fraud issue".
When invited to clarify her position after a speech she gave at the International Institute for Environment and Development last Tuesday (11 May) she admitted seeing the confidential document, but she denied she should have acted last summer because "it was a VAT fraud issue".
"The whole paper did not hint that there should be a special problem that as a minister I should look into because they didn't know that at the time. It was just a normal criminal thing – somebody making fraud on VAT."
In July last year, the Danish Energy Authority was told by the European Commission to tighten up its procedures for account holders, but only applied the requirements on new accounts.
The number of accounts on Europe's largest registry has since plummeted from 1,200 to 140 and suspected fraudulent trades worth at least €2.11m were made by account holders on the carbon registry even as late as December.
In so-called missing trader fraud, bogus traders open an account in a national carbon registry, buy emissions allowances in one EU country VAT-free and sell them on with VAT added. The trader pockets the VAT without paying it to the national exchequer and the trader goes "missing".
The Danish carbon registry appears to have been targeted because account holders did not need to supply basic information such as VAT numbers. The regulations were simplified in 2007, the year that Hedegaard became Denmark's climate minister, so that the only means of verification for accounts was an email address.
The controversy over the Danish registry comes as Hedegaard faces a battle over a push to increase the EU's commitment to cut carbon emissions from 20% to 30% by 2020, and criticism over draft rules for the quantity of emissions allowed in the crucial third phase of the EU ETS, which includes safeguards to protect the market against misuse by governments and criminal activities.
Danish MP Ida Auken, who has tabled questions on the Danish registry before parliament to the current climate minister Lykke Friis, said: "A third grade child could read this and say there is something wrong with the Danish registry. If the minister had acted straight, she would have stated clearly that a big mistake was made in the Danish registry during her time as minister."
Auken added that although Hedegaard may have genuinely been underinformed by government departments she could have taken decisive action. "Whether her officials had made her aware of the mistakes or not plays a role regarding what she knew at which point, but not in that she as minister carries the responsibility."
Jorgensen, a social democrat MEP, said he was confident that although this time "Hedegaard and her colleagues are taking it extremely seriously", national carbon registries should be administered by tax authorities who are used to dealing with tricky technical revenue issues.
But he added: "My fear is that they [environment directorate general] haven't got the means to deal with it fully. There needs to be a full presentation of solutions before I am satisfied.
"Even though she is not from my political family, I'm not criticising her as a person but I want to put pressure on her to deliver on her administration of the EU ETS."
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Firm looks to China for biofuel technology agreement
By MAX SHOWALTER • mshowalter@jconline.com • May 25, 2010
startup company at the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette has developed an innovative yeast-based cellulosic ethanol technology and will get a big boost Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing.
Representatives of Green Tech America Inc., founded by Nancy W.Y. Ho, have been invited by Cofco Corp. and Novozymes, both of which have been actively developing bio-energy products, to sign a license agreement at the China-U.S. Advanced Biofuels Forum.
"For GTA to sign a license agreement with two giant companies in the world, it means they will use (our) yeast in their production of cellulosic ethanol.
That alone is a great event by GTA by all means," said Ho. "In addition, since the signing of this agreement will be carried out in public at the Sino-U.S. Advance Biofuels Forum, it will add extra importance.
"It symbolizes that GTA played an important role internationally in the U.S. and China cooperation for cellulosic ethanol production that will increase the status of GTA in the U.S.
When these two giant companies openly acknowledge the use of our yeast -- developed at Purdue -- in their production, which is a great endorsement for GTA and it will definitely help our business to grow."
The yeast developed by Green Tech America has been shown to generate cellulosic ethanol in a more cost-effective manner than conventional yeasts.
Gerard Benner, the company's vice president of finance, who also is in China for the signing ceremony, said the agreement should boost the local economy.
"GTA is expected to bring money from China as well as other countries by marketing its technology and its yeast as well as other products needed for cellulosic ethanol production," said Benner.
Based upon this technology, Green Tech America will expand its growth into several areas, which include marketing the Ho-Purdue Yeast and its derivatives for cellulosic ethanol production, generation and marketing of co-products such as enzymes, and development of other yeast-based products and renewable fuels.
The forum Wednesday and Thursday is hosted by the National Energy Administration of the People's Republic of China and the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture.
startup company at the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette has developed an innovative yeast-based cellulosic ethanol technology and will get a big boost Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing.
Representatives of Green Tech America Inc., founded by Nancy W.Y. Ho, have been invited by Cofco Corp. and Novozymes, both of which have been actively developing bio-energy products, to sign a license agreement at the China-U.S. Advanced Biofuels Forum.
"For GTA to sign a license agreement with two giant companies in the world, it means they will use (our) yeast in their production of cellulosic ethanol.
That alone is a great event by GTA by all means," said Ho. "In addition, since the signing of this agreement will be carried out in public at the Sino-U.S. Advance Biofuels Forum, it will add extra importance.
"It symbolizes that GTA played an important role internationally in the U.S. and China cooperation for cellulosic ethanol production that will increase the status of GTA in the U.S.
When these two giant companies openly acknowledge the use of our yeast -- developed at Purdue -- in their production, which is a great endorsement for GTA and it will definitely help our business to grow."
The yeast developed by Green Tech America has been shown to generate cellulosic ethanol in a more cost-effective manner than conventional yeasts.
Gerard Benner, the company's vice president of finance, who also is in China for the signing ceremony, said the agreement should boost the local economy.
"GTA is expected to bring money from China as well as other countries by marketing its technology and its yeast as well as other products needed for cellulosic ethanol production," said Benner.
Based upon this technology, Green Tech America will expand its growth into several areas, which include marketing the Ho-Purdue Yeast and its derivatives for cellulosic ethanol production, generation and marketing of co-products such as enzymes, and development of other yeast-based products and renewable fuels.
The forum Wednesday and Thursday is hosted by the National Energy Administration of the People's Republic of China and the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture.
Engineers Help Power Solar Use by 'Mapping' the Sun
May 25, 2010
From L to R, UCSD environmental engineering student Anders Nottrott and Prof. Jan Kleissl have created a new solar map for the state of California. The map, which can be viewed via Google Earth for free, allows homeowners, photovoltaic installers and utilities to better predict how much power they will get out of their solar systems.
(PhysOrg.com) -- As the use of solar power grows in California it will become more important to know exactly how much radiation and energy are generated in regions throughout the state. That’s the basis behind an improved solar map for the state created by UC San Diego environmental engineering professor Jan Kleissl and his Ph.D. student Anders Nottrott.
They presented this work at the American Solar Energy Society conference in Phoenix, Az. today.
The map, which can be viewed via Google Earth for free, allows homeowners, photovoltaic installers and utilities to better predict how much power they will get out of their solar systems.
“This map is important for the state of California because it provides residents, the industry, and policy makers with a simple yet accurate way to evaluate the ‘solar resource’ at a specific geographic location,” Nottrott said. “This map can also be used to help determine the best place to build new solar photovoltaic energy collectors and perform long-term economic analysis for those systems.”
The original data for the state’s solar map came from the National Solar Radiation Database and was modeled from geostationary satellites. Instead of using satellite data, the UCSD engineers used long time histories of measured ground data provided by ground stations through the California Department of Water Resource’ California Irrigation Management System (CIMIS) to evaluate and improve the accuracy of the original satellite dataset.
Satellite data covers the entire United States. However, ground stations, Kleissl said, give more accurate information than satellites on how much solar radiation occurs. Ground stations are also more affordable, costing about $5,000, compared to a $5 billion satellite, he said.
“Satellites are not as accurate because they can only see what the clouds reflect,” he said. “What we found through the use of the ground stations is that the summer morning clouds on the whole California coastline are thicker than observed by the satellite. The previous map predicted too much radiation during the summer months along the California coast.
“My hope is that our new map will make the decision for consumers a little easier about using solar energy,” Kleissl added. “I also hope that solar installers and data providers will adjust their predictions to provide homeowners with the more accurate data.”
Kleissl’s solar map project is funded as part of a two-year $130,000 grant through the California Solar Energy Collaborative, a partnership between UCSD and UC Davis and funded by the California Energy Commission to expand the development and use of solar energy in the state. Under a new California Solar Initiative grant, Kleissl and his students plan to further improve the solar map with thousands of ground data sites allowing users to zoom in mile-by-mile. That map is expected to be released in 2011. Currently, the new map has a 6-mile-by-6-mile radius.
“This research will allow us to gather data and do much more site-by-site and neighborhood assessment of how much solar radiation occurs in a microclimate,” Kleissl said.
The map also includes a free solar energy calculator created by Kleissl and his environmental engineering student Bryan Urquhart that allows homeowners and solar installers to compute the monthly and annual solar energy their systems will produce.
“This kind of research helps to remove the barriers for implementing solar energy conversion systems in California and promotes clean, renewable energy generation, which is an important part of our global energy future,” Nottrott said.
Notrott, in his first year as an environmental engineering Ph.D. student at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering, said he became interested in this field because it is a discipline that combines aspects of mechanical engineering with physical sciences to solve complex problems that arise from a need for sustainable development.
“As an environmental engineer my research will focus on helping to minimize the environmental impacts of urban development which has consequences for human comfort and health and global climate change,” he said.
Provided by University of California - San Diego
From L to R, UCSD environmental engineering student Anders Nottrott and Prof. Jan Kleissl have created a new solar map for the state of California. The map, which can be viewed via Google Earth for free, allows homeowners, photovoltaic installers and utilities to better predict how much power they will get out of their solar systems.
(PhysOrg.com) -- As the use of solar power grows in California it will become more important to know exactly how much radiation and energy are generated in regions throughout the state. That’s the basis behind an improved solar map for the state created by UC San Diego environmental engineering professor Jan Kleissl and his Ph.D. student Anders Nottrott.
They presented this work at the American Solar Energy Society conference in Phoenix, Az. today.
The map, which can be viewed via Google Earth for free, allows homeowners, photovoltaic installers and utilities to better predict how much power they will get out of their solar systems.
“This map is important for the state of California because it provides residents, the industry, and policy makers with a simple yet accurate way to evaluate the ‘solar resource’ at a specific geographic location,” Nottrott said. “This map can also be used to help determine the best place to build new solar photovoltaic energy collectors and perform long-term economic analysis for those systems.”
The original data for the state’s solar map came from the National Solar Radiation Database and was modeled from geostationary satellites. Instead of using satellite data, the UCSD engineers used long time histories of measured ground data provided by ground stations through the California Department of Water Resource’ California Irrigation Management System (CIMIS) to evaluate and improve the accuracy of the original satellite dataset.
Satellite data covers the entire United States. However, ground stations, Kleissl said, give more accurate information than satellites on how much solar radiation occurs. Ground stations are also more affordable, costing about $5,000, compared to a $5 billion satellite, he said.
“Satellites are not as accurate because they can only see what the clouds reflect,” he said. “What we found through the use of the ground stations is that the summer morning clouds on the whole California coastline are thicker than observed by the satellite. The previous map predicted too much radiation during the summer months along the California coast.
“My hope is that our new map will make the decision for consumers a little easier about using solar energy,” Kleissl added. “I also hope that solar installers and data providers will adjust their predictions to provide homeowners with the more accurate data.”
Kleissl’s solar map project is funded as part of a two-year $130,000 grant through the California Solar Energy Collaborative, a partnership between UCSD and UC Davis and funded by the California Energy Commission to expand the development and use of solar energy in the state. Under a new California Solar Initiative grant, Kleissl and his students plan to further improve the solar map with thousands of ground data sites allowing users to zoom in mile-by-mile. That map is expected to be released in 2011. Currently, the new map has a 6-mile-by-6-mile radius.
“This research will allow us to gather data and do much more site-by-site and neighborhood assessment of how much solar radiation occurs in a microclimate,” Kleissl said.
The map also includes a free solar energy calculator created by Kleissl and his environmental engineering student Bryan Urquhart that allows homeowners and solar installers to compute the monthly and annual solar energy their systems will produce.
“This kind of research helps to remove the barriers for implementing solar energy conversion systems in California and promotes clean, renewable energy generation, which is an important part of our global energy future,” Nottrott said.
Notrott, in his first year as an environmental engineering Ph.D. student at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering, said he became interested in this field because it is a discipline that combines aspects of mechanical engineering with physical sciences to solve complex problems that arise from a need for sustainable development.
“As an environmental engineer my research will focus on helping to minimize the environmental impacts of urban development which has consequences for human comfort and health and global climate change,” he said.
Provided by University of California - San Diego
US Drivers Can Take a Tip From Europe: It's Fiesta Time
By JOSEPH B. WHITE
The question of how much like Europe the U.S. should aspire to become is a touchy one, especially in light of recent economic events. But America is on track to become more European when it comes to cars.
'European' Cars
Here are some American cars with great fuel economy and low CO2 emissions that would make Europeans proud.
.2010 Ford Fusion
Engine: 2.5 liter
Highway mileage: 34 mpg
CO2 emissions: 319 grams per mile
Price: $19,695
.2010 Toyota Prius
Engine: 1.8 liter
Highway mileage: 48 mpg
CO2 emissions: 168 grams per mile
Price: $22,800
.2011 Chevy Cruze
Engine: 1.4 liter
Highway mileage: 40 mpg
CO2 emissions: 256 grams per mile
Price: Coming soon
.2011 Ford Fiesta
Engine: 1.6 liter
Highway mileage: 40 mpg
CO2 emissions: 261 grams per mile
Price: $15,795
.Consider the 2011 Ford Fiesta. This sporty little subcompact is made in Mexico but its design is so European it should come with a black beret. It's one of the first fruits of Ford Motor's long-running effort to sell the same cars around the world, instead of undertaking expensive modifications to make small cars more "American."
The Fiesta is significant because it boasts a combined fuel economy of about 35 miles per gallon as well as a highway mileage figure of 40 mpg—the new benchmark for this class for the U.S. market. That's not competitive for Europe, but it's a big step toward closing the gap.
A similar move is happening in the midsize car segment, where the old standard of 30 mpg highway is now outdated. The Chevy Malibu can claim 33 mpg on the highway; the Ford Fusion 34 mpg—both better than the Toyota Camry (32) or the Honda Accord (31).
Here's another way in which U.S. consumers will be encouraged to become more European in their thinking about cars: Miles per gallon is fading out as a way to judge a car's efficiency.
Instead, the government is focusing on the amount of carbon dioxide a car emits per mile. That's a measure of the vehicle's contribution to the load of man-made gases that many scientists and policy makers in the Obama administration say are elevating global temperatures and threatening environmental and economic damage.
The Obama administration's effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars will push American cars even closer to European norms. President Barack Obama told the industry last week it can expect even more demanding targets in 2017 through 2025.
The 2011 U.S. Ford Fiesta will emit about 261 grams of CO2 per mile. By 2016, it will have to emit just 225 grams per mile—a 14% improvement—to hit the target for passenger cars set under the fuel economy system that takes effect in 2012.
The exact mileage targets American cars will have to hit by 2025 haven't been decided yet. But Mr. Obama says he wants rules that will improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions even further. In Europe, car makers face a mandate to have their fleets reduce average emissions to 130 grams per kilometer (about 209 grams per mile) by 2015.
If the 2011 Ford Fiesta, which weighs just a little over 2,500 pounds, won't do the trick, what could?
Try the 2011 Ford Fiesta sold in the U.K. market.
In the U.K., the Fiesta is offered with a 1.6 liter diesel engine that's expected to emit just 98 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer—or about 157 grams per mile. Ford promotes the car as "U.K.'s greenest family car" with room for five.
It's doubtful many Americans would consider the Fiesta a "family" car. But even the British Ford Mondeo—a larger, midsize car similar to the Fusion in the U.S.—only emits about 225 grams per mile with a diesel engine today.
Of course, there are cars in the U.S. that already meet the 2016 greenhouse gas targets. Most are hybrids. The Toyota Prius would easily clear the 225 grams per mile standard, with room to spare for 2017 and beyond.
But that Mercedes-Benz GLK 350 sport utility vehicle? No. The standard for mid-size crossover wagons in 2016 is 279 grams of CO2 per mile. The little Benz puts out 493 grams per mile. But drop in a small diesel, and the story could be very different.
Diesel engines are Europe's preferred answer to cutting fuel consumption by vehicles, but in the U.S., rules aimed at curbing smog and soot have made it harder for car makers to sell diesel engines. New exhaust scrubbing technology helps, but it's expensive and the U.S. doesn't offer the incentives that European governments do to offset costs to consumers.
Car makers are outwardly welcoming the White House's call for higher national fuel economy targets—because so long as they have just one 50-state target to meet, instead of state-by-state rules, they can probably manage the technology side of the equation.
2011 Ford Fiesta U.S.:
Mark Elias/Bloomberg
.(5-door model)
Engine:
1.6 liter
Combined mileage:
35 mpg
CO2 emissions:
261 grams per mile
Price:
$15,795
2011 Ford Fiesta U.K.:
Ford
.(5-door ECOnetic model)
Engine:
1.6 liter diesel
Combined mileage:
76 mpg
CO2 emissions:
157 grams per mile
Price:
GBP 12,445 ($17,900)
.Many U.S. buyers will appreciate seeing more of the technical innovation that boosts the efficiency of European cars, but which auto makers omitted in America because cheap gas gave mainstream customers little reason to care.
There could also be big cost savings for car makers if they can more easily mirror what Ford is doing with the Fiesta, and design cars they can sell at high volume around the world.
Always, though, there are catches. Europe's high fuel costs and the tax penalties some countries exact on large, inefficient vehicles make it sensible to buy small cars that use expensive technology to get great mileage (pardon me, to reduce CO2).
In the U.K., that super-efficient diesel Fiesta starts at GBP 12,445 (about $17,900) for a family-friendly five-door model. In the U.S., the cheapest Fiesta five-door starts at $15,795.
Auto makers worry that U.S. consumers won't pay premium prices for super-efficient small cars without a stronger nudge at the gas pump. They're lobbying the government for bigger subsidies to smooth the way for electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen-fueled cars that could help satisfy the CO2 reduction demands. They'd love it if Mr. Obama embraced the idea of a gas tax. He says he won't.
Many energy industry analysts forecast that oil prices will rise as the global economy recovers from the recession, and reward a shift away from the big fuel hogs Americans loved so well in the past.
Short term, the oil market isn't cooperating with the agenda that the Fiesta so stylishly represents. Gas prices usually go up ahead of the summer vacation driving season. This year, they are going down.
— Write to Joseph B. White at joseph.white@wsj.com
The question of how much like Europe the U.S. should aspire to become is a touchy one, especially in light of recent economic events. But America is on track to become more European when it comes to cars.
'European' Cars
Here are some American cars with great fuel economy and low CO2 emissions that would make Europeans proud.
.2010 Ford Fusion
Engine: 2.5 liter
Highway mileage: 34 mpg
CO2 emissions: 319 grams per mile
Price: $19,695
.2010 Toyota Prius
Engine: 1.8 liter
Highway mileage: 48 mpg
CO2 emissions: 168 grams per mile
Price: $22,800
.2011 Chevy Cruze
Engine: 1.4 liter
Highway mileage: 40 mpg
CO2 emissions: 256 grams per mile
Price: Coming soon
.2011 Ford Fiesta
Engine: 1.6 liter
Highway mileage: 40 mpg
CO2 emissions: 261 grams per mile
Price: $15,795
.Consider the 2011 Ford Fiesta. This sporty little subcompact is made in Mexico but its design is so European it should come with a black beret. It's one of the first fruits of Ford Motor's long-running effort to sell the same cars around the world, instead of undertaking expensive modifications to make small cars more "American."
The Fiesta is significant because it boasts a combined fuel economy of about 35 miles per gallon as well as a highway mileage figure of 40 mpg—the new benchmark for this class for the U.S. market. That's not competitive for Europe, but it's a big step toward closing the gap.
A similar move is happening in the midsize car segment, where the old standard of 30 mpg highway is now outdated. The Chevy Malibu can claim 33 mpg on the highway; the Ford Fusion 34 mpg—both better than the Toyota Camry (32) or the Honda Accord (31).
Here's another way in which U.S. consumers will be encouraged to become more European in their thinking about cars: Miles per gallon is fading out as a way to judge a car's efficiency.
Instead, the government is focusing on the amount of carbon dioxide a car emits per mile. That's a measure of the vehicle's contribution to the load of man-made gases that many scientists and policy makers in the Obama administration say are elevating global temperatures and threatening environmental and economic damage.
The Obama administration's effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars will push American cars even closer to European norms. President Barack Obama told the industry last week it can expect even more demanding targets in 2017 through 2025.
The 2011 U.S. Ford Fiesta will emit about 261 grams of CO2 per mile. By 2016, it will have to emit just 225 grams per mile—a 14% improvement—to hit the target for passenger cars set under the fuel economy system that takes effect in 2012.
The exact mileage targets American cars will have to hit by 2025 haven't been decided yet. But Mr. Obama says he wants rules that will improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions even further. In Europe, car makers face a mandate to have their fleets reduce average emissions to 130 grams per kilometer (about 209 grams per mile) by 2015.
If the 2011 Ford Fiesta, which weighs just a little over 2,500 pounds, won't do the trick, what could?
Try the 2011 Ford Fiesta sold in the U.K. market.
In the U.K., the Fiesta is offered with a 1.6 liter diesel engine that's expected to emit just 98 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer—or about 157 grams per mile. Ford promotes the car as "U.K.'s greenest family car" with room for five.
It's doubtful many Americans would consider the Fiesta a "family" car. But even the British Ford Mondeo—a larger, midsize car similar to the Fusion in the U.S.—only emits about 225 grams per mile with a diesel engine today.
Of course, there are cars in the U.S. that already meet the 2016 greenhouse gas targets. Most are hybrids. The Toyota Prius would easily clear the 225 grams per mile standard, with room to spare for 2017 and beyond.
But that Mercedes-Benz GLK 350 sport utility vehicle? No. The standard for mid-size crossover wagons in 2016 is 279 grams of CO2 per mile. The little Benz puts out 493 grams per mile. But drop in a small diesel, and the story could be very different.
Diesel engines are Europe's preferred answer to cutting fuel consumption by vehicles, but in the U.S., rules aimed at curbing smog and soot have made it harder for car makers to sell diesel engines. New exhaust scrubbing technology helps, but it's expensive and the U.S. doesn't offer the incentives that European governments do to offset costs to consumers.
Car makers are outwardly welcoming the White House's call for higher national fuel economy targets—because so long as they have just one 50-state target to meet, instead of state-by-state rules, they can probably manage the technology side of the equation.
2011 Ford Fiesta U.S.:
Mark Elias/Bloomberg
.(5-door model)
Engine:
1.6 liter
Combined mileage:
35 mpg
CO2 emissions:
261 grams per mile
Price:
$15,795
2011 Ford Fiesta U.K.:
Ford
.(5-door ECOnetic model)
Engine:
1.6 liter diesel
Combined mileage:
76 mpg
CO2 emissions:
157 grams per mile
Price:
GBP 12,445 ($17,900)
.Many U.S. buyers will appreciate seeing more of the technical innovation that boosts the efficiency of European cars, but which auto makers omitted in America because cheap gas gave mainstream customers little reason to care.
There could also be big cost savings for car makers if they can more easily mirror what Ford is doing with the Fiesta, and design cars they can sell at high volume around the world.
Always, though, there are catches. Europe's high fuel costs and the tax penalties some countries exact on large, inefficient vehicles make it sensible to buy small cars that use expensive technology to get great mileage (pardon me, to reduce CO2).
In the U.K., that super-efficient diesel Fiesta starts at GBP 12,445 (about $17,900) for a family-friendly five-door model. In the U.S., the cheapest Fiesta five-door starts at $15,795.
Auto makers worry that U.S. consumers won't pay premium prices for super-efficient small cars without a stronger nudge at the gas pump. They're lobbying the government for bigger subsidies to smooth the way for electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen-fueled cars that could help satisfy the CO2 reduction demands. They'd love it if Mr. Obama embraced the idea of a gas tax. He says he won't.
Many energy industry analysts forecast that oil prices will rise as the global economy recovers from the recession, and reward a shift away from the big fuel hogs Americans loved so well in the past.
Short term, the oil market isn't cooperating with the agenda that the Fiesta so stylishly represents. Gas prices usually go up ahead of the summer vacation driving season. This year, they are going down.
— Write to Joseph B. White at joseph.white@wsj.com
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