By ERIC YEP
MUMBAI -- India plans to quadruple its power generation capacity from renewable sources to 72,400 megawatts by 2022, its renewable energy ministry said late Tuesday.
The South Asian nation's push to increase the amount of energy produced from renewable sources is linked to concerns over coal supplies, global climate change commitments and domestic moves towards clean energy.
Developed countries are demanding stronger environmental commitments from major growing economies such as India and China, where energy demand is set to rise sharply to feed rapid industrialization and bring electricity to millions of rural households.
India is projected to be the second-largest contributor to the increase in global energy demand by 2035, accounting for 18% of the rise, with its energy consumption more than doubling by 2035, according to recent data from the International Energy Agency.
India, which has put in place a "National Action Plan on Climate Change", has said it will reduce its emissions intensity--the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic product--by 20%-25% of 2005 levels by 2020.
It may also consider emissions cuts under an international mandate, softening an earlier stand, its environment minister said earlier in December.
In order to meet these targets, India needs to curb emissions from the power sector, which accounts for about 60% of its total carbon dioxide emissions, according to government data. The power sector's dominant fuel source, and the most polluting, is coal.
India's power generation capacity at the end of October was about 167 gigawatts, of which its renewables-based capacity was about 11% at 18,321 MW, the ministry of new and renewable energy said in a statement.
It aims to raise renewables-based capacity to 72,400 MW--or 15.9% of total capacity--by 2022, when the country will have 455 GW of total capacity.
Generation capacity under the renewables ministry covers renewable energy such as solar, wind and small hydroelectric plants, but not large hydroelectric projects.
At the end of October about 65% of India's capacity was from fossil fuels, mostly coal. The government estimates domestic coal supplies will fall short of demand by 82.89 million metric tons in the financial year through March 2011, and widen in the following years, making it vital for it to look towards renewable energy.
The ministry said it is pushing state distribution utilities to procure a specified minimum percentage of renewable power to boost generation from clean energy sources.
The country has also launched a solar program targeting 20 GW of solar-based capacity by 2022 and introduced market instruments called renewable energy certificates. The planning commission has also put together a group of experts to prepare a strategy for a low-carbon economy.
Analysts say India will have to work through numerous bureaucratic and procedural hurdles to meet its renewable energy targets and to match the sector's growth in other emerging markets.
"In 2009 renewable investment in India was $2.3 billion, compared with $34.6 billion for China and $7.4 billion for Brazil," Fitch Ratings said in September in a note.
Write to Eric Yep at eric.yep@dowjones.com
Friday, 31 December 2010
Construction schedule on Chinese third-generation nuclear plants races ahead of European models
Local experience and long working hours speed progress
Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 28 December 2010 14.00 GMT
The workers in their blue overalls and yellow helmets waste little time, ignoring the view of the South China Sea. "They don't hang around," says Rémi Sénac, the Areva representative at Taishan, Guangdong province, where work on the first two European pressurised reactors (EPRs) is going well. France's nuclear conglomerate takes pride in the progress being made on the third-generation reactors sold to China in November 2007. Things have worked out much better here than at Flamanville, in western France, and at Olkiluoto in Finland.
The first reactor, currently no more than a metal cylinder 39 metres high, stands in the middle of a lunar landscape extending over 450 hectares, served by some 20 cranes. Nearby, the dome – which will cap the structure containing the 1,660-MW reactor – is waiting for its last two rings to be added.
The symbolic act of lifting the dome on to the building is scheduled for May 2011, a month ahead of its French counterpart, on which work started earlier. The difference reflects the steep learning curve for new technology. Engineering work on the two Chinese reactors draws on the experience Areva has gained on the other two jobs. The number of subcontractors has also been limited to simplify the division of labour, and changes have been made to several welding procedures.
Areva's partner, the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC), one of the two companies that dominate the Chinese market for civilian nuclear power, also benefits from the experience of its own subcontractors, who have been working at full capacity since the 1980s when China started trying to reduce its dependence on coal.
"Their civil engineering firms haven't stopped building power stations since," says Roger Seban, the deputy chief executive of TSNPC, the joint venture that has enabled the French utility company EDF to take part in the project.
Another essential ingredient is Chinese labour; there are 9,000 workers currently on site. Instead of working three eight-hour shifts, as is common in Europe, the people working for Hua Xing, the concrete contractor on the first Taishan reactor, work 10-hour stints, seven days a week.
Financial incentives help keep the workers and contractors on track. "One of the most important factors for the economics of a project like this is sticking to the original schedule," says Eric Neisse, a deputy manager at Areva-China. Especially since CGNPC is competing with another state-owned company, which has opted to install a third-generation reactor built by Toshiba-Westinghouse.
Every summer typhoons sweep through Guangdong. A dyke had to built along the coast, with channels cut into the surrounding hills to divert the rain. The seawater is warmer here than in northern Europe, so a 4km tunnel had to be bored for the cooling system on each reactor to draw in cold water from the sea.
The two reactors should be commissioned at the end of 2013 and in autumn 2014 respectively. In the meantime, Areva hopes to have started work on more reactors thanks to Wecan, another joint venture in which CGNPC has taken a majority share, an essential point in this strategically vital sector for China. As everyone is quick to point out, the Taishan site could accommodate six reactors. Work on two of them is just waiting for government approval. In fact, to save time, the earthworks are already complete.
This article originally appeared in Le Monde
Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 28 December 2010 14.00 GMT
The workers in their blue overalls and yellow helmets waste little time, ignoring the view of the South China Sea. "They don't hang around," says Rémi Sénac, the Areva representative at Taishan, Guangdong province, where work on the first two European pressurised reactors (EPRs) is going well. France's nuclear conglomerate takes pride in the progress being made on the third-generation reactors sold to China in November 2007. Things have worked out much better here than at Flamanville, in western France, and at Olkiluoto in Finland.
The first reactor, currently no more than a metal cylinder 39 metres high, stands in the middle of a lunar landscape extending over 450 hectares, served by some 20 cranes. Nearby, the dome – which will cap the structure containing the 1,660-MW reactor – is waiting for its last two rings to be added.
The symbolic act of lifting the dome on to the building is scheduled for May 2011, a month ahead of its French counterpart, on which work started earlier. The difference reflects the steep learning curve for new technology. Engineering work on the two Chinese reactors draws on the experience Areva has gained on the other two jobs. The number of subcontractors has also been limited to simplify the division of labour, and changes have been made to several welding procedures.
Areva's partner, the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC), one of the two companies that dominate the Chinese market for civilian nuclear power, also benefits from the experience of its own subcontractors, who have been working at full capacity since the 1980s when China started trying to reduce its dependence on coal.
"Their civil engineering firms haven't stopped building power stations since," says Roger Seban, the deputy chief executive of TSNPC, the joint venture that has enabled the French utility company EDF to take part in the project.
Another essential ingredient is Chinese labour; there are 9,000 workers currently on site. Instead of working three eight-hour shifts, as is common in Europe, the people working for Hua Xing, the concrete contractor on the first Taishan reactor, work 10-hour stints, seven days a week.
Financial incentives help keep the workers and contractors on track. "One of the most important factors for the economics of a project like this is sticking to the original schedule," says Eric Neisse, a deputy manager at Areva-China. Especially since CGNPC is competing with another state-owned company, which has opted to install a third-generation reactor built by Toshiba-Westinghouse.
Every summer typhoons sweep through Guangdong. A dyke had to built along the coast, with channels cut into the surrounding hills to divert the rain. The seawater is warmer here than in northern Europe, so a 4km tunnel had to be bored for the cooling system on each reactor to draw in cold water from the sea.
The two reactors should be commissioned at the end of 2013 and in autumn 2014 respectively. In the meantime, Areva hopes to have started work on more reactors thanks to Wecan, another joint venture in which CGNPC has taken a majority share, an essential point in this strategically vital sector for China. As everyone is quick to point out, the Taishan site could accommodate six reactors. Work on two of them is just waiting for government approval. In fact, to save time, the earthworks are already complete.
This article originally appeared in Le Monde
Liquid gas expands to fill Britain's energy gap
Virtual pipeline that ships LNG around the world is growing in importance – and reducing the UK's reliance on Russia. But it can't insulate the gas supply from disruption
Tim Webb guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 December 2010 17.27 GMT
On a freezing morning, Simon Fairman, manager of National Grid's Isle of Grain liquified natural gas terminal, greets a blue-faced engineer in a control room. The engineer had just come inside after a morning checking nuts and bolts on the windswept new jetty which opened for business at the start of this month. Protruding some 300 metres into the murky River Medway, the jetty can accommodate tankers the size of aircraft carriers to offload their precious cargo of supercooled liquid gas.
The timely expansion – which coincided with the coldest weather for decades – means the £1bn liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal, the world's largest outside Japan and Korea, can now supply up to a fifth of the UK's average annual gas demand.
However, a tanker which had been expected to dock that day was not now due until the following week, giving engineers the opportunity to carry out maintenance. It is impossible to know precisely when LNG tankers – sailing mostly from Algeria, Qatar and Norway – will arrive. A maximum of five can dock there each week. Gas producers such as BP, Algeria's Sonatrach and Gaz de France pay National Grid to book berthing slots at the terminal but do not have to use them.
"They will pick and choose – they can change their mind up to the last moment," Fairman says. "If there is a demand for gas in Spain, they will take the cargo there because there is a better price rather than bring it to the UK, for example."
Last year one tanker from Algeria on its seven-day voyage to the Isle of Grain had got as far as the Straits of Dover when the ship's master was called by Sonatrach, owner of the cargo.
"There were some problems in Turkey and a need for LNG there," Fairman recalls. "They were saying: 'We may need you to divert, we may need you to turn round and go full speed to Turkey.'"
LNG is gas compressed into a liquid for shipping and then reconverted into gas after it reaches its destination. Fairman calls the growing number of LNG tankers and terminals such as the Isle of Grain around the world a virtual global pipeline.
The UK has three major terminals which between them are able to supply almost half of the country's average annual gas demand. Each of the largest tankers carries enough gas to supply about a third of the UK's average daily winter demand.
Gas glut
The International Energy Agency this year pointed to an unexpected global "gas glut" which it forecasts will last for a decade, the result of new ways of producing "unconventional gas" from shale or coal seams. This glut means that oil companies such as Shell will soon be producing more gas than oil for the first time.
Not relying on physical pipelines, LNG allows producers to reach new markets such as the UK. On one of the coldest days of the month – December 19 – a record quarter of all the gas consumed in the UK came from LNG. Ships flocked to UK terminals to meet demand – and to benefit from the high prices energy companies such as British Gas were prepared to pay to keep their customers supplied.
National Grid estimates that as supplies from the North Sea run out, the UK will be forced to import 70% of its gas by 2020, with two thirds of this coming from LNG. The gas glut and expansion of terminals such as the Isle of Grain have also eased concerns over security of supply as the country is less heavily reliant on imports shipped by pipeline from Europe and Russia.
However, the growth in LNG does not mean the UK will be entirely insulated from winter gas supply rows involving Russia and its European neighbours. In fact, the Guardian's visit to the Isle of Grain coincided with one by Russian energy group Gazprom, with the company talking to National Grid about booking new berthing slots.
"If you are a producer of LNG you will always be looking for new markets," Fairman says. "In the situation with Gazprom – they clearly would like to develop their capacity for LNG. From our point of view, there is an opportunity of having a conversation which prospectively could or could not lead to something."
Diverting demand
Nick Campbell, from energy consultancy Inenco, argues that relying more on LNG opens up the UK to the vagaries – and volatility – of global gas demand. He cites the example of an LNG tanker from Nigeria bound for the Dragon LNG terminal at Milford Haven in Wales in August, which was diverted at the last minute to Brazil. Lower-than-expected rainfall meant that Brazil's hydro plants were generating less electricity, requiring its gas plants to increase production.
The UK can import up to about 75% of its average winter demand via pipelines from Norway and the Continent, but this gas will flow elsewhere in Europe if the price is higher there.
"With pipelines we are competing against Europe for gas. With LNG, we are competing in a global market," Campbell says.
Whether LNG cargoes arrive in the UK depends on how much suppliers are willing to pay. "When people say we are running out of gas we are not, but the price may have to increase to incentivise shippers," Campbell says. "Gas producers are not the Salvation Army. They are not going to do anything for free."
But equally, he estimates that gas bought on the spot market would cost a quarter more had the UK's LNG capacity not nearly tripled in the last two years.
Fairman insists the destination of most LNG tankers is scheduled months in advance: "This not 'Where am I going to put it today?'" He says they should not be viewed any differently to oil tankers. "We don't worry about where oil tankers are going with our petrol."
Tim Webb guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 December 2010 17.27 GMT
On a freezing morning, Simon Fairman, manager of National Grid's Isle of Grain liquified natural gas terminal, greets a blue-faced engineer in a control room. The engineer had just come inside after a morning checking nuts and bolts on the windswept new jetty which opened for business at the start of this month. Protruding some 300 metres into the murky River Medway, the jetty can accommodate tankers the size of aircraft carriers to offload their precious cargo of supercooled liquid gas.
The timely expansion – which coincided with the coldest weather for decades – means the £1bn liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal, the world's largest outside Japan and Korea, can now supply up to a fifth of the UK's average annual gas demand.
However, a tanker which had been expected to dock that day was not now due until the following week, giving engineers the opportunity to carry out maintenance. It is impossible to know precisely when LNG tankers – sailing mostly from Algeria, Qatar and Norway – will arrive. A maximum of five can dock there each week. Gas producers such as BP, Algeria's Sonatrach and Gaz de France pay National Grid to book berthing slots at the terminal but do not have to use them.
"They will pick and choose – they can change their mind up to the last moment," Fairman says. "If there is a demand for gas in Spain, they will take the cargo there because there is a better price rather than bring it to the UK, for example."
Last year one tanker from Algeria on its seven-day voyage to the Isle of Grain had got as far as the Straits of Dover when the ship's master was called by Sonatrach, owner of the cargo.
"There were some problems in Turkey and a need for LNG there," Fairman recalls. "They were saying: 'We may need you to divert, we may need you to turn round and go full speed to Turkey.'"
LNG is gas compressed into a liquid for shipping and then reconverted into gas after it reaches its destination. Fairman calls the growing number of LNG tankers and terminals such as the Isle of Grain around the world a virtual global pipeline.
The UK has three major terminals which between them are able to supply almost half of the country's average annual gas demand. Each of the largest tankers carries enough gas to supply about a third of the UK's average daily winter demand.
Gas glut
The International Energy Agency this year pointed to an unexpected global "gas glut" which it forecasts will last for a decade, the result of new ways of producing "unconventional gas" from shale or coal seams. This glut means that oil companies such as Shell will soon be producing more gas than oil for the first time.
Not relying on physical pipelines, LNG allows producers to reach new markets such as the UK. On one of the coldest days of the month – December 19 – a record quarter of all the gas consumed in the UK came from LNG. Ships flocked to UK terminals to meet demand – and to benefit from the high prices energy companies such as British Gas were prepared to pay to keep their customers supplied.
National Grid estimates that as supplies from the North Sea run out, the UK will be forced to import 70% of its gas by 2020, with two thirds of this coming from LNG. The gas glut and expansion of terminals such as the Isle of Grain have also eased concerns over security of supply as the country is less heavily reliant on imports shipped by pipeline from Europe and Russia.
However, the growth in LNG does not mean the UK will be entirely insulated from winter gas supply rows involving Russia and its European neighbours. In fact, the Guardian's visit to the Isle of Grain coincided with one by Russian energy group Gazprom, with the company talking to National Grid about booking new berthing slots.
"If you are a producer of LNG you will always be looking for new markets," Fairman says. "In the situation with Gazprom – they clearly would like to develop their capacity for LNG. From our point of view, there is an opportunity of having a conversation which prospectively could or could not lead to something."
Diverting demand
Nick Campbell, from energy consultancy Inenco, argues that relying more on LNG opens up the UK to the vagaries – and volatility – of global gas demand. He cites the example of an LNG tanker from Nigeria bound for the Dragon LNG terminal at Milford Haven in Wales in August, which was diverted at the last minute to Brazil. Lower-than-expected rainfall meant that Brazil's hydro plants were generating less electricity, requiring its gas plants to increase production.
The UK can import up to about 75% of its average winter demand via pipelines from Norway and the Continent, but this gas will flow elsewhere in Europe if the price is higher there.
"With pipelines we are competing against Europe for gas. With LNG, we are competing in a global market," Campbell says.
Whether LNG cargoes arrive in the UK depends on how much suppliers are willing to pay. "When people say we are running out of gas we are not, but the price may have to increase to incentivise shippers," Campbell says. "Gas producers are not the Salvation Army. They are not going to do anything for free."
But equally, he estimates that gas bought on the spot market would cost a quarter more had the UK's LNG capacity not nearly tripled in the last two years.
Fairman insists the destination of most LNG tankers is scheduled months in advance: "This not 'Where am I going to put it today?'" He says they should not be viewed any differently to oil tankers. "We don't worry about where oil tankers are going with our petrol."
Sunday, 26 December 2010
China's green gift to the world
Environmentalists who want to ban China's coal imports are 100% wrong: driving up the price of coal cuts carbon emissions
Frank Wolak and Richard Morse guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 December 2010 11.30 GMT
In a mostly dismal year for US and international climate policy, China's coal imports are skyrocketing to record levels. The environmental community and policy pundits have rushed to decry this new development, arguing that China's expanding imports undermine global climate efforts, and even that countries should block coal exports to China.
But the conventional wisdom has it backwards. In reality, record Chinese coal imports are better for global CO2 emissions than any climate policy to come out of Washington or the United Nations this year – because they strengthen incentives for the rest of the world to switch to less polluting fuels.
Burning coal is the largest single source of global CO2 emissions, and at over 3bn tons annually, China's coal consumption dwarfs that of all other countries. But in 2009, something counterintuitive happened: the world's largest coal producer became one of the world's largest coal importers. As a result, the entire globe is now rushing to figure out how to sell more coal to China. Environmentalists have balked, suggesting that coal sales to China should be blocked and that China's imports are evidence that it isn't taking real steps to fight global warming.
But the reality is that the climate is directly benefitting from China's coal buying spree. When China imports coal, its own coal consumption and emissions stay constant, while the rest of the world's emissions should decrease. The logic works as follows: China isn't importing coal because it doesn't have enough to burn. It has plenty, and imports only replace domestic coal that would have been burned otherwise. (Despite the fact that "peak coal" theorists are the latest fashion, as the IEA has recently highlighted, vast regions of Chinese coal reserves still sit largely untapped.) China's domestic coal prices are now the highest in the world, which allows Chinese companies to save money by purchasing coal from overseas.
Quite simply, China is optimising the economics of its coal supply by arbitraging prices in its domestic markets against those in the international market. (We issued a study on that subject at Stanford earlier this year.) This buying behaviour matters because it shows that China's increased imports have almost no impact on how much coal China uses (and thus its emissions from coal) – only on where it comes from.
China's coal imports don't impact the country's own total coal use, but they do directly impact how much coal the rest of the world uses. Unlike China, major coal consuming regions like the US and Europe have near term alternatives to burning coal. While nearly 80% of China's electricity is produced from coal and less than 4% from natural gas, the United States produces roughly a quarter of its electricity from natural gas and approximately half from coal. For Europe, these numbers are around 35% and 50%, respectively. Because burning natural gas emits roughly half the CO2 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity compared to coal, the possibility of switching to natural gas generation when coal becomes expensive is one of the most significant opportunities to reduce emissions globally.
China is giving the rest of the world a huge push to use cleaner energy by bidding up the global price of coal and making it less competitive with greener alternatives. Last year, China's imports accounted for nearly 15% of all globally traded coal. This year, rapidly increasing imports are set to account for an even larger share of the entire global coal market. China's substantial purchases on the global coal market have driven the world price of coal up relative to natural gas. Real natural prices in the US and Europe are near record lows because of low levels of economic activity in these regions and increased gas supplies from unconventional sources. The global coal price increase caused by China's actions means that major coal-consuming regions with the ability to run more natural gas-fired generation capacity and less coal-fired capacity will do so.
To get a rough idea of the scale of these CO2 reductions, note that the European Union and the US consume roughly 7bn MWh of electricity annually. Approximately 1 ton of CO2 emission is produced per MWh of electricity from a typical coal-fired generation unit, while burning natural gas emits only half as much. If 5% of these MWhs were produced using natural gas instead of coal due to China raising the international coal price, a 175m ton drop in CO2 emissions is the result. This is equivalent to taking 32 million cars off the road in the US and Europe.
The more expensive China makes global coal supplies, the more competitive cleaner energy becomes in the developed world and the lower will be CO2 emissions. In a world without a price on carbon, we can only hope that China takes all of the rest of the world's coal it can get.
Frank Wolak and Richard Morse guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 December 2010 11.30 GMT
In a mostly dismal year for US and international climate policy, China's coal imports are skyrocketing to record levels. The environmental community and policy pundits have rushed to decry this new development, arguing that China's expanding imports undermine global climate efforts, and even that countries should block coal exports to China.
But the conventional wisdom has it backwards. In reality, record Chinese coal imports are better for global CO2 emissions than any climate policy to come out of Washington or the United Nations this year – because they strengthen incentives for the rest of the world to switch to less polluting fuels.
Burning coal is the largest single source of global CO2 emissions, and at over 3bn tons annually, China's coal consumption dwarfs that of all other countries. But in 2009, something counterintuitive happened: the world's largest coal producer became one of the world's largest coal importers. As a result, the entire globe is now rushing to figure out how to sell more coal to China. Environmentalists have balked, suggesting that coal sales to China should be blocked and that China's imports are evidence that it isn't taking real steps to fight global warming.
But the reality is that the climate is directly benefitting from China's coal buying spree. When China imports coal, its own coal consumption and emissions stay constant, while the rest of the world's emissions should decrease. The logic works as follows: China isn't importing coal because it doesn't have enough to burn. It has plenty, and imports only replace domestic coal that would have been burned otherwise. (Despite the fact that "peak coal" theorists are the latest fashion, as the IEA has recently highlighted, vast regions of Chinese coal reserves still sit largely untapped.) China's domestic coal prices are now the highest in the world, which allows Chinese companies to save money by purchasing coal from overseas.
Quite simply, China is optimising the economics of its coal supply by arbitraging prices in its domestic markets against those in the international market. (We issued a study on that subject at Stanford earlier this year.) This buying behaviour matters because it shows that China's increased imports have almost no impact on how much coal China uses (and thus its emissions from coal) – only on where it comes from.
China's coal imports don't impact the country's own total coal use, but they do directly impact how much coal the rest of the world uses. Unlike China, major coal consuming regions like the US and Europe have near term alternatives to burning coal. While nearly 80% of China's electricity is produced from coal and less than 4% from natural gas, the United States produces roughly a quarter of its electricity from natural gas and approximately half from coal. For Europe, these numbers are around 35% and 50%, respectively. Because burning natural gas emits roughly half the CO2 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity compared to coal, the possibility of switching to natural gas generation when coal becomes expensive is one of the most significant opportunities to reduce emissions globally.
China is giving the rest of the world a huge push to use cleaner energy by bidding up the global price of coal and making it less competitive with greener alternatives. Last year, China's imports accounted for nearly 15% of all globally traded coal. This year, rapidly increasing imports are set to account for an even larger share of the entire global coal market. China's substantial purchases on the global coal market have driven the world price of coal up relative to natural gas. Real natural prices in the US and Europe are near record lows because of low levels of economic activity in these regions and increased gas supplies from unconventional sources. The global coal price increase caused by China's actions means that major coal-consuming regions with the ability to run more natural gas-fired generation capacity and less coal-fired capacity will do so.
To get a rough idea of the scale of these CO2 reductions, note that the European Union and the US consume roughly 7bn MWh of electricity annually. Approximately 1 ton of CO2 emission is produced per MWh of electricity from a typical coal-fired generation unit, while burning natural gas emits only half as much. If 5% of these MWhs were produced using natural gas instead of coal due to China raising the international coal price, a 175m ton drop in CO2 emissions is the result. This is equivalent to taking 32 million cars off the road in the US and Europe.
The more expensive China makes global coal supplies, the more competitive cleaner energy becomes in the developed world and the lower will be CO2 emissions. In a world without a price on carbon, we can only hope that China takes all of the rest of the world's coal it can get.
Friday, 24 December 2010
EPA Sets Timetable for Greenhouse-Gas Rules
By SIOBHAN HUGHES
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration on Thursday said it would issue standards to control greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries within two years, the latest move to proceed with a signature environmental policy in the face of inaction by Congress.
The Environmental Protection Agency said that the standards, which have yet to be specified, will be proposed next year and finalized by the end of 2012, which coincides with the end of President Barack Obama's first term. The timeframe—announced two days before the Christmas holiday—was negotiated with environmental groups and state attorneys general, which had sued the agency over its failure to issue standards.
Gina McCarthy, the EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, told reporters that the standards would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in a "cost-effective way," without setting a limit, or cap, on emissions. But businesses—backed by congressional Republicans who are planning to mount aggressive oversight of the EPA next year—complained that complying wouldn't be that easy, and said the timetable appeared aggressive.
"There is no off-the-shelf technology to address reductions in carbon," said Scott Segal, an attorney at Bracewell & Giuliani who represents utilities and refineries. "This is high-stakes poker that the agency is playing with a very inadequate database upon which to base their actions."
The EPA's action could force power plants to shift to natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide than coal, and to operate more efficiently. It is thought to have a big effect on older power plants in areas such as Ohio, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania.
Businesses say that will mean higher electricity costs, which in turn will mean higher costs for manufacturers who are already struggling to compete with overseas factories.
"What we're doing is attempting to combat CO2 emissions by driving up energy costs for everyone," said Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association. "It's crazy."
The EPA announcement also sets the stage for a battle between the EPA and Congress over the next two years, when Republicans have more seats in the Senate and take control of the House.
"The EPA has its foot firmly on the throat of our economic recovery," said Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), who will oversee the EPA when he becomes chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee next year. "We will not allow the administration to regulate what they have been unable to legislate—this Christmas surprise is nothing short of a backdoor attempt to implement their failed job-killing cap-and-trade scheme."
Congress failed to pass the cap-and-trade legislation this year after opposition from coal, oil, and manufacturing states. In the next leg of the effort to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, the EPA will propose the power-plant standards by July 26, and finalize the rules by May 26, 2012. The agency will propose standards for refineries by Dec. 10, and finalize the standards by Nov. 10, 2012.
The EPA has already begun an effort to regulate emissions from facilities. Starting next year, emitters will file their first-ever reports on annual greenhouse-gas emissions. Facilities such as power plants and refineries will also have to obtain state-issued permits to emit greenhouse-gases at any new or upgraded facility. States will issue the permits after companies show they are using the best available technology to control the emissions that scientists link to rising sea levels, and more frequent weather events such as drought.
The planned EPA emission standards are a separate tool that could be more far-reaching than the permitting requirements. The EPA said that the greenhouse-gas standards will ultimately apply to existing facilities starting in about 2015 or 2016 and are intended to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The EPA will also be able to enforce the standards.
"This is the major rule through which EPA can start to ratchet down global warming pollution, especially from the large sources," said Nathan Willcox, who directs the federal global warming program for Environment America, an environmental group. "With the permitting process, that's largely up to the states and whether an individual state wants to use the permitting process to crack down. But if they don't, the performance standards are nationwide and they are federally enforceable."
Though the EPA said that it still had to work out the details, a likely scenario is that the standard will limit the amount of carbon dioxide that a power plant can emit for each megawatt hour of electricity produced.
"That is how you would probably frame these standards up—they would be set in terms of pounds of CO2 emissions per megawatt hour or kilowatt hour," said David Doniger, a policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council who signed on to the settlement with the EPA.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration on Thursday said it would issue standards to control greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries within two years, the latest move to proceed with a signature environmental policy in the face of inaction by Congress.
The Environmental Protection Agency said that the standards, which have yet to be specified, will be proposed next year and finalized by the end of 2012, which coincides with the end of President Barack Obama's first term. The timeframe—announced two days before the Christmas holiday—was negotiated with environmental groups and state attorneys general, which had sued the agency over its failure to issue standards.
Gina McCarthy, the EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, told reporters that the standards would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in a "cost-effective way," without setting a limit, or cap, on emissions. But businesses—backed by congressional Republicans who are planning to mount aggressive oversight of the EPA next year—complained that complying wouldn't be that easy, and said the timetable appeared aggressive.
"There is no off-the-shelf technology to address reductions in carbon," said Scott Segal, an attorney at Bracewell & Giuliani who represents utilities and refineries. "This is high-stakes poker that the agency is playing with a very inadequate database upon which to base their actions."
The EPA's action could force power plants to shift to natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide than coal, and to operate more efficiently. It is thought to have a big effect on older power plants in areas such as Ohio, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania.
Businesses say that will mean higher electricity costs, which in turn will mean higher costs for manufacturers who are already struggling to compete with overseas factories.
"What we're doing is attempting to combat CO2 emissions by driving up energy costs for everyone," said Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association. "It's crazy."
The EPA announcement also sets the stage for a battle between the EPA and Congress over the next two years, when Republicans have more seats in the Senate and take control of the House.
"The EPA has its foot firmly on the throat of our economic recovery," said Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), who will oversee the EPA when he becomes chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee next year. "We will not allow the administration to regulate what they have been unable to legislate—this Christmas surprise is nothing short of a backdoor attempt to implement their failed job-killing cap-and-trade scheme."
Congress failed to pass the cap-and-trade legislation this year after opposition from coal, oil, and manufacturing states. In the next leg of the effort to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, the EPA will propose the power-plant standards by July 26, and finalize the rules by May 26, 2012. The agency will propose standards for refineries by Dec. 10, and finalize the standards by Nov. 10, 2012.
The EPA has already begun an effort to regulate emissions from facilities. Starting next year, emitters will file their first-ever reports on annual greenhouse-gas emissions. Facilities such as power plants and refineries will also have to obtain state-issued permits to emit greenhouse-gases at any new or upgraded facility. States will issue the permits after companies show they are using the best available technology to control the emissions that scientists link to rising sea levels, and more frequent weather events such as drought.
The planned EPA emission standards are a separate tool that could be more far-reaching than the permitting requirements. The EPA said that the greenhouse-gas standards will ultimately apply to existing facilities starting in about 2015 or 2016 and are intended to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The EPA will also be able to enforce the standards.
"This is the major rule through which EPA can start to ratchet down global warming pollution, especially from the large sources," said Nathan Willcox, who directs the federal global warming program for Environment America, an environmental group. "With the permitting process, that's largely up to the states and whether an individual state wants to use the permitting process to crack down. But if they don't, the performance standards are nationwide and they are federally enforceable."
Though the EPA said that it still had to work out the details, a likely scenario is that the standard will limit the amount of carbon dioxide that a power plant can emit for each megawatt hour of electricity produced.
"That is how you would probably frame these standards up—they would be set in terms of pounds of CO2 emissions per megawatt hour or kilowatt hour," said David Doniger, a policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council who signed on to the settlement with the EPA.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com
China moves to defuse trade row with US over green technology
Beijing officials say they are willing to discuss wind power incentives that White House calls 'illegal subsidies'
Jonathan Watts in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.13 GMT
China tried to defuse a trade row with the United States over wind technology today, as bilateral rivalries threatened to dash global hopes for green energy co-operation.
Officials in Beijing said they were willing to discuss incentives for turbine manufacturers, which the Obama administration described as "illegal subsidies" in a request for talks on the subject at the World Trade Organisation.
The US claims China has given an unfair advantage to domestic firms by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars to them through a special fund established in 2008.
The United Steelworkers union (USW) is frustrated that this weakens the competitiveness of US firms such as General Electric in a Chinese market that has doubled in size almost every year since 2005 and is now the biggest in the world in terms of generating capacity.
Barack Obama is also expected to raise the issue at a summit in Washington next month with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.
Beijing insists its wind policies are good for the global environment and within global trade rules, but its initial response today was conciliatory. "China will conscientiously study the US request for consultations, and will deal with this in accordance with WTO dispute settlement rules, while retaining our corresponding rights," the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement on its website.
But government advisers were scathing. Professor Pan Jiahua, the executive director of the sustainable development research centre at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the symbolic impact would be significant.
"At a global level, the US action is terrible. It's very silly," Pan said. "This gives a very bad signal for the world. It says renewable energy technologies should not be encouraged. This is a huge blow to the fast deployment of wind energy."
Beijing has pledged to boost wind power capacity from 20 gigawatts in 2009 to 90 gigawatts, and foreign firms – which currently provide less than one in four wind turbines in China – want a bigger share of the business.
With renewable energy set to become more important and lucrative, other rows are likely to break out. The USW has also urged Washington to oppose Chinese restrictions on antimony, tungsten and other rare earth minerals essential for solar cells, energy-efficient lighting and electric cars.
Others said the issue could probably be resolved. "China's subsidy is not for promoting trade but for fostering a newly rising industry. The US does this too," said Shi Pengfei, vice president of the Chinese Wind Energy Association. "In my opinion, there's no need for China to subsidise wind power anymore, because there is already over-production."
Jonathan Watts in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.13 GMT
China tried to defuse a trade row with the United States over wind technology today, as bilateral rivalries threatened to dash global hopes for green energy co-operation.
Officials in Beijing said they were willing to discuss incentives for turbine manufacturers, which the Obama administration described as "illegal subsidies" in a request for talks on the subject at the World Trade Organisation.
The US claims China has given an unfair advantage to domestic firms by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars to them through a special fund established in 2008.
The United Steelworkers union (USW) is frustrated that this weakens the competitiveness of US firms such as General Electric in a Chinese market that has doubled in size almost every year since 2005 and is now the biggest in the world in terms of generating capacity.
Barack Obama is also expected to raise the issue at a summit in Washington next month with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.
Beijing insists its wind policies are good for the global environment and within global trade rules, but its initial response today was conciliatory. "China will conscientiously study the US request for consultations, and will deal with this in accordance with WTO dispute settlement rules, while retaining our corresponding rights," the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement on its website.
But government advisers were scathing. Professor Pan Jiahua, the executive director of the sustainable development research centre at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the symbolic impact would be significant.
"At a global level, the US action is terrible. It's very silly," Pan said. "This gives a very bad signal for the world. It says renewable energy technologies should not be encouraged. This is a huge blow to the fast deployment of wind energy."
Beijing has pledged to boost wind power capacity from 20 gigawatts in 2009 to 90 gigawatts, and foreign firms – which currently provide less than one in four wind turbines in China – want a bigger share of the business.
With renewable energy set to become more important and lucrative, other rows are likely to break out. The USW has also urged Washington to oppose Chinese restrictions on antimony, tungsten and other rare earth minerals essential for solar cells, energy-efficient lighting and electric cars.
Others said the issue could probably be resolved. "China's subsidy is not for promoting trade but for fostering a newly rising industry. The US does this too," said Shi Pengfei, vice president of the Chinese Wind Energy Association. "In my opinion, there's no need for China to subsidise wind power anymore, because there is already over-production."
Beijing car restrictions backfire
Move to limit licences sparks frenzied car buying and resignation of vice-major
Jonathan Watts in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.28 GMT
A new plan to restrict traffic on Beijing's notoriously jammed streets backfired today as a pre-emptive surge in car ownership forced the resignation of the vice-mayor. Huang Wei, who is responsible for traffic, stood down amid a frenzy of vehicle-buying that has led to queues forming before dawn outside showrooms.
More than 30,000 vehicles have been sold in the past week, more than twice as many as normal, as Beijingers rushed to beat the introduction of tight limits on ownership. Under a policy unveiled, the city will issue just 240,000 new licences next year, down from more than 700,000 this year, by lottery.Despite a furious burst of road construction, Beijing has been unable to ease the congestion caused by a near doubling of car ownership over the past five years to almost 4.8m vehicles today. A recent survey by IBM ranked Beijing alongside Mexico City as the most grid-locked capital in the world.
The package of measures announced today also included a risk in parking charges, limits on official cars and more roadbuilding. The city has already announced it will build 280,000 extra parking spaces and 348 miles of underground track.
But the jams show no signs of easing, particularly near the vehicle management stations that issue licence plates. According to the domestic media, a tailback of more than 1,000 new cars formed behind one inspection office in Beiyuan, northern Beijing.
At this rate, the number of cars in the city is expected to pass the 5m mark by February, while the average speed of the traffic slows ever closer to bicycle pace.
Jonathan Watts in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.28 GMT
A new plan to restrict traffic on Beijing's notoriously jammed streets backfired today as a pre-emptive surge in car ownership forced the resignation of the vice-mayor. Huang Wei, who is responsible for traffic, stood down amid a frenzy of vehicle-buying that has led to queues forming before dawn outside showrooms.
More than 30,000 vehicles have been sold in the past week, more than twice as many as normal, as Beijingers rushed to beat the introduction of tight limits on ownership. Under a policy unveiled, the city will issue just 240,000 new licences next year, down from more than 700,000 this year, by lottery.Despite a furious burst of road construction, Beijing has been unable to ease the congestion caused by a near doubling of car ownership over the past five years to almost 4.8m vehicles today. A recent survey by IBM ranked Beijing alongside Mexico City as the most grid-locked capital in the world.
The package of measures announced today also included a risk in parking charges, limits on official cars and more roadbuilding. The city has already announced it will build 280,000 extra parking spaces and 348 miles of underground track.
But the jams show no signs of easing, particularly near the vehicle management stations that issue licence plates. According to the domestic media, a tailback of more than 1,000 new cars formed behind one inspection office in Beiyuan, northern Beijing.
At this rate, the number of cars in the city is expected to pass the 5m mark by February, while the average speed of the traffic slows ever closer to bicycle pace.
Researchers develop reactor to make fuel from sunlight
Scientists raise hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel with a simple reactor that mimics plants
• Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.00 GMT
A simple reactor that mimics plants by turning sunlight into fuel has been demonstrated in the laboratory, boosting hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel.
"We have a big energy problem and we have to think big," said Prof Sossina Haile, at the California Institute of Technology, who led the research.
Haile estimates that a rooftop reactor could produce about three gallons of fuel a day. She thinks transport fuels would be the first application of the reactor, if it goes on to commercial use. But she said an equally important use for the renewable fuels would be to store solar energy so it is available at times of peak demand, and overnight. She says the first improvements that will be made to the existing reactor will be to improve the insulation to help stop heat loss, a simple move that she expects to treble the current efficiency.
The key component is made from the metal cerium, which is almost as abundant as copper, unlike other rare and expensive metals frequently used as catalysts, such as platinum. Therefore, said Haile, availability would not limit the use of the device. "There is nothing cost prohibitive in our set-up," she said. "And there is plenty of cerium for this technology to make a major contribution to global gasoline supplies."
The fossil fuels used by vehicles, ships and aeroplanes pose the biggest challenge in the search for low-carbon energy, as they are highly energy-dense and portable, unlike alternatives such as batteries or nuclear reactors. An efficient, large-scale way of converting solar energy into a renewable liquid fuel could play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change.
The device, reported in the journal Science, uses a standard parabolic mirror to focus the sun's rays into a reaction chamber where the cerium oxide catalyst breaks down water and carbon dioxide. It does this because heating cerium oxide drives oxygen atoms out of its crystal lattice. When cooled the lattice strips oxygen from surrounding chemicals, including water and CO2 in the reactor. That produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted to a liquid fuel.
In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. "The trick here is the cerium oxide – it's very refractory, it's a rock," said Haile. "But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules." Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.
The use of sunlight to make fuel is being explored by groups around the world, such as that lead by Daniel Nocera at Massachussetts Institute of Technology. His group's technology works at room temperature but is more complex chemically. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year researchers found cobalt oxide could help sunlight create fuels, but only as nano-sized crystals. Imperial College in London is also exploring different catalysts.
Other groups are exploring the use of CO2 from power station flues to create liquid fuels, while a related research effort is testing how algae grown in sunlight can be used to create fuels.
• Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.00 GMT
A simple reactor that mimics plants by turning sunlight into fuel has been demonstrated in the laboratory, boosting hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel.
"We have a big energy problem and we have to think big," said Prof Sossina Haile, at the California Institute of Technology, who led the research.
Haile estimates that a rooftop reactor could produce about three gallons of fuel a day. She thinks transport fuels would be the first application of the reactor, if it goes on to commercial use. But she said an equally important use for the renewable fuels would be to store solar energy so it is available at times of peak demand, and overnight. She says the first improvements that will be made to the existing reactor will be to improve the insulation to help stop heat loss, a simple move that she expects to treble the current efficiency.
The key component is made from the metal cerium, which is almost as abundant as copper, unlike other rare and expensive metals frequently used as catalysts, such as platinum. Therefore, said Haile, availability would not limit the use of the device. "There is nothing cost prohibitive in our set-up," she said. "And there is plenty of cerium for this technology to make a major contribution to global gasoline supplies."
The fossil fuels used by vehicles, ships and aeroplanes pose the biggest challenge in the search for low-carbon energy, as they are highly energy-dense and portable, unlike alternatives such as batteries or nuclear reactors. An efficient, large-scale way of converting solar energy into a renewable liquid fuel could play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change.
The device, reported in the journal Science, uses a standard parabolic mirror to focus the sun's rays into a reaction chamber where the cerium oxide catalyst breaks down water and carbon dioxide. It does this because heating cerium oxide drives oxygen atoms out of its crystal lattice. When cooled the lattice strips oxygen from surrounding chemicals, including water and CO2 in the reactor. That produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted to a liquid fuel.
In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. "The trick here is the cerium oxide – it's very refractory, it's a rock," said Haile. "But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules." Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.
The use of sunlight to make fuel is being explored by groups around the world, such as that lead by Daniel Nocera at Massachussetts Institute of Technology. His group's technology works at room temperature but is more complex chemically. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year researchers found cobalt oxide could help sunlight create fuels, but only as nano-sized crystals. Imperial College in London is also exploring different catalysts.
Other groups are exploring the use of CO2 from power station flues to create liquid fuels, while a related research effort is testing how algae grown in sunlight can be used to create fuels.
Thursday, 23 December 2010
EPA to Speed Up New Greenhouse-Gas Rules
By ANA CAMPOY And STEPHEN POWER
The Obama administration is planning to accelerate new greenhouse-gas regulations for power plants and oil refineries amid stiff opposition from industry and congressional Republicans.
The administration is also escalating a clash with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has refused to sign on to its climate agenda.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce Thursday that it will propose standards for controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. power plants by July 2011 and for refineries by December 2011.
The proposed new power-plant regulations are likely to limit the amount of carbon dioxide a facility can emit for each megawatt hour of electricity produced, a person familiar with the agency's plans said.
That could compel utilities to switch from relatively cheap coal to cleaner sources of energy, including natural gas, wind or nuclear power. Utilities that rely heavily on coal have expressed concerns such a shift could cause electricity prices to rise.
The EPA is under pressure from environmental groups to start limiting emissions of carbon dioxide following Congress's failure to enact any controls on emissions linked to climate change.
EPA officials declined to comment late Wednesday.
The agency's moves to adopt new controls on greenhouse-gas emissions have drawn opposition from smokestack industries and some members of Congress, who say new regulations will chill the economy and cost jobs. Proponents of tougher action on climate change say rising global temperatures threaten disruptions to agriculture and coastal flooding, among other things.
Republican leaders in the House have said they will turn up the heat on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to justify the new greenhouse-gas regulations when they take control in January.
Texas has become a flash point in the controversy over greenhouse gas regulation. The oil-rich, industry-heavy state is balking at a variety of federal mandates, from slashing emissions of factories and cars to increasing oversight of oil and gas production.
The EPA's effort to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions "paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ," said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Gov. Perry.
The EPA, in a recent letter to state officials, said it had "no choice" but to take over certain clean-air permits in the state effective Jan. 2 because of state officials' "unwillingness" to work with the agency in implementing its plan to phase in controls on greenhouse-gas emissions.
Over the past year, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed eight legal actions against the EPA, including several challenges related to greenhouse gases.
The EPA has said it's efforts to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions using the Clean Air Act are justified by a Supreme Court decision and a subsequent 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a public health threat.
Texas generates 11% of the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions, far more than any other state, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
Write to Ana Campoy at ana.campoy@dowjones.com and Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
The Obama administration is planning to accelerate new greenhouse-gas regulations for power plants and oil refineries amid stiff opposition from industry and congressional Republicans.
The administration is also escalating a clash with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has refused to sign on to its climate agenda.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce Thursday that it will propose standards for controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. power plants by July 2011 and for refineries by December 2011.
The proposed new power-plant regulations are likely to limit the amount of carbon dioxide a facility can emit for each megawatt hour of electricity produced, a person familiar with the agency's plans said.
That could compel utilities to switch from relatively cheap coal to cleaner sources of energy, including natural gas, wind or nuclear power. Utilities that rely heavily on coal have expressed concerns such a shift could cause electricity prices to rise.
The EPA is under pressure from environmental groups to start limiting emissions of carbon dioxide following Congress's failure to enact any controls on emissions linked to climate change.
EPA officials declined to comment late Wednesday.
The agency's moves to adopt new controls on greenhouse-gas emissions have drawn opposition from smokestack industries and some members of Congress, who say new regulations will chill the economy and cost jobs. Proponents of tougher action on climate change say rising global temperatures threaten disruptions to agriculture and coastal flooding, among other things.
Republican leaders in the House have said they will turn up the heat on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to justify the new greenhouse-gas regulations when they take control in January.
Texas has become a flash point in the controversy over greenhouse gas regulation. The oil-rich, industry-heavy state is balking at a variety of federal mandates, from slashing emissions of factories and cars to increasing oversight of oil and gas production.
The EPA's effort to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions "paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ," said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Gov. Perry.
The EPA, in a recent letter to state officials, said it had "no choice" but to take over certain clean-air permits in the state effective Jan. 2 because of state officials' "unwillingness" to work with the agency in implementing its plan to phase in controls on greenhouse-gas emissions.
Over the past year, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed eight legal actions against the EPA, including several challenges related to greenhouse gases.
The EPA has said it's efforts to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions using the Clean Air Act are justified by a Supreme Court decision and a subsequent 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a public health threat.
Texas generates 11% of the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions, far more than any other state, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
Write to Ana Campoy at ana.campoy@dowjones.com and Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
US accuses China of illegally subsidising wind power manufacture
Announcement comes a month before Chinese president is due in Washington for talks with Obama
Reuters in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 December 2010 19.58 GMT
The US has accused China of illegally subsidising the production of wind power equipment and asked for talks at the World Trade Organisation, the first step in filing a trade case.
"These subsidies effectively operate as a barrier to US exports to China," US trade representative Ron Kirk said in a statement. The announcement is in response to a petition filed in September by the United Steelworkers (USW) accusing Beijing of a long list of trade-distorting policies. It comes about a month before a visit by China's president, Hu Jintao, to Washington for talks with Barack Obama for talks with Barack Obama.
The industrial union accused Beijing of a long list of subsidies and other trade-distorting policies to favour the manufacture of clean energy technologies in China, at the expense of the US and other producers.
The steelworkers's so-called "section 301" petition included a complaint about China's restrictions on rare earth minerals used in production of wind turbines, electric vehicles, solar cells and energy efficient lighting.
USTR announced no decision on that issue.
"We will continue to work closely with the USW and other stakeholders in the months ahead on the remaining allegations. If we are able to develop sufficient evidence to support those allegations and they can be effectively addressed through WTO litigation, we will pursue the enforcement of our rights at the WTO independently of section 301," Kirk said.
Reuters in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 December 2010 19.58 GMT
The US has accused China of illegally subsidising the production of wind power equipment and asked for talks at the World Trade Organisation, the first step in filing a trade case.
"These subsidies effectively operate as a barrier to US exports to China," US trade representative Ron Kirk said in a statement. The announcement is in response to a petition filed in September by the United Steelworkers (USW) accusing Beijing of a long list of trade-distorting policies. It comes about a month before a visit by China's president, Hu Jintao, to Washington for talks with Barack Obama for talks with Barack Obama.
The industrial union accused Beijing of a long list of subsidies and other trade-distorting policies to favour the manufacture of clean energy technologies in China, at the expense of the US and other producers.
The steelworkers's so-called "section 301" petition included a complaint about China's restrictions on rare earth minerals used in production of wind turbines, electric vehicles, solar cells and energy efficient lighting.
USTR announced no decision on that issue.
"We will continue to work closely with the USW and other stakeholders in the months ahead on the remaining allegations. If we are able to develop sufficient evidence to support those allegations and they can be effectively addressed through WTO litigation, we will pursue the enforcement of our rights at the WTO independently of section 301," Kirk said.
General Motors launches new electric hybrid car in US
Chevrolet Volt is first extended-range electric vehicle to be made for the mass market by one of the big US carmakers
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 December 2010 17.23 GMT
The Opec oil crisis of the early 1970s, Jeffrey Kaffee, a former commercial pilot, remembers, led to huge frustration at long petrol queues. Lesson learnt, years later Kaffee became a Prius owner. Then, last week, he moved on to General Motors' new plug-in electric hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt.
Kaffee was on holiday in Florida when the car came in to his local dealership, in Denville, New Jersey. The sellers flew him back for the day to take the silver-coloured five-door saloon for a spin.
"We drove it a lot," he said. "The car was on all day. It was after 2 o'clock when I was finished for the day and I looked down and it had half a battery to go. It was doing fine."
Impressed by the test run, Kaffee, who is now an estate agent, decided to make the car his main commuting vehicle.
The Volt is the first extended-range electric vehicle to be made for the mass market by one of the big US carmakers, and hits the streets at the same time as the Nissan Leaf, an entirely electric hatchback.
Both cars are being marketed as green alternatives, with Nissan running adverts showing a driver getting hugged by a polar bear. The two electric rivals began shipping out last week, in limited quantities to selected areas, including California, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Washington.
Unlike initial experiences with electric cars in the 1990s – when General Motors ended up recalling and crushing the entire fleet – the Volt, first unveiled at the Detroit auto show four years ago, is seen as an important part of GM's comeback.
Early indications are encouraging. The car has received gushing reviews from car magazines, and more than 200,000 people have signed up for more information about the Volt on the company website.
The Volt's additional small petrol engine is seen as a safeguard against the "range anxiety" - the distance it is possible to travel on a charged battery - that is associated with 100% electric vehicles.
Even Kaffee, who initially signed up for both vehicles, had reservations. "The Leaf is a great car around town but you can't really take it on an extended trip," he said. "You wouldn't want a day when you are out there and you are out of juice."
So far availability of the Volt has been limited; 160 cars were shipped last week, and only 10,000 more are planned for all of next year. So there are waiting lists.
There were reports last week that some showrooms were charging a premium of as much as $5,000 over the manufacturers' price.
The Volt manages between 35 and 40 miles on a single charge before the petrol engine takes over, extending the possible range to about 380 miles. It takes about eight hours to fully recharge the battery on the standard American 110-volt household outlet.
The price of the car starts at $41,000 (£26,000), which is relatively expensive in the US, but sellers say the price is dictated by the $15,000 cost of the battery pack. Customers in the US are, however, eligible for a $7,300 tax credit, bringing down the price to about $33,000.
The Leaf is reported to be able to travel about 100 miles on a single charge. The car sells for just under $33,000 and also qualifies for a $7,500 tax credit, bringing down the price to about $25,000.
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 December 2010 17.23 GMT
The Opec oil crisis of the early 1970s, Jeffrey Kaffee, a former commercial pilot, remembers, led to huge frustration at long petrol queues. Lesson learnt, years later Kaffee became a Prius owner. Then, last week, he moved on to General Motors' new plug-in electric hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt.
Kaffee was on holiday in Florida when the car came in to his local dealership, in Denville, New Jersey. The sellers flew him back for the day to take the silver-coloured five-door saloon for a spin.
"We drove it a lot," he said. "The car was on all day. It was after 2 o'clock when I was finished for the day and I looked down and it had half a battery to go. It was doing fine."
Impressed by the test run, Kaffee, who is now an estate agent, decided to make the car his main commuting vehicle.
The Volt is the first extended-range electric vehicle to be made for the mass market by one of the big US carmakers, and hits the streets at the same time as the Nissan Leaf, an entirely electric hatchback.
Both cars are being marketed as green alternatives, with Nissan running adverts showing a driver getting hugged by a polar bear. The two electric rivals began shipping out last week, in limited quantities to selected areas, including California, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Washington.
Unlike initial experiences with electric cars in the 1990s – when General Motors ended up recalling and crushing the entire fleet – the Volt, first unveiled at the Detroit auto show four years ago, is seen as an important part of GM's comeback.
Early indications are encouraging. The car has received gushing reviews from car magazines, and more than 200,000 people have signed up for more information about the Volt on the company website.
The Volt's additional small petrol engine is seen as a safeguard against the "range anxiety" - the distance it is possible to travel on a charged battery - that is associated with 100% electric vehicles.
Even Kaffee, who initially signed up for both vehicles, had reservations. "The Leaf is a great car around town but you can't really take it on an extended trip," he said. "You wouldn't want a day when you are out there and you are out of juice."
So far availability of the Volt has been limited; 160 cars were shipped last week, and only 10,000 more are planned for all of next year. So there are waiting lists.
There were reports last week that some showrooms were charging a premium of as much as $5,000 over the manufacturers' price.
The Volt manages between 35 and 40 miles on a single charge before the petrol engine takes over, extending the possible range to about 380 miles. It takes about eight hours to fully recharge the battery on the standard American 110-volt household outlet.
The price of the car starts at $41,000 (£26,000), which is relatively expensive in the US, but sellers say the price is dictated by the $15,000 cost of the battery pack. Customers in the US are, however, eligible for a $7,300 tax credit, bringing down the price to about $33,000.
The Leaf is reported to be able to travel about 100 miles on a single charge. The car sells for just under $33,000 and also qualifies for a $7,500 tax credit, bringing down the price to about $25,000.
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Japan eco-fair seeks to reach next generation
AFP
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Japanese schoolchildren in yellow scarves, blue hats and red caps buzzed through an eco-products fair - a green show-and-tell for high tech companies seeking to enthuse a new generation.
Educational workshops and corporate booths at Eco-Products 2010, one of the country's largest environmental exhibitions, last week showed off ways to save and sustain the planet that these youngsters will soon inherit.
"Do you know how we can separate different plastics used in a refrigerator after it is crushed?" asked an engineer from Mitsubishi Electric, one of more than 700 exhibitors that filled the large trade fair hall.
A lot of blank faces stared back - but soon the children tried the process for themselves, shaking up clear plastic bottles filled with water and a mixture of scraps of different plastic components.
"If we put the plastic scraps in the water, some float and others sink, so you can make an initial separation," said the engineer, explaining the concept behind Mitsubishi Electric's industrial-scale recycling processes.
In the next stage of the experiment, the children spun the remaining scraps in a second, dry bottle, with some bits sticking to the side because of static electricity and others sliding to the bottom.
The theme of the exhibition - held at Tokyo Big Sight, a futuristic harbourside conference centre topped by a giant inverted pyramid - was "Green x Clean Revolution! Expand the power to connect lives to the world".
The fair drew a record of more than 180,000 visitors in three days, including some 20,000 students from in and around Tokyo, organisers said.
To stay true to its green message, the fair was powered by wind, solar and biomass energy sources, and paper entry tickets were replaced with bar-codes emailed to guests' cellphones and scanned on the way into the fair.
On display were eco-products from home appliances to hybrid and electric cars, but also energy and chemical applications, and sustainable and non-polluting methods of making paper and other materials.
Also pushing eco-education with games and quizzes were other electronics giants such as Sony, Fujitsu and Toshiba, which showed off green products from mini-wind farms to solar-powered toy cars.
Many of the stands also featured manga and anime cartoons - including hugely popular "future cat" Doraemon - as well as pictures and pronunciation guides for tech jargon to teach their impressionable young audience, many of whom embraced the message.
"The Earth is being degraded and we must fix it," said one of the students, nine-year-old Ryunosuke Takagi.
"Coming here, I can really learn about new energy sources, and I am really amazed at the techniques that have been devised to better preserve the environment. It's frankly very interesting," he said.
Nature, the need to preserve it and, occasionally, its destructive wrath, are ever-present in Japan - a volcanic island-nation that is regularly battered by earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons.
With precious few energy and mineral resources of its own, Japan was hard hit by the 1973 oil crisis, which sent its companies and citizens scrambling for ways to save on oil, water and electricity.
They have helped make Japan a leader in green technology - from hybrid and electric cars, to light emitting diodes, solar cells, new power systems, and even water-saving electronically-controlled toilets.
Companies have found that ecology sells.
"Our goal is to sell products that are less polluting - in the production phase, during use and when they are recycled," said Machiko Miyai, director of Panasonic's green electronics and appliances division.
Another student, Genki Watanabe, 10, said he was captivated by the cutting-edge environmental technologies: "It's awfully nice to be here, we are taught so many things. I want to come every year."
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Japanese schoolchildren in yellow scarves, blue hats and red caps buzzed through an eco-products fair - a green show-and-tell for high tech companies seeking to enthuse a new generation.
Educational workshops and corporate booths at Eco-Products 2010, one of the country's largest environmental exhibitions, last week showed off ways to save and sustain the planet that these youngsters will soon inherit.
"Do you know how we can separate different plastics used in a refrigerator after it is crushed?" asked an engineer from Mitsubishi Electric, one of more than 700 exhibitors that filled the large trade fair hall.
A lot of blank faces stared back - but soon the children tried the process for themselves, shaking up clear plastic bottles filled with water and a mixture of scraps of different plastic components.
"If we put the plastic scraps in the water, some float and others sink, so you can make an initial separation," said the engineer, explaining the concept behind Mitsubishi Electric's industrial-scale recycling processes.
In the next stage of the experiment, the children spun the remaining scraps in a second, dry bottle, with some bits sticking to the side because of static electricity and others sliding to the bottom.
The theme of the exhibition - held at Tokyo Big Sight, a futuristic harbourside conference centre topped by a giant inverted pyramid - was "Green x Clean Revolution! Expand the power to connect lives to the world".
The fair drew a record of more than 180,000 visitors in three days, including some 20,000 students from in and around Tokyo, organisers said.
To stay true to its green message, the fair was powered by wind, solar and biomass energy sources, and paper entry tickets were replaced with bar-codes emailed to guests' cellphones and scanned on the way into the fair.
On display were eco-products from home appliances to hybrid and electric cars, but also energy and chemical applications, and sustainable and non-polluting methods of making paper and other materials.
Also pushing eco-education with games and quizzes were other electronics giants such as Sony, Fujitsu and Toshiba, which showed off green products from mini-wind farms to solar-powered toy cars.
Many of the stands also featured manga and anime cartoons - including hugely popular "future cat" Doraemon - as well as pictures and pronunciation guides for tech jargon to teach their impressionable young audience, many of whom embraced the message.
"The Earth is being degraded and we must fix it," said one of the students, nine-year-old Ryunosuke Takagi.
"Coming here, I can really learn about new energy sources, and I am really amazed at the techniques that have been devised to better preserve the environment. It's frankly very interesting," he said.
Nature, the need to preserve it and, occasionally, its destructive wrath, are ever-present in Japan - a volcanic island-nation that is regularly battered by earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons.
With precious few energy and mineral resources of its own, Japan was hard hit by the 1973 oil crisis, which sent its companies and citizens scrambling for ways to save on oil, water and electricity.
They have helped make Japan a leader in green technology - from hybrid and electric cars, to light emitting diodes, solar cells, new power systems, and even water-saving electronically-controlled toilets.
Companies have found that ecology sells.
"Our goal is to sell products that are less polluting - in the production phase, during use and when they are recycled," said Machiko Miyai, director of Panasonic's green electronics and appliances division.
Another student, Genki Watanabe, 10, said he was captivated by the cutting-edge environmental technologies: "It's awfully nice to be here, we are taught so many things. I want to come every year."
The IoS Christmas Appeal: Solar power frees thousands from risks of search for water
Simple pumps have saved villagers from a dangerous job
By Raymond Whitaker
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Imagine that, instead of turning a tap, you had to walk more than 10 miles every time you wanted water. And that you then had to descend into a crumbling pit dug in a dry riverbed, to scoop out dirty water with your bare hands, knowing that it could make you and your family sick.
In the drought-stricken areas of Africa where the charity Practical Action works, this is the fate of thousands of village women. They are also at risk of rape, attack by wild animals – or, in Sudan's Darfur region, where Practical Action was one of only a handful of aid organisations to remain throughout the conflict, death at the hands of marauding militias.
Even in Kenya, normally considered more stable, lingering drought in the northern Turkana region has led to violent clashes over water sources. No wonder that Eshe Emase, of Namoruputh village, said: "Every time I am forced to fetch water, my legs shake with fear." But women like her, whose men are often away seeking work, have no choice. If they bring back no water, their families face not only thirst but eventual starvation, because their animals would die.
Practical Action, which is being supported by The Independent on Sunday's Christmas Appeal, exists to find appropriate technological solutions for problems such as water supply. The answer for Namoruputh was brilliant in its simplicity: if climate change has left Turkana with too much sun and not enough water, use solar power to pump water up from underground reserves. The village now has a solar pump which brings up to 10,000 litres of water an hour from a 100m deep well, serving more than 10,500 people.
"We used to have regular cases of water-related disease, including diarrhoea and typhoid, but that's a thing of the past," said Mark Amojong, the village chief. Ms Emase and her children no longer have to spend two hours a day collecting water, carrying containers weighing 20kg over long distances. The children now go to school, and their mother can grow more food, such as cow peas, kale and pumpkins, for the family. "Soon I won't be going to the market to buy vegetables," she said. "I will be going to sell my own instead."
While the initial investment in solar pumping, at nearly £7,700, is relatively expensive, that is only 74p a person. Practical Action makes sure that local people are trained to keep the system running for as long as 25 years.
Many of the charity's techniques are as cheap as they are ingenious. In Sudan, where fresh food quickly perishes in the blinding heat, the charity has devised an earthenware "fridge" called a zeer pot, which can keep 12kg of produce fresh for up to three weeks. A small clay pot is fitted inside a larger one, with a layer of wet sand in between. Fruit and vegetables are stored in the inner pot, which is covered with a damp cloth and left in a very dry, ventilated place. As the moisture evaporates, the temperature in the inner container falls several degrees, preserving the contents. The improvement in diets is dramatic. The zeer pots cost just £12.50 to make.
No people are more vulnerable than those who have lost their land because of drought. Living in camps, dependent on food handouts, they are easy prey for armed groups. Yet with help from Practical Action, communities across Sudan have built dams to capture such rain as does fall, enabling thousands to stay on the land and improve their lives. Many can now eat three meals a day.
Lubna Mohammed Adam, who lost her husband in the Darfur conflict, helped carry blocks of stone to build a dam near her village of Abu Degaise. "Now there is water where there was none," she said. She can grow sorghum, watermelon and cucumber – some to eat, some to sell. One of her neighbours, Mohammed Yahya Mohammed, said people could previously grow crops for only four months of the year, and had to migrate to the capital, Khartoum, in the summer to look for work. Since the dam was built, the growing season had doubled to eight months, transforming the community.
In eastern Sudan, Mohammed Nor faced leaving the farm that had supported the family in the time of his father and grandfather, but another dam, built with Practical Action's help, saved their way of life. "For too long we felt forgotten," he said. "I was determined that my family wouldn't move, but we were struggling to find a way to survive. Now we are farming, growing crops to sell at market: we can rely on ourselves."
These people are testimony to the effectiveness of Practical Action's methods. Your donations to the IoS Christmas Appeal will enable the charity to deliver direct help where it is needed most.
What your money can buy
You could help transform poor families' lives. So please, give whatever you can to help lift more people out of poverty today.
£60 helps 80 people get clean water from a solar-powered pump.
£125 buys ploughs and tools for a community to irrigate their land.
£200 pays for zeer pots for 16 families.
£570 could purchase two sets of sluice gates for earth dams.
By Raymond Whitaker
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Imagine that, instead of turning a tap, you had to walk more than 10 miles every time you wanted water. And that you then had to descend into a crumbling pit dug in a dry riverbed, to scoop out dirty water with your bare hands, knowing that it could make you and your family sick.
In the drought-stricken areas of Africa where the charity Practical Action works, this is the fate of thousands of village women. They are also at risk of rape, attack by wild animals – or, in Sudan's Darfur region, where Practical Action was one of only a handful of aid organisations to remain throughout the conflict, death at the hands of marauding militias.
Even in Kenya, normally considered more stable, lingering drought in the northern Turkana region has led to violent clashes over water sources. No wonder that Eshe Emase, of Namoruputh village, said: "Every time I am forced to fetch water, my legs shake with fear." But women like her, whose men are often away seeking work, have no choice. If they bring back no water, their families face not only thirst but eventual starvation, because their animals would die.
Practical Action, which is being supported by The Independent on Sunday's Christmas Appeal, exists to find appropriate technological solutions for problems such as water supply. The answer for Namoruputh was brilliant in its simplicity: if climate change has left Turkana with too much sun and not enough water, use solar power to pump water up from underground reserves. The village now has a solar pump which brings up to 10,000 litres of water an hour from a 100m deep well, serving more than 10,500 people.
"We used to have regular cases of water-related disease, including diarrhoea and typhoid, but that's a thing of the past," said Mark Amojong, the village chief. Ms Emase and her children no longer have to spend two hours a day collecting water, carrying containers weighing 20kg over long distances. The children now go to school, and their mother can grow more food, such as cow peas, kale and pumpkins, for the family. "Soon I won't be going to the market to buy vegetables," she said. "I will be going to sell my own instead."
While the initial investment in solar pumping, at nearly £7,700, is relatively expensive, that is only 74p a person. Practical Action makes sure that local people are trained to keep the system running for as long as 25 years.
Many of the charity's techniques are as cheap as they are ingenious. In Sudan, where fresh food quickly perishes in the blinding heat, the charity has devised an earthenware "fridge" called a zeer pot, which can keep 12kg of produce fresh for up to three weeks. A small clay pot is fitted inside a larger one, with a layer of wet sand in between. Fruit and vegetables are stored in the inner pot, which is covered with a damp cloth and left in a very dry, ventilated place. As the moisture evaporates, the temperature in the inner container falls several degrees, preserving the contents. The improvement in diets is dramatic. The zeer pots cost just £12.50 to make.
No people are more vulnerable than those who have lost their land because of drought. Living in camps, dependent on food handouts, they are easy prey for armed groups. Yet with help from Practical Action, communities across Sudan have built dams to capture such rain as does fall, enabling thousands to stay on the land and improve their lives. Many can now eat three meals a day.
Lubna Mohammed Adam, who lost her husband in the Darfur conflict, helped carry blocks of stone to build a dam near her village of Abu Degaise. "Now there is water where there was none," she said. She can grow sorghum, watermelon and cucumber – some to eat, some to sell. One of her neighbours, Mohammed Yahya Mohammed, said people could previously grow crops for only four months of the year, and had to migrate to the capital, Khartoum, in the summer to look for work. Since the dam was built, the growing season had doubled to eight months, transforming the community.
In eastern Sudan, Mohammed Nor faced leaving the farm that had supported the family in the time of his father and grandfather, but another dam, built with Practical Action's help, saved their way of life. "For too long we felt forgotten," he said. "I was determined that my family wouldn't move, but we were struggling to find a way to survive. Now we are farming, growing crops to sell at market: we can rely on ourselves."
These people are testimony to the effectiveness of Practical Action's methods. Your donations to the IoS Christmas Appeal will enable the charity to deliver direct help where it is needed most.
What your money can buy
You could help transform poor families' lives. So please, give whatever you can to help lift more people out of poverty today.
£60 helps 80 people get clean water from a solar-powered pump.
£125 buys ploughs and tools for a community to irrigate their land.
£200 pays for zeer pots for 16 families.
£570 could purchase two sets of sluice gates for earth dams.
Britain's new generation of green power plants 'are caught in planning delays'
CBI and unions call on government to clear logjams delaying 37 major energy schemes that could create up to 50,000 construction jobs
by Terry Macalister The Observer, Sunday 19 December 2010
The opportunity to create up to 50,000 badly needed jobs in the construction sector by building a new generation of "greener" power plants is being thrown away by long delays in the planning process, ministers have been warned.
Union leaders have joined the Confederation of British Industry in pressing the government to clear the logjams that have led to almost 40 major energy schemes being held up.
"We are calling on ministers to act now to ensure projects get under way, not only to meet Britain's energy needs but also for the valuable jobs these projects will create in the construction industry," said Tom Hardacre, national officer for the construction industry at Unite.
The call comes just days after energy secretary Chris Huhne promised to push ahead with wide-ranging energy market reform but also follows a warning from the CBI about the need to deal with the delays.
Environment consultants Atmos added to concerns this weekend by questioning whether major job cuts in local authorities and advisory bodies could lead to further postponements.
Among the 37 schemes listed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change as awaiting decisions is one by Warwick Energy that needs permission from Lib Dem-controlled North Norfolk district council to connect Dudgeon East offshore wind farm to the local electrical grid.
John Sulley, a director of Warwick Energy, said more than 400 construction jobs and around 100 operational posts would be created by the £1.5bn wind scheme, which has waited more than a year for consent to put in the power cables.
"It seems a long time to wait and it is clearly vital if we are committed to renewable energy that schemes like ours can progress as quickly as possible," he added.
But the Warwick scheme is only one of many, with Ecotricity waiting to hear about an application to build an onshore wind farm at East Heckington in Lincolnshire and Dong Energy waiting for news on Westermost Rough wind farm at Hornsea, Yorkshire.
Innovative biomass and wave schemes such as ones put forward by Drax and Wave Dragon Wales are on hold. Meanwhile, EDF is waiting for planning permission for its new combined-cycle gas turbine project at New Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire, and E.ON is delayed on a similar scheme at Drakelow in Derbyshire.
The coalition government, which inherited many of the delays from the previous administration, has promised to speed up planning consents through the use of a newly created Major Infrastructure Unit. But John Cridland, the CBI's director-general designate, said that changes to the planning system had themselves created a mood of uncertainty among investors.
"An effective planning system is at the heart of building the low-carbon infrastructure needed to transform our economy... This government has great green ambition, but we need to see swift action if it is to fulfil its green promise," he said.
The CBI's "climate change tracker" charts progress in decarbonising four areas: power, buildings, transport and industry. Of the 13 indicators, one is green, showing that progress is on track (nuclear); three are red, meaning little progress (homes, buildings and industry); and nine are amber, showing good ambition but insufficient delivery, the business organisation reported on Friday.
by Terry Macalister The Observer, Sunday 19 December 2010
The opportunity to create up to 50,000 badly needed jobs in the construction sector by building a new generation of "greener" power plants is being thrown away by long delays in the planning process, ministers have been warned.
Union leaders have joined the Confederation of British Industry in pressing the government to clear the logjams that have led to almost 40 major energy schemes being held up.
"We are calling on ministers to act now to ensure projects get under way, not only to meet Britain's energy needs but also for the valuable jobs these projects will create in the construction industry," said Tom Hardacre, national officer for the construction industry at Unite.
The call comes just days after energy secretary Chris Huhne promised to push ahead with wide-ranging energy market reform but also follows a warning from the CBI about the need to deal with the delays.
Environment consultants Atmos added to concerns this weekend by questioning whether major job cuts in local authorities and advisory bodies could lead to further postponements.
Among the 37 schemes listed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change as awaiting decisions is one by Warwick Energy that needs permission from Lib Dem-controlled North Norfolk district council to connect Dudgeon East offshore wind farm to the local electrical grid.
John Sulley, a director of Warwick Energy, said more than 400 construction jobs and around 100 operational posts would be created by the £1.5bn wind scheme, which has waited more than a year for consent to put in the power cables.
"It seems a long time to wait and it is clearly vital if we are committed to renewable energy that schemes like ours can progress as quickly as possible," he added.
But the Warwick scheme is only one of many, with Ecotricity waiting to hear about an application to build an onshore wind farm at East Heckington in Lincolnshire and Dong Energy waiting for news on Westermost Rough wind farm at Hornsea, Yorkshire.
Innovative biomass and wave schemes such as ones put forward by Drax and Wave Dragon Wales are on hold. Meanwhile, EDF is waiting for planning permission for its new combined-cycle gas turbine project at New Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire, and E.ON is delayed on a similar scheme at Drakelow in Derbyshire.
The coalition government, which inherited many of the delays from the previous administration, has promised to speed up planning consents through the use of a newly created Major Infrastructure Unit. But John Cridland, the CBI's director-general designate, said that changes to the planning system had themselves created a mood of uncertainty among investors.
"An effective planning system is at the heart of building the low-carbon infrastructure needed to transform our economy... This government has great green ambition, but we need to see swift action if it is to fulfil its green promise," he said.
The CBI's "climate change tracker" charts progress in decarbonising four areas: power, buildings, transport and industry. Of the 13 indicators, one is green, showing that progress is on track (nuclear); three are red, meaning little progress (homes, buildings and industry); and nine are amber, showing good ambition but insufficient delivery, the business organisation reported on Friday.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Weekly green agenda: waiting for the CES
Relaxnews
Friday, 17 December 2010
The 44th International CES lists over 100 exhibitors under the category of Connected Home, the majority of which focus on smart grid integrated appliances and intelligent home products. With the smart grid set to become integrated into all aspects of everyday life, International CES is a chance to see what the big names in smart technology are developing and how these products can help reduce our energy consumption and environmental impact. Later in the year, Enertec in Germany and Home Eco in France give a glimpse into the household applications of the latest renewable energy technologies.
44th International CES
January 6-9, 2011
Las Vegas Convention Center/Las Vegas Hilton
Las Vegas,USA
One of the biggest consumer electronics events of the year CES, which has been running since 1967, is often used as a launching pad for the latest consumer gadgets. This year's event has a distinctively environmental angle with many companies showcasing their latest intelligent, energy saving smart grid appliances. Exhibitors of energy saving appliances at CES 2011 include, Energy Hub, Belkin and HomeGrid Forum. The event attracts over 126,600 visitors each year and is one of the most important dates on technology enthusiasts' calendars.
http://www.cesweb.org
Enertec
January 25-27
Leipzig Exhibition Center
Leipzig, Germany
An international trade fair dedicated to all aspects of energy generation and distribution and in particular renewable energies. In 2009 Enertec attracted 237 exhibitors from 11 countries and over 10,000 visitors from 49 countries around the world. One of the foremost topics at Enertec 2011 will be the role of the smart gird in energy distribution and storage with particular focus on Southeastern Europe. The fair is open to trade professionals and members of the public interested in energy distribution.
http://www.enertec-leipzig.com/
21st BioFach & Vivaness 2011
February 16-19
Exhibition Centre Nuremberg,
Nuremberg, Germany
BioFach is the oldest and largest trade fair dedicated to organic products, and will this year extend from food products into holistic health and wellness through its partnership with the Vivaness event. Key special themes include Organic Wine and Organic Olive Oil. Larger in scope and size than the other comparable European organic and natural ingredients trade fair - the Food Ingredients Europe and Natural Ingredients Expo, which is being held at the end of November in France. Last year's BioFach event attracted 2,557 exhibitors and nearly 44,000 visitors in an exhibition space of nearly more than 89,000 m2. The event has a global presence with events in Shanghai, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, Mumbai and Baltimore.
http://www.biofach.de/de/sitemap/
2nd Home Eco
February 18-20
Espace Encan
La Rochelle, France
Now in its second year, Home Expo is dedicated to natural living and renewable energy technologies. The event attracts around 70 exhibitors from around France. Visitors to the event primarily comprise architects, energy specialists and other industry professionals, but environmentally conscious members of the public are able to attend. This exhibition is more focused on individual actions and household technologies than Enertec, which exhibits large-scale and industry distribution of renewable energy technologies.
http://www.salon-home-eco.fr/ (website available in French only)
Friday, 17 December 2010
The 44th International CES lists over 100 exhibitors under the category of Connected Home, the majority of which focus on smart grid integrated appliances and intelligent home products. With the smart grid set to become integrated into all aspects of everyday life, International CES is a chance to see what the big names in smart technology are developing and how these products can help reduce our energy consumption and environmental impact. Later in the year, Enertec in Germany and Home Eco in France give a glimpse into the household applications of the latest renewable energy technologies.
44th International CES
January 6-9, 2011
Las Vegas Convention Center/Las Vegas Hilton
Las Vegas,USA
One of the biggest consumer electronics events of the year CES, which has been running since 1967, is often used as a launching pad for the latest consumer gadgets. This year's event has a distinctively environmental angle with many companies showcasing their latest intelligent, energy saving smart grid appliances. Exhibitors of energy saving appliances at CES 2011 include, Energy Hub, Belkin and HomeGrid Forum. The event attracts over 126,600 visitors each year and is one of the most important dates on technology enthusiasts' calendars.
http://www.cesweb.org
Enertec
January 25-27
Leipzig Exhibition Center
Leipzig, Germany
An international trade fair dedicated to all aspects of energy generation and distribution and in particular renewable energies. In 2009 Enertec attracted 237 exhibitors from 11 countries and over 10,000 visitors from 49 countries around the world. One of the foremost topics at Enertec 2011 will be the role of the smart gird in energy distribution and storage with particular focus on Southeastern Europe. The fair is open to trade professionals and members of the public interested in energy distribution.
http://www.enertec-leipzig.com/
21st BioFach & Vivaness 2011
February 16-19
Exhibition Centre Nuremberg,
Nuremberg, Germany
BioFach is the oldest and largest trade fair dedicated to organic products, and will this year extend from food products into holistic health and wellness through its partnership with the Vivaness event. Key special themes include Organic Wine and Organic Olive Oil. Larger in scope and size than the other comparable European organic and natural ingredients trade fair - the Food Ingredients Europe and Natural Ingredients Expo, which is being held at the end of November in France. Last year's BioFach event attracted 2,557 exhibitors and nearly 44,000 visitors in an exhibition space of nearly more than 89,000 m2. The event has a global presence with events in Shanghai, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, Mumbai and Baltimore.
http://www.biofach.de/de/sitemap/
2nd Home Eco
February 18-20
Espace Encan
La Rochelle, France
Now in its second year, Home Expo is dedicated to natural living and renewable energy technologies. The event attracts around 70 exhibitors from around France. Visitors to the event primarily comprise architects, energy specialists and other industry professionals, but environmentally conscious members of the public are able to attend. This exhibition is more focused on individual actions and household technologies than Enertec, which exhibits large-scale and industry distribution of renewable energy technologies.
http://www.salon-home-eco.fr/ (website available in French only)
California approves first US cap and trade scheme
California regulators approve nation's first system that gives polluters financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 10.13 GMT
California regulators yesterday approved the first system in the United States to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California's 2006 climate law – called AB32 – with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world's eighth largest economy. State officials are also discussing plans to link the new system with similar schemes that are underway or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
California is launching into a "historic adventure," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's air quality board.
"We're inventing this," she said. "There is still going to be quite a bit of action needed before it becomes operational."
California is trying to "fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now," said Nichols.
A standing-room only board chambers featured testimony from more than 170 witnesses. Outside the chambers, climate change sceptics held signs reading "Global Warming: Science by Homer Simpson."
Some businesses that would fall under the new rules say the system could dampen California's already flagging economy, complicate lawmakers' efforts to close a $28.1bn (£18bn) revenue shortfall and lead to an increase in the price of electricity.
The rate increases, however, would still need approval from the state.
The governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the board he is sensitive to the recession, but argued that many of the new jobs being created under the system are in the clean technology industry.
"The real jobs we're creating right now are green jobs. Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector, so it's also an economic plus," he said.
But he said reducing greenhouse gas pollution is not just about climate change, but about human health and national security.
"I despise the fact that we send $1bn a year to foreign places for our oil and to places that hate us. We send this money to people that hate us and that are organising terrorists and trying to blow up our country," he said.
Supporters say the system will help spur economic recovery and innovation, pushing business to invest in clean technologies.
They say the billions of dollars the state collects in the system could help fund clean air programmes and help offset any increases in utility rates. Details of the uses of these new funds is still uncertain.
California has already enacted the strictest climate-related regulations in the country involving renewable energy mandates for utilities, tighter fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and low-carbon fuel standards.
The state's landmark climate law had a 1 January 2011 deadline for devising and enacting the so-called cap-and-trade system.
In the US, New Mexico narrowly approved its own cap-and-trade programme last month and approved the state's participation in a regional market. There is another market proposed in the Midwest and in New England.
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 10.13 GMT
California regulators yesterday approved the first system in the United States to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California's 2006 climate law – called AB32 – with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world's eighth largest economy. State officials are also discussing plans to link the new system with similar schemes that are underway or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
California is launching into a "historic adventure," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's air quality board.
"We're inventing this," she said. "There is still going to be quite a bit of action needed before it becomes operational."
California is trying to "fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now," said Nichols.
A standing-room only board chambers featured testimony from more than 170 witnesses. Outside the chambers, climate change sceptics held signs reading "Global Warming: Science by Homer Simpson."
Some businesses that would fall under the new rules say the system could dampen California's already flagging economy, complicate lawmakers' efforts to close a $28.1bn (£18bn) revenue shortfall and lead to an increase in the price of electricity.
The rate increases, however, would still need approval from the state.
The governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the board he is sensitive to the recession, but argued that many of the new jobs being created under the system are in the clean technology industry.
"The real jobs we're creating right now are green jobs. Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector, so it's also an economic plus," he said.
But he said reducing greenhouse gas pollution is not just about climate change, but about human health and national security.
"I despise the fact that we send $1bn a year to foreign places for our oil and to places that hate us. We send this money to people that hate us and that are organising terrorists and trying to blow up our country," he said.
Supporters say the system will help spur economic recovery and innovation, pushing business to invest in clean technologies.
They say the billions of dollars the state collects in the system could help fund clean air programmes and help offset any increases in utility rates. Details of the uses of these new funds is still uncertain.
California has already enacted the strictest climate-related regulations in the country involving renewable energy mandates for utilities, tighter fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and low-carbon fuel standards.
The state's landmark climate law had a 1 January 2011 deadline for devising and enacting the so-called cap-and-trade system.
In the US, New Mexico narrowly approved its own cap-and-trade programme last month and approved the state's participation in a regional market. There is another market proposed in the Midwest and in New England.
Paris to introduce self-service electric car scheme
Mayor Bertrand Delanoë unveils environmentally friendly Autolib project in latest attempt to reduce Paris traffic
Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 16.33 GMT
First Parisians were urged to get on their bikes with an innovative self-service cycle scheme. Now residents of the French capital and tourists who embraced the Vélib bicycle hire scheme will soon be able to zip around town in environmentally friendly electric cars for less than the price of the average bottle of vin de table.
The Autolib scheme, due to be introduced next autumn, will see 3,000 bubble-shaped, battery-powered cars stationed at 1,000 self-service hire points across the city and its suburbs.
The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has announced that the city authorities have selected a four-seat vehicle produced by the French company Bolloré, run by the charismatic industrialist and businessman Vincent Bolloré.
The Bluecar, designed by Bolloré's Italian partners Pininfarina, is powered by a lithium metal polymer battery created by the company allowing them to travel about 250km (155 miles) between charges. Thebatteries will take four hours to charge.
With a maximum speed of 130kph (approximately 80mph) and acceleration of 0 to 60kph in 6.3 seconds the blue car will not break any records, but is designed for short journeys around town for the 58% of Parisians who do not own a car and the additional 16% who own a car but use it less than once a month.
Autolib drivers will need a full driving licence and will have to subscribe to the scheme for €12 – just over £10 – a month. After that they will pay €5 for the first half an hour, €4 for the next and €6 for each subsequent 30-minute slot, encouraging short hops.
Annick Lepetit, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of transport, said she hoped the scheme would attract between 160,000 and 200,000 subscribers to break even.
Delanoë has made no secret of his ambition to reduce the number of cars in Paris introducing restrictive road schemes and establishing a vast network of cycle lanes, much to the chagrin of drivers.
In 2007 he introduced the Vélib scheme – the name combines vélo and liberté, the French words for bicycle and freedom. Despite problems with theft and vandalism, the scheme has taken off and has been copied by cities around the world including London. Today the clunky grey 20kg Vélib bicycles are an established feature of Paris life.
The Paris city authorities said a study they commissioned showed the average car in the capital spends about 95% of its time parked.
Bolloré has invested €60m in the Autolib project, which is expected to cost more than €110m in total.
For those worried about finding their way around the French capital, the Autolib will come with built-in GPS and an emergency call button.
• This article was amended on 17 December 2010. The original referred to acceleration of 0 to 60 in a snail-like 6.3 seconds. This has been corrected.
Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 16.33 GMT
First Parisians were urged to get on their bikes with an innovative self-service cycle scheme. Now residents of the French capital and tourists who embraced the Vélib bicycle hire scheme will soon be able to zip around town in environmentally friendly electric cars for less than the price of the average bottle of vin de table.
The Autolib scheme, due to be introduced next autumn, will see 3,000 bubble-shaped, battery-powered cars stationed at 1,000 self-service hire points across the city and its suburbs.
The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has announced that the city authorities have selected a four-seat vehicle produced by the French company Bolloré, run by the charismatic industrialist and businessman Vincent Bolloré.
The Bluecar, designed by Bolloré's Italian partners Pininfarina, is powered by a lithium metal polymer battery created by the company allowing them to travel about 250km (155 miles) between charges. Thebatteries will take four hours to charge.
With a maximum speed of 130kph (approximately 80mph) and acceleration of 0 to 60kph in 6.3 seconds the blue car will not break any records, but is designed for short journeys around town for the 58% of Parisians who do not own a car and the additional 16% who own a car but use it less than once a month.
Autolib drivers will need a full driving licence and will have to subscribe to the scheme for €12 – just over £10 – a month. After that they will pay €5 for the first half an hour, €4 for the next and €6 for each subsequent 30-minute slot, encouraging short hops.
Annick Lepetit, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of transport, said she hoped the scheme would attract between 160,000 and 200,000 subscribers to break even.
Delanoë has made no secret of his ambition to reduce the number of cars in Paris introducing restrictive road schemes and establishing a vast network of cycle lanes, much to the chagrin of drivers.
In 2007 he introduced the Vélib scheme – the name combines vélo and liberté, the French words for bicycle and freedom. Despite problems with theft and vandalism, the scheme has taken off and has been copied by cities around the world including London. Today the clunky grey 20kg Vélib bicycles are an established feature of Paris life.
The Paris city authorities said a study they commissioned showed the average car in the capital spends about 95% of its time parked.
Bolloré has invested €60m in the Autolib project, which is expected to cost more than €110m in total.
For those worried about finding their way around the French capital, the Autolib will come with built-in GPS and an emergency call button.
• This article was amended on 17 December 2010. The original referred to acceleration of 0 to 60 in a snail-like 6.3 seconds. This has been corrected.
Giant windfarms are lifting hopes – but could the east coast miss the boat?
Ports such as Grimsby hope to cash in on the turbines boom but fear others may profit
Share11 David Conn guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 18.45 GMT
In an airless Westminster committee room this week a shirtsleeved energy secretary came close to promising the earth. Laying out government plans to make renewable electricity more profitable to produce than smokestack, greenhouse gas-producing power, Chris Huhne said the market reforms would mark "a seismic shift" towards cleaner energy, underlining David Cameron's vow to be "the greenest government ever".
Up on the windy north-east coast, recession-lashed ports such as Grimsby and Hull have been eyeing the prospect of building huge windfarms for the North Sea for many years now.
But here at the sharp end they remain to be convinced that Huhne's long-term changes to the market are quite the kick-start that is needed to revolutionise the UK's industrial future.
Throughout the UK it is striking how unaware most people are of the enormous scale and ambition of Britain's planned "round 3" offshore windfarms.
Thanet, a "round 2" site with 100 turbines so far, located about seven miles off Foreness Point, Kent, opened two months ago and is now the largest offshore windfarm in the world. Yet it is a mere drop in the North Sea compared to the nine "round 3" sites set out on the coastal map produced by Crown Estates, which owns the rights to British waters.
The three sites to the east of Britain are on a staggering scale. Dogger Bank, off the Yorkshire coast, will fill close to 3,475 square miles, with 1,700 wind turbines. The Norfolk windfarm will cover an area larger than the county itself, while Hornsea, off Grimsby and the Humber, will be nearly as wide as England is from Hull to Liverpool.
"Looked at in their entirety," said the energy specialist Andrew Reid, of consultants Douglas Westwood, "these are certainly the largest construction projects ever undertaken in the world."
The mammoth windfarms are designed to generate sufficient electricity to meet the EU target for 30% of the UK's energy to come from renewables by 2020. More than that, for a country still figuring out how to rebuild a working economy from the wreckage of the banking crisis, renewables promise industrial reinvention.
Grimsby has held on to chemical manufacturing, steel production and food processing, but is still reeling from the collapse of fishing. The town views work on the windfarms as a natural extension of its marine tradition, and down on the docks, you find weathered industrial companies, former fishermen and the local council all hungry for it to start in earnest.
Kurt Christensen, who was born in Denmark and moved to Grimsby in 1955 with his fisherman father, left school at 15 and spent his life in the fishing industry, before the 1970s cod wars and, later, overfishing and quotas, meant the Grimsby boats dwindling from 450 to almost none. "In its heyday, Grimsby was a profitable town," he said. "Fishing was flourishing and people made a lot of money. The industry died by a thousand cuts, people lost their jobs, boats were decommissioned, and there was a lot of heartbreak."
Still involved in selling fish, he watched the "round 1" windfarms, Lynn and Inner Dowsing, take shape off Skegness, and dived in. He bought two boats, and secured a contract with the industrial company Siemens, supporting operation and maintenance work on the turbines as well as servicing the "floating hotel" ship for workers at sea.
"Fishermen are resilient, incredibly hard-working. People always looked for new work. We never became a call-centre town," Christensen said, an assertion you hear everywhere in Grimsby. "Offshore wind offers a great opportunity for people to work again in a real industry, and we feel the town deserves it."
Green shoots are visible. Lincs, a large "round 2" site, is under construction, the energy company Centrica is planning an operation and maintenance plant on Grimsby docks, and at the Catch industrial college, three apprenticeships have been created to train electrical engineers for the turbines.
The area of vast opportunity, though, is "round 3". In the Grimsby and Humber area 25,000 precious jobs could be generated, according to North East Lincolnshire council.
Scratch a little, however, and you find impatience with the government. Many people feel the government should lead solidly, not just reshape the market. There is, too, fury with the banks, for withholding finance from small firms. Christensen, despite his years of marine experience and contract with Siemens, could not get a loan from any bank. So, at the age of 56, he remortgaged his house. "Don't count on anything from the banks," he said. "Companies from overseas, particularly Denmark and Germany, are queuing to get involved in our waters, and it would be tragic if we don't make the most of this."
The government has already promised £60m in grants to upgrade whichever port Siemens selects as the site for a huge turbine manufacturing plant. Both banks of the Humber are vying for it: Able UK has earmarked a site on the south bank near Immingham, while Associated British Ports plans a "green port" on Hull's Alexandra dock.
In his smart new offices on a Grimsby business park, Winston Phillips assessed the situation. He is managing director of renewables for Cosalt, the only plc based in Grimsby. It began life in 1873 as The Great Grimsby Coal, Salt and Tanning Company, and between the wars was the world's largest fishing equipment supplier. Now it specialises in marine again, employing 45 technicians to service windfarms for Siemens. Phillips says the government should be more active and co-ordinate the emerging industry; otherwise British firms, and towns like Grimsby, will not secure enough of the work generating electricity off the UK coast.
"I went to a renewables conference recently attended by manufacturers and consultants," he said. "All the manufacturers were overseas companies – German, Danish, where the governments have invested heavily in industry. But all the consultants were British."
One of those consultants, Reid, calculates that just one 10th of all the investment made in UK offshore windfarms has so far gone to British firms. "Continental companies have typically won around 90% of contracts," he said. Alongside Siemens, big manufacturers committing to the east coast include GE, a US company, and Gamesa, based in Spain. There are concerns that unless "round 3" moves more quickly, smaller British companies will find it difficult to be involved even in the supply chain. "The government here is leaving everything to private companies and the market. But we need certainty. There is too little vision or leadership," said Phillips.
Sam Pick, a consultant with the Renewables Network, which represents smaller firms in the Grimsby area, agrees. He is sceptical about the government's planned "green investment bank", which Huhne admitted this week would not open any time soon. "Companies need to gear up now. We have heard constantly about the green investment bank, but it does not exist, and mainstream banks are not lending, even to people doing everything they can to be part of this revolution."
The view from the steel yard
The cold, muddy yard of the steel fabricating company SC4, in the shadow of the old Corus plant at Scunthorpe - now owned by Indian company Tata – seems another world from the air of satisfaction in Huhne's Westminster.
Shay Eddie's father, Edwin, started the business in 1983; it has survived the decimation of the steel industry, but this recession, Eddie grimaces, is "the worst we've ever seen," because the banks, hit themselves, have withdrawn finance.
"Three of our customers went bust last week," says Eddie, plain and factual. "It's like being in a forest fire, and it has accelerated since the government's cuts were announced in October."
Pointing with pride to men working on heavy equipment secured before the credit lines were cut, fabricating steel for customers including London's 2012 Olympic Stadium and Crossrail, Eddie reflects on the dilemma for companies like his. They can see great projects planned, at sea, but cannot do anything to touch them.
"There is work out there for generations," he says. "I'm banging the drum; we've been to every meeting and exhibition going. But the banks have cut off the lifeblood, and companies are going to the wall. The government talks about our industry, this area, being able to benefit, but it needs action fast. We're surviving by the skin of our teeth. It could be last man standing gets the work."
Wind rush gathers momentum
The sheer scale of the oil and gas industry shocked people when it arrived in Britain in the 1970s. Whole regions were transformed; remote places became sites of frantic industrial activity. In the rush, fortunes, and mistakes, were made.
The offshore wind energy revolution may be just as shocking.
The giant wind farms expected to be built in the second and third rounds of commissioning from 2014 onwards will need a new generation of ports. Thousands of miles of cable will have to be laid. The industry expects to spend £2.4bn just on new service craft.
So far, 25 British ports have registered to become "windports". Some are already beginning to feel the wind rush.
"In the next 10 years Britain will have to build around 50 times more offshore than it has so far to meet its 2020 target," said Nick Medic of the British Wind Energy Association. "People have no idea how big this project is. It will be colossal ... as transformative as the building of the rail systems."
But he admits it comes at an environmental price. The long road from fossil fuels to a greener Britain will be rancorous and full of surprises.
Share11 David Conn guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 18.45 GMT
In an airless Westminster committee room this week a shirtsleeved energy secretary came close to promising the earth. Laying out government plans to make renewable electricity more profitable to produce than smokestack, greenhouse gas-producing power, Chris Huhne said the market reforms would mark "a seismic shift" towards cleaner energy, underlining David Cameron's vow to be "the greenest government ever".
Up on the windy north-east coast, recession-lashed ports such as Grimsby and Hull have been eyeing the prospect of building huge windfarms for the North Sea for many years now.
But here at the sharp end they remain to be convinced that Huhne's long-term changes to the market are quite the kick-start that is needed to revolutionise the UK's industrial future.
Throughout the UK it is striking how unaware most people are of the enormous scale and ambition of Britain's planned "round 3" offshore windfarms.
Thanet, a "round 2" site with 100 turbines so far, located about seven miles off Foreness Point, Kent, opened two months ago and is now the largest offshore windfarm in the world. Yet it is a mere drop in the North Sea compared to the nine "round 3" sites set out on the coastal map produced by Crown Estates, which owns the rights to British waters.
The three sites to the east of Britain are on a staggering scale. Dogger Bank, off the Yorkshire coast, will fill close to 3,475 square miles, with 1,700 wind turbines. The Norfolk windfarm will cover an area larger than the county itself, while Hornsea, off Grimsby and the Humber, will be nearly as wide as England is from Hull to Liverpool.
"Looked at in their entirety," said the energy specialist Andrew Reid, of consultants Douglas Westwood, "these are certainly the largest construction projects ever undertaken in the world."
The mammoth windfarms are designed to generate sufficient electricity to meet the EU target for 30% of the UK's energy to come from renewables by 2020. More than that, for a country still figuring out how to rebuild a working economy from the wreckage of the banking crisis, renewables promise industrial reinvention.
Grimsby has held on to chemical manufacturing, steel production and food processing, but is still reeling from the collapse of fishing. The town views work on the windfarms as a natural extension of its marine tradition, and down on the docks, you find weathered industrial companies, former fishermen and the local council all hungry for it to start in earnest.
Kurt Christensen, who was born in Denmark and moved to Grimsby in 1955 with his fisherman father, left school at 15 and spent his life in the fishing industry, before the 1970s cod wars and, later, overfishing and quotas, meant the Grimsby boats dwindling from 450 to almost none. "In its heyday, Grimsby was a profitable town," he said. "Fishing was flourishing and people made a lot of money. The industry died by a thousand cuts, people lost their jobs, boats were decommissioned, and there was a lot of heartbreak."
Still involved in selling fish, he watched the "round 1" windfarms, Lynn and Inner Dowsing, take shape off Skegness, and dived in. He bought two boats, and secured a contract with the industrial company Siemens, supporting operation and maintenance work on the turbines as well as servicing the "floating hotel" ship for workers at sea.
"Fishermen are resilient, incredibly hard-working. People always looked for new work. We never became a call-centre town," Christensen said, an assertion you hear everywhere in Grimsby. "Offshore wind offers a great opportunity for people to work again in a real industry, and we feel the town deserves it."
Green shoots are visible. Lincs, a large "round 2" site, is under construction, the energy company Centrica is planning an operation and maintenance plant on Grimsby docks, and at the Catch industrial college, three apprenticeships have been created to train electrical engineers for the turbines.
The area of vast opportunity, though, is "round 3". In the Grimsby and Humber area 25,000 precious jobs could be generated, according to North East Lincolnshire council.
Scratch a little, however, and you find impatience with the government. Many people feel the government should lead solidly, not just reshape the market. There is, too, fury with the banks, for withholding finance from small firms. Christensen, despite his years of marine experience and contract with Siemens, could not get a loan from any bank. So, at the age of 56, he remortgaged his house. "Don't count on anything from the banks," he said. "Companies from overseas, particularly Denmark and Germany, are queuing to get involved in our waters, and it would be tragic if we don't make the most of this."
The government has already promised £60m in grants to upgrade whichever port Siemens selects as the site for a huge turbine manufacturing plant. Both banks of the Humber are vying for it: Able UK has earmarked a site on the south bank near Immingham, while Associated British Ports plans a "green port" on Hull's Alexandra dock.
In his smart new offices on a Grimsby business park, Winston Phillips assessed the situation. He is managing director of renewables for Cosalt, the only plc based in Grimsby. It began life in 1873 as The Great Grimsby Coal, Salt and Tanning Company, and between the wars was the world's largest fishing equipment supplier. Now it specialises in marine again, employing 45 technicians to service windfarms for Siemens. Phillips says the government should be more active and co-ordinate the emerging industry; otherwise British firms, and towns like Grimsby, will not secure enough of the work generating electricity off the UK coast.
"I went to a renewables conference recently attended by manufacturers and consultants," he said. "All the manufacturers were overseas companies – German, Danish, where the governments have invested heavily in industry. But all the consultants were British."
One of those consultants, Reid, calculates that just one 10th of all the investment made in UK offshore windfarms has so far gone to British firms. "Continental companies have typically won around 90% of contracts," he said. Alongside Siemens, big manufacturers committing to the east coast include GE, a US company, and Gamesa, based in Spain. There are concerns that unless "round 3" moves more quickly, smaller British companies will find it difficult to be involved even in the supply chain. "The government here is leaving everything to private companies and the market. But we need certainty. There is too little vision or leadership," said Phillips.
Sam Pick, a consultant with the Renewables Network, which represents smaller firms in the Grimsby area, agrees. He is sceptical about the government's planned "green investment bank", which Huhne admitted this week would not open any time soon. "Companies need to gear up now. We have heard constantly about the green investment bank, but it does not exist, and mainstream banks are not lending, even to people doing everything they can to be part of this revolution."
The view from the steel yard
The cold, muddy yard of the steel fabricating company SC4, in the shadow of the old Corus plant at Scunthorpe - now owned by Indian company Tata – seems another world from the air of satisfaction in Huhne's Westminster.
Shay Eddie's father, Edwin, started the business in 1983; it has survived the decimation of the steel industry, but this recession, Eddie grimaces, is "the worst we've ever seen," because the banks, hit themselves, have withdrawn finance.
"Three of our customers went bust last week," says Eddie, plain and factual. "It's like being in a forest fire, and it has accelerated since the government's cuts were announced in October."
Pointing with pride to men working on heavy equipment secured before the credit lines were cut, fabricating steel for customers including London's 2012 Olympic Stadium and Crossrail, Eddie reflects on the dilemma for companies like his. They can see great projects planned, at sea, but cannot do anything to touch them.
"There is work out there for generations," he says. "I'm banging the drum; we've been to every meeting and exhibition going. But the banks have cut off the lifeblood, and companies are going to the wall. The government talks about our industry, this area, being able to benefit, but it needs action fast. We're surviving by the skin of our teeth. It could be last man standing gets the work."
Wind rush gathers momentum
The sheer scale of the oil and gas industry shocked people when it arrived in Britain in the 1970s. Whole regions were transformed; remote places became sites of frantic industrial activity. In the rush, fortunes, and mistakes, were made.
The offshore wind energy revolution may be just as shocking.
The giant wind farms expected to be built in the second and third rounds of commissioning from 2014 onwards will need a new generation of ports. Thousands of miles of cable will have to be laid. The industry expects to spend £2.4bn just on new service craft.
So far, 25 British ports have registered to become "windports". Some are already beginning to feel the wind rush.
"In the next 10 years Britain will have to build around 50 times more offshore than it has so far to meet its 2020 target," said Nick Medic of the British Wind Energy Association. "People have no idea how big this project is. It will be colossal ... as transformative as the building of the rail systems."
But he admits it comes at an environmental price. The long road from fossil fuels to a greener Britain will be rancorous and full of surprises.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Datang raises $643m in Hong Kong IPO
16 December 2010
Chinese power firm Datang International has floated its renewable power arm on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising around US$643 million.
Meanwhile, another Chinese wind developer which spun off from a state-owned utility, Huaneng New Energy Industrial, cancelled plans for an initial public offering (IPO) on the same exchange.
China Datang Corporation Renewable Power sold 2.14 billion shares, each for HK$2.33($0.30), raising approximately $643 million. The IPO was priced at the bottom of the range, which had a maximum offer price of HK$3.18 per share. The IPO was arranged by UBS, China Everbright Securities, JPMorgan Chase and Macquarie.
But this week also saw Huaneng ditch plans for an IPO, according to local media reports, which it hoped would raise around HK$7.8 billion. The cancellation was put down to unexpected market volatility.
Datang Renewables had 2.7GW of installed capacity at the end of June 2010, according to the prospectus for the listing, with a further 22 wind farms under construction that would add an additional 1.5GW to the firm’s portfolio. The firm plans to have 5.5GW installed by the end of 2011. It also has solar and biomass energy projects in its pipeline.
Profits for the first half of 2010 were RMB290 million ($43 million), the firm reports in the prospectus, up on a RMB219 million profit in the same period in 2009. Its full-year profit was RMB367 million in 2009, RMB219 million in 2008 and RMB90 million in 2007.
About 60% of Datang’s installed capacity is located in Inner Mongolia, which the firm said has the most abundant wind resources in China.
The firm reported revenues from electricity sales to local utilities of RMB1,043 million in the first six months of 2010, up from RMB1,384 million for the whole of 2009. Income from the sale of UN-certified carbon credits was RMB101.6 million in the first six months of this year.
Datang spun off from its parent in July this year, and the state-owned utility remains its controlling shareholder.
Jess McCabe
Chinese power firm Datang International has floated its renewable power arm on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising around US$643 million.
Meanwhile, another Chinese wind developer which spun off from a state-owned utility, Huaneng New Energy Industrial, cancelled plans for an initial public offering (IPO) on the same exchange.
China Datang Corporation Renewable Power sold 2.14 billion shares, each for HK$2.33($0.30), raising approximately $643 million. The IPO was priced at the bottom of the range, which had a maximum offer price of HK$3.18 per share. The IPO was arranged by UBS, China Everbright Securities, JPMorgan Chase and Macquarie.
But this week also saw Huaneng ditch plans for an IPO, according to local media reports, which it hoped would raise around HK$7.8 billion. The cancellation was put down to unexpected market volatility.
Datang Renewables had 2.7GW of installed capacity at the end of June 2010, according to the prospectus for the listing, with a further 22 wind farms under construction that would add an additional 1.5GW to the firm’s portfolio. The firm plans to have 5.5GW installed by the end of 2011. It also has solar and biomass energy projects in its pipeline.
Profits for the first half of 2010 were RMB290 million ($43 million), the firm reports in the prospectus, up on a RMB219 million profit in the same period in 2009. Its full-year profit was RMB367 million in 2009, RMB219 million in 2008 and RMB90 million in 2007.
About 60% of Datang’s installed capacity is located in Inner Mongolia, which the firm said has the most abundant wind resources in China.
The firm reported revenues from electricity sales to local utilities of RMB1,043 million in the first six months of 2010, up from RMB1,384 million for the whole of 2009. Income from the sale of UN-certified carbon credits was RMB101.6 million in the first six months of this year.
Datang spun off from its parent in July this year, and the state-owned utility remains its controlling shareholder.
Jess McCabe
UK overhauls electricity markets, clean energy subsidies
16 December 2010
The UK government today announced plans to overhaul the country’s electricity market, introducing feed-in tariffs for clean energy generation and supporting carbon prices.
Details for the reforms are set out in two consultation documents, one on electricity market reform by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and one on the carbon price floor, by the Treasury.
“More than £110 billion [$171 billion] of investment is needed in new power stations and grid upgrades over the next decade, that’s double the rate of the last ten years. Put simply, the current market is not fit to deliver this,” said Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne.
The proposed shake up includes:
•A carbon prices support mechanism, using the Climate Change Levy and fuel duties to tax fossil fuels used to generate electricity at rates based on their carbon content.
•Establishing a long-term ‘contract for difference’ for low carbon power generation. This feed-in tariff would see generators receive top-up payments if wholesale power prices are low, but money would be ‘clawed back’ once the cost of low-carbon electricity generation drops below wholesale prices. However, the consultation also sets out an alternative ‘premium’ feed-in tariff.
•Incentives for demand-reduction measures and to construct back-up power plants.
•An emissions performance standard which would ensure no coal plants can be built without carbon capture and storage.
Jess McCabe
The UK government today announced plans to overhaul the country’s electricity market, introducing feed-in tariffs for clean energy generation and supporting carbon prices.
Details for the reforms are set out in two consultation documents, one on electricity market reform by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and one on the carbon price floor, by the Treasury.
“More than £110 billion [$171 billion] of investment is needed in new power stations and grid upgrades over the next decade, that’s double the rate of the last ten years. Put simply, the current market is not fit to deliver this,” said Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne.
The proposed shake up includes:
•A carbon prices support mechanism, using the Climate Change Levy and fuel duties to tax fossil fuels used to generate electricity at rates based on their carbon content.
•Establishing a long-term ‘contract for difference’ for low carbon power generation. This feed-in tariff would see generators receive top-up payments if wholesale power prices are low, but money would be ‘clawed back’ once the cost of low-carbon electricity generation drops below wholesale prices. However, the consultation also sets out an alternative ‘premium’ feed-in tariff.
•Incentives for demand-reduction measures and to construct back-up power plants.
•An emissions performance standard which would ensure no coal plants can be built without carbon capture and storage.
Jess McCabe
Chris Huhne admits green bank may be scaled back
Environmental bank could start as a fund owing to fears of adding to deficit, says climate secretary Chris Huhne
Allegra Stratton and Tim Webb The Guardian, Wednesday 15 December 2010
The government's environmental bank looks likely to be scaled back and may begin life as a fund, jeopardising billions of pounds of badly needed loans to green technology. The green investment bank (GIB) was devised by George Osborne, the chancellor, when he was in opposition. He believed that it was crucial to the development of green energy projects such as clean coal plants and offshore windfarms in Britain.
Now the cabinet minister who is in charge of seeing it come to fruition and is a devoted ambassador for the idea of a fully functioning bank has floated the possibility of staggering its introduction. This would see it initially set up as a more limited fund unable to raise finance by issuing "green bonds" to back projects.
Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, appears to concede that the Treasury's concern that the liabilities taken on by a GIB would be added to the government's budget book. He suggests instead that the new institution could morph into a bank able to raise finance over time as Britain's deficit is reduced.
In an interview with the Guardian, he insisted that the government remained committed to setting up a bank and that setting up a fund initially was only one option. But the prospect of a delay on fully implementing this key green policy will anger environmentalists.
Huge task
"Obviously, if we were to turn around and have the GIB borrowing vast amounts of money tomorrow I can understand that managers of the national debt would be a little alarmed," he said. "I am absolutely at one with the Treasury on the need to make sure our fiscal credibility is completely re-established. The key issue is whether or not having established our fiscal credibility, what then happens?
"There are phasing issues, there are transition issues. What is the point at which maybe it begins as a fund and later is a bank, whatever. Let there be no doubt that the first overwhelming priority of the government has to be to get the deficit down."
Auditor Ernst & Young has said that, without a bank, only about a fifth of the £450bn investment needed for Britain to meet its carbon emissions targets over the next 15 years would be made.
Tomorrow Huhne will announce other measures which, he says, will amount to the biggest change to the electricity market since privatisation in the 1980s. Despite its apparent rethink on the GIB, the government hopes the measures will channel private sector investment into renewables in other ways. Huhne's plan will also break a key Conservative pre-election pledge on cleaning up coal plants.
In a key note speech to environmentalists in October last year, David Cameron repeated his party's pledge to introduce rules requiring new power stations to be as clean as a modern gas plant. This would have required energy companies to fit experimental equipment, which captures and stores carbon emissions (CCS), to about two-thirds of their new coal plants. But the policies to be unveiled are expected to recommend that CCS be fitted to only one-third of coal plants.
Huhne declined to comment on the specifics, but was much more effusive about Tesco, particularly when it comes to the environment. Tomorrow, Huhne will, by his own admission (albeit with tongue firmly in cheek), ape Britain's biggest supermarket when he promises that his plan will make Britain "greener for less". Huhne will promise that electricity bills will be lower and power plants twice as green as would be the case under the existing energy policies inherited from the previous government. "[It will be] greener for less, more for less," he said. Told that it sounded a bit like a Tesco promotion, he said: "I am very happy to be the Tesco of the energy industry." With the coalition government committed to both slashing the deficit and being the "greenest ever", it's a fitting slogan.
The power sector accounts for about a third of Britain's carbon emissions, so cleaning it up is crucial for the country to meet its climate change targets. The task is huge – and it won't come cheap, whether it is done with Tesco-style efficiency or not. Old coal and nuclear plants are being closed and must be replaced. The UK's electricity grids will have to be massively upgraded to cope with more intermittent supplies of electricity from wind farms. New flexible gas plants are needed in reserve to come online when the wind does not blow enough. Overall electricity demand is set to increase too, as electric vehicles become more common.
Ofgem, the energy regulator, estimates that £200bn of investment is required in new energy technology over the next decade alone, about double the normal rate of investment. But the existing market regime will not do the job. Some of the technologies are relatively new and untested on a large scale, making them risky for investors. Electricity prices are also volatile, which means the return on huge upfront investments is uncertain.
Huhne's plan is aimed at incentivising investment in cleaner ways of generating electricity. For example a carbon floor price – effectively a tax on carbon emissions – will be introduced which should make coal and gas plants more expensive to operate and renewables more competitive. Large offshore wind farms will earn a guaranteed premium above the market rate for all or some of the electricity they sell. Standby gas plants will also receive fixed payments in return for being available.
Higher bills
The cost will ultimately be borne by consumers through higher energy bills. Huhne will claim that his reforms will make electricity bills slightly cheaper than they would be under the current system. He may be right, but energy bills are still expected to increase by about a quarter over the next decade, and that assumes homes have been properly insulated. Ofgem's worst prediction sees prices rocketing by 60% by 2015.
Gas and electricity prices are already close to record levels after a recent round of rises, which coincide with the coldest December for decades. Huhne argues that over the long-run, bills would be "substantially" higher if the UK relied on fossil fuels as their cost is rising.
"The name of the game is not adding to any British consumer's cost, but is actually making sure that British consumers over the long-term have an energy policy less vulnerable to the variability of what is going to be a pretty rough and tumble oil and gas market …And if we have a relatively high fossil fuel price they [consumers] are going to be quids in." Promising higher bills in the short-term to head off even higher bills 20 years from now is a tough sell at the best of times, let alone during an age of austerity. Huhne insists he can pull off the trick of both greening the UK – and keeping the costs down for Osborne and the British consumer.
"Fiscal credibility is key. But we also have to decarbonise the economy. Governments by definition do not have one objective. We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Therefore we are able to have low carbon investment and fiscal credibility. That is what we have to combine and that is what we're going to do."
Allegra Stratton and Tim Webb The Guardian, Wednesday 15 December 2010
The government's environmental bank looks likely to be scaled back and may begin life as a fund, jeopardising billions of pounds of badly needed loans to green technology. The green investment bank (GIB) was devised by George Osborne, the chancellor, when he was in opposition. He believed that it was crucial to the development of green energy projects such as clean coal plants and offshore windfarms in Britain.
Now the cabinet minister who is in charge of seeing it come to fruition and is a devoted ambassador for the idea of a fully functioning bank has floated the possibility of staggering its introduction. This would see it initially set up as a more limited fund unable to raise finance by issuing "green bonds" to back projects.
Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, appears to concede that the Treasury's concern that the liabilities taken on by a GIB would be added to the government's budget book. He suggests instead that the new institution could morph into a bank able to raise finance over time as Britain's deficit is reduced.
In an interview with the Guardian, he insisted that the government remained committed to setting up a bank and that setting up a fund initially was only one option. But the prospect of a delay on fully implementing this key green policy will anger environmentalists.
Huge task
"Obviously, if we were to turn around and have the GIB borrowing vast amounts of money tomorrow I can understand that managers of the national debt would be a little alarmed," he said. "I am absolutely at one with the Treasury on the need to make sure our fiscal credibility is completely re-established. The key issue is whether or not having established our fiscal credibility, what then happens?
"There are phasing issues, there are transition issues. What is the point at which maybe it begins as a fund and later is a bank, whatever. Let there be no doubt that the first overwhelming priority of the government has to be to get the deficit down."
Auditor Ernst & Young has said that, without a bank, only about a fifth of the £450bn investment needed for Britain to meet its carbon emissions targets over the next 15 years would be made.
Tomorrow Huhne will announce other measures which, he says, will amount to the biggest change to the electricity market since privatisation in the 1980s. Despite its apparent rethink on the GIB, the government hopes the measures will channel private sector investment into renewables in other ways. Huhne's plan will also break a key Conservative pre-election pledge on cleaning up coal plants.
In a key note speech to environmentalists in October last year, David Cameron repeated his party's pledge to introduce rules requiring new power stations to be as clean as a modern gas plant. This would have required energy companies to fit experimental equipment, which captures and stores carbon emissions (CCS), to about two-thirds of their new coal plants. But the policies to be unveiled are expected to recommend that CCS be fitted to only one-third of coal plants.
Huhne declined to comment on the specifics, but was much more effusive about Tesco, particularly when it comes to the environment. Tomorrow, Huhne will, by his own admission (albeit with tongue firmly in cheek), ape Britain's biggest supermarket when he promises that his plan will make Britain "greener for less". Huhne will promise that electricity bills will be lower and power plants twice as green as would be the case under the existing energy policies inherited from the previous government. "[It will be] greener for less, more for less," he said. Told that it sounded a bit like a Tesco promotion, he said: "I am very happy to be the Tesco of the energy industry." With the coalition government committed to both slashing the deficit and being the "greenest ever", it's a fitting slogan.
The power sector accounts for about a third of Britain's carbon emissions, so cleaning it up is crucial for the country to meet its climate change targets. The task is huge – and it won't come cheap, whether it is done with Tesco-style efficiency or not. Old coal and nuclear plants are being closed and must be replaced. The UK's electricity grids will have to be massively upgraded to cope with more intermittent supplies of electricity from wind farms. New flexible gas plants are needed in reserve to come online when the wind does not blow enough. Overall electricity demand is set to increase too, as electric vehicles become more common.
Ofgem, the energy regulator, estimates that £200bn of investment is required in new energy technology over the next decade alone, about double the normal rate of investment. But the existing market regime will not do the job. Some of the technologies are relatively new and untested on a large scale, making them risky for investors. Electricity prices are also volatile, which means the return on huge upfront investments is uncertain.
Huhne's plan is aimed at incentivising investment in cleaner ways of generating electricity. For example a carbon floor price – effectively a tax on carbon emissions – will be introduced which should make coal and gas plants more expensive to operate and renewables more competitive. Large offshore wind farms will earn a guaranteed premium above the market rate for all or some of the electricity they sell. Standby gas plants will also receive fixed payments in return for being available.
Higher bills
The cost will ultimately be borne by consumers through higher energy bills. Huhne will claim that his reforms will make electricity bills slightly cheaper than they would be under the current system. He may be right, but energy bills are still expected to increase by about a quarter over the next decade, and that assumes homes have been properly insulated. Ofgem's worst prediction sees prices rocketing by 60% by 2015.
Gas and electricity prices are already close to record levels after a recent round of rises, which coincide with the coldest December for decades. Huhne argues that over the long-run, bills would be "substantially" higher if the UK relied on fossil fuels as their cost is rising.
"The name of the game is not adding to any British consumer's cost, but is actually making sure that British consumers over the long-term have an energy policy less vulnerable to the variability of what is going to be a pretty rough and tumble oil and gas market …And if we have a relatively high fossil fuel price they [consumers] are going to be quids in." Promising higher bills in the short-term to head off even higher bills 20 years from now is a tough sell at the best of times, let alone during an age of austerity. Huhne insists he can pull off the trick of both greening the UK – and keeping the costs down for Osborne and the British consumer.
"Fiscal credibility is key. But we also have to decarbonise the economy. Governments by definition do not have one objective. We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Therefore we are able to have low carbon investment and fiscal credibility. That is what we have to combine and that is what we're going to do."
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Subsidies to jump start UK green car revolution
By Sarah Arnott
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
The first green cars to qualify for a subsidy of up to £5,000 were unveiled by the Government yesterday.
Under £400m plans to boost take-up of expensive electric and ultra-low carbon vehicles, buyers will be able to claim up to a quarter of the price of nine models of car: the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the Smart fortwo electric drive, the Peugeot iON, the Citroën CZero, the Nissan Leaf, the Tata Vista EV, the Toyota Prius Plug-in, the Vauxhall Ampera and the Chevrolet Volt.
The scheme starts in the new year, but only the Mitsubishi, the Smart and the Peugeot will be immediately available. The launches of the other models are spread over the rest of 2011 and into 2012. And more low-carbon vehicles are expected to join the scheme over its four-year life.
At a launch event in London yesterday, Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Transport, also announced infrastructure grants for the Midlands, Greater Manchester, East of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The money will pay for charging infrastructure to support electric cars. London, Milton Keynes and the North East – which have already won similar grants – will also receive more money from a central fund worth a total of £20m.
"Government action to supportaffordable vehicles and more local charging points means we are on the threshold of a green revolution," Mr Hammond said. "2011 could be remembered as the year the electric car took off."
However, industry experts said that the subsidy – which translates as around 15,000 cars per year – is unlikely to have a major impact on Britain's car fleet.
But it will send a signal about British industry. The UK has already won the competition to build the European version of the Nissan Leaf at the Japanese giant's Sunderland factory. And there are high hopes that Europe's Vauxhall/ Opel Ampera will be built at the US group's Ellesmere Port plant. Any overt government commitment to green cars will boost the chances of success, according to Hilton Holloway, the associate editor of Autocar magazine.
"These subsidies have more of an eye on Britain's manufacturing than on its car drivers," Mr Holloway said. "The ides is to show that we are open to low-carbon business."
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
The first green cars to qualify for a subsidy of up to £5,000 were unveiled by the Government yesterday.
Under £400m plans to boost take-up of expensive electric and ultra-low carbon vehicles, buyers will be able to claim up to a quarter of the price of nine models of car: the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the Smart fortwo electric drive, the Peugeot iON, the Citroën CZero, the Nissan Leaf, the Tata Vista EV, the Toyota Prius Plug-in, the Vauxhall Ampera and the Chevrolet Volt.
The scheme starts in the new year, but only the Mitsubishi, the Smart and the Peugeot will be immediately available. The launches of the other models are spread over the rest of 2011 and into 2012. And more low-carbon vehicles are expected to join the scheme over its four-year life.
At a launch event in London yesterday, Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Transport, also announced infrastructure grants for the Midlands, Greater Manchester, East of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The money will pay for charging infrastructure to support electric cars. London, Milton Keynes and the North East – which have already won similar grants – will also receive more money from a central fund worth a total of £20m.
"Government action to supportaffordable vehicles and more local charging points means we are on the threshold of a green revolution," Mr Hammond said. "2011 could be remembered as the year the electric car took off."
However, industry experts said that the subsidy – which translates as around 15,000 cars per year – is unlikely to have a major impact on Britain's car fleet.
But it will send a signal about British industry. The UK has already won the competition to build the European version of the Nissan Leaf at the Japanese giant's Sunderland factory. And there are high hopes that Europe's Vauxhall/ Opel Ampera will be built at the US group's Ellesmere Port plant. Any overt government commitment to green cars will boost the chances of success, according to Hilton Holloway, the associate editor of Autocar magazine.
"These subsidies have more of an eye on Britain's manufacturing than on its car drivers," Mr Holloway said. "The ides is to show that we are open to low-carbon business."
Australian Firms Tap Iconic Waters for Natural Gas
By DAVID WINNING
SYDNEY—Australia's New South Wales state will soon have another claim to fame joining Bondi beach and Sydney's panoramic harbor: the world's latest prospect for offshore natural gas.
Drilling will begin this week to tap what is projected to be as much as seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas off the state's pristine coast, as demand for energy to fuel Australia's economic boom outweighs environmental concerns. Bounty Oil & Gas NL, an Australian oil and gas producer, and closely held peer Advent Energy Ltd. say a successful drilling campaign—the first off New South Wales's shore—could help the state's capital, Sydney, ease its dependence on burning coal for power. But the two companies must weather environmental concerns and financial risk along the way.
New South Wales relies on coal for 90% for its power needs, but generators are looking to switch to cleaner-burning natural gas in the future as worries over greenhouse-gas emissions intensify. The discovery of vast quantities of gas off its coastline could provide the state with a cheap energy alternative at a time when Australia's strong economic growth is attracting more immigrants to settle here.
"If we happen to hit commercial volumes of gas that are not far offshore then it will be game on for our stock and game on for gas coming into the New South Wales market," said Philip Kelso, chief executive of Bounty.
But the start of drilling offshore has alarmed environmentalists in New South Wales, after major oil spills in the Timor Sea and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico over the past two years. The state counts tourism hot spots such as Bondi beach, known for its surfing culture, among its prized assets.
"Many local communities rely on the pristine nature of this coastline for income and recreation," said David Shoebridge, a state representative for the Greens, who oppose the drilling.
Bounty and Advent say they have all the approvals and permits needed to begin drilling the New Seaclem-1 well about 95 miles northeast of Sydney. The companies hold rights to explore an area the size of 5,125 square miles, bigger than U.S. state of Delaware. Success could also encourage a rush of new drilling in the area after a recovery in energy prices has spurred small explorers to restart wildcat drilling, after two years of striving to conserve cash when the financial crisis shuttered credit markets.
Exploring for oil and gas offshore can be an expensive business, particularly for companies the size of Bounty and Advent Energy.
David Breeze, executive director of Advent Energy, said it will cost around $20 million to drill one well offshore New South Wales in water depths of 460 feet. The biggest outlay is hiring the Ocean Patriot semi-submersible rig for around $400,000 a day.
Underscoring the big risks involved to smaller companies, MEO Australia Ltd.'s shares plummeted more than 50% Monday after it said an exploration well drilled offshore Western Australia state—one of the country's most prolific areas for discoveries—hadn't led to any oil or gas discoveries.
Mr. Kelso shrugs off these concerns along with environmental worries and is "a lot more than bullish" about the exploration campaign's chances of success, partly because there is evidence of gas bubbling naturally from the seabed.
Write to David Winning at david.winning@dowjones.com
SYDNEY—Australia's New South Wales state will soon have another claim to fame joining Bondi beach and Sydney's panoramic harbor: the world's latest prospect for offshore natural gas.
Drilling will begin this week to tap what is projected to be as much as seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas off the state's pristine coast, as demand for energy to fuel Australia's economic boom outweighs environmental concerns. Bounty Oil & Gas NL, an Australian oil and gas producer, and closely held peer Advent Energy Ltd. say a successful drilling campaign—the first off New South Wales's shore—could help the state's capital, Sydney, ease its dependence on burning coal for power. But the two companies must weather environmental concerns and financial risk along the way.
New South Wales relies on coal for 90% for its power needs, but generators are looking to switch to cleaner-burning natural gas in the future as worries over greenhouse-gas emissions intensify. The discovery of vast quantities of gas off its coastline could provide the state with a cheap energy alternative at a time when Australia's strong economic growth is attracting more immigrants to settle here.
"If we happen to hit commercial volumes of gas that are not far offshore then it will be game on for our stock and game on for gas coming into the New South Wales market," said Philip Kelso, chief executive of Bounty.
But the start of drilling offshore has alarmed environmentalists in New South Wales, after major oil spills in the Timor Sea and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico over the past two years. The state counts tourism hot spots such as Bondi beach, known for its surfing culture, among its prized assets.
"Many local communities rely on the pristine nature of this coastline for income and recreation," said David Shoebridge, a state representative for the Greens, who oppose the drilling.
Bounty and Advent say they have all the approvals and permits needed to begin drilling the New Seaclem-1 well about 95 miles northeast of Sydney. The companies hold rights to explore an area the size of 5,125 square miles, bigger than U.S. state of Delaware. Success could also encourage a rush of new drilling in the area after a recovery in energy prices has spurred small explorers to restart wildcat drilling, after two years of striving to conserve cash when the financial crisis shuttered credit markets.
Exploring for oil and gas offshore can be an expensive business, particularly for companies the size of Bounty and Advent Energy.
David Breeze, executive director of Advent Energy, said it will cost around $20 million to drill one well offshore New South Wales in water depths of 460 feet. The biggest outlay is hiring the Ocean Patriot semi-submersible rig for around $400,000 a day.
Underscoring the big risks involved to smaller companies, MEO Australia Ltd.'s shares plummeted more than 50% Monday after it said an exploration well drilled offshore Western Australia state—one of the country's most prolific areas for discoveries—hadn't led to any oil or gas discoveries.
Mr. Kelso shrugs off these concerns along with environmental worries and is "a lot more than bullish" about the exploration campaign's chances of success, partly because there is evidence of gas bubbling naturally from the seabed.
Write to David Winning at david.winning@dowjones.com
'I am very happy to be the Tesco of the energy industry,' says Chris Huhne
Energy and climate change secretary to unveil plans to overhaul UK power generation and reduce carbon emissions
Tim Webb and Allegra Stratton The Guardian, Wednesday 15 December 2010
Tesco is an unusual role model for politicians to aspire to. But tomorrow Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, will – albeit with tongue firmly in cheek - use a supermarket-style price promise when he vows to make Britain "greener for less". With the coalition government committed both to slashing the deficit and being the "greenest ever", it's a fitting slogan.
Huhne is unveiling what he believes is the biggest overhaul of power generation in this country for 30 years. He will promise that his plan will result in lower consumer electricity bills as well as power plants that are twice as green as would be the case under existing policy. "[It will be] greener for less, more for less," he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Told that it sounded a bit like a Tesco promotion, he said: "I am very happy to be the Tesco of the energy industry."
The power sector accounts for about one third of the UK's carbon emissions, so cleaning it up is crucial if the country is to meet its climate change targets. The task is huge – and it won't come cheap, even if it's done with Tesco-style efficiency and economies of scale. Old coal and nuclear plants are being closed and must be replaced. The UK's electricity grids will have to be extensively upgraded to cope with more intermittent supplies of electricity from wind farms. New flexible gas plants are needed as a reserve force for when the wind does not blow. Overall electricity demand is also set to increase as electric vehicles become more common.
In total, energy regulator Ofgem estimates that £200bn of investment is required in new energy equipment over the next decade alone: about double the normal rate of investment. But the existing market regime will not do the job. Conventional coal and gas plants, which used to provide most of Britain's power, were relatively cheap to build. The low carbon forms of generation which will replace them, such as nuclear, marine energy and wind farms, require huge up-front investment to build. A nuclear reactor, for example, costs at least seven times as much to build as a slightly smaller modern gas plant, but has much lower running costs. Renewables, which do not use fuel, have virtually zero running costs. But electricity prices are volatile and very hard to predict, which means that the return on such huge initial investments is uncertain. Some of the technologies are also relatively new and untested on a large scale, making them risky for investors.
Energy companies, government and environmentalists agree that current regulation will not deliver the huge amount of investment required. The most radical proposal already floated by the energy regulator would see electricity bought and sold by a central government-run body similar to the days before the industry was privatised. One energy executive referred to the plan as "Stalinist". But the industry's worst nightmare of quasi-nationalisation is unlikely to come about. The plan put forward by Huhne, a former City entrepreneur and business journalist, is aimed instead at incentivising investment in cleaner ways of generating electricity. For example, a carbon floor price – effectively a tax on carbon emissions – will be introduced, making coal and gas plants more expensive to operate and renewables therefore more competitive. Giant offshore wind farms will earn a guaranteed premium above the market rate for some or all of the electricity they sell. Standby gas plants will also receive fixed payments in return for being available.
Huhne hopes the reforms will attract outside investors to the energy market, for the simple reason that the dominant 'Big Six' energy suppliers – EDF, RWE npower, E.ON, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Energy and Centrica – aren't able to put in all the investment needed. "If the 'Big Six' wants to do it I would be delighted. I hope they do. But the reality is if you look at the amount of investment we need they probably don't have the balance sheet to do it [alone]. Even if I didn't want to encourage competition in the market which I fully do, they couldn't deliver. We want a framework which provides investors with certainty, whether they are Big Six investors or from outside."
The cost will ultimately be borne by consumers through higher energy bills. Huhne will claim that his reforms will make electricity bills slightly cheaper than they would be under the current system. He may be right, but energy bills are still expected to increase by about a quarter over the next decade, and that assumes homes have been properly insulated. Ofgem's worst case scenario sees prices rocketing by 60% by 2015.
Gas and electricity prices are already close to record levels after a recent round of increases, which coincide with the coldest December for decades. Huhne argues that over the long run, bills would be substantially higher if the UK relied on fossil fuels, whose cost is rising.
"The name of the game is not adding to any British consumer's cost but is actually making sure that British consumers over the long term have an energy policy less vulnerable to the variability of what is going to be a pretty rough and tumble oil and gas market ... And if we have a relatively high fossil fuel price [consumers] are going to be quids in."
Promising higher bills in the short term to head off even higher bills 20 years from now is a tough sell at the best of times, let alone during an age of austerity. Huhne insists he can pull off the trick of both greening the UK and keeping the costs down for George Osborne and the British consumer. "Fiscal credibility is key. But we also have to decarbonise the economy. Governments by definition do not have one objective. We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Therefore we are able to have low carbon investment and fiscal credibility. That's what we have to combine and that's what we're going to do."
Asked about the powerful civil servants in Osborne's department who are obstructing his plan of setting up a fully functioning Green Investment Bank, Huhne, the consummate coalition politician, grins: "Treasury officials' job is to be tricky."
Tim Webb and Allegra Stratton The Guardian, Wednesday 15 December 2010
Tesco is an unusual role model for politicians to aspire to. But tomorrow Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, will – albeit with tongue firmly in cheek - use a supermarket-style price promise when he vows to make Britain "greener for less". With the coalition government committed both to slashing the deficit and being the "greenest ever", it's a fitting slogan.
Huhne is unveiling what he believes is the biggest overhaul of power generation in this country for 30 years. He will promise that his plan will result in lower consumer electricity bills as well as power plants that are twice as green as would be the case under existing policy. "[It will be] greener for less, more for less," he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Told that it sounded a bit like a Tesco promotion, he said: "I am very happy to be the Tesco of the energy industry."
The power sector accounts for about one third of the UK's carbon emissions, so cleaning it up is crucial if the country is to meet its climate change targets. The task is huge – and it won't come cheap, even if it's done with Tesco-style efficiency and economies of scale. Old coal and nuclear plants are being closed and must be replaced. The UK's electricity grids will have to be extensively upgraded to cope with more intermittent supplies of electricity from wind farms. New flexible gas plants are needed as a reserve force for when the wind does not blow. Overall electricity demand is also set to increase as electric vehicles become more common.
In total, energy regulator Ofgem estimates that £200bn of investment is required in new energy equipment over the next decade alone: about double the normal rate of investment. But the existing market regime will not do the job. Conventional coal and gas plants, which used to provide most of Britain's power, were relatively cheap to build. The low carbon forms of generation which will replace them, such as nuclear, marine energy and wind farms, require huge up-front investment to build. A nuclear reactor, for example, costs at least seven times as much to build as a slightly smaller modern gas plant, but has much lower running costs. Renewables, which do not use fuel, have virtually zero running costs. But electricity prices are volatile and very hard to predict, which means that the return on such huge initial investments is uncertain. Some of the technologies are also relatively new and untested on a large scale, making them risky for investors.
Energy companies, government and environmentalists agree that current regulation will not deliver the huge amount of investment required. The most radical proposal already floated by the energy regulator would see electricity bought and sold by a central government-run body similar to the days before the industry was privatised. One energy executive referred to the plan as "Stalinist". But the industry's worst nightmare of quasi-nationalisation is unlikely to come about. The plan put forward by Huhne, a former City entrepreneur and business journalist, is aimed instead at incentivising investment in cleaner ways of generating electricity. For example, a carbon floor price – effectively a tax on carbon emissions – will be introduced, making coal and gas plants more expensive to operate and renewables therefore more competitive. Giant offshore wind farms will earn a guaranteed premium above the market rate for some or all of the electricity they sell. Standby gas plants will also receive fixed payments in return for being available.
Huhne hopes the reforms will attract outside investors to the energy market, for the simple reason that the dominant 'Big Six' energy suppliers – EDF, RWE npower, E.ON, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Energy and Centrica – aren't able to put in all the investment needed. "If the 'Big Six' wants to do it I would be delighted. I hope they do. But the reality is if you look at the amount of investment we need they probably don't have the balance sheet to do it [alone]. Even if I didn't want to encourage competition in the market which I fully do, they couldn't deliver. We want a framework which provides investors with certainty, whether they are Big Six investors or from outside."
The cost will ultimately be borne by consumers through higher energy bills. Huhne will claim that his reforms will make electricity bills slightly cheaper than they would be under the current system. He may be right, but energy bills are still expected to increase by about a quarter over the next decade, and that assumes homes have been properly insulated. Ofgem's worst case scenario sees prices rocketing by 60% by 2015.
Gas and electricity prices are already close to record levels after a recent round of increases, which coincide with the coldest December for decades. Huhne argues that over the long run, bills would be substantially higher if the UK relied on fossil fuels, whose cost is rising.
"The name of the game is not adding to any British consumer's cost but is actually making sure that British consumers over the long term have an energy policy less vulnerable to the variability of what is going to be a pretty rough and tumble oil and gas market ... And if we have a relatively high fossil fuel price [consumers] are going to be quids in."
Promising higher bills in the short term to head off even higher bills 20 years from now is a tough sell at the best of times, let alone during an age of austerity. Huhne insists he can pull off the trick of both greening the UK and keeping the costs down for George Osborne and the British consumer. "Fiscal credibility is key. But we also have to decarbonise the economy. Governments by definition do not have one objective. We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Therefore we are able to have low carbon investment and fiscal credibility. That's what we have to combine and that's what we're going to do."
Asked about the powerful civil servants in Osborne's department who are obstructing his plan of setting up a fully functioning Green Investment Bank, Huhne, the consummate coalition politician, grins: "Treasury officials' job is to be tricky."
Why is the Tesla Roadster not on the government's electric car grant list?
Is the car-maker's absence an innocent administrative error in the application process, or a more deliberate ploy?
Despite being the world's most famous electric car, there's no sign of the Tesla Roadster today on a government list of nine fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that will be eligible for a £5,000 grant from 1 January. Why? A paperwork error – or so it seems.
The Department for Transport (DfT) and Tesla told me this morning that although the company has applied for the scheme, Tesla hasn't completed its application yet (certainly not in time for the handy PR opportunity today, with coverage of the other cars on the BBC, Telegraph and elsewhere). But what's not clear is whether this was an innocent administrative error in the application process, or a more deliberate delay to avoid headlines along the lines of Taxpayers subsidise sports car". Neither the DfT nor the car-maker would shed any light on it.
The unfortunate thing is the Roadster is the only EV on the market now that meets all the technical criteria for the grant – all the others named today won't be on sale until 2011 or, in several cases, until 2012. Here's the list of anticipated on-sale dates and, crucially, the pre-grant prices:
• Mitsubishi i-MiEV – to buy from January 2011. £28,990
• smart fortwo electric drive – on lease in January 2011 (but you won't be able to buy it until 2012. Lease and on-sale price tbc
• Peugeot iOn – to lease from January 2011. £415 per month
• Nissan Leaf – to buy from March 2011. £28,350
• Tata Vista – available from March 2011, though I was unable to reach Tata to clarify if it'll be for sale or lease. Price tbc
• Citroen CZero – lease from early 2011. £415 per month
• Vauxhall Ampera – to buy from early 2012. £33,995
• Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid – to buy from early 2012. No price yet, but latest Prius is £21,929, so expect around the £27,000 mark
• Chevrolet Volt – to buy from early 2012. Price tbc
There's another interesting, if pedantic, thing about the prices. The government this morning claimed it was cutting 25% off the price of the cars:
The grant will be available to motorists across the UK from 1 January 2011, reducing the cost of eligible cars by a quarter, up to a maximum of £5,000.
But none of these cars costs £20,000 – the price they'd need to be if David Cameron were giving you a quarter off the price.
In fact, the cheapest EV under the scheme, so far as I can see, is the Leaf at £28,350. Knocking £5,000 off that is a 17.6% saving, not 25%. Admittedly, a 7.4% slip might seem like small beer, but not when you're talking about tens of thousands of pounds in a highly competitively priced market.
These oddities and niggles aside, 2011's looking pretty bright for electric cars, thanks to the grant and number of new models landing in the UK. The only way is up, after all – just 55 EVs were sold in 2009.
Despite being the world's most famous electric car, there's no sign of the Tesla Roadster today on a government list of nine fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that will be eligible for a £5,000 grant from 1 January. Why? A paperwork error – or so it seems.
The Department for Transport (DfT) and Tesla told me this morning that although the company has applied for the scheme, Tesla hasn't completed its application yet (certainly not in time for the handy PR opportunity today, with coverage of the other cars on the BBC, Telegraph and elsewhere). But what's not clear is whether this was an innocent administrative error in the application process, or a more deliberate delay to avoid headlines along the lines of Taxpayers subsidise sports car". Neither the DfT nor the car-maker would shed any light on it.
The unfortunate thing is the Roadster is the only EV on the market now that meets all the technical criteria for the grant – all the others named today won't be on sale until 2011 or, in several cases, until 2012. Here's the list of anticipated on-sale dates and, crucially, the pre-grant prices:
• Mitsubishi i-MiEV – to buy from January 2011. £28,990
• smart fortwo electric drive – on lease in January 2011 (but you won't be able to buy it until 2012. Lease and on-sale price tbc
• Peugeot iOn – to lease from January 2011. £415 per month
• Nissan Leaf – to buy from March 2011. £28,350
• Tata Vista – available from March 2011, though I was unable to reach Tata to clarify if it'll be for sale or lease. Price tbc
• Citroen CZero – lease from early 2011. £415 per month
• Vauxhall Ampera – to buy from early 2012. £33,995
• Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid – to buy from early 2012. No price yet, but latest Prius is £21,929, so expect around the £27,000 mark
• Chevrolet Volt – to buy from early 2012. Price tbc
There's another interesting, if pedantic, thing about the prices. The government this morning claimed it was cutting 25% off the price of the cars:
The grant will be available to motorists across the UK from 1 January 2011, reducing the cost of eligible cars by a quarter, up to a maximum of £5,000.
But none of these cars costs £20,000 – the price they'd need to be if David Cameron were giving you a quarter off the price.
In fact, the cheapest EV under the scheme, so far as I can see, is the Leaf at £28,350. Knocking £5,000 off that is a 17.6% saving, not 25%. Admittedly, a 7.4% slip might seem like small beer, but not when you're talking about tens of thousands of pounds in a highly competitively priced market.
These oddities and niggles aside, 2011's looking pretty bright for electric cars, thanks to the grant and number of new models landing in the UK. The only way is up, after all – just 55 EVs were sold in 2009.