Rookie Solar power company Clarian Technologies has unveiled a true solar appliance for residential use. Its most exciting attribute is its plug-and-play application: Just plug the product into an exterior outlet and start collecting solar power for electricity inside your home.
Clarian Technologies’ base model, Sunfish, will cost $799; the largest product will run about $4,000. Compare these figures to a typical roof-mounted system, which costs a minimum of $10,000 and rises steeply from there.
Of course, you get what you pay for. With the largest Sunfish, a homeowner could expect to generate about 150 kWh per month, compared to the 920 kWh of electricity that a typical homeowner uses per month. But for $4,000, that's still a nice dent in your energy usage and, consequently, your energy bill. (profilalouminio)
Monday, 23 August 2010
Brazilian Biofuels Run into EU Obstacles
By Yans Felippe Geckler*
Sugarcane plantation in Brazil
Credit:Courtesy EMBRAPA
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 22, 2010 (Tierramérica) - Brazil has begun a counterattack on the European Union's measures for certifying crop-based fuels, which could lead to import barriers for this energy source coming from the South American giant.
Brazil is the world's leading producer of sugarcane ethanol.
The EU's certification requirements for ethanol and biodiesel are intended to ensure that their production and use represent a substantial reduction in emissions of greenhouse-effect gases, as compared to fossil fuels, and that they do not come from the encroachment of rainforests, wetlands or protected areas.
These requirements are part of the implementation of the bloc's Renewable Energy Directive, which will enter into force in December 2010.
But "to associate the production of biofuels with the deforestation of the Amazon shows a lack of knowledge about the Brazilian reality, a protectionist move without scientific basis," Robert Michael Boddey, an expert from the Brazilian government's agricultural research agency EMBRAPA, said in a Tierramérica interview.
The Europeans must understand that Brazil is not the Netherlands, Belgium or Portugal. "What we have in excess here is land," he explained, "and although the cane fields are multiplying, and some crops have had to move to other areas, it doesn't mean that deforestation is going to increase."
The expansion of sugarcane production, the raw material for fuel alcohol (ethanol), is occurring in three states outside the Amazon: in Goias in central Brazil, Mato Grosso do Sul in the southwest, and São Paulo in the southeast, where cane fields are taking over pastureland.
"In some regions of Brazil, there is one cow per space the size of Maracaná Stadium (in Rio de Janeiro). We could put four more cows in that same space," Boddey said.
"That way, we could have four Maracanás more for the cane fields. Imagine if we were to do that with 1,000 cows," he said. The Europeans "don't understand these proportions."
The proof is that the pace of Amazon deforestation has been slowing in Brazil since 2005, he said.
Cid Caldas, the general coordinator for sugar and alcohol at Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, told Tierramérica that sugarcane plantations are permitted only on eight percent of Brazilian territory.
The rest of the territory, which includes "active vegetation" ecosystems like the Amazon, in the north, and the Pantanal wetlands, in the west, is protected, he said.
In the view of environmentalist Marcel Gomes, it is reasonable to criticise the different consequences that biofuels have for small and large farmers alike.
"When sugarcane is extended to an auspicious region, those who once produced various types of crops are obligated to grow sugarcane or soybeans, the raw materials for biofuels," said Gomes, coordinator of Repórter Brasil, a social journalism organisation that tracks issues related to slave labour and biofuels.
That change "does not affect the country's food security, but it does affect the small farmer who made a living from those fruits and their sales."
Rogério Rocco, a legislative candidate from the Green Party in October's elections and former superintendent of the governmental Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources, believes the country should remember its past negative experiences with monoculture.
"The crop monoculture of coffee and sugarcane devastated the Atlantic Forest (along the Brazilian coast). Today only eight percent of that original vegetation remains," Rocco told Tierramérica.
With the aim of limiting those risks, the government is carrying out an incentive programme worth 2 billion dollars to promote agricultural development that -- among other objectives -- will make use of some 15 million hectares of degraded pastureland over the next 10 years.
Another project for the same period seeks to expand the rotation system that alternates crops and cattle to four million hectares.
In addition, EMBRAPA developed a system for climate zoning in order to determine which areas are appropriate for which crops, providing information to the 26 Brazilian states on their different climates and seasonal changes, as well as the composition of their soils.
With that map, farmers can invest and cultivate what is best adapted to an area's characteristics.
Gomes recognises that Brazil's biofuels cannot be blamed for the 2007-2008 global food shortage -- just prior to the international economic crisis.
The tortilla -- the thin disk of unleavened bread made from maize, a basic food in Mexico and Central America, and widely consumed in the United States -- saw a price hike that resulted from a sharp increase in petroleum prices.
The high oil prices shifted the energy demand towards maize-based ethanol, heavily subsidised in the United States -- in turn driving up maize prices.
"Automatically, the people who relied on maize for food suffered," Gomes said.
The activist said the United States and EU hide their protectionism against Brazilian biofuels behind their "environmental barriers."
"In 2008, the Irish farmers alleged that Brazilian beef did not go through sanitary controls before being exported," in order to prevent entry of a product that had comparative advantages, he said.
Furthermore, he said, "there could be fear that the technology of Brazilian biofuels, of very high calibre, could be exported to Africa or Mexico, and threaten both European and U.S. farmers."
Caldas pointed out that in 2008 Brazil was blamed for the rising international food prices as a result of its "expansion" of bio-ethanol.
The U.S. financial crisis erupted in October of that year, international oil prices fell, and the matter was forgotten.
By 2017, the Brazilian government wants to end the practice of burning off the sugarcane stubble in fields of more than 150 hectares, which pollutes the air and sickens workers during the harvest.
That move would reduce Brazil's carbon dioxide emissions by six million tonnes annually -- equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced by 2.2 million vehicles.
(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.) (END)
Send your comments to the editor
Sugarcane plantation in Brazil
Credit:Courtesy EMBRAPA
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 22, 2010 (Tierramérica) - Brazil has begun a counterattack on the European Union's measures for certifying crop-based fuels, which could lead to import barriers for this energy source coming from the South American giant.
Brazil is the world's leading producer of sugarcane ethanol.
The EU's certification requirements for ethanol and biodiesel are intended to ensure that their production and use represent a substantial reduction in emissions of greenhouse-effect gases, as compared to fossil fuels, and that they do not come from the encroachment of rainforests, wetlands or protected areas.
These requirements are part of the implementation of the bloc's Renewable Energy Directive, which will enter into force in December 2010.
But "to associate the production of biofuels with the deforestation of the Amazon shows a lack of knowledge about the Brazilian reality, a protectionist move without scientific basis," Robert Michael Boddey, an expert from the Brazilian government's agricultural research agency EMBRAPA, said in a Tierramérica interview.
The Europeans must understand that Brazil is not the Netherlands, Belgium or Portugal. "What we have in excess here is land," he explained, "and although the cane fields are multiplying, and some crops have had to move to other areas, it doesn't mean that deforestation is going to increase."
The expansion of sugarcane production, the raw material for fuel alcohol (ethanol), is occurring in three states outside the Amazon: in Goias in central Brazil, Mato Grosso do Sul in the southwest, and São Paulo in the southeast, where cane fields are taking over pastureland.
"In some regions of Brazil, there is one cow per space the size of Maracaná Stadium (in Rio de Janeiro). We could put four more cows in that same space," Boddey said.
"That way, we could have four Maracanás more for the cane fields. Imagine if we were to do that with 1,000 cows," he said. The Europeans "don't understand these proportions."
The proof is that the pace of Amazon deforestation has been slowing in Brazil since 2005, he said.
Cid Caldas, the general coordinator for sugar and alcohol at Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, told Tierramérica that sugarcane plantations are permitted only on eight percent of Brazilian territory.
The rest of the territory, which includes "active vegetation" ecosystems like the Amazon, in the north, and the Pantanal wetlands, in the west, is protected, he said.
In the view of environmentalist Marcel Gomes, it is reasonable to criticise the different consequences that biofuels have for small and large farmers alike.
"When sugarcane is extended to an auspicious region, those who once produced various types of crops are obligated to grow sugarcane or soybeans, the raw materials for biofuels," said Gomes, coordinator of Repórter Brasil, a social journalism organisation that tracks issues related to slave labour and biofuels.
That change "does not affect the country's food security, but it does affect the small farmer who made a living from those fruits and their sales."
Rogério Rocco, a legislative candidate from the Green Party in October's elections and former superintendent of the governmental Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources, believes the country should remember its past negative experiences with monoculture.
"The crop monoculture of coffee and sugarcane devastated the Atlantic Forest (along the Brazilian coast). Today only eight percent of that original vegetation remains," Rocco told Tierramérica.
With the aim of limiting those risks, the government is carrying out an incentive programme worth 2 billion dollars to promote agricultural development that -- among other objectives -- will make use of some 15 million hectares of degraded pastureland over the next 10 years.
Another project for the same period seeks to expand the rotation system that alternates crops and cattle to four million hectares.
In addition, EMBRAPA developed a system for climate zoning in order to determine which areas are appropriate for which crops, providing information to the 26 Brazilian states on their different climates and seasonal changes, as well as the composition of their soils.
With that map, farmers can invest and cultivate what is best adapted to an area's characteristics.
Gomes recognises that Brazil's biofuels cannot be blamed for the 2007-2008 global food shortage -- just prior to the international economic crisis.
The tortilla -- the thin disk of unleavened bread made from maize, a basic food in Mexico and Central America, and widely consumed in the United States -- saw a price hike that resulted from a sharp increase in petroleum prices.
The high oil prices shifted the energy demand towards maize-based ethanol, heavily subsidised in the United States -- in turn driving up maize prices.
"Automatically, the people who relied on maize for food suffered," Gomes said.
The activist said the United States and EU hide their protectionism against Brazilian biofuels behind their "environmental barriers."
"In 2008, the Irish farmers alleged that Brazilian beef did not go through sanitary controls before being exported," in order to prevent entry of a product that had comparative advantages, he said.
Furthermore, he said, "there could be fear that the technology of Brazilian biofuels, of very high calibre, could be exported to Africa or Mexico, and threaten both European and U.S. farmers."
Caldas pointed out that in 2008 Brazil was blamed for the rising international food prices as a result of its "expansion" of bio-ethanol.
The U.S. financial crisis erupted in October of that year, international oil prices fell, and the matter was forgotten.
By 2017, the Brazilian government wants to end the practice of burning off the sugarcane stubble in fields of more than 150 hectares, which pollutes the air and sickens workers during the harvest.
That move would reduce Brazil's carbon dioxide emissions by six million tonnes annually -- equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced by 2.2 million vehicles.
(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.) (END)
Send your comments to the editor
Energy Capital Partners Scores One Of 2010’s Biggest Funds.
By Shasha Dai
Defying a difficult private equity fund-raising environment, Energy Capital Partners wrapped up its latest fund, Energy Capital Partners II, at the hard cap of $4.34 billion.
This was one of the year’s largest final closings. An Onex Corp. vehicle collected $4.3 billion, while Madison Dearborn Partners raised $4.1 billion for its fund. Blackstone Group said in late July that it was nearing the finish line for its latest pool, with an expected total of $13.5 billion.
The firm began raising the fund in late 2008. LBO Wire previously reported that the fund, with a $3.5 billion target, had raised $1.8 billion as of February.
Energy Capital, of Short Hills, N.J., also has an office in San Diego. It invests in the power generation, electric transmission, midstream gas and renewable energy sectors.
Paul Parshley, head of investor relations, said Fund II has about 350 limited partners, with up to 70% being return investors. The predecessor fund wrapped up at $2.25 billion in 2006.
Fund II has already made several investments, including three gas-fired facilities in New England, a gas gathering pipeline under construction in the Barnett Shale region in Texas, an electric transmission line being developed in California and an electrical infrastructure construction business.
Park Hill Group acted as placement agent for the fund, and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal counsel.
Defying a difficult private equity fund-raising environment, Energy Capital Partners wrapped up its latest fund, Energy Capital Partners II, at the hard cap of $4.34 billion.
This was one of the year’s largest final closings. An Onex Corp. vehicle collected $4.3 billion, while Madison Dearborn Partners raised $4.1 billion for its fund. Blackstone Group said in late July that it was nearing the finish line for its latest pool, with an expected total of $13.5 billion.
The firm began raising the fund in late 2008. LBO Wire previously reported that the fund, with a $3.5 billion target, had raised $1.8 billion as of February.
Energy Capital, of Short Hills, N.J., also has an office in San Diego. It invests in the power generation, electric transmission, midstream gas and renewable energy sectors.
Paul Parshley, head of investor relations, said Fund II has about 350 limited partners, with up to 70% being return investors. The predecessor fund wrapped up at $2.25 billion in 2006.
Fund II has already made several investments, including three gas-fired facilities in New England, a gas gathering pipeline under construction in the Barnett Shale region in Texas, an electric transmission line being developed in California and an electrical infrastructure construction business.
Park Hill Group acted as placement agent for the fund, and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal counsel.
Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
Behind government dismissals of 'alarmist' fears there is growing concern over critical future energy supplies
Terry Macalister and Lionel Badal The Observer, Sunday 22 August 2010
Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fuelled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about "peak oil".
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is also refusing to hand over policy documents about "peak oil" – the point at which oil production reaches its maximum and then declines – under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, despite releasing others in which it admits "secrecy around the topic is probably not good".
Experts say they have received a letter from David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the DECC, asking for information and advice on peak oil amid a growing campaign from industrialists such as Sir Richard Branson for the government to put contingency plans in place to deal with any future crisis.
A spokeswoman for the department insisted the request from Mackay was "routine" and said there was no change of policy other than to keep the issue under review. The peak oil argument was effectively dismissed as alarmist by former energy minister Malcolm Wicks in a report to government last summer, while oil companies such as BP, which have major influence in Whitehall, take a similar line.
But documents obtained under the FoI Act seen by the Observer show that a "peak oil workshop" brought together staff from the DECC, the Bank of England and Ministry of Defence among others to discuss the issue.
A ministry note of that summit warned that "[Government] public lines on peak oil are 'not quite right'. They need to take account of climate change and put more emphasis on reducing demand and also the fact that peak oil may increase volatility in the market."
Those comments were written 12 months ago, but a letter in response to the FoI request written by DECC officials and dated 31 July 2010 says it can only release some information on what is currently under policy discussion because they are "ongoing" and "high profile" in nature.
The letter adds: "We recognise the public interest arguments in favour of disclosing this information. In particular we recognise that greater transparency makes government more open and accountable and could help provide an insight into peak oil.
"However any public interest in the disclosure of such information must be balanced with the need to ensure that ministers and advisers can discuss policy in a manner which allows for frank exchanges of views and opinions about important and sensitive issues."
Yet the note of the workshop distributed last year talks about secrecy around the topic being "probably not good", although it also suggests officials stick to the line that the "International Energy Agency is an authoritative source in this field" and stresses how the IEA believes there is sufficient reserves to meet demand till 2030 as long as investment in new reserves is maintained.
But the Paris-based organisation has come under increasing scrutiny from a growing group of critics who believe the IEA's optimism is misplaced. Last year the Guardian revealed that the IEA was also riven with dissent over the issue with senior staff members privately telling newspaper they thought the official numbers on future global oil supply were over-optimistic.
The IEA predicted in the 2009 World Energy Outlook published last November that oil demand would grow from 85m barrels a day today to 88m in 2015 and reach 105m in 2030. The organisation presumes the challenge of meeting that demand can equally be met by a mixture of higher Opec production and considerably more output from unconventional sources.
But an internal IEA source said: "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible, but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources."
The IEA has denied the claims of internal dissent and sticks by its figures. But Kjell Aleklett, a professor of physics at Uppsala University in Sweden and author of a report The Peak of the Oil Age, claims crude production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the "unrealistic" 105m projected by the IEA.
Terry Macalister and Lionel Badal The Observer, Sunday 22 August 2010
Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fuelled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about "peak oil".
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is also refusing to hand over policy documents about "peak oil" – the point at which oil production reaches its maximum and then declines – under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, despite releasing others in which it admits "secrecy around the topic is probably not good".
Experts say they have received a letter from David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the DECC, asking for information and advice on peak oil amid a growing campaign from industrialists such as Sir Richard Branson for the government to put contingency plans in place to deal with any future crisis.
A spokeswoman for the department insisted the request from Mackay was "routine" and said there was no change of policy other than to keep the issue under review. The peak oil argument was effectively dismissed as alarmist by former energy minister Malcolm Wicks in a report to government last summer, while oil companies such as BP, which have major influence in Whitehall, take a similar line.
But documents obtained under the FoI Act seen by the Observer show that a "peak oil workshop" brought together staff from the DECC, the Bank of England and Ministry of Defence among others to discuss the issue.
A ministry note of that summit warned that "[Government] public lines on peak oil are 'not quite right'. They need to take account of climate change and put more emphasis on reducing demand and also the fact that peak oil may increase volatility in the market."
Those comments were written 12 months ago, but a letter in response to the FoI request written by DECC officials and dated 31 July 2010 says it can only release some information on what is currently under policy discussion because they are "ongoing" and "high profile" in nature.
The letter adds: "We recognise the public interest arguments in favour of disclosing this information. In particular we recognise that greater transparency makes government more open and accountable and could help provide an insight into peak oil.
"However any public interest in the disclosure of such information must be balanced with the need to ensure that ministers and advisers can discuss policy in a manner which allows for frank exchanges of views and opinions about important and sensitive issues."
Yet the note of the workshop distributed last year talks about secrecy around the topic being "probably not good", although it also suggests officials stick to the line that the "International Energy Agency is an authoritative source in this field" and stresses how the IEA believes there is sufficient reserves to meet demand till 2030 as long as investment in new reserves is maintained.
But the Paris-based organisation has come under increasing scrutiny from a growing group of critics who believe the IEA's optimism is misplaced. Last year the Guardian revealed that the IEA was also riven with dissent over the issue with senior staff members privately telling newspaper they thought the official numbers on future global oil supply were over-optimistic.
The IEA predicted in the 2009 World Energy Outlook published last November that oil demand would grow from 85m barrels a day today to 88m in 2015 and reach 105m in 2030. The organisation presumes the challenge of meeting that demand can equally be met by a mixture of higher Opec production and considerably more output from unconventional sources.
But an internal IEA source said: "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible, but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources."
The IEA has denied the claims of internal dissent and sticks by its figures. But Kjell Aleklett, a professor of physics at Uppsala University in Sweden and author of a report The Peak of the Oil Age, claims crude production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the "unrealistic" 105m projected by the IEA.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
