Earth Equity News

2009-11-16T11:01:00.000-08:00

Obama and Other World Leaders Agree on Interim Goal for Copenhagen. By John M. Broder, NYTimes, November 16, 2009. "This weekend in Singapore, President Obama was forced to acknowledge that a comprehensive climate deal was beyond reach this year. Instead, he and other world leaders agreed that they would work toward a more modest interim agreement with a promise to renew work toward a binding treaty next year... Mr. Obama expressed support on Sunday for a proposal from Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark to pursue a two-step process at the Copenhagen conference. Under the plan, the 192 nations convening in the Danish capital would formulate a nonbinding political agreement calling for reductions in global warming emissions and aid for developing nations to adapt to a changing climate. The group would also promise to work to put together a binding global pact in 2010, complete with firm emissions targets, enforcement mechanisms and specific dollar amounts to aid poorer nations. 'We must in the coming weeks focus on what is possible and not let ourselves be distracted by what is not possible,' Mr. Rasmussen said in Singapore, making clear he would prefer to lock in the progress that has been made to date and not postpone action until countries are prepared to accept legally-binding commitments. Although many read the compromise as a sign that the Copenhagen talks were doomed to produce at best a weak agreement, Yvo de Boer, the United Nations official managing the climate negotiations, said the statements out of the Singapore meeting did not limit his ambitions. 'Copenhagen can and must deliver clarity on emission reduction targets and the finance to kick start rapid action,' Mr. de Boer said. 'I have seen nothing that would change my view on that.'"

2009-11-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

Asia Pacific Leaders Back Down, But Brazil Steps Up to the Plate. By David Fogarty, Reuters, November 14, 2009. "Asia Pacific leaders backed away on Saturday from supporting a global halving of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, even as Brazil pledged deep cuts of its own over the next decade. An initial draft leaders' statement from an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore had said that global emissions will need to ... be reduced to 50% below 1990 levels by 2050.' But a later, watered-down version stated: 'We believe that global emissions will need to peak over the next few years, and be substantially reduced by 2050, recognizing that the timeframe for peaking will be longer in developing economies.' APEC includes the top two greenhouse gas emitters -- China and the United States -- and its meeting is the last major gathering of global decision-makers before a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in three weeks, meant to ramp up efforts to fight climate change. Its retreat may further dampen hopes that the Copenhagen meeting can yield a legally binding framework [agreement]... Brazil pledged on Friday to take its emissions back to 1990s levels by 2020 -- potentially a cut of some 20% from the 2.1 million tonnes of greenhouse gases it produced in 2005. The commitment by Latin America's biggest economy could put pressure on other nations to adopt more aggressive targets."

2009-11-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

European Environment Agency Reports Successful Compliance with Kyoto Commitments. Press Release, EEA, November 15, 2009. "A report by the European Environment Agency released on November 12 shows that the European Union and all Member States but one are on track to meet their Kyoto Protocol commitments to limit and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Whereas the Protocol requires that the EU-15 reduce average emissions during 2008-2012 to 8% below 1990 levels, the latest projections indicate that the EU-15 will go further, reaching a total reduction of more than 13% below the base year... The EEA report shows that the reductions in the period 2008-2012 will be achieved through a combination of existing and additional policies, the purchase by governments of credits from emission-reducing projects outside the EU, the trading of emission allowances by participants in the EU emission trading scheme (EU ETS) and forestry activities that absorb carbon from the atmosphere. The trading scheme primarily covers large carbon-emitting industries, which represent about 40 % of EU greenhouse gas emissions." Editor's Note: While acknowledging that this compliance is encouraging we cannot help wondering how much the reliance on offsets and trading emission credits calls into question the significance of these results.

2009-11-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

International Energy Agency: The Time for Hard Choices is Now. By Jad Mouawad, NYTimes, November 11, 2009. "As the world heads for tough negotiations over a global climate deal next month, an influential forecasting agency said on Tuesday that current energy policies were not sustainable, and that a vast transformation of energy use was required to fend off the worst consequences of global warming. In the absence of a global deal to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for climate change, energy consumption will soar over the next decades. This would result in a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, according to the International Energy Agency, an adviser to industrialized nations that is based in Paris... The warning was contained in the annual World Energy Outlook [PDF, 62 pp excerpt], a 698-page publication that focuses this year on policies needed to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide... The cost of reducing carbon emissions -- through energy efficiency, more investments in renewable power, electric vehicles, expansion of nuclear power, and building carbon capture and storage technology for coal-burning power plants -- would be high. But for each year of delay in an agreement, the world will eventually have to spend an additional $500 billion to cut emissions, the agency said."

2009-11-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

Climate Bill Unlikely This Year or Next. By John Harwood, NYTimes, November 9, 2009. "Congress is unlikely, this year or next, to establish the 'cap and trade' system for curbing carbon emissions that Mr. Obama and party leaders seek. Nor are world leaders at a climate conference in Copenhagen next month likely to strike a concrete deal to limit emissions in the name of curbing global warming. The Democrats' challenge, then, is to make enough progress to avoid defeat in the near term and achieve their priorities in the long term. Though advocates insist that transforming energy policy will bring economic and environmental benefits alike, rising joblessness has amplified attacks from critics who deride Mr. Obama's energy policy as a big-government 'cap and tax' plan... Prospects for an energy bill capping carbon emissions appear shaky even next year... The House-passed energy bill called for a 17% reduction, while also limiting the EPA's regulatory authority to curb emissions. Some environmental advocates said such concessions -- and more that might be needed to win a Senate vote -- might prompt the White House to abandon legislation altogether and simply use its regulatory power."

2009-11-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

Memo to Sen. Kerry: Climate Science Includes Economics. By James Handley, CarbonTaxCenter, November 12, 2009. "U.S. climate activists are gleeful at Sen. John Kerry's demolition of a sometime climate skeptic [Ken Green, a resident scholar for the corporate-financed American Enterprise Institute] at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday... The interchange, summarized in a 6½-minute video... showcases Sen. Kerry's skill as a cross-examiner and reveals just how flimsy and muddled the case questioning the climate crisis really is. Lost in the euphoria, however, is evidence of the Senator's own confusion -- not on the need to act to avert climate catastrophe, but on the workings of competing means of pricing carbon emissions... In an earlier part of this week's hearing, Sen. Kerry repeated a point he made in an August 4 Finance Committee hearing on Climate Change Legislation: Allowance and Revenue Distribution: a carbon tax wouldn't reduce emissions... In the August hearing, Sen. Kerry questioned whether American businesses and households would actually respond to higher fuel and energy prices... He had evidently forgotten what happened during the summer of 2008 when gasoline hit $4/gallon: traffic congestion eased, carpools, buses and trains filled up, and SUV sales tumbled. And that was only the short-term effect of a price spike; a long-term, predictable carbon emissions price increase would allow sound business planning and create incentives for long-term investment in energy efficiency and low-carbon alternatives. But his ongoing misunderstanding of the workings of carbon pricing is almost as shocking as the AEI witness's misrepresentation this week of climate science. It's past time for both sides to get it right: The consequences of unmitigated climate change will be grave, whereas clear, simple, predictable carbon pricing is essential to catalyzing the solutions."

2009-11-16T10:51:00.000-08:00

Consumer Advocates Missing from Climate Bill Witness List. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, November 12, 2009. "A total of 33 people from a spectrum of energy companies and interests have appeared at three hearings before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and two before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. There were 25 witnesses from schools or think tanks, 25 from government, 15 from non-energy companies and 13 from environmental groups, according to the tally [PDF, 8 pp] from a consumer and environmental coalition. Consumer groups had two witnesses, said the alliance of groups, which wants consumers to have a louder voice in how new climate and energy policy is formulated. The coalition includes AARP, Consumer Federation of America, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and several others. It does not have a formal name. The alliance that issued the witness tally wants climate legislation, but it said that the current bill from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) does not pick the best option for ensuring that a carbon cap does not pinch consumers. The alliance backs a climate policy that would cap carbon emissions, auction all carbon emissions permits and return the proceeds to consumers via a rebate or revolving trust, a system known as cap and dividend." See Analysis of S.1733, The Kerry-Boxer Climate Bill (PDF 12 pp), an October 29 critique by a similar collations of climate advocates."

2009-11-16T10:49:00.000-08:00

Oil Companies Lubricate Access to Senate Finance Committee Members. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, November 10, 2009. "Oil and gas companies and electric utilities over the past two decades have poured $8 million into the campaign coffers of lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee who could now look to shape climate legislation... The Finance Committee has jurisdiction over much of the structure of a cap-and-trade program including how much companies will be able to bank emissions permits in one year and use in another, and whether free permits given to companies could be turned into a kind of security that could be bundled and sold like mortgages, said Kenneth Green, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute... Of all those on the Finance Committee, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) has received the most money from companies and trade groups with an interest in climate legislation in this campaign cycle. A third-term senator who this summer became chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, Lincoln is one of five committee members up for re-election. A moderate Democrat, she is also considered a key swing vote on the climate bill. For the 2010 campaign, Lincoln has taken in $195,796 from 72 different energy interests. In comparison, she has received $242,250 from companies and groups with stakes in health care legislation -- another major issue that goes through the Finance panel."

2009-11-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Boxer and Inhofe: Antagonists and Friends. By Lisa Lerer, Politico, November 10, 2009. "Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer and ranking GOP member Jim Inhofe traded fierce fire last week as their committee battled over whether to move forward with a climate change bill. But behind closed doors, the California liberal and the Oklahoma conservative say they prefer exchanging global warming gag gifts more than partisan jabs... 'We are really very good friends,' said Boxer. 'It's a good working relationship we have. People are very surprised about it.' Publicly, the two seem like anything but best buddies as they wrangle over the science of global warming in a fiercely partisan policy feud that has pushed their committee to the outskirts of the climate debate... Former aides speculate that the two are so friendly because both realize that the public sparring helps their political careers."

2009-11-16T10:44:00.000-08:00

EPA Orders Employees Critical of Cap-and-Trade to Remove Video from Web. Press Release, PEER.org, November 9, 2009. "EPA has ordered two of its attorneys to remove a video they posted on YouTube about problems with climate change legislation backed by the Obama administration or face 'disciplinary action,' according to documents released on November 9 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The couple had received clearance for posting the video but EPA took issue with its content following publication of an op-ed piece by the two in The Washington Post on October 31. The video, entitled The Huge Mistake, is by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, two [California] EPA enforcement attorneys speaking as private citizens. The video explains why the cap & trade plan endorsed by President Obama will not accomplish its goals, let alone effectively curb climate change... Williams and Zabel, who are married to each other, go to great lengths in the video and other writings to provide disclaimers affirming that their views are personal and do not represent the agency. However, EPA now objects to them even referring to their on-the-job experience as the basis for their views... Read the EPA directive to remove the video... Watch the censored video... See their Washington Post op-ed... View Williams and Zabel's more detailed critique of cap & trade."

2009-11-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

Central and Eastern European 'Hot Air' Carbon Credits Continue to Undermine E.U. Cap-and-Trade Effectiveness. By Paul Voosen, Greenwire, November 9, 2009. "A surplus of U.N. carbon emission credits piling up across Central and Eastern Europe is threatening to destabilize nascent carbon markets across the world and dampen efforts to curb global warming, market... Already this year, sales of emission credits from countries like the Czech Republic, Latvia and most notably Ukraine have caused the price of a ton of carbon in Europe's cap-and-trade system to plunge by more than a euro, a significant drop, said Kevin James, the vice president of carbon finance at Climate Change Capital. To date, some 147 million tons of the credits -- known in U.N. legalese as assigned amount units and in policy circles as 'hot air'... Ukraine alone is estimated to be in negotiations to sell an additional 450 million tons to Japanese firms... 'It's a hot potato that no one wants to touch,' said Peter Zapfel, an official at the environment directorate of the European Commission... Credits are building up largely thanks to the economic malaise that afflicted Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The rapid decline and deindustrialization of post-communist countries means they won't come close to using the amount of emission credits granted to them by the United Nations' previous round of climate talks last decade. Because of the gap between prediction and reality, these countries are expected to have a stockpile of 6.5 billion tons of CO2 credits by 2013, mostly held by Russia and Ukraine. For comparison, the United States emitted a total of some 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2007... The looming conflict over the excess emissions is a prime example of how flawed policies, bad data and optimistic growth projections can undermine government-created trading."

2009-11-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

Top U.K. Travel Agency Drops Carbon Offsetting. By Jerome Taylor, London Independent, November 7, 2009. "One of Britain's leading ethical travel operators has launched a scathing attack on the carbon offset industry and has decided to stop offering offsets to its customers as a way of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Justin Francis, the founder of www.responsibletravel.com, said he had decided to abandon offsets because he believes they have become a 'medieval pardon that allows people to continue polluting.' In 2002 his company became one of the first British travel operators to begin offering customers the opportunity to buy into an offsetting scheme. By paying money to a third party operator that ran carbon-reducing projects in the developing world, holidaymakers could jump on board flights supposedly happy in the knowledge that any carbon dioxide released during their journey would eventually be reduced by the equivalent amount somewhere else... 'Carbon offsetting is an ingenious way to avoid genuinely reducing your carbon emissions,' he said. 'It's a very attractive idea -- that you can go on living exactly as you did before when there's a magic pill or medieval pardon out there that allows people to continue polluting.' As some of the top polluters, the aviation and travel industries have been keen to promote carbon offsetting to their customers."

2009-11-16T10:39:00.000-08:00

EPA Endangerment Finding Sent to White House for Review, In Preparation for Climate Bill Alternative. By Tom Doggett, Reuters, November 9, 2009. "EPA has sent its final proposal on whether CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health and welfare to the White House for review, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Reuters on November 9. The EPA's final finding, if it follows the agency's earlier assessment and is approved by the Office of Management and Budget, would allow the EPA to issue rules later to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, even if Congress fails to pass legislation to cut U.S. emissions of the heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming... Jackson said the OMB has up to 90 days to review the proposal, but the EPA would like a quicker timetable... Along with its final endangerment finding, the EPA also sent to OMB the agency's final finding on whether cars and trucks 'cause or contribute to that pollution,' Jackson said. Such a finding would allow the federal government to regulate tailpipe emissions by increasing vehicle mileage requirement. Jackson said the government is facing a 'hard deadline' of next March to let automakers know of any required increases in fuel economy standards that would affect vehicles built for the 2012 model year."

2009-11-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

New Army Corps Policy Forces Project Designers to Consider Rising Seas. By Taryn Luntz, Greenwire, November 11, 2009. "The Army Corps of Engineers must consider the effects of climate change as it draws up plans for flood control, navigation and other water projects under a new agency policy... Experts said the policy signals a shift in the culture of corps leaders, some of whom rose in the ranks during a time of growing awareness about rising seas. 'The people who had just joined this corps when we were pushing this idea, 25 years later, they're now the bosses,' said Jim Titus, a U.S. EPA researcher who specialized in sea-level rise. Titus last month privately published a study in the journal Environmental Research Letters that showed 60% of coastal lowlands along the Atlantic Coast are likely to be developed in the next century and less than 10% of that area is set aside for conservation. 'To ignore rising sea level in the design of civil works would be like ignoring the health effects of smoking a cigarette,' Titus said. 'We've gotten to that point.'"

2009-11-16T10:34:00.000-08:00

White House Recommends Creating National Oceans Council, But Shuns NOAA. By Les Blumenthal, McClatchy, November 8, 2009. "Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have absorbed 525 billion tons of carbon dioxide. They're now absorbing about 22 million tons of carbon dioxide a day... More than 60% of the nation's coastal rivers and bays are moderately to severely degraded by nutrient runoff from products such as fertilizer, creating algae blooms that affect the kelp beds and grasses that are nurseries for many species of fish... The danger signals are everywhere, some related to climate change and greenhouse gases and others not... As the grim news mounts, a storm is brewing in Washington, D.C., over who should oversee oceans policies. A White House task force has recommended creating a National Ocean Council that would develop and implement national ocean policy and include the secretaries of state, defense, agriculture, interior, health and human services, labor, commerce, transportation and homeland security. It also would include the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, the administrators of NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Plus the president's advisers on national security. homeland security, domestic policy and economic policy. The chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy would head the council.

"However, NOAA, the nation's primary ocean agency, which includes the National Ocean Service, the nation's premier science agency for oceans and coasts; the National Marine Fisheries Service, which manages living marine resources; the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which studies climate, weather and air quality; and the National Weather Service -- is missing from the task force's list. 'I am mystified why NOAA has been exempted,' said Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the top Republican on the subcommittee. 'It was a surprise,' Sen. Maria Cantwell, D- Wash., said in an interview. 'I didn't know it would be this sensitive.' Cantwell chairs the oceans subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Her panel held a hearing on the issue in early November."

2009-11-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

EPA's Chief Air Quality Regulator Appears Ready for a Good Fight. By Robin Bravender, Greenwire, November 13, 2009. "U.S. EPA air chief Gina McCarthy has a thick Boston accent, a shock of cropped white hair and a penchant for a good fight... That is lucky for McCarthy, 55, whose job as the nation's top air regulator has her in what may be the world's hottest spot: the center of a political free-for-all over climate regulation and other air pollution policies. As President Obama's nominee for the air office post, McCarthy got a whiff of how contentious her new job could be before she was even confirmed by the Senate. Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming stalled the vote on her confirmation for nearly a month last spring to protest EPA's movement toward using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases... McCarthy quickly made up for lost time when she finally moved in June into her fifth-floor office at EPA headquarters, the Ariel Rios Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. McCarthy and her staff quickly rolled out several climate policies in response to the Supreme Court's 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision, which gave the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants. Environmentalists have hailed the proposals, which they say were long overdue, while conservative lawmakers and many industry groups have accused EPA of attempting to impose new regulations that would cripple a struggling economy. But McCarthy, a veteran regulator and a pioneer in a Northeastern regional program to curb global warming emissions, has taken criticism and praise in stride."

2009-11-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

Mounting Criticism for Fast-Tracking Solar Thermal Projects. By Scott Streater, Greenwire, November 12, 2009. "The federal government's determination that a 400-megawatt solar thermal power plant will not cause significant harm to a pristine strip of the Mojave Desert is a victory for those who want to place dozens of solar arrays on federal land in Southern California. But a closer look at a federal draft environmental impact statement released last week reveals that even with extensive mitigation, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project would destroy rare plants and permanently alter prized views from the nearby Mojave National Preserve. It would also annually consume an estimated 32 million gallons of groundwater in a region where water is scarce. Such findings concern environmentalists who are almost certain to challenge the project. They also add to mounting criticism that the Obama administration is rushing to permit utility-scale renewable energy projects without considering the projects' effects on pristine public lands and the rare plants and animals that inhabit them."

2009-11-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

East Coast Advocates of Offshore Wind Seek to Fast-Track Federal Permitting. By Evan Lehmann, Greenwire, November 9, 2009. "The United States has yet to plant its first turbines in the seafloor, while Europe widens its lead, adding 1-megawatt every day on average, according to its industry group. Europe's offshore winds now produce a total of 1,471 megawatts, the amount of electricity produced by a very large coal-fired power plant... Offshore advocates hope the United States won't repeat its mistakes of three decades ago, when it watched Europe overtake it as the onshore turbine-making headquarters of the world. To make a fast push toward cornering the offshore market, the country needs to establish a nationwide requirement on utilities that makes them use more renewable energy, several industry and government experts said. That would turn eyes toward the East Coast, where land-based wind farms are hard to site, but where strong offshore winds are blowing near big cities that could use the electricity... Nationwide, the United States has seen its onshore turbine production increase twelvefold since 2005, rising from $450 million in components, then to $5.6 billion at the end of last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The group notes that 'we are in a foot race to build up a wind turbine manufacturing base here in this country'... General Electric Co., a major maker of onshore turbines, believes the 'focus for offshore activity will continue to be in Europe,' at least in the near term, according to a spokesman, Howard Masto. 'The U.S. is beginning to talk more seriously about offshore wind, but we feel that offshore projects here are still some years away.'

"Representatives from Coastal states in the East... are having discussions with the U.S. Interior Department, which approves seabed leases, about shortening the long line of regulatory hurdles that developers need to clear before they can begin construction. They believe Interior Secretary Ken Salazar might help them convince all the federal agencies involved in offshore to work in cooperation to reduce overlapping requirements for environmental impact statements and other requirements. 'This is a need to bring together all the federal agencies with the states to lay out a rational pathway for review of the projects,' said Mark Sinclair, executive director of the Clean Energy Group, which is leading the effort. 'The justification for that is the Cape Wind project. That's a clear example of where there was no coordination. We should use the Cape Wind project as Exhibit A as what not to do.'"

2009-11-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

Brazilian Wind Power Gets a Huge Boost. By Robert Walzer, NYTimes, November 9, 2009. "On Dec. 14, the Brazilian government conducts its first wind-only energy auction. The bidding is expected to lead to the construction of two gigawatts of wind production with an investment of about $6 billion over the next two years. The auction has attracted a number of international players, including the local units of Energias de Portugal, Electricité de France, Spain's Iberdrola, EnerFin of the United States and several Brazilian companies, among others. Interest has been so great, in fact, that the Ministry of Mines and Energy, which is conducting the auction, postponed it by three weeks to allow extra time to evaluate the preliminary bids... Industry and the government had anticipated proposals for 4.5 gigawatts to 6 gigawatts of projects, but 'we came to the astonishing number of 13.3 gigawatts' from 441 proposals, said Pedro Perrelli, the executive director of ABEEólica, the Brazilian Wind Energy Association... Within days, the government plans to release the auction's technical manual, allowing participants to refine their bids... The winners will get a 20-year power-purchase agreement from the state. Brazil counts on hydroelectricity for more than three-quarters of its electricity, but authorities are pushing biomass and wind as primary alternatives. Wind energy's greatest potential in Brazil is during the dry season, so it is considered a hedge against low rainfall and the geographical spread of existing hydro resources. 'In Brazil, wind is very complimentary to hydro,' said João Carlos Mello, the chief executive of Andrade & Canellas, an energy consulting firm advising some bidders in the wind-power auction."

2009-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

Toxic Metal: An Issue for Ultrathin PV Panels. By James Kanter, NYTimes, November 9, 2009. "The rapid growth of FirstSolar [based in Tempe, Arizona] is the result of its focus on ultrathin photovoltaic panels that are more versatile than conventional crystalline models. The technology has helped displace the view that solar power could never become an affordable or realistic way of lowering emissions on a large scale. But these new panels contain a compound of cadmium, an extremely toxic metal already banned from most products in Europe. The compound is made with the element tellurium to create cadmium telluride, which enables the conversion of light to electricity... First Solar is the world's largest maker of such panels, and they are its sole product, and that makes the company more vulnerable than many of its competitors to a new effort to tighten up laws on hazardous chemicals in Europe... The European Photovoltaic Industry Association [EPIA], an industry organization... warned that a 'young, growing industry' still striving 'to reach competitiveness' should not be subject to the hazardous waste rules."

2009-11-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

Wave Power Project Set to Start Construction in Australia. By Victoria Ryan, Reuters, November 6, 2009. "Renewable energy firm Ocean Power Technologies has won a A$66.5 million ($61 million) grant from the Australian government for a project set to be one of the first to generate power from waves on a utility scale... Work on the 19 megawatt project, enough to power 10,000 homes, was expected to begin by the second quarter of 2010. The company uses buoys floating up and down to drive an electrical generator, with the power generated being transmitted onshore via an underwater cable. The project is off the coast of Victoria is being carried out in conjunction with Leighton Contractors, a unit of Australian mining contractor Leighton Holdings."

2009-11-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

Study Calls for More Government Help for Low Emission Transportation Technology. By Katie Howell, Greenwire, November 12, 2009. "Several low-emission technologies have the potential to transform the transportation sector within five years if policymakers and regulators can help clear hurdles to commercial markets, according to a new report [Betting on Science, PDF, 39 pp]. The report, released Tuesday by the consulting firm Accenture, identifies 12 technologies -- including algae-based biofuels, next-generation internal combustion engines and electrification -- that it considers most likely to quickly transform the fuels sector. But those technologies will need help, the report says... The report recommends that policymakers use mandates, tax incentives and direct investment to help the technologies develop. Also needed, the report says, are new policies for intellectual property, synthetic biology, battery technology, and the relationship between energy and water in biofuel production."

2009-11-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

Carpooling is Effective, But Not Popular. By Jenny Mandell, ClimateWire, November 10, 2009. "We all know carpooling is good for the Earth. So highway departments build high-occupancy vehicle lanes and companies offer prime parking spaces for employees who share rides. But carpooling is unlikely to save the environment. It's too hard. So say scientists who have studied how people confront environmental and energy challenges. Carpooling, they say, has low 'plasticity' -- that is, people are unwilling to do it -- so its 'reasonably achievable emissions reductions' are low, as well... Mike Vandenbergh, director of Vanderbilt University's Climate Change Research Network. 'A real value is in looking not just at potential emissions reductions, but also at plasticity. Because otherwise, you'll be frustrated.' Carpooling, it turns out, is frustrating. Vandenbergh was part of a research team that examined 17 environment-saving behaviors, finding carpooling the second most effective in potential energy savings but dead last in potential consumer uptake. Their paper [PDF, 11 pp] was published last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

2009-11-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

World Bank Issues Study on Energy Intensity. By John Collins Rudolf, NYTimes, November 6, 2009. "'Emissions intensity' -- the amount of atmospheric carbon generated from fossil fuel use per unit of gross domestic product -- fell globally in all but two years between 1994 and 2006, according to a World Bank study [Changes in CO2 Emissions from Energy Use, PDF, 100 pp] released earlier this week. But emissions reductions in individual countries presented a mixed picture, according to Masami Kojima, the lead energy specialist with the World Bank, and one of the authors of the study, which highlights the challenge of de-coupling emissions from economic growth... A handful of countries, including Denmark and Germany, drastically reduced emissions, both over all and in relation to economic growth. The study did not analyze the specific policies within each country that led to changes in emissions, but Warren Evans, the director of the World Bank's environment department, said that countries that succeeded in reducing emissions while still expanding their economies should be examined closely by other nations during upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen."

2009-11-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

Warren Buffet Bets Big on Coal. By Bradford Plumer, New Republic, November 3, 2009. "One of the big business stories this month that Warren Buffett is planning to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which boasts one of the largest freight-rail networks in the country. The BNSF railway serves a lot of coal fields in the West, including Wyoming's vast Powder River Basin, and hauls enough coal on its routes to supply about 10 percent of the electricity in the United States. So Buffett's essentially betting that coal's going to remain a major part of the U.S. energy mix for quite some time, even as the country moves to cut carbon emissions. (Via e-mail, Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch points out that Buffett also owns MidAmerican Energy, a large Western utility that owns 11 coal-fired plants and has fought hard against caps on carbon emissions.) Is it crazy to bet on coal in the face of looming climate legislation? Eh, not really. As a new Greenpeace report points out, the House climate bill actually does quite a bit to ensure that coal has a bright future. There's $10 billion for research into capturing carbon emissions from coal-fired plants, plus billions more for deployment. And the bill exempted many existing plants from new pollution standards, which will enable utilities to keep some of their older, dirtier plants chugging along for years to come. Environmentalists have been lobbying to change some of these provisions in the Senate, but Buffett seems awfully confident that won't happen."