[fuelcell-energy] Digest Number 1428
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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. U team searches for more renewable-fuel advances
From: "janson2997"
2. Arup launched 'Drivers of Change – 2006'
From: "janson2997"
3. Inglis to unveil 'H-Prize' legislation
From: "janson2997"
4. Hamburgs Senator Freytag stellt Brennstoffzellentechnik in Indien vor
From: "janson2997"
5. Erneuerbare Energie wird zur Job-Maschine
From: "janson2997"
6. Oil prices hold steady above $64 a barrel
From: "janson2997"
7. Spektrum:Spezial: Emissionshandel etc
From: "janson2997"
8. Interpreting Clean Air Laws
From: "janson2997"
9. 21st Century Fuels & ther Hydrogen Opportunity
From: "janson2997"
10. Ct: Companies To Get Incentives To Produce Their Own Power
From: "janson2997"
11. Dynamics of Vehicle and Infrastructure Rollout
From: "janson2997"
12. Tokyo Gas Evaluating FuelCell Energy's DFC(R) Products for
From: "janson2997"
13. NOAA accused of hiding truth about global warming
From: "janson2997"
14. Re: Methanol: The New Hydrogen
From: "csceadraham"
15. Oil prices move upward amid strong demand, concerns about Iran,
From: "janson2997"
16. State of Connecticut Selects Banc of America Leasing to Provide up to
From: "janson2997"
17. Green Tech Cleans Up
From: "janson2997"
18. The Once and Future Carbohydrate Economy
From: "janson2997"
19. Fusion as energy source debated
From: "janson2997"
20. Utility seeks renewable energy or certificates
From: "janson2997"
21. Blair demands green 'revolution'
From: "janson2997"
22. Re: LIPA Bond Offering Mentions Fuel Cel
From: "janson2997"
23. It's getting hot in here
From: "janson2997"
24. Hot air but no action
From: "janson2997"
25. Blair to press case for clear goals on climate change
From: "janson2997"
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:40:38 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: U team searches for more renewable-fuel advances
U team searches for more renewable-fuel advances
The researchers are looking for more applications for their reactor,
which uses ethanol to make hydrogen for power.
By Angela Gray
rototypes blowing up inside hoods, experimenting with flammable
substances and trying to turn Crisco into fuel — all in a day's work
for some University researchers.
Lanny Schmidt, regents' professor of chemical engineering and
material science, along with a team of researchers, invented a
reactor that extracts hydrogen from ethanol. The team is looking at
other renewable sources to use hydrogen for fuel.
The reactor does not burn ethanol like ordinary combustion, which
produces water and carbon dioxide. Instead of water, it makes
hydrogen gas. Scientific American magazine named the reactor one of
the top technological breakthroughs of 2004.
Having the ability to create hydrogen gas from renewable sources
limits pollutants created in the process and has the potential to
decrease dependency on fossil fuels and achieve a hydrogen economy.
Graduate student and research assistant James Salge said Schmidt has
worked on making hydrogen from methane since the 1990s.
"Our group (of 10 researchers) took on the knowledge and broadened it
to ethanol," Salge said.
Salge said the small reactor needs a small amount of heat to get
going, and once it does it sustains the reaction at 700 degrees
Celsius, or about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit.
The reaction takes 10 milliseconds, whereas most conventional
processes happen in seconds, he said.
"When reactions happen in milliseconds you can use much smaller
equipment and have applications with portable devices and smaller
stand-alone applications," Salge said.
The process has practical applications nationwide. Salge said
California is putting in a hydrogen highway offering access to
hydrogen fuels — a Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger initiative to bring
access to hydrogen fuel to the state's highways by 2010 — but by
obtaining the hydrogen from methane.
"The problem with California and other technologies is that hydrogen
is taken from fossil fuels (versus renewable resources) which produce
(carbon dioxide), which is linked to global warming," he said.
With ethanol, the carbon dioxide generated by the reaction does not
cause a net increase in the atmospheric level of the gas because the
next year's crop, corn, would reabsorb the gas to make sugar and
starch.
Salge said people are interested in ethanol because they want it as a
locally produced fuel in Minnesota.
With all of the research under way focusing on renewable energy,
Schmidt said Minnesota could convert someday to an all-ethanol state.
"Minnesota is a good spot for a hydrogen economy," Schmidt
said. "We've got the technology and the interest.
"We blend 10 percent of our gasoline with ethanol and we're trying to
get other states involved, too," he said.
During research, challenges such as working with a very flammable
substance — ethanol — and finding a stable catalyst have presented
themselves.
"We've been able to solve a lot of these problems by going back to
the literature," Salge said.
Despite these challenges, Salge said, his research has been very
rewarding.
"As a graduate student trying to get publications, we have been in a
few nice papers and had a lot of recognition," he said.
Salge has traveled the nation to speak with farmers and in March,
Schmidt traveled to Sweden to discuss the reactor.
In Minnesota, the researchers have been working on finding other
sources to create hydrogen.
"We're looking at vegetable oil, and we're trying to turn it into
hydrogen," Salge said.
The researchers, Salge said, are using the same reactor system as
with the ethanol.
Sarah Tupy, a chemical engineering sophomore, is working with the
Schmidt group.
"It is a great opportunity to do interesting and innovative
research," she said.
She said that last summer she worked with Salge on a heat-integrated
reactor.
"We built a compact reactor the size of an ear of corn that reforms
liquid ethanol to gaseous hydrogen without added heat," she said.
This summer, Tupy said, she will work on several ethanol and
vegetable oil experiments.
Schmidt said he has worked with 70 doctoral students who now are
working for oil companies.
"I'm not here to make money," he said. "We are here for research."
He said there is potential for others to make money and the success
of a hydrogen economy depends on the price of oil and gas.
"No one knows for sure, but it's all about economics," he said. "If
oil and gas prices increase, then we have to find a way to alter our
ways or we'll strangle our economy."
Despite some concerns about spoiling the agriculture, Schmidt said
that if Minnesota farmers were to turn all their corn and crops into
ethanol they still would have some left over.
He said Minnesota farmers are very efficient.
"Hydrogen is efficient, simple and cheap and nontoxic," Schmidt
said. "It's my dream that one day average homes will have hydrogen
fuel cells."
http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/03/28/67725
j2997
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:43:20 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Arup launched 'Drivers of Change – 2006'
Arup launched 'Drivers of Change – 2006'
Arup's Foresight and Innovation team, a group tasked with exploring
emerging trends and how they impact upon the business of Arup and its
clients, have published a set of 50 cards which identify and explore
the leading factors which will affect our world in the future –
factors which are known as 'drivers of change'.
The 'Drivers of Change – 2006' cards are arranged and presented
within a framework known as STEEP (organised along societal,
technological, economic, environmental and political lines), with
each card depicting a single driver of change. The cards provide a
vibrant visual record of the research that Arup has undertaken in
recent years, and are intended to be used as a tool for discussion
groups, as personal prompts for workshop events or as a 'thought for
the week'.
Arup is a global design and engineering firm and a leading creative
force in the built environment. It was founded 60 years ago by the
engineer and philosopher, Ove Arup, who introduced the concept
of 'total design', in which teams of professionals from diverse
disciplines work together on projects of exceptional quality.
Since 2003, the Foresight & Innovation team has conceptualised and
facilitated over 60 workshops worldwide – with groups as diverse as
lawyers, politicians, schoolchildren and Fortune 500 directors.
Issues around energy infrastructure are raised in the technology card
set and the question is asked: When will petroleum disappear from our
energy maps? In 2004 fuel cells began to replace batteries in some
portable electronic devices. It is predicted that hydrogen will start
being used as a back up power source in remote locations, and in
industrial and large commercial buildings over the next two to three
years. By 2008, hydrogen could power specialised fleets of vehicles
such as buses. By 2015, hydrogen-fuelled cars might be available to
the mass market. Iceland plans to become the world's first all-
hydrogen economy by 2030.
Biometric Identification and implications surrounding the loss of
identity are also examined in the technology drivers. Voice prints,
face recognition, iris scanning, and fingerprint analysis will soon
become standard methods for identifying humans. In fact the Dutch
government has already begun to use iris scanning to identify
immigrants. In the UK the government is looking to include
fingerprints on new national entitlement cards and both Acer and
Compaq have released notebook computers with built-in fingerprint
scanners for greater security.
Among the social issues identified in the set are the effects of an
ageing population. Developed countries have an ageing population,
with significant numbers in the 65+ age range. The 60+ age group will
reach one billion in number for 2020. 75 percent of this age group
lives in the developed world. The implications of this are increasing
difficulties in pension provision; an ageing workforce; a general
change in the availability of human resources; and the requirement of
more facilities for an ageing population.
Drivers of Change STEEP framework includes: Social (ageing
population, communication, education for all, fear, future
households, holistic wellness, identity, literacy, personal
productivity, population distribution), Technology (atomic
engineering, biometric identification, biomimetics, biotech society,
connected communities, energy infrastructure, preventative care,
radio frequency identification (RFID), smart dust, wearable
computing), Environment (aviation, consumption localisation,
disposable quality goods, ecological footprint, endangered species,
energy use, travel, urbanisation waste, water), Economic (airport
shopping, containerised cargo, china trade, consumer debt,
democratisation of luxury, digital currency, global trade, migration,
outsourcing, wealth gap), Political (asianization, compensation
culture, ethical investment, global governance, food legislation,
pensions, strife, surveillance society, trading blocs, the vote).
http://home.nestor.minsk.by/build/news/2006/03/2803.html
j2997
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:46:18 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Inglis to unveil 'H-Prize' legislation
Inglis to unveil 'H-Prize' legislation
JASON SPENCER, Staff Writer
U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., will unveil legislation today that
would create an "H-Prize" -- public and private dollars that would be
used to reward businesses, nonprofits or research institutions that
make breakthroughs in specific areas of hydrogen research.
The idea is to spur developments that would lead to a so-called
hydrogen economy.
In Inglis' eyes, a "grand prize" would be $100 million. Such
incentives would reflect "the transformational value of changing our
energy dependence and the political world balance by providing a
clean, abundant source of energy," the congressman said in a
statement.
"We've got a long way to go, in terms of ending this addiction to
oil," Inglis said earlier this month, following a meeting with
President Bush on energy security.
"There are a lot of things to be overcome. We need some technological
breakthroughs with hydrogen. We need some political breakthroughs
with some pretty powerful interests."
The H-Prize competition is like a science fair for the industry. In
theory, it would address the first half of Inglis' energy equation.
Shell Hydrogen President Phillip Baxter said the H-Prize is "the
manifestation of the importance of government, especially at the
federal level, in providing leadership, providing inspiration, and
providing focus, to engage the entire country -- all businesses,
academia, even folks in their garages -- to move forward and focus on
how we get to a hydrogen economy.
"How do we solve our energy dependency, our energy security needs?
It's also about the thing this country has done so well in the past:
creating whole new industries," Baxley said from Houston. "We think
that the idea of a Hydrogen Prize is an excellent additional
incentive. It adds a dimension that is really needed."
And the winner is…
The H-Prize would be awarded in three categories:
(bullet) Technological advancements in hydrogen production, storage,
distribution and use. Four prizes would be awarded here.
(bullet) The best working prototype using hydrogen technology.
(bullet) And, a grand prize for developments that meet or exceed
objectives in hydrogen production and distribution.
In December, a powerful contingent from the automotive, energy and
political worlds convened in Inglis' Washington office to brainstorm
what an H-Prize would look like.
That group -- which included representatives from Shell Hydrogen, GE
Energy, BMW, Ford Motor Co., ExxonMobil, the University of South
Carolina, DaimlerChrysler, the U.S. Department of Energy, Clemson
University and startup companies like Silicon Valley-based Ion
America -- came up with ideas besides federal cash incentives.
Among them: guaranteed purchase orders for a certain number of
products, and a commitment to supply support like convenient hydrogen
refueling stations.
The H-Prize is inspired by similar past competitive research and
development events in entrepreneurial space flight and robotics. The
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, an arm of the U.S. Defense
Department, once offered a cash prize to universities and
corporations that created the best autonomous ground vehicles that
could save lives on a battlefield, for instance.
Meanwhile, on Capital Hill…
Some federal dollars from Bush's $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel
Initiative already have worked their way into South Carolina -- to
Clemson and the Savannah River National Lab in Aiken, for instance.
An H-Prize would work in conjunction with that pot of money, which is
administered by the Energy Department.
Inglis was among 20 congressmen and women to meet with Bush and Vice
President Cheney this month to discuss the future of energy,
including hydrogen power, better batteries and solar cells.
Inglis called that meeting "a very strategic attempt to move some key
decision makers. That would not include me. There were those of us
there who have already showed our support.
"I hope there was a warming trend," Inglis said.
"It doesn't hurt to have the president of the United States asking
for help, and saying, 'We really need to do this.' And, he's a Texan.
He was in the oil and gas business. And he's got a lot of friends
still in the oil and gas business. So, for him to talk about
alternative energy shows that it must be about national security."
Jason Spencer can be reached at 562-7214 or jason.spencer@shj.com.
http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
Date=20060327&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=603270323&SectionCat=NEWS01&Template
=printart
http://tinyurl.com/kymfq
j2997
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:48:41 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Hamburgs Senator Freytag stellt Brennstoffzellentechnik in Indien vor
Hamburgs Senator Freytag stellt Brennstoffzellentechnik in Indien vor
Hamburg - Stadtentwicklungssenator Michael Freytag will Hamburgs
wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit mit Indien stärken. Der CDU-Politiker
ist einem Online-Bericht der Zeitung „Die Welt" auf Anregung des
indischen Generalkonsuls Deepak Ray zu einer einwöchigen Reise nach
Chennai (ehemals Madras), Mumbay (Bombay) und Neu-Delhi aufgebrochen.
Ziel ist es, den Indern Hamburger Wasserstoff-Technologien zu
verkaufen. Außerdem soll den im "Hamburg Wasser"
zusammengeschlossenen städtischen Unternehmen Hamburger
Stadtentwässerung (HSE) und Hamburger Wasserwerke (HWW) ein weiteres
wichtiges Auslandsgeschäft ermöglicht werden.
Neben Systemen zur Trinkwasseraufbereitung und zur Abwasserentsorgung
soll vor allem die Brennstoffzellen-Technologie aus Hamburg
vorgestellt werden. "Aufgrund der stark verunreinigten Luft in den
Großstädten hat Indien ein großes Interesse an alternativen
Antriebssystemen", so Freytag gegenüber der Zeitung. Hamburg sei als
europäischer Vorreiter beim Einsatz Wasserstoff betriebener Busse
gefragt. Zudem seien zahlreiche in Hamburg ansässige Unternehmen wie
Airbus in der Erprobung dieser Technologie engagiert.
Im Rahmen der Reise sind Treffen mit dem Staatssekretär des indischen
Bundesministeriums für Erneuerbare Energien und der
Ministerpräsidentin des Hauptstadt-Territoriums Neu-Delhi vereinbart.
Außerdem soll es dem Zeitungsbericht zufolge Gespräche mit
Repräsentanten der Wasser- und Abwassergesellschaften, mit der
indischen Auto- und Kraftwerksindustrie und der Weltbank geben.
http://www.iwr.de/re/iwr/06/03/2702.html
j2997
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Message: 5
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:50:41 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Erneuerbare Energie wird zur Job-Maschine
Erneuerbare Energie wird zur Job-Maschine
Messe: In Husum ging die "New Energy" zu Ende - sie konnte Aussteller-
und Besucherrekorde feiern. Befürworter rechnen vor, daß Sonne, Wind
oder Biomasse nicht nur ökologisch, sondern zunehmend auch ökonomisch
Sinn machen.
1 In allem steckt Energie. Das Lamm auf dem Büsumer Deich etwa könnte
die Gülle liefern, um eine Biogas-Anlage, gefüllt mit Grünschnitt,
zum Laufen zu bringen. Sonne und Wind werden längst vielfach genutzt.
1 In allem steckt Energie. Das Lamm auf dem Büsumer Deich etwa könnte
die Gülle liefern, um eine Biogas-Anlage, gefüllt mit Grünschnitt,
zum Laufen zu bringen. Sonne und Wind werden längst vielfach genutzt.
Husum - Sonne, Wind, Biomasse - die Branche der erneuerbaren Energien
brummt. Über den aktuellen Stand der Techniken und Diskussionen, über
landes-, bundes- und europaweite Pläne und Bekenntnisse, über das
Machbare und das Denkbare informierte vier Tage lang die Messe "new
energy" in Husum. Gestern ging sie zu Ende: mit neuem Aussteller- und
neuem Besucherrekord. Und mit dem Signal, daß erneuerbare Energien
sich zur Jobmaschine gemausert haben. Hinzu kommt die Tatsache, daß
sie der Forschung neue Impulse und dem Arbeitsmarkt neue Berufsfelder
beschert haben. "500 000 Arbeitsplätze bis zum Jahr 2020 sind keine
Utopie", sagt Hermann Albers vom Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energien
auf der Messe in Husum. "Damit lägen wir vor der Automobilindustrie."
Ökologische Gründe, heimische Energieträger zu nutzen, werden längst
gestützt von ökonomischen Fakten. Und spätestens seit dem jüngsten
strengen Winter und den explodierenden Preisen für fossile
Brennstoffe sind erneuerbare Energien auch für Energie-Banausen zur
interessanten Alternative geworden. Über alle Parteigrenzen geht die
Erkenntnis, daß beispielsweise mit Bioenergie eine Erfolgslawine
losgetreten werden kann.
Otto-Dietrich Steensen, Bauernverband Schleswig-Holstein: "Der
gesamte ländliche Raum profitiert von der Bioenergie, wenn neue
Arbeitsplätze geschaffen oder bestehende Arbeitsplätze gesichert
werden können. Daneben sind zusätzliche Steueraufkommen und eine
regionale Wertschöpfung nach dem Motto ,aus der Region für die
Region' als Vorteile für die Wirtschaft zu nennen."
Schleswig-Holstein solle die Führungsrolle bei der Bioenergie
anstreben, fordert auch der CDU-Wirtschaftsrat und bezieht sich dabei
auf die Vorstellungen der EU, die Energiegewinnung aus Biomasse bis
zum Jahr 2010 zu verdreifachen. "Biomasse ist als erneuerbarer
Energieträger praktisch unbegrenzt verfügbar", außerdem biologisch
und technisch innovativ, schaffe Arbeitsplätze, leiste einen Beitrag
zum Klimaschutz und vermindere die Abhängigkeit vom Rohöl.
Dies alles kann Hubert Hümme, Land- und Energiewirt aus Behlendorf im
Kreis Herzogtum Lauenburg, frohen Herzens unterschreiben. Er ist ein
neugieriger Mensch, wenn es um erneuerbare Energien geht, ein Experte
für Biogas, der die Husumer Messe gemeinsam mit Mathias Heßler
bewandert. Der 26jährige Ingenieur hat seine Diplomarbeit über Hümmes
Plan zu einer neuartigen Biogasanlage geschrieben. Bei der Forderung
des CDU-Wirtschaftsrates, Wissensdefizite in Kommunen forciert zu
beheben und die genehmigungsrechtlichen Bedingungen für
Bioenergieanlagen zu vereinfachen, wird Hümme hellhörig: Er liegt
seit Jahren mit der Gemeinde Behlendorf über Kreuz, weil einige im
Ort Anstoß an seiner existierenden Biogas-Anlage nehmen und eine
neue, die als Pilotprojekt laufen soll, ablehnen. "20 Prozent aller
geplanten Biogas-Anlagen stoßen auf solche Hindernisse", sagt
Hümme. "Billigen Strom wollen alle. Die Produktionsstätten dafür will
aber niemand in seiner Nähe wissen." Dennoch hat er das Land hinter
sich. Schleswig-Holstein plant für die fernere Zukunft, die Hälfte
aller Haushalte mit Energie aus Biomasse zu versorgen. Er hat die
Bundesregierung hinter sich, die sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, in vier
Jahren 12,5 Prozent des Strombedarfs aus erneuerbaren Energien zu
rekrutieren. Er hat auch den Biomasse-Aktionsplan der EU hinter sich,
die in neun Jahren 5,75 Prozent des Treibstoffs aus Biomasse gewinnen
will. Vom Landwirtschaftsministerium in Kiel heißt es, bis 2010
sollen in Schleswig-Holstein 20 Prozent der benötigten Energie aus
Wind und 13 Prozent - statt derzeit ein Prozent - aus Biomasse
kommen. Kiel setzt auf einen "vernünftigen Energiemix", zu dem auch
Atomstrom gehört.
"Brauchen wir nicht", brummeln Hümme und Heßler unisono. "Schleswig-
Holstein schafft deutlich mehr als 13 Prozent Energie aus Biomasse",
sagt Hümme. "Wenn wir dann noch Sonnenenergie hinzuziehen und mit
vernünftiger Isolierung Energie sparen, können wir den Bedarf decken.
Auch ohne Atomstrom, Öl oder Gas."
Während der Laie in Husum noch darüber staunt, daß die Wärme aus
Holzpellets nur halb soviel kostet wie die aus Heizöl, oder darüber,
daß Gerste und Weizen ernstzunehmende Energielieferanten sind,
diskutieren Experten darüber, ob das Verfeuern von Getreide moralisch
vertretbar ist, oder was zu beachten ist, damit auch Stroh zur
Energiegewinnung genutzt werden kann. Sie machen sich Gedanken
darüber, welchen Stellenwert Erdwärme einnehmen könnte. Mit Biodiesel-
oder Biogas betriebene Autos sind da schon ein alter Hut. Fast.
Für Energiewirt Hümme bedeutet die "new energy" 2006 weit mehr als
die Gelegenheit, seine Kenntnisse auf den neuesten Stand zu bringen.
Trotz allen Ärgers, den er zu Hause hat, sieht er sich in seinen
Plänen bestätigt. "Die Welt funktioniert nach dem
Energieerhaltungssatz. Das gilt für das Düngen der Felder wie für das
Erzeugen von Strom und Wärme. Wer die Welt verfeuert, die ihn
ernähren soll, ohne für neue Rohstoffe zu sorgen, verfeuert die
Zukunft der nächsten Generationen."
Quelle: abendblatt.de
Von Karin Lubowski
http://www.rencomp.net/windkraft/latestnews.php?news_id=220
j2997
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Message: 6
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:01:03 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Oil prices hold steady above $64 a barrel
Oil prices hold steady above $64 a barrel
Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria - Crude oil futures held steady at above $64 a barrel
Tuesday amid strong demand sparked by the oncoming U.S. driving
season and nagging worries about supply from Iran and Nigeria.
Prices were firm despite expectations that the weekly snapshot of
U.S. data from the Energy Department slated for release on Wednesday
would show a slight increase in crude stocks.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery was flat at $64.16 a barrel on
the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Europe. May Brent crude
on London's ICE Futures exchange fell 4 cents to $63.57 a barrel.
Gasoline and heating oil were little changed at $1.8250 and $1.7828 a
gallon. Natural gas rose just over 3 cents to $7.098 per 1,000 cubic
feet.
With the Northern Hemisphere's summer driving season approaching,
gasoline at the pump in the United States averaged $2.50 a gallon,
and government data showed that consumption was up 1.6 percent over
the past four weeks compared with the same period a year ago.
That said, the U.S. Energy Department predicted last week that
gasoline prices may not run up much higher for the time being.
PVM Oil Associates in Vienna said Wednesday's report on U.S. stocks
was expected to show a gain of 1.6 million barrels in crude
inventories - a 10 percent cushion to the year ago level. It based
its forecast on "higher domestic production in the U.S. Gulf Coast
and healthy import rates, which are likely to outpace lower supply
from Alaska and higher refinery runs."
Still, concern about supplies from Nigeria and Iran, and growing
anxiety about the next hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, were
expected to limit any price decline. Some analysts believe gasoline
prices could climb as high as $3 a gallon this summer, though that
assumes some significant disruptions at refineries or difficulty in
getting fuel to markets.
On Monday, militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta released
their last remaining foreign hostages - two Americans and one Briton -
more than five weeks after the oil-industry workers were kidnapped.
The militants took nine foreign oil workers hostage Feb. 18 from a
barge owned by Houston-based oil services company Willbros Group
Inc., which was laying pipeline in the delta for Royal Dutch Shell
PLC. The group released six of the captives after 12 days in
captivity.
The militants are behind a spate of attacks that have cut Nigeria's
oil exports by more than 20 percent. On Saturday, they said they
killed three soldiers in clashes near a key natural gas plant run by
Shell. Shell said there was no impact on the gas plant.
Iran, the No. 2 oil producer in OPEC, also remains a potential source
of concern. It has been referred to the U.N. Security Council over
fears it may want to misuse its nuclear program to make weapons, but
the council has been at loggerheads over U.S.-led efforts to ratchet
up the pressure on Tehran.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/14200073.htm?
template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
http://tinyurl.com/qtj9y
j2997
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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:14:10 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Spektrum:Spezial: Emissionshandel etc
SeE: Vorschay May 2006:
http://www.energiespektrum.de/Vorschau%20ES%20Mai%202006.pdf
(4 pages)
j2997
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Message: 8
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:19:57 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Interpreting Clean Air Laws
Interpreting Clean Air Laws
March 24, 2006
The Clean Air Act is shining in the eyes of the environmental
community. A federal appeals court has struck down the Bush
administration's efforts to revise the law to allow modifications to
older coal fired plants without installing new pollution controls.
Green groups call it a victory for public health but the White House
and business organizations counter that the decision diminishes
environmental progress.
Ken Silverstein
EnergyBiz Insider
Editor-in-Chief
It's been a heated debate. And it's really about whether older coal
fired plants should be shut down or whether they should be modified
to allow them to produce more power. When the original 1970 Clean Air
Act passed, it was thought that many existing coal plants would close
after reaching the end of their useful economic lives, and few
suspected they would extend into a new century. As such, those plants
were granted "routine maintenance" exemptions from the act.
Several cities and states -- mostly in the West and Northeast -- have
complained that the plant operators used the 'routine maintenance'
exemption to make 'major modifications.' That led to lawsuits. At
issue is what constitutes a modification and what constitutes routine
maintenance. The administration tried to clarify the ruling to mean
that power plants could avoid installing new pollution controls if
they modernized less than 20 percent of their operations.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia ruled that only Congress has the authority to change the
law to allow the older power plants to make modifications without
installing the most modern pollution control equipment. In writing
the unanimous opinion, Judge Judith Rogers said that the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency under the Bush administration had a
skewed view:
"EPA's approach would ostensibly require that the definition
of 'modification' include a phrase such as 'regardless of size, cost,
frequency, effect,' or other distinguishing characteristic," Rogers
wrote. "We decline to adopt such a world-view."
In the late 1990s, the Clinton administration filed suit against 51
separate sites, alleging that utilities violated the New Source
Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act by making modifications
without installing new pollution equipment. Those suits are
unaffected by the appeals court ruling. In 2003 and under Bush, the
EPA rewrote the NSR laws in an effort to avoid future litigation and
to maximize coal generation capacity. The NSR provision affects
17,000 U.S. industrial plants that include about 600 coal-fired power
facilities.
Strong Views
The lawsuit to overturn the Bush administration's NSR policy was
filed by California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Environmentalists have been vocal in their opposition to the NSR
changes and worked diligently to get the courts to block the measure.
They point to studies that link pollution from coal-fired plants to
as many as 20,000 premature deaths in the United States.
New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer led the court fight to block
NSR changes. Before the 2003 revisions, Congress, in originally
establishing the program, recognized that the best time to install
new controls was when a power plant was being built or modified, he
said. Congress also exempted old plants from installing pollution
controls because such plants would soon reach the end of their useful
lives.
Bill Becker, executive director of the independent State and
Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators, applauds the
ruling. He adds that if a 1,000 megawatt plant had spent $250 million
over five years performing 'routine maintenance,' it would have
likely produced more power -- and more pollution -- without
installing modern controls.
"This is an extraordinarily significant decision -- a decision for
good government," adds Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the
Clean Air Trust.
President Bush has long been of the view that the nation needs the
additional generation capacity and the restoration of the older coal-
fired power plants is an effective source. By loosening the NSR
restrictions, he said plant operators would be more inclined to
revamp their plants -- adding the needed pollution controls --
without fear of being sued. The administration calls the appeals
court ruling "disappointing" and says that it is currently in the
process of deciding its next move -- whether or not to appeal the
decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Some experts from Harvard University and the environmental think tank
Resources for the Future agree with Bush's policy, saying that a
restrictive approach to NSR is "excessively costly and
environmentally counterproductive."
Scott Segal, with the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council that
represents coal generators, adds that power companies have complied
with clean air laws and the result has produced better air quality
over the last 30 years. The proposed changes were the next evolution
in regulation, he says, noting that the latest decision by the
appeals court negates those efforts. "Improving power plant
efficiency in ways that old-style, litigation-heavy approaches cannot
do is the best way to accelerate this trend."
The decision to upend the Bush administration's revision of clean air
policies won't likely end the debate. New attempts to both strengthen
and weaken current rules will continue to unfold while the courts
weigh in on litigation brought forth during the Clinton years. For
now, though, utilities must comply with the laws as written, which
proponents of them say have worked to cut pollution levels.
http://www.energycentral.com/content/newsletter_creation/energybizinsi
der_html_creation.cfm?articleid=119
http://tinyurl.com/m7yxm
j2997
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Message: 9
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:31:35 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: 21st Century Fuels & ther Hydrogen Opportunity
Will China rise to the challenge?
Gabriel F de Scheemaker
Royal Dutch Shell
General Manager, Hydrogen
Asia-Pacific
China Oil & Gas Summit 2006
9 March 2006, Beijing
http://www.shell.com/static/hydrogen-
en/downloads/speeches/speech_hydrogen_opportunity2.pdf
(22 pages)
http://tinyurl.com/lwtv3
j2997
j2997
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Message: 10
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:34:54 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Ct: Companies To Get Incentives To Produce Their Own Power
Companies To Get Incentives To Produce Their Own Power
By PAUL MARKS
Courant Staff Writer
March 28 2006
The state Department of Public Utility Control announced a new
program Monday that offers grants and loans to companies that install
generators and begin making their own electric power.
The agency said that having businesses and other electricity users
invest in their own generating systems will add badly needed capacity
to Connecticut's power grid.
DPUC Chairman Donald Downes, who announced the program, said adding
more "distributed generation" to the state's mix of power sources
will offer a cheaper way to meet periodic peaks in power demand.
Distributed generation is seen as one way to reduce the traditional
reliance on large, centralized power plants.
Downes said the incentive program targets southwestern Connecticut,
in particular, where there is insufficient generating capacity.
Though funded by ratepayers, the program will help reduce the more
than $500 million that electricity users paid last year in federally
mandated "congestion charges," based on the state's shortfall in
generation capacity.
Downes said it is impossible to project how the program might affect
electric bills because the cost will depend on the size and number of
projects that qualify for grants. He said he would be surprised if it
added even 1 percent to bills.
"I doubt that ratepayers are even going to be able to see the
difference," Downes said.
Business groups responded favorably.
Joseph Brennan, senior vice president of the Connecticut Business and
Industry Association, said the offer of millions of dollars in
incentives is welcome in a state where energy costs are among the
highest in the nation.
"These programs can help businesses control their skyrocketing energy
costs, compete effectively and continue to grow and bring jobs to the
state," he said.
Lisa Thibdaue, a vice president at Northeast Utilities, said there
is "considerable interest" among commercial customers in building
their own generators.
"There are between 50 and 100 that we have been in discussions with
already," she said.
The DPUC's announcements Monday implement provisions of the Energy
Independence Act, which the General Assembly passed last June.
The program offers grants and loans for generation systems installed
by factories, office buildings, hospitals, malls, hotels, convention
centers and condominium complexes. Grants are available for power
systems of as much as 65 megawatts in capacity. There is no minimum
size.
Grants are not available to hospitals, nursing homes or other
facilities already required by law to have emergency generators on
hand.
"These incentives will definitely get people's attention," said
Joseph McGee, a vice president at the Business Council of Fairfield
County.
McGee said he expects a strong response from banks and financial
services companies based in and around Stamford. Companies such as
Stamford-based UBS Warburg LLC, which has one of the world's largest
trading floors, use a lot of electricity to power computers and wide-
screen video monitors and need reliable power, he said.
Downes said the DPUC's contract with Bank of America makes the low-
interest loan program "essentially self-funding." The cost of grants
to entities that install power generation will be passed on to
ratepayers through the electric rates the regulatory agency sets
periodically for Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating,
he said, and grants will be received only after a power system begins
operation.
Savings for ratepayers should be quickly realized because of reduced
congestion charges, said state Rep. Kevin DelGobbo, R-Naugatuck, a
member of the legislature's energy committee who helped write the
2005 law that led to the distributed generation incentives.
"Connecticut ratepayers are paying substantial costs right now for
the [electric power] system as it exists," DelGobbo said. "When this
new distributed generation goes into effect ... every dollar spent
[on incentives] has the net effect of saving more than that."
The typical CL&P residential ratepayer, using 700 kilowatt-hours a
month, pays almost $9 in congestion charges.
Those charges were imposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, starting in January 2004, to assess costs for moving
electricity from other states into parts of Connecticut that lack
sufficient generating capacity. Congestion charges are paid by
commercial and industrial power users, as well.
Downes said the incentive program - which offers $45,000 for a small,
100-kilowatt generating plant or $12.5 million for a 25-megawatt
plant in power-starved Fairfield County - is designed to be "fairly
generous," compared with programs in other states.
The program includes a guarantee that CL&P or United Illuminating
will buy any excess power that the owner of a private plant cannot
use.
Base-load plants, to qualify for a grants, must agree to operate at
85 percent capacity or more.
Business leaders who were at the Legislative Office Building in
Hartford during the announcement agreed.
Dennis Hrabchak, vice president of corporate affairs for United
Illuminating, said business owners have been awaiting details before
committing to distributed generation.
"Now that there are ground rules, I think the companies are going to
be able to do some analysis and see what works for them," he said.
He said it will be some months before power generators are installed
and operating. On the other hand, Downes noted, some smaller units
can be bought "off the shelf" and put into service rapidly.
One longtime advocate of distributed generation is Joel Gordes, a
West Hartford energy consultant who formerly served as chairman of
the General Assembly's energy committee.
He said he is uncertain how eagerly businesses and other power-using
entities will respond to the lure of state subsidies, but "I think
it's going to make for a more secure, more reliable type of power
system."
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-
dpucplant0328.artmar28,0,2181450,print.story?coll=hc-headlines-home
http://tinyurl.com/q7dnf
j2997
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Message: 11
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:44:00 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Dynamics of Vehicle and Infrastructure Rollout
Joint Study Shell Hydrogen and General Motors
Duncan Mecleod
Vice president Shell Hydrogen
Royal Dutch Shell
National Hydrogen Association Conference 2006
15 March 2006, Long Beach
http://www.shell.com/static/hydrogen-
en/downloads/speeches/speech_nha_2006_2.pdf
(14 pages)
http://tinyurl.com/h75cb
j2997
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Message: 12
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:52:17 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Tokyo Gas Evaluating FuelCell Energy's DFC(R) Products for
Introduction to Customers of Its Energy and Industrial Gas Business
Units
Tokyo Gas Evaluating FuelCell Energy's DFC(R) Products for
Introduction to Customers of Its Energy and Industrial Gas Business
Units
DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 2006 FuelCell Energy, Inc.
(NasdaqNM:FCEL), a leading manufacturer of efficient, ultra-clean
power generation plants for commercial and industrial customers,
today announced that Tokyo Gas has initiated a program to evaluate a
Direct FuelCell(R) (DFC(R)) power plant for introducing these units
to customers of its energy and industrial gas divisions.
The unit is currently located at Kawasaki Heavy Industries' factory
in Akashi, Japan, where Tokyo Gas will evaluate the power plant under
a variety of expected operating conditions focusing particularly on
grid interconnection performance. Tokyo Gas has agreed to install
this DFC300A power plant at its new R&D center in Tsurumi in the
second quarter of 2006.
Tokyo Gas is one of Japan's largest installers of natural gas-fueled
distributed generation systems for high efficiency, combined heat and
power applications. According to its Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) Report, installation of natural gas cogeneration systems has
grown to 1196 MW from 765 MW during the past five years, an increase
of 44 percent. This trend is expected to continue in the years ahead
(see http://www.tokyo-gas.co.jp/csr/report_e/index.html , page 22).
Tokyo Gas is considering adding DFC products to its energy generation
portfolio, pending the outcome of its evaluation, to address
additions to the current 2.2 GW of gas-fired cogeneration at 2000
locations throughout the country.
"Tokyo Gas is the largest gas supplier in Japan," said R. Daniel
Brdar, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy. "They are actively
extending their pipelines to industrial gas users and expanding the
country's infrastructure. Our ability to use this strategically
important fuel source in high efficiency distributed generation for
firm and reliable base load power applications represent a strong
potential market for our megawatt-class products."
DFC power plants address two significant energy issues in Japan --
high energy costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions under rules
established by the Kyoto Protocols. The high efficiency of DFC power
plants not only results in less fuel needed per kilowatt hour of
electricity and lower operating costs, but reduced amounts of carbon
dioxide. In addition, DFC power plants provide greater energy
reliability because they are located directly at customer sites.
About FuelCell Energy
FuelCell Energy develops and markets ultra-clean power plants that
generate electricity with higher efficiency than distributed
generation plants of similar size and with virtually no air
pollution. Fuel cells produce base load electricity giving commercial
and industrial customers greater control over their power generation
economics, reliability and emissions. Emerging state, federal and
international regulations to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions
consider fuel cell power plants in the same environmentally friendly
category as wind and solar energy sources -- with the added
advantages of running 24 hours a day and the capacity to be installed
where wind turbines or solar panels often cannot. Headquartered in
Danbury, Conn., FuelCell Energy services over 40 power plant sites
around the globe that have generated more than 94 million kilowatt
hours, and conducts R&D on next-generation fuel cell technologies to
meet the world's ever-increasing demand for ultra-clean distributed
energy. For more information on the company, its products and its
worldwide commercial distribution alliances, please see
www.fuelcellenergy.com.
Direct FuelCell, DFC and DFC/Turbine are registered trademarks of
FuelCell Energy, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners. The Company's sub-megawatt DFC fuel cell power
plant is a collaborative effort combining its Direct FuelCell
technology with a Hot Module(R) balance of plant design from MTU CFC
Solutions, GmbH.
This news release contains forward-looking statements, including
statements regarding the Company's plans and expectations regarding
the development and commercialization of its fuel cell technology.
All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties
that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
projected. Factors that could cause such a difference include,
without limitation, the risk that commercial field trials of the
Company's products will not occur when anticipated, general risks
associated with product development, manufacturing, changes in the
utility regulatory environment, potential volatility of energy
prices, rapid technological change, and competition, as well as other
risks set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements contained herein
speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company
expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly
any updates or revisions to any such statement to reflect any change
in the Company's expectations or any change in events, conditions or
circumstances on which any such statement is based.
CONTACT: FuelCell Energy Steven P. Eschbach, 203-825-6000
seschbach@fce.com
Last Updated: March 28, 2006 08:30 EST
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=FCEL:US&sid=aqGewBi2IG0g
http://tinyurl.com/p7xlv
j2997
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Message: 13
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:23:11 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: NOAA accused of hiding truth about global warming
NOAA accused of hiding truth about global warming
By PETER B. LORD
The Providence Journal
28-MAR-06
Hurricanes are getting worse because of global warming.
Kerry Emanuel, a veteran climate researcher at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, made that assertion to a roomful of
University of Rhode Island scientists a few months ago. He also
charged the federal government's top science agency with ignoring the
growing research making that link.
Instead of telling the public the truth, he said, National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration officials are insisting that
hurricanes are worse because of a natural cycle.
Emanuel's comments made little impact at the time. But during the
last three months, his comments and those of other scientists have
become like hurricanes _ more frequent and more severe. Finally, they
are reaching the public.
James E. Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, was quoted in The
New York Times in January as saying he had been threatened with "dire
consequences" by some NASA political appointees if he continued to
call for limits on emissions of gases linked to global warming.
Many climate scientists at NOAA may no longer take calls from
reporters, the story went on to say, unless the interview is approved
by administration officials in Washington, and is conducted with a
public-affairs officer present. But where scientists' views on
climate change align with those of the administration, the Times
said, there are few restrictions on speaking or writing.
In February, New Republic magazine published a story about NOAA's
insistence both in news conferences and on its Web site that global
warming has no effect on hurricanes.
Many respected climate scientists, including some working at NOAA,
believe that is wrong, according to the article. It quoted Don
Kennedy, editor in chief of Science magazine, as saying, "There are a
lot of scientists there who know it is nonsense ... but they are
being discouraged from talking to the press about it."
Last month, retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., NOAA's
administrator, issued a statement saying that the media reports about
muzzling NOAA scientists are incorrect. He urged NOAA scientists to
speak freely and openly.
He was almost immediately contradicted by Jerry Mahlman, a former
director of one of NOAA's top laboratories in New Jersey, who said
climate scientists at NOAA have, "indeed, recently been
systematically prevented from speaking freely to anyone outside NOAA"
about "our inexorably warming planet."
Finally, NASA's Jim Hansen appeared on "60 Minutes" last week and
repeated his story of government censorship. The story also
introduced Rick Piltz, who resigned from the U.S. Climate Change
Science Program last year because, he said, the White House kept
softening his annual reports on climate change.
When Emanuel raised his criticisms of NOAA in December, the worst
hurricane season in modern history had just ended, and it had broken
records set by the 2004 season.
Worsening storms are no coincidence, Emanuel said. They are feeding
off ever-warming ocean waters.
Emanuel said in passing that NOAA, the nation's leading science
agency _ home of the National Weather Service and the National
Hurricane Center _ was telling the wrong story.
"NOAA talks about natural cycles, but there is no evidence this is
cyclic," Emanuel said.
Despite growing scientific evidence that global warming is making
hurricanes more frequent and more severe, Emanuel said NOAA has
adopted the stance that there is no global-warming effect on
hurricanes.
This was not the first time for such accusations. Two years ago, 60
of the country's leading scientists had signed a statement calling
for an end to the "distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan
political ends" by the Bush administration.
The scientists charged that, to support President Bush's decision not
to regulate emissions that cause climate change, the administration
has "consistently misrepresented" findings by government scientists.
They also found the administration had been working to undermine
government science used to deal with childhood lead poisoning,
endangered species, air pollution and environmental-health issues.
Since then, more than 8,000 other scientists have signed on.
Emanuel said new stories of scientific censorship emerged at a
meeting with NOAA scientists last fall.
"Scientists at NOAA have been told there is a gag order on
(discussing the impact of) global warming," Emanuel said. "A U.S.
government organization should not have a gag order on science. Even
in Cuba, scientists can't talk about politics, but they can say
anything they want about science."
Soon after Emanuel's appearance at URI to discuss his research and
his new book, "Divine Wind: The History of Science and Hurricanes,"
The Providence Journal sought to test his conclusions.
The first call was to Isaac Held, a senior research scientist at
NOAA's prestigious Geophysical Fluids Laboratory, in Princeton, N.J.
It was there, last fall, that Emanuel said he first heard about NOAA
censorship. Held said he hadn't been affected, but he advised calling
Thomas Knutson, a NOAA scientist whose research showed a link between
climate change and hurricane intensity.
"Stick to hurricanes. Talk to Tom," Held advised.
Knutson wouldn't talk.
"When we're contacted by reporters, we have to have clearance before
we can speak about issues. This is NOAA's media policy," Knutson
said. He suggested calling Jana Goldman, in NOAA's public-affairs
office.
Is this a new policy? he was asked.
"Check with her," Knutson said. "I'm not sure when the policy was
implemented."
Calls to NOAA's public-affairs office led to Kent Laborde, who was
described as the public-affairs person who focuses on climate-change
issues.
Laborde made it clear that NOAA has discounted the research tying
global warming to worsening hurricanes.
"What we've found is, if you look at a couple segments of science,
observational or modeling, there is no illustrated link between
climate change and hurricane intensity," Laborde said. "We actually
have periods of intensity followed by periods of lower intensity. We
have evidence of periods going back to the 1930s. It follows a clear
pattern."
Laborde was asked if he would approve an interview with Knutson.
What is the topic? he asked.
Emanuel's theories linking climate change to worsening hurricanes.
"Chris Landsea would be better. He's an observational scientist,"
Laborde said.
Landsea is a top meteorologist at NOAA, often called upon for expert
testimony to Congress or to speak at news conferences. He also very
publicly quit an international climate-change panel last year because
one of its leaders had publicly linked global warming to hurricane
severity.
At Laborde's request, Landsea cheerfully discounted Emanuel's
theories in an interview with the Journal.
Landsea says he believes what we are really experiencing is a return
to an active period of hurricanes, similar to what happened in the
late 1940s to the 1960s.
He argued that Knutson's research reflects only a small link between
global warming and hurricane intensity.
As for Emanuel's work, Landsea said, "My opinion is his study is very
unconvincing."
Landsea insisted that, although he represents NOAA, there is no
official NOAA stance on the impact of global warming on hurricanes.
"There are different scientists with different points of view," He
said. "Talk to people at Princeton. Tom Knutson has different
opinions than I. But he's allowed to speak."
Emanuel said he has no problem with engaging in a scientific debate.
What concerns him, he said, is that NOAA seems to be ignoring the
debate, and has come down on just one side.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=CENSOR-03-28-06
j2997
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Message: 14
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:32:05 -0000
From: "csceadraham"
Subject: Re: Methanol: The New Hydrogen
--- In http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/message/
26014
"gram_toquer" wrote:
>
> Just one problem:
False, of course. Methanol has more than one problem.
> ... Methanol is so toxic
> that even breathing the vapors can eventually
> make you go blind.
Is that what happened to "reactor opposer" and
Chernobyl preventer Edward Teller? He went blind ...
the fact that he was pushing 100 years old
presumably had little to do with it. Cumulative
environmental methanol, that's it.
So, this "methanol": it wouldn't be something
that is routinely used to fuel race cars,
it wouldn't be something of which wine typically
contains a part per thousand?
What's your evidence?
--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion, nuclear cachet http://tinyurl.com/4xt8g
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Message: 15
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:07:45 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Oil prices move upward amid strong demand, concerns about Iran,
Nigeria
Oil prices move upward amid strong demand, concerns about Iran,
Nigeria
Published: Tuesday, March 28, 2006
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Crude-oil futures moved closer toward $65 US a
barrel Tuesday amid strong demand sparked by the upcoming U.S.
driving season and nagging worries about supply from Iran and
Nigeria.
Prices rose despite expectations that the weekly snapshot of U.S.
data from the Energy Department slated for release on Wednesday would
show a slight increase in crude stocks.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery was up 51 cents at $64.67 a
barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe.
May Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose 59 cents to
$64.20 a barrel.
Gasoline and heating oil were both up close to 1.5 cents at $1.8424
and $1.7960 a gallon. Natural gas rose just over five cents to $7.120
per 1,000 cubic feet.
With the Northern Hemisphere's summer driving season approaching,
gasoline at the pump in the United States averaged $2.50 a gallon,
and government data showed that consumption was up 1.6 per cent over
the past four weeks compared with the same period a year ago.
That said, the U.S. Energy Department predicted last week that
gasoline prices may not run up much higher for the time being.
PVM Oil Associates in Vienna said Wednesday's report on U.S. stocks
was expected to show a gain of 1.6 million barrels in crude
inventories - a 10 per cent cushion to the year-ago level. It based
its forecast on "higher domestic production in the U.S. Gulf Coast
and healthy import rates, which are likely to outpace lower supply
from Alaska and higher refinery runs."
Still, concern about supplies from Nigeria and Iran, and growing
anxiety about the next hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, were
expected to limit any price decline. Some analysts believe gasoline
prices could climb as high as $3 a gallon this summer, though that
assumes some significant disruptions at refineries or difficulty in
getting fuel to markets.
On Monday, militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta released
their last remaining foreign hostages - two Americans and one Briton -
more than five weeks after the oil-industry workers were kidnapped.
The militants took nine foreign oil workers hostage Feb. 18 from a
barge owned by Houston-based oil services company Willbros Group
Inc., which was laying pipeline in the delta for Royal Dutch Shell
PLC. The group released six of the captives after 12 days in
captivity.
The militants are behind a spate of attacks that have cut Nigeria's
oil exports by more than 20 per cent. On Saturday, they said they
killed three soldiers in clashes near a key natural gas plant run by
Shell. Shell said there was no impact on the gas plant.
Iran, the No. 2 oil producer in OPEC, also remains a potential source
of concern. It has been referred to the UN Security Council over
fears it may want to misuse its nuclear program to make weapons, but
the council has been at loggerheads over U.S.-led efforts to ratchet
up the pressure on Tehran.
© The Canadian Press 2006
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?
id=a1eca6e9-8b70-4bc1-be5f-01b2dad87a48&k=50480
http://tinyurl.com/fb8pp
j2997
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Message: 16
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:54:01 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: State of Connecticut Selects Banc of America Leasing to Provide up to
$150 Million in Financing for Energy Conservation Programs
State of Connecticut Selects Banc of America Leasing to Provide up to
$150 Million in Financing for Energy Conservation Programs
CHARLOTTE, NC USA 07/20/2005
HARTFORD, Conn., March 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The State of Connecticut
announced today that it has selected Banc of America Leasing, an
affiliate of Bank of America, to provide up to $150 million in
financing for companies participating in the state's new programs
that offer incentives for energy-saving distributed resources
projects.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050720/CLW086LOGO-
b )
The program, created through recently enacted legislation, uses
federally mandated energy congestion charges collected by the state's
two utilities to reduce the effective interest rate of the loans to
companies who participate in the program. The program will be
managed by the State of Connecticut Department of Public Utility
Control.
"Banc of America Leasing is very pleased to partner with the
State of Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control to
implement this important program," said Jim Thoma, senior vice
president and manager of Energy Services for Banc of America
Leasing. "By combining our financial strength and equipment
expertise with the State of Connecticut's innovative initiative to
improve energy efficiency, this program should make significant
contributions toward the goal of reducing demands on the State's
energy infrastructure."
The program will provide financing for various energy projects
that use equipment or services to reduce energy consumption or
operating costs as permitted by applicable Connecticut statutes.
Projects may also include automated energy control systems, including
related hardware; improvements or retrofits to electrical, lighting
and auxiliary systems; heating ventilating and air conditioning
(HVAC) system modifications or replacements; energy recovery systems,
cogeneration systems, renewable energy generation systems;
and installation, training and monitoring of the equipment or systems.
Requests for funding will be considered through December 31,
2006, or until a total of $150 million has been financed through the
program, whichever occurs first. Banc of America Leasing will
underwrite each financing transaction according to its standard
policies and procedures.
Banc of America Leasing provides creative and cost effective
financing for all types of energy services projects, from traditional
performance contracting to outsourced central plant projects, water
conservation programs and more.
Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial
institutions,
serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and
large
corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset
management and
other financial and risk-management products and services. The company
provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving more
than 38
million consumer and small business relationships with more than
5,800 retail
banking offices, more than 16,700 ATMs and award-winning online
banking with
more than 14 million active users. Bank of America is the No. 1
overall Small
Business Administration (SBA) lender in the United States and the No.
1 SBA
lender to minority-owned small businesses. The company serves clients
in 150
countries and has relationships with 97 percent of the U.S. Fortune
500
companies and 79 percent of the Global Fortune 500. Bank of America
Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock
Exchange.
http://www.bankofamerica.com
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?
ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-27-2006/0004327681&EDATE=
http://tinyurl.com/f5ntc
j2997
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________________________________________________________________________
Message: 17
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:34:43 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Green Tech Cleans Up
Green Tech Cleans Up
Research firms say cleantech investments and sales are growing fast.
March 27, 2006 Issue
Cleantech investments are soaring and sales are keeping pace,
according to two reports released in March. The Cleantech Venture
Network industry monitor says fourth-quarter North American
investments grew 18.1 percent to $502 million, from $425.4 million in
the third quarter. The growth makes cleantech the fifth-largest
venture capital investment category, surpassing semiconductors for
the first time since the network began tracking the industry in 2002.
"Cleantech is an increasingly attractive investment segment," says
Keith Raab, CEO of the Cleantech Capital Group, the network's parent
company.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
Still ahead of the cleantech category are biotech, software, medical
technologies, and telecommunications. Under "cleantech," the Ann
Arbor, Michigan-based network includes clean energy technologies, as
well as other environmentally friendly technologies such as water
purification and reforestation, and related materials and
manufacturing technologies. For the entire year, cleantech
investments totaled $1.63 billion, growing nearly 35 percent from
$1.21 billion in 2004, according to the Cleantech Venture Network.
Looking at energy-related venture capital alone, research firm Clean
Edge and VC firm Nth Power found 80 U.S. companies raised a total of
$917 million in 2005, up about 28 percent from 2004. That means
energy-tech made up 4 percent of the $21.7-billion VC market last
year, compared with 3.3 percent in 2004. "2005 marked a sharp rise in
venture capital dollars invested in energy-tech companies," says
Rodrigo Prudencio, a principal with Nth Power.
Following the other side of the equation, Clean Edge says the market
for biofuels, solar energy, wind power, and fuel cells is expected to
quadruple by 2015. Global revenue from those energy sources totaled
$40 billion in 2005, and will grow to $167 billion over the next
decade, the Oakland, California-based firm says. "If you look at the
growth rates for wind, solar, and now biofuels, they are now growing
more than 30 percent a year," says Ron Pernick, a principal with
Clean Edge. "It's starting to look similar to the personal computer
industry in the 1980s."
© 1993-2006 Red Herring, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?
a=16197&hed=Green+Tech+Cleans+Up§or=Capital&subsector=VentureCapit
al#
http://tinyurl.com/jhjhc
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 18
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:42:17 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: The Once and Future Carbohydrate Economy
The Once and Future Carbohydrate Economy
The carbohydrate economy could transform agriculture as well as
energy, reviving producer co-ops, and giving farmers a hedge against
voilatile commodity prices.
By David Morris
Issue Date: 04.08.06
Print Friendly | Email Article
Less than 200 years ago, industrializing societies were carbohydrate
economies. In 1820, Americans used two tons of vegetables for every
one ton of minerals. Plants were the primary raw material in the
production of dyes, chemicals, paints, inks, solvents, construction
materials, even energy.
For the next 125 years, hydrocarbon and carbohydrate battled for
industrial supremacy. Coal gases fueled the world's first urban
lighting systems. Coal tars ushered in the synthetic dyes industries.
Cotton and wood pulp provided the world's first plastics and
synthetic textiles. In 1860, corn-derived ethanol was a best-selling
industrial chemical, and as late as 1870, wood provided 70 percent of
the nation's energy.
The first plastic was a bioplastic. In the mid-19th century, a
British billiard ball company determined that at the rate African
elephants were being killed, the supply of ivory could soon be
exhausted. The firm offered a handsome prize for a product with
properties similar to ivory, yet derived from a more abundant raw
material. Two New Jersey printers, John and Isaiah Hyatt, won the
prize for a cotton-derived product dubbed collodion.
Ironically, collodion never made it as a billiard ball: The plastic,
whose scientific name is cellulose nitrate, is more popularly known
as guncotton, a mild explosive. When a rack of cellulose nitrate pool
balls was broken, a loud pop often resulted. Confusion and casualties
ensued in saloons where patrons were not only drinking but sometimes
armed.
People did find other uses for collodion, however, in dentures and
buttons. Later, a new cotton-based plastic called celluloid spawned
consumer photography. To this day, many in Hollywood still call their
films celluloids, although Steven Spielberg may not remember why.
At the end of the 19th century the names of chemical companies and
products often contained a form of the word cellulose, a living
chemical consisting of a long string of carbon and hydrogen and
oxygen molecules (thus the word carbohydrate). The name of one of the
country's largest chemical manufacturers, Celanese Corporation, was a
contraction of "cellulose" and "the easy feeling" of wearing acetate
apparel. After celluloid, cellophane, the world's first film plastic,
was introduced to instant success.
By 1920, however, the nation had reversed the vegetable-mineral
ratio, using two tons of minerals for every one ton of vegetables.
Coal displaced wood for energy. Gasoline-powered cars roamed the
streets. Yet outside the nation's energy markets, living carbon still
held its own against fossilized or dead carbon. Rayon, made from wood
pulp, was the world's best-selling synthetic fiber. The first
injection molding machines in the 1930s made plastic products from
cellulose acetate.
The Great Depression, the collapse of international trade, and then
World War II spawned a worldwide effort to replace imports with
domestically produced products. Brazilians made plastics from coffee
beans, Italians made fine suits from milk protein, and by the 1940s,
four million vehicles in European countries were operating on ethanol
blends of up to 33 percent. Arthur D. Little wowed and charmed the
world by literally making a silk purse from a sow's ear.
In 1941, when Japan cut off access to Asia's rubber plantations, the
United States launched a crash synthetic rubber program. Washington
drafted into service both the nation's oil refineries and breweries.
In 1943, most of America's synthetic rubber was made from ethanol. By
1945, the United States produced over 600 million gallons of ethanol,
a level not again attained until the mid-1980s. A small amount of
ethanol was made from wood.
Up until the end of World War II, some companies were still hedging
their bets on the material base of the future chemical industry. In
1945, the large British chemical manufacturer ICI still maintained
three divisions: one based on coal, one on petroleum, and one on
molasses.
Meanwhile, the carbohydrate economy was featured in the popular press
and newsreels, reporting on such sensational developments as Henry
Ford's biological car. The body of the 1941 demonstration vehicle
consisted of a variety of plant fibers, including hemp. The
dashboard, wheel, and seat covers were made from soy protein. The
tires were made from goldenrods, bred by Thomas Edison on his urban
farm in Fort Myers, Florida. The tank was filled with corn-derived
ethanol.
The next time you watch the obligatory Christmas showing of It's a
Wonderful Life, pay close attention to this scene: Jimmy Stewart is
on the phone with his brother, who excitedly proclaims he is going to
be rich because he is on the ground floor of the next major industry,
soybean-derived plastics!
Yet only 25 years later, movie audiences hear Dustin Hoffman in The
Graduate ask an older man for career advice. The man responds with
one word, "plastics," and everyone in the audience knows he means
petroleum-derived plastics.
In a quarter of a century, the carbohydrate economy had virtually
disappeared, a victim of remarkably low crude oil prices (the price
dropped to under $1 a barrel in the late 1940s) and rapid advances in
making an ever-wider variety of low-cost products from crude oil.
American farmers didn't mind; the Marshall Plan alleviated the 20-
year-old agricultural depression by creating a large export market
for U.S. surplus crops.
By 1975, not a drop of ethanol was in our nation's gas tanks. Indeed,
industrial ethanol was made from petroleum. Bioplastics disappeared.
Mineral oil inks replaced vegetable oil inks. Americans used eight
tons of minerals for every one ton of vegetables.
* * *
The Pendulum Swings Back
Beginning in the 1970s, the carbohydrate economy slowly began to
reemerge, the result of three mutually reinforcing trends.
The first was technological. Advances in the biological sciences
lowered the cost of making bioproducts. At first, entrepreneurs
focused on high-priced and low-volume markets, like medicines and
medical equipment. As production expanded and firms moved down the
learning curve, costs dropped and larger markets opened up.
In the 1980s, for example, polylactic acid (PLA), a chemical derived
from milk sugar (lactose), was used to make a suture that could be
absorbed inside the body. The cost was high, some $200 per pound, but
only an ounce or less was used in the surgery. By the late 1990s, the
price of PLA, now made from less expensive corn sugar (fructose), had
fallen to about a dollar a pound. PLA is increasingly competitive
with petrochemicals for use as a textile, in car bodies, and in
containers.
The second factor was political. Fossil fuels are attractive because,
under great pressure over eons, the oxygen contained in living
material was squeezed out (hence the name hydrocarbon), leaving a
very dense energy source. One pound of coal contains the same amount
of energy as four pounds of wood.
However, the same geological pressure that squeezed out oxygen
squeezed in several unnatural and unwelcome elements, like sulfur and
mercury. As an environmental movement emerged and as governments
began to regulate these pollutants, the cost of using hydrocarbons
rose to reflect their true environmental cost, and biofuels and
products became more competitive.
As a clean air measure, for example, the federal government required
oxygenates in gasoline. That created a large market for oxygen-
containing additives like ethanol. Regulations reducing sulfur levels
in diesel helped open up a market for biodiesel. When governments
required degradable plastics, bioplastics became more competitive.
When phosphates in detergents were restricted, enzyme markets
expanded.
The third factor was the rising price of oil and natural gas. In
1970, the price of crude oil was $1.80 per barrel. The price soared
to $34 a barrel in 1982, and then fluctuated between $10 a barrel and
$30 a barrel for the next 20 years. Finally, in 2005, high oil and
natural gas prices seemed here to stay, a result of the rising cost
of producing oil and the risk premium an unstable Middle East imposed
on oil markets.
With oil at $50 a barrel, many biochemicals have become flat out
competitive with petrochemicals. At $60 a barrel, ethanol derived
from corn is competitive without subsidies.
These three factors made a significant market for bioproducts
possible. They did not make their use inevitable. Remember,
bioproducts must invade markets long controlled by the oil and
petrochemical industry. In many cases, bioproducts actually need
their competitors' permission to enter these markets.
Consider the instructive history of fuel ethanol.
After World War I, car companies introduced high-compression engines.
Existing fuels caused knocking, a result of uneven combustion. The
industry feverishly sought an anti-knock additive. Ultimately, it
narrowed the choice to two: ethanol or lead. Ethanol would require 10
percent of the gas tank. To achieve the same effect, lead needed less
than 1 percent. The car companies, unsurprisingly, chose lead, and
stuck to it even after outcries from the public health community
about the effects of leaded gasoline.
In the 1970s, as part of its air quality efforts, the Environmental
Protection Agency phased out leaded gasoline. Oil companies again
could have substituted ethanol. Instead they chose to reformulate
gasoline to increase the proportion of aromatic chemicals like
benzene, toluene, and xylene. Then, in the late 1980s, the nation
discovered these chemicals were carcinogenic and imposed limits on
their use. The oil companies again could have switched to ethanol.
Instead they chose MTBE, a product made from natural gas–derived
methanol and isobutylene, a byproduct of the refinery process.
In the late 1990s, the nation discovered that MTBE was polluting
ground water. Nineteen states began to phase out MTBE. So long as the
Clean Air Act's oxygenate requirement remained, highly polluted urban
areas had only one alternative: ethanol. The phase out of MTBE is the
primary reason U.S. fuel ethanol consumption has doubled in the last
three years.
Regrettably, this does not necessarily mean the market is embracing
biofuel. Beginning in 1999, California petitioned the federal
government to exempt it from the oxygenate requirement. The oil
companies, not surprisingly, liked this idea, and promised to
formulate a gasoline that could meet all performance standards
without compromising public health. Last August, the federal
government eliminated the oxygenate requirement. California Senator
Dianne Feinstein, the leader of the anti-ethanol fight, exulted.
Instead of using 5.7 percent ethanol blends, California could now
revert to a gasoline composed 100 percent of fossil fuels.
There's an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice,
shame on me. To which I would add: Fool me four times, I'm an idiot.
Despite the rocky road traveled by biofuels, it appears that they are
now here to stay. Production has doubled in the last two years and
may double again in the next three years. In Brazil, ethanol now
constitutes 40 percent of all automobile fuel; 80 percent of new cars
are flexible fueled cars, capable of using any proportion of ethanol
and gasoline.
Half a dozen countries now mandate biofuels; a dozen more may soon.
DuPont is developing a carbohydrate-based division. Vegetable oils
have displaced 40 percent of black inks in newspapers. Hydraulic
fluids increasingly are made from vegetable oils, not mineral oils.
Bioplastics are here.
* * *
Fashioning the Rules
For the first time in 60 years, the carbohydrate economy is back on
the public-policy agenda. We may be changing the very material
foundation of industrial economies. Whether and how we affect that
change can profoundly affect the future of our natural environment,
our rural economies, agriculture, and world trade. It is an exciting
historical opportunity, but one we should approach with deliberation
and foresight.
As we design new rules we should keep in mind several key points:
• First, plants must play an important industrial role if we are to
achieve a sustainable, renewable economy.
Plant-based energy sources and materials, often termed biomass, boast
two essential features not found in other renewable resources, like
geothermal, hydro, wind, sunlight. Biomass can be made into physical
products and comes with built-in storage.
Wind and sunlight are intermittent. To count on them, we would need a
way to store them. Plants are, in effect, batteries of stored
chemical energy.
Wind and sunlight can be harnessed only to produce some forms of
energy -- heat, mechanical, electrical. Biomass can be used to make
physical products. Thus biomass, but not wind or sunlight, can
substitute for petrochemicals.
• Second, we need to pay attention to farmers.
The wind blows regardless of public policy. Policymakers can focus on
developing effective harvesting technologies. But agriculture
requires the enthusiastic participation of cultivators -- farmers.
Unless the farmers have the economic incentive, biomass energy and
materials will not appear in significant quantities.
• Third, a carbohydrate economy could have grave environmental
consequences.
Unlike most other renewable resources, biomass can be cultivated,
harvested, and processed in nonsustainable ways. Soil erosion,
fertilizer and pesticide runoff, and industrial pollution all can
result from biomass inappropriately grown and processed. Public
policy also needs to ensure that, when using biomass by-products such
as cornstalks and wheat straw, farmland is not denuded of nutrients
that nature needs to regenerate the land.
• Fourth, unlike other renewable resources, agriculture can satisfy a
wide array of needs: food, fuel, clothing, construction, paper, and
chemicals.
Policymakers must be careful if they introduce incentives that favor
energy over other end uses of farming. In the hierarchy of uses of
agriculture, food is still the highest and best use. And there may be
other uses more valuable than making energy.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Congress subsidized garbage
incinerators that generated electricity. Then we found that more
fossil fuels could be displaced, at a lower cost, and with a more
positive environmental impact, by recycling the paper and composting
the grass and leaves.
Another case of misguided subsidy: Congress and the state of
Minnesota recently offered handsome incentives for the generation of
electricity from poultry manure. They overlooked the fact that it is
a dry manure, high in nitrogen and inexpensive to transport, and an
increasingly attractive substitute for natural gas-derived
fertilizers. In Minnesota, most poultry manure is currently sold to
farmers. But by the end of 2007, because of the new incentives, more
than half the dry manure generated in the state will be diverted into
making electricity, forcing farmers to look for fertilizer
substitutes. Ironically, the fastest growing segment of agriculture
is now organic foods, which cannot be grown using synthetic
fertilizers.
• Fifth, biomass is not a silver energy bullet.
But it can play a crucial role in reducing our reliance on oil.
Worldwide, tens of billions of tons of biomass potentially are
available for making chemicals and fuels. But we will need every one
of those billions to meet even a minor portion of our future needs.
Overall, biomass may satisfy 10 to 15 percent of our future energy
needs. But it can displace a more significant part of our
transportation fuels and an even more significant part of our oil
fuels.
In the United States, about 60 percent of our oil is used for
transportation. (An additional 15 to 18 percent is used to make
petrochemicals.) Biofuels' compactness and relative ease of transport
make them attractive transportation fuels.
Sufficient biomass exists to potentially displace 100 percent of our
petrochemicals and 50 to 100 percent of our oil-based transportation
fuels.
• Sixth, even in transportation, biomass will be the minor partner in
a dual-fueled strategy.
The most efficient and environmentally benign transportation system
will be powered primarily by electricity. Electric vehicles get over
100 miles per gallon. Unlike today's hybrid cars, which are internal
combustion engine vehicles with a motor assist, tomorrow's plug-in
hybrid cars will charge their batteries from the electricity system
and become electric cars with an engine backup.
Between 50 percent and 100 percent of the vehicle's motive power will
come from electricity. Sufficient biomass exists in this situation to
provide 100 percent of the biofuels needed by the backup engine.
• Seventh, a carbohydrate economy will have a profound impact on
agriculture and world trade.
The carbohydrate economy may have a far more profound impact on
agriculture than on energy. Biomass may satisfy only a small part of
our energy needs. But the additional amount required will be
enormous, perhaps tripling the total amount of plant matter currently
used for all purposes (food, feed, textiles, construction, paper).
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of biorefineries producing a
variety of final products will dot rural landscapes.
Public policies to date have focused on expanding the use of
biofuels. We need to pay as much attention to quality as we do on
quantity. What do we want the new carbohydrate economy to look like?
Aside from oil displacement, what are our long-term objectives, and
our strategy for achieving them?
* * *
Farmers and Local Ownership
More than a century of bitter experience has taught farmers that when
they simply sell a raw crop, they fall ever further behind. Farmers
receive about the same price for their crops today as they did 30
years ago, while the cost of farm inputs has more than doubled.
In 1970, a bushel of corn could purchase about five and a half
gallons of gasoline. Today, a bushel of corn is worth only three-
quarters of a gallon of gasoline.
About 30 years ago, farmers reinvented the producer cooperative, a
business structure in which farmers own the processing and
manufacturing links in the value-added chain. The birth of the first
modern producer cooperatives occurred in the 1970s: Minnesota and
North Dakota sugar beet farmers learned that the area's sole sugar
beet processing plant would close, leaving them little market for
their crop.
The farmers pooled their financial resources and bought the plant.
The price of sugar soared. The sugar beet growers made a great deal
of money. And in America, financial success begets imitation.
Other producer cooperatives emerged, slowly in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, and then with increasing speed in the late 1990s and
early years of the 21st century. Recently, the traditional
cooperative has been joined by a new business form, the limited
liability corporation.
Farmers today make substantial and ongoing investments in land and
equipment. In the last decade they've discovered investing in a
factory can be more financially rewarding than investing in land or
equipment.
Iowa State University (ISU) estimates the five-year average after-tax
return for an ethanol dry mill at 23 percent. On the other hand, 70
percent of Iowa's counties averaged returns on farmland of 2.5
percent or less.
Farmers who own the factory benefit far more from increasing ethanol
demand than those who do not. Increased ethanol consumption over the
last 25 years may have raised the overall price of corn by 10 to 15
cents per bushel. Farmer-owners receive annual dividends four, five,
even 10 times higher.
Farmer-owned biorefineries also serve as a hedge for farmers against
volatile commodity prices. When corn prices decline, production costs
of ethanol also decline. At least a portion of the income lost on the
sale of the raw material can be recouped from the increased profits
from the sale of ethanol.
Farmer ownership also benefits the broader rural community. An oil
refinery gets its raw material from out of the state, perhaps from
outside the country. A biorefinery usually purchases its raw material
within 50 to 100 miles of the facility.
Moreover, virtually all the oil refinery's profits leave the state
for distant corporate headquarters and even more distant
shareholders. Farmer- or local-owned biorefineries retain virtually
all of the profits inside the state.
Consider Minnesota. For every dollar spent on ethanol in the state --
assuming the ethanol is produced in-state in a farmer-owned
biorefinery -- some 75 percent stays in the state economy. For every
dollar spent on gasoline, some 75 percent leaves the state economy.
This equation makes biorefineries a powerful economic development
vehicle.
How can we encourage farmer- and local-owned biorefineries? Here
again, Minnesota's record is instructive. In the early 1980s,
Minnesota's ethanol incentive mirrored that of the federal government
by exempting ethanol sold in the state from a portion of the state
gas tax.
The incentive worked. Minnesotans purchased ethanol-blended gasoline.
But Minnesota didn't produce the ethanol. In the mid-1980s, farmers
persuaded the legislature that public subsidies could more clearly
benefit the state economy.
The legislature converted part of the tax exemption into a direct
producer payment. The new incentive had three important features:
1. Production had to occur inside the state.
2. The biorefinery could receive payments only for the first 15
million gallons of ethanol produced each year. This encouraged
smaller facilities, which in turn enabled farmer and local ownership.
3. An individual plant could receive the incentive only for 10 years.
It would not become a continual drain on public resources.
The incentive proved remarkably successful. Today, 12 of Minnesota's
16 biorefineries are majority-owned by Minnesota farmers. Some 25 to
30 percent of Minnesota's full-time grain farmers own shares.
We need to redesign the federal incentive with the Minnesota
experience in mind. We could begin by converting half the federal
incentive of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol into a direct payment to
the producer. (The other half could be retained as an excise tax
exemption but should be tied to an index comprised of the price of
corn and the price of wholesale gasoline. When the spread between
them rises above a certain level, the tax incentive disappears.) A
producer could receive payments for no more than 10 years, and only
on the first 20 million gallons of annual production.
The federal producer payment could differ from Minnesota's in two
respects. Production would not be required in any specific state. And
farmer- and/or local-owned biorefineries would be favored.
* * *
The New Brotherhood of the World's Farmers
The carbohydrate economy has the worldwide potential to catalyze a
cooperative farmer movement that displaces the traditional farmer-
versus-farmer battles. Traditionally, the carbohydrate has battled
other carbohydrates for market share. High-fructose corn sugar versus
sugar cane. Brazilian soybeans versus U.S. soybeans. In the future,
producers of carbohydrates can cooperate to capture another huge,
untapped market: hydrocarbons.
Farmers have been slow to recognize this opportunity. In fact, U.S.
agricultural organizations allied themselves with the coal and oil
industries to attack the Kyoto treaty. Such an alliance is reasonable
if farmers view themselves simply as consumers of fossil fuels. If
they view their crops as competitors to fossil fuels, however,
opposing Kyoto makes no sense. They should enthusiastically embrace
treaties to reduce global warming because these treaties invariably
impose penalties on the dead carbon contained in coal and crude oil,
while offering rewards for the living carbon contained in crops and
trees.
Today, agriculture is one of the most contentious issues in world
trade. A carbohydrate economy can reduce and perhaps even eliminate
that tension. Rather than Indian and Brazilian and Nigerian farmers
fighting for European and American markets, they can sell into vast
new domestic energy and industrial markets. Indeed, the case for
import substitution is even stronger in the south. Most southern
countries can buy imports only with hard currencies. They can obtain
hard currencies only by increasing exports or borrowing from the IMF
or other banks. Thus, displacing oil imports with domestic fuels can
reduce their external debt while bolstering their rural economies.
* * *
We live in an era of tumultuous change. Yet we should recall Bertrand
Russell's distinction between change and progress. Change, he argued,
is inevitable. Progress is controversial. Change is scientific.
Progress is ethical.
We will have change, whether we want it or not. But progress comes
only when we design rules that channel human ingenuity and
entrepreneurial energy and investment capital toward constructing a
society and an economy compatible with the values we hold most dear.
The carbohydrate economy beckons.
David Morris is vice president of the Minneapolis and Washington,
D.C.–based Institute for Local Self-Reliance and directs its New
Rules Project. He has been an advisor to the energy departments of
Presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton, and George W. Bush. He is the
author of The Carbohydrate Economy (1992) and A Better Way (2003).
Search
Part of solution for warmer world might be in South Dakota. Wind
energy offers South Dakota its best chance to fight what might be the
world's worst environmental problem. Sioux Falls Argus Leader, South
Dakota.
On the ethanol bandwagon, big names and big risks. Ethanol derived
from corn now accounts for 3 percent of the American automotive fuel
market. Most cars in the United States can already handle fuel that
is up to 10 percent ethanol. New York Times.
'Gold rush' for biofuel plants beginning upstate. Seven companies
have proposed to produce alternative fuels in an area stretching from
Buffalo to Syracuse and south to Elmira. As many as 25 others are
pursuing a wide range of alternative energy technologies. Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle, New York.
State's fuel future in biodiesel. The bio-fuel revolution may be
coming to Montana at long last. One Colorado-based company is looking
to build a fuel-grade processor near Havre while Cenex Harvest States
is considering a 2-percent soy-blend in all its diesel fuels sold in
Missoula. Helena Independent Record, Montana.
Groups plan ethanol, biodiesel plants. An Iowa town on the South
Dakota border is poised to cash in on the nation's thirst for
renewable fuels - twice. Sioux Falls Argus Leader, South Dakota.
© 2006 by The American Prospect, Inc.
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=11313
j2997
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Message: 19
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:13:42 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Fusion as energy source debated
Fusion as energy source debated
By LUCY STALLWORTHY
UPI Correspondent
OXFORD, England, March 28 (UPI) -- Nuclear fusion, the process that
powers the sun and the stars, is a potentially viable solution to the
global energy challenge, and is an alternative that must be fully
explored, industry experts say.
In the wake of the June 2005 announcement that the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor will be constructed in Caradache,
France, interest in fusion research has increased significantly, yet
the process remains controversial.
With global energy use expected to rise 60 percent by 2030, the
dependency on fossil fuels, which now provide 80 percent of world
energy, is unsustainable. This dilemma has fueled a search for
alternatives and fusion is often identified as a lead player.
"I am completely confident that we will be using fusion," said David
Ward, a fusion physicist at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Association's Culham Science Center. "The question is the timescale
in which we do it."
At the core of the sun, hydrogen is converted into helium by fusion,
providing enough energy to keep the sun burning. A worldwide research
program aims to safely exploit this process on Earth, a feat that
requires the heating of isotopes of hydrogen to temperatures
exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius.
Significant progress has already been made. In 1983, the Joint
European Torus, the world's most powerful magnetic fusion device, was
completed, and in 1997, JET produced a record-breaking 16 megawatts
of fusion power. ITER is envisaged as an experimental facility that
will further this success, and is described in a European Commission
document titled "Fusion: Energy for the Future" as "the next step on
the path to safe and sustainable fusion power."
It is hoped that by generating 500 megawatts of power, initially for
10-minute periods, ITER will demonstrate the scientific and technical
feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. If this research
proves successful, experts argue fusion could then be used to produce
essentially limitless energy in a safe and environmentally friendly
way.
"It would offer very large amounts of fuel which are almost
inexhaustible over very large timescales," said Jerome Pamela, head
of JET.
Fusion does not produce carbon dioxide, and requires very small
amounts of fuel. Indeed, according to Ward, the JET device uses only
1/100th gram of fuel at any one time. This makes fusion
an "intrinsically safe process ... the biggest downside is that it is
not available as a viable technology today," Ward said.
The large availability of fusion raw materials, deuterium and
tritium, provides a further advantage. According to Pamela, "the
basic fuel is very easily found on Earth. This would release the
geopolitical tensions over fuel supplies which exist today."
However, other observers are less convinced. With ITER construction
costs expected to reach $5.7 billion, the price tag has proved a
magnet for criticism.
According to Alister Scott, research fellow at the Sussex Energy
Group, "the one thing you can say about nuclear fusion is that it is
not financially viable."
Despite massive spending, there is "no remote possibility that fusion
will produce commercial power in the next 25 years," he said.
These high costs invite the criticism that funding could be more
effectively channeled into other projects. Scott highlighted
Britain's pre-eminence in wind power development during the 1980s as
a missed opportunity. This contention is given greater weight by the
British Wind Energy Association's recent announcement that wind power
capability is exceeding predictions, and will provide 5 percent of
Britain's electricity by 2010.
The environmental effects of fusion have also inspired vigorous
debate. Although proponents highlight the lack of carbon dioxide
emissions, environmental groups cite other damaging byproducts.
According to Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International, "fusion power
in theory relies on the use of relatively large amounts of tritium.
The year-to-year operation of reactors with such a fuel will release
large amounts of tritium into the atmosphere."
The debate over fusion also extends to the heart of the global energy
challenge. Fusion power remains in the research and development
stage. ITER will not produce electrical power for a public grid and
according to Scott, "nobody is yet qualified to say when fusion will
become viable." So it remains to be seen whether fusion technological
advances keep pace with, and eventually satisfy, world energy
demands.
Many observers view the notion of fusion as a viable energy
alternative with skepticism. The bulk of the predicted global rise in
energy demand will occur in the developing world. In 1990, developing
countries were responsible for 33 percent of global energy
consumption. By 2020, this is expected to rise to 55 percent as rapid
industrialization and urbanization fuel an insatiable need for power.
This increase leads many to argue that investment should be directed
toward more feasible energy alternatives.
"India and China don't have time to sit and wait for resources which
are unproven," Burnie said. "Any society committed to fusion is
diverting resources down the wrong path."
Despite such criticisms, proponents of fusion power remain
optimistic. At a June 2005 conference in Moscow, Europe, the United
States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan agreed to share the
costs of ITER and in December 2005, India official joined the ITER
cooperation.
For fusion advocates, such international cooperation bodes well for
future capacity of fusion to become a viable energy resource.
According to Ward, "it is only through international collaboration
that we can realistically take a research project and turn it into an
industrial machine."
The involvement of the developing world is seen as particularly
important.
"The biggest need for energy comes from India and China, and they are
active participants in ITER," Ward said. "Everybody now wants to
join."
--
http://www.upi.com/Energy/view.php?StoryID=20060328-040435-9240rj2997
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Message: 20
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:03:21 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Utility seeks renewable energy or certificates
Utility seeks renewable energy or certificates
Tuesday March 28, 2:36 pm ET
A utility that serves eastern and southeastern New Mexico has issued
a request for proposals for about 40,500 megawatt hours of annual
renewable energy or renewable energy certificates, to be generated
from renewable technologies other than wind turbines.
The energy would serve customers of Southwestern Public Service Co.,
an operating company subsidiary of Xcel Energy Inc., in the South
Plains and Panhandle of Texas, eastern and southeastern New Mexico,
the Oklahoma Panhandle and southwest Kansas.
Eligible technologies are: solar; hydropower; geothermal; fuel cells
that are not fossil-fueled; landfill gas and anaerobically digested
waste biomass; and biomass (including fuels such as agricultural and
animal waste, small diameter timber, salt cedar and other woody
vegetation removed from watersheds or river basins in New Mexico).
SPS filed an application with the New Mexico Public Regulation
Commission last fall that contained a renewable energy portfolio
procurement plan (required under the state's Renewable Energy Act).
The portfolio standards under the Act require each investor-owned
utility to implement and maintain an energy supply portfolio that
includes "progressively greater percentages of supply from renewable
energy resources," according to Xcel's RFP. The Renewable Energy Act
requires each utility's renewable portfolio to include a diversity of
renewable generation technologies.
SPS proposes to satisfy 10 percent of its total renewable portfolio
standard requirement with resources other than wind by 2011. The
utility already has significant wind resources in New Mexico, says
Bill Crenshaw, spokesman with Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL - News), and
made its first commercial sale of wind-generated power in June 1999.
Published March 28, 2006 by New Mexico Business Weekly
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/060328/1265264.html?.v=1&printer=1j2997
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Message: 21
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:23:26 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Blair demands green 'revolution'
Blair demands green 'revolution'
Tony Blair has called for a "technological revolution comparable to
the internet" to slow global warming.
Speaking in New Zealand, he said it was important to develop machines
which produce fewer emissions, while maintaining economic growth.
Mr Blair promised to push for an international framework to supersede
the Kyoto Protocol when it expires.
The speech comes after the government admitted it was unlikely to
meet its target for cutting greenhouse gases.
Developing world
Downing Street said Mr Blair had identified 2006 as the year to get
an international consensus on the goal of stabilising the earth's
temperature.
In his speech in Auckland, the prime minister said the framework to
replace Kyoto - which expires at the end of 2012 - must include
China, India and the US.
There is more that government can and will do to meet the target
Margaret Beckett, environment secretary
Solutions needed to be applicable to the developing world, he added.
A government report published on Tuesday said the UK was unlikely to
meet its target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010.
The Climate Change Programme review projected that new and existing
policies would deliver a cut of 15 to18%.
Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said the government was not
giving up on the 20% goal, but said more had to be done to reach it.
She added: "This programme contains a package of far-reaching
measures that will affect all the major sectors and sources of UK
emissions.
"But it is not the last word. There is more that government can and
will do to meet the target."
'Short-term pressures'
Meanwhile, Downing Street has revealed the carbon dioxide emissions
from the prime minister's plane will be "offset" by making an
investment in "energy-saving technology" in the developing world.
>From April, all ministerial flights will follow suit, it was added.
Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper accused the government of
failing to take the "tough action" on climate change.
He said: "Once again the government has caved in to short-term
political pressures and produced a totally inadequate response.
"This pathetic strategy will not deliver the government's promise to
cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010, and will further
undermine the prime minister's reputation on this issue."
Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth said the review was "a
grim admission of failure", adding: "Worse still, it fails to chart a
course which will get us back on track.
"The government's efforts to tackle climate change remain piecemeal,
timid and half-hearted."
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: "The review is
nine months late and a failure. This is much bigger than a sidelined
Labour manifesto pledge and a Whitehall turf-war.
"The prime minister must call his ministers to account. He must
explain to the nation how he will get Britain back on target to
reduce climate change."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/4854886.stmPublished: 2006/03/28 21:08:55 GMT
j2997
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Message: 22
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:24:22 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Re: LIPA Bond Offering Mentions Fuel Cel
Re: LIPA Bond Offering Mentions Fuel Cel
http://prospectus.bondtraderpro.com/PROS00451.PDFj2997
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Message: 23
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:43:06 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: It's getting hot in here
It's getting hot in here
Rajesh Jain
Cavalier Daily Associate Editor
Ellisha Marongelli | Cavalier Daily
THE MELTING of the polar ice caps, the rise of sea levels and massive
flooding covering nations across the globe? It may sounds like a
scene from an apocalyptic movie, but, if trends continue, this
scenario is moving closer and closer to reality. Global warming
studies show the Earth is heating up and humans are to blame.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration has prevented the severity of
global warming from becoming a widely known public issue, allowing
officials to continue to ignore the problem.
The year 2005 was the warmest year on record, according to NASA
climatologist James E. Hansen. Fifty three cubic miles of the
Greenland ice sheets melted away, as compared to just 23 cubic miles
in 1996. The problem has accelerated faster than expected, posing the
possibility of passing a "tipping point," when merely reducing
emissions would not prevent the warming of the Earth.
Yet the United States, the largest contributor of greenhouse gas
emissions in the world, has not stepped into any sort of leadership
role. Worse even, we have lagged behind our duty to reduce greenhouse
gases. The United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the
United Nations initiative that commits nations to reduce their
emissions of six greenhouse gases. A total of 162 nations have signed
the agreement, yet the agreement will lack the desired effect if the
largest contributor of gas emissions remains conspicuously absent.
The current administration has faulted the Kyoto Protocol for its
inconsistent goals for developing versus industrialized nations. They
also point to the potential for economic downturn. At the G-8 meeting
last year, an annual political and economic summit between eight
industrialized democracies, the administration decided to make
a"practical commitment industrialized nations can meet without
damaging their economies," reducing already questionable commitments.
Instead of overall carbon emissions, the officials focused on "carbon
intensity," a deceiving sounding figure which is the ratio of carbon
emissions to economic activity. In the United States's goal of
decreasing carbon intensity by 18 percent by 2012, The New York Times
notes that this figure actually represents an increase in overall
emissions.
Even if the administration disagreed with the details of the Kyoto
Protocol, initiatives could have been taken without its ratification.
Most notably, the administration could have set the same or similar
standards for the nation through Congress. Initiatives for the
planting of forests, which serve as carbon sinks, could have been
planned. Carbon taxes or emission trading -- essentially the creation
of a global greenhouse gas "market" for businesses -- could have been
explored as economically efficient alternatives. Instead, misleading
goals are hand fed to the public with the appearance, but without the
substance, of change.
The administration has tried to cover up the problem by censoring the
world's most prominent scientists. Recently on 60 Minutes, Hansen,
director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, detailed the
efforts of NASA and the Bush administration to censor the gravity of
his research. "In my more than three decades in the government I've
never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to
communicate with the public," Hansen told 60 Minutes.
For example, the White House now reviews all climate related press
releases and forces a press official to be present for all
interviews. Hansen believes the federal government is trying to
suppress his research which, if current trends continue, supports
the "tipping point" of global warming to be in approximately 10
years.
The government feels it can change the science to its liking. Rick
Piltz of the federal Climate Change Science Program said his work has
been edited to make global warming seem less threatening. Despite the
fact he is a lawyer and former lobbyist of the American Petroleum
Institute, Phil Cooney edited works of science before leaving his
position last June. In his revision, Cooney added several words and
phrases of uncertainty such as "may be" and "potentially," despite
the fact that study after study shows strong evidence of global
warming. A lawyer has absolutely no right to edit a scientific work,
just as a former oil lobbyist had absolutely no right to hold a
federal environmental position. Besides the fact that it limits the
First Amendment's right to free speech, such censorship filters
important scientific information that must be present in policy
making.
Instead of action, the federal government has chosen to conduct
further research. Despite the repeated conclusive findings that
global warming is indeed attributable to humans and is accelerating,
President Bush and his science advisor John Marbuger continue to
stress the "lack of information" and the "uncertainty" of global
warming. While ongoing research should be applauded, it becomes
irrelevant when emissions continue to increase.
President Bush has shown his trademark state throughout the global
warming debate -- being unprepared. If the United States continues to
do nothing to slow global warming, the polar ice caps will continue
to melt and massive flooding will occur. We will once again wonder
how a disaster occurred right under our noses. For once, no
Congressional committee or investigation will be necessary -- simple
ignorance from the leader of our nation is all it takes.
Rajesh Jain is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached
at
rjain@cavalierdaily.com.
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=26522&pid1422j2997
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Message: 24
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:22:34 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Hot air but no action
Hot air but no action
Leader
Wednesday March 29, 2006
Guardian
The bulldozers are out this spring widening the congested southern
end of the M1, which is welcome news for anyone who has missed a low-
cost flight from Luton airport because they were stuck in a jam, but
one example of why Britain is way off course on its climate-change
targets. People want to drive more, fly more and use more energy and
they have hardly begun to change their behaviour in order to lessen
the impact on the environment. The result is that the M1 and Luton
airport are busy but Britain's carbon dioxide emissions have
increased by 5.5% since 1997. That has made a mockery of the
government's target to cut them to 80% of 1990 levels by 2010, a
target which was in effect abandoned yesterday by the environment
secretary, Margaret Beckett.
Bowing to the inevitable after an 18-month review, she set out plans
which she hopes will allow Britain to meet a new and less demanding
reduction of 15-18% by 2010. But as environmental campaigners pointed
out yesterday, achieving even this goal is far from certain, not
least because of a Whitehall turf war between Ms Beckett's department
(which wants an 18% cut) and the DTI (which backs 15%). When
ministers cannot agree on the destination, it is hardly surprising
that the journey is a slow one. True, Britain is on course to meet
with ease a less demanding 12.5% target for all greenhouse gases, set
by the Kyoto treaty, and carbon emissions are still lower than in
1990. But what Ms Beckett is less keen to advertise is the reality
that this reduction was a byproduct of Britain's move in the 1990s
from coal-fuelled power stations and the decline of heavy industry,
rather than a genuine shift to a more efficient, less polluting
society. Exclude the switch from coal, and government efforts since
1997 appear to have had no impact at all. Worse, the official figures
on carbon emissions (and Kyoto targets) exclude air and sea
transport. Add that in and emissions are almost certainly higher than
they were before anyone tried to do anything about the problem.
This is a bleak position to be in, since research suggests that both
the pace and the impact of climate change are much greater than
previously thought. Instead of scaling back its ambitions, as the
government did yesterday, it should be scaling them up, towards the
target of a 60% carbon cut by 2050 which the government once hoped to
achieve. At the moment that looks impossible. The good news is that
the government and opposition parties accept the need to act: the bad
news is that so far their solutions are superficial, spray-on
greenery. The budget, spun in advance as an environmental
breakthrough, was nothing of the sort, while the Conservatives have
talked a big game but offered nothing which might cost them votes.
Politicians have pushed the seductive mistruth that climate change
can be solved by painless, invisible measures: some windmills on
chimneys and a few more trees. It cannot. Small measures will help,
but big ones are needed too. Some of them will hurt and voters will
squeal. That does not mean abandoning economic growth, as Bill
Clinton pointed out at a speech in London yesterday. But it does mean
sharing responsibility between individuals and industry, national
governments and the world community. At the moment everyone seems to
be waiting for someone else to take the burden.
Britain has at least acted more responsibly than most, not least at
last year's Montreal talks. Tony Blair and Ms Beckett are certainly
sincere on the issue. But they must be judged on their results, which
are so far not impressive. Cheap flights, new roads and a frozen tax
on petrol are all the product of government decisions. "We need a
technological revolution ... on a parallel with the internet," the
prime minister argued yesterday. He is right, but there is little
sign of it so far, and meanwhile the problem gets worse every day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329445179-103682,00.htmlj2997
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Message: 25
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:26:07 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Blair to press case for clear goals on climate change
Blair to press case for clear goals on climate change
>By James Blitz in Auckland
>Published: March 28 2006 19:20 | Last updated: March 28 2006 19:20
>>
Tony Blair will argue on Wednesday that the world's leading producers
of greenhouse gases must establish clear goals by the end of this
year to stabilise global warming and inject new momentum into the
fight against climate change.
Aiming to reconcile differences between the US and the rest of the
world over climate change, the prime minister will steer clear of
arguing for a concrete set of greenhouse gas reduction targets to be
agreed after the Kyoto accord expires in 2012.
Mr Blair knows such targets would not receive backing from the US and
some other states because they fear the negative impact on economic
growth. Instead, in a speech in Auckland, Mr Blair will advocate a
compromise approach that seeks to forge a new agreement.
He will argue that the world's big producers of greenhouse gases,
including the US, India and China, should broadly spell out the
reduction in global warming that they wish to achieve after 2012.
Mr Blair believes that if international diplomacy over climate change
sticks to stating a broad environmental goal, big carbon dioxide
producers, including the US, could be drawn into a new global
agreement. He thinks an agreement of this kind would provide a
framework that gives confidence to private sector companies that risk
capital investment researching cleaner forms of energy consumption.
It is essential, he believes, that an accord of this kind, setting a
target for the expected warming of the earth's surface below the
current expected rate, is signed in 2006.
He notes that it took five years to agree to the Kyoto accord,
setting CO2 reduction targets, and the world cannot afford to
negotiate right up to 2012 on a new agreement.
After meeting John Howard, the Australian prime minister, Mr Blair
emphasised that any agreement to counter the development of climate
change must be signed by the US, China and India.
"I believe it is possible to build out of the initiatives that are
happening today a more realistic framework that gives us a real
chance of being able to reduce emissions," he said.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/094186b0-be84-11da-b10f-
0000779e2340,s01=1.html
http://tinyurl.com/zy4o5
j2997
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