news20100107jt1

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010
Kan succeeds Fujii as finance minister
Ozawa said to have approved of Hatoyama's choice
Compiled from Kyodo, AP

Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan will be the next finance minister, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Wednesday after accepting the resignation of Hirohisa Fujii due to his poor health.

Hatoyama told reporters that Kan, 63, accepted his offer of the new post. Hatoyama also said the latest personnel matters were also approved by Ichiro Ozawa, the powerful secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

"Problems of health are inevitable," Hatoyama said, adding that he had received a doctor's report. "And so I have accepted his resignation."

Fujii, 77, who has a history of high blood pressure, spent several tough weeks late last year churning out a record 92.30 trillion budget. The government is also trying to pass a ¥7.2 trillion stimulus package.

He checked into a hospital on Dec. 28 for checkups and to get some rest. Fujii has stayed under the care of doctors at a Tokyo hospital but leaves to visit his offices during the day.

Hatoyama has said that passing the budget is his priority this year. It cuts spending on public works but includes large expenditures on social programs like child support and making tuition at public high schools free.

With Kan's appointment, Yoshito Sengoku, state minister in charge of administrative reform, will concurrently serve as state minister for national strategy, the post currently taken up by Kan.

Hatoyama said he has no plans to pick any new Cabinet member for the time being.

Although the prime minister had initially wanted to retain Fujii, his exit became inevitable due to his firm determination to quit. The resignation is the first for this Cabinet, formed in September.

Kan was among the candidates speculated as Fujii's successor, along with Sengoku, Senior Vice Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda and some more marginal figures. But political analysis and economists weren't excited by any of the names floated.

Kan cofounded the DPJ in 1998 and has led the party twice.

The activist-turned-lawmaker, known for his debating skills, symbolizes the ruling party's efforts to stop bureaucratic meddling in politics.

Kan, also strategy minister, spearheads the National Policy Unit that Hatoyama's Cabinet created upon its inauguration last September to wrest control over policy formulation from the powerful bureaucracy.

Kan shot to fame when he was health and welfare minister in 1996, battling bureaucrats over a scandal related to HIV-tainted blood products involving the then Health and Welfare Ministry and a pharmaceutical firm.

He was then a key member of the multiparty coalition headed by the Liberal Democratic Party after its brief fall from power in 1993.

Kan formed the DPJ in April 1998 with other lawmakers opposed to the LDP and served as the party's first leader until September 1999.

He was elected party leader again in December 2002 but stepped down in May 2004 after coming under fire for having failed to pay pension premiums in the past.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010
Clash with Ozawa said behind resignation
By JUN HONGO and ALEX MARTIN
Staff writers

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii's resignation Wednesday is a cause of serious concern for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Cabinet, experts said, noting discord with ruling party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa may have influenced the veteran lawmaker's decision to exit.

"In reality, this is about Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General (Ichiro) Ozawa," said Masaru Takagi, a professor at Meiji University in Tokyo, pointing out that Fujii and Ozawa — regarded as the most powerful man in the ruling coalition — had been on bad terms recently.

Takagi said that rather than health concerns, the discord between Fujii and the Cabinet's so-called shadow shogun was the main factor that prompted Fujii to resign.

Fujii, who was admitted to hospital last week for exhaustion, told Hatoyama on Tuesday that he may not be able to handle his tasks during the ordinary Diet session, which begins later this month.

Although Hatoyama had initially said a decision would not be made until Fujii's health check results were in, he found it hard to retain the 77-year-old veteran whose health concerns made headlines.

Fujii's exit comes just days after Hatoyama said passing the fiscal 2010 budget and averting a double-dip recession are the government's priorities heading into 2010.

Ozawa and Fujii had shared close ties earlier in their careers, but their falling out became evident when Fujii openly criticized Ozawa over his political funds scandal that broke in 2009, urging Ozawa to step down as DPJ president.

Ozawa, often referred to as the puppet master of the Cabinet, retaliated by reportedly showing hesitation at having Fujii named finance minister.

"Fujii called on Ozawa to resign as DPJ chief and their relationship has been complicated ever since," Takagi said.

When campaigning for the August general election, the DPJ promised to end surcharges on road-related taxes that amount to about 2.5 trillion in revenue every year. But Ozawa pressed Hatoyama to backpedal on this pledge.

Although Fujii called the political pledge "an extremely large theme of the (campaign platform) manifesto," Hatoyama heeded Ozawa and announced in December that the surcharges would remain.

As reporters watched, Ozawa openly criticized the budget draft compiled under Fujii's initiative last month.

"It's obvious to anyone's eyes that this has more to do with Fujii's relationship with Ozawa than his health," Keio University professor Yoshiaki Kobayashi explained.

The Cabinet is seeking to pass the second supplementary budget this month and quickly move on to engaging in the 2010 fiscal budget hearings in hopes of passing that bill by the end of March.

Hatoyama wanted Fujii to stay on, telling reporters earlier Wednesday the veteran designed the nuts and bolts of the 2010 fiscal budget plan.

Fujii had been expected to play a key role in answering questions over the budget once the Diet opens.

"He gave birth to the budget plan, and I strongly hope he will develop it," Hatoyama said.

But Fujii's resolve to quit was unshakable, prompting Hatoyama to start unofficially looking for a successor.

Hatoyama appointed Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan to take over Fujii's post.

Before Kan's appointment was announced, analysts and government officials were equally uncertain of who would be the best fit for the position.

Earlier Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano dodged the successor issue and only acknowledged that the issue should not affect the finance market regardless of the outcome.

Meiji University's Takagi said, "Kan is of course talented, but he's the deputy prime minister as well as the state minister in charge of national strategy. For him to handle the position of finance minister is impossible."

With Kan's appointment, Yoshito Sengoku, state minister in charge of administrative reform, will concurrently serve as state minister for national strategy, a post Kan holds at present.

Before Kan was named, Senior Vice Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda was also seen as a good candidate, since he was deeply involved in designing the fiscal 2010 budget plan.

But Takagi said Noda's cool relations with Ozawa could force him to face similar difficulties as Fujii if he had assumed the position.

Keio's Kobayashi said juggling the job of finance minister while being on good terms with the party was something only veterans could handle.

news20100107jt2

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010
Sea Shepherd boat crippled when struck by whaler

SYDNEY/TOKYO (Kyodo) A high-tech "stealth" boat operated by the Sea Shepherd antiwhaling group was damaged Wednesday in a collision with a Japanese whaling fleet vessel in Antarctic waters, with each side blaming the other for the incident.

Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, told Kyodo News the Shonan Maru No. 2, a vessel sent by Japan to ensure the security of its whaling fleet, deliberately rammed his group's A$2 million (US$1.8 million) vessel Ady Gil and "sheared the bow right off."

"It ripped 8 feet (2.5 meters) of the front of the vessel off," Watson said. "At this point it does not look salvageable. It's taking on water."

According to his account, both vessels has been stationary in the water when the Shonan Maru No. 2 started up and then steered deliberately into the Ady Gil, which had been harassing the fleet, at around 3:50 p.m. Australian time.

One of the Ady Gil's six crew members sustained several cracked ribs in the incident, he said, adding that five crew members were evacuated, but its captain remained onboard "trying to see what he can do to salvage the vessel . . . or at least some of the equipment."

Watson, speaking from aboard the ship Steve Irwin, also said Sea Shepherd put out a mayday distress signal "but the Japanese fleet refused to acknowledge that and just kept going. It was a hit and run."

The Japanese Fisheries Agency blamed the collision on Sea Shepherd, saying the Shonan Maru No. 2 crew had tried to ward off the approaching Ady Gil with water cannon but the antiwhaling vessel employed maneuvers such as suddenly reducing speed, which resulted in the collision.

Glenn Inwood, the spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, said that according to his report the Ady Gil was idling in the water and then went "full steam ahead" to cut off Shonan Maru No.2. He said the Ady Gil skipper miscalculated and the "fault lies" with Sea Shepherd vessel for the collision.

According to Watson, the Shonan Maru No. 2 has been "particularly aggressive" this year after it earlier tried to damage the activists' helicopter. "I think their order this year is to try and cause material damage to the ships."

The incident came after Japan's semiofficial Institute of Cetacean Research reported earlier Wednesday that the Ady Gil's crew had launched projectiles at the Nisshin Maru, the mother ship of Japan's whaling fleet.

It said the high-tech Ady Gil had come "to collision distance directly in front of the Nisshin Maru bow repeatedly deploying and towing a rope from its stern with the intent to entangle the Japanese vessel's rudder and propeller."

The institute condemned Sea Shepherd for "extremist actions" that threaten the safety of the Japanese whalers.

"Their actions are nothing but felonious behavior," it charged.

In a statement on his organization's website, Watson said, "The Japanese have now escalated this conflict very violently."

"If they think that our remaining two ships will retreat from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the face of their extremism, they will be mistaken," he added.

The Japanese Fisheries Agency said Wednesday's protest activities by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society marked the fourth time this season for it to obstruct the operations of Japan's whaling fleet in Antarctic waters.

Sea Shepherd has sent three vessels for this year's operation, including the Steve Irwin and a surprise appearance, the Bob Barker, a former Norwegian Antarctic whaling vessel that the group said caught the Japanese "completely off guard."

"The objective of Sea Shepherd's three-ship campaign is to bankrupt the illegal Japanese whaling fleet and to sink them economically," it said.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett called for calm after the incident, which occurred in the area of Commonwealth Bay off the Adelie Coast of Antarctica.

"It's critical for safety at sea to be the highest priority and for the absolute and utmost restraint to be exercised by all parties in this very remote and inhospitable region," he said.

He said the Australian Maritime Safety Authority had not been asked to respond to the collision, adding Australia had no immediate plans to send a vessel to monitor the situation.

Meanwhile, local media reports Wednesday said Japan has been chartering flights from Australia to monitor the location of the Sea Shepherd antiwhaling vessels in the Southern Ocean.

Watson claimed the planes are being charted illegally by Glenn Inwood, the spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research.

"We actually caught him in a bit of a bind because he misrepresented himself to the charter company saying he was a representative of the New Zealand government," he told Kyodo News.

Inwood, when asked about the allegation, answered, "No comment."

Acting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia is seeking legal advice on the matter.

"I make it very clear on behalf of the Australian Government we do not condone this action by the Japanese Government," she said.

news20100107lat

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[Local > Environment]
By Louis Sahagun
January 7, 2010
Whaling clash highlights two Hollywood donors

Both the boat rammed by a Japanese vessel and the craft that rescued six activists off Antarctica were bought with donations from the entertainment industry figures.

The Hollywood-style rescue of six militant conservationists stranded after Tuesday night's collision between an anti-whaling boat and a Japanese whaler in the Southern Ocean spotlighted significant financial contributions to the activists from two of the entertainment industry's top animal-cause philanthropists.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's sleek, speedy and stealthy carbon-fiber trimaran, the Ady Gil, was purchased with a $1-million donation from Gil, co-owner of American Hi Definition Inc., one of Hollywood's leading providers of video production trucks, custom control rooms and camera systems to entertainment and corporate clients, including Jay Leno.

The vessel's six crew members were rescued from the stricken craft by the crew of the Bob Barker, a former Norwegian whaler recently purchased and refitted with a $5-million donation from Bob Barker, who hosted the TV game show "The Price Is Right" for 35 years.

"Sea Shepherd is extremely fortunate to have the support of Bob Barker and Ady Gil," said Amy Baird, spokeswoman for the group. "Their generous contributions will help Sea Shepherd to end illegal whaling operations in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary."

Gil, of Woodland Hills, was shocked when he heard, by phone, about the violent collision that sheared off the vessel's bow and left at least one crew member with minor injuries.

"This is so sad," Gil said in an interview. "My little boat was out there trying to save the whales. Now it has a broken nose and is badly damaged. It was one of a kind. Can it be repaired, or rebuilt? We'll have to see."

The collision off the Antarctic coast was only the latest run-in between the militant conservationists and whalers from Japan, which insists it has the right to hunt the cetaceans for what it calls scientific purposes. The group's campaign to interfere in the hunt is featured in Animal Planet’s "Whale Wars" reality show, which had a production crew of 16 aboard Sea Shepherd vessels, including a cameraman on the Ady Gil.

Marjorie Kaplan, president and general manager of Animal Planet Media Enterprises, said in a news release that the show was "excited to be on Sea Shepherd boats again this season" and that the group's efforts have "made 'Whale Wars' intense and vital television."

Barker, who lives in Hollywood, said he was "delighted" at the role of his namesake ship.

"By virtue of the Bob Barker being there, six lives were saved," he said in a telephone interview. "The whole purpose is to sink the Japanese whaling fleet economically by making it impossible for them to harvest enough whales to continue to exist."

Barker's contribution to the anti-whaling cause followed a conversation he had six months ago with Sea Shepherd's founder, Paul Watson.

"I was impressed with Paul in every way," Barker recalled. "At one point, he said, 'If I had $5 million, I could put the Japanese whalers out of business.' I said, 'I have $5 million. Let's get it on.' "

The Ady Gil, designed to run for long periods on biodiesel fuel, set a world record for global circumnavigation before Gil bought it in October and donated it to Sea Shepherd.

"We can't allow a piece of seagoing history like this to go down," Gil said. "Maybe we'll build my boat a little sister and call it Ady Gil II."


[Environment > Entertainment]
Associated Press
January 7, 2010
Alaska ice sculpture gives Al Gore two cold shoulders

The global warming activist and former vice president has another joking ice sculpture in his image.

Fairbanks, Alaska - Another two-ton ice sculpture of former Vice President Al Gore is back in front of a Fairbanks liquor store.

"Frozen Gore" is a dig at Gore's beliefs about climate change.

The first statue went on display last year. This year's version is hooked up to the exhaust of a pickup truck to make it appear Gore is spouting hot air.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports the smoke drew laughs from a crowd Tuesday as a Gore speech on climate change played over a loudspeaker.

The sculpture was commissioned by two businessmen, Craig Compeau and Rudy Gavora, who want Gore to discuss global warming in Fairbanks.

"We don't agree with his theories -- we're suspicious of the financial motivation behind them," Compeau said.

Last year's inaugural Gore ice sculpture got national attention, including mentions on the Drudge Report, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

Compeau said his website with photos and information about the sculpture attracted 1.7 million visitors.

He also was swamped with mostly positive e-mails from people who found the sculpture entertaining.

Climate change scientists say Alaska has warmed by 3 degrees Fahrenheit during the last 50 years.

The average temperature for 2009 was 27.8 degrees in Fairbanks, about one degree warmer than normal, said Rick Thoman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

news20100107gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Carbon footprints]
Top British firms drag their feet to reduce carbon footprints
> 24 firms account for 87% of emissions by FTSE 100 companies
> 77% of FTSE firms will aim to cut pollution by 2.5% a year
David Adam
The Guardian, Thursday 7 January 2010 Article history

Greenhouse gas targets set by many of Britain's largest companies are too weak to meet UK commitments on climate change, a new analysis shows.

A report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) says a lack of ambition from companies in the energy, materials and utilities sector threatens government plans to cut emissions by 2020.

The CDP report found that 77% of FTSE 100 companies said they have a target to reduce emissions, with an average annual reduction rate of 2.5%. That compares well with the 2.4% annual reductions on overall emissions that Britain needs to make to achieve a legally binding target of 34%-42% reductions by 2020, relative to 1990 levels.

However, the average annual emissions reductions planned by the firms in the energy, utilities and materials sectors total 1.2%. There are only 24 of these companies in the FTSE 100, but they account for 87% of all FTSE 100 reported emissions.

Joanna Lee, CDP's director of communications and corporate partnerships, said: "Across the board, companies are doing pretty well. But what's most striking is that if you look at the three most heavily polluting sectors, they are lagging significantly behind. If we are going to deliver on climate change targets these companies need to take more aggressive action."

The report, published today, says there is a "carbon chasm" between what is planned by the firms and what is required.

It says: "The targets set by the most carbon intensive sectors, responsible for the majority of FTSE 100 emissions, are not sufficiently ambitious and will not deliver reductions required by the UK climate change act."

It adds: "Clearly, UK regulation is sending strong signals to companies of the necessity to manage carbon, but as many of these companies operate globally, we also need a strong global framework to create the right incentives to set sufficiently strong targets."

The report is based on voluntary targets set by firms during 2009, before the climate conference in Copenhagen in December failed to establish a new global treaty. Analysts say the lack of such a treaty could make companies more reluctant to take on more rigorous targets.

"These carbon intensive sectors will need to take on more aggresive targets if they are to deliver in line with government commitments," the report says.

The CDP analysis showed that almost a third of company targets were based on reductions in carbon intensity, rather than absolute cuts in greenhouse gas pollution. Cuts in carbon intensity allow firms to increase overall emissions, while appearing to have gone green, the report points out.

"Companies should set company-wide targets for the reduction of their absolute level of emissions," it says. "Climate change can only be mitigated by a reduction in absolute emissions... therefore companies setting intensity targets should complement these with absolute targets."


[Business > Automotive industery]
America's love affair with cars stalls as car sales slump to record low
More cars scrapped than sold in US for first time since second world war
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 January 2010 16.54 GMT Article history

America's love affair with the automobile could be sputtering to an end. Some 14m cars were taken out of action in 2009, 4m more than rolled off the assembly lines and onto the roads, a report from the Earth Policy Institute said today.

It was the first time more cars were scrapped than sold since the second world war, reducing the size of the US car fleet from an all-time high of 250m to 246m.

Last year was an extraordinarily bad year for the US auto industry. Two of the three big car makers — GM and Chrysler — went through bankruptcy and were bailed out by the US government. Sales fell 21.2% from 2008 and the total sales volume was the lowest since 1982. Many consumers held off buying new cars because of fears of losing their jobs.

The Obama administration's efforts to spur demand by offering motorists up to $4,500 on trade-ins of older cars and pick-up trucks saw 700,000 older models taken off the road. But that did not affect the total number of vehicles on the road because consumers could only take advantage of the scrappage scheme if they replaced their old clunkers with new more efficient vehicles.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, said the slump in car sales goes beyond the economic recession. Americans may finally have decided that — with cars — enough is enough. The country now has 246m licensed cars for 209m licensed drivers.

"This is not a one-time event. We expect the shrinkage to continue into the indefinite future," Brown told a conference call today.

He predicted the US car fleet would shrink by 10% by 2020. He said he believed that America had reached the saturation point for cars. Japan recorded a similar milestone in 1990, and its fleet has declined by 21% since then.

"If we want to get all our vehicles on the road at once we couldn't do it because we don't have enough drivers," he said.

America has also undergone a transition into a largely urbanised society, with four out of five residents living in towns. Major US corporations are now taking congestion into account when planning new offices, Brown said.

Washington and other major US cities have been raising parking fees to increase revenue. Others are exploring congestion charges.

A younger generation — unsure about finding a job after high school or college — is also far less likely to see car ownership as a rite of passage, Brown, adding that the decline in car sales, plus increasing fuel efficiency, would help bring down America's greenhouse gas emissions.

"No one knows how many cars will be sold in the years ahead, but given the many forces at work, US vehicle sales may never again reach the 17m that were sold each year between 1999 and 2007. Sales seem more likely to remain between 10m and 14ma year," he said.

news20100107gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Renewable energy]
Scottish minister gives green light to controversial 137-mile power line
Environmentalists divided over plans to construct 600 pylons to connect wind and wave power to the grid
Severin Carrell and Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 January 2010 16.57 GMT Article history

Britain's largest overhead power line project has been approved despite fierce protests over the decision to erect towering pylons along 220km of the Highland's finest scenery.

The long-awaited go ahead for the power line, which will stretch from Beauly near Inverness to Denny near Falkirk on pylons up to 65m high, is expected to kickstart a huge overhaul of the UK's electricity network at a cost of up to £4.7bn.

The decision was applauded by the renewable energy industry and backed by many leading environment groups. They said the new line, which will be upgraded from 132kV to 400kV, was essential for plans to ramp up the output from wind, wave and tidal power projects, often best located in remote parts of the UK, and deliver it to the cities where most people lived.

But its opponents were furious, and accused the Scottish government of sacrificing large areas of the Highlands, including treasured beauty spots in Perthshire such as Queen's View on Loch Tummel, the Cairngorms national park and around Beauly near the Moray Firth.

Helen McDade, of the landscape conservation charity the John Muir Trust, one of the project's fiercest critics, said it was a "black day". She added: "Marching a 220km mega pylon line though some of our most world-renowned landscapes may be the most lucrative option for the energy industry but it is the wrong choice for Scotland."

The Scottish energy minister, Jim Mather, said the Beauly to Denny line was crucial in his government's efforts to generate up to 50% of Scotland's electricity from renewable sources and meet its promises to cut Scotland's CO2 emissions by 42% by 2020.

But to placate critics, he imposed new conditions, requiring the power companies to remove or improve 86.5km of line at five places, and improve "visual mitigation" of the line at Crieff, Stirling and Plean.

Mather said he agreed with the energy industry that blocking the new line, a joint £400m project between Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern, would have fatally undermined future green energy projects throughout the UK for the next decade. Yet, in an argument set to rise further in intensity as the UK's tough carbon targets loom, critics insist that new wave of power projects will scar the British landscape with bigger pylons, and make it far easier to build windfarms in unsuitable places.

The new line will replace an existing power line and actually use fewer pylons – 600 compared to the 800 currently in place. Many of the new pylons will be more hidden and further from homes.

Opponents said the largest pylons, which at 65m high will be 24m higher than the tallest existing pylons, would be vast, and have a footprint and volume seven times larger. Beauly, home to some of Scotland's oldest forest and rarest wildlife, will have a much larger substation for the new line and be the focal point for five power lines converging from across northern Scotland.

John Mayhew, director of the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, said it was "the most disappointing planning decision in Scotland for many years. Scotland's landscapes are not some endless resource which can be shaved away time and again – they are finite, they are much valued by local people and they are the main attraction to visitors."

Alex Salmond's nationalist government has championed green power in Scotland and while many environment groups such as WWF Scotland backed the scheme, it has been very nervous about the political backlash today's decision will cause.

The line, which was opposed by all the local councils affected and the Cairngorms park authority, goes through the key rural constituencies of three SNP ministers and its critics believe the SNP will lose votes at the next general election.

But Mather said the new line was economically vital. It will significantly increase the amount of electricity exported from northern Scotland, including massive windfarms planned for Shetland and Caithness, and wave and tidal plants planned off Orkney, by 6.4GW. A large coal-fired station generate 1GW.

In turn, a network of existing power lines across Scotland and northern England will be upgraded and new undersea cables laid down the east and west coast, increasing the capacity of the grid in Scotland by 11.4GW.

A major report last year on the future of the grid by the Electricity Network Strategy Group said £4.7bn worth of grid upgrades across Wales, Humberside and East Anglia, and around London, hinged on today's decision.

"It is vital for Scotland to upgrade its networks so that it can realise its energy potential and important if Britain is going to meet its climate change targets," said Chris Lock, a spokesman for the energy regulator, Ofgem.

The British Wind Energy Association said the Beauly Denny line would immediately kick start 1.5GW of new renewables projects and encourage the construction of a further 1.5GW of schemes. "This is good news," said Charles Anglin, a BWEA spokesman. "It is a first step towards rebuilding a 21st-century grid infrastructure which can accommodate a new generation of decentralised green energy."

Willie Roe, chair of Highlands and Islands Enterprise said: "It paves the way for the Highlands and Islands to capitalise on its place as the renewable energy engine room of Europe. It offers some of Scotland's most economically fragile areas the prospect of participating at the frontier of a globally important industry."

news20100107gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > GM]
Britain must launch GM food revolution, says chief scientist
John Vidal and Felicity Lawrence
The Guardian, Wednesday 6 January 2010 Article history

Britain must embrace genetically modified crops and cutting-edge developments such as nanotechnology to avoid catastrophic food shortages and future climate change, the government's chief scientist will warn today.

In the clearest public signal yet that the government wants a hi-tech farming revolution, Professor John Beddington will say UK scientists need to urgently d evelop "a new and greener revolution" to increase food production in a world changed by global warming and expected to have an extra 3 billion people to feed by 2040.

"Techniques and technologies from many disciplines, ranging from biotechnology and engineering to newer fields such as nanotechnology, will be needed," writes Beddington in a paper, seen by the Guardian, to accompany his speech to the Oxford farming conference.

He warns that time lags for the use of new technology on farms means action is vital now and argues that it is no longer possible to rely on improving yields from crops in traditional ways. "Over the last 50 years improving yields has accounted for 75% of increase in output. However, yield growth rates are now slowing," he says.

Instead, he argues that new technologies such as GM will be critical in meeting economic, environmental and social goals. Beddington says the revolution is needed primarily to counter climate change and help provide food for the 9 billion people worldwide expected within 30 years.

"It is [also] predicted that demand for energy will rise by around 50%, and for fresh water by 50%, all of which must be managed while mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a 'perfect storm' of global events," he says.

The government has wanted GM crops to be much more freely grown for many years but has been reluctant to reopen the debate following intense campaigns against the technology by environment and development groups in the 1990s.

Although Beddington has spoken in support of GM before, his keynote speech – to a conference of farmers and supermarkets – shows that ministers believe it is time to accelerate the debate on the issue.

Intense lobbying by food companies, the growing significance of climate change, recent international food crises and a major independent Royal Society report have all helped to give the government the authority to put GM back on the national agenda.

For six months the government has been preparing the way with a series of reports on consumer opinion. Announcements from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) over the summer also began to frame GM as a new moral imperative in feeding the world. The Cabinet Office strategy unit also highlighted GM as an urgent domestic issue back in the summer of 2008. It said: "Consumer confidence in UK regulations, regulators and food supplies might be prejudiced if GM feed was found in systems claiming to be GM-free or if non-authorised varieties were detected in the UK food chain. If non-authorised material is found, there are also significant cost implications associated with recall."

The assumption that new technology is the answer to the global food crisis is expected to be fiercely challenged by development and environmental charities campaigners who accuse the government of not having looked at the real causes of the global food crisis.

They point out that a UN-sponsored four-year review, involving more than 400 international scientists and chaired by Defra's own chief scientist, Professor Robert Watson, concluded in 2007 that GM technologies were unlikely to have more than a limited role in tackling global hunger.

According to the Watson-led review, the scientific evidence on the claimed benefits of GM suggests they are variable, with increases in yield in some areas but decreases in others, and both greater and lesser pesticide use in different contexts. But crucially it concluded that global hunger is as much to do with power and control of the food system as with growing enough food.

Yesterday, Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, launched the government's food strategy for the next 20 years. He told the Oxford conference that Britain must grow more food in a different way to respond to rising temperatures and world populations. "Food security is as important to this country's future wellbeing – and the world's – as energy security. We need to produce more food.

"We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure that what we eat safeguards our health," he said.

news20100107gdn4

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Whaling]
Sea Shepherd boat sinking after being 'sliced in half' by Japanese whalers
> Conservation group's founder says it was 'vicious attack'
> Japan blames Ady Gil's crew for 'extremely dangerous' acts
Justin McCurry, Tokyo
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 January 2010 17.54 GMT Article history

It was as much a clash of ideas as a battle of wills between the crews of two boats in some of the world's most inhospitable waters.

On one side was the Shonan Maru No 2, a diesel-powered, 490-ton harpoon ship protecting Japan's Antarctic whaling fleet as it maintains a tradition stretching back centuries; on the other, the Ady Gil, a sleek, biodiesel-powered speedboat manned by a crew willing to put themselves in harm's way to end the slaughter.

The standoff took its most dramatic turn for years today when activists from the Sea Shepherd marine conservation group accused the whalers of ramming and sinking the Ady Gil, adding to international tensions surrounding Japan's annual "scientific" hunts.

Sea Shepherd said its stricken boat, a 78-foot catamaran made of fibreglass, had been "sliced in half" after being rammed near Antarctica's Commonwealth Bay. Japanese fisheries officials insisted that the boat had been hit accidentally as it sought a confrontation with the Shonan Maru No 2.

The speedboat's six crew were rescued and five of them taken aboard another of the group's boats. One, a New Zealander, is thought to have suffered cracked ribs after being thrown to the deck in the collision. Another remained aboard the Ady Gil tonight, attempting to salvage as much equipment as possible from the sinking vessel.

Sea Shepherd's founder, Paul Watson, accused the whalers of deliberately ploughing into the front of the boat while it was stationary. "It was a vicious attack," he told the Guardian by satellite telephone from the group's mother ship, the Steve Irwin.

"The Shonan Maru turned and deliberately struck the Ady Gil, cutting it in half. The captain was trying to reverse to get out of its way when it happened. If he hadn't done so the Shonan Maru could have struck another part of the boat and killed someone."

In a statement, the group said the Ady Gil was missing about 10ft [three metres] of its bow, adding that there was little chance of salvaging the wreckage.

Watson's claims drew an angry response from Japanese officials, who accused Sea Shepherd of engaging in "extremely dangerous" behaviour.

The fisheries agency said the collision occurred when the Ady Gil ignored warnings and suddenly slowed down as it crossed in front of the Shonan Maru. "These acts of sabotage that threaten our country's whaling ships and crew were extremely dangerous," it said in a statement. "It is totally unforgivable."

The agency said the Shonan Maru had emerged unscathed and none of the crew members had been injured. The standoff began earlier in the day when activists threw stink bombs made from rancid butter on to the deck of the whaling fleet's mother ship, the Nisshin Maru.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, a government-funded body which organises the hunts, said that the Ady Gil had come "within collision distance" of the Nisshin Maru's bow and dangled a rope in the water that could have entangled the ship's rudder and propeller.

The whalers reportedly responded by firing high-powered hoses to keep the Sea Shepherd vessels away.

Sea Shepherd had hoped to use the Ady Gil to frustrate the whalers and force them to abandon the hunt. It will now be left to the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker, a Norwegian Antarctic harpoon vessel, to continue the pursuit.

Glenn Inwood, the institute's spokesman in New Zealand, said the whalers' footage of the collision disproved the activists' account. "Sea Shepherd claims that the Shonan Maru has rammed the Ady Gil and cut it in half; its claim is just not vindicated by the video," he said.

Watson said the loss of the $1.8m (£1.1m) boat, paid for by a California businessman, would not deter Sea Shepherd from pursuing the fleet, which this year plans to kill 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.

"Once we have finished attending to the Ady Gil we will be back chasing them, cutting their quota and their profits," Watson said. "We still have another two months left of this."

Today's incident has reignited a bitter, six-year rivalry between the whalers and their pursuers, during which Sea Shepherd claims it has made significant dents in the whaling fleet's cull. Last year it said the fleet had returned to port with about 350 fewer whales than planned.

Greenpeace, which disapproves of Sea Shepherd's direct tactics, has not sent a vessel to the Southern Ocean for the past two years, while it concentrates on building an anti-whaling movement in Japan.

Recent hunts have been disrupted by dramatic confrontations in freezing waters between Sea Shepherd and the whaling fleet, which left port in November and is due to return in early spring.

Although commercial whaling has been banned since 1986, a loophole in the International Whaling Commission's moratorium allows Japan to conduct "lethal research" and sell the meat from hundreds of whales on the open market.

Australia and New Zealand, the closest countries to the scene of the annual confrontation, today urged both sides to show restraint. "Our strongest condemnation applies to any violent or dangerous activity that takes place in these remote and inhospitable waters," Australia's environment minister, Peter Garrett, said.

The Australian government, a vocal critic of Japan's whaling, is under pressure to act on reports that the whalers had chartered Australian aircraft to "spy" on the Sea Shepherd's vessels.

Julian Gillard, Australia's deputy prime minister, said: "We do not condone this action by the Japanese government. We're urgently seeking legal advice about this matter."

news20100107nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 6 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.2
News
Quivering ions pass quantum test
Table-top experiments unlock quantum realm predicted by Dirac equation.
Zeeya Merali

{{Paul Dirac: author of the equation which predicts quantum quivering.}
Bettmann/CORBIS}

Trapped ions masquerading as high-speed particles have been used to confirm a bizarre 80-year-old prediction of quantum mechanics.

Quantum particles racing at close to the speed of light were first predicted to jitter violently as they moved — a phenomenon known as the Zitterbewegung — in 1930, by the father of quantum mechanics, Erwin Schrödinger. The prediction was based on the Dirac equation, developed by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928, which merges quantum mechanics with special relativity to describe how particles such as electrons behave.

"The motion is particularly unexpected because there aren't any forces acting on the particle to make it quiver," says physicist Rene Gerritsma at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Innsbruck, Austria.

Instead, the jitter is caused by a combination of two effects. The first is the quantum property of superposition, which allows quantum objects to be in two mutually exclusive states or positions at the same time. The second is the existence of antimatter.

{{“If the Dirac equation is a true description of reality, then Zitterbewegung exists.”}
Rene Gerritsma
Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Innsbruck, Austria}

When a particle is in a superposition between its matter and antimatter states, these two contradictory sides of its personality should interfere, setting the particle quivering, explains Gerritsma. However, the phenomenon has never been observed experimentally because the motion is too small and too fast to detect in real quantum systems.

"For a long time, people have debated if Zitterbewegung is a real effect or something artificial that falls out of the equation that describes the situation, the Dirac equation," says Gerritsma, "and if it is real, whether it could ever be measured."

Shake it up

Gerritsma and his colleagues have now simulated Zitterbewegung by manipulating a trapped ion with lasers. "It turns out that the mathematical model that describes the interaction of the lasers with the ion mirrors the Dirac equation," says Gerristma. Crucially, changing the frequency and intensity of the laser allowed the researchers to tune two key properties of the simulation: the effective mass of the quantum particle being simulated by the ion, and the effective speed of light in the system. The latter could be dialled down to less than 1 millimetre per second, slow enough for Zitterbewegung to be detected in the lab.

To mimic the superposition between matter and antimatter, the team manipulated an electron within the ion so that it existed in a superposition of both an excited, high-energy state and a non-excited, low-energy state. Computer simulations of Zitterbewegung suggested that under these conditions the ion should tremble back and forth over a distance of about 10 nanometres. This jitter would be too small to see directly, so the team shone a second laser on the ion that stopped it in its tracks, making it emit fluorescent light. The amount of fluorescence marked how far it had moved from its central position, explains Gerritsma.

In this way, the team could obtain snapshots of the ion's position after repeated runs of the experiment — each time halting the Zitterbewegung after a slightly different length of time, and building up a statistical pattern of the quivering motion that matched the calculations. "Our results show that if the Dirac equation is a true description of reality, then Zitterbewegung exists," says Gerritsma. The team's results are published in Nature¹.

The new alchemy

The technique used by Gerritsma's team was originally outlined in 2007 by Tobias Schätz of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and his colleagues². Such simulations are important because limitations on processing power mean that classical computers can only model the behaviour of a few tens of quantum particles before the task becomes too much for them, says Schätz. "Quantum simulations are emerging in a lot of fields as a shortcut to quantum computation to help us model the behaviour of complex systems that occur in reality."

"If the team can upgrade this to a few tens of particles, then this will really challenge simulations on classical computers," says Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a quantum chemist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 2008, Schätz and his colleagues used trapped ions to simulate the magnetic properties of a quantum system³. He hopes that quantum simulations such as this and those by Gerritsma's team will eventually help to explain why certain materials, such as metal-oxide ceramics, can act as superconductors at relatively high temperatures. "This understanding is essential if we ever hope to use superconductivity at room temperature," he says. "Without it, high-temperature superconductivity is just alchemy."

References
1. Gerritsma, R. et al. Nature 463, 68-71 (2010). | Article
2. Lamatta, L., León, J., Schätz, T. & Solano, E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 253005 (2007). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Friedenauer, H., Schmitz, H., Glueckert, J. T., Porras, D. & Schaetz, T. Nature Phys. 4, 757-761 (2008). | Article | ChemPort |

news20100107nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 6 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.1
News
Discovery pushes back date of first four-legged animal
But controversy surrounds 400-million-year-old fossilized tracks.
Rex Dalton

The oldest known tracks of a four-limbed land animal could rewrite part of vertebrate evolution.

Some prints, showing individual digits, were found in limestone slabs unearthed in a quarry near Zachełmie, Poland, dated to about 395 million years ago — more than 18 million years before tetrapods were thought to have evolved.

The tracks suggest that the animals that made them were up to 2.5 metres long and had a footpad up to 26 centimetres wide, although most prints were about 15 centimetres wide, reports a team of Polish and Swedish scientists in Nature this week¹. This would mean that large, land-roaming tetrapods would have coexisted for 10 million years with the elpistostegids — including Tiktaalik roseae, which lived 375 million years ago — a group thought to mark the transition of from fish to land-roaming animals (see 'The fish that crawled out of the water').

{{“There is still a small chance these may be something else masquerading as tetrapod footprints.”}
Jennifer Clack
University Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK}

"The discovery of the Zachełmie footprints substantially changes the context for future research on the origin of tetrapods," writes the team, which includes Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, a fossil-footprint specialist from Warsaw University, and Per Ahlberg, a palaeontologist from Uppsala University in Sweden (see video and podcast).
But the claim will not be accepted by all. "I am sure this paper will come under heavy fire," says Philippe Janvier of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris (see P. Janvier & G. Clément Nature 463, 40–41; 2009).

No bones

The find is not supported by fossil bones at the site, and palaeontologists familiar with the discovery say they have reservations about the tracks, because they may have been made by some natural process.

"There is still a small chance these may be something else masquerading as tetrapod footprints," says Jennifer Clack, palaeontology curator at the University Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK. "One of the startling things is the size of some of these isolated footprints," she adds. "You'd expect a smaller animal would more easily become terrestrial."

Edward Daeschler, head of vertebrate zoology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and part of the team that described Tiktaalik roseae^2,3, agrees. "Trace evidence is not enough for me to change my mind about accepted theories on tetrapod evolution," he says.

Janvier says that "there is a risk" that natural processes formed the tracks, adding that the dating of the limestone formations bearing the tracks was "unambiguous".

Ahlberg insists the tracks are genuine prints. "You can see anatomical details consistent with a footprint, including sediments displaced by a foot coming down," he says. "There is no way these could be formed by a natural process."

Thrusting forward

The Zachełmie quarry is in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains) in southern Poland. It is a well-known sequence of marine Middle Devonian formations. These formations are from the southern coast of what was once the supercontinent Laurasia, created when the earlier supercontinent Pangaea split up. The authors think that the new tetrapod lived in an intertidal or lagoon environment.

The team says that the tracks bear the hallmarks of an animal capable of walking by thrusting its arms and legs forward. They note the fossil structure of transitional species such as Tiktaalik or Panderichthys⁴ — another elpistostegid — would make such walking motion "impossible".

The questions surrounding the discovery are only likely to be solved by exploring more of the intertidal rock formations from the Middle and Early Devonian periods to find fossil bones of the creature that made the tracks.

References
1. Niedźwiedzki, G., Szrek, P., Narkiewicz, K., Narkiewicz, M. & Ahlberg, P. E. Nature 463, 43-48 (2010). | Article
2. Daeschler, E. B., Shubin, N. H. & Jenkins, F. A. Jr Nature 440, 757-763 (2006). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Shubin, N. H., Daeschler, E. B. & Jenkins, F. A. Jr Nature 440, 764-771 (2006). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
4. Boisvert, C. A., Mark-Kurik, E. & Ahlberg, P. E. Nature 456, 636-638 (2008). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |

news20100107bcc1

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 11:31 GMT, Thursday, 7 January 2010
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
EU awards Galileo satellite-navigation contracts

A German/UK consortium has been asked to supply the first operational spacecraft for Europe's Galileo satellite-navigation system.

OHB System and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) will build 14 satellites in a contract valued at 566m euros ($811m; £510m).

The contract was announced by the European Commission in Brussels.

Galileo is intended as an EU version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), but with significant improvements.

Its more advanced technology should give users quicker, more reliable fixes, and enable them to locate their positions with an error of one metre compared with the current GPS error of several metres.

European Commission vice-president with responsibility for transport, Antonio Tajani, also announced contracts to purchase the rockets on which to launch the satellites, and system management to oversee the Galileo project implementation.

"With this and the upcoming awards for the remaining procurement packages, we are concluding a critical phase of the Galileo programme," he said.

"We can now focus on the actual roll-out and demonstrate to European citizens that Europe's own satellite-navigation system is firmly underway."

Flight pairs

The total value of the contracts announced on Thursday is just over one billion euros. The contracts mean Galileo, which has been much delayed, should finally become operational in early 2014.

{{ GALILEO UNDER CONSTRUCTION}
> A European Commission and European Space Agency project
> At least 22 satellites to launch in batches in coming years
> Will work alongside US GPS and Russian Glonass systems
> Promises real-time positioning down to less than a metre
> Guaranteed under all but most extreme circumstances
> Suitable for safety-critical roles where lives depend on service

"Our schedule has the satellites rolling off the end of the production line in the second half of 2012," said Phil Davies from SSTL.

"We then fall into a steady state where we produce a satellite every six weeks or so. The first two will be ready for launch in October 2012," he told BBC News.

Arianespace of France will launch the spacecraft. The value of its contract amounts to 397m euros ($569m; £358m).

Arianespace will use Russian-built Soyuz rockets initially to send up the spacecraft in batches of two.

By early 2014, it is thought there could be up to 16 spacecraft in the Galileo network, enough to make a significant difference to sat-nav users with Galileo and GPS-enabled receivers.

Thales Alenia Space of Italy has been asked to provide the system support to pull the whole project together. Its contract is valued at 85m euros ($122m; £77m).

Long road

Galileo should have been operational by now but the project has run into myriad technical, commercial and political obstacles, including early objections from the Americans who thought a rival system to GPS might be used to attack its armed forces.

The venture came very close to being abandoned in 2007 when the public-private development-and-business model set up to build and run the system collapsed.

To keep Galileo alive, EU member-states had to agree to fund the entire project from the public purse. What should have cost European taxpayers no more than 1.8bn euros will now probably cost them in excess of 5bn euros.

The EU's continued commitment to the project despite severe budgetary and management failings is based on the belief that huge returns to the European economy will accrue from the investment.

Already, GPS is said to have spawned global markets that are worth several tens of billions of euros annually.

The new European constellation is expected to deepen and extend those markets as sat-nav functionality becomes ubiquitous in consumer devices such as mobile phones.

Thursday's contracts are just the start of operational roll-out of Galileo. More satellites and rocket will be needed.

There are also outstanding work packages that need to be awarded, for the ground control segments of Galileo.

The three major contracts in this area should be awarded by mid-2010.

{{THE GALILEO SYSTEM WILL HAVE FIVE SERVICES}
> OPEN ACCESS NAVIGATION This will be 'free to air' and for use by the mass market; Simple timing and positioning down to 1m
> COMMERCIAL NAVIGATION Encrypted; High accuracy at the cm scale; Guaranteed service for which service providers will charge fees > SAFETY OF LIFE NAVIGATION Open service; For applications where guaranteed accuracy is essential; Integrity messages will warn of errors
> PUBLIC REGULATED NAVIGATION Encrypted; Continuous availability even in time of crisis; Government agencies will be main users
> SEARCH AND RESCUE System will pick up distress beacon locations; Feasible to send feedback, confirming help is on its way}


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 09:48 GMT, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Japan survivor of both atomic bombs dies, aged 93

The only person officially recognised as having survived both atomic bombings in Japan at the end of World War II has died from stomach cancer, aged 93.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb.

He suffered serious burns and spent a night there before returning to his home city of Nagasaki just before it was bombed on 9 August.

He said he hoped his experience held a lesson of peace for future generations.

It was already recorded that Mr Yamaguchi had survived the Nagasaki bomb, but in March last year officials recognised he had been in Hiroshima as well.

'Precious storyteller'

A handful or Japanese people are known to have lived through both attacks, but Mr Yamaguchi is the only one formally recognised by the Japanese government to have done so.

{More than 200,000 people were killed in the two atomic bombings}

Certification as a hibakusha or radiation survivor qualifies Japanese citizens for government compensation, including medical check-ups, and funeral costs.

On learning of his official recognition last year, Mr Yamaguchi said: "My double radiation exposure is now an official government record.

"It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die."

In his later years, Mr Yamaguchi gave talks about his experiences as an atomic bomb survivor and emphasised his hope nuclear weapons would be abolished.

About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.

Survivors fell sick with radiation-related illnesses, including cancers, for years after the bombings.

The Mainichi newspaper reported that last month Mr Yamaguchi was visited in hospital by James Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar, who is apparently considering making a film about the bombings.

Commenting on Mr Yamaguchi's death, the mayor of Nagasaki said on the city's website that "a precious storyteller has been lost".

news20100107bbc2

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 17:17 GMT, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
By Michael Fitzpatrick
Science reporter, BBC News
Methane release 'looks stronger'

Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed.

Methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping solar heat.

The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of Russia, led by Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

"Methane release from the East Siberian Shelf is underway and it looks stronger than it was supposed [to be]," he said.

Professor Semiletov has been studying methane seepage in the region for the last few decades, and leads the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), which has launched multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean.

The preliminary findings of ISSS 2009 are now being prepared for publication, he told BBC News.

Methane seepage recorded last summer was already the highest ever measured in the Arctic Ocean.

High seepage

Acting as a giant frozen depository of carbon such as CO2 and methane (often stored as compacted solid gas hydrates), Siberia's shallow shelf areas are increasingly subjected to warming and are now giving up greater amounts of methane to the sea and to the atmosphere than recorded in the past.

{{METHANE HYDRATES}
> Methane gas is trapped inside a crystal structure of water-ice
> The gas is released when the ice melts, normally at 0C
> At higher pressure, ie under the ocean, hydrates are stable at hig
her temperatures

This undersea permafrost was until recently considered to be stable.

But now scientists think the release of such a powerful greenhouse gas may accelerate global warming.

Higher concentrations of atmospheric methane are contributing to global temperature rise; this in turn is projected to cause further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane in a feedback loop.

A worst-case scenario is one where the feedback passes a tipping point and billions of tonnes of methane are released suddenly, as has occurred at least once in the Earth's past.

Such sudden releases have been linked to rapid increases in global temperatures and could have been a factor in the mass extinction of species.

According to a report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the springtime air temperature across the region in the period 2000-2007 was an average of 4C higher than during 1970-1999.

That is the fastest temperature rise on the planet, claims the university.

The recent thaw over the last decade means that some of the large reserve of carbon from organic material such as dead animals and plants in sediments is now being released into the sea and into our atmosphere.

Trapped below that is the methane hydrate now warming and leaking through holes in the defrosting sediments.

{{ How Methane Escapes From The Sea Bed}
1. Methane hydrate is stable at high pressure and low temperature
2. Nearer the surface, where water pressure is lower, hydrates break down earlier than at greater depth as temperatures rise
3. Gas rises from the sea-bed in plumes of bubbles - some of it dissolves before it reaches the surface
4. The ISSS team says it has detected methane breaking the ocean surface}

Previously it was thought much of this gas was absorbed into the sea.

But according to a recent report that Professor Semiletov and his team compiled for the environmental group WWF, the shallow depth of arctic shelves means that methane is reaching the atmosphere without reacting to become CO2 dissolved in the ocean.

Professor Semiletov's fellow researcher aboard the Russian icebreaker that carries the ISSS team each year is Professor Orjan Gustafsson from Stockholm University in Sweden.

He said that methane measured in the atmosphere around the region is 100 times higher than normal background levels, and in some cases 1,000 times higher.

'No alarm'

Despite the high readings, Professor Gustafsson said that so far there was no cause for alarm, and stressed that further studies were still necessary to determine the exact cause of the methane seepage.

"It is important now to understand how fast it is being released and how much is being released," he said.

However, there is a real fear that global warming may cause Siberia's subsea permafrost to thaw.

Some estimates put the amount of carbon trapped in shelf permafrost at 1,600 billion tonnes - roughly twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere now.

The release of this once captive carbon from destabilised ocean sediments and permafrost would have catastrophic effect on our climate and life on Earth, warn the scientists.


[Technology]
Page last updated at 08:24 GMT, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Pi calculated to 'record number' of digits

A computer scientist claims to have computed the mathematical constant pi to nearly 2.7 trillion digits, some 123 billion more than the previous record.

Fabrice Bellard used a desktop computer to perform the calculation, taking a total of 131 days to complete and check the result.

This version of pi takes over a terabyte of hard disk space to store.

Previous records were established using supercomputers, but Mr Bellard claims his method is 20 times more efficient.

The prior record of about 2.6 trillion digits, set in August 2009 by Daisuke Takahashi at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, took just 29 hours.

However, that work employed a supercomputer 2,000 times faster and thousands of times more expensive than the desktop Mr Bellard employed.

Precision targeted

These herculean computations form part of a branch of mathematics known as arbitrary-precision arithmetic - simply put, knowing a given number to any amount of decimal places.

It is hard to overstate just how long the currently determined pi is; reciting one number a second would take more than 85,000 years.

"I got my first book about Pi when I was 14 and since then, I have followed the progress of the various computation records," Mr Bellard told BBC News.

But it is not simply the number that interests him.

"I am not especially interested in the digits of pi," he wrote on his website.

{{It's more than just for the fun of it - pi is a way of testing a method}
Ivars Peterson
Mathematical Association of America}

"Arbitrary-precision arithmetic with huge numbers has little practical use, but some of the involved algorithms are interesting to do other things."

Mr Bellard plans to release a version of the program he used to do the calculation, but says that carrying on with any further billions of digits "will depend on my motivation".

Ivars Peterson, director of publications at the Mathematical Association of America, said that the result is just the latest in a long quest for a longer pi.

"Newton himself worked on the digits of pi and spent a lot of time using one of the formulas he developed to get a few extra digits," Mr Peterson told BBC News.

In modern times, pi has served as more than just a simple but lengthy constant, however.

"People have used it as a vehicle for testing algorithms and for testing computers; pi has a precise sequence of digits, it's exactly that, and if your computer isn't operating flawlessly some of those digits will be wrong," he explained.

"It's more than just for the fun of it - pi is a way of testing a method and then the method can be used for other purposes."

news20100107cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[CES]
By John D. Sutter, CNN
January 7, 2010 -- Updated 1033 GMT (1833 HKT)
Microsoft opens CES without much-hyped tablet, highlights past successes

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
>Microsoft did not announce its own tablet-style computer as previously expected
> Project Natal, Microsoft's body-sensing gaming system will be available this holiday season
> Natal uses cameras to sense body movements, replicate them on screen

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer opened up the largest consumer technology trade show in the world with a tone that was both reflective and energized, but without living up to much -- if any -- of the anticipation that preceded the speech.

Some tech insiders had expected Microsoft to use its keynote slot Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show to debut a tablet-sized computer, a much-hyped category of electronics that is sized between mobile phones and laptops and usually has a touch-sensitive screen.

Apple, the company's chief rival, is rumored to be announcing a tablet later in January.

While Ballmer did briefly show off tablet-sized computers that run on Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, he did not announce a Microsoft tablet computer; nor did he dazzle the technophile crowd with many new products or announcements.

Instead, Ballmer chose largely to highlight the company's past successes, like Windows 7, the Xbox 360, its Zune HD portable music player and the search engine Bing. Thirty-nine million Xbox 360s have been sold worldwide, and Bing has gained 11 million new users in recent months, he said.

He also mused on the history of technology and said he is going to be headstrong about the fact that the future will be just as innovative and inspiring as the past.

Noting that the global middle class -- Microsoft's customer base -- is expected to jump from 1 billion to 4 billion people in coming decades, Ballmer said, "I'm bullish, and we can all be bullish in terms of the long-term prospects of our industry."

A substantial portion of the keynote focused on entertainment and gaming, and some news did come out of that part of the talk.

Microsoft announced Project Natal, a new controller-free video gaming system, which reads a players body movements with cameras and mimics them with avatars on screen, will be available for purchase by the holiday season this year.

The company had demonstrated the system at another trade show last year, but had not set a release date until Wednesday. It is still unclear how much the system will cost, although Microsoft says Natal add-ons will work with its existing Xbox 360 gaming console.

Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president for entertainment and devices, also announced a number of new games for the Xbox, including a new edition of the popular game Halo, which is due out in the spring.

"What Star Wars is to film and what Harry Potter is to fantasy books, Halo is to the gaming industry," he said.

Ballmer and Windows senior product manager Ryan Asdourian touted the success of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, which has won favorable reviews since it was released last year. Ballmer said the operating system has helped buoy PC sales in the down economy.

Asdourian said the beauty of PCs is that there are so many to choose from -- from desktops to netbooks, notebooks and now tablets.

"The great part about being a PC?" he asked. "You can find one that matches your style, your needs, and of course, your budget."

Ballmer and Asdourian briefly showed off Windows-running tablet computers from HP, Pegatron and Asus. Ballmer referred to them by another name: "slate PCs."

Some attendees said they left the speech disappointed.

"We were really bored by it," said Paul Miller, an editor at a gadget-focused blog called Engadget. "This is CES, and you're looking for what's new.

"For them to show us a bunch of products and functions that we'd already seen, it just seemed like a waste of time."

Ben Parr, co-editor of the social media and tech blog Mashable, said he had expected more from Microsoft's keynote, but that the company did show off the fact that it had a good year in 2009.

"It's still all very cool and Ballmer and company did a good job reminding us what sorts of things we'll expect in 2010," he said.

At times in the keynote, Ballmer ruminated on the power technology has to transform peoples' lives. He mentioned several Microsoft research projects, including those to make health care data more useful for patients, to help researchers use software to find a vaccine for HIV/AIDS and to make homes more energy efficient.

"All of us here tonight have a real responsibility to use technology for the betterment of the society and the betterment of the planet," Ballmer said in the address.

Dylan Tweney, senior editor at Wired, said Microsoft doesn't get enough credit for its lofty and often-futuristic research goals. The problem, he said, as that these concepts don't always translate into better experiences for consumers.

He also said Apple's rumored announcement of a tablet computer was hanging over Microsoft's talk. "Apple has been very smart in making inroads into home entertainment," he said, "and you could sort of see how somebody like Microsoft might look at the prospect of an Apple tablet and be very nervous."


[World]
January 7, 2010 -- Updated 1220 GMT (2020 HKT)
Minister: U.S. terror suspect met with radical cleric

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> U.S. officials evaluating whether Anwar al-Awlaki played a role in the botched bomb plot
> Al-Awlaki's name also surfaced as U.S. officials investigated U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting 13 people
> Attempt to ignite explosives hidden in Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab's underwear failed to bring down plane
> Federal jury indicted AbdulMutallab on six counts, including attempt to murder the other 289 people aboard

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Terror suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab met with radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a top government official said Thursday.

The meeting took place in Shabwa, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of the capital, Sanaa, according to Yemen's Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Rashad Al-Alemi.

No other details about the encounter were immediately available.

U.S. intelligence officials have been evaluating whether al-Awlaki played a role in the botched attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet en route from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan on Christmas Day. The attempt to ignite explosives hidden in AbdulMutallab's underwear failed to bring down the plane.

A federal grand jury indicted AbdulMutallab Wednesday on six counts, including an attempt to murder the other 289 people aboard.

If convicted, the 23-year-old Nigerian national faces a sentence of life in prison.

Al-Awlaki's name also surfaced in November when U.S. officials revealed he and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of fatally shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5 -- had exchanged e-mails. The intercepted e-mails between the two, officials said, had not set off alarm bells.

The cleric recently told Al Jazeera's Arabic-language Web site that he had been in touch with Hasan in recent years. In that interview, al-Awlaki said he met Hasan nine years ago while serving as an imam at a mosque in the Washington area.

The cleric said Hasan communicated with him via e-mail starting about a year before the shooting rampage -- seeking advice about killing U.S. troops, the cleric said.

The 9/11 Commission Report says al-Awlaki had contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the United States, though there is no evidence he knew of the plot.

Al-Awlaki is believed to have fled to Yemen in 2003 or 2004. Since then, he has been referred to as a "rock star" by some of those who incite radicalism on the Internet.

His current whereabouts are unknown to U.S. officials. Some have speculated that he was killed in a recent strike on suspected jihadist hideouts in Yemen.

But a U.S. official said the intelligence community believes al-Awlaki is alive. His own family was quoted last week as having said the same thing.

He may have been among al Qaeda operatives targeted in a December 24 airstrike in Yemen that killed some 30 militants, the Yemen news agency SABA reported at the time of the attack.

news20100107reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
LONDON
Tue Jan 5, 2010 12:21pm EST
EU carbon sheds early gains as selling resumes

LONDON (Reuters) - European carbon emissions futures reversed earlier gains on Tuesday, as operators started to sell off excess permits even though a cold weather snap was driving up energy demand, traders said.

EU Allowances for December delivery fell 32 cents or 2.44 percent to 12.77 euros ($18.45) a tonne at 1511 GMT, with heavy volume at 4,776 lots as investors sold into the morning's strength.

Prices hit a session high of 13.22 euros in the first hour of trade, extending the previous session's gains as utilities continued to buy permits to cover increased power generation due to cold European weather.

But buying had subsided by mid-morning and EUAs touched an intra-day low of 12.69 euros by early afternoon.

"Theoretically, cold weather equals more energy demand and more carbon demand. But the market is so long that even though it is cold people are still selling allowances," said Seb Walhain, head of environmental markets at Fortis Netherlands.

Industrial companies with surplus EUAs due to reduced output during the economic downturn are expected to sell those permits heavily in the coming weeks.

EUA prices had been rallying after falling to six-month lows at the end of December after U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen failed to deliver a strong climate deal.

Market confidence is still at a low ebb, traders said.

"We have diversified into energy markets and I have put my best people on soft commodities and oil. At the moment I don't see there is a proper business to be had in carbon except for those who are very 'short'," Walhain said.

This week, Dec-10 EUAs should remain around 13 euros and Dec-10 certified emissions reductions around 11.5 euros, said Emmanuel Fages, analyst at Societe Generale/orbeo.

"Prices are a bit above these levels as we write but this quick rise should lead to some profit-taking," he said in a research note.

Germany auctioned 300,000 EUAs at 12.67 euros a tonne on the European Energy Exchange on Tuesday in the first of 48 German government auctions planned for this year until the end of November.

For the auction calendar, click on: here%20Auction%20Calendar001.pdf

EEX will also auction 570,000 EUA futures every Wednesday on the derivatives market until October.

Spot EUAs on France's BlueNext exchange traded at 12.55 euros a tonne on Tuesday.

British prompt gas prices climbed 6.92 percent to 42.50 pence per therm on Tuesday, but the system was coping well with additional demand from cold weather after a tight system caused prices to reach an 11-month high on Monday.

German Calendar 2011 baseload power on the EEX was down 38 cents or 0.72 percent to 52.40 euros per megawatt hour.

U.S. oil edged up toward $82 a barrel on Tuesday, heading for its ninth straight session of gains as a cold snap in key consumers the United States and Europe boosted demand for heating fuel.

Certified emissions reductions were down 24 cents or 2.10 percent at 11.20 euros a tonne.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Keiron Henderson)


[Green Business]
TAIPEI
Tue Jan 5, 2010 12:57pm EST
Outdone by Dubai, Taiwan tower seeks green award

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Outdone by an tower extending over 800 meters in Dubai, the world's former tallest building, Taipei 101, wants to become the highest green structure by completing a checklist of clean energy standards, a spokesman said on Monday.

Green Business

Taipei 101 will spend T$60 million ($1.9 million) over the next year to meet 100 criteria for an environmental certificate that it would hold over Dubai, spokesman Michael Liu said.

The office-commercial tower that reigned for five years as the world's highest building at 509 meters (1,670 feet) expects the U.S-based Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design to give it the certificate in 2011.

"We're focused now on becoming a Taiwan landmark, that won't change, and on going green. We'd be the tallest building to get a green certificate," Liu said by telephone.

Taipei 101, he said, would work with its 85 office tenants to cut electricity and water use, while encouraging them to recycle more refuse. Annual utility savings should total T$20 million.

Restaurants would be asked to bring in supplies from as close as possible to reduce transportation.

"We can reduce power, trash and water by more than 10 percent," he said. "We're already pretty green. In principle there's no major problem."

The Taiwan skyscraper, complete with an observation deck popular with tourists, has already met 60 of the checklist items, including double-paned windows to retain cool air.

Green towers are unusual in Asia, a region with the world's busiest construction sector yet one of the poorest records for eco-friendly building.

Burj Dubai, started at the height of the economic boom and built by some 12,000 laborers, will now become the world's tallest building. It was set to open on Monday as Dubai seeks to rekindle optimism after its financial crisis.

(Reporting by Ralph Jennings, Editing by Ron Popeski)


[Green Business]
Sunanda Creagh
JAKARTA
Wed Jan 6, 2010 7:12am EST
Indonesia says forest plan can meet emission target

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An ambitious Indonesian plan to plant millions of hectares of forest should allow the country to exceed its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than a quarter by 2020, the forestry minister said on Wednesday.

Indonesia was named in a 2007 World Bank study as the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States, largely due to its rapid rate of deforestation.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has pledged to cut emissions by 26 percent from business as usual levels by 2020 or by 41 percent by 2020 if given sufficient international support.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said the plan to add an extra 21.15 million hectares (52.26 million acres) of forest by 2020 would turn the country from a net carbon emitter to into a net carbon sink.

"If the scenario described proceeds, if the planting proceeds, we can reach more than 26 percent (in emissions cuts)," he told reporters after the presentation. "If we can also eradicate illegal logging, then the 26 percent will be achieved entirely in the forestry and peat sector."

The target appears ambitious since Indonesia currently has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world. Hasan said there were 130 million hectares of forest left in the country but only 48 million hectares were in good condition.

Under the new plan, he said 500,000 hectares of new forest would be planted annually at a cost of 2.5 trillion rupiah ($269 million) per year.

An extra 300,000 hectares of degraded forest would be rehabilitated every year funded by the government and money from Australia, Norway, Korea and the private sector, he added.

"And it all must be verified. That is in our best interest, so that in future, other countries can see it is transparent, open and will want to help," he said.

Indonesia last year set up a legal framework to encourage forest preservation projects operating under a U.N.-backed scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

Under the scheme, polluters can earn tradeable carbon credits by paying developing nations not to chop down trees.

However, powerful illegal logging syndicates have helped accelerate forest destruction in Indonesia and Hasan said that combating such forces required cooperation between district officials as well as law enforcement officials.

Fitrian Ardiansyah, climate change program director for WWF Indonesia, welcomed the forest plan but said it may not address the main source of Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions.

"Most emissions in this sector usually come from forests being converted to grow crops, build infrastructure, settlements and set up mining operations; illegal and destructive logging outside and inside legal forest concessions; and forest and land fires to clear space for some agricultural lands," he said.

Ardiansyah said the government should focus on conservation and using remaining primary and high conservation value forests and terrestrial ecosystems in a sustainable way.

(Editing by Ed Davies)


[Green Business]
DUBAI
Wed Jan 6, 2010 8:13am EST
Qatar studying $1 billion solar energy project

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar is in "serious" talks with investors to build a $1 billion solar power project, an Arabic-language daily said on Wednesday, citing an executive.

"Qatari and foreign entities are in serious talks... and a final agreement that will set the project's road map is expected to be arrived at soon," Shadi Abu Daher, regional manager of the World Trade Center in Doha, told Qatar's Al Arab newspaper.

He said negotiations began late last year.

(Reporting by Tamara Walid; Editing by John Irish and Clarence Fernandez)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
BEIJING
Wed Jan 6, 2010 8:15am EST
China power consumption up 5.96 pct in 2009

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's power consumption in 2009 rose 5.96 percent to 3,643 billion kilowatt hours, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Wednesday.

Growth was 0.47 percentage points higher than in 2008.

The administration did not provide power consumption data for last month, but official media said December power consumption grew around 30 percent from a year earlier, citing data from the State Grid Corporation of China, China's leading grid operator.

China's National Bureau of Statistics will publish power output data later, which is normally in line with consumption figures.

In 2009, the average utilization rate of power generators, each with capacity of 6,000 kilowatts and above, fell 121 hours from 2008 to 4,527 hours, the NEA said in a release published on the website of the National Development and Reform Commission (www.ndrc.gov.cn).

China's power generating capacity increased 89.7 gigawatts (GW) last year to 874.07 GW at the end of 2009.

The country closed 26.17 GW of small coal-fired power generators last year, bringing total closures to 60.06 GW since 2006, 10 GW more than the target of 50 GW for the five years through 2010, the administration added.

(Reporting by Jim Bai and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)


[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Wed Jan 6, 2010 1:50pm EST
Denmark releases four "red carpet" climate activists

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish police released four Greenpeace activists on Wednesday who were detained 20 days ago for sneaking into a gala dinner for heads of state to protest against what they deemed failed U.N. climate talks.

Three of them, dressed in evening gown and tuxedo, walked up the red carpet on December 17, duped guards and entered Copenhagen's Christiansborg Palace to unfurl banners saying "Politicians Talk, Leaders Act" before dignitaries and TV cameras.

The fourth man, who remained outside, was detained later for his part in the protest. Police held the Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian and Swiss activists in custody as a security risk, but said on Wednesday their detention was no longer necessary.

Climate talks in Copenhagen last month secured bare-minimum agreements that fell well short of original goals to reduce carbon emissions and stem global warming, after rich and developing economies failed to paper over differences.

Greenpeace welcomed the activists' release but poured scorn on the Danish police for holding them for three weeks.

"The unnecessary imprisonment of these four peaceful activists has effectively been punishment without trial," said Mads Christensen, executive director of Greenpeace Nordic.

"The length of their detention without trial is out of all proportion to what was a simple and harmless protest with a legitimate objective," his statement added.

The four have been charged with trespassing, impersonating a police office, falsifying documents and with a further charge that stiffens penalties in cases that occur in the vicinity of Denmark's Queen. They could still face trial and jail sentences.

(Reporting by John Acher; Editing by Jon Boyle)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Wed Jan 6, 2010 11:42am EST
EU carbon prices unchanged, eye UK auction

LONDON (Reuters) - European Union carbon emissions futures barely moved after a small German permit auction on Wednesday, but traders warned a UK auction on Thursday could push prices lower.

EU Allowances for December delivery were down 27 cents or 2.13 percent to 12.43 euros ($17.85) a tonne at 1509 GMT, with volume at 3,760 lots.

"The market has not reacted but today's auction was small. The bigger, British one tomorrow could impact prices," said an emissions trader.

EUAs touched a new six and a half month low on Wednesday but recovered to around two-week lows after players supported prices, traders said.

EUAs fell as low as 12.28 euros in morning trade, a level last hit on December 21 after U.N. climate talks failed to deliver a binding agreement.

EUAs last traded below that level on June 23, 2009.

"We could touch that again today or tomorrow. For now, there was a lot of support at 12.28," an emissions trader said.

Germany auctioned around 300,000 EUA futures at 1400 GMT on Wednesday and the UK government will auction of a revised total of 4.9 million spot EUAs on Thursday.

These could put more pressure on prices because the market is already 'long' in EUAs, they said.

"Carbon is adjusting to the introduction of German auctions, and with this in effect the market will see three days where EUAs will enter the market and many players will be looking to dump them," another trader said.

Industrial companies with surplus EUAs due to reduced output during the economic downturn are expected to sell those permits heavily in the coming weeks.

"There is no real industrial selling yet," a trader noted.

Spot EUAs on France's BlueNext exchange were down 2.48 percent to 12.20 euros a tonne with light volume at 776 lots.

Last February, heavy selling from industrial companies with surplus credits forced prices down to nearly 8 euros a tonne.

Some market players believe a continued European cold snap, which has stimulated the need for more carbon permits to cover emissions, could prevent prices from falling that low.

German Calendar 2011 baseload power was down 35 cents or 0.67 percent to 51.85 euros per megawatt hour.

U.S. oil remained below $82 a barrel on Wednesday after unexpectedly bearish U.S. inventory data on Tuesday, ending a 9-day rally that saw U.S. crude futures rise 14 percent on a mix of cold weather and geopolitical jitters.

U.N.-backed certified emissions reductions were down 22 cents or 1.98 percent to 10.90 euros a tonne.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; editing by xxx


[Green Business]
Poornima Gupta
SAN FRANCISCO
Wed Jan 6, 2010 3:05pm EST
VC sees IPO promise for "quality" green firms

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Following a successful public debut of one of its companies last year, a San Francisco venture capital firm is now guiding two more of its green portfolio firms to raise money in the public markets.

CMEA Capital, an early stage investor in many green firms including battery maker A123 Systems that debuted successfully last year, is planning to brave the IPO market again with Silicon Valley companies Codexis and Solyndra.

"What A123 demonstrated is that the IPO market is available to companies that are very highly differentiated," said Tom Baruch, CMEA founder and managing director, in an interview.

Green start-ups that have distinct technology, and have demonstrated that their business model works, have a good chance of attracting investor interest, both in the public and private markets, Baruch said.

With oil prices moving up steadily and the U.S. economy stabilizing, investors and experts are forecasting that 2010 will be marked by some of the more mature green start-ups testing public enthusiasm for companies that have big growth potential, but little profit.

A123, which has yet to make a profit, was CMEA's first portfolio company to go public in nearly two years. In total, the firm manages seven funds representing investments totaling over $1 billion.

Solyndra, which builds thin-film solar tubes and secured $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. government to build its second factory, filed for a $300 million IPO last month.

Codexis, which is working with Royal Dutch Shell on biofuel products, filed for an IPO last week.

Green energy was a small corner of the IPO market in 2009, and the deals had mixed results.

CMEA's portfolio company A123, which makes lithium-ion batteries for the automotive market, had a smash-hit debut with shares jumping over 50 percent in their first day of trading in September. It has a market cap of about $2.3 billion.

On the other hand, Chinese thin film solar panel maker Trony Solar Holdings Co Ltd postponed its IPO indefinitely last month.

Baruch, who honed his early-stage investment skills at the Battelle Development Corp and then at Exxon in the 1970s, said financial markets were looking for "good quality opportunities."

"For the last two years, investors have had their hands in their pockets," Baruch said. "With the global economy loosening up somewhat, some of that money is coming off the sidelines."

Baruch, however, does not believe there would be a deal rush this year.

"This is going to go very slowly," he said.

In recent months, green technology companies have managed to raise more capital, from sources including venture capital, private equity, public equity, and debt funds.

According to London-based New Energy Finance, investment in green companies -- from solar and wind power, other renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy storage -- jumped to $25.9 billion in the third quarter of 2009 from just $13.3 billion in the first quarter of 2009.

Going forward, Baruch said he is especially bullish about the solar industry.

"The price of energy is moving up and that's a very, very favorable trend for alternative energy," Baruch said.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
LISBON
Wed Jan 6, 2010 9:57am EST
EDP Renewables expects to win UK wind project

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's EDP Renewables (EDPR) expects to be awarded a 1.3 gigawatts development project in the third offshore wind farm leasing round in the United Kingdom, the company said on Wednesday.

Based on the information the company has received from British authorities, EDPR expects to receive a development agreement for an offshore wind farm located in the northeast of Scotland, it said in a statement.

It said the final decision should be made later in January.

EDPR, the wind energy unit of Energias de Portugal, is the world's fourth-largest wind energy company in terms of installed capacity.

It is bidding in the UK leasing round through a joint venture in which it holds 75 percent. The remainder is owned by SeaEnergy Renewables Limited.

At 1225 GMT shares in EDPR were 0.92 percent lower at 6.9060 euros.

(Reporting by Axel Bugge; Editing by Hans Peters)


[Green Business]
SAN FRANCISCO
Wed Jan 6, 2010 8:18am EST
Think electric carmaker to invest in U.S. plant

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Norwegian electric car maker Think Global said it plans to build vehicles in the United States in 2011 and has picked a site in Indiana for its U.S. manufacturing facility.

Think said on Tuesday it plans to assemble vehicles in Elkhart County and would invest $43.5 million in building improvements and equipment.

The company estimates its investments will support manufacturing capacity for more than 20,000 vehicles a year.

Lithium-ion battery maker Ener1 Inc, which has a 31 percent stake in Think Global, also has a manufacturing site in Indiana.

Think Global, which emerged from court protection last year, said it started delivering the latest generation of its electric car to customers in Europe in December.

The Think City all-electric vehicle can travel more than 100 miles on a single charge, the company said.

In addition to incentives provided by the State of Indiana and Elkhart County, Think said it plans to utilize funding from the U.S. loan program to establish its new production facility.

Think has been in the electric car space since the 1990s but has changed owners and struggled for cash through the years.

It was formerly part of U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co and its Think City electric car was produced after Ford took a major stake in 1999.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)


[Green Business]
WASHINGTON
Wed Jan 6, 2010 6:21pm EST
Greens seek review of carbon offsets on U.S. lands

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservationists urged Obama administration officials on Wednesday to move cautiously on the use of carbon offsets on public lands, saying the mechanisms may interfere with land managers charged with protecting forests and other lands.

Under cap-and-trade legislation being considered by Congress, private carbon offsets could be applied to public forests and other federal lands.

Some federal forests, such as ones in the Pacific Northwest, have some of the highest carbon storage rates per acre of any place on the planet. Private carbon brokers and traders have been anxious to introduce use of offsets in those areas.

Forest carbon offsets allow industrial polluters who chose not to cut their own emissions to get credit for emissions reductions by paying others to protect or grow trees.

Obama administration officials have said they would be open to the use of offsets on public lands. But climate legislation has been delayed in the Senate and its future is unclear.

"Offset markets, if well designed and well-regulated, could steer needed resources into private land protection. However, extending this mechanism into the arena of federal land management raises numerous unexamined issues," six conservation groups said in a letter on Wednesday to Secretaries Ken Salazar, of the Department of the Interior, and Tom Vilsack, of the Department of Agriculture. "

David Moulton, director of climate policy at the Wilderness Society, one of the groups that wrote the letter, said such private contracts could lead to conflicts with public land managers as they are charged with protecting whole ecosystems, not just the parts that store carbon dioxide.

In addition, public lands in many cases are already protected by land managers and laws, so offsets may not add any additional protections.

A spokeswoman at the DOI said the department was reviewing the letter.

The other groups that signed the letter were the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife and the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio)


[Green Business]
Ed Stoddard
DALLAS
Wed Jan 6, 2010 10:35am EST
U.S. carbon market growth seen without climate bill

DALLAS (Reuters) - Voluntary carbon markets in the United States will grow especially at the regional level even if a stalled federal climate bill fails to impose "cap and trade" on American industry, the chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) said.

"I think we will continue to see interest in voluntary carbon markets ... And I would expect that without a federal law you will continue to see growth in regional initiatives in the United States," Richard Sandor, the exchange's founder, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

He noted regional moves that he said were gaining traction such as the Western Climate Initiative.

"After all, we started CCX when there was virtually no movement in Washington (on mandatory emissions caps) back in 2003," Sandor said.

U.S. lawmakers face an uphill battle enacting a climate bill in 2010 that includes a cap-and-trade market in greenhouse gases after December's U.N. meeting in Copenhagen failed to hammer out a global pact on emissions cuts.

U.S. climate legislation remains likely as lawmakers feel pressure to help the country lead in production of low-carbon energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power.

But the Copenhagen Accord did not include mandatory emissions targets. This will make it difficult for lawmakers to argue that the U.S. should have a binding emissions cap.

Political uncertainty has contributed to low carbon prices in the United States. The Carbon Financial Instrument contracts on the Chicago exchange have fallen to about 15 cents per tonne from about $2 early last year. In Europe, carbon allowances are worth about $18.50 a tonne.

But Sandor, an innovative and key figure in the history of the global derivatives industry, said he still saw "momentum" for cap and trade in the United States.

He also said he saw a lot of growth and excitement around a U.N.-backed system to pay poorer nations for saving or replanting their forests, known as the reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD.

"I think REDD will continue to grow and capture the imagination of many, many people in and out of the environment movement," he said.

He said he saw regional markets and exchanges being set up in places like Brazil while Africa would begin to benefit from offset projects.

Sandor is executive chairman of Climate Exchange PLC, which owns not only the CCX but the European Climate Exchange, a key part of the European Union's carbon trading scheme put in place after the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

Asked if it was seeking new partners or markets, he replied: "We continue to explore other markets."

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Christian Wiessner)