news20100122jt

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Jan. 22, 2010
Court airs taped grilling of Sugaya
'92 interrogation into slayings led to 'confession'

UTSUNOMIYA, Tochigi Pref. (Kyodo) Audiotapes of a prosecutor questioning Toshikazu Sugaya were played Thursday during his retrial at the Utsunomiya District Court, prompting him to leave the courtroom because he felt sick.

Sugaya, 63, sentenced to life in prison for the 1990 abduction-murder of a 4-year-old girl in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture, was released last June after serving 17 years. Fresh evidence to prove his innocence arose from new DNA tests and he is expected to be acquitted following the retrial.

His lawyers say that playing the recordings of the interrogation process will show how Sugaya was forced to make a false confession and how he was victimized by an inappropriate investigation and court trials.

After his arrest in 1991, Sugaya was questioned not only about the 1990 slaying but also about the murder of two other girls in Ashikaga, in 1979 and 1984. With his expected acquittal in the 1990 killing, all three slayings remain unsolved.

On a tape recorded Jan. 28, 1992, the prosecutor questioned Sugaya about the 1984 case, in which a 5-year-old girl was slain, asking him, "Is it really true?" and Sugaya responded, "I took (the girl on my bicycle)," suggesting he was involved in the murder.

But Sugaya eventually denied involvement after the prosecutor said, "Don't glance down. Is it a murder you committed or not?" and he responded, "Actually, I didn't do it."

On the 1990 case for which he was convicted, the prosecutor said, "Were you or weren't you involved in this case as well? I don't want you to be sly," at which Sugaya fell silent. Then the prosecutor asked, "So it's not wrong (to say) that you did it." Sugaya responded that it's not wrong. But when asked again "Did you do it?" Sugaya didn't answer.

The prosecutor also told Sugaya, "We are recording (this interrogation), but you don't have to pay any mind to that."

While the tape was being played, Sugaya left the court, saying he felt sick.

The former prosecutor will testify Friday afternoon.

Sugaya's lawyers have argued it is necessary to disclose the audio recordings to clarify why he made the false confessions. Prosecutors said it isn't necessary because Sugaya will be acquitted anyway.

The move will affect the debate about introducing full video and audio recordings of all interrogations to prevent wrongful convictions.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Jan. 22, 2010
Hatoyama reaffirms innocence
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama again proclaimed his innocence Thursday in a political funds scandal involving donations from his mother, telling the House of Representatives Budget Committee that he is ready to resign if the facts prove otherwise.

Prosecutors have revealed that Hatoyama's mother gave some ¥1.26 billion to the prime minister's fund management body from 2002 to 2008, with part of the money apparently disguised as donations from other people, even some deceased.

Two of Hatoyama's former secretaries have been arrested over the case, but Hatoyama has insisted he was not aware of any wrongdoing. When news of the mother's contributions surfaced, they were first deemed "loans," but Hatoyama last month agreed to amend his tax returns and pay more than ¥500 million in gift taxes.

"I swear by the gods of heaven and Earth that I did not know (about the donations). If there are any facts that prove otherwise, I am not eligible to wear the badge" of a Lower House member, Hatoyama said.

The prime minister clashed head-on with Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki in the budget committee meeting. Hatoyama apologized for the recent developments but repeated that the shady money transfers were in no way intended for his personal gain.

But Tanigaki wasted no time in criticizing the transactions, spending 40 minutes of the debate attacking them.

Tanigaki also took a swipe at Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, who has seen three former secretaries arrested earlier this month for an unregistered \350 million land purchase involving funds prosecutors suspect were supplied by general contractors.

The LDP chief also criticized Hatoyama for appearing to encourage Ozawa's defiance of prosecutors.

"It is highly regrettable and very strange" that DPJ executives are involved in such cases, Tanigaki said, demanding that the budget committee hold a special session to discuss the issue.

Hatoyama, repeating that he did not intend to intervene in the investigation of Ozawa's finances, said he was simply backing a colleague who also claims to be innocent.

The ¥7.2 trillion second supplementary budget is expected to be passed by the committee Monday, with New Komeito saying it will support the plan.

Ozawa grilling
Kyodo News
Prosecutors will question Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa on a voluntary basis Saturday in Tokyo, sources said Thursday.

The prosecutors have confirmed the date with the Ozawa side, they said.

The questioning will likely take four hours, during which investigators will ask him about his political fund management body's alleged false political fund reports related to a controversial land purchase, the sources said.

Ozawa is expected repeat his earlier claim that the ¥350 million land deal was entirely funded by his personal assets and not by shady donations from general contractors, the sources said.

Ozawa's personal assets at the time reportedly amounted to ¥600 million, mostly consisting of time deposits and foreign currency-denominated savings made under the names of his wife and three children.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Jan. 22, 2010
Desperate wives tap 'secret savings'
Bloomberg

Housewives' "secret savings" fell about 20 percent last year as households were forced to tap these reserves to cover living costs amid falling family income, according to a survey by Sompo Japan Insurance Inc.

The value of "hesokuri," the cash, stocks and real estate that housewives stash without telling their husbands, fell to an average of ¥3.7 million from ¥4.6 million a year earlier, according to the company's report on the survey results.

Women traditionally handle family finances in Japan, collecting their husbands' paychecks and handing back pocket-money to cover the cost of lunches, coffee and drinking sessions with colleagues. The portion of winter bonuses returned to husbands as allowances dropped 34 percent to ¥73,000, enough to pay for three or four weekend golf rounds at the Hon Chiba Country Club east of Tokyo.

Consumers, whose spending accounts for more than half of the economy, are paring outlays amid rising unemployment and falling wages. Some 3.3 million people were looking for jobs in November, up 750,000 from a year earlier. Workers' wages slid for an 18th month. Half of those who responded to the survey said they may cut luxury-product purchases, Sompo Japan said.

"From the micro point of view, research on housewives could show us the reality of the nation's economy and provide a glimpse of what lies ahead for business conditions," said Minoru Sugiyama, a spokesman at Sompo Japan.

The research was based on responses from 500 housewives. Their average age was 39.7. Seventy-two respondents said the steps they take to make ends meet include serving more bean sprouts, while 40 said they were cooking more tofu.

About 38 percent of the housewives said lower household incomes forced them to reach into their savings to pay for one-time expenses, including hospital charges, travel and dining out.

Consumer spending probably dropped 0.2 percent in the three months through December, according to Nomura Securities Co., after advancing in the two previous quarters. The Cabinet Office will release gross domestic product figures Feb. 15.

news20100122gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > Utilities]
Green group threatens legal challenge to government's nuclear plans
Friends of the Earth says planning regime is fundamentally flawed and fails to assess carbon emissions
Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 January 2010 18.17 GMT Article history

Friends of the Earth has threatened to launch a legal challenge against the government over its "fundamentally flawed" plans to approve hundreds of new nuclear reactors, power plants, wind farms, electricity pylons and pipelines.

The group has written to energy secretary Ed Miliband warning him that government planning statements issued in November breach environmental regulations and had not followed proper consultation. Friends of the Earth said it was also supported by conservation groups, the WWF and RSPB.

The energy industry and ministers have been braced for a legal challenge for months, particularly over plans to build as many as 10 new nuclear reactors.

Friends of the Earth said it believed the statements, which new planning commission the IPC will use to block or approve applications, would result in Britain "locking-in" to a high-carbon energy infrastructure. It said the IPC should have to directly take into account the carbon emissions resulting from individual applications.

Friends of the Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, said: "The government's draft national planning statements on energy are fundamentally flawed. The consultation was insufficient, the alternatives were inadequately explored, and the policies are poorly justified. And because they fail to assess the carbon impact that the proposed development will have they threaten to undermine UK carbon budgets."

A government spokesman said that the statements were set in accordance with its overall carbon budgets.


[Environment > Biofuels]
One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people, new figures show
New analysis of 2009 US Department of Agriculture figures suggests biofuel revolution is impacting on world food supplies
John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 15.09 GMT Article history

One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.

The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels.

"The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels," said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis.

Last year 107m tonnes of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007, when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to save cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions.

More than 80 new ethanol plants have been built since then, with more expected by 2015, by which time the US will need to produce a further 5bn gallons of ethanol if it is to meet its renewable fuel standard.

According to Brown, the growing demand for US ethanol derived from grains helped to push world grain prices to record highs between late 2006 and 2008. In 2008, the Guardian revealed a secret World Bank report that concluded that the drive for biofuels by American and European governments had pushed up food prices by 75%, in stark contrast to US claims that prices had risen only 2-3% as a result.

Since then, the number of hungry people in the world has increased to over 1 billion people, according to the UN's World Food programme.

"Continuing to divert more food to fuel, as is now mandated by the US federal government in its renewable fuel standard, will likely only reinforce the disturbing rise in world hunger. By subsidising the production of ethanol to the tune of some $6bn each year, US taxpayers are in effect subsidising rising food bills at home and around the world," said Brown.

"The worst economic crisis since the great depression has recently brought food prices down from their peak, but they still remain well above their long-term average levels."

The US is by far the world's leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In 2008, the UN called for a comprehensive review of biofuel production from food crops.

"There is a direct link between biofuels and food prices. The needs of the hungry must come before the needs of cars," said Meredith Alexander, biofuels campaigner at ActionAid in London. As well as the effect on food, campaigners also argue that many scientists question whether biofuels made from food crops actually save any greenhouse gas emissions.

But ethanol producers deny that their record production means less food. "Continued innovation in ethanol production and agricultural technology means that we don't have to make a false choice between food and fuel. We can more than meet the demand for food and livestock feed while reducing our dependence on foreign oil through the production of homegrown renewable ethanol," said Tom Buis, the chief executive of industry group Growth Energy.


[Environment > Farming]
Kenyan herders to be offered livestock insurance against drought
Pioneering scheme uses satellite imagery which shows when available forage is so scarce that animals are likely to starve
Xan Rice, Nairobi
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 Article history

Herders in northern Kenya who suffered large cattle losses during recent droughts are to be offered livestock insurance in a pioneering project that uses satellite imagery of available grazing to determine when payouts occur.

The scheme, billed as a world first by the International Livestock Research Institute, is being launched today in the arid Marsabit district. Pastoralists in Marsabit keep more than 2m cows, camels, goats and sheep, worth an estimated $67m, but currently have no way of rebuilding herds decimated by starvation because of the lack of the grazing after rains fail with increasing frequency.

While there have been 28 droughts in the area over the past century, four have struck in the past decade alone, causing significant animal loss and pushing many families towards poverty.

Previously, insuring livestock for pastoralists has proved near impossible due to the difficulty of verifying the death of animals over a wide and remote area. But ILRI said it has found a way around the problem with a scheme that pays out not on death but when satellite imagery shows that available forage is so scarce that animals are likely to starve.

Under the new scheme, which will be administered by local firms Equity Bank and UAP insurance, around a thousand farming households are expected to pay between 3.25% and 5.5% of the value of their herds to insure them for a year. For a cow the cost would start at £3.25 an animal, for a goat or sheep 33p. Payouts will depend on the predicted mortality levels.

To build the insurance model, which was developed together with several US universities and local officials, ILRI researchers collected satellite images of plant growth in Marsabit since 1981 from the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, a global database updated by Nasa and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The information was combined with data on livestock deaths in Marsabit since 2000 to produce a programme that can reliably predict when a reduction in grazing will lead to animal deaths.

There will be two potential payouts each year based on satellite images at the end of the long dry season in September, and the short dry season in February. ILRI said that the policies could also be used by herders as collateral to buy food or drugs to help their animals survive difficult periods.

"Insurance is something of a holy grail for those of us who work with African livestock, particularly for pastoralists who could use insurance both as a hedge against drought – a threat that will become more common in some regions as the climate changes – and to increase their earning potential," said ILRI director general Carlos Seré.

If successful, the project is expected to be expanded to other parts of east Africa.

news20100122gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Carbon emissions]
Alaskan senator seeks to block EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gases
Lisa Murkowski pledges to use obscure measure in attempt to strip powers from the Environmental Protection Agency
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 January 2010 22.39 GMT Article history

Barack Obama faced a direct challenge to his government's powers to curb global warming pollution today, just 48 hours after an election upset put the rest of his agenda at risk.

In a speech to Congress, a Republican senator from Alaska announced she would use an obscure and rarely used measure to try to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as a dangerous pollutant.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the EPA's efforts to impose back-door climate regulations," Lisa Murkowski told the Senate in prepared remarks. Murkowski's motion of disapproval, though unlikely to become law, is widely seen as a barometer for the chances of getting a climate change bill through the Senate this year.

In an ominous sign for supporters of a climate law, she had the support of three Democratic Senators, further underscoring the unease in Obama's own party in enacting legislation to tackle global warming.

Delivering new laws to tackle global warming was not just a key pledge of Obama's, but is being closely watched around the world as global climate change negotiations struggle to recover from the disappointment of the UN summit in Copenhagen. An environment official in the European Union said: "It's clearly a setback."

Murkowski's move, brought under the Congressional Review Act, would remove the Obama administration's "Plan B" for dealing with climate change, resorting to the EPA to curb greenhouse gas emissions if Congress fails to act.

The motion of disapproval, called the "nuclear option" by environmentalists, would also ban the administration from drafting any new regulation that would be substantially the same. That would make it even more difficult for any US government to regulate power plants and other big emitters.

Environmentalists say the proposal is unlikely to pass, but ensuring its defeat could require a new round of partisan warfare that could be damaging for Democrats and Obama's agenda.

In her speech, Murkowski argued that giving the EPA the authority to act on global warming would cost jobs and hurt the economy: "Under the guise of protecting the environment, it's set to unleash a wave of damaging new regulations that will wash over and further submerge our struggling economy."

She said she supported efforts to get a climate change law, but said: "This command-and-control approach is our worst option for reducing the emissions."

Murkowski has tried to cast herself as a moderate Republican who would be prepared to act on climate change. But she has voted against such legislation in the past, and has been criticised this week by environmentalists for her links to the energy industry.

According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, Murkowski, from the oil-rich state of Alaska, has received $244,000 (£151,205) in campaign funds from oil and gas companies since 2005, and consulted two energy industry lobbyists before launching today's proposal.

Even before the upset in Massachusetts, Democrats in the industrial heartland and from oil and coal states were wary - or in some cases flatly opposed - to action on climate change.

Murkowski was joined today by Mary Landrieu, a Democratic Senator from Louisiana who has repeatedly expressed concern for her state's oil refining business; Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas; and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Murkowski also claimed support from governors of her home state of Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia as well as business organisations. Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, has also expressed support for Murkowski.

But there has also been a strong push back against Murkowski from environmental organisations and other business groups. A coalition of 80 companies from Virgin America to eBay wrote to Obama today urging action on climate change.

The Alaskan's resolution would overturn the EPA's finding last month that greenhouse gas emissions were a public health threat. The so-called endangerment finding compelled the agency under the Clean Air Act to introduce regulations for the pollutant.

Murkowski's strategy hinges on using the Congressional Review Act, a law used for the first time in the early days of the George Bush era to throw out new ergonomic standards for workplaces passed under Bill Clinton. The measure would require only 51 votes for passage and the Senator is confident of signing up all 40 Republicans as well as some Democrats.

The White House, the EPA, and even the Democratic leadership in Congress have all said they would prefer to have climate change legislation from Congress rather than resorting to the agency's regulatory powers. But the prospect of EPA regulation had been seen as an important nudge to get the Senate to act.

The House of Representatives passed a climate change bill last June, but progress in the Senate has stalled. An effort led by Democrat John Kerry to craft a bill that could pull in Republican support has yet to produce a draft proposal.

The move by Murkowski brought a furious response from Democratic leaders and a coalition of environmental, business and religious organisations. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat said blocking the EPA was a radical move that would expose Americans to public health risks from global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists said it was an assault on science, and California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, wrote a letter asking his fellow Republicans to let the EPA do its work.


[Environment > Marine life]
Thames eel populations crash by 98% in five years, scientists warn
Concerns grow over dramatic drop in numbers of mysterious creatures that migrate across the Atlantic
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 January 2010 17.34 GMT Article history

Eel populations in the river Thames have crashed by 98% in just five years, scientists warned today.

The eel, which has been a traditional east London dish for centuries, now appears to be vanishing from the capital's river, according to researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

Each year, ZSL's Tidal Thames Conservation Project places eel traps in a number of the river's tributaries, to catch the fish and allow scientists to record numbers before setting them free.

While 1,500 were captured in the traps in 2005, just 50 were recorded last year.

The eels are thought to take up to three years migrating as larvae from the Sargasso Sea to European rivers, where they spend up to 20 years before making the 4,000-mile return journey across the Atlantic to spawn and die.

But conservationists are concerned the species is not returning to the Thames, or is facing problems in the river and its tributaries.

European eels and flounders were the first species to recolonise the Thames estuary after it was considered "biologically dead" in the 1960s, and there are fears the rapid collapse of the eel population could have knock-on effects for other species in the still-fragile ecosystem.

Other rivers in the UK are also seeing declines in eel populations, ZSL said.

Dr Matthew Gollock, tidal Thames conservation project manager, said: "Eels are mysterious creatures at the best of times but we are very concerned about the rapid disappearance in the Thames.

"It is difficult to say what is going on ┄ it could be due to a number of potential factors including changes in oceanic currents due to climate change, man-made structures such as dams and the presence of certain diseases and parasites."

And he said there was a need to find out why the declines were happening, in order to save the eels and help other species in the estuary's food web who would be affected by its disappearance, such as birds which feed on it.

"Time appears to be running out for eels in the river Thames and this could have a domino effect on other species in the Thames," Gollock said.

"The Thames is a very urban, developed estuary. It's much healthier than it was 50 years ago, but there is constant pressure on it.

"It's quite a precarious ecosystem and the fast removal of any species ┄ whether it is a fish or a plant - is going to upset the balance," he said.

news20100122nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 21 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.24
News
Most powerful hurricanes on the rise
Global warming could lead to fewer but more-intense storms.
Quirin Schiermeier

{{Fewer, more powerful hurricanes in future?}
NASA}

The number of major Atlantic hurricanes per year may almost double by the end of the century in response to global warming, according to a new study.

A team of hurricane researchers suggests that damage from a larger number of very strong ┄ Category 4 and 5 ┄ hurricanes is likely to outweigh a projected decline in less-intense storms¹.

In 2008, a group led by Thomas Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey, projected a marked reduction in the overall number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the western North Atlantic Ocean².

That result, based on a simulation of Atlantic hurricane activity in a warming world, came as a surprise. Seeking an explanation, the team hypothesized that the western Atlantic Ocean might become less favourable for storms if rising sea surface temperatures further south attract storms from the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent regions.

However, at a resolution of about 18 kilometres, the models that the team used for their initial simulation were too coarse to resolve individual storm systems.

When they repeated their efforts with a model with much higher resolution, the scientists found a shift in the distribution of storms. The finer-grained simulation confirmed the decline in the overall number of storms, but it also showed an 80% increase in the frequency of the most intense storms ┄ Category 4 (210–249 kilometres per hour) and Category 5 (faster than 250 kilometres per hour).

Storm force

The study, led by Morris Bender, an atmospheric scientists at the GFDL, used the same 18 global climate models as the previous study, along with four other models, to simulate sea surface temperatures and Atlantic storm activity under an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change moderate-future-emissions scenario for the twenty-first century. They then zoomed in on any storms, generating a more detailed picture of them with a hurricane model used by NOAA's National Weather Service, and oberved their behaviour over five simulated days.

"Downscaling the models revealed details such as hurricanes' rain-bands, vertical motion and eye-wall structure," says Bender. "We think that increased vertical wind shear in a warmer climate will prevent many storms from growing to hurricane force. But in small sub-regions of the Atlantic the effect may not come to bear, and storms tracking across those spots are likely to get more intense."

"This is important because, for example in the United States, 80% of the damage is done by storms of Category 3 and higher," says Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Modelling uncertainty

Wind shear ┄ spatial change in wind direction and speed ┄ is predicted to get stronger in a warmer planet and inhibit the cyclonic rotation of winds, an effect that some scientists think might outweigh the effect of rising sea temperatures.

The projection that there will be fewer but more intense Atlantic hurricanes is in agreement with results of other groups that have used high-resolution climate models to study hurricane activity.

Emanuel, for example, has focused on the amount of energy that storms release to project changes in hurricane activity. Some of the models he used projected a large increase in hurricane power in the Atlantic³, consistent with the most recent findings by the GFDL team.

But Knutson adds a note of caution. One of the four other models the team used for their simulations shows a decrease in all hurricane categories ┄ which he says must still be considered a plausible solution.

"What gives us confidence is that our models do reproduce historical observations very well," he says. "But we're still dealing with a problem that has a lot of inherent uncertainty."

References
1. Bender, M. A. et al. Science 327, 454-458 (2010). | Article | ChemPort |
2. Knutson, T. R., Sirutis, J. J., Garner, S. T., Vecchi, G. A. & Held, I.M. Nature Geosci. 1, 359-364 (2008). | Article | ChemPort |
3 Emanuel, K., Sundararajan, R. & Williams, J. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 89, 347-367 (2008). | Article

[naturenews]
Published online 21 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.26
News
Virus spreads by bouncing off infected cells
Viral ping-pong lets vaccinia get to other cells faster.
Brian Vastag

{{The vaccinia virus bounces from cell to cell until it finds one that's uninfected.}
CDC}

Call it viral ping-pong: the vaccinia poxvirus tricks infected cells into flinging newly made virus particles far and wide, rapidly spreading the infection outward, according to a study by UK scientists.

This 'viral bouncing' accounts for experiments in which vaccinia spreads much more quickly across a dish of cells (see video) than viral reproduction rates should allow, says Geoffrey Smith of Imperial College London, who led the study, which is published online in Science¹.

"A virus might hit a cell that's already infected, get bounced away, hit another, get bounced away again … and eventually it will find a cell that is uninfected, which it can enter," says Smith. "The virus is so smart."

Smith and his colleagues discovered how the viral trick works using live-imaging techniques and fluorescently tagged viruses. After infection by vaccinia, a cell rapidly begins producing two viral proteins, called A33 and A36. These proteins move to the cell's outer membrane, where they form a complex that tags the cell as infected. When other vaccinia particles bump into the membrane and try to infect the already-infected cell, the viral particles instead get stuck to the protein complex. This docking triggers the cell to shoot out a long filament — made of the building-block protein actin — that propels the virus outward.

In essence, says Smith, vaccinia cons cells into announcing, "'Hey guys, we're infected already, no point coming in here. You need to go somewhere else.'"

Viral velocity

Smith's team found that crippling the A33 and A36 genes inside vaccinia slowed infection rates substantially, whereas inserting the genes for only these two proteins into human cells — without the rest of the vaccinia genome — was enough to trigger actin-filament propulsion on contact with new virus particles. They concluded that the two proteins are all that's required for the manoeuvre. The team is now trying to untangle exactly how the virus particles bind to the A33–A36 protein complex, and what signal the complex sends into the cell to trigger the filaments.

Lynn Enquist, a virologist at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, says that other viruses deploy similar strategies. HIV, for instance, induces cells to shoot out projections called filopodia that serve as bridges for virus particles to crawl along to reach uninfected cells².

Although the details differ from virus to virus, virologists are quickly warming to the notion that many viruses deploy specific, deliberate mechanisms to spread through tissues. "Viruses move from cell to cell in a very directed and specific way," says Enquist. "It's a very hot area of research." Advances in imaging technology — such as the techniques used by Smith and his colleagues — are spurring the interest.

Vaccinia is rarely harmful to humans, but it is so closely related to the smallpox virus that it is used as a vaccine against the often-deadly disease — so successfully that smallpox had been eradicated worldwide by the 1970s. David Evans, a virologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says that the latest work may explain why smallpox kills so quickly: "A hallmark of smallpox infection is the rapid and massive spread [inside the body]," he says. "I think this is one additional factor that explains the lethality of smallpox."

References
1. Doceul, V., Hollinshead, M., van der Linden, L. & Smith, G. L. Science advance online publication doi:10.1126/science.1183173 (2010).
2. Sherer, N. M. et al. Nature Cell Biol. 9, 310-315 (2007).

news20100122nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 21 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.25
News
Superbug family tree sketched out
Next-generation genome sequencing enables detailed tracking of MRSA infections.
Lucas Laursen

{{The spread of MRSA has been mapped using genetic sequencing.}
Janice Haney Carr/CDC}

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have families, too, according to a study that uses the detailed genetic relationships of bacterial strains to map out how certain infections spread within hospitals and countries. The genomic-sequencing technology that made the study possible could one day enable hospital administrators to track infections back to the individuals and objects that transmit them, say the study authors.

The team studied different samples of a strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) called sequence type 239 (ST239). The bacterium poses a huge health-care problem because it is easily transferred in hospitals and is resistant to multiple antibiotics, so MRSA infections in humans are difficult to treat and can be lethal.

ST239 was originally identified and characterized using a technique from the first generation of genomics technology, known as multilocus sequence typing (MLST), which measures mutations in a handful of core genes. Because these core genes are the least likely to mutate, the method yields family trees of bacterial relatedness with too few branches to study an infection's spread in much detail.

"According to MLST, all of these samples are identical," says co-first author Simon Harris of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, near Cambridge, UK. But faster, next-generation sequencing technology now makes it possible to scan the entire genome of MRSA strains at low cost. The team used this genome-wide high-resolution method to select 4,310 variable sites in the genome, which enabled them to individually identify each of 63 samples of MRSA ST239.

"Genome-wide high-resolution sequencing is going to give us a way to use molecular genetics to track epidemiological spread, potentially at the level of a single transmission," says evolutionary biologist Carl Bergstrom of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the study.

Diverse origins

The team computed the most likely family tree that would account for the genetic differences between the MRSA samples. The tree reflected the geographic origins of the samples, which ranged from Australia and Argentina to Turkey and Thailand. However, certain exceptions revealed transmission of MRSA between countries. Within the branch of the tree containing samples largely from Thailand were two samples from MRSA outbreaks in Denmark and the United Kingdom, suggesting that those outbreaks occurred after a transmission event from Thailand, write the researchers in this week's Science1.

There was also a strong connection between samples from Brazil and Portugal, which led the team to link a 1997 outbreak of MRSA in Portugal with a strain transmitted from Brazil. The earliest origin of this strain of MRSA, however, appears to have been in Europe, says Harris.

In addition, the study reveals that MRSA accumulates one single-nucleotide mutation about every 6 weeks. This is faster than previous estimates for similar bacteria, write the authors, but is in line with recent research suggesting that mutation rates depend on a number of factors, including bacterial population size. The team also found evidence of independent, parallel evolution in different branches of the MRSA strain as a response to antibacterial treatments in hospitals.

Screen dream

Knowing the detail of how such infections spread is crucial information for epidemiologists and public-health workers, says Bergstrom: "This possibility of getting the exact transmission sequence in an outbreak would be tremendously valuable." To prevent disease spread, clinicians can design hospital protocols differently if they know whether the strain is spread evenly throughout the human population, or if just a couple of individuals are super-transmitters. The information might also help them to prescribe antibiotics that would be effective against the specific strain found in the hospital — avoiding antibiotics with broader activity which may have allowed MRSA to develop resistance in the first place.

Study author Sharon Peacock, a microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, UK, explains that the team's ambitions are to adapt the technique so that people "with a relatively low level of training" can do pathogen genetic screening in clinics worldwide.

To try to prevent the spread of MRSA in the United Kingdom, hospitals there already have initiatives such as increased hand-washing and first-generation diagnostic screening that have cut the number of MRSA-related deaths, Peacock adds. But screening prices for the new technology, currently around £200 (US$320) per patient, should continue to drop, allowing such tests to be used in hospitals. "This gives you the potential to work out what interventions will most effectively break the transmission of any bacterial pathogen," Bergstrom says.

References
1. Harris, S. R. et al. Science 327, 469-474 (2010). | Article | ChemPort |

news20100122reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Pete Harrison - Analysis
BRUSSELS
Thu Jan 21, 2010 8:54am EST
EU faces years more wrangling over car emissions

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's incoming climate chief is determined to crack down on emissions from cars, but any new goals are at least a decade away.

Connie Hedegaard will struggle against political inertia, the complexities of electric vehicles and the power of big auto, making a rigid 2020 target her best possible outcome.

Hedegaard is widely expected to survive a vote next month on her nomination for the post of European Union climate commissioner, clearing the way for her to fulfill a pledge to tackle pollution from transport.

Truck and van makers had been warned of imminent regulation, but most car firms were expecting a period of relative peace after a bruising battle in 2008 that pitted environmentalists against auto nations France, Germany and Italy.

Under the final deal in 2008, auto makers must cut the average carbon dioxide output of new cars by about 15 percent to 130 grams per kilometer by 2015.

Denmark's Hedegaard surprised them last week by telling the European Parliament that the current rules appeared too soft and might need tightening.

Critics have been particularly damning that a second 2020 goal for cars has no legal clout.

"It can be important to try and review -- did we go far enough at the time?" she told the European Parliament hearing.

"Often we've seen industry will protest and say it's going to be extremely difficult ... but then it turns out that when we do these things, we can often do it quicker than claimed before, and they can do it even more ambitiously," she added.

Environmentalists have been saying the same thing for months. They point to such automakers as Volkswagen, which they say has doubled the EU emissions-cutting target in two years with a 27 percent reduction by its Golf BlueMotion.

POLITICAL CLASH

"People in the industry tell me that emissions will be cut by 25-30 percent in the next three or four years simply through what's already in the pipeline," said auto expert Paul Nieuwenhuis at Cardiff Business School in Wales.

By comparison, the current challenge for carmakers to cut by 15 percent over the next five years could look paltry.

But most veterans of the 2008 battle say it is unlikely the 27-country EU will review the 2015 targets after such an emotive clash with industry.

"The automotive industry is quite powerful, because it is one of Europe's largest employers and any decisions become very political," said Tom De Vleesschauwer, a consultant at IHS Global Insight. "What's down in the regulations for 2015 is not going to be changed."

Instead, Hedegaard will have to settle for a strategy review and on firming the 2020 goal, which is ambitious but has little legal weight. That would force carmakers to make a deep cut by 38 percent from today's levels to 95 grams per kilometer.

Any changes will have ramifications beyond Europe's borders -- many other regions look to the EU for a lead on environmental policy, so standards set there have a much wider impact.

Japan has similar goals to the EU, and the United States is struggling hard to catch up.

REVOLUTION

Achievements so far have been via conventional technologies such as cutting weight and improving aerodynamics, by switching to smaller turbo-charged engines and by adding stop-start mechanisms to cut emissions in stationary traffic.

But what follows will be much tougher.

The next steps -- to go below 100 grams per km -- require breakthrough technologies, says auto industry group ACEA. And to make such investments, manufacturers need assurances that sales will not fall flat.

The car industry's history books are scattered with sales flops, such as Fiat's Seicento Elettra and Audi's Duo hybrid.

"We're on the threshold of revolutionary changes in how we power and fuel vehicles, and nobody can do it on their own -- neither the auto industry nor a policymaker," ACEA spokeswoman Sigrid de Vries said.

Electrification will be at the heart of the 2020 strategy.

Next month in the Spanish city of San Sebastian, the EU will launch a project to support electric vehicles.

That promises years of wrangling over a number of tricky issues, not least how to measure the "greenness" of electric cars when the electricity used to charge them varies so widely.

In Poland, where over 90 percent of power comes from highly polluting coal-fired power stations, electric cars start to lose their green credentials. But in France, where about 80 percent of power is nuclear, they have a much lower carbon footprint.

Meanwhile, industry has yet to settle on a firm business model for selling a rapidly evolving product. Should electric cars be sold or leased? Could dealers sell the cars and lease the batteries?

And how about public charging facilities? The EU has a lot to get to grips with.

"Past experience suggests that carmakers will fight to delay and dilute the standard," said Greenpeace transport campaigner Franziska Achterberg. "The faster policymakers get onto this, the higher are the chances that they can fix a sufficiently ambitious 2020 target."

Hedegaard will not be the only commissioner wanting to put her stamp on the legislation, said De Vleesschauwer at IHS Global Insight.

"Various different Commission departments will be involved," he said. "The climate and environment people might be very keen on being severe, but their colleagues dealing with competition and enterprise might not agree. It's a big game."

(Additional reporting by Risa Maeda in Tokyo; editing by Sue Thomas)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:28am EST
EU carbon down 2.5 pct on power, gas as bears weigh

LONDON (Reuters) - European carbon futures fell by over two percent on Thursday morning, pulled lower by weaker German power and British natural gas prices as wider bearish signals weighed, traders said.

EU Allowances for delivery in December opened slightly weaker, then dropped as low at 13.03 euros a tonne, down 34 cents or 2.5 percent. The benchmark futures also broke below their 50-day moving average.

Spot EUAs were down 33 cents or 2.5 percent at 12.83 euros, dropping below 13 euros for the first time since January 13.

"German power and gas are off a bit so it's no surprise we're lower," said one trader.

EUAs fell by over three percent to 13.37 euros on heavy volumes on Wednesday, closing below key technical levels after hitting a 1-month high on Tuesday.

German baseload power slipped by 10 cents at 49.60 euros a megawatt hour while British front-end gas futures lost 0.56 pence or 1.6 percent at 34.35 pence per therm.

Oil climbed above $78 after strong Chinese growth data offset bearish sentiment following a World Bank outlook highlighting risks that the global economic recovery may run out of steam.

Traders said the recent rally in EUA prices had run out of steam and that prices could move even lower following wider bearish signals and lack of buying support.

Weak results from a German EUA futures auction on Wednesday afternoon carried bearish tones for the market, as did the UN's climate chief saying yesterday he didn't expect most countries to meet a January 31 deadline to submit emissions pledges under the Copenhagen Accord.

The failure of U.S. democrats to keep their Senate supermajority, which will indefinitely delay the launch of a federal cap and trade market and put more reliance on the country's regional schemes, does not bode well for long-term prices.

Benchmark CER prices fell 14 cents or 1.2 percent at 11.52 euros a tonne, setting the EUA-CER spread at around 1.50 euros.

news20100122reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Eriko Amaha and Nathan Layne
Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:27am EST
Toyota in Argentine lithium deal for hybrid car push

SYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) - A sister company to Toyota Motor Corp secured a lithium supply deal in Argentina on Wednesday that could help the world's largest automaker keep its lead in gasoline-electric hybrid cars.

The deal sent shares in the lithium project's owner and operator, Australian-listed Orocobre Ltd, soaring almost 50 percent to an all-time high.

Lithium, a highly reactive and versatile metal, is expected to be in increasing demand as carmakers choose costly but more efficient lithium-ion batteries to power hybrid and electric vehicles.

"When it comes to mass production of hybrids, the main hurdle has been a shortage of batteries," said Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Kazaka Securities. "Toyota is taking a step on its own to secure the materials it needs to ensure stable production."

Toyota Tsusho Corp, a trading house and key Toyota supplier 22 percent-owned by the automaker, said it would jointly develop a new lithium project in Argentina with Orocobre.

Orocobre shares jumped to a record peak of A$2.04 in its heaviest ever trading volume. The stock has risen almost 10-fold in the past 12 months, and closed up 32 percent at A$1.85.

Toyota Tsusho rose 6 percent, while Toyota Motor's stock ended down 0.9 percent, roughly in line with other auto shares.

STEP CHANGE IN DEMAND

The Salar de Olaroz project in Argentina is estimated to cost around $80-$100 million, with the final figure to be determined after a feasibility study, Orocobre spokesman Paul Ryan said, adding the study should be complete by end-September.

"As environmentally friendly electric car demand continues to grow, Toyota Motor will have the opportunity to become a cornerstone offtake customer," Orocobre said in a statement.

Toyota uses nickel-metal-hydride batteries for the current Prius hybrid but has decided on lithium-ion batteries for future plug-in models.

Concerns about carbon emissions and their impact on climate change plus high and volatile oil prices are increasing the popularity of hybrid and electric vehicles despite their higher costs.

Toyota aims to double its global output of gas-electric hybrid cars to 1 million units in 2011, as it fights to stay in the lead in the growing market for low-emission cars, the Nikkei business reported this month.

Orocobre went public in December 2007 and now has a current market capitalization of nearly A$150 million.

Managing Director Richard Seville said the lithium market had been growing at a compound annual growth rate of about 7 percent between 1997 and 2007, before the global financial crisis, thanks largely to demand from consumer electronics makers.

"That growth will continue, but on top of that we have the step change in demand with a new application which is in large format batteries for use in electrical vehicles," Seville told Reuters.

Houston-based James Calaway, non-executive chairman, and his family members hold an 11 percent stake in Orocombre, while other board members own a further 15-20 percent, Seville said.

JAPAN SEEKS RARE METALS

Subject to the finalization of the terms, Toyota Tsusho will acquire a 25 percent equity interest in the joint venture while Orocobre will continue to own the remaining 75 percent of the project and will operate the venture.

The Japanese government-affiliated Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) is looking to take a part of Toyota Tsuho's 25 percent stake, as part of Japan's efforts to secure stable sources of rare metals, government officials said.

"Rare metals are essential not just for the high-tech sector but for Japan's manufacturing industry overall," said Hiroshi Kuwayama, a deputy director at Japan's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

"With other countries, such as China, investing in mines around the world, we want to be more aggressive to support the private sector in securing stable supplies."

Boliva has around 50 percent of the world's lithium reserves, but does not yet mine the metal, while Chile, China and Brazil also hold big reserves.

(Additional reporting by Mayumi Negishi in TOKYO and Leonora Walet in HONG KONG; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Lincoln Feast)


[Green Business]
SAN FRANCISCO
Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:32am EST
California sees problems in U.S. vehicle pollution plan

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California has issues with federal attempts to weaken new vehicle pollution standards, but the state backed away on Wednesday from a report that it was threatening to pull out of a deal with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

The California agency responsible for implementing the state's global-warming law and vehicle-pollution standards said in a November letter that federal agencies must address two issues "to ensure California's continued support for the national program."

California is "fully committed" to an agreement to harmonize state and federal rules, California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols said in a follow-up statement on Wednesday.

"There are still difficult technical issues to be resolved, as is to be expected in developing any pioneering rule, but we are confident that they will be worked out successfully," she said.

California can set its own vehicle-emissions standards with federal approval and it received the go-ahead from the Obama administration last year. But when the federal government proposed a national plan by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration based on the state one, California agreed to harmonize its rules.

The Detroit Free Press, which first reported the letter, had concluded that California "may pull out" of that agreement, which would create multiple markets -- and headaches -- for auto makers. That sparked the Wednesday statement by Nichols.

In the November letter, the state said it opposed an attempt to weaken proposed fuel economy standards for 2012-2015. The standards only go for one more year -- to 2016.

Further, the U.S. EPA needed to be less generous with credits to automakers, the letter said. The federal agency planned to call electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell cars 'zero-emission,' ignoring the pollution from sources providing electricity or hydrogen for the vehicle.

And overly generous credits for production of advanced vehicles might end delaying improvements on conventional vehicles, the California agency said.

A U.S. EPA representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Peter Henderson; Editing by Gary Hill)


[Green Business]
SEOUL
Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:15am EST
Samsung wins $6 billion turbine deal with Canadian province

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean consortium led by Samsung C&T Corporation has won a $6 billion deal to supply renewable energy equipment to the Canadian province of Ontario, the company said on Thursday.

The deal to supply 2 gigawatt wind power turbines and 500 megawatt solar power generators will be signed later on Thursday in Canada, a company spokesman told Reuters, confirming earlier media reports.

(Reporting by Shin Jieun; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)


[Green Business]
TORONTO
Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:58am EST
Ontario, Samsung in green energy deal: reports

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario, Canada's most populous province and the country's industrial heartland, is set to award a multibillion dollar deal to consortium led by Samsung Group to build renewable energy equipment such as wind turbines, media reports said on Wednesday.

The deal, which could be worth up to C$7 billion ($6.7 billion), will be unveiled on Thursday, according to the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail newspapers.

The Star said Samsung will also develop 600 megawatts of wind and solar farms in Ontario, which the provincial government believes will help meet its target of 50,000 new jobs created over three years through its Green Energy Act.

The province confirmed in September that it was in talks with Samsung. The government later said it hoped the Samsung deal would generate more than 15,000 jobs.

The plan is not without its detractors, the Star said. Some ministers within the Ontario government are said to be opposed to giving control of a major part of the province's energy sector to a company from South Korea and said that Samsung was given special treatment.

Other critics said that electricity ratepayers would have to foot the bill for what is effectively a subsidy for the Samsung, because the government has guaranteed to pay above-market prices for green power, the paper said.

($1=$1.05 Canadian)

(Reporting by John McCrank; editing by Rob Wilson)

news20100122reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Nicole Mordant
VANCOUVER, British Columbia
Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:58am EST
Green energy firm Nexterra stays private for now

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Nexterra, a small, privately owned Canadian green energy company often tipped as a candidate for an initial public offering, isn't likely to go public this year as it doesn't need to raise large amounts of capital, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

For the moment, Nexterra, which develops gasification systems that turn biomass like wood debris into heat and power, has the financial backing it needs from its biggest shareholder ARC Financial Corp, an Alberta-based private equity firm, Nexterra Chief Executive Jonathan Rhone said.

"There will be a liquidity event some time in the company's future ... It is not a 'this year' thing," Rhone told Reuters in an interview.

Over the past six years 80 percent shareholder ARC has pumped more than C$20 million ($19 million) into Nexterra, one of Vancouver's biggest alternative energy businesses.

Founded in 2003, Nexterra's initial focus was the forestry industry, which had a ready supply of waste wood to fuel the company's gasification system.

Gasification uses heat to convert any carbon-containing fuel into a clean-burning gas.

Nexterra sold its systems to mills such as British Columbia-based Tolko Industries and helped Tolko cut its natural gas use by 40 percent, as well as reduce harmful emissions.

A sharp downturn in the lumber industry, however, along with the recession last year, sent Nexterra looking for new customers, which it found in public institutions like universities in the United States that are keen to generate their own power and heat from green sources.

Rhone said that business is starting to pick up again from industrial customers, but Nexterra, which last year generated revenue of C$16 million, will continue to look for work from universities and municipalities.

The company is also looking for opportunities in Europe and South America, especially in Brazil.

Nexterra is working full steam ahead with GE Energy, a unit of General Electric Co, to develop a high-efficiency gasification system that significantly improves the generally low conversion rate of biomass into heat and power.

Nexterra hopes to close the first sale of a commercial demonstration project in the second quarter of this year. It is talking to half a dozen potential customers across North America, which are mostly public institutions.

"It's a real race to be first to market ... We intend to win that race," Rhone said.

Nexterra competes with about a dozen gasification companies worldwide, including Babcock & Wilcox Volund, a Danish company that is part of the U.S.-based McDermott International Inc, and Finnish-based gasification firm Carbona.

($1=$1.05 Canadian)

(Editing by Peter Galloway)


[Green Business]
David Fogarty and Alister Doyle
Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:21pm EST
U.S. vote dims hopes for stronger world climate pact

SINGAPORE/OSLO (Reuters) - Hopes for stronger world action in 2010 to curb climate change have dimmed after the U.S. Democrats lost a key Senate seat to a Republican opposed to capping emissions, experts said on Wednesday.

The election of Republican Scott Brown, an opponent of cap and trade, to the Senate after the death of Democrat Edward Kennedy dims prospects for U.S. action. Once Brown takes office, Democrats will have 59 seats in the Senate and the Republicans 41. The bill needs 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles.

Backers of the existing international Kyoto Protocol, which obliges all industrialized nations except the United States to cut emissions until 2012, will be more reluctant to take on tougher new goals for 2020 unless Washington also joins in.

U.N. climate talks in Mexico in November are meant to build on a weak "Copenhagen Accord" worked out last month by nations including the United States that sets a goal of limiting warming to no more than 2 Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times.

But the Mexico meeting will be undermined if the United States, the top emitter behind China, has not set caps on carbon emissions. That might dash hopes for a Kyoto successor from 2013 and mean a system of domestic pledges instead.

"We can't afford climate to be a dysfunctional regime like trade," said Nick Mabey, head of the E3G climate think-tank in London. He said there were risks talks would stall, like the inconclusive Doha round on freer world trade launched in 2001.

Mary Nichols, the top official implementing California's state climate change law, told Reuters that state and regional climate change efforts could now take center stage in the United States.

"We've been feeling ever since Copenhagen that the focus was going to be on regional efforts for the coming year, regardless of what happened in the Massachusetts election," she said in a telephone interview.

Many nations have been sitting on the fence before deciding firm carbon policies, waiting for U.S. legislation. President Barack Obama wants to cut emissions by 4 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, or a 17 percent cut from 2005 levels.

Countries are supposed to propose carbon-cutting policies under the Copenhagen Accord by January 31.

U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the legislation might have to be split in two to ensure that less controversial parts encouraging use of alternative energies can pass. Tougher elements limiting emissions could then be handled separately.

"I don't believe that cap and trade is dead," he said.

MOMENTUM

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said U.S. willingness to act had built since ex-President George W. Bush took office in 2001 and said Kyoto would cost jobs and wrongly omitted carbon curbs by poor nations.

"I don't think that any political development in the United States means turning back nine years on the climate change agenda," he said. Many Americans were concerned, for instance, with energy security and hoped for jobs in a greener economy.

But some experts said failure to pass U.S. legislation could have a knock-on in countries such as Australia, Japan or Canada which are considering stronger action beyond 2012 that aims to avert ever more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels.

"2009 was fairly disappointing and 2010 could be another year of slow policy development to those trying to launch their own cap and trade schemes," said Trevor Sikorski, director of carbon markets research at Barclays Capital.

Still, he predicted the value of global carbon markets would grow in 2010 -- boosted by an increase in prices even though the growth of trading volume would slow.

"The issue of cap and trade does not necessarily go away. I expect banks will continue low-key capacity building as there is no downside if a market doesn't develop by 2011 or later," said Garth Edward, head of environmental products at Citi.

"They'll keep building the franchise," he said.

The European Union sees itself as a leader in combating climate change, and has set a goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, or 30 percent if others join.

"We need global cooperation and progress will only be possible with internationally binding commitments -- but for everyone," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Wednesday.

The Pacific island of Tuvalu fears rising seas could wash it off the map. Ian Fry, who represents Tuvalu in U.N. talks, said U.S. carbon caps had to be passed by mid-year or would be put back into 2011 because of November elections that cover about a third of the Senate seats.

Environmental activists saw only bad news from the Senate.

"On the international front, China is constantly looking to the U.S. on climate bills ... This is definitely bad news. It doesn't bring new confidence to international negotiations," said Ailun Yang of Greenpeace in Beijing.

(With extra reporting by Michael Szabo in London, Pete Harrison in Brussels, Bappa Majumdar in New Delhi, Ralph Jennings in Beijing, Madeline Chambers and Paul Carrel in Berlin and Peter Henderson in San Francisco; Editing by Jon Boyle and Cynthia Osterman)

news20100122reut4

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
GENEVA
Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:20pm EST
Airbus to test biofuels when available

GENEVA (Reuters) - Airbus Industrie is sure that biofuels, the 'green' hope of the aviation sector, will work in its planes and is looking forward to testing them, a senior official for the European airliner builder said on Thursday.

"If there is biofuel available we will do the flights, but we have absolutely no reason to believe there would be any problem," Rainer Ohler, senior vice-president for public affairs and communications told a news conference.

Ohler said Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS, had successfully tested gas-to-liquid fuel for Qatar Airways two years ago. The resulting fuel was as effective as normal jet fuel or kerosene, but without the sulphur smell.

While this offered an alternative to jet fuel, it did not reduce carbon emissions which biofuels promised. Unlike oil, biofuels can be constantly replenished and harvested.

But the process for synthesizing fuel from gas, known as the Fischer-Tropsch process, could equally be used on biofuels, Ohler said ahead of the trial flight to Geneva of Airbus's new 850-passenger capacity A380 airliner.

Airbus is planning to test biofuels with JetBlue Airways. Its American rival Boeing, with which Airbus is cooperating on fuel and environment research, has already made several test flights using biofuel.

Paul Steele, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), an industry association for airlines, airports, planemakers and others in the aviation sector, said the biofuels targeted by the industry would be environmentally friendly.

They would not draw on food crops, require farmland or use excessive fresh water, in contrast to some crops used for producing motor fuel, he said.

The most promising crops are jatropha and camelina, but the industry also sees huge potential in producing biofuel from algae and plants that grow in salty water known as halophytes.

Ohler called on regulators to ensure that the aviation industry had priority access to biofuels, as other forms of alternative fuel, such as electricity, were not practical for planes.

Giovanni Bisignani, director-general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which groups 230 airlines, urged governments and oil companies to subsidize and invest in research in biofuel production.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn; Editing by Stephanie Nebehay)


[Green Business]
TORONTO
Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:55pm EST
Ontario says Samsung deal to make it green leader

TORONTO (Reuters) - A C$7 billion ($6.7 billion) green energy investment by a consortium led by South Korea's Samsung C&T Corp will make Ontario a leader in renewable energy technology, the Canadian province said on Thursday.

The project to build four wind and solar power clusters in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, will have a combined power-generating capacity of 2.5 gigawatts by 2016. That's equivalent to 4 percent of Ontario's total electricity consumption.

It will include wind turbines that will generate up to 2,000 megawatts, as well as solar power facilities that will generate up to 500 megawatts.

Ontario has agreed buy electricity from the group.

The province's Green Energy Act guarantees above-market prices for green power, which has led to criticisms that the deal is effectively a subsidy to Samsung.

But the act also says Ontario must shut down all of its coal-fired power plants by 2014 and increase its ratio of renewable power generation, and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said the project would help meet those goals.

He said that on top of the 16,000 jobs the project was expected to create, it would position Ontario as a leader in green technology manufacturing.

"We're doing more than buying a huge amount of electricity, we are doing more than just creating jobs... we are trying to lay the foundation here for economic growth," he said. "If we can build the capacity here to deliver renewable technology to the U.S. market, that's a good thing."

About 4,000 of the jobs will be permanent, an Ontario government official said.

The consortium will build four manufacturing plants in Ontario between 2013 and 2015 -- one for wind towers, one for solar inverters, one for solar module assembly, and one for wind blades. In addition to the plants, which will also make equipment for sales in the United States and elsewhere, the clusters will include wind and solar power generating farms.

Ontario is also kicking in about C$437 million in incentives to the consortium, which are tied to the manufacturing plants being built on time.

The consortium's manufacturing partners include Dongkuk Steel, and Satcon and Pattern Energy Group.

($1=$1.05 Canadian)

(Reporting by John McCrank)


[Green Business]
SAN FRANCISCO
Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:25pm EST
German solar subsidy cut to spur price dip-iSuppli

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Germany's decision to cut solar subsidies would result in a significant fall in both the price of and demand for photovoltaic panels in the second quarter, research firm iSuppli said on Thursday.

Germany, the world's biggest solar market by installed capacity, has proposed a cut in solar feed-in tariffs -- prices utilities have to pay generators of renewable energy -- by 15 percent, putting pressure on industry players.

A final decision is planned within the next 10 days.

Only a 5 percent to 10 percent decrease had been expected, the report said.

"Germany's decision to cut its solar subsidies in the second quarter will make installations less attractive for the country's consumers," said Henning Wicht, principal analyst for iSuppli. "Because of this, German consumers will rush to make solar installations in the first quarter and then stop in the second quarter."

Feed-in tariffs are the sector's lifeline in Germany as long as grid-parity, the point at which renewables cost the same as fossil fuel-based power, has not been reached.

The firm said it expects the German market will overheat during the first three months of the year and then collapse during the next three months.

Solar installations in Germany will surge during the first quarter, starting at 200 megawatts in January and then rising to 300 megawatts in February and 500 megawatts in March, iSuppli predicted.

However, installations are likely to plunge to 50 megawatts in April and recover only to the 100 MW monthly level in May and June, the report said.

"As a result of the decline in installations, solar system prices in Germany could decline by 7.5 percent from April through the end of 2010, compared to less than the 5 percent normal rate of decline," Wicht said.

Germany accounted for 51 percent of global solar system installations in 2009, followed by Italy, which accounted for only 9 percent of global installations.

The news has had a big impact on U.S. listed shares of solar power companies, which fell between 1 and 5 percent after the announcement.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

news20100122reut5

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON
Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:26pm EST
SCENARIOS-How Obama can re-energize his climate policy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One year into his presidency, Barack Obama's ambitious legislative agenda, including environmental policy, is threatened by political setbacks and an electorate questioning his priorities in the midst of tough economic times.

The Democratic president came to office promising to seek comprehensive energy and environmental reforms, including the passage of a cap and trade bill to reduce carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

But the U.S. Senate -- historically a burial ground for many presidential initiatives -- hasn't yet responded to Obama's call.

Here are some possibilities for Obama regaining momentum:

* ONE PIECE AT A TIME

Senator John Kerry has been working with Republicans and independents in the Senate on a grand compromise bill that would include cap and trade, expanded domestic oil and gas drilling and added incentives for nuclear power.

But cap and trade has many opponents. It would require industry to reduce its carbon pollution over the next 40 years and require companies to hold permits for every tonne they emit. Those permits could be traded on a regulated market. Opponents say it will drive jobs abroad and raise U.S. consumer prices.

Some Democratic leaders are now raising the possibility of passing just part of a comprehensive energy policy -- the less controversial part, such as incentives for utilities and others to use more alternative fuels such as wind and solar power.

That would leave the door open for possibly debating cap and trade, or another approach to lowering carbon emissions, for another time.

* SCORE A VICTORY, ANY VICTORY

A special election Tuesday resulted in Republicans picking up a seat in the Senate and robbing Democrats of the supermajority of 60 that they needed to overcome roadblocks.

As a result, Obama is staring down the possibility that his leading initiative, healthcare reform, may not pass.

Some Congress-watchers think that as a result, Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress should try to regain momentum in Washington by scoring a quick victory on something, such as an energy/environment initiative that recent polls show the public supports.

"If healthcare is not dead, it's awfully close to sleeping for a while and the agenda is going to have to focus on someplace they can win. They need to post some points and quick, no matter what. Time is running out," said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners in Washington.

As the year wears on, Democrats' hopes of getting major bills passed diminish as the November congressional elections further politicize debates.

* STICK WITH CAP AND TRADE

Some environmentalists argue that unlike in the healthcare debate, there at least are some Republicans willing to engage on cap and trade. Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, is dealing with Kerry on a climate bill and Senator Susan Collins has co-sponsored a Democratic bill calling for a carbon cap, but without the trading.

If Kerry, Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman can strike a deal on a cap and trade bill, it could rise from the ashes.

* TALK JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

If recent events underscored anything, it is that the U.S. public is worried about the economic future in the face of a 10 percent unemployment rate, the highest in a quarter-century.

When Obama delivers his annual State of the Union address to Congress on January 27, he is likely to focus on jobs and expected to cast his environmental policy as a way to create jobs and stimulate the economy. "If you sell those arguments you've got a winning issue," Kerry argues.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid opened the first legislative session of 2010 Wednesday saying Democrats will work to create "new jobs, good paying, clean-energy jobs that can never be outsourced."

* EPA TAKES CONTROL

The Environmental Protection Agency has the power to act on climate change after the Supreme Court ruled that pollution threatens human health. Obama would prefer that Congress passes a climate law, but if it fails, EPA could crack down on emissions. Lawyers for emissions traders say the EPA could craft its own cap and trade program. But EPA action is vulnerable to potential moves by lawmakers and litigation from industry groups to stop the agency from regulating the gases.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)


[Green Business]
WASHINGTON
Thu Jan 21, 2010 6:54pm EST
Lafarge, Saint-Gobain settle U.S. clean air cases

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Glass maker Saint-Gobain Containers Inc and cement maker Lafarge North America agreed to settle allegations that they violated the Clean Air Act and will spend millions of dollars to reduce emissions and pay civil penalties, U.S. authorities said.

The two companies agreed to install pollution control equipment and technologies at all of their U.S. plants to limit emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, potentially 41,000 tons a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department said.

U.S. officials said they were continuing to investigate possible violations by other cement and glass manufacturers as well as other sectors including coal-fired power and acid productions.

"If you are in violation of the law, you need to come into compliance with the law," Ignacia Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's environment division, told reporters. She also urged violators to come forward and negotiate a settlement with the government.

Saint-Gobain, the second-largest U.S. container glass manufacturer and a unit of Compagnie de Saint Gobain SA, agreed to spend $112 million for its 15 U.S. plants and pay a $2.25 million civil penalty.

The company, however, has closed two of those plants for other reasons.

The U.S. government had accused Saint-Gobain of building new glass furnaces or modifying existing ones without getting pre-construction permits or installing required pollution control equipment.

The company in a statement denied the allegations, but said it was "pleased to work with the EPA as the first glass container company to come to agreement under their glass enforcement initiative."

Meanwhile cement maker Lafarge, a unit of Lafarge SA, agreed to install pollution control technologies that could cost as much as $170 million at its 13 plants and pay a $5 million civil penalty.

The government's charges against Lafarge were similar to those levied against Saint-Gobain.

Sylvain Garnaud, head of Lafarge North America's cement division, said the company believed its plants operated in an "environmentally responsible manner and in compliance" with the law.

However, he added that the company agreed to settle and take the actions to "demonstrate that we want our plants to continue to minimize emissions to the atmosphere as much as possible."

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Robert MacMillan, Steve Orlofsky and Richard Chang)


[Green Business]
Manolo Serapio Jr.
MANILA
Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:23pm EST
Green power to help save famed Philippine terraces

MANILA (Reuters) - Revenue from a small hydropower plant that cost little more than a supercar to build, will help preserve 2,000-year-old Philippine rice terraces dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World," conservationists say.

The crumbling ricefields that follow the contours of the mountains in northern Ifugao province and resemble a stairway are slowly being eroded by bad weather and limited upkeep.

On Friday, Philippine officials were handed the symbolic keys to the $1 million 200-kilowatt hydropower plant, which will meet 18 percent of the province's power needs.

It is projected to generate $70,000 in annual revenue for the Rice Terrace Conservation Fund, aimed at shoring up the famed ricefields that have been on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in danger since 2001.

"Many are abandoning the terraces. It's not economically feasible to plant rice because the farmers' land holdings are small," Carmelita Buyuccan, head of planning and development at the Ifugao provincial office, told Reuters.

Many of the farmers' children, after earning their college diplomas, also choose to either work in the city or overseas for better pay, added Buyuccan.

The hydropower plant was donated by e8, a non-profit organization consisting of 10 leading electricity firms from the G-8 countries that was also behind the first solar panels in Tuvalu and the first wind turbines on the Galapagos Islands.

Halting the deterioration of the terraces would require $400,000 a year, according to a 2004 study by Tokyo Electric Power Co, and project proponents hope the revenue from the power plant would inspire other donors.

Work would include restoring damaged terrace walls and rehabilitating the irrigation system, officials said.

A 10-year project that would go beyond and improve the condition of the terraces would require $11.8 million, said Yoshihiro Hatano, general manager at TEPCO.

(Reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr; Editing by David Fogarty and Sanjeev Miglani)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:32am EST
Shale gas could help besieged U.S. coal miners

HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. coal miners, threatened by pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions and end mountaintop mining, could improve their growth prospects by ramping up shale gas production.

Coal-mining companies face hurdles marshaling the finances and developing technical expertise to produce shale gas. But experts say the effort could be worth it, especially since gas burns cleaner than coal.

"With the advent of shale plays in gas, a lot of property these coal companies own could all of a sudden be potential sites for gas wells," said Matt Preston, coal analyst for Wood Mackenzie.

The hot new Marcellus shale play in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York spans the heart of historic coal country and is one target of coal company interest.

"We have had conversations with three significantly sized companies," said Bobby Tudor, CEO of energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., who broached the idea at a recent energy conference. He declined to say which companies he spoke with.

U.S. coal companies need to diversify after a boom in coal-fired power plant development early this decade fizzled amid growing concern about climate change, threatening demand for coal.

On the supply side, environmental advocates and the government are pushing to limit the practice of leveling mountains to recover thinning seams of coal in the U.S. coal heartland, Appalachia.

While a number of new coal plants are near completion, dozens of U.S. coal projects have been canceled. Some utilities are shutting older coal units and replacing them with plants fired by natural gas, which emits half as much greenhouse gas as coal when burned.

PRESSURE ON COAL INDUSTRY TO CLEAN UP GROWING

Replacement of coal plants with gas units should accelerate if the United States enacts carbon control legislation. Coal could regain market share if researchers can develop carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology to keep carbon emissions out of the atmosphere. But that could take years.

"We just don't know enough about how CCS scales up and how effective it will be," Preston said.

While coal companies await affordable carbon capture technology, they could supplement revenue by producing gas from coal properties, either shale gas or coal bed methane.

"I think there's an argument to be made for coal companies looking at natural gas as a way to broaden their risk profile," said Tom Hoffmann, retired spokesman for Consol Energy Inc, now an industry consultant.

The effort to develop natural gas will not be easy for coal companies. Most do not have the expertise to explore for, produce and sell gas.

"The skill set is very different," , said FBR Capital Markets analyst Dave Khani.

Most coal companies also need more financial heft to enter the capital-intensive gas business, and raising money could be difficult because Wall Street analysts see gas and coal as separate industries, Preston said.

"We'll see how power companies approach their fuel-buying in an age of carbon restrictions. I don't think we have a clear view of that yet," Hoffman said.

GAS HAS BEEN MORE PROBLEM THAN SOLUTION FOR COAL

Historically, miners have viewed natural gas oozing from coal seams as a problem. Coal companies ventilate it to the air or produce it from wells drilled into coal seams to cut the risk of in-mine explosions.

But unburned gas vented to the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide, so the U.S. government encourages companies to drill and produce rather than vent it.

Walter Energy Inc joined the Chicago Climate Exchange to trade credits it gets for reducing its mines' methane emissions by producing and selling gas.

Consol Energy Inc has taken drilling for safety a step further, organizing a unit to find, produce and sell gas.

Consol unit CNX Gas Corp expected 2009 production to total 92 billion cubic feet. That is only a tenth of the biggest U.S. producers, but it's the second largest gas production in the Appalachian Mountain basin and growing, the company said.

Other coal companies view gas as a future asset, but not gas produced from wells. Peabody Energy, the biggest U.S. coal company, has invested in two high technology projects aimed at converting coal into gas.

"Coal to gas remains a long-term strategic focus," Peabody spokesman Vic Svec said.

Coal remains Peabody's main business. With new coal-fired power plants being built at a rapid pace outside the United States, coal will be important for years to come, he said.

Utility executives voiced skepticism about the long-term viability of gas as their main generator fuel. Aside from questioning the reliability of supply, they said ever-tighter environmental goals will require cleaning up gas, too.

"Gas is not the answer beyond 2030," said CEO Bill Johnson of Progress Energy, a big coal burner shutting old coal plants. "It won't get you to the goals we have for carbon."

(Additional reporting by Anna Driver; Editing by David Gregorio)


[Green Business]
SAN FRANCISCO
Thu Jan 21, 2010 6:57pm ES
California sets incentives for solar water heaters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California is looking to boost the solar water heater market and make the heating systems -- which mostly run on natural gas or electricity -- green.

The California Public Utilities Commission said on Thursday it has established an incentive to promote the installation of solar water heating systems in new and existing homes and businesses.

The incentives range as high as $1,500, depending on the system, and the program is set up to run for 8 years or until the program funds are exhausted.

"The dispersion of solar heating systems can play an important role as we strive to achieve the goal of zero net energy in residential and commercial buildings by 2020 and 2030 respectively," CPUC Commissioner Dian Grueneich said in a statement.

The commission said 40 percent of the $350 million incentive budget is reserved for single-family residential systems, and 60 percent for commercial and multifamily systems.

The program will be available to those currently being served by PG&E Corp's Pacific Gas and Electric Co, Edison International's Southern California Edison, and Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co and Southern California Gas Co utilities.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:25am EST
EU carbon soften on weak energy, tumbling equities

LONDON (Reuters) - European carbon emissions futures declined on Friday, extending the previous session's losses, as weak energy prices and tumbling equities offered little support.

The benchmark contract for EU Allowances fell 10 cents or 0.75 percent to 13.15 euros ($18.68) a tonne at 0809 GMT, after declining to an intra-day low of 13.05 euros in the first hour of trade.

"Everything is weaker -- power, oil and equities. Following the Obama announcement, there is neither fundamental nor political support," an emissions trader said.

Proposals by U.S. President Barack Obama to impose new restrictions on banks sent Asian stock markets and commodities tumbling on Friday.

Weak German power and British natural gas prices have also dulled carbon permit demand for utilities.

"I cannot rule out that EUAs won't fall further today," the trader said.

U.S. oil fell on Friday to one-month lows below $76 a barrel, while German Calendar 2011 baseload power on the EEX fell 0.97 percent to 49.15 euros per megawatt hour.

British natural gas for February delivery was at 34.40 pence per therm.

Added to that this week, hopes for stronger world action in 2010 to curb climate change have dimmed after the U.S. Democrats lost a key Senate seat to a Republican opposed to capping emissions, experts said on Wednesday.

U.N. climate talks in Mexico in November will be undermined if the United States has not set caps on carbon emissions.

U.N.-backed certified emissions reductions were slow to trade.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Rebekah Kebede
NEW YORK
Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:26am EST
Carbon market exec still hopes for U.S. climate bill

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. federal climate legislation may still pass this year even though a Republican who opposes the bill won a seat in the Senate this week, a carbon markets executive said on Thursday.

"Our view is that it's not dead," Abyd Karmali, managing director and global head of carbon emissions at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, told Reuters in an interview.

A climate bill passed the House last year, but the legislation has been bogged down in the Senate and its future is uncertain after Republican Scott Brown, who has opposed capping emissions, won the seat held by Ted Kennedy.

The prospect of Environmental Protection Agency regulation as well as a growing threat of nuisance torts may be enough to garner support for the bill among emitters, Karmali said.

The cap-and-trade bill, expected to create a trillion-dollar carbon trading market, would cap carbon emissions and allow pollution permits to be traded.

If the bill does not pass, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may begin regulating carbon emissions for the first time.

"Right now, companies have a stark choice in front of them. One path is a market-based approach through cap and trade, another is EPA regulation... In terms of trying to steer things toward a positive outcome, clearly, the Senate would be a more manageable forum," Karmali said.

In addition, a recent raft of climate-related tort suits which cite greenhouse gas emissions as a public nuisance may give some emitters additional incentive to support carbon control.

"Without any action taking place to reduce emissions, large emitters are more likely to face tort suits from environmental and civil groups and we've seen that already," Karmali said.

In September, for instance, a U.S. Appeals Court reinstated a lawsuit by eight states and the city of New York against five of the largest U.S. utilities over their carbon dioxide emissions.

Some emitting companies, including some major U.S. power companies, are already in favor of cap and trade legislation in the interest of having a more definite regulatory outlook.

"Companies are trying to make long-term investment decisions with assets that have 20-30 year time frames and the uncertainty can act as an impediment to investing or lending," according to Karmali.

However, the window for passing the bill this year may be limited.

"If it doesn't happen by May, it's not going to happen this year," Karmali said.

Delay in the world's top industrial emitter to regulate has could further delay a global warming agreement.

But if federal climate control legislation does not pass, individual states may continue to develop their own carbon trading frameworks.

Already, 10 states in the eastern United States regulate carbon dioxide in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and a western U.S. and Canadian initiative led by California.

Although a state-by-state approach to carbon legislation is less desirable for development of a carbon-trading market than a federal one, states may eventually form networks of carbon markets.

"It's easy to envision a scenario where to try to make the patchwork quilt as manageable as possible, those efforts begin to link up so there would be a coordinating mechanism that's almost acting like a federal coordinating mechanism," Karmali said.

(Editing by David Gregorio)


[Green Business]
Pete Harrison
BRUSSELS
Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:04am EST
EU to stick with lower climate offer to U.N

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will stick with its lowest offer for cutting carbon emissions under a U.N. climate accord, fulfilling the wishes of industry, a draft letter shows.

The 27-nation bloc has committed to unilaterally cut carbon dioxide to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.

Ahead of the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen in December it offered to deepen those cuts to 30 percent if other rich countries made similar efforts.

That offer still stands, according to the draft letter to top U.N. climate official Yvo de Boer. But it is unlikely to be carried out because the Copenhagen talks ended with a weak deal.

Experts say the total cuts offered there by rich countries amount to no more than 18 percent and fall far short of the 25-40 percent that U.N. scientists outline as necessary to avert dangerous climate change.

The world is currently on track for temperatures to rise to 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, which would bring catastrophic melting of ice sheets and rising seas, some scientists say.

But many EU countries and industries are wary of increasing cuts to 30 percent alone, because the cost of cutting emissions might put factories at a disadvantage to rivals in less regulated countries.

LEVERAGE

"After the Copenhagen failure, the EU would be foolish to again unilaterally increase its greenhouse gas objective," Gordon Moffat, the head of steel industry group Eurofer, said in a statement on Thursday. "Another 10 percent would be fatal."

But environmentalists say the EU is naive to think its conditional 30 percent offer creates any negotiating leverage and the bloc should move there anyway to set a moral example.

"Tackling climate negotiations with the same strategy as trade negotiations will simply get them bogged down like the current Doha round of trade talks," Greenpeace campaigner Joris den Blanken said.

Spain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency until July, drafted the letter, seen by Reuters, and will wait for feedback from all 27 EU nations before signing and sending it next week.

While participants in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, the bloc's main weapon against climate change, were worried that a 30 percent goal would raise the cost of carbon permits, analysts said the 20 percent target was largely priced into the market.

"Thirty percent is out of the picture for now," said Emmanuel Fages of Societe Generale. "Nobody was seriously attaching any probability to it post-Copenhagen."

At a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday, a group of eastern European countries led by Poland joined Italy, Cyprus and Malta to call for the deletion of any reference to the 30 percent, even as a conditional offer, diplomats said.

Britain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands wanted the 30 percent offer to be prominent but to remain conditional.

(Additional reporting by Michael Szabo in London, editing by Anthony Barker)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Krittivas Mukherjee
NEW DELHI
Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:44am EST
China-led group may discuss climate fund for poor

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A meeting of four of the world's fastest-growing carbon emitters on Sunday ahead of a January 31 deadline for countries to submit their action plans to fight climate change may discuss a climate fund for poorer nations.

The meeting would be attended by the environment ministers of Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- the so-called BASIC bloc of nations that helped broker a political accord at last month's Copenhagen climate summit.

The non-binding accord was described by many as a failure because it fell far short of the conference's original goal of a more ambitious commitment to prevent more heatwaves, droughts and crop failures.

The document set a January 31 deadline for rich nations to submit economy-wide emissions targets for 2020 and for developing countries to present voluntary carbon-curbing actions.

Brazil's environment minister said it will propose a BASIC fund to help poor countries adapt to global warming as part of a broader attempt to revive stalled global climate talks.

Indian officials said such a fund could undermine rich countries, particularly the United States, which have been criticized for not doing enough.

"The resources we'll put into it will call attention to how they are escaping their responsibilities," Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday. He did not give a figure.

Neither is there any clarity on the nature of the fund, who would administer it or how it would be distributed.

"All this could be discussed," an Indian official unwilling to be identified said.

The New Delhi meeting is seen as crucial because what the four countries decide could shape a legally binding climate pact the United Nations hopes to seal at the end of the year.

Countries that support the Copenhagen Accord are supposed to add their emission reduction commitments to the schedule at the end of the document. But there is concern some countries might weaken their commitments until a new deal is agreed.

China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. For India, that figure is up to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

China is the world's top CO2 emitter, while India is number four.

BLAME GAME?

Refusal by the BASIC nations to add their commitments to the schedule would likely raise questions about the validity of the accord, which was only "noted" by the Copenhagen conference and not formally adopted after several nations objected.

"If any of the BASIC countries do not submit their actions then the blame game will again start and the whole purpose of the accord, which was to put a more vigorous political process in place, would be defeated," said Shirish Sinha, WWF India's top climate official.

The Copenhagen conference was originally meant to agree the outlines of a broader global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which binds nearly 40 rich nations to limit carbon emissions. The first phase of the existing protocol expires in 2012.

But developing countries, which want rich nations to be held to their Kyoto obligations and sign up to a second round of tougher commitments from 2013, complain developed nations want a single new accord obliging all nations to fight global warming.

The BASIC countries, while endorsing the Copenhagen Accord, oppose any single legally binding instrument that allows rich nations to dilute their climate commitments.

Poorer nations say developed economies have polluted most since the Industrial Revolution and should therefore shoulder most of the responsibility of fixing emission problems and paying poorer nations to green their economies.

Though Indian officials ruled out any revisiting of the BASIC countries' position on the accord, some clarifications could be sought on the issue of monitoring CO2 reduction actions by developing countries.

The accord says their actions would be open to "consultation and analysis."

The United States has said regular reporting and analysis of CO2 curbs by poorer nations is crucial to building trust.

"Things like who will analyze and what constitutes consultation need to be sorted out. These are definitions that have to be agreed by all the countries," another negotiator said.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)


[Green Business]
HONG KONG
Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:31am EST
Costs for A-Power Texas project up; China eyes funding

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese wind turbine company A-Power Energy Generation Systems said Bank of China and five other banks have shown interest in funding its 600-megawatt wind power project in Texas, as costs for the project are rising.

A-Power, which is building the project with U.S. partners, expected costs to hit $2 billion -- $500 million more than original estimates -- as a result of higher turbine and cable connection costs, Chief Operating Officer John Lin told Reuters.

He said the company expected funding to be finalized by March at the earliest.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON
Thu Jan 21, 2010 6:56pm EST
Senator Murkowski aims to stop EPA carbon controls

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a leading Republican on energy policy, on Thursday moved to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.

The Alaska lawmaker, in a speech on the Senate floor, said she so far had the firm support of 35 fellow Republicans and three Democrats for legislation that could move through the Senate in an expedited process.

If there is a vote on her initiative, it could be an early barometer of the Senate's willingness to address broader climate change legislation this year.

"Congress must be given time to develop an appropriate and more responsible solution" than EPA to climate change problems, Murkowski said. She warned that looming EPA regulation would lead to job losses and broader economic problems.

Murkowski is the senior Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and represents a major energy-producing state that also is showing signs of suffering from global warming. While she has said she supports looking at ways to address climate change, she has mainly supported more narrow bills on developing alternative energy and allowing more domestic oil and natural gas drilling.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer called Murkowski's EPA legislation an unprecedented "assault," adding, "We cannot and must not repeal a scientific health finding."

Speaking at a press conference, Boxer was referring to a scientific review, which concluded that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, the underpinning for EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act.

Murkowski faces an uphill fight in the Democratic-controlled Congress. Even if she were to convince enough Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives to join her, the legislation would face a veto by Democratic President Barack Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters.

While Murkowski argued that she wants to take the power to regulate carbon out of EPA's hands and ensure Congress would decide on such a sweeping policy, many environmentalists saw her legislation as one more Republican attempt to block any meaningful action on climate control.

On December 7, EPA cleared the way for regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that pollute the atmosphere by industries and vehicles as they burn fossil fuels.

The new EPA Clean Air Act regulations could move forward as soon as March.

CLOSELY WATCHED

Foreign countries are closely watching Washington's actions on climate control as they weigh how forcefully they will join international calls for aggressively tackling climate change problems that could range from widespread drought and flooding to melting polar ice and rising sea levels.

The Obama administration has made clear that it prefers Congress pass more comprehensive legislation to reduce carbon emissions by utilities, oil refiners and heavy industry.

Supporters of a climate change bill that is stalled in Congress have used the threat of EPA regulation as a cudgel to win broader support among undecided lawmakers. Their argument is that Congress is better able to address industry concerns than the EPA.

That argument apparently was not effective with some senators, including Senator Blanche Lincoln, who faces a potentially tough re-election bid this year.

"Heavy-handed EPA regulation, as well as the current cap and trade bills in Congress, will cost us jobs and put us at an even greater competitive disadvantage to China, India and others," said Lincoln, who joined forces with Murkowski.

Lincoln, like several moderate Democrats, wants passage of a more limited alternative energy bill that environmentalists say would be an inadequate answer to global warming troubles.

Environment America, representing environmental groups in 28 states, said Murkowski's legislation was "a thinly veiled attempt to let the nation's biggest global warming polluters off the hook...removing them from the Clean Air Act. It is an extreme action, written for polluters by polluters, to exempt Big Oil and Coal from complying with the law."

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)


[Green Business]
Leonora Walet, Asia Green Investment Correspondent
HONG KONG
Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:42am EST
A-Power Texas project costs up; China may fund

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese wind turbine company A-Power Energy Generation Systems said cost overruns at its 600-megawatt wind power project in Texas could reach $500 million and it was talking to Chinese state banks about funding the project.

A-Power, which is building the project with U.S. partners, said higher turbine and cable connection costs could push the total cost to $2 billion, a third more than the original estimate, Chief Operating Officer John Lin told Reuters.

State-owned Bank of China has expressed intention to fund the project, along with two other government-backed institutions, China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank, he said.

"The Chinese government fully supports this project because both countries are focused in green energy," said Lin.

He said the company expected funding to be finalized by March at the earliest.

The Texas wind project is A-Power's biggest wind power venture to date since it entered the wind turbine-making business in 2008.

Shares of A-Power touched a year-high on the Nasdaq in December after the company confirmed it is supplying the wind turbines for the project it is building with asset management firm US Renewable Energy Group and wind developer, Cielo Wind Power LP. They have since fallen 36 percent.

The company, through its 60 percent-owned unit, Shenyang Power Group, is taking a 49 percent stake in the Texas project, with its US partners owning the rest.

The project will be built across 36,000 acres, which will be contributed by the U.S. partners, said Lin.

While A-Power is seeking most of the funding from Chinese banks, other institutions including the World Bank and Asian Development Bank have shown interest to participate as financiers, he said.

Lin said it may also get funding from a U.S. bank, which he declined to identify.

With the project, A-Power expects its wind turbine business to be a major earnings driver for the company this year. The company has said in December it expects to produce over 100 wind turbines in 2010, outside its West Texas project.

Apart from wind turbines, A-Power makes equipment for power systems.

Lin said the company has several projects in the pipeline, including a $70 million wind turbine assembly plant it plans to build in the United States. He declined to disclose details.

On Thursday, A-Power raised $83 million from a sale of shares and warrants to institutions, sending its shares down as much as 21 percent.

The company said it will use proceeds of the offering to fund its $50 million purchase of Japanese solar firm Evatech Co. It is also using the cash to buy more wind turbine parts.

"Notwithstanding today's disappointing news, we remain positive on A-Power's leverage to the robust long-term growth potential of the Chinese wind market, the world's largest," Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov said in a note to clients after A-Power's share sale.

(Editing by Michael Flaherty and Lincoln Feast)