news20100125gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Carbon emissions]
Copenhagen dampens banks' green commitment
Banks are pulling out of the carbon-offsetting market after Copenhagen failed to reach agreement on emissions targetsx
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 January 2010 20.06 GMT Article history

Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012.

Carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London because of the lack of activity and the drop-off in investment demand. The Guardian has been told that backers have this month pulled out of a large planned clean-energy project in the developing world because of the expected fall in emissions credits after 2012.

Anthony Hobley, partner and global head of climate change and carbon finance at law firm Norton Rose, said: "People will gradually start to leave carbon desks, we are beginning to see that already. We are seeing a freeze in banks' recruitment plans for the carbon market. It's not clear at what point this will turn into a cull or a rout."

Paul Kelly, chief executive of Eco­Securities, which develops clean energy projects, said that while markets had not expected a definitive post-Kyoto Protocol deal at Copenhagen, they had expected some progress.

"The lack of regulatory certainty in the post 2012 world affects the market's view of what CERs [carbon credits from clean energy projects] will be worth and subsequently will constrain financing for projects. If you had an agreement at Copenhagen with a bit more detail, people would be more willing to take risk."

After two weeks of extenuating talks, world leaders delivered an agreement in Copenhagen that left campaigners disappointed as it failed to commit rich and poor countries to any greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Banks had been scaling back their plans to invest in carbon markets before Copenhagen. Fewer new clean energy projects need to be financed as, because of the recession, there are fewer global emissions to offset. The price of carbon credits has also fallen, while plans to introduce national trading schemes, particularly in the US and Australia, remain uncertain.

Two sources said that Australian bank Westpac had scaled back plans to increase its carbon desk in London. A bank spokeswoman denied there were plans to recruit more staff in London, adding: "We have always said that we would look to grow this business organically as carbon markets develop and that remains the case."

Carbon markets were central to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and obliged developed countries that exceed their targets to purchase credits from clean energy projects in the developing world. Policymakers will meet again in Mexico in November in an attempt to revive the climate change talks.


[News > World news > China]
Campaign to boost cycling in Beijing
> Measures fail to ease capital's car-choked roads
> Planners want city to be haven for cyclists
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 January 2010 18.04 GMT Article history

After wrestling for years with Beijing's appalling traffic and pollution problems, city planners have come up with a distinctly old-fashioned solution: bicycles.

Municipal officials want to boost the number of cyclists by 25% during the next five-year plan, state media reported today. Twenty years ago, four out of five residents in the Chinese capital pedalled to work through one of the world's best systems of bicycle lanes. But the modern passion for cars has made two-wheeled transport so treacherous, dirty and unfashionable that barely a fifth of the population dares to use lanes that are now routinely blocked by parked cars and invaded by vehicles attempting to escape from the jams on the main roads.

Last year, China overtook the United States to become the world's biggest car market. Increasing affluence brings about a million new vehicles on to the roads every month, choking the streets with traffic and the air with smog.

The capital is among the worst affected cities. Since the 2008 Olympics, car owners have been ordered not to drive on certain days each week, but these controls have failed to ease congestion, so the authorities are considering additional measures.

According to the Xinhua news agency, the government hopes to improve the infrastructure for cyclists, including restored bicycle lanes and new rental programmes providing 50,000 bikes for hire by 2015. The authorities plan more bike parks near bus and subway stations in the expectation that half the city's residents will travel to work by public transport in five years.

Residents welcomed any improvement on the current system, which is so bad that some businessmen keep a fold-up bike in the boot of their chauffeur-driven cars so they can escape bad snarl-ups.

But despite unhappiness about driving, there was scepticism about the likelihood of a return of Beijing's bicycle culture.

"Fewer and fewer of my friends ride bicycles, but the interesting thing is they don't drive cars either," said Jiamin Zhao, an internet entrepreneur who still cycles his child to school each morning. "Some people are tired of driving. More are taking the subway or taxis."

Others questioned Beijing's willingness to prioritise cheap bicycles over expensive cars given the city's emphasis on economic development and its relatively lax car ownership regulations.

"I don't think they are serious about promoting bicycles. It's much easier to buy and own a car in Beijing than Shanghai," said Chen Ying, a language teacher who owns two cars. "When I started driving 10 years ago, it was something special because not many people had cars then, but now everyone has one and the traffic is terrible. If they really want me to use a bicycle, they should build clean and safe bicycle lanes. At the moment, the roads are dangerous and too smelly."

This is not the first time Beijing has promised to regain its reputation as the "Kingdom of Bicycles". Four years ago, the construction ministry announced that any bike lanes that had been narrowed or destroyed to make way for cars must be returned to their original glory. Civil servants were also encouraged to cycle to work or take public transport. Since then, however, the number of cars in Beijing has increased by more than 25% to pass the 4m mark, while there has been no obvious improvement in conditions for cyclists.

news20100125gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Climate change: Chinese adviser calls for open mind on causes
China's most senior negotiator on climate change says more research needed to establish whether warming is man-made
Gethin Chamberlain in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 January 2010 17.58 GMT Article history

China's most senior negotiator on climate change said today he was keeping an open mind on whether global warming was man-made or the result of natural cycles.

Xie Zhenhua said there was no doubt that warming was taking place, but more and better scientific research was needed to establish the causes.

Xie, Premier Wen Jiabao's special representative on climate change, was speaking in Delhi at the end of a two-day meeting of ministers from four of the most powerful emerging economies – China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

The four countries, known as the Basic group, called on rich nations to ensure that $10bn pledged to combat climate change was handed over before the end of the year. South Africa's environment minister accused the US of lagging behind at Copenhagen and said it had a moral obligation to take a lead on the issue.

The group pledged to pass on details of their own voluntary actions on the environment to the UN framework convention on climate change by 31 January.

Xie's comments caused consternation at the end of the post-meeting press conference, with his host, the Indian environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, attempting to play down any suggestions of dissent over the science of climate change.

Ramesh refused to accept China had stepped out of line, although he conceded: "We still need more science to understand whether global warming is causing glacial melt or whether it is the natural cycles."

Responding to a question about the controversy over the melting of Himalayan glaciers and to fresh doubts cast on the link between global warming and extreme weather events, Xie said there were still "disputes" in the scientific community over the causes.

"Now the mainstream view is according to the review reports by the IPCC," he said. "There is one starkly different view, that the climate change or climate warming issues is caused by the cyclical element of nature itself. I think we need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research, that we need to have as inclusive as possible all kinds of views concerning this aspect, because we want our views to be more scientific and to be more consistent."

Asked later to clarify his remarks, he said: "It is already a solid fact that the climate is already warming. The scientists have already shown that te global climate is warming.

"Due to the climate change influences, the countries that have been actively impacted most are those developing countries, in particular those small island countries. And the major reason of this climate change issue is the unconstrained emissions produced by developed countries in the process of their industrialisation. That is the mainstream view and we need to make responses concerning these views. There are some uncertain views but our attitude is open, that we need to have more studies. But this shall not impede our efforts in combating the climate change."

The Basic group played a key role in drawing up the Copenhagen accord in December. Ramesh said they had agreed that rich nations should demonstrate their credentials by ensuring that the $10b pledged at Copenhagen was paid this year.

"That is the basic minimum," he said. "If $10bn as promised in the Copenhagen accord does not flow to Africa, to small island states and to the LDCs [least developed countries] we believe that frankly the developed countries are not serious. That is the first milestone that has to be achieved. You have to put money on the table, you have to identify the projects and money has to start flowing."

news20100125gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > Global economy]
World economic growth at odds with climate targets
As the UK is expected to emerge from recession, the New Economics Foundation says endless growth is pushing the planet's biosphere 'beyond its safe limits'
Kathryn Hopkins
The Guardian, Monday 25 January 2010 Article history

Economic growth is not compatible with climate change targets for rich countries, according to a new report out today.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) warns that global economic expansion is not possible if the world is to restrict the temperature rise to 2C – the EU's agreed political objective.

The NEF found that this would require unprecedented – and probably impossible – reductions in the carbon intensity of a growing economy. None of the models or variations it looked at could square the circle of global economic growth with climate safety.

Andrew Simms, policy director at the NEF, said: "Endless growth is pushing the planet's biosphere beyond its safe limits. The price is seen in compromised world food security, climatic upheaval, economic instability and threats to social welfare. We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget. There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt."

As economists and politicians expect the UK to emerge from recession tomorrow after a year and a half, Roger Bootle, Deloitte's economic adviser, warns today that fiscal policy will be a greater drag on growth than elsewhere. He expects Britain's economy to grow by just 1% in 2010, compared to growth of 1.5% in the eurozone, 3% in the US and Japan and 3.5% globally.

"The constraints on the strength of the global recovery over the next couple of years look set to bite particularly hard in the UK," he says. However, he added that after a difficult period over the next couple of years, he sees no reason why the UK cannot return to being a "relative outperformer".

Meanwhile, Ernst & Young said that despite profit warnings from British companies tailing off during 2009, UK plc still faces a "bumpy ride".

Andrew Wollaston, restructuring partner at Ernst & Young, said: "Given the depth of the slump, recovery has certainly come quicker than we might have anticipated. This rapid economic recuperation, along with previously depressed earnings forecasts, is helping companies beat expectations and keep profit warnings low. Good news for UK plc, but this is not the end of the story. Rapid recovery costs and 2010 is when we start paying. Brace yourselves for a bumpy recovery."


[Environment > Guardian Environment Network]
Using woodlands to cut emissions
The UK is one of the least forested countries in Europe. The growing maturity of UK woodlands means that carbon sequestration is falling rapidly.
From Carbon Commentary, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 January 2010 10.59 GMT Article history

The UK is one of the least forested countries in Europe. Although the amount of woodland cover has increased substantially since its nadir after the First World War, growth has slackened in recent years. The growing maturity of UK woodlands means that carbon sequestration is falling rapidly. An independent assessment commissioned by the Forestry Commission has proposed one way forward: a million new hectares devoted to woodland, generating a reduction of up to 15% of the UK emissions in 2050.

The UK's woodland was depleted by the needs of industry, urbanization and agriculture and fell to little more than 6% of national land area in the early 1920s. Wood was virtually absent from many lowland areas in England. A recovery in the area given over to woodland means that about 12% of the UK is now forested but this number is only rising very slowly. Net new forestation is now well below 10,000 hectares (100 sq km) a year, much of which is in Scotland.

The UK is significantly behind other countries in Europe.

Percentage of land area under forest and woodland
> UK 12%
> France 28%
> Germany 32%
> Italy 34%
> Spain 36%
> Sweden 67%
> Finland 74%
Source: Combating Climate Change: A Role for UK Forests (pdf)

As trees grow, they extract CO2 from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. Young trees don't capture much as their absolute growth is slow. Old trees have largely ceased to grow and also don't extract much carbon dioxide. The UK's newer woods, mostly planted thirty to fifty years ago, are now just past their peak at sequestering carbon. The 2005 figure was about 16m tonnes CO2. In 2010, the figure will fall to about 10m tonnes, and by 2020 the figure could be as low as 5m tonnes (less than 1% of national emissions).

Combating Climate Change, a report commissioned by the Forestry Commission (pdf) makes a powerful case for a sharp increase in the rate of new planting. It suggests that 1m new hectares, about 4% of total UK land area, should be given over to forest cover by 2050, increasing the planting to almost 25,000 hectares a year, triple today's rate. This would, says the report, reduce UK emissions by about 15m tonnes of CO2 a year by mid-century. Parliament has legislated to cut UK emissions to about 150m tonnes of CO2 by this date. New forestry could therefore reduce the national CO2 total by about 10% below its expected level.

Is a million new woodland hectares possible? Easily. About 4m hectares are given over to rough pastureland in England alone. I haven't got the exact figures for Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but these countries probably have another 4m hectares. So transferring a million hectares into woodland is perfectly feasible.

What about the cost? The report suggests that it strongly depends on what sort of forestry we use. 'Energy forestry' using, for example, coppiced hazel and willow for fuels may well have a net cost below zero per tonne of CO2 saved. (That is, the wood fuel costs less than the fossil energy it replaces.) At the other extreme, the creation of new broadleaf woodlands, managed for biodiversity, is estimated to cost about £41 per tonne of carbon dioxide. The Climate Change Committee says that any proposal costing less than £100 per tonne is potentially cost-effective. So although £41 per tonne is almost certainly greater than the cost of, for example, carbon capture at coal power stations by 2050, it is in line with other projects for reducing CO2.

The cheapest form of reforestation – giving over large plantations to single species for frequent harvesting of wood for heating and electricity generation – is broadly unpopular in the UK. Even still, it probably needs to be considered carefully. Using biomass to generate electricity is a very good way of providing 'dispatchable' electric power, electricity that can provided exactly when needed. The last few weeks of cold, still weather in the UK should remind us that we need huge amounts of biomass as a reliable source of renewable power as a backup for wind.

> From Carbon Commentary, part of the Guardian Environment Network

news20100125nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 24 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.29
News
Healthy prions protect nerves
The proteins that can cause CJD have a vital role in the nervous system.
Alison Abbott

{{Prion proteins help to keep nerve cells well insulated.}
STEVE GSCHMEISSNER / SPL}

After 20 years of research, scientists believe they have finally uncovered the normal function of prion proteins, which can cause deadly illnesses such as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) if they become incorrectly folded.

An international team of neuroscientists reports that, in mammals, the mysterious proteins help to maintain the myelin sheath that protects the body's nerves.

"This opens a new door to studying some of the many common neuropathy disorders — which lead to weakness or loss of sensitivity of limbs — where we don't know the cause," says prion expert Simon Mead at University College London's Institute of Neurology.

The authors suspect that their finding also applies to brain neurons. If so, this would have implications for treating deadly CJD and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. It could also offer a new way of looking at multiple sclerosis, an incurable disease caused by demyelination of nerves in the brain and spinal cord. The work is published online in Nature Neuroscience today¹.

Long search

Several functions have been proposed for prions during the past couple of decades, but none has survived close scrutiny.

"The first mouse with knocked-out prion genes was made back in 1991," says Adriano Aguzzi at the University Hospital of Zurich in Switzerland, who led the new work. "We leapt on it, and studied it in every way we could think of — but never managed to find any obvious sign that lack of the prion was causing it harm."

In fact, at first glance, lack of prions seemed like a good thing because it made mice immune to prion infection.

But four years ago, Aguzzi started to think again about a generally overlooked 1999 paper² by researchers in Japan that suggested the lack of prion protein caused the degeneration and demyelination of nerves outside the brain. He decided to undertake a thorough and systematic analysis of prions' effects on such peripheral nerves.

Together with his colleagues, he studied four different strains of mice lacking the gene for the prion PrPC. In every mouse they tested, regardless of strain, they found early evidence of myelin damage just six weeks after birth. By the age of two months, the nerves were extensively demyelinated, and the mice had become more sensitive to pain.
"Because there is no myelin damage at birth, we assumed prions are needed to maintain the quality of the myelin sheath, which diminishes throughout life," says Aguzzi. Accordingly, when the researchers re-introduced prion proteins specifically into nerves, the demyelination did not occur. Curiously, however, only variants of prion proteins susceptible to cleavage by enzymes were effective.

But no variant of prion protein was able to prevent demyelination when introduced specifically into the Schwann cells that surround and support peripheral nerve cells. "This surprised us," says Aguzzi, "since Schwann cells actually do the job of manufacturing fresh myelin."

Aguzzi concludes that when nerves' sheathes are suffering wear and tear, the nerves enzymatically cleave their prion proteins, releasing fragments that travel to Schwann cells, where they signal activation of myelin repair.

Brain effects

He also has a hunch, supported by preliminary data, that prion proteins will turn out to play the same part in supporting myelination in the brain. "So it is going to be interesting to see if prions play any role in demyelinating diseases that stem from the brain," he says.

"Treatment of CJD targets prion proteins, which are assumed to be doing the damage," says Mead. "But if CJD did indeed turn out to be caused by absence of prions, then we would have to rethink this therapeutic approach."

Claude Carnaud, an immunologist working on prions at the INSERM research unit of the Pierre and Marie Curie University - Paris 6, says that some brain disorders that have been considered inflammatory in origin look like they may instead involve an absence of prions in the brain, at least in mice. "It will be very interesting to see if this also applies to multiple sclerosis," he says.

References
1. Bremer, J. et al. Nature Neurosci. doi:10.1038/nn.2483 (2010).
2. Nishida, N. et al. Lab. Invest. 79, 689-697 (1999).

news20100125reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
SEOUL
Mon Jan 25, 2010 1:23am EST
South Korea targets $24 billion smart grid spending by 2030

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is aiming for spending of 27.5 trillion won ($24 billion) over the next two decades on smart grids to make electricity distribution more efficient, cut greenhouse gas emissions and save $26 billion in energy imports.

South Korea, the OECD's fastest-growing carbon polluter and the world's fifth-largest oil importer, is betting on smart grids to manage electricity use more efficiently, and aims to create a nationwide smart grid by 2030 for an electricity market worth 68 trillion won, the energy ministry said in a statement on Monday.

It has already picked eight consortiums for a test-bed of the project, which will save consumers money on their utility bills, reduce blackouts and carry solar and wind energy power supplies.

The government is set to spend 2.7 trillion won on the project while the private sector is seen investing an estimated 24.8 trillion won by 2030, the energy ministry said.

The project is seen enabling the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million metric tons by 2030 and reduce oil imports by 344 million barrels worth 30 trillion won, the statement said.

In a smart grid, computers and sensors installed at power plants, substations and along power lines signal control centers that would better manage the flow of electricity.

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)


[Green Business]
Souhail Karam
RIYADH
Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:14am EST
Climate talks bigger threat to Saudi than oil rivals

RIYADH (Reuters) - United Nations climate talks are a bigger threat to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia than increased oil supplies from rival producers, its lead climate negotiator said on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia's economy depends on oil exports so stands to be one of the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalizing carbon emissions.

"It's one of the biggest threats that we are facing," said Muhammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation to U.N. talks on climate change and a senior economic adviser to the Saudi oil ministry.

"We are worried about future demand ... oil is being singled out. We are heavily dependent on one commodity."

Saudi depends on oil income for nearly 90 percent of state revenue and exports make up 60 percent of its gross domestic product.

Rival producers such as Iraq and Brazil have plans for significant increases in output, with Baghdad agreeing deals that could raise its capacity to around 12 million barrels per day and threaten Saudi market dominance. The kingdom has a production capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day.

Climate talks posed a bigger threat, Sabban said, and subsidies for the development of renewable energy were distorting market economics in the sector, he said.

Subsidies for other energy sources such as coal made little sense, he said.

"We all know that oil is already heavily taxed while coal is enjoying subsidies ... (but) coal is producing more pollution than oil," he said. "If we are sincere about protecting the climate we need to adjust that ... Whenever we talk about carbon tax it simply results in a simple gasoline tax and that adds burden on oil and adds on uncertainties on future demand for oil."

DEMAND

The possibility that oil demand might peak this decade was a "serious problem" for Saudi Arabia, Sabban said. The kingdom had looked at the assumptions behind studies that pointed to demand peaking in 2016 and saw "some truth in it," Sabban said.

The kingdom was watching future demand projections closely and would match any future investment in capacity expansion with demand, Sabban said.

"We will continue keeping the same spare capacity but no more," he said.

Saudi had plenty of spare capacity to increase output if global demand warrants, Sabban said. Demand should grow this year with the economic recovery, he added.

The kingdom completed a program to boost its capacity last year, coinciding with the global contraction in oil demand due to the economic recession, and led record OPEC output cuts, leaving it with more than double the spare capacity it targets.

The kingdom has around 4.5 million bpd of spare capacity while having a policy of holding 1.5 million to 2.0 million bpd to deal with any surprise outage in the global oil supply system. The kingdom is producing around 8 million bpd.

Meanwhile Saud Arabia plans to invest heavily in solar energy technology, Sabban said, and hopes to begin exporting power from solar energy by 2020.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi has said the kingdom aims to make solar a major contributor to energy supply in the next five to 10 years.

(Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Greg Mahlich)


[Green Business]
BEIJING
Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:56am EST
Beijing mayor says city faces serious pollution

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing's mayor Guo Jinlong said on Monday that the Chinese capital faces an "extremely serious" pollution problem, unveiling a target for "blue sky days" below the number achieved for all of 2009.

Beijing is frequently enveloped in foul-smelling smog, the result of a private car boom on the back of breakneck economic growth, the rapid development of industry around the city, and a reliance on coal power stations for electricity.

Guo promised the city of 17 million would give greater priority to public transport by building bus lanes and new subway lines as well as raising the proportion of green energy resources used and removing high-emission vehicles from the road.

"The problems between population, resources and the environment are extremely serious," Guo told the opening session of Beijing's largely rubber stamp parliament, held at a conference center in a remote northern suburb.

He said the city will aim to have 73 percent of the days this year with air quality judged excellent or fairly good, known as "blue sky days." That works out at about 266 days, as opposed to 285 for 2009.

"We will control the total quantity of pollutants generated and undertake trial reforms in the trade of pollution discharge rights," Guo added, without elaborating.

"We will deepen the development strategy of giving priority for public transportation, and build a green commuting system that gives priority to rail transit and emphasizes surface public transportation," he said.

Beijing's notoriously poor air quality was put in the global spotlight ahead of the city's hosting of the 2008 Olympics, leading the government to launch a major clean-up campaign, including shutting down many dirty factories.

But more than a year after the Games, Beijing is still periodically shrouded by smog, endangering the health of residents and making the city a less attractive place for foreign executives and their families.

Guo told the more than 700 delegates that he hoped to turn Beijing into a "global city" and would "vigorously entice multinational corporations to set up their regional headquarters in Beijing."

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jerry Norton)


[Green Business]
HONG KONG
Mon Jan 25, 2010 1:49am EST
Hundreds protest South China project over pollution worries

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters in southern China donned masks to protest a planned incinerator plant, the latest grassroots initiative to target polluting projects in the region.

Mobilized by phone and over the Internet, about 400 protesters from Foshan municipality showed up in surgical masks to urge local authorities to scrap the proposed construction of a Jiangnan sludge incinerator in Nanhai district, west of Shenzhen, the Guangzhou Daily newspaper reported on Monday.

"Defend our homeland, oppose pollution," the protesters chanted, according to the paper, while a large number of police officers monitored them.

In recent months, authorities in southern Guangdong province have faced increasingly assertive protests by residents opposed to potentially high-polluting projects including plans for a waste incinerator in Guangzhou's Panyu district that was eventually put off by authorities.

Pan Zhiwen, a former mayor of Gaoming, a nearby town, was quoted as saying by the newspaper that should the Nanhai sludge incinerator fail an environmental impact assessment, his local government would be "firmly opposed to the project."

Guangdong province has experienced serious environmental degradation after nearly three decades of break-neck development. Environmental activism, however, has grown in recent years as the city's burgeoning middle class pursue a higher quality of life.

In a recent case, a proposed multi-billion dollar oil refinery in the ecologically rich Nansha district just downstream from Guangzhou along the Pearl River, was relocated to a less populated area in western Guangdong after a major public uproar.

(Reporting by James Pomfret; Editing by Ken Wills)

news20100125reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Bill Rigby
SEATTLE
Mon Jan 25, 2010 1:09am EST
Bill Gates worries climate money robs health aid

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Bill Gates, the world's richest man and a leading philanthropist, said on Sunday spending by rich countries aimed at combating climate change in developing nations could mean a dangerous cut in aid for health issues.

Gates, the Microsoft Corp co-founder whose $34 billion foundation is fighting malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases in developing countries, expressed concern about the amount of spending pledged at December's Copenhagen global climate meeting.

Participants at the meeting agreed to a target of channeling $100 billion per year to developing countries to combat climate change by 2020. Gates said that amount represents more than three quarters of foreign aid currently given by the richest countries per year.

"I am concerned that some of this money will come from reducing other categories of foreign aid, especially health," Gates wrote in a letter, released late on Sunday, describing the work of his foundation.

"If just 1 percent of the $100 billion goal came from vaccine funding, then 700,000 more children could die from preventable diseases," Gates added.

Taking the focus away from health aid could be bad for the environment in the long run, said Gates, "because improvements in health, including voluntary family planning, lead people to have smaller families, which in turn reduces the strain on the environment."

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he runs with his wife Melinda and father William Gates Sr., had an endowment worth $34 billion as of September. Gates, 54, remains Microsoft chairman but focuses his attention on his foundation.

Since starting in 1994, the foundation has handed out more than $21 billion in grants.

Gates said he was worried generally about levels of government aid from rich countries to poor countries slipping with tough economic conditions globally.

"Because of budget deficits, there is significant risk that aid budgets will either be cut or not increase much," Gates said in his letter.

He singled out Italy for criticism. "Italy was at the low end of European givers even before the Berlusconi government came in and cut the aid by over half, making them uniquely stingy among European donors," Gates said.

According to Forbes magazine, Gates was the richest man in the world in 2009 with an estimated fortune of $40 billion.

(Editing by Will Dunham)


[Green Business]
HONG KONG
Mon Jan 25, 2010 1:49am EST
Hundreds protest South China project over pollution worries

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters in southern China donned masks to protest a planned incinerator plant, the latest grassroots initiative to target polluting projects in the region.

Mobilized by phone and over the Internet, about 400 protesters from Foshan municipality showed up in surgical masks to urge local authorities to scrap the proposed construction of a Jiangnan sludge incinerator in Nanhai district, west of Shenzhen, the Guangzhou Daily newspaper reported on Monday.

"Defend our homeland, oppose pollution," the protesters chanted, according to the paper, while a large number of police officers monitored them.

In recent months, authorities in southern Guangdong province have faced increasingly assertive protests by residents opposed to potentially high-polluting projects including plans for a waste incinerator in Guangzhou's Panyu district that was eventually put off by authorities.

Pan Zhiwen, a former mayor of Gaoming, a nearby town, was quoted as saying by the newspaper that should the Nanhai sludge incinerator fail an environmental impact assessment, his local government would be "firmly opposed to the project."

Guangdong province has experienced serious environmental degradation after nearly three decades of break-neck development. Environmental activism, however, has grown in recent years as the city's burgeoning middle class pursue a higher quality of life.

In a recent case, a proposed multi-billion dollar oil refinery in the ecologically rich Nansha district just downstream from Guangzhou along the Pearl River, was relocated to a less populated area in western Guangdong after a major public uproar.

(Reporting by James Pomfret; Editing by Ken Wills)


[Green Business]
Erwin Seba
HOUSTON
Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:24pm EST
Texas waterway remains closed after oil spill

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The Sabine-Neches Waterway, that supplies oil to four Texas refineries representing 6.5 percent of U.S. capacity, remained shut on Sunday as crews cleaned up oil spilled in a ship collision Saturday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said the shipping lane would remain shut until the spill was cleaned up. On Sunday, 13 ships were waiting to exit the waterway and 13 were waiting to enter.

"We don't have much of a timeline," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Adam Baylor. "We're working as quickly as possible to clean up the spill."

The four refineries, three in Port Arthur, Texas, and one in Beaumont, Texas, have not reported any shutdowns since a gash was torn in the side of the double-hulled Eagle Otome tanker on Saturday morning by a barge.

Texas officials said the spill of 460,000 gallons of crude, or about 11,000 barrels, was the state's biggest since 1991.

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said it was unclear exactly how long the cleanup would take. "But I think it's a matter of days not weeks," he said in a telephone interview.

AET Tanker Holdings, which owns the Eagle Otome tanker, is paying for the cleanup, Patterson said.

The spill triggered a voluntary evacuation recommendation to residents living near the port. Police said about 12 people evacuated on Saturday. They were all back in their homes by Sunday.

The four refineries have a combined refining capacity of 1.15 million barrels.

The 807-foot (246-meter) Eagle Otome was bound with a cargo of crude to Exxon Mobil Corp's 344,500 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Beaumont, Exxon said.

The Beaumont refinery is the sixth-largest in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

"We do not anticipate any impact to our operations at the Beaumont refinery," said Exxon spokesman Kevin Allexon.

A Valero Energy Corp spokesman said the company's 310,000 bpd Port Arthur refinery had offered emergency supplies to the clean-up crews. The plant's operations were unaffected by the crash.

A spokeswoman for Motiva Enterprises' 285,000 bpd Port Arthur refinery declined to discuss refinery operations, but said the plant had supplies on hand and contingency plans in place to deal with the situation. Motiva is joint-venture between Shell Oil and Saudi Refining.

Total SA did not reply to messages on Sunday. The company has a 232,000 bpd refinery in Port Arthur.

The collision between the southbound barge and the northbound tanker occurred near the Valero refinery location, according to the Coast Guard. The Valero refinery is the furthest south of the four supplied by the waterway.

The barge was one of two being moved by the Dixie Vengeance tug boat in the port of Port Arthur on Saturday morning when the collision occurred.

Investigators from the Coast Guard along with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are probing the cause of the collision.

The Sabine-Neches Waterway is a man-made channel that for most of its 60-mile (100-km) length runs parallel to the Sabine River, which marks the Texas-Louisiana border.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

news20100125reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Matthias Williams
NEW DELHI
Sun Jan 24, 2010 12:58pm EST
China-led climate group ups pressure on donors

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Four nations led by China pledged on Sunday to meet an end-month deadline to submit action plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and challenged rich countries to come up with funding to help fight global warming.

Environment ministers and envoys from Brazil, South Africa, India and China met in New Delhi in a show of unity by countries whose greenhouse gas emissions are among the fastest rising in the world.

The bloc was key to brokering a political agreement at the Copenhagen talks in December and its meeting in India was designed in part to put pressure on richer nations to make good on funding commitments.

"We have sent a very powerful symbol to the world of our intentions," the Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said at a joint press conference after seven hours of talks.

The group discussed setting up a climate fund to help nations most vulnerable to the impact of global warming, which it said would act as a wakeup call for wealthier countries to meet their pledges on financial assistance and give $10 billion in 2010.

Rich countries have pledged $30 billion in climate change funding for the 2010-12 period and set a goal of $100 billion by 2020, far less than what developing countries had wanted.

The group in New Delhi said releasing $10 billion this year would send a signal of the rich countries' commitment. The four said they were in talks to set up an independent fund for the same purpose, but gave no timeline or figure.

"When we say we will be reinforcing technical support as well as funds to the most vulnerable countries, we are giving a slap in the face to the rich countries," Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said through a translator.

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

China is the world's top CO2 emitter, while India is number four. China was blamed by many countries at Copenhagen for obstructing a tougher deal and has refused to submit to outside scrutiny of its plans to brake greenhouse gas emissions.

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.

Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said the world needed to take immediate action to fight climate change.

But in the wake of a controversial exaggeration by the U.N. climate panel on the threat of global warming to the Himalayan glaciers [ID:nSGE60M01C], he called for an "open attitude" to climate science.

"(There is a) point of view that the climate change or climate warming issue is caused by the cyclical element of the nature itself. I think we need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research," he said through a translator.

"We want our views to be more scientific and more consistent."

(Editing by Michael Roddy)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:04pm EST
Shell to scale back on tar sands

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell is slowing its expansion into high-cost Canadian tar sands, Chief Executive Peter Voser said in Monday's edition of the Financial Times.

In an interview with the paper, Voser said Shell had scaled down plans to increase tar sands production to 700,000 barrels per day.

"Over the past two years and certainly over the past six to eight months, I've taken the pace out of that because we have enough other growth opportunities," he said. Instead, Shell planned to rely more on conventional oil and gas reserves for future growth, he said, adding that Shell had become better at finding new oil and gas reserves after investing heavily in exploration.

Many oil sands developments were canceled in the latter half of 2008 as crude prices tumbled from record highs.

Environmental groups have also waged campaigns on oil sands projects, protesting about their impact on air, land, water and communities.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Diane Craft)


[Green Business]
HOUSTON
Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:24pm EST
Factbox: Texas waterway oil spill

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Saturday collision between a tanker and barge in the port of Port Arthur, Texas, shut a key petrochemical waterway.

Here are key facts about the incident.

COLLISION

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, on Saturday morning, a barge, one of a string of two barges, being steered by the Dixie Vengeance tug boat collided with the 807-ft (246-m) tank ship Eagle Otome, ripping a 15-ft-by-8-ft (4.6 m-by-2.4-m) hole in a starboard cargo tank, releasing 462,000 gallons, or 11,000 barrels, of oil into the Sabine-Neches Waterway.

TANKER

The Eagle Otome is double-hulled tank ship owned by AET Tanker Holdings Sdn Bhd, a privately-held Malaysian global shipping company, according to the Texas General Land Office. The tank ship was carrying a crude oil cargo to the Exxon Mobil refinery in Beaumont, Texas.

WATERWAY

The Sabine-Neches Waterway is a 60-mile (100-km) channel running from Beaumont, Texas, to the Gulf of Mexico that supplies crude oil to four refineries. Through most of its length the waterway runs parallel to the Sabine River, which marks the border between Texas and Louisiana.

REFINERIES

Four refineries with a combined refining capacity of 1.15 million barrels, or 6.5 percent, of U.S. capacity are supplied through the waterway. None have reported shutdowns since Saturday.

The refineries are:

Exxon Mobil Corp, Beaumont, 344,500 barrels per day (bpd)

Valero Energy Corp, Port Arthur, 310,000 bpd

Motiva Enterprises, Port Arthur, 285,000 bpd

Total SA, Port Arthur, 232,000 bpd.

CLEANUP

Fifteen skimming vessels are recovering oil from the waterway, which interacts with Sabine Lake and several marshes in the area. There have been no reports of oil-injured animals to the Coast Guard. Booms have been deployed to contain the oil. The cleanup costs are being borne by AET.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)


[Green Business]
Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON
Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:09pm EST
U.S. says wind could power 20 percent of eastern grid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wind energy could generate 20 percent of the electricity needed by households and businesses in the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but it would require up to $90 billion in investment, according to a government report released on Wednesday.

For the 20 percent wind scenario to work, billions must be spent on installing wind towers on land and sea and about 22,000 miles of new high-tech power lines to carry the electricity to cities, according to the study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

"Twenty percent wind is an ambitious goal," said David Corbus, the project manager for the study. "We can bring more wind power online, but if we don't have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it's like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,"

The private sector cannot fund all the needed spending, so a big chunk would have to come from the federal government through programs such as loan guarantees, Corbus said.

The Obama administration is already dedicating billions of dollars to double the amount of electricity produced by wind and other renewables energy sources by January 2012.

The Interior Department will decide this spring whether to approve the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That project, long delayed because of local opposition, would provide electricity to about 400,000 homes.

The amount of U.S. electricity generated by wind was up 29 percent during January-October of last year compared to the same period is 2008, according to the Energy Department.

Reaching the 20 percent threshold for wind by 2024 in the eastern electric grid would require 225,000 megawatts of wind generation capacity in the region, about a 10-fold increase from current levels, the study said.

One megawatt of electricity can provide power to about 1,000 homes.

Wind turbines would be scattered throughout the eastern grid, which extends from the Plains states to the Atlantic Coast and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Most of the big wind farms would be concentrated off the Atlantic Coast in federal waters from Massachusetts to North Carolina and on land in Midwest states from North Dakota to Nebraska and into Kansas.

Many states already require utilities to produce a portion of their electricity from renewable energy sources, but a federal mandate covering all utilities nationwide would help create the 20 percent wind scenario, Corbus said.

Sen. Byron Dorgan said on Tuesday he thought the Senate would forgo dealing with climate change legislation this year after going through the contentious health care debate and instead focus on passing an energy bill that, in part, requires U.S. utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2021.

(Reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by David Gregorio)

news20100125reut4

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Fri Jan 22, 2010 12:03pm EST
Sen. Murkowski aims to prevent EPA carbon controls

(SolveClimate) - Deep-pocketed industries and polluters, already basking in this morning's Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for more corporate political influence, got a gift from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) this afternoon.

Murkowski introduced a "resolution of disapproval" under the Congressional Review Act to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Three Democrats — Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) — joined her as co-sponsors.

Lincoln, in announcing her support for the measure, called the EPA "heavy-handed" and criticized the current climate bills, which would have Congress write the ground rules for regulation; instead, she supports an energy bill that would expand off-shore drilling.

Environment supporters say Murkowski's resolution, if it succeeds, would undermine the EPA's ability to protect the public.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) described the resolution as an attempt "to brazenly overturn sound scientific work done by our nation's leading public health experts and prohibit the Environment Protection Agency from doing its job to protect the health and welfare of the American people."

"It is so extreme that it would legally overturn scientists' very conclusion, based on decades of scientific study, that greenhouse-gas emissions threaten public health and the environment, and it would have the effect of prohibiting the EPA from making the same conclusion in the future," Merkley wrote.

"It could block any action by the EPA to protect our families, our communities, and our economy from greenhouse-gas pollution."

The EPA is moving toward greenhouse gas regulation but has yet to take action. In December, it complied with a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring it to determine whether greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and welfare, and if they did, to regulate. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson issued the agency's endangerment finding based on that court ruling last month.

Jackson has also started work on the ground rules for regulation, proposing a tailoring rule that would target greenhouse gas regulation to only the largest emitters, industrial facilities emitting more than 25,000 tons a year. When she announced that rule, Jackson warned:

"This is change. It's not easy. And we can't expect it to get easy in the months and years ahead. Defenders of the status quo are going to oppose this with everything they have."

And they did today.

Murkowski, in announcing the resolution, said she had 35 Republicans and three Democrats behind her resolution of disapproval.

The rarely used procedure can prohibit rules written by a federal agency from taking effect. In the Senate, the resolution is referred to the relevant committee; if the committee does not act within 20 days, it can be brought to the floor with a petition by 30 members. Either house could reject the resolution, and the president has veto power. However, Senate approval would likely have a chilling effect on climate action in Washington.

Follow the Money

Murkowski made a similar attempt to block the EPA through a budget amendment last fall, but the bill never reached a vote.

Reports in recent weeks have raised serious questions about the motivation behind that earlier effort. They have revealed deep involvement by the very industries the EPA would be regulating.

Two lobbyists, both former Bush administration officials now representing companies in those industries, closely guided the writing of Murkowski's earlier bill, the Washington Post reported. One of those lobbyists, Jeffery Holmstead, has represented energy companies that along with their employees and the firm have given at least $126,500 to Murkowski's campaigns since 2004, according research by Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington. It noted that on the companies, Southern Co., has donated $38,000 to Murkowski and owns the top three most-polluting power plants in the nation.

The three Democratic co-sponsors of the new resolution have also benefited from that group. The two lobbyists, their firms, and their climate legislation clients and their employees have been generous: Lincoln has directly received $139,766 from them, Landrieu has received $152,688, and Nelson has received $65,770, according to a Greenpeace review.

Last week, Greenpeace asked the Senate's Select Committee on Ethics to investigate the relationship between Murkowski and industry lobbyists. The public deserves to know if this situation is acceptable to the Senate, Greenpeace argued.

In Sen. Merkley's view, the move for the disapproval resolution is far from acceptable.

"Imagine if Congress always put the interests of polluters ahead of the health of our families," he wrote. "Our rivers and lakes would be choked with sewage. Acid rain would pour down from smog-filled skies. Hundreds of thousands more of our neighbors, friends, and loved ones would be victims of cancer, heart disease, and asthma.

"President Nixon — Nixon! — signed the EPA into law because even Republicans recognized that unchecked pollution was poisoning our people.

"Plainly put, this dangerous resolution has the best interest of big energy industries in mind, not the health and welfare of the American people or our environment, and not the clean energy job creation we urgently need right now."

Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica noted that Murkowski was turning away from the needs of the very people she was elected to represent: "Climate change threatens Alaska's economy, but instead of standing up for her state, Senator Murkowski is doing what the lobbyists want and trying to eliminate the strongest existing tool that could help solve the problem," he said.

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court flung open the doors to even more political campaign largess from big industries when it overturned key provisions in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The ruling allows corporations and labor unions to spend more freely on political ads, among other things.

President Obama called on Congress to begin work immediately on a "forceful response" to that ruling, saying "the public interest requires nothing less."

"The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans," the president said.

"This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington — while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates."


[Green Business]
FRANKFURT
Fri Jan 22, 2010 12:11pm EST
German power capacity seen up 1.2 percent

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German power plant availability reported by power producers and transmission companies to energy exchange EEX is likely to rise by 1.2 percent to 64,296 megawatts (MW) in the seven days to January 29, data from the EEX showed on Friday.

The EEX at the start of the year changed its transparency drive to include data from six German generators and four grid operators and a host of data from small plants below 100 MW, as well as live production forecasts.

It lists operators' plans on an aggregated basis, covering roughly 71,600 MW of installed capacity to which it will gradually add more to compensate for losing Austrian data in a new initiative which had formerly been included.

Nuclear, hard coal and gas fired capacity will be broadly steady in the seven days.

But brown coal fired capacity will rise by 552 MW to 19,041 MW and hydroelectricity by 318 MW to 5,852 MW, if operators' plans go ahead.

The latter comprises pumped storage, seasonal storage and run-of-river plants.

Details of the EEX data can be found on www.transparency.eex.

Looking at operators' planning four weeks ahead, the website also showed capacity should also go up by 1.1 percent, if compared with January 22's status of 63,543 MW availability.

The figure for February 19 is 64,270 MW.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

news20100125reut5

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Peter Murphy
SAO PAULO
Fri Jan 22, 2010 2:18pm EST
Brazil developing microbe to clean mining effluent

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian scientist is developing a method of purifying contaminated waste water that accumulates at mining sites by using a genetically modified bacteria that can absorb heavy metals.

Ronaldo Biondo, from the University of Sao Paulo, is developing the technology for the country's largest miner, Vale, which hopes to use the technology as a simpler, cheaper way to recover the heavy metals that contaminate mines' waste water.

The firm has provided about 4 million reais ($2.19 million) to fund the research and will have exclusive access to the technology.

Large pools of effluent accumulate at mining sites due to particles washed from exposed surfaces by rain water or from water used to draw minerals from underground pits. Ponds with impermeable clay linings are usually dug to contain it.

Mining firms have a legal obligation to treat the water before disposing of it, but current methods requiring chemical treatment, filtration and sedimentation are expensive.

"With the bacteria, you can have a system where all of this is done in one step," Biondo said in an interview at a laboratory at the university. "There are two things: cleaning and recovery (of metal). It is a biological alternative. It is a lot cheaper and this is a big advantage."

After developing a bacteria with the required properties, Biondo is now working on building an industrial scale bioreactor, a sort of chamber where the microbe will capture metals from mine waste water fed into it.

"We are at the stage where we are taking (the bioreactor) from the laboratory to scale it up. We have to do this gradually until we get to the scale that industry needs," he said. His university has applied for two patents for the system.

Metals that remain in the bioreactor can be recovered by incinerating the residue. Quantities recovered would depend on how contaminated the effluent was to begin with, Biondo said.

Scaling up the bioreactor to handle the pools of effluent at industrial mines is likely to take several years of trial and error to ensure it works as efficiently as the laboratory model. Biondo said it could be ready in about five years.

The idea arose during a conversation in 2003 between the executive director of Vale, Roger Agnelli, and Ana Clara Schenberg, a professor of microbiology at the university, during an event Vale held as part of the carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro.

"It is working very well in the laboratory, but we have to see how it goes when we scale it up," Schenberg said.

Biondo undertook the modification of the Cupriavidus Metallidurans, or CH34, bacteria, which is unharmed by toxic, heavy metals, for his doctoral thesis.

He changed its DNA to make more of a negatively charged protein that enables larger quantities of metal ions to adhere to its cell wall.

The modified microbe is most effective in recovering lead, zinc, copper and cadmium, but Schenberg said there would be further work to see how it could be made more effective in treating effluent at mines extracting iron ore, Vale's main product.

It is also being adapted to be able to recover mercury and could be made suitable for use with nickel and manganese.

(Editing by Walter Bagley)


[Green Business]
BERLIN
Mon Jan 25, 2010 9:14am EST
Germany seeks investors to hit CO2 target: paper

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany needs some 400 billion euros ($565.6 billion) to meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and aims to achieve the goal by making green investing attractive, the environment minister told a newspaper.

Norbert Roettgen told the Financial Times Deutschland the government would make the conditions for investment in climate profitable for private sector investors, the paper said.

"Investments in climate protection are basically not the business of the state, but rather a good financial investment," he told the paper in an interview printed in its Monday edition.

"In Germany, to reach the CO2 reduction goal of 40 percent in the next 10 years, we need around 400 billion euros, or some 40 billion euros per year," he added.

Roettgen, who is due to meet bankers in Frankfurt on Monday, said the 40 percent goal was "secure." Germany had previously vowed a reduction in emissions of some 30 percent but Roettgen said such a target would not require innovation.

"Then the company that doesn't invest in innovation would have an advantage," he said.


[Green Business]
HONG KONG
Mon Jan 25, 2010 6:09am EST
China's BYD to invest $3.3 billion in solar battery plant

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese car and battery maker BYD Co Ltd, 10 percent owned by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, will invest 22.5 billion yuan ($3.30 billion) over five years to build China's largest solar power battery plant, a report said on Saturday.

Shenzhen-based BYD, which aims to sell 800,000 vehicles next year, will build the plant in China's Shaanxi province, a report in the South China Morning Post said, citing the Shaanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission website.

The plant will have capacity to produce a total of 5,000 megawatts of batteries, the report said.

In December, BYD received 15 billion yuan in credit from the Bank of China.

The company is likely to use the credit to invest in new areas, such as solar energy and new energy vehicles, Frank He, an analyst with BOCI Research in Hong Kong, said at the time.

BYD's F3 sedan was the best-selling car in China in the first 11 months of 2009, leading other popular domestic and foreign models, such as Hyundai Motor's new Elantra and Chery Automobile's QQ.

BYD plans to start selling its first electric car, the e6, in the first quarter of 2010, Paul Lin, manager of the company's marketing department said in late December.

($1=6.827 Yuan)

(Reporting by Joseph Chaney; Editing by David Fox)


[Green Business]
Christoph Steitz
FRANKFURT
Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:23am EST
Conergy aims for refinancing deal by end: Q1

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Solar company Conergy paved the way for striking a refinancing deal by the end of March thanks to a breakthrough settlement with wafer supplier MEMC, its CEO told Reuters on Monday.

The news led to a relief rally in the highly volatile penny-stock, rising as much as 31 percent on Monday to 1.019 euros a share. At 0956 GMT, shares in the company were 19.3 percent higher.

"We have laid the foundation for talks with the banks. We aim for a refinancing deal by the end of the first quarter," Dieter Ammer said in an interview.

Conergy late Sunday said it reached an out-of-court settlement regarding a contract dispute with U.S. peer MEMC.

The disagreement centred around a contract that forced Conergy to buy wafers at above market rates.

Under the terms of a new agreement, Conergy can cut the minimum quantity of wafers it must buy over the remaining running time of the contract.

Ammer, who will step down from his post in mid-2010, said that the agreement will positively impact Conergy's 2009 full-year results by 34 million euros ($48.04 million).

In the first nine months of 2009, the company accumulated a net loss of 79 million euros, burdened by costs for its ongoing restructuring process and an industry crisis that led to a slump in product prices.

Conergy's move comes shortly after German peer Q-Cells last month struck a similar deal with Chinese rival LDK, in a sign that solar companies are under intense pressure to renegotiate supply contracts concluded at the height of the solar boom, when prices were much higher.

However, Ammer said that business in the industry was slowly recovering after an appalling year.

"It is true that the fourth quarter in the industry was significantly more active than the previous quarter. And we assume that this will be the case at our company too," Ammer said, adding that political pressure could deal a blow to the crisis-ridden sector.

Germany, which houses the world's biggest solar market, last week proposed to slash feed-in tariffs for solar power by at least 15 percent from April, sparking large criticism in an industry that the government sees as overly subsidized.

"In general, we think an adjustment makes sense as we do not want to remain a subsidized industry forever. But the size and the speed of the proposed cuts will endanger the sector. This would be sledge hammer regulation," Ammer said.

($1=.7078 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

news20100125reut6

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:52am EST
Duke Energy unit to buy 14 megawatt solar project

(Reuters) - Power company Duke Energy said its commercial business unit, Duke Energy Generation Services (DEGS), agreed to buy a 14 megawatt Blue Wing Solar Project from juwi Solar Inc, a unit of Germany's juwi Holding AG.

The 139-acre project is expected to be completed and energized by the fourth quarter of 2010, DEGS said.

DEGS said the deal includes a 30-year power purchase agreement to sell all of the output from the solar farm and associated renewable energy credits to San Antonio-based CPS Energy.

In October last year, Duke Energy had agreed to develop commercial solar power projects in the United States with ENN Group, a private Chinese energy company.

The Blue Wing project is the first commercial solar power project Duke Energy will own and operate. The company, however, currently owns and operates 733 megawatts of commercial wind power generation.

Duke Energy shares closed at $16.55 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Adveith Nair in Bangalore; Editing by Anil D'Silva)


[Green Business]
Anis Ahmed
DHAKA
Mon Jan 25, 2010 6:21am EST
Bangladesh tiger plan aims to cut clashes with humans

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh launched on Monday a program to train field staff in the Sundarban forest, home to Bengal tigers, to prevent contacts between villagers and the animals that may lead to tragedy for both.

Under a Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan, forest rangers and guards will learn to use tranquilizer guns to immobilize and capture tigers that stray from their normal habitat into human areas.

Tapan Kumar Dey, a senior forestry official, told reporters human-tiger conflicts registered a rise in Bangladesh in recent years, resulting in the deaths of three tigers and 30 people in 2009.

Dey said 193 people and 23 tigers have been killed in such encounters since 2000.

Another tiger casualty was reported on Friday in the southern district of Satkhira, where villagers initially tried to scare off a five-year-old tigress but eventually captured her and beat her to death.

The animal was the first tiger killed in Bangladesh this year, forestry officials said.

The tigers of Sundarban, better known as Royal Bengal tigers, usually feed on deer and wild boars but often slip into villages on the fringe of the world's largest mangrove forest -- recently designated by the U.N. as a world heritage site -- to steal cows and goats from farmers' sheds.

According to a survey by forest authorities in 2004, the Bangladesh part of the Sundarban, part of which lies in India, had 440 tigers.

Forestry officials believe strict enforcement of anti-poaching laws and better conservation efforts helped the tiger population rise since then, although they were unable to give a specific number.

According to the Bangladesh forests department, the number of tigers worldwide has fallen from around 100,000 in 1900, but in recent years was only about 3,200, with several tiger species now extinct.

The Royal Bengals are among the biggest groups still surviving.

The tigers who enter village areas or raid farms for livestock are usually too young or too old to kill enough deer to satiate their hunger, officials said.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)


[Green Business]
NEW YORK
Mon Jan 25, 2010 9:06am EST
Governments, business seen too slow to save climate: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About two thirds of people believe their government and business leaders are not taking the right steps or at the right pace to prevent global climate change, according to a joint Reuters/Ipsos international poll.

The survey of about 24,000 people in 23 countries, conducted in the lead up to, during and following the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December last year, found 65 percent of respondents were not happy with the progress and actions to date to conserve the environment.

Only 35 percent said their government and business leaders were doing the right thing -- and only three countries would get passing grades on their environmental credentials from their citizens.

These were China which received 86 percent support from its people, India with 60 percent support, and Turkey with 54 percent.

"It's clear that global citizens are underwhelmed by the leadership shown by their own government and business leaders in tackling what they perceive to be a serious threat to the world and themselves," said John Wright, senior vice president of public affairs from market research company Ipsos.

"The outcome of the recent climate conference in Copenhagen simply goes to reinforce any existing view that much of the backbone and courage that's needed on this issue is missing in action."

More than 20 countries, including China and the United States, agreed to a non-binding Copenhagen Accord at the chaotic 190-nation U.N. climate summit without any commitment to numbers and with the absence of the EU.

Officials acknowledge privately that the mandatory system for enforcing emissions curbs created by the 1997 Kyoto protocol is doomed because China, the world's biggest emitter of man-made greenhouse gases, won't accept any constraints on its future economic growth and the United States won't join any agreement that is not binding on Beijing.

The United States, the world's second-largest emitter, has not formed a national plan to cut emissions as climate legislation has stalled in the Senate. Major developing countries want Washington to act first before agreeing to binding action.

The following results table from the Reuters/Ipsos poll begins with the countries where citizens are least likely to agree "that their government and business leaders are taking the right steps and pace to prevent global climate change":

Agree Disagree

Argentina 16 percent 84 percent

Mexico 17 percent 83 percent

France 19 percent 81 percent

Belgium 20 percent 80 percent

Hungary 23 percent 77 percent

Germany 24 percent 76 percent

Poland 24 percent 76 percent

Italy 26 percent 74 percent

Czech Republic 26 percent 74 percent

Netherlands 26 percent 74 percent

Sweden 29 percent 71 percent

Britain 33 percent 67 percent

Canada 34 percent 66 percent

Russia 35 percent 65 percent

Spain 35 percent 65 percent

United States 38 percent 62 percent

Brazil 43 percent 57 percent

South Korea 43 percent 57 percent

Japan 45 percent 55 percent

Australia 48 percent 52 percent

Turkey 54 percent 46 percent

India 60 percent 40 percent

China 86 percent 14 percent

About 1,000 individuals participated on a country by country basis via an Ipsos (http:/www.ipsos.com) online panel with weighting employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample's composition reflected that of the adult population according to the most recent country census data.

Other Reuters/Ipsos polls can be found at http:/www.ipsos-na.com/news/reuters/.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)/

news20100125reut7

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO
Mon Jan 25, 2010 9:12am EST
Copenhagen climate accord faces $30 billion aid test

OSLO (Reuters) - Rich nations are pledging almost $30 billion in aid from 2010-12 to help the poor combat climate change in an early test of last month's "Copenhagen Accord" that is vague about conditions and who gets cash.

Donors will probably have to decide for themselves how to spend money in 2010 since there is no mechanism to guide handouts. A "Copenhagen Green Climate Fund," also planned by last month's low-ambition summit, does not yet exist.

"The expectation is that donor countries will deliver through existing bilateral and multilateral channels of their own choosing," Elliot Diringer of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change said of the fast-track funds.

"There are some legal hiccups created by the accord not being a (U.N.) instrument," said Gordon Shepherd, director of international policy at the WWF environmental group. But he said a flow of funds could help build trust between rich and poor.

The Copenhagen Accord, worked out by top emitters led by China and the United States, aims to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. It did not win formal backing as a U.N. pact after opposition from seeral developing nations including Venezuela and Sudan.

Supporters are now due to sign up by January 31.

Aid pledges for 2010-12 include about $15 billion by Japan and 7.3 billion euros ($10.32 billion) by the European Union.

The United States has more than $1 billion for climate aid in 2010 is a leading donor in a 2010-12 plan worth $3.5 billion with Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain to slow deforestation. Many of the offers have conditions attached.

COMMITMENT

In New Delhi on Sunday, China, India, Brazil and South Africa said the release of $10 billion in 2010 would show the rich countries' commitment to help. They promised to submit their own climate action plans to the United Nations by January 31.