news20100318gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > Nissan]
Nissan electric car to boost jobs in Sunderland

Nissan has announced plans to build new zero emissions electric car, the Nissan Leaf, in Sunderland
Press association
The Guardian, Thursday 18 March 2010 Article history


Nissan announced today it will build its new electric car, the Nissan Leaf, in Sunderland. Production will begin in 2013 and forms part of a £420m investment in electric cars by the Japanese firm.

The manufacturer said the Leaf would be the world's first mass-produced zero-emission car, and around 50,000 a year will be made in Sunderland. The investment will be supported by a £20.7m government grant and a proposed finance package from the European Investment Bank of up to £197.3m.

Sunderland had been tipped as favourite for European production of the Leaf since the Nissan sited its electric car battery plant nearby.

Founded in 1984, Nissan's Sunderland factory employs around 4,000 people and built its five-millionth vehicle in June 2008.

The business secretary, Peter Mandelson, said: "This investment is a fantastic vote of confidence in the Sunderland plant and its excellent workforce."

Nissan's Andy Palmer added: "Thanks to the UK's firm commitment to a low carbon future in terms of infrastructure, customer incentives and educational programmes, Nissan Leaf will be built at Sunderland, making the UK the third country in the world to produce this revolutionary car."

The news comes amid fears that the recession will force Britain's manufacturers to shift production to cheaper plants overseas. Concerns were heightened after Manganese Bronze, the black-cab manufacturer, agreed to sell a majority stake to the Chinese Geely group and move more of its production to China.

Manganese Bronze, which assembles the TX4 cab – used widely in London and nationwide – at its factory in Coventry, said it had suffered a 30% collapse in sales since the start of the recession, provoking a slump in profits.

Chief executive John Russell said many cab owners had spent the past two years holding back from upgrading their vehicles. "This is a bit of a turning point for us," Russell said after the group posted a pretax loss for 2009 of £7.3m.

He said the company was considering offering Geely shares at 70p to give the Chinese group a controlling stake; shares in Manganese Bronze have been trading at about 85p since the end of January.

Russell also said plans to source bodies and chassis for the TX4 from Shanghai rather than the Coventry area, where its chief supplier is due to close.

Analysts at Collins Stewart suggested Geely was coming to the rescue of Manganese Bronze, which has struggled with recalls and falling market share. Geely is expected to inject £14m of cash and reduce MB's dependency on loans.


[Environment > Marine life]
Whale experts meet to solve mystery deaths of southern right species

More than 300 southern right whales have been found dead in the last five years in the waters off Argentina's Patagonian coast
Juliette Jowit
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010 12.39 GMT Article history

{Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) are slow swimmers which made them easy to catch for whalers}

Experts are meeting this week to try to solve the mystery of the largest ever recorded die-off of great whales.

More than 300 southern right whales, most of them young calves, have been found dead in the last five years in the waters off Argentina's Patagonian coast - one of the most important breeding grounds for the species.

Possible causes being examined include biotoxins - naturally occurring poisons which include the venom of some snakes and spiders and the "flesh-eating" bacteria Necrotizing fasciitis - disease, environmental factors, and lack of prey, particularly the tiny krill which make up the bulk of the southern right's diet. Another theory put forward has been the effect of gulls, which can act like parasites, gouging skin and blubber from the whales' backs.

The main evidence that will be examined is tests on samples taken from beached whale calves, which have shown "unusually thin" blubber, said the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which described the die-off as "a perplexing and urgent mystery".

"We need to critically examine possible causes for this increase in calf mortality so we can begin to explore possible solutions," said Marcela Uhart, one of the WCS scientists who first discovered the problem. "Finding the cause may require an expansion of monitoring activities to include the vast feeding grounds for the species."

Southern right whales are one of three species of right whales, so called because fishermen considered them the "right whale" to hunt, because they are slow swimmers, easy to approach, live close to shore and float when dead.

In the first half of the 1800s about 45,000 right whales were killed, driving them close to extinction, before they became protected in 1937.

Since then the southern right whale — which weighs up to 90 tonnes when fully grown — has been a conservation success, numbers rebounding to about 7,500, in populations off South America, South Africa, Australia and some oceanic islands. Numbers of the Northern Atlantic right whale and Northern Pacific right whale have recovered less well, to a few hundred each, according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

Part of the concern about the recent die-off is that the dead whales have been found around the Peninsula Valdés, where one third of the global population of southern right whales is thought to use the protected bays for calving and nursing between the months of June and December.

"Peninsula Valdés is one of the most important calving and nursing grounds for the species found throughout the southern hemisphere," said Howard Rosenbaum, director WCS's ocean giants programme, and a member of the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee. "By working with the government of Argentina, the Province of Chubut [which is hosting the conference this week], and our diverse team of experts and specialists, we can increase our chances of solving this mystery, the critical next step to ensuring a future for this population of southern right whales."

The southern right whale grows to up to 17m long, with a rotund body and broad back, and brown skin with white patches on the belly. Distinguishing features include two blow-holes which make a V-shaped blow up to 5m high, growths called callosities on their heads, jaws, and lips - the unique patterns of which can be used to identify individuals - and the largest testes in the animal kingdom weighting up to a tonne a pair. Despite being slow swimmers they are "highly acrobatic", and can use their tail flukes to "sail" in the wind, reports the WCS. They live in groups of up to 12 at their feeding grounds, or two and three in the breeding areas.

This week's workshop meeting, which ends tomorrow, is sponsored by the International Whaling Commission, which last year declared the die-off as a management priority. Other participants include the WCS, Centro Nacional Patagónico, the Zoological Society of London, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the British Antarctic Survey, the Marine Mammal Centre, and the US Marine Mammal Commission.

Globally the southern right whale is one of 86 recognised species of cetaceans - porpoises, dolphins and whales - listed as being of "least concern" by the IUCN World Conservation Union. In the last update by the Cetacean specialist group, in 2008, two species are listed as "critically endangered", and a dozen species and several sub-species "endangered" or "vulnerable"; many more are not assessed due to lack of data. Threats include continued hunting, entrapment in fishing gear and structures like dams, over-fishing of prey, and noise from ships and other human activities. There is also concern that high levels of chemicals found in tissues of these animals "may be affecting the animals' immune and reproductive systems", says another report from the group in 2003.

A report last week by Natural England, the countryside agency for England, said that all species of whale and dolphin found around England were endangered.

news20100318gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Energy]
UK must transform to meet future energy needs, warn top engineers

The changes include a transformation of draughty homes, plus vast expansion of renewable and nuclear power
Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 March 2010 07.00 GMT Article history

{{The UK must transform in order to meet the energy needs of the coming decades, warn top engineers.}
{Photograph}: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images}

The UK's most eminent engineers have warned that the biggest set of investments and social changes ever seen in peacetime are needed to meet the country's energy needs in the coming decades, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The changes include a transformation of the nation's draughty homes and cuts in how far people commute to work, as well as a vast expansion of wind and solar power and dozens of new nuclear or "clean coal" power plants.

The authors of the Royal Academy of Engineering report, published today , say the existing level of political will and the market-led approach to energy planning cannot deliver the fundamental restructuring needed.

"We are nowhere near having a plan," said Prof Sue Ion, who led the report. "These are massive projects. It requires a huge exercise all through government, and needs to come from the very top and go down through all departments such as transport and local government."

"What we are talking about is making sure our children and grandchildren have an energy infrastructure that is fit for purpose."

Another author, Prof Roger Kemp, from Lancaster University, said: "It needs the political enthusiasm that was behind the war on terror after 9/11."

The team devised scenarios for the UK in 2050, starting with achievable cuts in energy usage and the maximum possible amount of renewable energy. Next they calculated how much fossil fuel could then be used while still meeting the UK's planned action on climate change, an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050. In all scenarios, that left an energy gap that was filled by dozens of new nuclear power stations and coal stations fitted with technology to prevent carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.

In the two scenarios identified by the engineers as most probable, fossil fuel use fell by 75%, renewable energy rose 20-fold and about 40 new nuclear or clean coal plants were needed (see details below). The remaining fossil fuel has to be split between heating homes or powering transport, with social consequences for both.

If home heating is to be decarbonised by the use of electric heat pumps, said the authors, gas boilers would have to be all but banned and community heating schemes built. If cars are to be electrified, then a vast new charging infrastructure is needed, said Kemp, including a smart, interactive grid that charges vehicles when renewable energy from wind and the sun is most available.

Kemp suggested the long commutes to work common today could not continue: "We have to think about constraints on where we live. Car mileage has been going up since 1950s and shows no sign of slowing." But he said: "One of the problems of transport is that it is a very emotional issue."

A critical factor was cutting demand for energy, said the author Prof Roland Clift, from the University of Surrey, primarily by increasing the energy efficiency of homes. "The UK has notoriously inefficient buildings. We need to put huge effort into the unsexy business of retrofitting. It is a frustration to me that this was said 10 years ago, but very little has happened since."

The transformation needed is so substantial that they said it would "inevitably involve significant rises in energy costs to end users"' said Ion. But the report notes that the renewal of the UK's energy infrastructure, mostly built in the 1970s, is required regardless of the need to cut emissions to tackle global warming.

Prof Nick Cumsty used another war analogy: "It's like going to war with Hitler: it is not what it costs but what you have to do or you will be overwhelmed." In October, the government's adviser, the Committee on Climate Change, said a "step change" was needed in the rate of carbon emissions cuts.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "Large parts of the report are very much in tune with our thinking." Last month, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said in a statement: "For the longer term [beyond 2020], Britain will need a more interventionist energy policy. The scale and upfront nature of the low-carbon investment needed is likely to require significant reform of our market arrangements."

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "The government has been too slow and too hesitant in the past, but next week's budget offers them a chance to fire the starting gun for a low-carbon economy. Britain has faced up to massive challenges before and has emerged stronger and more prosperous because of them. The decades ahead will improve our energy security and generate thousands of new jobs."

What the UK needs in 2050 to keep the lights on and fight global warming
Renewable energy:

> More than 20,000 wind turbines, on and off onshore

> 36m² of solar panels on each house, or equivalent

> 1,000 miles of Pelamis "sea-snake" wave power machines

> A tidal power barrage across the Severn and 2,300 tidal turbines elsewhere

> The burning of farm, forest and food waste for electricity, and transport biofuels, equivalent to 26 large coal-powered stations

Low-carbon energy:

> About 40 new power stations using either nuclear or "clean coal" technology

Fossil fuels:

> Use cut by 75% compared with today and used largely for transport or home heating, but not both

Energy efficiency

> 20% cut in energy use by white goods and gadgets, and a 40% cut in home heating


[Business > Nuclear]
Labour's nuclear ambitions hurt as councillors reject landfill waste plan

Campaigners in King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, are rejoicing
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010 16.27 GMT Article history

Government plans to further its wider nuclear ambitions by allowing waste to be disposed of in ordinary landfill sites have fallen at the first hurdle with a council rejecting a proposal supported by its own planning officers and the Environment Agency.

Villagers in King's Cliffe fought a vocal and successful campaign to convince Northamptonshire county councillors they should prevent waste company Augean from turning a former local clay pit into the country's first low level radioactive dump.

The decision, which was taken on Tuesday night, is a setback for ministers who believe public support for a new generation of nuclear power stations partly depends on developing a credible way of dealing with waste.

Britain's one purpose-built repository – at Drigg in Cumbria –is beginning to fill up and the government wanted to relieve pressure on it by opening up landfill for very low level materials such as rubble.

But the council's development control committee unanimously voted against a scheme that could have seen 250,000 tonnes a year of nuclear waste put into landfill close to the historic hamlet of King's Cliffe on the border with Cambridgeshire.

Ben Smith, a Conservative who chairs the committee, said he was a supporter of nuclear power but it was "crazy" to cart rubble and contaminated soil 90 miles from the former atomic research centre at Harwell in Oxfordshire to be stored in Northamptonshire.

"The treatment should take place on the site where the problem arises and quite frankly this must surely send a message out to anybody contemplating nuclear energy," he added.

The meeting heard that more than 200 letters of objection had been received and a petition of more than 3,000 names collected, with several people speaking at the meeting itself.

Clare Langan, 45, who lives in King's Cliffe and campaigned against the plans, said: "It really is a victory for common sense and I think the councillors who debated the matter today and the chairman should be commended. I think they have put people's health ahead of a company's wealth.

"People felt very strongly about it because, yes, it's our backyard, but what's really important was it was a precedent for the rest of the country.

"You can't dispose of this material on an ad hoc, piecemeal basis. There's got to be a proper plan in place," she added.

Augean, which has been hit by fines for breaching environmental regulations in the past, has not given up yet on its plans, according to Gene Wilson, Augean's technical director, who added: "Naturally we are disappointed that Northamptonshire county council was not able to support our application. We will be considering how best to take these important proposals forward."

The decision will be watched carefully in Cumbria where waste companies are also pushing to use a landfill site at Lillyhall and a disused strip mine at Keekle Head for radioactive waste.

Labour councillor John McGhee said the committee had a duty to protect the people of Northamptonshire but added: "We will be setting a precedent, not just for King's Cliffe, not just for the north of the county, or Northamptonshire, but for the whole country."

news20100318gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Guardian Environment Network]
Carbon traders voice fears over recycled carbon credits

Resale of surrendered Certified Emission Reduction credits by Hungarian government prompts warning that "double counting" could damage the integrity of the EU emissions trading scheme.
James Murray for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 March 2010 09.46 GMT Article history

The integrity of the EU's emissions trading scheme could be badly undermined unless governments resist the temptation to sell on "recycled" certified emission reduction (CERs) credits that have already been surrendered by businesses.

That is the stark warning from the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), after the Hungarian government last week agreed to sell on two million "recycled" CERs to an undisclosed intermediary.

Government officials confirmed the CERs had been provided by Hungarian companies that had surrendered the UN-approved carbon offset credits to help them comply with the emission caps imposed on them through the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS).

The government subsequently swapped the CERs with Assigned Amount Units, cheaper carbon credits traded between governments and used to demonstrate their compliance with Kyoto targets. It then signed a deal to sell the CERs on to an undisclosed trading firm, which is expected to sell them on to businesses in Japan.

IETA president Henry Derwent said the arrangement set a potentially dangerous precedent. "If Member States 'recycle' credits, they will place companies and other organisations at risk of purchasing CERs… on the international carbon market that have been already submitted to compliance authorities," he said. " This apparent double-counting could damage the reputation of the EU-ETS."

The practice means that firms outside the EU could use the CERs to demonstrate that they have offset their carbon emissions, despite the fact that Hungarian companies have already used them once to demonstrate that they have funded emission reductions.

Moreover, the CERs could even be sold back into the EU where firms purchasing them would discover that they cannot be submitted to EU authorities for a second time to help count towards their emission reduction targets.

Derwent said that if the EU is to retain confidence in the CER market it is essential for any government considering recycling surrendered credits to attach a "due diligence" letter that explains their status to the buyer and which contractually obliges the buyer to pass the letter on in the case of further resales.

He added that the EU was working on legislative measures designed to close the loophole that allows double counting.

But Stig Scholset, senior analyst at research firm Point Carbon, told BusinessGreen.com that it could take years for the loophole to be completely closed. "New legislation that is expected to come into effect in August will make it impossible for any surrendered CER to be held by a European account," he said. "But there is nothing to stop surrendered CERs being traded outside the EU, and if the EU does want to close the loophole completely it will have to start over with the development of new rules."

He added that only a relatively small number of surrendered CERs were likely to be traded, with just a handful of eastern European government expressing interest in the practice. But he agreed that if CER recycling continues unchecked it could undermine confidence in the integrity of emission trading and curb demand for new CERs from emission reduction project developers.

news20100318sn

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[Science News for Kids]
FOR KIDS: Whales may round up squid for dinner

Tracking sperm whale movements suggests groups herd to hunt
By Stephen Ornes Web edition : Monday, March 8th, 2010

{{{Deep diver}
One sperm whale’s movements over seven days (traced in image) show the animal making many deep dives in a small area.}
Mate et al., Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute}

If you were swimming in the ocean, it would be hard for you to miss sperm whales swimming by. They’re longer than the average school bus — males can grow to be as long as 62 feet — and once every hour or so they come to the surface and breathe. In a recent study, scientists found evidence that sperm whales may work together to hunt and feed.

This is very bad news indeed for certain types of squid.

Scientists already knew that sperm whales, like a lot of mammals, can come together to form communities. Some researchers think that these groups, usually females and young whales, raise their young together. The new study suggests that in addition to raising whales, these groups also cooperate when they’re going after a meal.

Sperm whales usually feast on squid, but to catch these animals the whales sometimes have to dive thousands of feet below the ocean surface. In 2007 and 2008, scientists set out to study groups of sperm whales swimming in the Gulf of California. They attached a tiny device, about the size of a hockey puck, to some of the whales. These devices recorded information about where and to what depths the whales were swimming.

The devices stayed attached for up to a month, then broke free and floated to the surface so that the scientists could retrieve them. In looking at the data from these devices, the researchers were surprised to find that, when diving to the deep, the whales followed unexpected patterns. Some whales zigzagged back and forth, and it appeared that the whales did not all follow the same paths.

“We expected their dives to be similar, but often one of the three whales went deeper than the other two,” Bruce Mate told a group of scientists and reporters at a scientific meeting in February. Mate is the director of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, which is in Newport.

Mate and his team suspect that some whales were herding individual squid into one large group — so that other whales could swim right into the middle of the squid-huddle and feast. Other animals, such as sea lions and dolphins, herd fish in a similar way: Some members of the group gather together the food, the others eat.

Mate’s team suggests that the deepest diving whale was preventing squid from swimming downward to escape. The sperm whales may take turns doing the deep diving because it’s difficult to dive so deep in the ocean.

Mate’s research suggests that sperm whales are herding but, doesn’t deliver proof, says Kelly Benoit-Bird. She is a biological oceanographer at Oregon State’s main campus in Corvallis. The scientists only looked at whales, not whales’ prey, she says, so it’s difficult to tell exactly what was happening with the squid. There are two sides to this story: the whales’, and the squid's.

So now, Mate is headed back to the ocean — to study the squid. But it won’t be easy: Unlike fish, which show up on sonar because they have air bladders, squid are harder to find. Plus, Mate won’t be the only one searching for squid: The sperm whales are still out there, and they’re hungry.

POWER WORDS (adapted from Yahoo! Kids Dictionary)

sperm whale Any of several large, toothed whales of the family Physeteridae, who live in tropical and temperate oceans and who have a massive head with a cavity containing sperm oil and spermaceti.

sonar A system using transmitted and reflected underwater sound waves to detect and locate submerged objects or measure the distance to the bottom of a body of water.

mammal Any of various warm-blooded vertebrate animals, including humans, of the class Mammalia. Characterized by, in the female, milk-producing mammary glands for nourishing the young.

oceanography The exploration and scientific study of the ocean and its phenomena.


[Science News]
Next on CSI: Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

New twist on powerful analytic method makes it much more useful
By Rachel Ehrenberg Web edition : 10:26 am Mar 18th 2010


Scientists have developed a quick and dusty method for detecting trace quantities of unknown substances.

Described in the March 18 Nature, the new technique amounts to little more than sprinkling a layer of gold dust on the surface to be tested. Yet it will soon make one of science’s most powerful but unwieldy chemical analysis methods useful for detecting trace amounts of materials such as explosives, drugs and environmental contaminants, the researchers who invented it say.

“This really does make the possibility of detecting things … very, very practical, says physical chemist Martin Moskovits of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who wrote a commentary on the research in the same issue of Nature. The new method could have broad applications, from forensics to food inspection, says Moskovits. “It potentially allows you to do in situ analysis at a much greater level of sensitivity.”

The researchers, led by Jian Feng Li of Xiamen University in China, call their new method shell-isolated nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, or SHINERS for short. They tested it by identifying minute amounts of hydrogen on a one-crystal silicon wafer, probing the surfaces of yeast cells and detecting the insecticide parathion on an orange peel.

The new research is a variation on the technique known as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, which shines a laser on a substance sitting on a specially prepared surface and then analyzes interactions between the laser light and the molecules in the substance.

The research team tipped this method on its head. Traditional surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy relies on the nooks and crannies of a specialized surface to concentrate the light energy emitted by the sample. But the new method lays this specialized light-concentrating surface on top of the sample, in the form of a “smart dust” of tiny gold nanoparticles coated with a thin inert shell containing silicon or aluminum. When laser light strikes the gold nanoparticles, “hot spots” of emitted energy are created between the nanoparticles and the sample that can be analyzed spectrographically.

news20100318nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.133 News
Elite English universities gain in 2010 funding round

But other institutions left with a smaller slice of the pie.
By Natasha Gilbert

{{University College London was one of a group of five research universities that together received a greater share of funds than last year.}
UCL}

University College London was one of a group of five research universities that together received a greater share of funds than last year.UCLTop research-performing institutions in the UK, including the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and Imperial College London, are the winners in this year's allocation of £1.6 billion (US$2.5 billion) in public funds for research to the UK's 130 universities. But the move to give a few elite institutions a larger share of research cash means a smaller share for other universities — including those producing research rated world class.

The research funds, distributed directly to universities by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), have grown by 2% from last year. The council has this year further concentrated funding in universities where research was considered to be 'world leading' in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise — and so reduced the proportion awarded for research graded as 'internationally excellent and internationally recognised'.

This decision sees the five best research universities in the UK win more of the money than they did last year, with the poorer performing universities losing out. This year the five top-performing institutions are awarded 39.2% of funds available for science subjects, up from 38.2% the previous year.

Alan Langlands, chief executive of HEFCE, told a press conference, "In making the allocation we tried to stay true to the UK's aims by protecting science, technology and engineering subjects and concentrating funding on world-leading research".

Rich get richer

The University of Oxford is the biggest winner, receiving £126 million for research — a rise of 6% on its budget for the previous year. The University of Cambridge comes in a close second, winning nearly £118 million, up by 3.7% in 2009/10, followed by University College London, which is awarded just under £109 million, an increase of 4.3%, and Imperial College, which sees its research budget rise by 3.3% to £95.7 million.

Some of the biggest losers include the universities of Liverpool and Plymouth, which see their budgets drop by more than £448,000 and nearly £351,000, respectively.

Universities will receive the research funding immediately. They will also be invited to bid for a share of another £10 million later this year for teaching in science subjects.

Steve Smith, president of Universities UK (UUK), the main representative body for the higher education sector, says, "While we appreciate HEFCE's efforts to protect core university funding, around half of higher education institutions have seen a cash decrease in comparison with 2009/10, and this can never be considered good news for the sector. But UUK recognises the pressures imposed by the current economic climate, and notes that in the majority of cases these decreases have been 1% or less."

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, which represents university staff, says, "You cannot make cuts without serious consequences. We believe the cuts could lead to thousands of jobs being lost and the staff who survive the cull being left with more students to teach and less time to spend with them."


[naturenews]
Published online 17 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.130 News
Scientists supersize quantum mechanics

Largest ever object put into quantum state.
By Geoff Brumfiel

{{A quantum drum has become the first visible object to be put into a superposition of quantum states.}
A. Olsen/iStockphoto}

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Andrew Cleland at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team cooled a tiny metal paddle until it reached its quantum mechanical 'ground state' — the lowest-energy state permitted by quantum mechanics. They then used the weird rules of quantum mechanics to simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still. The experiment shows that the principles of quantum mechanics can apply to everyday objects as well as as atomic-scale particles.

The work is simultaneously being published online today in Nature and presented today at the American Physical Society's meeting in Portland, Oregon¹.

According to quantum theory, particles act as waves rather than point masses on very small scales. This has dozens of bizarre consequences: it is impossible to know a particle's exact position and velocity through space, yet it is possible for the same particle to be doing two contradictory things simultaneously. Through a phenomenon known as 'superposition' a particle can be moving and stationary at the same time — at least until an outside force acts on it. Then it instantly chooses one of the two contradictory positions.

{{The paddle is around 30 micrometres long.}
O'Connell, A. D. et al}

.But although the rules of quantum mechanics seem to apply at small scales, nobody has seen evidence of them on a large scale, where outside influences can more easily destroy fragile quantum states. "No one has shown to date that if you take a big object, with trillions of atoms in it, that quantum mechanics applies to its motion," Cleland says.

There is no obvious reason why the rules of quantum mechanics shouldn't apply to large objects. Erwin Schrödinger, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, was so disturbed by the possibility of quantum weirdness on the large scale that he proposed his famous 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment. A cat is placed in a box with a vial of cyanide and a radioactive source. If the source decays, it triggers a device that will break the vial, killing the cat. During the time the box is shut, Schrödinger argued, the cat is in a superposition of alive and dead — an absurdity as far as he was concerned.

Wonderful weirdness

Cleland and his team took a more direct measure of quantum weirdness at the large scale. They began with a a tiny mechanical paddle, or 'quantum drum', around 30 micrometres long that vibrates when set in motion at a particular range of frequencies. Next they connected the paddle to a superconducting electrical circuit that obeyed the laws of quantum mechanics. They then cooled the system down to temperatures below one-tenth of a kelvin.

At this temperature, the paddle slipped into its quantum mechanical ground state. Using the quantum circuit, Cleland and his team verified that the paddle had no vibrational energy whatsoever. They then used the circuit to give the paddle a push and saw it wiggle at a very specific energy.

Next, the researchers put the quantum circuit into a superposition of 'push' and 'don't push', and connected it to the paddle. Through a series of careful measurements, they were able to show that the paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating simultaneously.

"It's wonderful," says Hailin Wang, a physicist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who has been working on a rival technique for putting an oscillator into the ground state. The work shows that the laws of quantum mechanics hold up as expected on a large scale. "It's good for physics for sure," Wang says.

So if trillions of atoms can be put into a quantum state, why don't we see double-decker buses simultaneously stopping and going? Cleland says he believes size does matter: the larger an object, the easier it is for outside forces to disrupt its quantum state.

"The environment is this huge, complex thing," says Cleland. "It's that interaction with this incredibly complex system that makes the quantum coherence vanish."

Still, he says, there's plenty of reasons to keep trying to get large objects into quantum states. Large quantum states could tell researchers more about the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity — something that is not well understood. And quantum resonators could be useful for something, although Cleland admits he's not entirely sure what. "There might be some interesting application," he says. "But frankly, I don't have one now."

References
1. O'Connell, A. D. et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature08967 (2010).

news20100318nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 17 March 2010 | Nature 464, 335 (2010) | doi:10.1038/464335a
News
Hobbit origins pushed back

Stone tools reveal that hominins lived on the Indonesian island of Flores a million years ago.
By Rex Dalton

When the remains of tiny hominins — nicknamed hobbits — were found on the isolated Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, it sparked an epic hunt to understand the origins of these diminutive cousins of modern humans.

Now, discoveries of stone flakes used as primitive tools on the island suggest that the hobbit's ancestors were there a million years ago, at least 120,000 years earlier than previously thought (A. Brumm et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature08844; 2010). "Whatever species made it to the island 1 million years ago, it was probably an ancestor of Homo floresiensis," says William Jungers, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York.

The metre-high H. floresiensis lived on the island until at least 17,000 years ago, and its small stature probably evolved in response to the island's sparse resources. The simple stone tools demonstrate the skills of its ancestors — people who must have hopscotched across islands from mainland Asia, traversing deep and swift ocean channels, before arriving on Flores.

In 2005, Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, found the first of about 45 stone tools while exploring a bowl-shaped gully on the island that was like "a hot, steamy wok". Three years later, researchers at Roskilde University in Denmark analysed the ratio of two isotopes of argon trapped in volcanic ash overlaying the tools to determine their age.

Previous tool discoveries showed that hominins had arrived on Flores by 880,000 years ago, suggesting that the hobbit's ancestors might have wiped out some of the island's peculiar indigenous animals, such as the pygmy elephant-like Stegodon sondaari and giant tortoises (Geochelone spp.), which both disappeared at around the same time.

The new finds imply that the hobbit's ancestors coexisted with the creatures for much longer, raising the possibility that a natural disaster was behind the disappearance of the animals.

The team will return to Flores this summer, hoping to find older sediments that could hold earlier evidence of the island's first hominins.

news20100318bbc1

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

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 19:27 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Planck spies massive dust clouds

{Planck can see really cold dust sweeping through our galaxy}

Europe's Planck observatory has given another brief glimpse of its work.

The space telescope's main goal is to map the "oldest light" in the Universe, but this data is being kept under wraps until the surveying is complete.

Instead, Planck scientists have released a snapshot of the colossal swathes of cold dust that spread through the Milky Way galaxy.

Such imagery will be very useful to astronomers seeking to understand star formation.

It is in the regions of space that are most dense in terms of gas and dust that are likely to give rise to new suns.

{{It's the 'reject' for some people, but the 'treasure' for others}
Dr Jan Tauber, Esa Planck project scientist}

The latest Planck pictures will be of special interest to researchers working on the European Space Agency's (Esa) other great telescope, Herschel.

This observatory is investigating processes that trigger the creation of stars.

Dr Jan Tauber is the Esa project scientist on the Planck mission.

He told BBC News: "The latest release shows how well Planck works on its own, but it also emphasises the complementarity with Herschel; with Planck looking at the whole sky at very large scales, and Herschel zooming in and making very detailed investigations of a much smaller part of the sky."

Planck and Herschel were launched last May and sent to an observing position some 1.5m km (0.9m miles) from Earth.

Herschel sees the sky at far-infrared wavelengths. Planck, on the other hand, sees the Universe at radio wavelengths.

{The new Planck view combined with data from a previous satellite}

The latter is trying to make the finest-ever measurements of what has become known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).

This is light that was finally allowed to move out across space once a post-Big-Bang Universe had cooled sufficiently to permit the formation of hydrogen atoms.

Scientists can glean from the CMB information about the age, contents and structure of the cosmos.

But to investigate this "fossil light", Planck must first clean the signal of extraneous emissions coming from unrelated phenomena.

These include the very cold clumps and lanes of dust that sit in between the stars.

Although this "contamination" may be a nuisance to Planck's main mission, the subtracted information can still be mined by astronomers with interests outside the CMB.

"It's the 'reject' for some people, but the 'treasure' for others," Dr Tauber said.

{The filaments are apparent at large scales and at small-scales in the Milky Way}

Wednesday's pictures come from Planck's highest frequency channels and cover about 10% of the sky.

They show the great filaments of dust within about 500 light-years of Earth. In the wavelengths it is working, Planck is well-tuned to see cold matter. Some of the dust it detects is about minus 261C (12 kelvin).

{{PLANCK SPACE TELESCOPE}
> The Planck observatory always points away from the Sun and rotates once per minute
> As it rotates, it gathers precise temperature information from a narrow "strip" of the sky
> The strips are then fitted together to form an unprecedented thermal picture of our Universe
> It takes about six months to cover the whole sky. The aim is to scan the sky at least four times

"We have the ability to look at very cold emission, essentially dust. We can do unbiased searches over the whole sky for these regions that are very important because they are where stars are forming," Dr Tauber explained.

Planck should complete its first all-sky survey within weeks. Recently agreed funding should see the telescope eventually acquire at least four-times coverage.

The project team plans to release a catalogue of "point-like sources" in January 2011. These are interesting new objects that emit at radio wavelengths that, again, will be worth following up with other telescopes.

But the intention is to hold back the key CMB data until those involved in the telescope venture have had a chance to analyse its significance for themselves. CMB maps and scientific papers should be published at the end of 2012.

Past pioneers in the study of the Cosmic Microwave Background have earned a clutch of Nobel Prizes and there is great hope that the super-sensitivity of Planck will advance the field considerably.

There was some controversy last year when the only previous public release of imagery from Planck was "reverse-engineered" by external researchers to try to get some crude science results.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 18:19 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
By Doreen Walton
Science reporter, BBC News
New exoplanet like 'one of ours'

{An artists impression of CoRoT-9b which was spotted by the CoRoT satellite}

It is 1,500 light-years from Earth but CoRoT-9b is the first temperate planet found known to be similar to those within our own Solar System.

The presence of CoRoT-9b was detected by a space mission designed to find planets we cannot see from the ground.

"It is the size of Jupiter and has an orbit similar to Mercury," said lead researcher Dr Hans Deeg.

In the journal Nature, the scientists say it is the first planet of its type which can yield detailed information.

Eccentric orbits

More than 400 exoplanets, or planets outside the Solar System, have been discovered so far but Dr Deeg, who works at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in the Canary Islands, explained that the others have all been "exotic".

"They are either extremely hot, being very close to the central star on short orbits, or they are on eccentric orbits, taking them close to and far from the central star, giving them extreme temperatures."

CoRoT-9b has a temperate climate. "This is the first planet where it makes sense to apply the models developed for planets within our solar system," said Dr Deeg.

{{We expect this to be a reference object for the next decade}
Dr Hans Deeg}

The surface temperature is estimated to be between about -20 and 160 degrees Celsius.

Dr Deeg explained that although some of the exoplanets previously discovered were thought likely to be temperate it was not possible to confirm that or to find out much information about them.

The planet was discovered by an international team of 60 astronomers and identified using the "transit" method.

During its orbit of 95 days it passes in front of its central star, or transits, for about eight hours. "The transit method enables us to obtain much more information about it," explained Dr Deeg.

"We expect this to be a reference object for the next decade.

"We can derive its temperature as we know the distance to the central star and the type of central star it is."

A blue planet?

CoRoT-9b was spotted by the CoRoT satellite, which is a mission led by the French space agency, Centre National d'Études Spatiales. Its presence was then confirmed by observations from several telescopes from the European Southern Observatory, in Tenerife and at other sites.

"An analysis of the data from the satellite gives us the size and the data from the ground gives us the mass," explained Dr Deeg.

"We don't know the colour. It's likely that it has high atmosphere water clouds which might make it blue but that depends on the mixture of gases which we really do not know," he added.

The scientists say the discovery of the planet shows that the development history of our Solar System has been repeated around other stars.

news20100318bbc2

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

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 19:16 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Team's quantum object is biggest by factor of billions

{The "quantum resonator" can be seen with the naked eye}

Researchers have created a "quantum state" in the largest object yet.

Such states, in which an object is effectively in two places at once, have until now only been accomplished with single particles, atoms and molecules.

In this experiment, published in the journal Nature, scientists produced a quantum state in an object billions of times larger than previous tests.

The team says the result could have significant implications in quantum computing.

One of the pillars of quantum mechanics is the idea that objects absorb and emit energy in tiny discrete packets known as quanta.

This can be seen in a piece of coloured glass, which is coloured because it absorbs a certain colour of light.

That light is made up of photons - packets of light energy - and the glass atoms absorb only photons with the quanta (or amount) of energy that corresponds to that colour.

At the atomic level, quantum mechanics predicts - and experiments demonstrate - a number of surprising effects.

If all the energy that an atom gets from the jostling atoms in its environment is removed by cooling it to phenomenally low temperatures, it can reach its "quantum ground state" - no more energy can be removed.

If just one quantum of energy is then carefully put back in a certain way, the atom can be said to be in two states at the same time: a superposition of states.

Although only one quantum of energy is put in, any measurements will show either zero or one quanta; strictly, the atom has both.

Down to ground

These superpositions of states have long been predicted to be useful for a pursuit known as quantum computing; if used in place of the zeroes and ones of digital computing, a quantum computer would be vastly more powerful.

{Similar approaches could lead to the quantum ground state of a virus}

However, creating these states in anything bigger than single atoms and molecules has proven difficult, because the larger an object is, the more tricky it becomes to isolate it from its environment and put it in its ground state.

"There is this question of where the dividing line is between the quantum world and the classical world we know," said Andrew Cleland of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"We know perfectly well that things are not in two places at the same time in our everyday experience, but this fundamental theory of physics says that they can be," he told BBC News.

Now, Professor Cleland and his team have moved that dividing line, using an object just big enough to be seen with the naked eye.

They used a tiny piece of what is known as a piezoelectric material, which expands and contracts when an electrical current is run through it.

A current applied at a certain frequency causes it to expand and contract regularly and, just like a violin string, the material has a frequency at which it is inclined to vibrate.

They connected this resonator to an electric circuit that the team has been developing for three years. This can be tuned to put in just one quantum of electrical energy.

{{What they've shown here is a mechanical oscillator as a completely new quantum system, and I personally think it's a really important one}
Markus Aspelmeyer
University of Vienna}

They cooled the whole apparatus down to a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero and confirmed that their resonator was in its quantum ground state.

The researchers designed the system so that they could "pump in" just one quantum of electrical energy at a time and see the oscillator begin to vibrate as it converted that quantum into one quantum of vibrational energy.

As it vibrated, the team showed that the resonator was in one of the slippery superpositions of states, with both one and zero quanta of energy.

Sensors and sensibility

The result is a huge push toward answering the question of whether quantum mechanical effects simply disappear in objects beyond a certain size.

"As far as mechanical objects are concerned, the dividing line was at around 60 atoms," Professor Cleland said.

"With this experiment, we've shown that the dividing line can be pushed up all the way to about a trillion atoms."

The ability to create these superpositions of states and to read them out using the same circuit that created them would make for a quantum-based memory storage system - the heart of a potential quantum computer.

{Previously, the largest quantum state was achieved in a buckyball}

Markus Aspelmeyer of the University of Vienna believes that the mechanical oscillator approach will, in time, prove its worth in the business of quantum computing.

"What they've shown here is a mechanical oscillator as a completely new quantum system, and I personally think it's a really important one," he told BBC News.

"It means that you can now utilise mechanical resonators in quantum experiments and that opens a completely new perspective, in particular for quantum information science."

Although these tiny resonators could be made in huge arrays using techniques that are standard in the computer industry, Professor Cleland says that using different systems based on photons instead of vibrations would most likely perform better in any eventual computers.

But, he said, the devices might be used in reverse, to detect the tiniest of vibrations that are created when light interacts with matter or when chemical reactions take place.

In either case, these devices have added to the debate about quantum mechanics and whether its surprising and, as Albert Einstein famously put it, "spooky" effects play a role in the everyday objects around us.

"I don't think there is a limit, that there will be a certain size where quantum mechanics starts to break down," Dr Aspelmeyer said.

"The larger we go, it becomes increasingly difficult and we will bump into more and more practical limitations. So the only reason that things could break down is that we run out of money."

news20100318bbc3

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

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 15:14 GMT, Thursday, 18 March 2010
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Bluefin tuna ban proposal meets rejection

{Large modern tuna boats have revolutionised the industry}

A proposal to ban the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is a sushi mainstay in Japan, has been rejected by a UN wildlife meeting.

Thursday's decision occurred after Japan, Canada and many poor nations opposed the measure on the grounds it would devastate fishing economies.

Monaco tabled the plan at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Stocks have fallen by about 85% since the industrial fishing era began.

Monaco argued that the organisation responsible for managing the bluefin fishery - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) - had not implemented measures strict enough to ensure the species' survival.

{{The market for this fish is just too lucrative... for enough governments to support a truly sustainable future for the fish}
Dr Sue Lieberman
Pew Environment Group}

Scientists and campaigners working with conservation organisations were disappointed with the outcome.

"We think it is quite a blow, because Iccat has not been able to demonstrate that it is able to implement procedures that will lead to [the bluefin's] recovery," said Glenn Sant, leader of the global marine programme with Traffic, the international wildlife trade monitoring network.

"There was really no question that it met the [scientific] criteria for listing," he told BBC News from the conference in Doha, Qatar.

"Listing" is the technical term for imposing restriction on international trade through CITES.

Bluefin tuna was slated for listing on Appendix One - a complete ban.

Big margins

CITES votes can be reviewed on the meeting's final day, but the margin of defeat suggests this one will not be, said Mr Sant.

The first vote - on an EU amendment that weakened the original Monaco proposal but still endorsed the ban - was defeated by 72 votes to 43.

{{CITES EXPLAINED}
> Threatened organisms listed on three appendices depending on level of risk
> Appendix 1 - all international trade banned
> Appendix 2 - international trade monitored and regulated
> Appendix 3 - trade bans by individual governments, others asked to assist
> "Uplisting" - moving organism to a more protective appendix; "downlisting" - the reverse
> Conferences of the Parties (COPs) held every three years
> CITES administered by UN Environment Programme (Unep)

The vote on the original motion then went down by 68 votes to 20.

EU nations had to abstain on the second vote as delegates did not have the authority from their governments to vote for it.

The EU has to vote as a bloc in these negotiations, and nations with active tuna fleets such as France, Italy and Spain had been unwilling to support an outright, immediate ban

Japan - the principal bluefin-consuming nation - had made its opposition to the proposal clear before the CITES meeting started. It argues that commercial fisheries should be managed through bodies such as Iccat.

Sue Lieberman, director of international policy with the Pew Environment Group, suggested lobbying from the fishing industry was ultimately responsible for the defeat.

"This meeting presented a golden opportunity for governments to take a stand against overfishing, and too many governments failed to do so," she said.

"The market for this fish is just too lucrative, and the pressure from fishing interests too great, for enough governments to support a truly sustainable future for the fish."


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 11:10 GMT, Thursday, 18 March 2010
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
'Hobbit' island's deeper history

Long before a 'hobbit' species of human lived on Indonesia's Flores island, other human-like creatures colonised the area. That much was clear.

But scientists have now been able to date their presence to at least one million years ago - some 120,000 years earlier than previously recognised.

The team reports the discovery of these humans' tools in the journal Nature.

The group says the finds bring a new dimension to our understanding of the history of Flores.

Lead author Adam Brumm told BBC News that the location and circumstances of the tools' preservation meant human occupation of the island could extend deep into the past.

"What's really exciting about this is that we effectively have no idea how long hominids have been on Flores," the University of Wollongong, Australia, said.

The remains of the hobbit, known to science as Homo floresiensis, were discovered five years ago at Liang Bua cave.

The diminutive creature's unearthing was a sensation because it indicated a separate human species was living alongside us just 18,000 years ago.

Flores has witnessed intensive paleontological investigation ever since.

The famous H. floresiensis cave is located in the west of the island. The new discoveries come from the Soa Basin, an area in central-west Flores.

A dig site there, known as Mata Menge, had already revealed tools dated to 880,000 years ago. Now, just 500m away but much deeper in the sediments, an international team has identified even older artefacts.

The site, referred to as Wolo Sege, has yielded more than 40 stone flakes. These were hand tools, probably used to butcher meat among other tasks.

{The dig site at Wolo Sege is in central-west Flores}

Many show evidence of being swept along in a stream before being laid down. Critically, however, their burial is capped by a layer of volcanic ash that has been accurately dated to just over one million years ago.

The scientists can say nothing about who used these tools. There is an insufficient number at this stage to assess which culture produced them. But their mere discovery raises some interesting issues.

For example, the Mata Menge discoveries are associated with the disappearance in the deposition record of a number of animal species, such as a pygmy elephant and a giant tortoise. The conclusion that had been drawn from their extinction was that human hunters arriving on the island had hunted them out of existence.

But the Wolo Sege findings put a new perspective on this story because they show humans must have been living side by side with the animals for at least 120,000 years.

Brumm and colleagues tell Nature that it may be difficult to find artefacts in the Soa Basin that are older than the Wolo Sege flakes. The reason is that the tools were lying just on top of what is the rock base in the area (the flank of a volcano).

"Anything inside that bedrock, or within any layers we identify in the bedrock, if they contain stone tools they must be at least 1.86 million years old," said Dr Brumm.

"So, a priority for further research this year is to do a more intensive survey throughout the basin and follow up these bedrock outcrops."

The notion that Flores may have a very deep history of occupation will feed into the debate over H. floresiensis' origins.

Many scientists believe the creature evolved from a much larger-bodied species, Homo erectus, that became isolated and shrunk over time. Others point to features in the hobbit's body - such as the length its feet to the shape of its shoulder girdle - that are very primitive and not what one would expect in dwarfed H. erectus.

These researchers have put forward the idea that H. floresiensis may have evolved from more archaic creatures that left Africa to colonise Asia even before erectus.

"Our discovery at Wolo Sege will certainly open the door to this contentious theory," said Dr Brumm.

news20100318reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Agnieszka Flak and Olivia Kumwenda
JOHANNESBURG
Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:39pm EDT
Financiers urge reform to launch Africa power deals

(Reuters) - Red tape and lack of well-structured projects, rather than external funding crimped by the global downturn, are the main hurdles to boosting capacity in Africa's power sector, financiers said on Tuesday.

The continent is battling acute power shortages, which have also hampered economic growth, as governments fail to attract the necessary investment to add capacity to the grids, despite abundant energy sources.

The continent has coal, uranium, hydro, solar, wind and biomass resources, which investors say could easily help light the entire continent and beyond.

"The problem isn't finance and never was ... if you have a decent, bankable project in the power sector in Africa, you will be able to get the finance," David Donaldson, senior manager for infrastructure at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private sector lending arm, told an Africa power conference.

Donaldson said a large number of African countries have yet to put the right regulatory frameworks in place to attract private investment. Credit-worthiness of the utilities and a sound power regulator were all important factors for investors looking at a 10-15 year timeline, he said.

Tariffs also continue to be too low to allow for appropriate returns, including the cost for necessary maintenance.

"The fundamental issue remains that if at the end of the chain users are paying less for electricity than it can conceivably cost to deliver it to them ... then that's a problem that can't go away," he said.

He said governments also needed to step in and provide guarantees until tariffs reach the right levels.

Development finance bodies have put in money and expertise to help streamline licensing processes that can take months to approve projects, but financiers said more needs to be done.

Konrad Reuss, Africa Managing Director at rating agency Standard & Poor's, said developers should look at smaller projects rather than push for giant initiatives such as the Inga hydro project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has yet to materialize.

The Grand Inga dam could be a long term solution to Africa's power problems, but investors have held back due to political risk and its $80 billion price tag.

"We've been talking about that for decades now ... smaller projects would be the way to go," Reuss said.

The financiers mentioned Kenya as a good example of an African country which managed to attract various investors and bring independent power projects to completion.

Standard Bank's Director for CIB Project Finance Alastair Campbell said the east African country had put cost-reflective tariffs in place and also instituted a system through which by currency fluctuations could be passed on to the end consumer, eliminating one risk investors shy away from.

Industry and funders agreed that power purchase agreements (PPAs) were key to get projects off the ground, and called for power producers to be able to strike deals directly with consumers, such as mines.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)


[Green Business]
Michael Kahn and Jan Korselt
PRAGUE
Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:59pm EDT
Czechs seek to temper solar investment boom

(Reuters) - The Czech Republic does not spring to mind as one of Europe's hot spots, yet an over-used subsidy scheme has created a bonanza for solar power that has ignited fears of a spike in energy prices and grid instability.

Lawmakers are now gearing up to cut the country's generous solar incentives, which investors say is needed to cool off the boom that made the Czechs the third-largest builders of solar capacity behind Germany and Italy last year.

This year, new projects will dwarf those of last year before cuts in feed-in tariffs -- which are currently up to 469 euros per megawatt hour -- push some investors further south to sunnier places than the central Euroepan Czech Republic, such as Bulgaria, investors said.

The generous tariffs have, together with falling prices of solar panels, led to a spike in returns in parts of the sector to around 30 percent per year.

"The Czech Republic is overheated at the moment," Peter Richards of private equity firm 3TS Capital Partners, told a recent renewables conference in Prague.

"It is likely a race to connect to the grid in 2010. It was quite easy to be a developer in 2008 and 2009 but those days are gone because of government regulation and uncertainty."

Feed-in tariffs -- prices utilities must pay to generators of renewable energy -- will be the solar sector's lifeblood until grid parity, the point at which renewables cost the same as fossil fuel-based power, is reached.

PRICE CUTS AHEAD

Under current law, the regulator can cut the feed-in tariff by 5 percent annually for new plants, and has to guarantee that tariff for 20 years.

The lower house of parliament will on Wednesday cast a final vote on a proposal that would give regulators the freedom to make bigger cuts when investor returns hit a certain level, or another that would raise the limit on cuts for new projects to 25 percent every year.

"Right now, we have a market that is probably not functioning in a very rational way," said Michael White, managing partner at Prague-based Enercap, which invests in renewables in the region.

"You have a lot of people viewing the solar market as a way to lock in high yield without debt."

The country had registered photovoltaic plants with a combined capacity of 490 megawatts at the beginning of March, compared to 54 megawatts in January 2009, but industry officials have said the figure could rise to 1,000-2,000 megawatts this year.

Global solar stocks plunged in January when it emerged the government in Germany -- the world's largest solar market -- planned to make additional cuts to the tariffs, arguing the industry was overly subsidized and needed to become competitive faster.

On Monday, however, Germany's ruling coalition agreed to delay the cuts in solar power incentives by two months.

INVESTORS SEEK SMALLER REDUCTION

The Czech photovoltaic association has called for the reduction to be around 15 percent, warning that anything more could cripple the industry.

Enercap's White believes investors can still make money with a steeper cut.

The current rate in the Czech Republic is 12.25 crowns per kilowatt hour (0.481 euro). This compares to the recenty reset German tariff of EUR 0.39/kWh.

"A 25 percent reduction in the Czech tariff would be at EUR 0.36/kWh, so still above the German tariff but with similar irradiation, should provide a return for investors which is deemed attractive as panel prices are still declining," he said.

Daniel Kunz, chief executive at solar company Energy 21, said the key for investors was for lawmakers to provide a visible regulatory landscape in which to operate.

Apart from the new legislation, Czech investments may be hampered by system operators who say the grid will become overburdened by the erratic output from solar plants and threatened to block new projects.

"Regulatory risk has increased in the past few months," Adam Schwartzman, an investment officer at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank told a recent conference. "We will see significant pushback over high tariffs in coming years."

(Reporting by Michael Kahn and Jan Korselt, Editing by Amanda Cooper)

news20100318reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:15am EDT
Decades of potential in solar, wind: Fidelity

(Reuters) - Demand for power from China and other big countries with strong economic expansion is going to sustain the earnings growth of renewable energy companies, a Fidelity fund manager said on Wednesday.

In coming decades, few industries will be able to boast as many companies with earnings growth potential as the alternative energy sector, said Amit Lodha, who manages the $22 million Fidelity Global Real Asset Securities Fund.

Fidelity International is among the world's largest mutual fund companies with total assets under management of 148.7 billion euros ($203.2 billion).

Solar stocks, in particular, offer attractive investment opportunities, Lodha said in a statement, singling out Germany-based Wacker Chemie.

"In the solar sector I focus primarily on companies such as Wacker Chemie, which commands pricing power along the value chain," he said.

Wacker Chemie is among the leading producers of polysilicon, a key material for manufacturing of solar cells and modules.

WIND IN DEMAND

"Valuations of alternative energy companies are not too high compared with the growth they can generate," Lodha said, citing forecasts that energy consumption in China would double by 2025, having doubled between 1990 and 2006.

Wind turbines, which produce cheaper electricity than solar power plants, will also be in demand in the coming decades, not least thanks to advances in technology that will put wind on an equal footing price-wise with coal and gas, he said.

"It is not only energy utilities and wind power equipment makers such as Vestas Wind Systems that will benefit from this development but also the entire sub-contractor industry," said Lodha, whose fund tends to hold between 40 and 60 stocks.

He aims to be "primarily invested in equity securities of companies across the world that provide exposure to commodities, property, industrials, utilities, energy, materials and infrastructure," the fund's factsheet said.

Top holdings included oil companies Royal Dutch Shell, Pacific Rubiales and Anadarko Petroleum as well as Canadian gold miner Agnico-Eagle, Chinese property developer China Overseas Land and U.S. engineering conglomerate General Electric.

($1=.7318 Euro)

(Editing by Rupert Winchester)


[Green Business]
Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:53am EDT
Akeena to provide installation services through Lowe's

(Reuters) - Solar power systems maker Akeena Solar Inc said it will provide installation services for customers buying its all-in-one solar panels from retailer Lowe's Cos Inc's 21 stores in California.

Shares of Akeena rose 18 percent to $1.23 Wednesday on Nasdaq.

The news comes a few months after the company started selling its Andalay solar panels at 21 Lowe's stores in California.

Akeena had said it hoped to break even by selling panels at retail stores and to installers outside its home state of California, in addition to its traditional installation business. The move puts the company in competition with the likes of SunPower Corp in selling panels.

(Reporting by Arup Roychoudhury in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)


[Green Business]
Peter Starck
COPENHAGEN
Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:54am EDT
Alm Brand buys Headwaters for greentech fund

(Reuters) - Environment and renewable energy are themes in vogue among institutional investors, said Danish fund managers Alm Brand, who recently bought shares in the energy-efficient solutions company Headwaters Inc.

Alm Brand Invest's Environment Technology fund has about $33 million in assets under management (AUM).

"We have seen a stable inflow over the last year and expect that to continue since we have seen positive interest from institutional investors," Alm Brand Invest Senior Portfolio Manager, Equities, Thomas Schultz told Reuters.

U.S.-based Headwaters, whose shares have fallen more than 25 percent this year, provides products such as fly ash, an energy efficient insulation component, and services to the building and energy industries.

"We expect an increasing market for fly ash when the construction market rebounds, which will benefit the company," Schultz said.

He has also taken advantage of the recent slide in renewable energy stocks to add to the fund's holdings in the alternative energy and energy efficiency sector, which accounted for 38 percent of its AUM at end-February.

"We are still positive on the sector," Schultz said.

Recent purchases include China Longyuan Power Group Corp Ltd, the world's 5th-largest wind power generator, EDP Renovaveis, Vestas and U.S. SunPower Corp, he said.

The fund reduced its exposure to power generator maker Regal Beloit and Pall Corp, active in filtration and purification technologies, in February. Both stocks have risen more than 25 percent within the past few months, making them ripe for profit taking.

Top holdings at end-February included waste treatment project developer China Everbright International Ltd, waste collecting and treatment company Transpacific Industries, Itron Inc, which provides metering and data collection services to utilities, and automobile-parts recycler LKQ Corp.

(Editing by Sharon Lindores)


[Green Business]
MILAN
Wed Mar 17, 2010 12:59pm EDT
SunPower to supply panels for Italy project

(Reuters) - U.S. SunPower Corp will supply photovoltaic panels for a 5.23 megawatt solar power project in Italy, expanding in Europe's third-biggest solar market, its Italian partner Energy Resources said on Wednesday.

The project in the central Italian region of Marche will use 23,244 PV panels which turn sunlight into power to make enough electricity to meet demands of about 2,000 flats and cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 3,300 metric tons a year, it said in a statement.

The company did not disclose the financial details of the project. Work was due to start at the end of March and was expected to finish in October, it said.

Investors have been racing to complete PV projects in Italy by the end of this year, before the current generous incentive scheme expires.

SunPower said earlier this month it will partner Italian investment and management company K6 S.a.S. to build two 1 MW PV solar power plants in the southern region of Puglia.

SunPower operates a major Italian solar plant, the 24 MW

power plant in Montalto di Castro.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Marie Maitre and Sandor Peto
PARIS/BUDAPEST
Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:18pm EDT
Hungary tracing CER sales as carbon trade stalls

(Reuters) - Hungary on Wednesday said it would look into how carbon emissions permits it had sold were illegally reused, as trading in the paper stalled, posing a new challenge to an EU scheme meant to fight climate change.

Paris-based emissions exchange BlueNext said earlier on Wednesday it had suspended trading in spot certified emissions reductions (CERs) after it found re-used CERs had traded on its exchange, prompting rival Nordpool to follow suit, as a precaution.

Wednesday's developments are the latest setback to the European Union's emissions trading scheme (ETS). Last year fraudsters perpetrated a 5 billion euro pan-EU VAT fraud, adding to technical and over-supply glitches in its five-year history, while it now faces low prices in the wake of recession.

Last week Hungary said it had sold carbon offsets or CERs to a Hungarian trading house, with the understanding that these would not be used in the EU ETS, where companies had already surrendered them to count against their emissions targets.

The EU Commission's environment spokesman Joe Hennon said on Wednesday the EU executive was working on a solution to close the loophole in the scheme.

But it emerged traders had indeed sold some of the used CERs on BlueNext, leading to its own trade suspension and that of Nordic electricity market operator Nordpool.

GOOD FAITH

Budapest had assured the EU executive that it had sold the CERs to non-European buyers, exploiting the loophole under the U.N.-backed Kyoto Protocol, but this could lead to double-counting if the permits found their way back to European buyers -- as now appeared to be a risk.

"We still say that we acted in good faith and complying with the rules," a spokesperson at the Hungarian Environment Ministry told Reuters.

"At the talks prior to the sale we informed the buyer at every occasion that the CER units (which the buyer) planned to purchase cannot be used in the EU's ETS system again. The contract signed included that condition."

Hungary said on Wednesday the Hungarian trading house which had bought the CERs sold them on to a London-based buyer, informing the buyer that the CERs could not be re-used in Europe. The unnamed London firm told the ministry it also informed its own buyer. The uncertainty arises from how that end-buyer used the CERs.

Hungary wants to trace the movements of the CERs.

"We are waiting for the London-based firm to get the declaration from its buyer," Hungary environment ministry chief Jozsef Molnar told Reuters.

Companies or countries can buy CERs from carbon-cutting projects in developing nations, to offset their own emissions and help them meet caps under EU or U.N.-backed Kyoto Protocol targets.

It is illegal for companies to submit the same CER for more than 1 metric ton of emissions in the EU ETS, meaning that the appearance in Europe of the used CERs did not threaten the integrity of the scheme -- but could unravel into lawsuits.

The original Hungarian sale was not illegal, exploiting a U.N.-backed Kyoto Protocol loophole where it exchanged one type of emissions right for another.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

A U.N. climate secretariat spokesman said it was a matter for companies to beware of what they were buying.

"Our understanding is that this is an issue that requires resolution at the level of the EU ETS, to ensure clarity and transparency for market participants," said the U.N. spokesman.

Hungary has said it had agreed to sell 1.7 million CERs which its companies had already counted toward their carbon targets. It said on Wednesday it had only sold 800,000 so far, withholding the rest pending clarification from the buyers.

Traders said CER trade had stalled on Wednesday, as investors stayed away from the market due to trading uncertainties. Prices on the ECX were at 11.40 euros ($15.58).

(Writing by Nina Chestney and Gerard Wynn in London; editing by Keiron Henderson)


[Green Business]
Thyagaraju Adinarayan
BANGALORE
Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:27pm EDT
Ascent Solar's shares fall after production view at new plant

(Reuters) - Shares of Ascent Solar Technologies Inc fell as much as 11 percent Wednesday, a day after it gave an annual production outlook for a new high-volume photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facility, which an analyst said could disappoint investors.

In a filing with the U.S. financial regulators, the PV module maker said it expects production of 6 megawatts (MW) to 8 MW in 2010 from the new facility, FAB2.

"The 6-8 MW is a small number, it's not a surprise to me that their production this year will be very modest it may well be that the some investors might be expecting a larger number and there is come sort of disappointment with this," Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov said.

However, Molchanov said he does not see anything in general in the filing that justifies an 8 to 9 percent sell off in the stock.

The company, which is looking to market flexible PV modules using proprietary technology, also said it currently expects that non-building integrated photovoltaic (non-BIPV) markets will constitute the majority of its product shipments in 2010.

The company, which is actively building the FAB2 module manufacturing facility, its second in Colorado, expects to begin external certification of BIPV products, as required for market entry, during the second half of 2010.

BIPVs, made by companies like Ascent and Energy Conversion Devices Inc, are built into the structure of a building.

Shares of the company were down 8 percent at $3.77 afternoon on Nasdaq. Earlier, they touched a low of $3.65.

(Reporting by Thyagaraju Adinarayan in Bangalore; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)


[Green Business]
Jonathan Saul
LONDON
Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:31pm EDT
U.N. ship agency urged to press on with CO2 cuts

(Reuters) - The United Nations shipping agency should take the lead in the absence of a climate deal at Copenhagen last year and press ahead with cutting carbon emissions in the seaborne sector, campaigners said on Wednesday.

The shipping sector accounts for nearly 3 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and calls have grown for cuts.

Delegates from 70 member state countries will convene in London next week for a session of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) marine environment protection committee (MEPC).

A climate meeting in Copenhagen in December, the 15th under a U.N. process (COP 15), delivered little in a drive to agree a replacement to the existing Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which excludes shipping and aviation.

"The lack of a specific direction from COP 15 means that shipping has a window of opportunity to actually push ahead and show leadership here," Peter Boyd, director of operations with non-profit climate change group the Carbon War Room, said.

The MEPC will consider whether to approve a proposal submitted by Japan, Norway and the United States for technical and operational measures aimed at reducing CO2 in ships.

These include an energy efficiency index to ensure the design of new vessels are environmentally friendly as well as fuel-efficient best practices for existing and new ships.

Boyd, whose group founders include entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, told Reuters making an energy efficiency index mandatory was vital for saving fuel and cutting CO2.

SLOW

If the proposal is approved, it would then be tabled for adoption at the next MEPC meeting in October when there needs to be a 16-month period for it to come into force with early 2012 a likely timeframe. At any point if a third of countries object, it cannot come into force.

Some environmentalists have argued that the IMO has been slow to move on cutting CO2 especially in relation to market based instruments. The MEPC said in July it "could be in a position" to report progress on the issue in July 2011.

John Aitken, secretary general of industry group SEAaT whose members include BP's and Royal Dutch Shell's shipping units, said an emissions trading scheme was the best way to cut CO2, but added that it was likely to take time.

An IMO spokeswoman said it was up to member states to move the process forward.

"It is necessary to get things right, rather than moving hastily," she said.

Peter Hinchliffe, marine director with the International Chamber of Shipping said the IMO was committed to a work plan to regulate the sector.

"IMO is the embodiment of the views of its member states and therefore it is incorrect to talk about IMO moving at a particular speed. When the member states have a consensus, the IMO delivers," said Hinchliffe, whose association represents 75 percent of the global seaborne industry.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Jan Lopatka
PRAGUE
Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:55pm EDT
Czech lawmakers approve curbs to solar boom

(Reuters) - Czech lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a law on Wednesday to control the boom in solar energy in Europe's third-largest builder of capacity in the sector.

The 200-member lower house of the Czech parliament voted 169 to 1 to allow regulators to cut hefty solar energy incentives that have triggered fears of a steep rise in electricity prices and grid instability in the future.

This law gives the regulator the freedom to cut the feed-in tariffs that distributors must pay solar plants as of next year, when it determines that the return on investment into solar plants falls below 11 years.

The legislation comes after the combination of a drop in the price of solar panels and high fixed feed-in tariffs brought the return on the initial investment for some plants down to as little as three years.

The current legislation permits just a 5 percent annual drop in feed-in tariffs. Any drop applies only to new projects, as all projects have a guarantee that the initial feed-in tariff they are given will apply for 20 years.

These generous incentives made the Czech Republic the third biggest solar power country in Europe last year behind Germany and Italy in terms of newly-installed capacity, even though it does not immediately spring to mind as one of Europe's hot spots.

There are a number of private-equity firms that are investing in solar power in the Czech Republic, but the biggest projects are run by CEZ, central Europe's largest utility.

CEZ however said it welcomed the decision, because it would prevent a "dramatic" impact of solar energy on retail power prices.

"We believe that the Energy Regulatory Office will use its authority and cut the feed-in tariffs at least to the level in Germany," CEZ said in a statement.

The current rate in the Czech Republic is 12.25 crowns per kilowatt hour (0.48 euro). This compares with the recently reset German tariff of EUR 0.39/kWh, which may be lowered further in coming months.

Global solar stocks plunged in January when it emerged Germany -- the world's largest solar market -- planned to make additional cuts to the tariffs, arguing the industry was overly subsidized and needed to become competitive faster.

In the Czech Republic this year, new capacity is expected to soar possibly four-fold to 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts as investors hurry to lock in the existing high tariffs before the new regulations take effect.

The feed-in tariffs, about ten times the price of conventional power, filter into the retail price for electricity, and sharp growth in solar capacity thus raises the final price for consumers.

The law approved on Wednesday still needs to be passed by the upper house, the Senate. It is expected to face no difficulties there.

(Editing by Amanda Cooper and Sue Thomas)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:34am EDT
EU carbon rises after UK auction

(Reuters) - European carbon emissions futures rose on Thursday, moving above the 14-day moving average, after the UK government auctioned 4.5 million carbon permits.

EU Allowances for December delivery trading on the European Climate Exchange rose above the 14-day moving average to an intra-day high of 13.23 euros ($18.07) following the auction, before easing to 13.15 euros a tonne at 1230 GMT.

Volume was heavy at 7.521 lots traded.

Spot EUAs on BlueNext rose 13 cents or 1.01 percent to 12.99 euros a tonne.

The UK auctioned 4.5 million permits at 13 euros a tonne on Thursday. The auction was a record 12.79 times over-subscribed.

"It was very well subscribed. It could have been due to compliance demand," said an emissions trader, referring to utilities who are buying up EUAs to forward hedge power sales after 2012 when EUA prices are expected to rise.

But other traders were more skeptical about the level of interest in the auction, suspecting that some market participants were deliberately trying to boost prices.

"It looks like someone put 750,000 euros on the table to be sure to buy 4 million EUAs. I am quite anxious someone paid that much money at the auction," another trader said.

Another possible scenario is that some players are replacing CERs intended for 2009 compliance with EUAs given that spot CER trade is largely suspended.

Traders said news this week that CERs had been resold onto the market, resulting in the suspension of spot trade on BlueNext and Nordpool yesterday had undermined confidence in the market.

"Spot isn't the preferred method of trading now as it seems there is the desire to trade bilaterally, with some wanting to check the validity of permits to make sure they are not recycled ones," a third trader said.

U.N.-backed certified emissions reductions (CERs) were up 10 cents or 0.88 percent at 11.47 euros a tonne.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Sue Thomas)


[Green Business]
Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN
Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:37am EDT
Germany to add record 5 MW solar power in 2010: government

(Reuters) - Germany will add more than 5,000 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity this year -- or nearly double the previous record of 3,000 megawatts that was installed in 2009, a senior German government official said on Thursday.

Karin Freier, head of the Environment Ministry's solar energy department, said planned cuts of 16 percent in state subsidies that will take effect in July were fuelling the boom as investors rush to beat the deadline.

"This year we'll definitely have 5,000 megawatts or maybe even more," she told a Euroforum conference.

Germany is the world's photovoltaics leader with about 9,000 megawatts installed at the end of 2009 and some 58,000 jobs created in the last decade.

"We want to maintain our world technology leadership and jobs. But on the other side we don't want to overheat the world market. We had to make the correction."

She said it was still possible there could be small changes before the cut in state incentives takes effect on July 1.

She acknowledged the proposed Renewable Energy Act (EEG) cuts, which still have to pass through parliament, will make it hard for German firms to compete with Asian rivals -- especially because the 16-percent July cut will be followed by a further 11-13 percent cut in January.

"The crucial point will be the cuts of another 11 percent in January 2011," she said. The sector will have to absorb a total of nearly 40 percent reduction in prices within 13 months. The feed-in tariff (FIT) was already cut by 9 percent in January.

"That will be an enormous challenge for German industry," she added.

The plans to curb support to the solar sector -- which the government sees as overly subsidized -- have hit the share prices of companies such as Q-Cells, SolarWorld and Phoenix Solar.

Feed-in tariffs (FIT) -- or the prices utilities are obliged to pay to producers of renewable energy -- are the sector's lifeline until grid-parity, the point where renewables cost the same as fossil fuel-based power, is reached in about 2015.

The tariffs have made Germany the world's top market for solar power, accounting for half of all 2009 installations in the 18 billion euro ($24 billion) global market.

Freier defended the mid-year cut in the FIT and said the government's aim was to restructure the incentives so that public sentiment does not turn negative. Utilities charge consumers higher electricity rates to finance the system.

"Without a correction the (cost to consumers) would rise from 3.8 billion euros a year now to six billion euros in 2015," she said. "There are enormous costs to the economy associated with the Renewable Energy Act.

Freier said Germany will remain a highly attractive market.

"It's not only the high FIT. The key advantage is the lack of bureaucracy. There are guarantees that utilities will buy the solar power. It's a risk-free investment with better returns than for other renewable energy investments. Germany will remain an extremely attractive market."

(Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
BRUSSELS
Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:53pm EDT
Vestas sees offshore wind funding gap

(Reuters) - The huge investment required to meet offshore wind development targets cannot be funded by large utilities alone, a project finance manager for Vestas, the world's top supplier of wind turbines, said.

"Even strong utilities cannot fund investment in offshore wind only with their balance sheet, this is not sustainable," Erik Sejersen told the Projects & Infrastructure International conference in Brussels on Wednesday.

Only a handful of projects have been funded on a project finance basis as the high costs and technical challenges of installing and maintaining offshore windmills has discouraged many banks from lending to projects.

But Sejersen said that project finance was necessary for small offshore wind developers to see projects through as well as for financial investors to leverage. Unlike competitors Siemens and General Electric, Vestas does not provide vendor financing.

"We do not bring funding to the table but we can facilitate the process through our relationships with banks and export credit agencies such as Denmark's EKF," said Sejersen.

Vestas has installed more than 1,000 MW of capacity in offshore projects in the Northern Europe, where the vast majority of Europe's offshore wind projects are being developed.

Sejersen said the project finance market for wind installations was starting to pick up, echoing the views of Siemens, which says it is No. 1 in the market when it comes to offshore wind turbines.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)


[Green Business]
Susan Taylor
OTTAWA
Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:26pm EDT
Timminco suspends solar-grade silicon production

(Reuters) - Shares of Timminco Ltd dropped 13.3 percent on Wednesday after the company said it was suspending solar-grade silicon production and would not resume operations until customer demand recovered.

Timminco said after markets closed on Tuesday that it expects gloomy solar energy market conditions to continue hurting demand for its products and financial results in the foreseeable future.

The Toronto-based company has developed its own method of purifying silicon metal into solar-grade silicon to make solar power cells.

Depressed solar-grade silicon prices are one effect of a global slump in the solar power market, which is beset by tight project funding and an oversupply of panels and parts.

Timminco said its average selling price of solar-grade silicon in the fourth quarter fell to C$36 per kilogram from C$65 at the same time last year.

"With an uncertain future for the solar silicon business and an increasing focus on its silicon metal business, Timminco is not a clear fit for our clean tech mandate," National Bank Financial analyst Rupert Merer said in a note on Wednesday that discontinued his coverage of the company. He previously had a C$1 target on the stock, which he rated "underperform".

Timminco said that demand for its silicon metal is robust and evidence of an ongoing recovery from a downturn that hurt customers in the chemical, aluminum and polysilicon industries for most of 2009.

Full silicon metal production resumed at the company's Becancour, Quebec, plant in November after the company laid off staff and shut down operations in May 2009 as customers terminated contracts.

"We've, in essence, sold out 2010. We have commitments for the majority of what we can produce," Chief Financial Officer Robert Dietrich said of silicon metal in an interview.

"In the solar-grade silicon side of the business, we don't have committed volume at this point in time for 2010 ... (but) we're ready to participate in a market as demand arises."

Timminco said it lost C$69.4 million, or 48 Canadian cents a share, in the three months ended December 31, versus a year-earlier loss of C$1.3 million, or 1 Canadian cent a share.

The results included C$45.7 million in one-time costs related to restructuring.

Revenue tumbled to C$25.5 million from C$72.7 million.

Silicon metal sales of C$29.4 million were offset by negative solar-grade silicon revenue of C$3.9 million, as customers returned products shipped in previous quarters.

Timminco said it had C$1.2 million in cash at quarter-end and US$300,000 available through a revolving credit facility.

The company said it is in talks with Bank of America to mitigate liquidity risks resulting from a C$7.1 million inventory writedown.

Unless borrowing base calculations in its credit facility are revised, Timminco said it will have to repay about C$3.5 million under the credit agreement when its annual financial statements are finalized.

Shares of Timminco shed 17 Canadian cents to close at C$1.11 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday. In the past five months, the stock has fallen more than 60 percent.

(Reporting by Susan Taylor; editing by Rob Wilson)


[Green Business]
Chang-Ran Kim and Tim Castle
TOKYO/LONDON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:35am EDT
Nissan to build Leaf electric car in UK from 2013

(Reuters) - Japan's Nissan Motor Co will begin building the Leaf electric compact car at its Sunderland plant from early 2013, making Britain its third global production site for the zero-emission vehicle.

Nissan, Japan's No.3 automaker held 44 percent by Renault SA, had already announced plans to make batteries for the electric cars in Sunderland, but had been considering several sites for European production of the car itself.

Nissan said in a statement on Thursday that the Sunderland site would start with annual production capacity of 50,000 Leaf cars.

Carmakers worldwide are investing large sums in electric vehicles as they seek to meet ever-tighter regulations for emissions and struggle to pull themselves out of a savage industry downturn.

Nissan and Renault are by far the most aggressive proponents of electric vehicle technology among major automakers, together investing around 4 billion euros ($5.5 billion) in electric vehicle projects and committing to production capacity so far of 500,000 zero-emission cars a year.

Nissan has already announced production of the all-electric Leaf hatchback first at its Oppama plant in Japan from this year and at its Smyrna, Tennessee, factory in the United States from 2012. The car is due to go on sale in Japan, the United States and some European markets at the end of this year, ahead of a full-scale global rollout in 2012.

Nissan said production of the Leaf and batteries would entail investment of more than 420 million pounds ($643 million) in Sunderland, supported by a British government grant of 20.7 million pounds and a proposed finance package of up to 220 million euros ($302 million) from the European Investment Bank.

"This investment is a fantastic vote of confidence in the Sunderland plant and its excellent workforce," UK Business Minister Peter Mandelson said in a statement.

"The automotive sector is of key importance to the UK. It supports R&D, technological innovation, skills and a supply chain that's a mainstay of the wider manufacturing sector," he said.

Nissan has not yet specified how much the car will cost, saying only that it will be competitive with similar-sized cars with conventional engines, excluding the price of the batteries, which will likely be leased in most cases. It is expected to announce a price range for the Leaf at the end of this month to start taking orders from customers.

Founded in 1984, the Sunderland factory in northeast Britain employs around 4,000 people and built its 5 millionth vehicle in June 2008.

The Leaf will be manufactured on the same line as the new Juke compact crossover, which enters production in August.

The Sunderland plant is due to supply lithium-ion batteries, developed jointly by Nissan and Japan's NEC Corp, also for Renault's electric cars. Nissan is also due to produce batteries in Portugal to supply the European market.

(Additional reporting by Helen Massy-Beresford in PARIS; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:25am EDT
EPA to begin study on shale gas drilling

(Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was set to announce on Thursday that it will begin to take a closer look at the environmental and human health impact of shale gas drilling, according to a U.S. congressman who wants to see more regulation of the practice.

The study, which could take months to complete, will put the spotlight on the potential dangers of hydraulic fracturing for water supplies and public health at a time when major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, BP, Statoil and Total are pouring investment into the shale gas sector.

Representative Maurice Hinchey of New York said the EPA on Wednesday night told groups concerned about the drilling technique that the agency would begin the first phase of its study on Thursday.

An EPA spokeswoman confirmed the agency would be making an announcement about hydraulic fracturing on Thursday, but declined to provide further details.

However, the EPA said in notice published Thursday in the Federal Register that the agency's science advisory board would hold a public meeting on April 7 to discuss how the EPA plans to study hydraulic fracturing.

The EPA said in its notice that the agency plans to gather existing data for its study on hydraulic fracturing, seek input from stakeholders, catalog "potential risks" to drinking water supplies and identify data gaps.

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," injects a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to stimulate oil and natural gas production.

Some environmental groups claim the technique is unsafe and want the government to regulate it.

Energy companies say improved fracking technology allows them to drill for oil and gas in an environmentally safe manner. They also say there is no evidence fracking has contaminated water supplies.

Analysts have said shale gas could supply more than 100 years of natural gas consumption at current rates, and have called it a "game changer" for the industry.

Hinchey co-authored pending legislation that would require oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals they use in their fracking processes.

"I applaud the EPA's decision to begin a serious investigation into this matter and will continue working to protect our environment from the chemical concoctions being pumped into the ground by energy companies," Hinchey said in a statement.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told lawmakers last month she would rearrange the agency's budget so the fracking study could be carried out this year. But she provided few details on how it would be conducted.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee also has called on the EPA to investigate the effects of fracking.

"There are compelling reasons to believe that hydraulic fracturing may impact ground water and surface water quality in ways that threaten human health and the environment, which demands further study," the EPA said last month.

(Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


[Green Business]
Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON
Wed Mar 17, 2010 5:09pm EDT
New Jersey latest state to raid carbon auction funds

(Reuters) - New Jersey has become the latest state in a regional cap-and-trade market on greenhouse gases to take money meant to support clean energy programs to help ease its budget deficit.

"Pain had to be distributed across the board," Elaine Makatura, director of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, said in an interview on Wednesday. She said Gov. Chris Christie has decided to move $65 million from New Jersey's Global Warming Solutions Fund to its General Fund.

The move, which includes revenues expected to be raised through June next year, would help fill a huge deficit New Jersey is facing, she said.

The money comes from quarterly auctions of permits allowing power plants to emit the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. New Jersey is one of 10 states that formed a cap-and-trade market in the Northeast known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that holds the auctions.

RGGI seeks to cap the emissions from power plants and allow energy companies and investors to trade the permits bought in auctions and earned by cutting emissions.

The group had wanted the vast majority of the revenues to go to programs promoting clean energy like solar and wind power and energy efficiency.

The auctions have raised more than $580 million after the latest one held last week. New Jersey has raised nearly $65 million in the auctions, which have been held since late 2008.

Green groups, including the Sierra Club, said New Jersey's move would hurt the environment and crimp job creation in low-carbon energy.

New York Gov. David Paterson decided last year to use $90 million from RGGI auctions to help ease that state's deficit.

The issue hints at the difficulties that a national cap-and-trade program could face in filtering money from such markets to clean energy programs.

U.S. Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman, an independent, are trying to craft a climate bill that would include a cap-and-trade program on power plants, which emit 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases. The bill faces tough opposition from lawmakers in fossil fuel-rich states.

It is unlikely any national program would auction a high percentage of the credits at first. But auctions could play a bigger role later in a national program.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio)


[Green Business]
CANBERRA
Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:22am EDT
Australian laws to promote building efficiency

(Reuters) - Owners of large commercial buildings in Australia will have to disclose energy efficiency information when putting buildings up for sale or lease, under laws introduced in parliament on Thursday.

Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the laws were designed to promote energy efficiency in large commercial buildings, and will help Australia curb greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming.

"Energy efficiency represents one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways we can reduce our nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and the commercial building sector has the potential to deliver some of the lowest-cost abatement," Combet said as he introduced the laws.

Energy used by Australian residential and commercial buildings accounts for around 20 percent of Australian greenhouse gas emissions. The new laws apply to buildings of 2,000 square meters (21,500 sq ft) or more.

Building owners will need a building energy efficiency certificate when they put office space up for sale or lease.

The certificates will spell out an energy efficiency rating, information about the efficiency of the lighting used and information about how energy efficiency could be improved.

Australia has set a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least five percent by 2020 from 2000 levels, and wants 20 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.

However, the government's centerpiece plan for carbon trading to start in July 2011 remains deadlocked in parliament's upper house Senate, where it has been defeated twice and faces a third defeat in May.

Australia accounts for 1.5 percent of mankind's greenhouse emissions and is the highest per-capita carbon polluter in the developed world because of its reliance on coal for 80 percent of domestic electricity generation.

(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by David Fogarty)