news20100330reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Environment News]
[Green Business | COP15]
Laurie Goering
MONTPELLIER, France
Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:10pm EDT
Science alone not enough to boost world farm output
｛科学だけで世界の農業生産高の増加は見込めず｝

(Reuters) - Feeding a fast-growing global population in the face of climate change and stagnant funding for food aid and farm research will require a fundamental revamp of agriculture, agricultural experts said.

But unlike the "Green Revolution" that dramatically hiked agricultural output in Latin America and Asia from the 1950s, a new agricultural restructuring will need to focus as much on new seed varieties as on good governance, women's empowerment and things like curbing commodities speculation, they added.

"We cannot address world food security risks effectively only through a science and technology agenda," Joachim von Braun, former director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told a conference Sunday.

"We need to get appropriate market regulations to prevent excessive speculation," he added on the opening day of the conference held in southern France to discuss a roadmap to reform agricultural research to meet development goals.

Speculation in food markets contributes to fuelling price swings that can undercut the ability of farmers to plan, often leading them to over or under-produce.

The lack of political support and financial resources for agricultural research are also among the biggest problems holding back efforts to boost farm output and feed more than a billion hungry people in the world, said Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"We have the programs, we have the projects, we have the knowledge... We have everything we need but political will," he said, adding there were signs things were changing.

"We have realized the problem of food security is not only a technical, economic, ethical problem. It's a problem of peace and security in the world."

HUNGER RISK

By 2050, the world's population is expected to surge to more than 9 million from of 6.3 billion now, so agricultural output will need to grow by 70 percent to feed those people, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

But the world will face dramatic challenges in achieving this target, warned experts at the conference.

Investment in agricultural research has stagnated or fallen around most of the globe for decades, and growth in crucial crops like rice has leveled off, experts said, adding high national debt, in part as a result of the global financial crisis, made boosts in donor aid for research unlikely.

Climate change also is bringing more unpredictable weather, including worsening droughts, floods and storms. Those stresses could slash agricultural production in the world's hungriest regions in Africa and South Asia, and exacerbate existing problems like overuse of aquifers, desertification and erosion.

"Climate change will make an already deteriorating situation worse," said IFAD spokesman Kevin Cleaver.

Reversing the problems, he and others said, will require a diverse host of changes, such as curbing rich-world agricultural subsidies, ensuring small farmers have rights to their land, building databases to help coordinate research efforts, and finding new sources of funding for agricultural research.

(Laurie Goering is an editor at AlertNet, a service of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which aims at alerting humanitarians to emergencies)

(Editing by James Jukwey)


[Green Business]
Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:41am EDT
Factbox: Ireland's progress on renewables
｛ファクトボックス：アイルランド、再生可能エネルギー進展｝

(Reuters) - The Irish government wants to get 40 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and has an EU target for 16 percent of its energy to come from renewable sources in 10 years' time.

Currently, Ireland relies on imported fossil fuels for around 90 percent of its energy. Only Luxembourg, Cyprus and Malta in Europe are more dependent and, situated on the western extreme of Europe, Ireland is at the end of the supply chain.

Its economic need to shelter itself from the volatility of oil and gas prices and to create green jobs have further served to focus its attention on the drive for renewables.

When asked to explain its 16 percent EU energy target, the Irish department of energy broke it down as follows:

40 percent renewable energy in electricity by 2020; 20 percent energy efficiency improvement by 2020, including 33 percent in the public sector; 10 percent renewable energy in transport and 10 percent electrification of transport by 2020 and 12 percent renewable energy in heating by 2020.

By 2008, it said the renewables share of overall energy supply was around 4 percent and had since risen to about 6.4 percent.

Renewable electricity had increased from around 5 percent in 2004 to roughly 15 percent now.

Below are figures from the Paris-based International Energy Agency showing its assessment of Ireland's various sources of electricity generation in terawatt hours (TWh) in 2008 and its forecast for 2020.

The IEA noted the EU 16 percent target was more complicated to calculate than a matter of simple percentages of the whole.

2008 2020 Coal 5.228 1.966 Peat 2.79 0.061 Oil 1.731 1.367 Natural gas 16.065 19.448 Hydro 0.969 1.053 Wind 2.41 7.448 Geothermal 0 0 Solar, tide, wave 0 0 Biofuels and waste 0.161 0.238 Total 29.354 31.581

(reporting by Barbara Lewis)


[Green Business]
Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:58pm EDT
Sojitz to set up online carbon credits market: Nikkei
｛双日社、炭素クレジット市場オンラインで開設：日経）｝

(Reuters) - Trading house Sojitz Corp will create an online marketplace for carbon credits to quickly match up buyers and sellers, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Various frameworks exist in Japan for trading carbon credits, but with no common marketplace, buyers and sellers often have difficulty finding each other and getting a handle on market prices, causing the domestic market to stagnate, the paper said.

Sojitz subsidiary CoalinQ Corp, which operates an e-commerce site for coal transactions, will set up a joint venture with carbon credit seller Smart Energy Co on Thursday and the firm will start operating a carbon trading site in May, the daily said.

The marketplace will handle five or so kinds of carbon credits, including those issued by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Environment Ministry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Nikkei said.

About 4 percent to 5 percent of transaction prices will be charged as commissions and trading of the equivalent of at least 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions a year is targeted by 2014, the paper said.

Demand for carbon credit trading is expected to increase as a Tokyo ordinance on limiting CO2 emissions takes effect next month, the daily said.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Mon Mar 29, 2010 3:46pm EDT
Carbon trade sector drops from HSBC climate index
｛炭素排出量取引セクター、ＨＳＢＣのリストから洩れる｝

(Reuters) - The carbon trading sector has dropped out of an HSBC index of 385 listed companies making money from tackling climate change, after lower expectation of global cap and trade expansion saw sharp share price falls.

Previously, two carbon trading companies were listed in the index, Trading Emissions and Climate Exchange, but neither now met the $400 million index threshold market capitalization after big drops in their share prices.

The HSBC index tracking the share price of those two firms fell 37 percent between September 1 2009 and March 19 2010.

A U.N. climate conference in December failed to agree binding caps on carbon emissions, needed to drive demand for emissions permits traded in carbon markets in industrialized nations.

In addition, Senate agreement this year on a U.S. cap and trade scheme is considered less likely after prolonged stalling on the cost of imposing carbon emissions caps on industry.

"You've seen a deterioration in carbon markets globally," said HSBC analyst Vijay Sumon.

"Comprehensive climate legislation at the (U.S.) federal level may have to wait for a number of years," said the HSBC report.

"We believe that ... the momentum (to fight climate change) will still continue, with a shift in focus from building carbon markets to delivering low carbon growth."

The overall HSBC climate index is down 2 percent in 2010 to date, compared with a 2 percent rise in the MSCI index of global stocks.

That wider fall reflected disappointment in the December summit in Copenhagen, which failed to muster sufficient voluntary carbon pledges to avoid more dangerous temperature rises, according to climate scientists' estimates.

The HSBC climate index follows companies which make at least 10 percent of their total revenues from selling goods and services related to tackling climate change.

The four main sectors are in low carbon energy production, energy efficiency, water and waste and climate finance. The index companies are selected from the world's 2,000 biggest companies selling such climate change services.

(Reporting by Gerard Wynn; editing by James Jukwey)

news20100330reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Krishna N. Das - Analysis
BANGALORE
Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:30pm EDT
Bloom buzz unlikely to fire up fuel cell companies
｛ブルーム社、燃料電池会社の活性化見込み薄｝

(Reuters) - Bloom Energy's recent high-profile unveiling of a new fuel cell technology has raised the sector's profile, but its perennially loss-making companies need more than visibility to register any short-term gains.

Bloom, a Silicon Valley start-up, last month launched its solid oxide fuel cell that can power buildings and potentially offer an alternative to the electricity grid.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and heat -- a clean source of energy that can be used in buildings, schools, telecoms towers and hospitals. However, they have so far failed to receive universal acceptance.

Analysts believe spillover gains from Bloom are unlikely for companies like FuelCell Energy, Plug Power and Canada's Hydrogenics Corp.

"If anything, it's more likely to be a negative, considering that Bloom is positioned to become a very well-funded competitor," Raymond James' analyst Pavel Molchanov said.

Bloom has managed to raise more than $400 million from investors and has attracted some high-profile early adopters like Google Inc, eBay Inc, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, FedEx Corp.

FuelCell Energy has its major clients in South Korea and Japan. Twenty four megawatt of its power plants are already operating in South Korea.

Plug power counts Coca-Cola Bottling Co Consolidated, FedEx and Wireless TT Info Services as its customers while Hydrogenics has contracts from United Nations Industrial Development Organization and India's Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd.

Despite some big-ticket clients, the dollar value of the deals leave much to be desired. And the fanfare surrounding the announcement of the Bloom Box was required to renew interest in fuel cell technology, which has had few instances to cheer.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

"I think this is a good thing that gets people excited about fuel cells, because prior to this, especially after the market crash, investors were not that interested in fuel cells," Ardour Capital Investments' Meghan Moreland said.

But there are fears that eventually Bloom could face the same fate as the other companies in the sector.

"Some investors, after several years of generating very significant losses and cash burn, put their hands up in the air," she said. "It will be the same with Bloom. They are going to have high sales, but when they are going to reach profitability is really questionable."

Questions on the viability of the technology and the lack of a mass market adoption have bogged down the sector, which has been posting losses for more than 5 years now. Faced with a cash crunch, their lobby for more government support grows stronger.

"The industry does need ongoing support, including legislation and favorable regulations," said Katrina Fritz Intwala, a vice president at Plug Power.

"Even with increased attention, ongoing effort is needed to encourage government to maintain subsidies for clean energy products and funding for fuel cell R&D, keeping us competitive with incumbent technologies and fuels."

As of now California has a policy in place that is conducive to the fuel cell firms, but the industry is looking for more support at federal level.

Support for the industry has been few and far in between. The Obama administration has earmarked $174 million for hydrogen and fuel cells out of the $33.5 billion spending bill to fund government energy and water programs for the fiscal year that began on October 1.

Plug's Intwala said the visibility raised by Bloom is good for all fuel cell companies, as long as Bloom maintains a realistic perspective about its products.

"The bad thing would be if this high profile company fails two years from now or three years from now," Janney Montgomery Scott analyst John Roy said.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy and Savio D'Souza)


[Green Business]
[Barack Obama | Green Business | COP15]
Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON
Mon Mar 29, 2010 9:37pm EDT
Government set to unveil offshore drilling plan
｛米政府、オフショアドリリング（沖合での掘削）プラン」の詳細発表へ｝

(Reuters) - The Obama administration is expected to announce by Wednesday its updated plan for oil and natural gas drilling in U.S. waters, including whether to allow exploration for the first time along the U.S. East Coast.

The plan could pave the way for a significant new domestic source of energy, helping to reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports and boost supplies of natural gas used to displace coal in power plants as the country works to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases.

Last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he wanted to release the updated drilling plan by the end of March.

Two industry sources said on Monday President Barack Obama was expected to give a speech about energy security on Wednesday, which could include his views on expansion of offshore drilling.

The Interior Department and White House declined comment on Monday on whether Obama would speak to the issue in a speech slated for mid-morning on Wednesday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

The administration has been weighing the pros and cons of offshore drilling since it took office and put the brakes on a Bush-era proposal that called for drilling along the East Coast and off the coast of California.

For more than 20 years, drilling was banned in most offshore areas of the United States outside the Gulf of Mexico because of concerns spills could harm the environment.

Congress allowed the prohibition to expire in 2008 and former President George W. Bush lifted a drilling moratorium that year.

Environmental groups and some lawmakers continue to raise concerns about the impact increased drilling would have on coastal areas.

But Obama, who wants Congress to move a stalled climate change bill, has sought to reach out to Republicans by signaling he is open to allowing offshore drilling, providing coastlines are protected.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the U.S. Atlantic coast waters may hold 37 trillion cubic feet of gas and nearly 4 billion barrels of oil, while the Pacific Coast has 10.5 billion barrels of oil and 18 trillion cubic feet of gas.

To put that in context, the United States imports about 2 billion barrels of oil a year from OPEC nations and is expected to import 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from all sources this year, according to the Energy Department.

The administration's plan is expected to spell out whether and when drilling will be allowed in 3 million acres off the Virginia coast.

The Bush administration had proposed leasing the Virginia tracts to energy companies and said the government would receive bids for the leases in November 2011.

However, a senior Interior official told an oil industry conference in January that drilling off Virginia's coast would definitely be delayed past the original 2011 leasing date.

The proposed Virginia lease area, located about 50 miles from shore, may hold 130 million barrels of oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The possible delay in drilling off Virginia's coast has been criticized by the state's new governor, Republican Bob McDonnell, and two U.S. senators eager for the state to tap into the jobs and royalties that come with exploration.

A spokeswoman for McDonnell said his office has not been told the updated drilling plan would be announced on Wednesday.

(Editing by Bernard Orr)

news20100330reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
[Barack Obama | Green Business]
Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON
Mon Mar 29, 2010 5:11pm EDT
EPA phases in permits for greenhouse pollution
｛ＥＰＡ、大気汚染物質を段階的に許可｝

(Reuters) - U.S. power plants, industrial facilities and other stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming will not be required to have Clean Air Act permits until January 2011, giving industry more time to prepare for the regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday.

Agency head Lisa Jackson had signaled to Congress in February that the EPA would delay the permit requirements for this year, following concerns from U.S. lawmakers and state officials that more time was needed to ease burdens on industry and state environmental departments that would help enforce the regulations.

The EPA has said it will require big sources of greenhouse gas emissions, like power plants that run on coal or natural gas, and plants that make cement, steel and glass, to get permits proving they are using the best available technology to cut pollution.

"This is a common sense plan for phasing in the protections of the Clean Air Act. It gives large facilities the time they need to innovate, governments the time to prepare to cut greenhouse gases," Jackson said in a statement.

The EPA has not yet determined the amount of emissions that could be emitted by facilities before permits would be required. That so-called "tailoring" decision will come later this spring, the EPA said.

The EPA is also expected to issue final greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks this week.

The rules cutting emissions for stationary sources will not take effect until next January, which is the earliest that model year 2012 vehicles meeting the standards can be sold.

"This gives EPA a legal argument for why it's not immediately regulating stationary source emissions of greenhouse gases," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

The government must notify automakers by April 1 of the higher fuel efficiency for the 2012 model year vehicles that would be needed to cut emissions.

State environmental agencies welcomed the EPA decision to phase in the permits.

"Providing nine additional months for states to revise their clean air laws and regulations will enable these agencies to closely align their programs with the federal permitting rules," said William Becker, executive director, National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

Even with the delay, the American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for big oil and gas companies, said it remained strongly opposed to regulating the emissions under the Clean Air Act.

"New regulations could prove to be intrusive, inefficient and excessively costly," said API spokeswoman Cathy Landry. "They could slow or stop permits needed to operate or expand businesses, which could chill job growth and delay expansion."

Lawmakers have criticized the EPA for trying to circumvent stalled Congressional deliberations over how to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has backed legislation to block EPA from moving ahead, said on Monday the agency continues to fail to provide information on the impact of its plans.

"The agency has refused to answer even the most basic questions about how many stationary sources will be regulated, when those sources will be regulated, what technologies will be mandated for compliance, and how much the regulations will cost," Murkowski said in a statement.

(Reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Jim Marshall)


[Green Business]
Chang-Ran Kim, Asia autos correspondent
TOKYO
Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:15am EDT
Toyota to supply hybrid technology to Mazda
｛トヨタ、マツダにハイブリッド技術を供与提携｝

(Reuters) - Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor announced a deal under which Japan's top automaker will supply its hybrid technology under license to Mazda, in the latest link-up within the fast-changing auto industry.

Japan's No.1 and No.5 carmakers have been discussing the possibility behind the scenes since last spring as the popularity of gasoline-electric cars surged in Japan with the help of generous government subsidies.

Hybrid cars, which improve fuel efficiency by twinning internal combustion engines with electric motors, are seen as crucial for automakers to boost sales in the coming years as governments introduce stricter environmental regulations.

Gasoline-electric cars have enjoyed a burst of demand especially in Japan over the past year as the government introduced an exemption from certain taxes for gasoline-electric and other next-generation vehicles for a three-year period.

"Hybrids are spreading fast in Japan, and launching a model in the domestic market has become an urgent task," Mazda Executive Vice President Masaharu Yamaki told a joint news conference in Tokyo.

"That is one of the reasons why we decided to seek this agreement with Toyota," he said.

Mazda said it aimed to begin selling a vehicle that combines Toyota's hybrid system with its own next-generation gasoline engine in Japan by 2013. Key components such as battery packs, controls units, inverters and regenerative braking units will be procured from Toyota suppliers.

The agreement underscores a growing need for smaller carmakers to find partners to fill the technology gap without draining their limited resources. Among others, archrivals Daimler AG and BMW AG are also working together on hybrid development.

DISTANCING FORD

A Toyota-Mazda pairing also highlights a distancing of Mazda from top shareholder Ford Motor Co, which is among the few automakers today with a proprietary hybrid system after it initially licensed technology from Toyota.

Ford and Mazda continue to share some vehicle platforms and operate joint factories, but insiders say relations have cooled to match the U.S. automaker's diminished stake in the Hiroshima-based automaker, from a controlling 33.4 percent.

In late 2008, Ford sold all but 13 percent of its Mazda stake, which was further diluted to 11 percent when the latter issued $1 billion in new shares to raise money to invest in hybrid and other technologies.

"Our relationship with Ford remains solid," Yamaki said, adding that Mazda had judged that procuring hybrid parts from Toyota's suppliers in Japan was more efficient than working with Ford.

Toyota, a pioneer in hybrid technology with at least a 12-year lead on most rivals, currently supplies its hybrid system to Nissan Motor Co, which uses it in its Altima sedan for the U.S. market to clear regulations there. Nissan plans to switch to its own hybrid system with a new model later this year.

Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said the deal with Mazda could indirectly help to lower procurement costs as more hybrid vehicles enter the market.

The deal will likely be a boon for Toyota's key hybrid suppliers such as affiliates Denso Corp and Aisin Seiki Co, as well as Panasonic Corp, which operates a battery joint venture with Toyota.

Mazda, the maker of the Mazda6/Atenza and other sporty cars, has a goal of raising its fleet's fuel economy by 30 percent mainly by improving its internal combustion engines by 2015 compared with 2008 levels. It has said it would gradually add electric components such as hybrid systems mainly beyond 2015.

Yamaki declined to disclose Mazda's plans for hybrid launches outside Japan.

(Editing by Chris Gallagher and Michael Watson)


[Green Business]
SAN FRANCISCO
Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:01am EDT
Electric carmaker Coda's battery JV raises capital
｛電気自動車メーカー、コーダ電池共同事業、資本強化｝

(Reuters) - California electric start-up Coda Automotive said on Tuesday that its battery joint venture has secured $394 million in equity capital and loan commitments, and is looking at setting up a U.S. battery facility.

Coda said that it, together with its Chinese joint venture partner Lishen Power Battery, has added $100 million in equity capital and has secured a line of credit for $294 million from Bank of Tianjin Joint-Stock Co, a Chinese bank.

The privately held company is planning to sell a fully electric car with a range of up to 120 miles, priced in the low $30,000s, Coda Automotive President and CEO Kevin Czinger told Reuters in an interview.

The company plans to deliver 14,000 of the electric cars in the California market by the end of 2011.

For U.S. production, Coda's battery joint venture is considering sites in California, Ohio and North Carolina, Czinger said.

"We are looking at sites and DOE funding as well."

The U.S. department of Energy has various funding programs aimed at encouraging the development and commercialization of fuel-efficient vehicles.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang)

news20100330reut4

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
[Technology | Media]
Peter Henderson
SAN FRANCISCO
Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:41am EDT
Coal fuels much of Internet "cloud," Greenpeace says
｛石炭燃料、インターネットで不透明化：グリーンピース｝

(Reuters) - The 'cloud' of data that is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all-too-real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, Greenpeace said in a new report to be released on Tuesday.

A Facebook facility being built in Oregon will rely on a utility whose main fuel is coal, while Apple Inc is building a data warehouse in a North Carolina region that relies mostly on coal, the environmental organization said in the study.

"The last thing we need is for more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power," said Greenpeace, which argues that Web companies should be more careful about where they build and should lobby more in Washington for clean energy.

The growing mass of business data, home movies and pictures has ballooned beyond the capabilities of many corporate data centers and personal computers, spurring the creation of massive server farms that make up a "cloud," an emerging phenomenon known as cloud computing.

The Greenpeace report comes during a global debate whether to create caps or other measures to cut use of carbon-heavy fuels like coal and curb climate change.

Cheap and plentiful, coal is the top fuel for U.S. power plants, and its low cost versus alternative fuels makes it attractive, even in highly energy-efficient data centers.

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and Google Inc have at least some centers that rely heavily on coal power, said Greenpeace.

PURSUING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Most of the companies declined to give details of their data centers to Reuters. All said, however, they considered the environment in business decisions, and most said they were aggressively pursuing energy efficiency.

High technology companies say they support the environment. Apple has released its carbon footprint, or how much greenhouse gases it produces, and Facebook said it chose the location for its center to use natural means to cool its machines.

Microsoft said it aimed to maximize efficiency, and Google said it purchased carbon offsets -- funding for projects which suck up carbon -- for emissions, including at data centers.

Yahoo, which is building a center near Buffalo, New York, that Greenpeace saw as a model, will get energy from hydroelectric facilities. The company said energy-efficiency was the top goal, with a building design that promotes air circulation.

Data center energy use already is huge, Greenpeace said.

If considered as a country, global telecommunications and data centers behind cloud computing would have ranked fifth in the world for energy use in 2007, behind the United States, China, Russia and Japan, it concluded.

The cloud may be the fastest-growing facet of technology infrastructure between now and 2020, said Greenpeace.

The group based its findings on a mix of data, including a federal review of fuels in U.S. zip codes in 2005 and a 2008 study by the Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, which Greenpeace updated in part with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)


[Green Business]
Nobuhiro Kubo
YOKOHAMA, Japan
Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:45am EDT
Nissan prices electric Leaf at premium to Prius
｛日産電気自動車"リーフ"の価格、"プリウス"に割増価格｝

(Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co priced its battery-powered Leaf hatchback at more than twice the cost of a similarly sized gasoline car, counting on government subsidies to drive demand for the emissions-free vehicles.

Nissan is banking on electric cars to help it close the gap on rivals such as Toyota Motor Co, which has won over fuel-conscious customers with its gasoline-electric hybrid Prius.

But with a starting price of 3.76 million yen ($40,640), the Leaf will be still be out of reach for many drivers in Japan.

The five-passenger Leaf is designed to provide a range of 160 km (100 miles). Nissan has developed the battery pack for the Leaf with NEC Corp so that it can be plugged in at home and recharged overnight on a 220-volt connection.

"I'm interested (in the Leaf), but the initial cost is still high, even with subsidies," said Kiyotaka Shimizu, a 43 year-old cram school teacher.

"I'm afraid the technology is not mature. I would choose hybrid cars at this stage," Shimizu said as he looked around a Nissan showroom at its headquarters in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.

While skeptics abound, almost all major automakers are working on developing battery-run cars for use mainly in urban areas, to meet stricter emissions and mileage regulations being introduced around the world.

Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan and French partner Renault, has said he expects 10 percent of the world's auto market will be electric vehicles by 2020, a ratio at the top of industry projections.

While well above the price of Toyota's top selling Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, the Leaf will be about 1 million yen ($10,800) cheaper than Mitsubishi Motors Corp's i-MiEV electric car.

"The most important point for our cars is zero emissions," Toshiyuki Shiga, chief operating officer of Nissan, said at a news conference. "Hybrid vehicles still consume gasoline. I want to fully push this sales point."

Nissan, Japan's third-biggest automaker, said it aims to sell 6,000 Leaf cars, its first mass-volume all-electric model, in Japan for the year ending in March 2011. The company will start taking orders for the model in April in Japan, with the first delivery expected in December.

After accounting for Japanese government subsidies, Nissan said the net cost to consumers to buy a new Leaf would be near 2.99 million yen ($32,320).

Japanese government subsidies on low emission vehicles, introduced to encourage sales during the financial crisis, are scheduled to run through to the year ending March 2011.

HYBRIDS CHEAPER

By contrast, Toyota's Prius hybrid, now in its third generation, has a base model starting price at just over 2 million yen ($22,195) in Japan, before government subsidies.

The Leaf's price also marks a premium over established, combustion engine-powered small sedans like the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. Analysts said that reflects the cost of developing and producing the Leaf's lithium-ion battery pack.

"Everyone would think it is expensive. Of course there are some people who are willing to buy, but generally speaking, it needs to be below 2 million yen for consumers in general to buy," said Koji Endo, auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan.

Although Nissan once considered leasing the expensive batteries to lower the initial cost for consumers in Japan, it has given up on the idea due to the regulations related with car inspections.

Despite the initial price tag, Nissan said drivers would be able to save some money over the long run. It estimates that owners would pay 86,000 yen ($930) in electricity costs over six years, compared with 670,000 yen ($7,200) at the pump for a traditional gasoline-powered car.

Nissan was set to announce U.S. pricing for the Leaf later on Tuesday, with analysts expecting a U.S. price of somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000.

A $7,500 tax credit is available for U.S. consumers who buy electric vehicles like the Leaf and the upcoming Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid from General Motors Co.

After trailing rivals Toyota Motor and Honda Motor in the hybrid field, Japan's No.3 automaker has bet heavily on pure electric vehicles.

The automaker has also announced a series of partnerships with utilities and government agencies in the United States and Europe, where it believes it has a chance of seizing market leadership.

Shares of Nissan gained 2.3 percent to 801 yen, while the benchmark Nikkei average rose 1 percent.

($1=92.52 Yen)

(Editing by Chris Gallagher and Lincoln Feast)