[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Green Business]
Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON
Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:55pm EST
U.S. loans to boost nuclear industry seen soon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is poised to announce loan guarantees to help kick-start the country's nuclear power industry, which hasn't built a new plant in more than three decades.
Congress authorized $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees in 2005, hoping to revive development of the carbon-free source of energy. Investments in nuclear power has dried up on soaring costs following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.
But earlier this year, the U.S. Energy Department signaled it was keen to aid the industry and narrowed the list of those likely to receive loan guarantees to four: Southern Co, Constellation Energy, NRG Energy and SCANA Corp.
"When DOE issues their first loan guarantee, that's going to send an important signal to private-sector financing, and Wall Street in particular," said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Southern, which wants to build two reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, is expected to be awarded the first loan guarantee.
Energy Department officials would not give a specific date on when the details will be announced but said they were committed to restarting the nuclear industry.
"We are on track to announce the first loan guarantee soon," said Stephanie Mueller, a department spokeswoman.
The money allotted would probably support construction of about two to three plants. A nuclear power plant can cost $6 billion to $7 billion to build, according to industry estimates.
Even after receiving a guarantee, the companies would still have to complete the licensing process and secure private financing before construction begins.
Barring major delays, actual construction of a plant would not start before 2011, with the first new plant coming on line around 2017 or 2018, according to the nuclear institute.
The nuclear trade group has called for $100 billion in additional loan guarantees for low carbon energy sources to help support replacing aging reactors and to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. utilities that hope to build new reactors will have to overcome rising construction costs, uncertain cost recovery from customers and lower power demand caused by the recession.
Critics of nuclear power say the projects are too expensive and too risky to receive billions of taxpayer dollars. Environmentalists also raise concerns about the disposal of nuclear waste.
(Additional reporting by Eileen O'Grady in Houston and Tim Gardner in Washington; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
[Green Business]
BRASILIA
Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:48pm EST
Brazil keeps climate targets despite failed summit
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will make its ambitious 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets legally binding even though global climate talks failed this month, the country's environment minister said on Monday.
"We will fully comply with the targets. It doesn't matter that Copenhagen didn't go as well as we had hoped," Environment Minister Carlos Minc told reporters after meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula will veto three items from a climate bill approved by Congress last month but would maintain the emissions targets, Minc said.
"The targets were maintained, which is the most important. Brazil will have a strong climate change policy," he said.
Brazil aims to reduce its projected 2020 greenhouse gas emissions by as much 39 percent. That amounts roughly to a 20 percent reduction from 2005 levels.
According to the bill Lula is expected to sign into law later on Monday, those targets will be quantifiable and verifiable.
Latin America's largest country had tried to prod other developing and industrialized countries into adopting bold targets at the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen earlier this month. But the meeting failed to produce a new framework agreement on climate to follow the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
Brazil is one of the largest carbon emitters, largely due to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. Deforestation, which has fallen sharply in recent years, releases carbon as trees burn or decompose.
Among the items Lula will veto were proposals to limit the construction of small hydroelectric plants and reduce the use of fossil fuels.
(Reporting by Fernando Exman; Writing by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
[Green Business]
FRANKFURT
Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:14am EST
German solar industry wants faster subsidy cuts
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German solar companies in industry association BSW are proposing to cut subsidies faster than planned, Solarworld Chief Executive Frank Asbeck told a German magazine.
So far, plans had called for a 10 percent reduction of feed-in tariffs -- incentives utilities are obliged to pay for power generated from renewable sources -- in early 2010 and another 10 percent a year later. BSW is now proposing to add a cut in mid-2010.
"Some 10 percent on January 1, 5 percent at mid-year and then another 10 percent at the move into 2011," Asbeck said, according to an excerpt of an interview to be published in weekly Focus-Money magazine on Wednesday.
Utilities are obliged to pay 43 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity produced for 20 years for systems installed in 2009. Companies including Solarworld have called for a faster reduction of subsidies in exchange for international environmental and quality standards in regulation.
According to Handelsblatt newspaper, the BSW association is set to make its proposal to policymakers at a January 13 meeting.
Germany is a world leader in green energy with a 15 percent share of all electricity produced and wants to double that to 30 percent by 2020.
[Green Business]
ANKARA
Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:34am EST
Turkey secures $294 mln from Japan for water project
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's Treasury said on Monday a loan of 26.826 billion yen ($294 million) was secured from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for the financing of an Ankara water supply project.
The loan has a fixed annual interest rate of 1.5 percent and 25 years maturity including a 7-year grace period.
(Reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk)
[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Mon Dec 28, 2009 10:12am EST
Copenhagen's Tivoli says climate talks hurt profits
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Park operator Tivoli, set in Denmark's capital, cut its guidance for 2009 profits on Monday after thousands of visitors stayed away when governments met in Copenhagen this month for U.N. climate talks.
One of Europe's oldest amusement parks, Tivoli A/S lowered its full-year pretax estimate by 10 million Danish crowns ($2 million) to 20-30 million because of the loss of business during the December 7-18 climate conference.
"We have lost 100,000 visitors during the climate conference since many Danes chose to stay away from the Copenhagen city area for fear of demonstrations and traffic chaos," it said.
Nor did conference participants visit Tivoli "in any large numbers," the company said in a statement.
The Christmas season from late November to the end of December usually brings brisk trade to 166-year-old Tivoli.
(Reporting by John Acher; Editing by Louise Ireland)
[Green Business]
Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON
Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:55pm EST
U.S. loans to boost nuclear industry seen soon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is poised to announce loan guarantees to help kick-start the country's nuclear power industry, which hasn't built a new plant in more than three decades.
Congress authorized $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees in 2005, hoping to revive development of the carbon-free source of energy. Investments in nuclear power has dried up on soaring costs following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.
But earlier this year, the U.S. Energy Department signaled it was keen to aid the industry and narrowed the list of those likely to receive loan guarantees to four: Southern Co, Constellation Energy, NRG Energy and SCANA Corp.
"When DOE issues their first loan guarantee, that's going to send an important signal to private-sector financing, and Wall Street in particular," said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Southern, which wants to build two reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, is expected to be awarded the first loan guarantee.
Energy Department officials would not give a specific date on when the details will be announced but said they were committed to restarting the nuclear industry.
"We are on track to announce the first loan guarantee soon," said Stephanie Mueller, a department spokeswoman.
The money allotted would probably support construction of about two to three plants. A nuclear power plant can cost $6 billion to $7 billion to build, according to industry estimates.
Even after receiving a guarantee, the companies would still have to complete the licensing process and secure private financing before construction begins.
Barring major delays, actual construction of a plant would not start before 2011, with the first new plant coming on line around 2017 or 2018, according to the nuclear institute.
The nuclear trade group has called for $100 billion in additional loan guarantees for low carbon energy sources to help support replacing aging reactors and to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. utilities that hope to build new reactors will have to overcome rising construction costs, uncertain cost recovery from customers and lower power demand caused by the recession.
Critics of nuclear power say the projects are too expensive and too risky to receive billions of taxpayer dollars. Environmentalists also raise concerns about the disposal of nuclear waste.
(Additional reporting by Eileen O'Grady in Houston and Tim Gardner in Washington; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
[Green Business]
BRASILIA
Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:48pm EST
Brazil keeps climate targets despite failed summit
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will make its ambitious 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets legally binding even though global climate talks failed this month, the country's environment minister said on Monday.
"We will fully comply with the targets. It doesn't matter that Copenhagen didn't go as well as we had hoped," Environment Minister Carlos Minc told reporters after meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula will veto three items from a climate bill approved by Congress last month but would maintain the emissions targets, Minc said.
"The targets were maintained, which is the most important. Brazil will have a strong climate change policy," he said.
Brazil aims to reduce its projected 2020 greenhouse gas emissions by as much 39 percent. That amounts roughly to a 20 percent reduction from 2005 levels.
According to the bill Lula is expected to sign into law later on Monday, those targets will be quantifiable and verifiable.
Latin America's largest country had tried to prod other developing and industrialized countries into adopting bold targets at the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen earlier this month. But the meeting failed to produce a new framework agreement on climate to follow the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
Brazil is one of the largest carbon emitters, largely due to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. Deforestation, which has fallen sharply in recent years, releases carbon as trees burn or decompose.
Among the items Lula will veto were proposals to limit the construction of small hydroelectric plants and reduce the use of fossil fuels.
(Reporting by Fernando Exman; Writing by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
[Green Business]
FRANKFURT
Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:14am EST
German solar industry wants faster subsidy cuts
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German solar companies in industry association BSW are proposing to cut subsidies faster than planned, Solarworld Chief Executive Frank Asbeck told a German magazine.
So far, plans had called for a 10 percent reduction of feed-in tariffs -- incentives utilities are obliged to pay for power generated from renewable sources -- in early 2010 and another 10 percent a year later. BSW is now proposing to add a cut in mid-2010.
"Some 10 percent on January 1, 5 percent at mid-year and then another 10 percent at the move into 2011," Asbeck said, according to an excerpt of an interview to be published in weekly Focus-Money magazine on Wednesday.
Utilities are obliged to pay 43 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity produced for 20 years for systems installed in 2009. Companies including Solarworld have called for a faster reduction of subsidies in exchange for international environmental and quality standards in regulation.
According to Handelsblatt newspaper, the BSW association is set to make its proposal to policymakers at a January 13 meeting.
Germany is a world leader in green energy with a 15 percent share of all electricity produced and wants to double that to 30 percent by 2020.
[Green Business]
ANKARA
Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:34am EST
Turkey secures $294 mln from Japan for water project
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's Treasury said on Monday a loan of 26.826 billion yen ($294 million) was secured from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for the financing of an Ankara water supply project.
The loan has a fixed annual interest rate of 1.5 percent and 25 years maturity including a 7-year grace period.
(Reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk)
[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Mon Dec 28, 2009 10:12am EST
Copenhagen's Tivoli says climate talks hurt profits
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Park operator Tivoli, set in Denmark's capital, cut its guidance for 2009 profits on Monday after thousands of visitors stayed away when governments met in Copenhagen this month for U.N. climate talks.
One of Europe's oldest amusement parks, Tivoli A/S lowered its full-year pretax estimate by 10 million Danish crowns ($2 million) to 20-30 million because of the loss of business during the December 7-18 climate conference.
"We have lost 100,000 visitors during the climate conference since many Danes chose to stay away from the Copenhagen city area for fear of demonstrations and traffic chaos," it said.
Nor did conference participants visit Tivoli "in any large numbers," the company said in a statement.
The Christmas season from late November to the end of December usually brings brisk trade to 166-year-old Tivoli.
(Reporting by John Acher; Editing by Louise Ireland)
※コメント投稿者のブログIDはブログ作成者のみに通知されます