[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Green Business]
Lucy Hornby
BEIJING
Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:46am EST
China introduces law to boost renewable energy
BEIJING (Reuters) - A new Chinese law requires power grid operators to buy all the electricity produced by renewable energy generators, in a move that will increase the proportion of energy that comes from renewable sources in coal-dependent China.
The amendment to the 2006 renewable energy law was adopted on Saturday by the standing committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, the Xinhua news agency said.
The amendment also gives authority to the State Council energy department, together with the State Council finance department and the state power authority, to "determine the proportion of renewable energy power generation to the overall generating capacity for a certain period."
Many other countries also have requirements that grid operators priorities the dispatch of power from renewable sources, even if it is more expensive than coal-fired baseload plants.
In China, a boom in wind-power plants thanks to government subsidies has resulted in a large amount of wind capacity that is not always properly connected to the grid. In some cases, the wind farms are not located at the optimal spot for wind.
One-third of China's installed wind power capacity is not well connected to the grid, Xinhua said, citing industry experts.
Much of China's wind power is installed in remote, wind-swept regions like Inner Mongolia and Gansu, where power demand is low. But some of the country's cheapest coal generators are also in Inner Mongolia, pricing the wind farms out of the power market.
"Renewable energy power in the country's resource-rich, underdeveloped northwestern region must be sent to the resource-scarce, prosperous coastal area," said Wang Zhongyong, renewable energy director at the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, according to Xinhua.
The relative independence of regional grids made such transmission difficult, Wang said.
China must develop more efficient "smart grids" as part of the solution, said Xiao Liye, director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The new requirement will also benefit China's massive new nuclear power plants, although nuclear power is usually cheap enough to be competitive on its own.
Grid operators refusing to buy power produced by renewable energy generators could be fined up to double the loss suffered by the renewable energy generator, the amendment said.
China's target is for renewable energy sources to make up 15 percent of its power generation by 2020, up from about 9 percent currently. It also targets a reduction in carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon produced per unit of GDP, of between 40 and 45 percent by 2020 compared with 2005.
(Editing by Sugita Katyal)
[Green Business]
Maha El Dahan
CAIRO
Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:42am EST
Egypt plants new wheat strains to fight fungus
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt, the world's top wheat importer, is introducing new wheat varieties resistant to a mutant form of stem rust, an airborne fungus with the ability to annihilate entire crops.
"We have already started using these seeds and 40 tonnes are now being planted in the Nile Delta," Ayman Abouhadid, president of the country's Agricultural Research Center, told Reuters in an interview.
The fungus, which has plagued wheat since biblical times, was largely controlled in the 1950s when scientists passed out seeds with a gene to block the disease.
But a destructive new strain reappeared in Uganda in the late 1990s, once more posing a potentially serious threat to 80 percent of the world's wheat supplies.
Experts have said the only way to overcome the new fungus would be to replace the bulk of the world's commercial wheat with new seeds bred to fight it.
Egypt, which cultivates around 3 million feddans (1.26 million hectares) of wheat per year, has reacted fast in developing the new strains.
"We have two wheat varieties, Misr 1 and Misr 2, which we developed and are resistant to this new form of stem rust," Abouhadid said.
The new stem rust, termed Ug99, has travelled from Uganda to Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen and subsequently went on to affect crops as far away as Iran and Afghanistan in less than a decade.
Abouhadid said if the Ug99 strain becomes widespread in Central Asia it will almost certainly reach Egypt.
WINDS FROM THE NORTH
"Since Egypt gets winds from the North it is now very likely it will spread to Egypt," Abouhadid said.
The fungus spreads in mostly hot and humid weather, according to Abouhadid, and so it will potentially stay within the realm of the Mediterranean basin and not travel higher up into colder areas of Europe.
Egypt has been working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico to stop the spread of Ug99 into its borders.
But the most populous Arab country, which depends heavily on subsidized bread to feed its poor, is not waiting until the disease affects its own crop to take action.
Around 1.5 tonnes of the Misr 1 variety were exported earlier this year to Afghanistan to prevent the rust from spreading further into the region.
"We are protecting the region from the spread of the fungus and so we are protecting ourselves from outside our borders," Abouhadid said.
Egypt has one of the highest rates of wheat consumption per capita in the world at around 120 kg per person per year.
The North African country consumes around 14 million tonnes of wheat annually, and imports around 6 million tonnes of that from abroad.
(Reporting by Maha El Dahan, editing by Anthony Barker)
[Green Business]
Michael Hirtzer
CHICAGO
Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:21pm EST
Yield loss eyed as snow covers U.S. corn crop
CHICAGO (Reuters) - As much as 100 million bushels of U.S. corn could be lost after heavy snowstorms in recent days likely delayed until spring the final stages of an already historically slow harvest, analysts and meteorologists said on Monday.
The harvest delays helped to push up corn futures more than 1 percent to a six-month high on Monday at the Chicago Board of Trade.
"There are 620 million bushels left in the field and we could lose 10 percent of that," said Joe Victor, analyst for Illinois-based research and consulting firm Allendale Inc.
The U.S. Agriculture Department last week in its final harvest update of the year said 5 percent of the corn crop was still in the fields.
And after much of the U.S. Midwest and Plains regions were pounded by heavy winter storms in past several days, it's likely to stay there until next year.
As much as 25 inches of snow fell in parts of the Dakotas -- two states where the corn harvest was furthest behind.
Heavy snowstorms also plagued other states where the corn harvest was far from done: Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
"(The corn) is sitting in the field with snow cover due to all this severe weather in the last month," said Mike Palmerino, forecaster with DTN Meteorlogix.
Analyst estimates for the yield loss ranged from 50-100 million bushels. Still, the corn crop is still expected to be the second-largest on record, behind only 2007's record crop of 13.038 billion bushels.
"We see the total corn crop down 100 million bushels from the current USDA estimate because of a combination of problems from the late harvest and the winter storms," said Terry Reilly, analyst for Citigroup.
"We may see some of the corn fall over and that will just make it harder to harvest," Reilly said.
Yield loss occurs when corn plants are knocked down and when the ear falls off the stem of the plant. Both are caused by harsh winds and snowfall, and result in a loss when the crop-cutting combines fail to gather the grain.
Some farmers were still hoping to complete in the next few weeks one of the slowest harvest in decades. But if temperatures warm up enough for the snow to melt, it might also leave the ground too wet to combine.
"(Farmers) are hoping the ground will freeze so they can get out there, but (also hoping) the corn won't freeze to the ground," said a grain buyer at a processor in Cincinnati, Ohio.
[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:16am EST
Vestas says wins 40 MW turbine order from China
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark's Vestas, the world's biggest maker of wind turbines, said on Monday it had won an order for 20 turbines with total capacity of 40 megawatts from China Datang Renewable Power Co Ltd.
The V90-2.0 MW turbines will be installed in Zhaolitouzi, Liaoning Province, Vestas said in a statement.
It did not disclose the value of the order.
Vestas cited figures from consultants Azure International showing that China had total installed wind power capacity of about 15.5 gigawatts as of June 2009 and said China was the world's fastest-growing wind energy market in 2009.
[Green Business]
Lucy Hornby
BEIJING
Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:46am EST
China introduces law to boost renewable energy
BEIJING (Reuters) - A new Chinese law requires power grid operators to buy all the electricity produced by renewable energy generators, in a move that will increase the proportion of energy that comes from renewable sources in coal-dependent China.
The amendment to the 2006 renewable energy law was adopted on Saturday by the standing committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, the Xinhua news agency said.
The amendment also gives authority to the State Council energy department, together with the State Council finance department and the state power authority, to "determine the proportion of renewable energy power generation to the overall generating capacity for a certain period."
Many other countries also have requirements that grid operators priorities the dispatch of power from renewable sources, even if it is more expensive than coal-fired baseload plants.
In China, a boom in wind-power plants thanks to government subsidies has resulted in a large amount of wind capacity that is not always properly connected to the grid. In some cases, the wind farms are not located at the optimal spot for wind.
One-third of China's installed wind power capacity is not well connected to the grid, Xinhua said, citing industry experts.
Much of China's wind power is installed in remote, wind-swept regions like Inner Mongolia and Gansu, where power demand is low. But some of the country's cheapest coal generators are also in Inner Mongolia, pricing the wind farms out of the power market.
"Renewable energy power in the country's resource-rich, underdeveloped northwestern region must be sent to the resource-scarce, prosperous coastal area," said Wang Zhongyong, renewable energy director at the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, according to Xinhua.
The relative independence of regional grids made such transmission difficult, Wang said.
China must develop more efficient "smart grids" as part of the solution, said Xiao Liye, director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The new requirement will also benefit China's massive new nuclear power plants, although nuclear power is usually cheap enough to be competitive on its own.
Grid operators refusing to buy power produced by renewable energy generators could be fined up to double the loss suffered by the renewable energy generator, the amendment said.
China's target is for renewable energy sources to make up 15 percent of its power generation by 2020, up from about 9 percent currently. It also targets a reduction in carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon produced per unit of GDP, of between 40 and 45 percent by 2020 compared with 2005.
(Editing by Sugita Katyal)
[Green Business]
Maha El Dahan
CAIRO
Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:42am EST
Egypt plants new wheat strains to fight fungus
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt, the world's top wheat importer, is introducing new wheat varieties resistant to a mutant form of stem rust, an airborne fungus with the ability to annihilate entire crops.
"We have already started using these seeds and 40 tonnes are now being planted in the Nile Delta," Ayman Abouhadid, president of the country's Agricultural Research Center, told Reuters in an interview.
The fungus, which has plagued wheat since biblical times, was largely controlled in the 1950s when scientists passed out seeds with a gene to block the disease.
But a destructive new strain reappeared in Uganda in the late 1990s, once more posing a potentially serious threat to 80 percent of the world's wheat supplies.
Experts have said the only way to overcome the new fungus would be to replace the bulk of the world's commercial wheat with new seeds bred to fight it.
Egypt, which cultivates around 3 million feddans (1.26 million hectares) of wheat per year, has reacted fast in developing the new strains.
"We have two wheat varieties, Misr 1 and Misr 2, which we developed and are resistant to this new form of stem rust," Abouhadid said.
The new stem rust, termed Ug99, has travelled from Uganda to Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen and subsequently went on to affect crops as far away as Iran and Afghanistan in less than a decade.
Abouhadid said if the Ug99 strain becomes widespread in Central Asia it will almost certainly reach Egypt.
WINDS FROM THE NORTH
"Since Egypt gets winds from the North it is now very likely it will spread to Egypt," Abouhadid said.
The fungus spreads in mostly hot and humid weather, according to Abouhadid, and so it will potentially stay within the realm of the Mediterranean basin and not travel higher up into colder areas of Europe.
Egypt has been working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico to stop the spread of Ug99 into its borders.
But the most populous Arab country, which depends heavily on subsidized bread to feed its poor, is not waiting until the disease affects its own crop to take action.
Around 1.5 tonnes of the Misr 1 variety were exported earlier this year to Afghanistan to prevent the rust from spreading further into the region.
"We are protecting the region from the spread of the fungus and so we are protecting ourselves from outside our borders," Abouhadid said.
Egypt has one of the highest rates of wheat consumption per capita in the world at around 120 kg per person per year.
The North African country consumes around 14 million tonnes of wheat annually, and imports around 6 million tonnes of that from abroad.
(Reporting by Maha El Dahan, editing by Anthony Barker)
[Green Business]
Michael Hirtzer
CHICAGO
Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:21pm EST
Yield loss eyed as snow covers U.S. corn crop
CHICAGO (Reuters) - As much as 100 million bushels of U.S. corn could be lost after heavy snowstorms in recent days likely delayed until spring the final stages of an already historically slow harvest, analysts and meteorologists said on Monday.
The harvest delays helped to push up corn futures more than 1 percent to a six-month high on Monday at the Chicago Board of Trade.
"There are 620 million bushels left in the field and we could lose 10 percent of that," said Joe Victor, analyst for Illinois-based research and consulting firm Allendale Inc.
The U.S. Agriculture Department last week in its final harvest update of the year said 5 percent of the corn crop was still in the fields.
And after much of the U.S. Midwest and Plains regions were pounded by heavy winter storms in past several days, it's likely to stay there until next year.
As much as 25 inches of snow fell in parts of the Dakotas -- two states where the corn harvest was furthest behind.
Heavy snowstorms also plagued other states where the corn harvest was far from done: Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
"(The corn) is sitting in the field with snow cover due to all this severe weather in the last month," said Mike Palmerino, forecaster with DTN Meteorlogix.
Analyst estimates for the yield loss ranged from 50-100 million bushels. Still, the corn crop is still expected to be the second-largest on record, behind only 2007's record crop of 13.038 billion bushels.
"We see the total corn crop down 100 million bushels from the current USDA estimate because of a combination of problems from the late harvest and the winter storms," said Terry Reilly, analyst for Citigroup.
"We may see some of the corn fall over and that will just make it harder to harvest," Reilly said.
Yield loss occurs when corn plants are knocked down and when the ear falls off the stem of the plant. Both are caused by harsh winds and snowfall, and result in a loss when the crop-cutting combines fail to gather the grain.
Some farmers were still hoping to complete in the next few weeks one of the slowest harvest in decades. But if temperatures warm up enough for the snow to melt, it might also leave the ground too wet to combine.
"(Farmers) are hoping the ground will freeze so they can get out there, but (also hoping) the corn won't freeze to the ground," said a grain buyer at a processor in Cincinnati, Ohio.
[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:16am EST
Vestas says wins 40 MW turbine order from China
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark's Vestas, the world's biggest maker of wind turbines, said on Monday it had won an order for 20 turbines with total capacity of 40 megawatts from China Datang Renewable Power Co Ltd.
The V90-2.0 MW turbines will be installed in Zhaolitouzi, Liaoning Province, Vestas said in a statement.
It did not disclose the value of the order.
Vestas cited figures from consultants Azure International showing that China had total installed wind power capacity of about 15.5 gigawatts as of June 2009 and said China was the world's fastest-growing wind energy market in 2009.
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