news20091029reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Coal producer Massey: mine permitting hurts growth
Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:34pm EDT
By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The demand for coal to generate power and make steel is growing, but environmental bureaucracy is making it more difficult to mine the fuel, the head of Massey Energy said on Wednesday.

"Our government is at least temporarily impeding the attainment of coal's full value ... and frustrating domestic opportunities for production growth," Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship told Wall Street analysts.

"More production reductions will likely occur in central Appalachia as a result of the generally weak economic conditions and increasing regulatory and permitting constraints."

"But coal will continue to be in demand throughout the world and ultimately people will demand the benefits to be derived from coal," he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Last month, the EPA ruled that all 79 pending mine permits in Appalachia must undergo additional evaluation, because they pose a potential hazard to water in parts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.

Blankenship's broadside at tighter permitting procedures came a day after Massey reported a drop in third-quarter profit and trimmed its shipment outlook as demand, particularly for steam, or thermal coal for power generation, remained weak.

Stock in the company -- one of the Big Four U.S. coal producers -- was down 8.3 percent at $28.70 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday afternoon.

During a conference call with analysts to discuss the results, Blankenship was asked how a more active EPA mine permitting process was affecting miners' operations.

"When we look at acquisitions or properties we might acquire, we pay quite a bit of attention to which of them are permitted and what stage of the process their permitting efforts are in," he said.

Blankenship said worldwide production and use of coal will likely increase by more than 120 million tons per year during each of the next five years.

But "the macroeconomic factors facing all businesses and particularly the coal industry have never been more challenging," he said.

Blankenship said Massey looked to take advantage of increased demand for metallurgical, or coking coal, which is used to fire steelmaking blast furnaces. "As this growth occurs, we expect to have many opportunities to expand the export of our coal."

But he said he expected domestic thermal coal demand to remain weak for the next several quarters and perhaps through 2010. Utility stockpiles remain very high and the amount of coal being burned was low.

"Absent a resurgence in international demand for U.S. thermal coal, we would need to see significant reductions in domestic stockpiles before we would anticipate pricing to measurably improve."

But he said the weaker U.S. dollar and continued Asian economic growth could spur international demand for U.S. coal.

"We continue to be encouraged by the positive news we are hearing from the seaborne metallurgical coal export markets," he said, noting steel production in China was up 22 percent in August and 5 percent for the first eight months of the year.

Steel producers have restarted or announced plans to restart more than 40 blast furnaces that have previously been idled, Blankenship said, adding that Massey has the capacity to produce more than 12 million tons of metallurgical coal per year.

(Reporting by Steve James, editing by Matthew Lewis)


[Green Business]
Ackermans, Electrabel to create green energy firm
Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:53pm EDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian holding company Ackermans & van Haaren and energy company Electrabel will join forces to create a new renewable energy company, the two companies said on Wednesday.

Electrabel, the Belgian arm of French utility GDF Suez, will have a 73 percent stake in the joint venture, called Max Green NV, and Ackermans the remaining 27 percent.

The venture's first project will be the conversion of the Rodenhuize 4 unit near the northern city of Ghent, from a coal-fired to a biomass power station with a capacity of 180 megawatts.

The project, requiring an investment of 125 million euros ($185.5 million), will start in 2010, with coal being replaced by wood pellets as an energy source. It will produce enough power for 320,000 households, the companies said.

Max Green will examine other renewable energy projects in the future.

The Belgian government has asked GDF Suez, which owns Electrabel, to invest 500 million euros in renewable energy in Belgium from 2010 in return for an extended life for three Belgian nuclear reactors.

For Ackermans, the venture will form a part of its newly created energy segment, one of five key sectors on which the holding focuses.

(Reporting by Antonia van de Velde and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by David Holmes and Rupert Winchester)

($1=.6740 Euro)


[Green Business]
Global pollution-fighters find scant success
Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:53pm EDT
By Burton Frierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Twelve of the worst pollution problems in the developing world are being cleaned up, demonstrating that tens of thousands of others also could be improved, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The clean-up sites, ranging from Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear disaster area to the polluted streets of Delhi, were in the fourth annual World's Worst Polluted Places Report issued by the New York-based Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland.

In contrast to previous years' reports, which highlighted contaminated sites or specific pollution problems, the 2009 edition focused on clean-ups and solutions.

"Tens of thousands of polluted sites contaminate local populations -- as many as 500 million people are poisoned each day in the developing world," the report said.

"Only a few of these problems have been fixed. But it's a start and worth recognizing."

The group's initial search for potential success stories yielded just 45 candidates. Making the final list were the only 12 cases that appeared to provide verifiable and credible evidence of success.

"Here we are talking about successes but there's only 12 of them," Richard Fuller, president of Blacksmith Institute, told a teleconference of journalists.

"We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars in the West cleaning up our pollution problems here and at the same time we've shifted all our industry overseas and what we've done is ended up poisoning all these people in all these places overseas."

Blacksmith, an international not-for-profit organization, noted global progress in areas that were not geographically specific: removing lead from gasoline, which causes neurological damage, and efforts to eliminate through international treaty obsolete chemical weapons that maim and kill.

The report also listed 10 sites and what has been done to clean them up:

* Accra, Ghana: the broad commercialization of cooking stoves that reduce indoor air pollution, which causes respiratory illnesses in women and children;

* Candelaria, Chile: disposal of copper tailings and water treatment;

* Chernobyl-affected areas, Eastern Europe: medical, psychological and educational interventions to improve the lives of people in the zone of radiation contamination;

* Delhi: reduction of vehicle emissions that cause urban air pollution;

* Haina, Dominican Republic: removal of soil contaminated by the improper recycling of used car batteries, reducing lead levels in children's blood;

* Kalimantan, Indonesia: reduction of mercury poisoning from gold mining;

* Old Korogwe, Tanzania: removal of a stockpile of pesticides responsible for contaminating soil and a river;

* Rudnaya Pristan Region, Russia: removal of lead-contaminated soil in children's playgrounds;

* Shanghai: 12-year program to clean up sewage in an urban waterway that supplies drinking water to millions;

* West Bengal, India: reduction in arsenic poisoning through removal of naturally occurring arsenic in well water.