Archive for June, 2009

 

The world’s first floating wind turbine is to be towed out to sea this weekend.

Statoil’s Alexandra Beck Gjorv told the BBC the technology, the Hywind, to be put off Norway’s coast – “should help move offshore wind farms out of sight”.

And it could lead to offshore wind farms eventually being located many miles offshore, away from areas where they cause disruption, Ms Gjorv added.

This would benefit military radar operations, the shipping industry, fisheries, bird life and tourism.

“Taking wind turbines to sea presents new opportunities,” said Ms Gjorv, of Statoil’s new energy division.

“The wind is stronger and more consistent [and] areas are large.”

Floating wind farms are set to be connected to mainland grids via cables across the seabed. The longer the cable, the more expensive it is, so the distance from land is not set to become unlimited, explained Ms Gjorv.

The Hywind, a 2.3 megawatt (MW) wind turbine built by Siemens, combines technologies from both the wind farming industry and the oil and gas sectors, and will be tested off the coast of Norway for two years.

In a similar way to how large parts of icebergs are hidden below the sea surface, the turbine has a 100 metre draft that is anchored to the seabed with cables, that can be up to 700 metres long.

Wealthy customers

Offshore wind farms cost considerably more than wind farms on land, and initially floating ones will be more expensive than static offshore installations.

But over time, insisted Ms Gjorv, the floating turbines should not cost more than fixed ones.

Statoil plans to target markets where there is both an ability to pay as well as large and growing demand for energy, she added.

Floating wind farms could later be established off both coasts of North America and off the Iberian peninsula and the coasts of Norway and the United Kingdom, she said.

Floating wind farms could provide an additional source of energy for countries that have run out of space for their onshore wind farms, or where there is not enough wind on land, Ms Gjorv added.

“The global market for such turbines is potentially enormous, depending on how low we can press costs,” she said, though she was not able to quantify it or to outline a timescale for when floating wind farms would become commercially available. 

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Although we feel it will have a negative effect on the value of the carbon credit market, it could be better in the short term, read this report from the New Scientist On-line:

For the first time in eight years, countries are contemplating giving nuclear stations carbon credits in the run-up to the crucial world summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. This could greatly boost prospects of a global nuclear expansion.

Draft text currently under negotiation at climate change talks by 182 countries in Bonn, Germany, includes an option to make nuclear facilities eligible for funding from 2012 under two schemes meant to help poorer countries develop low-carbon technologies: the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation.

Nuclear power was excluded from these schemes under the Kyoto protocol in 2001, after opposition from European and developing countries. Now the nuclear industry is hoping to overturn that, and open the door for funding to flow to nuclear stations across the developing world.

“The whole world will benefit if we can encourage developing countries to meet their rapidly increasing energy needs through low-carbon technologies like nuclear energy, drawing on international support,” says Jonathan Cobb, from the World Nuclear Association (WNA).

New figures from the association reveal that the amount of nuclear electricity generated globally in 2008 was the lowest for five years because of a number of decommissions. The WNA is, however, expecting a “new wave of nuclear build” after 2012.

‘Safety and security issues’

But, “it’s a survival strategy for the nuclear industry not the planet”, according to Shaun Burnie, a nuclear energy consultant and former Greenpeace campaigner: He estimates that carbon credits could cut the capital cost of building new nuclear stations by up to 40%.

Climate change experts are cautious. Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Manchester and East Anglia universities in the UK, has “serious reservations” about the CDM. However, he thinks that nuclear power should be considered “provided safety and security issues are satisfactorily addressed”.

Robert Stavins, director of a project on international climate agreements at Harvard University, argues that a “carefully designed” provision to include nuclear power could be “helpful” in combating climate change. “But the promotion of nuclear power also brings with it a host of other environmental concerns,” he says.

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German ICF Construction System speedbuild and save costs

 ”A tomato seed is planted on the ground floor on a rotating spiral and when it arrives at the top, 30 days later, you pick the fruit,” the vice president of Plantagon, Hans Hassle, told AFP.

In a few decades, 80 percent of the global population will live in cities, increasing the need “to grow fruits and vegetables in an urban environment due to the lack of land,” he said.

With a vertical greenhouse, “we could have fresh organic produce every day and sell it directly to consumers in the city,” Hassle said.

That way, “we would save 70 percent on the cost of fresh produce because right now 70 percent of the price is transport and storage costs,” he said.

Fresh and healthy produce would thereby also become more readily available to those with slim budgets, he added.

No vertical greenhouse exists yet, but “several cities in Scandinavia and in China have expressed an interest,” Hassle said.

Each installation would cost around 30 million dollars (21 million euros), much more than a regular greenhouse. But the investment would rapidly turn a profit, he insisted.

“With ground space of 10,000 square metres (107, 640 square feet), a vertical greenhouse represents the equivalent of 100,000 square metres of cultivated land” thanks to the rotating spiral that allows continual planting.

“An inventor came up with the idea 20 years ago but none of the people he presented it to believed in it. He presented it to me 10 years ago and it seemed like a good idea, so I talked to Sweco, a Swedish engineering firm, and they agreed to build these vertical greenhouses,” Hassle explained.

A virtual image of what one of the greenhouses could look like resembles a large glass sphere with a pillar in the middle, around which the seedlings rotate on a platform.

“It looks fantastic like that, but the technology is simple,” Hassle said.

(c) 2009 AFP

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Seismologists spend a lot of time listening to the earth. Ocean acoustic monitors have been providing information on the earth’s vibrations since the 1930’s. But there are other sounds those monitors pick up as well, for instance those of waves and choppy waters. These sounds are usually considered just noise and are filtered out of the equation.

But researchers now realize that paying attention to what was previously considered noise can help monitor global climate change. That’s according to a study in a recent issue of the journal Science.

In shallow coastal waters, the breaking waves directly hit the ground and cause vibrations. In deeper waters, waves traveling in nearly opposite directions create a pulse that travels all the way to the ocean floor and causes new vibrations that can travel long distances.

Measured at 30-second intervals, these are called microseisms. They’re unique and not detectable on land. And they can help us understand more about the frequency, intensity and duration of storms.

An 80-year archive of acoustic information already exists. The length, stability and regularity give these data a leg up over a sometimes spotty historical scientific climate record. Another tool to understand more about our changing climate.

Source: Scientific American 

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We (Greencon) got this article from the Climate Progress Blog: Fantastic. Let it be a lesson for all who doubt that change is what is neccessary, and fast!! 

Yesterday, long-time GM critic Michael Moore offered his take on the auto giant’s demise (here).  He calls for a radical change in GM’s mission — a WWII-style rapid reengineering of the company to address the planet’s environmental crisis.  Terrific idea (see “Advice to a young climate blogger: Always use WWII metaphors“).  He deserves to be heard because he warned us all two decades ago what was ahead for GM in his career-making first film.

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM’s birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented “planned obsolescence” — the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one — has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh — and that wouldn’t start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the “inferior” Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to “improve” the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company’s body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with — dare I say it — joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know — who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let’s be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we’ve allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is “reorganized” by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made “Roger & Me,” I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

 

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war — a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call “cars” may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn’t give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true — that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don’t put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce — and most of those who have been laid off — employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades — and we don’t even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven’t used it, is criminal. Let’s hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we’re going to have automobiles, let’s have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories — that simply isn’t true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that’s a start. Please, please, please don’t save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don’t throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front — and the back — seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it’s over. It’s a new day and a new century. The President — and the UAW — must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

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IN LINE with international trends, the government has proposed environmental tax incentives in an attempt to address the negative effects of climate change. 

The draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill 2009, which was released for comment earlier this week by the Treasury, contains two incentives in support of the environment. Businesses will be able to cut their tax bill by reducing their carbon emissions.

Firstly, an income tax incentive is proposed for any business that takes part in a clean development mechanism project. The incentive applies to the disposal of carbon emission reductions. The disposal of these carbon reductions will be exempt from income tax.

The cleaning mechanism development initiative was set up under the Kyoto Protocol to allow industrialised countries to invest in projects to reduce carbon emissions. The reduction of carbon emissions is the elimination of harmful industrial by-products.
Emil Brincker, a tax director at commercial law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, said yesterday there had been a limited uptake of cleaning development mechanism projects in SA. This was largely due to financial difficulties encountered by companies, he said. “The proposal to introduce tax incentives on the disposal of carbon emissions was in line with international norms,” Brincker said.

“The government recognised that climate change was becoming a top priority.”In December, petrochemicals group Sasol applied to register a clean development mechanism project with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, for the right to produce and sell carbon credits.

SA’s greenhouse-gas emissions rank in the top 20 in the world, contribute 1,8% to global emissions and are responsible for 42% of Africa’s emissions. Secondly, the amendment bill proposes that businesses will be able to obtain deductions from income tax for energy saved provided there is documentary proof of the resulting energy efficiencies certified by the Energy Efficiency Agency.Meanwhile the bill also contains a set of proposals on the conversion of secondary tax on companies to the new dividends tax. Brincker said the amendments would provide clarity for companies.

While the new system is better aligned with international practice, the government had recognised that it was more complicated as it now had to cover a wide range of shareholders, he said. The South African Revenue Service stood to lose a “few billions of rand” in the conversion process, he said.

Further, the bill contained amendments relating to the repeal of the deemed kilometre method for deducting travel expenses with effect from March 1 next year. Taxpayers who used their private vehicles for businesses purposes and who received a travel allowance would still be able to claim such expense by maintaining a logbook of business kilometres travelled. “Many taxpayers had abused the travelling allowance system in the past,” Brincker said.

Source: Business Day 

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This was posted on Moneyweb today: COnfirming previous blogs on this site

The utility will have to increase tariffs by 90% if it fails to get funding for this years part of the project.

South Africa’s Eskom may have to form a public-private partnership to fund its new power generation programme without having to increase tariffs by 90 percent, a government official said on Thursday.

Eskom applied for a 34 percent increase in the tariffs last month, but said it might have to ask for more by the end of the year if it fails to source the money elsewhere.

The state-owned utility has launched a 385 billion rand expansion over five years to ease power shortages in Africa’s biggest economy, but has failed to raise all the capital in the face of the global financial crisis.

The country’s power regulator said last week Eskom would need a 90 percent increase in tariffs this year if it failed to get the funding required for this year’s part of the programme.

Nelisiwe Magubane, deputy director general at the country’s newly formed energy ministry, said the alternative option was for Eskom to partner with others, or the government to give Eskom another capital injection or supply further guarantees.

“Eskom can request government to get more guarantees, (can ask) government to do an injection or ask for a partnership so that the projects get done,” Magubane said.

She said no projects would be delayed given the necessity to increase power supply in the country.

Magubane said Eskom had not yet approached the government about a partnership possibility, but discussions on the proper funding model for the utility were ongoing.

She said the Kusile power plant project — one of two coal-fired 4,800 MW power stations Eskom is building as part of the expansion programme — could end up in a partnership deal.

She said the government was working to find a way forward for its nuclear programme which has stalled after Eskom cancelled a tender process last year citing financial woes.

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Is India on the brink of becoming a solar superpower?

Not quite yet. But, significantly, the government is pondering a massive energy transition that could deliver 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020 and 200,000 MW by 2050, according to a long-awaited draft strategy leaked to The Hindu.

The 200,000 MW goal is 30 percent more than India’s current installed power generation capacity across all energy sectors, which stands at nearly 150,000 MW. Solar makes up just 3 MW of that.

If the government’s “National Solar Mission” moves forward, it would be the most ambitious solar scheme of any nation, by far. At the very least, it deserves strong consideration.

India, the world’s sixth largest energy consumer, is in dire need of a ramp up of generation capacity. By 2020, the nation will require 400,000 MW of electricity. Currently, efforts are in the works to make good on the government’s pledge of “Power for All by 2012,” which promises to provide electricity to all rural households. Just fulfilling that would require 50,000 MW of additional capacity over the next three years.

The fact that India must build, and not rebuild, its entire energy infrastructure puts it in a unique position to establish a green economy. And solar seems a no-brainer choice to focus its investments.

Its potential in India is off the charts. With 250 to 300 clear sunny days a year, India’s solar resource capacity is a thousand times greater than the nation’s likely electricity demand by 2015.

Tapping a tiny fraction of that could turn India into a global renewables powerhouse, and an engine for growth and green jobs.

The government’s solar mission would be implemented in three phases. Phase one, from 2009-2012, would target 1,000 MW of new capacity. From 2012 and 2017, the nation would focus on developing utility-scale concentrating solar plants to accelerate the ramp up. Finally, between 2017 and 2020, the aim would be grid parity, the point at which solar becomes as cheap as fossil fuels, to get to the 20,000 MW mark. By 2050, the full infrastructure would be in place.

So what would it cost? Around $18 to $22 billion over 30 years, according to The Hindu.

What a bargain – and a giant underestimate.

A March 2009 Greenpeace report, which analyzed a broader energy scenario, found that wealthy nations could help enable a massive renewable energy uptake in India by 2030 through an international Feed-in Tariff Support Mechanism. Specifically, for a cost of $195 billion in international financing spread out over 20 years (not including capital costs), India could add 310,000 MW of new renewable energy capacity. Around 45 percent of that would come from solar.

A December 2007 report by the The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) concluded that it would cost $5.4 trillion for India to get to a 75 percent “renewables” share, includng nuclear.

Whatever the costs, most of it will be in up-front investments. As Sven Teske, author of the Greenpeace report, told the WorldWatch Institute:

“Over 30 years, India would make money.”

And the truth is, any delays in realizing a big solar vision are not merely about cash but rather political will, he said. In fact:

“If India leveraged 1 paise, or one-hundredth of a rupee, on every kilowatt hour generated by coal-fired utilities, we would have enough money to implement all renewables here in India.”

India is well known for rhetoric over its renewable pledges. There’s still a scarcity of real targets and goals in its vague climate plans, and you won’t find dollar commitments. V. Subramanian, who CEO of India’s Wind Energy Association, explained why:

“The government of India does not currently have the machinery to implement such a strategy at a national level. This has to be done by state governments, and as yet the engagement between the two on this is not strong.”

What will it take to get this solar mission accomplished?

Source: Solve Climate Blog

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