Showing posts with label infrastructure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infrastructure. Show all posts
13 January 2012
06 January 2012
Co-operative renewable energy in the UK: a guide to this growing sector (report)
Co-operatively-owned energy generation is a vibrant and growing sector in the UK. The first co‑operatively-owned wind turbines, Baywind in Cumbria, started turning in 1997. Since then, over 7,000 individual investors have ploughed over £16 million into community-owned renewable energy
by Rebecca Willis and Jenny Willis | Jan 5 2012 by Cooperatives UK in Energy Bulletin | Jan 5, 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related Content04 January 2012
Austria and Czech Republic divided over nuclear power
The disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan last year has re-shaped the debate in Europe on the future of atomic power
By Bethany Bell | BBC News | 4 January 2012
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Austrians voted against nuclear power in a 1979 referendum
02 January 2012
Renewable Energy Recap: India
Renewable energy markets in countries expand and shrink as policies, technologies and financial incentives change. This series of articles examines which technologies are flourishing where
By Sanjay Chakrabart and Sudipta Das, Ernst and Young | Renewable Energy World.com | December 28, 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentRenewable Energy Recap: United States
Renewable energy markets in countries expand and shrink as policies, technologies and financial incentives change. This series of articles examines which technologies are flourishing where
By Michael Bernier and Dorian Hunt, Ernst and Young | Renewable Energy World.com | December 28, 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentRenewable Energy Recap: China
Renewable energy markets in countries expand and shrink as policies, technologies and financial incentives change. This series of articles examines which technologies are flourishing where
By Ivan Tong and Ben Warren, Ernst and Young | Renewable Energy World.com | December 28, 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentRenewable Energy Recap: United Kingdom
Renewable energy markets in countries expand and shrink as policies, technologies and financial incentives change. This series of articles examines which technologies are flourishing where
By Ben Warren, Ernst and Young | Renewable Energy World.con | December 29, 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentRenewable Energy Recap: Argentina
Renewable energy markets in countries expand and shrink as policies, technologies and financial incentives change. This series of articles examines which technologies are flourishing where
By Enrique Grotz and Pablo Decundo, Ernst and Young | Renewable Energy World.com | January 2, 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentRenewable Energy Recap: Brazil
Renewable energy markets in countries expand and shrink as policies, technologies and financial incentives change. This series of articles examines which technologies are flourishing where
By Luiz Claudio S. Campo and Lucio Teixeira, Ernst and Young | Renewable Energy World.com | January 2, 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related Content29 December 2011
China wins $700 million Afghan oil and gas deal. Why didn't the US bid?
China’s National Petroleum Corporation became the first foreign company today to tap into Afghanistan’s oil and gas reserves. Officials estimate that the deal could be worth more than $700 million
By Tom A. Peter | The Christian Science Monitor | December 28, 2011
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China’s National Petroleum Corporation secured the first deal to tap into Afghanistan's oil and gas reserves. The deal could be worth $700 million. Jason Lee/Reuters/File
22 December 2011
Can we manage without growth? An interview with Peter Victor. Part Two
Surely in our present and unfolding predicament, to recalibrate our economy as a Steady State economy requires an enormous amount of infrastructure, investment and maybe we don’t have that kind of resource any more. Might the kind of more localised world that Transition is talking about be what we get by default rather than by design?
by Rob Hopkins | Transition Culture | 21 Dec 2011
19 December 2011
Indonesia Passes Land Acquisition Bill
Indonesia’s House of Representatives on Friday approved a long-awaited land acquisition bill investors hope will give a big boost to government infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia’s top economy
Jakarta Globe | December 16, 2011
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Indonesian members of parliament approved the final draft of a long-awaited land bill on Wednesday that investors hope will speed up land acquisition for government infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. (Antara Photo)
14 December 2011
Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry amends moratorium map and excludes oil palm concession issued in breach of moratorium
In August 2011, Irwandi Yusuf, governor of Aceh, signed a permit for a palm oil concession in the Tripa Peat Swamp, apparently in breach of the moratorium on new forest concessions under the Indonesia-Norway US$1 billion REDD deal
By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 14th December 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related Content25 October 2011
China 'won't follow US' on carbon emissions
China will not allow its carbon dioxide emissions per person to reach levels seen in the US, according to the minister in charge of climate policy
By Richard Black | BBC News Science & Environment | 25 October 2011
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Hydro is China's dominant low-carbon technology
24 October 2011
Bolivian road project through Amazon reserve canceled
Following a violent crackdown on protestors which deeply embarrassed the Bolivian government, president Evo Morales has thrown-out plans to build a road through an indigenous reserve, reports the BBC. Protestors marched 310 miles (498 kilometers) from the Amazon to La Paz to show their opposition to the road, saying that the project would destroy vast areas of biodiverse rainforest and open up their land to illegal settlers
Jeremy Hance | mongabay.com | October 23, 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related Content13 April 2010
U.N. Pact Doubt Curbs SAfrica Clean Energy Investment
Uncertainty over a global treaty to cut carbon emissions has slowed investment in clean energy in South Africa, where only a handful of such projects have started compared to other emerging markets
Olivia Kumwenda | Planet Ark | 13-Apr-10
A senior official from South Africa's agency for assessing domestic clean-energy projects told an African conference on biofuels on Monday the country, the continent's worst emitter, has lagged global trends in launching such projects.
Under the Kyoto protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), countries are required to cut carbon emissions by 5.2 percent by 2012.
"One of the barriers to CDM projects in South Africa is the uncertainty around the post-2012 regime, on whether the accord will continue or not," Ndiafhi Tuwani, the official at South Africa's Designated National Authority (DNA) said.
"Some of the potential project developers are reluctant because of that ...there is need for a new protocol or a new accord. The previous Copenhagen accord did not come up with a new protocol (beyond) 2012."
According to Tuwani, South Africa has 17 CDM projects registered to date, of which only 4 have been issued with CERs. The top two nations in the scheme, according to U.N. figures, are China with 787 projects and India with 498.
The CDM is part of the Kyoto protocol climate pact whose first phase ends in 2012 and there is no decision yet to extend it or agree on a separate climate treaty.
Under the agreement, rich nations that invest in clean-energy projects in developing countries earn certified emissions reductions (CERs) that can in return be sold for profit or used by polluting firms to meet their mandatory emissions targets.
A U.N meeting in Bonn, Germany on Sunday agreed to revive talks on a new deal to slow global warming after December's Copenhagen summit fell short of a binding deal.
CDM Africa Technical Manager Marco Lotz was optimistic projects aimed at cutting emissions would continue beyond 2012.
"Protocols come and go but it is not the end of the world if the Kyoto (protocol) expires. There is a whole industry that has evolved," said Lotz.
(Editing by Amanda Cooper)
© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
Read more... Sphere: Related Content25 March 2010
Native groups vow to fight pipeline
Aboriginal groups on Canada's Pacific Coast vowed on Tuesday to block Enbridge Inc's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to carry oil sands crude to export markets including China
Allan Dowd | Reuters | Mar 24, 2010
The groups said the environmental danger of oil tankers traveling through the coastal waters of British Columbia is too great, and the announcement could set the stage for a protracted legal and political fight over the pipeline.
"Some people are saying (the pipeline) is a done deal. It's not," Art Sterritt, executive director of the Coastal First Nations, a coalition of native Indian communities in the rugged wilderness area, often called the Great Bear Rainforest.
Canada's courts have ruled native groups must be consulted about projects built on their historic territories.
The proposed project would carry crude from the oil sands in northern Alberta to a port facility in Kitimat, British Columbia.
Aboriginal leaders said their opposition to the project was strong enough for them to continue the fight, even if Enbridge gets government and court permission to build it -- including blockading tankers.
"We are prepared to put boats across the channel," Gerald Amos, a director of the coalition and a native leader from the Kitimat area, told reporters at a news conference in Vancouver.
The groups announced their opposition on the 21st anniversary of the Exxon Valdez tanker's massive oil spill in Alaska. And the Vancouver announcement was accompanied by national newspaper ads comparing the two events.
Steve Wuori, vice-president of liquids pipelines for Enbridge Inc, Canada's second-largest pipeline company, told the Reuters Canadian Oil Sands Summit in Calgary that he was frustrated by the comparison to the Valdez disaster.
"It's disappointing to see the dialogue over what is an important infrastructure project under stringent environmental standards and engineering practices reduced to a recounting of a 21-year-old incident," Wuori said.
Tankers used today are safer and the company has pledged to install an emergency response system, Wuori said.
The Exxon Valdez accident lead to restrictions on oil tanker traffic on Canada's Pacific coast. The aboriginal groups said Enbridge's line will bring as many as 150 ships to Kitimat each year.
Enbridge expects to file for regulatory approvals for the 525,000 bpd line by mid-year and expects a decision from federal regulators to take 18 months or more. The line would not be in service before 2015. the company said.
The aboriginal groups hope their unified opposition would encourage the British Columbia provincial government to also come out against the pipeline.
British Columbia energy minister Blair Lekstrom said on Tuesday he would not take a position until Enbridge presents its full plan to regulators, but he also noted the project could bring needed jobs to the region.
(For map of Canada's oil sands, click on: link.reuters.com/geh54j; For graphic on world's largest oil reserves, 2008 link.reuters.com/ceh54j; For oil and gas investment in Albertalink.reuters.com/beh54j; U.S. petroleum imports by country link.reuters.com/zah54j)
(Reporting Allan Dowd, additional reporting by Scott Haggett and Jeffrey Jones; editing by Rob Wilson and Carol Bishopric)
© Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters
Read more... Sphere: Related Content07 March 2010
Elephants destroy houses in Riau
A number of wild elephants destroyed three houses in Petani village, Mandau sub-district, Bengkalis, on Thursday and Friday, local risidents said
ANTARA News | March 7, 2010
But there were no fatalities in the wild elephants` attacks as the house tenants could escape in time, Poiman, 45, told ANTARA here Saturday.
"We (local residents) have agreed to drive the wild elephants out of the village," he said.
Over the past week, the herbivorous animals have been entering the Petani village area -- home of more than 200 families.
On Friday night, the wild elephants destroyed the villagers` crops and two houses, he said.
The villagers had tried to drive them out by turning on lanterns, burning used tires and firing bamboo canons but failed to expel them.
Instead the animals approached the people, causing them to get panic and run away.
According to another villager, Sonia, 43, the elephants had also damaged crops on five hectares of the locals` farm land and a house on Thursday.
Patris, whose house was seriously damaged by the wild elephants, said the people`s safety was at stake so that 11 families had taken refuge in safer places.
Some of the displaced families moved to their relatives` houses, which were far away from their village, the 40-year-old Patris said.
Besides destroying three houses, the wild elephants also caused minor damage to at least 20 other houses. (*)
COPYRIGHT © 2010
Read more... Sphere: Related Content28 February 2010
ENVIRONMENT-CHINA: Dam Plans Open Gates to Tough Choices Ahead
The Nu River flows from the Tibetan highlands through China’s western Yunnan province, cutting between two mountain ranges before rushing through Burma into the Andaman Sea. It is home to a third of the country’s ethnic groups and a diverse ecosystem of 7,000 species of plants and 80 rare or endangered animals and fish
By Gordon Ross | Inter-Press Service | Feb 25, 2010
China needs electricity. But what does this mean for the Nu River,one of only two major rivers in China yet to be dammed? Credit:Gordon Ross/IPS
It was here that Christian missionaries from Burma first entered China, and today communities of ethnic Nu and Tibetans remain passionately Catholic, attending mass in small churches and chanting under pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
It is one of the country’s most remote and fascinating places, and one of only two major rivers in China yet to be dammed.
But that may not last.
In 2003, a consortium of power companies proposed building 13 dams along the Nu (the name means "angry", referring to the river’s spring surge), a project that would produce more electricity than the Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze in Hubei province. The move brought together China’s fledgling environmental movement, which launched a vocal campaign to keep the Nu free-flowing.
National and international press picked up the story, and in 2004 Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a halt to the project and a full environmental assessment – a crucial victory for China’s environmentalists.
The victory was shortlived. The environmental assessment was never released to the public. The government claimed that because the Nu is an international river – known outside of China as the Salween – development plans fell under state secrecy law.
The project was scaled down from 13 dams to four, and preliminary work went ahead despite Wen’s edict. In March 2008, the State Development and Reform Commission published its five-year plan for energy development, which listed dams on the Nu as key projects.
Today, the construction of a small dam on a tributary to the Nu, just south of the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), is nearly complete.
In 2007, residents of Xiaoshaba, a village of some 120 families upstream from the city of Liuku, were relocated into newly-built apartment blocks to make way for a power station. Meanwhile, in Burma to the south a planned dam project will produce electricity that will be sold back to China.
Last May, Premier Wen once again stopped the projects until a full environmental assessment is completed. But observers say that when the 67-year-old premier steps down in 2012, the projects will resume.
While environmentalists remain staunchly opposed to damming the Nu, the controversy is not black and white. China is hungry for energy and 80 percent of the country’s electrical supply is currently provided by dirty coal-fired plants. Hydropower, which accounts for just 15 percent of China’s electricity, is seen as a cleaner – albeit controversial – alternative.
The dams could also bring much needed jobs to the impoverished Nu region. The local government has estimated that just 20 percent of residents in the region have electricity, something the dams could remedy.
Along the Nu, opinion varies. Kristen McDonald, an American who interviewed 200 villagers along the river for her graduate thesis, found that roughly one third support the project, one third opposes and one third are undecided.
In Xiaoshaba, the relocated village made up primarily of Lisu people, residents said they are generally happy with their new homes – rows of spacious two-storey apartments a few kilometres from the old village.
"The old village and the new one are pretty much the same," says Li Yu Xin, a 40-year-old mini-bus driver who receives a monthly relocation subsidy of 800 renminbi (117 U.S. dollars) along with his apartment. "The only problem is we can’t keep animals – there’s no room for them. But I like the new one fine. I support the central government’s decision."
Further upstream, near the town of Bingzhongluo, one villager, a Tibetan trekking guide, is less certain about the benefits of damming the Nu. The villager, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, is in the fifth year of what he hopes will be a 20-year video documentary project chronicling the impact of the dams.
"People are more and more aware of the changes that would come from the dam, and they know they’re not good," he says. "I worry about how we’re going to keep these villages alive."
Indeed, local culture will be jeopardised should the project go ahead, says Wang Yongchen, a journalist and co-founder of the Beijing-based NGO Green Earth Volunteers, a group that was actively involved in the initial fight to save the Nu. Many villagers will have to be relocated from their traditional homes to cities up- and downstream. In one area near Liuku, a traditional Lisu bathing site will be washed away.
"If you dam the river, their culture, their tradition, disappears," Wang says.
Dam opponents are hoping that an ongoing public awareness campaign will rally increasingly environmentally-conscious Chinese to call upon their government to protect the Nu and other areas like it.
Travis Winn, a 26-year-old American who, with McDonald, co-founded China Rivers Project, a non-profit that aims to protect China’s river heritage, hosts rafting trips to the Nu and other rivers with influential and wealthy Chinese who are in a position to take action.
"The science is there – the dams don’t make a lot of sense. But unless there’s a more personal aspect to this, the science isn’t very useful. That’s what we’re trying to do, make a personal connection," Winn says. "The universal response is, ‘I’ve never had this experience before. I never thought China had such beautiful places.’ It’s the time of their lives." (END)
Copyright © 2010 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved
Read more... Sphere: Related Content24 February 2010
REDD: Breathing new life into the scam of carbon trading
This article was published in the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 151, February 2010. It is loosely based on a presentation I gave at a workshop in Bogor earlier this month, about local media and REDD. The workshop was organised by the Indonesian local media association ASTEKI and the Samdhana Institute
By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 23rd February 2010
World Rainforest Movement has been closely (and critically) following the climate negotiations for many years and has a huge amount of information about climate change and forests on its website.
REDD: Breathing new life into the scam of carbon trading
Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is based on a simple idea: Making forests worth more alive than dead. But on closer examination, it is not simple at all. To forest peoples, forests already are worth more alive than dead. REDD could involve the biggest ever transfer of control over forests – to international carbon financiers and polluting companies.
A massive new market in forest carbon would come with a series of new (and not so new) risks. In an article describing how Goldman Sachs helped create (and profit from) the financial bubble that so spectacularly burst a couple of years ago, journalist Matt Taibbi explains that “Instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs , the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits . . . a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an ‘environmental plan’.”[1] This new market in carbon derivatives “will be vast, complicated, and dauntingly difficult to monitor,” writes Rachel Morris in Mother Jones magazine.[2]
But it is not only journalists who are concerned about the complexities of this new market. Feike Sijbesma is the Chief Executive Officer of Royal DSM, one of the largest Dutch multinational corporations. “There are now already in development derivatives of CO2 prices that are so complicated that I do not understand it any more,” he said at the World Economics Forum earlier this year. “If you get a reservoir of derivatives which becomes so big that it becomes an industry in itself that is very dangerous because you can get the tail wagging the dog.”[3]
At least one hedge fund company is already betting on the carbon market collapsing. “We think there’s a 30 percent chance the market collapses,” says Anthony Limbrick, the chief investment officer of the hedge fund firm, Pure Capital. Limbrick, however, is not too worried about a collapse. “That could create a ‘fat tail’ (a very rare event with major consequences) for us to make money.”[4]
Proponents of financing REDD through carbon trading put forward two apparently contradictory arguments. The first is the “low-hanging fruit” argument – stopping deforestation is one of the cheapest and easiest ways of reducing emissions. “Tropical forest conservation is a critically strategic climate change solution,” says Jeff Horowitz of Avoided Deforestation Partners, “because it is more affordable than technologically intensive solutions therefore allowing bigger pollution reductions than would otherwise be economically or politically feasible.”[5] Horowitz and his organisation have lobbied hard to make sure that carbon offsets are part of the draft climate legislation in the US. Horowitz also estimates that “protecting tropical forests will cut the cost of U.S. climate legislation almost in half – saving Americans billions.”[6]
The second is that reducing deforestation needs so much money, that the only way of financing REDD is to make sure that the carbon markets are involved. Here’s Horowitz again: “The only path to secure the $40 billion annually that may be needed to end and ultimately reverse deforestation is through creating incentives for private investment.”[7]
Of course there is no guarantee that throwing vast sums of money at the problem of deforestation will make it go away. Underlying causes of deforestation include corruption and illegal logging. The Forestry Ministries in several REDD countries are the most corrupt ministries in some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Illegal logging accounts for a large proportion of timber exports from many of the countries currently interested in implementing REDD.
“Alarm bells are ringing,” says Peter Younger, a specialist in environmental crimes at Interpol. “It is simply too big to monitor. The potential for criminality is vast and has not been taken into account by the people who set it up.” In an interview with the Guardian last year, Younger notes that “Organised crime syndicates are eyeing the nascent forest carbon market . . . REDD schemes are open to wide abuse.”[8]
Abuse is already happening, in both the forest and the market. Papua New Guinea has seen fake carbon credits, carbon cowboys and a series of dodgy-looking deals with landowners. Meanwhile in Europe, carbon credit fraud in the Emission Trading System (ETS) has resulted in losses of about five billion euros. The European Law Enforcement Agency estimates that “in some countries up to 90 per cent of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.”[9]
The risks are obvious. So is the impossibility of regulating such a complex market. And the point of this whole shaky edifice, apart from generating huge profits for carbon traders? To ensure that companies can buy carbon credits allowing them to continue pumping out greenhouse gases.
[1] Matt Taibbi (2009) “The Great American Bubble Machine“, Rolling Stone, July 2009.
[2] Rachel Morris (2009) “Could Cap and Trade Cause Another Market Meltdown?” Mother Jones, June 2009.
[3] Ben Hirschler (2010) “DSM CEO cautions on carbon derivatives dangers“, Reuters, 27 January 2010.
[4] “Hedge fund firm eyes carbon“, Reuters, 19 June 2009.
[5] “‘We must take advantage of low-hanging fruit solutions such as forest conservation’: Interview with Jeff Horowitz“, REDD-Monitor, 19 February 2010.
[6] Rhett Butler (2010) “Forest conservation in U.S. climate policy: an interview with Jeff Horowitz“, mongabay.com, 5 February 2010.
[7] “‘We must take advantage of low-hanging fruit solutions such as forest conservation’: Interview with Jeff Horowitz“, REDD-Monitor, 19 February 2010.
[8] John Vidal (2009) “UN’s forest protection scheme at risk from organised crime, experts warn“, The Guardian, 5 October 2009.
[9] “Carbon Credit fraud causes more than 5 billion euros damage for European Taxpayer“, Europol, 9 December 2009.
REDD-Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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