How to Start Your Own Power Company, Stop Coal and Nukes, and Transform Your City

2011 Goldman Prize winner Ursula Sladek discusses how she became an unwitting energy mogul -- and a global environmental hero

By Sven Eberlein | AlterNet |March 28, 2012

Photo Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

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End of coal power plants? EPA proposes new rules

The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed the first-ever standards to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants -- a move welcomed by environmentalists but criticized by some utilities as well as Republicans, who are expected to use it as election campaign fodder

By msnbc.com Staff | MSNBC | March 27, 2012

This coal-fired power plant is used by the city of Chicago, which last month decided to close it down by the end of 2014. A second coal plant will be closed by the end of this year. Chicago is the only large U.S. city with coal-fired power plants operating within its city limits. M. Spencer Green / AP

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China's nuclear power plant review: 'problems in 14 areas' found

Should we be concerned? A nuclear official said in passing this weekend that problems in 14 areas need to be resolved. In the wake of Fukushima, a shade more transparency would be welcome

By Peter Ford | Christian Science Monitor | March 12, 2012

A Chinese flag is seen near a nuclear power plant in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, February 15. Carlos Barria/REUTERS

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Power groups face huge carbon bill

Victoria's major power generators have emerged as some of the biggest carbon emitters in the country and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars under the carbon tax - costs that will largely be passed on to consumers

David Wroe | The Age | February 29, 2012

Hazelwood Power Station. Photo: Pat Scala

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Nigeria again delays power sector privatisation

Nigeria has again pushed back the timeframe for selling off state-owned power assets, its privatisation agency said on Monday, another setback for reforms which investors hope will unlock the potential of Africa's second largest economy

Reuters | Feb 20, 2012

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Community power projects urged to challenge big firms

Community-run renewable energy projects should be promoted by ministers to break the grip that the Big Six power firms have over consumers, a leading think-tank director has said

Scotsman.com | 12 February 2012

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission Ignores Fukushima, Green-Lights First New Reactors in 34 Years

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted a construction and operating licenseto Southern Co. for two reactors to be added to its Plant Vogtle facility in Georgia. The OK is the first granted by the US regulator since 1978

by: Gregg Levine | Capitoilette in truthout | 10 February 2012

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Once, men abused slaves. Now we abuse fossil fuels

Pointing out the similarities (and differences) between slavery and the use of fossil fuels can help us engage with climate change in a new way

Jean-François Mouhot | guardian.co.uk | 3 February 2012

'That US Congressmen tend to rationalise fossil fuel use despite climate risks to future generations just as southern congressmen rationalised slavery despite ideals of equality is perhaps unsurprising'. Photograph: Joseph Sohm/Corbis

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German funds plan $2-bln Oman solar project

Private investment funds Terra Nex of Switzerland and Germany's Middle East Best Select (MEBS) plan to build 400 megawatts (MW) of solar power generating capacity in Oman, the European investors said on Sunday

Reuters | Jan 15, 2012

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Power Plants Accounted for 72 Percent Of Greenhouse Gases Reported in 2010

Power plants emitted 2.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) in 2010, 72.3 percent of reported emissions nationwide, according to data released by the Environmental Protection Agency Jan. 11

By Andrew Childers and Avery Fellow | Daily Environment Report™ in Bloomberg News | January 12, 2012

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Time to Worry: World Oil Production Finishes Six Years of No Growth

As oil prices rose ever higher in the last decade, the optimists kept predicting rising production capacity and plummeting prices. Looks like they got it wrong

By Kurt Cobb | SCITIZEN | 2 Nov 2011

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Coal study names top 20 ‘climate killer’ banks

Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC are among the top banks that have lent billions of euros to the coal sector – despite their much-vaunted environmental credentials, a new investigation has found

by Fiona Harvey | OurWorld 2.0 | December 2, 2011

Power Plant Scholven. Photo by Guy Gorek.

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Recognizing good science when you see it: climate change seen by depletion scientists

One of the most interesting talks at the recent meeting on Energy organized by the Club of Rome in Basel, was the one given by Ian Dunlop, of ASPO Australia (photo on the right). It was not so much on energy, but on the interconnection of energy with climate change. It was up to date and saying the things that needed to be said. That is, Ian Dunlop didn't shy away from saying that climate change is threatening the very existence of our civilization and that we must do something quick about it. It was an excellent talk, give a look to the slides if you have a moment, here is the link

by Ugo Bardi | Dec 4 2011 by Cassandra's legacy in Energy Bullein | Dec 4, 2011

The panel of discussants at the first session of ASPO-9 in Brussels. From left to right, Pierre Mauriaud (Total); Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (IPCC); Kjell Aleklett (ASPO); Colin Campbell (ASPO); Paul Hohnen (Greenpeace). During the discussion,  Colin Campbell, founder and honorary chairman of ASPO, said "I am convinced," referring to the talk on climate change by Van Ypersele. A good scientist can always recognize good science when he sees it. Unfortunately, it seems that many people involved with peak oil studies don't often interact with serious climate science and their view of it remains linked to the distortions presented in the mainstream media

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Green energy could trigger 'catastrophic' blackouts

'Unstable' renewable energy sources increase the risk of 'supra-regional' electricity blackouts with multi-billion pound consequences, insurance giant Allianz has warned

By Matthew Holehouse | The Telegraph | 23 Nov 2011

Renewable energy is volatile and risks triggering devastating power outages, Allianz have warned Photo: Alamy

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Seven investors to build power plants in S Sulawesi

Seven investors in South Sulawesi expressed readiness to make an investment in building power plants in the province

ANTARA News | March 30, 2010

The seven investors expressed their readiness during a discussion on electricity here on Monday attended by General Manager state power company PT. PLN Sultan Batara for South, West and Southeast Sulawesi here on Monday.

PT PLN General Manager Ahmad Siang guaranteed that the power crisis in South Sulawesi would be over in the next three years.

He said he has opened the opportunity to investors interested in joining the power sector, especially that the state power company was still considerably short of power supply.

"On March 31, 2010, PLN had promised to stop imposing power cuts, which had actually already be started 14 days ago," he stressed.

With regard to the excess power supply, he said he was rather pessimistic whether PLN would be able to sell the electricity.

"Actually PLN is expecting that up to 2014, there will be some 50,000 new subscribers," Ahmad said.

But under the current PLN management board, the company said it is already committed to continue serving the public the best it can, so that there would no be any power cuts in the coming years.

In the meantime head of the BKPMD control and supervisory division Yos Harmen said for the time being only two investors have realized their investment to build power plants with a capacity of 195 MW.

"Right now, the two independent power producers were considering raising the production capacity by 220 MW, namely a PLTG by 2x 60 MW, and a PLTA by 100 MW, to be realized in the next three years," he said.

He said the seven investors may have a capacity to invest a total of Rp6.9 trillion.

"If all the investment has been realized, it had been estimated that South Sulawesi would have a large excess of power supply in the three years," he said.

The seven investors are PT Energy Sengkang with an investment of 221 million US dollars, PT Makassar Power 70 million dollars, PT Malea Rp882 billion, PT Sulawesi Mini Hydro 2.5 million dollars, PT Bosowa Energy Rp1.74 trillion, PT Fajar Futura Energi Rp40.8 billion, and PT Kassa Listrindo Rp1.2 trillion.

Some foreign investors also wishing to investment the province include PT Energy Sengkang, PT Makassar Power, and PT Sulawesi Mini Hydro, in addition to domestic investment current still being processed.

He said that only two of the investment of the seven power plant companies had been realized so far, because of internal problems and the lack of agreement on the price of electricity for PLN.

"The BKPMD is already giving facilities to investors, including tax reduction for the import of generators by 10 to nil percent, and generator import duty exemption by 10 to nil percent," he said.

These are only some of the facilities given by BKPMD, but why five investors have not started building their power plants?, he said. (*)

COPYRIGHT © 2010

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China overtakes US in green investment: study

China has surpassed the United States as the top investor in clean energy with the rising Asian power becoming a "powerhouse" in the emerging field, a study by environmentalists said

Shaun Tandon | AFP in Yahoo! News | 24 March 2010

Chinese investment in clean energy soared by more than 50 percent in 2009 to reach …More

The report said that China has shown determination to be on the frontline of green technology, while US investors have been put off by uncertainties amid the legislative battle on climate change.

Chinese investment in clean energy soared by more than 50 percent in 2009 to reach 34.6 billion dollars, far more than any other country in the Group of 20 major economies, the study led by the Pew Charitable Trusts said.

Total US investment was about half that at 18.6 billion dollars, the first time in five years that the world's largest economy lost the top spot in clean energy, the study said.

"China is emerging as the world's clean energy powerhouse," Phyllis Cuttino, global warming campaign director of the Pew EnvironmentGroup, told reporters on a conference call.

"This represents a dramatic growth when you consider that just five years ago their investment totaled 2.5 billion dollars," she said.

China has also overtaken the United States as the top emitter of carbon blamed for global warming and came under fire for its role in December's much-criticized UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

But the study found that China had made a strategic decision to invest in wind and solar technologies as it copes with sharply rising demand for energy -- and has set some of the world's most ambitious targets on renewable energy.

The study also found strong investment by Britain, which ranked third with 11.2 billion dollars for clean energy; Spain, which came in first in green investment when taken as percentage of gross domestic product, and Germany.

Nations seen as struggling in the clean energy competition include the United States, Australia and Japan, the study said. Cuttino said the three nations have "less consistent, clear and long-term policies in place."

US President Barack Obama, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama have all championed climate action but none of the countries have set in motion nationwide plans to curb emissions.

But the study noted that Australia had potential in wind energy and said Japan was "one of the G-20's most promising growth markets" if the resource-poor nation carries out plans to ramp up solar and wind power.

The study found that even though the United States dominates technological innovation, its investment in clean energy tumbled 42 percent last year from 2008 levels.

The researchers partly blamed the global economic slowdown but also said there was a lack of direction. Climate legislation has been stalled in the Senate, although Obama allies have vowed to push it ahead now that Congress has completed the top priority of expanding health care.

John Woolard, chief executive officer of California-based solar plant builder BrightSource EnergyInc., said that the government needed to take action to create markets.

"We have never had certainty or predictability in the United States," Woolard said. "We have not had a thoughtful and coherent energy policy in this country for decades."

Obama and his congressional allies argue that curbing emissions will open up a new green economy, helping fuel the economic recovery.

Many Republican leaders are skeptical, saying that restrictions on carbon would only worsen a fragile economy.

Copyright © 2010 AFP

Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! All rights reserved

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An unconventional glut

Newly economic, widely distributed sources are shifting the balance of power in the world’s gas markets

The Economist | Mar 11th 2010

SOME time in 2014 natural gas will be condensed into liquid and loaded onto a tanker docked in Kitimat, on Canada’s Pacific coast, about 650km (400 miles) north-west of Vancouver. The ship will probably take its cargo to Asia. This proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, to be built by Apache Corporation, an American energy company, will not be North America’s first. Gas has been shipped from Alaska to Japan since 1969. But if it makes it past the planning stages, Kitimat LNG will be one of the continent’s most significant energy developments in decades.

Five years ago Kitimat was intended to be a point of import, not export, one of many terminals that would dot the coast of North America. There was good economic sense behind the rush. Local production of natural gas was waning, prices were surging and an energy-hungry America was worried about the lights going out.

Now North America has an unforeseen surfeit of natural gas. The United States’ purchases of LNG have dwindled. It has enough gas under its soil to inspire dreams of self-sufficiency. Other parts of the world may also be sitting on lots of gas. Those in the vanguard of this global gas revolution say it will transform the battle against carbon, threaten coal’s domination of electricity generation and, by dramatically reducing the power of exporters of oil and conventional gas, turn the geopolitics of energy on its head.

Deep in the heart of Texas

The source of America’s transformation lies in the Barnett Shale, an underground geological structure near Fort Worth, Texas. It was there that a small firm of wildcat drillers, Mitchell Energy, pioneered the application of two oilfield techniques, hydraulic fracturing (“fracing”, pronounced “fracking”) and horizontal drilling, to release natural gas trapped in hardy shale-rock formations. Fracing involves blasting a cocktail of chemicals and other materials into the rock to shatter it into thousands of pieces, creating cracks that allow the gas to seep to the well for extraction. A “proppant”, such as sand, stops the gas from escaping. Horizontal drilling allows the drill bit to penetrate the earth vertically before moving sideways for hundreds or thousands of metres.

These techniques have unlocked vast tracts of gas-bearing shale in America (see map). Geologists had always known of it, and Mitchell had been working on exploiting it since the early 1990s. But only as prices surged in recent years did such drilling become commercially viable. Since then, economies of scale and improvements in techniques have halved the production costs of shale gas, making it cheaper even than some conventional sources.

The Barnett Shale alone accounts for 7% of American gas supplies. Shale and other reservoirs once considered unexploitable (coal-bed methane and “tight gas”) now meet half the country’s demand. New shale prospects are sprinkled across North America, from Texas to British Columbia. One authority says supplies will last 100 years; many think that is conservative. In 2008 Russia was the world’s biggest gas producer (see chart 1); last year, with output of more than 600 billion cubic metres, America probably overhauled it. North American gas prices have slumped from more than $13 per million British thermal units in mid-2008 to less than $5. The “unconventional”—tricky and expensive, in the language of the oil industry—has become conventional.

The availability of abundant reserves in North America contrasts with the narrowing of Western firms’ oil opportunities elsewhere in recent years. Politics was largely to blame, as surging commodity prices emboldened resource-rich countries such as Russia and Venezuela to restrict foreign access to their hydrocarbons. “Everyone would like to find more oil,” says Richard Herbert, an executive at Talisman Energy, a Canadian firm using a conventional North Sea oil business to finance heavy investment in North American shale. “The problem is, where do you go? It’s either in deep water or in countries that aren’t accessible.” This is forcing big oil companies to get gassier.

The oil majors watched from the sidelines as more entrepreneurial drillers proved shale’s viability. Now they want to join in. In December Exxon Mobil paid $41 billion for XTO, a “pure-play” gas firm with a large shale business. BP, Statoil, Total and others are sniffing around the North American gas patch, signing joint ventures with producers such as Chesapeake Energy. A wave of consolidation is likely in the coming months, as gas prices remain low, the drillers seek capital and the majors hunt for the choicest acreage.

Shale is almost ubiquitous, so in theory North America’s success can be repeated elsewhere. How plentiful unconventional resources might be in other regions, however, is far from established. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the global total to be 921 trillion cubic metres (see chart 2), more than five times proven conventional reserves. Some think there is far more. No one will really know until companies explore and drill.

The drillers are already arriving in Europe and China, which are both expected to import increasing amounts of gas—and are therefore keen to produce their own. China has set its companies a target of producing 30 billion cubic metres a year from shale, equivalent to almost half the country’s demand in 2008. Several foreign firms, including Shell, are already scouring Chinese shales. After a meeting between the American and Chinese presidents last November, the White House announced a “US-China shale gas initiative”: American knowledge in exchange for investment opportunities. The IEA says China and India could have “large” reserves, far greater than the conventional resource.

Exploration is also under way in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland and other European countries. The oil industry’s minnows led this scramble, but now the big firms are arriving too. Austria’s OMV is working on a promising basin near Vienna. Exxon Mobil is drilling in Germany. Talisman recently signed a deal to explore for shale in Poland. ConocoPhillips is already there. The first results from wells being drilled in Poland, in what some analysts believe is a shale formation similar to Barnett, should be released this year.

No one expects production of shale gas in Europe to make a material difference to the continent’s supply for at least a decade. But the explorers in China and Europe present a long-term worry for those who have bet on exporting to these markets. Gazprom, Russia’s gas giant, is the company most exposed to this threat, because its strategy relies on developing large—and costly—gasfields in inhospitable places. But Australia, Qatar and other exporters also face a shift in the basics of their business.

Choked

These producers are already getting a taste of the global gas glut. Almost in tandem with the surge in American production, recession brought a slump in world demand. The IEA says consumption in 2009 fell by 3%. In Europe, the drop was 7%. Consumption in the European Union will grow marginally if at all this year and will not be sufficient to clear an overhang of supplies, contracted through take-or-pay agreements signed in the dash for gas of the past decade. IHS Global Insight, a consultancy, reckons that the excess could amount to 110 billion cubic metres this year, almost a quarter of the EU’s demand in 2008.

The glut has been exacerbated by the suddenly greater availability of LNG. Importers with the infrastructure to receive and regasify LNG can now easily tap the global market for spot cargoes. This is partly a product of the recession, which dampened demand from Japan and South Korea, the leading LNG buyers. But another cause is that many exporters, not least Qatar, the world’s LNG powerhouse, spent the past decade ramping up supplies aimed at the American market. That now looks like a blunder.

America is still taking some of this LNG, but the exporters’ bonanza is over before it ever really began. “You’ll always find a buyer in North America,” says Frank Harris, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy, “but you might not like the price.” And LNG will grow increasingly abundant as new projects due to come on stream this year add another 80m tonnes to annual supply, almost 50% more than in 2008.

Gas out, money in

Qatar’s low production costs mean it can still make money, even in North America. Others cannot. In February, for example, Gazprom postponed its Shtokman gasfield project by three years because of the change in the market. Some of the gas from that field, in the Barents Sea, was to be exported to America. But Shtokman’s gas will be costly, because the field is complex and its location makes it one of the world’s most difficult energy projects to execute. Some analysts now wonder whether gas will ever flow from Shtokman.

China offers some hope for ambitious exporters, but even there the outlook has become cloudier. The Chinese authorities want natural gas to account for at least 10% of the country’s energy mix by 2020 and are building LNG import terminals. With that target in mind, Australia, which has its own burgeoning conventional and unconventional gas supplies, has been busily building an LNG export business. But warning lights are coming on. In January, PetroChina let a deal to buy gas from Australia’s Browse LNG project expire. The original agreement was made in 2007, when LNG prices were soaring in Asia, but China can afford to be picky now. “Too many Australian LNG plants are chasing too little demand,” says Mr Harris.

The shift in the global market has left China well-placed to dictate prices. This will be another blow to Gazprom, which has long talked of exporting gas to the country. Indeed, while the Chinese and the Russians have squabbled over the terms, Turkmenistan has quietly built its own export route to China. Even if Beijing’s shale-gas plans come to nothing, supplies from Central Asia and new regasification terminals along its coast may allow China to reach its natural-gas consumption targets without pricey Siberian supplies.

The glut has weakened Gazprom’s position in Europe, too. It has been losing market share to cheaper Norwegian and spot-market supplies. In 2007 Gazprom talked of increasing its annual exports to the EU to 250 billion cubic metres. Now, says Jonathan Stern, of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Gazprom will probably only ever supply the EU with 200 billion cubic metres a year (it shipped about 130 billion in 2008). The company forecast in 2008 that its gas prices in Europe would triple, to around $1,500 per 1,000 cubic metres, on the back of rising oil prices, which help set prices in long-term contracts. But the price dropped to about $350 last year and is expected to fall again in 2010. The weak market could last for another five years, believes Wood Mackenzie. Gazprom has been renegotiating with leading customers, injecting elements of spot pricing into contracts to make them more attractive.

Shtokman shtymied

Moreover, Europe’s need for new pipelines to guarantee supplies suddenly looks less pressing. Construction of Nord Stream, Gazprom’s flagship project to export gas directly to Germany through the Baltic Sea, will begin next month. It is due to come on stream in 2011. The scheduled doubling of its capacity to 55 billion cubic metres a year is in doubt, says Mr Stern, because Shtokman was to have supplied the gas for it.

Demand is a bigger problem. Even without recession or European shale, the assumption that Europe’s consumption will keep growing is looking shaky, because the EU’s efforts to boost efficiency and reduce carbon emissions are making gradual headway. Edward Christie, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, says the EU could be importing a third less natural gas in 2030 than the European Commission forecast in 2005. That makes the case for additional supply lines much less compelling. The IEA expects rich European countries’ demand to grow by only 0.8% a year in the next two decades, against 1.5% for the world as a whole (see chart 3).

An age of plenty for gas consumers and of worry for conventional-gas producers thus seems to be dawning. But two factors could reverse the picture again. The first surrounds the uncertainty about how fruitful shale exploration will be outside North America. A clearer understanding of the geology will emerge from pilot wells in the coming months. Second, there are reasons for caution above ground, too. Despite natural gas’s greener credentials than oil’s or coal’s, shale drilling has critics among environmentalists, who worry that water sources will be poisoned and landscapes despoiled.

The industry says cement casing of wells and the depth to which they are drilled make the practice safe and relatively unobtrusive. But so far it has been drilling mainly in North America, where land is plentiful and people are accustomed to the sight of oilmen’s detritus. In densely populated Europe, the rapacious rate at which shale plays must be drilled to sustain production is less likely to be tolerated.

Even in America, opposition to shale gas is rising. New York state has imposed a moratorium on drilling in its portion of the Marcellus Shale, which it shares with Pennsylvania. Lawmakers in Congress want to study the ecological impact of fracing. The Environmental Protection Agency, a federal body, also raised concerns about “potential risks” to the watershed.

The path of demand in gas’s new age is hard to predict, but abundant new sources could bring about profound change in patterns of energy consumption. Some of the downward pressure on price will ease: despite sedate growth, the LNG glut should dissipate, probably by 2014, says Mr Harris; and low prices will kill more projects, clearing the inventory. France’s Total thinks global demand will recover strongly enough to require another 100m tonnes a year of LNG by 2020, on top of plants already planned. However, the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of America’s Department of Energy, predicts decades of relatively weak prices.

If this is correct, it makes sense, for both environmental and economic reasons, for the country to gasify its power generation, half of which comes from coal-fired plants. This could be done cheaply and quickly, because America’s total gas-fired capacity (as opposed to production) already exceeds that for coal. Put a price of only $30 a tonne on carbon, say supporters, and natural gas would quickly displace coal, because gas-fired power stations emit about half as much carbon as the cleanest coal plants. The IEA agrees that penalising carbon emissions would benefit natural gas at the expense of dirtier fuels.

There would be political obstacles. The coal lobby remains strong in Washington, DC. Climate legislation struggling through Congress even includes provisions to protect “clean coal”, a term covering an array of measures, so far uncommercial, to reduce emissions from burning the black stuff. Ironically, oil companies that were once suspicious of proposals to control carbon now regard a carbon price or even a carbon tax as a potential boon to their new gas businesses.

A more radical idea, and one that would have ramifications for the global oil sector, is to gasify transport. T. Boone Pickens, a corporate raider turned energy speculator, has launched a campaign to promote this, and has support from the gas industry. By converting North America’s fleet of 18-wheeled trucks to natural gas, says Randy Eresman, boss of EnCana, a Canadian gas company, America could halve its imports of Middle Eastern oil. EnCana is promoting “natural gas transportation corridors”: highways served by filling stations offering natural gas.

All this is some way off. The coal industry will not surrender the power sector without a fight. The gasification of transport, if it happens, could also take a less direct form, with cars fuelled by electricity generated from gas.

A gasified American economy would have profound effects on both international politics and the battle against climate change. Displacement of oil by natural gas would strengthen a trend away from crude in rich countries, where the IEA believes demand has already peaked as a result of the recent spike in oil prices. Another consequence of the energy market’s bull run, the unearthing of vast new supplies of gas, could bring further upheaval. If the past decade was characterised by the energy-security concerns of consumers, the coming years could give even the world’s powerful oil producers reason to worry, as a subterranean revolution shifts the geopolitics of global energy supply again.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2010. All rights reserved.

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Indonesia Sees 2010 Gas Balance Sheet Deficit

The Energy and Mineral Resources Minister said under the 2010-2025 Indonesian Gas Balance Sheet, this year booked a deficit of 2,544 MMSCFD

Asia Pulse Pte Ltd in RigZone.com | March 10, 2010

Ministry oil and gas director general Evita Legowo said in Jakarta on Tuesday the data was based on the gas production difference between existing supply and projected supply against the contracted demand and committed demand.

"This year, the contracted and committed demands met only 75.7 percent of the existing and projected supply," she said.

She said if only the contracted demand was considered, 88.9 percent of the existing and projected supply would be met.

She said the difference was caused by the decline in the production of old fields and the delayed production of new gas fields.

Under the gas balance sheet, which is the difference between the existing and projected supply on the one side, and the contracted and committed demands on the other side, in 2020, there is a deficit of 3,891AMMSCFD (million standard cubic feet per day), and in 2025 a deficit of 4,715 MMSCFD.

Considering only the contracted demand without the committed demand, the deficit in 2010 would only reach 994 MMSCFD, 107 MMSCFD in 2020, and 19 MMSCFD in 2025.

She said of the contracted demand in the short-term period of 2010-2014,115 percent per year would be met of the existing and projected supply.

Only 81.7 percent per year of the existing and projected supply of the contracted and committed demand would be met in the 2010-2014 period.

"The decline was caused by the natural drop in production and an increase in committed demand," she said.

In the long-run (2010-2025), 148 percent per year will be met of the existing and projected supply caused by the start of production of the projected supply and a decline in the contracted demand in the final stages of the contracts.

In the meantime, with regard to the 2010-2025 contracted and committed demands, only 73 percent per year of the existing and projected supplies could be met due to the decline in the natural production capacity and increase in committed demand.

The gas balance sheet covers 12 regions, namely Aceh, northern Sumatra, central and southern Sumatra, western, central and eastern parts of Java, southern and central parts of Sulawesi, southern Maluku, Papua, and Riau Islands.

The data includes the coal methane gas production in East Kalimantan and the central and southern parts of East Kalimantan.

(C) 2010 Asia Pulse Pte Ltd.

Copyright © 2009 Bishop Interactive

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ENERGY: Coal-Fired Power on the Way Out?

The past two years have witnessed the emergence of a powerful movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States

Analysis by Lester R. Brown* | IPS | Feb 24, 2010

Initially led by environmental groups, both national and local, it has since been joined by prominent national political leaders and many state governors.

The principal reason for opposing coal plants is that they are changing the earth's climate. There is also the effect of mercury emissions on health and the 23,600 U.S. deaths each year from power plant air pollution.

Over the last few years the coal industry has suffered one setback after another. The Sierra Club, which has kept a tally of proposed coal-fired power plants and their fates since 2000, reports that 123 plants have been defeated, with another 51 facing opposition in the courts.

Of the 231 plants being tracked, only 25 currently have a chance at gaining the permits necessary to begin construction and eventually come online. Building a coal plant may soon be impossible.

What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power quickly evolved into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organisations. Despite a heavily funded ad campaign to promote so-called clean coal (one reminiscent of the tobacco industry's earlier efforts to convince people that cigarettes were not unhealthy), the U.S. public is turning against coal.

One of the first major industry setbacks came in early 2007 when a coalition headed by the Environmental Defence Fund took on Texas-based utility TXU's plans for 11 new coal-fired power plants. A quick drop in the utility's stock price caused by the media storm prompted a 45-billion-dollar buyout offer from two private equity firms.

However, only after negotiating a ceasefire with EDF and the Natural Resources Defence Council and reducing the number of proposed plants from 11 to three, thus preserving the value of the company, did the firms proceed with the purchase. It was a major win for the environmental community, which mustered the public support necessary to stop eight plants outright and impose stricter regulations on the remaining three.

Meanwhile, the energy focus in Texas has shifted to its vast wind resources, pushing it ahead of California in wind-generated electricity.

In May 2007, Florida's Public Service Commission refused to license a huge 5.7-billion-dollar, 1,960-megawatt coal plant because the utility could not prove that building the plant would be cheaper than investing in conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy sources. This point, made by Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental legal group, combined with strong public opposition to any more coal-fired power plants in Florida, led to the quiet withdrawal of four other coal plant proposals in the state.

Coal's future is also suffering as Wall Street turns its back on the industry.

In July 2007, Citigroup downgraded coal company stocks across the board and recommended that its clients switch to other energy stocks.

In January 2008, Merrill Lynch also downgraded coal stocks. In early February 2008, investment banks Morgan Stanley, Citi, and J.P. Morgan Chase announced that any future lending for coal-fired power would be contingent on the utilities demonstrating that the plants would be economically viable with the higher costs associated with future federal restrictions on carbon emissions.

Later that month, Bank of America announced it would follow suit.

In August 2007, coal took a heavy political hit when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who had been opposing three coal-fired power plants in his own state, announced that he was now against building coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world.

Former Vice President Al Gore has also voiced strong opposition to building any coal-fired power plants. So too have many state governors, including those in California, Florida, Michigan, Washington, and Wisconsin.

In her 2009 State of the State address, Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan argued that the state should not be importing coal from Montana and Wyoming but instead should be investing in technologies to improve energy efficiency and to tap the renewable resources within Michigan, including wind and solar. This, she said, would create thousands of jobs in the state, helping offset those lost in the automobile industry.

One of the unresolved burdens haunting the coal sector, in addition to the emissions of CO2, is what to do with the coal ash - the remnant of burning coal - that is accumulating in 194 landfills and 161 holding ponds in 47 states. This ash is not an easy material to dispose of since it is laced with arsenic, lead, mercury, and many other toxic materials.

The industry's dirty secret came into full public view just before Christmas 2008 when the containment wall of a coal ash pond in eastern Tennessee collapsed, releasing a billion gallons of toxic brew. Unfortunately, the industry does not have a plan for safely disposing of the 130 million tonnes of ash produced each year, enough to fill one million railroad cars.

The dangers are such that the Department of Homeland Security tried to put 44 of the most vulnerable storage facilities on a classified list lest they fall into the hands of terrorists. The spill of toxic coal ash in Tennessee drove another nail into the lid of the coal industry coffin.

In April 2009, the chairman of the powerful U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, observed that the United States may no longer need any additional coal or nuclear power plants. Regulators, investment banks, and political leaders are now beginning to see what has been obvious for some time to climate scientists such as NASA's James Hansen, who says that it makes no sense to build coal-fired power plants when we will have to bulldoze them in a few years.

In April 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is both authorised and obligated to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.

This watershed decision prompted the Environmental Appeals Board of the EPA in November 2008 to conclude that a regional EPA office must address CO2 emissions before issuing air pollution permits for a new coal-fired power plant. This not only put the brakes on the plant in question but also set a precedent, stalling permits for all other proposed U.S. coal plants.

Acting on the same Supreme Court decision, in December 2009 the EPA issued a final endangerment finding confirming that CO2 emissions threaten human health and welfare and must be regulated, jeopardising new coal plants everywhere.

The bottom line is that the United States now has, in effect, a de facto moratorium on the building of new coal-fired power plants. This has led the Sierra Club, the national leader on this issue, to expand its campaign to reduce carbon emissions to include the closing of existing plants.

Given the huge potential for reducing electricity use in the United States by switching to more efficient lighting and appliances, for example, this may be much easier than it appears.

If the efficiency level of the other 49 states were raised to that of New York, the most energy-efficient state, the energy saved would be sufficient to close 80 percent of the country's coal-fired power plants. The few remaining plants could be shut down by turning to renewable energy - wind farms, solar thermal power plants, solar cell rooftop arrays, and geothermal power and heat.

The handwriting is on the wall. With the likelihood that few, if any, new coal-fired power plants will be approved in the United States, this de facto moratorium will send a message to the world. Denmark and New Zealand have already banned new coal-fired power plants. Other countries are likely to join this effort to cut carbon emissions.

Even China, which was building one new coal plant a week, is surging ahead with harnessing renewable energy development and will soon overtake the United States in wind electric generation.

These and other developments suggest that the Plan B goal of cutting net carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020 may be much more attainable than many would have thought.

*Lester R. Brown is founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute. "Plan B 4.0: Mobilising to Save Civilisation" can be downloaded for free at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4.

Copyright © 2010 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.

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Overpopulation and Climate Change

With the continuing failure of governments to reach agreements on combating climate change, the outlook for both humans and nature remains bleak

By ARTHUR H. WESTING | The New York Times | February 17, 2010

And nowhere is the failure more conspicuous than in the avoidance of the subject of population growth. Population is a double-barreled environmental problem — not only is population increasing; so are emissions per capita.

In 1970, when worldwide greenhouse gas emissions had just begun to transgress the sustainable capacity of the atmosphere, the world population was about 3.7 billion; today it’s about 6.9 billion — an increase of 86 percent.

In that same period, worldwide emissions from fossil fuels rose from about 14 billion tons to an estimated 29 billion tons — an increase of 107 percent.

In other words, in 1970, such emissions were about 3.8 tons per capita; today, despite the growing awareness of climate change, they have actually risen to about 4.2 tons per capita.

The growing fraction of energy produced by low-emission means (solar, nuclear, wind, etc.) seems merely to be slowing down the rapidly growing dependence on fossil fuels in response to ever increasing energy demand.

Yet inexplicably and inexcusably, recommendations by the United States, the United Nations and independent research groups essentially never include — and certainly never stress — population as a contribution to global warming.

No rapid solution to the population problem is in sight, so we must continue to promote emission-control measures ever more vigorously. And nothing is more important than persistent education and publicity. In the matter of global warming, no idea is more critical than the notion that the atmosphere must come to be regarded as a global commons, a common heritage of mankind.

A principle of fairness follows from this. The time has come to apportion an overall, safely sustainable level of emissions into the atmosphere to all the countries of the world in an equitable fashion. Such apportioning cannot be based on amounts currently being discharged by various industrialized or rapidly industrializing countries. Neither can it be based on population, for this would reward over-populated countries and encourage further population growth.

Approaches to achieving reductions include frugality; greater use of energy-efficient devices; carbon capture and sequestration; emission-neutral means of generation; rainforest protection; a levy on emissions (“carbon tax”); and the lease or purchase of emission rights by over-emitters from under-emitters (“cap-and-trade”).

If appropriate international agreements could be forged (clearly no easy feat), cap-and-trade schemes in principle would be an excellent approach as long as the worldwide level of emissions being sought is a safe and sustainable one; a country’s contribution to a safe level is equitably determined; and inefficiency and corruption in its administration, monitoring and international verification are eliminated or at least kept to an acceptable limit.

One environmentally and socially equitable approach to cap-and-trade would be to base the discharge allocations on that fraction of the atmosphere that a country’s land mass supports. In such a scheme, many rich countries would currently be discharging more than their fair allotment; most of the poor countries probably less so.

The under-discharging countries would then be able to lease (not sell) some portion of their discharge rights until such time as they are able, with the help of this income, to develop their own discharging infrastructure. The leasing countries, for their part, would have time to institute changes to stay within their fair allotment, which might well include retrenchment of individual energy consumption or, barring that, even reduced population numbers, difficult as that might be.

In the end, we must all recognize that we have an obligation to share this earth with the other living things, an obligation that requires a reduction, by one means or another, in our population-driven demands on its natural resources. Bringing about this recognition is the task of civic education in the broadest sense.

Arthur H. Westing is a forest ecologist and former director of the United Nations Environment Program project on Peace, Security, and Environment.

Copyright 2010

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