Looking Breakthrough Ideas in Green Technology, Google Plans New Mirror For Cheaper Solar Power

Google Inc is disappointed with the lack of breakthrough investment ideas in the green technology sector but the company is working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more.

"We've been looking at very unusual materials for the mirrors both for the reflective surface as well as the substrate that the mirror is mounted on," the company's green energy czar Bill Weihl told Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Google, known for its Internet search engine, in late 2007 said it would invest in companies and do research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy within a few years.

The company's engineers have been focused on solar thermal technology, in which the sun's energy is used to heat up a substance that produces steam to turn a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance.

Google hopes to have a viable technology to show internally in a couple of months, Weihl said. It will need to do accelerated testing to show the impact of decades of wear on the new mirrors in desert conditions.

Another technology that Google is working on is gas turbines that would run on solar power rather than natural gas, an idea that has the potential of further cutting the cost of electricity, Weihl said.

"In two to three years we could be demonstrating a significant scale pilot system that would generate a lot of power and would be clearly mass manufacturable at a cost that would give us a levelized cost of electricity that would be in the 5 cents or sub 5 cents a kilowatt hour range," Weihl said.

Google is invested in two solar thermal companies, eSolar and BrightSolar but is not working with these companies in developing the cheaper mirrors or turbines.

In wide-ranging remarks, Weihl also said the United States needs to raise government-backed research significantly, particularly in the very initial stages to encourage breakthrough ideas in the sector.

The company has pushed ahead in addressing climate change issues as a philanthropic effort through its Google.org arm.

Source : REUTERS

India To Set Industry Efficiency Targets By December, 2010

India hopes to set up by December next year energy efficiency targets for more than 700 industrial units, which account for 40 percent of India's fossil fuel use, the country's head of energy efficiency said on Monday.

Ajay Mathur, director-general of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, said India's energy efficiency market was worth about $15 billion which could generate energy saving of up to two percent of the country's total energy use now.

The scheme is among a number of emissions reduction measures India has announced that could bolster the nation's position ahead of a U.N. gathering in Copenhagen in December aimed at trying to win agreement on a broader pact to fight climate change.

Source : REUTERS

Threatened by Risisng Sea Levels, Maldives To Introduce Green Tax On Tourists

The Maldives archipelago, threatened by rising sea levels blamed on climate change, said on Monday it would introduce a new environment tax on all tourists who use its resorts and provide its economic lifeline.

Famed mostly for high-end luxury resorts and white-sand atolls, the Maldives has made a name for itself as an advocate for mitigating climate change because rising sea levels are forecast to submerge most of its islands by 2100.

The Maldives' $850 million economy gets more than a quarter of its gross domestic product from tourists, but has not yet taxed them to help it fight climate change.

President Mohammed Nasheed, who in March outlined plans to make the Maldives the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade, said an environment tax was soon to be levied on all tourists.

"We have introduced a green tax. It's in the pipeline. It's a matter of parliament approving it and I hope parliament will approve it -- $3 per each tourist a day," Nasheed told reporters in Male, the capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Based on an annual average of 700,000 tourists who spend an average of three days on the islands, that translates to about $6.3 million annually.

In March, Nasheed launched a $1.1 billion initiative to convert the islands solely to renewable energy from fossil fuels, and buy and destroy EU carbon credits to offset emissions from tourists flying to visit its resorts.

The government has acknowledged it needs outside investment to fund those plans, and Nasheed's trip to U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

Last month, his office said he would not attend the talks because of a budget crisis that forced the country to seek a $60 million International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan.

Nasheed said he still had no plans to attend "unless someone very generously helps us. I hope someone will assist us."

He said the Maldives had little leverage in the outcome of the Copenhagen talks, which are to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but a huge stake.

"There is no point in Maldives entering the agreement. It is a small country. It is India, China, Brazil, the United States that have to join in," he said. "No one is going to come out as a winner without an agreement."

Source : REUTERS

Confusing Forest-Carbon Regulation Scaring Investors from Indonesia

Confusing and conflicting regulations are scaring away investors from Indonesia's fledgling forest carbon credit scheme aimed at curbing deforestation, lawyers said on Monday.

A U.N.-backed scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) could potentially unlock billions of dollars in annual carbon credit sales for developing nations that protect their forests from illegal logging and other threats.

Indonesia in May became the first country to issue a legal framework for REDD, anticipating the scheme's inclusion in a broader U.N. climate pact during a major gathering in Copenhagen this year.

However, project developers will struggle for up to five years to attract necessary volumes of private investment to sustain REDD projects without public funding, said Martijn Wilder, a partner at Baker & McKenzie.

"We are probably three, four or five years away in terms of having a really significant liquid private sector market so the issue is how do we fund it at the moment," he told a forum of REDD project developers and policy-makers in Jakarta on Monday.

"There is direct funding from governments such as Norway or through the World Bank, but the key issue is how much do we rely on public sector financing or on private sector financing," said Wilder, head of Baker & McKenzie's global climate change and emissions trading practice.

Deforestation is responsible for nearly 20 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations, World Bank and numerous governments back REDD projects in developing nations that halt forest loss and pay local communities compensation as well as help them develop alternative livelihoods.

In return, rich nations and companies can buy REDD carbon offsets to meet their emissions obligations at home. A U.N.-backed market, though, will only come into force from 2013 if there's a global climate pact and the infant sector is presently supported by the voluntary carbon offset market and donor funding.

Source : REUTERS

Concerns On Climate change funding, stall talks at G20

Differences between rich and developing countries prevented G20 finance ministers from agreeing measures on Saturday to curb global warming, casting more doubt on U.N. efforts to agree a new climate treaty.

Industrialized nations sought progress on climate change financing at a meeting of G20 finance ministers but met resistance from emerging nations including China and India, who fear the proposals could stifle their economic growth, two G20 sources said.

Ministers said in their concluding statement that they would work toward a successful outcome at a United Nations meeting in Copenhagen in December which aims to draft a new climate change treaty to succeed the Kyoto agreement.

G20 sources said China and India had been among those objecting to detailed talks on climate change.

In a statement on Friday, the finance ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China said the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, which overseas the drafting of the new treaty, should be the main forum for negotiations on climate change.

However, developing nations are suspicious rich countries are trying to avoid paying the full amount needed to cut C02 emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change, and seeking to push some of the financial burden on to them.

"Many developing countries are concerned that the global issue of climate change will constrain their ability to industrialize without creating additional costs," said Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati on Friday.

Developing nations are especially skeptical of proposals for private sector funding of the fight against climate change. They are keen for developed countries' governments to stump up the cash needed.

Source : REUTERS

Anti-nuclear rally enlivens German General Election campaign

A convey of 350 farm tractors rumbled through Berlin on Saturday,5th September to launch a mass anti-nuclear rally, designed to influence Germany's general election in three weeks' time.

About 50,000 opponents of nuclear power took part in the protest, which kicked off with an 8-km (5-mile)-long convey of tractors that passed in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel's offices and through the government quarter to the city's historic Brandenburg Gate.

Determined to make nuclear power a focus of the election campaign, the protesters criticised Merkel and her conservative party, which wants to scrap a 2001 law to shut down Germany's 17 remaining nuclear power plants by the mid-2020s.

The future of nuclear power is one of the few key issues that divide Merkel's Christian Democrats from the Social Democrats (SPD) of her challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The parties have shared power for the past four years in an awkward 'grand coalition' that both want to end.

But so far nuclear power has only been a fringe issue in the run-up to the September 27 election, in which Merkel's conservatives and their preferred partners, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), have been pushing to extend the life of the plants.

A wide majority of Germans oppose nuclear power, according to opinion polls. But Merkel and the FDP still hold a slim lead over other possible coalition alliances ahead of the election. The SPD and Greens oppose any change to the nuclear exit law.

Crowds of well-wishers waved at the long convoy of tractors, some of which pulled wagons filled with demonstrators or fake barrels of radioactive waste.

Source : REUTERS

Study Propose to Invest More in Wetlands to fight Climate Change

Governments can help combat climate change by investing more in natural areas, including forests and mangroves, a European study said on Wednesday.

The paper pointed out that nations have natural assets worth trillions of dollars which could help fight global warming and save investment in industrial schemes for carbon capture.

"Natural systems represent one of the biggest untapped allies against the greatest challenge of this generation," said The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study, part of a global project, to be published next year.

Launched by Germany and the European Commission, the report is examining the economics of biodiversity loss.

An investment of $45 billion in protected areas could save nature-based services worth $4.5-$5.2 trillion a year, more than the value of the car, steel and information technology sectors, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters.

Scientists say preserving nature is crucial in fighting climate change but warn extinctions are speeding up due to human activity. Extinction rates are at 1,000 times their natural pace and three species vanish every hour, research shows.

The study highlighted the role of forests in naturally mitigating CO2 emissions as they absorb an estimated 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions every year.

Agreeing on funding to save forests must be a priority for governments at December's global talks in Copenhagen to try to agree on a successor to the Kyoto protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, said the authors of the report.

The report highlighted the dangers facing coral reefs which have risen due to a build up of greenhouse gases. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are already irreversibly damaging coral reefs and their extinction would jeopardize the livelihoods of millions of people, said the study.

Coral reefs, which protect coastlines from the effects of global warming and are essential for some kinds of fish, are worth up to $170 billion a year, said the study.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Programme said billions of dollars of government investment in power station carbon capture schemes may not be the full answer.

Source : REUTERS

Five-Yearly Reef Outlook Report Raised Concerns On the Declining Health of the Great Barrier Reef

Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living organism, is under grave threat from climate warming and coastal development, and its prospects of survival are "poor," a major new report found on Wednesday.

While the World Heritage-protected site, which sprawls for more than 345,000 square km (133,000 sq miles) off Australia's east coast, is in a better position than most other reefs globally, the risk of its destruction was mounting.

"Even with the recent management initiatives to improve resilience, the overall outlook for the Great Barrier Reef is poor and catastrophic damage to the ecosystem may not be averted," a government reef management body said in the report.

The five-yearly reef outlook report, aimed at benchmarking the health of the reef, found climate change, declining water quality from coastal runoff, development and illegal fishing were the biggest dangers to the reef.

The study echoed findings by scientists belonging to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" within decades, with deadly coral bleaching likely to be an annual occurrence by 2030.

The reef was one of the most diverse and remarkable ecosystems in the world, and populations of almost all marine species were still large, the government's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said in the report.

But some ecologically important species, such as dugongs, marine turtles, seabirds, black teatfish and some sharks had declined significantly, while coral diseases and pest outbreaks like crown-of-thorns starfish appeared to be increasing and becoming more serious.

A separate report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, also released on Wednesday, found ocean temperatures on northern parts of the reef had been a degree above average through winter, pointing to a bad year for coral bleaching.

"We know that a failure to act on dangerous climate change puts at risk significant places like the Great Barrier Reef and this report confirms the scale of the challenge ahead," Australia's Environment Minister Peter Garrett said.

Bleaching occurs when the tiny plant-like coral organisms die, often because of higher temperatures, and leave behind only a white limestone reef skeleton.

Garrett and Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh unveiled a plan to improve water quality on the reef. It followed a report last year which found agricultural run-off was killing the reef, with some sections already irreversibly damaged.

The plan aimed to halve the runoff of harmful nutrients and pesticides by 2013 and ensure 80 percent of agricultural enterprises and 50 percent of grazing operations were taking steps to reduce runoff.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said the report added urgency to a debate in Australia's parliament on laws to curb carbon emissions, rejected last month by the upper house Senate and due for a second vote in mid-November.

Source : REUTERS

EU Granted No Delay For Car Makers On Ban of Climate-Damaging Chemicals in Air Conditioners

Car makers will not be granted a delay to an agreed 2011 European ban on climate-damaging chemicals in the air conditioners of new car models, European Parliament officials said on Tuesday.

Automakers say they will need to invest an extra 40-200 euros ($57-287) per vehicle to meet the refrigerant standards, which would be difficult to pass on to consumers in the current tough economic climate.

The car sector's campaign has aroused strong opposition from environmentalists and suppliers of greener engineering systems.

The European Union decided in 2006 that from 2011 it would ban the use of fluorinated chemicals, such as the industry standard known as R134a, which have a powerful climate-warming effect when released into the atmosphere.

The EU closed a legal loophole in April after learning that car makers were planning to use it to avoid the ban for new car models until 2017.

But car industry lobby group ACEA said auto manufacturers still needed two to three extra years.

European Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen told a meeting in the European Parliament on Tuesday that a delay would not be granted, according to two officials present at the meeting.

"The rule is in force -- it has to be applied," both officials quoted him as saying in a response to a question by British liberal lawmaker Chris Davies.

"The message could not be more clear," Davies later said in a statement. "The European Commission has raised the stakes and told them -- don't mess with us."

"Car makers...have had billions of euros in support from national governments, and it is time that they took a lead in helping reach Europe's ambitions of reducing the release of global warming gases," Davies added.

The emerging market for greener refrigerants pits industry giant Honeywell International with its HFO-1234yf coolant against rival carbon dioxide-based cooling systems such as that of Austria's Obrist Engineering, Germany's Ixetic and U.S.-based Visteon.

Some of them say car makers, such as General Motors and Mercedes, had already placed orders for green air-conditioning systems and were on track to meet the ban, but later retracted the orders for unknown reasons.

Source : REUTERS

Senate Urged To Let States To Let Them Impose Stricter Limits On Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Five states have asked U.S. Senate leaders to let them impose stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions than what would be permitted under the climate legislation working its way though Congress, saying both levels of regulation are necessary to fight global warming.

The climate bill the House of Representatives narrowly passed in June would preempt statewide caps on greenhouse gases, while cutting total U.S. emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Senate leaders will reveal their version of the bill later this month and hope to vote on it later in the year.

The group of attorneys general, which includes Edmund Brown of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Anne Milgram of New Jersey, opposed limits on their ability to regulate the emissions, which they formed in the absence of federal climate regulations during the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush.

"States should continue to be able to adopt caps that are more stringent than federal requirements in order to ensure that the ambitious targets set by the act, and required to avoid disruptive climate change, are met," the attorneys general wrote in a letter obtained by Reuters.

They had sent the letter on Monday to Senate leaders including Democrats Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer, and Republicans Mitch McConnell and James Inhofe.

The House version of the bill would preempt state caps on greenhouse gas emissions from 2012 to 2017.

That would effectively halt the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a group of 10 states in the East, from carrying out their cap-and-trade market that launched in January. Those states cap carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The group has raised nearly $370 million for clean energy and efficiency funds by selling emission permits in quarterly auctions.

It would also preempt the Western Climate initiative that would covers six greenhouse gases across 11 U.S. states and Canadian provinces from launching in 2012.

The targets of both regional plans are weaker than those in the climate bill. But leaders in the states have said they would like the option to ratchet up their plans once a federal system kicked in.

The states also called on the Senate to strengthen the bill by pushing the reduction target up to 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels in order to better fight climate change.

The other attorneys general that wrote the letter were Terry Goddard of Arizona and Joseph Biden III of Delaware.

Source : REUTERS