China faltering on support for solar power: report

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) – Solar panels could generate over 10 percent of China’s power by the middle of the century, but only if Beijing steps up support for pioneering generating plants and sets more ambitious targets, a report said on Wednesday.

Although it is the world’s No. 3 producer of photovoltaic (PV) cells that convert sunlight into electricity, China sends 90 percent of its output abroad because it is too expensive for domestic use, according to the report launched by Greenpeace, the Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association (CREIA) and WWF.

High PV cell prices and low power tariffs mean the cells that do stay in China are mainly used for rural areas, communications, and in industry, rather than for large generating plants linked into national grids — the main users in other countries and the key to large-scale solar generation.

Beijing aims to boost the portion of its power that comes from renewable energy, and has set out what it says are ambitious targets for the next two decades, aiming for 15 percent of energy to come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.

But the report says government solar energy targets are not very challenging, and supportive policies that look good on paper are not being properly implemented, the report added.

With strong government support, China could be generating an estimated 1,300 terawatt hours of solar power a year by 2050, of a total 10,000 TWh used nationwide, it added.

But currently around a dozen pilot plants with capacity of up 1 MW, which should be getting preferential prices, are not even able to link up with transmission networks.

“In no case has a feed-in tariff, calculated according to reasonable costs plus reasonable profits, been implemented, and no PV power system has as yet been permitted by grid companies to connect,” the report said. 

The report predicts that solar power prices will match conventional power prices by 2030, when installed capacity could be up to 100 GW with strong government support — or one-sixth of the country’s total generating ability at present.

But without support through the years when it cannot compete on price alone, solar will be just one-tenth that potential level, a still impressive 10 GW but far from enough to make a dent in China’s energy-related pollution problems or to contribute to its energy security.

“Market supportive mechanisms create incentives to technological innovation and industry development,” Li Junfeng, CREIA General Secretary, said at the report’s launch.

“The lack of a strong domestic market could limit the potential of the Chinese solar PV industry in the long term.”

China at least does not lack the raw material for solar power. About 96 percent of the country gets “abundant” sunlight, the report said, with more light potential than industry leaders Japan and Europe.

Many of the sunniest areas are also sparsely populated, lowering the prospects for potential disputes over land use.

From: Reuters.

Solar Cities – Good Practice Guide (EU)

Click here to save the file:  Good Practice Guide – Solar Cities 

Every city needs to consider the result of its actions in terms of energy used and the effect it has on the environment. Cities are in an excellent position to formalise a strategy that aims for realistic yet ambitious CO2 reduction goals, with great effect – as it is implemented over a large area and by a collective or by groups of individuals.  Good practices for the reduction of CO2 emissions at city level can have a tremendous impact and a spill-over effect, not only to other cities but also to the national level. This GP guide is a useful tool for all actors in cities who are interested in starting or involved in the ’Solar City’ transformation process. These good practices can be used to generate ideas for planning and devising an appropriate package of activities to implement clean energy sources and promote the reduction of harmful emissions in the relevant urban area. 

Source: http://www.cidadessolares.org.br/cs/conteudo_view.php?sec_id=8

Jatropha plant gains steam in global race for biofuels

Hardy Shrub Is Tapped
For Energy-Rich Seeds;
Indian Farmers’ Big Bet

By PATRICK BARTA
August 24, 2007; Page A1

HIRIYUR, India — Until recently, B.K. Nagendrappa didn’t care much at all about jatropha, an ugly wild green shrub that thrives in India. Now, the coconut grower hopes to plant as many as 12 acres of the stuff on his land near Bangalore.

V. Venkateswarao is also raising the plants — on a dried-up stretch of dirt east of Hyderabad. So too is O.P. Singh, a horticulturist for India’s Ministry of Railways, in a quiet garden by an old airport in New Delhi.

“This plant will save humanity, I tell you,” Mr. Singh proclaims, as he points to 4-foot-tall jatropha shrubs nearby. Someday, “every house will have jatropha!”

With oil trading at roughly $70 a barrel, this lowly forest plant is suddenly an unlikely star on the world’s alternative-energy stage.

The seeds from jatropha’s golf-ball-size fruit contain a yellowish liquid similar to palm oil that can be made into biodiesel — an increasingly important renewable fuel used in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.

But unlike other biodiesel crops, jatropha can be grown almost anywhere — including deserts, trash dumps, and rock piles. It doesn’t need much water or fertilizer, and it isn’t edible. That means environmentalists and policy makers don’t have to worry about whether jatropha diverts resources away from crops that could be used to feed people.

Patrick Barta

Poverty remains an entrenched problem in India. Some rural development experts fear that small Indian farmers could wind up serving as guinea pigs for a failed jatropha industry.

These qualities are crucial at a time of intensifying concern over the environmental and social consequences of a global alternative-energy boom. It takes huge quantities of land, water and chemicals to grow crops to make ethanol and biodiesel. And as more governments set targets for their consumption, fears are rising that the world won’t be able to meet the demand without significant environmental damage.

Goldman Sachs recently cited jatropha as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production. A Bear Stearns analysis last year found that U.S. farmers only have the capacity to replace about 7% of the country’s gasoline with corn-based ethanol, despite a new federal renewable-fuels target of 15% by 2017. To reach that goal, the U.S. would likely have to find a lot more land.

India, by contrast, has millions of acres of wasteland that isn’t fully utilized due to low water tables and infertile soil. Jatropha advocates figure the crop can cover much of that area without causing environmental distress.

In late June, oil giant BP PLC said it will invest $90 million in a joint venture with U.K.-based D1 Oils PLC, a biofuels start-up that’s developing jatropha in India and elsewhere.

Another company, Australia-based Mission Biofuels Ltd., has raised more than $80 million from investors and has representatives fanning out across the Indian subcontinent to sign up growers. It has roughly 66,000 acres under cultivation already and expects to hit 250,000 by 2010.

SEEDS OF HOPE

•  Plant Matter: Investors and farmers in India are looking to the wild jatropha plant as a potential source of biofuel.

•  Strong Kick: Jatropha yields energy more efficiently than corn and other alternative-energy feedstocks, and thrives in harsh conditions.

•  Future Yields: The plants take several years to produce large amounts of oil, and the crop’s market potential is still unknown.

Other countries — including the U.S. — may have similar bounties of untapped land for jatropha, and farmers are already rushing to plant the crop in Thailand, the Philippines, Swaziland and even Saudi Arabia.

The enthusiasm for jatropha and its ilk highlights how quickly investors are shifting gears as the shortcomings of other renewable fuels become more apparent. It also illustrates the risks of newer approaches, since it’s still far from clear whether jatropha and its peers are economically viable on a large scale.

By some estimates, the per-barrel cost to produce biofuel using jatropha — about $43 — is about half that of corn and roughly one-third that of rapeseed, two other leading materials for alternative energy. At those prices, jatropha biodiesel would be competitive with fuel made from crude oil without significant government subsidies.

Used as a Hedge

But such calculations are based on limited experience with the crop. Agronomists hardly studied it in the past because it was considered to be mostly worthless. Until recently, jatropha was best-known in India and elsewhere as a hedge to keep wild animals from wandering onto farms.

Even some of jatropha’s biggest advocates concede the plant’s oil output is unpredictable and often lower than expected. Although it can grow without water, it tends to do much better when water is added, raising its cost of production and mitigating some of the perceived benefits.

Some farmers have already reported financial losses from jatropha plantations after their crops yielded less oil than expected or buyers failed to pay sufficient prices. In a worst-case scenario, some rural-development experts fear, small Indian farmers could wind up serving as guinea pigs for an untested industry, leaving them in debt if the boom fizzles.

“Everybody is so excited, but is [jatropha] really happening? I’m not so sure,” says Amit Sachdev, a New Delhi area-based representative for the U.S. Grains Council, which represents the interests of one of jatropha’s competitors: American corn.

More research is needed “instead of hype,” adds Manfred Zeller, a rural-development expert at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. Any ecological downsides — such as the draining of water resources to accelerate plant growth — are thus far unknown.

Land Shortage

Still, jatropha’s allure is undeniable. Planting more palm oil, corn or other crops to make ethanol or biodiesel isn’t really an option due to land shortages and other constraints. Water tables are falling across India, and production of some key commodities like rice has already flattened out in recent years. The country could have trouble meeting its own food needs even without a biofuel boom.

First cultivated in South America, jatropha was brought to India long ago by Portuguese traders. Villagers used it as a hedge crop, and some extracted oil and latex from the plants to make soap or fuel for lamps. Many Indians recall using the latex from jatropha to blow bubbles when they were children.

The Indian government started getting excited about jatropha a decade ago. Officials were already worried about India’s energy security and asked a private, nonprofit research outfit called The Energy and Resources Institute to look into jatropha’s potential as a fuel source.

Researchers at TERI studied the plant in a lab on the sixth floor of their New Delhi offices, and were encouraged. “You can put it in any kind of soil, and it will grow,” says P.P. Bhojvaid, a senior fellow at TERI. If cared for properly, the plants can live up to 45 years.

As TERI made progress, other Indian leaders jumped on the bandwagon. Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam planted jatropha in his peacock-filled gardens in New Delhi and touted the plant in speeches to the nation. The state railway ministry began using jatropha last year to fuel some of its locomotives and planted 7.5 million jatropha plants along its tracks. The government ordered state-run oil companies to buy jatropha-made biodiesel at a minimum price of about 26 rupees a liter, or about $2.40 a gallon. Several of India’s local governments began handing out free saplings.

All this set the stage for companies like Australia’s Mission to move in. Founded by a Malaysian-born businessman in 2005, it aimed to capitalize on the new biofuel boom by building a palm-oil biodiesel refinery on the coast of Malaysia.

But Mission officials wanted a backup raw material in case palm-oil prices shot up, as they have since 2005. After some research, they settled on jatropha, in part because it’s inedible and therefore unaffected by demand from food buyers.

The use of food crops to make fuel “will only push up the price of food, and food has to win — otherwise, the world will go into starvation,” says Nathan Mahalingam, Mission’s managing director. “We want to stay clear of that, and that’s why we’re moving into jatropha.”

Mr. Mahalingam estimates that each acre of jatropha planted will produce about one ton of oil, with yields hopefully improving over time.

To seed a network of growers, the company recruited people like K. Chalapathy Reddy, a 30-year-old plant breeder. Now, as a Mission senior scientist, he spends much of his time touring the Indian countryside, helping convince farmers to take up the crop and looking for ways to boost their yields. His mobile phone rings constantly with calls from farmers seeking advice on how to prune their plants or when to apply water.

In towns such as Hiriyur, about a three hours’ drive across the dusty flat lands outside Bangalore, Mr. Reddy relies on local agents who talk up jatropha at agricultural fairs and town meetings. They hand out Mission brochures that feature drawings of a car pulling up to a smiling tree labeled “biodiesel.”

Farmers’ Contracts

Typically, Mission’s agents sign up farmers to contracts that commit them to sell all their jatropha to the company for 30 years. It charges farmers three rupees per plant. But Mission says it often forgoes payment until after the plants start producing significant quantities of oil, a process that usually takes two to three years.

Mr. Reddy acknowledges jatropha promoters have come and gone, and that sometimes farmers are skeptical. “There’s nothing like hide-and-seek here, we’re not fooling the farmers,” Mr. Reddy says. “We get nothing unless the crop comes in.”

Among Mission’s growers is 42-year-old K. Nagaraj, who says he used to grow groundnut on a small plot of land near Hiriyur. But the soil conditions weren’t ideal, and after water and fertilizer expenses, it wasn’t possible to make much of a profit.

Jatropha promoters, including scientist K. Chalapathy Reddy (far right), with plant.

He says Mission offered a guaranteed price of five rupees per kilogram for his oil-bearing jatropha seed, which he reckons should translate into a profit of about 10,000 rupees, or about $250, an acre.

“Initially, I was a bit skeptical,” he says of jatropha. “But when we got more information, and the president was telling people about it, we gained confidence.”

Other farmers in the area are also giving jatropha a go — without even knowing whom they’ll sell it to.

One of Mr. Nagaraj’s neighbors, a former politician named H. Ramaiah, says he made his living in recent years from coconuts. But his trees are dying from insufficient water, so he now hopes to have better luck with jatropha. On a recent visit, his jatropha plants were hardly distinguishable from other weeds on the property.

Jatropha “takes very little water, so maybe it will work,” Mr. Ramaiah said hopefully. When asked who might buy his future oil harvest, he was uncertain. “Whoever is giving the most profit,” he said.

–Tariq Engineer in Mumbai and Binny Sabharwal in New Delhi contributed to this article.

Write to Patrick Barta at patrick.barta@wsj.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118788662080906716.html?mod=hps_us_pageone

Underwater turbines set to generate record power

The SeaGen project will see two underwater tidal turbines installed off the coast of Northern Ireland (Image: Marine Current Turbines)

—————————————————– 

By the end of the year, twin underwater turbines should be generating 1.2 megawatts of electricity off the coast of Northern Ireland in a landmark demonstration of tidal power technology.

Marine Current Turbines, a company based in Bristol, UK, had hoped to begin installing the turbines at Strangford Lough (Google map) on Monday, but the construction barge scheduled to deliver the turbines was delayed. A company spokesman says the installation will now take place later in 2007. It will be the world’s largest tidal power project.

The underwater turbines look and work very much like wind power turbines. Each blade is 15 to 20 metres across and is mounted on an axis that attaches to a 3-metre-wide pile driven into the seabed.

Tide-driven currents will move the rotors at speeds of between 10 and 20 revolutions per minute, which the company claims is too slow to affect marine life. The turbines will drive a gearbox that will, in turn, drive an electric generator and the resulting electricity will be transmitted to the shore via an underwater cable.

The Strangford Lough tidal generator is intended purely as a demonstration project. Eventually, MCT intends to build farms of turbines consisting of 10 to 20 pairs each.

Each turbine requires a piece of equipment called a jack-up barge for installation. The barge anchors itself to the sea floor and drills a hole that sets the turbines in place.

“Of the 60-odd [tidal power] projects I’ve seen, this seems like the best,” says Dave Elliott, a professor in technology policy at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK.

“It’s an interesting period,” Elliott adds. “You have lots of approaches and lots of innovative projects. The straightforward underwater propeller seems like the winner.”

Elliott says that tidal and wave power could eventually provide between 15% and 20% of the UK’s electricity needs. But he believes that operators need to develop experience with the technology before the price of energy generated in this way falls to levels comparable to wind power.

Source: http://technology.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12519&feedId=earth_rss20

Ten readers’ ways to cut your carbon footprint

We’ve brought you ten ways to cut your carbon footprint at home and ten ways to cut your carbon footprint at work, now we feature ten ideas from readers of The Independent to help you lead a greener, cleaner, less polluting and less carbon-heavy lifestyle

Published: 09 August 2007

 

Reduce your carbon footprint by taking your holidays in the UK

1 Buy local produce

There are many reasons for buying local. Often it’s just nice to know where your food comes from, but most of the time there’s a reduction in your carbon footprint too. This is because, in a world of globalised food production, most food travels a long distance, releasing CO2 all the way.

One estimate concluded that feeding each of us for a year requires transporting the equivalent of a 12-tonne container load of food for more than a 100km. The trucks involved emit 170kg of CO2 in Britain and another 150kg abroad. A further 30kg comes from air-freighting your perishables, such as vegetables, fruit and fish. Organic food, incidentally, is no better. Twice as much organic food is imported as domestically produced, or as much as three quarters by some estimates.

Most of these transport emissions can be eliminated by buying local produce. Supermarkets are increasingly good at labelling this clearly, and farmers’ markets usually sell nothing else. There are more than 500 farmers’ markets in the UK, and more are starting up all the time. Check where your nearest is by going to www.farmersmarkets.net.

To be doubly sure of having a low carbon footprint, it’s a good idea to make a point of buying produce when it’s in season. That way, you avoid the CO2 emissions from heating greenhouses, which can sometimes be as great as air-freighting from foreign lands. For a guide to what’s in season when, see www.thefoody.com/basic.

2 Reduce your meat consumption

The carbon footprint from producing animal protein is typically eight times greater than that from vegetable protein. Animals are not very efficient protein converters and a lot of energy is lost along the food chain. Much depends on how the animals are fed. Those raised on natural pastures have CO2 emissions 50 per cent less than those raised on concentrated feed grown using artificial fertilisers.

Free-range is best. That’s partly why British lamb, for instance, has a bigger carbon footprint than New Zealand lamb, even when the latter has been shipped halfway across the world. You may think that all lamb is free-range, but British lambs are given fodder, rather than eating pasture, for some of the year. The slaughtering rules and supermarket requirements also mean that British lamb is often trucked all over the country, adding to its carbon footprint.

In addition, farm animals directly produce another potent greenhouse gas. The guts of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats, etc) generate methane while digesting food. Cattle belch and fart a lot and methane is also generated in slurry tanks. All told, every kilogram of beef raised in a feedlot can be responsible for more than 30kg of greenhouse gases.

So, reducing your meat consumption is good for your carbon footprint. And cutting out beef is best of all. But a word of warning: this good work could easily be undone if you increase your dairy produce intake to compensate. The reason: dairy cows typically produce twice as much methane as beef cattle. That’s why you should manage your dairy intake, too, if you want to reduce the carbon footprint of the food you eat.

3 Avoid over-packaged goods

We all complain about excessive food packaging, but supermarkets say we are reluctant to buy loose food. We should get serious about this, however. One estimate is that the manufacture of packaging for British food produces 10 million tonnes of CO2 in Britain each year, or 170kg for each one of us.

Some retailers claim that extra packaging reduces damage to food – and so wastage – during transportation, but a lot of packaging has more to do with presentation than anything else. And if all that packaging is really necessary for safe transportation, then that’s another reason to buy local produce, which generally has the least packaging.

If we must have packaging, does it matter what kind? Plastic is usually bad news, as it takes more energy to produce than cardboard. And whereas most cardboard can be recycled, many types of plastic can’t. Aluminium cans have the biggest carbon footprint of any form of packaging because it takes a large amount of energy to smelt the metal. This means that draught beer is best and bottles are better than cans. If you do buy a can, make absolutely sure that it’s recycled.

Some people are concerned about waste being exported for recycling, but the evidence is that, whether in Beijing or Birmingham, there can often be a good use for our rubbish, so don’t be put off. Even so, it’s better to avoid packaging in the first place.

4 Join a car pool or club

Every day, there are 10 million empty seats in cars on our roads. Sharing your car journey to work could save you hundreds of pounds a year, as well as easing traffic congestion, saving wear and tear on your car and cutting your carbon footprint. Put four people in a car and commuting can become as low carbon as taking the bus. You can, of course, car share informally with work colleagues, but there are also car-sharing websites to match you up with fellow commuters.

Do you commute to work by public transport but keep a car for occasional weekend trips? If so, think about joining a car club, where you just pay for a car when you need one. To work well, car clubs require a critical mass of members because you don’t want to have to travel far to pick up the car. So far, they’ve made most progress in London, encouraged by the big population, high parking charges and large number of people who generally use public transport and only need a car occasionally. Other cities across the country, including Brighton and Southampton, have similar schemes.

5 Cut down on junk mail

Your mailbox is clogging up with CO2 every day. The average adult gets 19kg of junk mail a year, with a carbon footprint from its manufacture and distribution that’s several times greater. The Royal Mail will stop delivering unaddressed junk mail if you e-mail it at optout@ royalmail.com. To ask not to receive the junk mail with your name and address on, sign up with the Mailing Preference Service at www.mpsonline.org.uk.

Fearful of losing profitable business because of a green-minded backlash against junk mail, the Royal Mail has announced a responsible mail service. This will offset the CO2 emissions from the paper manufacture, printing and transportation of your mail. Don’t let this deter you from stopping your junk mail, though. As every climate activist will tell you, offsetting emissions is very much second best to preventing emissions in the first place.

6 Reuse and refuse plastic bags

We get through 17 billion plastic bags a year, which is approaching one each every day. Reduce this plastic trail by taking plastic or reusable bags shopping with you and asking staff not to give you a bag when you pay. This is becoming a worldwide movement. It started in small communities, where retailers agreed not to hand plastic bags out any more, but is growing fast. Later this year, San Francisco will become the largest US city to date to ban the plastic bag.

The supermarkets see this as a sales opportunity, of course. They want to sell us reusable, “bag for life” bags. This is fine, but all bags are reusable, unless they break, and your home is probably already full of them, so start by reusing those. And here’s another use for plastic bags: use them to line your rubbish bins at home.

7 Holiday in the UK

Maybe, after this year’s wet summer, this isn’t the best time to mention it but Britain is one of the world’s top holiday destinations. People cross the globe to sample our delights, so why miss out on a good thing? Check out our back yard and cut your carbon footprint into the bargain.

Holidays are among our biggest sources of CO2 emissions and the main element is the flight. An economy return flight from the UK to Florida or New York creates emissions equivalent to a year’s car use. And a return flight to Lanzarote emits as much as a power station generating your share of domestic electricity for a year. For millions of us, our carbon footprint from flying is bigger than for everything else we do and buy.

Unlike most other parts of our lives, there are no off-the-shelf ways of being a greener flyer. For many of us, the single biggest step we can take to cut our carbon footprint is to stop flying and start holidaying closer to home.

If you don’t want to holiday in the UK, restrict yourself to Europe and go by train or ferry rather than plane. It is slower, and probably more expensive, but you can make the journey part of the holiday. Through the Alps, down the Rhine, across the lagoon into Venice: all are great journeys. You’ll wonder why you ever flew.

8 Be eco when staying in hotels

We’ve all seen the signs in hotel rooms asking us to reuse the towels. We wouldn’t change our towel at home every day, so why do it on holiday? And just because you’re not paying directly for the electricity, don’t leave the lights on. Do the energy-saving things you would do at home. Take a shower not a bath, don’t use or remove all the (probably imported) soaps and lotions, don’t leave the TV on standby, don’t have the air conditioning on all the time and always turn it off when you leave the room. If your room’s only a couple of floors up, take the stairs rather than the lift – you know you need the exercise.

Try and find a hotel that plausibly advertises its green credentials. Look out for hotels belonging to the Green Tourism Business Scheme or with the Energy Star rating, but don’t be too seduced by eco chic. The good news is that the hotels with the smallest carbon footprint are, often, the simplest and cheapest.

Research the public transport system where you’re going beforehand (many publish their routes and timetables online) and pick a hotel close to a station or bus route, so you aren’t dependent on taxis and hire cars.

9 Don’t bin things: reuse, Freecycle and buy second-hand

The car may not be green, but the car boot sale certainly is. And don’t just sell your stuff there, buy as well. Green chic comes cheap and cheerful and from the school playground on a Saturday morning.

The green consumer also goes to jumble sales, buys used books, searches out bargains in antiques shops and checks out charity shops for clothes and other goodies: it’s all had one life already, so it’s carbon neutral. By keeping old products in circulation, you’re preventing them from being dumped or put in landfill and preventing their carbon from leaking back into the atmosphere.

While your friends are bargaining away on eBay, why not go one step further and check out the Freecycle network? It’s dedicated to giving used things away. Freecycle started in the US, but there are local groups all over Britain now, as you will quickly find at www.freecycle.org.

10 Keep your clothing footprint small

A low-carbon wardrobe is also a small wardrobe. Buy second-hand whenever possible and when you buy new, ensure they’re things you really like and will wear for years. Fast fashion is bad for your carbon footprint. And bear in mind that the majority of your clothing footprint probably comes not from the purchase but from keeping it clean.

Here’s the equation for a cotton T-shirt. Growing the cotton generates about 1kg of CO2, mostly from manufacturing the fertilisers and pesticides used and from pumping the 30 or so bathtubs of water needed for irrigation. Turning that cotton into a shirt and transporting it to a store near you generates around another 2kg. However, you’ll use around 4kg washing and tumble drying it a typical 25 times. Denim jeans and cotton knickers come out much the same.

Other fibres, such as viscose and polyester, take more energy to make than cotton but use less subsequently because they’re often washed at lower temperatures and dry more easily.

To minimise your clothing footprint, you should wash at a lower temperature than it says on the label (even Marks & Spencer now recommends this) and always put a full load in the machine. Mothball that tumble drier because it’s one of your home’s biggest energy guzzlers. Invest instead in a washing line and an indoor clothes dryer. And forget about ironing, unless it’s essential.

Source: http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2846571.ece