The country's chief lobbyist for renewables tells Rosemary Gallagher why it's a race against time to meet generating targets
Published Date: 15 February 2009
THE nuclear energy debate has set the Scottish Government on a well-documented collision course with Westminster and business leaders who warn that its resistance to building a new generation of reactors will mean a brain drain of talent and the lights being switched off. Enough, perhaps, to swell the chest of the country's chief lobbyist for the renewables industry.
Well, not exactly. Jason Ormiston, chief executive of trade body Scottish Renewables, is not merely a spokesman for the wind and wave brigade. "No, no, no," insists Ormiston. "Scottish Renewables' position (on nuclear] is one of agnosticism. We don't tell the Government how it should manage that particular issue. "The vision we have is of a number of generating technologies operating together where the weaknesses of each are balanced by the strengths of others. I like to think of it as a football team, where the whole is better than the sum of the parts."He doesn't say whether the football team he has in mind is his first love, Dunfermline Athletic, or Partick Thistle, the local outfit he has adopted since moving to the west end of Glasgow. However, he does say it is unfortunate that the language of the debate around nuclear has been "a little strident at times" and needs to take a "more sensible and sober turn". Only then can key decisions be made about the role of different generating technologies over the next 20 years."It would be helpful if some commentators were able to make the case for their favourite technology without using myths to undermine others that have an important role to play. I haven't heard anyone sensibly articulate the type of argument I'm making about moving towards an electricity system that has a significant contribution from renewables as part of a wider mix offering the reliability and affordability we need."The former business journalist has led Scottish Renewables, an industry-led body representing 241 energy organisations since October 2007. He is still a relatively youthful 38, and his pragmatic approach may stem from his career to date. He got involved in the sector after the Scottish daily newspaper Business AM collapsed in 2002 and he found himself out of work. He tried his hand at sports journalism before advising a public relations agency on green energy and then joining Scottish Renewables as its wind engineering officer. While a business journalist he covered the paper's energy beat, focusing on oil and gas at a time when renewables were relatively far down the media agenda."As a journalist, I wasn't in any way worried about the impact of the oil and gas sector. But I have always had a strong interest in environmental issues. A big concern of mine is climate change and how fossil fuels should be considered as a more precious resource," he says.Earlier, he had taken part in a lengthy session at the Scottish Parliament on delivering the energy future. Along with Scottish & Southern Energy, ScottishPower, the National Grid, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and industry regulator Ofgem, he was asked to give evidence on the technicalities of transmission charging and energy infrastructure. He gave an eloquent account on all aspects of energy, not just renewables.But, despite his view that the country's energy needs must be met by a mixed portfolio, he is not willing to challenge SNP's opposition to nuclear. One way or another, answers have to be found, as the country's coal-fired and nuclear power stations are due to be decommissioned without a clear strategy for replacing them. Cockenzie coal-fired station closes in 2015; Hunterston nuclear plant in 2016; Longannet coal-fired station in 2020; Torness nuclear reactor in 2023 and Peterhead gas-fired station two years later.With coal currently producing 32.7% of Scotland's electricity, nuclear 26.4% and renewables, including hydro, only 13%, there is a long way to go before the Government hits its target of 50% of the country's electricity coming from renewable sources by 2020. "Reaching 50% is still challenging. It's certainly not in the bag as a lot of things have to happen first," Ormiston concedes. One prerequisite is for planners to give the go-ahead to SSE and ScottishPower's proposals to replace and upgrade the transmission line between Beauly, near Inverness, and Denny, near Falkirk. The energy companies need approval by March to start work in June and have the new line complete by 2012. Scottish Renewables has consistently made the case that failure to give a timely approval to the proposal, the largest single civil engineering project since Scotland's large hydro stations were built, will be a major setback for the growth of the country's renewable electricity industry. It would also see the loss of £1.5bn worth of investment in the north of the country. Ormiston says the project has to be given the green light to allow even half of the renewable projects in the planning system to be plugged into the grid network. Uncertainty over the Beauly-Denny project is not the only hurdle. If the 2020 target is to be met, all the required renewable capacity has to be given planning consent by 2017. "Political support needs to be in place if this is to happen," says Ormiston. In technical terms, Scotland currently has almost 3,000 megawatts of renewable capacity already installed. It needs another 5,000MW to meet the 2020 target.Scotland's largest onshore wind farm currently being built at Whitelee, Glasgow by ScottishPower, will have capacity to generate 322MW of electricity from about 140 turbines. Quite a few more Whitelees would be needed by 2020 to meet the Scottish Government's target. But it is not that straightforward as most wind farms will be on a much smaller scale and other forms of renewables, including wave and tidal power, will have a role to play. The support of planners will be crucial to the success of the renewables industry but is far from guaranteed."The litmus test when it comes to planning will be whether Beauly-Denny is given the go-ahead," says Ormiston.While, he says, planning is an improving situation, it has been a big issue for the industry, and one Scottish Renewables has fought hard with the politicians to improve. "The inconsistent approach and the time spent making planning decisions has caused the renewables industry major problems. A lot of the larger projects were unnecessarily delayed. I don't think the planning system is well enough resourced to take a project through the system in an acceptable time. A backlog develops and those employed in the system also have to put up with political pressure."Another barrier to the development of the renewables industry is the skills shortage.There are two aspects to the shortage, says Ormiston. On the domestic side, there are not enough plumbers and electricians trained in green energy to, for example, install solar panels. To tackle this problem Scottish Renewables is working with a number of bodies, such as the Scottish and Northern Irish Plumbing Employer Federation, to train more workers. The Scottish Government is aware of the problem and is developing its Renewable Heat Action Plan to be published later in the year."We would expect the Government to identify this problem as an important issue that needs to be addressed. But we do need to shift very quickly from thinking about the problem to doing something about it. In my experience, Westminster and Holyrood are very good at talking and strategising but not delivering."On the company side, there are not enough engineering graduates coming through with the qualifications to work on the country's wind, wave and tidal projects, Ormiston warns."There is, generally speaking, a shortage of engineers and we have members who are struggling to recruit people with the skills they need. We have to invest to build up capacity. If we can't find engineers to make devices work, the industry will have a problem as we're still in proof-of-technology stage. We need to be able to show that renewable devices, including those for wave and tidal power, and carbon capture, can be commercialised."
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Blown away (Observer)
Tim Webb
The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
In just over a fortnight, Britain's largest energy groups will submit bids to build dozens of giant wind farms off the coast of the UK at an estimated cost of well over £30bn. The only problem is that the groups have little confidence they will become a reality - unless they get more public subsidies.
Readers would be forgiven a heavy sigh at the request for a government bail-out. This is particularly the case when the call comes from energy companies, whose unpopularity recently has been surpassed only by the banks.
Yet the energy companies and other developers of offshore wind have a point. The government has set incredibly ambitious renewable energy targets. Meeting them depends on building offshore wind farms - and lots of them.
Early next month is the deadline for companies to bid in the third - and by far the largest - round of licensing for offshore wind. The government hopes the nine zones up for grabs will host 25GW of wind farms, enough to power London.
But existing projects are already running into problems. E.ON, one of the developers of the £1bn London Array offshore project, admitted last month that the economics were on a "knife edge". The energy group will decide soon whether to proceed or not.
Offshore wind farms are an expensive way to generate power. No one has built them on this scale before, which also makes the projects very risky. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, developers are not guaranteed a high price for the electricity they sell. Add in the credit crunch and it is no surprise that dozens of projects have been put on hold or scrapped altogether.
Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, told the Guardian last month that he and other energy chiefs were in urgent talks with the government about how to make the economics work.
Privately, some despair at the failure to change the existing regulatory and economic framework for offshore wind. One chief executive said: "It's bonkers."
But developers have not given up all hope, which is why interest next month will be healthy, albeit not as strong as it would have been a year ago. One director of a developer said: "Companies will still submit proposals in the hope that the economics will improve when they have to commit the investment. If they don't, the projects won't go ahead."
The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
In just over a fortnight, Britain's largest energy groups will submit bids to build dozens of giant wind farms off the coast of the UK at an estimated cost of well over £30bn. The only problem is that the groups have little confidence they will become a reality - unless they get more public subsidies.
Readers would be forgiven a heavy sigh at the request for a government bail-out. This is particularly the case when the call comes from energy companies, whose unpopularity recently has been surpassed only by the banks.
Yet the energy companies and other developers of offshore wind have a point. The government has set incredibly ambitious renewable energy targets. Meeting them depends on building offshore wind farms - and lots of them.
Early next month is the deadline for companies to bid in the third - and by far the largest - round of licensing for offshore wind. The government hopes the nine zones up for grabs will host 25GW of wind farms, enough to power London.
But existing projects are already running into problems. E.ON, one of the developers of the £1bn London Array offshore project, admitted last month that the economics were on a "knife edge". The energy group will decide soon whether to proceed or not.
Offshore wind farms are an expensive way to generate power. No one has built them on this scale before, which also makes the projects very risky. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, developers are not guaranteed a high price for the electricity they sell. Add in the credit crunch and it is no surprise that dozens of projects have been put on hold or scrapped altogether.
Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, told the Guardian last month that he and other energy chiefs were in urgent talks with the government about how to make the economics work.
Privately, some despair at the failure to change the existing regulatory and economic framework for offshore wind. One chief executive said: "It's bonkers."
But developers have not given up all hope, which is why interest next month will be healthy, albeit not as strong as it would have been a year ago. One director of a developer said: "Companies will still submit proposals in the hope that the economics will improve when they have to commit the investment. If they don't, the projects won't go ahead."
Blown away
The Sunday Times
February 15, 2009
BT and Tesco may abandon huge new eco-projects following a last-minute rule change by the government
Jonathan Leake and Joseph Dunn
ONE of Britain’s biggest privately funded eco-projects could be on the verge of collapse. British Telecom said last week that it was preparing to pull the plug on a £250m plan to build electricity-generating wind farms because of a rule change by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
BT, whose shares hit a record low in trading last week, planned to build 100 turbines on 20-30 sites in England and Scotland capable of generating 25% of its power needs. At a cost of £250m it represented the biggest investment in renewable energy by any British company apart from energy businesses.
But last week the scheme was in disarray, with BT and the government each blaming the other for the impending collapse. BT claims that new rules make the project unviable and that the government is now in effect discouraging companies from switching to renewable energy.
At the root of the dispute is a row over government-issued credits called Renewable Obligation Certificates (Rocs).
“Overall, we support what the government is trying to do to promote energy efficiency, but the ruling on Rocs means there is no sense in us building wind turbines,” said Chris Tup-pen, BT’s chief sustainability officer. “It is a perverse ruling that will also affect a number of other big businesses that are trying to act responsibly.
“We planned to build wind turbines that would generate a quarter of BT’s electricity by 2016. Without the subsidy that will not go ahead.”
A spokesman for the DECC blamed the problem on BT’s plans to profit from the wind farms by selling electricity and reducing its CO2 footprint at the same time as claiming subsidies, thus “having its cake and eating it”.
“It’s an accounting thing but it’s very important,” a government spokesman said. “We have to be very tough on it. The Roc is not a subsidy. If you sell the energy to the National Grid it is used to offset the grid’s emissions. You can’t both claim the money and use it to offset the company’s own emissions. That’s double accounting.”
Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, is expected to announce a consultation on its so-called carbon-reduction commitment (CRC) – the scheme that blocks BT from claiming credits at the same time as counting its green energy against its CO2 footprint – in late spring. BT and other firms are already lobbying to block it or change it.
Among them is Tesco, which is becoming increasingly interested in renewable-energy generation. David North, community and government director at Tesco, said: “I can see why the civil servants see this as double counting but the effect is to hold up renewable-energy initiatives. The government needs to find a way around this, perhaps by creating other incentives to help companies that are not power generators or other large fossil fuel users to switch to renewable energy.”
So where did it all go wrong? Hailed as an example of how businesses and government could work together to reduce carbon emissions, BT’s wind-power project was welcomed by the government when it was revealed two years ago. But the row now illustrates the fiendish complexity of the subsidy regimes devised to encourage the expansion of renewable-energy generation.
Rocs are issued by Ofgem, the energy regulator, to companies that produce green energy and can be sold on to third parties such as power generators, who have to prove – via the Rocs – that they gain a percentage of their power from renewable sources.
By selling the Roc, a company such as BT in effect gains a government subsidy on its green power. The government says BT is not entitled to that subsidy if it also exploits the fact that it produces renewable energy to reduce its overall carbon footprint.
BT says its proposed wind farms were planned on the assumption that it could sell Rocs in this way, and that the government has now back-tracked, making the project uneconomic.
The new CRC regulations make clear that businesses can either trade their Rocs or claim the carbon saved against their overall footprint – not both. It is this change that has infuriated BT.
“All sides are acting with good intentions but the result is that a plan that would make substantial cuts in CO2 emissions could be cancelled by BT’s board,” said Sir Michael Rake, chairman of BT. “We’re very disappointed and we would like the government to rethink these rules.” There are mounting concerns that the economic downturn is forcing companies to scale back or to scrap altogether environ-mental initiatives. Last month Vestas, the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturer, reported a drop in demand that left it with 15% excess manufacturing capacity, while Wall Street analysts said 2009 would be a tough year for wind and solar supplying firms.
BT has also been buffeted by the markets: shares fell 7.8% to 97p – an all time low – last week after the group warned of further writedowns on its troubled corporate telecoms infra-structure division.
This is not just energy, this is M&S green energy
WHILE BT wavers on its green plans, Marks & Spencer is today announcing a multi-million-pound contract with Npower as part of its Plan A to be carbon neutral by 2012, writes Kate Walsh.
Under the six-year deal the energy supplier will provide M&S with 2.6TWh (terawatt-hour) of renewable electricity – enough to power all the retailer’s stores and offices – from April.
The deal in itself is worthy, but a caveat that stipulates that a quarter of the energy must come from small-scale generators makes it unique. In simple terms this means M&S is offering contracts to UK farmers to feed renewable energy into the grid, which it will then buy from Npower.
The retailer has already awarded five contracts to small farmers, and this has enabled them to get financing for building wind turbines, anaerobic digesters and small-scale hydro systems.
Grant Mackie, an Aberdeenshire grain and cattle farmer, won an M&S energy contract in 2006. He said: “A wind turbine costs about £1m upfront and unless you have a five-year contract the banks are not interested in providing the capital. The longest contract we could get before M&S was two years at a push. There was a disconnect, and M&S bridged that gap.”
Mackie now has three wind turbines on his 500-acre farm.
Richard Gillies at M&S said: “Mackie has wind blowing over his land, which we can use, but can still do what he likes at ground level, be that growing grain or rearing cattle.”
February 15, 2009
BT and Tesco may abandon huge new eco-projects following a last-minute rule change by the government
Jonathan Leake and Joseph Dunn
ONE of Britain’s biggest privately funded eco-projects could be on the verge of collapse. British Telecom said last week that it was preparing to pull the plug on a £250m plan to build electricity-generating wind farms because of a rule change by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
BT, whose shares hit a record low in trading last week, planned to build 100 turbines on 20-30 sites in England and Scotland capable of generating 25% of its power needs. At a cost of £250m it represented the biggest investment in renewable energy by any British company apart from energy businesses.
But last week the scheme was in disarray, with BT and the government each blaming the other for the impending collapse. BT claims that new rules make the project unviable and that the government is now in effect discouraging companies from switching to renewable energy.
At the root of the dispute is a row over government-issued credits called Renewable Obligation Certificates (Rocs).
“Overall, we support what the government is trying to do to promote energy efficiency, but the ruling on Rocs means there is no sense in us building wind turbines,” said Chris Tup-pen, BT’s chief sustainability officer. “It is a perverse ruling that will also affect a number of other big businesses that are trying to act responsibly.
“We planned to build wind turbines that would generate a quarter of BT’s electricity by 2016. Without the subsidy that will not go ahead.”
A spokesman for the DECC blamed the problem on BT’s plans to profit from the wind farms by selling electricity and reducing its CO2 footprint at the same time as claiming subsidies, thus “having its cake and eating it”.
“It’s an accounting thing but it’s very important,” a government spokesman said. “We have to be very tough on it. The Roc is not a subsidy. If you sell the energy to the National Grid it is used to offset the grid’s emissions. You can’t both claim the money and use it to offset the company’s own emissions. That’s double accounting.”
Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, is expected to announce a consultation on its so-called carbon-reduction commitment (CRC) – the scheme that blocks BT from claiming credits at the same time as counting its green energy against its CO2 footprint – in late spring. BT and other firms are already lobbying to block it or change it.
Among them is Tesco, which is becoming increasingly interested in renewable-energy generation. David North, community and government director at Tesco, said: “I can see why the civil servants see this as double counting but the effect is to hold up renewable-energy initiatives. The government needs to find a way around this, perhaps by creating other incentives to help companies that are not power generators or other large fossil fuel users to switch to renewable energy.”
So where did it all go wrong? Hailed as an example of how businesses and government could work together to reduce carbon emissions, BT’s wind-power project was welcomed by the government when it was revealed two years ago. But the row now illustrates the fiendish complexity of the subsidy regimes devised to encourage the expansion of renewable-energy generation.
Rocs are issued by Ofgem, the energy regulator, to companies that produce green energy and can be sold on to third parties such as power generators, who have to prove – via the Rocs – that they gain a percentage of their power from renewable sources.
By selling the Roc, a company such as BT in effect gains a government subsidy on its green power. The government says BT is not entitled to that subsidy if it also exploits the fact that it produces renewable energy to reduce its overall carbon footprint.
BT says its proposed wind farms were planned on the assumption that it could sell Rocs in this way, and that the government has now back-tracked, making the project uneconomic.
The new CRC regulations make clear that businesses can either trade their Rocs or claim the carbon saved against their overall footprint – not both. It is this change that has infuriated BT.
“All sides are acting with good intentions but the result is that a plan that would make substantial cuts in CO2 emissions could be cancelled by BT’s board,” said Sir Michael Rake, chairman of BT. “We’re very disappointed and we would like the government to rethink these rules.” There are mounting concerns that the economic downturn is forcing companies to scale back or to scrap altogether environ-mental initiatives. Last month Vestas, the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturer, reported a drop in demand that left it with 15% excess manufacturing capacity, while Wall Street analysts said 2009 would be a tough year for wind and solar supplying firms.
BT has also been buffeted by the markets: shares fell 7.8% to 97p – an all time low – last week after the group warned of further writedowns on its troubled corporate telecoms infra-structure division.
This is not just energy, this is M&S green energy
WHILE BT wavers on its green plans, Marks & Spencer is today announcing a multi-million-pound contract with Npower as part of its Plan A to be carbon neutral by 2012, writes Kate Walsh.
Under the six-year deal the energy supplier will provide M&S with 2.6TWh (terawatt-hour) of renewable electricity – enough to power all the retailer’s stores and offices – from April.
The deal in itself is worthy, but a caveat that stipulates that a quarter of the energy must come from small-scale generators makes it unique. In simple terms this means M&S is offering contracts to UK farmers to feed renewable energy into the grid, which it will then buy from Npower.
The retailer has already awarded five contracts to small farmers, and this has enabled them to get financing for building wind turbines, anaerobic digesters and small-scale hydro systems.
Grant Mackie, an Aberdeenshire grain and cattle farmer, won an M&S energy contract in 2006. He said: “A wind turbine costs about £1m upfront and unless you have a five-year contract the banks are not interested in providing the capital. The longest contract we could get before M&S was two years at a push. There was a disconnect, and M&S bridged that gap.”
Mackie now has three wind turbines on his 500-acre farm.
Richard Gillies at M&S said: “Mackie has wind blowing over his land, which we can use, but can still do what he likes at ground level, be that growing grain or rearing cattle.”
Coal at centre of fierce new climate battle
The debate over the impact of fossil fuels has been reignited by the imminent approval of a power plant at Kingsnorth, Kent. Could advances in technology provide ways of capturing dangerous emissions and make coal safer? Science Editor Robin McKie reports on a conflict of ideas
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
Engineers on the Sleipner East platform in the North Sea can lay claim to a unique environmental honour. Each year for the past decade they have pumped a million tonnes of carbon dioxide into an old gas field below their rig, a helpful contribution to the easing of global warming.
But there is more to the project, run by the Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, than providing the world with some short-term climatic action. The engineers have also been studying the fate of that CO2 once it has reached its subterranean home. To their delight, the gas has stayed there, trapped in the pores of the field's sandstone rock.
"We have pumped millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into underground fields," said project leader Tore Torp. "We see no signs of any escaping."
This lesson is crucial, say scientists. The world's longest-running carbon storage experiment has been a success and has shown that the technology is safe, effective and ready for implementation. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants could soon be extracted before it reaches the atmosphere and be stored safely out of sight, a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).
"The idea is simple," said geologist Stuart Haszeldine, of Edinburgh University. "If you have CCS, power plant operators can still burn fossil fuels - without emitting carbon dioxide."
And not before time. According to energy experts, Britain now has no chance of meeting its climate change obligations and the planet has little prospect of tackling global warming without a means of stopping carbon emissions from fossil fuel plants. We can expand renewable power, build nuclear plants and improve energy conservation, but will remain at the mercy of power plants and factories that burn fossil fuels. The world is too dependent on carbon fuels to quit its addiction in a decade or two, it is argued. We need to deal with them directly and urgently, with prime emphasis on the most dangerous of all fossil fuels: coal.
According to Jim Hansen, the climate change champion and director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, coal now rates as the greatest evil our planet faces. "Trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains," he says in an uncompromising opinion article in today's Observer. "Coal-fired plants are factories of death."
Many other scientists agree. Coal poses special environmental problems. It is dirty; burning it releases pollutants that cause acid rain; its combustion produces less heat than the burning of gas and oil, meaning that disproportionate amounts are needed to run power plants and factories. Yet in only a few weeks, the government is expected to approve construction of a massive new coal power plant at Kingsnorth in Kent.
Worst of all, however, is the simple fact that coal remains plentiful and cheap. "The world's oil and gas will probably run out in 50 years, but coal will last for hundreds of years," said Professor Dermot Roddy, of Newcastle University. "In Britain, with its two centuries of mining, we still have more than 100 years of coal supply. It will not run out overnight."
The fossilised remnants of 100 million-year-old plants, coal is still the world's major source of electricity, generating 41% of its power supply. Even in the United States, the most technologically advanced nation, almost half its electricity is generated this way. In rapidly developing nations such as India and China, new coal power plants are opened every month. For Hansen, the only solution is the introduction of a carbon tax across the globe. Companies would be taxed by national governments according to their levels of emissions. Any failing to set up such systems would have their exports taxed by the rest of the world. Fossil fuel plants, especially coal plants, would be priced out of existence.
But last week British energy experts warned that a system of carbon taxes had little chance of success, particularly in dealing with coal. "Coal is going to be available as a source of energy for at least another century and countries like China, India and Russia have particularly rich resources," said Mike Stephenson, head of science at the British Geological Survey. "It does not matter what we say in the west about they should do, they will always want to exploit their coal. If it is in the ground, people will always be tempted to use it. The only way round the problem is to make the use of coal safe and environmentally friendly."
In other words, only technology can save the day - in the form of CCS schemes. "The position is very simple," said energy expert Jon Gibbins, of Imperial College London. "The only way we can decarbonise our electricity production on the timescale needed to halt the worst effects of climate change is by setting up carbon capture and storage plants as matters of urgency." Nuclear and wind plants simply cannot be constructed in the time available.
This point was backed by the former cabinet minister Chris Smith in a lecture to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce this month. Carbon capture was, he said, the "perfect example of what can be done" and an opportunity to avoid repeating past mistakes.
"Twenty years ago, we lost out as Denmark and Germany shot ahead in developing wind-farm technology and now if we want to put big-scale offshore wind farms in place we have to buy most of the equipment from them," he said. "Let's not end up in the same position again."
Yet on its current timetable the government is destined to do just that. It is now assessing a number of small prototype projects, proposed by local authorities and power companies, that would be attached to power plants. A single winner will then be announced next year and given government support. Construction is expected to take three or four years and the plant would be then be run for several years. From the lessons learnt, the first major CCS plants would then be given the go-ahead, around 2020.
"That is simply too late," Stephenson said. "If we are to cut our carbon emissions by 20 per cent by that date, our only hope is through CCS. But if the government proceeds at its current pace, we will hardly be off the ground by then."
Only serious intervention will save the day. "We cannot expect power companies and local authorities to take all the risks," said Roddy. "We need some modest central commitment and investment for several full-scale projects in the next couple of years. Some plants will work better than others and we need to find out urgently which they are. And if, by some chance, CCS plants don't work, it is vital we know that as soon as possible.
"I am sure they will work, however. We know how to extract carbon dioxide on an industrial scale at petrochemical plants and we have learnt from projects like Sleipner how to store carbon dioxide underground. All we need to do is scale up proceedings. But we need to do that now, on a large-scale, at several sites, using different systems if we are to have a hope of getting CCS ready in time."
For Britain, the need to act swiftly over CCS is particularly acute. The nation possesses considerable North Sea oil industry expertise, a key advantage in developing expertise in CCS technology given that most projects are likely to be based near depleted, underwater oil and gas fields where leakage cannot affect towns or cities.
Thus the UK has a first-class opportunity to develop a technology with enormous industrial potential, not just as a means to hide CO2 from an overheating planet but as a technique for improving the recovery of oil. Pumping gas into a depleted field helps to push out its last reserves of oil. The technology is expensive, but combined with CCS could become increasingly viable.
Britain also has a moral obligation, say scientists such as Hansen. Per head of population, the UK has put more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country. The nation that unleashed the industrial revolution has a lot to answer for, in other words. It is therefore clear that we should be taking a lead in the development of technologies that can fix the problem. "Certainly, we are in no position to tell China or India that they cannot burn coal," added Gibbins.
Exactly how CCS schemes would be funded is not yet clear. A carbon tax could still play a role, say experts - by making emissions costly enough to justify the price of building CCS plants.
Current estimates suggest it will cost at least £50 to bury a tonne of carbon dioxide. Given that a typical 800 megawatt power station will produce 5 million tonnes a year, it is clear this is not going to be a cheap technology. On the other hand, it is a technology that desperately needs validating, say energy experts. If it is not going to work, the world needs to know now before it places its faith in a dud saviour. On other hand, if it does work, as most experts predict, it needs to be implemented on a timetable that will give our warming world a chance to breathe as soon as possible.
Carbon controls
Three main types of carbon capture techniques have been developed:
Pre-combustion capture
Coal particles are mixed with steam, a reaction which produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is burned to drive turbines and the carbon dioxide is buried.
Post-combustion capture
Coal is burned normally and the carbon dioxide produced is then extracted and stored.
Oxy-fuel combustion
Coal is burned in pure oxygen, triggering high-temperature reactions which produce fewer polluting by-products.
Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages. Pre-combustion plants generate hydrogen, an extremely useful green fuel, but they can only be fitted to new plants. Post-combustion can be retro-fitted - a unit can be installed on to existing power plants. Oxy-fuel plants are expensive but generate little pollution. As a result, engineers argue that all three technologies need to be developed as speedily as possible and used where each is most appropriate.
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
Engineers on the Sleipner East platform in the North Sea can lay claim to a unique environmental honour. Each year for the past decade they have pumped a million tonnes of carbon dioxide into an old gas field below their rig, a helpful contribution to the easing of global warming.
But there is more to the project, run by the Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, than providing the world with some short-term climatic action. The engineers have also been studying the fate of that CO2 once it has reached its subterranean home. To their delight, the gas has stayed there, trapped in the pores of the field's sandstone rock.
"We have pumped millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into underground fields," said project leader Tore Torp. "We see no signs of any escaping."
This lesson is crucial, say scientists. The world's longest-running carbon storage experiment has been a success and has shown that the technology is safe, effective and ready for implementation. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants could soon be extracted before it reaches the atmosphere and be stored safely out of sight, a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).
"The idea is simple," said geologist Stuart Haszeldine, of Edinburgh University. "If you have CCS, power plant operators can still burn fossil fuels - without emitting carbon dioxide."
And not before time. According to energy experts, Britain now has no chance of meeting its climate change obligations and the planet has little prospect of tackling global warming without a means of stopping carbon emissions from fossil fuel plants. We can expand renewable power, build nuclear plants and improve energy conservation, but will remain at the mercy of power plants and factories that burn fossil fuels. The world is too dependent on carbon fuels to quit its addiction in a decade or two, it is argued. We need to deal with them directly and urgently, with prime emphasis on the most dangerous of all fossil fuels: coal.
According to Jim Hansen, the climate change champion and director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, coal now rates as the greatest evil our planet faces. "Trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains," he says in an uncompromising opinion article in today's Observer. "Coal-fired plants are factories of death."
Many other scientists agree. Coal poses special environmental problems. It is dirty; burning it releases pollutants that cause acid rain; its combustion produces less heat than the burning of gas and oil, meaning that disproportionate amounts are needed to run power plants and factories. Yet in only a few weeks, the government is expected to approve construction of a massive new coal power plant at Kingsnorth in Kent.
Worst of all, however, is the simple fact that coal remains plentiful and cheap. "The world's oil and gas will probably run out in 50 years, but coal will last for hundreds of years," said Professor Dermot Roddy, of Newcastle University. "In Britain, with its two centuries of mining, we still have more than 100 years of coal supply. It will not run out overnight."
The fossilised remnants of 100 million-year-old plants, coal is still the world's major source of electricity, generating 41% of its power supply. Even in the United States, the most technologically advanced nation, almost half its electricity is generated this way. In rapidly developing nations such as India and China, new coal power plants are opened every month. For Hansen, the only solution is the introduction of a carbon tax across the globe. Companies would be taxed by national governments according to their levels of emissions. Any failing to set up such systems would have their exports taxed by the rest of the world. Fossil fuel plants, especially coal plants, would be priced out of existence.
But last week British energy experts warned that a system of carbon taxes had little chance of success, particularly in dealing with coal. "Coal is going to be available as a source of energy for at least another century and countries like China, India and Russia have particularly rich resources," said Mike Stephenson, head of science at the British Geological Survey. "It does not matter what we say in the west about they should do, they will always want to exploit their coal. If it is in the ground, people will always be tempted to use it. The only way round the problem is to make the use of coal safe and environmentally friendly."
In other words, only technology can save the day - in the form of CCS schemes. "The position is very simple," said energy expert Jon Gibbins, of Imperial College London. "The only way we can decarbonise our electricity production on the timescale needed to halt the worst effects of climate change is by setting up carbon capture and storage plants as matters of urgency." Nuclear and wind plants simply cannot be constructed in the time available.
This point was backed by the former cabinet minister Chris Smith in a lecture to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce this month. Carbon capture was, he said, the "perfect example of what can be done" and an opportunity to avoid repeating past mistakes.
"Twenty years ago, we lost out as Denmark and Germany shot ahead in developing wind-farm technology and now if we want to put big-scale offshore wind farms in place we have to buy most of the equipment from them," he said. "Let's not end up in the same position again."
Yet on its current timetable the government is destined to do just that. It is now assessing a number of small prototype projects, proposed by local authorities and power companies, that would be attached to power plants. A single winner will then be announced next year and given government support. Construction is expected to take three or four years and the plant would be then be run for several years. From the lessons learnt, the first major CCS plants would then be given the go-ahead, around 2020.
"That is simply too late," Stephenson said. "If we are to cut our carbon emissions by 20 per cent by that date, our only hope is through CCS. But if the government proceeds at its current pace, we will hardly be off the ground by then."
Only serious intervention will save the day. "We cannot expect power companies and local authorities to take all the risks," said Roddy. "We need some modest central commitment and investment for several full-scale projects in the next couple of years. Some plants will work better than others and we need to find out urgently which they are. And if, by some chance, CCS plants don't work, it is vital we know that as soon as possible.
"I am sure they will work, however. We know how to extract carbon dioxide on an industrial scale at petrochemical plants and we have learnt from projects like Sleipner how to store carbon dioxide underground. All we need to do is scale up proceedings. But we need to do that now, on a large-scale, at several sites, using different systems if we are to have a hope of getting CCS ready in time."
For Britain, the need to act swiftly over CCS is particularly acute. The nation possesses considerable North Sea oil industry expertise, a key advantage in developing expertise in CCS technology given that most projects are likely to be based near depleted, underwater oil and gas fields where leakage cannot affect towns or cities.
Thus the UK has a first-class opportunity to develop a technology with enormous industrial potential, not just as a means to hide CO2 from an overheating planet but as a technique for improving the recovery of oil. Pumping gas into a depleted field helps to push out its last reserves of oil. The technology is expensive, but combined with CCS could become increasingly viable.
Britain also has a moral obligation, say scientists such as Hansen. Per head of population, the UK has put more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country. The nation that unleashed the industrial revolution has a lot to answer for, in other words. It is therefore clear that we should be taking a lead in the development of technologies that can fix the problem. "Certainly, we are in no position to tell China or India that they cannot burn coal," added Gibbins.
Exactly how CCS schemes would be funded is not yet clear. A carbon tax could still play a role, say experts - by making emissions costly enough to justify the price of building CCS plants.
Current estimates suggest it will cost at least £50 to bury a tonne of carbon dioxide. Given that a typical 800 megawatt power station will produce 5 million tonnes a year, it is clear this is not going to be a cheap technology. On the other hand, it is a technology that desperately needs validating, say energy experts. If it is not going to work, the world needs to know now before it places its faith in a dud saviour. On other hand, if it does work, as most experts predict, it needs to be implemented on a timetable that will give our warming world a chance to breathe as soon as possible.
Carbon controls
Three main types of carbon capture techniques have been developed:
Pre-combustion capture
Coal particles are mixed with steam, a reaction which produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is burned to drive turbines and the carbon dioxide is buried.
Post-combustion capture
Coal is burned normally and the carbon dioxide produced is then extracted and stored.
Oxy-fuel combustion
Coal is burned in pure oxygen, triggering high-temperature reactions which produce fewer polluting by-products.
Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages. Pre-combustion plants generate hydrogen, an extremely useful green fuel, but they can only be fitted to new plants. Post-combustion can be retro-fitted - a unit can be installed on to existing power plants. Oxy-fuel plants are expensive but generate little pollution. As a result, engineers argue that all three technologies need to be developed as speedily as possible and used where each is most appropriate.
Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them
The government is expected to give the go-ahead to the coal-burning Kingsnorth power plant. Here, one of the world's foremost climate experts launches an excoriating attack on Britain's long love affair with the most polluting fossil fuel of all
James Hansen
The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
A year ago, I wrote to Gordon Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and other leaders. The reason is this - coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As the tundra melts, methane, a strong greenhouse gas, is released, causing more warming. As species are exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.
The public, buffeted by weather fluctuations and economic turmoil, has little time to analyse decadal changes. How can people be expected to evaluate and filter out advice emanating from those pushing special interests? How can people distinguish between top-notch science and pseudo-science?
Those who lead us have no excuse - they are elected to guide, to protect the public and its best interests. They have at their disposal the best scientific organisations in the world, such as the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences. Only in the past few years did the science crystallise, revealing the urgency. Our planet is in peril. If we do not change course, we'll hand our children a situation that is out of their control. One ecological collapse will lead to another, in amplifying feedbacks.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has already risen to a dangerous level. The pre-industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 parts per million (ppm). Humans, by burning coal, oil and gas, have increased this to 385 ppm; it continues to grow by about 2 ppm per year.
Earth, with its four-kilometre-deep oceans, responds only slowly to changes of carbon dioxide. So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years - if carbon dioxide continues to increase at current rates. Coral reefs, harbouring a quarter of ocean species, are threatened.
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine. If coastal ice shelves buttressing the west Antarctic ice sheet continue to disintegrate, the sheet could disgorge into the ocean, raising sea levels by several metres in a century. Such rates of sea level change have occurred many times in Earth's history in response to global warming rates no higher than those of the past 30 years. Almost half of the world's great cities are located on coastlines.
The most threatening change, from my perspective, is extermination of species. Several times in Earth's history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species became extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine. If we drive our fellow species to extinction, we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world we inherited from our elders.
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually. The tragedy of the situation, if we do not wake up in time, is that the changes that must be made to stabilise the atmosphere and climate make sense for other reasons. They would produce a healthier atmosphere, improved agricultural productivity, clean water and an ocean providing fish that are safe to eat.
Fossil-fuel reservoirs will dictate the actions needed to solve the problem. Oil, of which half the readily accessible reserves have already been burnt, is used in vehicles, so it's impractical to capture the carbon dioxide. This is likely to drive carbon dioxide levels to at least 400 ppm. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide - coal - it will be practical to bring carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm, lower still if we improve agricultural and forestry practices, increasing carbon storage in trees and soil.
Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel. Coal is polluting the world's oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick that governments play on their citizens is the pretence that they are working on "clean coal" or that they will build power plants that are "capture-ready" in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants.
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. When I testified against the proposed Kingsnorth power plant, I estimated that in its lifetime it would be responsible for the extermination of about 400 species - its proportionate contribution to the number that would be committed to extinction if carbon dioxide rose another 100 ppm.
The German and Australian governments pretend to be green. When I show German officials the evidence that the coal source must be cut off, they say they will tighten the "carbon cap". But a cap only slows the use of a fuel - it does not leave it in the ground. When I point out that their new coal plants require that they convince Russia to leave its oil in the ground, they are silent. The Australian government was elected on a platform of solving the climate problem, but then, with the help of industry, it set emission targets so high as to guarantee untold disasters for the young, let alone the unborn. These governments are not green. They are black - coal black.
The three countries most responsible, per capita, for filling the air with carbon dioxide from fossil fuels are the UK, the US and Germany, in that order. Politicians here have asked me why am I speaking to them. Surely the US must lead? But coal interests have great power in the US; the essential moratorium and phase-out of coal requires a growing public demand and a political will yet to be demonstrated.
The Prime Minister should not underestimate his potential to transform the situation. And he must not pretend to be ignorant of the consequences of continuing to burn coal or take refuge in a "carbon cap" or some "target" for future emission reductions. My message to Gordon Brown is that young people are beginning to understand the situation. They want to know: will you join their side? Remember that history, and your children, will judge you.
• James Hansen is director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. He was the first scientist to warn the US Congress of the dangers of climate change
James Hansen
The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
A year ago, I wrote to Gordon Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and other leaders. The reason is this - coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As the tundra melts, methane, a strong greenhouse gas, is released, causing more warming. As species are exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.
The public, buffeted by weather fluctuations and economic turmoil, has little time to analyse decadal changes. How can people be expected to evaluate and filter out advice emanating from those pushing special interests? How can people distinguish between top-notch science and pseudo-science?
Those who lead us have no excuse - they are elected to guide, to protect the public and its best interests. They have at their disposal the best scientific organisations in the world, such as the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences. Only in the past few years did the science crystallise, revealing the urgency. Our planet is in peril. If we do not change course, we'll hand our children a situation that is out of their control. One ecological collapse will lead to another, in amplifying feedbacks.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has already risen to a dangerous level. The pre-industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 parts per million (ppm). Humans, by burning coal, oil and gas, have increased this to 385 ppm; it continues to grow by about 2 ppm per year.
Earth, with its four-kilometre-deep oceans, responds only slowly to changes of carbon dioxide. So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years - if carbon dioxide continues to increase at current rates. Coral reefs, harbouring a quarter of ocean species, are threatened.
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine. If coastal ice shelves buttressing the west Antarctic ice sheet continue to disintegrate, the sheet could disgorge into the ocean, raising sea levels by several metres in a century. Such rates of sea level change have occurred many times in Earth's history in response to global warming rates no higher than those of the past 30 years. Almost half of the world's great cities are located on coastlines.
The most threatening change, from my perspective, is extermination of species. Several times in Earth's history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species became extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine. If we drive our fellow species to extinction, we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world we inherited from our elders.
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually. The tragedy of the situation, if we do not wake up in time, is that the changes that must be made to stabilise the atmosphere and climate make sense for other reasons. They would produce a healthier atmosphere, improved agricultural productivity, clean water and an ocean providing fish that are safe to eat.
Fossil-fuel reservoirs will dictate the actions needed to solve the problem. Oil, of which half the readily accessible reserves have already been burnt, is used in vehicles, so it's impractical to capture the carbon dioxide. This is likely to drive carbon dioxide levels to at least 400 ppm. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide - coal - it will be practical to bring carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm, lower still if we improve agricultural and forestry practices, increasing carbon storage in trees and soil.
Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel. Coal is polluting the world's oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick that governments play on their citizens is the pretence that they are working on "clean coal" or that they will build power plants that are "capture-ready" in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants.
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. When I testified against the proposed Kingsnorth power plant, I estimated that in its lifetime it would be responsible for the extermination of about 400 species - its proportionate contribution to the number that would be committed to extinction if carbon dioxide rose another 100 ppm.
The German and Australian governments pretend to be green. When I show German officials the evidence that the coal source must be cut off, they say they will tighten the "carbon cap". But a cap only slows the use of a fuel - it does not leave it in the ground. When I point out that their new coal plants require that they convince Russia to leave its oil in the ground, they are silent. The Australian government was elected on a platform of solving the climate problem, but then, with the help of industry, it set emission targets so high as to guarantee untold disasters for the young, let alone the unborn. These governments are not green. They are black - coal black.
The three countries most responsible, per capita, for filling the air with carbon dioxide from fossil fuels are the UK, the US and Germany, in that order. Politicians here have asked me why am I speaking to them. Surely the US must lead? But coal interests have great power in the US; the essential moratorium and phase-out of coal requires a growing public demand and a political will yet to be demonstrated.
The Prime Minister should not underestimate his potential to transform the situation. And he must not pretend to be ignorant of the consequences of continuing to burn coal or take refuge in a "carbon cap" or some "target" for future emission reductions. My message to Gordon Brown is that young people are beginning to understand the situation. They want to know: will you join their side? Remember that history, and your children, will judge you.
• James Hansen is director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. He was the first scientist to warn the US Congress of the dangers of climate change
Global temperatures set to soar - but it will be a cold lonely universe
The Sunday Times
February 15, 2009
Humanity may face global temperature rises of 3C-4C because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing so rapidly, scientists have warned.
The prediction came from Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology.
“Over the past decade, developing countries such as China and India have increased electric power generation by burning more coal,” said Field. “Economies in the developing world are becoming more, not less, carbon-intensive and impacts are very likely to be much worse than predicted.”
— A cosmologist has drawn up a bleak forecast for the universe, suggesting it will become unimaginably cold and empty.
Professor Lawrence Krauss, from Arizona State University, believes that, over billions of years, the expansion of the universe will eventually empty the night sky as stars become too distant to see. He said: “The rest of the universe will disappear before our eyes.”
A study released outside the AAAS finds that in the deep past of the universe stars would have been packed a million times more densely than now. The theory follows the discovery of so-called ultra-compact dwarf galaxies.
— Scientists studying post-traumatic stress disorder have found that the condition runs in families, sufferers may share certain genes and MRI brain scans may be able to show which individuals are most at risk.
The research could enable people at risk to be pinpointed in advance - allowing the military, for example, to screen out potential recruits, according to Karestan Koenen at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
February 15, 2009
Humanity may face global temperature rises of 3C-4C because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing so rapidly, scientists have warned.
The prediction came from Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology.
“Over the past decade, developing countries such as China and India have increased electric power generation by burning more coal,” said Field. “Economies in the developing world are becoming more, not less, carbon-intensive and impacts are very likely to be much worse than predicted.”
— A cosmologist has drawn up a bleak forecast for the universe, suggesting it will become unimaginably cold and empty.
Professor Lawrence Krauss, from Arizona State University, believes that, over billions of years, the expansion of the universe will eventually empty the night sky as stars become too distant to see. He said: “The rest of the universe will disappear before our eyes.”
A study released outside the AAAS finds that in the deep past of the universe stars would have been packed a million times more densely than now. The theory follows the discovery of so-called ultra-compact dwarf galaxies.
— Scientists studying post-traumatic stress disorder have found that the condition runs in families, sufferers may share certain genes and MRI brain scans may be able to show which individuals are most at risk.
The research could enable people at risk to be pinpointed in advance - allowing the military, for example, to screen out potential recruits, according to Karestan Koenen at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Is Spanish Wind Firm Full of Hot Air?
Spanish wind-power giant Iberdrola Renovables reports full-year 2008 results Friday morning, and renewable-energy investors from the U.S. to Europe and Asia will be paying attention to one of the industry's largest players.
A key conference-call question: How realistic are the company's growth expectations?
The $16 billion company ended 2008 able to generate nearly nine gigawatts of electricity from wind, enough power over a year to electrify roughly seven million U.S. homes assuming production at full capacity, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration. Renovables' aim: to nearly double capacity by 2012.
That expansion, the company estimates, could push Renovables' profit to about €1 billion from the roughly €400 million it should report for 2008. But today's recessionary environment means financing costs are rising and risk-aversion is high among investors and alternative-energy developers, says Raimundo Fernandez-Cuesta, analyst at Credit Suisse in London. Thus, expansion plans will likely be crimped.
Indeed, analysts expect the conference call will confirm new capacity of just 1.4 to 1.5 gigawatts for 2009 -- below original expectations of two gigawatts or more. Michael McNamara, a London analyst at Jefferies International, adds that "how much confidence they can have about 2010" remains an open question, too.
Mr. Fernandez-Cuesta says he's "being conservative" and expecting Renovables ultimately will add about 1.5 gigawatts a year for the next three or four years.—Jeff D. Opdyke
A key conference-call question: How realistic are the company's growth expectations?
The $16 billion company ended 2008 able to generate nearly nine gigawatts of electricity from wind, enough power over a year to electrify roughly seven million U.S. homes assuming production at full capacity, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration. Renovables' aim: to nearly double capacity by 2012.
That expansion, the company estimates, could push Renovables' profit to about €1 billion from the roughly €400 million it should report for 2008. But today's recessionary environment means financing costs are rising and risk-aversion is high among investors and alternative-energy developers, says Raimundo Fernandez-Cuesta, analyst at Credit Suisse in London. Thus, expansion plans will likely be crimped.
Indeed, analysts expect the conference call will confirm new capacity of just 1.4 to 1.5 gigawatts for 2009 -- below original expectations of two gigawatts or more. Michael McNamara, a London analyst at Jefferies International, adds that "how much confidence they can have about 2010" remains an open question, too.
Mr. Fernandez-Cuesta says he's "being conservative" and expecting Renovables ultimately will add about 1.5 gigawatts a year for the next three or four years.—Jeff D. Opdyke
Power giant doubles renewable capacity
Published Date: 14 February 2009
SCOTTISHPOWER Renewables yesterday hailed a near doubling of its installed generation capacity in 2008 as its Spanish parent revealed profits have tripled.
Boosted by the part construction of the massive Whitelee windfarm near Glasgow, ScottishPower said it now has the capacity to produce 665 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources, enough to power some 370,000 homes.Whitelee is now the largest onshore windfarm in Europe, with 106 turbines, even though a further 34 turbines are still to be constructed, with more potentially added in the future.Meanwhile, Iberdrola Renovables, the world's largest wind power company, said that it made a net profit of 390 million (£349.2m) in 2008, more than three times the 2007 figure, although slightly below market forecasts. The Bilbao-based company's installed capacity more than quadrupled to 9.3 gigawatts.
'Crazy ideas ' to fight global warming revealed by scientists
Covering Greenland in blankets to stop the ice sheets melting, "tree bombs" to regenerate forests and sending a giant sunshade into space are just some of the ideas being proposed by scientists to save the planet from global warming.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Last Updated: 4:21PM GMT 13 Feb 2009
13 Feb 09:
As further evidence emerges of the threat of climate change, scientists around the world are developing tools to try to stop the temperatures rising.
The science known as "geo-engineering" is considered dangerous by some for interfering with the world's delicate ecosystems, however advocates claim that it could "save the world" from catastrophic global warming.
A new series on Discovery Channel from this Sunday looks at some of the methods being proposed by scientists around the world.
Iain Riddick, series producer, said the scientists may have outlandish ideas but they are all respected in their field.
"Whether you agree climate change is caused by man or not the climate is changing. The question is should we stand back and let it happen or look at possible ways to mitigate the effects through engineering?" he said.
"These are eight crazy ideas which might just save the planet."
However Robin Webster of Friends of the Earth said it was dangerous to rely on untested science.
"We cannot afford to close our eyes to new ideas but the fear is politicians see geo-engineering as the magic bullet that will get us out of trouble and take attention away from making difficult choices to cut carbon emissions now. We need to look at tried and tested technologies like renewables that work and can start reducing the threat climate change now."
Ways to save the planet:
1. Wrapping Greenland
Dr Jason Box, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, proposes wrapping Greenland in a blanket. By covering the valleys that form darker areas, therefore attracting the sun's heat, he hopes to significantly slow the melting of the glacier.
2. Hungry ocean
Dr Brian von Herzen of the The Climate Foundation and marine biologists at the University of Hawaii and Oregon State University believe that the ocean could absorb much more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by creating plankton blooms. This is done by mixing the nutrient rich water in the colder depths of the ocean with the warmer surface water by placing huge wave-powered pumps on the swells of the North Pacific.
3. Space sun shield
Professor Roger Angel, who helped create the world's largest telescope, believes the power of the sun could be reduced by placing a giant sun shield in space. The 100,000 square mile sunshade would be made up of trillions of lenses that reduce the sun's power by two per cent.
4. Raining forests
Consultant environmental engineer Mark Hodges believes forests could be generated by dropping "tree bombs" from a plane. The seedlings are dropped in a wax canister full of fertiliser that explodes when it hits the ground and grows into a tree. The method has already been used to regenerate mangrove forest in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
5. Infinite Winds
Fred Ferguson, a Canadian engineer specialising in airships, has designed a wind turbine that will use the constant winds that exist at 1,000 feet to produce renewable energy.
6. Brighter World
Stephen Salter, an Edinburgh University engineer, believes that clouds can be created to protect the world from the power of the sun. He proposes forming clouds above the ocean by sending salt into the atmosphere.
7. Orbital power plant
Former Nasa physicist John Mankins believes the world could have a never-ending source of power and reduce carbon emissions by sending thousands of satellites into space to gather the sun's power and then beam them down to earth as a microwave.
8. Fixing carbon
David Keith, 2006 Canadian Geographic Environmental Scientist of the Year, believes he can create a machine that sucks in ambient air and sprays it with sodium hydroxide and then expels it as clean air. The carbon from the air will be captured and stored underground.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Last Updated: 4:21PM GMT 13 Feb 2009
13 Feb 09:
As further evidence emerges of the threat of climate change, scientists around the world are developing tools to try to stop the temperatures rising.
The science known as "geo-engineering" is considered dangerous by some for interfering with the world's delicate ecosystems, however advocates claim that it could "save the world" from catastrophic global warming.
A new series on Discovery Channel from this Sunday looks at some of the methods being proposed by scientists around the world.
Iain Riddick, series producer, said the scientists may have outlandish ideas but they are all respected in their field.
"Whether you agree climate change is caused by man or not the climate is changing. The question is should we stand back and let it happen or look at possible ways to mitigate the effects through engineering?" he said.
"These are eight crazy ideas which might just save the planet."
However Robin Webster of Friends of the Earth said it was dangerous to rely on untested science.
"We cannot afford to close our eyes to new ideas but the fear is politicians see geo-engineering as the magic bullet that will get us out of trouble and take attention away from making difficult choices to cut carbon emissions now. We need to look at tried and tested technologies like renewables that work and can start reducing the threat climate change now."
Ways to save the planet:
1. Wrapping Greenland
Dr Jason Box, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, proposes wrapping Greenland in a blanket. By covering the valleys that form darker areas, therefore attracting the sun's heat, he hopes to significantly slow the melting of the glacier.
2. Hungry ocean
Dr Brian von Herzen of the The Climate Foundation and marine biologists at the University of Hawaii and Oregon State University believe that the ocean could absorb much more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by creating plankton blooms. This is done by mixing the nutrient rich water in the colder depths of the ocean with the warmer surface water by placing huge wave-powered pumps on the swells of the North Pacific.
3. Space sun shield
Professor Roger Angel, who helped create the world's largest telescope, believes the power of the sun could be reduced by placing a giant sun shield in space. The 100,000 square mile sunshade would be made up of trillions of lenses that reduce the sun's power by two per cent.
4. Raining forests
Consultant environmental engineer Mark Hodges believes forests could be generated by dropping "tree bombs" from a plane. The seedlings are dropped in a wax canister full of fertiliser that explodes when it hits the ground and grows into a tree. The method has already been used to regenerate mangrove forest in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
5. Infinite Winds
Fred Ferguson, a Canadian engineer specialising in airships, has designed a wind turbine that will use the constant winds that exist at 1,000 feet to produce renewable energy.
6. Brighter World
Stephen Salter, an Edinburgh University engineer, believes that clouds can be created to protect the world from the power of the sun. He proposes forming clouds above the ocean by sending salt into the atmosphere.
7. Orbital power plant
Former Nasa physicist John Mankins believes the world could have a never-ending source of power and reduce carbon emissions by sending thousands of satellites into space to gather the sun's power and then beam them down to earth as a microwave.
8. Fixing carbon
David Keith, 2006 Canadian Geographic Environmental Scientist of the Year, believes he can create a machine that sucks in ambient air and sprays it with sodium hydroxide and then expels it as clean air. The carbon from the air will be captured and stored underground.
Clinton tries to build China climate pact
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
The Guardian, Saturday 14 February 2009
Hillary Clinton hopes to recruit China as a partner in American efforts to reduce global warming when she embarks on her first trip as secretary of state with a seven-day tour through Asia this week.
Clinton believes that creating common ground on climate change, starting with a presidential summit later this year, will help reconfigure America's ties with China, advisers say. A partnership between the world's two biggest polluters would significantly raise the prospects of a global climate change deal at a crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen in December.
Breaking with the tradition for secretaries of state to visit Europe first, Clinton's tour, which starts tomorrow, will take her to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, with China as her last stop.
Clinton set out her ideas for the climate change partnership yesterday at the Asia Society in New York. The choice of venue was telling: experts from the Asia Society and the Pew Centre for Climate Change produced a report this week setting out a roadmap for a US-Chinese partnership in tackling climate change.
Clinton was first briefed on the report several months ago and members of her team consulted the authors this week. Those involved say she sees joint action on climate change as a means to reset the relationship beyond the narrowly focused economic interests of the Bush era.
"She completely understands what is at stake here," said Orville Schell, the director of the Centre on US-China Relations, who oversaw the report.
Economics will still dominate Clinton's agenda, with talks on how China can help rescue the international financial system, as will concerns about North Korea and Iran's nuclear programmes. But in her meetings with Chinese officials, Clinton is expected to broach the idea of a presidential summit later this year between Barack Obama and Hu Jintao.
The idea was raised in the Asia Study report, which also called for US-Chinese expert groups to work on developing clean coal technology, energy efficiency, and moving towards renewable energy.
Some doubts remain on whether Clinton's visit will produce any immediate results. China is enduring its worst economic climate in more than a decade and also views global warming as an economic issue, more suited for discussion with the treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.
Nonetheless, a recasting of relations is compelling for a secretary of state eager to reclaim territory after the foreign policy crises in the Middle East and Afghanistan were hived off to envoys. "If she can grab on to the China issue and reformat it in this way, this would be an extraordinary accomplishment," said Schell.
Clinton's search for ways to deepen America's relationship with China are in synch with the Asia Society report and one from the Brookings Institution promoting a partnership on climate change.
More than 50 experts took part in the Asia Society's year-long effort. A number of those who got involved as private citizens are now members of the Obama administration. They include Steven Chu, the energy secretary; John Holdren, the White House science adviser; Todd Stern, the state department's climate envoy; and Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's longtime mentor on foreign policy and the chairman of the Asia Society.
Stern, who will accompany Clinton, said last week that it was time to open a new chapter on climate change talks. He told the New York Times: "We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem."
Chinese officials have also been sending out signals of co-operation. At a Brookings Institution forum last week, Beijing's ambassador to the US, Zhou Wenzhong, said China and America, by working together, could help set the stage for progress at the climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December.
The US and China together account for more than 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
The Guardian, Saturday 14 February 2009
Hillary Clinton hopes to recruit China as a partner in American efforts to reduce global warming when she embarks on her first trip as secretary of state with a seven-day tour through Asia this week.
Clinton believes that creating common ground on climate change, starting with a presidential summit later this year, will help reconfigure America's ties with China, advisers say. A partnership between the world's two biggest polluters would significantly raise the prospects of a global climate change deal at a crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen in December.
Breaking with the tradition for secretaries of state to visit Europe first, Clinton's tour, which starts tomorrow, will take her to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, with China as her last stop.
Clinton set out her ideas for the climate change partnership yesterday at the Asia Society in New York. The choice of venue was telling: experts from the Asia Society and the Pew Centre for Climate Change produced a report this week setting out a roadmap for a US-Chinese partnership in tackling climate change.
Clinton was first briefed on the report several months ago and members of her team consulted the authors this week. Those involved say she sees joint action on climate change as a means to reset the relationship beyond the narrowly focused economic interests of the Bush era.
"She completely understands what is at stake here," said Orville Schell, the director of the Centre on US-China Relations, who oversaw the report.
Economics will still dominate Clinton's agenda, with talks on how China can help rescue the international financial system, as will concerns about North Korea and Iran's nuclear programmes. But in her meetings with Chinese officials, Clinton is expected to broach the idea of a presidential summit later this year between Barack Obama and Hu Jintao.
The idea was raised in the Asia Study report, which also called for US-Chinese expert groups to work on developing clean coal technology, energy efficiency, and moving towards renewable energy.
Some doubts remain on whether Clinton's visit will produce any immediate results. China is enduring its worst economic climate in more than a decade and also views global warming as an economic issue, more suited for discussion with the treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.
Nonetheless, a recasting of relations is compelling for a secretary of state eager to reclaim territory after the foreign policy crises in the Middle East and Afghanistan were hived off to envoys. "If she can grab on to the China issue and reformat it in this way, this would be an extraordinary accomplishment," said Schell.
Clinton's search for ways to deepen America's relationship with China are in synch with the Asia Society report and one from the Brookings Institution promoting a partnership on climate change.
More than 50 experts took part in the Asia Society's year-long effort. A number of those who got involved as private citizens are now members of the Obama administration. They include Steven Chu, the energy secretary; John Holdren, the White House science adviser; Todd Stern, the state department's climate envoy; and Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's longtime mentor on foreign policy and the chairman of the Asia Society.
Stern, who will accompany Clinton, said last week that it was time to open a new chapter on climate change talks. He told the New York Times: "We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem."
Chinese officials have also been sending out signals of co-operation. At a Brookings Institution forum last week, Beijing's ambassador to the US, Zhou Wenzhong, said China and America, by working together, could help set the stage for progress at the climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December.
The US and China together account for more than 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
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