Experts cast doubt on claims that scientists have succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction
Associated Press in Seoul
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 May 2010 08.07 BST
North Korea has claimed its scientists succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction, but experts doubt the isolated communist country has made the breakthrough in clean-energy technology.
Fusion nuclear reactions produce little radioactive waste – unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear power reactors – and some hope it could one day provide an abundant supply of clean energy. US and other scientists have been experimenting with fusion for decades but it has yet to be developed into a viable energy alternative.
North Korea's main newspaper reported that its own scientists achieved the feat on the Day of the Sun – a North Korean holiday in April marking the birthday of the country's late dynastic founder, Kim Il-sung.
Often North Korea's propaganda apparatus uses the occasions of holidays honouring Kim or his son, the current leader Kim Jong-il, to make claims of great achievements. These are rarely substantiated.
North Korean scientists "solved a great many scientific and technological problems entirely by their own efforts … thus succeeding in nuclear fusion reaction at last", the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a report carried by the north's official Korean Central News Agency.
Experts doubt the claim. "Nuclear fusion reaction is not something that can be done so simple. It's very difficult," said Hyeon Park, a physics professor at Postech, a science and technology university in South Korea.
Park, who conducts fusion research in South Korea, said the north may have succeeded in making a plasma device and produced plasma, a hot cloud of supercharged particles – only a preliminary step towards fusion.
He said outside experts needed to know the scale of the experiment and method of generating plasma to assess the details of the north's claim.
South Korea is in a seven-nation nuclear fusion consortium to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Cadarache, southern France, by 2015. Other members include China, the EU, Japan, Russia, India and the US.
The aim of ITER is to demonstrate by 2030 that atoms can be fused inside a reactor to efficiently produce electricity. Current forms of nuclear power do the opposite, harnessing the energy released from splitting atoms apart.
A South Korean official handling nuclear fusion at the ministry of education, science and technology said the north appeared to have conducted only a basic experiment.
The official said the fusion has nothing to do with making nuclear bombs and he could not make any further comment. He asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
All of North Korea's nuclear projects are of intense concern because of worries it is building atomic weapons. Pyongyang conducted two nuclear bomb tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing international condemnation and UN sanctions.
Energy-starved North Korea has said it will build a light water nuclear power plant, ostensibly for civilian electricity. A nuclear power plant gives North Korea a premise to enrich uranium, which at low levels can be used in reactors but at higher concentration in nuclear bombs.
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Why it's worth passing an inadequate climate bill
David Roberts explains why the US climate bill backed by John Kerry and Joe Lieberman is worth passing
David Roberts for Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 09.38 BST
This weekend I was asked to contribute to The New York Times' Room for Debate. I was kind of under the impression that the question was, "Is the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill worth passing?" Apparently, though, it was, "Does the climate bill stand a chance?" Obviously those questions have different answers! Mine was geared to the former, everybody else's the latter, but oh well. Other answers were provided by:
Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones correspondent
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Frank O'Donnell, Clean Air Watch
Chip Jacobs, co-author of "Smogtown"
Here's mine, with some additional comments at bottom:
-----
The climate and energy bill being developed by John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and (depending on the hour) Lindsey Graham isn't very popular on the green left. Climate campaigners lament that the senators have capitulated to fossil fuel companies, proposing to subsidize the very industries that are polluting the atmosphere and, as we speak, more or less destroying the Gulf of Mexico. They say the bill won't come close to solving the problem.
And they're right. That makes those of us who still believe the bill is worth passing somewhat unpopular -- sellouts, corrupt insiders and so on. Why would someone who recognizes the scope and severity of the problem support a bill that won't solve it?
There's a complicated answer to that question, but there's also a simple one, and it's this: I am optimistic about decarbonization. Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, reducing emissions will be relatively fast and inexpensive. There are huge opportunities for low-cost (or negative-cost) emission reductions just waiting to be exploited.
Right now, policy is being made out of fear: fear by the private sector that decarbonization will be a crushing burden; fear by consumers that their energy prices will skyrocket; fear by politicians that the project will prove electorally unpopular. Campaigners can organize marches, think tanks can put out reports, scientists can issue dire warnings, but ultimately, that fear simply can't be overcome in advance. The only way to overcome it is through experience.
Because the bill contains two crucial elements -- a declining cap on emissions and a floor on the price of carbon -- here's what will happen: the price for carbon will sit on the floor and, despite that, the U.S. will sail past its (tepid, cautious) short-term target. In 2020, buoyed by success, backed by newly powerful clean energy constituencies, the political system will revisit the issue and pass more ambitious targets. The same thing will happen in 2030. And in 2040. And 2050. Success will breed success. Oil and coal won't be able to compete and eventually politicians will get sick of subsidizing them.
If you don't share that optimism -- if you think decarbonization is going to be a grinding, difficult, expensive process -- then you have every right to be horrified by the bill's inadequacy. But then, you don't have much to be optimistic about, since the likelihood of a substantially stronger bill is vanishingly small any time in the foreseeable future.
But if you do share that optimism, you'll agree that putting a system in place and getting started is more important, in the grand scheme of things, than getting this iteration of the legislation just right. There's been more than enough talking; let's let action make the argument for us.
------
Now, I only had 300 words. Obviously things are more complicated than this. For one thing, we'd be way better off, and move way faster, if the declining cap and carbon price floor were accompanied by a strong renewable energy standard, a strong energy efficiency standard, and a massive program of public investment in clean energy RD&D. Those elements of the KGL bill are probably going to be severely lacking, and I'm sure I will do plenty of wailing and garmet-rending when I see it.
What it comes down to, though, is that lots of greens have been hoping, striving, and pushing for a long time for a Big Bill -- the one, true bill that has scientifically legitimate targets and tight, loophole-free policy mechanisms. The one that can solve the problem. But for many reasons, some valid, some not, Congress rarely passes Big Bills. They almost never solve problems in a single, grand stroke. Congress works incrementally. Ultimately we're going to have to accept some increment, some partial solution, just to get underway. There isn't another choice.
David Roberts for Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 09.38 BST
This weekend I was asked to contribute to The New York Times' Room for Debate. I was kind of under the impression that the question was, "Is the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill worth passing?" Apparently, though, it was, "Does the climate bill stand a chance?" Obviously those questions have different answers! Mine was geared to the former, everybody else's the latter, but oh well. Other answers were provided by:
Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones correspondent
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Frank O'Donnell, Clean Air Watch
Chip Jacobs, co-author of "Smogtown"
Here's mine, with some additional comments at bottom:
-----
The climate and energy bill being developed by John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and (depending on the hour) Lindsey Graham isn't very popular on the green left. Climate campaigners lament that the senators have capitulated to fossil fuel companies, proposing to subsidize the very industries that are polluting the atmosphere and, as we speak, more or less destroying the Gulf of Mexico. They say the bill won't come close to solving the problem.
And they're right. That makes those of us who still believe the bill is worth passing somewhat unpopular -- sellouts, corrupt insiders and so on. Why would someone who recognizes the scope and severity of the problem support a bill that won't solve it?
There's a complicated answer to that question, but there's also a simple one, and it's this: I am optimistic about decarbonization. Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, reducing emissions will be relatively fast and inexpensive. There are huge opportunities for low-cost (or negative-cost) emission reductions just waiting to be exploited.
Right now, policy is being made out of fear: fear by the private sector that decarbonization will be a crushing burden; fear by consumers that their energy prices will skyrocket; fear by politicians that the project will prove electorally unpopular. Campaigners can organize marches, think tanks can put out reports, scientists can issue dire warnings, but ultimately, that fear simply can't be overcome in advance. The only way to overcome it is through experience.
Because the bill contains two crucial elements -- a declining cap on emissions and a floor on the price of carbon -- here's what will happen: the price for carbon will sit on the floor and, despite that, the U.S. will sail past its (tepid, cautious) short-term target. In 2020, buoyed by success, backed by newly powerful clean energy constituencies, the political system will revisit the issue and pass more ambitious targets. The same thing will happen in 2030. And in 2040. And 2050. Success will breed success. Oil and coal won't be able to compete and eventually politicians will get sick of subsidizing them.
If you don't share that optimism -- if you think decarbonization is going to be a grinding, difficult, expensive process -- then you have every right to be horrified by the bill's inadequacy. But then, you don't have much to be optimistic about, since the likelihood of a substantially stronger bill is vanishingly small any time in the foreseeable future.
But if you do share that optimism, you'll agree that putting a system in place and getting started is more important, in the grand scheme of things, than getting this iteration of the legislation just right. There's been more than enough talking; let's let action make the argument for us.
------
Now, I only had 300 words. Obviously things are more complicated than this. For one thing, we'd be way better off, and move way faster, if the declining cap and carbon price floor were accompanied by a strong renewable energy standard, a strong energy efficiency standard, and a massive program of public investment in clean energy RD&D. Those elements of the KGL bill are probably going to be severely lacking, and I'm sure I will do plenty of wailing and garmet-rending when I see it.
What it comes down to, though, is that lots of greens have been hoping, striving, and pushing for a long time for a Big Bill -- the one, true bill that has scientifically legitimate targets and tight, loophole-free policy mechanisms. The one that can solve the problem. But for many reasons, some valid, some not, Congress rarely passes Big Bills. They almost never solve problems in a single, grand stroke. Congress works incrementally. Ultimately we're going to have to accept some increment, some partial solution, just to get underway. There isn't another choice.
White House aims to use Deepwater disaster to win votes for US climate bill
US Senators prepare to roll out legislation after oil spill 'tragedy heightens interest in energy and wanting a different plan'
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 10.57 BST
Senators are set to take a last run at producing a climate and energy law tomorrow, betting on the spectre of environmental disaster raised by the BP oil spill to build support for a comprehensive overhaul of America's energy strategy.
But despite a strong push from the Obama administration, there are concerns the debate about the energy future could be lost in the wrangling about offshore oil drilling permits.
The official roll-out by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman caps eight months of negotiations with political figures and industry executives aimed at getting broad support in Congress for shifting the economy away from coal and oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Climate legislation passed by the US Senate could unblock a major obstacle which prevented agreement on a binding global deal at last year's Copenhagen summit.
"We are more encouraged today that we can secure the necessary votes to pass this legislation this year in part because the last weeks have given everyone with a stake in this issue a heightened understanding that as a nation, we can no longer wait to solve this problem which threatens our economy, our security and our environment," Kerry and Lieberman said in a joint statement.
The White House is also trying to use the disaster to make a case for a bill. "This accident, this tragedy, is actually heightening people's interest in energy in this country and in wanting a different energy plan," Carol Browner, the White House climate adviser told Bloomberg television at the weekend.
Time is fast running out for climate and energy legislation, with Democrats expected to suffer heavy losses in the mid-term elections.
But the thinking in Congress is that the economic disaster in the Gulf
is more likely to hurt, than help, such efforts in large part because offshore drilling was a key part of the proposals.
The two Senators deliberately gave a boost to offshore drilling under a strategy that saw the Obama administration and the White House working to build support among Republicans and industries that stood to be affected by the new regulations.
Early drafts promised to build more nuclear power plants and expand offshore oil drilling. The pro-business message was further underlined in plans for a roll-out originally scheduled for last month, which envisaged a public show of support from big oil companies, including BP.
The proposal is expected to require a 17% cut in emissions levels from 2005 levels by 2020. Earlier versions suggested a sector-by-sector approach to emissions cuts. Electricity producers would face a cap in 2012, with heavily polluting industries such as steel and cement manufacturers winning a delay until 2012.
In addition to financial incentives for nuclear power and offshore oil and gas drilling, the proposals would have created funds for carbon capture and storage.
The proposals would also have curbed the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to acting on emissions, and would have stopped states, such as California, from imposing more stringent environmental regulations.
Such concessions to the nuclear and oil industry, while angering environmentalists, do not appear to have created a solid bank of Republican support.
Kerry and Lieberman lost their lone Republican ally, Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Senator, who initially withdrew his support over a dispute about immigration, now argues the spill in the Gulf has wrecked any chance of success.
"There are not nearly 60 votes today and I do not see them materialising until we deal with the uncertainty of the immigration debate and the consequences of the oil spill," he said in a statement.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, also cast doubt this week on the likelihood of getting a comprehensive climate and energy bill through the Sentate. He told Spanish language Univision network a limited energy-only bill — that would not cap emissions — stood a better chance.
Meanwhile, the battle lines are being drawn on offshore drilling. Some Democratic Senators are now threatening to vote against any climate bill that allows expanded drilling. "I will have a very hard time ever voting for offshore drilling again," Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat told reporters.
Others, including Graham, remain adamant in their support for drilling.
Environmental organisations are also expanding their campaigns against drilling, both in the Gulf of Mexico, and new projects scheduled for Alaska.
That could force yet another revision to the proposal by the time it sees the light of day on Wednesday. "The one part we are still talking about is the offshore drilling," Lieberman told reproters. "The other parts are really in pretty solid shape."
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 10.57 BST
Senators are set to take a last run at producing a climate and energy law tomorrow, betting on the spectre of environmental disaster raised by the BP oil spill to build support for a comprehensive overhaul of America's energy strategy.
But despite a strong push from the Obama administration, there are concerns the debate about the energy future could be lost in the wrangling about offshore oil drilling permits.
The official roll-out by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman caps eight months of negotiations with political figures and industry executives aimed at getting broad support in Congress for shifting the economy away from coal and oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Climate legislation passed by the US Senate could unblock a major obstacle which prevented agreement on a binding global deal at last year's Copenhagen summit.
"We are more encouraged today that we can secure the necessary votes to pass this legislation this year in part because the last weeks have given everyone with a stake in this issue a heightened understanding that as a nation, we can no longer wait to solve this problem which threatens our economy, our security and our environment," Kerry and Lieberman said in a joint statement.
The White House is also trying to use the disaster to make a case for a bill. "This accident, this tragedy, is actually heightening people's interest in energy in this country and in wanting a different energy plan," Carol Browner, the White House climate adviser told Bloomberg television at the weekend.
Time is fast running out for climate and energy legislation, with Democrats expected to suffer heavy losses in the mid-term elections.
But the thinking in Congress is that the economic disaster in the Gulf
is more likely to hurt, than help, such efforts in large part because offshore drilling was a key part of the proposals.
The two Senators deliberately gave a boost to offshore drilling under a strategy that saw the Obama administration and the White House working to build support among Republicans and industries that stood to be affected by the new regulations.
Early drafts promised to build more nuclear power plants and expand offshore oil drilling. The pro-business message was further underlined in plans for a roll-out originally scheduled for last month, which envisaged a public show of support from big oil companies, including BP.
The proposal is expected to require a 17% cut in emissions levels from 2005 levels by 2020. Earlier versions suggested a sector-by-sector approach to emissions cuts. Electricity producers would face a cap in 2012, with heavily polluting industries such as steel and cement manufacturers winning a delay until 2012.
In addition to financial incentives for nuclear power and offshore oil and gas drilling, the proposals would have created funds for carbon capture and storage.
The proposals would also have curbed the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to acting on emissions, and would have stopped states, such as California, from imposing more stringent environmental regulations.
Such concessions to the nuclear and oil industry, while angering environmentalists, do not appear to have created a solid bank of Republican support.
Kerry and Lieberman lost their lone Republican ally, Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Senator, who initially withdrew his support over a dispute about immigration, now argues the spill in the Gulf has wrecked any chance of success.
"There are not nearly 60 votes today and I do not see them materialising until we deal with the uncertainty of the immigration debate and the consequences of the oil spill," he said in a statement.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, also cast doubt this week on the likelihood of getting a comprehensive climate and energy bill through the Sentate. He told Spanish language Univision network a limited energy-only bill — that would not cap emissions — stood a better chance.
Meanwhile, the battle lines are being drawn on offshore drilling. Some Democratic Senators are now threatening to vote against any climate bill that allows expanded drilling. "I will have a very hard time ever voting for offshore drilling again," Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat told reporters.
Others, including Graham, remain adamant in their support for drilling.
Environmental organisations are also expanding their campaigns against drilling, both in the Gulf of Mexico, and new projects scheduled for Alaska.
That could force yet another revision to the proposal by the time it sees the light of day on Wednesday. "The one part we are still talking about is the offshore drilling," Lieberman told reproters. "The other parts are really in pretty solid shape."
Connie Hedegaard seeks 30% carbon cuts target for Europe
European climate commissioner says stronger target would help push up the price of carbon and kick-start green investment
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 17.46 BST
The European commission is to formally propose stricter carbon cuts across Europe over the next decade in an effort to kick-start investment in clean technologies such as renewable energy.
The costs and benefits of increasing to 30% the EU target of a 20% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 on 1990 levels, will be discussed in a paper to be published later this month.
Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate change, told a meeting in London today that a move to strengthen the target could be the only way to boost Europe's carbon price to levels high enough to drive green investment.
"With business as usual and the 20% target we will not see a substantially higher price of carbon. That is a challenge because we need innovation," she said. "Around €30 [per tonne of carbon] people would start to do things differently." The carbon price currently sits at €15 per tonne, and is unlikely to rise without the 30% target, Hedegaard said. The EU has previously said it would only move to 30% if other countries followed suit as part of a new climate deal.
Hedegaard said the recent recession made both the 20% and 30% targets cheaper to achieve than original calculations in 2008 suggested. A European analysis leaked to the Financial Times last month claimed that the cost of cutting emissions 20% by 2020 had fallen from €70bn to €48bn. Toughening the target to 30% by 2020 would cost €81bn, a cost that would be partially offset by savings such as from improved air quality, of between €6.5bn-€10bn.
The commission's analysis comes ahead of a meeting of EU environment ministers next month. Hedegaard said it would not recommend whether or not to adopt the stricter target. "This is an invitation to have a more fact-based discussion, not an invitation to make a fast decision."
The EU is split about strengthening the target, with countries such as the UK in favour, but others such as Italy set against. Hedegaard acknowledged that economic strife in Europe could make a change more difficult. "Of course, it's not an easy time to discuss money that comes out of the public purse right now."
Hedegaard said the US Senate's delay in passing an energy bill "has been a real disappointment". EU negotiators resisted "bashing the Americans too much" last year, believing it might be counterproductive, she said. "Now the US needs to bring in the law."
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 17.46 BST
The European commission is to formally propose stricter carbon cuts across Europe over the next decade in an effort to kick-start investment in clean technologies such as renewable energy.
The costs and benefits of increasing to 30% the EU target of a 20% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 on 1990 levels, will be discussed in a paper to be published later this month.
Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate change, told a meeting in London today that a move to strengthen the target could be the only way to boost Europe's carbon price to levels high enough to drive green investment.
"With business as usual and the 20% target we will not see a substantially higher price of carbon. That is a challenge because we need innovation," she said. "Around €30 [per tonne of carbon] people would start to do things differently." The carbon price currently sits at €15 per tonne, and is unlikely to rise without the 30% target, Hedegaard said. The EU has previously said it would only move to 30% if other countries followed suit as part of a new climate deal.
Hedegaard said the recent recession made both the 20% and 30% targets cheaper to achieve than original calculations in 2008 suggested. A European analysis leaked to the Financial Times last month claimed that the cost of cutting emissions 20% by 2020 had fallen from €70bn to €48bn. Toughening the target to 30% by 2020 would cost €81bn, a cost that would be partially offset by savings such as from improved air quality, of between €6.5bn-€10bn.
The commission's analysis comes ahead of a meeting of EU environment ministers next month. Hedegaard said it would not recommend whether or not to adopt the stricter target. "This is an invitation to have a more fact-based discussion, not an invitation to make a fast decision."
The EU is split about strengthening the target, with countries such as the UK in favour, but others such as Italy set against. Hedegaard acknowledged that economic strife in Europe could make a change more difficult. "Of course, it's not an easy time to discuss money that comes out of the public purse right now."
Hedegaard said the US Senate's delay in passing an energy bill "has been a real disappointment". EU negotiators resisted "bashing the Americans too much" last year, believing it might be counterproductive, she said. "Now the US needs to bring in the law."
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Another Major Blow for Carbon Capture, This Time It Involves the "C" Word
by April Streeter, Portland, Oregon on 05.10.10
Science & Technology (alternative energy)
The Norwegians have been big supporters of carbon capture and storage, and the government helped get the public to go along with building of a gas-fired plant near an existing oil refinery in Mongstad partly by promising the new facility would have carbon capture. Norwegians generally consider themselves to be environmentally friendly (over 90% of their electricity is produced from renewables, and they've pledged to be carbon neutral in 2030), so it is a significant blow that the government has decided to "postpone" deciding on carbon capture plans at Mongstad until 2014, which means the CCS itself may be as far off as 2018. Why the delay? The government says technology concerns, but there's also other reports of cancerous discharges from large-scale CCS.
The Mongstad CCS project was considered to be one of the first commercial scale carbon capture sites. Now the decision of whether to put any CCS at Monstad is being pushed to beyond 2013 when the current Norwegian Parliament is renewed. State-owned Statoil promised that an investment decision on Mongstad would be made in 2012. That means Mongstad will continue to emit 2.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year until CCS is implemented, if it ever is.
That begins to make some environmental activists in Norway see just another excuse in the continuing scandal of Mongstad. The current Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, had promised that CCS at Monstad would be a "moonlanding" for Norway. The postponement also puts pressure on the Environment Minister Eric Sollenberg to revoke Mongstad's emissions permit.
And what about the scary "C" word? Well, the mainstream press has focussed on the political scandal surrounding the "delay" of CCS at Mongstad. In the Swedish press, however, they are attributing the delay in part to a new scientific report on emissions from CCS technology. The government has always said that NOx and CO2 would be reduced from the CCS facility at Mongstad, while ammonia, amines and "reaction products of the amines" would be an air byproduct of the process, and amines, ammonia, sulfuric acid and sulfates would be discharged to water.
The environmental and health effects of amines are not very well known, but a trio of Norwegian institutes along with the University of Oslo released a report early this month according to Sweden's Processnet, in which scientists voiced their concern about nitrosamines and their possible spread into the environment.
The report is based only on theoretical modeling - further tests to susbtantiate the scientists theories are planned. Bellona, the alternative energy and environmental group in Norway that supports CCS says the health risks should be assessed soon in order to not cause any futher delays with carbon capture technology.
Science & Technology (alternative energy)
The Norwegians have been big supporters of carbon capture and storage, and the government helped get the public to go along with building of a gas-fired plant near an existing oil refinery in Mongstad partly by promising the new facility would have carbon capture. Norwegians generally consider themselves to be environmentally friendly (over 90% of their electricity is produced from renewables, and they've pledged to be carbon neutral in 2030), so it is a significant blow that the government has decided to "postpone" deciding on carbon capture plans at Mongstad until 2014, which means the CCS itself may be as far off as 2018. Why the delay? The government says technology concerns, but there's also other reports of cancerous discharges from large-scale CCS.
The Mongstad CCS project was considered to be one of the first commercial scale carbon capture sites. Now the decision of whether to put any CCS at Monstad is being pushed to beyond 2013 when the current Norwegian Parliament is renewed. State-owned Statoil promised that an investment decision on Mongstad would be made in 2012. That means Mongstad will continue to emit 2.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year until CCS is implemented, if it ever is.
That begins to make some environmental activists in Norway see just another excuse in the continuing scandal of Mongstad. The current Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, had promised that CCS at Monstad would be a "moonlanding" for Norway. The postponement also puts pressure on the Environment Minister Eric Sollenberg to revoke Mongstad's emissions permit.
And what about the scary "C" word? Well, the mainstream press has focussed on the political scandal surrounding the "delay" of CCS at Mongstad. In the Swedish press, however, they are attributing the delay in part to a new scientific report on emissions from CCS technology. The government has always said that NOx and CO2 would be reduced from the CCS facility at Mongstad, while ammonia, amines and "reaction products of the amines" would be an air byproduct of the process, and amines, ammonia, sulfuric acid and sulfates would be discharged to water.
The environmental and health effects of amines are not very well known, but a trio of Norwegian institutes along with the University of Oslo released a report early this month according to Sweden's Processnet, in which scientists voiced their concern about nitrosamines and their possible spread into the environment.
The report is based only on theoretical modeling - further tests to susbtantiate the scientists theories are planned. Bellona, the alternative energy and environmental group in Norway that supports CCS says the health risks should be assessed soon in order to not cause any futher delays with carbon capture technology.
Warmer Climate Gives Cheer to Makers of British Bubbly
Thanks to Milder Summers, England Takes Some Air Out of France's Famous Tipple
By GAUTAM NAIK
DITCHLING, England—The English invented sparkling wine in the 17th century, but failed to profit from it because their cold, dank summers yielded crummy grapes. Three decades later, a French monk named Dom Pérignon adapted the idea and devised a winning tipple, Champagne.
The Brits are starting to claw back some ground. In January, a little-known bubbly from the U.K's Nyetimber Estate was crowned "world's best sparkling wine" at a prestigious taste-off in Italy, defeating a dozen Champagnes, including Roederer, Bollinger and Pommery. Last year, when Britain hosted the G-20 meeting, another effervescent Nyetimber was served to President Barack Obama, Germany's Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.
English bubbly is on the rise partly due to better winemaking techniques. But some vintners say they're being helped by another, unexpected factor: a warming climate.
Official data indicate that the past 10 years were the warmest on record globally. In England, this led to plumper and riper grapes most seasons, especially for sparkling wines. The number of vineyards in the U.K. jumped to 416 in 2008 from 363 in 2000, according the trade group English Wine Producers.
"Just 20 years ago, it was really difficult to make good wine in cooler climate areas," says Gregory Jones, who studies the effect of climate change on the global wine industry at Southern Oregon University. "Now it's not such a challenge."
With the help of warmer summers, "some of the risk of making sparkling wine here is gone," says Mike Roberts, founder and chief winemaker of the Ridgeview estate here, 45 miles south of London. "We have everything going for us to out-Champagne Champagne."
Last year, the fifth-hottest on record, Ridgeview's grapes ripened two weeks earlier than usual, allowing for the harvest to be brought in before the onset of wet October weather. Mr. Roberts and other English winemakers say 2009 was one of the best growing seasons they've seen.
Most connoisseurs insist that no sparkling wine can match the range, finesse and flavor of Champagne, made only in the Champagne region of northeastern France. Yet English fizz is bursting a bit of France's bubble.
Mr. Roberts' wines have won dozens of prizes, including a gold and silver medal at Effervescents du Monde, an international competition held in France. Another Ridgeview sparkler, blanc de blanc, was served at a 2004 bash to mark Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday.
Many English still wines, including white and rosé varieties, have been considered thin and acidic. As the climate has warmed, they've benefited as well, becoming less acidic and more fruity. English reds still struggle, partly because those grapes need a much hotter climate to ripen well.
Sparkling wines have improved most, because England's warmer, drier summers now yield juicier grapes with more flavors—while still remaining cool enough to create the racy acidity so vital to a fizzy wine.
The Romans introduced winemaking to England after invading in 43 A.D. In the mid-1600s, English scientist Christopher Merret discovered that adding sugar to finished wine led to a second fermentation and yielded a fizzy wine. Later, Dom Pérignon came up with the idea of making sparkling wine with bubbles by blending grapes from different vineyards—a key development that gave French makers the sparkling advantage.
France's annual output of Champagne, some 320 million bottles, is much larger than the 1.4 million bottles of fizz England makes each year. Still, representatives of big Champagne houses such as Louis Roederer (maker of Cristal), Pol Roger and Duval-LeRoy have toured England, scoping out vineyard sites—and their smaller new rivals.
Roger Begault, export director of Champagne house Duval-LeRoy, founded in 1859, acknowledges that several English sparkling wines are "pleasant and well made." A few years ago, a Duval-LeRoy envoy surveyed southern England to consider starting up vineyards there. Still, he insists, "Champagne only comes from Champagne!"
Rising temperatures have helped France's Champagne makers, too. But if the trend continues, lower-end bubbly could be challenged, at least on price. English bottles today can cost anywhere from $27 to $37, roughly the same as non-vintage Champagne, and far less than the special vintages bottled in outstanding years.
The U.K. is the biggest importer of Champagne in the world, and today demand for domestic fizz is picking up. Of the 3.1 million bottles of U.K. wine produced in 2009, about 45% were of the sparkling variety, according to an estimate by English Wine Producers. In 2005, only 20% of domestic bottles produced were bubbly.
Waitrose, the grocery store chain that commands a 61% market share for English wines, has its own vineyard. A separate vine-growing project has sprung up just 12 miles from London. One local grower is planning a tiny vineyard in the heart of the city, outside Kings Cross Station.
Plumping up the market hasn't been easy. In the early 1990s, when Mr. Roberts of Ridgeview approached a bank for a loan to start his winery, he was rejected. "The bank manager said, 'You must be mad,"' recalls Mr. Roberts.
Using his own funds plus a loan, Mr. Roberts planted the first vines in 1994 and enlisted three consultants—including two from Champagne. He decided to make sparkling wine because southern England has a chalky soil similar to Champagne, and is only 88 miles to the north.
All of Ridgeview's products are named Merret, a nod to the 17th-century scientist. Since 1996, when the vineyard produced 20,000 bottles, production has grown nearly tenfold.
In an upstairs tasting room overlooking acres of now-bare vines, Mr. Roberts recently poured a 2006 sparkler. It was rich, with honey and caramel notes. "It was a good hot year," said Mr. Roberts.
Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com
By GAUTAM NAIK
DITCHLING, England—The English invented sparkling wine in the 17th century, but failed to profit from it because their cold, dank summers yielded crummy grapes. Three decades later, a French monk named Dom Pérignon adapted the idea and devised a winning tipple, Champagne.
The Brits are starting to claw back some ground. In January, a little-known bubbly from the U.K's Nyetimber Estate was crowned "world's best sparkling wine" at a prestigious taste-off in Italy, defeating a dozen Champagnes, including Roederer, Bollinger and Pommery. Last year, when Britain hosted the G-20 meeting, another effervescent Nyetimber was served to President Barack Obama, Germany's Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.
English bubbly is on the rise partly due to better winemaking techniques. But some vintners say they're being helped by another, unexpected factor: a warming climate.
Official data indicate that the past 10 years were the warmest on record globally. In England, this led to plumper and riper grapes most seasons, especially for sparkling wines. The number of vineyards in the U.K. jumped to 416 in 2008 from 363 in 2000, according the trade group English Wine Producers.
"Just 20 years ago, it was really difficult to make good wine in cooler climate areas," says Gregory Jones, who studies the effect of climate change on the global wine industry at Southern Oregon University. "Now it's not such a challenge."
With the help of warmer summers, "some of the risk of making sparkling wine here is gone," says Mike Roberts, founder and chief winemaker of the Ridgeview estate here, 45 miles south of London. "We have everything going for us to out-Champagne Champagne."
Last year, the fifth-hottest on record, Ridgeview's grapes ripened two weeks earlier than usual, allowing for the harvest to be brought in before the onset of wet October weather. Mr. Roberts and other English winemakers say 2009 was one of the best growing seasons they've seen.
Most connoisseurs insist that no sparkling wine can match the range, finesse and flavor of Champagne, made only in the Champagne region of northeastern France. Yet English fizz is bursting a bit of France's bubble.
Mr. Roberts' wines have won dozens of prizes, including a gold and silver medal at Effervescents du Monde, an international competition held in France. Another Ridgeview sparkler, blanc de blanc, was served at a 2004 bash to mark Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday.
Many English still wines, including white and rosé varieties, have been considered thin and acidic. As the climate has warmed, they've benefited as well, becoming less acidic and more fruity. English reds still struggle, partly because those grapes need a much hotter climate to ripen well.
Sparkling wines have improved most, because England's warmer, drier summers now yield juicier grapes with more flavors—while still remaining cool enough to create the racy acidity so vital to a fizzy wine.
The Romans introduced winemaking to England after invading in 43 A.D. In the mid-1600s, English scientist Christopher Merret discovered that adding sugar to finished wine led to a second fermentation and yielded a fizzy wine. Later, Dom Pérignon came up with the idea of making sparkling wine with bubbles by blending grapes from different vineyards—a key development that gave French makers the sparkling advantage.
France's annual output of Champagne, some 320 million bottles, is much larger than the 1.4 million bottles of fizz England makes each year. Still, representatives of big Champagne houses such as Louis Roederer (maker of Cristal), Pol Roger and Duval-LeRoy have toured England, scoping out vineyard sites—and their smaller new rivals.
Roger Begault, export director of Champagne house Duval-LeRoy, founded in 1859, acknowledges that several English sparkling wines are "pleasant and well made." A few years ago, a Duval-LeRoy envoy surveyed southern England to consider starting up vineyards there. Still, he insists, "Champagne only comes from Champagne!"
Rising temperatures have helped France's Champagne makers, too. But if the trend continues, lower-end bubbly could be challenged, at least on price. English bottles today can cost anywhere from $27 to $37, roughly the same as non-vintage Champagne, and far less than the special vintages bottled in outstanding years.
The U.K. is the biggest importer of Champagne in the world, and today demand for domestic fizz is picking up. Of the 3.1 million bottles of U.K. wine produced in 2009, about 45% were of the sparkling variety, according to an estimate by English Wine Producers. In 2005, only 20% of domestic bottles produced were bubbly.
Waitrose, the grocery store chain that commands a 61% market share for English wines, has its own vineyard. A separate vine-growing project has sprung up just 12 miles from London. One local grower is planning a tiny vineyard in the heart of the city, outside Kings Cross Station.
Plumping up the market hasn't been easy. In the early 1990s, when Mr. Roberts of Ridgeview approached a bank for a loan to start his winery, he was rejected. "The bank manager said, 'You must be mad,"' recalls Mr. Roberts.
Using his own funds plus a loan, Mr. Roberts planted the first vines in 1994 and enlisted three consultants—including two from Champagne. He decided to make sparkling wine because southern England has a chalky soil similar to Champagne, and is only 88 miles to the north.
All of Ridgeview's products are named Merret, a nod to the 17th-century scientist. Since 1996, when the vineyard produced 20,000 bottles, production has grown nearly tenfold.
In an upstairs tasting room overlooking acres of now-bare vines, Mr. Roberts recently poured a 2006 sparkler. It was rich, with honey and caramel notes. "It was a good hot year," said Mr. Roberts.
Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com
I share their despair, but I'm not quite ready to climb the Dark Mountain
To sit back and wait for the collapse of industrial civilisation is to conspire in the destruction of everything greens value
George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 May 2010 20.30 BST
Those who defend economic growth often argue that only rich countries can afford to protect the environment. The bigger the economy, the more money will be available for stopping pollution, investing in new forms of energy, preserving wilderness. Only the wealthy can live sustainably.
Anyone who has watched the emerging horror in the Gulf of Mexico in the past few days has cause to doubt this. The world's richest country decided not to impose the rules that might have prevented the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, arguing that these would impede the pursuit of greater wealth. Economic growth, and the demand for oil that it propelled, drove companies to drill in difficult and risky places.
But we needn't rely on this event to dismiss the cornucopians' thesis as self-serving nonsense. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculates deforestation rates between 2000 and 2005 in the countries with the largest areas of forest cover. The nation with the lowest rate was the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The nation with the highest, caused by a combination of logging and fire, was the United States. Loss of forest cover there (6% of its own forests in five years) was almost twice as fast as in Indonesia and 10 times as fast as in the DRC. Why? Because those poorer countries have less money to invest in opening up remote places and felling trees.
The wealthy nations are plundering not only their own resources. The environmental disasters caused by the oil industry in Ecuador and Nigeria are not driven by Ecuadorian or Nigerian demand, but by the thirst for oil in richer nations. Deforestation in Indonesia is driven by the rich world's demand for palm oil and timber, in Brazil by our hunger for timber and animal feed.
The Guardian's carbon calculator reveals that the UK has greatly underestimated the climate impacts of our consumption. The reason is that official figures don't count outsourced emissions: the greenhouse gases produced by other countries manufacturing goods for our markets. Another recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the UK imports a net 253m tonnes of carbon dioxide, embodied in the goods it buys. When this is taken into account, we find that far from cutting emissions since 1990, as the last government claimed, we have increased them. Wealth wrecks the environment.
So the Dark Mountain Project, whose ideas are spreading rapidly through the environment movement, is worth examining. It contends that "capitalism has absorbed the greens". Instead of seeking to protect the natural world from the impact of humans, the project claims that environmentalists now work on "sustaining human civilisation at the comfort level which the world's rich people – us – feel is their right".
Today's greens, it charges, seek to sustain the culture that knackers the planet, demanding only that we replace old, polluting technologies with new ones – wind farms, solar arrays, wave machines – that wreck even more of the world's wild places. They have lost their feelings for nature, reducing the problem to an engineering challenge. They've forgotten that they are supposed to be defending the biosphere: instead they are trying to save industrial civilisation.
That task, Paul Kingsnorth – a co-founder of Dark Mountain – believes, is futile: "The civilisation we are a part of is hitting the buffers at full speed, and it is too late to stop it." Nor can we bargain with it, as "the economic system we rely upon cannot be tamed without collapsing, for it relies upon … growth in order to function". Instead of trying to reduce the impacts of our civilisation, we should "start thinking about how we are going to live through its fall, and what we can learn from its collapse … Our task is to negotiate the coming descent as best we can, whilst creating new myths which put humanity in its proper place".
Though a fair bit of this takes aim at my writing and the ideas I champion, I recognise the truth in it. Something has been lost along the way. Among the charts and tables and technofixes, in the desperate search for green solutions that can work politically and economically, we have tended to forget the love of nature that drew us into all this.
But I cannot make the leap that Dark Mountain demands. The first problem with its vision is that industrial civilisation is much more resilient than it proposes. In the opening essay of the movement's first book, to be published this week, John Michael Greer proposes that conventional oil supplies peaked in 2005, that gas will peak by 2030, and that coal will do so by 2040.
While I'm prepared to believe that oil supplies might decline in the next few years, his coal prediction is hogwash. Energy companies in the UK, as the latest ENDS report shows, are now beginning to deploy a technology that will greatly increase available reserves. Government figures suggest that underground coal gasification – injecting oxygen into coal seams and extracting the hydrogen and methane they release – can boost the UK's land-based coal reserves 70-fold; and it opens up even more under the seabed. There are vast untapped reserves of other fossil fuels – bitumen, oil shale, methane clathrates – that energy companies will turn to if the price is right.
Like all cultures, industrial civilisation will collapse at some point. Resource depletion and climate change are likely causes. But I don't believe it will happen soon: not in this century, perhaps not even in the next. If it continues to rely on economic growth, if it doesn't reduce its reliance on primary resources, our civilisation will tank the biosphere before it goes down. To sit back and wait for what the Dark Mountain people believe will be civilisation's imminent collapse, without trying to change the way it operates, is to conspire in the destruction of everything greens are supposed to value.
Nor do I accept their undiscriminating attack on industrial technologies. There is a world of difference between the impact of windfarms and the impact of mining tar sands or drilling for oil: the turbines might spoil the view but, as the latest disaster shows, the effects of oil seep into the planet's every pore. And unless environmentalists also seek to sustain the achievements of industrial civilisation – health, education, sanitation, nutrition – the field will be left to those who rightly wish to preserve them, but don't give a stuff about the impacts.
We can accept these benefits while rejecting perpetual growth. We can embrace engineering while rejecting many of the uses to which it is put. We can defend healthcare while attacking useless consumption. This approach is boring, unromantic, uncertain of success, but a lot less ugly than the alternatives.
For all that, the debate this project has begun is worth having, which is why I'll be going to the Dark Mountain festival this month. There are no easy answers to the fix we're in. But there are no easy non-answers either.
George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 May 2010 20.30 BST
Those who defend economic growth often argue that only rich countries can afford to protect the environment. The bigger the economy, the more money will be available for stopping pollution, investing in new forms of energy, preserving wilderness. Only the wealthy can live sustainably.
Anyone who has watched the emerging horror in the Gulf of Mexico in the past few days has cause to doubt this. The world's richest country decided not to impose the rules that might have prevented the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, arguing that these would impede the pursuit of greater wealth. Economic growth, and the demand for oil that it propelled, drove companies to drill in difficult and risky places.
But we needn't rely on this event to dismiss the cornucopians' thesis as self-serving nonsense. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculates deforestation rates between 2000 and 2005 in the countries with the largest areas of forest cover. The nation with the lowest rate was the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The nation with the highest, caused by a combination of logging and fire, was the United States. Loss of forest cover there (6% of its own forests in five years) was almost twice as fast as in Indonesia and 10 times as fast as in the DRC. Why? Because those poorer countries have less money to invest in opening up remote places and felling trees.
The wealthy nations are plundering not only their own resources. The environmental disasters caused by the oil industry in Ecuador and Nigeria are not driven by Ecuadorian or Nigerian demand, but by the thirst for oil in richer nations. Deforestation in Indonesia is driven by the rich world's demand for palm oil and timber, in Brazil by our hunger for timber and animal feed.
The Guardian's carbon calculator reveals that the UK has greatly underestimated the climate impacts of our consumption. The reason is that official figures don't count outsourced emissions: the greenhouse gases produced by other countries manufacturing goods for our markets. Another recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the UK imports a net 253m tonnes of carbon dioxide, embodied in the goods it buys. When this is taken into account, we find that far from cutting emissions since 1990, as the last government claimed, we have increased them. Wealth wrecks the environment.
So the Dark Mountain Project, whose ideas are spreading rapidly through the environment movement, is worth examining. It contends that "capitalism has absorbed the greens". Instead of seeking to protect the natural world from the impact of humans, the project claims that environmentalists now work on "sustaining human civilisation at the comfort level which the world's rich people – us – feel is their right".
Today's greens, it charges, seek to sustain the culture that knackers the planet, demanding only that we replace old, polluting technologies with new ones – wind farms, solar arrays, wave machines – that wreck even more of the world's wild places. They have lost their feelings for nature, reducing the problem to an engineering challenge. They've forgotten that they are supposed to be defending the biosphere: instead they are trying to save industrial civilisation.
That task, Paul Kingsnorth – a co-founder of Dark Mountain – believes, is futile: "The civilisation we are a part of is hitting the buffers at full speed, and it is too late to stop it." Nor can we bargain with it, as "the economic system we rely upon cannot be tamed without collapsing, for it relies upon … growth in order to function". Instead of trying to reduce the impacts of our civilisation, we should "start thinking about how we are going to live through its fall, and what we can learn from its collapse … Our task is to negotiate the coming descent as best we can, whilst creating new myths which put humanity in its proper place".
Though a fair bit of this takes aim at my writing and the ideas I champion, I recognise the truth in it. Something has been lost along the way. Among the charts and tables and technofixes, in the desperate search for green solutions that can work politically and economically, we have tended to forget the love of nature that drew us into all this.
But I cannot make the leap that Dark Mountain demands. The first problem with its vision is that industrial civilisation is much more resilient than it proposes. In the opening essay of the movement's first book, to be published this week, John Michael Greer proposes that conventional oil supplies peaked in 2005, that gas will peak by 2030, and that coal will do so by 2040.
While I'm prepared to believe that oil supplies might decline in the next few years, his coal prediction is hogwash. Energy companies in the UK, as the latest ENDS report shows, are now beginning to deploy a technology that will greatly increase available reserves. Government figures suggest that underground coal gasification – injecting oxygen into coal seams and extracting the hydrogen and methane they release – can boost the UK's land-based coal reserves 70-fold; and it opens up even more under the seabed. There are vast untapped reserves of other fossil fuels – bitumen, oil shale, methane clathrates – that energy companies will turn to if the price is right.
Like all cultures, industrial civilisation will collapse at some point. Resource depletion and climate change are likely causes. But I don't believe it will happen soon: not in this century, perhaps not even in the next. If it continues to rely on economic growth, if it doesn't reduce its reliance on primary resources, our civilisation will tank the biosphere before it goes down. To sit back and wait for what the Dark Mountain people believe will be civilisation's imminent collapse, without trying to change the way it operates, is to conspire in the destruction of everything greens are supposed to value.
Nor do I accept their undiscriminating attack on industrial technologies. There is a world of difference between the impact of windfarms and the impact of mining tar sands or drilling for oil: the turbines might spoil the view but, as the latest disaster shows, the effects of oil seep into the planet's every pore. And unless environmentalists also seek to sustain the achievements of industrial civilisation – health, education, sanitation, nutrition – the field will be left to those who rightly wish to preserve them, but don't give a stuff about the impacts.
We can accept these benefits while rejecting perpetual growth. We can embrace engineering while rejecting many of the uses to which it is put. We can defend healthcare while attacking useless consumption. This approach is boring, unromantic, uncertain of success, but a lot less ugly than the alternatives.
For all that, the debate this project has begun is worth having, which is why I'll be going to the Dark Mountain festival this month. There are no easy answers to the fix we're in. But there are no easy non-answers either.
Tar sands crude is reaching British petrol stations, Greenpeace says
• Greenpeace seeks tougher rules against imports of 'dirty oil'• BP is upgrading refineries to process oil from tar sands
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 May 2010 17.19 BST
British motorists are unwitting users of diesel and petrol derived from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, where carbon-heavy production methods make extraction particularly damaging to the environment, Greenpeace claims.
The environmental group is calling for action by the European commission to strengthen fuel-quality directive regulations to restrict the import of petroleum products made in a carbon-intensive way.
The move comes as the tar sands producers appear to be trying to use the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as a public relations tool to promote their industry over deepwater drilling.
In a report out on Tuesday Greenpeace says that it has spent time tracking tar sands crude over 12 months and believes that considerable quantities are now being exported to Europe, via refineries in the southern states of the US.
While City investors have begun to question the role of companies such as BP and Shell in the tar sands business, British environmentalists – and consumers – have tended to believe that Alberta crude is used only in North America.
But the Greenpeace report, entitled Tar Sands in Your Tank: Exposing Europe's role in Canada's dirty oil trade, comes to different conclusions.
"The reach of tar sands crude is wider than previously thought. In fact, petroleum products derived partly from tar sands crude oil have been regularly entering the European Union's petroleum supply chain," it concludes.
The environmentalists believe this practice will become more widespread. One company claimed to be at the centre of the trade, the US refiner Valero Energy, plans to increase supplies at its Port Arthur refinery significantly via a controversial new pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf coast, where the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank, causing a huge oil leak.
Greenpeace also believes that BP has refined at least one consignment of tar sands crude at the Texas City plant on the same coast, which is a regular location for exporting diesel to Europe.
The rival oil producer ExxonMobil is also handling Canadian tar sands at its Baytown refinery near Houston and has exported at least one diesel shipment to Europe over the period studied, according to Greenpeace.
The green group admits that it cannot ultimately prove that any particular consignment derived from Canada ended up in Britain or Europe, given that refined diesel or petrol is of a uniform quality, but it says that the weight of evidence firmly points in this direction.
Exxon said that it could not comment on tar sands refining or exporting.
"The crude oils we process at our refineries come from a variety of sources around the world," said a spokesman. "However, what types of crude are processed at each refinery, how much, and when are all details that we do not discuss publicly as a matter of practice."
Valero confirmed that it was part of a project to expand the Keystone pipeline from western Canada down to the US Gulf Coast. "Once the Keystone pipeline expansion is complete in 2012 or 2013, Valero expects to be one of the largest recipients of heavy crude oil from the project," a company spokesman said. He added that much of that oil would be refined at Port Arthur, which is geared up to process heavy crude.
Valero also confirmed that its refineries were exporting diesel to Europe, but said that: "Exports of gasoline [petrol] from the US to Europe are rare, since Europe usually has an oversupply of gasoline."
BP, which is investing heavily in tar sand production and upgrading refineries near the Great Lakes specifically to refine this crude, had no comment to make on any existing exports.
Glen Schmidt, chief executive of Laricina Energy, part of the industry lobby group In Situ Oil Sands Alliance, told the Edmonton Journal in Canada that while there were sometimes failures with conventional oil and tar sands projects, "the damage would be much smaller and more modest than with offshore spills".
Similarly an editorial in the Calgary Herald said: "Anyone assessing the risks associated with drilling offshore versus the oil sands is going to be looking at things much differently today than he would have last week. All of a sudden it's a choice between risks that are quantifiable versus those that are unknown."
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 May 2010 17.19 BST
British motorists are unwitting users of diesel and petrol derived from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, where carbon-heavy production methods make extraction particularly damaging to the environment, Greenpeace claims.
The environmental group is calling for action by the European commission to strengthen fuel-quality directive regulations to restrict the import of petroleum products made in a carbon-intensive way.
The move comes as the tar sands producers appear to be trying to use the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as a public relations tool to promote their industry over deepwater drilling.
In a report out on Tuesday Greenpeace says that it has spent time tracking tar sands crude over 12 months and believes that considerable quantities are now being exported to Europe, via refineries in the southern states of the US.
While City investors have begun to question the role of companies such as BP and Shell in the tar sands business, British environmentalists – and consumers – have tended to believe that Alberta crude is used only in North America.
But the Greenpeace report, entitled Tar Sands in Your Tank: Exposing Europe's role in Canada's dirty oil trade, comes to different conclusions.
"The reach of tar sands crude is wider than previously thought. In fact, petroleum products derived partly from tar sands crude oil have been regularly entering the European Union's petroleum supply chain," it concludes.
The environmentalists believe this practice will become more widespread. One company claimed to be at the centre of the trade, the US refiner Valero Energy, plans to increase supplies at its Port Arthur refinery significantly via a controversial new pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf coast, where the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank, causing a huge oil leak.
Greenpeace also believes that BP has refined at least one consignment of tar sands crude at the Texas City plant on the same coast, which is a regular location for exporting diesel to Europe.
The rival oil producer ExxonMobil is also handling Canadian tar sands at its Baytown refinery near Houston and has exported at least one diesel shipment to Europe over the period studied, according to Greenpeace.
The green group admits that it cannot ultimately prove that any particular consignment derived from Canada ended up in Britain or Europe, given that refined diesel or petrol is of a uniform quality, but it says that the weight of evidence firmly points in this direction.
Exxon said that it could not comment on tar sands refining or exporting.
"The crude oils we process at our refineries come from a variety of sources around the world," said a spokesman. "However, what types of crude are processed at each refinery, how much, and when are all details that we do not discuss publicly as a matter of practice."
Valero confirmed that it was part of a project to expand the Keystone pipeline from western Canada down to the US Gulf Coast. "Once the Keystone pipeline expansion is complete in 2012 or 2013, Valero expects to be one of the largest recipients of heavy crude oil from the project," a company spokesman said. He added that much of that oil would be refined at Port Arthur, which is geared up to process heavy crude.
Valero also confirmed that its refineries were exporting diesel to Europe, but said that: "Exports of gasoline [petrol] from the US to Europe are rare, since Europe usually has an oversupply of gasoline."
BP, which is investing heavily in tar sand production and upgrading refineries near the Great Lakes specifically to refine this crude, had no comment to make on any existing exports.
Glen Schmidt, chief executive of Laricina Energy, part of the industry lobby group In Situ Oil Sands Alliance, told the Edmonton Journal in Canada that while there were sometimes failures with conventional oil and tar sands projects, "the damage would be much smaller and more modest than with offshore spills".
Similarly an editorial in the Calgary Herald said: "Anyone assessing the risks associated with drilling offshore versus the oil sands is going to be looking at things much differently today than he would have last week. All of a sudden it's a choice between risks that are quantifiable versus those that are unknown."
UN report warns of economic impact of biodiversity loss
The 'alarming' rate of nature loss could harm food sources and industry, and exacerbate climate change, UN report warns• World fails to meet target to halt biodiversity decline• Q&A: What is biodiversity and why is it important?
Juliette Jowit
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 May 2010 11.36 BST
The "alarming" rate at which species are being lost could have a severe effect on humanity, conservationists warned today. Targets set eight years ago by governments to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 have not been met, experts confirmed at a UN meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.
The third Global Biodiversity Outlook report said loss of wildlife and habitats could harm food sources and industry, and exacerbate climate change through rising emissions.
Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said: "Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world: the truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of 6 billion [people], heading to over 9 billion by 2050. Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet."
The report confirms what a coalition of 40 conservation organisations said last month, when they claimed there have been "alarming biodiversity declines". The coalition said that pressures on the natural world from development, over-use and pollution have risen since the ambition to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss was set out in the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The first formal assessment of the target, published at the end of April in the journal Science, is the basis of today's formal declaration. This week's meeting will see governments pressed to take the issues as seriously as climate change and the economic crisis.
"Since 1970 we have reduced animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by 40%," said Prof Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist of the UNEP.
"These losses are clearly unsustainable, since biodiversity makes a key contribution to human wellbeing and sustainable development."
The Science study compiled 30 indicators of biodiversity, including changes in populations of species and their risk of extinction, the remaining areas of different habitats, and the composition of communities of plants and animals.
"Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002: biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems," said Stuart Butchart, the paper's lead author.
"Our data shows that 2010 will not be the year that biodiversity loss was halted, but it needs to be the year in which we start taking the issue seriously and substantially increase our efforts to take care of what is left of our planet."
The failure to meet the CBD target will not be a surprise to experts or policymakers, who have warned for years that too little progress was being made. Last month the head of the IUCN species survival commission, Simon Stuart, told the Guardian that for the first time since the dinosaurs, species were believed to be becoming extinct faster than new ones were evolving.
Juliette Jowit
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 May 2010 11.36 BST
The "alarming" rate at which species are being lost could have a severe effect on humanity, conservationists warned today. Targets set eight years ago by governments to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 have not been met, experts confirmed at a UN meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.
The third Global Biodiversity Outlook report said loss of wildlife and habitats could harm food sources and industry, and exacerbate climate change through rising emissions.
Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said: "Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world: the truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of 6 billion [people], heading to over 9 billion by 2050. Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet."
The report confirms what a coalition of 40 conservation organisations said last month, when they claimed there have been "alarming biodiversity declines". The coalition said that pressures on the natural world from development, over-use and pollution have risen since the ambition to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss was set out in the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The first formal assessment of the target, published at the end of April in the journal Science, is the basis of today's formal declaration. This week's meeting will see governments pressed to take the issues as seriously as climate change and the economic crisis.
"Since 1970 we have reduced animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by 40%," said Prof Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist of the UNEP.
"These losses are clearly unsustainable, since biodiversity makes a key contribution to human wellbeing and sustainable development."
The Science study compiled 30 indicators of biodiversity, including changes in populations of species and their risk of extinction, the remaining areas of different habitats, and the composition of communities of plants and animals.
"Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002: biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems," said Stuart Butchart, the paper's lead author.
"Our data shows that 2010 will not be the year that biodiversity loss was halted, but it needs to be the year in which we start taking the issue seriously and substantially increase our efforts to take care of what is left of our planet."
The failure to meet the CBD target will not be a surprise to experts or policymakers, who have warned for years that too little progress was being made. Last month the head of the IUCN species survival commission, Simon Stuart, told the Guardian that for the first time since the dinosaurs, species were believed to be becoming extinct faster than new ones were evolving.
Gulf oil spill: plugging the leak
BP engineers may try to bung up the Deepwater Horizon leak by pumping debris such as bits of tyres and golf balls into the well. It's a long shot known as a 'junk shot', but it might just work
Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion two weeks ago, it has been hard not to view as primitive the efforts to contain the oil and prevent more of it leaking.
Whether it is the containment booms drafted in to prevent the oil washing ashore or early efforts to set the oil on fire, or even the attempts to funnel the leaking oil via giant sunken towers, the somewhat low-tech containment efforts starkly contrast with the often hi-tech methods usually witnessed in deep-sea drilling.
The latest BP plan being weighed up is similarly low-tech. Engineers may try to plug the well by pumping debris into it at high pressure, a method known as a "junk shot".
"They are actually going to take a bunch of debris - some shredded up tyres, golf balls and things like that - and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up to stop the leak," the US Coast Board Admiral Thad Allen told CBS News yesterday.
Tyres, golf balls, and "things like that" do not immediately inspire confidence, However Dr Simon Boxall, oceanographer at the National Oceanography centre in Southampton, Hampshire, said the unique conditions of the Deepwater Horizon spill – there has never been an oil leak at this depth before – mean all traditional methods "go out of the window".
There have been blow outs in shallow water, but with those you're looking at 100-metre-deep tops, where you can get divers down and you can get equipment down," he said.
"It's nothing compared to doing it 1,500m [5,000ft] down – this goes beyond all our technological knowhow and experience.".
Boxall said a junk shot has been tried before, although he was only aware of one incident, which took place at a much shallower depth.
"We're working in completely new territory, but the idea is not quite as daft as it sounds," he said.
"Bear in mind the pressures at these depths are phenomenal, so what seems like an odd thing to bung a hole with at the surface can actually work quite well. Golf balls seem really quite hard but actually they're quite soft.
"Certainly if you add a tonne of pressure per square inch to a golf ball then it starts to give. So I guess what they're looking to do is use these things that are slightly plastic in their feel to bung into a hole which will help bung it up."
The main problem for engineers is how to get the debris into the well almost a mile beneath the surface. The plan is to block the well beneath the semi-operational cut-off valves – at the moment, the well is partly shut off, restricting the oil flow – without making the spill worse.
"They're planning to sort of try and insert them somehow magically before the cut off valve, but that doesn't quite make sense," Boxall said.
"All these things you can imagine are perfectly feasible on land if you had whatever technology was available to bung them in the hole.
"But when you're looking at some mechanism to fire them into a hole when you're a mile down in seawater, I can't imagine what they would use, unless they're using compressed air – but that is difficult at those depths anyway because the pressures are so great."
He added: "There are one or two engineers out there who seem to be thinking: 'This is ok as long as we don't cause more damage than we solve.'"
BP's ultimate solution to the leak is to drill a relief well, but that could take up to three months before that is completed. In the meantime, they will continue to try and position a cofferdam over one of the leaks today.
Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion two weeks ago, it has been hard not to view as primitive the efforts to contain the oil and prevent more of it leaking.
Whether it is the containment booms drafted in to prevent the oil washing ashore or early efforts to set the oil on fire, or even the attempts to funnel the leaking oil via giant sunken towers, the somewhat low-tech containment efforts starkly contrast with the often hi-tech methods usually witnessed in deep-sea drilling.
The latest BP plan being weighed up is similarly low-tech. Engineers may try to plug the well by pumping debris into it at high pressure, a method known as a "junk shot".
"They are actually going to take a bunch of debris - some shredded up tyres, golf balls and things like that - and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up to stop the leak," the US Coast Board Admiral Thad Allen told CBS News yesterday.
Tyres, golf balls, and "things like that" do not immediately inspire confidence, However Dr Simon Boxall, oceanographer at the National Oceanography centre in Southampton, Hampshire, said the unique conditions of the Deepwater Horizon spill – there has never been an oil leak at this depth before – mean all traditional methods "go out of the window".
There have been blow outs in shallow water, but with those you're looking at 100-metre-deep tops, where you can get divers down and you can get equipment down," he said.
"It's nothing compared to doing it 1,500m [5,000ft] down – this goes beyond all our technological knowhow and experience.".
Boxall said a junk shot has been tried before, although he was only aware of one incident, which took place at a much shallower depth.
"We're working in completely new territory, but the idea is not quite as daft as it sounds," he said.
"Bear in mind the pressures at these depths are phenomenal, so what seems like an odd thing to bung a hole with at the surface can actually work quite well. Golf balls seem really quite hard but actually they're quite soft.
"Certainly if you add a tonne of pressure per square inch to a golf ball then it starts to give. So I guess what they're looking to do is use these things that are slightly plastic in their feel to bung into a hole which will help bung it up."
The main problem for engineers is how to get the debris into the well almost a mile beneath the surface. The plan is to block the well beneath the semi-operational cut-off valves – at the moment, the well is partly shut off, restricting the oil flow – without making the spill worse.
"They're planning to sort of try and insert them somehow magically before the cut off valve, but that doesn't quite make sense," Boxall said.
"All these things you can imagine are perfectly feasible on land if you had whatever technology was available to bung them in the hole.
"But when you're looking at some mechanism to fire them into a hole when you're a mile down in seawater, I can't imagine what they would use, unless they're using compressed air – but that is difficult at those depths anyway because the pressures are so great."
He added: "There are one or two engineers out there who seem to be thinking: 'This is ok as long as we don't cause more damage than we solve.'"
BP's ultimate solution to the leak is to drill a relief well, but that could take up to three months before that is completed. In the meantime, they will continue to try and position a cofferdam over one of the leaks today.
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