Vestas Climbs After Winning Largest Wind Turbine Order
Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the biggest maker of wind turbines, climbed in Copenhagen trading after winning its largest order for a single power-generation site.
Vestas will supply 190 turbines of its V90-3.0 megawatt model to Terra-Gen Power LLC’s Alta Wind Energy Center near Tehachapi in California, the Randers, Denmark-based company said yesterday in a stock-exchange statement.
The order is the fifth Vestas signed in the U.S. this year after winning no contracts in 2009 in the biggest wind-turbine market as the credit crunch squeezed financing for projects. Vestas is spending about $1 billion to expand production capacity in the U.S. where it competes with General Electric Co. over a market that Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel has described as having the world’s best wind resources.
“This is an important order because it will help the market’s confidence in Vestas management,” Stig Nymann, an analyst with Copenhagen-based Laan & Spar Bank A/S, said in an e-mail. “This order reduces the risk that Vestas will have to lower its full-year forecast in the next earnings report.”
As Oil Spills, China Sends in the Bugs
A Beijing-based biotechnology company is in the limelight for providing 23 tons of oil-eating bacteria to help clean up the 183-square-kilometer (114-square-mile) slick around China’s northern Dalian port, after two oil pipelines exploded there last week.
The company’s name, called Weiyeyuan in pinyin, is Beijing Micro-Cleaner Biotechnology Co. It’s young: An introduction on its website says it was founded just last year and that the company makes “environmentally friendly microbial products.”
Beijing Intensifies Carbon Capture and Sequestration Work With U.S.
There have been many such memos and initiatives, but this time, top lab directors are convinced that things are different.
As of last month, the memo has given life — and funding — to three separate research projects meant to accelerate development of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, under the two nations’ Clean Energy Partnership. The partnership will tackle issues around the cost of deploying the technology in China, improving gasification methods, and developing more efficient synthetic gas-to-natural gas conversions.
The research areas are not new problems. For the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which has a long track record working with China, what has changed for the laboratory’s leadership is the level of commitment it sees from its international partner.
UN in fresh bid to salvage international deal on climate change
Climate change campaigners yesterday welcomed UN plans to amend the way changes to the Kyoto protocol are made in an effort to salvage negotiations on a new international deal.
Under the plans, countries could be forced to accept decisions made by a majority of members. Currently, no resolution can be passed by the group without full agreement.
The UN’s suggestion shows its acceptance that, after two years of deadlock, there is little chance the body will reach a global deal to reduce greenhouse emissions and tackle global warming in November in Cancun, Mexico – the next time world leaders will meet to hammer out a follow-up to the Kyoto protocol.
“It reflects the degree of desperation – and justifiable desperation – on the part of the UN,” said Mark Lynas, an adviser to the Maldives government at the Copenhagen summit last year.
Climate change law’s $63 million fee delayed by California
The state, facing a ballot initiative to roll back its landmark climate change law, has pushed back a $63 million fee to pay for the legislation until after the November elections.
The California Air Resources Board was supposed to begin collecting fees from oil companies, utilities and other energy producers last year to pay for the greenhouse gas reduction law.
But a lawsuit by business organizations and taxpayer advocates “” combined with the ongoing state budget crisis “” has pushed back the implementation date to November.
“We’re disappointed with the delay,” said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior policy director for the American Lung Association of California. “We need to start the policy of having polluters pay to enact this critical program.”
Senate committee gives green light to solar energy funding bill
A bill providing funds for solar energy systems found support in a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday, casting a bit of sunshine on solar energy supporters.
The bill, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, Ind-Vt., would require the secretary of Energy to provide states with money to finance rebates, loans and other incentives for the purchase of solar energy systems, for consumers and businesses alike.
“If we are serious about transforming our energy system we have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk,” said Sanders, who mentioned creating new jobs and reducing dependency on foreign oil among the reasons to make changes to the nation’s energy system.
The goal of the legislation is to install solar energy systems on 10 million properties by the end of 2021, giving it the short name of the”10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2010.”
Business-like approach on climate bill
The Massachusetts High Technology Council and the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, which have been critics of the costs of clean energy, are each calling for federal climate legislation they say will create jobs and keep local businesses competitive.
Today, the council is expected to outline its recommendations for climate legislation being considered by the US Senate.
Such support is a significant policy shift for the council and AIM, two of the highest-profile trade groups in the state, and one that signals that beyond the state’s environmental and clean technology sectors, there is local business backing for a national green energy policy. Another prominent trade group, the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, is offering its support as well.
The positions from the trade groups are expected to add pressure for the US Senate to pass a national energy and climate bill in the coming weeks.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
More from Chinalantis
Tropical Storm Chanthu Hits Southern China, Raises Fears Of Floods
Tropical storm Chanthu may probably make matters worse in the areas which have already received torrential rain, and could pour down another 20 inches to half meter of rain in those areas.
CNN reports that over 287,000 military personnel will be part of the in anti-flood operations in China.
http://uktodaynews.com/7375/tropical-storm-chanthu-hits-southern-china-typhoon-raises-fears-of-floods/
*** Ancient Ocean Acidification Intimates Long Recovery from Climate Change
It may takes tens of thousands of years for oceans to recover from the acidity caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide
It was a time of “severe global warming,” paleobiologist Elisabetta Erba of the University of Milan and her colleagues wrote, after studying the carbon isotopes embedded in deep seabed cores drilled in the Pacific Ocean and locations in the ancient Tethys Ocean, which existed during the Mesozoic era. The records reveal that acidification proved a big problem for nannoplankton. “During the Aptian episode, marine calcifiers experienced a major crisis due to increasing CO2-induced acidification,”
It took at least 25,000 years for the new acidity levels reached in the surface waters to transfer to deeper waters, according to the research—and the ocean took 75,000 years to reach its peak acidity for that episode, as well as at least 160,000 years to recover.
Regardless, the shells of at least one modern foraminifera in the Southern Ocean are already smaller than those of their ancestors from a mere century ago. And the modern buildup of atmospheric CO2 is happening far faster than these ancient episodes. “The current rate of ocean acidification is about a hundred times faster than the most rapid events” in the geologic past
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ancient-ocean-acidification-intimates-long-recovery-from-climate-change
German power plant testing CO2-scrubbing algae http://www.physorg.com/news199006396.html
Slowly but surely GW is going to bite….
Salty Fraser wreaks havoc on farms
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Climate-Portals/139434822741700
Salt levels in the Fraser River are increasing and carrying the potential to devastate crops, farmers warn.
“It burns,” said Bill Zylmans, a longtime Richmond farmer. “In the case of vegetables, you can’t have that. You’ll destroy them immediately.”
A report presented to a city council committee Wednesday suggests farmers are sounding the alarm due to the Fraser River’s flow. A low snowpack means less fresh water to push back saltwater, which makes its way upriver with the help of extreme tides.
*** Carbon trading in pipeline
BEIJING – The country is set to begin domestic carbon trading programs during its 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) to help it meet its 2020 carbon intensity target.
The decision was made at a closed-door meeting chaired by Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and attended by officials from related ministries, enterprises, environmental exchanges and think tanks, a participant told China Daily on Wednesday on condition of anonymity. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-07/22/content_11033249.htm
How One Jellyfish Stung 100 People http://www.livescience.com/animals/lions-mane-jellyfish-stings-100-people-100722.html
New Map of Antarctica’s Icy Edge
Antarctica is covered by the world’s largest ice sheet., and it is losing mass. At present, ice is slipping into the sea from the continent’s icy edge more quickly than snowfall is accumulating in the high-altitude interior. The imbalance means that Antarctic ice loss is contributing to rising sea level. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44740
Antarctic Ices May Be Covering Methane Accumulations
Huge amounts of the stuff may exist underground http://news.softpedia.com/news/Antarctic-Ices-May-Be-Covering-Methane-Accumulations-137648.shtml
Environmental victory: New Zealand conservation land will not be mined http://www.wildlifeextra.com//go/news/conservation-mining.html
Satellite Image of the Dalian Oil Spill, China
Sometime last week, two pipelines in the port city of Dalian, China, exploded and burned, and a large quantity of oil was released into the Yellow Sea. One firefighter lost his life. There are some harrowing pictures of oil-covered firemen being pulled from the water. Officials report that 165 square miles of ocean was covered with oil, but the pipelines are no longer leaking and cleanup is proceeding. Aquaculture is a huge business in China – Greenpeace estimates that 10,000 shellfish farms have been affected. http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/07/dalian-oil-spill-china.html
U.S. agency to look at climate change
The Obama administration’s planned national climate service will equip decision-makers with hard facts about long-term environmental changes instead of long-term research, the service’s provisional director said.
“There’s a purpose to what we’re trying to do and it’s driven by the needs of society to live effectively in the environment we have, both the natural environment and the built environment,” Thomas R. Karl, who is director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, said Wednesday.
Much of the service’s initial work will have to do with shifting from performing purely research activities, which take place in time frames of years, to providing information to legislators, agencies and companies in time for them to act. http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/07/22/US-agency-to-look-at-climate-change/UPI-19331279806530/
In the US, green must be framed as ‘red, white and blue’
the highlight of the week was the sharing of a new film, Carbon Nation. This picks up from where An Inconvenient Truth leaves off, with 80% of the content focused on developments in energy efficiency and renewables in the US. It’s a smart piece of work, interviewing both the usual suspects (Amory Lovins, Lester Brown and so on) and treehuggers, with some “salt of the earth” entrepreneurs, farmers, community activists and even military types. It was the first time I’d heard of the Pentagon’s Green Hawks.
This stuff works in the US. Friedman’s latest rallying call is that American environmentalists should give up on their “Earth Day” rhetoric and focus instead on the emerging “Earth Race” — the race between the US and China to become the dominant player in the burgeoning cleantech sector. This is a big deal: the cleantech market is worth around $150 billion a year at the moment, but will need to grow to a minimum of $500 billion a year if we are to meet today’s targets for reducing greenhouse gases. http://www.greenbang.com/in-the-us-green-must-be-framed-as-red-white-and-blue_14765.html
China develops 5-trillion-yuan alternative energy plan
According to initial calculations, the new plan will greatly ease China’s excessive reliance on coal in 2020 and cut sulfur dioxide emissions by about 7.8 million tons and carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.2 billion tons in a year. Furthermore, this will contribute 1.5 trillion yuan in added-value per year and create 15 million job opportunities. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90862/7076933.html
2% US Energy Consumption is Lost Through Food Waste
“The energy discarded in wasted food is more than the energy available from many popular efficiency and energy procurement strategies, such as the annual production of ethanol from grains and annual petroleum available from drilling in the outer continental shelf,”
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/wasted_food_was.php
Toxic waste dump receives new EPA order to clean up contaminated soil
The facility near Kettleman City has 60 days to reduce PCB concentrations. Many residents suspect the landfill is causing serious birth defects. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-toxic-20100717,0,6770978.story
Trafigura fined €1m for exporting toxic waste to Africa
Dutch court convicts oil trader of illegally exporting waste to Ivory Coast and concealing its hazardous nature in Amsterdam http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/23/trafigura-dutch-fine-waste-export
Rocky all-terrain vehicle generates renewable energy for propulsion
Zero-emission concept vehicle powered by electricity.
Auto designer Murad Baste has come up with a zero-emission concept vehicle dubbed Rocky, which can be used on long distance mountainous drives. With space for four passengers, the vehicle features a carbon monocoque construction that allows it to achieve high bending strength with minimal weight. http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/rocky-all-terrain-vehicle-generates-renewable-energy-for-propulsion/
HighDro Power generates energy from falling wastewater http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/highdro-power-generates-energy-from-falling-wastewater/
Spill may cost Gulf Coast $22.7 billion in tourism, study estimates http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oilspill-business-20100723,0,5293582.story
Protests as Australian PM delays climate action http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100723/wl_asia_afp/australiavote
*** China stops subsidizing polluting industries
The Chinese government withdrew its subsidies from some the country’s most energy-intensive industries to stop paying polluters and also to show the world that it’s economy is stable enough to make the withdrawal.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/07/15/pm-china-stops-subsidizing-polluting-industries
*** China stops subsidizing polluting industries
The Chinese government withdrew its subsidies from some the country’s most energy-intensive industries to stop paying polluters and also to show the world that it’s economy is stable enough to make the withdrawal
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/07/15/pm-china-stops-subsidizing-polluting-industries
China just announced to stop subsidizing polluters …
Link to above BREAKING News http://bit.ly/bhKHeL
First details on China oil spill’s cause emerge, gov’t urged to warn public on health hazards http://finance.yahoo.com/news/First-details-on-China-oil-apf-1323259600.html?x=0&.v=1
Hope You Like Beets, Because The Bee Crisis Could Soon Be Hitting the U.S. Food Supply
The effects of colony collapse disorder have been masked by imported bees, but a perfect storm is brewing, and it will leave no grocery store unscathed. http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/colony-collapse-disorder-food-0723
2 Killed In Indiana Township Gas Well Explosion http://www.wpxi.com/news/24366436/detail.html
So the climate bill is dead. An excellent alternative is to eliminate (hundreds of) billions of perverse (direct, indirect and externalized) annual subsidies in the US for “fuels” (fools). Now instead of a “price on carbon” of a few cents per gallon or pound years from now, we should change the BUDGET. There would be numerous public benefits, including for national security.
Amazingly, China seems to be turning their ship of state while the US Titanic continues its course (including for its really gross domestic product of disease creating conglomerates, and health costs defined economically as benefit).
James, #27. Very good point. As we look at the apparent “dead” mode of climate bill, we need to look at getting a pound of flesh from the fossil industry as well. A good start would be the elimination of all subsidies, up the deductible, and tougher environmental compliance. After all why should a setback reset everything at the status quo? Don’t ~70% of a Democratic population deserve something? Filibuster that GOBP!
We need 60% to quit playing Russian Roulette with the future survival of humanity. A “consensus” of scientists will tell you trouble is where we are heading.
Very strange Government we got over here…