Yes, the international offset market is an actual market that shrinks when the price drops (see “Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets?” and “The CDM: Rip-offsets or real reductions?“).
Indian CDM applications fall 30 per cent as carbon credit prices slump
The number of Indian carbon offset projects seeking approval under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) scheme has fallen by 30 per cent due to the global recession, according to an industry consultant.
“Project financing is not available, so people are postponing CDM investment decisions,” Chaitanya Kalia of Ernst & Young’s climate change and sustainability services told Reuters news agency last week.
India’s National CDM Authority used to receive an average of about 60 to 70 applications a month, but now only receives about 40, Kalia said.
The subcontinent has the world’s second-largest number of CDM projects after China, with more than 1,230 approved or awaiting validation, according to UN figures. Nearly 40 per cent are wind farm investments, while biomass accounts for a third of projects.
Electric Car Maker Expects Market to Heat Up
Nissan on Saturday night introduced the Leaf, a battery-powered four-door hatchback with a range of 100 miles and a top speed of 87 miles an hour. The Japanese automaker described the Leaf, which is scheduled to be available in the United States market in the latter half of 2010, as the first real-world electric car.
That must have rankled Th!nk, the Norwegian electric car company formerly owned by Ford. The Think City, a highway-capable two-seater with a 112-mile range, began rolling off the assembly line in December 2007.
But the company halted production late last year as in the wake of the global economic crisis. Think subsequently obtained new financing and announced last week that it would begin selling electric drivetrains powered by lithium-ion batteries from the American manufacturer EnerDel.
Beijing’s smog is back year after Olympics
One year after staging a mostly pollution-free Olympics, Beijing has seen its skies shrouded in haze again, highlighting what observers call a mixed Olympic legacy on the environment.
Amid fears the city’s chronic smog could damage athlete’s health, Beijing took drastic steps to prevent that last August, moving or cleaning up polluting factories, curbing traffic, and ordering a halt to all construction work.
State-of-the-art facilities like the “Bird’s Nest” Olympic stadium and “Water Cube” aquatic centre showcased the latest in energy-efficient design, and hopes were raised the “green” push would spread beyond the capital.
“All of the steps Beijing took to stage the Games have undeniably had a long-term positive impact on the city’s environment,” said Wei Fusheng, former chief engineer at the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre.
The long-delayed promise of thorium power
What if there was a different kind of nuclear reactor? A reactor that would generate little material that could be used to build a nuclear weapon. A reactor that would produce waste that would remain radioactive for several hundred years, rather than thousands. A reactor fueled by an abundant, cheap element: thorium.
For nearly two decades, a Virginia-based company, Thorium Power Ltd., has pushed for businesses and politicians to adopt a new reactor style, designed by Alvin Radkowsky, the original inventor of the U.S. Navy’s seagoing nuclear reactors. The firm has been testing its designs in Russia for several years and could be ready to commercialize its reactor within the decade.
While thorium’s potential use for nuclear power has long been known — it powered the first U.S. commercial plant, in Shippingport, Pa. — the fuel fell out of favor to uranium, which the United States was enriching in great supply as part of its Cold War military build up.
Greenroofs Can Save Cities Millions Of Gallons Of Water
Having a garden on your roof isn’t just nice for a garden party; it can make your city more environmentally friendly. Many American cities are beginning to incorporate greenroofs into their planning ordinances because they recognize that, planting a rooftop garden can offset heat, increase city biodiversity and decrease stormwater runoff. This runoff can be problematic in cities where rainwater is funneled by streets and parking lots directly into streams, carrying with it chemicals and debris and increasing the risk of flash floods.
But the plants on greenroofs can absorb some of this water – “like a sponge being saturated,” says Olyssa Starry, a graduate student at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. Starry studied a greenroof atop a Baltimore building in comparison to a similar building without a greenroof to determine how well the roof would absorb water from frequent storms. By measuring water flowing out of building downspouts, she found that the greenroof retained from 30 to 75 percent of water from storms, compared to a negligible amount retained by the building with no greenroof.
Earth’s Biogeochemical Cycles, Once In Concert, Falling Out Of Sync
What do the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” global climate change, and acid rain have in common? They’re all a result of human impacts to Earth’s biology, chemistry and geology, and the natural cycles that involve all three.
On August 4-5, 2009, scientists who study such cycles–biogeochemists–will convene at a special series of sessions at the Ecological Society of America (ESA)’s 94th annual meeting in Albuquerque, N.M.
They will present results of research supported through various National Science Foundation (NSF) efforts, including coupled biogeochemical cycles (CBC) funding. CBC is an emerging scientific discipline that looks at how Earth’s biogeochemical cycles interact.
Water crisis in parched northern China
The river has dried up, the well yields only dust, and Li Yunxi is hard pressed to irrigate his plot of land, even though he lives right next to the largest water project in history.
The elderly farmer watches in despair as his corn crop wilts under the scorching northern China sun, knowing that a fresh, abundant stream is only a stone’s throw away.
“We ordinary people don’t dare use that water,” Li told AFP as he nodded toward the fenced-in canal, part of China’s hugely ambitious but troubled South-North Water Diversion Project.
“That water is for Beijing, and people here do not steal water.”
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Newsweek, who would have thought!
http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164
Sea ice melts rapidly during July: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/080409.html
greenroofs can save cities millions? So why arent we doing it? This seems like a finanically and evironmentally responsible initiative- lets do it