Sustainable Energy News: 03/13/12

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Total green electricity generation for Scotland

Total green electricity generation for Scotland | Energy | The Earth Times

Scotland can generate all its domestic electricity using renewable methods by 2020, the Government has confirmed. However, it will be challenge to reach the target and green energy generation will need to be supported by at least 2.5 GW from thermal power units that will be increasing their carbon capture and storage rates. The Government also aims to completely remove carbon from electricity generation by 2030, under plans outlined in the Electricity Generation Policy Statement (EGPS), which has just been released. Fergus Ewing, Scotland's Energy Minister, says, "We know there is doubt and scepticism about our 100 per cent renewables target, and the financial and engineering challenges required to meet it. But we will meet these challenges. I want to debate, engage and co-operate with every knowledgeable, interested and concerned party to ensure we achieve our goals."

Carbon pirates threaten Peruvian peoples

Carbon pirates threaten indigenous Peruvian peoples, report says | Going Green | The Earth Times

In Peru, over a third of forested lands are used and occupied by indigenous communities. However, their legal rights to their traditional land are frequently undermined, and the REDD+ program threatens to heighten such human rights abuses, say authors of a new report. The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP), the Federation of the Native Peoples of the River Madre de Dios and Its Tributaries (FENAMAD), and the Asháninka Centre of the river Ene (CARE), all indigenous Peruvian organizations, have just released the new report, titled "The Reality of REDD+ in Peru: Between Theory and Practice-Indigenous Amazonian Peoples' Analyses and Alternatives."

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is a global carbon trading scheme that would let wealthier nations offset their carbon output by investing in the protection of forests in developing nations. Disenfranchisement of local people in the development of REDD+ initiatives has long been a controversial issue.

Some of the worst REDD+ abuses to date in Peru include strict confidentiality contracts with no legal protection or oversight for indigenous communities, even for peoples who are not fluent in English (the language of the contracts) or even written Spanish. And those cases involve communities that actually have legal rights to their lands. Hundreds of "invisible" communities have no legal recognition of their own existence, or title to their traditional land. Indigenous peoples often have land use rights, but not title to the land, and their rights have been consistently eroded for the past 20 years, just as their land has been consistently degraded for mining, logging, and oil and gas extraction, the authors emphasize.

The downside of freecycling

Do We Value Free Stuff Less? The Downside of Freecycle

From Lloyd's experiences with delighted freecyclers to Rose's enthusiasm for the Really, Really Free Market, TreeHugger is full of examples of people getting stuff for free and being profoundly grateful for it. But that's not always the case. Lucy Siegle of the Guardian responds to a reader's email about the problem with Freecycle, in which they complain that a recent Freecycle transaction was ruined by the lack of gratitude, and sense of entitlement, of a recipient of a free mattress - who expected the giver to deliver the thing to them. Lucy argues that this is simply a sign of the times:

1,000 chemicals screened for potential toxicity to people and the environment

ToxCast Screens 1,000 Chemicals

The U.S. EPA ToxCast screening program has screened 1,000 chemicals for potential toxicity to people and the environment, the EPA has announced. ToxCast is designed to determine how chemical exposures impact the human body and how the chemicals most likely lead to health effects.

Obama urged to back EU carbon limits by Nobel economists

Nobel economists urge Obama: back EU carbon limits | Reuters

BRUSSELS, March 13 (Reuters) - Top U.S. economists, including five Nobel Prize winners, have urged U.S. President Barack Obama to drop his opposition to charging airlines for carbon emissions under a European Union scheme that has drawn fierce opposition from airlines and governments around the world.

EU Emissions Trading Scheme Assailed at FAA Conference

Critics vented frustration with Europe’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) during the FAA Forecast Conference March 8 in Washington, D.C. Leading the chorus of criticism, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood hinted that the U.S. government is considering “enforcement measures” to counter the European Union regulation.

Indigenous Groups Launch Ground-Breaking Environmental Regime

Ecosystem Marketplace - Indigenous Groups Launch Ground-Breaking Environmental Regime

Indigenous villages dot the Amazon rainforest along the border between Brazil and Peru, and everyone agrees that the people who live in them have taken better care of their lands than have the Portuguese and Spaniards who came later. That stewardship could soon be rewarded as the Brazilian state of Acre implements its System of Incentives for Environmental Services (Sistema de Incentivo a Serviços Ambientais, or “SISA”), an ambitious legal framework that Acre created two years ago to support compensation and payments for ecosystem services.

The indigenous program is actually one of four SISA subprograms in the works, each aimed at a different key stakeholder group. The others are medium-to-large rural producers, small family farmers, and forest communities such as rubber tappers.

Governments Worldwide Embrace Voluntary Carbon Offset Market

Ecosystem Marketplace - Special Report: Governments Worldwide Embrace Voluntary Carbon Offset Market

The United States has famously failed to develop a strategy for slowing and adapting to climate change, but that hasn’t stopped the US states of Oklahoma, California, and Oregon from creating frameworks to support greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading.

All three are among more than 20 national and sub-national governmental agencies around the world that have incorporated voluntary climate-change solutions into their formal strategies – creating in the process a means of developing the tools and procedures that will be needed in a low-carbon economy.

Ecosystem Marketplace has profiled the 13 most advanced initiatives in a new report entitled “Bringing it Home: Taking Stock of Government Engagement with the Voluntary Carbon Market”, which grew out of a meeting of national governments and carbon market participants that was convened by the International Emissions Trading Association’s (IETA) International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA) and the Carbon Markets & Investors Association (CMIA) at year-end climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

African Livestock Herders Reach for Carbon Cash

allAfrica.com: Kenya: Pastoralists Reach Out for Carbon Cash

Magadi — If the promise of earning carbon credits is realised, Nixon Parnisa counts himself among hundreds of pastoralists likely to profit from a new revenue stream.
The herder already has an anaerobic digester at his home in Kitengela, about 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Lake Magadi, in southern Kenya. The machine uses livestock waste to produce biogas for cooking and lighting.

Breakthrough Renewable Hydrogen and Natural Gas Technology

HyperSolar Discloses Development Plan for Breakthrough Renewable Hydrogen and Natural Gas Technology | AltEnergyMag Press Release

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--HyperSolar, Inc. (OTCBB: HYSR), the developer of a breakthrough technology to produce renewable hydrogen and natural gas using water and solar power, today announced specific details of its plan for the development of the world's first nanotechnology-based, zero-carbon process for the production of renewable hydrogen and natural gas. "Our research and development to date gives us a high degree of confidence that our innovative process can achieve commercial viability," said Tim Young, CEO of HyperSolar. "Starting with a negative value feedstock in the form of wastewater and operating in low cost reactors, we believe that our artificial photosynthesis process of extracting hydrogen from water will be cost effective."