Sustainable Energy News: 05/10/12

Thursday, May 10, 2012

NASA's New Carbon-Counting Instrument Leaves the Nest

NASA's New Carbon-Counting Instrument Leaves the Nest - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Its construction now complete, the science instrument that is the heart of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft - NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide - has left its nest at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and has arrived at its integration and test site in Gilbert, Ariz.

A truck carrying the OCO-2 instrument left JPL before dawn on Tuesday, May 9, to begin the trek to Orbital Science Corporation's Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Gilbert, southeast of Phoenix, where it arrived that afternoon. The instrument will be unpacked, inspected and tested. Later this month, it will be integrated with the Orbital-built OCO-2 spacecraft bus, which arrived in Gilbert on April 30.

Former MF Global Carbon Head MacGiffin Joins ClimateCare

Grattan MacGiffin, a former head of voluntary and new carbon at MF Global Holdings Ltd., has joined ClimateCare, an emissions offsetter in Oxford, England. ClimateCare, which creates and sells carbon offsets that can be used by companies voluntarily wishing to reduce their environmental impact, commented on the appointment by e-mail. The company was taken private through a management buyout from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) in August. “There is burgeoning demand,” from companies wanting to buy such credits, MacGiffin said in a telephone interview from Oxford. “There’s more demand for the higher-quality credits,” he said, citing projects that distribute efficient cookstoves and those that provide clean drinking water by using filters.

Can solar thermal energy compete on costs with wind?

The challenge facing solar thermal technology and its quest to compete with other energy sources was underlined in a proposal released late last month by Beyond Zero Emissions, for a replacement for the ageing and highly polluting Playford coal-fired power stations in Port Augusta. BZE, along with a host of other environmental groups, the local mayor and, it seems, much of the local population, want the current power stations replaced by solar thermal energy, using solar towers with capacity of 760MW, and a further 90MW of wind turbines.

NZ emissions action gets cool response

Yes, New Zealand does have an Emissions Trading Scheme, albeit one celebrated as much in the breach as the observance, given that it excludes agriculture - which produces 49 per cent of New Zealand's emissions as methane and nitrous oxide (N2O). Yet the Sustainability Council's executive director, Simon Terry, points out that agriculture could dramatically cut our emissions. Trials using nitrification inhibitors show an average halving of N2O production. This also reduces soil leaching and protects waterways, a big plus for the dairy sector. The Government's decision to push coal, oil and gas is a potential revenue-generator, but "at some point you price oil out of the equation with a carbon tax, if you are serious about avoiding dangerous climate change", argues Terry.

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10 May 2012 17:20

Italy to delay plans to buy over 100 mln CO2 credits

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Italy will likely wait until the end of next year to decide…

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10 May 2012 15:17

Belgian region to sell up to 10 mln EUAs

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Belgium’s Flemish Region will auction up to 10 million EU ca…

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10 May 2012 17:32

EU carbon slides on poor UK auction turnout

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European carbon prices sank by 1.6 percent on Thursday after…

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10 May 2012 19:10

ANALYSIS: Political shift will make or break Rio+20 summit

WASHINGTON/LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The shifting sands of geopolitics, marked by rapi…

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10 May 2012 10:56

RWE coal-fired power output up 13 pct in Q1

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – German utility RWE produced 13 percent more coal-fired power…

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10 May 2012 11:06

UPDATE 1: UK EUA auction price, bidding interest hits record low

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) - The UK government on Thursday sold 4 million spot EU carbon…

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10 May 2012 09:52

China readies rules for domestic CO2 offset markets

BEIJING, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) - China is close to finalising the rules for its domestic car…

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Global climate treaty may demand more carbon cuts from 'poor' countries

Old divisions between developed and developing countries in who should lead the fight against climate change should be laid aside, according to ministers from some of the world's poorest countries and European representatives meeting on Tuesday. The vexed issue of which countries should bear the greatest responsibility for cutting greenhouse gas emissions has been a sticking point in international negotiations for two decades. Under the original settlement reached in 1992 at the Rio Earth summit, and formalised in the 1997 Kyoto protocol, some rapidly emerging economies such as China were left out of the roster of obligations to curb emissions. However, China is now the world's biggest emitter and second biggest economy, prompting many nations to question whether the divisions that were relevant 20 years ago should still apply today.

EU aviation emission row intensifies as China drafts 'retaliatory' law

The row between China and the European Union (EU) over Europe's inclusion of airlines in its emissions trading scheme has cranked up another notch, after the Chinese government revealed it could pass its own legislation challenging the EU's plans. According to analyst firm Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, China this week published a draft Climate Change Law, which warns of possible "retaliatory approaches" to dealing with the emissions levies that have been imposed on flights between the EU and China.

South-east Asia clean energy fund nears first close

Newly-formed clean energy investor Armstrong Asset Management is nearing a $66 million first close for a fund to invest in small-scale renewable energy and ‘resource efficiency’ projects in South-east Asia. The Singapore-based company – run by Andrew Affleck, former CEO of UK-based Low Carbon Investors – is aiming for a $150 million final close for its 10-year Armstrong South East Asia Clean Energy Fund. It will invest in projects in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, and other South-east Asian emerging markets. It is targeting internal rates of return of 20%.

NZ emissions action gets cool response

Government confirms plans for electricity market overhaul

The government has confirmed plans for "revenue support" to benefit nuclear power, through a complex new system of feed-in tariffs and long-term contracts as part of a wider package of reforms to the electricity market. There will also be a shakeup of another system of privatised utilities, through a water bill that will make it easier for organisations to switch water suppliers and encourage new entrants into the market. But the proposals set out in the Queen's speech held no surprises, and few details of how the reforms will work in practice. On both sets of new regulations, large areas of policy detail remain unclear. Some energy experts fear "contracts for difference" in the electricity market – the centrepiece of the electricity market reforms – may be too complex in practice. The government said the system – by which suppliers of low-carbon electricity, from nuclear or renewable sources, could sign long-term contracts of supply at a preferential rate – "would provide more certainty of revenues for low-carbon generation and make investment in clean energy more attractive".

Saudi Arabia targets 41GW solar by 2032, China to beat 10GW/year

As the Australian government struggles with its Solar Flagships program, the world’s largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, has unveiled an ambitious solar deployment. At the Saudi Solar forum this week, officials from King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, the agency responsible for alternative energy, announced a program to generate 41GW of electricity capacity from solar by 2032 – a run rate of 2GW a year over the next two decades.

Carbon price denounced as 'unrealistic' by expert

ONE of the nation's leading carbon-pricing experts has described as "unrealistic in the extreme" Treasury's budget forecast of a $29-a-tonne carbon price in 2015-16, and warned of a multi-billion-dollar risk to the budget and a failure of the scheme to change emissions behaviour if a floor price is not maintained. Frank Jotzo, the deputy director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, told The Australian an oversupply of credits in the UN's Clean Development Mechanism meant carbon prices would stay low and a more realistic estimate was $5.

Environmental Finance | News | Microsoft carbon neutrality goal would cost below $10m

Microsoft would need to pay less than $10 million a year if it were to meet its new goal of becoming carbon neutral entirely through carbon offsets – a fraction of the IT giant’s $5.1 billion in profits for the last quarter. But a wholesale move into the voluntary offset market by the company would represent a “reasonably large” new source of demand, according to Andrea Rumiz, Zurich-based head of sales at leading carbon offset supplier South Pole Carbon Asset Management. On Tuesday, the Seattle, Washington-based company announced that, from its financial year starting 1 July, it would be “carbon neutral across all [its] direct operations including data centres, software development labs, air travel and office buildings”.