The cost of key renewable energy technologies is falling more rapidly than thought, with wind already competitive with fossil fuels in many major energy markets, and solar likely to achieve grid parity with conventional fuels on utility or wholesale costs in the second half of the decade, an HSBC study shows. A Qantas Airbus A330 flew within Australia this month powered by a biofuel derived from used cooking oil, split 50:50 with conventional jet fuel. Read More

By Giuseppe Tauriello  in The Advertiser  (13 April 2012):

QANTAS landed its first commercial flight using cooking oil at Adelaide Airport yesterday.

The Airbus A330 landed in Adelaide, from Sydney, about midday yesterday, powered by a biofuel derived from used cooking oil, split 50:50 with conventional jet fuel.

The fuel, produced by Dutch firm SkyNRG, powered one engine of the aircraft and has a life-cycle carbon footprint which is about 60 per cent smaller than that of conventional jet fuel.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said finding a sustainably produced biofuel was an important step in confronting the major challenge of high fuel prices, and supported the aviation industry’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2020.

“The market view is that this price is likely to stay over $US100 per barrel in the medium term,” Mr Joyce said at Sydney Airport yesterday, ahead of the flight.

“We need to get ready for a future that is not based on traditional jet fuel or, frankly, we don’t have a future.”

Joanne Morgan was on board the historic QF1121 flight with her one-year old son Rhys. “I heard on the radio on the way to the airport that there was a flight leaving Sydney, the first flight to use the new fuel,” she said.

“It wasn’t until I got on the plane that they mentioned it and I was like – wow. During the flight they said they were using less fuel on one side of the plane. I was quite happy with the result.”

Qantas’s low-cost subsidiary Jetstar will use the same SkyNRG biofuel on a return trip between Melbourne and Hobart on April 19.

The company has been working with other firms on alternative sources of aviation jet fuel made from algae or household waste.

Source: www.adelaidenow.com.au

By Giles Parkinson in Renew economy (20 April 2012):

The cost of key renewable energy technologies is falling more rapidly than thought, with wind already competitive with fossil fuels in many major energy markets, and solar likely to achieve grid parity with conventional fuels on utility or wholesale costs in the second half of the decade.

The forecasts from global banking giant HSBC accord with some of the predictions made by the US, Chinese and Indian governments in recent months, and the outlook within the EU. But HSBC says the cost falls appear to be even more rapid, and will coincide with a carbon price that will become a “global phenomenom” in the second half of the decade.

The HSBC report says the best wind projects are already competitive with conventional power generation in many key markets, and will achieve parity in other markets over time. The biggest change has been in solar, which is moving towards grid parity quicker than expected. “The recent change of tone on this subject from many solar companies suggests that producers are becoming more confident that grid parity is a realistic ambition, given the
scale of system price reductions,” it writes.

And, HSBC notes, despite the fact that nuclear and conventional fossil fuels had historically benefited from huge investments in R&D and ongoing subsidies, the rising costs of fossil prices and nuclear, and the technological advances for both solar and wind, means that renewable subsidies will be progressively cut back to zero “as cost competitive alternative energy becomes a larger part of the energy-generation mix.”

The HSBC report includes capital and operating costs estimates for all the major conventional and renewable technologies, reflecting recent transactions, as well as capital costs, fuel costs and operating and maintenance costs. It does not include solar thermal (due to slow growth) or geothermal (niche market despite interesting cost position) in its analysis.

These graphs from HSCBC show where generation costs were in 2011 and where they are heading. The first graph shows the estimated range of power generation costs (in Euros) for 2011.

While this one shows where HSBC expects power generation costs (again in Euros) to be in 2015 – just three years away. The difference between these and the estimates included in Australia’s draft Energy White Paper, which contends that solar PV will still be twice as expensive in 2035, is startling.

The HSBC report goes on to make some other interesting points:

The capital cost of solar and wind (especially offshore wind) are on the higher side, but the only cost going forward is operating and maintenance cost as the fuel is essentially free.

Wind and solar costs are relatively predictable compared with fossil fuel-driven sources of power generation, as the raw material costs are zero, whereas all fossil fuel-based generation is subject to volatility in the prices of oil, gas and coal.

The least-cost onshore wind is already competitive with conventional technologies at current fossil-fuel prices and using carbon price in the EU. In the US, low gas prices (owing to shale gas availability) are posing a challenge for the competitiveness of wind technology. However, declining wind capital costs will reduce average wind generation costs by 2015, despite the risk of removal or reduction of subsidies. And  in certain parts of Asia, such as India, wind is now close to the electricity sale price being offered by new coal facilities coming on line.

It says offshore wind still has a long way to go to become cost-competitive and the bank is not  expecting any significant decline to capital costs until the latter half of the decade, when technology improvements, larger turbines and higher installation volumes should result in beneficial economies of scale effects.

On solar PV, HSBC says that rooftop systems have reached – or are about to reach – retail grid parity in key markets such as the US, Spain, Germany, India and China, and will achieve wholesalegrid parity in the latter half of this decade.

It noted that coal- and gas-based technologies “look very cheap on a capital-cost only basis”, but in fact the bulk of the ultimate cost of power generation is in the fuel and, to a lesser extent, the carbon costs.

It said nuclear faced a number of potential issues, including increased costs because of new safety requirements and the lack of political support in many countries. In any case, HSBC said, the capital cost of nuclear remains difficult to accurately forecast, given the complexity and scale of new build projects, decommissioning costs were variable and the cost and environmental impact of radioactive waste disposal difficult to quantify realistically

Despite its declining cost curve, or maybe because of it, HSBC warns that renewable technologies will be a difficult environment for investors.

“It seems increasingly clear that subsidies for new renewable capacity will continue to see a decline until they are withdrawn entirely. This cut in support will enforce the industry to become competitive with traditional power generation, presumably at the expense of many present participants who cannot breach such a transition. We therefore expect strong medium-term growth prospects for wind and solar, notwithstanding the current near-term pressures.”

In the near term, however, that poses challenges for people investing in listed solar stocks, even if over the longer term it will become a “mainstream technology” with volumes growing in leaps and bounds.

“Despite attractive solar system prices supporting the longer-term growth story, is it now a question of the survival of the fittest in our view.” It says demand will remain weak in 2012, pressure on margins will grow and industry rationalization will gather steam.

Source: www.reneweconomy.com.au

French firms in Singapore are raising the bar on the region’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts by launching a sustainability charter, where companies commit to sharing expertise amongst themselves and with other companies in the region. Veolia was one of them, as was Nexus, which in the same week launched an initiative to enable companies and public institutions to support access to clean energy and water for the poorest populations of developing countries. Read More

ABC Carbon’s Ken Hickson checked out the Nexus Beyond Offsetting event earlier this month and attended  the French Chamber of Commerce launch of its Sustainability Charter and its associated seminar.

By Jenny Marusiak  in eco-business.com (16 April 2012):

French firms in Singapore are raising the bar on the region’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts by launching a sustainability charter.

The new charter, launched at a Friday ceremony by the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (FCCS), will commit companies to sharing corporate social responsibility expertise amongst themselves and with other companies in the region.

Some of that expertise involves knowing what to avoid when implementing CSR policies on a global scale, said panelists at the event.

Paris-based senior vice-president of CSR for energy technology firm Alstom, Anne Guérin-Moens, said at the seminar at the Novotel Hotel that trying to address global CSR policies “from the top down” out of the firm’s French headquarters had been a lesson in humility.

She found that “trying to impose the French way was disastrous,” and added that firms needed to listen to the voice of the entire organisation and the voice of the customers.

Signatories included 32 multinational companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and non-profit organisations from Europe and Singapore that agreed to work with the FCCS Sustainability Committee to help promote cooperation on CSR practices within the region.

Sustainability Committee co-president Hélène Toury, who is a Singapore-based communications manager at global environmental technology firm Veolia Water, told Eco-Business that French companies have not been as vocal as other European companies concerning their sustainability initiatives and technologies, and the sustainability charter is an attempt to address that.

FCCS is planning a series of voluntary breakfast meetings and other events, and each signatory has pledged to share at least one “best practice” in CSR each year, she added.

Eventually, FCCS plans to extend the network to other chambers of commerce in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia.

On the same day, FCCS announced a guidebook on CSR for SMEs in the region.

Ms Toury said that the book was a practical guide to help SMEs reach international standards for CSR in small, achievable steps. These steps would be helpful for firms who want to do business with multinational companies that already have strong CSR policies in place, she added.

Joëlle Brohier, a CSR consultant who is co-president of the Sustainability Committee and author of the guidebook, said the guidelines were based on the European Commission’s published CSR strategy and CSR standards such as the new International Standards Organization (ISO) 26000 CSR principles.

Charter signatories Veolia, French food manufacturer Danone, energy technology firm Alstom, insurance provider AXA, semi-conductor manufacturer ST Microelectronics, chemical company Rhodia and logistics firm SDV gave examples at the 175-strong seminar of the types of best practices that sustainability committee members could provide.

The examples included ST Microelectronics’ strategy for dealing with conflict minerals and hazardous chemicals, SDV’s steps toward meeting customer demands for low-carbon emission transport options and Alstom’s efforts to involve its suppliers and 95 thousand employees in its CSR initiatives.

Panellists at the seminar urged multinational companies within the region to approach CSR issues with an open mind.

While some CSR issues such as worker safety and child labour were non-negotiable, reconciling different cultural values was an important step that required flexibility, they said.

French Ambassador to Singapore Olivier Caron said that environmentally sustainable development had become a “major driver” of business opportunities in the region, and applauded the signatories for their “forward-looking spirit”.

Source: www.eco-business.com

Singapore, 12 April 2012

Nexus launched an initiative to enable companies and public institutions to support access to clean energy and water for the poorest populations of developing countries.

An increasing number of organizations are “offsetting” their greenhouse gas emissions, by supporting clean development projects in developing countries. However, carbon finance has often been misused, and has benefited little to the poorest people of developing countries, who are also the most vulnerable to climate change.

For the first time, internationally acclaimed grassroots project developers – Nexus members – directly engage with companies and public institutions on a fair approach to offsetting which increases the impact of the funding on poor populations.

The direct partnership platform – the first of this kind – was launched on April 11th, 2012, during a social event organized by Green Drinks Singapore and the Lien Centre for Social Innovation. Raphaele Deau, Nexus Partnerships Director and Suzanne Chew, Nexus Alliance Director presented views on what carbon finance can do to eradicate poverty and provide sustainable development. The presentation was followed by a debate facilitated by Bhavani Prakash, from Eco WALK the Talk.

On April 13th, Nexus presented the newly launched partnership platform to a business audience at the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. In a panel discussion, Raphaele Deau presented how, in the context of a green economy and the road to Rio+20, access to energy and clean water will be central in eradicating poverty and delivering sustainable development. She showcased success stories where private sector engagement upscale the dissemination of pro-poor low carbon technologies.

Nexus-Carbon for Development is an alliance of pro-poor project developers whose shared vision is that the carbon market should tackle both climate change and poverty in a fair and transparent way.  As a global alliance of social ventures, Nexus acts as a peer-to-peer services platform, creating synergies between its members and providing awareness raising, capacity building, carbon project documentation, and carbon asset management. www.nexus-c4d.org

Nexus-beyond offsetting is the partnership created by Nexus members who join forces to engage companies and public institutions on a fair approach to offsetting. Nexus cooperative delivers offsets through projects that positively impact communities and vulnerable populations, and connects directly with partners seeking high quality carbon offsets. www.nexusbeyondoffsetting.org

Nexus members are the most credible social ventures working on disseminating low carbon pro-poor technologies. As of April 2012, these members are: Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) in India, Approtech Asia in the Philippines, Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), Global Environment Institute (GEI) in China, Groupe Energies Renouvelables, Environnement et Solidarités (GERES), headquartered in France, Hivos in the Netherlands, Hydrologic Social Enterprise in Cambodia, IDeA in Sri Lanka, Parikrama Mahila Samiti in India, The Small Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund, in India and the U.S.A., TerraClear in Lao, The Center for Rural Communities Research and Development in Vietnam, The Centre for Rural Technology in Nepal (CRT/N), The Village Education Resource Center (VERC) in Bangladesh, Yayasan Dian Desa (YDD) in Indonesia.

What is carbon offsetting? Emission-reduction projects in developing countries can earn emission reduction credits also known as carbon credits. These saleable carbon credits can be used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Institutions, corporations or individuals, totally or partially, substitute a reduction of their own GHG emissions by purchasing an equivalent quantity of carbon credits emanating from a project which reduces carbon emissions somewhere else. This is called carbon offsetting.

Source: www.nexusbeyondoffsetting.org

Impact Forum 2012, which will be held in Singapore on the 25 and 26 June, has the theme “Igniting Capital Markets for Social Good™”.

Impact Forum 2012 will be a gathering to celebrate Asia’s leadership position in Impact Investing. It is a global conference focusing on examining the latest developments in impact investing and social enterprise in Asia Pacific.  This event will be a unique opportunity to learn, engage, and deepen experiences and relationships in the Asian impact investing space.

Social enterprise, sustainability and ethical investing are all intertwined as Timothy Loh explains in his article in Singapore’s business times. Read More

By Timothy Loh in Business Times (7 April 2012):

ETHICAL investing, contrary to common perception, can serve both head and heart.

But it has been slow in taking off in Singapore due to factors like the lack of awareness among investors and limited investment options.

Things may begin to change, however, with Singaporeans increasingly catching on to issues of social responsibility.

Says Brandon Lam, senior vice-president and head of investment & treasury products at DBS: ‘Singapore is still a relatively young market for ethical investments. However, there is increasing awareness of social responsibility among Singaporeans, and we have also seen more interest in ethical investments. For investors who wish to make an impact on society or stand by their beliefs, ethical investing is an option that they can explore.’

One barrier is the belief that ethical investing – or investments that are concerned not only with financial returns but also with social and environmental benefits – requires the investor to make some sort of financial sacrifice.

But according to a report by JP Morgan and the Rockefeller Foundation in 2010, ethical investing makes sense financially too.

The report forecast that just a small subset of the sector (consisting of housing, rural water delivery, maternal health, primary education and financial services) has the potential of generating total financial returns of between US$183 billion and US$667 billion over the next 10 years.

Singapore had an early start in ethical investing. Back in 1999, UOB launched the Global UN Women Singapore Fund, which invested in global securities that showed a commitment to the empowerment of women. Companies were assigned scores based on their ‘women-friendliness’ – practices such as equal opportunity in the office and female representation on boards accorded firms high scores, while companies that had a history of sexual harassment and gender discrimination were given low scores.

The fund was one of the first socially responsible funds in Asia, but declined in size and was eventually liquidated in 2008. When contacted, UOB declined comment.

In more recent years, DBS has launched the Mendaki Global Fund, a takaful fund (insurance comprising a pool of funds). Such funds are syariah-compliant and exclude firms that are involved in so-called ‘sin industries’. Originally established for Muslim investors, they have been in existence for some time, but have gained ground recently among non-Muslim investors.

HSBC also launched the HSBC Global Investment Funds Climate Change Fund in 2007, made up of ‘market-leading climate change stocks which are expected to be strong long-term performers in their respective sectors’. Companies in the fund were screened for their commitment to combating climate change. For example, market leaders who changed their business models to reduce carbon emissions were included.

‘We believe that climate change has a real impact on company sales, margins and earnings. Companies that are early adopters can gain significant competitor advantages. This is an interesting and relatively unexplored area in equity markets which makes for a good investment opportunity,’ the bank said.

Robert Kraybill, managing director of Impact Investing Exchange Asia, says there is indeed a market for ethical investments in Singapore.

‘I think (these funds) certainly have the ability to do well as they’re doing good. There is a growing body of academic research that supports the fact that socially responsible investing does as well as, or better than, ‘normal funds’.’

While it is difficult for an individual to screen all the companies in his portfolio for social responsibility, ‘the biggest fund managers are now building teams that do nothing but socially responsible investment research’, Mr Kraybill said.

‘Companies that do that type of research, some based here in Singapore, are also beginning to spring up.’

Ethical investing ‘leads to better financial performance’, but more importantly, it’s about doing the right thing. ‘It’s the ethical thing to do. It’s good for the world, and it’s good for society,’ said Mr Kraybill.

Source: www.shujog.org/impactforum2012/ and www.businesstime.com.sg

In a few days’ time – 15 April to be exact – the world remembers an event 100 years ago when the “unsinkable” Titanic struck an iceberg and started its inglorious journey to the depths of the Atlantic. There were more than 1500 fatalities and around 700 survivors, making it the world’s worst maritime disaster to date. It also spawned an industry of stories, books, films and treasures – still being viewed or offered for sale today. Could there possibly be a lesson or two from this isolated century old incident that we could relate to in this climate-challenged, technology-driven age of ours?

Wasn’t there a warning issued about icebergs in the Atlantic at the time? Didn’t other passenger ships in the same area manage to avoid the dreaded obstacles and report them to shipping in the area? There’s a well-researched, scientific report of a different kind just issued by the IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – emphasising extreme weather for the planet and worse to come. The signs are there. It’s already underway. The risks are identified. Disasters are predicted. Trends, models, charts – technologically aided and science based – all show an upward movement of higher average temperatures, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and Arctic ice. Less icebergs for sure, but more dangers to watch out for.  And who would be brave or stupid enough to ignore the warnings? Which captains of our ships of state are prepared to turn things around? Surely it is not too late to set the ship – Planet Earth – on a less risky course. We do know what safe fuels we could be using – zero carbon, clean energy – for a green earth trip. We do know that we must stop the fossil fuel burning. We must cut deforestation. Use less of the earth’s resources. Consume less and waste less. The earth is not for burning; the ship is not for sinking. Full steam ahead. Solar powered, of course! – Ken Hickson

The former Marks and Spencer executive chairman and Plan A pioneer shares his thoughts on how sustainability and profit can be compatible. Sir Stuart Rose, on the changing role of business leaders, gives the example of what M&S has been doing around sustainable fish sourcing, health and nutrition, waste and recycling and sustainable livelihoods in supply chains. Read More

Stuart Rose for the Guardian Professional Network (29 March 2012):

Sir Stuart Rose, former CEO of Marks and Spencer.

There is something revolutionary and very new about the current time and business leaders are thinking differently about their role. We face a dilemma because although everybody is better off than they’ve ever been at any time in our history, we’ve also got the biggest gap between the rich and the poor that we’ve ever had, and we’ve potentially got a planet which is going to go bust any day. Our world is moving at an ever-accelerating pace, and with the advent of social media, what happens in New York now can be reported across the globe 60 seconds later.

These changes call for more open leadership. There is a definite need for more open dialogue, for more social engagement, for more social responsibility and for more accountability. I think that business leaders today have to be more rounded than they used to be, they have to be completely multi-functional and fast-moving.

Taking the sustainability agenda forward

CEOs who want to take this agenda foward in their business must use their influence to put things on the agenda and create space for others to lead – to get people thinking, talking, then acting.

To give an example, I took 100 senior people from M&S to the cinema to see An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary on Al Gore’s campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognised problem worldwide. Although nothing might have happened as a result of this, I actually had about 75 emails the following morning saying “that’s scary”, “this is amazing, we ought to be able to do something with what we do and the breadth of what we’ve got”. For me that was the green light saying these guys want to do something.

In addition to this, I also set up a committee which I chaired. Plan A was part of the drumbeat, and every week I would raise the subject – the fact that I was the person chairing it meant that the senior managers at M&S had to come.

It’s also important to build support in other places. When I talked to the board about Plan A, one-third of them probably thought I was batty, and probably only 10% or so wanted to do it. That’s usual, because when you’re slightly ahead of the field you typically have only a minority of people who believe in you.

Thinking differently about how you engage with your investors is key. One of the problems behind a lot of the issues that we’ve got is that we live in a very short-term environment where we have to have results today, tomorrow, the day after, and not in a years’ time, three years’ time, five years’ time. That’s a big issue for public limited companies. When we were working on Plan A I said to the investors: “We’re going to invest £200m over the next three years and not put a penny on to the consumer.” They all held their hands up in horror, and said: “That’s £200m margin! We don’t like that. It’s going to take longer for us to get the share price from X to Y.” But that’s what leaders should do! Blaming investors for not doing things like Plan A, and for not acting in the long-term interests of your business, is an easy excuse that chief executives use.

The changing role of the CEO

CEOs aren’t just leaders within their business any more. They also play a role leading collaboratively with others in all kinds of places such as supply chains or government regulation. M&S has been doing this around sustainable fish sourcing, health and nutrition, waste and recycling and sustainable livelihoods in supply chains.

Leading consumers is also important. If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you’re too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, ie they don’t actually quite know they want it. That’s what innovation’s about. With Plan A, we didn’t wait for the consumers to tell us. With Fairtrade, we didn’t wait for the consumers to tell us. And with charging for plastic bags, we didn’t wait for consumers to tell us. We just did it.

Setting ambitious targets and making substantial investments

Thinking about sustainability initiatives just in terms of adding cost is the wrong way to think about it. M&S has proved sustainable business can be profitable. In 2007 Plan A was a £200m investment and I said it wouldn’t make any profit in the first five years. But in the 2010 annual report the auditors said £50m of extra profit was attributable to doing the right thing. So there’s the proof. So any chief executive that says “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t afford to do it, I haven’t got the people, it’s all too expensive, the consumers don’t want it, they haven’t asked me for it, it’s the wrong thing to do and it’s going to cost me money” is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

The creation of profit and running businesses sustainably are not in conflict.

Appealing to the majority

There are always chief executives who are ahead of the game, who recognise that the world is not the place it was 10 years ago and that they have to find different routes and listen to different inputs. They are in the minority. The tail end will never catch up and the rest are in the middle. The middle’s a comfortable place to be, and everybody else seems to be doing the same thing until you suddenly find, “Oops! He’s not doing that any more. Oh dear!”, and you realise you’ve been left behind. Today’s business leaders need to pay attention, because there is a group of leaders that are redefining the rules for everyone else.

Business schools need to play their part too. Executive education providers need to train leaders to be proper leaders. Top executives typically get an MBA, they stand on their heads, they do a whole pile of case studies on X, Y and Z. But who teaches them about how to behave? Leadership is not just about producing the right numbers. Leadership is about setting the right tone in the organisation. It’s about ethos, it’s about what you stand for, it’s about trust.

Sir Stuart Rose spearheaded the launch of Marks and Spencer’s Plan A in January 2007, setting out 100 commitments to achieve in 5 years. Plan A is now extended to 180 commitments to achieve by 2015, with the ultimate goal of becoming the world’s most sustainable major retailer.

On 29 March, Rose will launch a new report, Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World: How Business Leaders are Reframing Success, produced by Ashridge Business School and the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) on the changing role of business leaders.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Under the Climate Change Act, ministers must decide by the end of 2012 whether to include aviation and shipping emissions in the UK’s long-term targets, which require emissions to be cut by 80% by 2050. The target can be achieved at a cost of 1-2% of GDP, says David Kennedy, the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, who has challenged ministers to include the sectors in order to ensure the UK is meeting international obligations in spirit as well as in the letter of the law. Read More

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent for the guardian.co.uk (5 April 2012):

The government’s green credentials will be put to a “key test” Thursday, as ministers will be urged by their advisers to include greenhouse gas emissions from aviation and shipping in the UK’s carbon targets.

If airlines and container ships are included, the task of meeting the targets is made much harder. These two large and growing sources of emissions are currently excluded from the goals under a technicality.

David Kennedy, the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, challenged ministers to include the sectors in order to ensure the UK is meeting international obligations in spirit as well as in the letter of the law. “This will be a key test for the government,” Kennedy said. “If we don’t include these sectors that would in effect be a lowering of the UK’s carbon targets.”

The issue is one of acute political sensitivity, because politicians appear reluctant to jeopardise the rise of low-cost airlines offering cheap flights. Within the Conservative party ranks, it is likely to be particularly controversial given the increasingly open climate scepticism of many Tory MPs.

Kennedy said he was aware of the potential for a political storm over his proposals, but said that if ministers chose not to accept the report’s advice, it would mean they were watering down the UK’s carbon targets.

He said that including aviation emissions need not mean fewer or more expensive flights – a key consideration as thousands of holidaymakers take budget flights over the Easter break. The aviation sector could still expand without punitive costs being passed on to consumers, as long as emissions from other sectors – such as residential buildings, energy generation and industry – are cut in line with long-term goals.

“This has no effect on aviation expansion,” said Kennedy, including plans for new airports or a third runway at Heathrow. In part, this is because the UK’s current climate targets have been drawn up with an eye to the possible inclusion of these sectors at a later date, so the targets for the rest of the economy have been made to compensate for this.

However, if the two sectors are included, it would mean that the equivalent amount of carbon emissions allowable in the period 2023-2027 would have to rise from 1950 megatonnes to 2150 megatonnes.

Under the Climate Change Act, ministers must decide by the end of 2012 whether to include aviation and shipping emissions in the UK’s long-term targets, which require emissions to be cut by 80% by 2050.

When the act was passed in 2008, aviation and shipping were excluded because they are not counted in international targets, such as those in force under the United Nations’ agreements, including the Kyoto protocol. Historically, these emissions have been ignored because of the difficulty of apportioning them to different countries, and because of the danger that transport companies could try to evade any restrictions, for instance by choosing different ports. But these sectors account for a rising proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions, as international trade increases.

The European Union has moved to include aviation emissions under its flagship emissions trading scheme, but has faced fierce opposition from airlines in the US, China, India and other countries. Plans to include shipping under the trading system were shelved, in light of the effort needed to ensure the problems over aviation can be solved.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “The government welcomes this report, which is critical to informing the decision over how to account for international aviation and shipping emissions domestically. We will consider this advice carefully in reaching our decision which is due by the end of this year as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008.”

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Committee on Climate Change Report announcement (5 April 2012):

CCC recommends formalising existing approaches to include international aviation and shipping emissions in carbon budgets

There is no longer any reason to exclude international aviation and shipping emissions from carbon budgets according to the Committee on Climate Change. This was the conclusion in the Committee’s report “Scope of carbon budgets – Statutory advice on inclusion of international aviation and shipping”.

Emissions from international aviation and shipping were initially left out of carbon budgets and the 2050 target when the Climate Change Act became Law in 2008, with the decision on inclusion delayed to 2012.

In the meantime, the Committee and the Government have acted as though international aviation and shipping emissions are in the 2050 target, based on a certain interpretation of the legislation. The risk is that a new Government would not adopt the same interpretation.

In order to mitigate this risk, the Committee recommends that the current approach should be formalised through including international aviation and shipping emissions in carbon budgets and the 2050 target, therefore providing more certainty that it will be continued in future. Moreover, inclusion would provide the most transparent, comprehensive and flexible accounting framework under the Climate Change Act.

To implement the new approach the Committee recommends that currently legislated budgets are increased to allow for international aviation and shipping emissions:

International aviation emissions should be added to currently legislated budgets budgets based on the UK share of the EU ETS cap (i.e. 31 MtCO2e per year).

International shipping emissions should be added at around 9 MtCO2e per year, based on a projection of UK emissions which reflects current international policy (i.e. the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) adopted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)).

The implication of inclusion on this basis is that there would be no new commitments or costs in aviation, shipping or other sectors of the economy. For example, commitments and costs relating to aviation have already been made in the EU context, and would simply be reflected in carbon budgets.

The Committee’s report also shows how a 2050 target including aviation and shipping emissions could be achieved, building on its own previous work and that of the Government in the November 2011 Carbon Plan.

The analysis in the report reinforces other studies which suggest the 2050 target can be achieved at a cost of 1-2% of GDP. This cost was previously accepted by Parliament when the Climate Change Act was first legislated, given the much higher costs and consequences from not acting to reduce emissions.

The long-term emissions pathways in the report highlight the need for deep cuts in emissions from the power, surface transport, and buildings sectors. They justify the current policy approach which is aimed at developing and deploying a range of low-carbon power technologies (i.e. nuclear, renewables, CCS), improving energy efficiency in buildings and supporting renewable heat investment, improving fuel efficiency of conventional vehicles and catalysing development of the electric vehicle market.

On the long-term path for aviation emissions, the Committee recommends that the aim should be for emissions in 2050 that are no higher than 2005 levels. Given scope for increased fuel and carbon efficiency of flying, this would allow some demand growth over the next four decades. The Committee suggests that this path should be delivered through EU and global policies rather than a unilateral UK approach, in order to avoid competitiveness impacts that could otherwise ensue.

Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the CCC said:

“Including international aviation and shipping emissions in UK carbon budgets has an importance which goes beyond the specific issue of international aviation and shipping. This report makes a recommendation which, if now accepted by government and Parliament, will complete the UK statutory framework.”

Source: www.theccc.org.uk

Imagine being able to use electricity to power your car — even if it’s not an electric vehicle. Currently, electrical energy generated by various methods is still difficult to store efficiently. Chemical batteries, hydraulic pumping and water splitting suffer from low-energy-density storage or incompatibility with current transportation infrastructure.  Researchers have demonstrated a method for converting CO2 into liquid fuel using electricity. Read More

Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity.

The study was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

Report from the Engineer (2 April 2012):

Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have demonstrated a method for converting CO2 into liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity.

Currently, electrical energy generated by various methods is still difficult to store efficiently. Chemical batteries, hydraulic pumping and water splitting suffer from low-energy-density storage or incompatibility with current transportation infrastructure.

In a study published on 30 March in the journal Science, James Liao, UCLA’s Ralph M Parsons Foundation Chair in Chemical Engineering, and his team report a method for storing electrical energy as chemical energy in higher alcohols, which can be used as liquid transportation fuels.

‘The current way to store electricity is with lithium-ion batteries, in which the density is low, but when you store it in liquid fuel the density could actually be very high,’ Liao said in a statement. ‘In addition, we have the potential to use electricity as transportation fuel without needing to change current infrastructure.’

Liao and his team are said to have genetically engineered a lithoautotrophic micro-organism (Ralstonia eutropha H16) to produce isobutanol and 3-methyl-1-butanol in an electro-bioreactor using CO2 as the sole carbon source and electricity as the sole energy input.

Photosynthesis is the process of converting light energy into chemical energy and storing it in the bonds of sugar. It involves two steps: a light reaction and a dark reaction. The light reaction converts light energy into chemical energy and must take place in the light. The dark reaction converts CO2 to sugar and doesn’t need light to occur.

‘We’ve been able to separate the light reaction from the dark reaction and, instead of using biological photosynthesis, we are using solar panels to convert the sunlight to electrical energy, then to a chemical intermediate, and using that to power CO2 fixation to produce the fuel,’ Liao said. ‘This method could be more efficient than the biological system.’

Liao said that with biological systems the plants used require large areas of agricultural land. However, because Liao’s method does not require the light and dark reactions to take place together, solar panels, for example, can be built in the desert or on rooftops.

Theoretically, the hydrogen generated by solar electricity can drive CO2 conversion in lithoautotrophic micro-organisms engineered to synthesise high-energy-density liquid fuels. But the low solubility, the low mass-transfer rate and the safety issues surrounding hydrogen limit the efficiency and scalability of such processes. Instead, Liao’s team reportedly found formic acid to be a favourable substitute and efficient energy carrier.

‘Instead of using hydrogen, we use formic acid as the intermediary,’ Liao said. ‘We use electricity to generate formic acid and then use the formic acid to power the CO2 fixation in bacteria in the dark to produce isobutanol and higher alcohols.’

The electrochemical formate production and the biological CO2 fixation and higher alcohol synthesis now open up the possibility of the electricity-driven bioconversion of CO2 to a variety of chemicals. In addition, the transformation of formate into liquid fuel will also play an important role in the biomass refinery process, according to Liao.

‘We’ve demonstrated the principle, and now we think we can scale up,’ he said.

Source: www.theengineer.co.uk

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states that global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heat-waves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of dangerous and costly weather disasters. Not news to many who have seen this coming for a long while, but Australian climate commissioner Will Steffen says it’s one of the most important papers released in the past decade. Read More

By Julian Drape (AAP) in The Australian (29 March 2012):

ONE of the Federal Government’s leading climate change experts says a United Nations report is an early warning that the world will face more deadly extreme weather events unless it tackles global warming.

An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released overnight states that global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heat waves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of dangerous and costly weather disasters.

In the past, the IPCC, founded in 1988 by the UN, has focused on the slow inexorable rise of temperatures and oceans as part of global warming.

For the policy makers summary of the report go to:

http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-SPMbrocure_FINAL.pdf

The latest report is the first to look at the less common but far more noticeable extreme weather changes which recently have cost on average about $77 billion a year in damage.

Government climate commissioner Will Steffen says it’s one of the most important papers released in the past decade.

“It’s showing us, for the first time, that we can see the fingerprints of the human-driven warming in some of the extreme events that we’ve seen,” Professor Steffen said via a phone hook-up from London where he is attending a sustainability conference.

“This is an early warning sign that if we don’t get this underlying warming trend under control there’s going to be a lot more heatwaves, droughts and intense rainfall events.”

Prof Steffen, a climate scientist at the Australian National University, says Australia is one of the most vulnerable continents when it comes to extreme weather events.

The IPCC report suggests that in Australia there will almost certainly be an increase in days over 35 or 40 degrees Celsius. Heatwaves are likely to become more frequent and last longer.

Dry spells also are likely to last longer in southern Australia, and when it does rain there’ll be more extreme precipitation.

The strength of cyclones will probably increase and they may come further south, even if there are fewer of them.

“The rather modest changes in average temperature and average rainfall that we’ve seen so far really manifest themselves in terms of things that matter for people in terms of these extreme events,” Prof Steffen said.

Examples include killer heatwaves in central Europe in 2003 and southern Australia in 2009 “that led to more deaths in Melbourne than the Black Saturday bushfires”.

There was also “little doubt” that recent flooding in southeastern Australia was made worse by sea temperature warming and higher evaporation rates.

The 594-page IPCC report blames the scale of recent and future disasters on a combination of man-made climate change, population shifts and poverty.

Prof Steffen is one of six members of Labor’s climate commission that was established in early 2011 to provide information and expert advice to the government and the Australian public.

Earlier in March, the commission warned Australians not to fooled into thinking the world wasn’t warming just because much of the country experienced a relatively wet and cool summer.

A commission report stated it was wrong to be blinded to the long-term trend by year-to-year variability and suggested recent heavy rainfall and flooding could have been caused by climate change.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au

The man who has managed Australia’s multi-billion dollar Future Fund for six years has delivered a stinging broadside to the Government’s carbon pricing scheme, calling it “the worst piece of economic reform” he has ever seen. Mr David Murray has previously said there is no link between CO2 and global warming. The carbon pricing scheme will come into force on 1 July and will charge the country’s biggest 500 companies A$23 for each tonne of carbon they produce. Read More

By chief political correspondent Emma Griffiths ABC News (30 March 2012):

The man who has managed the Australia’s multi-billion dollar Future Fund for six years has delivered a stinging broadside to the Government’s carbon pricing scheme, calling it “the worst piece of economic reform” he has ever seen. David Murray ends his term as chairman of the fund’s board on Monday.

The former Commonwealth Bank CEO has this morning told Radio National that the carbon tax is “very bad” for the Australian economy.

“If you want me to tell you my view, it is the worst piece of economic reform I have ever seen in my life in this country,” he said.

“The consequence of introducing that tax at that level in Australia today is very, very bad for this economy, particularly in terms of its international competitiveness.

“It raises costs further within Australia, it reduces our competitiveness for export of energy-related commodities, and it therefore renders us less competitive in the future.”

Mr Murray has previously said there is no link between carbon dioxide and global warming.

The carbon pricing scheme will come into force on July 1 and will charge the country’s biggest 500 companies $23 for each tonne of carbon they produce.

After three years that fixed amount will give way to a price determined by the market.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says the carbon pricing scheme is “world’s best practice”.

“Mr Murray is a well-known opponent of the science of climate change,” he told ABC News 24.

“I just reject what Mr Murray has had to say about this fundamental economic reform which goes to the core of our future economic prosperity.

“Big reforms like this are tough reforms, they’re never easy, and you will get vested interests and people like Mr Murray out there opposing them.”

“It’s not a surprise to me that Mr Murray might oppose a policy of this government.”

It is not the first time Mr Murray has criticised government policy.

He has previously revealed he was not in favour of the mining tax – an opinion he restated this morning.

“It was very clumsily introduced, it was very clumsily designed and the timing at the top of the terms of trade was not a good timing,” he said.

He has also been critical of the Government’s attack on big banks, particularly over raising interest rates.

Mr Murray says the banks have an important role in the economy.

“By jawboning their interest rates down when the international cost of funds and the domestic cost of funds has been behaving the way it is, is to render the banks less able to perform their very important role,” he said.

Mr Murray would not give his view of the Government’s ability to manage the economy overall.

The subject of Mr Murray’s replacement recently caused a furore when the government overlooked the board’s choice of former treasurer Peter Costello, appointing chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange David Gonski instead.

Source: www.abc.net.au

“Let’s not simply reduce the CO2 emissions going up into the atmosphere. Let’s draw them down,” says engineering professor Robert Brown at a two-day workshop on biochar — the term used for the charcoal created when biomass is decomposed at high heat – which was part of the Carbon War Room‘s Creating Climate Wealth Summit. But many obstacles remain to taking biochar to scale as a climate solution. Read More

By Marc Gunther in GreenBiz.com (29 March 2012):

“Let’s not simply reduce the CO2 emissions going up into the atmosphere. Let’s draw them down.”

So says Robert Brown, a professor of engineering at Iowa State University and a leader of the university’s Initiative for a Carbon Negative Economy and its Bioeconomy Institute. Those are interdisciplinary campus efforts to develop ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by growing plants or algae, making them into fuels and burying their carbon residues in soil — and make money doing it.

The notion that we can generate wealth and remove CO2 from the air is obviously appealing. As atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rise and climate risks grow, so does the need for carbon-negative technologies that pull CO2 from the air, as plants do, and then store it underground or deep in the ocean.

But is this practical or a pipe dream? That’s what Brown and his colleagues at Iowa State and its Bioeconomy Institute want to find out, as they explained this week at a two-day workshop on biochar — that’s the term used for the charcoal created when biomass is decomposed at high heat, in a process called pyrolysis. The workshop was part of the Carbon War Room‘s Creating Climate Wealth Summit in Washington, D.C..

The Carbon War Room, as you may know, is a nonprofit created by Richard Branson of Virgin fame to unlock gigaton-scale, market-driven solutions to climate change. Its new president will be Jose Maria Figueres, the former president of Costa Rica. The group is also tackling projects around energy efficiency, renewable jet fuel, low-carbon ocean shipping and sustainable livestock.

Biochar has been around for a long time, but it’s getting new attention from government and business. The Iowa State researchers last fall were awarded a $25 million research grant from USDA to see if they can find ways to use marginal farmlands to grow perennial grasses and turn them into biofuels and biochar. Local firms like ADM, the agribusiness giant, have expressed support.

This week’s biochar workshop attracted an interesting crowd. USDA was there, as were executives from Conoco Phillips (they are interested in biofuels), Tenaska Energy (also biofuels), Phycal (which makes fuels from cassava and algae), Cool Planet Biofuels (a California startup funded by Google that is working on negative-carbon fuels, using miscanthus, among other feedstocks) and Biochar Solutions (which makes machinery to make biochar.) It’s very, very small but a biochar industry seems to be taking root.

Biochar, as I wrote last summer, can be traced back to Brazil, where dark soils in the Amazon region are known as “Terra Preta.” Some scientists believe they were created as long as 4,500 years ago, and that they helped support a complex, farm-based civilization in the Amazon, despite the region’s poor soil.

Biochar isn’t just one thing, as Brown explained. It can be made using different processes from cellulosic feedstocks including wood chips, switch grass or corn stover, or from lipid-rich biomass such as rapeseed, soybeans or micro-algae. Essentially, through, the idea is to speed up and optimize the natural process in which plants (carbohydrates) decompose into fuels (hydrocarbons).

Here’s how the Carbon War Room explains it:

High-yielding varieties of terrestrial plants or aquatic species are used to fix carbon in the form of biomass. The biomass is collected and through an oxygen-starved process known as pyrolysis, is converted to an energy-rich liquid called bio-oil and a carbon-rich solid called biochar.

The bio-oil is upgraded to transportation fuels or used to generate electric power, thus providing high-value products to the economy. The biochar is incorporated into farmland where it serves the triple purposes of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere for millenia, building soil carbon and recycling nutrients removed with harvested biomass.

Iowa State has a small processing unit that can process about 1/4 ton per day of biomass, Brown told me. The researchers are feeding it switchgrass, wood chips and corn stover (the non-edible parts of corn plants, which, needless to say, are plentiful in Iowa.)

Many obstacles remain to taking biochar to scale as a climate solution. For one thing, Iowa farmers aren’t particularly interested in biochar, at least not in paying for it — perhaps because their soils are among the richest in the world. The agricultural benefits of biochar — its ability to retain water or nutrients — remain largely unproven.

David Laird, an Iowa State soil scientist who is working on the project, said that in a dry year, soil enriched with biochar “could have a significant positive impact on crop yields” by retaining water. “But in a wet year, that’s meaningless,” he noted. Biochar would probably have a far greater value if it could be used to enrich poor quality soil, where it could not only increase crop yields but drive up land values. In Africa, for instance, some people say biochar could have a big impact on agriculture.

The USDA grant and other funding will enable the Iowa State team to better understand both the science and economics of biochar and biofuels. They’ll have to wrestle with some tradeoffs: So-called fast pyrolysis processes biomass at high heat, which makes more fuel and less biochar; that’s good for the business model, not so good for climate impact. By contrast, slow pyrolysis generates more biochar to sequester but less fuel to take to market.

Meanwhile, Brown and Laird are experimenting with biochar in their own backyards. Brown says he grew six-foot-tall pepper plants, and Laird has been growing tomato plants.

How are the tomatoes doing? I asked him. “They’re great,” he replied. “But it has nothing to do with me, and a lot to do with my wife.”

Source: www.greenbiz.com