Monthly Archives: July 2011

The Problem with China’s booming green economy

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China’s fast-growing green economy could provide millions of new jobs in the coming decade, according to a study from the Worldwatch Institute.

The environmental research group estimates that 4.5 million green jobs will be created in 2020 alone, in the energy, transportation and forestry sectors – but one of the report’s authors has warned that the country lacks many of the “basic and crucial” statistics to track its green economy, making estimates difficult.

“It’s fair to say that China has started tracking the green economy, but there is still a long way to go,” said Haibing Ma, China programme manager and co-author of the Green Economy and Green Jobs in China: Current Status and Potentials for 2020 report.

The Chinese government has made an initial effort to calculate the country’s “green GDP” but Ma said the methodology “remains largely unclear, nor is the calculation and reporting process transparent”.

In trying to calculate the potential for green jobs, Ma found inconsistent methodologies used by the Chinese national and regional governments, challenges tracking the many smaller businesses that likely have a significant impact on job creation, a lack of industry trade organistions to monitor employment growth, and difficulty in separating out green sub-sectors from larger, fast-growing industries.

For example, he said: “We were surprised to learn that there is no reliable data on the total number of solar panel and solar water heater manufacturing companies in the country. It also isn’t clear which governmental or industrial entities should be responsible for collecting such data.”

Key findings of the study, which the institute describes as “the most thorough effort known to date to explore China’s green jobs potential”, include:

• China’s solar photovoltaic industry is projected to create an average of 6,680 direct jobs annually between 2011 and 2020.

• China’s wind power industry, including both power generation and manufacturing, is expected to generate approximately 34,000 green jobs annually between 2011 and 2020. The industry has provided an average of 40,000 direct green jobs each year between 2006 and 2010.

• China is expected to add as many as 220 million new vehicles between now and 2020, with 16.7 million of those being either hybrid or electric vehicles produced in China.

• High-speed rail in China could create an average 230,000 jobs annually between 2011 and 2020.

• Beijing’s urban rail system alone could create 437,000 jobs each year by 2020.

• China’s afforestation sector employed as many as 1.8 million full-time workers in 2010. Between 2011 and 2020, afforestation activities could offer as many as 1.1 million direct and indirect jobs annually.

The report also identifies key lessons learned in China’s green development. In some cases, inefficient implementation has led to unintended economic or environmental costs. Roughly one-third of China’s installed wind capacity has difficulty connecting to the grid, causing millions of dollars of investment loss.

Ma wrote the report with Jiahua Pan and Ying Zhang, researchers from the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

By. Christopher Cundy

Source: Environmental Finance

Gulf Power joins ‘Troops to Energy Jobs’

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In an effort to link military veterans to job openings in the energy industry, Gulf Power Company is participating in a “Troops to Energy Jobs” program. .

The program was initiated by Washington-based Center for Energy Workforce Development to help offset the nearly 200,000 utility employees expected to retire or leave their jobs over the next five years.

Some of the Gulf Power positions expected to be available include engineers, technicians, line workers, plant operators and pipefitters.

Southern Company, Gulf Power’s parent firm, helped develop CEWD in 2006 to address the approaching workforce shortage.

“There is a huge correlation between the skill sets that military men and women have and the skill sets that we need,” Jennifer Grove, Gulf Power’s Workforce Development coordinator said. “This program is an example of how our industry has worked on a national level to make sure we have the talent we need, while continuing to support our military community.”

Last year, Southern Company was named one of “G.I. Jobs” magazine’s Top 10 Military Friendly Employers for 2010. Gulf Power has actively recruited military servicemen and women over the years by working directly with local military bases.

Darryl Johnson, Work and Family Life consultant for Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton said the local military has had a strong relationship with Gulf Power and Southern Company for 25 years.

“They have been enormously helpful in providing us with job openings and information to help us best place our men and women in a good job,” said Johnson. “I like to call it a “win-win-win” situation. Gulf Power fills a position with someone who has the experience they need, the military serviceman or woman finds a great job, and I get to connect the two.”

To apply for a job at Gulf Power, go to http://www.southerncompany.com and click on “Careers.”

Active military personnel interested in the “Troops to Energy Jobs” program can go to http://www.cewd.org and look for the “Troops to Energy Jobs” section.

Clean Industry Projects to drive job growth in South Australia

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South Australian’s renewable energy industry is expected to open up thousands of jobs for workers.

During a visit to a wind turbine tower manufacturing plant in Adelaide, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet said the Clean Energy Finance Corporation will play a vital role in unlocking significant new private investment into clean energy projects in the state.

Mr Combet said investments may include assistance for businesses manufacturing components for clean energy projects.

Also in attendance was Australian Premier Mike Rann who noted that the government’s investment in clean industry projects, including the transformation of the old Mitsubishi site at Tonsley Park will also see job growth for the renewable sector.

Mr Rann said the project will see Tonsley Park become a hub for innovative companies in sustainable technologies.

Tonsley Park is expected to attract approximately $1 billion in private investment over 15 years with Gross State Product is expected to rise by $400 million a year by 2026.

Mr Rann said that the transformed site will employ up to 8600 people.

Earlier this month Mr Combet visited New South Wales’ Hunter region to reassure industry workers that they will be no worst off under the carbon tax, the Newcastle Herald reported.

The Climate Change Minister said the tax will help transform emissions-intensive industries and create jobs for the Hunter region.

‘‘The carbon price package includes strong support for jobs in the Hunter, including in the aluminum sector and in coal mines which emit high levels of methane gas,’’ Mr Combet said in the report.

‘‘The program is designed to help emissions-intensive industries which have strong international competition, like aluminium and many other parts of manufacturing, to make a smooth shift to a clean energy future.’’

Developing nations take lead in renewable power

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The largest accidental marine oil spill in history, which happened at the Deepwater Horizon rig, poured over four million barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico last year. Killing thousands of birds and wrecking underwater habitats, the spill not only brought into question oil giant BP’s safety standards, but also the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Less than a year later, a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, triggered by the massive tsunami that hit Japan’s eastern coast in March, came as yet another reminder of the world’s reliance on non-renewable energy sources (nuclear energy is generated by splitting atoms of the metal uranium).

The disaster even prompted Germany to move away from nuclear power completely, promising to support renewable energy sources and to close down all nuclear power plants by 2022.

Following these crises, environmental groups have stepped up their calls for local and national governments to invest more in renewable energy sources.

And it seems to be working. The Renewables 2011 Global Status Report, released by renewable energy policy network REN21 last week, shows that the world increased its renewable energy production in 2010, despite the economic downturn. Total investment in renewable power jumped from $160 billion in 2009 to $211 billion in 2010.

Over the past five years, solar power production has increased seven-fold worldwide, with more than 100 countries adding solar photovoltaic capacity last year, according to the annual report.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change identifies renewable energy as one way to mitigate the effects of climate change. Many say this is incumbent on developed countries that are historically responsible for 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But the report shows developing countries are taking the lead.

ACCESS TO ENERGY WIDENING

“Money invested in renewable energy companies, and in utility-scale generation and biofuel projects increased to $143 billion, with developing countries surpassing developed economies for the first time,” Paris-based REN21 says on its website.

Developing countries are now home to over half the world’s renewable energy power. And of the 119 countries that now have renewable policy targets, or are on their way to setting them, at least half are developing nations.

Fossil fuels account for the majority of human-made greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere. At the end of 2010, CO2 concentrations were 39 percent above pre-industrial levels, according to a May report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It’s clear that global warming can’t be slowed without increasing renewable energy production.

“The spread of renewables to more regions and countries helps more of the world’s people gain access to energy services not only to meet their basic needs, but also to enable them to develop economically,” the REN21 paper states.

“Today, more people than ever before derive energy from renewables as capacity continues to grow, prices continue to fall and shares of global energy from renewable energy continue to increase.”

Soumya Karlamangla is an AlertNet Climate intern.

Renewables will lead to job growth

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The growth of renewable energy will lead to opportunities in manufacturing, federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says.
Mr Combet was joined by South Australian Premier Mike Rann in suburban Adelaide today to tour the RPG Australia plant, a company that supplies steel towers for wind farms.
Mr Combet said the visit highlighted the economic benefits from growth in renewable energy including opportunities for the manufacturing industry.
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Mr Combet said the government’s new programs would promote clean energy including the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance corporation, $3.2 billion investment through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the $200 million Clean Technology Innovation Program.
“The Clean Energy Finance Corporation will play a vital role in unlocking significant new private investment into clean energy projects and the supply chain that feeds into these projects,” he said in a statement.
The visit comes after Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited Adelaide this month to spruik the federal government’s controversial new carbon tax.
The new tax will see carbon priced at $23 a tonne, paid by Australia’s 500 largest polluting companies from July 1, 2012.
It will also set an ambitious new target of cutting greenhouse emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
The tax has led to concerns of job cuts among pollution-heavy industries and manufacturers.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/renewables-will-lead-to-job-growth-combet-20110726-1hy78.html#ixzz1TCq1VQXa

Split Within Nuclear Regulatory Agency

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A majority of the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission is signaling that it wants to move slowly on at least some new recommendations from its staff on how to reduce the chance of a Fukushima-type accident at an American reactor despite calls by its chairman for swift action.

Three commissioners are resisting a proposal by the chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, that the commission act promptly on all the recommendations, which were issued last week by a team of six senior staff members. Mr. Jaczko said that because this task force had completed its evaluation in 90 days, the commissioners should be able to decide within a similar time frame what changes to make in safety regulations, although the reforms themselves would take longer.

This is not the first indication of conflict within the agency. After an inquiry, the commission’s inspector general reported last month that some staff members were troubled by Mr. Jaczko’s aggressive management style and by his decision to halt the staff’s work on an Energy Department proposal to build a nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert. The Obama administration has shelved that project, drawing criticism from many Republican members of Congress.

On Wednesday, a day after the task force briefed the commissioners on the post-Fukushima report, one member, William D. Magwood IV, posted a statement at the commission’s Web site asserting that the task force had worked “without the benefit of the full analytical resources of the agency.” Given its 90-day mandate, “it was not possible to give all issues the consideration they deserve,” he wrote.

Another member, Kristine L. Svinicki, posted a statement that said, “I do not have a sufficient basis to accept or reject the recommendations of the Near-Term Task Force.” She said the agency should “proceed with the systematic and methodical review of lessons learned.”

Both commissioners noted that the task force had found no imminent threat to public health and safety from continued operation of the nation’s 104 power reactors, or from extending their licenses.

A third commissioner, William C. Ostendorff, said at Tuesday’s hearing, “I personally do not believe that our existing regulatory framework is broken.”

The task force recommended some specific improvements and some sweeping reforms, like integrating decades of regulations and informal changes in operating practices into a single framework that systematically addresses the full range of safety risks. For example, some equipment stored at nuclear reactors in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — like portable pumps, hoses, extra batteries and extra sources of energy — is held in places that are not protected from flooding, and the items are not regularly tested, the task force found.

The study recommended periodic re-evaluation of earthquake risk as an understanding of geology evolves, and rethinking the design of vents that have been added to some reactors to control excess pressures and get rid of hydrogen. When nuclear fuel overheated at Fukushima Daiichi, it led to a hydrogen explosion despite the presence of vents similar to those at reactors of the same type in this country.

The nuclear industry argues, though, that not enough is known now about the vents at Fukushima or the recent sequence of events there to justify changes in the United States.

The issue of how urgently to move is acquiring a partisan character. On Wednesday, Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a longtime critic of nuclear safety regulation for whom Mr. Jaczko once worked, said that the two commissioners who posted comments “want to direct the N.R.C. staff to endlessly study the N.R.C. staff’s own report before they will even consider a single recommendation made by the very same N.R.C. staff.”

“We do not need another study to study the N.R.C. staff’s study,” he said in a statement.

But on Monday the Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee took the opposite tack. After reviewing the task force’s report, they said, they urged Mr. Jaczko in a letter to proceed slowly.

“We believe it is essential that the commission have the benefit of the full and deliberate process of review, in accordance with established commission procedures, its principles of good regulation and statutory requirements,” they wrote.

Huhne sets out UK nuclear energy future

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The Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne admitted to Peers on 19 July 2011 that the UK was unlikely to become a “world leader” in nuclear energy.
He gave evidence as part of an inquiry by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee into the future of nuclear power in the UK.
In June the government confirmed a list of eight sites it deems suitable for new power stations by 2025, all of which are adjacent to existing nuclear sites.
However Mr Huhne said he wanted a “portfolio” of energy sources, rather than focusing purely on nuclear energy.
He told peers: “We may not get the long term decision 100% right – but equally we won’t get it 100% wrong.”
He faced criticism from former Energy Secretary Lord Jenkin of Roding who said “there is an attitude that the UK doesn’t care about nuclear power any more”.
The future of nuclear as a power source for countries around the world was called into question after the Fukushima disaster in March, when a Japanese earthquake and tsunami damaged the nuclear reactors, leaving radioactivity leaking from the plant.
The proposals for new UK nuclear power plants are part of a series of national policy statements on energy which have been published following a public consultation.
The coalition deal allowed Lib Dem spokesmen to speak out against any new nuclear plants, while Lib Dem MPs could abstain on the issue.
Mr Huhne has given his backing to new reactors but has stressed that they would not be subsidised by the taxpayer.
Governments across the world have reviewed the future of nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, with Germany already announcing a withdrawal from nuclear energy.
Mr Huhne insisted that nuclear safety remained a top priority for his department, saying he was “committed to an increase in research and development” in safety issues, and assured the committee that safety was not subject to financial constraints under the Spending Review.

Nuclear power plants to get fast-track planning approval

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Nuclear companies have cleared another hurdle in their quest to build new UK power stations, after parliament approved planning laws allowing plants to be built more quickly.
There had been concern that nuclear power plants planned for 2018 and 2020 could be held up for years in lengthy local planning inquiries. It took a four years and 16m words of evidence for Sizewell B to be approved, after a record inquiry in 1985.

The new reforms aim to cut the length of inquiries to a maximum of a year, drawing criticism from local interest and green groups.

However, they have been strongly welcomed by the energy industry. On Tuesday, EDF committed to building the first two new nuclear stations in Somerset and Suffolk with Centrica, describing it as a “major milestone”.

Henri Proglio, the executive chairman of the EDF, said: “The UK parliament’s vote in favour of nuclear is an essential step for EDF Group and its new nuclear projects. Alongside its partner Centrica, EDF is therefore in a position to move forward its project to build new nuclear stations.”

An independent planning body called the Infrastructure Planning Commission will have final responsibility for waving through new nuclear plants in the national interest. The reforms were drafted by the previous Labour government, but the Coalition delayed and overhauled the rules.

Solar ovens, renewable energy offer hope for Afghanistan

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At first, she noticed Afghan children hauling brush. Then, in Afghan family compounds, she noticed women tending small fires and trying to cook over them.

But it wasn’t until U.S. diplomat Patricia McArdle realized how often it was sunny in Afghanistan that she put it together with a youthful memory of cooking with solar ovens and realized this was a low-tech option offering long-term hope to the war-torn nation, which is preparing for a draw-down of U.S. troops.

“My concern is that it (renewable energy) really hasn’t been part of our talk of reconstruction,” said the now-retired McArdle, who spent a year in northern Afghanistan from 2005 at the end of a diplomatic career, in a telephone conversation.

“My hope is that we will focus a bit more on renewable energy as we start to pull out.”

The solar ovens — basically a box covered in aluminum foil that can cook food by concentrating the sun’s heat, which McArdle now promotes as inexpensive, renewable energy — fits neatly into what she sees as a long tradition of sustainable living in Afghanistan.

One example is “cob,” an age-old Afghan style of building that uses mud, chopped straw, sand and dung to build thick-walled structures that are naturally warm in winter and cool in summer. Yet U.S. aid money can’t be used to fund buildings like this due to requirements that all construction must follow international building codes.

“They’re remarkable farmers, remarkable builders. I’ve seen satellite dishes built by Afghan craftsmen out of old salad oil cans,” she said.

“These people are creative, they’re resourceful.”

Solar ovens make an appearance in “Farishta,” a novel about an American woman stationed in northern Afghanistan based on McArdle’s own experiences, with the main character wrapping herself in a burqa and sneaking out of the military base where she lives to bring the new technology into Afghan homes.

That is one of the few incidents in the book that is not true. Most of the others are, including several ambushes and the time when the main character, Angela, took part in buzkashi, the Afghan national game in which horsemen try to snatch a beheaded goat or calf carcass.

“I thought more people would read a fictionalized account, but I also met and worked with a lot of people whose names I couldn’t reveal publicly,” she said, noting that she had originally thought of writing a memoir.

“I wasn’t there as a spook or anything — I was a State Department diplomat — but I still couldn’t name a lot of names without compromising people. So for those reasons I decided to write a novel.”

Despite Afghanistan’s decades-long history of troubles, McArdle, who surprised herself by falling in love with it, said she still clung to hope that the future would prove better, a feeling represented in the book by a pair of intelligent, educated young lovers.

“Those two characters are composites of young people I met in Afghanistan who were challenging the system. They’re not religious fanatics, they don’t want to be violent,” she said.

“They respect their culture, their religion and their country, but they do want to move into the 21st century.”

OPIC to invest up to $820m in India’s renewable energy

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US government-owned financial entity Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC) plans to invest up to USD 820 million (about Rs 3,600 crore) in the fast- growing Indian renewable energy sector by the end of 2011.

As part of efforts to boost clean energy initiatives, OPIC will make investments to the tune of USD 520 million in India’s renewable energy sector, including the solar segment, OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth Littlefield said today.

Further, it would also make private equity investments worth USD 300 million, especially in small solar companies.

These investments, totalling USD 820 million, would be made by the end of this year, Littlefield said.

She was speaking at a roundtable organised by the US-India Business Council (USIBC) on supporting India’s infrastructure sector.

The session also saw the participation of senior US government officials as well as Indian and American business executives.

Meanwhile, the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will extend over USD 1.4 million for two projects in India’s energy sector.

The agency will provide USD 719,985 as a feasibility study grant to Astonfield Renewables Private Ltd for deploying two solar photovoltaic power projects having a total capacity of 15 MW.

These funds would be utilised for setting up a 5-MW plant at Bankura, in West Bengal, and a 10-MW project at Belgaum, in Karnataka.

USTDA Director Leocadia I Zac said the agency would also extend a USD 686,447 grant to North Delhi Power Ltd (NDPL) for implementation of smart grid technology.

The agency today inked pacts with Astonfield and NDPL for these proposed investments.