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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Major corporates at risk from climate change

    Australian companies most at risk are in construction and materials, chemicals, industrial metals, mining, oil and gas production and food and drug retail, the report said.

    It does not name any of the high-risk companies. But a report from Citigroup released last month found that Australia’s 10 biggest greenhouse gas emitters were BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Bluescope Steel, Qantas, AGL, Alumina, Orica, Santos, Origin Energy and Boral.

    The ethics report said examples of high-impact sectors were cement production and coal mining. These sectors are deemed to have high levels of what economists call “carbon intensity”, generating 125 more greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production than low-impact sectors. High-impact sectors such as car manufacturers are, on average, five times as carbon intensive, while medium-impact sectors such as consumer electrical goods are three times as carbon intensive.

    The Australian data shows that few companies at risk are doing anything to tackle climate change and reduce investor risk.

    The only sector in which companies had done anything to mitigate the risk was construction and materials. But even there, it only applied to 33% of companies in that sector. The other sectors deemed to be high-risk had not taken sufficient steps to improve their position.

    The report found that almost four out of 10 (39%) of high and very high-risk companies, worth a total of $213 billion, had no or only limited response to climate change.

    It also found a significant gap between what steps companies claimed they were taking to tackle climate change, and what they were actually doing. Just under two-fifths (39%) of the high and very high-risk companies had a corporate-wide commitment to deal with global warming, but only 18% were basing their efforts on international targets, regulations or scientific research.

    And only 4% were showing they were serious by linking board or senior management remuneration to greenhouse gas emission reductions or climate change strategies.

    The data showed that 33% of companies that generated a significant impact on climate change claimed they recognised the importance of dealing with global warming. But few were putting their money where their mouths were. Only 5% had made a public commitment or disclosed a quantitative target to reduce the climate change impact of their products.

    In terms of disclosure, many companies were seeking to show the market they were coming clean on their greenhouse gas emissions. Still, there are serious doubts about whether their disclosures can be backed up.

    The research showed that 39% of Australian companies (compared with 81% of global companies) disclose absolute greenhouse gas emissions data, the total amount of emissions produced. Furthermore, 19% disclose so-called “normalised” data, which allows investors to compare greenhouse gas emissions across companies and sectors.

    But a closer look raises serious questions about the truthfulness of their claims. Only 11% of these disclosures are verified by an independent party, and only 25% of companies actually disclosed how they made those calculations.

    CAER chief executive officer Duncan Paterson said the difference between the rhetoric of companies on climate change and what they were actually doing was a big concern for investors. “There is clearly a gap,” Mr Paterson said. He said Australian companies were more exposed to climate change overall because of the size of the country’s resources sector. “These are the companies that tend to have a high climate change impact and are more exposed because of the high amount of energy that goes into the production and refining of metals.”

    The ethics report follows the release of the Federal Government’s green paper last month, which confirmed that the Government would meet extra costs passed on to low-income earners and that some of the hardest-hit industries, such as aluminium and cement, would receive a specified amount of free permits. Australia’s Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, has said that the status quo is no option.

    The Citigroup report warns that investors will have to wait until there is more detail on specific emissions caps and permit allocations. “We think the devil is in the detail in terms of actual permit distribution, and thus financial impact on individual companies,” Citigroup analyst Elaine Prior said.

  • US Fleet heads for Iran

    They are joining two existing USN battle groups in the Gulf area: the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) with its Carrier Strike Group Nine (CCSG-9); and the USS Peleliu (LHA-5) with its expeditionary strike group.

    Likely also under way towards the Persian Gulf is the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) and its expeditionary strike group, the UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal (R07) carrier battle group, assorted French naval assets including the nuclear hunter-killer submarine Amethyste and French Naval Rafale fighter jets on-board the USS Theodore Roosevelt. These ships took part in the just completed Operation Brimstone.

    The build up of naval forces in the Gulf will be one of the largest multi-national naval armadas since the First and Second Gulf Wars. The intent is to create a US/EU naval blockade (which is an Act of War under international law) around Iran (with supporting air and land elements) to prevent the shipment of benzene and certain other refined oil products headed to Iranian ports. Iran has limited domestic oil refining capacity and imports 40% of its benzene. Cutting off benzene and other key products would cripple the Iranian economy. The neo-cons are counting on such a blockade launching a war with Iran.

    The US Naval forces being assembled include the following:

    Carrier Strike Group Nine
    USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered supercarrier
    with its Carrier Air Wing Two
    Destroyer Squadron Nine:
    USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
    USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
    USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
    USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
    USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
    USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
    USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
    USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
    Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarines

    Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group
    USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
    USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
    USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
    USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
    USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
    USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyer

    Carrier Strike Group Two
    USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered supercarrier
    with its Carrier Air Wing Eight
    Destroyer Squadron 22
    USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
    USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
    USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
    USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyer

    USS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

    IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
    USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier
    with its Amphibious Squadron Four
    and with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
    USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
    USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
    USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
    USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
    USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyer

    USS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

    Carrier Strike Group Seven
    USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered supercarrier
    with its Carrier Air Wing 14
    Destroyer Squadron 7
    USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
    USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
    USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
    USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
    USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
    USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support ship

    Also likely to join the battle armada:

    UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal Carrier Strike Group with assorted guided missile destroyers and frigates, nuclear hunter-killer submarines and support ships

    French Navy nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines (likely the Amethyste and perhaps others), plus French Naval Rafale fighter jets operating off of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as the French Carrier Charles de Gaulle is in dry dock, and assorted surface warships

    Various other US Navy warships and submarines and support ships. The following USN ships took part (as the “enemy” forces) in Operation Brimstone and several may join in:

    USS San Jacinto (CG56) guided missile cruiser
    USS Anzio (CG68) guided missile cruiser
    USS Normandy (CG60) guided missile cruiser
    USS Carney (DDG64) guided missile destroyer
    USS Oscar Austin (DDG79) guided missile destroyer
    USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG81) guided missile destroyer
    USS Carr (FFG52) guided missile frigate

    The USS Iwo Jima and USS Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Groups have USMC Harrier jump jets and an assortment of assault and attack helicopters. The Expeditionary Strike Groups have powerful USMC Expeditionary Units with amphibious armor and ground forces trained for operating in shallow waters and in seizures of land assets, such as Qeshm Island (a 50 mile long island off of Bandar Abbas in the Gulf of Hormuz and headquarters of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps).

    The large and very advanced nature of the US Naval warships is not only directed at Iran. There is a great fear that Russia and China may oppose the naval and air/land blockade of Iran. If Russian and perhaps Chinese naval warships escort commercial tankers to Iran in violation of the blockade it could be the most dangerous at-sea confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US and allied Navies, by front loading a Naval blockade force with very powerful guided missile warships and strike carriers is attempting to have a force so powerful that Russia and China will not be tempted to mess with. This is a most serious game of military brinkmanship with major nuclear armed powers that have profound objections to the neo-con grand strategy and to western control of all of the Middle East’s oil supply.

    The Russian Navy this spring sent a major battle fleet into the Mediterranean headed by the modern aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov and the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, the Guided Missile Heavy Cruiser Moskva. This powerful fleet has at least 11 surface ships and unknown numbers of subs and can use the Russian naval facility at Syria’s Tartous port for resupply. The Admiral Kuznetsov carries approximately 47 warplanes and 10 helicopters. The warplanes are mostly the powerful Su-33, a naval version (with mid-air refueling capability) of the Su-27 family. While the Su-33 is a very powerful warplane it lacks the power of the stealth USAF F-22. However, the Russians insist that they have developed a plasma based system that allows them to stealth any aircraft and a recent incident where Russian fighters were able to appear unannounced over a US Navy carrier battle group tends to confirm their claims. The Su-33 can be armed with the 3M82 Moskit sea-skimming missile (NATO code name SS-N-22 Sunburn) and the even more powerful P-800 Oniks (also named Yakhonts; NATO code name SS-N-26 Onyx). Both missiles are designed to kill US Navy supercarriers by getting past the cruiser/destroyer screen and the USN point-defense Phalanx system by using high supersonic speeds and violent end maneuvers. Russian subs currently use the underwater rocket VA-111 Shkval (Squall), which is fired from standard 533mm torpedo tubes and reaches a speed of 360kph (230mph) underwater. There is no effective countermeasures to this system and no western counterpart.

    A strategic diversion has been created for Russia. The Republic of Georgia, with US backing, is actively preparing for war on South Ossetia. The South Ossetia capital has been shelled and a large Georgian tank force has been heading towards the border. Russia has stated that it will not sit by and allow the Georgians to attack South Ossetia. The Russians are great chess players and this game may not turn out so well for the neo-cons. UPDATE 8 August 2008 ~ War has broken out between Georgia and South Ossetia. At least 10 Russian troops have been killed and 30 wounded and 2 Russian fighter jets downed. American Marines, a thousand of them, have recently been in Georgia training the Georgian military forces. Several European nations stopped Bush and others from allowing Georgia into NATO. Russia is moving a large military force with armor towards the area. This could get bad, and remember it is just a strategic diversion….but one that could have horrific effects. Link to story “Russia sends forces into Georgia rebel conflict”. FURTHER UPDATE ~ Russian military forces in active combat; now total of four Russian fighter jets reported downed. ADDITIONAL UPDATE ~ Georgia calls for US help; Russian Air Force bombs Georgian air bases. DEBKA, the Israeli strategy and military site, states that Israeli military officers are advising the Georgian armed forces in combat operations and that 1,000 Israelis are in-combat on the side of Georgia at this time.

    Kuwait has activated its “Emergency War Plan” as it and other Gulf nations prepare for the likelihood of a major regional war in the Middle East involving weapons of mass destruction.

    The two-ton elephant in the living room of the neo-con strategy is the advanced biowar (ABW) that Iran, and to a lessor extent Syria, has. This places the motherlands of the major neo-con nations (America, France, the United Kingdom), as well as Israel, in grave danger. When the Soviet Union fell the Iranians hired as many out-of-work former Soviet advanced biowar experts as possible. In the last 15 or so years they have helped to develop a truly world class ABW program utilizing recombination DNA genetic engineering technology to create a large number of man made killer viruses. This form of weapon system does not require high tech military delivery systems. The viruses are sub-microscopic and once seeded in a population use the population itself as vectors. Seeding can be done without notice in shopping malls, churches, and other public places. The only real defense to an advanced global strategic biowar attack is to lock down the population as rapidly as possible and let those infected die off.

    Unless the public gets it act together and forces the neo-cons to stop the march to yet another war in the Middle East we are apt to see a truly horrific nightmare unfold in OUR COUNTRIES.

     

  • Victoria’s electric car sparks interest

    Victorian electric vehicle company, BEV, has announced a 20 percent price decrease in line with increased sales of the zero emissions car. The Blade Electric Vehicle has dropped from $49,000 to $39,000 as a number of metropolitan  councils have ordered the car, allowing the company to take advantage of economies of scale.

    BEV founder, Mr. Ross Blade, said that BEV had kept faith with early adopters on its promise that their support would lead to a reduction in the cost of the all-electric Blade Runner. He explained that most early adopters paid the high initial price in the belief that this would lead to price reductions – they were right – the new price is only possible through their support.

    The new price of $39,900 plus GST includes both the host vehicle and the retrofit. The new offer comes into effect on completion of the June –  August production run.

    For more information about the vehicles visit the BEV website

  • Drought limits impact of water buyback

    And today there are newspaper reports that in this year, when most water entitlements have been severely cut due to the drought, just 10ML of actual water will be returned to the environment.

    “All the $50 million has bought is a promise in the future of water, it has bought air space, it will not put any water in the Murray River at this time,” Opposition water spokesman John Cobb said on radio this morning.

    “When you speak to those who have been charged with buying the water they concede there was no plan, they just bought the cheapest water they could, which was buying air space in dams, it did not actually buy water at this time.”

    The Department of Water’s report into the water buyback shows that the Government bought only the cheapest licences on offer (see graph).

    However, it also shows that about 25pc of the licences purchased by the Government were high-security licences.

    The departmental report shows the Government paid an average of $2124/ML for high security water and $1131/ML for NSW general security and Victorian low reliability licences.

  • Another Perennial grass emerges as biofuel

    “What we’ve found with Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about 2 1/2 times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn,” said crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, who led the study. Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Long is an affiliate of the U. of I.’s Institute for Genomic Biology.

    In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.

    “It wasn’t that we didn’t know how to grow switchgrass because the yields we obtained were actually equal to the best yields that had been obtained elsewhere with switchgrass,” he said. Corn yields in Illinois are also among the best in the nation.

    “One reason why Miscanthus yields more biomass than corn is that it produces green leaves about six weeks earlier in the growing season,” Long said. Miscanthus also stays green until late October in Illinois, while corn leaves wither at the end of August, he said.

    The growing season for switchgrass is comparable to that of Miscanthus, but it is not nearly as efficient at converting sunlight to biomass as Miscanthus, Frank Dohleman, a graduate student and co-author on the study, found.

    “One of the criticisms of using any biomass as a biofuel source is it has been claimed that plants are not very efficient — about 0.1 percent efficiency of conversion of sunlight into biomass,” Long said. “What we show here is on average Miscanthus is in fact about 1 percent efficient, so about 1 percent of sunlight ends up as biomass.”

    “Keep in mind that when we consider our energy use, a few hours of solar energy falling on the earth are equal to all the energy that people use over a whole year, so you don’t really need that high an efficiency to be able to capture that in plant material and make use of it as a biofuel source,” he said.

    Field trials also showed that Miscanthus is tolerant of poor soil quality, Long said.

    “Our highest productivity is actually occurring in the south, on the poorest soils in the state,” he said. “So that also shows us that this type of crop may be very good for marginal land or land that is not even being used for crop production.”

    Because Miscanthus is a perennial grass, it also accumulates much more carbon in the soil than an annual crop such as corn or soybeans, Long said.

    “In the context of global change, that’s important because it means that by producing a biofuel on that land you’re taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil.”

    Researchers at Illinois are exploring all aspects of biofuels production, from the development of feedstocks such as Miscanthus, to planting, harvest, storage, transport, conversion to biofuels and carbon sequestration.

    Using Miscanthus in an agricultural setting has not been without its challenges, Long said. Because it is a sterile hybrid, it must be propagated by planting underground stems, called rhizomes. This was initially a laborious process, Long said, but mechanization allows the team to plant about 15 acres a day. In Europe, where Miscanthus has been grown for more than a decade, patented farm equipment can plant about 50 acres of Miscanthus rhizomes a day, he said.

    Once established, Miscanthus returns annually without need for replanting. If harvested in December or January, after nutrients have returned to the soil, it requires little fertilizer.

    This sterile form of Miscanthus has not been found to be invasive in Europe or the U.S., Long said.

    Many companies are building or operating plants in the U.S. to produce ethanol from lignocellulosic feedstocks, the non-edible parts of plants, and companies are propagating Miscanthus rhizomes for commercial sale, Long said.

    Although research has led to improvements in productivity and growers are poised to begin using it as a biofuels crop on a large scale, Miscanthus is in its infancy as an agricultural product, Long said.

    “Keep in mind that this Miscanthus is completely unimproved, so if we were to do the sorts of things that we’ve managed to do with corn, where we’ve increased its yield threefold over the last 50 years, then it’s not unreal to think that we could use even less than 10 percent of the available agricultural land,” Long said. “And if you can actually grow it on non-cropland that would be even better.”

    Diana Yates is life sciences editor at the University of Illinois.

  • Pulp mills nominated as biofuel producers

    And possibly as a strong fifth reason, chemical pulp mills already operate as biorefineries of sorts, producing fiber used to make paper and paperboard as well as some specialized dissolving pulps used to make viscose types of “bio-plastics” and rayon materials. Bio-byproducts made from sulfate (or kraft) spent cooking liquors (black liquor) include ingredients used in making coatings, adhesives, detergents, paint, varnish, ink, lubricants, waxes, polishes, gasoline additives, agricultural products, etc. Turpentine is obtained by condensing exhaust vapors during the pulping of softwoods with the kraft process. There also is a spectrum of lignin-based byproducts produced from refinement of black liquors.

    This same black liquor that, in fact, after it is thickened through evaporation and the byproduct streams removed, is currently used as a “fuel” to fire what are known as chemical recovery boilers, so named because their initial, primary purpose was to burn the hemicellulose/wood sugar content of the thickened, spent cooking liquor, resulting in a char bed deposit that can be regenerated backing into fresh cooking liquor chemicals. Heat from the combustion process is used to co-generate steam used in the process and electricity via turbo-generators. Today’s mills produce on the average 60% of their power from wood residuals and spent pulping liquors.

    Cellulosic Pathways to Bioenergy

    Rather than burning these high volumes of spent cooking liquors directly in recovery boilers, integrated biorefineries can process them into an array of value-added cellulosic biofuels, including ethanol, various synthetic gases (syngas), synthetic crude oil and biodiesel. These fuels could be used to offset petroleum-based fuels being burned in the mill and/or to sell as transportation/motor fuels.

    There are as many as 12 clearly defined pathways into integrated biofuel/bioproduct production at pulp and paper mills. These include the thermochemical approaches that generally involve gasification of either biomass and/or spent cooking liquor streams alone or in combination with advanced gas-to-liquid technologies such as Fischer-Tropsch-based systems, and various pyrolysis techniques involving fluidized bed boilers.

    Other pathways involve established sugar platforms and value-prior-to-pulping (VPP) approaches, where hemicellulose content is extracted before cooking of wood chips in digesters in various ways, such as cooking in pure water to produce a “prehydrolyzate” that can be fermented to mixed alcohols or gasified to produce a syngas.

    The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) recently conducted a detailed study of the most feasible routes to integrated biofuel production at pulp and paper mills, versus stand-alone cellulosic biorefineries, as part of its Agenda 2020 program. This study is detailed in a two-part series of reports just completed in the July issue of Paper360° magazine, the official publication of TAPPI (the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) and PIMA (the Paper Industry Management Association).

    A committee of Agenda 2020 CTO’s, representing 90%-plus percent of chemical pulp producers in the U.S., evaluated four general pathways that appear to be most likely for chemical pulp and paper mills based on existing infrastructures and operations. This study focuses basically on thermochemical approaches as being the most feasible, and looks generally at four related pathways.

    The business case discussed in the AF&PA report is based on a post-2010 gasification biorefinery operation at a kraft pulp and paper mill as described in a recent report by Princeton University. The reference mill is in the Southeastern U.S. and produces 1,580 dry tpd of kraft pulp using a 65/35 mix of hardwood and softwood.

    Compelling Payoff Potential

    The main economic benefits of biorefining in the cases outlined by AF&PA for this reference mill include additional revenues from sale of synthetic fuels (511 tpd of dimethyl ether to be used as an LPG (propane) blend stock, or 2,362 barrels per day of petroleum equivalent or 4,757 barrels per day petroleum equivalent of Fischer-Tropsch synthetic crude oil for refining to diesel and gasoline blendstocks at petroleum refineries), as well as a savings of 226 tons per day of pulpwood due to increased pulp yield, and slightly overall lower steam use.

    Considering that there are 200 or more similar chemical pulp mills in the U.S., and at least an additional 100 in Canada, basic arithmetic shows this barrelage capacity for Fischer-Tropsch synthetic crude oil could total somewhere upwards of 420 million barrels per year, or between 15 and 20 billion gallons per year for the entire North American pulp and paper industry, based on existing infrastructure and operations only, without adding any new capacity.

    This is a very significant potential considering that the President’s 2007 renewable fuel standard (RFS) is 36 billion gal/yr by 2022, and that at least 21 billion gallons of this are to be obtained from cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels. This clearly indicates that the forest products industry, and pulp and paper mills in particular, are in a very unique position to help meet this critical national challenge.

    TAPPI Bioenergy Conference

    These issues, and specifically the AF&PA position paper study, will be explored in considerable detail at the TAPPI International Bioenergy and Bioproducts Conference (IBBC) to be held in late August in Portland, Oregon.

    The 2008 Technical Conference Program features 14 sessions that will take attendees through an in-depth analysis of where the industry currently is on the biorefinery front to where it will be in the next five years and beyond. A key issue underlying all sessions is the immediate need to attract investment community involvement on an on-going basis. The intensive program explores not only the latest biorefinery technologies, but also developing markets and the legal-legislative-investment sides of the bioenergy/bioproducts equation

    The IBBC program includes several sessions that examine biorefinery approaches already in commercial operation, with from-the-field updates by those “already doing it.” Systems technologies being reported in these sessions cover pyrolysis, gasification/gas-to-liquid, acid hydrolysis, enzymatic, and other fermentation-based approaches.

    Ken Patrick is Senior Editor for TAPPI and PIMA’s Paper360o magazine.