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  • NSW challenges Liberals call for nuclear power

    Time to restate opposition to nuclear plants: "We on this side of the House hope, as do the overwhelming number of people across New South Wales, that it was merely a display of politeness. If that were so then he should be honest and place his position and that of his party on the public record. He must restate the opposition of the New South Wales Liberal Party to nuclear power plants".

    PM renewables moratorium endangers NSW: The other reason this matter was of such importance was that the Prime Minister has also sought to undermine the renewable energy sector in New South Wales by his response to the task group report on emissions trading. The industry was worth millions of dollars to the New South Wales economy, and thousands of jobs rely up on it. But the Prime Minister said he wanted a moratorium on renewable energy schemes. As recently as 4 June, Koperberg met with representatives of the renewable energy sector who said, inter alia, that New South Wales leads in this area and that a decision on a whole range of potential future energy sources must be decided urgently.

    6pc of NSW power currently from renewables: A moratorium called for by the Prime Minister placed these schemes at risk, and was a big risk. New South Wales currently draws 6 per cent of its energy supply from renewable sources such as wind power, which was mandated to rise to 15 per cent by 2020. The Prime Minister would put this sensible and sustainable approach at risk because of his ideological response.

    Reference: Philip Koperberg, Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water, Member for Blue Mountains, Legislative Assembly, New South Wales Parliament, 5 June 2007

    Erisk Net, 21/6/2007

  • Carbon costs make gas cheaper than coal

    Wholesale gas price-rise likely: This increased demand for gas is likely to result in increases in the wholesale gas price. [But] if the price of the permits rises to very high levels, the economics of renewable generation will improve more than gas-fired, reducing the demand for gas over the longer term."

    Clean coal expensive & undeveloped: Clean coal technologies – such as so-called super-critical and ultra-supercritical coal with post-combustion capture (PSS), which can cut CO2 emissions by a fifth – are still at the pilot stage. They are also expensive, with PSS at $64-$108 per MWh.

    Commercial ‘clean’ coal ten years away: They are not expected to be commercial for at least five to 10 years, but could eventually drop into the $40-$45 MWh price range, making them competitive at a carbon price of around $20-$30 per tonne.

    Coal needs $25-$30/tonne carbon price: Other carbon capture and storage technologies for use with coal-fired generation will take 10 to 15 years to fully develop and will probably need a carbon price of at least $25-$30 per tonne – and more if they are to be retro-fitted to existing coal power stations. Venture capital opportunities to develop these new technologies will also spring up in Australia.

    Nuclear needs $15-$40/tonne carbon price: Nuclear power, at $40-$65 per MWh, is likely to be between 20 and 50 per cent more costly to produce than power from a new coal-fired plant at current fossil fuel prices. It would need a carbon price of $15-$40 per tonne to be competitive and require 10 to 15 years before the first plants could be operating, even assuming coalition governments are in place to approve them.

    The Sydney Morning Herald, 9/6/2007, p. 42

     

     

  • Arctic meltdown still accellerating

    A total meltdown would take centuries but global warming, which climate experts blame mainly on human use of fossil fuels, is heating the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth.

    "When I was a child, I remember hunters dog-sledding 50 miles on ice across the bay to Disko Island in the winter," said Judithe Therkildsen, a retiree from Aasiaat, a town south of Ilulissat on Disko Bay.

    "That hasn’t happened in a long time."

    Greenland, the world’s largest island, is mostly covered by an ice cap of about 624,000 cubic miles that accounts for a 10th of all the fresh water in the world.

    Over the last 30 years, its melt zone has expanded by 30 percent.

    "Some people are scared to discover the process is running faster than the models," said Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist at University of Colorado at Boulder and a Greenland expert who serves on a U.S. government advisory committee on abrupt climate change.

    In the past 15 years, winter temperatures have risen about 9 degrees Fahrenheit on the cap, while spring and autumn temperatures increased about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer temperatures are unchanged.

    Swiss-born Steffen is one of dozens of scientists who have peppered the Greenland ice cap with instruments to measure temperature, snowfall and the movement, thickness and melting of the ice.

    Since 1990, Steffen has spent two months a year at Swiss Camp, a wind-swept outpost of tents on the ice cap, where he and other researchers brave temperatures of minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit to scrutinize Greenland’s climate change clues.

    The more the surface melts, the faster the ice sheet moves towards the ocean. The glacier Swiss Camp rests on has doubled its speed to about 9 miles a year in the last 12 years, just as its tongue retreated 10 km into the fjord.

    "It is scary," said Steffen. "This is only Greenland. But Antarctica and glaciers around the world are responding as well."

    Two to three days’ worth of icebergs from this glacier alone produce enough fresh water to supply New York City for a year.

    The rush of new water leaves scientists with crucial questions about how much sea levels could rise and whether the system of ocean currents that ensures Western Europe’s mild winters — known as the "conveyor belt" — could shut down.

    "Some models can predict a change in the conveyor belt within 50 to 100 years," said Steffen. "But it’s one out of 10 models. The uncertainty is quite large."

    If you’re a fisherman in Greenland, however, global warming is doing wonders for your business.

    Warmer waters entice seawolf and cod to swim farther north in the Atlantic into Greenlandic nets. In this Disko Bay town, the world’s iceberg capital, the harbor is now open year-round because winter is no longer cold enough to freeze it solid.

    Warmer weather also boosts tourism, a source of big development hopes for the 56,000 mostly Inuit inhabitants of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark.

    Hoping to lure American visitors, Air Greenland launched a direct flight from Baltimore last month, and there is even talk of "global warming tourism" to see Warming Island.

    One commentator, noting the carbon dioxide emissions such travel would create, has called that "eco-suicide tourism."

    Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

  • Why Iraq’s new oil law won’t last

    Because of sabotage by insurgents, Iraqi oil production has been running at less than 2 million barrels per day, down from 2.8 million barrels before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, says Mr. Zainy, now with the Global Center for Energy Studies in London.

    To Alhajji, the "rush" to approve the draft law reflects the need of the Iraqi government and the Bush administration to show some success – "even if it is as cosmetic as the new oil law."

    Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador in Iraq, stated the draft was the "first time since 2003 that all major Iraqi communities have come together on a defining piece of legislation."

    Iraq’s government hopes the nation’s 275-member parliament will approve the draft before the end of May.

    The legislation will be extremely controversial. Opposition is expected from the powerful Oil Workers Union of Basra. It staged strikes in 2005 objecting to America’s plan to privatize Iraq’s oil industry. A reviving Communist Party will oppose it. Much of the Iraqi press also objects to aspects of the law.

    One sensitive provision allows "production sharing agreements" (PSAs) with foreign oil firms. In theory, Iraq would retain ownership and ultimate control of the oil in such a deal. A PSA would merely grant the firm or consortium the right to explore, develop, and sell the oil, while getting a share of the oil extracted. History, however, is full of "unequal" PSAs highly favorable to oil companies and less favorable to oil nations.

    Zainy says that details of an oil contract are more important than whether it is called a PSA, a "production and development contract," or a service contract. He fears "corruption, presently rampant in Iraq" could affect contracts, wasting much of the nation’s main resource.

    During the 20th century, oil became the fulcrum of politics in the Middle East, with countries nationalizing their oil resources and winning better oil deals. The draft law "reverses everything that has happened in the Middle East since 1901," charges Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University in New York. Implying that American occupiers have had much influence on the measure, Mr. Khalidi asks: "Does [Vice President] Cheney think he can stand against history?"

    Khalidi’s latest book, "Resurrecting Empire," spells out the history of foreign exploitation of Iraqi oil, noting that resentment over "insufficient benefits" to Iraqis led to the popularity of the Baath government and nationalization of the oil industry in 1975.

    Khalidi doubts the draft law will pass parliament. "It is so manifestly against the interests of Iraq," he says. If it does, though, he doesn’t expect the law to last. Presumably, an Iraq no longer occupied would seek better terms for any deal reached under the proposed law.

    Alhajji notes that contracts signed "under duress" are not legally binding. After Iran nationalized its oil industry in the 1950s, British lawyers for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now British Petroleum) contested the action in the International Court in the Hague and lost, despite Britain’s superpower status then.

    In the future, Iraqi lawyers could similarly argue that any oil deal signed while Iraq was occupied was done under duress and thus was invalid.

    After reading the draft law in Arabic last week, Alhajji says, "It is so broad and loose, it has no significance." Often, he says, nationalism in oil-rich nations rises during and after occupation by foreigners. That "will cause problems."

  • Super funds call for carbon tax

    The rest of the panel included ABN AMRO’s director financial markets Craig McBurnie, IAG’s sustainability research manager Elayne Grace, AMP Capital senior analyst Ian Woods and Origin Energy communications and government relations manager Tony Wood.

    Along with Mr Hughes they discussed the "opportunities side" of climate change.

    Origin Energy’s Mr Wood said emissions trading produced a least-cost pathway for business to reduce their greenhouse output.

    Mr Wood presented a package of proposed action that included a long-term emissions target in line with global action, market-based carbon pricing scheme introduced from 2010, funding for research and development of low and zero-emission technologies and more focused support for renewable energy projects.

    AMP’s Dr Woods said there was already a significant market for carbon trading, with 374 million tonnes of Co2 traded in 2005 under the Kyoto Protocol, which was about two-thirds of Australia’s annual greenhouse emissions.

    "Institutional investors have a unique view on climate change as we are exposed to all aspects of climate change," he said.

    Dr Woods said polices would be put in place that would help determine the price of carbon.

    He said that when that happens, the price would be determined very quickly, leaving businesses behind that had not prepared themselves for a carbon-constrained economy.

    In Europe this week, a research note by investment bank UBS said forward hedging of power production by utilities would push the price of carbon up to 30.00 euros/tonne in 2008.

    According to website information service Point Carbon, the price of "phase two" carbon dioxide allowances in the European Union have climbed by 70 per cent since February from a low of 12 euros.

    The increases caused UBS to revise upwards its previous carbon price forecast of 20 euros to 30 euros for 2008.

    UBS said one reason for the increase was a dearth of credits from clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation (JI) projects, allowed under the Kyoto Protocol, which generate carbon credits from greenhouse gas reduction projects.

    © 2006 AAP | Disclaimer

  • Antarctic Ocean releasing CO2

    Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are now 385 parts per million. The continued burning of fossil fuels has been increasing levels of the gas annually by 2 parts per million.

    That rise represents only half the carbon dioxide emitted each year. The rest is absorbed, in roughly equal portions, by two carbon "sinks" — land vegetation and the oceans.

    The oceans also expel carbon, coughed up from deep waters where it is stored as carbonic acid.

    The new study, published in the journal Science, focused on the Southern Ocean because it is extremely isolated. With only barren, ice-covered land nearby, the researchers could rule out interference from vegetation.

    They analyzed data from 11 monitoring stations in the Southern Ocean that measured carbon dioxide concentration just above the surface. The data covered 1981 to 2004.

    Using those readings, they estimated how much carbon the water absorbed. They estimated that in 1981, the Southern Ocean absorbed 0.6 billion metric tons of carbon from the air and released 0.3 billion metric tons, for a net absorption of 0.3 billion metric tons. In 2004, the ocean took in 0.8 billion metric tons of carbon and spat out 0.5 billion metric tons — resulting in the same net absorption as in 1981.

    The researchers compared the results to computer predictions of what the ocean should have absorbed given the rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. In 2004, the net absorption should have been 0.5 billion metric tons, the study said.

    "The ocean sink is weakening," said lead author Corinne Le Quere, an oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey.

    The changes, she said, are probably the result of temperature increases that have intensified the westerly winds circling Antarctica. The winds stir up the ocean, bringing deep carbon-rich water to the surface. As a result, the surface waters cannot absorb as much carbon dioxide as they would have otherwise.

    Le Quere said she believed the phenomenon could apply to other oceans.

    Other scientists disagree, saying the Southern Ocean is so cold, deep and isolated that it may be a unique case.