UK's offshore wind energy up

Statistics for the third quarter of 2011, released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, show that renewable sources generated 9 per cent of the UK’s electricity from July to September. That represents an increase of nearly 1 per cent on the same quarter last year.

DECC highlighted the fact that the amount of electricity generated from offshore wind has increased “substantially” compared to the same quarter in 2010, partly because of increased capacity, and partly because it was the windiest September for at least ten years.

When the overall figures for the first three quarters of 2011 (Jan – Sept) are taken into account, the statistics show a 64% increase in the amount of electricity generated by offshore wind on the same three quarters for last year (up from 4865 gigawatt hours to 6618GWh), and a 36% increase for onshore wind (up from 1943 GWh to 3189 GWh).

DECC also highlighted the growth in the UK’s installed capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources of 400 megawatts in the third quarter of the year – a 12 per cent increase on Q3 a year earlier. Nearly two-thirds of that increase (240MW) came from onshore and offshore wind, with the first turbines of the Ormonde and Greater Gabbard offshore wind farms beginning operation.

The UK now has enough installed capacity to supply more than 3,300,000 homes from wind energy.

Keeping wind turbines safely operating however is becoming increasingly important as more windmills are built. Manufacturers of wind turbines face challenges such as reducing downtimes and maintenance work. Some of the demands placed on turbine components include extreme temperature conditions, vibration, oscillation and aggressive offshore air composition. These are challenges that need to be tackled.

Melting peaks

A new study in the Journal of Glaciology shows that the glaciers in Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range are melting so quickly that the water they supply to the arid region is being threatened 20-30 years earlier than expected.

Lead researcher Michel Baraer, from McGill University, told IPS News that the time needed for the region to adapt to the coming water shortages, previously thought to be decades off, "those years don't exist."

Baraer said that the glaciers feeding the Rio Santo watershed are now too small to maintain past flows of water. During the dry season water availability is expected to be 30% lower than historic levels.

In a global context, the World Glacier Monitoring Service recently has said that 90% of the glaciers studied in its latest Glacier Mass Balance Bulletin are losing mass. In the Himalaya, 75% of the glaciers there are melting; the US Geological Survey fully puts the blame on this on global warming and not other factors.

Dimming prospects for solar

Things have not been looking good for the solar energy industry, what with some infamous companies and unpopular policies!

According to EnergyTrend, 2012 will be the year for the global solar industry to face an arduous challenge and weed out the weak. The policies will focus on the total installation volume control and decreasing subsidies. Additionally, policies for the emerging markets have been mapped out, but it will require some time for them to take effect.

On the other hand, the spot prices from wafers to modules remain low, and the slim margin has caused most manufacturers to hang by a thread.

Based on EnergyTrend’s estimate, the 2011 global solar installation capacity will reach 19GW, but the overall inventory amount, including semi-finished and finished products, will reach as high as 10GW. Therefore, the market is still severely oversupplied.

EnergyTrend forecasts that the demand in the solar market will amount to approximately 19GW for 2012; the stagnant demand is due to the decreasing demand in Italy , Germany and the United Kingdom , which are caused by the subsidy policies changes in Europe.

As for the Asian markets, benefiting from the subsidy policies, China , Japan , Malaysia and Thailand will see slight demand surges in 2012. EnergyTrend expects no rapid growth for the solar market until 2013.

The Indian market will depend on the government’s efficiency and financial health together with the enforcement of the Local Content Requirement policy, which do not look good!

Nuclear ambitions

Amidst all the brouhaha over the Kudankulam nuclear project, the Indian government is seeking to dismantle the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, proposing to abandon the long-standing independent regulator in favour of a new body directly controlled by the central government.

Critics have condemned the move, arguing the new regulator will be captive to government and unable to properly pursue safety concerns.

Presently, India has 20 operating nuclear power reactors, built, owned and run by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation. They provide about 3 per cent of the country's energy. But 44 more reactors are either slated for construction or already being built, and India is keen to attract foreign investment.

On the plans is the creation of five massive ''Nuclear Energy Parks'', each capable of producing 10,000 megawatts of electricity, three times the power used by India's biggest city, Mumbai. India plans to treble its nuclear output by the end of the decade, and to get a quarter of its energy from nuclear sources by 2050.

A group of eminent Indian citizens are challenging the new legislation in the Supreme Court, arguing a diminished and capped liability ''puts to grave and imminent risk the right to safety, health, environment and life of the people of India''. On another front, the law is also controversial over discriminatory compensation to be awarded to the poor or female victims of any nuclear disaster.

The opposition from certain sections of public to the Kudankulam plant arises out of the fears from the Fukushima disaster in which the emergency cooling system itself was damaged by the earthquake. But proponents say the plants in Kudankulam have a double contaminant system which can withstand high pressure and over Rs 14,000 crore has been spent already.

Is nuclear the way? When a nation like Germany sets out to shut down all 17 of its reactors, should India be looking to expand nuclear energy? is there a comparison?

Good, bad and ugly

Here is some good and bad news. Germany is that the country got 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources in 2011, and that it’s energy consumption dropped 4.8%. On the contrary, we have a Canada which not only refuses to do its bit to mitigate climate change but is bullish about going on the fossil fuel rampage!

Canada formally notified the world that they were withdrawing from the global warming pollution targets they had taken on under the Kyoto Protocol. Canada has unleashed on the world the dirtiest oil on the planet in the form of tar sands. Back in 2002, Canada formally ratified the Kyoto Protocol and committed internationally to reduce its emissions to six percent below 1990 levels for the period 2008-2012.

Oil from tar sands emits three times as much global warming pollution as conventional oil. Since 1990, Canada’s global warming pollution has increased by over 23 percent and is projected to continue to skyrocket driven by the expansion of tar sands.

More bad news comes from Shell in Nigeria where an oil spill that is likely to be the worst in the area for a decade, saw up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil spilt while it was transferred from a floating oil platform to a tanker 75 miles off the coast of the Niger delta. Satellite pictures obtained by independent monitors Skytruth suggested that the spill was 70km-long and was spread over 923 square kilometers (356 sq miles).

And solar woes for firms continues as BP bowed out of the solar market saying it “simply can’t make any money from solar.” One of the reasons for these global solar struggles is thanks to Chinese solar manufacturers, which flooded the market with low-priced solar cells and created an oversupply. Global solar makers are having to sell solar below cost to just survive. But of course, for buyers this is the best time!

Go ahead and pick your good, bad and ugly.

Making wind energy predictable

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are studying ways to better forecast the sharp increases and decreases in wind speeds so that electricity generation from wind farms can be more effectively integrated into the grid.

Besides the environmental concerns of bird kills and noise pollution often cited, the variability of wind power is a challenge, especially to utilities; surges in wind power generation, for example, can overload the grid at certain times. Now, researchers at the California-based Lawrence Livermore lab are using advanced computer software and sensors to determine what meteorological conditions in various regions are likely to cause so-called “ramp events,” when winds rise or fall sharply.

The project, called WindSENSE, is using wind energy data from two regions where wind power generation is increasing rapidly — the Tehachapi Pass in Southern California and the Columbia River Basin in Oregon. In such windy regions, ramp events can cause wind energy generation to fluctuate by more than 1,000 megawatts an hour.

The work identified important weather variables associated with ramp events and will help people in the control room at the utilities determine when ramp events may occur and how that will affect the power generation from a particular wind farm.

Let the wind sing its song.

Solar deadline advanced

India has firmly embraced solar power, advancing the target date by five years for selling solar-generated electricity at the same rate as electricity generated by fossil fuel plants, from 2022 to 2017.

The reason for moving the date forward is plummeting tariffs in the latest solar development projects, a trend expected to continue.

Some big names from India have proved that a large investment will soon be possible in solar projects, as huge as 2,000 megawatts, according to the ministry of new and renewable energy. There are other reasons as well. Internationally, the price of solar cells has come down and with improved technology, the cost of operation as a whole has been reduced, thereby increasing the efficiency.

All is not yet completely sunny for India's solar energy drive, however. Several solar projects benefiting under a state program offering favorable tariffs to build 20,000 megawatts of capacity have already been delayed.

Experts believe solar has the same potential as personal computers had in 1970s.
Support for India's solar ambitions comes from some heavyweight fiscal analytical groups. Ernest and Young has noted that the extent of price reduction since 2008 has been very sharp.

India being an emerging market and one of the few countries where solar energy is encouraged at such a massive level has clearly been a reason for the surge. There is also the National Solar Mission whose objective is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible.

The program aims to boost the nation's solar capacity by the equivalent of about 18 nuclear power plants by 2022, and that has now been brought forward by five years.

Durban durbar churns some hope

Durban has seen some success. Negotiators will start work on a new climate deal that would have legal force and, crucially, require both developed and developing countries to cut their carbon emissions. The terms now need to be agreed by 2015 and come into effect from 2020.

Developing countries, including China, the world's biggest emitter, have agreed to be legally bound to curb their greenhouse gases. Previously, poorer nations have insisted that they should not bear any legal obligations for tackling climate change, whereas rich nations should.

Durban saw nations agreeing that what has been done is not enough. The Durban agreement explicitly refers to the "emissions gap" – the difference between the aggregate impact of commitments that countries have made, and the upper limit of emissions required to have a chance of meeting the globally agreed goal of no more than two degrees of global warming. That gap is large, and countries have now agreed that their targets will need to be strengthened to try to close it.

At the heart of the Durban deal is the extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the legally binding treaty signed in 1997. It has also set up a roadmap towards a new treaty to succeed Kyoto in 2020, which for the first time will require the big emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil, to make legally binding commitments too.

However, the deal did little to address the scale of emissions cuts needed, and environmental groups felt this was a huge failing.

CFL dilemma

Are CFL's as good as they have been portrayed to be? Not really, if you go by what some experts are saying.

Typically the published life of CFLs is not achieved. Consumers are led to believe the lamp will last from 10,000 to 15,000 hours or more. Unfortunately these numbers do not take into account the lumen depreciation over time, and leads the customer to believe that when half of the interior walls of the lamp are dark, and light is still coming out, it is still ok to use.

More importantly however, these published numbers do not take into account the fact that these numbers are usually based on a minimum 7 hours of operation per start. As a result, if the lamp is turned on and off at a frequency less than 7 hours (which seems to be the typical application for compact fluorescents) the useful life of the CFL is dramatically less.

Clearer notes on the packaging, life based on lower on/off cycles, and life based on 70% of initial lumens would result in more accurate information.

That is what some experts say. However, some argue that it all depends on the kind of chokes used - whether internal or external. the latter is said to be better in performance.

care to share your experiences with these new-age light fluorescents that have taken over our homes?

Emissions down, but per capita footprint up

Looks like the human race might just have lost yet another chance to survive, going by the Durban impasse. Some want no legally binding deals, some want equal 'share' of the atmosphere (or right to pollute!), some want to simply continue with the 'good life'. For how long? The only suspense will be how much time will the new polluters have to enjoy the old-timers way of life!

Meanwhile,as some have pointed out, it is not just emissions we must be measuring but the carbon footprint. That is where even some of the role models in bringing down emissions are seen in a new colour.

In addition to emissions originating within a nation's borders from electricity generating, transportation, agriculture, industry, in assessing progress on mitigating a nation's climate impact, as with personal impact, the emissions of all goods consumed, whether produced domestically or abroad, need to be included.

A number of studies have shown that roughly one-third of China's greenhouse gas emissions are tied to goods produced there but destined for export. Under most carbon emission tallies, all these emissions are allocated to China and not the nation's consuming these goods.

Industrial countries document CO2 savings but in reality emission have only been shifted abroad, leaving total world emissions about the same...From 2002 to 2007 France reported stagnant or slightly decreasing CO2 emissions. In contrast, its per capita footprint increased continuously over the same period.

In essence the poor countries will be paying for the ways of those in rich nations! Can we hope for a fair world? Not at Durban anyway.

2 deg won't do!

Talks to limit global temperature rises to 2C will not prevent the possibility of dangerous climate change, says James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. He was trying to tackle the widespread misconception among international climate negotiators meeting in Durban that 2C was a safe target.

He believes carbon dioxide concentrations – now at nearly 389 parts per million (ppm) – should be no higher than 350ppm to stop catastrophic events such as the melting of ice sheets, dramatic sea level rises and methane being released from beneath the permafrost.

"The target of 2C... is a prescription for long-term disaster," he said. "You can't say exactly what long term is but we are beginning to see signs of slow [climate] feedbacks beginning to come into play.

The emissions have to stop soon, Hansen maintains, if we want the planet as we know it.

Well, as the bargains continue at Durban, carrot sticks are being offered as tokens of climate consideration, but the seriousness of the challenge is simply not there.

A quarter of global land 'highly degraded'

A UN report released this week says that 25% of all land on earth is “highly degraded” making it unsuitable for agriculture.

The implications of this finding are enormous; the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that farm output must increase by 70% by 2050 to accommodate the food needs of an estimated 9 billion humans.

That translates into another billion tons of grain foods and 200 million tons of livestock meat (note: as standards of living rise in developing nations, the demand for high-quality meat also rises).

Primitive or unsustainable farming practices like over-tilling can lead to soil erosion, loss of surface water and loss of biodiversity.

Consequently, the UN report, ‘State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture’ calls for “sustainable intensification” of agricultural productivity on existing farmland. To meet world water and food needs by 2050, the report recommends more efficient irrigation systems (most are currently below capacity), new farming practices (e.g., “integrated irrigation” and increased fish-farming [aquaculture] to meet protein demands), and more investment in agricultural development.

Nuclear sees negative growth

Due to increasing costs of production, a slowed demand for electricity, and fresh memories of disaster in Japan, production of nuclear power fell in 2011, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report from the Worldwatch Institute. Despite reaching record levels the previous year, global installed nuclear capacity—the potential power generation from all existing plants—declined to 366.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2011, from 375.5 GW at the end of 2010.

Not surprisingly, this drop in installed capacity corresponds with a decline in global consumption of nuclear energy. Nuclear’s share of world commercial primary energy usage fell to around 5 percent in 2010, having peaked at about 6 percent in 2001 and 2002. Only four countries—the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom—increased their share of nuclear power by over 1 percentage point between 2009 and 2010.

Much of the decline in installed capacity is the result of halted reactor construction around the world. Although construction on 16 new reactors began in 2010—the highest number in over two decades—that number fell to just two in 2011, with India and Pakistan each starting construction on a plant. In addition to this dramatically slowed rate of construction, the first 10 months of 2011 saw the closing of 13 nuclear reactors, reducing the total number of reactors in operation around the world from 441 at the beginning of the year to 433.

“It’s too early to conclude that nuclear energy is beginning a long-term decline, but these numbers can hardly encourage the industry,” said Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. “The high cost of nuclear electricity generation and the widespread public perceptions that it poses unacceptable safety risks make it unlikely this form of power will help slow human-caused climate change or offer an attractive alternative to rising fossil-fuel prices any time soon.”

China is an exception to the global slump in nuclear electricity generation, in terms of both the number of plants being built and installment capacity levels. The country accounted for 10 of the 16 reactor construction starts in 2010, and that year it initiated the installment of nearly 10 GW of capacity, representing 62 percent of capacity construction worldwide. China currently is home to 27 reactors and has some 27 GW of capacity under construction.

The United States, too, does not appear to be abandoning nuclear power just yet. In 2010, the Obama administration approved $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for construction of nuclear reactors; in February of 2011, the administration’s budget proposal upped that amount by an additional $36 billion.

Although many factors are behind the decline, it is largely the result of high costs, slowed electricity demand, and lower natural gas prices in recent months. The reactor meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant seven months ago also likely added to the severity of the decline. Only 10 of Japan’s 54 reactors are currently connected to the grid, China froze construction on 25 reactors immediately after the Fukushima explosions, and both Germany and Switzerland announced plans to phase out nuclear power following the disaster.

Although nuclear power remains an important energy source for many countries, including Russia and France, it is likely that its prominence will continue to decrease.

Up, up and up

Global CO2 emissions were up 5.9% in 2010 reaching record levels and are expected to increase by 3.1% this year, according to new research.

The findings by scientists working on the Global Carbon Project (GCP), published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, indicate that the burning of fossil fuels, cement production and deforestation have contributed to atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at 389.6 parts per million – the highest recorded level for at least 800,000 years.

Last year saw emissions rise above the average rate of 3.1% over the last decade, led by China (up 10.4%), the US (up 4.1%) and India (up 9.4%). China now accounts for nearly a quarter of global CO2 emissions (24.6%) and the US 16.4%.

Although governments have pledged to make reductions to CO2 emissions and keep temperature rises to 2°C, one of the report authors warned that the action is not enough.

The solar pie - big or small?

The International Energy Agency, known to be conservative on projections for renewable energy, has of late been toeing the clean energy line to address climate change and peak oil. In fact, the renewable energy head at IEA says we could get up to one third of our global energy supply from solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, and solar hot water by 2060!

That's no small leap considering solar constitutes a mere 3-4 percent of the global energy mix.

According to Paolo Frankl the strength of solar is the incredible variety and flexibility of applications, from small scale to big scale. Economic activity will shift toward the sunnier zones around the equator by 2050, making solar energy a viable power source for most of the global economy, quoted a Bloomberg report.

Those regions will be home to almost 80 percent of the human race by the middle of the century, compared with about 70 percent today, and their energy needs will be higher as living standards in countries such as Brazil and India approach those of the U.S. and Europe.

But as a climate change expert notes, these areas will be wilting under global warming making them unsuitable for habitation. So?

Ironically, the IEA in its World Energy Outlook published this year does not give solar much attention. The organization predicted fairly modest growth in the solar PV and CSP sector through 2035, with a projection that it would only make up 4.5% of electricity supply.

Perhaps one neds to read the difference between 'could' and 'would' in such discrepancies!

Corporate mission

Over 340 companies from 38 countries have signed up to the Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change 2°C Challenge Communiqué, to be presented at COP17 in Durban.

The Communiqué calls on governments around the world to take urgent action on climate change to limit average global temperature rises to less than 2°C.

“If we do not act, climate change risks seriously undermining future global prosperity and inflicting significant social, economic and environmental costs on the world. If we take the right steps, we can secure a low carbon?emission economy that is more resilient, more efficient and less vulnerable to global shocks,” states the Communiqué.

Such a communique was issued last time too, but this time the Communiqué has secured support from some of the world’s largest companies, including Alstom, AVIVA, BAA, BP, BT, Shell, Diageo, Unilever, Cisco and Tesco.

European companies dominate the line up, totalling some 195, followed by 54 from the Americas, 71 from Asia Pacific and 22 from Africa. Still fewer than the 900 odd firms that signed up to the Copenhagen Communiqué.

Still, it is a worthy drive.