[Biofuel] Statoil Launches Batwind: Battery Storage for Offshore Wind Energy - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/statoil-launches-batwind-battery-storage-for-offshore-wind-energy.html

[In my opinion, coupling of storage with intermittent renewables will
become common within the next 2-3 years.  The article mentions
increasing efficiency and lowering costs, but the real win is making
intermittent renewables into dispatchable power, which should make for
huge revenue gains (selling the energy when demand is high, not just
when the wind is blowing).  This spells the end for fossil fuel
electrical generation:  no fuel cost, zero emissions, fully dispatchable 
power and high capital costs are less of a problem for financing during 
a period of sustained low interest rates.


It appears the battery represents about 20 minutes worth of full
capacity output from the offshore wind project.  Being based on lithium
battery technology, round-trip storage efficiency should be above 90%.]


Statoil Launches Batwind: Battery Storage for Offshore Wind Energy

March 23, 2016

By PennWell Editors

A new battery storage solution for offshore wind energy will be piloted
in the world’s first floating wind farm, the Hywind pilot park off the
coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Batwind will be developed in co-operation with Scottish universities and 
suppliers, under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in

Edinburgh on 18 March between Statoil, the Scottish Government, the
Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and Scottish Enterprise.

Battery storage has the ptential to mitigate intermittency and optimize
output. This can improve efficiency and lower costs for offshore wind.
The pilot in Scotland will provide a technological and commercial
foundation for the implementation of Batwind in full-scale offshore wind 
farms, opening new commercial opportunities in a growing market.


Statoil will install a 1 MWh Lithium battery-based storage pilot system
in late 2018. This equals the battery capacity of more than 2 million
iPhones.

The pilot will be part of Hywind Scotland, an innovative offshore wind
park with five floating wind turbines located 25 km offshore Peterhead.
The wind park is currently under construction and start of electricity
production is expected in late 2017.

A structured program is now being established under the MoU to support
and fund innovation in the battery storage area between Statoil and
Scottish industry and academia. This program will be managed by ORE
Catapult and Scottish Enterprise.

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[Biofuel] Steam Injection Fractures Caprock in Big Alberta Spill, Regulator Confirms | The Tyee

[Darryl McMahon]

http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/03/23/Fracking-Bitumen-Spill-Alberta/

Steam Injection Fractures Caprock in Big Alberta Spill, Regulator Confirms

Incident highlights fragility of high-cost energy extraction.

By Andrew Nikiforuk, Today, TheTyee.ca

Three years after an eruption of 10,000 barrels of melted bitumen 
contaminated the boreal forest and groundwater near Cold Lake, Alberta, 
the provincial energy regulator has now officially blamed hydraulic 
fracturing, or the pressurized injection of steam into the ground for 
fracturing nearby rock.


The bitumen blowout occurred sometime between May and June 2013 at 
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s Cold Lake project, an operation that 
uses steam injection to melt bitumen and bring it to the surface.


In this case, the pressure from the steam cracked rock between different 
formations, allowing melted bitumen to find natural fractures and flow 
to the surface at five different locations, including under a lake.


In some places, the bitumen erupted through fissures in the ground as 
long as 159 metres deep.


The event, not the first of its kind as an earlier Tyee investigation 
revealed, killed wildlife and seeped nearly 20 barrels of bitumen a day 
into muskeg over a five-month period.


In a lengthy report, the Alberta Energy Regulator concluded what experts 
had suggested all along -- that all five bitumen seeping events "were 
caused by excessive steam volumes, along with an open conduit (wellbore 
or natural fracture or fault) or hydraulically induced vertical fractures."


According to the regulator, an independent third party expert panel that 
also reviewed the bitumen disaster found that the company, a major 
bitumen producer, had failed to properly account for geological faults 
and fractures in the region it was steaming.


That panel submitted "that CNRL's approach had insufficiently addressed 
the impact of geological variability" and how natural fractures would 
respond to increases in steam pressures.


In particular, the company did not properly address a new geohazard in 
the tarsands: the erosion of salt formations underneath bitumen deposits 
by the movement of groundwater.


The industry-funded regulator concluded that "CNRL did not contravene 
any rules in their use of their specific steaming strategy," but has 
since implemented regulatory requirements "designed to prevent a further 
incident and permanently reduce steaming volumes."


Fragile, inefficient operations

The incident, which cost Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. nearly $50 
million to clean up, highlights the fragility of operations that 
fracture bitumen formations with high-pressure steam.


These energy-intensive projects, which often use more than three barrels 
of steam to produce one barrel of bitumen, now produce the majority of 
Canada's bitumen for export. At current oil prices, such inefficient 
operations are losing money.


Approximately 80 per cent of Alberta's bitumen deposits lie deeper than 
75 metres and cannot be mined. The majority of bitumen extraction now 
comes from steaming operations that use gravity or waves of steam to 
melt a resource as hard as a hockey puck.


As a consequence, the deep deposits, all capped by rock, are currently 
being heated to as high as 300 C with steam.


During the steaming process, the overlaying caprock acts as a primary 
but not always impermeable seal that keeps steamed bitumen from seeping 
into aquifers, industry wellbores and other geological formations, as 
well as the forest floor and lakes.


For years, geoscientists as well as annual industry progress reports to 
the Alberta Energy Regulator consistently showed that the technologies 
used to steam deep deposits have created the same sort of problems now 
plaguing the hydraulic fracturing of unconventional oil and gas 
resources across North America.


Both technologies inject highly pressurized fluids (gas, water, steam or 
hydrocarbons) into formations, where the resulting pressure can crack or 
fracture overlying rock and well casings in unpredictable ways. These 
fractures can bring fluids or gases to the surface, contaminate 
groundwater or connect with other existing wells.


Across North America, hydraulic fracturing has triggered earthquakes, 
pushed gases to the surface, connected to natural faults and fractures, 
"communicated" with other wells, damaged nearby wellbores and 
contaminated groundwater.


The ongoing problem for industry is that it can't control where the 
fractures will go or what natural faults they might connect with.


In Canada's heavy oil production, the injection of steam has amassed a 
long case history of problems, including fracturing into well sites and 
other formations, steam leaks and blowouts. Fracking bitumen with steam 
has also mobilized arsenic and fouled groundwater.


Still waiting on caprock study

The large Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. bitumen spill occurred exactly 
at the same place where another major leak 

[Biofuel] Dahr Jamail | Not a Fish Tale: Humans Are Ingesting Plastic Thanks to Ocean Pollution

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35291-not-a-fish-tale-humans-are-ingesting-plastic-thanks-to-ocean-pollution

[links in on-line article]

Dahr Jamail | Not a Fish Tale: Humans Are Ingesting Plastic Thanks to 
Ocean Pollution


Monday, 21 March 2016 00:00 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report

Humans generate more than 300 million tons of plastic annually -- an 
amount equal to the combined body weight of the entire global adult 
human population -- and nearly half of the plastic is only used one time 
before it is tossed away to eventually find its way to the oceans. So it 
should come as little surprise that by 2050, it is a virtual certainty 
that every seabird on the planet will have plastic in its stomach.


Recent estimates indicate that upwards of 8 million tons of plastic are 
added to the planet's oceans every year, the equivalent of a dump truck 
full of plastic every minute. That is enough plastic to have led one 
scientist to estimate that people who consume average amounts of seafood 
are ingesting approximately 11,000 particles of plastic every year.


The earth's oceans will have more plastic than fish by 2050, according 
to a January report published by the World Economic Forum.


Experts with whom Truthout spoke on the topic confirmed that these 
trends are likely to continue. Biological oceanographer Dr. Debora 
Iglesias-Rodriguez, with the National Oceanography Centre at Britain's 
University of Southampton, is very concerned about public indifference 
to the urgency of the situation.


"Marine pollution is a big issue," Iglesias-Rodriguez told Truthout. 
"There is this idea that oceans have unlimited inertia, but 
nanoparticles of plastic getting into marine animals and the food chain 
are affecting fish fertility rates, and this affects food security and 
coastal populations. Pollution is having a huge impact on the oceans and 
is urgent and needs to be dealt with."


"Unexpected Results"

In the North Pacific Ocean, there exists what has become known as the 
"Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a phenomenon scientists know as the North 
Pacific Subtropical Gyre.


Miriam Goldstein, a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at 
the University of California, San Diego, warned Truthout that by adding 
massive amounts of plastic into the oceans, humans are causing 
large-scale change to the oceans' entire ecological system.


Goldstein is the lead author of a study that revealed just how deeply 
into the oceanic ecosystem plastic has already embedded itself.


"We found eggs on the pieces of plastic, and these were sea skater 
[insect] eggs," Goldstein said. "Sea skaters naturally occur in the gyre 
and are known to lay their eggs on floating objects. So we found that 
the amount of eggs being laid had increased with the amount of plastic."


The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre's eastern section, located between 
Hawai'i and California, is estimated to be about twice the size of 
Texas. According to Goldstein, this vast "garbage patch" contains an 
"alarming amount" of plastic garbage, the majority of which is comprised 
of very small-size pieces.


Goldstein's study shows how the immense amount of plastic is creating 
dire consequences for animals across the entire marine food web. Not 
only is it leading to early deaths of animals that ingest it, but also 
humans then ingesting fish with plastic in their systems are at 
increased risk of cancer and other health issues.


Another Scripps study shows that nearly 10 percent of the fish collected 
during a trip to the gyre had plastic waste in their stomachs.


Published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, Goldstein's study estimates 
that fish at intermediate ocean depths in the North Pacific Ocean could 
be ingesting plastic at the staggering rate of 12,000 to 24,000 tons per 
year.


Yet plastic will not likely be going away anytime soon. The use of 
plastic bags around the world has increased by 20 times in the last 50 
years. One-third of all plastic packaging then escapes collection 
systems, and a large percentage of that plastic eventually ends up in 
the oceans, according to the World Economic Forum report.


Only 5 percent of plastics are effectively recycled, and the production 
of plastics is expected to increase by at least 1.12 billion tons by 2050.


"Our work shows there could be potential effects to the ocean ecosystem 
that we can't expect or predict," Goldstein said. "There are five 
subtropical gyres, one in each ocean basin, and they are natural 
currents. They are vast areas of the oceans; together they comprise the 
majority of the area of the oceans. So altering them on a large scale 
could have unexpected results on all kinds of things."


Ocean 3.0?

The amount of plastic floating in the Pacific Gyre has increased 
100-fold in the past four decades. Meanwhile, phytoplankton counts are 
dropping, overfishing is causing dramatic decreases in fish populations, 
decreasing ocean salinity is intensifying weather 

[Biofuel] WSW: Kalamazoo River Oil Spill Effects Not Getting Much Long-Term Study | WMUK

[Darryl McMahon]

http://wmuk.org/post/wsw-kalamazoo-river-oil-spill-effects-not-getting-much-long-term-study

WSW: Kalamazoo River Oil Spill Effects Not Getting Much Long-Term Study

By Sehvilla Mann • Mar 21, 2016

Through a massive oil spill and an equally massive cleanup, the 
Kalamazoo River has proven resilient. Scientists say it's done 
remarkably well since 2010, when it took more than 800,000 gallons of 
heavy crude from a ruptured pipeline near Marshall.


But Michigan State University ecologist Stephen Hamilton says no one is 
doing much research on how the oil might affect wildlife in the long 
term. He says that’s a “missed opportunity” to understand what happens 
when tar sands oil ends up where it shouldn’t be.


“These oil spills will occur in the future,” Hamilton says. “By all 
indications we’ll continue to tap into this type of oil, and it’s 
fundamentally different in some ways than conventional crude oil. And so 
we need to learn about it.”


Hamilton will speak Wednesday at Western Michigan University’s Lee 
Honors College about how the Kalamazoo River has fared since the spill, 
the largest in the inland United States to date. It was the first time a 
large amount of Canadian tar sands crude was dumped into a waterway.


At the Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners, where he’s based, 
Hamilton told WMUK’s Sehvilla Mann that studies from other spills have 
indicated there’s reason to be concerned about the oil’s effects on 
wildlife.


“The Exxon Valdez oil spill and now the Deepwater Horizon have shown 
lingering effects of exposure to oil that can last for years – 
surprisingly subtle though. And it took a lot of research to reveal 
these,” he says.


Those spills happened in areas with economies that depended on healthy 
waters.


“We’re just not seeing the same degree of attention, the same spotlight 
being put on the Kalamazoo River. It doesn’t mean that things aren’t 
happening,” he says.


“We just don’t know.”

Below is a transcript of WMUK’s interview with Stephen Hamilton.

Sehvilla Mann: Cleanup seems to me like it can be a misleading word. If 
I spill a glass of something on my counter, it’s cleaned up when I don’t 
see any of it anymore. But I understand, you’ve said, there’s still some 
oil in the river. You can’t get all of it out?


Stephen Hamilton: Well that’s correct. And so any cleanup of a spill and 
especially an oil spill on a complex environment like this, you need to 
make the judgment of how far to go before the cleanup actually does more 
harm than leaving the oil in place.


And so this was four long years of intensive cleanup in this event, and 
the recoverable oil was recovered, and then the EPA and the state 
Department of Environmental Quality made the judgment that they should 
not continue further cleanup because it would cause more harm than good.


SM: What is it about the cleanup that can eventually cause harm if it 
goes too far?


SH: Well in this case we’re thinking about this type of oil, which is 
from the Canadian oil sands region. In the US we often call it tar sands 
oil. And what we learned from this event, which was actually the first 
major spill of this kind of oil into a water body is that a substantial 
fraction sinks below the surface. And that greatly complicated the cleanup.


Because you couldn’t see it, it moved with the water flow far and wide 
in the river system, found its final resting place wherever sediment 
settles out and that turned out to be particularly behind dams, but also 
in any little side cove or channel where the flow slows down.


And so going after that oil was what made this take four years. The oil 
that was deposited on land – and the reason that happened at all was 
because the river was really high at the time – and the oil spread out 
with the water, and then the river went down in the weeks after the 
pipeline break and the oil coated the floodplain and the banks of the 
river – we call them riparian zones.


And that was relatively easy to clean up only because you could see it 
and physically remove it. It was still a huge job. But that was largely 
done in the second year. And it was the, going after the submerged oil 
that took so long and was so complex. And that’s – the oil that remains, 
as far as we know is beneath the water surface at normal summer water 
levels.


SM: Is it sort of evenly distributed throughout the river or would you 
hit pockets of it if you were going to look for it?


SH: Right, it’s not evenly distributed, because it – what it does is it 
adheres to natural particles in the river when it goes underwater. And 
that’s actually the reason it goes underwater, as far as we understand 
it. And the river’s carrying those in suspension or perhaps they’re 
rolling along the bottom with the flow, and then as soon as the river 
slows down they tend to settle out.


And there are areas with big dams that cause a lot of settling. The 
Ceresco Dam, which is removed now, retained quite a lot of 

[Biofuel] Excessive steaming a factor in 2013 Primrose oilsands leak: Alberta regulator | CTV News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/excessive-steaming-a-factor-in-2013-primrose-oilsands-leak-alberta-regulator-1.2825473

Excessive steaming a factor in 2013 Primrose oilsands leak: Alberta 
regulator


Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, March 21, 2016 7:25AM EDT
Last Updated Monday, March 21, 2016 4:43PM EDT

CALGARY -- Excessive steaming was one of the factors that caused more 
than a million litres of oily water to ooze to the surface at an eastern 
Alberta oilsands site nearly three years ago, an investigation by the 
Alberta Energy Regulator has concluded.


The AER's report released Monday also said the bitumen-water emulsion 
was able to travel from deep underground through old unused wellbores, 
natural fractures and faults as well as man-made cracks in the rock.


"This is one of the most complex investigations we've ever undertaken," 
said Kirk Bailey, executive vice-president of operations at the 
provincial energy watchdog.


 Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (TSX:CNQ) had been using an extraction 
method at its Primrose oilsands property called high-pressure cyclic 
steam stimulation, the safety of which has been questioned by 
environmental groups.


That technique involves injecting steam deep into a reservoir through a 
well, letting it soak so that the thick bitumen is liquefied, and 
drawing the oil up to the surface through the same well.


Pressure restrictions imposed at Primrose following the leaks discovered 
in May and June of 2013 have been made permanent to avoid a similar 
event from happening in future.


"The company will not be able to pursue its original operating strategy 
at Primrose," said Bailey.


Cyclic steaming is widely used in the oilsands. Bailey said the AER took 
a broader look at other operations and concluded that they are safe.


The geology at Primrose is particularly complicated because a layer of 
salt underlies the bitumen reservoir, said Bailey. As the salt has 
partially dissolved, rock formations closer to the surface have been 
weakened.


The AER said CNRL didn't break any rules with its steaming technique.

Both the company and the regulator say the amount of bitumen that can 
ultimately be recovered at Primrose is unchanged. But the AER said it 
may just take longer to do so.


The AER's final report on Primrose follows probes by the company and by 
an independent technical panel.


The AER didn't agree with CNRL's view on how big a role the wellbores 
played.


"I think the company's point of view is that they played a larger role," 
said Bailey. "We didn't agree with that point of view."


As a result, the restrictions the AER is imposing are "more 
conservative" than they would have been if the wellbores were the main 
factor.


CNRL spokeswoman Julie Woo said the company's own investigations were 
compiled in 4,000 pages of technical data and interpretation.


"As a result of extensive data gathering, investigation, analytical 
analysis and interpretation, Canadian Natural and the industry's 
understanding of cyclic steam processes has been enhanced. These 
learnings have been applied, and our operational practices and 
strategies have been modified to mitigate the risk of future seepages," 
she said in an emailed statement.


"Our enhanced operational practices and strategies -- in place since 
July 2013 -- includes modified steaming strategies, enhanced pressure 
monitoring and response strategies as well as remediation of wellbores 
to mitigate the risk of future seepages."

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[Biofuel] Edmonton biofuel startup Forge Hydrocarbons gets $4.2 million | Metro News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.metronews.ca/news/edmonton/2016/03/21/forge-hydrocarbons-gets-federal-grant-for-new-plant-.html


Edmonton biofuel startup Forge Hydrocarbons gets $4.2 million

Forge Hydrocarbons gets influx of federal cash for new production plant

 By: Alex Boyd Metro Published on Mon Mar 21 2016

An Edmonton biofuel company that turns animal fat and crop seed oil into 
“drop-in” fuels, chemically indistinguishable from petroleum-based fuel, 
has received $4.2 million to move forward on a production plant.


Forge Hydrocarbons is the company that hopes to use technology created 
by University of Alberta bioresource scientist David Bressler to make 
biofuels more cheaply.


“It’s a huge validation,” Bressler said, in a release Monday. “It’s 
capital investment. It’s not a research project anymore.”


The grant comes from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which 
funds groundbreaking, economically viable products.


While they’re far from the first company to make biofuels, Neil 
Vanknotsenburg, vice-president of projects for Forge, said Bressler’s 
technique is a simpler, and therefore cheaper, process.


At it’s most basic, the creation of biofuel means turning fats into 
hydrocarbons, a process that usually requires both hydrogen and a 
catalyst to get the reaction going, but Vanknotsenburg said their 
technique is unique in that it requires neither.


Their process is also able to use grease rendered from dirtier fuels 
like cooking oil.


“Our business plan is based on lower cost feed stocks like yellow grease 
and brown grease which run 15 to 20 cents a pound compared to 30 cents a 
pound for canola and seed oils,” Vanknotsenburg said.


They hope to sell the oil to oil and gas companies, who are required to 
have a certain amount of renewable content.


“The molecule is identical to the petroleum-based hydrocarbon so it’s 
kind of a great place to be, you’re making something that the oil and 
gas guys want and we’re making it cheaper than the traditional process,” 
Vanknotsenburg said.


Design for the new plant will start later this year after they find a 
location, and construction is scheduled to start next year. Once built, 
the plant will produce 19 million litres of biofuel every year.


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[Biofuel] The Recorder - Biodiesel plant may open soon

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.recorder.com/News/Local/Biodiesel-plant-gearing-up-to-open-in-Greenfield-Industrial-Park-1021072

[images in on-line article]

Biodiesel plant may open soon

Goal is to open soon in Greenfield Industrial Park

By RICHIE DAVIS Recorder Staff

Monday, March 21, 2016

GREENFIELD — The 50,000-gallon tanks are in place, the first 6,000 
gallons of used cooking oil has been delivered and the computerized 
control mechanism is in place in the green metal building at the 
Greenfield Industrial Park in preparation for the opening of the 
Northeast Biodiesel plant soon.


Northeast Biodiesel LLC, owned by the Florence-based Co-Op Power energy 
cooperative, received its temporary certificate of occupancy last week 
as well as its first delivery of waste vegetable oil, to be used in its 
British-made Green Fuels processor that will begin churning out 1.75 
million gallons a year of heating oil and diesel fuel in the coming weeks.


Still waiting for an Environmental Protection Agency registration 
process as well as American Society of Testing and Materials 
certification of the fuel to be produced, the $4 million biodiesel plant 
has been nearly a dozen years in the making.


Plant Manager Philip Cherry said he expects the registration and 
certification to be completed within a month, otherwise the plant is 
ready to begin operating.


Contracts have been set up, and continue to be arranged, with 
Holyoke-based ReEnergizer to de-water and filter used frying oil from 
restaurants including Pete’s Seafood Restaurant in Greenfield, Riffs 
Joint in Turners Falls and Easthampton, and Four Leaf Clover in 
Bernardston — along with used oil from restaurants from southern Vermont 
and New Hampshire to northern Connecticut and from Boston to Pittsfield, 
according to Steven Ronhave, Northeast’s oil recruitment specialist.


Ronhave is still working to sign up the several thousand restaurants he 
says will be needed, while trying to work through the process for large 
dining service accounts that may take time to arrange. Thus, he said, 
some food processing plants may help supply the 1.75 million gallons a 
year of grease that will be processed to an equal quantity of biodiesel.


In the process, engineered by Green Fuels, methanol is added and 
glycerol is removed as a byproduct, to be sold off, according to CEO 
James Hygate, whose father 13 years ago founded the company that has 
developed small-scale biofuel plants for “every continent except 
Antarctica.”


Hygate, who was named Britain’s New Energy and Cleantech “Entrepreneur 
of the Year” last year, said this is the first U.S. biodiesel plant it 
has provided a processor for. Green Fuels, which has sold equipment to 
50 different countries, has also developed the biofuel for the British 
royal railway.


Its latest venture is a jet-fuel biodiesel process for which its first 
commercial plant is planned for somewhere in this country.


Cherry, who has worked at biofuel plants around the country, most 
recently in Texas, said Northeast Biodiesel will employ 14 workers, 
including himself.


Northeast Diesel plans to double the size of the Greenfield plant after 
a year, with the addition of a second processor to produce 3.5 million 
gallons a year of biodiesel, for sale as diesel fuel and heating oil 
through F.L. Roberts, Surner Oil, Cernak Oil, Orange Oil, J.P. Noonan 
and other distributors.


Some of that fuel would also be sold to Co-Op Power’s 450 members.

According to Rohave, most waste cooking oil is now sold to rendering 
plants, which filter it and ship it either to the Midwest to be used 
primarily for animal feed or overseas for animal feed and cosmetics.


The plant has two 20,000-gallon oil storage tanks, as well a 
50,000-gallon biodiesel storage tank that can hold a 10-day supply in 
its storage room, as well as a pair of 20,000-gallon tanks for vegetable 
oil in the processing room, with fire-suppression equipment throughout.


In terms of fire safety systems, says Hygate, who’s overseen 
installations around the world, “this is as good as it gets.”


Ronhave said that the nearest biodiesel plants are in southern 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Haverill, N.H., and Sandwich.


On the Web:
www.northeastbiodiesel.com www.greenfuels.co.uksus
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[Biofuel] Arctic Sea Ice Volume Nears Record Low

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35283-arctic-sea-ice-volume-nears-record-low

[links in on-line article]

Arctic Sea Ice Volume Nears Record Low

Friday, 18 March 2016 00:00 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report

In February, record high temperatures in the Arctic brought with them 
other records -- including record lows for that month's extent and area 
of Arctic sea ice.


Until this year, the previous records for sea ice extent and area for 
February were set in 2011.


Moreover, the total volume of the Arctic sea ice, which many scientists 
see as the most important factor determining the health of Arctic sea 
ice, reached its second-lowest level ever recorded that same month. The 
record low for sea ice volume was set in 2012, a record that could fall 
this year or next, according to scientists.


As anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) continues to outpace most of 
the worst-case predictions given by scientists, the melting happening in 
the north provides us with one of the most iconic examples of what our 
fossil fuel-based economy is costing the planet.


Record Arctic Heat

According to NASA, the Arctic was a shocking 18 degrees Fahrenheit 
warmer than normal for the month of February, which was one of the key 
factors driving the new low records for sea ice.


February in the Arctic was so warm that it was the single largest 
recorded monthly "temperature anomaly" (a deviation from the 1951-1980 
averages) ever. February saw a 2.4 degree Fahrenheit deviation, and the 
previous record deviation (set in January) was 2 degrees Fahrenheit.


Providing more disturbing context for the warming trends, The Weather 
Channel noted, "The five largest monthly global warm anomalies in NASA's 
database have all occurred within the past five months."


And the trends for Arctic sea ice continue in the wrong direction. Sea 
ice data provided by the Polar Science Center even indicated that, 
during some days in March so far, sea ice volume measurements briefly 
reached record lows. By early March, volume totals were already reaching 
the second-lowest volume ever recorded.


Robbed of Winter

Since January, Arctic temperatures have been in record or near-record 
warm ranges. The warmth has resulted in the warmest winter temperatures 
ever occurring for the entire region above the 80 degrees north latitude 
line.


In Canada's Fort Yukon, a small Native community just inside the Arctic 
Circle, people are describing a situation where the Arctic has been 
"robbed" of its winter.


A researcher told the Guardian of the situation in Fort Yukon: "To put 
it in context: I tell people to imagine what if Los Angeles was 60 
degrees warmer than it was supposed to be -- because Fort Yukon is 60 
degrees warmer than it's supposed to be."


Warm winds from the North Atlantic have been blowing warmer temperatures 
up into the Arctic off and on through the winter (one factor 
contributing to the melting of the sea ice), and current longer-range 
scientific modeling predicts that above average sea surface and air 
temperatures will continue through the spring and into the summer.


Given that the Arctic does not produce warmer temperatures itself, it is 
clear that ACD is causing the warmer temperatures to be introduced into 
the region from outside.


Hence, the stage is set for the melt season in the Arctic to likely 
break more records. The area's sea ice may even be poised to create its 
own feedback loop of melting this summer in a way that resembles 
Greenland: Scientists recently showed how melting in Greenland has 
already caused the melting to "feed on itself" and generate even more 
melting.


Unfortunately, the feedback loop process that is besetting Greenland 
also applies more generally to ACD, and is behind the melting of the 
Arctic ice. Many scientists now believe that with all of these feedback 
loops in motion, intensified melting in the Arctic and Greenland -- and 
the corresponding sea level rise -- will likely be inevitable.

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[Biofuel] Golden Opportunity for Biodiesel - United Soybean Board

[Darryl McMahon]

http://unitedsoybean.org/article/golden-opportunity-for-biodiesel/

Golden Opportunity for Biodiesel

Posted on March 17, 2016

California biodiesel spikes as major part of carbon-cutting solution

California’s new carbon-reduction policy has made the state a new target 
market for biodiesel producers. U.S. soybean farmers, who sustainably 
produce the soybean oil used to make much of that biodiesel, are also 
taking notice.


Biodiesel’s ability to reduce carbon emissions – and the subsequent 
market opportunity that comes with it – were reoccurring messages at the 
recent National Biodiesel Conference and Expo. As a result, attendees 
heard how the fuel is becoming a darling for diesel users in the Golden 
State.


“The one overriding message I’ve taken away from this conference is 
carbon,” says Matthew Stone, who, for the past 10 years, has been 
monitoring the global biodiesel marketplace for biofuels-analytics firm 
Prima. “The markets for carbon reduction in biofuels have grown. There’s 
no escaping it – carbon [reduction] is the way to go, and the industry 
would do well to adopt it.”


Biodiesel producers stand to make generous premiums from California’s 
Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and from similar requirements in other 
states and Canada.


The LCFS has some in the industry already changing their mindset, says 
National Biodiesel Board (NBB) Director of State Regulatory Affairs 
Shelby Neal.


“We are in the business of providing carbon reductions; carbon 
reductions are our product,” he explains. “To ignore that fact is to 
miss significant business opportunities. The LCFS holds the potential 
for a lot of additional revenue for biodiesel producers.”


The LCFS requires a 10 percent cut in statewide greenhouse-gas emissions 
by 2020, and biodiesel is providing more than its fair share of those 
cuts. Neal points out that diesel fuel makes up 20 percent of the fuel 
used in California, but biodiesel is providing 39 percent of the carbon 
reduction required by the LCFS.


That’s because biodiesel made from U.S. soybean oil has a 
carbon-intensity (CI) value of about half that of ultra-low-sulfur 
diesel (ULSD) – 51.83 for soy biodiesel compared with 102.76 for ULSD.


Part of biodiesel’s excellent carbon-reduction story is being written on 
U.S. soybean farms, says Robert Stobaugh, a soy checkoff farmer-leader 
and NBB Governing Board member.


“The more sustainable we are as farmers, the more sustainable our 
products will be for our end users,” says Stobaugh, who farms in Atkins, 
Arkansas. “With biodiesel and government requirements for carbon 
reductions, we’re already seeing how our sustainability is leading to 
additional markets for our products and more value for us.”


According to Neal, once California meets its 10 percent goal in 2020, 
the cuts could get even steeper, making the market even bigger for 
biodiesel producers.


“People have realized that California’s scheme is not a flash in the 
pan,” Stone says. “It’s here to stay.”


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[Biofuel] Sugarcane better than soya bean as biodiesel source | Business Standard News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/sugarcane-better-than-soya-bean-as-biodiesel-source-116031800422_1.html

Sugarcane better than soya bean as biodiesel source

IANS  |  New York  March 18, 2016 Last Updated at 13:52 IST

US scientists have developed a new way to extract biodiesel from 
sugarcane, providing a cost-effective alternative to the biodiesel 
produced from soya bean -- the current primary source of plant-based oils.


Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign altered 
sugarcane metabolism to convert sugars into lipids, or oils, which could 
be used to produce biodiesel.


The natural makeup of sugarcane is typically only about 0.05 percent 
oil. But within a year of starting the project, the team was able to 
boost oil production 20 times, to approximately one percent.


Subsequently, the so-called "oil-cane" plants were producing 12 percent 
oil. The ultimate goal is to achieve 20 percent.


"If all of the energy that goes into producing sugar instead goes into 
oil, then you could get 17 to 20 barrels of oil per acre," explained 
Stephen P. Long, lead investigator on the project.


According to the researchers, soybeans in comparison only yield about 
one barrel per acre.


"A crop like this could be producing biodiesel at a very competitive 
price, and could represent a perpetual source of oil and a very 
significant offset to greenhouse gas emissions as well," Long added.


"Modern sugarcane mills in Brazil shared with us all of their 
information on energy inputs, costs, and machinery. Then we looked at 
the US corn ethanol industry, and how they separated the corn oil. 
Everything we used is existing technology, so that gave us a lot of 
security on our estimates," Long said.


The analysis by the researchers, published in the journal Biofpr, showed 
that oil cane with 20 percent oil in the stem, grown on under-utilised 
acres in the southeastern US, could replace more than two-thirds of the 
country's use of diesel and jet fuel.


This represents a much greater proportion than could be supplied by 
soybean, even if the entire crop went to biodiesel production.


Moreover, oil cane could achieve this level of productivity on a 
fraction of the land area that would be needed for crops like soybean 
and canola, and it could do so on land considered unusable for food crop 
production.


The current full production cost of biodiesel from soybean is $4.10 per 
gallon ($1.08 per litre) in the US.


Using oil cane instead, that cost decreases to $3.30 per gallon for two 
percent oil cane and to $2.20 per gallon for 20 percent oil cane.

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[Biofuel] Ethanol Producer Magazine – The Latest News and Data About Ethanol Production

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/13164/nrel-updates-survey-of-advanced-biofuel-producers

NREL updates survey of advanced biofuel producers

By Erin Voegele | March 18, 2016

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has updated its annual survey 
of U.S. non-starch ethanol and renewable hydrocarbon biofuel producers. 
The report, titled “2015 Survey of Non-Starch Ethanol and Renewable 
Hydrocarbon Biofuel Producers,” provides an inventory of the domestic 
advanced biofuels industry as of the end of 2015. The original survey, 
which includes 2013 data, was published at the end of 2014.


According to information released by the U.S. Department of Energy, NREL 
surveyed 114 companies last year. The questionnaire included topics such 
as facility stage of development, facility scale, feedstock, and biofuel 
products. Industry experts from NREL and the DOE validated the results 
and compared them with publicly available data. According to the report, 
NREL and DOE supplemented missing survey data with publicly available 
data obtained from company websites, press releases and public filings, 
when possible.


The survey effort resulted in 61 facilities with sufficient data to be 
included in the report. This includes 27 cellulosic ethanol facilities, 
two algae-derived ethanol facilities, and 32 renewable hydrocarbon 
facilities. According to the report, 11 of the 29 non-starch ethanol 
plants were operational last year, with five at commercial scale. In 
addition, 12 of the 32 renewable hydrocarbon facilities were operational 
as of the end of 2015.


The commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants addressed in the report 
include those under development or operation by Abengoa, Ace Ethanol 
(Sweetwater Energy Inc.), Beta Renewables Inc., Canergy, DuPont, 
Enerkem, Front Range Energy (Sweetwater Energy Inc.), INEOS New Plant 
Bioenergy LLC, Pacific Ethanol (Sweetwater Energy Inc.); Poet, Quad 
County Corn, and ZeaChem.


Commercial-scale hydrocarbon facilities addressed in the report include 
AltAir Fuels, Cool Planet Energy Systems, Diamond Green Diesel, Emerald 
Biofuels, Fulcrum BioEnergy, KiOR, Red Rock Biofuels, Renewable Energy 
Group Inc., two SG Preston projects; and Sundrop Fuels.


The survey includes data on project locations, technology pathways, 
feedstock, planned capacity and target startup dates. It also breaks 
down the 61 facilities according to scale and current development status.


A full copy of the report can be downloaded from the NREL website.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65519.pdf
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[Biofuel] Firefighters Battle Fire at Bio-Diesel Plant - Story

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.localmemphis.com/news/local-news/firefighters-battle-fire-at-bio-diesel-plant

Resident Evacuated After Fire At Biofuel Facility

By Mary Jo Ola | m...@localmemphis.com

Published 03/18 2016 03:01PM

Updated 03/18 2016 09:25PM

MEMPHIS, TN

Residents in a south Memphis neighborhood are breathing a sigh of relief 
that a fire at a chemical plant did not take a turn for the worse.


A fire broke out at the Agrileum Environment plant Friday afternoon in 
the 2200 block of Deadrick Avenue near Airways and Lamar.


Rhonda Watson lives just by the plant and caught it all on her 
cellphone. Moments after she hit record there was an explosion.


“At one point in time the fire was so hot that we could feel the heat, 
and we were just standing right down there,” said Watson.


A Memphis fire spokesperson says the fire was sparked by leaking 
methanol, a flammable gas used to make biodiesel.


“It had left the tank, there was approximately 2,500 gallons of methanol 
in the tank. Not all of that fuel exited. We were able to shut it off 
and bring it under control,” said Lt. Wayne Cooke.


Nearly 100 firefighters responded to the scene, shutting down traffic on 
busy Airways Blvd. The main concern was putting the fire out before it 
reached diesel tanks.


About 50 employees who were at the plant evacuated themselves. Residents 
around the plant were evacuated by police and firefighters.


“The policemen, he actually ran down here. I was like, ‘Wow, why is he 
running?’ He was just running. ‘Y'all got to go! You got to evacuate!’ 
He was like, ‘If you don't have a car I'll get you away from here,’” 
recalled Watson.


“I came down here to see what was going on, and they told me I couldn't 
go back. And I told them that my family was in the house, so they went 
back and got the rest of my family out the house,” said Charlotte Harris.


It took more than an hour to put out the fire. Many are thankful it 
didn't spread.


“It's just something else. I would never expect something on this small 
street to go on,” said Harris.


“I hope that they take care of it and this won't happen again, because 
it could've been worse,” said Watson.


In the meantime, the Memphis Fire Department is monitoring air quality 
in the area.

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[Biofuel] Fossil fuels 'probably dead, ' CP Rail chief Hunter Harrison, says - Canadian Manufacturing

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/sustainability/fossil-fuels-probably-dead-cp-rail-chief-hunter-harrison-says-164063/

[Fascinating that a business leader who has been described as visionary 
by peers in the past sees this as a business volume (profit) challenge, 
but not as an opportunity to move his fleet to electrified rail lines 
(much of Canada has a great 'green electricity' story to tell) or 
biodiesel for the locomotives or efficiency initiatives (e.g., idling 
policy, partial load cars sharing shipping), etc.]


Fossil fuels ‘probably dead,’ CP Rail chief Hunter Harrison, says

Crude oil and coal shipments have been on the decline at Canada's 
second-largest railway, and CEO says the rail industry needs to adapt


March 9, 2016

by The Canadian Press

MONTREAL—People need to get their heads around the idea that fossil 
fuels are “probably dead,” the CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway said March 9.


“I’m not maybe as green as I should be but I happen to think the climate 
is changing (and) they’re not going to fool me anymore,” Hunter Harrison 
told a J.P. Morgan transportation conference in New York.


The veteran rail executive said the transition to alternative fuels will 
be long, but new investments in traditional energy sources will dry up 
because of environmental hurdles.


The country’s second-largest railway has seen shipments of crude drop 
due to declining demand brought on by the dramatic fall in oil prices. 
Thermal coal shipments have also waned.


Harrison said the rail industry will have to adjust to a shift to 
alternative energy sources, just as it did in the 1990s when the U.S. 
Clean Air Act wiped away 29 per cent of the business at Illinois Central 
Railway that he ran at the time.


“I think that it’s a challenge going forward, but rails have 
historically dealt with those changes really well through the years and 
continued to survive and make it,” he said.


Company spokesman Jeremy Berry said later that Harrison was referring to 
the “overwhelming trend” towards sustainable energy and the need for all 
segments of the economy to acknowledge the ever-changing energy landscape.


Greenpeace welcomed Harrison’s view, saying it marks a reversal from the 
1990s when railroads denied global warming because they relied so much 
on coal.


“I think he’s just recognizing the new realities and looking to go where 
the puck is going rather than where it has been,” said Keith Stewart, 
the environmental group’s head of climate and energy campaign.


“And our political leaders would do well to recognize that renewable 
energy is the way of the future and we need to be looking at how we can 
prepare for a world that is going beyond fossil fuels.”


Under the new Liberal government, Canada was among countries late last 
year that helped push for a goal of limiting global warming to around 
1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.


The Calgary-based railway also said it filed a resolution with U.S. 
securities regulators that it plans to introduce to Norfolk Southern 
shareholders at its next annual meeting as part of its effort to acquire 
the Virginia-based railway.


The motion calls for shareholders to request Norfolk’s board to engage 
in discussions with CP Rail that wouldn’t preclude discussions with 
other parties.


“This is kind of our last effort, the last thing we know to do and we 
hope it will work,” Harrison said. “And if not, we are going to go back 
in and run our railroad.”

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[Biofuel] Largest U.S. coal miner warns it may file for bankruptcy protection - Canadian Manufacturing

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/human-resources/largest-u-s-coal-miner-164539/

[Everybody sold their direct and indirect (mutual funds, GICs, savings 
accounts at major oil-aligned banks) in coal, oil and gas years ago, 
right?  Of course, former Canadian Prime Minister Harper would label 
this as "a buying opportunity".]


Largest U.S. coal miner warns it may file for bankruptcy protection

Peabody Energy operates mines in six U.S. states and employs 7,600 workers

March 16, 2016

by The Associated Press

NEW YORK—The largest American coal miner, Peabody Energy, is delaying an 
interest payment due this week and warned that it may have to file for 
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


Shares of Peabody Energy Corp. plummeted more than 53 per cent before 
the market opened Wednesday. Its shares have already lost half their 
value in the last three months and 95 per cent over the past year.


A slowing global economy and toughening environmental standards have 
slammed the coal industry, which is already beset by bankruptcies, 
shuttered mines and layoffs. Many electric power companies have shifted 
to using natural gas, which costs less than coal and produces less 
pollution.


Rival coal companies Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal and Patriot Coal 
have all filed for bankruptcy protection in the last year.


St. Louis-based Peabody said it didn’t pay more than $70 million in 
interest payments that were due Tuesday. If the company doesn’t make the 
payment in 30 days, it would default and its said there’s “substantial 
doubt” it would be able to go on.


Peabody had about 7,600 employees at the end of last year and operates 
mines in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, New Mexico and Wyoming. 
It also has mines in Australia.

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[Biofuel] Obama just took a big step toward powering New York with offshore wind - The Washington Post

[Darryl McMahon]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/17/obama-just-took-a-big-step-toward-powering-new-york-with-offshore-wind/

[image and links in on-line article]

Obama just took a big step toward powering New York with offshore wind

By Chris Mooney

March 17, 2016

After years of fighting the expansion of drilling off the Atlantic 
coast, environmentalists scored a rare double victory this week in which 
oil lost ground to wind energy.


In a surprising about-face, the Interior Department pulled back its 
controversial plans to allow oil drilling off the coasts of Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Citing concerns from the 
Pentagon and also from coastal communities in these states, Interior 
Secretary Sally Jewell said, “It simply doesn’t make sense to move 
forward with any lease sales in the coming five years.”


Climate activists and environmentalists were ecstatic — and that was 
just the beginning. The next day, the department announced a move to 
create a large offshore wind area 11 miles south of Long Island and 
extending to the Southeast in the shape of a thin triangle, over some 
127 square miles. It will be called the “New York Wind Energy Area.”


The New York development proves “that the U.S. can move rapidly to 
develop clean energy sources off the Atlantic coast, rather than 
drilling for the dirty fossil fuels of the past,” Jacqueline Savitz, 
vice president for the United States for Oceana, an ocean-focused 
environmental group, said in a statement.


The new wind energy area off the New York coast emerges in response to 
an initiative by the New York Power Authority, the Long Island Power 
Authority and Con Edison — which have formed a group called the Long 
Island-New York City Offshore Wind Collaborative. In 2011, the group 
filed an application with the federal government for a 350 to 700 
megawatt wind farm in this area, in waters 60 to 120 feet deep, to 
directly power New York City and Long Island. It would have “the 
potential to be the largest offshore wind project in the country,” the 
collaborative said.


Now, the federal government is moving ahead on the matter, although 
there will be a “competitive leasing process,” meaning there are other 
potentially interested parties in wind in the area, beyond this group.


“This is a great day for New York, and our country as we continue to 
diversify our nation’s energy portfolio,” Abigail Ross Hopper, director 
of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in 
a statement. “The area is large enough for a large-scale commercial wind 
project, which could make substantial contributions to the region’s 
energy supply and assist local and state governments — including New 
York City — in achieving their renewable energy goals.”


The move comes as New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) recently laid out a 
plan to get 50 percent of the state’s total electricity from renewables 
by 2030. Offshore wind will be a key piece of hitting that target, said 
Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York.


The site is rather ideal for sending power to the huge population just a 
few ocean miles away, Reynolds noted. “Part of the attraction for 
offshore wind development in New York is that you’d have the electricity 
demand very nearby, and you’d have the wind peaking in the late 
afternoon, when you have demand peaking as well,” she said.


The Interior Department has, so far, approved 11 Atlantic offshore wind 
energy leases, off Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, 
Maryland and Virginia. The new “wind energy area” designation does not 
mean that an immediate lease sale will be held for the siting of wind 
energy off New York — rather, the next step of the process involves an 
environmental impact assessment. After that, there would be the 
potential for lease sales.


The United States remains far behind some other countries — such as 
Britain and China — in overall offshore wind development. So far, among 
other potential projects, construction has begun for Deepwater Wind’s 
projected 30 megawatt installation off the coast of Rhode Island. It’s 
expected to start operating this year.


In general, offshore wind is seen as a critical new development in the 
wind energy area because offshore turbines can tap into stronger winds 
to generate larger volumes of electricity. But development has been 
dramatically faster on land. Wind energy provided 4.7 percent of U.S. 
electricity last year, according to the American Wind Energy 
Association, a number that has been steadily growing in recent years.


The Energy Department’s “wind vision” for 2030 imagines getting 20 
percent of U.S. electricity from this source. To do that, the nation 
will need far taller wind turbines on land — which can capture energy 
from more powerful winds and open up new areas to viable wind farms — 
and also major offshore developments.

[Biofuel] US Offshore Wind Cost May Drop 55 Percent as Builders Gain Experience - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/us-offshore-wind-cost-may-drop-55-percent-as-builders-gain-experience.html

[image and links in on-line article]

US Offshore Wind Cost May Drop 55 Percent as Builders Gain Experience

March 16, 2016

By Joe Ryan, Bloomberg

The cost of building wind farms off the U.S. coast may decline as much 
as 55 percent within 13 years, letting developers offer clean power at 
rates competitive with market prices, according to a study released 
Tuesday by the University of Delaware.


If developers commit to a series of large projects, installing about 
2,000 MW of capacity between 2020 and 2030 off the Massachusetts coast, 
they will gradually drive down costs as they gain experience, install 
transmission lines, upgrade infrastructure and utilize increasingly 
efficient components, the study found.


While offshore wind has thrived in Europe, the high costs of erecting 
turbines at sea has sunk most U.S. projects. Developers previously 
proposed wind farms off the East Coast with rates as high as 24 cents a 
kilowatt hour, more than double the market rate. The University of 
Delaware found that they could cut those costs to 12.8 cents a 
kilowatt-hour by 2026, and to 10.8 cents by 2029, when the industry may 
have installed as much as 2,000 MW.


The key to making offshore wind economical “is making a firm commitment 
to scale so the market can do its work,” Willett Kempton, a professor in 
the University of Delaware’s School of Marine Science and an author of 
the study, said in a statement.


The study, funded by the university’s Wind Power Program, used data from 
offshore wind developers that are looking at potential sites along the 
East Coast.


The study comes as Deepwater Wind LLC is building the first wind farm in 
the U.S., off the coast of Rhode Island. It’s scheduled to begin 
operations by the end of the year, and National Grid Plc has agreed to 
pay as much as 24.4 cents a kilowatts hour for the power.


Massachusetts lawmakers are considering legislation to encourage 
developers to build additional projects in the Atlantic near Martha’s 
Vineyard. Three developers — Deepwater, Dong Energy A/S and Offshore MW 
LLC — have leases from the federal government to build in the area.

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[Biofuel] How Uruguay Became a Wind Power Powerhouse - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/how-uruguay-became-a-wind-power-powerhouse.html

[links and image in on-line article]

How Uruguay Became a Wind Power Powerhouse

March 16, 2016

By Joe Thwaites

Research Analyst

When it comes to renewable energy generation, the South American country 
of Uruguay is a huge success story.


The developing nation went from having virtually no wind generation in 
2007 to become a double world-record holder in less than a decade. By 
2013, it was receiving the largest share of clean energy investment as a 
percentage of GDP, and in 2014, installed the most wind per capita of 
any country. By mid-2015, the country had installed 581 megawatts (MW) 
of wind capacity, providing an average 17 percent of total electricity 
generation over the year. Wind energy is now cost competitive in the 
nation, and is displacing the most expensive fossil-fuel generation.


Using Climate Finance in Transformational Ways

Uruguay is at the forefront of a growing movement of countries, 
communities and individuals who are transforming the way they generate 
and use energy. Meeting the goal of the Paris Agreement to keep warming 
well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to 
prevent dangerous climate change will require a rapid and deep reduction 
of emissions. To achieve this countries will, among other things, need 
to fundamentally transform their energy sectors away from fossil fuels 
and towards clean, renewable energy.


In our new working paper, Transformational Climate Finance: An 
Exploration of Low-Carbon Energy, we look at how funding can be used to 
bring about such large-scale, long-term and rapid changes in the energy 
sector to boost renewable energy and energy efficiency. In order to 
understand how climate finance can deliver this “transformational” 
change, we analyzed case studies covering a variety of geographies, 
energy sources and degrees of transformation.


Uruguay’s wind sector was one of the most successful cases we found. The 
way it achieved results provides powerful lessons for other nations 
looking to transform their energy systems, and for funders such as the 
Green Climate Fund, whose Board is meeting this week to consider how it 
can best fulfil its mandate to promote a “paradigm shift towards 
low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways.”


What Motivated Uruguay’s Energy Change?

Uruguay’s wind development was driven by a desire to increase energy 
security. The country had relied heavily on hydropower historically. But 
with a decade of dry years between 1997 and 2007, hydro’s share of 
electricity generation fell from more than 90 percent to around 50 
percent, leading to an increase in fossil-fuel imports (the country has 
no domestic reserves). By 2007, imported fossil fuels provided a third 
of generation. In addition to import costs, the increased reliance on 
fossil fuels added to the fiscal burden of providing residential 
subsidies. Given the steadily rising electricity demand, the government 
sought ways to diversify its energy sources.


How Did Uruguay Pursue an Energy Transformation?

In 2007, Uruguay secured an initial grant of $1 million from the Global 
Environment Facility, delivered through the UN Development Programme, 
and put up $6 mil­lion in co-financing from its national budget. This 
funded the Uruguay Wind Energy Programme, which ran until 2012 and 
focused on policy reform and technical capacity building.


The Wind Energy Programme supported the Government of Uruguay in 
creating an ambitious national policy on renewable energy. This included 
crafting a competitive bidding mechanism for large-scale renewable 
energy development and a feed-in tariff for smaller-scale systems, which 
allowed non-utility power producers to sell renewable energy to the grid 
at standardized prices. The state-owned utility was required to buy all 
clean power generated. To encourage early development, producers receive 
a higher price for electricity generated from projects that came online 
before 2015.


The government also used funding to train staff at the national 
electricity utility on how to work with renewable energy sources to 
integrate them into the grid. With little prior experience in dealing 
with variable generation, the state utility developed a demonstration 
wind farm and created a renewable energy technology curriculum at 
Uruguay’s Universidad de la República to train its staff. The utility 
also conducted outreach to developers and investors to build their 
knowledge and address perceptions of risk in the wind sector. Dialogues 
among stakeholders also helped regional cooperation, with Uruguay now 
working with the Bra­zilian utility Eletrobras to develop wind projects 
along their shared border.


What Does Success Look Like?

Uruguay’s reforms provided the policy stability and technical expertise 
to kick-start wind investment, with the nation now receiving more than 
$1 

[Biofuel] Oregon Governor Signs Bill into Law Phasing Out Coal-fired Power - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/oregon-governor-signs-bill-into-law-phasing-out-coal-fired-power.html

[links in on-line article]

Oregon Governor Signs Bill into Law Phasing Out Coal-fired Power

March 16, 2016

By Wayne Barber

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Friday, March 11, signed into law a measure 
(Senate Bill 1547) making Oregon the first state to eliminate coal from 
its energy supply by legislation, which will happen in phases through 2030.


It also requires utilities to provide half of their customers’ power 
from renewable sources by 2040, which doubles the previous standard.


The Oregon Citizens' Utility Board said in January that several 
environmental groups have reached an agreement with Berkshire Hathaway 
Energy affiliate PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric (PGE) on the 
legislative proposal to phase out coal.


The bill evidently includes a provision that PGE’s share of the Colstrip 
coal plant in Montana would be phased out by 2035 at the latest.


"Knowing how important it is to Oregonians to act on climate change, a 
wide range of stakeholders came to the table around Oregonians' 
investments in coal and renewable energy," Brown said.


"Working together, they found a path to best equip our state with the 
energy resource mix of the future,” Brown said. “Now, Oregon will be 
less reliant on fossil fuels and shift our focus to clean energy. I'm 
proud to sign a bill that moves Oregon forward, together with the shared 
values of current and future generations."


The signing was held at an elementary school in Portland using solar 
panels to generate electricity.


===

[From the comments section:]

1999 - Oregon generated 6.5% by coal, 12.1% by natural gas, 80.3% by 
hydro, and 1.1% by all other sources. In 15 years, by 2014 the 
electrical generation had increased by about 6% in total. By 2014, 
Oregon generated 5.3% by coal, 21.1% by natural gas, 58.7% by hydro, 
12.6% by wind, and 2.3% by all other sources (wood being the largest). 
Quick consideration shows that coal is a minor source and already 
falling, while natural gas has nearly doubled. Greenhouse gas emissions 
in total are increasing. Curious that hydro has dropped considerably (it 
is down over 22% in actual MWh over the 15 years).


The impact of "phasing out coal" by 2030 seems pretty minor, and looks 
like it will just continue to see more natural gas used. The requirement 
that "half of customers power come from renewable sources by 2040" is 
hardly radical considering that in 1999 history shows 81.3% was from 
renewables (hydro, wood, other biomass and wind) while in 2014 it was 
73.2% from renewables (hydro, wind, wood, other biomass, and solar). 
Arguably, the 40% renewables target for 2040 will allow a lot more 
generation to be from natural gas.



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[Biofuel] During Porter Ranch, stealthy oil workers hid another methane gas leak | 89.3 KPCC

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/03/18/58697/during-porter-ranc-stealthy-oil-workers-hid-anothe/

[image and links in on-line article]

In the midst of the much bigger Porter Ranch gas leak, another natural 
gas leak was spewing methane into the air.


The oil company responsible for the second leak has been fined $75,000 
by state oil regulators.


The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal called the methane leak brazen 
and intentional violations of state law.


Workers for The Termo Company had snaked a 2.5-inch pipe away from oil 
pumping equipment to hide its opening under a tree some distance away. 
The pipe was used to vent natural gas that was produced along with oil.


In a written statement, state Oil & Gas Supervisor Ken Harris said, 
"Someone clearly made an effort to conceal the pipe, because even though 
we knew from aerial readings where it was generally, our field staff had 
to search carefully before finding it behind a tree."


The venting has since been stopped.

Termo owns and operates oil wells on the grounds of Southern California 
Gas Company's 3,600-acre Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility just 
north of Porter Ranch, and it has a request pending to add a dozen more. 
That gas field was the site of a massive leak of natural gas from a 
ruptured gas well from late October through mid-Feburary.


An airplane pilot operating an infrared camera to record methane levels 
on the leak from a ruptured gas well noticed the second leak on Jan. 23. 
The flight was a joint effort of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 
the South Coast Air Quality Management District.


Normally, Termo would have sent the gas to SoCal Gas to inject into the 
underground storage reservoir. But during the leak, SoCal Gas was barred 
from injecting more natural gas into the field. The idea was to lower 
the pressure in the field and the amount of gas escaping from the 
ruptured well by lowering the volume of gas.


Termo representatives did not return a request for comment.


During Porter Ranch, stealthy oil workers hid another methane gas leak

Sharon McNary March 18, 08:10 PM

In the midst of the much bigger Porter Ranch gas leak, another natural 
gas leak was spewing methane into the air.


The oil company responsible for the second leak has been fined $75,000 
by state oil regulators.


The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal called the methane leak brazen 
and intentional violations of state law.


Workers for The Termo Company had snaked a 2.5-inch pipe away from oil 
pumping equipment to hide its opening under a tree some distance away. 
The pipe was used to vent natural gas that was produced along with oil.


In a written statement, state Oil & Gas Supervisor Ken Harris said, 
"Someone clearly made an effort to conceal the pipe, because even though 
we knew from aerial readings where it was generally, our field staff had 
to search carefully before finding it behind a tree."


The venting has since been stopped.

Termo owns and operates oil wells on the grounds of Southern California 
Gas Company's 3,600-acre Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility just 
north of Porter Ranch, and it has a request pending to add a dozen more. 
That gas field was the site of a massive leak of natural gas from a 
ruptured gas well from late October through mid-Feburary.


An airplane pilot operating an infrared camera to record methane levels 
on the leak from a ruptured gas well noticed the second leak on Jan. 23. 
The flight was a joint effort of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 
the South Coast Air Quality Management District.


Normally, Termo would have sent the gas to SoCal Gas to inject into the 
underground storage reservoir. But during the leak, SoCal Gas was barred 
from injecting more natural gas into the field. The idea was to lower 
the pressure in the field and the amount of gas escaping from the 
ruptured well by lowering the volume of gas.


Termo representatives did not return a request for comment.
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[Biofuel] Renewable Energy Surge Behind Unprecedented Halt in Global Carbon Emissions | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/16/renewable-energy-surge-behind-unprecedented-halt-global-carbon-emissions

[links in on-line article]

Published on Wednesday, March 16, 2016

by Common Dreams

Renewable Energy Surge Behind Unprecedented Halt in Global Carbon Emissions

International Energy Agency touts findings as evidence that global 
emissions and economic growth has been 'decoupled'


by Lauren McCauley, staff writer

A growing worldwide shift to renewable energy has played a "critical 
role" in stalling global carbon emissions, the world's leading energy 
analysts declared on Wednesday.


According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) preliminary 
analysis of 2015 data, for the second year in a row, the amount of 
carbon emitted from the world's power sector remained essentially flat 
at 32.1 billion tons.


Declining coal use in China and the United States, the world's two 
biggest emitters of carbon, and a surge in new renewable energy 
production were credited for driving that trend.


According to the figures, which will be included in the IEA's annual 
World Energy Outlook report at the end of June, renewables "accounted 
for roughly 90 percent of new electricity generation in 2015," with wind 
alone producing more than half of that new power.


Those trends offset rising emissions in a number of developing countries 
in Asia and the Middle East as well as a "moderate increase" in Europe.


At the same time, the global economy grew more than 3 percent, prompting 
the agency to declare that the "decoupling of global emissions and 
economic growth" has been officially "confirmed."


Though environmentalists and other analysts agree that the "endless 
growth" demanded by a capitalist system is not sustainable, the findings 
nonetheless underscore the viability of a global shift to clean 
energy—and put an end to many of the arguments against such a change.


"The new figures confirm last year’s surprising but welcome news: we now 
have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from 
economic growth," said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.


"Coming just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, 
this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change," 
Birol added.


The group notes that in the more than 40 years since they have been 
tracking carbon emissions, there have only been four periods during 
which emissions stood still or declined. With the exception of the past 
two years, those stalls all occurred during periods of global economic 
slowdowns.


The report notes that in the U.S., carbon emissions fell two percent in 
2015—a decline which was largely attributed to the switch from coal to 
natural gas. However, natural gas production releases significant 
emissions of methane, which scientists say is an even more potent 
greenhouse gas than carbon. The preliminary data does not factor in 
emissions of methane.

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[Biofuel] New US Generating Capacity in January is from Wind, Solar - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/new-us-generating-capacity-in-january-is-from-wind-solar.html

New US Generating Capacity in January is from Wind, Solar

Defying earlier U.S. EIA projections, renewable resources provide 13.5 
percent of U.S. electricity in 2015; may beat EIA’s forecast by 15+ years.


March 7, 2016

By Kenneth Bossong

Two new federal government reports underscore not only the continued 
rapid growth of renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, 
hydropower, solar, wind) in the electric power sector but also the 
ongoing failure of government forecasts to accurately anticipate and 
predict that growth.


In the first 2016 issue of its monthly "Energy Infrastructure Update" 
report, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) notes that five 
new "units" of wind (468 megawatts (MW)) and six new units of solar (145 
MW) accounted for 100 percent of new electrical generation brought into 
service in January. No new capacity for nuclear, coal, gas, or oil was 
reported. Renewables now account for 17.93 percent of total installed 
operating generating capacity in the U.S.:  hydropower (8.56 percent), 
wind (6.37 percent), biomass (1.43 percent), solar (1.24 percent), and 
geothermal (0.33 percent). In fact, installed capacity for non-hydro 
renewables (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, wind) alone (9.37 percent) 
now exceeds that for either nuclear (9.15 percent) or oil (3.84 percent). **


The new renewable energy capacity added in January is continuing a 
trend. Just a month earlier, FERC's December 2015 "Energy Infrastructure 
Update" revealed that renewables had accounted for 64 percent of all new 
electrical generating capacity installed last year.
Separately, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has issued 
its latest "Electric Power Monthly" (covering all twelve months of 2015) 
indicating that electricity generated by renewable energy sources grew 
by over 2 percent compared to 2014 and accounted for almost 13.5 percent 
of "utility-scale" electrical output in the U.S. last year.


Moreover, EIA's end-of-the-year data reveals significantly higher growth 
in the renewable energy sector than the agency had forecast less than 
three months ago for calendar year 2015 in its "Short-Term Energy 
Outlook." At that time, EIA said it expected "total renewables used in 
the electric power sector to decrease by 1.8 percent in 2015. Hydropower 
generation is forecast to decrease by 8.2 percent, and non-hydropower 
renewable power generation is forecast to increase by 4.2 percent."


In reality, compared to calendar year 2014, non-hydro renewables 
increased by 6.9 percent, hydro output declined by just 3.2 percent, and 
the total of hydropower plus non-hydro renewables grew by 2.03 percent. 
For calendar year 2015, grid-scale renewables accounted for 13.44 
percent of net U.S. electrical generation — up from 13.16 percent in 
2014. Of that, non-hydro renewables accounted for 7.3 percent while 
conventional hydropower was 6.14 percent. Generation by all non-hydro 
renewable sources grew in 2015. Biomass was up by 0.3 percent, wind by 
5.1 percent, geothermal by 5.6 percent, and solar by 49.6 percent.


Renewable energy growth is significantly outpacing earlier EIA 
projections. Less than four years ago, in its "Annual Energy Outlook 
2012," EIA forecast that non-hydro renewables would grow at an annual 
rate of 3.9 percent and provide about 250,000 thousand megawatt-hours in 
2015 while non-hydro renewable electrical generating capacity would 
reach approximately 85 gigawatts (GW). It also forecast that non-hydro 
renewables would not surpass hydropower until 2020.


In fact, EIA now reports actual generation from non-hydro renewables in 
2015 to have hit 298,358 thousand megawatt-hours from utility-scale 
facilities alone; in addition, at least 12,141 thousand megawatt-hours 
was provided by distributed solar PV and an unknown amount from other 
distributed, small-scale renewables that are not grid-connected (e.g., 
small wind). Further, electrical generation from non-hydro renewables 
surpassed that from hydropower more than a year ago.


And, according to FERC, the total installed generating capacity of wind, 
biomass, solar, and geothermal units had reached 109.6 GW by January 
2016 — and this reflects just the combined capacity of larger renewable 
energy facilities. FERC's data only includes plants with nameplate 
capacity of 1 MW or greater and therefore does not reflect the 
additional capacity provided by rooftop solar or other smaller, 
distributed renewable energy systems.


** Note that generating capacity is not the same as actual generation. 
Electrical production per MW of available capacity (i.e., capacity 
factor) for renewables is often lower than that for fossil fuels and 
nuclear power. As noted, the total installed operating generating 
capacity provided by renewables in 2015 was about 18% of the nation's 
total whereas actual 

[Biofuel] Global wind power capacity tops nuclear energy for first time | The Japan Times

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/20/national/global-wind-power-capacity-tops-nuclear-energy-for-first-time/#.VuhpdeYSGFX

Global wind power capacity tops nuclear energy for first time

Kyodo

The capacity of wind power generation worldwide reached 432.42 gigawatts 
(GW) at the end of 2015, up 17 percent from a year earlier and 
surpassing nuclear energy for the first time, according to data released 
by global industry bodies.


The generation capacity of wind farms newly built in 2015 was a record 
63.01 GW, corresponding to about 60 nuclear reactors, according to the 
Global Wind Energy Council based in Brussels. The global nuclear power 
generation capacity was 382.55 GW as of Jan. 1, 2016, the London-based 
World Nuclear Association said.


Both wind power and nuclear energy are being touted as alternatives to 
fossil fuel power as they produce fewer greenhouse gases.


Wind energy has captured renewed attention as technological innovation 
has considerably lowered its generation costs while nuclear power 
continues to suffer a backlash following the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns.


Wind power is the leading energy source in the transition from fossil 
fuels to renewables, the wind energy council said as it released the 
data last week.


China led all other countries in wind energy generation capacity with 
145.10 GW. Beijing is promoting wind power to shift from coal and other 
fossil fuels to combat air pollution and global warming.


Coming in second behind China is the United States with 74.47 GW, 
followed by Germany with 44.95 GW, then India with 25.09 GW and then 
Spain with 23.03 GW. Japan produced 3.04 GW.

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[Biofuel] Court Orders One of Japan’s Two Operating Nuclear Plants to Shut Down - The New York Times

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/world/asia/japan-nuclear-plant.html

[1-minute video (Japanese with English sub-titles) and links in on-line 
article]


Court Orders One of Japan’s Two Operating Nuclear Plants to Shut Down

By JONATHAN SOBLE

MARCH 9, 2016

TOKYO — A court in Japan ordered one of only two nuclear power plants 
operating in the country to shut down on Wednesday, citing insufficient 
safety measures put in place after meltdowns at a facility in Fukushima 
five years ago.


The plant, Takahama Nuclear Power Plant, had been back online for only 
two months after an extended freeze on atomic power in Japan in the 
aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima disaster.


Japan’s government and its power companies have struggled to get the 
nuclear industry back on its feet. Despite new safety standards 
introduced in 2013, much of the public remains wary. Only a handful of 
the more than 40 operable reactors in the country have met the new 
rules, and lawsuits have made it difficult to restart them.

Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government sees a revival of nuclear power 
as critical to supporting economic growth and slowing an exodus of 
Japanese manufacturing to lower-cost countries. Electricity prices have 
risen by 20 percent or more since the Fukushima disaster because of 
increased imports of fossil fuels, though the recent drop in oil prices 
has taken some of the pressure off.


The court ruling on Wednesday added a new twist to the legal battles 
over nuclear power.


Judges have enjoined idled plants from being put back into service, but 
the judgment against Takahama was the first in which a facility that had 
successfully been restarted was ordered to shut down. Takahama’s owner, 
Kansai Electric Power Company, brought one reactor at the facility back 
online in January and another last month.


The court, which is in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, said neither restart 
should have happened. It was responding to a request for an injunction 
filed by residents, who said the plant’s owner had underestimated the 
size of earthquakes that could strike the plant and had not made 
adequately detailed plans to evacuate people living nearby in case of an 
accident.


Government safety regulators say Takahama meets Japan’s new safety 
guidelines, which address such issues. But the court ruled for the 
plaintiffs, saying there were “points of concern in accident prevention, 
emergency response plans and the formulation of earthquake models.”


Kansai Electric said it would appeal. It has won previous appeals 
against injunctions issued against its plants, including Takahama. The 
company overcame a separate lawsuit to bring the plant online in January.


Takahama is in Fukui Prefecture, a stronghold for the atomic power 
industry that is home to 13 commercial reactors and that has earned the 
nickname Genpatsu Ginza, or Nuclear Alley. But the latest lawsuit was 
filed by residents of the neighboring Shiga Prefecture, who said they 
would be affected by radiation from a serious accident at Takahama.


Radiation releases from the plant in Fukushima affected a wide swath of 
northeastern Japan. More than 100,000 residents were evacuated, and many 
are still unable or unwilling to return.

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[Biofuel] Renewable Energy Growth Blows EIA Forecasts Out of the Water, Again

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-03-14/renewable-energy-growth-blows-eia-forecasts-out-of-the-water-again

[links in on-line article]

Renewable Energy Growth Blows EIA Forecasts Out of the Water, Again

Another year, another U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) assessment 
report that makes the agencies own forecasters look foolish.


In the latest Electric Power Monthly report, which covers all twelve 
months of 2015, the EIA revealed that renewable energy sources accounted 
for nearly 13.5-percent of the nation’s utility-scale electrical output. 
This is up by more than 2-percent over 2014. But get this: less than 
three months earlier, in the “Short-Term Energy Outlook,” the agency 
predicted “total renewables used in the electric power sector to 
decrease by 1.8% in 2015.”


The EIA’s record for long-term forecasts is no better. In fact, it’s 
consistently worse.


As Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign, recently 
pointed out, the agency’s “Annual Energy Outlook 2012” forecast that 
non-hydro renewables would provide about 250,000 thousand megawatt-hours 
of electricity by 2015. The new EIA tallies put that figure at over 
300,000 thousand megawatt-hours, roughly 20-percent higher than 
predicted. (You could more simply state this as the 300,000 gigawatt 
hours actually produced in 2015 is 20-percent higher than the 250,000 
gigawatt-hours predicted, but for some reason, the EIA likes to use the 
clunky “thousand megawatt-hours” factor.)


“Just a few years ago EIA had forecast that renewables might provide 15% 
of the nation's electricity by 2035,” said Bossong. “It now appears that 
goal could be reached within the next two years and quite possibly sooner!”


This isn’t the rare instance of the EIA getting something wrong. Rather, 
it’s something of an annual tradition. Consider these examples, taken at 
random (and culled from links I’ve bookmarked over the past few years 
under the tag, “EIA wrong”):


“In 2009, the federal government’s Energy Information 
Administration made a forecast for the next two decades: U.S. wind power 
would grow modestly, reaching 44 gigawatts of generating capacity in 
2030, while solar power would remain scarce, inching up to 12 GW. Just 
six years later, U.S. wind capacity is already up to 66 GW, and solar 
has shot up to 21 GW. There's now enough installed wind and solar to 
power 25 million American homes— more than three times what the EIA 
expected before President Obama took office.” Michael Grunwald in Politico
“In 2005, EIA forecast that U.S. solar power capacity would hit 
about 1.2 GW in 2013. Where are we right now [in 2013]? According to 
Greentech Media, the U.S. is closing in (if it already hasn’t passed) 
the 10 GW mark in solar PV capacity right about now, and that’s not even 
counting solar thermal power generating capacity (according to this 
article, you can add another 1 GW or so of U.S. solar thermal power 
capacity). In sum, EIA forecast 1.2 GW of U.S. solar power capacity in 
2013; the actual figure is around 11 GW – nearly 10 times higher than 
EIA forecast!” Former EIA employee Lowell Feld, in 2013.
“The report this year [2015] predicts that by 2040, the U. S. will 
have added only 48 gigawatts of solar generating capacity. The Solar 
Energy Industries Association (SEIA) expects that the industry will add 
half of that by the end of 2016. “ Samantha Page in ThinkProgress
In an update on June 2015, the EIA projected that the cheapest 
solar deployed in 2020 would cost $89 / mwh, after subsidies. That’s 8.9 
cents / kwh to most of us. (This assumes that the solar Investment Tax 
Credit is not extended.)…How has that forecast worked out? Well, in 
Austin, Greentech Media reports that there are 1.2GW of bids for solar 
plants at less than $40/mwh, or 4c/kwh. And there are bids on the table 
for buildouts after the ITC goes away at similar prices. Ramez Naam


So why does this matter? That predictions about something as complex as 
energy markets are always wrong shouldn't come as much of a surprise.


Yet, as Jeff Deyette, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, 
told ThinkProgress about the EIA forecasts, “real policies are being 
designed around these assumptions.”


This becomes particularly troubling when the assumptions consistently 
favor investment in fossil fuels, and shortchange the potential of 
renewables.


Steve Yetiv and Lowell Feld break it down further in an important 
article for the Journal of Energy Security called, “Why Energy 
Forecasting Goes Wildly Wrong.”


Why does any of this matter, and why should any of us care if 
energy forecasts are off base most of the time? To the extent that 
policymakers believe erroneous forecasts, they can make wildly incorrect 
policy choices. For instance, if they believe that oil prices will 
remain far lower in the future than is the case, their forecasts will 
undermine efforts to conserve or to switch to alternatives. Why would 

[Biofuel] Clean disruption? Stanford group plans for 100% green-energy future - Canada - CBC News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/clean-disruption-renewable-energy-canada-1.3470590

[video, images and links in on-line article]


Clean disruption? Stanford group plans for 100% green-energy future

Green analysts say fossil-fuel industry could be obsolete by 2030 as 
clean energy takes over


By James Roberts, CBC News

Posted: Mar 02, 2016 11:00 AM ET Last Updated: Mar 02, 2016 12:19 PM ET

An environmental research team from the prestigious Stanford University 
in California has calculated exactly how Canada can move away from 
fossil fuels, transitioning to a totally clean-energy future through 
existing technologies.


But the assertion that this transition is just over a decade away is the 
source of hot debate.


The Solutions Project has evaluated the wind, water and solar (WWS) 
potential for all 50 U.S. states and 139 countries around the world, 
including Canada, providing data on the costs and benefits for each nation.


The goal of the group — which is backed by Hollywood heavyweights Mark 
Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio — is to ultimately move the world toward 
100-per-cent renewable energy use.


After measuring Canada's clean-energy resources, the Stanford team says 
Canada can reach this goal through the following breakdown:


58 per cent wind.
22 per cent solar.
16 per cent hydro.
Two per cent wave.
Two per cent geothermal.

"That would power Canada for all purposes," says Mark Jacobson, a 
co-founder of the Solutions Project and a civil and environmental 
engineering professor at Stanford University, in the heart of Silicon 
Valley.


"I feel we know it's technically and economically possible to transition 
the energy infrastructure, which is built primarily on fossil fuels and 
nuclear power, to entirely clean, reliable and safe renewable energy," 
he says.


"In all sectors — electricity, transportation, heating and cooling, 
agriculture, forestry and fishing — we can transition all those sectors 
to clean, renewable energy at reasonable cost and make it reliable and 
make it secure for generations to come."

Eliminating fossil fuels

While Jacobson and the Solutions Project believe that 80 per cent of all 
energy will be renewable by 2030, there are some, like Stanford business 
professor Tony Seba, who say this could happen even faster.


Seba, whose advice has been sought in boardrooms from Tokyo to Paris, is 
confident that solar and wind are key to sweeping away the industrial 
age of transportation and energy — and fast. He suggests we can reach 
that magic number of 100 per cent within 15 years.


"The solar-installed capacity has doubled every two years since the year 
2000. Doubled every two years," he says. "If you keep doubling that 
capacity, all you need is seven more doublings in order for solar to be 
100 per cent of the world's energy supply."


Seba — also author of Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation — 
points to the demise of Kodak in 2012 to illustrate what he sees as an 
impending market disruption in the energy sector.


In the blink of an eye, Kodak, the world's top film-photography company, 
was forced into bankruptcy by advances in digital photography and 
photo-sharing.


Seba cites bankruptcies in in the coal industry as the "start of the 
end" for the non-renewable energy sector. According to Bloomberg 
Business, five major U.S. coal companies have filed for bankruptcy over 
the last two years.


What's more, the low cost of oil has not slowed investment in clean 
energy: $367 billion US was invested in green energy in 2015, the 
Solutions Project says, compared to $253 billion US for fossil fuels.

Silicon Valley driving the transition

Silicon Valley, home to two of the world's most-valuable companies, 
Apple and Google, is making the case that software engineers and venture 
capitalists, the people who ushered in the digital revolution, are on 
the verge of another breakthrough — this time in energy.


The suggestion is that the combination of falling prices for solar 
power, energy storage and electric vehicles will create serious 
challenges for fossil-fuel companies in the coming years.


"There's going to be a moment over the next five years where electric 
cars will be cheaper than the gasoline cars," says Seba. "But, also, 
it's going to be 10 times cheaper to charge on a per kilometre basis, 
and it's also 10 to 100 times cheaper to maintain because the electric 
vehicle has one per cent of the moving parts."


At this point, 20 U.S. states have reached what economists call "grid 
parity" for solar power: the point at which solar energy costs no more 
than fossil fuels. Energy research company GTM estimates 42 states will 
reach that point by 2020.


Meanwhile, the cost of wind power has fallen 61 per cent since 2009 and 
is still falling.


Adding up the benefits

"No oil. No gas. No coal. And nuclear would be retired. It's all wind, 
water and solar powering Canada, 100 per cent," says Jacobson.


Such an energy mix 

[Biofuel] Graph of the Day: The myth about energy subsidies : Renew Economy

[Darryl McMahon]

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/graph-of-the-day-the-myth-about-energy-subsidies-31976

Graph of the Day: The myth about energy subsidies

By Giles Parkinson on 25 February 2016

Ever hear the story about why renewable energy can’t compete without a 
subsidy? You hear it all the time from the fossil fuel industry. And the 
response from renewables? Take away fossil fuel subsidies, and they’d be 
glad to compete on level terms.


This graph below, displayed today by David Hochschild, a commissioner 
with the California Energy Commission, at the Energy Productivity Summer 
Study in Sydney, illustrates why the fossil fuel and nuclear industries 
don’t want that to happen.


Studies by the International Energy Agency point out that global 
subsidies for fossil fuels outstrip those for renewable energy nearly 
10-fold. The International Monetary Fund said if climate and 
environmental costs were included, then the fossil fuel subsides 
increased another 10 times to nearly $5 trillion a year.


[http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/david-subsidies.jpg] 
 [shows oil subsidies as $447 billion, nuclear as $185 billion, 
biofuels as $32 billion and renewables as $6 billion]


This graph, that Hochschild sourced from DBL Investors, shows the 
accumulated energy subsidies in the US under federal programs. Oil and 
gas dominate, followed by nuclear. Federal renewable energy subsidies, 
in the form of investment and tax credits, are a small fraction.


“The fossil fuel industry hates to talk about that,” Hochschild told 
RenewEconomy in an interview after his presentation.


“There is a myth around subsidies, but there is no such thing as an 
unsubsidised unit of energy.”


He said the oil depletion allowance had been in place for the oil 
industry since 1926, and would be ongoing, despite the fact it was one 
of the most profitable industries in the world. He cited insurance costs 
for nuclear plants – met by taxpayers – “without which there would be no 
nuclear plants”.


For natural gas, it was the drilling, or fracking, which had been made 
exempt from compliance with the safe drinking water act: “That is 
subsidy,” he said. And he pointed to taxpayer funded rail networks that 
have helped coal.


By contrast, the large-scale wind and solar industries in the US have 
had to content with repeated changes to their federal support 
mechanisms. The tax credits have been changed seven times in a decade.


“How can you plan a wind turbine factory or project in those types of 
conditions,” he asked.


And he used this graph to illustrate the short-term nature of the 
subsidies that renewable energy does get. And the biggest benefit. “You 
put subsidies in renewable energy and costs go down” to the point where 
they are not needed any more. That has not happened with fossil fuels 
and nuclear.


[http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/david-susbidies-time.jpg]
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[Biofuel] ​Bird poop apparently caused New York nuclear reactor outage - CBS News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-poop-apparently-caused-new-york-nuclear-reactor-outage/

[images and links in on-line article]

 CBS/AP March 3, 2016, 6:04 PM

​Bird poop apparently caused New York nuclear reactor outage

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Bird poop was the likely cause of a December shutdown at 
a nuclear power plant outside New York City, according to the operator.


An Indian Point reactor safely shut down for three days starting Dec. 14 
following an electrical disturbance on outdoor high voltage transmission 
lines, Entergy Corp. said. An outside expert is analyzing whether what's 
technically called bird "streaming" was the culprit.


In a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month, the New 
Orleans-based company said the automatic reactor shutdown was apparently 
from bird excrement that caused an electric arc between wires on a 
feeder line at a transmission tower.


"If it has nowhere to send its electricity, the generator senses that 
and automatically shuts down," Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said.


Plant managers told the NRC they were revising preventive maintenance 
for additional inspection and cleaning and installing bird guards on 
transmission towers.


Nappi said he couldn't recall a similar incident in the past several 
years from birds at Indian Point, which is located along the Hudson 
River north of New York City. He didn't immediately know what type of 
bird was suspected. No carcass was found, he said.


Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Eliot Brenner said it's not 
uncommon for wildlife to trigger electrical outages on transmission 
lines regardless of the generation source of the electricity. "Squirrels 
are the biggest offenders," he said.


He didn't know if the NRC was specifically tracking animal-related 
reactor outages. "They're kind of few and far between, but certainly not 
unheard of," he said.


A recent radioactive leak at the plant had prompted renewed calls for 
the site to be shut down, amid growing concerns about the potential 
damage a nuclear accident could cause in one of the most densely 
populated parts of the country.


In the past year alone there have been a number of mishaps at Indian 
Point, including a power failure in the reactor core, a transformer 
fire, an alarm failure, and the escape of radiated water into 
groundwater. The plant sits about 25 miles north of New York City.


Neil Sheehan, a representative for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, told CBS News last month that the NRC is continuing to 
review the recent tritium leakage at Indian Point.


"We recently sent a radiation protection specialist to the plant to 
assess the situation and learn more about what happened. He was assisted 
by our three Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant on a full-time 
basis," he said in an email.


NRC is also currently reviewing Indian Point's renewal license, which 
would authorize it to continue operating for another 20 years. But 
environmental groups say the region needs to utilize other options to 
meet its energy needs.

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[Biofuel] Microsoft Word - Declaration SommetCC ANG.doc - Vancouver_Declaration_clean_Growth_Climate_Change.pdf

[Darryl McMahon]

https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/Vancouver_Declaration_clean_Growth_Climate_Change.pdf

[8 pages]

From the Declaration:

First Ministers commit to:

• Implement GHG mitigation policies in support of meeting or exceeding
Canada’s 2030 target of a 30% reduction below 2005 levels of emissions,
including specific provincial and territorial targets and objectives;

• Increase the level of ambition of environmental policies over time in 
order to drive greater GHG emissions reductions, consistent with the 
Paris Agreement;


• Better coordinate GHG emissions reporting systems among jurisdictions
to accurately and transparently assess the progress and the impact of 
our climate actions towards our respective and collective targets.


…

First Ministers commit to:

• Transition to a low carbon economy by adopting a broad range of
domestic measures, including carbon pricing mechanisms, adapted to each 
province’s and territory’s specific circumstances, in particular the 
realities of Canada’s Indigenous peoples and Arctic and sub-Arctic 
regions. The transition also requires that Canada engage internationally;


• Foster investments in clean technologies to reduce the GHG emissions 
associated with the production and consumption of energy, including 
renewable and alternative energy, energy efficiency and storage, and 
other technologies which may include carbon capture and storage;


…

Recognizing that Canada has already experienced severe impacts of 
climate change, including forest fires, droughts, flooding, coastal 
erosion, thawing permafrost, invasive species, and the spread of 
diseases previously foreign to Canada;

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[Biofuel] Nova Scotia Off-shore Oil Drilling - Operation Incident on the Stena IceMAX drill ship

[Darryl McMahon]

[taken from http://www.cnsopb.ns.ca/media/incident-bulletins]

March 7, 2016

On Saturday, March 5, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board 
was notified of an Operational Incident on the Stena IceMAX drill ship.


Shell Canada Limited has advised the following:

On Saturday, March 5, the rig drilling Shell Canada Limited’s Cheshire 
exploration well 225 km offshore Nova Scotia successfully disconnected 
from the well in advance of severe weather. Precautionary procedures 
were taken and completed prior to the severe weather, including 
isolating the well using the blowout preventer (BOP) system. Shortly 
after the rig moved away from the well location, high waves and heave 
caused the riser tensioner system to release, resulting in the riser and 
lower marine riser package, which connect the rig to the well during 
drilling, to fall to the seabed. A survey of the BOP using a 
remotely-operated vehicle confirmed that the BOP is intact and in good 
condition.


There were no injuries, and the content of the riser had already been 
replaced with seawater so there was no loss of drilling fluid. The 
Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB) and Canadian Coast 
Guard were notified promptly of the incident.


Shell and the rig operator Stena will be undertaking an investigation to 
understand the contributing causes of the event and will continue to 
share information with the CNSOPB.


CNSOPB personnel are being dispatched to the drill ship as part of its 
review of this incident.


For further information, please contact:

Shell Canada Media Relations:
media-d...@shell.com
1-877-850-5023 FREE
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[Biofuel] BELECTRIC Begins Production of Energy Storage for Grid Frequency Response in Germany - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/belectric-begins-production-of-energy-storage-for-grid-frequency-response-in-germany.html

[links in on-line article]

BELECTRIC Begins Production of Energy Storage for Grid Frequency 
Response in Germany


March 4, 2016

By Renewable Energy World Editors

U.K.-based BELECTRIC said on March 1 that it has begun volume production 
of its energy buffer unit (EBU) energy storage system for use in 
frequency regulation projects in the German transmission network this year.


The company said its energy storage system was qualified for frequency 
response in Germany by the German transmission network operator in 2015, 
and the first EBU was installed at the Alt Daber Solar Power Plant in 
Brandenburg.


According to BELECTRIC, the EBU has been offering its services on the 
primary frequency response market on a weekly basis.


“Over its 10 months of operation, we have proved the Alt Daber battery 
system’s excellent ability to improve transmission network stability 
through fast response to frequency fluctuations caused by generators or 
interconnection trips,” Bernhard Beck, executive chairman of BELECTRIC, 
said in a statement. “We are confident in the quality of our turnkey 
storage system, its attractive price, and its ability to provide 
ancillary grid services throughout transmission networks in Europe and 
worldwide.”


BELECTRIC’s lead-acid battery design is available in nameplate power 
capacities between 800 kW and 1400 kW, and with a storage capacity of 
948 kWh.

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[Biofuel] Canada may already be carbon neutral, so why are we keeping it a secret? | Financial Post

[Darryl McMahon]

http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/canada-may-already-be-carbon-neutral-so-why-are-we-keeping-it-a-secret

[An argument for business as usual for Canada on the climate change front.]

F. Larry Martin, Special to Financial Post | March 2, 2016 4:40 PM ET

Here’s a seemingly simple question: Is Canada a net carbon dioxide 
emitter? You would think so from reading news headlines. We’ve earned 
the scorn of environmentalists, NGOs, and media outlets galore, labelled 
with such juvenile epithets as “fossil of the year” or “corrupt 
petro-state.”


Sadly, lost in all the hyperbole is the actual science. There is nothing 
quantitative about the vague idea that, as a “progressive nation,” 
Canada should be expected to “do more” to fight climate change.


But therein lies the rub; Canada is poised to immediately do more to 
combat climate change than almost every other country in the world. How, 
you ask? Well, by doing more of the same. If that sounds ludicrous, let 
me explain.


Most Canadians would agree that our response to climate change needs to 
be scientifically sound, environmentally sustainable and financially 
realistic, as well as global, comprehensive, and holistic. Right now, 
our approach is none of those things; the public discourse is driven by 
a myopic, ideological obsession with carbon emissions alone. What else 
is there, you ask?


The answer comes from the most recent report (2014) of the Global Carbon 
Project, which states that global human-induced CO2 emissions were 36 
billion tonnes. Of that, 36 per cent stayed in the atmosphere, 27 per 
cent was absorbed by water, and 37 per cent was absorbed by land.


That’s right — absorbed by land! Not all CO2 emitted by people stays in 
the atmosphere. Much of it returns to the earth, mainly through the 
carbon absorption and sequestration power of plants, soil, and trees.


A conservative estimate of Canada’s existing carbon-absorption capacity, 
based on land area and the global carbon-absorption average, indicates 
that Canada could already be absorbing 20 to 30 per cent more CO2 than 
we emit. Using the same calculation, the “Big Four” polluters of China, 
the U.S., the European Union, and India, which together are responsible 
for a whopping 60 per cent of global CO2 emissions, release 10 times 
more CO2 than their combined land area absorbs. Canada doesn’t seem very 
dirty now, do we?


So when was the last time you heard a Canadian political leader, let 
alone the media, talk about our carbon-absorption capacity? Probably 
never, because we are currently ignoring that side of the equation, for 
a couple reasons.


First, there is insufficient political will. The government’s top 
experts need a mandate to pursue in-depth measurement of CO2 absorption. 
Recently, Canada’s federal and provincial auditors general announced a 
joint audit of the country’s carbon emissions. But what credible audit 
would examine only half a balance sheet? There’s no reason why they 
shouldn’t audit our absorption capacity, too. How much CO2 did our 
forests and land absorb? Do some trees and topographies perform better 
than others? In short, what is Canada’s carbon balance?


Second, it’s contrary to the interests of urbanized, overpopulated, 
deforested places in Europe, Asia & the Middle East to allow vast, 
sparsely populated, forested countries like Canada to set the climate 
change agenda. It doesn’t help them whatsoever for Canada to claim our 
fair share of the world’s carbon absorption capacity, and emerge as one 
of the planet’s climate leaders.


If Europe and our other traditional “Western Allies” won’t acknowledge 
the free ride that we are providing them by protecting our forests and 
thus subsidizing their emissions, it’s time for Canada to find climate 
allies who understand us and share our needs. It’s time for some Green 
Realpolitik.


We should seek out new alliances with other large, forested countries, 
starting with Russia, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina, 
Indonesia, and Peru. These countries, and many others, will all benefit 
from a new approach that rewards carbon absorption, and would bring 
diverse cultural voices and political interests together around this 
important climate issue.


Many people in these countries have to choose between their forests and 
their livelihoods, as they scramble to survive the day. Some of them 
still clear-cut or burn their forests for the sake of agriculture or 
industry. But what if they no longer had to choose between planet and 
profit?


Imagine the kind of eco-friendly economy that DRC Congo, Peru, or any 
other forested country could build by generating carbon credits to sell 
to Dubai, Singapore, or Luxembourg. Countries on the receiving end of 
cap-and-trade credits could build entire green economies around 
conservation, not consumption. Financial pressure to deforest would 
subside, replaced with incentives to manage our forests and preserve 
their attendant 

[Biofuel] Utility Solar Blog : Oh Canada! NB Power turns renewable energy into firm power

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.solarelectricpower.org/utility-solar-blog/2016/february/oh-canada!-nb-power-turns-renewable-energy-into-firm-power.aspx

 Oh Canada! NB Power turns renewable energy into firm power
Thursday February 25, 2016

By Bob Gibson

Speaking at the opening session of the DistribuTECH conference in 
Orlando on Feb. 9, Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy 
Finance, noted that 2015 marked the first time that renewable energy 
attracted more global capital than fossil fuel generation.


Clearly, he said, “those years when we could refer to renewable energy 
as ‘alternative’ are well and truly over.”


The catch, Liebreich said, is that adding clean but variable power 
complicates the business of delivering electricity.


“(Renewable energy) is not easy to manage,” he said. “But (given price 
trends) if it’s that cheap, utility after utility will have to buy at 
least some and figure out how to integrate it.”


In fact, the job of managing the impact of solar and wind on the 
electric distribution grid dominated DistribuTECH, reverberating across 
the conference’s 14 education tracks and more than 500 vendor booths.


Much attention has been paid to the technology tools -- such as advanced 
inverters or battery storage -- that can mask or mitigate the 
variability of renewables on the distribution grid. But conference 
attendees also heard about an alternative and potentially powerful 
approach now gaining traction -- a modern twist on the art of load 
management, using control of the electricity load to turn variable 
renewable resources into firm ones.


New Brunswick (NB) Power, the government utility serving the Canadian 
province on the Atlantic coast, has the kind of renewable power problem 
that Liebreich was talking about. The Canadian Maritimes region -- which 
includes New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island -- has a 
rich wind resource. With the price of wind power falling to a very 
competitive level, the utility has added almost 300 megawatts (MW) of 
wind capacity in recent years, and much more is on the way.


But NB Power can’t count on wind to deliver power at the exact times 
customers want it. On cold winter mornings, the utility can see a 700-MW 
ramp in customer demand in a two-hour period. On a system with a 
2,800-MW peak and limited fast-start generation options, NB Power is 
often forced to run expensive diesel and inefficient coal generation to 
cover the gap.


Through PowerShift Atlantic, an innovative load management program 
covering the three Maritime provinces, NB Power has launched a pilot 
program that found 3 MW of renewable firming capacity. Specifically, the 
utility uses a communications system that allows it to directly manage 
the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems of small and 
medium-sized commercial buildings, as well as the pumping equipment of 
municipal water systems.


“NB Power said to these customers, ‘You are now part of our renewable 
energy program,’ even though most of them had no renewables of their 
own,” said Bud Vos, CEO of Enbala.


The company supplied the communications system that shifts the utility’s 
customer load in real-time by following fluctuations both on the grid 
and from the fleet of wind turbines. The shifting and shedding of loads 
are automated and designed to be invisible to the customer, with no 
impact on comfort or operations.


Filling the gaps in variable generation

The control system turns the variable wind resource into a firm one by 
offsetting the difference between day-ahead wind forecasts and actual 
wind output on a 15-minute interval basis. It fine-tunes the energy use 
of the connected devices to respond to dispatch requests from the 
utility. This load reshaping is accomplished through measures such as 
preheating buildings ahead of a peak or modulating water pressure in the 
pipes at the water treatment plants.


“Our software models how we can use the customer-sited resources to fill 
the gaps that the system will see as wind output and overall demand 
changes,” said Vos. “We create a virtual power plant.”


The utility network sees the aggregated demand-side assets as a single, 
dispatchable resource that it uses to smooth the variability of the wind 
output.


“Now the utility dispatcher no longer chases wind. The wind has become a 
fixed asset,” he continued. “We’re on the other side chasing load.”


While the pilot includes only 30 commercial customers and 2,000 
controllable devices, Vos said that the value of the demand management 
system will increase with the addition of more commercial customers and 
an expanded palette of devices. The list of potential power sources 
includes chillers, compressors, fans and motors, plus end-use loads such 
as electric water heaters on the residential side.


“We love load diversity. You don’t want all the devices to be acting at 
the same time, in the same place,” said Vos.


NB Power plans to increase its renewable energy -- adding 

[Biofuel] Low Heating Oil Prices Depress Domestic Wood Pellet Market - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/02/low-heating-oil-prices-depress-domestic-wood-pellet-market.html

[links in on-line article]

Low Heating Oil Prices Depress Domestic Wood Pellet Market

February 29, 2016

By Bruce Dorminey

Plunging crude oil prices continue to depress the domestic wood pellet 
market, with residential consumers both in the U.S. and Canada finding 
themselves opting for conventional heating oil rather than their pellet 
stoves, say industry experts. With crude oil prices hovering around $30 
a barrel, however, domestic wood pellet producers have been hard-pressed 
to profit from an unusually cold winter in much of the Northeast.


Almost all industrial wood pellet production in the U.S. takes place in 
the Southeast. And when used for industrial power production, the cost 
for pellets per BTU is still cheaper than any other renewable energy 
source, according to Gordon Murray, executive director of the Wood 
Pellet Association of Canada.


In fact, most of the industrial pellets originating in the Southeast are 
derived from Southern Yellow Pine plantations that were originally meant 
as pulp for paper, says William Strauss, a U.S.-based economist and wood 
pellet consultant at FutureMetrics in Maine.


“Yet paper is a dying industry and so these trees are now going to 
pellet mills,” he said.


From there, the pellets head to Europe to be co-fired in coal-burning 
electrical plants in order for European utilities to meet government 
carbon emissions standards. These pellets, Strauss said, are going to 
utilities that are already engaged with some sort of policy that 
supports the use of wood pellets in their plants.


As a result, the price of oil on the global industrial wood pellet 
market has little or no effect.


Growth in the industrial wood pellet market is all policy based; it’s 
all about carbon mitigation policies, Strauss said. He noted that 
whenever new CO2-limiting policies come into play, they open up the 
possibility of using wood pellets either in some co-firing blend ratio, 
or even 100 percent pellets in some power stations.


Worldwide, Murray said, about half of wood pellets are used to make 
power and about half are used for heat in residential and commercial 
institutional heating. In North America, he noted, some 95 percent of 
pellets are used for heat production.


In 2016, the U.S. is projected to export about 7.3 million tons of wood 
pellets; add Canada, and that figure comes to some 9.5 million tons, 
Strauss said. He noted that the spot price for industrial pellets is 
about $160 FOB (freight on board) per metric ton. That price doesn’t 
include transatlantic shipping costs, which can also benefit from lower 
oil prices.


In contrast, the domestic wood pellet heating market in the U.S. only 
amounts to about 3-4 million metric tons per year.


Not surprisingly, Murray said that heating oil still has the vast 
majority of the market in the Northeast and Atlantic provinces of Canada.


“In the residential market, in the Northeast U.S., low crude oil prices 
have translated into low costs for heating oil,” Murray said.


So for the first time in many years, he said, it has actually become 
less expensive to buy heating oil than wood pellets, which, in turn, has 
slowed down the number of households totally converting from heating oil 
to wood pellets.


That change would reduce new conversions from heating oil to pellet 
stoves, but it wouldn’t necessarily result in a reverse conversion, 
contends Michele Rebiere, CFO at Viridis Energy, a Canadian company that 
also operates a U.S. division. Meanwhile, she said there are a small 
percentage of households who have access to both and may opt out of use 
of pellets during this period.


Even so, Murray noted that for residential domestic heating, natural gas 
remains the cheapest alternative, most recently followed by heating oil 
and wood pellets, then propane. Although coal is still co-fired in power 
plants, it has been outlawed for home heating across most sectors of the 
globe.


As for the residential pellet market in the U.S.?

“This has been a very challenging winter,” Strauss said. “In Maine, some 
65 percent of households are using heating oil right now because it’s 20 
percent cheaper than pellets. A year ago, heating oil was $4 a gallon. 
Now it’s $1.5 a gallon.”


Strauss said that when heating oil hits a $2-per-gallon price point it 
means that in terms of BTUs per dollar spent, pellets and heating oil 
are at parity. At the moment, however, the average price for residential 
pellets in Maine is hovering around $250 per ton.


Ninety percent of wood pellets for residential heating are used in wood 
pellet stoves, Strauss said, noting that a typical pellet stove user in 
the U.S. Northeast goes through about 3.5-4.5 tons of pellets per year. 
He said that owners who opt to use cheaper heating oil simply revert to 
using their existing heating oil boilers in their basements.

[Biofuel] Aliso Canyon Released 97, 000 Tons of Methane, Biggest U.S. Leak Ever, Study Says | InsideClimate News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022016/socal-gas-hedges-measuring-its-methane-leak-new-study-gives-it-big-number


Aliso Canyon Released 97,000 Tons of Methane, Biggest U.S. Leak Ever, 
Study Says


As SoCal Gas hedges on estimating the size of the disaster, a study it 
funded says not only can the leak be measured, but gave it a staggering 
number.


By Phil McKenna, InsideClimate News

Feb 25, 2016



The leak from Southern California Gas Co.'s Aliso Canyon storage unit 
totaled 97,100 metric tons of natural gas, making it the largest release 
of uncombusted methane in U.S. history, according to a peer-reviewed 
study published Thursday in the journal Science.


SoCal Gas, however, joined two other California utilities in telling 
state regulators that there is no established method for estimating 
methane releases in catastrophic gas-system failures. That filing on 
Feb. 17 incensed environmental groups including the Environmental 
Defense Fund and drew a rebuke from one of the Science study’s lead authors.


"I’m going to call bullshit on that," said Stephen Conley, an 
atmospheric scientist at the University of California, Davis. The study, 
mostly funded by SoCal Gas, used measurements of methane concentrations 
taken from an airplane flying downwind from the leak to calculate the 
volume of leaked gas.


Determining the amount of leaked methane, the primary component of 
natural gas, has important financial and climate implications.  Methane 
is a powerful greenhouse gas, 84 times more potent at warming the 
earth's atmosphere over 20 years than carbon dioxide. On Jan. 6, Gov. 
Jerry Brown ordered SoCal Gas to pay for climate mitigation efforts 
equal to the total volume of methane emitted. The leak went on for 3½ 
months until the well was capped on Feb. 11.


Conley cited several ways of calculating the volume of leaked gas. One 
is the method he and his colleagues used, measuring downwind methane 
concentrations and factoring in things like wind direction and wind speed.


A second method would have required adding an easily detectable chemical 
to gas in the storage facility before it escaped from the leaking well, 
he said, but SoCal Gas had not added that chemical.


Another option is for SoCal Gas to measure the volume of gas left in its 
storage facility and compare that with the amount there before the leak, 
adjusting for volumes injected and withdrawn since the emissions began. 
In a letter to Timothy Sullivan, executive director of the California 
Public Utilities Commission, SoCal Gas senior vice president Jimmie Cho 
indicated on Jan. 22 the company has at least some knowledge and 
capacity to measure its Aliso Canyon inventory.


The gas company said in a press release on Jan. 6 it would comply with 
the governor’s order to mitigate the climate effects. "SoCal Gas 
reaffirms our prior commitment to mitigate the environmental impact of 
the actual amount of natural gas released from the leak," it said.


In a joint filing by SoCal Gas, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and 
Southwest Gas Corp., on Feb. 17, the companies said, "In the event of 
catastrophic pipeline failures, the Joint Utilities are not aware of any 
established methodology that could be used to determine the release of 
methane."


In response to questions from InsideClimate News, SoCal Gas spokeswoman 
Tammy Taylor said in an email, "The statement refers to the fact that 
there is no generally agreed upon method to measure emissions from 
catastrophic events. It does not mean that the amount of natural gas 
emitted from the Aliso Canyon incident, or other catastrophic events, 
cannot be measured."


The language in the filing nonetheless angered environmentalists who 
have called for greater transparency in reporting methane emissions.


"They continue to say they are going to make it right, they are going to 
mitigate the emissions," said Timothy O’Connor, director of the 
Environmental Defense Fund’s California oil and gas program. "But where 
the rubber hits the road they use purposeful arguments to backtrack and 
undercut what they have said in the public."


EDF, which helped bring attention to the leak with infrared camera 
footage that captured the magnitude of the emissions, filed a response 
Wednesday to the gas utilities' joint filing.


"The Joint Utilities also make the claim that they are 'unaware of any 
established methodology used to determine the release of methane,'" EDF 
said in the document. "However, this point seems inaccurate insofar as 
SoCal Gas has funded, and thus is aware of, the measurements taken by 
airplanes, towers and satellites at Aliso Canyon. Similarly, this 
purports to run counter to express statements of SoCal Gas that they 
themselves can measure the size and will mitigate the catastrophic leak 
at Aliso Canyon."


In a separate filing Wednesday, the utility companies said, 
"Establishing a methodology for measuring emissions from such unusual 
events is challenging and 

[Biofuel] Cancerous Monsanto Glyphosate Pesticides and the EPA Cover-Up | Top Secret Writers

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2016/01/cancerous-monsanto-glyphosate-pesticides-and-the-epa-cover-up/

[images and video in on-line article]

Cancerous Monsanto Glyphosate Pesticides and the EPA Cover-Up

SallyPainter

26 January 2016

For many, the recent World Health Organization (WHO) report on 
glyphosate being a probable carcinogen to humans is the big gun that has 
the potential of blasting the monopolizing GMO giant Monsanto out of the 
agricultural waters.


That’s because glyphosate is the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup 
herbicide. Anti-GMO advocates have cited plenty of evidence given in 
multiple scientific studies in the past, but some of the most 
incriminating evidence has been obscured and hidden from the public 
according to a recent report that followed the scientific research arm 
of WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).


For decades, Monsanto has countered and discredited any scientist and 
subsequent study voicing similar findings as the WHO recently published. 
TSW reported on the revelation that Monsanto has an entire department 
devoted to discrediting scientists and their research on the harmful 
effects of glyphosate (1).


Sustainable Business (SB) is one of the media outlets reporting that 
Monsanto and the EPA covered up the connection between glyphosate and 
cancer. A cover-up that the publication states spans 35 years. SB points 
to “research published in the Journal of Biological Physics and 
Chemistry” (2).


The SB states that, “Monsanto never reported a decades-worth of studies 
that showed animals exposed to glyphosate in their food developed cancer 
in multiple organs, and many died.”


Quoting from the research paper, SB published the research team’s 
findings, “Monsanto’s own early studies revealed some trends in animal 
models that should not have been ignored. 40 years of glyphosate 
exposure have provided a living laboratory where humans are the guinea 
pigs and the outcomes are alarmingly apparent.”


Accusations of Forty-Year Cancer Causing Glyphosate Cover-Up

Sustainable Business quotes the GM-Free Cymru (Wales GMO activist group) 
spokesperson Brian John that summarizes the EPA and Monsanto cover-up.


John stated, “In 1981, both Monsanto and the EPA were aware of 
malignant tumours and pre-cancerous conditions in test animals given 
doses of glyphosate in secret feeding experiments. Although concerns 
were expressed by EPA committees, they were suppressed while Monsanto 
was allowed to bring forward a range of cynically manipulated and 
fraudulent studies purporting to show that glyphosate was harmless. None 
of these studies has been made available for independent examination. 
That is a scandal in itself. If Monsanto and the EPA had acted in a 
precautionary fashion back then, glyphosate would never have been 
licensed, and hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved.”


The paper made available by author Anthony Samsel on November 4, 2015 
also co-authored by Stephanie Seneff and titled, “Glyphosate, pathways 
to modern diseases IV: cancer and related pathologies”. They wrote their 
paper based on reviewing research literature with the goal of evaluating 
“the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate” (3).


Samsel is credited as having “petitioned the EPA” for documents dating 
from the 1970s and 1980s. These were experiments that Monsanto conducted 
for evaluations on “whether glyphosate is safe for human consumption.”


The researchers states that, “Glyphosate has a large number of 
tumorigenic effects on biological systems, including direct damage to 
DNA insensitive cells, disruption of glycine homeostasis, succinate 
dehydrogenase inhibition, chelation of manganese, modification to more 
carcinogenic molecules such as N-nitrosoglyphosate and glyoxylate, 
disruption of fructose metabolism, etc.”


Also, they relate that, “Epidemiological evidence supports strong 
temporal correlations between glyphosate usage on crops and a multitude 
of cancers that are reaching epidemic proportions, including breast 
cancer, pancreatic cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid cancer, liver cancer, 
bladder cancer and myeloid leukaemia.”


They also write, “Here, we support these correlations through an 
examination of Monsanto’s early studies on glyphosate, and explain how 
the biological effects of glyphosate could induce each of these cancers. 
We believe that the available evidence warrants a reconsideration of the 
risk/benefit trade-off with respect to glyphosate usage to control 
weeds, and we advocate much stricter regulation of glyphosate.”


Declassification of Glyphosate Class C Carcinogen

The Samsel and Seneff study revealed that the information contained in 
Monsanto’s glyphosate studies submitted to the EPA in the 1980s on rats 
and mice showed changes in the kidneys associated with chronic 
progressive neuropathy (mostly in males).


“Statistically significant increases in tubular dilatation of the 
kidney” were noted 

[Biofuel] Nevada's 110 megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar project now fully online

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/technology/nevadas-110-mw-crescent-dunes-solar-project-goes-fully-online-162871/

[images in on-line article]

Nevada’s 110 megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar project now fully online

Thermal solar plant uses thousands of heliostats, molten salt solar 
energy tower to produce energy 24 hours a day


SANTA MONICA, Calif.—Jutting out of the rocky waste of the Great Basin 
Desert outside Tonopah, Nev., a 640-foot (195-metre) molten salt solar 
tower— circled by a series of more than 10,000 heliostat mirrors—is now 
pumping 110 megawatts of clean energy into the western state’s 
electricity grid.


SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, which began testing 
its generation capabilities last fall after construction was completed, 
has now reached full commercial production. The complex is the world’s 
first utility-scale project that incorporates an integrated energy 
storage system allowing it to continue creating clean power 24 hours a day.


“Crescent Dunes shows what the Silver State can accomplish with clean 
energy when we are serious about competing for investment in the global 
growth industry of the 21st century,” Harry Reid, the senior U.S. 
senator for Nev., said. “Nevada will benefit for decades as engineers 
and experts from around the world come to Tonopah to see what is 
possible when the public and private sectors come together to build the 
next generation of clean energy technology.”


Crescent Dunes produces energy by focusing the sun’s thermal energy on 
the approximately 640-foot molten salt tower receiver at the centre of 
the complex.


Coursing through the tower is solar-heated molten salt, which flows 
through the tower’s two receiver circuits at a rate of about 5,800 
gallons (about 22,000 litres) per minute. Inside the tower, the salts 
are heated from 550 F (288 C) to 1050 F (566 C). The scalding salt 
produces steam in the facility’s storage tank, which is used generate 
electricity.


After the sun goes down, the salt retains sufficient heat for up to 10 
hours, allowing it to continue producing power. Following significant 
testing, and now full operational results, the company says the solar 
tower and molten salt heat transfer system is performing in excess of 
initial expectations.


As engineers have finalized the operations of the Crescent Dunes 
project, SolarReserve has begun pursuing opportunities to employ the 
same technology around the world, saying the system has the potential to 
produce the same consistent, on-demand power as coal or natural gas 
plants, with none of the emissions. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based 
company also expects the climate goals set down at the COP21 Conference 
last year in Paris will help it build its market share overseas.


“The climate deal unveiled in Paris has the potential to catalyze a 
global energy transformation. It will further accelerate implementation 
of renewables around the world, including within emerging markets such 
as Africa, Latin America and Asia,” Kevin Smith, SolarReserve’s CEO, 
said. “As renewable energy penetration grows, the need for 
cost-effective, utility-scale renewable generation with storage 
technology is becoming increasingly important for mitigating 
intermittency problems, delivering power into peak demand periods and 
supporting transmission system reliability.”


SolarReserve has already secured a 100 MW project scheduled to begin 
construction in South Africa this year, as well as a 260 MW Chilean 
solar project that has received preliminary approvals from the South 
American country’s government. The company is actively pursuing 
opportunities in China and other solar energy growth markets as well.


Meanwhile, having reached commercial operation at Crescent Dunes, 
SolarReserve has begun fulfilling its obligations under a 25-year Power 
Purchase Agreement with Nevada’s largest electric utility, NV Energy.

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[Biofuel] PG signs agreement for 20MW flywheel energy storage system | Metering.com

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.metering.com/news/pge-signs-agreement-20mw-flywheel-energy-storage-system/


26 February 2016

PG signs agreement for 20MW flywheel energy storage system

PG has signed a multi-year energy services agreement with flywheel 
energy storage provider Amber Kinetics for provision of its Gen-2 
Flywheel storage systems.


The Californian-based utility contracted Amber Kinetics for 20 MW of 
storage using its four-hour duration Gen-2 Flywheel Systems. PG 
believes that steel flywheel technology will drive down pricing, while 
improving operational safety and flexibility for utility-scale energy 
storage.


Amber Kinetics’ Gen-2 Flywheel energy storage systems are reported to be 
the first four-hour discharge duration flywheels. Traditionally, 
commercial flywheel system capabilities were measured in minutes, with 
limited usefulness to electric utilities wanting to integrate renewables 
at transmission and microgrid levels.


Flywheel energy storage tech

Located in Union City in the San Francisco Bay Area in Alameda County, 
California, Amber Kinetics’ Gen-2 Flywheel energy storage systems offers 
crucial advantages over batteries.


The technology has unlimited cycling during their 30-year lifespan, and 
the flywheel systems have no degradation. The systems are 98% steel by 
weight, they pose no risk of fire, chemical explosion or hazardous 
materials release.


The flywheel energy storage systems are manufactured from readily 
available, abundant raw materials, and don’t require replacement at 
regular intervals. They are also significantly more cost effective than 
battery storage technology, claims the company.


Ed Chiao, chief executive at Amber Kinetics said: “Our flywheel systems 
are designed to be safe, sustainable and highly reliable.


“Our vision is to provide cost effective, flexible capacity for 
utilities looking to use storage to reduce costs and integrate renewable 
resources.”


Energy Nuevo

Amber Kinetics owns a 20 MW project, called Energy Nuevo, located in the 
city of Fresno was selected by PG in California’s first energy storage 
solicitation.


A company release adds that the Energy Nuevo project is believed to be 
one of the largest ever for a transmission level flywheel system. Energy 
Nuevo will provide energy storage under a 20-year energy services 
agreement, beginning in 2020.


The company is also in negotiations for up to 30 MW of energy storage 
systems with a Pacific Rim independent power producer, and in discussion 
for several pilot microgrid programs at US military installations.

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[Biofuel] EnergyMarketPrice | News details

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=19014

U.S. hit a stunning record in terms of solar PV installations in 2015

24/02/2016

The U.S. solar industry has broken another record, adding 7.3 GW of new 
generating capacity in 2015, according to figures released by GTM 
Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).


The data unveiled on Monday, represent an increase of over 1 GW of solar 
photovoltaic installations compared to 2014. Photovoltaic technology is 
able to directly convert sunlight into electricity. Last year, solar 
provided 29.5 per cent of all new electric generating capacity in the 
US, delivering a year-on-year growth rate of 17 per cent. For the first 
time, solar beat out natural gas capacity additions in 2015. The 
residential solar segment surpassed expectations, growing 66% year over 
year, and for the first time ever overtook 2 GW.


Meanwhile, the utility-scale sector grew by six per cent, and 
represented more than half of all solar PV installations in 2015. The 
USA’s cumulative solar PV installations had exceeded 25 GW by the end of 
2015 - more than twelve times installed capacity at the end of 2010 
(2GW). The U.S. solar market was driven by California, North Carolina, 
Nevada, Massachusetts, and New York. The market continued to diversify 
geographically, with 13 states installing more than 100 MW each in 2015. 
Utah jumped in ranking from No. 23 state to No. 7, and Georgia moved 
from 16th to eighth place. The U.S is on the track to hit a renewables 
boom following Congress' approval in December 2015 of tax credits for 
wind and solar projects, providing investors with a relatively stable 
investment climate through to 2020.

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[Biofuel] Australia's AGL invests US$20m in battery storage tech | Metering.com

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.metering.com/news/australias-agl-invests-us20m-battery-storage-tech/

15 February 2016

Australia’s AGL invests US$20m in battery storage tech

AGL Energy has invested US$20m in battery storage company Sunverge to 
accelerate its push into distributed generation, rooftop solar, storage 
and software.


AGL Energy is one of Australia’s largest integrated energy companies and 
has been investing in several businesses to broaden its appeal to the 
emerging home energy market.


AGL’s backing of Sunverge, says RenewEconomy, was announced at the 
company’s interim earnings presentation. The Australian energy provider 
also seeks to create a renewable energy investment fund aimed at 
building 1,000MW of new large-scale renewable energy capacity.


The US$20 million (A$28 million) Sunverge investment follows the 
purchase of a stake in Australian start-up Solar Analytics. The move 
coincided with the launch of a ‘solar’ component of AGL’s smart App, as 
it builds a customer base in the home energy market space to stay ahead 
of telcos such as Telstra from which competition is also emerging.

AGL investing in ‘new energy’

AGL’s managing director and CEO Andrew Vesey said that it invested in 
Sunverge as the company views it as an "emerging leader" in demand 
response management for "premises-based energy storage". Vesey described 
the deal as an ‘early mover advantage’ for AGL.


Apart from solar, storage and electric vehicles which is a major 
development area for AGL, the chief executive is also “attracted to the 
idea of a ‘virtual power plant’, where AGL could tap into the battery 
storage systems of – say – one million customers,” adds RenewEconomy.


The battery storage solutions provider is said to be involved in battery 
storage trial in more than 30 home in three Queensland towns with Ergon 
Energy.


Vesey has also said that AGL has been selling a small number of 
batteries to it clients for household use, and is rapidly increasing 
sales of rooftop solar to consumers.


In Australia, sales of rooftop solar panels to households was up 2.5 
fold from a year ago. AGL claims that it is now among the top three 
retailers of solar PV in the last quarter of 2015.


Vesey suggested that battery storage was the “big game changer” in home 
energy systems, with the likelihood of price reductions in the future.


Vesey said: “The future is increasingly based on decentralised products 
and services including digital metering, solar PV systems, as well as 
new technologies such as batteries, electric vehicles and other ‘beyond 
the meter’ energy solutions.”

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[Biofuel] Washington asks if railroads could afford $700M oil train spill | Bellingham Herald

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article60156446.html

February 13, 2016 6:28 AM

Washington asks if railroads could afford $700M oil train spill

Three new rail safety rules scheduled to take effect March 11

Railroads must show they have means to pay for a ‘reasonable worst case 
spill’


Railroads disagree with new rule methods and question state authority

By Samantha Wohlfeil

swohlf...@bhamherald.com

Railroads that haul oil trains through Washington state will need to 
report whether they could afford around $700 million to pay for a 
derailment and spill, under a recently finalized state rule.


As announced Feb. 9, the requirement is one of three oil train safety 
rules the state Utilities and Transportation Commission crafted as 
required under legislation that state lawmakers passed in 2015.


The new rules, which take effect March 11:

▪  Require signs with basic safety information be posted at private rail 
crossings along routes that carry full or empty oil trains.


▪  Allow certain cities such as Bellingham, Aberdeen, Spokane, Tacoma, 
and Richland to opt into a state rail crossing inspection program to get 
free assistance with inspections.


▪  Require railroads to include financial information in their annual 
report to the UTC to show if they could address a “reasonable worst case 
spill” of oil.

Reasonable worst case

The portion of the rule most heavily scrutinized during a months-long 
comment process was the requirement to show financial ability to pay for 
a reasonable worst case spill. The rule required commission staff to 
first define what a “reasonable” worst case spill looks like, and 
second, calculate what cleaning that up might cost.


Railroads objected to the proposed spill scenarios, and argued that the 
requirement to show whether they could afford cleanup was pre-empted by 
federal law.


Johan Hellman, on behalf of BNSF, wrote Sept. 21, 2015, that the company 
was concerned with a draft that had defined the reasonable worst case 
spill as half the train’s contents, and had set minimum cleanup costs at 
$400 per gallon.


“We find both the definition and the minimum cost to be greatly 
exaggerated,” Hellman wrote.


The worst case calculation was refined to be based on the fastest speed 
an oil train travels, but both BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad continued 
to object to the requirement.


In a Dec. 7 letter to the commission, Melissa Hagan argued on behalf of 
Union Pacific that requiring the railroad to detail the insurance it 
carries, along with its ability to pay for the reasonable worst case 
cleanup, would “compromise the integrity of Union Pacific’s confidential 
business records” and was “blatantly discriminatory.”


Other people who commented said the rule didn’t go far enough in its 
estimates for how much oil could spill and how much those damages could 
cost.


State Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Kitsap County, told the commission she 
thought the reasonable worst case spill amount was “far too 
conservative” and the estimated cleanup cost seemed “excessively low.”


Dale Jensen, spill prevention preparedness and response manager for the 
state Department of Ecology, also wrote to say an estimated $400 per 
gallon cleanup cost would cover only a “portion of the overall costs of 
an oil spill” and “in the event of a worst case spill, the true cost of 
damages incurred could certainly exceed the level established within the 
proposed rule.”


Calculating the reasonable worst

In crafting the rule, commission staff looked to federal rule-making by 
the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and Federal 
Railroad Administration, and to the actual worst derailment of ethanol 
or crude oil in North America, which happened in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.


“Quebec was a terrible tragedy that really put a lot of these types of 
regulations more in the public eye,” said Jason Lewis, who helped craft 
the rule as transportation policy adviser for the commission.


In Quebec, a parked, unmanned 72-car train loaded with Bakken crude oil 
rolled downhill, reaching 65 mph before crashing into the downtown and 
killing 47 people in July 2013. Sixty-three cars derailed and about 1.6 
million gallons of oil leaked.


Although Quebec is the worst oil train derailment to date, Washington 
state legislators specifically asked the commission to find a 
“reasonable” worst case scenario for the financial reporting 
requirement, Lewis said.


“They didn’t want the worst case. They wanted something reasonable,” 
Lewis said. “It’s an ambiguous term that we really had to work to define.”


The commission looked to other state rules and used PHMSA and FRA logic 
to scale down from the incident in Quebec, Lewis said.


The final rule says to take the maximum oil train speed (usually 45 to 
50 mph), divide it by 65 (the speed in Quebec), and account for kinetic 
force to get the estimated percentage of the train’s cargo they should 
be prepared to clean up.


To 

[Biofuel] Natural Gas Becomes a Fracking Mess

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34827-natural-gas-becomes-a-fracking-mess

[links in on-line article]

Natural Gas Becomes a Fracking Mess

Sunday, 14 February 2016 00:00

By Emily Schwartz Greco, OtherWords | Op-Ed



Until late last year, Laura Gideon's family lived in Porter Ranch on the 
outskirts of Los Angeles. "We didn't ever want to leave," Gideon told 
the Associated Press. It's "a nice gated community."


What uprooted them from one of LA's wealthiest pockets? They became 
climate refugees when the nearby Aliso Canyon natural gas storage well 
sprang a nasty leak.


Clouds of gas have billowed from the faulty well, which lacked a 
subsurface shutoff valve, for three and a half months. After inhaling 
nonstop plumes of methane, benzene, and other toxic chemicals, local 
residents began to suffer nausea, vomiting, headaches, and nosebleeds. 
The disaster has also smacked local businesses hard and eroded real 
estate values.


Erin Brockovich, the activist and legal researcher made famous by an 
Academy-award winning film depicting her against-all-odds victory 
against another California utility, lives only 30 miles away. Now 
working with a law firm to help the locals file claims, she calls the 
Aliso Canyon leak a "BP oil spill, just on land" - because of its 
magnitude, duration, and climate impact.


And that's why this incident imperils more than the people who live 
there and the bottom line of Southern California Gas Co., the local 
utility that ran the well.


Just as the Gulf Coast disaster invigorated opposition to offshore oil 
drilling, the Porter Ranch debacle may sap the natural gas industry's 
popularity. Above all, it's exposing the fuel's persistent reputation as 
"clean" and climate-friendly as a complete lie.


Environmentalists, backed by ample research, have struggled to debunk 
that narrative for years.


Although burning natural gas releases less carbon dioxide than coal or 
diesel, extracting and distributing it releases methane into the 
atmosphere. And so do storage accidents like this one.


And methane is between 86 and 105 times as powerful as CO₂ at disrupting 
the climate over a 20-year period. The now common practice of hydraulic 
fracturing, or fracking, to obtain natural gas also pollutes waterways 
and squanders water - a big problem for parched California.


Environmental Defense Fund is tracking the climate damage wrought by the 
broken well, which is located in a vacant oil field about a mile and a 
half underground. The group calculates that the roughly 100,000 metric 
tons of natural gas that escaped is the equivalent of burning nearly 900 
million gallons of gasoline.


This big climate footprint is particularly troubling because thanks to 
record production levels, natural gas will soon become the nation's top 
power source, eclipsing coal. Natural gas supplies have grown so fast 
that U.S. prices are crashing due to oversupply. The industry wants to 
fix this imbalance through exports.


Shipping the stuff overseas requires condensing natural gas into liquid 
form at very high heat, using expensive infrastructure. More production 
will trigger more pollution and potential leaks.


Exporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG, also depends on persuading 
foreigners to buy it. But where are the customers?


Selling to Europe means competing with Russian producers. And the 
Russians stand ready to block this competition by slashing their own 
prices. At the same time, liquefied natural gas prices in Asia have 
fallen. Experts say they could plunge further as supplies outweigh demand.


In other words, the natural gas business has turned into a money-losing 
venture at the same time that the fossil fuel's real costs to people and 
the planet are becoming clearer.


Capping the failed well won't stop all the physical, emotional, and 
financial distress experienced by Laura Gideon and thousands of other 
Southern Californians. As she told the AP: "We're in mourning now."


The natural gas industry probably is too. It's a fracking mess.
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[Biofuel] Big Brother (skacore) release lyric video for song “Corexit”

[Darryl McMahon]

http://dyingscene.com/news/big-brother-skacore-release-lyric-video-for-song-corexit/

[music video available on-line at:  https://youtu.be/-ZzMV5EUonw

some of the images are graphic]

Big Brother (skacore) release lyric video for song “Corexit”

Friday, February 12, 2016 at 9:49 AM (PST) by Jonathan Lyte 

Toronto ‘Orwellian’ ska-core group Big Brother have released a lyric 
video for their song “Corexit”. This track was released as a single in 
December of 2014 and made an appearance on their EP They’re Watching, 
which was released in May 2015. You can check the video out below.

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[Biofuel] Factbox: U.S. EPA faces lawsuits over its biofuels plan | Reuters

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-biofuels-lawsuit-idUSL2N15R1R9

Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:05pm EST

Factbox: U.S. EPA faces lawsuits over its biofuels plan

EPA disappointed both the biofuel and oil industries with its November 
plan for the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2014-2016.


Biofuel associations are challenging the agency's authority to set 
targets below a 2007 congressional plan, oil groups are saying EPA was 
late in setting its mandates, and refiners are pushing EPA to make 
changes to the program.


Below are challenges to the EPA's plan.

AMERICANS FOR CLEAN ENERGY

Americans for Clean Energy and six other biofuel and agriculture groups 
filed a lawsuit against the EPA, challenging the agency's authority to 
set targets below a 2007 congressional plan.


The other groups were American Coalition for Ethanol, Growth Energy, 
National Corn Growers Association, National Sorghum Producers, the 
Renewable Fuels Association and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.


AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE (API)

API is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's failure to meet 
deadlines for the 2014 and 2017 biomass-based diesel standards and for 
mandating more cellulosic ethanol in 2016 than exists.


The group has separately filed to intervene on behalf of EPA in another 
lawsuit brought forward by biofuel interests.


AMERICAN FUEL & PETROCHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS (AFPM)

AFPM has sued EPA, saying the agency failed to provide obligated parties 
with the required lead time and used "flawed methodologies" to establish 
the requirements.


AFPM has also filed separately to intervene on behalf of EPA in another 
lawsuit brought forward by biofuel interests.


MONROE ENERGY LLC

Delta Air Lines Inc's Monroe Energy LLC has sued EPA in a push to shift 
the requirements to comply with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) 
downstream, rather than on refiners like Monroe.


Oil refiners and importers can meet EPA's requirements by blending 
greater amounts of ethanol and biodiesel with gasoline and diesel. 
Merchant refiners that lack adequate blending capacity are forced to buy 
compliance credits in a thinly traded, opaque market.


NATIONAL FARMERS UNION (NFU)

The NFU said in a statement on Friday it has filed a legal challenge, 
asking a court to intervene and require EPA to use the biofuel 
requirements laid out in the 2007 plan by Congress. The group has joined 
other biofuel and agriculture interests that filed a similar lawsuit 
last month, challenging the agency's ability to lower requirements.


VALERO ENERGY CORP

Valero has filed two lawsuits asking the EPA move the requirements to 
comply with the biofuels program downstream. The company, which is the 
country's top oil refiner and No. 3 ethanol producer, has also 
petitioned EPA directly to make the change.

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[Biofuel] Increased biofuel production in North America due to promoting policies and mandates

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.f3centre.se/Increased_biofuel_production_in%20North_America_due_to_promoting_policies_and_mandates

[images in on-line article, no information regarding Mexico]

Increased biofuel production in North America due to promoting policies 
and mandates


The production of biofuels has increased dramatically in North America 
in recent years, according to a study carried out within f3 project A 
review of the North American biofuel production, policies and research. 
The United Statesis leading this development and has promoted biofuels 
through a number of policies and mandates to drive production, research 
and innovation in the area. Canada has also intensified the promotion of 
biofuels in recent years.


The recently published report, written by researchers Michael Martin 
from IVL and David Lazarevic, KTH, states that ethanol is currently the 
dominant fuel in both countries, with blend rates in petrol between 5-10 
percent. The promotion and policies for ethanol fuels help to 
drastically increase their production and use in the past 10 years. The 
U.S. is currently the largest producer of ethanol in the world, with 
nearly 55 billion liters of ethanol produced in 2014. Canada has also 
seen a large increase in biofuel production during the last 10 years, 
with production increasing by a factor of 10. Other biofuels, such as 
biodiesel, have only marginal volumes in comparison, although roughly 
300 million liters of biodiesel were produced in 2014 in Canada and 6 
billion liters in the U.S.


The research on biofuels in the U.S. and Canada has also seen a large 
focus on advanced biofuel production. Both nations have set large focus 
on the new processes for advanced biofuel production and logistics for 
supplies of biomass for production plants.


The report provides a brief overview of the development, production, 
policies and trends promoting biofuels in Canada and the U.S. 
Information for the report was collected through literature reviews and 
interviews with leading researchers in Canada and the US during a 
research trip to attend the Advanced Biofuels Symposium in Montreal.


Read the report: A review of the North American biofuel production, 
policies and research


http://www.f3centre.se/A-review-of-the-North-American-biofuel
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[Biofuel] The Unfulfilled Promise of Carbon Capture | WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.wbez.org/programs/here-and-now/2016-02-12/unfulfilled-promise-carbon-capture-114826

[image in on-line article, key to the article is a 5 minute podcast, 
reasonable summary on current alleged state of the art for carbon 
capture and storage - CO2 CCS does not compete financially with wind and 
solar energy, at least in California, even after billions of dollars of 
taxpayer support and virtually no fossil fuel industry investment]


February 12, 2016

Lauren Sommer

The Unfulfilled Promise of Carbon Capture
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[Biofuel] French energy law might shut down third of EDF

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18942

French energy law might shut down third of EDF

11/02/2016

France's energy transition law could oblige state-controlled utility EDF 
to shut down around a third of its 58 nuclear reactors by 2025, the 
state audit office declared in its yearly report on Wednesday. The Cour 
des Comptes predicts that the projected reduction of the share of 
nuclear in French energy output to 50 percent by 2025 from over 75 
percent now might lead to the closure of 17 to 20 reactors if 
electricity consumption and exports stay at present levels.


It declared that this could influence jobs at EDF and increased the 
possibility that the utility might require state compensation. The 
auditor said that it anticipates the cost of improving EDF's older 
nuclear power stations will total approximately 100 billion euros 
($112.79 billion) over the 2014-2030 period. This estimation is well 
above EDF's 55 billion euro estimate for the 2014-2025 period, which the 
auditor said is because of the fact that it also comprises EDF's 
operating expenses over that period. EDF has constantly declared it 
wishes to maintain its nuclear power stations at the existing capacity 
level since it expects that the reduction of the share of nuclear in the 
French energy mix will come from increasing demand, not from closing 
reactors. For now, EDF intends to shut down its nuclear plant in 
Fessenheim, close to the German border, in 2018, when it hopes its new 
Flamanville reactor on the Normandy coast to begin operating.

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[Biofuel] Europe added 12.8 GW of new grid-connected wind capacity in 2015

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18944

Europe added 12.8 GW of new grid-connected wind capacity in 2015

11/02/2016

In 2015, the 28 EU member states connected a total of 12.8 GW of wind 
power to the grid, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).


Wind accounted for 44 % of all new power installations, with 9,766 MW 
onshore and 3,034 MW offshore. The number of new installed arrays rose 
6.3% year-on-year in 2015, as a more than doubling of offshore 
installations to 3 GW accounted for a 7.8% decline in the annual onshore 
market to 9.77 GW. The leader in terms of new installed capacity was 
Germany which accounted for 47%, including 2.28 GW offshore. It was 
followed by Poland, which added 1.27 GW, nearly three times its 2014 
installations, France with 1.07 GW and the UK with 975 MW. The EU now 
has 142 GW of total wind capacity, which can cover 11.4% of its 
electricity needs. Germany is again the leader with 45 GW. On the second 
place ranked Spain with 23 GW, followed by the UK with 14 GW and by 
France with 10 GW. Renewable power as a whole accounted for 77% of new 
power plant installations in 2015: 22.3 GW of a total 29 GW, the eighth 
year in a row where renewables provided over 55% of all additional power 
capacity in the EU. Investment in new onshore and offshore wind farms 
attained € 26.4 billion, a 40 % increase compared to 2014.

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[Biofuel] France inaugurates tender for wood-fired cogeneration plants

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18925

France inaugurates tender for wood-fired cogeneration plants

09/02/2016

France will inaugurate a tender for wood-fired power plants for a total 
of 50 megawatt (MW) per year for three years and a tender for 
biogas-fired plants for 10 MW per year for three years, as stated by the 
energy ministry on Monday.


The tenders - which will finalize by August 8 with project choice before 
the year-end - will be open to wood-fired biomass plants with capacities 
under 25 MW and biogas plants with capacities under 5 MW. One fifth of 
the biomass tender will be reserved for projects smaller than 3 MW. 
Three MW is almost equivalent to one big wind turbine. Bidders will have 
to recommend wood-fired cogeneration plants with an energy efficiency 
level of minimum 75 percent and will have to source wood from 
sustainable forestry. The ministry stated the biogas installations 
should not employ food crops and that it will approve projects using 
animal manure. Last year, merely 1.4 percent of the electricity 
generated derived from bio-energies, according to data from grid 
operator RTE.

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[Biofuel] Morocco has achieved the first phase of the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18918

Morocco turns on the first phase of the largest concentrated solar power 
(CSP) plant in the world


08/02/2016

Morocco has achieved the first phase of the world’s largest concentrated 
solar power (CSP) plant.


Once completed in 2018, the power station on the edge of the Saharan 
desert will be the size of the country’s capital city and supply 
electricity for 1.1 million people. Noor 1, the first phase of the 
three-plant Noor-Ouarzazate CSP complex, provides 160 MW of the ultimate 
580MW capacity, helping Morocco to save hundreds of thousands of tonnes 
of carbon emissions per year. Electricity generated from the first phase 
would be sold at $0.19 per kilowatt/hour. The north African nation plans 
to generate 42% of its energy from renewables by 2020, with one-third of 
that total arriving from solar, wind and hydropower each and 52% by 
2030, helping to reduce its dependency on oil for power generation. 
Concentrated solar power plants (CSPs) work differently than a 
photovoltaic installation. CSPs use lots of mirrors to capture the 
thermal energy of the sun, and use it to convert water into steam to 
turn turbines.

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[Biofuel] Biodiesel has become so inexpensive in the U.S. that it’s free

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/biodiesel-has-become-so-inexpensive-in-the-u-s-that-its-free/8527297/

[links in on-line article]

Biodiesel has become so inexpensive in the U.S. that it’s free

Posted on 09 February 2016.

Some refiners are being paid to use biofuel.

Tax credits in the U.S. have made biodiesel so cheap in some parts of 
the country that some refiners are being paid to use this clean 
substitute to diesel. More specifically, one-dollar-a-gallon tax subsidy 
and other credits, has resulted in Midwest refiners paying as little as 
64.5 cents a gallon for the alternative fuel. This, plus additional 
clean energy incentives offered by California, has lead to some 
customers in the Golden State obtaining the fuel for free, reported 
Bloomberg.

The commitment to renewable fuel has benefited some refiners.

Biodiesel’s dramatic reduction in cost appears to be the result of two 
factors. The first is that crude oil’s 71% drop since 2014 has decreased 
the price of all fuel from gasoline to diesel. The second is that due to 
the Obama administration mandating the use of renewable fuels, to help 
combat climate change, America has shown an improved commitment to clean 
fuel.


Back in November, the American government increased the amount of 
biodiesel refiners were required to use and congress reinstated a 
one-dollar-a-gallon tax credit for the use of this fuel in December.


The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) tracks compliance in relation 
to the consumption mandate by way of certificates, which are attached to 
every gallon of biofuel. The value of the certificates and the tax 
credit reduces the final costs of the alternative fuel similar to a rebate.
Refiners may actually be getting money back on every gallon of biodiesel 
they buy.


According to the CEO of San Diego-based New Leaf Biofuel, Jennifer Case, 
when refiners purchase a gallon of biodiesel, in essence, what they 
receive is the fuel along with all the credits and subsidies. In certain 
situations, biodiesel producers and blenders will share the value of tax 
credits.


This could mean that some contracts are negotiated by taking the 
incentives into account, while other contracts won’t factor them in at 
all. Case said those contracts are exceptionally odd because “Those are 
the ones that actually could result in reversing the invoice. The 
customer has to charge me to take the fuel.”


This year, oil companies in America are required to use 1.9 billion 
gallons of biodiesel.

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[Biofuel] Gruesome Tumors on Sea Turtles Linked to Climate Change and Pollution

[Darryl McMahon]

http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/09/sea-turtles-tumors/

[video, image and links in on-line article]

Tuesday, 09 February 2016 07:48

Gruesome Tumors on Sea Turtles Linked to Climate Change and Pollution

Lorraine Chow

A turtle hospital in Marathon, Florida is treating an increasing number 
of green sea turtles affected by fibropapillomatosis (FP), a global sea 
turtle disease caused by a herpes virus. The disease leads to the 
formation of tumors on the turtles’ eyes, flippers and internal organs. 
The possible culprits? Pollution and warming waters.


In all, the Florida Keys-based Turtle Hospital rescue and rehab facility 
has admitted 93 sea turtles in 2014, 68 in 2013 and 56 in 2012, the The 
Miami Herald reported.


“Marine turtles with FP have external tumors that may grow so large and 
hanging as to hamper swimming, vision, feeding and potential escape from 
predators,” hospital manager Bette Zirkelbach told the publication. 
“Over 50 percent of the green sea turtle population in and around the 
Florida Keys is infected with FP.”


The hospital cuts off these growths with a carbon dioxide laser. “When I 
first started here 20 years ago, I would do six to eight of these 
[surgeries] a month,” veterinarian Doug Mader told the international 
news agency Agence France-Presse. “Now we are doing six to eight a week.”


“In 2012 it was rare to have a turtle coming in with tumors on both 
eyes. By fall of 2013 almost every turtle that came in with this virus 
had both eyes covered with tumors,” Zirkelbach told the AFP.


According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the 
survival rate of green turtles after surgery is more than 90 percent. 
However, it’s not exactly a simple slice and dice job. For instance, 
according to a Turtle Hospital newsletter, it took half a year and eight 
surgeries to remove every tumor from a female sub-adult green sea turtle 
named Squirt, who was found severely sick and injured in a marina in 
Islamorada last July. The tumors were all over her eyes and body. 
Fortunately, Squirt’s surgeries were a success and she is currently 
recovering.


Squirt, however, is one of the lucky ones. Because the turtles are 
already so sick, only one in five green sea turtles staying at the 
hospital with fibropapillomatosis get released back to the wild, 
Zirkelbach said.


“The biggest challenge for us is it never ends,” Mader says in the video 
below about the revolving door of FB-infected turtles. “Every week, it’s 
the same thing over and over again.”


Although the increased number of FB-affected turtles the hospital is 
seeing could be due to the area’s rebounding green sea turtle 
populations or increased local rescue and awareness efforts, increased 
pollution in urban areas and farm water runoff could also be the causes.


A 2014 study from Duke University, the University of Hawaii and the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found a link 
between polluted urban and farm runoff in Hawaii to FB in endangered sea 
turtles, Science Daily reported. The researchers said that excess 
nitrogen in the runoff accumulates in algae that the turtles eat and can 
cause the disease.


The increases in sea surface temperatures as a result of climate change 
is also suspected.


“I have this horrible feeling that as the oceans warm we are going to 
see more and more disease,” Mader told AFP.


Billy Causey, who has studied sea turtles since the 1960s and managed 
NOAA’s marine sanctuaries in the Keys since 1983, also believes warmer 
waters could be a cause.


“It’s basic chemistry,” Causey told The Miami Herald in 2014. “You heat 
water a little bit and nothing happens. But then you add chemicals to 
the water, certainly things accelerate.”


According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the 
first case of FB was reported in 1938 when the disease was detected in 
green turtles in the Florida Keys. The disease has now been observed in 
all major oceans.

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[Biofuel] On the News With Thom Hartmann: Court Rules That Corporations Should Pay to Clean Up Their Disasters

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34768-on-the-news-with-thom-hartmann

[video in on-line article]

Tuesday, 09 February 2016 00:00 By Thom Hartmann,

The Thom Hartmann Program | Video Report

You need to know this. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals says that it's 
time to end the era of "privatize the gains, and socialize the losses." 
Last week, the public interest law firm Earthjustice broke the news that 
one of our nation's highest courts says it's time for the EPA to make 
polluters pay to clean up their own messes. Working on behalf of 
conservation groups, Earthjustice attorneys filed suit to demand that 
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalize so-called "financial 
assurance" rules that require companies stay financially viable enough 
to pay for the potential cleanup of any toxic substances that they 
produce. In other words, these rules prevent companies from causing a 
toxic spill then declaring bankruptcy to avoid the cost of clean up. And 
these rules have actually been in place since 1983, when they were 
issued as part of the EPA's "Superfund" law. But that agency pretty much 
ignored them until a 2009 court ruling ordered the EPA to start 
enforcing these regulations. Since that 2009 case, the agency had once 
again started to ignore these important rules, which left taxpayers 
picking up the tab for toxic spills. So, Earthjustice and other groups 
filed suit to force the agency to follow the rules that are already on 
the books. And the DC Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that corporations 
- not taxpayers - should pay to clean up their own disasters. Their 
ruling stated, "It is a common practice for operators [of sites that 
produce hazardous substances] to avoid paying environmental liabilities 
by declaring bankruptcy or otherwise sheltering assets." And they agreed 
that holding corporations accountable will also give them a financial 
incentive to make their businesses as safe as possible to begin with. 
Amanda Goodin, one of the attorneys for Earthjustice, said, "Today's 
court ruling is clear - we will no longer see polluters cheating the 
system, evading their financial obligations, and skipping town on their 
toxic messes, leaving taxpayers stuck with hefty cleanup bills." Next 
time a big company considers skimping on safety in the name of profit, 
they will have to be willing to back up that decision with corporate 
dollars.

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[Biofuel] ADVISORY: Renewables = 2/3 of New US Generating Capacity in 2015; 3,500x More Than Coal

[Darryl McMahon]

[Forwarding for information.  Good news on the sustainable generation 
front.  U.S. data.]



*ALMOST 2/3 OF NEW U.S. GENERATING CAPACITY*
*IN 2015 IS FROM RENEWABLES*
**
*WIND IS LARGEST SOURCE OF NEW CAPACITY, *
*HANDILY BEATING NATURAL GAS*
**
*NEW RENEWABLE CAPACITY IS *
*700 TIMES MORE THAN THAT FROM OIL,*
*3,500 TIMES GREATER THAN THAT FROM COAL*

**
*NO NEW NUCLEAR CAPACITY IN 2015*
**

**
*For Release:  Wednesday - February 3, 2016*
**
*Contact: Ken Bossong, 301-270-6477 x.11  *
**

*Washington DC*– Setting a new annual record, renewable sources (i.e.,
biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for almost
two-thirds (63.85%) of the 16,485 megawatts (MW) of new electrical
generation placed in service in the United States during calendar year 2015.

According to the just-released monthly "Energy Infrastructure Update"
report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of
Energy Projects, 69 new "units" of wind accounted for 7,977 MW of new
generating capacity - or nearly half (48.39%) of all new capacity for
the year. That is a third more than the 5,942 MW of new capacity
provided by 50 units of natural gas.

Among the other renewable sources, solar placed second with 2,042 MW
(238 units) followed by biomass with 305 MW (26 units), hydropower with
153 MW (21 units), and geothermal steam with 48 MW (2 units).

FERC reported no new capacity at all for the year from nuclear power and 
just 15 MW from ten units of oil and only 3 MW from a single new unit of 
coal. Thus, new capacity from renewable energy sources during 2015 
(10,525 MW) is more than 700 times greater than that from oil and over 
3,500 times greater than that from coal.


Renewable energy sources now account for 17.83% of total installed
operating generating capacity in the U.S.: water - 8.56%, wind - 6.31%,
biomass - 1.43%, solar - 1.20%, and geothermal steam - 0.33%. The share
of total installed capacity from non-hydro renewables (9.27%) now
exceeds that from conventional hydropower (8.56%).

For perspective, when FERC issued its very first "Energy Infrastructure
Update" in December 2010, renewable sources accounted for only 13.71% of 
total installed operating generation capacity. Over the past five years, 
solar's share has increased 12-fold (1.20% vs. 0.10%) while that from 
wind has nearly doubled (6.31% vs. 3.40%). During the same period,

coal's share of the nation's generating capacity plummeted from 30.37%
to 26.16%.

Finally, for the first time, installed electrical capacity from 
non-hydro renewables (108.34 GW) has now eclipsed that of nuclear power 
(107.03 GW).*


"If it weren't already obvious, the latest FERC data confirm that the
era of coal, oil, and nuclear power is rapidly drawing to a close,"
noted Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. "The
future - in fact, the present - has become renewable energy!"

# # # # # # # #

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released its most recent 7-page 
"Energy Infrastructure Update," with data through December 31, 2015, on 
February 2, 2016. See the tables titled "New Generation In-Service (New 
Build and Expansion)" and "Total Installed Operating Generating 
Capacity" at:


http://ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2015/dec-infrastructure.pdf.

** *Note that generating capacity is not the same as actual generation.
Electrical production per MW of available capacity (i.e., capacity
factor) for renewables is often lower than that for fossil fuels and
nuclear power. According to the most recent data (i.e., as of November
30, 2015) provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, actual 
net electrical generation from utility-scale renewable energy sources 
now totals about 13.2% of total U.S. electrical production (see:


http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly);

however, this figure understates renewables' actual contribution because 
neither EIA nor FERC fully accounts for all electricity generated by 
distributed renewable energy sources (e.g., uncounted U.S. rooftop solar 
is equal to about 45% of utility-scale solar capacity).


===

The SUN DAY Campaign is a non-profit research and educational
organization founded in 1992 to aggressively promote sustainable energy
technologies as cost-effective alternatives to nuclear power and fossil
fuels.


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[Biofuel] TPP has already impacted Canadian law (and it's not even ratified yet!) | rabble.ca

[Darryl McMahon]

http://rabble.ca/news/2016/02/tpp-has-already-impacted-canadian-law-and-its-not-even-ratified-yet

TPP has already impacted Canadian law (and it's not even ratified yet!)

By Michael Geist

February 8, 2016

The signing of the TPP in New Zealand provides a useful reminder that a 
potential ratification means committing to far more than just one (very 
large) trade agreement. One of the Troubles with the TPP is that the 
intellectual property chapter requires all countries to ratify or accede 
to as many as nine international IP treaties. In other words, the 
treaties within the treaty are a core part of the obligations that come 
with TPP.


Article 18.7 specifies that all countries have already ratified or 
acceded to three IP treaties: the Patent Cooperation Treaty, Paris 
Convention, and Berne Convention. More notably, there are as many as six 
additional treaties that must be ratified or acceded in order to ratify 
the TPP:


Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the 
International Registration of Marks


Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of 
Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure (1977), as amended 
in 1980


International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of 
Plants [MX propose: (1961) as revised in 1972, 1978 or] (1991) (UPOV 
Convention)


Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks (2006)

WIPO Copyright Treaty

WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty

Earlier in the negotiations, the U.S. was hoping to include several more 
treaties including the Convention Relating to the Distribution of 
Programme-Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite (1974).


Supporters of the TPP will argue that the impact on Canada is limited 
since we have either already acceded to these treaties or are in the 
process of doing so. However, the Canadian decision to significantly 
alter its IP laws in compliance with these treaties reflects the broader 
pressures that have come from the TPP.  Absent those pressures, it is 
far from certain that Canada would have agreed to be bound by all of 
these treaties.


In fact, according to earlier leaked drafts, Canada opposed including 
the IP treaty obligations for much of the negotiations. In the 2013 
leaked text, only the U.S. and Australia supported the treaty provision 
with almost the other TPP countries (Canada, Chile, New Zealand, 
Malaysia, Peru, Brunei, Vietnam, Japan, and Mexico) opposed. Singapore 
indicated that it was willing to follow the consensus.


A year later, not much had changed. The May 2014 leaked version shows 
that the satellite signals convention was shifted out of the mandatory 
list, but everything else -- including the Canadian opposition -- 
remained roughly the same. By the end of the negotiations, Canada caved 
on the issue and started the process of complying with multiple IP 
treaties, confirming yet again that the TPP has already had an impact on 
Canadian law well before any decision on ratification has been made.

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[Biofuel] Protesters shut down Auckland as Canada's trade minister signs the TPP | rabble.ca

[Darryl McMahon]

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2016/02/protesters-shut-down-auckland-canadas-trade-minister-signs-tp

[links and images in on-line article]

Protesters shut down Auckland as Canada's trade minister signs the TPP

By Brent Patterson

February 5, 2016

As Canadian trade minister Chrystia Freeland signed the Trans-Pacific 
Partnership (TPP) in Auckland yesterday, more than 1,000 people shut 
down the central part of the city in protest against the deal.


The New Zealand Herald reports, "Central Auckland grounded to a halt as 
trade ministers signed the TPP. All streets around Sky City Convention 
Centre [where the TPP was being signed] and motorway on and off ramps 
leading to the central business district were blocked by protesters." 
The BBC adds, "In the lead up to Thursday's signing, the streets around 
Auckland's central business district were disrupted by groups blocking 
access to the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Police clashed with some 
protesters, who have widely claimed the deal will benefit big business 
rather than workers."


And a Reuters report in the Globe and Mail's coverage of the signing 
notes, "There is wide spread grassroots opposition to the TPP in many 
countries. Opponents have criticized the secrecy surrounding TPP talks, 
raised concerns about reduced access to things like affordable 
medicines, and a clause which allows foreign investors the right to sue 
if they feel their profits have been impacted by a law or policy in the 
host country. In New Zealand on Thursday more than 1,000 protesters 
caused traffic disruptions in and around Auckland and police said a 
large number of police have been deployed."


The Council of Canadians expresses solidarity with those who protested 
yesterday.


While the Trudeau government says signing the TPP is not the same as 
ratifying it into law, their "public consultation" email responses show 
they are clearly defending it.


Job losses

They say:"Our government supports free trade -- it will help to open 
markets to Canadian goods and services, grow Canadian businesses, create 
good-paying jobs, and provide choice to Canadian consumers."


We say: A study by Tufts University found that the TPP will cost Canada 
58,000 jobs and increase income inequality. An EKOS poll in October 2015 
found that 61 per cent of Canadians believe the TPP will mean job losses 
in Canada, with just 24 per cent disagreeing with that statement.


ISDS

They say: "With respect to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), the 
TPP will not impair the ability of Canada or its partners to regulate 
and legislate in areas such as the environment, culture, safety, health 
and conservation. Our experience under the NAFTA demonstrates that 
neither our investment protection rules nor the ISDS mechanism constrain 
any level of government from regulating in the public interest."


We say: Canada has been subject to 35-plus NAFTA investor-state claims 
since the deal came into force on Jan. 1, 1994. Sixty three per cent of 
those claims have involved challenges to environmental protection or 
resource management measures.


Drug patents

They say: "Regarding drug patents, the TPP affirms the World Trade 
Organization Doha Declaration on the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of 
Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement and Public Health to ensure 
access to life-saving medicines in public health emergencies."


We say: The TPP establishes for highly profitable transnational 
pharmaceutical corporations a five-year minimum period of exclusive 
rights to sell expensive life-saving bioligics. In her comments on the 
TPP, the director-general of the World Health Organization has stated, 
"If these agreements open trade yet close the door to affordable 
medicines we have to ask the question: is this really progress at all."


BGH

They say: "With regards to bovine growth hormone (rBST), Health Canada 
has determined, in 1999, that rBST does not pose a health risk to 
humans. There is no scientific basis for restricting trade in milk or 
dairy products from trading partners that have approved rBST. ...All 
food products, both domestic and imported, must meet Canada's robust 
health and safety regulation."


We say: It's illegal in Canada to administer BGH to cows to boost their 
milk production, whereas in the United States there is no such 
restriction. The TPP opens up 3.25 per cent of the Canadian dairy market 
to milk imports that could be tainted with BGH. There is no plan to 
separate or label this milk. An Environics poll in July 2015 found that 
87 per cent of Canadians were either very or somewhat concerned about 
the TPP lowering Canadian food safety and quality standards.


To e-mail the government about the TPP, send your questions and comments 
to tpp-ptp.consultati...@international.gc.ca. To send a letter to the 
prime minister to demand a real public consultation, please click on our 
action alert here.

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[Biofuel] British offer to turn used cooking oil into bio-diesel

[Darryl McMahon]

BENGALURU, February 6, 2016

Updated: February 6, 2016 05:32 IST

British offer to turn used cooking oil into bio-diesel

B. S. Satish Kumar

A British firm has come forward to help Bengaluru to turn used cooking 
oil into bio-diesel as part of a project to covert waste into wealth. If 
this proposal materialises, a few KSRTC or BMTC buses may run on 
bio-diesel generated from waste cooking oil.


A British delegation met Bengaluru City Development Minister K. J. 
George in Bengaluru on Friday and discussed the potential of the 
project. A similar one in London was successful with 20 to 25 buses 
running on this fuel, said the minister.


The proposed project in Bengaluru envisages collection of used cooking 
oil through private agencies and processing it. The minister said the 
government was ready to get the British expertise in helping the local 
entrepreneurs on the project and the fuel could be used for KSRTC or BMTC.


Mr. George said several foreign companies had come forward to help set 
up waste-to-energy projects in Bengaluru, which was facing problems 
related to disposal of garbage. “In fact, we have such an overwhelming 
offer that the waste requirement for these projects has overshot the 
actual availability of garbage in the city,” he said.


This includes the proposal by the Yokohama city corporation of Japan to 
set up a pilot waste-to-energy project with a capacity of 100 metric 
tonnes at a subsidised cost of 50 per cent. They wanted the State 
government to share 50 per cent of the cost of the project. Their 
proposal was being studied by the officials concerned, he noted.


Similarly, a Poland-based company had come forward to offer technology 
for generating electricity from the sludge in the sewage treatment 
plants. A German firm too had offered to provide technology for setting 
up waste-to-energy project.


All these proposals were being examined, the minister said.
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[Biofuel] 6YL-68C Screw Oil Press for bio diesel biodiesel Oilpress (Port Coquitlam BC)

[Darryl McMahon]

http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/pml/bfd/5433418732.html

[image gallery in on-line ad]

6YL-68C Screw Oil Press for bio diesel biodiesel Oilpress - $500

I have two 6YL - 68C oil presses for sale. These are new and in their 
original crate direct from the manufacturer and are being sold AS IS. We 
have had these in our warehouse for storage for over 3 years and are now 
clearing out old inventory to make room for new.


Check out this video to see how the oil press works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfj-Dr-ibG4

The 1 ton per day models (6YL - 68C) is for sale at $500 each or both at 
$900. Original retail price for a new 1 ton per day press sells for over 
$1500.


Oil press extruder extractor for bio diesel biodiesel 6YL-68C
- High Protein Byproduct
-Tax credit of $1 per gallon
- costs $0.5 cents per gallon to produce
-It can be worth up to 200 dollars a ton

The machine is used to press kinds of oil seeds to get the edible oil, 
such as rapeseeds, peanut, soybean, sesameseeds, cottonseed, coconut, 
palm, olive, etc.


It's with the high rate of output oil, lower residued oil in the cake.

This listing is for a brand new, 6YL-160 Screw Oil Press.It is able to 
produce 120 gallons a day (1.2 ton) , 840 gallons per week, 43800 
gallons per year .



6YL-68C Screw Oil Press


Productivity: 50kg/h for oilseeds.
Power: 4-5.5Kw or 12Hp Diesel engine
Dimensions(in): 36 x 22x 41
Cake residue < 6%.

Apply- Suitable for various materials such as Jatropha, Rape seeds, 
Grape seeds, Palm kernel, Peanut, Soybean, Sunflower seeds, etc.

Residual rate of oil- <6.5%
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[Biofuel] Oil Industry Group's Own Report Shows Early Knowledge of Climate Impacts | InsideClimate News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/04022016/oil-industry-report-shows-early-knowledge-climate-change-impact-api-american-petroleum-institute

[links in on-line article]

Oil Industry Group's Own Report Shows Early Knowledge of Climate Impacts
A report the American Petroleum Institute commissioned in 1982 revealed 
its knowledge of global warming, predated its campaign to sow doubt.


By Neela Banerjee, InsideClimate News

Feb 5, 2016

A Columbia University report commissioned by the American Petroleum 
Institute in 1982 cautioned that global warming "can have serious 
consequences for man's comfort and survival." It is the latest 
indication that the oil industry learned of the possible threat it posed 
to the climate far earlier than previously known.


The report, "Climate Models and CO2 Warming, A Selective Review and 
Summary," was written by Alan Oppenheim and William L.  Donn of 
Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory for API's Climate and 
Energy task force, said James J. Nelson, the task force's former 
director. From 1979 to 1983, API and the nation's largest oil companies 
convened the task force to monitor and share climate research, including 
their in-house efforts. Exxon ran the most ambitious of the corporate 
programs, but other oil companies had their own projects, smaller than 
Exxon's and focused largely on climate modeling.


The task force commissioned the report to better understand the models 
being produced in the nascent field of climate science, Nelson said.


"There was discussion in the committee about all the noise and 
information" around carbon dioxide, Nelson said. "There were all sorts 
of numbers being thrown around. We were not trying to find a model to 
hang our hats on. It was more, 'If you see this model, this is how it’s 
built and these are its strengths and weaknesses.'"


Obtained from a university library by the Union of Concerned Scientists 
and made available to InsideClimate News, the report described in detail 
five models used at the time by climate scientists. They ranged from 
simple to complex: the radiation balance model, energy balance, 
radiative-convective, thermodynamic and general circulation model.  A 
table showed the predictions each model generated of the average 
increase in global temperature if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 
doubled compared to pre-industrial times, from .6 degrees C per 
hemisphere under the thermodynamic model to 2 to 3.5 degrees C globally 
under the general circulation model.  The poles were expected to undergo 
even greater jumps in temperature.


The report did not focus on the forces behind the increase in CO2 
concentrations, but it linked the phenomenon plainly to fossil fuel use. 
Atmospheric CO2, it said, "is expected to double some time in the next 
century. Just when depends on the particular estimate of the level of 
increasing energy use per year and the mix of carbon based fuels."


Like many studies at the time, the report stressed the models' inherent 
uncertainties. "All models are still sufficiently unrealistic that a 
definitive evaluation of the problem requires continued effort," the 
authors wrote in the summary.


Still, the report concluded that the models pointed to hikes in global 
average temperatures as CO2 concentrations rose. "They all predict some 
kind of increase in temperature within a global mean range of 4 degrees 
C," the report stated. "The consensus is that high latitudes will be 
heated more than the equator and the land areas more than the oceans."


The consensus turned out to accurately predict how global warming has 
proceeded since then and matches what current models are still 
predicting for the future.


The consequences for humanity were serious, the authors wrote, "since 
patterns of aridity and rainfall can change, the height of the sea level 
can increase considerably and the world food supply can be affected."


The authors concluded that "optimum forecasting of climate changes is a 
necessity for any realistic long term planning by government and industry."


When it commissioned the report, Nelson said, the API task force did not 
provide any guidance on which models to use and did not meddle with the 
assessment. Committee members received periodic updates about the 
report's progress, he said. The final document "was well received by the 
committee," Nelson recalled. "We didn't change it at all. Copies were 
sent to all the member companies since they paid for it."


Nelson said the general feeling of the task force members about climate 
models echoed the report's findings that models were not yet realistic 
enough to evaluate global warming definitively.


Nelson said he suggested the Columbia study in part because of his own 
skepticism of atmospheric modeling. A former Air Force pilot, he had 
sometimes found himself in hairy situations because of inaccurate 
weather forecasting based on modeling.


"Everybody kept talking about the doubling of CO2 

[Biofuel] Brazil's 47th biodiesel auction sells 640m litres - SeeNews Renewables

[Darryl McMahon]

https://renewables.seenews.com/news/brazils-47th-biodiesel-auction-sells-640m-litres-511728

Brazil's 47th biodiesel auction sells 640m litres

Feb 4, 2016 14:57 CET by Lucas Morais

February 4 (SeeNews) - The Brazilian Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas 
and Biofuels, or ANP, said today 639.56 million litres of biodiesel have 
been contracted at its 47th biodiesel auction.


All of the volume negotiated had the Social Fuel Seal, which gives 
biodiesel producers incentives to source raw materials from small farms.


At an average price of BRL 2.565 (USD 0.661/EUR 0.592) per litre, the 
tender negotiated about BRL 1.64 billion in biodiesel contracts. About 
540.6 million litres were sold on the auction's first day, or 64.5% of 
the total offering. On the second day, 98.97 million litres were sold, 
about 11.8% of the total offering.


In all, 33 producers offered a total volume of 837.5 million litres.

Brazil's biodiesel tenders are designed to meet the legal requirement 
for at least 7% blend of biodiesel in diesel oil sold at pump stations. 
The 47th Biodiesel Auction will ensure the biofuel supply in the 
domestic market from March 1 to April 30, 2016.


(BRL 1 = USD 0.258/EUR 0.231)
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[Biofuel] Businessmen Who Abandoned Toxic Mess Now Want To Build Refinery In Washington | KUOW News and Information

[Darryl McMahon]

http://kuow.org/post/businessmen-who-abandoned-toxic-mess-now-want-build-refinery-washington

[images and links in on-line article]

Businessmen Who Abandoned Toxic Mess Now Want To Build Refinery In 
Washington


by Tony Schick • Feb 2, 2016

Originally published on February 3, 2016 5:15 pm

The state inspector thought his visit to Odessa, Washington, would be 
routine: a knock on the door, a chat with the operators, a look around 
the corrugated metal warehouse where they ran a biodiesel plant.


But when Jerry French arrived at the TransMessis Columbia Plateau 
facility in eastern Washington this past March, the door was locked. It 
seemed abandoned, but he could see chemical drums inside through the 
windows.


It just didn’t look right, he thought.

After getting the door unlocked, French discovered the mess.

He saw sulfuric acid leaking from crusted valves. He found chemicals 
stored beside each other in corroded containers that could catch fire or 
explode if they mixed. Storage tanks holding thousands of gallons of 
methanol and other dangerous chemicals were left outside unsecured.


French, a longtime inspector with the Washington Department of Ecology, 
knew these were red flags. The site was a threat to human health and the 
environment and needed to be cleaned up. He alerted the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency later that day.


He sent an email with 18 different bullet points, each detailing a 
potentially dangerous situation at the abandoned plant.


“Serious issues with chemical waste management were observed inside the 
facility,” he wrote.1


TransMessis acquired the Odessa plant in late 2013 with plans to crush 
canola seed and produce an annual 10 million gallons of biodiesel. It 
operated for less than a year. After a crash in the biofuels market, 
TransMessis fired its employees and shut down operations, never telling 
state regulators. The ensuing cleanup has cost $400,000 so far, paid for 
through the EPA’s superfund program.2


Now, the backers of that failed biofuels project are proposing a $1.25 
billion refinery and propane terminal at the Port of Longview on the 
Washington side of the lower Columbia River.


Waterside Energy, operated by Lou Soumas, Damon Pistulka and Chris 
Efird, announced the proposal in May. It calls for a refinery capable of 
processing 30,000 barrels of oil and 15,000 barrels of biofuel each day. 
Pistulka served as CEO of TransMessis, which was backed by both Soumas 
and Efird.3


Their initial proposal for Longview has since expanded to include a 
separate 75,000-barrel-per-day propane and butane terminal. Waterside 
says the project would generate 700 construction jobs and 180 full-time 
jobs while capitalizing on the West Coast demand for cleaner-burning fuels.


Details of their biofuels project in Odessa can be found in documents 
the Columbia Riverkeeper, an opponent of the plan, sent in January to 
commissioners at the Port of Longview. Along with the $400,000 
environmental cleanup, the records show more than $1.6 million in unpaid 
bills and taxes from TransMessis.4


Environmental groups are worried about the company’s ability to handle a 
larger, more complex facility with more environmental risk than its last 
venture.


“To have the kind of track record that these proponents have of unpaid 
debts, major cleanup liabilities, public expenditures, certainly creates 
a lot of reason for doubt,” said Ross Macfarlane, a senior adviser at 
Climate Solutions, a Seattle-based nonprofit that promotes clean energy.


Macfarlane talked with Waterside about its refinery plans last year at 
the suggestion of the Washington Department of Commerce. He has since 
come to oppose the project.


"The overall circumstances of this project raise a lot of red flags,” 
Macfarlane said.


TransMessis leaders describe the outcome in Odessa as the consequence of 
a market crash, not the result of mismanagement.


Soumas, the project owner for the Longview proposal whose company 
co-owned TransMessis, said in a phone interview Friday he had not seen 
the specific documents released by Columbia Riverkeeper.


“During the very brief time the group I was involved with operated that 
facility, which was about five months, they cleaned up a massive amount 
of problems that were at the facility from the seven years prior to our 
being there and left that facility in much better shape than when we got 
there,” Soumas said.


Soumas made clear he and the other refinery proponents did not 
physically operate the TransMessis plant but were involved in its parent 
company.


“Our team was not at that facility after July of 2014, and the cleanup 
was a result of people who were in the plant after us, not during our 
time there,” Soumas said.


Damon Pistulka, the CEO of TransMessis now listed on the Waterside 
Energy proposal, said the chemicals left behind were owned by a creditor 
and could not be removed, but were stored without spills. Pistulka said 
TransMessis 

[Biofuel] Renewable Energy Group acquires Sanimax biodiesel plant -

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/article/renewable-energy-group-acquires-sanimax-biodiesel-plant-20160204

Renewable Energy Group acquires Sanimax biodiesel plant

Dan McCue Thursday, 04 February 2016

Renewable Energy Group, Inc.. of Ames, Iowa, signed an asset purchase 
agreement with Sanimax Energy, LLC to acquire the company's 20 million 
gallon capacity biodiesel refinery in DeForest, Wisconsin.


Under the terms of the agreement, Renewable Energy Group will pay 
Sanimax approximately $11 million in cash and will issue 500,000 shares 
of its common stock in exchange for the biorefinery and related assets.


Renewable Energy Group will also pay Sanimax up to an additional $5 
million in cash over a period of up to seven years after closing based 
on the volume of biodiesel produced at the plant, which will be re-named 
REG Madison, LLC.


Sanimax operates a grease processing facility at the same location, 
although that facility is not part of the acquisition.  Closing of the 
transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.


“With growing biomass-based diesel volumes in the U.S., REG is 
continuing its growth as well,” said Daniel Oh, Renewable Energy Group's 
president and CEO.


“This plant will add to our network of lower-cost, lower-carbon 
intensity, multi-feedstock biorefineries.  Having a dependable feedstock 
supplier co-located next door should provide an opportunity for 
additional cost savings and logistical advantages.  We have done 
business with Sanimax and the Couture family for many years and look 
forward to a continuing prosperous relationship," Oh said.


The biorefinery is located just north of Madison, Wisconsin and began 
production in 2007.  It produces biodiesel from lower cost feedstocks 
including yellow grease, rendered animal fats, and inedible corn oil in 
addition to refined vegetable oils.


The facility has both truck and rail capabilities.

“This agreement is in line with our business plan to improve focus on 
our core businesses,” said Martin Couture, Sanimax’s president and CEO. 
 “We are pleased that our biodiesel employees will have an opportunity 
to pursue their career with an industry leader.  This is a reflection of 
the excellent work they have achieved over the past several years. 
Sanimax looks forward to continuing its excellent business relationship 
with REG as a shareholder and a reliable feedstock supplier.”


Upon closing of the transaction, Renewable Energy Group will have 11 
active biomass-based diesel refineries in seven states. There are 
currently three in Iowa, two in Illinois, two in Texas, and one each in 
 Louisiana, Minnesota, Washington and Wisconsin.


They have a combined production capacity of 452 million gallons.
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[Biofuel] Auto Expo 2016: Buses and trucks drive onto the environment bandwagon - The Economic Times

[Darryl McMahon]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/auto/news/commercial-vehicle/mhcvs/auto-expo-2016-buses-and-trucks-drive-onto-the-environment-bandwagon/articleshow/50863983.cms

Auto Expo 2016: Buses and trucks drive onto the environment bandwagon
By Subhro Niyogi, TNN | 5 Feb, 2016, 12.56PM IST


NEW DELHI: Bus and truck makers in India have stolen a march over 
passenger car manufacturers in rolling out environment friendly products 
at the Auto Expo 2016.


Scania Commercial Vehicles India Pvt Ltd, for instance, launched a 
biofuel powered Citywide bus on Thursday. Sacnia MD Mikael Benje said 
the Citywide bus was the first of several vehicles his company would to 
launch with sustainability at the core. "The Citywide bus can run on 
diesel, biofuel, CNG, bio GAS and ethanol. We also plan to set up a 
biogas project where waste will be converted to generate fuel for 
buses," he said.


Scania recently hosted a multi stakeholder conference on sustainability 
in Delhi and unveiled an industry whitepaper on increasing the adoption 
of biofuel for vehicles in India. It highlighted measures to help create 
a sustainable transport system, secure energy independence, curb 
emissions dramatically and create new jobs.


"We will increase manufacturing of vehicles that can run on alternative 
fuel engines, drive awareness and collaborate with stakeholders to 
highlight the benefits of local waste for local fuel for local transport 
across India starting with the introduction of ethanol-based green buses 
across India," he said. Indian firm JBM with Polish bus maker Solaris 
Bus & Coach went a step ahead and unveiled the country's first 100% 
electric bus Ecolife. The zero-emission vehicle is powered by lithium 
batteries capable of doing 150km-200 km in 10-15 hours of city operation 
on a single charge. The vehicle can also run on plug-in charge.


JBM Group executive director Nishant Arya said production of the bus 
would begin later this year."With pollution being a serious health 
concern in metros, it has become imperative to shift our mass transport 
from fossil fuel to nonfossil fuel. We believe electric bus will be an 
apt solution," he said. Mahindra & Mahindra too has launched electric 
commercial van Supra. The company showcased a demo hydrogen bus it has 
co-developed with IIT and ministry of new and renewable energy . "We 
have also introduced electric scooter and electric sedan to promote the 
cause of environment friendliness," a company spokesperson said.


However, very few auto companies have attempted to launch electric, 
hydrogen, hybrid or biofuel-powered vehicles other than CNG, LPG or 
micro hybrids. While Toyota was one of the first to introduce hybrid 
tech in its Prius sedan, it has now brought it in Camry .Maruti too has 
a hybrid offer in Ciaz. But no real effort has been made by any carmaker 
to popularise green technology .


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[Biofuel] BHP Billiton puts up $20M for carbon capture research centre in Saskatchewan

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.theprovince.com/business/billiton+puts+carbon+capture+research+centre+saskatchewan/11700870/story.html

[BHP Billiton - coal producer - kicks in $20 million to buy some 
greenwashing credits for coal, presumably building on the questionable 
Boundary Dam project's 'carbon capture and storage' expertise.  Given 
the taxpayers are in for considerably over a billion, that's well under 
2%.  Assuming that gets any traction on continuing to get a subsidized 
stream of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery and stalling off the elimination 
of coal-fired electricity generation in Saskatchewan in the face of 
Canada's COP21 commitments, a very good investment indeed.]


BHP Billiton puts up $20M for carbon capture research centre in Saskatchewan

By The Canadian Press February 5, 2016

REGINA - A multinational petroleum and mining company has invested $20 
million to help establish a Saskatchewan-based centre to study carbon 
capture.


Dean Dalla Valle of BHP Billiton says the research facility in Regina 
will build impetus for carbon capture projects internationally.


Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall announced the centre last fall.

He says the technology is important because the world's fastest- growing 
countries still rely on coal.


It's hoped the new centre will attract governments, academia, industry 
and research organizations to study the technology.


SaskPower's $1.4-billion Boundary Dam facility integrates carbon capture 
and storage with a power station.  [Actually, there is no long-term CO2 
storage - it's a taxpayer-subsidized enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project.]


The government-owned utility has described Boundary Dam as the world's 
first complete large-scale carbon capture project.


Carbon capture technology has been criticized for its high cost and for 
not eliminating carbon emissions from power generation.

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[Biofuel] Not all forest management helps to mitigate climate change

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/communication/news/single-news/?no_cache=1_ttnews[tt_news]=865=61a6191de9b3037831fe84cafe32bcaf

Not all forest management helps to mitigate climate change

03.02.2016

An international research team, lead by the Laboratoire des Sciences du 
Climat et de l'Environnement - Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (LSCE/IPSL) 
in France and including lead author Kim Naudts from the department "The 
Land in the Atmosphere" at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology 
(MPI-M), found that two and a half centuries of afforestation and forest 
management in Europe have failed to mitigate climate warming. Their 
findings have been published recently in Science.


The team reconstructed 260-years of historical land use in Europe and 
improved a complex computer model to calculate the amount of carbon, 
energy and water that is trapped or released by managing a forest. By 
doing this they could analyse the effect of historical afforestation and 
forest management on the carbon balance and the contemporary climate.


Afforestation and forest management are recognized as key strategies for 
climate change mitigation in the Paris agreement within the United 
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Afforestation 
and forest management are generally expected to have the potential to 
slow global warming by removing CO2 from the atmosphere. However, the 
new study shows that, despite a considerable increase in forest area and 
the onset of widespread production-oriented management since 1750, 
European forests failed to realize a net CO2 removal from the 
atmosphere. By extracting wood from unmanaged forest and bringing these 
forests under production, humans released carbon to the atmosphere, 
otherwise stored in the biomass, litter, dead wood and soil of the 
forest. Kim Naudts, lead author of the study explains: "Even well 
managed present-day forest store much less carbon than their natural 
counterparts in 1750".


Besides wood harvest, the onset of production-oriented forestry also 
massively converted deciduous forest to coniferous forest by favouring 
commercially successful species. This resulted in changes in water and 
energy exchange with the atmosphere, which contributed to climate 
warming rather than mitigating it. Kim Naudts concludes: "Our results 
show that not all forest management contributed to climate change 
mitigation. The key question is now: can we design a forest management 
strategy that cools the climate and at the same time sustains wood 
production and other ecosystem services?"


Original publication:
Naudts, K., Chen, Y., McGrath, M.J., Ryder, J., Valade, A., Otto, J., 
Luyssaert, S.: Europe's forest management did not mitigate climate 
warming (2016). Science,

Opens external link in current windowdoi: 10.1126/science.aad7270
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[Biofuel] Rainforest regrowth boosts carbon capture | The Daily Star

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/rainforest-regrowth-boosts-carbon-capture-213310

[Only really interesting if the previously removed forest was not turned 
into greenhouse gases.]


12:00 AM, February 06, 2016 / LAST MODIFIED: 02:05 AM, February 06, 2016

Rainforest regrowth boosts carbon capture

Newly grown rainforests can absorb 11 times as much carbon from the 
atmosphere as old-growth forests, a study has shown.


The researchers have produced a map showing regions in Latin America 
where regrowing rainforests would deliver the greatest benefits.


However, they added that old-growth forests still needed to be protected 
as they locked away vast amount of carbon. Details of the study have 
been published in the journal Nature.


The international team of scientists compiled data from almost 1,500 
plots at 45 sites across the Neotropics, which covers southern and 
central America, allowing them to produce map highlighting the carbon 
sequestration potential of areas across the Neotropics.


New growth, or secondary, forests grow as a result of a major clearing 
of old-growth vegetation. The clearing could be the result of a natural 
event, such as a fire, or as a result of human activity, such as logging 
or farming.


In order to maximise access to sunlight, nutrients and water, new trees 
grow quickly. This means the plants sequester a much greater amount of 
carbon from the atmosphere, which it uses as part of the photosynthesis 
process that uses sunlight to produce the sugars the plant needs to grow.


The team found that in optimum conditions, new-growth vegetation could 
sequester up to 11 times as much carbon as old-growth forests.


Co-author Lourens Poorter from Wageningen University, The Netherlands, 
told the Nature podcast that while it was important to halt 
deforestation, it was also important to recognise the role of secondary 
forests in a climate mitigation context.


"There is a potential for forests to regrow," he said. "You can either 
do that actively by planting but it can also be done passively (via 
natural regrowth).


"What we have tried to do in this study is to get a comprehensive 
picture of how fast this recovery is in terms of biomass. If you have 
abandoned areas that have been used for agriculture , how fast do the 
forests regrow naturally and how much biomass has been taken up - we 
call that the recovery or resilience of biomass."

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[Biofuel] New Jet Biofuel Installation Opens the Door for a Greener Airline Industry

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.ecnmag.com/news/2016/02/new-jet-biofuel-installation-opens-door-greener-airline-industry


New Jet Biofuel Installation Opens the Door for a Greener Airline Industry
Fri, 02/05/2016 - 1:20pm 1 Comment by CORDIS

The EU ITAKA project has provided a pioneering jet biofuel that will be 
used at Oslo's principal international airport, a first for commercial 
aviation.


The jet biofuel was launched during a public event on 22 January, hosted 
by the Norwegian Minister of Transport, Ketil Solvik Olsen, and hosted 
by Avinor, the Norwegian airport operator.


The agreement to use the fuel at Oslo Gardermoen Airport is the result 
of a collaborative effort between ITAKA (Initative Towards Sustainable 
Kerosene for Aviation) project partner SkyNRG, Avinor and Air BP.


Produced within the framework of the ITAKA project, the jet biofuel is 
made from camelina oil that is RSB certified and has received a positive 
seal of approval from SkyNRG's sustainability board.


Installation benefits at Oslo Airport

The fuel will be supplied directly into Oslo's existing fuel hydrant 
system.The airport's common storage and distribution system will be 
used, negating the need for a separate segregated infrastructure.


All airlines using Oslo Airport have been given the opportunity to use 
the fuel, with the Lufthansa Group being the first airline to confirm 
that they would be doing so in future.


Following Lufthansa's announcement, the joint national Scandinavian 
airline SAS and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (an ITAKA consortium partner) 
have also committed to purchasing the jet biofuel. ITAKA partners hope 
that this will be the first step in the wider adoption of biofuel by 
other airlines and airports worldwide.


Previously, airlines that wished to use alternatives to traditional 
standard jet kerosene had to have it specially brought in with a tanker 
truck equipped with a fuelling hydrant, increasing costs to airlines.


With the fuel at Oslo being delivered through the normal supply 
mechanism, it has been demonstrated that biofuel can use existing 
physical infrastructure, significantly reducing logistical costs.


The use of camelina oil

ITAKA researchers see camelina oil as the best available sustainable 
feedstock that can be easily produced in Europe in order to meet 
expected demand for jet biofuel.


Crucially for making the uptake of biofuel more attractive, no aircraft 
modifications are required, as it is converted into drop-in aviation 
fuel through a hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) pathway.


The project is utilising four camelina plantations in Spain and these 
are complemented by smaller plantations in Romania. The fuel itself is 
refined in Finland by ITAKA project partner Neste.


Long-term environmental benefits

The ITAKA project aims to make a substantial contribution to the airline 
industry's commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and comply 
with international climate agreements.


The EU has set itself the target of having 3.5 % of all airlines running 
on be biofuel by 2020. If more European airports adopt the Oslo 
integrated system championed by ITAKA, then this could indeed be a very 
realistic ambition.

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[Biofuel] First Indian biofuel ship set for fleet review

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/527264/first-indian-biofuel-ship-set.html

First Indian biofuel ship set for fleet review

Kalyan Ray Visakhapatnam: Feb 6, 2016, DHNS

When President Pranab Mukherjee will review the naval fleet on Saturday, 
a small Indian naval vessel with green bands on both sides may emerge as 
the centre of attraction as it would be the first Indian ship to run 
completely on biofuel.


“At the international fleet review, we would be operating a fast 
interceptor craft on green fuel,” Navy chief Admiral R K Dhowan said 
here on Friday. Whether more warships would shift to cleaner fuel in the 
future would depend on the success of this pilot project.


Dhowan said the Navy had initiated another green project to set up an 
ocean thermal energy conversion plant in the Andaman and Nicobar islands 
to generate electricity from the temperature difference between cold 
water in the deep and warm water at the surface. So far, none of the 
OTEC plants in the world — barring one in Japan —  are successful.


The only Indian OTEC plant (1 MW) tried in 2002 by National Institute of 
Ocean Technology, Chennai was a failure.


The naval OTEC project involves participation from foreign and Indian 
industries and two sites have been identified in the Andaman to set up 
the plant.


These green steps are aimed at reducing the Indian Navy’s carbon 
footprint in the line of the US Navy that raised a Great Green Fleet in 
which the US Navy is experimenting with the idea of warships using 
alternate fuel and test the viability and strategic utility of the 
concept. The US green fleet is a carrier battle group in which the 
aircraft carrier is nuclear-powered while cruiser, destroyers, oil 
tanker and aircraft run on a 50:50 mix of petroleum and biofuel. Indian 
Navy has undertaken several more green steps. For instance, it has been 
decided that all future acquisition and upgrade projects would also have 
to factor in energy efficiency to reduce the emission load. Karwar naval 
base, which houses aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, has zero carbon 
footprint. In its expansion phase, more green measures are being 
incorporated.


The Indian Navy, however, is yet to decide if its planned second 
indigenous carrier would use nuclear propulsion or would be a diesel 
guzzler.

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[Biofuel] Why Ethanol Industry May Lose Its Clout Finally - Fortune

[Darryl McMahon]

http://fortune.com/2016/02/04/ethanol-archer-daniels-biofuels/

[links and video in on-line article]

Here's All the Signs that Ethanol's Days Are Numbered

by  Dan Mitchell

@thefoodeconomy

February 4, 2016, 3:43 PM EST

Ted Cruz’s victory in Iowa is just the beginning.

Ted Cruz’s victory in the Iowa caucus is widely — and correctly — seen 
as a major defeat for ethanol, the biofuel made mostly from corn. Cruz, 
unlike all other leading presidential candidates, adamantly opposes the 
Renewable Fuel Standard, the future of which is up for possible debate 
in the Senate.


If the RFS is rescinded or phased out, the ethanol industry would be in 
big trouble. And for the first time, this looks like a possibility.


The RFS was enacted in 2005 to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. It 
mandates that 95% of gasoline sold in the United Stated be blended with 
10% ethanol. That has been a boon to Iowan corn growers. Close to half 
of the corn grown in Iowa goes to ethanol production. Iowa is also the 
biggest corn state. So with the exception of Cruz — who comes from 
Texas, a huge oil state — candidates for president have in general 
pledged their support for the government mandate, largely because of 
Iowa’s status as the first state to vote for each party’s nominees.


Cruz’s victory might have changed that equation. There also are other 
factors working against ethanol: diving oil prices; thin margins; 
oversupply; questions about its environmental impact; and alternative, 
more-lucrative uses for corn. Even with the government mandating its 
use, ethanol is having a tough time of it.


Signs of disinvestment

This week, the Chicago-based grain giant Archer Daniels Midland ADM 
-0.53% , the world’s largest ethanol producer, announced that it might 
unload its three dry-mill corn-processing plants. That’s a sign of 
disinvestment in ethanol because those plants are devoted largely to 
ethanol production. Wet mills can be put to a larger variety of uses, 
including the production of food ingredients. ADM is keeping those.


In a conference call on Tuesday, Juan Luciano, ADM’s chairman and CEO, 
said that while the dry mills are still generating positive cash flow, 
the company is reviewing possible “strategic alternatives” for them. 
That means a possible sale. The company’s five wet mills aren’t part of 
the review.


The company also insisted that Cruz’s victory and the the phaseout of 
the RFS had nothing to do with the decision. Instead, Luciano cited 
sinking crude-oil prices.


Lower oil prices

It might seem counterintuitive that lower oil prices could hurt the 
ethanol industry. After all, the more gas that is sold, the more ethanol 
is sold. But thanks to the way the ethanol market is regulated, the 
market is convoluted, and supply and demand doesn’t necessarily directly 
determine price. In a nutshell: refiners earn credits for blending 
ethanol into gasoline. Those credits can be sold off or held from one 
year to the next. They are ultimately redeemed with the Environmental 
Protection Agency and counted toward total production obligations. The 
process is described in more detail here, but the bottom line is that 
the current price differential between oil and ethanol (or, more 
precisely, ethanol credits) is yielding a lower price for ethanol 
producers despite rising retail demand.


After peaking in 2014, margins for ethanol makers have been falling 
fast, especially over the past six months as crude prices have dropped 
and as ethanol production has spiked. ADM’s review of the dry mills is 
part of an effort to cut at least $1 billion in invested capital and 
boost earnings over the next few years.


Both wet and dry mills are used for ethanol production, but wet mills 
are more flexible. They are used to process corn for animal feed, corn 
syrup, starches, and food ingredients — products that ADM says it wants 
to concentrate on more heavily given their relatively higher margins and 
wider array of uses.


A looming question for ADM is who might buy the dry mills, into which 
the company has invested billions. Oil refiners, which have been moving 
into the biofuels business in recent years, are one possibility.


Will Cruz’s stance embolden lawmakers?

The Senate is considering taking up measures that would eliminate or 
phase out the ethanol mandate. Political pundits had been warning that 
Cruz’s opposition to them could hurt him in the Iowa caucus. His victory 
could give cover to other lawmakers who would like to see the mandate 
end, but who have been leery of crossing the corn lobby. A boom in 
domestic energy production also makes the possibility of ending the 
mandate more politically palatable. The mandate was implemented a little 
over a decade ago in part to help the United States wean itself off 
foreign energy sources.


ADM’s fourth-quarter earnings report issued on Tuesday showed continued 
lower margins for ethanol, and higher margins for corn-derived 
sweeteners and 

[Biofuel] Northern Gateway assessment mishandled by B.C. government: judge - The Globe and Mail

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/court-rules-bc-must-consult-with-first-nations-on-northern-gateway/article28153791/

Northern Gateway assessment mishandled by B.C. government: judge

Mark Hume

VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail (correction included)

Published Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016 5:21PM EST

Last updated Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016 6:06PM EST

The B.C. government acted improperly when it gave Ottawa responsibility 
for assessing the environmental impact of the proposed Northern Gateway 
pipeline, the Supreme Court of B.C. has ruled.


In a decision released Wednesday, the court declared invalid the federal 
environmental assessment certificate issued for the $7.9-billion project.


The ruling holds possible implications for another proposed pipeline, 
the $6.8-billion Kinder Morgan expansion project, which is currently 
before the National Energy Board. The decision states such projects need 
to have provincial as well as federal environmental approvals.


The impact on Northern Gateway itself is likely minimal. Although the 
project has its federal approvals in place, it is considered all but 
officially dead in B.C. due to five provincial conditions that haven’t 
been met and an oil tanker ban Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has 
promised on B.C.’s North Coast.


If the project were to go ahead, the B.C. Supreme Court decision could 
force a restart of the environmental approval process.


Ivan Giesbrecht, a spokesman for Northern Gateway, said the project went 
through all the required processes and it falls under federal 
jurisdiction, which gave it conditional approval.


“This was one of the most exhaustive reviews of its kind in Canadian 
history,” Mr. Giesbrecht said in an e-mail. “This decision from the 
British Columbia Supreme Court does not change that approval or the 
project’s environmental assessment.”


He added that Northern Gateway continues its work to meet the conditions 
laid out by the joint review panel and any conditions that the B.C. 
government may impose.


Art Sterritt, a spokesman for the Gitga’at First Nation, one of the 
aboriginal groups that took the B.C. government to court over the 
Northern Gateway environmental assessment process, said the ruling means 
the Kinder Morgan project should face additional assessment.


“Northern Gateway, Kinder Morgan – it’s exactly the same issue,” Mr. 
Sterritt said.


“The B.C. government has entered into equivalency agreements regarding 
Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan and [the province is] now going to 
have to consult with all those First Nations [along the pipeline 
routes], which they haven’t done yet.”


Early in the Northern Gateway pipeline review process the B.C. 
government signed an “equivalency agreement” with Ottawa, giving the 
federal government responsibility for environmental assessment.


The move was made to streamline the environmental approval process by 
reducing federal and provincial overlap.


But Mr. Sterritt said First Nations challenged the decision because the 
B.C. government failed to consult with aboriginal governments before 
signing the equivalency agreement.


“One of the really big deals in the case was that B.C. was trying to 
make the argument that the NEB environmental assessment process was 
equivalent to B.C.’s. And we said, ‘No it’s not. B.C.’s is more diligent 
and has more responsibilities in terms of effects on First Nations and 
the environment. It’s not equivalent.’”


The provincial government has long said the proposed Northern Gateway 
project won’t get provincial support until it meets five conditions, 
which include meeting legal requirements regarding aboriginal treaty 
rights, completing the environmental review process and putting 
world-leading oil-spill response systems in place.


But Mr. Sterritt said those objections by B.C. appeared to be 
disingenuous because at the same time the province was giving Ottawa 
authority over environmental assessment.


“B.C. had the power to remove themselves from the equivalency agreement 
and they didn’t do that. So the Coastal First Nations and the Gitga’at 
were going after them, saying, ‘Hold on, you can’t do that,’” Mr. 
Sterritt said. “That’s what we went to court about.”


Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg said in her ruling that “I cannot find that 
it was reasonable or correct for the Province to exercise its 
discretion” in giving Ottawa sole authority over environmental assessment.


She ruled the equivalency agreement “is invalid” and said the project 
cannot begin until a provincial environmental assessment certificate has 
been issued.


B.C. Justice Minister and Attorney-General Suzanne Anton could not be 
reached immediately for comment.

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[Biofuel] Correction: Shipping Emissions Must Be Tackled at COP21 with Advances such as Sail Power | Sail Transport Network

[Darryl McMahon]

Note change to byline for the article posted Dec. 10, 2015.

Hello Darryl,
We just discovered our article on the Biofuel Mail Archive.  We’re glad
it has gotten exposure.

Can you correct the byline?  It is by Charlene Caprio, Policy and
Strategy Consultant of Sail Transport Network.

Thanks,
Jan

_/)
_/)~~~_/)~~~
*
*
Jan Lundberg
j...@sailtransportnetwork.org 
www.SailTransportNetwork.org 
www.sailmed.org 
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sail-Transport-Network/208102425867494

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[Biofuel] Japan begins work on 'world's largest' floating solar farm | Environment | The Guardian

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/27/japan-begins-work-on-worlds-largest-floating-solar-farm

[image and links in on-line article]

 Japan begins work on 'world's largest' floating solar farm

Electronics firm builds floating solar farm on a reservoir due to a 
scarcity of land for utility-scale solar in Japan


The Japanese electronics multinational Kyocera has begun work on what it 
says will be the world’s biggest floating solar farm.


The power plant is being built on a reservoir in Japan’s Chiba 
prefecture and is anticipated to supply enough electricity for nearly 
5,000 households when it is completed in early 2018.


Space-starved Japan has already seen several floating solar farms built 
as part of the country’s drive to exploit more renewable energy in the 
wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The shutdown of nuclear plants has 
seen Japan increasingly reliant on fossil fuel imports that have hit its 
emissions-cutting ambitions.


The Yamakura dam power plant will see more than 50,000 solar 
photovoltaic panels cover a 180,000 m sq area, but compared to other 
land-based plants it is relatively small. At 13.7MW when finished, it 
would not make the top 100 of the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farms.


In the UK, water company United Utilities started work last year on a 
floating solar farm on a Greater Manchester reservoir, which will be 
Europe’s largest once complete. Kyocera said it was turning to water 
because of a scarcity of land for utility-scale solar in Japan.


Ray Noble, a solar adviser at the UK-based Renewable Energy Association, 
said that the technology was relatively straightforward but the only 
reason to build floating farms would be if land was very tight.


“If you’re short on land like they are in Japan, you could build on 
water. But in the UK with plenty of industrialised areas, it’s cheaper 
to put solar on land than on water.”


The main challenge was to keep wiring away from the water and put the 
inverters - which convert the electricity generated into a usable form - 
on floating structures. But he added: “If anything goes wrong, I’ve 
always said electricity and water don’t mix.”


Kyocera has already built three floating solar farms, which are much 
smaller than the new one, which was first announced in October 2014.

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[Biofuel] The U.S. Could Switch to Mostly Renewable Energy, No Batteries Needed | Science | Smithsonian

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/us-could-switch-mostly-renewable-energy-no-batteries-needed-180957925/

[Framing it as transmission vs. batteries is a false choice.  A rational 
future energy system should embrace both as a means of providing 
resilience, and evening out demand on long distance and local 
transmission systems.  Also, following both paths will accelerate the 
rate at which we can take distributed renewables generation onto a grid 
for sharing excess when local storage capacity is near full.  And 
'batteries' should be interpreted as all storage options, e.g., hydro 
reservoirs, pumped storage, thermal storage, etc.


links, images, video in on-line article]

The U.S. Could Switch to Mostly Renewable Energy, No Batteries Needed

Better electricity sharing across states would dampen the effects of 
variable weather on wind and solar power


By Sarah Zielinski

smithsonian.com

January 25, 2016

The United States could lower carbon emissions from electricity 
generation by as much as 78 percent without having to develop any new 
technologies or use costly batteries, a new study suggests. There’s a 
catch, though. The country would have to build a new national 
transmission network so that states could share energy.


Our idea was if we had a national ‘interstate highway for electrons’ we 
could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind 
and solar plants in the very best places,” says study co-author 
Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA’s Earth 
System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.


Several years ago, MacDonald was curious about claims that there was no 
technology available that could mitigate carbon dioxide emissions 
without doubling or tripling the cost of electricity. When he 
investigated the issue, he discovered that the studies behind the claims 
did not incorporate the country’s variable weather very well.


One of the big issues with wind and solar power is that their 
availability is dependent upon the weather. Solar is only available on 
sunny days, not during storms or at night. Wind turbines don’t work when 
the wind doesn’t blow enough—or when it blows too much. Because of this, 
some studies have argued that these technologies are only viable if 
large-capacity batteries are available to store energy from these 
sources to use when they aren’t working. That would raise the cost of 
electricity well beyond today’s prices.


But “there’s always wind and solar power available somewhere,” MacDonald 
notes. So he and his colleagues set out to design a low-carbon 
electricity-generation system that better incorporated—and even took 
advantage of—the nation’s weather. Their study appears today in Nature 
Climate Change.


Their computer model showed that by switching to mostly wind and solar 
power sources—with a little help from natural gas, hydroelectric and 
nuclear power when the weather doesn’t cooperate—the United States could 
reduce carbon emissions by 33 to 78 percent from 1990 levels, depending 
on the exact cost of renewable energy and natural gas. (The lower the 
cost of renewable energy and the higher the cost of natural gas, the 
more carbon savings.) Adding coal into the mix did not make electricity 
any cheaper, but it did result in a 37 percent increase in carbon emissions.


The key to this future would be the development of a system for 
transferring electricity across the country, so that a windy day in 
North Dakota could power a cloudy, calm day in New York. This would not 
only require new agreements between states—Texas, for instance, has its 
own separate power grid—but also an upgrade to the transmission lines 
that move electrons from one place to another.


In most areas, energy moves over high-voltage alternating current lines, 
but there are limitations in how far these lines can transmit energy. 
Switching to high-voltage direct current would let energy producers 
transmit more electricity a longer distance. That means new wind 
turbines and solar energy plants could be built in the places that have 
the most potential for wind and solar energy, because the distance from 
where energy is needed wouldn’t matter.


Building a new network for transmitting electricity would be a big job. 
But the computer model showed that it can be cost effective, because in 
the long run it would allow cheap power to be available, notes study 
co-author Christopher Clack, a mathematician at the Cooperative 
Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at Colorado 
University-Boulder.


“By building these transmission facilities, we reduce the costs to 
remove the carbon rather than increasing it,” he says.


Some states, such as California and New York, are already on the path to 
this lower-carbon future, and Vermont just approved plans for a 
high-voltage direct current line from Canada, notes Mark Jacobson, an 
atmospheric scientist at Stanford University. Last year, he headed a 
study 

[Biofuel] Nuclear scientist calls Ontario's $12.8B Darlington rebuild a costly, make-work project - Canadian Manufacturing

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/sustainability/scientist-calls-ontarios-12-8b-darlington-nuclear-rebuild-a-costly-make-work-project-161255/

[If Ontario Power Generation (OPG) delivers anything related to nuclear 
generation which works, is on time and within budget, that would be a 
first-time accomplishment.  The average for OPG is 2.5 times original 
budget and 2 times estimated time to delivery for completion.  Nor to 
any of the reactors live to their promised lifespan, so they are always 
more expensive per kWh produced than initial promises.  However, the 
fact that Ontario has zero need for additional nuclear capacity should 
be the real show-stopper here.


However, if industry is so sure, this time, they can deliver on time and 
within budget, why won't they sign a fixed-price contract with penalties 
for late delivery?


Ontario can replace the actual lost generation capacity (nuclear 
capacity factor in Ontario is around 70%) via conservation, efficiency 
and demand management (not even really started in Ontario yet), lower 
cost imports of hydro from Quebec, building transmission capacity for 
lower-cost hydro imports from Manitoba, converting and restarting pulp 
plant local generation to modern electrical generation, continuing to 
refurbish and upgrade existing micro to mid-scale hydro facilities, and 
installing more wind and solar generation, while stiffening 'spinning 
reserve' with distributed battery storage instead of keeping major hydro 
sources off-line as backup.]


Nuclear scientist calls Ontario’s $12.8B Darlington rebuild a costly, 
make-work project


OPG, however, says refurbishment will be delivered on time and on budget

TORONTO—The proposed $12.8-billion refurbishment of four nuclear 
reactors at the Darlington generating station is an ill-advised 
make-work project that will end up soaking taxpayers, a retired nuclear 
scientist says.


In a letter to Ontario’s energy minister, obtained by The Canadian 
Press, Frank Greening warns of the formidable technical hazards he says 
will undermine rosy projections for the project.


“I am quite mystified that you would consider the refurbishment of 
Darlington to be some sort of solution to Ontario’s economic woes, when 
in fact the premature failures of (nuclear reactors) are a major cause 
of Ontario’s economic problems,” writes Greening, a frequent critic of 
the industry.


“Spending billions of dollars trying to patch up Darlington’s four 
dilapidated reactors will simply continue the bleeding.”


Earlier this month, the province’s publicly owned generating giant, 
Ontario Power Generation, announced plans to start refurbishing 
Darlington—situated east of Toronto on Lake Ontario—this fall. The 
project aims to extend the life of the CANDU reactors, scheduled for 
permanent shutdown in 2020, by 30 years.


The government projects the rebuild will create up to 11,800 jobs a year 
at the height of construction and generate $14.9 billion in economic and 
spinoff benefits.


Greening argues the units are in need of rebuilding prematurely because 
their pressure tubes and feeder pipes will soon fail fitness tests. He 
also warns the reactors’ massive steam generators, which are not part of 
the proposed project, have had a less than stellar track record and will 
more than likely need replacement.


“Replacing these steam generators is fraught with very serious problems, 
both technical and economic, that could prevent the continued operation 
of Darlington beyond 2030,” says Greening, a senior scientist with OPG 
until he retired in 2000.


“The decision to proceed with the refurbishment of Darlington could 
prove to be a disastrous mistake if it is discovered that steam 
generator replacement is in fact needed in the next 10 to 15 years.”


Environmental groups also argue such projects always run massively over 
budget and have cost taxpayers untold billions in the past and 
refurbishment is simply not worth the potential radiation risk to public 
safety.


The Ontario cabinet has so far given the green light to refurbish one of 
Darlington’s reactors. OPG would need separate approvals for each of the 
other three units. The government said that process would allow it to 
call off the project at each stage if things are going awry.


Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli, who argues the province needs 
Darlington’s power, referred questions about Greening’s criticism to 
Ontario Power Generation.


OPG spokesman Bill McKinlay said Wednesday the federal nuclear regulator 
noted Greening’s concerns before giving the project its stamp of approval.


“We’ve been preparing since 2009 and we’re ready to deliver the job 
safely, on time and on budget,” McKinlay said. “We expect it will 
provide 30-plus years of clean, reliable base-load power at a cost lower 
than other alternatives.”


Greening, however, argues the project is an attempt to put a “dying 
industry on life support” at the taxpayer’s expense.


“The inconvenient truth is 

[Biofuel] China's big shift from coal: country to earmark US$4.6B to close 4, 300 mines - Canadian Manufacturing

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/sustainability/chinas-big-coal-shift-country-to-put-aside-us4-3b-to-close-4300-mines-161063/

China’s big shift from coal: country to earmark US$4.6B to close 4,300 mines

Asian country will trim overproduction as it focuses on renewables

BEIJING—As worsening pollution stalks the streets of industrial cities 
across China, the country is looking to speed its transition from 
coal-fired generation. As a result, the country’s massive coal mining 
industry is feeling the squeeze.


Late last week Chinese state media agency, Xinhua, said the country’s 
economic planner is preparing for a major coal production cut. China 
plans to close 4,300 coal mines, eliminating 700 million tonnes of 
“outdated” production, over the next three years. In doing so, the 
country will also look to relocate one million employees.


According to Reuters, China had about 11,000 coal mines in operation at 
the end of 2015, with a total capacity of 5.7 billion tonnes.


As the Asian giant puts a greater emphasis on air quality and greenhouse 
gas emissions, it is investing heavily in renewable energy. China is 
already the largest market for renewables in the world, and is likely to 
maintain this position as it focuses on reducing smog. There are some 
indications the effort is already yielding results. According to 
Bloomberg, China’s emissions from coal likely fell by 2 per cent in 2015.

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[Biofuel] Gigabit internet over the air is coming - TechRepublic

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/starry-launches-bid-to-deliver-gigabit-internet-over-the-air-with-new-technology/

Gigabit internet over the air is coming

Starry is using millimeter wave technology to wirelessly deliver 
internet connectivity to homes. If successful, it could disrupt cable 
companies, telcos, and the broadband market.


By Conner Forrest | January 28, 2016, 11:07 AM PST

Starry, a new startup by the founders of Aereo, wants to deliver faster 
internet access to your home wirelessly, and with no data caps or 
complicated contracts. Starry, a part of Project Decibel, announced its 
debut on Wednesday.


The technology works by leveraging what Starry claims is "the world's 
first millimeter wave band active phased array technology for consumer 
internet communications." Starry can deliver speeds up to one 
gigabit—comparable speeds to Google Fiber—using hardware that consumers 
can install themselves and get connected "in minutes."


ypical Wi-Fi signals exist on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz radio bands. 
Millimeter waves, on the other hand, occupy what is sometimes referred 
to as the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) range from 30 GHz to 300 GHz. 
The EHF is traditionally used in fields such as radio astronomy and 
remote sensing, a geographical field.


Because these millimeters waves are a higher frequency than what is 
commonly used in Wi-Fi, and because they interact differently as they 
travel, they are better suited to transmit large amounts of data.


Gartner's Akshay Sharma said to think of the millimeter waves like the 
sine waves in calculus.


"If you pack more ups and downs, or more cycles, per period of time, 
you're actually packing in more data. So, you can think of them as 
zeroes and ones in a period of time," Sharma said. "If you've got more 
zeroes and ones at the higher frequency, you're going to have much 
higher data rates."


And, the need for that extra data will be a reality very soon. Sharma 
mentioned that the May 2015 Cisco Visual Networking Index predicted 
that, by 2019, 80% of consumer internet traffic will be video. 
Additionally, the growing use of 4K and 8K video will create even 
greater strain.


Also, Sharma said, the technology is being experimented with for use in 
5G connectivity as well. Samsung has trials in the higher frequency wave 
range and Nokia had trials above 70 GHz, he said. Millimeter wave 
frequency is not a requirement for 5G, but some feel that it's the best 
option to push it forward.


Starry also makes use of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing 
(OFDM), a technique that makes it easier to transmit data over a radio 
wave by splitting the signal into many, smaller sub signals. 
Additionally, it also leverages MU-MIMO (multiuser multiple input, 
multiple output) technology, which helps with bandwidth distribution and 
is currently being used in Wi-Fi and LTE.


Along with the new service, the company also announced a hardware 
product called the Starry Station, a Wi-Fi router that "provides users 
with a window into their home's internet health and device connectivity."


The 802.11ac Starry Station features a 3.8-inch capacitive touchscreen 
and has a built-in speed test, device finder, and parental controls. 
Additionally, users can get support directly through the Starry Station.


Small receivers stations are mounted outside of a user's home and the 
signal is sent to the router by a WAN Ethernet connection. The speaks 
directly to what Sharma said would be the biggest challenge for properly 
leveraging millimeter wave tech in that higher frequency often "gives 
you worse in-building penetration if it's an outdoor device."


However, if the hardware is implemented correctly and the signal is 
routed properly, it seems like they could circumvent the issue with the 
current setup by having a power antenna outside the home connected by 
wire to a versatile router inside the home. Still, there are other 
challenges to using higher frequency bands in that line of sight is 
required most of the time and weather can interfere with the signal.


The Starry Station will cost $350 and interested users can reserve one 
on the company's website until February 5, at which point they'll be 
available for sale on Starry's website and Amazon. Orders for the Starry 
Station are to begin shipping this March.


The Greater Boston area will be the first to get the Starry Internet 
beta this summer, but more cities will be announced as the year goes on. 
The company hasn't released any details on pricing yet.


Top 3 takeaways

Starry will use millimeter wave band active phased array technology 
to deliver gigabit speed internet connection, wirelessly, to your home.
Starry also announced the $350 Starry Station, an 802.11ac Wi-Fi 
station that monitors your home network.
Starry presents an interesting option for SMBs and remote workers 
who need more speed and a fast implementation, and who don't want to 
wait for fiber to be dug in 

[Biofuel] Thousands of signatures against Trans Mountain pipeline delivered to NEB hearings | rabble.ca

[Darryl McMahon]

http://rabble.ca/news/2016/01/thousands-signatures-against-trans-mountain-pipeline-delivered-to-neb-hearings

[links and images in on-line article]

Thousands of signatures against Trans Mountain pipeline delivered to NEB 
hearings


By Alyse Kotyk

January 29, 2016

Outside the National Energy Board (NEB) hearings in Burnaby yesterday, 
activists delivered petitions with 26,050 signatures calling on Prime 
Minister Justin Trudeau to reject Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline.


While members of the general public are still not allowed into the 
hearings, a representative accepted the boxes of petitions on behalf of 
the NEB.


"Our goal is to send a really clear message to Trudeau and his cabinet 
that they need to reject the Kinder Morgan pipeline," says SumOfUs 
Campaign Director, Liz McDowell. "That's what tens of thousands of 
Canadians want them to do."


The petitions were dropped off in spite of the government's announcement 
yesterday about its new assessment process for pipelines and energy 
projects.


"It's basically putting a band-aid on a broken process," says McDowell.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and Natural Resources Minister 
Jim Carr's announced changes included a commitment to science-based 
evidence, input and knowledge from Indigenous groups, new NEB members, 
consideration of public views, and a much-needed review of climate 
change effects.


However, environmental groups received the government's announcement 
with some apprehension, particularly as the current NEB hearings for 
Kinder Morgan continue.


"This is an important step forward, but the most significant climate 
impacts -- the ones that occur when the fuels are burned -- still aren't 
being considered," said Peter McCartney, Climate Campaigner for the 
Wilderness Committee in a statement.


The new process also fails to take into consideration downstream climate 
impacts of pipelines and cannot address concerns of a lack of 
cross-examination in the current Kinder Morgan reviews.


"We've come a long way from a process that wouldn't even acknowledge 
climate change," said McCartney. "Now we need to make sure that full 
impact of these projects is taken into account."


In spite of the government's announcements yesterday, the current 
reviews for Kinder Morgan will continue to take place until January 29, 
after which they will conclude in Calgary from February 2 through 
February 5. You can watch a live stream of the hearings online.


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[Biofuel] Vattenfall ended first ever offshore wind farm dismantling

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18847

Vattenfall ended first ever offshore wind farm dismantling

Vattenfall, has completed dismantling the Yttre Stengrund offshore wind 
farm in Kalmar Sound, Sweden, marking the first decommission in the world.


Work on dismantling the five wind turbines with a total capacity of 10 
MW started at the end of November. The wind farm became operational 
since 2001 and had been owned by Vattenfall. Vattenfall saw 
decommissioning as the most economical option rather than replacing the 
turbines with new ones. It added the 15-year-old turbines at Yttre 
Stengrund are an “obsolete model” and not commercially viable to 
upgrade. The utility dismantled the turbines and removed offshore 
cables. Foundations were also cut off level with the sea bed. Swedish 
engineering firm Svensk Sjoentreprenad has been contracted to carry out 
the dismantling work.

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[Biofuel] EDF inks preliminary agreement to build six nuclear plants in India

[Darryl McMahon]

[Trying again with a useful subject line]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18849

[Note GE will not participate so long as it is subject to conventional
liability law in India, but only after given government protection, as
is done in U.S., U.K., Canada etc.]

EDF inks preliminary agreement to build six nuclear plants in India

27/01/2016

French utility EDF declared on Tuesday it had inked a preliminary deal
with Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) to construct six nuclear
reactors at Jaitapur, in the west of India.

EDF is taking over the long-postponed project, which might turn into the 
world's huge nuclear agreement, from fellow French state-controlled

group Areva, which will vend its reactor unit to EDF later this year.
The Jaitapur project is at the primary technical studies stage after
obtaining initial environmental approval in 2010, according to EDF. An
accord for pre-engineering studies was signed by Areva and NPCIL last
April. EDF declared that in the next few months it would go on with the
work started by Areva and NPCIL to get authorization for the European
Pressurised Reactor (EPR) reactor in India and to settle the economic
and financial conditions. The six 1650 megawatt EPR reactors with a
total capacity of approximately 10,000 MW would make Jaitapur one of the 
world's largest nuclear sites and the deal, if concluded, one of the 
biggest in the history of the nuclear industry. Nevertheless Indian
legislation on manufacturer's responsibility has long blocked French, US 
and Russian nuclear projects in the country. General Electric Chairman 
Jeff Immelt announced in September that GE will not make any investment 
in atomic energy in India until accident liability laws are brought in 
line with international practice. Following 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, 
India's parliament ratified a law six years ago that makes equipment 
providers liable for an accident. French President Francois Hollande, 
making a state visit to India, made known on Monday that a deal to build 
the six nuclear reactors must be settled within a year. EDF also 
mentioned that its EDF Energies Nouvelles division had decided to 
collaborate with India's SITAC to construct four onshore wind farms by 
the end of 2016 with a total capacity of 142 MW in the state of Gujarat.



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[Biofuel] EnergyMarketPrice | News details

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18849

[Note GE will not participate so long as it is subject to conventional 
liability law in India, but only after given government protection, as 
is done in U.S., U.K., Canada etc.]


EDF inks preliminary agreement to build six nuclear plants in India

27/01/2016

French utility EDF declared on Tuesday it had inked a preliminary deal 
with Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) to construct six nuclear 
reactors at Jaitapur, in the west of India.


EDF is taking over the long-postponed project, which might turn into the 
world's huge nuclear agreement, from fellow French state-controlled 
group Areva, which will vend its reactor unit to EDF later this year. 
The Jaitapur project is at the primary technical studies stage after 
obtaining initial environmental approval in 2010, according to EDF. An 
accord for pre-engineering studies was signed by Areva and NPCIL last 
April. EDF declared that in the next few months it would go on with the 
work started by Areva and NPCIL to get authorization for the European 
Pressurised Reactor (EPR) reactor in India and to settle the economic 
and financial conditions. The six 1650 megawatt EPR reactors with a 
total capacity of approximately 10,000 MW would make Jaitapur one of the 
world's largest nuclear sites and the deal, if concluded, one of the 
biggest in the history of the nuclear industry. Nevertheless Indian 
legislation on manufacturer's responsibility has long blocked French, US 
and Russian nuclear projects in the country. General Electric Chairman 
Jeff Immelt announced in September that GE will not make any investment 
in atomic energy in India until accident liability laws are brought in 
line with international practice. Following 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, 
India's parliament ratified a law six years ago that makes equipment 
providers liable for an accident. French President Francois Hollande, 
making a state visit to India, made known on Monday that a deal to build 
the six nuclear reactors must be settled within a year. EDF also 
mentioned that its EDF Energies Nouvelles division had decided to 
collaborate with India's SITAC to construct four onshore wind farms by 
the end of 2016 with a total capacity of 142 MW in the state of Gujarat.

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[Biofuel] China's solar capacity exceeds Germany in 2015, industry data

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18836

[graphs in on-line article]

China's solar capacity exceeds Germany in 2015, industry data

25/01/2016

China is likely to have surpassed Germany in the fourth quarter since 
the country with the most solar capacity, despite missing its goal for 
2015, as shown by industry data on Thursday.


China's installed photovoltaic solar capacity represented 43 gigawatts 
(GW) by the end of the year, up approximately 15 gigawatts from 2014, 
the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) declared, according 
to the official Xinhua news agency. This compares with an amount of 
almost 40 GW for Germany, according to data from that country's Federal 
Network Agency and Fraunhofer ISE. Germany's installed solar capacity 
was 38.24 GW at the end of 2014, up 8 percent, the Federal Network 
Agency has mentioned, while installed capacity added in 2015 was 
approximately 1.3 GW, according to Fraunhofer ISE. China had been on 
target to overtake Germany. Data from China's National Energy 
Administration (NEA) shows the number of installations rose by 60 
percent in 2014, and up 35 percent in the first nine months of 2015, to 
37.45 GW. The NEA establishes an aggressive 2015 objective of 23.1 GW 
for solar farms, but did not issue a target for the "distributed solar" 
category, which it outlines as installations smaller than 20 megawatts, 
after installing merely a quarter of its 2014 goal. The NEA has still to 
publish final fourth-quarter and full-year 2015 data. Solar makes up 
around 2.85 percent of China's installed capacity, according to Reuters 
calculations. The NEA chief declared in December that China will add 15 
GW of solar capacity in 2016.

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[Biofuel] UK offers £7.5 million for greener cars

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18833

UK offers £7.5 million for greener cars

25/01/2016

The UK Government has given a £7.5 million grant to bring more green 
cars to the roads in England.


Four local authorities in the West of England will share the money for 
ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs), counting electric and plug-in 
hybrids. They will transform approximately 25% of their light vehicles 
to ULEVs, which is likely to result in “massive savings” on fuel bills 
and a cut in emissions. They intend to raise the number of ULEVs in the 
area to 5,000 annually and double the amount of charging points to 400 
by 2020. The local authorities will also examine the formation of a 
low-emission region in Bristol, which was named the European Green 
Capital in 2015.

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[Biofuel] Oslo trash incinerator starts experiment to slow climate change - News - KFGO The Mighty 790AM - Fargo Moorhead, ND

[Darryl McMahon]

http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2016/jan/25/oslo-trash-incinerator-starts-experiment-to-slow-climate-change/

[Caution:  if the entity charged with 'storing' the CO2 is Statoil, then 
this is almost assuredly an enhance oil recovery (EOR) scheme, not truly 
a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project.  In EOR production, 
about 60-70% of the 'stored' CO2 is brought back to the surface 
(atmosphere) with the produced oil.  The CO2 produced as a result of the 
additional produced oil means the nominal CO2 removed from the 
environment actually results in net MORE CO2 in the environment.]


Oslo trash incinerator starts experiment to slow climate change

Monday, January 25, 2016 9:32 a.m. CST

By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Oslo's main waste incinerator began the world's first 
experiment to capture carbon dioxide from the fumes of burning rubbish 
on Monday, hoping to develop technology to enlist the world's trash in 
slowing global warming.


The test at the Klemetsrud incinerator, which burns household and 
industrial waste, is a step beyond most efforts to capture and bury 
greenhouse gases at coal-fired power plants or factories using fossil fuels.


"I hope Oslo can show other cities that it's possible" to capture 
emissions from trash, Oslo Mayor Marianne Borgen said at an opening 
ceremony at the Klemetsrud waste-to-energy incinerator which generates 
heat to warm buildings in the city.


So far, high costs have plagued technology for carbon capture and 
storage. Last month, almost 200 nations agreed a deal in Paris to fight 
climate change in a new spur for technologies to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions.


The Klemetsrud incinerator emits more than 300,000 tonnes of carbon 
dioxide a year, or 0.6 percent of Norway's man-made emissions. Carbon 
dioxide is the main gas blamed for stoking rising temperatures and more 
droughts, floods and rising seas.


The test plant, in five containers feeding exhaust gases through a 
series of pipes and filters, will capture carbon dioxide at a rate 
equivalent to 2,000 tonnes a year until the end of April.


And if it works, a full-scale carbon capture plant could be built by 
2020, officials said. Carbon dioxide could then be shipped to the North 
Sea and injected into oil and gas fields to help boost pressure and 
raise production.


"We see potential in this market across the world," said Valborg 
Lundegaard, head of Aker Solutions' engineering business which runs the 
test. She said it was the first of its kind worldwide for a 
waste-to-energy plant.


Officials declined to discuss costs but said the price of emitting 
carbon dioxide in the European Union emissions trading market would have 
to be far above a current 6 euros ($6.50) per tonne for the technology 
to be feasible at scale.


About 60 percent of the rubbish burnt at Klemetsrud is of biological 
origin - from waste wood to food. That means that capturing emissions 
would be a step to extract carbon from a natural cycle in so-called 
"negative emissions".


"It won't be possible to achieve goals set in the Paris agreement 
without wide use of negative emissions," said Frederic Hauge, head of 
environmental group Bellona.


A 2015 report by the Australia-based Global Carbon Capture and Storage 
Institute said there are just 15 big CCS projects in operation 
worldwide, including a coal-fired power plant run by Canada's 
Saskatchewan Power[SSPOW.UL].




http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2016-01-opening-in-oslo-world-first-within-ccs

Opening in Oslo: World first within CCS

Today a test plant for CO2-capture opened at the waste incineration 
plant at Klemetsrud, Oslo. This is the first time anywhere in the world 
that CO2 will be captured from a waste-to-energy plant.


Published on January 25, 2016 by Bellona Europa 

– This is truly an innovative project that will bring Norway a huge step 
forward towards full scale CO2-capture and storage, says Frederic Hauge, 
head of The Bellona Foundation.


The waste-to-energy plant at Klemetsrud is the largest emission source 
in Oslo. It stands for 20 percent of Oslo’s total emissions.


– If one succeeds in Klemetsrud, one will actually extract CO2 from the 
atmosphere, says Hauge.


60 per cent of the waste handled at Klemetsrud is biological waste. 
Since plants take up CO2, this CO2 will be removed from the natural 
cycle if it is captured from the waste incineration plant and stored 
underground. The waste incineration plant at Klemetsrud emits 300.000 
tons of CO2 every year.


– We are actually surprised by how fast this process has moved. The 
decision was made in June and the pilot plant is already opening. This 
shows that this is completely feasible when there is a will to do it, 
says Hauge.


The Waste-to-energy Agency in Oslo owns the plant and has been a driving 
force of this project. They are also gaining political support from 
their owner, the City of Oslo. Only a 

[Biofuel] Carbon Capture Flops in California Despite Millions in Investment | KQED Science

[Darryl McMahon]

http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/24/despite-millions-in-investment-carbon-capture-flops-in-california/

[audiocast, images and links in on-line article]

Carbon Capture Flops in California Despite Millions in Investment

By Lauren Sommer, KQED Science

January 24, 2016

California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, 
pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil 
fuels are going away anytime soon.


Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing 
carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it 
someplace, like deep underground.


But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and 
storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.


Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have 
failed to move beyond the planning stage.


The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a 
boost from the federal Recovery Act funding program, which was designed 
to develop emerging technology.


Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of Clean Energy Systems was riding a wave 
of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as 
the Kimberlina power plant.


“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of 
folks from really all over the world.”


The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of 
California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: 
Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you 
could roll basketballs through it.


“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big 
stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”


Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject 
it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers 
thousands of feet down.


“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you 
bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”


It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in 
California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.


Six years later, it remains a dream.

“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” 
Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.


His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to 
buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.


“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which 
utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard 
time finding a market.”


His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it 
also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.


“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out 
it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.


Other Projects Stall Out

Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are 
facing the same fate.


One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of 
Shell, was awarded $3 million in stimulus funds for the Northern 
California CO2 Reduction Project,  where a million tons of carbon were 
to be sequestered underground in Solano County.


But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to Hydrogen Energy 
California (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of 
Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent 
$152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its 
claim on $122 million last summer.


HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil 
industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil 
wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to 
sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic 
opposition.


“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said 
Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra 
Club.


Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel 
California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon 
footprint.


“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that 
is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” 
said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like 
California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”


Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a 
number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in 
the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have 
no carbon footprint.”


This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some 
see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to 
cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.


In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate 

[Biofuel] This global wealth study will make you weep: The most disturbing findings from Oxfam’s latest report - Salon.com

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/21/this_global_wealth_study_will_make_you_weep_the_most_disturbing_findings_partner/

Thursday, Jan 21, 2016 03:45 AM EST

This global wealth study will make you weep: The most disturbing 
findings from Oxfam’s latest report


The world's richest 62 billionaires have as much wealth as the poorest 
3.6 billion. But wait, it gets so much worse


Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet

You may have seen the headlines from Davos, Switzerland, where Oxfam’s 
latest global inequality report found the world’s richest 62 
billionaires have as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people. But 
what’s most shocking is not what is happening at the top of the economic 
ladder, but at the bottom.


“The gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes,” Oxfam said. 
“The richest 1 percent have now accumulated more wealth than the rest of 
the world put together… Meanwhile, the wealth owned by the bottom half 
of humanity has fallen by a trillion dollars in the past five years.”


This gap “is just the latest evidence that today we live in a world with 
levels of inequality we may not have seen for over a century,” they 
said. But the fine print of Oxfam’s analysis of wealth trends between 
2010 and 2015 finds the poor are getting much poorer.


“The wealth of the richest 62 people has risen by 44 percent in the five 
years since 2010—that’s an increase of more than half a trillion dollars 
($542 billion), to $1.76 trillion,” Oxfam noted. “Meanwhile, the wealth 
of the bottom half fell by just over a trillion dollars in the same 
period—a drop of 41 percent. Since the turn of the century, the poorest 
half of the world’s population has received just 1 percent of the total 
increase in global wealth, while half of that increase has gone to the 
top 1 percent.”


Oxfam continued, “The average annual income of the poorest 10 percent of 
people in the world has risen by less than $3 each year in almost a 
quarter of a century. Their daily income has risen by less than a single 
cent every year.”


Oxfam, which combats poverty globally, said “apologists” for the rich 
often cite the numbers of people worldwide living in extreme poverty was 
cut in half between 1990 and 2010 “as proof that inequality is not a 
major problem.” However, that “misses the point,” because “had 
inequality within countries not grown during that period, an extra 200 
million people would have escaped poverty.”


Wealth trickles up, not down, says Oxfam, because the richest 
individuals use a system of global tax-avoidance schemes to avoid paying 
taxes to their governments. “Once [wealth is] there, an ever more 
elaborate system of tax havens and an industry of wealth managers ensure 
that it stays there, far from the reach of ordinary citizens and their 
governments.”


These disparities do more than keep the world’s poor living in harsh and 
primitive settings. Oxfam cited other studies that have found countries 
with the greatest economic disparities also see other social inequities 
reaching into higher social classes.


“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently found that countries 
with higher income inequality also tend to have larger gaps between 
women and men in terms of health, education, labour market 
participation, and representation in institutions like parliaments,” it 
said. “The gender pay gap was also found to be higher in more unequal 
societies. It is worth noting that 53 of the world’s richest 62 people 
are men.”


But the world’s poor face many additional challenges. Most of the very 
poor live in regions that will be most heavily impacted by rising sea 
levels and other expected climate change consequences, even though the 
carbon footprints of these individuals is minuscule compared to “the 
average footprint of the richest 1 percent globally,” Oxfam said.


The biggest reason the rich are getting richer while the poor are 
getting poorer—and wages for the middle-class in countries like the U.S. 
have stagnated in recent decades—is because investments have been 
rewarded, but not labor. “One of the key trends underlying this huge 
concentration of wealth and incomes is the increasing return to capital 
versus labour,” the report said. “In almost all rich countries and in 
most developing countries, the share of national income going to workers 
has been falling.”


“This means workers are capturing less and less of the gains from 
growth,” they explained. “In contrast, the owners of capital have seen 
their capital consistently grow (through interest payments, dividends, 
or retained profits) faster than the rate the economy has been growing. 
Tax avoidance by the owners of capital, and governments reducing taxes 
on capital gains have further added to these returns.”


This wage stagnation and disparities also has a large gender 
component—with women losing out, Oxfam reported. “Women make up the 
majority of the world’s low-paid workers and are concentrated in the 
most precarious jobs,” they 

[Biofuel] After 60 years of nuclear power, the industry survives only on stupendous subsidies - The Ecologist

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986749/after_60_years_of_nuclear_power_the_industry_survives_only_on_stupendous_subsidies.html

After 60 years of nuclear power, the industry survives only on 
stupendous subsidies


Pete Dolack

4th January 2016

Almost 60 years since the world's first commercial nuclear power station 
began to deliver power to the UK's grid, the industry remains as far 
from being able to cover its costs as ever, writes Pete Dolack. But 
while unfunded liabilities increase year by year, governments are still 
willing to commit their taxpayers' billions to new nuclear plants with 
no hope of ever being viable.


The ongoing environmental disaster at Fukushima is a grim enough 
reminder of the dangers of nuclear power. But nuclear does not make 
sense economically, either.


The entire industry would not exist without massive government 
subsidies. Quite an insult: Subsidies prop up an industry that points a 
dagger at the heart of the communities where ever it operates.


The building of nuclear power plants drastically slowed after the 
disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, so it is at a minimum 
reckless that the latest attempt to resuscitate nuclear power pushes 
forward heedless of Fukushima's discharge of radioactive materials into 
the air, soil and ocean.


There are no definitive statistics on the amount of subsidies enjoyed by 
nuclear power providers - in part because there so many different types 
of subsidies - but it amounts to a figure, whether we calculate in 
dollars, euros or pounds, in the hundreds of billions.


Quite a result for an industry whose boosters, at its dawn a 
half-century ago, declared that it would provide energy "too cheap to 
meter"!


Then and now ... little has changed

Taxpayers are not finished footing the bill for the industry, however. 
There is the matter of disposing radioactive waste (often borne by 
governments rather than energy companies) and fresh subsidies being 
granted for new nuclear power plants. None of this is unprecedented - 
government handouts have the been the industry's rule from its inception.


A paper written by Mark Cooper, a senior economic analyst for the 
Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment, notes the 
lack of economic viability then: [page iv]


"In the late 1950s the vendors of nuclear reactors knew that their 
technology was untested and that nuclear safety issues had not been 
resolved, so they made it clear to policymakers in Washington that they 
would not build reactors if the Federal government did not shield them 
from the full liability of accidents."


Nor have the economics of nuclear energy become rational today. A Union 
of Concerned Scientists paper, Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable Without 
Subsidies, states: [page 3]


"Despite the profoundly poor investment experience with taxpayer 
subsidies to nuclear plants over the past 50 years, the objectives of 
these new subsidies are precisely the same as the earlier subsidies: to 
reduce the private cost of capital for new nuclear reactors and to shift 
the long-term, often multi-generational risks of the nuclear fuel cycle 
away from investors. And once again, these subsidies to new 
reactors-whether publicly or privately owned-could end up exceeding the 
value of the power produced."


The many ways of counting subsidies

Among the goodies routinely given away, according to the Concerned 
Scientists, are:


Subsidies at inception, reducing capital costs and operating costs.
Accounting rules allowing companies to write down capital costs 
after cost overruns, cancellations and plant abandonments, reducing 
capital-recovery requirements,
Recovery of 'stranded costs' (costs to a utility's assets because 
of new regulations or a deregulated market) passed on to rate payers.



Yes, you read that last item correctly. Even when the energy industry 
receives its wish to be rid of regulation, it is entitled to extra money 
because of the resulting rigors of market pressures.


The amount of government subsidies for nuclear (and for oil and gas) is 
far greater than that for solar energy, despite Right-wing attempts to 
exploit the Obama administration's generous loan guarantees to failed 
California solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra.


A primary source for right-wing disinformation campaigns against 
renewable energy appears to be a report by the US Energy Information 
Agency that lists direct federal government subsidies to renewables as 
significantly larger than for nuclear or for natural gas and petroleum 
liquids for fiscal years 2007 and 2010.


The report, prepared at the behest of three hard-line Republican members 
of the House of Representatives, was narrowly focused, and notes that it 
"do[es] exclude some subsidies."


And, as a snapshot, the decades of previous handouts to nuclear, oil and 
gas companies are not accounted for. Nor does the Energy Information 
Agency report account for legacy 

[Biofuel] U.S. Moves to Limit Emissions of Planet-Warming Methane - The New York Times

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/us/methane-emission-rules-interior-department.html

[images and links in on-line article]

U.S. Moves to Limit Emissions of Planet-Warming Methane

By CORAL DAVENPORTJAN. 22, 2016

The Obama administration on Friday proposed a new rule aimed at curbing 
emissions of planet-warming methane from oil and gas drilling on public 
land. It would force companies to use equipment to capture leaked gas 
and raise the costs they pay for extracting fuel on government property.


The draft regulation, proposed by the Interior Department, is the latest 
step by President Obama to use his executive authority to clamp down on 
the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to climate change, and to make 
it more expensive for oil, gas and coal companies to mine and drill on 
public land. It follows last week’s controversial move by the Interior 
Department to halt new leases for coal mining on public lands, and to 
reform the government’s program for leasing federal lands to coal 
companies with an eye to raising their costs.


It also comes as the administration has particularly targeted emissions 
of methane, a chemical contained in natural gas that is about 25 times 
more potent than carbon dioxide. The Obama administration wants to cut 
methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent from 
2012 levels by 2025.


The problem of methane leaks from natural gas equipment has drawn fresh 
national attention because of a broken pipe in Los Angeles that has been 
spewing methane for months, sending thousands of people from their homes.


The proposed rule on natural gas leaks, which will be open to public 
comment before it is finalized, would not apply to situations like the 
one in California. It is aimed at accidental gas leaks and at the 
process of venting and burning off leaked gas — known as flaring — from 
oil and gas wells on public lands. It would require companies to use 
equipment to both capture leaked gas and to limit the process of 
releasing and flaring the gas.


The proposal is also intended to increase the royalties that oil and gas 
companies pay to drill on public lands by tightening requirements on 
when operators owe royalties on flared gas, and ensuring that the 
Interior Department can increase royalty rates above the current rate of 
12.5 percent of the value of production.


“I think most people would agree that we should be using our nation’s 
natural gas to power our economy — not wasting it by venting and flaring 
it into the atmosphere,” Sally Jewell, the interior secretary, said in a 
statement. “We need to modernize decades-old standards to reflect 
existing technologies so that we can cut down on harmful methane 
emissions and use this captured natural gas to generate power and 
provide a return to taxpayers, tribes and states for this public resource.”

Continue reading the main story
More Reporting on Climate Change

Environmental groups applauded the move. “The science is clear that the 
best thing this administration can do to ensure our public lands are 
managed in the public’s interest is to end all fossil fuel extraction on 
them entirely,” said Michael Brune, president of the Sierra Club. “And 
today’s action from the Bureau of Land Management represents a positive 
step towards reining in this industry’s misuse of our public lands.”


Advertisement
Continue reading the main story

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Continue reading the main story

While oil and gas companies have pushed back against the cost of 
proposed new regulations, the Interior Department estimates that the 
rule’s net benefits could range from $115 million to $188 million per 
year, including increased revenues for operators from sale of recovered 
natural gas and environmental benefits of reducing emissions.


United States oil production is at its highest level in nearly 30 years 
and the nation is now the largest producer of natural gas in the world. 
That boom in production has led to lower energy prices, but also to more 
natural gas and methane leaks. About 5 percent of the nation’s oil 
supply and about 11 percent of its natural gas supply are extracted from 
about 100,000 federal onshore oil and gas wells. In 2014, those wells 
generated about $3 billion in royalties to the Treasury.


From 2009 to 2014, enough natural gas was lost through venting, flaring 
and leaks to power more than five million homes for a year, according to 
figures provided by the Interior Department. That led to a loss of up to 
$23 million annually in royalty revenue to the federal government, 
according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office.

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[Biofuel] Canada doesn't need the Energy East pipeline to replace oil imports | rabble.ca

[Darryl McMahon]

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2016/01/canada-doesnt-need-energy-east-pipeline-to-replace-oil-import

Canada doesn't need the Energy East pipeline to replace oil imports

By Gordon Laxer

January 21, 2016

With three proposed oil pipelines seemingly down for the count, Jeffrey 
Simpson made the case last week for the last one standing -- 
TransCanada's Energy East pipeline to New Brunswick. Its main benefit? 
It would replace imported oil with 1.1 million barrels from Alberta and 
Saskatchewan and keep $8 billion in Canada.


Or would it? Is a pipeline from distant Alberta needed to replace oil 
imports?


Obama killed the Keystone XL oil pipeline; Trudeau killed the Northern 
Gateway line by banning oil tankers in the treacherous waters off B.C.'s 
northern coast; and Christy Clark's B.C. government opposes the 
expansion of Kinder Morgan's existing oil pipeline to the Vancouver area.


In contrast to those purely exporting pipelines, Energy East could 
replace most of Canada's oil imports.


Ending oil imports matters a lot. Eastern Canadians could finally get 
energy security. That's something Ottawa has continually promised 
Americans by offering them more Canadian oil, but it has never offered 
Quebeckers and Atlantic Canadians. Ending oil imports is the surest way 
to their energy security.


But, although TransCanada dresses up Energy East as a nation-building 
project like the Canadian Pacific Railway and the TransCanada Highway, 
its main purpose is to export oil from Alberta's Sands.


The Irving oil refinery in Saint John New Brunswick is the eastern 
terminus for TransCanada's line. Energy East's proposed volume is so 
great, that it far exceeds Irving's capacity. According to Mark Sherman, 
plant manager at the Irving Oil refinery, "It's way more than we would 
ever use at this refinery, so the bulk of it would all be exported."


Irving imports and exports lots of oil. It has no track record of 
displacing oil imports with domestic oil although it easily could. Big 
Oil produces enough Newfoundland oil to supply all Atlantic Canadians. 
Yet Newfoundlanders don't even get access to their own oil. They'll be 
very vulnerable in an international oil shortage.


Would Energy East supply Quebec's two refineries? Perhaps, but not with 
much at the moment. Last month Enbridge reversed the flow of its Line 9 
oil pipeline from Sarnia to Montreal, so Suncor in Montreal and Valero 
in Quebec City now get Alberta bitumen and Western Canadian conventional 
oil. They also get a growing amount of shale oil from North Dakota.


Lest anyone thinks U.S. oil is more secure than Middle East oil, Matt 
Simmons, a former energy advisor to George W. Bush warned that the U.S. 
would shut Canada off in an oil supply emergency.


It could make commercial sense for Big Oil to offload domestic oil in 
Canada before exporting the rest, but this incidental security would end 
if exports become more profitable.


Oil on the Energy East line would go to the highest bidder unless Canada 
adopts an eco-energy security plan.


U.S. oil imports should be replaced by non-fracked, non-Tar-Sands oil 
from western Canada carried on a much scaled down Energy East line that 
ends in Quebec.


Atlantic Canadians are particularly exposed, depending on imports for 
more than 80 per cent of their oil to heat their homes and fuel their 
cars through long icy winters.


But why run a pipeline 4,000 kilometres from Alberta when Ottawa could 
direct that Newfoundland oil to supply all Atlantic Canadians.


Most Atlantic Canadians live on or near a coast. There is no need to 
pipe it when it can be shipped. That would avoid incursions on First 
Nations lands. To meet Canada's ambitious Paris climate commitments, oil 
tankers could be phased out as East Coasters' oil use falls, whereas a 
pipeline would need three decades of shipping Tar Sands oil at full 
volume to amortize its building costs.


Alberta's Tar Sands are the fastest growing source of Canada's 
greenhouse gas pollution. Canada cannot cut its GHG emissions by at 
least 80 per cent by 2050, its G8 commitment, if Tar Sands emissions 
grow by 43 per cent, as Alberta's latest climate action plan permits. 
Alberta's Tar Sands can't be greened. They must be phased out.


Canada doesn't need the Energy East pipeline to replace oil imports. As 
Canadians steadily reduce colossal energy waste, they can live on a 
diminishing supply of domestic, non-fracked oil and natural gas liquids 
as they transition to a socially just, low-carbon future.

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[Biofuel] Cook Islands On Target To Be 100 Percent Renewable - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/01/cook-islands-on-target-to-be-100-percent-renewable.html

[links in on-line article]

Cook Islands On Target To Be 100 Percent Renewable

January 18, 2016

By Kelvin Ross

Deputy Editor

The Cook Islands in the South Pacific is on track to become 100 percent 
renewable by 2020, it was revealed on Jan. 17.


In fact Prime Minister Henry Puna said that the 15 islands that lie 
southwest of Tahiti would generate 80 percent of its electricity from 
renewables by the end of 2017.


“We have no difficulty upscaling to renewables,” he told a high-level 
energy debate organised by the Financial Times and the International 
Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi.


The islands made its renewable target only in 2010 in a bid to wean 
itself off a reliance on imported diesel-generated power.


Now, according to Puna, the country has so embraced renewables that it 
cannot move fast enough to integrate the clean energy.


“Our problem is technological,” he said. “The grid cannot accommodate 
all the renewables that are ready.”


The Asian Development Bank and the European Union have together 
contributed more than $18m to get solar projects off the ground, while 
the islands’ government has added $5.83m.


Last May, the New Zealand government completed a $20m project to build 
six solar arrays.

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[Biofuel] DOE Clears Wind Project Off New Jersey Coast Through Its Enviro Review Process - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/01/doe-clears-wind-project-off-new-jersey-coast-through-its-enviro-review-process.html

[links in on-line article]

DOE Clears Wind Project Off New Jersey Coast Through Its Enviro Review 
Process


January 11, 2016

By Barry Cassell

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Jan. 6 released both a Finding of 
No Significant Impact (FONSI) and final Environmental Assessment (EA) on 
the Fishermen's Atlantic City Windfarm project, to be located in waters 
off of New Jersey.


Based upon the EA, DOE has determined that authorizing the expenditure 
of federal funding to Fishermen's Atlantic City Windfarm LLC to 
construct and operate up to six wind turbine generators, for an offshore 
wind demonstration project, approximately 2.8 nautical miles off the 
coast of Atlantic City, N.J., would not be a major federal action 
significantly affecting the quality of the human environment within the 
meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act. Therefore, an 
environmental impact statement is not required, and DOE is issuing the 
Finding of No Significant Impact.


In February 2011, DOE released the National Offshore Wind Strategy, in 
partnership with the Department of the Interior (DOI). The strategy 
includes and addresses two critical objectives in pursuit of overcoming 
barriers to commercial offshore wind development in the U.S.:


Reducing the cost of energy through technology development to 
ensure competitiveness with other electrical generation sources; and
Reducing deployment timelines and uncertainties limiting US 
offshore wind project development.


In March 2012, DOE issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to 
provide support for regionally diverse Advanced Technology Demonstration 
Projects through collaborative partnerships. By providing funding, 
technical assistance and government coordination to accelerate 
deployment of these demonstration projects, DOE helps eliminate 
uncertainties, mitigate risks, and support the private sector in 
creating a robust U.S. offshore wind energy industry.


Initially, seven applicants were selected by DOE for negotiation of 
award under the FOA. The awards were divided into five distinct budget 
periods. Upon completion of budget period one, DOE conducted a 
down-select decision, whereby only three of the seven applicants will be 
eligible for funding for budget periods two through five. Fishermen’s 
Atlantic City Windfarm (FACW) was one of three projects selected by DOE.


This proposed project would consist of up to six wind turbine generators 
that would generate up to approximately 25 MW of electricity and the 
necessary electrical transmission facilities (i.e., undersea and 
underground cable) to connect the wind farm to an existing electrical 
substation, located in Atlantic City, for interconnection to the 
regional power grid. Electrical power generated would be sold to the 
market through the state’s energy regulating agency, the Board of Public 
Utilities (BPU), or directly to a large independent power consumer.


FACW started the various state and federal permitting processes for 
their offshore wind farm in 2009. State and federal agency consultation 
has been completed as part of  permitting. To date, all required state 
and federal permits have been obtained for the offshore wind farm, the 
final EA noted.


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) prepared an EA as part of its 
permitting process. During the permit review, the USACE received 
concurrence under Section 7 of the Endangered Species  Act from the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service. The 
USACE also coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard regarding issues 
related to navigation, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
regarding air quality, and Federal Aviation Administration regarding 
aviation safety.


The project has been modified since issuance of the Army permit, and DOE 
is reviewing the entire scope of the modified project; USACE is only 
reviewing those portions of the original project that have been 
modified. The USACE issued a public notice for the proposed permit 
modification in February 2015.


Construction would be supported by a construction staging area(s) and a 
construction port. Onshore support facilities would be located at 
existing waterfront industrial or commercial sites in the cities of 
Camden, N.J., and Atlantic City.


Each turbine would have a nameplate capacity of no more than 5 MW and a 
blade rotor diameter of no more than 427 feet. The turbine array would 
be oriented in one row parallel to the coastline running northeast to 
southwest. Spacing between the turbines would be approximately 3,543 
feet. Each of the wind turbines would be supported by a jacket-type 
foundation, consisting of steel pipe piles for anchoring into the 
seabed, and a steel center caisson onto which the transition piece and 
turbine tower would be installed.


The inter-array 

[Biofuel] RWE Halts $1.4BN of Onshore Wind Plans Due to UK Policy - Renewable Energy World

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/01/rwe-halts-1-4bn-of-onshore-wind-plans-due-to-uk-policy.html?cmpid=renewablewind01212016

[image and links in on-line article]

RWE Halts $1.4BN of Onshore Wind Plans Due to UK Policy

January 19, 2016

By Alex Morales, Bloomberg

RWE AG has halted about 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) of planned 
onshore wind farms in the U.K. because of government efforts to halt aid 
and restrict planning for the technology.


RWE’s Innogy renewables division canceled nine planned wind farms in 
England representing about 250 million pounds of investment, Mike 
Parker, head of U.K. onshore wind at the utility, said on Jan. 18 in an 
interview in London. Another 10 to 12 projects costing 650 million 
pounds to 800 million pounds in Scotland and Wales have been put on 
hold, with the utility spending just the bare minimum to maintain legal 
rights, he said.


“If we had a route to market, they were all viable projects that we were 
prepared to spend money on,” Parker said.


Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has already ended one subsidy program for 
onshore wind a year early and also has signaled that she’s looking at 
cutting subsidies to the technology under the government’s 
contracts-for-difference, or CfD, program. Her ambition is to protect 
consumers, who pay for the aid programs through their bills. RWE Innogy 
Chief Executive Officer Hans Bunting said that argument should work in 
favor of onshore wind farms.


“The customer should not pay more than he has to, and onshore wind, 
especially at the large scale, is the cheapest form of renewables that 
we have,” Bunting told reporters on Jan. 18 at a meeting in London.


Planning restrictions have also made it harder to build new wind farms 
in England, though such decisions are already devolved to the local 
administration in Scotland and are likely to be devolved to Wales this year.


“You have local devolved administrations who can make decisions that 
they want things, but they haven’t got the economic lever to allow them 
to happen,” Parker said. He urged the government to bring clarity to the 
CfD program by saying onshore wind will be able to compete alongside 
other technologies for the contracts, which guarantee a set price for 
power over a set number of years.


[See also: 
http://www.mail-archive.com/sustainablelorgbiofuel%40lists.sustainablelists.org/msg81646.html]

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[Biofuel] Germany must set out an ambitious plan for coal exit

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18821

Germany must set out an ambitious plan for coal exit

21/01/2016

Germany has to fast-track the country’s coal exit, according to a call 
by Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks.


The topic was raised aftermath climate-protection deal in Paris last 
month aimed to transform the world's fossil-driven economy. Now, Berlin 
should set a schedule to ditch coal power production, as continued coal 
burning jeopardizes the nation’s reputation as a leader on climate 
change. Hendricks hesitated to set a date for coal exit, however is 
pushing for a final 2040 withdrawal, considering a proposal by energy 
think-tank Agora Energiewende. However, coal industry wants to continue 
to mine and burn coal until at least 2050. That proposal envisages 
gradually withdrawing around 3 GW of coal power from the market per year 
from 2018, equivalent to decommissioning around three to four large 
power plants. Coal accounts for around 40 percent of electricity 
generated in Germany and is considered as an important source for a 
stable power supply, as the country exits nuclear power and moves 
towards renewable sources of energy.

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[Biofuel] Ontario utility rolls out microgrid project using Tesla's Powerwall - Canadian Manufacturing

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/technology/veridian-plans-launch-of-ont-microgrid-project-using-teslas-powerwall-160312

[With some luck, perhaps electrical supply designers will understand you 
can have the EV battery, without the EV, so the storage will be online 
when needed and not stuck in traffic.  Putting the storage on the grid 
side of the residential meter gives the utility control of the tool, and 
eliminates the need for metering power coming from the grid from 
thousands of micro-sources, and figuring out compensation for that.  If 
the storage sits on the other side of the meter, then it should just 
look like conventional demand per today's model.]


Ontario utility rolls out microgrid project using Tesla’s Powerwall

Veridian to use clean energy, storage, optimization in two new microgrids

January 13, 2016

AJAX, Ont.—One of Ontario’s leading utilities is launching a project
that will use residential solar coupled with Tesla’s new Powerwall
energy storage unit to create two residential microgrids in Ajax, Ont.

Veridian Connections, a utility that serves 119,000 Ontario customers
east of Toronto, plans to launch the program in the second quarter of of 
2016.


“This project serves as the ideal opportunity for Veridian to further
highlight and enhance the integration of renewables with microgrid
operation into Ontario’s energy landscape,” the company’s president and
CEO, Michael Angemeer, said.

The two microgrids are set to be installed and aggregated into
Veridian’s corporate headquarters. One will employ 10 KW of solar
generation, 14 kWh of lithium-ion battery storage as well as electric
vehicle charging capabilities. The other will utilize a 7 kWh Tesla
Energy Powerwall with a solar system.

The project will integrate multiple sources of residential clean energy, 
maximizing load efficiencies and energy utilization using a microgrid 
management system developed by software firm, Opus One Solutions. The 
system is designed to minimize the cost of electricity under time-of-use 
rates, generate credits through the net metering program and respond to 
utility signals under the demand response programs.


Meanwhile, the company hopes the two new microgrids are also just a
stepping stone.

“It’s also the first step in developing a system that will allow all
types of microgrids to be added to an integrated system that will
provide benefits for Veridian and improve the quality of life for our
customers,” Angemeer said.

For individual Canadian consumers, Tesla’s Powerwall is also slated to
become available this year.

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[Biofuel] Iceland Sentences 26 Corrupt Bankers to 74 Years in Prison - NationofChange | Progressive Change Through Positive Action

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/01/17/iceland-sentences-26-corrupt-bankers-to-74-years-in-prison/

[image and links in on-line article]

Iceland just sentenced their 26th banker to prison for his part in the 
2008 economic collapse. The charges ranged from breach of fiduciary 
duties to market manipulation to embezzlement.


When most people think of Iceland, they envision fire and ice. Major 
volcanoes and vast ice fields are abundant due to its position on the 
northern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. (A hot July day in Reykjavik is 
around 55 degrees.) However, Iceland is also noted for being one of the 
Nordic Socialist countries, complete with universal health care, free 
education and a lot other Tea Potty nightmares. Therefore, as you might 
imagine, they tend to view and react to economic situations slightly 
differently than the U.S.


When the banking induced “Great Recession of ’08” struck, Iceland’s 
economic hit was among the hardest. However, instead of rewarding 
fraudulent banking procedures with tons of bailout money, they took a 
different path.


Prior to the recession, Iceland had one of the more thriving economies 
in the world, in spite of the fact that their total population (327,000) 
wouldn’t even fill a mid-sized American city. When the recession struck, 
they were among the earliest and hardest hit. However, instead of 
running to the vaults to shower the banks with money, they let the banks 
fail. They also resisted traveling down the European/Republican 
austerity road. Instead, they kept their social programs intact at a 
time when they were most needed.


And, they sent fraudulent bankers to jail.

When Iceland’s three major banks collapsed, it resulted in defaults 
totaling $114 billion in a country with a gross domestic product (GDP) 
of only $19 billion. In October, 2008 the parliament passed emergency 
legislation to take over the domestic operations of the major banks and 
established new banks to handle them. They did not, however, take over 
any of the foreign assets or obligations. Those stayed with the original 
banks, right into bankruptcy.


They then brought charges against several banking executives for fraud 
and market manipulation, resulting in sentences ranging from four to 
five and a half years. As the special prosecutor said,


Why should we have a part of our society that is not being policed or 
without responsibility?


In the U.S., we simply tapped a few wrists with small fines, that ended 
up being paid by their respective banks.(Can you say “got off scot free?”)


Sending the bank executives off to play rock hockey for a few years 
didn’t solve the problem, but it did send a message not to do that again.


At its worst, Icelandic currency, the Icelandic krona (ISK) was trading 
at around 250 ISK per Euro. In order to qualify for an IMF 
(International Monetary Fund) loan, Iceland raised interest rates to 
18%, which, of course, attracted bank deposits. Iceland also received a 
$2.5 billion loan from Europe’s Nordic countries.


To power its recovery, Iceland utilized its natural advantages such as 
its clean, cheap geothermal energy to attract the tech industry. 
Icelandic commercial fishing remained strong and as the general world 
economy picked up, the tourist industry bloomed. The deeply depreciated 
krona also helped make Iceland and Icelandic products very attractive, 
economically.  On the banking front, they facilitated domestic debt 
restructuring and fiscal adjustments as conditions changed.


As to how it has all turned out, here’s what the International Monetary 
Fund Survey has to say about it:


Iceland has rebounded after the 2008/9 crisis and will soon 
surpass pre-crisis output levels with strong performance in tourism and 
fisheries. Debt ratios are on a downward path and balance sheets have 
broadly been restored. The financial sector is back on track though with 
some important items remaining on the docket.


As the above survey also states, Iceland is “the first 2008-10 crisis 
country in Europe to surpass its pre-crisis peak of economic output.”


The krona is now running 142 ISK per Euro. (up from 290/1 in 2008) The 
2014 inflation rate was 2.05%.(down from 12.59% in 2008) The wage 
indexis running at 190.9. (up from 132.8 in 2008)


Btw, they did all this while keeping their social welfare intact. (There 
goes another bagger day-dream.)


Iceland’s President, Olafur Ragnar Grimmson explained how the country 
managed to recover from the global financial disaster,


We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing 
orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years. We 
introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support 
for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re 
seeing in Europe.


When asked whether or not other countries, Europe in particular, would 
succeed with Iceland’s “let the banks fail” policy, President Grimmson 
gave 

[Biofuel] Denmark breaks another record in wind energy production

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.energymarketprice.com/SitePage.asp?act=NewsDetails=18797

[graphs in on-line article]

Denmark breaks another record in wind energy production

18/01/2016

Denmark has broken another record of wind energy in 2015, having 
generated an astonishing 42% of its power from windmills, the highest 
share ever produced by any country.


In 2014, the share was 39.1%, which was a record, according to 
Energinet, which runs the power grids. Danish state electricity provider 
Energinet confirmed that in 1,460 of 8,760 hours during the year, 
windmill production actually exceeded the domestic power needs of the 
country. The new Danish wind power was exported to Norway, Sweden and 
Germany, while Denmark acquired hydropower from Norway and solar power 
from Germany. In western Denmark, the heart of the country’s wind 
industry, turbines generated more energy than the region could use for 
more than 16 percent of the year. The Danish parliament established a 
goal to achieve at least half of its electric power from wind by 2020. 
According to the forecast, this objective looks to be met. By 2030, the 
country hopes that 90% of the electricity and heating supply will arrive 
from clean energy. Danish wind energy accounted for 18.7% of the total 
electricity consumption in 2005. In 2010, the share had boosted to 22%, 
and in 2012, the share was 30%.


[Of course, the RE-naysayers will claim the grid will explode when wind 
turbines produce more power than the grid requires, wilfully ignoring 
storage and furling as current technologies to address this.  This will 
echo their claims of massive grid failure when RE generation would hit 
10%, then 20%, then 30%, then 40%, then 50% and so on in years past.]

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[Biofuel] Event: Jan. 26 daytime - Ottawa Canada

[Darryl McMahon]

http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=a90bfb63c26a30f02131a677b=85a4bbf39e=8e788734a9

Hill Times Events examines A Disappearing Middle Class
Author of /An Economy for the 1% /among panelists speaking at Hill Times
Events Policy Panel next week.

View this email in your browser






*Author of Oxfam International global report on income inequality among
speakers next week*

Today, Oxfam International released their global report on income
inequality /An Economy for the 1%/
.
 Mr. Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva will be in Ottawa next week to speak at the
Hill Times Events Policy Panel on A Disappearing Middle Class: Poverty,
Growth & Income Inequality.  Mr. Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva is the former
head of research with Oxfam International and currently serves as Chief
Executive Officer for Oxfam Mexico.

The Hill Times' 19th Annual All Politics Poll, published December 21,
2015, found that poverty/income inequality/the income gap was the third
most important issue that federal politicians are not addressing. On
January 26, Hill Times publisher Jim Creskey and our distinguished
policy panel will explore this important issue from a national and
international perspective.  Don't miss the opportunity to listen and
engage in the conversation.

*Date: *January 26, 2016
*Time:*7:30 a.m. Registration & networking breakfast
   8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Session
*Location:*  Delta Ottawa City Centre - Pinnacle Room
  101 Lyon Street, Ottawa ON
*Cost:* $50.00 Subscribers
  $60.00 Non-subscribers

Click Here To Register



*Confirmed speakers*

  * *Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva*, Executive Director, Oxfam Mexico
  * *David Crane*, Business and Economic Columnist, The Hill Times
  * *France St-Hilaire*, VP Research, IRPP and Editor of /Income
Inequality: The Canadian Story/
  * *Andrew Jackson*, Senior Policy Advisor, Broadbent Institute
  * *Moderator - Jim Creskey*, Publisher, The Hill Times

*More background on income inequality from The Hill Times and Embassy*

  * *Liberal policy to grow middle class should encourage more
opportunity, social mobility, greater overall wealth*


  * *Changing nature of jobs is what's ailing middle class*


  * *We can't afford growing inequality*


  * *Part of the inequality problem*






More Information



Click Here To Register



* Presented by:*


*With support from*:



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[Biofuel] Shock figures to reveal deadly toll of global air pollution | Environment | The Guardian

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/16/world-heslth-organisation-figures-deadly-pollution-levels-world-biggest-cities

[links and images in on-line article]

Shock figures to reveal deadly toll of global air pollution

World Health Organisation describes new data as ‘health emergency’, with 
rising concern likely to influence decision over Heathrow expansion


The World Health Organisation has issued a stark new warning about 
deadly levels of pollution in many of the world’s biggest cities, 
claiming poor air quality is killing millions and threatening to 
overwhelm health services across the globe.


Before the release next month of figures that will show air pollution 
has worsened since 2014 in hundreds of already blighted urban areas, the 
WHO says there is now a global “public health emergency” that will have 
untold financial implications for governments.


The latest data, taken from 2,000 cities, will show further 
deterioration in many places as populations have grown, leaving large 
areas under clouds of smog created by a mix of transport fumes, 
construction dust, toxic gases from power generation and wood burning in 
homes.


The toxic haze blanketing cities could be clearly seen last week from 
the international space station. Last week it was also revealed that 
several streets in London had exceeded their annual limits for nitrogen 
dioxide emissions just a few days into 2016.


“We have a public health emergency in many countries from pollution. 
It’s dramatic, one of the biggest problems we are facing globally, with 
horrible future costs to society,” said Maria Neira, head of public 
health at the WHO, which is a specialist agency of the United Nations. 
“Air pollution leads to chronic diseases which require hospital space. 
Before, we knew that pollution was responsible for diseases like 
pneumonia and asthma. Now we know that it leads to bloodstream, heart 
and cardiovascular diseases, too – even dementia. We are storing up 
problems. These are chronic diseases that require hospital beds. The 
cost will be enormous,” said Neira.


Last week David Cameron, whose government has been accused of dragging 
its feet over air pollution and is facing legal challenges over alleged 
inaction, conceded in the Commons that the growing problem of air 
pollution in urban areas of the UK has implications for major policy 
decisions such as whether to expand Heathrow airport.


Asked by Tory MP Tania Mathias to pledge that he would never allow 
Heathrow to expand while nitrogen dioxide levels are risking the health 
of millions, Cameron said she was right to raise the matter, which was 
now “directly being taken on by the government”. Last December, after 
warnings from the Commons environmental audit committee and others, 
Cameron put off a decision on Heathrow expansion for at least another 
six months.


Government sources say Cameron and other ministers are now taking the 
air pollution issue far more seriously. In 2014 the prime minister was 
widely criticised for describing it as “a naturally occurring weather 
phenomenon”.


According to the UN, there are now 3.3 million premature deaths every 
year from air pollution, about three-quarters of which are from strokes 
and heart attacks. With nearly 1.4 million deaths a year, China has the 
most air pollution fatalities, followed by India with 645,000 and 
Pakistan with 110,000.


In Britain, where latest figures suggest that around 29,000 people a 
year die prematurely from particulate pollution and thousands more from 
long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide gas, emitted largely by diesel 
engines, the government is being taken to court over its intention to 
delay addressing pollution for at least 10 years.


The NGO ClientEarth, which last year forced ministers to come up with 
fresh plans to tackle illegal nitrogen dioxide levels in British cities, 
said that it would seek urgent court action because the proposed 
solutions would take so long to implement and produce cleaner 
environments. Under the latest government plan, announced before 
Christmas, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 
(Defra) promised clean air zones for five cities by 2020 in addition to 
one already planned for London. But this will mean it will take years 
before cities such as Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh feel the benefits.


Frank Kelly, director of the environmental health research group at 
King’s College London, and an adviser to several governments on the 
health risks of pollution, told the Observer that air pollution had 
become a “global plague”. “It affects everyone, above all people in 
cities. As the world becomes more urbanised, it is becoming worse.”


Sotiris Vardoulakis, head of Public Health England’s environmental 
change department, said: “It’s the leading environmental health risk 
factor in the UK, responsible for 5% of all adult mortality. If we take 
action to reduce it, it will have multiple health co-benefits 

[Biofuel] Tanker Sunway Maru sank after collision in Tokyo Bay | Maritime News

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.newsmaritime.com/2016/tanker-sunway-maru-sank-after-collision-in-tokyo-bay/

7/01/2016

Tanker Sunway Maru sank after collision in Tokyo Bay

The tanker Sunway Maru sank after collision with aggregate carrier 
Daifuku Maru No 8 in Tokyo Bay on several nautical miles off Kawasaki. 
The both ships were proceeding in same direction and crossing routes, 
but due to human mistake collided in moderate weather and good 
visibility. The small tanker Sunway Maru suffered breaches below the 
waterline in the aft part and started begging water ingress. The tanker 
sank with bow still remaining above the water. All the three crew 
members succeeded to abandon the ship and were rescued without injuries. 
The oil tanks of the tanker were damaged and there is oil leak at the 
scene of the sinking.


Local authorities dispatched two rescue boats with oil collection 
equipment and oil spill is restricted. The quantity of the water 
pollution is still unknown, but fortunately the weather in vicinity is 
good and the spill did not spread to the shore. The investigation for 
the root cause of collision in under way. All the seamen engaged into 
the accident are in good health and without injuries.


The aggregate carrier Daifuku Maru No 8 has overall length of 70.00 m, 
moulded beam of 13.00 m and maximum draft of 4.00 m. The deadweight of 
the vessel is 437 DWT. Daifuku Maru No 8 was built in 1989 and operated 
under the flag of Japan. During the accident the vessel was loaded with 
cargo of gravel and suffered the damages into the bow and forecastle.


The vessel Sunway Maru is small coastal tanker with length of 32.00 m 
and deadweight of 92 DWT. The ship was operating, as bunkering tanker in 
Bay of Tokyo.

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[Biofuel] Crude at $10 Already a Reality for Canadian Oil-Sands Miners - Bloomberg Business

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/crude-at-10-already-a-reality-for-canadian-oil-sands-miners

[video, images in on-line article]

Crude at $10 Already a Reality for Canadian Oil-Sands Miners

Meenal Vamburkar

January 13, 2016 — 2:29 PM EST

Updated on January 14, 2016 — 12:01 AM EST

Think oil in the $20s is bad? In Canada they’d be happy to sell it for $10.

Canadian oil sands producers are feeling pain as bitumen -- the thick, 
sticky substance at the center of the heated debate over TransCanada 
Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline -- hit a low of $8.35 on Tuesday, down from 
as much as $80 less than two years ago.


Producers are all losing money at current prices, First Energy Capital’s 
Martin King said Tuesday at a conference in Calgary.


Which doesn’t mean they’ll stop. Since most of the spending for bitumen 
extraction comes upfront, and thus is a sunk cost, production will 
continue and grow. Canada will need more pipeline capacity to transport 
bitumen out of Alberta by 2019, King said.


Bitumen is another victim of a global glut of petroleum, which has sunk 
U.S. benchmark prices into the $20s from more than $100 only 18 months 
ago. It’s cheaper than most other types of crude, because it has to be 
diluted with more-expensive lighter petroleum, and then transported 
thousands of miles from Alberta to refineries in the U.S.


For much of the past decade, oil companies fought environmentalists to 
get the pipeline approved so they could blend more of the tar-like 
petroleum and feed it to an oil-starved world.


TransCanada is mounting a $15 billion appeal against President Barack 
Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL crossing into the U.S. -- while 
simultaneously planning natural gas pipelines from Alberta to Canada’s 
east coast to carry diluted bitumen. Environmentalists are hoping oil 
economics finish off what their pipeline protests started.


“It’s another one of those instances where the market makes these hot 
policy topics sort of irrelevant,” said John Auers, executive vice 
president at Turner Mason & Co. “It’s moved from the top of the docket 
to the bottom right now.”

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[Biofuel] B.C. Supreme Court rules government failed to consult First Nations on Northern Gateway | rabble.ca

[Darryl McMahon]

http://rabble.ca/news/2016/01/bc-supreme-court-rules-government-failed-to-consult-first-nations-on-northern-gateway

[links in on-line article]

B.C. Supreme Court rules government failed to consult First Nations on 
Northern Gateway


By Alyse Kotyk

January 15, 2016

Enbridge received another blow on Wednesday when B.C.'s Supreme Court 
ruled that the province neglected to properly consult with Gitga'at and 
Coastal First Nations on the Northern Gateway pipeline.


"This is a huge victory that affirms the provincial government's duty to 
consult with and accommodate First Nations and to exercise its 
decision-making power on major pipeline projects," said Arnold Clifton, 
Chief Councillor of the Gitga'at First Nation in a statement.


In June 2010, the B.C. Liberals signed an "equivalency agreement" with 
the federal government, giving final say of the project's environmental 
assessment to the National Energy Board.


However, this week the Supreme Court determined that the province had 
failed to uphold their responsibility of consulting with First Nations 
groups that would be affected by the proposal.


The challenge, one of many that were filed against the controversial 
pipeline, was brought forward by the Gitga'at First Nation and the 
Coastal First Nations.


The court's ruling on this case makes this equivalency agreement invalid 
and, while the federal government gave its stamp of approval on the 
project in 2014, the provincial government must now make its own 
environmental assessment and decision about the proposed pipeline.


They must also ensure that consultations with First Nations groups are 
included in this process.


As a result of this ruling, none of the permits, licenses and 
authorizations that are necessary for the project to proceed can be issued.


This isn't the first setback this project has experienced under the new 
Liberal government. While the pipeline would aim to transport 525,000 
barrels of crude oil daily to Kitimat, B.C., Prime Minister Justin 
Trudeau stated his desire last fall to ban tanker traffic on B.C.'s 
north coast, making international export of this oil all but impossible.


"We've said it before," said Art Sterritt, member of the Gitga'at First 
Nation. "The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is dead."




http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/dogwood-initiative/2016/01/gitgaat-bc-supreme-court-decision-another-legal-earthquake

Gitga'at B.C. Supreme Court decision: Another legal earthquake for oil 
pipelines


By Will Horter

January 14, 2016

Another bad day for Big Oil, another really good day for No Tankers 
supporters. Enbridge and Kinder Morgan's already torturous path to push 
unwanted pipelines through British Columbia was hit with another 
existential earthquake yesterday when the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the 
"one review / one decision" approval process was invalid and failed to 
adequately consult and accommodate affected First Nations.


This is another nail in the coffin for not one, but two West Coast oil 
tanker proposals Big Oil has planned for B.C. For Enbridge it means the 
Harper government approval (with 209 conditions) does not give them a 
green light and their already comatose project will now require a 
separate provincial approval. That decision would fall to a government 
that has already gone on record saying that the project as proposed was 
inadequate to address provincial concerns -- and only after a process to 
thoroughly consult and accommodate the affected First Nations, who are 
also vociferously opposed.


For Kinder Morgan, it means the already suspect NEB review process is 
likely fatally wounded before it's even completed.


Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling results from a challenge by Coastal 
First Nations (an alliance of First Nations on British Columbia's north 
and central coast and Haida Gwaii), as well as the Gitga'at Nation. The 
case dealt with the 2010 Equivalency Agreement, whereby the B.C. 
government voluntarily signed away its authority to assess and approve 
major projects to the federal government in Ottawa.


After the Harper government approved Enbridge's pipeline and oil tanker 
proposal CFN and the Gitga'at sued, arguing that the B.C. government 
illegally abdicated its authority to approve these projects, as well the 
duty to consult them. The court agreed, rejecting Enbridge's argument 
that the matter was entirely under federal jurisdiction and therefore 
any flaws in the Equivalency Agreement were irrelevant. The Supreme 
Court accepted the provincial government's argument that it had the 
authority to delegate the assessment process to the feds, but ruled that 
this couldn't be extended to relinquishing the final approval.


The Court's reasoning provides strong vindication for Dogwood 
Initiative's "Let B.C. Vote" campaign, acknowledging that "in order for 
the Project to proceed, the Province will have to issue 

[Biofuel] 'Nail in the Coffin': Obama to Halt New Coal Mining Leases on Public Lands | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/15/nail-coffin-obama-halt-new-coal-mining-leases-public-lands

'Nail in the Coffin': Obama to Halt New Coal Mining Leases on Public Lands

"The only safe place for coal in the 21st century is deep 
underground—these reforms will help keep more of it there."


by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

The White House on Friday will announce a halt to new coal mining leases 
on federal lands until the administration conducts a comprehensive 
review on coal companies' royalty fees—a move that is expected to give 
new momentum to the environmental campaigns calling for a post-fossil 
fuel era.


"The only safe place for coal in the 21st century is deep 
underground—these reforms will help keep more of it there," said Bill 
McKibben, co-founder of climate advocacy group 350.org. "And they'll set 
the precedent that must quickly be applied to oil and gas as well."


A moratorium would effectively block coal production on federal lands 
and could put the "nail in the coffin" for the rapidly dwindling coal 
industry, activists said. Roughly 40 percent of coal produced in the 
U.S. comes from reserves on federal lands.


President Barack Obama in his final State of the Union speech on Tuesday 
indicated he would move forward with the moratorium, stating, "Rather 
than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future—especially in 
communities that rely on fossil fuels. That's why I'm going to push to 
change the way we manage our oil and coal resources so that they better 
reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet."


But 350 and other environmental groups credited the outcome to the 
long-term efforts of climate campaigners who brought the issue to 
national attention, comparing it to other recent wins like Obama's 
rejection last November of the Keystone XL pipeline, a controversial 
project that would have carted more than 800,000 barrels of tar sands 
daily from Alberta, Canada to oil refineries in the Gulf Coast.


People power works, they said—and it's getting stronger.

"This measure signifies a key step towards sunsetting a practice that 
has led to immense environmental destruction, human and health impacts, 
and is one of the greatest sources of carbon emissions worldwide," said 
Amanda Starbuck, climate and energy program director at the Rainforest 
Action Network (RAN).


350.org policy director Jason Kowalski added, "This announcement is 
another nail in the coffin for the coal industry, and a warning to all 
fossil fuel companies that the era of unrestrained development is coming 
to an end. Over the coming months, the President will come under 
increasing pressure to stop offshore drilling, get tougher on fracking, 
and end all new fossil fuel leases on our public lands. How well he 
keeps fossil fuels in the ground has quickly become the new test for 
climate leadership."


The moratorium will have no effect on existing operations. An 
administration official told Yahoo News on Friday that companies will 
still be able to mine reserves already under lease, where "billions of 
tons of coal" have already been stockpiled.


As Tom Sanzillo, director of finance for the Institute for Energy 
Economics and Financial Analysis, pointed out on Friday, "Under the 
Obama administration the Bureau of Land Management has entered into 
leases on 13 applications amounting to over 2.2 billion tons of coal. 
These new reserves plus the reserves already under lease should offer an 
ample supply of coal in the coming years."


However, the vast majority of "public" fossil fuels—those sitting under 
federal lands—have yet to be sold to the industry.


"The coal industry, once a critical player in the energy future of the 
U.S., is now little more than a self-interested party seeking a 
bailout," Sanzillo said. "The industry has forfeited its claim to 
protected status...A federal lease moratorium allows the federal 
government, as owner of the coal, and stakeholders to establish a new 
business model for coal."


A report released in August 2015, compiled by environmental groups 
including Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity, 
found that ending the policy of selling coal, oil, and gas would keep 90 
percent of those fossil fuels in the ground—which would, in turn, keep 
450 billion tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the 
atmosphere, activists said.


"The fossil fuel industry already has five times more carbon than they 
can safely burn and keep global warming from running out of control. 
It’s high time the U.S. government got out of the business of climate 
destruction," Kowalski said. "This new attention to fossil fuels on 
public lands can’t stop with coal."

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