As being said in my past articles regarding jatropha as being potential crop for PNG sub tropic clime. Its going into being an important cash crop as soon fuel will be derived from it and marketed worldover.
The article from biofuel digest says it all. Coffee was wild tree is africa some 150 years ago then it turned into green Gold in PNG and world over so is jatropha!
The New Jatropha
SG Biofuels parters with Life Technologies to accelerate development timelines by 60 percent; new jatropha high-profit cultivars released this year
In California, jatropha pioneer SG Biofuels announced a strategic alliance with Life Technologies, a provider of innovative life science solutions, to advance the development of Jatropha as a sustainable biofuel.
The partnership will initially include sequencing the Jatropha curcas genome, allowing for the rapid introduction of new traits targeted toward increasing the yield of the oil-producing plant. Life Technologies will also become a strategic partner in SG Biofuels.
In terms of metrics, the Life alliance is expected to reduce the cycle time for bringing new jatropha cultivars to market by 60 percent, from five years to two years.
For newer readers of the Digest, SG represents a new fork in jatropha development. In the 2000s, a number of developers emerged in jatropha, hailing it as a high-yield, stress-tolerant, non-food "wonder crop" that could be grown on fallow and otherwise unproductive land. As the Digest's March 2009 story "The Blunder Crop: a Biofuels Digest special report on jatropha biofuels development," detailed, "things would be going great if they weren't going so badly."
In recent months, jatropha has begun to turn a corner. GEM Biofuels has commenced shipping crude jatropha oil from Madagascar, Mission Bioenergy in Australia has steadied its balance sheet, the aviation industry has embraced jatropha as a near-term candidate for aviation biofuels feedstock and conducted successful flight tests, and now SG's alliance with Life promises to accelerate the next generation of high-profit cultivars.
Of particular interest: SG's announcement from last year that it had identified cold-tolerant jatropha varietals in its collection efforts in Central America. Work on those traits - using SG's existing breeding techniques, now combined with Life's genome sequencing tools - may well expand the geography for jatropha over the next 5-10 years.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Oil reserves going offshore-high price is imminent
Big Oil never wanted to be here, in 4,300 feet of water far out in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling through nearly five miles of rock.
It is an expensive way to look for oil. Chevron Corp. is paying nearly $500,000 a day to the owner of the Clear Leader, one of the world's newest and most powerful drilling rigs. The new well off the coast of Louisiana will connect to a huge platform floating nearby, which cost Chevron $650 million to build. The first phase of this oil-exploration project took more than 10 years and cost $2.7 billion -- with no guarantee it would pay off.
Chevron came here, an hour-long helicopter ride south of New Orleans, because so many of the places it would rather be -- big, easily tapped oil fields close to shore -- have become off-limits. Western oil companies have been kicked out of much of the Middle East in recent decades, had assets seized in Venezuela and seen much of the U.S. roped off because of environmental regulations. Their access in Iran is limited by sanctions, in Russia by curbs on foreign investment, in Iraq by violence.
So, Chevron and other major oil companies are moving ever farther from shore in search of oil. That quest is paying off as these companies discover unexpectedly large quantities of oil -- oil that only they have the technology and financial muscle to find and produce.
In May, the first wells from Chevron's latest Gulf of Mexico project came online. The wells are now pumping 125,000 barrels of oil a day, making the project one of the gulf's biggest producers. In September, BP PLC announced what could be the biggest discovery in the gulf in years: a field that could hold three billion barrels.
Beyond the Gulf of Mexico, companies have announced big finds off the coasts of Brazil and Ghana, leading some experts to suggest the existence of a massive oil reservoir stretching across the Atlantic from Africa to South America. Production from deepwater projects -- those in water at least 1,000 feet deep -- grew by 67%, or by about 2.3 million barrels a day, between 2005 and 2008, according to PFC Energy, a Washington consulting firm.
The discoveries come as many of the giant oil fields of the past century are beginning to dry up, and as some experts are warning that global oil production could soon reach a peak and begin to decline. The new deepwater fields represent a huge and largely untapped source of oil, which could help ease fears that the world won't be able to meet demand for energy, which is expected to grow rapidly in coming years.
For oil companies, the discoveries mean something more: After a decade of retreat, large Western energy companies are taking back the lead in the quest to find oil. "A lot of people can get the very easy oil," says George Kirkland, Chevron's vice chairman. "There's just not a lot of it left."
There are challengers to Big Oil's deepwater dominance. Brazil recently has moved to give a larger share of its offshore oil to its state-run oil company, Petrobras. A handful of smaller companies, such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Tullow Oil PLC, have had success offshore, particularly in Ghana, where giants like BP and Exxon Mobil Corp. are now playing catch-up.
The enormous investments of time and money required for such projects have made many experts skeptical that they can ease the long-term pressure on global oil supplies. The scale of the projects means that few smaller companies have the resources to take them on. Devon Energy Corp., an independent producer based in Oklahoma City, recently announced plans to abandon its deepwater-exploration business to focus on less-expensive onshore projects, which is says will produce a better return.
"This is technology capable of going to the moon," says Robin West, chairman of consulting firm PFC Energy, involving "extraordinary uncertainty, immense levels of information processing, staggering amounts of capital."
Offshore drilling is almost as old as the oil industry itself. In the 1890s, companies began prospecting for oil from piers extending off the beach near Santa Barbara, Calif. Gulf Oil drilled the world's first fully offshore well from cedar pilings on a shallow lake near Oil City, La., in 1911.
From there, the industry pushed gradually outward, from the Louisiana bayous in the 1920s into the Gulf of Mexico, where Kerr McGee drilled the first well out of sight of land in 1947.
The push into deeper water has come in the past decade.
"What has enabled us to do that is technology," says David Rainey, BP's head of exploration for the Gulf of Mexico. "We have been pushing the limits of seismic-imaging technology and drilling technology."
Perhaps a bigger reason for the recent emphasis on deepwater exploration is that companies had few other places to go. In the early decades of oil exploration, Western companies were the only ones with the technology to manage big oil projects. But as technology spread and state-run oil companies became more sophisticated, foreign governments have relied less on outside help and have demanded greater control of their own oil resources.
With a few exceptions, state-run companies have largely stayed out of the deep water, with its enormous technical challenges and multibillion-dollar investment requirements. Western companies have steadily pushed farther offshore, not just in the Gulf of Mexico but in places like Nigeria, Malaysia, Norway and Australia.
At the same time, traditional oil fields have begun to dry up. In Mexico, the world's seventh-largest oil producer, daily production has dropped 23% since 2004 as output from its giant Cantarell field fell sharply. Other countries have seen their own, mostly smaller, declines.
Falling output from old fields has stoked fears that world-wide production could be nearing its peak. Global oil reserves -- a measure of oil that has been found but not yet produced -- fell in 2008 for the first time in a decade, according to BP's annual statistical review. Moreover, there are signs demand could soon catch up to supply. Global oil consumption has risen by 5.4 million barrels a day in the past five years, while production has risen by just 4.8 million barrels a day.
Such fears helped drive a rapid run-up in oil prices to nearly $150 a barrel in July 2008. The global recession cooled demand, driving down prices, although many experts expect prices to rise again when the economy recovers. Already, prices have rebounded to about $80 a barrel, from under $35 in December 2008.
Rising prices have spurred offshore exploration. By 2008, about 8% of global oil production came from deepwater fields.
Yet even the biggest deepwater projects aren't enough to put a dent in global supply problems on their own. The world's largest deepwater platform, BP's Thunder Horse in the Gulf of Mexico, produces 250,000 barrels of oil a day, just 0.3% of global consumption.
"These discoveries are changing the debate," says Ed Morse, chief economist for LCM Commodities, a brokerage firm. What remains unclear, he says, is whether the deepwater projects will ensure that new discoveries continue to meet demand.
Many in the industry argue the new fields have expanded the limits of where the industry can find oil, potentially delaying a decline in global production.
"There are vast unexplored areas in deep water, so tremendous opportunities for growth," says Steven Newman, president of Transocean Ltd., which owns the Clear Leader rig.
The push into deeper water hasn't always been smooth sailing. Offshore projects are expensive, time-consuming and prone to failure. Chevron boasts of a 45% exploration overall success rate in recent years, a remarkable run by industry standards, but one that also means the company has spent billions on projects that haven't panned out.
Chevron's successes have outweighed its failures. It was expected to be the fastest-growing big oil company in 2009, as measured by oil production, in large part because of new offshore projects in the Gulf of Mexico and off Brazil. Other companies that have embraced offshore exploration, such as BP, are also seeing big growth, while those that haven't are scrambling.
Exxon, which hasn't emphasized deepwater exploration as much as competitors, recently offered $4 billion for a stake in an oil field off the coast of Ghana.
Chevron made its big offshore bet in the 1990s, when it began buying up leases in the Gulf of Mexico that were in such deep water, the technology didn't yet exist to drill there. Confident that technology would catch up, the company in 1996 bid in and won a U.S. government auction for the right to explore for oil in several areas of the gulf, in hopes that a fraction would turn into producing fields.
Chevron then spent six years analyzing its new holdings, figuring out which were most likely to hold oil. The key tool in its arsenal: seismic imaging, a sonar-like process in which sound waves are shot into the rock, and their echoes are picked up by sensors on the surface.
Adding to the challenge: The oil that Chevron was pursuing lay beneath a thick layer of salt, which disrupts seismic sound waves and blurs the images like a smudge on a camera lens. The company had to analyze the data with supercomputers to clear up that distortion.
The analysis revealed a potentially huge oil reservoir. Even so, Chevron estimated it had only a one-in-eight chance of finding commercial quantities of oil. The only way to know for sure was to drill.
So, in 2002, Chevron spent about $100 million to sink its first well in the field, which came to be known as Tahiti. That well needed to hit a 200-foot-long target from five miles away -- akin to hitting a dart board from a city block away.
"You have to roll the dice, and the dice roll now is north of $100 million," says Gary Luquette, president of Chevron's North American exploration and production division.
Chevron's first Tahiti well struck enough oil to make it worth more drilling to see how big the field might be. By 2005, the company had learned enough to go forward with the project. That required building a 700-foot-tall, 45,000-ton floating oil-production platform, and drilling a half dozen wells to feed oil to it. Tahiti produced its first commercial quantities of oil in May.
On a recent morning, the Clear Leader rolled on the waves 190 miles south of New Orleans, held almost perfectly in place by its satellite-controlled navigation system and six Korean-made engines.
In a cabin on the ship's deck, a team of drillers in coveralls monitored computer terminals as they used joysticks to control a drill bit more than 12,800 feet below. The oil they were targeting lay another 14,000 feet underground -- an easy reach for a ship that can drill down 7.5 miles.
The well is part of a second phase of the Tahiti project, which will require drilling several more wells and expanding the floating platform -- an additional $2 billion in spending, still with no guarantee of success.
Kevin Ricketts, a Chevron engineer who worked on both phases of the Tahiti project, recalled looking up at the massive platform while it was still on shore, and reflecting on how his team's analysis had led to its construction.
"I'd never seen anything that big," Mr. Ricketts said. "I thought, holy moly, our production forecast led to that thing being built. I sure hope we're right."
It is an expensive way to look for oil. Chevron Corp. is paying nearly $500,000 a day to the owner of the Clear Leader, one of the world's newest and most powerful drilling rigs. The new well off the coast of Louisiana will connect to a huge platform floating nearby, which cost Chevron $650 million to build. The first phase of this oil-exploration project took more than 10 years and cost $2.7 billion -- with no guarantee it would pay off.
Chevron came here, an hour-long helicopter ride south of New Orleans, because so many of the places it would rather be -- big, easily tapped oil fields close to shore -- have become off-limits. Western oil companies have been kicked out of much of the Middle East in recent decades, had assets seized in Venezuela and seen much of the U.S. roped off because of environmental regulations. Their access in Iran is limited by sanctions, in Russia by curbs on foreign investment, in Iraq by violence.
So, Chevron and other major oil companies are moving ever farther from shore in search of oil. That quest is paying off as these companies discover unexpectedly large quantities of oil -- oil that only they have the technology and financial muscle to find and produce.
In May, the first wells from Chevron's latest Gulf of Mexico project came online. The wells are now pumping 125,000 barrels of oil a day, making the project one of the gulf's biggest producers. In September, BP PLC announced what could be the biggest discovery in the gulf in years: a field that could hold three billion barrels.
Beyond the Gulf of Mexico, companies have announced big finds off the coasts of Brazil and Ghana, leading some experts to suggest the existence of a massive oil reservoir stretching across the Atlantic from Africa to South America. Production from deepwater projects -- those in water at least 1,000 feet deep -- grew by 67%, or by about 2.3 million barrels a day, between 2005 and 2008, according to PFC Energy, a Washington consulting firm.
The discoveries come as many of the giant oil fields of the past century are beginning to dry up, and as some experts are warning that global oil production could soon reach a peak and begin to decline. The new deepwater fields represent a huge and largely untapped source of oil, which could help ease fears that the world won't be able to meet demand for energy, which is expected to grow rapidly in coming years.
For oil companies, the discoveries mean something more: After a decade of retreat, large Western energy companies are taking back the lead in the quest to find oil. "A lot of people can get the very easy oil," says George Kirkland, Chevron's vice chairman. "There's just not a lot of it left."
There are challengers to Big Oil's deepwater dominance. Brazil recently has moved to give a larger share of its offshore oil to its state-run oil company, Petrobras. A handful of smaller companies, such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Tullow Oil PLC, have had success offshore, particularly in Ghana, where giants like BP and Exxon Mobil Corp. are now playing catch-up.
The enormous investments of time and money required for such projects have made many experts skeptical that they can ease the long-term pressure on global oil supplies. The scale of the projects means that few smaller companies have the resources to take them on. Devon Energy Corp., an independent producer based in Oklahoma City, recently announced plans to abandon its deepwater-exploration business to focus on less-expensive onshore projects, which is says will produce a better return.
"This is technology capable of going to the moon," says Robin West, chairman of consulting firm PFC Energy, involving "extraordinary uncertainty, immense levels of information processing, staggering amounts of capital."
Offshore drilling is almost as old as the oil industry itself. In the 1890s, companies began prospecting for oil from piers extending off the beach near Santa Barbara, Calif. Gulf Oil drilled the world's first fully offshore well from cedar pilings on a shallow lake near Oil City, La., in 1911.
From there, the industry pushed gradually outward, from the Louisiana bayous in the 1920s into the Gulf of Mexico, where Kerr McGee drilled the first well out of sight of land in 1947.
The push into deeper water has come in the past decade.
"What has enabled us to do that is technology," says David Rainey, BP's head of exploration for the Gulf of Mexico. "We have been pushing the limits of seismic-imaging technology and drilling technology."
Perhaps a bigger reason for the recent emphasis on deepwater exploration is that companies had few other places to go. In the early decades of oil exploration, Western companies were the only ones with the technology to manage big oil projects. But as technology spread and state-run oil companies became more sophisticated, foreign governments have relied less on outside help and have demanded greater control of their own oil resources.
With a few exceptions, state-run companies have largely stayed out of the deep water, with its enormous technical challenges and multibillion-dollar investment requirements. Western companies have steadily pushed farther offshore, not just in the Gulf of Mexico but in places like Nigeria, Malaysia, Norway and Australia.
At the same time, traditional oil fields have begun to dry up. In Mexico, the world's seventh-largest oil producer, daily production has dropped 23% since 2004 as output from its giant Cantarell field fell sharply. Other countries have seen their own, mostly smaller, declines.
Falling output from old fields has stoked fears that world-wide production could be nearing its peak. Global oil reserves -- a measure of oil that has been found but not yet produced -- fell in 2008 for the first time in a decade, according to BP's annual statistical review. Moreover, there are signs demand could soon catch up to supply. Global oil consumption has risen by 5.4 million barrels a day in the past five years, while production has risen by just 4.8 million barrels a day.
Such fears helped drive a rapid run-up in oil prices to nearly $150 a barrel in July 2008. The global recession cooled demand, driving down prices, although many experts expect prices to rise again when the economy recovers. Already, prices have rebounded to about $80 a barrel, from under $35 in December 2008.
Rising prices have spurred offshore exploration. By 2008, about 8% of global oil production came from deepwater fields.
Yet even the biggest deepwater projects aren't enough to put a dent in global supply problems on their own. The world's largest deepwater platform, BP's Thunder Horse in the Gulf of Mexico, produces 250,000 barrels of oil a day, just 0.3% of global consumption.
"These discoveries are changing the debate," says Ed Morse, chief economist for LCM Commodities, a brokerage firm. What remains unclear, he says, is whether the deepwater projects will ensure that new discoveries continue to meet demand.
Many in the industry argue the new fields have expanded the limits of where the industry can find oil, potentially delaying a decline in global production.
"There are vast unexplored areas in deep water, so tremendous opportunities for growth," says Steven Newman, president of Transocean Ltd., which owns the Clear Leader rig.
The push into deeper water hasn't always been smooth sailing. Offshore projects are expensive, time-consuming and prone to failure. Chevron boasts of a 45% exploration overall success rate in recent years, a remarkable run by industry standards, but one that also means the company has spent billions on projects that haven't panned out.
Chevron's successes have outweighed its failures. It was expected to be the fastest-growing big oil company in 2009, as measured by oil production, in large part because of new offshore projects in the Gulf of Mexico and off Brazil. Other companies that have embraced offshore exploration, such as BP, are also seeing big growth, while those that haven't are scrambling.
Exxon, which hasn't emphasized deepwater exploration as much as competitors, recently offered $4 billion for a stake in an oil field off the coast of Ghana.
Chevron made its big offshore bet in the 1990s, when it began buying up leases in the Gulf of Mexico that were in such deep water, the technology didn't yet exist to drill there. Confident that technology would catch up, the company in 1996 bid in and won a U.S. government auction for the right to explore for oil in several areas of the gulf, in hopes that a fraction would turn into producing fields.
Chevron then spent six years analyzing its new holdings, figuring out which were most likely to hold oil. The key tool in its arsenal: seismic imaging, a sonar-like process in which sound waves are shot into the rock, and their echoes are picked up by sensors on the surface.
Adding to the challenge: The oil that Chevron was pursuing lay beneath a thick layer of salt, which disrupts seismic sound waves and blurs the images like a smudge on a camera lens. The company had to analyze the data with supercomputers to clear up that distortion.
The analysis revealed a potentially huge oil reservoir. Even so, Chevron estimated it had only a one-in-eight chance of finding commercial quantities of oil. The only way to know for sure was to drill.
So, in 2002, Chevron spent about $100 million to sink its first well in the field, which came to be known as Tahiti. That well needed to hit a 200-foot-long target from five miles away -- akin to hitting a dart board from a city block away.
"You have to roll the dice, and the dice roll now is north of $100 million," says Gary Luquette, president of Chevron's North American exploration and production division.
Chevron's first Tahiti well struck enough oil to make it worth more drilling to see how big the field might be. By 2005, the company had learned enough to go forward with the project. That required building a 700-foot-tall, 45,000-ton floating oil-production platform, and drilling a half dozen wells to feed oil to it. Tahiti produced its first commercial quantities of oil in May.
On a recent morning, the Clear Leader rolled on the waves 190 miles south of New Orleans, held almost perfectly in place by its satellite-controlled navigation system and six Korean-made engines.
In a cabin on the ship's deck, a team of drillers in coveralls monitored computer terminals as they used joysticks to control a drill bit more than 12,800 feet below. The oil they were targeting lay another 14,000 feet underground -- an easy reach for a ship that can drill down 7.5 miles.
The well is part of a second phase of the Tahiti project, which will require drilling several more wells and expanding the floating platform -- an additional $2 billion in spending, still with no guarantee of success.
Kevin Ricketts, a Chevron engineer who worked on both phases of the Tahiti project, recalled looking up at the massive platform while it was still on shore, and reflecting on how his team's analysis had led to its construction.
"I'd never seen anything that big," Mr. Ricketts said. "I thought, holy moly, our production forecast led to that thing being built. I sure hope we're right."
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Brazil tops US in $8.73 billion in 2009 biofuels equity
While PNG rush into mass resources exploitation resulting in money rain in those lucky areas. Some clever regions are looking into the future through renewable resources development. As LNG,gold copper etc ..investment raises, Biofuel investments have been sharply rising.
Below is the updates.
Brazil tops US in $8.73 billion for biofuels investments for 2009
Digest project summary available for free download
$8.737 billion in biofuels processing technology and feedstock development investments were announced in 2009, based on analysis of 81 investments in 18 countries as reported in Biofuels Digest.
Overall, Brazil led with $3.454 in announced investments, followed by the US with $2.31 billion. Among fuels, mixed product strategies dominated with 23 investments aimed at multiple fuels or co-products, while wood and sugarcane dominated the feedstocks. The largest reported investments were a $2.8 billion commitment from Petrobras and a $600 million investment by ExxonMobil.
The investments include debt, equity and government grants, and in most cases involve multi-year investments, funds that may be injected into projects in later years, or projects that may be delayed or in some cases not completed.
The downloadable project table includes projects, location, investment amlount,. fuel, feedstock and, in some cases, additional notes on project investors or investment structure
Producer News
Reporter Bill Tauber of the McClatchy newpaper chain, promoted as the "Green Enmergy Coach" said in answer to a reader question that "ethanol, energy savings is a hoax". Tauber asserted that corn ethanol production requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the energy contained in the ethanol fuel, and asserted that "corn grain [is]...doing harm to the soil since the corn is planted regularly without a natural break in the planting seasons." The Digest is inviting readers to submit hard data in support of, or in opposition to, McClatchy's reporting.
In Texas, the 180 Mgy Renewable Biofuels biodiesel plant, with the largest refining capacity in the country, has been idled due to the expiration of the biodiesel tax credit. Meanwhile, GreenHunter Energy, owner of a 105 Mgy biodiesel facility near Houston that is also idled and up for sale, said that its GreenHunter Biofuels subsidiary has received a waiver to any claims of default from lender WestLB, while it looks for fresh capital or sell its assets.
World Opinion
Renewable Fuels Association: "The past decade truly was the era when biofuels such as ethanol came of age. From just 1.4 billion gallons of production in 1999, the U.S. ethanol industry last year produced an astonishing 10.6 billion gallons. Ethanol is now, truly, a ubiquitous component of the U.S. motor fuel market, with ethanol blended in more than 80% of every gallon of fuel, and ethanol blends sold virtually coast to coast and border to border."
Todd Guerrero, Frederickson & Byron: "Growth Energy and the RFA recently filed suit in federal district court alleging that California's low carbon fuel standard violates the federal Constitution. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution invalidates state laws that interfere with or are contrary to federal law...the trade groups assert that the LCFS stands as an obstacle to Congress' intent in adopting the 2007 EISA Act...The LCFS conflicts with EISA because it will impose limits on GHG emissions on existing plants that Congress specifically exempted."
International News
In India, Indian Oil Corporation told the Business Standard that it has entered talks to acquire 123,000 acres in Uttar Pradesh for jatropha and karanija oilseed plantations. The company previously acquired more than 75,000 acres in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, where it has planted over 20,000 acres to date with jatropha. Those plantations are expected to be harvest-ready by 2013-14.
In Hungary, ethanol construction pioneer Fagen is turning to Eastern Europe for new business as US biofuels construction slows. CEO Ron Fagen said that his company is completing one more corn ethanol plant, but expects that his business mix will be 560 percent biomass power projects, and 25 percent wind energy.
Keeping you updating on biofuel future.
Below is the updates.
Brazil tops US in $8.73 billion for biofuels investments for 2009
Digest project summary available for free download
$8.737 billion in biofuels processing technology and feedstock development investments were announced in 2009, based on analysis of 81 investments in 18 countries as reported in Biofuels Digest.
Overall, Brazil led with $3.454 in announced investments, followed by the US with $2.31 billion. Among fuels, mixed product strategies dominated with 23 investments aimed at multiple fuels or co-products, while wood and sugarcane dominated the feedstocks. The largest reported investments were a $2.8 billion commitment from Petrobras and a $600 million investment by ExxonMobil.
The investments include debt, equity and government grants, and in most cases involve multi-year investments, funds that may be injected into projects in later years, or projects that may be delayed or in some cases not completed.
The downloadable project table includes projects, location, investment amlount,. fuel, feedstock and, in some cases, additional notes on project investors or investment structure
Producer News
Reporter Bill Tauber of the McClatchy newpaper chain, promoted as the "Green Enmergy Coach" said in answer to a reader question that "ethanol, energy savings is a hoax". Tauber asserted that corn ethanol production requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the energy contained in the ethanol fuel, and asserted that "corn grain [is]...doing harm to the soil since the corn is planted regularly without a natural break in the planting seasons." The Digest is inviting readers to submit hard data in support of, or in opposition to, McClatchy's reporting.
In Texas, the 180 Mgy Renewable Biofuels biodiesel plant, with the largest refining capacity in the country, has been idled due to the expiration of the biodiesel tax credit. Meanwhile, GreenHunter Energy, owner of a 105 Mgy biodiesel facility near Houston that is also idled and up for sale, said that its GreenHunter Biofuels subsidiary has received a waiver to any claims of default from lender WestLB, while it looks for fresh capital or sell its assets.
World Opinion
Renewable Fuels Association: "The past decade truly was the era when biofuels such as ethanol came of age. From just 1.4 billion gallons of production in 1999, the U.S. ethanol industry last year produced an astonishing 10.6 billion gallons. Ethanol is now, truly, a ubiquitous component of the U.S. motor fuel market, with ethanol blended in more than 80% of every gallon of fuel, and ethanol blends sold virtually coast to coast and border to border."
Todd Guerrero, Frederickson & Byron: "Growth Energy and the RFA recently filed suit in federal district court alleging that California's low carbon fuel standard violates the federal Constitution. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution invalidates state laws that interfere with or are contrary to federal law...the trade groups assert that the LCFS stands as an obstacle to Congress' intent in adopting the 2007 EISA Act...The LCFS conflicts with EISA because it will impose limits on GHG emissions on existing plants that Congress specifically exempted."
International News
In India, Indian Oil Corporation told the Business Standard that it has entered talks to acquire 123,000 acres in Uttar Pradesh for jatropha and karanija oilseed plantations. The company previously acquired more than 75,000 acres in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, where it has planted over 20,000 acres to date with jatropha. Those plantations are expected to be harvest-ready by 2013-14.
In Hungary, ethanol construction pioneer Fagen is turning to Eastern Europe for new business as US biofuels construction slows. CEO Ron Fagen said that his company is completing one more corn ethanol plant, but expects that his business mix will be 560 percent biomass power projects, and 25 percent wind energy.
Keeping you updating on biofuel future.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Biofuel 2009 present 2010 focus and developments worldwide.
In biofuel, it is a general believe that cheap fossil fuel will become more scarce as population and modernisation climb.The interest for biofuel development is likewise to meet the growing market and to neutrlise and safegurd for any fuel crisis. It is also clear that ,as inland reserves are depleting,off-shore operation will be expensive and by-products will be ezpensive.These focusts had pushed biofuel developments, the 2010 and beyond is focused on feasible source,sustainble operation and processing for liquid,gas and solid fuels biofuels.
From biofueldigest.com Highlights.
Yesterday is history, but is tomorrow really a mystery? Some biofuels trends are becoming increasingly clear.
Here are the Digest's 10 Predictions for 2010.
#10. Low Carbon Fuel Standards. Increasing action from the states in establishing fuel-neutral Low Carbon Fuel Standards based on the California LCFS model - which will likely create a checkerboard of allowable biofuels, and prompt a series of lawsuits by trade associations such as Growth Energy that address the ultimate question: Can individual states ban corn ethanol in terms of qualifying towards state renewable fuels mandates, when the fuel is approved under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard? Look for this one to reach the Supreme Court. The hint from 2009.
#9. Cellulosic ethanol "happens". In the US, ZeaChem's semi works facility will be completed, POET will near completion at its 25 Mgy project in Iowa, and Range Fuels' will open a 20 Mgy facility in Soperton, Georgia. Internationally, look for LanzaTech's 500,000 gallon project to open, the first cellulosic ethanol deal in China, and announcements that Brazilian, Vietnamese and Australian sugarcane bagasse will be utilized in advanced biofuels projects. Overall, 102 million gallons of advanced biofuels capacity by the end of the year, with 25 Mgy of it cellulosic ethanol at 17 facilities. The hint from 2009.
#8. Aviation biofuels surge. Certification complete for Bio-SPK as an aviation biofuel. Major deals struck by British Airways, Qantas, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines for biofuels. Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Galactic will also announce new paths to increased use of renewables. The hint from 2009.
#7. More ethanol capacity acquired by oil companies. For 2010, look for a major acquisition of 200-800 Mgy in ethanol capacity, at discounted rates of around $0.70 per gallon of capacity, by a major oil refiner in the US. The hint from 2009.
#6. Green chemicals and plastics boom. In 2010, look for: Major strategic investment from chemicals and plastics firms - likely Dupont, Monsanto, or India's Reliance - in a renewable chemicals platform. The hint from 2009.
#5. A jatropha revival. Look for a major investment announcement from SG Biofuels, outlining their capital strategy. Potential reorganization of GEM Biofuels. Strong interest in jatropha from fast-emerging aviation biofuels sector. The hint from 2009.
#4. US Congress revises Renewable Fuel Standard. Congress will take up the Renewable Fuel Standard with a goal of setting new targets and timelines, and making the language more fuel and feedstock neutral. Look for the 36 billion gallon target established in 2007 to be extended towards 2025, or reduced. Look for drop-in fuels and microcrops to be added to the legislation. Look for indirect land use change to be dropped as a criteria for biofuels until 2015. The hint from 2009.
#3. Lemna, cyanobacteria and heterotrophic algae gain traction as microcrops begin transition from R&D to commercialization. In 2010, look for a major customer for the lemna platform via PetroAlgae; reorganization at Biolight Harvesting. Open ponds to be reconsidered in favor of partially closed environments to reduce the impact of soot on pond development. The hint from 2009.
#2. Long range marine biofuels/green port deals. Two major port based orders for renewable marine fuel (bunker fuel from pyrolysis, or marine diesel). The hint from 2009.
#1. Alternative financing: REITs move in. The formation of at least one, major $1B+ bioenergy investment fund that will acquire assets on a build-leaseback or buy-leaseback basis. Possibly the fund will replenish its capital through the sales of securities based on the underlying pool of assets. The hint from 2009.
From biofueldigest.com Highlights.
Yesterday is history, but is tomorrow really a mystery? Some biofuels trends are becoming increasingly clear.
Here are the Digest's 10 Predictions for 2010.
#10. Low Carbon Fuel Standards. Increasing action from the states in establishing fuel-neutral Low Carbon Fuel Standards based on the California LCFS model - which will likely create a checkerboard of allowable biofuels, and prompt a series of lawsuits by trade associations such as Growth Energy that address the ultimate question: Can individual states ban corn ethanol in terms of qualifying towards state renewable fuels mandates, when the fuel is approved under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard? Look for this one to reach the Supreme Court. The hint from 2009.
#9. Cellulosic ethanol "happens". In the US, ZeaChem's semi works facility will be completed, POET will near completion at its 25 Mgy project in Iowa, and Range Fuels' will open a 20 Mgy facility in Soperton, Georgia. Internationally, look for LanzaTech's 500,000 gallon project to open, the first cellulosic ethanol deal in China, and announcements that Brazilian, Vietnamese and Australian sugarcane bagasse will be utilized in advanced biofuels projects. Overall, 102 million gallons of advanced biofuels capacity by the end of the year, with 25 Mgy of it cellulosic ethanol at 17 facilities. The hint from 2009.
#8. Aviation biofuels surge. Certification complete for Bio-SPK as an aviation biofuel. Major deals struck by British Airways, Qantas, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines for biofuels. Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Galactic will also announce new paths to increased use of renewables. The hint from 2009.
#7. More ethanol capacity acquired by oil companies. For 2010, look for a major acquisition of 200-800 Mgy in ethanol capacity, at discounted rates of around $0.70 per gallon of capacity, by a major oil refiner in the US. The hint from 2009.
#6. Green chemicals and plastics boom. In 2010, look for: Major strategic investment from chemicals and plastics firms - likely Dupont, Monsanto, or India's Reliance - in a renewable chemicals platform. The hint from 2009.
#5. A jatropha revival. Look for a major investment announcement from SG Biofuels, outlining their capital strategy. Potential reorganization of GEM Biofuels. Strong interest in jatropha from fast-emerging aviation biofuels sector. The hint from 2009.
#4. US Congress revises Renewable Fuel Standard. Congress will take up the Renewable Fuel Standard with a goal of setting new targets and timelines, and making the language more fuel and feedstock neutral. Look for the 36 billion gallon target established in 2007 to be extended towards 2025, or reduced. Look for drop-in fuels and microcrops to be added to the legislation. Look for indirect land use change to be dropped as a criteria for biofuels until 2015. The hint from 2009.
#3. Lemna, cyanobacteria and heterotrophic algae gain traction as microcrops begin transition from R&D to commercialization. In 2010, look for a major customer for the lemna platform via PetroAlgae; reorganization at Biolight Harvesting. Open ponds to be reconsidered in favor of partially closed environments to reduce the impact of soot on pond development. The hint from 2009.
#2. Long range marine biofuels/green port deals. Two major port based orders for renewable marine fuel (bunker fuel from pyrolysis, or marine diesel). The hint from 2009.
#1. Alternative financing: REITs move in. The formation of at least one, major $1B+ bioenergy investment fund that will acquire assets on a build-leaseback or buy-leaseback basis. Possibly the fund will replenish its capital through the sales of securities based on the underlying pool of assets. The hint from 2009.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Merry Christmas and happy new year 2010.
Some lonely faces of 2009.
Happy new year to all my readers on this blog. May you have a blessed new year 2010.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Copenhagen meeting regarding Bioenergy Future.
Source: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2009/12/23/copenhagen-cop15-bioenergy-industry-reacts/
Copenhagen (COP15): Bioenergy industry reacts
Copenhagen climate summit (COP15) has concluded without a definitive climate treaty. Inductry reactino follows from Renergie CEO Brian Donovan (US), Alkol CEO Al Costa (Brazil), Biomass Advisors’ Mackinnon Lawrence (US), and Biofuels Digest South Asia correspondent Joelle Brink:
Joelle Brink, South Asia correspondent for Biofuels Digest, writes:
Biofuels leaders invited to the Copenhagen came away from the first week of negotiations assured that they will receive priority in the UN’s renewable energy plans, and eager to partner with one another to speed up the pace of innovation. In the second week, however, the negotiations with national governments bogged down over the issue of emissions cuts by China and the developed economies. In the end a nonbinding agreement between the major polluting nations was signed with many others dissenting, leaving the real work for the Mexico City round n 2010.
Not only were many developing nations left hanging, but also US utilities that had planned on utilizing cap and trade credits. A global recession, heightened economic competition between developed nations and emerging superpowers, and historic neglect of the environmental problems of the poor led to a collective reluctance to address the thornier aspects of global warming. In particular, the question of “carbon budgets” linked to population size was a sticking point. By this measure the US would not be eligible for carbon credits and would have to pay into a fund to assist poor nations.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived at the talks with a pledge of US $100 billion per year to fund environmental action in the most endangered developing nations. President Obama later acknowledged that more was needed but said the $100 billion pledge was the best the US could do in its present circumstances. He attempted to broker a last minute emissions reduction agreement among the major polluters, but came away with a nonbinding voluntary commitment only.
China subsequently declared itself satisfied with the non-binding resolution, which leaves it free to maintain or even increase its emission levels and does not require it to accept international monitoring. The same line was taken by other governments that lack political transparency. India, which already has a monitored civilian nuclear agreement in place with the US, took the American side. Indian Climate Minister Jairam Ramesh, who was among the chief negotiators in Copenhagen, declared that the Indian delegation was “preparing for 2010” and would continue to press for a binding resolution.
Climate activists gathered in the cold outside the Bella Center and representatives of environmental NGOs gathered inside reacted at first with disbelief, which slowly turned to anger. Al Gore canceled a scheduled personal appearance “with great annoyance” according to the publisher of his upcoming book, Our Choice. As Friday night wore on some proposed uniting to take on the challenge of global warming collectively. It was a moment Ghandhi would have approved of, in which people at last understand that they must be the change they wish to see in the world.
In 2010 the discussions move on to Mexico City, and to what was originally intended as a meeting to resolve the logistics of the Copenhagen action plan. There is no action plan at present, but political heat from environmental activists and pro environment governments, which is likely, may produce one over the next several months.
Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, said:
“While the accord negotiated in the closing hours by a small number of heads of government, including China, India, and the US, is a disappointment to many—in process, form, and content—others will see the full engagement by heads of government as a milestone in climate policy. The true value of the accord depends on the follow-up. A key aspect of follow up is the fast, forgotten 50% of warming caused by non-CO2 gases and aerosols. Not only do non-CO2 pollutants make up half of warming, they are the half that can be solved quickly. Cuts in CO2 are essential but won’t result in cooling benefits for up to 1,000 years. The islands have recognized the urgent need for fast, near-term solutions, in addition to CO2 reductions.”
Mackinnon Lawrence, a policy analyst with Biomass Advisors, writes:
Last week, world leaders emerged from the two-week Copenhagen conference (COP-15) with an Accord falling well short of the binding agreement many had argued was necessary to combat the worst effects of human-induced climate change. To be fair, with a slumping global economy draining political will and lethargy in the U.S. Senate raising questions about U.S. climate leadership, expectations were low heading in. Just weeks before the Conference kicked off on December 7th, world leaders announced they would pursue a two-step strategy, which included a framework agreement as a foundation for follow-up talks in Mexico City in December 2010.
To this end, the Accord seems to have delivered with provisions that include aid to developing countries, transparency, and most notably, commitments among the world’s major economies to curb emissions and report actions. But it fails to agreements Reports suggest that the deal was brokered in large part by some 11th-hour bargaining by Obama among the U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, which salvaged a diplomatic deadlock that took negotiators through an all-night marathon session.
First, it represents the first time that all major economies (including emitters) have made commitments to curb global warming pollution and report their actions. This latter point is especially encouraging in anticipation of future talks.
Perhaps the most difficult obstacle for international consensus on climate change has been the rift between developed and developing countries. Developed countries that have long enjoyed the benefits of industrialization and resulting economic prosperity want to hold developing countries accountable for their emissions as they modernize their economies. Developing countries, including China, India, and Brazil, argue that they should be exempt from having to report their emissions so long as they are playing “catch up.” The deadlock slowly eroded Kyoto’s efficacy and has more recent efforts to reach an agreement.
Getting China on board is perhaps the biggest breakthrough, especially in light of their increased willingness to exercise its growing economic influence. Although China forced a roll-back of emissions reduction commitments, they are now not only putting numbers on the table with a pledge to join the global fight to reduce climate pollution, they have agreed to open their books on their rising emissions and allow a transparent review of their progress toward their emission pledge. The China excuse is now off the table for the U.S. Senate, which could lead to action on the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Second, the Accord establishes the first ever “Green in the amount of 30 billion dollars for 2010-2012 to be allocated between adaptation and mitigation, including forestry.
Third, while fingers have been fixed on the U.S. over the last decade for its part in styming international efforts to combat climate change, Obama may have single-handedly salvaged U.S. reputation and leadership through, what is being hailed, as a skillful diplomatic meneuvering.
Still, the Accord falls well short on a number of issues.”
Renergie CEO Brian Donovan offers a detailed policy analysis: “Why Carbon emissions should not have been the focus of the U.N. Climate Change Summit and why the 15th conference of the parties should have focused on technology transfer. ” Donovan writes, “Unfortunately, this conference focused primarily on setting a cap on carbon emissions and providing financial aid to developing countries to build capacities to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change… the focus should have been on the transfer of proven renewable energy technology from developed to developing countries and how this technology transfer can be financed with currently available funds.”
Al Costa, CEO of Brazil’s Alkol, writes:
Thank you Lula for saving COP15 (a “basic” solution)
One of the first things anyone who lives in Brazil learns is the famous “jeitinho brasileiro” (”brazilian little way”), or the ability to find some loophole, a legal backdoor, some little-known or used judicial tool to get things done. We see them happening everywhere: in fact, it was the only way former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso found to run the country: by issuing “MP – Medidas Provisórias” (”Temporary Measures”), or measures only to be used in times of war. So you get the point.
Still, there are times in which that artifice actually shows its value, and COP 15 is a prime example, for anyone who actually thought that COP 15 would be able to produce a legal document was to say the least a dreamer. In fact, the UN only accepts decisions that are made unanimously. And if we consider the fact that there 193 nations involved in an event that was already in its 15th edition, and that the event saw 3 presidents give their places to others, we easily see we were dreaming indeed.
And in fact, after almost 2 weeks of going in circles and with the event nearing its very end, no real agreement was done. Yes, there were plenty of drafts, ideas, proposals, etc presented by several parties but none seemed to satisfy everyone: when one almost seemed to be “the one”, some party would disagree on something and everyone would have to go back to the drawing board. So just when everyone was about to go home totally empty handed, 4 countries that were named “BASIC” (Brazil, South Africa (”Africa do Sul”), India and China), lead by Brazil, decide to have a secret meeting at 2:00 AM to actually work in a draft.
And Brazil has plenty of credibility to call such a meeting: the country actually made it into a law the proposition to cut greenhouse emissions from 36,1% to 38,9% until the year 2020: almost twice what was being proposed in COP15. It will also decrease the cutting down of the amazon forest by 80% until that year. It has also allocated R$1 billion a year from the pre-salt oil money for a fund destined to cover for global warming changes destined for the north-east region (which lacks water) and the coastal regions (because of the danger of the sea level elevation). It has also passed a law that allows sugarcane to be grown only in especific areas of the country, far from the amazon, cerrado, etc. And all that will come at a cost of US$16 billions a year: a very respectable number considering we are talking about a developing country. Lula even claimed in his final speech that if need be Brazil will step forward and actually lend or give money to developing countries to help them achieve their CO2 commitments.
During the secret meeting, Obama asked to sit besides Lula. The chinese promptly reminded Obama that they would not accept international inspections to check if their emissions were in fact being lowered, as they understood that was a breach in their sovereign, self-determination etc. Lula saved the day simply by suggesting a change of name: so, instead of “inspection”, the term “analysis” was chosen. Even so Obama objected, and was finally convinced when reminded by India that the term is actually used by the OMC. Finally, and to give the document a legal ground, a rarely used legal loophole was used and so the meeting ended, everyone went to their hotels and in the morning the draft was presented to the UN board. This promptly accepted the thing, glad that SOMETHING was finally signed and agreed upon!
So what it amounts here is basically a meaningful and united group got fed up with the indecisions and excessive babble of the event, got together in a secret meeting, was able to create a draft, and invited the US to bless it. The text basically recognizes the need to keep world climate 2 degrees down until 2020 and promises US$ 30 billion in financing to developing countries. So, after almost 2 weeks of intense debates that went basically in circles, the world saw COP15 ending up with a draft that had no legal binding and was not widely shown nor really understood. A very disappointing document indeed.
But the question remains: what if that document was not written? Most probably over 190 countries represented there would go back to their homes totally empty-handed. The unbelievable shame of that would completely destroy any possibility of ever reaching any sort of agreement on any COP16, 17, 18, you name them.
Still, the document was rejected by the usual US enemies: Cuba, Bolivia, and Venezuela. This last one very ungratefully to Brazil, as the country recently approved its entry to Mercosul. And not to mention Bolivia, which took over US$1.3 of brazilian oil investment a couple of years ago and payed mere US$150 million back for it. (If these are friends who needs enemies?) Other countries such as Tuvalu made the usual pseudo-impressive biblical remarks, saying they would not sell their countries for 30 pieces of silver, etc.
But the fact of the matter is that the usual legal tools to get things done have shown their inefficiencies for too long. And curiously enough, the jeitinho brasileiro is showing up in places known for being radically opposite to that. In the US, last week the EPA issued a ruling that greenhouse gas emissions actually endanger human health. And since anything that has to do with human health is under its unbrella, that effectively cleared the way for it to be able to regulate carbon without congressional legislation. In a similar fashion, Senator Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is leading an effort to overturn that ruling through a rarely used congressional joint resolution of disapproval.
So, again, anyone who truly thought that over 190 countries with radically different views on a subject that even in the scientific community is still debated would be able to produce a legal document under the UN framework is just not for real. That doesn´t mean however that we can´t still find ways to create some levels of commitments, as Lula proved.
In fact, Brazil showed without a doubt that it is definitely leading the way in nature conservancy and is in the right and fast track to be considered a a world leader. And let us not forget that Brazil is also being a very important part in the Honduras crisis, and was recently a peace keeper in Haiti as well. Brazil and Lula are definitely showing world-class leadership and COP 15 is a shining example of that.
Copenhagen (COP15): Bioenergy industry reacts
Copenhagen climate summit (COP15) has concluded without a definitive climate treaty. Inductry reactino follows from Renergie CEO Brian Donovan (US), Alkol CEO Al Costa (Brazil), Biomass Advisors’ Mackinnon Lawrence (US), and Biofuels Digest South Asia correspondent Joelle Brink:
Joelle Brink, South Asia correspondent for Biofuels Digest, writes:
Biofuels leaders invited to the Copenhagen came away from the first week of negotiations assured that they will receive priority in the UN’s renewable energy plans, and eager to partner with one another to speed up the pace of innovation. In the second week, however, the negotiations with national governments bogged down over the issue of emissions cuts by China and the developed economies. In the end a nonbinding agreement between the major polluting nations was signed with many others dissenting, leaving the real work for the Mexico City round n 2010.
Not only were many developing nations left hanging, but also US utilities that had planned on utilizing cap and trade credits. A global recession, heightened economic competition between developed nations and emerging superpowers, and historic neglect of the environmental problems of the poor led to a collective reluctance to address the thornier aspects of global warming. In particular, the question of “carbon budgets” linked to population size was a sticking point. By this measure the US would not be eligible for carbon credits and would have to pay into a fund to assist poor nations.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived at the talks with a pledge of US $100 billion per year to fund environmental action in the most endangered developing nations. President Obama later acknowledged that more was needed but said the $100 billion pledge was the best the US could do in its present circumstances. He attempted to broker a last minute emissions reduction agreement among the major polluters, but came away with a nonbinding voluntary commitment only.
China subsequently declared itself satisfied with the non-binding resolution, which leaves it free to maintain or even increase its emission levels and does not require it to accept international monitoring. The same line was taken by other governments that lack political transparency. India, which already has a monitored civilian nuclear agreement in place with the US, took the American side. Indian Climate Minister Jairam Ramesh, who was among the chief negotiators in Copenhagen, declared that the Indian delegation was “preparing for 2010” and would continue to press for a binding resolution.
Climate activists gathered in the cold outside the Bella Center and representatives of environmental NGOs gathered inside reacted at first with disbelief, which slowly turned to anger. Al Gore canceled a scheduled personal appearance “with great annoyance” according to the publisher of his upcoming book, Our Choice. As Friday night wore on some proposed uniting to take on the challenge of global warming collectively. It was a moment Ghandhi would have approved of, in which people at last understand that they must be the change they wish to see in the world.
In 2010 the discussions move on to Mexico City, and to what was originally intended as a meeting to resolve the logistics of the Copenhagen action plan. There is no action plan at present, but political heat from environmental activists and pro environment governments, which is likely, may produce one over the next several months.
Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, said:
“While the accord negotiated in the closing hours by a small number of heads of government, including China, India, and the US, is a disappointment to many—in process, form, and content—others will see the full engagement by heads of government as a milestone in climate policy. The true value of the accord depends on the follow-up. A key aspect of follow up is the fast, forgotten 50% of warming caused by non-CO2 gases and aerosols. Not only do non-CO2 pollutants make up half of warming, they are the half that can be solved quickly. Cuts in CO2 are essential but won’t result in cooling benefits for up to 1,000 years. The islands have recognized the urgent need for fast, near-term solutions, in addition to CO2 reductions.”
Mackinnon Lawrence, a policy analyst with Biomass Advisors, writes:
Last week, world leaders emerged from the two-week Copenhagen conference (COP-15) with an Accord falling well short of the binding agreement many had argued was necessary to combat the worst effects of human-induced climate change. To be fair, with a slumping global economy draining political will and lethargy in the U.S. Senate raising questions about U.S. climate leadership, expectations were low heading in. Just weeks before the Conference kicked off on December 7th, world leaders announced they would pursue a two-step strategy, which included a framework agreement as a foundation for follow-up talks in Mexico City in December 2010.
To this end, the Accord seems to have delivered with provisions that include aid to developing countries, transparency, and most notably, commitments among the world’s major economies to curb emissions and report actions. But it fails to agreements Reports suggest that the deal was brokered in large part by some 11th-hour bargaining by Obama among the U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, which salvaged a diplomatic deadlock that took negotiators through an all-night marathon session.
First, it represents the first time that all major economies (including emitters) have made commitments to curb global warming pollution and report their actions. This latter point is especially encouraging in anticipation of future talks.
Perhaps the most difficult obstacle for international consensus on climate change has been the rift between developed and developing countries. Developed countries that have long enjoyed the benefits of industrialization and resulting economic prosperity want to hold developing countries accountable for their emissions as they modernize their economies. Developing countries, including China, India, and Brazil, argue that they should be exempt from having to report their emissions so long as they are playing “catch up.” The deadlock slowly eroded Kyoto’s efficacy and has more recent efforts to reach an agreement.
Getting China on board is perhaps the biggest breakthrough, especially in light of their increased willingness to exercise its growing economic influence. Although China forced a roll-back of emissions reduction commitments, they are now not only putting numbers on the table with a pledge to join the global fight to reduce climate pollution, they have agreed to open their books on their rising emissions and allow a transparent review of their progress toward their emission pledge. The China excuse is now off the table for the U.S. Senate, which could lead to action on the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Second, the Accord establishes the first ever “Green in the amount of 30 billion dollars for 2010-2012 to be allocated between adaptation and mitigation, including forestry.
Third, while fingers have been fixed on the U.S. over the last decade for its part in styming international efforts to combat climate change, Obama may have single-handedly salvaged U.S. reputation and leadership through, what is being hailed, as a skillful diplomatic meneuvering.
Still, the Accord falls well short on a number of issues.”
Renergie CEO Brian Donovan offers a detailed policy analysis: “Why Carbon emissions should not have been the focus of the U.N. Climate Change Summit and why the 15th conference of the parties should have focused on technology transfer. ” Donovan writes, “Unfortunately, this conference focused primarily on setting a cap on carbon emissions and providing financial aid to developing countries to build capacities to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change… the focus should have been on the transfer of proven renewable energy technology from developed to developing countries and how this technology transfer can be financed with currently available funds.”
Al Costa, CEO of Brazil’s Alkol, writes:
Thank you Lula for saving COP15 (a “basic” solution)
One of the first things anyone who lives in Brazil learns is the famous “jeitinho brasileiro” (”brazilian little way”), or the ability to find some loophole, a legal backdoor, some little-known or used judicial tool to get things done. We see them happening everywhere: in fact, it was the only way former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso found to run the country: by issuing “MP – Medidas Provisórias” (”Temporary Measures”), or measures only to be used in times of war. So you get the point.
Still, there are times in which that artifice actually shows its value, and COP 15 is a prime example, for anyone who actually thought that COP 15 would be able to produce a legal document was to say the least a dreamer. In fact, the UN only accepts decisions that are made unanimously. And if we consider the fact that there 193 nations involved in an event that was already in its 15th edition, and that the event saw 3 presidents give their places to others, we easily see we were dreaming indeed.
And in fact, after almost 2 weeks of going in circles and with the event nearing its very end, no real agreement was done. Yes, there were plenty of drafts, ideas, proposals, etc presented by several parties but none seemed to satisfy everyone: when one almost seemed to be “the one”, some party would disagree on something and everyone would have to go back to the drawing board. So just when everyone was about to go home totally empty handed, 4 countries that were named “BASIC” (Brazil, South Africa (”Africa do Sul”), India and China), lead by Brazil, decide to have a secret meeting at 2:00 AM to actually work in a draft.
And Brazil has plenty of credibility to call such a meeting: the country actually made it into a law the proposition to cut greenhouse emissions from 36,1% to 38,9% until the year 2020: almost twice what was being proposed in COP15. It will also decrease the cutting down of the amazon forest by 80% until that year. It has also allocated R$1 billion a year from the pre-salt oil money for a fund destined to cover for global warming changes destined for the north-east region (which lacks water) and the coastal regions (because of the danger of the sea level elevation). It has also passed a law that allows sugarcane to be grown only in especific areas of the country, far from the amazon, cerrado, etc. And all that will come at a cost of US$16 billions a year: a very respectable number considering we are talking about a developing country. Lula even claimed in his final speech that if need be Brazil will step forward and actually lend or give money to developing countries to help them achieve their CO2 commitments.
During the secret meeting, Obama asked to sit besides Lula. The chinese promptly reminded Obama that they would not accept international inspections to check if their emissions were in fact being lowered, as they understood that was a breach in their sovereign, self-determination etc. Lula saved the day simply by suggesting a change of name: so, instead of “inspection”, the term “analysis” was chosen. Even so Obama objected, and was finally convinced when reminded by India that the term is actually used by the OMC. Finally, and to give the document a legal ground, a rarely used legal loophole was used and so the meeting ended, everyone went to their hotels and in the morning the draft was presented to the UN board. This promptly accepted the thing, glad that SOMETHING was finally signed and agreed upon!
So what it amounts here is basically a meaningful and united group got fed up with the indecisions and excessive babble of the event, got together in a secret meeting, was able to create a draft, and invited the US to bless it. The text basically recognizes the need to keep world climate 2 degrees down until 2020 and promises US$ 30 billion in financing to developing countries. So, after almost 2 weeks of intense debates that went basically in circles, the world saw COP15 ending up with a draft that had no legal binding and was not widely shown nor really understood. A very disappointing document indeed.
But the question remains: what if that document was not written? Most probably over 190 countries represented there would go back to their homes totally empty-handed. The unbelievable shame of that would completely destroy any possibility of ever reaching any sort of agreement on any COP16, 17, 18, you name them.
Still, the document was rejected by the usual US enemies: Cuba, Bolivia, and Venezuela. This last one very ungratefully to Brazil, as the country recently approved its entry to Mercosul. And not to mention Bolivia, which took over US$1.3 of brazilian oil investment a couple of years ago and payed mere US$150 million back for it. (If these are friends who needs enemies?) Other countries such as Tuvalu made the usual pseudo-impressive biblical remarks, saying they would not sell their countries for 30 pieces of silver, etc.
But the fact of the matter is that the usual legal tools to get things done have shown their inefficiencies for too long. And curiously enough, the jeitinho brasileiro is showing up in places known for being radically opposite to that. In the US, last week the EPA issued a ruling that greenhouse gas emissions actually endanger human health. And since anything that has to do with human health is under its unbrella, that effectively cleared the way for it to be able to regulate carbon without congressional legislation. In a similar fashion, Senator Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is leading an effort to overturn that ruling through a rarely used congressional joint resolution of disapproval.
So, again, anyone who truly thought that over 190 countries with radically different views on a subject that even in the scientific community is still debated would be able to produce a legal document under the UN framework is just not for real. That doesn´t mean however that we can´t still find ways to create some levels of commitments, as Lula proved.
In fact, Brazil showed without a doubt that it is definitely leading the way in nature conservancy and is in the right and fast track to be considered a a world leader. And let us not forget that Brazil is also being a very important part in the Honduras crisis, and was recently a peace keeper in Haiti as well. Brazil and Lula are definitely showing world-class leadership and COP 15 is a shining example of that.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Feasible Energy source and processing-Biogas
The possibility of processing/design of portable digester for private energy generation using microbe is attracting.
If you have to digest 50 kg of organic material, theoretically 34-37% percentage will generate into biogas and more than 70% of the biogas is biomethane. Compressing that into a tank and injecting into your car engine could save more liters of fossil fuel save more money and run extra mile efficiently.
This is the new technology emphasising down stream processing and can be done by any person.
Today when unstable fuel market high prices and climate change propaganda, the general direction is self sufficiency in fuel production for own use. Surplus energy and cheaper source,feasible,sustainable and more importantly renewable is the correct ingredient for today's society.
The genration of biogas from agricultura waste,local biomass,backyard waste/garden compost and anaimal waste is uniquely attracting.The cheap ,more emphasised fossil fuel has blinded these generations and we have been somewhat addicted to depending on it so much and this is good for producers.
However, the view in this blog persents the potential at our disposal that can make us more independent from within our graps on such important item as fuel.
The importance of genrating biogas at lcal home scale has long being surpressed for fear of turning people's attention.
Given the todays' changing geopolitical status, supply of fuel can go into jeopardy and millions or even billion population into stone age choas.
The PNG LNG project will come and go, if skills and knowledge cannot be used to exercise self-producing today,the glories will go with it. LNG glories will come and go,nothing changed,PNG and her people will still remain faithful consumer to foreign producers and deadly dependent.
My study in producing biogas using domesticate livetsock waste successfully indicated that free energy can be easily processed and locally go independent.
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