 |
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
    MNM Service What is it? Latest Edition Search Archive
|
Environmental News From the Communications Centre Contributed by Aristide Mbiock IJmuiden, NL, 9th July June 2001 - Ref.:0107art08
New EU law
aims to double green energy by 2010 BRUSSELS - The European Parliament approved a law yesterday that aims to double the share of renewable power in European Union's energy mix by 2010, forming a cornerstone of the EU's climate change policy. The directive is a key part of the bloc's drive to reduce the amount of "greenhouse gas" emissions from fossil fuel use and achieve its commitment under the 1997 Kyoto agreement on global warming.EU Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said the law aiming to increase green energies such as wind and solar power, was "a major step towards a more diversified and environmentally friendly energy supply". "The promotion of renewable energies is an absolute priority for the European Commission - the Kyoto targets for fighting greenhouse gas emissions cannot be attained without a rebalancing in their favour," de Palacio said in a statement. The directive aims to double the proportion of the EU's total energy consumption that comes from renewables to 12 percent by 2010 and increase the proportion of renewables in electricity production to 22.1 from around 14 percent now. The law still has to be approved by EU governments, but this is considered a formality as they had already agreed in principle to the compromise struck with the EU's assembly. SUPPORT SCHEMES SAFE Although it only sets indicative targets for each of the 15 EU countries to increase their share of renewables, the law allows the European Commission to propose more mandatory legislation if it judges countries are not making sufficient progress. It also protects systems in place in some countries to support renewables, such as the German "feed-in" system that makes electricity distributors buy output from renewable power generators at a fixed price. The pro-renewables lobby feared that European Commission - ever keen to create harmonised rules within the EU's single energy market - would try to use the directive to harmonise government support systems for renewables, putting schemes like the German one at risk. Under the law agreed yesterday, the Commission will be able to propose harmonisation measures, but it must prioritise the promotion of renewables rather than just aiming to level competition. Current national support systems will be allowed to remain for at least the next seven years, the law states. The European wind power sector welcomed the directive, saying it created a safe investment climate to investors in the booming wind energy sector, forecast to grow five-fold over the coming 10 years. "The winds of change are favourable to the wind industry. We will see a dramatic increase in new countries (using wind power) due to the directive, creating a stable investor climate," said Klaus Rave, president of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), told Reuters at a wind energy conference in Copenhagen. While welcoming the guarantees to support schemes, environmentalist group Greenpeace said the compromise directive created a loophole that would damage the environment by allowing incineration of waste to be counted as a renewable energy source. "It's a shameful compromise. This directive will promote incineration...this will be absurd," Greenpeace spokesman Lorenzo Consoli said. Greenpeace is leading a campaign against incineration which it says produces harmful emissions such as cancer-causing dioxins, and reduces the incentive to generate less waste and create more renewable production capacity. Diplomatic sources said Britain, Italy and the Netherlands had pushed for the inclusion of municipal waste incineration as a renewable form of energy. (Additional reporting from Birgitte Dyrekilde in Copenhagen). German
cabinet approves CHP draft law BERLIN - The German cabinet yesterday approved a draft law designed to promote the use of combined heat and power (CHP) generation, the environment ministry said. The cabinet's approval is seen as a positive step ahead of the next round of global climate talks, which Germany will host in Bonn this month."Today's cabinet decision on CHP promotion is the right signal for the climate talks in Bonn. The government is getting serious about climate protection and is standing by its international promises," Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said in a statement. "We want the quantity of climate-damaging gases we emit to be actually reduced and not just negotiated away," he added. Germany's climate programme aims for a 23 million tonne annual cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 through CHP production, as part of the total 45 million tonnes per year reduction target. CHP uses excess energy from power generation to heat buildings, thereby increasing overall energy efficiency. The technology produce fewer emissions than do conventional power stations. The German draft law is expected to be passed by parliament this year and to come into force in 2002. The scheme entails degressive extra payments to CHP operators of initially three pfennigs per kilowatt hour (pf/kWh), which will be borne by all consumers across the supply chain. Consumers will pay around 0.2 pf/kWh more for their electricity. Promotion of CHP has met with scepticism from industry because of the existing over-capacity in the German power market, and there has been a months-long battle between the environment and economics ministries over the right instruments to use. One suggestion by the environment ministry that is unpopular with industry is a quota system, obliging companies to buy a certain amount of CHP-generated power. "In the event that industry does not achieve the promised reduction, the Government would keep open the option of introducing a quota sustem," Trittin said. Total investment in CHP in the coming years is expected to total around eight billion marks. Renewable
power moves 'tentative' The government is taking only tentative steps to introducing renewable energy sources in the UK, and will miss by a substantial margin its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the head of the Sustainable Development Commission warned on Thursday. Jonathon Porritt, the commission chairman, cited a three-year study by Forum for the Future, an environmental charity of which he is a director. The study had shown that the UK would achieve only an 8.7 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 based on current rates of progress, compared with a target of 20 per cent. Mr Porritt added that a lack of co-ordinated policy between government departments was holding back green initiatives, such as energy production from organic fuel crops, and that changes to the way electricity is traded were damaging the economic viability of renewable power. "There remain many serious questions about just how serious ministers are about climate change," said Mr Porritt. The study, which follows last month's launch of the government's energy review, urges ministers to back an ambitious programme of investment in renewables and energy efficiency rather than considering a revival of nuclear power. It challenges the widespread belief that decoupling carbon dioxide emissions from economic growth would be expensive, and says the government could substantially strengthen its carbon reduction measures "at very little risk or public expense". Researchers, led by Paul Ekins, professor of sustainable development at Keele University, investigated the possibility of sourcing 30 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, of increasing combined heat and power schemes, which improve the efficiency of power generation, and of introducing household energy efficiency measures. They found these measures would cut carbon dioxide measures by 23 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 if duty on petrol and diesel was increased by 3 per cent annually in real terms from 2003 to 2010. US
Energy
Department to Study New Ways
To Capture, Store Greenhouse Gases Washington, DC - With President Bush citing the promise of new cutting-edge technology as a way to counter the buildup of greenhouse gases, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy will help co-fund eight new exploratory projects to study ways to capture and store carbon gases. The eight projects emerged from a nationwide competition that attracted 62 proposals from private companies, universities, local governments, and environmental organizations. The winning proposals came from BP, Alstom Power, Praxair, Consol, Dakota Gasification, Advanced Resources International, The Nature Conservancy, and Yolo County, California. Each offers an approach to "carbon sequestration," a promising class of technologies that remove global warming gases from the exhausts of power plants or from the atmosphere itself, and securely store them. "Carbon sequestration is an important option to study because it offers a way to address the global warming issue without having to make radical overhauls of our existing energy systems," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "This becomes especially significant as we craft energy and environmental strategies that draw upon all of our available energy resources, sustain economic growth, and, at the same time, respond to concerns about the long-term health of our planet." Last month President Bush cited carbon sequestration as a key part of his strategy for addressing climate change concerns. "We all believe technology offers great promise to significantly reduce emissions – especially carbon capture, storage and sequestration technologies," the President said. Projects announced today will study ways to capture the gases and store them in underground geologic formations or in terrestrial vegetation such as forests. Most of the projects will focus on carbon dioxide, but one will collect natural gas from a landfill before it seeps into the air. The Energy Department's Office of Fossil Energy, which will oversee the research, has set a goal of developing sequestration approaches that cost $10 or less per ton of carbon – equivalent to adding only 0.2 cents per kilowatt-hour to the average cost of electricity. Currently, only a limited number of sequestration options are available, and most can cost as much as 30 times more than the department's goal. Private sector response to the Energy Department's efforts to develop an expanded menu of environmentally safe and affordable sequestration options has been overwhelming. Prior to the 62 proposals received in the recent competition, the Energy Department had evaluated a similar number of proposals in an earlier round of competition, eventually selecting13 projects. Also, the private sector proposers have offered to fund an average of 40% of total project costs, well above the 20% minimum cost-sharing that the Energy Department required. "Government research should be focused on those areas that industry tells us are worth pursuing," Abraham said. "Clearly, the large response and significant cost-sharing from the private sector is a clear message that carbon sequestration is an option worth examining." The new projects added today were in the following categories and were submitted by: Separation and Capture
Sequestration in Geological Formations
Terrestrial Ecosystems
Advanced Concepts
For
more information, contact: Technical
Program Contact:
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
 |
Technical comments or suggestions should be sent to: mnm@ifrf.net |
|
| Page designed and executed by IFRF NET |
|
