Top Stories
"Melting of Arctic Ice Opening up New Routes
to Asia"—reliability high.
Der Spiegel story says "Shipping via the polar route is gradually
becoming routine. This brings Asia closer to Europe. The route of the
MV Nordic Barents, for instance, from the Norwegian port of Kirkenes to
China, was shortened by roughly 50 percent." Experts say biggest impact
may be increased extraction of raw materials from the formerly-icebound
arctic coasts of Russia, Norway and adjacent islands. Ships are being
designed which will be able to operate without the help of
expensive icebreaker escorts. See Der
Spiegel OnLine.
"Japan to drill for controversial [methane
hydrates]"—reliability high.
The Guardian reports that Japan will drill for deep-sea methane
hydrates. "A consortium led by the Japanese government and the Japan
Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (Jogmec) will be sinking
several wells off the south-eastern coast of Japan to assess the
commercial viability of extracting gas from frozen methane deep beneath
local waters. Surveys suggest Japan has enough methane hydrate for 100
years at the current rate of usage." From The
Guardian.
"Scotland to get 100 pct green energy by 2025"—reliability
high.
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said, "Scotland has unrivalled
green energy resources and our new national target to generate 80
percent of electricity needs from renewables by 2020 will be exceeded
by delivering current plans for wind, wave and tidal generation. I'm
confident that by 2025 we will produce at least 100 percent of our
electricity needs from renewables alone." Reuters says, "Last week,
Scotland raised its 2020 renewable electricity target from 50 to 80
percent of total demand, much of which is expected to be met by
offshore wind despite costs soaring over the last few years." See Reuters
story.
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
"$10 million for Project 10^100 winners"—reliability
high.
Lorraine Twohill, Google VP of Marketing, posts: "Two years ago today,
we began Project 10^100 by asking you to share your ideas for
changing the world by helping as many people as possible. ... We
selected 16 big ideas and asked the public to vote for their
favorites. The five ideas that received the most votes are the winners
of Project 10^100." The winners include Khan Academy, several other
education and information access projects, and Shweeb. "Shweeb is
a concept for short to medium distance, urban personal transport, using
human-powered vehicles on a monorail. We are providing $1 million to
fund research and development to test Shweeb’s technology for an urban
setting." With video. See official
Google blog. [Check out the
Shweeb system here. Coming soon to a
campus near you?]
"South Korea to push firms to meet greenhouse
gas cut goals"—reliability high.
South Korea plans to set specific energy-saving and emission reduction
goals for 374 companies for 2012. The goals will be agreed by September
2011. South Korea has promulgated a goal of greenhouse gas
emissions 30% below 2020 business-as-usual projections. See Reuters.
"Procter & Gamble packages up a new green
vision"—reliability high.
Procter & Gamble has announced a new "long-term environmental
sustainability vision." It has established goals such as zero waste to
landfill, 100% renewable energy at factories, and 100% renewable or
recycled materials for products and other goals. It says, "These
end-points are long-term in nature because some of them will take
decades to come to fruition." "It won't be achieved in 10 years or
perhaps 30 or 40 years, but we will hold ourselves accountable for
continually moving toward it," CEO Bob McDonald said. "The first set of
10-year goals, to be achieved by 2020, include replacing 25 per cent of
petroleum-derived raw materials with sustainably sourced, renewable
materials; reducing packaging by 20 per cent per consumer use; powering
company operations with 30 per cent renewable energy; and reducing
waste from manufacturing to less than 0.5 per cent." From BusinessGreen.
More at this P&G
page.
"How To Cut Energy Use 50% in Commercial
Buildings"—reliability high.
The U.S. Department of Energy and its National Renewable Energy
Laboratory have published two reports outlining how large commercial
buildings can reduce energy use 50% in most parts of the U.S.
"Technical Support Document: Strategies for 50% Energy Savings in Large
Office Buildings" tells how offices can achieve such savings, and
"Large Hospital 50% Energy Savings: Technical Support Document" does
the same for hospitals. See Sustainable
Business. PDFs of NREL documents here (offices)
and here
(hospitals).
Government and
Regulation
"US Senators aim to keep renewable power bill
'clean'"—reliability high.
Reuters reports that "U.S. Senators backing a bi-partisan bill that
would make big utilities begin embracing renewable electricity believe
they can get enough votes to pass it without having to add oil or
nuclear incentives to the measure, a Congressional aide said on Friday.
... The bill ... would require big utilities to generate 15 percent
renewable power such as solar, wind, geothermal, and some
hydroelectric, by 2021." The bill may possibly come up during the lame
duck session. See Reuters.
[The 15% target is
much lower than some state renewable energy standards (33% in
California), which perhaps explains why it has any chance of passage.]
Science and
Economics
"Electric car use beats wind to cut oil use:
study"—reliability high.
A study from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy says
that "Widespread adoption of electric cars could reduce U.S. oil demand
and the need for imported oil more than creation of a national mandate
for renewable power such as wind and solar ... . ... A 30-percent
electric fleet would reduce U.S. oil use by 2.5 million barrels a day
above the projected reduction from increased fuel efficiency
standards." See Reuters
article. Access the study here.
[Duh. Electricity
plants don't run on oil, so alternative electricity generation
technologies don't cut oil imports. But unless we are going to just
switch transportation from oil to coal we need non-coal generation
technologies to power all those EVs.]
