Top Stories
"South Korea firms jump onto solar bandwagon"—reliability
high.
Reuters reports that "South Korea's technology giants are behind the
pace in getting on the $35 billion global solar energy bandwagon, but
are now making up for lost time, snapping up assets overseas." Cites
deals and plans of major South Korean companies. See Reuters.
"Analysis: Soaring Chinese economy at odds
with climate goals"—reliability high.
Last year the IEA hopefully suggested that China could grow its
emissions to 8.4 billion tonnes of CO2 per year by 2020, then peak and
reduce them, which would help keep the globe below the level of
emissions that would cause 2 degrees of global warming. But more recent
figures show China will blow past that rate of emissions next year as
its economy continues to boom. More about the implications of China's
growth. See Reuters
article. [No
one blames China for wanting to grow and lift its masses out of
poverty. And its growth is helping the world economy get out of its
slump. But the consequences, even with aggressive energy efficiency
programs, are grave for the planet's climate, especially as the
second-greatest emitter, the U.S., is unwilling to act.]
"Energy Leaders Blame Oil and Gas Subsidies
for Weak Prospects"—reliability high.
"Senior financiers and the leaders of powerful energy companies on
Thursday blamed subsidies to oil and natural gas companies for damaging
the ability of the clean-energy industry to recover from the economic
slowdown and take advantage of growing power markets worldwide,"
reports the NYT. Quotes from various renewable energy industry
participants. See The
New York Times. [Tulsi Tanti of
Suzlon says, "The banks are full of cash. We don’t see any difficulty
with project financing in India and China." But the credit crunch in
North America still hurts.]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
"Tesla supplies Toyota on electric Rav4"—reliability
high.
"Electric carmaker Tesla Motors will serve as a key supplier to Toyota
Motor Corp under its agreement with the Japanese automaker to build an
electric Rav4 SUV," according to Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk,
Reuters reports. Musk said, "Toyota engineering and Tesla engineering
are working very closely together" and that he thought the first
thousand electric Rav4s might be built at the former NUMMI plant in
Fremont, California. More on Tesla plans. See Reuters.
"First forestry credits issued under
Voluntary Carbon Standard"—reliability high.
"Credits from the Uchindile-Mapanda reforestation project in Tanzania
were issued on the VCS registry system hosted by APX in a move that
experts predict will further stimulate growing investor interest in
forestry protection projects. ... The Uchindile-Mapanda project takes
degraded grassland and converts it into sustainably harvested forests
that sequester carbon emissions from the atmosphere and generate carbon
credits. Some 40 per cent of the credits have been set aside – a world
first – to mitigate against the risk of 'non-permanence', such as the
forest burning down." The UN hopes to establish its REDD forestry
offset system at Cancun, which could provide the structure for a
regulated market in forestry-related credits. Story at BusinessGreen.
"A Tale Of Two VC Industries: The Web Versus
Cleantech"—reliability medium.
Erick Schonfeld posts about the differences between two major segments
of the venture capital industry. "We ran some numbers through
CrunchBase to compare funding rounds for consumer Web and ecommerce
startups versus cleantech companies. ... So far this year through the
end of August, CrunchBase tracked $1.87 billion in cleantech venture
financings versus $1.35 billion for consumer Web and ecommerce
startups. But CrrunchBase captured four times as many deals for Web
startups than it did for cleantech." So the cleantech deal size is
bigger, as might be expected since web companies are less capital
intensive than cleantech companies. See TechCrunch
GreenTech.
"New York can safely boost wind power sixfold
by 2018"—reliability high.
A report from the New York state grid operator says that the grid
could absorb 8 GW of wind capacity by 2018. "Energy companies have
submitted proposals to the New York ISO to build more than 7,000 MW of
wind projects in the state." "In addition to reducing carbon emissions,
the study also found more wind power would lower total energy
production costs and significantly decrease the emission of sulfur,
nitrogen and other pollutants." From Reuters.
"Failure to measure carbon could cost
businesses dear"—reliability high.
"Firms that fail to measure their carbon emissions are in danger of
losing their competitive advantage and looking like 'they don't know
what they're doing', the chief operating officer of the Carbon
Disclosure Project (CDP) warned". He said, "From a business and
investment perspective, climate change is really the first ever
predictable industrial revolution. We know that we have to change [but]
we don't know when, how fast, which technologies. The people who can
predict that are going to be the winners in a changing economy. And the
people who fail to predict it and fail to understand it are going to be
the losers." More remarks from the BusinessGreen.com Sustainable
Business Lecture on Carbon and the Future of Business Management. See BusinessGreen.
Government and
Regulation
"EU climate chief insists coal aid to end
2014"—reliability high.
Environment Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says there is no possibility
the European Commission will further extend allowing state subsidies
for loss-making coal mines beyond 2014, in spite of Germany's pressure
for a later cut-off. "European taxpayers cannot continue to pay a lot
of state aid to unprofitable mines," she told Reuters.
Science and
Economics
"Are American homes more energy efficient?
Not exactly."—reliability high.
Feature article about how America's per-capita home energy consumption
has remained level since the 70s even as home appliances have become
much more efficient. Larger homes and more electronic devices
account for this. "The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 5 to 10
percent of a home's energy use comes from 'vampire losses'" in devices
that didn't exist in the 70s. More about home energy use trends. See The
Washington Post.
