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Category Archives: alternative energy
India Plans Renewables Splurge, But Will Not Commit to Carbon Plan
Delegates in Lima are watching for signs India will follow China’s pledge with one of its own, potentially leading to action by other developing countries. India’s environment minister didn’t address emissions limits in his first public comments in Lima yesterday. Instead, Prakash Javadekar presented a plan to spend aggressively on cleaner forms of energy such as wind or solar, without saying when the $100 billion would flow or how it would be funded.
“It’s India’s turn to make a similar announcement for the sake of future generations,” said Abhishek Pratap, a senior campaigner for Greenpeace, referring to the China-U.S. pledge to either slow or cap their emissions at some future point.
The goal of the Lima conference is to set ground rules for an agreement to be signed by countries next year in Paris that would limit pollution worldwide with a goal of curbing global warming. India’s emissions are predicted to double by 2020, making its actions crucial to the UN plan, proponents say.
“India is committed and ready to play its part in the international fight against climate change,” Javadekar said, adding that the country has “$3 million in the kitty” for works that will trim emissions and there’s political backing from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to spend more.
Paris Conference
The remarks, along with a 22-page policy document, suggest an effort by India to turn away from coal, which now helps produce about 60 percent of its electricity, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data. The policy paper signaled that India may be preparing to make a pledge on emissions limits for next year’s UN conference in Paris.
“Steps have been taken to finalize India’s” commitment on pollution cuts, according to the paper. “The contribution will factor in India’s domestic obligations of addressing the basic development needs in terms of achieving minimum standards of living for its entire population.”
With about 30 percent of its residents living in poverty, scraping by on 75 cents a day or less, India has been reluctant to sign up for the sort of binding greenhouse-gas cuts that Europe has already enacted under previous climate deals. Last week, Javadekar said India’s pollution levels will have to keep growing.
Climate Aid
“We have a need to grow, so our emissions will grow,” Javadekar said in New Delhi on Dec. 5. The onus on reducing emissions should be on richer industrial nations most responsible for global warming to allow poorer countries “space for more development.”
The policy document released in Lima outlined at least $62 billion in national projects related to climate change.
That includes $1.4 billion for solar energy, $5.75 billion for water supply and $17 billion for sustainable agriculture. It also noted budget requirements for state climate-related programs costing 11.3 trillion rupees, which it converted to $188.7 billion. It didn’t give details on what those projects would cover.
“Solar and wind energy, along with energy efficiency investments, are vital to diversifying India’s energy mix and are a viable means to meet demands for clean, affordable energy that creates jobs,” said Anjali Jaiswal, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
As part of the UN talks, industrial nations have pledged to boost climate-related aid to developing countries including India to $100 billion a year by 2020, a sum the poorer nations say needs further detailing.
“Having the largest democracy in the world, the second- fastest growing major economy, and the second-most populous country engage in these discussions demonstrates a willingness to work toward a global deal,” Jaiswal said. “You can’t reach a deal without India.”
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg
Lead image: Taj Mahal via Shutterstock
Biofuels Digest Index dumps 3.34 percent to 61.28 as ethanol equities tank
The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, dumped 3.34 percent to close at 61.28 as ethanol equities tanked. For the day, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) dropped 8.77 percent to $10.59, while Green Plains (GPRE) fell 9.67 percent to $22.15. Among other equities, Amyris (AMRS) lost 8.68 percent to $2.42. Overall, declines led advances 5 to 1 for the day.
U.S. solar industry sees sizzling growth in third quarter
The U.S. solar industry sizzled in the third quarter with 1,354 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity installed, a 41 percent increase over its performance in the same period last year and its second biggest quarterly growth spurt ever, according to market data…
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Pannonia Ethanol to expand Hungarian ethanol production to 450 million liters
National Grid, Anbaric teaming on Maine Green Line, other projects
In an alliance that heats up competition to build power lines to bring low-carbon power to New England, National Grid announced Tuesday it is backing Anbaric Transmission’s 1,000 megawatt Maine Green Line project and that they will team on other…
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Tobacco planting underway for Boeing and SAA’s aviation biofuel project
In South Africa, Boeing and South African Airlines announced that South African farmers will soon harvest their first crop of energy-rich tobacco plants, an important step towards using the plants to make sustainable aviation biofuel.
Boeing and SAA, along with partners SkyNRG and Sunchem SA, also officially launched Project Solaris, their collaborative effort to develop an aviation biofuel supply chain with a nicotine-free tobacco plant called Solaris. In Limpopo province, company representatives and industry stakeholders visited commercial and community farms where 123 acres (50 hectares) of Solaris have been planted. Oil from the plant’s seeds may be converted into bio-jet fuel as early as next year, with a test flight by SAA as soon as practicable.
African Development Bank grants $580,000 for clean cooking in Nigeria
In the Ivory Coast, the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) approved a US $580,000 preparation grant for the expansion of Green Energy Biofuels (GEB) Bio-refinery project in Nigeria. The project is a pilot of Small Medium Entrepreneurship Fundamentals (SMEFunds), a social enterprise based in Lagos, and the first bio-energy cooking fuel production facility and distribution network in Nigeria.
Specifically, the SEFA grant will finance technical studies, business advisory services and a full environmental and social impact assessment in support of the scaling-up of SMEFunds/GEB operations, particularly the waste-to-ethanol cooking fuel production and distribution in Nigeria, to fully harness economies of scale. The expansion entails growing their biogel production capacity from 1,000 to 30,000 litres/day and ramping up the cookstove manufacturing supply chain four-fold over the next three years.
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University of Florida pioneers space fuel technology using astronaut waste
In Florida, Buck Rogers surely couldn’t have seen this one coming, but at NASA’s request, University of Florida researchers have figured out how to turn human waste — yes, that kind — into rocket fuel. Adolescent jokes aside, the process finally makes useful something that until now has been collected to burn up on re-entry. What’s more, like so many other things developed for the space program, the process could well turn up on Earth, said Pratap Pullammanappallil, a UF associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering.
In 2006, NASA began making plans to build an inhabited facility on the moon’s surface between 2019 and 2024. As part of NASA’s moon-base goal, the agency wanted to reduce the weight of spacecraft leaving Earth. Historically, waste generated during spaceflight would not be used further. NASA stores it in containers until it’s loaded into space cargo vehicles that burn as they pass back through the Earth’s atmosphere. For future long-term missions, though, it would be impractical to bring all the stored waste back to Earth. Dumping it on the moon’s surface is not an option, so the space agency entered into an agreement with UF to develop test ideas.
NASA started by supplying the UF scientists with a packaged form of chemically produced human waste that also included simulated food waste, towels, wash cloths, clothing and packaging materials, Pullammanappallil said. He and Dhoble, now a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, ran laboratory tests to find out how much methane could be produced from the waste and how quickly. They found the process could produce 290 liters of methane per crew per day, all produced in a week, Pullammanappallil said.
