Commodity Corner
Views on commodities and energy
Getting down to business at U.N. climate talks a hard task
A U.N. concession to delegates at this week’s climate talks in Bonn to take off jackets and ties due to recent high temperatures may be going to some participants’ heads.
Breaking the back of negotiations for a new climate pact after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 is proving hard work even though the talks’ chair hopes to have a new negotiating text on the table by the end of the week.
Developing nations are still blaming the rich for global warming and the issue of who will contribute most to climate financing is still a matter for debate.
A year-end meeting in Cancun looms closer and the pressure is on to get the job done. Yet, the acronyms being bandied around — LULUCF, CDM, AAU, AWG-KP, AWG-LCA, REDD, to name a few — are enough to make your head swim.
Even a Chinese negotiator on Tuesday admitted he did not understand a complicated forestry and land use presentation the previous day by the European Union.
Talks kicked off on Monday with a three-hour session during which countries spent an inordinate amount of time thanking the chair and congratulating the new U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres on her post.
Delegates didn’t manage to finish the day’s business by the evening and had to continue into Tuesday, despite calls from the chair of the talks to keep to a very tight schedule.
Now in the movies: The gentle giant
German utility RWE – Europe’s fifth-largest power company and the continent’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxcide – has resorted to a new way to counter what it sees as a fundamental misunderstanding about power companies.
Its animated movie – to be shown on TV and in cinemas – is meant to show what the company is really about – and overcome the public’s distaste for an industry whose dominance has allowed it to mete out ever higher power prices.
RWE portrays itself as a colossus with trees growing on his shoulders. He dives into the sea to install tidal-power plants and repairs power lines with gentle force.
this is truly fascinating — you are a brilliant thinker….
from Environment Forum:
What a difference a year makes – Valero embraces corn ethanol
At last year's American Petroleum Institute conference, Bill Klesse, CEO of leading U.S. oil refiner Valero, slammed federal policymakers who push subsidies and mandates for production of ethanol, saying that using corn to make it would make food so expensive it would cause more misery than global warming.
"All of these programs are just a huge transfer of wealth from our industry (oil) to the Midwest farms," Klesse said in March 2008 speech.
A year later, Klesse has decided to join rather than fight. If the money is going to the Midwest corn farms, why not cash in, right? Valero two weeks ago was chosen by a bankruptcy court as the winning bidder for two more VeraSun ethanol-producing plants. The sale of seven former VeraSun plants closed on Wednesday and two more are expected to close soon.
A year and two weeks ago, Klesse said the federal government should stop favoring ethanol with subsidies. Now, Klesse and Valero are securing a supply of ethanol that it needs to mix with its gasoline.
"We expect increases in the Renewable Fuels Standard to continue," Klesse said two weeks ago when Valero's bid for VeraSun's plants was awarded.
The plants, in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Indiana together will have a combined capacity that is 7.5 percent of the current operating U.S. ethanol capacity.
On Thursday, a Valero spokesman said the company needs to go full throttle on producing ethanol to mix with its gasoline. See the Reuters story.
Environmental groups call “clean” coal a fairy tale
What do Bigfoot, a mermaid, an alien from outer space, and clean coal all have in common? None of them exist, according to several environmental groups. Organizations such as the League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Wildlife Federation have launched a multi-million dollar media onslaught aimed at knocking down claims that power can be generated from coal now in an environmentally safe manner. The so called “reality” campaign features a television commercial with a man touting “clean coal technology” in a barren field and print ads with fictional creatures holding lumps of coal. The message of the ads is “In reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal.” How to handle America’s abundant coal supply is likely to remain a contentious issue as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration tackles climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Coal-fired power plants generate about half of U.S. electricity supplies, and account for about 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — the biggest single industrial source. Obama has expressed support for the development of technology that would allow coal-burning power plants to trap and store carbon dioxide rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. Such technology is commercially untested and currently economically nonviable. Coal industry trade groups, such as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, say that they are committed to carbon reduction strategies and coal power is necessary to provide Americans with affordable electricity. Until the carbon capture and storage technology is developed, however, environmentalists behind the Reality Coalition say on their website “coal will remain a major contributor to the climate crisis.”
–Ayesha Rascoe
The real issue we face is what will our “base load” energy source will be. The main issue most green energy sources face is how they will be able to consistently meet peak demand all year round. We do have plenty of potential renewable sources available, what they need is a cost-effective storage medium so store the energy they generate so we can use it when “the wind doesn’t blow” or “the sun doesn’t shine”. Once we figure that out, we will have something viable to replace our coal usage. Right now that is over 50% of our non-liquid fuel consumption in the U.S.
RW
Corn, soy compete with wind for acres
Crop scouts were busy in western Iowa on Wednesday trying to unlock the secrets of the upcoming soybean and corn harvest but they were ignoring another popular crop – wind.
Windmills are becoming increasingly common around the Corn Belt due to environmental concerns about traditional sources of power generation.
The wind harvest was taking up an unprecedented amount of acres this year in an area that some veteran scouts were referring to as this year’s garden spot of the Midwest in terms of potential corn and soybean yields.
In southern Minnesota, some growers were mulling offers from a wind farm company that had plans to erect windmills in that area. Some growers were being offered up to $5,000 a year to allow a windmill to be placed on their property, according to a farmer from that area who was taking part on the tour.
But the windmills can cause some problems, a farmer in west central Iowa told crop scouts. Dozens of windmills could be seen turning as the farmer told of some issues that might make farmers hesitate before collecting what appears to be easy money by renting out their acres to wind farms.
Maintenance workers need access to the windmills, so that can mean ploughing under more acres so a path can be built from the road to the windmill. Additionally, farmers have a harder time steering their machinery through fields if windmills sit right in the middle of prime crop producing territory. This can be particularly troublesome during years when poor conditions leave famers with only a short period of time to plant or harvest crops.
But still, the promise of cashing in on the green movement has a strong appeal to farmers, who like the promise of a steady annual payment.
It is amazing that some third world countries send delegates when their life expectancy due to their dictatorial rulers is 40 years old. It doesn’t seem like climate change would be the most important thing on their mind unless of course it is free money. And isn’t that what this whole global warming thing is really about – income redistribution.