A “gold-rush-like” buzz has spread across Germany in the last week over tentative plans to invest the staggering sum of 400 billion euros to harvest solar power in the Sahara for energy users across Europe and northern Africa. Even though European and Mediterranean Union leaders have been exploring and studying for several years the idea of using concentrated solar power (CSP), the Desertec proposition suddenly captivated the public’s attention a week ago when German reinsurer Munich Re announced it had invited blue chip German companies such as Deutsche Bank, Siemens and several major utilities to a July 13 meeting on the project. The 20 companies aim to sign a memorandum of understanding to found the Desertec Industrial Initiative that could be supplying 15 percent of Europe’s electricity in the decades ahead.

Germany’s deputy foreign minister, Guenter Gloser, has been the government’s point man for the project. I had the chance to talk to him about it.

Question: How did this project to turn the sun in the Sahara into electricity for Europe and north African countries get started?
Guenter Gloser: About 15 months ago Germany and France proposed including the solar plan into the list of projects for the Union for the Mediterranean. There were institutions that had already done research and we thought: ‘Why don’t we use this sun belt where there is such an abundance of sunshine as a source of renewable energy?’ Together Germany, France and Egypt put forth this solar plan as one of the six projects for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and underscored the fact that it could benefit both sides. It was not an idea where just countries north of the Mediterranean will benefit but rather those countries south of it as well as across the EU would also benefit.

Question: What is the current status of the project?
Gloser: We agreed to move forward with the project and want to go forward step-by-step towards its implementation. But obviously neither the EU nor the Arab League will be the principal players but rather private investors. Our task for this project is to create the political framework — for example with setting up of the feed-in tariffs, ensuring the infrastructure is built and ensuring that the renewable energy can be transported to Europe. The political framework can also make it possible to expedite the approvals process. But what is also very important is that the energy produced is also available for countries in the region. For example, Morocco can take advantage of its solar and wind conditions on the Atlantic coast to build solar power plants or wind energy parks to provide energy for its domestic market and to sell energy abroad as well. Even countries such as Algeria, which has fossil fuel reserves, could also use the sun belt for solar thermal power for some of their energy needs — and prolong their fossil fuel reserves.

Question: Is there not risk involved in such large-scale investment in a region with a potential for political instability?
Gloser: It’s a cooperation that will contribute towards diversifying energy sources, geographically and in terms of energy sources. It’s a truly fascinating project because it’s a win-win for everyone. And the third winner will be the people and institutions that finance this project. Neither the EU nor the countries in the south are capable of financing this on their own. So the question is: can third-parties bringing financing be involved. Energy security is an important issue everywhere. There are energy sources we have today that at times have been somewhat at risk. There’s no contradiction in saying that it’s important to diversify a country’s energy source as well as diversifying the types of energy it receives. It’s not that there is no risk whatsoever but it’s important to keep in mind that there are also some risk factors for other sources of energy that we are now importing.

Question: What impact do you think a project like this could have in the Mediterranean Union?
Gloser: I think the partnership approach that we have taken could well have a positive influence of stability for the countries taking part as well as the neighbouring nations. The EU has been enlarged and come closer together in the past decades but there hasn’t been as much of that among Arab countries. Perhaps it would be possible through certain projects, such as this solar energy project or water projects or transportation routes, to increase the cooperation among those countries.

Question: There have been fears expressed that Europe would be exploiting natural resources in Africa, raising fears of a new sort of ‘colonisation’. What would you say to those fears?
Gloser: It is not in any way an issue of the north dominating the south. It is not only the north that is interested in acquiring renewable energy but rather other users are interested. And if that mutual need for energy leads to a project that satisfies all sides then that is in my view a good route to take. I don’t think there’s any justification for the notion of this being an ‘energy colonisation’ or anything like that at all. It’s a mutually beneficial project.”

Question: How high is the interest in other countries? Some cynics would say Germany’s expertise in renewable energies gives it a big advantage.
Gloser: So far the countries in the south and north have been in agreement about the project. Now the task is to identify the next steps. There are countries in both the south and north that are more interested in the project than others — because, for example, they already have had positive experiences with renewable energy. That is not only Germany but also Spain and other countries. And on the other side of the Mediterranean there are countries that will have more interest at first than others.

Question: Some might see this project somewhat cynically as a vehicle to help German companies that already have such a considerable head start in know-how with renewable energy. What would you say to them?
Gloser: Obviously there are some important players (in Germany). But they are not only in Germany. Certainly we have built up a renewable energy sector in Germany, thanks to the right political framework a decade ago, that has created an enormous number of jobs. But Spain has also had an enormous development in recent years and in Denmark the wind energy sector has reached a large dimension with considerable know-how. But beyond those countries there are many other countries with companies and suppliers for the industry.

Question: Are there problems on the horizon being overlooked?
Gloser: In my eyes the biggest problem right now is that the expectations have possibly been raised too high. I’m someone who’s thought: that’s a great idea and why don’t we take advantage of all these things at hand: know-how, sun belt, political cooperation, development, stability, security, partnership. There are so many positive aspects that come together. Now it’s time to come up with some realistic timetables and see how we can move forward step-by-step to make this project a reality.

PHOTO: Mirrors are seen channelling sunlight onto a tube filled with oil during the dedication of Acciona’s Nevada Solar One power plant in Boulder City, southeast of Las Vegas February 22, 2008. The 400-acre, 64-megawatt, concentrating solar power (CSP) plant is the third largest in the world, according to Acciona. The plant produces energy to power about 14,000 homes. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

Stuart Gaffin is a climate researcher at Columbia University and a regular contributor with his blog “Exhausted Earth”. ThomsonReuters is not responsible for the content - the views are the author’s alone.

Often when seeing anti-environmental commentary about global warming in the media, I feel like the first question I would like to ask these commentators is: “Why do you deny that carbon dioxide (CO₂), which is increasing in an unprecedented way in the atmosphere, is a greenhouse gas?”

If they were to start their answer: “I don’t deny it …” I would think “Good, we’ve made some progress.” However, as I think would often be the case, if they start their answer: “Because …” we should be ready to pounce on the ensuing nonsense.

Here’s a key example of such nonsense from a former weatherman:

“Now allow me to talk a little about the science behind the global warming frenzy. I have dug through thousands of pages of research papers, including the voluminous documents published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I have worked my way through complicated math and complex theories. Here’s the bottom line: the entire global warming scientific case is based on the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. They don’t have any other issue. Carbon Dioxide, that’s it.

Here is the deal about CO2, carbon dioxide. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000, only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t”.

This might be funny if it weren’t for the fact that editorial pages like the Wall Street Journal and conservative news sources such as Fox News treat such individuals as scientific authorities on climate change.

Leaving aside the fact that it is the molecular structure of CO₂ that is the basis for its greenhouse effect with respect to absorbing heat radiation from the Earth’s surface and warming the climate, or that with no CO₂ in the atmosphere our planet would freeze over, the numbers argument above is just unforgivable. The current and future higher concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere are precisely accounted for in climate models that simulate present and future warming.A seemingly small concentration of a gas in the atmosphere is not a measure of its potential environmental or health impact. Indeed, if anything, the more trace level a gas is in the natural atmosphere, the more powerful its environmental impact is likely to be.

For example, I would ask any reader that accepts the above argument, with all its hubris (“…that’s all there is to it …” !!) to consider this: Would you mind if there were just 38 molecules of carbon monoxide (CO) out of 100,000 molecules of atmosphere in ‘front of your face’? If you don’t mind, you should know that, after a few hours of exposure, you would probably be dead.

Similarly weather reporters surely should know that dangerous air pollution levels of gases like ozone (O₃) are measured in very low concentrations of 100 molecules per billion molecules of atmosphere! After all, ozone levels are a routine part of weather forecasts today.

    The UN’s climate surgery opening hours this week in Bonn, Germany, are 10am-1pm and 3pm-6pm.

    Several times they’ve finished early — lack of demand?

    “That’s good. Often they just go on and on. Next week it may be a bit later,” a UN spokesperson told me.

    Welcome to a new round of talks to find a successor to the UN-administered Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Bonn is the second of eight meetings of 190 countries and 2,000 people or so to agree a new climate pact by December 2009.

    All right, on the two-week agenda there’s also a lot of side events, lobby group huddles and so on, while delegates wake up very early to attend busy, ad hoc sessions, one told me.

    But from the outside at least there’s no sense of rush - the plenary sessions are often dry presentations from government bureaucrats, re-hashing well known positions with erudite allusions to climate convention text written 16 years ago.

    UN chairmen tried on Friday to steer talks towards “concrete proposals” for a new pact, to discuss in more meetings.

    Some NGOs said ideas were emerging to fund efforts to prepare for global warming and cut greenhouse gas emissions which are rising several percent annually. Scientists want emissions to peak within 10 years to avoid dangerous warming.

    Those ideas included a Swiss-proposed carbon tax, the UN’s shipping organisation’s suggestion for a carbon auction and Norway’s proposal to sell emissions rights to rich countries.

    Nevertheless talks are slow. Last December was a more dramatic meeting — ministers struggled in Bali, Indonesia, but finally succeeded to agree to launch these post-Kyoto talks.

    Why isn’t there more urgency here in Bonn, I asked a UN official. 1.) it’s not our fault, the United Nations is a facilitator, he said, 2.) some meetings are more technical than others, and 3.) you need leadership, and one country can provide that.

    That was a swipe at the United States, the only industrialised country not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and the world’s top or second biggest emitter of the planet-warming gas
carbon dioxide (after China). The United States hugely lags many countries’ ambition, for example President George W. Bush plans to halt emissions growth by 2025, while the EU says it will cut its greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020.

    But I still have sympathy with the U.S. delegation.

    Some ideas may be naive, like one from a major developing country that we compel Western entrepreneurs to sell their intellectual property rights, to speed up emissions cuts.

    “The private sector is private property. I think this process could use some common sense and honesty because it’s still out of touch with the world as it is,” the U.S. delegate
told me. I could agree.

    But where does that leave urgency?

A recent trip to bicyle-peppered cities Copenhagen and Amsterdam got me thinking about the pedal possibilities in U.S. cities. Alas, New York, the country’s biggest city, has long way to go make biking easier, and that seems true in many other cities in the world’s largest motor fuel consumer.

As gasoline nears $4.00 a gallon throughout the country one might think that U.S. commuters would be jumping on their bikes. Evidently the prices aren’t high enough yet.

Here in New York, it’s Bike Month and though I live just 7 miles from my office in Times Square, I haven’t two-wheeled it in yet, though I did for years. Likely, I won’t any time soon because fighting traffic across the avenues isn’t appealing anymore.

Granted, NYC has made made biking improvements over the last decade, building and extending bicycle paths on Manhattan’s edges and keeping lanes open on most of its bridges, which offer spectacular river views. And New York City has plans to double the number of bike commuters by 2015 and add 200 miles of bike lanes by the end of the decade.

But bike lanes in the bustling parts of the island are probably used as much by darting cabs and other vehicles as much as people who pedal, which can make for a harrowing experience.

Sure, New York City streets will probably always be louder than those in Amsterdam where fenders banging against bike frames can sometimes be the loudest traffic noise one hears, or in Copenhagen, where bike lanes often have their own traffic lights.

But with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s traffic congestion plan defeated and few businesses offering bike parking space, things don’t look like they will improve much soon.

Or at least not enough so that New Yorkers will be biking their children around the city in droves like they do in Copenhagen.

What do you think, will New York and other U.S. cities catch up on biking as the price of oil rises?

Pic 1: Kid-moving bicycle in Copenhagen, a common sight. Pic 2: Bicycle parking in Amsterdam. Pic 3: Biking in New York. Photos, Tim Gardner.

Three giant wind turbines are helping the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean towards a goal of eliminating use of fossil fuels by 2015 — and no birds have been killed in a six-month pilot scheme despite worries in many nations that big blades and bird brains don’t mix.

The Galapagos are home to mocking birds, finches, petrels, blue-footed boobies, doves, albatrosses and other exotic species many of which only live on the islands. Studies of Galapagos birds helped British 19th century naturalist Charles Darwin work out his theory of evolution.

“In six months of pilot operations there have been no bird kills,” said Melinda Kimble of the U.N. Foundation, a sponsor of the $10.8 million project led by power producers including American Electric Power and also backed by Ecuador’s government.

Power producers studied birds’ flight paths and nesting habits to decide the siting of the turbines and reduce risks of collisions.

“There seems a very broad support for the project, right down to school kids,” said Kimble after attending an official dedication ceremony late last month on San Cristobal, the island with the biggest human population.

The turbines have a generating capacity of 800 Kwh and will provide up to about 80 percent of San Cristobal’s electricity needs in windy months, halving the need for diesel fuel to power the island.

The shift to renewable energy for the islands was spurred after the oil tanker Jessica ran aground with 160,000 gallons of diesel fuel in 2001 — some oil leaked but a catastrophe was narrowly averted thanks to favourable winds and tides.

Bird lovers say that turbines from California to Denmark often kill birds.

But are the turbines a threat — or is it just a case of siting them with care?