The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

[fuelcell-energy] Digest Number 853

There are 23 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Die neue Atomkraft From: "janson2997" 2. World's mayors gather in S.F., thinking green From: "janson2997" 3. ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people From: "janson2997" 4. ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people From: "janson2997" 5. Oil futures hit three-week high From: "janson2997" 6. Flywheel Prototype To Be Demonstrated For Frequency Regulation/ From: "janson2997" 7. When will nuclear add up? From: "janson2997" 8. India, US launch energy dialogue From: "janson2997" 9. India oil minister to push for Iran-India gas pipeline via Pakistan From: "janson2997" 10. New Caspian Pipeline Only Pit Stop to Fuel Cell Future From: "janson2997" 11. Black mark on energy From: "janson2997" 12. Peak Oil History 101: Causes of the situation (+part1) From: "janson2997" 13. Capital Flows to the Coal Industry From: "janson2997" 14. Capital Flows to the Coal Industry From: "janson2997" 15. FCIAC Team Report FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS AND CASE From: "janson2997" 16. ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005) From: "janson2997" 17. About Time From: "janson2997" 18. Might we really need nuclear power? From: "janson2997" 19. D.A. creates environmental unit From: "janson2997" 20. Changing climate, melting mountains From: "janson2997" 21. Crude Futures Rise Above $52 (53?) Ahead of U.S. Inventories Data From: "janson2997" 22. Oil rises 5 percent on heatoil rally From: "janson2997" 23. Crude Oil Rises Most in 6 Months on Concern Over Fuel Supplies From: "janson2997" ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:49:57 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Die neue Atomkraft Die neue Atomkraft von Frank Grotelüschen Während die Politik noch über Kernenergie streitet, tüfteln Forscher längst an neuen Meilern. Elf Partner, darunter die USA, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Japan und die EU-Atomenergiebehörde Euratom, werkeln am nächsten Wurf. Blick auf den Reaktor A des Kernkraftwerks in Biblis, fotografiert am 7. März 1997Das tibetische Horn jault und jammert. Vulgär blubbert der Synthesizer dazwischen; der Chor kontert flüsternd mit physikalischen Formeln. Volksfeststimmung in Stade. Das Buxtehude Museum feiert den Abschied vom Kernkraftwerk ganz in der Nähe. Während in der deutschen Provinz der Atomausstieg gefeiert wird, setzt Kanzlerkandidatin Angela Merkel ganz auf einen Wiedereinstieg in die umstrittene Technologie. Auch das Ausland schmiedet längst eifrig Zukunftspläne: Ein internationaler Verbund bastelt an den Reaktoren der Generation IV. Sie sollen deutlich sicherer sein als heutige Meiler und ihren Atommüll im Wesentlichen selbst entsorgen. Seit der Tschernobyl-Katastrophe 1986 galt die Kernkraft in den westlichen Industrienationen weitgehend als Auslaufmodell. Neue Reaktoren wurden weder genehmigt noch gebaut. Doch seit einiger Zeit denken manche Länder um. Frankreich und Finnland beschlossen unlängst den Bau je eines Europäischen Druckwasserreaktors. Der EPR ist eine Neuentwicklung von Framatome, einem Unternehmen von Siemens und der französischen Areva. Deutlich sicherer Meiler der Zukunft: Wie ein Kraftwerk Wasserstoff und Strom herstelltBereits der 3 Mrd. Euro teure EPR, dessen erstes Exemplar nun in Finnland gebaut wird und der 2009 ans Netz gehen soll, gilt unter Experten als deutlich sicherer als derzeitige Meiler. "Mögliche anzunehmende Unfälle sind auf die Anlage begrenzt", sagt Joachim Knebel, Leiter des Programms Nukleare Sicherheitsforschung am Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. "Außerhalb des Reaktorzauns kann keine Radioaktivität freigesetzt werden." Gewährleisten wollen die Ingenieure dies unter anderem durch den Kernfänger - eine Art keramikverkleidete Wanne, in die eine eventuelle Kernschmelze zerfließen und durch Wasser gekühlt würde. "Das verhindert ein Durchschmelzen des Fundaments", sagt Knebel. Aufgrund seiner Sicherheitsmerkmale zählen die Fachleute den EPR zu einem neuen Meilertyp: der Generation III. Zur selben Kategorie zählt auch der Kugelhaufenreaktor, entwickelt von den USA und von Südafrika. "Das Prinzip haben einst die Deutschen erfunden, insbesondere das Forschungszentrum Jülich", erzählt Madeline Feltus von der US-Energiebehörde DOE. "Auf diesem Prinzip bauen wir auf." Anstatt wie heutige Meiler mit Brennstäben arbeitet die neue Technik mit Tausenden tennisballartigen Grafitkugeln, in die stecknadelkopfgroße Urankörnchen eingelagert sind. Die atomare Kettenreaktion erhitzt Heliumgas, das die Strahlenbälle umströmt, auf 850 Grad - was der Anlage den Beinamen Hochtemperaturreaktor beschert. Das heiße Helium bringt eine Stromturbine zum Rotieren. Die Vorteile: "Ein heutiger Leichtwasserreaktor muss nach einem Bruch der Kühlwasserleitung innerhalb von Minuten notgekühlt werden, sonst droht er zu überhitzen", erläutert Feltus. "Dagegen braucht ein Kugelhaufenreaktor nach einem Kühlmittelverlust rund sieben Tage, um heiß zu werden - Zeit genug zum Eingreifen." Zudem erhitzen sich die Grafitkugeln maximal auf 1600 Grad Celsius, zu wenig zum Aufschmelzen. Ein erster, mit 114 Megawatt Leistung relativ kleiner Prototyp soll in zwei Jahren im südafrikanischen Koeburg in Betrieb gehen. Ende des Atommülls Ein Verbund mit elf Partnern, darunter die USA, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Japan und die EU-Atomenergiebehörde Euratom, werkelt am nächsten Wurf: Die Meiler der Generation IV sollen noch sicherer sein als die Hochtemperaturreaktoren und keinen langlebigen Müll mehr erzeugen. "Wir könnten sie unterirdisch bauen, um sie gegen die Attacken von Terroristen zu schützen", überlegt Joe Colvin, Präsident des Nuclear Energy Institutes in Washington. "Außerdem denken wir darüber nach, die Anlagen zur preisgünstigen Erzeugung von Wasserstoff zu nutzen." Das Prinzip: Der Reaktorkern heizt Helium auf mehr als 1000 Grad Celsius auf. Das ultraheiße Helium treibt nicht nur eine Stromturbine an, sondern spaltet über einen speziellen chemischen Kreislauf Wasser in Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff auf. Der Wasserstoff dient dann als Treibstoff für Brennstoffzellen in Autos, Bussen und Heizungskellern. Pro Tag könnte ein solcher Meiler mehr als zwei Millionen Kubikmeter Wasserstoff herstellen. Um ihn zu bauen, müssen die Ingenieure geeignete Werkstoffe entwerfen: Reaktormaterialien, die Temperaturen jenseits der 1000 Grad trotzen. Andere Typen der Generation IV sollen das wohl größte Problem bei der Kernkraft lösen: die Erzeugung von Atommüll, der für Hunderttausende von Jahren strahlt. "Die neuen Reaktoren sollen so ausgelegt sein, dass sie ihren Abfall gleich wieder verbrennen", sagt Joachim Knebel. Die Idee: Neuartige Brennstoffe strahlen Neutronen (Kernteilchen) ab, die zum Teil deutlich schneller sind als bei den derzeitigen Brennelementen. Diese schnellen Neutronen wären in der Lage, langlebige Abfallstoffe wie Plutonium kleinzukriegen. Am Ende der reaktorinternen Zerfallskaskade blieben Substanzen, die nach einigen Hundert Jahren zerstrahlt wären anstatt nach Hunderttausend. "Die ersten Reaktoren sind frühestens für 2030 geplant", sagt Knebel. Die Branche jedenfalls gibt sich optimistisch. "In den USA beobachten wir, dass die Nuklearenergie mehr und mehr Unterstützung findet", sagt Joe Colvin. "Mehr als 80 Prozent der Leute sprechen sich für die friedliche Nutzung der Kernenergie aus. Die öffentliche Meinung ist viel positiver als angenommen." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Kraftwerkstypen Generation I sind die Reaktoren der ersten Stunde - Prototypen vor allem der 50er und 60er Jahre. Generation II meint die Meiler, die heute am Netz sind. Generation III sind Kraftwerke, die bereits neue Sicherheitsstandards setzen. Zu ihnen zählt der Europäische Druckwasserreaktor. Generation IV sind Reaktoren, die noch sicherer und umweltfreundlicher werden sollen. Sie sind frühestens für das Jahr 2030 geplant. Aus der FTD vom 01.06.2005 http://www.ftd.de/rd/8835.html j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 10:42:42 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: World's mayors gather in S.F., thinking green World's mayors gather in S.F., thinking green By Paul Rogers Mercury News San Francisco hasn't yet painted the Golden Gate Bridge green. But civic leaders are doing nearly every other eco-thing this week, as mayors from some of the world's largest cities descend on San Francisco beginning today for a five-day United Nations conference on environmental issues. The event, dubbed World Environment Day, is an international version of the United States' Earth Day. Held every year since 1987, the conference is taking place in the United States for the first time. More than 240 events are planned through Sunday. Most are open to the public -- including panel discussions and workshops on water, energy, toxic pollution, open space and other issues. There also will be a large dollop of lighter fare, with exhibits, tours, an art show and film festival. The conference's main feature: a 21-point accord in which mayors pledge specific actions, including protecting groundwater, reducing garbage and cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. ``I've gone to so many environmental conferences where I come back depressed,'' said Jared Blumenthal, director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment. ``The message often is that the planet is going to hell in a handbasket and there's not much you can do and let's blame someone else. We wanted to focus on solutions, and technologies that can solve these problems, and things you can see so people come away excited.'' Mayors from at least 66 cities, including Shanghai, London, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Capetown are expected. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown will speak. San Francisco's Gavin Newsom will host numerous events. San Jose, the largest city in the Bay Area, won't be represented, however. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales supports the general goals of the conference but had scheduling conflicts, a spokesman for Gonzales said. ``We did receive an invitation,'' David Vossbrink said. ``Going up to San Francisco is a half day at best. It's always a challenge. He has a lot of other meetings on his calendar.'' San Jose City Councilwoman Linda Lezotte will speak today on a panel at the Metreon Theater about environmentally sustainable architecture. About half of the world's people now live in cities. As a result, Blumenthal said, solving environmental problems shouldn't be left to presidents. Among the pledges in the 21-point accord: using renewable energy to meet 10 percent of a city's needs by 2012; applying ``green building'' standards to all new municipal buildings; and drawing up policies to provide parks and public transportation within about one- third of a mile of all city residents by 2015. Environmentalists see the event as Christmas in June. ``The opportunity for mayors to share information with each other is very significant,'' said Eric Antebi, a spokesman for the Sierra Club. ``Whether they are talking about traffic or affordable housing or energy, let's face it, we are not getting a whole lot of environmental leadership from Washington these days,'' Antebi said. Skeptics, however, note there is no way to enforce the 21-point pledge. ``These goals are like New Year's resolutions,'' said Jerry Taylor, director of natural resources at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. ``They are a nice thought. But unless there is something behind them, they are empty promises. Politicians get to claim credit, but there is rarely enforcement.'' Conference organizers hope city councils around the world will pass new laws mandating many of the 21 goals. This afternoon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to appear at San Francisco City Hall to announce new targets for California to reduce greenhouse gases. And on Saturday, former vice president Al Gore is scheduled to give a speech to delegates in Union Square about global warming. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/californi a/northern_california/11786151.htm j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 10:46:22 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people Earth summit places global responsibility in local hands 68 mayors pledging to achieve 21 goals - Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 1, 2005 It would be easy to pass off the United Nations' World Environment Day conference that begins today in San Francisco as yet another gathering full of windy pronouncements and empty promises about creating sustainable communities. There is, after all, a long history of feel-good environmental summits that ultimately did nothing to reduce carbon emissions or improve the planet's condition. But climate change experts see the first Environment Day conference held in the United States as a crucial opportunity to put the environmental movement where it belongs -- in the hands of the people. "One of the great things about our country is that when one part of society drops the ball, as Washington so clearly has in terms of climate threat, another part of society can come pick it up and run with it," said James Speth, the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "That's why I'm so encouraged by this conference in San Francisco. It's taking the issue away from the lobbyists in Washington. There isn't any substitute for the people taking action at the state and local level." The five-day conference, called "Green Cities," is an opportunity for San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area to showcase programs ranging from nonpolluting light rail transit and solar energy to recycling and wetlands restoration. It kicks off today with openings of the California Tomorrow Fair at Civic Center Plaza, art and photo exhibits, and a series of sustainability workshops at Fort Mason. Eco-tours of Bay Area mountain blooms, toxic sites, watershed land and salt ponds will be held in the afternoon. The official opening ceremony will be at 9 a.m. Thursday at Civic Center Plaza. The conference will feature five themes, one for each day, with names such as Cities on the Move and Flower Power. More than 200 events will be held, including an environmental film festival, a music and entertainment exchange, an organic fashion show and a green cities expo. But the real business of the week will be the historic signing of the Urban Environmental Accords by the mayors of 68 cities from virtually every corner of the world. The accords commit each city to attempt to implement 21 actions designed to help fight global warming and create environmental sustainability over the next seven years. The 21 objectives include policies that would increase the use of renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and toxic waste, implement recycling programs, develop a rating system for green buildings, and improve public transportation, environmental health and water quality. The idea is to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and help avert the mass extinctions of plants and animals that many scientists are predicting unless the world comes together to stop global warming. "The question, 'What is a green city?' is of vital and utmost importance, " said Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, which is overseeing the event. "We must concentrate the eyes of the people and create awareness for the environment while, at the same time, offering concrete examples for other regions on how to develop a green city and how to integrate these systems. The activities of cities and private businesses to fight climate change are extremely important at a time when we no longer have time for delay." The emphasis on cities is necessary because the vast majority of the world's people will be living in urban areas over the next century, said Jared Blumenfeld, the director of San Francisco's Environment Department, which was created in 1998 through a ballot initiative that centralized the city's environmental policy. "We're at a crossroads moving from a rural to an urban species," he said. "This is the first time mayors from large cities in developing countries around the world have come together at this level. And that's who we need to have dialogue with." An estimated 1 million people per week are now moving to urban areas. It is projected that within 30 years, 65 percent of the people on this planet will be living in metropolitan areas, which already use up to 75 percent of the world's resources. Speth, who wrote the book "Red Sky at Morning," an analysis of the global warming threat, said forests in the tropics are being cut down at a rate of an acre a second. He said a third of the planet's land surface and 20 percent of global river flow is being used by humans. In the United States alone, carbon dioxide emissions are growing at a rate of 3 percent a year. This is contributing to climactic changes that Speth said will lead to mass extinctions by the end of the century if nothing is done. "It couldn't be a more serious problem," Speth said. "It is a security issue, a social issue and an economic issue that has the potential to destabilize whole countries. It's a form of insanity if we don't get serious about it soon." Unfortunately, Speth said, the worldwide response has been long on talk and short on results. One prominent setback for environmentalists was the decision by President Bush not to sign the Kyoto accord, which would have committed the country to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent by 2010. Kyoto, however, is at least having an effect in other countries where the accord was signed. But there have been dozens of previous Earth Day conferences and several major international environmental summits among world leaders that have, for the most part, failed to even slow environmental destruction. The biggest disappointment was the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the largest gathering of heads of state in history. The world's leaders agreed on a major plan of action to battle climate change, but after everyone went home, the promises were all but forgotten. There are 400 other treaties like that on every conceivable aspect of the global environment from protecting the ozone layer to dumping hazardous waste at sea, but very few of them have any teeth. "It's easy for a head of state to stand up and say he will take action, but it's another thing to implement it," said Blumenfeld, who was involved in the Rio summit. "Part of the problem with these international agreements is you can't hold people accountable." There is more accountability, Blumenfeld said, when municipalities are involved. "If the mayor of a city promises to put solar panels up," he said, "you know whose door to knock on when he doesn't." The Green Cities conference will highlight San Francisco's recycling program, mass transportation, solar arrays and the restoration of the Crissy Field tidal wetlands. Problems related to urban sprawl around the Bay Area and the need for sustainable development and corporate responsibility also will be addressed. Among the programs that will be introduced at the conference is a collaborative effort by the Bay Area Council, an alliance of major employers, to get commitments from 273 of the Bay Area's largest employers to reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency. Corporate leadership is necessary if sustainable growth and clean technology is ever going to thrive economically, said Gavin Power, a senior adviser for the U.N. Global Compact, a program launched in 2000 that seeks to advance corporate responsibility initiatives. "More and more companies are waking up to the fact that business success cannot be sustained when there is substantial environmental degradation," said Power, whose organization will play a major role at the conference. "There is a recognition that what's good for the planet is good for business. But companies still have a long way to go, particularly U.S. companies that are being seriously outflanked by their European counterparts." Environmental responsibility is, in fact, at the core of the business operations of scores of companies in Europe, where the Kyoto Protocol is in effect. Large U.S. companies are being forced to take climate change seriously because they do business in countries where Kyoto is in effect. To date, 137 cities in 35 states have signed an initiative to meet the United States' Kyoto environmental targets on their own. Chicago recently started a voluntary carbon emissions reduction program similar to the one in the European Union that sets pollution targets for companies and awards bartering points for meeting the goals. But these efforts won't come close to solving the global environmental problem, Speth said, unless communities come together to share information and technology and demand more action. That, ultimately, is the goal of World Environment Day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ABOUT THE SERIES With San Francisco playing host to the United Nations' World Environment Day in a five-day conference beginning today, The Chronicle is looking at environmental issues in the Bay Area.. Sunday: Green agenda at U.N. conference Monday: Pesticide reduction Tuesday: Waste reduction and recycling -- TODAY: Water quality, supply Thursday: Urban design Friday: Transportation Saturday: Energy Sunday: Parks E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Page A - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL&type=printable j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:04:40 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people Earth summit places global responsibility in local hands 68 mayors pledging to achieve 21 goals - Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 1, 2005 It would be easy to pass off the United Nations' World Environment Day conference that begins today in San Francisco as yet another gathering full of windy pronouncements and empty promises about creating sustainable communities. There is, after all, a long history of feel-good environmental summits that ultimately did nothing to reduce carbon emissions or improve the planet's condition. But climate change experts see the first Environment Day conference held in the United States as a crucial opportunity to put the environmental movement where it belongs -- in the hands of the people. "One of the great things about our country is that when one part of society drops the ball, as Washington so clearly has in terms of climate threat, another part of society can come pick it up and run with it," said James Speth, the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "That's why I'm so encouraged by this conference in San Francisco. It's taking the issue away from the lobbyists in Washington. There isn't any substitute for the people taking action at the state and local level." The five-day conference, called "Green Cities," is an opportunity for San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area to showcase programs ranging from nonpolluting light rail transit and solar energy to recycling and wetlands restoration. It kicks off today with openings of the California Tomorrow Fair at Civic Center Plaza, art and photo exhibits, and a series of sustainability workshops at Fort Mason. Eco-tours of Bay Area mountain blooms, toxic sites, watershed land and salt ponds will be held in the afternoon. The official opening ceremony will be at 9 a.m. Thursday at Civic Center Plaza. The conference will feature five themes, one for each day, with names such as Cities on the Move and Flower Power. More than 200 events will be held, including an environmental film festival, a music and entertainment exchange, an organic fashion show and a green cities expo. But the real business of the week will be the historic signing of the Urban Environmental Accords by the mayors of 68 cities from virtually every corner of the world. The accords commit each city to attempt to implement 21 actions designed to help fight global warming and create environmental sustainability over the next seven years. The 21 objectives include policies that would increase the use of renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and toxic waste, implement recycling programs, develop a rating system for green buildings, and improve public transportation, environmental health and water quality. The idea is to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and help avert the mass extinctions of plants and animals that many scientists are predicting unless the world comes together to stop global warming. "The question, 'What is a green city?' is of vital and utmost importance, " said Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, which is overseeing the event. "We must concentrate the eyes of the people and create awareness for the environment while, at the same time, offering concrete examples for other regions on how to develop a green city and how to integrate these systems. The activities of cities and private businesses to fight climate change are extremely important at a time when we no longer have time for delay." The emphasis on cities is necessary because the vast majority of the world's people will be living in urban areas over the next century, said Jared Blumenfeld, the director of San Francisco's Environment Department, which was created in 1998 through a ballot initiative that centralized the city's environmental policy. "We're at a crossroads moving from a rural to an urban species," he said. "This is the first time mayors from large cities in developing countries around the world have come together at this level. And that's who we need to have dialogue with." An estimated 1 million people per week are now moving to urban areas. It is projected that within 30 years, 65 percent of the people on this planet will be living in metropolitan areas, which already use up to 75 percent of the world's resources. Speth, who wrote the book "Red Sky at Morning," an analysis of the global warming threat, said forests in the tropics are being cut down at a rate of an acre a second. He said a third of the planet's land surface and 20 percent of global river flow is being used by humans. In the United States alone, carbon dioxide emissions are growing at a rate of 3 percent a year. This is contributing to climactic changes that Speth said will lead to mass extinctions by the end of the century if nothing is done. "It couldn't be a more serious problem," Speth said. "It is a security issue, a social issue and an economic issue that has the potential to destabilize whole countries. It's a form of insanity if we don't get serious about it soon." Unfortunately, Speth said, the worldwide response has been long on talk and short on results. One prominent setback for environmentalists was the decision by President Bush not to sign the Kyoto accord, which would have committed the country to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent by 2010. Kyoto, however, is at least having an effect in other countries where the accord was signed. But there have been dozens of previous Earth Day conferences and several major international environmental summits among world leaders that have, for the most part, failed to even slow environmental destruction. The biggest disappointment was the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the largest gathering of heads of state in history. The world's leaders agreed on a major plan of action to battle climate change, but after everyone went home, the promises were all but forgotten. There are 400 other treaties like that on every conceivable aspect of the global environment from protecting the ozone layer to dumping hazardous waste at sea, but very few of them have any teeth. "It's easy for a head of state to stand up and say he will take action, but it's another thing to implement it," said Blumenfeld, who was involved in the Rio summit. "Part of the problem with these international agreements is you can't hold people accountable." There is more accountability, Blumenfeld said, when municipalities are involved. "If the mayor of a city promises to put solar panels up," he said, "you know whose door to knock on when he doesn't." The Green Cities conference will highlight San Francisco's recycling program, mass transportation, solar arrays and the restoration of the Crissy Field tidal wetlands. Problems related to urban sprawl around the Bay Area and the need for sustainable development and corporate responsibility also will be addressed. Among the programs that will be introduced at the conference is a collaborative effort by the Bay Area Council, an alliance of major employers, to get commitments from 273 of the Bay Area's largest employers to reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency. Corporate leadership is necessary if sustainable growth and clean technology is ever going to thrive economically, said Gavin Power, a senior adviser for the U.N. Global Compact, a program launched in 2000 that seeks to advance corporate responsibility initiatives. "More and more companies are waking up to the fact that business success cannot be sustained when there is substantial environmental degradation," said Power, whose organization will play a major role at the conference. "There is a recognition that what's good for the planet is good for business. But companies still have a long way to go, particularly U.S. companies that are being seriously outflanked by their European counterparts." Environmental responsibility is, in fact, at the core of the business operations of scores of companies in Europe, where the Kyoto Protocol is in effect. Large U.S. companies are being forced to take climate change seriously because they do business in countries where Kyoto is in effect. To date, 137 cities in 35 states have signed an initiative to meet the United States' Kyoto environmental targets on their own. Chicago recently started a voluntary carbon emissions reduction program similar to the one in the European Union that sets pollution targets for companies and awards bartering points for meeting the goals. But these efforts won't come close to solving the global environmental problem, Speth said, unless communities come together to share information and technology and demand more action. That, ultimately, is the goal of World Environment Day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ABOUT THE SERIES With San Francisco playing host to the United Nations' World Environment Day in a five-day conference beginning today, The Chronicle is looking at environmental issues in the Bay Area.. Sunday: Green agenda at U.N. conference Monday: Pesticide reduction Tuesday: Waste reduction and recycling -- TODAY: Water quality, supply Thursday: Urban design Friday: Transportation Saturday: Energy Sunday: Parks E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Page A - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL&type=printable j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:05:10 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Oil futures hit three-week high Oil futures hit three-week high By Peter Garnham Published: June 1 2005 09:58 | Last updated: June 1 2005 09:58 Oil explorationOil futures hit a three-week high on Wednesday as traders waited for US crude stockpile data despite supply assurances from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. ADVERTISEMENT Nymex WTI for July delivery gained 30 cents to $52.25 a barrel, having hit a high of $52.35 earlier in the session. In London, IPE Brent for July delivery was 33 cents higher at $51.06 a barrel, having hit $51.30, is highest level since May 11. Opec president Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd said on Wednesday that he expected the cartel to maintain production at current rates into the third quarter of 2005. "The situation will continue to be maintained with our production now," he said. "This is how it will be .. unless there is something unexpected at our meeting in June." Opec meets on June 15 in Vienna to set policy for the second half of 2005. However, traders cited technical buying following Tuesday's late gains for Wednesday's rise in prices, given the lack of fresh fundamental news in the market. All eyes will be on Thursday's release of weekly US crude stockpile figures, a day late this week due to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday. Analysts were expecting an average build of 100,000 barrels, keeping US crude invetories just under a six-year high. Gold prices rebounded to $416.60/417.30 a troy ounce on Wednesday, having hit a 15-week low of $413 an ounce on Tuesday. The dollar-denominated metal had been under pressure as the euro continued its slide against the dollar, reducing demand from non-US investors. Dealers said that short covering was behind Wednesday's pullback, but were wary of predicting how long it could last given the potential for further dollar gains against the euro. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/aee5d3e6-d276-11d9-bead-00000e2511c8.html j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:15:46 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Flywheel Prototype To Be Demonstrated For Frequency Regulation/ Grid Stability Flywheel Prototype To Be Demonstrated For Frequency Regulation/Grid Stability Power stored by flywheels, long a mainstay for uninterruptible power systems (UPS), has never been used for grid applications. That could change, according to California Energy Commissioner Art Rosenfeld, who says that when proven viable, flywheel technology could offer California's independent system operator (ISO) an alternative to keeping power plants on spinning reserve in order to balance the grid. Rosenfeld, presiding member of the California Energy Commission's Research, Development and Demonstration Committee, expressed his optimism for the technology's ability to provide an alternative to conventional grid support in conjunction with the announcement of a contract with Beacon Power Corp. to demonstrate an advanced flywheel-based solution for frequency regulation and grid stability. One of the most challenging aspects of today's electricity grid is that the amount of power generated and the amount consumed must be in exact balance at all times. When imbalances occur, the frequency of electricity (60 hertz in the United States) required by end users is not maintained, adversely affecting grid stability. This constant balancing of power demand and production to maintain frequency is called frequency regulation. Beacon's Smart Energy Matrix is a design concept for a megawatt scale utility grade flywheel-based energy storage solution that would provide sustainable frequency regulation and grid stability, and support the demand for reliable distributed electric power. Illustration courtesy of Beacon Power. Grid operators, such as the California ISO, purchase frequency regulation services every day that are equivalent to 1 percent to 2 percent of the amount of energy used daily. In 2003, the value of regulation services purchased by four U.S. regional grid operators in open power markets exceeded $400 million. The Beacon Smart Energy Matrix is being specifically designed to address this sizeable and growing market with better performance and greater cost effectiveness than existing methods. Under the contract, Beacon Power will develop and install a system to demonstrate the potential benefits of using flywheel energy storage to provide grid frequency regulation, a service required by all grid operators. A successful frequency regulation demonstration with the California ISO will also demonstrate the system's technical and market feasibility in a large, important, growing market - grid stabilization. The contract calls for the system to be delivered and installed during the first half of 2005. Flywheel technology has the potential to provide a rapid injection of energy for several minutes to help keep the grid stable when there is a contingency, according to California ISO Interim Chief Operations Officer Jim Detmers. "For example," he says, "some kind of problem that causes a big power plant to drop off line. By helping out with this demonstration project, the ISO is fostering technology that shows real promise to improve the control and reliability of the grid." The demonstration will be a one-tenth power prototype of Beacon's planned megawatt sized system known as the Smart Energy Matrix. It is designed to provide grid frequency regulation at a site in San Ramon, Calif. The demonstration will integrate Beacon flywheels and associated power electronics into the local distribution grid. The project will also focus on communication with and control of the demonstration-scale system by the California ISO. Beacon Power is teaming with Connected Energy Corp. of Rochester, N.Y., to develop the intelligent monitoring and control systems that will be used in this California project, as well as two previously announced in New York State. "We are already working under contract to NYSERDA in New York to deliver a similar demonstration system," says Bill Capp, president and CEO of Beacon Power. "Through these demonstrations, we'll be able to show how advanced energy storage solutions like ours can help operators manage a smarter, more resilient electricity grid. We believe that our technology will be more responsive, more sustainable and ultimately more cost-effective than methods currently being employed by grid operators, and we look forward to a successful demonstration in California and New York in the coming months." p Power Engineering April, 2005 Author(s) : Steve Blankinship http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARTCL&ARTICLE_ID=226914&VERSION_NUM=2&p=6 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 7 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:18:11 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: When will nuclear add up? When will nuclear add up? It was economics that killed the nuclear industry and economics that could revive it. Is that good news for the industry? Will Europe and the USA start investing again in nuclear power? The debate is in full flow and it is worth looking again at why the first rush to build nuclear came to such a sudden end. The accident at Chernobyl in 1986 certainly put the final nail in nuclear's coffin and it caused an immediate end to the nuclear programme in Italy and Austria. But the real slowdown in the industry had begun years before Chernobyl, and years before the Three Mile Island accident hit the headlines in 1979. As figures from the US Nuclear Energy Institute make clear (see Figure 1), enthusiasm for nuclear power in its largest market, the USA, was fading by the mid 1970s and by the latter half of the decade orders and construction permits had slowed and many orders were being cancelled. The reason was that the economics were simply not as attractive as they first appeared. That's not entirely bad news for the industry; it suggests that if the economics worked, nuclear would be in favour again. The question for 2005 is: is nuclear economic? Click here to enlarge image Figure 1. US nuclear units ordered and permitted Source: Nuclear Energy Institute There is good news from the US. Many of its plants are providing better returns than ever before, due in part to better operation. For example, scheduled maintenance outages that in decades past could run up to and over a hundred days are now around the 40-day mark (see Figure 2). Some operators do even better and European plants can schedule outages less than 20 days. So the plants are making power - and income - for much more of the time. And since deregulation began in the US power market in the 1990s almost all the nuclear plants have changed ownership, so it seems the question of whether a private utility would ever invest in a nuclear plant has been answered with a firm positive. Click here to enlarge image Figure 2: US nuclear refuelling outage days Source: Nuclear Energy Institute The bad news comes from the UK. British Energy has struggled to get good performance out of its aging plant, and struggled equally in getting a good return from the privatized market, which in its new incarnation rewards flexible and reliable suppliers. British Energy found itself selling into the spot market just as prices tumbled, and looking for replacement power to fill long term contracts as prices were rising. The real bad news for nuclear? Power markets are tending towards the British model. Utilities are changing too. Publicly owned monoliths with a huge captive customer base to serve could look with an eye to the far future. Nuclear, like hydro, has a huge capital cost but relatively low running and fuel costs, and over a 40-year lifetime with captive markets that can look like a good deal - over 60 years it looks even better. But that kind of certainty is rarely available now. Players in the UK market have complained, for example, that forward price curves provide no basis for investment further than five years in the future. That can make it hard to invest in a gas turbine plant that can be built in less than two years - hardly as long as the public enquiry required to agree a licence for the UK's last nuclear plant, at Sizewell B. Add to that five or six years of construction and it begins to look like a long time before nuclear electricity is being sold and investors are getting a return on their investment. What is more, since Sizewell B was built, technology has moved on. Building an identical station would mean using a design that is tried and tested, but one that is rooted in the early 1980s. Turning to more modern technology would mean licensing a new design - another time consuming and expensive process. This problem has not been solved in the US. The nuclear stations that have changed hands have been sold as operating stations, offering immediate income for buyers and likely to do so for decades. But the US does have a programme that should put the building blocks in placed for a revived industry. It has streamlined the licensing procedure and is developing and licensing new advanced reactor designs. But in the process it has invested billions of US government dollars, a route hardly likely to be acceptable in Europe. Private nuclear appears to be working in Finland. But in reality the new Finnish plant uses a structure successfully employed at another of the country's nuclear units: major energy users set up a not-for-profit company and effectively sign cost-plus power purchase agreements for the life of the plant. It is not a market-based approach and - perhaps surprisingly - has not been copied elsewhere. Nuclear may be back on the agenda, but in deregulated power markets it is the potential investors that need to be convinced that it is a good deal. What might they be looking for? A licensed design; a site; a reliable construction schedule; a long term power purchase agreement; a waste site; even a regulatory regime giving some benefit for providing CO2-free power. In most countries I make that none out of six. There is a long way to go. Power Engineering International April, 2005 Author(s) : Janet Wood http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARTCL&ARTICLE_ID=227292&VERSION_NUM=2&p=17 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 8 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:25:37 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: India, US launch energy dialogue India, US launch energy dialogue Washington | June 01, 2005 11:40:03 AM IST In a sign of their "transformed strategic relationship", India and the US have launched an energy dialogue, which will take in its sweep bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear power. US Secretary for Energy Samuel W. Bodman and Indian Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia met here Tuesday to launch the dialogue which "reflects the transformed strategic relationship" between the two countries, a joint statement issued by the two sides said. Both countries want to report progress before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh embarks on his first official visit to Washington in July. "The energy dialogue will build upon the broad range of existing energy cooperation between the two countries as well as develop new avenues of collaboration," the statement said. The first meetings of five working groups are expected to take place prior to the prime minister's visit. "The working groups will address such topics as oil and natural gas, electric power, coal and clean coal technology, energy efficiency, renewable energy, new technologies such as hydrogen, and civil nuclear power," the statement said. "Strengthening mutual energy security and promoting stable energy markets to ensure adequate supplies of energy that will support desired levels of economic growth; exchanging information and developing lines of communication for policy coordination in times of market instability; promoting increased trade and investment in the oil and gas sector." Advancing the understanding of efficient generation, transmission, distribution and use of electricity and promoting the exchange of information on regulatory policies; cooperating on programmes and technologies with special emphasis on the "last mile" distribution and utilisation of electricity in urban and rural networks; developing cooperation on clean coal preparation and modern coal conversion systems in power generation are among the goals of the dialogue. The dialogue seeks to enhance the understanding of coal-related energy issues and promote the exchange of information on policies, programmes, and technologies with special emphasis on coal utilisation for power generation and clean fuels production; promoting the efficient and environmentally responsible use of coal. http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=84661&n_date=20050601&cat=World j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 9 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:42:05 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: India oil minister to push for Iran-India gas pipeline via Pakistan India oil minister to push for Iran-India gas pipeline via Pakistan 06.01.2005, 01:36 AM NEW DELHI (AFX) - Indian Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is visiting Islamabad at the weekend to hold talks with Pakistan over a proposed route for a gas pipeline from Iran, which he said he hopes will lead to an agreement that attracts companies and finance for the multi-billion dollar project. Aiyar will meet his counterpart Amanullah Khan Jadoon to discuss a proposed 2,775-kilometer energy corridor in Pakistan to deliver gas from Iran's South Pars field to the Indian border. 'If security and other issues are resolved with Pakistan, I would say construction could begin with all deliberate speed in three years,' Aiyar told Agence France-Presse. 'This could be an international consortium or other entity. We are only a customer right now, but security and other agreements will make this project viable for investors.' Aiyar said from India's side, the actual construction of the pipeline will be the job of Iran and Pakistan. India's role will be to negotiate a price for the gas if the pipeline reaches its border. 'There are talks with Iran on pricing,' Aiyar said, declining to discuss specifics. Aiyar's visit to Pakistan has already caught the attention of specialized law firms that negotiate major pipeline deals around the world, who note that these take years of complex legal and financial deals before construction begins. 'I would say the recent peace talks between India and Pakistan have moved this project up a few notches from the bottom of the list,' said Samantha Hampshire, a London-based partner with the global project finance group of law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw. 'These are enormously complicated projects because they cross several countries and involve hundreds of parties. Massive investment is required. But in energy circles, the fact that talks are going on and there is more stability in India-Pakistan relations means there is certainly more optimism a pipeline is possible.' Hampshire said if agreement is reached between the three countries, it will likely take five years before the 'first shovel of dirt is turned.' The proposed pipeline is estimated to cost 4.0 bln usd. 'There are two sets of agreements. Iran and India have to agree on a price. Iran and Pakistan have to agree on building the pipeline. There could be a necessity for a tri-lateral meeting to outline the terms,' Aiyar said. 'If and when they issue a tender, Indian companies could bid for work. I'm keeping an open mind on that.' Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said in February the project by itself could be a vital spur to trade relations. 'Nobody disputes the merit of having more trade. In this context, the gas pipeline will be a major effort to link the two countries. The proposed gas pipeline project would be a huge economic confidence-building measure ... a standalone project of huge significance,' he said. Iran and India have been talking about a pipeline since 1994 but longstanding hostility between India and Pakistan has stood in the way. The field accounts for half of Iran's estimated 23 trln cubic meters of gas reserves, about 16 pct of the world's total, second only to Russia. India right now produces about 50 pct of the gas it needs and imports 7.5 mln metric tons of liquified natural gas a year as its economy consumes more fuel to keep growing. New Delhi has said boosting gas imports is crucial to maintaining expected growth of 7-8 pct annually. India now uses about 27 mln cubic meters of gas daily which analysts expect to rise to 200 mln cubic meters in the next decade. The country has been holding out for construction of the pipeline only if overall economic dealings with Pakistan widens but in February the federal cabinet decided to delink the pipeline from the overall peace process. However, the US has thrown a spanner in the works by noting its Iran-Libya Sanctions Act prohibits countries from major investment in Iran and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned India in March the gas pipeline could trigger sanctions under the law. The US law makes it illegal for companies to invest more than 20 mln usd in Iran and extends the prohibition to foreign firms by excluding them from business deals in the United States if they cross the limit. Aiyar said the warning by Rice has been overblown. 'First, there is no pressure on the government of India to abandon this project,' Aiyar said. There is no pressure to desist. The matter has come up for discussion with the US and we believe we need to meet our energy requirements and this can be done with gas from Iran.' ejl/bpz/dv/bp/net http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2005/06/01/afx2068030.html j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 10 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:49:45 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: New Caspian Pipeline Only Pit Stop to Fuel Cell Future New Caspian Pipeline Only Pit Stop to Fuel Cell Future Source: Pasadena Star News [Jun 01, 2005] SYNOPSIS: Editorial from the Times of London. THIS month's formal opening of the $4 billion pipeline to carry oil more than 1,000 miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean is a triumph of Western engineering, a strategic coup in the competition with Russia for influence in its former republics and a tribute to the acumen of BP, which holds the principal stake in the international consortium. This "project of the century,' which will eventually be linked to the huge Kazakh oilfields in Central Asia, has been built, on time and within budget, in the face of strong opposition from Moscow. It is crucial in lessening Western dependence on oil from the Middle East. And it is an impressive demonstration of technology given that the pipeline traverses some of the roughest topography, political as well as physical, in the world. It would be unwise, however, to conclude that the pipeline has secured the West's energy future. Despite the vast proven resources of the Caspian and Central Asia, the world's thirst for oil is growing at an exponential rate. The West, therefore, should use the time it has bought and its superior technology to invest seriously, and on a massive scale, into alternative energy sources. This does not simply mean building more unsightly windfarms and waxing lyrical about wave power. Far more important is the search for an alternative to the internal combustion engine, the biggest consumer of petrol and one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions. At last, the signs are that Western governments and industry are committing themselves seriously to an old idea whose time, thanks to technological breakthroughs, may soon come: the hydrogen fuel cell. Since October, General Motors and Toyota, both leaders in research, have been holding talks about a joint factory to produce hydrogen-powered cars, which would speed up adoption of this environment-friendly technology. It will take the combined resources and commitment of Western governments, big business and Japanese research to make fuel cells a reality. Their energies should be released now. The new pipeline shows what international co-operation can achieve, but this is merely a petrol station en route to energy security. http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=8585 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 11 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 14:40:09 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Black mark on energy Black mark on energy > Southern Co. balks at regulations on emissions as coal-burning plants contribute to global warming > Published on: 06/01/05 Atlanta-based Southern Co., one of the biggest and politically most powerful utility companies in the nation, goes to great lengths to convince the public that its family of electric utilities — including Georgia Power — are paragons of corporate citizenship acting in the best interests of their customers. But in one major respect, the company's claims come up short. As a corporate entity, Southern is one of the nation's largest producers of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, largely because of its fleet of coal-burning power plants. Numerous scientific studies have found that such emissions are a major contributor to global warming, the slow but steady increase in worldwide temperatures that climatologists predict could have a catastrophic impact on plant and animal life over time. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an advocacy group, states that the company's coal-burning power plants in Georgia produced more than 83 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2003, more than Romania, Argentina, Venezuela or Belgium individually. Company officials have at least acknowledged that global warming is a reality, but despite mounting evidence, they oppose mandatory industry limits on carbon dioxide emissions and have been reluctant to experiment with alternative sources of energy. In contrast, other large energy companies, including American Electric Power, Cinergy and Duke Energy, now support some form of federal regulation to reduce man-made greenhouse gases. Either Southern Co.'s peers are truly concerned about global warming or, more likely, they realize that policy changes and more regulation are inevitable and are planning for the future. Southern Co., though, seems to have it all backward. "We believe technology must lead policy," a company spokeswoman said recently. Although no existing technology can replace coal-burning plants, Southern's position as a market leader could drive progress in developing less-polluting alternatives — such as biomass, solar energy and wind power — that can help reduce the company's carbon dioxide emissions. And although it's more expensive, the technology already exists to all but eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-burning power plants. Instead, Southern's go-slow approach and unrepentant opposition to regulation has had a chilling effect, becoming an impediment to the political and economic climate necessary to spur technological advances. Granted, Southern Co. has shown some modest signs of improvement: It's funding a year-long feasibility study of wind power off the Savannah coast in conjunction with Georgia Tech researchers, and is pushing a $4.5 million effort to encourage its customers to buy more energy-efficient appliances. That's a start, but much more is required of Southern Co. to demonstrate that it's taking its responsibility for global warming seriously, and is committed to addressing it. Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0605/01edsouthern.html j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 12 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 14:46:40 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Peak Oil History 101: Causes of the situation (+part1) Peak Oil History 101: Causes of the situation By DAN MCMENAMIN / Aggie Science Writer Posted 06/01/2005 Editor's Note: In this second installment of a three-part series on peak oil, The California Aggie explores the science of oil, as well as how our society has depended on fossil fuels to reach great heights and setting itself up for a fall. The series will finish June 8 with a look at alternative energy sources and how our lifestyles will change in the future. By DAN MCMENAMIN Aggie Science Writer Doubters have dismissed peak oil — the theory that production of the world's oil supply will reach its midway point and then decline — as another crisis that, like the Y2K craze leading up to 2000, will ultimately cause more hype than harm. Yet this view ignores the long history of oil in America, how dependent on fossil fuels our nation has become and what has happened in the past when the U.S. faced a shortage of oil. The story of peak oil begins millions of years ago, when fossil fuels began to form underground. Oil, along with coal and natural gases like methane, are referred to as fossil fuels because they are the byproducts of prehistoric ancient plant and animal life. Eldridge Moores, one of the most distinguished professors on the UC Davis campus, got his Ph.D. in geology from Princeton University and is well versed in the complicated science of oil. He described fossil fuels as sediments that are laid down and buried with organic life. They then get cooked by the interior of the earth and are broken down into complex organic molecules, and pressure and time turns them into hydrocarbon liquid, or oil. According to Moores, the oil then gathers in underground pockets of space between layers of rock in the earth, where most of it has stayed for millions of years. This started to change, though, when widespread use of petroleum products began in the mid 1800s. Kerosene, a byproduct of crude oil, was developed as an alternative lamp fuel to whale oil, which was becoming increasingly expensive and hard to find. At this point, businessmen began to see the possibility for profit from oil, and started to search for it. In 1859 Edwin L. Drake was paid to drill for oil in Pennsylvania and found it, creating the first oil well in the United States. Half a century later, Henry Ford introduced the Model T, an automobile that was wildly popular throughout the country. It brought heavy demand for gasoline, another byproduct of crude oil, which powered its internal combustion engine. In the next few decades, several new uses would be found for the hydrocarbons in oil, including the development of plastics and agricultural products such as pesticides and fertilizers that we still use today. However, it was only after World War II that oil production really took off. The post-war baby boomer generation migrated to suburbia in droves, and easy transportation by car or plane became a necessity rather than the luxury that it had been to previous generations. Before WWII, many Americans felt that their oil supply was unlimited. But M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist who had studied the U.S. oil supply, warned that the domestic supply would peak and start declining in the 1970s, and that we would have to rely heavily on fuel from overseas. Despite this, people continued buying more and more cars. Growing demand for oil caused the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to form in 1960, consisting mostly of Middle Eastern countries. OPEC sought to protect each country's interests in dealing with oil companies from energy-hungry Western countries. But in October 1973, an oil crisis temporarily slowed down the feeding frenzy and provided an important example of what could happen when oil supplies dwindle in the future. OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia stopped shipping oil to the U.S. and other Western countries for several months as a protest of their support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria. The effects of the embargo on the U.S. were immediate and drastic. Oil prices quadrupled and the country went into its worst recession since before World War II. The American government responded to the crisis in many different ways. It forced car owners with odd- and even-numbered license plates to fill up their tanks on separate days to alleviate hours-long lines at gas stations, and enforced a national speed limit of 55 mph. For a time, the government even instituted a year-'round daylight savings time to try to conserve energy. However, when the oil embargo was lifted in 1974, memories of the crisis faded away and Americans continued consuming more oil than ever before. "We've changed a lot since then," said UCD agricultural and resource economics professor Hossein Farzin. "If prices go up we won't be as unprepared as we were back then, but the problem is that per-house consumption of oil has gone much higher because of new developments like SUVs." The U.S. especially started accelerating towards the peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, thanks in part to the popularity of gas- guzzling sport utility vehicles. However, the past five years have brought many bad omens for the future of fossil fuels. On Sept. 11, 2001, jumbo jets piloted by terrorists smashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups had long seen these buildings as symbols of U.S. economic and military might, and had already set off a bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993. The horrible irony of the 2001 attacks, though, since oil had done so much to build up the U.S. way of life, was how the towers collapsed. The airliners that toppled New York's tallest buildings had just departed from airports in Newark, N.J. and Boston and still had full tanks. The large amounts of jet fuel fed the fires and eventually caused the internal structure of the buildings to melt. Less than two hours after the first impact, both towers collapsed and left almost 3,000 people dead. The issue of oil has played a major factor in the rise of groups like al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden, in a recent videotape, spoke of the policy of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy" through attacks that would weaken the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the most oil-rich country in the world. Fears of an oil shortage, instability in the Middle East and collusion between uncompetitive oil companies have led to the recent increase in oil prices. Another worry, especially if the peak of production is imminent, is that Americans will have to deal with rising demand for oil in emerging countries like China and India. As gas prices have climbed to over $2 per gallon, or even $3 in some areas of California, some SUV owners have had to pay almost $100 to fill up their tanks. Many of these customers have started trading in these cars for more fuel-efficient vehicles, leading to a nationwide 13.5 percent decrease in SUV sales for the first quarter of 2005. These problems bring up the question of how the U.S. economy will maintain the level of oil consumption it needs to function in the future. The country currently consumes 25 percent of the world's daily production of fossil fuels, despite constituting less than 5 percent of the global population. The foreboding signs all inevitably point to a crossroads that is quickly approaching for Americans: now or later? "We have a choice. We can pay now to cut consumption and find alternatives, or get lax and pay much more later on," Farzin said. DAN MCMENAMIN can be reached at science@californiaaggie.com. http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=9422 j2997 Peak-oil concept stresses urgency of dwindling oil supply By DANIEL MCMENAMIN / Aggie Science Writer Posted 05/25/2005 Addictions can be hard to break. The United States' addiction to fossil fuels has enabled it to reach heights never seen by any civilization in history. However, many people who have studied the theory of peak oil —also known as Hubbert's Peak, and is the idea that the world's oil production will soon peak and then start to decline — believe that this addiction is not sustainable in the long term. They argue that in the near future, fossil fuels could be too expensive to use and eventually lost forever. Most people found this idea hard to believe when it was proposed by a Shell Oil geologist over five decades ago. But today's rising gas prices and sinking U.S. economy are making more and more people take heed of the theory, including politicians and CEOs of oil companies. Along with the fact that several oil companies have merged in the past decade, executives of these companies are now beginning to acknowledge an oncoming crisis. David J. O'Reilly, the chairman and CEO of Chevron Corporation told a Houston energy conference in February that "the time when we could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly ending." The government is also becoming aware of this issue. In March, the U.S. House of Representatives listened to a presentation from U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who spoke about the issue of peak oil, its long-term effects on American life, and possible alternative energy sources. *** So where did this idea come from, and why has it taken so long for people to start addressing it? In 1949, a scientist named Marion King Hubbert publicly predicted that the fossil fuel era would be relatively short — that the production of oil within the United States would peak in 1970. This theory was rejected by the majority of his colleagues and largely ignored by the public at the time. However, global oil discovery peaked in 1962, and surely enough U.S. production of oil began to decline in the early '70s, proving that Hubbert was indeed correct. What will happen when oil production peaks is usually depicted by a bell curve. After production goes past the peak of the bell curve, supply can no longer meet demand. As the supply of oil dwindles, it becomes more rare and expensive, and this results in sharp rises in prices, which continue to increase until the supply is all used up. When the peak will occur is not quite clear at this point, and this is something many people studying the issue disagree on. "If we want to be pessimistic and make assumptions that no new discoveries are made, then the peak could be years from now," said Hossein Farzai, a UCD professor who studies the economics of natural resources. "But if we're optimistic and depend on technological advancements in the future, then investment in discoveries could delay the peak until decades from now." While people in the field of economics may be more likely to be more optimistic about technology coming to our rescue, geologists like Eldridge Moores tend to emphasize the finite nature of fossil fuels. "This is a topic that the general public is not aware of," said Moores, a professor emeritus in geology at UCD. "Economists tend to argue that we'll always find more [oil], but some day you're going to reach the end of that." Some of the most pessimistic analysts studying the issue predict that, based on current rates of consumption, the peak will come in the near future. For example, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas estimates that it will occur in 2008. The government has even made its own prediction. The U.S. Geological Survey, which published a report in 2000 on the future of oil, predicted the peak to be reached at least a few decades down the road. However, in a 1968 report the USGS predicted U.S. domestic production would grow long into the future. But within a decade, the study was completely discredited as Hubbert's prediction hit its mark. No one knows for sure though about when the peak will hit, since it depends largely on oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, which is part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. These countries keep much of the information about their crude oil reserves secret, so it is hard for a consensus to be reached on when the event will occur. Regardless of the exact date, it is clear that peak oil is not a matter of if it will occur; it is a matter of when, and signs are starting to show. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the cost of a barrel of crude oil is currently just under $47. This is over 60 percent higher than the $29 price of May 2003, and almost triple the $17 price of May 1999. The mainstream media, though, have been negligent in covering the impending oil crisis, and have only really started to talk about the issue of peak oil as the prices have increased, according to John Theobald, a UCD communications professor. "Fear doesn't play well in the long term. Often [the media] will talk about things like crime where there'll be a remedy at the end," he said. "That doesn't appear to be the case here." Theobald teaches a class on underreported issues in the media, and has studied peak oil in depth. He is the thesis adviser for Liz Warren, who is writing her senior thesis on underreported issues and offered more reasons for why the media are only now waking up to the peak oil problem. "There's a tendency [in the media] to focus on events, like tsunamis, rather than incrementally growing problems," Warren said. "It's also hard to get the general public's attention about it ... because it's not fun to hear about. But people will start to feel cheated when they can't have their way of life, and I think that's the scariest thing about peak oil." Even people like Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most famous authors living today, are addressing the peak oil issue. "We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey," he said in a 2004 essay. DANIEL MCMENAMIN can be reached at science@californiaaggie.com. http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=9369 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 13 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:30:03 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Capital Flows to the Coal Industry Capital Flows to the Coal Industry - By Bob Bellemare Daily IssueAlert 5/31/2005 Free The U.S. coal industry is undergoing fundamental change. After decades of stagnating prices and little new coal generation construction, the industry is now experiencing a renaissance with over 100 new coal plants under consideration and the squeezing of every megawatt possible out of existing plants. In response to these changing dynamics, the coal industry is beginning to see some of the dynamics commonplace in other fossil fuel markets such as consolidating ownership, more volatile commodity prices, and increased competition from overseas. But to meet the expected growth and changing industry dynamics, the industry will need to upgrade its infrastructure—from the constrained rail system to finding new skilled workers to replace the aging workforce. Such was the message coming out of the recent American Coal Council (ACC) meeting, held in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting drew hundreds from around the United States to discuss these emerging coal industry dynamics. The Changing Shape of Ownership Consolidation and new capital sources are working their way into the coal sector. UtiliPoint® notes that 8 of 325 energy related hedge funds [http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1087] list some form of coal investment activity. We have also seen an up tick in investment activities with over ten recent coal related deals observed in our Energy Investment Tracking Service [http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1109]. Coal is the workhorse of the U.S. economy, generating over fifty percent of our domestic electric needs. Yet it gets little respect. In a touch of irony, at the same time the coal meeting was taking place thousands attended the wind energy conference in Denver, CO., another forum where UtiliPoint was presenting. Wind, which can pragmatically supply up to 10 to 20 percent of our electric needs, certainly gets the preponderance amount of the press. But savvy investors know that industry dynamics are shaping up where both coal and wind will likely see substantial new growth in the coming decade. The industry stalwarts include Peabody, Kennecott, and Arch Coal, representing over 40 percent of the industry. The remaining 60 percent of the coal industry remains fragmented with nearly 675 coal producers in existence according to Platts. These companies are deploying a variety of strategies to raise the capital needed to drive coals expanding role in the electric business. Foundation Coal (NYSE:FCL) is the nation's fourth largest coal company operating a total of 13 mines in the Powder River Basin, Northern Appalachia, Central Appalachia, and the Illinois Basin. The company was formed in 2004 when a private equity consortium completed an acquisition of RAG American Coal Holding, Inc. First Reserve Corporation, The Blackstone Group, and the owners of American Metals and Coal International (AMCI) acquired the stock of RAG American Coal Holding, Inc. and its subsidiaries from RAG Coal International, AG effective July 30, 2004. The company then went public on December 8, 2004 when it priced its initial public offering of 23,610,000 shares of common stock at $22.00 per share, raising approximately $519 million. Prospect Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: PSEC) is another company eying the coal sector, with two investments recently announced. On July 27, 2004, Prospect completed its initial public offering by selling 7,000 shares of common stock at $15 a share, generating nearly $105 million in gross proceeds from the offering and has subsequently put some of that money to work in the coal and natural gas sector. On January 31, 2005, Prospect Energy provided $3.9 million in financing to Unity Virginia Holdings LLC (UVH) in the form of $3.3 million in secured subordinated debt and $0.6 million in redeemable preferred stock. Capital from the transaction is being utilized to support UVH's acquisition and development of Appalachian Resources, Inc., including approximately 6,800 acres of mineral reserves containing 11 million tons of coal, as well as a coal preparation plant and load-out facility on the Norfolk & Southern Railway. In a similar move, Prospect Energy announced on April 14, 2004 that it was providing $4.9 million of senior secured debt and preferred equity financing to Whymore Coal Company. Whymore is based in London, Kentucky and owns more than 1.5 million tons of surface coal reserves across 500 acres in southern Kentucky, with rights to mine an additional 5,000 acres. Much of the reserve base is already permitted. Prospect's investment is secured by equipment and mineral assets, has attached preferred equity participation rights, and will be used to repay an existing loan and to fund the acquisition of mining equipment required to produce from the target mining areas. In a news release, John Barry, Prospect's Chairman and CEO said, "We continue to perceive the coal sector to be an excellent place to invest within the energy industry. We have now closed two coal investments, and we welcome the opportunity to invest in similarly attractive opportunities." Utilities Making the Investment With natural gas prices at record highs and no relief in site, utilities are turning their attention to new coal power plants as well as upgrading their existing fleet. In a May 2005 meeting with industry analysts, Consol Energy is projecting that over 46,000 MW of existing coal plants east of the Mississippi will be adding or retrofitting scrubbers for reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. The investment required for such plant modifications runs in range of $450 to $600 per ton of sulfur dioxide removed, according to Consol. That can amount to billions of dollars of capital needs for a utility. Additionally, some utilities are deploying a strategy of scrubbing certain of their plants and then applying any excess SO2 credits to their other power plants without such pollution controls or selling the credits on the open market. AEP, for instance, has committed to adding or retrofitting scrubbers at its Cardinal #1-2, Mitchell #1-2, and Mountaineer #1 coal power plants, totaling over 4,000 MW of power plant capacity. The sum total of AEP's environmental investments is expected to be $3.7 billion through 2010 according to the company. $2.9 billion of that is scheduled for reducing SO2 emissions, with the bulk of the remainder going towards reducing nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions. 49 percent of the investment will take place in Ohio, funded through a rate stabilization plan. In Virginia and Kentucky the company expects to recover the added costs through a surcharge mechanism, while in West Virginia the company anticipates recovery through a general rate case filing. And the company's commitment to coal doesn't end there. Recently AEP announced its plan to build up to 1,200 megawatts of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) clean-coal technology, the first commercial-scale use of the technology for power generation and the largest IGCC plan announced to date. "We've worked for more than a decade with technology providers to push clean-coal generation from theory to commercial viability and are extremely pleased to be the first to bring the technology into mainstream use," according to Michael G. Morris, AEP´s chairman, president and chief executive officer, in a company press release. With the investment in life extension of current coal power plants and over one hundred new plants under consideration, the challenge for the coal industry will be keeping up with the anticipated increase in demand. The industry is now experiencing management challenges it hasn't seen in a decades such as finding skilled workers, expanding the constrained rail system, and dealing with volatile prices. These challenges will cause continued consolidation as well as draw in new financial players to fuel the growing capital needs of the industry. http://www.utilipoint.com/issuealert/article.asp?id=2495 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 14 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:29:50 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Capital Flows to the Coal Industry Capital Flows to the Coal Industry - By Bob Bellemare Daily IssueAlert 5/31/2005 Free The U.S. coal industry is undergoing fundamental change. After decades of stagnating prices and little new coal generation construction, the industry is now experiencing a renaissance with over 100 new coal plants under consideration and the squeezing of every megawatt possible out of existing plants. In response to these changing dynamics, the coal industry is beginning to see some of the dynamics commonplace in other fossil fuel markets such as consolidating ownership, more volatile commodity prices, and increased competition from overseas. But to meet the expected growth and changing industry dynamics, the industry will need to upgrade its infrastructure—from the constrained rail system to finding new skilled workers to replace the aging workforce. Such was the message coming out of the recent American Coal Council (ACC) meeting, held in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting drew hundreds from around the United States to discuss these emerging coal industry dynamics. The Changing Shape of Ownership Consolidation and new capital sources are working their way into the coal sector. UtiliPoint® notes that 8 of 325 energy related hedge funds [http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1087] list some form of coal investment activity. We have also seen an up tick in investment activities with over ten recent coal related deals observed in our Energy Investment Tracking Service [http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1109]. Coal is the workhorse of the U.S. economy, generating over fifty percent of our domestic electric needs. Yet it gets little respect. In a touch of irony, at the same time the coal meeting was taking place thousands attended the wind energy conference in Denver, CO., another forum where UtiliPoint was presenting. Wind, which can pragmatically supply up to 10 to 20 percent of our electric needs, certainly gets the preponderance amount of the press. But savvy investors know that industry dynamics are shaping up where both coal and wind will likely see substantial new growth in the coming decade. The industry stalwarts include Peabody, Kennecott, and Arch Coal, representing over 40 percent of the industry. The remaining 60 percent of the coal industry remains fragmented with nearly 675 coal producers in existence according to Platts. These companies are deploying a variety of strategies to raise the capital needed to drive coals expanding role in the electric business. Foundation Coal (NYSE:FCL) is the nation's fourth largest coal company operating a total of 13 mines in the Powder River Basin, Northern Appalachia, Central Appalachia, and the Illinois Basin. The company was formed in 2004 when a private equity consortium completed an acquisition of RAG American Coal Holding, Inc. First Reserve Corporation, The Blackstone Group, and the owners of American Metals and Coal International (AMCI) acquired the stock of RAG American Coal Holding, Inc. and its subsidiaries from RAG Coal International, AG effective July 30, 2004. The company then went public on December 8, 2004 when it priced its initial public offering of 23,610,000 shares of common stock at $22.00 per share, raising approximately $519 million. Prospect Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: PSEC) is another company eying the coal sector, with two investments recently announced. On July 27, 2004, Prospect completed its initial public offering by selling 7,000 shares of common stock at $15 a share, generating nearly $105 million in gross proceeds from the offering and has subsequently put some of that money to work in the coal and natural gas sector. On January 31, 2005, Prospect Energy provided $3.9 million in financing to Unity Virginia Holdings LLC (UVH) in the form of $3.3 million in secured subordinated debt and $0.6 million in redeemable preferred stock. Capital from the transaction is being utilized to support UVH's acquisition and development of Appalachian Resources, Inc., including approximately 6,800 acres of mineral reserves containing 11 million tons of coal, as well as a coal preparation plant and load-out facility on the Norfolk & Southern Railway. In a similar move, Prospect Energy announced on April 14, 2004 that it was providing $4.9 million of senior secured debt and preferred equity financing to Whymore Coal Company. Whymore is based in London, Kentucky and owns more than 1.5 million tons of surface coal reserves across 500 acres in southern Kentucky, with rights to mine an additional 5,000 acres. Much of the reserve base is already permitted. Prospect's investment is secured by equipment and mineral assets, has attached preferred equity participation rights, and will be used to repay an existing loan and to fund the acquisition of mining equipment required to produce from the target mining areas. In a news release, John Barry, Prospect's Chairman and CEO said, "We continue to perceive the coal sector to be an excellent place to invest within the energy industry. We have now closed two coal investments, and we welcome the opportunity to invest in similarly attractive opportunities." Utilities Making the Investment With natural gas prices at record highs and no relief in site, utilities are turning their attention to new coal power plants as well as upgrading their existing fleet. In a May 2005 meeting with industry analysts, Consol Energy is projecting that over 46,000 MW of existing coal plants east of the Mississippi will be adding or retrofitting scrubbers for reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. The investment required for such plant modifications runs in range of $450 to $600 per ton of sulfur dioxide removed, according to Consol. That can amount to billions of dollars of capital needs for a utility. Additionally, some utilities are deploying a strategy of scrubbing certain of their plants and then applying any excess SO2 credits to their other power plants without such pollution controls or selling the credits on the open market. AEP, for instance, has committed to adding or retrofitting scrubbers at its Cardinal #1-2, Mitchell #1-2, and Mountaineer #1 coal power plants, totaling over 4,000 MW of power plant capacity. The sum total of AEP's environmental investments is expected to be $3.7 billion through 2010 according to the company. $2.9 billion of that is scheduled for reducing SO2 emissions, with the bulk of the remainder going towards reducing nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions. 49 percent of the investment will take place in Ohio, funded through a rate stabilization plan. In Virginia and Kentucky the company expects to recover the added costs through a surcharge mechanism, while in West Virginia the company anticipates recovery through a general rate case filing. And the company's commitment to coal doesn't end there. Recently AEP announced its plan to build up to 1,200 megawatts of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) clean-coal technology, the first commercial-scale use of the technology for power generation and the largest IGCC plan announced to date. "We've worked for more than a decade with technology providers to push clean-coal generation from theory to commercial viability and are extremely pleased to be the first to bring the technology into mainstream use," according to Michael G. Morris, AEP´s chairman, president and chief executive officer, in a company press release. With the investment in life extension of current coal power plants and over one hundred new plants under consideration, the challenge for the coal industry will be keeping up with the anticipated increase in demand. The industry is now experiencing management challenges it hasn't seen in a decades such as finding skilled workers, expanding the constrained rail system, and dealing with volatile prices. These challenges will cause continued consolidation as well as draw in new financial players to fuel the growing capital needs of the industry. http://www.utilipoint.com/issuealert/article.asp?id=2495 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 15 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:41:15 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: FCIAC Team Report FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS AND CASE STUDIES FCIAC Team Report FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS AND CASE STUDIES TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. FUEL CELL BASICS III. FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGIES 1. Fuel Cell Technology - Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell 2. Fuel Cell Technology - Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cells 3. Fuel Cell Technology - Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells 4. Fuel Cell Technology - Solid Oxide Fuel Cells IV. FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS 1. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Stationary Applications · Case Study: Combined Heat and Power (CHP) · Case Study: Opportunity Fuel · Case Study: Power Assurance · Case Study: Distributed Generation (DG) · Case Study: Zero-Emissions · Case Study: Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) · Case Study: Hybrid Systems · Case Study: Residential/Small Commercial · Case Study: Off-Grid/Remote Applications 2. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Portable Applications 3. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Mobile Applications · Case Study: Mass Transit · Case Study: Personal Automobiles 4. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Micro Applications V. OPPORTUNITIES FOR STATIONARY FUEL CELL DEMONSTRATIONS http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/fciac_applications.pdf (32 pages) j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 16 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:47:56 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005) ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005) Articles In ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005) * 549 Food Supply mirrors Oil Supply * 550 The Future of the United States * 551 Motor industry begins to crash * 552 Country Assessment – Brunei * 553 Executive Evasion * 554 Oil, Tax and Venezuela * 555 Home Heating * 556 ASPO International Workshop in Lisbon * 557 ASPO IRELAND * 558 Oil Depletion, Energy Waste, Debt and Capital Production by Marc Gauvin * 559 Peak Oil in Australia * 560 Russia's Petroleum Policy http://www.peakoil.ie/downloads/newsletters/newsletter54_200506.pdf (11 pages) j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 17 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:01:12 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: About Time About Time Excerpts from Forum for the Future's forthcoming book About Time speed, society, people and the environment About Time, edited by Tim Aldrich, is being published by Greenleaf Books and can be pre-ordered from www.greenleaf-publishing.com LIVINGTIME Jay Griffiths When ancient China had colonised some new region, the phrase they used was at once sinister and telling – the people of the new territory had `received the calendar'. The Euro-American image of time is a machine, a factory assembly line chucking out identical hours, each unremarked and indistinguishable. Worse than that, it has insisted that its time is the time, and that indigenous peoples all over the world lack a `proper' sense of time. It is not a lack. Rather they have cultivated a far more subtle and sensitive relationship to time and timing. The Leco people of Bolivia have tree calendars, the U'wa of Colombia have insect clocks `which whistle on the U'wa hour' and the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea have a clock of birds. To the Karen of Burma, the forest over the course of a day supplies a symphony of time, provided you know the score. The San Bushmen of the Kalahari would never schedule when to hunt but would read and assess animal behaviour and choose a `right' time spontaneously, `waiting for the moment to be lucky.' Hunter-gatherer time is a series of unique moments, confluences of a hundred streams, a thousand interconnecting factors, including a person's mood, a shift in wind direction, knowledge of a cubbing season, a sight of fresh tracks. Scheduling or planning would destroy the necessary elusiveness of this subtle sense of timing, and would kill stone dead the exquisite sense that time is alive. `Sustainability' seems to weigh in with the burden of a heavy stasis, a life half-lived and a death half-died, all the dirgey effort of a worthy cause and none of the dynamite of `progress'. But the opposite is true. Progress, along the trajectory Euro-American culture is now on, is a one-word lie; it is neither the travel nor the arrival, but the ultimate ending; not the flame of thought, but a bonfire of humanity: the vaunted `progress' of cars and unlimited plane travel leading to global warming and millions of environmental refugees – this so-called progress is a politics which tends towards death. Sustainability, on the other hand, is where the life lies, where time touches eternity, the time of the natural world, of ice and melt, of the seas' times and tides. Both sustainability and progress need to be redefined and reclaimed. In order to do this, Western culture needs to listen to indigenous peoples because in their ideas of cyclical time, time is constantly restored, nature sustained and sustaining. These are the very ideas the world needs most. Jay Griffiths is the author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look At Time. IN THE LONG RUN The nature of longevity is change. Darwin himself noted that "not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity"... But the cosmic context... actually strengthens our concerns about what happens here and now, because it offers a vision of just how prodigious life's future potential could be.... The evolution of Earth's biosphere can now be traced back several billion years: the future of our physical universe is reckoned to be more extended still, perhaps even infinite. But despite these expanded horizons, both past and future, one timescale has contracted: many of us are less confident that our civilisation will survive the next century than were our forebears, who devotedly added bricks to cathedrals that would not be finished in their lifetime. What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life, and one filled with nothing but the elements. Martin Rees, astronomer royal THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF TIME The three anthropological models of time, developed by Robert Graham and Alma Owen. In the linear-separable model, which dominates the Western view of time, past, present and future are distinct entities which can be broken down into units such as minutes and centuries. Cultures which favour this model value speed of preparation; hence the popularity of time-saving products such as microwaves, canned soup and faster computer processors. The procedural-traditional model sees events and procedures as being more important than the time they take, as when a scientist conducts research, or an artist creates a painting. Being on time matters less than timeliness, and doing things well. The circular-traditional model sees time as having a rhythmic pattern. There are beginnings and ends but no certainty of seeing change, and no discrete units of past, present or future. To the Inuit of Canada's Baffin Island, the same word – uvatiarru – means both "in the distant past" and "in the distant future". "The shortest biography is said to be that of the mayfly: Born. Eat. Sex. Die. Pausing neither to eat nor to court, mayflies emerge from the nymph stage with all the food they need for their adult life, and mate in flight. Typically they live only one or two days." Botanist and ecologist Ghillean Prance "You can't use the Roman calendar to know when to fish. It's imposed on us for registering births and for baptisms, but it doesn't function for use in the forests. Bats tell us when to fish; when they fly close over the water." Sure-yani Eduardo Poroso of the Bolivian Leco people. TIME & MONEY Will Hutton and Alexandra Jones Time is the 21st century must-have. Everyone seems to want more. For many of us, more time would mean we could feel in control; we could spend time with family and friends, help in the community, or just relax and enjoy ourselves. More time would mean being able to make that tight deadline at work, to make some kind of dent on the growing mountain of `things to do'. And the market is doing its best to oblige, offering a range of panaceas, from microwave meals to the booming business in time management books, the better to help us manage our hectic lives. Time, after all, is money. Time spent doing one thing is potentially `wasted', time that could have been spent doing something else; something better, something more productive. The idea of the leisure-rich society has retreated in favour of a busy society. The entire post-World War II social security system was constructed around the assumption that men would be working 40-hour weeks for 40 years, with women able to rely on their husbands for support throughout their lives. The 21st century reality is clearly quite different – and so are the ways in which we need to measure and value time. Offer an individual £100 now or £150 in six months, and he or she will almost always take the £100 now; we prefer rewards in the present, while rewards in the future have to be much higher than they should rationally be in order to persuade individuals to accept them. This `time-discounting' feature affects the stock market dramatically. Markets operate on the assumption that they can accurately value returns now and in the future, but in reality, they prefer now to later. A company with a strategy to do well now and excellently in three years' time could be taken over, with shareholder approval, by a company that will do very well now, but less well in the future – but an immediate gain. So the `time is money' principle is too simplistic; in reality, money now is better than money tomorrow. This short-termism damages companies by rating immediate profits more highly than larger, deferred profits, and by destabilising what could be very good, sustainable, visionary organisations. "How long should it take to get to know someone? Can a relationship be made more efficient?" Some have argued that this increasing emphasis upon `now' rather than later is a product of an increasingly consumer-focused society – and is having detrimental impacts upon health. The economist John Komlos suggests that "recent trends in obesity are related to an increase in the marginal rate of time preference". He argues that the higher the rate of time preference, the more likely it is that individuals will discount the future health risks associated with their current eating habits and lack of exercise. If this is indeed the case, it has implications for many other activities with long-term negative effects, such as smoking, getting into debt, or polluting. A study of an accountancy firm by Suzan Lewis, professor of organisational and work-life psychology at the University of Manchester, found that accountants were regularly encouraged to underestimate the time it would take to complete a project to make a bid more competitive. `Invisible hours' of work are then needed to complete the project according to the deadline, and accountants collude in this in order to succeed. The employees themselves acknowledge that in order to `get on' in the organisation they need to meet these deadlines – which requires long hours working, often in the office, since `face time' is valued as a sign of commitment. Which means that for individuals with responsibilities or aspirations outside work, it is incredibly tough to succeed. At the core of the tensions we are experiencing in trying to manage paid work along with the rest of life is our contradictory attitude to time.... We treat time as a commodity. Efficiency means producing or performing something in the shortest possible time. Being profitable means spending as little money as possible on labour time. Being competitive means being faster than your rival. These are all values that are increasingly reflected in our changing business world, as we use the financial markets as the benchmark for judging performance. Yet this is not the reality of our experience of time. As individuals we recognise that not all time is the same, neither in monetary value nor in personal value. We can earn more for some activities than for others. We all have hours that pass more quickly because we are enjoying ourselves, and hours that pass more slowly because we are bored. And what about time that falls outside employment relations? How long should it take to get to know someone? Can a relationship be made more efficient? Speed-dating suggests that at least the initial stages of relationships can. But this ignores the fact that there is no sense of `enough' time spent with children, for instance. And the quality of our time, the way in which we interact, always changes. Which hour is more productive than another? Or is that the question we should really be asking? Clearly then we need to change the relationship between time and money; break down our assumption that time can be controlled, measured and used as a economic variable. We need to shift the debate from the `time is money' principle to talking about time and quality. Organisations need productive time, not just lots of time. They need to ensure that focusing on the now doesn't jeopardise tomorrow. And if we focus on the quality of time, not just its length, we can start to engage with the changes in how we live our lives. Writer and journalist Will Hutton is chief executive of the Work Foundation, where Alexandra Jones is a senior researcher. TIME & TECHNOLOGY James Goodman and Britt Jorgensen Concerns about the detrimental effects of technology speeding up society go back a long way. In 1907 the French author Paul Adam worried about the impact of the bicycle. The pedal bike allowed people to move themselves around four times faster than walking. Adam feared the emergence of a `cult of speed' for the bicycle generation, and doctors warned that too much cycling, especially into the wind, would lead to permanent facial disfigurement. Mobile phones change our relationship with time in a different way. The Japanese academic Tomoko Kawamura observed a group of 30 young people in Japan organising an evening of karaoke using their mobile phones: "As the date grew nearer, the frequency of messages increased. But only four people showed up on time at the agreed place." There were no recriminations for others turning up late or missing the appointment completely, as most people stayed in touch with their mobile phone, texting and leaving voice messages. Kawamura concluded that for young people today it is perfectly acceptable to show up late or not show up at all as long as they are present in the same mobile communications space. "For young people today it is perfectly acceptable to show up late or not show up at all as long as they are present in the same mobile communications space." This mobile space is different from the vast formless space created by the world wide web. It is only open to trusted intimates, members of the group. It forms an open channel of contact in which communication between different people and groups can continue without restriction. It is unbounded physically because it doesn't exist in the physical world, and it is unbounded temporally because text and voice messages can be left at any time and picked up later. Your mobile can be switched off for a while and the messages will be there when you turn it back on. You can reconnect with the mobile space when your face-to-face activities allow you to and – importantly – when you want. Esben Tuman Johnsen, from the Norwegian mobile phone company Telenor, writes that "the opportunity to make decisions on the spot has made young people reluctant to divide their lives into time slots, as older generations are used to doing." His colleague Rich Ling reports a "softening of time" among young around the world texting each other. The mobile generation is more inclined to live on the hoof and less likely to be bound by formal `clock time' structures. They form groups of loosely coordinated individuals who come together and part as necessary or desired, a kind of mobile phone-coordinated public flocking. Kevin Kelly, co-founder and now editor-at-large of Wired magazine, calls this "the `swarm model' – not a series of critical individual actions but a multitude of simultaneous actions whose collective pattern is far more important." James Goodman is a senior advisor at Forum for the Future. Britt Jorgensen is part of OneWorld.net http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/features/default.asp?id=2111 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 18 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:07:09 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Might we really need nuclear power? Melting Down the Myths Might we really need nuclear power? Hannah Bullock cuts through seven layers of loose thinking in search of a firm conclusion. No doubt about it, the nuclear lobby has a fresh spring in its step. Could the long-time bête noire of the environmental movement really be re-emerging from its dark days and bidding once again for a place in the sun? For once upon a time, when Blair was a babe, nuclear energy was the great white hope of the technological future, offering clean unlimited electricity too cheap to meter. It never delivered that, of course. The killer price advantage remained elusive, while the fairytale image was tarnished badly in the succeeding decades by safety concerns, health scares, and growing worries over where to put the radioactive waste. Britain, like most of the western world, has had an effective moratorium on new nukes since 1989. So what's changed? Climate change. Isn't that a real threat to overshadow any nuclear nightmare? Our pressing need for low-carbon energy solutions, coupled with fears of the approaching end of reliable and affordable fossil fuel supplies, are being presented as problems to which a programme of `nuclear new build' could be the best answer. Ecologist James Lovelock, forever linked in the public mind with deep green thinking as originator of the `Gaia hypothesis', sees nuclear as "a secure, reliable energy... immediately available, safe, economic and sufficient to meet our needs in full". He has always been pro-nuclear – while politicians are more fickle. Now Tony Blair is tempted by nuclear power as a way to cut carbon emissions, although the debate within government is on hold until after the election. The World Nuclear Association, for its part, has gone so far as to brand it "energy for sustainable development". But nuclear power doesn't necessarily do just what it says on the tin. It's time to unwrap some myths and see how they really melt down.... Climate friendly energy? Coal-, oil- and gas-fired power stations spew out greenhouse gases. Nuclear plants don't. But is that enough to justify the claim of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) that it's offering "climate friendly energy"? Not quite. Add up the carbon footprint of the bits you don't see, like building the plants in the first place, importing uranium and processing waste, and the greenhouse gas score really is not negligible. It's twice as bad as wind power on this count. And even if nukes came absolutely carbon-free, a shift to this power source wouldn't wipe out our emissions problem. If we doubled the number of UK nuclear plants, and had them producing half our electricity – what would that do to our overall greenhouse gas emissions? Reduce them by 8%. Worthwhile, but still a long way short of a home run. We'd still have a big emissions problem – the most intractable part of which seems to stem from our addiction to polluting cars and planes. It's not the cheapest way of making the cut either. The government has done its sums and reckons that, by 2020 – the earliest time a new nuclear programme could come on stream – it'll be cheaper to cut a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions through wind or combined heat and power (CHP) technologies – or simply through energy efficiency. These greener options could even have a negative net cost, the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) worked out. But if an expensive new nuclear build programme draws investment away from the development of clean technologies like these, we could see higher, rather than lower, emissions in the medium term. The dilemma we face is not so much whether we fear the consequences of climate change more than the perils of nuclear power, but how we choose the best ways to combat the former. Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser is not one to play down the problem of climate change – it was he who made such a media splash by identifying it as a greater threat than terrorism. But King has not let that blind him to the downsides of nuclear. He has gone on record saying that "responsible government has to see whether we can manage to work without [it]". Responsible would mean dealing with climate change – a global problem – in a way we're happy for others around the world to follow. With all the current concern about countries like North Korea and Iran developing nuclear weapons on the back of a supposedly civil programme, is the proliferation of nuclear technology really our global solution of choice? An ideal stopgap? All but one of the UK's existing nuclear power plants are due to be shut down over the next 18 years – starting next year. Where, then, will we get that proportion of our electricity – 23% – that currently comes from nuclear? The renewables sector provides less than 4% of our electricity today, and even its most ardent devotees accept that it can't do it all tomorrow. So do we need a nuclear new build programme, as a quick fix for this `energy gap'? Lovelock is convinced that "for now, nuclear power is the only workable alternative". But a programme of nuclear new build won't be `for now'. If the moratorium ended tomorrow – which it won't – there'd still be a lead time of 10 years or more to build the first reactor, with the planning application as the joker in the pack. It was 15 years before Sizewell B was up and running, in the face of determined local opposition. How can nuclear be seen as a stopgap, if a new generation of power plants wouldn't come on stream before 2020? Look at the alternatives further ahead, and there is no certainty that there'll be a `generation gap'. A vision of 2050 where up to 50% of electricity is generated from renewables is not something the green lobby has dreamt up, but the considered view of oil companies like BP and Shell. The cleanest technology? You don't see smoking stacks on top of nuclear power stations. But what does come out, invisible though it is to the passer-by, makes an ugly story. Britain has been taken to court by Ireland over claims that the Irish Sea fishing industry has been polluted by radioactive discharges from the Sellafield reprocessing plant. There's also the nagging question of whether low-level radiation from nukes has something to do with the leukaemia clusters identified in the area.... Then there are the stockpiles of radioactive waste we've built up over the past 50 years – about 75,000 cubic metres in this country alone. 1,500 of these are high-level waste that's been made so radioactive it'll take thousands of years to decay to its original state. When Britain's older generation of Magnox stations start to be decommissioned next April, the amount of high- and intermediate-level waste is set to increase fifty-fold by the time the clean-up is finished. A clean-up that's scheduled to take a century. "Nobody has a working answer to the problem of permanent nuclear waste disposal." So when former energy minister Brian Wilson says to Green Futures that waste "is not a show-stopping issue", and why not go on researching waste disposal while we launch a programme of new build, it's hard to swallow. If we knew what to do with the stuff, it might not be so bad. But after 50 years of research, the British government is still not convinced that it's safe to store it under the ground or seabed. In fact, no country in the world has a working answer to the problem of permanent storage of high-level radioactive waste. Norman Baker, liberal democrat environment spokesman, hits the nail on the head: "It is simply irresponsible to future generations to make worse a problem that will last hundreds of years and for which there is no identified solution." Over-hyped safety risks? Are they? The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl No. 4 reactor in Ukraine caused over 30 deaths, exposed 8.4 million people to radiation and contaminated the surrounding countryside across an area half the size of Italy. More than 20 years on, scientists are still seeing a rise in cases of thyroid cancer amongst children there, as contamination continues to run through the watercourse. Sure, this is modern Britain, not the old Soviet Union. We expect – indeed we have – much better operating standards today. There hasn't been a serious accident in this country since the Windscale fire in 1957. The big US scare, at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, was what the industry would call an `incident', brought under control before it reached the point of disaster. `Incidents' still happen, yes, but it's potential rather than actual damage that gets people running scared. But it still sounds a bit complacent when journalist Rod Liddle tells us nukes aren't "quite so dangerous as we thought them to be all those years ago". "Transporting nuclear fuel presents a moving target for piracy." Today's world brings risks of its own – not least terrorism. A plane crashing on Sellafield, for example, would release over 40 times more radioactivity than the Chernobyl disaster. You may take it as reassuring that the DTI decided last year to install permanent armed police at every nuclear power plant in Britain. On the other hand, you might see it as explicit recognition of the risk to these sitting ducks. Even transporting nuclear fuel presents a moving target for piracy. The Pacific Teal and Pintail carry plutonium from Europe to the nuclear plants of Japan – under armed guard, of course, as their cargo is also the ideal material for making atomic bombs. Easy to get hold of? Forget soaring oil prices, and gas pipelines through Russia – nukes only need a little uranium from abroad, and then we're practically self-sufficient, says the nuclear lobby. To call the power `indigenous' or `renewable', though, is pretty misleading. Britain still had to import about 2,500 tonnes of uranium last year to feed its reactors. We may be able to turn 97% of used uranium back into fuel at the Sellafield reprocessing plant. But this isn't like `recycling': highly radioactive elements are creamed off (and `stored') each time round. Even the NIA thinks the cost and extra radioactive emissions released by reprocessing mean it's not necessarily better than importing `fresh' uranium. True home-grown renewable energy would come from our own fields, wind and waves. The most reliable power? When a nuclear power plant is up and running it is pretty good at producing power most of the time, as measured by what's known as its load factor – the proportion of its theoretical maximum output that is actually generated over the course of a year. The nuclear industry's 75% load factor is higher than that of fossil fuel power stations, and over twice that of wind farms. But British Energy is having a bad year for production at the moment, with unplanned `outages' at two of its power stations. Nuclear won't always hold such a lead on the load factor, either. Its mature technology could well be overtaken by the `sunrise' renewable sector. Smaller in size and faster to build than a nuclear power plant, renewables such as turbines, solar panels and CHP plants have a much higher `learning rate', as experience from out in the field is fed back into improvements on the drawing board more quickly. In any case, load factor isn't the only element in the reliability equation. It's the reliability of the national grid, rather than individual power sources, that's critical to consumers. It's good for the grid to draw energy from diverse sources. And in the foreseeable future, storage facilities will mean that it's even less of an issue whether a given power source is producing energy all the time. Hydrogen `batteries' will be able to lock up energy as it's produced. Even when the wind's not blowing, we'll be able to draw on `some we made earlier'. Where nuclear really falls down in terms of reliability is that it will never provide the decentralised and localised power needed to make a supply network really secure. Relying on a few big power plants puts a country's electricity at risk from anything from mechanism failure – remember North America's dramatic blackouts – to terrorism. Even if the Chinese do get the latest much-vaunted smaller scale `pebble bed' reactor technology off the ground, it's unlikely that we'll be seeing `micro reactors' in every city or home, as we might see CHP, wind or solar plants. It's not only their insatiable thirst for cooling water that limits our nuclear power stations to the coasts of Britain... it's also a matter of who'd want one in their own back yard. Hardly anyone, MORI tells us. 82% of people questioned would say no to a nuclear power station within three miles of their home. And to a wind farm? A mere 14%. Pretty cheap power? "The economic case for nuclear power is overwhelming," reckons Liddle. `Commercial confidentiality' means it's not easy to compare the exact price of a unit of electricity from different power sources. But the PIU has worked out the electricity from Britain's newest existing nuclear plant to be about 6p/kWh, once all the development costs are factored in. New build stations, says the Royal Academy of Engineering, might bring the figure down to 2.3p/kWh, a cost similar to new coal and gas and less than your average wind power. However, well-sited wind farms have been known to produce electricity that's already competitive with this, at 2.5-3.0p/kWh. And 20 years on, the PIU expects developments in technology to bring the average cost of power from wind, energy crops and CHP to below that of new build nuclear. Not such a tall order when you consider that the price of wind power has dropped from 50p per kWh 25 years ago. The real rub for nuclear, though, is that these figures don't include what is by far the most costly part of the process – the clean up. Last year's Energy Act set aside £48 billion pounds to deal with the waste we already have in the pipeline, and the DTI expects this figure to increase as it becomes clear just how much is to be done. Embark on a new programme, and we could be bolstering it up with subsidies of £900-£1,800 million a year, to close the gap between the cost of output and electricity prices in the wholesale market. This is a figure worked out by SERA, the Labour environment campaign, in 2002. The NIA doubts the figure will be so cripplingly high, as it depends on the energy market and the amount of private investment that can be rustled up. Not much, judging by the recent track record of British Energy, which had to be bailed out by the state three years ago. Who'd want to buy in to an investment with potentially massive – and undefinable – liabilities for eventual clean-up? The estimated annual subsidy hoovered up by nuclear new build would be up to four times more than goes towards sustainable energy sources through the Renewables Obligation today. It's worth asking which investment is best for our future: nuclear power plants with their limited lifespan and unlimited end-of-life liability, or renewable energy, that's set to go on and on and on? Hannah Bullock is Green Futures' editorial assistant and researcher. Nuclear Industry Association, 020 7766 6640, www.niauk.org Royal Academy of Engineering, 020 7227 0500, www.raeng.org.uk SERA, 020 7263 7389, www.sera.org.uk World Nuclear Association, www.world-nuclear.org The Performance and Innovation Unit's Energy Review can be found at www.number-10.gov.uk/su/energy/20.html http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/features/default.asp?id=2157 j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 19 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:12:04 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: D.A. creates environmental unit D.A. creates environmental unit 3-staff team takes on crime mostly affecting the poor - Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 1, 2005 To tackle environmental crime, which disproportionately affects the city's poorest communities, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris plans to announce that her office has a new environmental justice unit. With two staff attorneys and a dedicated investigator, the unit will address such cases as a community newspaper's alleged dumping of hundreds of gallons of printer's ink, black marketeers' abalone sales and a bakery that operated while littered with rat and bird droppings. "Crimes against the environment are crimes against communities, people who are often poor and disenfranchised," said Harris. "The people who live in those communities often have no other choice but to live there." Harris will outline the unit's creation at a news conference today as mayors from around the world gather in San Francisco for United Nations World Environment Day. Local activists called on the new unit to get tough on illegal trash dumping, to stage unannounced inspections of worksites, and to improve communications between city officials and the public. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer spokesman Teresa Schilling said Lockyer believes state and local law enforcement are being forced to take up environmental law enforcement that used to be handled by federal authorities. "As we deal with a Bush administration that's more focused on rolling back the protections that we've fought for, it's more and more important that we at the state and local level step up our efforts," said Schilling. Lockyer's office filed criminal charges last month against Kinder Morgan Energy Partners of Houston over a 103,000-gallon diesel fuel spill in Suisun Marsh near Fairfield. The company paid a $5 million fine and agreed to a series of measures to repair their aging pipeline system and improve their reporting procedures. "One of the best tools out there to go after polluters is to go after them on a criminal basis," said Schilling. Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice plans to hold a rally Saturday in front of San Francisco City Hall to highlight health problems in Bayview-Hunters Point. That district has the largest number of families living below the poverty level of any San Francisco neighborhood. Executive Director Bradley Angel said Harris should push other city agencies also to cite polluting businesses, which unit leader Davina Pukari said she plans to do. Pukari plans to coordinate with the Bayview Neighborhood Rescue Team, run by the city attorney's office, and with a federal regulatory task force that includes representatives of local police, the sheriff's office, the city Health Department, toxics control officials, Cal/OSHA, and the state environmental protection agency. Dana Lanza, executive director of Literacy for Environmental Justice, a Bayview-Hunters Point nonprofit, said Harris should focus on individuals and businesses that dump refuse in vacant lots, on train tracks and around the Third Street Caltrain station. "There are places where you come out and people dump their couches and trash on the sidewalk," said Lanza. "(It) creates an air of unsafety and degrades the quality of life." The Bayview, home to 34,000 residents, has two power plants, a city diesel bus maintenance shop, San Francisco's main sewage treatment plant, lots of private industry and the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a Superfund cleanup site. The impact of those industries has been a matter of debate for decades. Maurice Campbell, a founder of the Community First Coalition and co-chair of the community advisory board for restoration of the former naval shipyard at Hunters Point, said residents live in a "toxic soup" of environmental pollution. "The community has been exposed for years to various toxins," said Campbell. But the unit was formed to go after law-breakers and will not pursue law- abiding industrial concerns, said Pukari, whom Harris recruited from the San Francisco U.S. attorney's office last April. A specialist in environmental law, Pukari began her career in 1992 in Washington with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pukari said her unit will work closely with community groups to identify sources of criminal activity. Lanza said residents also would benefit from learning how to report polluters. "I think part of the problem is that people don't know who to call." The environmental justice movement began in the late 1980s and has grown in response to the Bush administration's rollback of Clinton presidential directives and its bid to rewrite air pollution laws with the Clear Skies initiative. While prosecutors in Alameda, Solano and Los Angeles counties have established separate units to handle environmental cases, many other district attorneys assign the work to their white-collar crime divisions. But a team in Los Angeles focuses on pollution in communities that are most affected by businesses that break the law, Schilling said. Many smaller counties that don't have the resources to aggressively target environmental polluters rely on a nine-member team of prosecutors sponsored by the California District Attorney's Association. The Circuit Prosecutor team covers 30 counties, mostly in Northern California, said Gloria Mas, one of its senior prosecutors. The team, which formed about a decade ago, handles an average of 100 cases a year. E-mail Jason B. Johnson at jbjohnson@sfchronicle.com. Page B - 4 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2005/06/01/BAGAID1GQ81.DTL j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 20 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:15:26 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Changing climate, melting mountains Changing climate, melting mountains SUSAN GORDON; The News Tribune Last updated: June 1st, 2005 06:48 AM (PDT) Nobody plans to wrap Mount Rainier in a reflective sheet to keep it icy cold. Yet the glaciers coating Tacoma's backyard mountain share troubling symptoms with the dwindling Gurshen glacier of Andermatt, Switzerland. The glistening masses of ice and snow that make 14,411-foot Mount Rainier shine aren't as impressive as they once were. The mountain shoulders 34 square miles of year-round ice, but at least five of its largest glaciers – Nisqually, Winthrop, Tahoma, South Tahoma and Carbon – are smaller than ever. When Swiss workers installed an $83 million blanket to stop Gurshen from wasting away this summer, scientists pointed to global warming as the reason why. And while access to ski resorts isn't an issue on Mount Rainier, its glaciers and hundreds of others in Washington's Cascade Mountains are as vulnerable as those in the Alps. "Glaciers are really excellent indicators of climate change," said Jon Riedel, a North Cascades National Park geologist who tracks the health of six glaciers at North Cascades and Mount Rainier national parks. "The issue isn't whether it's getting warmer. Of course, it is. "The question is how fast and what are the consequences." People value glaciers not only for their beauty and as a lure to mountaineers, but also because glaciers are reservoirs. Glaciers hold water that eventually melts into streams, helps drive hydroelectric systems and sustains fish. Since the 1970s, virtually all of the glaciers outside the world's polar regions have shrunk, said Andrew Fountain, a Portland State University glaciologist who has studied glaciers throughout the western United States. Seventy-one percent of the West's glaciated areas are in Washington. "You don't find an advancing glacier anymore," Fountain said. Scientists describe growing glaciers as advancing. Retreat, in contrast, illustrates what happens when glaciers shrink. "Mount Rainier's glaciers aren't going away any time soon, but they're going to get a lot smaller," said Fountain. Most people notice the change at the glacier's terminus, also called the toe or snout, where the thaw is most obvious. "It's the graveyard for glacial ice," said Bill Bidlake, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist based in Tacoma. Major decline at Rainier Glaciers need new snow to survive. The decline of Washington's glaciers parallels a record of dwindling mountain snowpack measured between 1950 and 2000, scientists said. Warmer winter temperatures mean more rain instead of snow. As the snow level rises, glaciers typically retreat to higher altitudes. "Glaciers amplify what's happening," Riedel said. "Not just year to year, but over five, 10 or 50 years." The most up-to-date analysis of what has happened at Mount Rainier, home to the largest glaciers in the contiguous United States, was done by Thomas Nylen, a Portland State University glaciologist. He used aerial photographs to calculate the difference in glacier volume and area between 1913 and 1994. During that time, the mountain's glaciated area declined by one-fifth. The combined volume of the glaciers dropped by one-quarter. Retreat is more pronounced on the south side of the mountain, where glaciers are smaller and might accumulate less snow, he said. "There's definitely a link between the climate and the change in the glaciers," Nylen said. After 1977, the shift became pronounced, and the rate of retreat among Mount Rainier's glaciers accelerated, he said. The same pattern of rapid retreat also is evident in the North Cascades, said Fountain. Monitoring from Tacoma The best way to track glacial health is to measure how much snow falls on a glacier over the winter and subtract it from the amount that melts away over the summer, scientists said. Using the information – called mass balance – scientists can predict whether glaciers will grow or shrink. The longest record of such measurements for a North American glacier belongs to an otherwise little-known glacier monitored by a team of USGS scientists who work in downtown Tacoma. It's called the South Cascade Glacier, but it's actually near the crest of the North Cascades in the Glacier Peak Wilderness at the border of Skagit and Chelan counties. The glacier gets its name from the south fork of the Cascade River, into which it melts. A middle-sized glacier by Washington standards, South Cascade is nearly two miles long and about three quarters of a mile wide. USGS scientists have kept tabs on it since the late 1950s. The glacier is so remote that Bidlake and others fly in by helicopter to take measurements. Besides snow accumulation and loss, they track snow density, runoff and air temperature. Since scientists began sizing up the South Cascade Glacier, they have documented only a single advance, a small one in 1972, Bidlake said. The glacier lost one-third of its volume between 1958 and 2001. "It will not disappear completely, but it could be half or less than half its current size," said Ed Josberger, a USGS senior scientist who manages the monitoring program. A hike to test vital signs In North Cascades National Park, located in the most heavily glaciated area in the lower 48, some small glaciers have already disappeared. Over the past 150 years, 40 percent of the glacial ice and snow within the park has vanished, Riedel said. Thirteen percent of the loss has occurred over the last 40 years. Thirteen years ago, Riedel began tracking glaciers in North Cascades National Park using the mass balance protocols pioneered by the USGS. He and others added Mount Rainier's Emmons and Nisqually glaciers to the program in 2002. Riedel compared the effort to the work of medical professionals who periodically monitor heartbeat and other vital signs. In the case of the glaciers, the focus is the seasonal rhythm of gain and loss. It's a laborious process. To do it, park service technicians climb more than 10,000 feet above sea level. The job begins in the spring and ends in fall. Initially, workers pack in lengths of plastic pipes – later bound together with dowels and duct tape – that serve as measuring stakes. On one day in late April, a crew hiked to the Muir Snowfield. At the 8,500-foot level and higher, the snowfield substitutes for the adjacent Nisqually Glacier, which is too steep for safe climbing at this altitude. (Some scientists label the snowfield a glacier in its own right or an extension of the Nisqually.) Before setting stakes, the crew probed the depth of the winter snowfall with an old military tank antenna. It was sensitive enough to spring back when it hit the hardened surface of last year's snow. Jeanna Probala, one of the team leaders, lugged a steam drill that resembled a pressure cooker attached to a big rubber hose. When the crew reached its destination, Probala fired up the drill, designed to punch holes 30 or 40 feet deep in glacier snow. Riedel said he hasn't collected enough mass balance information from the Nisqually and Emmons glaciers to draw any conclusions. But it's likely to help scientists eventually. "Every glacier responds differently to the same climactic conditions," said Carolyn Driedger, a USGS hydrologist who has studied Mount Rainier. Glaciers are influenced by orientation to the sun, their size, elevation and local weather patterns. So even if they're melting, they don't do it the same way. "By adding our observations year after year, we're developing a very accurate picture of the trends in the health of these glaciers," Riedel said. How much ice is that? There's more glacial ice on Mount Rainier than any other mountain in the contiguous United States. The volume is 156 billion cubic feet. That's enough ice to fill 18 lines of bumper-to-bumper dump trucks between Earth and the moon, said Paul Kennard, a National Park Service geomorphologist, or someone who studies the shape of the earth or its topography. During the last ice age, which ended about 15,000 years ago, glaciers covered everything inside the boundaries of Mount Rainier National Park and extended to the edge of the Puget Sound basin. The current pattern of retreat began in about 1850. To view the history of glacial change on Mount Rainier, go to www.nps.gov/mora/ncrd/glacier/Chg00.html. Originally published: June 1st, 2005 12:01 AM (PDT) http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v-printer/story/4912595p-4501265c.html j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 21 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:24:26 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Crude Futures Rise Above $52 (53?) Ahead of U.S. Inventories Data Crude Futures Rise Above $52 Ahead of U.S. Inventories Data Associated Press June 1, 2005 1:09 p.m. Crude-oil futures climbed past the $52 mark on Wednesday, suggesting that expectations for modest builds in crude and gasoline supplies in the next U.S. inventory data report were already factored into the market. Analysts said the report, which will be released tomorrow, would have to show substantial growth in stocks to bring prices down, adding that the hospitalization of Saudi ruler King Fahd might also have been putting upward pressure on prices over the past few days. Light, sweet crude for July was up 53 cents to $52.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil rose more than 2 cents to $1.474 a gallon, while unleaded gasoline rose more than a penny to $1.479 a gallon. In mid-May, prices fell below $47 a barrel in response to steadily rising crude inventories, but last week's surprise drop in U.S. oil supplies brought nervousness back into the market. "For a few weeks now, the market has become more difficult to predict and last week's drop just reiterated that," said Daniel Hynes, energy analyst at ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia. The U.S. Energy Information Administration's last petroleum data showed that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories fell 1.6 million barrels to 332.4 million barrels in the week ending May 20 from the previous week. Still, Mr. Hynes said he expects a "slight rise" in crude inventories in the report released Thursday, a day later than normal due to Monday's Memorial Day holiday. "Anything less than that, we'll definitely see an upward impact on the prices," he said. In Vienna, PVM Oil Associates also predicted a build in stocks. "Crude and gasoline stocks are foreseen to add roughly 200,000 barrels, while distillates stocks could rise by close to one million barrels, following the seasonal restocking pattern," it said in its daily energy market report. Peter Gignoux, a London-based oil adviser for GDP Associates in New York, said stock increases will likely "continue until people start drawing gas" as the U.S. summer driving season unfolds. Longer term, "we [are] going to be to-ing and fro-ing for most of the summer and firm up as we go into autumn," he said. On Tuesday, prices inched higher after Venezuela's oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should cut its official oil production quota or leave it unchanged at the group's next meeting on June 15 in Vienna. The country is the world's fifth-largest oil exporting country, a founding member of OPEC and steady supplier of fuel to the U.S. Copyright © 2005 Associated http://online.wsj.com/article/SB111763835614048205-search.html?KEYWORDS=crude+oil&COLLECTION=wsjie/archive j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 22 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:50:01 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Oil rises 5 percent on heatoil rally Oil rises 5 percent on heatoil rally By Richard Valdmanis Reuters Wednesday, June 1, 2005; 3:13 PM NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed 5 percent on Wednesday to their highest since late April, led by an unseasonal rally in heating oil as speculators bet on a looming crunch in distillate supplies. "Once refineries focus on gasoline production, distillate supplies may become very tight," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago. U.S. light sweet crude rose $2.61, or 5 percent, to $54.58 a barrel -- the highest in five weeks -- while heating oil futures jumped 8.75 cents to $1.537 a gallon. London Brent rose $2.47 cents to $53.20. Refineries typically produce more gasoline and less of other fuels in the spring to meet summer driving demand, and analysts say the industry may have trouble keeping storage tanks filled with diesel, jet fuel, and other distillates. "Globally, distillates are really tight right now," said Doug MacIntyre, an analyst at the U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. distillate demand growth is running at more than 3 percent this year, outpacing gasoline or crude, due in part to higher diesel use from truckers moving Chinese products to market from the West Coast, and rising jet fuel consumption from airlines. Dealers said continued strong demand growth in Europe, where diesel-powered cars are dominating market share, and from China's power sector was also keeping the distillates squarely in the spotlight. Bullish sentiment was also helped by forecasts for a stormy hurricane season that could disrupt U.S. production this year. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through December. Last year's Hurricane Ivan was the most devastating to the U.S. oil industry on record, cutting about 45 million barrels of crude oil output from the Gulf of Mexico, or about 7 percent of the region's annual production. U.S. STOCKPILE BUFFER Petroleum stockpiles in the United States remain well above year-ago levels, supported largely by the highest OPEC production in about 25 years -- a factor that could give the oil market some short-term reprieve. Traders were awaiting the next U.S. petroleum stockpile data to be released on Thursday. Analysts polled by Reuters expected on average that crude oil supplies would hold steady as higher refinery production countered strong imports, while gasoline and distillate inventories would rise. Crude stockpiles fell unexpectedly in the last data release, bringing them down from a six-year high and triggering a $5 gain on U.S. crude over last week. This week's inventory data is being released a day later than usual following the U.S. Memorial Day holiday on Monday, which marked the start of the U.S. driving season -- the peak demand period for gasoline. OPEC President Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah said on Wednesday he expected the oil producers' cartel to maintain output at current rates into the third quarter of 2005. The cartel has ramped up output to more than 30 million bpd, a 25-year high, in an attempt to build a stockpile buffer ahead of the higher-demand fourth quarter, but more hawkish OPEC members have said booming output may need to be reined in. Price rises may be limited by the impact of a stronger U.S. dollar, which continued to firm against the euro. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/01/AR2005060100233_pf.html j2997 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 23 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:55:04 -0000 From: "janson2997" Subject: Crude Oil Rises Most in 6 Months on Concern Over Fuel Supplies Crude Oil Rises Most in 6 Months on Concern Over Fuel Supplies ListenListen June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil had the biggest gain in almost six months, topping $54 a barrel in New York, as refinery malfunctions raised concern that refiners won't produce enough gasoline to meet peak demand this summer. U.S. refineries have increased operations to about 95 percent of capacity as they struggle to meet growing demand. Royal Dutch/Shell Group shut two units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery on May 30. Analysts were divided on whether a report tomorrow will show that oil supplies rose or fell last week after an unexpected supply decline the week ended May 20. ``We've approached $60 a barrel twice in the last year because of concerns that supply is insufficient,'' said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at Fimat USA in New York. ``Concern about the ability of refiners to meet growing fuel demand means that the slightest refinery problem results in a surge in prices.'' Crude oil for July delivery rose $2.61, or 5 percent, to $54.58 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the biggest gain since Dec. 15. Futures touched $54.70, the highest since April 25. Prices are up 29 percent from a year ago. Prices have risen for seven sessions, the longest rally since nine straight gains from Sept. 16 to 28, when Hurricane Ivan shut platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Gasoline for July delivery rose 7.5 cents, or 5.1 percent, to $1.542 a gallon in New York. Prices touched, the highest since April 29. Heating oil for July delivery rose 8.75 cents, or 6 percent, to $1.537 a gallon in New York. Refinery Unit Shutdowns Shell said two reformer units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery, the sixth-largest in the U.S., are in ``startup mode.'' The units will return to normal operations by tomorrow, Shell spokesman David McKinney said in an e-mailed statement. The refinery, a joint venture between Shell and Mexico's state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, can process 340,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the company's Web site. Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery shut two furnaces at a unit that makes gasoline on May 23. The company said that the refinery was ``operating normally,'' according to an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman on May 25. The Baytown refinery, the nation's largest, can process 557,000 barrels of oil a day. `Supply Bottlenecks' ``We have some supply bottlenecks coupled with pretty strong product demand,'' said Marshall Steeves, an analyst with Refco Inc. in New York. ``We are continuing to rethink the direction of crude oil stocks after last week's surprise.'' U.S. refineries operated at 94.6 percent of capacity the week ended May 20, according to the Energy Department, which will publish its next report on petroleum inventories tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in Washington, a day later than usual because of the Memorial Day holiday two days ago. Refiners probably boosted utilization rates by 0.5 percentage point last week, according to the median of responses in a Bloomberg survey. ``There is every incentive for refiners to crank out as much gasoline and distillate as they can,'' said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte. ``We are vulnerable to accidents and other refining problems because of how tight capacity is.'' Refiners may boost fuel output in June to take advantage of high profit margins, analysts said. The profit from making a barrel of crude oil into gasoline and heating oil rose to $9.892 today. The profit margin is based on the price of futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. `Halcyon Period' ``The last year has been a halcyon period for refiners,'' Kilduff said. ``Clearly there are worries about the distillate family of fuels. Demand for diesel and jet fuel has been strong and we even had a late season pickup in heating-oil demand.'' Supplies of distillate fuel, a category that includes diesel and heating oil, in the week ended May 20 were 2.5 percent below the five-year average for the period, according to the department. Gasoline and distillate fuel stockpiles probably rose last week, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. U.S. crude-oil supplies probably rose 125,000 barrels in the week ended May 27 from 332.4 million barrels the previous week, according to the median of forecasts by 16 analysts before an Energy Department report tomorrow. Eight of the analysts expected an increase, seven a decline and one said they were unchanged. The U.S. consumes 25 percent of the world's oil. U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell from a six-year high in the week ended May 20, declining by 1.6 million barrels, the department reported on May 25. An increase of 1.5 million barrels was expected, according to the median of forecasts. In London, the July Brent crude-oil futures contract rose $2.47, or 4.9 percent, to $53.20 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Prices touched $53.46, the highest since April 27. Production Targets The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will probably decide to leave its oil production targets unchanged when it meets in Vienna on June 15, the group's president, Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah said today, according to Agence France-Presse. OPEC will keep exceeding the quota, al-Sabah, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, told reporters in Kuwait today. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: June 1, 2005 14:53 EDT http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=a_lE_OPwa1xY&refer=home# j2997 ------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/