Plan to make most of winter warmth

Canberra Times
Saturday 19/6/2010 Page: 12

Canberra's construction sector has warned ACT Government proposals to mandate sunlight access in new housing estates could push tip development costs. Under proposed changes to the Territory Plan, 95% of buildings on single-dwelling blocks in new estates would need to have direct access to winter sunlight. The changes would also ensure that all buildings on new blocks would not be able to cast shadows over neighbouring blocks by more than the shadow created by a 1.8m boundary fence. According to the Government, the policies will ensure new housing developments are able to make the most of solar energy.

ACT Planning Minister Andrew Barr said the new policies were part of the Government's drive to make Canberra a more environmentally friendly city. "Dealing with climate change is the biggest medium to long-term challenge we face," Mr Barr said. "Although there's no quick fix, we need to keep working to reduce our impact on our environment, reduce the impact of climate change and ensure our city is best able to cope with those aspects of climate change which are now inevitable. "These policies will help its achieve this."

Property Council of Australia ACT executive director Catherine Carter said yesterday increasing solar access could "improve liveability," but that had to be balanced with housing affordability issues. "If the new draft variations lead to a requirement for larger block sizes or all blocks having a north-south access, then it will likely lead to greater land development costs due to the increased land areas involved," she said. Ms Carter said solar access was only part of the total equation in terms of issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and climate control."

"What's more important is the embedded energy and carbon in a building or in the sub-division process and the impact of that on greenhouse gas emissions." Master Builders ACT executive director John Miller said the proposed changes might mean "that some of the smaller blocks are not going to be suitable." "You're going to have to go tip a little bit in size to be able to get particular houses on these blocks to meet the requirements in terms of overshadowing and the like." The building industry and general public have until August 13 to comment on draft variation 301 to the Territory Plan (concerning the 95% of buildings needing to have winter sunlight). Draft variation 303 (relating to the shadows cast by buildings) will be issued next week, with the comment period to run until August 20.

Future is bleak for coal power

Age
Saturday 19/6/2010 Page: 16

SOME Victorian coal-fired power stations are likely to close this decade as gas and wind power expand to make up a quarter of the state's energy generation, according to a government forecast. The Brumby government's future energy statement suggests gas-fired power and wind farms would grow from about 5% of energy generation today to 25% by 2020. New power sources by 2030 should include "low emissions coal," solar and potentially geothermal.

Energy Minister Peter Batchelor said the government's emissions strategy would be outlined in a "landmark" climate change white paper and bill later this year. But he stressed a national carbon price was needed to encourage investment in clean energy Documents leaked to The Age last year indicated the statement would focus on giving coal a future, but the final statement highlights carbon capture and storage as just one of several technologies that could be cost effective in cutting emissions.

Air Products' Hydrogen Fueling Technology powering new Sysco warehouse operations

www.centredaily.com
June 17, 2010

The ribbon has been cut and Air Products' hydrogen and fueling station technology is now on stream and will daily power Sysco Corporation's fleet of nearly 100 hydrogen fueled pallet trucks and forklifts operating at Sysco Corporation's new 585,000 square foot food service distribution facility in Houston, Texas. The facility and hydrogen powered material handling equipment was showcased to business leaders and government representatives today at a Sysco Corporation event.

"We have installed hydrogen fueling stations and infrastructure around the world. The material handling market continues to show growing interest in converting to hydrogen powered fuel-cell equipment. This is a leading edge decision that was made, and Sysco Corporation should be commended," said Nick Mittica, commercial manager - Hydrogen Energy Systems at Air Products.

This cost-shared hydrogen fuel-cell project includes a grant provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Fuel Cell Technology Program. This facility is Sysco Corporation's first greenfield installation without battery infrastructure for a material handling fleet.

Air Products' fueling infrastructure at Sysco Corporation includes an outdoor liquid hydrogen storage and compression system, along with multiple indoor fueling dispensers for operator refuelling. Air Products will fuel the fleet of pallet and reach trucks fitted with Plug Power's GenDrive(TM) hydrogen fuel-cell power units. The GenDrive systems can be quickly refuelled in less than five minutes, completely eliminating the need to change, store, charge and maintain multiple lead acid batteries per lift truck.

There are many advantages to using hydrogen powered forklifts and other material handling equipment. Hydrogen fuel-cell-powered equipment needs refuelling once or twice daily, depending on use. In contrast, traditional battery-powered equipment must be placed temporarily out of operation for battery replacement and required battery recharging approximately every four to six hours. Hydrogen fuel-cell-powered equipment provides consistent power strength during use and does not experience decreased performance or wear down as traditional lead acid battery units do as they near a required battery change out or recharge time. Additionally, hydrogen fuel-cell forklifts are not adversely impacted by temperature or by operating in coolers and freezers, in comparison to traditional battery performance. Further, hydrogen-powered fuel-cell equipment is more environmentally friendly because it does not involve lead-acid battery storage and disposal issues.

Air Products' hydrogen fueling technology is currently being used to fuel over 300 material handling vehicles including: fuel-cell powered pallet trucks at Wegmans Retail Service Center in Pottsville, Pa.; fuel-cell powered lift trucks at Central Grocers' new distribution center in Joliet, Ill.; hydrogen fuel-cell powered forklifts at Nestle Waters North America in Dallas, Tex.; hydrogen fuel-cell powered forklifts at the Defense Distribution Depot Susquehanna Pennsylvania in New Cumberland, Pa.; as well as hydrogen fuel-cell-powered forklifts at several other customers in the United States. In addition, mobile fueling equipment unique and patented by Air Products has been and continues to be deployed to a variety of customers for the purpose of demonstrating the technology in real world conditions.

Air Products, the leading hydrogen supplier to refineries to assist in making cleaner burning transportation fuels, has unique experience in the hydrogen fueling industry. In fact, in certain market applications, fueling rates at several individual sites of over 10,000 refills per year are occurring. These applications provide an opportunity to assess consumer experiences, evaluate product performance and advance product improvements. The company has placed over 110 hydrogen fueling stations in the United States and 18 countries worldwide. Cars, trucks, vans, buses, scooters, forklifts, locomotives, planes, cell towers, material handling equipment, and even submarines have been fueled with this trend-setting technology that involves Air Products' know-how, equipment and hydrogen. Use of the company's technology is increasing and is currently at 175,000 hydrogen fills per year.

Air Products has more than 50 years of hydrogen experience and is on the forefront of hydrogen energy technology development. Air Products has an extensive patent portfolio with over 50 patents in hydrogen dispensing technology. Air Products provides liquid and gaseous hydrogen, and HCNG (hydrogen/compressed natural gas) fueling, and has developed a variety of enabling devices and protocols for fuel dispensing at varied pressures. Hydrogen for these stations is delivered to a site via truck, produced by natural gas reformation, biomass conversion, or by electrolysis, including electrolysis that is solar and wind driven.

The burning question of renewable energy

Age
Saturday 19/6/2010 Page: 2

DESPERATE battle is being fought on the sidelines of the government debate about the new renewable energy target (RET) legislation and it is set to resume this week. The fight is about burning native forest timber and calling it renewable energy. The dollar figures involved megawatts of power generated - are small, but the environmental ramifications are huge, and emotions are running high. The federal government, urged on by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, continues perversely to support logging our remaining native forests even though a sagging woodchip market puts no value on the resource.

At the moment, under renewable target rules introduced in 2001, wood waste from native forest can only be burnt for renewable electricity if the trees were logged for a higher-value purpose such as sawmilling. But there are negative public perceptions associated with the use of wood waste from forestry, "considered environmentally destructive," according to a biomass resource appraisal for the Clean Energy Council. 'A common misconception is that bioenergy production will become a lucrative primary end use for wood and trigger a land-clearing bonanza.

Unfortunately, the fact that all timber production in Australia is governed by a strict and comprehensive regulatory framework to ensure environmental sustainability is often overlooked. This framework ensures that forest resources cannot be exploited for any form of wood production and wood waste bioenergy targets could be achieved without harvesting a single extra tree from 'business as usual' production." It is true that, up to now, not many renewable energy certificates (REC) have been generated from wood waste. According to the official register, just 1.2 million RECs over the past decade, or 5% of a total 24 million. But with the RET target rising from 2% by 2010, to 20% by 2020, the market opportunity will be significantly bigger.

The Clean Energy Council expects 7% of the RET, or 3000GW hours of renewable electricity, could be generated from wood waste by 2020, of which 40MWs of electricity generation capacity could be fired by native forest resource. It estimates 2.2 million tonnes of native forest wood waste - roughly a quarter of the total native forest logged annually - could be used. On the ABC's 7.30 Report on Thursday, Greens senator Christine Milne warned of this "massive loophole." Next week she will again move an amendment to remove native forest "furnaces" from the definition of renewable energy.

Depending what happens with the legislation, and if Milne's amendment fails, as expected, the final say may well lie with electricity retailers and other wholesale energy buyers (liable to buy a proportion of the power they use - rising to 20% by 2020 - from renewable sources). As of Thursday, conservation groups had written commitments from 11 electricity retailers, confirming they would not buy renewable energy certificates generated from burning native forest wood waste. They were: AGL Energy, Country Energy, EnergyAustralia, Origin Energy, TRUEnergy, Australian Power and Gas, Click Energy, ActewAGL Energy, Red Energy, Simply Energy and Victoria Electricity. That's a good chunk of the market.

Some have left themselves a little wiggle room: TRUEnergy states blankly that it will only use "commercially viable, environmentally responsible energy generation assets." And there are omissions: neither Integral Energy nor Tasmania's Aurora Energy have given commitments. The Energy Retailers Association of Australia is going to try to come up with an industry-wide policy. The fear is that, under present international carbon accounting rules, which allow Australia to ignore greenhouse gas emissions from forestry, generators burning heavily subsidised native timber generally supplied by state forestry agencies at a loss to the taxpayer-will sell power falsely designated as "carbon neutral" and "renewable," undercutting genuinely clean energy rivals. And they will get an extra subsidy to boot, in the form of a steady stream of RECs.

In Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales, proposals are being developed to tap in to this new income stream, which could transform the market for woodchips. The industry test case i s a proposal by South East Fibre Exports to build a 5.5MW biomass-fired power station at the huge woodchip mill at Eden in NSW. The plant would consume 57,700 tonnes of wood waste a year, drawn from its own forest operations and from nearby sawmills, to generate about 31GW hours of electricity, of which 9GW hours would power the mill and 22GW hours would be sold to the grid.

Majority owned by Japanese company Nippon Paper, SEFE hopes to spend $19 million on the power station, creating 30 jobs during construction and six permanently. SEFE chief executive Peter Mitchell says the proposal only stacks up because the mill has the waste at hand. "Even with the RECs, if you were to harvest waste in native forest for power generation, the returns aren't there."SEFE's proposal, currently with the NSW government, claims savings of 7508 tonnes of greenhouse gas a year under the current Kyoto Protocol carbon accounting rules, which do not count emissions from logging or burning the wood.

The Soutli-East Region Conservation Alliance submission counters that this claim is misleading and says wood-fired power is 6.4 times more greenhouse intensive than coal-fired power. It estimates that logging to supply the Eden mill is responsible for 18 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The revenue from RECs could make a real difference to the viability of native forest logging operations. Australian National University economist Judith Ajani, author of The Forest Wars, says Australia has a historic opportunity to end native forest logging.

"We had the choice not to go into chip exporting in the 1960s... that's what's driven the forest conflict for four decades," she says. "We're now facing that same choice today, whether to facilitate native forest resources moving into the electricity and biomass feedstock markets, or not. "If they choose to stove into these new markets - they are big markets - then we are facing another lost opportunity to resolve Australia's forest conflict."

paddy.manning@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Sweden to replace existing nuclear plants with new ones

news.bbc.co.uk
18 June 2010

The Swedish parliament has approved the replacement of old nuclear reactors with new ones, marking a change in policy on nuclear power. The plan, proposed by the government, passed narrowly by two votes. In 1980, a Swedish referendum decided to phase out reactors by 2010, although the target was later abandoned. Sweden's 10 reactors, at three power stations, supply as much as half of the country's electricity. The plan allows for new reactors to be built at the same site as the country's existing plants, but forbids the approval of new sites. The number of reactors is not allowed to exceed 10.

It passed by 174 votes to 172 against, with three MPs absent. The centre-left opposition said they would rescind the law if they win the next election, due in September. "Of course we will tear it up," said Tomas Eneroth from the Social Democratic Party. 'Trespassing' Environmental group Greenpeace said the move was "irresponsible." "The members of parliament show they do not take the environmental risks posed by nuclear power seriously, and that they do not trust in the enormous potential there is for Swedish renewable energy," Greenpeace spokesman Ludvig Tillman said.

Meanwhile, 29 activists appeared in court on trespassing charges after being arrested on Monday for allegedly breaking into the Forsmark nuclear power plant. The group, who include protesters from Britain, Germany and Poland, had been calling for parliamentarians to vote against the proposal. The Swedish parliament has approved the replacement of old nuclear reactors with new ones, marking a change in policy on nuclear power. The plan, proposed by the government, passed narrowly by two votes.

In 1980, a Swedish referendum decided to phase out reactors by 2010, although the target was later abandoned. Sweden's 10 reactors, at three power stations, supply as much as half of the country's electricity. The plan allows for new reactors to be built at the same site as the country's existing plants, but forbids the approval of new sites. The number of reactors is not allowed to exceed 10. It passed by 174 votes to 172 against, with three MPs absent. The centre-left opposition said they would rescind the law if they win the next election, due in September. "Of course we will tear it up," said Tomas Eneroth from the Social Democratic Party.

'Trespassing' Environmental group Greenpeace said the move was "irresponsible." "The members of parliament show they do not take the environmental risks posed by nuclear power seriously, and that they do not trust in the enormous potential there is for Swedish renewable energy," Greenpeace spokesman Ludvig Tillman said. Meanwhile, 29 activists appeared in court on trespassing charges after being arrested on Monday for allegedly breaking into the Forsmark nuclear power plant. The group, who include protesters from Britain, Germany and Poland, had been calling for parliamentarians to vote against the proposal.

Blowhard

Independent Weekly
Friday 18/6/2010 Page: 10

We will have to try a lot harder if Australia is to reach the Prime Minister's renewable energy target of 20% in a decade. Almost all renewable energy now comes from wind farms. Given that wind will have to provide the majority of the required new renewable energy, it's possible to calculate that we will need about one new wind turbine every day from now until 2020. At present there are only two wind farms being built in the whole of Australia: Waterloo, near Clare (37 turbines), and North Brown Hill, near Jamestown (63 turbines). It takes about 15 months to build a wind farm, so we can work out that the present construction rate is one turbine every four or five days - a fraction of the rate of construction needed.

David Clarke, Clare

Spain to cut photovoltaic solar-energy subsidies

www.nasdaq.com
Jun 17, 2010

The Spanish government has decided to lower subsidies on existing photovoltaic solar-energy plants by 30%, two people close to the situation said Wednesday. The Industry Ministry plans to limit the production hours it subsidises, so that when plants surpass this limit they will be remunerated at market rates, these people said. The government estimates the cut will save it EUR840 million. For new photovoltaic solar plants, the government will cut subsidies by 45% for open-field units and by 25% for rooftop units, they said. Ministry spokespeople weren't immediately available to comment. The ministry will make public the new tariffs by July 1. Spanish subsidies for photovoltaic solar energy totalled EUR2.8 billion in 2009, driving up the cost of the electricity for consumers.

UK to cut barriers to nuclear power, minister says

www.businessweek.com
June 16, 2010

Nuclear power can play a key role in the UK's future energy mix, Minister Charles Hendry told executives from Electricite de France SA, Centrica Plc and other utilities. While the new coalition government won't subsidise the industry, it will remove regulatory barriers and encourage nuclear power by establishing a minimum price for carbon, the energy minister said at the Nuclear Industry Forum in London. Britain, needing 200 billion pounds ($300 billion) to renew ageing power plants in the next two decades, will have to tap international investors for the first time, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

"It is for private-sector energy companies to construct, operate and decommission new nuclear plants," Hendry, a Conservative Party lawmaker, said today. "It will be for us to ensure the appropriate levels of safety, security and environmental regulation." Nuclear power was the main dividing line on energy policy between the two parties that make up the coalition government. The junior party, the Liberal Democrats, say atomic energy is too expensive. Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat, is the Cabinet minister leading Hendry's department. It was the minister's first speech on nuclear power since the coalition came to power last month. The government is seeking to make the UK "one of the most attractive places in Europe for investment in new nuclear," Hendry said.

EDF’s Planned Investment
EDF's unit in the UK, which along with Centrica plans to invest 20 billion pounds in building four new reactors in Britain, said in May that it's "reassured" by the agreement struck by the coalition parties allowing Liberal Democrat lawmakers to abstain from votes on nuclear issues. The Conservative-led government will still push the technology.

"The coalition agreement clearly sees a role for new nuclear, provided that there is no public subsidy," Hendry said. "From the commitment I've seen from the nuclear industry, I have no doubt that you can rise to the challenge." The newly elected coalition government, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, will make a decision on the level and time frame for creating a floor price on CO2 "as soon as we can," Hendry said.

Guaranteeing a price for European Union greenhouse-gas permits may help curb emissions in the UK, which has a domestic target to cut carbon-dioxide output by 34% from 1990 levels by 2020. The country is part of the European Trading Scheme, the world's largest emissions market, which is mandatory for heavy industry and power plants.

Not Penalising
"The view is that we can have a carbon floor price so then if the European Union trading scheme price is below that, then a supplementary charge will bring it up to that floor," Hendry said. "We're looking to put in place a structure that will drive new investment," he said. "This should not be seen as something that penalises old plants." Investors need to know what the cost of emissions is going to be by 2018 to 2020, the minister said, adding that the government is consulting a range of stakeholders about what level the floor should be set at. "If it is set too high, it ends up penalising consumers," he said. "If it is too low, people won't invest."