Iran provides finance for Zimbabwe's energy sector
A Zimbabwean diplomat announced that Iran has opened a multi-million-euro credit line to aid the African state in financing its energy sector.
Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Iran Nicholas Kitikiti said that Iran's €40 million credit line will finance energy, banking and industrial projects in the African country.
The funds would be used to rehabilitate the country's main power station to increase electricity supplies and reduce rationing, Kitikiti has said.
"The facility is there and waiting for us to harness. I am sure this will go a long way in assisting us in our economic development programs," Nicholas Kitikiti said, referring to the Iranian credit line.
He said Zimbabwe had already opened negotiations with Iran for further lines of credit covering the agriculture, health and technology sectors.
In April 2010, Iran and Zimbabwe signed 11 documents for expansion of cooperation between the two countries in different fields.
The protocols, signed during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the African state, envision cooperation in the fields of tourism, science, technology, youth affairs, transportation, aviation and education as well as lifting political and service visa issuance.
Furthermore, Iran's Export Guarantee Fund and Zimbabwe Finance Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the meeting as the two countries' officials agreed on formation of mutual investment companies and drawing up executive plans for scientific, cultural, and technical cooperation.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Lighting Control
Fluorescent Magnetic T12 Ballast: RIP
by Craig DiLouie, Lighting Controls Association
Posted July 2010
This month, Federal efficiency standards regulating fluorescent magnetic T12 ballasts entered their final phase, effectively eliminating these ballasts from the market, with few exceptions.
Between 2005 and 2010, efficiency standards created by Department of Energy regulations became phased into effect, covering magnetic ballasts designed to operate full-wattage F40T12, F96T12 and F96T12HO lamps.
By 2006, ballast manufacturers were no longer allowed to sell them to fixture manufacturers and fixture manufacturers were no longer allowed to sell them to the public.
As of July 1, 2010, ballast manufacturers were prohibited from manufacturing even replacement ballasts that did not meet the new standards.
Between July 2009 and July 2010, additional rules created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 went into effect that expanded the energy standards to cover energy-saving versions of these T12 lamps (e.g., 34W F40T12 lamps).
As no ballasts meet these standards, the industry's least-efficient fluorescent ballasts have been eliminated from the market, which will result in a shift to higher-efficiency ballasts (i.e., electronic) in existing installations. The market has already largely shifted to electronic ballasts in new fixtures but a significant number of magnetic ballasts are sold each year for replacement purposes in existing buildings. For example, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), about 7% of the ballast market was magnetic ballasts.
Even as owners begin to upgrade existing buildings, magnetic ballasts will continue to be sold, however. These include recognized exceptions, including ballasts designed:
• for dimming to 50 percent or less of their maximum light output;
• for use with two F96T12HO lamps at ambient temperatures of -20ºF and for use in outdoor signs; or
• labeled for use only in residential applications and have a power factor of less than 0.90.
On July 14, 2012, recently enacted DOE regulations will take effect that will also eliminate the T12 lamps that the ballasts operate.
The new DOE rules expand on efficiency rules established by the Energy Policy Act of 1992 by strengthening standards for covered lamps types while also covering 8-ft. T8 lamps, 4-ft. T5 lamps and more wattages of 4-ft. T8 and T12 lamps. The net result, with few exceptions, is a majority of 4-ft. linear and 2-ft. U-shaped T12 lamps, many 8-ft. T12 and T12HO, and some low-color-rendering 4-ft. T8 lamps will be eliminated. While no longer popular in new construction, an estimated 30 percent of fluorescent 4-ft. lamps sold every year are T12, according to NEMA market data.
For more information about the law and current product availability, consult the ballast manufacturers
by Craig DiLouie, Lighting Controls Association
Posted July 2010
This month, Federal efficiency standards regulating fluorescent magnetic T12 ballasts entered their final phase, effectively eliminating these ballasts from the market, with few exceptions.
Between 2005 and 2010, efficiency standards created by Department of Energy regulations became phased into effect, covering magnetic ballasts designed to operate full-wattage F40T12, F96T12 and F96T12HO lamps.
By 2006, ballast manufacturers were no longer allowed to sell them to fixture manufacturers and fixture manufacturers were no longer allowed to sell them to the public.
As of July 1, 2010, ballast manufacturers were prohibited from manufacturing even replacement ballasts that did not meet the new standards.
Between July 2009 and July 2010, additional rules created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 went into effect that expanded the energy standards to cover energy-saving versions of these T12 lamps (e.g., 34W F40T12 lamps).
As no ballasts meet these standards, the industry's least-efficient fluorescent ballasts have been eliminated from the market, which will result in a shift to higher-efficiency ballasts (i.e., electronic) in existing installations. The market has already largely shifted to electronic ballasts in new fixtures but a significant number of magnetic ballasts are sold each year for replacement purposes in existing buildings. For example, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), about 7% of the ballast market was magnetic ballasts.
Even as owners begin to upgrade existing buildings, magnetic ballasts will continue to be sold, however. These include recognized exceptions, including ballasts designed:
• for dimming to 50 percent or less of their maximum light output;
• for use with two F96T12HO lamps at ambient temperatures of -20ºF and for use in outdoor signs; or
• labeled for use only in residential applications and have a power factor of less than 0.90.
On July 14, 2012, recently enacted DOE regulations will take effect that will also eliminate the T12 lamps that the ballasts operate.
The new DOE rules expand on efficiency rules established by the Energy Policy Act of 1992 by strengthening standards for covered lamps types while also covering 8-ft. T8 lamps, 4-ft. T5 lamps and more wattages of 4-ft. T8 and T12 lamps. The net result, with few exceptions, is a majority of 4-ft. linear and 2-ft. U-shaped T12 lamps, many 8-ft. T12 and T12HO, and some low-color-rendering 4-ft. T8 lamps will be eliminated. While no longer popular in new construction, an estimated 30 percent of fluorescent 4-ft. lamps sold every year are T12, according to NEMA market data.
For more information about the law and current product availability, consult the ballast manufacturers
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Lighting control and energy management
China Fears Warming Effects of Consumer Wants
Jul 5, 2010 New York Times
GUANGZHOU, China — Premier Wen Jiabao has promised to use an “iron hand” this summer to make his nation more energy efficient. The central government has ordered cities to close inefficient factories by September, like the vast Guangzhou Steel mill here, where most of the 6,000 workers will be laid off or pushed into early retirement.
Already, in the last three years, China has shut down more than a thousand older coal-fired power plants that used technology of the sort still common in the United States. China has also surpassed the rest of the world as the biggest investor in wind turbines and other clean energy technology. And it has dictated tough new energy standards for lighting and gas mileage for cars.
But even as Beijing imposes the world’s most rigorous national energy campaign, the effort is being overwhelmed by the billionfold demands of Chinese consumers.
Chinese and Western energy experts worry that China’s energy challenge could become the world’s problem — possibly dooming any international efforts to place meaningful limits on global warming.
If China cannot meet its own energy-efficiency targets, the chances of avoiding widespread environmental damage from rising temperatures “are very close to zero,” said Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency in Paris.
Aspiring to a more Western standard of living, in many cases with the government’s encouragement, China’s population, 1.3 billion strong, is clamoring for more and bigger cars, for electricity-dependent home appliances and for more creature comforts like air-conditioned shopping malls.
As a result, China is actually becoming even less energy efficient. And because most of its energy is still produced by burning fossil fuels, China’s emission of carbon dioxide — a so-called greenhouse gas — is growing worse. This past winter and spring showed the largest six-month increase in tonnage ever by a single country.
Until recently, projections by both the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration in Washington had assumed that, even without an international energy agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, China would achieve rapid improvements in energy efficiency through 2020.
But now China is struggling to limit emissions even to the “business as usual” levels that climate models assume if the world does little to address global warming.
“We really have an arduous task” even to reach China’s existing energy-efficiency goals, said Gao Shixian, an energy official at the National Development and Reform Commission, in a speech at the Clean Energy Expo China in late June in Beijing.
China’s goal has been to reduce energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20 percent this year compared with 2005, and to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 compared with 2005.
But even if China can make the promised improvements, the International Energy Agency now projects that China’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases will grow more than the rest of the world’s combined increase by 2020. China, with one-fifth of the world’s population, is now on track to represent more than a quarter of humanity’s energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions.
Industry by industry, energy demand in China is increasing so fast that the broader efficiency targets are becoming harder to hit.
¶Although China has passed the United States in the average efficiency of its coal-fired power plants, demand for electricity is so voracious that China last year built new coal-fired plants with a total capacity greater than all existing power plants in New York State.
¶While China has imposed lighting efficiency standards on new buildings and is drafting similar standards for household appliances, construction of apartment and office buildings proceeds at a frenzied pace. And rural sales of refrigerators, washing machines and other large household appliances more than doubled in the past year in response to government subsidies aimed at helping 700 million peasants afford modern amenities.
¶As the economy becomes more reliant on domestic demand instead of exports, growth is shifting toward energy-hungry steel and cement production and away from light industries like toys and apparel.
¶Chinese cars get 40 percent better gas mileage on average than American cars because they tend to be much smaller and have weaker engines. And China is drafting regulations that would require cars within each size category to improve their mileage by 18 percent over the next five years. But China’s auto market soared 48 percent in 2009, surpassing the American market for the first time, and car sales are rising almost as rapidly again this year.
One of the newest factors in China’s energy use has emerged beyond the planning purview of policy makers in Beijing, in the form of labor unrest at factories across the country.
An older generation of low-wage migrant workers accepted hot dormitories and factories with barely a fan to keep them cool, one of many reasons Chinese emissions per person are still a third of American emissions per person. Besides higher pay, young Chinese are now demanding their own 100-square-foot studio apartments, with air-conditioning at home and in factories. Indeed, one of the demands by workers who went on strike in May at a Honda transmission factory in Foshan was that the air-conditioning thermostats be set lower.
Chinese regulations still mandate that the air-conditioning in most places be set no cooler than 79 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. But upscale shopping malls have long been exempt from the thermostat controls and have maintained much cooler temperatures through the summers. Now, as the consumer economy takes root, those malls are proliferating in cities across China.
Premier Wen acknowledged in a statement after a cabinet meeting in May that the efficiency gains had started to reverse and actually deteriorated by 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. He cited a lack of controls on energy-intensive industries, although the economic rebound from the global financial crisis may have also played a role.
Global climate discussions, in pinning hopes on China’s ability to vastly improve its efficient use of energy, have tended to cite International Energy Agency data showing that China uses twice as much energy per dollar of output as the United States and three times as much as the European Union. The implicit assumption is that China can greatly improve efficiency because it must still be relying mainly on wasteful, aging boilers and outmoded power plants.
But David Fridley, a longtime specialist in China’s energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said that the comparison to the United States and the European Union was misleading.
Manufacturing makes up three times as much of the Chinese economy as it does the American economy, and it is energy-intensive. If the United States had much more manufacturing, Mr. Fridley said, it would also use considerably more energy per dollar of output.
“China has been trying to grab the low-lying fruit — to find those opportunities where increased efficiency can save money and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate change specialist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif. “It is starting to look like it might not be that easy to find and grab this fruit.”
Jul 5, 2010 New York Times
GUANGZHOU, China — Premier Wen Jiabao has promised to use an “iron hand” this summer to make his nation more energy efficient. The central government has ordered cities to close inefficient factories by September, like the vast Guangzhou Steel mill here, where most of the 6,000 workers will be laid off or pushed into early retirement.
Already, in the last three years, China has shut down more than a thousand older coal-fired power plants that used technology of the sort still common in the United States. China has also surpassed the rest of the world as the biggest investor in wind turbines and other clean energy technology. And it has dictated tough new energy standards for lighting and gas mileage for cars.
But even as Beijing imposes the world’s most rigorous national energy campaign, the effort is being overwhelmed by the billionfold demands of Chinese consumers.
Chinese and Western energy experts worry that China’s energy challenge could become the world’s problem — possibly dooming any international efforts to place meaningful limits on global warming.
If China cannot meet its own energy-efficiency targets, the chances of avoiding widespread environmental damage from rising temperatures “are very close to zero,” said Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency in Paris.
Aspiring to a more Western standard of living, in many cases with the government’s encouragement, China’s population, 1.3 billion strong, is clamoring for more and bigger cars, for electricity-dependent home appliances and for more creature comforts like air-conditioned shopping malls.
As a result, China is actually becoming even less energy efficient. And because most of its energy is still produced by burning fossil fuels, China’s emission of carbon dioxide — a so-called greenhouse gas — is growing worse. This past winter and spring showed the largest six-month increase in tonnage ever by a single country.
Until recently, projections by both the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration in Washington had assumed that, even without an international energy agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, China would achieve rapid improvements in energy efficiency through 2020.
But now China is struggling to limit emissions even to the “business as usual” levels that climate models assume if the world does little to address global warming.
“We really have an arduous task” even to reach China’s existing energy-efficiency goals, said Gao Shixian, an energy official at the National Development and Reform Commission, in a speech at the Clean Energy Expo China in late June in Beijing.
China’s goal has been to reduce energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20 percent this year compared with 2005, and to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 compared with 2005.
But even if China can make the promised improvements, the International Energy Agency now projects that China’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases will grow more than the rest of the world’s combined increase by 2020. China, with one-fifth of the world’s population, is now on track to represent more than a quarter of humanity’s energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions.
Industry by industry, energy demand in China is increasing so fast that the broader efficiency targets are becoming harder to hit.
¶Although China has passed the United States in the average efficiency of its coal-fired power plants, demand for electricity is so voracious that China last year built new coal-fired plants with a total capacity greater than all existing power plants in New York State.
¶While China has imposed lighting efficiency standards on new buildings and is drafting similar standards for household appliances, construction of apartment and office buildings proceeds at a frenzied pace. And rural sales of refrigerators, washing machines and other large household appliances more than doubled in the past year in response to government subsidies aimed at helping 700 million peasants afford modern amenities.
¶As the economy becomes more reliant on domestic demand instead of exports, growth is shifting toward energy-hungry steel and cement production and away from light industries like toys and apparel.
¶Chinese cars get 40 percent better gas mileage on average than American cars because they tend to be much smaller and have weaker engines. And China is drafting regulations that would require cars within each size category to improve their mileage by 18 percent over the next five years. But China’s auto market soared 48 percent in 2009, surpassing the American market for the first time, and car sales are rising almost as rapidly again this year.
One of the newest factors in China’s energy use has emerged beyond the planning purview of policy makers in Beijing, in the form of labor unrest at factories across the country.
An older generation of low-wage migrant workers accepted hot dormitories and factories with barely a fan to keep them cool, one of many reasons Chinese emissions per person are still a third of American emissions per person. Besides higher pay, young Chinese are now demanding their own 100-square-foot studio apartments, with air-conditioning at home and in factories. Indeed, one of the demands by workers who went on strike in May at a Honda transmission factory in Foshan was that the air-conditioning thermostats be set lower.
Chinese regulations still mandate that the air-conditioning in most places be set no cooler than 79 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. But upscale shopping malls have long been exempt from the thermostat controls and have maintained much cooler temperatures through the summers. Now, as the consumer economy takes root, those malls are proliferating in cities across China.
Premier Wen acknowledged in a statement after a cabinet meeting in May that the efficiency gains had started to reverse and actually deteriorated by 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. He cited a lack of controls on energy-intensive industries, although the economic rebound from the global financial crisis may have also played a role.
Global climate discussions, in pinning hopes on China’s ability to vastly improve its efficient use of energy, have tended to cite International Energy Agency data showing that China uses twice as much energy per dollar of output as the United States and three times as much as the European Union. The implicit assumption is that China can greatly improve efficiency because it must still be relying mainly on wasteful, aging boilers and outmoded power plants.
But David Fridley, a longtime specialist in China’s energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said that the comparison to the United States and the European Union was misleading.
Manufacturing makes up three times as much of the Chinese economy as it does the American economy, and it is energy-intensive. If the United States had much more manufacturing, Mr. Fridley said, it would also use considerably more energy per dollar of output.
“China has been trying to grab the low-lying fruit — to find those opportunities where increased efficiency can save money and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate change specialist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif. “It is starting to look like it might not be that easy to find and grab this fruit.”
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Lighting control and automation
Take the IEEE Green Your World Challenge to Celebrate World Environment Day, 5 June 2010
Jun 1, 2010 Canada NewsWire Group
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Jun. 1, 2010 (Canada NewsWire Group delivered by Newstex) -- /CNW/ --
In celebration of the 2010 World Environment Day (WED), and the positive impact global sustainability technologies have made on the environment, IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association, initiates a call-to-action: asking citizens of the world to accept the IEEE Green Your World Challenge.
Take the Challenge! Starting 1 June 2010, and continuing throughout the week leading up to WED (5 June 2010), IEEE invites individuals from around the globe to take one or more of the five challenges, and commit to making simple, yet powerful changes in daily life that can benefit humanity and the environment:
-- Step into the (Energy Efficient) Light: Replace incandescent light
bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) or light emitting
diode (LED) light bulbs
-- Be an e-Waste Hero: Find a local electronics recycler, and
eco-consciously dispose of old computers, TVs, and mobile phones
-- Every Drop Counts: Reduce your daily in-home water usage
-- Reforest Your Community: Plant a tree or garden and create a
sustainable future
-- Stop 'Energy Vampires' from Draining Your Resources: Unplug standby
electronics
"When it comes to our environment, we must be agents of change in our daily routines and in our support for sustainable developments through advancements in technology," said Pedro Ray, 2010 IEEE president and chief executive officer. "IEEE and its members are working globally to capitalize on the impact technology plays in sustainability efforts - from implementing water conservation and irrigation systems in underserved areas, and lowering the carbon footprint of consumer devices by engineering smaller, faster semiconductors, to preserving the Earth's natural resources by exploring new alternative energy sources. I encourage every individual to take the IEEE Green Your World Challenge and do their part to better serve this planet."
Take the IEEE Green Your World Challenge and commit to an environmental change that will impact our future: http://www.ieeegreenyourworld.org.
After taking the Challenge, explore which challenges other people have taken around the globe, and check out the IEEE Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ieeegreenyourworld and Twitter feed (@IEEEorg) - to get regular updates on the IEEE Green Your World Challenge.
The IEEE Green Your World Challenge is registered with the United Nations Environmental Programme - WED 2010, which aims to be the most widely celebrated, global day for positive, environmental action. By celebrating WED, IEEE is linking individuals around the globe in support of environmental issues.
About IEEE
IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association, is dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities, IEEE is the trusted voice on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Learn more at http://www.ieee.org.
Newstex ID: PRN-0001-45597194
Jun 1, 2010 Canada NewsWire Group
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Jun. 1, 2010 (Canada NewsWire Group delivered by Newstex) -- /CNW/ --
In celebration of the 2010 World Environment Day (WED), and the positive impact global sustainability technologies have made on the environment, IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association, initiates a call-to-action: asking citizens of the world to accept the IEEE Green Your World Challenge.
Take the Challenge! Starting 1 June 2010, and continuing throughout the week leading up to WED (5 June 2010), IEEE invites individuals from around the globe to take one or more of the five challenges, and commit to making simple, yet powerful changes in daily life that can benefit humanity and the environment:
-- Step into the (Energy Efficient) Light: Replace incandescent light
bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) or light emitting
diode (LED) light bulbs
-- Be an e-Waste Hero: Find a local electronics recycler, and
eco-consciously dispose of old computers, TVs, and mobile phones
-- Every Drop Counts: Reduce your daily in-home water usage
-- Reforest Your Community: Plant a tree or garden and create a
sustainable future
-- Stop 'Energy Vampires' from Draining Your Resources: Unplug standby
electronics
"When it comes to our environment, we must be agents of change in our daily routines and in our support for sustainable developments through advancements in technology," said Pedro Ray, 2010 IEEE president and chief executive officer. "IEEE and its members are working globally to capitalize on the impact technology plays in sustainability efforts - from implementing water conservation and irrigation systems in underserved areas, and lowering the carbon footprint of consumer devices by engineering smaller, faster semiconductors, to preserving the Earth's natural resources by exploring new alternative energy sources. I encourage every individual to take the IEEE Green Your World Challenge and do their part to better serve this planet."
Take the IEEE Green Your World Challenge and commit to an environmental change that will impact our future: http://www.ieeegreenyourworld.org.
After taking the Challenge, explore which challenges other people have taken around the globe, and check out the IEEE Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ieeegreenyourworld and Twitter feed (@IEEEorg) - to get regular updates on the IEEE Green Your World Challenge.
The IEEE Green Your World Challenge is registered with the United Nations Environmental Programme - WED 2010, which aims to be the most widely celebrated, global day for positive, environmental action. By celebrating WED, IEEE is linking individuals around the globe in support of environmental issues.
About IEEE
IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association, is dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities, IEEE is the trusted voice on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Learn more at http://www.ieee.org.
Newstex ID: PRN-0001-45597194
Monday, May 24, 2010
Green Energy
6. Anti-plastic bag drive gains momentum
May 24, 2010 Bangkok Post
Pitsinee Jitpleecheep
May 24, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Retailers of all sizes are being asked to co-operate with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) on its new environmental programme to reduce the usage of plastic bags in Bangkok.
Porntep Techapaibul, a BMA deputy governor, said the capital generated about 10,000 tonnes of garbage per day. Of the total, up to 1,800 tonnes are plastic bags, the use of which rises by about 20% a year. The BMA has to allocate about 600 million baht to get rid of such garbage each year.
Given high concern about global warming, the BMA will encourage residents to take part in the 'Krungthep Yim Sod Sai Rai Tung Plastic' campaign, under the slogan under 'No Bag No Baht'. A pilot project started at the Chatuchak weekend market last week.
The campaign will expand to another eight markets owned by the BMA including Sanam Luang II, Prachachuen and Min Buri to test consumer response.
Under the campaign, customers who buy goods at shops at nine BMA markets will receive a one-baht discount for every 100 baht they pay if they bring fabric bags. At the same time, shoppers have to pay one baht per plastic bag. The measure will be enforced officially from Environment Day on June 5.
Proceeds from the "bag tax" will be used to help solve global warming problems or produce recycled bags.
Apart from the markets, the BMA also negotiated with leading retailers such as The Mall Group, Central Department Store, Tesco Lotus and Home Pro to join the campaign. Tesco Lotus and Home Pro are already taking part and more retailers are expected to join over the next two to three months.
"We hope the campaign will help gradually change the behaviour of Bangkokians and cap usage of plastic bags in Bangkok at 1,800 tonnes per day. However, if anything changes and the usage of plastic bags is more than 1,800 tonnes per day, we will consider some tax measures or increase household garbage collection fees to 360 baht per year from 240 baht currently," Mr Porntep said.
Newstex ID: KRTB-0199-45332329
May 24, 2010 Bangkok Post
Pitsinee Jitpleecheep
May 24, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Retailers of all sizes are being asked to co-operate with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) on its new environmental programme to reduce the usage of plastic bags in Bangkok.
Porntep Techapaibul, a BMA deputy governor, said the capital generated about 10,000 tonnes of garbage per day. Of the total, up to 1,800 tonnes are plastic bags, the use of which rises by about 20% a year. The BMA has to allocate about 600 million baht to get rid of such garbage each year.
Given high concern about global warming, the BMA will encourage residents to take part in the 'Krungthep Yim Sod Sai Rai Tung Plastic' campaign, under the slogan under 'No Bag No Baht'. A pilot project started at the Chatuchak weekend market last week.
The campaign will expand to another eight markets owned by the BMA including Sanam Luang II, Prachachuen and Min Buri to test consumer response.
Under the campaign, customers who buy goods at shops at nine BMA markets will receive a one-baht discount for every 100 baht they pay if they bring fabric bags. At the same time, shoppers have to pay one baht per plastic bag. The measure will be enforced officially from Environment Day on June 5.
Proceeds from the "bag tax" will be used to help solve global warming problems or produce recycled bags.
Apart from the markets, the BMA also negotiated with leading retailers such as The Mall Group, Central Department Store, Tesco Lotus and Home Pro to join the campaign. Tesco Lotus and Home Pro are already taking part and more retailers are expected to join over the next two to three months.
"We hope the campaign will help gradually change the behaviour of Bangkokians and cap usage of plastic bags in Bangkok at 1,800 tonnes per day. However, if anything changes and the usage of plastic bags is more than 1,800 tonnes per day, we will consider some tax measures or increase household garbage collection fees to 360 baht per year from 240 baht currently," Mr Porntep said.
Newstex ID: KRTB-0199-45332329
Monday, May 10, 2010
Home Automation
7. China’s Soaring Energy Use Weakens Pledge on Efficiency
May 7, 2010 New York Times
HONG KONG — Even as China has set ambitious goals for itself in clean-energy production and reduction of global warming gases, the country’s surging demand for power from oil and coal has led to the largest six-month increase in the tonnage of human generated greenhouse gases ever by a single country.
China’s leaders are so concerned about rising energy use and declining energy efficiency that the cabinet held a special meeting this week to discuss the problem, according to a statement Thursday from the ministry of industry and information technology. Coal-fired electricity and oil sales each climbed 24 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, on the heels of similar increases in the fourth quarter
Premier Wen Jiabao promised tougher policies to enforce energy conservation, including a ban on government approval of any new projects by companies that failed to eliminate inefficient capacity, the ministry said. Mr. Wen also said that China had to find a way to meet the target in its current five-year plan of a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency.
“We can never break our pledge, stagger our resolution or weaken our efforts, no matter how difficult it is,” Mr. Wen said. Western experts say it will be hard to meet the target, but that China’s leaders seem determined.
“No country of this size has seen energy demand grow this fast before in absolute terms, and those who are most concerned about this are the Chinese themselves,” said Jonathan Sinton, the China program manager at the International Energy Agency in Paris.
China has been the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases each year since 2006, leading the United States by an ever-widening margin. A failure by China to meet its own energy efficiency targets would be a big setback for international efforts to limit such emissions.
Such a failure would also be a potential diplomatic embarrassment for the Chinese government, which promised the world just before the Copenhagen climate summit meeting in December that it would improve energy efficiency.
The issue has major economic implications for China and for global energy markets. The nation’s ravenous appetite for fossil fuels is driven by China’s shifting economic base — away from light export industries like garment and shoe production and toward energy-intensive heavy industries like steel and cement manufacturing for cars and construction for the domestic market.
Almost all urban households in China now have a washing machine, a refrigerator and an air-conditioner, according to government statistics. Rural ownership of appliances is now soaring as well because of new government subsidies for their purchase since late 2008.
Car ownership is rising rapidly in the cities, while bicycle ownership is actually falling in rural areas as more families buy motorcycles and light trucks.
General Motors announced on Thursday that its sales in China rose 41 percent in April from a year earlier, virtually all of the vehicles made in China because of high import taxes.
Zhou Xi’an, a National Energy Administration official, said in a statement last month that fossil fuel consumption was likely to increase further in the second quarter of this year because of rising car ownership, diesel use in the increasingly mechanized agricultural sector and extra jet fuel consumption for travelers to the Shanghai Expo.
The shift in the composition of China’s economic output is overwhelming the effects of China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy and its existing energy conservation program, energy experts said.
The increase in energy consumption in the first quarter was twice as fast as economic growth of about 12 percent during that period, a sign that rising energy consumption is not just the result of a rebounding economy but also of changes in the mix of industrial activity. The shift in activity is partly because of China’s economic stimulus program, which has resulted in a surge in public works construction that requires a lot of steel and cement.
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, which many scientists describe as the biggest man-made contributor to global warming.
President Hu Jintao pledged in November that by 2020 the Chinese government would slow its growth in greenhouse gases by sharply improving energy efficiency. Mr. Wen went to the Copenhagen climate meeting three weeks later and opposed any international monitoring of China’s energy efficiency effort or binding limits on China’s overall energy consumption.
China’s current five-year plan, from 2006 to 2010, already sets an efficiency target that the country may now be less likely to meet.
The plan calls for the energy needed for each unit of economic output to decline by 20 percent in 2010 compared to 2005.
For a while, China seemed to be on track toward that goal. According to the ministry of industry and information technology, energy efficiency actually improved by more than 14 percent from 2005 to 2009.
But it deteriorated by 3.2 percent in the first quarter, the ministry said on Thursday.
Mr. Wen said that this deterioration would make it “particularly difficult” for China to meet the 20 percent target.
Without big policy changes, like raising fuel taxes, “they can’t possibly make it,” said Julie Beatty, principal energy economist at Wood Mackenzie, a big energy consulting firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Mr. Hu promised last November that China would improve the energy efficiency of its economy by 40 to 45 percent by 2020. The ministry statement on Thursday did not mention whether Mr. Hu’s promise might still be achievable.
Complicating energy efficiency calculations is the fact that China’s National Bureau of Statistics has begun a comprehensive revision of all of the country’s energy statistics for the last 10 years, restating them with more of the details commonly available in other countries’ data. Western experts also expect the revision to show that China has been using even more energy and releasing even more greenhouse gases than previously thought.
Revising the data now runs the risk that other countries will distrust the results and demand greater international monitoring of any future pledges by China. If the National Bureau of Statistics revises up the 2005 data more than recent data, for example, then China might appear to have met its target at the end of this year for a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency.
China’s recent embrace of renewable energy has done little so far to slow the rise in emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
Wind energy effectively doubled in this year’s first quarter compared with a year earlier, as China has emerged as the world’s largest manufacturer and installer of wind turbines. But wind still accounts for just 2 percent of China’s electricity capacity — and only 1 percent of actual output, because the wind does not blow all the time.
Meanwhile, fuel-intensive heavy industry output rose 22 percent in the first quarter in China from a year earlier, while light industry increased 14 percent.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations research unit, said in an e-mail message that he believed China was serious about addressing its emissions.
“There is a growing realization within Chinese society that major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would be of overall benefit to China,” he wrote after learning of the latest Chinese energy statistics. “This is important not only for global reasons, because China is now responsible for the highest emissions of greenhouse gases, but also because its per capita emissions are increasing at a rapid rate.”
To some extent, China’s energy consumption now might actually help limit its global warming emissions in the future.
China, for example, used 200 million tons of cement in building rail lines last year, while the entire American economy only used 93 million tons, said David Fridley, a China energy specialist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Although production of that cement raised energy use and emissions of global warming gases, it also expanded a rail system that is among the most energy-efficient in the world.
China currently moves only 55 percent of its coal by rail, for example, which is down from 80 percent a decade ago, as many coal users have been forced by inadequate rail capacity to haul coal in trucks instead. The trucks burn 10 or more times as much fuel per mile to haul a ton of coal, Mr. Fridley said.
But now, with new high-speed passenger lines leaving more room on older lines to haul coal and other freight, the percentages could begin shifting away from energy-inefficient trucking, he said.
May 7, 2010 New York Times
HONG KONG — Even as China has set ambitious goals for itself in clean-energy production and reduction of global warming gases, the country’s surging demand for power from oil and coal has led to the largest six-month increase in the tonnage of human generated greenhouse gases ever by a single country.
China’s leaders are so concerned about rising energy use and declining energy efficiency that the cabinet held a special meeting this week to discuss the problem, according to a statement Thursday from the ministry of industry and information technology. Coal-fired electricity and oil sales each climbed 24 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, on the heels of similar increases in the fourth quarter
Premier Wen Jiabao promised tougher policies to enforce energy conservation, including a ban on government approval of any new projects by companies that failed to eliminate inefficient capacity, the ministry said. Mr. Wen also said that China had to find a way to meet the target in its current five-year plan of a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency.
“We can never break our pledge, stagger our resolution or weaken our efforts, no matter how difficult it is,” Mr. Wen said. Western experts say it will be hard to meet the target, but that China’s leaders seem determined.
“No country of this size has seen energy demand grow this fast before in absolute terms, and those who are most concerned about this are the Chinese themselves,” said Jonathan Sinton, the China program manager at the International Energy Agency in Paris.
China has been the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases each year since 2006, leading the United States by an ever-widening margin. A failure by China to meet its own energy efficiency targets would be a big setback for international efforts to limit such emissions.
Such a failure would also be a potential diplomatic embarrassment for the Chinese government, which promised the world just before the Copenhagen climate summit meeting in December that it would improve energy efficiency.
The issue has major economic implications for China and for global energy markets. The nation’s ravenous appetite for fossil fuels is driven by China’s shifting economic base — away from light export industries like garment and shoe production and toward energy-intensive heavy industries like steel and cement manufacturing for cars and construction for the domestic market.
Almost all urban households in China now have a washing machine, a refrigerator and an air-conditioner, according to government statistics. Rural ownership of appliances is now soaring as well because of new government subsidies for their purchase since late 2008.
Car ownership is rising rapidly in the cities, while bicycle ownership is actually falling in rural areas as more families buy motorcycles and light trucks.
General Motors announced on Thursday that its sales in China rose 41 percent in April from a year earlier, virtually all of the vehicles made in China because of high import taxes.
Zhou Xi’an, a National Energy Administration official, said in a statement last month that fossil fuel consumption was likely to increase further in the second quarter of this year because of rising car ownership, diesel use in the increasingly mechanized agricultural sector and extra jet fuel consumption for travelers to the Shanghai Expo.
The shift in the composition of China’s economic output is overwhelming the effects of China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy and its existing energy conservation program, energy experts said.
The increase in energy consumption in the first quarter was twice as fast as economic growth of about 12 percent during that period, a sign that rising energy consumption is not just the result of a rebounding economy but also of changes in the mix of industrial activity. The shift in activity is partly because of China’s economic stimulus program, which has resulted in a surge in public works construction that requires a lot of steel and cement.
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, which many scientists describe as the biggest man-made contributor to global warming.
President Hu Jintao pledged in November that by 2020 the Chinese government would slow its growth in greenhouse gases by sharply improving energy efficiency. Mr. Wen went to the Copenhagen climate meeting three weeks later and opposed any international monitoring of China’s energy efficiency effort or binding limits on China’s overall energy consumption.
China’s current five-year plan, from 2006 to 2010, already sets an efficiency target that the country may now be less likely to meet.
The plan calls for the energy needed for each unit of economic output to decline by 20 percent in 2010 compared to 2005.
For a while, China seemed to be on track toward that goal. According to the ministry of industry and information technology, energy efficiency actually improved by more than 14 percent from 2005 to 2009.
But it deteriorated by 3.2 percent in the first quarter, the ministry said on Thursday.
Mr. Wen said that this deterioration would make it “particularly difficult” for China to meet the 20 percent target.
Without big policy changes, like raising fuel taxes, “they can’t possibly make it,” said Julie Beatty, principal energy economist at Wood Mackenzie, a big energy consulting firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Mr. Hu promised last November that China would improve the energy efficiency of its economy by 40 to 45 percent by 2020. The ministry statement on Thursday did not mention whether Mr. Hu’s promise might still be achievable.
Complicating energy efficiency calculations is the fact that China’s National Bureau of Statistics has begun a comprehensive revision of all of the country’s energy statistics for the last 10 years, restating them with more of the details commonly available in other countries’ data. Western experts also expect the revision to show that China has been using even more energy and releasing even more greenhouse gases than previously thought.
Revising the data now runs the risk that other countries will distrust the results and demand greater international monitoring of any future pledges by China. If the National Bureau of Statistics revises up the 2005 data more than recent data, for example, then China might appear to have met its target at the end of this year for a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency.
China’s recent embrace of renewable energy has done little so far to slow the rise in emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
Wind energy effectively doubled in this year’s first quarter compared with a year earlier, as China has emerged as the world’s largest manufacturer and installer of wind turbines. But wind still accounts for just 2 percent of China’s electricity capacity — and only 1 percent of actual output, because the wind does not blow all the time.
Meanwhile, fuel-intensive heavy industry output rose 22 percent in the first quarter in China from a year earlier, while light industry increased 14 percent.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations research unit, said in an e-mail message that he believed China was serious about addressing its emissions.
“There is a growing realization within Chinese society that major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would be of overall benefit to China,” he wrote after learning of the latest Chinese energy statistics. “This is important not only for global reasons, because China is now responsible for the highest emissions of greenhouse gases, but also because its per capita emissions are increasing at a rapid rate.”
To some extent, China’s energy consumption now might actually help limit its global warming emissions in the future.
China, for example, used 200 million tons of cement in building rail lines last year, while the entire American economy only used 93 million tons, said David Fridley, a China energy specialist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Although production of that cement raised energy use and emissions of global warming gases, it also expanded a rail system that is among the most energy-efficient in the world.
China currently moves only 55 percent of its coal by rail, for example, which is down from 80 percent a decade ago, as many coal users have been forced by inadequate rail capacity to haul coal in trucks instead. The trucks burn 10 or more times as much fuel per mile to haul a ton of coal, Mr. Fridley said.
But now, with new high-speed passenger lines leaving more room on older lines to haul coal and other freight, the percentages could begin shifting away from energy-inefficient trucking, he said.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
home automation
Climate bill could be harmed by Gulf spill
May 1, 2010 Associated Press Online
By MATTHEW DALY and NOAKI SCHWARTZ
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2010 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- A historic environmental protection bill is in danger after a massive oil spill put a new focus on the perils of offshore drilling, a feature that was supposed to win wider support for the legislation.
The bill, supported by President Barack Obama, calls for new offshore drilling -- a concession by environmentalists. But with the tragedy off the Gulf Coast growing daily, even conservationists who have waited a decade for the legislation are now saying it will fail if offshore drilling remains in the bill.
"When you're trying to resurrect a climate bill that's face-down in the mud and you want to bring it back to life and get it breathing again, I don't think you can have offshore drilling against the backdrop of what's transpiring in the Louisiana wetlands," said Richard Charter, energy adviser to Defenders of Wildlife. "I think it's flat-lined."
Some Democrats, including two of New Jersey's congressmen and both of its senators, threatened Friday to pull their support if offshore drilling is included in the bill designed to curb emissions of pollution-causing gases blamed for global warming.
Introduction of the legislation was postponed on Monday for an unrelated reason. The bill aims to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and it also would expand domestic production of oil, natural gas and nuclear power.
Obama called for new offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean from Delaware to central Florida, and the northern waters of Alaska. He also asked Congress to lift a drilling ban in the oil-rich eastern Gulf of Mexico, 125 miles from Florida beaches.
The images of last week's explosion and the growing, uncontrolled spill in the Gulf of Mexico made the bill's road to approval much more difficult. The accident, which threatens wildlife and fishing grounds along the Gulf Coast, will likely force many wavering lawmakers to reconsider whether they support expanded drilling.
"I think that's dead on arrival," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, told CNN on Friday.
But South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday he has not wavered in his support. "We've had problems with car design, but you don't stop driving," he told The Greenville News. "The Challenger accident was heart-breaking but we went back to space."
A White House spokesman said this week that President Barack Obama remains committed, at least for now, to plans to expand drilling to new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.
But David Jenkins, a spokesman for Republicans for Environmental Protection, said the politics of offshore drilling are "changing by the minute" as the spreading slick of oil threatens coastal states that traditionally support drilling.
"If this plays out, how many politicians will be jumping up and saying they won't vote for this because it doesn't include offshore drilling?" Jenkins said.
While the environmental community never embraced drilling, some muted or at least downplayed their opposition to Obama's proposal for the sake of the larger climate bill, said Steve Cochran, with the Environmental Defense Fund.
While the spill essentially kills any proposal for more drilling, he said it also demonstrates more than ever the need for a comprehensive energy bill that protects the environment.
"We need to take advantage of the opportunity of this bill to make sure we never face this situation again," he said.
Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club, agreed. He said the authors of the bill will have to come up with a new formula to attract support from moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans.
"The oil industry spent 40 years building a story line that it knew what it was doing underwater and because it knew what it was doing we could allow it to turn our most sensitive coastline into oilfields," he said. "We've now been reminded once again that oil and water do not mix."
Newstex ID: AP-0001-44515662
May 1, 2010 Associated Press Online
By MATTHEW DALY and NOAKI SCHWARTZ
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2010 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- A historic environmental protection bill is in danger after a massive oil spill put a new focus on the perils of offshore drilling, a feature that was supposed to win wider support for the legislation.
The bill, supported by President Barack Obama, calls for new offshore drilling -- a concession by environmentalists. But with the tragedy off the Gulf Coast growing daily, even conservationists who have waited a decade for the legislation are now saying it will fail if offshore drilling remains in the bill.
"When you're trying to resurrect a climate bill that's face-down in the mud and you want to bring it back to life and get it breathing again, I don't think you can have offshore drilling against the backdrop of what's transpiring in the Louisiana wetlands," said Richard Charter, energy adviser to Defenders of Wildlife. "I think it's flat-lined."
Some Democrats, including two of New Jersey's congressmen and both of its senators, threatened Friday to pull their support if offshore drilling is included in the bill designed to curb emissions of pollution-causing gases blamed for global warming.
Introduction of the legislation was postponed on Monday for an unrelated reason. The bill aims to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and it also would expand domestic production of oil, natural gas and nuclear power.
Obama called for new offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean from Delaware to central Florida, and the northern waters of Alaska. He also asked Congress to lift a drilling ban in the oil-rich eastern Gulf of Mexico, 125 miles from Florida beaches.
The images of last week's explosion and the growing, uncontrolled spill in the Gulf of Mexico made the bill's road to approval much more difficult. The accident, which threatens wildlife and fishing grounds along the Gulf Coast, will likely force many wavering lawmakers to reconsider whether they support expanded drilling.
"I think that's dead on arrival," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, told CNN on Friday.
But South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday he has not wavered in his support. "We've had problems with car design, but you don't stop driving," he told The Greenville News. "The Challenger accident was heart-breaking but we went back to space."
A White House spokesman said this week that President Barack Obama remains committed, at least for now, to plans to expand drilling to new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.
But David Jenkins, a spokesman for Republicans for Environmental Protection, said the politics of offshore drilling are "changing by the minute" as the spreading slick of oil threatens coastal states that traditionally support drilling.
"If this plays out, how many politicians will be jumping up and saying they won't vote for this because it doesn't include offshore drilling?" Jenkins said.
While the environmental community never embraced drilling, some muted or at least downplayed their opposition to Obama's proposal for the sake of the larger climate bill, said Steve Cochran, with the Environmental Defense Fund.
While the spill essentially kills any proposal for more drilling, he said it also demonstrates more than ever the need for a comprehensive energy bill that protects the environment.
"We need to take advantage of the opportunity of this bill to make sure we never face this situation again," he said.
Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club, agreed. He said the authors of the bill will have to come up with a new formula to attract support from moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans.
"The oil industry spent 40 years building a story line that it knew what it was doing underwater and because it knew what it was doing we could allow it to turn our most sensitive coastline into oilfields," he said. "We've now been reminded once again that oil and water do not mix."
Newstex ID: AP-0001-44515662
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