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China Launches First Carbon Market In Shenzhen
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ccf2987e-d808-11e2-9495-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2WeKodNcr By Kathrin Hille in Beijing China saw its first-ever domestic transaction in the right to discharge carbon dioxide at the launch of its first pilot carbon market on Tuesday, moving the world’s largest CO2 emitting country closer to capping such pollution. A power plant of Shenzhen Energy Group, a state-owned utility, sold an emission permit for 10,000 tonnes to the Guangdong arm of state oil group PetroChina for Rmb28 ($5) a tonne and another 10,000 tonnes to Hanergy, a privately owned power generator and solar-panel maker, for Rmb30 a tonne, according to the Shenzhen Carbon Exchange. “This means that our country has taken a key step in establishing a carbon market,” the exchange said in a statement. Carbon markets allow companies to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide from those that burn less fossil fuels. They thus help set a price on emissions, a mechanism that aims to encourage companies to reduce such pollution and invest in cleaner technologies. The trading scheme, launched in a grand ceremony in the presence of local and national policy makers, is the first among seven regional trading platforms to start operating this year or next to help the government decide in 2015 whether to set up a nationwide carbon market. “This is further proof that China recognises the need to address climate change,” said Dan Dudek, head of the China programme of the US non-profit group Environmental Defense Fund. However, some experts say the scheme is little more than a drop in the ocean considering China’s massive total emissions and the country’s pressure to keep its economy growing fast enough to continue lifting people out of poverty. The Shenzhen pilot involves 635 local companies which account for 26 per cent of the city’s gross domestic product and 38 per cent of its CO2 emissions, or about 30m tonnes – a tiny amount compared with the 8bn tonnes China emitted in 2012. The enterprises that participate in the Shenzhen scheme, which have been allotted permits for total emissions of 100m tonnes between 2013 and 2015, are set to reduce their carbon intensity by close to 7 per cent over the next two years, the exchange said. But the pilot market starts at a difficult time for global carbon markets including the world’s largest, the EU’s Emissions Trading System, which is struggling with record price falls as the sluggish economy exacerbates an oversupply of emissions permits. The prices of the first permits sold on the Shenzhen market were about 25 per cent lower than benchmark prices in the EU Emissions Trading System, where permits were trading for €4.65 a tonne at midday on Tuesday. That is nearly 90 per cent higher than in April, when prices collapsed after the European Parliament voted down a bid to tighten the flailing market, but well down from July 2008 when benchmark prices were nearly €30 a tonne. Chinese observers said the government was likely to move cautiously to avoid any adverse impact as China’s economy is slowing as well. “Progress will depend on the government’s determination,” said Lin Boqiang, an energy economist at Xiamen University. “The question is what impact it will have on the market – unlike other commodities, for example when you buy oil you get oil, here you spend money and the only thing you get is a contribution to the global climate.” Experts say what the Shenzhen scheme and the other regional pilots that are expected to follow can achieve is also limited by the lack of a nationwide legal framework. “Unless the government sets up a binding framework, it will be very difficult to determine fair transactions, and trading will be hampered,” said Mr Lin. Additional reporting by Li Wan Continue reading
Institutional Trees… A New Species?
June 14, 2013 Sustainable Asset Management (Investorideas.com renewable energy newswire) It has long been understood that trees are a very important part of our planet and they remain one of the few natural resources that touch all our lives on a daily basis, whether a piece of wood in the home, the floor we walk on, a book we are reading, or even the feint rustle of leaves in the air as we stroll along; we all benefit from trees. We need them, and yet we all know they are under threat. Despite the efforts over the years of governments, politicians, business magnates and even celebrities, the growing commercial demand for timber, crop land for food and biomass, combined with other demands on forest resources & related products, mean that large natural forests remain under serious threat; some of the most treasured species are in danger of extinction. More recently trees and timber have become a mainstream part of our everyday investments. Hedge funds and pension funds have long been investing in forestry & timber plantations along with their associated supply chains; these have even outperformed stock markets for over a century. During the last decade pioneering companies like Asia Plantation Capital have made plantations and trees more accessible to both large and smaller investors who can now buy plantations and have them managed on their behalf to reap the future returns from this amazing natural resource . In fact many analysts, the United Nations and a growing number of those same business magnates now agree on one common solution that always succeeds; “Show a man how to make money from a problem and let the money solve it”. One shining example of this is the threatened agarwood tree. Harvested in the wild to near extinction due to traditional uses now exasperated by modern trends and high global demand for fine fragrance and medicines produced from this rarest of trees and the natural oil it produces, Oud. Despite the fact it was made illegal to harvest in the wild by international convention (CITES) more than ten years ago, commercial demand today has the species as a wild natural tree teetering on extinction. A combination of science, research, practical experimentation and a huge amount of investment has been salvation for the agarwood tree, now a shining example of an international environmentally successful and commercial project which has the ability to; safeguard and protect the species; supply global demand in a sustainable way whilst generating revenue; guarantees the future of a rare species whilst benefiting the economies of fragile forest communities often dangerously driven to illegal logging simply to feed and care for their families. Asia Plantation Capital (APC) has not only become the market leaders in sustainable agarwood, along with other plantation industries such as teak, but also major campaigners, lobbyists and educators to the global markets on its importance. Sponsoring and supporting related industry events such as IFEAT (the International Federation of Essential Oils and Aroma Trades) annual conventions, and reintroducing the agarwood species to Sri Lanka where it had all but been wiped out in the wild by illegal loggers, as well as taking the largest promotional stand at the recent UN World Teak Conference held in Bangkok showcasing their advanced plantation monitoring systems. One company that has spotted APC, and more importantly studied and researched its agarwood plantation model, is Singapore based Sustainable Asset Management. After almost six months of due diligence, inspection visits, meetings with end users and Institutional Investors, Sustainable Asset Management (SAM) has developed what they believe is one of the most carefully structured and balanced forestry investment products available today for HNWI and institutional investors looking at exposure to the asset class as part of a risk balanced portfolio; that’s right, trees are now a risk assessed asset class! Adam Sprague, Head of Risk Analyses at SAM, clarifies “we decided some time ago that we wanted to find a solid and structured investment wrapper for forestry and plantations which meets all the criteria of stringent institutional and high net worth sophisticated investors. We are working on teak projects, biomass, palm oil and various other proven forest sector and timber related assets; but whilst they are good none of them had the credentials of directly protecting an endangered species as with the agarwood story, and as part of the process creating a new sustainable industry which benefits the investors at the top of the chain all the way down to the local communities on the ground; a net new economy in fact. Whilst most investors will confirm it’s the bottom line that really matters, i.e. how much return you can get for your buck, being able to invest in a product that not only provides all the required financial benefits and security but becomes a real force for good is hard to find.” What SAM have done is listen to their institutional clients and create a product that mixes limited numbers of mature CITES approved agarwood trees, in themselves relatively hard to find and valuable from the outset, with new plantings thereby creating a 7 to 8 year investment horizon which has capital growth and income throughout. A unique financial product in a sector where returns are usually either annual and low, or long term and potentially high. This is a balanced structure of income and future returns creating a risk weighted portfolio product with an income of around 8% and variable final IRR of 12 to 24%. The product is available to funds and sophisticated HNWI investors only in minimum tranches of US$500,000 and presently SAM have access to around US$50million in inventory only which will be managed by APC with leverage from their proven from soil to oil programme. About Sustainable Asset Management: Sustainable Asset Management is a private Singapore based company funded by Africasia Private Equity. Africasia focus on providing seed capital and funding for companies within the agricultural domain. Sustainable Asset Management now advises on and deals with all the project evaluation and due diligence of businesses Africasia considers investing in, as well as offering the same service to private investors, institutions and alternative fund managers. www.sustainable.com.sg About Asia Plantation Capital Asia Plantation Capital is an owner and operator of a diverse range of commercial plantation and farming businesses across the Asia-Pacific region and globally, part of the Asia Plantation Capital Group of associated companies. Their focus is on multicultural and diverse plantation projects geared to the domestic and commercial demands of the countries in which they operate. Working closely with and supporting fragile local communities is an underlying core principle of the APC business, providing social and cultural support as well as investment to move these communities away from traditional deforestation and illegal logging activities as a main income source. Established officially in 2008, although operating privately since 2002, the group now has plantation and agricultural projects on four continents with operational projects at various stages in Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, The Gambia, North America and Europe. www.asiaplantationcapital.com For further information please contact: Mark Wills – Managing Director Sustainable Asset Management Park View Square, 600 North Bridge Road, #12-04, Parkview Square , Singapore 188788 Tel: +(65) 6299 4998 // Email: mark@sustainable.com.sg // www.sustainable.com.sg Stuart Andrews – Public Relations at Sustainable Options Ltd 1 Bromley Lane, Chislehurst, Kent , BR7 6LH , United Kingdom Tel: +(44) 7921 264557 // Email: info@sustainableoptions.eu SUSTAINABLE OPTIONS LTD 1 Bromley Lane, Chislehurst, Kent , BR7 6LH , United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)7921 264557 www.sustainableoptions.eu Disclaimer: The following news is paid for and /or published as information only for our readers.Investorideas.com is a third party publisher of news and research. Our sites do not make recommendations, but offer information portals to research news, articles, stock lists and recent research. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities . All Investment involves risk and possible loss of all investment. Disclaimer in full , Investorideas.com Disclosure Please read individual disclosures for featured stocks. Continue reading
Novel Enzyme May Prove Beneficial To Biofuels Industry.
June 18, 2013 – Researchers from the U.K., NREL, and the University of Kentucky have published a paper describing novel cellulose-degrading enzyme from a marine wood borer Limnoria quadripunctata, commonly known as the gribble. Gribbles exhibit a relatively unique ability to produce their own enzymes instead of using symbiotic microbes to break down the biomass they eat. New biomass-degrading enzymes from novel sources such as the gribble may prove beneficial to biofuels industry. Novel Enzyme from Tiny Gribble Could Prove a Boon for Biofuels Research http://news4.thomasn…4&cb=f9bd758dd2 National Renewable Energy Laboratory 901 D. Street, S.w. Suite 930 Washington, DC, 20024-2157 USA Press release date: June 11, 2013 Wood borer makes its own enzyme, which could thrive in industrial setting Researchers from the United Kingdom, the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the University of Kentucky have recently published a paper describing a novel cellulose-degrading enzyme from a marine wood borer Limnoria quadripunctata, commonly known as the gribble. Gribbles are biologically intriguing because they exhibit a relatively unique ability to produce their own enzymes instead of using symbiotic microbes to break down the biomass they eat. New biomass-degrading enzymes from novel sources such as the gribble may prove beneficial to the biofuels industry. Gribbles are 1-3 millimeters in length, but collectively they bore through wood quickly, and are responsible for significant natural and man-made marine timber damage around the world. Scientists at Universities of Portsmouth and York in the United Kingdom and the University of Kentucky in the United States, with researchers from NREL, are hoping to turn that special talent into a source of novel enzymes for the biofuels industry. A paper describing the crystal structure of a key enzyme produced by the gribble appears online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. http://www.pnas.org/…301502110.short Gribbles live in inter-tidal zones and, similar to termites, they burrow into wood. Gribbles, unlike termites or many other animals including people, do not rely on gut bacteria to make enzymes to aid their digestion. Gribbles instead exhibit a sterile gut, and secrete their own enzymes into their guts made in a special organ termed the heptopancreas that runs the entire length of their body. Interestingly, several of the enzymes produced by gribbles are in the same important enzyme classes that are typically harvested from fungi in the biosphere for industrially deconstructing the cellulose in biomass. The gribble enzymes hold promise of tolerating salts much better, likely due to the fact they evolved in a marine environment. This unique adaptation may have beneficial implications for the ability of the gribble enzymes to more efficiently operate in a high-solids, industrial environment, breaking biomass down more effectively into sugars, which can then be converted into ethanol or a hydrocarbon fuel to replace gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel. The biofuels industry needs tough, efficient enzymes that are tolerant of industrial processes. “For biochemical conversion with enzymes, industry needs to push up to very high solids, with very little water around,” NREL Senior Scientist Gregg Beckham, one of the co-authors, said. “The structure of the gribble enzyme reveals new evolutionary adaptations that may suggest mechanisms for producing more robust, industrial enzymes for high-solids loadings environments.” NREL ran computer simulations and aided in the structural and biochemical analysis of the enzyme. The work leading to the paper provided deeper understanding of how the organism adapts and survives. NREL and UK scientists are now examining how features of the gribble enzymes could be incorporated into industrially relevant enzymes and settings. NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. Visit NREL online at www.nrel.gov Media may contact: William Scanlon 303-275-4051 William.Scanlon@nrel.gov Continue reading
