Tag Archives: green
Details Of Likely CAP Reform Deal Begin To Emerge
25 June 2013 | By Alistair Driver EU POLICYMAKERS have endorsed plans that would give member states the option of using national certification schemes to qualify for the greening payment under the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The EU Council of Agriculture Ministers is into its second day of talks in Luxembourg, where it has been joined by MEPs from the Agriculture Committee and Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos. Details of issues that have been provisionally agreed by the decision-makers in the process – the EU Council of Ministers and the EU Parliament’s Agriculture Committee – are emerging as the talks move towards a possible conclusion on Wednesday. Among the issues already ‘cleared’ in trilogue talks between the parties is confirmation that the UK and other member states and regions will be able to establish certification schemes as the basis for qualifying for the 30 per cent greening payment. Defra Secretary Owen Paterson has already made it clear he wants to establish am English Certification for this purpose. These schemes will include environmental measures beyond the three broad measures originally proposed by the European Commission. A key element will be ensuring ‘equivalence’ in these measures across the EU. The NFU’s CAP adviser Gail Soutar, commenting from Brussels, said this flexibility could be a ‘double-edged sword’ for English farmers. While they will benefit from the flexibility in how to comply with greening, they could face tougher environmental than their counterparts. In an Irish presidency document outlining areas where provisional agreement has been reached, further details surrounding the three basic greening requirements are unveiled. · Permanent grassland ratio can be applied at national, regional or farm level. · The minimum area threshold where there will be no Ecological Focus Area is 15 hectares of arable land. · The percentage will start at 5 per cent in 2015, then move to 7 per cent only after a Commission report in 2017 and subject to a legislative proposal. · Permanent crops are now excluded from EFA . EFA applies to arable land only. · The following EFA eligible areas are agreed: Fallow land, terraces, landscape features, buffer strips, agro forestry, afforested lands, strips of eligible hectares along forest edges, catch crops, nitrogen-fixing crops and short rotation coppice (with no use of mineral fertiliser or plant protection products). · Exemption for holdings where more than 75 per cent of the holding is in grassland (permanent or temporary), or covered by crops under water, or a combination of both, subject to a maximum for the remaining land of 30 hectares. · Exemptions also for holdings where more than 75 per cent of the arable land is temporary grassland, fallow, leguminous crops, or a combination of these, subject to a maximum for the remaining land of 30 hectares. · EFA percentage decreased by 50 per cent where a MS implements a measure at regional level, which yields an equivalent or higher benefit to the climate and the environment. In other measures provisionally agreed, member states and regions will be given scope to retain coupled subsidies. Under a three-tier system: · All Member States will be permitted a level of 8 per e coupling, plus 2 per cent for protein crops. · Member States who used more than 5 per cent coupled aid in one year in the period 2010-2014 permitted a level of 13 per cent, plus 2 per cent for protein crops. · Member States who used more than 10 per cent in one year in the 2010-2014period may decide to use more than 13 per cent upon approval by the Commission. MEPs and Ministers have also provisionally agreed to give member states and regions more flexibility on how they move towards area payments, something that is likely to be welcomed in Scotland and Wales. Member states and regions will be required to ensure all farmers receive at least 60 per cent of the average payment per hectare by 2019. The active farmer, young farmer and small farmers have been provisionally agreed, as follows: Active Farmer: Short mandatory negative list agreed to determine who is not eligible for support, comprising airports, railway services, water works, real estate services, and permanent sports and recreational grounds. Young Farmer: Mandatory scheme agreed in Pillar 1, using up to 2 per cent of direct payment pot. Small Farmer : Optional scheme, with a maximum payment of €1,250, using up to 10 per cent of the direct payment pot. The outcome on all of these provisional agreements still had to be confirmed by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday afternoon the Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on Wednesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, there were still a number of outstanding issues to be resolved, including the milk package, the sugar regime, including when quotas will be removed and ‘legal alignment’ – who holds powers in Brussels to make key decisions under the reformed CAP. Continue reading
Obama’s Climate Plan Sets Power Plant Emissions Limits
Environmental Leader June 25, 2013 President Barack Obama’s climate plan will restrict carbon emissions from existing coal-fired power plants and boost investment in renewable energy, according to White House documents. The climate plan , which Obama will announce this afternoon, doesn’t set a timeline for the power plant rules. Reuters reports the EPA will issue proposed carbon emissions limits for existing powers plants by June 2014 and finalize the regulations a year later. The federal government will also make up to $8 million available in loan guarantees for energy-efficiency and clean-technology projects for fossil fuel plants. In addition to limiting carbon emissions, the US will work to reduce other potent greenhouse gases , including hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and methane, both domestically and internationally. The plan calls for cleaner-burning fuels for transportation and says the Obama administration will work with the auto industry to develop post-2018 fuel economy standards for heavy-duty vehicles. The federal government will work with the private and public sector to deploy biofuels, advanced batteries and fuel cell technologies for all modes of transportation, it says. In an effort to reduce energy bills for businesses and homes, the White House will set efficiency standards for appliances and federal buildings that will cut carbon pollution by at least 3 billion metric tons by 2030 — equivalent to about half of the carbon pollution from the US energy sector for one year. The plan also sets new renewable energy goals, including installing 100 MW of renewable capacity across federally subsided housing by 2020 and building enough wind and solar projects on federal lands to power more than 6 million homes by the same date. The plan says the federal government will obtain 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. This new goal more than doubles the current target of 7.5 percent. Additionally, the plan focuses on preparing for the impacts of climate change, including establishing a task force to advise on how the federal government can better support climate preparedness and taking measures to improve climate resilience in areas damaged by Hurricane Sandy. It says the White House will launch a “climate data initiative” and a “toolkit for climate resilience” that centralizes access to data-driven resilience tools, services and best practices. Continue reading
Biomass: There’s Money in That Wood Waste
Posted: 06/24/2013 One country’s demonstration project is another country’s established technology. When Sherwood Park in Alberta built a demonstration biomass district heating project they bought the equipment from Lambion Energy Solutions of Germany. Axel Lambion is the CEO and he chuckles at project’s demonstration status. In his charming, German accented English notes that his company has built over 3,400 of these projects throughout Europe and around the world. In fact, his great, great grandfather was building biomass energy systems for sawmills at the end of the 19th century. “His slogan was take useless waste and make high quality energy out of it. Energy at that time was very expensive, it seems like we have forgotten this in the last decades,” says Lambion. And that’s exactly what the project in Sherwood Park does. Its feedstock is waste wood, ground up wooden pallets and crates, of which there is a plentiful supply garnered from nearby pallet manufacturing operation North Star Pallets . They’re also planning to burn agricultural residues, like barley straw or oat hulls, on a research basis. The project was commissioned in September of 2012 and came in at $3.2 million with the federal government putting in $1.5 million, $350,000 coming from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Strathcona County (Sherwood Park is in Stathcona County) filling in the rest with along with expertise supplied by the Resource Industry Suppliers Association . And while we kid about its demonstration project moniker it is well deserved, it is the first project of its kind in Alberta. The project itself is quite similar to the one we profiled at UBC , it burns biomass and uses the energy to heat several different buildings. Like the UBC project it was an add on to an existing natural gas district heating system. District heating is a simple idea. Produce the heat in a large centralized plant and then pipe it to nearby customers, but it still hasn’t cracked into the mainstream in Canada yet ( despite this awesome typewritten report from 1975, PDF ). However, the list of benefits from district heating is worth remembering Customers no longer have to worry about maintenance Space savings with the removal of furnaces and chimneys in each building Less risk of fire Improved air quality Flexible – can add absorption chillers for cooling or electricity generation depending on demands More efficient Less greenhouse gas emissions The efficiency of the one-megawatt biomass heating plant of the demonstration project blows away all of the little furnaces and boilers that would have been used out of the water. It heats a recreation centre, numerous county buildings, a large theatre space and even nearby condos. The economies of scale are impressive. A condition of receiving its grants meant it had to meet or exceed air quality and emissions requirements. The government wanted this project to be replicable in other urban sites and it ensures it’s a good neighbour with scrubbers, multiple monitors and something called an electro-static precipitator. According to Harry Welling of Kalwa Biogenics, another partner on the project, the heating provided by the biomass project can cover half of the heating load on the coldest prairie winter day of the year and the vast majority of the heating loads the rest of the year. To use utility company jargon, it provides the base-load heat and the natural gas boilers provide peak demand and backup. The system also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 1,200 tonnes a year compared to the natural gas system it was added to. It also burns 12,000 tonnes of biomass a year. To avoid noise the project uses a modular container system to haul the biomass in and take the empty containers away. Each container carries 3.5 tonnes of biomass Bucolic little biomass boiler It’s tucked into an area of town called Centre in the Park featuring green space, couples walking their dogs and fountains. The containers only get replaced on weekdays and during daytime hours. Except for the sign telling you so you’d hardly know there was a large wood-fired boiler in this bucolic little area. Welling was also instrumental in assessing the economics of the project. The big factor in deciding to build a system like this is the cost of fuel. While the price and volatility of natural gas has declined over the years the cost of the commodity has been steadily inching up since early 2012 . Welling has crunched the numbers and found that with biomass at $40 per tonne, the cost of a gigajoule worth of heat is $2.20, or roughly half of the current price of natural gas. Chopping the fuel cost in half is quite the accomplishment, but with a biomass system comes other costs – mostly labour and transportation. Those “liabilities” are actually anything but, they’re local jobs that are filled by people who live in the county. And when you start talking about economic opportunities for biomass the lowest hanging fruit is the forestry and lumber processing industries. This is an area of the economy that has been depressed for quite some time. Burning biomass for heat or power means new economic opportunities. When Axel Lambion looks at Europe he sees a saturated market. Everyone and their dog has a biomass system, they’re taking old coal plants and co-firing them with wood pellets . Lambion has even installed systems that run on left-over grapes from the wine-making process and left-over potato skins from a French fry operation – they’re not very efficient but they do deal with waste effectively. By comparison Canada is a land of opportunity, with only a few similar systems installed across the country. “That’s why I’m here. In fact it’s very interesting for us,” says Lambion. “We are very proud that we are doing a project for Vanderwell Contractors up in Slave Lake which is a big privately owned saw mill. We’re doing a project where we burn 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of hawk fuel (waste wood) which we convert into electric energy.” The project could generate 3.6 megawatts of electricity and it could save the sawmill hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity costs each year. Canada has the biomass. And we need to reduce our waste and our greenhouse gas emissions. We need the jobs and the heat and power. Once companies like Lambion and others prove their mettle in the North American market expect Canadian and U.S. companies to get a lot more involved with biomass energy systems. We’d love to hear your biomass story in the comments. Continue reading
