Tag Archives: green
French Albioma Will Invest 400 Million Euros In Cane Biomass In Brazil
By Geert De Clercq and Benjamin Mallet PARIS, Juno 6 (Reuters) – The French Albioma plans to invest 400 million euros (528 million dollars) in power plants to produce electricity from waste sugar cane in Brazil and is negotiating partnerships with several producers cane. The Albioma, who has decades of experience in power generation from bagasse in the French territories, can produce three to five times more energy from bagasse sugar mills, said Chief Executive Officer Petry Jackets Reuters. The French company, formerly called SECHILIENNE-Sidec, burns about 1.3 million tons of sugarcane bagasse in the islands of Reunion and Mauritius Indian Ocean and the island van de Guadalupe, where the bagasse is an important part of the energy matrix. Albioma plans to invest 400 million euros over the next decade in Brazil and is negotiating with several sugar mills about buying your plants. Petry said it takes a long time to negotiate long-term contracts with farmers and sugar mills, but that funding is available through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). The company also plans to invest 400 million euros in biomass projects in the French territories, including a project of 170 million euros in Martinique bagasse and 200 million euro in biogas plants in France, where it has 22 ongoing projects to produce electricity from manure and other agricultural waste. Continue reading
Measuring Carbon In Soil Takes A Leap Forward
7 June 2013 Faculty of Agriculture and Environment research team consists of Robert Pallasser , Associate Professor Budiman Minasny and Professor Alex McBratney . “The agricultural sector in Australia has the potential to capture and store carbon emissions in soil. However there is no guarantee that the industry can benefit from the offsets in the current and future carbon economy because until now there has not been a good and efficient way of measuring soil carbon storage with statistical confidence,” said Professor McBratney. PhD researcher Robert Pallasser has been developing an instrument to extract and accurately quantify soil from cores up to a metre in length, which yield samples of 300 to 500 grams of soil for analysis after initial drying. “This is a new concept for measuring carbon stocks where it can be extracted from whole soil cores and analysed immediately,” said Associate Professor Minasny. “This is a great advantage over the current method that relies on ‘point analyses’ of a highly variable quality based on 0.5 gram amounts of soil at a time because current instruments are limited to these miniscule amounts. The current methods of soil carbon analysis are very labour intensive. To ensure a representative sample with elements from all parts of the core, they have to be crushed, homogenised and carefully sampled again. The new method can get an accurate representation of the variability of carbon in soil over space and depth without this costly process. Capturing carbon in soil or sequestration has been held back by the absence of an easy to use and reliable method. Sequestration promises major environmental benefits from capturing carbon which also, by increasing the organic matter in the soil, improves productivity and resistance to land degradation. “To pursue sequestration and the participation of farmers in a carbon market successfully we need cost-effective, accurate measurements of carbon in soil so the potential for this technology is exciting,” said Robert Pallasser. The researchers plan to continue field testing the SCB while working on automating its components. They have also created a YouTube presentation of the SCB in action . Continue reading
Greenhouse Gas Emissions at All-Time High in 2012: IEA
Posted: June 10, 2013 The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a special report on energy use and climate change today, warning that the global goal of limiting the temperature increase to 2º Celsius is likely to fall short of achievement. Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4% in 2012 to a record high 31.6 billion metric tons. The IEA reports that it a temperature increase of 3.6º to 5.3º Celsius is the probable long-term average temperature increase. The 2º Celsius target “still remains technically feasible, through extremely challenging,” and the agency says that “intensive action” is required before 2020 if the globe is to have a chance of meeting that target. The current IEA estimate calls for greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 of about 4 billion metric tons above the level required to meet the 2º Celsius goal. The largest contributor to the 2012 increase in global carbon dioxide emissions was China, even though the country’s growth in emissions was among the lowest in the past decade. In the United States, emissions fell by 200 million metric tons, about equal to emissions in the mid-1990s. China’s decline in emissions growth is the result of more deployment of renewable energy sources and a higher energy intensity in its economy. “Energy intensity” is a calculation of an economy’s units of energy consumed per unit of GDP. The drop in U.S. emissions is the result of fuel-switching from coal to natural gas in the generation of electricity. To cut emissions enough to meet the 2020 target, the IEA presents its “4-for-2º Scenario,” which includes four goals: Adopt specific energy efficiency measures to save 49% of emissions; Limit construction and use of least-efficient coal-fired power plants to save 21% of emissions; Minimize methane emissions from oil and gas production to save 18% of emissions; and Accelerate phase-out of subsidies to fossil-fuel consumption to save 21% of emissions. The IEA’s report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, says that global subsidies to fossil-fuel production totaled $523 billion in 2011, about six times the amount for renewables subsidies. The agency also notes that 15% of global carbon dioxide emissions receive a subsidy of $110 per metric ton, while just 8% are subject to a carbon price. Various carbon pricing mechanisms have failed to live up to hopes because the global economy has been so weak over the past several years. The IEA notes the result: The weight of scientific analysis tells us that our climate is already changing and that we should expect extreme weather events (such as storms, floods and heat waves) to become more frequent and intense, as well as increasing global temperatures and rising sea levels. In a particularly glaring bit of hopefulness, the IEA estimates that net revenues for nuclear and renewable generation would rise by $1.8 trillion through 2035 while fossil-fuel generation will decline by an equal amount. To reach that goal, the agency expects that about 30% of new fossil fuel plants would be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The catch is that there is no cheap or easy way to implement CCS, and that goal almost certainly cannot be met. It is easy to quibble with many of the IEA’s conclusions and estimates, and there is sure to be plenty of quibbling in the days ahead. But the value of the IEA’s estimates is that they put a stake in the ground and offer at least a starting discussion point for mitigating carbon emissions. Paul Ausick Read more: Greenhouse Gas Emissions at All-Time High in 2012: IEA – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2013/06/10/greenhouse-gas-emissions-at-all-time-high-in-2012-iea/#ixzz2VtNZJP6P Continue reading
