Robin Pagnamenta

Wulf Bernotat looks cold — and sceptical. “Are you sure we are making any money out of this?” the chief executive of E.ON, the world’s largest utility company, asks one of his employees. “This is a business, you know.”
Mr Bernotat is in the gritty Swedish city of Malmö, standing in a windswept former dockyard that E.ON has helped to convert into a “zero-carbon city”.
Hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets and with his collar turned up against the biting air, he is being lectured on the merits of a solar-powered district heating system that pumps hot water to hundreds of local homes. “You tell me later — in private,” he says, one bushy eyebrow raised ever so slightly.
One of Europe’s most powerful energy barons, Mr Bernotat, who presides over a global behemoth with nearly 88,000 employees and revenues of €87 billion (£79 billion) last year, has an equally blunt message for Britain’s politicians.

Through its subsidiary E.ON UK, the Düsseldorf-based group wields huge influence over British energy policy. It was to invest nearly £1 billion a year in wind and nuclear-generated electricity in the UK “for the foreseeable future”, so its decision this month to freeze plans for a new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth in Kent for up to three years sent shockwaves through Britain’s energy industry.
Mr Bernotat seems genuinely exasperated by what he regards as fanciful policymaking that bears little relation to the realities of running a business. Above all, he believes that Britain’s target of generating one third of its electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and wave energy, by 2020 is naive and he says that politicians need to do far more to “adjust expectations . . . There is a big mismatch with what is achievable. I think it is even bigger in the UK than in Germany. Politicians need to be more realistic.”
His argument is that without bigger state subsidies or a higher price for carbon emissions, E.ON cannot afford to make the investment necessary to meet such ambitious targets. “The carbon price is too low to support any accelerated investment in carbon abatement. Every investment must deliver an acceptable return.”
The same focus on pure economics over ideology is behind E.ON’s decision to put the Kingsnorth development on hold. The announcement exposed divisions within Britain’s environmental movement. While many hailed it as a victory, others saw it as a disaster, warning that it would delay E.ON’s plans to invest in new carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment — key technology in the battle against climate change, a battle in which the Government wants Britain to be a world leader. Mr Bernotat quickly brushes aside any suggestion that E.ON yielded to outside pressure from green groups. “It was simply a reaction to market developments,” he says, adding that the recession has pushed back the need for new plants in the UK to about 2016 because of plummeting electricity demand. “Demand is not developing at the same speed and we just felt we had to adjust our investment programme.” Kingsnorth, he says, is only one of a string of investments that E.ON is deferring because of the recession, which he says will leave depressed demand for electricity across Europe for another two years.
Certainly, Mr Bernotat, a powerfully built German with a taste for afternoon cigars, does not come across as the kind of executive to bow easily to the demands of a few protesters, which might be a disappointment to those environmentalists responsible for violent protests at E.ON’s coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire over the weekend. A spokesman said that the company was “incredibly disappointed” that the protest had not remained peaceful: “It’s clear that there are no winners or losers here.
“While the power station continued to run over the weekend, many protesters seemed more interested in pulling down fences than in having a debate about the vital energy issues that we face today — how to keep the lights on while ensuring energy is affordable and low-carbon.”
Mr Bernotat is keen to emphasise that E.ON, whose UK subsidiary has eight million customers and generates 10 per cent of the nation’s electricity, is no laggard when it comes to green investment. For example, the company is a key backer of London Array, the world’s largest wind farm, which is being built in the Thames Estuary at an estimated cost of £3 billion. Indeed, Mr Bernotat is in Malmö to promote E.ON’s plan to increase the proportion of renewable energy in its portfolio of global power stations from 13 per cent to 18 per cent by 2015 and 36 per cent in the longer term.
The company expects to pour €8 billion into renewable energy projects in the five years to 2011. But the former Shell executive, who is due to retire next year, is under no illusions about the difficulty and cost of doing so. “Even in times of climate change, energy is not only an ecological but also still an economical and social matter. [It] needs a balanced consideration of security of supply and affordability for consumers.”
Later, Mr Bernotat gazes out across the grey seas that separate Malmö from the Danish capital only 10km to the west, a stunning view framed by the spinning turbines of the Lillgrund offshore wind farm and the soaring heights of the Öresund Bridge that connects Malmö with Copenhagen. It is here, in just over two months, that ministers from around the globe will converge for a United Nations meeting on climate change that will address many of the concerns that Mr Bernotat expresses and could determine some answers.
Mr Bernotat says that he is an optimist, but he offers what seems to be a gloomy assessment of the prospects for a global deal on climate change in December. “Copenhagen cannot set higher carbon prices, it can only create a framework to do so,” he says.
“One should always be an optimist, but realistically the expectations for Copenhagen should not fly too high. The Americans will pay some lip service to climate control but not much more. We will see some nice words but less content.”
Johannes Teyssen, E.ON’s chief operating officer, takes over from Mr Bernotat in nine months. It will be up to him to steer a course for E.ON in the world beyond Copenhagen — however different that may be.
E.ON
— World’s largest utility company by sales (not by market value or profits)
— Based in Düsseldorf
— Formed in June 2000 by the merger of VEBA and VIAG, two of Germany’s largest industrial groups, dating from the 1920s
— Employs 88,000 people globally, of whom 17,000 work for E.ON UK (formerly Powergen)
— Group earnings before interest and taxes of ¤5.7 billion (£5.18 billion) in first half of 2009
— Owns power generation, gas and electricity distribution businesses across Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and in North America

With demand for fuel falling, ethanol plants look for other products to sell
By ANA CAMPOY
Can green chemicals save the ethanol industry?
Ethanol producers, who focused on transforming corn into transportation fuel, got whipsawed by skyrocketing corn prices and collapsing demand as consumers cut back on driving.
The Journal Report
See the complete Energy report.
Now a group of biotechnology and chemical companies is proposing a different model: using the existing ethanol infrastructure to make higher-margin chemicals.
Worries about global warming and government efforts to make chemicals more environmentally friendly are pushing the industry to find alternatives to the building-block materials they make mostly out of oil and natural gas. Ethanol itself, and other chemicals that can be brewed at ethanol plants, are emerging as viable options.
The trend could give the nascent green-chemicals industry a big boost, and revive business for ailing ethanol producers, some of which are bankrupt and idle.
“The economics of current ethanol production are almost begging for improved processes,” says David Gaskin, director of planning for Glycos Biotechnologies Inc., a Houston-based start-up company.
His firm is one among a handful that sees opportunities in retooling ethanol plants to produce chemicals. Others include San Diego-based Genomatica Inc., Englewood, Colo.-based Gevo Inc. and Myriant Technologies LLC, in Quincy, Mass.

An Algenol Biofuels test facility in Florida uses giant, cylindrical plastic bags to house ethanol-producing algae.

World-scale players are getting involved, too. Dow Chemical Co. has formed a partnership with Algenol Biofuels Inc., based in Bonita Springs, Fla., to develop algae-based ethanol.
To be sure, most of these projects are still in development. Many are still in the research stage and won’t reach commercial production for years. Others have not yet secured funding.
Gradual Process
Still, analysts say, the ethanol industry will gradually move into bio-chemicals because they represent an intermediate step between corn-based ethanol and more-advanced, next-generation bio-fuels.
“We’re not going to go from 1.0 to 2.0,” says Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington, D.C., likening ethanol’s evolution to software versions. “There’s going to be 1.2, 1.5, 1.7 in between.”
By tying chemicals into the transportation-fuels business, biotech and ethanol companies are recreating oil refiners’ strategy, says Doug Cameron, chief science adviser for the investment firm Piper Jaffray Cos. While refiners mainly produce diesel and gasoline, they are also the beginning of a long manufacturing chain that churns out myriad other products, from auto lubricants to plastics.
The main difference is that bio-chemical producers will rely on living bugs that have been biologically engineered to transform plant materials into other specific substances.
At GlycosBio the focus is on glycerin, a by-product of ethanol fermentation. The company is developing an add-on process for ethanol plants to transform glycerin into more fuels and chemicals used to make fabric, insulation and food, says Mr. Gaskin.

He says several companies have expressed interest in the process, but he doesn’t have their authorization to provide their names.
Special Prices
Although the market for any particular chemical is dwarfed by the size of the fuel market, chemicals generally fetch higher prices—two to four times higher, according to Christophe Schilling, Genomatica’s chief executive.
Production costs of bio-chemicals can be lower than for their hydrocarbon-based equivalents, he adds. The ideal organism can transform sugar into a chemical in one step, while making the same product at a chemical plant usually takes several, requiring more energy and equipment. Bio-chemicals also come with marketable green credentials.
His company is developing ways to make several chemicals, including methyl ethyl ketone or MEK, which is used as a paint solvent. Because it can be made with the same equipment as ethanol, MEK could be produced at an ethanol facility, says Mr. Schilling.
At least in the beginning, plant-based chemicals will likely be an easier sell for small start-up companies because “in order to be relevant to the fuel industry you have to have several million gallons available before they even look at it,” says Jack Huttner, Gevo’s executive vice president of commercial and public affairs.
Gevo recently started up an ethanol demonstration plant that it retrofitted to produce butanol, a substance that can be used as a fuel or as a raw material for plastics.
Given the state of the ethanol industry, plants can be had for a bargain, converted and launched faster than it takes to build a new one.
“The conversion of an existing ethanol plant can literally be done in a matter of weeks,” compared with two years to launch a new one, says Samuel McConnell, senior vice president of corporate development at Myriant.
Myriant has identified several ethanol plants suitable for producing plant-based succinic acid, a chemical used in spandex fibers and plastics. The company expects commercial production to begin next year.
In the Bag
Dow Chemical and its partner Algenol are still interested in making ethanol, but they are stepping away from the corn-based model. Their proposed ethanol-processing plants: what amount to giant, cylindrical plastic bags to house ethanol-producing algae. The system would take carbon dioxide produced at Dow’s Freeport, Texas, chemical plant, and turn it into ethanol. If it works in the pilot stage, Dow could use this method to produce ethanol as a feedstock to make more chemicals.
The system would serve two purposes: curbing global-warming emissions and producing cleaner raw materials. But making it a reality is still some time off.
The companies have to figure out how the different pieces of technology work together, from the high-tech plastic bags to the bio-engineered algae, Dow executives say.
The partners, which also include the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology and Menlo Park, Calif.-based Membrane Technology & Research Inc., are also waiting to hear whether the project will get funding from the Department of Energy; the project as planned is contingent on a government subsidy, which could be as much as $25 million.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” says Rich Wells, Dow’s vice president of energy.— Ms. Campoy is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Dallas. She can be reached at ana.campoy@wsj.com .

By REBECCA SMITH
John Rowe, the 64-year-old chief executive of Exelon Corp., has pledged that his utility will drastically reduce its “carbon footprint,” including emissions from power plants, vehicles and other sources. Recently, the company retrofitted the 10 stories it occupies in a high-rise Chicago office building, cutting its energy use there in half.
His support of carbon-emission reductions recently led him to clash with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and he pulled Exelon out of the group last month. That won him praise from some and enmity from others.
Certainly, as the country’s largest operator of nuclear power plants, which don’t spew carbon dioxide, Exelon could potentially emerge as a winner if Congress passes legislation to reduce carbon emissions.
John Rowe, CEO of Exelon Corp., discusses managing time horizons, his biggest mistakes and corporate responsibility.
However, his company has hit some bumps recently as it attempted to expand. Industry pundits say the best way for utilities to achieve growth is through consolidation, but Exelon has failed in its attempts to acquire Illinois Power Co., Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. of New Jersey and most recently NRG Energy Inc.
In a recent interview, Mr. Rowe discussed nuclear power, the likelihood of future acquisitions, and leaving smart-grid inventions to tech companies.
Excerpts:
WSJ: You’re outspoken about the need for carbon-emission reductions. You dropped out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because it opposed legislation. But you own 17 nuclear reactors that would benefit.
Mr. Rowe: We don’t flinch from the charge that, yes, some of our motivation and enthusiasm comes from the fact that we should make money on it if it happens. I started dealing with this problem more than a decade ago, long before I had a sense of how much money I could make for Exelon. A good solution to a societal problem is one where the winners help solve the problem.
WSJ: Years ago you were skeptical about the prospects for new nuclear reactors. Now you’ve proposed a big project for Texas, and you’re looking at small reactor technology. What changed your mind?
Mr. Rowe: You’re now talking 11 years ago. Well, first, we went from being a company with a bad record to one with a superb record, arguably the best nuclear operator in the country. [Exelon greatly increased the productivity of plants it inherited and ones it bought at distressed prices so they run more than 95% of the time now.]
As of three to four years ago, I had both officers and board members saying, ‘We’ve got to try to do this.’ I said, ‘Look, give it a try, but we can’t do it without the federal loan guarantee money, and we can’t do it unless we think gas prices are going to stay up.’

WSJ: What are your biggest challenges right now?
Mr. Rowe: Cutting costs to try to make up for some of the drop in power prices [in the wholesale electricty market, where lower gas prices have put pressure on overall pricing]. Finding some new kinds of businesses that may give us a little growth until power prices recover. And trying to make certain our investors understand how much upside there is when power prices do recover.
Exelon is doing fine right now because our power sales were largely hedged [presold] into next year. But with low power prices and low natural gas prices, the longer the economy stays down, the more we will hurt
WSJ: Would you try again to acquire another utility?
Mr. Rowe: Our investors are sending us a very clear message: Don’t try again unless you have a really high probability of succeeding. And don’t abandon your financial discipline. We don’t have investors who want growth at the price of near-term profits. Our investors want us to pay attention to earnings first.
And so, at the present time, we’ll keep our eyes open, but I don’t expect to move on another acquisition unless I think I have an extraordinarily high chance of getting it done.
WSJ:Have you considered acquiring a non-utility business?
Mr. Rowe: Well, we don’t know how to do anything except generating, transmitting and delivering electricity. You know, we did, 10 years ago, make acquisitions in service companies and things like that. We didn’t prove very good at it. Now we’ll stick to our knitting.
WSJ: How about acquiring something in the smart grid?
Mr. Rowe: We would look, but we tend to think the people most likely to do that are the Apples and the Microsofts.
To us, the more interesting question is whether there is a way utilities could get together and joint venture with an Apple or a Microsoft?
No one really knows what they want to do with a smart grid. One of my executives calls it “a scratch for whatever itch you happen to have.”
We all know it will be able to do a number of things. It can help replace meter readers and shift electricity demand from day to night. It can help restore service more rapidly. It can give you interesting marketing information on what a customer wants. It can help the customer reduce energy consumption.
Somebody’s going to come along and invent the toy that’s going to revolutionize how you manage stuff in your house. Steve Jobs is going to be a lot better at that than I am.
WSJ: The Egyptian mummy case you donated to the Field Museum is back in your office.
Mr. Rowe: It’s on indefinite loan to me. My attorney asked how we could be sure it was on indefinite loan. They said, ‘First, your company is very generous to the Field. Second, John is a director and very generous to the Field. And third, we don’t want it.’ It wasn’t for a pharaoh. It was for a minor official—the equivalent of a utility executive.

The Oberaarsee lake was largely fed by water from a nearby melting glacier that was releasing pollutants at a level comparable to when the compounds were still in use.

Swiss researchers have found that Alpine glaciers melting under the impact of climate change are releasing highly toxic pollutants that had been absorbed by the ice for decades.

They warned in a study abstract published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology that it could have a “dire environmental impact” on “pristine mountain areas” as global warming accelerates.

Much of the pollution was dumped on Europe’s biggest mountain range by atmospheric currents from further afield, according to the researchers at three Swiss scientific institutes.

Their study of layers of sediment from an Alpine lake formed by a hydroelectric dam built in central Switzerland in 1953 revealed “sharp” build-ups of now banned chemical compounds from industry and farming, including dioxins and pesticides like DDT.

“We can confirm with the help of these layers that, in the 1960s and 1970s, POPs (Persistant Organic Pollutants) were produced in great quantities and were also deposited in this Alpine lake,” said one of the authors, Christian Bogdal, of the Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Testing and Research

But while the concentration of POPs fell after the 1970s as many of those compounds were banned, the scientists found an unusual resurgence in more recent sediment from the past 10 to 15 years.

They concluded that the lake, the Oberaarsee, was largely fed by water from a nearby melting glacier that was releasing pollutants at a level comparable to when the compounds were still in use.

“At this stage our study indicates that accelerated glacier melting due to global warming may also account for enhanced release of legacy organic pollutants at historically high levels,” according to the full study.

One of the scientists, Peter Schmid, said on Wednesday that their findings were replicated at two other glacial lakes in the Swiss Alps.

But another lake that was not fed by glaciers did not show any increase in the compounds.

The authors said that that it was the first time that glaciers were demonstrated to be a secondary source of such pollution.

Production and use of POPs was banned or restricted under an international treaty in 2001, although several major industrialized nations such as the United States had started to outlaw them in preceding decades.

They are regarded as very durable and carcinogenic, and in some instances can be absorbed through the skin.

Their release in an Alpine setting could lead to “short but intense pulses” of pollution in spring and summer, the scientists concluded.

That could affect drinking water in Alpine huts, the food chain through fish from nearby lakes, irrigation facilities and even artificial snow on ski slopes.

The Alps are commonly known as the water tower of Europe, as the source of major rivers such as the Rhine and Rhone.

Schmid cautioned that more research was needed to determine the pathways of the POPs in the Alps and how much they retained their toxicity.

Source:
Terradaily, “Toxic legacy seeps from melting Alpine glaciers: study“, accessed October 16, 2009

Live in Small Bitescopyright Annie Kate2008

Negotiations for the Copenhagen meeting are going ‘too slow’
By Jonathan Owen
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Talks to save the world from the catastrophic effects of global warming may fail, President Obama’s climate change envoy said last night.
Todd Stern said pre-summit negotiations had been “too slow” and warned that it was “certainly possible” there will be no deal at December’s Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen.
“This is a tough negotiation. What we need to have happen is for China and India and Brazil and South Africa, and others, to be willing to take what they’re doing, boost it up some, and then put it into an international agreement – where they’re standing behind what they say, just the way we’re standing behind what we say we’re going to do,” he added. He was speaking on the eve of crucial talks in London at the Major Economies Forum, which represents some of the world’s biggest polluting nations and which today begins trying to resolve disagreements ahead of Copenhagen.
A major stumbling block preventing an agreement is about where the money will come from to pay to help developing countries go low-carbon – which could cost $100bn (£61bn) a year by 2020.
Months of talks have failed to break a deadlock between developing nations, which blame the West for creating the problem, and richer countries uneasy at the prospect of footing the bill to help poorer nations go green.
Much is at stake. Unless a deal can be reached, many millions could go short on food and water, or find themselves battered by storms and floods on an unprecedented scale. Rising sea levels would submerge entire islands, such as the Maldives; with the death toll from climate change approaching hundreds of thousands a year.
Speaking to the IoS yesterday, the Secretary of State for Climate Change, Ed Miliband, echoed Mr Stern’s fears: “We are very close to a deal not being done at Copenhagen. But it will be a tragedy if the world fails to act.” He has urged delegates at today’s talks to put their differences to one side: “With only 50 days to go before the final talks at Copenhagen, we have to up our game. Britain is determined to throw everything at this because the stakes are so high.”
But the deal is already surrounded by red tape – negotiators at Copenhagen will have just five days to try and cut through 200 pages littered with around 2,000 disputed sections.
While governments continue to talk over the details, there was little sign of hesitation among hundreds of climate camp demonstrators, who began a weekend of protests yesterday in an attempt to shut down a coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, near Nottingham. Police held more than 20 people prior to the protest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass. Further arrests were made when a perimeter fence was breached.
Goals – results of failure
1. Developed countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, failure will take the world into dangerous and catastrophic climate change.
2. Developing countries to limit growth of carbon emissions or face famine, droughts or flooding.
3. Fund to help developing countries create low-carbon economies, with no aid, some will have little chance.
4. Make the latest green technologies available in poorer parts of the world to help reduce pollution.
5. Reduce deforestation, responsible for a fifth of the world’s carbon emissions, otherwise 85 per cent of the Amazon rainforest could be lost.

Lord Hunt, a minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, gives his verdict on Britain’s nuclear power projects
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 October 2009
A nuclear renaissance in the UK presents a tremendous opportunity. It has the potential to supply us with substantial amounts of home-grown, low-carbon, reliable and relatively cheap energy. That is why the government is facilitating a new generation of nuclear power: removing regulatory barriers, making the planning system fairer and faster, and creating more certainty for communities and industry.
Climate change and the need to replace ageing power stations mean this is the right thing to do. It is in our long-term national interest. We need to transform our energy sector, replacing old infrastructure with high-tech, low-carbon energy sources. Nuclear energy, alongside a tenfold increase in renewables and investing in clean coal, will be central.
Already the energy industry has announced plans for new reactors to generate 12GW of new nuclear power, more than currently exists. The first of these new plants is on course to start feeding into the grid by 2018, which would usher in a new era of secure clean energy, driven by a rejuvenated industry and workforce.
The civil nuclear industry currently generates 11GW of power from 10 nuclear power stations and provides employment for 44,000 people in the core industry and the direct supply chain. We estimate that a new nuclear power station has the potential to provide 9,000 jobs during construction and 1,000 jobs during operation, with many more created across the supply chain. The estimated economic benefit would be £2.8bn for each new plant.
While the government fully supports a new generation of new nuclear power, we recognise that there are legitimate concerns amongst the public. We are the first administration to take serious action to address Britain’s nuclear legacy. I recently visited the site at Dounreay, where workers are completing, ahead of schedule, the decommissioning of the site.
It’s exactly this sort of achievement that makes Britain an ideal location for new nuclear power. We have the skills, ingenuity and experience needed, coupled with a strong safety record. Ours is a world-class, rigorous, and transparent regulatory system, ensuring we maintain the highest standards of safety.
The government will announce shortly a rigorously assessed list of sites suitable for new nuclear development, alongside a clear statement of national need. We are determined that this entire process is conducted in partnership with local communities. We have already conducted extensive consultation to hear people’s views and address their concerns and will continue to do so.
Putting nuclear energy at the very heart of our low-carbon economy is part of our credibility going into the climate summit in Copenhagen. We need to demonstrate how we intend to reduce our emissions by 80% by 2050. We need to show real action and real leadership, and that is why we need new nuclear energy.
Lord Hunt is a minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change

By MICHAEL TOTTY
It’s a tall order: Over the next few decades, the world will need to wean itself from dependence on fossil fuels and drastically reduce greenhouse gases. Current technology will take us only so far; major breakthroughs are required.
What might those breakthroughs be? Here’s a look at five technologies that, if successful, could radically change the world energy picture.
They present enormous opportunities. The ability to tap power from space, for instance, could jump-start whole new industries. Technology that can trap and store carbon dioxide from coal-fired plants would rejuvenate older ones.
The Journal Report
Success isn’t assured, of course. The technologies present difficult engineering challenges, and some require big scientific leaps in lab-created materials or genetically modified plants. And innovations have to be delivered at a cost that doesn’t make energy much more expensive. If all of that can be done, any one of these technologies could be a game-changer.
SPACE-BASED SOLAR POWER
For more than three decades, visionaries have imagined tapping solar power where the sun always shines—in space. If we could place giant solar panels in orbit around the Earth, and beam even a fraction of the available energy back to Earth, they could deliver nonstop electricity to any place on the planet.
Source: New Scientist
Sunlight is reflected off giant orbiting mirrors to an array of photovoltaic cells; the light is converted to electricity and then changed into microwaves, which are beamed to earth. Ground-based antennas capture the microwave energy and convert it back to electricity, which is sent to the grid.
The technology may sound like science fiction, but it’s simple: Solar panels in orbit about 22,000 miles up beam energy in the form of microwaves to earth, where it’s turned into electricity and plugged into the grid. (The low-powered beams are considered safe.) A ground receiving station a mile in diameter could deliver about 1,000 megawatts—enough to power on average about 1,000 U.S. homes.
The cost of sending solar collectors into space is the biggest obstacle, so it’s necessary to design a system lightweight enough to require only a few launches. A handful of countries and companies aim to deliver space-based power as early as a decade from now.
ADVANCED CAR BATTERIES
Electrifying vehicles could slash petroleum use and help clean the air (if electric power shifts to low-carbon fuels like wind or nuclear). But it’s going to take better batteries.
Source: EDSRC
In a lithium-air battery, oxygen flows through a porous carbon cathode and combines with lithium ions from a lithium-metal anode in the presence of an electrolyte, producing an electric charge. The reaction is aided by a catalyst, such as manganese oxide, to improve capacity.
Lithium-ion batteries, common in laptops, are favored for next-generation plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. They’re more powerful than other auto batteries, but they’re expensive and still don’t go far on a charge; the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid coming next year, can run about 40 miles on batteries alone. Ideally, electric cars will get closer to 400 miles on a charge. While improvements are possible, lithium-ion’s potential is limited.
One alternative, lithium-air, promises 10 times the performance of lithium-ion batteries and could deliver about the same amount of energy, pound for pound, as gasoline. A lithium-air battery pulls oxygen from the air for its charge, so the device can be smaller and more lightweight. A handful of labs are working on the technology, but scientists think that without a breakthrough they could be a decade away from commercialization.
UTILITY STORAGE
Everybody’s rooting for wind and solar power. How could you not? But wind and solar are use-it-or-lose-it resources. To make any kind of difference, they need better storage.
Source: AEP
Battery packs located close to customers can store electricity from renewable wind or solar sources and supply power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Energy is collected in the storage units and can be sent as needed directly to homes or businesses or out to the grid.
Scientists are attacking the problem from a host of angles—all of which are still problematic. One, for instance, uses power produced when the wind is blowing to compress air in underground chambers; the air is fed into gas-fired turbines to make them run more efficiently. One of the obstacles: finding big, usable, underground caverns.
Similarly, giant batteries can absorb wind energy for later use, but some existing technologies are expensive, and others aren’t very efficient. While researchers are looking at new materials to improve performance, giant technical leaps aren’t likely.
Lithium-ion technology may hold the greatest promise for grid storage, where it doesn’t have as many limitations as for autos. As performance improves and prices come down, utilities could distribute small, powerful lithium-ion batteries around the edge of the grid, closer to customers. There, they could store excess power from renewables and help smooth small fluctuations in power, making the grid more efficient and reducing the need for backup fossil-fuel plants. And utilities can piggy-back on research efforts for vehicle batteries.
CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE
Keeping coal as an abundant source of power means slashing the amount of carbon dioxide it produces. That could mean new, more efficient power plants. But trapping C02 from existing plants—about two billion tons a year—would be the real game-changer.
Source: Vattenfall
Carbon dioxide is removed from smokestack gases and compressed. It’s then pumped deep underground and stored in porous rock formations.
Techniques for modest-scale CO2 capture exist, but applying them to big power plants would reduce the plants’ output by a third and double the cost of producing power. So scientists are looking into experimental technologies that could cut emissions by 90% while limiting cost increases.
Nearly all are in the early stages, and it’s too early to tell which method will win out. One promising technique burns coal and purified oxygen in the form of a metal oxide, rather than air; this produces an easier-to-capture concentrated stream of CO2 with little loss of plant efficiency. The technology has been demonstrated in small-scale pilots, and will be tried in a one-megawatt test plant next year. But it might not be ready for commercial use until 2020.
NEXT-GENERATION BIOFUELS
One way to wean ourselves from oil is to come up with renewable sources of transportation fuel. That means a new generation of biofuels made from nonfood crops.
Researchers are devising ways to turn lumber and crop wastes, garbage and inedible perennials like switchgrass into competitively priced fuels. But the most promising next-generation biofuel comes from algae.
Source: Saferenviroment
Algae grow by taking in CO2, solar energy and other nutrients. They produce an oil that can be extracted and added into existing refining plants to make diesel, gasoline substitutes and other products.
Algae grow fast, consume carbon dioxide and can generate more than 5,000 gallons a year per acre of biofuel, compared with 350 gallons a year for corn-based ethanol. Algae-based fuel can be added directly into existing refining and distribution systems; in theory, the U.S. could produce enough of it to meet all of the nation’s transportation needs.
But it’s early. Dozens of companies have begun pilot projects and small-scale production. But producing algae biofuels in quantity means finding reliable sources of inexpensive nutrients and water, managing pathogens that could reduce yield, and developing and cultivating the most productive algae strains.— Mr. Totty is a news editor for The Journal Report in San Francisco. He can be reached at michael.totty@wsj.com .

Patrick Wintour
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 October 2009
Gordon Brown will warn today that the world is on the brink of a “catastrophic” future of killer heatwaves, floods and droughts unless governments speed up negotiations on climate change before vital talks in Copenhagen in December.
This applies to the US as much as anyone, he will say, adding that “there is no plan B”, and that agreement cannot be deferred beyond the UN-sponsored Copenhagen conference.
There are fears that Barack Obama does not have the political capital to reach a deal in Copenhagen and will instead use a visit to China next month to reach a bilateral deal that circumvents the UN.
Downing Street is also concerned that there is no agreement on how to finance a climate change package in developing countries.
The prime minister will deliver his warning to a meeting of environment ministers brought together under the umbrella of the Major Economies Forum. The 17 countries in the forum are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Brown will tell them: “In every era there are only one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements that make history, because they change the course of history. Copenhagen must be such a time. There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more.
“If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late.”
Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary yesterday highlighted signs of movement pointing out that last month India said it was ready to set itself non-binding targets for cutting carbon emissions, while China said it would curb the growth of its emissions by a “notable margin” by 2020, although it did not specify further.
The US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, said developing economies must boost their efforts to curb emissions, warning it was “certainly possible” that no deal would be agreed in Copenhagen.”What we need to have happen is for China and India and Brazil and South Africa and others to be willing to take what they’re doing, boost it up some, and then be willing to put it into an international agreement,” he said.

Cosatu General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and ANC General Secretary Gwede Mantashe. The trade union federation and the ruling party, along with the SACP, have maintained an alliance since the independence of the Republic of South Africa in 1994.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Courtesy of ANC Today

Let us change this downward slope

Viewpoint by Gwede Mantashe

As many issues emerge in the public discourse one appreciates that scaling down our political education programme was a wrong decision. It is like an advert ‘we stopped the clock to save time’. As a mineworker I learnt that during bad times you don’t scale down development to save cost, because you go under when the price of commodities picks up. During repression we don’t cut back on investment spending because when the economy picks up you will delay the recovery.

Political education must always ensure that repeated untruths do not become reality in the minds of the cadres of the movement. Our cadres must be equipped with tools of analysis such that they can differentiate between anecdotes and policies of the movement. It is the time that has lapsed without a structured education programme that is beginning to change the character and the outlook of our movement.

The dominance of factions in almost all the provinces of the ANC reflects the weakness of the structures. That weakness, to a great extent, reflects the lack of ideological depth and the weakening of political conscience among the cadres of the movement. Our inability to move with the necessary speed in arresting this decline will lead to us being rightfully accused of benefiting from the disorder, and this will then be seen as a deliberate disorganisation.

When selflessness, one of the principled characters of our movement, is being replaced by a newfound expression of selfishness, wherein personal accumulation becomes the main cause for divisions we must know that the movement is in decline.

Ill-discipline, as evidenced in the disruption of meetings, public rebuke of leadership, lack of accountability and an assumption of individual comrades being larger than the movement itself, is a cancer that is beginning to eat the movement.

These deviant features are uncharacteristic of the essence and form of our movement, and its culture as a liberation organisation. This, therefore, heightens the need for us to strengthen political education among our cadres. We have a duty and responsibility to change and divert from this downward slope.

However, our approach to political education should seek a structural and mass engagement of our organisation. In doing so, we should avoid the notion of political education being a ritual. Essentially, political education is about raising consciousness. Such a consciousness must assist our structures and our cadres to engage with real issues confronting the national democratic revolution, our people and our organisation.

Among the key issues that political education must help us with, is a raised consciousness against the intersection between election to office and business interest. Current experience shows that ambition for office is accompanied with unruly and violent behaviour, and ill-conceived ways of campaigning and lobbying. Election has become a matter of life and death.

This anomaly, gradually becoming a serious cancer about to swallow our movement, is a consequence of perceiving elected office as a means to self-serving accumulation rather than service to the people. This distorts what we know the ANC to be, its reason for existence, that is, to serve – as clearly articulated in the 52nd Conference of the ANC.

What tools of analysis do we require in order to calm the storms of our times? Historically, the African National Congress has used historical and dialectical materialism, because these are scientific tools of analysis in the course of the national democratic revolution. Saying this today, does it confirm or mean a communist take over? Is the perception of a take over of the African National Congress by the communists and trade unionists real or imagined? Only a conscious cadreship of the ANC can see the difference between the wood and the forest.

The ANC has always been comprised of great leaders who were equally outstanding leaders of the Communist Party, the Trade Union movement, and Umkhonto weSizwe. Among them are stalwarts of our movement, like Moses Mabhida, Moses Kotane, JB Marks, JK Nkadimeng, Mark Shope, Raymond Mhlaba, Govan Mbeki, Dan Tlhome and Edwin Mofutsanyane.

Consequently a debate about purism, one that wishes to project the ANC as “pure” is both erroneous and a fallacy. It also goes against the content and letter of our seminal conferences, such as Morogoro, which adopted the strategy and tactics principles stating that the working class is the primary motive force of our revolution.

“The national character of the struggle must therefore dominate our approach. But it is a national struggle taking place in a different context from those which characterised the early struggle against colonialism … it is also happening in a new kind of South Africa in which there is a large and well-developed working class … in which the independent expressions of the working people – their political organs and trade unions – are very much part of the liberation front…
Its political organisations – and the trade unions – have played a fundamental role in shaping and advancing our revolutionary course … its militancy and political consciousness as a revolutionary class will play no small part in our victory and in the construction of a real people’s South Africa”

The critical challenge and question we need to confront today is: Is the ANC stronger in its alliance with the working class formations, the SACP and COSATU, or is it stronger as a pure nationalist movement? Has it always been a narrow nationalist movement, as many want us to believe, or a revolutionary movement that we have always been told it is?

The multi-class character of the ANC necessitates that, as the various classes grow stronger in society the greater the intensity of class contestation will be within our movement. Consequently, the imperative is for us to be able to differentiate between real contestation and a smokescreen.

The African National Congress is a revolutionary movement. It is not a narrow nationalist movement. We should bear that in mind in our political education.

Through reference to the historical evolution of our movement we can help navigate through our present challenges. We can engage even with the most controversial of postulates, and anchor our debates on the real politik and on correct political understanding.

Gwede Mantashe is the Secretary General of the ANC