William G. Moseley: In search of a better revolution
By WILLIAM G. MOSELEY
May 13, 2008
Urban West Africa is Ground Zero in the global food crisis. From Dakar to Abidjan, the cities in this zone have experienced more protests against rising food prices than any other region in 2008.
The solution pushed by many global leaders is to increase crop yields in Africa via a new green revolution. They point to the apparent success of the last green revolution in the 1960s and '70s, a concerted global effort in Asia and Latin America to disseminate a high-yield crop package of hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. The problem, they argue, is that these innovations never reached Africa. They are wrong.
The green revolution did touch Africa -- in the form of cheap Asian rice, which began flooding African markets in the 1980s. I have been working or conducting research in West Africa on food and agriculture for more than 20 years. When I lived with a family on the outskirts of Bamako, Mali, in the 1980s, they still largely ate small grains (millet and sorghum) produced in the surrounding countryside. Today, they mostly purchase rice from Thailand, having developed a taste over several years for this (until recently) relatively cheap import.
Research shows that this pattern has been repeated in cities across West Africa, constricting markets for locally produced grains and forcing farmers to switch to other crops (such as cotton) as a source of cash or abandoning farming altogether for a life in the city.
The green revolution also was not of great benefit if you were a small, poor farmer in Asia. While the new package of hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides did dramatically increase yields, the cost of such inputs was prohibitively expensive for the poorest farmers. The result was a silent reorganization of the Asian countryside: The poorest of the poor couldn't compete, so they went to work for wealthier neighbors or moved to the city. Even wealthier farmers faced growing input costs as insects developed resistance to the most common pesticides, forcing the farmers to apply more and more chemicals or switch to expensive alternatives.
Global leaders are correct in asserting that the agricultural sector in Africa deserves more attention and support. The green-revolution approach, however, is flawed. For starters, many of the inputs required for higher-yielding crops, especially fertilizers, are petroleum-based. The cost of these inputs will only rise in step with the general upward trend in energy costs. Use of imported seeds (hybrid or GMO) and other inputs also concentrates power in the boardrooms of global agrochemical firms rather than in the hands of small farmers.
An approach emphasizing local or national food provision and appropriate technology is more sustainable and empowering for small West African farmers. Agricultural experiments comparing intensive African methods (involving the use of manure and compost as inputs and the intelligent mixing of multiple crops) to conventional Western cropping strategies have repeatedly shown the former to be more efficient in terms of energy consumed per unit of output. These methods have been inhibited by cheap imports and by agricultural agencies that emphasized industrial approaches to crop production.
While some emergency measures will be needed to address the food crisis in the short term, we can do better than another green revolution in the medium to long term. This will involve building on the knowledge of local farmers to develop agricultural approaches that are sustainable and accessible to the poor. It may also mean protecting national and regional food systems from unfair competition.
For years, global and national food policies have had an urban bias in that the provision of cheap food has almost always trumped environmental or social costs in the countryside. The results have been predictable: more underemployed urban residents hailing from rural areas and fewer small farmers. West Africa has some of the best small farmers in the world. We should support, not subvert, their genius.
William G. Moseley is an associate professor of geography at Macalester College in St. Paul. His most recent book is "Hanging by a Thread: Cotton, Globalization and Poverty in Africa."
2008年5月15日木曜日
The elusive negawatt
The elusive negawatt
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Alamy
Alamy
If energy conservation both saves money and is good for the planet, why don't people do more of it?
IN WONKISH circles, energy efficiency used to be known as “the fifth fuel”: it can help to satisfy growing demand for energy just as surely as coal, gas, oil or uranium can. But in these environmentally conscious times it has been climbing the rankings. Whereas the burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming, and nuclear plants generate life-threatening waste, the only by-product of energy efficiency is wealth, in the form of lower fuel bills and less spending on power stations, pipelines and so forth. No wonder that wonks now tend to prefer “negawatts” to megawatts as the best method of slaking the world's growing thirst for energy.
Almost all blueprints for tackling global warming assume that energy efficiency will have a huge role to play. Nicholas Stern devoted a whole chapter to it in the report he wrote on climate change for the British government. In the greenest of futures mapped out by the International Energy Agency, a think-tank financed by rich countries, greater efficiency accounts for two-thirds of emissions averted. The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the research arm of the consultancy, thinks that energy efficiency could get the world halfway towards the goal, espoused by many scientists, of keeping the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 550 parts per million.
MGI is particularly enthusiastic because it believes that unlike most other schemes to reduce emissions, a global energy-efficiency drive would be profitable. The measures it has in mind, all of which rely on existing technology, would earn an average return of 17% and a minimum of 10%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists advising the United Nations on global warming, makes a similar point. It believes that profitable energy-efficiency investments would allow Pakistan to cut its emissions by almost a third, Greece by a quarter and Britain by more than a fifth.
In other words, big investments in energy efficiency would more than pay for themselves, and fairly fast. Although a lot of money would have to be spent—$170 billion a year until 2020—by MGI's reckoning that is only 1.6% of today's global annual investment in fixed capital. Moreover, with ample profits to be made, financing should be easy to attract.
Yet if there are so many lucrative opportunities to improve efficiency, why are investors not already taking advantage of them? To a degree, they are: in America, for example, “energy intensity”—the amount of energy required to generate each dollar of output—is falling by about 2% a year (see chart 1). This is only partly because America's factories, houses, cars and appliances are becoming more efficient: it is also because energy-guzzling factories have moved to cheaper spots such as China. But globally, too, energy intensity is falling by around 1½% a year.
That decline is not predestined. Before the first oil shock, in 1973, America's energy intensity was falling by only 0.4% a year. At that languid pace, America would now be spending 12% of GDP on energy instead of 7%, according to Art Rosenfeld, an efficiency pioneer and a member of the California Energy Commission, which sets efficiency standards and other energy policies for the state. Simply by buying more efficient fridges over the years, he reckons, Americans have come to save more than 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, or roughly 80 power plants' worth.
But as McKinsey points out, there are still hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of unfulfilled but potentially profitable opportunities in energy efficiency available to households and companies. What is holding investors back?
One answer is price. In the eyes of many consumers, electricity and fuel are often too cheap to be worth saving, especially in countries where their prices are subsidised. Industrialists in Russia are profligate with natural gas, because it sells there at a quarter of the international price. Drivers in Qatar have little incentive to scrimp on petrol when they pay barely a dollar a gallon for it.
By and large, energy intensity is, not surprisingly, lower in countries where electricity prices are higher. It is no coincidence that Denmark has both high power prices and an energy-efficient economy. Among American states, for every cent per kilowatt-hour by which prices exceed the national average, energy consumption drops by about 7% of the average. George David, the boss of United Technologies, a conglomerate that makes air-conditioners, lifts and aircraft engines, among other items, argues that higher fuel and power prices are the only motor needed to drive energy efficiency.
But there are still plenty of profitable investment opportunities in energy efficiency, even in the places with the most expensive power. David Goldstein, author of a recent book on energy efficiency, points out that until recently businesses in New York lit their premises more brightly than did those in Seattle, despite New York's much higher power prices. And Hawaii, the American state with the dearest power, is not the most efficient (although the one with the cheapest, Kentucky, does come bottom of the efficiency table).
The problem, analysts explain, is a series of distortions and market failures that discourage investment in efficiency. Often, consumers are poorly informed about the savings on offer. Even when they can do the sums, the transaction costs are high: it is a time-consuming chore for someone to identify the best energy-saving equipment, buy it and get it installed. It does not help that the potential savings, although huge when added up across the world, usually amount to only a small share of the budgets of individual firms and households. Despite recent price increases, spending on energy still accounts for a smaller share of the global economy than it did a few decades ago.
For all these reasons, homeowners, as Lord Stern pointed out in his climate-change report, tend to demand exorbitant rates of return on investments in energy efficiency—of around 30%. They generally want new boilers or extra insulation to pay for themselves within two or three years, says Mark Hopkins, of the United Nations Foundation, an NGO. Businesses are not quite so demanding, he says, but they still tend to put greater emphasis on increasing revenues than on cutting costs.
Similar stories crop up in the markets for new homes and offices, appliances and vehicles. Builders are not the ones who end up paying the utility bills, so have little reason to add to the construction costs—and hence the price of a home or office—by incorporating energy-saving features. The makers of appliances and cars also know that not all consumers and drivers will think as carefully about running costs as about the purchase price. By the same token, landlords have scant incentive to invest in energy efficiency on their tenants' behalf. And power companies are usually keen to encourage their customers to consume as much power as possible.
Financing energy-efficiency investments can also be difficult. In the developing world, capital can be scarce. In rich countries, the savings from making individual homes more efficient are too small and the overheads involved too high to be of much interest to most banks.
The scent of savings
Despite these obstacles, as energy prices rise and more countries adopt limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, banks and consultancies are beginning to sniff an opportunity. Firms that help businesses and families to trim their energy bills have become common enough to earn an acronym: ESCos, or energy-service companies. Their industry group in America says business, which had been growing at 3% a year in the early part of this decade, is now increasing by 22% a year. The total revenues of the 46 ESCos it surveyed were about $3.6 billion in 2006, about three-quarters of which came from energy efficiency.
Typically, an ESCo designs a scheme to reduce a building's energy bill, borrows money to pay for the kit it needs, and installs and maintains it over a fixed period. Clients do not need to provide any cash up front: the ESCo's reward comes from retaining most of the savings—out of which it must repay the loan. The revenues are steady and predictable enough to allow ESCos to unburden their balance sheets and lower their borrowing costs by securitising them. Hannon Armstrong, one of the financial-service firms involved, says it has arranged more than $1.5 billion-worth of such securities.
The hitch is that 80% of ESCos' customers in America are from the various branches of the government, along with schools, hospitals and universities. Small businesses and households would provide a much bigger market, but they tend to be less creditworthy and to move more often. Moreover, the transaction costs tend to outweigh the savings.
Jeff Eckel, of Hannon Armstrong, believes it is possible to overcome these problems by aggregating many similar properties and by drawing up clever contracts. The Clinton Climate Initiative, a charity set up by the former American president, is thinking along the same lines. It has persuaded the local authorities in 40 big cities around the world to co-ordinate their investments in energy efficiency. It then used the allure of such a big market to persuade the makers of energy-efficient goods, the ESCos that will install them and the banks that will finance them to reduce their margins. The cities with which the charity has linked up include Chicago, London and New York.
Most governments, however, do not seem convinced that businessmen and do-gooders are capable of overcoming the impediments to energy efficiency on their own. So they are intervening in markets. The variety of methods they use hints at the difficulties.
The simplest tactic is to try to get the public to think. Britain set up a body called the Energy Saving Trust in 1993; America has a similar outfit, called Energy Star. Among other things, it helps consumers identify energy-efficient products and houses through a voluntary labelling scheme. The European Union goes slightly further, with compulsory labelling of goods such as fridges, washing machines and dishwashers; and Britons selling a home must now have its energy efficiency assessed.
But consumers often ignore such labels or at least do not give them as much weight as price, appearance or convenience. So governments sometimes try to make efficient appliances more appealing through financial incentives. America's federal government, for example, offers a tax credit to makers of extremely efficient appliances—and several states give rebates, income-tax credits or sales-tax exemptions to anyone who buys them. China has just said it will subsidise makers of compact fluorescent light-bulbs, which are four or five times more efficient than the cheaper incandescent sort.
Other governments blanch at bribing people to do something that is already in their interest. Australia has proposed banning incandescent light-bulbs outright. Many have adopted building codes and appliance standards that dictate minimum levels of efficiency. Several tighten the standards regularly, to foster constant improvement. Japan's Top Runner scheme, for example, identifies the most efficient appliances on the market in different categories, and then requires all competing brands to improve on them within four to six years. Those that fail face fines.
Businesses often complain that such tough measures impose undue costs, which they must then pass on to consumers as higher prices. They also argue that their customers should be free to buy bigger or more powerful devices if they want, even if that makes them relatively inefficient. Notably, America's carmakers have used such arguments to resist increases in fuel-economy standards.
When Congress raised standards last year it tried to address these complaints by setting different targets for heavy and light vehicles. Each firm's target is an average across all the cars it sells, not a model-by-model limit, so there is still scope to make the odd guzzler. Anyway, environmentalists dispute the notion that energy-efficiency standards drive up prices. The average price of fridges in America has fallen by more than half since the 1970s, even as their efficiency has increased by three-quarters, according to Mr Goldstein. Those gains have come in spite of steady increases in the size of the average unit (see chart 2).
Governments are also obliging utilities to get involved in the business of energy efficiency. Some, including many American states, add an extra sum to electricity bills to finance investments in energy efficiency. Others specify the amount of energy to be saved, rather than the amount to be spent. France, for example, requires gas and electricity suppliers to invest enough over three years to reduce projected demand by 54TWh.
Britain and Italy have similar schemes, although the targets are expressed in tonnes of carbon and barrels of oil, respectively. External auditors verify the savings, and the “white certificates” they issue when they have done so are tradable. The intention is to keep the cost of the scheme low by allowing those that can achieve reductions most cheaply, including ESCos, to do so on behalf of less expert participants. The idea is also spreading in America: Connecticut, Nevada and Pennsylvania have all adopted it.
A sparky divorce
But a white-certificate scheme would have to be very demanding to outweigh a utility's incentive to sell more power. So other American states have gone further, and attempted to “decouple” utilities' profits from their sales. Regulators forecast demand and allow utilities to charge a price that would recoup their costs and earn a fixed return on the basis of that forecast. If demand turns out to be lower than expected, the regulator lets prices rise so that the utility can make the mandated profit; if it is higher, the regulator cuts prices to return the excess to customers.
California, predictably, has gone further still. It first decoupled sales and profits for gas in 1978 and for electricity in 1982. Last year, it adopted a scheme called “decoupling plus”, which aims to make investments in energy efficiency more profitable for utilities than new power stations would be. Fees to finance energy-saving measures are added to each bill, and utilities spend the money in pursuit of targets set by the regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The commission then calculates the savings from these investments, compared with the cost of new power plants. If a utility achieves between 85% and 100% of the target, it is allowed to keep 9% of these savings. If it exceeds the regulator's target, it gets 12%, more than it would earn from building new infrastructure. Between 65% and 85% it does not earn any return at all, and below 65% it pays a fine for every kilowatt-hour by which it has fallen short.
This complicated system is designed to make sure utilities spend more on energy efficiency, but do not waste billpayers' money on investments of dubious merit. California's private utilities now spend about a $1 billion every year on energy efficiency. In July the CPUC will announce their energy-savings targets as far as 2020. The state, says Dian Grueneich, one of the commissioners, hopes to meet half of all projected demand growth through increased energy efficiency.
Less dainty governments just oblige the most energy-hungry firms to cut back. The 13,000 factories in Japan with the highest energy use are required to improve their efficiency by 1% a year. Those that fail to do so are fined. China's central government has followed suit, setting energy-efficiency targets for the country's 1,000 biggest firms. That step, in turn, has spawned similar initiatives in the provinces. Overall, the Chinese government hopes that energy intensity will be 20% lower in 2010 than it was in 2006.
However, no matter what methods governments adopt to encourage energy efficiency, the results may not be as impressive as they imagine. The culprit is something called the “rebound effect”. Falling demand for electricity or fuel brought on by an efficiency drive should lead to lower prices. But cheaper energy, in turn, is likely to prompt greater consumption, undermining at least some of the original benefits. What is more, consumers with lower electricity or fuel bills often put the money they have saved to some other use, such as going on holiday or buying an appliance, which is likely to involve the consumption of fuel and power.
Economists disagree about the size of the rebound effect, which is hard to measure. The British government commissioned two studies of the effect, from two different universities. The first found that it cancelled out roughly 26% of the gains from energy-efficiency schemes; the other put the figure at 37%. Either way, negawatts are worth pursuing. But they are unlikely to satisfy the world's thirst for energy to the extent their advocates assume.
Copyright © 2008 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Alamy
Alamy
If energy conservation both saves money and is good for the planet, why don't people do more of it?
IN WONKISH circles, energy efficiency used to be known as “the fifth fuel”: it can help to satisfy growing demand for energy just as surely as coal, gas, oil or uranium can. But in these environmentally conscious times it has been climbing the rankings. Whereas the burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming, and nuclear plants generate life-threatening waste, the only by-product of energy efficiency is wealth, in the form of lower fuel bills and less spending on power stations, pipelines and so forth. No wonder that wonks now tend to prefer “negawatts” to megawatts as the best method of slaking the world's growing thirst for energy.
Almost all blueprints for tackling global warming assume that energy efficiency will have a huge role to play. Nicholas Stern devoted a whole chapter to it in the report he wrote on climate change for the British government. In the greenest of futures mapped out by the International Energy Agency, a think-tank financed by rich countries, greater efficiency accounts for two-thirds of emissions averted. The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the research arm of the consultancy, thinks that energy efficiency could get the world halfway towards the goal, espoused by many scientists, of keeping the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 550 parts per million.
MGI is particularly enthusiastic because it believes that unlike most other schemes to reduce emissions, a global energy-efficiency drive would be profitable. The measures it has in mind, all of which rely on existing technology, would earn an average return of 17% and a minimum of 10%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists advising the United Nations on global warming, makes a similar point. It believes that profitable energy-efficiency investments would allow Pakistan to cut its emissions by almost a third, Greece by a quarter and Britain by more than a fifth.
In other words, big investments in energy efficiency would more than pay for themselves, and fairly fast. Although a lot of money would have to be spent—$170 billion a year until 2020—by MGI's reckoning that is only 1.6% of today's global annual investment in fixed capital. Moreover, with ample profits to be made, financing should be easy to attract.
Yet if there are so many lucrative opportunities to improve efficiency, why are investors not already taking advantage of them? To a degree, they are: in America, for example, “energy intensity”—the amount of energy required to generate each dollar of output—is falling by about 2% a year (see chart 1). This is only partly because America's factories, houses, cars and appliances are becoming more efficient: it is also because energy-guzzling factories have moved to cheaper spots such as China. But globally, too, energy intensity is falling by around 1½% a year.
That decline is not predestined. Before the first oil shock, in 1973, America's energy intensity was falling by only 0.4% a year. At that languid pace, America would now be spending 12% of GDP on energy instead of 7%, according to Art Rosenfeld, an efficiency pioneer and a member of the California Energy Commission, which sets efficiency standards and other energy policies for the state. Simply by buying more efficient fridges over the years, he reckons, Americans have come to save more than 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, or roughly 80 power plants' worth.
But as McKinsey points out, there are still hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of unfulfilled but potentially profitable opportunities in energy efficiency available to households and companies. What is holding investors back?
One answer is price. In the eyes of many consumers, electricity and fuel are often too cheap to be worth saving, especially in countries where their prices are subsidised. Industrialists in Russia are profligate with natural gas, because it sells there at a quarter of the international price. Drivers in Qatar have little incentive to scrimp on petrol when they pay barely a dollar a gallon for it.
By and large, energy intensity is, not surprisingly, lower in countries where electricity prices are higher. It is no coincidence that Denmark has both high power prices and an energy-efficient economy. Among American states, for every cent per kilowatt-hour by which prices exceed the national average, energy consumption drops by about 7% of the average. George David, the boss of United Technologies, a conglomerate that makes air-conditioners, lifts and aircraft engines, among other items, argues that higher fuel and power prices are the only motor needed to drive energy efficiency.
But there are still plenty of profitable investment opportunities in energy efficiency, even in the places with the most expensive power. David Goldstein, author of a recent book on energy efficiency, points out that until recently businesses in New York lit their premises more brightly than did those in Seattle, despite New York's much higher power prices. And Hawaii, the American state with the dearest power, is not the most efficient (although the one with the cheapest, Kentucky, does come bottom of the efficiency table).
The problem, analysts explain, is a series of distortions and market failures that discourage investment in efficiency. Often, consumers are poorly informed about the savings on offer. Even when they can do the sums, the transaction costs are high: it is a time-consuming chore for someone to identify the best energy-saving equipment, buy it and get it installed. It does not help that the potential savings, although huge when added up across the world, usually amount to only a small share of the budgets of individual firms and households. Despite recent price increases, spending on energy still accounts for a smaller share of the global economy than it did a few decades ago.
For all these reasons, homeowners, as Lord Stern pointed out in his climate-change report, tend to demand exorbitant rates of return on investments in energy efficiency—of around 30%. They generally want new boilers or extra insulation to pay for themselves within two or three years, says Mark Hopkins, of the United Nations Foundation, an NGO. Businesses are not quite so demanding, he says, but they still tend to put greater emphasis on increasing revenues than on cutting costs.
Similar stories crop up in the markets for new homes and offices, appliances and vehicles. Builders are not the ones who end up paying the utility bills, so have little reason to add to the construction costs—and hence the price of a home or office—by incorporating energy-saving features. The makers of appliances and cars also know that not all consumers and drivers will think as carefully about running costs as about the purchase price. By the same token, landlords have scant incentive to invest in energy efficiency on their tenants' behalf. And power companies are usually keen to encourage their customers to consume as much power as possible.
Financing energy-efficiency investments can also be difficult. In the developing world, capital can be scarce. In rich countries, the savings from making individual homes more efficient are too small and the overheads involved too high to be of much interest to most banks.
The scent of savings
Despite these obstacles, as energy prices rise and more countries adopt limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, banks and consultancies are beginning to sniff an opportunity. Firms that help businesses and families to trim their energy bills have become common enough to earn an acronym: ESCos, or energy-service companies. Their industry group in America says business, which had been growing at 3% a year in the early part of this decade, is now increasing by 22% a year. The total revenues of the 46 ESCos it surveyed were about $3.6 billion in 2006, about three-quarters of which came from energy efficiency.
Typically, an ESCo designs a scheme to reduce a building's energy bill, borrows money to pay for the kit it needs, and installs and maintains it over a fixed period. Clients do not need to provide any cash up front: the ESCo's reward comes from retaining most of the savings—out of which it must repay the loan. The revenues are steady and predictable enough to allow ESCos to unburden their balance sheets and lower their borrowing costs by securitising them. Hannon Armstrong, one of the financial-service firms involved, says it has arranged more than $1.5 billion-worth of such securities.
The hitch is that 80% of ESCos' customers in America are from the various branches of the government, along with schools, hospitals and universities. Small businesses and households would provide a much bigger market, but they tend to be less creditworthy and to move more often. Moreover, the transaction costs tend to outweigh the savings.
Jeff Eckel, of Hannon Armstrong, believes it is possible to overcome these problems by aggregating many similar properties and by drawing up clever contracts. The Clinton Climate Initiative, a charity set up by the former American president, is thinking along the same lines. It has persuaded the local authorities in 40 big cities around the world to co-ordinate their investments in energy efficiency. It then used the allure of such a big market to persuade the makers of energy-efficient goods, the ESCos that will install them and the banks that will finance them to reduce their margins. The cities with which the charity has linked up include Chicago, London and New York.
Most governments, however, do not seem convinced that businessmen and do-gooders are capable of overcoming the impediments to energy efficiency on their own. So they are intervening in markets. The variety of methods they use hints at the difficulties.
The simplest tactic is to try to get the public to think. Britain set up a body called the Energy Saving Trust in 1993; America has a similar outfit, called Energy Star. Among other things, it helps consumers identify energy-efficient products and houses through a voluntary labelling scheme. The European Union goes slightly further, with compulsory labelling of goods such as fridges, washing machines and dishwashers; and Britons selling a home must now have its energy efficiency assessed.
But consumers often ignore such labels or at least do not give them as much weight as price, appearance or convenience. So governments sometimes try to make efficient appliances more appealing through financial incentives. America's federal government, for example, offers a tax credit to makers of extremely efficient appliances—and several states give rebates, income-tax credits or sales-tax exemptions to anyone who buys them. China has just said it will subsidise makers of compact fluorescent light-bulbs, which are four or five times more efficient than the cheaper incandescent sort.
Other governments blanch at bribing people to do something that is already in their interest. Australia has proposed banning incandescent light-bulbs outright. Many have adopted building codes and appliance standards that dictate minimum levels of efficiency. Several tighten the standards regularly, to foster constant improvement. Japan's Top Runner scheme, for example, identifies the most efficient appliances on the market in different categories, and then requires all competing brands to improve on them within four to six years. Those that fail face fines.
Businesses often complain that such tough measures impose undue costs, which they must then pass on to consumers as higher prices. They also argue that their customers should be free to buy bigger or more powerful devices if they want, even if that makes them relatively inefficient. Notably, America's carmakers have used such arguments to resist increases in fuel-economy standards.
When Congress raised standards last year it tried to address these complaints by setting different targets for heavy and light vehicles. Each firm's target is an average across all the cars it sells, not a model-by-model limit, so there is still scope to make the odd guzzler. Anyway, environmentalists dispute the notion that energy-efficiency standards drive up prices. The average price of fridges in America has fallen by more than half since the 1970s, even as their efficiency has increased by three-quarters, according to Mr Goldstein. Those gains have come in spite of steady increases in the size of the average unit (see chart 2).
Governments are also obliging utilities to get involved in the business of energy efficiency. Some, including many American states, add an extra sum to electricity bills to finance investments in energy efficiency. Others specify the amount of energy to be saved, rather than the amount to be spent. France, for example, requires gas and electricity suppliers to invest enough over three years to reduce projected demand by 54TWh.
Britain and Italy have similar schemes, although the targets are expressed in tonnes of carbon and barrels of oil, respectively. External auditors verify the savings, and the “white certificates” they issue when they have done so are tradable. The intention is to keep the cost of the scheme low by allowing those that can achieve reductions most cheaply, including ESCos, to do so on behalf of less expert participants. The idea is also spreading in America: Connecticut, Nevada and Pennsylvania have all adopted it.
A sparky divorce
But a white-certificate scheme would have to be very demanding to outweigh a utility's incentive to sell more power. So other American states have gone further, and attempted to “decouple” utilities' profits from their sales. Regulators forecast demand and allow utilities to charge a price that would recoup their costs and earn a fixed return on the basis of that forecast. If demand turns out to be lower than expected, the regulator lets prices rise so that the utility can make the mandated profit; if it is higher, the regulator cuts prices to return the excess to customers.
California, predictably, has gone further still. It first decoupled sales and profits for gas in 1978 and for electricity in 1982. Last year, it adopted a scheme called “decoupling plus”, which aims to make investments in energy efficiency more profitable for utilities than new power stations would be. Fees to finance energy-saving measures are added to each bill, and utilities spend the money in pursuit of targets set by the regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The commission then calculates the savings from these investments, compared with the cost of new power plants. If a utility achieves between 85% and 100% of the target, it is allowed to keep 9% of these savings. If it exceeds the regulator's target, it gets 12%, more than it would earn from building new infrastructure. Between 65% and 85% it does not earn any return at all, and below 65% it pays a fine for every kilowatt-hour by which it has fallen short.
This complicated system is designed to make sure utilities spend more on energy efficiency, but do not waste billpayers' money on investments of dubious merit. California's private utilities now spend about a $1 billion every year on energy efficiency. In July the CPUC will announce their energy-savings targets as far as 2020. The state, says Dian Grueneich, one of the commissioners, hopes to meet half of all projected demand growth through increased energy efficiency.
Less dainty governments just oblige the most energy-hungry firms to cut back. The 13,000 factories in Japan with the highest energy use are required to improve their efficiency by 1% a year. Those that fail to do so are fined. China's central government has followed suit, setting energy-efficiency targets for the country's 1,000 biggest firms. That step, in turn, has spawned similar initiatives in the provinces. Overall, the Chinese government hopes that energy intensity will be 20% lower in 2010 than it was in 2006.
However, no matter what methods governments adopt to encourage energy efficiency, the results may not be as impressive as they imagine. The culprit is something called the “rebound effect”. Falling demand for electricity or fuel brought on by an efficiency drive should lead to lower prices. But cheaper energy, in turn, is likely to prompt greater consumption, undermining at least some of the original benefits. What is more, consumers with lower electricity or fuel bills often put the money they have saved to some other use, such as going on holiday or buying an appliance, which is likely to involve the consumption of fuel and power.
Economists disagree about the size of the rebound effect, which is hard to measure. The British government commissioned two studies of the effect, from two different universities. The first found that it cancelled out roughly 26% of the gains from energy-efficiency schemes; the other put the figure at 37%. Either way, negawatts are worth pursuing. But they are unlikely to satisfy the world's thirst for energy to the extent their advocates assume.
Copyright © 2008 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
New Pew Center Report: EU ETS in Perspective
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has released a new report examining the
European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) that offers a realistic
assessment of the system’s initial objectives and outcomes. The report, “The
European Union’s Emissions Trading System in Perspective,” by A. Denny Ellerman
and Paul L. Joskow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examines the
development, structure, and performance of the system to date.
As the U.S. Congress moves closer to developing a national climate change
policy, this report delivers key insights into the world’s first carbon dioxide
cap-and-trade program. Through analysis of the controversies and lessons learned
from the program’s initial three-year trial phase, the authors provide important
information for U.S. policy-makers and other countries.
The report helps address key cap-and-trade concerns in the U.S. and
internationally, including over-allocation, price volatility, and excessive
“windfall” profits. While it remains a work in progress, the EU ETS affords many
important lessons for policy-makers and major stakeholders to consider when
developing appropriate short- and long-term measures to limit greenhouse gas
emissions.
The report can be directly linked to at www.pewclimate.org/eu-ets.
For more information about global climate change and the activities of the Pew
Center, visit www.pewclimate.org.
European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) that offers a realistic
assessment of the system’s initial objectives and outcomes. The report, “The
European Union’s Emissions Trading System in Perspective,” by A. Denny Ellerman
and Paul L. Joskow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examines the
development, structure, and performance of the system to date.
As the U.S. Congress moves closer to developing a national climate change
policy, this report delivers key insights into the world’s first carbon dioxide
cap-and-trade program. Through analysis of the controversies and lessons learned
from the program’s initial three-year trial phase, the authors provide important
information for U.S. policy-makers and other countries.
The report helps address key cap-and-trade concerns in the U.S. and
internationally, including over-allocation, price volatility, and excessive
“windfall” profits. While it remains a work in progress, the EU ETS affords many
important lessons for policy-makers and major stakeholders to consider when
developing appropriate short- and long-term measures to limit greenhouse gas
emissions.
The report can be directly linked to at www.pewclimate.org/eu-ets.
For more information about global climate change and the activities of the Pew
Center, visit www.pewclimate.org.
Harvard Project: Economic Incentives in a New Climate Agreement
The magnitude of the climate change challenge has drawn attention to the
potential use of market-based instruments to ensure that polluters face direct
incentives to mitigate emissions at the lowest possible cost. This new research
paper from the Harvard Project of International Climate Agreements at the
Harvard Kennedy School examines such instruments. It was prepared as background
to a high-level dialogue hosted by the Prime Minister of Denmark, in his
capacity as incoming President of the fifteenth Conference of the Parties.
Three basic routes stand out. First, countries could agree to apply the same tax
on carbon (harmonized domestic taxes) or adopt a uniform international tax.
Second, the international policy community could establish a system of
international tradable permits, — effectively a nation-state level cap-and-trade
program. In its simplest form, this represents the Kyoto Protocol’s Annex B
emission targets and the Article 17 trading mechanism. Third, a more
decentralized system of internationally-linked domestic cap-and-trade programs
could also ensure internationally cost-effective emission mitigation.
See the full paper here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18261/
To add yourself to the list to receive such papers in the future, sign up at:
http://www.belfercenter.org/subscribe.html . Check the box marked “Harvard
Project on International Climate Agreements.”
You are currently subscribed to climate-l as: vern.weitzel@gmail.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to
leave-768697-347645.7fceef9bd33db7dd391b19fea67a7b4e@lists.iisd.ca
- Subscribe to IISD Reporting Services' free newsletters and lists for
environment and sustainable development policy professionals at
http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm
potential use of market-based instruments to ensure that polluters face direct
incentives to mitigate emissions at the lowest possible cost. This new research
paper from the Harvard Project of International Climate Agreements at the
Harvard Kennedy School examines such instruments. It was prepared as background
to a high-level dialogue hosted by the Prime Minister of Denmark, in his
capacity as incoming President of the fifteenth Conference of the Parties.
Three basic routes stand out. First, countries could agree to apply the same tax
on carbon (harmonized domestic taxes) or adopt a uniform international tax.
Second, the international policy community could establish a system of
international tradable permits, — effectively a nation-state level cap-and-trade
program. In its simplest form, this represents the Kyoto Protocol’s Annex B
emission targets and the Article 17 trading mechanism. Third, a more
decentralized system of internationally-linked domestic cap-and-trade programs
could also ensure internationally cost-effective emission mitigation.
See the full paper here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18261/
To add yourself to the list to receive such papers in the future, sign up at:
http://www.belfercenter.org/subscribe.html . Check the box marked “Harvard
Project on International Climate Agreements.”
You are currently subscribed to climate-l as: vern.weitzel@gmail.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to
leave-768697-347645.7fceef9bd33db7dd391b19fea67a7b4e@lists.iisd.ca
- Subscribe to IISD Reporting Services' free newsletters and lists for
environment and sustainable development policy professionals at
http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm
The Post-Bush Climate
May 14, 2008
Editorial
The Post-Bush Climate
John McCain has been engaged in the fight against global warming for years, even at the expense of breaking with Republican orthodoxy and with President Bush on the issue. But it was still an important moment this week when Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, decided to raise the profile of climate change in the 2008 campaign. We have clearly entered the post-Bush era of policy and politics on climate change. However this election turns out, the United States will have a president who supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases. It is possible to begin to believe in the prospect of serious Congressional action.
Politically, of course, Mr. McCain could also be helping himself. Endorsing an aggressive and potentially expensive effort to reduce carbon emissions will not win him friends on the right wing. But it allows him to make the case (at little cost given his well-known record on the issue) that he is not a Bush clone, even as he embraces the president’s views on taxes, the federal judiciary and the war in Iraq.
Like the two Democratic candidates, Mr. McCain proposes a market-based “cap and trade” system in which power plants and other polluters could meet steadily stricter limits on gases like carbon dioxide — either by reducing emissions on their own or by buying credits from more efficient producers. His plan seeks to stabilize emissions in several years and then cut them by 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Some Democrats and environmentalists pounced quickly on the fact that Mr. McCain’s goals are less ambitious than the 70 percent target contained in a bill sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner that is expected to reach the Senate floor next month, or the 80 percent target proposed by Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
His plan differs in other respects, too. He decided at the last minute to delete from his speech a proposed tariff on countries like India and China that defy international agreements on emissions, partly because the tariff could be misconstrued as hostile to free trade, which Mr. McCain supports. The Senate bill contains such a provision. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain is much more enthusiastic, and in our view rightly so, about nuclear energy as a cleaner power source than the Senate sponsors or the two Democratic presidential candidates are.
At this stage, it would be a mistake to make too much of these differences, including the overall targets. With emissions continuing to rise, and the demand for energy expected to grow, any plan that calls for a big downward wrench in emissions will demand huge investments in cleaner ways of producing energy and far more fuel-efficient vehicles. Above all, it will require determined and courageous leadership from a president capable of conveying hard truths and asking a lot of the country.
Assuming that Mr. McCain and the two Democratic candidates mean what they say, on this issue at least, we seem assured of such a president.
Editorial
The Post-Bush Climate
John McCain has been engaged in the fight against global warming for years, even at the expense of breaking with Republican orthodoxy and with President Bush on the issue. But it was still an important moment this week when Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, decided to raise the profile of climate change in the 2008 campaign. We have clearly entered the post-Bush era of policy and politics on climate change. However this election turns out, the United States will have a president who supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases. It is possible to begin to believe in the prospect of serious Congressional action.
Politically, of course, Mr. McCain could also be helping himself. Endorsing an aggressive and potentially expensive effort to reduce carbon emissions will not win him friends on the right wing. But it allows him to make the case (at little cost given his well-known record on the issue) that he is not a Bush clone, even as he embraces the president’s views on taxes, the federal judiciary and the war in Iraq.
Like the two Democratic candidates, Mr. McCain proposes a market-based “cap and trade” system in which power plants and other polluters could meet steadily stricter limits on gases like carbon dioxide — either by reducing emissions on their own or by buying credits from more efficient producers. His plan seeks to stabilize emissions in several years and then cut them by 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Some Democrats and environmentalists pounced quickly on the fact that Mr. McCain’s goals are less ambitious than the 70 percent target contained in a bill sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner that is expected to reach the Senate floor next month, or the 80 percent target proposed by Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
His plan differs in other respects, too. He decided at the last minute to delete from his speech a proposed tariff on countries like India and China that defy international agreements on emissions, partly because the tariff could be misconstrued as hostile to free trade, which Mr. McCain supports. The Senate bill contains such a provision. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain is much more enthusiastic, and in our view rightly so, about nuclear energy as a cleaner power source than the Senate sponsors or the two Democratic presidential candidates are.
At this stage, it would be a mistake to make too much of these differences, including the overall targets. With emissions continuing to rise, and the demand for energy expected to grow, any plan that calls for a big downward wrench in emissions will demand huge investments in cleaner ways of producing energy and far more fuel-efficient vehicles. Above all, it will require determined and courageous leadership from a president capable of conveying hard truths and asking a lot of the country.
Assuming that Mr. McCain and the two Democratic candidates mean what they say, on this issue at least, we seem assured of such a president.
William G. Moseley: In search of a better revolution
William G. Moseley: In search of a better revolution
By WILLIAM G. MOSELEY
May 13, 2008
Urban West Africa is Ground Zero in the global food crisis. From Dakar to Abidjan, the cities in this zone have experienced more protests against rising food prices than any other region in 2008.
The solution pushed by many global leaders is to increase crop yields in Africa via a new green revolution. They point to the apparent success of the last green revolution in the 1960s and '70s, a concerted global effort in Asia and Latin America to disseminate a high-yield crop package of hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. The problem, they argue, is that these innovations never reached Africa. They are wrong.
The green revolution did touch Africa -- in the form of cheap Asian rice, which began flooding African markets in the 1980s. I have been working or conducting research in West Africa on food and agriculture for more than 20 years. When I lived with a family on the outskirts of Bamako, Mali, in the 1980s, they still largely ate small grains (millet and sorghum) produced in the surrounding countryside. Today, they mostly purchase rice from Thailand, having developed a taste over several years for this (until recently) relatively cheap import.
Research shows that this pattern has been repeated in cities across West Africa, constricting markets for locally produced grains and forcing farmers to switch to other crops (such as cotton) as a source of cash or abandoning farming altogether for a life in the city.
The green revolution also was not of great benefit if you were a small, poor farmer in Asia. While the new package of hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides did dramatically increase yields, the cost of such inputs was prohibitively expensive for the poorest farmers. The result was a silent reorganization of the Asian countryside: The poorest of the poor couldn't compete, so they went to work for wealthier neighbors or moved to the city. Even wealthier farmers faced growing input costs as insects developed resistance to the most common pesticides, forcing the farmers to apply more and more chemicals or switch to expensive alternatives.
Global leaders are correct in asserting that the agricultural sector in Africa deserves more attention and support. The green-revolution approach, however, is flawed. For starters, many of the inputs required for higher-yielding crops, especially fertilizers, are petroleum-based. The cost of these inputs will only rise in step with the general upward trend in energy costs. Use of imported seeds (hybrid or GMO) and other inputs also concentrates power in the boardrooms of global agrochemical firms rather than in the hands of small farmers.
An approach emphasizing local or national food provision and appropriate technology is more sustainable and empowering for small West African farmers. Agricultural experiments comparing intensive African methods (involving the use of manure and compost as inputs and the intelligent mixing of multiple crops) to conventional Western cropping strategies have repeatedly shown the former to be more efficient in terms of energy consumed per unit of output. These methods have been inhibited by cheap imports and by agricultural agencies that emphasized industrial approaches to crop production.
While some emergency measures will be needed to address the food crisis in the short term, we can do better than another green revolution in the medium to long term. This will involve building on the knowledge of local farmers to develop agricultural approaches that are sustainable and accessible to the poor. It may also mean protecting national and regional food systems from unfair competition.
For years, global and national food policies have had an urban bias in that the provision of cheap food has almost always trumped environmental or social costs in the countryside. The results have been predictable: more underemployed urban residents hailing from rural areas and fewer small farmers. West Africa has some of the best small farmers in the world. We should support, not subvert, their genius.
William G. Moseley is an associate professor of geography at Macalester College in St. Paul. His most recent book is "Hanging by a Thread: Cotton, Globalization and Poverty in Africa."
By WILLIAM G. MOSELEY
May 13, 2008
Urban West Africa is Ground Zero in the global food crisis. From Dakar to Abidjan, the cities in this zone have experienced more protests against rising food prices than any other region in 2008.
The solution pushed by many global leaders is to increase crop yields in Africa via a new green revolution. They point to the apparent success of the last green revolution in the 1960s and '70s, a concerted global effort in Asia and Latin America to disseminate a high-yield crop package of hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. The problem, they argue, is that these innovations never reached Africa. They are wrong.
The green revolution did touch Africa -- in the form of cheap Asian rice, which began flooding African markets in the 1980s. I have been working or conducting research in West Africa on food and agriculture for more than 20 years. When I lived with a family on the outskirts of Bamako, Mali, in the 1980s, they still largely ate small grains (millet and sorghum) produced in the surrounding countryside. Today, they mostly purchase rice from Thailand, having developed a taste over several years for this (until recently) relatively cheap import.
Research shows that this pattern has been repeated in cities across West Africa, constricting markets for locally produced grains and forcing farmers to switch to other crops (such as cotton) as a source of cash or abandoning farming altogether for a life in the city.
The green revolution also was not of great benefit if you were a small, poor farmer in Asia. While the new package of hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides did dramatically increase yields, the cost of such inputs was prohibitively expensive for the poorest farmers. The result was a silent reorganization of the Asian countryside: The poorest of the poor couldn't compete, so they went to work for wealthier neighbors or moved to the city. Even wealthier farmers faced growing input costs as insects developed resistance to the most common pesticides, forcing the farmers to apply more and more chemicals or switch to expensive alternatives.
Global leaders are correct in asserting that the agricultural sector in Africa deserves more attention and support. The green-revolution approach, however, is flawed. For starters, many of the inputs required for higher-yielding crops, especially fertilizers, are petroleum-based. The cost of these inputs will only rise in step with the general upward trend in energy costs. Use of imported seeds (hybrid or GMO) and other inputs also concentrates power in the boardrooms of global agrochemical firms rather than in the hands of small farmers.
An approach emphasizing local or national food provision and appropriate technology is more sustainable and empowering for small West African farmers. Agricultural experiments comparing intensive African methods (involving the use of manure and compost as inputs and the intelligent mixing of multiple crops) to conventional Western cropping strategies have repeatedly shown the former to be more efficient in terms of energy consumed per unit of output. These methods have been inhibited by cheap imports and by agricultural agencies that emphasized industrial approaches to crop production.
While some emergency measures will be needed to address the food crisis in the short term, we can do better than another green revolution in the medium to long term. This will involve building on the knowledge of local farmers to develop agricultural approaches that are sustainable and accessible to the poor. It may also mean protecting national and regional food systems from unfair competition.
For years, global and national food policies have had an urban bias in that the provision of cheap food has almost always trumped environmental or social costs in the countryside. The results have been predictable: more underemployed urban residents hailing from rural areas and fewer small farmers. West Africa has some of the best small farmers in the world. We should support, not subvert, their genius.
William G. Moseley is an associate professor of geography at Macalester College in St. Paul. His most recent book is "Hanging by a Thread: Cotton, Globalization and Poverty in Africa."
2008年5月14日水曜日
アジア開発銀行、中国の省エネに１億5000万ドルの信用供与
アジア開発銀行は3日、中国の南部と東部で進められる省エネ建築物のプロジェクトに、総額8億元（およそ1億1500万ドル）にのぼる信用保証（PCG）を提供すると明らかにしました。
3日から4日間にわたってアジア開発銀行の年次総会がスペインの首都マドリードで開催されていますが、会議に出席しているアジア開発銀行の企業向け業務担当のチェンダー事務次長は記者に、「これはアジア開発銀行が初めて中国の大規模な省エネ・プロジェクトを支援することになる」と話しました。
チェンダー事務次長はまた、「中国の省エネプロジェクトは工業化が比較的進んだ広東省など南部と東部の地域で展開される。最初の段階は、省エネ建築物を普及させるとともに、一般の建築物に対しても省エネの改造工事を行う。これらの改造工事の結果、20％から40％の省エネを実現できる」と紹介しました。
3日から4日間にわたってアジア開発銀行の年次総会がスペインの首都マドリードで開催されていますが、会議に出席しているアジア開発銀行の企業向け業務担当のチェンダー事務次長は記者に、「これはアジア開発銀行が初めて中国の大規模な省エネ・プロジェクトを支援することになる」と話しました。
チェンダー事務次長はまた、「中国の省エネプロジェクトは工業化が比較的進んだ広東省など南部と東部の地域で展開される。最初の段階は、省エネ建築物を普及させるとともに、一般の建築物に対しても省エネの改造工事を行う。これらの改造工事の結果、20％から40％の省エネを実現できる」と紹介しました。
SunEdison Copycats Take Finance Model Beyond PV
SunEdison Copycats Take Finance Model Beyond PV
A business model that lets customers buy solar-electric power with no upfront costs is expanding into solar-thermal, geothermal and even energy-conservation technologies.
by: Tyler Hamilton
Bullet Arrow January 08, 2008
A utility service model pioneered by SunEdison, which lets cash-strapped municipalities and building owners purchase solar power with no upfront capital, is beginning to generate more than just kilowatts.
Advertisement
It's also producing copycats in energy efficiency, heating and cooling. Companies such as Mondial Energy and GeoXperts have adapted the utility approach to solar-thermal and geothermal heat-pump systems, allowing customers to dramatically offset their use of natural gas or electricity without weighing down their balance sheets.
And at least one company, H2O Applied Technologies, has even figured out a way to sell conservation as a service, by getting paid over a long-term contract out of monthly energy savings.
Some industry experts caution that the complexity of certain technologies increases the risk of such lengthy commitments, and say that becoming a utility is more than just selling energy – it's about supporting a service 24 hours a day. The concept, however, is attracting the attention of green-minded organizations that want to buy clean energy, not own the systems that produce it.
"The client really doesn't know what the cost is. They don't ask us what the cost is. They have absolutely no responsibility regarding the cost," said Al Scaramelli, president of Boston-based H2O Applied Technologies. "They can have their cake and eat it too."
The company goes into hospitals, colleges and universities and installs energy-efficient equipment at its own expense, in exchange for an 80-percent cut of savings, usually over a six-year contract period. After the contract expires, the customer can purchase the equipment from H2O at "fair market value" -- typically 6 to 8 cents on the dollar.
H2O's trick is to keep the entire agreement off the institution's balance sheet so it doesn't tie up scarce capital that's desperately needed in other areas. It does this by investing in new equipment, or modifications to equipment, rather than changes to a building, which are subject to different accounting rules.
"It can't be real-estate related," said Scaramelli. "We couldn't put insulation on a roof but we could do it on a boiler. There's no other company that offers this kind of accounting treatment."
At Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, for example, H2O purchased and installed new energy-efficient heating, cooling and mechanical equipment, cutting the hospital's energy bill by $750,000 a year. The privately held company, which Scaramelli said has "several hundred million dollars" to work with, has about 30 projects under its belt and is seeing demand for its service take off as organizations move to green up their images.
Meanwhile, the city of Toronto recently gave the go-ahead for a solar-thermal pilot project that will equip 20 municipal buildings with rooftop systems at no cost. The systems will be installed, owned and maintained by a third party, which will sell the solar-generated heat -- or British Thermal Units (BTUs) -- back to the city at a fixed rate over 10 or more years.
A request for proposals has been issued and the city expects to select its solar-thermal utility early next year. If successful, the project will likely be expanded throughout the rest of the city, the fifth-largest in North America.
"There's been a mind shift among municipalities in the last year alone," said Rob McMonagle, a senior energy consultant for the city of Toronto and former executive director of the Canadian Solar Industries Association. "Everybody is starting to look at these alternative models."
Alex Winch, president of Toronto-based Mondial Energy, said the city's RFP is an "open endorsement" of a business model he has been promoting for the past three years. He said the fact that Toronto chose solar-thermal instead of solar PV demonstrates that, as far as greenhouse-gas reduction strategies go, displacing fossil fuels with renewable thermal energy is as equally effective as embracing green electricity.
With a solar-thermal system, fluid-filled tubes behind a solar panel collect the sun's heat and carry it into a building, where it's used to pre-heat water and assist with space heating. This renewable heat directly offsets the need for natural gas or electricity, in some cases by more than 50 percent.
"We've done the proof of concept, we've built on people's rooftops, we're generating the energy and customers are happy," said Winch, who many credit as a pioneer of the solar-thermal utility model. "Increasingly, we're going into meetings with prospective investors and they already know us, whereas three years ago I was going into these meetings on more of an educational mission."
The challenge now, he said, it to move beyond one-off projects and start building scale. "The Toronto proposal is a key element to this. A portfolio of 20 buildings lets me go to scale. We're not aware of any other city taking this approach." He said he hopes it will tweak the interest of other North American cities.
Mondial, which already acts as solar utility to two seniors' residences and one hospital, plans to bid for the city project, likely in competition with newcomers such as RESCo Energy of Toronto and Montreal-based HLT Energies.
"I'm sure there are a lot of people looking over Alex's shoulder to see what he does and how he does it," said Derek Brown, in charge of the solar hot-water program at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Fat Spaniel Technologies. The company supplies software that allows Mondial to monitor the performance and verify output of its solar-thermal projects. "They are the first ones and they're pushing it along. We're cheering them on."
Brown said it would be difficult for a company like Mondial to develop a business plan without the assistance of software that allows for remote and detailed monitoring of hundreds, potentially thousands of different systems. "The PPA (power purchase agreement) model and the Fat Spaniel service model are closely intertwined."
Winch agreed, adding that the ability to present performance data in real time from a remote location makes it easier to show the economic advantages of solar-thermal versus solar PV systems. "I think we're gaining traction because people are seeing energy pricing that's competitive. … When we price our kilowatt-hours (BTU equivalent) and come in with a proposal to customers, the PV guys cringe."
Another renewable utility model that could gain traction is being tested by a Toronto-based company called GeoXperts, whose founders have had limited experience in Philadelphia and the Bahamas with a geothermal-services model that replaces natural gas and offsets electricity use in large buildings.
Geothermal heat-pump systems provide both heating and cooling by taking advantage of constant temperatures 6 feet or more below the Earth's surface. The systems require some electricity, but overall greenhouse-gas reductions can be dramatic.
GeoXperts starts by determining what a potential customer pays in energy costs annually. The company then offers to supply that energy for a slightly lower fixed annual rate over 10, 15 or 20 years using a geothermal system it will install, own and maintain. "For the client, the key is that their energy costs are capped going forward. That's the difference we bring to the equation," said Leslie Thomas, president of GeoXperts.
Every year under contract, a GeoXperts customer gets a predictable flat-rate energy bill that's slightly lower than it used to pay. On top of this, it gets the environmental bragging rights associated with geothermal installations.
Thomas Garcia, chief financial officer of GeoXperts, said the company is close to raising a major first-round financing. "We're getting ready to launch in a big way," he said. "There are so many retrofits to be done. The market is just huge."
But for SunEdison, which considers itself technology agnostic, solar PV is still the way to go. Vice President Mark Culpepper said there are more technical risks to consider with solar-thermal and geothermal technologies.
"Any time you roll out a new technology, particularly ones involving moving fluids, you come under a much higher degree of scrutiny," said Culpepper, adding that startups entering the field often forget about the need for on-call service and maintenance crews and liability coverage.
"We're not opposed to it by any stretch of the imagination," he added. "But all those aspects entail having a comprehensive approach, and very few companies are thinking about it that way."
A business model that lets customers buy solar-electric power with no upfront costs is expanding into solar-thermal, geothermal and even energy-conservation technologies.
by: Tyler Hamilton
Bullet Arrow January 08, 2008
A utility service model pioneered by SunEdison, which lets cash-strapped municipalities and building owners purchase solar power with no upfront capital, is beginning to generate more than just kilowatts.
Advertisement
It's also producing copycats in energy efficiency, heating and cooling. Companies such as Mondial Energy and GeoXperts have adapted the utility approach to solar-thermal and geothermal heat-pump systems, allowing customers to dramatically offset their use of natural gas or electricity without weighing down their balance sheets.
And at least one company, H2O Applied Technologies, has even figured out a way to sell conservation as a service, by getting paid over a long-term contract out of monthly energy savings.
Some industry experts caution that the complexity of certain technologies increases the risk of such lengthy commitments, and say that becoming a utility is more than just selling energy – it's about supporting a service 24 hours a day. The concept, however, is attracting the attention of green-minded organizations that want to buy clean energy, not own the systems that produce it.
"The client really doesn't know what the cost is. They don't ask us what the cost is. They have absolutely no responsibility regarding the cost," said Al Scaramelli, president of Boston-based H2O Applied Technologies. "They can have their cake and eat it too."
The company goes into hospitals, colleges and universities and installs energy-efficient equipment at its own expense, in exchange for an 80-percent cut of savings, usually over a six-year contract period. After the contract expires, the customer can purchase the equipment from H2O at "fair market value" -- typically 6 to 8 cents on the dollar.
H2O's trick is to keep the entire agreement off the institution's balance sheet so it doesn't tie up scarce capital that's desperately needed in other areas. It does this by investing in new equipment, or modifications to equipment, rather than changes to a building, which are subject to different accounting rules.
"It can't be real-estate related," said Scaramelli. "We couldn't put insulation on a roof but we could do it on a boiler. There's no other company that offers this kind of accounting treatment."
At Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, for example, H2O purchased and installed new energy-efficient heating, cooling and mechanical equipment, cutting the hospital's energy bill by $750,000 a year. The privately held company, which Scaramelli said has "several hundred million dollars" to work with, has about 30 projects under its belt and is seeing demand for its service take off as organizations move to green up their images.
Meanwhile, the city of Toronto recently gave the go-ahead for a solar-thermal pilot project that will equip 20 municipal buildings with rooftop systems at no cost. The systems will be installed, owned and maintained by a third party, which will sell the solar-generated heat -- or British Thermal Units (BTUs) -- back to the city at a fixed rate over 10 or more years.
A request for proposals has been issued and the city expects to select its solar-thermal utility early next year. If successful, the project will likely be expanded throughout the rest of the city, the fifth-largest in North America.
"There's been a mind shift among municipalities in the last year alone," said Rob McMonagle, a senior energy consultant for the city of Toronto and former executive director of the Canadian Solar Industries Association. "Everybody is starting to look at these alternative models."
Alex Winch, president of Toronto-based Mondial Energy, said the city's RFP is an "open endorsement" of a business model he has been promoting for the past three years. He said the fact that Toronto chose solar-thermal instead of solar PV demonstrates that, as far as greenhouse-gas reduction strategies go, displacing fossil fuels with renewable thermal energy is as equally effective as embracing green electricity.
With a solar-thermal system, fluid-filled tubes behind a solar panel collect the sun's heat and carry it into a building, where it's used to pre-heat water and assist with space heating. This renewable heat directly offsets the need for natural gas or electricity, in some cases by more than 50 percent.
"We've done the proof of concept, we've built on people's rooftops, we're generating the energy and customers are happy," said Winch, who many credit as a pioneer of the solar-thermal utility model. "Increasingly, we're going into meetings with prospective investors and they already know us, whereas three years ago I was going into these meetings on more of an educational mission."
The challenge now, he said, it to move beyond one-off projects and start building scale. "The Toronto proposal is a key element to this. A portfolio of 20 buildings lets me go to scale. We're not aware of any other city taking this approach." He said he hopes it will tweak the interest of other North American cities.
Mondial, which already acts as solar utility to two seniors' residences and one hospital, plans to bid for the city project, likely in competition with newcomers such as RESCo Energy of Toronto and Montreal-based HLT Energies.
"I'm sure there are a lot of people looking over Alex's shoulder to see what he does and how he does it," said Derek Brown, in charge of the solar hot-water program at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Fat Spaniel Technologies. The company supplies software that allows Mondial to monitor the performance and verify output of its solar-thermal projects. "They are the first ones and they're pushing it along. We're cheering them on."
Brown said it would be difficult for a company like Mondial to develop a business plan without the assistance of software that allows for remote and detailed monitoring of hundreds, potentially thousands of different systems. "The PPA (power purchase agreement) model and the Fat Spaniel service model are closely intertwined."
Winch agreed, adding that the ability to present performance data in real time from a remote location makes it easier to show the economic advantages of solar-thermal versus solar PV systems. "I think we're gaining traction because people are seeing energy pricing that's competitive. … When we price our kilowatt-hours (BTU equivalent) and come in with a proposal to customers, the PV guys cringe."
Another renewable utility model that could gain traction is being tested by a Toronto-based company called GeoXperts, whose founders have had limited experience in Philadelphia and the Bahamas with a geothermal-services model that replaces natural gas and offsets electricity use in large buildings.
Geothermal heat-pump systems provide both heating and cooling by taking advantage of constant temperatures 6 feet or more below the Earth's surface. The systems require some electricity, but overall greenhouse-gas reductions can be dramatic.
GeoXperts starts by determining what a potential customer pays in energy costs annually. The company then offers to supply that energy for a slightly lower fixed annual rate over 10, 15 or 20 years using a geothermal system it will install, own and maintain. "For the client, the key is that their energy costs are capped going forward. That's the difference we bring to the equation," said Leslie Thomas, president of GeoXperts.
Every year under contract, a GeoXperts customer gets a predictable flat-rate energy bill that's slightly lower than it used to pay. On top of this, it gets the environmental bragging rights associated with geothermal installations.
Thomas Garcia, chief financial officer of GeoXperts, said the company is close to raising a major first-round financing. "We're getting ready to launch in a big way," he said. "There are so many retrofits to be done. The market is just huge."
But for SunEdison, which considers itself technology agnostic, solar PV is still the way to go. Vice President Mark Culpepper said there are more technical risks to consider with solar-thermal and geothermal technologies.
"Any time you roll out a new technology, particularly ones involving moving fluids, you come under a much higher degree of scrutiny," said Culpepper, adding that startups entering the field often forget about the need for on-call service and maintenance crews and liability coverage.
"We're not opposed to it by any stretch of the imagination," he added. "But all those aspects entail having a comprehensive approach, and very few companies are thinking about it that way."
ヤンゴン情報
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tetsuro Usui
Date: 2008/5/8
Subject: Re: 今村真央より
To: Masao Imamura
今村さん
メールありがとうごじます。ご存知のように先週土曜日に未明に緬国は過去にない台風に強襲されました。私もあんな光景は生まれてこの方見たことがなく、１７階のアパートの窓にはちぎられた草や木の葉がたたきつけられるほどでした。市内はまさに暴風と豪雨を伴う巨大な津波が突き抜けた、といった感じでした。ヤンゴン市内では樹齢２００年もあろう巨木が軒並み倒木。それも大きな枝がちぎりられ倒されたといった痛々しい光景が広がっています。緑豊かな木々で囲まれた公園はまるで、木々のゴミ捨て場のようになってしまいました。また市内では屋根が吹き飛ばされた家々もありますが、郊外の方が被害が多大だったようです。ヤンゴンでは３００人が死亡したとの情報もあります。
被害が甚大だったのがヤンゴンの南西に広がるデルタ地帯で、今日の政府発表で２万人が死亡し４万人が行方不明とのことです。日本の外務省はシンガポールの備蓄庫からテントや毛布などを送ったようです。緬国政府は各国に公式に援助要請を発表していますが、どれだけ受け入れるのかは不明です。あえて恥部をさらしたくないのが本音ですので、実際の援助機関の活動は制限されるのは目に見えているようです。しかし、緊急援助隊が動くのなら早急に対応してもらいたいものですが、ヤンゴンから現地までは車で約５～６時間のところに位置するので、懸案のロジ面での問題があります。ご存知のようにボーガレー、ラプタ、ミャウミャといった地域は運河に面した漁村と農村が広がる地域で、貧しい漁民と農民が粗末な家々に暮らす村々が続いています。明朝に襲った風速（秒速）６０ｍもの強力な台風は人々に避難する余裕を与えずにそのまま強風と大雨の中に人々を飲み込んでいったようです。
市内の問題は当たり前ですが電気、水、食料です。先週の土曜日にはJICAや大使館関係者が多く住むこのアパートも丸１日以上も停電が続き、断水状態でした。電力供給がない現状はディーゼル、ガソリン、ガスなどの燃料代金を高騰させ、実際の市場価格は先週の２倍以上となっています。昨日、レグーのプロジェクトからの市内までの帰途にはスタンドでの燃料供給を待つバスなどの車両は５００台を超えています。燃料が逼迫しつつあり、交通機関は混乱に陥りつつあります。電力供給がない状況の中で、製造業は必要となる燃料を必死にかき集めており、それが燃料の高騰と逼迫を引き起こす原因の一つになっています。私が居住するアパートが確保しているディーゼルはあと１０日ばかりでそれも１日１５時間の計画停電をしたうえでの話です。他の関係者が居住するアパートでも同じ状況にあるため、あと１週間で事態が回復しない場合は生活自体が厳しくなるのかもしれません。また、市内での停電は皆慣れっこですが、長期の断水は今後水系感染症の発症を引き起こすことになることが懸念されています。街中では善意ある市民が発電機で地下水をくみ上げ近所の人々に拭
e$rG[5k$9$k8w7J$,8+$+$1$i$l$^$9$,!"@/I\$K$h$k;Y1g$O8+$+$1$i$l$^$;$s!#Bg$-$J%9!<%Q!<%^!<%1%C%H$O?)NA$r5a$a$k?M!9$NK=EL2=$r62$l$F%7%c%C%?!<$rDy$a@Z$C$?$^$^$NE9$,$[$H$s$I$G$9!#;TFb$N$"$A$3$A$GEECl$,:,85$+$iE]2u$7$F$$$^$9$,!"$=$N?t$O#2@iK\$O2<$i$J$$$b$N$H;W$o$l$F$$$^$9!#EENO6!5k$NA0LLI|6=$K$O>/$J$/$H$b#1%v7n$rMW$9$k$b$N$H;W$o$l$^$9!#$7$+$7K\Ev$K?)$Y$k$3$H$,$G$-$J$/$J$j$D$D$"$k?M!9$O3N
あまり先のことを考えないのが緬国人の性格ではありますが、１週間後に現状が回復しない場合は市民の不満が広がる恐れがあるかもしれません。金があっても物が買えなくなる現実は徐々に広がりつつあるように思います。関心のある方と情報を共有していただければと思います。
それでは失礼します。
碓井
From: Tetsuro Usui
Date: 2008/5/8
Subject: Re: 今村真央より
To: Masao Imamura
今村さん
メールありがとうごじます。ご存知のように先週土曜日に未明に緬国は過去にない台風に強襲されました。私もあんな光景は生まれてこの方見たことがなく、１７階のアパートの窓にはちぎられた草や木の葉がたたきつけられるほどでした。市内はまさに暴風と豪雨を伴う巨大な津波が突き抜けた、といった感じでした。ヤンゴン市内では樹齢２００年もあろう巨木が軒並み倒木。それも大きな枝がちぎりられ倒されたといった痛々しい光景が広がっています。緑豊かな木々で囲まれた公園はまるで、木々のゴミ捨て場のようになってしまいました。また市内では屋根が吹き飛ばされた家々もありますが、郊外の方が被害が多大だったようです。ヤンゴンでは３００人が死亡したとの情報もあります。
被害が甚大だったのがヤンゴンの南西に広がるデルタ地帯で、今日の政府発表で２万人が死亡し４万人が行方不明とのことです。日本の外務省はシンガポールの備蓄庫からテントや毛布などを送ったようです。緬国政府は各国に公式に援助要請を発表していますが、どれだけ受け入れるのかは不明です。あえて恥部をさらしたくないのが本音ですので、実際の援助機関の活動は制限されるのは目に見えているようです。しかし、緊急援助隊が動くのなら早急に対応してもらいたいものですが、ヤンゴンから現地までは車で約５～６時間のところに位置するので、懸案のロジ面での問題があります。ご存知のようにボーガレー、ラプタ、ミャウミャといった地域は運河に面した漁村と農村が広がる地域で、貧しい漁民と農民が粗末な家々に暮らす村々が続いています。明朝に襲った風速（秒速）６０ｍもの強力な台風は人々に避難する余裕を与えずにそのまま強風と大雨の中に人々を飲み込んでいったようです。
市内の問題は当たり前ですが電気、水、食料です。先週の土曜日にはJICAや大使館関係者が多く住むこのアパートも丸１日以上も停電が続き、断水状態でした。電力供給がない現状はディーゼル、ガソリン、ガスなどの燃料代金を高騰させ、実際の市場価格は先週の２倍以上となっています。昨日、レグーのプロジェクトからの市内までの帰途にはスタンドでの燃料供給を待つバスなどの車両は５００台を超えています。燃料が逼迫しつつあり、交通機関は混乱に陥りつつあります。電力供給がない状況の中で、製造業は必要となる燃料を必死にかき集めており、それが燃料の高騰と逼迫を引き起こす原因の一つになっています。私が居住するアパートが確保しているディーゼルはあと１０日ばかりでそれも１日１５時間の計画停電をしたうえでの話です。他の関係者が居住するアパートでも同じ状況にあるため、あと１週間で事態が回復しない場合は生活自体が厳しくなるのかもしれません。また、市内での停電は皆慣れっこですが、長期の断水は今後水系感染症の発症を引き起こすことになることが懸念されています。街中では善意ある市民が発電機で地下水をくみ上げ近所の人々に拭
e$rG[5k$9$k8w7J$,8+$+$1$i$l$^$9$,!"@/I\$K$h$k;Y1g$O8+$+$1$i$l$^$;$s!#Bg$-$J%9!<%Q!<%^!<%1%C%H$O?)NA$r5a$a$k?M!9$NK=EL2=$r62$l$F%7%c%C%?!<$rDy$a@Z$C$?$^$^$NE9$,$[$H$s$I$G$9!#;TFb$N$"$A$3$A$GEECl$,:,85$+$iE]2u$7$F$$$^$9$,!"$=$N?t$O#2@iK\$O2<$i$J$$$b$N$H;W$o$l$F$$$^$9!#EENO6!5k$NA0LLI|6=$K$O>/$J$/$H$b#1%v7n$rMW$9$k$b$N$H;W$o$l$^$9!#$7$+$7K\Ev$K?)$Y$k$3$H$,$G$-$J$/$J$j$D$D$"$k?M!9$O3N
あまり先のことを考えないのが緬国人の性格ではありますが、１週間後に現状が回復しない場合は市民の不満が広がる恐れがあるかもしれません。金があっても物が買えなくなる現実は徐々に広がりつつあるように思います。関心のある方と情報を共有していただければと思います。
それでは失礼します。
碓井
Kashiwa Sustainability Science Seminar Series 1
SEEPS-MLの皆様
東京大学新領域創成科学研究科の鎗目です。
5月16日（金）16:30-18:00に東京大学柏キャンパス・環境棟3階講義室3におきまし
て、 を開催する予定です。ス
ピーカーは、ミネソタ大学のJeffrey Broadbent先生で、テーマは、温暖化問題にお
ける政策ネットワークの形成が国による対応にどのような影響を及ぼしているのかを
検証するというものです。ご関心のある方は、是非ご参加頂けましたら幸いです。
どうぞよろしくお願い致します。
鎗目
Kashiwa Sustainability Science Seminar Series 1
Social Learning and National Response to Global Climate Change:
Hypotheses for a New Comparative Project using Policy Network Analysis
Date: Friday, May 16 at 16:30-18:00
Venue: Lecture Room 3, Environmental Building 3F, Kashiwa Campus, University
of Tokyo
Speaker:
Jeffrey Broadbent
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Institute for Global Studies
University of Minnesota
Email: broad001@umn.edu
Webpage: http://www.soc.umn.edu/faculty/broadbent.html
Abstract
This paper reviews the construction and logic of an international
comparative research project on the social factors bringing about
differences in national responses to global climate change. The project,
Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (abbreviated COMPON) will use the
policy network method to collect data on the national response processes in
a large number of different countries and regions (at present count, 17 plus
the international arena). The project will seek the causes of variation in
national response by closely examining the processes of social learning
about the problem, as it takes place through the diffusion of the dominant
scientific consensus on global climate change (as represented by the IPCC),
global norms about positive action on the problem by reducing greenhouse gas
emissions (as represented by UNFCCC agreements), and the mobilization and
success of advocacy coalitions for and against those claims and norms within
the different national political systems. The main hypothesis is that the
mobilization of an effective advocacy coalition bearing the scientific
claims and global norms is the crucial intervening variable bringing about
positive national response to the problem. The paper explains the benefits
of the policy network method for this comparative analytical task, and
presents network graphics from a previous policy network study on the same
issue in Japan. The paper concludes with the presentation of 10 hypotheses
on the social contexts that could affect the relative political success of
different national advocacy coalitions concerning how to respond to the
problem of global climate change. The paper represents an introduction not
only to the COMPON project but also to the wider field of comparative social
science and its general utility in the study of variation in national
behavior.
Organizer: YARIME Masaru
****************************************************************************
*********
YARIME Masaru, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Graduate Program in Sustainability Science (GPSS)
Graduate School of Frontier Sciences
University of Tokyo
Environmental Building 227, Kashiwanoha 5-1-5
Kashiwa-shi, Chiba 277-8563, JAPAN
Phone/Fax: +81-(0)4-7136-4608
E-mail: yarime@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp
URL: http://www.sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/usrs/yarime/index-E.html
****************************************************************************
*********
鎗目 雅 Ph.D.
東京大学 大学院新領域創成科学研究科 准教授
Graduate Program in Sustainability Science (GPSS)
〒277-8563 千葉県柏市柏の葉5-1-5 環境棟227
Phone/Fax: 04-7136-4608
E-mail: yarime@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp
URL: http://www.sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/usrs/yarime/
****************************************************************************
*********
東京大学新領域創成科学研究科の鎗目です。
5月16日（金）16:30-18:00に東京大学柏キャンパス・環境棟3階講義室3におきまし
て、 を開催する予定です。ス
ピーカーは、ミネソタ大学のJeffrey Broadbent先生で、テーマは、温暖化問題にお
ける政策ネットワークの形成が国による対応にどのような影響を及ぼしているのかを
検証するというものです。ご関心のある方は、是非ご参加頂けましたら幸いです。
どうぞよろしくお願い致します。
鎗目
Kashiwa Sustainability Science Seminar Series 1
Social Learning and National Response to Global Climate Change:
Hypotheses for a New Comparative Project using Policy Network Analysis
Date: Friday, May 16 at 16:30-18:00
Venue: Lecture Room 3, Environmental Building 3F, Kashiwa Campus, University
of Tokyo
Speaker:
Jeffrey Broadbent
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Institute for Global Studies
University of Minnesota
Email: broad001@umn.edu
Webpage: http://www.soc.umn.edu/faculty/broadbent.html
Abstract
This paper reviews the construction and logic of an international
comparative research project on the social factors bringing about
differences in national responses to global climate change. The project,
Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (abbreviated COMPON) will use the
policy network method to collect data on the national response processes in
a large number of different countries and regions (at present count, 17 plus
the international arena). The project will seek the causes of variation in
national response by closely examining the processes of social learning
about the problem, as it takes place through the diffusion of the dominant
scientific consensus on global climate change (as represented by the IPCC),
global norms about positive action on the problem by reducing greenhouse gas
emissions (as represented by UNFCCC agreements), and the mobilization and
success of advocacy coalitions for and against those claims and norms within
the different national political systems. The main hypothesis is that the
mobilization of an effective advocacy coalition bearing the scientific
claims and global norms is the crucial intervening variable bringing about
positive national response to the problem. The paper explains the benefits
of the policy network method for this comparative analytical task, and
presents network graphics from a previous policy network study on the same
issue in Japan. The paper concludes with the presentation of 10 hypotheses
on the social contexts that could affect the relative political success of
different national advocacy coalitions concerning how to respond to the
problem of global climate change. The paper represents an introduction not
only to the COMPON project but also to the wider field of comparative social
science and its general utility in the study of variation in national
behavior.
Organizer: YARIME Masaru
****************************************************************************
*********
YARIME Masaru, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Graduate Program in Sustainability Science (GPSS)
Graduate School of Frontier Sciences
University of Tokyo
Environmental Building 227, Kashiwanoha 5-1-5
Kashiwa-shi, Chiba 277-8563, JAPAN
Phone/Fax: +81-(0)4-7136-4608
E-mail: yarime@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp
URL: http://www.sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/usrs/yarime/index-E.html
****************************************************************************
*********
鎗目 雅 Ph.D.
東京大学 大学院新領域創成科学研究科 准教授
Graduate Program in Sustainability Science (GPSS)
〒277-8563 千葉県柏市柏の葉5-1-5 環境棟227
Phone/Fax: 04-7136-4608
E-mail: yarime@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp
URL: http://www.sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/usrs/yarime/
****************************************************************************
*********
Palmed off
Windows Live Hotmail: "Palmed off
Source: The Guardian - May 1, 2008
By Antony van der Ent
Last week environmental campaigners, dressed up as orang-utans,
demonstrated at Unilever offices in several nations against the destruction
of Indonesia's rainforest for palm oil production. Palm oil is used in a
huge range of food products, and it is used as a biofuel. Multinationals
like Unilever utilise palm oil in their brands, despite the serious
problems associated with its production.
Palm oil production has grown exponentially in the last two decades; at the
same time the UN millennium ecosystem assessment shows a rapid decline of
forest cover in south-east Asia. According to Friends of the Earth, 87% of
all deforestation there between 1985 and 2000 can be attributed to the
establishment of new palm oil estates.
In 2002 Malaysia and Indonesia were together responsible for 84% of the
worldwide palm oil production. Virgin tropical rainforests are logged for
timber and the subsequent establishment of palm oil estates. As of 2006
over 11 million hectares of palm plantations had already replaced tropical
rain forest.
Not so long ago environmental NGOs promoted the use of biofuels to reduce
CO2 emissions. Along with environmentalists, European governments put their
faith in biofuels such as palm oil. The principal (though incorre"
Source: The Guardian - May 1, 2008
By Antony van der Ent
Last week environmental campaigners, dressed up as orang-utans,
demonstrated at Unilever offices in several nations against the destruction
of Indonesia's rainforest for palm oil production. Palm oil is used in a
huge range of food products, and it is used as a biofuel. Multinationals
like Unilever utilise palm oil in their brands, despite the serious
problems associated with its production.
Palm oil production has grown exponentially in the last two decades; at the
same time the UN millennium ecosystem assessment shows a rapid decline of
forest cover in south-east Asia. According to Friends of the Earth, 87% of
all deforestation there between 1985 and 2000 can be attributed to the
establishment of new palm oil estates.
In 2002 Malaysia and Indonesia were together responsible for 84% of the
worldwide palm oil production. Virgin tropical rainforests are logged for
timber and the subsequent establishment of palm oil estates. As of 2006
over 11 million hectares of palm plantations had already replaced tropical
rain forest.
Not so long ago environmental NGOs promoted the use of biofuels to reduce
CO2 emissions. Along with environmentalists, European governments put their
faith in biofuels such as palm oil. The principal (though incorre"
Nuclear energy law awaits May approval
Windows Live Hotmail: "Nuclear energy law awaits May approval
A law on nuclear energy is expected to be approved by the National Assembly this
month, paving the way for the country’s first nuclear power plant.
An investment report and procedures to build the plant in southern Ninh Thuan
province will be completed and given the all clear by the NA next year, deputy
director of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), Nguyen Manh Hung said.
The plant will have four turbines with a combined capacity of 4,000 MW worth US
$6 billion.
If the law was approved, the country would be able to start taking measures to
ensure nuclear security, head of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Commission, Vuong Huu
Tan said.
As planned, construction of the first plant will kick off by 2015, the first
turbine would come into operation by 2020 and the plant would be fully
operational five years later.
Though Vietnam faces a serious electricity shortage, the country can not speed
up the project because it needs time to prepare sufficient facilities, human
resources, technology and legal documents for the plant, Tan said.
Another hurdle is that Vietnam is lack of human resources in the nuclear sector
because for many years, the country had not focused training on this field.
Ninh Thuan province was picked for the projec"
A law on nuclear energy is expected to be approved by the National Assembly this
month, paving the way for the country’s first nuclear power plant.
An investment report and procedures to build the plant in southern Ninh Thuan
province will be completed and given the all clear by the NA next year, deputy
director of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), Nguyen Manh Hung said.
The plant will have four turbines with a combined capacity of 4,000 MW worth US
$6 billion.
If the law was approved, the country would be able to start taking measures to
ensure nuclear security, head of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Commission, Vuong Huu
Tan said.
As planned, construction of the first plant will kick off by 2015, the first
turbine would come into operation by 2020 and the plant would be fully
operational five years later.
Though Vietnam faces a serious electricity shortage, the country can not speed
up the project because it needs time to prepare sufficient facilities, human
resources, technology and legal documents for the plant, Tan said.
Another hurdle is that Vietnam is lack of human resources in the nuclear sector
because for many years, the country had not focused training on this field.
Ninh Thuan province was picked for the projec"
第37回エネルギー夏期大学
> 各位
>
> 平素、大変お世話になっております。
>
> 平成20年度「第37回エネルギー夏期大学」の開催日が下記のとおり
> 決定いたしましたのでご案内いたします。
>
> （記）
>
> 開催日：平成20年7月17日（木）～18日（金）
> 場 所：生産性国際交流センター・ＩＰＣ
> （神奈川県三浦郡葉山町湘南国際村）
>
> 従来の2泊3日の合宿形式を、今年は1泊2日とコンパクトにし、
> より参加しやすい日程にさせていただきました。
> 日程は短縮されますが、内容は今まで同様、充実したものに
> したいと思います。
> この夏期大学は、エネルギー業界の中堅の方々を対象として
> おりますが、エネルギー関係者以外の方でもご参加いただける
> プログラムとなっております。ぜひご参加いただきますよう、
> ご検討よろしくお願いいたします。
>
> なお、詳細なプログラムは決まり次第再度ご連絡させていただきます。
>
> ※夏期大学昨年度の内容：http://eneken.ieej.or.jp/seminar/summer.html
>
>
> 以上
>
> **********************************************
> (財)日本エネルギー経済研究所
> 企画事業ユニット 総合企画グループ
> TEL03-5547-0211 FAX03-5547-0223
> E-mail:ieej-mail@tky.ieej.or.jp
開発WG 第三回勉強会
いつもお世話になっています。三島健史です。
開発WG 第三回勉強会の日程と内容が決まりました。
ぜひふるって参加ください。
今までの課題として、社会人の人の参加が少ないため、
お知り合いで、開発や途上国に興味がある人がいましたら、
この勉強会を紹介してやってください。
今回は東京大学の教授を招きます。
ＩＭＦで勤めた経験があるなど、貴重なお話が伺えると思います。
↓↓↓ 以下転送歓迎 ＊社会人大歓迎＊ ↓↓↓
開発ワーキンググループ（ＷＧ） 第３回勉強会
日時：６月１日（日）１５時～（懇親会は１８時より予定）
報告者：柳田辰雄教授（東京大学大学院新領域創生科学研究科国際協力学専攻）
報告内容：「アジア金融危機とインドネシアＪＩＣＡ支援プロジェクト」
報告内容の概要
「アジア金融危機とインドネシアＪＩＣＡ支援プロジェクト」と題して
２００１年８月から１年間のＪＩＣＡ派遣専門家としてのインドネシア財務省財政分析庁おける仕事の内容を報告します。この報告では、外貨資金融資に関わる国際通貨基金（ＩＭＦ）の金融コンディショナリティと世界銀行の構造改革政策にも言及します。最後に、国会で２００２年に議決され、２０１０年末までにインドネシア政府が設立を予定している金融監督庁に関する日本からの今後の技術支援の可能性にもふれる予定です。
参考文献 ＊事前にご一読ください
以下のアドレスにアクセスして、ファイルをダウンロードしてください。
出席される方は
①所属
②名前
③連絡先（メール、携帯電話）
③懇親会出席の有無、を
三島健史 kenji.mishima@gmail.com 宛にお送りください。
開発ワーキンググループとは
開発援助に関するテーマを総合的にあつかう勉強会サークル。
学生、社会人、文理、専門分野を問わず、交流や意見交換を行い、
開発に関する相互理解を深め、またその底上げを図るのがその目的である。
開発に関する勉強会を中心に活動を行い、将来的には、成果発表、
ＮＧＯなどの活動などを視野にいれた開発のプラットフォームの役割を担う。
学生、社会人、文理、専門分野を問わず、交流や意見交換を行い、
開発に関する相互理解を深め、またその底上げを図るのがその目的で
開発に関する勉強会を中心に活動を行い、将来的には、成果発表、
ＮＧＯなどの活動などを視野にいれた開発のプラットフォームの役割
東京大学大学院 公共政策学教育部
国際公共政策コース 専門職課程ニ年
三島健史（みしまけんじ）
tel:080-1403-0406
e-mail:cubic-square.831@hotmail.co.jp
kenji.mishima@gmail.com
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