In this edition, Google’s footprint falls as users emit eight grams of CO2 per day, says Business Green. And, from Australia, the Guardian reports Tony Abbott’s climate plan has $4bn funding gap, new modelling shows. A Bloomberg piece argues Rudd Gloom Misses Australia’s Looming Natural Gas Surge: Economy.
Quote of the Day:
“A significant factor is that a few key players have exited. Banks need more money to trade carbon, power and other commodities because of new financial regulations that require them to set more risk capital aside.”
–Ilesh Patel, a partner in London at Baringa Partners LLP, in Bloomberg’s “Brokered EU Carbon Trade Plunges as Banks Scale Back.”
Lead Stories
Brokered EU Carbon Trade Plunges as Banks Scale Back
Bloomberg
Carbon trading via brokers including ICAP Plc (IAP) and GFI Group Inc. (GFIG) plunged to its lowest since at least January 2011 as banks scaled back buying and selling amid tighter regulation and a record glut of permits.
http://jlne.ws/14AIuBg
Slashing renewables will push up electricity bills, BNEF
Reneweconomy.com.au
A new report from global research house Bloomberg new Energy Finance has punctured the rhetoric from incumbent fossil fuel generators, saying that cutting the renewable energy target would lead to an increase in electricity bills for consumers, not a reduction.
http://jlne.ws/16nxwWc
Rudd Gloom Misses Australia’s Looming Natural Gas Surge: Economy
Bloomberg
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s strategy of centering an election pitch on his ability to steer Australia through the end of a China-led minerals boom is overlooking the next big thing: natural gas.
http://jlne.ws/1cEyS2m
Regulation & Environment: Australia’s carbon tax and the coming election
Platts
Whatever the outcome of the Australian federal election on September 7, the country’s fixed price carbon tax will be consigned to the dustbin ahead of time.
http://jlne.ws/16MNu8M
**More Australian coverage in Carbon section
COLUMN-EU countries to cut renewable support further: Wynn
Reuters
EU countries are likely to pare back support for renewable energy further after Spain’s recent proposed overhaul.
http://jlne.ws/1cPll7g
Intermittent Nature of Green Power Is Challenge for Utilities
The New York Times
The 21 turbines at the Kingdom Community Wind farm in Vermont soar above Lowell Mountain, a testament in steel and fiberglass to the state’s growing use of green energy.
http://jlne.ws/14N93dv
Kazakhstan Uses Renewable Energy to Expand Regional Leadership
Renewable Energy World
When Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov said last year that the escalations over two proposed dams in central Asia — Kambarata-1 in Kyrgyzstan and the Rogun Dam in Tajikistan — could “lead not just to a serious confrontation, but even water wars,” there was imminent controversy in Central Asia.
http://jlne.ws/17PdBee
Energy Storage Technology at Renewable Market’s Edge
Renewable Energy World
A host of new technology developments in energy storage are at the edge of the massive commercial market for solutions to renewable energy intermittency. While storage prices must continue to drop prior to mainstream adoption, there are a few substantial niche markets where storage already makes overwhelming sense. While high performance batteries today can cost between $700 and $800 per kilowatt hour (kWh), and lower performance batteries cost between $400 and $500/kWh, prices are headed downward drastically for those battery companies that survive, several sources at the Renewable Energy Storage Symposium said in San Diego last week.
http://jlne.ws/17rkQKq
U.S. puts non-performing $50 million green-tech loan up for auction
Reuters
The U.S. Department of Energy will put up for auction this week a $50 million loan awarded to the now-closed Vehicle Production Group LLC, an unusual move by the DOE that may give U.S. taxpayers a chance to recoup a portion of their investment.
http://jlne.ws/16duPEj
Events
Water and Society 2013
September 4-6
New Forest, U.K.
http://jlne.ws/13bNnUA
EMA’s 17th Annual Meeting
September 25-27
Las Vegas
http://jlne.ws/192w3CR
Climate Strategies Forum
Association of Climate Change Officers
October 14-17
Washington, D.C.
http://jlne.ws/14cGFtN
Verge: Where Tech Meets Sustainability
October 14-17
San Francisco
http://jlne.ws/1bAKXT4
FT Global Shale Energy Summit
October 21
London
http://jlne.ws/1cemi7d
Solar Power International
October 21-24
Chicago
http://jlne.ws/184e0wa
Climate Leadership Conference
Association of Climate Change Officers
February 24-26, 2014
San Diego, CA
climateleadershipconference.org/
Carbon
Tony Abbott’s climate plan has $4bn funding gap, new modelling shows
Guardian
Tony Abbott will have to find at least another $4bn for his climate policy or else break his pledge to cut emissions by 5% by 2020 and instead allow them to increase by 9%, according to new modelling suggesting the Coalition’s Direct Action plan cannot work.
http://jlne.ws/13BWhs2
Greg Hunt rejects ‘silly’ Climate Institute report on direct action policy
ABC
A Climate Institute report criticising the Coalition’s plan to cut carbon emissions has been rejected in total by Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt as “one of the silliest reports” he has ever seen.
http://jlne.ws/16dxC06
Climate plan presented to help reach ambitious emissions targets
Copenhagen Post
The government admits that not all of its 78 ideas for cutting CO2 emissions are economical but said the list will help them better integrate ways of cutting emissions into new policy.
http://jlne.ws/1cECd1p
Google’s footprint falls as users emit eight grams of CO2 per day
Business Green
Google continued to shrink its carbon footprint in 2012, according to new data that shows the average Google user pumps out the same amount of carbon emissions each month as they would driving a car one mile.
http://jlne.ws/14NALEe
Carbon emissions to rise under Coalition’s policies
APN
CARBON emissions would rise under the Coalition’s climate change policies, costing the Federal Budget at least $4 billion more than calculated, modelling released on Thursday revealed.
http://jlne.ws/1cECZvi
Natural Gas/Coal
Energy Firm Makes Costly Fracking Bet—on Water
The Wall Street Journal
Antero Resources Inc., an energy company backed by New York private-equity firms, plans to spend more than half a billion dollars on a pipeline. But the 80 miles of pipe won’t transport oil or gas: They will carry water from the Ohio River to fracking sites in West Virginia and Ohio.
http://jlne.ws/141iAuX
**repeats in Water
Power
Japan Power Utilities Use Less Oil in July as Reactors Restart
Bloomberg
Japanese power companies cut their consumption of crude and fuel oil in July from a year earlier as two nuclear reactors reduced the country’s reliance on more expensive sources to generate electricity.
http://jlne.ws/1a7fLfw
Picking up the nuclear energy bill divides the EU
Reuters
European Union rules to be published over the coming weeks could make it easier to justify using taxpayers’ money to fund new nuclear power, which would pitch major EU powers against each other.
http://jlne.ws/126Op46
India Plans to Spend 6 Billion Euros on Wind, Solar Transmission
Bloomberg
India plans to spend 6 billion euros ($7.9 billion) to build an electricity grid to evacuate power from wind and solar plants that have more than doubled in capacity in the last five years.
http://jlne.ws/16MIlxA
Spaniards rebel against solar panel levy
Reuters
Two weeks after Spain’s government slapped a series of levies on green energy, Inaki Alonso hired two workmen to remove the solar panels he had put on his roof only six months earlier.
http://jlne.ws/1d9sca8
Water
IBM in Smart-Water Management Pact With Vietnam City of Da Nang
Bloomberg
The Vietnamese seaport of Da Nang has reached agreement on smart-water and transit technology improvements with International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), the world’s biggest computer-services company said today.
http://jlne.ws/19jPpns
Energy Firm Makes Costly Fracking Bet—on Water
The Wall Street Journal
Antero Resources Inc., an energy company backed by New York private-equity firms, plans to spend more than half a billion dollars on a pipeline. But the 80 miles of pipe won’t transport oil or gas: They will carry water from the Ohio River to fracking sites in West Virginia and Ohio.
http://jlne.ws/141iAuX
**repeats in Natural Gas
Reports
Sub-national involvement in NAMA development (posted August 7, 2013)
Ecofys’ International Climate Policies Unit
http://jlne.ws/19LKChs
U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather (Posted July 14, 2013)
U.S. Dept. of Energy
http://jlne.ws/12z1YK5
Turn down the heat: climate extremes, regional impacts, and the case for resilience (Posted June 19, 2013)
World Bank
http://jlne.ws/14KrLza
Four energy policies can keep the 2 Degree C climate goal alive (Posted June 10, 2013)
IEA
http://jlne.ws/12Bpk41
Maneuvering the Mosaic: State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2013 (Posted June 10, 2013)
Ecosystem Marketplace
http://jlne.ws/12Cyi0X
Mapping carbon pricing initiatives: developments and prospects (Posted May 30, 2013)
World Bank
http://jlne.ws/15iik9E
Extreme Weather and Climate Change in the American Mind April 2013 (Posted May 1, 2013)
Yale Project on Climate Change
http://jlne.ws/ZWPD1Z