Other Energy Issues
Demand and prices up for firewood
Associated Press via Boston.com
PORTLAND, Maine –As home heating oil prices continue to rise, demand and prices for firewood are increasing as well.
The orders are already coming in at Atlantic Firewood in Cumberland, where residents usually wait until the cool days of autumn before ordering their wood supply. Mark Killinger, the company’s owner, said he’s had a dozen or so messages each day on his answering machine.
“Now it’s just unbelievable,” he said. “I can’t keep up with it.”
High oil prices have Mainers searching for cheaper alternatives, and firewood is at the top of the list. Heating oil prices at many dealers jumped from about $2.15 a gallon to more than $2.60 in some cases following the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.
When burned in an efficient stove, seasoned wood is much less expensive than fuel oil, propane or natural gas per unit of heat.
But homeowners who haven’t bought firewood recently should be prepared for sticker shock. Like oil, firewood is now hitting record prices.
(5 September 2005)
India’s biofuel plans hit roadblock
Red tape and rising costs are choking India’s biofuel plans
T. V. Padma, SciDev.Net
India’s plans to reduce costly petrol imports by using ‘biofuels’ have been hit by bureaucracy and supply problems, an international workshop has heard. In January 2003, India made the use of ‘gasohol’ — petrol mixed with five per cent ethanol derived mainly from sugarcane — compulsory in nine of its states (see India follows Brazil’s ‘gasohol’ lead).
Later that year, the country’s Planning Commission drafted plans to encourage the widespread planting of Jatropha curcas trees. Its seeds produce an oil that can be blended with diesel and used as fuel. The commission also proposed increasing the proportion of biofuels used in India from five to 20 per cent by 2012.
But both plans are facing hurdles, according to Rathin Mandal, a senior advisor in the Planning Commission, who spoke last week in Delhi at a workshop on biofuels. Mandal said that in April the Indian government withdrew the order making ethanol-petrol blends compulsory in nine states, mainly because of the rising cost of ethanol.
The move was made with little of the fanfare that accompanied the initial announcement and went largely unreported in India. Meanwhile, the commission’s proposed ‘biodiesel mission’, which was due to launch in April, remains delayed. The commission is waiting for clarification on several details from the Ministry of Rural Development, which is charged with implementing the mission.
(5 Sept 2005)
Oil companies against alternate fuel: PSMA
Staff, Daily Times (Pakistan)
LAHORE: Chairman Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Ch Zaka Ashraf said on Wednesday the oil companies’ lobby had become active to off-track the initiative to have alternative fuel by producing fuel grade ethanol out of molasses (sugar industry residues). …
According to him, the initiative of alternative fuel by producing fuel grade ethanol out of molasses (sugar industry residues) was a highly commendable step on the part of President General Pervez Musharraf, but the “hidden lobby” of oil companies had become active to put it off track by all possible means.
(31 August 2005)
West Africa: Cheaper Power a Step Nearer As Work Begins On Gas Pipeline
Staff, UN Integrated Regional Information Networks via AllAfrica.com
Accra – Construction has begun on a 700 km pipeline that will transport Nigerian natural gas from the oil fields of the Niger Delta along the West African coast to Ghana, via Benin and Togo and promises cheaper and more reliable power for millions of residents by the end of 2006. …
The pipeline is expected to cost US $617 million, project officials say. The World Bank, which is backing the project with a US $40 million soft loan, said in a recent report that lack of access to reliable power was a major constraint to development in West Africa.
Power cuts, locally known as “lights off”, are a near daily occurrence for residents of the Ghanaian capital, Accra. Project officials say that the gas pumped into the country from the end of next year will mean power is not so much at the mercy of swirling global energy markets, and more people will have a stable, affordable power source.
Fuel prices went up 50 percent in Ghana earlier this year, pushing up transport and food costs and unsettling many of Ghana’s 20 million people.
(5 Sept 2005)
