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Emirates, MIT team up for green energy
Ames Calderwood, Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Leaders of this major oil-producing Gulf country said Sunday they were plunging into the field of renewable energy, announcing a joint research venture into green energy with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The announcement comes a few months after the World Wildlife Fund labeled the Emirates the world’s biggest per-capita producer of globe-warming greenhouse gases, mainly due to its profligate energy consumption.
The Emirates’ early entry into the renewable energy arena comes amid squabbling over whether similar reforms should be embraced in the world’s largest energy consumer, the United States.
The agreement signed Sunday between the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. and MIT created the Masdar Institute of Technology in Abu Dhabi. Masdar will pursue Abu Dhabi’s plan to use its oil income to develop a more sustainable renewable energy sector and an economy based on green energy expertise.
(25 Feb 2007)
Global warming worries to boost renewables
Alister Doyle, Reuters
Three decades after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter experimented with solar panels on the White House roof, grim U.N. warnings about climate change may kick-start wider global use of renewable energy.
“The political willingness to act is now significantly higher,” Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), told Reuters.
Governments from Japan to Germany are already subsidizing energies such as wind, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, solar or tidal power, spurred by worries about security of supply, climate change and high oil prices at about $60 a barrel.
…Many experts also warn against exaggerated hopes this time, despite increasing public pressure to act.
“There will be a push for renewable energies, but they have limitations,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises governments in developed nations. Windmills cannot generate electricity on still days, for instance, and solar power doesn’t work at night.
“They can be part of the solution but they are not the magic bullet,” Birol said. He said energy efficiency was the main way both to curb climate change and to cut energy imports, and renewables and nuclear power are secondary solutions.
(25 Feb 2007)
Toronto asleep at cleantech switch
Tyler Hamilton, Toronto Star
Last week, Toronto city council’s parks and environment committee gave environmentalists a chance to share some ideas on how to turn our beloved city into the greenest municipality on Earth.
One suggestion out of the dozens of recommendations was to establish a clean technology, or “cleantech,” cluster that would draw investment and jobs to the city and surrounding areas.
It’s an excellent idea, and one that should have been pursued years ago. The truth is, as Toronto ponders ways to green up its image, other cities in Canada, namely Vancouver, and many throughout the United States have done a much better job at establishing economic clusters around the clean-technology opportunity.
This isn’t to say Toronto hasn’t embraced technologies that improve energy efficiency, generate emission-free power, clean up water, and reduce pollution – one need only look at Exhibition Place to see examples of such leadership. But so far the city has neglected the opportunity of fostering such innovation in its own backyard, at least in any kind of organized fashion.
“We’re asleep as the switch. We’re about three years behind,” says Toronto native Nicholas Parker, co-founder and chairman of the Cleantech Venture Network, a group based out of Ann Arbor, Mich., that brings together innovative new companies developing clean technologies and early-stage investors who see tremendous growth ahead.
“In our view, over the next five-year period, at least 1.4 million high-quality direct jobs will result from venture investment that’s going into this space, globally. Who’s going to get those jobs? Shanghai? Stockholm? Silicon Valley? Or Toronto? The race is on to create those jurisdictions that are going to capture these jobs.”
The competition is heating up south of the border. According to recent research from San Francisco-based SustainLane, the five top U.S. cleantech clusters are Austin, Texas; San Jose, Berkeley and Pasadena, Calif.; and Boston, Mass.
(26 Feb 2007)
Oil-hungry Japan looks to other sources
Hisane Masaki, Asia Times
TOKYO – After decades of struggling to reduce its excessively heavy reliance on the Middle East for its crude oil, Japan imported 2% less of the commodity from the region in 2006. Does this herald a lasting change in the nation’s oil-import structure or represent just a statistical quirk?
Resource-poor Japan’s dependence on crude oil from the Middle East declined for the first time in four years year on year in 2006 – albeit by a paltry percentage – amid increased imports from the rest of the world, especially Russia and Africa.
…There are many other ways to boost Japan’s energy security other than just lowering its dependence on Middle East oil.
The New National Energy Strategy also calls for stepped-up energy-saving efforts and the development of energy-saving technologies to cut the ratio of energy consumption to gross domestic product, or GDP, by 30% by 2030 to ensure the nation will have a stable energy supply amid intensifying competition for energy resources.
This goal is far from a cakewalk, however. Japan’s ratio of primary energy consumption to GDP is already the world’s lowest after improving 30% over the past three decades because of conservation measures spurred by the oil crises of the 1970s.
The New National Energy Strategy calls for a reduction in the oil-dependency rate to 40% or less by 2030 from the current 50% and promotion of nuclear energy, including a nuclear fuel cycle, as well as securing of energy resources abroad.
The new strategy calls for lowering Japan’s dependence on oil as a primary energy source from the current 50% to 40% or less by 2030 – to 80% in the transportation sector – through promotion of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power.
Among other alternative energy sources, Japan is turning to ethanol as a promising new fuel amid high oil prices and growing environmental concerns.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on international politics and economy. Masaki’s e-mail address is [email protected].
(21 Feb 2007)
