Google got onto a Green Business Information Spree With Its GREEN CHIP sending out Green Chip Review
<gcr-eletter@angelnexus.com> and telling potential subscribers:

International Companies are Dominating the Cleantech Space:

Many of the world’s new energy technologies are being developed in countries outside the United States. Germany, for example, is mother to the modern solar industry. The Danes have all but cornered the wind industry with the now-famous Vestas Wind Systems. Green Chip International is taking full advantage of this phenomenon. Its latest German solar recommendation is up about 11% in under two weeks. Everyday, international renewables companies are delivering monster gains.

Further:

Google’s Green Imperative
By Sam Hopkins | Saturday, November 1st, 2008
What’s the one industry that’s changed as much in the past few decades as energy?  Infotech.

And as their energy demands grow, and electricity becomes more expensive, high-tech companies like Google are increasingly going green.

Consider a few points they say:

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research center at the University of California, says data center energy costs can be 100-times higher than those for typical buildings.
In her article about Google’s processing power demands, “Keyword: Evil,” in Harper’s in spring 2008, Ginger Strand notes, “In 2006 American data centers consumed more power than American televisions.”
The economics of energy for big IT changes along with political and economic conditions, and
Infotech companies are committed to developing solutions in-house as much as possible.
The target is for Google’s internal R&D teams to develop 1 gigawatt of renewable energy that can be produced more cheaply than coal-fired power.

Or, as the techies put it:    RE < C

Google’s philanthropic investment arm Google.org has invested $11 million in AltaRock Energy and Potter Drilling, two geothermal companies in the western U.S.

Intel and Google are both pushing hard into power reduction and production. Intel has paved the way in energy-efficient microchips, and Google’s constant advances in streamlining daily life make telecommuting more possible than ever.

But with well over 200,000 buzzing servers used to run the world’s top search engine, it appears that Google’s massive data processing facilities may have started something of an IT arms race.

The quest for cheap power today is already pushing American tech heavyweights from Silicon Valley overseas, to downstream solutions for energy optimization…

According to Strand’s piece in Harper’s, “Microsoft has announced plans for a data center in Siberia, AT&T has built two in Shanghai, and Dublin has attracted Google and Microsoft. In all three locations, as in the United States, the burning of fossil fuels accounts for a majority of the electricity.”

But keep in mind that the same low-cost draw of Chinese energy is also attracting foreign direct investment that goes further in China than it would in U.S. startups. Intel announced in the last week of October that it will invest $20 million in a Chinese solar power company through its investment arm, Intel Capital.

Moves like that earned Intel the EPA Green Power Partner of the Year designation, awarded to companies that voluntarily move to minimize their carbon footprint and ramp up efficiency.

Chinese universities are also graduating hundreds of thousands of engineers every year. That gives Google, Intel, AMD and others a crop of the best in the Middle Kingdom to help further the company’s global efficiency strategy.

***

Applying IT Energy Lessons Nationally:

Carbon neutrality is a primary goal, and the next step is fostering new power generation techniques for server farms and other juice-guzzling technologies.

In September, before the stock market collapse got Washington talking about large-scale investment projects and job creation schemes, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke passionately about political will and competitive reality to a roomful of his peers at the Corporate EcoForum:

“We have a total failure of political leadership, at least in the U.S., and perhaps the world,” Schmidt asserted.

Well, there’s no good reason why not, other than putting off until tomorrow what could be done today.

Google and Intel see energy efficiency as an industrial imperative. To increase shareholder value and minimize costs, smart power is a must.

Same goes for the country and the world. Taxpayers will reap the rewards of energy investments with jobs and GDP growth. Schmidt sees a pathway to the kind of sustainable competition that can move us forward, rather than engaging in a race-to-the-bottom mentality of outsourcing and cost-cutting that has dominated in recent decades.

It’s no wonder, then, that Schmidt is rumored to be on the short list for a national chief technology officer position that Barack Obama has promised to create, in the event he wins office next Tuesday.

Google has set the standard for IT excellence since the turn of the millennium. Out of the thousands of companies that rose and fell during dot-com mania, Google survived to change the way information flows and the way many industries work.

Whoever wins on Election Day, we’d like to see Google, Intel, and others take the lead in a comprehensive initiative to create a new energy economy.

This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch.
By George Monbiot, The Guardian. Posted October 15, 2008.

The financial crisis at least affords us an opportunity to now rethink our catastrophic ecological trajectory.

This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what’s coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.

As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year as a result of deforestation alone.

The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services — such as locking up carbon and providing fresh water — that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.

***

The two crises have the same cause. In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences. I used to believe that collective denial was peculiar to climate change. Now I know that it’s the first response to every impending dislocation.

***

Gordon Brown, for instance, was as much in denial about financial realities as any toxic debt trader. In June last year, during his Mansion House speech, he boasted that 40% of the world’s foreign equities are now traded here. The financial sector’s success had come about, he said, partly because the government had taken “a risk-based regulatory approach”. In the same hall three years before, he pledged that “in budget after budget I want us to do even more to encourage the risk takers”. Can anyone, surveying this mess, now doubt the value of the precautionary principle?

Ecology and economy are both derived from the Greek word oikos — a house or dwelling. Our survival depends on the rational management of this home: the space in which life can be sustained. The rules are the same in both cases. If you extract resources at a rate beyond the level of replenishment, your stock will collapse. That’s another noun which reminds us of the connection. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 69 definitions of “stock”. When it means a fund or store, the word evokes the trunk — or stock — of a tree, “from which the gains are an outgrowth”. Collapse occurs when you prune the tree so heavily that it dies. Ecology is the stock from which all wealth grows.

The two crises feed each other. As a result of Iceland’s financial collapse, it is now contemplating joining the European Union, which means surrendering its fishing grounds to the common fisheries policy. Already the prime minister, Geir Haarde, has suggested that his countrymen concentrate on exploiting the ocean. The economic disaster will cause an ecological disaster.

Normally it’s the other way around. In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond shows how ecological crisis is often the prelude to social catatrosphe. The obvious example is Easter Island, where society disintegrated soon after the population reached its highest historical numbers, the last trees were cut down and the construction of stone monuments peaked. The island chiefs had competed to erect ever bigger statues. These required wood and rope (made from bark) for transport, and extra food for the labourers. As the trees and soils on which the islanders depended disappeared, the population crashed and the survivors turned to cannibalism. Diamond wonders what the Easter islander who cut down the last palm tree might have thought. “Like modern loggers, did he shout ‘Jobs, not trees!’? Or: ‘Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we’ll find a substitute for wood.’? Or: ‘We don’t have proof that there aren’t palms somewhere else on Easter … your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering’?”.

***

Ecological collapse, Diamond shows, is as likely to be the result of economic success as of economic failure. The Maya of Central America, for instance, were among the most advanced and successful people of their time. But a combination of population growth, extravagant construction projects and poor land management wiped out between 90% and 99% of the population. The Mayan collapse was accelerated by “the competition among kings and nobles that led to a chronic emphasis on war and erecting monuments rather than on solving underlying problems”. (Does any of this sound familiar?) Again, the largest monuments were erected just before the ecosystem crashed. Again, this extravagance was partly responsible for the collapse: trees were used for making plaster with which to decorate their temples. The plaster became thicker and thicker as the kings sought to outdo each other’s conspicuous consumption.

***

Here are some of the reasons why people fail to prevent ecological collapse. Their resources appear at first to be inexhaustible; a long-term trend of depletion is concealed by short-term fluctuations; small numbers of powerful people advance their interests by damaging those of everyone else; short-term profits trump long-term survival. The same, in all cases, can be said of the collapse of financial systems. Is this how human beings are destined to behave? If we cannot act until stocks — of either kind — start sliding towards oblivion, we’re knackered.

***
But one of the benefits of modernity is our ability to spot trends and predict results.

If fish in a depleted ecosystem grow by 5% a year and the catch expands by 10% a year, the fishery will collapse. If the global economy keeps growing at 3% a year (or 1,700% a century), it too will hit the wall.

I am not going to suggest, as some scoundrel who shares a name with me did on these pages last year, that we should welcome a recession. But the financial crisis provides us with an opportunity to rethink this trajectory; an opportunity that is not available during periods of economic success. Governments restructuring their economies should read Herman Daly’s book Steady-State Economics.

As usual I haven’t left enough space to discuss this, so the details will have to wait for another column. Or you can read the summary published by the Sustainable Development Commission (all references are on my website). But what Daly suggests is that nations which are already rich should replace growth — “more of the same stuff” — with development — “the same amount of better stuff”.

A steady-state economy has a constant stock of capital that is maintained by a rate of throughput no higher than the ecosystem can absorb.

The use of resources is capped and the right to exploit them is auctioned.

Poverty is addressed through the redistribution of wealth. The banks can lend only as much money as they possess.

Alternatively, we can persist in the magical thinking whose results have just come crashing home.

The financial crisis shows what happens when we try to make the facts fit our desires. Now we must learn to live in the real world.

—————-
George Monbiot is the author Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. Read more of his writings at Monbiot.com.          This article originally appeared in the Guardian.

 Subject: 2009 POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS  - IIASA

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) invites applications for two Postdoctoral Research Fellow positions.

IIASA is an international research organization located in Laxenburg, 16 km south of Vienna, Austria. Some 200 mathematicians, social scientists, natural scientists, economists and engineers from over 35 countries conduct inter-disciplinary research on environmental, economic, technological, and social issues in the context of human dimensions of global change, in particular climate change.
 http://www.iiasa.ac.at/docs/what-is-iias…

Candidates should have a doctoral degree for less than five years at the application deadline, with a proven record of research accomplishments.  Scholars will conduct their own research within one of IIASA’s research programs or special projects on topics closely related to IIASA’s agenda.
 http://www.iiasa.ac.at/docs/Research/

The IIASA programs of  past, research projects have included studies of:

global climate changes,

world agricultural potential,

energy resource requirements and implications,

regional patterns of acid emission and deposition,

risk analysis and management,

social and economic impacts of demographic changes,

and the theory and methods of systems analysis.
Many of those earlier research projects form the backbone of current activities.

Following the strategic and research goals set by its governing Council, since 2000, IIASA’s research is being carried out under three core themes:

Environment and Natural Resources
Population and Society
Energy and Technology.

The positions carry a competitive salary, exempt from taxation in Austria, but subject to the principle of income aggregation; an allowance for relocation expenses to and from Austria; and participation in either private or state health insurance plans.  Appointees are offered a fellowship for one or two years.

Closing date for applications is February 1, 2009.  Full details about the Program, including an on-line application form can be found at http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/YSP/pdoc/te…

Contact details
Barbara Hauser
Postdoctoral Coordinator
Schlossplatz 1
A-2361 Laxenburg
Austria
Tel: +43 2236 807 541
Email:  hauser at iiasa.ac.at

 From:    Dan.Harding at earthscan.co.uk
Subject: Sustainable Investing
Date: October 31, 2008

on Sustainable Investing       

£19.99 , Hardback
October 2008
272 pages
ISBN: 9781844075485

Sustainable InvestingThe Art of Long-Term Performance: Cary Krosinsky and Nick Robins.
Series: Environmental Market Insights, Earthscan.

‘Buy and read this book. Without it, you are playing yesterday’s game,’  says Robert A. G. Monks.

‘Essential reading, whether you are an investor, a CEO or simply someone wanting to enjoy both a pension and a world fit for future life,’  says John Elkington, co-founder of ENDS, SustainAbility and Volans, and co-author of The Power of Unreasonable People .

‘A significant contribution to a rapidly growing field … This is a must-read book for practitioners and investment analysts alike,’ says Gordon L. Clark, Oxford University.

‘This book richly deserves to be read by everyone in the investment community - and many beyond,’ says Rob Lake, APG Investments, The Netherlands .

Sustainable Investing is fast becoming the smart way of generating long-term returns. With conventional investors now scrambling to factor in issues such as climate change, this book captures a turning point in the evolution of global finance. Bringing together leading practitioners of Sustainable Investing from across the globe, this book charts how this agenda has evolved, what impact it has today, and what prospects are emerging for the years ahead.

Sustainable Investing has already been outperforming the mainstream, and concerned investors need to know how best to position themselves for potentially radical market change.

‘This splendid book provides up to date analyses of virtually the entire spectrum of socially related investment possibilities. The field is in a rapid state of change - Steve Viederman’s lovely piece on the Fiduciary remains a constant guide - I recommend to everyone that you buy and read this book. Without it, you are playing yesterday’s game.’
Robert A.G. Monks, shareholder activist and leading founder of the practice of Corporate Governance.

Cary Krosinsky is a long-standing expert on the intersection of equity ownership and Sustainable and Responsible Investing, and is now Vice President, North America of Trucost Plc.

Nick Robins, former Head of SRI research and SRI funds at Henderson Global Investors, is now Head of the HSBC Climate Change Centre of Excellence.
Contents:

Foreword by Steve Lydenberg * Introduction * Part I: The Rise of Sustainable Investing * The Emergence of Sustainable Investing * Sustainable Equity Investing: The Market-Beating Strategy * Investors: A Force for Sustainability * Sustainability Analysis * Part II: Confronting New Risks and Opportunities * Observations from the Carbon Emission Markets: Implications for Carbon Finance * Carbon Exposure * Clean Energy Opportunities * Water * Part III: Sustainability Across the Other Asset Classes * Fixed Income and Microfinance * Sustainable and Responsible Property Investing * Private Equity: Unlocking the Sustainability Potential * Social Businesses * Part IV: Future Directions and Trends * China * India * Civil Society and Capital Markets * Fiduciary Duty * The Global Agenda * Conclusion: Sustainable Investing - The Art of Long-Term Performance * Index

A waste of energy: The flawed economics of nuclear power.
Posted by Lester Brown (Guest Contributor to Grist)  October 29, 2008.
Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.

To get a sense of the costs of nuclear waste disposal, we need not look beyond the United States, which leads the world with 101,000 megawatts of nuclear-generating capacity (compared with 63,000 megawatts in second-ranked France). The United States proposes to store the radioactive waste from its 104 nuclear power reactors in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. The cost of this repository, originally estimated at $58 billion in 2001, climbed to $96 billion by 2008. This comes to a staggering $923 million per reactor — almost $1 billion each — assuming no further repository cost increases.

In addition to being over budget, the repository is 19 years behind schedule. Originally slated to start accepting waste in 1998, it is now set to do so in 2017, assuming it clears all remaining hurdles. This leaves nuclear waste in storage in 121 temporary facilities in 39 states — sites that are vulnerable both to leakage and to terrorist attacks.

One of the risks of nuclear power is a catastrophic accident like the one at Chernobyl in Russia. The Price-Anderson Act, first enacted by Congress in 1957, shelters U.S. utilities with nuclear power plants from the cost of such an accident. Under the act, utilities are required to maintain private accident insurance of $300 million per reactor — the maximum the insurance industry will provide. In the event of a catastrophic accident, every nuclear utility would be required to contribute up to $95.8 million for each licensed reactor to a pool to help cover the accident’s cost.

The collective cap on nuclear operator liability is $10.2 billion. This compares with an estimate by Sandia National Laboratory that a worst-case accident could cost $700 billion, a sum equal to the recent U.S. financial bailout. So anything above $10.2 billion would be covered by taxpayers.

Another huge cost of nuclear power involves decommissioning the plants when they wear out. A 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency report estimates the decommissioning cost per reactor at $250-500 million, excluding the cost of removing and disposing of the spent nuclear fuel. But recent estimates for some reactors, such as the U.K. Magnox reactors that have high decommissioning waste volumes, decommissioning costs can reach $1.8 billion per reactor.

In addition to the costs just cited, the industry must cope with rising construction and fuel expenses. Two years ago, building a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was estimated to cost $2-4 billion. As of late 2008, that figure had climbed past $7 billion, reflecting primarily the scarcity of essential engineering and construction skills in a fading industry.

Nuclear fuel costs have risen even more rapidly. At the beginning of this decade uranium cost roughly $10 per pound. Today it costs more than $60 per pound. The higher uranium price reflects the need to move to ever deeper mines, which increases the energy needed to extract the ore, and the shift to lower-grade ore. In the United States in the late 1950s, for example, uranium ore contained roughly 0.28 percent uranium oxide. By the 1990s, it had dropped to 0.09 percent. This means, of course, that the cost of mining larger quantities of ore, and that of getting it from deeper mines, ensures even higher future costs of nuclear fuel.

Few nuclear power plants are being built in countries with competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple. Nuclear cannot compete with other electricity sources. This explains why nuclear plant construction is now concentrated in countries like Russia and China where nuclear development is state-controlled. The high cost of nuclear power also explains why so few plants are being built compared with a generation ago.

In an illuminating article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider projects an imminent decline in world nuclear generating capacity. He notes there are currently 439 operating reactors worldwide. To date, 119 reactors have been closed, at an average age of 22 years. If we generously assume a much longer average lifespan of 40 years, then 93 reactors will close between 2008 and 2015. Another 192 will close between 2016 and 2025. And the remaining 154 will close after 2025.

But only 36 nuclear reactors are currently under construction worldwide — 31 of them in Eastern Europe and Asia. Although there is much talk of building new nuclear plants in the United States, there are none under construction.

What these numbers indicate, Schneider points out, is that plant closings will soon exceed plant openings — and by a widening margin in the years ahead. The trend is clear. From 2000 to 2005, an average of 4,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity was added each year. Since 2005, this has dropped to only 1,000 megawatts of additional capacity per year.

Even if all reactors scheduled to come online by 2015 make it, the projected closing of 93 nuclear reactors by then will drop nuclear power generation roughly 10 percent below the current level. Unless governments start routinely granting operating permits for reactors more than 40 years-old, a half-century of growth in world nuclear generating capacity is about to be replaced by a long-term decline.

Despite all the industry hype about a nuclear future, private investors are openly skeptical. In fact, while little private capital is going into nuclear power, investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into wind farms each year. And while the world’s nuclear generating capacity is estimated to expand by only 1,000 megawatts this year, wind generating capacity will likely grow by 30,000 megawatts. In addition, solar cell installations and the construction of solar thermal and geothermal power plants are all growing by leaps and bounds.

The reason for this extraordinary gap between the construction of nuclear power plants and wind farms is simple: wind is much more attractive economically. Wind yields more energy, more jobs, and more carbon reduction per dollar invested than nuclear. Though nuclear power plants are still being built in some countries and governments are talking them up in others, the reality is that we are entering the age of wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10…

Energy Security   by  Sascha Müller-Kraenner.    

Earthscan - £19.99
Hardback - September 2008
208 pages
ISBN: 9781844075829

Related Subject Areas:
Politics, Governance and Law
Energy
Climate Change

‘If we can achieve energy security we can not only free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels - we can also realize environmental security and a whole host of other central developmental and poverty alleviation goals.’
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme

‘Energy security is a huge, multifaceted game of foreign policy. This book not only gives a comprehensive overview of what politicians and resource managers must know but also cleverly weaves in perspectives of the environment, international organizations, and the potentials of energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.’
Ernst von Weizsäcker, Co-Chair, International Panel on Sustainable Resource Management

‘Accessible and exciting … [this] is the first truly objective examination of the relationship between resource scarcity, security and ecological destruction.’
Neues Deutschland

‘It is the author’s great achievement to enlighten his readers about the interface between energy supply and politics.’
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

‘With history lessons, economic insights, environmental science observations, demographic trends, policy analysis, and even elements of a political thriller, Müller-Kraenner cuts through the confusion and complexity, clarifying the options for a sustainable energy future.’
Dan Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University

‘Essential reading for everyone who wants to understand how Europe should respond to the double challenge of energy security and climate change.’
Bernice Lee, Research Director, Energy, Environment and Resource Governance, Chatham House

HUMANITY STANDS AT A THRESHOLD: will its shared energy future be peaceful, or will it be threatened by resource wars? How can rapidly depleting resources be managed to the advantage of all, and therefore conflicts averted? How can we avoid irreparable damage to the last areas of untouched natural beauty, all in the name of accessing valuable resources? And how do we arrive at an international energy policy which not only provides safe, economical energy without conflict, but also addresses the all-important issue of climate change: What is the best way to achieve greater energy security?

Energy Security addresses all of these questions, arguing for an urgent overhaul of international law and institutions to control relations with countries such as Russia, which own the world’s remaining fuel supplies. The book presents alternatives to fossil fuels as two diametrically opposing strategies: the increased use of atomic energy; and a comprehensive climate protection policy with a focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy. In times of international terrorism, there are heightened concerns about nuclear proliferation, and Energy Security argues that the future must belong to renewable energy.

——–

Sascha Müller-Kraenner is Senior Policy Adviser and the European Representative to The Nature Conservancy. He is also a partner of Ecologic Institute (Berlin) and a lecturer at the Hertie School of Governance.

——–

Contents: Introduction, What is Energy Security?  -  Facing a New Energy Crisis  -  The Great Game for Measuring the World  - Energy Superpower Russia  -  The Rise of Asia  - A Common European Energy Policy  - Defending the Last Paradise  - Ways Out of Dependence: Solar or Nuclear?  - The Strength of the Law and the Diplomacy of the Future - Index

China’s Key Energy Policy Institution Joins REEEP

Beijing, October 30, 2008

Today at the Global Wind Energy Conference in Beijing, the Energy Research Institute (ERI), a key division of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), formally joined REEEP.  NDRC is the main policy making body in China on energy, environment and climate change. The signing ceremony was attended by senior Chinese government officials from NDRC and the National Energy Agency (NEA) and also representatives from local diplomatic missions of key REEEP partner and donor countries – United Kingdom, Norway, Australia and Italy.

ERI is a national research organisation conducting comprehensive studies on China’s energy issues. It is guided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in many aspects of its research work. The work carried out by ERI forms the basis of Energy and Climate Change policy implemented in China by NDRC.

Speaking at the Global Wind Energy Conference, ERI Director-General Han Wenke stated “Joining an international partnership such as REEEP allows the Energy Efficiency Center and the Center for Renewable Energy Development (CRED) to further strengthen their ties to international experience. Experiences that can be of use here in China”.

Mr. Li Junfeng, Secretary General of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association who is hosting the REEEP East Asia Regional Secretariat, indicated that ERI has been working closely with REEEP in China from both project and strategic sides. ERI’s joining the REEEP will enhance the existing collaboration between REEEP and ERI, and bring multi-benefits to both parties as they share a common aim regarding the promotion and deployment of renewable and energy efficiency technology in China.

ERI’s joining of an international clean energy partnership is an indication of the Chinese government’s desire to accelerate energy conservation and renewable energy in the country.

REEEP has been working in China since 2003, implementing sixteen projects focused on policies, regulations, finance and business issues. REEEP and CRED, one department of ERI focusing on policy research for renewable energy, worked a National Implementation Roadmap for Wind and a study on the potential for Biomass Co-firing in coal-fired power stations.

China intends to use REEEP as a vehicle to gain access to international experience and best practices on energy efficiency and renewable energy, in order to strengthen the significant efforts that China has already made  in renewable energy and energy efficiency development.

REEEP announced plans to work with the Chinese government and industry associations to develop a report on Chinese Achievements in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.

REEEP will also work together with ERI to support new policy measures that increase the role of sustainable energy in China’s transition to a low carbon economy.

Dr. Marianne Osterkorn, REEEP International Director, stated “while China is becoming the world’s leading economy, China is already the world leader in renewable energy and taking major steps towards energy efficiency. It is remarkable that China gives such importance to renewable and energy efficiency, and that they value their importance on the path to a lower carbon economy.

Agata Gago
Media Relations
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP)
International Secretariat
Wagramerstrasse 5
1400 Vienna, Austria
Tel: +48 503 180 791
 http://www.reeep.org

The Dirty Secret Behind the Candidates’ “Clean Energy” Proposals: Many of the promises the candidates make on the stump would have trouble passing muster with the WTO — that’s the whole point (reasoning) of “free trade” deals.

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet staff writer, October 30, 2008.

Many of the promises the candidates make on the stump would have trouble passing muster with the WTO — that’s the whole point of “free trade” deals.

If Barack Obama wins the White House, his administration will face potentially irreconcilable conflicts between his signature proposals — like transforming the American economy into a 21st century “green-collar” job engine — and the dictates of the “free trade” regime that both major parties have advanced with unbridled zeal for the past quarter century.

It’s a story that’s gotten little attention during the campaign. The traditional media have found the time to analyze Sarah Palin’s wardrobe in great detail, take a hard look at whether or not the fact that Joe Biden was raised in Scranton, Penn., will win over white folks from the “Heartland” and ponder the all-important question of whether a mainstream, centrist Democrat like Barack Obama is in fact a crypto-Maoist. But they haven’t bothered to point out that much of what both the Democratic and Republican nominees are promising on the campaign trail would likely be found “illegal” according to the rulings of shadowy trade tribunals that have the power to impose daunting financial penalties against the U.S. government if it were to stray from the economic orthodoxy known as “neoliberalism.”

That’s what “free trade” deals are about: limiting by treaty the policy space in which lawmakers can operate. As such, both of the presidential candidates are boxed into a cage of their respective parties’ creation. It’s the dirty secret of the 2008 campaign.

Recently, AlterNet asked Van Jones, founder of Green For All and author of The Green Collar Economy, about this issue, and he responded with defiance. “I want the WTO to tell us we can’t do this,” he said, “because then we won’t have a WTO. I want the free traders to stand up in front of the world and explain to Americans why some people are going to tell you that you can’t have clean energy and you can’t have your home retrofitted (with American-made products) because it is more efficient for it to be made in Asia or Germany, that you can’t bring Detroit back to build wind turbines. I want the free traders to defend having an overseas body to declare this agenda illegal. I want that fight.”

It’s a fight that might finally help achieve public awareness about what “free trade” really means. When most people hear the word “trade,” they picture ships filled with goods crisscrossing the world’s oceans. But the reality is that “free trade” is simply a well-tested euphemism for agreements between governments that limit their ability to intervene in the private sector, ostensibly to unleash the awesome “power of the free market.”

They don’t just cover trade between countries, but also a host of issues that most ordinary people would consider to be purely domestic matters, as long as they have some tenuous connection with international commerce, no matter how far removed.

Activists from across the developing world have been trying for years to call attention to that reality but have largely been ignored by a media and political establishment devoted to promoting the so-called “Washington Consensus.”

Now, with Americans hungry for new approaches to the economy, health care, energy policy and a host of other issues, the “free trade” deals advanced by both Democrats and Republicans over the past 30 years may very well come back to haunt them.

***

According to a report by the watchdog group Public Citizen (PDF), “Many WTO rules have little or nothing to do with international trade,” but every WTO country is still “required to ‘ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations and administrative procedures’” with the WTO’s orthodoxy. Failing to do so is not a meaningless act of diplomatic defiance; the WTO has an enforcement arm. As the report explains:

Domestic policies that extend beyond the WTO constraints are subject to challenge by other WTO signatory countr