The the UK Department of Business, Environment and Regulatory Affairs (BERR) announces a competition for companies to build a full scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in the UK. The project is to be funded by UK taxpayers under as long as there is a demonstration that long term capture of carbon dioxide is successful on a commercial scale.

CCS has been touted as the savior technology for the fossil fuel powered electricity generation industry. It is estimated that 90% of CO2 emissions may potentially be captured with CCS technology, accounting for 28% of global emissions by 2050. The CCS demonstration will be used in conjunction with one coal fired electricity generation plant. A winner of the competition is expected to be announced in mid 2007.

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James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, has said that our targets for carbon emissions reductions are not adequate, and should be cut further.

“Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed”. A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the Archive website. Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth’s history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.

The team studied core samples taken from the bottom of the ocean, which allow C02 levels to be tracked millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the Ice age about 35m years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stood at about 450ppm.

“If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice - that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed disaster,” Hansen told the Guardian.

At levels as high as 550ppm, the world would warm by 6C, the paper finds. Previous estimates had suggested warming would be just 3C at that point.

Hansen has long been a prominent figure in climate change science. He was one of the first to bring the crisis to the world’s attention in testimony to Congress in the 1980s.”

Technorati Tags: NASA, carbon emissions, C02, climate change

Today’s New York Times has published photographs of the hand signals used by traders in open outcry trading markets. The signals are modeled by Raymond Carbone, an oil trader, and are those used on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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The Governor of the central bank of Australia, the Reserve Bank, has warned that Australians should expect to pay more for energy once a carbon emissions trading scheme has been implemented. Article here.

“AUSTRALIANS must accept that emissions trading is designed to make them pay more and lower their standard of living, at least where energy use is concerned, the Reserve Bank governor warns.

Glenn Stevens said yesterday any attempt by workers to demand higher wages as compensation could increase inflation.

There would also be little point in raising the price of energy if it did not result in lower consumption of it, Mr Stevens said.

Responding to his comments, the Rudd Government’s chief climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, told the Herald the Government could consider a GST-style package of tax cuts to head off calls for higher wages. These tax cuts could be funded by the sale of emission permits.”

Technorati Tags: Australia, energy, carbon emissions, emissions trading, energy, climate change, emission permits

The EU, World Bank and European Investment Bank announce the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF). The GEEREF will start by spending more than €100 million to mobilise large-scale public and private pilot projects in renewable energy and clean technology projects, particularly in developing states.

The Commission, which proposed the fund in October 2006, hopes it will act as an incentive for private capital financing by offering “suitable risk sharing and co-funding options for various commercial and non-commercial investors with a global investment mandate”.

The EU will contribute €80 million to the fund by 2010 in order to help developing countries overcome hurdles associated with initial capital costs for renewable energies.

€15 million of EU funds will be used in 2008 as a jump start for the initiative.

Technorati Tags: EU, renewable energy, clean technology