The Energy Debates: Geothermal Energy

Charles Q. Choi, livescience.com Yahoo News 10 Dec 08;

Editor's Note: "The Energy Debates" is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas. We invite you to join the debate by commenting directly on each article.

The Facts

An extraordinary amount of heat is trapped below Earth's surface, as erupting volcanoes show with their violence. Geothermal energy seeks to use this heat to generate electricity and warm up buildings and roads.

Roughly 8,000 megawatts of geothermal electricity are currently produced around the world, including about 2,800 megawatts in the United States, or less than one-half of 1 percent of the electricity the nation produces. There are three kinds of geothermal plants, which all rely on hot vapors to help drive electric turbines.

First, dry steam plants use steam from underground, which arises when water seeps into the Earth's crust and gets heated up. This is the oldest type of geothermal plant, first used in Larderello, Italy, in 1904 and still effective today. Nowadays, dry steam plants at The Geysers in Northern California represent the largest single generator of geothermal power in the world, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, with a net capacity of roughly 725 megawatts, enough to power 725,000 homes.

Next, flash steam plants draw up super-hot high-pressure water. When depressurized, this water then rapidly vaporizes or "flashes" into steam.

Last, binary cycle plants flows moderately hot geothermal water past another fluid such as isobutane, which boils at temperatures much lower than water. This fluid absorbs the heat, flashing to vapor used to drive turbines. Such moderately hot water is by far the most common resource, and most geothermal plants in the future will be binary cycle, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In California, the state with the largest amount of geothermal power online, geothermal energy accounts for roughly 5 percent of its electricity, while Iceland and El Salvador each use geothermal plants to supply roughly a quarter of their electricity, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In addition to geothermal plants, geothermal heat pumps can be used to heat or even cool residential and commercial buildings. By the end of 2005, more than 600,000 geothermal heat pumps were installed in the United States, with new installations happening at a rate of 50,000 to 60,000 a year, according to the Geothermal Energy Association. "That's a lot of usage there, but it's still small compared with the overall U.S. heating and cooling market," said Cliff Chen, senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy group.

The principle of geothermal heat pumps is simple. Nearly everywhere, the upper 10 feet of the Earth's surface maintains a nearly constant temperature between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit (10 and 16 degrees Celsius), making it warmer than the air above it during the winter and cooler in the summer. Geothermal heat pumps use pipes filled with water or a water-antifreeze mixture to absorb or release warmth.

A number of cities also pipe hot spring water under roads and sidewalks to melt snow and ice.

Pros

Geothermal energy is very clean. Geothermal fields produce just one-sixth of the carbon dioxide that a relatively clean natural-gas-fueled power plant generates, and very little if any of the nitrogen oxides or sulfur-bearing gases spewed out by coal plants that result in acid rain and smog, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Binary cycle plants are closed loops, essentially releasing no emissions.

Also, geothermal energy is abundant and constantly available 24 hours a day, unlike wind energy, which depends on fickle breezes, or solar energy, which does not work well in the dark. And it is homegrown, making nations less dependent on foreign oil.

Geothermal energy is also well-proven. "The Geysers unit in California has been operating for more than 40 years," Chen said. "We have a lot of experience with this technology. It's not some pie-in-the-sky technical concept that's decades away from coming to fruition - it's being used right now."

Since geothermal energy comes from underground, geothermal plants also do not take up much space. "This minimizes the visual impact these can have in scenic areas," Chen noted.

Cons

Geothermal energy requires a lot of money up front before energy starts getting produced, roughly $2,500 per installed kilowatt in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. "It also requires relatively long lead times - we're talking three years minimum, often more like five," Chen said. "That's because you need to do some prospecting first, drill tests to look for the best places.

Geothermal plants do rely on hot steam or water from underground, which can deplete over time. To recharge The Geysers, wastewater from the city of Santa Rosa, Calif., is now getting piped into the geothermal field. "Injecting water into geothermal facilities can keep production up if that's the economically feasible thing to do," Chen said. "At The Geysers, it was - at others, it may not make sense. You might have to retire facilities if production declines past a certain level."

The best geothermal reservoirs are located in volcanically or seismically active places, such as the western United States, Alaska and Hawaii. It may be of limited use elsewhere, meaning it might just account for 20,000 to 30,000 megawatts at most in the United States, or roughly 4 percent of its existing capacity. "That's much less than the hundreds of thousands of megawatts or even millions that solar and wind potentially can generate," Chen said.

Still, advances in geothermal energy could make it more widely available. Enhanced geothermal systems, which drill miles down to access hot dry rock or magma, could lead to a 40-fold increase over present geothermal power generating capacity, or more than 100,000 megawatts, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

However, such enhanced geothermal systems are not without risk. One site triggered four earthquakes in Basel, Switzerland, ranging from 3.1 to 3.4 on the Richter scale. Experts insist that site was not picked correctly, and that quakes should not be a concern in properly chosen locations.

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More than 3,300 Olive Ridley turtles dead on Indian coast

Trawlers under lens for turtle deaths
The Telegraph India 7 Dec 08;

Cuttack, Dec. 7: More than 3,300 carcasses of the rare Olive Ridley turtles have been found on Gahirmatha coast in the past fortnight triggering concern among wildlife conservationists here.

It is suspected that the endangered species of turtles have been killed by trawlers despite stringent laws that make it mandatory for the fishing boats to use turtle excluder devices.

An ongoing survey by Maneka Gandhi’s People for Animals (PFA) points to the alarming number of deaths after congregations of turtles were spotted off the Orissa coast since middle of November. The turtles mate in seawaters before the female ones come ashore for laying eggs. The beaches of Orissa at Gahirmatha, Devi river-mouth and Rushikulya mouth are among the few places in the world which witness the mass nesting of the turtles. Tens of thousands of turtles come ashore to lay eggs every year in winter.

“Reports received so far indicate a higher mortality rate among the turtles off the coast of Devi river-mouth. Most of them have been killed by fishing trawlers and the dead turtles have washed ashore at Ramchandi near Puri,” PFA (Orissa unit) secretary Jiban Das said today.

PFA field reports had counted nearly 2,000 dead turtles at Ramchandi and another 1,300 turtle carcasses along the Gahirmatha beach. “Most of them have big wounds on the back symbolising that they ad been hit by the propeller of a boat,” Das said.

Meanwhile, worried over rising turtle casualty, the state government has decided to join hands with NGOs to undertake a survey on the mortality rate. “Joint monitoring would bring in transparency into the problem of turtle mortality on the Orissa coast as there has been glaring discrepancies between the government estimates and the surveys conducted by NGOs,” Operation Kachhapa co-ordinator Biswajit Mohanty said.

Operation Kachhapa has been engaged in monitoring turtle mortality along the Orissa coast. “With a much lower feedback on the turtle deaths, the government has apparently not been able to gauge the mass annihilation that has continued on the Orissa coast,” he added.

Government estimates showed drop in mortality from 13,575 in 1997-98 to 3,242 in 2006-07 and just 204 in 2007-08. The official figure, however, was described as much below the actual death toll by the NGOs. The survey reports by the NGOs suggested turtle mortality in the range of 10,000 to 15,000 every year. “The casualty could be even more as all the carcasses do not wash ashore,” Mohanty said, while welcoming the recent deployment of two patrol boats by the fisheries department.

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Best of our wild blogs: 10 Dec 08

Soft Cnidarian Workshop Participants' Feedback
on the The Leafmonkey Workshop blog

The Hard Cnidarians Workshop
upcoming workshop on the The Leafmonkey Workshop blog

Grey-tailed Tattler
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Red-wattled Lapwing defending its chick
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Soil investigation off the Marina Barrage
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Mom with a mouthful
on the annotated budak blog

Read more!

Cruise ships still making way to Singapore, despite tough economic times

Cheryl Frois, Channel NewsAsia 9 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE: Despite gloomy economic times, one of the world's largest cruise companies, Royal Caribbean Cruises, is setting its sights on Asia.

The last time a ship from Royal Caribbean docked in Singapore was almost eight years ago. Come next year, its Legend of the Seas – with over 2,000 passenger capacity – will be permanently deployed in Asia.

Rama Rebbapragada, regional vice president, Royal Caribbean Cruises, said: "The ship will be pretty much an Asian ship so she'll spend time between Singapore, Shanghai, Tianjin and Hong Kong.

"The ship will move around depending on seasonality, offering cruises around several home ports in the Asia Pacific region. Asia grew by 100 per cent from 2006 to 2007 and we expect at least a 20 per cent to 25 per cent growth from Asia in 2009."

Royal Caribbean does not think the cruise market will suffer much from the economic downturn. But it said it is not ruling out cutting prices and offering deals, such as an expanded itinerary, to draw visitors.

From Singapore, the ship will embark on 18 cruise tours and for the first time, this includes cruise tours between Singapore and Shanghai. Prices start from S$430 for a three-night sail to Malaysia and up to S$5,500 for a 14-night sail to Shanghai.

Passengers onboard the ship can enjoy resort facilities like Asia's first and only miniature golf course, multiple swimming pools complete with whirlpools, and fully-equipped gyms.

As security is something cruise liners are always mindful of, Royal Caribbean cancelled Legend of the Seas' planned call in Mumbai recently, following the terror attacks in the city.

"But the ship did call in Goa and the ship did call in Cochin and those calls went without any incident. We are watching the situation in India very closely because the ship will go back to Europe through India again on its return in May," said Rebbapragada.

Royal Caribbean said it plans to introduce six more ships around the world by the end of 2012.

Over 800 cruise ships have called on Singapore this year, compared to 719 in 2007. Total in- and outbound passenger numbers have almost hit 95,000 so far, similar to last year's figure.

- CNA/so

A Legend returns to S'pore after 7 years
Straits Times 10 Dec 08;

CRUISE operator Royal Caribbean International's Legend Of The Seas, which can take up to 1,800 passengers, returned to Singapore yesterday for the first time in seven years.

Travellers can choose from 14 short cruises lasting between three and five nights from Singapore to popular tourist destinations such as Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and Phuket.

Royal Caribbean, the world's second-largest cruise operator, will also offer, for the first time, a 14-night cruise between Singapore and Shanghai with stops at Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Royal Caribbean returns for second season
But global cruise brand has trouble filling smaller ship
Vincent Wee, Business Times 10 Dec 08;

(SINGAPORE) Royal Caribbean International (RCI) has returned for a second season with a smaller ship, but even this is having trouble being filled.

The global cruise brand began its Asian season yesterday with the 1,800-passenger Legend of the Seas, slightly smaller than the 2,000-passenger Rhapsody of the Seas, which was based here for the last season.

The season comprises 15 shorter cruises and four longer 14-night cruises. But regional vice-president, international, Rama Rebbapragada, said that the cruises were booked out at an earlier stage last year. 'We're almost booked out till Chinese New Year but there are some soft spots in January,' he said. The 14-day cruise programmes begin from the end of January.

Mr Rebbapragada had said earlier this year in announcing the ship's deployment that last year's Asian cruise programme had been fully booked, with more than 30,000 passengers, representing growth of more than double the previous year.

He had said that he expected to see that number growing by two-thirds this year with revenue nearly doubling. It seems unlikely these targets will be met now. Absolute passenger numbers are not only smaller but Mr Rebbapragada also conceded that some discounting had to be done to fill spots.

He, however, remained optimistic that the economic downturn would not have too adverse an impact on the season. Mr Rebbapragada said that Asians tend to book their holidays at the very last minute and he was now used to this after having spent a season in this market.

He said that RCI was getting demand for the fly-cruise market from India, Japan and Korea. However, lack of air capacity during critical peak periods is putting some constraint on this. Seeing how the proportion of Singaporeans on this year's cruises has barely inched up from the 30 per cent seen last year, this will likely have to be a market it will have to tap further if it wants to grow.

Mr Rebbapragada also said that Shanghai, Tianjin, Busan and Hong Kong will definitely be considered as homeports for the ship when it is based here for a year-long deployment from next November.

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Scientists try to mitigate climate change effects

Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland – Scientists studying the changing nature of the Earth's climate say they have completed one crucial task — proving beyond a doubt that global warming is real.

Now they have to figure out just what to do about it.

"It is critical for us to get a much better understanding of the impact of climate change in some parts of the world," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.

Scientific warnings of potential catastrophe have been the backdrop for talks among more than 10,000 delegates and environmentalists negotiating a treaty to control the emission of greenhouse gases, which have grown by 70 percent since 1970. The treaty, due to be completed in one year, would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Pachauri said he was concerned that negotiators were sparring and probing — and leaving key decisions for the last moment.

"My concern is that if we leave everything to the end, we might end up with a weak agreement that doesn't really address the problem," he said.

Last year, Pachauri's IPCC, which collected the work of more than 2,000 scientists, said climate change is "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity."

It listed likely effects of global warming: arid regions will grow dryer, rising seas will flood coastal areas, melting glaciers will flood communities downstream and then dry up the source of future water supplies, and up to 30 percent of all plant and animal species may become extinct.

Since then, new evidence has emerged showing that ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting, which threatens to dramatically raise the level of the oceans and flood coastal cities and low-lying islands.

"Small island states are living in a state of fear," he said.

But Pachauri said there was no conclusive evidence the world is in imminent danger.

"I don't think we should jump to conclusions if we get material that is based on the last one or two years," the Indian scientist said. The IPCC issues its reports every five or six years.

The 2007 report cited a scientific consensus that global warming should be limited to 2 degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to avoid the worst scenarios. To contain global warming to that target, carbon emissions must peak by 2015, then begin a rapid decline.

Pachauri now says governments should reconsider whether even that goal goes far enough, since it would still raise sea levels from between 15 inches (40 centimeters) to 4.6 feet (1.4 meters).

Dozens of scientists were among the delegations or nongovernment groups attending the Poznan conference, exhibiting some of the latest technologies and scientific studies.

"The skeptics are doing a good job because they are making us present ironclad proof," said Lawrence E. Buja, a climate change researcher for the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

But since that battle is over, he said scientists need to move on and look at the detailed impact of climate change.

"That's a much harder question," he said.

Buja, who contributed to the IPCC report, said scientists are looking at futuristic solutions to halt global warming, such as imitating the cooling effects of a massive volcanic eruption by spreading sulfur in the atmosphere, or scattering billions tiny refractors high in the air to dim the sun and lower the temperature.

But he said such radical solutions involve risks.

"How are you going to go up and find all those little refractors and pull them down if something bad starts to happen?" he asked.

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Climate talks to fail without tough CO2 goals: U.N.

Alister Doyle and Anna Mudeva, Reuters 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - The United States and other rich nations must pledge by the end of next year specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to win agreement on a U.N. climate pact, the U.N.'s top climate official said on Tuesday.

Some analysts say that President-elect Barack Obama may not be ready to set formal emissions targets for 2020 within a year, and that economic recession could delay an end-2009 deadline by 190 nations for agreement on a new U.N. global warming pact.

"We have to have numbers on the table from industrialized countries (by the end of 2009) otherwise the other dominoes won't fall," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said during December 1-12 talks on global warming.

Poor nations such as China and India would not sign up for more action to slow their rising emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, without leadership from the rich, he told a news conference during U.N. talks of 11,000 delegates in Poznan.

And he gave a one-word answer -- "Yes" -- when asked if he would rate the negotiations a failure if they set no 2020 greenhouse cuts for rich nations to succeed 2012 goals set by the existing Kyoto Protocol.

A U.N. official said de Boer's remarks covered the United States, even though President George W. Bush kept the country out of Kyoto. Bush said Kyoto was too costly and wrongly excluded 2012 targets for developing nations.

But de Boer also cautioned against too much ambition for a new global deal due to be agreed in Copenhagen next year, saying that many details of a new pact could be worked out later.

RISK NOTHING

"We should be careful not to reach too far and achieve nothing," he said. Targets for rich nations, clarity on aid for the poor and institutions were essential in Copenhagen.

The talks in Poznan, Poland, are reviewing progress toward the new pact meant to be agreed in Copenhagen in 2009, half-way through a two-year push launched in Bali, Indonesia, a year ago.

Obama said last month that he aims to cut U.S. emissions, running almost 17 percent above 1990 levels in 2007, back to 1990 levels by 2020 as part of a fight to avert more heatwaves, disease, water shortages and rising seas.

But it is unclear if Obama would have to get the Senate's blessing before making a commitment as part of an international treaty. With the economic crisis, U.S. domestic climate laws are unlikely to be in place by late 2009, analysts say.

Environmentalists in Poznan accused some rich nations -- including Japan and Canada -- of slamming on the brakes in their ambitions for emissions cuts by 2020.

Backers of the Kyoto Protocol, which demands average cuts of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, agreed in 2007 at least to consider cuts of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avert the worst of climate change.

In latest texts, a reference to "minus 25 to 40 percent" was in contention and might be dropped. "It's frankly outrageous," said Steven Guilbeault of Canadian environmental group Equiterre, accusing Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia of trying to cut out the reference.

British charity Oxfam set up 10 life-sized human ice sculptures outside the conference center on Tuesday. "Rich countries need to take the lead before hope in saving the planet and its people melts away," said Aboubacar Traore, Oxfam's climate change campaigner in Mali.

(Editing by Myra MacDonald)

UN climate chief downbeat about a complete deal for 2009
Yahoo News 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – The UN's climate chief on Tuesday sounded caution over hopes that a new treaty to tackle global warming would be fully wrapped up by the end of 2009.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said it was possible only "the key political issues" would be nailed down by this deadline and further talks would be needed to complete the details of the accord.

"We won't see a fully elaborated, long-term agreement in Copenhagen in 2009. It won't be feasible," de Boer told a press conference here.

More than 10,000 delegates have gathered in Poznan for the December 1-12 UNFCCC meeting, which aims to advance towards a treaty taking effect from the end of 2012, when provisions expire under Kyoto Protocol.

According to the so-called Bali Roadmap, endorsed by the 192-member UNFCCC conference in Indonesia last year, the new accord should be completed in Copenhagen in December 2009.

"We should be careful not to reach too far and achieve nothing," de Boer said on Tuesday ahead of a ministerial-level phase of the talks, taking place Thursday and Friday.

"What we need to achieve in Copenhagen is clarity on the key political issues, so that everything after Copenhagen is about settling the details rather than negotiating the fundamentals," he said.

The highly technical negotiations in Poznan are mired in discord over how to share out the commitments and costs of cutting carbon pollution that stokes global warming.

Rich countries acknowledge their historical role in pushing up global temperatures.

But they say rapidly emerging economies -- including major CO2 emitters such as China and India -- must also take quantifiable action.

Developing and poorer nations argue the industrialised world should lead by example, and foot the bill for clean-energy technology and coping with global warming's inevitable impacts.

"We do have to have numbers on the table from industrialised countries otherwise the other dominoes won't fall," de Boer said.

"And it's clear that you politically also need some form of engagement by major developing countries. What form that commitment will take, what shape it will have and how it will be stated, is not clear to me at the moment".

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Greenpeace bids to turn Japan against whaling

Isabel Reynolds, Reuters 9 Dec 08;

TOKYO (Reuters) - Greenpeace launched a campaign to turn Japan against whaling on Tuesday, with directors of the group from around the world delivering a letter to Prime Minister Taro Aso, urging him to halt the hunts.

The letter handover came weeks after Japan's whaling fleet set off for the Antarctic for an annual hunt aimed at catching about 900 whales, which Tokyo says is carried out for scientific research purposes.

In a break with past practice, Greenpeace is focusing on a campaign to try to change Japanese domestic opinion this year, rather than send a ship to chase the fleet in the Southern Ocean, which caused diplomatic ruffles last year.

That decision has drawn criticism from hardline anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, whose members skirmished with whaling vessels at sea last season.

"Each year we put more and more emphasis on the campaign in Japan," Steve Shallhorn of Greenpeace Australia told reporters. "We are asking the people of Japan to ask their politicians to end the subsidy to this outdated industry," he added.

He and Greenpeace directors from the United States, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries, were joined by Paddy Hart, an Australian former whaler, for the letter delivery.

Activists were also set to protest outside Japanese embassies abroad, Greenpeace said.

Japan officially stopped whaling under a 1986 global moratorium, but continues to take hundreds of whales in what it calls a research program. Much of the meat ends up on dinner tables.

Though most Japanese do not eat whale meat on a regular basis, many are indifferent to accusations that hunting the creatures is cruel, while others resent being told what they should eat.

But Greenpeace Japan Director Jun Hoshikawa said there were signs that interest in the issue was rising in Japan, with a handful of lawmakers calling for an investigation of the hunt.

Among them is Ryuhei Kawada, known for battling the government after he and others became infected with HIV through tainted blood products.

"When the government is wrong, it is important to raise your voice," he told reporters. "The United States and Australia have a history of whaling, but Japan continues even now. We should think about this from the point of view of the environment," he said.

An official at the whaling section of Japan's Fisheries Ministry said he could not comment because he had not seen the letter from Greenpeace.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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Aussie scientists use toxic mash to turn predators off toads

Yahoo News 8 Dec 08;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian scientists are serving up mashed cane toad with a dash of poison to put predators off eating the toxic aliens.

The cane toads, which carry poisonous sacs on their heads that can kill animals as big as crocodiles within minutes, are spreading rapidly westwards across the country despite efforts to eradicate them.

"Native predators are actually pretty capable of learning to avoid cane toads if given the chance," University of Sydney professor Rick Shine told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation this week.

"We're learning about ways to educate the predators in advance of the toad front in ways that will help them survive" once the toad arrives in their territory.

A marauding amphibian, Bufo marinus was introduced to Australia in 1935 from Central and South America in an attempt to control beetles ravaging sugar cane fields in the tropical northeast.

But, like many animals imported into Australia, the cane toad has turned into a pest, with recent research showing they have more than halved the number of crocodiles in some Northern Territory rivers.

Attempts to minimise the damage focused on trying to kill the toads, but "it's hard to do and it's clear that the toad is by and large winning the battle," Shine said.

"The invasion-front toads are all very big guys, so they've got a lot of poison, so the first toad you meet if you're a goanna (lizard) is almost bound to a big one and it's almost bound to be your last meal."

However, if predators ate a small toad that made them sick but was not big enough to kill them, they rapidly learned to avoid the warty hoppers, he said.

So scientists are working on a programme of feeding animals such as crocodiles and goannas a mixture of toad bits and a poison to make them "desperately nauseous."

"(This will) convince predators that anything that looks and smells and tastes at all like a toad is a good thing to avoid," Shine said.

Initial results showed that predators, including quolls -- carnivorous marsupials -- quickly learned that the aliens were not a good addition to their diet.

"(It) suggests there is at least some hope that we can reduce the carnage that toads cause to these big predators," Shine said.

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Eat camels to protect environment, Aussies told

Yahoo News 9 Dec 08;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australians were urged Tuesday to eat camels to stop them wreaking environmental havoc, just months after being told to save the world from climate change by consuming kangaroos.

A three-year study has found that Australia's population of more than a million feral camels -- the largest wild herd on earth -- is out of control and damaging fragile desert ecosystems and water sources.

The Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, which produced the report, plans to serve camel meat at a barbecue for senior public servants in Canberra on Wednesday to press its point.

Report co-author Professor Murray McGregor said a good way to bring down the number of camels was to eat them.

"Eat a camel today, I've done it," he told the national AAP news agency.

"It's beautiful meat. It's a bit like beef. It's as lean as lean, it's an excellent health food."

Similar claims are made for kangaroo meat, but the rationale for farming and eating the national emblem -- as outlined by the government's chief climate change adviser in October -- is different.

Millions of farm animals such as cows and sheep produce massive amounts of harmful greenhouse gases, said Professor Ross Garnaut, but kangaroos emit negligible amounts of methane.

Unlike the native kangaroo, camels were introduced into Australia as pack animals for the vast outback in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, but were released into the wild as rail and road travel became more widespread.

The country has wrestled for years with imported animals brought in as beasts of burden, food sources, for recreational hunting or, ironically, to control agricultural pests.

The Department of the Environment lists animals of "significant concern" as including feral camels, horses, donkeys, pigs, European wild rabbits, European red foxes, cats, goats and cane toads.

With few natural predators and vast sparsely populated areas in which to roam, the populations have soared, putting pressure on native species by preying on them, competing for food, destroying habitats and spreading disease.

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Science paves way for climate lawsuits against oil companies

David Adam and Afua Hirsch, The Guardian 9 Dec 08;

People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said.

Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade.

He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important."

Allen's team has used the new technique to work out whether global warming worsened the UK floods in autumn 2000, which inundated 10,000 properties, disrupted power supplies and led to train services being cancelled, motorways closed and 11,000 people evacuated from their homes - at a total cost of £1bn.

He would not comment on the results before publication, but said people affected by floods could "potentially" use a positive finding to begin legal action.

The technique involves running two computer models to simulate the conditions that led to extreme weather events. One model includes human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, the second assumes the industrial revolution never happened and that carbon levels in the atmosphere have not increased over the last century. Comparing the results pins down the impact of man-made global warming. "As the science has evolved this is now possible, it's just a question of computing power," he said.

Allen and his colleagues previously demonstrated that man-made warming at least doubled the risk of heatwaves such as the 2003 event that killed 27,000 people across Europe. No legal action resulted, but Allen said that was partly because most of the deaths were in France, where the legal system makes such cases difficult.

"We can work out whether climate change has loaded the dice and made extreme weather more likely. And once the risk is doubled, then lawyers get interested," he said.

Peter Roderick, director of the Climate Justice programme, said the most likely route for seeking damages would be tort cases, which deal with civil wrongs. Several have been attempted by US states against power and car companies only to be rejected by the courts.

Roderick said developing countries such as Nepal could also sue for compensation over damage caused by global warming. "As the issue of damages gets worse and worse, the chances of this happening will get greater and greater," he said. "I hope it happens."

Lawyers say it is only a matter of time before class actions are brought. However, Stephen Tromans, an environmental law barrister, said establishing causation would be one of the main difficulties. "It is one thing to be able to link levels of greenhouse gases with a specific event causing damage but, even assuming you can do that, quite another to establish causation against a particular company or industrial sector."

There are legal precedents for making exceptions to normal rules of causation. One example is the decision of the House of Lords on mesothelioma, where past employers can be liable for having contributed to the overall exposure, though the harm cannot be scientifically attributed to any specific period of employment.

"In that case an exception was made to the normal rules on causation in order to prevent an injustice that would otherwise have occurred," Tromans said.

There may also be grounds for a case on the basis that firms have tried to misinform the public - as in US cases against tobacco firms - about the effects of their business.

Owen Lomas, head of environmental law at City firm Allen & Overy, said: "If you look at the extent to which certain major companies in the US are accused of having funded disinformation to cast doubt on the link between man-made emissions and global warming, that could open the way to litigation."

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We need to turn carbon into gold

Oliver Tickell, BBC Green Room 8 Dec 08;

Little meaningful progress seems to have been made at the UN climate summit in Poznan, Poland, says Oliver Tickell, author of Kyoto2. In this week's Green Room, he calls on world leaders to back a deal that will raise the serious funds needed to deliver a low carbon future.

Progress at the UN climate summit in Poznan, Poland, appears to have ground to a halt.

As the global gathering enters it second and final week, there has been a dismal lack of progress to date.

One of the key stumbling blocks is how all the things that we need to tackle the climate change problem will be financed.

Here are some of the key topics being debated:

Forests and soils

Forest destruction and degradation contributes up to 20% of human greenhouse gas emissions.

To have a hope of bringing climate change under control we need to bring these emissions to a halt, and make forests (as well as soils, peatlands and other terrestrial sinks) into major carbon sinks.

But how can we bring about the change we need?

The answer has to be to make forests worth more alive than dead to governments and forest owners.

As things stand we are happy to pay for palm oil, beef, soya beans, rubber and timber from deforested land.

To persuade countries like Brazil and Indonesia to change their ways, we need to pay them more keep their forest than we are already paying them to destroy it.

Currently the main idea, which goes under the acronym of REDD, is to create carbon credits by reducing deforestation in poor countries, and selling the credits to rich countries so that they can let their industrial emissions rip.

But this suffers from the grave defect that we need to reduce emissions from both forests and industry at the same time, not trade one off against the other.

Adaptation to climate change

The cost to poor countries of the climate change that is already taking place, no matter what action we take to reduce emissions, is up to $100 billion per year.

This cost is incurred in the effort to cope with the consequences of drought, flood risk, rising sea levels, increasing insect-borne disease, and other hazards.

So far, a paltry few percent of this funding has been lined up. Since the damages are a direct result of the historic emissions of rich countries, and the world's poorest people are the principal victims, this is nothing short of iniquitous.

Meanwhile, more than $60bn-a-year is sloshing around the world's carbon markets, such as the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme and the "flexibility mechanisms" of the Kyoto Protocol.

It sometimes seems that everyone is making fortunes out of the carbon market, except those who really need it to adapt to the far harsher conditions that climate change is creating.

Renewable energy

Renewable energy is a key part of any sustainable future. But developing and rapidly industrialising countries are generally choosing coal-fired power generation, because it is relatively cheap, it works, and it's available now.

This development path will lock these nations into burning coal for up to 75 years, undermining any effort made elsewhere to reduce emissions.

This makes it essential to divert the hundreds of billions of dollars each year that are being invested in fossil fuels in developing countries and put them into renewables.

But in order to make this happen, extra funds need to be found to bridge the gap between the cost of coal fired power stations and renewables.

In the long run, renewables make good economic sense because once they are built there is no need to buy the fuel to keep them running.

But in the short term there is an extra cost to be paid and at the moment, there's no one to pick up the bill.

Energy efficiency

Vastly improved energy efficiency is absolutely necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to satisfy rising demand for energy around the world.

Even though energy savings can be made for next to nothing, they tend not to take place. This is usually because the costs are picked up by one person, while another enjoys the benefits.

So how are we to stimulate the revolution we need?

One answer is to regulate. EU citizens are already aware of the "energy rating" system that applies to many household appliances, and this approach has been highly effective. It should now be extended globally to all energy consuming goods, homes, buildings, factories and offices.

Poor countries will of course need extra funding to have their short-term costs covered. But in the long term, they will also benefit from reduced energy costs.

Powerful industrial greenhouse gases

The hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are gases used as refrigerants and foam blowing agents.

They were introduced by the chemical industry to replace ozone destroying CFCs, which have (almost) been phased out by the Montreal Protocol.

However, HFCs are powerful greenhouse gases, and their production is rising by 15% per year.

The Environmental Investigation Agency estimates that without controls, they could be responsible for the equivalent of about 10 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions per year by 2040, or about one-third of the world's current burn of fossil fuels.

The obvious way to control them is in the same way that the Montreal Protocol phased out the CFCs.

This would involve a direct regulatory approach, guided by an expert panel, with funding made available to help developing nations meet the cost of adapting affected industries.

Where is the money going to come from?

Currently there is no mechanism capable of taking on the problems of climate change.

My own calculations indicate that it will cost the world about one trillion dollars each year.

That is certainly a lot of money, but it is an amount that looks affordable when it is compared to what the world is spending to deal with the global financial crisis.

One obvious way to raise the funds is to sell greenhouse gas emissions permits on a global basis, rather than giving them away as under the current Kyoto Protocol.

With industrial global emissions accounting for about 33 gigatonnes, a $30-per-tonne carbon price would pay the whole bill.

The EU is already going this way. More and more allowances under the ETS are being auctioned, and the European Parliament is calling for the proceeds to finance climate solutions.

President-elect Barack Obama has a similar national policy for the US, and a new report by humanitarian charity Oxfam calls for this model to be applied to rich country emissions allocations, with auctioning taking over from free allocations.

This general approach has to be the way forward, for the simple reason that there's nowhere else for the money to come from.

Governmental aid flows remain pathetically insufficient even to deal with all the "old" problems of poverty, never mind the new problems of climate change.

Charities are nowhere near rich enough, and the private sector will only invest where there is profit to be made.

So here is one principle for delegates in Poznan to agree on - the carbon market must be turned into gold, not for carbon traders and financiers, but to finance the world's transition to a low carbon, equitable future.

Oliver Tickell is author of Kyoto2 - how to manage the global greenhouse, published by Zed Books

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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Industry, Investors Urge Strong U.N. Climate Deal

Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn, PlanetArk 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN - Major companies, investors and insurers appealed on Monday for decisive action to fight climate change at a meeting in Poland working on a new U.N. pact to fight global warming.

Climate negotiators in the western city of Poznan are meeting on a new climate treaty meant to be agreed by next December in Copenhagen to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

"At a time when the global economic downturn may cause some to question whether now is the time to act, we believe that decisive action will stimulate global economic activity," leaders of more than 140 companies said.

The statement, drafted by the UK-based Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change (CLG), represented companies including Ebay, Sun Microsystems Inc, BP, and Unilever.

Climate policies such as carbon trading or carbon taxes add to fuel bills and impact the profitability of investment choices for example between fossil fuels and low-carbon alternatives, and business lobbies say they want more clarity.

"If business people cannot see what is the next 10, 15, 20 years they cannot assess the profitability of their investments," said Guy Sebban, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce, a global federation of employers and businessmen.

Some delegates, negotiators and analysts at the U.N. talks have suggested that the financial crisis coupled with the short time available for U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will scale back ambitions for Copenhagen.

That could water it down to an agreement on a set of principles rather than a full treaty to confront warming. That could make it harder to agree goals for emissions cuts in time before current goals under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.

An investor delegation for the first time presented on Monday a call for action to the annual U.N. climate talks.

Their statement, signed by 152 global investors worth over $9 trillion, called on world leaders to negotiate a strong and binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol, to ensure investors receive market signals to fund a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Like the CLG statement, the banks and pension funds called for a continued commitment to carbon markets -- favored by the business community as a flexible, low-cost regulatory approach to curbing carbon emissions.

Insurers also said they had a role to play in a future deal, especially to help offset the costs of adapting to the impacts of climate change such as rising seas, droughts and floods.

"The insurance sector is one that most directly experiences the impacts of climate change," said Andrew Torrance, head of ClimateWise which groups 42 insurers. "We are looking forward to insurance being a central component of a Copenhagen deal."

He said insurers paid a record $83 billion in disaster-related payments in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina in the United States.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska)

(Editing by Keith Weir)

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