[cai-asia] Clean Energy News, Vol 8, Number 15, April 30 2008

[CEN]

CLEAN ENERGY NEWS Vol.8 Issue No. 15 April 30 2008

CE News is a free weekly e-mail publications that features news, information and events related clean energy, clean air and climate change. CE News is published by Clean Energy Nepal. For more information on our campaign please visit http://www.cen.org.np/ To contribute articles, news items, or event announcements for the next issue, send an email with the complete details and URL source to c...@mos.com.np HEADLINES   ·         Rush On Himalayas As Peace Returns ·         Look For Alternative To Hydropower: Experts ·         Earth Day Observed ·         Micro Hydro Project Renovation Starts ·         Change Lifestyle To Adapt To Climate Change: Experts ·         Load Shedding To Be Reduced From Tuesday ·         Western, Eastern Regions Face Fuel Crisis ·         Russia Says Has No Plans To Cap Carbon Emissions ·         Higher Energy Costs From Climate Bills ·         Poor Children Main Victims Of Climate Change: U.N. ·         Climate Change Hitting Arctic Faster, Harder ·         Rich World Must Back 80 Percent Carbon Cuts - Stern ·         'Small Wind' Power Plants Are Blowing Strong   LOCAL NEWS   Rush On Himalayas As Peace Returns By Krishna Regmi The number of mountaineering expeditions is on the rise as the climbing season gets underway in the Nepal Himalayas. Some 31 expeditions are already headed towards Mt Everest, the central attraction, this spring season. This is more than the number of teams that arrived during the whole of last year when 24 climbing parties took a shot at the tallest peak on earth. Meanwhile, amid the euphoria on the tourism front, global warming is emerging as a threat to the very survival of the mountains. “Our Himalayas are suffering the most severe effect of global warming, with the glaciers melting at an accelerated rate and forming lakes,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. “Imja Tsochu, which expanded from a small pond in 1962 to a lake 1.7 kilometers long and 0.9 kilometer wide, is an example of the looming crisis in the mountains,” he said. This season, an international team of mountaineers is embarking on a landmark eco-expedition to Everest to highlight the rapid climate changes taking place in the Himalayas. Source: http://ekantipur.com/ April 22, 2008   Look For Alternative To Hydropower: Experts Experts today urged the government to look for alternative sources of energy apart from hydropower. They were also of the view that Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is concentrating only on supply side not on the demand side. “Electricity is one of the major sources of energy in Nepal and NEA being a focal agency should concentrate on creating consumer awareness that can help reduce duration of load-shedding,” he said, addressing the one-day inception workshop on ‘Capacity Building on Electricity Reforms in Nepal’, here today. In the technical session, Regulatory Reforms in Electricity in Nepal was discussed with the active participation of stakeholders. Source: http://thehimalayantimes.com/ April 23, 2008   Earth Day Observed Marking the Earth Day, various organizations on Tuesday organized environment -related awareness programs in different places of Kathmandu Valley. As part of a six-week-long campaign beginning Tuesday, spot cleaning at Tundikhel was organized with the participation of about 100 representatives from Earth Day and Environment Day Nepal Committee. The committee comprises 26 organizations working in the field of environment. The six-week long campaign will last till the Environment Day on June 5. Similarly, signature campaigns on inclusion of environment issues while drafting the new constitution was organized at Basantapur the same day. The signatures collected would be later submitted to the Constituent Assembly. Celebrating the Day, training on effective and sustainable vehicle maintenance procedure called ‘de carbonization’ was provided to various representatives at Thapathali. Among the 26 organizations include World Wildlife Fund, Clean Energy Nepal, Kathmandu Metropolitan City and Environment and Public Health Organization, among others. Source: http://ekantipur.com/ April 23, 2008   Micro Hydro Project Renovation Starts Renovation of Likindi River Micro Hydroelectricity Project — that as a capacity to produce 20 kilowatt (KW) and situated at Kotdurbar VDC, Ward No 7 of Tanahun district — has begun. Flood has, in 2064 BS, damaged half of the project’s properties. Prime Minister’s Relief Fund and Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction have provided Rs 3,00,000 and Rs 2,00,000, respectively, for the renovation of the project. “Voluntary labour amounting to Rs 1,00,000 would be arranged,” Rural Energy Programme, Tanahun stated. The flood had damaged electrical equipments, powerhouse, penstock pipe and canal, social mobiliser at Damouli branch of the Project, Padamraj Khanal said. Nearly 1,315 locals benefited from the project.  Source: http://thehimalayantimes.com/  April 24   Change Lifestyle To Adapt To Climate Change: Experts There is a need for radical change in attitudes towards their way of life among people to fight against the negative impacts of climate change, said experts on Saturday. Speaking during a symposium on “Impacts of Climate Change and Our Role for Mitigation”, Bhusan Tuladhar, director of Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO) said, people should decide to promote the environment friendly applications to reduce the impacts of climate change. Giving examples on applying environment friendly application he said, “People could opt for vehicles run by electricity while traveling than on petrol or diesel run vehicles,”. People should recognize the real costs of energy which they are utilizing in their daily life, said Tuladhar. A small change in our life style can have a long-term impact, he added. Similarly, Ghanshyam Malla, chief of environment department of Nepal Agriculture Research Council said, it is the individual decision to contribute for mitigating the negative impacts by climate change. He also stated that the agriculture sector of the country is also facing increasing challenges due to climate change. Source: The Kathmandu Post, April 27, 2008   Load Shedding To Be Reduced From Tuesday With the increase of water levels in the rivers, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has decided to cut down load shedding. Starting Tuesday, the NEA has fixed load shedding for 21 hours a week relieving people from power cut for 2 days. The load shedding will be imposed for two and a half hour for 3 days, eight hours and six hours respectively for another two days. Before this, the consumers had to suffer more than 40 hours of load shedding.The NEA has announced that the duration of power cut will be decreased gradually. Source: http://ekantipur.com/ April 28   Western, Eastern Regions Face Fuel Crisis The western and eastern regions have been facing shortage of petroleum products for one week. The supply of petroleum products is erratic, as the prices have risen in the international market, according to the Nepal Oil Corporation Western Regional Office, Bhairahawa. NOC regional office assistant manager Yog Raj Koirala said only six tankers of petroleum products were been imported from Belahiya border point daily, while 20 tankers of fuel used to be imported from the border daily earlier. Koirala said as the problem of petroleum products was a national problem; it should be solved at the central level. Even the the eastern region is facing shortage of petroleum products. Stock in NOC depots of eastern regional office at Biratnagar would finish in six days, NOC regional office chief Pushkar Datta said. Source: http://thehimalayantimes.com/ April 30       INTERNATIONAL NEWS     Russia Says Has No Plans To Cap Carbon Emissions Russia will not accept binding caps on its greenhouse gas emissions under a new climate regime, currently being negotiated to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, top officials said on Monday. Kyoto puts a cap on the average, annual greenhouse gas emissions from 2008-12 for some 37 industrialized countries, including Russia. Russia welcomed investment from other industrialized countries to help it clean up its energy and industry, saying in this way it could prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide. A key way for Russia to profit from the planned 3 billion tons of emission reductions will be by trapping and processing natural gas, a by-product of oil production. By 2012, Russia has called for 95 percent of its associated gas to be harnessed and sold, whereas more than 25 percent of it is currently flared, wasting 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Source: Reuters, http://www.enn.com/April 29, 2008   Higher Energy Costs From Climate Bills People will be paying higher energy prices under a Senate bill to limit greenhouse gases, but how much will depend on how well the country can shift away from burning fossil fuels, an Energy Department analysis said Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration said annual energy costs could increase on average of as little as $30 or as much as 10 times that much by 2020. The projected cost increases per household ranged from $76 a year more to as much as $723 a year more by 2030. Source: http://article.wn.com/view/   Poor Children Main Victims Of Climate Change: U.N. By Jeremy Lovell Millions of the world's poorest children are among the most vulnerable and unwitting victims of climate change caused by the rich developed world, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, calling for urgent action. The UNICEF report "Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility" measured action on targets set in the Millennium Development Goals to halve child poverty by 2015. It found failure on counts from health to survival, education and sex equality. The report said climate change could add 40,000-160,000 extra child deaths a year in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa through lower economic growth. It also noted that if temperatures rose by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels -- up to 200 million people globally would face hunger -- a figure rising to 550 million with a temperature rise of three degrees. The UNICEF report said economic damage due to climate change would force parents to withdraw children from schools -- the only place that many of them are guaranteed at least one meal a day in many areas -- to fetch water and fuel instead. Scientists predict that global average temperatures will rise by between 1.6 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, causing floods, famines, violent storms and droughts. Source: Reuters, http://www.enn.com/ April 29, 2008   Climate Change Hitting Arctic Faster, Harder Climate change is having a greater and faster impact on the Arctic than previously thought, according to a new study by the global conservation organization WWF. According to last year’s reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if the entire Greenland Ice Sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise 7.3 metres, making its status a global concern. While it is currently impossible to accurately predict how much of the ice sheet will be melting, and over which time, the new report shows there has been a far greater loss of ice mass in the past few years, much more than had been predicted by scientific models. Likewise, the loss of summer arctic sea ice has increased dramatically, with record lows reached in 2005 and — way more dramatic — in 2007. In September 2007, the sea ice shrank to 39 per cent below its 1979-2000 mean, the lowest since satellite monitoring began in 1979 and also the lowest for the entire 20th century based on monitoring from ships and aircraft. Source: http://www.enn.com/ WWF April 30, 2008   Rich World Must Back 80 Percent Carbon Cuts - Stern Rich countries must commit to cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 and developing nations must agree that by 2020 they too will set their own targets, leading economist Nicholas Stern said on Wednesday. He said the only way the world could defeat the climate crisis was by ensuring that global carbon emissions peaked within 15 years, were then halved from 1990 levels to 20 billion tonnes a year by 2050, and cut to 10 billion thereafter. The global carbon market had to be expanded and improved, there had to be massive investment in research and development in low carbon technologies, and rich nations had to bear the brunt and help the poorer world leapfrog into a low carbon era. Stern said the developing world, where emissions are booming as economies grow, should be given time to prepare to sign up to caps and cuts but that time should have a strict limit and by 2020 they too should be reducing emissions. Source: http://africa.reuters.com/30 Apr 2008, 'Small Wind' Power Plants Are Blowing Strong By Mark Clayton Reporter Mark Clayton talks about wind turbines to generate power for homeowners. Improved generator technology, more financial incentives, rising electric rates, and energy-security concerns have opened the way for small-wind power to bloom in unlikely places. "Small wind really seems to be taking off for residential, small business, and farm use," says Trudy Forsyth, leader of the distributed wind program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. The installed capacity of "on grid" small-wind residential generators has almost tripled, from 1,300 kilowatts nationwide in 2006 to 3,000 kilowatts last year, says the American Wind En­­­ergy Association (AWEA), a Washington-based trade organization. The number of residential installations rose from 400 to 1,200 units in the same period. Supplying that tiny but red-hot market are dozens of new companies that have popped up since 2000. Though half-dozen companies dominate the market, AWEA tracks about 45 US manufacturers. With demand strong overseas, too, the US is the world leader in small-wind power, exporting more than half of what it sells. Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/       LINK OF THE WEEK     Hebei Province recently held the first meeting by newly established energy saving and emission reduction leading group. It was concluded that Hebei Province will focus on 5 aspects to push forward energy saving and emission reduction, including adjusting industrial structure, enhancing pollution control of projects and key enterprises, pushing forward circular economy and institutional reform. http://www.cenews.com.cn/xwzx/zhxw/qt/200804/t20080422_512683.html     DID YOU KNOW?     Siberia's Lake Baikal has warmed faster than global air temperatures over the past 60 years, which could put animals unique to the world's largest lake in jeopardy, U.S. and Russian scientists said. The lake has warmed 1.21 degrees Celsius (2.18 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1946 due to climate change, almost three times faster than global air temperatures, according to a paper by the scientists to be published next month in the journal "Global Change Biology." The findings could foreshadow the vulnerability of smaller lakes to global warming because Baikal's great volume of water had been thought to protect it from rising temperatures, the paper said. Changes in the food cycle have already been seen. Numbers of multicellular zooplankton, which normally live in warmer waters, have increased 335 percent since 1946, while numbers of chlorophyll have risen 300 percent since 1979, it said.     MEDIA AND EVENTS  WATCH     Every Saturday at 7:00 am on Radio Sagarmatha 102.4 MHz "Chittika" Every Sunday at 7:30 am on Radio Sagarmatha 102.4 MHz "Batabaran Dabali" Every Tuesday at 7:30 am on Maitri FM 99.4 Mhz “Eco –Cycle” Every Wednesday at 7:30 am on Kantipur FM 96.1 MHz- "Down to Earth" Every Thursday at 5:00 PM on Hits FM - "We are the World: Hamro Sansar Hamrai Hatma" Every Alternate Friday at 2 PM on ENPHO Hall – Environmental Interaction Program Organized by Green Youth Network Every Wednesday at 7:05 am on HBC FM 94.0 MHz –"Chetana" Every Friday at 7:15 am on Metro FM 94.6 MHz –"Batawaran Chauatari"     QUIZ OF THE WEEK # 342     Washington, D.C.-Global wind power capacity rose ………………… in 2007 to more than 94,100 megawatts, led by capacity additions in the European Union, the United States, and China, according to the latest Vital Sign Update from the Worldwatch Institute. a)    20% b)    25% c)    27% d)    29%   Please send your answer to the address : c...@mos.com.np and while sending your answer please mention “Quiz of the week#” in the subject line.  One lucky winner will get a T-shirt with an Environmental Message from Clean Energy Nepal. CEN would like to thank European Commission and WWF Nepal for sponsoring the T-Shirt. Please note that, we will not be able to send prize to the winners outside Kathmandu valley. However, we still encourage all participants to send in their answer. Best of luck!!!       ANSWER OF THE QUIZ  # 341     Coal fired power stations account for ……………………… of the EU's total carbon dioxide emissions, and its grip on the European power sector looks set to increase with plans to construct 40 major new coal fired power stations in Europe in the next five years. a) 20% Saroj Ghimire Keshab Raj Joshi Reema Maharjan Govinda Raj Nakarmi   Saroj Ghimire is the lucky winner for this week. Please contact the CEN office within a week with your identity card. Congratulation to the Winner and thanks to all participants.   Supported by: European Commission and WWF Nepal

Copyright © Clean Energy Nepal Preepared and Compiled by : Anjila Manandhar Edited by: Bhushan Tuladhar & Gopal Raj Joshi

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