VCS Unveils its First Methodology for Generating Carbon Credits by Saving Trees
on Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Man Bites Dog
on Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Common occurrences — like dogs biting men — rarely make the news. But throw a little twist in there — some urgency, some natural violence, some death — and these kinds of stories become an editor's dream. By extension, this type of reporting makes statistically uncommon events seem to occur with great frequency.
There are plenty of examples of this: shark attacks, plane crashes, homicide... the list goes on. We wouldn't think these incidents were as common as we do if the headlines pointed out to us every day that passed without one of them occurring.
So if you didn't know any better — based on the headlines this summer — you'd think China was going the way of Venice.
That's a good way to miss out...
Just as allowing 'man bites dog' stories to keep you out of the water or off a plane can mean missing out on great experiences; falling victim to the Chinese flooding fallacy can mean missing out on a great investment.
Because the everyday story in China isn't flooding...
It's drought.
At the very same moment the media is caught up with the attention-grabbing story of raging rivers and washed-out villages, China began its biggest relocation program since the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.
Almost half a million Chinese will be forced to relocate to make way for the South-North Water Diversion Project, an endeavor aimed at diverting the Yangtze River to the Yellow and Hai Rivers to quench the almost waterless North, which includes Beijing.
Why?
Maybe because China has 20% of the world's population but only 7% of the world's water resources...
Maybe it's because half of China's largest 660 cities constantly face water shortages...
Maybe it's because 90% of Chinese cities' groundwater and 75% of its rivers and lakes are polluted, leaving 700 million people* to drink contaminated water every day.
(*If you're keeping track, that's twice the population of the United States.)
And it's definitely because areas south of the Yangtze have 80% of the water and 36% of the land, while the North has only 20% of the water and 64% of the land.
I guess Beijing is China's Las Vegas — only capable of being built through immense water infrastructure projects.
This isn't going away
In an effort to deal at least partly with this problem, China is willing to relocate an entire river and part of its population.
But the efforts won't stop there.
Just as China is going to great lengths to secure energy resources for its booming population (if you haven't seen Christian DeHaemer's video on how to profit from that angle, you should watch it immediately), it is going to similar lengths to secure water resources...
Not just moving rivers; but initiating a sustained effort to bring its water treatment infrastructure into the 21st century.
Two companies fundamental to that progress will be Tri-tech Holding (NASDAQ: TRIT) and Duoyuan Global Water (NYSE: DGW).
And wouldn't you know it...
According to a press release, Tri-Tech “received a $6 million contract for the upgrade and expansion of a wastewater treatment plant in Kuitun City of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region” just last week.
And Duoyuan recently beat earnings estimates, thanks to a surge in water equipment sales.
According to Reuters: “Revenue from water reuse equipment jumped 45 percent on continued demand for the company's circulating central water processors, fully automatic filters and electronic water conditioners. Water purification equipment revenue increased by 36 percent.”
This is a long-term investment that goes well beyond the market's recent tribulations.
I'd buy them, hold them, and love them.
And keep in mind that the sensational headlines you hear and see in the media rarely tell the whole story.
Call it like you see it,
Firms falling short on climate action: Norway fund
on Saturday, August 14, 2010
(Reuters) - A U.N. carbon credit scheme's rejection of a huge Indian coal power plant deprives the project of revenue running into hundreds of millions of euros and rings alarm bells for investors developing similar plants.
The incident spotlights a controversial U.N. process that allows valuable carbon offsets to be given to highly efficient coal power stations, a step green groups say erodes the spirit of trying to wean developing nations off polluting fossil fuels.
In India's western state of Gujarat, Tata Power has completed more than half of its $4.2-billion 4,000-MW plant that will use more efficient supercritical boiler technology to cut carbon emissions and reduce coal consumption.
With its project backed by nearly $1 billion in debt financing by the World Bank's IFC finance arm and the Asian Development Bank, Tata had been hoping to earn carbon credits under a U.N. scheme that rewards investments in cleaner energy.
But late in July, the panel for the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism rejected Tata's application, saying it had not shown CDM revenues were critical to the project's return on equity.
The CDM lets investors in clean-energy projects in developing countries earn offsets called certified emissions reductions (CERs), currently priced at about 12 euros each, that they can sell for profit.
BLOW FOR DEVELOPERS
The step could be a blow for other developers looking to capitalize on India's massive infrastructure gap, such as Reliance, CLP Power India, Indiabulls Power and GMR Energy.
Data from Thomson Reuters' Point Carbon shows these companies' investments are among the more than 20 supercritical coal-fired projects formally applying for CDM carbon revenues, mostly in India and China. These plants are 10 percent more costly than more polluting sub-critical types.
"Developers planning power projects are not comfortable with supercritical technology," said Ashutosh Pandey, chief executive of the carbon advisory business for carbon project developer and advisory firm Emergent Ventures India.
"CDM revenue plays a very important role in making these projects viable," he added, saying CDM revenue offset deterrents such as high capital costs, long lead times and erratic fuel supply.
Design documents show Tata's project is expected to emit 215 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent between 2011 and 2020, or about a sixth of Japan's total annual greenhouse gas emissions.
It is one of nine planned investments in supercritical coal-fired plants supported by the Indian government under its Ultra Mega Power Plant (UMPP) scheme to help firms secure land and environmental clearances.
Each plant is expected to generate about 4,000 MW, and cost about $4 billion, with the aim of meeting India's fast-growing appetite for electricity.
The country expects to add 61,000 MW of power generation capacity, mostly from coal-fired plants, in the five years to March 2012, or a fifth short of an earlier target of 78,000 MW.
"SIGNIFICANT SETBACK"
"We view the (CDM Executive Board's) decision as a significant setback for the project and in fact for the overall UMPP program in India," said Takeo Koike, senior investment specialist for the Asian Development Bank.
"ADB did consider the CDM revenues as one of the project's important revenue streams, which is expected to improve the project's overall cash flow," he said, adding the bank would still support Tata's project.
Tata did not reply to detailed questions from Reuters, but said it was disappointed by the verdict. "We are studying the rationale for the decision and are in consultations to decide a further course of action," it said in a statement.
Equity analysts told Reuters the loss of carbon revenues, while material for the plant's earnings, would not have a significant impact on the company.
Project design documents submitted to the U.N. show Tata hoped to receive 26.5 million CERs by 2020, valued at 318 million euros ($419 million) according to today's prices.
"The carbon crediting probably was not factored in at the time of the bid," said one analyst, adding that estimates would not have considered such credits ahead of U.N. project approval.
Although such revenue could be material to investment returns, another analyst said, his model did not take any into consideration. "We've always seen that as quite blue sky."
Underscoring green groups' concerns over the need for carbon funding, a third analyst said, "These projects have to go ahead anyway -- whether the carbon revenues are there or not."
The analysts asked not to be identified as their employers bar them from discussing individual projects.
Ernst & Young, in a March report for Thomson Reuters' unit Project Finance International, pointed to the importance of carbon revenue to Indian supercritical plants.
"If registered as CDM projects, at current pricing, the carbon revenue could go up to 0.15 rupees per unit (kWh) of electricity generation, which obviously is encouraging to project developers," the firm said.
TWIST IN THE TATA TALE
Underscoring this, Reliance Power, which is developing three 4,000 MW supercritical coal-fired plants under India's UMPP scheme, has sought CDM approval with an emission-cutting method using efficient power generation.
Taken together, its three plants would generate more power than all of Singapore. One of Reliance's plants hopes to earn more than 37 million CERs by 2020, U.N. data show.
In an ironic twist for Tata, rival Adani Power is building an even larger 4,620 MW plant right next door, part of which won CDM approval in December as the world's first supercritical coal-fired plant, set to get more than 18 million CERs by 2021.
Some analysts say the Tata rejection could end CDM approval for supercritical coal plants, but the U.N. disagreed.
"Project activities that fail the additionality criterion are not registered by the Board," a U.N. spokeswoman said, referring to the need to link project viability to CER sales.
"However, it is important to underline that projects are considered on a case-by-case basis."
Africa looks to vast forests for carbon credit
on
Ivory Coast (Reuters) - They inhabit a polluted part of Ivory Coast's main city with few jobs and a swelling population, but residents of Abidjan's slums have a rare respite: a stretch of pristine rainforest.
From their wooden shacks and unpainted concrete houses by motorways on the edge of Banco National Park, the millions who live in north Abidjan need no lesson on its worth.
"This forest is a great thing," said textile worker Sebastien Coulibaly, 35, in front of the sky-scraping green mass of vines and broccoli-shaped trees.
"It helps us to breathe better -- we live at ease because of it. Sometimes we walk our children there. We must protect it, because our planet will be nothing without forests."
Logging, farming and armed conflict still threaten Africa's jungles, which include the Congo Basin, the world's second largest after the Amazon, but analysts are hopeful.
A new global study on illegal logging by London's Chatham House think-tank Wednesday found that it had halved in Cameroon, once one of the worst sources of illicit timber, since 2002, a decline of twice the global average.
Earlier this year the European Union signed deals with Ghana, Cameroon and Congo Republic to tighten restrictions on logging, ahead of an EU ban on illegally harvested timber that was passed this month and takes effect in 2012.
"We've dared to sanction firms, from withdrawing permits to big fines," said Cameroon Forest Minister Elvis Ngolle.
Logging bans don't directly address forest loss from other threats such as agriculture, but officials are hoping that a potential money spinner -- carbon offsets -- will.
"EXPECTATIONS HIGH"
A U.N. scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation or degradation (REDD) has enabled Indonesia, which houses the world's third biggest forest but is being deforested by palm oil and timber firms, to get $1 billion (649 million pounds) from Norway in May to revoke those firms' forestry licenses.
Deforestation makes up a fifth of world CO2 emissions and the REDD fund is worth a total of $4 billion so far.
Unlike Asia, African states have been slow to capitalise on climate aid -- they account for 2 percent of developing nation carbon projects. But many hope to change that.
An African Development Bank fund was established in 2008 for the Congo basin, a forest of half a billion acres (200 million hectares) spanning nine countries and storing, the bank says, 25-30 billion tonnes of carbon, which currently trades at 14 euros per tonne in Europe.
The fund aims to harmonise forest tax, share ecological data, cooperate on policing and sponsor community projects that encourage forest protection, like honey-making.
"Expectations are extremely high that this will allow us to preserve the forest, restore what's been degraded and pay these countries for their ecological services," Patrice Wadja, the fund's operations officer, told Reuters.
Gabon's President Ali Bongo seeks to be first in line. He has banned raw wood exports and in May set up a climate council that must come up with a REDD plan for the 80 percent of its original forest that remains before December's climate talks in Cancun.
FOREST TO FARMS
Despite the challenges, experts think Africa's forests have at least as good a chance as Brazil or Indonesia.
The rate of forest destruction is generally slower: 0.16 percent a year in the Congo Basin, compared with 11 percent in Indonesia, Wadja said, because Central Africa has been largely spared large-scale clearing for agriculture.
West Africa's deforestation is much higher, driven by logging and clearing to plant cash crops, especially cocoa, a topic so sensitive that Reuters could not get permission to visit some forests in top grower Ivory Coast.
"At independence, we had 16 million hectares of forest. We today have 6 million -- the lost area is now all farms," said Ivorian forest and water technician Yamani Soro.
Improving yields with fertilizer and pesticides is key, although reforms have been blocked by Ivory Coast's post-civil war political crisis.
Drier nations in the semi-desert Sahel belt with scant forest are meanwhile planning to plant trees. Presidents from Senegal to Djibouti agreed in Chad last month to build a "green wall" thousands of miles long with IMF funds.
But even as Africa curbs illicit logging and plants trees, another threat looms: Asian palm oil companies are eying Africa's forests to feed their growing populations. Liberia has signed deals with two and China Thursday proposed a vast project in Democratic Republic of Congo.
"The big unknown are the Chinese," said conservationist Terese Hart who has worked in DRC for decades. "They are looking at the interior for exploitation, including palm."
Kyoto 2012 deadline tests carbon investors
on
(Reuters) - Uncertainty over what will happen to the carbon market after the current round of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012 may lead some financiers to hold off on green projects in Southeast Asia, investors said on Wednesday.
Such investment is needed to shore up supply of carbon offsets for emissions trading schemes in Europe and other countries which have agreed carbon caps meant to slow climate change.
Singapore's third largest lender United Overseas Bank is adopting a wait-and-see attitude before investing in projects that aim to earn carbon credits under the UN-backed clean development mechanism (CDM), its executive director said at a green investment conference in Jakarta.
"We are keeping our options open. We don't need to rush in," said Mark Yeo Wee Tiong, adding that UOB had not yet backed any CDM projects.
Carbon offsets are meant to ease the cost of meeting such caps, by supplementing domestic carbon cuts with reductions paid for overseas.
But while Europe's trading scheme will continue beyond 2020, the international agreement that sets the framework for the world's carbon credit market, the Kyoto Protocol, runs out in 2012. Global climate talks in Copenhagen last year failed to produce a new deal.
Frederic Crampe, managing director of ReEx Capital Asia -- which arranges financing for green projects -- told Reuters there was huge potential for CDM projects in Southeast Asia.
"But we are so close to 2012 that we are in a very bad period," he said. "By the time you have built your project and got your approvals, 2012 is already here."
POLICY UNCERTAINTY
China and India have been the biggest source of carbon offsets. Now investors are eyeing projects such as mini-hydro power, waste water and geothermal in Indonesia, but policy uncertainty and a lack of incentives are holding back deals.
However, Moe Moe Oo, managing director for Swedish carbon credit trader Tricorona AB -- which sources financing for greenhouse gas reduction projects and trades the offsets -- said it was business-as-usual for his firm.
"But because there's no post-2012 agreement in place, those investors that might have invested a few years ago are not willing to take the risk," he said, adding the 2012 uncertainty added an extra risk to green investments in countries with unpredictable regulatory regimes, like Indonesia.
Globally, the number of CDM projects entering the pipeline rose by 130 in June, the highest monthly increase since October 2008, according to the United Nations Environment Program.
A recent poll showed that nearly 70 percent of clean energy project developers in India believed there would be a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto protocol and the World Bank has said carbon markets would outlast the Kyoto Protocol.
Rahul Kar, a director at KPMG Singapore, said he thought the carbon credit market was actually quite bullish, adding that some market players may be "spreading rumors to drive down the prices."
"But there is a strong signal of continuation in the market. The world doesn't stop at 2012."
Australia firm signs forest CO2 deal with Malaysia tribes
on
* Malaysia CO2 project aims to preserve 100,000 ha of forest
* Deal with tribes aims to boost livelihoods, incomes
* But threat remains from illegal loggers
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE, Aug 6 (Reuters) - An Australian carbon services company has signed a deal with nine Malaysian tribal leaders to certify carbon offsets from a project aimed at preserving more than 100,000 hectares of tropical forest.
The deal allows the tribes in Sarawak state on the island of Borneo to earn a share of the proceeds from the sale of carbon offsets to help them manage and protect the forest over a period of 20 years, payments potentially worth millions of dollars.
Forests soak up large amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, and preserving the remaining tropical forests in developing countries is seen as a key part of the fight against climate change.
The project aims to improve the livelihoods of at least 10,000 people in 24 villages and is part of a U.N.-backed scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation.
The United Nations hopes REDD will lead to a multi-billion dollar trade in forest carbon credits and the Malaysian project is one of several pioneering investments aimed at building up the REDD sector.
REDD seeks to reward developing nations and indigenous forest owners with carbon credit payments to save their forests. There are about a dozen REDD projects in neighbouring Indonesia. The firm, Shift2Neutral, said it will work with the tribes and a local NGO to help manage the forest, survey the area and access the carbon stored in the trees and soil. The project would be certified under an enhanced form of REDD that also aims to reward any enhancement to a forest's carbon stock.
A long-term management plan would also be created and a committee of comprising tribal leaders, investors and local and company officials would guide how the money is spent with the aim of improving livelihoods and curbing incentives for logging.
"It's a 50-50 deal. We ensure they get their funding and they use that funding as per an economic development committee that is established," said Brett Goldsworthy, chairman of Shift2Neutral, adding the aim was to make sure the money wasn't squandered.
The tribes are the customary owners of the land and the legal owners of the carbon but many still have subsistence livelihoods.
"You've got tribal people who have barely got any money and they are desperate for money for things like medical aid," Goldsworthy said on Friday.
"What we will do with our funding is to start instigating other programmes along the lines of medical, food aid, schooling, clothing to make sure there is a sustainable future," he said.
PROTECTION
Besides boosting incomes, better monitoring of the forest was also crucial.
"The main threat they face is illegal loggers," he said.
"It is key to get more forestry people involved for the protection of the forest and having checks and measures on their boundary borders to ensure that people aren't getting through."
Goldsworthy said he hoped the carbon survey and management plan for the area would be finished by next year, followed by the issuance of the first batch of carbon offsets called VERs, or voluntary emissions reductions, to be sold to investors.
It was too early to provide an accurate estimate of the number of VERs per hectare from the Sarawak site, he said.
"As the land is first-growth vegetation one could expect 50 per hectare but again we have not provided anything at this point."
Avoided deforestation VERs fetch anything from $10 to $30 each depending on the project, country and risk.
He said the company is developing similar projects in the Philippines, Indonesia and South Africa with VER buyers being governments, large corporates and wealthy individuals.
* Deal with tribes aims to boost livelihoods, incomes
* But threat remains from illegal loggers
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE, Aug 6 (Reuters) - An Australian carbon services company has signed a deal with nine Malaysian tribal leaders to certify carbon offsets from a project aimed at preserving more than 100,000 hectares of tropical forest.
The deal allows the tribes in Sarawak state on the island of Borneo to earn a share of the proceeds from the sale of carbon offsets to help them manage and protect the forest over a period of 20 years, payments potentially worth millions of dollars.
Forests soak up large amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, and preserving the remaining tropical forests in developing countries is seen as a key part of the fight against climate change.
The project aims to improve the livelihoods of at least 10,000 people in 24 villages and is part of a U.N.-backed scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation.
The United Nations hopes REDD will lead to a multi-billion dollar trade in forest carbon credits and the Malaysian project is one of several pioneering investments aimed at building up the REDD sector.
REDD seeks to reward developing nations and indigenous forest owners with carbon credit payments to save their forests. There are about a dozen REDD projects in neighbouring Indonesia. The firm, Shift2Neutral, said it will work with the tribes and a local NGO to help manage the forest, survey the area and access the carbon stored in the trees and soil. The project would be certified under an enhanced form of REDD that also aims to reward any enhancement to a forest's carbon stock.
A long-term management plan would also be created and a committee of comprising tribal leaders, investors and local and company officials would guide how the money is spent with the aim of improving livelihoods and curbing incentives for logging.
"It's a 50-50 deal. We ensure they get their funding and they use that funding as per an economic development committee that is established," said Brett Goldsworthy, chairman of Shift2Neutral, adding the aim was to make sure the money wasn't squandered.
The tribes are the customary owners of the land and the legal owners of the carbon but many still have subsistence livelihoods.
"You've got tribal people who have barely got any money and they are desperate for money for things like medical aid," Goldsworthy said on Friday.
"What we will do with our funding is to start instigating other programmes along the lines of medical, food aid, schooling, clothing to make sure there is a sustainable future," he said.
PROTECTION
Besides boosting incomes, better monitoring of the forest was also crucial.
"The main threat they face is illegal loggers," he said.
"It is key to get more forestry people involved for the protection of the forest and having checks and measures on their boundary borders to ensure that people aren't getting through."
Goldsworthy said he hoped the carbon survey and management plan for the area would be finished by next year, followed by the issuance of the first batch of carbon offsets called VERs, or voluntary emissions reductions, to be sold to investors.
It was too early to provide an accurate estimate of the number of VERs per hectare from the Sarawak site, he said.
"As the land is first-growth vegetation one could expect 50 per hectare but again we have not provided anything at this point."
Avoided deforestation VERs fetch anything from $10 to $30 each depending on the project, country and risk.
He said the company is developing similar projects in the Philippines, Indonesia and South Africa with VER buyers being governments, large corporates and wealthy individuals.
Indonesia may let palm oil growers collect CO2 credits
on
Aug 9 (Reuters) - Indonesia may propose palm oil plantations be eligible to earn carbon credits under a U.N.-backed scheme aimed at preserving forests, a forestry ministry official said on Monday.
Such a move could potentially create a new line of revenue for the palm oil industry and listed firms like Wilmar (WLIL.SI) and PT Astra Agro Lestari (AALI.JK), but is likely to anger green groups who accuse planters of deforestation.
Indonesia was the first country to develop a national framework for a U.N-backed forest preservation scheme called reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).
The scheme would allow forested developing countries like Indonesia to be paid potentially billions of dollars from rich nations not to chop down their trees. [ID:nJAK495718]
Countries began developing domestic legal frameworks for REDD in anticipation of a global agreement on the scheme at climate talks held in Copenhagen last year, which will be continued in Mexico in December.
"If there is agreement on REDD, we could put palm oil plantations to be eligible for that," said Wandojo Siswanto, a special adviser to the forestry minister and one of Indonesia's lead negotiators at global climate talks.
Siswanto said the forestry ministry was working with the national planning agency, Bappenas, on the feasibility of including palm oil in Indonesia's national strategy on REDD.
"I think it would be good if we just say that palm oil plantations could also mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration through the nature of the trees," he said, adding that both existing plantations and future plantations developed on degraded land could be eligible.
Monoculture forests trap climate warming greenhouse gases but not nearly as much as natural heterogeneous forests.
Moray McLeish, of the Washington-based environment think tank World Resources Institute, said clear definitions of what constituted a forest were needed.
"If a plantation is regarded as a forest, then you can cut down a virgin forest and replace it with a plantation and on paper you have no change," he said.
"On the ground you have massive carbon emissions, massive loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem system services and loss of livelihoods for local people.
OBSTACLES
The UN has yet to formulate its definition of forest for the purposes of REDD but has already developed a set of safeguards to prevent planters from clearing natural forest and then being rewarded with carbon credits.
Tim Boyle, the Bangkok-based regional coordinator for the U.N. REDD programme, warned that the global climate talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol may end up adopting a definition of forest that specifically excluded palm oil from REDD.
"It would be strange if it was assumed that palm oil was going to be counted as forest. That would seem risky to me," he said.
REDD project design method gets boost from auditors
on
(Reuters) - A carbon accounting technique aimed at saving tropical forests has passed a key hurdle, strengthening chances it could underpin development of a potential multi-billion dollar market for forest carbon offsets.
U.S. firm Terra Global Capital said the method had passed the first of two formal audits the benchmark Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) requires. When fully verified, it could be used in a U.N.-backed carbon-cutting scheme known as reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).
Analysis: India plant's carbon status denial upsets investors
on
NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE |
(Reuters) - A U.N. carbon credit scheme's rejection of a huge Indian coal power plant deprives the project of revenue running into hundreds of millions of euros and rings alarm bells for investors developing similar plants.
The incident spotlights a controversial U.N. process that allows valuable carbon offsets to be given to highly efficient coal power stations, a step green groups say erodes the spirit of trying to wean developing nations off polluting fossil fuels.
In India's western state of Gujarat, Tata Power has completed more than half of its $4.2-billion 4,000-MW plant that will use more efficient supercritical boiler technology to cut carbon emissions and reduce coal consumption.
With its project backed by nearly $1 billion in debt financing by the World Bank's IFC finance arm and the Asian Development Bank, Tata had been hoping to earn carbon credits under a U.N. scheme that rewards investments in cleaner energy.
But late in July, the panel for the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism rejected Tata's application, saying it had not shown CDM revenues were critical to the project's return on equity.
The CDM lets investors in clean-energy projects in developing countries earn offsets called certified emissions reductions (CERs), currently priced at about 12 euros each, that they can sell for profit.
BLOW FOR DEVELOPERS
The step could be a blow for other developers looking to capitalize on India's massive infrastructure gap, such as Reliance, CLP Power India, Indiabulls Power and GMR Energy.
Data from Thomson Reuters' Point Carbon shows these companies' investments are among the more than 20 supercritical coal-fired projects formally applying for CDM carbon revenues, mostly in India and China. These plants are 10 percent more costly than more polluting sub-critical types.
"Developers planning power projects are not comfortable with supercritical technology," said Ashutosh Pandey, chief executive of the carbon advisory business for carbon project developer and advisory firm Emergent Ventures India.
"CDM revenue plays a very important role in making these projects viable," he added, saying CDM revenue offset deterrents such as high capital costs, long lead times and erratic fuel supply.
Design documents show Tata's project is expected to emit 215 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent between 2011 and 2020, or about a sixth of Japan's total annual greenhouse gas emissions.
It is one of nine planned investments in supercritical coal-fired plants supported by the Indian government under its Ultra Mega Power Plant (UMPP) scheme to help firms secure land and environmental clearances.
Each plant is expected to generate about 4,000 MW, and cost about $4 billion, with the aim of meeting India's fast-growing appetite for electricity.
The country expects to add 61,000 MW of power generation capacity, mostly from coal-fired plants, in the five years to March 2012, or a fifth short of an earlier target of 78,000 MW.
"SIGNIFICANT SETBACK"
"We view the (CDM Executive Board's) decision as a significant setback for the project and in fact for the overall UMPP program in India," said Takeo Koike, senior investment specialist for the Asian Development Bank.
"ADB did consider the CDM revenues as one of the project's important revenue streams, which is expected to improve the project's overall cash flow," he said, adding the bank would still support Tata's project.
Tata did not reply to detailed questions from Reuters, but said it was disappointed by the verdict. "We are studying the rationale for the decision and are in consultations to decide a further course of action," it said in a statement.
Equity analysts told Reuters the loss of carbon revenues, while material for the plant's earnings, would not have a significant impact on the company.
Project design documents submitted to the U.N. show Tata hoped to receive 26.5 million CERs by 2020, valued at 318 million euros ($419 million) according to today's prices.
"The carbon crediting probably was not factored in at the time of the bid," said one analyst, adding that estimates would not have considered such credits ahead of U.N. project approval.
Although such revenue could be material to investment returns, another analyst said, his model did not take any into consideration. "We've always seen that as quite blue sky."
Underscoring green groups' concerns over the need for carbon funding, a third analyst said, "These projects have to go ahead anyway -- whether the carbon revenues are there or not."
The analysts asked not to be identified as their employers bar them from discussing individual projects.
Ernst & Young, in a March report for Thomson Reuters' unit Project Finance International, pointed to the importance of carbon revenue to Indian supercritical plants.
"If registered as CDM projects, at current pricing, the carbon revenue could go up to 0.15 rupees per unit (kWh) of electricity generation, which obviously is encouraging to project developers," the firm said.
TWIST IN THE TATA TALE
Underscoring this, Reliance Power, which is developing three 4,000 MW supercritical coal-fired plants under India's UMPP scheme, has sought CDM approval with an emission-cutting method using efficient power generation.
Taken together, its three plants would generate more power than all of Singapore. One of Reliance's plants hopes to earn more than 37 million CERs by 2020, U.N. data show.
In an ironic twist for Tata, rival Adani Power is building an even larger 4,620 MW plant right next door, part of which won CDM approval in December as the world's first supercritical coal-fired plant, set to get more than 18 million CERs by 2021.
Some analysts say the Tata rejection could end CDM approval for supercritical coal plants, but the U.N. disagreed.
"Project activities that fail the additionality criterion are not registered by the Board," a U.N. spokeswoman said, referring to the need to link project viability to CER sales.
"However, it is important to underline that projects are considered on a case-by-case basis."
(Additional reporting by Michael Szabo in LONDON, Lesley Wroughton in WASHINGTON and Minerva Lau in SINGAPORE; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Extreme global weather: manifestations of runaway climate change
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Earth and paleo-climate scientist at ANU, Dr Andrew Glikson writes: This year is shaping up as the warmest in the instrumental record, as recorded by the National Climate Data Centre (NCDC — the worlds largest active archive of weather data), NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), Hadley-Met/Climate Research Unit, Remote Sensing Satellite survey (RSS) and Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU).
According to an article by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), released last month on July 15:“Last month’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made it the warmest June on record and the warmest on record averaged for any April-June and January-June periods … Worldwide average land surface temperature was the warmest on record for June and the April-June period, and the second warmest on record for the year-to-date (January-June) period, behind 2007.”
The monthly analysis from NOAA is based on records going back to 1880.But you will not read about it in much of the media. A string of extreme weather events monitored by NASA tell the story, including:- Last month saw the hottest temperature on record for Asia, with 53C in Pakistan. The mega-floods in this part of the world are the result of the increased capacity of the warming atmosphere to hold moisture, precipitated when the humid air masses rise above the Himalaya.
- Moscow has also been recording temperatures of 37.4 degrees C, the monthly anomaly will be a record of around +7.5 degrees C, with a death toll reaching 2000 people. Extreme temperatures, reaching 40 degrees C in Moscow, have set large parts of Russian forests and wheat belts on fire.
- Beijing had it hottest day on record earlier in the month, 40.6C.
- Japan scored a 39.4C on 22nd July.
- Hundreds of maximum and minimum temperature records have been broken across the U.S. and Canada in the last two months.
- Raging wildfires broke out July 29 just south of Los Angeles, CA, forcing mandatory evacuations and major firefighting response.
Closer to home, it has been very warm across northern, north-western and some inland parts of Australia over recent weeks. We broke quite a few minimum temperature records — including Darwin, which broke its July minimum record by 1.5 degrees C.Though most of what you would read about in the media is the manufactured Climategate email story, which tries to obfuscate climate science and cast doubt on the integrity of climate scientists. This is despite recent investigations showing climate scientists right, asstated:“On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.” … ”We did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.”
The newspapers that gave greatest play to the allegations tended to give less attention to these findings. The columnists who gave greatest vent to their indignation have not made any revisions or corrections, let alone apologised to the scientists whose integrity they so sweepingly impugned. An article by Rodney Tiffen in the Brisbane Times summed up the media outrage, followed by silence, well.Those who would like to see themselves as “sceptics”, but commonly present climate plots which inexplicably depart in essential detail from original datasets measured by the worlds premier climate research organizations, as well as ignore the basic physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, would suggest the current extreme weather events are “natural” and not to do with human Carbon emissions.By contrast, consistent with the Stefan-Boltzmann and Krichhoff laws of infrared radiation, these events manifest the increase in energy (temperature) levels of the atmosphere and oceans, consequent on the emissions of about 370 billion tons of carbon since 1750, currently at a rate of about 2 ppm per year, reaching 391 ppm, namely near 40% higher that during the last 10,000 years, when agricultural cultivation became possible thanks to stabilization of the Holocene climate.
Earth and paleo-climate scientist at ANU, Dr Andrew Glikson writes: This year is shaping up as the warmest in the instrumental record, as recorded by the National Climate Data Centre (NCDC — the worlds largest active archive of weather data), NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), Hadley-Met/Climate Research Unit, Remote Sensing Satellite survey (RSS) and Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU).
According to an article by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), released last month on July 15:
“Last month’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made it the warmest June on record and the warmest on record averaged for any April-June and January-June periods … Worldwide average land surface temperature was the warmest on record for June and the April-June period, and the second warmest on record for the year-to-date (January-June) period, behind 2007.”
The monthly analysis from NOAA is based on records going back to 1880.
But you will not read about it in much of the media. A string of extreme weather events monitored by NASA tell the story, including:
- Last month saw the hottest temperature on record for Asia, with 53C in Pakistan. The mega-floods in this part of the world are the result of the increased capacity of the warming atmosphere to hold moisture, precipitated when the humid air masses rise above the Himalaya.
- Moscow has also been recording temperatures of 37.4 degrees C, the monthly anomaly will be a record of around +7.5 degrees C, with a death toll reaching 2000 people. Extreme temperatures, reaching 40 degrees C in Moscow, have set large parts of Russian forests and wheat belts on fire.
- Beijing had it hottest day on record earlier in the month, 40.6C.
- Japan scored a 39.4C on 22nd July.
- Hundreds of maximum and minimum temperature records have been broken across the U.S. and Canada in the last two months.
- Raging wildfires broke out July 29 just south of Los Angeles, CA, forcing mandatory evacuations and major firefighting response.
Closer to home, it has been very warm across northern, north-western and some inland parts of Australia over recent weeks. We broke quite a few minimum temperature records — including Darwin, which broke its July minimum record by 1.5 degrees C.
Though most of what you would read about in the media is the manufactured Climategate email story, which tries to obfuscate climate science and cast doubt on the integrity of climate scientists. This is despite recent investigations showing climate scientists right, asstated:
“On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.” … ”We did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.”
The newspapers that gave greatest play to the allegations tended to give less attention to these findings. The columnists who gave greatest vent to their indignation have not made any revisions or corrections, let alone apologised to the scientists whose integrity they so sweepingly impugned. An article by Rodney Tiffen in the Brisbane Times summed up the media outrage, followed by silence, well.
Those who would like to see themselves as “sceptics”, but commonly present climate plots which inexplicably depart in essential detail from original datasets measured by the worlds premier climate research organizations, as well as ignore the basic physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, would suggest the current extreme weather events are “natural” and not to do with human Carbon emissions.
By contrast, consistent with the Stefan-Boltzmann and Krichhoff laws of infrared radiation, these events manifest the increase in energy (temperature) levels of the atmosphere and oceans, consequent on the emissions of about 370 billion tons of carbon since 1750, currently at a rate of about 2 ppm per year, reaching 391 ppm, namely near 40% higher that during the last 10,000 years, when agricultural cultivation became possible thanks to stabilization of the Holocene climate.
