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  reprint Russia possesses the potential to produce significant gas from its Eastern Regions, with total proved reserves  in  East  Siberia  and  the  Far  East  of  Russia  standing  at  5  trillion  cubic  metres  (Tcm)  while prospective  resources  could  be  as  large  as  65Tcm. This  would  appear  to  give  Russia  a  huge opportunity for export sales into the Asia Pacific region , which contains the world’s largest LNG importing  nations  and  two  of  the  world’s  fastest  growing  gas  markets   in  China  and  India   (also importers  of  LNG). It  is  surprising,  therefore,  that  despite  the  obvious  commercial  logic  of  linking enormous gas resources to expandin...

  reprint New analysis from Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the Indian School of Business shows that, with the appropriate policies, the Budget 2015 target of 60 GW of wind power by 2022 can easily be met with minimal government financial support. In the report, Reaching India’s Renewable Energy Targets Cost-Effectively, CPI found that, in absence of any subsidies, wind power is already cheaper than the total cost of power from a new build imported coal plant, at INR 5.87/kWh for electricity from wind power and INR 6.81/kWh for electricity from imported coal. The comparison with imported coal is key because this is the fuel that additional renewable energy will likely replace, rather than domestic coal or natural gas , which are limited in supply. The analysis also finds that wind power will continue to remain competitive beyond 2022. Because the government has a constrained budget, a cost-effective policy path to achieving its renewable energy targets is crucial. Th...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com ▶ TOP NEWS : Alpiq starts new business: Dismantling of Nuclear Power PLants. reprint Existing nuclear power plants are extremely valuable societal assets. Shutting them down in the absence of compelling economic or technical reasons is folly. It sometimes feels like this statement is so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be made and yet you don’t have to look far to see governments which appear not to care. subscription : rss-reader index : all reprints here In Europe, Germany and Belgium have implemented arbitrary caps on reactor lifespans as part of their phase-out policies. Green party pressure in Sweden may yet result in tax hikes which make the ongoing operation of nuclear plants there next to impossible. In Spain the Garoña plant closed due to the impact of a new tax law (the government is now in fact seeking to resurrect the plant...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint East–West nuclear rivalry is back. The Ukraine crisis threatens the nuclear governance . Demand for nuclear energy is growing again after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A 2014 report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts a 69 per cent expansion in nuclear capacity worldwide from 345GW in 2012 to 583GW by 2030. Furthermore, the International Energy Agency counts that more than three-quarters of nuclear reactors under construction are in non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. China’s domestic appetite for energy accounts for much of this increase, with four to six reactors expected to be built every year for the next five years. Civil nuclear facilities in China incorporate technology from a variety of western suppliers, but Beijing has aggressively negotiated for intellectual property to be shared during the acqui...

-- a _kt75 | reprint _NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here A crisis is developing beneath China’s thirsty farms and cities, but  no one knows its full extent. With about 20% of the world’s population but only about 5–7% of global freshwater resources, China draws heavily on groundwater. Those reserves are being depleted at an alarming rate in some regions and are badly polluted in many others,  warned experts last week at the International Groundwater Forum 2010 conference in Beijing. The scientists also warned that confronting the crisis will require dealing with other short - ages: of knowledge and regulation. They say that a nationwide network to monitor ground - water levels is urgently needed, and that the government should  improve data sharing, cut water waste and help farming become more efficient. “The water crisis is not unique to China,” says Frank  Schwartz, a hydrologist at Ohio State Uni...

-- a _kt75 | reprint NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here Water footprints and virtual water flows have been promoted as important indicators to characterize human-induced water consumption. However, environmental impacts associated with water consumption are largely neglected in these analyses. Incorporating water scarcity into water consumption allows better understanding of what is causing water scarcity and which regions are suffering from it. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ In this study, we incorporate water scarcity and ecosystem impacts into multiregional input-output analysis to assess virtual water flows and associated impacts among 30 provinces in China. China, in particular its water-scarce regions , are facing a serious water crisis driven by rapid economic growth. Our findings show that inter-regional flows of virtual water rev...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014 . On a bitter cold day in Inner Mongolia, the grasslands here hold an unexpected sight: a shallow lake so warm the surface is shrouded in steam. This lake is a recent addition, formed by water discharged from a new plant that converts coal into methane gas . When operating at full capacity, the Datang International plant will require more than 7 billion gallons of water each year. And this is just a side stream of the vast flows of water demanded by plants turning coal into gas, chemicals and electricity in Inner Mongolia and other regions of China's north and west. These coal complexes rank among the planet's largest industrial emitters of carbon dioxide , which in the decades ahead will escalate climate change and acidification of the oceans. But right now, the coal industry's massive thirst may be both its biggest liability and the biggest constraint ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy China's solar energy sector is a tale of two industries, in which ailing, overcapacity-plagued panel, parts and materials manufacturers are shunned by banks, while downstream solar farm developers boast mind-blowing expansion plans and credit lines. But behind the multibillion-yuan construction plans and loan agreements with banks lie concerns that the solar farm building binge will see a repeat of the growing pains and low returns suffered by wind farm developers in 2011 and 2012 due to the inability of power grids to absorb much of their output. "Risks abound, some of these developers have been telling investors that their projects have no problems connecting with the grids, but they have yet to give convincing evidence to support their assertion," said CIMB Securities utilities and renewable energy analyst Keith Li. Shunfeng Photovoltaic International,...

-- a _kt75 | reprint _download the Background: Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy and other _kt75 | publications China’s continuing drive to reduce the share of coal in the nation’s energy mix is boosting the prospects for natural gas and renewable energy sources, according to analysis just published by IHS Energy Insight. Beijing-based analyst Olivia Boyd comments that while the 2014 energy targets and policy priorities recently announced by the National Energy Administration (NEA) “do not contain any significant deviations from past policy announcements” they do “in some cases reflect an intensification of previously announced targets”. One example of this intensification is the target to reduce the share of coal in the energy mix from 67% in 2012 to 65% in 2014. This, says Boyd, “represents an acceleration of previous plans, which envisioned coal coming down to 65% of total energy consumption by 2015”. Reducing coal co...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes Despite predictions all through 2013 suggesting that Japan would walk away the dominant solar PV market, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that China “outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts” to install a record 12 GW of photovoltaic projects in 2013. In fact, a massive boom at the end of the year could even have pushed the nation’s market up to 14 GW, a phenomenal feat considering that no country has never added more than 8 GW in a year. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) had predicted that Japan would come out on top in 2013, ahead of China and then the US, but with a feed-in tariff for large PV projects ending on the first of 2014, the year-end rush will not be wholly understood until March. “The 2013 figures show the astonishing scale of the Chinese market, now the sleeping dragon has awoken” sai...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes There has been a huge increase in Chinese dam projects in South America, which has expanded China's geopolitical clout in the continent but also drawn allegations of poor corporate social responsibility. "China's involvement in hydropower development in Latin America has grown significantly since 2010. It's fair to say that Chinese dam-building companies are targeting the Latin American market," said Grace Mang, China programme director at International Rivers, a green non-governmental organisation in the United States. Before 2010, International Rivers was aware of only two Chinese hydropower projects in Latin America, both in Belize, Mang said. Now, there are 22, of which three are completed, seven are under construction and 12 are on the drawing board. The three completed Chinese dams are in B...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet Investment in low carbon technologies fell 11 per cent in 2012, according to a new report by market analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which also shows China has overtaken the US as the world's largest contributor to renewable energy. The report [ 1 ] shows that investment in low carbon technologies is actually holding up pretty well after warnings from the report's authors last January that 2012 would be a "challenging year" for the sector. We took a look at some of the figures to find out how tough economic conditions and investor uncertainty over renewable energy policies in the UK have changed the investment landscape. Overall investment drops The report [ 1 ] shows that overall global investment in low carbon energy dropped by about $30 billion in the space of a year. Comparing investment last year to 2011 may be unfair, as 2011 saw the highest ever rate of investment in the sector. But it is only the second t...

-- a _kt75 | reprint     Tweet Over the last two decades, Chinese governments have approved the construction of a cascade of large dams on the stretches of the Mekong River that lie within its borders, prompting disquiet amongst downstream riparian states . Those states — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam — are now set to wage their own battle for control of precious water resources, with China looming large through its role as a willing creditor. Despite hydropower plans for the Lower Mekong dating back to the 1950s, the river still flows freely south of the Chinese border. That may not be the case for much longer. The governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have proposed to build eleven dams on the Lower Mekong — nine in Laos and two in Cambodia. Much of the electricity generated would ultimately be consumed in Thailand and Vietnam through contract agreements between the four states. The first of these proposed dam...

-- a _kt75 | reprint    Iran, pummeled by years of international sanctions, has had two energy goals. First, to preserve its dwindling international hydrocarbon market share, increasingly battered by years of U.S. and UN sanctions designed to slow down and halt its civilian nuclear energy program, which Washington and Tel Aviv have long insisted masks a covert program to develop a nuclear weapons program. The second, much less reported in the foreign press, is to diversify its indigenous energy infrastructure, so as to preserve its hydrocarbon assets for the long term. In pursuit of the latter goal, Iran is ramping up its hydroelectric program. Iran currently has 23 operational hydropower plants, with a combined electricity generating capacity of 8.2 gigawatts, 14 percent of the nation’s total generating capacity of 58.5 gigawatts. A further 4.8 gigawatts of capacity is under construction, with 12.7 gigawatts of hydro capacity is either u...