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23/05/07, Thair Shaikh, Darling to unveil a nuclear future, Source.
16/05/07, Cahal Milmo, Live Earth? It's a waste of time, Geldof tells Gore, Source.
21/05/07, David Ebner, Shell eyes nuclear power in oil sands, Source.
23/05/07, Cúpula do G8 é ´teste decisivo´ para EUA sobre clima, diz ONU, Source.
22/05/07, Jeremy Lovell, U.S. aims to stop G8's tough push on global warming, Source.
24/05/07, Colin BrownBlair commits to nuclear future as plans for five new power plants are revealed, Source.
23/05/07, Thair Shaikh, Darling to unveil a nuclear future, (Back).
A new generation of nuclear power stations will get the go ahead today as the Government unveils its blueprint of Britain's future energy supplies.
The Labour party will present its energy White Paper, endorsed by Gordon Brown, which is expected to confirm that nuclear power must be a part of the country's future energy market.
Published by Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, the paper will justify the replacement of existing nuclear power stations with newer ones, all of which will be privately funded. The paper will stress the need to reduce carbon emissions and to enhance "security of supply", relying less on other oil- and gas-producing countries.
The expansion of renewable energy will also be stated, and will include new incentives for offshore wind farms and tidal power. Sian Berry, the Green Party's principle speaker, said: "If the Government do go down the nuclear route, they will be committing the UK to a dirty, dangerous and astronomically expensive future."
16/05/07, Cahal Milmo, Live Earth? It's a waste of time, Geldof tells Gore, (Back).
He may have made the definitive film on climate change and come within a hanging chad of becoming the most world's most powerful man but Al Gore's status did little to protect him from another force of nature - Bob Geldof.
The unloved former US vice-president, turned unlikely hero of the environmental lobby, found himself the target of withering criticism yesterday from the singer-campaigner for copying his "Live Aid" format for a series of concerts to raise awareness of global warming.
Geldof, who invented the simultaneous global charity gig with Live Aid in 1985, accused Gore of doing little more than organising a worldwide musical extravaganza to state the obvious when Live Earth - a series of seven concerts across the world spanning 24 hours - takes place on 7 July.
Speaking in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, the former Boomtown Rats frontman, renowned for his expletive-strewn broadsides against world leaders in aid of debt relief for developing nations, said: "I hope they're a success. But why is he [Gore] actually organising them?
"To make us aware of the greenhouse effect? Everybody's known about that problem for years. We are all fucking conscious of global warming."
Gore, whose documentary on climate change - An Inconvenient Truth - won two Oscars, wants Live Earth to act as a catalyst for action by individuals, corporations and governments to reduce carbon emissions.
The concerts in London, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Tokyo, New York and Shanghai, will be played by more than 100 acts from Madonna to the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to The Police. It is expected that up to two billion people will watch the event via television, radio and internet.
But Geldof, who was speaking during an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant at a leadership seminar, said that, unlike Live8 - the successor to Live Aid in 2005 to persuade the G8 countries to tackle global poverty - the organisers of Live Earth had no specific target.
He said: "Live Earth doesn't have a final goal. I would only organise this if I could go on stage and announce concrete environmental measures from the American presidential candidates, Congress or major corporations. They haven't got those guarantees. So it's just an enormous pop concert or the umpteenth time that, say, Madonna or Coldplay get up on stage."
To add insult to injury, Geldof added that he was irked by the choice of name for this summer's benefit gigs, which has led to a slew of unsolicited inquiries to his office. He said: "It sounds like Live8. We're getting lots of responses from people who think we are organising it."
Gore, who was Bill Clinton's deputy for nine years before being beaten to the presidency by George Bush in November 2000, amid the furore surrounding faulty voting machines, was maintaining a dignified silence last night over Geldof's remarks.
When launching Live Earth last month, the American said: "By attracting an audience of billions we hope Live Earth will launch a global campaign giving a critical mass of people around the world the tools they need to help solve the climate crisis.
"But ultimately, corporations and governments must become global leaders taking decisive action to stop global warming." The organisers of Live Earth insisted it would be more than a melodic outpouring of global angst, with a series of measures for the aftermath of the event to be announced later this month. Any profits made by the event will go to the Alliance for Climate Change, of which Gore is chairman.
The concerts will also be carbon neutral with electricity to power venues, including the new Wembley Stadium, sourced from green producers and generators running on bio-fuels.
All food and drink stands will use compostible containers and hybrid cars will be used to ferry the likes of Genesis, Duran Duran, Keane and Snow Patrol to the stage from their hotels, which will have been fitted with low-energy light bulbs and recycling containers in each room.
A spokesman for the London concert said: "We're taking every single step to reduce the impact and at the very end we will offset carbon emissions.
"Quite a few of the acts are going to be local. We're not in the days of Concorde flying Phil Collins across the Atlantic to play at two concerts. It's not just a lot of musicians wanting to appear to be green."
Despite the disagreements, tickets for the concert sold out in a matter or hours, after a ballot.
Head to head
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, aka 'Sir Bob'
Age: 55
Key issue: Alleviation of global poverty through cancellation of debt.
Star turns: Band Aid (1984), Live Aid (1985), Live8 (2005).
Famous friends: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bono, Pope Benedict XVI, Nelson Mandela and Dalai Llama.
Key phrase: "I don't fucking care. Let's do this thing."
Albert Arnold Gore, aka 'Al'
Age: 59
Key issue: The aversion of global catastrophe through by reducing carbon emissions.
Star turns: Military journalist (Vietnam 1969), US Vice-President (1993-2001), presenter of An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Live Earth (summer 2007)
Famous friends: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates.
Key phrase: "I have absolutely no plans and no expectations of being a candidate again."
21/05/07, David Ebner, Shell eyes nuclear power in oil sands, (Back).
New technology that extracts bitumen from limestone demands huge quantities of electricity.
Calgary — — Royal Dutch Shell PLC [RDS.B-N]is looking at nuclear power to support its experimental oil sands ambitions, on which it has already placed a bet of more than half a billion dollars.
The company, through a secretive Calgary-based subsidiary called Sure Northern Energy Ltd., is working to unlock an estimated 60 billion barrels of raw bitumen — more than 100 kilometres west of the oil sands epicentre around Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta.
The prize Royal Dutch is chasing is bitumen trapped in hard-rock limestone, rather than the conventional oil sands around Fort McMurray where bitumen is mixed with dirt and sandstone.
The Anglo-Dutch energy giant is the likeliest customer for a nuclear power plant proposed by Energy Alberta Corp., a private company working with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.Unlocking the multibillion-barrel bonanza encased in limestone requires an astounding amount of electricity.
The resource has been known for decades but efforts to recover it have failed.
Royal Dutch is working on electric heaters below ground to loosen up the gooey bitumen to draw it to the surface through wells.
The firm is trying to commercialize what it calls a "novel thermal recovery process" invented by Shell's technology arm.
Last year, Royal Dutch, through Sure Northern, paid the Alberta government $571-million to acquire exploration rights west of Fort McMurray — by far the biggest outlay to stake a claim in the oil sands.
Husky Energy Inc. [HSE-T] , which has publicly expressed an interest in harnessing nuclear power, is the other major player in the area, and has said it wants to partner with Royal Dutch, which is leading the new technology.
Energy Alberta, backed by oil patch veteran Hank Swartout, has a deal with government-controlled AECL to develop a nuclear reactor for the oil sands.
Technology to recover bitumen from limestone is "moving very rapidly," Mr. Swartout said.
"As it goes forward, the demand for electricity, without going any further, will be hugely increased," said Mr. Swartout, who is retiring from his post as chairman of Precision Drilling [PD.UN-T]Trust, a firm he founded two decades ago.
Royal Dutch's Sure Northern unit didn't return several calls seeking comment. It is the only company actively working on bitumen in limestone. Other firms in the conventional oil sands, such as Total SA [TOT-N]of France, have expressed interest in nuclear power.
One unnamed company is looking to take 70 per cent of the output from Energy Alberta's proposed $6.2-billion twin nuclear reactor that would start producing 2,200 megawatts in 2016. The reactor design exists only on a drawing board and the amount of power is equal to about a fifth of Alberta's electricity supply.
For comparison, Suncor Energy Inc [SU-T]., the second-largest oil sands producer, uses roughly 400 megawatts of electricity at its operations.
Neither Mr. Swartout nor his partner Wayne Henuset, president of Energy Alberta, would comment directly about a possible connection with Royal Dutch. "I'm not going to say anything officially," Mr. Swartout said. "Officially, we're not chatting with anybody other than there's a huge amount of interest that we facilitate this and obviously I don't spend my money foolishly."
Energy Alberta plans to submit a preliminary application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission by mid-June to start the regulatory process. It is looking at building its facility in either of the small towns of Whitecourt or Peace River in northwestern Alberta.
Industry players have wondered about those locations, given their distance from Fort McMurray, but both sites are relatively close to Royal Dutch's limestone ambitions.
Last week, Energy Alberta held a public meeting on the proposed plant in Whitecourt, drawing about 300 people, with less than five dissenters among the crowd, according to Mr. Henuset. A nuclear reactor promises construction jobs for about 2,000 people with as many as 1,000 permanent, high-tech jobs.
There has been some opposition in Alberta — a citizens group called Cause is opposed — but the provincial government has shown increasing interest and the federal Conservative government is supportive. Energy Alberta, at its Whitecourt meeting, had several speakers, including Patrick Moore, who was anti-nuclear as part of Greenpeace in the 1970s but has become a nuclear advocate.
A potential competitor for Energy Alberta/AECL is Areva SA, the state-owned French nuclear power company.
Armand Laferrère is president of Areva's Canadian arm, which is looking to sell its technology in Ontario and Alberta, and he has had top-level meetings in Alberta. "We haven't made announcements to huge drumbeats for projects that don't have a customer … but Areva is definitely interested in presenting its solution," Mr. Laferrère said.
23/05/07, Cúpula do G8 é ´teste decisivo´ para EUA sobre clima, diz ONU, (Back).
Um encontro entre países ricos marcado para o próximo mês na Alemanha deve ser um "teste decisivo" para saber como os EUA pretendem ajudar o mundo a enfrentar as mudanças climáticas, afirmou nesta terça-feira (22), o chefe do Unep - Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente.
Os EUA, o país mais poluente do mundo, disseram neste mês que continuarão resistindo à imposição de metas de corte nas emissões de gases do efeito estufa e aos planos para limitar essas emissões, responsabilizadas pelo aquecimento global.
O governo norte-americano teme que medidas do tipo prejudiquem o crescimento econômico do país.
A Alemanha, que organiza o encontro entre os líderes do Grupo dos Oito (G8, formado por países industrializados), deseja que a entidade comprometa-se em cortar pela metade, até 2050, as emissões. E o chefe do Unep, Achim Steiner, afirmou que ninguém deveria prejulgar a postura dos EUA.
"Não há outra opção que avançar. E acredito que esse é o debate atualmente travado não apenas nos EUA como um todo, mas também dentro do governo norte-americano: como levar à mesa de negociações iniciativas dos EUA que possam ajudar", disse Steiner em entrevista coletiva.
"Faltam alguns dias para um importante teste decisivo. Será então que veremos como o governo norte-americano pretende desempenhar um papel construtivo e positivo para chegar a um consenso internacional", acrescentou.
Diante de uma opinião pública cada vez mais preocupada com o desafio climático e de relatórios científicos alarmantes sobre os efeitos do fenômeno, países do mundo todo continuam em um impasse nas negociações sobre ampliar as ações de combate ao aquecimento para além do final do primeiro período de vigência do Protocolo de Kyoto, em 2012.
O presidente dos EUA, George W. Bush, opõe-se à imposição de limites de emissão conforme estipulado no Protocolo de Kyoto, afirmando que essas medidas alimentariam o desemprego no território norte-americano e que o tratado errou ao não exigir dos países em desenvolvimento a realização de cortes.
Alguns especialistas do setor climático acreditam que as negociações sobre um sucessor de Kyoto só poderão ser realizadas após o término do mandato de Bush, em 2009.
Mas, segundo Steiner, aumentavam as pressões vindas de dentro dos EUA, onde haveria uma "incrível aliança" entre grandes empresas que agora exigem do governo norte-americano a adoção de metas de emissão e mais de 450 cidades do país que estão se comprometendo voluntariamente com a redução das emissões.
Na semana passada, líderes do Congresso dos EUA, hoje dominado pelo Partido Democrata (oposição), também conclamaram Bush a "mudar de curso" e a fortalecer a postura norte-americana a respeito das mudanças climáticas antes da cúpula do G8.
22/05/07, Jeremy Lovell, U.S. aims to stop G8's tough push on global warming, (Back).
LONDON — The United States is battling to stop next month's Group of Eight summit in Germany from pushing for urgent talks on a new deal to fight global warming after the Kyoto Protocol lapses in 2012.
In a leaked draft of the final communiqué for the June 6 to 8 summit, Washington wants references taken out to the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for a UN conference in Bali in December to open talks on a new global deal.
According to the draft, the United States supports the deletion of the following paragraphs: "We firmly agree that resolute and concerted international action is urgently needed in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and sustain our common basis of living."
"To this end we will, in the face of the U.N. Climate Change Conference at the end of this year, send a clear message on the further development of the international regime to combat climate change."
The deletions are part of a concerted effort by the United States, which rejected Kyoto in 2001 and has ever since tried to undermine it, to water down the tone and content of the G8 summit declaration.
Environment ministers are due to meet on the Indonesian island of Bali Dec. 3 to 14. Britain and Germany are pushing for an agreement to kick-start talks on a successor treaty to Kyoto, extending and expanding its scope and membership.
Instead, the United States wants the final G8 statement to say, "Addressing climate change is a long-term issue that will require global participation and a diversity of approaches to take into account differing circumstances."
Most references in the draft, dated April, 2007, to targets and timetables to cut climate-warming carbon emissions have met with objections from Washington. It objects to efforts by G8 president Germany to get rich nations to agree to cut energy consumption by 20 per cent by 2020 and raise energy efficiency in transport and power generation by the same amount over the same period. It also objects to a call for actions to limit the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius this century and to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Top scientists predict that average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees this century because of burning fossil fuels for power and transport, bringing floods, famines and storms and putting millions of lives at risk.
However, they also note that because of the 30-year time lag between taking action to curb emissions and those actions having any discernible effect, the lower end of the increase is inevitable even if tough curbs are introduced immediately.
24/05/07, Colin BrownBlair commits to nuclear future as plans for five new power plants are revealed, (Back).
A blueprint for a new generation of power stations was revealed yesterday as Tony Blair committed Britain to a nuclear component in energy supply.
The Government announced a five-month consultation exercise on its plans for new nuclear plants by the private sector but a private consultants' report for the Department of Trade and Industry raised suspicions that the consultation is a sham.
Critics called the consultation a "farce" and nuclear power would be a "dangerous, dirty white elephant". The report says new nuclear plants should be built predominantly in the South-east where the main demand for energy exists.
Many of the plants are on the coast, and could be at risk of flooding as a result of climate change causing a catastrophic rise in sea levels. But the report by Jackson Consulting says higher defences could be built to avoid coastal sites being ruled out.
The engineers said the new plants should preferably be sited on existing nuclear plants, but they could also be based at existing coal-fired or gas-fired power plants and a third option could be to build new nuclear plants on greenfield sites. It says a DTI expert group had already identified 12 sites potentially suitable for a new single reactor and 10 of the sites could be suitable for new twin reactors.
The report grades the sites green, amber or red for their suitability for new reactors.
Those graded green are: Hinkley Point on the Somerset coast, Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, Bradwell on the Essex coast, Dungeness on the coast of Kent, Hunterston and Torness in Scotland, Hartlepool in north-east England, Wylfa in Wales, and Heysham in Lancashire.
Graded amber are: Calder Hall in Cumbria, Oldbury near Bristol, and Chapelcross near the Solway estuary in Scotland.
Britain's first private sector nuclear plant at Berkeley on the Severn estuary in Gloucestershire and Trydydd in Snowdonia, north Wales, are graded red as not suitable for new nuclear plants because of other problems with the sites.
Greenpeace said they had been trying under Freedom of Information rules to obtain the report since last year but it had been denied to them until yesterday when it was published on a website. The DTI put a disclaimer on the report, saying it was not government policy, but it will be seen as a blueprint for the future development of nuclear power.
Mr Blair told MPs: "If we want to have secure energy supplies and reduce CO2 emissions, we have got to put the issue of nuclear power on the agenda."
Nuclear power was at the centre of the White Paper on energy published yesterday by the Trade Secretary, Alistair Darling. The document was delayed by Greenpeace demanding more consultation on nuclear power and Mr Darling said he was meeting the demands of the courts by allowing five months of consultation. Susan Kramer of the Liberal Democrats said: "This consultation is a total farce. Ministers have clearly already decided to back nuclear."
That view will be strengthened by the disclosure that an outline plan for the new nuclear power plants already existed. The planning White Paper will cut down the time for planning inquiries from several years to nine months.
Alan Duncan, the Tory energy spokesman, attacked the Government for failing to more explicit over its plans for nuclear power. Under the White Paper, all householders will have to get "smart" meters within 10 years that will enable electricity companies to read their meters without calling at their homes.
(Back)
16/05/07, Cahal Milmo, Live Earth? It's a waste of time, Geldof tells Gore, Source.
21/05/07, David Ebner, Shell eyes nuclear power in oil sands, Source.
23/05/07, Cúpula do G8 é ´teste decisivo´ para EUA sobre clima, diz ONU, Source.
22/05/07, Jeremy Lovell, U.S. aims to stop G8's tough push on global warming, Source.
24/05/07, Colin BrownBlair commits to nuclear future as plans for five new power plants are revealed, Source.
23/05/07, Thair Shaikh, Darling to unveil a nuclear future, (Back).
A new generation of nuclear power stations will get the go ahead today as the Government unveils its blueprint of Britain's future energy supplies.
The Labour party will present its energy White Paper, endorsed by Gordon Brown, which is expected to confirm that nuclear power must be a part of the country's future energy market.
Published by Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, the paper will justify the replacement of existing nuclear power stations with newer ones, all of which will be privately funded. The paper will stress the need to reduce carbon emissions and to enhance "security of supply", relying less on other oil- and gas-producing countries.
The expansion of renewable energy will also be stated, and will include new incentives for offshore wind farms and tidal power. Sian Berry, the Green Party's principle speaker, said: "If the Government do go down the nuclear route, they will be committing the UK to a dirty, dangerous and astronomically expensive future."
16/05/07, Cahal Milmo, Live Earth? It's a waste of time, Geldof tells Gore, (Back).
He may have made the definitive film on climate change and come within a hanging chad of becoming the most world's most powerful man but Al Gore's status did little to protect him from another force of nature - Bob Geldof.
The unloved former US vice-president, turned unlikely hero of the environmental lobby, found himself the target of withering criticism yesterday from the singer-campaigner for copying his "Live Aid" format for a series of concerts to raise awareness of global warming.
Geldof, who invented the simultaneous global charity gig with Live Aid in 1985, accused Gore of doing little more than organising a worldwide musical extravaganza to state the obvious when Live Earth - a series of seven concerts across the world spanning 24 hours - takes place on 7 July.
Speaking in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, the former Boomtown Rats frontman, renowned for his expletive-strewn broadsides against world leaders in aid of debt relief for developing nations, said: "I hope they're a success. But why is he [Gore] actually organising them?
"To make us aware of the greenhouse effect? Everybody's known about that problem for years. We are all fucking conscious of global warming."
Gore, whose documentary on climate change - An Inconvenient Truth - won two Oscars, wants Live Earth to act as a catalyst for action by individuals, corporations and governments to reduce carbon emissions.
The concerts in London, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Tokyo, New York and Shanghai, will be played by more than 100 acts from Madonna to the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to The Police. It is expected that up to two billion people will watch the event via television, radio and internet.
But Geldof, who was speaking during an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant at a leadership seminar, said that, unlike Live8 - the successor to Live Aid in 2005 to persuade the G8 countries to tackle global poverty - the organisers of Live Earth had no specific target.
He said: "Live Earth doesn't have a final goal. I would only organise this if I could go on stage and announce concrete environmental measures from the American presidential candidates, Congress or major corporations. They haven't got those guarantees. So it's just an enormous pop concert or the umpteenth time that, say, Madonna or Coldplay get up on stage."
To add insult to injury, Geldof added that he was irked by the choice of name for this summer's benefit gigs, which has led to a slew of unsolicited inquiries to his office. He said: "It sounds like Live8. We're getting lots of responses from people who think we are organising it."
Gore, who was Bill Clinton's deputy for nine years before being beaten to the presidency by George Bush in November 2000, amid the furore surrounding faulty voting machines, was maintaining a dignified silence last night over Geldof's remarks.
When launching Live Earth last month, the American said: "By attracting an audience of billions we hope Live Earth will launch a global campaign giving a critical mass of people around the world the tools they need to help solve the climate crisis.
"But ultimately, corporations and governments must become global leaders taking decisive action to stop global warming." The organisers of Live Earth insisted it would be more than a melodic outpouring of global angst, with a series of measures for the aftermath of the event to be announced later this month. Any profits made by the event will go to the Alliance for Climate Change, of which Gore is chairman.
The concerts will also be carbon neutral with electricity to power venues, including the new Wembley Stadium, sourced from green producers and generators running on bio-fuels.
All food and drink stands will use compostible containers and hybrid cars will be used to ferry the likes of Genesis, Duran Duran, Keane and Snow Patrol to the stage from their hotels, which will have been fitted with low-energy light bulbs and recycling containers in each room.
A spokesman for the London concert said: "We're taking every single step to reduce the impact and at the very end we will offset carbon emissions.
"Quite a few of the acts are going to be local. We're not in the days of Concorde flying Phil Collins across the Atlantic to play at two concerts. It's not just a lot of musicians wanting to appear to be green."
Despite the disagreements, tickets for the concert sold out in a matter or hours, after a ballot.
Head to head
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, aka 'Sir Bob'
Age: 55
Key issue: Alleviation of global poverty through cancellation of debt.
Star turns: Band Aid (1984), Live Aid (1985), Live8 (2005).
Famous friends: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bono, Pope Benedict XVI, Nelson Mandela and Dalai Llama.
Key phrase: "I don't fucking care. Let's do this thing."
Albert Arnold Gore, aka 'Al'
Age: 59
Key issue: The aversion of global catastrophe through by reducing carbon emissions.
Star turns: Military journalist (Vietnam 1969), US Vice-President (1993-2001), presenter of An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Live Earth (summer 2007)
Famous friends: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates.
Key phrase: "I have absolutely no plans and no expectations of being a candidate again."
21/05/07, David Ebner, Shell eyes nuclear power in oil sands, (Back).
New technology that extracts bitumen from limestone demands huge quantities of electricity.
Calgary — — Royal Dutch Shell PLC [RDS.B-N]is looking at nuclear power to support its experimental oil sands ambitions, on which it has already placed a bet of more than half a billion dollars.
The company, through a secretive Calgary-based subsidiary called Sure Northern Energy Ltd., is working to unlock an estimated 60 billion barrels of raw bitumen — more than 100 kilometres west of the oil sands epicentre around Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta.
The prize Royal Dutch is chasing is bitumen trapped in hard-rock limestone, rather than the conventional oil sands around Fort McMurray where bitumen is mixed with dirt and sandstone.
The Anglo-Dutch energy giant is the likeliest customer for a nuclear power plant proposed by Energy Alberta Corp., a private company working with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.Unlocking the multibillion-barrel bonanza encased in limestone requires an astounding amount of electricity.
The resource has been known for decades but efforts to recover it have failed.
Royal Dutch is working on electric heaters below ground to loosen up the gooey bitumen to draw it to the surface through wells.
The firm is trying to commercialize what it calls a "novel thermal recovery process" invented by Shell's technology arm.
Last year, Royal Dutch, through Sure Northern, paid the Alberta government $571-million to acquire exploration rights west of Fort McMurray — by far the biggest outlay to stake a claim in the oil sands.
Husky Energy Inc. [HSE-T] , which has publicly expressed an interest in harnessing nuclear power, is the other major player in the area, and has said it wants to partner with Royal Dutch, which is leading the new technology.
Energy Alberta, backed by oil patch veteran Hank Swartout, has a deal with government-controlled AECL to develop a nuclear reactor for the oil sands.
Technology to recover bitumen from limestone is "moving very rapidly," Mr. Swartout said.
"As it goes forward, the demand for electricity, without going any further, will be hugely increased," said Mr. Swartout, who is retiring from his post as chairman of Precision Drilling [PD.UN-T]Trust, a firm he founded two decades ago.
Royal Dutch's Sure Northern unit didn't return several calls seeking comment. It is the only company actively working on bitumen in limestone. Other firms in the conventional oil sands, such as Total SA [TOT-N]of France, have expressed interest in nuclear power.
One unnamed company is looking to take 70 per cent of the output from Energy Alberta's proposed $6.2-billion twin nuclear reactor that would start producing 2,200 megawatts in 2016. The reactor design exists only on a drawing board and the amount of power is equal to about a fifth of Alberta's electricity supply.
For comparison, Suncor Energy Inc [SU-T]., the second-largest oil sands producer, uses roughly 400 megawatts of electricity at its operations.
Neither Mr. Swartout nor his partner Wayne Henuset, president of Energy Alberta, would comment directly about a possible connection with Royal Dutch. "I'm not going to say anything officially," Mr. Swartout said. "Officially, we're not chatting with anybody other than there's a huge amount of interest that we facilitate this and obviously I don't spend my money foolishly."
Energy Alberta plans to submit a preliminary application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission by mid-June to start the regulatory process. It is looking at building its facility in either of the small towns of Whitecourt or Peace River in northwestern Alberta.
Industry players have wondered about those locations, given their distance from Fort McMurray, but both sites are relatively close to Royal Dutch's limestone ambitions.
Last week, Energy Alberta held a public meeting on the proposed plant in Whitecourt, drawing about 300 people, with less than five dissenters among the crowd, according to Mr. Henuset. A nuclear reactor promises construction jobs for about 2,000 people with as many as 1,000 permanent, high-tech jobs.
There has been some opposition in Alberta — a citizens group called Cause is opposed — but the provincial government has shown increasing interest and the federal Conservative government is supportive. Energy Alberta, at its Whitecourt meeting, had several speakers, including Patrick Moore, who was anti-nuclear as part of Greenpeace in the 1970s but has become a nuclear advocate.
A potential competitor for Energy Alberta/AECL is Areva SA, the state-owned French nuclear power company.
Armand Laferrère is president of Areva's Canadian arm, which is looking to sell its technology in Ontario and Alberta, and he has had top-level meetings in Alberta. "We haven't made announcements to huge drumbeats for projects that don't have a customer … but Areva is definitely interested in presenting its solution," Mr. Laferrère said.
23/05/07, Cúpula do G8 é ´teste decisivo´ para EUA sobre clima, diz ONU, (Back).
Um encontro entre países ricos marcado para o próximo mês na Alemanha deve ser um "teste decisivo" para saber como os EUA pretendem ajudar o mundo a enfrentar as mudanças climáticas, afirmou nesta terça-feira (22), o chefe do Unep - Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente.
Os EUA, o país mais poluente do mundo, disseram neste mês que continuarão resistindo à imposição de metas de corte nas emissões de gases do efeito estufa e aos planos para limitar essas emissões, responsabilizadas pelo aquecimento global.
O governo norte-americano teme que medidas do tipo prejudiquem o crescimento econômico do país.
A Alemanha, que organiza o encontro entre os líderes do Grupo dos Oito (G8, formado por países industrializados), deseja que a entidade comprometa-se em cortar pela metade, até 2050, as emissões. E o chefe do Unep, Achim Steiner, afirmou que ninguém deveria prejulgar a postura dos EUA.
"Não há outra opção que avançar. E acredito que esse é o debate atualmente travado não apenas nos EUA como um todo, mas também dentro do governo norte-americano: como levar à mesa de negociações iniciativas dos EUA que possam ajudar", disse Steiner em entrevista coletiva.
"Faltam alguns dias para um importante teste decisivo. Será então que veremos como o governo norte-americano pretende desempenhar um papel construtivo e positivo para chegar a um consenso internacional", acrescentou.
Diante de uma opinião pública cada vez mais preocupada com o desafio climático e de relatórios científicos alarmantes sobre os efeitos do fenômeno, países do mundo todo continuam em um impasse nas negociações sobre ampliar as ações de combate ao aquecimento para além do final do primeiro período de vigência do Protocolo de Kyoto, em 2012.
O presidente dos EUA, George W. Bush, opõe-se à imposição de limites de emissão conforme estipulado no Protocolo de Kyoto, afirmando que essas medidas alimentariam o desemprego no território norte-americano e que o tratado errou ao não exigir dos países em desenvolvimento a realização de cortes.
Alguns especialistas do setor climático acreditam que as negociações sobre um sucessor de Kyoto só poderão ser realizadas após o término do mandato de Bush, em 2009.
Mas, segundo Steiner, aumentavam as pressões vindas de dentro dos EUA, onde haveria uma "incrível aliança" entre grandes empresas que agora exigem do governo norte-americano a adoção de metas de emissão e mais de 450 cidades do país que estão se comprometendo voluntariamente com a redução das emissões.
Na semana passada, líderes do Congresso dos EUA, hoje dominado pelo Partido Democrata (oposição), também conclamaram Bush a "mudar de curso" e a fortalecer a postura norte-americana a respeito das mudanças climáticas antes da cúpula do G8.
22/05/07, Jeremy Lovell, U.S. aims to stop G8's tough push on global warming, (Back).
LONDON — The United States is battling to stop next month's Group of Eight summit in Germany from pushing for urgent talks on a new deal to fight global warming after the Kyoto Protocol lapses in 2012.
In a leaked draft of the final communiqué for the June 6 to 8 summit, Washington wants references taken out to the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for a UN conference in Bali in December to open talks on a new global deal.
According to the draft, the United States supports the deletion of the following paragraphs: "We firmly agree that resolute and concerted international action is urgently needed in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and sustain our common basis of living."
"To this end we will, in the face of the U.N. Climate Change Conference at the end of this year, send a clear message on the further development of the international regime to combat climate change."
The deletions are part of a concerted effort by the United States, which rejected Kyoto in 2001 and has ever since tried to undermine it, to water down the tone and content of the G8 summit declaration.
Environment ministers are due to meet on the Indonesian island of Bali Dec. 3 to 14. Britain and Germany are pushing for an agreement to kick-start talks on a successor treaty to Kyoto, extending and expanding its scope and membership.
Instead, the United States wants the final G8 statement to say, "Addressing climate change is a long-term issue that will require global participation and a diversity of approaches to take into account differing circumstances."
Most references in the draft, dated April, 2007, to targets and timetables to cut climate-warming carbon emissions have met with objections from Washington. It objects to efforts by G8 president Germany to get rich nations to agree to cut energy consumption by 20 per cent by 2020 and raise energy efficiency in transport and power generation by the same amount over the same period. It also objects to a call for actions to limit the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius this century and to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Top scientists predict that average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees this century because of burning fossil fuels for power and transport, bringing floods, famines and storms and putting millions of lives at risk.
However, they also note that because of the 30-year time lag between taking action to curb emissions and those actions having any discernible effect, the lower end of the increase is inevitable even if tough curbs are introduced immediately.
24/05/07, Colin BrownBlair commits to nuclear future as plans for five new power plants are revealed, (Back).
A blueprint for a new generation of power stations was revealed yesterday as Tony Blair committed Britain to a nuclear component in energy supply.
The Government announced a five-month consultation exercise on its plans for new nuclear plants by the private sector but a private consultants' report for the Department of Trade and Industry raised suspicions that the consultation is a sham.
Critics called the consultation a "farce" and nuclear power would be a "dangerous, dirty white elephant". The report says new nuclear plants should be built predominantly in the South-east where the main demand for energy exists.
Many of the plants are on the coast, and could be at risk of flooding as a result of climate change causing a catastrophic rise in sea levels. But the report by Jackson Consulting says higher defences could be built to avoid coastal sites being ruled out.
The engineers said the new plants should preferably be sited on existing nuclear plants, but they could also be based at existing coal-fired or gas-fired power plants and a third option could be to build new nuclear plants on greenfield sites. It says a DTI expert group had already identified 12 sites potentially suitable for a new single reactor and 10 of the sites could be suitable for new twin reactors.
The report grades the sites green, amber or red for their suitability for new reactors.
Those graded green are: Hinkley Point on the Somerset coast, Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, Bradwell on the Essex coast, Dungeness on the coast of Kent, Hunterston and Torness in Scotland, Hartlepool in north-east England, Wylfa in Wales, and Heysham in Lancashire.
Graded amber are: Calder Hall in Cumbria, Oldbury near Bristol, and Chapelcross near the Solway estuary in Scotland.
Britain's first private sector nuclear plant at Berkeley on the Severn estuary in Gloucestershire and Trydydd in Snowdonia, north Wales, are graded red as not suitable for new nuclear plants because of other problems with the sites.
Greenpeace said they had been trying under Freedom of Information rules to obtain the report since last year but it had been denied to them until yesterday when it was published on a website. The DTI put a disclaimer on the report, saying it was not government policy, but it will be seen as a blueprint for the future development of nuclear power.
Mr Blair told MPs: "If we want to have secure energy supplies and reduce CO2 emissions, we have got to put the issue of nuclear power on the agenda."
Nuclear power was at the centre of the White Paper on energy published yesterday by the Trade Secretary, Alistair Darling. The document was delayed by Greenpeace demanding more consultation on nuclear power and Mr Darling said he was meeting the demands of the courts by allowing five months of consultation. Susan Kramer of the Liberal Democrats said: "This consultation is a total farce. Ministers have clearly already decided to back nuclear."
That view will be strengthened by the disclosure that an outline plan for the new nuclear power plants already existed. The planning White Paper will cut down the time for planning inquiries from several years to nine months.
Alan Duncan, the Tory energy spokesman, attacked the Government for failing to more explicit over its plans for nuclear power. Under the White Paper, all householders will have to get "smart" meters within 10 years that will enable electricity companies to read their meters without calling at their homes.
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