| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
08 May 2007 08:53:51 AM |
| Object: |
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED |
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED
The Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2007
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-carbon7may07,1,3464191.story?coll=la-headlines-business
The carbon credits produced under Kyoto may fall far short amid failed
projects and faulty expectations.
By Fiona Harvey and Jonathan Wheatley, Financial Times
The rush to go green suggests easy money for investors in projects
that reduce carbon dioxide output. The reality is otherwise: Many
carbon projects turn out to be high risk.
Project failures and over-optimism among developers, together with a
tendency to exaggerate in applications, mean that 40% to 50% of the
carbon credits anticipated under the Kyoto protocol will never be
delivered, carbon traders and analysts say.
The treaty, which the United States has been criticized for refusing
to sign, requires developed countries to slash their greenhouse gas
emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.
Tom Frost, carbon analyst at Numis Securities, said: "I would expect
that about half of the credits would not come through in the end."
The Kyoto treaty requires qualifying projects to be certified by the
United Nations' clean development mechanism board. In the same grand
buildings on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn where the Marshall Plan
was drawn up after World War II, the U.N. clean development board
scrutinizes applications.
U.N. officials say developers tend to overestimate the number of
credits their projects will generate, in part because they incorrectly
assume that the number in their application request will act as a
ceiling.
In fact, developers can claim more credits, provided that extra
emissions curtailment can be verified. Other projects suffer long
delays or are abandoned.
For instance, the Financial Times visited a project aimed at
generating energy from waste at the University of Rio de Janeiro,
which began seven years ago.
"We've had a lot of delays and a lot of difficulties," said Henrique
Saraiva, UsinaVerde's chief executive. "We were approached by buyers
[of carbon credits] long before we were ready to sell."
He said the main problem was in building partnerships with engineering
companies. Two firms worked on the project and pulled out before
UsinaVerde finally reached an agreement with a smaller outfit.
The pilot project has been monitored by Bureau Veritas Quality
International, a Paris-based certification company. By the end of May,
its voluntary emission reduction credits should be up for sale, three
years after its pilot unit began operating.
If the project is taken up by city councils and reproduced on a larger
scale, plants should qualify for U.N. emission reduction certificates.
UsinaVerde's technology was approved as a clean development mechanism
by Brazilian certifiers in October 2005.
Another project that would set up solar panels in South Africa, from
which the German charity Atmosfair was hoping to buy U.N. credits,
appears to have been delayed indefinitely because the city of Cape
Town has hit difficulties finding financing.
However, the U.N. said that its processes, which have been criticized
for being lengthy, bureaucratic and expensive, produced carbon credits
of a reliably high standard.
The U.N. credits fetch about 25% more than equivalent credits in the
unregulated voluntary market.
The board sends projects back to the developers for amendment if there
is evidence of fraud, malfeasance or incompetence. By late March,
officials said, 570 projects had been approved and only 14 sent back,
all for incompetence. They attributed the low failure rate to the
stringency of the process.
"If you were fraudulent, you would be less likely to apply under the
CDM," one official said.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
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| User: "PagCal" |
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| Title: Re: THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED |
09 May 2007 05:00:30 AM |
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Captain Compassion wrote:
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED
The Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2007
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-carbon7may07,1,3464191.story?coll=la-headlines-business
The carbon credits produced under Kyoto may fall far short amid failed
projects and faulty expectations.
Many solar projects didn't make sense when gas was a buck a gallon, but
now that it is three they do make sense.
And, with gas spiraling upwards to four buck by the end of the summer,
lots more projects will come into the black.
So, the moral of the story is, you can't do cost analysis at todays fuel
costs on solar/wind projects of the future.
.
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| User: "hopeful" |
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| Title: Re: THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED |
09 May 2007 08:47:21 AM |
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"PagCal" <pagcal@runbox.com> wrote in message
news:3Zg0i.1182$gn1.957@newsfe04.lga...
Captain Compassion wrote:
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED
The Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2007
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-carbon7may07,1,3464191.story?coll=la-headlines-business
The carbon credits produced under Kyoto may fall far short amid failed
projects and faulty expectations.
Many solar projects didn't make sense when gas was a buck a gallon, but
now that it is three they do make sense.
And, with gas spiraling upwards to four buck by the end of the summer,
lots more projects will come into the black.
And they will be out of the money when energy prices fall so the moral of
the story is to keep the energy prices high. In that will everybody makes
money. Of course the citizen gets the shaft but that is why they are called
the "little people" and not the "elite". Water gas was once cheaper that
the novelty product called oil. Rockefeller changed that and until oil
runs out it will always be cheaper unless, like today, its price is
artifically raised. The high price is due to specualtion nothing more
nothing less.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED |
09 May 2007 11:32:50 AM |
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On Wed, 09 May 2007 06:00:30 -0400, PagCal <pagcal@runbox.com> wrote:
Captain Compassion wrote:
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED
The Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2007
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-carbon7may07,1,3464191.story?coll=la-headlines-business
The carbon credits produced under Kyoto may fall far short amid failed
projects and faulty expectations.
Many solar projects didn't make sense when gas was a buck a gallon, but
now that it is three they do make sense.
And, with gas spiraling upwards to four buck by the end of the summer,
lots more projects will come into the black.
So, the moral of the story is, you can't do cost analysis at todays fuel
costs on solar/wind projects of the future.
I'm all for alternative energy and run my home on a mix of solar and
propane. That said, of course you can do cost analysis at today's fuel
costs. Point to wit - in CA PG&E now charges more for solar than
regular in peak times even though it costs less. Da Guv is
flabbergasted. He's set up tax credits and rebates for those who
install solar panels but the industry has come to a standstill while
the PUC gets their act in gear and changes the billing method. For a 2
story 4 bedroom home it costs about 60k to install panels after all
the rebates with a payback of about 5 years (selling power back to the
utility). Under the current billing method the payback might never
happen. Don't these bureaucracy-heavy agencies talk to each other
instead of pulling in opposite directions?
WB Yeats
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| User: "PagCal" |
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| Title: Re: THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED |
10 May 2007 06:25:31 AM |
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wrote:
On Wed, 09 May 2007 06:00:30 -0400, PagCal <pagcal@runbox.com> wrote:
Captain Compassion wrote:
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED
The Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2007
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-carbon7may07,1,3464191.story?coll=la-headlines-business
The carbon credits produced under Kyoto may fall far short amid failed
projects and faulty expectations.
Many solar projects didn't make sense when gas was a buck a gallon, but
now that it is three they do make sense.
And, with gas spiraling upwards to four buck by the end of the summer,
lots more projects will come into the black.
So, the moral of the story is, you can't do cost analysis at todays fuel
costs on solar/wind projects of the future.
I'm all for alternative energy and run my home on a mix of solar and
propane. That said, of course you can do cost analysis at today's fuel
costs. Point to wit - in CA PG&E now charges more for solar than
regular in peak times even though it costs less. Da Guv is
flabbergasted. He's set up tax credits and rebates for those who
install solar panels but the industry has come to a standstill while
the PUC gets their act in gear and changes the billing method. For a 2
story 4 bedroom home it costs about 60k to install panels after all
the rebates with a payback of about 5 years (selling power back to the
utility). Under the current billing method the payback might never
happen. Don't these bureaucracy-heavy agencies talk to each other
instead of pulling in opposite directions?
WB Yeats
Good point. We need a national coherent strategy policy to wean us from
imported oil.
.
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| User: " Kurt Lochner" |
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| Title: Re: THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED |
08 May 2007 09:10:54 AM |
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Crappin' Impaction <daranc@charter.net> wrote:
THE RUSH TO GO GREEN COULD END IN THE RED
Fallacy argument..
The rush to go green suggests[..]
"suggests"? That's hardly an objective 'measure' of the situation..
--Sorta like your "god-fearing" nonsense..
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