Photo: Freedom

Freedom adopts an unabashedly patriotic approach to sustainability advocacy. The trailer includes shots of graveyards where soldiers who’ve died in oil wars are buried and references to other types of alternative energy such as wind and solar.

The makers of the film are currently making a tour of the country in their ethanol-fueled bus to promote screenings and meet the public. The website offers the tools to book a screening so anyone can join the movement.

The agenda that drivers the producer behind Freedom seems to be more anti-oil than just marketing for the biofuel industry. In order to get off oil, they say, the public should adopt a local lifestyle, make their homes more efficient and use ethanol or biodiesel in their car, or get an electric one. Sounds all good!

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Watch the Freedom trailer:

Technorati Tags: Biodiesel, ethanol, Freedom movie

Offshore wind farm

The Global Trends Report 2011 says that global investment in renewable energy jumped 32% in 2010 to a record $211 billion.

Investment in developing countries increased strongly, and in fact has overtaken richer countries in terms of new investments.

Germany led the way in solar photovoltaics and installed more PV in 2010 than what was installed across the globe in the previous year. The US and Japan saw new solar installations almost double from 2009 levels. Across 100 countries there were significant solar PV capacity additions.

Wind was the big winner and accounted for most of new electricity capacity, except in Europe, which installed more solar power than wind.

Driving the added renewable capacity are policy targets, mostly in the developing world. By the beginning of 2011, 119 countries had some sort of policy in place.

Renewable energy accounted for 10.9% of domestic primary energy production in the U.S., which is almost the same as nuclear at 11.3%. Meanwhile, in China, renewable energy accounted for 26% of total installed electricity capacity. Brazil continued to lead in the ethanol arena and added more hydropower, biomass and wind power farms.

In Europe renewable energy accounted for 41% of new installed capacity, which exceeded its 2010 targets for wind, solar PV, Concentrated Solar Power, solar heating and heat pumps.

“The global performance of renewable energy despite headwinds has been a positive constant in turbulent times”, said Mohamed El-Ashry, chairman of REN21’s Steering Committee. “Today, more people than ever before derive energy from renewables as capacity continues to grow, prices continue to fall, and shares of global energy from renewable energy continue to increase.”

For further information visit the website with an interactive renewables map.

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Technorati Tags: global energy, Renewable energy, sources of energy

Photo: Gedsman/Flickr

The Ministry of Energy says there is a practical link between the country’s agriculture and domestic energy needs. Since the conference takes place in Thailand’s capital, it will be making the most of it to display its green track record and investment opportunities in the country.

The event expects to receive 300 delegates who will converge in Bangkok to hear from power experts from more than 14 countries in the region who will report on projects in Thailand, Singapore, Korea, China, the Philippines, India, Australia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Iran.

Mixed bag
Thailand’s clean energy investment opportunities are likely to be welcomed and slated on equal measures.

The good news is that it includes solar cells as the country moves towards solar power electricity. The Ministry says that much of Thailand’s solar-panels are made for export, but these days solar energy development also offers great potential for filling a domestic energy demand, particularly in remote rural and mountainous regions.

Wind power is also on the bill as the Thai government offers subsidies for electricity produced by wind power. The Ministry cites the example of a tapioca flour processing plant where wind displaced 8,000 liters/day of oil in the production process, achieving 40% savings in production costs.

Some environmentalists may raise an issue with plans for ethanol and biodiesel, though.

On the ethanol front, the Energy Ministry has short listed 15 local biomass power plants for foreign company investment, under the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. Biomass plants often raise concerns in terms of toxic pollution it can cause and the impact on employment rates in the recycling sector.

As to biodiesel, the government has a target of 4.25 million litres/day of biodiesel, for a 7% consumption substitute of diesel by the year 2011. The trouble is that the intended raw material for this type of energy is palm oil, the bête noire of green groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Palm Oil Action Group. Palm oil crops are said to drive deforestation (thus causing emissions) and destroy the habitats of endangered species such as orang-utans and elephants.

The mention of nuclear as part of ‘clean energy’ mix is set to raise a few eyebrows as well.

Technorati Tags: Clean Power Asia, Thailand alternative energy, Thailand's energy mix

Via Seletun

The revised text wants to scale back the ‘forest code’, as the legislation is called, and it could mean millions of tons of carbon released into the atmosphere. Several agribusiness sectors have an economic interest in altering the code to suit their businesses, including sugar cane producers who provide the raw material for ethanol.

Read the article about Brazil’s forest code debate.

Technorati Tags: Brazil, Deforestation, Forest code

Via Scania

The bigger plan is to convert the whole country’s fleet to renewable energy by 2018. The agreement signed today anticipates that by May 2010 50 ethanol vehicles will be circulating in the city.

The deal is between the city of São Paulo, Unica (a sugar cane industry body), Scania, ethanol supplier Cosan and the operator Viação Metropolitana.

The mayor of São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab, did not mention how much the investment will cost, but said financial resources will come from fines applied to vehicles that have failed to pass inspection tests. “It will come from an environmental program and directed to another environmental program”, he said.

According to a Unica spokesperson, ethanol achieves a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with diesel. He said diesel engines will be converted to run on ethanol and additive.

Cosan estimates that the 50 vehicles will consume around 300 thousand liters of ethanol per month on a 95% blend. In November, one liter of ethanol in the São Paulo region has cost on average $1.16.

Via Terra

Technorati Tags: Brazil, ethanol, Sao Paolo, Transport

Via Campaign Against Climate Change

And it’s true.

However, the media is fragmented, conflicting interests clash and everyone is learning and making mistakes in the process. Just remember how much controversy there is about climate science and you get an idea as to how complex thinking about these issues, let alone writing and legislating about them, is.

The concept of renewable energy is also multi-faceted. Renewable, in the context of energy, refers to fuels whose supplies are not based on a finite reserve, like fossil fuels are. For instance, solar power is renewable because the sun will probably outshine the human presence on this planet for millions and millions of years – literally.

Wind is also renewable because it will continue to blow. Wind is just transformed solar energy, says Tom Rand in his book Kick The Fossil Fuel Habit – 100 Technologies To Save The World. It is “the expansion and contraction of the air that has been heated by the sun and then cooled”, Rand explains. That sounds like renewable to me.

Biofuels are renewable because we can plant more of the stuff and therefore renew its production cycle indefinitely, at least in principle. Geothermal (geo-exchange) is also renewable because it taps the energy that sits just below the earth’s surface in order to cool or heat buildings, without depleting anything. Hydropower (dams) is also, at least officially, renewable, although changes in precipitation may affect areas that rely on it.

So, all the above is renewable. But – is it also sustainable? That’s where the problem begins. If we define sustainable as any method of production that does not affect the environment and the welfare of living beings, then we can’t always equate renewable with sustainable. The problem is that existing technology to harness the power of renewable sources is still in its infancy and is not as efficient and clean as it should be. Yet.

The best example of this paradox is biofuel, which used to be an emblem of alternative fuels and is now looked upon with suspicion by environmental and food security campaigners. Biofuels can compete with food land and also drive deforestation, they say, with facts to back their claims. The issue has become so serious that in countries like the United Kingdom there are organizations opposing subsidies to agrofuels, as they call it, due to all the misery they cause – including more climate disruption.

UK-based Friends of the Earth recently released a report warning that the “European Union’s renewable fuel target is driving land grabs in Africa that threaten the environment and local communities”. Even the UK government’s in-house climate advisors recently said that current biofuel targets for transport are too high at 10%.

In Brazil, the construction of Belo Monte, a massive dam in the Amazon region, is the subject of fierce controversy, one that has attracted the support of filmmaker James Cameron, due to land displacement and biodiversity issues raised by the project. Expect an Avatar-style battle over it.

Still in South America, Save America’s Forests warns that San Rafael Falls, Ecuador’s tallest waterfall, is threatened by a Chinese-funded hydroelectric project, The 1,500 megawatt Coca-Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Project will divert water flow away from the 480-foot San Rafael Falls, leaving it “high and dry”, they say, and also threatens the biodiversity of the Sumaco Biosphere Reserve.

Wind gets into trouble as well. In Scotland, Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm has been accused to be the possible cause of the death of 33 seals whose bodies were found mutilated. The company denied the accusations. In Portugal, environmentalists say a wind farm in Alvaiázere threatens bats already faced with extinction.

And the list goes on.

What conclusion can we reach from all this? The advantages that renewable energy offer, and the sheer necessity to replace fossil fuels with a cleaner alternative, validate them. But careful assessments of their viability and, most importantly, sustainability, must be carried out, always. Perhaps in our eagerness to be clean we sometimes hasten to celebrate any energy with the renewable tag attached to it. But we must careful not to jump from the frying pan into the fire. The primary goal and raison d’être of renewable energy is to arrive at a point when renewable does equate with sustainable. We must not settle for anything less than that.

Technorati Tags: Clean energy, Deforestation, food, sustainability

Brazil takes a lot of pride in the fact that 48% of its energy matrix is renewable, mostly thanks to hydropower, the source of 80% of the electricity consumed in the country, and ethanol, which has been powering vehicles in the country since the late 1970s. In Brazil, energy accounts for only 2.5% of the country’s carbon emissions, unlike deforestation, which accounts for 75% of it and is caused mainly by livestock. But dam building may be one of the threats to the Amazon forest, as the country looks to the region to build new hydropower plants.

Márcio Zimmermann (Via Jornal da Energia)

“We have carried out careful environmental assessment studies in the region. Besides, we have one of the strictest legislation to implement hydropower”, he said during the press meeting. But environmentalists disagree, including film director James Cameron, who came to country in April to join the chorus of protest. Opponents to the project say 40,000 people are set to be displaced and hundreds of square miles of rainforest will be flooded. Besides, wildlife will be seriously impacted. Since the turmoiled $17bn auction in April, Belo Monte’s future looks uncertain and its very existence the subject of severe criticism, not just from environmentalists but also from experts and the mainstream press.

As I write this article, another hydroelectric project has run into trouble. According to a Reuters report published on Sunday (25), “400 Indians from several different tribes occupied a power plant they say was built on an ancient burial site”. The incident took place at the Dardanelos dam on the Aripuana river, about 250 miles north of the Mato Grosso state capital Cuiaba. The dam was due to come online in January 2011. A representative of the government’s agency of indigenous affairs (Funai) said the company didn’t take into account the situation of the Indians and dynamited part of an archaeological site. Now the Indians want a compensation. The construction company in charge of the place said it has been in touch with Funai to design a community development program for them.

Belo Monte deforested site (Via AFP)

Despite the controversy and risks, the Lula government is bent on pushing hydropower to the Amazon region, with 12 projects in the works. Besides hydropower, Zimmerman also believes that nuclear power has a role to play. “Brazil has the 6th largest uranium reserve in the world. From 2019, nuclear will play a bigger role. It is an irreversible process”, he said. As to oil exploration in the Amazon, the Minister believes it should always follow Urucu’s model, although “our biggest reserves are not in the Amazon”, he added.

In fact, Brazil’s biggest oil reserves are off-shore. The country has just started drilling deepwater, pre-salt layer wells along its coast. Pre-salt oil has become a major marketing staple of Lula’s government program and PR machine. But Zimmerman insists that all this new oil will not alter the country’s renewable energy matrix. “We will meet our domestic demand and export the rest”, he said. “The country currently consumes 2 million barrels per day. In 2015 we’ll have an export balance of 1.5 million barrels per day. In 2019 that figure will jump to 2-2.2 million.”

In the face of the Gulf and China oil spills, shouldn’t Brazil have waited until it started drilling its pre-salt reserves? “There are no expectations to discover on-shore reserves. The future is off-shore and the natural tendency is deep water exploration”, said Zimmerman. “Brazil intends to investigate the causes of the spill. Our legislation is very strict and we will look at the three reports that will be published by the American congress, government and judiciary”, he said. The country has sent a team to the Gulf to follow the clean-up process.

Pre-salt region in Brazil (via Brazil and Business)

In this scenario of hydropower, ethanol (18% of the country’s energy matrix) and oil exploration (23% of the global total), do solar and wind power have a place? He says the country acknowledges the need to diversify its energy matrix and has introduced an auction system to stimulate the use of renewable energy. The second auction took place recently and contracted 1,805,7 MW in wind power. A new auction is scheduled to take place in August. Most of wind power mills in Brazil are in the northeast of the country.

All those efforts seem to be paying. Brazil’s place in the renewable market is increasingly recognized internationally. Just before last week’s meeting with Mr. Zimmermann in Brasilia, the minister had been invited to Washington for a Major Economies Forum (19-20 July) to talk about the country’s public policies for renewable energy and exchange information with other countries.

It’s an exciting time for the country. The economy is growing, by the end of the first semester of 2011 the whole country will be, for the first time, connected to electricity and coal only provides 2% of the electricity consumed there. As Brazil prepares to become the fifth global economy, energy is one of its biggest challenges – and so is the preservation of its natural resources, especially the Amazon. The world is watching how the growing giant will perform this balancing act, which could provide a model for other economies.

Disclosure: Energy Refuge’s trip to Brazil was sponsored by Apex, a governmental agency that promotes trade and investment in Brazil, with funding provided by Petrobras, Eletrobras and Banco do Brasil.