Wind Energy Debate- Generation Gap Slows Future Growth

Young people are being urged to join the debate on renewable energy after new findings showed older generations are blocking the building of wind farms.

-        75 per cent of people would support having a wind farm built near their home

-        Only one third of wind farm applications are approved by councils

-        Older generations are far more likely to oppose developments than young people

 

Following news that councils are rejecting two thirds of wind farms applications, independent research has highlighted a huge divide in opinions between old and young on the developments – with concerns over spoiled views so far winning over planning committees rather than protecting the environment for future generations. 

 

More than 75 per cent of people polled said they would be in favour of plans to build a wind farm producing green energy close to where they live, with 86 per cent of 16 to 34 year olds surveyed saying they would back the proposals. Nobody under the age of 24 said they would oppose a wind farm in their area.

 

However, only one third of wind farm planning applications are actually getting approved.

 

The research showed that just 61 per cent of over 55s were in favour of building a wind farm near their home. Twice as many retired people opposed wind farms than those who are working.

 

Spoilt views and increases in noise were the main concerns of those who said they oppose wind farms.

 

Those in favour said protecting the environment for children, and renewable energy being the only way forward were the main reasons for supporting developments.

 

 Manchester-based public consultation firm IPB Communications –which commissioned the research – presented its findings at the 2010 Renewable UK Conference in Glasgow.

 

John Quinton-Barber from IPB Communications and speaking at the conference said: "Younger people are clearly in favour of building wind farms for green energy – but they are not getting their message across.

 

"It is these generations, and their children, who are going to have to live with the long-term consequences of climate changes, so it is vital they stand up and have their say now.

 

"At the moment the statistics don't add up. The opinions of older people seem to be taking priority when it comes to decision making. The silent majority need to find their voice and take their views to councillors when it comes to renewable energy."

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China-diesel shortage, disrupting industry

China suffers diesel shortage, disrupting industry
	Nov 8, 2010	Associated Press Online
	By JOE McDONALD BEIJING, Nov. 8, 2010 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- Aggravated Chinese truck drivers parked for hours to buy rationed diesel Monday as shortages blamed on a government conservation campaign and possible hoarding by state oil companies disrupted industry and trade. Supplies ran low after thousands of factories bought diesel generators to cope with power cuts imposed by authorities to meet energy-saving goals. That boosted already strong fuel demand amid rapid economic growth and complaints that major suppliers are withholding diesel to pressure Beijing to raise government-set retail prices. In the southwestern city of Chongqing, truck driver Peng Yun was just back from what should have been a three-day trip to neighboring Yunnan province. He said it stretched to five days after he had to stop six times for a partial tank of fuel. "In one place the filling station ran out, so I had to wait overnight until they had diesel again the next day," said Peng, 24. "Now I dare not drive that far because I can't get diesel." The shortages are symptomatic of the costly side effects of the communist government's crude tools for regulating a complex, fast-changing economy. Local authorities imposed rolling blackouts on factories in August after Beijing called for efforts to curb surging energy demand, pollution and emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. That came after a campaign to make China's energy-guzzling economy more efficient suffered setbacks early this year due to due to a stimulus-fueled boom in steel, cement and other heavy industry. Diesel supplies already were tighter than usual after refineries shut down in August and September for maintenance and demand from farmers and fishermen rose, said Tom Reed, London-based Asia energy editor at Argus Media, an energy news agency. "It's kind of a perfect storm" that caused "a significant squeeze on the wholesale market," Reed said. Fuel shortages were reported in areas from Dalian, a northeastern port, to Hangzhou on the east coast and Kunming in the southwest. Some Chinese media and industry analysts blamed the shortages on China's major state-owned oil companies, PetroChina and Sinopec. (NYSE:SNP) They said the companies are withholding supplies while they wait for Beijing to boost retail prices that were left unchanged while global crude costs climbed from $70 a barrel at the start of the summer to nearly $90 now. PetroChina and Sinopec are "stockpiling diesel in an attempt to blackmail the NDRC (China's main planning agency) into announcing another price rise," said Zhao Jingmin, an oil analyst for the industry website Chinachemnet.com. Phone calls to the press offices of PetroChina and Sinopec were not answered. The NDRC, or National Development and Reform Commission, and its energy agency did not immediately respond to questions about what the government was doing to restore normal diesel supplies. China's economy regularly is disrupted by government intervention in energy industries. In 2007, the country suffered gasoline shortages after refiners cut production in response to price controls. The next year, parts of China shivered through blackouts in bitter winter cold after the government froze power prices, prompting utilities to cut expenses by letting coal stockpiles run low. The refinery shutdown was prompted in part by government orders to upgrade facilities after a July pipeline explosion in Dalian dumped crude into the sea, said Liao Kaishun, an oil analyst for the firm C 1 Energy. The overhaul "reduced the monthly transport of diesel fuel from northern to southern China by at least hundreds of thousands of tons," Liao said. The shortages will ease if refiners make good on promises to raise output, said Argus Media's Reed. He said China is likely to fill the gap temporarily with imports, which would benefit refiners elsewhere in Asia. In Shanghai, China's business center and busiest port, deliveries by Tianbang Logistics Co., a trucking company, have been delayed by two days while its drivers wait in line to buy fuel, according to a dispatcher there. "Our clients are not happy at all," said the dispatcher, who would give her name only as Miss Xun. "We don't have any way to solve it so far." In environmental terms, the power cuts have backfired by prompting factory managers to buy dirtier, more expensive diesel generators. "The only solution is to begin supplying more power," said Citigroup (NYSE:C) economist Ken Peng. In southern China, more than 2,000 privately owned filling stations China have run out of diesel, the government's Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the China Chamber of Commerce for the Petroleum Industry. Others limited drivers to a half-tank or less or served only regular customers, according to drivers and news reports. Xinhua cited one driver who got extra fuel by slipping a filling station employee a 50 yuan ($7) tip. Truckers from out of town were stuck Monday in Changsha, in Hunan province in southern China, because they cannot find fuel, according to Rednet.net, a news website run by the provincial government. An employee of a Changsha filling station, who would give only his surname, Xie, said the station last obtained diesel on Oct. 26. He said it limited sales to 30 liters (eight gallons) per customer but quickly ran out. In Kunming, "you are lucky if you can get fuel after lining up for five hours," said a report on 163.com, another news website. "We all know the final result will be a price rise so why not do it directly?" said one unsigned note on 360che.com, an Internet bulletin board for truckers. "Why make us wait for a whole night at a gas station?" --__ Associated Press writer Gillian Wong and researchers Henry Hou, Zhao Liang and Xi Yue in Beijing and Ji Chen in Shanghai contributed. Newstex ID: AP-0001-50494205

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Heroes wanted in climate science story

Heroes wanted in climate science story
	Nov 8, 2010	USA Today
	Dan Vergano In a house in the woods, somewhere far away, perhaps lives someone who doesn't love a good story. "Deep in our nature" lurks a love of story-telling, wrote the Greek philosopher Aristotle around 350 B.C., the world's first literary critic. And psychologists and neuroscientists have increasingly backed up ol' Aristotle, looking at story-telling as something fundamentally human. Brain scan studies, for example, show listening to stories lights up more and different areas as children age. Alzheimer's patients loss of the ability to follow stories may be the most debilitating aspect of their dementia. But despite the narrative neuroscience, some groups of scientists, particularly climate researchers, might want to polish their story-telling skills. Where 97% of active climate scientists agree climate change is a reality and only 52% of the public say they agree, according to an Eos journal survey, something may have gone wrong in how scientists communicate to the public. "There's a narrative vacuum that needs to be filled," wrote the science writer Keith Kloor last month. One catch is that scientists simply prize facts over stories, as climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, noted last week on the " RealClimate" blog. So is that the problem? "Scientists, academics, and politicians on the left, do not do stories very well," says Harvard political scientist Michael Jones, who earlier this year led a Policy Studies Journal report on the use and misuse of narrative in policymaking. "You have to tell a story, though, if you want people to retain information." Work that Jones did as a graduate student published this year, involved experiments on 1,586 people to show how this plays out in the way people talk about climate science. Each person was randomly treated to one of four opinion articles and answered survey questions about their climate opinions before and after reading the article. Each article discussed a recent report on the U.S. effects of global warming. One of the four was simply a list of the effects of climate change from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, and points in between, such as "It is 66% likely that the Great Plains area will experience more severe summer droughts." The other three options were all identically-worded stories, with the same facts as the list, but with the good guys, bad guys and solution for global warming swapped out. The options they looked at: "Individualist" story — presented "free competition" as the hero of the story, with "bureaucratic unions" and "the infamous Club of Rome" as the enemy, with a market system as the solution to global warming. "Hierarchical" story — presented "scientific expertise" as the hero of the story, with " Ecodefense" and the "infamous Earthfirst!" as the enemy, with nuclear energy as the solution to global warming. "Egalitarian" story — presented "equal participation" as the hero of the story, with "the radical Cato Institute" and "selfish politicians" as the enemy, with "community-owned renewable" energy as the solution to global warming. People were more likely to agree with scientist's views about climate change after reading a story, rather than a list alone, regardless of which one they read. "But what surprised us was how much the hero mattered," Jones said. People liked the villains less after reading the story, but that didn't affect their views much. Instead, having a hero they liked made them much more favorably disposed towards a solution. "Simple stories with likeable heroes are the most effective, they make people overlook incongruent things in the narrative," Jones says. "Obviously, this has implications across a lot of areas." The findings don't mean that scientists suddenly need to invent parables to reach the public, he suggests, they just need to do more than just throw out the facts and hope that will do all the work. Instead of simply listing the evidence for climate change in reports, and then hoping people decide from hearing it that climate change is real, the findings suggest that scientists would be better off presenting their results in a narrative targeted to their audience's likes and dislikes. Libertarians, for example, might better listen to the facts about climate change if business is presented as the hero that can save the day from ill effects of increasing temperatures. Environmentalists want to hear about renewable energy. Normal folks (that's the hierarchical ones) will listen better if they hear that national security is threatened by a dependence on fossil fuels. Of course, Jones acknowledges that some portion of people just won't accept the evidence for climate change no matter how it is presented, where about 12% of the population was "dismissive" of climate worries, according to a George Mason University survey released in June. "Some of the opposition to addressing climate change is completely rational," he adds, coming from regions of the country, such as West Virginia, where coal and oil interests would see prices in their industries rise with efforts to account for the environmental costs of the greenhouse gases created by burning fossil fuels. The results aren't too surprising, says science writer Chris Mooney, who presented an American Academy of Arts & Sciences report, " Do Scientists Understand the Public?" this summer, looking at steps towards smarter public discussion of personal genomes, nuclear waste, energy and other new technologies. "Scientists have started taking steps in this direction," Mooney says, pointing to the National Academy of Sciences working with Hollywood writers. "They just need to take more." Scientists don't like to hear the story about telling stories, Jones adds. "One of the first places I presented this research was to scientists with the National Weather Service. They hated the idea that you have to tell people a story instead of just giving them 'the facts'," he says. "But the real question is do you want people to hear you, or not?" Yahoo! Buzz Mixx

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Dot Earth: Cities as Hubs of Energy and Climate Action

	Nov 6, 2010	New York Times
	ANDREW C. REVKIN 9:49 p.m. | Updated A pair of energy and development specialists from the mayors' offices in New York City and Los Angeles are going global. Jay Carson, a former deputy Los Angeles mayor and aide to both Clintons, and Rohit Aggarwala, the former chief sustainability advisor to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, are going to work for C40 Cities, a coalition of cities in rich and developing countries working to initiate and share ways to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and boost resilience to impacts of climate change. The two advisers make the move as Bloomberg prepares to take the chairmanship of the group for the next two years. He's in Hong Kong at a meeting focused on China's cities and is giving a speech laying out new goals for the group. The group was created in 2005 in London, largely under the direction of that city's mayor at the time, Ken Livingstone. In 2006, it held its second meeting, in New York City, and began working with the Clinton Climate Initiative, a project of former President Bill Clinton's foundation (and one that Carson worked on). I spoke with Carson and Aggarwala briefly earlier this week: "Our goal is to take C40 to the next level," Carson told me. "As it's become clearer that there's not going to be much action at the federal level, the importance of C40 grows. Some might say it's boring, nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts stuff, but it's in the implementation that happens at the city level where we're going to see the most action on climate change in the near future." Aggarwala noted that cities are natural hubs for initiatives that use energy more sparingly and move people more efficiently through transportation options involving feet, bicycles or mass transit. He said that the philosophy brought to the group by Bloomberg presumes that "economic growth, improving the quality of life and improvements to the environment are all the same thing." "A city is inherently more transit oriented and walkable than a suburb," Aggarwala said. "You're going with the grain of urbanization." Postscript: In the meantime, there are few signs of serious action by wealthy countries to carry out the pledges they made last December to help poorer ones withstand climate impacts and adopt less-polluting energy policies and technologies. On Friday, an advisory panel convened by the United Nations to propose ways to generate some $100 billion a year within a decade released a report on ways to start the money flowing. The best it could do was conclude that raising this money was "challenging but feasible." Oxfam America and other groups working to limit vulnerability to disasters, including those related to climate extremes, were cautiously upbeat about the analysis. "This should be a clarion call to negotiators tha

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Good Energy Policy Makes For Good Economic Policy

Good Energy Policy Makes For Good Economic Policy No Matter Who Is In The Majority
	Nov 4, 2010	Huffington Post
	While news outlets around the country continue to debate the impact of the midterm elections, I'd like to talk about a topic that was of importance long before political ads dominated TV -- and it will continue to be important long after the political analysis of this week's election ends. That topic is good energy policy. In the U.S. and around the world, we're facing an epic energy challenge: meeting rising energy needs while also reducing emissions from energy use. No matter which side of the aisle you support, I think that facing this dual challenge requires a framework of energy policy fundamentals to help guide our course. Regardless of the political complexion of the House or Senate, there are some key policy principles that should be considered not only for energy legislation, but also for any efforts aimed at our economic recovery: 1. Support all economic energy sources to meet growing demand: With global demand for energy projected to be about 30 percent greater in 2030 than it is today, we can't afford to rule out any economic energy sources. We must continue to support production of oil, natural gas and coal, which collectively meet about 80 percent of the world's energy needs. We also must support the development of alternative energy sources when and where they hold economic potential. 2. Promote fair, stable and predictable tax and regulatory policies: Investments in energy resources are measured in decades, not years. The success of these long-term projects depends on consistency in our tax and regulatory structures. Additionally, U.S. energy security depends on a fair tax structure that promotes investment in energy supplies around the world. A recent 10-country study found that the U.S. government takes a larger share of oil and gas earnings abroad than nearly all other countries in the study -- and potential new tax rules could make the U.S. the least competitive among this group, except for India. 3. Don't burden taxpayers with unnecessary energy business risks: Continuing long-term subsidies for alternative energy supplies that are not sustainable in the marketplace is a misuse of valuable taxpayer funds. We've seen this happen with the continued government support of corn ethanol, in addition to other renewable energy sources. By intervening in the nation's energy markets and picking "winners and losers," I think we're overlooking more immediate solutions to our economic and environmental challenges. Consider the fact that natural gas emits about 60 percent fewer emissions compared to coal, the main fuel used for power generation in the U.S. and around the world. And, we have plenty of supplies of it in the U.S. -- so allowing the natural gas industry to compete on a fair basis with other electricity feedstocks would promote new investments and employment and support national energy security. For the new members of Congress heading to Washington in January, as well the returning legislators, economic recovery and growth will be a top priority. One pillar of good economic policy is a sound energy policy. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry is ready to work with our country's leadership to do its part in meeting America's energy and economic recovery needs.

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Guest Post-Dryer Net-Energy Saver

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Art in Renewable Energy

Finding Art in Energy in the United Arab Emirates
	Nov 4, 2010	New York Times
	HILLARY BRENHOUSE NEW YORK — The densely packed stalks that would extract power from the wind, swaying like tall, slender grasses on a patch of desert between intersecting Arabian highways, are only a concept, for now. But in well-developed design plans, the thousand or so resin poles rise 55 meters, or 180 feet, are anchored in concrete bases and are fitted with LED lamps that flicker wildly as they sway in the wind — in proportion to the energy their movements generate. When the air is still, the lights go out. Conceived by the New York collaborative design studio Atelier DNA, Windstalk, as the project is called, recently won second place in a novel international competition in the United Arab Emirates. The Land Art Generator Initiative, now in its first year, considers large-scale land art installations that would double as clean energy producers. Its aim is to help participants to develop and ultimately attract investment to construct power-generating plants that are aesthetically and functionally integrated into the landscape. The contest was established by the husband-and-wife team of Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian, whose firm Studied Impact is focused on the environmental effects of design. "We're responding in part to the not-in-my-backyard mentality we've seen regarding solar and wind installations," Mr. Ferry said. "It's easier for nonpolluting forms of energy to become intertwined in the fabric of urban planning than coal-fire or nuclear plants. If we can come up with ways to make renewable energy look beautiful, it will accelerate the transition to newer types of power." Hundreds of entries from more than 40 countries came in before the competition closed in June. One imagined an 80,000-square-meter, or 860,000-square-foot, sculpture shaped by an undulating ribbon of suspended, thin-film photovoltaic panels like a desert mirage. Another proposed an energy park containing about 200 para-kites, each fluttering glider capable of powering three energy-efficient homes. Visitors to a public display of the designs at the Dubai International Financial Center this summer were able to vote for their favorites, influencing the choice of 50 or so finalists. That shortlist was turned over to a 16-member jury of local and international artists, architects, academics and industry leaders. Selection criteria for the winner included its potential for integration into the surrounding landscape; the estimated amount of usable clean energy it would produce; the way its work would address its audience; the originality and relevance of the concept; and the energy required to build it. First and foremost, the designs were expected to function on a conceptual and artistic level, even if that would result in sacrifices to energy efficiency. Projects were free to draw on any scalable and tested technology as a creative medium. "The sky is the limit," Mr. Ferry said. "There are just so many ways to harness energy from nature." The first-place winner, to be announced in January at the 2011 World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, will receive an award of $15,000, sponsored by Masdar, the Abu Dhabi government-backed renewable energy company. Mr. Ferry and Mrs. Monoian say they hope that the U.A.E.'s first energy-producing artwork will be built in the next three or so years. They are in discussions with investors but are not limiting those talks to the jury's selections. "We're showing potential stakeholders everything, focusing on the projects that are the most pragmatic and buildable," Mr. Ferry said. The thick carpet of "windstalks" that came in second, as announced in early August, is projected to generate as much power in ideal conditions as a conventional wind turbine farm of comparable size. The reedlike poles may not be as powerful as rotating propeller shafts but can be packed more tightly together. Turbines must be adequately spaced apart to avoid turbulence. "Our system thrives on chaos," said Dario Nunez-Ameni of Atelier DNA. "The more movement, the better." Throughout their length, the stalks contain ceramic discs and electrodes strung together by cable. As they rise and fall with the breeze, the discs are compressed, generating an electric current. The concrete bases that accommodate each pole house generators that convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy by way of shock absorbers initially designed for automobiles. For days with calm weather, the power is stored using subterranean pumps. "While I personally find wind turbines to be beautiful and quite graceful, people complain that they destroy landscapes," said Mr. Nunez-Ameni. He said he hoped next year to have a full working prototype that could be used to draw in investment. The third-place entry, Solaris, envisages thousands of concave balloonlike solar units that shift position to respond to environmental conditions. They might realign to block harsh interior winds or orient themselves in particular ways toward the sun. Their surfaces reflect solar rays onto concentrated photovoltaic panels facing the sky, potentially creating enough energy in one year to power the country of Chad. Together, the modules create "a huge shaded interior space where you're isolated from the rapidly growing urbanism of the 21st century that is all over the Arabian Peninsula now," said its designer, Hadrian Predock. The installation was designed by the architectural firm Predock Frane of Santa Monica, California, for a site adjacent to Abu Dhabi's emergent eco-city Masdar, one of three undeveloped, hypothetical locations in the U.A.E. presented to the competitors. "We liked that the site was fairly introverted," said Mr. Predock. "It's surrounded by layers of trees and r

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