China to Halt New Coal Mine Approvals Amid Pollution Fight

05.01.2016

China will stop approving new coal mines for the next three years and continue to trim production capacity as the world’s biggest energy consumer tries to shift away from the fuel as it grapples with pollution. China will suspend the approval of new mines starting in 2016. and will cut coal’s share of its energy consumption to 62.6 percent next year, from 64.4 percent now, Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday, citing National Energy Administration head Nur Bekri. It’s the first time the government has suspended the approval of new coal mines, according to Deng Shun, an analyst with ICIS China.

The world’s biggest producer of carbon emissions is seeking to boost the use of renewable fuels as smog has blanketed cities from Shanghai to Beijing, forcing factories and schools to close and intensifying pressure on public officials to cut pollution. This month China suspended price adjustments for fuel as a way to curb automobile exhaust and it has pledged to peak carbon emissions around 2030, by which time it aims to derive 20 percent of the energy it uses from clean sources.“This new policy, along with efforts to eliminate inefficient mines, may help to ease the severe domestic oversupply” of coal, Deng said by phone from Guangzhou. “It will take several years to take effect.”

Renewable Boost

The country will also close more than 1,000 coal mines next year, taking out 60 million metric tons of unneeded capacity, according to the Xinhua report. China shuttered a similar number of mines this year, wiping out 70 million tons of production, according to a separate statement from the NEA dated Dec. 29. The country is on track to produce 3.58 billion tons of coal this year, down 0.5 percent from 2014, according to the NEA. China plans to increase wind and solar power capacity by more than 21 percent and have at least 20 gigawatts of new wind power installations and 15 gigawatts of additional photo voltaic capacity next year, according to the NEA statement.

Beijing officials on Friday raised the city’s air pollution alert to orange, the second-highest on the four-grade scale, warning children and the elderly to avoid outdoor activities as limited visibility from the thick smog forced the airport to cancel 227 departures. The chronic air pollution has renewed calls for the government to make better forecasts and act faster to help clear the skies over the city of 21.5 million. Coal demand in China has slid as its economy slows amid a shift toward consumption-led growth and while it intensifies efforts to rein in pollution. China plans to ask companies to replace electricity generated from their own coal-fired plants with renewable energy, the National Development and Reform Commission said last month. Thermal coal at the port of Newcastle in Australia, a global benchmark, dropped to $50.63 a ton in the week ended Dec. 25, the lowest since December 2006, according to data from Global coal. Prices have declined 18 percent this year.

China’s total coal production capacity including under mines construction is estimated at more than 5 billion tons while its coal output for next year will probably reach 3.7 billion tons, leaving more than 20 percent of its capacity idle, according to David Fang, a director with China Coal Transport and Distribution Association in Beijing. “We expect to see less downside pressure on coal prices in view of ongoing production cuts in 2016 and demand recovery, albeit at a slow pace,” said Helen Lau, an analyst with Argonaut Securities (Asia) Ltd. “China is still oversupplied.” The NEA estimates China next year will consume 3.96 billion tons of coal, 550 million tons of oil and 205 billion cubic meters of natural gas, according to the Xinhua report.

Source: www.bloomberg.com

Fresh Climate Data Confirms 2015 Is Unlike Any Other Year in Human History

29.12.2015

Over the past few days, a bevy of climate data has come together to tell a familiar yet shocking story: Humans have profoundly altered the planet’s life-support system, with 2015. increasingly likely to be an exclamation point on recent trends. On Monday, scientists at Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, said our planet will finish this year more than one degree Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels for the first time. That figure is halfway to the line in the sand that scientists say represents “dangerous” climate change and global leaders have committed to avoid—an ominous milestone.

This year’s global heat wave—about two-tenths of a degree warmer than 2014., a massive leap when averaged over the entire planet—can be blamed most immediately on an exceptionally strong El Niño but wouldn’t exist without decades of heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuel burning. Separate data released on Monday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed the current El Niño, a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, has now tied 1997. for the strongest event ever measured, at least on a weekly basis.

“We’ve had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we are set to reach the 1 degree marker and it’s clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory,” said Stephen Belcher, director of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in a statement. The Met Office data were quickly confirmed on Twitter by Gavin Schmidt, who leads the research center in charge of NASA’s global temperature dataset, which uses a slightly different methodology:

If that wasn’t enough, the World Meteorological Organization, a division of the United Nations, also confirmed on Monday that global carbon dioxide levels reached a new record high in 2014.—for the 30th consecutive year. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more efficient the planet is at trapping the sun’s heat, and so global temperatures rise. Since our carbon dioxide emissions have a lifespan of a hundred years or so, there’s a significant lag in this process—temperatures will keep rising for decades even if all human emissions ceased today.

That means not only will 2015. end up as the planet’s warmest year in millennia—and probably since the invention of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago—but that there’s a lot more warming that’s already baked into the global climate system. All that extra heat is already changing the planet in complex ways. For example, as of last week, there’s fresh evidence that the Atlantic Ocean’s fundamental circulation system is slowing down. Over the past few years, a notoriously persistent cold patch of ocean has emerged just south of Greenland in the north Atlantic. There have been several theories as to why this is happening, but most involve a slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global oceanic “conveyor belt” system of eat and water that helps regulate the Earth’s climate by cooling off the tropics and gently warming polar regions. You wouldn’t necessarily expect persistent record-cold temperatures when the planet overall temperature is at record highs, but that’s exactly what’s happening:

The AMOC is so important that its slowdown has been linked to past episodes of abrupt climate change, like a three-degree Celsius drop in Northern Hemisphere temperatures in less than 20 years about 8,000 years ago, and formed the highly dramatized basis for the planetary chaos featured in The Day After Tomorrow.

Earlier this year, an important study provided further strong evidence that melting ice from Greenland has begun to disrupt and slow down the ocean’s circulation by changing the density of the north Atlantic, with profound consequences: In 2009, East Coast sea levels sharply—and temporarily—jumped by about four inches as water piled up. Stronger winter storms and an interruption of the Atlantic marine food chain also may already be happening. According to a new analysis released last week, scientists used data from a pair of NASA satellites to track climate-related changes in the north Atlantic—the first time ocean currents have been tracked from space.

Over the last decade, the satellites were able to take highly precise measurements of the literal weight of the ocean between Florida and Iceland that corroborated measurements from a network of ocean buoys over the same general place and time. From that information, they were able to calculate that the Atlantic’s circulation is indeed slowing down, a potential climate tipping point that’s been long predicted to occur at some point in the 21st century. Call it one more data point from a rapidly changing planet. Still, despite the blindingly clear data, there’s hope that the tide could—finally—be shifting on climate change. Later this month, world leaders were gathering in Paris and they made agreement to the first-ever global agreement to constrain future emissions trajectories in a meaningful way—possibly enough to avoid the worst-case climate scenario.

Vesna Vukajlović

Source: www.slate.com

Photo: www.slate.com

Serbia, Bosnia mining: Mineco base metals mining and trading in SEE and Russia

28.12.2015

The Balkans has a rich history of mining; mines opened by Romans in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD still operate in Artana and the Saxons mined extensively across the region (locally, Gross is known as ‘Sase’ in recognition of its origins as a 14th Century mine). Modern, industrialized mining was started by the Austrians and by the 20th Century the copper mines of Bor in Serbia and the Trepca lead complex in what is now Kosovo were among the largest operations of their kind in Europe. However this proud tradition of mining was dramatically interrupted by the breakup of Yugoslavia, the ensuing civil war and international economic sanctions, as Mineco’s Operations Director Dominic Roberts explains: “Unfortunately the ramifications of the civil war in the early 1990s are still felt today in many areas. All of our mines suffered to some extent in the war, particularly Gross and Veliki Majdan.

Gross, for example, stopped production in 1990., it did restart in 1998. but by the time we acquired it in 2005. it was in a terrible state of repair and was running at a fraction of its capacity.” Starting off as a commodity trading company in 2003., Mineco soon expanded its operation into base metal mining and the smelting and refining of metals. It currently has three lead and zinc mines in Bosnia and Serbia – Gross, Rudnik and Veliki Majdan – with a further two projects under development. In Russia, Mineco owns the largest lead refinery in the country. Roberts explains: “There is nothing we take more seriously than our commitment to our key stakeholders, the communities and environments which we serve.” Across its projects Mineco works hard to improve the environmental and social aspects of its operations. Gross mine has become a regional center of best environmental and waste management practice.

A recently completed $2 million investment programme has ensured the tailings dam not only meets local legislative requirements but those of the voluntary Equator Principles set by the IFC & World Bank. It’s worth noting that 99 percent of Mineco’s staff are locals, taking advantage of the region’s specialisms that existed before the war. Roberts says: “Yugoslavia had an enviable reputation for academic excellence. The education and university system produced some very, very good engineers. The issue is that, again due to the breakup and the civil war, a lot of that experience was lost in the consequent diaspora. The engineers that stayed unfortunately lost access to at least a decade of technological advances by the rest of the mining world.”

Mineco is working hard to modernise its operations wherever practical, ensuring they will comply with international best practice and educating its workforce on the technical advancements that have been made around the world. This goes hand in hand with the long-standing recognition within Mineco that its employees are, in fact, its most important natural resource, being ultimately responsible for the group’s growth and successes.

The new projects that Mineco is working on are also in the Balkans, and it’s a part of the world Roberts knows quite well, having worked there firstly in the army, and then using his geology degree and project management skills in the mining industry. And it’s an area that still has enormous potential when it comes to base metal mining. “We are Balkans specialists. It’s our part of the world. We know it and we understand it. There are still opportunities remaining in the Balkans as it is such a heavily mineralized area, however very few of the mineral deposits are of a scale or size that any of the major mining companies would consider. For us, it is the ideal market for a mid-cap, medium-sized company to operate and expand.”

Mineco’s next mine is Olovo in Bosnia, which is scheduled to open in July next year. “Olovo is a very interesting prospect. Unlike our other mines it is not a polymetallic sulphide deposit but rather a rare form of secondary mineralization called cerussite that contains only lead. Olovo is a relatively small mine but its reserves of 1.7 million tonnes are very high grade. Its full operating capacity, in 2017., will be 150,000 tonnes a year,” says Roberts. Olovo is another particular good example of a refurbishing a mine that was abandoned during the war, standing inactive since 1991. But while there is nothing left on the surface, the underground workings remain. “We’ve finished rehabilitating all the underground systems and we’re now in the final permitting stage for the surface infrastructure,” says Roberts. The mine will go on to employ around 200 people and bring substantial direct and indirect revenues to a community with extremely high unemployment.

Another development project is located in Bosilegrad, which is a lead and zinc ore body located in the south east of Serbia. “At Bosilegrad we have over four million tonnes of resources and we’re currently undertaking all of the test work to design the processing plant,” says Roberts. Having already invested in excess of $11 million, production is planned to start in 2017. following a pilot plant next summer, which will be used to confirm the technical specifications of the full project. At approximately 1,400m above sea level, this high altitude mine sits in a very remote community in the mountains between Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia. Unofficial unemployment is currently over 50 percent so, as with Olovo, the commissioning of this mine will make a substantial difference to the local community, where we intend to employ about 250 people,” Roberts adds. There are also two exploration projects underway, both in Bosnia.

Roberts says: “The first near Gorazde – an antimony exploration project – and the second in Celebici, near Foca. As mentioned already, from our perspective in the Balkans, we don’t need to commit to greenfield explorations, because there’s such a complex history of mining enabling us to focus on brownfield opportunities. The Gorazde project is an abandoned mine and Celebici is the potential extension of an existing mine.” Roberts adds: “We are continuously conducting due diligence on other potential projects. And to do this we operate an in-house team that we call the PDT – the Project Delivery Team. A handpicked team of geologists and mining engineers who review and develop new projects for Mineco.” The 15-member PDT operates from Belgrade and assists Roberts in evaluating potential new projects and developing those that get the green light. It is another element of Mineco that illustrates its specialism model. “The PDT is another internal center of excellence.

While the team are all locally recruited, in keeping with our employment philosophy, they have all worked internationally at some stage in their career and been exposed to best practice and different forms of mineralisation and mining across the world.” Away from the mining operations Mineco continues its global trading activity. From its London, Zug and Moscow offices, Mineco markets not only its own concentrates, but also the output of a number of other mines in the Balkan region and across Europe and the CIS countries. Through a strategic alliance with the international commodities house, Ocean Partners, Mineco maintains a global trading presence. Completing its vertical integration Mineco owns and operates the Fregat secondary lead smelter. Located in the Moscow region, it recently became the first Russian smelter to achieve registration of its products with the London Metal Exchange. “With the capacity to recycle 170,000 tons of batteries per year and currently producing some 35,000 tons of prime lead metal, it is the largest lead refinery in the whole of Russia – something everyone in Mineco is very proud of,” says Roberts. Summing up, Roberts says: “Mineco is privately owned, with no external debt, a robust balance sheet and we enjoy healthy margins at our producing mines. We are ideally placed to take advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves over the coming couple of years. Investors reinforce their successes, and I am very confident that we will increase annual production by at least 50 percent over the next three years”.

Vesna Vukajlović
Source: www.energy-serbia.eu

Costa Rica Powers 285 Days of 2015 With 100% Renewable Energy

28.12.2015

In March, EcoWatch reported that Costa Rica powered the first 82 days of the year solely with renewable energy. Now that we’re closing in on the end of the year, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced that the country ran entirely on renewables for 285 days between Jan. 1 and Dec. 17.
“We are closing 2015. with renewable electricity milestones that have put us in the global spotlight,” ICE electricity division chief Luis Pacheco told to AFP. The majority of the country’s energy (75 percent) comes from hydropower, thanks to a vast river system and abundant rainfall, and the rest of its renewables come from geothermal, biomass, wind and solar.

Despite a very dry year, ICE said it was ahead of its renewable energy targets and Pacheco predicted that 2016. would be an even better year because a new $2.3 billion hydroelectric plant will be coming online. The country reportedly wants to move away from its dependency on hydropower, though, and harness more of its electricity needs from geothermal and wind. It plans to retire its heavy fuel oil-powered Moin plant in 2017. and wants to move its transportation sector away from fossil fuels.

The country has made all this progress, while reducing overall energy costs, which fell by 12 percent this year and the ICE expects costs to keep falling. “The government has pledged to build an electric train which will be integrated with public buses,” Gabriel Goldschmidt, regional head of infrastructure for Latin America and Caribbean at the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank, told the Huffington Post. “There is also a proposal to start replacing oil-powered cars with electric cars as part of a new bill in congress that aims to offer consumer incentives to lower the prices of these cars.

This would have multiple benefits including better air quality. ”Costa Rica’s heavy reliance on hydropower has been criticized by some. Gary Wockner of Save the Colorado argues that hydropower is actually “one of the biggest environmental problems our planet faces” and a “false solution” for addressing climate change. “Hydropower has been called a ‘methane factory’ and ‘methane bomb’ that is just beginning to rear its ugly head as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that have so-far been unaccounted for in climate change discussions and analyses,” Wockner said last month.

Still, the country is among the vanguard of nations around the world moving towards a 100 percent renewable energy future. Several countries have hit impressive benchmarks for renewables in just a few short years. And many places have already made the transition to fossil-fuel-free electricity.
Samso in Denmark became the world’s first island to go all in on renewables several years ago. Most recently, Uruguay, three U.S. cities—Burlington, Vermont; Aspen, Colorado; and Greensburg, Kansas—along with Kodiak Island, Alaska, have all made the transition. San Diego, Vancouver, Las Vegas and other major cities around the world have pledged to go 100 percent renewable. Sweden made headlines earlier this year when it pledged to be among the first countries to go fossil free.

Hawaii pledged to do so by 2045—the most ambitious standard set by a U.S. state thus far. Several other islands, including Aruba, Belize, St. Lucia, Grenada, the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and San Andres and Providence have pledged to go 100 percent renewable, through the Ten Island Challenge, created by Richard Branson’s climate group the Carbon War Room. Greenpeace and researchers at Stanford and UC Berkeley have laid out plans for every state in the U.S. to adopt 100 percent renewables and a Greenpeace report published in September posits the world can achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. Mark Jacobson, one of the researchers from Stanford, said the barriers to 100 percent clean energy are social and political, not technical or economic.

Just last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in an interview that “You could take a corner of Utah or Nevada and power the entire United States with solar power.” And, it looks as if the Paris climate conference earlier this month helped create market certainty in renewables, as fossil fuel stocks tumbled and renewable energy stocks soared. After the landmark Paris agreement was reached, the coal industry’s European lobbying association feared that the deal meant the sector “will be hated and vilified, in the same way that slave traders were once hated and vilified.”

Source: www.ecowatch.com

EBRD still can’t say no to destructive Macedonian dam

25.12.2015

Mala hidroelektrana — Foto-ilustracija: Wikimedia/Dr Richard Murray

The Bern Convention recommendation, warmly welcomed by Macedonian environmental organizations, was based on an independent expert study into the planned hydropower developments in Mavrovo, Europe’s oldest national park situated in the northwest of Macedonia and home to the endangered Balkan lynx.

The study authors found the hydropower development to be “not compatible with the status of protection of the park”, and concluded that the Boškov Most project “as currently designed must be abandoned until the conservation status of the Balkan lynx population is brought back to a safe level and until when the Mavrovo National Park is no longer the only known core area of reproduction of this species.”

The Committee’s decision also suggested international financial institutions revisit their involvement in hydropower projects in Mavrovo in anticipation of the conclusions of the upcoming SEA. In a statement on December 9, the EBRD quickly announced that it is “fully respecting” the Bern Convention recommendations. While stressing that no disbursements have yet been made on the EBRD board approved EUR 65 million financing for Boškov Most, the bank let it be known that it “will consider the results of the strategic environmental assessment of cumulative effects of all planned development activities on the territory of the Park when deciding on the financing of the hydropower projects in the Park.”

Responding to the Bern Convention’s recommendation, Ana Colović Lesoska, executive director of the Macedonian environmental group Eko-Svest, said: “The Committee has now sent an unequivocal message to the Macedonian government and everybody involved in this egregious project that protected areas are there for a reason. In light of today’s decision, the Macedonian government should seriously reconsider its plans for hydropower developments in the Mavrovo National Park.

Specifically, the government should engage the public and civil society in the decision-making process, and it should also acknowledge Macedonia’s international responsibility to protect wildlife and natural habitats in the park through allocating the necessary funds for the conservation of the Balkan Lynx population.” For five years now, Macedonian environmental organizations have raised their voices against planned hydropower plants in the Mavrovo National Park. They have repeatedly insisted that hydro dams in national parks result in the destruction of habitats and species, that they cannot contribute to nature conservation and, therefore, should be avoided.

However, the Macedonian government has been vigorous in its support of such energy developments and set out early to involve the EBRD in this roller coaster. In 2011, therefore, the EBRD approved a EUR 65 million loan for the Boškov Most.

The bank soon found out, if it had not known before, that the area of the planned dam is the core reproductive area of the fragile Balkan Lynx population. The EBRD doubtless gulped a bit more when the highly respected International Union for Conservation of Nature confirmed that the population of the Balkan Lynx is officially considered to be critically endangered – there are less than 40 individuals of this species left in the wild.

To date, fortunately, no project construction has started as the EBRD was knuckle rapped by its own complaints mechanism that it had failed to comply with its policies when deciding to finance a project in a critical habitat. As a result of the expert report from the EBRD complaints mechanism, more studies are in motion to assess whether Boškov Most is, yes, worth the sacrifice of the Mavrovo National Park. Last year, the project cost estimates jumped three times as the dam was estimated to cost around EUR 150 million and, if the EBRD is seriously considering further support, its Board of Directors would need to sign off on a new loan for the 68MW plant.

“The Boškov Most project has now become synonymous with endless trouble and it has already inflicted significant reputational damage on the EBRD,” says Fidanka Bacheva Mc Grath, EBRD campaign coordinator at Bank watch. “Surely the EBRD realizes it is only going to get worse as a new strategic impact assessment buys the project some more time, but is unlikely to contradict numerous assessments done to date. The recommendation to suspend the hydro power plans should give the EBRD enough reason to pull out of the project.” The SEA is expected to take another year, thus adding another two commitment fee tranches paid to the EBRD by Macedonian citizens, who neither want nature destruction nor getting poorer. In the four years since the signing of the Boškov Most project loan, ‘commitment fees’ paid to the EBRD by the Macedonian government has reached EUR 1,950,000.

Source: www. bankwatch.org

Enviromental Protection is Primary Program for Companies

24.12.2015

Sanja Ivanic, generalna direktorka Francusko-srpske privredne komore — ????????????????????????????????????

French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce has expended its number of members during 2015. and now it counts 130 companies. The chamber promotes arrival of French companies to Serbia form its foundation and it improves relations with other associations and chambers in Serbia. This institution strives to increase the presence of Serbian companies in French regions. France is the utmost investor in Europe, and it has invested around 500 million euros in Serbia.

These investments are not enough but they should be more significant bearing in mind that events, meetings, economic forms are held regularly. Sanja Ivanić is the executive manager of French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce and for Special COP 21, she talks about the importance of environmental protection of all companies operating in Serbia. She also highlights why it is important, to political and governmental will, to raise the awareness of climate changes to high level in private and economy sector.

EP: You are at the head of the Chamber of Commerce which improves business relations between France and Serbia. Many member companies belong to the energy sector; how do they prepare for the conference COP 21, and what is the best practice in France, which should be applied in Serbia?
Sanja Ivanić: As a network of successful companies, which take into account sustainable development in their business, we believe that the model of “green economy” enables economic growth, creates new workplaces and increases competitiveness. The fight against climate changes is also an opportunity for companies to introduce innovative solutions and to suggest new models of development. Several French companies, members of French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce have excellent examples of business practices that were recently presented at the Conference held at the Embassy of France. As companies that come from countries in which green economy is an issue of paramount importance and taking into account that French experience and achievements in this field, we have special responsibility to transfer this expertise to Serbian market.

EP: In your opinion, why is it important that companies take participation in the conference COP 21 in addition to numerous participants of the conference that come from governmental sector, NGO sector and international institutions?
Sanja Ivanić: It is necessary to establish a comprehensive public-private partnership for transition toward green economy by involving all relevant stakeholders and all castes. In addition to constant presence of our member companies at relevant conferences, fairs and public debates on the issue of green economy, French companies have an open cooperation with representatives of institutions and public sector on this issue. The economy is an indispensable stakeholder in environmental protection. Global companies have brought environmental protection into operation as one of the primary programmes as a part of business strategy of corporate social responsibility. We believe that the private sector plays an important role in this regard. After all, experience speaks about why it is necessary for the large private companies to be included in solving this important social issue.

EP: What would be your recommendation to the members of French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce for the future when it comes to the global warming, environmental protection and energy efficiency?
Sanja Ivanić: We pay special attention on raising awareness among young people, and we strive to motivate them as early as possible to make them think about the ways of implementing sustainable development in practice. The same year when the Chamber was created, we created the Student Award which is organised with the support of our companies that reward the best student’s papers and action plans on sustainable development. We have seen several really interesting student’s suggestions in the last five editions of the Prize, and that is the proof that our young generations are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of this issue for our economy and society in general.

Interviewed by Vesna Vukajlović

More breweries in USA going solar

23.12.2015

Six Western North Carolina breweries have installed solar panel systems, joining a fast-growing trend in business in general. North Carolina has been near the top of the solar pack and last year ranked second in the U.S. in the number of solar panel installations.

“Solar is hot,” said Tom Kimbis, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group tracking solar use in the U.S. Kimbis recently honored WNC’s six solar breweries with his organization’s Solar Champion Award.

Solar is the fastest-growing energy source in the country, he said. Its use is being powered by how much sunshine an area receives, the cost of solar versus conventional energy, and government incentives to install systems. A 30 percent federal solar energy tax credit has given businesses a push to charge up with sunshine, Kimbis said.

In North Carolina, a state solar tax credit has not been extended into the new year, Kimbis said Even without the state credit extension, solar use is surging in the Tar Heel state, he said. Current numbers show 189 solar energy companies in North Carolina, employing 5,600 people, he said.

The price of solar systems is continuing to drop, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The average cost of a residential installation in the third quarter of this year was $3.55 per watt – that’s 46 percent lower than in 2010.

Here is how the area’s breweries stack up on solar:

Highland Brewing, Asheville

Solar panels: 1,045.
Power produced: 324.25 kilowatts of DC power, total AC power 250 kilowatts
Percent of brewery energy produced by solar: 100 percent.
Why the company went solar: “It was the right thing to do,” said Highland president Leah Ashburn. “Tax credits made it possible to do it.”

Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Boone

Solar panels: 20
Power produced: About 6,700 kilowatts annually.
Percent of brewery energy produced by solar: Almost all the brewery’s needs.
Why the company went solar: “It offsets our carbon footprint.” said brewery CEO Sean Spiegelman. “Anything we can do” to protect the environment, “we make sure to do it.”

Innovation Brewing, Sylva
Solar panels: 100
Power produced: 28.5 kilowatts
Percent of brewery energy produced by solar: About 50 percent.
Why the company went solar: “I went to school to study environmental science,” said brewery co-founder Nicole Dexter. “We want to grow and we want to operate with sustainable” energy”.

Sierra Nevada Brewing, Mills River
Solar panels: 2,198
Power produced: 710 kilowatts or enough to switch on 11,860 light bulbs.
Percent of brewery energy produced by solar: Not yet measured.
Why the company went solar: “It’s been a big deal for us since the beginning of Sierra Nevada,” said company spokesman Bill Manley. “We have long had an eye on sustainable energy.”

Source: www.citizen-times.com

EBRD boosts steel dust recycling in Turkey

23.12.2015

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is promoting industrial waste recycling in Turkey with a US$ 20 million loan to Befesa Silvermet İskenderun Çelik Tozu Geri Dönüşümü A.Ş., a company which operates a steel dust recycling plant in the south-eastern city of Iskenderun.

At the plant the company is extracting zinc from electric arc furnace dust, a hazardous waste generated by steel producers that needs to be recycled or disposed of in specialised landfills. The company uses highly efficient Waelz technology to transform electric arc furnace dust into secondary zinc, also known as Waelz oxide (WOX).

The final product is then sold to the world’s leading zinc smelters, shifting the zinc industry from mining to recycling. The EBRD’s financing will double the plant’s capacity for electric arc furnace dust treatment to 110,000 tonnes per year. The investment supports a profitable solution for recycling zinc from steel dust instead of producing it from limited natural resources. It also helps reduce the amount of hazardous waste sent to landfills in one of the three main steel-making regions of Turkey.

Turkey is the eighth-largest steel producer in the world and the fifth-largest producer of electric arc furnace dust. Frederic Lucenet, EBRD Director for Manufacturing and Services, said: “By producing from industrial waste a high-value product for which there is worldwide demand, Befesa Silvermet is transforming trash into treasure.

“The EBRD is pleased to be financing this exemplary solution as part of its efforts to advance sustainable waste management and promote a circular economy in Turkey and elsewhere. “The Iskenderun plant has the potential to become a showcase for exporting the company’s recycling model to other steel-making countries where the EBRD invests.”

Befesa Silvermet İskenderun is owned by a joint venture between Spain’s Befesa Zinc S.A.U., a leading recycler of steel waste in Europe, and Canada’s Silvermet Inc., active in steel dust recycling in Turkey. Asier Zarraonandia Ayo, Director and CEO of Befesa Zinc, said: “Coming to Turkey was our strategic decision. We see great potential, believe in the country and are happy to bring the best available steel dust recycling technology to the Turkish market.”

Stephen G. Roman, Chairman, President and CEO of Silvermet, commented: “The $25 million expansion will allow us to double recycling capacity, increasing the production of zinc concentrate to over 50,000,000 pounds of contained zinc per year. The upgraded facility will use state-of-the-art environmental technology and will boost profits.”

The EBRD loan to Befesa Silvermet İskenderun is part of the Bank’s new Green Economy Transition approach, which will increase the level of EBRD financing in the sphere of sustainable resources to some €18 billion over the next five years. The EBRD started investing in Turkey in 2009 and currently operates from offices in Istanbul, Ankara and Gaziantep.

To date, the EBRD has invested over €6.8 billion in Turkey through 170 projects in infrastructure, energy, agribusiness, industry and finance. It has also mobilised about €16 billion for these ventures from other sources of financing. In 2015 the EBRD expects to invest over €1.7 billion in Turkey, its top financing destination.

Vesna Vukajlović

Source: www.ebrd.com

Global coal demand stalls after more than a decade of relentless growth

18.12.2015

Following more than a decade of aggressive growth, global coal demand has stalled, the International Energy Agency said Friday in its annual coal market report. The report sharply lowered its five-year global coal demand growth forecast in reflection of economic restructuring in China, which represents half of global coal consumption. Greater policy support for renewable energy and energy efficiency – the foundation of the COP21 agreement in Paris – is also expected to dent coal demand.

The IEA’s Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2015 slashed its five-year estimate of global coal demand growth by more than 500 million tones of coal equivalent (Mtce) in recognition of the tremendous pressures facing coal markets. The revision comes as official preliminary data indicate that a decline in Chinese coal demand occurred in 2014 and is set to accelerate in 2015. A decline in coal consumption in China for two consecutive years would be the first since 1982.

“The coal industry is facing huge pressures, and the main reason is China – but it is not the only reason,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said as he launched the report in Singapore at an event organized by the Energy Market Authority. “The economic transformation in China and environmental policies worldwide – including the recent climate agreement in Paris – will likely continue to constrain global coal demand.”

Coal demand in China is sputtering as the Chinese economy gradually shifts to one based more on services and less on energy-intensive industries. New Chinese hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are also significantly curtailing coal power generation, driven not only by energy security and climate concerns but also by efforts to reduce local pollution.

Given the strong rebalancing of China’s economy, the report also presents an alternate scenario in which Chinese coal demand has already peaked. In this so-called “peak coal scenario”, infrastructure and energy-intensive industries represent a lower share of Chinese GDP than in the report’s base case, while services and high-tech manufacturing gain momentum. In the peak case, Chinese coal demand in 2020 is 9.8% percent below the level in 2013 and more than 300 Mtce below the base-case forecast of nearly 2950 Mtce in 2020.

Meanwhile, global coal demand in the peak case drops to around 5500 Mtce in 2020 – falling 0.1% per year on average, compared with growth of 0.8% per year in the report’s main forecast. The report sees coal demand outside China modestly increasing through 2020 as the structural decline in Europe and the United States is more than offset by growth in India and Southeast Asia. The Indian government’s push for universal energy access and an expansion of manufacturing will drive electricity growth. In addition to India’s ambitious renewable targets (175 GW of renewables by 2022, of which 100 GW are solar PV), coal will provide a significant share of the additional power requirements – as much as 60% through 2020. Indeed, preliminary data show India overtaking China as the world’s largest coal importer this year.

The region with the highest growth rate in coal use in the outlook period is in Southeast Asia, where Indonesia, Viet Nam, Malaysia and Philippines among others plan to underpin their power generation with new coal power plants. Unfortunately, around half of the new coal-fired generation capacity under development in the region still uses inefficient subcritical technologies.

Slowing economic growth and energy consumption in China as well as the restriction of coal use in its coastal regions will impact seaborne trade, especially Indonesian exports. In the IEA report’s forecast, Australia takes a growing share of seaborne coal trade.

Prices continue to remain at low levels. In December 2015, prices of imported coal in Europe fell below USD 50/tone – levels not seen in a decade. Persistent oversupply and shrinking imports in China and elsewhere suggest prices will remain under pressure through 2020.

With the recent COP21 agreement in Paris calling for the global increase in temperatures to be limited to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, the IEA reiterated that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will be essential for enabling future use of coal without large CO2 emissions. “Governments and industry must increase their focus on this technology if they are serious about long-term climate goals,” said Fatih Birol. “CCS is not just a coal technology. It is not a technology just for power generation. It is an emissions reduction technology that will need to be widely deployed to achieve our low-carbon future.”

Source: www.iea.org

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