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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (357)	6/16/2005 1:35:59 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24206

More on German Green Energy A Newly Electric Green – Sustainable Energy, Resources and Design As we reported earlier, Germany just brought online the world's largest solar plant. While a big deal in itself, the Mulhausen plant really just signals a larger trend. Germany is the fastest-growing market for photvoltaics in the world, worth over 800 million euros (well over one billion dollars) last year, and an estimated 1.8 billion euros in 2004. The German solar industry is already generating 400 MW, more than the rest of Europe put together. (It doesn't stop with solar: as Jamais reported, "Germany is also the world's leading producer of wind power, with over 16,000 windmills; power generation capacity from wind amounted to 14,609 megawatts in 2003, up from 334 megawatts in 1993.") These strong numbers are in large part a result of the German Renewable Energy Law (EEG), which levels the playing field by tilting subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewables. Less noted is Germany's strong commitment to energy efficiency and green design, like the CO2 Building Modernization Program (PDF), which is investing 360 million euro a year in green building retrofits (borrowers who meet particularly high standards only have to back 80% of the loan). worldchanging.com Comments According to Michael Rogol at a lecture at MIT a few months ago, Germany is the biggest PV market, Japan is next and California is third, maybe. Rogol's investment report on the world solar industry is at photon-magazine.com Posted by: gmoke at December 24, 2004 02:43 PM FYI, to clarify, Japan is world's largest market, Germany #2, California #3. - rogol

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (357)	6/16/2005 1:44:19 PM
From: manalagi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24206

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Is OPEC Obsolete? Oil prices didn't budge after the cartel promised to boost crude production—because it's the lack of refining capacity that's the real problem. By Nelson Schwartz The shiny black Mercedes limos left early this morning for the Vienna airport, whisking the OPEC ministers attending the cartel's meeting this week back to their jets for long rides home to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, Africa and Venezuela. But despite the usual media circus surrounding the pronouncements of the cartel and its various oil chieftains, OPEC lately seems to have lost its power to control surging crude prices. Despite the cartel's promise at Wednesday's meeting to add a half-million barrels a day (to 28 million) in new production by July 1 and another half-million, if necessary, by year's end, crude oil prices stayed comfortably above the $55-a-barrel mark on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday. The market shrugged off OPEC's announcement partly because members are already pumping flat out—the International Energy Agency puts actual production by the 10 quota-bound OPEC members at 28 million already—and because few of them aside from Saudi Arabia have the ability to produce much more crude in the near future. Besides, the real story behind the buoyancy of oil prices is limited refining capacity, especially in the U.S. With supplies tight, traders have been bidding up prices of gasoline, heating oil and other refined products, which in turn has caused crude to keep moving higher. So OPEC has had to watch the tail wag the dog in the energy markets, with traders paying more attention to U.S. inventories of gasoline and other end-products than to the amount of crude OPEC has been pumping out of the ground. Don't take our word for it—just listen to Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah, OPEC's president as well as Kuwait's energy minister. "The problem is in the downstream," he said Wednesday. "We are doing our share." Sheikh Ahmad noted that while everyone was focused on geopolitics in 2004, "in 2005 we have to speak about refining." And increasing refining capacity wasn't just a job for OPEC, but for private oil companies, non-OPEC countries, and governments: "Everyone should invest in refining," he said. The sheikh's comments are an admission that in the midst of surging demand for energy from the U.S. and China, and little new supply, OPEC is as powerless as the rest of us. The U.S. hasn't built a new refinery in decades, and any future plants won't come online for years. At this point, the only relief for drivers will come from conservation measures and other government-led efforts. But that's not likely to happen under the current administration. Of course, if oil prices stay high enough to cause real economic pain, demand will cool off—but that's a remedy few of us want to come to pass. (That prospect was raised Thursday by a Morgan Stanley analyst who called the current oil boom the "final frenzy" before a coming price collapse. So much for March's "super spike" report from Goldman Sachs.) As long as tightness prevails, the winners are likely to be companies such as Valero Energy, the largest independent refiner in the U.S, as well as big energy giants like ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil, both of which have major refining operations. As for Sheikh Ahmad and his fellow ministers, $55-a-barrel oil has its consolations: Each day, Kuwait rakes in roughly $100 million from crude sales—about $100 for each Kuwaiti man, woman, and child—and Saudi Arabia takes in nearly half a billion. Maybe that's why the ministers took Mercedes limos to the airport, not Priuses. fortune.com