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

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9893)	1/29/2010 1:10:51 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 24223

AUSTRALIA - RECORD HOT DAYS CONTINUE TO OUTNUMBER RECORD COLD DAYS, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Over the past decade high temperature records have been outnumbering low temperature records by a ratio of between two & three to one. While low temperature records are still occurring, record highs have become increasingly frequent since the mid-1990s. "In 2009 Australia experienced three major heatwaves - in January/February, August and November - all of which saw widespread record-breaking over large areas. The last time record lows occurred on that scale was in June 2007 in tropical Australia." The changes in the frequency of record temperatures in Australia are consistent with the warming trend in average temperatures, which have been increasing at 0.1-0.2C per decade over most of the continent in the period since 1957. Current projections by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology suggest the warming trend is expected to continue over the coming decades. WASHINGTON - Warmer-than-usual weather worries local farmers. It's only January, but some raspberries are already budding. That's not supposed to happen for months. It's also RARE to have an average high of 45 degrees in the middle of January in Bellingham. It's usually 10 degrees cooler. And that's not good news for farmers. Seeing green in January could mean less green for farmers when it's time to sell their crop. "What will happen is that they will lose productive capacity of their plants...In February and March, we've had some really cold temperatures and if that happens, nobody knows, we will get some damage." Washington supplies 85 percent of the nation's processed raspberries. If there's significant damage to the crop, some companies may have to substitute with cherries to make up for the lost berries.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9893)	1/31/2010 12:45:05 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24223

China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy By KEITH BRADSHER Published: January 30, 2010 TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. As China takes the lead on wind turbines, above, and solar panels, President Obama is calling for American industry to step up. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China. “Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,” he told Congress. The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race. Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators. “You have to move fast with the market,” said Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. “Nobody has ever seen such fast development in a wind market.” Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association. Yet renewable energy may be doing more for China’s economy than for the environment. Total power generation in China is on track to pass the United States in 2012 — and most of the added capacity will still be from coal. China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States. Coal will still represent two-thirds of China’s capacity in 2020, and nuclear and hydropower most of the rest. As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the advantage of being the world’s largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing. China’s top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself. Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China. China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year. To meet demand in the coming decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to add nearly nine times as much electricity generation capacity as the United States will. So while Americans are used to thinking of themselves as having the world’s largest market in many industries, China’s market for power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, even though the American market is more mature. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production. In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively. Interest rates as low as 2 percent for bank loans — the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy — have also made a big difference. As in many other industries, China’s low labor costs are an advantage in energy. Although Chinese wages have risen sharply in the last five years, Vestas still pays assembly line workers here only $4,100 a year. 1 2 nytimes.com