The fourth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative kicked off today, bringing together heads of state, business leaders, and representatives from non-governmental organizations in New York City to discuss major initiatives to address the world's challenges. "Energy & Climate Change" are among the four commitment areas the conference is focused on this year, and former President Bill Clinton began the day by announcing several new commitments in that area.
AREVA and Duke Energy announced that they are making a commitment to to construct 10-12 wood biomass plants by 2014. Each plant will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 400,000 tons each year, and the commitment will prevent 4 million tons of CO2 emissions overall each year and create hundreds of new green-collar jobs, said Clinton.
The Nike Foundation, the World Bank, and the government of Liberia also announced a three-year, $5 million initiative to educate 1,500 young girls in the country. Clinton noted that this project is also an effort to address both poverty and climate change. Scientists say that global emissions need to be reduced 80 percent by 2050, said Clinton, and during the same period, the world population is expected to grow from 6.5 to 9 million. It would be difficult to reduce emissions to that extent if population growth is not slowed, said Clinton. "The only thing that slows population growth ... [is to] put every young girl in school," said Clinton.
Later in the day, India's Suzlon Green Power Ltd. announced that they are making a $5 billion investment in green energy over five years. The company pledged to generate 3,500 megawatts of green electricity, which will serve 10 million people in India and China.
The investment was announced by Tulsi R. Tanti, founder of the wind-turbine company, Suzlon. Their new Suzlon Green Power venture marks an expansion of their business, noting the increased need as the economies and energy use of India and China expand. "If it is not established in a sustainable way, then it is a big disaster for the world," said Tanti.
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Comments
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Jonas Posted 8:44 pm
24 Sep 2008
http://www.opc.com/Newsroom/RecentNews/ct_000410
At last biomass is beginning to grow a bit in the U.S. It was about time.
Note, yesterday the UNEP's landmark report on how the green economy will generate millions of new jobs, also noted that the biomass sector is going to be enormous: 12 million new jobs by 2030 (wind: 2.1 million; solar: 6.3 million).
Great!
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Jonas Posted 8:47 pm
24 Sep 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva
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amazingdrx Posted 12:10 am
25 Sep 2008
The Haitian power plan, burn trees. No conservation mentioned either. In fact the company claims power demand will increase.
Good example of the application of biomass in reality Jonas. Totally wrong headed.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Kate Sheppard Posted 12:12 am
25 Sep 2008
Kate Sheppard
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atreyger Posted 1:55 am
25 Sep 2008
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murrame Posted 2:09 am
25 Sep 2008
Projects like this have generated some healthy debate on 'carbon-neutrality,' see: http://tinyurl.com/4fs3jj
M. Murray, Sr. Corporate News Representative, PSNH
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randino Posted 4:32 am
25 Sep 2008
Second, timber companies are already lusting for genetically modified tree species for celulose for ethanol. Then they are also wanting to introduce eucalyptus to the south for the same reason, not considering what this water ravenous species will do to a drought prone area. Burning wood for power, seems like a new twist on some dubious ideas.
Finally, what we are greening are the same old energy dinosaurs that got us in this jam in the first place. Is it change, or is it change to prevent change?
Sorry to rain on the parade, but these are some things we should think about.
Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH
Retired board member
Buckeye Forest Council
Randy Cunningham
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atreyger Posted 7:08 am
25 Sep 2008
MTR removes everything, including trees. Cutting trees removes trees, which will grow back.
Salvage logging is a strawman at best, and at worst a non-issue that became an issue in the hands of some crafty Earth Firsters (who, frankly, that they have now become equivalent to Mormons (or Saudis), and are nearly as much of a joke, which would be funny if it wasn't so sad)
GMOs in NE US forests are currently in the form of a) American chestnuts b) American elms, i.e. spp. that have been wiped out, and are currently being worked on in order to reintroduce them back.
WTF does Eucalyptus have to do with Ohio?
'Strip mining' for biomass is not likely, since bigger, better growing trees produce more money for sawlogs.
I am not sure what your final remark meant, and I doubt that most readers will understand it as well.
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atreyger Posted 7:09 am
25 Sep 2008
MTR removes everything, including trees. Cutting trees removes trees, which will grow back.
Salvage logging is a strawman at best, and at worst a non-issue that became an issue in the hands of some crafty Earth Firsters (who, frankly, have now become equivalent to Mormons (or Saudis), and are nearly as much of a joke, which would be funny if it wasn't so sad)
GMOs in NE US forests are currently in the form of a) American chestnuts b) American elms, i.e. spp. that have been wiped out, and are currently being worked on in order to reintroduce them back.
WTF does Eucalyptus have to do with Ohio?
'Strip mining' for biomass is not likely, since bigger, better growing trees produce more money for sawlogs.
I am not sure what your final remark meant, and I doubt that most readers will understand it as well.
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KenG Posted 7:47 am
25 Sep 2008
Biomass is only viable if it doesn't cost much. If it's already waste product from another industry, great. You can't afford to log forests for biomass feedstock. If you're really using trees, you need thousands of acres of tree farms that you can mechanically harvest with no complications or manual labor. Think of running a combine through a Christmas tree farm.
The information I could find on line indicated Duke/AREVA were just focused on wood waste products but I couldn't find anything on the projected size of the plants.
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RDMiller Posted 7:59 am
25 Sep 2008
These are 100 MW plants. They'll have no problem getting the feedstock. There's plenty of biomass available in that region.
Your statement that "you can't afford to log forests for biomass feedstock" is incorrect. It's being done every day all across the country. The value of biomass as energy has skyrocketed along with the price of oil. All of this standing wood is harvested mechanically.
The sustainability of Georgia's tree farms is questionable, but that's a complicated debate.
Richard
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randino Posted 11:07 am
25 Sep 2008
Randy Cunningham
Randy Cunningham
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atreyger Posted 3:27 am
26 Sep 2008
I don't believe in tree farms (at least my concept of it, not the certification), I disagree with the approach taken down South to continually dump fertilizer into the system in order to maintain growth. However, in our world, it might be a necessity, since it seems like most people do not see the connection between wood and trees, and frequently oppose the 'timber beasts', while putting on a brand new addition to their house.
That said, every forest you have seen has been or will be logged. And every logger is going to want to take the biggest and best trees, which grow fastest and have excellent genetics, while leaving the rest. So, the forests are becoming degraded. All silvicultural systems will either retain or improve genetics within a stand, whereas "haphazard" logging typically will not for the above reason.
So, unless you want to leave our children and their children shitty trees, then you would support the market for low-value wood, just like I do.
I got into the field because I love forests, not because I love cutting trees.
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:12 am
26 Sep 2008
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RDMiller Posted 4:49 am
26 Sep 2008
These plantations will consistently produce 10-15 tons per acre per year (or more). It then all depends on how much acreage is dedicated to them.
Since it currently requires 10,000 tons of biomass to generate 1 MW of electric power (this will become considerably more efficient over time), at 10 tons per acre per year, one needs 1,000 acres of energy plantation to generate 1 MW of power indefinitely.
Hence, I was saying we could create the equivalent energy of 200 1-GW nuke plants from 200 million acres of land in the U.S dedicating to growing trees for energy (while simultaneously restoring "natural" forests to optimal health).
In the very short term, before the plantations are available, we can safely harvest 30-50 tons of low-grade trees from existing forests (as a one time harvest... NOT 30-50 tons per year) to help get these forests back to better health, following years of "high grading" practices. You'd then have to let each of these forests regrow for 15-20 years before this could be done again. But by then, the energy plantations would have come online.
I like this scenario, but there are others.
Richard
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:47 am
26 Sep 2008
So if you're saying, Richard, that basically you get a gigawatt per 1 million forest acres, and you use 200 million acres, you could generate 40% of all electricity (not including an electrified transportation system) with wood. Which would be very impressive, if it is workable, since coal accounts for 50% of electrical generation, which means you could basically replace coal with wood.
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RDMiller Posted 6:14 am
26 Sep 2008
It is absolutely possible to replace all the coal burning with biomass. The technology is available today. The land is certainly here to do it (we have over 1.5 billion acres of land we could call on). All it requires is the decision to do it.
Even better, new technology allows us to actually burn this biomass in the existing coal facilities, if we wanted to. And make it all carbon negative.
Not a bad deal, considering it would create several million new jobs, create a lot more forests and increase soil quality.
Richard
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RDMiller Posted 6:17 am
26 Sep 2008
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