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Automakers Not Meeting Disclosure Agreement in Europe

Companies selling autos in the European Union are not disclosing carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction commitments or strategies to comply with a 7 year-old European Union agreement, according an analysis released by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Sustainable Asset Management (SAM) Group. “It is unacceptable that, with only three years left to comply with the ACEA Agreement, auto companies have done little to disclose in their annual reports to investors how they plan to meet this voluntary target,” said WRI’s Amanda Sauer, lead author of Transparency Issues with the ACEA Agreement:Are Investors Driving Blindly? “The problem with the ACEA Agreement is that nobody knows what the auto companies are planning to do to bring the industry to its 2008 target.” BMW has disclosed more of its CO2-reduction strategies than the other car companies analyzed, although it could be at risk of substantial future costs under the agreement because it appears to have the highest fleet-wide CO2 emissions in the industry. Yet the report finds that without disclosure on company commitments to meet the agreement, it is impossible to know the cost exposure for BMW or any other company, even though these costs could be significant. The ACEA Agreement establishes […]

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GE Launches World's Largest Membrane-Based Water Filtration Project

In a ceremony attended by more than 400 people, which included representatives from the highest level of the Kuwaiti Government, GE Infrastructure’s Water & Process Technologies business helped dedicate the world’s largest membrane based wastewater filtration project and the company’s first major water project in the Middle East. “Water is the lifeblood of industries and communities around the world, and scarcity, increasing demand and rising costs are driving the need to conserve, reuse and identify new supplies of this essential resource,” said George Oliver, president and CEO of GE’s Water & Process Technologies business. “By 2025, nearly 50% of the world’s population will live in water stressed areas according to the World Meteorological Association and many in the Middle East face this reality today.” The new Sulaibiya wastewater treatment plant, built in a partnership with the Kuwaiti government and Mohammed Abdulmohsin Al-Kharafi & Sons Co., will purify more than one million gallons of wastewater (375, 000 cubic meters/day) each day for use in agricultural and industrial uses. Currently, countries in the Middle East produce more than one half of the world’s desalinated water and experts predict this to increase in the water stressed region. “GE has been expanding its portfolio […]

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DOE Announces US$62.4 Million in Clean Coal R&D Awards

US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman announced the award of US$62.4 million for 32 clean coal research projects to develop a coal-fired zero emissions power plant. It will also advance energy-related policy initiatives in energy, climate and hydrogen, including the FutureGen zero-emissions power plant. Among the objectives of the research are: Improved and new methods of producing pure hydrogen in coal gasification; Hydrogen handling – safe storage of hydrogen, and on-board storage which will aid the commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; Improved and simplified removal of multiple pollutants in coal gasification; Development of carbon dioxide capture technology that can be retrofit on existing coal-based powerplants; Expansion of carbon sequestration technology to identify and accurately assess the CO2 storage capacity of geologic formations; and, Development of new alloys to advance ultra-supercritical generation with pulverized coal, an emerging newer technology that can deliver power with ultra-low emissions and ultra-high efficiency. The projects will be managed by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and will support NETL’s Coal and Power Research and Development (R&D) program in four program areas of interest: Carbon Sequestration; Power Systems Advanced Research; Coal Fuels and Hydrogen; and Advanced Gasification. The projects total […]

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DOE Announces US$62.4 Million in

US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman today announced the award of US$62.4 million for 32 clean coal research projects to advance President George W. Bush’s goal to develop a coal-fired zero emissions power plant. This initiative will also advance other energy-related policy initiatives in energy, climate and hydrogen, including the FutureGen zero-emissions power plant of the future. Among the objectives of the research are: Improved and new methods of producing pure hydrogen in coal gasification; Hydrogen handling – safe storage of hydrogen, and on-board storage which will aid the commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; Improved and simplified removal of multiple pollutants in coal gasification; Development of carbon dioxide capture technology that can be retrofit on existing coal-based powerplants; Expansion of carbon sequestration technology to identify and accurately assess the CO2 storage capacity of geologic formations; and, Development of new alloys to advance ultra-supercritical generation with pulverized coal, an emerging newer technology that can deliver power with ultra-low emissions and ultra-high efficiency. The projects will be managed by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and will support NETL’s Coal and Power Research and Development (R&D) program in four program areas of interest: Carbon Sequestration; Power […]

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Xcel Energy Contracts for Additional Wind Power

Xcel Energy (NYSE:XEL) has completed contract negotiations with two renewable energy developers to add 129 megawatts of wind power to the company’s Colorado electric generating mix by the end of the year. The contracts were awarded to Prairie Wind Energy, for a 69-megawatt wind facility near Lamar, Colo., and Invenergy, for a 60-megawatt wind facility near Peetz, Colo., in Logan County. “The development of these two wind facilities will increase our Colorado wind generation by more than 50 percent and further our plan of aggressively pursuing the development of wind power in Colorado,” said David Eves, Xcel Energy vice president of resource planning and acquisition. The addition of new wind power is part of Xcel Energy’s Least-Cost Resource Plan (LCP) for Colorado, through which the company is seeking to acquire a variety of new electrical generation sources to meet increasing customer demand. Last fall, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission granted Xcel’s request to issue a “request for proposals” (RFP) to pursue the acquisition of up to 500 megawatts of cost-effective wind power by 2006, as part of the LCP process. The RFP was issued in large part to allow the company to take advantage of the federal Production Tax Credit […]

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