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Chicago Mercantile Exchange To Launch Ethanol Futures

Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the largest U.S. futures exchange, announced its plans to list ethanol futures contracts, the exchange’s first-ever electronic energy contract. The futures are scheduled to begin trading on March 29, 2005, and will trade on the CME Globex electronic platform. Sempra Commodities, one of North America’s largest full-service energy trading companies, will serve as the market maker. “As a result of the Clean Air Act, the ethanol industry has boomed over the past few years. In 2004, U.S. ethanol facilities set new production records and consumers used more than three billion gallons of ethanol in their cars,” said John Harangody, Director, CME Commodity Products. “The launch of CME Ethanol futures, the first electronically traded ethanol contract, will provide the industry with a superior risk management tool, create trading opportunities for those looking to capitalize on the constant fluctuations in this market and potentially attract new customers to our markets.” “We are pleased to have this opportunity to work with one of the world’s most innovative and dynamic financial exchanges,” said John Brooks, Vice President, Bio Fuels, Marketing and Trading, Sempra Commodities. “This contract offers price transparency, the execution speed of electronic trading and a level playing field for […]

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Las Vegas to Build 3.1 MW Solar Energy Project

Powerlight Corporation has received the go-ahead for a 3.1 megawatt solar power project in Las Vegas, to be one of the largest solar electric systems in the world. The Las Vegas Valley Water District and Nevada Power Company jointly announced the regulatory approval for PowerLight to proceed. The project is expected to be operational in 2005. “The Water District’s project is especially significant because it generates electricity at the site of energy consumption. Distributed Generation helps reduce electric line losses, reduces transmission constraints and improves system security,” said former Assemblyman Jason Geddes, sponsor of AB 296. “Distributed Generation is the future of the electric grid.” The project consists of consists of four solar electric systems at the Water District’s Las Vegas Springs Preserve, and three systems located at reservoir sites within the water distribution system. At the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, the technology and installation will be an intrinsic element of the visitor’s experience. Website: [sorry this link is no longer available]     

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Climate Official Resigns, Blasting White House Influence

by Brian Stempeck and Andrew Freedman A top climate official announced plans to resign his federal post next week, blasting the Bush administration’s global warming research plan and raising concern about the potential for politics to influence federal findings. Rick Piltz, senior associate with the Climate Change Science Program, said he would resign at the end of next week after 10 years at CCSP and the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the agencies responsible for federal climate research. Piltz expressed frustration with what he sees as the intrusion of politics into the scientific arena and a questionable scientific review process overseen by top White House officials. “I resigned because of a number of differences with the Bush administration’s approach to climate change and climate science over the past four years,” Piltz wrote in an e-mail to Greenwire this morning. “There is a problem with the process that has been established for final review and revision of these reports and clearance for publication,” he continued, noting that lead scientists on climate studies are not given the power to approve their final reports. “The final review and clearance would be done inside the administration, through a process that was seen as potentially […]

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Capex Studies US$19 billion Wind-to-Hydrogen Plans

Argentine energy company Capex aims to start pre-feasibility studies in two months on a US$19bn project to generate 16,000MW of wind power to produce 13.3 million cubic meters a year of hydrogen, company development and new business director Jorge Llera told BNamericas. Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel that could be mixed with natural gas for power generation, used in domestic appliances and also as a vehicular fuel. With a number of large cities in the Southern Cone with air pollution issues, Capex sees the possibility of a regional market for the fuel, Llera said. Project location depends on further studies, but the area under consideration is around Pico Truncado in the northeast of Santa Cruz province, where wind speeds are some eight meters a second with a capacity factor of 45%. The US$19bn figure covers the wind turbines, hydrogen production infrastructure and delivery to port. Investment on such a scale is beyond the reach of Capex alone, and so it would associate with other companies already involved in hydrogen technology, such as automobile manufacturers, should the project proceed to further studies, Llera said. The project has the potential to generate some 40 million tonnes of carbon credits a year, […]

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