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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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Power Integrations Named Winner of Efficiency Challenge 2004

Power Integrations, Inc. (Nasdaq:POWI) has been named Grand Champion in its category of Efficiency Challenge 2004, an international design competition for power supply efficiency. The contest, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Energy Commission, showcases highly efficient power supply technologies for consumer electronics. The winning design, an energy-efficient adapter for a cordless telephone, was judged the top entry in the “market ready” category of the competition, in which practical factors such as cost and packaging were considered in addition to energy efficiency. The design uses Power Integrations’ LinkSwitch family of integrated circuits, which are ideally suited for use in low-power applications such as cordless phones, cell phones, consumer appliances and many industrial applications. The winning design will enable manufacturers to comply with the recently launched ENERGY STAR specification for cordless phones, as well as the mandatory standards recently placed on external adapters by the California Energy Commission. Said Balu Balakrishnan, president and CEO of Power Integrations, “It is particularly significant that the winning design is for the cordless phone market, where inefficient linear transformers are still the predominant power supply technology. This award validates the fact that a cost-effective, efficient alternative to these ‘energy vampires’ is […]

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Citigroup Commended For Enforcing Environmental Policy

Citigroup requires Southeast Asian timber client to obtain independent, third party certification. Forest protection advocates, human rights activists and socially responsible investors (SRI) today commended Citigroup (NYSE:C) for its proactive constructive engagement to help end endangered forest destruction, rampant illegal logging and related human rights abuses in Southeast Asia. During an “Environmental and Social Risk Management Briefing” at Citigroup’s New York headquarters this week, CEO Chuck Prince told stakeholders that client Rimbunan Hijau, a Malaysian logging giant with a well-documented history of human rights abuses and illegal logging activities, must comply with a set of progressive new environmental policies adopted by the bank last year. Mr. Prince affirmed that Citigroup will require Rimbunan Hijau to obtain credible, independent, third party certification for its Papua New Guinea operations and specified the Forest Stewardship Council program by name during his comments. The environmental and SRI communities are awaiting formal targets and timelines from Citigroup for Rimbunan Hijau’s certification process. In January 2004, Rainforest Action Network and Citigroup announced that Citigroup had adopted a comprehensive environmental policy including initiatives on endangered ecosystems, illegal logging, ecologically sustainable development and climate change. During the implementation process, Rainforest Action Network alerted Citigroup to investigations into Rimbunan […]

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Wind Power Challenged but Turbines Still Turning

by Ken Silverstein – Director, Energy Industry Analysis Even though wind power is facing challenges on a few new projects, the industry is still working to establish itself as a cornerstone of global energy policy. Successful projects could cut the level of pollutants that are released into the atmosphere. But, the nascent technology has been battered lately by determined opponents armed with new studies who argue that wind power is adversely effecting wildlife and the environment as well as adding costs to consumers’ bills. What are some of the issues? Thousands of dead bats are turning up in the hills of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland and the matter has grabbed the attention of researchers, naturalists and utilities alike. No one knows why this is happening and the issue is likely to affect a host of new wind developments that have long been in the works; The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for New England has written to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that its draft proposal essentially giving the go-ahead to an off-shore wind project to be located in Cape Cod is “inadequate.” It says that the Corps must look into matters involving the effects on […]

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