Current Savers Blog

Will Germany kill the goose laying the golden eggs?
  
Germany is understandably proud of its renewable energy sector — wind and solar power supply more than 15 percent of the country’s electricity. Its Renewable Energy Act (EEG) has fuelled its rapid growth over the past decade and been copied by more than 40 countries around the world.
  
But is the party over?
  
A new centre-right government announced plans to slash the EEG’s guaranteed feed-in tariffs (FIT) that utilities are required to pay the myriad of producers of solar energy, many of whom feed the modest amounts of solar power from their roofs into the local grid. The EEG already foresees a FIT decline of about 10 percent per year — a built-in incentive to keep overall costs falling.
  
Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen wants an additional 15 percent cut in April on top of the 10 percent from Jan. 1, 2010 and ahead of the next 10-percent cut on Jan. 1, 2011. In the past decade, the previous two environment ministers from the Greens party and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) worked closely with the solar industry before making changes.
  
Roettgen made it clear those days of compromise were over. He said he spoke to solar firms last week before proposing the cuts, but rejected their offer to a one-off mid-2010 cut of 5 percent. “This is not a compromise,” he told journalists in Berlin on Wednesday. “It’s a bullseye.”  He said the cuts would save consumers about 1 billion euros a year over the next decade. Consumer groups and some industry groups had wanted deeper cuts, Roettgen noted.
  
Solar companies in Germany, which have until now worked closely with the government on reducing the tariffs the utilities pay to producers of green electricity, criticised the cuts which amount to about 35 percent within 13 months. They fear they will cripple the sector and kill jobs. Roettgen said he wants solar power, which now generates about 1 percent of Germany’s electricity, to be providing 4 to 5 percent by 2020 even though the support is being slashed by one-third in the course of 13 months. He portrayed the cuts as if he were doing the industry a favour.
   
Several leading German companies — such as SolarWorld, Q-Cells and Solon — said there were dark days ahead for the solar industry. They pointed out that prices, and support, were already falling steadily and would reach grid parity by the middle of the decade. Why, they asked, ruin a good thing? Frank Asbeck, CEO of Germany’s biggest solar company by revenue SolarWorld, called the plans unacceptable. As my colleague Christoph Steitz reported here, the cuts would cause problems for solar companies around the world.
  
Carsten Koernig, managing director of the BSW solar industry lobby, said “a radical cut like that will rob German companies of the foundation for business”.
  
Claudia Kemfert, an energy policy expert at the independent DIW economic research institute, said: “This level of 15 percent is quite problematic. It means a 25 percent cut within a few months and I consider that to be too much. It’s going to hit the small and medium sized companies very hard. It’s going to bring a lot of uncertainty into the market.”
  
The German Renewable Energy Association also used strong language, saying: “The radical cuts endanger the expansion of renewable energy.”

Is it a done deal? It’s hard to say at this point. There could be a lot of resistance from key conservative-ruled states such as Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. They have important solar power industries and in the past succeeded in watering down attempts to cut the FIT.

Europe’s nominee to be climate chief surprised car manufacturers last week by saying she thought EU policymakers might have been too soft on them when carbon-capping rules were set in 2008.

Connie Hedegaard’s forceful intervention during hearings for the European Commission raised the possibility of a renewed push by Europe to legislate car emissions if the Dane is approved by the European Parliament for the post next month.

The exisiting rules were hard-fought-over in 2008, with big European auto nations such as France, Italy and Germany arguing that a slow transition to tougher targets was necessary to protect jobs in a sector that is not only one of the EU’s biggest employers but already feeling the heat from the economic crisis.

If new emissions caps were brought in, Big Auto and its army of lobbyists would swing back into action, pitting themselves against environmentalists and industries with an interest in tighter curbs, such as car parts suppliers and aluminium producers, who promise to cut the weight of future cars.

Most experts and policymakers think it is unlikely Hedegaard will reopen such an emotive debate to change the 2015 targets for cars, which are now written into law.

But she may instead use the option of a review in 2013 to fight for tougher targets for car makers to meet by 2020.

The current rules set a target of reaching 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2020, about 40 percent below today’s average — but it is merely an “aspirational target”, not a legally-binding one.

Hedegaard, if she does become the EU’s climate chief, might focus her energy on making that 2020 target tough and legally binding, something that would rile Europe’s auto industry. Or she could, as she also hinted in her tough-talking Commission hearing, switch her attention to vans and trucks, which have not yet been put under the EU legislative spotlight.

Connie Hedegaard, on right

One way or the other, Hedegaard doesn’t look inclined to act like a deer in the headlights of Europe’s auto giants.

Australian Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson called Cape Denison ‘the home of the blizzard’ during his term here because of the incessant Katabatic winds which pour down the Antarctic plateau blasting everything in sight.

Wind gusts here have been known to exceed 370 kilometres per hour (185 knots), so I consider myself lucky to have only had to endure 100 kilometres per hour winds funnelling through my tent during the past six weeks at Cape Denison.

So it seemed only right that I test my endurance a step further by putting my survival training into action and spend a night in a bivvy bag in the great icy outdoors.

“If you really want to experience strong winds, sleep up on the rocks near the wind generator,” advised expeditioner Chris Henderson.

So over a few days we watched the weather forecast to get a perfect (windy) experience, but on the chosen day a blizzard rolled in and it was considered unsafe for me to sleep outside.

A few days later the perfect conditions arrived — mild winds but with the usual katabatic gusts after midnight.

Expedition leader Tony Stewart inspected the site to ensure it was safe and at midnight I carried my bivvy bag, a sleeping bag, sleeping mat, survival pack, two way radio, snow goggles, a padded freezer suit, pyjamas, a hat, gloves, eye pads and a book, up to my camping spot.

Given that I was lying on rocks, I decided to use the suit as padding between the mat and the sleeping bag, in the knowledge that when the wind blew up I could put the suit on as an additional layer of clothes.

It was an unusually calm night so I decided to read for a while. I stuck my head and book out of the bag and had the most amazing views of Commonwealth Bay with icebergs floating within a couple of hundred metres away.

When I settled down for the night, I pulled the drawstrings tight on the bag, with just enough air getting to avoid suffocation.

For the first few hours, I kept waiting on the wind to come roaring down the valley like a freight train and smash into my little bivvy bag, but all I could hear was the sound of ice melting into the sea, which is not as you may think, sleep inducing.

In fact, it sounds like a building being demolished. First there is a loud bang as the ice cracks, then the sound of something heavy crashing into the sea. This went on throughout most of the night.

Despite the crashing of ice and the rocks sticking into me, I eventually fell asleep, only waking when I heard my name being called at about 8.45 a.m.

I had slept through the night. I’d survived! But I was later told it was the only night of our expedition that the wind didn’t blow.

I woke to the most beautiful morning with the sun shining.

Just another comical episode in Antarctica when I think the ‘luck of the Irish’ prevailed.

P.S. This may be my last blog from Antarctica. We’ve been told to be ready for departure, weather permitting, on Wednesday.

Being inappropriately dressed in Antarctica can be life threatening. However, being appropriately dressed takes a lot of time and an exceptionally good memory.

With over 40 items of clothing to track, it’s par for the course to see an expedition member walk in and out of our base three or four times retracing their steps to find a missing part of their polar apparel or backpack.

The conversation between expeditioners goes like this:

“What did you lose?” asks a concerned colleague.

“My glasses, my gloves, my balaclava, my backpack. I had them in my hand two minutes ago. I’m sure I left them on the table,” replies the frustrated expeditioner as he fossicks for the missing items in base hut, leaves and returns still fossicking.

This “deja vu” ritual can occur four times before the victim eventually finds what they are looking for and usually it’s nowhere near where they thought they left them.

For those of us living outdoors the comedy of errors begins in our tent.

I’m only 5ft 4 inches, but when I stand up in my polar tent I feel 10 foot tall as my head hits the roof.  It’s a great source of amusement and motivation feeling I’ve grown so tall overnight. You see, it’s necessary to stand up in my tent to have space to remove and apply layers of clothing.

Often after putting on layers, I realise they are in the wrong order, as socks under thermals are not the most effective and hat before balaclava or glasses after headgear just don’t work.

So, off come the clothes and I begin the dressing process again.

Finally, when all the layers are applied in the correct order, boots are fitted with chains, coat zipped up, suncream and gloves on, it’s time to climb out of the tent to walk to our base, the Sorenson hut.

Having got caught up in two sets of drawstrings the first few days of living in a tent, I quickly discovered entering the Antarctic air is best done in reverse.

This entails going down on all fours and shoving one foot out into the snow, followed by the other. This minimises the chance of being stuck halfway between the inner and outer lining of the tent with my hood jammed somewhere I didn’t know existed and only my Irish pride preventing me from shouting “Help…will someone please release me”.

After a night in below freezing temperatures, it’s necessary to visit the toilet — affectionately known as “Delaney’s Dunny” (dunny is Australian slang for toilet and it’s named after the man who built it).

Having spent the last 10 minutes getting dressed and then walking only 200 metres to “Delany’s”, it’s time to remove half of your clothes.

“Delaney’s” can only be described as visiting the best room in the house, as the outlook from this tiny (rather odorous) spot, spans uninterrupted view of Commonwealth Bay and the MacKellar Islands.

But the danger of distraction can cost you dearly, losing you an enormous amount of time and the risk of snow blindness.

Going to the toilet in such a tight spot, it’s vital you undress without letting the straps of your overall, gloves, glasses or sleeves fall into one of the buckets.

So items have to be placed carefully. It’s not unusual to see a pair of glasses, gloves or a fleece top hanging from a rusty nail in Delaney’s.

I recently spent half a morning looking for my sunglasses. I retraced my steps from my tent to the Sorensen hut five times looking carefully in the tent, Delaney’s and the hut over and over, costing me valuable working time.

I could have sworn I left them on the dining table.

In the end, I had to go back to the tent and resort to wearing snow goggles to prevent snow blindness. Trying to shoot a television interview wearing snow goggles that took up half of my face was rather comical.

Later that day, determined to find my glasses, I went back into “Delaney’s”  to look just one more time and here were my sunglasses,  sitting on top of the hessian sack I had so carefully placed them on — safe, sound and just waiting to be retrieved.

Ah, the idiosyncrasy of life on the ice, where laughter makes an excellent survival tool.

Germany’s Greens party celebrated their 30th birthday on Wednesday.

The world’s most successful environmental party spent seven of those 30 years as junior partner in the government of one of the world’s biggest industrial nations and are now part of three state governments. They were the driving force behind the country’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG) 10 years ago that has made Germany the world’s leader in wind energy and photovoltaic and the world’s first major renewable-energy economy — laws promoting the development of renewable energy that led to the creation of some 280,000 jobs in the last decade.

Despite their rather chaotic and inauspicious start on Jan. 13, 1980, the Greens have matured into one of Germany’s major political forces and formed a centre-left government with the Social Democrats in 1998 — even though they ended up on the opposition benches again in 2005. An opinion poll published in Stern magazine today showed 63 percent of Germans believe the Greens are indispensible.

The Greens won 10.7 percent of the vote in September federal election, their highest score ever. They would win 14 percent of the vote if an election were held this Sunday, the Stern poll also found. That makes them the third largest party in Germany at the moment. But more important than their seats in the federal, state and local assemblies, the Greens have become an established force in Germany with clout that goes far beyond their numbers.

Every major party in Germany — from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives on the right to the Left party on the far-left wing — have borrowed and even tried to usurp green ideas for their own party platforms. Their once radical demands have long since become mainstream. For example, all parties in Germany now favour renewable energy (after seeing how many jobs it can create) and everyone in Germany dutifully separates their trash into four different bins — paper, plastics, glass and other waste.

The Greens, who have now begun forming coalitions with the conservatives as well despite their left-leaning roots, are probably the most coveted and flexible party in Germany’s five-party landscape right now at a time when climate change has helped make green parties more popular in a number of industrialised countries around the world.

“It’s been a pleasure during our 30-year celebrations to see how the other parties are all chasing after us now,” said Greens co-leader Cem Oezdemir. “They’re welcome to court us.” The Greens in Germany were founded in 1980 by a diverse group of environmental and peace activists, leftists and anti-nuclear demonstrators.

They first won seats in parliament in the 1983 federal election, stunning the established parties that at first eschewed their very existence. They wore woolly sweaters, thick beards and were proud of their muesli-eating traditions. Many put flowers on their parliament desks and some brought their knitting equipment in to work on more wool scarves, socks and sweaters.

“At the time no one would have placed a bet that the Greens would even still be around a year later, let alone 30 years later with these women wearing farmers’ overalls and unshaven men,” wrote Bild newspaper columnist Franz Josef Wagner in a tribute in Germany’s best-selling daily on Wednesday. “But you’ve become a great and important party. I’ve even voted for the Greens twice. You’ve changed our country — for the better.”

PHOTOS: Greens co-leader Cem Oezdemir (top) receives a present for his infant son — a sheep fleece for his pram — at a Greens party meeting this week (REUTERS: Wolfgang Rattay) while Greens party members show their displeasure at a typically rowdy Greens party meeting in Karlsruhe in 2000 (REUTERS: Kai Pfaffenbach)

Taiwan fisheries flopped to an 18-year low point after Typhoon Morakot flooded much of the low-lying south in August, the island’s Central News Agency told us, casting aquaculture as a victim. Fish farmers, swamped by the stench of their own produce a month after the storm, struggled to recover.

But were farmers also villains?

Taiwan’s Control Yuan, a central government agency that can censure public officials, says in a report  this month they were at fault, as were Pingtung county officials who had given permits to only 29 percent of them, ignoring the rest as they pumped groundwater. The use of groundwater for fish farms has sunk surrounding land, leaving villages prone to floods, the report says.

“According to data the county gave us, still more than 70 percent of fish farming households and fish farm land area are illegal,” the Control Yuan autopsy says. “Registration of water rights is a county responsibility, but the county government over the long term pushed away the responsibility and neither offered timely guidance nor enforced laws.”

These findings are part of a bigger search for causes that will eventually name reasons, possibly irregular fruit-growing or forestry practices, triggered deadly mudslides  in Taiwan’s southern mountains.

One possible conclusion: time for Taiwan to quit challenging nature?

Could “heroism fatigue” be yet another bump in the road for any U.S. law to curb climate change? And what is “heroism fatigue” anyway?

To Paul Bledsoe of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy, heroism fatigue is what happens when the Congress has spent most of the year doing something heroic, like trying to hammer out an agreement on healthcare reform, when what lawmakers might rather be doing is naming a new post office. Following one big, gnarly piece of legislation with another — like a bill to limit climate-warming carbon dioxide — can seem daunting.

“Especially Democrats want to get  back to some meat-and-potatoes job-creation stuff,” Bledsoe says. “They’re going to need a little time after healthcare.”

Congressional down-time doesn’t sound like part of the Obama administration’s game plan on climate and energy. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said last week that the president expects a comprehensive bill on this in 2010. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech to Congress could be a good barometer of how much he wants this, as my colleague Richard Cowan wrote. The speech has yet to be scheduled, but is expected within the next few weeks.

Bledsoe, whose organization looks for consensus on such complex issues as climate change, said agreement on a climate bill is possible. “An energy bill with robust climate provisions that focuses on job creation seems a bill that could gain bipartisan support in this economic environment.” By contrast, a bill styled as mainly combating climate change with energy issues added in “could have a hard time with unemployment at 10 percent,” Bledsoe said.

To get a law to Obama’s desk, there’s going to have to be a “deliberate conscious attempt at reaching out to moderates of both parties,” Bledsoe said.

It’s early days on this, so let the handicapping begin! What’s your best estimate of when or if Congress can craft a workable measure to combat climate change? This year? If so, when?

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Ina Fassbender (Protestors dressed as carbon dioxide molecules, in Essen, Germany, June 1, 2007, as part of the initiative ‘ByeBye CO2′ against carbon dioxide pollution.)

When you live on the edge of Antarctica, coping with gale force winds, blizzards, snow and ice, the risk of accidents are heightened.

Every time we leave the base we carry radios and if planning to be out for a while we carry survival kits to minimise the risk of accidents occurring, as the nearest help is 200 kilometres away at the French base of Dumont d’Urville.

In my case I had my first accident today and radio contact or a survival kit couldn’t have helped me. Luckily, I survived, but my dignity was left a bit smelly.

Stuck inside for a second day because of an impending blizzard, with winds reaching 60 knots, the opportunity to get outside and work isn’t possible, so all 10 of us have been cooped up inside our base — the Sorensen hut.

In sheer desperation to get outside for fresh air, I volunteered to help with the slops run.

Having done this run many times now I have the drill down pat: put on an extra layer of heavy duty clothing, gloves, balaclava and hat; seal the containers tight; carry them from the kitchen and the toilet down a set of steps and pack them on a slay, or in more windy conditions in the trailer of a Quad bike; travel with a second person to the water’s edge to dispose of the contents.

Well, when we reached our destination today, I wrestled with a heavy container that was full to the brim.

Noticing that my general fitness level has improved since I’ve been here, I was feeling happy with myself for getting it onto the side of the trailer, so I unscrewed the kitchen slops container, which contains a concoction of used dishwater, the dregs of unused tea & coffee, diluted with the contents of 10 people’s teeth cleanings, and turned to dispose of it.

That’s when disaster struck. I fell down a hole in the snow.

The disgusting contents hit the ground and what immediately looked like a dirty grey tidal wave came rushing towards me, hitting me in the face, neck and right down my coat, managing to swamp my gloves, all in a matter of seconds.

Thankfully, my balaclava protected my face from a direct hit and my coat and gloves bore the brunt.

When I stopped laughing long enough to straighten myself up, I took the next container to the water’s edge, determined to succeed, despite my previous attempt.

This time I managed to dispose of refuse into the Antarctic water, but not completely unscathed. The wind sprayed its contents over the sleeve of my coat, but unlike the slops which don’t smell too bad, this yellow liquid was very smelly. My coat is now pegged to my tent stays, blowing in the wind.

The upside is the smelly accident made me laugh and gave me the opportunity for a much coveted shower.

Power sockets that sense when you leave a room and shut down.  Portable hydrogen fuel cells.  Pocket windmills that store electricity. Those were some of the little-noticed green power-savers tucked into a little corner of the otherwise monstrous Consumer Electronics Show floor in Las Vegas.

Gadgets that help conserve electricity are nothing new, but if there’s one thing the profusion of giant TVs, backlit tablet computers and 3D projectors trotted out at this year’s show will need, it’s gizmos that help cut down your electricity bill.  Industry executives say they have yet to filter into the mass public consciousness despite the heightened environmental awareness of today.

“The biggest problem we’re having is teaching the public about this technology,” said Scott Wilson, VP of sales at Bits Ltd, which was hawking a $39 power strip that can sense when a device goes to sleep or is turned off, and automatically shuts down a pre-determined number of linked devices.

One gadget that drew a crowd of curious onlookers was Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies’ “MiniPak” handheld fuel-cell charger, which takes bottled water, breaks it down, and funnels power to any USB device, letting, say, campers charge their cellphones in the wild.

Still, saving power may not come as cheap as you might think. HiSaver’s motion-sensing power strip (the one that automatically shuts down your TV after you’ve left the room for awhile) goes for $99 — about 10 times the cost of your regular version. Kinesis’s wind and solar charger — displayed at CES in lurid green — goes for $99.95. The MiniPak will relieve you of $500.

Executives argue you can recoup that initial outlay eventually on your eletricity bill.

“It pays for itself in less than a year,” said Bits engineer Bruce Barton of his power strip.

But my personal favorite — a tiny power-generator the size of a tiny cellphone that doubles as a weight-loss device. Users pull on a cord to automatically put out electricity, charging any USB-connected device.

“It’s for emergencies,” explained Nathan Ryalls at Easy Energy, which makes the “Yogen” gizmo.

Scientists aboard the Ocean Watch, a 64-foot yacht on a year-long voyage circling the Americas, are testing the waters as they go. Instruments on the vessel have picked up evidence of ocean acidification, another result of the spewing of carbon dioxide from tailpipes and smokestacks, they say.
 
Much of  CO2 pollution ends up in the atmosphere, but some is absorbed in the ocean, where it is converted into carbonic acid. The average pH of the word’s oceans is about 8.1 and the lower the reading, the greater the acidity. 
 
Scientists are concerned that if pH levels keep falling ocean waters could eat away the shells of organisms large and small. That would put the web of ocean life at risk, not to mention be a potential disaster for land-loving seafood lovers
   
Ocean Watch has picked up readings of 7.88 in the Gulf of Alaska. Michael Reynolds, the scientist taking the measurements, said the preliminary data may show that the Gulf of Alaska is a primary “sink” for atmospheric carbon.
 
The good news is that readings have returned to normal as the voyage continues off the coast of South America.    

The Ocean Watch has taken other environmental observations, on things like declining ice cover in the Arctic, and it sailed through the Northwest Passage, one of only 100 ships to do so in the last 100 years. A special camera is observing the gaggles of jellyfish the ship encounters. The creatures are among the world’s hardiest, so the scientists want to see what kind of jellyfish are thriving in waters that are acidic or are polluted in other ways and what changes they are undergoing.
 
“The boat is acting as a spotlight on issues known to scientists and local fisherman, but are not known to the general public,” said David Rockefeller, a philanthropist who is sponsoring the $2 million voyage for Sailors for the Sea. He will climb aboard Ocean Watch later this month off the coast of Patagonia.
 
The sailors are sharing their observations and concerns with the public at ports along their journey.  
 
Ellen Lettvin, an education expert at the Pacific Science Center, said the Ocean Watch scientists will analyze the data at the end of the voyage and provide it to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other organizations tracking the health of the oceans.

Photo:  David Thoreson