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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for December 18, 2012.
Posted: 18 Dec 2012 11:41:06
ARB Newsclips for December 18, 2012. This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office of Communications. You may need to sign in or register with individual websites to view some of the following news articles. AIR POLLUTION Air officials do slow burn deciphering pollution rules. On Thursday, San Joaquin Valley air quality officials will vote on a plan to clean up one of our most dangerous forms of pollution. Then they'll turn around and write the plan all over again. That's because the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday tightened the standard on which this week's plan is based. Posted. http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121218/A_NEWS/212180318&cid=sitesearch CAP AND TRADE California Carbon Rises to Eight-Week High After Quebec Votes. California carbon futures rose to the highest price in almost two months after Quebec approved changes to allow links between their cap-and-trade systems. Carbon markets in Quebec and California will be connected next spring, and their governments will hold the first joint auction of carbon allowances in August, Yves-François Blanchet, Quebec’s minister of sustainable development, environment, wildlife and parks, said in a statement on his agency’s website. Posted. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-14/california-carbon-rises-to-eight-week-high-after-quebec-votes.html CLIMATE CHANGE EU competition finds no carbon storage winner. The first round of a European Commission contest to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects failed to find a winner, the EU's executive said on Tuesday, deepening doubts the technology can emerge soon to help cut emissions. CCS developers will be able to re-submit bids for a second round, which Environment Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said should be concluded within a year." Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/18/us-europe-energy-ccs-idUSBRE8BH0G120121218 Air Resources Board approves carbon offset registries. Two nonprofit organizations were approved Friday as offset registries by the California Air Resources Board. American Carbon Registry of Sacramento and Climate Action Reserve of Los Angeles are carbon offset programs that have stringent standards for project validation. They will help evaluate the validity of carbon offsets under California’s cap-and-trade regulation. http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2012/12/17/air-resources-board-carbon-offset-regist.html FUELS Oil extends rise on US budget deal optimism. The price of oil pushed towards $88 a barrel on Tuesday amid hopes that U.S. leaders can reach a budget deal and avoid automatic tax and spending cuts that might dampen growth and crimp demand for crude. By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for January delivery was up 56 cents at $87.76 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Posted. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/dec/18/oil-extends-rise-on-us-budget-deal-optimism/#ixzz2FQaVN5IK http://modbee.com/2012/12/18/2500190/oil-extends-rise-on-us-budget.html#storylink=misearch VEHICLES AP IMPACT: China surpasses US as top global trader. Shin Cheol-soo no longer sees his future in the United States. The South Korean businessman supplied components to American automakers for a decade. But this year, he uprooted his family from Detroit and moved home to focus on selling to the new economic superpower: China. In just five years, China has surpassed the United States as a trading partner for much of the world, including U.S. allies such as South Korea and Australia, according to an Associated Press analysis of trade data. Posted. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/dec/18/ap-impact-china-surpasses-us-as-top-global/#ixzz2FQWbmkkv Anderman: Li-ion capacity far outstripping demand as automakers focus more on hybrids, less on full EVs. Global automotive Li-Ion battery production capacity is outstripping demand five-to-one as automakers refocus on hybrids and away from full electric vehicles, according to Dr. Menahem Anderman’s recently released xEV Industry Insider Report. Anderman is founder and chairman of the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference (AABC); the 13th annual conference is scheduled for February 2013 in Pasadena, California. Posted. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/12/anderman-20121218.html Highly efficient non-precious metal electrocatalyst for ORR in fuel cells and metal-air batteries. A team of S. Korean and American scientists led by Dr. Jaephil Cho at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) reports on a newly developed, highly efficient non-precious metal electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Inspired by the tetrapod structures of a breakwater, the novel material for electrodes is created from affordable melamine foam and carbon black. Posted. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/12/cho-20121218.html GREEN ENERGY Germany must do more to hit green energy goals-report. Germany's government must do more to achieve its energy efficiency targets and keep up the momentum in its shift to renewable power, a group of independent experts said in a report seen by Reuters. Commenting on a separate report on progress towards renewable energy targets to be considered by the cabinet on Wednesday, the experts from a group of German research institutes said policy had to be given more urgency if the government was to achieve its aims. Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/18/germany-energy-policy-idUSL5E8NI9GO20121218 Solar boosts German renewable energy in 2012. German utilities say this year's share of renewable energies in the country's electricity production is forecast to rise some 15 percent on the year, largely on the back of a continuing solar-power boom. Utilities' industry association BDEW said Tuesday the share of wind, solar and biomass power is expected to rise from 20 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year. Posted. http://www.nctimes.com/business/solar-boosts-german-renewable-energy-in/article_03d1f98c-2782-5203-b0ec-5c53d5296abc.html http://modbee.com/2012/12/18/2500342/solar-boosts-german-renewable.html#storylink=misearch OPINIONS Thomas Mulcair on cap-and-trade. As part of last week’s conversation with the NDP leader, I asked a few questions about cap-and-trade and putting a price on carbon. Are you ready, are you prepared, to fully engage a debate on carbon pricing? It has to be part of the equation. When I talk about including the price and polluter pay, that’s part of the equation, of course. And that’s a basic principle of sustainable development. Do you worry at all that you’ve lost that debate already by the fact that they can throw the phrase “carbon tax” at you? Posted. http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/17/thomas-mulcair-on-cap-and-trade/ BLOGS Energy Agency Sees Global Coal Boom Unabated, Europe’s Binge Temporary. The International Energy Agency’s Medium-Term Coal Market Report, issued today in Paris, is essential reading for anyone wishing to maintain a reality-based view of global trends in fuel use. While many energy forecasts end up wrong, on short time scales like this, that’s less true. Some bullet points: The proportion of global energy supplied by coal is approaching that for oil. Posted. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/energy-agency-sees-global-coal-boom-unabated-europes-binge-temporary/ On Our Radar: A Global Coal Boom. Coal will come close to surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source by 2017, the International Energy Agency predicts. Demand for coal will increase in every region of the world except the United States, where the fuel is being pushed out by natural gas, the agency says. [International Energy Agency] The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general says it will investigate whether the agency uses separate internal e-mail accounts to conduct government affairs and if so, whether its actions comply with federal laws. [The Hill] Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/on-our-radar-a-global-coal-boom/ Nuclear watchdog faults Mitsubishi over San Onofre equipment tests. Federal regulators found flaws in the process followed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in building and testing mock-up replacement parts for the troubled San Onofre nuclear plant. The plant has been out of service for more than 10 months because of excessive wear on tubes carrying radioactive water, one of which leaked a small amount of radioactive steam in January, prompting the plant's shutdown. Posted. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/nrc-mitsubishi-san-onofre.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lanowblog+%28L.A.+Now%29 Soot pollution may cause as many as 3.2 million premature deaths a year. There are several factors that probably contribute to what the Atlantic Cities refers to as St. Louis’ “asthma epidemic.” High rates of smoking, for example. And: air pollution. The number of children suffering from asthma in the St. Louis metropolitan area is nearly three times the national average, according to Asthma Friendly St. Louis, a community program designed to help school-age kids and teens manage respiratory illness. Posted. http://grist.org/news/soot-pollution-may-cause-as-many-as-3-2-million-premature-deaths-a-year/