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China harnesses mountain wind power

by Jerome Cartillier DALI, China (AFP) --

In the mountains above the southwestern Chinese town of Dali, dozens of new wind turbines dot the landscape -- a symbol of the country's sky-high ambitions for clean, green energy.

At an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,800 feet), Dali Zhemoshan is the highest wind farm in China, where renewable energy has become a priority for a government keen to reduce its carbon emissions and which has taken full advantage of the global trade in carbon credits.

"Wind resources in Yunnan province are not the best in the country," says Zhai Cheng, a project manager at the farm for the Chinese group Sinohydro.

"But at altitude, it becomes more interesting," he adds, gesturing at the line of 48 metre-high turbines.

China, which relies on coal for more than 70 percent of its energy, is the world's largest emitter of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

But it has set a target of generating 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources -- mainly wind and water -- by 2020.

In Yunnan, the wind turbines -- which operate at full tilt between October and April -- are there to boost the region's enormous hydroelectric power resources when productivity falls during the winter months.

"China is redoubling its efforts, with the 2020 target for wind power generation rising from 30 to 100 gigawatts," said Zhai.

The rapid boom in wind farming in China -- where installed capacity doubled in 2008 for the fourth year running to sit at 12.2 gigawatts -- places it behind only the United States, Germany and Spain.

"In terms of the scale and the pace of the build-up of the Chinese wind industry, it's without parallel anywhere in the world ever," said Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

"They went from very little installed capacity and almost no industry five years ago to the point where they will be the number one market in the world this year" in terms of new capacity, he said.

"At the current rate, they will be the number one in the world in cumulative capacity by the end of 2011, early 2012," Sawyer predicted.

As well as major wind farms in the north of China, such as those in Gansu province, smaller projects -- like the one in Dali -- are multiplying, almost always relying on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The CDM, which was created as part of the Kyoto Protocol, allows industrialised countries to fulfil part of their greenhouse gas reduction commitments by investing in clean energy technology in developing countries.

With a generating capacity of 30.75 megawatts, the 41 turbines in Dali produce the same amount of energy as the burning of 20,000 tonnes of coal -- thereby preventing the emission of 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

The carbon credits produced by the Dali pilot project, funded with a 30-million-euro (45-million-dollar) loan from the French Development Agency, will be purchased by Dutch bank Rabobank, Zhai said.

Those credits should amount to between seven and eight percent of annual income, he added, predicting that the project should pay for itself in 10 to 15 years.

"The wind industry in China and India is one of the biggest success stories of the CDM," said GWEC's Sawyer.

"The Chinese example is a very good example: the only way you can make use of the market mechanism is if you have very clear and effective policies and measures to support the industry at the same time."

The challenge for China now, he says, is one of quality.

"They have had this rapid build-up and now they have to focus on the quality rather than just the quantity. Grid extension and connection is one issue, the performance of the turbines themselves is another."

Atlantis astronauts install gadgets on second spacewalk

by Jean-Louis Santini WASHINGTON (AFP) --

Shuttle Atlantis astronauts began the second of their mission's three spacewalks Saturday to maintain and install more high-tech gadgets on the International Space Station.

The sortie was delayed by over an hour after false depressurization alarms earlier rang through the orbiting outpost and jolted mission specialists Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik awake after just two hours of sleep, rattling preparations.

Bresnik, venturing out into space for the first time, was most likely already restless as he awaited the birth of his daughter back on earth.

His wife Rebbeca Burgin was due to give birth to the couple's second child on Friday. If the baby is born during the Atlantis mission, Bresnik would be only the second person to become a father in space.

But he was forced to set aside family concerns and concentrate on the task at hand, as the second exterior work effort of the shuttle's 11-day mission got underway more than an hour late, at 1431 GMT. It was shortened by 30 minutes due to the false alarms and set to last six hours.

Despite the shortened spacewalk, they were "well ahead" of schedule and planned to get all of their tasks completed, NASA said.

The pair installed a cargo attachment system on the space-facing side of the station's Starboard 3 truss and set up a wireless video system to transmit images to the station and relay them to Earth.

During a separate mission next year, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer will be installed at the attachment point.

Foreman and Bresnik were also tackling a task that had been planned for the third spacewalk -- deploying the final attachment system on the Earth-facing side of the truss, where a logistics carrier will be installed next year.

They were also due to transfer a 14,000-pound (6,350-kilogram) cargo pallet that contains spare parts to help extend the life of the station, install two antennas on a Columbus European lab assembly to track ships on Earth, and relocate a floating unit that measures electric charges on the station.

Aboard the ISS, mission specialist Robert Satcher was managing the spacewalkers' activities and coordinating communication between them and mission control in Houston, Texas.

The false depressurization and smoke detector alarms had sounded around 0253 GMT, forcing Bresnik and Foreman to exit the Quest airlock, where astronauts "camp out" before spacewalks to purge nitrogen from their bloodstream to prevent decompression sickness.

The alarm originated from the Russian Poisk Mini-Research Module -- which astronauts delivered to the ISS on November 12 -- with the station's automatic response shutting down ventilation systems, thus setting off two smoke detectors.

It took about an hour for everything to return to normal on the station.

After Atlantis returns home, just six space missions will remain in the shuttle program before the fleet's three orbiters are retired.

NASA's shuttle program is due to be mothballed next year, but the White House could still decide to extend it through 2011 to reduce America's future reliance on Russia for transporting astronauts to the space station.

The shuttle remains the only spacecraft that can carry heavy, bulky equipment that is key to maintain the ISS, itself set to remain operational until 2020.

Sixteen countries participate in the ISS program, at a cost of 100 billion dollars with most financing coming from the United States.

The US human space flight program, which swallows up 10 billion dollars of NASA's 18-billion-dollar annual budget, is at great risk of being grounded.

A panel set up by President Barack Obama and tasked with assessing its future has said an additional three billion dollars per year is needed for NASA to meet its goals.

Atlantis astronauts begin second spacewalk

WASHINGTON (AFP) --

Two space shuttle Atlantis astronauts began the second of their mission's three spacewalks Saturday for maintenance work and to install more high-tech gadgets outside the International Space Station.

The second exterior work effort of the shuttle's 11-day mission got underway at 1431 GMT. It was shortened by 30 minutes due to the false alarms and set to last six hours.

Planning to get all of their scheduled tasks completed, the spacewalkers may still lack the necessary time to get ahead in their work, NASA said.

The pair will relocate a floating unit that measures electric charges building up on the station, install a cargo attachment system and set up a wireless video system to transmit images to the station and relay them to Earth.

Foreman and Bresnik were also due to transfer a 14,000-pound (6,350-kilogram) cargo pallet that contains spare parts to help extend the life of the station.

Mission specialist Robert Satcher aboard the ISS was managing the spacewalkers' activities and coordinating communication between them and mission control in Houston, Texas.

Bresnik, who was making his first-ever spacewalk, was awaiting the birth of his daughter back on Earth.

His wife, Rebbeca Burgin, was due to give birth to the couple's second child on Friday. If the child is born during the Atlantis mission, Bresnik would be only the second person to become a father in space.

It took about an hour for everything to return back to normal on the station.

Second false alarm delays spacewalk

HOUSTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) --

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station Saturday moved cargo from the shuttle Atlantis after a false alarm delayed a spacewalk, NASA said.

False alarms Thursday and Friday in a depressurization program may have been linked to a Russian docking module that arrived at the station Nov. 12, NASA officials said Saturday.

Friday's false alarm delayed the second of three spacewalks in Atlantis's 11-day mission by more than an hour Saturday.

Once the alarm was cleared, shuttle astronauts Leland Melvin and Robert Satcher used the station's robotic arm to move spare equipment from the shuttle's payload bay to the station.

Mission Specialists Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik also stepped into space Saturday to install communications antennas, NASA said.

Central America demands billions in climate damages

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) --

Central American nations will demand 105 billion dollars from industrialized countries for damages caused by global warming, the region's representatives said on Friday.

Central American environment ministers gathered in Guatemala to discuss the so-called "ecological debt" owed to them and to set out a common position ahead of climate talks in Copenhagen next month.

Guatemalan environment minister Luis Ferrate said the 105-billion-dollar price tag was "an estimate" of the damage done by climate change across 16 sectors in Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama.

Ferrate minister said the region "had never faced" so much drought, aridity, flooding, and precarious food security.

A formal proposal will be presented in Denmark, officials said.

His Nicaraguan counterpart Juana Arguenal said that Central America would press industrialized countries to reach concrete decisions to reduce "greenhouse" gases at Copenhagen.

"We hope for a deal that is ethical and moral," she said.

Greenpeace rallies to stop deforestation in Indonesia

JAKARTA (AFP) --

Hundreds of Greenpeace activists rallied Saturday in support of a commitment by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.

About 200 people rallied in the capital displaying banners that said "Enough, stop destroying our forests" and "Stop talking, start acting".

"We urge SBY to keep his promise in reducing emissions, especially from deforestation," Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner Yuyun Indradi said, referring the president by his initials.

"He promised to reduce emissions of up to 41 percent," Indradi said.

Yudhoyono said at the G20 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh in September that Indonesia had decided on a national climate change action plan that would reduce its emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

Yudhoyono added that Indonesia could reduce emissions by as much as 41 percent with international assistance.

"We also want to support the act from our fellow activists in Riau province... to stop the destruction of peatlands in the area," Indradi said.

Riau, on Sumatra island, is where most of the deforestation is taking place in Indonesia.

Rampant deforestation, which makes ways for palm oil and acacia plantation areas, makes Indonesia the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitters, according to some estimates.

Italy FM warns leaders ahead of climate summit: reports

ROME (AFP) --

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Saturday warned world leaders their credibility could suffer if they failed to make concrete commitments at next month's Copenhagen climate summit.

"Our credibility in the eyes of global public opinion is at stake," said Frattini at a conference in Milan, Italian media reported.

"Our commitment is to contain global warming and to reduce (polluting) emissions by 20 percent and we are ready, if our other partners follow us, even to reduce it by 30 percent," he said.

The European Union has pledged to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared to their 1990 levels by 2020.

The EU says it is willing to aim for a 30-percent reduction if an international agreement is reached which obliges other developed countries to make similar cuts.

Scientists say developed countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by between 25 and 40 percent by 2020, when compared with 1990 levels, in order to limit a rise in temperatures to two degrees Celsius.

The UN climate summit in Copenhagen on December 7-18 aims to build a post-2012 global treaty on tackling climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

U.N. official urges disaster preparedness

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 21 (UPI) --

The world's nations need to work harder to safeguard citizens from disasters caused by climate change, a United Nations official said in New York.

Emergency preparedness in Bangladesh and Cuba minimized the loss of life and destruction caused by an increasing number of storms in recent years, said Margareta Wahlstrom, head of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

The United States, on the other hand, was unprepared for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which showed how even wealthy developed nations must do more to reduce risks from disaster, Wahlstrom said in a release Friday

The world can expect to see an increasing number of climate change-related hazards such as storms, rainfalls, floods, droughts and heat waves, she said.

Those of us that have worked with disasters for a long time have already seen these extremes developing, Wahlstrom said.

Poland to sell Ireland 15 million euro carbon credits

WARSAW (AFP) --

Poland is to sell 15 million euros' (22 million dollars) worth of carbon credits to Ireland, the Polish environment minister said Saturday.

Maciej Nowicki said he expected an agreement for selling unused carbon dioxide emission rights to Ireland to be signed in the next week or two.

On November 9 Poland signed a deal to sell carbon credits worth 25 million euros to Spain.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the Spanish deal would help fund his country's drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve environmental protection.

The coal-rich east European country currently depends on fossil fuels for 94 percent of its electricity, based on infrastructure dating largely from the communist era.

The nations of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, committed last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

They also committed to increasing the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 20 percent.

Saturday's announcement comes ahead of a key UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen next month.

Hacked e-mails highlight climate dispute

NORWICH, England, Nov. 21 (UPI) --

E-mails stolen by hackers prove some leading British climate change scientists falsified information to prove their case, skeptics of global warming say.

The e-mails, allegedly hacked from East Anglia University in Norwich, England, have been published on Web sites run by climate change skeptics, including The Air Vent, The Times of London reported Saturday.

Hundreds of e-mails were stolen from the university's climate research unit, but it had yet to be determined how much of the information published on the skeptics' Web sites was genuine, the university said in a statement Friday.

Several e-mails allegedly were written by Phil Jones, head of the university's climate unit. One message, dated Nov. 16, 1999, referred to temperatures and a trick that could be used to hide the decline, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Jones declined to comment on whether the e-mail was genuine, The Times of London reported.

Iowa professor named Inventor of Year

AMES, Iowa, Nov. 21 (UPI) --

R&D magazine has named an Iowa State University professor Inventor of the Year for his innovations in making a purer vodka and a better pig feed.

Hans van Leeuwen's vodka uses ozone and activated carbon to reduce unwanted substances in vodka.

People want purity in their vodka, van Leeuwen said of the process called Mell03z.

The R&D award, which has been called the Oscars of Invention, in years past has been awarded to Larry Page, co-founder of Google and Elon Musk, a developer of PayPal and Tesla Motors.

I suppose it would be nice if this develops into something that would help cushion my retirement a little bit, van Leeuwen, 63, told The Des Moines Register in a story published Saturday.

Van Leeuwen developed an alternative feed from the fungal remains of ethanol fermentation, which is rich in amino acids and a source of protein for pigs. His company, MycoInnovations, also wants to develop a cheap source of protein that would reduce malnutrition in developing countries.

Tree-eating bugs threaten Monarch butterfly in Mexico

MORELIA, Mexico (AFP) --

The mysterious Monarch butterfly, which migrates en masse annually between Canada and Mexico, is now facing a new peril: another insect thriving in Western Mexican forests.

Some 8,000 oyamel fir trees -- the butterflies' unique mountain habitat each winter -- were cut down in July in a bid to remove beetles that threaten the Monarch's ages-old migration.

But now another small beetle has since taken to devouring the savory tree trunks, further endangering the butterflies' winter colonies.

"We are working to determine how many trees have been affected," said Homero Gomez, president of El Rosario Sanctuary, a premier migrating spot for the Monarch in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.

Local residents, who help manage and maintain the sanctuary, have asked the authorities to fight the new intruder by using natural substances and without felling trees.

Millions of the orange and black butterflies migrate each year when the weather grows cold in Canada to make habitat in Michoacan's oyamel firs, in an annual ritual that has yet to be scientifically explained.

The Monarchs blaze a trail of some 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) -- to the tune of 80 kilometers (50 miles) per day -- arriving in early November in the high mountain massifs of Mexico's transvolcanic belt, where they hibernate until February in huge colonies, completely masking tree trunks.

Thousands of tourists come to observe their majestic aerial dances in the El Rosario Sanctuary, home to five million trees of various species.

Australia issues 'catastrophic' alerts as fires rage

SYDNEY (AFP) --

Australia has issued "catastrophic" alerts after record-breaking temperatures and wild lightning storms sparked more than 100 fires across the country, officials said Saturday.

Unseasonably hot and dry weather combined with strong winds to fan scores of blazes in the country's southeastern states, many of which were sparked by overnight lightning strikes.

"It has never been this hot, dry or windy in combination in November ever before," said New South Wales (NSW) state premier Nathan Rees.

A massive fire was threatening around 100 homes in the NSW town of Rylstone, west of Sydney, and residents were warned to evacuate or prepare to fight the flames, the Rural Fire Service (RFS) said.

Three homes were razed Friday night at the beachside town of Dolphin Sands in Tasmania, Australia's southernmost state. There were also smaller outbreaks in South Australia and Victoria states, but conditions there had eased.

Across New South Wales five major blazes were raging out of control and RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said crews were racing against time to contain the flames ahead of a forecast worsening in conditions.

Lightning without rain was expected to hammer the state overnight before the mercury soared above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Sunday, accompanied by high winds, the weather bureau said.

"It is a very tenuous situation with these unprecedented conditions," Fitzsimmons said.

"We are expecting strong northwesterly winds to reach the Sydney basin, and temperatures could reach the low 40s," RFS spokesman Ben Shepherd added.

"With strong winds, the fires could reach homes... It will be very dangerous fire weather."

More than one-third of NSW was under a Code Red or Catastrophic fire alert, in which residents cannot be forcibly evacuated but are strongly advised to abandon their property due to extreme risk of death or injury.

The warning was issued for the first time ever in South Australia on Tuesday, under a new national system developed in response to February's devastating "Black Saturday" wildfires.

Code Red conditions are considered on a par with those experienced ahead of Black Saturday, Australia's worst disaster of modern times, which killed 173 in Victoria and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

A total fire ban was issued for much of NSW for Sunday, including in Sydney, the country's most populous city, meaning. People will not be allowed to burn rubbish or have barbecues due to the high risk.

Hadron collider sends proton beam

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 21 (UPI) --

A proton beam has been sent through the Large Hadron Collider, a key step in restarting the world's largest atom smasher, physicists in Switzerland said.

The physicists Friday succeeded in sending the beam clockwise around the 17-mile underground tunnel near Geneva, the European Organization for Nuclear Research said.

The effort marked a critical step in restarting the $9 billion collider, which was shut down after it's inaugural start up in September 2008 because of problems with electromagnets.

The past year's work has been a Herculean effort, Steve Myers, the collider's director for accelerators, said in a release.

Physicists aim to use the collider to investigate what the universe was like when it was less than a trillionth of a second old. To do that, protons of seven trillion volts each are to be smashed together to create tiny fireballs that replicate the conditions of the beginning of the universe, the physicists said.

Space station alarm delays Atlantis crew spacewalk

WASHINGTON (AFP) --

Space shuttle Atlantis astronauts aboard the International Space Station delayed their second spacewalk Saturday after being jolted awake by a false alarm, NASA said.

Mission specialists Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik had just two hours of sleep before a depressurization alarm sounded around 0253 GMT, forcing them to exit the Quest airlock, where astronauts "camp out" before spacewalks to purge nitrogen from their bloodstream to prevent decompression sickness.

Mission control in Houston, Texas confirmed the original alarm and subsequent alerts set off around the orbiting outpost were false.

The astronauts were allowed 30 extra minutes to snooze before their six-hour spacewalk, which will be 30 minutes shorter than planned.

Saturday's spacewalk, the second exterior work effort of the shuttle's 11-day mission, is intended to install a new system for storing spare parts on the space station's exterior.

Australia issues 'catastrophic' alerts as fires rage

SYDNEY (AFP) --

"Catastrophic" alerts have been issued in Australia after record-breaking temperatures and wild lightning storms sparked more than 100 fires across the country, officials said on Saturday.

The unseasonably hot and dry weather combined with strong winds have led to blazes breaking out in the country's south eastern states.

In New South Wales (NSW) a total fire ban -- preventing people from doing such things as burning rubbish or having barbecues -- was issued, while the Blue Mountains National Park was closed Saturday.

And in Tasmania, Australia's southernmost island state, three homes were razed Friday at Dolphin Sands, a beachside town.

More than 60 fresh blazes were sparked by the lightning storms, which mostly hit New South Wales, while the states of Victoria South Australia were also affected.

"Temperatures have been quite elevated so the fuel is very dry, and add those winds and it doesn't take much for fires to run very, very quickly indeed," a NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) spokesman said.

"Basically it's very hot and very dry ... it will be a trying day. It doesn't look like there will be any reprieve until Sunday."

A Catastrophic, or Code Red, alert urging residents to abandon their homes was issued on Friday in New South Wales.

The warning was issued for the first time ever in South Australia on Tuesday, under a new national system developed in response to February's devastating "Black Saturday" wildfires.

Residents cannot be forcibly evacuated but are strongly advised to leave their property on a Code Red day, which signifies a high risk of death or injury and destruction.

Australia is facing its worst fire danger in four years, with hotter and windier conditions and earlier than normal outbreaks forecast, according to government analysis published this week.