Indigenous peoples are among the first to suffer from increasingly harsh and erratic weather conditions, and a generalized lack of empowerment to claim goods and services to which other population groups have greater access. - Regina Laub, FAO focal point for Indigenous Peoples
The sudden rise in food prices has caused many to worry about the effects of this trend on the world's urban poor. Analyses of how much biofuels have contributed to this increase differ widely, with some saying that the food-based fuels are responsible for as much as 70%, while other experts find a 'marginal' impact. Most analysts seem to agree that a combination of factors, such as the rapidly growing demand from fast-growing economies (China, India, Brazil, Russia), high oil prices, bad weather in key growing areas, and commodity speculation may play an equally big or even bigger role. One thing is certain, though: the decades of low food prices seem to be coming to an end.
The BBC has an interesting story about two British farmers who have moved to Russia to grow wheat on the very fertile "black soils" there. Around 100 million acres of these legendary "chernozems" have been abandoned over the past years. If the fields were to be brought back into production, Russia would instantly become the world's third biggest producer of cereals, capable of harvesting 300 million tons per year. According to Daniel Fischer this is possible without touching any virgin land. And for Russia's Ministry of Agriculture, the re-use of the chernozems is only the beginning. Recently it announced that there are other types of low-value, abandoned farmland available immediately for the production of around 1 billion tons of biomass for energy...
CHEMICAL STOCKS CONTINUE TO SHINE IN A ROUGH MARKET- Terra Industries, Inc is a manufacturer of nitrogen products serving the agriculutural and industrial markets in the US, United Kingdom, and Canada. Despite the long-term success of this stock some are still shocked to find that this stock is still cheap despite it just hitting a new 52-week high. First let’s go over the fundamentals of a company that is repurchasing and additional 10 million shares of its common stock outstanding.
First off the EPS has grown 999%, 650%, 500%, 185%, and 169% the past five quarters making it one of the fastest growing companies out there. To go along with the incredible EPS growth, sales growth has been fantastic with sales growth of 26%, 32%, 28%, 27%, 15%, and 22% the past six quarters. These numbers are fantastic and are the reason mutual funds have embraced this company.
Fund ownership has grown from 139 to 201 to 249 to 258 funds the past four quarters. This growth now gives funds 25% of the ownership of the stock. Banks also own 16% of the stock according to Investors Business Daily.
With debt only 53% of shares outstanding with a Return on equity of 46% it seems hard to believe a stock like this can be cheap. But it is.
Owens Corning to Double Russian Insulation Production- Looks like the St. Gobian deal will be paying off in spades for Owens Corning (OC). Owens acquired the Gous-Khrustalny, Russia, production facility as part of its 2007 acquisition of Saint-Gobain's composites businesses. OC announced that it will more than double the production capacity of its glass fiber composites facility in Gous-Khrustalny, Russia, to meet growing global demand.
Biomass energy is increasingly touted as the key renewable in the push to green Europe's electricity supplies, says David Williams, chairman of the UK government's Renewables Advisory Board's (RAB) biomass sub-group. This is so because biomass shows the best economic and CO2-abatement performance of all the renewables, because it can be transported and traded globally, and because it is far more reliable than intermittent sources.
Austin Energy plans $2.3 billion investment in biomass power- Austin's municipal power company is planning a $2.3 billion, 20-year deal to draw renewable electricity from a biomass plant in East Texas. Austin Energy says that the plant would run on waste wood and generate 100 megawatts of power. It would open in 2012.
Austin Energy spokesman Ed Clark said power from the biomass plant would move the city closer to its goal of getting 30 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020. Nacogdoches Power LLC would build and run the plant and Austin would buy all the power. The price tag would include the cost of fuel and operating expenses.
Bio-SNG pilot plant comes online in the Netherlands - further steps towards carbon-negative energy- Carbon-negative energy - the most radically green form of renewable energy - is beginning to enter the European discourse on clean energy and climate change in an ever more serious way. But there's more than dreaming of the concept, there's action too. The world's first pilot-scale biomass gasification plant that yields methane the carbon dioxide of which will be sequestered in the future, has come online in the Netherlands, bringing the concept closer to reality. This type of 'negative emissions energy' or 'carbon-negative biofuel' is capable of actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere, thus tackling climate change in the most drastic way.
Three studies look at soil's carbon storage capacity- As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, methods to mitigate these increases are becoming very important. Three studies published in the July-August 2008 issue of Soil Science Society of America Journal explore the potential roles of soils as a C sink in different regions in the Western Hemisphere. The studies all demonstrate that C storage capacity of soils in different regions of the Western Hemisphere respond similarly to a diverse range of management practices to increase soil C input.
At a global conference held yesterday in Gent, Belgium, the UN's Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) together with cassava scientists and food security analysts called for a significant increase in investment in research and development to boost farmers’ yields of cassava and explore promising industrial uses for the crop, including production of biofuels.
The tropical root crop known as manioc or cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) could help protect both the food and energy security of poor countries now threatened by soaring food and oil prices, the FAO says. The organisation reiterates what many tropical agronomists and development experts have said about cassava in the past (e.g. CIAT thinks cassava ethanol could benefit millions of the world's poorest farmers).
Aspiravi and Spano build 26MWe biomass power plant in Belgium - advanced circulating fluidized-bed- Renewable energy company Aspiravi NV and wood products manufacturer Spano NV have formed A&S Energie, a partnership that _nl_v02.htm">will begin to build a 26MWe biomass power plant in Oostrozebeke, Belgium, next month. Foster Wheeler's Finnish subsidiary Foster Wheeler Energia Oy has been awarded the contract by Prokon Nord Energiesysteme GmbH - which will engineer and construct the plant - for the advanced circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) steam generator that will form the core of the power system.
The €90 million (US$141m) project will be located near the Roeselare-Leie canal which will make it easy to efficiently transport the estimated 170,000 tons of uncrecyclable wood waste that will be used as fuel each year.
The facility's net production will be 175GWh of green electricity per year, enough to meet the needs of 50,000 families. Part of the electricity will be utilized by Spano, but the bulk produced will be sold to the local grid.
Converting livestock manure into a domestic renewable fuel source could generate enough electricity to meet up to three per cent of North America's entire consumption needs and lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), according to a paper published today by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, in the Institute of Physics' Environmental Research Letters.
The open access paper, 'Cow Power: The Energy and Emissions Benefits of Converting Manure to Biogas', has implications for all countries with livestock as it is one the few attempts to outline a procedure for quantifying the national amount of renewable energy that herds of cattle and other livestock can generate and the concomitant GHG emission reductions.
Green Planet Energy to invest $228 million in 14 biomass projects in Punjab- lign="right" />Green Planet Energy Private Limited announced today it will invest a sum of 9.6 billion rupees (US$228/€145 million) on setting up 14 biomass power projects in the Indian state of Punjab. The plan would add 147MW of renewable energy to the state's portfolio. The investment is part of the Punjabi government's ambitious plans to shift towards green energy sources. According to the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA), bioenergy is the leading form of renewable energy for the 'green state', with a potential of more than 1.4 GW. Wind, solar and micro-hydro are also in the portfolio and are attracting (smaller) investments, all aimed at meeting a goal of generating 1500MW of 'non-conventional' power by 2012.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) introduces a new database on the world’s soils which improves knowledge of the current and future land productivity as well as the present carbon storage and carbon sequestration potential of the world’s soils. It helps to identify land and water limitations, and assist in assessing the risks of land degradation, particularly soil erosion risks.
Derived from the soil database, FAO has produced a global Carbon Gap Map that allows for the identification of areas where soil carbon storage is greatest and the physical potential for billions of tons of additional carbon to be sequestrated in degraded or nutrient-poor soils. Because of their enormous potential to store carbon, soils can become the key to mitigating climate change.
Values determine whether veggie burger tastes as good as beef burger- Many heavy meat eaters believe they eat a lot of meat because of the taste. But according to groundbreaking new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, the reason that a beef burger tastes better than a veggie burger to some people has more to do with values than actual taste.
Cuba allows more private farming to boost food production- Cuba is to put more state-controlled farm land into private hands, in a move to increase the island's lagging food production. The communist island state has a very large agro-ecological potential, so large in fact that it should be a net food and fuel exporter. But the catastrophically low efficiency of state farms and the disastrous effects of decades of mismanagement have prevented the full exploitation of this potential. Because of this, Cuba is now a net food and fuel importer.
In a major policy shift, private farmers who do well will now be able to increase their holdings by up to 40 hectares (99 acres) for a 10-year period that can be renewed. Until now, private farmers have only been able to run small areas of land.
RWE npower Cogen to build $200 million, 45MW biomass CHP plant in Scotland- RWE npower Cogen announces it plans to build a 45MW biomass power plant at a papermaking site in Glenrothes, Scotland. Using combined heat and power (CHP) systems, the £100 million (€126m/$200m) plant will save 250,000 tonnes of carbon emissions from the Tullis Russell papermill. It will provide steam and electricity for the papermill under a long-term contract, while two thirds of the generated electricity will be fed into the Scottish power grid. That would be enough to power a city the size of Dundee, Scotland's fourth largest city with 150,000 inhabitants.
Researchers have combined the efforts of two kinds of bacteria to produce hydrogen in a bioreactor, with the product from one providing food for the other. According to an article [*.pdf] in the August issue of Microbiology Today, this technology has an added bonus: leftover enzymes can be used to scavenge precious metals from spent automotive catalysts to help make fuel cells that convert hydrogen into energy.
Food aid, a gigantic waste of money?- Pedro Sanchez, director of the Tropical Agriculture Program of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and 2002 World Food Prize Laureate, has some interesting numbers on the unsustainable costs of food aid. They show that the multi-billion dollar food aid industry is in a crisis because of rising costs. But there is a very positive side to this crisis: it has now become rational and profitable to invest in local farmers in developing countries - something that should have been done ages ago. The food aid industry has always had perverse effects, such as the destruction of local markets and farmers.
Canada's Buchanan Renewable Energies has pledged to construct a 35MW integrated biomass electricity generation power plant in Paynesville to supply electricity to Monrovia. Power supplies in Liberia's capital are erratic, with the poor country's main electricity facility - a large hydroelectric power plant - still damaged because of the civil war that kept the West African country in its grip for years.
Ground cover may be one workable method to reduce the effects of erosion that future biomass harvests are predicted to bring. Iowa State University researchers are looking at ways to use ground cover, a living grass planted between the rows of corn, in production farming.
The seemingly limitless national appetite for ethanol has industry and government looking beyond the kernel to the entire corn plant for more fuel. But corn, the source of most of the United States' ethanol, is not limitless, so turning corn stalks and leaves into ethanol is the target of much research.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that by the year 2030, about 20 percent of ethanol will be made by turning corn stalks and leaves, known as corn stover, into fuel. That projection assumes that 75 percent of this corn stover can be harvested for biofuels. Currently, stover is not used to make ethanol.
Long-running study: some plants can adapt to widespread climate change- While many plant species move to a new location or go extinct as a result of climate change, grasslands clinging to a steep, rocky dale-side in Northern England seem to defy the odds and adapt to long-term changes in temperature and rainfall, according to a new study by scientists from Syracuse University and the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) published online in the July 7 issue of the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The experiment on which the study is based is one of the longest-running studies of climate change impacts on natural vegetation and may yield new insights into the effects of global warming on plant ecosystems.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) applauds what it calls the 'visionary action' taken by U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and his colleagues who helped usher in legislation to recognize soils as an 'essential' natural resource, placing soil on par with water and air.
On June 23, Senator Brown was joined by co-sponsoring Senators Kent Conrad (D-ND), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ken Salazar (D-CO) and George Voinovich (R-OH) to successfully pass Senate Resolution 440 [*.pdf], which also highlights the 'critical role' soils professionals play in managing soil resources.
Coal-generated CO2 captured in Australia - further steps towards carbon-negative bioenergy- In a first for Australia, carbon dioxide has been captured from power station flue gases in a post-combustion-capture (PCC) pilot plant at Loy Yang Power Station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. The development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies is important because it will allow the generation of carbon-negative energy in the future. Carbon-negative or 'negative emissions' energy is obtained when biomass instead of coal is used in a power plant and its CO2 captured and sequestered. CCS techniques for coal are similar to those for biomass, which is why we track developments in both sectors.
Austin's municipal power company is 
lign="right" />Green Planet Energy Private Limited 
Many heavy meat eaters believe they eat a lot of meat because of the taste. But according to groundbreaking new 
RWE npower Cogen 
In a first for Australia, carbon dioxide has been 
's
