The UN Energy and Climate Change Advisory Group Recommends…

 Dear Friends. This is my last article as Lead Author of this blog. Although I plan to continue my research on all issues related to energy in the Americas, I am ready for new challenges and projects. I will make sure to post the occasional article as a guest contributor in this blog space. 

Meanwhile, take good care and keep in touch.  Best, Annette.

On Wednesday I scooted out to New York to attend the meeting/release of the report/recommendations put forth by the UN Secretary General Energy and Climate Change Advisory Group. The gist of their mandate is to help the UN system understand and act on the nexus between energy and environment.

Another chapter on the Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas

While the world watched with empathy the tragedy that struck Poland and reacted to the fallout from the billowing smoke coming out of the unpronounceable volcano in Iceland, another chapter in President Obama’s Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) was written earlier this month in Washington. At its essence, ECPA was supposed to reconfigure US relations in the hemisphere – with energy at the start.

Secretary Clinton Announces New Energy Partnerships

Remarks made by Secretary Clinton yesterday at the InterAmerican Development Bank on the occasion of the preparatory meetings of the Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas. Video is also available.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you very much, Luis Alberto, and to everyone here at IDB. Thank you for hosting this important gathering. And I am delighted to see so many friends in the audience representing not only the important work that we talk about today, but the partnership across our hemisphere. And I know that Secretary Chu spoke with you this morning and someone’s already told me that he was the funniest physicist you’ve ever heard from. (Laughter.) And I have to agree, probably the funniest Nobel Prize Laureate as well.

Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas

The US Department of Energy and the OAS have launched a new website to bring together all information pertaining to the initiatives and events related to the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas. If the hemisphere’s energy coming and going is of interest to you, this is a site you should bookmark.

Setting a Hemispheric Energy Agenda

This posting is a guest contribution by Eric Farnsworth, Vice President of the Council of the Americas in Washington DC. It was originally published as a contribution to the AS-COA website.

Leaders from across the Americas will converge on Washington April 15 to 16 to promote the efficient production and consumption of clean energy. As a follow-on to the Summit of the Americas one year ago in Trinidad and Tobago, the Energy and Climate Ministerial of the Americas seeks to create an agenda based on energy efficiency, increased use of renewables, cleaner fossil fuels, infrastructure development, and universal access to energy resources. These are good and worthy goals. The question will be whether governments are prepared to move beyond aspirations and to build an agenda for cooperation and implementation, both with each other and also with the private sector. If they do, the hemisphere could play a leading role in global clean energy markets. If they don’t, the region will fall behind.

A Live Online Discussion on Technology Inclusion in the Hemisphere

Our friends at Americas Quarterly are hosting a live online discussion on March 31 from 12:30-1:00 p.m. (U.S. EDT) on how to extend technological inclusion to minorities across the hemisphere. They would be thrilled if our blog visitors participated. Here’s the link for more information and to sign-up: www.americasquarterly.org/online-discussion-digital-barriers

Fell free to share the link with your contacts.

It’s an opportunity to dialogue with one of Brazil’s leading civic experts (Paulo Rogerio, a contributor to the recent AQ) on how to extend technological inclusion to minorities and why this is important for Brazil and countries across the hemisphere. Editor-in-Chief of Wired.com Evan Hansen will be among the other technology experts joining the discussion.

Questions to be addressed:

- What are the greatest obstacles to expanding access to technology in Brazil and in other countries of the hemisphere?

- Why is increased access important to a country’s overall economic growth?

- What are some successsful initiatives (pubic, private and civil society) to address these challenges especially in regard to promoting access for minorities and the underpriviledged? Can these efforts be scaled up?

New Unconventional Gas Hits LNG and the future of new Pipelines

This companion piece to the Huge Unconventional Gas Finds likely to change US Gas Markets was commissioned by Oxford Analytica and published in the end of 2009.

SUBJECT: The impact of huge new US and Canadian unconventional gas developments on North American and global energy industries.

SIGNIFICANCE: Reliable private and government estimates suggest that proven US gas reserves from conventional and unconventional sources are likely to rise from just over 200 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to well in excess of 1,700 Tcf (surpassing current Russian reserves) due to unconventional gas developments. This is certain to have major industry implications, particularly on proposed North American gas pipeline projects from the Arctic and the outlook for the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

Huge Unconventional Gas Finds likely to change US Gas Markets

This policy brief, which will be followed by a companion piece, was commissioned by Oxford Analytica and published in the end of 2009. The other piece, which deals with the impact of the new gas finds on the LNG and Pipeline sectors will be posted in the next few days.

SUBJECT: How huge new US unconventional gas developments will change markets.

SIGNIFICANCE: Recent evaluations based on production data for the Appalachian Basin Marcellus Shale formation estimate potential gas production at 489 trillion cubic feet. Other newly discovered gas sources will ultimately push US unconventional reserves to well in excess of current Russian proven reserves. Although this resource, and several other massive unconventional finds, will take years to develop, the impact on US, North American, and global gas markets will be enormous.

Shell and Cosan — oil and ethanol merger will deliver cellulosic ethanol from sugar cane

An exclusive post that connects to work CIGI’s Portal for North America conducted a few years ago. NOTE: after this article was published I spoke (Feb, 18 at 2:00PM EST) to Iogen who clarified some points. The edits/comments appear in bold.

Early this month, in a transaction estimated at US$12 billion, oil super-major Royal Dutch Shell and Cosan, one of Brazil’s (and the world’s) largest ethanol and sugar processors, agreed  to merge their respective Brazilian ethanol and fuel distribution businesses. The deal alone is noteworthy: it opens global distribution markets to Brazilian ethanol and makes Shell a major player in the ethanol market. Even more interesting, however, is the new joint venture’s (JV) position in second generation ethanol production. The JV will own a 50 percent stake in Canada’s Iogen – a global leader in the production of cellulosic ethanol (Shell’s 50 percent joint venture is in Iogen Energy and not Iogen Corp), and a 14.7 percent interest in California’s Codexis, a top developer of clean biocatalytic process technologies. All stand to gain from this transaction… except, perhaps, Canadian tax payers…

Oil groups mount legal challenge to Schwarzenegger’s tar sands ban

As the SugarCane Blog discussed on February 2nd, today’s article penned by Terry Macalister, the U.K. Guardian’s energy editor, looks at lawsuits against the California LCFS. It follows what we expected, as posted in the three companion pieces: “California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard hit the Energy Sector”, “California LCFS: new hurdles for Canada’s Oil Sands” , and “California LCFS: want to comply? Buy sugar cane ethanol” .

A lobby group that includes BP and Shell in its membership has launched a legal challenge against low-carbon legislation in California that in effect rules out the use of oil from Canadian tar sands. The action by the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) comes amid growing political, investor and consumer pressure on US oil companies not to participate in the carbon-intensive tar sands of Alberta. Read the Rest of this Entry >>