Monday, July 23, 2007

Energy, Alt-energy and the Big Papers

The WSJ.com's Energy Roundup has seven stories from the Journal, including a link to this one online:
Bush Weighs Range of Emission Caps.

The Washington Post has an Op-ed by Sebastian Mallaby:

Carbon Policy That Works
Avoiding the Pitfalls Of Kyoto Cap-and-Trade

Half of Nicaragua has no access to electricity. Women and children spend hours collecting firewood; the people suffer respiratory diseases from the wood smoke; they spend what little money they can spare on kerosene. Tecnosol replaces wood and kerosene with solar power; it is partway through an effort to install 25,000 solar units, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 150,000 tons over the life of the equipment. But the villagers involved in Tecnosol's project are being cheated. They are not getting paid for reducing emissions, even though solar conversions are good for the climate, good for health and good for poverty reduction.

Even worse, less than 1% of the U.N.'s "Clean Development Mechanism" and "Joint Implementation" Kyoto money is going to Africa.

Sometimes I find it difficult to respect these people.

The bulk of the money goes to China. Here's CDM in China.
Which raises the question, WTF?