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sfce 12/8
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What do you do after spending HK$6.9 billion to pump your first drop of oil?
Dec 8, 2015 | South China Morning Post
By Eric Ng
...Sun is the chairman of Shanghai-based heat-pump cooling and heating systems provider Nobao Renewable Energy Holding, 57 per cent owned by Cheng Kin-ming, the largest shareholder of Hong Kong-listed Shunfeng Photovoltaic International that acquired bankrupt Wuxi Suntech – the main subsidiary of Suntech Power, once the mainland’s largest solar power panel maker. -
Innovation: Turnbull will have to see it through
Dec 8, 2015 | IT Wire
By Sam Varghese
...The solar industry has another sad tale to tell, that of Australian scientist Shi Zhengrong, who set up the Wuxi Suntech Power Corporation in China in 2000, on the invitation of officials from the province of Jiangsu. Within five years, he had become one of the richest men in China. Today the market value of Suntech is close to US$6 billion, making it the second-largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world. -
Alternative LED substrate options head in opposite directions
Dec 7, 2015 | LEDs Magazine
By Maury Wright
...Most recently, there have been three primary supporters of GaN-on-Si technology - Plessey, Lattice Power, and Toshiba. That short list acknowledges the departure of TSMC SSL early this year. TSMC's GaN-on-Si assets were sold to Epistar, but there is no evidence of advancement or commercialization of the technology by Epistar. -
Beijing Issues First Red Alert for Severe Air Pollution
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Beijing issued its most severe smog warning for Tuesday—the first time the municipal government has issued a so-called red pollution alert—after acrid-smelling haze returned to the Chinese capital. -
Large Corporate Presence Seen at Paris Climate Talks
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Matthew Campbell
Among the dreadlocked protesters, Birkenstock-shod environmentalists and bleary-eyed negotiators gathering at the Paris climate summit, you'll find a less-expected cohort: besuited corporate types. -
Green Bank Network founded by six global institutions
Dec 8, 2015 | Recharge
By Karl-Erik Stromsta
Six green banks around the world have joined together to form an international Green Bank Network, which they say will help funnel tens of billions of dollars of investment into global clean-energy markets.
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What do you do after spending HK$6.9 billion to pump your first drop of oil?
Dec 8, 2015 | South China Morning Post
By Eric Ng
After spending HK$6.9 billion to pump its first drop of oil from its maiden oilsands project in Canada, Hong Kong-listed Sunshine Oilsands is now looking to the sun for brighter prospects.
The firm, backed by the asset management arms of Bank of China and China Life Insurance, sovereign fund China Investment Corp and China Petrochemical, parent of listed oil major Sinopec, plans to plough US$50 million into solar farms and facilities to extract underground heat to save natural gas costs in a region with harsh winters and relatively average sunlight.
With oil price trading at their lowest in almost seven years, the company is banking on a price recovery and cost savings from the deployment of renewable energy to put an end to its eight years of losses one day.
“While we are starting production when oil price is at its lowest in a long while, it is an opportunity for us to use unconventional energy to cut production costs and carbon emissions,” Sunshine chairman Sun Kwok-ping told the South China Morning Post in an interview.
With the project having just started to produce oil, it plans to invest next year US$10 million on heat pumps with the capacity to generate 3.5 megawatt of electricity to generate steam of up to 150 degrees centigrade to liquefy oil sands and pump it from underground.
It also plans to spend US$40 million on 100 MW of solar farms – enough for around 40,000 Chinese households’ annual consumption – to complement natural gas-fired steam generation for the process.
Sun is Sunshine’s largest shareholder, having raised his stake from 5.9 per cent in April to 17.3 per cent stake at present. CIC owns 8.4 per cent, China Life Insurance (Group) has 7.8 per cent and China Petrochemical, 6.1 per cent.
Sun is the chairman of Shanghai-based heat-pump cooling and heating systems provider Nobao Renewable Energy Holding, 57 per cent owned by Cheng Kin-ming, the largest shareholder of Hong Kong-listed Shunfeng Photovoltaic International that acquired bankrupt Wuxi Suntech – the main subsidiary of Suntech Power, once the mainland’s largest solar power panel maker.
Oil sand is a mixture of clay, sand, water and bitumen, a sticky, energy-rich substance. Oil is produced either by environmental-degradation-prone surface mining or energy-intensive underground mining.
Since 2007, Sunshine has spent C$380.8 million on exploration and resource evaluation and C$827.2 million on property, plant and equipment to enable the production of its first drop of oil.
Along the way, major cost-blowouts on plant construction and equipment procurement due to cost inflation and poor project management saw a brief construction hiatus, before rounds of equity and bond financing kept work going.
While heat-pump technology has been commercially deployed for many years, Sun said its has not been deployed in oil production so far globally since existing technology only produces heat of up to 60 degrees centigrade, while Nobao’s “new” technology can raise it to 90 degrees.
Fort McMurray, the closest big town near Sunshine’s projects in Alberta province, has 2,100 hours of annual sunshine, less than the 2,500 to 3,000 hours in northern China where most of the nation’s solar farms are built.
Sun did not rule out Nobao selling heat pump equipment to Sunshine, but would disclose and seek shareholders’ approvals for connected transactions if required under listing rules.
An analyst who attended Sunshine’s presentation of its new technology said while management expects renewable energy could cut its oilsands project’s cash cost of US$20 by up to 40 per cent, its projected total production cost including depreciation and financing of US$45 to US$50 a barrel means it needs oil price to rebound from the current level of around US$40 to break even.
“Given that low oil prices are expected in the next year at least, the question is how scalable and bankable are its renewable energy and oilsands production capacity expansion plans,” he said.
Sun has agreed to buy HK$393.5 million worth of Sunshine shares at 75 HK cents each, raising his stake to 23.2 per cent. He has only bought HK$83.4 million of shares so far. Unfavourable market conditions saw him defer completion of the purchase from September to March next year.
Sunshine shares yesterday closed at 72 HK cents, down 85 per cent from its initial public offering price in early 2012.
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Innovation: Turnbull will have to see it through
Dec 8, 2015 | IT Wire
By Sam Varghese
When companies see taxpayers' money on offer, when they hear speeches liberally laced with words like "innovation", "agile", and "seamless", they do everything but burst into song in public.
This probably accounts for the overwhelming positive response to the announcement by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday, that $1.1 billion would be provided as an economic reform package to spur innovation.
My colleague, Peter Dinham, has already enumerated in a wonderfully clear manner how the money is to be divvied up, so let me not repeat anything.
In the congratulatory morass, a great many things tend to be forgotten. If everything that Turnbull has proposed comes to pass, then glory, hallelujah.
But people seem to have forgotten that this is not Coalition policy; it is Turnbull's policy. Standing next to the prime minister during the announcement was Christopher Pyne, the minister for industry and innovation. This is the same Pyne who was trying to put university education out of the reach of a good proportion of the population when he was serving as education minister under Tony Abbott.
There is sufficient opposition to Turnbull to make him tread with care; if the leadership ballot had been conducted within the entire Coalition, Abbott would probably still be there chanting "stop the boats", because few, if any, Nationals, would have voted for Turnbull.
Given this, unless Turnbull is around for the next two terms at least, the policies announced on Monday will not be worth the paper on which they are written. The return of some backward-looking pollie at the head of government will mean that much of what Turnbull announced will be reversed. Many Abbott supporters are already describing Turnbull as "Rudd on steroids" because of the spending he has undertaken. These are the folk who cannot see the difference between a household budget and a country's budget.
The two words that have been emerging from Turnbull's mouth practically every hour since he became prime minister are "innovation" and "agile". But how long will it take for Australia to culturally change in order to follow his way?
Last month, the head of Sungevity, one of the bigger solar companies in the US, an Australian named Danny Kennedy, was bemoaning the lost opportunities in his home country. Kennedy, who was featured on the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program, was quoted as saying: ""No doubt dumb Aussie policies and politics have squandered a world-leading advantage that Australia had technologically with PV (photovoltaic solar cells) and in market development."
And he added: "It is not too late though, as this is a marathon not a sprint. They have to stop playing silly buggers and create certainty for investors, businesses and talent to get behind the market there."
Kennedy employs 1000 people in California, a state where the renewables sector grew by leaps and bounds when a Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was governor. No ideology there, of the sort that exists in Australia.
The solar industry has another sad tale to tell, that of Australian scientist Shi Zhengrong, who set up the Wuxi Suntech Power Corporation in China in 2000, on the invitation of officials from the province of Jiangsu. Within five years, he had become one of the richest men in China. Today the market value of Suntech is close to US$6 billion, making it the second-largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world.
These are major Australian success stories. Pity they didn't take place in Australia.
One also has to ask about Turnbull: if he could not see the business potential of fast broadband — and by that I mean fibre to the home — then how can he even begin to talk about innovation? Out in California there are companies which design solar panels for houses after viewing the houses on the internet, through applications like Google Maps. They supply these designs as far afield as Africa.
Meanwhile, there are students in rural Australia who do not have enough bandwidth to even do their online courses. The very word innovation means a new way of doing things and with fast broadband there are a great many ideas that can come to fruition.
But while people in seemingly affluent suburbs struggle to see a YouTube video without buffering, there is really no hope for Australia in this field. The country will be overtaken by everyone else.
Back in the late 1990s, when John Howard was in charge, he steered clear of any attempt to set up a fast broadband network because he was scared of the reaction from media barons Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer. A fast internet service would have threatened the Foxtel pay TV service and Howard wanted the media onside because the only thing he was interested in, was staying in power. Most of the excess cash that Australia earned from its mineral boom — something in the region of $450 billion — was spent on middle-class welfare (remember the baby bonus?).
No Liberal or Coalition government has done anything even remotely resembling innovative in Australia's history. Turnbull will have to fight a great many battles within if he hopes to succeed with his grand plan.
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Alternative LED substrate options head in opposite directions
Dec 7, 2015 | LEDs Magazine
By Maury Wright
We have long watched the interest in alternative substrates to sapphire and silicon carbide in terms of an LED technology and manufacturing platform. You have Soraa touting gallium-nitride-on-gallium-nitride (GaN-on-GaN) and numerous players trying to harness GaN-on-Silicon (GaN-on-Si) LED substrates. Recent business news, however, would seem to indicate that the two alternative paths are diverging and the GaN-on-Si alternative may be gasping for air.
Without question, Soraa offers some of the most well-received directional LED lamps based on its homogeneous GaN-on-GaN LEDs, and apparently demand for the GaN-based LEDs is growing. The company is building a new fabrication facility (fab) in Syracuse, NY, albeit with significant financial assistance from the State of New York.
Support for GaN-on-Si LED substrates has been driven by cost with silicon wafers being cheaper and the potential of handling the back end of the manufacturing process in depreciated fabs previously used for digital ICs. But significant differences in the crystal structure of GaN epitaxial layers and silicon substrates equates to more defects and lower performance in terms of lumen output and efficacy.
Most recently, there have been three primary supporters of GaN-on-Si technology - Plessey, Lattice Power, and Toshiba. That short list acknowledges the departure of TSMC SSL early this year. TSMC's GaN-on-Si assets were sold to Epistar, but there is no evidence of advancement or commercialization of the technology by Epistar.
Now the short list has dropped to two with Toshiba announcing its exit from the LED business as a part of a larger restructuring. Arguably, Toshiba had made the most progress of the GaN-on-Si proponents with efficacy approaching that of mainstream white LEDs, but perhaps the yields were never sufficient for commercialization. In any case, I would think that Toshiba could have sold their silicon-centric assets were the technology ready for primetime.
Plessey has shown signs of success and is going to great lengths to demonstrate the viability of its GaN-on-Si platform.The company even designed and built custom luminaires to retrofit its own facility in the UK. It's also actively expanding its fab capacity, receiving assistance from the government as well, although not near the level of the New York investment in Soraa.
Still, it's no secret that Plessey has sought an exit strategy through acquisition by a larger company. Perhaps the company will yet succeed on its own or find an acquisition partner. To date, however, we are still waiting to see commercialized LED-based lighting products using the GaN-on-Si LEDs ship from lighting manufacturers.
I think that the silicon play may be losing its luster. On the other hand, the GaN proponents will always be able to carve out a specialty niche at the high end. And in the future, new semi-polar GaN-substrate technology may make GaN-based LEDs cost competitive. If you missed it, our coverage on the Strategies in Light keynotes from earlier this year offersgreat insight on the benefits and challenges of alternative LED substrates.
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Beijing Issues First Red Alert for Severe Air Pollution
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Beijing issued its most severe smog warning for Tuesday—the first time the municipal government has issued a so-called red pollution alert—after acrid-smelling haze returned to the Chinese capital.
Local authorities upgraded the air pollution alert to red from orange, effective from 7 a.m. Dec. 8 to noon Dec. 10, according to a statement on Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau's official Weibo Monday. Some industrial companies must stop or limit production, outdoor construction work will be banned and primary schools and kindergartens are advised to cancel classes, the statement said. Even healthy people should try to avoid outdoor activity and choose public transportation.
The move was remarkable because Beijing's smog on Dec. 7, while severe, was less intense than the pollution that struck the capital last week when the government kept the alert level at orange. The concentration of PM 2.5—particulate considered the must dangerous to people's health—was 208 micrograms per cubic meter at 6 p.m. near Tiananmen Square, compared to 666 mg/m3 last week, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center.
“The red alert shows the local government has stepped up efforts to protect citizens from pollution,” said Dong Liansai, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia. “It's probably because of pressure from the central government.”
Clear skies aren't expected again until after the smog peaks Wednesday, according to the China National Environment Monitoring Center.
Bad air on Dec. 7, coupled with five days of hazardous pollution on Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, raised fresh concern about the government's ability to tackle air quality despite repeated statements from leaders that cleaning up the environment in the country is a top priority. Last week's PM 2.5 concentration of 666 mg/m3 is more than 25 times World Health Organization-recommended levels.
Factory Discharges
The latest round of bad air was the result of “factory discharges and unfavorable weather conditions,” the state-run China Daily reported, citing National Meteorological Center Senior Engineer Xue Jianjun. China will strengthen inspections of polluting factories, Environmental Protection Minister Chen Jining said, according to China Daily.
China urged local governments to start emergency measures to cope with the pollution, according to a statement on the Ministry of Environmental Protection Dec. 6. Emissions from automobiles are the main contributor to Beijing's smog, the ministry said Dec. 1.
China should strengthen checks on vehicular emissions, said Yan Ziqing, a director of the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. About 10 percent of the nation's vehicles that exceed the environment ministry's standards still run on the road, resulting in more pollution, she said.
Last week, Beijing's traffic authority said it would consider a congestion fee to ease traffic and smog in the city. The idea was met with impatience from China Daily's editorial page, which said such a fee should have been put in place long ago.
“The severity of the city's traffic and pollution problems leaves no time for policymakers to postpone such moves,” the newspaper said.
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Large Corporate Presence Seen at Paris Climate Talks
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Matthew Campbell
Among the dreadlocked protesters, Birkenstock-shod environmentalists and bleary-eyed negotiators gathering at the Paris climate summit, you'll find a less-expected cohort: besuited corporate types.
In the French capital this week, you can't swing a champagne flute without hitting one of the dozens of blue-chip corporate events—a stark contrast from climate gatherings in Copenhagen, Cancun and Lima, where companies made only cameo appearances.
On Monday morning, executives from LafargeHolcim Ltd. and Monsanto Co. will discuss their climate “action plans” at a Left Bank hotel. Later that day, at the main conference site north of the city, HSBC Holdings Plc's Stuart Gulliver and Kellogg Co.’s John Bryant will address the “Caring for Climate Business Forum.” On Tuesday, chief executives from Total SA, ABB Ltd. and Ericsson AB will gather in a 19th-century mansion near the Arc de Triomphe to discuss “energy for tomorrow.”
The climate talks have become almost as big a draw for corporate leaders as the World Economic Forum in Davos, turning what was once a decidedly crunchy affair into a near must-do for the enterprising CEO. That comes after a concerted effort by United Nations officials to include businesses in the negotiations, but also because of a creeping realization that as the world seeks to limit global warming, there's tons of money to be made.
Being in Paris “is not just a way to make the world more sustainable, but also to promote our business and what we have to offer,” said Peder Holk Nielsen, CEO of Denmark's Novozymes A/S, a maker of enzymes for the production of biofuels like ethanol. “Companies that have these solutions or parts of them stand to win with a strong agreement out of Paris.”
Carbon Tax
The business presence spans industries and countries, reflecting the scale of the challenge of transforming energy production, transportation and agriculture to cut greenhouse-gas emissions—changes that in many cases will have to be catalyzed by new regulations or tax incentives.
The United Nations Environment Program estimates it will take more than $1 trillion a year to build a worldwide “green economy,” including triple-digit-billions for new farming technologies, renewable power generation, and retrofitting buildings for greater efficiency. If, as environmental groups and some companies advocate, major economies impose a price on carbon emissions, those investments will become more attractive.
“It is government that sets the rules, that sets the incentives,” Elon Musk, CEO of electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc., said at Paris City Hall on Friday. “The critical thing we need to do is correctly price carbon.”
Many large companies aren't being driven toward Paris entirely of their own accord. They've had a push from big investors, particularly in Europe, that have begun to call for tough climate targets.
As recently as two years ago, “I would have said, other than green funds or sustainable funds, we're not really hearing from investors” about climate worries, said Linda Fisher, chief sustainability officer at chemical giant DuPont. Now, “it's big institutions.”
Late last year some 400 investors, representing more than $24 trillion in assets, signed a statement calling for faster action on carbon emissions. The document, which counted the likes of BlackRock Inc., Aviva Plc and AXA SA as signatories, said they were “concerned that gaps, weaknesses and delays in climate change and clean energy policies will increase the risks to our investments.”
Eager to show investors they have their houses in order, many big companies are using Paris as a platform for pledges to cut emissions. As the summit kicked off, consumer-goods producer Unilever said it would become “carbon positive” by 2030, by eliminating fossil fuels from its operations and “supporting the generation of more renewable energy than we consume.” Monsanto, vilified by many environmentalists for its sales of genetically modified foods, promised to become carbon-neutral by 2021.
Strange Bedfellows
Though they can sometimes make strange bedfellows, environmentalists say they're happy to have corporate allies—whatever their reasons for coming to the climate table—since they can provide a powerful voice in negotiations.
“As long as nobody's breaking the law, I don't mind what the motivation is,” said Kevin Moss of the World Resources Institute, an environmental group in Washington. “Businesses are part of the system just as much as government is. We want them to be part of writing the rules.”
In the energy industry, the most aggressive changes are still largely a European affair; a joint letter from oil companies in June that called for comprehensive carbon pricing was signed by the CEOs of BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Total—but not Exxon Mobil Corp. or Chevron Corp., the two largest U.S. producers. (Exxon says it supports a “revenue-neutral carbon tax,” while Chevron says it supports “solutions that achieve environmental objectives without undermining growth.”)
Even the European stance, though, illustrates how the pursuit of profit is encouraging corporate action on climate. A casualty of a carbon price would be coal-fired power plants, which pollute much more than those that run on natural gas. Shell's $70 billion takeover this year of BG Group Plc gave it access to huge new gas projects in Brazil and Australia, while BP is expanding efforts to supply gas to China.
For large energy companies, “a modest carbon price that advantages natural gas over coal, but doesn't disadvantage natural gas against lower-carbon forms of energy, is the sweet spot,” said Peter Frumhoff, the director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Those companies are also hedging their bets, Frumhoff said -- continuing work on Arctic exploration and oil-sands development in Canada that probably wouldn't be viable under a stringent climate regime.
Peter Bakker, a former CEO of logistics group TNT NV and now leader of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which counts dozens of corporate giants as members, says he's confident that even the holdouts will come around.
Climate change “is no longer just a conceptual notion in scientists’ models, but is really happening,” Bakker said. “The more certain it becomes that the world is moving toward a low carbon society, the clearer the opportunities.”
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Green Bank Network founded by six global institutions
Dec 8, 2015 | Recharge
By Karl-Erik Stromsta
Six green banks around the world have joined together to form an international Green Bank Network, which they say will help funnel tens of billions of dollars of investment into global clean-energy markets.
The founding members of the Green Bank Network are the UK Green Investment Bank, the NY Green Bank, the Connecticut Green Bank, Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Japan’s Green Fund, and the Malaysian Green Technology Corporation.
Green banks are publicly funded entities that work to break down investment barriers for clean-energy technologies, often by investing in new technologies or business models so that they can establish a track record, and eventually access funding on their own.
“It is increasingly important for international counterparties to work together to address local clean-energy financing issues,” says Richard Kauffman, chairman of energy and finance for New York State.
Two non-profits – the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Coalition for Green Capital – were tapped to spearhead the creation of the network.
San Francisco-based ClimateWorks is providing seed funding for the network, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has pledged to help bring the network together.
The major green bank was the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB), which was created in 2012. Through the end of last year, the Edinburgh-based GIB had committed £1.8bn ($2.7bn) of capital, helping to mobilise a total of £6.9bn for UK green infrastructure, including a number of major offshore wind projects.
The NY Green Bank, established in 2014, is a key leg of New York State’s plan to redesign its power markets to enable a far greater renewables penetration over the coming decades.
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