NIKE, Inc (NYSE:NKE) released its fiscal 2007 to 2009 Corporate Responsibility (CR) report which outlines the next evolution of its CR strategy from a risk management, philanthropic and compliance model to a long-term strategy focused on innovation, collaboration, transparency and advocacy to prepare the company to thrive in a sustainable economy.

The company’s increased focus on Sustainable Business and Innovation (SB&I) will be more seamlessly integrated across Nike’s business strategies, creating a more sustainable approach aimed at providing greater returns to its business, communities, factory workers, consumers and the planet.

The report also details progress on Nike’s five-year CR goals and provides a comprehensive review of its CR efforts over the past three years.

“Sustainability is key to Nike’s growth and innovation,” said Mark Parker, NIKE, Inc’s, President and CEO. “Making our business more sustainable benefits our consumers who expect products and experiences with low environmental impact, contract factory workers who will gain from more sustainable manufacturing and our employees and shareholders who will be rewarded by a company that is prepared for the future.”

Recognizing the impacts of declining natural resources and the need to move to a low-carbon economy, Nike also uses the report to share its vision of reaching a closed-loop business model where the goal is to achieve zero waste in the supply chain and have products and materials that can be continuously reused – no pre or post consumer waste. This vision is designed to drive innovative and sustainable business processes and models.

“The link between sustainability and Nike as a growth company has never been clearer,” said Hannah Jones, Vice President, SB&I. “There are serious potential impacts of social, environmental and economic shifts on labor forces, youth sport, supply chains and products. This gives Nike the opportunity to use our power of innovation and our commitment to transparency and collaboration to tackle these complex issues.”

The report announces progress against Nike’s five-year targets set in 2007. The company has made sound progress on many fronts such as implementing Lean and Human Resource Management training in contract factories and reducing waste and toxics and increasing its use of environmentally preferred materials throughout Considered Design performance products.

The report also details where progress against other goals remains more challenging such as managing overtime in contract factories. Nike has also revised or clarified targets in a few instances due to a better understanding of the complexities of the issue or a change in strategy.

The CR report outlines some important initiatives for the company including:

1. Considered Design

Considered Design combines sustainability principles and innovative performance products for athletes by reducing or eliminating toxics and waste and increasing the use of environmentally preferred materials.

2. GreenXchange (GX)

GX is a web-based marketplace designed to share intellectual property which can lead to new sustainability business models and innovation. It is a system for capturing, sharing and licensing patents that, when used by someone else, could lead to unlimited innovation in helping solve current obstacles to sustainability issues. By making private intellectual property visible and usable, the aim is to accelerate the development of green innovation.

3. Lean and Human Resource Management (HRM)

Nike has been working with contract factories to train them in the implementation of specialized Lean manufacturing and HRM. Lean principles put the decision making closer to the worker through skill building, teamwork and understanding quality over quantity. HRM builds the factory’s managerial capacity and helps them value an empowered workforce. While only one aspect of Nike’s work with contract factories, it is an important pillar of Nike’s strategy to build a more lean, green, empowered and equitable supply chain.

4. Sport for Social Change

Nike has furthered its strategy of using sport as a powerful movement for social change. Sport is undervalued for its capacity to build networks of social entrepreneurs and community innovators and for its ability to drive positive social, economic and cultural change. One powerful example of a program Nike partners with is Grassroot Soccer in Africa. It is a community program which is directly addressing a dire social need through raising awareness and education of HIV/AIDS by enabling young people to make informed decisions, using sport as a catalyst to engage and communicate to boys and girls.

5. Energy and Climate Change Strategy

In 2009 Nike instigated the formation of new coalition of consumer companies called Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) which is advocating for strong U.S. climate and energy legislation with the aim of creating a level playing field through a cost on carbon and unlocking innovation that is essential to creating technology and infrastructure solutions. Nike aims to be ahead of the curve of mandatory regulation, energy price increases and volatility and consumer pressure.

In addition, in 2008 Nike launched a footwear energy efficiency program with five contract manufacturers. Nike’s commitment to collaboration on this project has shown excellent early results: the contract factories absolute CO2 footprint was down 6 percent despite a 9 percent increase in production.

Nike’s corporate responsibility report, available online at nikeresponsibility.com, provides greater detail on progress against targets and provides a comprehensive review of the company’s efforts for fiscal years 2007, 2008 and 2009.

www.nike.com – www.nikebiz.com.

To review Nike’s FY07-09 CR Report, click here

The government today committed to consult on the introduction of display energy certificates (DECs) which show the energy use of shops and offices. Responding to the Committee on Climate Change’s First Progress Report, ministers said that DECs should be rolled out to give everyone a better understanding of carbon emissions.

It is significant because a DEC is based on actual energy use, meaning that even if a top brand occupied a state of the art, A-rated green building, if it wasted heat by leaving he doors open or left the lights on all night, it would get a poor rating. The BPF has said that mandatory DECs would help to focus both owners and occupiers on efficient use of the building, which could save around a third of energy bills.

Currently, such certificates are only required for public buildings over a certain size.

Patrick Brown, assistant director for sustainability said:

‘The BPF has long been campaigning for a roll-out of display energy certificates and today’s announcement is very welcome. It is vital that we motivate both owners and occupiers to use buildings effectively. Building up energy performance data on buildings would allow us to easily benchmark and compare properties and would also give the public a greater insight into how well their own offices or chosen retailers are performing.”

The finance agreements were signed today at the EIB’s headquarters in Luxembourg by Mr Plutarchos Sakellaris, EIB Vice-President, and Mr Yiannis Kourakis, Mayor of Heraklion.

The investments aim at promoting local development to improve the quality of life of residents and visitors and mainly concern public spaces, road safety measures, environmental protection, cultural heritage and buildings for municipal services. They form part of the municipality’s “Green Heraklion 2008-2013″ urban development programme.

On this occasion, EIB Vice-President Plutarchos Sakellaris stated: “Environmentally friendly and efficient urban infrastructure is key to the development and prosperity of cities. This investment in Heraklion will improve the quality and attractiveness of the city. It will moreover sustain economic growth in particular through the further development of cultural tourism. “Green development” is a top European priority. With our financial means and expertise, as the largest multilateral financing institution in the world and with a physical presence in Greece, the Bank is making a tangible contribution to this priority sector”.

Mr Yiannis Kourakis commented: “The EIB has always been a leading international partner of our country and supported our social and economic development by every means. The extension of a hefty amount of loans to finance “green cities” makes the EIB’s contribution even more tangible to Greek citizens throughout the country. I would like to express my satisfaction that Heraklion is pioneering this route forward to a better quality of life, and take this opportunity to thank the EIB for its fruitful cooperation. I strongly believe that this cooperation will further improve with new projects in the coming years”.

The project includes small to large-sized schemes, primarily in the fields of urban renewal and rehabilitation of municipal infrastructure and community facilities, but also embracing, where appropriate, environmental protection and energy saving schemes. It also comprises the city’s new Cultural and Conference Centre of Heraklion. The centre will host all the conference, cultural, educational and leisure activities in Heraklion, which with 140 000 inhabitants is the largest city in Crete and its administrative and economic centre.

The EIB loan will allow the municipality to fund its investments at a cost that is lower than its traditional funding sources whilst the long-term nature of the loan will enable it to spread the budgetary impact over a longer period. In Greece, local authorities are expected to assume a greater role in carrying out local infrastructure investments, favouring the increased prioritisation of investments. EIB participation in the financing of the investment programmes of local authorities in Greece can therefore play an important role in the future.

Tioga provides project financing through its SurePath^SM Solar(PPAs), and maintains and operates solar systems on behalf of its customers.  Tioga’s offering deliver spredictably priced power and enables organisations to to both ‘green’ their operations and reduce energy costs.  In order to illustrate the benefits of solar, Tioga needs to estimate future electricity prices and make comparisons by showing the savings from a new solar system.

To forecast possible price increases, Tioga Energy inputs California’s historical electricity rate data into a model developed using Palisade’s risk analysis software, @RISK.  This generates a probability distribution for electricity rate rises over the 20-year PPA period, which shows that there is a 25 percent likelihood that price increase swill be less than 4.8 percent, and a 25 percent chance that rate rises would be more than 8.7 percent.

The @RISK model therefore helps Tioga Energy evaluate the likelihood that acustomer will save money for a variety of PPA scenarios (i.e. the rate at which electricity would initially be charged and the amount by which it would then increase each year).  It also calculates the magnitude of savings for the different combinations of first year costs and subsequent rises.  Consumers are therefore able to better understand the pricing and make an informed decision about whether to sign up for a PPA.

“Using historical data and @RISK’s modelling capacity, we can offer consumers a robust view of the potential benefits of a solar PPA.  This enables them to hedge against rising electricity rates, as well as feel confident that they are playing a part in tackling global warming,”explains Kristian Hanelt, VP Project Finance for Tioga Energy.

Hanelt confirms:  “@RISK is a flexible and technically adept tool that, in addition to enabling in-depth analysis, makes it easy for us to present relatively complex ideas in an easy-to-understand graphical format.  As a result, it plays a key role in helping Tioga Energy to differentiate itself from its competitors.”

Tioga Energy’s full report on its study, ‘Hedging Against Utility Rate Fluctuations with a Solar PPA’ is available to download here: http://www.tiogaenergy.com/tioga-energy-reports.php

UN’s International Year of Biodiversity Kicks Off in Berlin

Berlin/Nairobi, 11 January 2010 - A new and more intelligent pact between humanity and the Earth’s economically-important life-support systems is urgently needed in 2010, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said today.

Speaking at the launch of the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity in Berlin today, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP’s Executive Director Achim Steiner said that an unprecedented scientific, economic, political and public awareness effort was needed to reverse-and to stop- the loss of the planet’s natural assets.

These losses include its biodiversity such as animal and plant species and the planet’s ecosystems and their multi-trillion dollar services arising from forests and freshwater to soils and coral reefs.

“The words biodiversity and ecosystems might seem abstract and remote to many people. But there is nothing abstract about their role in economies and in the lives of billions of people,” said Mr. Steiner at the meeting hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Take coral reefs for example. The range of benefits generated by these ecosystems and the biodiversity underpinning them are all too often invisible and mainly undervalued by those in charge of national economies and international development support,” he added.

The latest estimates by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study, which UNEP hosts, indicates that coral reefs generate annually up to US$189,000 per hectare in terms of coastal defenses and other areas of ‘natural hazard management’.

“In terms of diving and other tourism revenues, the annual services generated equate to perhaps US$1 million; genetic materials and bio-prospecting, up to US$57,000 per hectare annually and fisheries, up to US$3,800 per hectare per year,” explained Mr. Steiner.

Via  unep.org

Nairobi, Kenya / Herzogenaurach, Germany, 6 January 2010 – PUMA and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) were joined today by the Indomitable Lions – Cameroon’s national football team – with team captain Samuel Eto’o, to announce a strategic partnership to support biodiversity worldwide and specific initiatives in Africa.

The ‘Play for Life’ partnership will support the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity by raising awareness about habitat and species conservation among football fans and the general public during worldwide football events, including the Orange Cup of African Nations in Angola later this month and international friendly games leading up to the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. With 12 African football team sponsorships to its name and a history of innovation with Africa, PUMA is uniquely positioned to help drive this effort with UNEP.

The International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) is a global initiative launched by the United Nations for 2010 to help raise awareness on the importance of biodiversity and to encourage worldwide action to conserve plants and animals and the environments in which they live. The ‘Play for Life’ campaign focuses on Africa, a continent that hosts exceptional biodiversity including two of the five most important wilderness areas on Earth – the Congo Basin, and Miombo-Mopane Woodlands and Savannas of Southern Africa. Nine of the planet’s 35 Biodiversity hotspots, the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth, are also in Africa.

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), biodiversity is under threat around the planet – we are creating the greatest extinction crisis since the natural disaster that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Species have been disappearing at up to 1,000 times the natural rate, and this is predicted to rise dramatically. Based on current trends, an estimated 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species – including one in eight of the world’s bird species – face extinction.

At their ‘Play for Life’ press conference held today in Nairobi, Kenya, PUMA unveiled their key fundraising lever, the revolutionary new Africa Unity Kit – the world’s first ‘continental football kit’ designed to be worn by the 12 African football national teams that PUMA sponsors. These include the World Cup qualified teams Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Algeria who are headed to the Africa Cup of Nations’ with hosts Angola and the national teams of Egypt, Mozambique, Togo and Tunisia, as well as non-qualified federations of Senegal, Morocco and Namibia. Puma also sponsors some of the continent’s best players – Samuel Eto’o, Emmanuel Eboué and John Mensah.

The Africa Unity Kit has been approved by FIFA who have officially recognised it as the Official 3rd kit* to be worn by those PUMA-sponsored African teams.

Please Visit: www.pumafootball.com, www.unep.org, http://vision.puma.com

This includes large-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects as well as these smaller-scale demonstration projects of renewable and alternative energy technologies. Three carbon capture and storage projects have already been announced, totalling $466 million from the fund.

Nineteen successful projects have been selected in response to a call for proposals under the Renewable and Clean Energy portion of the Clean Energy Fund. Up to $146 million will be invested over five years in these projects to support renewable, clean energy and smart grid demonstrations with evidence of collaboration among partners and the potential to reduce barriers to technology implementation.

The Government of Canada will now invite the project proponents to begin negotiations toward formal contribution agreements to set the conditions under which funding will be delivered. The funding amounts are expected to range from $2.5 million to $20 million for each project. However, until a written contribution agreement is signed by both parties, no commitment or obligation exists on the part of the Government of Canada to make a financial contribution to these projects.

Successful Project Descriptions

Projects expected to receive $2.5–$5 million:

1. Biomass-based Urban Central Heating Demonstration

Lead proponent: SSQ, Société immobilière Inc.

Strategic Area: Buildings/Community Energy Systems

Location: Québec, Québec

Purpose: La Cité Verte is an innovative real estate project, which combines various initiatives related to sustainable development such as renewable energy utilization, energy efficient design, the management of water consumption, energy and waste management. The funding will support the installation of a biomass and wood-based district heating system. This project combines many technologies and partners.

2. Utility-scale Electricity Storage Demonstration using New and Re-purposed Lithium Ion Automotive Batteries

Lead proponent: CEATI International Inc.

Strategic Area: Electricity Storage

Location: Toronto and Cornwall, Ontario, and Manitoba

Purpose: This project will address electricity storage for renewable and high-density urban applications. The project will demonstrate utility-scale electricity storage systems using new and re-purposed automotive batteries. This concept will reduce cost for electric vehicle batteries providing a future market to meet urban electricity demand using automotive batteries.

3. Energy Management Business Intelligence Platform Development and Demonstration

Lead proponent: Power Measurement Ltd.

Strategic Area: Smart Grid

Location: Commercial buildings in Calgary, Alberta, Ontario and BCIT in Burnaby, British Columbia

Purpose: This project will develop and demonstrate smart grid technology, voluntary load curtailment and peak shaving in a commercial building setting. Most projects of this type to date have focused on residences. This technology will also enable tenants to voluntarily reduce their demand based on real-time price signals.

4. Wind and Storage Demonstration in a First Nations Community

Lead proponent: Cowessess First Nation

Strategic Area: Wind/Storage

Location: Cowessess, Saskatchewan

Purpose: This project aims to demonstrate a combined wind and storage energy system in a First Nation community. The successful demonstration would prove this system as a model for other First Nation’s communities across Canada.

5. Bioenergy Optimization Program Demonstration

Lead proponent: Manitoba Hydro

Strategic Area: Bioenergy

Location: Five locations in Manitoba

Purpose: This project is comprised of five different bioenergy systems at five different project sites. The project demonstrates collaboration between utility companies and customers. It is anticipated that the project will help to remove the perceived barrier of technical and operational risk and will promote the wide-scale adoption of bioenergy systems in Canada.

6. Offshore Wave Energy Demonstration

Lead proponent: SyncWave Systems Inc.

Strategic Area: Marine/Hydro

Location: Offshore Central Vancouver Island near Tofino, British Columbia

Purpose: This project will demonstrate the performance, operations and life cycle of a pre-commercial 100-kW wave energy device in ocean conditions typical of British Columbia’s open coast. Canada has potentially significant wave energy resources, and it is important for Canada to participate in demonstrations to further the technology, understanding of ocean conditions and the regulatory environment.

7. Demonstration of Waste-heat Recovery at Compressor Stations

Lead proponent: Great Northern Power Corp.

Strategic Area: Hybrid Systems/Northern

Location: Compressor Stations in Alberta and British Columbia

Purpose: This project plans to demonstrate waste-heat recovery systems on a variety of stationary, reciprocating engines greater than 1,000 hp. A successful demonstration has the opportunity to lead to commercialization and wide-scale adoption of this technology at compressor stations and other industrial applications across Canada.

8. Residential Implementation of Solar-thermal Heating Systems

Lead proponent: Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc.

Strategic Area: Buildings/Solar

Location: Greater Toronto Area, Ontario

Purpose: The project will use different types of solar collectors and storage technologies to verify and compare their costs, performance and technical qualities. The project has the ability to validate the technology and provide integrated systems at a lower cost to consumers, thereby allowing greater market penetration.

9. Food and Yard Waste Anaerobic Digestion to Electricity Demonstration

Lead proponent: Harvest Power Canada Ltd.

Strategic Area: Bioenergy

Location: Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre, British Columbia

Purpose: This project would be Canada’s first high-efficiency system for producing up to 1 MW of renewable energy from food and yard waste. If successful, this technology has the potential to be rapidly deployed across Canada as a mechanism to divert food wastes from landfills and produce renewable energy.

Projects expected to receive $5–$10 million:

10. Demonstration of Heat and Power from Biomass Gasification

Lead proponent: Nexterra Systems Corp.

Strategic Area: Bioenergy

Location: UBC Point Grey Campus, Vancouver, British Columbia

Purpose: This project will showcase biomass gasification integrated with an internal combustion engine generator in a novel, small-scale combined heat and power demonstration suited for on-site applications at public institutions, industrial facilities, and northern and remote Canadian communities. The project has the potential to overcome the difficulty of gas clean up and opens up the possibility of significant replication in Canada and overseas.

11. Energy Storage and Demand Response for Near-capacity Substation

Lead proponent: BC Hydro

Strategic Area: Smart Grid/Electricity Storage

Location: Golden and Field, British Columbia

Purpose: This project demonstrates the integration of energy storage as a mechanism for reducing electricity demand at near-peak capacity substations. This type of solution has the ability to be used in other remote communities where the grid reliability is low and the cost of the transmission line upgrade is uneconomical.

12. Interactive Smart Zone Demonstration in Québec

Lead proponent: Hydro-Québec – Institut de recherche

Strategic Area: Smart Grid

Location: Boucherville, Québec

Purpose: This project will ensure the installation of an interactive network area in a neighbourhood of Boucherville. This will demonstrate different technologies and concepts related to modernization of electrical networks, in particular the deployment of infrastructure for charging electric and hybrid rechargeable vehicles.

13. Biomass and Coal Co-firing Demonstration in Coal Plants

Lead proponent: Nova Scotia Power

Strategic Area: Bioenergy

Location: Coal Plants in Nova Scotia

Purpose: This demonstration project aims to determine optimum fuel blends for the potential co-firing of wood-based biomass with coal as a mechanism to partially replace fossil fuels with sustainable energy sources in coal plants. If successful, there is potential for wide-scale implementation across Canada and the United States.

Projects expected to receive $10–$20 million:

14. Tidal Energy Project in the Bay of Fundy

Lead proponent: Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE)

Strategic Area: Marine/Hydro

Location: Minas Passage, Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia

Purpose: The project plans to validate the performance and resilience of tidal current turbines in the Minas Passage of the Bay of Fundy. This will be the first Canadian deployment of commercial-scale tidal turbines. The project has the potential to advance tidal energy in Canada, provide economic impacts in the Atlantic region and place Canada as a world leader in marine renewable energy.

15. Northern Application of a Geothermal District Heating System

Lead proponent: City of Yellowknife

Strategic Area: Northern/Community Energy System

Location: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Purpose: The City of Yellowknife is in advanced stages of project engineering and plans to install a district heating system by extracting heat from the abandoned Con Mine. This project has the potential to provide a cost effective and a more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel based heat. The information that will come out of this project on the effect of extracting ground-source heat from an existing aquifer and its associated long-term heat capacity will help determine if this technology could be replicated in other northern communities.

16. Electricity Load Control Demonstration

Lead proponent: New Brunswick Power Corporation

Strategic Area: Smart Grid

Location: Four maritime communities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

Purpose: Traditionally, to accommodate the intermittent nature of wind power, other generation sources are required to follow the net effect of variation in load and wind power production. This project focuses on the integration between smart grid technologies, customer loads and intermittent renewables in a region with potentially significant renewable electricity capacity. It will allow utilities to better understand how customers will react to smart grid and which loads can be controlled by real-time demand balancing in up to 750 buildings, thereby assisting these utilities to capitalize on renewable resources in the region.

17. A 9-MW Wind Technology Research and Development Park

Lead proponent: Wind Energy Institute of Canada

Strategic Area: Wind/Storage

Location: Prince Edward Island

Purpose: The 9-MW wind park proposed will be the first wind/storage combination in Prince Edward Island. The project’s research base has a strong focus on information dissemination and would be a good base for supporting additional wind research.

18. Demonstration of Fish-friendly and VLH Turbines in Existing Low-head Water-control Dams

Lead proponent: Eco Joule Inc.

Strategic Area: Marine/Hydro

Location: Mississippi River System, Ontario

Purpose: This project will demonstrate three in-stream hydro technologies including fish-friendly, low-head hydro turbines along an existing water-controlled river system in Ontario. It has the opportunity to prove the technology concept, demonstrate cooperation with a conservation organization, and reduce the barriers to commercialization.

19. Community-based Geothermal Demonstration in a Remote First Nations Community

Lead proponent: Borealis GeoPower Inc./Aco Dene Koe First Nation

Strategic Area: Hybrid Systems/Northern

Location: Fort Liard, Northwest Territories

Purpose: This project will demonstrate how a northern community can use a geothermal resource to generate electricity and heat, thereby reducing the entire community’s fossil fuel demand and energy costs. A successful demonstration will provide a model for other northern and First Nations communities with available geothermal resources.

Media may contact:

Jocelyne Turner

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister

Natural Resources Canada

Ottawa

613-996-2007

Or

Media Relations

Natural Resources Canada

Ottawa

613-992-4447

The U.S. government—and major U.S. banks—seem to have lost their appetite for coal. After spending five years and approximately $50 million on preliminary studies as well as selecting a proposed site in Mattoon, Ill., the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has scuttled plans to build the so-called FutureGen power plant.

The facility would have captured the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) that is emitted when coal is burned for electricity generation. Instead, the DOE hopes to help industry add carbon-capture-and-storage capability to advanced coal plants already in the works.

“This restructured FutureGen approach is an all-around better investment for Americans,” Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement announcing the change. The DOE is asking Congress for $407 million to research how to burn coal most efficiently, along with $241 million to demonstrate such carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies—at least $900 million less than DOE said it would have cost to complete FutureGen.[...]

Full article – Via : ©sciam.com

The HyWays project has created a roadmap based on country-specific analysis of the situation in Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, together with an action plan detailing the steps necessary to move towards greater use of hydrogen.

Hydrogen is one of the most realistic options for environmental and economic sustainability in the transport sector, in particular passenger transport, light duty vehicles and city buses. However, its introduction requires gradual changes throughout the entire energy system and thus careful planning at this early stage. The transitional period offers Europe the opportunity to take the lead in developing hydrogen and fuel cell technology and its applications in transport and energy supply. The challenges are high and the right steps have to be taken quickly if Europe is not to count the cost of late market entry.

The costs of hydrogen end-use applications, especially for road transport, need to be reduced considerably to become competitive. At the same time deployment support schemes for hydrogen end-use technologies and infrastructure build-up are required. Comparing the spending for hydrogen production, supply and vehicles with the savings to be gained from replacing conventional fuel and conventional vehicles over time, the extensive and high-quality simulations of the project predict that the break-even point would be most likely reached between 2025 and 2035. The HyWays Roadmap estimates that in 2030 there will be 16 million hydrogen cars and the total cumulative investment for infrastructure build-up will amount to €60 billion.

The study examined the different ways in which hydrogen can be produced and found differing attitudes across the EU. All countries represented chose the production of hydrogen from natural gas, biomass and wind energy. Nuclear energy was seen as an option in France, Finland, Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom, whereas the use of coal was excluded in Finland, France and Norway. The report showed that the production of hydrogen from fossil fuels using carbon capture and storage could make a significant contribution to reducing CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, the introduction of hydrogen into the energy system offers the opportunity to increase the ratio of renewable energy, and help the large-scale introduction of intermittent resources such as wind energy through its use as a temporary energy storage option.

Competitiveness ministers of the 27 Member States are today expected to discuss and give the green light to a European Commission proposal for a public/private research partnership (“Joint Technology Initiative”) to develop Fuel Cell and Hydrogen technology. This industry-led integrated programme of research, technology development and demonstration activities will receive € 470 million of funding from the EU’s research programme over the next six years, an amount to be matched by the private sector. At the same meeting, ministers will discuss the Strategic Energy Technology Plan, which mentions this initiative as an example for future European actions to develop new energy technologies.

For more information:

HyWays and the report:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/nn/nn_pu/hyways/article_0001_en.htm

Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative: IP/07/1468, MEMO/07/404

Strategic Energy Technology Plan: IP/07/1750

Carbon dioxide derived from burning fossil fuels totaled 1.218 billion tons in the year ended March 30, according to the report. Carbon produced by burning fuels accounts for about 90 percent of Japan’s total emissions of global-warming gases, including methane, the Nikkei said.[...]

Full article >>> – Via : ©bloomberg.com