Early morning smog shrouds cooling towers of a power plant in the coastal South African city of Cape Town before dawn June 8, 2006. (Reuters Photo)

A World Bank proposal to its steering committee to create two new funds to help developing countries generate cleaner, more efficient power is misguided because it backs fossil fuel projects, experts said on Monday.
A copy of the report obtained by Reuters argued that current financing from multilateral lenders like the World Bank as well as governments and the private sector “cannot lead to a meaningful transition to a low-carbon economy.“
A World Bank official declined to say whether the proposed Clean Energy Financing Vehicle low-interest loans and the Clean Energy Support Fund grants correspond to British finance minister Gordon Brown’s call in April for a seed fund of $20 billion for clean energy to invest in alternative energy.
The proposed Clean Energy Financing Vehicle calls for an initial capitalization of $10 billion, the report said.
The two funding ideas endorse low-carbon technologies and carbon emission reductions and were drafted after an original April report. They go to World Bank directors for review on August 29 ahead of next month’s annual meeting in Singapore, according to Reuters.
The progress report also says 10 times as much cash should go to the bank’s Global Environment Facility, a 15-year-old grant program to help developing countries fund biodiversity, climate change and land degradation projects, among others.
A world bank official said he could not comment on the contents of the report before it goes to the directors later this month.
Environmentalists familiar with the revised report commended it for focusing in greater detail on the needs of the 1.6 billion people--mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia--who do not have access to modern energy.
But they criticized the study for arguing that World Bank funds continue to be earmarked for fossil fuel projects.
“Renewable energy technologies are the best option to reduce poverty by providing access to modern energy for the rural poor,“ said Peter Bosshard, policy director at International Rivers Network, a nongovernmental organization.
The World Bank said it committed $871 million in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs in the year that ended in June.
The Washington-based lender reckons every dollar it invests in a project draws $5 from the private sector, government and others and that developing nations need to invest $300 billion a year for the next 25 years to meet their energy needs, largely electric.
Nuclear power generation, which caused some controversy in the original report, is mentioned less frequently in the latest version but remains on the table for funding proposals, said Daphne Wysham of the Institute for Policy Studies.
“It (the report) seems to be a random assortment of policies that are a perpetuation of their usual approach, which is to throw a lot of money at large infrastructure projects,“ Wysham said.

Malaysia can play a significant role in providing engineering services to the countries in the Middle East. (Thestar.com Photo)

Malaysia has the potential to become a regional hub for the oil and gas (O&G) industry, especially in engineering services, according to The Association of Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineering Consultants (Mogec).
A Mogec spokesman said Malaysia was fast becoming a source for various O&G-related services, in particular engineering designs.
“We have the potential to become a regional hub to service the O&G sector and other businesses related to this sector,“ he told StarBiz.
He said Malaysia was now able to provide a host of services, from front-end engineering design to decommissioning, covering the upstream and downstream segments.
“We can provide engineering design services, project management, construction supervision, quality assurance and control, contracting and procurement,“ he said.
The spokesman added that if there were projects worldwide, Mogec had the design and engineering capability to do the work at a competitive price.
“Our standards are at par with foreign O&G engineers. In terms of costs, engineering services in Malaysia are cheaper compared with those offered by our European and American counterparts,“ he said.
He said the costs of Malaysia’s engineering expertise was somewhere in the middle among the players globally, according to thestar.com.
He added that currently, India was the front-runner due to its internal cost structure that provided it with a competitive edge.
“Although there are several countries with lower costs for O&G-related expertise in this region, many international clients still prefer Malaysia due to our higher quality engineering services and up-to-date technological know-how.
“When we win a job, for example in Indonesia, we try as much as possible to do the engineering services in Malaysia. Once we have designed a particular plant here, we use it and commence construction in the client’s country,“ he said.
However, he noted that it was not so straightforward in some cases, as the government in a given country would want their local engineers involved in the engineering process.
“In such a case, work is split--some work is done in Malaysia with the remainder in the client’s respective country,“ he said.
Currently, Mogec has offices providing a range of engineering services in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The Mogec spokesman said with stronger collaboration between local players, coupled with greater efforts by the government to promote the O&G sector, Malaysia could become a leading hub for O&G engineering in the region.
He suggested that engineering firms merge to become larger players so that they could win bigger contracts.
“O&G clients with large contracts are in favor of big engineering companies who are perceived as financially stable, much safer and more efficient,“ he noted.
However, he assured that Mogec members were competent to handle most of the large contracts.
He said Mogec was working closely with other professional bodies, such as the Institute of Engineers Malaysia and the Offshore Structures Fabricators Association Malaysia, to further develop the industry.
He said Mogec’s pre-budget wish list would be to see greater funds for research and development as well as tax incentives, especially for industry players who embraced new technology.
According to the Mogec spokesman, Malaysia is already a regional hub for the O&G sector in many ways.
He noted that Mogec members were taking design works outside of the Asean region to places such as India, the Middle East, China and West Africa and applying their engineering expertise to these markets, including Central Asia.
Mogec members’ main clients include Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd, ExxonMobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Talisman, and Murphy Oil.
A senior O&G consultant specializing in exploration, in particular deep-sea operations, said Malaysia, in general, had adequate engineering expertise for most of the O&G works. “However, in certain areas, such as deep sea exploration and operations, Malaysia is still in the learning process.
“Some areas of engineering services require a long time to develop the necessary skills. There’s no replacement for experience and this takes time,“ said the consultant.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been developing the fully integrated hybrid solar lighting (HSL) technology, which collects sunlight and distributes it via optical fibers into the interior of a building. (Solaraccess.com Photo)

With five hybrid solar lighting systems already in place and another 20 scheduled to be installed in the next couple of months, the forecast is looking sunny for a technology developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Preliminary data from field units, which collect sunlight and pipe it into buildings using bundles of small optical fibers, show potentially significant energy savings in lighting and maintenance costs. An added benefit is that, for most uses, natural light is vastly superior to artificial light.
“This is the ultimate ’green’ technology,“ said Duncan Earl, a co-developer of the technology and chief technology officer of Oak Ridge startup company Sunlight Direct, which licensed the technology from ORNL last year. “In fact, we have received many inquiries and are working with several organizations that are aiming to build LEED--(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings.“
The US Green Building Council established the LEED designation for buildings that comply with a national consensus standard for design and construction of “green“ buildings, solaraccess.com said.
The hybrid solar lighting technology uses a rooftop-mounted 48-inch diameter collector and secondary mirror that track the sun throughout the day. The collector system focuses the sunlight into 127 optical fibers connected to hybrid light fixtures equipped with diffusion rods visually similar to fluorescent light bulbs. These rods spread light in all directions. One collector powers eight to 12 hybrid light fixtures, which can illuminate about 1,000 square feet. During times of little or no sunlight, a sensor controls the intensity of the artificial lamps to maintain a constant level of illumination.
Over the next several months, researchers in ORNL’s Solar Technologies Program will continue to perform beta testing of the units, installed or being installed at various locations around the nation, including Sacramento Municipal Utility District customer service headquarters; San Diego State University; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; a Wal-Mart in McKinney, Texas; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; a Staples store in Long Island, NY; and Aveda Corp. in Minneapolis.
“As part of ORNL’s Sunlight Inside Initiative, a field-trial demonstration program, we will be gathering energy, cost and reliability data and publishing a report,“ said Melissa Lapsa, manager of the lab’s Solar Technologies Program.
The system can save about 6,000-kilowatt hours (kWh) per year in lighting and another 2,000 in reduced cooling needs for a total of 8,000 kWh annually, according to Sunlight Direct estimates. Over 10 years, for parts of the country where the utility rates are 10 cents per kWh, that can result in savings up to $8,000 per hybrid solar lighting unit. For large floor spaces--100,000 to 200,000 square feet--this translates into energy cost savings of between $1 million and $2 million over 10 years, according to Sunlight Direct. Operation and maintenance savings could account for another $300,000 in savings over the same period.
“The great thing about hybrid solar lighting is that we’re getting peak light output during the time when there’s the greatest demand for electricity,“ said Bill Lekas, energy manager at San Diego State University. “That saves us energy during the part of the day when electricity costs the most, and the reduced demand could reduce the incidents of rolling brownouts.“
If market projections prove accurate, within five years 5,000 hybrid solar lighting systems could be installed in regions of the nation where solar availability and electricity rates make this technology cost effective, saving 50 million kWh per year. Retail applications are the most likely first market for this technology, Sunlight Direct’s Earl said.
The challenge over the next 18 months is to reduce the cost from about $12 to $4 per square foot. With larger collectors and other design improvements, researchers say they can achieve that goal. When that happens, businesses in regions where electricity is most expensive could pay for implementing the technology in three to five years with savings in electricity bills alone, according to Earl.

Carmanah Technologies Corporation (TSX: CMH) is pleased to announce that its Solar Power Systems Group has received a contract from Glastech Contracting for a 36 kW amorphous silicon (a-Si) building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) grid-tie package. This system will be installed as part of a brand new facility in Surrey, British Columbia, at the Douglas Border Crossing located near the Peace Arch.
This 36 kW system will be the largest BIPV installation in Canada and will include more than 1100 32-Watt amorphorous silicon BIPV laminates. The laminates will be provided by Carmanah through Glastech Contracting (BC) Ltd. who will also install the product as part of their overall glazing contract with the Commercial Division of the Graham Group Ltd., the primary construction contractor awarded the project by Public Works & Government Services Canada.
The BIPV system will be seamlessly integrated into an entirely new LEED-certified building that will replace the current border crossing structure. This facility is owned and operated by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The Agency would like to acknowledge the support of Natural Resources Canada as a contributing partner toward the new BIPV grid-tie system. The CBSA is committed to greening its operations ensuring a cleaner and more sustainable environment for Canadians. CBSA is also committed to using a sustainable approach to construction and operating infrastructure and buildings to conserve natural resources, prevent pollution, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce health risks, marketwire.com said.
Carmanah’s BIPV solar power systems typically serve two functions by providing both cost-saving energy and an integral building component. The size and type of the solar arrays used in a BIPV installation will vary based on the project, but typically come in the form of an Architecturally glazed curtain wall or roofing material. An inverter is then normally installed to convert the DC output from the solar array to AC current for use within the building or sold to the local electrical utility company. Carmanah is an award-winning manufacturer specializing in energy-efficient and renewable technology solutions. The Company is currently focused on three technology groups: solar power systems & equipment, solar-powered LED lighting and LED illuminated signage.
Carmanah is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and has branch offices and/or sales representation in 11 cities across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. With more than 250,000 installations worldwide, Carmanah is one of the world’s premier suppliers of energy-efficient products.
The shares of Carmanah Technologies Corporation are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “CMH“ and on the Berlin and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges under the symbol “QCX.“