Solar cooker harnesses renewable solar energy to boil water and cook food. (Google Photo)

Alcan is providing innovative solar cookers and pans to 1,000 rural Indonesian families in the country’s Banda Aceh region as part of a 450,000 euros contribution with Klimaschutz e.V. to a “Clean Development Mechanism“ (CDM) project aimed at preserving the environment.
The parabolic solar cooker harnesses renewable solar energy, to boil water, killing bacteria and cooking food. It is intended to reduce developing regions’ dependence on traditional sources of energy, such as firewood and fossil fuels, Greenbiz.com said.
“By substituting traditional sources of energy like firewood and fossil fuels with the solar cooker, we estimate that this project will annually save 3,500 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions. Alcan benefits from the CDM project in the form of CO2 credits, so-called Certified Emission Reductions, within the emission trading system,“ said Peter Hutsch, Managing Director, Alcan Singen GmbH, location of the rolling mill at which Alcan manufactures the solar cooker’s critical reflector component.
Klimaschutz e.V. is serving as a partner for the local co-ordination of the so-called “Solar Cooker Project Aceh 1, Indonesia“ project, in addition to constructing the solar cookers in Aceh and monitoring their use over the next seven years. The project is the first German CDM-project registered by the United Nations climate office. The CDM project is defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, which serves to protect the global climate in a sustainable manner and to promote the transfer of climate-saving techniques from industrial nations to developing countries.
“This project once again demonstrates how Alcan’s innovative aluminum solutions are well positioned to tackle both environmental and economic challenges,“ said Christophe Villemin, President, Alcan Specialty Sheet. “The solar cooker’s reflector is constructed from Alcan’s high-gloss rolled aluminum specialty sheet, Solar Surface 992, and has a transparent ceramic coating that protects against the weather, corrosion and mechanical damage.“
Currently, approximately 20,000 cookers are in use around the world and have been used effectively to provide clean water to victims of the 2005 tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia. It is estimated that up to 220 million solar cookers are needed to critically reduce developing regions’ dependence on traditional sources of fuel. This number of solar cookers could also save approximately 700--800 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy security concerns and super-mergers dominated Europe in the beginning of 2006 before experts and politicians began focusing on a much-greater problem--that of climate change.
Europe’s energy year started with a wake-up call for Western European politicians, when in January Russia temporarily shut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine over a price row, until Kiev agreed to pay higher prices.
The row reminded Europe’s politicians of Russia’s hegemonic position when it comes to supplying energy to Europe, sparking calls for closer energy cooperation. Energy security became the topic of the moment, further fueled by rising oil prices.
Moscow has since been accused of using its vast oil and gas reserves as a foreign policy pressure tool, and Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, the world’s No. 1 gas firm, was seen as the Kremlin’s economic branch. The Russian government at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in July, put the issue energy security atop the agenda to demonstrate its newly acquired status of an energy superpower.
A German energy expert, however, said the political agitation in Western Europe was exaggerated, Upi.com said.
“That was bordering hysteria,“ Roland Goetz, energy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “For years, Russia was seen as a solution to energy supply problems and high oil prices, and all of a sudden it was seen as unreliable.“
However, European Union officials remain wary of increasing delivery dependence on Gazprom, which is 51 percent-owned by the Kremlin, which appoints the company’s senior managers.
“This is not a company that is playing by OECD rules,“ said Friedemann Mueller, another energy expert at the institute, referring to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, in an interview with United Press International earlier this year. Gazprom’s bids for getting access to end consumers in Europe were met with discomfort, but recent deals with Italy and France show the tide may be turning--after all, Russian gas still is substantially cheaper than gas from Norway, Europe’s No. 2 supplier.
Money also was the main, but not the only subject in a series of large mergers in the European energy sector this year. The other subject is government protection.
In what observers say was a bid to fend off a takeover bid from Italian rival Enel, France was accused of orchestrating a merger between French companies Gaz de France and Suez earlier this year.
Eon, the German energy giant, during the past months tried to buy Spanish competitor Endesa, but despite a bid worth $50 billion, Madrid put several conditions and restrictions on the sale, favoring a domestic merger between Endesa and Gas Natural instead.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, decided to take action: In a decision earlier this month, it ordered Madrid to remove the hurdles by Jan. 19 or face legal action--a call on Europe’s governments to finally enable free competition on the European energy market.
A call on the world’s governments--a wake-up call--was delivered in October, when former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said in his report that failure to tackle climate change would cost the global economy some $7 trillion dollars by 2050, followed by social unrest.
“Without action, droughts, floods and rising sea levels would mean that up to 200 million people could be displaced,“ the report said.
The Stern report and Al Gore’s documentary on climate change urged politicians to focus more on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and rightly so, Goetz said.
“This is by far the world’s greatest problem, and, unlike energy supply problems, there comes a moment when you can’t control climate change anymore,“ he told UPI.
The report thus has unsettled the world’s politicians. Germany, which takes over the EU and G8 presidencies in 2007, said it will make climate protection one of the key issues of its G8 summit, which will be held in June 2007.

China has signaled that it could use its vast foreign exchange reserves to bolster its strategic energy resources.
Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan said China needed to speed up the hunt for fresh oil and natural gas supplies.
China’s foreign exchange reserves are the world’s largest at more than $1 trillion (£511bn), supported by the country’s strong global exports.
China is keen to secure future reserves of oil, coal and other raw materials needed to fuel its booming economy.
Earlier this year, Beijing hosted a summit of African leaders, at which access to Africa’s natural resources was discussed in return for Chinese investment in Africa’s roads and railways, according to BBC.

Price Controls
China should “take advantage of the fact we have quite large foreign exchange reserves to enhance our national strategic energy reserves“, Mr. Zeng told the standing committee of the Chinese parliament.
He added that the country should establish a coal resources reserve system, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Mr. Zeng’s comments came as Chinese state-run oil refiner Sinopec revealed that it had been handed a 5bn yuan government rebate to compensate it for refining losses.
Sinopec, Asia’s biggest oil refining company, was hit by a 12.58 billion yuan loss during the third quarter of 2006, up from 6.6 billion yuan a year earlier.
Analysts said the surprise rebate was, in effect, a subsidy for Beijing’s refusal to allow Chinese domestic petrol and diesel prices to rise as fast as international markets.

’Balanced Level’
Separately, China said it planned to increase efforts to make its currency, the yuan, more flexible and allow market forces to play a bigger role in setting its value.
The yuan has inched higher ever since Beijing loosened its peg to the dollar in 2005 and revalued it by 2.1%.
But central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said China was committed to keeping the yuan at a “reasonable, balanced level“.
Critics say the yuan remains heavily undervalued, allowing China to keep its export prices low.
A high-level US delegation, including US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, visited Beijing earlier this month to press China on its huge trade surplus and the value of the yuan.
China promised a more flexible currency policy to help close the trade gap with the US, which is set to reach a record $229bn by the end of 2006.

Some energy analysts are beginning to think 2007 will be a case of dŽjˆ vu for consumers and business. (WN.com Photo)

Motorists complaining at the pump as the price of gasoline rises. Airlines bumping up airfares to cover expensive jet fuel. And delivery services tacking on surcharges, reflecting a record price for a barrel of oil.
But it’s not just a description of this past spring. It’s also the forecast for next year, probably just when school lets out for the summer and motorists are starting to put more miles on the odometer.
“We could see close to $85 a barrel on crude next year,“ says Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading in Chicago.
If the forecast comes true, energy could be a dominant factor in the economic outlook for 2007 because, unlike this year, the potential increases would come when the economy is expected to be struggling. It would thus be the wrong time for the equivalent of a tax increase, which is how economists describe a spike in consumer energy costs. And it could catch the Federal Reserve in the middle of an energy-fueled jump in the inflation rate: Usually, the Fed tries to counter inflation by raising interest rates, but in a soft economy, it would rather cut interest rates.
“If we get a surge in energy prices next year, then the probability of a recession increases dramatically,“ says Dennis Jacobe, chief economist for the Gallup Organization in Washington. “It depends on how fast the rise takes place.“
Yes, some energy analysts are beginning to think 2007 will be a case of dŽjˆ vu for consumers and business. In this scenario, prices start to ratchet up in the spring, peak sometime in the summer at a new record, and then fall back to lower levels later in the year.
Right now, the weather is an important factor, especially for the price of oil. Tuesday, oil prices hovered around $62 a barrel, some $18 a barrel below the high for the year, as relatively warm weather affected the Northeast. “We have had a relatively mild winter so far, some 20 percent to 30 percent above average [temperatures],“ says John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute in Washington.
Last week, the National Weather Service said the warm weather in the Northeast will continue into the first week of January. But Mr. Felmy worries that a return to “normal“ temperatures in January could prevent refiners from switching to gasoline production, because they would have to produce more home heating oil. “To get back a normal winter, it has to be colder than normal the rest of the winter,“ he frets.
It’s not just the weather that’s keeping a lid on prices. US economic growth is slowing down to about 2 percent growth in the gross domestic product. The slower growth means crude-oil demand is slack up only 0.2 percent on a year-to-date basis.
Sluggish demand has already forced OPEC to reduce production by as much as 600,000 barrels per day. OPEC’s reduction also means the cartel has the ability to ramp up production to keep prices in check.
In addition, non-OPEC sources are expected to increase next year, as new discoveries in Russia, Brazil, and the US Gulf of Mexico come onstream. The Department of Energy estimates this could add a few hundred thousand barrels of oil a day to the world supply.
Any new supplies, however, could quickly be absorbed by China. With its economy expected to expand by another 9 to 10 percent, its oil demand is expected to increase by about 7 percent, estimates Paul Ting of Paul Ting Energy Vision in Short Hills, N.J.
China currently imports between 3 million to 3.5 million barrels of oil per day, Mr. Ting estimates. This indicates it would need an additional 200,000 barrels each day to satisfy its larger appetite.
But as Ting points out, “it’s never simple when it comes to the Chinese energy landscape.“ For example, with a significant amount of its oil coming from the Middle East, China is placing more importance on energy security. “The lack of a strategic petroleum reserve [in China] is a big issue,“ says Ting.

Nuclear power is part of the solution to Australia's future energy needs and the challenge of climate change. (Google Photo)

The Greens say the findings of a prime ministerial task force on nuclear energy are bad news for the nuclear industry.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard released the final report of the review into nuclear energy, uranium mining and processing this morning.
Greens Senator Christine Milne says the report shows uranium will not be a suitable energy alternative for at least 15 years.
She says the government has deliberately released the report between Christmas and New Year so that people will not notice the bad news.
“Nuclear is no answer to climate change, it is too slow, too expensive and too dangerous,“ she said.
“Not one of the Prime Minister’s backed nuclear reactors will come on stream within 15 years and the Stern report has said clearly that we only have 10 to 15 years to turn around catastrophic global warming.“
But Mr. Howard says the chair of his nuclear task force, Dr. Ziggy Switkowski, makes clear in his final report that nuclear power is part of the solution to Australia’s future energy needs and the challenge of climate change, according to Yahoo.com.
Mr. Howard says the Government will respond quickly to the report.
“The reality is we won’t have nuclear power stations tomorrow, but over time if we are to have a sensible response we have to include nuclear power,“ he said.
“It is foolish and backward-looking and old fashioned of people to say ’well, we will always oppose the use of nuclear power’.
Mr. Howard says nuclear energy is still up to 50 percent more expensive than other forms of power, but that difference is expected to reduce over time.
He says he would not have any objection to living next door to a nuclear power station.
The Greens say the national report into nuclear energy is a blatant push by the nuclear industry to expand uranium mining.
Senator Milne says the Government is pushing for nuclear reactors because it has done nothing to address global warming.
“What the Prime Minister has done is set up a method to fast-track expanded uranium mining--that’s his number one agenda,“ she said.
“He wants to get more uranium on boats out of Australia as quickly as possible into a world that is more and more dangerous as we speak.“
Mr. Howard has asked the states to end bans on uranium mining and exploration.
But the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister has called on Territorians to reject the Commonwealth’s plan to increase the level of uranium mining.
Clare Martin says it is an approach which gives little consideration to where uranium waste will be stored.
“Bully us and put a nuclear waste dump in the Territory ... we potentially face a future in the Territory of having low-level, medium-level and even high-level nuclear waste traveling our roads, going on our trains and coming through our port and I think Territorians will find this to a person, unacceptable,“ she said.