U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson Is In India

U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen L.Johnson is leading a U.S. delegation to India to meet with environmental officials on global environmental cooperation because the U.S. and India are important to the health of the global environment. Johnson will visit Mumbai, Hyderabad and New Delhi as he reviews existing U.S. –Indian collaboration. Johnson will address a gathering of public and private sector leaders on collaborative air quality initiatives and new technologies for reducing emissions in the transport and industrial sectors. In the near future EPA, in collaboration with Pune Municipal Corporation and California Air Resources Board, will initiate a diesel bus retrofit project in Pune City.

Johnson will also visit the King Edward Memorial Hospital to highlight ongoing efforts to establish a partnership between New York City and Mumbai on strategies to address childhood asthma in urban mega-cities. Johnson will meet with state officials in Hyderabad before participating in a seminar on green building and climate programs in India. Johnson will conclude his time in Andhra Pradesh with a visit to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board to discuss the challenges of providing clean and safe water in urban environments.

In New Dehli, Johnson and India's Minister of Environment and Forests A. Raja, will renew a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on environmental cooperation between the EPA and theIndian Ministry of Environment and Forests. The MOU, which is renewedevery five years, focuses on management of air and water quality and toxic chemicals and waste, along with environmental leadership. Johnson will conclude his visit to India by discussing EPA's methane gas recovery and mercury programs with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and he will also meet with government officials from the Planning Commission and Ministry of Science and Technology on a venues of collaboration to strengthen environmental protection.

2002 Memorandum Of Understanding on environmental cooperation betweenEPA and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forest: http://epa.gov/oia/regions/Asia/india/mou.html Background information on the environment track of the economic dialogue between the United States and India: http://www.epa.gov/international/regions/Asia/india/2006_ied.htm

Alternative Ethanol Solutions : Dominican Republic

Ethanol is being promoted as an alternative and additive to gasoline. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated a 7.5 billion gallon renewable fuels standard by 2012. The Bush Administration wants to quintuple that standard up to 35 billion gallons. The Center plans to examine the environmental and business implications of ethanol.

Joe Downey, an advisor to the Center and a Special Projects consultant, has established Alternative Ethanol Solutions to develop ethanol from sugar cane in the Dominican Republic. He has partnered with Dr. Charles Worrell to pursue building and operating an ethanol facility that can export the product to other countries.

The U.S. imposes a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imported ethanol from such countries as Brazil, but Caribbean nations and countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement are exempt from those duties if they make the ethanol from products grown in their own countries. Using Brazilian technology for refining sugar can based ethanol, such countries could become exporters to the United States. Caribbean nations can export a limited amount of ethanol that comes indirectly from Brazil and other countries. Under the Carribean Basin Initiative, countries can take partly processed ethanol from a country like Brazil and carry out the last step in processing before shipping it to the U.S.

The Carribean is allowd to export partly processed ethanol only up to a limit of 7 percent of the US. ethanol consumption. In 2006, the U.S. imported about 600 million gallons of ethanol. According to the Renewable Fuels Association about 200 million gallons came indirectly from Brazil through the Caribbean. The total imports of all kinds of ethanol amounted to approximately 10 percent of American consumption in 2006. (Source: The New York Times, Sat, March 3, 2007)

Interested parties and investors should contact Joe Downey.

Center To Visit Nuclear Facilities in China

The Center for Environment, Commerce & Energy has been invited to meet with government officials and industry representatives in China. Center President Norris McDonald and Center Vice President Derry Bigby will visit a research Pebble Bed Modular Reactor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, an economic development area in Weifang and will tour the Daya Bay nuclear power plant outside of Hong Kong in Guangdong Province. They will spend two weeks in April in the People's Republic of China.

They will be joined by Center China Office Director Zhang Xiaoping. The Center established the China Office in 2006 to promote nuclear power in China. We believe that global warming programs must be pursued in China to be seruous about the issue. We are very serious about global climate change and global warming. We will be recommending a "Great Nuclear Wall" for China that will include an accelerated construction plan.

Chinese Premier Talks About Energy and the Environment

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, right, wants the country to improve energy efficiency and environmental protection. He recently gave a speech to the National People's Congress and pledged more spending on poor residents in rural areas.

The most recent five-year plan calls for a 20 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product. The National People's Congress is currently in its two-week session.

Department of Energy Ethanol Grants Awarded

The Department of Eenrgy has issued 6 grants totalling $385 million from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 $2 billion loan guarantee program The program aims to promote a $1 per gallon cellulosic ethanol product, which comes from stalks and woody plants instead of corn kernels. It is twice as expensive and harder to get the fuel from this source than from the moist corn. President Bush proposed in his State of the Union Address to increase production to 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels above the EPAct target of 7.5 billion gallons. The firms include:

1. Broin Cos of Sioux Fall, S.D. (teamed with DuPont Co)

2. Abengoa Bioenergy of St. Louis, MO (a Colwich, Kansas site)

3. Alico Inc of LaBelle, Fla

4. BlueFire Ethanol Inc of Irvine, CA (teamed w/ Waste Management-Shelly, Corona, CA site)

5. Iogen Corp of Arlington, VA (teamed with Goldman Sachs Group Inc & Royal Dutch Shell)

6. Range Fuels Inc of Broomfield, Colo

London Wants To Reduce Its Carbon Footprint

London Mayor Ken Livingstone wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the city by 20 million tons by 2025 via homes, businesses, energy production and transportation.

New Coalition Promotes Ethanol

A 400 member coalition of farm groups, hunters, businessmen and environmentalists have formed a new coalition called the 25X25 Renewable Energy Alliance and they are lobbying to get $64.5 billion in new federal incentives to expand the use of ethanol. The group wants to produce 25% of the nation's energy from farm and ranch products by 2025.

The group wants to protect ethanol from a possible drop in oil prices by having the tax incentives to rise for ethanol-fuel blenders when oil prices drop and when oil prices rise, the tax credits would shrink. This system would be installed when the current 51-cent-per-gallon ethanol subsidy expires in 2010. Group members range from the American Farm Bureau to General Motors and the National Wildlife Federation.