Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Looking to Invest in
Renewable Energy Projects
Patrick Goodman, the Chief
Financial Officer of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., the electric utility
owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has announced that the
company will looking to invest in renewable energy deals, rather than its
traditional target of utility companies. He explained that; “we believe
renewables is the better investment right now,” as a result of high
utility valuations. In January of this year, MidAmerican created a new unit
especially to look after its renewable energy investments, which include the
$2.4 billion, 550MW Topaz Solar Farm, and the 168 MW Alta Wind VII project. According
to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, MidAmerican has managed to purchase 1.6GW of
wind and solar energy projects since December last year, adding to the original
3.3GW of eind and geothermal assets that it already owned. To read this article
in full click
here
Google invests $75M in a 50MW wind farm, has
contributed almost $1B to the renewable energy sector
Google on
Thursday announced an equity investment of $75 million in a 50MW wind
farm in Rippey, about an hour outside of Des Moines. At the same time, the
company revealed it has now committed almost $1 billion, “more than $990
million” quoting directly, to the renewable energy sector so far. RPM
Access is behind the Rippey project, which is estimated to produce enough
energy to power over 15,000 Iowa homes courtesy of turbines produced
by Nordex USA. Google is quick to underline that both firms are in the US,
which makes sense as Google is also an American company. Now, in addition to purchasing wind
energy from a wind farm, Google is investing directly into a wind project.
Again, this isn’t a blind investment: the Rippey project has been contracted to
sell all of its energy to the Central Iowa Power Cooperative, an
Iowa-based utility that delivers the energy to local consumers. To read this
article in full click
here
CDM reaches 5,000th carbon-cutting project milestone
The UN has today announced
that a wind farm in the Dominican Republic has become the 5,000th project
registered under its carbon offsets programme the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM). The Los Cocos Wind Farm Project expects to generate 74,200MWh of
electricity a year and displace 54,183 tonnes of CO2 emissions from electricity
previously produced by fossil fuel-fired power plants in the country. The project will now be able to issue
tradable carbon credits that industrialised nations and businesses can buy to
help meet their emissions reduction obligations. "This is just the latest
in a long line of impressive achievements made by the CDM," said UNFCCC
executive secretary Christiana Figueres. "In less than 10 years, the CDM
has attracted more than $215bn in investment in mitigation and has proven that
carbon markets and market-based mechanisms have the ability to bring in substantial
private sector support for mitigation and sustainable development." To
read this article in full click
here
Wind industry could provide a fifth of global
electricity by 2030
Wind energy could
meet up to a fifth of global electricity demand by 2030, according to a
major report released yesterday by the Global Wind Energy Council
(GWEC) and Greenpeace International.
The report, which looks at a
number of different scenarios for the development of the industry and projected
levels of electricity demand, predicts installed capacity could increase more
than four-fold from 240GW at the end of last year to 1,100GW by 2020, supplying
between 11.7 per cent and 12.6 per cent of global electricity, and saving
nearly 1.7 billion tons of CO2 emissions. Under less ambitious scenarios, the
group predicts total capacity would reach between 587GW and 759GW, providing up
to 8.3 per cent of global electricity supply. Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of the Global Wind
Energy Council, said that with wind energy proving cost competitive with fossil
fuels in growing numbers of territories "it is clear that wind energy is
going to play a major role in our energy future". To read this article in
full click
here
Marks and Spencer tops 100 FTSE on carbon reporting
Retailer Marks and Spencer
has topped a research league table that analysed the extent and depth of carbon
measurement and reporting at all of the UK's FTSE 100 list of leading
companies. The independent report confirmed high street chain M&S has
reinforced its position as a global leader on taking carbon
management seriously. Researchers at Carbon Clear scored
publicly available information from each company in the FTSE 100 against 47
reporting criteria. The analysis, carried out in summer 2012, focused on
how companies measure, report and verify their carbon footprint, their existing
and planned strategies
for reducing emissions, their actual
carbon reductions and their work to engage stakeholders about their climate
change programmes. The top 10
performers were Marks and Spencer, National Grid, Aviva, RSA, BSkyB, BT Group,
Hammerson, Sainsbury, Whitbread, Kingfisher, Pearson and Vodafone – three companies
were listed in joint 10th spot. To read this article in full click
here
for reducing emissions, their actual
carbon reductions and their work to engage stakeholders about their climate
change programmes. The top 10
performers were Marks and Spencer, National Grid, Aviva, RSA, BSkyB, BT Group,
Hammerson, Sainsbury, Whitbread, Kingfisher, Pearson and Vodafone – three companies
were listed in joint 10th spot. To read this article in full click
here
Renewables will be world's second-largest source of
power by 2015
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