The Super Grid

Getting connected: Europe's green energy 'supergrid'By Matt Ford, for CNN
January 31, 2010 -- Updated 2350 GMT (0750 HKT)

From wind to waves, European countries are planning a multi-billion dollar grid for renewable energy.STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Nine European countries agree to 'supergrid' connecting renewable power sources
Grid planned to connect wind and tidal power sources across the North Sea region
Advocates say it is essential for EU to meet emission and renewable energy targets for 2020
Laying of high-cables and updating grid estimated to cost $40 billion

Energy Technology
(CNN) -- It is a criticism frequently leveled at those promoting wind or solar power as an alternative to fossil fuels: what happens when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine?

Well, now there is a smart answer, at least in Europe -- we'll simply and instantly switch to another source of clean, green power.

Plans for a massive electricity grid dedicated to uniting the varied sources of renewable energy available in northern Europe have taken a step forward in January as nine countries formally agreed to work together on the project.

Using thousands of miles of high-tech undersea cables the 'supergrid' will unite wind farms on blustery British coasts with Dutch and Belgian tidal power, the vast hydroelectric potential of Norway fjords and Germany's massive solar arrays.

The gird should mean that when one source falls short, another takes up the slack to ensure continuity of supply.

"A North Sea grid will connect offshore wind to our electricity supply, enabling Europe to exploit its largest untapped energy source," Justin Wilkes, policy director, European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), told CNN.

"It will connect grids across northern Europe -- bringing more competition into the market and reducing electricity prices. Europe's dependence and spending on imported fossil fuels will be reduced."

The countries signed up -- Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and the UK -- hope to have the grid working within the next decade. It is seen as an essential step towards the European Union's pledge to source 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2020.

"Without extending and upgrading the grid Europe will not be able to make the emissions reductions it wants, or achieve the level of renewable energy it has set as a target," says Wilkes.

There are currently around 100 gigawatts of offshore wind projects being developed in Europe, which could meet 10 percent of the EU's electricity needs. But existing grids aren't capable of fully taking advantage of this potential.

"Europe's grids are built around large fossil-fuel plants near large urban areas and nuclear power stations," says Wilkes.

"Wind and other renewable sources of energy are often best tapped in other places -- so the grid needs to be extended and upgraded to deliver electricity from where the renewable energy sources are to be found -- where the wind is blowing, where the sun is shining and so on."

Advocates of renewable energy believe that moving away from fossil fuels will create thousands of high-quality "green jobs" and provide a boost to the European economy.

"A North Sea Grid would be a boost for the wind energy business -- it would enable Europe to build a new multi-billion Euro offshore wind industry -- and provide new markets for on-shore wind too," says Wilkes.

"[But] a North Sea Grid would not just be a boost for the wind industry but for all renewable energy sources, including wave and tidal power, and for consumers. It would be good news all round."

Of course, none of this will come cheap. The EWEA estimates the cost for building a grid connecting countries across the North Sea region including the Baltic Sea, Irish Sea and English Channel would cost in the region of $40 billion. A report by Greenpeace in 2008 came in lower, putting the price of building a similar grid at $20-30 billion.

"Transmission of energy from wind and other marine resources that are a long way offshore is expensive," Tim Russell, grid expert for the Renewable Energy Association, told CNN.

"Interconnectors between different power systems separated by long distances and water are also expensive -- but can have considerable advantages in terms of increased trade thereby providing economic benefits.

"It is anticipated that increased wind power will increase the benefits of greater interconnection between power systems."

Any investment would certainly be a step closer to the idea of a pan-European "supergrid", a scheme that would unite renewable power across the continent with proposed African and Middle Eastern solar farms, and already has political support from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"The North Sea region grid would be a very important first part of an eventual European supergrid," says Wilkes.

"But such a supergrid would also require better connections across the borders of France, Germany, Sweden, Greece and across southern Europe and the Mediterranean in general."

None of this will happen overnight, but EWEA believe it is feasible for 100 percent of Europe's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2050.

"There are technological barriers for some renewables, but in wind we have proven technology that delivers competitively," says Wilkes.

"Other obstacles for wind are administrative in getting planning permissions and grid access. There is also currently a financial obstacle caused by the lack of credit following the financial crisis, but EWEA is optimistic that this should not be a long-term problem."

Whatever the future holds, for the moment green campaigners are delighted.

"International support for a supergrid is fantastic -- it will secure plentiful, clean and reliable sources of energy such as offshore wind, and help slash carbon emissions," Friends of the Earth's energy campaigner Nick Rau told CNN.

"Now we need the funding and industrial strategy to put words into action."

Events from Destination SW Nova Association

• Rally for CAT Ferry - 1 Government Place, Granville St, Halifax, Feb. 4th at 10am
• Southwest Nova Scotia Transportation Study - still time to provide your input!
• Moncton Lifestyles Show, April 16-18 - book your space!
• Tourism Marketing Opportunities Program - deadlines March 31st, 2010:
- Festivals & Events Assistance
- Products & Experiences Marketing Assistance

• Visitor Information Kiosk Program - deadline April 30, 2010

• Canada Summer Jobs Announcement
• NS Tourism, Culture & Heritage Updates:
- Supplier Development Reverse Tradeshow - February 16, 2010
- Facts Flash Update: Meetings with Finance Minister
- CTC Image request

• Festivals & Events Submissions

• Important Updates to Partners Listings

Castro Coming to Canada?

Cape Breton lawyer helping Castro’s son with national photo exhibition

By The Canadian Press
Tue. Feb 2 - 4:53 AM
SYDNEY — A lawyer from Nova Scotia with connections in Cuba has been asked by an agent for one of Fidel Castro’s sons to help provide exposure for a proposed Canadian tour of Alex Castro’s photographs.

Castro has been known to sell some of his pictures, said Tony Magliaro, but that’s not the main reason for the proposed tour.

"I don’t think he’d be adverse to that, but I think it’s more for exposure," the lawyer said.

"I think getting his work recognized, that’s more important."

Magliaro grew up in Sydney’s Whitney Pier neighbourhood, but his wife Ileana De La Torre is Cuban.

He said his family visits Cuba regularly, and the husband of his wife’s family doctor is acting as an agent for Alex Castro Soto del Valle, one of Fidel’s sons.

The agent, Rogelio Puentes Valdes, knew Magliaro was Canadian and sought his help organizing a Canadian tour, pressing him to look at an album of photographs last fall.

Magliaro said the pictures were nice, but he didn’t immediately recognize Alex Castro’s name.

"I was a little skeptical at first, but the skepticism soon vanished," said Magliaro, adding he met the younger Castro last fall in Havana.

Castro had always wanted to be a photographer, Magliaro said, but at his father’s insistence he studied engineering in Moscow. According to one media report, Castro worked as a computer programmer.

"There’s no question he’s a proud and loving son, but I think he’s also his own man and he loves to take photographs," said Magliaro.

Castro likes taking pictures of scenery and models, Magliaro said, and has captured images of famous people and world leaders including Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Hu Jintao, general secretary of China’s Communist party.

Magliaro also said he’s impressed with the quality of Castro’s photographs.

"I’m not trained in that area, I have no expertise in that area, but in my opinion there’s something that stands out," he said. "I think this is his chosen career. He has a passion for this and I think it shows in his work."

Magliaro has started contacting some art galleries and is trying to gauge interest in a Canadian tour for Castro and his pictures, and possibly a U.S. tour as well, "although that might be a little more difficult, given the politics," he added.

Too Little Revenue Generated

From the Bluefield DAily Telegraph West Viriginia

Published: February 02, 2010 10:21 pm

No to windmills: Board blocks turbine project

TAZEWELL, Va. - The passage of a tall structure ordinance Tuesday by the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors has left the fate of a wind turbine farm for East River Mountain in Limbo.

The supervisors voted 3-2 to approve the so-called ridgeline protection ordinance, which essentially prohibits the development of structures more than 40 feet in height along certain protected ridgelines, including East River Mountain and Burkes Garden.

Ryan Frazier, a spokesman for Dominion, said the company will evaluate its options.

Mike Hymes, the board's Southern District supervisor, cast the deciding vote Tuesday.Hymes said the wind turbines have generated too much controversy and will create too little public revenue.

For a complete report of the meeting, see Wednesday's Daily Telegraph.

CBC Program Sunday Feb. 14

CBC's Land and Sea program that will air on Sunday Feb. 14 is said to be about, at least in part, Digby County

Our Economic System Needs a Re-Write

When greed trumps need
Author: Capitalism needs a rewrite
By BRUCE ERSKINE Business Reporter
The Chronicle Herald
Tue. Feb 2 - 4:53 AM


Raj Patel: ‘Modern capitalism is the anti-market.’ (ANDREA ISMERT)





RAJ PATEL, author of The Value of Nothing, a critique of the market-driven capitalist system that came crashing down in 2008, is all for markets.

"I love markets," said the author, academic and social activist who wrote the best selling Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System, in an interview from Toronto on Monday.

"We need venues for exchange and co-operation and trust," he said.

"The trouble is that modern capitalism is the anti-market. . . . It enables a few people to concentrate a great deal of power and to shove onto the rest of the world not only the consequences of their ill-advised risks but also the certainties of the ways in which they exploit nature, exploit labour — and in particular women’s labour — and kick into the future questions around environmental sustainability that our children are going to have to suffer."

A London, England, native who recently became a U.S. citizen, Mr. Patel, 38, holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a doctorate in development sociology from Cornell University.

A visiting scholar in the Center for African Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who has worked for the World Bank and consulted for the United Nations, Mr. Patel will speak at Saint Mary’s University on Thursday as part of the university’s annual International Week, which is focusing this year on food security.

Through a wealth of historical data, some familiar and some obscure, The Value of Nothing traces the development of a capitalist system characterized by markets that are driven by profit rather than by need.

"The flaw at the heart of markets is essentially the idea that profit and corporations should govern the valuation of things and that everyone else should stand aside," he said.

Mr. Patel said the way to correct that situation, and the ills it has visited upon the world, is through more democratic control of markets as has been practised by La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement founded in 1993 by a number of American and European farmer groups that he cites at length in his book.

"The solution is to exercise more democratic control over markets by regulating, constraining and debating what it is that should be markets in the first place and allowing markets to proceed only after we’ve figured ways of living within our economic means and living with the consequences of our actions," he said.

Mr. Patel acknowledged that changing the current entrenched paradigm won’t be easy, but he sees encouraging examples of new market thinking all around.

"I’m certainly seeing a distrust of authority," he said, citing the anger in Canada about Stephen Harper’s unilateral decision to suspend Parliament.

He pointed to grassroots efforts to deal with the issue of hunger in North America as an example of new market thinking.

"In North America now, there are nearly 100 food policy councils where city officials and community activists and farmers and small businesses are getting together to figure out how to banish hunger," said Mr. Patel, who noted that one in six Americans goes hungry despite that country’s wealth.

"I’m realistic about the balance of power right now but I also see in this network of social movements that’s happening around the world real constructive solutions and the real force of organizing that I think is quite exciting."

( berskine@herald.ca)

‘The flaw at the heart of markets is essentially the idea that profit and corporations should govern the valuation of things and that everyone else should stand aside.’

RAJ PATELAuthor

About Haiti

Background thoughts from Stephen Hawboldt

Haiti is owed so much
h(' events lhat have unfolded in Haiti over
the past couple of weeks are numbing.

While the actual shaking of the earth was a
natural 1~"'(!nL, mo: l of the death and de struc-
tion is the ro ult of human acuviues.
Haiti is the poorest country in
the western hemisphere. Poverty
has forced il!< residents to cut the
forests tor cwood, build homes
t.hal could not 'withstand even a
minor earthquake and to do many
other things that. have severely
undermined their country's eco-
logical integrily. The country has
no reliable governmental institu- Environmental
lions. edu ation or health care. G I•
~lusl of the pr blerns lhal rem In
~aitjans are facing ,today arc a Stephen Hawboldt I
direct rc ult of actions by the
French, British and American governments
o rer the past 20() years. Their Imperialir Lie
gre~d et the stage for the hw dteds of thou-
ands of. hattercd lives we iin~ seeing daily n
the evening news.
First th Spanish and later ance e ploited
the wealth of Haiti. By the late 1700s, Haili
produced 10 per cent of the 'ugar and 60 per
cent of the coffee consumed in Europe. This
was more than all of the British 'Wes Indies
combined.
To run tile plantations, France imported
millions of African slaves, At one time, Haiti
received a third of the annual Atlantic trade in
•lave .. J3 'the 17908, upwards ()f f hree quarters
of a million slave ere Isuporviscdt by 3:!.OUO
whites.
On January I, 1804, followin a. slave upris-
ing. Haiti bccam thr worlcJ's first black
republic and the second-oldest republlc ill tile
\Vestcrn Hemisphere. after the United Sf ale ..
The American. Rriti"Ch and French slave trad-
ing countries imposed a brutal blockade

which was lifted only after Haiti compensated
France for the lost of its lost Isla, property .•
The new repuhli governed y former
slave was forced to borrow the monev from
American bankers. The ~90 million loan wa
not paid off until 19'17. 125 years
later! Maybe the, 1t!f1Ue1'8 were
Mafia IOQn sharks dressed in
banker's ~cuit8.
Little seems to have changed in
the past 200 years. 'faking a page
frum tile French colonial masters
in Haitj, toda r the US cont inues to
demand payment for lost iproper-
t}'l Iollowing the Cuban revolution.
Imperialism is alive and well.
1nstJy because former slaves
created Haiti, relations with t.he
es and other w . tern powers w r
not warm. F.a.rl.y ill the :lOth c ntury. the US
actually occupied Haiti for about thirty year
Ioll wed by a few more decades of direct and
indirect • upport tor some of the IDO t corrupt
and brutal dictatorships in the ' •... orld.
After more tJ 200 years ()f independence.
western intcrven Lion have dcstroved the
ucial, econorni and ('culogical structure of
Haiti. The earthquakes have served to under-
line the extend of this rape.
'1 he western world owes a great deal to
Haiti and l.he Haitian people. There are glim-
mers that a number of western countrie rnav
be interested in putting together a masstve aid
package LO rebuilt the 'udal, e onomic and
ecological structures in Haiti.
Ma be Can II da's Governor Gene' I,
Micl.aIUe Jean who has rnol: in Haiti. c 1 e
the considerable prestige of her office to ielp
facilitate thrs. Haiti is owed great deal.
Comments am always ~ •• relcome and c be
address ed to stephcnhawboldtgpannape r-
er.ca