According to a recently released report from Deloitte Global Services Limited, the future is not bright when it comes to availability of fresh water around the world, in both developing and developed countries.

Among the 19 conclusions of the report:

• On a global level we have a finite resource for which demand will soon outstrip supply. If we do not address these issues by creating frameworks at a global level and take action locally, there is the increasing threat of conflict as competition for water sources intensifies.
• Although the problems are global, the solutions are all local. Therefore governments, businesses, NGOs and the public all need to work together to ensure safe and clean water supplies.
• In many countries, pricing systems must be rethought: pricing should reflect the issue of growing demand and diminishing supplies. Higher water prices should also encourage water conservation and efficiency programmes in agriculture, industry and in homes.
• While water may be a free resource in the environment, its extraction, treatment for drinking, distribution, collection, and re-treatment for discharge is very capital and operationally intensive, and the costs must be recovered from somewhere.
• While price increases are difficult political decisions, providing more information and educating the public about why higher prices are necessary will be key both for utilities and customers.
• An integrated approach to solving key issues between the water and energy sectors may lead to lower carbon emissions while at the same time benefiting ecosystems.
• The water sector could benefit enormously from closer collaboration with technology providers to achieve sustainable water and effective water usage.
• The private sector is expected to take a more active role in the global water industry, not only in terms of managing assets on behalf of the state, but also in owning and financing the assets.
• Given that it is our most precious resource, we expect to see more initiatives to trade water and rights to water based on market dynamics. These could include setting up local markets, selling abstraction licences or more radical steps such as long-term water trade agreements.
• Efforts to demonstrate water stewardship will be a key theme for utilities and water users in coming years.

The full report is available at https://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Global/Local%20Assets/Documents/Energy_Resources/dttl_er_WaterTight2012.pdf

The state Commissioners of Insurance in California, Washington State, and New York have announced that they will require insurance companies operating in those states to disclose their assessment of climate risk and the steps they are taking to ensure coverage for such risk.

According to sources quoted by the California Department of Insurance,  2011 set a record for catastrophe losses for insurers. A significant portion of those losses were due to severe storms and flooding. Crop insurers paid out a record amount in claims on U.S. crop damage. The California press release quotes Andrew Logan, insurance program director at Ceres, an investor group that has been active in pushing for stronger climate disclosure by the industry, as stating “Climate change will have major implications for the insurance industry, yet few insurance companies are identifying their potential exposure and strategies for dealing with it.”

More details are available at http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2012/release009-12.cfm

Recently the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a pilot commercial tidal power license to Verdant Power Ltd. for the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project in New York City’s East River. This project, which has already completed a demonstration phase, looks set to be the first-ever commercial tidal power project in the United States. The project will consist of 30 underwater turbines producing 1 MW of tidal power.

Despite decades of trials, tidal power has been an elusive goal for many developers in maritime nations, including Canada. The most common problem has probably been underestimation of the power of the oceans. Many turbines of a multitude of designs have been wrecked by the power of open ocean waves. The second biggest problem appears to have been that development and commercialization of  wave power systems is much more capital intensive than many developers realize, with the result that they have run out of money before the design and commercialization stages have been completed.

Verdant Power is a small privately held company which appears to be focusing on protected tidal sites, though it also has a run of river project in the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall, and which could have access to adequate capital to achieve its goals (though GallonDaily has no independently verified information to confirm this).

Information about the New York City East River tidal power project is at http://www.ferc.gov/media/news-releases/2012/2012-1/01-23-12.asp and at http://verdantpower.com/what-initiative/

Information about the St. Lawrence River project between the US and Canada is at http://verdantpower.com/what-core/

According to the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency Green Power Partnership, 28% of the total power used by Walmart Stores in the US comes from green (renewable, including solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydroelectric sources) power sources. Ranked by total green power use, this has moved Walmart from twelfth place in the 2011 rankings (for 2010 usage), with 263,533,433kWh of green power usage, to 3rd place in the recently released rankings, with 872,382,088kWh of green power usage in 2011.

In the 2012 rankings (2011 usage) the top ten companies in the National Top 50 in green power usage are Intel Corporation, Kohl’s Department Stores, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. / California and Texas Facilities, Whole Foods Market, Johnson & Johnson, City of Houston, TX, Starbucks, City of Austin, TX, Staples, and Hilton Worldwide. US EPA publishes this data to encourage procurement of electricity from green sources.

GallonDaily suggests to US EPA that ranking by total green energy use is a poor indicator as it does not encourage energy conservation. Our suggestion is that the rankings should be presented only by percentage of electricity used that is obtained from renewable sources, thereby giving small and medium sized electricity users the chance to win some recognition and not serving as an inhibitor of energy conservation. Expect us to provide some more analysis in this direction in the next issue of Gallon Environment Letter.

The US EPA Green Power Partnership National Top 50 for 2011 is available at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm

US venture capital investment in clean technology companies maintained a level of $4.9 billion in 2011, down 4.5% over 2010 but up 29% from 2009, according to a study released this week by Ernst & Young LLP. The energy sector led with almost 31% of the investments, industry products and services received 20%, energy storage received 19%, and the energy efficiency sector received 13% of investments.

57% of the total cleantech venture capital investment took place in California.

Details of the Ernst and Young LLP study, based on data from Dow Jones VentureSource, can be found at http://www.ey.com/US/en/Newsroom/News-releases/2011-US-venture-capital-investment-in-cleantech

According to research published by researchers at the University of California, voluntary green disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions by companies produces positive returns to shareholders. For small companies, mean adjusted share prices increases significantly, by 2.32 percent over days -2 to 2 around the date of release of the information. Shareholders of large companies also benefit from voluntary green disclosure but less significantly.

This information, which relates to US companies, provides a further factor that should encourage companies to voluntarily release GHG data. Those that do not may be criticized for failing to provide best value to shareholders.

The study is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1995132 and the full article is available by clicking on One-Click Download at the top of the page.

The demographic group that Deloitte’s Automotive practice calls Generation Y, Americans aged 19 to 31, strongly prefers hybrid automobiles, according to a recent poll.

The poll states that 57% of Gen Y respondents surveyed prefer hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles, 2% prefer pure electric vehicles, and 37% prefer conventional gasoline vehicles. 89% of Gen Y respondents are looking for a fuel-efficient vehicle. They are also looking for vehicle safety and internet connectivity.

More complete poll results will be released by Deloitte shortly.

A description of the poll is at http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Industries/Automotive-Manufacturing/automotive-survey/index.htm

The preliminary poll findings are at http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deloitte-survey-gen-ys-embrace-of-hybrid-vehicles-may-be-auto-markets-tipping-point-137666268.html

Natural gas is often labelled a ‘clean fuel’, at least compared to oil. In fact, natural gas has about 20% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than oil, for the same amount of energy, but, after leaks from natural gas distribution systems are taken into account the gap between gas and oil is narrowed to a figure closer to about 10% benefit in favour of gas.

Now a group of Cornell University scientists, Robert W. Howarth et al., have published the results of research that indicate that shale gas, the product of “fracking”, has a carbon footprint significantly worse than that of oil or coal. The article states that “3.6% to 7.9% of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the lifetime of a well. These methane emissions are at least 30% more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas.” The result, according to this research, is that the carbon “footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.”

The research paper, which uses a lifecycle approach, is available in the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change at http://www.springerlink.com/content/e384226wr4160653/fulltext.pdf

A response from other scientists at Cornell argues that leaks of gas from shale gas plants are not as large as the Howarth paper reports and that the carbon footprint of shale gas is therefore not as large or as bad as indicated. Their response is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/x001g12t2332462p/fulltext.pdf

While negative reaction to wind turbines is not nearly as strong in Europe as in Ontario, the European Wind Energy Association has come up with an interesting activity to help overcome some of the opinion that wind projects are an eyesore. The European association has launched a global photography competition in which “photographers are invited to let their imaginations take the lead and show wind energy technology in a new way, in line with the competition title, Wind in Mind”.

The six winners will receive a €1,000 (~$1300) Amazon voucher or one of five €250 vouchers, will be chosen by an expert jury, and will be announced shortly after Global Wind Day (15 June 2012). The winning pictures will be displayed in public in the EU area of Brussels.

The Communication Director of the European Wind Energy Association is quoted as saying “Wind turbines are an icon: symbols of the fight against climate change, of sustainability, of our modern age. While some people noisily oppose wind turbines there are many others who love them and find them a graceful addition to our landscape”.

GallonDaily thinks this is an innovative and creative way to attract at least some positive attention to wind turbine technology. The competition is open to photographers from any country, so someone from rural Ontario could be a winner, especially if the Canadian Wind Energy Association helps to promote the competition in this country!

Each person may submit up to three entries. Details and entry information at http://www.globalwindday.org/

President Obama’s State of the Union address was strong on an energy and energy-related environment theme. Key points included:

• The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.
• We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years.  (Applause.)  And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.
• Tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.
• I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use.  Because America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.
• Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled, and thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.
• The differences in this chamber [Congress] may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change.  But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation.
• I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes.
• The Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -– with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.
• The easiest way to save money is to waste less energy.  So here’s a proposal:  Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings.
• Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America’s infrastructure. . . . We’ve got . . . a power grid that wastes too much energy . . . .
• We’ve subsidized oil companies for a century.  That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising.  Pass clean energy tax credits.  Create these jobs.

For the full text of the address visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/24/remarks-president-state-union-address