Putin scolds Tomtor rare earth deposit’s operator over development delays
Located in the north of the Siberian region of Yakutia, Tomtor is a key project in Russia's plans to boost output of rare earth.
The Philippine government does not offer any subsidies for renewables but Northwind earned carbon credits for the project under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. As such, any future wind energy projects could also qualify for the UN-backed carbon offsetting scheme.
Today we look at the boom in Asia for renewable energy. While Europe’s age of austerity is about to get underway in earnest in 2011, the boom continues in Asia, although latest figures show it slowing. Much of Asia needs every way of getting electricity they can use. From the RMB perspective, renewable energy tends to generate new demand for rare metals. With no disrespect intended, I still think most brokerage coverage of the rare metals sector, underweight’s the coming demand for REEs. Below, is the Philippines really on anyone’s map to be a 76 Gigawatt producer from windpower?
Philippines sparks wind energy gold rush
Major investors signal interest in new wave of wind farms
30 Nov 2010
Proposed wind power projects in the Philippines are attracting high-level interest from a number of international energy companies, according to local press reports which claim the Asian country has the potential to develop more than 70GW of wind energy capacity over the coming years.
The Philippine Inquirer this week quoted a local official as saying that Italian firm Brulli Energia is already conducting land foundation and soil studies as part of a planned 200MW wind development in the Oriental Mindoro region of the country.
—–A study made by the US Department of Energy-National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows that the Philippines’ wind potential could provide up to 76GW of power.
The same study shows that 47 provinces out of 73 in the Philippines have at least 500MW wind potential and another 25 provinces have at least 1GW.
Another study conducted by WWF shows that 1,038 wind sites in the country could generate about 7.4GW of electricity. Almost 5GW of these sites were in the Luzon district, while 2.1GW were in the Visayas region.
So far, the only major wind farm development in the country is the $50m Bangui wind farm, which was built by Denmark’s Northwind Power Development Corporation and became operational in June 2005.
I think Asia in general is underweighted in rare metal demand, because most reports tend to be G-7 exc. Japan centric. We all know that here in the west things are being stopped or delayed, an age of austerity is rolling out. My guess is that in the west we hit the low in 2011 and start the climb back in 2012. Below, more recent news from Asia.
Indian wind giant eyes Chinese market
Suzlon Energy intends to step up Chinese presence to tap into country’s predicted massive increase in wind power
02 Nov 2010
India’s Suzlon Energy sees China as the wind energy hub of the future, the firm’s chairman said in an interview yesterday.
Suzlon has about 600MW, or a fifth of its total manufacturing capacity in China, although its manufacturing plant has only been running at a third of its capacity this year.
The firm’s chairman Tulsi Tanti said a manufacturing base in China would allow his company to compete on price with Chinese suppliers.
“We are bringing the Chinese price with German technology. We are quite comfortable that we will get more business from the China market,” he said.
—- Suzlon has installed 5GW of wind capacity in India and at present about half of Suzlon’s 1.5GW of orders are domestic, a figure expected to expand to 3.6GW by 2011.
But this is small when compared to the Chinese government’s goal of increasing the country’s wind power capacity from about 20GW at the end of last year to 90GW by 2015 – a market all suppliers are eyeing up.
Suzlon wants to move up the rankings from its current position as the eighth-largest wind energy company in China with an installed capacity of 530MW.
Suzlon’s subsidiary RE Power already has an assembling unit in China with more than 100 staff. Last month the firm announced plans to build an R&D facility in Tianjin.
“We are bringing the Chinese price with German technology. We are quite comfortable that we will get more business from the China market,” he said. Go east, young man, go east. I wonder how many wind farms Indonesia needs?
Chief financial officer Robin Banerjee [Suzlon] said orders had jumped 35 per cent to $5.4bn (£3.4bn) from last year, mostly from the domestic market in India but also from Brazil, helping compensate for a sharp drop in European revenue caused by the financial crisis.
Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine maker, said last week it will cut 3,000 European jobs because orders may decline next year.
More tomorrow. Icy Britain goes solar, no seriously.
Graeme Irvine, London.
