CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP

Today was another big day for the booming Chinese solar industry. Shares of LDK, a solar wafer manufacturer based in China, went on sale today on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO did somewhat better than expected, with shares going for as high as $30 in a flurry of heavy trading. Another highly anticipated IPO, for Yingli Green Energy, is likely to happen later this month. It'll be (at least) the sixth Chinese solar company to raise capital in the U.S. stock markets. 

There's actually a bit of a debate among stock market analysts, however, on just how viable the Chinese solar industry really is. Those bearish on solar point to a worldwide shortage of high-grade polysilicon, which has weakened demand by keeping prices high for several years now. And earlier this week, SolarFun Power, another Chinese solar manufacturer, posted disappointing first-quarter earnings. That put a damper on some investors' enthusiasm for Chinese solar manufacturers, but apparently not enough to ruin LDK's day in the sun.

LDK boosters point out that the company has already amassed a reasonable quantity of polysilicon, and that its fundamentals are solid. Couple that with China's low labor costs,  burgeoning engineering prowess, enormous energy needs, and its environmental crises, and you've got a potential winner to follow other Chinese solar success stories like China SunEnergy. This is definitely a sector to watch. 

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg just hosted 40 mayors from around the globe (and Bill Clinton) for a climate conference in New York. The chattering classes are all atwitter that Bloomberg is unveiling what might be important environmental positions for a possible presidential run.

And I, for one, think the mayors in attendance are doing a great deal of good, serious work on the issue—encouraging smart ideas on more efficient energy use, greener businesses, less traffic—and getting the private sector involved in a big way. These local actors have certainly been far more innovative and proactive in advancing these issues than most national leaders around the world. 

But my favorite moment from the conference, which was all about encouraging cities to be more energy conscious: During Bloomberg's speech in Central Park, all the street lights were left on. In the middle of the afternoon.

AFP

NATO is considering sending its armed forces to protect oil and gas facilities in the developing world. Jamie Shea, director of policy planning at the office of NATO's secretary general, made the announcement at a press conference in London earlier today. 

[W]e are looking very actively at using our maritime resources... [NATO wants to see] how we can link up with oil companies."

Shea revealed that NATO had discussed the idea with private oil companies such as Dutch Royal Shell and British Petroleum (BP), the second and third largest western oil firms respectively. He also admitted to raising the idea of NATO forces protecting natural gas facilities in Qatar.

On the list of bad ideas in world relations, this ranks pretty high. When the people of a desperately poor nation (such as Nigeria) see western firms leeching their nation's mineral wealth away, they tend to draw a simple conclusion: These companies are heartless profit-seekers with no regard for human life or welfare. Sending NATO forces to protect such corporations would cement the perception that western countries care only about securing energy supplies. After all, we've tried this experiment before; the whole concept harks back to the disastrous gunboat diplomacy of the 19th century. Think again, Mr Shea!

An interesting story in today's Washington Post takes aim at an unlikely culprit in the battle to stop global warming: U.S. women. According to the Post, U.S. men are much more likely to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which consume less electricity and last longer than incandescent bulbs, than are their female partners:

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week showed that while women are more likely than men to say they are "very willing" to change behavior to help the environment, they are less likely to have CFL bulbs at home [...] In groceries and drugstores, where 70 percent to 90 percent of light bulbs historically have been sold and where women usually have been the ones doing the buying, CFLs have not taken off nearly as fast as they have in home-improvement stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's, where men do much of the shopping.

So what explains the gender gap? Energy Star Director Wendy Reed guesses that "women are much more concerned with how things look. We are the nesters." Women are apparently less willing than their husbands to put up with fewer lumens (although the latest CFLs are supposedly just as bright if not brighter than incandescents). But it seems there's also a widespread failure to communicate about this difference in preferences:

The guy typically brings a CFL home and just screws it into a lamp in the bedroom, without discussing it with his wife," [energy efficiency market researcher My] Ton said. "She walks in, turns on the light and boom -- there is trouble. That is where the negative impressions begin, especially when the guy puts it into the bedroom or the bathroom, the two most sacred areas of the home."

I'm curious to know if the CFL gender gap exists even in other countries like Germany and Japan, where far more people use the energy-efficient bulbs. And as couples in these places have gone increasingly green in their light bulb choices, have they also had to learn to communicate better?

AFP

Tensions are rising in Tarija, a southern state of Bolivia, in a dispute over the lucrative Margarita gas field. A judge ruled yesterday that the field (operated by Spanish energy giant Repsol) lay within the O'Connor province, enraging inhabitants of rival province Gran Chaco, who claimed the field as their own. The conflict  has already turned ugly—highlights included the kidnap of 70 police—and the ruling will only make things worse. Worryingly, the authorities seem to be in on the scrap. The feds in La Paz insist this is a local dispute, and that it's up to Governor Mario Cossio to solve it. For his part, Cossio says La Paz has let the problem fester to punish Tarija for its push towards regional autonomy:

The government acted to bring pressure on this departmental government and damage it... The only crime [the region] has committed it that it does not share the government's ideological vision of the country and that it represents one of the autonomous regions of Bolivia."

Whatever La Paz says, the buck must stop with President Evo Morales. Resolving such confrontations are the stuff presidencies are made of, and it's time that Evo and his cabinet showed their worth. Race and politics divide Bolivia, and huge gas reserves (the Margarita field alone is worth $45m, in a country where the average income is $3000) provide the perfect bone of contention. If the President can't mediate between warring factions, then he isn't worth a damn to his country.

May 1 will mark the first anniversary of the nationalization of the Bolivian gas industry. Now Morales has to prove he can distribute, as well as seize.

Back on March 27th, we highlighted the fact that shortages of processed uranium have been driving the price of nuclear fuel to near-record levels in recent months. Now, The Washington Times reports that the price of uranium has jumped another 19 percent in just the last two weeks.

It hasn't been the best week for the nuclear industry. The Washington Post reports:

More than 500 security guards at the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly plant walked off the job just after midnight yesterday to protest what they said is a steep deterioration in job and retirement security since the government changed fitness standards for weapons-plant guards in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The contractor at the plant, BWXT Pantex in Carson County, Tex., replaced the striking guards with a contingency force that it says will secure the plant's weapons, nuclear materials and explosives as long as necessary.

"Contingency force?" That's reassuring. I guess it sounds better than "second string" or "substitute."

What should we make of Iran's announcement that the country's production of nuclear fuel has reached "industrial scale"?

ATTA KENARE/AFP

Arms control analyst Jeffrey Lewis reacted thusly to the news on his blog: "Whatever."

As Lewis goes on to explain in wonkish detail, there are good reasons to be skeptical of Iran's enrichment prowess. After all, getting enough material to build a bomb is extremely difficult. (Lewis coauthored the cover story on how a pickup team of terrorists could build a crude nuclear bomb for FP's November/December 2006 issue.)

So why make these grandiose claims, if they're so easy to debunk? Most likely, as nuke expert David Albright explains to the New York Times, "Ahmadinejad is trying to demonstrate facts on the ground and negotiate from a stronger position." After all, it worked for North Korea.

It will be interesting to see how the Bush administration reacts to Iran's announcement. As recently as March 27, the State Department's Nicholas Burns was essentially mocking the Iranians' lack of technical acumen:

I think the Iranians have had a considerable degree of difficulty in proceeding with their enrichment experimentation," he says. "They have made these fantastic claims . . . and yet according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, they have not been able to manage quite as well as they thought they would."

That, however, was before Iran played catch-and-release with 15 British sailors and marines, putting the U.S. military on edge. My guess? The Bush administration will keep plowing ahead on the diplomatic track at the United Nations and ratcheting up the financial pressure, while quietly signaling that it is ready to go the military route if Iran doesn't back down.

An extraordinary effort to circumnavigate the globe by boat in record time has run into tragedy. The crew of Earthrace, a Kiwi group of seamen, engineers, and supporters, set out in early March from Barbados in a their futuristic craft, the Turbo. The boat runs entirely on biodiesel, contains almost no metal in its hull, and is designed to slice through, rather than ride over, giant ocean waves. Nine days into the voyage, the Turbo accidentally sliced through an unlit fishing boat off the coast of Guatemala. Captain Pete Bethune's relates the scene in his "Captain's Blog":

Suddenly we are all awoken by a deafening series of crashes.  I know instantly we’ve collided with something, and run out to see what’s happened.  Anthony is already in the cockpit area.  What lies behind is like a scene from a horror movie.  We’ve driven right over the top of a 26ft fibreglass fishing skiff, and its tattered remains lie scattered around us.  We can hear moans and yelling in the water. 

Despite the crew's best efforts, one fisherman lost his life. After more than a week of detention by the Guatemalan Navy, acquittal of any wrongdoing by the local courts, and an emotional meeting and coming-to-terms with the survivors and the family of the deceased, the crew is back on the open sea.

Tragedy aside, the voyage so far has been a modern account of derring-do afloat, a modern-day version of a good sailor's yarn. Captain Bethune and the ground crew each keep fascinating blogs detailing their struggles with technology, nature, and various national bureaucracies in pursuit of the record. GPS technology even makes it possible to track the boat's progression in real time. Earthrace is 3500 nautical miles behind the record-setting, 75-day pace now, but still looks likely to complete the voyage and demonstrate the potential for more powerful, efficient, and environmentally friendly technologies. They definitely bear watching over the next two months.

(Hat tips: Popular Science Blog)

Here's a novel idea: Buy up carbon credits by the boat load, never emit any carbon, and thereby help to reduce the worldwide output of greenhouse gases. As the demand for credits soars, the value of individual credits will skyrocket, and carbon-reduction technologies will become more cost-competitive. At least, that's the theory.

Just last month, CO2quota.org set up a foundation to collect funds and purchase carbon credits—credits they plan never to use. In exchange for giving money, donors receive a certificate detailing how many tons of carbon they've kept out of the atmosphere. It costs about $19 to offset one ton of carbon emissions. (That's a bargain: $28 will buy you just one ton of carbon emissions using green tags.) CO2quota.org says that they buy their credits from The Nordic Power Exchange, and that Deloitte watches over their books. 

Personally, I'm skeptical. To me, this whole scenario sounds about like ripping up $100 bills to help fight inflation. So far the foundation has offset roughly 185 tons of carbon emissions, which actually isn't much—it's the amount of carbon produced by about twenty average U.S. households in a year. I suspect that similar savings could be achieved if those who bought credits just switched to energy-saving lightbulbs. 

But any environmental movement that relies on the generosity of individuals to donate, volunteer, or otherwise sacrifice our way to a greener future will never work, simply because the problem is too big. The only way green technologies will overtake their older counterparts is for the market to deem them to be more profitable.

On top of that, a system as flawed as the Kyoto Protocol can never be the key to solving our climate crisis. The only credits CO2quota is buying up are those issued to companies who cannot meet current CO2 Kyoto targets. Buying the credits will do nothing to help lower the current targets—and it will have no effect on the world's biggest carbon producers, China and the United States, since they don't fall under Kyoto's jurisdiction.

Ultimately, I hope a group like CO2quota proves me wrong.  But first they should probably hire a copy editor:

“The more CO2 quotas we buy – the more expensive it gets for the industry to pollute with CO2. Hopefully, this will make them rethink the continued use of fusil fuels. Let’s buy back our climate!”

I'll take a rain check.

lunchoverip.com

Last week, I blogged about how the lack of robust power grids in the rural areas of developing countries spurred some cell providers to experiment with solar, wind and biofuels to independently power individual cell phone towers.

Of course, this solves the problem of power for the cellular network, but—as Passport reader Bradley Loomis asked via email—if there isn't an electrical grid to power the cell towers, how do cell phone users in these areas charge their cell phones?

The answer lies in a business model that is quickly emerging across the globe, from China to Uganda: charging the cell phone batteries of rural customers in bigger cities for a fee. Check out LunchOverIP’s report on how Chinese businessmen are transforming their charge-for-a-fee service into a potentially charge-for-free ad-supported model (kind of like Google but without the whole Internet part). Jan Chipchase also has a great piece on the subject and some good photos of charging stations in Uganda.

Bradley, thanks for the question! More good comments on Slashdot.

WILLIAM PHILPOTT/AFP

The company formerly known as British Petroleum has finally acknowledged that it tried to cut corners on environmental safety in order to save money prior to the March, 2005, Texas refinery blast that killed 15 people and injured 500. BP successfully lobbied against stricter environmental controls in Texas, which would have forced BP to upgrade the exhaust system that ultimately exploded. Susan Moore, BP's lobbying chief, was even given a $1,000 bonus for saving BP $150 million in monitoring and equipment upgrades.

BP has been in hot water over the past few years for some questionable practices. In addition to facing accusations that it tried to manipulate propane prices in 2004, the company has also had to close down part of its Alaskan operations in March, 2006, after around 267,000 gallons of crude oil leaked out of one of its pipelines and prompted a safety investigation by U.S. regulators. Then six months later BP had to excavate a 50-year-old underground pipeline after 1,000 barrels of gasoil spilled in Long Beach, California. Despite these glaring errors, BP still managed to make a $22.3 billion profit last year. If BP is not intending to move "Beyond Petroleum" just yet, let's at least hope that it will stop cutting corners when it comes to environmental safety.

Forget Kyoto, carbon trading, and renewable resource targets.

Just change your light bulbs, says Australian Prime Minister John Howard. In an effort to reduce his country’s carbon emissions (and to simplify his party’s environmental policy) Howard’s government will outlaw the antiquated incandescent light bulb by 2010. Australians will have to use more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, which are about five times more energy efficient and last much longer than standard bulbs.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)

JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

One of the more interesting stories to come out of the Davos gnosh-fest this year was the charm offensive put on by Russia—and the fawning reception it met with from the world's business leaders. In years past, Putin's capos have avoided the cold mountain retreat, perhaps because the weather wasn't sufficiently different from that in Moscow.  This year, however, a high-powered delegation attended, headed by a man whose name you'll be hearing more and more from now on: Dmitri Medvedev.

By most accounts, the suave young first deputy prime minister and Gazprom chairman did a fine job of defending Russia's economic record. He pledged his country's support for democracy (albeit "without unnecessary supplemental definitions") and argued that the ex-superpower is behaving responsibly on the world stage. Medvedev's remarks were filled with characteristic Russian warmth; as he put it, "we are not trying to push anyone to love Russia, but we will not allow anyone to hurt Russia." The charismatic Medvedev seemed successful in deflecting media attention, at least for now, from the dominant story lines of growing authoritarianism in the country and its use of energy supplies as a diplomatic weapon.

Medvedev's appearance was interesting for another reason: Many have him pegged as Putin's likely successor in 2008. To see who his competition is, and what the stakes are for Russia and the world, take a look at this week's List. In a web exclusive for FP, Moscow-based journalist Julian Evans gives a run-down of the leading candidates.

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP

It's been a busy week for Russian diplomats. First, Russia has taken a further step in repairing its troubled relations with Georgia. Russia's ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko, has just returned to his post in Tblisi after a disagreement over the deportation of Russian soldiers accused of spying led Russia to recall him. Kovalenko is optimistic, but no doubt tensions will remain high as recent flare-ups over gas prices and South Ossetia remain fresh in the memory.

Second, for the first time in four years, top Russian and Japanese foreign ministers are meeting in Moscow this week for the first round of a new "strategic dialogue" between the two countries. Russo-Japanese relations have historically been strained due to an intractable territorial conflict over four islands in the north Pacific controlled by Russia, which are also claimed by Japan. Hostilities between the states rose again last month after Russia's state-owned Gazprom recently acquired a majority share stake in the $20 billion Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas project, halving the stakes of Japan's Mitsui and Mistubishi conglomerates in the project. Nonetheless, Tokyo has a keen economic interest in improving its relations with Russia as it seeks to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and Russia clearly has a lot to gain from any deal to supply its oil and gas to Japan.

Energy is also at the top of the agenda as Russian President Vladamir Putin visits India this week. The trip has already produced an agreement whereby Russia will to build four nuclear power reactors in India, and the two countries will also work together in developing aircraft and fighter plane engines.