Spanish builder FCC has agreed to buy all of the wind power generating assets owned by Babcock & Brown Wind Partners in Spain for 190 million euros ($322 million). FCC will also take on gross debt of 590 million euros as part of the deal, FCC said today in a statement.

Meridian Energy says more wind generation capacity could have prevented the threat of a power crisis this winter. New Zealand's largest power company says wind is more reliable than hydro power generation because it is always blowing somewhere. It says people should not read too much into official production figures which showed the Te Apiti wind farm produced only a sixth of its installed capacity during some autumn months.

Babcock & Brown Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Phil Green is under increasing pressure to sell European wind farms to stave off a possible debt review, triggered by a share collapse this week. ...A successful sale could trigger a rebound in Babcock's shares, which trade at less than three times earnings after falling 83 percent this year, said ABN Amro Holdings NV analyst John Heagerty. Failure may increase the risk of banks demanding early repayment on A$2.8 billion of debt.

Policymakers have settled on 'emissions trading' as their favorite global-warming fix. But it isn't working.

March 12, 2007 issue - Global warming isn't the only debate that may be over. Governments and policymakers around the world also seem to have settled on a solution. "A responsible approach to solving this crisis," Al Gore said recently at New York University's Law School, would be "to authorize the trading of emissions ... globally." Emissions trading, also called carbon trading, is being expanded in the European Union and Japan. And in many places where it's yet to take hold, like Sacramento, Sydney and Beijing, politicians are embracing it. Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and Europe's foremost political expert on global warming, predicts that the value of carbon credits in circulation, now about $28 billion, will climb to $40 billion by 2010.

This should be great news for the environment, but many experts have their doubts. The notion that emissions trading is going to make a significant dent in global warming is deeply flawed, they say. Current emissions-trading schemes have proved to be little more than a shell game, allowing polluters in the developed world to shift the burden of making cuts onto factories in the developing world.

A U.N. conference working to fix long-term rules to fight global warming beyond 2012 "as soon as possible" was split on Tuesday over whether that meant an accord should be struck in 2008, 2009 or even 2010. Industrial investors, weighing options ranging from coal-fired power plants to wind energy, are frustrated at the possibility of years of uncertainty about rules for fossil fuel emissions upon which carbon markets depend.

Carbon offset schemes are designed to neutralise the effects of the carbon dioxide our activities produce by investing in projects that cut emissions elsewhere. They work through the rapidly growing trade in carbon credits, each worth the equivalent of a tonne of carbon. Offset companies typically buy carbon credits from projects that plant trees or encourage a switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. They sell credits to individuals and companies who want to go "carbon neutral". Some climate experts say offsets are dangerous because they dissuade people from changing their behaviour.

Green consumers and businesses who want to neutralise their carbon emissions face being ripped off by unscrupulous operators who exploit the growing market in carbon offset schemes, a Guardian investigation has revealed. The surge in interest in such schemes, which invest millions of pounds in forestry and clean energy projects in the developing world, has created a lucrative market in carbon, which is unregulated and subject to little scrutiny. Campaigners and analysts say independent standards are urgently needed to protect consumers and to ensure the promised carbon savings are delivered. Francis Sullivan, a carbon offset expert who led attempts by banking group HSBC to neutralise its emissions, said: “There will be individuals and companies out there who think they’re doing the right thing but they’re not. I am sure that people are buying offsets in this unregulated market that are not credible. I am sure there are people buying nothing more than hot air.”

OSLO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Wind power could generate almost 30 percent of the world's electricity by 2030 and is growing faster than any other clean energy source, a wind business group and environmental lobby Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

INTERNATIONAL power companies are increasingly worried about energy security and greenhouse emission but still plan to build much of their future on coal, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Utilities Global Survey 2006.

But world energy resources are adequate to meet this sustained growth trend because global oil reserves today exceed the cumulative projected production to 2030, IEA said. This optimistic outlook, however, is based on a reference scenario that IEA describes as "unsustainable." Under that reference scenario, primary world energy demand increases by an average rate of 1.6%/year, with fossil fuels accounting for 83% of the projected increase. By 2030, the world consumes 16.3 billion tonnes of oil equivalent (toe)/year—5.5 billion toe more than it does today—with more than two thirds of energy use coming from developing countries.