Forecast for solar power: Sunny

Solar power has long been the Mercedes-Benz of the renewable energy industry: sleek, quiet, low-maintenance.
Yet like a Mercedes, solar energy is universally adored but prohibitively expensive for most people. A 4-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system costs about $34,000 without government rebates or tax breaks.

As a result, solar power accounts for well under 1% of U.S. electricity generation. Other alternative energy sources, such as wind, biomass and geothermal, are far more widely deployed.
High costs of solar panels have been due to volatile silicon prices, low production volumes and high setup costs.



The outlook for solar, though, is getting much brighter. A few dozen companies say advances in technology will let them halve the price of solar-panel installations in as little as three years. By 2014, solar-system prices will be competitive with conventional electricity when energy savings are figured in, Deutsche Bank (DB) says. And that's without government incentives.

The solar industry is expected to triple in the next three years, from about $13 billion to $40 billion in revenue, says analyst Jesse Pichel of Piper Jaffray. (PJC) Turbocharging sales are government incentives in countries such as Germany and Japan. In the USA, generous customer rebates in California and New Jersey — by far the largest U.S. solar markets — along with a federal tax credit have trimmed system prices by a third or more.

Most states don't offer solar rebates, but prices still have fallen about 90% since the mid-1980s — 40% annually the past five years — as surging sales have led to cost efficiencies, says Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association. Now, experts say it will take a quantum technological leap to quickly lower prices to utility levels. An armada of companies say they are poised to do just that:

•Traditional solar makers. This group, which includes SunPower, (SPWR) relies on standard silicon wafers as a semiconductor. They make up more than 90% of the solar industry. Some are using less silicon, because electricity is produced only in the top layer.

Evergreen Solar (ESLR) uses two ribbons to finely shape molten silicon. Others cut silicon into wafers, losing up to half insilicon sawdust. Evergreen's method eliminates the waste.

Sharp, the No. 1 manufacturer, takes a different tack, slashing setup costs by bundling panels with racks that attach them to roofs.

•Concentrating photovoltaic makers. They use lenses or mirrors to magnify sunlight. SolFocus' mirrors concentrate sunlight 500 times, letting them use a fraction of the semiconductor found in standard panels. But the systems don't work on cloudy days and require cumbersome trackers to follow the sun, making them suitable only for utilities and big industrial customers.

•Thin-film manufacturers. They have achieved the lowest costs by layering 1% of the semiconductor in regular panels on sheets of glass. They often use material that's cheaper than silicon. That's a big advantage, because a worldwide silicon shortage has pushed up prices. First Solar's (FSLR) production costs are $1.19 per watt of generating power vs. $2.80 for traditional solar systems. It says it will hit about $1 a watt, the price of building conventional power plants, by 2010. The start-up has contracts for $4 billion through 2012.

Another start-up, Nanosolar, embeds tiny semiconductor particles in ink, helping it churn out panels as easily as a printing press. And United Solar Ovonic deposits its semiconductor on flexible sheets of stainless steel that look like rolls of film and can be pasted on roofs at low cost.

One caveat: Thin-film panels are about half as efficient as standard systems. Thus, they need more space and are mostly geared to utilities and businesses.

Owens cautions that reaching grid-like prices could take longer than solar makers vow. States with more sunlight and higher power rates could get there sooner. Makers "have been promising the moon for a long, long time."

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Tidal power, the science of harnessing the rise and fall of ocean waters to create energy, is receiving more green lights around the world. In the UK, the first tidal generator of its kind is expected to begin construction shortly.
tidal power


“SeaGen turbines are basically simple propellers, mounted in pairs on a heavy pile sunk into the seabed. The big props are driven by fast-flowing tides, generating potentially useful amounts of electricity. Underwater maintenance is expensive even in benign conditions and prohibitively difficult in fast tides, so the propeller assemblies are designed to be raised out of the water for maintenance or repairs.”

The turbines turn so slowly that they’ve been signed off as a non-threat to marine life. Quipping that their energy production “is about as predictable as the tides” industry players feel confident that more countries will turn to the technology to resolve their energy woes; especially with such a consistent source available. Engineers estimate more than five knots of flow at peak spring tides and 20 to 30 metres depth is a viable location for the tech. The UK installation will produce about 1 megawatt of energy.

In the Bay of Fundy in North America, the highest tides in the world may lead to the construction of a massive installation to capture 15% of energy produced daily. One area, called The Minas Passage, might produce as much as 152 megawatts, powering 117,000 homes. Nice, clean, green, consistent energy.

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Laying the groundwork for geothermal

Geothermal energy has not gotten a great deal of attention in the past. But one Fort Wayne company is doing what it can to reverse that trend.

WaterFurnace International, based in Fort Wayne, is one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of geothermal heating and cooling systems. These systems boast tremendous efficiency, extreme reliability, quiet operation and little cost to maintain.
Recent environmental and energy issues have begun fueling more interest in renewable energy sources, such as geothermal, which takes advantage of nature. The temperature of the earth a few feet below ground is a constant 50 to 70 degrees everywhere in North America. A geothermal system uses that constant temperature to heat and cool homes.

The system contains hundreds of feet of polyethylene coils buried about five feet beneath the ground’s surface. These coils act as a huge radiator. They contain water with an antifreeze solution that is circulated under 60 pounds of pressure.
The system absorbs and exchanges heat in the ground. The fluid circulating in the pipes absorbs the ground’s heat when the weather is cold to produce warm air for the house. When the weather is hot, the system reverses. Heat is pulled from the building and deposited in the cooler ground to create cool air for the house.

These systems do not burn fossil fuel, so they don’t emit greenhouse gases or contribute to global warming. They are quiet, easy to maintain and extremely efficient. Ritchey said the WaterFurnace system achieves 500 percent efficiency.

Geothermal systems typically deliver four times as much energy as it takes to run the system. In other words, for every one kilowatt-hour of electricity used to run the equipment, four kilowatt-hours of energy are pulled from the homeowner’s backyard. Electricity is needed mainly just to run the unit’s fan, compressor and pump.

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Thin-layer Solar Cells May Bring Cheaper Green Power

The experts at Durham University are developing light-absorbing materials for use in the production of thin-layer solar photovoltaic (PV) cells which are used to convert light energy into electricity.

The four-year project involves experiments on a range of different materials that would be less expensive and more sustainable to use in the manufacturing of solar panels.

Thicker silicon-based cells and compounds containing indium, a rare and expensive metal, are more commonly used to make solar panels today.

The research, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) SUPERGEN Initiative, focuses on developing thin-layer PV cells using materials such as copper indium diselenide and cadmium telluride.

Right now the project is entering a new phase for the development of cheaper and more sustainable variants of these materials.

The Durham team is also working on manipulating the growth of the materials so they form a continuous structure which is essential for conducting the energy trapped by solar panels before it is turned into usable electricity. This will help improve the efficiency of the thin-layer PV cells.

It's hoped that the development of more affordable thin-film PV cells could lead to a reduction in the cost of solar panels for the domestic market and an increase in the use of solar power.

Solar power currently provides less than one hundredth of one percent of the UK's home energy needs.

The thin-layer PV cells would be used to make solar panels that could be fitted to roofs to help power homes with any surplus electricity being fed back to The National Grid.

This could lead to cheaper fuel bills and less reliance on burning fossil fuels as a way of helping to generate electricity.

Professor Ken Durose, Director of the Durham Centre for Renewable Energy, who is leading the research, said: "One of the main issues in solar energy is the cost of materials and we recognise that the cost of solar cells is slowing down their uptake.

"If solar panels were cheap enough so you could buy a system off the shelf that provided even a fraction of your power needs you would do it, but that product isn't there at the moment.

"The key indicator of cost effectiveness is how many pounds do you have to spend to get a watt of power out?

"If you can make solar panels more cheaply then you will have a winning product."

To aid its research the university has taken delivery of a £1.7 million suite of high powered electron microscopes, funded by the Science Research Investment Fund, which have nano-scale resolution allowing scientists to see the effects that currently limit the performance of solar cells.

One of the microscopes is the first of its kind in the UK and Professor Durose said: "This instrument will put the North East right out in front.

"We are working on new ideas in renewable energy and this opens up tremendous opportunities in research."

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Energy Sources Of The Future

First the bad news: With oil prices rising and energy demand from emerging economies ballooning, no single energy source will emerge to replace fossil fuels.

The good news is that that's OK. Even if nothing ever rules the world like oil did last century, different regions will adapt by tapping the technologies and energy sources that suit them best.

"We'll really be looking at a tapestry…as opposed to the silver bullet notion that one source will break through and dominate," says Barry Rabe, a professor of environmental policy at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.

In Pictures: Energy Sources of the Future
So just how will our grandchildren meet their energy needs? We'll continue to use oil and natural gas for decades, if not centuries, but as a shrinking portion of our energy pie. We'll also use commonly proposed alternatives like corn-based ethanol and nuclear generators.

But there are also big changes ahead, both in terms of what we use and how much we use technologies that already exist. Take wind generation. The industry is growing at about 30% a year, says Edward Guinness, co-manager of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund. That's faster than other renewable energy sources like solar and hydro-power. The price of wind-generated energy is currently competitive with fossil fuels, Guinness says.

Solar power is also poised to grow quickly. Today about 0.1% of the world's energy comes from solar power, most of it using photovoltaic cells. Guinness thinks that could grow to 10% over 20 to 35 years as manufacturing processes are improved. The expansion of solar thermal technology will also grow the sector (see: The Sunshine Economy). Government subsidies, favorable regulatory programs and the popularity of solar with consumers are also likely to boost usage.

Newer ideas could also turn into future energy sources. Have you ever thought we might harness the power of bending floorboards, or turn algae into fuel? It could happen.

Moreover, the future of energy is not just a question of what, but of how.

"I think the things that would really blow us away if we could jump forward 20 years would not be the giant fields of windmills, but the 1,000 changes in daily life that have taken place in order to save energy," says Alex Steffen, executive editor of Worldchanging.com, which covers sustainable technology.

Those changes will go far beyond switching to low-energy light bulbs. One trend Steffen forecasts is that power sources will move closer to home. "I think we're going to see a lot more local energy, especially in places that are gifted with lots of sunshine, or wind, or strong rivers," Steffen says. As houses and small communities produce their own energy, it will flow back and forth on "smart infrastructure"-- two-way power grids that deliver from as well as to the home.

Take hydro-power, for instance. "If we're going to see new hydro development in North America, it wont necessarily be massive like the Hoover Dam, but micro-hydro," Rabe says. Places still unconnected to large-scale energy grids, like sub-Saharan Africa, are especially poised to take advantage of local-level options.

The future just might be bright after all. By the time the world's oil reserves do dry up, it's technologically possible that we will have weaned ourselves off of fossil fuels.


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Solar energy backers say sun power time is now

A $200,000 solar energy grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and fresh tax incentives signal the dawn of more affordable, renewable energy for New Orleans homeowners, city recovery officials say.

The New Orleans Office of Recovery Management is incorporating solar energy into its planning after the Crescent City was named one of 13 “Solar America Cities” for 2007. The DOE’s Solar America Initiative will provide $2.5 million and advice for chosen cities.

The DOE program is based on a 50 percent match from the ORM for a total $400,000 to include solar energy in rebuilding plans, said ORM Director Ed Blakely.

“We have a requirement to do this because it’s a part of (the Unified New Orleans Plan) to look at smarter and greener technology,” said Blakely. “We will look at possible new (solar) projects in all 17 recovery target areas. There’s so many different avenues in solar power, which is why we have the grant to study it.”

The Solar America Initiative aims to make the technology more affordable for homeowners.

Solar window panels are a transparent screen window installation designed to convert 10 percent of sunlight into energy compared with 100 percent conversion by solar cells, according to ecomall.com, an online solar tech reference Web site.

Recovery officials would study how to use solar panels on a smaller scale in municipal buildings, schools, police and fire stations and hospitals.

Solar energy will not be relied upon to power an entire building, Bradley-Wright said. To do that “there’s going to be a need for creative funding,” he said.

Bradley-Wright said resident interest in solar energy is up significantly but there are few solar retailers and installers.

“One tangible piece of this grant is job training for installation. Presently there are three solar installers in the state,” said Bradley-Wright.

Senate Bill 90 provides a 50 percent tax credit of up to $25,000 for residents to buy and install solar equipment. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco signed the bill into law July 10.

A 30 percent federal tax incentive for purchases and installation of solar technology for businesses and residents, capped at $2,000, will also make solar power more affordable by providing “an 80 percent reduction of the costs,” Bradley-Wright said.

A solar transition can cost a homeowner anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $100,000, Angelette said. The average cost to homeowners for purchase and installation ranges from $8 to $10 per watt of consumption.

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A dream home made of mud

VICTORIA — Ann and Gord Baird's dream house has in-floor heating, solar and wind power to run appliances, a plug-in for an electric car and a wall of windows to capture the sun's heat from the south.

It's all very contemporary - except the house is made of mud.

Ann, a former financial manager, and Gord, an auto body shop owner, both quit their jobs to construct their 2,150-square-foot home of cob, a centuries-old construction technique using dirt, clay and straw.

They started building this spring on their 7.5-acre property near Victoria and hope to move into the house with four other family members by this October.
"We've got new tech meeting old tech," says Mr. Baird, 37.

When completed, it will be the first code-approved, load-bearing, high-occupancy two-storey cob house in North America.

"We look at ourselves as being very mainstream," says Ms. Baird, 40. "We're just building a house out of dirt."

Cob building is as old as the hills in places such as Devon and Cornwall in England, Wales, and Brittany in France, where a number of 500-year-old homes are still inhabited.

The ancient technique has been making a comeback in Britain and the Pacific Northwest since the early nineties, fuelled by rising lumber costs and the sustainable building trend.

Last year in Worcestershire, England, a modern architect-designed cob house with sleek, contemporary decor sold for the equivalent of $1.6-million.

The Oregon-based Cob Cottage Co. started North America's cob revival, which has spread to British Columbia and points farther east.

Cob is ideally suited to the Wet Coast, provided the building has deep overhangs and gutters to protect the earthen walls as well as a high, impervious foundation, according to Cob Cottage.

Like a ceramic flower pot, cob absorbs moisture in the air without weakening and releases it again when it bakes in the sun.

"Cob" is an old English word meaning lump or rounded mass. Building with cob is as easy as making mud pies. Traditionally, cobbers use their hands and feet to form lumps of earth mixed with sand and straw for strength.

Cob building makes environmental sense, according to Cob Cottage, because it uses minimal wood and no synthetic materials such as vinyl siding, fibreglass insulation or paint, making it a wise chose for people with chemical sensitivities.

The materials are dirt cheap. The Bairds estimate construction costs at about $210,000 - roughly $97 a square foot - including renewable energy systems, materials, engineer's drawings and their own labour factored in at $20 an hour.

Most of the cob houses that have sprouted up in British Columbia resemble hobbit homes, with curved doorways and bulbous walls embellished with hand-sculpted sun rays, waves and goddess figures.

Increasingly, however, cob builders such as the Bairds are emphasizing function over form. On Saltspring Island, Becky and Paul Niedziela combined cob and wood-framing techniques in their 1,700-square-foot house to meet building code.

Other builders are working closely with various levels of government to gain acceptance for traditional cob buildings. O.U.R. Ecovillage - a 25-acre sustainable community on Vancouver Island - is the first site in Canada to obtain a permit to build a cluster of cob homes, a project to be completed by 2010.

Established in 1999 by a small group of sustainability advocates, the community of 40 residents is a demonstration village that offers tours and workshops on natural building, permaculture and low-impact living.

"We have a 100 people contacting us a week here," co-founder Brandy Gallagher says.

The village's 10 cob homes will feature renewable energy sources, alternative wastewater treatment and the use of recycled materials. O.U.R. Ecovillage hopes to make cob mainstream, Ms. Gallagher says. "We're creating a Canadian showcase," she adds.

Traditional cobbing is laborious and time-consuming, but the technique is evolving. By using a Rototiller, the Bairds are mixing cob five times faster than the hand and foot method while using only about 20 litres of gas for the entire house.

Another innovation is the Bairds' use of B.C.-mined pumice in the cob mixture, which will provide better insulation than many conventional homes do, according to independent testing.

As well, the Bairds worked with engineering professor Kris Dick at the University of Manitoba to devise a system for seismic stability using diagonal tethers made of aircraft cable in the cob walls.

The engineer's involvement was the Bairds' key to obtaining a building permit, according to the project's building inspector, Chris Leek. "We're hanging our hat on the professional engineer," he says.

There's room for more cob buildings in semi-rural areas, Mr. Leek says, but dirt houses may not fit in everywhere. Because the people who build them tend to be "a little earthy," he says, most cob houses end up looking "a bit like a mushroom."

But the same isn't true of historic cob buildings erected in Canada by early immigrants from the British Isles. In Ontario, both the 1839 St. Thomas Anglican Church in Shanty Bay and a private home in Weston, built in 1827, are still in use. Neither looks out of place in their surroundings.

Building cob to code is more challenging in municipalities with no recent history of dirt buildings. In Toronto, local cobber Georgie Donais has spent months dealing with the legalities of constructing a public cob bathroom in Dufferin Grove Park - inspired by the cob popcorn stand in Vancouver's Stanley Park. She is working with other community members as well as architect Martin Liefhebber.

"The problem, of course, is that no one has done it before in Ontario, officially," says Mr. Liefhebber, who specializes in alternative building. Nevertheless, a building permit is expected within the month.

With climate change in the news, constructing with materials at hand makes increasing sense, according to the Bairds on Vancouver Island.

"House construction can be much simpler and more sustainable than today's green building standards suggest," Mr. Baird says. The beauty of cob, he adds, is "anyone can do it."
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the future of home technology

Green Technology

Some of the most exciting technologies in the LivingHome are the ones you don't see -- and they are all about sustainability and energy-saving. "People tend to think of living in a 'Wired' way as having a bunch of gadgets, which is a piece of it for sure, but...technology is also a part of how things are built both sustainably and smartly. We believe technology is driving many of the things that make green living possible," Draisin told CNN.

A major prediction illustrated in LivingHome is that houses will become adaptive. Technologies like automatic thermal blinds, motorized windows and vent systems will activate across the exterior of the house in response to temperature, angle of the sun and wind to keep internal conditions stable and conserve energy. Wired writer, Bob Parks explained: "Your house exterior will be like an expensive Gore-Tex hiking jacket -- if you feel a bit too hot or cold here or there, just open a flap or zip up a vent."

Automated sprinkler systems are hardly cutting edge but the lawns outside WiredHome will be studded with hi-tech sensors which measure when it last rained, adjust the sprinkler systems to stop the grass from drying out and avoid wasting water. In the kitchen, smart appliances supplied by Bosch use sophisticated computer chips to save water and energy. Sensors in the washing machine and dishwasher measure the dirtiness of water so washing cycles end when plates and clothes are clean. The tumble dryer is smart enough to switch off when clothes are dry rather than continue to the end of a pre-programmed time.

Even with all this energy saving, the LivingHome needs power and it exploits the latest renewable energy technologies which can create lots of energy in a domestic setting. A 4-kilowatt SunPower Corporation solar power system helps the house be 36 per cent more efficient than a comparable conventional home. The house also has lofty ambitions to make its human occupants a bit smarter. Loaded onto a home computer, the Lucid home energy dashboard shows real-time energy use so inhabitants can see the results of their activities and modify their behaviour to be more energy efficient.

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Clean energy is catching on

WOODBRIDGE - This town has become the first municipality in Connecticut to meet and then exceed its commitment to obtain 20 percent of its energy through renewable resources by 2010.
The Board of Selectmen made that commitment on Sept. 29, 2005 and met it this past March, three years ahead of goal.

"It really sets Woodbridge apart from any of the other '20 percent by 2010' communities," said Jon Gorham, chairman of Woodbridge's Clean Energy Initiative Task Force.

Selectman Jim Sabshin, who also is a member of the Clean Energy Task Force, said he was proud to vote for the town's endorsement of the campaign.

To date, 55 municipalities from across the state have committed to the "20 percent by 2010" challenge, pledging to acquire at least 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources.

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Regional climate pact sets limit

The leaders of six states and two Canadian provinces agree to cut emissions to 15% below 2005 levels.
Stepping in where the Bush administration has refused to tread, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and five other Western governors, joined by two Canadian provincial leaders, pledged Wednesday to enforce a tough regional cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the Western Climate Initiative, the leaders agreed to slash emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-warming pollutants to 15% below 2005 levels in their states and provinces in the next 13 years. That is about the same percentage as California's commitment under last year's landmark global warming law. Overall, the region would cut emissions by 350-million metric tons over that time period.

To achieve their goal, the partners, including Democratic and Republican governors, committed to designing a carbon-trading system within a year. That approach, now in use in Europe, allows industries to trade pollution credits among themselves. Seven Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states are also designing a so-called cap-and-trade system, but that initiative will be limited to power plants.

"Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution," Schwarzenegger said in announcing the accord. "Our collective commitment will build a successful regional system to be linked with other efforts across the nation and eventually the world."

California officials took pointed aim at the Bush administration's refusal to enact a national program to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "The federal government needs to step up to the plate, but the states aren't waiting," said Linda Adams, California's secretary for Environmental Protection. "Ideally, we would have a cap at the federal level."

Although the Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, a global climate pact ratified by more than 140 countries, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that the charges of federal inaction are "false" and that Bush is "supportive of actions by the states and respects the role governors play."

The administration, she said, has supported billions of dollars in incentives for clean-burning technology and building retrofitting, a legislative proposal to cut the nation's traditional gas use by 20% over the next decade, as well as an effort to slow the growth of greenhouse emissions nationwide.

But in contrast to the administration's embrace of voluntary emissions targets, Schwarzenegger has traveled the West in recent months, cajoling other political leaders to join in a commitment to fixed cuts. The states that have signed up are Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Utah. Canadian provinces British Columbia and Manitoba have also joined the effort. Several states and provinces are official "observers," still considering whether to commit to the initiative's stringent goals. They include: Colorado; Kansas; Nevada; Wyoming; Ontario and Quebec, Canada; and Sonora, Mexico.

One goal of the regional pact is to prevent polluting industries from playing off states with stiff anti-pollution regulations against those without. In recent years, for instance, Nevada has advertised itself as a haven for businesses fleeing California.

"It is a big concern in California that companies might move to other states," Adams said. "This kind of regional program will help minimize that."

Environmental groups applauded the regional initiative. "It shows major momentum in the fight against global warming," said Theo Spencer of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The public has grown impatient with the Bush administration's denying and ducking. There's a wave of state action moving from coast to coast."

Under the initiative, the partner states have signed up with a national climate registry to measure how much greenhouse gas they emit. They are free to design how to cut their own emissions to meet the cap. To slash fossil-fuel consumption, which produces climate-warming carbon dioxide, states are mandating more energy-efficient buildings, increased use of solar and wind energy, less sprawl and more hybrid cars in government fleets.

But given that vehicle tailpipe emissions account for between one-quarter and one-third of states' CO2 emissions, it could be hard to meet the regional initiative's ambitious cap without also requiring auto companies to produce less-polluting cars. California passed a landmark law in 2002, which mandated a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in automobiles by 2020.

Eleven other states have signed on to California's approach, but with the auto industry fiercely opposed, the Bush administration has delayed granting a necessary federal waiver to allow the law to take effect.

Under the cap and trade program envisioned in Wednesday's agreement, heavy polluters could purchase credits from below-average emitters. The success of the system depends on setting an overall cap that is sufficiently low so that it will result in actual reductions. The European system faltered at first by setting its caps too high and failing to verify industry emissions claims. California officials say that they will incorporate lessons from the European experience in designing a new cap-and-trade program.

California's 2006 global warming law requires emission reductions of 15% below 1990 levels. The regional cap would amount to capping pollution at about 2% above 1990 levels, said Christopher Busch, an economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. But since emissions in other states and provinces have been growing faster than in California, he said, "the regional cap will result in greater reductions than California's law would on its own."
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Greens warn of 'nonsense' Apec approach to climate

The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to push for binding targets on climate change at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Australia next month.

The draft of the Apec leaders' environment declaration was leaked to Greenpeace this week and has drawn criticism for not including binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions. Instead it calls on leaders to set goals.

Apec host Australia, with the United States, has so far refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, which carries binding emissions targets.

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the draft Apec document would undermine the Kyoto agreement, of which New Zealand is a party.

"Leading scientists are saying we have only a decade to turn around our rising emissions, or climate change may become unstoppable. The Prime Minister must stand up against the nonsense being proposed at Apec and hold out for binding targets and timetables for the sake of our children."

Ms Fitzsimons said Helen Clark should work alongside Japan and Canada, Apec partners which had both ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

She said other worrying factors in the draft declaration included targets being expressed as reductions in "energy intensity" - that is energy used per dollar of GDP, rather than in nominal terms.

That meant countries could reduce energy intensity while still producing more greenhouse gases than before.

The declaration also used 2005 as a baseline to measure emissions against rather than 1990, which was used in the Kyoto Protocol.

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