Russia's Putin says wind turbines kill birds

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday that wind power can pose environmental risks, casting doubts over plans to develop this alternative energy source in the oil-rich country.

Putin, who has overseen all major energy deals Russia made in recent years, is keen for the country to maintain its role as a major oil and gas producer. He has repeatedly expressed his skepticism about alternative energy.

"Windmills, which are so widespread in many European countries seem to be an environmentally friendly kind (of energy), but in fact they kill birds," Putin told a conference of his United Russia party in the Far East.

"Vibration there is such that worms come out of the ground, not to mention moles. This is a real environmental problem," he said, adding that solar energy was the only alternative source that was entirely harmless.

Renewable energy accounts for only 1 percent of all power generated in Russia, but under a plan backed by President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's partner in Russia's ruling tandem, this share should grow to 4.5 percent by 2020.

Germany's Siemens plans to create a joint venture with Russian power firm RusHydro and state holding firm Russian Technologies to develop windmill parks able to produce 5 gigawatts by 2020.

Atomenergomash, a unit of state nuclear power holding Rosatom, announced similar plans and said the company was looking for an international partner, estimating the potential share of wind in Russian power generation at 5 to 10 percent.

Atomenergomash said wind power generation would become profitable in Russia after the government introduced incentives for producers.

Medvedev in May asked the government to draft proposals on mandatory purchases of energy generated from renewable sources at market prices rather than at state-regulated tariffs. There has been no response from the government to date on the proposal.

Putin complained that European and U.S. makers of equipment generating energy from alternative sources were pushing their products at the expense of Russian manufacturers.

However, he expressed support for Icelandic companies' plans to develop geothermal energy on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, home to Eurasia's only geyser valley.


Source:
Reuters, "Russia's Putin says wind turbines kill birds", accessed December 7, 2010

Russia presents vision for Arctic wealth

Three years after Russian divers thrust a rust-proof flag into the seabed below the North Pole, the country is again staking its claim on the Arctic region.

An international forum held in Moscow Wednesday aimed to "present the world community with a picture of the region's future as it is seen by the Russian experts," according to Sergei Shoigu, the President of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) who is also the country's Emergencies Minister.

The Arctic contains a vast wealth of untapped oil and natural gas, according to a report released in July 2010 by the U.S. Geological Survey.

It estimated that the amount of "undiscovered, technically recoverable" oil north of the Arctic Circle was more than double the amount that had been previously found in the Arctic. It added that the Arctic contained more than three times as much undiscovered gas as oil, most of which was in the Russian Arctic.

Russia has long sought to claim rights to the waters of the Arctic Ocean off Russia, including its much-publicized expedition to plant the Russian flag on the Arctic sea floor in August 2007.

On Wednesday, it announced plans to start work soon on a new atlas of the Arctic, a task Sergei Shoigu described as requiring "extensive, serious work."

He said it would include descriptions on potentially dangerous areas in the Arctic which may be of interest to companies working in the region.

Along with having the largest land mass in the Arctic, Russians account for half of the Arctic's population and the most populous towns above the Arctic Circle lie in Russia, according to the Russian Geographical Society.

"Russia is distinct from other Arctic nations in that a large share of its population actually lives in the Arctic region," Russian Presidential Advisor for Climate Alexander Bedritsky (left) told the Arctic Forum.

"Russia's Arctic sector, inhabited by 1.5 percent of the country's population, accounts for 11 percent of its GDP and 22 percent of its exports," Bedritsky said.

While Russia counts for the bulk of Arctic land, seven other states have land in Arctic territory: Canada, Denmark (Greenland), the United States (Alaska), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

No single country owns the geographic North Pole or the Arctic Ocean, which covers around one third of the total area. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the eight states have jurisdiction over waters extending 12 nautical miles from their shore, and their exclusive economic zones stretch up to 200 nautical miles into the Arctic Ocean.

Russia is among a number of countries seeking to extend their jurisdiction by gathering scientific data to back their case for consideration by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Russia and Canada clashed as recently as last week over which country controls the Lomonosov Ridge (left), a mountain chain running underneath the Arctic.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian explorers had confirmed that the ridge was a continuation of Russia's continental shelf, despite Canada's claims otherwise.

"The decision should be based on scientific facts. The Commission will solve who is right," Lavrov (right) said, according to Russian news agency Itar-Tass News.

In August, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon (left) said establishing sovereignty in the Arctic was the country's "top foreign-policy priority."

"That is why we are making new and targeted investments, be they patrol ships, a new polar-class icebreaker, reinforcements to our Canadian Rangers, better monitoring of our airspace and seas and the list goes on," he said.

The melting of ice in the Arctic through climate change has opened up a region that was once inaccessible.

In mid-September, the U.S. National Ice and Snow Data Center at the University of Colorado reported that this summer the Arctic sea ice reached the third lowest level ever recorded.

"We are still looking at summers with an ice-free Arctic Ocean in perhaps 20 to 30 years," said Mark Serreze, University of Colorado geography professor and director of the NISDC.

Environmental group Greenpeace says Russia's decision to assemble international experts at a Moscow forum was a further attempt to stake its claim on the region's resources.

"The more people talk about it the better it is but I think the reality is that the gunfight has already started," said Charlie Kronick, the group's senior climate advisor.

He said rather than "chasing the last drop of oil" governments would do better to spend their time and money making greater efforts to curb energy demand.

"What we would say is 'don't even think about digging this stuff up -- it is crazy at the moment and the first thing we need to do is to reduce demand,'" he said.

He added: "However big the notional oil and gas reserves are up in the Arctic, we have already got more oil and gas than we can afford to burn if we don't want to cook the climate."

Source:
CNN, "Russia presents vision for Arctic wealth", accessed September 24, 2010

Russia's fires cause "brown cloud," may hit Arctic

NASA satellite image
of smoke over Russia

Smoke from forest fires smothering Moscow adds to health problems of "brown clouds" from Asia to the Amazon, and Russian soot may stoke global warming by hastening a thaw of Arctic ice, environmental experts say.

"Health effects of such clouds are huge," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, chair of a U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) study of "brown clouds" blamed for dimming sunlight in cities such as Beijing or New Delhi and hitting crop growth in Asia.

The clouds -- a haze of pollution from cars or coal-fired power plants, forest fires and wood and other materials burned for

"Brown Cloud" over China

cooking and heating -- are near-permanent and blamed for causing chronic respiratory and heart diseases.

"In Asia just the indoor smoke -- because people cook with firewood -- causes over a million deaths a year," Ramanathan, of the University of California, San Diego, stated.

Health of Russians at Risk

Moscow's top health official said on Monday that about 700 people were dying every day, twice as many as in normal weather, as Russia grapples with the oppressive heat and waves of toxic smog.

This heat wave is the worst heat wave in 130 years for Russia. Pollution rates were a record 7 times normal levels by Saturday. On Monday carbon monoxide levels were four times the acceptable limit. The pollutants were having an

effect on those most at risk, such as people with cardiac and lung problems, and pregnant women. Doctors have been insisting that people avoid going outside if possible, and wear moistened face masks when they do.

Some 700 people are dying each day in Moscow, compared to a normal 380 per day, top doctor Andrei Seltsovsky was cited by RIA-Novosti as saying.

Deliveries of bodies has risen sharply. "It's awful," said an employee at Hospital No 59. "The refrigerators are full. Yesterday there were 17 bodies, and the day before that 17. Normally it's two or three a day." Seltsovsky added that city morgues were dangerously close to their capacity of 1,500 bodies, with 1,300 currently in store.

All non-emergency operations at hospitals have been canceled and many inpatients have chosen to go home because they cannot stand the heat and smoke in wards without air conditioners or fans. Paramedics are reported to have fainted in stifling ambulances.

Health officials urged caution over the effects of the smog, saying it is too early to calibrate the damage. President Dmitry Medvedev urged people to protect themselves by wearing masks.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s Department of Social Welfare opened 123 anti-smog centers to help Muscovites survive the oppressive heat and smog in the capital. Most of the centers have air-conditioning and it’s possible to stay there from 9 am until 8 pm, Monday to Friday.

“We have two air-conditioners and a TV set, so you’re welcome to stay here,” a social worker at the Yakimanka Social Center told The Moscow News. “You should bring the kids too.”

Other hideouts from the smog in Moscow are cinemas, shopping malls and cars.

Unprecedented Heat Says Weatherman

Carbon Monoxide over Western Russia (NASA)

Russia's top meteorological official, Alexander Frolov, said the heatwave was the most severe in the country's millennium-long history

"No similar heatwave has been observed neither by ourselves nor by our ancestors," he told a televised news conference. "This is a completely unique phenomenon."

Heat Wave in Russia

There is no end to the heat wave yet in sight as the heat in most parts of European Russia is likely to continue over the next 10 days, the deputy director of Hydrometcenter, a senior Russian weather official said on Tuesday.

"The situation is not changing radically," Dmitry Kiktyov, deputy director of Hydrometcenter, said. "The temperature will change insignificantly, and there will be only local rains. They will be insufficient to cushion the current situation."

Emergency services reported about 557 wildfires were burning over 174,000 hectares (430,000 acres) in central Russia and the Moscow region, with flames also raging close to a nuclear reprocessing site in the Urals.

Moscow is not the only city to suffer as television reports said the smoke reached Russia's second city of St. Petersburg and the Urals' main city of Yekaterinburg was also veiled in smog.

Severe Impact on Grain Crops

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that record drought would slash the grain harvest in the leading wheat producer by about 10 million tons.

Putin announced that Russia's grain harvest for 2010 would be 60-65 million tons, Russian news agencies reported. Only last week it had been forecast at 70-75 million tons.

Russia has seen 10 million hectares of land destroyed in the drought and the new figure represents a massive fall compared with its 2009 harvest of 97 million tons.

The severity of the drought has seen states of emergency declared in 27 regions and dealt a major blow to Russia's ambitions of ramping up its global market share over the next years.

Putin last week shocked international markets by announcing that from August 15 Russia would ban exports to keep prices down at home and ensure there was enough feed grain for its cattle herd.

Despite the ban of grain exports, Nizhny Novgorod grain is still trading at high prices, forcing some small farmers to slaughter livestock. Nizhny Novgorod has been particularly badly hit by the deadly wildfires that have swept across European Russia in the past 10 days.

NASA satellite image showing
smoke over Russia

This year's unprecedented heatwave and drought have scorched grain crops, driving many farmers to the brink of bankruptcy. An uncontrollable wave of wildfires sweeping across European Russia is adding to farmers’ woes, threatening their land with destruction.

Larsha, a dilapidated Soviet collective farm was purchased by two men in 2006 and modernized under their management to produce grain, vegetables and milk.

At least one-third of the grain crop at Larsha has been destroyed by the drought this year and the potato harvest, usually sold to the Russian army, wiped out altogether.

The fires are also taking a toll. Tractors that should now be plowing land for sowing winter grain have been mobilized to dig trenches round fields to stop forest fires encroaching on farmland. Criticism has been mounting of the authorities’ handling of the wildfires which have killed at least 52 people and forced thousands to flee their homes.

“Russia’s biggest resource is its land. We once fed the whole of Europe,” said Mr Skoblikov, one of the two owners of Larsha.

Russia's Brown Cloud

"The Russian fires are in principle similar to what you see from other brown clouds," said Henning Rodhe of Stockholm University, a vice-chair of the UNEP Atmospheric Brown Cloud study. "The difference is that this only lasts a few weeks."

Asian pollution has been blamed for dusting Himalayan glaciers with black soot that absorbs more heat than reflective snow and ice and so speeds a thaw. Worldwide, however, the polluting haze blocks out sunlight and so slows climate change.

For the climate, "the main concern ... is what impact the Russian smoke would have on the Arctic, in terms of black carbon and other (particles) in the smoke settling on the sea ice," Ramanathan said.
ARCTIC ICE

In past years "we have had episodes of biomass burning that have brought clouds in over the Arctic," said Kim Holmen, director of research at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Smog over the Arctic

Holmen, who runs a pollution monitoring station in Svalbard in the high Arctic, said the air over Russia was fairly stable in recent days, concentrating smoke over land. But a shift in winds, easing pollution in Moscow, could sweep smog northwards.

Arctic sea ice, which shrinks in mid-September to an annual minimum before the winter freeze, now covers a slightly bigger area than in 2007 and 2008, the smallest extents since satellite measurements began in the 1970s.

The exposure of Arctic Ocean water to sunlight is a threat to the livelihoods of Arctic peoples and creatures such as polar bears. It also accelerates global warming, blamed by the U.N. panel of climate experts on mankind's use of fossil fuels.


"Such conditions are likely to become more common in the future," Rodhe said of the Russian heatwave and related fires.

Asia is most studied for brown clouds but they also form over parts of North America, Europe, the Amazon basin and southern Africa. Burning of savannah in sub-Saharan Africa, to clear land for crops, is a new source.

Peat bog near
Moscow burns

Forest and peat bog fires are burning over 1,740 sq kms (672 sq mile), the Russian Emergencies Ministry said. By contrast, official Brazilian data show the Amazon rainforest lost 1,810 sq kms in almost a year to June 2010.

Holmen also echoed Russian authorities' worries that the fires may also release radioactive elements locked in vegetation since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

Radioactive isotopes include strontium 90 and caesium 137. Other industrial pollutants such as PCBs could also be freed.

Source:
Reuters, "Russia's fires cause "brown cloud," may hit Arctic", accessed August 10, 2010
Reuters, "Heat seen continuing in European Russia for 10 days", accessed August 10, 2010
The Guardian, "Moscow death rate doubles as smoke from wildfires shrouds capital", accessed August 10, 2010
Moscow News, "Deaths double in Moscow smog", accessed August 10, 2010
The Financial Times, "Russian farmers on brink of bankruptcy", accessed August 10, 2010
The Montreal Gazette, "Moscow deaths double in Russia's 'worst ever' heat", August 10, 2010

Heat damage to Russia crop past worst, official says

Russia's worst drought for decades is set to drag on for at least the next 7 days in some areas but further serious damage to grain crops is not expected, a senior government weather forecaster said on Thursday.

In Russia, half this year’s crops are lost to drought – “Winter wheat crops are 50% of the yield, and spring crops, in some cases, are going to be virtually none.” Now the situation is complicated with forest fires and peat fires. Even before the fires broke out, many farmers in European Russia were facing bankruptcy as the drought parched grain crops and pasture lands.

Hot summers are not unusual even in northern Russia, but this year temperatures have soared to record levels. Drought in some regions of Russia, one of the world's biggest wheat exporters, has sent global prices soaring to year highs in July, putting U.S. wheat futures on track for their biggest monthly gain since 1973.

For the past two weeks temperatures across much of western Russia have soared past 35C, in the hottest and longest heatwave in decades.

Russia is also suffering what is thought to be the worst drought in more than 100 years. There has been virtually no rain since winter and crops are shriveling.

"We've had 10mm of rain, scorching hot temperatures over 35C, which have just burnt all the crops up," says Colin Hinchley, a Briton who now farms in Penza near the Volga river, in southern Russia. "Winter wheat crops are 50% of the yield, and spring crops, in some cases, are going to be virtually none."

Siberia may actually compensate for the crops lost to drought in the Volga area. Wheat and barley harvest is finished in the Southern and Central Districts, and winding down in the Volga and Ural Districts. However, in the Siberian District, total-grain harvest is lagging behind last year (72 percent complete compared to 83 percent by the same date last year), but output to date is nearly 15 percent above last year due to a 28-percent year-to-year increase in cumulative yield.

Grain traders say the rally shows signs of continuing, although analysts observed stocks built up over the last two years of the largest global wheat harvests in history should ensure sufficient supplies.

The International Grains Council confirmed the impact of drought and floods in the key Black Sea growing area as it cut its 2010/11 forecast of global wheat output by 13 million tons to 651 million tons, but said it would still be the third highest crop on record.

"A prolonged period of dry weather and high temperatures significantly reduced yield prospects in Russia, Kazakhstan, parts of Ukraine and northwestern areas of the EU, while wet weather and flooding were detrimental for crops in Canada and parts of south-eastern Europe," the IGC said on Thursday.

Anna Strashnaya, head of the Agricultural Forecasts Department at Russia's Hydrometeorological Service (Rosgidromet) said that further crop damage was likely to be limited. "I don't think any more damage may be done to grains,"

This confirms Wednesday's statement by CEO and President of SovEcon agricultural analysts Andrei Sizov Sr. "Basically, the peak of losses have been passed. What has been burned has been burned," Sizov stated on Wednesday, commenting on the Black Sea region crop losses.

RAINS COMING

Rosgidromet forecast torrential rains on Thursday and Friday in the northwest and in the central part of European Russia as well as a 5-8 degree dip in temperatures from current levels close to +40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Farenheit), she said. "Now we have to harvest what is left."

Firefighters work to extinguish fire in the Russian city of Voronezh,

Entire villages in the Mordovia and Ryazan regions in central Russia have fallen to fires, state broadcaster Rossiya 24 reported. A fire-fighting train arrived in Mordovia too late to save one village after strong winds fueled the flames.

Russia called in the army on Friday, July 30th, to combat fires sweeping across the drought-stricken European part of the country and forcing thousands of people to flee. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, admitted that Russia was technically ill-equipped to combat the escalating crisis. “The situation is really difficult. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity rapidly to solve such disasters, “ he said. He did pledge that the Russian government would provide shelter and compensation for people displaced by the fires.

At least 25 people have been killed as high winds fanned fires in forests and farmland parched by a prolonged heatwave. More than 2,170 people fled their homes as fires engulfed large swathes of the Moscow, Voronezh, Nizhnenovogorod, Vladimir and Ryazan regions.

In the regions along the Volga worst hit by the drought no rains are expected in the next 7 days and the heat of between +35 and +40 degrees Celsius will continue.

Record heat bakes Moscow as peat and forest fires blanket the city in haze. Heat records that beat previous 30-70 year-old highs were registered in July in the North-Western, Central and Volga Federal Districts, the service said.

Russian officials are very careful giving crop forecasts but this week, SovEcon, the Moscow-based agriculture consultancy, warned that Russia's grain harvest would drop by at least 20 per cent this year to 70m - 75m tons,

Men sail a boat with
burning trees seen in the background in the Russian city of Voronezh July 29, 2010.

barely enough to cover the nation’s needs. Many small farmers are slaughtering livestock, unable to afford the soaring cost of animal feed.

It is hoped that the crop situation in the North Caucasus, considered one of Russia's main breadbaskets, is benign and that this may partially cushion the damage caused to other regions.

Heat is also set to stay in the Urals. In many regions of Siberia and the Far East, where the harvesting has not yet started, abundant rains are expected in the next few days.

UKRAINE CONTROLS EXPORTS

In neighboring Ukraine, suffering its own problems from drought and flooding, customs services set new controls on wheat exports, which traders said on Thursday could halt shipments.

A cow looks on with a burning house seen in the background in the Russian city of Voronezh, July 29, 2010.

"This effectively means a ban on wheat exports," Serhiy Stoyanov, head of Ukrainian traders' and producers' union UAC, stated, as analysts said Ukraine was positioning itself to deal with grain shortages after its troubled growing season.

"The latest actions show that the government fears a food grain shortage in the country and the controls are directed at making food grain exports more complicated and limiting sales," said Mykola Vernytsky from ProAgro consultancy.

Fellow Black Sea grain producer Romania, said on Thursday it had harvested 4.4 million tons of wheat from three quarters of the area planted but yields.
yields had dropped due to flooding and hail causing a 15 percent plunge in expected output.

Romania's southern Black Sea neighbor Bulgaria said it had exported some 51,000 tons of wheat from its new crop, mainly to Spain, Italy and Portugal, while another 110,000 tons are being loaded, an official said.

Although Bulgaria's harvest is expected to be down on last years because of the weather farmers and traders say its wheat exports may match last year's exports of 1.4 million tons, if demand remains high and prices attractive.

Source:
Reuters,,"Heat damage to Russia crop past worst, official says", accessed July 29, 2010
Financial Times, "Russia calls in army as fires escalate", accessed July 31, 2010

The non-Ice Age cometh

The fast-disappearing Arctic  ice cap could indicate that Russia is in for more summer heat waves – and winter deep freezes – as climate change creates more instability in global weather.

That’s the warning from Russian scientists, who say that while global warming is not exactly to blame for the country’s current heat wave, increasingly erratic weather is causing Arctic Sea ice to disappear at an alarming rate.

And that could speed up global warming.

“Arctic ice doesn’t impact climate, it is the climate,” climatologist Vladimir Kattsev of the Voyeykov Geophysical Observatory told The Moscow News.

And the latest reports from up north aren’t promising.

“Ice in the Arctic is melting very fast,” Alexander Frolov, head of Russia’s Federal Hydro-Meteorological and Environmental Monitoring Service, was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.

The shrinking ice area could set a new record this season and dip below the 4.14 million square kilometers registered in 2007, he said.

A vicious circle

What this means is that the Arctic could be seeing ice-free summers within a few decades, freeing up waterways and minerals deposits for Russia. “Perennial ice is fast turning into seasonal ice that disappears in the summer,” Kattsev said.

If previous models predicted ice-free summers by the end of the century, that could happen a lot sooner than expected, he added.

Newer models suggest that “ice could become completely seasonal by around 2050,” he said.

But in what many are touting as a silver lining for Russia, this could make the Arctic more accessible, “shortening northern transit routes and making them safer.”

This could explain why Russian researchers have been making a run for the Arctic, staking out territory that could later yield valuable natural resources.

Whatever the benefits, people shouldn’t forget that the Arctic is a formidable force of nature. Possible advantages would be

offset by dangers like shore erosion and volatile seas, Kattsev said.

“And let’s not forget that the polar bears will suffer from this.” More disturbingly, ice-free summers in the Arctic will speed up global warming. 

Heating up oceans

In what is fast turning into a vicious circle, with less white ice area to reflect the sun, warmth will be absorbed by the

darker ocean waters, heating up the currents and causing further changes in the weather – and more ice to melt.

Meanwhile, the sweltering weather that has already made Moscow feel more like Texas shows no signs of abating, with temperatures set to climb as high as 39 degrees Celsius by the end of the week.

The current heat wave has affected a larger area and has lasted longer than any other since 1972.

Hotter up north

Even Russia’s northernmost reaches are feeling balmier than usual.

“This summer is noticeably warmer. It’s about 20 degrees right now, with high humidity,” said a spokeswoman for the Solovetsky Gulag Museum on the Solovki Islands (on right) in the Arctic.

“It has reached 30 this summer, which is unusual, and we’re seeing rapid temperature changes,” she said.

This, however, is not necessarily a signal of global warming, Kattsev, the climatologist, said.

“Just as the abnormally cold winter was not a counter-argument to global warming, the heat is not an argument for it,” he said. “It is merely an enormous weather anomaly that by itself doesn’t speak of anything.”

But over a wider time-span, if these anomalies become more frequent over the course of several decades, this would indicate climate change.

“Average temperatures could remain the same, with colder winters offsetting warmer summers,” he said. “But more extreme weather patterns are certainly an indicator.”

Source:
The Moscow News,"The non-Ice Age cometh", accessed July 28, 2010