Carbon credit windfall for Eastern Europe

Thanks to Kyoto emission levels pegged to 1990, when pollution was worse, former Eastern Bloc countries now sell carbon credits to Japan.

In an odd twist on market economics, Europe's ex-communist states are starting to exploit a new market. Thanks to the Kyoto climate-change agreement, they can, in effect, now make money off the pollution their onetime central planners were willing to tolerate as the price for rapid industrialization and universal employment.
Ukraine, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other countries of the region not exactly renowned for clean air have made or are close to signing deals to sell the rights to emit greenhouse gases, and their main customer is environmentally friendly Japan.

This carbon windfall dropped into Central and East Europe's lap because the Kyoto Protocol sets 1990 as the reference year for future reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The socialist states at that time were producing gargantuan amounts of CO2 and other gases implicated in global warming from unfiltered coal-fired power plants and factories; when those unprofitable industries withered, countless thousands of workers went on the dole - but the air got cleaner. In the coming years, in line with European Union mandates, would-be members gradually adopted better environmental policies. It's the difference between the often unspeakably bad air of 1990 and the comparatively clean air of today that allows them to sell "carbon credits" potentially worth billions of euros.

Stalled Minnesota school buses fuel biodiesel mandate debate

Much of the diesel fuel sold in Minnesota contains 2 percent biodiesel fuel, under legislation enacted in 2002 but that didn't essentially take effect until 2005 because of a production lag.

The requirement was adopted after a tough fight at the Legislature, with soybean farmers pushing for the mandate and trucking and other transportation industry groups in opposition, citing concerns about costs and performance of biodiesel.

The state has mandated the biodiesel blend increase to 5 percent starting this spring. Minnesota is one of three states, besides Oregon and Washington, that have biodiesel mandates.
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"We didn't have this problem due to a few reasons, but one of them is luck," said Joe Raasch, deputy chief of operations for St. Paul Public Schools. "In extreme weather like this, sometimes we'll keep buses running all night."
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"It's a really confounding problem but if fuel were perfect it would still gel if it gets cold enough," said John Hausladen, president of the nonprofit trade association. "The problem with biodiesel is that it raises the temperature at which it does freeze."