The Morning Feedstock

Jeff Sachs, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute and adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has warned that the E.U.‘s biofuels policy may be having a disproportionate effect on global food prices compared with the American policy. European farmers give over only two percent of their total production to biofuels, though the types of grains used and the low surplus margins means this production has an outsized effect. Europe’s constrained grain supply, much of which is sold in export markets, is becoming further constrained as land is diverted to rapeseed production. Rapeseed, the favored E.U. biofuel crop, is taking over wheat-specific land and cutting into that commodity’s flow onto the global food markets. Sachs also criticized the E.U.‘s 10 percent by 2020 biofuels target, saying it doesn’t make “much sense in terms of the environmental effect, the energy balances or the food impact.” Instead of food aid, Sachs has advocated development aid to help individuals in poor countries grow their own food to delink themselves from volatile global food markets.

Climate Change Capital, a leading carbon-focused investment bank, has sold a nearly fifty percent stake in its operations to four investors. The stake, worth a reported £56 million, was picked up by investors including Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a British pension fund. CCC, which has £1.5 billion under management, invests in renewable energy and low-carbon projects on behalf of companies requiring carbon reductions and offsets to come in under mandated carbon caps.

Iberdrola is seeking a partner in the company’s bid to acquire British Energy. The company will make a non-binding bid for 35 percent of the British nuclear company, though it needs a partner to come in under its €6.4 billion acquisition budget for 2008-2010. Germany’s RWE has been tipped as a potential deal partner. The company’s late stage push may be a sign it will focus its attention on the UK, where it’s Scottish Power subsidiary is one of the leading power suppliers. With the possibility of abandoning the energy Energy East deal in New York looming, and pressure on regulators from French and German utilities to maintain same-company ownership of generation and transmission on the Continent, Iberdrola’s hopes for expansion may likely be limited to the UK for the short- to mid-term.