A plug is seen coming from the Chevrolet Volt electric car during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan January 13, 2009.

WASHINGTON/DETROIT | Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:28pm EST

WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday eased off President Barack Obama's stated goal of putting 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015, and laid out what experts called a more realistic strategy of promoting advanced-drive vehicles and lowering their cost over the next nine years.

Since Obama announced the goal in his 2011 State of the Union speech, auto analysts and executives have doubted American consumers would buy a million electric vehicles by 2015.

"Whether we meet that goal in 2015 or 2016, that's less important than that we're on the right path to get many millions of these vehicles on the road," an Energy Department official said, in advance of remarks by Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a speech at the Washington D.C. auto show.

The proposal to lower electric vehicle costs represents the first look at how U.S. auto policy may take shape during Obama's next four years. His first term saw a flurry of initiatives related to the auto industry, beginning with government rescues of General Motors Co and Chrysler Group LLC.

Chu told reporters after his speech that he was excited by the advances in vehicle technology.

Asked about the 1 million electric vehicles goal, Chu said: "It's ambitious, but we'll see what happens."

Promoting plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles has been another long-running focus for the White House, which has also pushed for more stringent standards on fuel economy. Overall, U.S. federal policies to promote electric vehicles will cost $7.5 billion through 2019, the Congressional Budget Office said in September.

That includes $2.4 billion in grants to lithium-ion battery makers and projects to promote electric vehicles as well as $3.1 billion in loans to auto companies, intended to spur production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

But demand for hybrids and electric vehicles has been weaker than expected. Last year, nearly 488,000 hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric cars were sold in the United States, accounting for 3.3 percent of the overall auto market, according to green-car website Hybridcars.com.

For the administration to meet its 2015 goal, electrified vehicles would have double their market share to roughly 6 percent of the U.S. auto market, which automotive consulting firm Polk estimates will reach 16.2 million vehicles that year.

Poor demand has hurt lithium-ion battery makers, pushing two DOE grant recipients, A123 Systems Inc and EnerDel, to file for bankruptcy protection.

Dow Chemical Co took a $1.1 billion charge last year, related in part to a writedown of its lithium-ion battery business, Dow-Kokam LLC.

Under the new strategy outlined on Thursday, the DOE is supporting research into new battery technologies and manufacturing methods that would lower the cost of lightweight materials and improve vehicles' fuel-efficiency.

Chu stressed that it was important to set high goals for electric car technology, because advanced vehicles will eventually be competing with internal combustion vehicles that get 45 miles per gallon fuel economy.

The DOE also confirmed its goal to lower the cost of lithium-ion batteries to $300 per kilowatt hour by 2015 from the present $650. The department eventually hopes to get the cost down $125 per kilowatt hour.

Ultimately, the department's goal is to have about 500 companies offer workplace charging over the next five years. Several companies are already on board, including Google Inc, Verizon and General Electric Co.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Jan 9, 2013 2:52pm EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A hardy bacteria common on Earth was surprisingly adaptive to Mars-like low pressure, cold and carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, a finding that has implications in the search for extraterrestrial life.

The bacteria, known as Serratia liquefaciens, is found in human skin, hair and lungs, as well as in fish, aquatic systems, plant leaves and roots.

"It's present in a wide range of medium-temperature ecological niches," microbiologist Andrew Schuerger, with the University of Florida, told Reuters.

Serratia liquefaciens most likely evolved at sea level, so it was surprising to find it could grow in an experiment chamber that reduced pressure down to a Mars-like 7 millibars, Schuerger said.

Sea-level atmospheric pressure on Earth is about 1,000 millibars or 1 bar.

"It was a really big surprise," Schuerger said. "We had no reason to believe it was going to be able to grow at 7 millibars. It was just included in the study because we had cultures easily on hand and these species have been recovered from spacecraft."

In addition to concerns that hitchhiking microbes could inadvertently contaminate Mars, the study opens the door to a wider variety of life forms with the potential to evolve indigenously.

To survive, however, the microbes would need to be shielded from the harsh ultraviolet radiation that continually blasts the surface of Mars, as well as have access to a source of water, organic carbon and nitrogen.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is five months into a planned two-year mission to look for chemistry and environmental conditions that could have supported and preserved microbial life.

Scientists do not expect to find life at the rover's landing site - a very dry, ancient impact basin called Gale Crater located near the Martian equator. They are however hoping to learn if the planet most like Earth in the solar system has or ever had the ingredients for life by chemically analyzing rocks and soil in layers of sediment rising from the crater's floor.

So far, efforts to find Earth microbes that could live in the harsh conditions of Mars have primarily focused on so-called extremophiles which are found only in extreme cold, dry or acidic environments on Earth.

Two extremophiles tested along with the Serratia liquefaciens and 23 other common microbes did not survive the experiment, which not only replicated Mars' low pressure, but also its cold temperature and carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.

A follow-up experiment on about 10,000 other microbes retrieved from boring 40 to 70 feet into the Siberian permafrost found six species - all members of the genus Carnobacterium - that could survive and grow in the simulated Mars chamber, located at the Space Life Sciences Laboratory adjacent to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The next step is to see how the microbes fare under even more hostile conditions, such as higher salt levels, more radiation and less water.

Related studies to analyze the genetics and metabolism of the common bacteria Serratia liquefaciens also are under way.

"In the search for life on another planet, we have to start with something that we at least have access to. We don't have a Martian bacterium we can experiment with, not yet, so we keep trying to see if some of our own hardy micro-organisms have the ability to grow at another location," Schuerger said.

"If we can never find a microbe that can grow under conditions on another planet, then it starts implying that life may not exist on that other location," he said.

The studies appear in the December 19 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and this week in the journal Astrobiology.

(Edited David Adams; Editing by M.D. Golan)

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LONDON | Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:21am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Growing palm oil trees to make biofuels could be accelerating the effects of climate change, new research showed on Wednesday, adding further weight to claims the crop is not environmentally sustainable.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists examined how the deforestation of peat swamps in Malaysia to make way for palm oil trees is releasing carbon which has been locked away for thousands of years.

Microbes then penetrate the carbon and the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is released, which is thought to be the biggest contributor to global warming.

Unsustainable methods of growing crop-based biofuels have come under fire as environmentalists question the emissions savings they make, the agricultural land they occupy and whether the growth of certain crops contribute to deforestation.

More than 80 percent of palm oil is grown in Indonesia and Malaysia. According to some estimates, an area the size of Greece is cleared every year for palm oil plantations.

As governments and companies look to biofuels to provide a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels in transport, the industry has expanded rapidly.

Palm oil is especially attractive because it is cheaper than rapeseed oil and soybean oil for biodiesel.

However, leaked European Union data has shown palm oil biodiesel to be more polluting than conventional gasoline when the effects of deforestation and peatlands degradation is taken into account.

In their study, the research team measured water channels in palm oil plantations in the Malaysian peninsular which were originally peatland swamp forest.

They found ancient carbon came from deep in the soil, then broke down and dissolved into nearby streams and rivers as deforestation occurred.

"We have known for some time that in South East Asia oil palm plantations were a major threat to biodiversity (..) and that the drainage could release huge amounts of carbon dioxide during the fires seen there in recent years," said Chris Freeman, one of the authors of the report and an environmental scientist at the University of Bangor in Wales.

"But this discovery of a 'hidden' new source of problems in the waters draining these peatlands is a reminder that these fragile ecosystems really are in need of conservation," he added.

There are approximately 28,000 sq km of industrial plantations in Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo and there are even more planned, making them a major contributor to peat swamp deforestation in the region, the paper said.

"Our results are yet another reminder that when we disturb intact peat swamps and convert them to industrial biofuel plantations, we risk adding to the very problem that we are trying to solve," said Freeman.

The research team included scientists from the British universities of Leicester and Bangor, the Open University, the Met Office Hadley Centre, the Natural Environment Research Council Radiocarbon Facility in Scotland, the University of Palangka Raya in Indonesia and water research institute Deltares in the Netherlands.

(This story has been refiled to add Open University in last paragraph)

(Editing by James Jukwey)

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1 of 3. A Helen’s Flying Frog perches on a branch in Nui Ong Nature Reserve in Vietnam's Binh Thuan Province in this May 23, 2009 handout picture provided by the Australian Museum. Australian biologist Jodi Rowley and Vietnamese colleagues have made a surprise discovery - a new species of flying frog gliding and jumping around less than 100 km (62 miles) from one of Southeast Asia's busiest cities. Though discovered in 2009, it has taken until now to identify it for certain as a new species. It has been named Helen's Tree Frog (Rhacophorus helenae) after Rowley's mother, who is suffering from ovarian cancer and was very excited about having the ''charismatic'' amphibian named after her.

SYDNEY | Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:59am EST

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian biologist and Vietnamese colleagues have made a surprise discovery - a new species of flying frog gliding and jumping around less than 100 km from one of Southeast Asia's busiest cities.

Jodi Rowley and her team were conducting an amphibian survey between two patches of lowland forest in the middle of agricultural land criss-crossed by farmers and water buffalo each day, some 90 km (56 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City, when they made their find.

"And...there on a log just sitting on the side of the path was this huge green flying frog," said Rowley, amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum.

"To discover a previously unknown species of frog, I typically have to climb rugged mountains, scale waterfalls and push my way through dense and prickly rainforest vegetation."

The 10-cm (four-inch) bright green frog with a white belly managed to evade biologists until recently by gliding between treetops 20 meters (yards) up, only coming down to breed in temporary rain pools.

Though discovered in 2009, it has taken until now to identify it for certain as a new species. It has been named Helen's Tree Frog (Rhacophorus helenae) after Rowley's mother.

The discovery highlighted the need for conservation in lowland forests, which have come under huge threat, Rowley said. The two patches of trees that are home to Helen's Tree Frog are surrounded by rice paddies and agricultural land.

"We really don't know what's out there still in this part of the world," Rowley said.

She added that her mother, suffering from ovarian cancer, was very excited about having the "charismatic" amphibian named after her.

"I thought it was about time that I showed her how much I appreciate everything she's done for me," Rowley said.

(Reporting By Thuy Ong, editing by Elaine Lies and Nick Macfie)

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BRUSSELS | Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:03am EST

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Thursday it wanted EU member states restrict the use of pesticides linked to the decline of bees.

The Commission said it was asking EU countries to suspend the use of neonicotinoid insecticides - among the most commonly-used crop pesticides - on sunflower, rapeseed, maize and cotton.

"We are requesting (that) member states suspend for two years the use of this pesticide on seeds, granulates and sprays for crops which attract bees," Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent told a regular daily briefing.

"We hope the regulation can be adopted before March," he said, adding that the Commission expected it to be implemented at the latest by July 1, 2013.

The spokesman said there would be an exception for maize seed in 2013, where the Commission would authorize neonicotinoid use unless member states wanted to implement restrictions.

A report from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) earlier this month said three widely-used neonicotinoid pesticides, made by Switzerland's Syngenta and Germany's Bayer, posed an acute risk to honeybees.

(Reporting by Claire Davenport; editing by Rex Merrifield)

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BEIJING | Thu Jan 10, 2013 7:24am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's carbon intensity, or its emissions relative to economic output, fell more than 3.5 percent in 2012, outperforming its average annual target, China's chief climate change official said on Thursday.

China aims to cut carbon intensity by 17 percent during the 2011-2015 period, which means an annual average target of around 3.5 percent. Intensity is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic product.

"The situation last year was relatively good. Based on a preliminary estimate, China could achieve a more than 3.5 percent fall in carbon intensity," said Su Wei, director general of climate change department of National Development and Reform Commission.

Cutting carbon intensity allows China to meet international demands for it to curb emissions and also keep its priority that development must come first while many Chinese still live in poverty.

The government is currently drawing up a national plan on climate change till 2020, which is expected to be finalized soon, Su said.

China recently published a new industrial carbon emissions plan. Steel, nonferrous metals and petrochemical sectors are required to cut CO2 intensity by 18 percent by 2015 compared with the 2010 level.

By 2020, China aims to cut its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent versus the 2005 level, a target that is stimulating a sharp increase in investment demand in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Its efforts to control emissions are also paving the way for creation of a carbon market, which requires accurate measurements of the carbon emitted.

China's biggest listed steelmaker, Baoshan Iron and Steel, is among the industrial companies that must participate in a pilot carbon trading scheme in Shanghai, the local government said last month.

China will need 1.24 trillion yuan ($199.2 billion) in energy conservation investments in 2011-2015, an increase of 50 percent from the level in 2006-2010, according to a research report released by Tsinghua University on Thursday.

The investment in China's renewable energy sector in 2011-2015 will increase 37.5 percent to 1.8 trillion yuan, the report showed. ($1 = 6.2262 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Wan Xu and David Standway; editing by Jane Baird)

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Workers carrying boxes walk past the fog-enveloped National Stadium, also known as the ''Bird's Nest'', at Beijing Olympic park, on a foggy day in Beijing, January 31, 2013.

BEIJING | Fri Feb 1, 2013 3:22am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's notoriously smog-bound capital Beijing asked residents on Friday to set off fewer fireworks over this month's Chinese New Year period as it battles a persistent air quality crisis.

Air quality in Beijing has mostly stayed above "very unhealthy" and "hazardous" levels for about two weeks, though strong winds cleared the haze away on Friday.

Chinese New Year, which begins February 10, is marked by riotous fireworks displays traditionally thought to bring good luck for the year ahead, which turn cities into near war zones and blacken the skies with thick smoke for hours on end.

"To improve the air quality and create a favorable environment for you and your family members, please set off fewer fireworks or no fireworks, in order to reduce emissions of pollutants," the official Xinhua news agency cited an unnamed official with the Beijing Office of Fireworks and Firecrackers as saying.

The city's three main fireworks retailers have reduced to 750,000 the number of cartons of fireworks in stock for this year's festivities, down from 810,000 last year.

The number of shops approved to sell fireworks in has also been cut to 1,337 from 1,429, Xinhua added.

Pollution in Beijing regularly exceeds 500 on an index that measures particulate matter in the air with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers. Above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

Last month pollution hit a record, 30-45 times above recommended safety levels, blanketing the city in a thick, noxious cloud that grounded flights and forced people indoors, and prompting emergency measures such as factory closures.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard)

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n">(Reuters) - The U.S. national weather forecaster reiterated its prediction that the much-feared El Niño phenomenon is unlikely to affect the Northern Hemisphere weather this spring.

In its monthly report on Thursday, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said conditions will remain neutral for the next few months, further reducing the chances of a drought in Asia and flooding in South America.

The report also raised the possibility that the pattern that can wreak havoc on weather would not reappear before the summer, but said a forecast so far ahead covering the April to June period may not be accurate.

El Niño leads to a heating of Pacific waters, triggering drought in Southeast Asia and Australia, which produce some of the world's major food staples, such as sugar cane and grains. It can also cause flooding in South America.

For the United States, El Niño can bring higher than average winter precipitation to the Southwest, less wintry weather across the North as well as stronger winter storms in California and increased storminess across the southern states.

The CPC is part of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

(Reporting by Josephine Mason; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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Author Hilary Mantel holds her award for the overall prize for her book ''Bring up the Bodies'' at the Costa Book Awards in central London, January 29, 2013. Mantel won the award for best overall book.

LONDON | Tue Jan 29, 2013 4:07pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - British novelist Hilary Mantel added to her groaning trophy cabinet on Tuesday, picking up the Costa Book Award 2012 for "Bring Up the Bodies," her historical novel about the life and court of Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell.

The acclaimed bestseller has already won the Man Booker prize for fiction, making Mantel the first Briton and first woman to win that coveted award twice.

The 60-year-old also won the Booker Prize in 2009 for "Wolf Hall," the first installment in what will be a trilogy.

Broadcaster Jenni Murray, chair of the nine-member panel who decided which of five Costa category winners would take the overall prize, said "Bring Up the Bodies" stood "head and shoulders" above the rest.

"This is a very difficult prize to judge, because there are five categories and they are so different," she told reporters ahead of a reception in London announcing the winner.

"It's not an easy prize to judge, but I have to say today one book simply stood head and shoulders - more than head and shoulders, on stilts - above the rest."

Mantel had been the bookmakers' favorite for the award, which comes with a cheque for 30,000 pounds ($47,000). Category winners each win 5,000 pounds.

Asked whether the judges had considered giving the prize to another author to spread the spoils of literary awards, which usually bring with them a sizeable spike in sales, she replied:

"We know this has had lots of prizes. We couldn't allow the number of times it's already been lauded to affect our decision. It was quite simply the best book."

Murray praised what she called the "poetic" prose of the novel, which traces the downfall of Anne Boleyn in 16th century England and Henry's dangerous attraction to Jane Seymour.

"It's so set in its time so you know exactly where you are and who you are with, but it's also incredibly modern," she said. "I have no doubt that I want to go back to it. I've read it twice and I want to read it again."

ALL-FEMALE SHORTLIST

"Bring Up the Bodies," which like Wolf Hall will be adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company, was one of an all-female shortlist in 2012.

Journalist, critic and writer Francesca Segal's debut novel "The Innocents," set in a Jewish community in northwest London and modeled on Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence," won the Costa First Novel Award.

Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie won the poetry prize for her collection "The Overhaul," and writer/illustrator and dyslexia campaigner Sally Gardner claimed the Costa Children's Book Award for "Maggot Moon."

Husband-and-wife team Bryan and Mary Talbot jointly won the Costa Biography Award for "Dotter of her Father's Eyes," a biography of James Joyce's daughter interwoven with a memoir of the author's own troubled relationship with her father, Joycean scholar James S. Atherton.

Mary Talbot, a scholar and author, teamed up with Bryan, who has worked on underground comics and superhero stories including "Judge Dredd" and "Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight".

Their collaboration was the first graphic work to win a Costa category award.

The Costa awards go to writers based in the UK and Ireland for a work published in the last year. They were established in 1971 by Whitbread but were renamed after Costa Coffee took over the sponsorship.

The 2011 Costa Book of the Year was "Pure" by Andrew Miller.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

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A woman walks past a grocery store in Loughborough, central England, January 10, 2013.

LONDON | Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:04pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Up to half of all the food produced worldwide ends up going to waste due to poor harvesting, storage and transport methods as well as irresponsible retailer and consumer behavior, a report said on Thursday.

The world produces about four billion metric tons of food a year but 1.2 to 2 billion metric tons is not eaten, the study by the London-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers said.

"This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands," said.

In developed countries, like Britain, efficient farming methods, transport and storage mean that most of the wastage occurs through retail and customer behavior.

Retailers produce 1.6 million metric tons of food waste a year because they reject crops of edible fruit and vegetables because they do not meet exacting size and appearance criteria, the report by the engineering society said.

"Thirty percent of what is harvested from the field never actually reaches the marketplace (primarily the supermarket) due to trimming, quality selection and failure to conform to purely cosmetic criteria," it said.

Of the food which does reach supermarket shelves, 30-50 percent of what is bought in developed countries is thrown away by customers, often due to poor understanding of "best before" and "use by" dates.

A "use by" date is when there is a health risk associated with using food after that date. A "best before" date is more about quality - when it expires it does not necessarily mean food is harmful but it may lose some flavor and texture.

However, many consumers do not know the difference between the labels and bin food after "best before" dates.

Promotional offers and bulk discounts also encourage shoppers to buy large quantities in excess of their needs.

RISING POPULATION

In Britain, about 10.2 billion pounds' ($16.3 billion) worth of food is thrown away from homes every year, with one billion pounds' worth being perfectly edible, the report found.

By contrast, in less developed countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa or South East Asia, wastage mostly happens due to inefficient harvesting and poor handling and storage.

In South-East Asian countries, for example, losses of rice range from 37 to 80 percent of their entire production, totaling about 180 million metric tons per year, the report said.

The United Nations predicts global population will peak at around 9.5 billion people by 2075, meaning there will be an additional 2.5 billion people to feed.

The rising population, together with improved nutrition and shifting diets will put pressure for increases in global food supply over the coming decades.

Rising food and commodity prices will drive the need to reduce waste, making the practice of discarding edible fruit and vegetables on cosmetic grounds less economically viable.

However, governments should not wait for food pricing to trigger action on this wasteful practice, but produce policies that change consumer behavior and dissuade retailers from operating in this way, the study said.

Rapidly developing countries like China and Brazil have developed infrastructure to transport crops, gain access to export markets and improve storage facilities but they need to avoid the mistakes made by developed nations and make sure they are efficient and well-maintained.

Poorer countries require significant investment to improve their infrastructure, the report said. For example, Ethiopia is considering developing a national network of grain storage facilities which is expected to cost at least $1 billion.

"This scale of investment will be required for multiple commodities and in numerous countries, and co-ordinated efforts are going to be essential," the report said. ($1 = 0.6247 British pounds)

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Pravin Char)

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