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BRUSSELS, Oct. 30 (UPI) — Old and new European Union members clashed over a final position to take at the global climate talks in Denmark next month, EU officials said Friday.

Poland and other Eastern states warned during their preliminary session in Brussels that if they can’t reach an agreement, they may go to the Copenhagen meeting with their own proposals different than the rest of the union.

A major detail is how to decide how much money each country will offer developing nations to help them adapt to the effects of climate change and mitigate their carbon emissions.

The division is over what criterion to use for sharing the financial burden, the wealth of a nation or how much it pollutes.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) — A consortium of Chinese and American companies announced plans Thursday for a $1.5 billion, 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas.

The venture’s main companies include U.S. Renewable Energy Group, Texas-based Cielo Wind Power LP, China’s Shenyang Power Group and A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd. The wind farm is to be located on 36,000 acres in West Texas, although the group did not specify the exact site of the project.

While construction for the wind farm is to be financed largely by Chinese investors, the consortium is hoping to attract $450 million in U.S. stimulus funding, equal to 30 percent of its capital costs, Walt Hornaday, chief executive officer of Cielo, told Austin’s American-Statesman newspaper. To qualify, the project must begin by 2010 and be complete by the end of 2012. Hornaday said the project is expected to start in March, with completion as early as March 2011.

“Thanks to the strong policy push and a recovering financing environment, wind projects in the U.S. are attracting developers and investors alike once again,” said Joe Stark, vice president of finance and business development at Cielo.

Although the 240 2.5-megawatt turbines for the wind farm are to be manufactured in China, technology from the United States and Europe will be used, including a turbine designed by German wind power manufacturer Fuhrlander AG and a gear box design by General Electric.

Yang Yazhou, mayor of the city in China where Shenyang is based, said the project “would demonstrate for the first time Chinese capital, manufacturing and engineering expertise exported to the U.S.,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Cielo officials said the project would create about 300 construction jobs and 30 permanent positions.

“This wind farm project came about thanks to the openness of the United States for investments in the field of renewable energy,” said John Lin, the chief operating officer of China’s Shenyang Power Group, The New York Times reports.

Announcement of the deal comes amid concerns over China’s protectionist policies on renewable energy manufacturing. Recently U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu warned that the United States could lose its competitive edge on renewable energy manufacturing to China.

Already, China exports 95 percent of its solar components to the United States and Europe, while foreign manufacturers of wind turbines have had difficulty gaining entry into the Chinese market. And when construction began on China’s first solar power plant earlier this year, 80 percent of the materials were required to be domestically manufactured.

But there appears to be some progress on the Chinese protectionist issue. Following his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan Thursday, Chu announced that China had agreed to remove local content requirements on wind turbines.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 30 (UPI) — The part of the Mississippi River that flows past St. Louis must be cleaned up enough to support recreational uses, federal officials said.

“The people of St. Louis deserve access to such high quality water,” said Art Spratlin, a regional director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has ordered the Missouri Clean Water Commission to devise a plan to reduce the water’s bacteria levels, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Friday.

The plan must address sewage overflows along 28.6 miles of the river overseen by the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, which has yet to settle a 2007 lawsuit filed against it by the EPA, the Post-Dispatch reported.

The sewer district already was planning to spend an estimated $6 billion to improve the system and reduce overflows before Thursday’s EPA order, Lance LeComb, a sewer district spokesman said.

“We will continue to spend billions of dollars for many years on the issue of overflows,” LeComb told the Post-Dispatch.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

BRUSSELS, Oct. 30 (UPI) — The European Union Friday said it proposes rich countries provide financial aid to developing countries to help those lands fight the effects of climate change.

The Financial Times said the European Union wants as much as $74 billion in funds transferred from rich countries a year by 2020 to help in the world’s fight against global warming.

EU officials, meeting in a preliminary session in Brussels, did not specify the European Union’s expected financial contributions to those efforts.

An agreement regarding how the requested aid from richer EU members to help poorer members of the 27-member bloc would be split was not reached Friday, the Times said.

The proposal from the European Union comes after old and new EU members were divided regarding what position the international organization will take at the global climate talks in Denmark next month.

Poland and other Eastern states warned during their preliminary session in Brussels that if they can’t reach an agreement, they may go to the Copenhagen meeting with their own proposals different than the rest of the union.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 30 (UPI) — Aging transmission lines and power stations in western U.S. states are loaded to the limit with power from wind turbines, authorities said.

Future wind projects mean the region’s electrical grid must be expanded, which won’t be without controversy, said Brent Fenty, who heads the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which is tracking transmission proposals.

“There’s no question that we are changing the face of the state right now. And the important part is that we do that in a way that is responsible and reflects our values,” Fenty told The (Portland) Oregonian.

Hundreds more wind turbine projects are planned for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, most of them on private land. New power lines to carry that energy, however, must be built on public lands and carry a long-term impact, said Erik Fernandez, spokesman for the group Oregon Wild.

“If we do this the wrong way, there’s going to be a large price tag environmentally,” Fernandez said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 30 (UPI) — California agriculture officials say they have trapped a potentially devastating insect in an area known for its organic citrus farms.

Efforts to control the citrus psyllid — an insect that threatens the state’s citrus crops with the Huanglongbing disease it can carry — could be complicated, given the insect’s appearance in San Diego County where there is a concentration of organic orchards, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

The insect has been found in several other southern California counties and in Arizona. It has wrecked havoc in citrus areas of Florida and Europe.

The latest find in California is the closest it has come to a major citrus belt in the state.

Officials and farmers in the state are awaiting laboratory results to determine if the specimen found is infected with the disease.

“The Valley Center trapping is not a surprise, but it is a real concern. This is very close to several thousand acres of citrus groves,” said Ted Batkin, president of the Citrus Research Board.

Should the disease be discovered, the state would spray aggressively to control the insect, a strategy that threatens some of the growers’ status as organic farmers, the newspaper said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

OSNABRUCK, Germany, Oct. 30 (UPI) — Hybrid offspring from a polar bear and a grizzly bear behave more like polar bears but look like a combination of the two species, German scientists said.

The two hybrid bears, a male and a female, provide a glimpse of what hybrids in the wild could look like if climate change continues to melt arctic ice, forcing more polar bears onto the mainland where they would encounter brown bears, said Ute Magiera, conservation coordinator for Germany’s Osnabruck Zoo.

So far, just one hybrid bear has been seen in the wild, Magiera told the BBC in a story published Friday. That bear was killed by a hunter in 2006 in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Seventeen hybrid bears exist in zoos, including the two born in Osnabruck Zoo in 2004. The Osnabruck hybrids were separated from their parents shortly after birth to prevent them from learning behaviors from either parent.

The Osnabruck hybrids look like a combination of the parents but act like polar bears, using their front legs to stamp on objects, as polar bears do to break ice, Magiera said. The hybrids also use their teeth to shake objects, as polar preys do with prey.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

First Lady Michelle Obama stops for a photo with students from Bancroft Elementary and Kimball Elementary Schools, both in the District of Columbia, on the South Lawn of the White House after the Fall Harvest of the White House Kitchen Garden in Washington on October 29, 2009. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn

Date Taken: October 29, 2009

First Lady Michelle Obama works with students from Bancroft Elementary and Kimball Elementary Schools, both in the District of Columbia, at the Fall Harvest of the White House Kitchen Garden in Washington on October 29, 2009. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn

Date Taken: October 29, 2009

First Lady Michelle Obama stops for a photo with students from Bancroft Elementary and Kimball Elementary Schools, both in the District of Columbia, on the South Lawn of the White House after the Fall Harvest of the White House Kitchen Garden in Washington on October 29, 2009. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn

Date Taken: October 29, 2009