Green Scorpions show their sting
April 8, 2008
Posted in Green News
Environment minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk praised the country’s Environmental Management Inspectors, aka Green Scorpions, yesterday, saying they had “worked hard to change the common perception in South Africa that government lacks the will to enforce our environmental legislation”.
The reporting of illegal activity, the enforcement of environmental legislation and actual enforcement results had increased dramatically in South Africa over the past two years, he told delegates at the 8th Conference on the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement in Cape Town.
The Green Scorpions were formed in 2005. South Africa now had 866 Inspectors in 15 institutions across the country, but more and better trained and equipped inspectors were needed, the minister said.
He highlighted encouraging results from the recently released second annual National Environmental Enforcement Report, which shows that:
● Environmental inspectors were investigating more than 1,756 criminal dockets or case files in 2007-8;
● Reported arrests by the Green Scorpions have increased from 898 in
2006-7 to more than 2,612 in 2007-8;
● Reported convictions of environmental criminals have increased from
134 in 2006-7 to 746 in 2007-8.
Van Schalkwyk said that the discrepancy between the number of criminal dockets and arrests, and the actual number of convictions was a cause for concern. “This indicates an urgent need for more effective investigations and for increased support from our National Prosecuting Authority for the prosecution of environmental crime,” he said.
He added that the department of environmental affairs and tourism was on the verge of signing a formal Standard Operating Procedure with the South African Police Service that would allow members of the Green Scorpions to carry their own criminal dockets or case files, and to hand those over for prosecution to the National Prosecuting Authority. He said this would allow for the more effective and efficient prosecution of environmental crime.
Obama wants Gore on his team
April 7, 2008
Posted in Green News
US Democrat presidential contender Barack Obama has said that he would want Al Gore, former US vice-president and Nobel prize-winning environmental activist, on his cabinet to handle the global warming issue. Read more on TriCities.com Via Treehugger
Grow-your-own diesel
April 7, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
Australian farmers have planted 20,000 Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii trees, also known as diesel trees – so named because they produce a natural diesel that can be tapped through a hole in the trunk. It is said that one hectare can produce about 12,000 litres a year. The natural diesel just has to be filtered and it can then be put straight into a diesel tractor or truck. Read more about this natural power source on Treehugger
Boeing tests manned hydrogen-powered plane
April 7, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy, Transport
A manned hydrogen-powered plane has made three successful test flights in Spain, the BBC reports. The small propeller-driven craft was developed by Boeing. This was the first flight to have a human pilot on board.
According to the BBC, Boeing said it did not believe fuel cells could be the primary power source for large passenger aircraft. But it could be used as a secondary source of energy for large planes, according to Nieves Lapena, the engineer responsible for the test flights, but this may take some time to develop – about 20 years.
The hydrogen fuel cells combine oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity to power the plane’s propellors. The only exhaust products are heat and water, the report says.
See a video clip of the plane in flight on the BBC website
Why should Eskom have all the power?
April 7, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
In an interesting comment piece in Business Day recently, Sarah Ward of Sustainable Energy Africa, wrote that “there is nothing like a crisis for opening the doors for much needed change”. It’s hard to conceive of the energy crisis, that neither the government nor Eskom – the utility that produces 96 percent of South Africa’s electricity – appears to be prepared to take responsibility for, as an opportunity, but Ward writes that we are at a point in time when “we can change SA’s energy picture forever, and for the better”.
The way to do this, she writes, is for cities to take charge of their own energy and develop “energy pictures” that suit their own unique needs. This is a move away from the “one-size-fits-all shoe” they have historically had to accept because it is all that has been made available by Eskom, she writes. Power has been centralised and the country has been “force-fed” and “become heavily addicted to, big power from one utility and one source of energy (electricity from coal power)”.
Nuclear is Eskom’s “clean” energy alternative of choice and it is set to become a major part of our energy future. But renewables and energy efficiently don’t seem to be taken nearly seriously enough.
Ward gives examples of how cities could power their own futures:
• Substantial energy supplies are provided by locally available sources (ocean, wind, sun, waste ) by several utilities;
• Energy efficiency is heavily incentivised (it is much cheaper to save electricity than to make it) and the “polluter pays” principle is applied;
• Safe and affordable energy sources are available to the poor and industry is encouraged to produce and purchase clean power;
• Local government buildings are retrofitted for energy saving and staff are given incentives to reduce their energy consumption;
• Waste is turned into useful energy; and
• All residential areas glitter with solar water heaters.
She writes that a number of South African cities already have strategies – which is very exciting news – but she adds that the real struggle is now implementing them. She has ideas on what is needed to help cities take charge, which you can read in the original article.
As an ordinary South African I’ve never lived in a city that didn’t only receive electricity from one utility; I saw a solar panel in operation in a home for the first time a few months ago; and if you’d asked me a year ago what co-generation was, I’d probably have answered something to do with artificial insemination. What exactly the empowered cities Ward talks about would look like would have been very hard to imagine if a couple of months ago I hadn’t come across something on the Internet called EffienCity.
It’s a fabulous interactive city created by Greenpeace UK that explains what decentralised energy is and how it works in practice. Using video case studies, animations and slide shows, it shows how real cities around the world are using decentralised energy . “As a result, they’re enjoying lower greenhouse gas emissions, a more secure energy supply, cheaper electricity and heating bills and a whole new attitude towards energy,” says Greenpeace.
Ward says one of the key projects cities should be implementing is informing and educating residents and business. She’s right, many South Africans still see renewable energy as expensive, unreliable, and science-fiction. It’s very enlightening to see what other cities around the world are doing.
SA biofuels plan has high price tag
April 6, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
Biofuels have been in the news again recently. The government has been looking at unused agricultural land in the former homelands, particularly in the east of the country, to grow crops for biofuels, but the plan could prove extremely expensive and risky, Business Day reports. Biofuels are seen as an opportunity to develop previously disadvantaged farmers and the economies of poor rural areas. It is estimated that one permanent job is created for every 100 hectares of land brought into production, and then another 50 jobs are created at the secondary production level.
Presumably using unutilised land in the former homelands is a way of getting round some of the problems of biofuels crops, such as displacing food crops from commercial farmlands, creating food shortages and driving up prices.
But because of the lack of infrastructure – such as roads, railway networks and storage facilities – in the former homelands, it’s seemingly going to be a costly undertaking. To develop them from scratch could cost R50-billion before biofuel production even starts, the report says. At van Coller of the agriculture department is quoted as saying that it would cost between R15,000 and R20,000 a hectare to develop the land in the former homelands. This is significantly more than the cost of developing existing commercial farmland that’s unused, estimated at about R5,000 to R6,000 a hectare. Another important challenge will be to achieve sustainable production levels and provide access to mechanisation without creating a dependency on grants, the report says.
Meanwhile, the new Coega soya bean processing facility in the Eastern Cape, which is still in the engineering design stage, is expected to consume 1-million tons of genetically modified soya beans a year, according to another Business Day report. The plant will produce 800,000 tons of soya bean meal and 250,000 tons of oil, some of which will be used for biodiesel for local consumption. South Africa reportedly imports 800,000 tons of soya bean meal at present, so growing soya beans locally could save the country R3-billion a year. The soya beans will be genetically modified, Geoff Mordt, the MD of Rainbow Nation Renewable Fuels, the company building to processing facility, told Business Day, because “this has been the norm for the past 30 years in the soya bean industry”.
Concerns over East African hydroelectric project
April 5, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
The sustainability of a new hydroelectric dam proposed by Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania is being questioned, the Bank Information Centre reports. The proposed 60MW dam at Rusumo Falls on the Kagera River would provide 20MW of electricity to each of the three countries, Reuters reports. This electricity would boost mining production in western Tanzania and spur nickel mining in Burundi, a country whose economic development is being hindered by electricty shortages, according to Reuters.
But, the BIC reports, because it is in an area prone to drought, particularly with the onset of climate change, there are doubts about whether the project will produce the expected capacity. A Rwandan newspaper, New Times, noted that “when drought hit the Great Lakes Region in 2004, the water levels in lakes and rivers dropped. Power production reduced leaving most cities in the region in darkness”, the BIC reports.
The dam also could entail the resettlement of about 7,000 people, which raises questions about its potential effects on the livelihoods of people living in the area and their access to land, the BIC reports.
The three governments are looking to the World Bank and the African Development Bank to fund the project.
Via :: Pambuzuka
Designer soils may help combat climate change
April 4, 2008
Posted in Green News
British researchers hope to design soils that remove carbon from the atmosphere permanently. At the root of the idea is the fact that plants absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and pump surplus carbon through their roots into the earth around them. The University of Newcastle team believes that calcium-bearing silicates may be a key to preventing this carbon dioxide escaping back into the atmosphere or groundwater.
In soils containing calcium-bearing silicates (natural or man-made), the team believes that the carbon from a plant’s roots may react with the calcium to form calcium carbonate. The carbon will then remain in the soil, locked in the calcium carbonate as a coating on pebbles or as grains, according to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which is funding the research.
Research team leader David Manning, professor of soil science at Newcastle University, says that as yet no one has tried to design soils expressly for the purpose of removing and permanently locking up carbon.
“Once we’ve confirmed the feasibility of this method of carbon sequestration, we can develop a computer model that predicts how much calcium carbonate will form in specific types of soil, and how quickly. That will help us engineer soils with optimum qualities from a carbon abatement perspective. A key benefit is that combating climate change in this way promises to be cheap compared with other processes.”
Via : Terra Daily
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