Cement industry focus of new clean-up campaign
May 30, 2008
Posted in Business
South Africa’s Environmental Management Inspectors, the Green Scorpions, launched a “Clean Cement” campaign this week with a series of compliance inspections at cement manufacturing facilities across the country, says the department of environmental affairs and tourism.
“The cement industry has been prioritised in this new environmental compliance campaign because of the growing demand for its products. An increase in construction and development projects in the country and rapid expansions in the cement sector means that the industry may contribute significantly to pollution if not mitigated and managed properly,” said Joanne Yawitch, deputy director general for environmental quality and protection at DEAT.
She added that inspectors would consider findings of significant non-compliances to environmental authorisations at cement plants in a serious light, and take appropriate enforcement action.
Photograph: © Dan Moore, iStockphoto.com
Carbon credit check
May 29, 2008
Posted in Green News
The United Nations Clean Development Mechanism, which was set up as a way to fund carbon emission reduction projects in developing countries, has been criticised by Stanford University academics who found that a large number of the projects applying for credits should not qualify for assistance, the Guardian reports. “They would be built anyway,” says David Victor, law professor at the Californian university. “It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts.” Read the full Guardian article
ExxonMobil boss outlines environment strategy
AFP reports that US oil giant ExxonMobil has been forced by its shareholders to consider its environmental impact. Chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson said his environmental strategy was to improve the efficiency of the company’s operations and develop products to help customers use oil and gas more efficiently. He did not make any promises to invest in alternative fuels, saying oil and gas would be the primary source of energy for a long time yet. Alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass would grow dramatically, but would account for only 2 percent of global energy demand by 2030, he said. Read full report on Terra Daily
New ‘climate bonds’ could help SA meet clean energy targets
May 29, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
The United Nations is considering a new type of bond to help developing countries finance renewable energy projects, Bloomberg reports.
Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate change official, said yesterday that the idea was that “climate bonds” would be sold to investors by developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They would simplify the funding of wind farm and solar projects and encourage investment in nations struggling to meet their renewable-energy targets, de Boer said.
The plan had not yet been presented to countries or investors, de Boer said.
Simplifying the funding of renewable energy projects would be good news for South Africa which has got off to a slow start in meeting its renewable energy target of 10 000 GWh/year renewable energy consumption by 2013.
For example, Business Report recently reported that Eskom was struggling to find investors for its 100MW concentrating solar power demonstration plant in Upington.
The CSP plant will cost R5-billion, of which Eskom can put up R3-billion. It is looking for partners to fund the remaining R2-billion, the report said.
Eskom’s other renewable energy project, a 100MW wind farm in the Western Cape, received a R1.4-billion loan from the French Development Agency which will reportedly cover most of the costs. According to BR, it is expected to be operational in 2010.
The country’s first commercial wind farm, with a 5.2MW capacity, was officially switched on on Friday.
Read the full report on Bloomberg
Cape Town to sell SA’s first wind power
May 28, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
The City of Cape Town plans to sell green electricity from July, according to the city’s website.
The electricity will be supplied by the Darling Wind Farm, which was officially switched on last Friday by the minerals and energy minister, Bulyewa Sonjica. It is South Africa’s first commercial wind farm, situated in the town of Darling, 70km from Cape Town.
The wind farm’s four 1.3MW turbines can generate 5.2MW of electricity. There are plans to add six more 1.3MW turbines in the future, bringing the total capacity to 13MW.
The electricity produced by the wind farm will be added to the national grid and sold to the City of Cape Town as part of a long-term power purchase agreement. This will go towards the city’s target of sourcing 10% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
The city will sell the electricity to customers interested in buying sustainable energy “initially at a premium (surcharge) of 25c/kWh above the cost of conventional electricity”, according to the city’s website.
The Darling Wind Farm is a R75-million national demonstration project developed by a group consisting of private developers, including Darling Independent Power Producer, the Central Energy Fund and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. The Danish International Development Assistance programme provided a third of the funding in the form of a grant.
Over its 20-year predicted life span, the Darling Wind Farm will reportedly save 142,500 tons of coal and 370-million litres of water. It will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 258,100 tons, sulphur dioxide by 2,200 tons, nitric oxide by 1,100 tons, particulates by 58 tons and ash by 42,200 tons.
To find out more about buying Cape Town’s green electricity, click here
Via: IOL
and Engineering News
Organic milk is healthier, study finds
May 28, 2008
Posted in Food, Lifestyle
Need a good reason to convince you to buy organic milk? It’s just plain healthier, according a study by Newcastle University.
Cows on organic farms that are allowed to graze as nature intended are producing better quality milk that contains significantly higher beneficial fatty acids, antioxidants and vitamins than their conventional “high input” counterparts, says the university in a press release. During the summer months, when the cows are grazing on fresh grass in the fields one of the beneficial fats in particular – conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA9 – was found to be 60% higher.
“We have known for some time that what cows are fed has a big influence on milk quality,” said Gillian Butler of the Nafferton Ecological Farming Group at Newcastle University, who led the study in the release.
“What is different about this research is it clearly shows that on organic farms, letting cows graze naturally, using forage-based diet, is the most important reason for the differences in the composition between organic and conventional milk. Read more
Pedalling uphill
May 19, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle, Transport
I’d like to share this interesting little factoid from Friends of the Earth UK.
A half-hour commute by bike will burn eight calories a minute, or 11kg of fat a year. And for every 8km trip you cycle rather than drive you’re saving 1.6kg of carbon dioxide (based on a 200 g/km by car).
Wouldn’t it be nice if it wasn’t quite so terrifying to ride a bicycle on Joburg’s roads?
Scotland’s solar water lilies
May 14, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
Solar power is inspiring all sorts of interesting ideas, the latest one, reported on the BBC’s website, is a giant solar water lily. Designed to bob quietly on a river – much like the real thing from which the designers got their inspiration – these giant lily-shaped discs would be tethered to the river bed and would be able to rotate to follow the sun.
Glasgow-based ZM Architecture has already won the International Design Awards Land and Sea competition for their solar creation. They are now hoping that the Glasgow city council will give the go-ahead for a trial project to tether the lilypads on the Clyde River so they can provide the Scottish city with clean electricity.
Update: development versus Africa’s flamingos
May 6, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The Sunday Times reports that a R2-billion development is planned for Kamfers Dam in the Northern Cape town of Kimberley, the site of the biggest breeding colony of lesser flamingos in South Africa. It is one of only four breeding colonies for this species of bird in the whole of Africa. Environmentalists fear the new development will destroy the breeding colony, which appears to have benefited greatly from the recent building of an artificial island.
Meanwhile, in Tanzania, a state firm has rejected the concerns of environmentalists that a soda ash plant planned for Lake Natron will damage the soda lake’s fragile ecosystem, Reuters reports. Three quarters of the world’s lesser flamingos breed on Lake Natron.
A spokesman for Tanzania’s state-run National Development Corporation (NDC), which is building the plant with an Indian partner, Tata Chemicals, said there were plans to shift the plant 35km from the lakeshore, which would help preserve the birds. But conservationists fear the plant’s operations may kill the algae on which the flamingos feed. The conservationists say that the lesser flamingo could become extinct in five years if its habitat is destroyed, Reuters reports.
Cell phone charger that doesn’t waste electricity
May 1, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle
Pocket Picks reports that Nokia has come up with a cell phone charger that switches itself off when your phone is charged. We’ve all been told to unplug our appliances at the wall because they still use electricity in standby mode. Well, the Zero Waste charger has a big green button on the back that you press to start charging and that automatically pops up when the battery’s charged. This cuts down on the amount of electricity wasted. It’s apparently still a prototype but Noknok.tv got hold of one and posted a video on You Tube about it.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIXEv0jWR-8]
