Flamingo conservationists may soon learn why they were suspended
August 30, 2008
Posted in Conservation
Mark Anderson, the ornithologist, and two of his colleagues, Julius Koen and Eric Hermann, who were suspended by the Northern Cape department of tourism, environment and conservation, may this week find out why they were suspended, the UK’s Times Online reports.
The Times quotes Les Abrahams, a spokesman for the department, as saying that the three men would receive official letters explaining their suspension and the disciplinary procedure this week.
Anderson is reportedly worried about the flamingo chicks on the Kamfers Dam nesting site. He told the Times that, “The quality of the water is deteriorating and we’re very worried. I’ve just received a 33-page report from the University of the Free State saying there’s clostridium from the raw sewage which causes botulism in birds. If we keep quiet about this, 65,000 flamingos are going to go belly up.”
A spokesman for the local council told the Times that it had a dedicated engineer trying to fix the pipes from the sewage works that is leaking sewerage into the dam.
Read the full report on the Times Online
UN Ghana talks: Africa needs funding for climate change
August 29, 2008
Posted in Green News
This week 1,500 delegates from 160 countries have been in Ghana talking about climate change. The overall plan is to create a successor deal for the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, that can be agreed on at a UN climate conference scheduled for 2009 in Copenhagen. So what happened in Ghana? Treevolution trawled the news reports to create the summary below.
What of Africa?
The fact that the conference was in Ghana highlighted some of the problems Africa faces if what climate models predict actually happens. Ghana’s president John Agyekum Kufuor, who opened the conference, said that his country’s rainfall had decreased by 20 percent over the past 30 years, and that up to 1,000 square kilometres of land may be lost in the Volta Delta because of sea-level rise. Villages on the southern coast of Ghana are already having to move continually inland as sea levels rise, AP reports. Read more
Small-scale wind power blows into SA
August 28, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
I’d always thought that to generate electricity from wind you’d need a great expanse of open space that the wind could howl across to turn giant turbines, but you don’t. Recently, in South Africa, I’ve come across two types of turbine that prove that you don’t need to live on a farm to have a wind turbine. You could, in fact, generate wind power for your home or office. How exciting is that?
The first wind turbine system was installed on a billboard in Bryanston, Johannesburg, see right. It comprises lots of little round turbines joined together. James Lech, the director of Phieco, the local company that sells and installs these turbines says they are designed for urban and rural environments and the system can be scaled to suit your needs. They can be installed on buildings to generation power for lights or air conditioning, for example. What’s more, these little turbines start turning at wind speeds of 1m/s. They also come in different colours, so you could design your system to look like the South African flag, or some other picture, if you like. Go to Phieco’s website to find out more information.
The other turbine is the hybrid wind/solar generator that’s on trial at Cape Town’s N2 Gateway low-cost housing project. It’s known as the Little Wind House (LWH), see left.
From what I can gather, Swiss company Greentecno designed it specifically for developing markets as a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to diesel generators for small-scale electricity generation in rural/off-the-grid locations. It’s described as extremely sturdy, resistant to very high winds and extreme weather conditions, it’s easy to assemble, installation and construction costs are low, and it’s said to need nearly no maintenance.
The LWH’s average generation capacity is 15kWh/day. It’s peak capacity is 4,8kW. It stands 7m high, has a small, vertical-axis wind turbine and eight photovoltaic panels with a peak capacity of 170W each and a maximum power output of the solar component is 1,4kW.
The Times reports that the Cape Town generator will provide power to 10 houses. It sells for R310,000 and the housing department is assessing its cost-effectiveness.
Update (03.09.08): The LWH’s generating capacity is now 25kWh/day. They are also manufactured locally, says Maurits Perold of Greentecno Africa.
Sources: The Times, All Business.com , Stopbigfoot.com, Greentecno
E-waste recycling hub opens at Makro
August 28, 2008
Posted in Business
Time to dig out the bits of old computer and broken cell phones you’ve had lying around your garage for years because Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Makro have opened an e-waste recycling hub where you can dispose of it all safely.
The pilot project is at Makro’s Woodmead store in Johannesburg and people can bring all their electronic waste – notebooks, PC’s, monitors, cell phones and calculators – irrespective of brand. The e-waste will be being stripped, recyclable elements recycled, and hazardous materials disposed of in an environmentally correct manner, say the companies.
“When one considers that about 240,000 notebooks and 120,000 PC’s are sold through the retail channel in South Africa annually, there is the potential for a great deal of e-waste posed by the devices and units that these are replacing. We see it as our responsibility to facilitate the disposal of as much as possible of this waste in an environmentally correct manner,” says Bruno Persic, consumer channel manager at Fujitsu Siemens Computers.
Persic says the companies plan to roll out the project in all Makro stores nationwide in the coming months.
Source :: IT Online
Something to make vegans feel smug
August 27, 2008
Posted in Food
South Africa is a meat-eating nation. Only in Cape Town will you get away with cooking a butternut or vegetable sosaties on a braai – anywhere else, if there’s isn’t at least chops and wors, you’ll offend your guests. But, sadly, our meat-loving ways are not environmentally friendly.
AFP reports on a German study that says:
- A diet that includes meat produces about double the amount of greenhouse gases as a vegetarian diet (over a period of 12 months it’s the same as driving a mid-sized car 4,758km versus 2,427km, they say).
- Going vegan, which means giving up meat and dairy products, would cut the emissions dramatically (to the equivalent of driving 629km).
- If you’re a vegan and your food’s organic, your food footprint is even smaller (the equivalent of driving 281km).
Via :: The Star
Look, it’s a Styrobot
August 27, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle
Kevin Kelly stockpiled styrofoam packaging for five years and used it to create the Styrobot that you see pictured above. Just goes to show that with a little imagination you can reuse anything. Inspired? You can read how he did it on his website.
Hydrogen car tour over, but don’t expect them in showrooms soon
August 26, 2008
Posted in Transport
The Hydrogen Road Tour 08, a 13-day trip across the United States by hydrogen cell cars is complete. Nine car makers took part in the groundbreaking zero-emissions tour. There were sections where the cars had to be carried on the back of flatbed trucks because there were no hydrogen fuelling stations, but apparently one of the points of the road trip was to highlight the need for more fuelling stations in the US. Reuters reports that the US has 60 hydrogen fuelling stations, but only two are open to the public. There appears to be a great deal of public interest in the vehicles, and car makers are spending vast sums of money developing them, but a study by the US National Research Council found that even in a best-case scenario, car manufacturers will only sell about 2 million electric vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells by 2020.
Via :: Planet Ark
Mystery of how wind turbines kill bats solved
August 26, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
The number of bats killed by wind farms is higher than birds, researchers say. But many of these bat casualties show no signs of external injuries caused by the turbine blades, so the cause of their deaths has been a mystery. A Canadian researcher may have found the answer, though. She dissected 75 bats found dead around a wind farm in Calgary and found that they had ruptured blood vessels in their lungs. The pulmonary barotrauma, as it’s officially called, is caused by a drop in air pressure. It was found that wind turbines lower the air pressure as they cut through the air, especially around the tips of the blade. Bats flying within a meter of the blades get caught in the depressurised zone and suffer the lung trauma. Birds’ lungs apparently aren’t affected in the same way because they are more rigid. Now researchers are looking for ways to prevent bat deaths at wind farms.
[Via :: ScienceNow Daily News]
Automate PC shutdowns and save energy
August 25, 2008
Posted in Business
Telling the staff in your office to switch off their PCs doesn’t always mean that they’ll remember to do it. Tim James, director of sustainable IT, a Cape Town-based company, says that communication campaigns urging end users to turn off typically fail within three months and are difficult to monitor. Some IT departments refuse to switch off because mission critical patching and software distribution is carried out overnight. But IT departments are coming under increasing pressure to reduce costs and do their bit for environmental sustainability.
sustainableIT has a cost-effective, simple solution that can offer enormous savings, says James. NightWatchman allows administrators to control the power state of PCs on a network. It also reports on energy use, carbon dioxide emissions and costs in the environment, an important factor in driving behaviours and delivering quantifiable return on investment. James says the system will pay for itself in less than a year.
For more information visit www.sustainableIT.co.za
Solar-powered flight beats record
August 25, 2008
Posted in Business, Renewable energy
A solar-powered aircraft, the QinetiQ Zephyr, has reportedly broken the official world record for unmanned flight. It flew for 82 hours 37 minutes, exceeding the 30 hours 24 minutes set by Global Hawk in 2001, QinetiQ says.
The Zephyr is a fragile-looking ultra-lightweight carbon-fibre aircraft that is launched by hand. “By day it flies on solar power generated by amorphous silicon solar arrays no thicker than sheets of paper that cover the aircraft’s wings. By night it is powered by rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries, which are recharged during the day using solar power,” QinetiQ says in a press release.
The flight trial took place at the end of July over the Sonoran Desert in the United States. It was flown via satellite communications to a maximum altitude of more than 60,000ft.
The Zephyr, which is officially known as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), was designed for military use but it looks like it could have civilian applications.
Via :: Crave
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