Australia wants to be clean coal research hub
September 22, 2008
Posted in Green News
Australia plans to set itself up as the world hub for carbon capture research, Reuters reports. The country’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants to get United Nations’ backing for an Australian research institute at the general assembly meeting in New York this week. Rudd says that although there’s a great deal of international effort going into carbon capture research, it’s haphazard and he wants to bring it together in one place.
Australia is the world’s top coal exporter and relies heavily on coal for power generation, so developing “clean coal” technologies such as carbon capture and storage make economic sense; they would allow the continued use of coal to generate electricity – but without the climate-harming carbon emissions.
The country is already making progress in a method of carbon capture known as post-combustion capture (PCC). In July, the CSIRO reported that carbon dioxide had been captured from power station flue gases in a PCC pilot plant at a power station in Victoria. The pilot plant is designed to capture up to 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from the power station’s exhaust-gas flues. Read more
Update: Kimberley’s flamingo dam suspensions
September 19, 2008
Posted in Conservation
A hearing on the suspension of three officials from the Northern Cape tourism, environment and conservation department is expected today, Sapa reported earlier this week.
The officials, Mark Anderson, Julius Koen and Eric Hermann, were suspended last month for what is believed to be their involvement in a campaign to save the lesser flamingo breeding colony on Kimberley’s Kamfers Dam. It is the largest colony of the flamingos in South Africa and one of only four breeding sites in the whole of Africa.
Ornithologist Mark Anderson, one of the suspended men, received an international award for his contributions to the conservation, research and monitoring of migratory water birds this week at the meeting of the African-Eurasion Waterbird Agreement in Madagascar.
Anderson is reportedly the driving force behind the work to save Kimberley’s lesser flamingo colony, but it appears to be because of these efforts that he has been suspended. The Save the Flamingo campaign brought attention to threats to the Kamfers Dam colony from raw sewage leaking from the Homevale Sewerage Works into the dam and a proposed massive housing and commercial development.
The Save the Flamingo Association says that its campaign has had many success, including the recent moratorium on any further developments in Kimberley until the Homevale Sewerage Works is upgraded. On its Save the Flamingo website it says: “Despite years of discussion and negotiation, there had been no progress until the Save the Flamingo Association commenced with its campaign. The Association is grateful to the many people who have signed the petition and donated funds towards the campaign. The battle is however far from over, and the desired end result is a sewerage works which can adequately cope with Kimberley’s sewage water.”
Meanwhile, a webcam has been installed on the island by Africam (See “Flamingo” link on www.africam.com). The image above is a screen grab from the webcam’s site. Initially, only refresh images are available, but it is anticipated that live streaming images will be available once band width problems have been resolved, the association says.
Now we all have an opportunity to get a close-up view one of Kimberley’s most spectacular tourist attractions.
Stressed forest plants emit their own form of aspirin
September 19, 2008
Posted in Green News
Plants in a forest respond to stress by producing a chemical form of aspirin, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the United States have discovered.
The plants were found to emit the chemical methyl salicylate, which is a form of acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin, into the atmosphere in significant quantities in response to drought, unseasonable temperatures, or other stresses.
NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, who led the study, and his colleagues speculate that the methyl salicylate has two functions. One is to stimulate something analogous to an immune response to help the plants both resist and recover from disease.
The other may be a way for a stressed plant to communicate to neighbouring plants, warning them of the threat. Read more
Recycled fashion inspired by Africa
September 18, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle
South African designer Clive Rundle brought a touch of the “reuse, recycle” part of the greenie mantra to the catwalk at the Sanlam Fashion Week in Johannesburg at the end of last month. But he says his garments – which he calls the the “recycled collection” – are not an attempt to be eco-friendly.
He told Mary Corrigall of the Sunday Independent in an interview that for clothing designers to be green in South Africa is “a joke” because it’s unbelievably difficult to achieve. His recycled clothing is not attempting to be green, but it is expressing something quintessentially African, he said. Read more
Xolobeni community lawyers issue ultimatum
September 18, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The legal representative of the Xolobeni community has this week written a letter to the minister of minerals and energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, stating that she has until October 1 to withdraw or suspend the mining licence issued to Australian company Mineral Resources Commodities (MRC) and its South African partner, Transworld Energy and Minerals (TEM), or the community will proceed with legal action against her, the Daily Dispatch reports.
A spokesman for the department said that suspending the licence wasn’t part of the department’s plan at present because it believes that mining and tourism can go hand in hand in the area. Read full story
Nokia tops eco-friendly chart
September 18, 2008
Posted in Green News
Thanks to its expanding cellphone take-back programme Nokia has reclaimed the top spot in the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics. Second and third place went to Fujitsu Siemens and Samsung respectively.
Bringing up the rear of the guide were Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo scored just 0.8 out of 10 as the company had made no progress on dealing with e-waste and it still had no timeline in place for eliminating PVC in its products. When burned, PVC releases dioxin, a well-known carcinogen.
In 17th place Microsoft scored just 2.2 points for its failure to deal adequately with toxic chemicals and a timeline of 2010 for eliminating phthalates – a toxic chemical – in its products.
The major PC makers including Dell, Toshiba, HP, LG, Acer and Panasonic all scored less than 5 points in guide.
Further down the list are Lenovo and Apple. Lenovo was rewarded for its e-waste programme while Apple was marked down for its failure to put in place a proper e-waste programme.
Apple did, however, gain good marks for energy efficiency along with Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung.
Greenpeace says that to date no company has released a computer completely free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and PVC, though several are restricting the use of the neurotoxin. Last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the new iPod line will be free of BFRs, PVC and mercury, following the lead of companies like Nokia and Sony Ericsson.
“This is a great step by Apple towards its commitment to eliminate these toxic chemicals from all its products by the end of 2008,” said toxics campaigner Casey Harrell. “They should continue this positive work and improve their ranking by announcing a free, global recycling programme.”
In related news Intel this week released its new Xeon 5400 processors that use Hafnium which allows them to avoid using fire retardants such as BFRs.
White roofs make cities cooler
September 17, 2008
Posted in Green News
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California have calculated that 1.5 years of man-made carbon emissions could be offset simply by making roofs and roads in the world’s cities white, reports Science Daily News. The roofs would reflect some of the sun’s radiation back to space (albedo effect) and the inside of houses would be cooler, needing less air conditioning, and thus saving energy – the bulk of which is generated by burning fossil fuels.
The researchers estimate that, globally, roofs account for 25 percent of the surface of most cities, and roads accounts for about 35 percent. If all of these were replaced with reflective material – such as lighter-coloured concrete or white or more reflective paint – in 100 major urban areas, it would offset 44 gigatons of greenhouse gases, reports the LA Times. This is reportedly a bigger saving than you’d get from halting the deforestation of tropical forests. And it’s more than the 28 gigatons per year or so that the world currently emits from fossil fuels, ScienceNow Daily News reports.
Lighter surfaces would also help to lower the temperature in cities, making them cooler places to live.
For more information: Heat Island Group, Global Cooling: Increasing worldwide urban albedos to offset CO2
Briefs: Kenya thinks nuclear, crunch hits carbon trade and Chad pipe dream ends
September 16, 2008
Posted in Green News
Power hungry: Kenya is considering building a 1,000MW nuclear power station.
Carbon trade: Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank that has filed for bankruptcy protection, has closed its carbon trading desk, Reuters reports. The bank has stakes is about 10 Clean Development Projects, mostly in China, a source told the news agency, which may have to be sold by liquidators. The impact of the credit crisis will probably be felt by the clean energy sector as banks limit their lending, says Reuters. The European Union reportedly needs about 85-billion Euros a year to reach its 2020 renewable energy targets.
Plate plan: Non-recyclable disposable plates and cutlery are to be taxed in France to encourage consumers to buy more eco-friendly products.
Money hungry: The World Bank has withdrawn from an agreement for an oil pipeline linking landlocked Chad to terminals on the coast of Cameroon because Chad’s government failed to “allocate adequate resources to poverty alleviation”, The Guardian reports. The deal was meant to bring much needed petrodollars to Chad. As part of the agreement Chad’s government had said it would spend 72% of the oil royalties on building schools, hospitals and roads. A significant amount of the money is thought to have been spent on the military. Chad has agreed to repay $140-million.
E-waste drop off point in Pretoria
September 15, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle
If you live in Pretoria and you have unwanted or broken electronic equipment that you want to get rid of, drop it off at the e-waste collection point at UNISA so that it can be recycled in an environmentally acceptable way.
Johnny Clegg told delegates at a recent Gartner conference that 460 000 PCs reach “end-of-life” every day and 550 million mobile phones reach “end-of-life” every year. That’s is a lot of unwanted gadgets. This electronic waste shouldn’t be thrown away with other rubbish because it could leach toxic chemicals. It also contains a number of valuable materials, such as copper and aluminium, that can be reclaimed. The plastic from PCs can also be recycled, and it is used to make new products such as benches and fence posts.
The e-waste drop-off point in Pretoria is at UNISA’s Muckleneuk Campus. There is a container marked E-WASTE at the back of the TvW building, 3rd floor service entrance below the parking north of TvW. (Entrance: c/n of Mears street and Willem Punt).
For more information contact the E-waste Association of South Africa
Xolobeni: Consultation process was flawed, says minister
September 15, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The minister of minerals and energy, Bujelwa Sonjica, said on Friday that the consultation process for the Xolobeni dune mining project on the Wild Coast was “flawed”, the Sunday Tribune and the Daily Dispatch report. Read more
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