Climate change? Never heard of it.
October 4, 2008
Posted in Business, Green News
More than 40 percent of South Africans claimed to know nothing about climate change, according to the results of a survey by the Human Sciences Research Council. And 27 percent said they had never even heard of climate change before they were interviewed for the survey.
Only 18 percent of the respondents thought they knew a lot or a fair amount about it. Nevertheless half the respondents thought climate change was a serious problem. And even though concern seemed to have increased on the year before, levels of awareness of the seriousness of climate change are low in South Africa compared with other countries, even developing countries such as Nigeria, China, India and Brazil, the HSRC report said.
3,164 people were asked questions about climate change in the 2007 South African Social Attitudes Survey. It was the first time a module on climate change had been included in the survey.
Interestingly, people seemed reasonably well informed about the impacts of climate change, the report said.
The majority of respondents (48 percent) felt that the government, in its various forms, should take responsibility for action to prevent further climate change. Only 14 percent thought that large companies had a role to play. But nearly 40 percent of the respondents answered “didn’t know” or “cannot choose” when asked whether they thought the government was doing enough about climate change.
The report concluded that greater efforts were required to increase general awareness of climate change and to catch up with public opinion in other countries.
‘Clean coal is like healthy cigarettes’
October 4, 2008
Posted in Business
Al Gore, he who made climate change mainstream with his movie An Inconvenient Truth, has called for civil disobedience to stop the building of new coal plants that don’t have carbon capture and storage. He was speaking at the Clinton Gobal Initiative meeting in New York last month. Environment News Service reports him as saying: “The coal and oil companies have spent, in the United States alone, a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as clean coal. Clean coal is like healthy cigarettes. It does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant [in the United States - FutureGen] was cancelled. How many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.” Gore called for a new global energy infrastructure based on renewable energy: sun, wind and geothermal.
Corporates join forces to compile an SA carbon-storage map
October 2, 2008
Posted in Business
It’s one thing saying that all South Africa’s new coal-fired power stations will be built ready to capture their carbon emissions, but where to put this captured carbon is another matter. Commercialisation of the carbon capture and storage technology South Africa needs to keep the millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by its coal plants from polluting the atmosphere could be as much as 15 years away. And doubts have been expressed about the suitability of South Africa’s geological make-up for carbon storage. Nonetheless, with such coal-intensive energy plans, so-called “clean coal” technologies will be an important part of the country’s future.
Carbon capture technology could make as much as 60 percent of the country’s carbon emissions storable, Dr Tony Surridge of the South African National Energy Research Institute (Saneri) told the Engineering News. But the big question is where then to put it. A group of South Africa’s big-carbon corporates have joined forces to find answers. Sasol, Eskom, PetroSA, Anglo American and Saneri plan to identify potential sites for the future storage of carbon dioxide and develop a carbon dioxide storage atlas, the Engineering News reports. An initial assessment of SA’s storage potential is scheduled to be published by early 2010. Read the full story on Engineering News
Clean energy share offering on JSE
September 12, 2008
Posted in Business
Sterling Waterford Securities released its second Carbon Credit Note offering onto the JSE Securities Exchange on Monday. The carbon credit note is an opportunity for South Africans to invest in the carbon credit market, “the fastest growing financial market in the world and the only one not to have been affected by the global economic downturn”, the company says in a press release. The offer closes on October 4. The note has a maturity date of December 2012 and pays out the value of the carbon credit at the maturity date, said Sterling Waterford director, Gregor Paterson-Jones.
Sterling Waterford says that its Carbon Credit Note 1, which was listed on the JSE in 2005 and matured in mid 2008, realised a return of almost 250 percent for initial investors in rands and investors on listing realised around 135 percent.
Visit Sterling Waterford‘s website for more information.
First coal plant ready to capture and store its carbon emissions opens
September 11, 2008
Posted in Business
Depending on your perspective, the world’s first demonstration plant for carbon capture and storage (CCS) (CSS) technology, which was officially opened in Germany on Tuesday, is either a milestone for clean coal technology or a distraction that will delay investment in real clean energy technologies.
The 30MW plant, built by Swedish energy utility Vattenfall on the premises of its 1,600MW Schwarze Pumpe power plant in northern Germany, took 15 months and cost about 70-million Euros to build. It’s very small compared to conventional power stations, but it’s the first coal-fired power plant in the world ready to capture and store its own carbon dioxide emissions. And Vattenfall has bigger plans for the future. Read more
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
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
Green energy gold rush: but not in Africa
August 14, 2008
Posted in Business
Sustainable energy is attracting a rush of investment, says the UN Environment Programme. Last year, $148-billion in new funding entered the market, up 60 percent from 2006, according to a UNEP-commissioned report, “Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008”. But Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world in green energy finance.
Sub-Saharan Africa, “arguably the region that has the most to gain from renewable energy,” remains largely unexploited, says the report. Though it did mention that South Africa’s renewable energy targets and the commissioning of the first wind farm were signs of change. Read more
Monsanto to sell rBST unit
August 11, 2008
Posted in Business, Food
Monsanto has announced that it wants to sell its rBST business. rBST is an artificial hormone used to boost the milk output of cows. Use of the hormones is banned in many countries and in “organic” milk. There has been a growing trend among consumers to reject milk from cows treated with the hormone. In South Africa in recent years “rBST-free” labels have become increasingly common on the packaging of milk sold in supermarkets.
Monsanto officials said last week that the company wanted to focus on its key profit drivers of agricultural seeds and development of specific genetic traits for crops.
Sources: Daily Green, Reuters, New York Times
