The environment in the news monday, April 20 2009
Reuters: Britain to boost "green" spending
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Reuters: Britain to boost "green" spendingSun Apr 19, 2009 5:16pm EDT British finance minister Alistair Darling is expected to boost spending on green measures by some 500 million pounds in Wednesday's budget, a government source told Reuters on Sunday. The source said the new money spent on green initiatives, a similar amount to that announced in the November pre-budget report, would help foster a green economic recovery as the low carbon sector will expand greatly over the next few years. The cash would be used to promote energy efficiency for businesses and households, as well as support for small-scale energy technologies and community energy projects. The money would also be used to ensure important energy projects in the pipeline are not delayed. Darling is due to deliver his annual budget statement on Wednesday. He has to balance the demands of a rapidly shrinking economy and those of an election that must take place next year. Darling issued a video on Sunday on the YouTube website in which he promised to "invest in Britain's future to ensure that we can take advantage of the recovery when it comes." "And it will come," he said. "I'm confident about that because I think we have underlying strengths we can play to so there are good jobs and good prospects for the future." In addition, the budget will likely feature more details of the government's plans to offer full or partial guarantees to be attached to eligible triple-A rated asset-backed securities in a bid to ensure that credit markets flow freely again. The source said the government could offer to guarantee as much as 50 billion pounds, though in practice the take-up was expected to be low. Announcing the plan in January, the government said British banks and building societies eligible to participate in its Credit Guarantee scheme will be able to take part. Back to Menu _________________________________________________________________ Reuters: New solar farm adds hot water to cheap electricityMon Apr 20, 2009 12:34am EDT An energy company in Israel plans to launch a solar farm this month using new technology it says can produce cheap and efficient electricity while supplying hot water to homes. As with all solar energy systems, investors and consumers may be turned off by high initial costs and the need for strong sunlight. But if the commercial pilot works, Israeli start-up ZenithSolar plans to make small units for homes in two years. ZenithSolar CEO Roy Segev says its energy dish can transform 75 percent of the sunlight it absorbs into electricity and hot water, with a cost of 8.6 cents per kilowatt hour. Conventional solar panels generate electricity from sunlight with less than 15 percent efficiency and can cost more than double per kilowatt hour. With billions of dollars being invested in global green stimulus plans, energy companies worldwide are racing to develop more efficient environmentally friendly technologies. ZenithSolar says that in peak conditions, its system can produce electricity and hot water at a cost to consumers that can compete with fossil fuels without government subsidies. Asked about the Israeli company's system, Ken Zweibel, director of the Institute for Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University, said he saw some shortcomings. The reason the running costs are low, he said, is because the Zenith system produces mostly thermal energy in hot water, rather than more valuable electricity. He also said all solar cells lose efficiency when operating at such hot temperatures. But he added that the combined output of high-efficient electricity and its hot water by-product is a new variation that should work well in areas with ample sunlight. "It's a marriage of convenience as much as an improvement," said Zweibel, who has not examined the system first-hand but has seen technical data released by ZenithSolar. 1,000 TIMES SUNLIGHT The company's solar field takes up a half-acre lot at the edge of a kibbutz in central Israel. Sixteen units, each with two 11-square-meter (110-square-foot) dishes, harvest sunlight in a pilot project that will be unveiled on April 26. The dishes have about 1,200 small mirrors that concentrate sunlight -- hot enough to burn through metal -- on a four-inch (10 cm-) square panel of photovoltaic (PV), or solar, cells made from a special material. "The idea is to replace large areas of PV panels with large areas of cheap glass and concentrate the light onto a very small amount of PV material," said ZenithSolar's chief scientist, David Faiman. Each dish can generate the same amount of electricity as a 200-square-feet (19-square-metres) of conventional PV panel, Faiman said. About a third of the peak energy produced at the pilot, some 70 kilowatts, is electricity. That is enough for about 30 houses. The rest, about 140 kilowatts, is heat transferred into water, which doubles as a coolant, to be used by the community. The company says that each unit, generating 15 kilowatts of combined electric and thermal output, has a total cost of about $29,500 and can operate for 15 years. It plans to develop smaller units that can be installed in the backyard or on house rooftops by the end of 2010.
Fri Apr 17, 11:49 pm ET Cardiovascular function can be affected by as little as 10 minutes exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke and other air pollutants such as wood smoke and smoke from cooking oil, say U.S. researchers. There's increasing evidence that higher levels of air pollution are associated with an increase in heart attacks and deaths, according to background information in an American Physiological Society news release. Smoke pollutants contain fine particles that trigger responses in heart and blood vessels. This University of Kentucky study included 40 healthy male and female nonsmokers, average age 35, who were exposed to the three types of smoke while they sat in a 10-by-10-foot chamber. While the volunteers were exposed to the smoke, their respiratory and cardiovascular function was measured by the researchers. The results showed that exposure to smoke changed affected cardiovascular function, particularly in men. The findings were expected to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society (APS), April 18-22, in New Orleans. The study confirmed previous research that has shown that smoke harms cardiovascular function and extended those findings by showing that this harm can occur with lower levels of smoke and shorter exposure times. "I was surprised we got statistically significant results with this low level of exposure. If we can detect these effects with smaller exposures, then the public health hazard from cigarettes and other particulate exposures may have been underestimated," study author Joyce McClendon Evans said in an APS news release. Back to Menu ============================================================= ROA MEDIA UPDATE THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS Monday, April 20, 2009 UNEP or UN in the News Africa: Countries Funded to Plan Forest Protection Scidev.Net (London): Five developing countries have received US$18 million in funding to plan how to implement a proposed scheme to reward countries that protect forests and reduce deforestation. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Vietnam will share the funds, which will enable them to prepare national action plans to take part in the proposed Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism - likely to be agreed upon at climate talks in Copenhagen in December this year. REDD will provide financial incentives for countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. The UN-REDD programme - a collaboration between the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Development Programme that aims to support preparations for REDD - has provided the funding. Funding was approved last month (18 March) at a high level UN-REDD board meeting in Panama, where each country presented national plans for a future REDD regime. Tanzania will receive US$4 million of the funding, says Niklas Hagelberg, programme officer in the Division of Environmental Policy Implementation at UNEP. The Tanzanian REDD programme will be led by the Forestry and Beekeeping Division. Hagelberg says Tanzania will prepare itself for REDD by ensuring a national governance framework and strong institutional capacity. They also need a system for capturing information - such as forest loss, carbon emissions and land use assessment - to feed into a REDD process. http://www.scidev.net/en/news/countries-funded-to-plan-forest-protection.html Gambia: Adaptation to Climate Change, Coastal Project Launched The Daily Observer (Banjul): A sub-regional project involving five countries, including The Gambia, was yesterday launched at the Corinthia Atlantic Hotel in Banjul. Acquired and implemented by the National Environment Agency (NEA) on behalf of the Government of The Gambia, the adaptation to Climate Change and Coastal (ACCC) project is funded through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) with counter funding from participating governments - The Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania and Senegal. The goal of this project is to develop and pilot a range of effective coping mechanisms for reducing the impact of climate change induced by coastal erosion in vulnerable regions in the five participating countries. In his launching statement, Nyada Yorro Baldeh, permanent secretary, deputising for the secretary of state for Forestry and Environment, said that climate change has become a global concern because of its expected consequences, impacts and the associated environmental hazards. These expected consequences of climate change, he added, are broadly categorised as: increase in air temperature; sea level rise from the thermal expansion of oceans; and changes in precipitation patterns. According to him, The Gambia's coastline is generally low-lying with Banjul projected to sink with a mere 1m rise in sea level. The destruction of infrastructure aside, numerous livelihoods and economic activities will be lost, further entrenching poverty and seriously weakening the national economy. "We are already facing serious coastal erosion problems, which could very well be attributed to climate change. These indications are indeed causes for concern that require concerted efforts by government, its institutional partners and individuals", he said. http://allafrica.com/stories/200904170474.html Nigeria: Clean-Up of Ogoniland to Gulp N1.5 Billion This Day (Abuja): The Federal Government and the management of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), operators of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) joint venture have approved N1.5 billion ($10 million) for the technical study on the clean-up of Ogoniland allegedly polluted by the oil giant. The Federal Government has also approved the immediate commencement of the technical study of all the locations affected by oil spillage in Ogoniland as a necessary prelude to the clean-up. President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua made this known yesterday in Abuja at a meeting with the Presidential Facilitator of the Ogoni-Shell Initiative, Monsignor Matthew Hassan Kukah, leading a delegation of the Presidential Implementation Committee and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). According to him, the possibility of a shorter implementation time frame for the environmental remediation should be considered. He, therefore, directed the Presidential Implementation Committee, Shell, UNEP and Ogoni to hold consultations with all stakeholders involved in the exercise and ensure that all stakeholders were carried along. He said Rivers State Government, the Ministry of Niger Delta and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) should be at the forefront of providing social amenities for the people of Ogoni, adding that the social cushions in the UNEP proposals should be restored. Fielding questions from State House Correspondents after the meeting, the President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ledum Mitee, said the presidential directives followed concerns raised by the Ogoni at the meeting that they were not being carried along in the scheme of things on the proposed clean-up processes. http://allafrica.com/stories/200904170089.html General Environment News Africa: Continent Will Have to Feed EU's Artificial Biofuels Demand IPS (Paris): Earlier in the decade, biofuels were hailed as the energy panacea, the silver bullet to solve oil shortages and abide by environmental concerns. The European Union recently took the lead in imposing the use of these liquid or gaseous fuels made from plants. But the green credentials of biofuels have since been disputed. The total amount of energy needed to transform biomass into "green" fuels offsets most of the energy biofuels save when the entire process or life-cycle is considered. Soils must be fertilised. American corn and soybeans, French sugar beet, Brazilian sugar cane or peanuts from Benin must undergo heavy, water-intensive industrial processes to become fuel, and the final product has to be transported, mostly by truck. These steps dramatically increase biofuels' overall carbon footprint, and has spurted a worrying new surge of deforestation in many developing countries. But this is not the reason why a coalition of French development activists is furiously campaigning against biofuels. The French chapters of Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) and others have joined forces under a single watchword: "Biofuels won't feed the planet." Friends of the Earth is an international network of non-profit organisations campaigning for sustainable societies and Oxfam France is engaged in a global non-governmental movement working for a just world. According to the coalition, the figures speak for themselves: 232 kilos of maize are needed to produce 50 litres of ethanol - roughly enough to fill an average car tank, or enough to provide the amount of calories a child needs in a year. But last December, the 27 EU countries agreed on Brussels' "Biofuels Directive" and made filling car tanks with biofuels much more profitable than feeding the hungry. Part of the EU's comprehensive "Climate and Energy Package" aimed at cutting greenhouse gases and cutting energy consumption, the directive requires all EU members to rely on biofuels for 10 percent of their transport fuel needs by 2020. http://allafrica.com/stories/200904200002.html Ethiopia: African Climate Appeal launched Ethiopia News Agency (Addis Ababa): President Girma Woldegiorigs urged all concerned bodies to provide support to the desired impact of the African Climate Appeal. Speaking at the launching ceremony of the appeal here on Tuesday Girma said African has hardly contributed to climate changes but is suffering the most from its impact. He said many African countries have already developed national adaptation of plans of action regarding climate change which are still pending funding to implement prioritizing projects. Girma said among others factors the climate change is jeopardizing all the efforts that have been invested by African nations to get out of the shackles of poverty in the past decades. The appeal would galvanize local and international public support to address the issue of climate injustice. Hence, he said all concerned bodies should give support for the realization of the appeal. Speaking on his part Director General of Environmental Protection Authority, Dr. Tewoldeberhan Gebregziabher said the nation has attached due attention to environmental protection by effectively implementing environmental protection policy. He said the country has enshrined environmental rights in its constitution for the same purpose. The Director General urged all to strive for the effective implementation of the African Climate Appeal. Negusu Aklilu, Director of Forum for Environment and Interim Coordinator of the African Climate Appeal during the launch of the Appeal said Africa should speak up persistently until a fair climate deal is struck. According to the director climate change is not just a matter of economic wellbeing; it is rather a matter of life and death. He said a post-Kyoto mechanism that does not take into account issues of climate justice into account is not acceptable. http://www.ena.gov.et/EnglishNews/2009/Apr/15Apr09/85192.htm Back to Menu ________________________________________________________________ ROAP MEDIA UPDATE THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS Monday, April 20, 2009 General Environment News
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