A rapidly growing industry in China—dairy farming—is also a major new source of greenhouse-gas emissions. But Huishan Dairy in northeast China is trying to change this by installing the world's largest system for generating electricity by collecting methane gas emitted by fermenting cow manure.
The Chinese have not, historically, been big milk drinkers, but decreasing costs and aggressive marketing efforts have changed that. Huishan's new system will prevent methane—which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas—from reaching the atmosphere. It will also reduce waste and odors, and produce a valuable organic fertilizer that's safer than raw manure.
The operation at Huishan is 10 times the size of the typical systems for generating electricity from cow manure. Its massive scale could help make the project more economical. GE, which is supplying the project's gas-powered generators, also hopes it will act as a showcase for the technology. Methane is not widely harnessed in farming worldwide, largely due to the initial costs, a lack of established economic models, and little government support.
Huishan, one of the biggest dairies in the country, imports 3,000 cows from Australia every month to sustain its massive stock of 250,000 cows—about double the number of dairy cows in the entire state of Florida. Huishan's new electricity generating system will process the waste from 60,000 cows and produce 5.6 megawatts of power. It will generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 3,500 American-size households, which means it will service many more Chinese ones, which use far less energy. Advertisement
What was previously the largest system for generating electricity from manure produced two megawatts. Most such systems still produce only a few hundred kilowatts. Huishan will capture 20 million cubic meters of biogas (which is about 60 percent methane).
Technology for capturing biogas and putting it to use has existed for a long time. In its simplest form, an enclosed digester allows the anaerobic organisms to break down manure and capture the methane produced. The gas is then siphoned off in a pipe for cooking or lighting. The Chinese government estimates that millions of small farms already have such primitive manure digesters.
Generating electricity from biogas is more difficult because constituents of the gas, such as hydrogen sulfide, are particularly corrosive. It is possible to clean up the gas by removing the hydrogen sulfide by exposing it to iron oxide (a process called hydrodesulfurization). The biogas can then be burned to produce electricity in generators such as the GE Jenbacher engines that Huishan uses. These engines have been modified to burn at compression levels particularly suited to biogas, and they have special coatings that resist corrosion.
Less than 1 percent of the dairies in the United States capture methane. Part of the challenge is scale. According to Don Wichert, director of renewable energy programs at Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation, producing electricity from biogas at a farm with about 100 cows costs twice as much as producing it at a farm with over 2,000 cows. Huishan is gathering manure from 20 farms located close together near Shenyang, China, to feed into massive digesters. Thomas Elsenbruch, marketing program manager for Jenbacher engines at GE, says larger systems can supply enough gas for a one-plus-megawatt engine. Such engines are more efficient than the 300- to 500-kilowatt systems used in many farms in Europe or the U.S.
POWER company EnergyAustralia will rely on Ericsson technology to deliver the first national smart grid, in a deal worth up to $12 million.
Ericsson will provide equipment, software and services as EnergyAustralia turns 15,000 NSW households into smart homes.
The utility will conduct a privacy impact assessment to ease concerns that information held on smart meters could be hijacked by thieves and direct marketing companies.
Internet giant Google has been in hot water for inadvertently accessing private data from its Street View vehicles as they travelled around Australia and other countries collecting mapping information.
Homes in Newcastle, Scone, Newington, Sydney CBD and Ku-ring-gai will rely on fourth-generation wireless communications network that will use Wimax and long-term evolution (LTE) platforms.
Wimax and LTE will be used to transmit data between 200 major substations, and 12,000 smart sensors and 3000 mobile devices at 150 sites.
The utility will be able to pinpoint faults in its network and provide real-time alerts to customers on power use.
Ultimately, this could lead to lower energy consumption in homes, especially in an era of spiralling power costs.
EnergyAustralia has rolled out 800km of fibre-optic cable. The "last mile" of its network will rely on 4G technologies.
The company is rolling out the Wimax network, and LTE trials at 15 sites will begin next year, said Adrian Clark, the manager of EnergyAustralia's intelligent networks.
FUEL taxes will become an increasingly unreliable source of revenue for governments as the supply of oil diminishes and cars become more fuel-efficient, a report warns.
Transporting Australia's Future, to be published today by the Association of Consulting Engineers Australia, urges state and federal governments to raise revenue for transport infrastructure from new sources, including levies on employers and taxes on high-value land around transport hubs.
''Reliance on traditional fuel excise as the key revenue tool is internationally recognised as having limited longevity, with diminishing reserves and increased fuel efficiency curtailing revenues,'' the report says.
''An infrastructure funding regime based on fuel taxes has no sustainable future.''
The report says that while fares and tolls from transport users cover the ''aggregated costs'' of transport, governments treat these as taxes, going into general revenue. It says there is ''no accountability to transport users who are frustrated by inadequate reinvestment in transport''.
In the geeky world of energy storage, there are well-understood limitations to plain old batteries and to ultracapacitors, devices able to store relatively little energy but also deliver big bursts of power.
Energy storage company Ioxus on Monday plans to announce a hybrid storage device that combines the attributes of an ultracapacitor with a lithium-ion battery. In the first quarter of next year, it plans to make available a second generation of the device, which could potentially be used in auto applications, according to Ioxus CEO Mark McGough.
Its first hybrid will store more than twice the energy of traditional ultracapacitors, and charging is done on the order of seconds, rather than hours as in the case of traditional batteries, according to the company.
The device, which is about the size of a C cell battery, won't propel a plug-in electric car. But it could be used for power tools, off-grid lighting, and handheld medical devices, according to McGough.
If used in an ear probe for medical applications, for example, a doctor could fully charge the probe in 90 seconds or partially charge in 20 seconds, McGough said. The company is now providing sample to designers in different industries.
"What we've been able to do is take the fast charge/discharge of ultracapacitors and improve the energy density by designing in a lithium ion electrode and putting it all in the same device," McGough said. The device combines the activated carbon material of an ultracapacitor that stores charge and layers of lithium ion material wrapped in a cylinder form, he explained.
The trade-off to the hybrid design is that it won't have the same cycle life--or charge/discharge cycles-- as ultracapacitors. People can expect 20,000 cycles versus millions of cycles for an ultracapacitor, McGough said.
The long cycle life makes it suitable for use in places where replacing a battery would be difficult, such as off-grid lighting. Within cars, it could be used to run smaller motors, such as the ones that raise and lower power windows, in order to lighten the load and cabling from the main battery.
We are extremely pleased to be able to announce the new edition of Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, to be released this spring (and already available for discount pre-order at Powell's, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Amazon).
We struggled with whether to even call this book a new edition, rather than a new book: over half of the entries are new and most have been updated. While we weren't able to start completely from scratch (as in an ideal world one might when trying to cover so vast a range of topic), we do feel that we've been really successful in bringing many of the newest worldchanging ideas to the page. Bright green business, carbon neutral cities, passivhaus green building, product backstories, post-ownership, planetary futurism, green infrastructure, deep walkability, parallel collaboration, product-service systems, zero waste communities, retrofitting the ruins of the unsustainable... it's all in there. This is really, in many ways, the definitive statement of the Worldchanging solutions set (or as close as we can get).
The book comes with a foreword by Van Jones and an introduction by Bill McKibben, as well as with a detailed bibliography and index. The design, again, was created by our friend Stefan Sagmeister. We think Abrams has again made a beautiful book.
The WSJ has a look at Chinese coal production - China's Coal Crisis. I'm not much of a believer in imminent peak coal globally (or even in the next few decades - other than through a drop in demand) but Chinese resources may be constrained compared to local demand.
The idea of peak oil—the point at which global production reaches its maximum—has fixated the energy industry for years. Now, China is grappling with a new worry: peak coal.
State-run media reported that Beijing is considering capping domestic coal output in the 2011-2015 period, partly because officials worry miners are running down reserves too quickly to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding economy.
"China accounts for around 14% of global coal reserves but its share of global coal consumption is already over triple that at 47%, which is unsustainable," Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets said in a report last month.
Imposing a cap would be significant as China's mining sector is already finding it hard to keep up with domestic coal demand, which has grown around 10% annually over the past decade.
Its net coal imports exceeded 106 million metric tons in the first nine months of the year—higher than the level for 2009 as a whole—and state companies have been aggressively acquiring overseas coal assets to secure long-term supply.
In the three years to September 2010, Chinese companies spent $20.96 billion on overseas coal-sector acquisitions, according to Dealogic.
An output ceiling would also underpin regional coal prices, which are near six-month highs on expectations that China will import record volumes of coal this month and in December.
While China hasn't declared publicly it will impose a coal production cap, the idea is gathering momentum.
WIKILEAKS has revealed plans to publish a new tranche of secrets, this one seven times larger than last month's massive 400,000 military reports about the Iraq war.
The announcement comes days after Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant for the organisation's editor, the Australian citizen Julian Assange, following a two month investigation into allegations of rape.
WikiLeaks announced on Twitter yesterday afternoon: ''Next release is 7x the size of the Iraq War Logs. Intense pressure over it for months.''
A Swedish court has issued an international arrest warrant for WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange, on charges of r-pe and misconduct that were first made several months ago. The warrant was issued on a request by Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, who re-opened the case against Assange in September, after it had been dismissed by a lower level prosecutor.
Assange, who is currently in the UK, was “remanded in absentia” on the arrest warrant. Yet the warrant is an arrest for further questioning, not a full charge for criminal trial. The prosecutor’s office said that they had no choice but to issue the arrest warrant in order to continue an investigation into the matter, claiming that Assange had refused to speak with them. Speaking through his UK lawyer Mark Stephen, Assange denied this, with Stephens saying that:
“Despite his right to silence, my client has repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden before he left, and then subsequently in the UK (including at the Swedish Embassy), either in person or by telephone, videoconferencing or email and he has also offered to make a sworn statement on affidavit.
“All of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers.”
...
The accusations came at a time when Assange was applying for a Swedish work and residence permit, which would permit him to be a director of incorporated bodies necessary to the process of basing WikiLeaks in Sweden, which would allow it and Assange to take advantage of journalist shield laws. The request, and the scandal, came several months after WikiLeaks released its “Afghan War Diaries” — nearly 200,000 leaked documents from Afghan war operations, revealing a higher level of civilian casualties at allied hands than had been previously acknowledged.
Assange was refused the permit for Sweden in mid-October, based on the ongoing investigation of the r-pe charges, which had been re-opened by Ny. Since then he has spent his time between Sweden, the UK and Switzerland. On October 22, WikiLeaks released its Iraq war logs, a vast cache of more than 400,000 documents covering the war. Pre-released to The Guardian and The New York Times, the Iraq war dossier pushed the number of documented deaths in the conflict to 100,000 (up from 40,000, and indicative of vastly more), revealing graphic details of civilian deaths arising from bad policing, and casual allied violence as well as sectarian chaos.
The release prompted renewed calls from elements of the US Right for the assassination of Assange, and rumours that he would be charged under the US espionage act if they could get their hands on him. However, the release also coincided with a growing backlash against WikiLeaks and Assange in particular, with the resignation of the No.2 spokesperson, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who accused Assange of being autocratic, and suggested that others were leaving the organisation. The NYT — or members of its pro-Iraq war faction — also published a long profile of Assange at the same time as the Iraq war dossier, essentially accusing him of being paranoid and isolated.
Assange has denied this, and claimed that a host of recruits has joined WikiLeaks. However, he also said that the group is spending 40% of its time fending off cyber attacks from the US and others. The site’s website is currently hosting only the Iraq and Afghan dossiers, with hundred of earlier leaks unavailable — a fact that some have used for evidence in the charge that WikiLeaks has become exclusively focused on the US government, while other leaks sites such as Cryptome, take material — much less interesting material, it must be said — from a wider variety of sources.
When the r-pe accusations were first aired Assange made vague remarks about US involvement in honey-trapping, though few gave this much credence. Ardin, Assange’s named accuser, was after all on the left of the social democratic party, a self-described radical feminist, who had organised Assange’s talks to the “Brotherhood”, the Christian faction of the Social Democrats.
Given that Ardin, her lawyer Claes Borgstrom, and prosecutor Ny were all heavy-hitters in Swedish gender politics, most money was on an out-of-control process becoming subject to wild a-se covering. However, some people have been more sceptical about the other complainant, who had become obsessed with Assange during his lecture tour, and acted as an unofficial photographer. “A known honeypot,” said one source.
Given the nature of the charges, many are reluctant to make explicit charges, though the Swedish libertarian left has less qualms than most, seeing a certain type of legalistic feminism as now part of official state ideology, rather than an instrument of liberation. There’s plenty of that sort of evidence for those who want it — Borgstrom was the social democratic party’s gender equality spokesperson for years, Ardin was “gender equality” officer at Uppsala University, the Oxford of Sweden, and Ny runs a prosecutor’s unit whose explicit brief is to extend the remit of s-x crime prosecution to wider areas of social life.
The missing element is the US, which has been busily re-extending its security links in Sweden after decades of being frozen out by the country’s official neutrality, and the valiant opposition of continuous Social Democratic governments to American imperialism and crimes against humanity.
But the Social Democrats just lost their second election in a row (for the first time in 80 years), indicating a decisive power shift in Sweden, to the centre-right Moderate Party. With that has come a more pro-US attitude (the Moderate Party government has enacted several entirely unnecessary “war on terror” laws in solidarity with the US) and the renewal of co-operation between US intelligence, and SAPO, the Swedish domestic spy agency.
Neither the Moderates nor SAP, nor major elements of the Social Democrats would have much interest in Assange gaining residency, because he would then benefit from the multiple and interminable legal right processes in Sweden (the ones being extended to his accusers, and which he is currently suffering from). Did they take advantage of a chaotic situation? Or even play one of the complainants (Ardin), who had three months earlier posted a “guide to s-xual revenge” on her blog, including tips on how to use the law to wreak havoc on cheating lovers?
For his part, Assange shows no sign of going back to Sweden any time soon, and has announced that he may sue the Swedish government — something he could easily do in the European Court of Human Rights. International human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson told Crikey in September that he thought Assange had an excellent case, and that he would be happy to help Assange out in these matters. Robertson also urged the Australian government to “carpet” the Swedish ambassador over the treatment of an Australian citizen. Small chance of that, but it’s high time that the Greens made an issue of it in Parliament.
The legal process has been farcical, and even if there were accusations of violence, constitute cause for objection. Given the absence of such allegations, or any allegations at all — even the complainants lawyers weren’t allowed to attend the warrant hearing, because the prosecution didn’t want to disclose its evidence — the process has been a travesty. Given the role WikiLeaks has played in challenging state power over the past three years, and the authoritarian nature of many in the Swedish elite, of left and right, you’d be a fool to stand idly by.
Last month, in the swells off Oahu, a company called Ocean Power Technologies connected a small test buoy to the power grid that serves the Marine Corps Base Hawaii. It was a first for a wave energy device in U.S. waters.
"We have demonstrated that our technology works, that it can survive in harsh ocean conditions and can deliver high-quality power to the grid," said Robert Lurie, a vice president of Ocean Power, which is based in Pennington, N.J.
Next spring, the company plans to anchor a larger power buoy in the waves off Reedsport, Ore., for further tests. The ultimate goal, Lurie said, is to build "multi-buoy wave farms" generating enough power to light 50,000 homes.
Tapping the tides is the latest niche in the search for affordable, renewable energy. Widespread use may be years off, but advocates say tides and other hydrokinetic systems, from ocean waves to free-flowing rivers, ultimately could meet up to 10% of America's electric power needs — more than hydropower dams now supply.
Pilot projects or studies are underway not only in Hawaii, but also in Washington's Puget Sound, in Alaska's Cook Inlet, off Florida, California, Oregon and Maine, in New York City's East River, along the Mississippi River and elsewhere.
"These are coastal resources, and most people live along the coasts," said Hoyt Battey, a water power expert at the U.S. Energy Department. "When you're talking about providing half the power of Alaska or Hawaii, or half the power of New York, that's significant."
For now, the technology for marine and hydrokinetic power remains in its infancy, and costs are prohibitive. Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, South Korea, China, Australia and other nations have been testing the waters for years. Commercial operations are rare.
"It's much more difficult to do things underwater than on dry land," said Robert Thresher, research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. "The water tears stuff apart. There's fish, rust, fouling … all kinds of problems."
In Washington state, the Snohomish County Public Utility District plans to install two large turbines to gather tidal data half a mile offshore and 200 feet deep in Admiralty Inlet in Puget Sound."We would hope to operate for three years and then make a decision on whether to expand," said Craig Collar, project manager.
Canada is investing $75 million for three pilot projects in the upper Bay of Fundy, home to the world's highest tides. The first test turbine weighs 400 tons, has a peak capacity of one megawatt and looks like a sunken windmill. ...
In theory, the U.S. resource is immense. Waves and currents are relatively reliable in some areas, and tides ebb and flood twice a day like clockwork. They thus are more predictable resources than wind or solar power.
Unlike wind, however, tides with sufficient range and velocity run only in the nation's northeastern and northwestern corners, mostly Maine and Washington, plus Alaska. Waves are consistently high only on the Pacific coast north of Point Conception, Calif., and in Hawaii.
Several developments suggest a surge of U.S. interest, however.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported this month that it has issued 140 hydrokinetic preliminary permits for proposals to tap tides, waves or river currents, up from a handful a few years ago. In many cases, officials said, applicants are staking claims in case the technology takes off.
I went and saw a movie on the Valerie Plame affair earlier in the week which I quite enjoyed (reliving some of those old moments loathing the Bush gang when they were in office) even if Sean Penn was a little random in his portrayal of Joe Wilson at times - Fair Game.
Geodynamics has completed the first stage of its crucial fracture stimulation at the Jolokia well in the Cooper Basin, but it hasn’t been able to decide yet whether the results are good news or bad. The Jolokia wells are important to ascertain the extent of the hot dry rock resource in the Cooper Basin – a successful result would indicate that up to 6500MW of emissions-free, baseload energy capacity could be brought to the grid over the next 10 to 15 years.
However, the two fracture tests conducted at 4400m and 4700m – the deepest ever in Australia – indicated different geological behaviour to its Habanero well, with the fractures in the super-heated granite at a steeper angle and needing higher pressure to create a flow. On the plus side, the flow rate increased three-fold during the testing.
“Nature is what nature is,” said Geodynamics CEO Jack Hamilton. “Now we’ve got to take the results away and analyse what that actually means.” The most likely conclusion is that further stimulations will be required before the company can conclude that it can stick a commercial heat exchanger at the location and generate energy. “We are not there yet,” Hamilton admitted.
Meanwhile, the company’s giant rig is moving to the so-called Innamincka “shallows”, where its partner in the “deeps”, Origin Energy, will conduct drilling in the hope of identifying a commercial resource in the nearby hot sedimentary aquifers, which are only 2000-3000m deep and less hot, but also less technically challenging. The partners believe that, if drilling is successful, this resource is likely to be brought to commercial operation sooner than the deeps. Geodynamics will resume drilling at the Habanero 4 well next year, with the hope of installing a 1MW pilot plant to power the village of Innamincka installed in early 2012.
Greener pastures
Greenearth Energy has struck an agreement with aluminium giant Alcoa that could be pivotal for the development of its Geelong geothermal project. The memorandum of intent announced on Monday, and negotiated over several years, will allow Greenearth to site its production wells and generating plant on or near Alcoa’s coal mining leases, plug into Alcoa infrastructure to gain connection to the grid, and secure an off-take agreement.
Greenearth managing director Mark Miller described the MOI as a “tremendous outcome” for the company and could help it overcome significant hurdles, not least of these being financing for the proof of concept, and demonstration phases, when it will build a 12MW energy plant. “This is not a financial deal but it should make financing easier down the track,” Miller said.
Miller said he viewed the MOI with Alcoa as a further endorsement of the potential of Greenearth’s project to deliver zero emissions, base load renewable energy to the state. It hopes drilling can go ahead in the second half of 2011, with production possible in late 2012. Alcoa says it has cut emissions from its Victoria operations by 60 per cent over the last two decades and its agreement with Greenearth is part of its “big picture” response to climate change.
Consumer goods group Unilever will today unveil an ambitious new sustainability plan that aims to double sales and halve the environmental impact of its products over the next 10 years.
The initiative will cover not just Unilever's greenhouse gas emissions, waste and water use – but the impact caused by its suppliers and consumers, from agricultural growers to the packaging and waste water produced by consumers of Unilever brands, which include Dove, Persil, Bertolli, Flora and PG Tips.
"More than two thirds of greenhouse emissions and half the water in Unilever products' lifecycle come from consumer use," said the company, "so this is a commitment on an unprecedented scale."
The Anglo-Dutch group also intends to improve the nutritional quality of its food products – with cuts in salt, saturated fats, sugar and calories – and link more than 500,000 smallholder farmers and small scale distributors in developing countries to its supply chain.
The group's new Sustainable Living Plan – to be launched simultaneously in London, Amsterdam, Delhi and New York – is the result of 12 months' planning. Chief executive Paul Polman told the Guardian that the plan was essential because "continuing to increase our environmental impacts as we grow our business is not viable".
He said he was "decoupling" growth from the group's environmental aims and that the changes constituted a "new business model".
Polman said it was essential that companies took responsibility for the damage they are doing to the planet as concerned consumers were starting to "vote with their wallets on responsible products".
"Consumers want more", he said. "They see food shortages, malnutrition and climate change, and governments are not addressing those problems. Companies that do this will get a competitive advantage. Those that do not will put themselves at risk."
Neptune Renewable Energy Ltd announces that it has successfully completed a series of rigorous in-water tests on the multi-million pound full-scale demonstrator of its world-leading Proteus NP1000 tidal stream power generator. A key landmark in the testing process was the powering-up and generation of electricity as proof of the commercial potential of the device’s power curve.
A huge advantage of tidal power is that while the power isn’t steady, it is completely reliable and you know exactly when the power will be generated.
It was President Obama who famously said, after the 2008 vote that “Elections have Consequences.” Well two years later that dictum still applies (as it will two years from now). I bring it up since (h/t to Luis) the European Commission has just released a report on High Speed Rail which gives some of the progress that has been achieved on that continent since the first high speed line was inaugurated between Florence and Rome in 1977, though it was not until the service between Paris and Lyon in 1981 that the boom began. And now Europe has 3,861 miles of high-speed lines where trains can travel at faster than 150 mph (the fastest is over 220 mph in commercial service, 350 mph in trials). The inter-continental service is continuing to grow, though to facilitate progress the EU is seeking to develop common technical standards across the network. Unfortunately, after Tuesday, the prognosis is not that favorable to the change in the United States.
It will be a considerable boon in Europe, as expansion continues. Spain, for example, is planning on expanding the network so that 90% of the inhabitants are within 30 miles of a station. The results can be seen with the reduction in travel times between major cities. (And remember that the stations generally lie in the heart of the city, not an hour or so away as many airports now are).
It becomes faster, and more efficient, as well as (speaking personally) less physically tiring, to travel increasingly great distances in Europe by train, in contrast both with air and car. As a result, the report notes:
The advantages of HSLs, in terms of frequent connections (which can easily be modified depending on demand) and flexibility for passengers, have allowed the railways to compete more effectively against other modes of transport. Since 1997, over 6 million passengers a year have been using the Brussels–Paris HSL. As a result, flights have been cut back on this route.
Overall the growth in traffic has been a six-fold increase in usage.
Since high-speed lines were introduced, the number of passengers opting for this mode of transport has constantly increased. The number of passengers on all German, Belgian, Spanish, French, Italian and British lines increased from 15.2 billion passenger-kilometres (bpkm) in 1990 to 92.33 billion in 2008.
In looking at door-to-door travel times, the report chart shows that air becomes faster than conventional rail at a travel distance (in Europe) of around 240 miles, while air does not become faster than high speed lines until a distance of about 500 miles. I start to think about flying instead of driving at a distance of around 300 miles.
At the present time those dealing with the anticipated growth of the network over the next ten years have not, I suspect, taken into consideration the changing fuel availabilities of the next decade. If, as is a reasonable possibility, crude oil pops over $100 in the next year, thereby drawing increasing attention to the coming of Peak Oil, then it is likely that demand for improved rail traffic will likely rise significantly beyond the 25% increase in growth that has been projected. As I have noted before, trains in Europe are becoming increasingly full, at current rates of demand, even in off-peak hours. In the shorter term, as the report notes, train transport may also be helped by the increasing saturation of existing airports with flights. But it also leads to the problems of using rail to transport goods as well as people. These services have different imperatives, and so the report concludes that two separate systems will evolve. ...
Although the environmental impact of HSLs can also be reduced by improving the energy efficiency of trains and working on other elements of the vehicle, the carbon foot- print of rail travel is still much smaller than that of air or road travel. In the case of a journey from Paris to Marseilles, CO2 emissions in grams per passenger-kilometre (g/pkm) are just 2.7 g/pkm by HS train, compared with 153.0 g/pkm by air and 115.7 g/pkm by car. From the point of view of energy efficiency, HSTs also perform better, using 12.1 grams of petrol per passenger-kilometre, compared with 17.6 for conventional trains, 18.3 for a coach, 29.9 for a car and 51.5 for an aircraft.
So how does this tie into the first paragraph? Well in the United States, and a part of the Stimulus from the Federal Government, high speed lines had been proposed, with funding from Washington. However, with the election of Republican governors in several states due to receive that money, the plans may have to change. The new governor of Wisconsin, for example, has vowed to kill the high-speed line between Madison and Milwaukee. This was meant to be part of a network that would run from Chicago to Minneapolis, and stopping the project will likely cost the state money and jobs – but as a top campaign issue it is likely something the Governor-elect may have to follow up on.
Similarly in Ohio, the incoming Governor, John Kasich has said that “Passenger rail is dead in Ohio.” In this case he was discussing the $400 million plan to restart passenger service between Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.
Work on the high-speed Florida link has already started, this is expected to carry up to two million folk a year from Tampa to Orlando or back, by 2015. It was not favored by Rick Scott who was just elected Governor of the State, though some of his opposition may come from the investment needed to extend the link from Orlando down to Miami. However the incoming Chair of the House Transportation Committee has already spoken out against it.
On the other hand the fate of the investment in a high-speed link in California has not been changed by the election. The backbone of that system, the 500 miles from LA to San Francisco is planned for completion by 2020.
A revolution in green packaging is being launched from a head office in Altona, as leading British retailer Marks & Spencer has announced that this Christmas its entire Swiss chocolate range will be sold in an innovative Australian company's biodegradable plastic trays.
Plantic Technologies' cutting-edge bioplastic, also called plantic, is made from starch and is not only 100 per cent compostable but also completely dissolves in running water.
It's a pretty neat trick, which has enabled the company founded in 2003 to open sales offices in Germany, Britain and the US, and employ about 50 people worldwide. The global biodegradable plastic packaging market it wants a slice of is estimated by British analyst Visiongain to be worth $US1.6 billion this year.
Helen Roberts, head of packaging at Marks & Spencer, says: ''This is a fantastic step forward for food packaging. We know our customers really want to be responsible, and using plantic means they can enjoy a delicious box of chocolates without the worry of what to do with the leftover tray - they can just throw it on their compost heap.'' ...
Plantic's technology, which involves the use of industrial starch with film-forming properties, was developed from research into plastics by an Australian federal government-funded research group, the Co-operative Research Centre for International Food Manufacture and Packaging Science, involving experts at Swinburne University, the University of Queensland and the CSIRO.
Morris says the research was built on Australia's ability to add value to agricultural crops. ''We don't take the whole crop,'' he says.
''When our starch is produced we take a portion: another portion goes to animal feed; another to compost or fertiliser, so the whole crop is used. There's no waste.''
The fact that the strain of corn used is non-genetically modified has been a big plus in the European market, while the company has also recently expanded its US presence, signing an exclusive distribution deal with Klockner Pentaplast, which is one of the world's leading manufacturers of rigid plastics.
Our recent webcast, "A New Life for Plastics: End-of-life Solutions in the Age of Greener Materials," drew a sizeable audience -- and a sizeable number of questions. We only were able to address a handful of them during the webcast, so we asked the three participants -- William Hoffman, environmental scientist in green chemistry at UL Environment; Robert Whitehouse, Director of Applications Development for Metabolix, Inc., a leading bioplastics company; and Kelly Lehrmann, consultant with the German bioplastics firm FKuR -- to respond to some of the remaining questions.
Here are their thoughts on the benefits of bioplastics, the differences among various biobased plastics, the role of municipal waste agencies in creating a composting infrastructure, and other things. ...
What is the best benefit from a bioplastic: the biodegradability or the renewable source reducing the carbon footprint?
William Hoffman: Not all bioplastics are biodegradable. Braskem (Green PE) and PolyOne (ReSound) both produce biobased materials which are not biodegradable. Ultimately, the "right" answer to this question would depend on the application for which the material is designed (and the end-of-life associated with that application). Let's say the material is to be used in a durable application, perhaps an appliance housing where that part needs to last the life of the appliance (approximately 10 years), then biodegradability is not an ideal characteristic. On the other hand, if the material is used in a disposable packaging application, biodegradability would be a desirable characteristic of the end-product since so much single-use plastic packaging end up in landfills.
Robert Whitehouse: The best benefit is a bioplastic that is both biobased and biodegradable. As an example, Mirel™ bioplastics is made from annually renewable resources, corn sugar, and is biodegradable in a wide range of environments including natural soil and water environments, in home and industrial compost facilities where available, and anaerobic digestion. The combination of biobased and biodegradable helps to reduce reliance on petroleum and can help to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills or incineration.
What about anaerobic degradation in a closed landfill?
WH: Once a landfill is closed, the conditions that encourage biodegradation – recirculating leachate, which carry microbes and elevated moisture levels are removed. Indeed, closed landfills resemble the "dry tombs" that William Rathje studied in his Garbage Project in the 1970s.
RW: Landfills are typically unmanaged with regard to microbial activity and so degradation is very difficult to predict. Managed anaerobic degradation facilities typically take from 20 to 50 days for organic carbon conversion.
Tens of thousands of turbines anchored to the bottom of the Mississippi River could someday provide more than a gigawatt of renewable energy, enough to power a quarter of a million homes. That's the vision of Free Flow Power, a startup based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, that recently received preliminary permits from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granting it the right to explore energy production at dozens of sites along the lower Mississippi over the next three years.
The proposed development is one of a number of "hydrokinetic" projects in the works. Such projects seek to generate electricity from wave movement, tidal flows, or river currents, without the use of dams.
The ambitious Mississippi project, however, relies on relatively unproven technology. The only commercial hydrokinetic river-power system operating in the U.S. is a single turbine deployed by Hydro Green Energy close to a conventional hydropower dam on the Mississippi River in Hastings, Minnesota.
Free Flow hopes to deploy hydrokinetic power on an unprecedented scale: hundreds of 40-kilowatt turbines, each the size and shape of a large jet engine and attached to pylons jutting out from the riverbed at 88 locations along the Mississippi. Advertisement
Although most companies developing hydrokinetic technology have focused on tidal or wave energy, Free Flow's chief financial officer, Henry Dormitzer, argues that river power has distinct advantages. "The water flows in one direction, it doesn't have salt in it, and, in the case of the Mississippi, people have spent 100 years tracking water flows and velocities," he says. ...
A 2007 study by the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, predicted that the U.S. could develop three gigawatts of hydrokinetic power from rivers by 2025. That's the equivalent of roughly two new nuclear power plants. "There is no question the potential for hydrokinetic river power is huge, but this industry is so young, it's very hard to say how economically viable it will be," says Andrea Copping, a senior program manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Sequim, Washington.
When I interviewed my friend Tim Toben, he argued that one of the most important things we can do is to "tell the story about the transformation from a world powered by fossil fuels to a world powered by renewable energy -- in poetry, music, art, dance. Make it real for people who can't imagine their way out of the hole we find ourselves in." I've just come across a fascinating multimedia (or transmedia, apparently) project that aims to do just that. The only trouble is, it makes for some pretty bleak viewing.
Collapsus, which was directed by Tommy Pallotta—the producer of Scanner Darkly and Waking Life—is described by its makers as "a new experience in transmedia storytelling". Combining traditional documentary footage with animation, mini-games and movie fragments, the audience is invited to participate by making decisions to try to avoid future blackouts and create a more livable future.
Based around the lives of ten young people around the Globe, the story is set in a world of falling energy supplies, economic disruption and civil unrest. I must admit, the medium is an interesting one—but a brief exploration suggests the message being presented is pretty bleak. I don't want to repeat my arguments about the futility of disasterbation, or the dangers of Mayan prophecy, but I can't help but wish for a slightly more empowering vision.
Of course with IEA insiders talking about inflated oil stats, and secret Government talks warning of imminent peak oil, there is undoubtedly plenty of evidence out there to suggest that a disasterous peak oil scenario is not out of the question. What worries me, however, is that as regular documentaries give way to these transmedia projects aimed at "the connected generation" (not sure what that term says about the rest of us), there is a danger that the choice of medium will inevitably warp the message—there's a reason why so many video games involve violent destruction.
The state government does not conduct any environmental assessment of exploration drilling for gas into coal seams despite increasing concern about its impact on aquifers and water supplies.
Documents tabled last week in Parliament show the government has little understanding of the possible environmental impact of coal seam gas exploration wells that are being drilled.
The Sun-Herald disclosed at the weekend that the government has approved plans by an exploration company to drill a well searching for gas in St Peters. Neither Marrickville Council nor City of Sydney council had been advised of the plans. Advertisement: Story continues below
Exploration drilling is being carried out for gas trapped in coal seams from the far north of NSW, around Casino, to around Gunnedah in the north-west, Singleton in the Hunter Valley and around Camden, south-west of Sydney. Coal gas methane is already extracted already at a number of sites on the southern coalfields around Appin, and at West Cliff, north of Wollongong.
Environmental concerns centre on the need to inject water and special chemicals, so-called fracking fluids, under pressure into many of the wells to force gas to the surface.
Among the tabled documents, an email by senior officials within the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water makes it clear the department has no knowledge of what is occurring, since it has no say in exploration activities.
''The majority of sites that use fracking currently are operating under exploration licences regulated solely by [Department of Industry and Investment]'', which had no environmental or scientific expertise, the departmental officer noted.
American theatre director Josh Fox didn’t set out to make a film, much less star in one. But when he received a letter offering him $100,000 in exchange for allowing some natural gas wells to be sunk on his farm in a pristine river valley in Pennsylvania, he decided to ask around. What he discovered was shocking — and, he insists, of more than passing relevance to Australians as we embark on a future in which natural gas is touted as a ‘‘clean’’ alternative to oil and coal.
Fox found that, across the US, there are more than 500,000 natural gas wells, many of them on private property and many of them tapped using a process called ‘‘hydraulic fracturing’’, or ‘‘fracking’’, as it is colloquially known. In this, a hole is drilled hundreds of metres down and a mix of highly toxic chemicals and water is pumped down that hole under pressure, forcing the rock base to crack, thereby releasing the natural gas trapped in it.
The problem is, about one-third of the water mix stays below ground, and in many of the sites Fox visits in his documentary, this residue has leached into the water supply, as has the gas itself. Where that’s happened, people can’t drink the water that comes out of their taps any more; in some cases there’s so much gas coming out they can set their water alight.
‘‘This is a huge issue because once you’ve contaminated an aquifer you can’t go back,’’ says Fox, who has been in Australia to promote his film, Gasland. ‘‘It’s almost impossible to clean an aquifer, so your standard for drinking water should be ‘no risk’. Not ‘risk balanced with energy’, or ‘risk balanced with industry’, just ‘no risk’. Period.’’
TOD ANZ has a somewhat late post noting that ASPO President Kjell Aleklett is touring the country - Kjell Aleklett touring Australia.
Professor Kjell Aleklett, President of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and head of the Global Energy Systems group at Uppsala University is on a tour of Australia.
Public events:
* 27th October, Whitlam Institute, University of Western Sydney 4-6 pm, "Resource Depletion - The Tie That Binds Peak Oil & Food Security" * 5th November, Brisbane Institute, 12pm, Sustainable Transport * 12th November, University of Sydney, 6pm "The Peak of the Oil Age: Declining world oil production will halt economic growth." * 24th November, University of Melbourne, Prince Phillip Theatre, 6-8pm. (Sponsored by Melbourne Uni GAMUT with additional presentation from your local TOD-ANZ editor Phil Hart.)
More details available on the ASPO-Australia website.
NO WE can't. This decade was definitely our last chance to stop dangerous climate change, if it wasn't too late already, but when Sarah Palin chirps to Fox News that ''cap and tax'' (her derisory term for a US emissions trading scheme) is ''off the table'', she means it.
Her Big Oil-funded Tea Party movement has ruined the possibility of meaningful global action on climate and when federal opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt crows about that he should be utterly ashamed. Another wet used up, like Philip Ruddock.
True, the writing was on the wall before the US mid-terms - even if you took a glass-half-full approach to the outcome of last year's Copenhagen climate summit.
In July, after the limited Kerry-Lieberman climate bill was voted down in the US Senate, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called 2010, which was shaping up to be the hottest year on record, ''the year in which all hope of action to limit climate change died''.
''It wasn't the science, the scientists, or the economics that killed action on climate change,'' he wrote. ''What was it? The answer is, the usual suspects: greed and cowardice. If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money. The economy as a whole wouldn't be significantly hurt if we put a price on carbon, but certain industries - above all, the coal and oil industries - would. And those industries have mounted a huge disinformation campaign to protect their bottom lines.''
But greed needed the aid of political cowardice, Krugman went on, and he laid most blame at the feet of Republican senator John McCain, a one-time sponsor of cap and trade legislation on climate.
''[McCain] reaffirmed support for such a system during his presidential campaign, and things might look very different now if he had continued to back climate action once his opponent was in the White House. But he didn't - and it's hard to see his switch as anything other than the act of a man willing to sacrifice his principles, and humanity's future, for the sake of a few years added to his political career.
''Alas, Mr McCain wasn't alone; and there will be no climate bill.''
By the end of the year, once the UN climate talks in Mexico are over, the failure will be even more glaring.
If a recalcitrant US can't hit its paltry 17 per cent (on 2005 levels) by 2020 emissions reduction target, it would be all but impossible for the rest of the world to make up the slack, let alone limit warming to 2 degrees. The world's only response would be a climate-driven trade war and God knows where that would lead.
Australia's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, makes two points: ''First, it is not clear that the loss of control of the Senate by the Obama administration means the end of prospects for meeting Copenhagen commitments. It has been clear for some time that there were no prospects of a cap-and-trade bill surviving both houses of Congress. That has given rise to renewed focus on federal and state regulatory powers, which are being used vigorously. These are much more expensive, but they look like being pushed a long way. This adds to stimulus to low emissions technologies provided by federal expenditure, and to the effects of a sluggish economy on emissions. And the Copenhagen targets are about 2020 not 2012 or 2016.
''Second, the prospects are poor for effective global mitigation if the US does not in the end make a credible effort to meet the Copenhagen targets.''
That's being polite. Reasonable people have been trying to promote a win-win-win outcome. Developing countries get a chance to improve their standard of living by using cheap energy from fossil fuels a while longer. The rich countries responsible for the greatest share of emissions - historically and per capita - transition to cleaner but more expensive energy sources, because they can afford to. The climate we know gets half a chance. On a bullish view, given human ingenuity, it's hard but doable. We understand the problem and we have the solutions. It's not like trying to end poverty, or usher in world peace. It wasn't about the overthrow of democracy or capitalism.
It was a way forward that would hopefully have avoided the untold costs of global warming.
But no, we have seen the US fight tooth and nail so they can continue to pollute at record levels without paying higher domestic energy bills and everybody else can go hang.
This is inexcusable, unforgivable selfishness and it will not be forgotten, especially by the world's poor, including in our region, who will disproportionately bear the consequences.
Australia has been equally culpable, but wants to pretend it's a bit player. As the world's 15th-largest greenhouse gas emitter and the largest coal exporter, we are becoming a target. We had better decide which side our bread's buttered and a strategy of forever lining up with a destructive America seems foolhardy.
Victoria, Australia will not be introducing water smart meters for household use after receiving a voter backlash against smart electricity meters, even though it conducted a test program in the southeastern suburbs. "Our Government will not be rolling our smart water meters for households in Victoria," stated Water Minister Tim Holding.
The State Government was looking to expand the bungled smart electricity meter system to cover water use as well, even though there were concerns that the system is useful for retail companies but causes household bills to rise.
Before ruling out the meter deployment, the Government conducted a trial by offering South East Water’s residential customers a $50 Myer voucher to participate, according to the Herald Sun.
Before the scrapping of this plan, there were revelations that residential smart electricity consumers will have to pay up to $285 per year just for having the meter. Electricity distributors have permission to recover smart meter installation costs directly from residential consumers.
To counter the customer concerns about bills, the Government-hired consultants gave the cynical suggestion of having a monthly billing period instead of a quarterly. According to the Marchment Hill Consulting report for the Government, implementation of the water smart meter system will help water companies to reduce costs but it may not be able to reduce water price.
The smart meter system will give more control to households regarding water use management, however, it may cause "bill shock," says the report.
The water bill that an average household pays annually is already expected to reach $1000 this year with recovery process starting for the $3.5 billion Wonthaggi Desalination Plant.
Posts
