HUM KISISE KAM NAHIN: Climate-change protests split oil industry
Sunday, August 16, 2009
CLRI develops green tech to process leather
Researchers at the Chennai-based Central Leather Research Institute have developed a novel green technology for leather processing which makaes use of biocatalysts to reduce the amount of environmental pollutants.
The new process makes use of enzymes which reduces the discharge of hazardous substances during the tanning and pre-tanning steps of leather processing by almost 90%, P Thanikaivelan, senior scientist in CLRI, said. It uses enzymes such as carbohydrases, proteases and protelytic to replace the conventional steps of soaking (cleansing and re-hydration), de-hairing, bating (removal of unwanted proteins) and degreasing (removal of fat), he said. "These biocatalysts perform chemical transformations on organic compounds which is otherwise performed by conducting chemical reactions," Thanikaivelan said. Nearly 70 per cent of emission loads of the conventional leather processing emanates from pertaining operations, according to estimates by leather scientists. Citing an example, Thanikaivelan said that the process of de-hairing -- which causes maximum pollution in leather processing -- the scientists had used sodium alkali and sulphide as biocatalysts
The new process makes use of enzymes which reduces the discharge of hazardous substances during the tanning and pre-tanning steps of leather processing by almost 90%, P Thanikaivelan, senior scientist in CLRI, said. It uses enzymes such as carbohydrases, proteases and protelytic to replace the conventional steps of soaking (cleansing and re-hydration), de-hairing, bating (removal of unwanted proteins) and degreasing (removal of fat), he said. "These biocatalysts perform chemical transformations on organic compounds which is otherwise performed by conducting chemical reactions," Thanikaivelan said. Nearly 70 per cent of emission loads of the conventional leather processing emanates from pertaining operations, according to estimates by leather scientists. Citing an example, Thanikaivelan said that the process of de-hairing -- which causes maximum pollution in leather processing -- the scientists had used sodium alkali and sulphide as biocatalysts
India is now a major carbon sink: Govt report
India is rapidly transforming itself into a major carbon sink igniting hopes of big funds for maintaining natural green cover, a new report has said.
The report titled "India's Forest and Tree Cover" prepared by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests said that from 1995 to 2005, the carbon stocks stored in the country's forests and trees have increased from 6,245 million tonnes to 6,662 million tonnes registering an annual increment of 38 million tonnes of carbon or 138 million ton of Carbon dioxide. The report, which was released by Union Minister of state for Forests and Environment Jairam Ramesh recently here, also said that India can get Rs 6,000 crore every year for its carbon sink assuming the value of $7 per ton of Carbon dioxide. Noting that the forest cover accounts for 2.8% of India's total geographical area, the report said, the forest and tree cover is enough to neutralise 11.23% of the country's total green house emissions at 1994 level. This is equivalent to offsetting 100% emissions from all energy in residential and transport sectors or 40 per cent of the total emissions from agriculture sector.
The report titled "India's Forest and Tree Cover" prepared by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests said that from 1995 to 2005, the carbon stocks stored in the country's forests and trees have increased from 6,245 million tonnes to 6,662 million tonnes registering an annual increment of 38 million tonnes of carbon or 138 million ton of Carbon dioxide. The report, which was released by Union Minister of state for Forests and Environment Jairam Ramesh recently here, also said that India can get Rs 6,000 crore every year for its carbon sink assuming the value of $7 per ton of Carbon dioxide. Noting that the forest cover accounts for 2.8% of India's total geographical area, the report said, the forest and tree cover is enough to neutralise 11.23% of the country's total green house emissions at 1994 level. This is equivalent to offsetting 100% emissions from all energy in residential and transport sectors or 40 per cent of the total emissions from agriculture sector.
US probe captures Saturn equinox
Raw images of the moment Saturn reached its equinox have been beamed to Earth by the US Cassini spacecraft.
Scientists are studying the unprocessed pictures to uncover new discoveries in the gas giant's ring system.
Equinox is the moment when the Sun crosses a planet's equator, making day and night the same length.
During this time, the Sun's angle over Saturn is lowered, showing new objects and irregular structures as shadows on the otherwise flat plane of the rings.
Saturn's orbit is so vast that Equinox happens only once every 15 Earth years.
At the moment of equinox, the rings turn edge-on to the Sun and reflect almost no sunlight.
This is the first equinox since 1994 and the first time there has been an observer, in the shape of the joint US and European spacecraft, Cassini.
In an email, Dr Carolyn Porco, leader of Cassini's imaging team, said the long-awaited images did not disappoint: "Even a cursory examination of them reveals strange new phenomena we hadn't fully anticipated.
"Over the next week or two, the [Cassini] imaging team will be poring over these precious gems to see what other surprises await us, and, as usual, we will announce what we have found as soon as we can."
Cassini was launched in October 1997 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It arrived at Saturn in July 2004 to embark on a four-year mission of exploration around the planet and its moons.
The spacecraft is still operating well and has been re-programmed to carry out new tasks. Its current mission is to answer some of the questions raised by its earlier observations.
Scientists are studying the unprocessed pictures to uncover new discoveries in the gas giant's ring system.
Equinox is the moment when the Sun crosses a planet's equator, making day and night the same length.
During this time, the Sun's angle over Saturn is lowered, showing new objects and irregular structures as shadows on the otherwise flat plane of the rings.
Saturn's orbit is so vast that Equinox happens only once every 15 Earth years.
At the moment of equinox, the rings turn edge-on to the Sun and reflect almost no sunlight.
This is the first equinox since 1994 and the first time there has been an observer, in the shape of the joint US and European spacecraft, Cassini.
In an email, Dr Carolyn Porco, leader of Cassini's imaging team, said the long-awaited images did not disappoint: "Even a cursory examination of them reveals strange new phenomena we hadn't fully anticipated.
"Over the next week or two, the [Cassini] imaging team will be poring over these precious gems to see what other surprises await us, and, as usual, we will announce what we have found as soon as we can."
Cassini was launched in October 1997 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It arrived at Saturn in July 2004 to embark on a four-year mission of exploration around the planet and its moons.
The spacecraft is still operating well and has been re-programmed to carry out new tasks. Its current mission is to answer some of the questions raised by its earlier observations.
Energy policy 'too wind focused'
The UK must invest more in nuclear and clean coal energy and put less emphasis on wind power if it wants a secure low-carbon future, business leaders say.
The CBI says government energy policy is "disjointed" and it is urging a "more balanced" energy mix.
The current approach means the UK might miss climate change targets, it added.
The government said putting in place a balanced mix of renewables, new nuclear and cleaner fossil fuels was at the heart of its energy policy.
It is due to set out its Energy White Paper on Wednesday.
But the CBI is calling for more action in its report "Decision Time".
"The government's disjointed approach is deterring the private sector investment needed to get our energy system up to scratch, bolster security and cut emissions," said CBI deputy director general John Cridland.
"While we have generous subsidies for wind power, we urgently need the national planning statements needed to build new nuclear plants.
"If we carry on like this we will end up putting too many of our energy eggs in one basket."
Energy war
The CBI's comments are based on computer modelling of current power sector investment by consultants McKinsey.
The CBI wants the government to:
• reduce the percentage of wind power expected by 2020 under the Renewables Strategy later this week, to encourage investment in other low-carbon energy sources
• speed up the planning process for energy supplies
• produce rules and funding arrangements for for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) demonstration plants
• accelerate investment in the grid
• improve energy efficiency in the electricity, heating and transport sectors, including offering financial sweeteners for consumers choosing more efficient products.
'No surprise'
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said: "We know that big investments need certainty, and we're on track with our promise to remove costly unnecessary barriers to new nuclear, such as the planning reforms already in train."
Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy and formerly a member of the CBI's energy policy committee, told the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin that the increase in wind power was threatening to the big power generators who he said dominated the committee.
"This document is no surprise. EDF have been lobbying very hard for less obligations on renewables, saying it will distract from nuclear," he said.
"This is precisely what Patricia Hewitt [the former trade and industry secretary] warned would happen when she published the 'no-new-nukes' 2003 energy white paper."
Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said that by calling for wind power's contribution to the UK's renewable energy targets to be reduced the CBI is actually doing its members a great disservice.
"Nuclear power is less effective than wind power at tackling climate change, while investment in renewables would create much needed British jobs in one of the few growth sectors in the global economy," he said.
"Here in the UK we have one of the best renewable energy resources anywhere in the world and a manufacturing sector champing at the bit to capture the lead in marine technologies like offshore wind and tidal power."
Meanwhile a DECC spokesman told Roger Harrabin the government was "fully behind" the 15% renewables target.
"We're not setting fixed sub-targets [for electricity, heat, transport], but our projections are about finding the most practicable and cost effective mix.
"Our analysis supports the approach we're taking. We don't believe it inhibits new nuclear - there are a myriad of other considerations to factor in."
The CBI says government energy policy is "disjointed" and it is urging a "more balanced" energy mix.
The current approach means the UK might miss climate change targets, it added.
The government said putting in place a balanced mix of renewables, new nuclear and cleaner fossil fuels was at the heart of its energy policy.
It is due to set out its Energy White Paper on Wednesday.
But the CBI is calling for more action in its report "Decision Time".
"The government's disjointed approach is deterring the private sector investment needed to get our energy system up to scratch, bolster security and cut emissions," said CBI deputy director general John Cridland.
"While we have generous subsidies for wind power, we urgently need the national planning statements needed to build new nuclear plants.
"If we carry on like this we will end up putting too many of our energy eggs in one basket."
Energy war
The CBI's comments are based on computer modelling of current power sector investment by consultants McKinsey.
The CBI wants the government to:
• reduce the percentage of wind power expected by 2020 under the Renewables Strategy later this week, to encourage investment in other low-carbon energy sources
• speed up the planning process for energy supplies
• produce rules and funding arrangements for for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) demonstration plants
• accelerate investment in the grid
• improve energy efficiency in the electricity, heating and transport sectors, including offering financial sweeteners for consumers choosing more efficient products.
'No surprise'
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said: "We know that big investments need certainty, and we're on track with our promise to remove costly unnecessary barriers to new nuclear, such as the planning reforms already in train."
Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy and formerly a member of the CBI's energy policy committee, told the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin that the increase in wind power was threatening to the big power generators who he said dominated the committee.
"This document is no surprise. EDF have been lobbying very hard for less obligations on renewables, saying it will distract from nuclear," he said.
"This is precisely what Patricia Hewitt [the former trade and industry secretary] warned would happen when she published the 'no-new-nukes' 2003 energy white paper."
Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said that by calling for wind power's contribution to the UK's renewable energy targets to be reduced the CBI is actually doing its members a great disservice.
"Nuclear power is less effective than wind power at tackling climate change, while investment in renewables would create much needed British jobs in one of the few growth sectors in the global economy," he said.
"Here in the UK we have one of the best renewable energy resources anywhere in the world and a manufacturing sector champing at the bit to capture the lead in marine technologies like offshore wind and tidal power."
Meanwhile a DECC spokesman told Roger Harrabin the government was "fully behind" the 15% renewables target.
"We're not setting fixed sub-targets [for electricity, heat, transport], but our projections are about finding the most practicable and cost effective mix.
"Our analysis supports the approach we're taking. We don't believe it inhibits new nuclear - there are a myriad of other considerations to factor in."
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Vilsack calls for renewed emphasis on forests
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Friday outlined a vision for managing the nation's forests that placed a high priority on restoration to protect water resources and combat climate change.
"Conserving our forests is not a luxury," but a necessity, the former Iowa governor said at Seward Park in Seattle in his first major address on the Forest Service.
Vilsack stressed the importance of forests and rural lands in supplying much of America's clean drinking water, sheltering wildlife and helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.
He said his vision for the agency begins with restoration, such as improving or decommissioning unnecessary roads and rehabilitating wetlands and streams.
"Restoration means managing forest lands first and foremost to protect our water resources, while making our forest more resilient to climate change," Vilsack said.
The administration's plan calls for the Forest Service to help develop "green jobs" that help restore forests while using them as "carbon sinks" to help offset global warming, Vilsack said. He noted emerging opportunities in woody biomass and carbon markets that could provide private landowners economic incentives to maintain forests.
Vilsack also announced Friday that the Forest Service would not appeal a June federal court ruling that struck down President Bush's 2008 forest planning rule. Environmentalists had fought the rule, saying it rolled back key forest protections.
Vilsack said the agency will develop a new forest planning rule to protect water, climate and wildlife.
He also reiterated the Obama administration's support for protecting roadless areas and said the agency will seek to lift a Wyoming federal court injunction that's blocked a 2001 rule that halted road construction and other development on about 58 million acres of remote national forests.
On Thursday, the Obama administration joined environmentalists to defend the so-called Roadless Rule, which was imposed by President Bill Clinton.
"The secretary's support for a national roadless policy, along with the administration's move to join conservationists in defending the roadless rule in court, marks an important step toward resolving the conflicts and patchwork approach that have hindered forest management for decades," said Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. public lands program.
U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said Vilsack's speech was right on target, particularly in emphasizing better management of forests. Without forest thinning, fires will be more intense, Dicks said.
The Forest Service manages national forests and grasslands encompassing about 193 million acres — an area equivalent to the size of Texas. Still, more than 80 percent of forests in the United States are outside the National Forest System.
Some conservation work has already begun, Vilsack said. The Forest Service has allocated about $1.5 billion through the economic stimulus law for conservation and forest health. More than 500 projects are aimed at creating jobs and promoting forest rehabilitation through projects such as removal of small trees and underbrush that serve as fuel for wildfires.
At least 30 projects will promote development of biofuels from trees, Vilsack said
"Conserving our forests is not a luxury," but a necessity, the former Iowa governor said at Seward Park in Seattle in his first major address on the Forest Service.
Vilsack stressed the importance of forests and rural lands in supplying much of America's clean drinking water, sheltering wildlife and helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.
He said his vision for the agency begins with restoration, such as improving or decommissioning unnecessary roads and rehabilitating wetlands and streams.
"Restoration means managing forest lands first and foremost to protect our water resources, while making our forest more resilient to climate change," Vilsack said.
The administration's plan calls for the Forest Service to help develop "green jobs" that help restore forests while using them as "carbon sinks" to help offset global warming, Vilsack said. He noted emerging opportunities in woody biomass and carbon markets that could provide private landowners economic incentives to maintain forests.
Vilsack also announced Friday that the Forest Service would not appeal a June federal court ruling that struck down President Bush's 2008 forest planning rule. Environmentalists had fought the rule, saying it rolled back key forest protections.
Vilsack said the agency will develop a new forest planning rule to protect water, climate and wildlife.
He also reiterated the Obama administration's support for protecting roadless areas and said the agency will seek to lift a Wyoming federal court injunction that's blocked a 2001 rule that halted road construction and other development on about 58 million acres of remote national forests.
On Thursday, the Obama administration joined environmentalists to defend the so-called Roadless Rule, which was imposed by President Bill Clinton.
"The secretary's support for a national roadless policy, along with the administration's move to join conservationists in defending the roadless rule in court, marks an important step toward resolving the conflicts and patchwork approach that have hindered forest management for decades," said Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. public lands program.
U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said Vilsack's speech was right on target, particularly in emphasizing better management of forests. Without forest thinning, fires will be more intense, Dicks said.
The Forest Service manages national forests and grasslands encompassing about 193 million acres — an area equivalent to the size of Texas. Still, more than 80 percent of forests in the United States are outside the National Forest System.
Some conservation work has already begun, Vilsack said. The Forest Service has allocated about $1.5 billion through the economic stimulus law for conservation and forest health. More than 500 projects are aimed at creating jobs and promoting forest rehabilitation through projects such as removal of small trees and underbrush that serve as fuel for wildfires.
At least 30 projects will promote development of biofuels from trees, Vilsack said
Climate-change protests split oil industry
Key players in the U.S. oil industry disagree over a plan to send workers to rallies to protest proposed climate-change legislation, industry groups said.
The American Petroleum Institute wrote to member companies asking them to stage up to 22 rallies protesting legislation that the API said would increase taxes on the oil industry and create a carbon-trading scheme, the Financial Times reported.
The API represents the entire oil industry. But some of its members, which also are part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, favor many of President Obama's environmental policies and oppose the plan to send workers to rallies.
Shell, General Electric, Siemens, BP America and ConocoPhillips also belong to the partnership, and Shell calls responding to climate change "the pro-growth strategy."
Exxon is a leader of the faction of API supporting the rallies and claims the legislation would put oil companies at a disadvantage against global competitors.
The American Petroleum Institute wrote to member companies asking them to stage up to 22 rallies protesting legislation that the API said would increase taxes on the oil industry and create a carbon-trading scheme, the Financial Times reported.
The API represents the entire oil industry. But some of its members, which also are part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, favor many of President Obama's environmental policies and oppose the plan to send workers to rallies.
Shell, General Electric, Siemens, BP America and ConocoPhillips also belong to the partnership, and Shell calls responding to climate change "the pro-growth strategy."
Exxon is a leader of the faction of API supporting the rallies and claims the legislation would put oil companies at a disadvantage against global competitors.
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