Solar Power Offers Light and Hope to Bangladesh Villages

At the moment, only 40 per cent of Bangladesh's nearly 150 million people have access to electricity, often only for a few hours a day.

At some places, electricity does now show up for days, making lives difficult at home and disrupting industries and farming, where irrigation pumps stand idle.

The country's power system is almost entirely dependent on fast depleting fossil-fuel, with state-owned and private sector power plants only able to generate up to 3,800 megawatts of electricity a day against a demand of 5,500 megawatts.

All of this makes solar energy systems, offered to villagers heavily subsidized by the World Bank and via an installment scheme run by the state-owned Infrastructure and Development Company Limited (IDCOL), a big relief.

Grameen Shakti, a non-profit organization linked to the Nobel Prize winning micro credit agency Grameen Bank, pioneered home solar systems and works with the World Bank and IDCOL to spread the technology throughout the impoverished country.

"Literally 80 to 85 million Bangladeshis are not getting any electricity. So we are extracting sunshine and producing green energy at the grassroots level," said Dipal Chandra Barua, managing director of Grameen Shakti.

"Right now 2.5 million people are benefiting from solar energy and we have a plan to reach 10 million people by the end of 2012," said Barua, who recently won the $1.5 million Zayed Future Energy Prize from Abu Dhabi for his contribution to renewable energy technology.

Since June, Grameen Shakti has installed more than 250,000 solar home systems, accounting for some 66 per cent of the total of solar-powered households. Barua said around 10,000 new solar home systems are being fitted every month.

In Pritomoddi, televisions and mobile phones, which not long so ago were unattainable luxuries, have become common as most villagers enjoy uninterrupted power.

Businesses are also booming.

"Now I keep my shop open hours after the sun had gone down. I get bright light from the solar system instead of the dim glow of kerosene-fired lanterns. It cut my cost, attracts customers and has pushed my business up," said tailor Akthar Hossain.

"Previously when I did not have the solar, I had to pull down shutters early, and had to be content with less than 500 taka ($7) daily. Now I earn more than 800 taka ($12) a day."

(US$1= 69 taka)

SOURCE : REUTERS

Vulnerable small island states and least developed nations team up for tougher climate pact

The world's poorest nations joined small island states on Friday to urge far tougher global goals for fighting climate change, saying their people were at risk from everything from droughts to rising sea levels.

The two groups, representing some 80 nations, formed a joint bloc to push for a goal of limiting world temperature rises to as far below 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as possible as part of a new climate treaty due to be agreed in December in Copenhagen.

"Climate change is here, and already delivering damage," said Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, chair of the least developed countries (LDC) group, mostly African nations. "Hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods are all on our doorstep.

"These impacts have the potential to threaten social and political stability and, in some cases, the very survival of low-lying island states," he told a news conference at the end of an August 10-14 session of U.N. climate negotiations in Bonn.

Last month, a group of 17 major economies, including the United States and China, agreed at a summit in Italy to seek to limit global warming to no more than 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Temperatures have already risen by about 0.7 Celsius.

Small island states, which fear being wiped off the map by rising sea levels if Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets melt, adopted the 1.5 Celsius goal last year, arguing that 2 C was too much. The LDC group joined in backing the goal on Friday.

"This is significant. You have two major groups now agreed on the same target," said Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF conservation group's global climate initiative.

He noted a deal in Copenhagen to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol has to be approved by unanimity among more than 190 nations involved.

The two groups said the 1.5 Celsius ceiling meant rich nations should cut greenhouse gases by at least 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Average cuts promised so far by the rich total just 10 to 16 percent, they said.

"This risks taking us on a path to temperature increases in excess of 3 degrees above pre-industrial levels," said Dessima Williams of Grenada, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States. "Such a path would be catastrophic for all nations."

They also said proposals for aid to help developing nations adapt to the impacts of climate change were vague and far short of needs of up to about $100 billion a year.

"We've not seen one proposal on the table that will deliver the level of financing required," said Selwin Hart of Barbados.

SOURCE : REUTERS

Early farming methods caused climate change, say researchers

Farmers thousands of years ago cleared land by burning forests and moved to a new area once the yields declined, say scientists

A study published online in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews by researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) said that early farmers could have cleared five or more times as much land as they used at any one time.

According to the researchers, today's population of six billion people uses about 90% less land per person for growing food than the early farming societies.

William Ruddiman, the paper's lead author and emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, said the early farmers were likely to have cleared land by burning forests, planted crop seeds among the dead stumps and moved on to a new area once the yields declined.

"They used more land for farming because they had little incentive to maximise yield from less land, and because there was plenty of forest to burn. They may have inadvertently altered the climate," he said.

Ruddiman first published a hypothesis five years ago suggesting people began altering the global climate thousands of years ago, with human activity accounting for rises in carbon dioxide that began about 7,000 years ago.

His theory was criticised by scientists who believe the human impact on the climate began with the industrial revolution because earlier populations were too small to influence the level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

But Ruddiman said that early farming methods, with around 10 times the amount of land per person than is used today, could have created an impact on the climate despite the small number of people in early civilisations.

He suggests it was only as populations grew larger that farming technologies improved to increase yields using less land.

His co-author, Erle Ellis, of UMBC, said: "Many climate models assume that land use in the past was similar to land use today and that the great population explosion of the past 150 years has increased land use proportionally.

"We are proposing that much smaller earlier populations used much more land per person and may have more greatly affected climate than current models reflect."

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

The Naturmobil is the ultimate green car

The future of eco-friendly travel has nothing to do with hybrid synergy drives – instead it involves four wheels, a treadmill, and a horse. The Naturmobil, the brainchild of an Iranian engineer, Hadi Mirhejazi, combines 19th-century travel with 21st-century gym equipment.

In essence it is a horse, tethered to a treadmill, inside a perspex box on wheels. The driver and passenger sit in the front (the prototype is a two-seater sports car), while the horse is in the back. To get moving you simply turn on the treadmill and wait for the "engine" to start trotting. The horse's movement, aided by 20 gears, recharges the treadmill's battery, and keeps the vehicle moving. It can go at quite a canter, reaching 28mph during a road test.

Mirhejazi spent more than two years building the Naturmobil, and says he uses "many types of technology to make the horse comfortable". The animal sits under a jacket of cold water. For the more delicate problem of "emissions", Mirhejazi straps on an extra-large colostomy bag. The waste is then collected beneath the treadmill, "so the road will not get dirty or smell bad"; a selfless design, given there is no partition between horse and driver.

There are a few drawbacks. Despite the horse's cooling system, the Naturmobil is not suitable for hot climates. Motorways and main roads are also off-limits.

Mirhejazi had hoped to attract advertising for the vehicle's exterior, which could host two LCD screens. The plan was to take a publicity road trip around the world. Alas, the plan never came off. Mirhejazi has offered to give away the prototype, patent, and $100,000 to anyone who can explain why the Naturmobil was really invented. Advertising? Eco-friendly horse box? It seems the inventor himself is not entirely sure.

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

Brazil Meat Company to Refuse Cattle From Amazon

Brazil's top leather exporter and second-largest beef exporter, Bertin, said on Thursday it has signed a pact with environmental campaigner Greenpeace to refuse purchases of cattle reared in recently-deforested parts of the Amazon.

The company will register and map all farms from which it buys cattle directly within the next six months and by 2011, expand systems that enable it to trace cattle from the farms to its facilities, including rearing and nursery farms.

"We already had a system to avoid buying from illegally deforested areas, now we're including legally cleared areas," said Bertin's Vice President Fernando Falco.

"We're just speeding up our (monitoring) system and adhering to a cause which society is demanding."

The announcement comes after meatpacker Marfrig signed a similar pact with Mato Grosso state's government. The state has the biggest cattle herd in Brazil.

Bertin's initiative is not restricted to the state; it includes the whole Amazon biome, where it has seven units -- four in Para, one in Rondonia and two in Mato Grosso.

It will use satellite images to map cattle ranches and ban purchases from areas deforested after June 2009.

Brazil's beef sector has been criticized for its role in deforestation of the world's largest rain forest.

Greenpeace this year released a report linking the beef business with illegal deforestation, leading key Brazilian retailers to say they would halt purchases from some suppliers.

Bertin's agreement, signed with Greenpeace, is based on a similar accord launched by the soybean industry in 2006. But Falco acknowledged that cattle herds are more difficult to monitor than soy farming.

SOURCE : REUTERS

China's Power Generating Capacity Tops 800 GW: Report

China's installed power generating capacity exceeds 800 million killowatts (800 gigawatts) with a new hydropower generator coming on line, state media reported on Sunday.

That puts China just over halfway toward its target of 1,600 gigawatts of installed power generating capacity by 2020.

The latest addition came from the no. 6 generator at Laxiwa Hydropower Station, the country's largest hydropower station on the Yellow River, which has started running, Xinhua news agency reported.

SOURCE : REUTERS

Plunge in India Water Levels Threatens Farms: Study

Groundwater levels in northern India have fallen about 20 percent more than expected because of excessive pumping, threatening to spark a major food and water crisis, according to a study based on U.S. space agency data.

The study, led by Matthew Rodell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said groundwater across three states, including the New Delhi region, dropped at a rate of 1.6 inches per year between August 2002 and October 2008.

That depletion is double the capacity of India's largest reservoir and is around 20 percent higher than previous estimates by Indian authorities. More than 110 million people live across the three states, or nearly twice the population of Britain.

"If measures are not taken soon to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, the consequences ... may include a reduction of agricultural output and shortages of potable water, leading to extensive socio-economic stresses," the study said.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, come as almost a quarter of India faces drought because of failing monsoon rains this year. But the drop reported in the study came in years where there was no shortage of rainfall, so the decline was caused by excessive demand for irrigation and other uses.

The study, nonetheless, only confirms what has been long feared. Water shortages plague Indian cities and villages alike as a burgeoning population of 1.1 billion people tries to meet growing economic and farming activity, stretching natural resources.

Experts say water availability could impact economic activity in a country trying to beat a downturn and return to 9-10 percent growth.

The Indian government released an environmental report this week that said a growing percentage of its groundwater was neither drinkable nor could be used for irrigation.

"This illustrates that degraded water quality can contribute to water scarcity as it limits its availability for both human use and the ecosystem," the Indian report said.

SOURCE : REUTERS

Exxon Agrees to Pay $600,000 in Bird Killings Case

Exxon Mobil Corp has agreed to pay $600,000 and has already spent more than $2.5 million as part of a guilty plea to killing migratory birds in five states, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

It said Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company, had agreed to pay $400,000 in fines and $200,000 in community service payments as part of the plea deal.

Exxon also has already spent more than $2.5 million to begin implementing an environmental compliance plan over the next three years to prevent bird deaths at its facilities, the Justice Department said.

It said Exxon pleaded guilty in federal court in Denver to violating a federal law designed to protect migratory birds.

The department said the case stemmed from the deaths of about 85 protected birds, including waterfowl, hawks and owls, at Exxon drilling and production facilities in Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.

According to court documents, most of the birds died after exposure to hydrocarbons in uncovered natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities.

During a three-year probationary period, Texas-based Exxon must implement a plan designed to keep birds from coming into contact with oily waters at its facilities in the five states, the department said.

SOURCE : REUTERS

US marines in Afghanistan launch first energy efficiency audit in war zone

Commandant calls for 10,000-strong contingent to be more energy efficient to save lives and money

The US Marines Corps ordered the first ever energy audit in a war zone today to try to reduce the enormous fuel costs of keeping troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

General James T Conway, the Marines Corps Commandant, said he wanted a team of energy experts in place in Afghanistan by the end of the month to find ways to cut back on the fuel bills for the 10,000 strong marine contingent.

US marines in Afghanistan run through some 800,000 gallons of fuel a day. That's a higher burn rate than during an initial invasion, and reflects the logistical challenges of running counter-insurgency and other operations in the extreme weather conditions of Afghanistan.

"We need to understand where the fuel goes," Conway told a Marines Corps energy summit today. "The largest growing demand on the battlefield today is for electricity and how we create that."

He added: "We are going to more efficient. We have got to be."

Conway's announcement — and the summit itself, which is the first of its kind — were seen yesterday as a dramatic shift in the US military's approach to energy consumption and climate change.

The Pentagon began to acknowledge America's reliance on fossil fuels and climate change as a national security concern in 2002. A report from the Pentagon's military advisory board last May called on military bases to work to lower their carbon footprint. A number of bases inside the US have begun to tap into renewable fuel sources including wind and solar energy.

But the Marine Corps are the first service to try to put those policies into action on the battlefield.

The costs of shipping water and fuel to the troops is also becoming unsustainable. The price of a gallon of petrol in a war zone can cost up to $100. "It is a shocking figure to compute what it costs by the time you pour that gallon of gas into a Humvee or an aircraft in the place you are operating," Conway said.

He said he was looking to his energy auditors to find ways of cutting back energy consumption at operating bases, and also to pare down the equipment carried by each individual marine. An average marine carries about 9lbs of disposable batteries in their kit to power equipment such as night vision goggles and radios.

One immediate target of the auditors is likely to be climate control. Some 448,000 gallons alone are used to keep tents cool in the Afghan summer, where temperatures reach well over 40C, and warm in the winter, said Michael Boyd, an energy adviser to the Marine Corps.

The marines have been exploring ways to reduce that consumption by spraying tents with a foam coating.

"That's a huge saving and you are no longer putting trucks on those roads, and tanker drivers in harm's way and everyone else involved on the way," Boyd said.

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

Millions of Salmon Disappear From Canadian River

Millions of sockeye salmon have disappeared mysteriously from a river on Canada's Pacific Coast that was once known as the world's most fertile spawning ground for sockeye.

Up to 10.6 million bright-red sockeye salmon were expected to return to spawn this summer on the Fraser River, which empties into the Pacific ocean near Vancouver, British Columbia. The latest estimates say fewer than 1 million have returned.

The Canadian government has closed the river to commercial and recreational sockeye fishing for the third straight year, hitting the livelihood of nearby Indian reserves.

Salmon are born in fresh water before migrating to oceans to feed. They return as adults to the same rivers to spawn.

Several theories have been put forward to try to explain the sockeye's disappearance:

• Climate change may have reduced food supply for salmon in the ocean.
• The commercial fish farms that the young Fraser River salmon pass en route to the ocean may have infected them with sea lice, a marine parasite.
• The rising temperature of the river may have weakened the fish.

The Canadian government doesn't know what's killing the fish, but believes the sockeye are dying off in the ocean, not in fresh water, based on healthy out-migrations, said Jeff Grout, regional resource manager of salmon for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

It's too soon to know yet how widespread salmon losses are in the Pacific salmon fishery, but British Columbia's northern Skeena River has also seen lower-than-expected returns this year, Grout said.

Signs are more positive for other salmon species such as chinook, pink and coho, he said.

The reduced salmon return affects the environment around the Fraser River, Proboszcz said. After spawning, adult salmon die, creating a food source for bears and eagles and adding nutrients for plants.

SOURCE : REUTERS