Category: Archive

New York faces $US27m bill as 68cm snow fall blankets city

admin /14 February, 2006

A massive front crept up the northeast US seaboard, packing winds of
up
to 100km/h and announcing its arrival with loud thunder and lightning
at the weekend and Monday, covereing the Big Apple in a white blanket
more than 60cm deep.

The New York City sanitation department estimates the cost of digging
out after a snowstorm at $US1 million ($A1.3 million) for every inch of
snow. At that rate the city is facing a bill of almost $US27 million
after 26.9 inches (68.3cm) fell on New York’s Central Park on Sunday,
the highest one-day dump since records begun in 1869 and surpassing the
previous record of 67cm set in December 1947, reported The Australian (14/2/2006, p.10).

Blackouts and transport chaos: Tens of thousands of travellers
were left stranded as airports and bus and rail services across the US
northeast were shut and many thousands more were hit with power outages
in the below-freezing conditions.

New England in the dark: The worst blackouts were in Maryland,
where 85,000 homes and businesses were affected, and in northern
Virginia, where 60,000 were reported without power. Parts of Delaware,
New Jersey and New York’s Long Island were also affected.

Snow glut follows mild month: The snowstorm came on the heels of
an unusually mild January in New York. The last snowfall in the city
was 5cm on January 15. Before that, the heaviest winter fall was on
December 9 when 15cm of snow fell.

Blizzard … a woman emerges from a New York subway / AP

Uganda pulls the plug on Lake Victoria to keep its lights on

admin /14 February, 2006

East Africa’s Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest freshwater
lake, is being secretly drained to keep the lights on in Uganda,
reported New Scientist (11/2/2006, p.12).

Lake resource for 30m people: A report published this week says
Uganda is flouting a 50-year-old international agreement designed to
protect the lake’s waters. Covering nearly 70,000 square kilometres,
Lake Victoria takes a big bite out of surrounding Uganda, Kenya and
Tanzania. An estimated 30 million people depend on it for their
livelihoods.

3pc of lake’s volume vanishes: Since 2003, however, the lake has
lost 75 cubic kilometres of water, about 3 per cent of its volume,
leaving international ferries stranded far from their jetties, fishing
boats mired in mud, and towns running low on water.

Lake history: The only outlet for Lake Victoria, which is ringed
by mountains, is at Jinja in Uganda, where it forms the Victoria Nile.
Until 1954, the lake emptied into the Nile over a natural rock weir,
but that year British colonial engineers blasted out the weir and
replaced it with the Owens Falls dam, now renamed the Nalubaale dam,
which effectively transformed the lake into a giant hydroelectric
reservoir. At the time, engineers agreed that the amount of water
flowing through the dam’s turbines should mimic the old natural flow
over the weir. The formula – known as the “agreed curve” – set a
maximum flow of between 300 and 1700 cubic metres per second, depending
on the water level in the lake. The agreed curve remains in force today
under a treaty with Egypt, the ultimate user of most of the Nile’s
water.

Levels drop after second dam: In 2002, Uganda finished building
a second hydropower complex close to the first one. Soon after its
completion people began to notice the water level falling, and today
the lake is at a 50-year low.

EnergyAustralia blames “dust and moisture” for 10 hour blackout of 20,000 homes across Sydney

admin /14 February, 2006

Widespread blackouts across Sydney suburbs from Menai to Berowra
yesterday (13 February) left 20,000 homes and businesses without power for 10 hours,
exposing power suppliers to hefty compensation claims, reported The Daily Telegraph (14 February 2006, p.4).

EnergyAustralia blamed dust and moisture
settling on porcelain insulators, causing electricity to jump
from its normal path, for the shut down. But residents insisted
blackouts were a regular occurrence. Utilities Minister Carl Scully
rejected claims that it had anything to do with the level of investment
or maintenance.

A spokesman for Mr Scully said it would cost hundreds of
millions of dollars to clean each of the 1.5 million porcelain
conductors in Sydney, the Central Coast and Hunter region.

EnergyAustralia yesterday confirmed it would
compensate legitimate claims from households for the loss of
refrigerated food items.

Poverty and the environment

admin /13 February, 2006

Consider this central paradox of U.S. environmentalism: In much of popular and political culture, the movement is dismissed as the pet cause of white, well-off Americans — people who can afford to buy organic arugula, vacation in Lake Tahoe, and worry about the fate of the Pacific pocket mouse. And yet, the population most affected Continue Reading →

EnergyAustralia and Country Energy pioneer smart meters

admin /13 February, 2006

EnergyAustralia and Country Energy have increased installation of cost effective, smart meter technology, reported The Australian Financial Review (13/2/2006, p.5).

Smart meter technology on the rise : In NSW, more than 25,000
users, including 10,000 households, use smart meters. EnergyAustralia
is installing 9500 a month. Similar expansive plans for smart meter use
have been devised in Victoria, while South Australia is also testing
the technology.

Power bills based on peak period usage: Several different types
of smart meter and metering systems are being tested. The simplest one,
used by about 25,000 EnergyAustralia customers, involves three pricing
periods: peak (2pm-8pm), shoulder (8pm-10pm) and off-peak (after 10pm
and all weekend). Power bills are based on how much electricity is used
in each period.

SMS alerts indicate spike in price: A more complex system being
tested by both EnergyAustralia and Country Energy involves installing
an in-house electricity meter display that indicates energy usage, cost
and greenhouse emissions. As part of the Country Energy trial involving
150 NSW households, customers are sent alerts by SMS, email or the
in-house meter giving up to 24 hours’ warning of a spike in electricity
prices.

Sugar shapes up as new fuel commodity

admin /13 February, 2006

Sugar prices may rise above a 25-year high as surging oil prices spur
demand in Brazil for ethanol, an alternative fuel made from sugar cane,
according to analysts at Barclays and ABN Amro reported in The Australian Financial Review (13 February 2006, p.23).

Here’s why: Brazilian ethanol cost about $US25 a barrel,
compared with $US50 a barrel for US ethanol made from corn. Ethanol now
accounts for about 22 per cent of Brazil’s transport fuel energy, the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a
February 1 report about biofuel. Biodiesel, which can be blended with
regular diesel, is made from oily plants, such as rape, sunflower and
palm, while ethanol is mostly derived from sugar cane, beet, wheat or
corn.

On the escalator: Raw-sugar futures in New York are set to reach
as much as US21c a pound by April, from US18.24c in New York on Friday,
Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, an analyst with Barclays Capital in London,
said. Sugar prices have exploded after languishing below US10c a pound
for a long time.