Category: Archive

Glacial nudists climb alps

admin /18 August, 2007

Nearly 600 volunteers have stripped for the camera on a melting Swiss glacier high in the Alps for a publicity campaign to expose the impact of climate change.

The environmental group Greenpeace, which commissioned the photo shoot by world-renowned photographer Spencer Tunick, says the volunteers turned up under blue skies near the foot of the Aletsch glacier, a protected UNESCO World Heritage site.

Nicolas de Roten of Greenpeace Switzerland says there are almost 600 people there.

"It’s relatively chilly but that doesn’t seem to be disturbing them," he said.

The campaign is aimed at drawing attention to melting Alpine glaciers, one clear sign of global warming and of man-made climate change, Greenpeace says.

Greenpeace says the human body is as vulnerable as glaciers like the Aletsch in southern Switzerland – which is shrinking by more than 100 metres a year – and the world’s environment.

The group hopes its billboard and poster campaign showing people exposed to the cold will send a shiver down the spines of the public and politicians, and convince them to do more to tackle pollution and climate change.

Members Bill opposes nuclear waste dump in SA

admin /18 August, 2007

"In an interview with The Age newspaper of 5 April this year, former WMC boss Hugh Morgan indicated that he was in the nuclear business `for the long haul’", said Mark Parnell, Greens member of the South Australian Legislative Council (11/8/2007), introducing his Nuclear waste storage facility (Prohibition) (Prohibition of other Nuclear facilities) Amendment Bill .

Next step to Traveston Crossing Dam

admin /18 August, 2007

Announcing the release of the final terms of reference of the environmental impact statement for the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam, Queensland Deputy Premier Anna Bligh said "Queensland Water Infrastructure, the company established by the state government to deliver the dam, will now press on with preparing the environmental impact statement, which is expected to be released for further public comment by October. She commended the people of SE Queensland for cutting their water consumption to 135 litres per person per day.

Risk to NSW coast increases

admin /18 August, 2007

A UN panel report on expected sea level rises may have been too conservative, reported The Age (6/8/207, p. 5). Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, a key scientific author of the UN’s recent report on climate change, had published a new way of projecting sea level rise from global warming. His method pointed to higher sea level rises than published by the UN panel this year. "This isn’t just my concern. There’s a number of scientists who were not very happy with the impression given in the summary of the report that sea level rise projections had dropped compared to the previous report," Rahmstorf said.

Renewables pass textiles in Massachusetts

admin /18 August, 2007

The clean energy sector, which Governor Deval Patrick has identified as a key emerging industry for Massachusetts, is about to overtake textiles as the 10th largest in the Commonwealth, according to a "census" of the clean energy cluster released today by the Patrick Administration and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC).

"The Renewable Energy Trust is working with the Patrick Administration to make direct investments that help clean energy companies expand operations and create new jobs in Massachusetts."

— Mitchell Adams, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Executive Director

The census, prepared by Global Insight of Lexington for MTC’s Renewable Energy Trust, identified 556 entities engaged in renewable energy; energy efficiency and demand response; consulting and support; and university research related to clean energy. Employment in these firms, most of which are young and small, was estimated at 14,400.

The Appeal of Animal Waste

admin /18 August, 2007

by Ken Silverstein, EnergyBiz Insider

The whole idea stinks. But generating heat and power from livestock manure is appealing. The compost is placed into an oxygen-free machine that separates the methane gas and then uses it to create electricity to power farms or transport over the grid.

"We’re absolutely the pioneers in this. The fact that we can take manure and other materials and digest them and make viable natural gas means the market is really unlimited. It’s only limited by how many cows and hogs you have in feedlots." — Pat Chase, Microgy, Texas regional manager

The technology is an important component in the fight against climate change. Normally, farms store the waste in a lagoon and then later use it as a fertilizer. But, that natural decomposition creates methane, which is actually 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to affecting the Earth’s temperature.

The ability to capture that gas and then reuse it in an environmentally friendly manner not only lessens greenhouse gas output; it also reduces the need for other types of fuel sources.

Experts also say that the process by which the methane is extracted through an "anaerobic digester"—an oxygen free machine—cuts both odors as well as the volume of solid manure by 90 percent. It thereby minimizes surface and groundwater contamination. The remaining waste makes for better quality fertilizer. About 135 electricity-producing manure digesters now exist on U.S. farms, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Those systems produce 248 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.