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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Africa gets off grid power solutions

    At the moment, gas-powered electricity generators are widely used in the town. These need about one liter of gas to run for an hour. With gas hard to obtain in M’muock and a liter costing one euro [US $1.47], or about three times as much as an average meal, this puts a strain on family budgets, Ehlers said.

    She said that the organization had chosen to build lots of small wind and hydroelectric plants around the town and in remote farms instead of one big central plant because the small-scale technology was more affordable.

    Families can pay off the costs of constructing a wind turbine — about 300 euros [US $444] for a 1KW plant and 100 [US $147] euros for a 300 W plant — in installments. And there is more incentive for people to invest their time in maintaining the equipment if they derive a direct benefit from operating it, Ehlers said.

    In addition, the skills learned in building and operating the wind and water turbines, which take about 3 weeks to build, could provide an income to families. Another aim of the project is to give people the know-how to start their own businesses in constructing and maintaining wind turbines and small hydroelectric plants.

    "It’s important that the technology provides an income for people and also that it takes root and flourishes in the area," said Ehlers.

    Project partner Nkong Hilltop will provide microfinance for businesses to buy tools and invest in mobile workshops.

    The chief Kennedy Fozao is participating in all phases of the project. The first wind turbine will be built on Fozao’s home as encouragement to other people in the town. Also, a wind turbine will be built at the local primary school at no cost for the town.

    Professor Julius Tangka from the University of Dschang in Cameroon is giving the Green Step team technical advice on the construction of wind turbines in difficult terrain. Tangka, who is also teaching his students how to design and build wind turbines, is carrying out research in improving the turbine’s efficiency.

    Johannes Hertlein, co-founder of Green Step with Ehlers, plans to teach people in the town how to make the wind turbines using wood for blades, and shafts, poles and scrap metal from cars for the rotor plates, disks and generators. He will use copper wire for coils. Magnets to improve a turbine’s efficiency are the only parts that will need to be imported from outside.

    The wind turbines will be made from locally sourced parts.

    Old car batteries will store electricity for up to a week in order to provide light when there is no wind blowing. Hertlein will also give workshops on how to dispose of batteries and other waste as well as provide information on sustainable farming and protecting the town’s natural resources.

    The cost of the project is 57,000 euros [US $84,300] and if successful, Green Step said it could be expanded to help other towns build and operate renewable energy plants from local materials so that like Cameroon, they will have their own independent electricity supply.

    Jane Burgermeister is a RenewableEnergyAccess.com European Correspondent based in Vienna, Austria.

  • Mine pumps sea water up Andes

    The Esperanza project, set in the Atacama, one of the world’s driest deserts, will pump sea water through 90 miles (145 km) of pipe to an altitude of 7,545 feet (2,300 meters). The average mine requires millions of gallons of water during the course of its life, some 40 years, making access to reliable water increasingly crucial as global warming looms and cities grow.

    More mines near the desert coasts of Chile and Peru plan to install desalination plants soon. Costs of the elaborate filtration systems have fallen over the last decade, while lofty global metals prices, boosted by demand from fast-growing Asia, may keep profits high for years to come.

    Engineers in Peru from Southern Copper <SPC.LM><PCU.N>, a major metals producer, and Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co’s <5706.TK1> Santa Luisa mine have inspected Cerro Lindo’s sea water system as they plan for the future, Arce said.

    Chile’s Escondida mine, the world’s biggest copper mine, may expand a desalination system it installed years ago, said a spokesman at BHP Billiton <BLT.L><BHP.AX>, the mine’s owner. "It’s working really well and we are thinking of expanding it," he said. The existing plant supplies a quarter of all water at the mine.

    WATER CONFLICTS

    Mining drives the Peruvian and Chilean economies, and is chiefly responsible for their exports. But conflicts over water, especially in Peru, where they often turn violent, have delayed billions of dollars of investments in new mines. Poor residents in Peruvian mountain towns, afraid of losing access to fresh water, have delayed Zijin Mining Group <2899.HK> of China’s $1.4 billion Rio Blanco copper project and Anglo American’s <AAL.L> Quellaveco copper project.

    Strident communities concerned about pollution have also forced companies to scrap plans for new mines, including Newmont’s <NEM.N> Cerro Quilish gold project, and the Tambo Grande gold project of a small Canadian company. "The scarcity of water will cause economic conflict – it already has in parts of Peru, and it will affect the development of industry," said Jorge Alvarez Lam, climate change specialist with the Peruvian government.

    (Additional reporting by Dana Ford in Lima and Pav Jordan in Santiago; Editing by David Gregorio

  • Canadian climate scientists muzzled

    Environment Canada scientists, many of them world leaders in their fields, have long been encouraged to discuss their work on everything from migratory birds to melting Arctic ice with the media and public. Several of them were co-authors of the United Nations report on climate change that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

    "It’s insulting," says one senior staff member, who asked not to be named. She says researchers can no longer even discuss or confirm science facts without approval from the "highest level."

    Until now, Environment Canada has been one of most open and accessible departments in the federal government, which the executive committee says is a problem that needs to be remedied.

    It says all media queries must now be routed through Ottawa where "media relations will work with individual staff to decide how to best handle the call; this could include: Asking the program expert to respond with approved lines; having media relations respond; referring the call to the minister’s office; referring the call to another department," the presentation says.

    Gregory Jack, acting director of Environment Canada’s ministerial and executive services, says scientists and "subject matter experts" will still be made available to speak to the media "on complex and technical issues." He would not explain how "approved lines" are being written and who is approving them.

    Jack said the policy is meant to bring Environment Canada in line with other federal departments, but insists "there is no change in the access in terms of scientists being able to talk."

    He says the intent of the new policy is to respond in a "quick, accurate way that is consistent across Canada."

    The reality, says insiders, is the policy is blocking communication and infuriating scientists. Researchers have been told to refer all media queries to Ottawa. The media office then asks reporters to submit their questions in writing. Sources say researchers are then asked to respond in writing to the media office, which then sends the answers to senior management for approval. If a researcher is eventually cleared to do an interview, he or she is instructed to stick to the "approved lines."

    Climatologist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria works closely with several Environment Canada scientists. He says the policy points to the Conservative government’s fixation with "micro-management" and message control.

    "They’ve been muzzled," says Weaver of the federal researchers. "The concept of free speech is non-existent at Environment Canada. They are manufacturing the message of science."

    "They can’t even now comment on why a storm hit the area without going through head office," says Weaver, whose been fielding calls from frustrated media who can no longer get through to federal experts scientists who once spoke freely about their fields of work, be it atmospheric winds affecting airliners or disease outbreaks at bird colonies.

    The weather service has been exempted from having to go through head office. "Due to volume and technical nature of inquiries, weather-related calls will continue to be handled through the Weather Media Access Line," the PowerPoint presentation says.

    Under the "guiding principles" of the new policy, it says Environment Canada employees and "subject matter" experts "shall discuss only their own job within their personal areas of experience or expertise" and "shall respect the judicial process with respect to matters before the courts, and federal laws and policies such as the Privacy Act governing disclosure of information to the public."

    They "shall’ not," the presentation says, "speculate about events, incidents, issues or future policy decisions." Whether this prohibition covers speculation about the impacts of phenomenon such as climate change, which is reshaping Canadian and global ecosystems, is not clear.

    Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

  • Global businesses ahead of governments on climate

    The companies, which describe themselves as "Climate Savers", did not announce any new goals for reducing their carbon dioxide emissions as they have already committed to individual targets.

    Instead they pledged to urge their business partners and other companies to follow their lead, to develop energy efficient products and to encourage their customers to lead an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

    "We are moving into a carbon-constrained world, a low-carbon economy — a new economy," said James Leape, director general of WWF International, which is supporting the initiative.

    "We need champions. There are precious few political leaders in this world yet who are stepping up to the level of action that is required.

    "Climate change would wreak havoc in natural systems of all kinds, from coral reefs to mountain forests, and it could cause — if unchecked — upheaval in all of our lives, and in the economies on which we depend," said Leape.

    The captains of industry issued their call as officials from the United Nations and 21 countries wrapped up two days of talks in Tokyo as part of efforts to forge a new deal on fighting global warming by the end of next year.

    The closed-door talks came ahead of negotiations in Bangkok from March 31 to April 4 on reaching a deal to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations on slashing gas emissions expire in 2012.

    The meeting yielded no firm agreement but there was a "candid exchange of opinions", a Japanese foreign ministry official told reporters.

    "Some industrialised countries said that developing nations are different and so should not all be treated the same on this issue," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    The world’s second biggest economy after the United States, Japan is the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet.

    But Japan is far behind in meeting its Kyoto commitments. The government has refused to legally bind companies to cap gas emissions, fearing that it could jeopardise the economy’s slow recovery from recession in the 1990s.

    The WWF urged Japan to do more.

    "I am struck that we’re not yet seeing Japan leading this issue the way one would expect, and I say that because Japan has been a leader in energy efficiency historically," Leape told reporters.

    Japan aims to take a lead in the debate over measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions when it hosts this year’s summit of leaders from the Group of Eight industrialised nations in July.

    "There’s a great opportunity here for Japan to lead over the next year because the G8 is so important as a political lever," said Leape.

  • Climate chaos reigns in Senate

    "The motion was carried ‘on the voices’, with Labor’s Senator O’Brien the sole opposing voice against the Greens and Democrats. The Government then called a division to force the Coalition to make a decision. Several minutes into the division, many Liberal Senators had moved across to vote with the Greens and Democrats to reprioritise climate over fossil fuel subsidies, but rapid footwork by Senator Minchin came to the rescue of the oil and coal industries, forcing the Senators back to the Opposition benches."

    The text of the motion is appended on the reverse of this release.

    "This comes after Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday played a dead bat in Question Time, refusing to say what degree of global warming the Australian Government believes poses too great a risk of catastrophic climate change.

    "She kept clinging to Labor’s 2050 emissions target of 60% below 2000 levels, which she must now know will not constrain global temperature rises to below 2C given the tremendous increase in emissions and the progress of the science since that target was first set. To prevent catastrophic climate change, a much more stringent target is required."

  • EU flirts with carbon import tariff

    Reuters now reports that the tariff proposal has been dropped for now, but may be reconsidered at the next ETS review in 2011. Under the proposal, foreign companies from countries without emission caps would be forced to buy EU emission allowances (EUAs) to cover the emissions associated with the goods they wished to export into Europe. This would have amounted to a carbon emissions tax on those goods.

    Member states and the EU Parliament have to approve any commission proposals before they become law.

    EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson opposed the idea last year because of the added complication it would pose for international trade negotiations. Talks to further free up world trade are already bogged down with intractable disputes between the major trading blocs of the EU, US and developing countries.

    International trade is an area long beset by tit-for-tat punitive actions. A carbon tariff would have been another spanner in the works at a time when developing countries are trying secure better access to developed world markets, especially for biofuels and biofuel feedstock over which they have been critical of the EU and US import barriers.

    Reuters, Business Week 7/1/08, 15/1/08