Category: News
Add your news
You can add news from your networks or groups through the website by becoming an author. Simply register as a member of the Generator, and then email Giovanni asking to become an author. He will then work with you to integrate your content into the site as effectively as possible.
Listen to the Generator News online
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.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
admin /18 May, 2009
Are we moving towards a new oil crisis? ( THE OIL DRUM)
One of the few good pieces of news in the current economic crisis (maybe the only one) is that oil prices have gone from the 147$ a barrel of July 2008 more than 100$ down to less than $50 a barrel on the international markets. However, in the last days we have seen oil prises rising and reaching the price of $58 a barrel for the first time in nearly six months. Nevertheless low oil prices are also good news for gas, since gas prices are normally linked to those of oil. If we remember the difficulties that European fishermen and truck drivers had last year we can imagine what their problems with be if in the middle of an economic crisis they had to deal as well with prices over 100% a barrel.
However, we should not be under any illusion. The current fall of oil prizes is just the consequence of an even more dramatic fall in demand due to economic crisis. I add to that the fears in the financial markets you will understand why investments in futures of any commodity except the safest ones (gold, for instance) are so rare. But the fundamentals that drive the energy markets have not changed. Once the economic crisis is over demand for hydrocarbons will soar again, particularly in the developing world. And some countries are preparing for that. For example the Chinese government has granted a credit to Russian State owned oil companies Rosneft and Transneft $25 bn. against daily supplies of 48,000 tonnes of oil for the next 20 years.
admin /17 May, 2009
Study Halves Prediction of Rising Seas
Published: May 14, 2009
A new analysis halves longstanding projections of how much sea levels could rise if Antarctica’s massive western ice sheets fully disintegrated as a result of global warming.
The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about 10 feet rather than 20 feet, according to the analysis, published in the May 15 issue of the journal Science.
The scientists also predicted that seas would rise unevenly, with an additional 1.5-foot increase in levels along the east and west coasts of North America. That is because the shift in a huge mass of ice away from the South Pole would subtly change the strength of gravity locally and the rotation of the Earth, the authors said.
Several Antarctic specialists familiar with the new study had mixed reactions to the projections. But they and the study’s lead author, Jonathan L. Bamber of the Bristol Glaciology Center in England, agreed that the odds of a disruptive rise in seas over the next century or so from the buildup of greenhouse gases remained serious enough to warrant the world’s attention.
admin /17 May, 2009
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced yesterday that the Federal Government will fund the world’s largest solar power plant at Lake Riddell in NSW’ Hunter Valley.
He said that the government will invest 1.4 billion in solar thermal technology under a Solar Flagships program announced in the budget. The press release about the Solar Flagships program released on budget day, emphasises clean coal technology. On Sunday, though, the Prime Minister indicated that he wants to see Australia move to the forefront of solar thermal power generation.
A prototype solar thermal plant has been operating at Lake Riddell since 2004, build by Ausra, an Australian company that moved to California because of lack of government support.
Read about the prototype
Read background on Lidell Power station
admin /17 May, 2009
Rudd touts $4.5b solar project
Posted 2 hours 6 minutes ago
The Federal Government says it wants to create the largest solar energy project in the world.
Visiting Liddell Power station in the Hunter Valley, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government would spend almost $1.4 billion creating the world’s largest solar project.
The funding is part of the Government’s commitment to spend $4.5 billion on reducing carbon pollution.
admin /16 May, 2009
The NHS must wake up to climate change
Climate change will have a catastrophic effect on human health, but the NHS could do much to protect people from it
Richard Horton
It’s time for the NHS to wake up to climate change. Global warming is the biggest threat to our future health. This isn’t a message that has yet seeped into the public consciousness. It isn’t a message that most doctors and nurses think is relevant to health. But it’s time that health professionals stood on the front lines of political debate to explain why climate change is the most serious danger to our wellbeing, even to our survival.
The threat of climate change is with us now. A two-year commission between The Lancet and University College London (pdf), published today, sets out the scale of the threat to human health posed by climate change. “Even the most conservative estimates are profoundly disturbing and demand action”, the UCL team of health, climate change, and environmental scientists, together with lawyers, political scientists, and economists, conclude in Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change. This is an issue that should not only matter to us now. We should be concerned because of what is likely to happen to the health of our children and grandchildren in the future.
admin /16 May, 2009
Why solar power can help us cycle round the world
Using innovative nanosolar pannier panels on our bikes, we’re aiming to write the solar cycle diaries…
Sunny outlook … with London mayor and keen cyclist Boris Johnson before setting off on our solar-powered world cycling trip. Photograph: Solarcentury
In March 2007, acting on an ambitious whim, I found myself running the Marathon des Sables, a 151-mile (243km) six-day endurance race in the Sahara. The event, dubbed the “toughest footrace in the world” is notable not only for its searing temperatures but for its location in one of Earth’s most unhospitable environments. There could have been no more dramatic introduction to the vast potential of solar power.
It was neither the incredible heat, nor the desolate expanses of scorched earth that had left the greatest impression. Rather, it was the fact that, in the middle of nowhere and without seeing a plug socket for days, a tiny solar panel was all it took to charge my MP3 player.
