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  • Climate Institute Report card fails Labor and Coalition, with Greens outright winner

    The Climate Institute report card on the parties’ climate change policies shows a stark contrast between the successful Greens (90%) and failed Coalition (23%) and Labor (40%). The environment and climate change tops the economy as a voters’ concern in 2007.

    "The Climate Institute’s methodology is conservative. For example, it overlooks the huge greenhouse gas policies of both big parties in promoting the logging and burning of Tasmania’s forests and Gunns’ polluting pulp mill which will exude 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Both parties back public monies going to fund these activities," Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

    "The Greens’ policy to retrofit Australia’s 7.4 million homes with insulation and a solar hot water service has not been matched by Mr Turnbull or Mr Garrett," Senator Brown said.

    "And neither party is prepared for the shock news (Guardian overnight)that world oil production peaked in 2006 and will fall 7% per year – an issue Greens Senator Christine Milne has pursued in the senate for years."

    "The Greens’ call for a funding switch from tollways to fast, efficient public transport must be heard by Labor and the Coalition," Senator Brown said.

  • US Speeds up tide power permits

    At the Portland meeting on October 2, FERC officials stressed that for the pilot program to succeed, state and other federal agencies would have to be on board or the timetable wouldn’t work.

    "We need other agencies to develop their own processes for this to work," said John Katz, an energy attorney in FERC’s office of general counsel.

    During a morning panel, wave company officials wondered whether the 5 MW limit on the project is sufficient and suggested the license might be granted for a period longer than five years.

    "A five-year term is not long enough to get a return on your investment," said Daniel Irwin, president and CEO of Free Flow Power Corporation, a company that designs and manufactures turbines mainly used to harness river energy. "Why not grant a longer-term license and make the investor or company take the risk. If anything meets this threshold it’ll get pulled."

    Irwin also wondered "what thresholds will there be for it to be required to be pulled out?"

    Kevin Bannister, vice president of business development for Finavera Renewables, agreed that the unknowns are a block to more investment in ocean energies. "The investment community looks at regulatory uncertainties as probably the primary barrier to getting involved in this."

    Finavera lowered the first test buoy for wave energy off the Oregon Coast in late August and has a project in the planning process in Makah Bay in Washington. Bannister also wondered whether the same amount of work would be required of a developer for the pilot 5-year license as for a full 30-year commercial one. If that were the case "we’d obviously go for the commercial license."

    Steve Kopf, a consultant with Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (OPT) asked if there would be a reward for positive results. "If there are problems, we take it out. But if not, do we get to build it out?"

    OPT wants to put 14 buoys off the Oregon coast near Reedsport by 2009, which could expand to a wave park of 200 buoys in the area.

    Finavera’s Bannister agreed. "What’s the reward once we’ve proven that our technologies are doing what they do? From our perspective it should be an expedited permitting process."

    Following the meeting FERC’s Katz said he felt the proposal got a mixed reception, with Oregon state regulators more eager to move than Washington ones. "The Oregon folks say: Yeah we’re there. We absolutely want to do this. The Washington folks say there are a lot of problems here. We just don’t know."

    Annie Szvetecz, the southwest regional assistance lead in the Washington Governor’s Office of Regulatory Assistance, mainly agreed with Katz’s assessment. In a phone conversation following the conference, Szvetecz said Washington is facing different challenges from Oregon.

    Oregon is "being very pro-active about wanting the ocean technology," Szvetcz said. The feedback she’s getting from her agencies is that "the time frame for the permits doesn’t necessarily overlap with the six-month proposal.

    Tim Stearns, senior energy policy specialist with the Washington Department of Community Trade and Economic Development said one key is that Oregon wants to put its projects in the Pacific Ocean while Washington is looking toward locating them in the Puget Sound "which has a lot of problems as is."

    From FERC’s perspective, Katz said, it’s important that state agencies come on board. "It’s a large part of the battle if a relevant state agency or state government wants to help out because they have authority to make recommendations. They have the Coastal Zone Management Act. Input into all the other stuff. So if the state says, `We’re comfortable with all this stuff. We can do it,’—That really gives a big push, because they are a major player. Yes it’s a federal license, but the states are major players….It’s one of those things—if there’s a will there’s a way. And if there’s not, it won’t happen."

    Miriam Widman has more than 20 years experience as a journalist and has covered the wave and solar industries for Off the Record Research, an investment research group. She also contributes to NPR and to the Willamette Week, a weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon.

  • Red wine and Green tea may extend human life

    Diet it seems is a major contributory factor.An experiment with the worms proves that sugar turns on a genetic sequence that increases the amount of insulin produced by an organism, which in turn causes the body to demand more sugar. This increases damage to cells in the body, speeding up the slow degradation of cells that contribute to aging. Red wine and green tea have been shown to help repair cells and contribute to an increased lifespan.

    The most significant finding is that the worms remained vigorous till until the very end of their extended lives. In human terms it would mean that a person would remain young for decades, growing old very slowly. It also suggests a radical new method for treating maladies of aging such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and some cancers, which might be put off or eliminated if youth is extended. ‘Age is the single largest risk factor for an enormous number of diseases,’ says Kenyon. ‘So if you can essentially postpone aging, then you can have beneficial effects on a whole wide range of disease.’

    When asked whether it was possible to be immortal Kenyon says ‘I think it might be possible. I’ll tell you why. You can think about the life span of a cell being the integral of two vectors in a sense, the force of destruction and the force of prevention, maintenance and repair. In most animals the force of destruction has still got the edge. But why not bump up the genes just a little bit, the maintenance genes. All you have to do is have the maintenance level a little higher. It doesn’t have to be much higher. It just has to be a little higher, so that it counterbalances the force of destruction. And don’t forget, the germ lineage is immortal. So it’s possible at least in principle.’

  • Tree dwelling fish reproduces on its own

    Biologists studying the killifish say they astonished it can cope for so long out of its natural habitat.

    The discovery, along with its ability to breed without a mate, must make the mangrove killifish, Rivulus marmoratus Poey, one of the oddest fish known to man.

    Around two inches long, they normally live in muddy pools and the flooded burrows of crabs in the mangrove swamps of Florida, Latin American and Caribbean.

    The latest discovery was made by biologists wading through swamps in Belize and Florida who found hundreds of killifish hiding out of the water in the rotting branches and trunks of trees.

    The fish had flopped their way to their new homes when their pools of water around the roots of mangroves dried up. Inside the logs, they were lined up end to end along tracks carved out by insects.

    Dr Scott Taylor of the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Programme in Florida admitted the creatures were a little odd.

    "They really don’t meet standard behavioural criteria for fish," he told New Scientist magazine.

    Although the cracks inside logs make a perfect hiding place, conditions can be cramped. The fish – which are usually fiercely territorial – are forced to curb their aggression.

    Another study, published earlier this year, revealed how they alter their bodies and metabolism to cope with life out of water.

    Their gills are altered to retain water and nutrients, while they excrete nitrogen waste through their skin.

    These changes are reversed as soon as they return to the water.

    Previously their biggest claim to fame was that they are the only known vertebrate – animal with a backbone – to reproduce without the need for a mate.

    Killifish can develop both female and male sexual organs, and fertilise their eggs while they are still in the body, laying tiny embryos into the water.

    They are not the only fish able to breathe air. The walking catfish of South-east Asia has gills that allow it to breathe in air and in water.

    The climbing perch of India can suffocate in water unless it can also gulp in air.

  • Food prices soaring on international markets

    Impact of international markets: Economists Katie Dean, Riki Polygenis and Amber Rabinov estimated food prices would rise 5 per cent this financial year and were unlikely to retreat much because developments in international markets would outweigh the benefits of any return to normal seasonal conditions.

    Massive price increases due to global demand, constrained supply: An increase in global food demand at a time of constrained supply had helped drive massive growth in many basic foodstuffs. In the 12 months to September the price of barley had soared by 128 per cent on global trading exchanges, while wheat had gained 60 per cent and dairy products such as powdered milk had surged 79 per cent. Adverse weather conditions had hit grain crops, with growth forecasts for global wheat production in 2007-08 slashed from 5.4 per cent to 1.7 per cent.

    Long-term constraints in food supply: Climate change and a decrease in arable land because of population growth, industrialisation and environmental degradation threatened to constrain food supply in the long term.

    The Australian Financial Review, 19/10/2007, p. 18

  • UK claims Antarctic sea floor

    Aus claim not pursued: All territorial claims in the far south were frozen under the terms of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Despite strong indications of offshore oil and gas reserves, a ban on minerals exploration could not be revisited there until 2048. But the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf opened the way for claimant countries to extend their possessions anyway. The Federal Government spent $40 million to survey a claim to about 1.8 million square kilometres of extended continental shelf off the Australian Antarctic Territory, which it lodged with the UN, drawing objections from six countries. In a compromise that avoided more open conflict, Australia lodged the claim with the UN commission, then asked that it be shelved.

    Likely to be shelved, too: "It’s likely not to go far because it is contested sovereignty," said Dr Hemmings, a senior fellow at the University of Canterbury’s Gateway Antarctica. "The UK proposal would be sure to attract a raft of protests too." Hemmings said countries that made claims did so because under the terms of the Commission of the limits on the Continental Shelf they had a "use it or lose it" deadline of 2009.

    The Age, 18/10/2007, p. 5