Chinese farmer turned eco-warrior takes on big business

Yahoo – AFP, Yanan WANG, November 12, 2017

Farmer Wang Enlin (2nd L) sits in his house with fellow environmental activists who
 have taken on a subsidiary of China's largest chemical firm, accusing it of polluting and
destroying farmland (AFP Photo/Nicolas ASFOURI)

Yushutun (China) (AFP) - Wang Enlin, an elderly farmer who left school when he was 10 years old and taught himself law armed with a single textbook and dictionary, makes for an unlikely eco-warrior.

Yet the 64-year-old is determined to reap justice as he readies for a fresh battle in his war with a subsidiary of China's largest chemical firm, which he accuses of polluting and destroying his farmland.

"In China, behind every case of pollution is a case of corruption," he said of his mission to bring Qihua Chemical Group (also known as Heilongjiang Haohua Chemical) to account.

Wang and others villagers from northeast Heilongjiang province have sued Qihua accusing it of contaminating their soil, rendering it untenable for crops, in a case that has stretched on for more than 16 years.

This February, Wang and his self-styled "Senior Citizen Environmental Protection Team" earned a rare victory when a local court ordered Qihua to clear up their chemical waste site -- adjacent to the farmers' land -- and pay a total of 820,000 yuan ($120,000) to compensate for lost harvests in 55 affected rural households.

But that ruling was overturned on appeal, and Wang is now gearing up to fight back on another day in court.

"We will absolutely win. The law is on our side," Wang told AFP.

His case is testing the possibilities of a national environmental protection law revised in 2015.

The legislation was widely touted as a way to open the courts to public interest environmental damage lawsuits, but has been criticised for poor implementation.

Farmer Wang Enlin (2nd L) sits in his house with fellow environmental activists who 

have taken on a subsidiary of China's largest chemical firm, accusing it of polluting 

and destroying farmland (AFP Photo/Nicolas ASFOURI)

Change your fate

Qihua is a subsidiary of the state-owned ChemChina, the country's largest chemical enterprise. It specialises in crude oil processing and petroleum products.

Wang's battle began in 2001, when a village committee leased 28.5 hectares (70 acres) to Qihua for use as a chemical waste dumping ground without the villagers' consent.

The villagers claim that the company failed to take proper pollution control measures.

Wang says he felt compelled to teach himself law after realising he lacked the knowledge or resources to take on the might of an industrial giant.

China had just emerged from its Great Famine when Wang left school: "It didn't matter at the time whether you got an education," he said. "It wouldn't change your fate."

He was well into middle age when he found a textbook on environmental law at a local bookstore. It took him years to understand as he painstakingly looked up unfamiliar terms in a dog-eared dictionary.

After petitioning the local authorities to no avail, he received aid in 2007 from the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, which helped the villagers put together a lawsuit using evidence he had compiled.

A 2013 sampling of mercury levels conducted on the site by the Green Beagle Institute, a Beijing-based non-profit, found the land was "not suitable for agricultural use".

The Ministry of Environmental Protection included Qihua in a 2014 list of "major" environmental cases.

But it was still another year before Wang's case was accepted into China's justice system.

Prominent environmentalist Ma Jun told AFP that while the litigation process has been streamlined since 2015, pollution lawsuits can still take years to be heard partly because "local governments give some degree of protection to polluting companies".

Today Wang prepares his own legal paperwork and hosts daily gatherings at his home for villagers hoping to learn about their rights.

Wang, who suffers from lung problems and requires medicine to help him breathe, accuses Qihua of "pretending to be deaf and mute" on the issue.

He says he is frequently visited by police officers who urge him to drop the case and stop talking to the media.

Qihua's lawyers declined to comment on the case.

'Corrupt officials'

In September, the Qiqihar Intermediate People's Court accepted Wang's request to appeal the ruling that overturned his initial victory.

"We're just farmers, without any resources or power," said Wang Baoqin (no relation), a member of Wang Enlin's senior citizens' environmental group.

"Against the government, we can't win. Against those corrupt officials, we definitely can't win. So we decided to take the side road and fight the company."

According to Rachel Stern, the author of "Environmental Litigation in China: A Study in Political Ambivalence," the number of new legal cases related to natural resources has increased tenfold over the past decade.

The Supreme People's Court heard 133,000 such cases last year.

Some complainants have found success: in 2015, a petrol giant was ordered to pay 1.68 million yuan ($265,000) to 21 fishermen whose livelihoods suffered from oil spills.

Qihua's plant did not appear to be in operation when AFP reporters visited in late August. The land was dry and marked by patches of overgrown grass, no longer the site of a massive wastewater pond.

But no crops will grow in the spot again, Wang Baoqin predicted.

"We may not even see justice in our lifetimes," she said. "We're doing this for the generations to come."

A Chinese farmer who taught himself law takes on the big business that polluted his and his neighbors' lands https://t.co/BtWvQJBrI7 pic.twitter.com/wGlDbb8Njo

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 12, 2017

Organic farming reaches record level in Germany

Increasing numbers of German farmers are relying on organic production, with 7.5 percent of all arable land now cultivated ecologically. The government has set its sights on an ambitious target of 20 percent.

DeutscheWelle, 16 July 2017

According to new figures from the Federal Office of Agriculture and Food (BLE), the total area of ecologically cultivated land in Germany in 2016 rose 14.9 percent in comparison with the year before to reach 1.25 million hectares (3.09 million acres). That represents 7.5 percent of all arable land.

As a comparison, in 2015, 6.5 percent of all arable land was cultivated ecologically, up from 3.2 percent at the turn of the millennium. The number of organic farms also rose last year by 9.6 percent to 27,132.

Compared to the year 2000, the number of organic farms has more than doubled from 12,740.

"Organic farming has established itself alongside conventional agriculture as an important pillar of the German agriculture and food industry," German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt told reporters from the Funke media group.

He said, however, that the government was still far from achieving its goal of increasing the share of organic farming to 20 percent of the total agricultural area. No specific date has yet been given for its implementation.

Germany is the largest organic market in Europe, but the scarcity of land available for organic farming could threaten its long-term development.

EU to talk eco-farming

EU agriculture ministers ars scheduled to discuss a new legal framework for organic farming at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Schmidt wants to ensure that the growth potential of organic agriculture is not slowed down. "I am in favor of growing demand for organic products being covered by domestic production," he said.

The aim, he said, was to adopt regulations at the EU level that would provide legal certainty and reliability to small and medium-sized enterprises.

On Saturday, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks called for a changed approach to agriculture tending to ecological cultivation. She warned of massively decreasing insect populations in Germany over the past 35 years, attributing the reduction partly to the use of pesticides in agriculture.

According to the Bund Ökologische Lebensmittelwirtschaft (BÖLW), an organic market working group, the organic food market in Germany grew to 9 billion euros in 2016, its best year on record. A decade ago, it was worth 2.9 billion euros.

Hongkongers pooh-pooh waste treatment plant, despite free spa

Yahoo – AFP, May 26, 2016

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different
temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge (AFP Photo/
Isaac Lawrence)

Hong Kong (AFP) - It is billed as a groundbreaking way to deal with Hong Kong's human waste, and even includes an onsite spa free to residents, but a new eco-friendly sludge treatment plant has not washed with some locals.

The sustainable T-Park development blends into coastal hills near the town of Tuen Mun in the north of Hong Kong, a sleek low-rise building with a roof shaped like a wave.

Each day, the HK$5 billion ($644 million) plant treats 1,200 tonnes of sludge from the city's wastewater treatment plants to avoid it being dumped in Hong Kong's overflowing landfills.

"We can live together in a dense city 

without making the planet dirty," said 

Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia 

(AFP Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The plant desalinates its own seawater and powers itself by the energy created from burning organic waste in what is the world's largest sludge incinerator.

Built by French management giant Veolia, city officials say it is "one of the most technologically advanced facilities" of its kind and will not emit pollutants.

But locals who already complain about smells emanating from a nearby landfill have protested against bringing yet more waste into the area.

And the building of a free onsite spa has been dismissed by some as a rubbish idea.

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge.

Seawater used for the pools is first desalinated at the plant and visitors can look out over ocean views as they soak.

They can also have a tour of the plant as part of their trip.

"Pure water is a symbol of purity," Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia, told AFP during a tour of the plant by French minister for foreign trade Matthias Fekl Wednesday.

"We can live together in a dense city without making the planet dirty."

However, Cheng Wai-kwan, 49, who lives in a village close to the plant said the spa was less than tempting.

"If I tell you I have a spa near home which is powered by burning rubbish, I don't think anyone would come," he told AFP.

He was among 40 villagers who protested at the site during the plant's official opening ceremony last week.

T-Park, the new sludge treatment facility in Tuen Mun in Hong Kong (AFP

 Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The spa is due to open to the public next month.

Cheng said hundreds of villagers living nearby were fed up with the smell of the nearby landfill, and he worried it would get worse.

"Basically, you will have tonnes of shit brought to our district every single day. However beautifully it is being packaged, I don't think it is benefiting us," Cheng added.

A Tuen Mun district councillor said locals had never agreed to have the plant being built in their backyard.

"The government is using the spa as a compensation but I don't think it's enough," said Ho Hang-mui.

"Residents already have to shut their windows (because of the landfill). Even if the spa is free I don't think people will be able to enjoy it," she added.

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Amsterdam bee population is booming

DutchNews.nl, March 5, 2015

Bee populations may be in trouble elsewhere but in Amsterdam there are now 61 different bee species, up from 51 in 2000, according to new research. 

The most common bee in the city is the common furrow (Lasioglossum calceatum) while the hairy-footed flower bee, which was very rare in 2000, now lives in abundance in the city’s Vondel park, the research shows. 

The research was commissioned by the city council. Bee expert and researcher told the Parool the city council should be extremely pleased the city has such committed people managing its green spaces. ‘The city can thank their expertise for the increase,’ he said. 

Ten years ago the city council took a new, environmentally-friendly approach to its green areas and roadside verges. It no longer uses pesticides and wild flowers have been sown in many places. Specific bee friendly projects have also been set up.

California Moves Toward Historic Statewide Ban on Single-Use Plastic Bags

EcoWatch, Anastasia Pantsios, August 15, 2014

    

You’ve heard about the plastic detritus polluting our oceans. You’ve likely seen plastic bags from grocery stores hanging from trees and telephone poles. Some localities have already banned those single-use plastic bags, including 115 in California. In that state, plastic bags are one of the five most common items littering its beaches, according to Ocean Conservancy’s beach cleanup data.

Plastic bags are one of the five most common items littering California
beaches. Photo credit: Shutterstock

Now the entire state is moving toward a ban on the bags.

SB 270 proposes a big step toward reducing the use of the bags by prohibiting their use in supermarkets and drugstores by July 1, 2015 and in smaller groceries and convenience stores by July 1, 2016. Paper, reusable and compostable plastic bags would carry a minimum ten cent charge if the bill passes. The bill also includes provisions that encourage manufacturers of one-use bags to transition to reusable bags. If it passes, it would make California the first state to enact a statewide ban on the single-use bags, although Hawaii has bans in all four of its counties.

The bill, which was introduced in February, passed the California Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee in May and cleared its Appropriations Committee yesterday, the last step before moving  to the floor for a full vote of the Assembly. That vote could come as early as next week. The bill would then go back to the state Senate for a concurrence vote.

“Appropriations was probably the easiest place for the opposition to block the bill,” said Nathan Weaver of citizen environmental advocacy group Environment California. “The fact that they didn’t succeed is very exciting, in my opinion.”

“This important step forward shows that we can achieve lasting victories for ocean and environmental health,” he said. “Nothing we use for a few minutes should pollute our ocean for hundreds of years.”

Currently over a third of California residents live in a community that prohibits plastic bags, thanks to bans in large communities like Los Angeles, Oakland and San Jose.

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In Madura, Pioneering an Eco-Friendly Firewood

Jakarta Globe, Erwida Maulia, Jun 27, 2014

A farmer looks at a calliandra tree he has just cut down. (JG Photo/
Erwida MauliaIn Madura)

Bangkalan, East Java. Irham Rofii stands out from your run-of-the-mill Muslim preacher, even here on the island of Madura, off the coast of Surabaya, which is home to a bevy of high-profile clerics crowded with clerics and their Islamic boarding schools.

Irham also runs a school, but with a difference: He is known as a “green pioneer” in his community and, most recently, a biomass energy champion.

“It used to be overheated here in Madura. Now you’re arriving here drenched in sweat, but in the past we were scorched [by the sun],” the 48-year-old says, recalling how dry and barren the subdistrict of Geger in Bangkalan — one of four districts in Madura — was just a few years ago.

Irham took to planting trees in the area, which was a challenge given how nutrient-poor the soil was. Soon after he took charge of Darul Ittihad, the Islamic boarding school his father had founded, Irham began using his influence as a local religious and community leader to encourage residents to follow suit in planting trees.

The Islamic clergy holds strong sway over local communities in Madura, more so than in most other parts of predominantly Muslim-populated Indonesia, and the Madurese are said to trust their clerics more than government officials.

“So when I set the example, people came to believe that planting trees was good. So they began to do it too,” Irham says, adding that reforestation is now considered by local residents as an activity that has religious merit.

Geger has since been transformed from a once barren area. Houses sit along a road that cuts through the subdistrict, into Kombangan village where Irham lives, looking almost like intruders in an old-growth forest — when in fact it is the various trees and shrubs now growing densely in the area that were introduced recently and now provide shelter from the searing heat of the day.

“It used to be impossible to grow rambutan trees here,” said Irham, whose tree-planting campaign has earned him the nickname Kyai Hutan (Forest Cleric).

“If you’d been here two months ago, you could have easily picked the rambutan off the trees around here,” he adds, pointing to a tree not far from where we sit, as he addresses guests — local and foreign — who have come to see his latest project.

Having essentially created a forest where before there was none, Irham is now involved in another green project, one that has been going on for the past two years, this time on renewable biomass energy — more specifically, wood pellets.

The project was proposed by Yetti Rusli, an adviser with the Forestry Ministry, and approved for funding in 2012 by the Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF). The ICCTF is a body under the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) tasked with managing funds from international donors to support climate change mitigation activities in Indonesia.

Trunks and branches are milled into small pellets that can be burned for fuel
with near-zero carbon dioxide emissions. (JG Photos/Erwida MauliaIn Madura)

Near-zero emissions

Upon a request from South Korea, which is set to boost its biomass energy use in order to cut carbon emissions, the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) conducted a study in 2011 to examine potential of four plants for development as energy wood pellets, an environmentally friendly alternative to carbon-heavy coal.

Yanto Santosa, a professor of ecology at IPB and an adviser to the ICCTF, says the four plants were red calliandra, Gliricidia, white leadtree and ear tree. The study found that pellets produced from each plant released near-zero carbon emissions and heat of around 4,600 to 4,700 calories per kilogram — nearly as much as coal at 4,800 to 5,500 calories per kilogram. Calliandra (Calliandra callothyrsus) came out the winner due to its high productivity.

“In its first year, calliandra may be harvested after nine months, and then after that every six months,” Yanto says. “Every time a calliandra tree is cut down, seven to nine buds will appear. [Farmers] probably only need to replant the trees after 15 years.”

The other plants tested, meanwhile, took longer to grow, which meant lower productivity.

“Higher productivity means faster absorption of carbon dioxide,” Yanto adds.

He says calliandra also has the highest density, which explains its less than 1 percent ash content, meaning the wood is highly combustible with near-zero emissions — a good indication of a clean fuel.

Noer Yanto, former official with the local forestry agency and who is also heavily involved in the wood pellet project in Geger, says calliandra has another advantage in that it can grow in nutrient-poor soil and degraded land. It does not require fertile soil to grow in, and in fact its nitrogen-fixing ability allows for other plants to grow more easily — making it perfectly suited for Madura.

Those are the reasons why calliandra, native to Panama and Mexico and introduced in Indonesia in 1936, was chosen as the raw material for wood pellets in the ICCTF pilot site, he says.

A total of 214 hectares in three villages in Geger have been dedicated to growing the plant — some interspersed with other plants — after Irham, Noer and Ghozali Anshori, another local public figure, encouraged members of the local farmer’s cooperative, Gerbang Lestari, to participate in the project. Gerbang Lestari was founded by Irham.

The cleric has even allowed a plot of his land to be used to house the factory that will process the wood. He got his students and residents to help build the factory together, with funds from the ICCTF.

“We want our students to be good not just in religion, but also in science and technology,” he says.

A total of Rp 2.5 billion ($207,000) has been allotted for the project, including Rp 1.2 billion for the wood pellet mill, most of whose parts were shipped from China.

The machine, half-assembled in Indonesia, was ready for use a month ago and has been on a test run since then, processing narrow calliandra trunks and branches into wood pellets.

Business interests and beyond

Daru Asycarya, a Forestry Ministry official supervising the project, says it has drawn the interest of several prospective buyers, including one from South Korea who wants to buy 300 tons of calliandra wood pellets per month.

No deal has been inked, though, Daru says, as the mill is still in the testing stage and only has a production capacity of a ton per hour or around 220 tons per month.

“We want to first make sure that we can produce prime-quality products that will be more widely accepted,” he says.

As for local customers, Daru says, some tea growers in West and Central Java as well as cement maker Holcim have expressed interest in the calliandra wood pellets for use in their operations.

“Many industries have now begun using biomass energy,” he says. “Semen Indonesia [a cement maker], for example, wants biomass to comprise between 30 and 40 percent of their energy source. They’ve begun looking at us.”

Syamsidar Thamrin, the ICCTF secretary, has other uses in mind.

She says the calliandra wood pellets can be an ideal solution for the electricity needs of many of the remote villages across Indonesia, especially on the smaller islands that remain beyond the reach of the national power grid run by state-owned electricity firm PLN.

“Wind power is not always economical. Solar cells remain expensive. Kerosene is cheap only because it’s subsidized. And don’t forget the cost of fuel shipment,” Syamsidar says.

“Calliandra, though, is cheap. I hope this project will be replicated, and later on scaled up for the whole of Madura. And in 10 or 20 years from now, I hope [calliandra wood pellets] will be used to support ‘power the villages’ programs,” she adds.

With as many as 24 million hectares of land across Indonesia categorized as degraded or barren, Yanto says there is a large potential for industrial-scale calliandra cultivation and a massive wood pellet industry that will benefit not only local farmers and communities with additional incomes, but also Indonesia with a new potential power source, and eventually the world, with reduced carbon emissions.

Indonesia is currently facing an energy crisis, with domestic oil reserves expected to be depleted by 2025 if no new reserves are found. Gas reserves are expected to last only for another 30 years, while only highly polluting coal is expected to stay around for longer — for the next 60 years, according to the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT).

But despite the situation, and the amounts of carbon the fossil fuels emit into the air, the development of sustainable and renewable alternative energy sources in Indonesia has been going at a snail’s pace.

Fossil fuels still dominate Indonesia’s energy mix, with less than 5 percent coming from renewable sources, namely hydro-electricity and geothermal power, according to 2010 data from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

Syamsidar dismisses concerns that a wood pellet industry will turn out like the palm oil industry, which has led to the wholesale destruction of huge swaths of pristine forest to clear land for oil palm plantations. If that were to happen with the calliandra industry, experts say, it would go against the whole point of producing clean energy for lower emissions.

“Oil palm requires productive land. But with calliandra, we’re focusing on barren and degraded land,” Syamsidar says. “Rather than letting those lands stay abandoned, why not put them to use?”

Insects making eco-friendly buzz in Dutch kitchens

Cecile's kitchen in Sittard in the southeastern Netherlands is buzzing with activity.

EU to cut subsidies to big farms

BBC News, 26 June 2013

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French farmers, like this one in Laqueuille,
typically have smaller holdings than in the UK

European Union negotiators have agreed a package of reforms to agricultural subsidies which will see big farms lose up to 30% of their payout.

Ministers reached a deal with Euro MPs and the European Commission.

However, environmentalists say many of the green measures in the original proposals have been swept away.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and rural development payments account for nearly 40% of the EU's long-term budget.

The plan is to spend about 50bn euros (£42bn; $65bn) annually on agriculture in 2014-2020.

Under the deal reached on Wednesday, some of the money withheld from big industrial farms will be redistributed to smaller farms, with an emphasis on those that use eco-friendly methods.

Sugar shortages

The deal still has to be approved by EU governments and the European parliament.

Officials are confident that that will happen, because ministers and parliamentarians have been involved in the negotiating process, says the BBC's Europe correspondent Chris Morris, in Brussels.

Negotiators also agreed to end EU sugar production quotas which critics say have distorted the market for years, and created artificial shortages.

The definition of an "active farmer" has also been contentious. The current payments system is largely based on land area and past subsidy levels, meaning that landowners like airports and sports clubs, which do not farm, have been getting subsidies on the basis of their grasslands or other eligible land areas.

The ministers have agreed on a "short mandatory negative list comprising airports, railway services, waterworks, real estate services and permanent sports and recreational grounds".

Our correspondent says the UK agriculture minister abstained in voting on one of four new regulations, arguing that some member states wanted to go back to the days of butter mountains and wine lakes.

In the 1970s and 80s the CAP took up a bigger share of the EU budget because there were more subsidies for farmers simply to produce. That led to wasteful overproduction.

German, Japanese firms to improve electric car batteries

Deutsche Welle, 20  June 2013

Three companies from Germany and Japan say they're teaming up to revolutionize batteries to be used in electric vehicles. The firms aim to extend the travel range and reduce the weight of their batteries.

German car parts giant Bosch as well as Mitsubishi and GS Yuasa of Japans announced on Thursday that they had decided to set up a joint venture to develop lithium-ion batteries for electric cars.

"These batteries are fundamental for future forms of mobility, such as plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicles," the firms said in a joint statement.

They added that the research and development project would start operations in Stuttgart, Germany, in early 2014, with production expected to kick off four years later.

The three companies said they planned to drastically boost the capacity of lithium-ion batteries to enable electric cars to travel about 400 kilometers (249 miles) once charged. That would be a major improvement on the 180 to 240 kilometers achieved so far.

Two times lucky?

GS Yuasa spokesman Yasushi Yamamoto pointed out that the joint venture also aimed at reducing the weight and volume of the batteries in question.

Germany's Bosch will contribute the quality management and development of control systems, while GS Yuasa will be responsible for manufacturing and Mitsubishi for marketing. Bosch will hold a 50-percent stake in the venture, with the two Japanese companies each investing a 25 percent stake.

For Bosch it's the second foray into the future-oriented market of electric car batteries. It had a first go at it back in 2008 when it teamed up with Samsung SDI of South Korea. But the alliance broke up in September of last year as it became obvious that the partners' business plans did not match.

hg/ipj (Reuters, dpa)

Jakarta to Test Green Bajajs From Sweden

Jakarta Globe, Lenny Tristia Tambun, June 20, 2013

A Clean Motion Zbee vehicle. (Image courtesy of Clean Motion)

Fresh on the heels of the central government’s plan to offer incentives for the production of low-cost green vehicles, the Jakarta administration has expressed its interest in purchasing electric rickshaws from Sweden to replace the capital’s aging fleet, known as bajajs.

“Sweden has explained their electric bajajs, and we agree that they are better than the gas-powered models. Plus, the price is not too expensive,” Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjhaja said on Wednesday.

Basuki said that he has asked the Swedish company that produces the electric bajajs, Clean Motion, to send the vehicles over to Jakarta so that city administrators could test them.

“They have to send some over so we can conduct tests. The company said it would deliver them this month, but it seems like they will arrive late,” he said.

Previously, Clean Motion said that it would launch its Zbee electric rickshaw to replace traditional 3-wheeled taxis in order to offer a more environmentall -friendly mode of transportation.

The company also announced its plan to manufacture Zbees in Indonesia by building a factory in East Java capable of producing up to 100,000 of the green vehicles annually.

Basuki said that he would let the people of Jakarta decide if they want to switch from the gas-powered bajaj to the electric Zbee.

According to the Jakarta Transportation Agency, there are 11,669 gas-powered bajajs officially registered with the city. Less than 3,000 of them are blue bajajs, which are powered by compressed natural gas (CNG).

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Powering our Finnish data center with Swedish wind energy: Google

Google Blog, Tuesday, June 04, 2013   

What do a Swedish wind farm developer, a German insurance company and Google’s Finnish data center have in common? As of today, a lot. We’ve just inked agreements with O2 and Allianz to supply our Finnish data center with renewable energy for the next 10 years—our fourth long-term agreement to power our data centers with renewable energy worldwide, and our first in Europe.

Here’s how it works: O2, the wind farm developer, has obtained planning approval to build a new 72MW wind farm at Maevaara, in Övertorneå and Pajala municipality in northern Sweden, using highly efficient 3MW wind turbines. We’ve committed to buying the entire output of that wind farm for 10 years so that we can power our Finnish data center with renewable energy. That agreement has helped O2 to secure 100% financing for the construction of the wind farm from the investment arm of German insurance company Allianz, which will assume ownership when the wind farm becomes operational in early 2015.

This arrangement is possible thanks to Scandinavia’s integrated electricity market and grid system, Nord Pool. It enables us to buy the wind farm’s output in Sweden with Guarantee of Origin certification and consume an equivalent amount of power at our data center in Finland. We then “retire” the Guarantee of Origin certificates to show that we’ve actually used the energy.

As a carbon neutral company, our goal is to use as much renewable energy as possible—and by doing so, stimulate further production. The Maevaara wind farm not only allows us to make our already highly energy-efficient Finnish data center even more sustainable, it also meets our goal of adding new renewable energy generation capacity to the grid.

Of course, using renewable energy is good for the environment, but it also makes long term financial sense. That’s why, in addition to protecting ourselves against future increases in power prices through long-term purchasing for our operations, we also invest in new renewable energy projects that will deliver a return for our money. In recent years we’ve committed more than $1 billion to such projects in the U.S., Germany and, just last week, South Africa. We’ll continue to look for similar opportunities around the globe.

Posted by Francois Sterin, Senior Manager, Global Infrastructure Team

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Hyundai Unveil the World’s First Mass Produced Fuel Cell Vehicle

greenerideal.com, Ashleigh-rose Harman, April 11, 2013

Hyundai have sped off the start line in the hydrogen vehicle production race, by rolling the first fuel cell vehicle intended for mass production off of the assembly line.

Hyundai have created a version of the ix35 which runs completely on hydrogen, meaning the only by product this car produces is water. The zero emissions vehicle is the product of the millions that has been invested into fuel cell research by the Korean company. The competition is beginning to build when it comes to environmentally friendly driving, with car manufacturers publicising future plans for a zero emissions driving environment.

Hyundai motor Vice Chairman, Eok Jo Kim announced the new ix35 as ‘the most eco-friendly vehicle in the industry.’  He went on to add that it ‘proves that hydrogen fuel cell technology in daily driving is no longer a dream’.

Fuel cell engines are not a new concept, in fact the first fuel cell vehicle came about in 1959. However, the technology has always been too expensive to develop for the mass market, hindering its advancement for the past fifty years, but Hyundai’s commitment to the cause has allowed the technology to be developed to mass market potential.

Fuel cell engines work by replacing gas with hydrogen. The hydrogen is combined with oxygen within the engine, creating a chemical reaction. This chemical energy is then converted into electrical energy, which in turn powers the motor in the engine. When fuel cell technology is compared to the current ‘plug in’ electric engines, the results show us that fuel cell engines are a way of sustaining our current driving habits, without causing any harm to our environment.

One thousand ix35s are due to be built by 2015. They are first to be made available as fleet vehicles across Europe, available for public and private vehicle leasing. After this Hyundai are planning to release the vehicle for consumer sales, with the hope of lower production costs and a more developed refuelling network.

The European Union has established a hydrogen road map, containing plans for new hydrogen refuelling stations throughout the continent. With hope that fuel companies will help develop the necessary technology to help put this plan into action across Europe and then the US.

Our attitude towards oil is unsustainable when it comes to our planet as well as our supplies, and this is forcing the automotive industries priorities to change. Car manufacturers are finally using their resources to develop technologies that will sustain the vehicle industry and the planet.  Responsibility is now being handed to the gas companies, with the automotive world asking them to help develop the necessary technologies to make electric driving a viable option.

Ashleigh-Rose Harman writes on behalf of Tilsun Group, on a number of automotive topics including vehicle technologies, the future of driving and the benefits of vehicle leasing. Visit tilsungroup.com for information on vehicle leasing, including contract hire on the latest EV’s and Hybrid vehicles.

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China Is Building A Huge Eco-City Where No One Will Need To Drive

Business Insider, Alex Davies, Nov. 2, 2012 

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

Outside Chengdu, in central China, a 78 million square foot site has been determined for an unconventional sort of construction project. It will be a city built from scratch, for 80,000 people, none of whom will need a car to get around.

Click here to see the master plan >

The "Great City" is a plan for an ambitious urban center designed to limit its residents environmental impact by producing clean energy, reducing waste, and promoting public transportation over individual car use.

The project is the work of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, who note that "Chinese planning officials [are] beginning to see the effects of automobile-dependent design and are open to better alternatives to urban sprawl."

It has been called the "Car-Free City," a moniker that is not entirely accurate. The architecture firm notes that the vision is for a city where "cars will be essentially unnecessary," but allowed.

The master plan includes many good ideas. Half the road space will be reserved for non-motorized traffic, and electric shuttles will get people where they cannot or do not want to walk. All homes will be within a two-minute walk of a public park.

An "eco-park" will treat wastewater and solid waste, and generate power. Land outside the city will be reserved for farming. Wildlife habitat will be protected. Buildings have been designed to maximize the use of wind power; the planners decided Chengdu's hazy climate is not conducive to solar power.

All told, Smith and Gill expect to cut energy use by 48 percent, water use by 58 percent, and produce 89 percent less waste, compared to a conventional development with a similar population.

Going beyond environmental impact, Smith and Gill designed Great City to provide residents with affordable housing, education, and medical care, all clustered in the city center to encourage a thriving civic life.

It's a lovely vision for anyone concerned by climate change and social inequity, and the effectiveness of the power, transportation, and recycling systems will be judged once in place. But the project as a whole raises some questions.

Can a city built so quickly stand the test of time? What happens to the architects' scheme if residents don't behave as expected? And even if this eco-city works as planned, what can China do to translate this program to the hundreds of millions of people living in older cities?

Still, considering the rate at which China is urbanizing, a proven plan for minimizing the environmental impact of new cities would be worth a lot.

See the master plan >

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