India's Tata backs air-power car

By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst, BBC News

An engineer has promised that within a year he will start selling a car in India that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all in towns.

The OneCAT will be a five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500.

The project is being backed by the Indian conglomerate, Tata for an undisclosed sum. It says the technology may also be used for power generation.

The car will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks.

The tanks, built into the chassis, can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes - much quicker than a battery car.

Alternatively, it can be plugged into the mains for four hours and an on-board compressor will do the job.

For long journeys the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons.The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel.

The designers say on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120mpg. In town, running on air, it will be cheaper than that.

Analysts say the fact that the project has the backing of an internationally well known company such as Tata makes the idea much more marketable.

The Indian company - which will put the finishing touches to the engine - says it is even considering using the technology for power generation.

Parts of the country are desperately short of electricity supplies. On Tuesday officials announced that Delhi and Moscow had finalised plans for Russia to build four new nuclear power stations in India.

Breakthrough

"The first buyers [of the compressed air car] will be people who care about the environment," says French inventor Guy Negre.

"It also has to be economical."

Mr Negre has been promising for more than a decade to be on the verge of a breakthrough.

Tata is the only big firm he'll license to sell the car - and they are limited to India. For the rest of the world he hopes to persuade hundreds of investors to set up their own factories, making the car from 80% locally-sourced materials.

"This will be a major saving in total emissions," he says.

"Imagine we will be able to save all those components travelling the world and all those transporters."

He wants each local factory to sell its own cars to cut out the middle man and he aims for 1% of global sales - about 680,000 per year.

Terry Spall from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers says: "I really hope he succeeds. It is a really brave experiment in producing a sustainable car."

But he said he was interested to see how the car would fare with safety tests and how much it would appeal to a public conditioned to expect luxury fittings adding to the weight of the vehicle.

Mr Negre says there's no issue with safety - if the air-car crashes the air tanks won't shatter - they will split with a very loud bang. "The biggest risk is to the ears."

BMW to demonstrate hydrogen power in Singapore

Singapore (ANTARA News/DPA) - BMW is ready to introduce its hydrogen-fuelled 7 Series limousine in Singapore but it won't be for sale, the carmaker said on Wednesday.

The car, called the Hydrogen 7, will be part of a BMW Clean Energy Exhibition to be held in the city-state next month.

Representing 20 years of research and development, the Munich-based carmaker has developed the first emission-free liquid hydrogen-powered luxury saloon suitable for everyday use, according to BMW.

The cars due to arrive in Singapore are part of a world tour which is currently in Australia.

The Hydrogen 7 has two fuel tanks, one for petrol and another for liqud hydrogen, BMW said. When operated only on hydrogen fuel, the car emits water vapour.|

Related Article:

Hydrogen Production

"Six Degrees Could Change the World" premiers 2/10

Los Angeles Times

I'm generally not a fan of the enviro-documentaries that take the "doom-and-gloom with a few minutes of optimism at the end" format, but National Geographic’s "Six Degrees Could Change the World" almost makes me wish I had cable.

Why? Perhaps I'm too easily enamored by webby features, but the "Six Degrees" website has an interactive world map that lets you look at the changes that could take place with each degree of global warming. The site also has six short video previews -- one per degree Celcius of global warming -- of what our world could look like in the future.

The scenarios are astounding -- though not all sound horrible, at least when removed from the overall monstrosity of the situation. If the earth warms by 4 degrees Celsius, the Scandinavian beach could be the next tourism hotspot, for example. Of course, Bangladesh would be washed away and New York suffering from rising seas and super storms....


The program's based on Mark Lyman's book "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet." Why six degrees? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the earth will warm up between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. By looking at the effects of each degree, we get a look at the best and worst scenarios, as well as the in betweens.

Greenguide"Six Degrees" premiers tomorrow, Sunday Feb. 10 on the National Geographic channel. Don't have that channel? Get the book or the eco-packaged DVD.

National Geographic's really been keeping busy these days. In addition to the Six Degrees site, NG's put together "Preserve our Planet," an ezine of sorts with environmental news and features, as well as a more consumer-action oriented site called Green Guide, for which Lyman served as editor this week. In addition, a new quarterly print magazine -- conveniently also dubbed Green Guide -- hits newsstands March 4.

Images courtesy of National Geographic

Robot glider harvests ocean heat

By Jonathan Fildes, BBC News, Science and technology reporter

The yellow, torpedo-shaped machine has been combing the depths of seas around the Caribbean since December 2007.

The team which developed the autonomous vehicle say it has covered "thousands of kilometres" during the tests.

The team believe the glider - which needs no batteries - could undertake oceanographic surveys for up to six months at a time.

"We are tapping a virtually unlimited energy source for propulsion," said Dave Fratantoni of the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOi).

But Steve McPhail, an expert in autonomous underwater vehicles at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Southampton, said the machine would not totally do away with batteries.

"You still need to provide power for the sensors, for the data-logging system and for the satellite communications system to get the data back," he said.

As a result, the vehicle would have to intermittently return to a ship or shore to recharge its batteries.

"It's always a trade-off between the power used for the propulsion system and the power used for the sensors," said Mr McPhail.

Ocean network

Oceanographers are increasingly looking at ways to study the oceans over long periods and in real time.

This is important for understanding natural variations in circulation, for example, and for looking for any changes.

Already scientists have deployed large networks of sensors across the oceans.

For example, in 2004, NOC researchers strung sets of instruments across the Atlantic to measure circulation patterns.

The Rapid project, as it was known, painted the first detailed picture of Atlantic Ocean currents and showed how they vary throughout the year.

Its successor - Rapid Watch - has just received £16m from the Natural Environment Research Council and will monitor the Gulf Stream until 2014.

Scientists are also in the process of wiring the Pacific. One project, the Argo network, will consist of an array of 3,000 floats strung out every 300km across the vast ocean.

Sensors on the floats will provide 100,000 temperature and salinity profiles every year.

Another network, the Monterey Accelerated Research System (Mars), will connect a research station in California with a sensor array deployed on the edge of Monterey Canyon, the deepest submarine canyon off the continental West Coast.

Lazy glide

The new vehicles could add to that knowledge by filling in the gaps between the sensors.

For example, it is proposed that Rapid Watch will use an armada of gliders alongside stationary sensors.

The machines are already used in oceanography and propel themselves through the ocean by changing their buoyancy to dive and surface. Wings generate lift and a vertical tail fin and rudder is used to steer.

The latest glider has been developed by Webb Research Corporation and WHOi.

It generates its energy for propulsion from the differences in temperature between warm surface waters and colder, deeper layers of the ocean.

Wax-filled tubes inside the craft expand when it is gliding through warmer water.

This heat is used to push oil from a bladder inside the hull to one outside, changing its buoyancy. Cooling of the wax at depth reverses the cycle.

Since December 2007, the prototype machine has been crisscrossing a 4,000m-deep basin in the Virgin Islands of the Caribbean.

The machine traces a saw-tooth profile through the water column as it lazily glides through the ocean, surfacing periodically to fix its positions via GPS and to relay data back to base.

According to WHOi researchers the vehicle crossed the basin between St Thomas and St Croix more than 20 times studying local currents.

The eventual aim of the project is to deploy a fleet of vehicles to study much larger flows in the North Atlantic.

"Gliders can be put to work on tasks that humans wouldn't want to do or cannot do because of time and cost concerns," said Dr Fratantoni. "They can work around the clock in all weather conditions."

Related Articles:

Hydrogen Production

World market fuels deforestation

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Efforts to curb deforestation will not work if rich nations fail to control their wood consumption, forest watchdog Greenomics Indonesia has warned.

Greenomics director Elfian Effendi said Thursday that high demand for wood products mostly from the United States, European Union and Japan had given a boost to deforestation in the world's tropical nations, including Indonesia.

"The rich nations often blame us for the speedy deforestation rate. They seem unaware that their consumption contributes much to the deforestation," Elfian said.

Greenomics was commenting on the latest report on the wood market between 2004 and 2007 from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The report said the U.S., the EU and Japan were the world's three largest importers of wood products, amounting to US$71.2 billion per year. The U.S. alone spent $23.3 billion per year on wood products, while the EU $13.2 billion and Japan $11.8 billion.

According to Elfian, China and Malaysia are the world's biggest exporters of wood products, with material coming mainly from Indonesia in the form of illegally cut logs.

"It means deforestation in our country is linked to export-import transactions of wood products to rich nations," he said.

Indonesia is home to 120 million hectares of tropical forest, the world's third largest after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Between 1985 and 1997, deforestation occurred at a rate of 1.8 million hectares per year. It rose to 2.8 million hectares per year until 2000, but slowed between 2000 and 2006 to 1.08 million hectares per year.

The government has said that carbon trading and the reduction of emissions from deforestation in developing countries will significantly reduce the deforestation rate.

Elfian said, however, the schemes would not work unless rich countries tightened their control over the sources of wood products.

According to FAO data, Malaysia is the biggest exporter of logs with 5 million cubic meters per year.

"Malaysia exported about 20 million cubic meters in the period of 2004 to 2007. It meant denuded forests reached 303,000 hectares," he said.

Malaysia is also the second biggest exporter of sawn wood, with 3 million cubic meters annually.

"In line with the UN data, deforestation in Malaysia should cover 730,000 ha from 2004 to 2007, which is 11 times Singapore's area," he said.

He said Malaysia was the main exporter of wood products, including logs, to China. The world's most populous country is the world's top importer of logs from tropical countries with 7 million cubic meters per year.

China also imported 2.5 millions cubic meters of sawn wood between 2004 and 2007.

Japan and the United State are the top importers of plywood, reaching 3.5 million cubic meters and 1.5 million respectively.

"The two countries imported about 10 million cubic meters of tropical plywood from 2004 to 2007. Indonesia must learn from the export-import data," he said.

Scientists make unique knee-brace power generator

Thu Feb 7, 2008 5:38pm EST

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. Scientists in the United States and Canada said on Thursday they have developed a unique device that can be strapped on the knee that exploits the mechanics of human walking to generate a usable supply of electricity.

It generates enough power to charge up 10 cell phones at once, the researchers report in the journal Science.

Researchers have been working on ways to harness the motion of the human body to create power. A shoe-mounted device was nice and light, but did not generate much electricity. A backpack device that generated power as it bounced up and down while a person walks generated a lot of electricity, but was heavy to lug.

The new energy-capturing knee brace, its inventors said, seems to find a happy medium -- generating decent amounts of power while still being relatively light.

The scientists envisioned numerous applications for such a device. It could be of value to hikers or soldiers who may not have access to electricity, they said. It also could be built into prosthetic knees or other implantable devices whose users occasionally must undergo surgery for a battery replacement.

Arthur Kuo, a University of Michigan mechanical engineer who worked on the device, said it works similarly to the way that regenerative braking charges a battery in hybrid cars.

These regenerative brakes collect kinetic energy that normally dissipate as heat when the car slows down. The knee device collects energy lost when a person brakes the knee after swinging the leg forward to take a step, the researchers said. "It generates a fairly substantial amount of power compared to previous devices and it does so in a way that doesn't affect the user very much," Kuo said in a telephone interview.

"You could easily power 10 cell phones at once. There are some low power computers that you could power. You could imagine devices like GPS locaters, satellite phones," he said.

With a device placed on each leg, volunteers walking on treadmills generated about 5 watts of electricity walking at a leisurely 2.2 mph (3.5 kph). Each of the devices weighs about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg), which Kuo said was still too unwieldy.

"Even though we've demonstrated this new way to generate power, we don't mean to say this is a usable product at this time. The principle limitations are that our prototype is pretty heavy and bulky," Kuo said, adding that he thinks it can be made smaller and more practical.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)

Studies Deem Biofuels a Greenhouse Threat

By Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times

Published: February 8, 2008

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.

These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development.

The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.

“When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially,” said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. “Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis.”

Read More ....

Related Articles:

Converting land for biofuel worsens global warming: study (AFP)


A rainbow forms over a rainforest in Malaysia in 2007. Clearing raw land to produce biofuels actually contributes to global warming by emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, researchers warned Thursday.

Car-Rental Companies Learn to Share

By Darren Everson, The Wall Street Journal

February 7, 2008

Zipcar Inc., the car-sharing leader, soon may really have to start sharing.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co., the U.S.'s largest rental-car company by revenue, is launching a car-sharing service in St. Louis Feb. 12. The program, called WeCar, started last month on the campus of Washington University, but this part of the initiative will be downtown and available to the general public. The move is the latest sign that major car-rental companies, which have been dipping their toes in the car-sharing and hourly rental waters, are about to dive in.

Enterprise, which is based in Clayton, Mo., says it eventually will expand WeCar beyond St. Louis, although it doesn't yet have concrete plans for where and when. Hertz Corp., a unit of Hertz Global Holdings Inc., says it is studying car sharing closely and, once it settles on a workable program, will test it in major urban centers across the country. Even U-Haul International Inc., a unit of Amerco best known for its do-it-yourself moving vehicles, has a car-sharing program called U Car Share that is available in a growing number of college markets, including Ann Arbor, Mich., and Berkeley, Calif. Avis Budget Group Inc. is watching from the sidelines for now; a company spokesman says it is following the segment closely but isn't on the cusp of announcing anything new.

Car sharing is billed as an inexpensive, environmentally minded alternative to owning a car. Customers sign up for annual memberships ($35 annually in WeCar's downtown program) and pay hourly or daily usage rates (WeCar's are $10 per hour, $30 overnight) for the cars, which they reserve online for a set time length. Gas, insurance and an allotment of free miles (200 per day at WeCar) are included. The environmental benefit is that car sharing theoretically takes cars off the road, since numerous members are sharing a few cars. Zipcar and Flexcar, the national car-sharing pioneers that merged last fall, have a combined 180,000 members and 5,000 vehicles. The cars also are often fuel-efficient and economical. All nine of the cars in the St. Louis WeCar program are Toyota Prius hybrids.

Read More ...

Europe push for greener aviation

BBC News

Some of the biggest names in European industry have begun a public-private partnership with the EU to produce greener aircraft.

Airbus, Dassault, Saab and Rolls Royce are all taking part in the 1.6bn euro (£1.2bn) "clean sky" initiative.

Half the money will be raised by the European Union and half by industry.

EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik said the investment would keep Europe at the cutting edge and help combat climate change.

Public money

The use of public money for a project involving companies such as Airbus could cause friction with its US competitor, Boeing.

CLEAN SKY AMBITIONS

40% cut in carbon dioxide emissions
40% cut in nitrous oxide emissions
20-decibel cut in noise emissions
2-3bn tonne cut in CO2 emissions over 40 years

But Myriam Goldsztejn of Dassault Aviation told the BBC News website that a public-private partnership was the right approach.

"There is no other way," she said. "The programme is so huge that if we don't work with the European Commission we'll never succeed. It's too big for one company."

She said the project might not be an issue for the World Trade Organisation, as it was all about developing the technology rather than the product.

A spokesman for Boeing said he did not wish to comment at this stage.

Carbon emissions

Last month the European Commission proposed a package of measures aimed at cutting carbon emissions by a fifth by 2020.

TECHNICAL AIMS

"Smart wing" design for fixed-wing aircraft
Low weight, low noise regional aircraft
Innovative rotor blades, turbine engines for rotorcraft
Sustainable, green engines

Eco-design to minimise fuel consumption and maximise recycling of old aircraft Launching the clean sky project in Brussels, Mr Potocnik said aeronautics accounted for 3% of current emissions. "But with passenger numbers increasing by five per cent every year, these emission levels will grow over coming decades." He said there would have to be improvements in fuel-efficient engines as well as breakthroughs in wing technology. Research institutes and universities will also be involved.

Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate

Yahoo News

By Edward Haris, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 2, 3:49 PM ET

ABO EBAM, Nigeria - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

An unidentified man sits next to a felled tree at the Afi mountain forest reserve near Ikom, Nigeria, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007. From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests. (AP PhotoGeorge Osodi)

The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.

Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."

The December U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests.

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.

"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.

Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months — equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.

Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here — almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.

Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.

The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.

In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.

Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.

"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.

"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."

The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.

Working with communities like Abo Ebam, near Nigeria's border with Cameroon, the Cross Rivers government seeks to help would-be farmers learn other trades, such as beekeeping or raising fist-sized land snails, a regional delicacy.

The state also has imposed a new licensing system. Anyone who wants to cut down one of the forest's massive, valuable mahogany trees or other hardwoods must obtain a license and negotiate which tree to fell with the nearby community, which shares in the income. The logs can't be taken away whole, but must be cut into planks in the forest, by people like David Anfor.

He's a 35-year-old father of one who earns the equivalent of 75 U.S. cents per board he cuts with a whizzing chain saw. "The forest is our natural resource. We're trying to conserve," he said. "But I'm also working for my daily eating."

A community benefiting from such small-scale forestry is likely to keep out those engaged in illegal, uncontrolled logging. But enforcement is difficult in a state with about 3,500 square miles of pristine rain forest — and few forest rangers.

On one recent day deep in the forest, where the luxuriant green canopy allows only rare shards of sunlight to reach the floor, the trilling of a hornbill bird and the distant chain saw were the only sounds heard. As forestry officials rushed to investigate, the saw operator fled deeper into the forest, sign of an illegal operation.

Environmentalists say such a conservation approach may work for rural, agrarian people in Nigeria, which lost an estimated 15 million acres between 1990 and 2005, or about one-third of its entire forest area, and has one of the world's highest deforestation rates — more than 3 percent per year.

But lessons learned in one place aren't necessarily applicable elsewhere, they say. A global strategy is needed, mobilizing all rain-forest governments.

That's the goal of the post-Bali talks, looking for ways to integrate forest preservation into the world's emerging "carbon trading" system. A government earning carbon credits for "avoided deforestation" could then sell them to a European power plant, for example, to meet its emission-reduction quota.

"These forests are the greatest global public utility," Britain's conservationist Prince Charles said in the lead-up to Bali. "As a matter of urgency we have to find ways to make them more valuable alive than dead."

Observed the World Wildlife Fund's Duncan Pollard, "Suddenly you have the whole world looking at deforestation."

But in many ways rain forests are still a world of unknowns, a place with more scientific questions than answers.

How much carbon dioxide are forests absorbing? How much carbon is stored there? How might the death of the Amazon forest affect the climate in, say, the American Midwest? Hundreds of researchers are putting in thousands of hours of work to try to answer such questions before it is too late.

A380 makes test flight on alternative fuel

Dan Lalor

BRISTOL (Reuters) - An Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, became the first commercial jet aircraft to use alternative fuel on Friday, marking a milestone on the road to biofuels.

The double-decker A380 needed no modification to use the gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuel, which was designed to be mixed with regular jet fuel so "the airplane does not know the difference," Airbus said.

Airbus hopes the plane, hit by production delays, will become the centerpiece of efforts to develop the next generation of cleaner fuel at a time when the aviation industry is under pressure over the impact of emissions on the climate.

Sebastien Remy, head of Airbus SAS's alternative fuel program, said the GTL used on Friday was no cleaner in CO2 (carbon dioxide) terms than regular fuel but it had local air quality benefits because it produces no sulphur.

He said the take-off showed Airbus was "preparing for (the) emergence of a wider slate of synthetic fuels."

By 2025, he said, a quarter of jet fuel could be some form of alternative fuel.

The fuel used, a mix of 60 percent standard jet kerosene and 40 percent GTL, was used in one of the A380's four engines.

The GTL was made in Malaysia from natural gas and, as such, is a fossil fuel not a biofuel, which are made from renewable resources.

But Remy said GTL was the first step to developing BTL (biomass-to-liquid) fuel, which can use anything from wood chips to crops.

He wants to avoid competing with food crops, and said the research emphasis was on growing biomass where food crops are not grown, such as arid regions.

Eventually, algae could be one source.

The A380's take-off from the planemaker's Filton base was watched by reporters and hundreds of Airbus workers. It landed at Toulouse, southwest France, after a three-hour test flight.

The first A380 to carry passengers entered service with Singapore Airlines late last year after an 18-month delay caused by difficulties in installing the mammoth aircraft's wiring.

Anxious to focus on what it describes as the aircraft's environmental benefits, in terms of the amount of fuel consumed per passenger, Airbus has already rebranded the A380 the "gentle green giant," and softened its marketing presentations.

Airbus staged Friday's display weeks before British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group planned to conduct a test jet flight on renewable fuels on a Boeing 747.

The company has said it plans a flight in early 2008 and the debut had been expected in February. The A380 was designed to break the 747's 30-year monopoly on very large passengers jets.

He said the first commercial use of GTL could be in 2009 by Qatar Airways after it has taken delivery of its first A380.

Qatar has the world's third-largest reserves of natural gas and Shell and Qatar Petroleum are building a GTL plant, called Pearl, which is due to be fully operational by 2011.

Qatar Airways's Stephen Vella said the airline wanted to use a 50 percent GTL blend from 2009 but only on a limited scale until Pearl is complete.

"The new fuels will not be limited to the airline industry, but could easily be adapted to power cars," Remy said.

(Reporting by Dan Lalor; Editing by David Cowell)

U.S. stance on climate change shifting, conference delegates say

CNN

HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- A meeting on climate change ended without concrete targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, but participants praised what they saw as a new willingness by the United States to discuss possible solutions.

A demonstrator dresses as a polar bear at the climate change conference to protest global warming.

Delegates from the 16 nations that emit the most pollutants, plus the European Union and the United Nations, gathered in Hawaii this week at the invitation of the U.S. to discuss what should be included in a blueprint for combatting climate change.

Among the topics were energy-efficient technologies, ways rich countries could help developing countries, and countering deforestation.

Delegates said the U.S. showed a new flexibility since earlier climate change meetings, and that they were able to talk frankly about their differences.

"We're happy the position of the United States is changing," Brice LaLonde, France's climate change ambassador, said at a news conference Thursday following the two days of closed-door talks at the University of Hawaii.

LaLonde pointed to bills in Congress addressing climate change and the Bush administration's move to host the Hawaii meeting as evidence for a shift by Washington.

But he said France hoped for additional changes, specifically for the U.S. to join other industrialized nations in agreeing to a national mandatory greenhouse gas reduction target.

"Of course, we want more. We hope in the next weeks after these discussions that we'll be able to deliver more," LaLonde said. "But it's a good start."

Delegates didn't discuss the details of a European Union proposal for industrialized countries to slash emissions by 25 to 40 percent, said Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Commission's head of climate change negotiations.

The emissions reduction proposal -- and U.S. opposition to it -- was one of the biggest sticking points of a contentious climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December.

The Bali conference ended with the U.S. agreeing to join nearly 190 countries to craft a blueprint for fighting climate change by 2009. But that happened only after participants loudly booed repeated U.S. objections to the document.

Britain's environment minister, Phil Woolas, said no nation wants to be singled out as the obstacle to progress on climate change.

"Bali has put the spotlight on you, doesn't it. There's no country that wants to be the party pooper," Woolas said during a break in the Hawaii talks.

He added that delegates shared a sense that work needs to get done because of the dire consequences of rising temperatures, sea levels and environmental catastrophes.

"There's a realization that we have to get an agreement; otherwise we're all going to drown," Woolas said.

Chief U.S. delegate Jim Connaughton, the White House environmental chief, said President Bush has long highlighted the importance of reducing emissions.

He pointed to U.S. efforts supporting hydrogen energy, funding for energy efficient technologies and partnerships with other countries.

"We like to prepare, plan and announce. This is what the president has done consistently since 2001. As you can see, it's gaining increasing appreciation," Connaughton said after the talks.

The U.S. has been seeking voluntary pledges from nations for specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Nations represented at the conference account for 80 percent of emissions that scientists say contribute to global warming. In addition to the U.S., Britain and France, they are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea and South Africa.

Environmentalists had voiced skepticism about what the Hawaii talks would accomplish, given the U.S. opposition to mandatory national reduction targets of the kind agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol a decade ago.

The EU has proposed cutting its overall emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels, or 14 percent from 2005.

Demonstrators were absent Thursday, but about a dozen had protested the day before outside the meeting to object to what they said was insufficient commitment from the Bush administration to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Others drew blue chalk lines along Honolulu city streets to show where high tide would be after decades of global warming and rising sea levels.

Other related topics (CNN)

• In Depth: Planet in Peril
• In U-turn, U.S. agrees to global warming deal
• Researchers study coral threats
• UK: Coasts under climate threat

Global warming may cost up to $20 trillion over 2 decades: UN chief

The Jakarta Post

UNITED NATIONS (AP): Global warming could cost the world up to US$20 trillion over two decades for cleaner energy sources and do the most harm to people who can least afford to adapt, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in a new report.

Ban's report obtained by The Associated Press provides an overview of UN climate efforts to help the 192-nation General Assembly prepare for a key two-day climate debate in mid-February. That debate is intended to shape overall UN policy on climate change, including how nations can adapt to a warmer world and ways of supporting the UN-led negotiations toward a new climate treaty by 2009.

The treaty, replacing the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, could shape the course of climate change for decades to come. The Kyoto pact requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases by a relatively modest 5 percent on average.

Much of the focus has been on the United States, the only major industrial nation to reject the treaty, and on fast-developing nations such as China and India. Many are looking to next year, when a new U.S. president takes the White House. The leading contenders in both political parties favor doing morethan the voluntary approaches and call for new technologies.

In his 52-page report, Ban says that global investments of $15 trillion to $20 trillion over the next 20 to 25 years may be required "to place the world on a markedly different and sustainable energy trajectory."

Today, the global energy industry spends about $300 billion a year in new plants, transmission networks and other new investment, according to UN figures.

PLN to distribute energy-saving bulbs

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As part of its push for energy saving, state electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) revealed Friday it would begin distribution of some 51 million energy-saving light bulbs in the third week of March.

In the first phase, up to 1 million bulbs would be given to households mainly in eastern Indonesia, chairman of the PLN's demand side management team, Syaiful B. Ibrahim, said Friday.

Each household would be entitled to receive three units.

"We target the distribution of all units to be completed by October," Syaiful said as reported by detik.com.

He said each household would need to exchange the units with conventional bulbs used previously used around their homes with a capacity of between 25 and 40 watts.

"This (barter) is to avoid misuse. We're concerned they will not use the bulbs or sell them to others."

The Indonesian Association of Electric Lights (Aperlindo) has estimated that 2.8 million units would be distributed to West Sumatra, Aceh, and Riau, and 3.1 million units to North Sumatra.

The association said Lampung, South Sumatra, Jambi, Bangka Belitung and Batam would receive 2.97 million, while South Kalimantan, West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan would get 2.56 million units.

It added North Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and Gorontalo province would get 2.97 million units, while East Java 9.47 million, Central Java and Yogyakarta some 9.1 million and West Java around 9.6 million.

Jakarta and Banten will get 5.47 million while Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua and Maluku get 2.3 million units.

Hydrogen Production

OCEES International, Inc. intends to leverage its extensive experience into the development of floating OTEC platforms within the tropical region of the planet, utilizing existing oil platform technology, to support an operational OTEC system incorporating its natural synergies for providing energy to a hydrogen electrolysis and liquefaction plant.

Liquefied hydrogen can then be shipped via existing technology to the industrial market centers of the world to supply a transportation fuel and fuel source to an impending hydrogen based economy.

OTEC’s greatest potential is to supply a significant fraction of the fuel the world needs by implementing large, floating platforms and or grazing plant ships to produce hydrogen or other suitable transportable energy carriers.

Proposed First Installation Locations

There are two possible reasonable candidates for commercial scale installations of OTEC hydrogen plants. One of these is on an offshore platform off the coast of a suitable tropical island installed in 3,000 feet of water. In an arrangement similar to that of the Iceland Hydrogen Project; a car company, an energy company, and OCEES International, Inc. with local government participation would form a consortium to build and operate a 100 MW OTEC hydrogen plant. The LH2 produced would be used to power fuel cell equipped cars and buses in a demonstration of environmentally friendly technology.

Another immediately possible OTEC hydrogen project is to use one or more existing oil platforms in water depths greater than 3,000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. As these newer generations of deep platforms exhaust the oil reservoir at their particular location they can be transformed into OTEC hydrogen production platforms. This would be a more economical approach than removing these platforms. The cost of an OTEC hydrogen system under these conditions would be approximately 25% less than one which requires the construction and deployment of a new platform.

It should also be noted that the design of these deep off-shore oil platforms could in the first instance incorporate a small (3 to 4 MW) OTEC plant to power the oil drilling and pumping functions as well as provide fresh water and air conditioning.

Such a design would significantly reduce the present supply requirements from shore for these offshore installations.

Related Article:

’Temperatuurverschil in oceanen is gratis energie’ (Dutch)

In U.S., plastic shopping bag still rules

By Christine Kearney, Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:43pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Australia and China are phasing them out, Germany and Ireland tax them, but in the United States, the plastic shopping bag is still king.

Outside supermarkets across the country, Americans push shopping carts laden with a dozen or more plastic bags full of groceries to their cars. Even the smallest purchase, such as a magazine at a newsstand, seems to come in a plastic bag.

Americans use 100 billion plastic shopping bags a year, according to Washington-based think tank Worldwatch Institute, or more than 330 a year for every person in the country. Most of them are thrown away.

A handful of U.S. cities and states have made moves to cut that number and Whole Foods Market, a supermarket pitched at the organic and natural food shopper, on Tuesday said it would phase out plastic bags out by Earth Day on April 22. But critics say the United States is years behind countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.

"We are still in the stage of taking baby steps," said Eric Goldstein, a director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. environmental group.

Plastic bags, favored because they are durable and cheap, have been blamed for clogging drains, filling landfills and choking wildlife. They can take from 400 to 1,000 years to break down, and their constituent chemicals remain in the environment long after that, environmental groups say.

Made from crude oil, natural gas and other petrochemical derivatives, an estimated 12 million barrels of oil are used to make the bags the U.S. consumes each year.

Countries from Taiwan to Uganda, and cities including Dacca in Bangladesh, have either banned plastic bags outright or impose a levy on consumers. Australia aims to phase them out by the end of this year, and China by June 21.

Ireland charges shoppers 22 Euro cents ($0.29 cents) per bag, a move credited with reducing plastic bag use by 90 per cent. Some European cities first imposed fees as early as the 1980s.

In Britain, which uses 13 billion single-use plastic bags a year, or more than 200 per person, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged the country's biggest supermarket chains to cut use faster than planned and said Britain can eliminate them altogether.

DISMAL SITUATION

But in the United States, the federal government has been reluctant to impose measures that would interfere with competition and be unpopular with consumers.

"Pay for bags? I think we have to pay for enough," said Melvin Perry, a shopper with four or five bags in each hand coming out of a Pathmark supermarket in Brooklyn, a borough of New York city.

Kaitlyn Tycek, pushing a shopping cart full of groceries in plastic bags, said they are so thin that items must be double- and triple-bagged to avoid splitting.

"They end up using three or four bags. They are pointless," said Tycek, who said she would switch to reusable cloth bags given the right incentives such as discounts for customers who bring their own bags.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency encourages reduced use, but does not say how it should be done. "Like most waste management decisions, this is one that is made on the local level," said spokeswoman Roxanne Smith.

While reusable cloth bags have gained pockets of popularity, cashiers at most supermarkets still offer "paper or plastic" and the answer is as often as not "plastic."

The few local governments that have taken up the cause favor recycling programs rather than taxes or outright bans.

A law already enacted in California and one just passed in New York City requires stores to set up recycling programs, but critics say they have little faith that shoppers use them.

The average American family of four throws away about 1,500 bags a year, and less than one percent of bags are recycled, according to Swedish furniture giant Ikea. Last March, Ikea introduced a 5-cent charge for each disposable plastic bag, which it credited with cutting usage by a half.

San Francisco became the first and only U.S city to impose an outright ban on plastic grocery bags in April, but the ban is limited to large supermarkets. The state of New Jersey is mulling phasing out plastic bags by 2010.

"It is a pretty dismal situation," said Lisa Mastny of the Worldwatch Institute.

GOVT. & CORPORATE CHANGE

The U.S. plastics and supermarket industries say outright bans lead to a return to paper bags, which cause their own environmental problems. It takes more energy to recycle a paper bag than a plastic bag, according to the plastics industry.

"You have to ask what is the objective? If it is for the environment, then you are not going to achieve that goal," said Karen Meleta, spokeswoman for ShopRite, a U.S. supermarket chain that offers recycling containers and 2 cents back for customers who reuse plastic bags.

Tara Raddohl, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, said its U.S. stores had recycling containers and has begun selling reusable bags for $1. She declined to say whether there was a specific target for reducing usage like its British subsidiary, Asda.

But environmentalists say recycling and rebates do not curb use and it is up to all levels of government to encourage reduction. "They need to set up convenient mechanisms for that public shift to happen," Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

In pockets of the United States, the reusable cloth shopping bag has become popular and even trendy, but in most supermarkets cashiers still offer "Paper or plastic?" And, as often as not, the answer is "plastic."

"The mentality in America is plastic bags come from plastic bag land," said Mastny, of the Worldwatch Institute. "We don't think about where they come from and where they are going."

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Eddie Evans)

Bill Gates new project: Farming

By Barry Neild

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) -- Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates announced a new direction Friday as he pledged $306 million in grants to develop farming in poor countries, leading the charge for corporate responsibility at a major meeting of business chiefs.

The announcement by Gates, who is to step down from the computer giant later this year, drew attention from the financial woes that have dominated the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Gates received a standing ovation for his announcement at the suggestion of U2 frontman Bono.

The move, the first foray into agriculture by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will help boost efforts by the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland to shake off its image as a billionaire's talking shop that does little to solve the problems it discusses.

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.

"The challenge here is to design a system including profit and recognition to do more for the poor," he said, calling for a new form of "creative capitalism."

Bono, returning to add showbiz sparkle to the Forum for a second year, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon pushed the debate towards issues such as malaria eradication, poverty alleviation and climate change.

In his first appearance at Davos 2008, which gathers more than 2,500 world business figures and government leaders, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the World Bank to take on an environmental role to fight climate change.

Despite the fresh financial shockwaves generated by the $7.2 billion fraud at French bank Societe Generale, there were easing concerns that the global economy was heading towards recession.

A CNN straw poll of business leaders attending the Davos meeting voted in favor of an economic slowdown.

John Thaine, CEO of Merrill Lynch told CNN that he believed the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to 0.75 rate cut would help avoid long-term turmoil.

"I think that the steps that the Fed is taking, the steps that the administration is taking, are the right steps, they will help, but the economy is still going to slow," he told CNN.

Climate 'clearly out of balance'

BBC News

The world's climate is "clearly out of balance and is warming", the world's largest society of Earth and space scientists has said in a statement.

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) warned that changes to the Earth's climate system were "not natural".

Changes in temperature, sea level and rainfall were best explained by the increased concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities, it added.

The union called for carbon emissions to be cut by more than 50% by 2100.

It is the first time the AGU has updated its policy position on climate change since 2003, when it called for a concerted worldwide study to understand how the Earth would change as a result of climate change.

'Tough challenge'

The revised statement has gone further, stating that the changes to the planet's climate system were "best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activities in the 20th Century".

The AGU Council, which adopted the updated position, said that a sustained research effort involving many of its members had strengthened the scientific understanding of the impacts of climate change.

It warned that the world faced a tough challenge over the coming 50 years: "Even the lower limit of impending climate change - an additional global mean warming of 1.0C (1.8F) above the last decade - is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past 1,000 years.

"Warming greater than 2.0C (3.6F) above 19th Century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and - if sustained over centuries - melting of much of the Greenland ice sheet."

If the 2C rise was to be avoided, the AGU said, net annual emissions of carbon dioxide had to be cut by at least 50% by the end of the century.

It acknowledged that, as with most projections, there was a degree of uncertainty but that it was highly unlikely that the impacts would be "inconsequential".

"This is a fast-moving field of science and the AGU felt it was time to update the statement," AGU president, Tim Killeen, told BBC News.

"We took seven months to do it; we brought together a panel of experts, who created drafts which underwent extensive critical review, and it was formally approved by the elected Council in December."

Although the statement is consistent with previous positions adopted by the AGU, Professor Killeen said it differed in a number of ways.

"There are fewer caveats that might have appeared in previous statements," he explained.

"It is more of a declarative statement that the climate is changing and those changes are best explained by human effects due to greenhouse gases and aerosols."

"Secondly, rather than the AGU saying that this is important and should be looked at, I think this is a call that we need to do something about it."

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its Fourth Assessment Report, which said changes to the climate were "very likely" the result of human activity.

The IPCC also warned that the cost of acting now to reduce emissions would be far less than having to adapt to the future consequences of climate change.

The AGU, which has 50,000 members in 137 countries, said delivering solutions would require the co-operation of all sectors; from science and technology, to industry and government.