Bio-diesel film not to everyone's tastes at Sundance

Michel Comte, Yahoo News 24 Jan 08;

Activist Josh Tickell has been using and promoting bio-diesel for about 10 years as an alternative to fossil fuels, helping America lessen its dependence on foreign oil.

In his documentary film "Fields of Fuel," premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this week, he outlines the historical origins of and the political constructs that support petroleum use.

As well, he presents the benefits of bio-diesel, how it can be grown locally anywhere in the world to shift multi-national energy companies' clout to local communities, mustering applause from audiences here.

But not everyone is buying into his message.

Environmentalists continue to push for a reduction in energy consumption as the best way to stem global warming and pollution -- a point he concedes.

"The reality that we find ourselves in is that political power is concentrated, economic power is concentrated due to the massing of control over energy resources (by OPEC)," Tickell said in an interview with AFP.

In his film, Tickell criticizes John Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, for his strategy to halt ethanol use in Henry Ford's first Model T, and he fuels a longstanding conspiracy behind the death of Rudolf Diesel at the height of his engine's popularization.

Diesel disappeared from a ship crossing the English Channel in 1913.

Tickell goes to Carl's Corner Texas truck stop, a new Brooklyn biodiesel plant serving three states, and an Arizona algae-based fuel farm to show real examples of a decentralized, sustainable energy infrastructure.

Bio-diesel, he says, can be pumped into most diesel engines without requiring mechanical modifications, biodegrades in water in about a month, and creates less greenhouse gases than burning gasoline.

He even tastes it in the film.

"The biggest challenge (to using bio-diesel) is a lack of political power," he told AFP. "The system is set up to maintain fossil fuel ... The oil industry may want to change, and the technology is out there, but the obstacle is getting a (consumer) perspective shift."

"The only way that can be done is through government mandated laws that promote green energy," he added, warning of "severe repercussions" if nothing changes.

But critics point to the limited amount of arable land in the world, and say using farmland to grow fuel crops on a massive scale will lead to a spike in food prices, and food shortages.

A Canadian bank has already blamed US efforts to add more ethanol to its gas tanks for driving up food prices while delivering moot energy benefits.

Food inflation would top five percent in 2008 and the following year would approach seven percent, its highest level in more than 25 years, Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, predicted in October.

"This diversion of an ever-increasing share of the American corn crop from human consumption and livestock feed to energy production is putting steady and unrelenting pressure on food prices," said Rubin.

Ethanol is used as an additive to gasoline, comprising as much as 20 percent of the fuel mixture in most automobiles. Ninety-five percent of the ethanol produced in the United States is distilled from corn.

The US administration has set a target to raise ethanol production from one billion gallons a year in 2000 to 35 billion gallons a year by 2017.

But even if the United States achieved President George W. Bush's 2017 target, that would only reduce gasoline consumption by an estimated 6.5 percent, Rubin said.

Bio-diesel, Tickell countered, does not have to rely on the same inputs as ethanol. The production process yields more fuel per input than ethanol, and bio-diesel inputs such as algae and switch grass would not have to displace food crops, he said.

"And you quickly get used to the (fried food) smell coming out of your tailpipe," he added.

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Could carbon capture replace cuts?

Dominic Laurie, BBC News 23 Jan 08;

If there's a country that's really made the most of its fossil fuel resources, Norway is a good candidate for the prize.

Proceeds from its energy industry fund world-leading healthcare and welfare systems.

They have also created the second-biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

But there is a snag.

Rising emissions from oil and gas rigs, and from onshore power plants, sit uncomfortably with Norway's sense of itself as a country with a green conscience.

Its ambition is to be a carbon neutral nation in just 22 years' time.

Drill a well

Hard to be green and rich, you might think. But Norway's leaders insist they can achieve it, largely because they are planning to capture carbon as it is released, then store it under the seabed.

Carbon capture and storage, alongside carbon trading schemes, should be a major weapon in the European Commission's arsenal as it sets out to ensure emissions are cut by 20% by 2020 from what they were in 1990.

Norway, outside the European Union but nevertheless covered by all its climate change mechanism, has been doing it for more than a decade at the Sleipner rig in the North Sea.

"The gas in the Sleipner west field has 9% carbon dioxide," explains Helge Smaamo, who manages the rig for the Norwegian energy giant Statoil.

"We have to get that down to 2%, because gas burns much better at 2% than at 9%, so we separate a lot of it out by chemical processes.

"We then absorb the gas, put it under huge pressure and inject it under the seabed by drilling a well."

Delayed project

Now an international race is on to do the same for onshore power plants.



This is more difficult, although finding a way to capture the emissions created by burning oil, coal and gas for energy could offer a huge prize, in the form of billion-dollar contracts worldwide.

Until recently, Norway seemed to be in pole position.

The plan had been to open a test facility in 2010 at a proposed gas plant on the west coast and a full-scale version would follow four years later.

It would be built alongside Norway's dirtiest oil refinery at Mongstad - amazingly tucked in between a sapphire-blue fjord and the white snow-covered mountains.

But the site remains just a pile of rubber at present. The energy companies backing the project prompted a one-year delay when they recently failed to commit the required funds.

Political risks

And they are not the only ones not quite sold on the technology.

Environmental campaigners Greenpeace also have doubts.

"We have concerns about leakage - either slow leakage or catastrophic abrupt releases of carbon dioxide," explains Greenpeace's EU policy director for climate and energy, Mahi Sideridou.

"There are the uncertainties, too, about availability and about cost.

"But there's also the political risk being posed, that if you give financial and political priority to carbon capture and storage, you're not giving as much emphasis to the real solutions on the table like energy efficiency and renewable energy."

Vital technology

There are sceptics and procrastinators, but there are also former doubting Thomases who are now discovering the faith.

For many years, the UK government was not that sold on carbon capture.

However, in the last few weeks, it has announced that it will fund the total set-up costs of a UK-based project to capture and store emissions from a coal plant.

"It's not just another technology," says UK energy minister Malcolm Wickes. "This is absolutely vital.

"The world will be burning fossil fuels - oil, gas, coal - for 100 or more years.

"Unless we can find ways of capturing that carbon dioxide, all is lost."

The UK government still will not say how much money it is offering to the winner.

As with Norway, money is turning out to be a bit of a dirty word in the world of carbon capture.

The EU Commission's green energy announcements this week could change that.

A higher price on carbon, via a stiffer emissions trading scheme, could make these schemes look much more financially attractive.

Signals that governments could give more state aid to these projects will also help more of them get off the ground.

If those guarantees do not come, then a full-scale facility at a fossil fuel power plant in Europe will remain the stuff of Norwegian fairy tales.

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Best of our wild blogs: 24 Jan 08

Beware! Man-eating anemone!
wacky thoughts and wonderful photos on the brand new ramblings of a peculiar nature blog

Changi: a shore for the whole family!
The first IYOR event by Joseph Lai on the wildfilms blog and the nie green club blog.

Sentosa part 3
Nemo, cuttlefish and more on the urban forest blog

Asian Koel food
on the bird ecology blog

Bat Lily in the Valley
my first love on the garden voices blog

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Rising Seas: how much will waters rise and what drives them up?

The ebb and flow of sea level rise
Mark Kinver, BBC News 22 Jan 08;

More than half of the world's population have made their home in a coastal region, whether they are subsistence fishermen in Bangladesh or high-flying City bankers in New York.

For many low-lying areas, scientists warn that the coming century is likely to see sea level rise that will change the shape of coastlines around the globe.

While cities such as London, New York and Singapore are likely to spend billions on protecting inhabitants from flooding, many small island nations are at risk of disappearing beneath the waves.

So how much will waters rise, and what are the factors driving them up?

FACTORS AFFECTING SEA LEVEL RISE

Understanding, and more importantly, measuring the factors that influence the dynamics of the world's oceans is a relatively new area of research.

It was not until the early 1990s and the emergence of satellite technology capable of highly accurate measurement was it possible to record sea level changes and variations on a global scale.

Even today, there is still a debate among scientists about how much waters will go up by the end of the 21st Century.

But there is agreement that the mean sea surface is rising, and that there is a complex array of factors driving the increase, including:

* Thermal expansion - as greenhouse gases become more concentrated, more heat energy is trapped in the atmosphere. This energy is also transferred to the ocean, causing it to warm and expand
* Ice melt - rising air temperatures cause mountain glaciers and ice sheets to melt, sending the resulting melt water into the sea
* Ocean current variations - pan-ocean currents, for example the Gulf Stream, are the main way that heat energy is transported from equatorial waters to cooler higher latitudes. However, these are subject to natural variations; probably the most well-known system is El Nino, which moves vast quantities of water from one side of the southern Pacific to the other every three to four years
* Topography - the combination of ocean currents and atmospheric pressure systems means that the oceans are not flat. Data gathered by satellites show height variations that exceed two metres

MEASURING SEA LEVEL RISE

Tidal gauges
These have been used to measure local tidal ranges since the 19th Century, with the first automated instrument being installed in the UK back in 1852.

However, it has only been in the last couple of decades that technological advances have allowed the level of precision needed to separate long-term sea level rise from natural variations.

For example, the Australian government in 1991 developed the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project (SPSLCMP) in response to concerns voiced by a number of neighbouring nations - many of which were low-lying island states - about the potential impact from human-induced climate change and sea level rise.

The network consists of 12 Sea Level Fine Resolution Acoustic Measuring Equipment (Seaframe) monitoring stations on small island nations located in the South Pacific.

Each station regularly measures sea levels and meteorological conditions, which are relayed via satellite to Australia's National Tidal Centre where the data is processed, analysed and made available to the international community.

Every monitoring station is also fitted with Continuous Global Positioning System (CGPS) technology, which is so sensitive that it can measure whether the elevation of the equipment is moving, either sinking or rising up out of the water.

With the exception of the station on the Federated States of Micronesia, the network has been operational since 1994.

Over that period, the project gathered data that has enabled researchers to identify sea level rise from natural variations (such as El Nino events) and any vertical movement of the tidal gauges.

Figures for June 2006 show that Tuvalu, an island state that is expected to be one of the first nations to disappear beneath the waves, is experiencing a net sea level rise of 5.7mm each year.

Satellite measurements
To help scientists understand the forces behind climate change and how that is going to affect ocean dynamics, they need a real-time global view of the world's waters.



Since 1992, researchers have been able to measure the height of the sea surface and detect variations in ocean levels to millimetric detail via radar altimeters on satellites.

Set for launch in June 2008 is Jason-2, a low-orbit satellite fitted with the latest generation of altimeter, called Poseidon-3.

It will be able to map about 95% of the ice-free oceans' topography every 10 days and help scientists monitor ocean circulation, climate change and sea level rise.

"There is more to the dynamics of sea level rise than just a single, global rise," explained Mikael Rattenborg, director of operations for the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat).

"Although we have seen, overall, global sea level rise, there are areas that have decreased for long periods, followed by an increase.

"We can only analyse the significance of regional variability of sea level rise if we have altimetry data available to us," he added. "Jason-2 will help us model and explain this evolution."

MAKING SENSE OF THE PROJECTIONS

In its latest assessment report published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that by the end of the century sea level rise was most likely to be between 28 and 43cm.

However, a number of scientists have published papers criticising the projection, calling it too conservative and warning that future climate change could cause ice currently locked into the polar ice sheets to flow into the oceans.


"Tidal gauges showed that there was an average annual increase of 1.8mm during the 20th Century," explained Dr Simon Holgate, a sea level scientist at the UK's Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory.

"And for the period of satellite-based observations, we have got about an average rise of 3.4mm each year.

"We are confident that sea level is rising, we're pretty confident that for the last decade or so it has been rising by an average of 3mm each year but what we are not confident about is whether that is a result of ocean warming or ice melt."

Anders Levermann, a professor of dynamics of the climate system at Potsdam University, Germany, suggested that half was a result of thermal expansion, and half was from melt water from glaciers.

While supportive of the IPCC's overall findings, he criticised the panel for using the same model to predict future sea level rise as was used to inaccurately calculate past increases.

"The models in the IPCC report underestimated the sea level rise that we have already observed by 40%," he said.

"The only thing used in the report were these models, which were then used to project into the future."

Professor Levermann said that more work needed to be carried out on the factors affecting the flow dynamics on the two massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

He added that studies showed that melt water had been penetrating the glaciers and was acting as a lubricant between the ice and the base rock.

As a result, the ice was flowing faster towards the sea.

"We believe that we can make more statements on sea level rise and that you cannot trust models that are underestimating it," he said.

But Dr Holgate said that it was difficult to make such observations based on limited data.

"The question is how do you attribute observed sea level rise to thermal expansion and what is the result of freshwater entering the oceans from ice melt?" he explained.

"The main problem with trying to understand thermal expansion is that we have relatively few measurements; certainly very few measurements longer than 50 years ago.

"And very, very few from the Southern Hemisphere, where most of the planet's water is located.

"You start getting into difficult problems when you start trying to extrapolate limited data to the bigger picture."

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Crown-of-thorns: most immediate threat to reefs

Global warning on sea's silent killers
Leigh Dayton, The Australian 23 Jan 08;

"I don't want to downplay the threat of climate change to people and ecosystems, but it's not affecting the tropical reefs at present."

"The success of large marine parks, like the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, is largely due to the primary role science plays in understanding what's going on."

FORGET climate change. The most immediate threat to tropical coral reefs is the ravenous crown of thorns starfish.

The claim comes from Andrew Baird, a marine ecologist with the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University in Townsville.

Along with Stuart Campbell, Indonesian program co-ordinator with the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, Dr Baird has documented the health of reefs in the "coral triangle" of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, Solomon Islands and East Timor.

"There seem to be outbreaks of the starfish throughout the coral triangle," he said, pointing to work conducted with WCS since 2005.

Dr Baird has also just returned from a survey trip along the coral reefs of Halmahera, Indonesia, where the team identified a massive outbreak of the starfish.

"It's killing a lot more coral than anything else, including climate change," he said. "I don't want to downplay the threat of climate change to people and ecosystems, but it's not affecting the tropical reefs at present."

According to Dr Baird, poor water quality is driving the outbreak because starfish larvae feed on the extra nutrients from fertilisers, soil and other contaminants.

Moreover, pollutants stick to corals and associated organisms, as well as having direct toxic effects.

The result: coral becomes unhealthy and also unattractive to other animals that settle on them.

"From what we've seen I'd say at least 20 per cent of the reefs have less than 5 per cent coral cover. You'd expect to see 40 to 50 per cent on a healthy reef," Dr Baird said.

In order to tackle the problems, coral triangle nations established a partnership last December. But DrBaird said details remained sketchy and did not mention the critical role of research in conservation activities.

"We are disappointed research is yet to be fully considered in the initiative," he said.

"The success of large marine parks, like the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, is largely due to the primary role science plays in understanding what's going on."

Dr Baird pointed to efforts by the GBRMP Authority to work with farmers to reduce practices leading to run-off from fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.

Scientists have also monitored the impact of the crown of thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef, the first step in reconstructing outbreaks, devising better control methods and boosting the resilience of corals to future assaults, whether from starfish or climate change.

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Forest fires leave 48 hot spots in Sumatra

Antara 23 Jan 08;

Pekanbaru, Riau (ANTARA News) - The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said recent forest fires in Sumatra Island had left at least 48 hot spots, 35 of which were located in Riau province.

Johanes Sudrajat, head of the BMG`s analysis section, said here on Wednesday the hot spots were detected by the "NOAA 18" satellite on Tuesday (Jan 22).

Of the 35 hot spots, three were to be found in Rokan Hilir district, three in Dumai city, 11 in Bengkalis district, eight in Siak district, seven in Palelewan district and another three in Indragiri Hilir district.

In addition to the 35 hot spots, 13 hot spots had been discovered in the provinces of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD), North Sumatra and West Sumatra, Johanes said, adding that a week ago, the BMG had only noted 23 hot spots.

In the meantime, the Forestry Ministry was reported intending to soon use a Russian-made Kamov Ka-32A holicopter in efforts to overcome forest fires raging in West Kalimantan.(*)

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$4,000 fine for feeding monkeys

Elena Chong, Straits Times 24 Jan 08;

A MAN has been fined $4,000 for feeding monkeys in a nature reserve, the steepest fine ever handed out for the offence.

Panneerselvam Arunasalam, a cook, admitted on Tuesday that he had fed the animals bread in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve on Aug 5 last year.

A park ranger spotted the 46-year-old doling out food in the Mandai sanctuary, which is near Old Upper Thomson Road. The area is ringed with signs warning people against giving the animals food.

Pressing for a stiff sentence on Tuesday, National Parks Board prosecutor M. Maniam told the court that feeding monkeys endangers both the animals and humans.

'It alters the monkeys' natural behaviour adversely, as it makes them reliant on humans for food instead of foraging for food on their own in the forest,' he said.

These monkeys tend to behave more aggressively towards humans, especially children, he added.

It also leads to an increase in the monkey population and brings the animals closer to roads in search of food.

Although park officials and the media have highlighted the the dangers of feeding monkeys, many people seem undeterred.

The feeding of monkeys is becoming more prevalent, Mr Maniam said. There were 157 cases last year, compared to 142 the year before.

Eighteen people were convicted over the two-year period. The rest paid $250 fines.

Panneerselvam could have been fined up to $50,000 and jailed for up to six months.

LINKS

More about the impact of feeding monkeys on the wildsingapore website.

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Inflation in Singapore: Blame it on transport costs

Cheow Xin Yi, Today Online 24 Jan 08;

6.4% year-on-year rise was the chief contributor to overall inflation of 4.4%

IN November, it was the rising cost of food. Last month, it was the spike in transport fares. Each month now seems to bring its own reason why the inflation rate is reaching highs last witnessed some two decades ago.

Singapore's consumer price index (CPI) — a measure of the average change in the prices of a basket of goods and services — rose 4.4 per cent last month from a year earlier, with transport contributing the most.

Transport costs, which made up 22 per cent of the index, increased 6.4 per cent in December year-on-year, its highest in 15 years. Higher cab fares, car prices and dearer petrol contributed to the jump, said the Department of Statistics yesterday.

"A large part of the move upwards is on account of higher global oil prices, which has led in recent months to hikes in bus and taxi fares," said HSBC economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde.

ComfortDelGro, which runs the largest taxi fleet here with more than 17,000 cabs, jacked up fares by as much as 49 per cent on Dec 17, with other taxi firms following suit.

Bus fares had also increased in recent months, while the Government raised road tariffs for motorists.

The other main items responsible for the surge were food, which rose 5.5 per cent last month, and healthcare, the costs of which went up by 6.3 per cent.

For the full year, the CPI gained 2.1 per cent after rising 1 per cent in 2006. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) expects the index to increase between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent this year.

Rising inflation first made headlines when the October CPI figure surged unexpectedly to 3.6 per cent against a median forecast of 2.8 per cent. It hit 4.2 per cent a month later for a 25-year high.

While the numbers are in line with economists' expectations — merely 0.1 per cent above the 4.3-per-cent consensus forecast — most expect inflation to continue its upward trend this month. With higher valuations for HDB flats kicking in this year, some expect inflation to breach 6 per cent.

"We'll continue to see the impact of higher food prices as we go into the Chinese New Year, and possible food supply disruptions due to the weather, though there may be less pressure from fuel prices if the current moderation in crude oil prices continues," said CIMB-GK regional economist Song Seng Wun.

Despite the ongoing concerns, economists think it unlikely that the Government will further target the exchange rate to curb imported inflation after its surprise move to let the Singapore dollar appreciate faster in October.

Against the backdrop of a possible United States recession and intensified growth risks, Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng expects the "MAS to maintain its policy stance of a 'slightly steeper' appreciation bias" for the Singapore dollar.

Agreeing, DBS economist Irvin Seah said: "Given that external demand is already so weak, you wouldn't want to further aggravate the situation."

Instead, the Government is likely to alleviate inflationary pressures through concessions and rebates, said Mr Song.

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Prices of suckling pigs double due to supply shortage in China

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

SINGAPORE: The prices of suckling pigs have doubled recently due to a drop in supply from China, and a 5kg pig is going for as much as S$180.

Restaurant operators said that more people in China can now afford suckling pigs. With higher local consumption, fewer are exported.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has also stopped some of the five licensed pork suppliers from selling to Singapore after finding a banned antibiotic, known as Nitrofuran, in their pigs.

Between January and November last year, 108,300 suckling pigs were imported, down from 220,000 in 2006.

As prices were already fixed in December last year, restaurants have to absorb some of the price hike and expect lower profits this year. - CNA/ac

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China raises animal disease alarm for holiday

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

BEIJING: China has warned of an increased risk of animal-related health epidemics during its lunar new year holiday and said many local governments were not prepared, state media reported on Wednesday.

The heightened risk in a country prone to animal diseases stems from the massive numbers of travellers and livestock expected to be transported around the country for China's biggest holiday, Xinhua news agency said.

It quoted Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai as saying the activities of migratory birds were another factor.

Sun urged local authorities to step up vaccinations against animal diseases to guarantee a safe and sufficient supply of pork and chicken during the holiday, known in China as the Spring Festival.

He did not specify which areas faced the biggest danger, according to Xinhua, but he said that "disease prevention measures in some areas were not in place."

The festival occurs in early February this year. Each year, millions of Chinese head home to celebrate the holiday with their families.

China remains on alert for frequent occurrences of bird flu, which can be deadly to humans. The virus has so far infected at least 27 people in China, 17 of whom have died.

Authorities also last year struggled to control an outbreak of a swine disease that led to a massive pig cull and drove up pork prices.

- AFP/yb

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Vietnam confirms man died of bird flu

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

HANOI - Vietnamese health officials confirmed Wednesday that a 32-year-old man from a northern province died of H5N1 bird flu last week, raising the country's death toll from the virus to 48.

"The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology has confirmed to us that he has tested positive for the H5N1 virus," Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the health ministry's preventive health department, told AFP.

The Lao Dong (Labour) and Tuoi Tre (Youth) dailies earlier said the man had eaten one of several chickens that had died near his house in the mountainous province of Tuyen Quang.

Communist Vietnam reported its last human death from bird flu in December when the virus killed a four-year-old boy, the 47th death since late 2003.
Vietnam has the world's second highest bird flu death toll after Indonesia.

The national Animal Health Department meanwhile reported that the poultry outbreak in Tuyen Quang had been confirmed by the National Steering Committee for Avian Influenza Prevention and Control.

The H5N1 virus was confirmed in three of 11 poultry samples taken in the province's Son Duong district, where the latest victim lived, according to Animal Health Department chief Bui Quang Anh.

Authorities had since culled poultry and disinfected the area.

Three Vietnamese provinces are now on the official bird flu watchlist, after northern Thai Nguyen and southern Tra Vinh also reported cases among birds within the past 21 days.

The Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper also reported that tests in central Quang Binh province had found that over 1,000 ducklings from a flock of 1,700 unvaccinated birds died of H5N1 early this month.

Northern Vietnam's cold winter weather favours the spread of respiratory diseases because immune systems are weakened and people tend to spend more time indoors together, experts warn.

Vietnam's Health Ministry has cautioned the public only to buy poultry of clear origins ahead of the traditional Tet Lunar New Year festival in February, when poultry sales and consumption are expected to rise sharply.

The World Health Organisation has now confirmed 351 human cases of H5N1 worldwide, of whom 219 have died.

The virus is mainly an animal disease, but scientists fear it could mutate to easily jump from human to human, sparking a deadly global pandemic.- AFP /ls

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Shortage of vets hampers India's bird flu battle

Channel News 23 Jan 08;

MARGRAM, India: India's West Bengal state said Wednesday it was falling behind in its attempts to halt the spread of bird flu among poultry as the virus was confirmed in two new areas.

Despite receiving reinforcements from neighbouring states to help slaughter more than two million birds, at least 1,000 additional veterinarians and doctors are needed to fight the outbreak that began more than a week ago, the state's animal resources minister said.

"We don't have the infrastructure to battle this epidemic. Bird flu is spreading to new areas. Thousands of chickens are dropping dead every day," the minister, Anisur Rahaman, told AFP.

Rahaman said hundreds more culling teams had been sent to 10 districts where bird flu had been confirmed, but not all of them were accompanied by medical staff.

"We have asked neighbouring states to send at least 1,000 veterinary and human doctors," said Rahaman. "We have urged the federal government to send expert teams and doctors to assess the situation and help the culling teams."

Rahaman also said the earlier target of slaughtering two million birds would now have to be raised but did not say by how much.

"Bird flu has spread to two more districts in West Bengal. It has been confirmed by telephone," said Rahaman. "We have to kill more poultry. The target will be more than two million."

The latest outbreak began in the village of Margram, 240 kilometres (150 miles) from the state capital Kolkata. It is the third and worst to hit India since 2006, which has so far not had any human cases of bird flu.

Rahaman however expressed grave concerns about the possibility of the disease spreading to humans, with hundreds of people reporting flu symptoms although tests conducted so far have proved negative.

"Naked children are playing with chickens in courtyards in the affected villages," he said.

"Chickens are roaming in the kitchen while women are cooking. It is a very worrisome situation."

People typically catch bird flu by coming into direct contact with infected poultry. Experts fear a pandemic if the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu mutates into a form easily transmissible between humans.

An AFP correspondent in the bird flu zone said proper isolation procedures were not being followed, as villagers without protective gear milled about health workers carrying out the culling.

The culling teams have been facing an uphill battle with villagers smuggling birds out of affected areas and selling them in markets.

The outbreak, which has seen some 400,000 birds slaughtered so far, is expected to hit local poultry owners hard.

"Most of my chickens have been culled," said Jayanta Bhattacharya, a poultry owner in Rampurhat town near Margram, whose farm here had 30,000 chickens.

"I have already suffered a loss of 400,000 rupees (10,000 dollars)."

Sri Lanka on Wednesday banned imports of live birds and chickens from India, G. Wijesiri, a senior official with the country's animal health department, told AFP.

Migratory birds have been largely blamed for the global spread of the disease, which has killed more than 200 people worldwide since 2003. - AFP/ac

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No fear about dead birds, flu: AVA and NEA

Government surveillance plan ensures safety
Letter from AVA and NEA, Today Online 24 Jan 08;

Letter from Goh Shih Yong
Assistant Director, Corporate Communications, for CEO, AVA
and S Satish Appoo
Director, Environment Health Department, NEA

We refer to the letters, "When birds die mysteriously" (Jan 17), by Mr Chua Tee Lian and Mr Thomas Lee Zhi Zhi.

We assure the public that various Government agencies work closely together to minimise the bird flu risk through wild birds.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has an ongoing surveillance programme to check for bird flu virus in the urban and wild bird population.

An emergency response plan is in place to deal with any suspected bird flu case.

It is not uncommon to find one or two dead birds in the environment as birds do die of natural causes such as old age, malnutrition or injuries from fighting.

As Singapore is free from bird flu, the public need not be alarmed if they come across one or two dead birds in public places.

However, as a precaution, the public is advised not touch any dead bird.

Rather, they should contact the National Environment Agency (NEA) for assistance to remove the dead birds.

In the case of the eagles, we regret the delay in getting the birds removed.

We have learnt from this experience and our agencies have taken steps to prevent such incidents.

The public can call the AVA (1800-476 1600) or NEA (1800-CALL NEA or 1800-225 5632) on any bird-related issues.

We thank the writers for their feedback.

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Bird flu threat still real, scientists say

Darren Schuettler, Yahoo News 24 Jan 08;

The world cannot afford to be complacent about the H5N1 bird flu virus despite its failure to trigger a human pandemic four years after sweeping across most of Asia, experts and officials said on Wednesday.

The latest outbreaks in India underscored the need for constant vigilance against a virus endemic in birds in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, they told a Bangkok conference.

"We can't afford to be complacent and say, 'Look, it hasn't happened yet among humans'," Yongyuth Yuthavong, Thailand's Minister of Science and Technology, said in opening the three-day gathering of scientists from 40 countries.

"It's not a problem that can be solved overnight," he said.

The virus has killed millions of chickens and ducks and despite the slaughter of millions more and vaccination campaigns, it remains entrenched in many poultry populations.

People become infected only rarely, but the fatality rate is still high. Of the 351 human cases recorded since 2003, a total of 219 have died, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Although H5N1 has not yet evolved into a virus that can pass easily between humans, it could still do so, said Robert Webster, of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

"It is a dangerous virus and one that we cannot afford to trust. It still has the potential to reassert and become a catastrophe for humans like it is in chickens," he said.

Others argue the jury is still out on whether H5N1 will trigger a global flu outbreak that could kill millions of people.

"I'm not convinced H5 really has the ability to jump into humans and cause the next pandemic," Peter Palese, a professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, told Reuters.

"Most of the human cases are the result of a large dose infection," he said, such as victims who come into close contact with sick birds.

"If you are a chicken it's a serious problem, but I'm not so sure it's the next pandemic strain," he said.

The conference will hear the latest research on vaccines for poultry and humans, although drugs for the latter are still going through various stages of licensing.

Another key issue was the lack of a new virus sharing deal after WHO-sponsored talks failed last year.

Indonesia, the nation worst hit by bird flu with 97 human deaths, has held back samples since August last year. It wants guarantees from rich countries and drugmakers that poor countries will get access to affordable vaccines made from their samples.

Webster called on all sides to resolve the impasse. "We live in a global village and we must learn to share otherwise we are likely to pay the penalty for being selfish."

If and when a human vaccine is approved, the ability to make it is still woefully low, said Albert Osterhaus, a microbiologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands.

He said the current capacity of 400 million doses of flu vaccine would cover a fraction of the world's 6.6 billion people.

Other conference topics include the role of migratory birds as potential carriers, and strategies for detecting and containing the virus which has spread to more than 60 countries.

Since H5N1 re-emerged in Asia four years ago after a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, hundreds of millions of dollars have been ploughed into studying and fighting it.

But answers to key questions continue to elude scientists.

"We don't really know what it takes to be transmissible and we don't know where it's coming from. Where is it hiding out?" Webster told Reuters.

Read more!

CDC director gets legal powers to detain, isolate chikungunya cases

Loh Chee Kong, Today Online 24 Jan 08;

IT was a measure last invoked at the height of the Sars outbreak in 2003. And now, the authorities are again stepping up the fight against another foreign virus, by conferring legal powers on a high-ranking public health administrator to stem the spread of chikungunya fever.

Today has learnt that on Monday, the Government gazetted Communicable Diseases Centre clinical director Leo Yee Sin as a Health Officer, under the Infectious Diseases Act, from Jan 17 to July 16.

The appointment gives her the authority to order the detention or isolation of confirmed or suspected chikungunya cases.

She can also inspect and search any premises where a suspected outbreak has taken place and seize samples of any substances for laboratory tests, without the need for a warrant and "with such force as may be necessary".

A Ministry of Health (MOH) spokesperson said Associate Professor Leo's appointment would facilitate efforts "to ensure timely isolation or quarantine of these patients who pose a public health threat", given that such persons may object to being admitted to hospital.

Another suspected chikungunya case was announced yesterday — the first Singaporean so far — bringing the total to 10 since the first locally transmitted case was detected on Jan 14.

All had surfaced in the Clive Street area, where 1,380 people have been screened. And the National Environment Agency (NEA) is extending its eradication of mosquito sites beyond the area as a "preventive measure".

Why such measures for the chikungunya virus, given that its outbreak has been non-fatal and geographically limited here, and the global medical community has no conclusive proof that it can kill?

Not only is relatively little known about it, it also has no specific drug or vaccine. The Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) is working with the NEA and MOH to develop a vaccine.

In the last three years, thousands worldwide have had the fever, pointing to a re-emergence of the disease on a possibly unprecedented scale. Citing a 2005 outbreak on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion that reportedly claimed 238 lives, SIgN's senior scientist Dr Lisa Ng said the disease "can become fatal" and MOH would "want to be as careful as possible".

Said Dr Ng: "As chikungunya is still very understudied, MOH would want to be as prepared as possible. You can't wait for a disease to be fatal before you take it seriously."

The MOH, however, said it has "no plans currently" to enact border screening for chikungunya, like the Sars crisis. It said Assoc Prof Leo's new powers will "only be for the period necessary to prevent and control the outbreak", and may be extended "when necessary". The outbreak is considered over only when no new cases are found within 24 days of the last one.

Assoc Prof Leo told Today the legal powers will aid her work on the ground, such as in handling patients and probing the source of the outbreak, "as we aim to remove viremic patients (those who have the virus circulating in their blood) from the source".

Lowdown on Fever

Chikungunya fever – which, like dengue, is transmitted through the Aedes mosquito – is distinguished by symptoms that include a sudden onset of fever, chills, headache, nausea, vomiting and joint pain.

The virus was first discovered after a 1952 outbreak in Tanzania.

The worst outbreak to date was recorded two years ago on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where within 16 months, a third of its 777,000-strong population was struck down. The outbreak reportedly claimed 238 lives.

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Chikungunya: Singaporean is 10th person warded

Dengue-like disease: Singapporean is 10th person warded
Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times 24 Jan 08;

A SINGAPOREAN man has been hospitalised with the mosquito-borne, dengue-like disease, chikungunya.

He became the latest - and the 10th - person to contract the virus here.

Before this outbreak, all 13 previous cases of chikungunya here had been imported.

Like the other nine patients, the latest patient had not travelled recently.

He worked in Clive Street, where all but one of the other patients lived. That last patient lodged nearby at Dickson Street, off Clive Street.

Apart from the latest patient, all the others are foreign nationals. Only one of them remains warded at the Communicable Disease Centre.

Save for two patients who had gone to see Dr S.L. Sarma, who owns a clinic in the area, the others were detected through screenings in the area by health officers. The screenings were started after Dr Sarma alerted the Health Ministry.

Since Jan 14, they have sent blood samples of 1,380 people living or working in the Clive Street area to the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Environmental Health Institute for testing.

The NEA has also deployed 20 of its officers, and hired 15 private pest control operators - almost three times more people than usual - to comb the Clive Street area for mosquito breeding sites. They have also carried out fogging there repeatedly.

The agency has also sent another 35 officers and 25 private pest control operators to check areas beyond Clive Street, which are bounded by Rochor Road, Race Course Road, Lavender Road and Jalan Besar.

Altogether, the officers and operators have checked close to 2,800 premises and destroyed 59 mosquito breeding sites.

Ten Chikungunya cases detected as of Wednesday
Channel NewsAsia 24 Jan 08;

SINGAPORE: Another person has been infected with Chikungunya fever, bringing the total number of cases to ten so far.

The Ministry of Health said the latest case is a Singaporean with no recent travel history. But he works near Clive Street, the area where the cluster of cases was earlier detected.

All the cases were treated at the Communicable Disease Centre. Eight have been admitted for isolation and management. All but two have since been discharged.

The ministry and the National Environment Agency (NEA) have screened about 1,380 people from the Clive Street area since 14 January, and will continue the screenings on Thursday.

NEA has also inspected close to 2,800 premises in the area for mosquito breeding grounds, and a total of 59 breeding spots have been destroyed.

NEA will continue the operation until the virus threat is removed from the area.- CNA

Read more!

West Coast sea-facing condo site launched

Kalpana Rashiwala, Business Times 24 Jan 08;

URA site likely to attract top bids of $260 to $400 psf ppr, say analysts

THE Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday launched the tender for a 99-year-leasehold condo site next to Blue Horizon condo facing West Coast Park and overlooking the sea.

Property consultants generally expect the site at West Coast Crescent to attract widespread interest from developers given its strong attributes - the plot can be built into a new condo up to 36 storeys high boasting nice views of surrounding parks and the sea and just a 10-minute drive away from shopping and entertainment attractions at VivoCity, St James Power Station and Sentosa.

However, the range of likely top bids for the 1.2ha site with a 2.8 plot ratio (ratio of maximum potential gross floor area to land area) indicated by consultants polled by BT yesterday varied widely - from $260 to $400 per square foot (psf) of potential gross floor area.

At the high end, Savills Singapore director (marketing and business development) Ku Swee Yong predicts top bids for the site will be around $380-$400 psf of potential gross floor area, working out to absolute bid quantums of about $137 million to $145 million.

This will result in a breakeven cost of about $750-$800 psf for the new condo. 'The developer should be able to achieve an average selling price of about $900-950 psf assuming the new project is launched next year,' Mr Ku added.

He reckons units in the condo should enjoy strong demand from both owner occupiers as well as those seeking to rent out their units to expats, including Japanese, given the site's proximity to the Waseda Shibuya Senior High School.

'The western part of Singapore is attracting a lot of foreign investments from the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries, among others.

'The area is also near National University of Singapore, one north, and Science Park. So high-income professionals, researchers and engineers would be keen on living in the condo,' Mr Ku said.

Agreeing, Knight Frank director (consultancy and research) Nicholas Mak added that the new condo will have views of West Coast Park, Clementi Woods and the sea, and yet be close to the CBD. 'The District 5 site's developer can count on demand from both the upgrader/mass market and mid-tier buyers,' Mr Mak argues.

He expects the plot to attract three to six bids, with top bids in the $270-$310 psf ppr range, translating to breakeven cost of about $650-690 psf. 'The developer would be looking at a likely average selling price of around $740-780 psf,' Mr Mak added.

CB Richard Ellis executive director Li Hiaw Ho says that units at Blue Horizon next door were transacted in the resale market at an average $750 psf in Q4 last year. 'Taking into consideration the award of a high-rise condo site in Boon Lay Way at $248 psf ppr in December 2007, it's likely the mid-range of bids for the latest plot will come in at around $260-280 psf ppr, resulting in a break-even cost of around $600-650 psf. However, top bids may be higher than this, depending on market conditions at the time of the tender close.'

The site can be developed into a condo with about 300 units averaging 1,250 square feet. The tender for the plot closes on March 19.

Strong bids expected for West Coast site
Fiona Chan, Straits Times 24 Jan 08;

A RESIDENTIAL site released for sale at West Coast Crescent yesterday is expected to draw a good response.

Property consultants said the 1.2ha plot could fetch between $94 million and $112 million.

This works out to $260 per sq ft (psf) to $310 psf of the site's potential gross floor area which stands at 361,667 sq ft. These expected prices are slightly higher than the $248 psf of gross floor area fetched for a site at Boon Lay Way last month.

The West Coast plot was launched for public tender by the Urban Redevelopment Authority yesterday as part of the Government's confirmed land sales programme, which identifies sites to be sold at a pre-determined date.

It is attractively located near schools - including the Japanese Supplementary School - as well the National University of Singapore, said market experts.

A new condominium built on the 99-year leasehold parcel 'promises a view of the sea and greenery at West Coast Park and Clementi Woods', said Mr Li Hiaw Ho, executive director of CB Richard Ellis Research.

He added that such a condo, which can be built to up to 36 storeys, would be only the second high-rise development 'on this stretch of West Coast', after Blue Horizon.

Mr Nicholas Mak, director of research and consultancy at Knight Frank, expects the site to attract three to six bids. About 290 to 300 condo units can be developed on the land, he said.

The breakeven cost for a future building on the site is likely to be about $650 to $690 psf, he added. 'The new units in this proposed development could be sold at prices between $740 and $780 psf.'

Mr Li also pointed out that some units in adjacent Blue Horizon were sold at about $750 psf in the fourth quarter of last year. Sub-sales of uncompleted homes at nearby Varsity Park were also in that price bracket.

Read more!

Fall in China apple supply spikes global apple juice prices

China's apple effect
Today Online 24 Jan 08;
Producing half the world's apples, China's reduced yield looks set to spike prices

BEIJING — The price of apple juice in British supermarkets is set to rise this year due to bad weather in China, in another sign the country's growing influence is affecting the world in unexpected ways.

China sells as many apples as the rest of the world put together. But a late frost last year and cold, wet weather has reduced the crop by 10 per cent, and helped to increase the price of international supplies of apple juice concentrate, for which much of the fruit is destined. The other main reason is a late frost in Poland, another large supplier.

"Raw material prices have more than doubled as apple processors compete with the fresh market for supply of apples," said a spokesman at the British Soft Drinks Association. "It is likely that, globally, supermarkets will charge more for apple juice to compensate for the raw material price increases."

The apple-growing industry has taken off in China with characteristic zeal.

"I was approached by businessmen from Guangdong," said Mr Wang Jichang, a farmer from Shaanxi province, one of the country's two main apple-growing regions.

Mr Wang was told if he ripped out the local Guoguang apple trees and replaced them with the Fuji variety, the businessmen would return and buy up all the fruit he produced.

Mr Wang said he had no regrets in swapping his patriotic trees for the Fuji, a hybrid developed in Japan, favoured by supermarkets and manufacturers. He has now earned enough to pay for his three children's high school and college education.

The apple-growing industry in the United States has suffered most from the competition, although shoppers in Britain have benefited from lower costs until now.

Prices were so low Americans accused the Chinese of "dumping" apple juice on the world market at less than the cost of production. That was before the frost last year interrupted a continuous rise in output.

"In 2005, export price of apple juice concentrate at Chinese customs was only US$500 to US$600 ($720 to $860) per ton. Now it's US$1,500 per ton," said Mr Sha Lixun, the deputy secretary of the China Fruit Marketing Association. — The Daily Telegraph

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Tata's Nano: Dream or nightmare for India?

Ravi Velloor, Straits Times 24 Jan 08;

NEW DELHI - MR BIRBAL Yadav makes a modest living renting out tenements to domestic workers in New Delhi's lower middle class area of Saidul-ajaib. His sons, Sonu and Monu, are in secondary school, and he hopes they will further their studies.

Mr Yadav, 47, has thus far hesitated to give the lads motorbikes, but now he plans to hand them an incentive that not only adds prestige, but also reduces his fears for their safety.

'I intend to book two Nanos that the Tata company announced this month,' he says.

Nano is the 'people's car' unveiled this month by the Tata Group, probably India's best-regarded business group, which also owns Singapore's NatSteel.

Called the one-lakh car - a lakh is the equivalent of 100,000 rupees (S$3,600) - the bug-shaped vehicle that comes with a 624cc engine is only 3.1m long and 1.6m high.

At its current price, car industry figures show, the Nano could do for Indian motoring what Henry Ford did a century ago with the Model T, which fired the American passion for wheels.

Traffic planners and environmentalists are nervous. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning climate change panel of the United Nations, has said the prospect of a million Nanos entering Indian roads every year gives him 'nightmares'.

If media coverage is any indication, however, the rest of India is applauding. 'Small wonder', gushed the headline of the lead story in New Delhi's Hindustan Times the day after group chairman Ratan Tata drove the vehicle into the Delhi Auto Fair to the popping of a thousand flashbulbs.

India's rising middle class, fattened by an economy clocking average growth of close to 9 per cent, is snapping up consumer durables. Those on bicycles are trading up to 100cc and 125cc motorcycles, which cost about 55,000 rupees apiece. The two-wheeler segment is eyeing four-wheelers, starting with Suzuki Motor's 210,000 rupee offering of the Maruti 800, the original Indian mass-market car.

Nano, which will go on sale in the latter half of the year, is arriving at a time when Suzuki Motor, which controls 55 per cent of the car market through its local unit Maruti, is eyeing the market for larger cars.

Mr Tata said he was inspired to build the low-cost car after spotting a family of four on a scooter getting drenched by monsoon rains. Four years later, the group said it has kept its promise.

Even so, the one-lakh tag is a misnomer. After taxes and transportation from factory to showroom, the minimum price for the base model, which has no air-conditioning, will be about 135,000 rupees.

Even so, to keep prices at this level, Tata engineers, who have filed for 34 patents on the car, have needed to find new ways to do things. For instance, the steering column is a metal tube, where most cars use rods. In some places, modern adhesives do a job traditionally left to nuts and bolts.

Tata claims the car, which can comfortably seat four people, will run 20km to the litre and is as environmentally friendly as any other car made in India. Its engine generates about 33bhp, enough to propel four people up steep gradients. Despite the thin body sheets, the group said the Nano passes frontal crash tests.

Mr Tata is not letting on how many pieces of the base model he intends to manufacture and how many will have the trimmings that yield the real profit.

The car has attracted attention worldwide.

Fortune magazine correspondent John Elliott said his blog entry on the Nano chalked up more than 21,000 hits in less than two days. In contrast, his entry on the hugely successful Reliance Power IPO, the largest offered by an Asian company, got less than 2,000 hits over a week.

At the annual Detroit car show, the Nano was a frequent topic of debate, although the car was not even shown there. Indeed, even Ford executives had fulsome praise for Tata.

'It is a ground-breaking product that will cause people to think differently about the car,' Ford executive vice-president John Parker told reporters. 'I have a lot of respect for Tata.'

The car, which optimists said could herald a manufacturing revival for India, came to life on a day when the government reported that industrial growth was slowing. Production growth in November, the latest available data, was at a 13-month low.

That said, India's choked roadways are set to be further clogged once road warriors seize upon the Nano. Cities such as Delhi and Bangalore each add a thousand cars and motorcycles to the road every day.

Since 1951, while India's urban population has increased 4.6 times, vehicle numbers have increased 158 times, according to New Delhi's Centre for Science & Environment (CSE). Cities are also struggling to keep pace with infrastructure demands.

Gridlock is causing Delhi annual estimated losses of as much as 40 billion rupees.

Said CSE chairman Sunita Narain: 'Cars do meet our aspirations, but they cannot meet our needs. Our needs must be met by public transport.'

With a maximum tested road speed of 104kmh and billed to take 14 seconds to hit 70kmh, Nano may not break the sound barrier. But class and other distinctions seem set to crumble in its wake.

Indeed, Indians may have to get used to seeing their domestic help driving to work.

Mr Mange Ram, a driver for a construction contractor, said he will probably book a Nano, sharing the cost with his brother, who drives for a retired banker. They currently show up at work on a 125cc Bajaj motorbike.

'As long as we can leave home together, it should work out fine,' said Mr Ram, who was wearing a skull cap under his helmet to guard against the winter chill. 'Both of us may need to make some extra bucks by cleaning other cars, but so what?

'We are young.'

Read more!

Dogs threaten Bangladesh sea turtles

BBC News 23 Jan 08;

Volunteers are searching part of the south of Bangladesh to find dogs they believe are responsible for killing endangered turtles, officials say.

Experts say eggs laid on beaches by rare Olive Ridley turtles are being eaten by the dogs near the coastal town of Cox's Bazar.

They also say that the turtles are being killed after becoming caught up in fishermen's nets.

Olive Ridleys are well known for nesting on beaches in the region.

Experts say that in Bangladesh, that makes their eggs and hatchlings vulnerable to packs of hungry stray dogs that roam many of the country's built-up areas.

Poison

Hundreds of turtles that normally live deep in the sea come ashore from September to March to lay their eggs and bury them in the sand.

Their nesting zones along the Bay of Bengal are declared protected areas in Bangladesh and India.

Officials say they have now begun a programme to remove or exterminate about 300 of the dogs.

"We will only kill stray dogs which have been living in the wild and harming the turtles," Faruk Ahmed, an official from the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry, told the AP news agency.

He said the dogs not only destroy freshly laid eggs in the sand but also break into nearby hatcheries where the eggs are taken for protection.

Volunteers and conservationists on Wednesday began catching strays with long hooks and injecting them with poison.

The carcasses of the canines are buried in holes dug in the sand.

Conservationists say the turtles also get tangled in fine fishing nets cast near the shore.

Fishermen reportedly kill them because they do not want to damage their nets.

Olive Ridleys, which weigh 40-60kg (90-130lbs) each, are the smallest of all sea turtles, and are endangered throughout their habitat in the Indo-Pacific region.

They are particularly valued by hunters for their skin and meat.

Bangladesh kills wild dogs to save endangered turtles
Associated Press, International Herald Tribune 23 Jan 08;

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Volunteers and animal experts combed beaches along Bangladesh's southern coast Wednesday to catch and kill wild dogs that are threatening endangered sea turtles, conservation officials said.

Dozens of threatened Olive Ridley turtles that usually swim ashore to lay eggs on beaches have been found dead along the coast in recent weeks, the officials said.

In addition to pollution and the use of illegal fishing nets near the shore, stray dogs and wild foxes are responsible for destroying eggs and killing the dwindling turtle species in Cox's Bazar district, said M.A. Hannan, a wildlife conservation officer from the Environment Department.

At least 50 turtles — 25 last week alone — have been found dead so far this breeding season along the coast, 185 miles south of Dhaka, Hannan said.

Hundreds of turtles, which usually inhabit the deep seas, come ashore to lay and bury their eggs in the sand from September to March. Their popular nesting grounds along the Bay of Bengal are declared protected areas in Bangladesh and India.

But sometimes the turtles — which weigh up to 130 pounds each — get tangled in fine fishing nets cast near the shore, or are mauled by packs of dogs or foxes, which also eat the eggs and hatchlings.

Five spots along the 62-mile stretch from Cox's Bazar to Teknaf beach, and the offshore islands of Sonadia and St. Martin's, have been earmarked for the wild dog extermination operation, officials said.

"We will only kill stray dogs which have been living in the wild and harming the turtles," said Dr. Faruk Ahmed, an official from the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry.

Wild dogs destroy freshly laid eggs in the sand and also break into nearby hatcheries where the eggs are taken for protection, he added.

On Wednesday, local volunteers — supervised by dogcatchers brought from the capital — caught strays with long hooks and injected them with poison. The carcasses were then buried in holes dug in the sand.

Olive Ridleys, the smallest of all sea turtles, are endangered worldwide, Hannan said.

Bangladesh's government has launched a conservation project with the help of the U.N. Development Program to protect turtle eggs on beaches. The eggs are incubated in safe places, and the hatchlings are released back into the sea.

"We have already collected more than 1,500 eggs for breeding this year," Hannan said.

Associated Press writer Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka contributed to this report.

Read more!

Understanding Japan's whale ethics

Chris Hogg, BBC News 22 Jan 08;

I want to tell you something that until now I have kept to myself.

I have eaten minke whale. I have eaten it raw - small squares of the skin and the flesh served as sashimi with soy sauce and spicy wasabi on the side. And I have eaten it cooked - stir-fried with vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce.

I suspect there will be some people reading who are outraged - disgusted that I would eat whale meat.

Indeed, that is one reason why I have never mentioned it before. There are risks involved in such an admission.

Is it evidence that I have "gone native" after nearly two years of trying to make sense of this story from the Japanese point of view?

Well, no, the reality was that I felt I had no choice but to taste the whale.

'What about lambs?

I was in a diner in Tokyo owned by Michio Kono, a small man who has been in the restaurant business 30 years.

When we first arrived he was quite quiet, but when I began to talk to him about the rights and wrongs of whaling this diminutive chef exploded.

Now I do not speak much Japanese. My colleague was translating for me, but I did not need to be fluent to understand the extent of Mr Kono's anger and frustration at those who try to stop the Japanese whaling.



He ranted and raged, on and on, chopping his outstretched hand through the air vigorously as he made his points.

"What about lambs?" he asked. "You people eat lambs, we think lambs are cute but we don't try to stop you eating them."

Once the interview was over he insisted I try some whale myself. The look I got from my Japanese colleague suggested that "no" was not an option.

In truth I was curious. I chewed the raw whale. It was not great, but it was not awful either.

The stir-fried whale was better, but not something I would want to eat again in a hurry - not because of any ethical objections, more because of its very strong flavour which was only somewhat disguised by the sweet and sour sauce.

Those Japanese who support whaling believe that all western journalists are out to get them.

That means you have to do whatever you can to try to counter that impression if you are to have any chance of conveying their point of view to the wider world.

It was clear that eating Mr Kono's whale had the effect of mollifying him. Perhaps I was not out to stitch him up after all.

Diplomatic harm

The whaling industry here is backed by a small minority of Japanese, a part of the establishment which shouts loud and likes to frame this as an issue of sovereignty: "What right have other nations to tell us what we can and can't eat?"

The campaigners have powerful friends in politics and in the media.

The debate over the rights and wrongs of whaling gets little coverage in the papers here.

The boarding of a Japanese whaler by two environmental activists did make it onto the news bulletins but many Japanese journalists chose to brand the two men environmental terrorists.

And, as far as I am aware, no politician has yet been brave enough to stand up and question whether or not preserving the whaling industry is worth the damage it does to Japan's reputation overseas.

The unfortunate bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo who are required to defend whaling on our channels and those of other broadcasters often admit quietly, once the camera is switched off and the microphone unplugged, that this is not a subject they warm too.

Their frustration is not directed at the interviewers, who all too often give them a roasting, demanding they defend what to many is indefensible.

It is their fellow pen-pushers at the Fisheries Ministry who are making life difficult for them by continuing to prop up a whaling industry that sullies the reputation of Japan around the world.

War of words

Over the next few months the diplomats are likely to find it will only get worse.

A senior official from the Fisheries Ministry told me over lunch recently - fish but not whale this time - that Japan is serious about its threat to leave the International Whaling Commission unless it is reformed.

The Japanese are tired of the arguments between pro and anti-whaling nations.

They will do all they can he told me to try to reform the IWC from within, but if that does not work, perhaps within months, his officials will start planning a new body - a breakaway group for pro-whaling nations who want to return to the commercial hunting of whales.

The boarding of the Japanese whaling vessel by the environmental activists in the waters off Antarctica was just a skirmish.

The war of words about whaling here, there, on land and at sea, is likely only to get worse.

Read more!

Thousands rally for compensation over SKorea oil spill

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

SEOUL: Thousands of people hit by South Korea's worst oil spill staged an angry protest in central Seoul Wednesday to demand swift compensation.

Some 3,000 marine farmers and other residents carried oil-coated oysters, fish, anchovies and seaweed, while a few protesters pelted the headquarters of Samsung, operators of the barge which caused the spill, with oil-covered fish.

Others used hammers to smash Samsung-made washing machines, TV sets and refrigerators which they had brought to the rally.

Protesters demanded that parliament and Samsung, South Korea's biggest conglomerate, swiftly compensate them for their threatened livelihoods.

Three people in the worst hit district have committed suicide following delays by local officials in making payments, including one protester who drank poison and set himself on fire last week.

"Samsung Group should promise unlimited accountability and unlimited compensation," the crowd chanted at the rally outside Seoul railway station.

A few blocks away, scores of police buses barricaded the group headquarters. Thousands of riot police were on standby in the area.

The accident happened on December 7 when the Samsung barge carrying a construction crane snapped its towing cables to two tugs in rough seas and rammed the anchored 147,000-ton supertanker Hebei Spirit off the west coast.

The Hong Kong-registered tanker was holed in three places and spilt 10,900 tonnes of crude.

Scores of marine farms and miles of beaches, notably in Taean county about 110 kilometres (69 miles) southwest of Seoul, were devastated.

The central government sent about 60 billion won (63 million US dollars) from state coffers and private donations to the region. But regional authorities have been at odds as how to divide the money.

"We are in total despair," said fisherman Park Mong-Kyo, 52. "We just don't know how many more months or years we must go on like this."

Prosecutors on Monday indicted five people -- the skippers of the barge and of the two tugs and the tanker's captain and chief officer -- on charges of negligence and violating anti-pollution laws.

Samsung Heavy Industries and Hebei Shipping, a Hong Kong corporation which owns the tanker, were indicted on charges of violating anti-pollution laws.

Owners and managers of the tanker protested against the decision to charge its crew. Robert Bishop, CEO of British ship management company V.Ships, expressed "dismay and disappointment" in a statement.

Bishop said the Hebei Spirit crew had carried out all instructions from South Korean maritime authorities before the accident and taken every possible measure to minimise the outflow of oil afterwards.

He said evidence showed the captain "acted in an exemplary manner and in the highest possible traditions of the merchant marine."

The Hebei Spirit officers are charged with failing to follow safety orders from navigation authorities.

The owners and insurers of the tanker, along with the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, have set up a centre to handle damages claims.

Under an agreement with South Korea's maritime ministry, the insurer will pay up to 12 billion won towards the cost of cleaning up the shoreline. - AFP/ac

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15 whales die in New Zealand beach stranding

Yahoo News 22 Jan 08;

Fifteen pilot whales died in beach strandings Wednesday in southern New Zealand while rescuers refloated another 15 and monitored their progress toward safer waters, conservation officials said.

The whales, ranging from calves to 20-foot adults — were found beached at two locations on Farewell Spit on New Zealand's South Island, Conservation Department ranger Nigel Mountfort said.

Fifteen of the whales were dead when discovered. Rescuers helped refloat the remaining 15, but they remained in a tidal area where they risked beaching themselves again, Mountford said. A conservation worker was sent aboard a plane to monitor the bay for whales at risk of further stranding, he said.

Scientists are unable to explain why whales strand, but some believe it is caused by disorientation in their sonar sounding systems.

New Zealand has several mass strandings around its coastline each summer, with Conservation Department records showing more than 5,000 whale and dolphin strandings since 1840.

At least 15 whales die in New Zealand stranding
Yahoo News 23 Jan 08;

At least 15 pilot whales died and another 18 were in danger after stranding on an isolated New Zealand beach, authorities said Wednesday.

Six whales were initially found stranded Wednesday morning at Farewell Spit on the northwest of the South Island, and three died while the remainder were refloated, said Department of Conservation spokeswoman Trish Grant.

A larger pod of up to 30 were found nearby, of which 12 to 15 had died with about as many milling close to shore, Grant said.

The surviving whales were being monitored and there was a concern they could also become stuck on the beach.

"It all depends on which way the whales start to move," Grant said, adding that the whales would be in most danger at low tide.

Rough seas and strong winds were hampering attempts to keep a watch on the four to six metre (13 to 19 feet) long whales.

Whale strandings have been common in the area and about two years ago 25 pilot whales died after a pod of 129 beached at Farewell Spit.

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Saving Papua's rainforest is a hero's job

Marianne Kearney, Today Online 24 Jan 08;
Governor of Papua has an uphill task battling exploitative interests

Making his dream come true could be a nightmare but Mr Barnabas Suebu, the Governor of Papua — home to the most dense jungle in Indonesia, where stone-age warriors live among the most bio-diverse region in the planet — wants to preserve huge swathes of rainforest.

In fact, he wants to preserve 7 million ha — about 110 times Singapore's land mass.

Papua's forests have been carved up by Chinese, South Korean, Malaysian and local companies, and much of the logging is done illegally. Local companies then launder the logs and sell them at an astounding rate, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, which has been monitoring Papua's logging since 2002.

Greenpeace estimates that every hour, three football fields of forest are logged in Indonesia. In Papua, home to 42 million ha of forest, an estimated 7.2 million m3 of timber, much of it prized hardwood merbau, is being logged each year.

But Mr Suebu said almost none of this vast natural wealth and rapid exploitation has benefited local people. Papua is still one of Indonesia's most impoverished provinces, with 40 per cent of the 2.5 million people living on less than 50 US cents (72 cents) a day, according to the World Bank.

"The benefit for the local people is trivial but the impact is devastating. There is no benefit at all in plundering the forests," Mr Suebu told reporters, during the Bali climate change conference.

"A timber log is priced at US$10, but the price can climb to more than US$10,000 after being processed into wooden goods," he said, referring to an entire hardwood tree trunk. The governor said he has banned the export of unprocessed logs and will also ban the export of unprocessed palm oil. He said he plans to begin enforcing this proposal in January, regardless of the province's lack of palm oil processing plants, and any viable furniture or wood processing industry.

He has also signed a decree with his counterpart, the Governor of West Papua, agreeing to a moratorium on deforestation in the vast jungles covering the whole of the western and Indonesian part of Guinea Island.

In return, Papua is hoping to earn millions of dollars in carbon credits if First World countries eventually agree to pay forest-rich countries for not cutting down their trees. Mr Suebu and many environmental lobbyists were disappointed that the United Nations and countries attending the Climate Change Conference in Bali in December last year could not agree on a system that would reward countries for preserving their forests.

However, his environmental adviser, Ms Maria Latumahina, said the governor is confident that such a system will be agreed on by next year, when world leaders will meet again to hammer out an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.

In the meantime, the governor is working towards being able to trade its preserved forests on the voluntary global carbon market, where international companies have already begun buying up carbon credits — or preserved tracts of land — in order to give their companies some green kudos, said Ms Latumahina.

This also means drafting a raft of implementing regulations and a system to ensure any timber or timber product which leaves Papua is properly certified as sustainably harvested. Mr Suebu also wants to work out how to develop a forestry policy which can alleviate poverty.

Logging companies quickly persuaded traditional owners to sell off their logging rights for a song — leaving the Papuans landless and, pretty quickly, penniless. Unaware of the huge premium that merbau hardwood fetches on the international market, some tribal leaders sold their rights for as little as a few bags of rice.

But it is not the stone-aged warriors who will pose a problem for Mr Suebu's ambitious scheme but the modern ones; mainly the well-financed timber barons and those backing them. The military has been heavily involved for years in Papua's logging business, either directly as part of local companies or indirectly acting as "agents".

Mr Suebu, who was named Time magazine's environmental hero in a special issue last year, admitted he has a huge task on his hands. "I feel like I've been named a hero without going into the battlefield. The war is just about to start," he told reporters at the Bali conference.

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Brazil says Amazon destruction soars again

Reuters 24 Jan 08;

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The destruction of the Amazon forest surged over the last five months of 2007, the Brazilian government said on Wednesday, only months after hailing progress in curbing deforestation.

Deforestation in the Amazon, known as "the lungs of the world" for its ability to consume greenhouse gases and produce oxygen -- shot up from 94 square miles in August to 366 square miles in December.

That is four times as much as in the same period of 2004, the government said. It did not provide comparative data for 2005 or 2006.

"We've never before detected such a high deforestation rate at this time of year," Gilberto Camara, the head of the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which provides satellite imaging of the area, told a news conference in the capital Brasilia.

Between August and December, 1,250 sq miles of the world's largest rain forest was lost, and environment ministry officials said that preliminary figure was likely to double as satellite images with higher resolution are analyzed.

Joao Paulo Capobianco, the ministry's executive secretary, said the figures were "extremely worrying."

Only a few months ago, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva boasted about how Brazil managed to reduce deforestation by 50 percent in the two years through July 2007.

The government had said that policies such as more controls on illegal logging and better certification of land ownership were reducing the deforestation that has destroyed about a fifth of the forest -- an area bigger than France -- since the 1970s.

Conservationists have warned that the recent rise in grain prices would lead to an increase in the deforestation, as farmers and ranchers go deeper into the Amazon in search of cheap land.

Environment Minister Marina Silva said the government will decide on Thursday new measures to curb deforestation in the Amazon, whose destruction is a major source of carbon emissions that cause global warming.

(Reporting by Ray Colitt, writing by Inae Riveras, editing by Andrei Khalip and Stuart Grudgings)

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US could ban travel for Cambodians tied to illegal logging

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

PHNOM PENH : The US has passed a law that could see travel bans for Cambodian officials accused of looting the country's natural resources, a move hailed Wednesday by conservationists as a strike against illegal logging.

The law, enacted in December, endorses calls by the US Congress to deny visas to Cambodian officials identified in a 2007 report by the environmental watchdog Global Witness as being guilty of plundering Cambodia's forests.

London-based Global Witness's caustic study, titled "Cambodia's Family Trees," accused a "kleptocratic" elite of systematically clearing Cambodia's woodlands.

It named several figures close to Prime Minister Hun Sen, including Forest Administration Director General Ty Sokhun and Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, as being directly involved.

In response, an outraged government last year banned the Global Witness report from Cambodia and continues to dismiss its allegations.

A Cambodian government spokesman could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the US legislation.

But the law "sends a clear message that the exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources by a small group of powerful individuals at the expense of the country's poor is unacceptable," Global Witness director Simon Taylor said in a statement received Wednesday.

The legislation, which authorises spending by Washington, instructs the US State Department to identify foreign officials, and their relatives, who are believed to have "been involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries."

It also endorses a congressional subcommittee recommendation to "prohibit corrupt Cambodian officials identified in the June 2007 Global Witness report... from entering the United States."

But it is unclear if the law will result in visa refusals for individual Cambodians.

US embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle told reporters that "there is no ban... no specific names have been given to the embassy."- AFP/yb

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New York mayor signs plastic bag recycling bill

Reuters 23 Jan 08;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill on Wednesday that forces large retailers to set up plastic bag recycling programs as part of the city's efforts to improve its environmental record.

The measure, which aims to reduce the number of bags handed out to city consumers from an estimated 1 billion a year, comes on the heals of other environmental initiatives including a mandate for more fuel-efficient taxis and a proposed congestion pricing plan designed to cut car traffic in Manhattan.

The bill requires all stores that occupy at least 5,000 square feet to implement bag recycling programs as well as make recycled bags available.

Supporters of the bill have said the cost to business would be minimal since recycling firms currently pay $100 a ton for plastic bags.

Environmentalists have targeted plastic bags as a scourge that take years to biodegrade and contaminate soil and water.

In March, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags from large supermarkets and the state of California enacted a law in July that requires large stores to take back plastic bags and encourage their reuse.

On Tuesday, Whole Foods Market Inc said it was aiming to stop using disposable plastic grocery bags in all of its 270 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom by Earth Day on April 22.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Robert Campbell and Todd Eastham)

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Olympics: China to divert Yellow River water for Beijing Games

Yahoo News 23 Jan 08;

China will begin diverting water from the Yellow River towards Beijing this month as part of a major project to boost dwindling supplies ahead of the Olympics, state press reported.

Up to 150 million cubic metres (5.3 billion cubic feet) of water will flow 399 kilometres (250 miles) along an ancient canal to Lake Baiyangdian, south of Beijing, over the next three months, the Dazhong Daily said.

"The plan to transfer water from the Yellow River to Lake Baiyangdian will be implemented to resolve the lake's water shortage crisis," the paper said on Monday.

At the same time, four reservoirs that naturally feed Baiyangdian, northern China's largest freshwater lake, will instead provide additional water for Beijing, which suffers chronic shortages, according to the paper.

The lake, about 70 kilometres from Beijing, has been decimated by environmental degradation for more than a decade as both water use and pollution has skyrocketed in tandem with China's booming economy.

The Yellow River diversion will begin in Liaocheng city in Shandong province in eastern China, the report said, citing the province's Yellow River Management Bureau.

It would then largely flow along the ancient "Grand Canal," one of China's earliest water projects, built nearly 1,400 years ago.

The first time such a transfer took place, in November 2006, it took 479 million cubic metres of water diverted at Liaocheng to supply 100 million cubic metres of water to Baiyangdian, the paper said.

The Yellow River, China's second largest and of huge symbolic and cultural importance, has itself been hit by rising water usage and has run dry short of the ocean for long periods in recent years.

Northern China is wracked with water shortages due to soaring demand, an ongoing drought and global warming. Per capita water usage in Beijing is already far below national averages.

Meanwhile, a separate project to divert Yellow River water to the Shandong city of Qingdao, where Olympic sailing events will take place, was completed last week, the paper said.

In that project, 105 million cubic metres of water was diverted from the Yellow River which eventually added some 70 million cubic metres into Qingdao's Jihongtan reservoir.

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Drought could force nuke-plant shutdowns

Mitch Weiss, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jan 08;

Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel

Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn't result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region's utilities may be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.

Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.

"Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel," said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. "You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants." He added: "This is becoming a crisis."

An Associated Press analysis of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought. All but two are built on the shores of lakes and rivers and rely on submerged intake pipes to draw billions of gallons of water for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants' turbines.

Because of the yearlong dry spell gripping the region, the water levels on those lakes and rivers are getting close to the minimums set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Over the next several months, the water could drop below the intake pipes altogether. Or the shallow water could become too hot under the sun to use as coolant.

"If water levels get to a certain point, we'll have to power it down or go off line," said Robert Yanity, a spokesman for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., which operates the Summer nuclear plant outside Columbia, S.C.

Extending or lowering the intake pipes is not as simple at it sounds and wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. The pipes are usually made of concrete, can be up to 18 feet in diameter and can extend up to a mile. Modifications to the pipes and pump systems, and their required backups, can cost millions and take several months. If the changes are extensive, they require an NRC review that itself can take months or longer.

Even if a quick extension were possible, the pipes can only go so low. It they are put too close to the bottom of a drought-shrunken lake or river, they can suck up sediment, fish and other debris that could clog the system.

An estimated 3 million customers of the four commercial utilities with reactors in the drought zone get their power from nuclear energy. Also, the quasi-governmental Tennessee Valley Authority, which sells electricity to 8.7 million people in seven states through a network of distributors, generates 30 percent of its power at nuclear plants.

While rain and some snow fell recently, water levels across the region are still well below normal. Most of the severely affected area would need more than a foot of rain in the next three months — an unusually large amount — to ease the drought and relieve pressure on the nuclear plants. And the long-term forecast calls for more dry weather.

At Progress Energy Inc., which operates four reactors in the drought zone, officials warned in November that the drought could force it to shut down its Harris reactor near Raleigh, according to documents obtained by the AP. The water in Harris Lake stands at 218.5 feet — just 3 1/2 feet above the limit set in the plant's license.

Lake Norman near Charlotte is down to 93.7 feet — less than a foot above the minimum set in the license for Duke Energy Corp.'s McGuire nuclear plant. The lake was at 98.2 feet just a year ago.

"We don't know what's going to happen in the future. We know we haven't gotten enough rain, so we can't rule anything out," said Duke spokeswoman Rita Sipe. "But based on what we know now, we don't believe we'll have to shut down the plants."

During Europe's brutal 2006 heat wave, French, Spanish and German utilities were forced to shut down some of their nuclear plants and reduce power at others because of low water levels — some for as much as a week.

If a prolonged shutdown like that were to happen in the Southeast, utilities in the region might have to buy electricity on the wholesale market, and the high costs could be passed on to customers.

"Currently, nuclear power costs between $5 to $7 to produce a megawatt hour," said Daniele Seitz, an energy analyst with New York-based Dahlman Rose & Co. "It would cost 10 times that amount that if you had to buy replacement power — especially during the summer."

At a nuclear plant, water is also used to cool the reactor core and to create the steam that drives the electricity-generating turbines. But those are comparatively small amounts of water, circulating in what are known as closed systems — that is, the water is constantly reused. Water for those two purposes is not threatened by the drought.

Instead, the drought could choke off the billions of gallons of water that pass through the region's reactors every day to cool used steam. Water sucked from lakes and rivers passes through pipes, which act as a condenser, turning the steam back into water. The outside water never comes into direct contact with the steam or any nuclear material.

At some plants — those with tall, Three Mile Island-style cooling towers — a lot of the water travels up the tower and is lost to evaporation. At other plants, almost all of the water is returned to the lake or river, though significantly hotter because of the heat absorbed from the steam.

Progress spokeswoman Julie Hahn said the Harris reactor, for example, sucks up 33 million gallons a day, with 17 million gallons lost to evaporation via its big cooling towers. Duke's McGuire plant draws in more than 2 billion gallons a day, but most of it is pumped back to its source.

Nuclear plants are subject to restrictions on the temperature of the discharged coolant, because hot water can kill fish or plants or otherwise disrupt the environment. Those restrictions, coupled with the drought, led to the one-day shutdown Aug. 16 of a TVA reactor at Browns Ferry in Alabama.

The water was low on the Tennessee River and had become warmer than usual under the hot sun. By the time it had been pumped through the Browns Ferry plant, it had become hotter still — too hot to release back into the river, according to the TVA. So the utility shut down a reactor.

David Lochbaum, nuclear project safety director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that nuclear plants are not designed to take the wear and tear of repeatedly stopping and restarting.

"Nuclear plants are best when they flatline — when they stay up and running or shut down for long periods to refuel," Lochbaum said. "It wears out piping, valves, motors."

Both the industry and NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said plants can shut down and restart without problems.

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