South Korean oil spill 'killing' marine life - report

iol.com 13 Mar 08

Seoul - South Korea's worst oil spill has devastated marine life, halving the number of sea plants and mollusks found off the western coast, a government report said on Thursday.

The oil leak also threatened the underwater food chain, endangering fish and sea birds, the Environment Ministry report said.

Surveys following the spill in December 2007 showed mollusk populations had plunged to 56 creatures of five species per square metre from 133 creatures of eight species as mussels were found to have been considerably contaminated by remnants of crude oil.

The density of seaweeds per square metre fell 43 percent from February 2007 and phyllospadix iwatensis, a seagrass, also declined 47 percent.

"Because seagrasses and seaweeds make up the lowest part of the ocean food chain, there are risks of second-hand contamination of fish and birds that are at the top of the food pyramid," the report said.

The surveys, the first since the oil spill, were carried out in order to set up plans to restore damaged beaches and sea farms.

Hong Kong-registered supertanker Hebei Spirit spilled 10 900 tons of crude after it was rammed by a Samsung Heavy Industries barge in rough seas off Taean county on December 7.

Scores of marine farms and kilometres of beaches were devastated and three people in Taean, about 110 kilometres southwest of Seoul, killed themselves in frustration over delays in compensation.

Five people - the skippers of the barge and of the two tugs, and the tanker's captain and chief officer - are on trial on charges of negligence and violating anti-pollution laws.

Samsung Heavy Industries and Hebei Shipping, a Hong Kong corporation which owns the tanker, have also been charged with violating anti-pollution laws.

Read more!

In Chicago, a secret garden cools a concrete jungle

Regan Doherty, Yahoo News 13 Mar 08;

Nestled atop Chicago's neoclassical city hall lies a secret garden hidden to all but those peering out of the windows of neighboring office towers.

Dozens more dot the rooftops of shops, restaurants, businesses and city-owned buildings in a patchwork of green aimed at cooling the concrete jungle.

Some four million square feet (370,000 square meters) of rooftop gardens have been planted on public and private buildings in the seven years since the first plants were placed atop city hall as part of a broader effort to reduce the Windy City's carbon footprint.

Inspired by similar programs in Europe, Chicago now has one of the most extensive rooftop garden programs in the world.

Corporate America is joining the trend and planting gardens atop a Chicago McDonald's restaurant as well as an Apple store, while other smaller businesses and landowners are converting to green roofs with the help of city grants.

"Chicago is at the head of the pack," said Amy Malik, regional director of the nonprofit group International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.

Concrete surfaces -- especially those coated with dark tar -- both absorb and radiate heat which significantly increases a building's heating and cooling costs and contributes to raising urban air temperatures.

The cooling impact of the gardens is dramatic.

Thermal images taken of the city hall rooftop on a cloudy summer day found it was the same temperature as the air: 74 degrees F (22 degrees C). The black tar roof next door was a scalding 152 degrees F.

-- Benefits are 'more than just aesthetic' --

---------------------------------------------

"There are more than just aesthetic benefits," said Chicago's Environment Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna.

In addition to helping cool buildings, the plants also filter the air, reducing pollution and improving surrounding air quality.

The rooftops also "stress sewers less by gathering rain water and using it," and a green roof can also extend the life of a roof by protecting from the elements beating down on it, Malec-McKenna said in an interview.

Authorities do not generally open the 36 city-owned rooftop gardens to the public because of safety concerns.

But more than three dozen species of birds gather amid the 20,000 plants on the city hall garden alone.

It is a 20,000-square-foot oasis perched on top of an 11-story building in the heart of the central business district which hosts more than 150 species of plants, including purple comb flower, juniper and crabapple trees, bittersweet vine and sedum, a succulent, cactus-like plant ideal for green roofs because of its high tolerance for extreme temperatures and minimal need for water.

And honey from the beehives kept in two of the city gardens is sold to raise money for after-school programs.

"A market has been built around this," Malec-McKenna said. "The economics of building green roofs have gotten much better. Now we have more than two dozen contractors across the Chicago region who know how to do this."

Organic grocery store owner Paula Companio received a 5,000-dollar grant from the city in 2006 to grow produce on her roof which she hopes to eventually sell in her store below.

The 1,500-square-foot garden covers half of the roof on top of True Nature Foods and produces a small crop of onions, potatoes, herbs and tomatoes.

Companio estimates that her building has been 15 to 20 percent warmer in the winter, and "noticeably" cooler in the summer since the garden was planted.

"The experience became such a community project - everyone asked about it," she told AFP. "It showed people it's possible that they can do it too."

Read more!

Plastic bags killing Queensland’s turtles

University of Queensland 13 Mar 08;

A group of University of Queensland researchers are urging Queenslanders to avoid littering the state's marine environment during the upcoming Easter holiday weekend.

Led by Dr Kathy Townsend, Manager of Research and Education at UQ's Moreton Bay Research Station, the group found that marine rubbish was the leading cause of sea turtle deaths in 2007.

“In 2007, we attended to 30 marine turtle strandings,” Dr Townsend said.

“Of these, 23 percent were caused by the ingestion of marine rubbish.

“This is almost double the number for 2006 in which marine rubbish accounted for 12 percent of the strandings.”

Dr Townsend said, regardless of its size, marine rubbish posed a serious threat to sea turtles.

“A green turtle hatchling, six centimetres in length, washed up on North Stradbroke and died due to gut perforation through the ingestion of plastic marine rubbish,” she said.

“Its gut contained plastic bags, soft and hard plastic, and fishing line. The piece that killed the baby turtle was only about half the size of a fingernail.

“Another turtle, a sub-adult, died with a gut full of plastic bags, the largest of which was over 30 centimetres long.”

Sea turtles are particularly susceptible to the effects of marine rubbish due to the internal structure of their throats and die a slow and painful death.

“Sea turtles have downward facing spines in their throats which literally prevent them from regurgitating,” Dr Townsend said.

“The plastic gets trapped in the gut, preventing food from going down and the spines prevent it from coming back up.

“The trapped food decomposes, leaking gases into the body cavity and causing the animal to float.

“The turtle then slowly starves to death or succumbs to other secondary life threatening conditions such as boat strike.”

Boat strikes have traditionally been the greatest cause of marine turtle strandings but, according to the group's findings, accounted for only 17 percent in 2007.

“Plastic bags do kill and the recent federal initiative of a plastic bag levee is a step in the right direction towards helping address this problem,” Dr Townsend said.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 13 Mar 08

The Fivebar Swordtail
butterfly of the month on the butterflies of singapore blog

Javan Mynah chick
feeding and what happens after on the bird ecology blog

Climate change and peat land loss
YouTube clip and links on the budak blog

Sea star mass death in the UK
based on media report on the cj project blog


The Clean Tech Revolution
a book review on the AsiaIsGreen blog

Read more!

Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy

Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist
Yahoo News 12 Mar 08;

For some physically and mentally handicapped children, swimming with dolphins is a dream come true. That dream is shared by a multi-million dollar industry that provides so-called dolphin-assisted therapy for a few thousand dollars per session.

For the dolphins, the interactions with humans tend to be a nightmare.

Yet while laboratory animal are at least poked and prodded for some good for humankind, interacting with dolphins provides no long-term human health benefits and is largely an unproven therapy that can cheat patients out of real treatment, according to two recent studies.

Reason for depression

Dolphin-assisted therapy emerged in the 1970s as a possible treatment for depression and later as a means to help children with autism and other mental and physicals disorders. It is a therapy founded on good intentions.

One of the earliest advocates was John Lilly, the notorious California counterculture M.D. who, after heavy doses of LSD, claimed to communicate with dolphins - and aliens, for that matter. Although Lilly hoped the slaughter of whales would end once humans understood how smart the creatures were, his work has inadvertently nurtured a feel-good, international industry that indirectly supports the violent harvesting of dolphins from the wild - which, outside of U.S. law, can kill dolphins in the process and forces the survivors into captivity, where they are fed a diet of dead fish and must frolic before an audience thrice daily to the tune of "R-O-C-K in the USA."

Anecdotal evidence abounds on the Internet of dolphins making children feel better. Only one peer-reviewed study, however, from 2005, supports dolphin-assisted therapy, and this was a weak study at that. Published in the British Medical Journal, the study documented 25 adults with mild depression who were flown to Honduras for two weeks to either enjoy the beaches and play with dolphins, or just enjoy the beaches.

Remarkably, all the patients felt less depressed, but the 13 patients who played with dolphins were slightly less depressed than the 12 patients stuck with just a free vacation.

Fishy studies

Admittedly, it is tough to pull off a classic, placebo-controlled study on dolphin-assisted therapy. Patients tend to know whether they are swimming with dolphins or, say, squid dressed like dolphins. If they can't tell the difference, then there's no fixing their depression.

Nevertheless, this was the strongest study in favor of dolphin-assisted therapy, according to a review by Anna Baverstock and Fiona Finlay of the Community Child Health Department in Bath, England, in a paper to be published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, now available online.

Baverstock and Finlay conducted the review because a mother was seeking medical support for her son, and they needed to determine whether swimming with dolphins had any health benefits for children with cerebral palsy. The answer was no, or at best, dolphins were as equally effective at making children feel better as puppies, warm beaches or clowns.

Similarly, in September 2007 in the journal of the International Society for Anthrozoology, Lori Marino and Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University analyzed five studies supporting the use of dolphin-assisted therapy and found major methodological flaws in each one. The studies were either too small, prone to some obvious bias, or offered no long-term perspective.

Squeaking by

Two legitimate studies, however, provide some evidence that dolphins can affect human health, in theory. The more recent one comes from a Japanese group, published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Science in 2006. The scientists found that dolphins increase their vocalizations when interacting with people and that this form of sonar, called echolocation, can penetrate the human body.

This complements work by a German group, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology in 2003, which found that echolocation could have an effect on biological tissue under some circumstances if repeated over several days or weeks. Just what the effect would be is unclear and, nevertheless, 80 percent of the dolphin-therapy sessions the scientists analyzed didn't reach this level of interaction.

As the obscure journal titles might reveal, this is all fringe science. It may be that we are merely charmed by the dolphin's Joker-like smile, which of course isn't a smile but rather the natural shape of its mouth that fools us into thinking they like us.

Links

Dolphin Exporter Wants To Export Live Dolphins to Singapore
Pacific Magazine 18 Feb 08;

SUFFERING, NOT SMILING: The Truth About Captive Dolphins
on the Acres website

Follow Thai government's lead - release dolphins at Sentosa back into the wild
Letter from Acres, Straits Times Forum Online 25 Feb 06

Boycott the dolphin parks
Jonathan Owen, The Independent 2 Jul 06

How are dolphins captured?
Captured Dolphin With Four Fins Spotlights Controversial Hunt
John Roach, National Geographic News 14 Nov 06

Read more!

Growing gardens on walls in Singapore

By Design: Green is the new black
Business Times 13 Mar 08;

ARTHUR SIM meets landscape designer Chang Huaiyan, who wants to grow gardens on walls

A FAMOUS frog once said: 'It's not easy being green.' Which explains why even though we live in the tropics - where more than 90 per cent of the world's plant species can be found - so few of us have green fingers.

OK, the frog may have been talking about his skin colour, but anyone who has ever owned a dying money plant will know his pain.

Not Chang Huaiyan though.

Not satisfied with being able to turn the most barren patches of earth into veritable mini-Edens, Mr Chang, a landscape designer, now wants to grow gardens on walls too.

'We are currently making small steps by studying vertical green systems and growing trees in the air without soil by means of aeroponics,' reveals Mr Chang, founder of landscape consultancy Salad Dressing.

'We believe the current technology advancement will allow for a possibility of understanding bio-buildings - like humans who can survive with an artificial heart, buildings can be half-plant too, like a cyborg,' he explains.

It is difficult to doubt a man with such conviction. And looking at what he has done with his own home and office, it's clear Mr Chang understands both plants and architecture well.

He set up his office and home with some friends after graduating from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a master's in architecture.

And it was in this small house in Telok Kurau that he experimented with landscaping.

'My definition of a garden is a man-made space that reminds one of nature,' says Mr Chang, who was mentored at NUS by celebrity landscape designer Michael White.

Mr Chang's definition of landscaping is certainly open to interpretation, and in the Telok Kurau house, he takes the liberty of including a wooden hut with recycled roof tiles and rough-plastered walls for the sole purpose of forming an idyllic backdrop to other landscape elements in the garden.

'I always believe the garden is not just for plants but for people too,' he adds.

The garden was designed as a procession of 'layers of experience' so there is quite a lot packed into it.

One passes through a timber curtain gate, over meandering stepping stones, across a lily pond and into a courtyard before entering the house.

Along the way, there are plants like the tall sterculia, bismarckia noblilis and the mussaenda aurorae - 'for its generous white blooms that reflect the light of a full moon'.

Mr Chang also dots his garden landscape with works of art as a counterpoint to nature, and because it has a 'catalytic effect on the imagination'.

Perhaps what is more remarkable about the landscaping is how it has been designed with the house such that while there are never really any plants in the house, they are nevertheless always there.

He uses a simple interface: 'I decorated the interiors with objects collected on my travels through the tropics - and these are usually objects that celebrate the tropical landscape.'

In the living room, a small strip of garden is made grander with the addition of yellow bamboo, which also has a subtle architectural quality. Mr Chang cannot bear to leave a surface untouched, so he also inscribed a poem on this section of the garden wall.

The kitchen, which faces a shaded wall is the perfect place for ferns and orchids, while the backyard becomes an outdoor gallery of sorts for his collection of black-hued plants like tacca chantrieri and the simpler black-stemmed yam.

While it may seem that Mr Chang appears to have found his own, 'little piece of Eden', readers will be sad to learn that the house, along with the rest on the street, recently succumbed to en bloc fever.

Mr Chang has since moved to a small apartment, and the plants that could travel (together with a chunk of wall with a mural painted by him) moved to an off-beat, one-storey office on the fringe of the CBD.

Here, in between securing contracts to design the grounds of condominiums like One North, Oasis Garden and Newton Meadows, Mr Chang once again works his green magic, attracting monitor lizards, jungle fowl and snakes to his little oasis, just minutes from Shenton Way.

Read more!

MacRitchie Reservoir park facelift stalled

Contractor went bust, new tender to be called
Loh Chee Kong, Today Online 13 Mar 08;

THE wait for shower facilities and more carpark spaces at MacRitchie Reservoir — the first phase of which was scheduled for completion by the end of this month — has just gotten longer.

According to the PUB, the construction work for the $5-million makeover would be delayed for at least another nine months after the construction work on the carpark "has virtually stopped in the last two months".

The contractor, Wacon Construction, is understood to be undergoing financial difficulties due to the rising costs of raw materials including sand. It is facing several lawsuits from creditors.

First announced in October 2006 as part of the PUB's Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters programme to spruce up Singapore's waterways, the project would equip MacRitchie with new features, including shower facilities, a designated warm-up area and a two-storey carpark that would double the number of parking lots.

PUB's director for best sourcing Moh Wung Hee said it has terminated the contract with Wacon and would be calling for a new tender by the end of the month. Mr Moh added that the PUB "aims to complete the construction of the carpark by the end of the year and the amenities centre by next October".

In 2003, the tendering system for public projects was tightened after a couple of Housing and Development Board projects — an upgrading project in Marine Terrace and the building of flats in Sengkang — were stalled.

Among the new rules introduced then was the empowerment of the Building and Construction Authority to audit the financial status of contractors more frequently, to act as an early-warning system against contractors in danger of insolvency.

Sprucing up of reservoir park halted
Melissa Kok, Straits Times 14 Mar 08;

MacRitchie makeover project delayed by at least 9 months as contractor goes bust; PUB to call for new tender this month

NATURE lovers and fitness buffs may have to wait at least nine more months before they can enjoy some of the new visitor-friendly facilities at the MacRitchie Reservoir.

A $5 million MacRitchie spruce-up, the first phase of which was slated for completion this month, came to a stop when the contractor - Wacon Construction & Trading - went bust.

The project is the brainchild of the National Parks Board and PUB, the national water agency.

According to PUB's director of best sourcing, Mr Moh Wung Hee, construction work came to a virtual halt two months ago. Mr Moh said the PUB has since terminated its contract with the company for failing 'to make satisfactory progress on the project'.

The upgrade was part of PUB's Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC) programme to spruce up Singapore's reservoirs and rivers.

It was meant to provide MacRitchie with new features such as shower facilities, a specially designated warm-up area and a two-storey carpark that would double the number of lots.

In the meantime, PUB said it will be calling for a new tender this month to find a replacement contractor. It aims to complete construction of the carpark by the end of this year, while the other new amenities are expected to be up and running by next October.

When contacted by The Straits Times, MrOng Say Kiat, who is managing director of Wacon Construction, declined to talk about the MacRitchie project, but blamed rising operation costs as the main reason for his company's financial troubles.

He said: 'My company had to fold because of the price increase in raw materials, especially sand.'

Sighing, Mr Ong added that it was 'a heartache' to see the company that he had built collapse.

He declined to reveal how much debt his company was in, or if there were other projects that had also been put on hold.

However, The Straits Times understands that several companies have taken legal action against Wacon Construction this year for slightly over $1 million in money that they said was owed to them.

Three other companies are also taking Wacon Construction to court for alleged debts amounting to more than $83,000.

Back at MacRitchie, some regulars were disappointed when told of the delay.

Mr Bernd Nordhausen, 46, who jogs at MacRitchie regularly, said he was annoyed as the delay would mean that the problem of finding a parking lot, especially on weekends, would continue longer than expected.

'A bigger carpark is desperately needed. It has already been about 14 months since the upgrading began. That's just too excessive,' he said.

Another regular jogger, Mr Surinder Singh, 50, said of the delay: 'It has caused a lot of inconvenience because everyone was looking forward to the facilities, especially the showers. Now it's, 'Oh, suddenly stop!''

But Mr Singh conceded that unforeseen circumstances cannot be helped.

'Hopefully we can expect quick action from PUB,' he said.

Read more!

Fishball prices increase 20% due to rising cost of raw ingredients

Channel NewsAsia 12 Mar 08;

Retailers said the price hikes have been caused by the dip in supplies of frozen fish from countries such as Thailand and Indonesia.

SINGAPORE: Retailers said the prices of fishballs have risen by 20 per cent since last July due to rising cost of raw ingredients.

The retail price of Foochow fishballs, for example, has gone up to from S$7 to S$9 per kilogramme.

Prices of five-spice ngoh hiang (meat roll) have also risen by 25 per cent, from S$2.60 to S$3.00 per kilogramme, over the same period.

Retailers said the price hikes have been caused by the dip in supplies of frozen fish from countries such as Thailand and Indonesia.

Fisheries in those countries have been affected by bad weather.

Even though retailers in Singapore have started looking for cheaper sources of ingredients, they said the prices of fishballs are expected to climb further in the later half of the year. - CNA/ac

Read more!

Lowly streams play big role in fighting pollution

Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters 12 Mar 08;

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A meandering stream appears to play a powerful role in filtering out pollutants like nitrogen, and understanding this role could help prevent oxygen-depleting blooms of algae that threaten fish and shellfish downstream, researchers said on Wednesday.

The research was part of a project to determine whether rivers actively process pollutants and remove them from the ecosystem, or simply act as drain pipes that flush polluted waters into lakes or out to sea.

"They are most definitely processors," said Stephen Hamilton, an aquatic ecologist at Michigan State University in Lansing, who led one of several teams studying the problem.

The study, which appears in the journal Nature, looked at how 72 streams across eight regions in the United States and Puerto Rico neutralize nitrogen.

"There is a remarkable amount of processing that takes place," Hamilton said in a telephone interview. "We were able to see how streams vary in that nitrogen processing."

If overloaded, however, they found the streams were less efficient at removing the nitrogen that enters the stream through agricultural runoff, acid rain and human waste.

Too much nitrogen in the water can cause excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants in lakes and coastal marine waters, which deplete oxygen stores, killing fish and other marine life. Such so-called "dead zones" already are seen in the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic Sea.

NOT SO LAZY RIVER

To measure this clean-up effort, the researchers added a small amount of a harmless, radioactive isotope of nitrogen into the streams. This acted as a tracer, allowing the researchers to track its path.

Hamilton's team stationed itself in the headwaters of the Kalamazoo River, dribbled the tracer into the water, then field workers took samples as it made its way downstream for a distance of about 3,000 feet.

"Most of the nitrogen we found in a stream was taken up by the stream organisms in a fairly short distance downstream," he said.

The nitrogen was gobbled up by tiny organisms such as algae, fungi and bacteria. But, a large portion of it was permanently pulled from the streams by a process known as denitrification, which converts nitrate to nitrogen gas that escapes into the atmosphere.

"We were able to quantify the fate of how much nitrogen goes into each of these potential pathways," he said.

"That allows us to understand how some streams do better than others and that opens up the possibility of understanding how we can manage streams to promote denitrification or importantly, how we are managing them to discourage it," he said.

Hamilton said the trick is to allowing lazy, meandering rivers to do their job instead of diverting them into straight drainage ditches that act more like water pipes and less like filters.

"We've been very industrious and successful in draining vast amounts of wetland. We've re-engineered our streams to conduct the water and any nutrients in the water out as fast as possible," he said.

"We think it's fair to say as a group there are a lot of ways we could do that better."

(Editing by Maggie Fox and David Wiessler)

Read more!

Rare Reptiles' Mass Die-Off Due to Poison-Induced Gout

Paroma Basu, National Geographic News 12 Mar 08;

Invasive fish carrying industrial chemicals likely triggered the recent die-off of 110 critically endangered reptiles known as gharials in a central Indian river sanctuary, scientists announced last week.

Since December officials have found the crocodile-like animals washed ashore dead along the banks of the largely pristine Chambal River, one of the few unpolluted rivers in India.

But the bulk of reptile fatalities occurred along a 22-mile (35-kilometer) stretch near the Chambal's confluence with the Yamuna, considered to be of the dirtiest rivers in the world.

Researchers therefore think an unidentified substance might be seeping into the Chambal and affecting the gharials' food supply.

Autopsies of the animals revealed evidence that they perished from gout, a painful metabolic disease, after ingesting polluted fish.

"Gharials that are already infected with the toxin will continue to die," said Ravi Singh, secretary general and CEO of the India branch of WWF.

The international conservation group is coordinating efforts by the government, other animal-welfare groups, veterinarians, and state departments to conduct an investigation and contain the crisis.

"If this mass die-off has truly stemmed from ongoing pressures on the habitat, people should know that there's no short-term fix."

Kidney Lesions

Conservation groups say that no more than 1,400 gharials are left in the wild, living in pockets of India and Nepal.

More than 300 of these individuals live in the National Chambal Sanctuary along the Chambal River, which contains the largest of the world's three breeding populations.

When the reptiles began to wash up dead in December, post-mortem examinations revealed chemical-laced lesions on the animals' kidneys.

These lesions probably caused the onset of debilitating gout, said Paolo Martelli, one of four veterinarians with the World Conservation Union sent in to examine the dead reptiles.

Gout is painful inflammation caused by a buildup of microscopic crystals of uric acid in the joints. Kidneys normally remove most uric acid from the blood.

The doctors also found surprising amounts of fat in the animals' tissues, Martelli added, which could be explained by the growing abundance of a cichlid fish from Africa known as tilapia in Indian rivers.

The species was introduced in the region a few years ago to boost Indian aquaculture. It has since grown so plentiful that gharials now feed on it almost exclusively.

As tilapia move from polluted rivers into the Chambal, they ingest and store chemicals in their tissues. Gharials eating the abundant fish therefore accumulate even larger amounts of potentially harmful substances in their body fat.

"Cold winter temperatures coupled with excess food could have also made the [cold-blooded] gharials more susceptible to the toxin," said Martelli, who is based in Hong Kong.

"As the temperatures warm up, the animals will improve. But next winter may again be a delicate time for the gharials."

Two Indian laboratories are still trying to determine exactly what kind of chemical is to blame.

Experts think that the agent is either an industrial chemical being released into the Yamuna by a new facility or one that was used by an older plant that shut down and illegally dumped all its waste in the river.

Related articles

Dozens of rare gharials die in India
Biswajeet Banerjee, Associated Press Yahoo News 22 Jan 08;

More deaths of rare Indian gharials
BBC News 4 Jan 08;

Mass deaths of rare crocodiles in India
BBC News 15 Dec 07;

Read more!

NUS prof works out the cost of turning Singapore's car population hybrid

If cars go hybrid, the math holds up
Matthew Phan, Business Times 13 Mar 08;

(SINGAPORE) Converting Singapore's entire car population gradually to hybrid vehicles could cost the nation over $600 million a year, after factoring in both the premium paid for hybrid vehicles as well as the fuel savings, according to a study by Prof S K Chou of the National University of Singapore (NUS).

However, this assumes steady petrol prices at about $1.90 per litre, or 2006 levels.

An annual price increase of 4 per cent a year would make the shift to hybrid cars both 'environmentally and financially beneficial', Prof Chou, who is from NUS's mechanical engineering department, said yesterday at a clean energy roundtable.

Singapore had nearly 800,000 vehicles on the road in 2006, of which some 470,000 are cars or station wagons, according to a statistical report from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) last year.

Prof Chou's study assumed that each car travelled about 21,000 kilometres a year - the average amount measured by the LTA in 2006 - and that to convert a regular car to a hybrid car would cost its owner a $5,000 per year premium.

The present value of the costs over time of converting all cars to hybrid vehicles by 2020 would range from about $600 million to $650 million, depending on the discount rate used, Prof Chou said.

The cost falls if the rate of adoption of hybrid vehicles is slowed.

It also falls into negative territory if increases in petrol prices are assumed, and turns into a financial benefit if petrol prices rise 4 or more per cent a year, Prof Chou explained.

The key question is: what is the financially neutral position, where the fuel cost savings offset the premium paid for a hybrid car?

The study concluded that, assuming petrol price increases of 2 per cent a year, a car owner could afford a premium of up to US$4,810 per year for a hybrid vehicle, and remain indifferent, said Prof Chou.

In 2007, Singapore had over 1,000 green vehicles, including hybrids, vehicles running on biodiesel blends or CNG, and electric cars, according to Ho Cheng Hoon, deputy director of policy at the National Environment Agency, who was also at the roundtable.

'Much of this was in the last two years,' he pointed out.

Through its $20 million Innovation for Environmental Sustainability fund, the government will help fund private sector clean fuel projects, like CNG (compressed natural gas) stations in Mandai and Serangoon, said Mr Ho.

It also wants all taxis and 40 per cent of buses to comply with Euro IV emission regulations by 2014.

Clean Energy Roundtable discusses dilemmas faced by transport sector
Channel NewsAsia 12 Mar 08;

SINGAPORE : The transport sector contributes to 19 percent of CO2 emissions in Singapore.

Car drivers are among the biggest culprits - the energy they consume is 9 times that of a bus passenger and 12 times that of a train passenger.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) said demand for green cars has only taken off in the last two years, helped along by soaring oil prices.

There are currently over 1,000 hybrid vehicles and just under 500 CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) vehicles, and the focus remains on incentives to help people go green.

Experts said legislation could help speed up the process.

Ho Cheng Hoon, Deputy Director of Policy at NEA, speaking at the Clean Energy Roundtable on Wednesday, said: "Legislation may speed up the process but it may not change the behaviour.

"The premise of the green vehicle rebate is to narrow the gap sufficiently for people to consider green vehicles seriously. The Green Vehicle Rebate is not a way for the government to pay people to be green, but just to help people think carefully about how they can be green."

Industry players are looking at workable options. For instance, car manufacturer BMW has presented its 7 Series hydrogen car at the forum. The car's only emission is water, when powered by liquefied hydrogen.

"I think we have to prepare, that we can do this, know what the issues from the technology are and potential of this technology," said Michael Meurer, head of BMW's Clean Energy Programme.

But such green options are far from being an option for the masses yet. BMW reckoned it will be at least a decade before such hydrogen cars can be commercially available. - CNA /ls

Read more!

Subsidies not prudent for renewable energy in Singapore

Reply from MTI, Straits TImes Forum 13 Mar 08;

IN HIS letter, 'Vital to pursue renewable energy policy' last Friday, Mr Tan Tze Kiang says the Government should subsidise alternative energy, in particular solar power.

Mr Tan claims solar power is 'almost free', and yet he also says there are 'relatively heavy start-up costs' which should be subsidised. The fact is that solar power costs two to three times as much as electricity generated through conventional means.

This is precisely due to the high upfront cost of installing solar panels, which has to be included in the cost of solar power generated over the useful life of these panels. A subsidy will distort the energy market by artificially lowering the cost of solar energy and encouraging its consumption relative to other forms of unsubsidised energy.

Further, if the Government were to adopt Mr Tan's suggestion, heavy subsidies will be required to encourage the wider adoption of solar power. It is neither a prudent use of public funds nor is it sustainable in the long run.

We agree it is important to develop renewable energy as part of our overall national energy policy. Our main thrust is to invest in research and development (R&D) as new technologies can help lower the cost of alternative energy sources and accelerate their adoption. For example, the National Research Foundation has committed $170 million to R&D in solar technologies.

The newly announced $20 million Solar Capability Scheme will build capabilities in the design and system integration of solar panels for new buildings which attain a certain level of Green Mark standard. This and other schemes aim to grow the alternative-energy industry into an important part of our economy.

Mr Tan asks why we emphasise economic growth as a response to the uncertain global energy outlook. It is because economic growth underpins our energy security by ensuring that Singapore continues to have the resources to procure energy - conventional or renewable - for our needs from global markets.

Lim Bee Khim (Ms)
Director, Corporate Communications
Ministry of Trade and Industry

Read more!