Hydrogen: the wave of the future, but how far down the road?

Jean-Louis Santini, Yahoo News 19 Nov 07;

The United States hopes to fill American roads with hydrogen-powered cars in two decades, but the clean fuel must be cheap and practical to make before it can replace oil, US experts say.

President George W. Bush unveiled a 1.2-billion-dollar initiative in 2003 to reverse US dependence on foreign oil and make hydrogen, which emits zero pollution, the fuel that drives the US economy.

"That was ambitious," said Timothy Wilkins, an attorney of the firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, based in Texas, who specializes in environmental and energy regulation.

"I think in a century hydrogen could fill a role like that, but not in 20 years," Wilkins told AFP, adding that the Bush administration was no longer as vocal about the plan as it used to be.

"To produce it like the gasoline scale, to get it in the vehicle fleet, fully integrated in the vehicle fleet and the infrastructure the fueling, stations ... it will take one century," he said.

While hydrogen has more energy power than oil, methanol and natural gas, its lightness makes it very difficult to stock and transport.

Universities, oil companies and automakers, as well as the US Energy Department, are investing in research to find better ways to produce hydrogen, most of which today is generated from non-renewable fossil fuels such as natural gas.

Pennsylvania State University researchers recently developed a method of producing hydrogen gas by combining electron-generating bacteria and a small electrical charge in a microbial fuel cell.

"In an extreme scenario, hydrogen has the capabilities technically to become a universal source of energy ... but the big deal is economics," Jerry Hinkle, the president of the National Hydrogen Association.

Hydrogen can be produced from a wide range of sources including natural gas, coal, water, wind, nuclear power and biological methods, Hinkle said.

The hydrogen fuel cell technology show the most promise in the short term, he said, adding that US auto giant General Motors predicts the production of competitive and high-performance fuel cell cars in 2010-2012.

In the meantime, automakers are launching hydrogen-powered prototypes.

Honda announced Wednesday that it would offer a hydrogen-powered car in the United States next year, the zero-emissions FCX Clarity, to customers on a limited long-term lease basis for a cost of around 600 dollars a month.

"The FCX Clarity is a shining symbol of the progress we've made with fuel cell vehicles and of our belief in the promise of this technology," said American Honda chief executive Tetsuo Iwamura.

"We are working to overcome obstacles to the mass-market potential of zero emissions hydrogen fuel cell automobiles," Iwamura said at the LA Auto Show.

BMW has also developped a 7 Series model that can run either on hydrogen or gasoline.

If half of cars circulating in the United States run with hydrogen fuel by 2050, oil imports would drop by two-thirds, reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

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Greenpeace slams 'unsustainable' new tuna quota

Yahoo News 18 Nov 07;

An international commission designed to protect bluefin tuna stocks has effectively increased the fishing quota for 2008 from what was already an "unsustainable" level, Greenpeace said Sunday.

"Countries are approving a bigger quota for a species that is on the verge of collapse instead of acting immediately to save it," said Sebastian Losada, Greenpeace Spain's Oceans Campaigner.

The environmental pressure group said the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), held in Turkeyhad approved a nearly 1,000-tonne increase in the 2008 catch.

Organisers issued no statement on the conclusions of the meeting -- attended by a Greenpeace delegation -- in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya.

The increases will add to an "already unsustainable quota that will again in 2008 be around 29,500 tonnes," Losada said.

Greenpeace said the 45-member ICCAT agreed to allow Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia to fish an additional 691 tonnes in 2008, 771 tonnes in 2009 and 985 tonnes in 2010 because their national quotas were not met in previous years.

South Korea, meanwhile, could catch an additional 300 tonnes next year, it said.

The 2008 quota officially remained at 28,500 tonnes compared to 29,500 tonnes in 2007, but the additional allowances effectively brought it up to 2007 levels, Greenpeace said.

The quotas were established under a 15-year recovery plan adopted in 2006 that aims to cut the total hunt of bluefin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean by 20 percent by 2010.

Tuna fishing is an increasingly lucrative industry, particularly for developing economies that export to Japan, which consumes a quarter of the world's tuna.

Scientific research released in France in September showed that 50,000 tonnes of the fish were being pulled out of Mediterranean waters annually, far above the official quota and the 15,000-16,000 sustainable rate.

In Brussels, the European Commission said that ICCAT had also adopted at the Turkey meeting a new plan to trace all tuna catches down the market in a bid to eliminate illegal fishing and underreporting.

"It will make life more difficult for those who want to cheat the rules," Commission spokeswoman Mirreille Thom said.

ICCAT will also convene a meeting in Tokyo in March to see how better coordination between those involved in the catch and marketing, she added.

The EU also agreed a pay-back scheme for the EU after admitting to fishing around 20,000 tonnes of bluefin tuna this year above its allocated quota of 16,779.5 tonnes.

The regime will "see the EU pay back 100 percent of this year's quota overshoot in three equal annual instalments starting in 2009," the European Commision said in a statement.

In September, the EU, which has the largest quota in the ICCAT, banned bluefin tuna fishing in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean for the rest of the year because quotas for 2007 had already been exhausted.

Under the recovery plan, the EU has a quota of 16,210.7 tonnes for 2008.

Delegates at the Antalya meeting agreed to continue implementing the recovery plan for another year with a full review planned for early 2008, the European Commission said.

"If, in 2008, the scientists tell us that the plan is not working, then we must consider every option which might help prevent the collapse of this historic fishery," European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said.

NGOs Say Current Quotas Put Tuna Stocks at Risk
PlanetArk 20 Nov 07;

MADRID - Stocks of the Mediterranean's giant bluefin tuna face collapse because fishing countries failed to cut quotas at an international conference last week, campaigners said on Monday.

Over-fishing to supply the sushi trade has decimated stocks of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean over the last decade. Campaign groups and some countries, led by the United States, have said only a complete fishing ban for up to five years can reverse the decline.

But at its 10-day meeting in Antalya, Turkey, the body charged with regulating bluefin catches -- the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) -- broadly maintained the catch limit, a quota even its own scientists say is unsustainable.

"After this latest failure to act, our expectation is that the fishery will collapse," Greenpeace oceans campaigner Francois Provost told Reuters.

Though ICCAT, dominated by the European Union's voting bloc, cut its 2008 quota by 1,000 tonnes to 28,500, the catch limit for next year's April-July season will rise slightly for some countries that did not fill their quotas in recent years so they can fish more.

ICCAT's own scientists have said stocks will only recover if the quota is cut to 15,000 tonnes.

"ICCAT has proved itself to be entirely incompetent and has failed again in its duty to sustainably manage our common marine resources," said Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.

Greenpeace estimates under-reporting, fishing past the end of the season, and the illegal use of spotter planes took this year's catch to 45,000 tonnes.

Spain, a country environment group WWF says has under-reported its bluefin catch, said a new ICCAT plan to trace tuna from fishing boat to final destination would help stamp out illegal fishing and under-reporting.

The half-tonne fish, which has been hunted since the time of the Phoenicians 3,000 years ago, migrates thousands of kilometres and can swim in excess of 70 km (43 miles) an hour. (Reporting by Ben Harding; Editing by Golnar Motevalli)

'No cuts' for Mediterranean tuna
Richard Black, BBC News 19 Nov 07

Catches of Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea will not be cut, despite evidence that fishermen caught more than they were allowed in 2007.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (Iccat) made the decision during its annual meeting, held this year in Turkey.

Environment groups described the decision as a "shocking failure".

EU fleets caught about 4,000 tonnes above their 2007 quotas; seven nations face legal action as as result.

The US and Canadian governments, supported by environmental groups, proposed a moratorium on bluefin catches to allow stocks time to recover.

Instead, Iccat allowed requests for small quota increases from a number of countries including Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.

These decisions brought ringing condemnation from environmental groups.

"Iccat has proved itself to be entirely incompetent, and has failed again in its duty to sustainably manage our common marine resource," thundered WWF Mediterranean's head of fisheries Sergei Tudela.

Greenpeace was equally dismissive. "The northern bluefin is on the road to extinction, and this meeting has not even reduced the speed limit," said the organisation's oceans campaigner for Spain, Sebastian Losada.

Still on track

For the most part, Iccat commissioners decided to stick with recommendations made at the organisation's 2006 meeting which initiated a "multi-annual recovery plan" for the Atlantic bluefin.

The plan included cuts in quotas and in the length of fishing seasons that were substantially less radical that Iccat's scientific advisors had recommended.

Iccat says there has not been enough time to determine whether the measures are working, and will review them at next year's annual meeting.

"The plan is still going on - our recommendations were that there should be no revision of the plan," Iccat's executive director Driss Meski told BBC News.

The plan included measures aimed at cutting down on illegal, unrestricted and unreported (IUU) fishing, which scientists believe has added as much as 50% to official catch quotas in recent years.

Clearly the new emphasis on sticking to quotas has not had the desired impact, with the European Commission closing its bluefin fishery earlier in the year than planned and initiating legal action against seven EU member states for exceeding their quotas.

Collectively, the EU came in about 4,000 tonnes over its quota of 16,779.55 tonnes.

The EU will "repay" this excess by catching less than its quota in the three seasons from 2009.

Delegates did agree to introduce a new system of tracking tuna from the net (or the hook) to the plate, which they hope will reduce illegal fishing.

There is also to be a meeting in Japan early next year at which governments and companies involved can co-ordinate attempts to regulate bluefin catches more effectively.

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Anna-Marie Lever, BBC News 16 Nov 07

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Nilanjana Sengupta, Straits Times 8 Nov 07;

Read more!

America ships electronic waste overseas

Terence Chea, Associated Press Yahoo News 18 Nov 07;

Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.

While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas.

Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.

"It is being recycled, but it's being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. "We're preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world."

The gear most likely to be shipped abroad is collected at free recycling drives, often held each April around Earth Day, recycling industry officials say. The sponsors — chiefly companies, schools, cities and counties — often hire the cheapest firms and do not ask enough questions about what becomes of the discarded equipment, the officials say.

Many so-called recyclers simply sell the working units and components, then give or sell the remaining scrap to export brokers.

"There are a lot of people getting away with exporting e-waste," said John Bekiaris, chief executive of San Francisco-based HMR USA Inc., which collects and disposes of unwanted IT equipment from Bay Area businesses. "Anyone who's disposing of their computer equipment really needs to do a thorough inspection of the vendors they use."

The problem could get worse. Most of the 2 million tons of old electronics discarded annually by Americans goes to U.S. landfills, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. But a growing number of states are banning such waste from landfills, which could drive more waste into the recycling stream and fuel exports, activists say.

Many brokers claim they are simply exporting used equipment for reuse in poor countries. That's what happened in September, when customs officials in Hong Kong were tipped off by environmentalists and intercepted two freight containers. They cracked the containers open and found hundreds of old computer monitors and televisions discarded by Americans thousands of miles away.

China bans the import of electronic waste, so the containers were sent back to the U.S.

The company that shipped out the containers was Fortune Sky USA, a Cordova, Tenn.-based subsidiary of a Chinese company. General manager Vincent Yu said his company thought it was buying and shipping used computers, not old monitors and televisions, and is trying to get its money back.

Fortune Sky exports used computers and components to China, Malaysia, Vietnam and other Asian countries.

"There's a huge market over there for secondhand computers that we don't use anymore," Yu said. "I don't think it's going to cause any pollution. If the equipment can still be used, then that's good for everybody."

Yu refused to say where he bought the material, but Basel Action Network tracked it to a San Antonio, Texas, company that collects computers, printers and other electronics from schools and businesses.

Activists complain that most exporters don't test units to make sure they work before sending them overseas.

"Reuse is the new excuse. It's the new passport to export," said Puckett of Basel Action Network. "Other countries are facing this glut of exported used equipment under the pretext that it's all going to be reused."

At the other end at customs, the goods don't always get checked either.

"It is impossible to stop and check every single container imported into Hong Kong," said Kenneth Chan of Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department. "Smugglers may also deliberately declare their ... waste as goods."

In the first nine months of this year, Hong Kong authorities returned 85 containers of electronic junk, including 20 from the U.S.

Exporting most electronic waste isn't illegal in the United States. The U.S. does bar the export of monitors and televisions with cathode-ray tubes without permission from the importing country, but federal authorities don't have the resources to check most containers.

The EPA recognizes the problem but doesn't believe that stopping exports is the solution, said Matt Hale, who heads the agency's office of solid waste. Since most electronics are manufactured abroad, it makes sense to recycle them abroad, Hale said.

"What we need to do is work internationally to upgrade the standards (for recycling) wherever it takes place," he said.

The EPA is working with environmental groups, recyclers and electronics manufacturers to develop a system to certify companies that recycle electronics responsibly. But so far the various players have not agreed on standards and enforcement.

Many activists believe the answer lies in requiring electronics makers to take back and recycle their own products. Such laws would encourage manufacturers to make products that are easier to recycle and contain fewer dangerous chemicals, they say.

Eight states, including five this year, have passed such laws, and companies such as Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony now take back their products at no charge. Some require consumers to mail in their old gear, while others have drop-off centers. HP says it also now designs its equipment with fewer toxic materials and has made it easier to recycle.

Related articles

Europe Can Do More to Recycle Electronic Waste: UN
Story by Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 16 Nov 07

Get paid for recycling your old notebook
Cheow Xin Yi, Today Online 15 Nov 07

TV makers urged to offer safer disposal: "Paying people to recycle doesn't work"
Matt Slagle, Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Nov 07;

Links

Basel Action Network: http://www.ban.org/
Computer Take Back Campaign: http://www.computertakeback.com/
International Association of Electronics Recyclers: http://www.iaer.org/

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Ireland to protect red squirrels from grey peril

Yahoo News 18 Nov 07;

Ireland's red squirrels, which are threat from their more aggressive grey British cousins, are to be thrown a lifeline under a plan published Sunday by the environment ministry.

The red squirrel is one of the most threatened mammals in Ireland but the collaborative rescue plan involving the authorities in both the Republic and British-ruled Northern Ireland is an effort to reverse the decline.

Measures to conserve the reds will include rope bridges in their areas and forestry better suited to reds than greys.

Translocation projects will move reds to areas where there is less competition from greys and officials are reviewing international research on immuno-contraception as a means of controlling greys.

"The red squirrel is one of our most iconic and beautiful species and this plan gives details of the actions we need to undertake to ensure that this beautiful animal remains a viable part of our biodiversity," said Green Party Environment Minister John Gormley.

Recent survey work has shown that the species is declining at about one percent a year mainly as a result of competition from grey squirrels introduced from Britain less than 100 years ago.

There are now only 40,000 pairs of red squirrels in Ireland.

Read more!

Going green in the park

Jessica Jaganathan, Straits Times 19 Nov 07;

THE invitation was to 'Come out and play, it's no TV day'.

Residents of North West District responded by turning out at Admiralty Park for an eco-picnic, hike, flea market, outdoor games and performances.

The picnic was a competition organised by National Environment Agency (NEA) to see who could be 'greenest'.

Mrs Siti Kartini Kamis, 35, among the 200 picnickers, turned up decked in green, right down to a green umbrella and a re-usable bag for her food and drinks.

Like other participants, she laid out re-usable food containers instead of disposable ones. For her efforts, she won second prize.

The community event was part of North West District's way of supporting the Clean and Green Singapore drive.

The guests of honour were Mr Lim Swee Say, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, and Dr Teo Ho Pin, mayor of North West District.

'We want to encourage Singaporeans to love the environment and do more outdoor activities,' said Dr Teo.

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World's largest salt-water swimming pool: but how to keep it clean?

The Electric New Paper 19 Nov 07
LAP OF LUXURY

IF you ever stay at the San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo in South Central Chile, you need to be very specific when you tell your friends to meet you 'by the pool'.

Otherwise, you could end up waiting for each other on deck chairs 1km apart.

This is because the pool at this luxury resort is so big, you could do laps in it using a sail boat.

Acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the world's largest swimming pool, San Alfonso del Mar's pool makes the previous record holder look like a wash basin.

Completed in December last year, this salt-water lagoon stretches over 1km in length and covers 8ha, an area equivalent to about 66 Olympic-sized pools.

In comparison, the next largest pool in the world, the Orthlieb pool in Casablanca, Morocco, measures only 150m by 100m.

Size isn't only this pool's claim to fame.

Ringed by a private white-sand beach, the pool features its own boat slips and docks from which visitors may rent kayaks and sail boats for cruising on its calm waters.

It also has a ferry to take you from one end of the pool to the other if you end up waiting for friends at the wrong side.

The water, which comes from the Pacific Ocean, has the intense turquoise colour of tropical seas and is crystal clear to a depth of 35m.

Water temperature is also at a comfortable 26 deg C in summer, or about 9 deg C warmer than the ocean located just yards away.

And the purification technology for the pool is so advanced that its creator claims that the water is clean enough to bathe in.

$2 BILLION

As you can imagine, it's not cheap to build a pool this size.

It cost about US$1.5 billion ($2.2b) to build, and takes roughly US$4 million a year to maintain.

This Chilean oasis, about 110km west of the capital Santiago, did not sprout up overnight.

It took its creator, Chilean biochemist and real estate developer Fernando Fischmann, about a decade to devise a way to maintain the cleanliness and clarity of such a large body of water.

He came up with the idea for a gigantic pool to go with the resort in 1997 because he felt it needed a radical attraction that would set it apart from competing resorts.

At the time, visitors' options for water activities there were limited because the waters off the coast of Chile were too cold and inhospitable.

That's when Mr Fischmann decided to create a giant pool for them.

The only problem was that back then, technology that could purify such a large body of water at low cost did not exist.

So he developed the technology himself.

It was only last year that his crystalline lagoon technology was finally ready for the market, and he debuted it at San Alfonso del Mar.

According to Mr Fischmann, his way of keeping the pool water clean and clear uses a 'pulse-based disinfection' method that requires up to 100 times less chemical products than traditional methods.

Unlike regular swimming pools that filter water continuously, Mr Fischmann's technology reportedly makes use of 150 in-wall sensors to surgically clean only the dirty parts of the pool's 2.5 million litres of water.

The pool's sheer size also helps dilute the concentration of any contaminants.

Following the success of the San Alfonso pool, Mr Fischmann set up a company called Crystal Lagoons to market his pool technology to other resorts, especially those in places with no access to beautiful waterfronts.

'It is a technological process and a one of a kind architectural concept adaptable to forests, marshes, deserts, urban areas or areas without beaches,' he told TradeArabia News Service.

'They can also be created on overcrowded or eroded coastlines, contaminated seas or rivers and dangerous or inhospitable beaches.'

The company is already in the midst of creating other megapools in Argentina, Panama, and Dubai.

PURITY WON'T LAST FOREVER?

However, some experts have expressed doubts that Crystal Lagoons' purification technology can keep these pools sparkling clean indefinitely.

Mr Ralph Keller, an expert in industrial hygiene, told Wired magazine that the principles behind the method are sound, but may work only for the short term.

He said: 'For the first few years, it may just be the size of the pool that's keeping it clean.'

Read more!

Heavy rain causes floods, uprooted trees in Singapore

By Margaret Perry, Channel NewsAsia
18 November 2007

SINGAPORE : A heavy downpour on Sunday resulted in floods and uprooted trees in some areas of Singapore.

The bad weather caused a fallen tree along Joan Road in the Thomson Road area. Another tree fell along Hougang Avenue 8.

At Punggol Field Block 175, residents reported a car park flooded with water about five centimetres deep.

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$1.8m for Ngee Ann Poly's social, green initiatives

Straits Times 18 Nov 07

A TEAM of Singapore youth will be in Sweden next year to present their water-related project in an international competition, thanks to a collaboration between the Lien Foundation (LF) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP).

A three-year $1.79 million programme, funded mainly by the foundation to advance social and environmental causes, will support three initiatives:

# The Singapore Junior Water Prize, the winners of which will represent Singapore in Stockholm, Sweden;

# Student projects in support of the public education drive on terminal illnesses and hospices; and

# Providing consultancy to three Asean educational institutions.

Called the LF-NP Social, Environmental and Educational Development (Seed) Capital, the programme is aimed at enhancing NP students' learning experience and developing the three areas, said the polytechnic's principal, Mr Chia Mia Chiang.

NP will organise the competition for the first national Singapore Junior Water Prize, to be open to all Singapore schools.

The team with the winning project - and this can range from designing a filtration system to a public education project on water as a resource to cleaning up a river - will represent Singapore at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition next August.

The Public Utilities Board put $40,000 into this portion of the LF-NP Seed Capital programme.

For the public education drive on terminal illnesses, NP students will produce radio programmes and write articles on the subject in the first year of the programme.

Topics for the next two years are yet to be decided.

Read the full report in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.


$1.8m for Ngee Ann Poly's social, green initiatives
3-year tie-up with Lien Foundation, which will provide most of the funds
Tessa Wong, Straits Times 19 Nov 07;

A TEAM of Singapore youth will be in Sweden next year to present their water-related project in an international competition, thanks to a collaboration between the Lien Foundation (LF) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP).

A three-year $1.79 million programme, funded mainly by the foundation to advance social and environmental causes, will support three initiatives:

# The Singapore Junior Water Prize, the winners of which will represent Singapore in Stockholm, Sweden;

# Student projects in support of the public education drive on terminal illnesses and hospices; and

# Providing consultancy to three Asean educational institutions.

Called the LF-NP Social, Environmental and Educational Development (Seed) Capital, the programme is aimed at enhancing NP students' learning experience and developing the three areas, said the polytechnic's principal, Mr Chia Mia Chiang.

NP will organise the competition for the first national Singapore Junior Water Prize, to be open to all Singapore schools.

The team with the winning project - and this can range from designing a filtration system to a public education project on water as a resource to cleaning up a river - will represent Singapore at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition next August.

The Public Utilities Board put $40,000 into this portion of the LF-NP Seed Capital programme.

For the public education drive on terminal illnesses, NP students will produce radio programmes and write articles on the subject in the first year of the programme.

Topics for the next two years are yet to be decided.

And for the education in Asean initiative, the polytechnic will consult with a regional school for each year of the programme.

This year, NP has picked Sekayu Polytechnic in Sumatra, Indonesia, and will work with it to improve its curricula and teaching methods.

The education institutions for the next two years have not been identified yet.

This is not the first time NP has gained from the foundation's largesse:

Its Lien Ying Chow Education Initiative, which gives out 15 scholarships and over 200 bursaries to NP students each year, was started with $5 million from the foundation.

The foundation also provided $200,000 worth of personal digital assistants for nursing students and staff of the polytechnic's School of Health Services.

Read more!

Iran president says fossil energy below "real price"

Reuters 17 Nov 07

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Saturday he believed the market price of fossil energy, which includes oil, was still below its "real price," Iranian media reported.

"...the price of this energy is lower than its real price," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency before leaving Tehran, first to Bahrain and then to attend an OPEC summit in Riyadh.

He also said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was under "heavy political and economic pressure," but without elaborating.

OPEC leaders open a two-day summit on Saturday which could offer Iran and Venezuela the chance to grandstand against Washington but will avoid discussion about whether to raise oil output.

The United States has urged OPEC to boost production because of shrinking oil inventory levels in developed economies and to help bring down prices that have surged to record levels.

But Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said on Thursday international markets had sufficient crude supply, and increasing OPEC's output would not bring down prices.

(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Michael Urquhart)

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Straits Times 17 Nov 07

Read more!

Other OPEC members yet to join Saudi climate pledge

Simon Webb, Reuters 18 Nov 07;

Riyadh (Reuters) - No other OPEC leaders at a summit in Riyadh have joined the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia in committing cash for research into helping the environment, Algeria's energy minister said on Sunday.

"We are not committing anything, we don't know what the proposal is," Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil told reporters. "As far as I am aware, nobody else has committed anything either."

Indonesia had also not made any financial commitment to the environment at the summit, Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said on Sunday.

Saudi King Abdullah pledged $300 million for environmental research on Saturday, but gave no further details.

"That was a Saudi initiative," Nigerian Oil Minister Odein Ajumogobia told reporters. "Nigeria hasn't taken a position."

The idea of funding research into ways to curb emissions while allowing the continued use of fossil fuels has been floated in forums ahead of the summit.

Khelil said that for now there was no OPEC-wide proposal for an environmental research fund, although such a proposal could still be made at the summit.

"It may become an OPEC proposal, we don't know," he said.

OPEC heads of state were meeting in the Saudi capital on Saturday and Sunday.

A draft final communique for the summit makes no mention of a fund. OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said this week the producer group would be willing to play its part in developing carbon capture and storage technology to help reduce emissions in the air.

(Editing by David Holmes)

Saudi to give $300 million for environmental research
Reuters 17 Nov 07;

RIYADH (Reuters) - Top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia will give $300 million for research into helping the environment by lowering emissions, its head of state King Abdullah said on Saturday.

"We will give $300 million for research into helping the environment," he said in a speech during a summit of OPEC heads of state which is taking place in the Saudi capital.

The idea of funding research into ways to curb emissions while allowing the continued use of fossil fuels has been floated in forums ahead of the summit.

(Reporting by Andrew Hammond; Writing by Alex Lawler; Editing by Alison Williams)

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OPEC to put carbon capture at heart of new green agenda
Yahoo News 16 Nov 07;

OPEC wins praise for global warming stance
Adam Plowright, Yahoo News 15 Nov 07;

Read more!

Climate, demographics to keep food costs high: UN World Food Programme

Nick Tattersall, Reuters 16 Nov 07;

DAKAR (Reuters) - Climate change, population growth and increasing demand for biofuels mean high food prices will keep rising in coming years, leaving the world's poorest even more vulnerable, the head of the U.N. World Food Programme said.

Prices for agricultural commodities have spiked sharply in both developed and emerging markets in recent months, leaving many in the world's poorest regions like West Africa struggling to afford basic supplies such as rice and grains.

"With food prices at their highest level in decades, many people are simply being priced out of the food market," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said late on Thursday during a visit to Senegal and Mali.

From Senegal on Africa's westernmost tip to Ethiopia in the east, discontent over record prices for basic foodstuffs has become the focus of heated national debate, even in the more stable economies on the world's poorest continent.

Violent protests against food price increases shook the normally conservative Islamic republic of Mauritania last week, with stone-throwing demonstrators trying to storm at least one government food store and setting car tires ablaze.

Unprecedented oil prices have increased transport costs while the explosion in biofuels, subsidized by some Western countries for being less environmentally damaging than fossil fuels, has also tightened supply and contributed to the rise.

China had swung from being one of the world's top corn exporters to exporting none last year as it held back stocks for biofuels, Sheeran said, while farmers in Africa were getting higher prices for food crops like cassava by selling them for use as an alternative energy source rather than food.

"Small farmers and poor farmers have contributed to the biofuels revolution which provides a new income stream ... but in the immediate, near future it is a challenge because we see tightening stocks," she said.

STRUCTURAL FACTORS

Climate change alone is expected to increase the number of under-nourished people in the world to 170 million from 40 million now, according to forecasts by the inter-governmental panel of experts on the issue.

Changing rainfall patterns could mean that in just over a decade, rain-dependent areas of Africa could be producing half the agricultural yield they are now.

At the same time, the region's population is growing more quickly than almost anywhere else in the world: in Niger for example, on the southern edge of the Sahara desert, each woman has on average 7.1 children.

Economists expect the higher food prices to be more than just a spike, instead referring to a structural adjustment that follows a sustained period of relatively low prices.

U.S. bank Goldman Sachs said last month that structural factors behind rising prices in Brazil, Russia, India and China would sustain higher costs for grains, meat, eggs and dairy products.

Central banks in China, Brazil and India have voiced concern about the lasting impact of high food prices, which also make it more difficult for WFP to find funding for the emergency food aid it needs to provide for the world's most vulnerable people.

"WFP's food costs have gone up 50 percent in the last five years alone," Sheeran said.

"We're expecting over the next two years for that to go up another 35 percent but in some markets over the past six months we have had increases of over 40 percent."

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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Cuts in river flows cut to fight worst drought in southeastern US

Matthew Bigg, Reuters 16 Nov 07;

ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. authorities began reducing on Friday the amount of water released down a key Georgia river system to conserve resources in the face of what they say is the worst drought in decades in the southeastern United States.

The decision was aimed at managing the effects of the drought and also resolving a sharp political dispute between the governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida about how to share water resources.

Under the plan, the amount of water flowing south of the Woodruff Dam near Georgia's border with Alabama will be reduced to 4,750 cubic feet per second (cfs) from 5,000 cubic feet per second.

The decision would ensure there was enough water to serve the needs of communities and industries in the parts of Georgia, Alabama and Florida that depend on the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Flint rivers.

It would also not adversely affect endangered species in Florida's northwestern Panhandle region which depend on river water to reduce the amount of salinity in their habitat, officials said.

"This is not just about endangered species. It is about managing critical needs with a very limited resource," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne told a news conference, speaking via telephone link.

There was also a provision to reduce the flow of water further to 4,150 cfs (118 cubic meters per second) if necessary, said senior officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The advantage of the plan was to "keep in any rains that come into the reservoirs, in the reservoirs," said Brig. Gen. Joseph Schroedel, the Corps' south Atlantic division commander.

"Under the existing plan we would have had to have released any rains that came in excess of 5,000 cubic feet per second," he said, stressing that the plan was flexible and its effects would be monitored closely.

The Southeast is normally one of the wettest regions in the United States but a drought classified as "extreme" has affected parts of several states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and North and South Carolina.

Environmentalists say part of the problem is high consumption, aggravated by a lack of serious water conservation efforts in some of the fastest growing areas of the United States. Georgia has implemented some water restrictions including a ban on outdoor residential watering.

The dispute between the three state governors has centered on how to share water from Lake Lanier, 45 miles north of Atlanta, which stands near the headwater of the river system.

Lanier's water levels have fallen dramatically, leading to claims by state officials that it could run dry in a few months, but Schroedel said that even under the most extreme conditions with no rain there was at least 450 days of water left in it.

(Editing by Michael Christie and Mohammad Zargham)

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