Singapore PowerSeraya keen on building big-scale desalination plants

Company opens cutting-edge reverse osmosis desalination plant
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 30 Jan 08;

POWERSERAYA (PS) - the second-largest generation company here which has grown into an integrated water, heat and power player - is interested in building large-scale desalination plants if Singapore opens up the water market. It is also keen on expanding overseas.

'If the PUB decides to open up the water market we would be interested in expanding our capability,' PS managing director Neil McGregor said at the opening of its 10,000 cubic metre per day reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant.

PS's plant is the first worldwide to use the cutting-edge 16-inch membrane which results in a higher water yield and also cost savings, as it uses 30 per cent less electricity than conventional small membrane plants.

Primarily aimed at giving PS self-sufficiency in its water and steam (to drive its electricity turbines) needs, the $20 million desalination plant also has spare capacity allowing PS to sell steam to others such as Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore on Jurong Island.

While the RO plant has enough spare capacity for another year or two of market growth, PS is already planning a second RO plant to supply steam to even more petrochemical customers there. 'Jurong Island has a huge need for water,' Mr McGregor said.

'The more high-grade steam we sell, the more water we need,' he said, adding however, that no decision has yet been made on building a second RO plant.

Further down the road, if the water market here, currently controlled by PUB, is liberalised, then PS would also look to scale up and build bigger desalination plants, which would typically be at least six times the size of its current RO plant - or a 30 million gallon per day plant, Mr McGregor said.

'Water gives us a new platform to grow the company in future,' he told a press conference ahead of the opening ceremonies.

To optimise use of its existing facilities, the RO plant taps about 26,000 cu m of seawater from PS's existing seawater intake facility to produce 9,000 cu m of high-grade service water and 1,000 cu m of potable water daily.

Praising PS's new plant, Parliamentary Secretary (Environment & Water Resources) Amy Khor said that its cost savings in electricity consumption to produce the water will eventually translate to even more affordable utilities supply to Jurong Island customers.

On PS's regional diversification plans, Mr McGregor said that this was the next logical step for PS, but stressed that this 'was not imminent'.

'It has to be done in tandem with our shareholders and at this point of time they are considering privatisation and not regionalisation,' he said, referring to Temasek Holding's ongoing divestment of the three big gencos here.

Temasek, which is expected to pick the winner for Tuas Power - the first to go - in March, will proceed with the sale of PS and Senoko Power next, with the entire divestment exercise scheduled for completion by the first half of next year.

No need to buy water

Desalinated water feeds energy firm's own industrial needs
Lin Yanqin Today Online 30 Jan 08;

IT WILL help energy retailer PowerSeraya be self-sufficient in its water needs, improve energy efficiency and create more cost savings — which could mean more competitively-priced utilities for its customers.

Such is the promise of the firm's new $20-million reverse osmosis desalination plant, which can produce 10,000 m3 of high-quality service and potable water from seawater each day. This is more than enough to meet its industrial needs, including making steam for electricity generation and equipment washing.

The plant on Jurong Island uses the larger 16-inch reverse osmosis membranes — the first desalination plant in the world to do so — which provide more water yield and a smaller carbon footprint. This helps it reduce water costs by up to 30 per cent and improve overall thermal efficiency.

The energy retailer used to buy water from the Public Utilities Board. The desalination plant will also allow the firm to expand its range of commodities to buyers, such as selling its desalinated water to customers.

"Our move into water production is primarily aimed at self-sufficiency but if a water market were to evolve in the future, we would be interested in expanding our capacity," said PowerSeraya managing director Neil McGregor at the plant's official launch yesterday.

Firms with desalination facilities — such as Senoko Power — currently produce enough water for their own industrial use, not enough to supply others.

On the possibility of a water retail market, guest-of-honour Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Ministry Dr Amy Khor said it was not being considered now. "(But) whether the private sector has the capability to do it … We'll have to see how the market develops."

Energy firm scores a first with $20m water plant
Shobana Kesava, Straits Times 30 Jan 08;

POWERSERAYA now has its own desalination plant, making it the first combined heat, water and power supplier in South-east Asia.

The energy company officially opened the $20 million plant at its Jurong Island facility yesterday.

Managing director Neil McGregor said the plant consumes 30 per cent less electricity than conventional desalination plants.

When the plant runs at full capacity, about 10,000 cubic m of water, enough to fill four Olympic-size pools, can be produced per day.

Ninety per cent of the water will be used to clean floors, flush toilets and the like. The rest is clean enough to drink.

The drinking water has not been licensed for sale by regulators, but the firm may get the rights to sell it to water barges.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor opened the plant. When asked if the supply of water could be deregulated, Dr Khor said the idea, while a good one, was not currently being considered.

Read more!

24-hr petrol stations a waste of resources

Letter from James Wong, Today Online 30 Jan 08;

In our effort to conserve energy and save the planet, I wonder if there is a need for petrol stations to stay open for 24 hours.

After midnight, especially on weekdays, few motorists go to the stations. I am quite sure the additional cost of operating stations past midnight is not cost-effective.

Singapore is not a big country. You can find a petrol station every kilometre or two.

In the end, consumers are paying, or are being "penalised", for this wastage in resources in the form of higher petrol prices. Many years ago, petrol stations stayed opened until late only on Chinese New Year's eve.

I suggest that petrol stations stay open past midnight only on Saturdays and on the eve of public holidays. They should be closed between midnight and 6am on other days.

Alternatively, the authorities could look into the option of having only one station in a certain area open for 24 hours on certain days of the month.

There are 13 petrol stations from Newton Circus to Eng Neo Avenue, along Bukit Timah and Dunearn roads.

Isn't this a waste of land use in land-scarce Singapore? Singaporeans are very adaptable and I'm sure we will get used to the new opening hours.


Petrol-station opening hours best left to market forces
Reply from MTI, Straits Times Forum 1 Feb 08;

IN THE letter, 'Do petrol stations have to open 24 hours?' (ST, Jan 30), Mr James Wong Joo Sin suggested that as part of our efforts to conserve energy, the opening hours of petrol stations should be regulated by the Government.

The Government takes seriously efforts to conserve energy. However, it should not micro-manage how people or businesses use energy, and decide for them what activities which use energy are or are not justified.

Businesses are in the best position to make their own commercial decisions on where, when and how to serve the needs of their customers. They will need to balance the additional cost of operating 24 hours against the extra revenue they expect to generate in making such decisions.

For petrol kiosks sited in close proximity to each other, commercial sense must similarly prevail. If there is a lack of demand, those which do not make sufficient returns will have to close, leading to an optimal number of operators.

The Government provides the market with good infrastructure and a conducive business environment. For enterprise to thrive, the rest is best left to market forces and free competition. This is the way to build an efficient economy which responds flexibly to changing conditions.

Lim Bee Khim (Ms)
Director
Corporate Communications
for Permanent Secretary
Ministry of Trade and Industry

Read more!

Bangladesh's majestic dolphins at risk

Alastair Lawson, BBC News 28 Jan 08;

Seeing the river dolphins of Bangladesh is not something that is easily forgotten. They rise arc-like and majestic out of the water only inches from boats that ply the rivers of the country's south.

In a country where the wildlife population has been denuded because of over-crowding and pollution, dolphins provide visitors with a beautiful and memorable surprise.

But conservationists say they are increasingly concerned over the future of the country's river dolphin population, some of which they warn may even be at risk of extinction.

They say that it is rapidly declining because of over-fishing, a shortage of prey, pollution and declining freshwater supplies.

'Isolated'

Experts are particularly concerned over the fate of two species - the Ganges river dolphin and the Irrawaddy dolphin whose numbers they say have significantly reduced over the last decade.

"This is probably because of intense human activities - such as farming and fishing - that takes place in their river and near shore water habit," said dolphin expert Elisabeth Fahrni Mansur.

"But they are also at risk because of the clumped nature of their overall distribution, which results in a patchwork of relatively small groups demographically isolated from each other."

While Bangladesh currently supports relatively large populations of Ganges river dolphins and Irrawaddy dolphins, conservationists argue that it's crucial to address the threats they face now, while the potential for long-term survival of both species is still relatively high in comparison to other areas in Asia.

While other species such as Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are not currently threatened, their future can by no means be taken for granted. But it's the Ganges river dolphin and the Irrawaddy dolphin which give the most cause for concern.

"The most dire threat to them comes in the form of accidental deaths caused fishing nets," said Ms Mansur.

"Fishermen don't target the animals, but when they often become entangled in nets they easily drown because they are breathing mammals.

"A more long term threat comes from declining freshwater supplies - primarily due to water extraction upstream in India - and sea-level rises which have led to profound changes to the ecology of their habitat."

The bulk of the country's freshwater dolphin population live in the south-west of the country, especially in the rivers and waterways of the Sunderbans mangrove forest.

Experts point out that these rivers are particularly affected by toxic and industrial waste which is dumped in the water further upstream.

"Rising salinity through both climate change and declining freshwater supplies is also a real and a long-term challenge to the ecology of the Sunderbans," said Ms Mansur.

Dolphins in the forest tend to partition themselves according to the level of salinity - Ganges river dolphins for example are found in mangrove channels with high freshwater inputs, while Irrawaddy dolphins live in more salty mangrove channels further downstream.

Ominous development

Experts say that the level of salinity in these areas is crucial to the survival of the animals and to the livelihoods of over 30,000 fishermen in the Sunderbans. Already at least 11 species of fresh water fish are extinct.

In what many environmentalists see as an ominous development, the finless porpoise - primarily a coastal species - has recently been discovered in the Sunderbans which provides another indication of rising salinity.

Steps are now being taken to combat the problem.

The Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project (BCDP) and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are proposing a protected area for dolphins, which would consist of three priority sites in the Sunderbans.

In addition to monitoring salinity levels, accidental killings of dolphins by fishermen would also be surveyed.

"The idea is that fishermen will be provided with relatively inexpensive global positioning systems and depth sounders, in addition to being trained how to use them so that they can navigate safely to shore during storms," said Ms Mansur.

"In return the fishermen would safely release live animals found entangled in their nets, and collect samples and basic information on animals found already dead.

"But the battle to save these animals is not going to be easy. Salinity and over-fishing are in many respects facts beyond our control. We are the local end of a global battle."

Read more!

California salmon population declines

Terence Chea, Associated Press Yahoo News 30 Jan 08;

The number of chinook salmon returning to California's Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing to an "unprecedented collapse" that could lead to severe restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year, according to federal fishery regulators.

The sharp drop in chinook or "king" salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries this past fall is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in rivers across the West.

The population dropped more than 88 percent from its all-time high five years ago, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained by The Associated Press.

Regulators are still trying to understand the reasons for the shrinking number of spawners; some scientists believe it could be related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming.

Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number on record, the memo said. The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago.

In an e-mail to council members, Donald McIsaac, the agency's executive director, said he wanted to give them "an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley ... fall Chinook salmon stocks."

"The magnitude of the low abundance ... is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned," he said.

Read more!

Rare tortoise threatened as last of Spain's unspoiled coast falls prey to developers

Fiona Govan, The Telegraph 29 Jan 08;

It has survived wars, disease and famine, but the spread of residential tourism across its natural habitat may prove too much for the spur-thighed tortoise.

Small populations of Testudo graeca survive in only two small pockets in Spain; the national park of Doñana in Andalusia and a strip of as yet unspoiled coastline between Almeria and Murcia in the southeast.

But now one of the last remaining stretches of undeveloped coast on the Spanish Mediterranean is falling prey to the same kind of mass construction that has buried the Costa del Sol under a layer of concrete.

Environmentalists fear a new 5,000 acre development, that promises to be one of the largest purpose built tourist resorts in Europe, heralds the end of the protected species of tortoise.

"The development will destroy one of the last unspoiled corners of the coastline of the Murcia region - an area of incalculable environmental value - and will endanger the survival of the protected spur-thighed tortoise," said a statement from environmentalist group Ecologists in Action.

They are protesting against plans by the regional government to allow the construction of Marina de Cope, a development that when completed will include 9,000 holiday homes, hotel accommodation for 20,000 guests, five golf courses and a 2,000 berth marina.

Jose Pablo Ruiz Abellán, the regional head of tourism for Murcia, claimed the initiative was a necessary step for the region to become an "international reference point for quality tourism".

The project near the town of Águilas controversially encompasses land that forms part of a Natural Park and was protected until the regional government introduced an amendment to allow the construction to go ahead.

"Taking steps backward in the protection of natural spaces cannot be allowed in any civilized country," claim organisers of the campaign to Save Cabo de Cope Natural Park.

Of the threat to the survival of Spain's tortoises, Ruben Vives, the Murcian regional secretary for Ecologists in Action, told Spain's El Pais newspaper: "This species' habitat is very reduced, so its ecological value is huge.

"The key to their future lies in how much habitable surface they have, and this area keeps shrinking due to land declassifications, new roads, agriculture and so on. So right now, the tendency is for them to disappear."

The construction process itself causes great harm to the reptiles with many crushed by the mechanical diggers.

Even those that survive the process are likely to face further problems. Because they are cold-blooded, slow-moving animals, a road represents a much bigger obstacle to them than to swifter and more robust animals such as deer or boar.

"When groups become isolated from the main population due to a project that cuts through their terrain, they often simply die out," said Mr Vives, underscoring that even though the EU Habitats Directive has set aside protected land for them, these areas are insufficient and unconnected.

This could mark the end of a species that, although not indigenous to Spain, has for centuries made its home here, according to Christian Wiesner, a vet and tortoise specialist who works out of the Mediterranean coast.

"This area is ideal because they are extremely well adapted to the arid climate, supporting long periods of water deprivation and food scarcity," said Mr Wiesner.

"Mediterranean tortoises have already disappeared from most of their original biotopes; almost none are left in France and Italy due to human pressure, and they can only survive in remote and sparsely populated areas. One of these important residual habitats, Águilas, is now about to be destroyed."

Read more!

Rare 3-Foot Spitting Earthworm Found in Legal Battle

Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Yahoo News 29 Jan 08;

A rare 3-foot-long spitting earthworm that smells like lilies is at the heart of a legal battle between conservationists and the U.S. government.

When taxonomist Frank Smith discovered the giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) in 1897 by, he described it as "very abundant." Nowadays, however, sightings of the worm are rare.

The only recent confirmed worm sighting was made in 2005 by a University of Idaho researcher. Before that, the giant worm had not been spotted in 17 years, since 1988.

It reportedly grows up to three feet long and has a peculiar flowery smell (Driloleirus is Latin for "lily-like worm"). The cream-colored or pinkish-white worm lived in permanent burrows as deep as 15 feet and spat at attackers.

"This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of. A pity we're losing it," said Steve Paulson, a board member of Friends of the Clearwater, a conservation group based in Moscow, Idaho.

Unlike the European earthworms now common across the United States, the giant Palouse earthworm is native to the Americas. Specifically, the giant worm dwelled in the prairies of the Palouse, the area of the northwest United States. The Palouse has been dramatically altered by farming practices, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted.

"The giant Palouse earthworm is extremely rare and faces substantial risk of extinction," said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group based in Tucson, Ariz.

Conservation groups had petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2006 to protect the worm as an endangered species. The World Conservation Union currently ranks the worm as "vulnerable" — one step away from "endangered" in terms of conservation status.

Last October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided the worm did not warrant protection as an endangered species. Still, "we share the petitioners' concern for the species," said Susan Martin, supervisor for the Upper Columbia Fish and Wildlife Office in Spokane, Washington, in a press release.

"They do seem to be rare, but rarity doesn't mean endangered," U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Tom Buckley told LiveScience. "They may be in trouble, but we'd need more information to know, and based on the information we received, there's not enough scientific data out there to make a determination."

Greenwald countered, saying, "Rarity is certainly a factor in species endangerment. It's possible to have a species that is rare but not endangered, that only occurred naturally in one or two places, with those places being entirely secure, but that is not at all the case here with the giant Palouse earthworm. Its presumed habitat is almost gone — something like 3 percent of the native Palouse prairies is left."

Now conservation groups have filed suit to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. "The earthworm needs the protection of the Endangered Species Act to survive," Paulson said.

The conservation groups note that in seeking protection for the worm, they are also hoping to defend the prairies of the Palouse.

"In order to protect endangered species, you have to protect the places in which they live," Greenwald told LiveScience. "In seeking to protect the earthworm, we want to protect those remnants of the Palouse prairie that still exist."

Read more!

British Nuclear Cleanup: Costs and Problems Rising

Jeremy Lovell, PlanetArk 30 Jan 08;

LONDON - The costs of cleaning up waste from Britain's first civil nuclear power programme are still rising and uncertainties abound, the National Audit Office, the country's public spending watchdog, said on Wednesday.

Its report comes three weeks after the British government finally gave the green light to a new fleet of nuclear power stations to replace the retiring plants and help the country meet its carbon emission commitments.

But the current 73 billion pound cost of decommissioning the 19 existing nuclear sites over the next century is 18 percent above initial estimates, and the costs of even near-term actions are still rising when they should have stabilised.

Added to that, pressure on the finances of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the need to sometimes divert funds for unforeseen circumstances had led to significant uncertainty for site operators, the NAO said in its comprehensive report.

"Whilst the scale of the task is now better defined, estimates of costs to the taxpayer have continued to rise," said NAO head John Bourn.

"At the same time, the start and stop nature of decommissioning work at some sites lessens the value for money of the significant resources invested to date," he added.

"One of our primary roles going forward is to provide a level of certainty for our stakeholders on agreed plans for all our sites," the NDA said in a statement.

"We remain confident that through innovation and world-class performance by our contractors we will first stabilise and then ultimately reduce the UK's nuclear liability," it added.

Britain's nuclear power plants provide 18 percent of the nation's electricity. All except one are scheduled to be taken out of service within 15 years -- and most well before then.

Opponents of nuclear new build point to the spiralling costs of decommissioning old plant and the problems of dealing with waste that remains deadly for thousands of years.

Advocates note that most of the existing plants were built well before any serious thought had been given to taking them out of service and that modern designs did incorporate that facility and in any case produced far less waste.

They also note that the bulk of the estimated decommissioning cost -- more than 45 billion pounds as currently stated -- applied to Sellafield in northwest England, the first and by far the biggest nuclear site dating back to the 1950s.

The National Audit Office accepted that the Decommissioning Authority's task had been greatly complicated and its costs multiplied by the fact that nuclear bookkeeping had been very poor in the early days of atomic power.

This meant that there were in some instances only very sketchy records of what nuclear waste had been stored where and in which ponds on the Sellafield site. (Editing by Andrew Roche)

Read more!

High Oil Prices Boost Energy Efficiency - Report

Tom Bergin, Planet Ark 30 Jan 08;

LONDON - High oil prices have spurred countries to use energy more efficiently, a report by an energy industry group said, but the authors say concerted government action is still needed to encourage less waste.

The World Energy Council, whose members include energy companies and government bodies in 90 countries, said a study it commissioned showed the long-standing trend of countries using less energy to generate each dollar of GDP had accelerated in the period 2000 to 2006, when oil prices hit new highs.

Over the period 1990 to 2006, energy productivity increased at an average rate of 1.3 percent, but from 2000 to 2006, productivity grew 1.5 percent per year.

China was the principal exception, with its improvement in energy productivity falling to 1 percent per annum in 2000-2006 from 7.5 percent per annum in 1990-2000, as its economic growth soared to double-digit levels.

The development of more efficient technologies over time generally allows countries to use less energy to perform the same tasks. However, total energy use still tends to rise as increased wealth prompts greater overall consumption.

Governments need to adopt a range of measures to reduce energy waste and unnecessary CO2 production, the report said, including tax breaks for energy-saving technology, rises in energy prices and tougher regulations for cars and houses.

Few countries around the world have so far managed to generate a material portion of their energy needs from sustainable or "green" sources, leading to increased hydrocarbon use and higher CO2 emissions.

Many analysts believe that until cleaner technologies are developed and adopted, energy efficiency is the easiest way for the world to significantly curb CO2 emissions.

The WEC also encouraged governments to promote the labelling of products to highlight their energy efficiency and to lead by example in reducing unnecessary energy use. (Editing by David Holmes)

Read more!

'Green' cars could save motorists £300 a year

Charles Clover, The Telegraph 30 Jan 08;

Motorists could save £300 a year by choosing a "greener" car instead of a nearly identical gas-guzzling model, according to a study.

Yet greener cars - such as the 74.3 mpg Volkswagen Polo Blue Motion diesel and the 65.7 mpg Toyota Prius hybrid - are likely to account for only 0.2 per cent of cars on the roads this year.

The running costs of the six most eco-friendly cars, according to the Department for Transport's own figures, were compared with standard cars from the same manufacturers by researchers from the independent price-switching website, uSwitch.com.

Apart from the Prius, all the "green" cars chosen were diesels. As a family car, there was a 57.6 mpg Renault Laguna Hatch; as an estate car, a 61.4 mpg Skoda Fabia estate; and, as an MPV, a 58.9 mpg Ford Focus C-Max with a 1.6 litre engine.

Researchers found that motorists covering 12,000 miles a year would save an average of £165 a year on fuel compared to the gas-guzzling equivalent from the same manufacturer (though this was often much less gas-guzzling compared with luxury cars and 4x4s).

The green car driver could also save as much £125 in road tax - in the case of the Polo super-mini, by avoiding it completely as the car came into the A band, which applies to vehicles emitting under 100 grams of CO2 per kilometre.
advertisement

Drivers of green cars also emitted an average of 17 per cent less than people driving the gas-guzzling equivalents, which in the case of the Toyota Prius was calculated as the 39.8 mpg petrol-engined Toyota Auris.

Over five years of ownership, the study found that green drivers saved an average of £1,092 on fuel and tax compared with drivers of "standard" cars.

The study also found that it was a myth that "green" cars cost more to buy. In fact, the "green" cars studied worked out £130 cheaper to buy than the standard equivalent, bringing the savings over five years to £1,222.

On top of that, the study found that "green" cars depreciate by £562 a year less on average than standard cars, so offer more savings.

Last year, the number of "green" cars sold rose by 70 per cent, from 10,000 the year before to 17,000.

If this trend continues, there will be more than 28,900 green cars bought this year, bringing the number of "green" cars driving on Britain's roads to 55,900, according to uSwitch.

Ashton Berkhauer of uSwitch said: "A vehicle's green credentials are fast becoming a major selling point when it comes to buying a new car. However, it is not just a matter of motorists blindly jumping on the green bandwagon.

"With fuel prices soaring to a record high, motorists are becoming attracted to these fuel-efficient, lower-tax green vehicles, finding them to be kind on their pockets as well as the environment."

He said that to be truly green, however, motorists would need also to insure with a company that was carbon neutral and offset their emissions by donating to a charity that worked on environmental projects.

Read more!

Meat industry needs to return to pasture-fed cattle

Farming should return to its roots
Graham Harvey, BBC News 39 Jan 08;

The meat industry needs to return to its roots of pasture-fed cattle, says Graham Harvey. In this week's Green Room, he argues that traditional farming methods can deliver more sustainable and healthier food as people become more aware of what ends up on their plates.

The best beef I ever tasted came from a small farm just three miles from where I live in Somerset, England.

I'd heard from a foodie friend that the farmer sometimes took a beast back to sell in freezer packs direct from the farm.

When I called to collect my meat I was struck by how old-fashioned the farm looked. For a start, the pastures were full of clovers and wild flowers, a rare sight in an age of chemically-fertilised monocultures of most beef farms.

The pastures were grazed; not by one of the big, continental breeds so popular with modern farmers, but by traditional Red Ruby Devon cattle, once the universal breed on Exmoor.

This was the way beef had been produced for thousands of years in the UK. This supplier had stuck with this way of farming even though his neighbours, one-by-one, switched to the big cattle and the intensive methods so favoured by the supermarkets and giant abattoirs.

No doubt they had a quiet chuckle at this quaint style of farming as they looked over the hedge. But they don't laugh any more.

As scientists continually uncover more health benefits from this natural, pasture-fed beef, there's a growing queue of customers waiting to buy it.

Research has shown that, in contrast to most supermarket meat, this beef contains more anti-oxidants including vitamin E, more iron and other minerals, more omega-3 fatty acids and more of the powerful anti-cancer compound known as conjugated linoleic acid.

As a result, it doesn't simply supply high-quality protein and other nutrients; It can actually help protect the body against heart disease, cancer and a host of other diseases.

The "commodity beef" that fills the supermarket chill cabinets fails to provide these health benefits. Yet this is the kind of beef western governments continue to support through their agricultural policies.

Where's the beef?

On any rational grounds, pasture-fed beef ought to be the norm in countries like Britain that have the climate to grow good grass.

As well as producing healthy meat, pasture-based production systems require no chemical fertilisers, especially when they contain nitrogen-fixing clovers.

The great beef-raising countries of the world - South America, central and eastern Europe, and on the Great Plains of the US - all based their production on semi-natural grasslands.

It is a system of food production that is sustainable, efficient in resource use and good for the environment.

Semi-natural grassland absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and builds up soil carbon reserves.

Higher levels of organic matter boost the uptake of valuable trace elements by plant roots, so the whole system made up a virtuous circle from which healthy food and a healthy planet were the chief products.

It has been destroyed by political measures to promote worldwide grain production. For more than 30 years, governments in the US and the EU have poured subsidies into the production of wheat and other grains.

They have maintained a permanent global grain surplus that has made the production of healthy, grass-fed beef uneconomic.

Traditional beef producers are unable to compete with the inferior meat produced by animals confined in sheds and feedlots and fed on the subsidised grain. This is an unnatural food for ruminants.

The meat it produces is the kind that's more likely to lead to heart attacks and cancer. European and American taxpayers have unwittingly degraded a staple food.

Chief beneficiaries of the change have been the agri-business corporations who supply chemical fertilisers, pharmaceuticals and a host of other inputs needed to keep the current system going.

Pasture-based production with its healthy animals and fertile soils required none of these things.

The natural grassland of the US prairie states supported 50 million bison. Without inputs they would have supported a similar number of cattle. Today those same states are mainly under corn and soya crops, which require huge inputs of chemical fertiliser, pesticide, irrigation and government subsidy to keep on producing.

Most of the crops are fed to livestock from which the food products are far less healthy than the original grass-fed version.

This damaging form of food production is backed by intensive lobbying from agri-business companies and large farmers.

In Britain, the influential National Farmers' Union - whose president is a commodity cereal grower - pledges support for family farms.

Yet the union has for decades fought to keep the grain subsidies that destroyed pasture-based livestock production, the mainstay of the family farm.

With western industrial countries suffering an epidemic of degenerative diseases, there's an urgent need to return to the healthier foods from animals raised on pasture.

At the same time, it's important to reduce the environmental impact of nitrate fertilisers which are major contributors of greenhouse gases. Switching livestock production from grain to pasture-based would help achieve both objectives.

Ironically, US and EU backing for biofuels may lead to a global renewal of pasture farming.

Government aid for bioethanol and biodiesel production from temperate crops - essentially a new form of subsidy for arable farming - has led to a doubling in grain prices.

For the first time in decades there are no surpluses of cheap grain for intensive animal production. The traditional production of meat and dairy foods from grassland begins to look viable again.

Western consumers can speed to switch to healthier foods by giving pasture-fed foods a higher priority. In doing so they'll protect not only their own health, but the long-term health of the planet.

Graham Harvey is author of We Want Real Food, published by Robinson

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

Read more!

U.N. aid chief worried by food inflation, weather

Reuters 29 Jan 08;

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Rising food prices and extreme weather are sparking more humanitarian disasters around the world, the United Nations' top official for emergency relief warned on Tuesday.

Fourteen out of 15 U.N. "flash appeals" for help last year were a response to devastation caused by droughts, floods and hurricanes, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said.

"That is five more than in any other year," Holmes said during a visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels.

"We are seeing them (disasters) increase in intensity and number," he told a news conference, saying weather events could not always be directly linked with climate change.

Holmes cited growing demand for food in China and India, a shift towards more meat-oriented diets and the use of foodstuffs in biofuels as driving what he called a structural change in food prices that put some staples beyond the reach of the poor.

A recent rise in wheat flour prices in Afghanistan had hit poor people hard, and similar humanitarian consequences of food price inflation were feared in Pakistan and Bangladesh, he said.

"This poses a double challenge for the World Food Program. Not only is the price increasing but the need is going up because of the hunger," he said.

The U.N. body is overseeing an international target of halving the proportion of hungry people in the world.

(Reporting by Mark John; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)

Read more!

Arctic Ice Fields 'Receding Like Mad'

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Yahoo News 29 Jan 08;

Ice fields on an Arctic island have shrunk 50 percent in the past 50 years and will be gone in 50 more, scientists said this week.

Located just west of Greenland, Baffin Island is the fifth largest island in the world, with an area of 196,000 square miles (about 508,000 square kilometers). That's larger than California.

A study published in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters reveals the expanses of ice blanketing Baffin's northern plateau in the Canadian Arctic are smaller than at any time in at least the last 1,600 years.

"Even with no additional warming, our study indicates these ice caps will be gone in 50 years or less," said study researcher Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado, Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

Temperatures across the Arctic have been rising substantially in recent decades as a result of the buildup of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, say the researchers. It's this warming trend they say is behind Baffin's meltdown.

Ice domes

Baffin's ice caps, which are domes of ice too small to be labeled ice sheets as those on Greenland are, span just four miles (about six kilometers) long.

What makes the ice fields such great study sites is the fact that they are very thin, generally less than 300 feet (91 meters) thick, and they're very cold, so they don't flow and erode the landscape beneath as most glaciers do.

"It's so cold that there's no water at their bed, and they're basically completely frozen to the bed," Miller said. "They preserve beneath them the landscape exactly intact upon which the first snow fell that eventually became the ice cap."

Miller and his colleagues analyzed radioactive carbon in dead plant material emerging from beneath the receding ice margins, which would tell them the last time these plants had been exposed to the atmosphere.

The oldest dates are from about 1,600 years ago, suggesting the ice fields have remained intact for that long, that is, until 2005 when the scientists sampled the now-exposed plant material.

In addition, they extrapolated other radiocarbon data along with satellite imagery to calculate the historical ice-cover and ice-free area in the same area. Toward the end of Little Ice Age, in the mid-1800s, permanent snow and ice covered 1,351 square miles (3,500 square kilometers) in this area. In 2002, coverage was just 41 square miles (107 square kilometers).

Warmer than normal

While researchers have known that the Earth is much warmer than 150 years ago, when the Northern Hemisphere was stuck in the Little Ice Age, they are less certain about how today's temperatures compare with a warmer period in our planet's past. For instance, Miller notes there has been a debate over whether today's climate is warmer than it was during the Medieval times, about 1,000 years ago.

Some of the ice fields studied formed in pre-Medieval times, Miller said, and persisted until now.

"That tells us right there that the warming of the 20th century is the warmest sustained period of warming in that time," Miller said. "It clearly says we're now warmer than we were in Medieval times."

Hidden behind this short-term warming and ice-cap melting, Miller explained, is a long-term period of relative cooling.

"The general trend has been cooling for the past 10,000 years," Miller told LiveScience. "The fact that they are now receding like mad just makes it even more unusual because the large-scale forcing, how much energy comes in from the sun during the summer months, is getting less and less."

Read more!