Synthetic rubber plant set up to use Bukom petrochemicals

Synthetic rubber plant gives Singapore more bounce
Lanxess's $834m facility will supply to tyre makers in Asia
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 27 Feb 08;

(SINGAPORE) Singapore has landed the world's first entirely-new butyl or synthetic rubber plant investment since 2000.

'It's the right time to have a plant here,' Lanxess chairman Axel Heitmann said, after the German chemicals group - formerly Bayer - announced yesterday a massive 400 million euro (S$834 million) investment in a state-of-the-art Singapore facility.

The move, marking Lanxess's largest-ever investment, culminates its three-year-long global search for an appropriate site. Singapore won out over Map Ta Phut in Thailand and Kuantan in Malaysia, its two closest contenders.

'All the products from Singapore will go to Asia,' said Mr Heitmann. The big customers will include tyre makers in Asia, which accounts for over half of global demand for synthetic rubber.

The German chemicals group said that the overriding factor in Singapore's favour was the ready supply of higher olefins needed by its speciality chemical plant.

These will become available from 2010 or 2011, thanks to the upcoming new Shell and ExxonMobil petrochemical complexes here which will help create the critical mass needed to produce sufficient quantities of these C4 and higher fractions.

Ron Commander, head of Lanxess's butyl rubber unit, said that the Singapore plant has already finalised a long-term agreement with Shell Chemicals which will provide it with isobutene and Raffinate 1 feedstocks from its Bukom petrochemical complex.

Other factors which favoured Singapore include its political stability, its free market economy, excellent IT and shipping connections, and the high level of research and development activity, Mr Heitmann told an international media conference here.

Lanxess's choice of the site for its butyl rubber plant was earlier expected to be announced last December, but there had been complete silence until now. It finally came down to an 'official site competition' among the three short-listed countries, he said.

Lanxess's 100,000tonnes per annum (tpa) Singapore plant, producing two key products - halobutyl and regular butyl rubber - will help it meet the rapidly-growing Asian demand from tyre manufacturers including Michelin, Goodyear and Bridgestone, which use the products to make inner liners and inner tubes for high-performance tyres.

Halobutyl, the 'next generation' butyl rubber, helps to make tyres safer - by preventing them from deflating regardless of speed - and last longer.

Mr Heitmann said that with the China market growing at 6 per cent and India at over 8 per cent a year, production from its 135,000-tpa Canadian plant and 130,000-tpa Belgian plant would be insufficient for Asia.

Construction of the new plant, on a 20,000-square metre site at Tembusu sector on Jurong Island, will involve over 1,500 workers and 150 engineers.

Detailed engineering has begun and construction proper will start in the first quarter of next year. It is scheduled to be completed by end-2010. When operational, the plant will create an initial 200 jobs.

Singapore wants more speciality chemical makers to set up here.

Aw Kah Peng, Economic Development Board assistant managing director, said that Singapore's strategic intent is 'to further extend the higher olefins chemistry chains on Jurong Island'.

Upcoming new petrochemical crackers, which will double Singapore's ethylene output to 4 million tpa by 2011, will allow the chemical industry here to move a big step forward in value-add, she added.

'This is possible because new chemistry chains are being introduced downstream, resulting in the production of more speciality and higher-value chemicals and polymers,' she said, adding that the Lanxess project was an example of this.

Read more!

What just one child can do

Jerusha DEvan, Today Online 27 Feb 08;

I read with similar sentiment the letter from Phillip Keng Hong, "Going Green a PR stunt?" (Feb 25).

As a volunteer for my company's global project to reduce our carbon footprint, I cannot help but notice that Singaporeans go about their daily lives without much concern for the long-term impact that their actions may have on the environment.

This is because there is not enough awareness propagated to both young and old to transform this into a reality that can be felt.

Floods that ruin rice fields and droughts that damage fields of wheat are probably due in part to global warming. Unless we make a concerted effort to cut down our carbon footprint, a global food shortage will begin and continue to affect us adversely.

The use of disposable utensils should be stopped unless they are for takeaways. When packing food back to the office, there is an option to use office utensils instead.

Styrofoam boxes are not environmentally friendly and more should be done to cut down on their usage. I know of a chicken rice stall which has switched to biodegradable cardboard boxes, and kudos to them for moving away from the norm.

I also agree that there are not enough recycling bins available, and the ones I have access to are not ones where you can segregate paper items from glass and plastic — it is just one big bin.

There was a recycling company near my office and my colleagues and I were happy to use them until we found out they were not 100 per cent genuine.

We collected cans, bottles and plastic containers, even taking the effort to bring them from our homes only to find out from one of the workers that the company only recycled paper and everything else was simply disposed of in the main garbage dump downstairs. When I called the company, they had no comments to make. It seems there is only money to be made in recycled paper and nothing else.

As part of our office project to reduce our carbon footprint, volunteers report on how much energy we use for different items such as transport and electricity and how much we send for recycling. We have to be more conscious of switching off unused equipment and lights, using only energy-saving bulbs throughout the office and making full use of natural light where possible.

However, while we are more than willing to save our cans and bottles for recycling, we were unable to get the cooperation of the building management to engage someone to help collect these items. We also did not get much positive response when we enquired if there was any area where we could, as a group, help plant trees as part of our corporate Go-Green effort.

And, yes, there are too many unnecessary mailers that only end up as waste. I feel the whole Going Green concept needs to be more actively inculcated as part of a social lifestyle that is wholesome and forward thinking.

For a start, may I recommend that parents and teachers try to read to their children such books as One Child written by Chris Cheng and illustrated by Steven Woolman. It is about children, our planet and what one child can do. Global warming, habitat destruction, the accumulation of waste, pollution and many other environmental issues are covered.

It is a simple text with richly coloured illustrations that draw on the imagery of an old stained glass window that is gradually cleaned to reveal the beauty underlying the pollution. This is a hopeful book about the environment for young children. "One child saw trees torn from the ground; saw oceans stained with waste, no longer blue and clean; saw skies choking, blocking the sun."

What can just one child do about the devastation of our planet?

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Singapore must boost drive to be clean-energy hub

Singapore must keep up in fast-emerging green sector, says NMP Edwin Khew
Alvin Foo, Straits Times 27 Feb 08;

LOOK at Singapore's competition: Abu Dhabi has pledged to spend US$15 billion (S$21 billion) on a cutting-edge city based on renewable energy.

Closer to home, Malaysia, Australia, South Korea, India and China all have aggressive initiatives designed to attract renewable energy companies and related investments.

In the face of this fierce competition, Singapore must maintain its momentum in the fast-emerging green sector to become a clean-energy hub.

The call came in yesterday's Budget debate from Nominated MP Edwin Khew, a waste recycling firm boss.

He urged Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam to give funding to aid this cause as there was no mention of support for the sector in the Budget.

Mr Khew said: 'We should not be complacent, and lose the momentum that we started in 2007.

'There's still much that needs to be done for Singapore to be recognised as a clean-energy hub.'

The lack of 'green' incentives in the Budget for this year, such as tax credits to encourage environmentally sustainable business practices, has left industry players in various sectors disappointed.

He added: 'We should aggressively promote our intentions and walk the talk.'

Still, despite his gripes, Mr Khew, also chairman of the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore, praised the Government for a slew of measures last year to boost the clean-energy sector.

These included investing $350 million in clean-energy research and starting the Energy Efficiency Programme Offices.

Last year, Singapore also managed to attract leading Norwegian solar energy company Renewable Energy Corp to build a $6.3 billion solar plant here by 2010.

He said: 'But there are more such companies which are considering Singapore as a base for Asia, but have as yet not committed.'

Singapore is in a good position to be a clean-energy hub, with the right infrastructure and a well-trained technically skilled workforce, he said.

He added: 'Most importantly, the Government and private sector are in sync.'

The green issue was also mentioned by Dr Ahmad Magad (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC).

He asked the authorities to consider a system similar to France's green tax on petrol-guzzling cars. There, buyers of new cars with high carbon emission rates face a green tax, while buyers of more energy-friendly cars are given a bonus or rebate.

He said: 'Could our road tax system be tweaked such that it is based on fuel consumption and carbon emission and not just the engine capacity of a vehicle?

'This will complement our efforts to promote a cleaner and greener environment, as car buyers will be further incentivised to buy more fuel-efficient cars and avoid petrol guzzlers.'

Related articles

MP Teo calls for more incentives to promote 'green' culture
Channel NewsAsia 25 Feb 08;

Lack of green perks disappoints industry players in Singapore
Budget surplus gives scope for perks such as tax credits, say industry players
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 23 Feb 08;

Read more!

Flour prices in Singapore to go up

Jessica Lim, Straits Times 27 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE importers say they expect flour prices to increase within the next two weeks or so.

Industry players contacted by The Straits Times say the price surge overseas has not filtered down to Singapore yet, but it is only a matter of time before it does.

Prices of flour-based items - bread, noodles and cakes - are likely to head north as well, unless retailers decide to absorb the increases.

According to Singapore Bakery and Confectionery Trade Association chairman Liow Kian Huat, the last big wheat price increase occurred in November.

That led to an $8.50 hike in the price of a 25kg bag of flour, a rise of about 25 per cent. This led to some bakeries and confectionaries increasing their prices by about 20 cents for a loaf of bread.

Singapore imports about 150,000 tonnes of wheat a year from countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada.

Wheat prices surge 25% in biggest one-day jump
Straits Times 27 Feb 08;

Latest increase is triggered by major exporter Kazakhstan's move to curb sales abroad
NEW YORK - WHEAT prices have jumped by 25 per cent in their largest one-day increase, adding to concerns over spiralling food prices and tightening global supplies.

The prices shot up after Kazakhstan, one of the largest exporters, said it would slow grain exports by imposing customs duties.

On Sunday, Kazakhstan's Agriculture Ministry said the country has sold about 75 per cent of its wheat and will impose export tarrifs on what is left - about 110 million bushels - to curb sales.

'In a normal year, 110 million bushels wouldn't be a big deal but, with tight supplies like you have, it's a chunk of wheat,' said Mr Jason Ward, analyst with Northstar Commodities in Minneapolis.

Kazakhstan's move, which follows similar export restrictions in Russia and Argentina, is likely to put further pressure on already tight global wheat supplies, Financial Times reported on Monday.

Prices of top quality wheat have surged to historic highs as bad weather has battered crop after crop around the globe, most recently in India and Canada.

Global supplies also fell after drought hurt plants in Australia and excessive rain curbed yields in France and Germany.

Relentless demand for agricultural products from fast-growing countries, including China and India, has exacerbated the supply crunch for wheat, which has more than doubled in price since last year.

Food prices, as a whole, rose 40 per cent last year because of rising demand and other factors, according to a BBC report.

The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan, The Guardian reported yesterday.

Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples.

After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.

And on Monday, the United Nations said it was considering plans to ration food aid, partly because of rising prices.

The higher wheat prices may not affect US consumers immediately since big food companies such as Kellogg, General Mills and Kraft Foods typically protect themselves from price volatility with long-term supply contracts.

But analysts say consumers should eventually expect higher prices to work themselves into the grocery aisle.

'In May or June you're going to start seeing some ramifications of these prices,' said Mr Ward.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, BLOOMBERG

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Sri Lankan monks battle monkeys to save Buddhism's holiest tree

Channel NewsAsia 26 Feb 08;

ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka: Buddhism's holiest tree in Sri Lanka's ancient capital, tightly guarded by monks and security forces after Tamil rebels attacked it 23 years ago, is under threat again -- this time from monkeys.

Pilgrims are frisked and scanned by metal detectors before being allowed to worship the "Sri Maha Bodi," grown from a sapling of a tree in India that sheltered the Buddha when he attained enlightenment more than 2,550 years ago.

But primates in the temple compound are free to swing from tree-to-tree, grab sweet offerings and in the process endanger what Sri Lankan Buddhists believe is the world's oldest religiously significant tree, a Banyan species propped up by iron supports at temple ruins dating back 2,300 years.

In the mainly Buddhist nation, the tree is not only an object of worship, but a symbol of national sovereignty.

Buddhist devotees from India, Myanmar, Thailand, Korea and Japan visit to pay homage, while tourists also flock to the scene despite the security procedures.

Sri Lanka's chief Buddhist monk Pallegama Sirinivasa, 54, said he is now more worried about damage caused by the troops of monkeys than Tamil Tiger rebels. In 1985, Tiger rebels shot dead three monks, 25 worshippers and 117 pilgrims at the site.

"Terrorists had an idea of destroying this tree because it's a spiritual magnet," the monk told AFP at his temple near the tree. "Even in the 1985 attack, this tree didn't suffer a single bullet."

He said he was unaware of any recent reports of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) planning to strike again.

"What I see as the main challenge today is protecting the Sri Maha Bodi (or sacred fig tree) from macaques and monkeys," the monk said.

The tree already arguably has the tightest security in Sri Lanka. It is surrounded by a gold-plated fence and protected night and day, spiritually and physically, by an army of soldiers and police as well as monks.

But the monk said he wanted to use technology to help police as well as civilian volunteers guard the tree from monkeys.

Guards ring bells, burst crackers or flash torch lights to scare off the invading primates, but Buddhism won't allow the use of violence to deter the monkeys. - AFP/ac

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Singapore's eco-city in China can expect keen contest

Apart from Tianjin, there are at least three major eco-city projects
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 27 Feb 08;

BEIJING - SINGAPORE'S ecological city in Tianjin will be closely scrutinised as comparisons are made with at least three other eco-developments in China, and more as Beijing turns increasingly to such projects to meet green goals.

There are four major foreign-invested eco-city projects in progress in China and the authorities are in talks with other developed nations concerning more such schemes, Vice-Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing told The Straits Times, on the sidelines of a press conference yesterday.

Besides the Singapore-China eco-city in the northern port city of Tianjin, one of the other three projects in progress is being developed by British engineering firm Arup on Shanghai's Chongming island.

Of the other two projects, Mr Qiu said agreements have been signed. He declined to reveal the foreign partners involved, saying 'there are still some things to work out'.

The Singapore project is not 'the largest in terms of investment or scale'. But of the four approved developments, it is 'the one that is proceeding the most smoothly and the most quickly', Mr Qiu said.

'The project with Singapore has very high-level government attention on both sides,' he added.

This seems to be the first time the Construction Ministry, which oversees major building projects, has given an idea of how many major eco-cities are in the works.

With several springing up in the future, individual projects will not be able to escape comparison and will be under pressure to distinguish themselves from the rest in terms of technology as well as design and planning, said observers.

Eco-cities are envisioned as entire towns or cities where economic activity and growth will not exact the high toll that resource guzzling modern cities inflict on the environment.

This can be achieved by ensuring that urban design, buildings, road layouts, modes of transportation and clean technology meet strict green requirements.

China in recent years has promoted such projects as part of efforts to drastically reduce energy consumption and pollution emissions in the short term.

'The building of eco-cities is a new attempt...and is extremely beneficial in helping China solve the problems it faces in cutting energy use and pollution,' said Mr Qiu.

Experts say there are now dozens of small and medium-scale experiments in China to build eco-cities or to transform current cities or towns into more environmentally friendly areas.

The Singapore project and Arup's development, however, are particularly visible as they involve building from scratch on substantial plots of unused land, billions of yuan in investment and have strong government backing.

Chinese media have reported that the Singapore venture, spread over 30 sq km in Tianjin's Binhai new district, will cost at least 30 billion yuan (about S$6 billion).

Officials involved in the project previously said it will eventually house some 300,000 people. But yesterday, Xinhua news agency reported that the project hopes to attract some 1.5 million people.

Xinhua added that construction has started on a service centre as part of preliminary work for the official launch of the Tianjin eco-city.

The 46,000 sq m building will house the project's administrative committee and joint venture investment company comprising a Singapore consortium led by Keppel Corporation and a Chinese group.

The building is expected to be up in mid-June and operational in July, when a ground-breaking ceremony is planned.

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Half of world to live in cities by end 2008

Louis Charbonneau, Reuters 26 Feb 08;

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - By the end of this year one half of the world's population will be living in cities for the first time in human history, the United Nations said in a new report released on Tuesday.

According to the report, by the year 2050 there will be 6.4 billion people living in cities, up from 3.3 billion at present. The world's total population is expected to rise to 9.2 billion in 2050 from the current figure of 6.7 billion.

As urbanization increases, the world's rural population is expected to begin declining in around a decade and should fall to 2.8 billion people in 2050 from 3.4 billion in 2007, the report said.

Some countries, like India -- home to two of the world's biggest metropolises, Mumbai and Delhi with 19 and 18.8 million people respectively in 2007 -- aim to slow down the process of urbanization by encouraging development of rural areas.

Despite the challenges urbanization poses for governments and local authorities, Hania Zlotnik, head of the U.N. Population Division, told reporters urbanization is generally a sign of a lively economy.

"Governments would be well advised that urban growth is a proof of economic dynamism," Zlotnik told reporters.

Still, intense urbanization and the expected addition of eight new "megacities" -- cities with 10 million or more inhabitants -- by the year 2025 will pose new challenges.

Governments need to make sure large urban populations have access to basic services, above all health care, Zlotnik said.

Asia and Africa are still mostly rural but will see booming urban populations over the next few decades. Both have around 40 percent in cities and 60 percent in the countryside now.

But this is steadily changing. Half of Africa's population will be in cities by between 2045 and 2050 while Asia will reach that point between 2020 and 2025, Zlotnik said.

MEGACITIES

Around 40 percent of China's population is in cities now, a figure that is expected to exceed 70 percent by 2050, when over 1 billion people will be living in Chinese cities, she said.

By 2025, China's booming foreign investment center Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, will join Beijing and Shanghai as China's third megacity with 10.2 million people, the U.N. report projected.

The world's second most populous country, India, has only 29 percent of its population in cities at the moment. By 2050, India will have 55 percent of its people in urban centers.

"India is expected to urbanize much less than China and therefore it's expected to remain the country with the world's largest rural population," Zlotnik said.

But India will get two new megacities to join Mumbai and Delhi by 2025 -- Calcutta, which will have an estimated 20.6 million people, and Madras with 10.1 million.

Europe will continue to lag well behind the urbanization seen elsewhere, the U.N. report said. Of the 19 megacities today, the only European metropolises are Moscow and Istanbul.

By 2025 there will be 27 megacities and Europe will add only one more to the list -- Paris. It will have an estimated 10 million people, making it number 27 on the list.

Tokyo is projected to remain the most populous city in the world. With 35.7 million people in its urban agglomeration at last count, this should rise to 36.4 million by 2025, it said.

Africa currently has only one megacity -- Egypt's capital Cairo. Joining the ranks of megacities by 2025 will be Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lagos, Nigeria.

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Life encyclopedia: too popular to live

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 27 Feb 08;

The concept of a comprehensive encyclopedia of life on the Internet proved too popular. Its computers were overwhelmed and couldn't keep it alive when it debuted Tuesday.

The encyclopedia, which eventually will have more than 1 million pages devoted to different species of life on Earth, quickly crashed on its first day of a public unveiling, organizers said.

Scientists at the Encyclopedia of Life sought help from experts at Wikipedia for keeping their fledgling Web site going despite massive — and anticipated — interest. The site went back up Tuesday afternoon, but with expectations of more problems, although only temporary ones.

"We've been overwhelmed by traffic," encyclopedia founding chairman Jesse Ausubel said. "We're thrilled."

The encyclopedia's Web site logged 11.5 million hits over 5 1/2 hours, including two hours of down time, according to organizers.

Tuesday's unveiling included limited Web pages for 30,000 species. There are also "exemplar pages" that go into more depth with photos, video, scientific references, maps and text of 25 species ranging from the common potato to the majestic peregrine falcon to a relatively newly discovered obscure marine single celled organism called Cafeteria roenbergensis. Eventually, planners hope to have all 1.8 million species on the Web and already have set up 1 million placeholder pages.

The most popular of the species for Web searches is the poisonous death cap mushroom, which may say something about people's homicidal intentions, joked Ausubel.

All the pages have been made by scientists, but in a few months the encyclopedia will start taking submissions from the public, like Wikipedia.

http://www.eol.org

First edition of Encyclopedia of Life goes online
Glenn Chapman Yahoo News 27 Feb 08;

A premier edition of an unprecedented online Encyclopedia of Life was unveiled Wednesday as part of an ambitious project to catalogue the 1.8 million species known on Earth.

The first pages were unofficially made available on the Internet at www.eol.org a day earlier, encountering such fierce demand that overwhelmed computer servers crashed for about two hours.

The encyclopedia was then unveiled at the prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design gathering in California, and despite being offline for a time, the aspiring catalogue of Earth's precious biodiversity logged more than 11 million hits in its first six hours.

The project, which creators believe will take a decade to complete, stems from a "wish" scientist Edward Osbourne Wilson made at an annual TED conference in Monterey last year.

TED was launched in 1984 by US architect Richard Saul Wurman as a new-age think tank. Renowned thinkers and doers gather to explore ways to take action in the face of opportunities and challenges facing the planet.

Each year, three people get TED prizes consisting of "a wish to change the world" plus 100,000 dollars and the support of conference attendees in making it real.

Wilson wished for an online encyclopedia of life and how it is inter-related to serve as a guide and inspiration to protect biodiversity, with the first 30,000 pages now unveiled.

"The Encyclopedia of Life will have a profound and creative effect in science," Wilson said.

"It aims not only to summarize all that we know of Earth's life forms, but also to accelerate the discovery of the vast array that remain unknown. This great effort promises to lay out new directions for research in every branch of biology."

Consolidating the information about the planet's 1.8 million species in a single place is unprecedented.

"It is exciting to anticipate the scientific chords we might hear once 1.8 million notes are brought together through this instrument," said EOL executive director Jim Edwards.

Later this year EOL will let people contribute pictures, video, facts or other content to the website "wiki-style."

Wikis are web pages that viewers can modify as they wish, a well-known example being eponymous Wikipedia.

"There are very many species for which we do not have high quality images or text," Edwards said. "Think of these pages as invitations to contribute to EOL."

The encyclopedia's creators predict its uses will include tracking how diseases spread and determining how creatures and plants adapt or succumb to climate changes.

"The Encyclopedia of Life can raise our sights and expand our view of life on Earth," said Jonathan Fanton, president of the John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation, which provides millions of dollars in funding for the project.

"Just as a microscope reveals and helps us better understand the small and particular, the EOL will allow us to discern patterns previously unseen. What was once viewed by many as 'wishful thinking' is now entirely possible and underway."

Along with the support of major US universities, philanthropic foundations and biology institutes, EOL is getting backing from technology giants Adobe, Microsoft and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Web design firm Avenue A/Razorfish crafted the basic template for the EOL species pages.

"EOL is a good example of the way the World Wide Web can be used innovatively to assemble diverse kinds of information in an easy-to-use, ever-growing compendium," Edwards said.

"It can accommodate almost any kind of information about species and, unlike a published book, can be updated instantly."

This year's prize winners are cosmologist Neil Turok, author Dave Eggers, and former British Roman Catholic nun turned religion authority Karen Armstrong. They will reveal their wishes before the conference ends Saturday.

Read more!

Brazilian police in huge crackdown on Amazon deforestation

Yahoo News 26 Feb 08;

Three hundred police and security agents have been deployed to the Amazon in a massive crackdown ordered by the Brazilian government against loggers illegally stripping the forest, officials said Tuesday.

"Operation Arc of Fire" was started Tuesday in the Amazon town of Tailandia, 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the city of Belem, the head of the state environmental agency Ibama, Flavio Montiel, told AFP by telephone.

He said the police, rangers and environmental ministry agents were inspecting forest exploitations for signs of illegal tree-felling, which is rife in the region. The operation would last up to three weeks, he said.

In April, a second-phase operation will kick in when 1,000 agents will be deployed to widen the crackdown into other regions in the states of Para, Mato Grosso and Rondonia.

"In all, 36 areas will be inspected in the Operation Arc of Fire," which was mandated under a 2004 preservation plan for the Amazon, Montiel said.

He estimated that the beefed up security presence had already cut logging by 59 percent.

A previous, shorter operation was carried out early this month in Para. In three days, 15,000 cubic meters of illegally cut wood were seized in Tailandia mills.

That initiative was halted when 10,000 people mobbed the officers doing the inspections, complaining that their livelihoods were being threatened.

Read more!

Indonesia Fault Line Quakes Nearly 20 Times This Month

Chris Brummitt, Associated Press National Geographic News 26 Feb 08;

The fault line that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has ruptured nearly 20 times this month, causing three strong earthquakes.

The activity shows the stress the seam is under and could be a harbinger of worse to come, scientists warn.

Kerry Sieh, from the California Institute of Technology, has studied the fault for more than ten years. He likened it to a length of rope in an imaginary tug of war between a group of men and an elephant.

"One by one, two by two, the men are getting worn out and are letting go of the rope. That puts more stress on each of the remaining men," he wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

"Who knows which one will let go next, or whether they will let go all at once?"

Sieh and other scientists using Global Positioning System transmitters to measure the uplift of the quakes say another massive temblor sometime in the next hundred years or so is likely, but they cannot predict exactly when that will occur.

"Nothing New"

The fault line is the boundary between the Eurasian and Pacific tectonic plates that have been pushing against each other for millions of years, causing huge pressure to build up. It runs the length of the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) offshore.

The steady stream of earthquakes it has produced this month do not seem to be alarming residents much. Witnesses say some have prompted people to flee swaying homes, but few are heeding or are aware of the tsunami warnings that routinely accompany the big jolts.

"People did not really care because such a tremor is nothing new," Erwin, a resident in the coastal town of Padang, said minutes after a powerful quake early Tuesday.

"It was just like the one in the afternoon," said Erwin, who, like many Indonesians, goes by a single name.

The 2004 earthquake off Aceh province in northwest Sumatra had a magnitude of 9.2, making it the most powerful temblor in four decades.

It triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean countries, with more than half the victims in Indonesia.

Three months after the tsunami, a magnitude 8.6 quake farther down the fault line killed a thousand people. Then in September last year, an 8.7 quake opposite Bengkulu province damaged thousands of homes, killed about 25 people, and sent a ten-foot (three-meter) tsunami crashing into nearby coastlines.

Last Wednesday a magnitude 7.4 quake killed three people and damaged scores of houses. (See story.) Since Sunday, four other events strong enough to prompt tsunami warnings by international agencies have jolted the region.

"They are best seen as part of a chain that began in 2004," said Dr. Fauzi, a top scientist at Indonesia's National Earthquake Center. "The stability of the fault has been disturbed," said Fauzi, who goes by a single name.

Since the Indian Ocean tsunami, Indonesia has spent millions of dollars to establish a nationwide tsunami warning system, but there are still only a few warning sirens in Sumatra's threatened western coast and other beach areas.

Officials and residents of the two populous cities of Padang and Bengkulu said no sirens sounded following the recent earthquakes despite warnings issued by the country's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

"We don't have such equipment," said Suyud, an official at Bengkulu's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency. "If there were tsunami warnings issued it was only government officials who knew that from text messages on their cell phones."

Read more!

Global warming opens new sea lanes for shippers

Business Times 27 Feb 08;

(TORONTO) Norilsk, the world's biggest producer of nickel, is building its own shipping fleet to capitalise on the melting of the polar ice caps.

The company ordered five reinforced cargo vessels that can plough through the waters north of Siberia as new sea routes open. Norilsk is spending at least 320 million euros (S$669 million) to buy reinforced vessels rather than rent both freighters and icebreaker escorts.

The thawing sea 'has enormous economic implications, and commerce is going to push this ecological zone to the limit', said Rear Admiral Timothy McGee, head of the US Navy's Meteorology and Oceanography Command.

Global warming, while threatening environmental disasters, is creating economic opportunity for shippers, makers of ocean cargo vessels and tour operators. New routes may expand access to the world's second-biggest oil supply, deliver US wheat to Asia 30 per cent faster and increase Arctic tourism as much as 50 per cent in a decade.

Ice shrinkage may enable ships to sail straight over the top of the world, cutting a 17,700 km trip to 11,265 km and saving as much as 11 days and US$800,000 in fuel and labour.

Investment in reinforced vessels jumped fivefold to US$2.5 billion in 2006 from US$500 million in 1999 and may climb 10 per cent a year through 2010, London-based shipping broker Clarkson plc estimates.

Norway's Aker Yards AS and South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries Co are producing ships for Arctic investors, including oil refiner ConocoPhillips and metals producer OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel.

'We decided we'd be better off with our own' equipment, said Victor Borodin, a spokesman for Moscow-based Norilsk.

Temperatures above the Arctic Circle have risen at about twice the rate of the global average in the past three decades, United Nations data show. Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record last summer, covering 22 per cent less than the previous low in September 2005, said the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Norilsk is shipping nickel, copper and palladium north of Siberia to Europe from the Taimyr Peninsula in northern Russia. One reinforced ship is already in service and four are being built by Aker Yards for delivery by mid-2009, all using new hull designs that allow for bow- or stern-first sailing, depending on the thickness of the ocean surface\. \-- Bloomberg

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Top water utilities to study climate change

Reuters 26 Feb 08;

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Eight of the top U.S. water utilities are joining forces to study how rising sea levels, droughts and other effects of global warming are taking a toll on supplies of drinking water, they said on Tuesday.

The coalition, known as the Water Utility Climate Alliance, said water agencies need access to the best possible climate change research as they prepare to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure over the next 15 years.

"Our systems are facing risk due to diminishing snowpack, bigger storms, more frequent drought and rising sea levels," said Susan Leal, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, a member of the alliance. "We need to be organized to respond to these risks -- that's why we've formed this alliance."

Other members of the coalition include Denver Water, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the Portland Water Bureau, the San Diego County Water Authority, the Seattle Public Utilities and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Altogether, the WUCA members supply drinking water for more than 36 million people, the alliance said.

Last month, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said a water supply crisis was looming in the western United States thanks to human-caused climate change that has already altered the region's river flows, snow packs and air temperatures.

Changes over the past half century have meant less snow pack and more rain in the mountains, rivers with greatly reduced flows by summer and overall drier summers in the region, they noted.

In its first official act, the WUCA said it is urging the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and researchers in the climate change field to improve and refine climate models to apply them at the regional or local level and to ensure that water providers have access to consistent climate data.

The coalition also called on scientists to coordinate international research efforts and to develop tools for policy-making and planning for abrupt climate changes.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Andre Grenon)

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