Chinese-funded hydro-dams bring hope and fear to Cambodia

Suy Se Yahoo News 29 Jun 08;

Hydropower is held up as the beacon of hope for millions of electricity-starved Cambodians, with ten planned hydro-dams set to power up their homes for the first time.

But flicking the switch comes at a price as critics say the controversial deals made with mostly Chinese companies to build the dams will create further hardship for Cambodia's poor and ruin the environment.

For window-maker Dorn Seanghor, however, the prospect of working without being plunged into darkness is appealing. In the midst of Cambodia's building boom his business should be thriving, but he is constantly frustrated.

"There's usually a blackout for six to eight hours almost every day -- one time in the morning and again in the evening," he said at his shop in the capital, Phnom Penh.

"It disturbs my business. I use a generator when the power is cut, but the price of gasoline is very high now."

Still, Dorn Seanghor is one of the luckier ones. Four-fifths of Cambodians do not have access to any electricity.

Ten dams are set to begin churning between 2010 and 2019, and once they are all operational the government says they will generate 2,045 megawatts of power, serving all Cambodia's provinces.

Government officials say six of the dams will be funded by Chinese companies, but the US-based International Rivers Network warned in a January report that these Chinese investments could threaten some of Cambodia's most precious eco-systems.

"Poorly conceived hydropower development could irreparably damage (natural) resources," the report warned.

Groups have been particularly concerned about the looming affects of Kamchay Dam, under construction by Sinohydro Corporation in Bokor National Park and expected to flood 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of protected forest.

And now environmental groups say two more projects agreed in mid-June at a cost of more than one billion dollars -- Stung Tatay by China National Heavy Machinery Corporation and Russey Chrum Krom by Michelle Corporation -- have not been properly scrutinised.

Both will be located in the country's southwestern Cardamom Protected Forest, and about 1,600 hectares (3,953 acres) of woodland would have to be flooded or cleared to make way for the dams, the government has said.

This could destroy key animal habitats and upset the delicate eco-system.

"Cardamom is the last hot spot of conservation in Indochina," said Sam Chanthy, an environmental officer with advocacy group Forum on Cambodia.

Qian Hai, third secretary of the Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh, denied his country's companies would damage the environment.

"We just help Cambodia. All these projects are approved by the parliament and the government," he said.

Ith Praing, Cambodia's energy secretary, insisted the government conducted careful environmental studies for all the dams.

"Outsiders always raise environmental issues, but we need electricity. We must develop our country. We must use our resources rather than buying oil," he said.

Cambodia has begun to climb back from decades of civil unrest to emerge as one of the region's fastest-growing economies.

Economic growth has averaged 11 percent over the past three years, although 30 percent of the 14 million people still earn less than a dollar per day.

The government fears rocketing energy prices will scare away foreign direct investment.

"Every sector needs electric power. When we have electricity at a reasonable price, development will come along," said Ith Praing, adding the government forecasts that by 2030, 70 percent of Cambodian families will have electricity.

Opposition member of parliament Son Chhay, however, said the debate is not simply a case of economic development versus the environment.

Poor people could be forced from their land to make way for the mega-projects, crops could be destroyed, while the environment the rural poor depend upon may be wiped out, he told AFP.

"The government just closes its eyes and lets Chinese companies do things that will cause a lot of problems in the future," Son Chhay said.

"It will not resolve poverty in Cambodia. Cambodia will lose a lot without taking into consideration the environmental consequences."

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Bottled water debate hits a boiling point

Rob Lever, Yahoo News 28 Jun 08;

A debate over water is boiling over in the United States and elsewhere amid growing environmental concerns about bottled water and questions about safety of tap water.

The US Conference of Mayors in June passed a resolution calling for a phasing out of bottled water by municipalities and promotion of the importance of public water supplies.

While largely symbolic, the vote highlighted a growing movement opposing regular use of bottled water because of its plastic waste and energy costs to transport drinking supplies.

Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute, cites a "backlash against bottled water as more people are realizing what they get out of the bottles is not any better than what they get out of the faucet."

The Pacific Institute, a California think thank on sustainability issues, contends that producing bottles for US water consumption required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil in 2006, not including the energy for transportation.

The group says bottling water for Americans produces more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide and consumes three liters of water for each liter of bottled water produced.

The debate in the US mirrors that taking place worldwide in places such as Paris; Liverpool, England; Florence, Italy; Vancouver, Canada. According to the EPI, the issue making waves among policymakers in locations including Denmark and New South Wales, Australia, among others.

The backlash comes even amid surging sales of bottled water in the United States. Some of this is linked to concerns about contamination of public water supplies, although critics of the industry say marketing hype is a greater factor.

Aficionados of Evian from France or Fiji from the South Pacific swear by the taste and health benefits of those waters, but others decry the high cost of energy for a product that may not be any better than local water.

A Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that "most of the tested waters were found to be of high quality (but) some brands were contaminated."

The group said bottled waters "are subject to less rigorous testing and purity standards than those which apply to city tap water."

In fact, says the group "about one-fourth of bottled water is actually bottled tap water" while government rules "allow bottlers to call their product 'spring water' even though it may be brought to the surface using a pumped well, and it may be treated with chemicals."

Americans drank about 8.8 billion gallons (33 billion liters) of packaged water in 2007, or 15 percent of their total liquid intake, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp. Per capita bottled US water consumption is up to 29 gallons (109 liters) per year, from 20 gallons in 2002.

The US is the largest consumer of bottled water, but on a per capita basis it ranks far behind Italy, the leader which consumes nearly twice as much, and others such as the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and France.

Advocates of bottled water they the industry is being used as a scapegoat.

Kevin Keane of the American Beverage Association said the mayors' resolution was "just cynical politics. It's like being against rope until you need a lifeline."

Keane says the bottled water industry is needed for communities hit by floods or other natural disasters and compromised municipal water systems.

Bottled water "is convenient and a good tasting beverage, especially in this day when you have fewer water fountains and even when you have them, people are skeptical about using them."

Beyond questions of safety and environment, some activists say the bottled water industry is seizing a public resource.

In the northeast state of Maine, a battle is brewing over access to a large aquifer by Poland Spring, a large US bottler owned by Swiss-based Nestle.

"Nestle's water grab is ruining streams, ponds, wells and aquifers," said Judy Grant of the activist group Corporate Accountability.

"Nestle's practices are raising serious questions about who should be allowed to control water, our most essential resource, and to what end."

The mayors, meeting in Miami, approved a resolution proposed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom along with 17 other large-city mayors to redirect taxpayer dollars from bottled water to other city services.

Joe Doss, president and chief executive of the International Bottled Water Association, an industry group based near Washington, said it was "unfortunate this is turning into a tap water versus bottled water debate."

Doss said most people drink both and that in many cases bottled water is a healthy replacement for sweetened or carbonated drinks.

The IBWA says the industry uses less than one percent of groundwater supplies and produces only a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases.

According to Doss, water bottles represent a tiny fraction of plastic waste that even if not recycled, and that any effort to improve recycling should cover all industries, not just bottled water.

Read more!

Geothermal-rich South East Asia struggles to tap earth's power

Ed Davies and Karen Lema, Reuters 29 Jun 08;

JAKARTA/MANILA (Reuters) - Faced with looming energy crises in their developing economies, power-hungry Indonesia and the Philippines are looking deep into the earth for a solution.

Both are in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area peppered with volcanoes and home to the world's biggest reservoir of geothermal power.

"When I think of Indonesia and energy, I think geothermal. Indonesia has more than 500 volcanoes, of which 130 are active," Lester Brown, president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, told CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in a speech in June.

"Indonesia could run its economy entirely on geothermal energy and has not come close to tapping the full potential," he told the investment group.

That may be changing though as soaring oil prices, surging demand and creaking infrastructure in the power sector make it all the more urgent for both Indonesia and the Philippines to find ways to exploit their geothermal reserves.

But unlocking the potential is proving difficult.

Geothermal projects involve drilling wells deep into the earth to tap steam or hot water to power turbines. Not all of the challenges are terrestrial in nature. It's a capital-intensive process made worse by tortuous red tape and other stumbling blocks in places such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

Indonesia's Bedugul project, set among volcanoes on the Hindu enclave of Bali, aims to develop up to 175 MW of power, or roughly half of the resort island's needs. But the project is now on hold because local residents fear it could damage a sacred area and affect water supplies from the nearby lakes.

Most of Bali's power is currently supplied from neighboring Java island via an undersea cable. Supporters say the project is essential to meet growing electricity demand in the resort island, which is at the heart of Indonesia's tourism industry.

"We hope that the project will run, not just because of the investors but for Bali's future," said Ni Made Widiasari of Bali Energy, the firm behind the project. She denied the project would be damaging.

HIGH ACIDITY

In the Philippines, currently the world's second-biggest geothermal producer behind the United States, one of the main obstacles to developing the reserves is the high acidity associated with active volcanoes, which can corrode the pipes.

"There are many fields that are still acidic, meaning the dead volcanoes underlying them are not really dead," said Paul Aquino, president of PNOC-Energy Development Corp which operates nine steamfields with a capacity of 1,199 Megawatts (MW), or about 60 percent of the country's geothermal capacity.

That would make it hard for the Philippines to achieve its goal of raising geothermal capacity from an existing 1,931 megawatts to 3,131 MW by 2013, and overtaking the United States as top global geothermal producer, he added.

Geothermal power accounts for around 18 percent of the Philippines' energy needs.

"We have already exploited those areas with the biggest geothermal resource," Aquino said, adding that many of the Philippines' most attractive untapped sites are located in natural parks or protected by the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act.

Catherine Maceda, spokeswoman for the Renewable Energy Coalition, a group promoting the use of alternative energy, also warned that the Philippines needed to push through a renewable energy bill to provide greater incentives and clarity.

While President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has earmarked the bill as urgent, political bickering is holding up its passage.

"Right now there is no predictability," said Maceda.

BLACKOUTS

Electricity networks in the Philippines and Indonesia, with a combined population of 316 million, are already under strain.

Philippine power demand is estimated to be growing at an average rate of 4.8 percent a year, while Indonesia has suffered power blackouts with razor-thin supply cushion when demand peaks.

Indonesia currently supplies just 850 MW of an estimated 27,000 MW potential from geothermal, or about 3 percent of its current power output.

While the government wants to focus on using more coal-powered stations to meet energy needs, Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro has said power from geothermal could reach 9,500 MW by 2025.

Despite the setbacks and stalled projects, high energy prices are providing the spur for firms to look at geothermal again, and several are keen to expand their existing operations or bid for fresh projects in Indonesia under a new government framework.

Indonesian energy firms Medco Energi Internasional and Star Energy, are looking at making new investments, while Chevron, the world's largest private producer of geothermal energy, plans to double its geothermal business in Indonesia and the Philippines by 2020 despite the heavy capital outlays.

It takes about 7 to 8 years for a geothermal plant to move from exploration to production. Aside from drilling and plant costs there are often additional expenses such as building access roads in remote and mountainous areas.

Geothermal plants require high capital investment for exploration, drilling wells and plant installation compared to other alternatives. But operation and maintenance costs are relatively low.

Chevron is looking at further expansion of its existing fields in West Java and is considering 10 out of 256 other sites which Indonesia has identified as having geothermal potential.

"You have to spend all your capital up front to develop these fields, you know, put in the wells and power plants, but with current prices of oil, gas and coal, geothermal is becoming competitive" said Barry Andrews, president of Chevron's geothermal power operations.

Eligibility for carbon credits could make such investments more attractive, he said, as they may offset some of the hefty start up costs.

Chevron's Darajat plant, also in West Java, has been registered with the United Nations as eligible for 650,000 certified emissions reductions per year.

Meanwhile, Indonesia is putting the finishing touches to new regulations for the geothermal sector, after many projects collapsed in the wake of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

"I think we're virtually on the cusp of seeing all of that come together in the next year or so," said Chevron's Andrews.

Environmentalist Brown, from the Earth Policy Institute, says this follows a global trend in localising energy policies as high oil prices prod countries to find cost effective alternatives.

"In Indonesia that means geothermal is going to loom large in the energy economy of the future, and that development could come very quickly once the leadership begins to see the potential," he added.

(Editing by Sara Webb and Megan Goldin)

Read more!

Asian Cities Back Climate-friendly Future

Antara 28 Jun 08;

Bangkok, (ANTARA News) - Asian cities last Thursday agreed to address climate change and to join forces to become climate-friendly beacons within the region.

Mayors and delegates from Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Albay, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Beijing, Delhi and Fukuoka met to discuss boosting city-level planning to tackle the impacts and emissions linked with rising greenhouse gases.

"While we realize that global warming will have costly implications for cities, we also know that many of the sectors that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions are also concentrated in cities. What we do at city level and collectively will contribute to addressing what is a serious problem facing all of us today," said Apirak Kosayodhin, Governor of Bangkok.

Buildings, transport, and industry, all concentrated in urban zones, are among the key sectors that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions have increased by 70 percent between 1970 and 2004, with emissions from the transport sector growing at more than 120 percent, while the buildings sector emissions have grown by 75 percent.

"A large majority of cities today are located on the coast. With sea-level rise, these cities are vulnerable to floods, which will put homes and infrastructure at risk. Frequent weather changes and extreme weather events will also affect agricultural output and lead to food shortages in cities. At city level, we will have to do what we can to adapt to these changes," said Hiroshi Nishimiya, Deputy Regional Director, United Nations Environment Programme, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

The delegates discussed cooperation to support innovative policies and measures, including promotion of energy efficient and clean technologies in key urban economic sectors.

"There are a number of options that we can consider but we now have to move beyond these measures and ensure adaptation measures are taken into account in existing land use planning, infrastructure design and disaster risk reduction strategies," Governor Apirak added.

The Bangkok Declaration on Climate Change was endorsed during the `ASEAN+6 City Forum on Climate Change`, which was organized by the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA), the United Nations Environment Programme, and other partners.

The Bangkok Assessment Report on Climate Change will be released later this year. A Manual for Development of National and City Assessment Reports on Climate Change, prepared with leading experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the region, is also underway. (*)

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Best of our wild blogs: 29 Jun 08

EnviroFest 2008
A great event with lots of wild participants on the wildfilms blog and habitatnews blog

Ze great octopus escape
a video clip taken at labrador on the sgbeachbum blog

Dead shark at Changi
on the tidechaser blog

Changeable Hawk Eagle sighted at Southern Ridge
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Small forest butterflies
on the manta blog

Read more!

Beyond Biology: Fieldtrips in Malaysia

Heng King Wey, The Star 29 Jun 08;

Being selected for the International Tropical Field School Programme 2008 has certainly kept me busy for the past seven weeks of my semester break. Discovering Malaysia and its diversity in ecology and biodiversity alongside 10 other international students from University of Victoria (UVic) Canada and National University of Singapore (NUS) was indeed an experience of a lifetime.

Our field trips took us all over Malaysia; I went to places that I’d never gone and would probably not have gone on my own. We visited various national parks around Peninsular Malaysia, mangrove forest reserves in Matang, Perak, the Tasik Bera wetlands and oil palm plantations in Pahang, limestone forests and caves in Perlis, coastal areas of Penang and Pulau Redang, Terengganu. It was a fun-filled educational field trip for all.

We had a first hand experience of the various ecosystems in Malaysia and how these ecosystems connect and become part of the culture and lifestyle of the local community.

Spending 24 hours a day for seven whole weeks with these students from Canada and Singapore was truly a journey of discovery. Seeing my own country from their perspectives has taught me to observe and understand more about why things are the way they are, and that really changed the way I looked at things around me.

During the trips, one of the Canadians from UVic, Kathryn Kozak, 23 (fondly known as Katie) made a pertinent observation.

“People often don’t notice the little wonderful things they have around them. They usually need someone else to point it out to them.”

We started our journey at the Matang Mangrove Reserves where we learnt about how the lives of the people revolve around the mangroves. Wood from the mangroves are used to make charcoal, and for export as well.

There have been efforts to replant mangrove trees because we have realised its importance economically and socially. We also planted propagules of the mangrove trees; it was a very fun and muddy replanting project to make up for our huge ecological footprints (the amount of the environment necessary to produce the goods and services necessary to support a particular lifestyle).

In our attempts to understand our surroundings, we even stayed at a hide in Taman Negara just to get a glimpse of large mammals that roam in the national park. We also camped on a quiet beach away from tourist spots in Teluk Mak Kepit, Pulau Redang and watched turtles come up to shore to lay eggs.

The highlight of my trip was following the baby turtles as they paddle into the sea during one of our night watches. It was really a heartfelt moment for me to watch these baby turtles, the size of mini chipsmore cookies, struggling through the sand, determined to get into the sea.

All the participants in the programme formed firm friendships as we discovered each other’s culture and learnt to accept each other for who we are.

Introducing Malaysia’s culture and food to my newfound friends was an interesting task indeed. From local spicy dishes to traditional cultures and beliefs, durians, the hot and humid unpredictable weather and squat toilets certainly gave us laughs and little jokes that we share.

I discovered that although we live regions apart, we are still similar in many ways as young adults trying to discover ourselves in the world.

Malaysia truly has one of the most amazing biodiversity around and who would have known there was so much to learn from my own “backyard”.

“Malaysia is such a wonderful place and has the friendliest people around. I will definitely be back,” said Brian Murray who celebrated his 22nd birthday with all of us on the trip.

I merely expected to come out of this programme with a better understanding of the ecology and biodiversity in Malaysia, but I realised that I have gained more understanding of myself and how we connect to the world around us.

Read more!

Solar power at Marina Barrage

Field of Power
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 29 Jun 08;

Largest solar panel system here to power Marina Barrage gallery and control room
WITH oil prices skyrocketing, it is good to know that the $226-million Marina Barrage project is not only about water, it will also showcase the use of solar energy.

WITH oil prices skyrocketing, it is good to know that the $226-million Marina Barrage project is not only about water, it will also showcase the use of solar energy.

A solar park consisting of 405 panels covering an area of 1,200sq m (roughly the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool) will help to power the Barrage's exhibition gallery and control room.

When completed, it will be the largest solar panel system at a single site in Singapore.

Delegates from the Singapore International Water Week who were taken on a tour of the Barrage yesterday heard about this and other environmentally sustainable technologies on-site.

The solar energy system is part of the Clean Energy Research & Testbedding (Cert) Programme, a $17m inter-agency effort launched last year that provides opportunities for firms to try out green applications using government buildings and facilities.

The 17 delegates heard how the Marina Barrage will bring about three benefits, namely water supply, flood control and lifestyle attraction.

They found different aspects of the megaproject commendable.

Miss Jill Fagan, an Australian PhD student from Melbourne University who is studying innovations in water systems, praised the attitude of PUB towards new ideas and technology.

She said: 'In Australia, we need to be more open to new ideas. I also admire the integration of different institutions here (in managing water).'

Mr Al Balce, vice-president of project development for a Philippines copper mining company, was impressed by the detailed planning that went into the Barrage.

He said: 'They've thought of everything. It's important to have a master plan so that when you execute, it will be a complete project.

'I also see very good people being trained and they are young so they can stay for longer and improve this place.'

Mr Hamad Al-Mahrooqi, project manager for produced water treatment for Petroleum Development Oman, said: 'I like how this project is not only technical, but it brings about greening of the area as well. It serves the city and it serves the community.'

It wasn't just the Barrage itself that left a deep impression.

The exhibition gallery, showcasing environment sustainability in Singapore, inspired Dr Sherifat Balogun, an assistant general manager from a Nigerian water corporation.

She said: 'We don't need a Barrage in my country, but the gallery is very imaginative and beautiful.'

Read more!

Boiling Point: background on oil prices

Straits Times 29 Jun 08;

To most consumers, oil prices just seem to have gone crazy. The price of crude oil has risen more than fourfold since 2004 and shot up over 120 per cent this year alone. Last Thursday, after fluctuating wildly for a few weeks, it hit a new high of US$140.39 (S$191) a barrel.

Traders of oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange are now betting that oil prices will remain at about US$120 a barrel for at least eight years. How did this come about? Yang Huiwen looks at the changing forces of supply and demand for oil, and the dangerous new role that speculators are playing in determining the price of one of the world's most precious assets.

DWINDLING SUPPLY

Who produces the world's oil?

There are two types of oil producers in the world - Opec producers and non-Opec producers.

Opec producers:

# The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) is a group of 12 countries that have formed a cartel. This means that they do not compete with one another to supply oil. Instead, they meet regularly to set the price of oil for the world market.

# The 12 Opec countries are Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Iraq, Algeria, Qatar and Ecuador.

# Opec currently produces about 36 per cent of the world's oil.

# Estimates are that Opec actually has two-thirds of the world's oil reserves.

But actual reserve levels in key Opec players such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait remain hazy due to a lack of transparency.

Non-Opec producers:

# The key non-Opec producers are Russia, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Mexico. Russia is the second-biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia.

# Together, the non-Opec producers account for the remaining one-third of the world's oil reserves.

But production numbers from some non-Opec countries such as Norway, Britain, Pakistan and Mexico have been flat over the past decade and have even begun to decline.

Who decides how many barrels of oil to supply to the world market, and how are prices set?

Opec adjusts the supply of oil to closely match the world's demand. This stabilises oil prices at a level which is favourable to its member countries.

# Opec production fell by 390,000 barrels per day in April due to supply disruptions in member states Nigeria and Iraq.

# Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter and de facto leader of Opec, will raise production by 2 per cent, or 300,000 barrels a day, from next month to curb skyrocketing oil prices.

# Through regulating the supply of oil, Opec indirectly sets the price per barrel. Restricting supply will cause prices to go up, assuming demand doesn't change, and vice versa.

# Non-Opec countries are like free traders of the oil market as they are not bound by any supply controls. High oil prices give them the incentive to maximise production but that results in a faster depletion of oil reserves.

What are the current issues surrounding oil supply?

One key issue that has dogged the industry is supply disruptions in oil-producing countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia and Iraq due to social unrest.

In particular, Nigerian rebels have been damaging key supply pipelines of oil companies in a campaign to get a bigger share of oil revenue.

# Opec has been reluctant to increase production, maintaining that the world currently has enough oil supply to meet demand. It has blamed high oil prices on speculators.

# With limited production capacity from non-Opec countries, the world will have to be increasingly dependent on Opec for oil production. But there are serious doubts about Opec's ability to meet such production shortfalls in the future as there is a lack of transparency regarding their actual reserves.


RISING DEMAND

How much oil is consumed and who are the world's biggest oil guzzlers?

World oil use will climb by 1.2 million barrels a day this year to 87.2 million barrels a day as demand increases in emerging markets such as China and India, according to estimates given by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

# Total world oil production is averaging at about 87 million barrels per day so far this year, slightly higher than the average of 85 million barrels a day in 2006.

# The United States is the world's largest oil consumer, followed by China, Japan, Germany, Russia and India.

The US, the world's largest economy, guzzles 20.73 million barrels of oil per day, more than the combined consumption of the next five economic powers.

How fast is demand rising for oil?

# Demand is forecast to grow 50 per cent over the next 20 years, with the bulk of the demand coming from developing countries, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

# Crude oil is refined into other products, including petrol and kerosene (jet fuel) which are used in the transportation industry. Naptha and ethane are used as feedstocks in the production of petrochemicals such as plastics and rubber.

# Other useful products which are not fuels are also manufactured by refining crude oil, such as lubricants for machinery, and asphalt, which is used in paving roads.


RAMPANT SPECULATION

Who are the oil speculators?

# The boom in oil prices has brought speculators out in full force, and they are not digging in the dirt looking for black gold.

Rather, speculators profit from big rises and falls in the price of any commodity, including oil.

# The speculation occurs mainly in the oil futures market, which has traditionally been used mainly by buyers and sellers of oil (mainly oil producers and energy-related companies) to hedge price risk.

# But now, a group of new players - including investment banks, pension funds and hedge funds - has become the largest players on the main crude oil futures exchanges, especially the New York Mercantile Exchange.

# hanks to the dramatic price rise, investors are also pouring money into commodities, including oil.

Many investments are made through structured investment products offered by financial institutions that aim to provide investors a hedge against inflation, which is high, and a weak US dollar.

This inflow of money into commodities is further driving up prices.

To what extent have they affected oil prices?

Speculators now control 71 per cent of contracts to buy West Texas Intermediate crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared to just 37 per cent in 2000, according to data provided to the House Energy and Commerce Committee by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

# Trading activity by speculators has caused much uncertainty and increased volatility in oil prices.

The main concern is that oil prices are being determined by speculative money and are no longer a true reflection of underlying supply and demand fundamentals. This makes price changes sentiment-driven, and even harder to predict.

What is being done about them?

# Politicians in the US and Europe have called for curbs on speculators, whom they blame for high prices.

# The US Democratic Party has suggested tightening restrictions on pension funds and investment banks by imposing higher margin requirements for oil-related trading. About a dozen Bills are pending in the US Congress to rein in excessive speculation in the energy futures markets.

Read more!

S$2.8m cycling track to be built for Sembawang and Woodlands residents

Channel NewsAsia 28 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Sembawang and Woodlands residents will have a new cycling track that will make both cyclists and pedestrians happy, as it has enhanced safety features.

At both these towns, there are many cyclists among the HDB residents and foreign workers living in nearby dormitories.

They will be happy with the new 7.4-kilometre cycling track in their area. The S$2.8-million project will be completed in the middle of next year.

As far as possible, the cycling track will be built alongside the existing roadside pavement. However, where there are constraints, there will be clear demarcations like boundary lines and icons to show which track is for cyclists and which one is for pedestrians.

Speed-regulating signs with words like "slow" and "dismount and push" will also be put up.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan, who is also the MP for Sembawang GRC, officiated at the ground-breaking ceremony for the project on Saturday.

He said the cycling track will also help residents save money on transport and reduce congestion on the roads.

Some 400 residents joined in the day's activities, which included a brisk walk and other exercises. - CNA/ir

Read more!

Mosquito Wars: Scientists Take a Swat

Maggie Koerth-Baker, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 28 Jun 08;

As storm clouds begin to lift over the flooded Midwest, experts are predicting an entirely different sort of deluge. Mosquitoes, which can breed out of control in the puddles and pools left behind as flood waters recede, may be poised to add insult to injury.

Midwesterners aren't the only ones ripe for the biting. Mosquitoes are ubiquitous in the United States, living in every state and capable of thriving in all kinds of climates, according to Joseph M. Conlon, technical advisor to the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA). Wherever there's standing water, there are mosquitoes, he said. And the diseases they carry, such as West Nile Virus, aren't far behind.

But science has some new solutions in the form of improved repellents, genetically modified mosquitoes, and new approaches to vaccine design, as well as some science-based ideas you can put to use at home.

Control just the mosquito

The big strides in mosquito control have largely involved better eradication and population control efforts, aimed to affect only mosquitoes, leaving other animals intact.

One of the most important developments in this effort was bio-rational control materials, said James Stark, executive director of the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, the public agency charged with keeping Minneapolis and St. Paul relatively mosquito-free. Developed in the 1980s, these "materials" are actually a strain of naturally occurring wetlands bacteria. The District sprays the bacteria onto lakes and other water sources where mosquito larvae hatch and grow. The larvae then eat the bacteria, which kills them by destroying the walls of the insect's stomach. Only mosquitoes and a few related fly species are susceptible. Other animals, including people, can ingest the bacteria without any damage.

The project, one of the largest in the world, according to Conlon, has had a lot of success with this bacteria, particularly when combined with newer computer database systems that allow the agency to easily map and track areas where the bacteria are needed most.

But a new method, or, rather, a new twist on an old method, is on the horizon.

Sterile insect technique, or SIT, involves breeding large numbers of sterile male insects and then releasing them into the wild. Ideally, the huge influx of sterile males out-compete their normal counterparts in the game of love, creating a whole generation of unfertilized eggs and crashing the insect population.
SIT wouldn't eradicate all mosquitoes, but it would keep population levels low enough to control the spread of diseases.

It's a trick that has worked before on other insects, said James Becnel, research entomologist and lead scientist with the USDA's Fly and Mosquito Control Unit. Those past experiments used radiation to sterilize, but that can be problematic with mosquitoes, making them less able to compete for mates.

Now, an English company called Oxytec is pushing a new approach to SIT, using genetically altered mosquitoes. "They have a gene that's sensitive to antibiotics," Becnel said. "You can rear them in the lab with a small amount of antibiotics and grow big numbers. Then, when you release them, there's no wild antibiotics, so the genes are turned on and they become sterile."

This technique could be coming to malaria-stricken Malaysia very soon, according to an article in the May 21 issue of the journal Nature.

Viral vision

Other efforts focus on controlling the ability of living mosquitoes to spread disease among humans. The most obvious way to do this, of course, is through the use of vaccines. But, while there is a vaccine for the tropical Yellow Fever virus, there aren't any for the mosquito-spread illnesses most common in the United States.

In fact, in the case of West Nile Virus, there's a vaccine for horses, but not for people.

This is a funding issue, said the AMCA's Conlon. "Production and distribution of human vaccines is an extraordinarily expensive process and the time investment from concept to commercial production can be as much as 10 years," he said. "There aren't enough people getting sick to make it worthwhile to a company to develop a vaccine."

But a new development in vaccine technology could possibly change that. This week, researchers at Stony Brook University in New York announced they'd developed a new method of designing vaccines that could potentially make the process faster and cheaper.

The researchers, including Steffen Mueller, Bruce Futcher and Steven Skiena, found they could genetically alter viruses to make them weaker and reduce their ability to multiply in the body. In trials, mice fought off a weakened version of polio, leaving them with immunity to the "wild" virus. Details are in the June 26 issue of the journal Science.

The researchers said this method could allow scientists to develop new vaccine candidates much faster than currently possible, basically speeding up the turn-around time between deciding to find a vaccine for a certain virus and having a workable candidate in-hand.

And while much of the expense of developing a vaccine lies in extensive clinical trials, a hurdle which probably won't go away, this new method could cut earlier development costs, and potentially make it possible to create vaccines for diseases that currently don't have one, the researchers said.

Better repellents

Another major area of research is better repellents, which could keep mosquitoes away from people more effectively. Becnel's colleague from the USDA, Ulrich Bernier, along with researchers from the University of Florida, recently made some big breakthroughs in this field.

Using 50 years of data on repellent chemicals, the team trained a brain-based computer program to recognize the molecular structures and components common to effective repellents. Then, they set the program to work analyzing some 2,000 chemical compounds, looking for the ones that shared those traits.
The result was 23 newly synthesized compounds that have the potential to outperform all repellents currently on the market, according to the May 27 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In fact, while the most common current repellent, DEET, remains effective in a closed environment for about 17 days, one of the new compounds stuck it out for 85.

This type of data-mining research isn't new, but how it's being applied is. "The pharmaceutical people have been using this method for years to design drugs, but it's just now that the mosquito people are getting into it too," Becnel said.

Home invasion

Actually, fending off mosquitoes doesn't require lab access. Conlon said that folks at home can play along. All you need to do is follow what he calls the Three D's.

Drain: Mosquito eggs need water to hatch. But they don't need large amounts of water. Conlon has seen the bugs breed in everything from discarded bottle caps to creases on tarps. If you don't want mosquitoes breeding in your backyard, you need to be fastidious about removing all sources of standing water, no matter how small.

Dress: Conlon said mosquitoes can bite through tight clothes and are attracted to dark colors. The ideal mosquito-resistant outfits are ensembles that are loose-fitting, long-sleeved, and light-colored. "In particular, they have a hard time seeing the color yellow," he said. "Yellow bug lights can be useful because of this. They don't repel mosquitoes, but they don't attract them, either."

Defend: There are only four active ingredients currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to effectively and safely repel mosquitoes: DEET, picaridin, ir3535, and, for those who prefer a plant-based option, oil of lemon eucalyptus. Conlon said it's important to look for these ingredients because there are many mosquito repellents on the market that simply don't work.

"Popular folk remedies like garlic and Vitamin B-1 have been shown to be useless in double blind studies," he said. Others, such as oil of clove, are known repellents, but only at high concentrations that would burn human skin. "So it works, but not at the low levels used in any product. There, it just smells nice," he said.

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Meltdown: how long does the Arctic have?

Jonathan Leake, The Times 29 Jun 08;

If Holland is right, then the destruction of the Arctic ice cap could become the first great global warming disaster. Why is it happening so fast? And how will it affect the rest of the world?

New evidence suggests that the Arctic ice cap could disappear in summer within the next five years, leaving environmentalists in despair but oil men delighted.

When Marika Holland announced the imminent demise of the Arctic ice cap 18 months ago, she was worried.

Her findings, based on predictions from one of the world’s most powerful super-computers, had been double-checked and peer-reviewed – but they still seemed extreme.

“We were suggesting the Arctic ice cap could disappear in a few decades,” said Holland, a senior researcher at America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “We were confident of our methods but it still felt very dramatic.”

What Holland and her colleagues from the University of Washington and McGill University in Canada had done was analyse the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic – and predict that its summertime ice cap could vanish by 2040.

The corollary was that in the longer term it could vanish in winter too. Future explorers would have to use boats rather than sleds.

The idea that the Arctic ice might shrink had been around for a long time but the suggestion that it could disappear, and so quickly, caused a storm.

Pretty soon the climate change sceptics were at work. Holland and her colleagues, they pointed out, had based their work on a computer model – and such models were hardly accurate enough to predict more than a few days of weather. How could they make predictions over decades?

Within just a few months, however, Holland’s findings were borne out even more dramatically than anyone could have expected.

Each year scientists use satellites to measure the area of the Arctic ice cap as it grows and shrinks with the seasons. In winter it normally reaches about 5.8m square miles before receding to about 2.7m square miles in summer.

Last summer, however, things suddenly changed. For day after day the sun shone, raising water temperatures by 4.3C above the average. By September the Arctic ice cap had lost an extra 1.1m square miles, equivalent to more than 12 times the area of Britain.

The melting reduced the summer ice cover to just 1.6m square miles, 43% less than in 1979 when accurate satellite observations began. It left so much open sea that the Northwest Passage, the fabled link between Asia and Europe, became navigable.

For Holland and her team the great melt prompted a great rethink. Their predictions seemed to be coming true, but far earlier than expected. Why?

Holland now wonders whether she and her colleagues had been “too conservative” in their published report.

When they looked at their models again, they found the events of 2007 had indeed been predicted. “We had said this melting process was likely to start around 2025 but the models also showed that there could be periods of very rapid ice melt much earlier,” she said. “Some even showed that the summertime ice cap could start to vanish by 2013.

“Now we are wondering if that is what is happening now. If it is, then the summertime ice cap may never recover and by 2013, or sometime soon after, it could be gone.”

If Holland is right, then the destruction of the Arctic ice cap could become the first great global warming disaster. Why is it happening so fast? And how will it affect the rest of the world?

At the heart of the melting in the Arctic is a simple piece of science. Ice is white, so most of the sunlight hitting it is reflected back into space.

When it melts, however, it leaves behind open ocean which, being darker, absorbs light and so gets warmer. This helps to melt yet more ice. It means that beyond a point, the ice cannot recover. The process keeps accelerating until there is no more ice to melt.

Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, has been watching this process for two decades, making trips under the polar ice cap in a Royal Navy submarine equipped with radar that can measure the thickness of the ice. Over that period the average thickness has fallen by 40%.

Professor Mark Serreze, from the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre, who works with Holland, believes that this latest thinning represents a significant change in the destruction of the ice cap. “The key new idea is that as the ice thins it reaches a point where it becomes very vulnerable. It gets so thin that it can get broken up or just melt away very easily. Once that happens it could be very hard for it ever to recover, especially if we get more hot summers. This year is going to be crucial.”

There is some faintly good news. The melting of the Arctic ice cap will not, for example, cause a rise in sea levels – because it is already floating.

In the short term there may even be some economic opportunities. Already the possibility of new shipping routes, as well as access to the wealth of oil and other mineral resources thought to lie under the seabed, has fuelled a flurry of claims and counterclaims from the nations bordering the Arctic.

Russia has been among the most active. Last August it sent a mini-submarine to the seabed to plant a national flag directly on the North Pole. Scientists from Denmark are mapping the seabed around Greenland, a Danish dependency.

Last August, Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, announced plans for an Arctic military training facility and a deep-water port in the Northwest Passage. America has sent armed coastguard cutters to patrol the waters it claims off Alaska.

All are studying the underwater geology to try to increase their claims. Under international law countries have exclusive economic rights to the sea within 200 nautical miles of their coast. If, however, they can prove that the continental shelf extends beyond that limit, the rights can stretch to 350 nautical miles.

Such an extension could be lucrative. The oil and gas fields in the Arctic ice cap are estimated by some geologists to contain very large reserves.

Others have a different dream for a warmed-up Arctic – as a new cradle of civilisation. Trausti Valsson, professor of environmental planning at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, believes that as rising temperatures make many lower latitudes uninhabitable, so the lands around the Arctic will evolve into “the new Mediterranean”, with towns and cities springing up in Arctic Canada, Alaska and Siberia.

Such a scenario may seem unlikely now but an ice-free Arctic would have many attractions – not least being the Northwest Passage itself, which would immediately cut 5,000 miles from shipping routes between Europe and Asia via the Suez canal and whose development would prompt pressure for new ports along Canada’s northern coast.

However, most climate researchers view such thinking with despair. “It is a great irony,” said Serreze, “that the melting of the ice cap could give us access to yet more fossil fuels that will accelerate climate change even further.

“I suspect the only thing that is going to stop humanity wrecking the planet is when we get hit by some serious ecological disasters, and by then it may well be too late.”

Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, believes most politicians have simply failed to grasp the scale of the problem, let alone face up to the dramatic action needed.

China, for example, plans hundreds more coal-fired power stations by 2030. America is working on plans to triple its aviation industry, a big polluter.

It is in extreme places such as the Arctic and the world’s highest and coldest places that the impact will continue to be seen first, according to scientists.

“There are 150,000-200,000 ice masses around the world and most of them are shrinking,” said Richard Armstrong, a colleague of Serreze’s. “We estimate that between 1961 and 2005 melting glaciers raised global sea levels by 20mm.”

That’s less than an inch – but represents the meltwater from only 4% of the world’s glaciers. Even those amounts are tiny compared with the Greenland ice sheet. It contains enough water to raise global sea levels by 23ft and it too is showing signs of instability.

Some researchers believe the loss of the Arctic ice cap could have profound effects on Greenland and the surrounding Arctic lands. “We can’t be certain of the exact impacts but if temperatures rise then that melts ice and permafrost over a wide area,” said Serreze.

Further south, Europe’s mountain ranges such as the Alps are already feeling the heat. About 9% of the 666 Alpine ski areas are classed as marginal and the 2C global temperature rise predicted by 2050 will put another 200 out of business. For its part, Britain can expect a warmer climate and more extremes in weather events (see panel).

At the other end of the earth, the Antarctic is relatively stable in comparison with its northern equivalent. Most of its ice is insulated by the cold Antarctic circumpolar current that keeps warm water away from its ice sheet. While some melting is occurring, the Eastern ice sheet – which accounts for about 85% of Antarctica’s ice – may even be growing, according to scientists.

In Britain, researchers at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre are more cautious than Holland in predicting how fast the Arctic ice cap will vanish – but accept it is likely to disappear.

“There is a lot of short-term variation so it could grow back for a while,” said Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice.

“The important thing is the long-term trend, which is for temperatures to rise and ice to decline. We know that it is likely to go. What we are discussing is how long it will take.”

Those who have explored the ice cap on foot have noticed the difference.

“The conditions have changed incredibly since I did my solo expedition in 2003,” said the British explorer Pen Hadow. “I have spoken to people up there this year, and the condition of the ice is much, much worse. That is only five years, which is extraordinary.”

He is organising an Arctic survey for next year to assess the problems, but the question is whether the damage is already done. “The projections are rushing towards us at high speed,” he said.

Additional reporting: Holly Watt

Losing an ice cap – what does it mean?

Destruction of wildlife
The Arctic is home to unique wildlife such as the polar bear, Arctic fox, walrus and a variety of marine mammals such as the narwhal. All are declining.

Slowing of the gulf stream
The vast ocean current that gives Britain its temperate climate is powered partly by the cooling and sinking of water under the Arctic ice shelves as they regrow each winter. Recently, however, the shelves have been smaller and thinner than in the past and there are signs the gulf stream is slowing. Such a process could radically change European climates.

A warmer Britain
Britain is cooled by winds that carry Arctic air southwards – so a warmer Arctic would mean a warmer Britain. In some ways Britain might benefit from this, with farmers able to grow a wider range of crops, seaside holidays becoming more attractive and outdoor life taking off. Scotland could be a particular beneficiary.

More storms
The same warming is likely to make summers hotter and drier and winters wetter and a lot stormier. The risk of a true hurricane hitting the UK – now once every 300 years – is likely to increase along with the frequency of other storms.

Squelchy Siberia
The steppes of western Siberia – once made of rock-hard permafrost – are starting to squelch. The region – the size of France and Germany combined – has experienced one of the fastest rates of warming in the world and is now 3C above normal. Western Siberia is full of peat and other organic matter that could release billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere if they thaw.

The Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost has found a similar warming trend throughout the permafrost zones of Alaska, Norway and northern Canada.

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Rodrigues Sea Cucumber Plunder

lexpress.mu 28 Jun 08;

Chronic damage to the lagoon's bionetwork and the life of millions of animals snuffed out – for less than the price of a cheap bottle of whisky each.

Truth is, there is no sustainable harvesting anywhere in the world. Stocks simply do not recuperate. That's why India banned commercial harvesting of these animals.

Following an impassioned hue and cry about sea cucumber harvesting,environmentalists in Rodrigues, citing overexploitation, petitioned for a moratorium. But, neither the regional government nor the opposition seem keen to rock the fishermen's boat.

A simple search of the sea cucumber trade around the world brings to light a murky business, steeped in kickbacks, poaching, corruption and black marketeering. It looks as if there's more to these little sea slugs (holothurians) than meets the eye.

Fossils of these soft-bodied, sausage-shaped marine invertebrates date back 400 million years. Today, 1400 distinct species exist worldwide, and 29 of them live in the shallow waters of Rodrigues 240 sq km lagoon.

Here, holothuria atra or bambara-nwar is the dominant species. These worm-like scavengers suck up sediments on the warm sea floor, feed on its organic matter, and redeposit sand in a more aerated form; in this way, natures own living-breathing little pool cleaners continually turn over the sand's top layers. And, in this tight, yet fragile ecological balance, their eggs, larvae and juveniles provide food for molluscs, crustaceans and fish.

Experts in Rodrigues warn that heavy exploitation of sea cucumbers will turn the sand into a black anaerobic mud, giving rise to a black-mud lagoon empty of animal and plant life.

What's more, a combination of this animal's late sexual maturity, limited mobility and dependence on population density to reproduce, makes its recovery from exploitation extremely difficult. Rehabilitation takes decades and, even then, original numbers are rarely restored.

Consumed as a delicacy or an aphrodisiac

As the world's sea cucumber numbers dwindle, and demand from Asia increases, the market value of bêche-de-mer, as its processed form is called, enters the realm of some serious money. It's consumed as a delicacy, taken as an aphrodisiac, or used in traditional medicine for its anti-inflammatory agents.

Since the eighties, trade in bêche-de-mer has been brisk and lucrative. In Hong Kong or Singapore, a low value product can generate (U$10) 280 Rupees a kg, while a high grade one can fetch up to (U$50) 1400 rupees a kg. International Traders get slightly less, exporters lesser still, and Rodriguan fishermen get – less than 3 Rupees a kg – or 100 Rupees for a 40 kg tin.

At that cold-blooded price, the entire yearly 60-ton-quota (illegal trade excluded) collectively earns the fishermen 150,000 Rupees. Or, when divvied up among hundreds of them – chicken feed. The figures don't jell.

Let's recap: chronic damage to the lagoon's bionetwork and the life of millions of animals snuffed out – for less than the price of a cheap bottle of whisky each. The stench is unmistakable.

Here's the odd thing. If, Rodriguans were stuck with this state sanctioned looting, what was so inconceivable with a cooperative of the local fishermen processing and exporting their own catch? Oh, and I have mentioned that this wasn't a contract to build stealth bombers? Here, no high technology, sophisticated fishing techniques, or huge capital outlays were needed; the whole process entailed picking up sea cucumbers at low tide, gutting, boiling, and drying them in the sun. Once dried, bêche-de-mer keeps for years. So, in a seller's market, how hard can it be to pack them in a container and offload them to a trader in Singapore or Taiwan? How does handing out free licences to six outside companies, to blow-in and bleed a limited resource dry, line their pockets and take off once it's all gone, benefit the people of Rodrigues? Frankly, it's wacky logic. Remember the pre-election promises to encourage small Rodriguan entrepreneurs? Remember all the talk of economic independence? What happened? Hmm, we get it. To talk the talk is one thing; walking the talk afterwards is a monstrously different other thing. Hopefully, this is not indicative of things to come, otherwise, our people may well be holding out the rice bowl for the next thousand years.


Can Rodrigues enforce the unenforceable?

Size limitations and quotas, though well-meaning, are token measures which seldom stem stock depletion. The sea cucumber's plasticity, alive or cooked, makes it tricky to determine its actual size, besides, who is on hand to measure? Since our fishermen do not keep logs, who actually records the allowable catch? Are records always accurate? Could animals collected in the lagoon be delivered to foreign vessels anchored outside the reef? By its very nature, it is difficult to establish the volume of the unreported black-market trade. And another thing, if illegal fishermen can plunder sea cucumbers, day and night, around most islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory and the Torres Strait, under the noses of British and Australian authorities; if poachers in the Seychelles can use the former police commissioner's boat to pillage these animals; if the fisheries inspector entrusted with Galapagos's quotas is himself carted off the island, in handcuffs, what makes us think that Rodrigues can suddenly enforce the unenforceable?

At the end of the day, no matter how neatly pseudo-scientific reports dovetail with the interests of those who commission them, harvesting wild sea cucumbers can only ever be a fly-by-night operation. Comoros, Tanzania, Somalia, Tonga, Galapagos, and Madagascar know this from experience.

Truth is, there is no sustainable harvesting anywhere in the world. Stocks simply do not recuperate. That's why India banned commercial harvesting of these animals. The bottom line is Rodrigues would do well to follow suit – before it's too late.

In spite of the culture of deception and spin, it is nose-bleedingly obvious that there is n-o-t-h-i-n-g in this for the people of Rodrigues. Then, why are these animals and an ecosystem that has taken ages and ages to evolve, being pushed to the brink of total collapse? And more pointedly, for whose benefit?

By Alain LÉVÈQUE

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