Climate-Warming Methane Levels Rose Fast In 2007

Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 31 Oct 08;

WASHINGTON - Levels of climate-warming methane -- a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide -- rose abruptly in Earth's atmosphere last year, and scientists who reported the change don't know why it occurred.

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, has more than doubled in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times, but stayed largely stable over the last decade or so before rising in 2007, researchers said on Wednesday.

This stability led scientists to believe that the emissions of methane, from natural sources like cows, sheep and wetlands, as well as from human activities like coal and gas production, were balanced by the destruction of methane in the atmosphere.

But that balance was upset starting early last year, releasing millions of metric tonnes more methane into the air, the scientists wrote in the Geophysical Research Letters.

"The thing that's really surprising is that it's coming after this period of very level emissions," said Matthew Rigby of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The worry is that we just don't understand the methane cycle very well."

Another surprise was that the rise in methane levels happened simultaneously at all the places scientists measured around the globe, instead of being centred near known sources of methane emissions in the Northern Hemisphere, said Rigby, one of the study's lead authors along with Ronald Prinn, also of MIT.

A rise in methane in the Northern Hemisphere might be due to a year-long warm spell in Siberia, where wetlands harbor methane-producing bacteria, the scientists said, but had no immediate answer on why emissions also rose in the Southern Hemisphere at the same time.

There is considerably less methane than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Pre-industrial concentrations of methane were about 700 parts per billion -- that is, for every billion molecules of air, there were only 700 of methane -- but that level rose gradually to 1773 parts per billion by the late 20th century, Rigby said in a telephone interview.

The rise in 2007 was about 10 parts per billion over the course of a year, a real jump for such a short period of time.

By contrast, there are about 385 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, methane is much better at locking in the solar radiation that heats up the planet.

Methane is destroyed by reaction with an atmospheric "cleanser" called the hydroxyl free radical, or OH. The researchers theorized that the rise in methane might be due in part to a decline in OH.

The researchers said it is too soon to tell whether the one-year rise in the amount of atmospheric methane is the start of an upward trend or a short-lived anomaly.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Manmade global warming evident on every continent, polar report finds

Data compiled by the University of East Anglia finds evidence of warming in Antarctica that can for the first time be directly attributed to human emissions

David Adam, guardian.co.uk 30 Oct 08;

No corner of the Earth is immune from the effects of global warming, according to a new study that confirms manmade temperature rises in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Temperature records over the last century show that warming in the planet's coldest and most remote wildernesses is caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, is the first to find the fingerprints of manmade global warming on the Antarctic, where a shortage of data makes it hard to be sure.

Last year's report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said human influence could be detected on every continent, except Antarctica. Climate sceptics have exploited this omission to question the science of global warming.

In the new study, Nathan Gillett, then working at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, though now at Environment Canada, compiled, with colleagues, climate data across the Arctic and Antarctic regions since 1900, and compared the patterns with those produced by computer simulations with and without human activity.

They say only the models that included human influences – such as emissions of carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – were able to reproduce the observed temperature trends.

Gillett said: "The main message is that for the first time we are able to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and Antarctica to human influence. Melting of ice shelves has implications for sea-level rises."

Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office, who worked on the study, said: "In both polar regions, the observed warming can only be reproduced in our models by including human influences, natural forces alone are not enough.

For a long time climate scientists have known that Arctic areas would be expected to warm most strongly because of feedback mechanisms. But the results from this work demonstrate the part man has already played in the significant warming that we've observed in both polar regions."

The polar regions have seen some of the most dramatic impacts of climate change on the planet in recent years. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, which has contributed to record melting of sea ice in the Arctic summer and thinning in the winter.

The picture in Antarctica is more complex, but the rocky Antarctic peninsula has experienced temperature rises of 3C over the past 50 years – among the largest recorded. Other parts, including the vast east-Antarctic ice sheet, have seen less change.


Man-Made Climate Change Seen In Antarctica, Arctic
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 31 Oct 08;

OSLO - Both Antarctica and the Arctic are getting less icy because of global warming, scientists said on Thursday in a study that extends evidence of man-made climate change to every continent.

Detection of a human cause of warming at both ends of the earth also strengthens a need to understand ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland that would raise world sea levels by about 70 metres (230 ft) if they all melted, they said.

"We're able for the first time to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to human influences," said Nathan Gillett of England's University of East Anglia of a study he led with colleagues in the United States, Britain and Japan.

The Arctic has warmed sharply in recent years and sea ice shrank in 2007 to a record low. But Antarctic trends have been confusing -- some winter sea ice has expanded in recent decades, leaving doubts for some about whether warming was global.

The UN Climate Panel, which draws on work by 2,500 experts, said last year that the human fingerprint on climate "has been detected in every continent except Antarctica", which has insufficient observational coverage to make an assessment.

The scientists, writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, said the new findings filled that gap.

The study, comparing temperature records and four computer climate models, found a warming in both polar regions that could be best explained by a buildup of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, rather than natural shifts.


FEW THERMOMETERS

The link with human activities had been elusive in the polar regions because there are fewer than 100 temperature stations in the Arctic and just 20 in Antarctica, they said.

The scientists said temperatures had risen about 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) in the past 40 years in the Arctic.

Temperatures in Antarctica, an icy deep freeze bigger than the United States, had gained by a few tenths of a degree. The Arctic is warming fast because darker water and ground soak up ever more heat than ice and snow that reflect the sun's rays.

The study also formally linked greenhouse gas emissions to rising temperatures in the Arctic, where big natural variations included a sharp temperature rise in the 1930s and 1940s.

The human cause had been hinted at by the UN Climate Panel last year, which said a human impact "has likely contributed to recent decreases in Arctic sea ice extent".

Scientists urged more study of ice and temperatures.

The UN Climate Panel projects that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cm (7-23 inches) this century, part of shifts also likely to include more droughts, floods, heatwaves and more destructive storms.

"We really need to pay closer attention to what's going on with these ice sheets," Andrew Monaghan, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, told a telephone news conference with Gillett.

Asked if the findings would affect his view of the likely pace of melting, he said: "I would say that it would lean towards a little bit bleaker side of the picture."

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Britain's Royal Society to examine geo-engineering ideas

Yahoo News 30 Oct 08;

LONDON (AFP) – Britain's de-facto academy of sciences said Thursday it is launching a major study into geo-engineering, the term covering a variety of weird and wonderful ideas for the fight against climate change.

Many geo-engineering schemes -- some of the best known invite ocean fertilisation or attempting to alter atmospheric components in near space-- have been widely dismissed as wacky or dangerous.

"We need to investigate if any of these schemes could help us avoid the most dangerous changes to our climate and to fully understand what other impacts they may have," said John Shepherd, heading the Royal Society working group that will carry out the study.

"Whatever solutions technology may offer us in the future, it's clear that the need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is now more urgent than ever."

Geo-engineering encompasses a broad range of projects that aim to avert the consequences of man-made global warming, or at least give a few years' breathing space for finding a more durable solution to the problem.

Proposals include sowing the oceans with iron particles in order to boost the growth of surface plankton that would then suck up more atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas.

Another idea is to distribute tiny particles of sulphur dioxide in the stratosphere. Circulating the globe, these whitish particles would reflect solar radiation, thus helping to prevent the planet's surface from warming.

A US scientist has even proposed erecting a mirrored sunshade in orbit that could cool the planet by a couple of degrees.

Such schemes were dismissed as ludicrous or desperate a few years ago, but are now starting to get a serious hearing as political efforts to reduce carbon emissions fall far short of what scientists say is needed.

Shepherd admitted: "Some of these proposals seem fantastical, and may prove to be so. Our study aims to separate the science from the science fiction and offer recommendations on which options deserve serious consideration."

Green groups and many scientists are deeply sceptical about geo-engineering, warning that these schemes may simply create new problems.

For instance, plankton blooms caused by iron fertilisation may cause oxygen starvation in some waters, killing off fish and other life, they say.

In its landmark Fourth Assessment Report last year, the UN's Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said geo-engineering projects were "largely speculative and with the risk of unknown side effects."

In November 2007, countries gathered under an international accord on maritime pollution warned against ocean fertilisation.

Parties to the London Convention and London Protocol declared that they held authority over such experiments, and "large-scale operations" of this kind "are currently not justified."

The Royal Society said the report is expected to be published in mid-2009.

Climate ideas put under spotlight
David Shukman, BBC News 30 Oct 08;

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Dr Richard Lampitt: "We have already changed the oceans"

From the twilight zone of science fiction, the idea of "geo-engineering" is emerging into the harsher daylight of science fact - and I'm going to risk the prediction that we'll hear a lot more about it in the coming years.

Only a few years ago, the very notion of planetary-scale projects to tackle climate change was derided by many as too nutty to bother with.

Mainstream media coverage tended to gently poke fun at the images of galaxies of mirrors in orbit or fleets of giant ships seeding the oceans.

But suddenly that's changing. Today's launch of a study into geo-engineering by the Royal Society, Britain's most august scientific body, does give the subject more seriousness.

As does the fact that only last month, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, at its Congress in Barcelona, devoted a session to one particular scheme - encouraging plankton to absorb more carbon dioxide.

As the chair of that debate, I found myself acting as referee between passionate advocates and critics of this plan.

Fertile topic

And now, standing on the deck of the National Oceanography Centre's research vessel Callista, I'm with one of the scientists who'll be contributing to the Royal Society study, the NOC's Dr Richard Lampitt, and - amazingly - it feels perfectly normal to be discussing fertilising the seas with iron.

A bearded figure dressed for the cold in a thick mariner's sweater, he argues that we urgently need to find out if adding iron as a nutrient will foster the growth of plankton which will trap carbon and then carry it to the seabed as they die.

No different to fertilising your lawn, he says.

His worry is that emissions of greenhouse gases show no sign of slowing down and that it's essential to know now if last-ditch responses like using the oceans will be any use.

Will it work? Well, maybe. In the NOC's labs I'm shown how flasks of normal seawater are clear - but when microscopic particles of iron are added, the water darkens into a lurid green as the algae blossom over a few days.

What's unknown is whether the tiny life forms will then descend to the depths and keep the carbon locked away there.

Unknown effects

What's also unknown is whether any of this will trigger some unexpected reaction or create a new problem, and maybe make things worse. One leading marine scientist told me that the oceans are simply too precious to meddle with.

And an analogy surfaces this morning: there's a news item about the legacy of asbestos - at one time that was thought to be a brilliant life-saving product and we now know differently.

No surprise that environmental groups like Greenpeace have serious worries and have campaigned to keep ocean geo-engineering under the tightest control, not least because it distracts from the task of cutting emissions of gases in the first place.

Even in the scientific community, it's a question that provokes markedly different views.

I get a snapshot of that in the canteen at the NOC. Richard Lampitt argues that iron fertilisation is a potentially valuable weapon to fight global warming - under the most optimistic scenario it could trap one-eighth of our greenhouse gas emissions, he says.

One of his colleagues, a supporter, questions whether it could ever capture that much. Another wonders if it'll work at all.

This one will run and run.


Plan to investigate using giant mirrors to reverse global warming
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 30 Oct 08;

Scientists are investigating plans to reverse global warming by using giant mirrors to reflect the sun or growing algae in the sea to absorb carbon dioxide.

The methods, known as geo-engineering, have been considered more fantasy than reality by the scientific community in the past.

However with climate change an increasing threat - despite government efforts to keep it under control - the Royal Society is to look at which methods may prove a serious option for the future of mankind.

Methods proposed for artificially altering the climate include using a series of giant mirrors or a constellation of trillions of space craft as a sunshade to reflect solar energy.

Scientists have also proposed releasing dust particles into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight warming the Earth or "seeding" the oceans with iron particles to stimulate algae which absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Another potential ploy would be to send sea spray into the air to make existing clouds whiter in order to enable them to reflect more sunlight, in a bid to offset the heat trapped by increasing levels of greenhouse gases.

However, few studies have been done into whether any of these methods would work in the long term.

John Shepherd, chairman of the Royal Society working group which will undertake the study, said it was time to separate the fact from the fiction.

"Our study aims to separate the science from the science fiction and offer recommendations on which options deserve serious consideration.

"We need to investigate if any of these schemes could help us avoid the most dangerous changes to our climate and to fully understand what other impacts they may have."

However, with the UK Government set to commit the country to cutting greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050, he said the new technologies should not take away from efforts to reduce climate change by reducing carbon dioxide.

He added: "Whatever solutions technology may offer us in the future, it's clear that the need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is now more urgent than ever."

The Royal Society report on geo-engineering schemes is expected to be published in the middle of next year.


Royal Society to research potential of geo-engineering to limit global warming
Science academy to launch a feasibility study to establish which techniques might best tackle climate change

Alok Jha, guardian.co.uk 30 Oct 08;

The Royal Society has announced plans today to study which planetary-scale geo-engineering techniques might play a practical role in stemming the worst impacts of climate change.

Geo-engineering includes everything from placing mirrors in space that reflect sunlight from the Earth to seeding the oceans with iron to encourage the growth of algae that can soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide. The Royal Society study will look at which techniques might be feasible to carry out and what their impacts or unintended consequences might be on society.

"Some of these proposals seem fantastical, and may prove to be so. Our study aims to separate the science from the science fiction and offer recommendations on which options deserve serious consideration," said John Shepherd, an oceanographer at Southampton University, and chair of the Royal Society working group that will carry out the study. "We need to investigate if any of these schemes could help us avoid the most dangerous changes to our climate and to fully understand what other impacts they may have."

In September, the Royal Society published a special edition of its journal, Philosophical Transactions, dedicated to geo-engineering. In their introduction to the papers in that edition, Brian Launder of the University of Manchester and Michael Thompson of the University of Cambridge wrote: "While such geo-scale interventions may be risky, the time may well come when they are accepted as less risky than doing nothing. There is increasingly the sense that governments are failing to come to grips with the urgency of setting in place measures that will assuredly lead to our planet reaching a safe equilibrium."

In the papers, experts said that a reluctance "at virtually all levels" to address rising greenhouse gas emissions meant carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were on track to pass 650 parts per million (ppm), which could bring an average global temperature rise of 4C. They called for more research on geo-engineering options to cool the Earth.

But not everyone is convinced of the need for such radical techniques to halt climate change. Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr said: "The wider point is not the pros and cons of particular technologies, but that the scientific community is becoming so scared of our collective inability to tackle climate emissions that such outlandish schemes are being considered for serious study. We already have the technology and know-how to make dramatic cuts in global emissions - but it's not happening, and those closest to the climate science are coming near to pressing the panic button."

Shepherd said that, whatever his study finds, the world cannot ignore the need to cut carbon emissions anyway. "Whatever solutions technology may offer us in the future, it's clear that the need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is now more urgent than ever."

The working group's report is expected to be published next year.

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Indonesian forests losing battle against plantations

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 30 Oct 08;

Massive forest conversions, rising demand for timber and infrastructure projects are the main causes for Indonesia's world-leading rate of deforestation, a new study has found.

The study by the Indonesian Forest Watch (FWI) categorically blamed deforestation on forest conversions into palm oil plantations conducted by big companies.

"We find palm oil companies prefer to convert forest areas rather than utilize idle land for their expansion as they get extra incentives from trees in the cleared forests," said Wirendro Sumargo, FWI coordinator for public campaign and policy dialogue, on Tuesday.

The field study was conducted in Central Kalimantan and Riau and Papua.

It said Central Kalimantan was seeing the fastest rate of conversion of forest area into palm oil plantations.

"In the last 17 years, the rate of forest conversion to palm oil plantations increased by 400 times to 461,992 hectares (per year) in 2007 from only 1,163 hectares (per year) in 1991," the study said, quoting data from the Central Kalimantan administration.

"Our finding shows that about 816,000 hectares of forest (there) was cleared for palm oil plantations in 2006."

He said 14 percent of the 3 million hectares of peatland in the province had been converted into palm oil plantations.

In Riau, the local administration allocated 38.5 percent of its total forest area for conversion into plantations.

"As of 2006, there were 2.7 million hectares of plantations, including 1.5 million hectares of palm oil plantations," he said.

Wirendro said that out of the 550,000 hectares of forests felled for plantations in Papua, 480,000 hectares had been allocated for growing palm oil.

The Forestry Ministry has said total palm oil plantations increased to 6.1 million hectares in 2006 from 1.1 million hectares in 1990.

The ministry has claimed the rate of deforestation between 1987 and 1997 remained constant at 1.8 million hectares per year before spiking to 2.8 million hectares per year by 2000 mainly because of severe forest fires.

However, between 2000 and 2006, the rate fell to 1.08 million hectares per year, it added.

The Indonesian Forest Watch has said the deforestation rate stood at 1.9 million hectares per year from 1989 to 2003.

The Guinness Book of World Records puts Indonesia as the country with the highest rate of deforestation on the planet, citing a rate equivalent to 300 soccer fields per hour.

Wirendro said another factor contributing to the acceleration of forest deforestation was the rising demand for timber due to the low supply of raw materials from industrial forests managed by pulp and paper firms in the country.

"The capacity of paper industries increased sharply from one million tons in 1987 to 11 million tons in 2007, while the capacity of pulp companies also rose from 0.5 million tons to 6.5 million tons over the same period," he said.

"But, the industries could only supply about 50 percent of the needed raw materials. We believe the companies also take timber from outside their concessions, including production forests (to offset the shortages)."

Wirendro said wood product industries, which bought wood from illegal and illegal sources, could be the main driver of deforestation in Indonesia.

There are currently seven pulp and paper companies operating in the country.

The study said the previous government's transmigration programs had also contributed to deforestation.

In Riau, 773,331 hectares of forest were converted into transmigration areas, while the Papua administration cut down 375,203 hectares of forest to make way for resettlement zones.

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Best of our wild blogs: 30 Oct 08

Oriental Pied Hornbill came for a visit
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Shieldbugs
from Nymph to sub-adult on Tiomanese's Blog

Chek Jawa boardwalk tour
on the Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs blog

We need your help to protect wildlife in Malaysia
on Siew Te Wong's sun bear journal

Read more!

New sand substitute sets green milestone in Singapore

Recycled copper slag plant prompted by last year's sand supply crisis
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 30 Oct 08;

THE building industry is taking steps to make itself more green with the opening yesterday of a new plant which will recycle used copper slag to make concrete.

The $6million facility in Sungei Kadut can process up to 360,000 tonnes of copper slag - an industrial waste material collected from local shipyards - a year.

This material can act as a substitute for sand in the making of ready-mixed concrete, which is heavily used here for building construction.

The 10,000sq m plant was developed by Geocycle Singapore, a joint venture of cement maker Holcim Singapore and mainboard-listed recycler ecoWise Holdings, and marks a milestone for the local construction industry.

Holcim Singapore chief executive Sujit Ghosh said the plant and its technology came about as a result of a 'sand crisis' that hit the building industry early last year. It was triggered when Indonesia abruptly banned exports of land sand, a move that caused prices to triple at one point.

'This led to a sudden and serious shortage of supplies of sand...the search for an urgent replacement was on in earnest,' said Dr Ghosh.

An early partnership with ecoWise, a leading copper slag collector, led to a series of tests - with the Building and Construction Authority- on the viability of using copper slag as sand in concrete.

'Despite stringent standards of safety...it came out with flying colours,' said Dr Ghosh.

Demand for green construction products has also been growing in tandem with environmental awareness, he said.

This led to the formation of Geocycle to meet this rising demand for recycled building materials.

EcoWise chief executive Lee Thiam Seng said about 15per cent of the processed slag would be sold back to shipyards, while concrete suppliers will buy the rest.

Mr Lee declined to reveal the price, but said that the cost of processing used copper slag was cheaper than the $40 a tonne price of sand.

This means developers who want to use green concrete, which uses this recycled material, will not have to pay a high premium for it, he added.

Geocycle is also carrying out research on other materials which may help promote sustainable construction. One avenue of investigation is how to recycle bottom ash from incinerators, which is toxic, into a material with sand-like properties.

Parliamentary Secretary (National Development) Mohamad Maliki Osman, who was at yesterday's launch ceremony, commended the industry's move towards greener construction practices.

'With increasing pressure on resources and the environment...Singapore will stand to benefit even more from alternative resources and resource efficiency,' he said.

What is sustainable construction?
Straits Times 30 Oct 08;

SUSTAINABLE construction involves building and designing eco-friendly buildings that reduce adverse impact not only on the environment but also on the health of their occupants.

The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) encourages green buildings here with its Green Mark Scheme.

It rates buildings for their environmental performance and provides financial incentives to go green.

The scheme aims to promote sustainability and raise environmental awareness among developers, designers and builders when they begin designing a building as well as during construction.

One example of sustainable construction is the use of products that are made from recycled materials.

Holcim Singapore and the BCA have developed a product called 'Holcim Green' that promotes greener building practices.

This is a form of concrete which uses recycled material such as granite from demolition debris and used copper slag as sand.

Developers who use this form of green concrete, for example, can score extra points in the assessment of their buildings under the Green Mark scheme, said Holcim Singapore chief executive Sujit Ghosh.

The BCA Green Mark is awarded based on five key criteria:

# Energy efficiency
# Water efficiency
# Site/project development and management (building management and operation for existing buildings)
# Good indoor environmental quality and environmental protection
# Innovation

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Dredging at Jurong Lake

Still waters run deeper
Straits Times 30 Oct 08;

Dredging works at Jurong Lake being carried out by a tractor on a barge to deepen the lake. The works come under the Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters project and are slated to be completed in April next year.

The project is part of the PUB's plan to develop water bodies used for collection and storage into attractive places where recreational activities, such as kayaking, can also be held.

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PowerSeraya sale may be closed by early Dec

Company may start roadshows for bidders next week
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 30 Oct 08;

CONTRARY to some market speculation of delays given the financial turmoil, Temasek Holdings' sale of PowerSeraya - launched on Oct 7 - remains on track, sources said, with the first bids already in.

Some half a dozen bidders, including local corporates Sembcorp and Keppel Corp, are understood to be vying for the generating company (genco), which is the last of the big three here being divested by the Singapore investment company - with the sale expected to be completed as soon as early December.

'The sale should take about as long as that of Senoko Power,' a source said, suggesting that given the earlier indicative interest of bidders and experience gained from the earlier two genco sales, PowerSeraya's sale should be sewn up in just a few months.

Despite the financial crisis, observers said that Temasek clearly had a certain level of confidence before proceeding with this last genco sale.

Besides, it is again offering 'staple financing', or a pre-arranged financing package, if needed by bidders.

Market talk of a likely delay surfaced after submission of bids - the first of a two-stage sales process - closed on Oct 20, with no word thereafter of when the second stage would start.

With the bids now in - other parties reportedly vying for PowerSeraya include India's Tata Power, Bahrain investment bank Arcapita and Hong Kong's CLP Holdings - PowerSeraya management is said to be already 'on standby' to start conducting individual 'roadshows' for the bidders from next week.

Bidders then make their final binding offers after a comprehensive inside look at the genco, including its books.

PowerSeraya with 3,100 megawatts capacity is the second largest genco here. It is planning to grow from just a plain-vanilla power company (with power generation currently accounting for 80 per cent of its net profits) to a fully integrated energy company.

Under its diversification plans, in five years' time, it expects oil trading, including that of natural gas and marine bunkers, plus the sale of utilities like steam and water to petrochemical plants, to account for half its profits.

Temasek first embarked on the sale of the three biggest gencos here a year ago - last October - starting with the 2,670 MW Tuas Power, the smallest but newest genco.

Tuas was sold to China Huaneng Group for S$4.235 billion in mid-March this year, while the 3,300 MW Senoko Power, the largest genco, went to Japanese/French group Lion Power for about S$4 billion last month.

With PowerSeraya now expected to be sold in early December, Temasek is half a year ahead of its targeted mid-2009 deadline to complete the entire genco divestment.

Read more!

As the world ‘drowns in oil’: Analysts, once again, are churning out new ‘theories’

Caroline Baum, Today Online 30 Oct 08;

THREE months ago, the world was running out of oil. Remember? Everywhere you turned, you heard whispers that the day of petroleum reckoning was at hand.

Now there’s too much oil, prodding the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) oil cartel to cut production targets for the first time in two years. Last week, Opec, confronted with the halving of oil prices since July, announced a 1.5 million barrel-a-day cut in output.

World markets greeted the news of reduced oil supply by pushing prices down further. Crude oil fell US$3.69 a barrel on Friday to US$64.15. Yesterday, oil dropped another 93 cents to US$63.22, a 17-month low.

How quickly things change. Or do they?

All speculative bubbles have a kernel of truth behind them to justify their existence. This time, it was China and India. These emerging Asian giants were gobbling up all the commodities the world could produce to fuel their rapid industrialisation.

It wasn’t that the story was untrue; it was old. Growing global demand probably was the reason for the gradual rise in oil prices from US$20 a barrel to US$40 earlier in the decade, and even to US$60 by mid-2005.

It was the moon shot to US$147 that took on a life of its own. Emerging nations didn’t start gobbling up crude, coal and copper all of a sudden in the middle of 2007.

Yet, analysts on TV and in print told us with straight faces that the doubling in oil prices from July 2007 to July 2008 was a result of fundamental demand, not speculative buying or investors, including pension funds, “diversifying” into “alternative investments” in search of “uncorrelated returns”. (It sounds a lot better than admitting you got suckered into buying what was going up and are now stuck with a pile of stuff that no one wants.)

By the early ’80s, following two oil shocks in the previous decade, the running crude commentary went something like this: Oil prices couldn’t go down because they were controlled by a cartel (Opec). Banks extended credit based on — you guessed it — a belief that the underlying asset couldn’t go down.

When prices plunged to about US$11 a barrel in 1986, that myth went down with them.

The spike in crude oil earlier this year had the support of the popular theory of “peak oil”. In a 2005 book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, investment banker Matthew Simmons argued that oil production by Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer, was likely to decline.

Just a few years before the peak-oil theory was hot, the world was “Drowning in Oil” according to the Economist magazine’s March 6, 1999, cover story. Oil was trading at US$13.50 a barrel at the time. “We may be heading for US$5,” the Economist predicted. “Consumers everywhere will rejoice at the prospect of cheap, plentiful oil for the foreseeable future.”

The silliness that accompanies speculative bubbles isn’t to be outdone by what passes for economic analysis. It’s just over three months since commodities began their sharp, swift descent, and already the nonsense is starting: Lower oil prices are going to boost consumer demand.

Whoa! The price of oil (and other raw materials) is falling because of a cutback in demand, both actual and expected.

To say that lower prices will stimulate demand confuses a movement along the demand curve (lower price, higher quantity) with a shift back in the curve (lower price, lower quantity).

Why this is such a hard concept to understand, I’m not sure. People imbue oil prices with all kinds of mystical powers. They see a falling price and treat it as a cause, not an effect.

That oil prices are falling in the face of Opec’s announced production cuts — a reduction in supply would tend to raise the price, not lower it — suggests that demand is falling even faster than Opec can reduce supply.

That won’t boost demand, but who knows? Maybe it will help recapitalise the banks!

The writer is a BloombergNews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

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World's oil output falling sharply: energy watchdog

Issue becoming urgent as prices fall, investment decisions delayed: IEA report
Business Times 30 Oct 08;

(LONDON) Output from the world's oilfields is declining faster than previously thought, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

Quoting from a draft International Energy Agency report it had obtained, the newspaper said the IEA, which studied the biggest fields, showed that without extra investment to raise production, the natural annual rate of output decline was 9.1 per cent.

The findings by the rich consumers' energy watchdog are contained in its annual World Energy Outlook report.

The report suggested the world would struggle to produce enough oil to make up for steep declines in existing fields, such as those in the North Sea, Russia and Alaska, and to meet long-term demand, said the Financial Times.

IEA said the issue would become even more acute as prices fell and investment decisions were delayed.

The IEA acts as policy adviser to 28 member countries, including the United States, Japan, Canada and leading European nations.

It forecast that China, India and other developing countries' demand would require investments of US$360 billion each year until 2030, said the newspaper.

'The future rate of decline in output from producing oilfields as they mature is the single most important determinant of the amount of new capacity that will need to be built globally to meet demand,' the IEA was quoted as saying.

The watchdog said the world needed to make a 'significant increase in future investments just to maintain the current level of production'.

The battle to replace mature oilfields' output could even offset the decline in demand growth, which had given the industry a reprieve in the past few months, it said.

The Financial Times said the IEA predicted in its report, due to be published next month, that demand would be dampened, 'reflecting the impact of much higher oil prices and slightly slower economic growth.'

The IEA expected oil consumption in 2030 to reach 106.4 million barrels a day, down from last year's forecast of 116.3 million, said the newspaper.

It said the projections could yet be revised lower because the draft report was written a month ago, before the global financial crisis deepened after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Oil prices had rallied soon after the head of the Opec oil producers cartel warned on Tuesday that it could cut output again if prices keep falling despite an emergency reduction last week.

Opec, which produces 40 per cent of the world's crude, could hold a new emergency meeting before its next scheduled session in December, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) secretary general Abdalla Salem El-Badri said.

'We will have to wait and see how the market will react ... (but) if this problem continues then we will have another cut,' he told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in London.

'If the situation deteriorated to the point where we had to have another meeting before Algeria we will do that,' he said, referring to the next scheduled Opec meeting in Oran, Algeria, on Dec 17.

'If the market reacted badly (to the cut in oil production) we will meet before that.' - Reuters

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Rising Sea Levels To Erode Sydney Beaches - Study

Michael Perry, PlanetArk 30 Oct 08;

SYDNEY - Rising sea levels as a result of climate change will erode Sydney's iconic beaches by 2050, with some at risk of disappearing, and threaten beachfront homes and commercial properties, a new climate change study said.

Sea levels along Sydney's coast are expected to rise by up to 40 cm above 1990 levels by 2050 and by 90 cm by 2100, with each one centimetre of rise resulting in one metre of erosion on low-lying beaches, said the Sydney climate change impact report.

"The Sydney region has a heavy density of residential and commercial beachfront developments that may be threatened by either ocean inundation or sea level rise-induced recession," said the report by the NSW Department of Climate Change.

"Rising sea levels may exacerbate flood risk in coastal rivers," said the report received on Wednesday.

The report said further study was needed to determine the extent of coastal erosion in particular locations.

But low-lying Sydney beaches such as Collaroy and Narrabeen, which have already been severely eroded by storm seas, and Dee Why and Curl Curl, are most at risk.

Beaches which have a hard promenade, such as Manly, Bondi and Coogee, will shrink as sand is washed away and may need sand deposits in order to survive in further decades.

"In general we expect a recession of the coastline of a sandy beach of about one metre for every centimetre rise in sea level," said Simon Smith, deputy director-general with the depatment.

"The coastline will move inward. What is now currently a vegetated dune may become the beach," Smith said on Wednesday.

"It depends on the beach and the coastal area. Some coastal areas have a rocky foreshore and 40 cm does not make much difference. Some beaches are very deep and high so the beachline will retreat, other beaches are very low-lying and they are up against higher landforms behind them, they will become narrower."

The Sydney Coastal Councils Group, which represents 15 local authorities and some 1.3 million people, has launched a study of "beach nourishment", which involves building up shorelines and beach dunes with sand to combat future rising sea levels.

Being a coastal city, some of Sydney's most important infrastructure is built on its foreshore, and may be affected by rising sea levels. Sydney international airport is built on the edge of Botany Bay, with a runway jutting out into the bay.

"Most of the state's infrastructure was built with a provision for half a metre of sea level rise, but the individual asset owners are already looking to see if they need to make a change in their asset to prepare for the future," said Smith.

(Editing by Roger Crabb)

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One-Third Of World Fish Catch Used For Animal Feed

Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 30 Oct 08;

Forage fish are near the base of the marine food web, nourishing larger fish, ocean-dwelling marine mammals and sea birds, especially puffins and gulls, the study said.

WASHINGTON - One-third of the world's ocean fish catch is ground up for animal feed, a potential problem for marine ecosystems and a waste of a resource that could directly nourish humans, scientists said on Wednesday.

The fish being used to feed pigs, chickens and farm-raised fish are often thought of as bait, including anchovies, sardines, menhaden and other small- to medium-sized species, researchers wrote in a study to be published in November in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

These so-called forage fish account for 37 percent, or 31.5 million tonnes, of all fish taken from the world's oceans each year, the study said. Ninety percent of that catch is turned into fishmeal or fish oil, most of which is used as agricultural and aquacultural feed.

Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science and a professor at Stony Brook University in New York, called these numbers "staggering."

"The reason I find that so alarming is that it's an enormous percentage of the world fish catch," Pikitch said by telephone. "And fish are fundamentally important to the health of the ocean overall."

Forage fish are near the base of the marine food web, nourishing larger fish, ocean-dwelling marine mammals and sea birds, especially puffins and gulls, the study said.


ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES

Unlike such dinner-plate fish as tuna, swordfish and cod, the extraction of forage fish is largely unregulated, Pikitch said. Excessive removal of these small fish from the ocean environment could hurt the species that feed on them.

Aside from the potential ecological consequences, the taking of these large numbers of forage fish interferes with food security for humans, she said.

On average, it takes three to five pounds (1.36 to 2.27 kg) of fishmeal to produce one pound (0.45 kg) of farm-raised fish, Pikitch said.

"If you're creating protein for humans to consume, does it make sense to take three to five pounds of perfectly good food and convert it into only one pound of food?" she said.

Most forage fish are high in omega 3 fatty acids associated with heart health, she said, adding that it makes sense for humans to consume these fish directly rather than to feed them to livestock and farmed fish.

But human consumption of these fish needs to be monitored, said Joshua Reichert of the Pew Environment Group.

"Whatever people take out of the sea needs to be carefully calibrated to ensure that sufficient fish are left to sustain populations of other fish, seabirds and marine mammals, which all play a major role in the healthy functioning of the world's oceans," Reichert said in a statement.

The study is the product of a nine-year partnership between the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and the Pew Charitable Trusts, funded by the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, which is transitioning to become the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook.

(Editing by John O'Callaghan)

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