Coal Fuels Much Of Internet "Cloud", Says Greenpeace

Peter Henderson, PlanetArk 31 Mar 10;

The 'cloud' of data which is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all too real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, according to a new Greenpeace report.

A Facebook facility will rely on a utility whose main fuel is coal, while Apple Inc, expecting its Web-browser iPad launch on April 3, is building a data warehouse in a North Carolina region powered by coal, the environmental organization said in the study to be released on Tuesday.

"The last thing we need is for more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power," concluded Greenpeace, which argues that Web companies should be more careful about where they build and should lobby more in Washington, DC for clean energy.

The growing pile of home movies, pictures and business data has ballooned beyond the capabilities of personal computers and even average corporate data centers, spurring the creation of massive server farms with tens of thousands of specialized machines that make up the "cloud".

The report comes in the middle of a new federal debate whether to create caps or other measures to cut use of carbon-heavy fuels like coal and curb climate change.

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and Google Inc all have at least some centers with heavy use of coal power, said Greenpeace. The companies declined to give details of their data centers, but all said they considered the environment in business decisions, and most said they were aggressively pursuing efficiency.

Cheap and plentiful, coal is the top fuel for U.S. power plants, and its low cost versus alternative fuels makes it attractive, even in highly efficient data centers.

Technology companies say they support the environment. Apple releases its carbon footprint, or how much greenhouse gases it produces, and Facebook said it chose the location for its center in order to use natural means to cool its machines.

Microsoft said it aimed to maximize efficiency, and Google said it purchased carbon offsets -- funding for projects which suck up carbon -- for emissions, including at data centers.

Yahoo, which is building a center near Buffalo, New York that Greenpeace saw as a model, will get energy from hydroelectric facilities, but the company said efficiency was the top goal, with a long narrow and tall building that looks like a "chicken coop" and promotes air circulation.

Data center energy use already is huge, Greenpeace said.

If considered as a country, global telecommunications and data centers behind the cloud would have ranked fifth in the world for energy use in 2007, behind the United States, China, Russia and Japan, it concluded.

And the cloud may be the fastest growing portion of technology growth between now and 2020, said Greenpeace.

The group based its findings on a mix of data including a federal review of fuels in U.S. zip codes in 2005 and a 2008 study by the Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, which Greenpeace updated in part with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.

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Global solar power capacity grew 44 pct in 2009

Reuters 30 Mar 10;

(Reuters) - Global installed solar photovoltaic power grew by 44 percent in 2009 on the back of German subsidies now under threat, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association said on Tuesday.

The global industry added a record 6.4 gigawatts new capacity, bringing total capacity to more than 20 gigawatts (GW), the EPIA said, despite tightened credit which has particularly hit infrastructure and energy project finance.

The increase was thanks to subsidies including a price premium for solar-powered electricity called a feed-in tariff.

"This is particularly impressive in light of the difficult financial and economical circumstances during the past year," said the EPIA industry group, adding it expected growth of at least 40 percent in 2010.

Germany was the largest demand market last year, adding 3 gigawatts (GW), followed by Italy, Japan and the United States. Germany would likely remain the biggest demand market in 2010, the EPIA said.

But Germany has proposed cuts to its feed-in tariffs from July, by 16 percent for rooftop solar power and by 15 percent for ground-mounted panels.

The risk from a cut in subsidies is underscored by Spain, which added just 60 megawatts (MW) in 2009, a fraction of the 2,500 MW or 2.5 GW the country added in 2008. The drop was a result of a cap in subsidies which Madrid applied because of a growing liability from its 25-year guaranteed incentives.

Despite strong growth, solar power still provides only about 0.5 percent of global installed electricity capacity, HSBC data show.

One problem for the emerging technology is cost, even in the aftermath of a sharp fall in solar panel prices, following a global glut of the main raw material, solar-grade silicon.

Solar power is far more expensive than rival forms of power generation, according to an HSBC report published in November.

Under the best case scenario in sunny locations, the cost of solar-powered electricity is about 17 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), compared with about 15 cents for offshore wind, 7 cents for coal and nuclear and 6 cents for gas.

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Where have all the green jobs gone?

Dominic Hughes, BBC News 28 Mar 10;

When the financial crisis first hit about 18 months ago, many politicians claimed "green jobs" would be the answer to reviving economic growth.

In January, President Obama pledged to create 17,000 green jobs - those linked to new environmentally friendly technologies.

In the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said new off-shore wind turbines could create 70,000 jobs.

So what has happened to the green job bonanza?

It turns out plenty of jobs have been created, just not exactly where you would think.

Biggest off-shore wind farm

Looking out to sea from the wall of Ramsgate harbour on England's south east coast, you can just see the huge towers and arms of wind turbines planted in the English Channel.

This is the Thanet off-shore wind farm. When it becomes operational later this year it will be the largest in the world.

But only for a few months - until the next big project is completed.

Because this is just one of a huge number of wind farms being constructed in UK waters.

Coastal lifeline?

For coastal towns such as Ramsgate, the jobs these wind farm projects should bring with them are invaluable.

When the traditional British seaside holiday died a death in the 1960s, many of these towns went into decline and have found it hard to recover ever since.

Unemployment is much higher here - 6.2% in February 2010 - than in the rest of the affluent south east of England where the rate was 3% that month.

Most of the turbines are already up, standing 90 metres above the brown, churning sea. Large, yellow metal stumps stand ready to take the remainder.

The company behind the project, Swedish power giant Vattenfall, has tried hard to work with local contractors.

But even so, skilled staff and almost all the components have had to be brought in from other countries.

Slow to react

Richard Barron is a project manager for Marine South East, a group set up to promote the marine industry.

He admits the Thanet project posed a steep learning curve.

"You need to engage very early with the developers to establish exactly what their needs are," he says.

That means linking up with colleges and schools to make sure local people can get on the right kind of training courses to develop the skills they will need for these new jobs.

"I don't think we've missed out," says Mr Barron.

"But I think we've been very slow on the uptake.

"Europe has been looking at this for 10 years now and they are way ahead of us in terms of having turbine manufacturers in place and in getting training schemes up. But we are doing our best to catch up."

Danish green jobs

When it comes to green jobs, Denmark is ahead of most other countries.

The Danish government has a long track record of supporting wind power, going back more than 30 years.

The country is now a world leader in turbine manufacturing with the creation of thousands of jobs as a result.

The Aalborg experience

In the far north of Denmark lies the town of Aalborg.

Like Ramsgate, its traditional industries, shipbuilding and meat processing, had collapsed.

Unemployment was high.

But then along came the German company Siemens.

It bought up a small engineering firm that manufactured the long sweeping blades that drive wind turbines.

"In December 2004 we were 800 employees," says Thomas Schlenzig, procurement director at the Aalborg plant. "Now we are approximately 5,800 employees."

Mr Schlenzig has an almost evangelical zeal when talking about the factory and his work.

"I definitely believe that renewable energy has created a lot of jobs here in Denmark," he says.

UK jobs lost

But while jobs are being created in Denmark, the picture in the UK is mixed.

Last year, 600 British workers lost their jobs with the closure of the country's only major wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight.

But Brian White, in charge of regeneration for Thanet District Council, the local authority in Ramsgate, says there is more to green jobs than manufacturing turbines.

"The good thing is, there should be engineers required at places like our port in Ramsgate to keep the machines going.

"That provides training and development opportunities for local young people who haven't even left school yet."

Ramsgate plan

And that is the plan in Ramsgate.

They want the port to be the main centre for servicing both the Thanet off-shore wind farm as well as the even larger London Array, which will start recruiting in May 2010.

And there are plenty of companies hoping to get in on the act. Marine suppliers, engineering companies, caterers.

These projects could just be the shot in the arm towns such as Ramsgate need.

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Global water crisis and cheaper technology sparks surge in desalination

Fresh water production increases to 9.5m cubic metres a day – twice the annual flow of the Thames – as one-third of world goes thirsty

Juliette Jowit, guardian.co.uk 30 Mar 10;

Fresh water pumped into a reservoir after being treated at a desalination plant in Carboneras, near Almeria, southern Spain. Photograph: Jose Luis Roca/AFP/Getty Images

The world's unquenchable thirst for clean water drove a record increase in the desalination and reuse of sewage last year, figures show, as water-stressed countries around the world try to build their way out of trouble.

Making fresh water from the sea was once the preserve of cruise ships and oil-rich Gulf states that could afford the huge cost of energy required to remove the salt. But as rivers, lakes and aquifers dry up, rains become less reliable, and the cost of desalination falls, communities in all parts of the world have begun to build and plan plants to turn oceans, estuaries, salty ground water and even sewage into clean water for factories, farms and homes.

The rise in fresh water production was the biggest ever recorded, reaching 9.5m cubic metres a day, the annual report by analysts Global Water Intelligence will say tomorrow. That is equivalent to twice the annual flow of the Thames, or about 10% of global capacity. Those desalinating and reusing water include some of the poorest countries, including Algeria, India and Ghana.

But wet overpopulated cities such as London and Dublin are also investing in the technology.

With water "manufacturing" allowing people to change fundamentally the geography of fresh water on such a large scale, Christopher Gasson, GWI's publisher, talks of "rivers flowing backwards".

"People do desalination when they run out of opportunities, and the problem is the world overall is running out of opportunities: groundwater is overexploited to the extent it's becoming saline and unusable; rivers are being drained; new dams are becoming less and less viable [and] long-distance transfer is expensive and controversial,"he said.

The fundamental reason for the rise of water manufacturing is a simple gap between demand and supply: in 2006 a report from the International Water Management Institute found one in three of the world's population were "enduring one form or another of water scarcity" – such as "when women work hard to get water, [or] you want to allocate more but can't".

Growing numbers of people, richer lifestyles, demand for water-intensive food such as meat, and dwindling supplies are expected to increase that number – to up to half the projected global population or more in the middle of this century. And that is despite an expected doubling of water manufacturing capacity between now and 2016, according to UK-based GWI.

The falling cost of desalination, thanks to technology improvements, is key, and the reuse of water can be cheaper still.

Contracts have been signed to deliver desalinated water in Algeria and Israel for 55-56 cents (36p) a cubic metre, and reuse plants can now turn sewage into drinking water for 40-45 cents a cubic metre, said Gasson. To compare, the average cost of UK drinking water is about 51p a cubic metre, though that also includes piping the water to the tap.

Comparisons between the energy needs of different desalination methods - heating up water for distillation or pushing it through membranes to filter the salt - have also become much closer. Continuing developments in membranes – which one day are likely to be modelled on the "technology" nature uses in kidneys and mangroves – will continue to bring down costs and energy needs, said Gasson. Systems using carbon-free energy are also being tested: nuclear desalination in the UAE, solar power in Australia, and biodiesel from plants at a desalination plant built by Thames Water in London.

Despite the advances, there are still serious objections to manufacturing water. The WWF remains concerned about building facilities in often environmentally sensitive coastal and wetland areas; about the intake of seawater, which is home to millions of tiny species, and discharge of the remaining brine, which can be contaminated with cleaning chemicals and particles from corroding pipes.Concerns about the energy use of plants also still remain, especially where they are still dependent on fossil fuels, or if they could divert renewable resources which could otherwise replace existing carbon-intensive energy supplies. Residents in upmarket Monterey, California, have long objected to a desalination plant being built there because they fear it would encourage more development.
Water worlds

Windhoek, Namibia: toilet to tap
The capital , surrounded by desert,has the world's only system that treats waste water and puts it back into the public water supply, mixed with water from the city's main reservoir. The success of the scheme is credited to a long-standing public acceptance campaign, including advertising, education in schools and an "excellent" water-quality record.

Arizona and Nevada, US : desert desalination
North American states and Mexico share the Colorado river under a treaty signed in 1922. It has been suggested Nevada funds a desalination plant in return for more of Mexico's river water. into the river, allowing upstream towns and cities to keep more of the fresh flow.

London, UK desperate measures in the capital
Despite its rainy reputation, London receives less rainfall than Rome, Dallas or Istanbul. To cope with an expected 800,000 more residents by 2016, Thames Water has built a desalination plant next to its Becton sewage works.

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El Nino phenomenon to die out by mid-year

Yahoo News 30 Mar 10;

GENEVA (AFP) – Weather experts said Tuesday that El Nino, the weather anomaly that wrecks havoc around the Pacific and east Africa, has peaked and would disappear by mid-year.

"The most likely outcome by mid-year 2010 is for the El Nino event to have decayed and near-neutral conditions to be re-established across the tropical Pacific," said the World Meteorological Organisation expert Rupa Koumar Kolli.

El Nino is an occasional seasonal warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that upsets normal weather patterns from the western seaboard of Latin America to east Africa.

According to the UN weather agency, the climate phenomenon may have peaked in November or December.

However, its effects should still be felt through April to June.

"This is because impacts on many climate patterns both close to and remote from the Pacific, can occur even during the decay phase of an El Nino event."

Kolli said that this year's El Nino had a major impact in extreme climate events such as monsoons in southeast Asia and drought in southern Australia.

In February, the Philippines warned that its farming industry could lose about 433 million dollars due to a drought caused by El Nino.

Meanwhile in the Americas, El Nino was blamed for blizzards in the United States, heatwaves in Brazil, killer floods in Mexico and drought in Ecuador which occurred in February.

El Nino To Influence Climate Patterns To Midyear: WMO
Stephanie Nebehay, PlanetArk 31 Mar 10;

El Nino To Influence Climate Patterns To Midyear: WMO Photo: Cheryl Ravelo
The almost completely dried up soil bed of the Magat dam is seen in Ramon, Isabela province, the province most affected by El Nino, north of Manila March 3, 2010.
Photo: Cheryl Ravelo

The El Nino warming the Pacific Ocean since June has peaked, but is expected to influence climate patterns worldwide up to mid-year before dying out, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

However, the United Nations agency said that forecasting uncertainties meant it could not rule out the possibility that El Nino would persist beyond mid-year.

El Nino, driven by an abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, can create havoc in weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region, unleashing droughts in some places and heavy storms in others. It typically lasts from 9 to 12 months.

The most likely scenario is for sea surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific, which rose by 1.5 degrees Celsius at its peak last November-December, to return to normal by mid-2010, WMO said in a statement.

"El Nino is already in a decaying phase. We expect it to fully decay by mid-year and neutral conditions to be established," WMO climate expert Rupa Kumar Kolli told Reuters.

"But this is a period where the predictability of the system is very low. Things could happen very suddenly," he said.

The WMO said that the current El Nino, which can occur every two-seven years, was of a moderate level, "close to or slightly above the typical strength seen in the historical record of El Nino events."

"Even during the decaying phase of the El Nino, expected over the next few months, the conditions associated with a typical El Nino will continue to influence climatic patterns at least through the second quarter of the year," it said.

DRY CONDITIONS

El Nino typically creates dry conditions for western areas along the Pacific Ocean such as South East Asia and Indonesia, and southern parts of western Australia, and wetter than normal conditions in western coastal areas of South America, Kolli told Reuters.

Parts of South Asia experienced drought last year due to a weak summer monsoon season linked to El Nino, and this could happen again if El Nino were to intensify in June, he said.

"That is the typical signature of El Nino," he added.

Warmer sea temperatures along some coastal regions of Latin America had caused higher rainfalls, but these were confined to relatively smaller pockets, and did not wreak havoc, he said.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damages to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and Asia.

"Every El Nino is an individual event," Kolli said.

However, the phenomenon, which means "little boy" in Spanish, referring to the Christ child because it is often noticed mostly clearly in Latin America around Christmas, is also linked to a weaker than normal hurricane season in the northern Atlantic, according to the WMO expert.

The opposite cooling phenomenon, known as La Nina, or "little girl," could also start in the middle of this year, but that scenario is deemed less likely.

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn)

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Golkar Party thinks mudflow disaster a dream comes true for tourism

Hans David Tampubolon, The Jakarta Post 30 Mar 10;

A Golkar Party senior politician regards President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's idea of making Porong in Sidoarjo, East Java, the area devastated by a continuous mudflow, a tourist attraction as brilliant.

“We can finally show the world that a scary area can be utilized as a beautiful area for tourism,” Golkar's Priyo Budi Santoso told reporters at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Priyo said Lapindo, a company affiliated with Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie, would do its best to make the dream of making the area into a tourism site come true.

The mudflow started in May 2006, at a time when Lapindo Brantas was running an exploratory drilling program and was drilling in the area.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled there was no evidence Lapindo caused the mudflow, which has displaced 40,000 people from their homes.

In 2008, the government declared the mudflow a “natural disaster”.

Many scientists, however, believe the mudflow was no natural disaster and consider it a massive natural accident caused by human intervention.

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Best of our wild blogs: 30 Mar 10

16 Apr (Fri): Talk on Volunteering for Mother Earth
from The Green Volunteers by Grant W.Pereira

Afternoon Showers Brings Out the Reptiles
from Life's Indulgences

Portent of death on Chek Jawa?
from wild shores of singapore

Floral Complexity of Strophanthus caudatus
from Flying Fish Friends

TeamSeagrass Outdoor Orientation at Chek Jawa
from teamseagrass

裕华园偶遇鹊鸲 magpie robin@Chinese garden
from PurpleMangrove

Lineated Barbet feeding on fishtail palm fruits
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker eating Piper aduncum fruits
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Singapore a Global Hub for Wildlife Trafficking: Activists

Jakarta Globe 30 Mar 10;

Midori the iguana sits on a platform contemplating his snack of fresh fruit. He is one of the lucky ones, rescued and nursed back to health in Singapore, a major hub for wildlife trafficking.

Three months ago the huge and notoriously touchy 1.5-metre (five-foot) adult male was brought into the non-profit Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) rescue centre in bad shape.

Director Anbarasi Boopal said Midori had mouth ulcers and excreted a razor blade on his first day at the sanctuary.

"He was under critical care for a while, now he is completely fine," Boopal told AFP as she beamed at the iguana, due to be repatriated to his natural habitat in the lush rainforests of Central and South America.

The lizard, whose name, given by his rescuers, means "green" in Japanese, was likely part of the steady stream of creatures brought into Singapore illegally when he was smaller and then abandoned after growing too big.

Other mistreated pets and trafficked animals are not so fortunate, destined for slaughter or a life of confinement away from their natural habitats.

Singapore's extensive trade links and efficient ports have lured opportunistic wildlife smugglers, who use the country as a transit point to ship exotic fauna to customers worldwide, animal welfare activists said.

Wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC lists Singapore as among the world's top 10 wildlife smuggling hubs.

"The animals are just shipped into Singapore, (which acts) like a transit point from other countries like Indonesia or Malaysia or other neighbouring countries or surrounding islands," Boopal said.

High-value birds and reptiles such as cockatoos, turtles and snakes frequently pass through the island nation's borders illegally en route to other countries to be sold as pets, food or for medicine.

There is also trade in even more exotic wildlife such as star tortoises, hornbills and the sugar glider, a small marsupial, Boopal said.
Figures released by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) show that the number of controlled items detected, including live wildlife, as well as unsanctioned food products, hit 5,900 in 2009, more than triple the level recorded in 2008.

The ICA called the increase "significant" and said it noted the "wide array of animals and wildlife species that travellers had attempted to smuggle into Singapore".

But activists say despite the increased level of detection, they represent just the tip of the iceberg, believing traffickers are exploiting Singapore's international reputation to boost trade.

"When you smuggle the animals into Singapore and you export out with a country of origin as Singapore, it is very rare that other countries will check because of our very good reputation," said Louis Ng, executive director of ACRES.

He said that Singapore's free trade agreements with other countries also meant smugglers could often avoid paying tax and made clearing customs easier.

Ng said checks for wildlife and animal products remain inadequate, believing sniffer dogs would help plug the loophole, such as those used in South Korea.

Chris Shepherd, TRAFFIC's Southeast Asian acting regional director, urged the government to be tougher in cracking down on illegal trade.

"The authorities in Singapore and in other importing-exporting countries should take great care in ensuring the wildlife they are importing is from a legal source and has been acquired in a legal manner," he said.

The ACRES centre, where Midori is recuperating, received more than 220 abandoned, surrendered or rescued lizards, tortoises and turtles in just seven months after opening last August, many of them illegal and endangered.

Boopal forgives Midori his bad temper, saying signs of stress in the presence of humans can be a positive sign.

"He gets a bit stressed when people walk nearby, so he might start lashing his tail," Boopal said. "This is good. He is still wild, which is good."

AFP

More about ACRES

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NUS watching natural history museum plans

Straits Times 30 Mar 10;

THE National University of Singapore (NUS) is keeping a watchful eye on plans for Singapore's own natural history museum, to be situated at the heart of the new University Town in about three years.

The assurance came from deputy president of academic affairs and provost Tan Eng Chye yesterday, after The Straits Times reported last Saturday that these plans, currently helmed by the NUS' department of biological sciences, are facing a funding shortfall of at least $24 million.

If the team cannot raise the amount by June, it might have to look for a new site. Construction of the 6,000 to 8,000 sq m building, which will store, study and exhibit Singapore's oldest natural history collection of animals - 500,000 specimens in all - is scheduled to start in June.

But even if the deadline lapses, there will still be other sites within NUS to fall back on, said Professor Tan. One possible backup is within the science faculty, where the department of biological sciences is located - possibly in a new building.

He also reaffirmed NUS' desire to keep the museum within its campus, in a 'prominent location' so it would be 'accessible to everyone, including the public'.

'The museum is a very important facility,' Prof Tan continued, 'and it's not easy to raise so much money. I have to take my hat off to my colleagues who are fighting very hard (to do so).'

When asked if NUS might top up the shortfall in museum-building funds, Prof Tan said: 'NUS is quite stretched in our resources...we are trying to raise funds from donors ourselves, and we don't want to pass costs on to students.'

EISEN TEO

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Make every day an Earth Hour day

Letter from Tay Tse Chuan Eugene, Today Online 30 Mar 10;

EARTH Hour, which came and went on Saturday, is not just about switching our lights off, it's about two key forces at work: The Asymmetry Principle versus the Rebound Effect.

The Asymmetry Principle suggests that when you switch off your lights or appliances during Earth Hour, you save more than just the power needed by that one bulb, as the effects of conserving energy resources are amplified further upstream - due to inefficiencies in fuel production, electricity transmission, and so on.

The Rebound Effect suggests that people might change their behaviour with the introduction of energy-efficiency measures, thus offsetting the actual benefits. In other words, you might reduce energy needed from one source, but use more energy switching to alternatives.

We need to see more of the Asymmetry Principle and less of the Rebound Effect. We need more people to switch off their lights and reduce their energy consumption daily - not just during an annual Earth Hour - to amplify the energy savings at the source.

Meanwhile, people should be mindful not to switch to substitute activities or light sources that consume more energy. We must ensure that our actions do not contribute to the problem we are trying to solve.

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S$90m CleanTech One building unveiled

Channel NewsAsia 29 Mar 10;

SINGAPORE : Singapore's first eco-business park will have a new S$90 million building called CleanTech One.

The building is the first structure for the CleanTech Park, and is due to be completed in December next year.

JTC Corporation, the industrial landlord, announced this at a news conference on Monday.

The two towers of the building have been designed with green sustainable features, including sky trellises that allow natural daylight into the buildings.

CleanTech One is on a 1.5 hectare site next to the Nanyang Technological University.

Building consultancy Surbana said it maximised the use of land and kept the layout naturally ventilated.

CleanTech One will house about 50 companies with green sustainability plans, including anchor tenant, Nanyang Technological University.

The CleanTech Park will be developed in three phases over 20 years.

Tang Wai Yee, director, Aerospace, Marine & CleanTech Cluster, JTC, said: "We hope to develop a very green CleanTech One, but in a practical and a cost-effective manner.

"And if this is successful, we will replicate the solution in the rest of the CleanTech Park and we will share this with the rest of Singapore and possibly in the region.

"CleanTech One will also be a test bed for urban solutions and sustainable development in the tropics. Hopefully, one day, new urban solutions, clean technologies will be discovered, developed or commercialised in CleanTech One."

- CNA/al

CleanTech One to be up by end-2011
It will be a 'seed' building to testbed and showcase innovative green solutions
Teh Shi Ning, Business Times 30 Mar 10;

(SINGAPORE) The first building at Singapore's CleanTech Park is expected to be up by end 2011 at a cost of $90 million, JTC Corporation said yesterday.

With a gross floor area of 403,646 square feet, CleanTech One is expected to house about 40 green tenants, such as cleantech companies' headquarters, firms financing cleantech activities, as well as private and public research institutions.

Nanyang Technological University, which is adjacent to the CleanTech Park, will be its first tenant.

Surbana International Consultants beat 30 other entries to win the design tender JTC launched last December, with its ecological and commercially sustainable design.

As the first development on the eco-business park launched last month, CleanTech One will act as a 'seed' building to testbed and showcase innovative green solutions for tropical, urban settings.

These include solar panels, sky gardens, rainwater harvesting and sky trellises. If successful, these can then be rolled out to the rest of the CleanTech Park, Singapore and even the region, said JTC director for the aerospace, marine and cleantech cluster, Tang Wai Yee.

Surbana said that green features aside, the building itself was designed to minimise 'cut and fill' of the sloping terrain on which it is located, and takes into account the direction of wind and sun so as to reduce energy consumption.

Piling works will start around June while actual construction of CleanTech One should begin by August - an 'aggressive and accelerated timeline', Surbana said.

The 50 hectare CleanTech Park, which will house cleantech research, innovation and commercialisation activities, is expected to draw $2.5 billion worth of investments in buildings by its 2030 completion.

$90m cleantech building
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 29 Mar 10;

INDUSTRIAL landlord JTC Corp on Monday unveiled the first cutting-edge building to be built on Singapore's Cleantech Park at Jalan Bahar.

The $90 million building - called Cleantech One - will offer about 404,000 sq ft of office space that could house up to 50 green businesses when it is completed by December 2011.

The building will incorporate green features such as solar systems, rainwater harvesting, sky gardens and green construction, said JTC at a briefing on Monday.

'If the solutions we implement are successful, we will replicate this throughout the rest of the Cleantech Park and share it with the rest of Singapore and the region,' said JTC director (Aerospace, Marine and Cleantech cluster) Tang Wai Yee.

JTC launched a design competition for the building last December and local architecture firm Surbana International Consultants emerged the winner from 31 entries.

JTC said Surbana's entry won for its highly compact design and ecological features, it said.


Park to create 20,000 jobs

THE industrial landlord had announced the masterplan for the 50 ha Cleantech Park last month.

To be built in three phases at an infrastructure cost of $52 million, the park will help to create 20,000 'green-collar' jobs by 2030.

The park will also serve as Singapore's first large-scale integrated development, allowing firms to test-bed cleantech products and solutions - especially those catering to the tropics - before they are commercialised for the market.

The park is located next to the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), which will be Cleantech One's first tenant.

Discussion is ongoing with other companies to locate there, said JTC.

Construction of the six-storey building will begin in June.

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JTC tender for floating storage on the way

Phase two project studies over; Pulau Sebarok likely site
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 30 Mar 10;

SIGNALLING practically a go-ahead for offshore oil/petrochemicals storage here, JTC Corporation said it is now progressing to prepare construction tenders for the very large floating structures (VLFS), following its completion this month of phase two project studies.

'Moving forward, JTC is targeting to call a tender for the technical consultant in the second quarter,' a JTC spokeswoman told BT yesterday.

'The work scope for the technical consultant would include looking into the front-end engineering design as well as calling of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) tender,' she added.

She said this in response to BT queries on whether JTC had made a final decision to proceed with the floating oil storage project - as it had earlier said it would - following the completion of its phase two studies at end-March.

But JTC declined to say more, including specifics like when it expects to embark on actual VLFS construction.

Still, there is strong rationale to proceed with the project, given the limited land available here to satisfy traders' demand for additional on-shore storage in the oil hub here. This has led to many Singapore-based trading firms setting up tankfarms in neighbouring Johor instead.

The VLFS will most likely be anchored off Pulau Sebarok, which it earlier identified as a potential site for the project.

Sebarok - currently being used for on-shore oil storage by Dutch tankfarm operator Vopak and PetroChina-owned Singapore Petroleum Company - is very close to Shell's Bukom refinery and not far from Jurong Island, Singapore's main oil and petrochemicals hub.

JTC's just-completed phase two studies covered environmental impact, engineering design, business model and security aspects.

It followed phase one studies, completed in late-2007, which showed VLFS to be technically feasible and comparable in cost to land-based oil storage. Its earlier cost estimate for a VLFS was at least $180 million.

Some industry officials, however, argue that the cost of building a VLFS - estimated at US$400 per cubic metre of storage - is slightly more than the US$300 per cu m cost of building an onshore tank, depending on steel prices.

The JTC studies had ascertained that to be economical, the minimum storage capacity of a VLFS should be 300,000 cubic metres, or equivalent to that of a very large crude carrier. VLFS would comprise two rectangular modules, each measuring 180m by 80m by 15m and with 150,000 cu m capacity.

JTC, meanwhile, has also started building the $890-million first phase of Jurong Rock Cavern (JRC) to store oil underground. Comprising five caverns, the JRC project - considered more for strategic oil storage - will offer 1.47 million cu m when completed in 2014.

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