Norway plans the world's most powerful wind turbine

Yahoo News 12 Feb 10;

OSLO (AFP) – Norway plans to build the world's most powerful wind turbine, hoping the new technology will increase the profitability of costly offshore wind farms, partners behind the project said Friday.

With a rotor diametre of 145 metres (475 feet), the 10-megawatt protype will be roughly three times more powerful than ordinary wind turbines currently in place, Enova, a public agency owned by Norway's petroleum and oil industry ministry, said.

The world's largest wind turbine, 162.5 metres (533 feet) tall, will be built by Norwegian company Sway with the objective of developing a technology that will result in higher energy generation for offshore wind power.

It will first be tested on land in Oeygarden, southwestern Norway, for two years.

The gain in power over current turbines will be obtained partly by reducing the weight and the number of moving parts in the turbine.

According to the NTB news agency, the prototype will cost 400 million kroner to build and could supply power to 2,000 homes.

"We are aiming to install it in 2011," Enova's head of new technology Kjell Olav Skoelsvik told AFP.

Enova pledged 137 million Norwegian kroner (17 million euros, 23 million dollars) to build the prototype.

"It is milestone in the efforts to develop the future's wind power," Norway's energy minister Terje Riis-Johansen said in a statement.

Environmental groups have been highly critical of Norway's government for not having invested enough in wind power.

The Scandinavian country is one of the world's top oil and gas producers but obtains most of its own energy through hydroelectric power.

Read more!

Carbon targets pledged at Copenhagen 'fail to keep temperature rise to 2C'

MIT analysis shows pledges submitted to the UN falls short of reduction targets by at least 11bn tonnes of CO2
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 12 Feb 10;

The pledges made by governments resulting from the Copenhagen climate conference are nowhere near enough to hold global temperatures to the summit's agreed goal of no more than a 2C rise, researchers have calculated. The results, which are the most rigorous analyses yet made of pledges submitted to the UN last month, will increase pressure on rich countries to make far deeper cuts in negotiations over the next year.

Researchers from the Sustainability Institute, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems in the US conclude that emissions reduction pledges would allow global mean temperature to increase approximately 3.9C, a level that could see global warming run out of control. "Under the current proposals, global emissions of greenhouse gases would increase 0.8C a year between now and 2020, , warned the joint report. It concluded that to reach the Copenhagen accord's goal of no more than a 2C rise, global emissions must peak within the next decade and fall to at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, which would require emissions cuts of 3% annually after 2020.

"A new degree of collective ambition and cooperation will be required before the world sees a climate agreement consistent with limited warming to even 2C let alone the 1.5C goal named by a growing number of governments and civil society groups," said Elizabeth Sawin of Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont, referring to a push at Copenhagen by the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) and 48 developing nations for a deal that limits temperature rises to 1.5C.

"The situation is serious. An increase of temperature of more than 1C above pre-industrial levels would result in the disappearance of our glaciers in the Andes, and the flooding of various islands and coastal zones," said Bolivian foreign minister minister, David Choquehuanca, responding to the US study. Scientists are agreed that an overall rise of 2C in world temperatures would be serious for food production, species loss and freshwater supplies. But anything over 3C would lead to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, crippling water shortages across South America and Australia and the near-extinction of tropical coral reefs, they have said.

Earlier this week, teams of European researchers from Ecofys, Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute in Germany concluded that the pledges made so far if acted upon would lead to a global temperature rising "over" 3C.

The low end of the reduction proposals made by governments at Copenhagen would deliver a reduction of only 2 billion tonnes by 2020, and the best would be nine billion tonnes. However, at least 13-17 billion tonnes of reductions are needed to have more than an even chance of limiting warming to 2C.They said that only two out of 10 developed countries' reduction targets submitted to the Copenhagen accord qualify as "sufficient" to keep global temperature rise below 2C.

In the lead, said the European researchers, were the Maldives and Costa Rica, which have proposed to become "climate-neutral" by around 2020. Also at the ambitious end of the scale are Norway, Japan and Brazil, which are proposing to reduce their emissions significantly.

A third analysis of the pledges of only developed countries, undertaken by the US-based World Resources Institute, concluded that they fall "far short of the range of 25-40% emission reductions [by 2020] that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is needed to stabilise concentrations of CO2 equivalent at 450 parts per million ppm" Climate campaigners such as Bill McKibben have been pushing for a limit of 350 ppm.

Copenhagen response 'is pathetic'
BBC News 10 Feb 10;

Industrialised nations have set "pathetic" targets to reduce carbon emissions, says one of India's senior negotiators at the Copenhagen summit.

One of the summit's requirements was for countries to spell out by 31 January how they would cut emissions.

But industrialised nations had failed to set the "truly ambitious" targets needed, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta said.

Britain's Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the commitments made in Copenhagen were an important step forward.

Fifty-five countries met the deadline set in the Copenhagen Accord to spell out their plans to cut carbon emissions, although some had already announced their targets ahead of the December climate change summit.

Australia, for example, said it would cut emissions by 5% of its 2000 levels. Others like Japan and New Zealand said their commitments were dependent on a global deal.

'Lectured and hectored'

But Mr Dasgupta told The Report programme on BBC Radio 4: "We need truly ambitious emission reduction commitments from industrialised countries.

"If you see figures that industrialised countries have submitted in response to the Copenhagen Accord, these are truly pathetic."

He added: "The European Union had envisaged a reduction of from 25% to 30% from developed countries, they're nowhere near this."

Mr Dasgupta said developing countries were calling for industrialised nations to adopt a 40% target across a 30-year period.

He said developing nations had found themselves "lectured and hectored" by industrialised countries at the summit.

"We can do so much consistent with maintaining our development priorities. Beyond this, it is going to cost tens of billions of dollars," he added.

"If you can help out with this, that is well and good, we can do more - but otherwise we cannot pick up the tab, it is simply too heavy."

'Important step'

However, Britain's Mr Miliband said the commitments made by countries would produce progress.

"The upper end of the commitments will take us to a peaking of global emissions by about 2020, maybe a bit later," he said.

He said ambitious targets were needed, but added: "I do think the commitments made in the accord are an important step forward and I don't think they should be dismissed.

"The key is to get developed countries to drive up to the upper end of their commitments because that is what the world needs."

Read more!

China's fears of rich nation 'climate conspiracy' at Copenhagen revealed

'Conspiracy to divide developing world' will make future talks harder, says leaked government report
Jonathan Watts, Damian Carrington and Suzanne Goldenberg
guardian.co.uk 11 Feb 10;

Rich nations furthered their "conspiracy to divide the developing world" at December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen, while Canada "connived" and the EU acted "to please the United States", according to an internal document from a Chinese government thinktank obtained by the Guardian.

The document, which was written in the immediate aftermath of Copenhagen but has only now come to light, provides the most candid insight yet into Chinese thinking on the fraught summit.

"It was unprecedented for a conference negotiating process to be so complicated, for the arguments to be so intense, for the disputes to be so wide and for progress to be so slow," notes the special report. "There was criticism and praise from all sides, but future negotiations will be more difficult."

The authors - all members of a government environmental research institute - were not part of the Chinese negotiating team, but their paper was commissioned by the environment ministry and circulated internally to the minister, vice-ministers and department chiefs in the days after the conference. The ministry currently plays only a marginal role in climate policy making but many of the paper's observations were echoed by China's chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, in a recent speech given at Beijing University.

The authors were downbeat about the prospects for international talks and China's position within them. "China, which was in the conference spotlight, played an active and constructive role, but was also under huge international pressure. It is predictable that our country will face a tougher challenge in future climate talks," it says.

Analysing international reaction to Copenhagen, the paper lists a selection of responses from the UN secretary-general, the Chinese foreign minister, the European commissioner, prominent NGOs and major media organisations, including the Guardian. It was written before the publication of the most strident criticisms of China's tactics by Mark Lynas, climate change adviser to the Maldives, and the UK climate and energy secretary, Ed Miliband.

Contrary to those views, the paper argues that the primary goal of China's negotiators was not to spoil the summit, but to resist a deal from rich nations that would put an unacceptable burden on China and other developing countries.

In their evaluation of the outcome, the officials' top point is that "the overall interests of developing countries have been defended" by resisting a rich nation "conspiracy" to abandon the Kyoto protocol, and with it the legal distinction between rich nations that must cut carbon emissions and developing nations for whom action is not compulsory.

The internal report acknowledges that unity among China's traditional allies in the developing world became harder to maintain in Copenhagen. "A conspiracy by developed nations to divide the camp of developing nations [was] a success," it said, citing the Small Island States' demand that the Basic group of nations - Brazil, South Africa, India, China - impose mandatory emission reductions.

The paper is scathing about the US-led "umbrella group", which it says adopted a position of inaction. Canada, it says, "was devoted to conniving" to convince the world that its pledge of a 3% emissions reduction between 1990 and 2020 is significant, while having no intention of meeting its Kyoto protocol target of 6%.

There are no comforting words for the European Union, which used to pride itself on playing a leadership role in climate talks. "Copenhagen was a setback for the EU", the authors say, in part because Europe "suggested the abandonment of the Kyoto protocol in order to please the US." The ministry has not responded to the Guardian's request for a comment on the leaked paper.

The authors note that the Copenhagen accord which emerged from the summit was not legally binding and lacked a global target for emissions. But it says that overall the accord was a "step forward", noting progress on a consensus to limit global warming within 2C, progress on the funding by rich nations of climate change adaptation measures in poorer nations and a "last minute" compromise by developing nations on the verification of their carbon pledges.

Lynas, who was present at many of the key negotiating sessions, said: "It's astonishing that this document suggests the Chinese really believes the absurd conspiracy theory that small island states were being played like puppets by rich countries. The truth is that the small island states and most vulnerable countries want China and its allies to cut their emissions because without these cuts they will not survive. Bluntly put, China is the world's No1 emitter, and if China does not reduce its emissions by at least half by mid-century, then countries like the Maldives will go under."

He added: "I think these claims of conspiracy are just a bullying tactic, to force more progressive developing countries back into line in case they too start demanding more serious action by China."

Speaking last month, China's chief climate negotiator, Xie - who also serves as vice-minister of the National Development and Reform commission which controls China's climate policy - also referred to the pressure from small island nations. "The rich nations were completely trying to make conflict among developing countries," he said.

He also described the "international fight on climate change" as a contest for economic development space and stressed that the way forward for China was to put more effort into building a low-carbon economy. "Countries with low-carbon industries will have a developmental advantage," said Xie. "Some people believe this is a global competition as significant as the space race in the cold war. "

The concluding section of the leaked document proposes a series of constructive initiatives. In what appears to be a bid by the environment ministry to play a greater role in carrying out climate-related policy, the report suggests amending air pollution control laws to include greenhouse gas emissions.

The official US version about what happened at Copenhagen is also harsh. Todd Stern, the state department climate change envoy, said this week that the summit "a snarling, aggravated, chaotic event." But America attributes the difficulties to a central divide between those countries - led by China - insisting rich countries bear the entire burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the position held by the US that rapidly emerging countries must also take action. Stern suggested the divide had not been bridged. China, along with India, South Africa and Brazil, had been "ambiguous" in its follow-up commitments to the accord.

Tom Burke, the influential environmentalist and a founder of E3G consultants, said: "There was indeed a lot of work done to get developing nations to put pressure on China. [But] it was not a conspiracy of any kind unfortunately as Britain was acting entirely alone on this front. Neither our EU allies nor the US mounted any kind of diplomatic effort. Pretty well everyone in Copenhagen, not just the developed countries, complained about China's blocking tactics."

Read more!

Climate sceptics denounced by Brown as he launches climate change group

Gordon Brown has launched a new UN climate fundraising group, and says sceptics go 'against the grain' of science
Press Association, guardian.co.uk 12 Feb 10;

Prime minister Gordon Brown today accused climate change sceptics of going "against the grain" of scientific evidence, as he launched a new group to raise billions of pounds for the fight against global warming.

Mr Brown will co-chair the United Nations High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing with Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi.

The group aims to raise $30bn (£19bn) over the next three years - rising to $100bn annually by 2020 – to help poor countries limit their contribution to global warming and adapt to its effects.

Cash raised from state and private sources will fund measures to halt deforestation, encourage low-carbon development and adapt to rising sea levels, extreme weather events and higher temperatures.

Despite the failure to reach a legally-binding compact at the Copenhagen talks in December, Mr Brown today said that he believed sufficient offers were on the table to meet some of the conference's key goals.

"66 countries have set out their plans or targets for climate change, covering 80% of global emissions," he said. "Already we can say that if promises are met, the accord will lead to a peaking of global emissions by or before 2020 and make it possible for us to hold the trajectory of global temperature increases to 2C."

Britain continues to support a legally-binding agreement at the UN conference in Cancun, Mexico, later this year, he said.

The weeks following Copenhagen have seen the science behind climate change come increasingly under attack, following the hacking of researchers' emails and the revelation that an inaccurate assertion about melting glaciers was included in the influential 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But Mr Brown brushed aside the sceptics' challenge during a UN webcast to launch the group today.

"Those people who have become global warming deniers and those people who have become climate change deniers are against the grain of all the evidence that has been assembled that global warming and climate change are indeed challenges that the world must meet and that can only be met together," he said. He has previously denounced what he described as "anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cautioned against thinking that the cold winter in the northern hemisphere – which is currently causing heavy snowfall in the New York area – disproves the global warming hypothesis.

"It may be true that you have seen some cold weather, as we have seen recently in New York, but the overall tradition of scientific evidence suggests that global warming is happening much faster than one may realise," said Mr Ban.

"That is what I have been told by the scientists and I believe that is true."

Mr Brown said that the group would take on "the task that I believe is the most important we face – combating climate change by ensuring that the poorest countries have the finance necessary to do so".

He added: "If we can resolve this problem then I believe many of the other challenges of climate change can also be solved. The task before us, while daunting, is a very important one to the future of the environment of the world."

Mr Brown said that funds for mitigation and adaptation to climate change must come on top of official development aid, and acknowledged that private sources must be found for some of the money – for instance by auctioning national emissions allowances.

"This can't all be done from taxpayer revenues so we must examine new sources of finance, both public and private," he said.

The PM pledged that Britain would contribute, saying: "Let me stress that the UK is committed to paying its share of the up to $30bn required by developing countries from 2010. We will stand by and make our commitment real to that part of the agreement at Copenhagen."

Asad Rehman, senior international climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "$10bn a year might sound like a wave of new money for poor countries to tackle climate change, but in reality it's a drop in the ocean compared to what is required. What's worse is that most of this money from rich countries will be plundered from existing aid budgets." Last month the UK government admitted that its £1.5bn contribution to the 2010-2012 funding would be taken from its existing overseas aid budget.

Read more!

Climate data 'not well organised': Prof Phil Jones

Roger Harrabin, BBC News 12 Feb 10;

Phil Jones, the professor behind the "Climategate" affair, has admitted some of his decades-old weather data was not well enough organised.

He said this contributed to his refusal to share raw data with critics - a decision he says he regretted.

But Professor Jones said he had not cheated the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process.

He said he stood by the view that recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made.

But he agreed that two periods in recent times had experienced similar warming. And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period.

These statements are likely to be welcomed by people sceptical of man-made climate change who have felt insulted to be labelled by government ministers as flat-earthers and deniers.

'Bunker mentality'

Professor Jones agreed that scientists on both sides of the debate could suffer sometimes from a "bunker mentality".

He said "sceptics" who doubted his climate record should compile their own dataset from material publicly available in the US.

"The major datasets mostly agree," he said. "If some of our critics spent less time criticising us and prepared a dataset of their own, that would be much more constructive."

His colleagues said that keeping a paper trail was not one of Professor Jones' strong points. Professor Jones told BBC News: "There is some truth in that.

"We do have a trail of where the (weather) stations have come from but it's probably not as good as it should be," he admitted.

"That's similar with the American datasets. There were technical reasons for this, with changing data from different countries. There's a continual updating of the dataset. Keeping track of everything is difficult. Some countries will do lots of checking on their data then issue improved data so it can be very difficult. We have improved but we have to improve more."

His account is the most revealing so far about his decision to block repeated requests from people demanding to see raw data behind records showing an unprecedented warming in the late 20th Century.

Professor Jones said climate scientists needed to do more to communicate the reasons behind their conclusion that humans were driving recent climate change.

They also needed to be more transparent with data - although he said this process had already begun.

He strongly defended references in his emails to using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures.

These phrases had been deliberately taken out of context and "spun" by sceptics keen to derail the Copenhagen climate conference, he said.

And he denied any attempt to influence climate data: "I have no agenda," he said.

"I'm a scientist trying to measure temperature. If I registered that the climate has been cooling I'd say so. But it hasn't until recently - and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend."

He said many people had been made sceptical about climate change by the snow in the northern hemisphere - but they didn't realise that the satellite record from the University of Alabama in Huntsville showed that January had been the warmest month since records began in 1979.

Read more!

British university orders climate science review

Peter Griffiths, Reuters 12 Feb 10;

LONDON (Reuters) - The British university embroiled in an email row ordered a review Thursday of its climate researchers' work after accusations they distorted or hid evidence to support the case for man-made global warming.

The University of East Anglia said external investigators will check papers published by its Climatic Research Unit, one of the world's leading sources of data on changing temperatures.

The center, which has contributed to U.N. climate reports, is already under investigation after hackers broke into its computer network and stole emails that critics cite as evidence that scientists manipulated, suppressed and hyped climate data.

More than 1,000 leaked emails were put on the internet last November, leading to a police investigation into who stole them and doubts about climate science's accuracy and reliability.

Britain's most senior climate scientists say the row has dented public confidence in the evidence that underpins man's role in raising global temperatures to dangerous levels.

"It is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself," Professor Trevor Davies, the university's pro-vice chancellor for research, said in a statement.

The Royal Society, Britain's national academy of science, said it will help find external reviewers to work on the case.

"It is important that people have the utmost confidence in the science of climate change," the society's president Martin Rees said in a statement.

Another team of scientists, funded by the university, will investigate the research centre's working practices, handling of data and its response to requests made under Britain's freedom of information laws.

Chairman Sir Muir Russell, a former government bureaucrat, said his team must decide which of "tens of thousands" of emails they will have to check in a review due to report in the Spring.

In one email, reprinted in newspapers, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

The U.N.'s last climate change report helped to underpin a global climate response which included pressure for deep carbon emissions cuts in the United States, China and elsewhere.

Climate skeptics are unconvinced by evidence suggesting a link between man-made carbon emissions and rising temperatures.

However, scientists say there is overwhelming scientific data from scores of sources which support their argument.

(Editing by Tim Castle)


University pledges independent review of climate research
Steve Connor, The Independent 11 Feb 10;

The man in charge of the scientific investigation into the stolen “climategate” emails has vigorously defended his inquiry against suggestions that it might not be seen as being truly independent by an increasingly sceptical public.

Sir Muir Russell, a former senior civil servant and university vice chancellor, said that his review into the scientific implications of the stolen emails has complete freedom of inquiry and will be fiercely independent despite the fact that its costs are being met by the university under investigation.

The review, conducted by a panel of six experts, including Sir Muir, will investigate the key allegations that have arisen from a series of emails hacked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The emails suggested that some climate scientists may have engaged in a concerted effort to withhold scientific data and subvert the peer-review process at the heart of scientific publication.

One member of the Muir review, Philip Campbell, is also editor-in-chief of the journal Nature, where many of the climate studies have been published, including those written by the suspended head of the research unit, Professor Phil Jones, who has also served as an anonymous peer-reviewer for the journal.

Sir Muir said at today’s launch of the review’s terms of reference that he will not shirk from in-depth probing of the content of the emails and this will not be influenced by the fact that the UEA will be meeting the inquiry’s costs. Dr Campbell’s involvement is not a conflict of interest, he insisted.

“We are completely independent and have a free hand to pick our team and we have a free hand to pursue any line of research. Our job is to investigate scientific rigour, honesty, openness and due process,” Sir Muir said.

“We will investigate whether there is evidence of poor scientific practice and data management which could call the Climatic Research Unit’s research into question. The review is about scientific rigour and honesty, freedom of information procedures and data handling,” he said.

Anyone can submit evidence to the review but only people with a scientific or professional interest are expected to do so, Sir Muir said. All submissions must be made before the end of February and the review is hoping to publish preliminary findings before the end of May, he added.

At the same time, the UEA has asked the Royal Society for help in setting up a separate investigation that will test the scientific conclusions of the Climatic Research Unit. A team of independent experts will trawl through the unit’s scientific conclusions to establish their validity.

“It is important that people have the utmost confidence in the science of climate change. Where legitimate doubts are raised about any piece of science they must be fully investigated, that is how science works,” said Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society.

Sir Muir said that it has taken some time for him to assemble his team but that he intends to work as quickly as possible to establish the truth. As much information as possible will be placed on the review’s website as soon as it becomes available, he said.

“We will be as open and transparent as we can be...[but] we don’t intend to be a noticeboard for a debate that goes far beyond what we are about...This is a deep and technical job,” Sir Muir said.

The review has already interviewed some of the scientists involved in the emails, including Professor Jones, and has made a preliminary assessment of the 1,000 emails and 3,000 other documents stolen from one of the UEA’s backup computers. Tens of thousands of other emails belonging to the Climatic Research Unit might also be caught up in the investigation, although there is no plan to read each one line by line, Sir Muir said.

Among the key allegations the review will investigate are suggestions that the scientists used improper bias in selecting and adjusting data to favour man-made global warming. The review will also analyse background behind emails suggesting that scientists colluded in warping the peer-review process and conspired to withhold data from freedom of information requests.

Other members of the review are: Professor Geoffrey Boulton, a glaciologist, Professor Peter Clarke, a particle physicist, David Eyton, an industrial technologist, and Professor Jim Norton, an expert in computing and corporate governance.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 12 Feb 10

Sharks’ Fin – The Red Flag
from EcoWalkthetalk and Project:FIN on Facebook

Oriental Pied Hornbills at Singapore’s Chinese Garden
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Read more!

Year of no concern for the tiger?

Letter from Natalie Cook, Today Online 12 Feb 10;

I am disheartened at how Singapore is celebrating the Year of the Tiger.

Instead of highlighting how threatened the tiger is as a species, there are actions and pictures showing a complete disregard for their well-being.

The Singapore Zoo is showing its training methods by placing the tiger in a small cage so that people can walk past and take pictures of them.

On the cover of a local magazine, a celebrity is draped in a tiger skin.

Why can't we celebrate this beautiful and threatened animal by ensuring that their welfare is our main concern?

How many tigers, if any, will be left in the next Year of the Tiger if we keep on treating them the way we do now?

Singapore Zoo lets visitors get closer to white tigers
Evelyn Choo, Channel NewsAsia 9 Feb 10;

SINGAPORE: Remember the white tigers that made the headlines when a man went into their enclosure and got mauled to death at the zoo?

One year on, the Singapore Zoo is asking visitors to get to know these very same tigers.

For the first time to mark the Year of the Tiger, visitors will get the opportunity to go behind the scene to see how the white tigers are trained using operant conditioning to provide mental and behavioural stimulation for the animals.

Meet Omar - a 10-year-old Bengal tiger who resides at the Singapore Zoo. He is taught to respond correctly to stimulants and gets rewarded with a meaty treat.

Francis Lim, curator at Singapore Zoo, said: "In the past, we had to sedate the animal - that means we have to knock the animal down, let them sleep so we can do a close examination. But with this operant conditioning, we don't have to do that. It's safe for the animal, it doesn't compromise the animal's health."

For the zookeepers, it is part of a bond that has been built over seven years.

Mohamed Nasir, zookeeper at Singapore Zoo, said: "There was one time when Omar was really ill. He was really, really down because of his kidney. He was really sick, and you can really feel the pain.

"He is like our family member. Omar is a bit bossy since he is the only male here. And like a typical male he has this ego in him. And he always has to be the first one."

For S$28, visitors can witness this intimate session, but they have to stay behind the line and keep their voices down.

For the less adventurous, visitors can take a peek at what the rest of the animal kingdom are up to this Lunar New Year season. - CNA/de

Read more!

Burning smell likely due to bush fires in parts of Singapore: NEA

Channel NewsAsia 11 Feb 10;

SINGAPORE : The National Environment Agency (NEA) has said that smoke from bush fires in parts of Singapore may be responsible for the burning smell detected in some areas.

In an email response to MediaCorp, it said drier conditions over the past few days have caused some bush fires.

However, as the bush fires were not large, the smoke did not affect the PSI readings adversely over the past few days. The air quality has remained in the 'Good' range since the start of the month.

NEA also said that hotspot activities have been generally subdued in Sumatra and Borneo over the past few days.

The prevailing winds have been generally blowing from the north or northeast. So any smoke from Sumatra or Borneo would not be blown towards Singapore.

With the prevailing northeasterly winds likely to persist, NEA said Singapore will not be affected by transboundary haze pollution over the next few days.

It said Singapore is typically affected by the dry phase of the northeast monsoon between February and late March. During this period, Singapore may experience lower rainfall and fewer days of rain. - CNA/ms

Read more!

Small reactors ideal for Singapore

Go for nuclear option?
Straits Times Forum 12 Feb 10;

FURTHER to the report, 'Singapore 'should consider nuclear energy'' (Feb2), it may be useful to consider the option of building small nuclear power reactors in Singapore.

Such reactors, of which there are many designs to choose from, are compact, safer, and far simpler to operate and maintain than large reactors.

Many of the smaller ones are modular, which means one could set one up first and introduce add-ons to meet subsequent increases in power needs.

For example, a United States-Japan commercial collaboration has designed a passive safe reactor module that is factory- built, transferable to an underground site, and is claimed to be able to operate continuously for 30 years without refuelling, and is then replaceable with a fresh one.

So the dreaded reactor waste problem is much diminished, and space and security problems can be resolved by adopting one of the previously suggested concepts of an underground installation.

The demand for small power reactors came about because of the search for a reliable, simple and low-carbon-footprint energy source that can cater to the needs of remote and isolated communities, and that can replace such messy sources as diesel generators.

However, because of the intensity of energy a nuclear reactor can provide, it is also suitable for co-generation, desalination, hydrogen production and other uses, apart from producing electricity.

While large reactors should not be discounted, the potential of small generators may firm up the nuclear option more favourably for Singapore.

Tso Chih Ping (Prof)

Invest in solar and wind power
Straits Times 12 Feb 10;

MS ELSPETH Thomson's commentary on Monday, 'Nuclear power: Time for a feasibility study', discusses various energy options open to Singapore and suggests that, with new designs and many improvements, nuclear power plants are no longer as dangerous as in the past.

I believe this form of power is not suited to Singapore due to problems of siting in a land-scarce Republic, potential dangers associated with nuclear accidents, difficulties with waste disposal and possible terrorist threats.

True, Singapore needs to lessen its present dependence on gas to manufacture electricity. But its location and climate provide adequate opportunity to invest in solar and wind power at every level - from individual homes and apartment blocks to the national level with as many buildings as possible fitted with solar power panels.

As the technology develops further, costs will continue to fall and make this source of energy more feasible. After all, once the panels are in place, solar energy is a free and eternal source of power.

In addition, wind farms can be sited in numerous coastal locations - even on some offshore islands. Countries such as China and the United States are developing and using this mode of energy generation with success. In Denmark, 25 per cent of power reserves are provided by wind farms.

Nations must promote the green revolution. The old, polluting forms of fossil fuel (wood, coal, oil and gas) must be replaced with renewable energy - solar, wind, tidal, hydro and geothermal power.

In Singapore, let us move forward with solar and wind power.

Peter C.N. Hardstone

Read more!

Tigers roam around regent’s office in Bengkulu

The Jakarta Post 12 Feb 10;

Residents of a housing complex near the Kaur regency administration office in Bengkulu woke up on Friday to the remains of three goats that had been mauled by at least two Sumatran tigers overnight, Antara has reported.

Deputy Regent Suarni Muhidin said a local resident, Syamsuri, reported the loss of three of his 33 goats and found traces of tiger footprints around his yard. The regency administration office guards said they heard the goats bleating just before midnight, as the tigers attacked them.

Several times residents of Maje district, located 25 kilometers away from the administration office complex, have reported that their cattle had fallen prey to tigers.

“Tiger used to spread fear in Maje, but now it is sparking anxiety in an area closer to the administration office,” Suarni said.

He called on residents to avoid hunting deer, or the tigers would continue to come looking for cattle.

Head of the Bengkulu Natural Resources Conservation Agency Supartono said forest rangers would evict the protected carnivores from residential areas and keep them inside the conservation area.

Read more!

WWF launches campaign in Indonesia to save Sumatran tiger

Antara 11 Feb 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia is to launch a public campaign in support of efforts to conserve the Sumatran tiger, a spokesperson said.

The campaign as part of WWF`s "Year of the Tiger" program would be held in Jakarta February 12-13 and involve many elements of society, including environmental activists, governmental agencies handling environmental matters and the business community, Desnarita Murni, a WWF Indonesia coordinator, said here Thursday.

The purpose of the campaign was to persuade the general public to develop concern for the fate of the Sumatran tiger which was the only surviving tiger species in Indonesia, she said.

"The number of Sumatran tigers living in the wild in Indonesia has now declined to about 400, So we must all do our best to preserve them, if we don`t want the species to die out," Murni said.

The Sumatran tiger had become endangered because of the high frequency of tiger-hunting activity.

"Trade in tiger body parts is continuing. More and more tiger habitats are being destroyed by human activities. So, if we don`t take joint actions, their extinction will only be a matter of time," she said.

WWF had also invited the government, the business world and other parties to take part in the campaign, "Preservation of our bio-diversity requires the cooperation of all. WWF cannot work without the support of other parties," Murni said.(*)

Read more!