Fabulous reef and seagrasses of Tanah Merah
wonderful creation
Seagrassy surprise at Tanah Merah
Peiyan.Photography
Seagrasses taking over sandy artificial shores!
wild shores of singapore
Birdwatching in Bukit Brown (June 14,2015)
Rojak Librarian
The Economic and Development Board is looking at the possibility of installing solar systems in many places, including HDB housing blocks, schools, military camps and police facilities.
Eileen Poh, Channel NewsAsia 19 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE: The first solar leasing tender under the SolarNova programme was called earlier this month, to drive the use of solar energy in Singapore.
The programme is the largest in terms of capacity in Singapore so far and consolidates demand across three government agencies - the Ministry of Home Affairs, PUB and the Housing and Development Board (HDB).
Said Mr Goh Chee Kiong, executive director of Cleantech at the Economic and Development Board (EDB): "We envisage that solar systems will be installed at many places, such as HDB housing blocks, military camps, water treatment facilities, schools and the Ministry of Home Affairs' facilities, such as police facilities.
“Also, we are very keen to build capabilities in the solar industry. Extending from the solar industry, there should also be innovation opportunities around smart grids and energy management."
EDB said more than 10 agencies have expressed interest in tapping solar power and it is currently working with them to determine their needs.
The adoption cost of solar power has been coming down, but so have electricity charges. To begin with, Singapore's electricity prices are relatively low, but tariffs have fallen in the past six months, due to lower global oil prices.
At least one solar company here said it are not likely to bid for the latest HDB tender, as they may not be able to offer lower rates compared to conventional power. Still, EDB said it believes solar power will be cost-competitive in Singapore.
"We are gratified in a way that solar power prices continue to go down in a trajectory that is fairly promising - in part because of global trends, as well as the economies of scale in Singapore,” said Mr Goh. “Solar power prices have become more competitive compared to years before, so even with the slide in conventional power prices, we believe that over time, solar power will continue to keep pace and be cost competitive in Singapore."
Singapore-based solar developer Sunseap Leasing, which plans to bid for the latest Government tender, says a leasing model could keep costs low for building owners. It cuts down the upfront costs - such as installation fees - and allows companies to pay on a per use basis. The service provider will also operate and maintain the systems.
"There are certain asset maintenance and monitoring costs that we are able to do better and more economically compared to say a typical building owner,” said Sunseap Leasing’s director Lawrence Wu. ”It makes sense for us to be managing off a thousand or two thousand rooftops of solar power, as opposed to having a landlord own it, and manage its own solar power, which is only one rooftop."
“To put things in context, for example, we can have two engineers tracking about 1,000 systems, but for a building owner with only one system, he may still require one engineer to track," Mr Wu added.
The company has also won several Government tenders on solar power.
One expert said that as the solar energy industry in Singapore develops further, the corresponding labour expertise needs to be in place too.
Said Dr Thomas Reindl, deputy CEO at Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore: "We need to train more manpower, not just in the engineering side, but also the solar side, because these solar (systems), they don't fly up on the rooftop, so you need qualified professional installers."
The research institute said it is working with the Singapore Workforce Development Agency and the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore to come up with internationally-accredited training on courses for installers and system designers.
- CNA/ek
Antara 18 Jun 15;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government does not need to import food commodities to face the impacts of El Nino on Indonesia, Vice President M. Jusuf Kalla said.
"Effects of the El Nino phenomenon are expected to be moderate. If we prepare well, we will not have to import food," Kalla stated while officiating the Environmental and Forestry Week at the Jakarta Convention Center here on Thursday.
According to the forecast of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Indonesia will be hit by El Nino from July to November.
This natural phenomenon usually triggers drought that could affect the harvest of crops.
If El Nino persists till the planting season in October, the country could be forced to import food commodities, Kalla explained.
Indonesia had been severely affected by El Nino in 1998. The government had been forced to import as much as five million tons of food commodities, the vice president recalled.
However, he is optimistic that the impacts of El Nino will moderate this year.
Moreover, the Ministry of Agriculture has planned to set up a special team to tackle the effects of El Nino, particularly by providing water pumps in drought-hit regions.
Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman affirmed that the ministry will distribute 20 thousand water pumps in drought-affected regions.
Across Indonesia, 96 districts covering a total area of 198 thousand hectares have been identified as prone to drought.
The ministry has sent a team to Indramayu, West Java, to distribute water pumps to local communities facing a shortage of clean water.
Furthermore, the meteorological agency has predicted weak El Nino, which could reduce precipitation to 40 to 80 percent, particularly in the provinces of Sumatra, East Java, Bali, West and East Nusa Tenggara, and Papua.
In 1997-1998, Indonesia had experienced a prolonged drought induced by the strongest ever recorded El Nino, which had triggered widespread fires.
The greatest loss caused by forest and land fires in Indonesia occurred in 1997, when fires wiped out millions of hectares of forest and plantation areas and inflicted US$2.45 billion in losses.
(Uu.F001/INE/KR-BSR/H-YH)
Pontiff’s 180-page intervention in climate change debate casts blame for ‘ecological crisis’ on the indifference of the powerful
Stephanie Kirchgaessner The Guardian 18 Jun 15;
Pope Francis has called on the world’s rich nations to begin paying their “grave social debt” to the poor and take concrete steps on climate change, saying failure to do so presents an undeniable risk to a “common home” that is beginning to resemble a “pile of filth”.
The pope’s 180-page encyclical on the environment, released on Thursday, is at its core a moral call for action on phasing out the use of fossil fuels.
But it is also a document infused with an activist anger and concern for the poor, casting blame on the indifference of the powerful in the face of certain evidence that humanity is at risk following 200 years of misuse of resources.
Up to now, he says, the world has accepted a “cheerful recklessness” in its approach to the issue, lacking the will to change habits for the good of the Earth.
“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods,” the papal statement says. “It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
The release of the statement was timed with the pope’s upcoming trip to the US, where he will speak before the United Nations and a joint session of the Congress.
“This is his signature teaching,” said Austen Ivereigh, who has written a biography of the pope. “Francis has made it not just safe to be Catholic and green; he’s made it obligatory.”
Ivereign added: “It captures his deep disquiet about the direction of the modern world, the way technology and the myth of progress are leading us to commodify human beings and exploit nature. This comes right out of his soul.”
The encyclical, which can now be considered the church’s official position on the environment, includes practical guidance. Pope Francis rejects “simple solutions” to climate change such as cap and trade systems, which he says give rise to harmful speculation. He also dismisses any suggestion that population increases harm to the environment and should therefore be controlled, and resists making any judgment on genetically modified foods.
The essay was released following months of intense speculation about how far the pontiff would delve into a scientific realm that, depsite the overwhelming agreement of scientists, is still considered controversial in some countries such as the US, where views on climate change are divided along political lines.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the pope’s top official on social and justice issues, flatly rejected arguments by some conservative politicians in the US that the pope ought to stay out of science.
“Saying that a pope shouldn’t deal with science sounds strange since science is a public domain. It is a subject matter that anyone can get in to,” Turkson said at a press conference on Thursday.
In an apparent reference to comments by Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush, who said he did not take economic advice from the pope, Turkson said that politicians had the right to disregard Francis’s statement, but said it was wrong to do so based on the fact that the pope was not a scientist.
“For some time now it has been the attempt of the whole world to kind of try to de-emphasise the artificial split between religion and public life … as if religion plays no role,” he said. Then, quoting an earlier pope, he said the best position was to “encourage dialogue between faith and reason”.
“Reason does have blind spots, but at the same time, reason can also challenge religion to become practical,” he said.
Francis, who was elected in 2013 and has put social justice and reform of the church at the heart of his papacy, said on Thursday that his text should not be read as a green manifesto, but instead as a social teaching.
“The foreign debt of poor countries has become a way of controlling them, yet this is not the case where ecological debt is concerned,” Francis wrote. “In different ways, developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future.
“The developed countries ought to help pay this debt by significantly limiting their consumption of non-renewable energy and by assisting poorer countries to support policies and programmes of sustainable development.” The question now is whether the pope’s sweeping statement will shake-up climate talks.
Turkson said on Thursday that the pope considered it imperative that “practical proposals not be developed in an ideological, superficial or reductionist way”.
“For this, dialogue is essential,” he said.
The release of the statement was timed with the pope’s upcoming trip to the US, where he will speak before the UN and seek to nudge climate change negotiators ahead of their December meeting in Paris. He will also speak before a joint session of the US Congress.
While much of the encyclical is a spiritual reflection on the biblical story of creation and humanity’s God-given role in caring for the Earth, both the statement and the presentation preceding it were infused with science, representing a rare locking of arms between the church and scientific community.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a top climate scientist and scientific adviser to the Vatican, said the impact of global warming would be “abrupt, surprising, and irreversible”, and that it would shut down parts of the earth much in the same way that the body dies of a fever.
“The vital organ’s of the world’s body will collapse,” he said in opening remarks before a press conference.
The encyclical – a statement of papal teaching – describes an “ecological crisis” and includes a section devoted to the latest scientific findings. It argues that climate change is not just a “global problem with serious implications”, but has an impact felt disproportionately by the world’s poorest people.
Francis writes: “Those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms”. The failure to respond, he says, points to the loss of a “sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded”.
The question now is whether the encyclical will shake-up the climate debate, as Francis clearly hopes it will.
“I really think it is a game-changer,” says Ivereigh, the papal biographer. “In asking Catholics to reshape the market by changing their consumer habits, it could release a whole new form of people power.”
But a recent survey of Catholics in the US shows the pope faces a tought task. According to Pew Research, while eight in 10 Catholic Democrats say that there is solid evidence that global warming is real, only about half of Catholic Republicans agree. Far fewer – just one quarter of Catholic Republicans – believe that global warming is caused by humans.
The Argentinian pontiff heaps praise on efforts made by scientists to find solutions to man-made problems, and lashes out at those who intervene in the service of “finance and consumerism”.
“It is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, even more limited and grey,” he says.
The pope did not speak at the press conference on Thursday, but earlier in the week he said he hoped his message would be received with an “open spirit”.
The pope has previously expressed disappointment over the lack of an effective global plan to tackle climate change. But he faces an uphill battle to convert those who doubt human influence.
Even among Catholics in the US, views on global warming are sharply divided along political lines. A recent survey by Pew Research showed that Catholic Republicans view the nearly universally accepted scientific facts with deep scepticism.
Overall, the survey found that 71% of US Catholics believe the earth is warming, and about half (47%) believe humans are the cause and that it is a serious problem.
But while eight in 10 Catholic Democrats say that there is solid evidence that global warming is real, only about half of Catholic Republicans agree. Far fewer – just one quarter of Catholic Republicans – believe that global warming is caused by humans.
The UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said the church’s newly unveiled teaching on the environment underscored the “moral imperative for urgent action”.
“This clarion call should guide the world towards a strong and durable universal climate agreement in Paris at the end of this year,” she said in a statement. “Coupled with the economic imperative, the moral imperative leaves no doubt that we must act on climate change now.”
Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president, agreed: “Today’s release … should serve as a stark reminder to all of us on the intrinsic link between climate change and poverty.”
He said the impact of climate change was most devastating for the “unacceptably high number of people living in extreme poverty”. Extreme weather events had taken the lives of more than 2.5 million people and resulted in $4tn in damages, he said.
“We must now seize this narrow window of opportunity and embark on ambitious actions and policies to help protect people and the environment,” he added.
Francis has been sending his encyclical to church officials around the world over the last few days, Federico Lombardi, the Holy See’s head of communications, said.
The pontiff included a personal handwritten note in his communication, ending with a plea for help: “United in the lord, and please do not forget to pray for me.”
Pope attacks emissions trading as a possible 'ploy'
Nina Chestney and Valerie Volcovici Reuters Yahoo News 19 Jun 15;
(Reuters) - Pope Francis attacked one of the major policy initiatives in the fight to combat climate change, warning in his encyclical published on Thursday that the trading carbon credits could merely reward speculators instead of controlling global greenhouse gas emissions.
The pope, the first from the developing world, cautioned that carbon trading systems could be a smokescreen to allow large carbon emitters in wealthy countries to keep doing so, suggesting it might be "a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors."
The sharp critique of the market-based approach to curbing emissions comes as support for carbon trading is growing, embraced by institutions like the World Bank and United Nations, as well as the heads of many multinational companies and countries like China..
Emissions trading schemes, such as one in place in the European Union and those being piloted in provinces across China, allow polluters to buy and sell permits to release the carbon dioxide that is blamed for global warming.
Under these systems, companies or countries are given permits to release carbon dioxide up to a certain amount. To exceed that cap, they can buy permits on an open market from others who, by virtue of emitting less, have excess licenses to sell.
The European Commission declined to respond to the pope's comments but the International Emissions Trading Association, a lobby group for the carbon trading industry, issued a statement that described Francis's views on carbon trading as "out of step with most economists and analysts."
Carbon markets "contain safeguards against the excessive speculation warned about in the encyclical," the group said. "It misses the more important point that market mechanisms can help keep the costs down for producers and consumers alike."
The EU operates the biggest emissions trading scheme in the world, while 40 nations and over 20 cities, states and regions around the world now set a price on CO2 emissions.
Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a consultant to the Vatican, said the pope's comments should not be seen as an outright rejection of emissions trading.
"The pope is more or less asking scientists to check if this is an instrument which will provide a solution," he told Reuters.
Edenhofer speculated that the pope included the issue in response to longstanding concerns about carbon trading schemes from Latin America. The pope, an Argentine, is the first pontiff from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere.
A bloc of Latin American countries including Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have been hostile to the role of carbon markets in an international climate change agreement, claiming it may let rich countries escape emissions reductions targets while failing to deliver climate justice to the poor.
The U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), for example, allows projects such as re-forestation in developing nations to earn carbon credits for the richer governments and companies that pay for them.
Edenhofer said the Vatican may have addressed carbon trading because "many people in Latin America are quite suspicious about this market-based instrument," especially indigenous people.
"There are incidences of CDM projects in Latin America being designed and implemented in a way that failed to take into account the concerns of local communities which were strongly against the project affecting their ancestral territories," said Guy Edwards, director of the climate and development lab at Brown University.
Others placed the pope's comments in the context of his wider concern for the fate of poorer countries and his insistence on fairness in any international climate agreement. The encyclical makes specific mention of Bolivian bishops who have demanded industrialized countries assume a greater burden in fighting climate change.
"Some people interpret this as a condemnation of carbon markets, but I think pope is saying that this is not a game of catch up for developing countries," said Mindy Lubber, president of investor group Ceres.
"What he seems to be appropriately questioning is whether we need to design solutions that work, not only from a technical perspective, but whether we need to be talking about what's fair and what's just."
But the pope also appeared to warn that a reliance on market-based solutions such as carbon trading would not be enough to see off the threat posed by global warming.
"This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment," he wrote, referring to carbon trading, "but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require."
(Reporting by Nina Chestney in London and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Additional reporting by Susanna Twidale in London, Barbara Lewis in Brussels and Marcelo Teixeira in Sao Paulo; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Alan Crosby)
The Coral Garden of East Coast
Peiyan.Photography
Rare plants at reefy East Coast Park
wild shores of singapore
Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo eating caterpillar
Bird Ecology Study Group
Lester Hio AsiaOne 18 Jun 15;
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong suggested this as a use for the Rail Corridor yesterday in a Facebook post after a cycling trip in Kushiro, Japan.
After riding along a disused railroad track while on leave in Hokkaido, he concluded: "One possibility for our Rail Corridor."
The 24km former KTM railway line here, which stretches between Woodlands and Tanjong Pagar, closed in 2011 and the leafy route has since been used by walkers, runners and cyclists.
Some local cyclists yesterday welcomed the idea of a dedicated track.
"A paved track has a practical purpose - it'll be a shortcut for those in the north or west who might want to cycle into the city," said Calvin Chin, 41, president of the Mountain Bike Association Singapore.
"My request is that a part of it is left unpaved, so those who want to ride on raw, natural terrain can continue to do so."
Woon Taiwoon, co-founder of cycling group LoveCyclingSg, hopes that the land will retain its historical significance.
"I hope it won't become just another part of the PCN (park connector network)," said the 40-year-old designer. "There is a cultural history that should be preserved. Don't clean it up too much, let it keep its character. Let it be open to everyone and have paths for the elderly and children."
Other cyclists agreed that the corridor should not be limited solely to biking use as it is a unique landmark in Singapore.
Retiree Joyce Leong, 59, founder of cycling club Joyriders, asked: "What about runners? They would also like to have a place to run. A shared trail will be great for recreational cyclists, with clear dividing lines for pedestrians and cyclists."
Using the land for cycling and other recreational purposes is one of the main development goals of the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
In March, the agency launched a request for proposals to develop the land into a continuous green stretch.
One of its planning and design goals is that it should be "for pedestrians and cyclists to use and enjoy".
The corridor should also "provide opportunities for walking, jogging and cycling as a form of recreation and for commuting".
Five teams made up of local and international architects were shortlisted last month to design a masterplan for the corridor.
These will be on display in a public exhibition in October and November.
Cycling through the Rail Corridor
Strait Times 27 Jun 15;
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong's suggestion to use the Rail Corridor as a cycling track shows how far Singapore has travelled from the days when national progress was measured stringently by the utilitarian use of scarce land.
Of course, even in the early years of independence, land was set aside by design for green breathing spaces that would prevent an urban jungle from swallowing the rural topography of a tropical island-state.
However, there were episodic skirmishes between conservationists who were ecologically ahead of their times and economic realists who were worried that Singapore would fall behind.
In that competition, Singapore veered towards using economically promising space largely for developmental use. Economic growth trumped esoteric pleasures in the competition for resources when national survival was at stake.
It had to be so. Development might not have come about otherwise.
What has changed now is not the imperative of thinking economically but of examining how far social goods such as leisure could be factored into national calculations.
The Rail Corridor, a 24km former KTM railway line stretching between Woodlands and Tanjong Pagar, has been used since the end of train operations as a leafy route by walkers, runners and cyclists.
Parts of the corridor occupy prime land, which would result in the replenishment of state coffers if opened up for bids by commercial developers.
It is not as if Singapore disdains the extra money. Instead, what is important is the desirability of exploring an alternative option: that of turning the corridor into a cycling track which can provide an arena for relaxation, exercise, family-bonding and attachment to the environment.
It is interesting that Mr Lee was moved to suggest this option after a cycling trip on a disused railroad track in Japan. That country rose from an era of war and consequent poverty when the importance of land was invested in its financial value.
It became an economically viable country that could afford to create social space anew for the environmental expectations and tastes of its citizens. Importing the Japanese ability to view the environment in new ways would help Singapore chart its own way forward.
The recreational use of land, manifest in the idea of a cycling corridor, is a sign that a maturing economy can accommodate the second-order aspirations of citizens, those that arise after the basic demands for food, clothing and shelter have been met.
In that spirit, the cycling track could be treated as a part of Singapore's cultural heritage. Using it would be a reminder to Singaporeans, particularly the young, that Singapore as a home transcends economic imperatives, although these will continue to lie at the heart of its choices.
It is not just Team Singapore athletes getting kudos for their record medal haul at the Singapore SEA Games, but supporters as well, for their civic-minded behaviour of cleaning up after themselves at events.
Nur Afifah Ariffin, Channel NewsAsia 17 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE: Organisers of the 28th SEA Games launched an official video at the start of the Games, with a message to keep sporting venues clean, and it seems most supporters took heed.
Images of Myanmar fans picking up after themselves were widely shared on social media. And Team Singapore fans were armed with special plastic bags that could be used as pom poms during matches.
"Of course it's red and white in colour, so they used it as a good display of support," said ExcluSinga member Norman Abdul Samat. "And after that, they'll just use that (as a container for) rubbish and litter they'll dispose of it after the game."
The ExcluSinga group was just one of many involved in the clean-up initiative. They worked closely with The Singapore Glove Project, which has been reaching out to the public, especially during the SEA Games.
"We tied up with SINGSOC, the SEA Games organising committee, and we brainstormed on various ideas on how we can get Singaporeans and participants to clean up after themselves," said The Singapore Glove Project's Tan Ken Jin.
A little prodding helped. They stationed volunteers at the Games to cheer for Singapore. "And after the match, we basically encourage people to pick up after themselves," he said. The volunteers fanned out at various venues, such as the Jalan Besar Stadium, OCBC Aquatic Centre and National Stadium.
He said the response was "great". "It's not just me, or one or two other people, but you've got ages from the really young to the really old, and across the walks of life."
Indeed, following the exuberance of a massive after-party for the closing ceremony, dozens of volunteers stayed back, making sure every scrap of litter was picked up, and properly disposed of.
- CNA
Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh AsiaOne 18 Jun 15;
From shaky stools to faulty radios, broken items can be fixed for free next Tuesday when you take them to the Rochor Canal stretch near Madrasah Aljunied.
But you will need to get your hands dirty, too.
FiTree, a youth group that promotes sustainable living, and students from Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah willcoach people on how to fixthings as part of a Repair For Ramadan project.
This project is among events lined up for the Malay/Muslim community's Service to the Nation Week (SNW) from June 21 to 27.
"The act of repairing your own item gives you a sense of ownership, a sense that although you're doing a small thing, it adds up to... to sustaining the earth," said FiTree member Faizah Haji Shaik Abdullah Sahib, 28.
About 20 madrasah students will spend four days with trainers from the Sustainable Living Lab to learn how to repair items ranging from fabrics to furniture so they can help at the event.
Free repair services are not the only thing on the cards in the coming week. SNW will see community organisations such as Mendaki and 4PM, and informal youth groups like the Creative Muslim Youth Kakis (CMYK) giving back to the nation.
The services include sprucing up homes of needy families and distributing Ramadan porridge to people of all races and religions.
The SG50 Kita Committee, which is coordinating the Malay/Muslim community's contributions for Singapore's golden jubilee year, announced the events last Friday.
Said Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim: "It's for us to play a role in the national effort to alleviate some
of the pressures and challenges faced by low-income families."
There are plans to make SNW an annual affair, he said.
"The most important thing is to establish a tradition of our community giving back to the nation. I think this is a good start," said Dr Yaacob, who is Communications and Information Minister.
Youths helped fuel the SNW, he said, noting how organisations mobilised members and offered ideas for projects.
Ms Faizah, an environmental engineer, said of Repair For Ramadan: "Youths can lead this charge. We need to inculcate the culture of 'repair' in the young instead of having a culture where we buy things and throw them away without a second thought."
The SG50 Kita Committee also said the Malay/Muslim community's National Day Observance ceremony will be held at ITE College Central on Aug 8.
Currently, used water treatment plants in Singapore generate 20 to 25 per cent of their energy from biogas obtained from sludge alone, and the addition of food waste is expected to raise energy production to 50 per cent.
Loke Kok Fai Channel NewsAsia 17 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE: A newly-announced facility in Ulu Pandan will soon turn both food waste and used water sludge from water reclamation plants into electricity.
Announced on Wednesday (Jun 17) by Singapore’s national water agency PUB and renewable energy company Anaergia at the Singapore International Water Week, the demonstration facility will mix and process up to 40 tonnes of food waste from Clementi district and used water sludge from the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant daily into biogas for electricity generation.
It is estimated that the addition of food waste will raise energy production to 50 per cent of the plant's needs. Currently, used water treatment plants in Singapore generate 20 to 25 per cent of their energy from biogas obtained from sludge alone.
"This could potentially allow the used water treatment plant to achieve energy self-sufficiency," said PUB's Chief Technology Officer Harry Seah.
The National Environment Agency will conduct a district-level pilot for the collection of source-segregated food waste from the premises of educational institutions, hospitals and camps among others, for the 2,000 square metre demonstration plant, which will be completed in September 2015.
If found to be viable over the course of about a year, the technology would be implemented in future plants, such as the future TUAS Water Treatment Plant in 2024, with a goal of having up to 70 per cent of that plant's energy supplied by this process.
- CNA/av
Singapore to use food waste to boost energy creation
SIAU MING EN Today Online 18 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE — When it comes to transforming waste to electricity, the sum of the parts is indeed greater than their whole. By adding food waste to the process of turning used water sludge into electricity, twice as much power can be produced compared with the conventional method that digests only used water sludge.
Such technology will be tested at a new facility launched by national water agency PUB and clean-energy firm Anaergia today (June 17) at the Singapore International Water Week Technology and Innovation Summit. The co-digestion plant will be Singapore’s first, though the technology is already in use in America and Europe.
Currently, electricity generated by converting only used water sludge can meet about 20 to 25 per cent of a water-reclamation plant’s needs. With the technology offered by the co-digestion plant, the electricity produced may meet about 50 per cent of the plant’s needs.
Used water sludge is a by-product from treating used water. This is anaerobically digested in PUB water-reclamation plants — the process of breaking down organic materials without oxygen. The resulting biogas is used as fuel to produce electricity.
At the new co-digestion plant, wet organic fraction from food waste will be mixed into used water sludge. The thickened mixture will then be anaerobically digested. The mix can produce more biogas because of the higher calorific value in food waste, said a PUB spokesperson.
As the technology is in its testing phase, the plant will be able to treat only up to 40 tonnes per day of combined used water sludge from the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant and food waste collected from an upcoming food-waste recycling pilot in Clementi. It can produce about 6,000kW of electricity each day, said Anaergia’s chairman and chief executive officer Andrew Benedek at the launch.
In March, Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Grace Fu announced plans for a district-level pilot, where segregated food waste would be collected from premises such as shopping malls, schools, hospitals and office buildings for anaerobic co-digestion. Clementi was chosen for its close proximity to the water-reclamation plant.
Food waste accounts for about 10 per cent of total waste generated in Singapore, but less than 15 per cent of it is recycled. Last year, 788,600 tonnes of food waste were generated, of which only 13 per cent was recycled. The rest was incinerated — a process that also generates electricity — and then disposed of in landfills.
Speaking to reporters, PUB chief technology officer Harry Seah said instead of incinerating food waste, more energy could be produced when food waste is first processed in a co-digestor. “We think that if we are to segregate food waste properly, segregate it first and produce biogas, then send for incineration, (we will get) more energy,” he said, adding that the co-digesting process produces 30 per cent more energy than directly incinerating food waste.
Currently under construction at the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant, the co-digestion plant will be ready in September. Mr Seah added: “The result of this demonstration plant will validate the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of co-digestion implementation in Singapore, potentially reducing its carbon footprint and maximising energy production.”
If successful, the technology could be used at the coming Tuas Water Reclamation Plant and the National Environment Agency’s Integrated Waste Management Facility.
“The success of this project will provide opportunities for a water-reclamation plant like ours to generate enough energy for process use and bring us closer to achieving energy self-sufficiency for used-water treatment in Singapore,” Mr Seah added.
Food waste from Clementi to be collected for electricity project
Victor Loh AsiaOne 17 Jun 15;
The Public Utilities Board (PUB) announced today in a joint statement with Anaergia Pte Ltd the commencement of Singapore's first project to convert the organic compost into biogas using the Anaerobic bacteria, which can then be used to generate electricity.
Used water sludge from the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) will be mixed with food waste collected from the Clementi district and treated in a co-digestion demonstration facility.
This new combined treatment of used water sludge and food waste has the potential to produce more biogas due to the higher calorific value in food waste, PUB said.
The co-digestion plant can treat up to 40 tons of the water sludge and food waste concoction without requiring oxygen to produce biogas using a patented process by Anorexia.
Food waste from premises in Clementi, such as educational institutions, hospitals, and camps, will be collected by the National Environment Agency (NEA) for co-digestion at the demonstration plant. The demonstration plant is currently under construction and will be completed by September 2015.
"[The demonstration plant] will provide the opportunity for the water reclamation plants to generate more electricity for process usage," Harry Seah, Chief Technology Officer, PUB, said.
"This could potentially allow the used water treatment plant to achieve energy self-sufficiency, which is using only as much energy as the treatment process itself generates."
If successful, the process could potentially be implemented at the future Tuas Water Reclamation Plant and NEA's Integrated Waste Management Facility.
The memorandum of understanding between Anaergia and PUB signed during the Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) in 2014, to explore potential research and technological collaboration, particularly in the domain of waste-to-energy.
Along with this investment, Anaergia will establish and operate its Asia Pacific Headquarters in Singapore, to serve as its base for engineering services and project management in supporting their operations in the Asia Pacific.
This project was supported with a co-funding grant from the Technology Pioneer (TechPioneer) Scheme, administered by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on behalf of the Environment and Water Industry Programme Office (EWI).
This scheme encourages water companies to tap on Singapore to testbed cutting edge technology and commercialise it in an actual operating environment. A total of 150 projects involving the testbedding of water solutions have been facilitated at PUB's installations, and more than 20 test-bedding projects are currently on-going at PUB's facilities.
New plant mixes food waste, used water to produce energy
Audrey Tan Straits Times AsiaOne 19 Jun 15;
Singapore is exploring a new way to turn unused calories into energy, and may one day be able to convert the thousands of tonnes of food dumped here each day into valuable energy sources.
When organic material in food waste and sludge from used water react with bacteria, this produces biogas for electricity generation. And a new 2,000 sq m demonstration plant at the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant will be the first in Singapore to make use of this reaction when it begins operations in September.
The co-digestion facility was launched by national water agency PUB and technology company Anaergia yesterday, the second day of the Singapore International Water Week Technology and Innovation Summit.
The PUB demonstration plant can treat up to 40 tonnes of combined food waste and used water sludge. A drop in the ocean compared with the amount of such waste produced here, but the facility will be a test-bed to see if similar processes can be rolled out elsewhere.
The country's four water reclamation plants, including the one in Ulu Pandan, are already producing biogas from sludge, which supplies up to one quarter of each plant's electricity needs. By combining used water sludge with food waste, the amount of biogas produced can be doubled due to the higher calorific value in food waste, PUB said.
Said Anaergia chairman and chief executive Andrew Benedek: "The idea is to take waste from a waste water plant and turn that into energy, and extend it further by adding food waste, and doing so efficiently, so you can turn a waste water plant into a sustainable plant, energy-wise."
The plant will run for a year and a half before the authorities decide if the technology can be used at the future Tuas Water Reclamation Plant and the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Integrated Waste Management Facility, which are located together, when the facility is ready in 2024.
PUB's chief technology officer, Mr Harry Seah, noted that if the effort was successful, Anaergia's patented technology could supply at least 50 per cent of the future plant's electricity demand.
The hope is that the plant could eventually achieve energy self-sufficiency, using only as much energy as the treatment process itself generates.
The technology harnesses anaerobic digestion, a biological process that breaks down organic materials without oxygen, to produce biogas.
Food accounts for one-tenth of all waste produced here. About 788,600 tonnes of food was thrown away last year, slightly less than the 796,000 tonnes in 2013, but still much more than the 606,100 tonnes in 2009. Only 13 per cent of last year's food waste was recycled.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan noted at the summit opening on Tuesday that as Singapore lacks a significant agricultural sector and as a lot of energy is wasted in food incineration, the best way forward was to recover the energy from food and use it to recycle used water.
"This project is significant, because it... potentially increases the yield of water from our recycling plants."
Daniel Waldroop Jakarta Globe 17 Jun 15;
Forest cleared by one of Asia Pulp and Paper’s suppliers in Riau in this Feb. 28, 2012, file photo released by Greenpeace. (EPA Photo/Kemal Jufri)
Jakarta. Two weeks ago, paper and pulp giant Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings, or APRIL, made an announcement that sent shockwaves through Indonesia’s environmental circles: It pledged to immediately stop all deforestation and to enact a policy of protecting one hectare of land for every hectare it develops.
Just 10 years ago, this kind of agreement would have been unimaginable, but the industry has changed rapidly under pressure from a combination of environmental watchdog groups, initiatives by the central government, and the public’s growing concern about deforestation.
Tony Wenas, the president director of Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP), APRIL’s main subsidiary, tells the Jakarta Globe that the decision annlounced on June 3 has been in the works for a long time.
“Back in 2002 we introduced the wood legality system. In 2005 we applied the high conservation values assessment over our plantation. In 2014, we launched the sustainable forest management policy, where we committed to 1:1 conservation to development. And now we’ve fast-forwarded,” he says.
“It’s a journey,” Tony adds. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”
APRIL has joined a number of large paper companies in making these pledges. One of its largest competitors, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), announced a similar pledge almost three years ago. Today almost 80 percent of Indonesia’s pulp and paper manufacturers have agreed to end deforestation.
The change has been a long time coming. In 2003, Greenpeace launched an aggressive and public campaign against paper producers, focusing on APP. But rather than go after them directly, Greenpeace focused on their customers, major companies like Mattel Toys. For the price of doing business with APP, Mattel found its headquarters draped with a large banner featuring the iconic Barbie doll being dumped by Ken because he doesn’t “date girls who are into deforestation.”
Greenpeace kept the campaign going for a whole decade, targeting more than 100 APP clients to shame them into ending their contracts. In 2013, APP announced that it would no longer contribute to deforestation.
RAPP’s Tony readily admits the role that NGOs like Greenpeace have played.
“The input from the civil society, we listen to that. And we like to be accommodating as well,” he says.
But there are other forces at play that led to APRIL’s commitment. “If produced sustainably,” Tony says, “our product will be better received worldwide. There will be more trust.”
In fact, Tony believes the changes could boost profits.
“Because we invest in the environment and people, at the end of the day, we’ll be balanced, or with even more value,” he says.
And that’s enough for APRIL’s shareholders, whom Tony says are supportive of the company’s environmental commitment.
‘If they fail, we hit them’
The government too, has played its part. In his 2014 presidential election campaign, Joko Widodo called for greater oversight of the forestry industry, telling reporters that “if we have good, tough law enforcement, then it can be resolved.”
Last month, President Joko extended his predecessor’s moratorium on forest-clearing, although he declined to strengthen the regulation to include the roughly 48.5 million hectares currently without protection.
But APRIL’s commitment hasn’t satisfied everyone.
Nirarta Koni, director of the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Indonesia, applauds APRIL’s pledge, but says there’s more work to be done.
“A pledge is just a pledge if there’s no other parties who watch that and make sure they’re doing their job,” he says.
Teguh Surya of Greenpeace Indonesia agrees that the fight against deforestation has shifted from shaming paper companies to supporting them.
“They put on the table a strong commitment. Why don’t we give them the space to change and monitor together and ensure together? If they fail, we hit them. That’s the new paradigm of the campaign now,” he tells the Globe.
Tony defends APRIL’s commitment and says that he welcomes the scrutiny.
“We didn’t want to commit what we couldn’t commit. We are walking the talk. We’re asking their help. Please help us monitor. Please come with us to the fields to see how people are harvesting things,” he says.
The one map
Even with close collaboration between the private sector and watchdog groups, challenges for Indonesia’s environment remain.
Since the rapid decentralization post-1998, land ownership in paper-producing areas like Kalimantan has been fraught with conflict. The local and central governments, business interests and locals all vie for control of land.
And for local farmers and indigenous peoples outgunned by large corporations, the results can be disastrous. Several thousand disputes between locals and businesses over land ownership fester for lack of a way to mitigate them. Without even a standardized map to track ownership, resolutions are rare.
Koni of the WRI has proposed a solution. His institute has launched the “One Map Initiative,” which aims to create a single record for all stakeholders to use.
“We will use the map as a way to communicate among stakeholders. If everyone has their own map, there will be conflict,” he says.
And right now, that’s the unfortunate reality.
“The forestry ministry has their own map,” Tony says. “The mining ministry has their own map. The agrarian office has their own map. And the local government has their own map.”
“One hundred percent people in this country, across backgrounds, across institutions, agree with the one map,” says Greenpeace’s Surya. “The question is, what is the one map?”
It’s not an easy question to answer. Though Joko promised to deliver to deliver a single map for all of Indonesia, it hasn’t materialized yet.
Amicable solutions
But even with a standardized map, Koni thinks further reform will be needed. He envisions a setting in which all stakeholders in land use disputes can work collaboratively.
“We need good communication and a forum where everyone could come and could be scrutinized by others,” he says, and where the results “would be positive for everyone.”
Koni believes the idea of conditional amnesty is crucial; disputes will be resolved if the admission of past transgressions doesn’t lead to lawsuits.
“If a company had a complaint from locals that they had grabbed their land and [planted] oil palms there, the solution could be that the company admits that they were wrong because the data at that time was wrong. The locals would say that they wouldn’t make a claim in court, but get to keep the palm oil,” he said.
His inspiration for such a forum comes from an unlikely place: post-apartheid South Africa.
“After apartheid came down in South Africa, they had a new system whereby the people can be pardoned if they give back the land,” he says.
Tony agrees with the sentiment.
“The best solution is amicable, not based on court decisions,” he says. “We’ve never brought any disputes to the court. The local communities have, but not on our side. It’s all been based on discussion and negotiation.”
But Surya maintains that such agreements shouldn’t leave out the justice system.
“Even if the company has already committed to shift their business to be green, it doesn’t give the privilege to be free from the law,” he says.
Whatever the future holds, Koni thinks Indonesia needs to act quickly.
“A year of two ago we didn’t have this kind of pledge. We didn’t have this kind of commitment from the private sector. If we don’t use this opportunity, we’ll lose it,” he says.
It’s a sentiment reflected by Surya. For him, the fight for a greener Indonesia continues.
“We have to keep moving. We only have Indonesia. They have money and international people. They only have their business here. But for me and for my generation, whatever Indonesia’s situation, I’ll stay here,” he says.
Robinson Meyer The Atlantic Yahoo News 18 Jun 15;
Many—if not most—of the Earth’s aquifers are in trouble.
That’s the finding of a group of NASA scientists, who published their study of global groundwater this week in the journal Water Resources Research. Water levels in 21 of the world’s 37 largest known aquifers, they report, are trending negative.
The study is the first major accounting of groundwater change over time on the planetary scale. It was accomplished, not with wells or surveys, but with satellites.
Groundwater reserves are one of the environmental phenomena that’s hardest to conceptualize. Droughts are systemic and complex, sure, but a curious person can always go stand in a reservoir and see where the water is supposed to be. Dry lawns and fallow fields present another view on to what a drought is. But aquifers remain hidden, hard to measure, hard even to imagine: What does it mean that, beneath much of the United States, there are invisible seas full of drinkable freshwater? How can we think usefully about both their vastness and their finitude?
Already, 2 billion people worldwide rely on groundwater for daily use. That will have slosh over effects: A 2012 study reported that water from aquifers, moved to the surface by human activity like farming and mining, would constitute 25 percent of sea level rise before 2050, and possibly even more after that. Relocated groundwater, by that paper’s estimate, would be the third-most significant cause of sea level rise this century, after the melting ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland.
In the study released on Tuesday, researchers found that eight aquifers—particularly those in arid climates—were dangerously overstressed. Eleven major aquifers were “negatively recharging,” meaning people were pumping water out of them much faster than they were putting it in. “The water table is dropping all over the world,” Jay Famiglietti, a water researcher at NASA and one of the authors of the study, told The Washington Post. “There’s not an infinite supply of water.”
This study notably only allowed scientists to measure how aquifers were changing, not how big they are. But its methods seem to offer significant improvements on previous techniques.
Earlier groundwater research occurred by a sort of census. Government or independent researchers collect data about how people are accessing an aquifier—how deep they’re drilling, how much water they’re pumping, and how quickly they’re extracting it. They then combine this figure with other calculations about the size and depth of the aquifier to arrive at an estimate of its health.
The satellites in the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment—nicknamed GRACE—works by a different method: It observes the mass of water beneath the ground. The two satellites in GRACE chase each other across orbit, measuring their distance from each other. When they pass over something with more gravity—like a continent—the front satellite accelerates away from its partner. By measuring these accelerations, scientists can measure and estimate the planet’s gravity and heaviest regions. They can then estimate the presence of large, massy agglomerations—such as the underwater seas that are aquifers—that can’t otherwise be observed.
The two GRACE satellites launched in 2002, and their own methods have improved over time. Last year, NASA researchers found they could better measure groundwater by comparing GRACE’s findings to irrigation records, rather than by estimating the amount of water in the soil from climate records.
GRACE’s findings sometimes differed wildly from those on the ground. The study’s authors say that the aquifer beneath California’s Central Valley is in better shape than statistics would indicate. The aquifer beneath Democratic Republic of Congo, meanwhile, appears to be in considerably worse shape, losing water at least three times as quickly as statistics would estimate, the study says.
The sum of all these findings is that we’ll soon have to start treating and monitoring global groundwater with the same precision we track aboveground reservoirs. And last week, California took its first serious steps in that regard, issuing major regulations limiting how farmers could use water from the Central Valley aquifer. The mandate remains to treat groundwater—hard as it is to imagine—as the finite resource that it is.
Read The Earth's Evaporating Aquifers on theatlantic.com: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/the-earths-evaporating-aquifers/396152/
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