Category Archives: Planet/Environment

Generate Electricity for creating Well Being

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Yes, CO2 may be bad but that is if you have first reached the level of usage in Australia, Kuwait or Norway. However, if you are a poor person in developing countries like India, China and Brazil, you still need a electricity to create well being even if it emits CO2 and consumption of 2,500 kw seems to be the magic number.

I think the focus to reduce CO2 to control the climate (and this is being questioned now by the solar cycle theory) we should not forget the current human beings who need electricity to survive and live a good life.

From HBR:

The greater a country’s electricity consumption, the greater the well-being of its people. Electricity doesn’t cause well- being, of course. But it is a powerful enabler. When people have lights that allow them to study and work after dark, refrigeration to keep foods and medicine fresh, pumps and purifiers to irrigate farmland and produce safe drinking water, and cell phones and computers to connect them with commercial, educational, and health care resources, they can more fully participate in the social and economic activities that drive human development.
A little electricity goes a long way. Note that when annual consumption rises from 0 to just a few thousand kilowatt hours per capita, countries move near the top of the HDI scale. Argentina, with per capita consumption of about 2,500 kWh, has an HDI score approaching that of Canada, whose consumption is seven times higher.

Water in Australia

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From the blog of the Australian Tea Party:

This is the most rational argument I have ever heard about Water in Australia. I always believed that it was silly to talk about water restrictions in a country like Australia which has only 21 million people. I think the Australian Tea Party needs to improve its website but I think the ideals they talk about are something which I connect to.

So yes Australia does have meager water supplies compared to the other continents, but these figures lack relevance unless we consider two other vital factors. Australia is the smallest continent on earth and much more importantly we have a miniscule population in comparison to other continents and countries.

If we look at a comparison of precipitation per head of population, which is much more relevant, we get a dramatically different picture.

Water per person from annual precipitation from various countries:
Australia: 122 megalitres
Brazil: 121 megalitres
United States 29 megalitres
China: 11 megalitres
Japan: 5.9 megalitres.
United Kingdom: 2.6 megalitres.

Leaving aside ground water for now, Australia has another source of water.
Because most of our cities and towns were originally built on river estuaries, for obvious reasons and because no thought was given to the collection of runoff from roofing and pavement, most of our storm water runs into the sea unrecorded in run-off figures. While the quantum of this is not known, estimates of around 40 million megalitres annually are considered reasonable. Most of this run-off occurs on the eastern seaboard.

So, how much water do we need?
For each Australia household to have all the water we need to live what we consider to be the Australian lifestyle. That is, have a garden with lawn on which we wash the car when we feel like it, have a pool for the kids and generally not have to be concerned about water use or shortage.

We need 110,000, litres per person per year.
This figure includes all domestic use, Council and industrial use, but does not include Agriculture and Mining. Therefore for every 9 people in Australia we need 1 megalitre of water per year.

Let us assume that with some rational planning we did the following:
1. Collected and recycled just 5% of urban runoff = 2M megalitres
2. New dams to collect just 5% of river runoff = 14 M megalitres.
Total 16 million megalitres; that is sufficient for 144 million extra people.

Worldisgreen Links 02/03/2010

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  • Carbon copy | Giles Parkinson | News | Business Spectator

    tags: wiglinks

    • The climate change policies of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have more in common than you might think.

      For a start, both studiously ignore the need for the Australian economy to make any sort of transition, despite the clear global trend. If you are in any doubt about that, check out the Obama budget, overnight.

      Rudd’s policy achieved this omission through a staggering amount of compensation to industry and because his policy was all about creating division in the Coalition. It wasn’t until Turnbull had been condemned to execution that it suddenly dawned on the government that it had skewered an ally. Or maybe it wasn’t in search of one.

      Abbott’s policy avoids transformation by ignoring the subject altogether – plant more trees, bury a bit of charcoal, take care on how you cut the grass and keep the plough in the shed.

  • Abbott’s great big axe | Alan Kohler | News | Business Spectator

    tags: wiglinks

    • He said: “One of the large power companies has provided us with their advice. Because it’s commercial-in-confidence, they didn’t want it released – but they provided us with their advice that they could convert from coal to gas for $13 per tonne under this system.

      “Now we want to check that, but … the oldest and least efficient of the power providers has said to us that under the government’s ETS we’re just not going to be able to afford the capital to transition because we will be struggling just to survive… Under this they’ve said that if our balance sheets are clear and there’s an incentive to change from coal to gas, this is very attractive and we are more likely rather than less likely to change under this system.”

      Australia’s oldest and least efficient power station is Hazelwood in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, owned by International Power of the UK and the Commonwealth Bank (8.2 per cent). In fact, in 2005 it was nominated the least efficient power station in the world.

      Yallourn, owned by China Light & Power subsidiary, Truenergy, is next. If Hazelwood and Yallourn convert from brown coal to gas, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 5 per cent, as required. Job done.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Worldisgreen Links 02/02/2010

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Himalayan melting by 2035? Scientists just assumed so

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The research is amazing! In fact, a Indian scientist had a report before Copenhagen that the Himalayas would not melt for atleast 2350. The IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri did not agree with the report citing that the IPCC peer reviewed research shows 2035 as a more likely outcome. And this is the kind of research he was talking about.

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was that the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days, the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, an obscure Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and not supported by any formal research.

If confirmed, it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

via Himalayan melting by 2035? Scientists just assumed so – US – World – The Times of India.

Who will own Electric Avenue?

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But the really interesting development in Australia looks to be a ‘real estate grab’ for the infrastructure required to recharge the huge Lithium ion batteries that power EVs.

BetterPlace will install charging units in homes, office carparks, outside train stations, in shopping centre car parks and curb-side on city streets, but plans to retain ownership of the units.

Its Australian infrastructure competitor, ChargePoint Australia, by contrast, plans to sell units to customers who will then onsell the electricity to EV drivers at whatever price they deem appropriate.

The limiting factor for both firms is real estate.

via Who will own Electric Avenue? – Rob Burgess – News – Business Spectator.

A look at the future from BetterPlace.

Economists Ponder Human Adaptation to Climate Change

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As scientists struggle to predict exactly how global climate change will affect our environment, economists are grappling with another question: How well can humans adapt?

Judging from the history of wheat production in North America, the answer is very well, says Paul Rhode of the University of Michigan. In a paper done together with Alan Olmstead of the University of California-Davis, which he presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Mr. Rhode looks at how wheat production fared between the mid-1800s and the late 1900s, as production moved into parts of North America with harsher climates. The conclusion: Production adapted successfully as farmers introduced new strains that grew well in the new climates.

“We’ve been there and done that in terms of adjusting wheat production to new climates,” he said.

via Economists Ponder Human Adaptation to Climate Change – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

This is one example of wheat production in North America but what is relevant is that adaptation is possible and may be more important to concentrate than anything else for the next century.