[Biofuel] User-friendly device to fight water pollution
http://my.news.yahoo.com/user-friendly-device-fight-water-pollution-151514619.html User-friendly device to fight water pollution WASTE cooking oil is a serious hazard to the environment, causing pollution to waterways and clogging municipal drainage systems. Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia researcher Prof Madya Dr Anika Zafiah Mohd Rus said the waste cooking oil can be converted to monomer using the Eco-Smart Monomer Converter (Eco-SMOC) to produce renewable polymer products hence reducing environmental pollution. She said the user-friendly device can be used to convert waste cooking oil into bio-monomers beginning with the preparation of a catalyst. Eco-SMOC is an apparatus to convert waste cooking oil to monomers for bio-polymer preparation, consisting of rotational blade, temperature controller, smart condenser and a portable system, she said. Production of bio-monomer by Eco-SMOC is used as an alternative source of polymer besides the petroleum-based polymer industries. The use of monomer from waste vegetable oil and waste animal fat oil will reduce the use of petroleum as a feedstock in terms of polymer applications. It will reduce environmental pollution and problems, thus preventing an overload of waste cooking oil, pollution of waterways and clogging of drain systems that can cause water pollution. The monomer can be used in a variety of applications, such as films, membranes, foams and membranes for tissue engineering as skin wound covers. It helps to reduce environmental pollution and problems, prevent overload of waste cooking oil, prevents pollution of waterways and clogging of the drainage system that can lead to water pollution, Dr Anika said. She said the Eco-SMOC has a good potential to blend different types of oil for the conversion process to bio-monomer for versatile bio-polymer applications. The bio-monomer production can prevent environmental problems and as a new product based on cheaper feedstock that is waste cooking oil. The bio-monomer can be applied for the fabrication of thin films, mulch films, foams, membrane, heat insulation and surface coating. It can also be used as replacement of petroleum-based synthetic polymer coating (water proofing and thermo isolation paints, said Dr Anika. For more information on the product, the researcher can be reached at 07-453 7823 or email to zaf...@uthm.edu.my -- Darryl McMahon Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny. - Aristotle ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Federal government gave energy firms $400M to go green
http://www.leaderpost.com/technology/Federal+government+gave+energy+firms+400M+green/9316877/story.html Federal government gave energy firms $400M to go green By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News December 23, 2013 Canadian taxpayers have given more than $400 million to some large oil, gas and pipeline companies in recent years to support green projects that are also boosting the industry's environmental credentials. An analysis of federal accounting records by Postmedia News shows that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has offered these subsidies to moneymaking companies such as Shell Canada, Suncor, Husky Energy and Enbridge to pursue projects in biofuels production and wind energy as well as new technology to capture carbon pollution and bury it underground. About $1.4 million in federal government climatechange spending has also benefited state-owned oil companies in Mexico (PEMEX) and China (the China National Petroleum Corporation) for projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Environment Canada said the international funding, part of the government's global climate-change commitment, didn't directly fund companies, but went through industry partners with technical expertise to help Mexico, Colombia and China reduce heat-trapping gases released into the atmosphere. Suncor was one of the top recipients of federal funding from Natural Resources Canada with nearly $134 million in subsidies since 2007 for biofuels production ($117 million) and wind energy ($16.6 million) projects. The subsidies made these projects more attractive for all developers of new, emerging technology, including Suncor, Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal wrote in an email to Postmedia News. In some of its recent marketing campaigns, Suncor has featured images of its wind energy projects, promoting its environmental credentials, without making reference to the subsidies it receives from taxpayers. Natural Resources Canada's biofuels and renewable power programs, which are being wound down by the Harper government, were meant to offer billions of dollars in incentives to producers starting in 2007. They have generated a popular response from a variety of energy companies of different sizes and stimulated industrial growth. For example, Natural Resources Canada estimates that local biofuels production grew to over 1.88 billion litres of ethanol and 575 million litres of biodiesel in 2012, up from about 200 million litres of ethanol and no commercial biodiesel plants in 2005. But department spokeswoman Jacinthe Perras said the biofuels program has been redesigned and will only spend $1 billion out of an original budget of $1.5 billion. While it continues to provide subsidies until 2017, she said the government announced in February that it would no longer accept new applicants. The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based think-tank that researches sustainable development issues, said the biofuels subsidies might have helped encourage local production, but that they weren't as effective at reducing pollution as other programs such as incentives for renovations to lower energy consumption in homes and office buildings. Strictly from a greenhouse gas reduction perspective, there are better uses for this money, Pembina renewable energy policy analyst Ben Thibault said. Subsidies by the numbers Suncor: $134 million in support of biofuels production and wind energy projects. Shell Canada: $120 million in support of Quest project to capture carbon pollution and bury it underground. Husky Energy: $124 million in support of biofuels production and ethanol plant. Enbridge: $23 million in support of wind energy projects. International: $1.4 million in funding from Environment Canada to reduce pollution from oil and gas companies, including operations by state-owned oil companies in China and Mexico, as part of international climate-change commitments. -- Darryl McMahon Failure is not an option; it comes standard. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Scrap Ontario’s Biodiesel Proposal, OTA Urges | News | Today's Trucking
http://www.todaystrucking.com/scrap-ontarios-biodiesel-proposal-ota-urges [currently, the 'Tories' (Progressive Conservative Party) are not the government, but the major opposition party in Ontario] Scrap Ontario’s Biodiesel Proposal, OTA Urges Posted: Dec 22, 2013 11:33 AM | Last Updated: Dec 23, 2013 09:05 AM TORONTO— The Ontario Tories are pushing forward with their proposed biodiesel mandate and the Ontario Trucking Association is once again pushing back. The government wants to paint Ontario’s trucks and buses a brighter shade of green with a biodiesel initiative that calls for a renewable fuel mandate of 2 percent (B2) to come into effect between April 1, 2014 and December 2015. From 2015 onward, the mandate would increase to 4 percent (B4) biodiesel content. But the OTA has cost concerns and questions the environmental benefit of biodiesel regulation in light of GHG regulations the trucking sector already has. “The trucking industry has already undergone stringent EPA-mandated engine emission regulations and faces further GHG-reduction and fuel efficiency standards between 2014 and 2018 for heavy-duty diesel vehicles,” the association wrote to the Ontario Ministry of Environment. If MTO intends to explore an alternative fuels program within the trucking sector, OTA says they should look at the development of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) networks in the province. And what’s more, the proposed regulation is inflexible to trucking because it exposes Ontario’s trucking industry to high contents of biodiesel in the winter months and subjecting the fuel to gelling and causing operational issues. Not to mention, there is currently no fuel quality assurance when it comes to biodiesel. The OTA claims the proposed regulation will cost Ontario carriers and give little or nothing at all in environmental gain. Based solely on the results of the federal government’s own cost benefit analysis performed in 2011, a biodiesel mandate would cost the public $2.4 billion over 25 years, OTA points out. -- Darryl McMahon Failure is not an option; it comes standard. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Can the Cost of Solar in the U.S. Compete with Germany?
Can the Cost of Solar in the U.S. Compete with Germany? RMI’s new report with Georgia Tech details U.S. installation cost reduction opportunities by Coben Calhoun and Jesse Morris http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2013_12_05_can_usa_solar_cost_compete_with_germany [lots of links and graphs in the online article] Download the full report, Reducing Solar PV Soft Costs: A Focus on Installation Labor. A recent Deutsche Bank report projects global newly installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity will reach 50 GW annually in 2014, a roughly 50-percent increase over anticipated new installed capacity during 2013. Germany’s been the longtime undisputed champion of solar deployment, with 35.2 GW of installed capacity as of November 1, though the installation pace lead has shifted in 2013 to Japan. But the U.S. is accelerating—and is expected to install 4.4 GW of solar this year, about the same absolute amount as the Japanese and more than the Germans. This growth is impressive, but if the U.S. is to transition to the low-carbon, resilient, and sustainable electricity system of the future outlined in RMI’s Reinventing Fire, we need to install four times more solar capacity annually than we’re currently doing, for the next forty-odd years, with most of the installs coming in the distributed market (residential and commercial rooftops). If we’re going to do that, we need to make distributed solar cheaper, and do so quickly. PV soft costs now dominate the equation Between 2008 and 2012, the price of sub-10-kilowatt (mainly residential) rooftop systems decreased 37 percent. However, over 80 percent of that cost decline is attributed to decreasing solar PV module costs. With module and other hardware prices expected to level off in the coming years (and in the near term, actually increase), further market growth will be highly dependent on additional reductions in the remaining “Balance of System” costs, otherwise known as “soft costs.” Soft costs account for 50–70 percent of the total cost of a rooftop solar system in the U.S. today. These soft costs include installation labor; permitting, inspection, and interconnection; customer acquisition; and other costs (margin, financing costs, and additional fixed administrative and other transactional cost). Setting aside those “other” costs, soft costs for U.S. residential systems are around $1.22 per watt of PV, while German soft costs average $0.33 per watt. That’s one heck of a spread. How does Germany do it, and how can U.S. installers approach or even surpass those numbers? SIMPLE BoS project searches for answers RMI and other groups such as the U.S. DOE, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Clean Power Finance, and the Vote Solar Initiative have done great work on the issue over the past several years through benchmarking and other analysis on these various soft costs. However, such data remains relatively sparse in comparison to hardware market analysis. The U.S. solar industry has known that German installers are able to install rooftop solar systems at less than half our cost. But we haven’t been able to discern, at the detailed level of specific worker actions, why. Until now. RMI, in partnership with Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), launched a PV installation labor data collection and analysis effort under the SIMPLE BoS project, which culminated today in the release of Reducing Solar PV Soft Costs: A Focus on Installation Labor. Drawing upon first-hand observations, this report is the first publicly available detailed breakdown of the primary drivers of installation labor cost between German and U.S. residential installs. The SIMPLE BoS team implemented a time-and-motion methodology for evaluating the PV installation process, collecting data on PV installations in both countries. Ample opportunities to reduce installation costs The results indicated that U.S. installers participating in the SIMPLE BoS project incur median installation costs of $0.49/W, compared to a benchmarked median cost of $0.18/W for participating German installers. The figure below shows the comparative costs of each component of the PV installation process in the U.S. and Germany, respectively, looking at four categories of installation-related costs: racking mounting, pre-install, electrical, and non-production. In addition to providing cost details on the PV installation process, our report outlines several enabling factors from German and leading U.S. installers that can be disseminated throughout the U.S. market. These opportunities range widely in complexity and impact, from redesigning the base installation process and preparing rails on the ground, to implementing a one-day installation process and PV-ready electrical circuits. We’ve shown below the potential impact in $/W of these solutions and how difficult it would likely be to implement them widely the U.S. In addition to highlighting specific opportunities for cost
[Biofuel] Conservative Donors Pump $1 Billion A Year Into Climate Denying Groups, Study Finds
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/# Conservative Donors Pump $1 Billion A Year Into Climate Denying Groups, Study Finds BY KILEY KROH ON DECEMBER 22, 2013 Organizations that actively block efforts to address climate change are funded by a large network of conservative donors to the tune of nearly $1 billion a year, according to the first in-depth study into the dark money that fuels the denial effort. The study http://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing%20Delay%20-%20Climatic%20Change.ashx, published Friday in the journal Climatic Change, analyzed the income of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups, and industry associations, funded by 140 different foundations, that work to oppose action on climate change. The study's author, Robert Brulle, refers to these organizations as the climate change counter-movement, and concludes that their outsized influence has not only played a major role in confounding public understanding of climate science, but also successfully delayed meaningful government policy actions to address the issue. It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this, Brulle told the Guardian. This is a large-scale political effort. From 2003 to 2010, the organizations had a total income of more than $7 billion, averaging out to over $900 million per year. Over the eight year span, their funding has increased by 13 percent and in 2010, total funding for the organizations was nearly $1.2 billion. An important caveat, as Brulle notes, is that many of the organizations are multi-purpose, so not all of the income was devoted to anti-climate change initiatives. Brulle defines the climate change counter-movement as the organized effort to prevent policies that will limit the carbon pollution emissions that drive man-made climate change. Their efforts cover a range of activities, from lobbying to political contributions to media campaigns that attempt to discredit the scientific consensus around global warming. The 91 groups include trade associations, think tanks, and advocacy organizations. The vast majority of the groups - 78 percent - were registered as charitable organizations and enjoyed considerable tax breaks. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, two of the best-known conservative think tanks in the U.S., were also among the top recipients of funding. AEI received 16 percent of the total grants that were made to organizations active in the climate change counter-movement and Heritage was close behind, receiving 14 percent of total grants. The largest and most consistent funders of organizations leading the charge on climate change denial are a number of well-known conservative foundations, such as the Searle Freedom Trust, the John William Pope Foundation, the Howard Charitable Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. A key shift Brulle uncovered is that traditionally high-profile funders of climate denial, such as the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil, have moved away from publicly funding organizations that oppose action on climate change. The single-largest funders are the combined foundations Donors Trust/Donors Capital Fund, providing more than $78 million in funding to the groups over the eight year span. These donor directed foundations make grants on behalf of an individual or corporation, thereby funding their preferred causes while keeping their identity a secret. As a result, writes Brulle, these two philanthropic organizations form a black box that conceals the identity of contributors to various CCCM organizations. The Donor Trust/Capital giving increased dramatically over the period of time Brulle examined, from just 3.3 percent in 2003 to 23.7 percent in 2010. At the same time, the funding from Koch Affiliated Foundations and ExxonMobil Foundation declined significantly, with Exxon effectively ending public funding of climate change counter-movement groups in 2007. Just as it's impossible to know whether Koch Foundations and ExxonMobil are channeling their climate-denying funds through third party groups such as Donors Trust, most funding for denial efforts is untraceable. Despite extensive data compilation and analyses, only a fraction of the hundreds of millions in contributions to climate change denying organizations can be specifically accounted for from public records. According to Brulle, approximately 75 percent of the income of these organizations comes from unidentifiable sources. Despite the significant amount of dark money being funneled into efforts that seek to obstruct action on climate change or misinform the public, Brulle concludes that sufficient evidence exists that a number of major conservative foundations have clearly played a crucial role in the development and maintenance of the [climate change counter-movement]. The result is not just an obfuscation of fact and
[Biofuel] NSA Program Stopped No Terror Attacks, Says White House Panel Member
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37174.htm NSA Program Stopped No Terror Attacks, Says White House Panel Member By Michael Isikoff December 20, 2013 Information Clearing House - NBC News - A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was absolutely surprised when he discovered the agency's lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks. It was, 'Huh, hello? What are we doing here?' said Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, in an interview with NBC News. The results were very thin. While Stone said the mass collection of telephone call records was a logical program from the NSA's perspective, one question the White House panel was seeking to answer was whether it had actually stopped any [terror attacks] that might have been really big. We found none, said Stone. Under the NSA program, first revealed by ex-contractor Edward Snowden, the agency collects in bulk the records of the time and duration of phone calls made by persons inside the United States. Stone was one of five members of the White House review panel - and the only one without any intelligence community experience - that this week produced a sweeping report recommending that the NSA's collection of phone call records be terminated to protect Americans' privacy rights. The panel made that recommendation after concluding that the program was not essential in preventing attacks. That was stunning. That was the ballgame, said one congressional intelligence official, who asked not to be publicly identified. It flies in the face of everything that they have tossed at us. Despite the panel's conclusions, Stone strongly rejected the idea they justified Snowden's actions in leaking the NSA documents about the phone collection. Suppose someone decides we need gun control and they go out and kill 15 kids and then a state enacts gun control? Stone said, using an analogy he acknowledged was somewhat inflammatory. What Snowden did, Stone said, was put the country at risk. My emphatic view, he said, is that a person who has access to classified information -- the revelation of which could damage national security -- should never take it upon himself to reveal that information. Stone added, however, that he would not necessarily reject granting an amnesty to Snowden in exchange for the return of all his documents, as was recently suggested by a top NSA official. It's a hostage situation, said Stone. Deciding whether to negotiate with him to get all his documents back was a pragmatic judgment. I see no principled reason not to do that. The conclusions of the panel's reports were at direct odds with public statements by President Barack Obama and U.S. intelligence officials. Lives have been saved, Obama told reporters last June, referring to the bulk collection program and another program that intercepts communications overseas. We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information. But in one little-noticed footnote in its report, the White House panel said the telephone records collection program - known as Section 215, based on the provision of the U.S. Patriot Act that provided the legal basis for it - had made only a modest contribution to the nation's security. The report said that there has been no instance in which NSA could say with confidence that the outcome [of a terror investigation] would have been any different without the program. The panel's findings echoed that of U.S. Judge Richard Leon, who in a ruling this week found the bulk collection program to be unconstitutional. Leon said that government officials were unable to cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk collection metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the Government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature. Stone declined to comment on the accuracy of public statements by U.S. intelligence officials about the telephone collection program, but said that when they referred to successes they seemed to be mixing the results of domestic metadata collection with the intelligence derived from the separate, and less controversial, NSA program, known as 702, to intercept communications overseas. The comparison between 702 overseas interceptions and 215 bulk metadata collection was night and day, said Stone. With 702, the record is very impressive. It's no doubt the nation is safer and spared potential attacks because of 702. There was nothing like that for 215. We asked the question and they [the NSA] gave us the data. They were very straight about it. He also said one reason the telephone records program is not effective is because, contrary to the claims of critics, it actually does not collect a record of every American's phone call. Although the NSA does collect metadata
[Biofuel] ANALYSIS-Canadian aboriginals dig in as pipeline decision nears | Reuters
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/12/23/enbridge-northerngateway-idINL2N0JZ1P820131223 [Note: 'the favorable recommendation by the Joint Review Panel of energy and environment regulators' included over 200 specific conditions, including a real spill response plan - something that will be revolutionary for the Canadian oil industry. Also, no substantive environmental assessment was done, as the panel specifically excluded upstream and downstream impacts.] ANALYSIS-Canadian aboriginals dig in as pipeline decision nears By Scott Haggett and Julie Gordon CALGARY/VANCOUVER Mon Dec 23, 2013 6:30pm IST Dec 23 (Reuters) - Canada's push to build its first major conduit for shipping oil to Asia took a step forward last week, but the government's fractious relations with the country's aboriginal First Nations still loom as a formidable obstacle to the project. Native groups in British Columbia are promising legal action and civil unrest after regulators on Thursday gave their blessing to Enbridge Inc's C$7.9 billion ($7.4 billion) Northern Gateway pipeline. That could scupper the project outright, or at least delay construction of the 1,177-kilometer (730-mile) line for years. This is not the end, said Ann Marie Sam, a councillor with the Nak'azdli First Nation, a member of the Yinka Dene Alliance, referring to the regulatory panel's recommendation. The message that we want to send out from the Yinka Dene is that ... the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is banned from our territories. Northern Gateway would take 525,000 barrels per day from Alberta's oil sands, the world's third-largest crude reserve, to a deepwater port near Kitimat on British Columbia's northern Pacific coast. From there, tankers would take the oil to China and other Asian markets that are willing to pay a premium for it. While that is just a fraction of the 2.5 million barrels that flow each day to Canada's largest customer, the United States, Ottawa sees diversification as crucial for the industry's long-term health, and ultimately to the country's overall prosperity. The favorable recommendation by the Joint Review Panel of energy and environment regulators puts the onus on Canada's Conservative government to decide if it will approve the project and allow construction to begin. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has promised to consult with First Nations groups over the next 180 days, a legal requirement, but the decision is expected to be an easy one for his government. It has enthusiastically backed the development of additional export pipelines to accommodate rising oil sands production and boost depressed Canadian oil prices. Finding an alternative to the U.S. market is crucial. But the government's desire to see Canadian oil shipped to Asia clashes with the wishes of many of British Columbia's aboriginal communities, who fear a spill will damage the province's salmon fishery and mar its wild landscapes. While Enbridge has promised it will mitigate the risk of a major spill by building the world's safest oil pipeline, many aboriginals feel the company still has not adequately described how it would clean up in the event of a spill. You can mitigate all you want; it's actually remediation that concerns us, said Ellis Ross, chief councillor of the Haisla Nation, at the pipeline's terminus. You cannot remediate an oil spill if it happens in a salt water environment - we've already seen what happened up in Prince William Sound. Prince William Sound in Alaska was where the Exxon Valdez tanker hit an undersea reef in 1989, spilling about 260,000 barrels of oil into the sea. The Haisla and other aboriginal communities across the province are now weighing their legal options. Challenges are likely to center on whether the government adequately consults with them and takes their concerns into account. We have dozens of First Nations along the length of the pipeline, and then the pipeline is, I think, agreed by most people to have pretty far-reaching consequences, so the duty should be fairly onerous, said Gordon Christie, an associate professor of law and First Nations law expert at the University of British Columbia. According to Christie, the government is unlikely to meet the legal bar of meaningful consultation within the six months it has to make a decision. Meaningful consultation is not supposed to be just having meetings where you listen to people, nod your head, and just say 'Yes, yes, yes,' and then go out and decide to build a pipeline, he said. In its decision, the panel acknowledged the aboriginal communities along the route will face disruptions to their traditional lifestyles but it sees the effects as temporary, even in the case of a large oil spill. POOR RELATIONS Canada has long had poor relations with its million-strong aboriginal population, many of whom live in communities beset with poverty, poor housing and high
