If you're new to Resource Depletion thinking, one place to start is
The Oil Drum, for an overview
of Peak Oil, the iconic example of Resource Depletion.
The basic premise of Peak Oil is that humankind has already burned up
most of the easy-to-acquire oil and natural gas in the world -- the stuff
that we can easily pump right out of the ground. Past peak, everything else costs
more energy to get out than it did before, causing a spiral in costs
and availability. The question is when
we hit that tipping point. When we hit the peak (and many say that
happened in 2006), then the cost of energy begins to inevitably rise
dramatically and rapidly. For modern society, when oil hits $120/barrel
to $200/barrel (or $5-$15/gallon), then all sorts of things begin to go awry.
The same premise can be
applied to nearly all our fundamental resources. Aquifirs have been
drained for agricultural irrigation. Obvious rivers have been already been dammed.
The easiest-to-get copper, magnesium,
iron, and other minerals vital for modern life has already been harvested
-- when energy was cheap! Natural gas is getting harder to find. Gold, platinum, silver, and titanium are
all oversubscribed.
Energy-intensive fertilization and monocrops
have made even most topsoil a depleted resource, unable to grow much
without pumping energy-expensive fertilizer upon it.
We are hypothesizing a 20% per year increase in
energy and material costs over the next ten years (note: oil was $50 a
barrel two years ago, and has recently exceeded $100), and for most
resource commodities because of it:
- Increased transportation costs for everything
starts creating
a fundamental worldwide recession/depression -- putting the current "just in
time" delivery and distribution systems, and globalism in general, in
jeopardy
- Commuting costs, suddenly dramatically higher, start eating into
the viability of suburbia (see The Long Emergency, by
James Howard Kunstler), deeply
affecting home values in those areas, creating even more economic
strife
- Alternative energy sources start being economically competitive (though still
expensive) -- solar, wind, water, coal, nuclear -- but can't ramp up
quickly enough to prevent the worldwide depression
- Fundamental products like food (meat, produce, even flour) rise in
price as fertilizer, mechanized production, and transportation costs
rise
- Airfare and air transport become much more expensive
- High-energy, high-fertilizer, transport-heavy agriculture becomes increasingly untenable
- Trains will likely become cost-effective again (helping large
urban areas more than remote areas)
- Internet use -- for telecommuting, entertainment, delivery
efficiencies, coordination of commuting, shopping, and more --
becomes a lifeline, not just a distraction
- The "consumer society" grinds slowly to a halt, causing dramatic disruption
in China and much of the "outsourced manufacturing" world
- The "war on terrorism" is ratcheted up to
a "war on Arab terrorism," the OPEC nations being
an easy target of blame for "holding our energy future for ransom."
- Walking-distance centralization (walk to grocery stores, etc.)
succeeds over driving-distance centralization (Wal-Mart, malls, etc.)
- Low-energy hand crafts, community gardens, bicycles, community cooperation,
and friend networks rise in value and practical utility
- Steady-state models, rather than constant-growth models, for
economic sustainability become much more interesting to economists
and citizens.
This Scenario promises a slow-motion, economically grinding spiral
down into a worldwide,
desperate depression. Even those lucky few with farms and fields will suffer,
though perhaps not as dramatically as those in mostly urban
landscapes.
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| Recent Resource Depletion News |
Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid's Limits
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.... The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
"We need an interstate transmission superhighway system," said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
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Eating rats to beat global food crisis
Rat meat has become such a popular alternative to other dearer meats in Cambodia that its price has increased fourfold.
As inflation pushes the price of beef beyond the reach of the poor, increased demand for rat meat has pushed up rodent prices.... This month, an Indian official said eating rats was a way to beat rising global food prices. Vijay Prakash, the secretary of Bihar's welfare department, said regular rat snacks would also translate into fewer rodents eating precious grain stocks, 50 percent of which are lost in the north-eastern Indian state every year to the creatures.
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Urgent Steps Needed To Combat Food Wastage - Report
"The United States and some other developed states throw away nearly a third of their food each year, according to a report that said on Thursday the world was producing more than enough to feed its population... The authors said that in the United States, up to 30 percent of food, worth some $48.3 billion, is thrown away each year.
"That's like leaving the tap running and pouring 40 trillion litres of water into the garbage can -- enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people," the report said."
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After 5 years of war, Iraqis desperate for water
"At a communal water station in a Baghdad slum, a young boy's skinny arms fly up and down as he uses a bicycle pump to coax water from the dry ground.
His efforts produce a languid stream that will tide over his family -- and the families of the children waiting near him to fill their cooking pots -- until the next day.
This is a daily ritual for millions of Iraqis who lack access to sufficient clean water and proper sewage five years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein."
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"Water Mafias" Put Stranglehold on Public Water Supply
"Worldwide corruption driven by mafia-like organizations throughout water industries is forcing the poor to pay more for basic drinking water and sanitation services, according to a new report.
If bribery, organized crime, embezzlement, and other illegal activities continue, consumers and taxpayers will pay the equivalent of U.S. $20 billion dollars over the next decade, says the report, released this week at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm, Sweden."
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Everyone knows industry needs oil. Now people are worrying about water, too
Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which it calls an "unsustainable" rate of growth. Water, unlike oil, has no substitute. Climate change is altering the patterns of freshwater availability in complex ways that can lead to more frequent and severe droughts.
Untrammelled industrialisation, particularly in poor countries, is contaminating rivers and aquifers. America's generous subsidies for biofuel have increased the harvest of water-intensive crops that are now used for energy as well as food. And heavy subsidies for water in most parts of the world mean it is often grossly underpriced -- and hence squandered.
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52-city Report Examines Use Of Wastewater In Urban Agriculture
As developing countries confront the first global food crisis since the 1970s as well as unprecedented water scarcity, a new 53-city survey conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) indicates that most of those studied (80 percent) are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture. In over 70 percent of the cities studied, more than half of urban agricultural land is irrigated with wastewater that is either raw or diluted in streams.
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Our Good Earth
"...This year food shortages, caused in part by the diminishing quantity and quality of the world's soil ... have led to riots in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By 2030, when today's toddlers have toddlers of their own, 8.3 billion people will walk the Earth; to feed them, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates, farmers will have to grow almost 30 percent more grain than they do now. Connoisseurs of human fecklessness will appreciate that even as humankind is ratchetting up its demands on soil, we are destroying it faster than ever before. "Taking the long view, we are running out of dirt," says David R. Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington in Seattle."
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Spanish fear day when tap will run dry
"BARCELONA, Spain -- Water woes spiraled to such depths this year that the top regional environment minister here—a confirmed agnostic—confessed to climbing the stony shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat for a bit of solace. Winter rains refused to fall, shriveling reserves to severe drought levels and prompting a water shipment from France. Catalonia's go-to guy for the environment, Francesc Baltasar, told local radio that fear made for a quick, if dubious, epiphany at the feet of the Virgin Mary."
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Democrats waver over offshore drilling ban
"Under fire from Republicans, top Democratic politicians in the United States are considering lifting a ban on new offshore oil drilling... Democrats have hitherto said new drilling would do little to relieve consumer pain at the pump, accusing Republicans of misleading the public and being a pawn of big oil companies. Yet signs are emerging that they are easing their opposition to the comprehensive ban."
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Armstrong tops list of city's largest water users
"Every minute, about five gallons of water passed through the sinks, sprinklers, fountain and pool at Lance Armstrong's house in June, making the retired professional cyclist Austin's biggest water-using individual that month.
A total of 222,900 gallons of water was used at Armstrong's home, according to the most recent city records available. That's about what 26 average Austin households use in a month."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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West Africa: Overfishing Linked to Food Crisis, Migration
According to a recent report by the nongovernmental organisation ActionAid, West African seas are being devastated by legal and illegal overfishing, while local fishing industries decline. Moreover, the economic partnership agreements in their currently proposed form only exacerbate this problem.
The overfishing of West African coastal waters, often by large European trawlers and sometimes by "fishing pirates" who trawl without any authorisation, has largely depleted local fish stocks.
This has a direct impact on the rising rate of unemployment and on the ever-increasing flow of West Africans who embark on perilous journeys to Europe, in search of a better life.
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Organic Food Has No More Nutritional Value Than Food Grown With Pesticides, Study Shows
New research in the latest issue of the Society of Chemical Industry's (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows there is no evidence to support the argument that organic food is better than food grown with the use of pesticides and chemicals. Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals.... "[T]he study does not support the belief that organically grown foodstuffs generally contain more major and trace elements than conventionally grown foodstuffs."
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Food prices: The people say 'enough!'
Elsewhere in Dakar (Senegal) -- and in nearly a dozen other African countries -- protesters have not been quite as restrained. Angered by sharply rising prices of basic foodstuffs, transport, electricity and other essentials, they have poured into the streets to express their frustrations and demand that their governments act quickly to halt the spiralling cost of living. Street barricades, burning tyres, arson and sometimes deadly confrontations with riot police have been common.... In other countries too, demonstrators often saw the lack of political change as one reason for the widening economic gap between those with access to power and the majority of the poor..... The extent of the protests suggests that ordinary citizens are starting to sense their potential political power and are no longer willing to remain silent. Since 2007, there has been an "awakening of the people's conscience" in Guinea, says Rabiatou Serah Diallo, secretary general of the National Confederation of Workers.
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Shrinking African lake imperils wildlife
"...Once among the largest lakes in the world — at some 9,000 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey — Lake Chad has been decimated over the past four decades by rising temperatures, diminishing rainfall and a growing population that's using more water than ever before. Today, estimated at less than 2 percent of its original size, the lake's surface would barely cover Brooklyn and Manhattan."
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Golf courses try to play through drought
"Amid the current drought, golf courses in the East Bay are some of the hardest-hit water customers. While the local water district has ordered single-family home dwellers to cut water use by 19 percent, so-called irrigators such as golf courses must achieve a 30 percent savings.... The state's 900 golf courses cover about 130,000 acres, employ about 160,000 workers and pump nearly $7 billion into the economy. They are trying to make better use of surface water - and drilling for underground supplies.
But environmentalists say keeping golf courses green shouldn't come at the expense of future water users."
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Virgin forests more efficient at storing carbon
"Untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 per cent more than plantation forests, a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change says.
Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialized forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans.
Australian National University scientists said that the role of untouched forests – and their biomass of green carbon – had been underestimated in the fight against global warming."
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China 'leads the world' in renewable energy
China is the world's leading producer of energy from renewable sources and is on the way to overtaking developed countries in creating clean technologies, according to a report by the Climate Group.... The country already leads the world in terms of installed renewable capacity at 152 gigawatts. In the next year, China will also become the world's leading exporter of wind turbines and it is also highly competitive in solar water heaters, energy efficient home appliances, and rechargeable batteries.
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Ducklings die as a river's flow dries up
"What had been for the last six months a vibrant stream teeming with migrating waterfowl and shorebirds recently became a dry channel where vultures gorged themselves on ducklings that died when the flows dried up.
The discovery prompted calls for an investigation into the deaths of at least 20 cinnamon teal ducklings, 10 mallard ducklings and 20 adult mallards that had sought refuge in a shrinking pool of water in a concrete basin in the city of Industry, about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
It also raised questions about the place of nature in an urban water system in which virtually every drop is adjudicated and claimed by someone."
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Farmers ready to cash in on soaring land prices
Farmland prices have risen by 50 per cent over the past year to reach a record high, according to the latest market survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Some farmers are taking the opportunity to sell up and retire, particularly those feeling the squeeze from the rising cost of fuel, fertilisers and energy. Cashing in is a serious option for those who are unable to operate at a profit.
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Markets run out of flour: 'Lists of flour distributors are faulty'
The lists of flourmills dealers provided to the district government by the Food Department is faulty, due to which the magistrates cannot monitor the supply of flour in the market, a district government official told Daily Times on Tuesday.... District Food Controller Arif Shah said that there were some "typographical errors" in the lists, which were being removed. He said that < there was no shortage of flour in markets, adding that stores running out of flour would be provided new stock immediately. "In case any flourmill has provided an incorrect list of dealers, there is a procedure to deal with it under the law," he added.
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Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach
"At first sight the business resembles a thriving pottery. In a dusty courtyard women mould clay and water into hundreds of little platters and lay them out to harden under the Caribbean sun.
The craftsmanship is rough and the finished products are uneven. But customers do not object. This is Cité Soleil, Haiti's most notorious slum, and these platters are not to hold food. They are food."
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'The Worm' is spreading, and it's hungry
San Miguel and Ouray and Montrose counties are in the process of being invaded -- very slowly -- by Western Spruce Budworms that are sending waves of worry through the populace.
After initially being spotted in Lawson Hill by a concerned homeowner, the worm has reportedly been spotted from Telluride to Ophir to Norwood. It's been called "the most widely distributed and destructive defoliator of coniferous forests in Western North America."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Finny finis?
Stern trawlers the size of destroyers, purse-seiners that can encircle a dozen nuclear submarines, sonar, spotter planes, GPS and DuPont's nylon monofilament netting become the norm. Equipped with the latest technology, the fishing fleets of the world become armadas facing enemies with brains the size of chickpeas.
By the turn of the millennium, 90 per cent of the world's predator fish - tuna, sharks, swordfish - have been removed from the ocean; leading marine ecologists to project that, because of pollution, climate change and overfishing, all the world's major fisheries will collapse within the next 50 years. The saga ends where it began, in North Atlantic fishing towns, where the locals are reduced to catching slime eels and tourists in search of the quaint get served farmed-in-China tilapia at local seafood shacks.
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Fuel cell cars at least 15 years away at best: Study
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still 15 years away from becoming a viable business for automakers even if they overcome remaining technical hurdles and the U. S. government provides massive subsidies, a government-funded report said last week.
Under a best-case scenario, automakers will only be able to sell about two million electric vehicles powered by fuel cells by 2020, according to the study by the National Research Council. That would mean that less than 1 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads by that date would be powered by fuel cells.
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Study predicts crop-production costs will jump dramatically in 2009
Costs to get crops in the ground will jump by about a third in 2009, fueled by fertilizer prices expected to surge 82 percent for corn and 117 percent for soybeans, said Gary Schnitkey, an agricultural economist who conducts the annual survey of input costs.... "Roughly 80 percent of the cost of producing nitrogen fertilizer is natural gas, so as natural gas costs have gone up so have the costs of those inputs," he said. "Phosphorus and potassium are mined, and as energy costs increase, mining costs increase."
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Asphalt shortage raises the price of roadwork
Refinery asphalt prices nationally have risen more than 40 percent since March, government statistics show.... According to Simonson, refiners are trimming asphalt production in favor of more profitable products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and kerosene. Some refiners have invested heavily in cokers, he said, to further break up crude oil molecules and wring out still more fuel, leaving little or no asphalt.
"That shift, plus record-high crude prices, explains the huge surge in asphalt prices in the last few months," Simonson said.
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IEA warns non-Opec oil could peak in two years
Dr Birol, who is leading an investigation into the condition of the world's largest oilfields, said that the world was entering a "new oil order".
"Demand growth is no longer coming from the US and Europe but from China, India and the Middle East," he said. "Because their disposable incomes are growing so fast and because of subsidies, high oil prices will not have a major impact on demand growth." This meant that prices would remain extremely high for the foreseeable future and that the fundamental dynamics of the global oil market increasingly were outside of the control of Western countries.
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The coming black plague?
"...governments should start planning for a worst-case scenario, with soaring oil prices disrupting food supplies, just as they plan for other possibilities like nuclear war and bioterrorism... Dale Allen Pfeiffer, author of the recent book Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture, goes even further in his warnings. With global oil production soon sliding into decline, fuel prices might continue to skyrocket until the world's food system collapses, causing starvation, he wrote.
"Growing evidence indicates that world [oil and gas] production will peak around 2010, followed by an irreversible decline. The impact on our agricultural system could be catastrophic," he wrote. "Hunger could become commonplace in every corner of the world, including your own neighborhood."
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Africa's Last and Least
"Soaring prices for food and fuel have pushed more than 130 million poor people across vast swaths of Africa, Asia and Latin America deeper into poverty in the past year, according to the U.N. World Food Program (WFP). But while millions of men and children are also hungrier, women are often the hungriest and skinniest. Aid workers say malnutrition among women is emerging as a hidden consequence of the food crisis."
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Diary: Colorado River drought
"The south-western US is suffering its eighth consecutive year of drought. There are concerns that the Colorado River, which has sustained life in the area for thousands of years, can no longer meet the needs of the tens of millions of people living in major cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The BBC's Matthew Price is travelling along the river to investigate the scale of the problem and is sending a series of diary items from there."
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Greatest value of forests may be sustainable water supply
This new view of forests is evolving, scientists say, as both urban and agricultural demands for water continue to increase, and the role of clean water from forests becomes better understood as an "ecosystem service" of great value. Many factors -- changing climate, wildfires, insect outbreaks, timber harvest, roads, and even urban sprawl -- are influencing water supplies from forests.
Preserving and managing forests may help sustain water supplies and water quality from the nation's headwaters in the future, they conclude, but forest management is unlikely to increase water supplies.
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Olympics suck up China's already scarce water
"...Over-extraction of groundwater and falling water tables are huge problems for China, particularly in the north. Environmental activists warn that the nation is facing a future of water shortages, water pollution and continuing deterioration in water quality. Beijing is one of the world's most water-scarce mega-cities, with a deficit of 324,000 acre-feet annually."
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New studies predict record land grab as demand soars for new sources of food, energy and wood fiber
Escalating global demand for fuel, food and wood fibre will destroy the world's forests, if efforts to address climate change and poverty fail to empower the billion-plus forest-dependent poor, according to two reports released today by the U.S.-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an international coalition comprising the world's foremost organisations on forest governance and conservation.
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Study: Southeast's cheap access to water at risk
"A new study says global warming and population growth threaten the Southeast's already precarious water supplies by fueling more extreme weather and degrading water quality... Models show that anticipated higher temperatures will generate more volatile weather, with more extreme storms, flooding and erosion ... and contribute to more severe droughts. Adding to the strain is the Southeast's population growth, which has led the nation in recent years."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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More pressure on global fish stocks as scientists warn of underreporting of catches
The implication is that global fish stocks, already widely acknowledged to be under heavy pressure, are in far more in danger than thought. The underreporting particularly threatens the hundreds of millions of poor people around the world who rely on fish for subsistence.
A reconstruction of actual catches in 20 places around the globe showed that fish landings that were not reported were at least as high as the declared catch, and sometimes more than 16 times higher.
"This is underreporting of such magnitude that it boggles the mind," said Professor Daniel Pauly, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
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Peak Metals: Gallium, Indium, Zinc, Copper
The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany' s University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet's stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc. Even copper is an endangered item, since worldwide demand for it is likely to exceed available supplies by the end of the present century.... Dr. Reller says that by 2017 or so there'll be [no gallium] left to use. Indium, another endangered element -- number 49 in the periodic table -- is similar to gallium in many ways, has many of the same uses ... and is being consumed much faster than we are finding it. Dr. Reller gives it about another decade.
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Chicken feed shortage affects poultry industry
ACUTE shortages of poultry feed on the market is increasing nutritional deficiency diseases in chickens, further crippling the poultry industry, which has experienced a sharp decline over the years.
Matabeleland North's Department of Veterinary Services' provincial officer, Dr Polex Moyo said the shortages have resulted in most birds suffering from stress and nutritional deficiencies diseases....
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Secret report: rush to biofuels caused food crisis
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 percent - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3 percent to food-price rises.... Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
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Scientists set out to measure how we perceive 'naturalness'
Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are working towards producing the world's first model that will predict how we perceive naturalness. The results could help make synthetic products so good that they are interpreted by our senses as being fully equivalent to the 'real thing', but with the benefits of reduced environmental impact and increased durability.... Ruth Montgomery of the National Physical Laboratory, said: "Our senses combine to identify natural materials. But what are the key factors, is it colour, gloss, smoothness, temperature?... The focus of the research is wood, fabric and stone, but once the data is combined the aim is to produce a predictive computer model that will work for other materials. If successful the range of applications would be huge. For instance, synthetic mahogany furniture that is indistinguishable from the natural material, but won't rot or be attacked by woodworm or artificial grass so good that they use it on Wimbledon's Centre Court."
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'World Pharmacy' Being Destroyed
A quarter of all our medicine is sourced from it and it hosts a mass of colourful biodiversity. But both the Peruvian Amazon's species and the world's medicine are facing their gravest threat yet.... Just as the rainforest is rich in flora, it also boasts an abundance of other, more lucrative riches.
The race to plunder the forest of fossil fuels, gold and timber for example, means that every day truckloads of trees are slashed and burned with little reforestation. The authorities turn a blind eye to the illegal activities of big business.
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Bread subsidies under threat in drought-hit Syria
The availability of cheap food has been a cornerstone Syrian domestic economic policy.
However, there are growing doubts among ordinary people and analysts as to how much longer the country can remain relatively insulated from the global food crisis which has sparked riots in over 30 countries, including Egypt, where a similar authoritarian socialist government is in place.
The government exerts significant control over food prices through its control of the marketing, import and export of agricultural produce, but the agricultural sector has been partially liberalised, and food prices have risen 20 percent in the last six months, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
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Map reveals extent of deforestation in tropical countries
A map of the world's tropical forests has revealed that millions of hectares of trees were cut back to make way for crops in recent years.
Created from high-resolution satellite images, the map shows the extent of deforestation in the tropics with unprecedented accuracy.... The map showed that deforestation in Indonesia was largely concentrated in just two regions, and that much of it was peatland. "The peatlands are essentially all carbon, so if you clear it and fire it, an enormous amount of carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere," said Stolle. "Without a precise map, we would not know that level of detail."
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Traffic jam on highway, food crisis imminent
It's a riot-like situation in the iron ore mines area of Kalta, Koira, Tensa and Barsun areas. Acute shortage of essential commodities have compounded the problems of the working class people who are already suffering price hike of essential commodities as a result of high inflation.
With iron ore-laden heavy vehicles from Rajamunda en route Roxy, Kalta, Koira and Barbil getting stranded on NH-215 for the last one week, movement of public buses and other light vehicles on the route has come to a grinding halt. Moreover, [in] the NH-215 near Chuna Ghati area up to a kilometre remains unmotorable. This has reflected on the movement of vehicles and buses carrying essential commodities from Rourkela.
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Indian Wind-Turbine Firm Hits Turbulence
The Indian company -- the world's fifth-largest wind-turbine maker by sales -- earlier this year acknowledged that 65 giant blades on turbines it had sold in the U.S. Midwest were cracking because of the extreme gusts in the region. The company is reinforcing 1,251 blades, almost the total it has sold in the U.S.... Other Suzlon turbines have broken down because of cold weather in the Midwest.... Mr. Tanti has been able to exploit a shortage of turbines from more-established manufacturers like Vestas AS of Denmark, the world's largest wind-turbine producer, and General Electric Co, whose order books are full through 2010. At about $3 million each, Suzlon's turbines sold in the U.S. are priced about 25 percent cheaper than those of major competitors.
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Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Project
Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.... "It doesn't make any sense," said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. "The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry."
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Djibouti: 'Almost half the population facing food shortages'
A significant percentage of Djibouti's population could face food shortages due to drought, rising prices with declining remittances, and high levels of livestock deaths, an early warning information service has warned.... "Significant food deficits exist in all pastoral areas due to a combination of three consecutive below-average rainy seasons, extremely high prices for staple foods, declining remittances, and high levels of livestock mortality (40-50 percent)," the network noted. "The situation is critical, and pre-famine indicators have been observed."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Kenya must import three times as much maize as projected
Kenya is first heading for a major shortfall in its staple food product, maize.
Detailed research recently conducted by the Egerton University’s respected Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development shows that Kenya will start running out of maize in August.... Logistically, the most likely supplying country is South Africa, which has a surplus crop. But there is a potential problem here in that its crop is a mix of GMO and non GMO. Kenya is reportedly insisting on the latter, which only comes to the market towards the end of July.
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China's Big Drain
Shijiayao’s main water source is a seep in a notch in the barren mountainside, which drips about a dozen bucketfuls a day—except in summer, when it dries up completely. No one bathes in Shijiayao. Next month, while visitors to Beijing amble along man-made lakes and fountains at the grand Olympic Green and Olympic Forest Park, Shijiayao residents will trek about 12 miles a day for drinking water.... Now the Olympics are exacerbating China’s water problems. To ensure enough potable water for an expected 1.5 million visitors in August, Beijing is tapping 80 billion gallons of so-called backup supply from four reservoirs in neighboring Hebei Province. Yet water levels in these reservoirs are already dangerously low. So to sustain the population boom on the semiarid Beijing plain, China’s water planners are scrambling to build pipelines, canals, and water tunnels farther and farther into the hinterlands.
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U.S. May 'Free Up' More Land for Corn Crops
Signs are growing that the government may allow farmers to plant crops on millions of acres of conservation land, while a chorus of voices is also pleading with Washington to cut requirements for ethanol production.... Senator Grassley ... on Friday urged the Agriculture Department to release tens of thousands of farmers from contracts under which they had promised to set aside huge tracts as natural habitat.
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Sludge used on fields may strip crop of value
Farmers have been warned they could devalue their crops by fertilising them with sewage sludge.
Although partially retracted after being issued, the warning gave a rare glimpse of some unease in the food and drinks business about a practice which has been growing for 10 years.... "We are concerned that following the recent rise in fertiliser prices, some growers may be tempted to apply sewage sludge. The vast majority of our customers do not accept such treatment and a recent parcel of grain sold off water authority land that had been treated with sewage sludge attracted a price discount of £60 per tonne."
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Research institute warns of African land degradation
Lagos, Nigeria - The survival of more than 250 million people living in the dry lands of the developing countries is being threatened by chronic land degradation, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) said in a statement made available to PANA here Thursday.
"Dry lands cover about 41 percent of the earth's surface. The poor people in the dry lands depend mainly on rain-fed agriculture and natural range lands for their survival. Their livelihoods are at risk due to land degradation, which is exacerbated by increasing population growth that is putting considerable pressure on fragile land resources," ICRISAT said.
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Vietnam lifts rice export ban, Manila seals deal
[Lifting the ban] could speed a recent decline in international rice prices from record highs -- prices had nearly trebled this year -- helping to ease food inflation and boosting supplies of the staple in Asia.... "There are signs of improving supplies but we still have a few bullish factors," said one trader.
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Pig manure 'crude oil' no panacea
the NIST team has developed the first detailed chemical analysis revealing what processing is needed to transform pig manure crude oil into fuel for vehicles or heating. Mass production of [T]his type of biofuel could help consume a waste product overflowing at U.S. farms, and possibly enable cutbacks in the nation's petroleum use and imports. But, according to a new NIST paper, pig manure crude will require a lot of refining... [It] contains at least 83 major compounds, including many components that would need to be removed, such as about 15 percent water by volume, sulfur that otherwise could end up as pollution in vehicle exhaust, and lots of char waste containing heavy metals, including iron, zinc, silver, cobalt, chromium, lanthanum, scandium, tungsten and minute amounts of gold and hafnium. Whatever the pigs eat, from dirt to nutritional supplements, ends up in the oil.
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Global Impact Of Urbanization Threatening World's Biodiversity And Natural Resources
"As a species we have lived in wild nature for hundreds of thousands of years, and now suddenly most of us live in cities -- the ultimate escape from nature," says Peter Kareiva, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of the report. "If we do not learn to build, expand and design our cities with a respect for nature, we will have no nature left anywhere."
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Corn sets all-time high on U.S. crop fears
Corn prices surged to a record high on Monday and looked set to climb further as widespread flooding in a key producing region, the U.S. Midwest, helped to heighten concern about tight supplies, dealers said.
"I think we are definitely going higher. There is no let up either on the demand or supply side...," said analyst Sudakshina Unnikrishnan of Barclays Capital in London.
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Farmers who plant -- or replant -- after June 20 may see yields drop by half
Department of Agriculture reports that corn and soybean growers in several Midwestern states are behind schedule on their planting. A cooler and wetter-than-average spring has left Illinois and Indiana furthest behind on planted corn and soybeans. Several other states are lagging behind their normal planting schedules, but by a lesser margin.
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Recycling boom adds to hazardous life of Cambodian children
Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labor.... "They use neither gloves nor shoes, they inhale toxic fumes, eat out of garbage bins," he said, listing ailments he sees every day, from headaches and infected wounds to diarrhea and hacking coughs.
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Report confirms drilling, not earthquake, caused Java mud volcano
A mud volcano which has caused millions of dollars worth of damage was caused by the drilling of a gas exploration well, an international team of scientists has concluded.
The two-year old mud volcano, Lusi, is still spewing huge volumes of mud and has displaced more than 30,000 people.
The most detailed scientific analysis to date disproves the theory that an earthquake that happen | |
