rocking the boat

Are the absurdities of South African politics spreading like a tsunami across the landscape? When leaders blame the media for the fallout from their own improprieties, when organisations think that silencing individuals can right wrongs, when the emphasis is on image rather than character, then I have to wonder.

Water is the world's most precious commodity, bar none. We'll get over the energy crisis, one way or another. We'll continue to grow food. And the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression is a mere blip on the timeline of human existence. But water? Irreplaceable. So when the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research throws researcher Dr Anthony Turton out with the bathwater for making a few provocative statements about the water crisis, the Council has raised a storm of protest. Taking a leaf out of the political rulebook, the CSIR thinks that silencing opinion can protect its reputation.

Help make waves: sign a petition protesting the suspension of Dr Turton and this encroachment on academic freedom. Details of the case are provided at the linked site.

how to fire your electricity utility

Could we make Eskom redundant? Maybe not entirely, but already the national electricity supplier - contrary to popular belief - does not control 100% of South Africa's electricity market, and its share is declining. Municipalities have gas-fired generators to top-up peak period capacity, eThikweni is planning to harvest methane from landfill sites, and industries generate power for their own use and possible sale of excess to Eskom.

A less obvious corner of the market is the multitude of electricity generators installed to make up for Eskom's shortfall. Individual businesses around the country have backup generators in place, and the Barloworld equipment division (including Caterpillar) alone has generator units supplying 1 500MW to mines and other industrial customers.

The generators seem to be a necessary evil, but the next step is to reduce energy demand by designing better buildings, improving equipment efficiencies, using the sun to heat water, and installing alternative systems. Then we can start replacing conventional power sources with alternatives. Solar PV systems still are not financially viable without subsidies, but there are other approaches to consider. Some buildings are starting to change the mix in other cities around the world, using less conventional systems like CHP (combined heat and power), mining sewers for energy, or cooling buildings with water from lakes or oceans. If buildings and communities get together, they can use strategies that would not be feasible for individual buildings.

The key is to stop thinking of energy for buildings entirely in terms of electricity. Projects to generate electricity from alternative sources face legal, regulatory, institutional and financial hurdles. These need to be overcome as a matter of urgency, but in the meantime we are not helpless. Many strategies require little or no approval from regulatory or planning authorities; they just need know-how to apply good design. Little by little, we can wean ourselves off the national electricity grid.

micro devices for macro effect

Discussion about the WaterMill -- a small-scale dehumidifier that collects and cleans water from the air -- leads to conjecture not only about how much of our drinking water could come from the air, but also about whether the urban microclimate could be significantly altered by installing thousands of these low-energy devices. Could we do away with a significant number of energy-sapping air conditioners by making our environment more comfortable through a combination of better building design, appropriate clothing, vegetating the landscape and reducing the ambient humidity with thousands of WaterMills?

mythbusters for the environment

It would be great if there were a 'green' version of mythbusters. If nothing else, it would highlight the fact that environmental impact is not a cut-and-dried issue. In the meantime, New Scientist offers some eco-questions and answers to clear up a few misconceptions.

green spaces promote good health

We all know that it feels good to be in a natural environment, if only as an escape from urban tensions. But a new study suggests that living in a green area can actually lengthen your life, and even that the difference in life expectancy between rich and poor shrinks among those who live in an environment with parks and trees. The research findings seem to suggest that the benefits are derived from more than just the encouragement to exercise induced by open spaces, and extend to reducing blood pressure and helping recovery from surgery.

Green New Deal

An opinion piece at Economist.com argues that Obama should resist the temptation to spend $150 billion on renewable energy technology to address the two challenges of economic meltdown and climate change. Obama's proposed subsidy-led approach risks repeating the ethanol subsidy quagmire. Put a limit on carbon emissions, but let the market decide how to do it, says the Economist.

Meanwhile, a newly-released report from WWF South Africa argues that significant investment in renewable energy in South Africa could address these same challenges without significantly increasing the price of electricity. Research presented by Andrew Marquard from the UCT Energy Research Centre "showed that achieving a target of 15% of electricity from a combination of wind and solar power would raise the price of electricity in 2020 by 15%. This is a smaller increase than what we have already seen in this year alone and less than the 20% increase that would result from investing in nuclear energy as an alternative to coal." Together with an aggressive energy efficiency drive and use of carbon finance under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, this strategy could result in 18% lower average electricity costs by 2020 than would be the case under a coal-fired energy expansion programme. The study also suggests that the renewables option is not more expensive than nuclear.

The WWF proposal, like Obama's, uses subsidies:

[The WWF report] proposes that the capital investment required for a 15 percent renewable target could be enabled by a feed-in tariff to subsidise first wind energy and, once the tariff mechanism is proven, solar thermal.

There does seem to be recognition of the risks of this approach. The necessary regulatory framework is not yet in place, and will need to be formulated with care.

Derek Hanekom, the deputy minister of science and technology, acknowledged that South Africa had to "think big and think differently" as it implemented penalties and incentives to curb emissions. The government was "serious about the business at hand", he said.

Finance  is the big challenge, the report notes.

Feed-in tariffs are currently under development by NERSA, the national energy regulator. These incorporate a form of cross-subsidy that requires electricity users to pay for the renewable energy component of supply; but they are essential for establishing an industry of IPPs (independent power producers). Without this mechanism, there is no means for renewable energy to be sold to the grid. With the tariffs, even individual homeowners can start selling to Eskom, given the right regulatory and institutional frameworks.

Other forms of subsidy pose the greater risk, but the report argues that they may be worthwhile:

[...] these can be appropriate for strategic investments, and the creation of future competitive advantages for a country. Incentives are likely to therefore play an important role in supporting the concentrated solar thermal component of the programme. An investment in research, development and pilot plants will be required to enable the commissioning of a large scale thermal power tower after 2015. An investment on behalf of the South African government will be required to incentivise this work to occur within the country, and to position local players as industry front-runners. It is imperative that this initiative is embedded in industrial policy.

visual data

Just for fun.

congress on medicinal plants - this week at cticc

With growing worldwide demand for plants in traditional and alternative medicine, a number of challenges have emerged concerning issues such as sustainable harvesting of naturally-occuring herbs, preservation of biodiveristy, intellectual property rights of traditional healers, international trade and patent rights. These and other issues will be discussed this week in Cape Town at WOCMAP: The Fourth World Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants. The week-long scientific congress, is already underway, but day passes are available.

Along with the congress is a two-day business forum and an African herbal market, both beginning tomorrow (Wednesday). Entrance to the market is free.

The Rio Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in 1992 laid the international foundation for the genetic resources of a country to be acknowledged the sovereign property of a nation and its people. It went further to say that the practitioners of traditional uses of such genetic resources should benefit from potential international commercialization. In South Africa, the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (NEMBA) was promulgated in 2004, which was followed by the introduction of the relevant regulations as of 1st April 2008. The Act aims to regulate the use of indigenous plants, animals and other genetic resources, identify possible stakeholders and introduce a mechanism for a more fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from this use.

This topic has become a publicly debated issue with plants like Hoodia, which was originally used by local Khoi-San people, being used in a multi-billion dollar obesity industry. Pelargonium sidoides is another plant used locally in the Eastern Cape for the treatment of several cold-related ailments in people and livestock, and the increase in demand for the plant for both local uses and international pharmaceutical producers has stimulated research and debate about whether its rate of harvesting exceeds the plant's potential for natural regeneration.

Africa grows a vast number of medicinal and aromatic plants, and its healers use a huge array of natural healing substances in their day to day work. Despite this, very few companies either in Africa or elsewhere have used African raw materials and extracts in their pharmaceutical, beauty care and health food formulations.

International conferences like WOCMAP have highlighted the importance of promoting Africa’s medicinal plant heritage both as a way of tackling the growing health problems of the continent and to generate incomes, exports and employment throughout the region. Equally important, these meetings have stressed the need to protect the continent's natural resources and intellectual property rights. It is important that any further developments of African plants and formulations bring benefits to producers, manufacturers and consumers in an equitable manner. It is equally important that these precious raw materials are developed in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable manner.

The WOCMAP exhibition is designed to raise awareness of the importance of Africa as a potential source for new plant-based materials and natural remedies, and provides information on some of Africa’s most important medicinal plants and herbal medicines, and the companies and organizations that produce and promote them.

is the future looking greener this week?

As the dust begins to settle after the American election frenzy, Urban Sprout has outlined some of Obama's proposed policies relating to environmental issues. And the blog Green Building Law has posts on the topic both before and after election day. [Update: here's another environment-focused Obama roundup.] My impression is that we're in for a much more enlightened attitude from the US, though it's not clear how that will translate into foreign policy. Will Obama adopt a more inclusive approach internationally? On the domestic front, he seems to be keeping an open mind:

Environment and Energy Daily is reporting here that Obama will begin almost immediately working on these issues by going on a listening tour to explore "energy and environmental issues before Inauguration Day in an attempt to build momentum for its policies and legislative plans," allowing California to enhance its automobile standards, setting the stage for cap and trade and investing $15 billion per year to promote the deployment of renewable technologies.

We can hope that his approach to fundraising has kept him less beholden to lobbyists, as he claims. Let's also hope the Obama administration doesn't rely entirely on regulation to solve the environmental crisis. We need a dramatic shift, and regulation alone won't achieve that. Thomas L. Friedman, author of the 2005 book The World is Flat and the newly-released Hot, Flat and Crowded, suggests that we need to innovate our way out of global warming. To those who say that renewable energy can't provide the industrial-strength power needed to run the modern economy, Friedman says we haven't really tried. Seen in comparison to mainstream R&D, efforts at reducing energy dependence have been halfhearted at best.

One of the case studies presented at last week's GBCSA conference was that of carpeting manufacturer InterfaceFLOR, whose European manufacturing operations use electricity from renewable sources only. That's a positive example on its own, but what the company is trying to promote is a change in their marketplace that will allow them to improve sustainability performance even more. Illustrating the importance of industry awareness, Lindsey Parnell (CEO and President of InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India) pointed out that it can actually be better to design carpets for a shorter lifespan that fits with the trend of replacing carpets every 3 to 5 years.

Every time a new tenant moves into a building they inevitably tear up the carpets, so Parnell argues that designing a carpet to last as long as the typical lease would allow them to use different raw materials that have a lower environmental impact. But purchasers generally baulk at the idea of a carpet that is designed to last such a short period. InterfaceFLOR has also tried promoting the "evergreen lease", where they manufacture, install, maintain and dispose of carpets (which also allows them to repurpose old carpets), but the concept hasn't caught on.

This example tells me two things. One, that many manufacturing processes can be made efficient enough to be supplied by non-fossil-fueled energy, if sufficient attention is paid to the choice of materials and manufacturing processes. Two, that change is often stymied by attitudes, rather than technologies or regulations. I do recognise that standards and regulations have an important role to play in encouraging change, but the transformation often needs to cross jurisdictions or economic sectors, while regulations tend to be piecemeal because they are enacted within sectoral boundaries. Every industry needs to interface with other industries and markets, and each of these may be governed by legislation that is not uniformly supportive of sustainable business practices. Consequently there is a limit to how effective the regulations are in creating a transformative environment.

cycling for health

In another example of moving closer to sustainable cities, health workers who used to visit patients on foot in Delft (Cape Town) were donated bicycles on Wednesday last week, enabling them to make twice as many house calls. BikeTown Africa, an international project started in 2006, donated 108 bikes to MaAfrika Tikkun healthcare workers to help them anti-retroviral medication for HIV patients and others who cannot get to clinics. Many of these workers haven't ridden bikes before, so they've been given some instruction and guidance about road safety.

What appeals to me about this initiative, apart from the improvement in productivity resulting from the use of a zero-emission transport mode, is that it's a great way to set an example that could start to transform perceptions of the lowly bicycle. Now we just need better cycling networks to make it easier, and a strong support network to make sure this isn't a shortlived success.