Thursday, June 20, 2013

Crown Capital Eco Management Climate Warmer



Researchers say, elevated temperatures and a longer growing season mean some of Earth’s chilliest regions are looking increasingly green.
As reported and base from the new study, at present the plant life at northern latitudes often looks like the vegetation researchers would have observed up to 430 miles (700 kilometers) farther south in 1982.
“It’s like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years,” study researcher Compton Tucker of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.
A team of university and NASA scientists including Tucker looked at 30 years’ worth of satellite and land surface data on vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. The researchers suggest that, in this region, large patches of lush vegetation now stretch over an area about the size of the continental United States and resemble what was found 4 to 6 latitude degrees to the south in 1982.
“Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more,” climate scientist Ranga Myneni of Boston University said in a statement, adding that the changes are leading to great disruptions for the region’s ecosystems.
In the precedent several decades the Arctic has been warming more rapidly than the rest of any part of earth. An amplified greenhouse effect is largely to blame for the changes in plant life, says Myneni. In this succession, high concentrations of heat-trapping gasses drive up temperatures in the ocean and atmosphere. This warming trims down Arctic sea ice and snow cover, reason for the oceans and land surfaces in the region to be exposed this is also because the ice and snow are more reflective than darker surfaces. These surfaces soak up more heat from the sun’s rays, so further heating of the air and further reduction of sea ice and snow emerge as a consequence. Myneni warns that the cycle could get worse.
“The greenhouse effect could be further amplified in the future as soils in the north thaw, releasing potentially significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane,” Myneni said.
Because of the rising temperatures Arctic and boreal regions could see the equivalent of a 20-degree latitude shift by the end of this century, the team found this out using climate models. The amplified greenhouse effect could have other consequences, like more forest fires, pest infestations and droughts, which cut vegetation growth, researchers say.
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Monday, June 10, 2013

Capital Crown Eco Management | Renewable Energy Fraud Watch



Investors recently chipped in $15 million to fund battery startup EOS Energy Storage, a company that says its batteries could eventually compete with natural-gas power plants to provide power during times of peak demand.

Cheap energy storage is becoming increasingly important as greater numbers of wind turbines and solar panels are added to the grid. If renewable energy is to replace the fossil fuels that dominate power supplies and serve to backup wind turbines and solar panels, very large-scale, inexpensive batteries like the ones EOS is developing will be needed (see “Wind Turbines, Battery Included, Can Keep Power Supplies Stable,” “Battery Could Provide a Cheap Way to Store Solar Power,” and “A Solution to Solar Power Intermittency”).

EOS is trying to commercialize a type of battery that’s based on inexpensive materials: water, zinc, and air (see “Startup Promises a Revolutionary Grid Battery” and “Years in the Making, Promising Rechargeable Metal-Air Batteries Head to Market”). Such batteries—in which zinc reacts with oxygen in air to generate electricity—have been around for a long time, but it’s been difficult to make them rechargeable. Electrodes deteriorate, for example, and the batteries are inherently inefficient because of the difference in voltage levels when charging and discharging them—they waste nearly half the energy it takes to charge them.

EOS has addressed these issues in a couple of ways. It uses a slightly acidic water-based electrolyte that helps prevent deformations of the zinc electrode that can damage the battery.

The company is also supplementing the zinc-oxygen reaction with reactions between zinc and a mixture of up to six other materials (it won’t identify the type of compounds). The other reactions help reduce the difference between charge and discharge voltages, improving the efficiency from 60 percent to almost 75 percent. The mixture of reactions makes the battery more difficult to operate, but George Adamson, vice president of R&D, says that today’s battery management software is up to the task.

The decision to make use of these extra reactions was the result of a bit of serendipity. Impurities were causing unwanted side reactions in the original zinc-air prototypes. But then the researchers noticed the beneficial impact on voltage. “Once we realized that,” Adamson says, “we started searching on purpose for multiple combinations of reactions.”

EOS has built a two-kilowatt prototype. Eventually, its batteries will be packaged inside a shipping container to make one-megawatt batteries than can store six megawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power a typical U.S. home for six months. It plans to build a pilot manufacturing plant by the end of the year or early next year, and to start making full-size one-megawatt batteries by the end of 2014.

EOS wants to produce batteries that cost as little as $160 per kilowatt-hour and last for 30 years. Current batteries that cheap would fail after only a couple of years of service. The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of batteries at $100 per kilowatt-hour that can be recharged 5,000 times with 80 percent efficiency, saying that at that point batteries could be widely adopted for grid storage. EOS says its batteries can last 10,000 charges, which could make up for the higher upfront cost and lower efficiency of its batteries.

But the company hasn’t reached its goals yet. It says it’s “well within” $300 per kilowatt-hour. EOS has completely charged and discharged the most recent iteration of its battery cells over 1,000 times, and the batteries have so far retained 90 percent of their capacity. Typically, batteries are designed to retain 80 percent of their capacity at the end of their life, so the current rate of capacity loss is too fast for a 10,000-cycle battery.

But, Adamson says, much of the capacity loss is from electrolyte levels falling too low. In one experiment, topping off the batteries restored capacity from 80 percent to 96 percent of the original capacity. Manufactured batteries will come with a mechanism for automatically topping off the electrolyte, which could improve the durability of the system.

EOS says it’s teaming up with seven utility companies to test the battery and design it to the performance specifications they need—it will announce the partners in the next couple of weeks.

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Saturday, June 8, 2013

Jakarta Crown Eco Management| Environment: Brazil's Forests - Profit from Destruction



The murder in 2011 of José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo hit international headlines. Both were environmental activists in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. Their deaths drew comparisons with other prominent campaigners who were killed in the Amazon basin, including Dorothy Stagg in 2005 and Brazilian trade unionist and environmental campaigner Chico Mendes (Francisco Alves Mendes Filho) in 1988. 

Da Silva and Santo had been supporting three families occupying primary forest that had been bought by José Rodrigues Moreira with the intention of turning it into cattle pastures. The two hired killers recently received sentences of more than 40 years each. Moreira, standing trial for ordering the killings, was released. 
Da Silva had been cited by human rights groups as at risk of assassination since 2008, and predicted his death six months before the event. Despite repeated death threats made to da Silva, no police protection was granted. 

In 2011, 32 environmentalists were killed in Brazil, according to the Guardian. In Pará, predominantly comprised of Amazonian forest, 231 were killed between 1996 and 2010, according to Brazilian NGO, the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT). “Violence is the instrument of local capitalism. They [landowners] are proud to kill and they’re seen by some as local heroes for defending their property with blood”, said Brazilian commentator Filipe Milanez. 

The Brazilian government has taken no real action to stop the ‘wild west’ agricultural capitalists in Pará. The Guardian reports that many of these, alongside speculators, are moving in to different states, such as Amazonas. According to the CPT, 918 environmentalists have been killed between 1985 and April 2011, but trials were only held in 27 instances. Chico Mendes’s killer had sent him death threats, and another state had an arrest warrant out on him for murder. Mendes informed the police of this. They took no action. 

The Amazon ecological system, or biome, covers 6.7 million square kilometres, and plays an immensely important role. It makes up half the planet’s remaining rainforests, and 10% of the world’s known species, many of which are not found elsewhere. There is an estimated population of 2.7 million indigenous people, making up around 350 ethnic groups. The biome is spread over nine countries. However, 60% is in Brazil. 
The Amazon basin is a large part of the carbon cycle. From the 1980s to 2004, it absorbed 1.5-2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2 – a major greenhouse gas) a year, making it an important carbon sink. In contrast, roughly three quarters of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation through burning and rotting. The biome has a key effect on regional and global weather systems and is, in turn, impacted by changes elsewhere. 
According to Greenpeace, 15% of the Amazon biome has been destroyed through logging and the clearance of land for agricultural purposes. This has significantly reduced the Amazon’s ability to absorb CO2. In addition, two ‘once-in-a-century’ droughts have hit the region in the last decade alone. The 2005 drought led to the Amazon basin becoming a net emitter of CO2, releasing three billion tonnes through increases in rotting vegetation, according to a Leeds University study. The drought diminished the biome’s ability to absorb CO2 in subsequent years. Further damage to the Amazon biome could push the ecosystem over a tipping point, leading the region to become a permanent source of CO2. 

The rising concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been linked to an increase in global temperatures. In May this year, CO2 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere passed the 400 mark, a concentration not seen since before the evolution of humans. 

With the effects of broader environmental change on weather patterns, the El Niño current in the Pacific ocean could become a permanent feature, adding to the disappearance of the Amazon biome. The UN climate panel report in 2007 projected that, with temperature rises leading to climate change, the region could see a “gradual replacement of tropical forest by savannah”. 

The destruction of the Amazon biome for agricultural purposes is short sighted. A study published earlier this year in Environmental Research Letters estimated a 34% fall in pasture productivity and a 28% decline in soya bean yields by 2050. It warned: “The more agriculture expands in the Amazon, the less productive it will become”. Intensive short-term farming has led to previously fertile soil becoming unable to support crops, and carbon stored in the soil being released into the atmosphere. 

The Brazilian government reports that the rate of man-made deforestation has decreased significantly over the last few years, although vast areas are still being destroyed: 4,656 square kilometres in the year to July 2012. Last year, however, the government rewrote the forest conservation laws, reducing protection for hilltops and other non-agricultural land. It grants an amnesty, effectively, for illegal deforestation. 

The bill was introduced primarily because of pressure from big agribusiness, in the face of mass opposition. A poll found that 80% of Brazilians opposed the bill, and an international petition gained over two million signatories. Because of this pressure, the bill took over a year to become law, and was only signed off with some concessions by president Dilma Rouseff in summer 2012. 

Agribusiness plays an increasingly important role in the Brazilian economy. Brazil is vying with the US to become the world’s largest soya bean producer. Brazil’s major exports are to China, with primary products making up the vast majority of the $77.1 billion exports. Manufacturing output as a share of GDP has slumped to the level of the mid-1950s. This has given agribusiness a more powerful clout over politicians. These major landowners are especially influential in the regional states which contain the Amazon biome, where they provide much local business and employment. 

An illegal forester quoted in the Guardian attempted to justify his actions: “Our survival has to come from the forest. There is no other way. There are no universities here. There are no factories. If you don’t have a government job, you have to claw some kind of survival from the rivers and the forest”. This is rich coming from one of those profiteering most out of local economic conditions! But the underdeveloped nature of regional economies is a big factor, allowing agribusiness to gain some local social support. 

Deforestation is often driven by demand for the natural resources found in the Amazon basin. A rise in global commodity prices was a significant factor in an increase in deforestation of 470% in March/April, as revealed by satellite images. Further encroachment could pick up speed, depending on world economic conditions. 
Rouseff has implemented neo-liberal attacks on the economy, which has seen lower than expected growth in recent years. Brazil currently employs just 1,400 federal environmental police to cover the entire country. Deforestation is mainly monitored from space, a costly exercise which may come under threat. While enforcement can be stepped up in one state, illegal deforestation can increase in the next. There is also widespread corruption, with constant scandals, making it even easier for big business to avoid deforestation penalties. 

There is a real battle taking place for the future of the region, which has a global impact. While big business maintains its grip, the future of the Amazon is under threat. A programme of radical land redistribution could prevent desperate small-scale farmers resorting to deforestation, and break the power of agribusiness. Use of the land surrounding the biome can and should be developed, but without encroachment and in consultation with the population, including the indigenous communities. An urgent socialist plan is needed across Latin America and the globe, to ensure the maintenance of the Amazon rainforest, tackling deforestation on the continent and rising global temperatures.

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