This white paper examines the current challenges for clean energy infrastructure and identifies solutions that industrial clusters, transport and logistics industries, and the wider clean energy value chain can jointly explore in order to accelerate its deployment. Thirteen new industrial clusters from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, …
A UK power company, Eastern Electric, has pioneered a technique to prevent fresh fruit from ripening and decaying in storage. Normally, fruits stored in refrigerated warehouses continue to ripen because the warehouse is not quite air tight. Moreover, whenever the warehouse is opened, the sudden increase in oxygen accelerates decay. …
Cold start A 10-YEAR old controversy about whether a nuclear reprocessing plant in northwest England was responsible for a high occurrence of leukaemia reported in the area has been finally laid to rest. The English High Court recently ruled that there was not enough evidence to implicate the company -- …
SCIENTISTS have recently confirmed the presence in the lungs of asthmatics of an enzyme that produces nitric oxide, which damages cells lining the airways. Nitric oxide was known to be present in the air exhaled by asthmatics but the enzyme -- nitric oxide synthase -- that triggered its production in …
THE British chapter of Friends of the Earth began with a blaze of publicity: opposing the fur trade and getting pictures on the front pages of newspapers by returning thousands of "non-returnable" bottles. From these beginnings, FoE grew steadily, recruiting student radicals and campaigning on everything from dirty rivers to …
INTEL Corp has introduced a new generation of chips by launching two fast versions of its Pentium microprocessor. This is part of an aggressive marketing drive by the computer giant, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, the International Herald Tribune reports. The company's is anxious to garner a share of the …
ACID rain is playing havoc with buildings and wildlife in half of Great Britain. Scottish heather, and salmon and trout stocks in Wales, have suffered damage due to acid rain, caused mainly by sulphur dioxide emissions from coal burned in power stations. According to estimates prepared for the British department …
BRITAIN and China have finally joined the international ban on dumping nuclear wastes at sea. The two countries, Russia, Belgium and France had abstained when the London Convention - a worldwide treaty on sea pollution - was adopted by, 72 nations in November 1993. Belgium and France later indicated their …
THOUGH floods cannot be wished away, they could soon be whisked away. A group of British computer experts is trying to model river flows so as to predict the best way to control flooding (New Scientist, Vol 141, No 1907). When a river spills over its sides, some of the …
A MAJOR, Irangate-style controversy is building up over a L1 billion framework accord on military sales that is ostensibly linked to British aid in 1988 for the Pergau dam project in Malaysia. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has taken a dim view of Britain's aid policy and …
BRITAIN is having a hard time reconciling its business interests and its self-professed environmental concerns. Although the British firm GEC-Alsthom has supplied turbine generators for China's Daya Bay nuclear power station near Hong Kong, the British establishment has vociferously protested against the setting up of the plant. There are fears …
BRITAIN'S Overseas Development Agency (ODA) has washed its hands off Kenya's forest reserves. It has unceremoniously withdrawn a L12 m grant for a forestry convention programme launched in Kenya because it has fallen out with the ruling party on the issue of illegal allocation of protected forest lands. ODA claims …
A BRITISH astronomer may be the first to have witnessed a bizarre celestial phenomenon: the formation of strange heavenly bodies when a superdense neutron star -- one that has been crushed by its own gravity -- insinuates itself inside a red giant star and transforms it (Science, Vol 262, No …
AFTER designer clothes and designer food, will designer babies be next? Are you a black who wants a white baby or a 65-year-old woman who wants to conceive? No problem, except that of ethics. Made-to-order babies are now possible with the rapid development of assisted reproductive technologies (See box). Till …
THE FUTURE of the windmill industry in Britain appears bleak now that Taylor Woodrow, the proprietor of the Wind Energy Group (WEG), plans to withdraw. Woodrow, one of the leading players in this sector, is reportedly considering selling the business. The company, which had jointly owned WEG with British Aerospace …
WIDESPREAD depression is a cause of concern to psychiatrists. According to the book, Down with Gloom or How to Defeat Depression, by Brice Pitt and Mel Calman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, one in eight people may be significantly depressed at any one time. At least half go unrecognised …
CONTRARY to common sense, foul air may not be the cause of the rise in the number of asthmatics, at least not in Britain. Though the number of Britons with asthma has risen rapidly in recent years, with the number of deaths doubling over the past two decades, a recent …
• Violin-makers may soon have to use plastic instead of rare hardwoods, according to the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society, UK. Supplies of pernambuco, used to make violin bows, and impigo, used in clarinets and oboes, are falling to crisis levels. Wind instruments, however, pose the biggest problem as customers …
THESE are difficult times for UK farmers. Food surpluses are forcing land to be taken out of food production. In many instances, farmers are being paid to leave their land idle - the system of "set-aside" payments - but this fails to compensate fully for falling incomes. Farmers have been …
THE THORP nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria county continues to haunt British environment secretary John Gummer. About a year after the controversial
Awerness-raising videos made for Western consumption are better not seen or shown in India. Though they strive hard to be politically correct, oversimplification and factual inaccuracies inevitably creep in. Neighbours -- The Life and Times of Yesudas Kemel, an educational package prepared for schools by ACTIONAID UK, a non-governmental organisation, …
