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 NEW V ACUUM cleaner has over come the perennial problem of dust clogging the filter and reducing the machine's efficiency. Dyson Dual Cyclone whizzes dirt and air around at high speed, but instead of using filter, the dirt is collected in a plastic container that can be clipped off …
EXPERIMENTAL observations have amply confirmed the Big Bang theory, but some of its shortcomings have led scientists to develop the so-called inflationary theory, to pursue their bid to trace the early history of the universe. Proposed originally by Alan Guth of MIT in 1980, the inflationary theory predicts the density …
ASTRONOMERS are excited about the recent observations made by the satellite ROSATwhich provide the strongest evidence yet that as much as 90 per cent of the matter in the universe is invisiblewhose presence is indicated by its gravitational pull on matter in space. Astronomers have been searching for this invisible …
IN THE latest round of the unending debate on the effects of television on children, a British report states middle-class primary school beginners are unable. to read because they cannot speak properly. This, says Jackie Miller of the Professional Association of Teachers, is because parents do not talk much with …
WEEKS after the Liberian-registered oil tanker, Braer, was wrecked by hurricane winds off the coast of Britain's Shetland Islands, scientists and environmentalists who had predicted a wildlife disaster feel the environment's resilience may have been underestimated. The Braer spilled its entire load of 26 million gallons of oil, more than …
WHEN HARVARD researchers Bruce Yankner and Neil Kowall discovered in 1991 that amyloids -- small proteins -- injected into the brain of rats could destroy nerve cells in the same manner as observed in Alzheimer's patients, there was much excitement. Alzheimer's disease is the fourth largest killer in the developed …
IN THE US, private eco-label schemes, whose environmental monitoring and approval is based on an analysis of the product through its life-cycle, have taken front-seat, because the state-owned US Environmental Protection Agency has remained wary of endorsing a product as ecologically superior. Two such groups are Green Seal and Green …
What is the significant insight that you have gleaned over your years in environmental politics? We've realised the circle of dependency that exists between the government -- with its five-year cycle of being in power -- and industry -- with its 20-30 year cycle of investment planning. Industrialised countries depend …
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has convicted Britain for allowing high nitrate content in drinking water, court upheld an EC complaint that in 28 water supply areas of Britain in 1989, nitrate levels were above the safe limit of 50 parts per million as laid down by the EC. Responding …
Environment minister David Maclean has delayed British Nuclear Fuel's (BNF) commissioning of the L1.8 billion Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) at Sellafield until a L50 million treatment plant is set up to neutralise emissions of Krypton 85, a radioactive gas. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have warned local residents …
Ever since the use of insecticides was reduced in favour of biological control, British gardeners are discovering that some pests are on the increase (Financial Times, Oct 31/Nov 1, 1992). Now, there are friendly insects to control white flies, greenhouse red spider mites and vine weevils. Encarsia formosa, a tiny …
THE BRITISH government is finding it easier to preach than practice. After lecturing developing countries in Rio on the importance of controlling global warming, it has now been forced by a nationwide protest to rescind its decision to close British Coal's 31 pits and lay off three-fifths -- some 30,000 …
Despite widespread international criticism, Japan has decided to go ahead with shipment of 30 tonnes of reprocessed plutonium from France and Britain over the next two decades to enhance its nuclear energy production. Even before the first cargo of 1.7 tonnes could set out from Cherbourg in France for Yokohama, …
A RECENT article in The Guardian of London on the role played by the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in tropical botany has sparked a debate regarding its acquisition of tropical plants. The article pointed out proudly certain plants in Kew Gardens have facilitated the discovery and exploitation of many modern …
Drink Cafedirect. Give Third World producers a fair deal! Christian Aid, along with other UK charity groups, has launched a two-year campaign to encourage "fair trade" with an assault on the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The plan is to encourage shops to stock "fairly traded" goods, having a …
THE FISH and the fishermen are both in trouble. To prevent a total collapse of fish stocks and the fishing industry, a drastic reduction in the European Community's (EC) fishing fleet has been proposed under the Sea Fish (Conservation) Bill. The critically low fish stock includes cod and haddock. The …
Women are prescribed twice more psychotropic drugs than men, a discovery that has led to much debate in Britain. Is it because women tend to consult psychiatrists whereas men pour their hearts out to their favourite bartenders? Are women more forthcoming than men to doctors? Data suggests men are less …
THE BRITISH Technology Group (BTG) recently licensed Penn Pharmaceuticals to manufacture a "safer paracetamol," according to a report in New Scientist (Vol 135 No 1836). Paracetamol was considered a safe painkiller until it was found that if consumed in large doses, it could be fatal. When broken down in the …
THE BRITISH public is faced with a grim choice: clean versus cheap water. In a recently released document, The Cost of Quality, Ian Byatt, director general of water services, predicted the cost of water in Britain would double by 2005. He questioned the stringent standards for drinking and bathing water …
PIGS MAY may now rule the heart's of men. Dr David White, an immunologist and lecturer in clinical surgery at Cambridge University in UK, has discovered a way of transferring human genes to pigs, to breed hearts on demand. A breakthrough has come in isolating and engineering the gene responsible …
