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, …
FOR a company that takes its public relations quite seriously, Monsanto is going through a particularly bad patch. From the 50 per cent cutback in sales of its genetically modified (GM) bovine growth hormone in late February (the company had violated sterility standards) to the court hearing in Chicago over …
Even as the pint-sized East Timor and Australia embarked on talks to settle the issues of their sea border and the ownership of billions of dollars worth of offshore oil and gas reserves, the former launched yet another broadside against the latter. East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri alleged that …
only mother's son: Japanese and Korean scientists have created a mouse without using a sperm. The feat is akin to the birth of Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal. Bees, ants, aphids, some fish and reptiles reproduce without having sex in a process called parthenogenesis. But creating a living mammal …
the Centre for Global Development, an international mission to fight poverty, and the Foreign Policy magazine have released the second annual Commitment to Development Index (cdi) titled "Ranking the Rich 2004', which rates 21 industrialised countries for their impact on developing nations. The Netherlands is at the top of the …
australia: Three of the country's eight states recently halted the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) food crops. Another state, Tasmania, had already placed a moratorium on such cultivation in 2001, which was extended last year till 2008. On April 1, New South Wales (NSW) shot down trials of GM canola …
Royal Dutch/Shell has done it again. For the second time in three months, the Anglo-Dutch energy giant has been compelled to downgrade its reserves estimates. The latest revision saw Shell sliver its estimates of "proven' reserves of oil and gas for 2003 by 220 million barrels and by 250 million …
• The campaign against logging of hardwood trees in Tasmania, Australia, continues unabated (see: At Loggers' Heads, Down To Earth, December 31, 2003) On February 15, seven Greenpeace activists were arrested in eastern Tasmania after they scaled a 30-metre loading gantry at Tribunna Dock to prevent the loading of woodchips …
70 years ago, a species called the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) turned up at the Christmas Islands off Australia, perhaps stuck to a piece of timber. For a long time, it remained dormant. Then in the mid 1990s, its population began to explode. Yellow crazy ants began to form …
What are the various methods of managing invasive weeds? The government generally comes to know about invasive weeds 10-15 years after they are introduced. By then, they are already spread over wide areas and their extinction becomes impossible. The only thing that can make a difference is the people's awareness. …
How easy is it to predict the potential of a plant to become invasive in a new habitat? When an alien species, be it a pest or a weed gets into another habitat, there is generally a time lag before it becomes invasive. Its introduction, as such is sudden and …
What are the modes of successful invasiveness? There have been some studies on recruitment of pollinators by lantana. When lantana invades as an invasive species into a native ecosystemit proliferates and increases its density and biomass. Consequently, there is a chance that it usurps the native pollinators from the native …
function alien2() { var popurl="image/20040229/30-illus.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=475,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } "A successful invasion is a rare event,' says Suresh Babu, a researcher at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi. An accepted thumbrule is that only one in 10 introduced species become naturalised, and only one in 10 among the latter actually …
Last year, a cricketing row broke out between New Zealand and India, when a member of the Indian team was fined for carrying soiled shoes. For India, it was cricketing pride at stake. But New Zealand customs authorities were merely following quarantine regulations. The shoes could have carried a possible …
oceans in trouble: As per the findings of US scientists, tropical ocean waters have become saltier over the past 40 years, while oceans closer to the Earth's poles have become fresher. The large-scale changes suggest that global warming may be altering the fundamental system that regulates evaporation and precipitation. hope …
A ustralian authorities finally appear to be wising up to the nuclear risk. The State Emergency Management Committee of New South Wales has recommended the pre-distribution of iodine tablets to residents of areas lying along the transportation routes of nuclear waste from the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney. Fearing unwarranted …
The worst drought of the century to have hit Australia has made the country realise what a valuable commodity water is. Much to the distress of the farming community and policymakers, traders are trying to cash in on the water shortage. The price of irrigation rights has shot up by …
a recent find may prove to be the miracle of ingenuity to combat the menace of arsenic. Researchers from Australia's La Trobe University have unearthed 13 bacterial strains that convert arsenite present in water into arsenate. "Arsenite and arsenate are the two soluble forms of arsenic. Arsenite is 100 times …
