Month: October 2012

Despots don’t like being watched. In September 2007 the Burmese ruling military junta commenced a brutal crackdown on their citizens in response to huge street protests. They tried to prevent the world from knowing what was happening by cutting telephone lines, shutting down websites and closing internet cafes. However, they failed to keep their activities secret since they were being watched all the time by high-resolution Earth-observation satellites. In fact, satellites had been monitoring human rights abuses in Burma for a number of years. Images had been produced showing clear indications of destroyed or damaged villages, growing refugee camps, the build-up of military bases and the appearance of new villages near those military bases suggesting forced relocations.

This was the work of The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) who set up the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project in December 2005. The purpose was to assess how Earth-observation satellites could be used to detect and monitor human rights abuses. They have now carried out a number of studies. In addition to their work in Burma, images have been collected of the damage done to the infrastructure of Southern Lebanon by the Israeli military. Studies have also been carried out of the destruction of homes and businesses of four communities in Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina. And attacks by the Sudanese government-backed militias against civilian communities in Darfur, Sudan and Chad have also been documented.

The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. Now, just over 50 years later, there are around 3000 functioning satellites orbiting the Earth. These satellites study the weather, transfer telephone calls, relay television programmes, aid navigation, carry out military tasks, and now, monitor human rights abuses.

Observing the Earth was an early priority for artificial satellites. The first satellite photographs of Earth were made in 1959 by the US satellite Explorer, although only rather poor quality low-resolution pictures were obtained. The technical progress which has been made since those early days is impressive. Quickbird, an imaging satellite owned by DigitalGlobe, is one of the satellites used by the AAAS. It weighs about one tonne, travels at 7.1 km/sec at 450 km above the Earth. It orbits the Earth every 93.4 minutes and produces images with a resolution of 0.61 metre and snapshots 16.5×16.5 km or strips 16.5km x 115 km. Each area of the Earth is revisited every 2 to 3 days depending on the latitude.

The image sensors record green, red, blue and near infra-red wavelengths which can be used separately or combined to detect chosen features. For example, the red, green and blue channels can be combined to produce true colour pictures. The infrared can be combined with other frequencies to highlight vegetation which can be useful in humanitarian work, where overgrown agricultural areas may indicate mass displacement of people. Quickbird produces sharp focus views of buildings, building-destruction and soil disruption that might mark mass graves. It can detect small houses, fencing, footpaths, and vehicles. It can distinguish between cars and trucks, and between military and civilian vehicles.

Although Earth-observation satellites have been around for a long time their use for humanitarian purposes has only become possible in recent years. The high-resolution images produced by military satellites have never been available to the general public and images from privately-owned satellites are traditionally expensive. But now, with more satellites collecting more images, resolution is increasing and costs are coming down. Some satellite companies, including DigitalGlobe, now provide images at discounted prices for humanitarian work.

There are, of course, limitations on what can be achieved with Earth-observation satellites. For example, Burma is largely covered in forests and there is frequent cloud cover, especially during the monsoon season, which restricts observations. The killing or imprisoning of small numbers of people cannot be identified from satellite images. In many parts of the world there are no archived images so that before-and-after pairs cannot be produced, although, as time passes, more and more of the Earth’s surface is being recorded.

A good example of the value of this work is the study showing unequivocally that the Zimbabwe government had destroyed an entire settlement and relocated the people who lived there. The AAAS have before-and-after image sets of the settlement called Porta Farm just outside the capital Harare. The first is an archived image which appears to show nearly a thousand homes. It is possible to manually count the number of structures and it is believed that up to 10,000 people were originally living there. In the second image, collected in April 2006, the settlement has gone. The operation was called Operation Murambatsvina which translates as Operation Restore Order or Drive Out Trash.

The satellite evidence was used by Amnesty International and Zimbabwe lawyers in the preparation of a report to publicise human rights violations by the Zimbabwe government. The images will also be used in a legal action in Zimbabwe by those who lost their homes. The Zimbabwe government claimed the action was designed to clear illegal slums and black market areas but in reality, of course, it was designed to retaliate against those who opposed the Mugabe regime.

In future will it be possible to use Earth-observation satellites to predict the onset of human rights abuses? Some scientists think so. Fires may show that a campaign of repression is beginning and drought or other disruptions may be precursors to human rights abuses. Scientists are studying past conflicts and collecting information such as general disruption, economic data, eyewitness accounts and satellite images to find common patterns which precede repressive campaigns. Mathematical modelling of data from potential trouble spots may then become possible and governments might be persuaded to intervene at an early stage.

Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS, is optimistic. “We believe this technology will become a critical tool for human rights organisations worldwide. The satellite images show the technology has enormous potential for helping to prove broad human rights violations. And perhaps someday in the future, the technology will make it possible to intervene earlier in a human rights crisis, before it’s too late.”

About the author

Chris Holt is a physicist with a BSc from Sussex University and a PhD from Nottingham University. For many years he carried out blue sky research at Unilever’s Corporate Research Laboratory in Bedfordshire. He has presented papers at a number of international symposia and published many academic papers. He is the holder of seven patents. He now works as a freelance science journalist.

The foundation, a $34bn fund that is run by the multi-billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and invests in scientific projects broadly aimed at improving global health, said each project would get a $100,000 grant for further study.

Other winning projects include developing a low-cost cell phone microscope to diagnose malaria, using ultrasound as a reversible male contraceptive, insecticide-treated scarves and using imaging systems to seek and destroy parasites with a targeted laser vaccine.

“We are convinced that some of these ideas will lead to innovations and eventually solutions that will save lives,” Tachi Yamada, of the Gates Foundation’s global health programme, said in a statement.

The foundation said winners were from universities, research institutes and non-profit organisations in 18 countries around the world.

One group of scientists in Germany will use their grant to develop nanoparticles that penetrate the skin through hair follicles and burst on contact with human sweat to release vaccines.

Grants will also help researchers investigate new ways to fight malaria: one team is trying to see whether treating traditional scarves worn by migrant workers along the Thai-Cambodia border with insecticide will reduce drug-resistant malaria; in Uganda, a team is testing the ability of insect-eating plants to reduce the number of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes.

Scientists in the US will use the grant to study the ability of ultrasound to temporarily deplete testicular sperm counts for possible use as new male contraceptive.

The grants were awarded by the foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations scheme – a five-year $100m initiative which seeks to promote innovation in global health.

Since opening in 1994, the foundation Gates has handed out more than $21bn in grants.

Analysts said Google’s decision is tantamount to exiting the world’s largest internet market, with more than 360 million users, since it is highly unlikely the Chinese government would allow Google to operate an unfiltered search engine.

But the decision does not necessarily mean Google will abandon China entirely, as it could follow the footsteps of other US internet companies that have chosen to partner with local companies instead of maintaining their own sites.

“China is in our view one of the most attractive consumer internet markets. We think it (Google) is generating $200m in annual revenue from China,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, analyst at Collins Stewart.

“But this kind of attack they cannot afford to have as a global player. That’s why I think they’re evaluating whether they should basically withdraw from the country.”

Google controls about 31.3 percent of the Chinese search market, versus 63.9 percent for local search powerhouse, Baidu Inc, according to Analysys International.

Annual search revenue in China is estimated to be more than $1bn.

Google’s second-place standing in China means it won’t feel an immediate sting if it does close shop there. Analysts estimate revenue from China to be a fraction of the roughly $22bn in annual revenue Google generated in 2008.

Google said it may pull out of China after uncovering a sophisticated cyber attack on the email accounts of human rights activists. The company said the attack originated from China, but would not speculate on whether the Chinese authorities were involved.

However, with growth slowing in mature markets such as the US, Google needs all the sources of growth it can find and China is a strategic market for most technology companies.

 “Just about every earnings call recently has been that they are focused on the long term growth opportunities for China and that they are committed,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Stephen Ju, describing Google’s move as a “complete 180.”

“Others have pulled out already, so I guess Google pulling out would not be model breaking,” he said, but nonetheless described Google’s move as very surprising.

In 2005, Yahoo Inc handed over exclusive rights to the “Yahoo China” brand and folded its Chinese mail, messaging and other operations into the Alibaba Group, in a $1bn deal that gave Yahoo a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.

In 2006, eBay Inc folded its Chinese operations into a new venture controlled by a local partner as it switched tack in a fast-growing market where it has struggled.

The US-based web auction giant put its China business, acquired when it bought local auction site EachNet for $180m, into a joint venture with Tom Online, a Beijing-based internet portal and wireless services firm that is partly owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.

Filtered vs unfiltered site
Google launched its Chinese-language search engine google.cn in 2006, and the site complies with local laws requiring censorship of certain items such as pornography and “vulgar comment”.

“There were a lot of problems that hamstrung Google, but not all of them had to do with Google being picked on by the Chinese government,” said Kaiser Kuo, China internet commentator and former director of digital strategy at Ogilvy China.

Analysts have said that working with a local partner in China could help Google get a better competitive footing in a foreign market with different languages and customs.

But it could also expose Google to some criticism after having taken the stand it would not countenance Chinese censorship.

While Google could stop operating the filtered Google.cn site, one analyst said some Chinese users might still use the company’s flagship English-language site, Google.com.

“If they do pull out of China and shut down their offices, it shows that they are not that committed to this giant internet market,” said JP Morgan analyst Dick Wei.

“Before 2006 and before Google.cn came to China, I think market share for Google was over 20 percent, I don’t think if they pull out of China it will go down to zero. It will still be a substantial (market) share from Google.com, about 20 percent,” he said.

There was a lot of explaining going on at the recent Copenhagen climate summit conference. After the speeches and ceremonies, delegates got down to the hardcore negotiating.

Almost all of this hard graft was dealing with how countries and corporates tackle CO2 targets for the next 20-30 years and, crucially, how carbon capture storage (CCS) technology will get used.

“McKinsey Consultants recently did an in-depth study on CCS,” says Stan Dessens, “and it quickly became obvious that unless countries started to use CCS, then we can’t reduce our CO2 emissions effectively. In the long run, renewables will be able to help here, but until they arrive we need a bridge. CCS is the right bridge and the right technology. It’s a genuine alternative that works now.”

CCS in brief:
• CCS is a relatively new technology designed to let major producers of CO2 emissions like fossil fue∞burning power stations prevent the CO2 they create being released into the atmosphere.
• CCS is usually stored underground or under the sea.
• Its use is not widespread but it is increasingly
seen as a bridge-builder until more renewable technology arrives.
• A major part of CCS strategy is to reduce the cost and increase scale in order to get CCS commercially available by 2020.

Barriers remain though. More than 150 developing countries have no incentive mechanisms for developing CCS. Its technology needs to be more widespread and it needs to be cheaper. CCS also needs a great deal more public acceptance if it’s to make serious headway.

“In the Netherlands,” says Stan Dessens, “we continue to break down barriers in terms of public acceptance. It’s the usual ‘not-in-my-back-yard’ concerns and people do have a right to be concerned. But it’s also a communication issue, and a matter of convincing the public that CCS technology is safe and effective.”

Communicating the need
Is CCS promoted enough by the right agencies? It’s a good question when the need for it is so pressing, argues Stan Dessens. Part of the fight to get CCS more accepted is to broaden the net of groups and organisations that can talk about it with authority – it’s simply too big an issue to be left just to the politicians.

“We need to talk more and invest more with scientists and NGOs and other responsible authorities,” says Dessens. “Once NGOs and scientists start talking about the issue then you have a platform where they can be judged and trusted more by the public. When a scientist or an NGO says ‘we need to invest or accept CCS more’, then public acceptance does begin to change. So we need to talk to universities and NGOs. Some, of course, will be never convinced, but we need to start.”

There are several CCS steps to communicate successfully: capture, transport and storage.

Power plants, for example, are often part of the “capture” part of the chain but the public still largely remains unclear about the “transport” and “storage” elements, partly because the costs and how the technology functions remains unclear – quite a tangled mass of communication challenges. Although very sophisticated CCS technology exists, progress will be slow until there is broader public acceptance.

Practical, profitable partnerships
Dessens believes the role of private enterprise and private public partnerships (PPP) are essential in order to augment CCS progress, as well as aid consumer perception about the technology. “I’m really very optimistic about more PPP relationships in the future. It’s about looking for common outcomes and so far there have been several projects that have succeeded. Of course, there can be confrontations sometimes on this journey, but that’s expected.”

CCS technology also needs some flagship projects up and running on a commercial scale to prove the viability of the technology. That’s not easy. For example, current research by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum suggests there are 273 CCS projects under way worldwide, but only 64 of which are of commercial scale. Seven are operational but none as yet generate electricity.

Dessens says the data can look discouraging from certain viewpoints. “But we have always stated we need a decade from 2010 to 2020 for development and while we have pilot projects running in the Netherlands, the decision to invest in a post∞combustion project of 250 megawatts under an ERP scheme with Eon/Electrabel is great progress.” This scheme has been nominated for a subsidy of EUR 180m under the EERP scheme (European Economic Recovery Plan) with an operation start date slated for 2015.

Meanwhile several pilot plants and demonstrations are on-going in the Netherlands. So progress is being made.

Current Dutch CCS storage projects
• An already up-and-running offshore project with Gaz de France (location block K12b) where CO2 is injected to stimulate gas production. Already more than 60,000 tons of CO2 have been injected here.
• Barendrecht: this is a 10-year injection project of 0.2 million tons a year in a depleted gasfield. CO2 is coming from a Shell refinery; there is a EUR 30m subsidy granted to Shell to help realise this project. Scheduled start of injection is 2012.
• Geleen in the province of Limburg; same size as Barendrecht; CO2 is coming from an ammonia plant with a subsidy of EUR 30 mln granted; injection in sandstone under coal layers. Start of operation is 2011/12.

Support from China and India
China and India are both investing seriously in CCS technology. But Western Europe and the US also have their part to play in exporting CCS technology to places like India and China – it’s all about a joint effort. “When a country like China takes the problem seriously,” says Dessens, “we all gain, because that speeds up the process for everyone. We have to develop and share technology together.”

CCS technology is very important for a country like China because it’s an enormous coal producer. Coal emits more than double the CO2 compared to gas per kilowatt of energy produced when burned. But CCS – sometimes labelled “clean coal” – promises to remove a large proportion of emissions from burning coal.

Also, says Dessens, CCS is vital in the fight against climate change because emerging economies like India and China are almost wholly dependent on coal for electricity generation.

In fact, carbon capture has been used in petrochemical and chemical processes for many years. But developing it on a truly massive commercial scale is a different thing.

Change is tough, tough work
Stan Dessens knows that the road to CCS acceptance will be hard∞going into the near future. He also acknowledges that there are well-known drawbacks to CCS, like its expense. But he’s confident broader acceptance will come. “Really you have to look around and ask yourself, ‘what is the alternative to CCS? What other technology works here, right now?’

“Some people will argue that we have to invest more in renewables, and I agree with that. But it’s impossible to solve the problem only with renewables. We have to be open to lots of ideas and pathways. We need them all.”

Further information: www.ez.nl

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both with the University of Manchester, conducted experiments with graphene, a new form of carbon that is both the thinnest and strongest material known.

“Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene is suitable for producing transparent touch screens, light panels and maybe even solar cells,” the committee said.

Novoselov, 36, is a dual British-Russian citizen while Geim, 51, is a Dutch citizen.

The pair extracted the super-thin material from a piece of graphite such as that found in ordinary pencils, using adhesive tape to obtain a flake that was only one atom thick.

“Playfulness is one of their hallmarks, one always learns something in the process and, who knows, you may even hit the jackpot,” the committee said in its release. The material is almost completely transparent yet so dense that not even the smallest gas atom can pass through it. It also conducts electricity as well as copper.

Quantum leap
The academy said that graphene offered physicists the ability to study two-dimensional materials with unique properties and made possible experiments that can give new twists to the phenomena in quantum physics.

“Also a vast variety of practical applications now appear possible including the creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics,” it said.

Mentioning a few possible applications, the academy said graphene transistors were expected to become much faster than today’s silicon ones and yield more efficient computers.

The prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.5m), awarded by the Nobel Committee for Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, was the second of this year’s Nobel prizes.

In 1972, Antoine Riboud made this ground-breaking statement: “The company’s responsibility does not stop at the factory gates or the office door. Its action has repercussions throughout the whole community and influences the quality of life of each citizen. (…) Through the energy and raw materials that it consumes, through the nuisances that it generates, it gradually changes the appearance of our planet.” Today, under Antoine’s son Franck, Danone has translated this vision into an action plan to slash its carbon footprint by an ambitious 30 percent by kilo between 2008 and 2012 in each business line.

Nature at the root of Danone’s mission
Environmental responsibility is in Danone’s DNA, in two ways. Firstly, it is closely linked to its mission, “to bring health through food to as many people as possible”. As healthy food comes from healthy nature, to achieve this mission in the long run Danone needs to preserve and renew resources.

Environmental responsibility is also deeply rooted in Danone’s corporate culture based on dual commitment to business success and social progress. That is why Danone took early action to formalise and quantify commitments, recognising protection of resources as a strategic priority at the beginning of the 1990s and adopting an Environmental Charter in 1996. In 2000, Danone set precisely defined 10 years targets for limiting water and energy consumption and reducing waste and packaging. After achieving nearly all of those targets earlier in 2008, the group shifted up a gear and defined five priorities for action: reducing its carbon footprint, protecting water resources, stepping up packaging research to transform waste into a resource, promoting sustainable agriculture, and supporting biodiversity. Danone chose to begin by radically accelerating its efforts for the broadest indicator of environmental impact – carbon dioxide – and set the ambitious target of reducing its carbon footprint by 30 percent in kilos by 2012, taking into account not only its own direct impact and that of its factories but all the downstream stages in product life cycles. To facilitate deployment, Danone set up a Nature management department to coordinate, assess and promote action throughout the group.

Fighting climate change
Danone plans to reach its goal ≥ reducing our carbon footprint 30 percent by 2012 ≥ through progress in three areas: measuring its emissions reliably, reducing them, and implementing carbon offsets.

Reliable measurement
Reliable Measurement is an essential first step.

Danone has been working with experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers to develop a method to measure carbon emissions and allow results to be both reliably audited and included as a fundamental component of corporate reporting. The group can now measure emissions for its four businesses (Fresh Dairy Products, Waters, Baby and Medical Nutrition). The method was already approved for the Waters division and is now being assessed for certification by Ademe in France and the Carbon Trust in the UK. The aim is to generate audited carbon performance statements just as Danone produces audited financial statements. Looking beyond Danone, standardising measurement is an important issue, since it is the only way to ensure that all manufacturers speak the same language.

Second objective: Reducing emissions
In 2009, Danone achieved a 7.4 percent reduction of its carbon footprint when the target was of five percent. Momentum is set to continue with targets of 6.5 percent for 2010 and 30 percent by 2012, achieved through a comprehensive approach covering every stage in production.

At production plants, a highlight of the year was the creation of Danone Energy Campuses: meetings bringing together experts from factories around the world to develop standard-setting models for energy consumption compare these with actual performances and identify areas with room for improvement. In Fresh Dairy Products, this allowed Danone to reduce energy consumption by 11 percent. The Ochsenfurt factory in Germany made a particularly strong contribution with 47 best practices, most of them suggested by plant workers. The group is now studying deployment of these practices in over 20 sites worldwide, with a special focus on renewable energy sources, production of methane from waste, co-generation and geothermal energy.

In packaging, the main initiative for the Fresh Dairy Products division was the “Foam” project which consists in using a technology that injects air into plastic packaging to reduce density by 19 percent and CO2 content. In 2009, 40 production lines participated in the project, and as many as 110 lines will be able to use the technology by 2011. In 2009, the Water division launched the first bottles made entirely of recycled PET (R-PET) in Mexico, thanks to a ground-breaking technology that converts old bottles into new ones without generating any fresh waste along the way.  Drawing on its successful partnership with PETstar, which supplies Bonafont with R-PET bottles in Mexico, Danone signed a contract with France Plastiques Recyclage to develop an R-PET factory in France to supply Evian Volvic Worldwide. In the long term, Danone’s objective is to produce 50 percent of bottles out of R-PET.

At Danone, concern for the environment extends beyond plants and products to include suppliers upstream and transport downstream. Because 85 percent of the emissions linked to its operations are indirect, working with suppliers is essential. The Danone Carbon Pact is a three-year action plan that helps its leading upstream partners measure and reduce emissions.

In 2009, Danone signed 20 agreements with top suppliers accounting for 40 percent of raw material and packaging purchases for Fresh Dairy Products, and it will be extending the programme to its other divisions in 2010.

Turning to transport, 2009 saw the implementation of a project which was adopted for bottled waters in the previous year, leading to a switch from road to rail for Volvic exported from France to Germany. The shift eliminated 26,000 truck deliveries, cutting carbon emissions by 30 percent, and business units in many other countries are now testing the programme.

Third step: Offsetting the carbon
However great its commitment and regardless of the efforts it makes, there will always be residual CO2 emissions that Danone simply cannot eliminate. In such cases, the group turns to carbon offsets to leverage the planet’s capacity to absorb emissions.

In this area, 2008 saw a major step forward with the creation of the Danone Fund for Nature in partnership with Ramsar and the IUCN and aiming at identifying and financing projects contributing to carbon absorption. In 2009, just six months after it became operational, Evian launched its first offset project with a programme for the restoration of mangroves in Senegal. Mangrove ecosystems are the planet’s richest sources of biomass. By offsetting the carbon remaining after a drastic slash plan, this programme will allow Evian to achieve its target of 50 percent carbon emissions reduction by 2011. Thanks to the fund’s money, the “Plant a Tree” campaign headed by the NGO Oceanium since 2006, was a major hit with more than 300 villages mobilised to replant 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) or 36 million mangrove saplings. These aims are now an integral part of Danone’s business. Targets for reducing its carbon footprint are built into its management bonus system, which in turn has rallied employees as a whole to the cause. In the end, the challenge Danone faces in chasing the carbon is not just reducing its footprint, but effecting profound change in its practices to ensure that its future economic performance is lasting. Antoine Riboud was clear, “Public opinion is there to remind us of our responsibility.”

About farming
As Danone buys its milk from external suppliers, it cannot take all decisions on its own, but the group can develop partnerships with farmers and agricultural organisations and find ways to limit the environmental impact of its dairy business. Since 2004 Danone has worked with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and Vallorex, the flax-growers association, to demonstrate that adding flax to cattle feed significantly reduces methane emissions. In 2009 Danone’s France-based flax programme, dubbed Linus, was extended to Spain and the US. The group worked with the same partners to publish an article in the Journal of Dairy Science in 2009, demonstrating for the first time the links between certain amino-fatty acids and methane emissions. Measuring methane emissions from dairy herds – and thus better controlling them – could well become routine procedure in the near future.

Further information: www.downtoearth.danone.com

Lula vigorously insists the Belo Monte dam, which may cost as much as $17bn, will bring jobs to poor communities in the Amazon rainforest and ensure electricity supplies for one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

But activists and indigenous groups, including Hollywood director James Cameron, say the dam will destroy parts of the Amazon and displace up to 20,000 people, while financial analysts call the project a politically driven money-loser.

A Brazilian court delayed an auction to build the dam on the grounds that it may violate environmental law, slowing the flagship project of an $878bn public works crusade that is a key campaign platform of Lula’s anointed successor, Dilma Rousseff, for this year’s presidential vote.

“These big investment projects like Belo Monte have major design flaws and major management flaws,” said Luiz Vellozo Lucas, an opposition legislator. “There is no way this project can work, and that’s going to have a political cost.”

Lula has staked significant political capital on the 11,000-megawatt project. By 2014, the dam should begin generating as much as six percent of the electricity Brazil consumes, which the government estimates will soar 48 percent by 2018.

Supporters argue the dam is crucial to ensuring power for Brazilians from thriving automakers to homeowners, including low-income families that are quickly joining the ranks of the middle class.

“It is a project that generates very clean competitive energy, without even taking into account the environmental benefits of renewable energy that does not emit carbon dioxide,” Mauricio Tolmasquim, head of a government energy think-tank, said in an interview with local media.

Brazilian construction giants Camargo Correa and Odebrecht have walked away from the bidding process to build the dam, citing low returns, and left the government scrambling to bring in more companies.

The auction, meant to create competition between companies to offer the lowest price for power generated by the dam, was delayed by the court decision. The government is expected to appeal.

Oscar-winning director Cameron, who has compared the construction of Belo Monte to his environmentally tinged sci-fi thriller “Avatar,” has become the most high-profile critic of the project.

Cameron, donning an indigenous headdress and streaks of red paint on his face, has joined local indigenous leaders in a ceremony in the Amazon town of Altamira, near the proposed dam site.

Originally conceived some 30 years ago, progress on Belo Monte has been slowed over the years by protests, including an incident last year in which Kayapo Indians armed with clubs and machetes attacked a state electricity official.

“The dam will have a terrible social and ecological impact,” said Lucio Flavio Pinto, an environmental activist who lives in the Amazon city of Belem. “But the worst part is it’s a white elephant, it’s not economically viable.”

During the dry season, the water flow will fall so much that the dam will generate less than 10 percent of capacity. Still, supporters say it will help balance power generation because dams in southern Brazil have lower output just as Belo Monte would be generating at full steam.

Ricardo Correa, a power sector analyst with brokerage Ativa Corretora in Rio de Janeiro, said the possibility for work stoppages caused by protests or environmental lawsuits has made the project exceedingly risky.

Investors have been turned off by a ceiling on the amount the dam could charge for power along with high construction costs – which vary by more than 50 percent between government and private company estimates.

“This is a project with risks that are enormous and returns that are very low – and possibly negative,” Correa said. “It not a project that creates value, it’s a project that destroys value.”

The boat plows on through the brackish green river, taking Jose de Oliveira Quadro on a journey that may have been futile a few years ago.

Strangers have been fishing in his village’s lake and Quadro is on a two-hour ride to recruit help from the nearest police post in Brazil’s vast Amazon forest. He admits he probably wouldn’t have bothered before his river∞side community was made part of a pioneering scheme that pays each family about $30 a month to act as forest guardians.

“I can’t let them take the food off our plates,” said the nearly toothless 35-year-old. Thank God we have more help these days.”

Quadro’s journey is part of a new chapter in the long struggle to save the world’s greatest forest that were central to efforts in Copenhagen to frame a new global effort to curb the planet’s warming.

His tiny settlement is one of 36 communities and 320 families receiving the payment in the Juma reserve, an area the size of the US state of Delaware in Brazil’s Amazonas state that is the first official emissions∞reducing project in the Amazon.

Working schemes for REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation and allows the sale of credits to offset carbon pollution elsewhere, are few and far between now. But a climate deal including REDD could be a potent tool to cut deforestation, which globally accounts for up to 20 percent of carbon emissions – more than all the world’s cars, ships and planes combined.

Response needed

“What the world needs to understand is that we have done our housecleaning, valued the forest as much as we can, tested good practice and now we need a response or the people will end up pressuring the forest for survival,” Amazonas state Governor Eduardo Braga told Reuters.

Versed in the minutiae of global climate talks, Braga is the modern face of a state nearly the size of Alaska whose previous government handed out free chainsaws to loggers.

The fresh-faced 48-year-old set up the “Bolsa Floresta” programme that hands out the monthly stipend to about 7,000 forest families, including in Juma. He said a strong accord on REDD could boost the programme to 60,000 families by 2014 or about half the population living in the state’s vast forest.

Concerns
REDD offers a possible way both to cut the destruction that has razed nearly a fifth of the forest and combat poverty that remains at African levels despite Brazil’s economic rise.

Yet hope is mixed with concern over the role of the private sector and whether forest dwellers have enough say in decisions about them sometimes being made thousands of miles away.

Banks, carbon-trading firms, and companies seeking to boost their green credentials are ramping up their interest, with estimates that REDD could bring in $16bn a year for Brazil alone. Coca Cola Co, Brazilian bank Bradesco and the Marriott Hotels chain are helping to fund the Bolsa Floresta project.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace worry that too much reliance on carbon markets for funds could result in speculation or a flood of cheap credits, allowing rich countries to continue polluting at little cost.

Brazilian critics of REDD say it risks making high levels of Amazon deforestation acceptable. Brazil’s government has trumpeted the lowest deforestation rate in two decades, but the 2,700 square miles cleared in the first half of 2009 was still equivalent to nine New York cities.

Brazil’s government, after an initially luke-warm response to REDD, is expected to back it in Copenhagen.

In Amazonas, however, not everyone sees Juma and the private Sustainable Amazon Foundation that manages it in partnership with the state government as a desirable model.

“If this is REDD, we need to fight it,” said Rubens Gomes, coordinator of the Amazon Working Group, an umbrella group for Amazon social and environmental organizations.

Some 49 social groups published an open letter in October rejecting market-based REDD schemes.

Gomes complains civil society groups such as his were excluded from the creation of the foundation, which is headed by Braga’s former environment secretary Virgilio Viana. He worries social handouts will create a culture of dependency.

“Without another source of income, we won’t create opportunities and they will continue to exchange trees for food and for clothes,” Gomes said.

The foundation head Viana told Reuters that many critics of the project were simply ideologically opposed to markets.

Deep-sea exploration tends to be done via unmanned submarines; these are costly to operate and have limited capabilities.

A new technology developed by European researchers could help to change that. It enables explorers to coordinate “schools” of research submarines that can communicate with each other and work together.

That would be an important step. Most of the autonomous unmanned vehicles (AUVs) used in ocean exploration are highly specialised, cannot travel far alone, and only gather a narrow range of data.

Moreover, there simply aren’t very many of them.

The European GREX project is developing an underwater networking technology that enables individual AUVs to “talk” to each other beneath the waves, sharing information and coordinating their exploration efforts.

A team of AUVs working together in this way can cover more ocean and gather a wider range of data in more detail.

Seawater is a difficult medium for linking up submarine robots and bandwidth is very limited, which affects the quality and range of the signal – measured in the hundreds of metres.

But the GREX team have shown in trials that a line of AUVs can daisy∞chain a signal from one to the other, which means they can stretch out across the ocean over many kilometres.

“Underwater communication between vehicles is a very difficult area,” says Michael Jarowinsky, a member of the GREX project, “so we did not work with individual vehicles, we sought to create a ‘GREX’ box that incorporates communications.”

This box of tricks can be hooked up to the vehicle’s existing controls, which means that an exploration team could simply add the technology to its existing submarines, dramatically increasing their functionality.

There is high demand for the kind of exploration that GREX enables, says Jarowinsky, from studying hydrothermal vents and their rich, alien ecosystems to making new discoveries in biology, geology, magnetism and any number of other studies.

The ocean oil industry should take note too. Exploration and pipeline maintenance companies tend to use remotely operated unmanned vehicles that are controlled by cable.

But that requires a supply ship, which is expensive.

A school of longer-range AUVs equipped with a GREX box could provide huge savings, says Jarowinsky.

Spokesman James Gillies said the subterranean Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in which tiny particles of matter are smashed together at a fraction of a second under the speed of light, was functioning extremely well.

“It’s all looking pretty good. We are getting a mass of data for the analysts in laboratories all round the world to get their teeth into, even if it could take months or years for anything really new to emerge,” said Gillies.

Officials at CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research, are keen to get through the first two weeks at high power, recalling that in 2008, an earlier launch of the LHC at a lesser power was halted by a major coolant leak after 10 days.

Scientists keeping watch over the LHC’s 27-km oval-shaped ring under the Swiss-French border near Geneva said collisions were now being recorded at 100 per second, twice as many as on the first mega-power day.

Particle beams were first injected into the LHC and then collided at a previously unattained total energy of 7 tera – or 7 million million – electron volts (TeV) on March 30 in what scientists said was a huge step forward in cosmic research.

Primeval fireball
The collisions create simulations on a tiny scale of the Big Bang, the primeval fireball 13.7 billion years ago out of which the entire cosmos – emerged.

By tracking how the particles behave after colliding, CERN researchers hope to unveil secrets of the cosmos such as the make-up of dark, or invisible, matter, why matter gained mass, and if there are more dimensions to the four already known.

There could also be clues, but not before the middle of the decade after collision impact energy is doubled to 14 TeV in 2013, on whether ideas even more reminiscent of science fiction like parallel universes have any basis in reality.

This, like the additional dimensions proposition, figures marginally in the postulates of string theory – which suggests the basic ingredients of the cosmos are tiny strings of matter – over which scientists have argued for some years.

The theory also proposes the idea of supersymmetry, under which every particle has a massive unseen or shadow particle – a phenomenon that could explain why dark matter makes up nearly 25 percent of the universe while visible matter accounts for around only five percent.

Proponents say string physics, if shown to be correct, could provide the long-sought “general theory of everything” which would resolve contradictions between modern quantum theory and Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

We will always need electricity for our refrigerators, computers, lights, phones, you name it. We are an electricity-dependent world. Where we obtain it from is up for discussion, but we will have electricity.

We have to change not just what we drive, but how we drive.

Everyone has a role. This is a global, planet-wide issue, and every segment uses transportation, and therefore has a role in the success of “greening” mainstream automobiles: government, industry, academia, and consumers.

Here are recommendations for taking electric cars mainstream gleaned from experience including marketing the only comparatively mass market electric car company in business for over 11 years, Global Electric Motorcars (a Chrysler company, GEM, manufacturer of neighbourhood electric vehicles or NEVs), and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Recommendations
To encourage the use of electric vehicles, we need to make it easy, attractive, affordable and convenient. We also need to perceive it as the popular thing to do. We need what Sunstein, Thaler and other behavioural economists call “choice architecture.”  That means, we need infrastructure, rewards, and communication.

1. Infrastructure:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka “the stimulus bill, ARRA) takes important steps toward funding the infrastructure for electric and other alternative fuel vehicles. However, ARRA has flaws: minimum funding requirements are too high, which makes for complex projects (e.g. $5 million); the funding offset is too low (e.g. $2,000 on a $10,000 vehicle); some electric vehicles are ineligible (NEVs are ineligible for many grants); and the time frame to develop the programs and apply for the funds is too short. State universities called me at GEM wanting to use ARRA grants to buy GEM electric cars, but they didn’t have the cash to make up the difference per vehicle.

Speed limits: High speed roads drive higher gas consumption, encourage the use of larger vehicles, and are vulnerable to more and worse accidents. Lower speed limits are safer, more fuel-efficient and roads posted 35mph (or below) generally permit eco-friendly, 100 percent electric NEVs. They are also friendly to bicyclists, scooters, runners and other slower moving, eco-friendly traffic. If we truly want to encourage people to drive electric, and to start immediately, we need more lower speed roads on which they can drive electric today in the electric vehicles commonly available today – NEVs.

Mapping: Drivers should be able to map routes for low-speed NEVs on only 35 mph roads. There should be an entity in the Department of Transportation that collects and tracks local speed limits to enable more eco-friendly low-speed transportation, especially around urban areas, campuses, and master-planned and retirement communities.

Charging and building codes: To make it easy – and popular – for people to drive electric, people need to feel that it’s easy to recharge, just as easy as finding a gas station. Many NEV’s such as GEM cars, plug in to standard 110 volt outlets, and can be opportunity charged anytime – like a cell phone. Therefore, to encourage electric driving, we need external and accessible outlets (parking meters and street lamps?). Building codes could require external outlets, especially for retail commercial spaces, such as restaurants and shopping malls, and could require preferential parking for alternative fuel vehicles (similar to the model for handicapped parking) with charging access. Residential building codes could universally include outlets in garages dedicated to electric vehicles, avoiding the choice between plugging in secondary refrigerators and charging their car.

2.  Incentives and rewards:
To encourage and expedite the mass adoption of electric vehicles, we need an energy use standard and cash rebates, as well as communications strategies (others are talking about the gas tax and urban planning, so we’ll set those aside):

A. Energy use standard: Develop a government standard for energy use similar to the “recommended daily allowance” used in food labeling, with a corresponding energy facts label. It would rate the “carbon footprint” of products, including vehicles, against that standard.

B. Cash rebate: Provide a cash rebate for buying any alternative-fuel vehicle: The stimulus plan includes a tax credit of $2,500 – $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle, but the buyer still has to spend the same dollars to purchase the car, and the middle class especially in tough times, may not have the requisite income to offset the credit.
 
3. Communication and feedback:
Studies particularly among behavioural economists show that people change their behaviour based on immediate feedback, peer pressure and the belief that “everybody’s” doing it. As Sunstein and Thaler write, “the costs of pollution are hidden, while the price at the pump is quite salient.”  “People want to do what they think others will do,” Robert Cialdini, author of Influence is quoted as saying, and we all know the bandwagon effect.

A. Sell the electric vehicle message aggressively: The US government should do a better job of promoting the use of electric vehicles, making it the popular thing to do and emphasising “green” as the new status symbol. They could also promote the Energy Star and Green Light programmes more, and make participating in those programmes more valuable. The US Green Building Council has done a good job with their LEED-certification programme, for example – it has become a popular goal for builders, perceived as a competitive advantage.

Governments need to aggressively support the marketing and advertising investment of the private sector in encouraging the use of electric cars, especially with key opinion leaders, such as community leaders and women. Women are employers, employees, and heads of households, and actively and enthusiastically share good ideas with their friends and families.

The media also has a role. The trend-setting traditional automotive press can shift from focusing on and praising big, brawny, muscular, and fast vehicles to giving louder applause to more fuel∞efficient and smaller cars. Production companies can integrate electric cars into their television and movie productions on a regular basis. 

B. New Labels: Revise the labels currently on new and certified used vehicles in showrooms commensurate with the new “recommended daily energy allowance” standard described in the previous section, comparing the vehicle (or other product) to those standards. Since that label would likely be removed upon purchase, have a permanent label on the back window that other people could see reflecting how that car rates against the recommended standard energy allowance. These would provide information, make people think about the choice in relation to their overall energy use, and would provide feedback and peer pressure (everyone sees the rear label). Manufacturers could promote the “green” rating as a competitive advantage (similar to “100 percent of daily vitamins“ or the LEED-certification).

C. Energy Efficiency Card: A “green” vehicle identification card issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles certifying this vehicle is energy-efficient (based on the above new standards). This card could entitle the registrant to discounts on products and services from companies (much as they agree to accept credit cards).

In summary, there is much each of us can do. We can use “choice architecture” to help us drive “green” – one electric vehicle, one citizen at a time.

Today, governments can incentivise “green” driving with standards such as the “recommended daily energy allowance.” Each of us can stop before we jump in our SUV’s or gas-powered cars when running to the market. We can think about how to accomplish our daily tasks in a more environmentally sound manner – including driving electric – and we’ll likely save money too. 

It’s not just about flipping engines. We need to change how we drive, not just what we drive.  Can we change our ways? Yes, we can.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said that under European rules, suppliers are supposed to obtain a licence before selling products from cloned animals but added there was no suggestion they posed any health danger to consumers.

“While there is no evidence that consuming products from healthy clones, or their offspring, poses a food safety risk, meat and products from (them) are considered novel foods and would therefore need to be authorised before being placed on the market,” the FSA said.

It had traced two bulls born in Britain which began life as embryos harvested from a cloned cow in the US, and one was slaughtered in July last year.

“Meat from this animal entered the food chain and will have been eaten,” the agency said.

The second bull was slaughtered in July and action was taken before its meat entered the food chain.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2008 approved the sale of food from clones and their offspring, stating the products were indistinguishable from those of non-cloned animals.

However, the European parliament voted recently to exclude food from cloned animals from a list of approved products. A novel food application must be made before it can be sold.

Milk probe
The FSA said it was also continuing an investigation into reports milk from the offspring of cloned animals had entered the food chain in Britain.

It had found the offspring of a cloned cow which was believed to be part of a dairy herd, but had no evidence its milk had entered the food chain.

News of the probe has attracted widespread media coverage with food campaigners saying it raised a number of issues.

“Cloning involves applying invasive and cruel techniques on the surrogate mothers that are used for producing the clones,” said Emma Hockridge, Head of Policy at the Soil Association.

She said cloning also raised worries about the safety of meat and dairy products and the spread of diseases, “as well as concerns about the ethics of cloning”.

However, Brendan Curran, a geneticist from Queen Mary, University of London, said FDA tests had found no evidence that meat and milk from cloned animals or their offspring was any different from traditionally reproduced livestock.

“They have concluded therefore that it is safe for humans to consume produce from such animals,” he said. “There is no reason why the situation should be any different in the UK.”

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, Head of Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research, said he expected most consumed bananas were clones.

“I am not going to say that this story is bananas, as there could be some other issues, such as whether or not FSA and EU regulations have been complied with, and about the welfare of the cows used to make the clones and the cloned cows themselves, he said.

“I suspect the latter were very well looked after as they are valuable. As Abbie Hoffmann said: sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.”