LJ = storage space
Sep. 24th, 2004 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapeofthingsLife is busy, a little stressful, but mostly good. Despite having to work on that paper this weekend I'm in a Friday kind of mood :-)
Science News
Sci.1. Developing countries + pumping technology = new water crisis? Leading water scientists at a recent Stockholm water symposium warned that the world could be facing a new water crisis as rapidly developing countries like India and China embrace cheap new tube well pumping technology adapted from the oil industry to tap into groundwater at an alarming rate. So much water is being drawn from underground reserves, say the scientists, that those reserves are running dry, turning fields that have been fecund for generations into desert. India is at the epicentre of the pump revolution, where every year farmers bring another million wells into service, most of them outside the control of the state irrigation authorities. Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute’s groundwater station based in Gujarat, said that only a fraction of the estimated 200 km3 of water brought to the surface in India each year is replaced by the monsoon rains. The result is that half of India’s traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up and many regions are facing the real prospect of desertification. The same revolution is being seen across Asia, with millions of new tube wells each year pumping up precious underground water reserves in water-stressed countries like Pakistan, Vietnam and in northern China. (See full story at www.NewScientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996321)
Sci.2. The sea will quench our thirst …: The world’s fast-growing thirst for water can only be met by purifying seawater as rivers and reservoirs suffer increasingly from problems of scarcity, pollution and access, the Spanish Government said last week unveiling a major program to fight its chronic water shortages. Spain is one of Europe’s most arid countries and suffers annual water shortages, particularly in the summer when demand is swelled by millions of tourists who throng to Spain’s coastal resorts. Their new program involves an integrated approach to managing the country’s water issues: (i) development or expansion of desalination plants that will be powered at least in part by renewable energy and will provide around 3% of Spain’s water consumption; (ii) new water pricing arrangements where water will be priced according to its intended use (farmers will face the lowest charges, with industry paying a little more and tourist facilities and golf courses paying the most); and (iii) a nationwide campaign to educate consumers on the importance of conserving water. The European Union has indicated its support for the Spanish proposals and is expected to offer significant funding assistance. (from Environment in the News, 6 September 2004)
Sci.3. … and the sun will power us into paradise: If you believe the vision of T. Nejat Veziroglu, Director of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, hydrogen produced from solar energy will take over as the world’s future energy source, cleaner and more efficient than any other. And Australia will be one of the wealthiest countries in the world—the new OPEC—having beaten the rest of the world in harnessing the power of the sun to produce hydrogen from solar energy. Professor Veziroglu says that in the not too distant future silent cars will glide around our city streets, rooftop panels harnessing the sun’s energy will generate enough power for the whole country, the pace of global warming will have slowed and power lines will be replaced by underground pipes. As the international communitiy begins to face the reality of the prospect of a world without oil, there are a number of contenders being touted as the great new hope for renewable energy: wave power, wind power and solar power among them. The drawback with hydrogen power until now has been that the catalyst used to split water into its component elements of hydrogen and oxygen has been methane, a greenhouse gas, which nullifies any environmental advantage. But research presented to the International Conference on Materials for Hydrogen Energy in late August in Sydney claims to have discovered a new catalyst, titanium oxide, which eliminates the production of greenhouse gas in the process. Of course there is much yet to be learned and many things must happen before Australia can run on the power of the sun. Professor Veziroglu envisages a national network of pipelines starting in Queensland’s north and running down through Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne before crossing to Adelaide and Perth, with an extension running to Darwin, linking photovoltaic solar cell farms and gas liquefying plants. (Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August 2004)
Sci.4. International organisations accept environmental flows as solution to water security: A number of international organisations endorsed environmental flows as the best tool to ward off social conflict and environmental degradation due to the overuse of water in the river basins of the world, at a special session of the 14th World Water Week conference held in Stockholm in late August. ‘Environmental flows’ describes the way water in rivers is managed in order to ensure that downstream users and ecosystems receive enough water to ‘remain in business’. It entails negotiations between water users, based on an understanding of the impacts their water use has on others and on the natural environment. The Murray–Darling is a good example of where earlier knowledge and application of environmental flows could have avoided much of the $500 million cost currently being met by Australian Governments to return the system to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction. The IUCN, the World Conservation Union, has produced a guide entitled ‘Flow – the essentials of environmental flows’ which is now widely recognized as the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art guide on the topic. The book can be downloaded from the IUCN website or directly through www.waterandnature.org/flow/main.html.
Sci.5. ‘Ghost bugs’ could help cut pesticide use: Bacterial ‘ghosts’ could be a new way to treat plants with pesticides. These empty shells of bacterial cells can be filled with chemicals and will stick to leaves and stems even after heavy rain. This could eventually allow less frequent pesticide spraying, a major target as agriculture tries to reduce costs and pollution. Researchers at the University of Vienna, Austria, have developed a way to create these shells from cells of Pectobacterium cypripedii, a species that has evolved to stick to plants. The cells are treated with a virus protein that creates a tunnel between the inner and outer cell membranes of the bacteria, making the cell like a bottle: you take the cork out and can remove the contents but the bottle itself is intact. The team filled the ‘ghosts’ with a widely used fungicide, sprayed them onto barley and wheat plants then doused them with simulated heavy rain. Pesticide activity was higher than with control plants sprayed in the conventional manner. (see Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 52, p. 5627)
Science News
Sci.1. Developing countries + pumping technology = new water crisis? Leading water scientists at a recent Stockholm water symposium warned that the world could be facing a new water crisis as rapidly developing countries like India and China embrace cheap new tube well pumping technology adapted from the oil industry to tap into groundwater at an alarming rate. So much water is being drawn from underground reserves, say the scientists, that those reserves are running dry, turning fields that have been fecund for generations into desert. India is at the epicentre of the pump revolution, where every year farmers bring another million wells into service, most of them outside the control of the state irrigation authorities. Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute’s groundwater station based in Gujarat, said that only a fraction of the estimated 200 km3 of water brought to the surface in India each year is replaced by the monsoon rains. The result is that half of India’s traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up and many regions are facing the real prospect of desertification. The same revolution is being seen across Asia, with millions of new tube wells each year pumping up precious underground water reserves in water-stressed countries like Pakistan, Vietnam and in northern China. (See full story at www.NewScientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996321)
Sci.2. The sea will quench our thirst …: The world’s fast-growing thirst for water can only be met by purifying seawater as rivers and reservoirs suffer increasingly from problems of scarcity, pollution and access, the Spanish Government said last week unveiling a major program to fight its chronic water shortages. Spain is one of Europe’s most arid countries and suffers annual water shortages, particularly in the summer when demand is swelled by millions of tourists who throng to Spain’s coastal resorts. Their new program involves an integrated approach to managing the country’s water issues: (i) development or expansion of desalination plants that will be powered at least in part by renewable energy and will provide around 3% of Spain’s water consumption; (ii) new water pricing arrangements where water will be priced according to its intended use (farmers will face the lowest charges, with industry paying a little more and tourist facilities and golf courses paying the most); and (iii) a nationwide campaign to educate consumers on the importance of conserving water. The European Union has indicated its support for the Spanish proposals and is expected to offer significant funding assistance. (from Environment in the News, 6 September 2004)
Sci.3. … and the sun will power us into paradise: If you believe the vision of T. Nejat Veziroglu, Director of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, hydrogen produced from solar energy will take over as the world’s future energy source, cleaner and more efficient than any other. And Australia will be one of the wealthiest countries in the world—the new OPEC—having beaten the rest of the world in harnessing the power of the sun to produce hydrogen from solar energy. Professor Veziroglu says that in the not too distant future silent cars will glide around our city streets, rooftop panels harnessing the sun’s energy will generate enough power for the whole country, the pace of global warming will have slowed and power lines will be replaced by underground pipes. As the international communitiy begins to face the reality of the prospect of a world without oil, there are a number of contenders being touted as the great new hope for renewable energy: wave power, wind power and solar power among them. The drawback with hydrogen power until now has been that the catalyst used to split water into its component elements of hydrogen and oxygen has been methane, a greenhouse gas, which nullifies any environmental advantage. But research presented to the International Conference on Materials for Hydrogen Energy in late August in Sydney claims to have discovered a new catalyst, titanium oxide, which eliminates the production of greenhouse gas in the process. Of course there is much yet to be learned and many things must happen before Australia can run on the power of the sun. Professor Veziroglu envisages a national network of pipelines starting in Queensland’s north and running down through Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne before crossing to Adelaide and Perth, with an extension running to Darwin, linking photovoltaic solar cell farms and gas liquefying plants. (Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August 2004)
Sci.4. International organisations accept environmental flows as solution to water security: A number of international organisations endorsed environmental flows as the best tool to ward off social conflict and environmental degradation due to the overuse of water in the river basins of the world, at a special session of the 14th World Water Week conference held in Stockholm in late August. ‘Environmental flows’ describes the way water in rivers is managed in order to ensure that downstream users and ecosystems receive enough water to ‘remain in business’. It entails negotiations between water users, based on an understanding of the impacts their water use has on others and on the natural environment. The Murray–Darling is a good example of where earlier knowledge and application of environmental flows could have avoided much of the $500 million cost currently being met by Australian Governments to return the system to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction. The IUCN, the World Conservation Union, has produced a guide entitled ‘Flow – the essentials of environmental flows’ which is now widely recognized as the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art guide on the topic. The book can be downloaded from the IUCN website or directly through www.waterandnature.org/flow/main.html.
Sci.5. ‘Ghost bugs’ could help cut pesticide use: Bacterial ‘ghosts’ could be a new way to treat plants with pesticides. These empty shells of bacterial cells can be filled with chemicals and will stick to leaves and stems even after heavy rain. This could eventually allow less frequent pesticide spraying, a major target as agriculture tries to reduce costs and pollution. Researchers at the University of Vienna, Austria, have developed a way to create these shells from cells of Pectobacterium cypripedii, a species that has evolved to stick to plants. The cells are treated with a virus protein that creates a tunnel between the inner and outer cell membranes of the bacteria, making the cell like a bottle: you take the cork out and can remove the contents but the bottle itself is intact. The team filled the ‘ghosts’ with a widely used fungicide, sprayed them onto barley and wheat plants then doused them with simulated heavy rain. Pesticide activity was higher than with control plants sprayed in the conventional manner. (see Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 52, p. 5627)