Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY ALAN OSBORN

IN the world rankings of big polluters, airports occupy a very respectable position near the foot of the table. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimates that aviation’s total CO2 emissions account for 2% of the global total, with airports themselves accounting for only up to 5% of that air industry tranche.…

BY MARK ROWE

SEQUENCING the human genome has brought widespread interest and the potential for treatment of diseases, but confectionery industry researchers are increasingly applying this technique to key components in the food chain. One of the most high-profile sequencing programmes gathers pace this year, as Mars continues the sequencing of the cocoa genome, a project it is working on with the US department of agriculture’s subtropical horticultural research substation and IBM.…

By Alan Osborn and Mitch Vandenborn, International News Services

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ITALIAN politician nominated the European Union’s (EU) new industry commissioner Antonio Tajani has said he would push hard to release credit for hard-pressed clothing and textile small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Tajani said he would use the European Commission’s political muscle to push banks into lending more to small businesses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PREDICTING oil seed production for a given year is always an imprecise science. If accurate projections could be made year-after-year, bio-based oil and fats specialists would all be commodity market millionaires. And they are not. However, as with betting on racehorses, the more information that is available, the better opportunity there is for getting something right, and with oil seed production – the more analysts know about market conditions, weather forecasts and regulation, the better.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RUSSIA and Ukraine appear to have headed off an oil transit dispute that could have created a repeat of last year’s major disruption of European natural gas supplies. Moscow and Kiev have signed an agreement increasing by 30% the fees Ukraine charges on transporting Russian oil to the European Union (EU) – this alters a 2004 contract and the change had sparked a diplomatic tussle.…

BY ANCA GURZU, MARK ROWE, PAUL COCHRANE AND KARRYN MILLER

THE COPENHAGEN conference on global warming may failed to have delivered a comprehensive global warming deal, but it did at least highlight an international consensus on the need to fight climate change and conserve energy: as a result, the global sales of paints and coatings that reflect heat and hence reduce the need for air conditioning are likely to rise.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, PACIFICA GODDARD, GAVIN BLAIR and KEITH NUTHALL

NEW technologies devour new resources and the move towards hybrid and electric vehicles could make some currently impoverished countries rich. As the world moves away from fossil fuels, the soft metal lithium will become increasingly in demand as a critical component of auto batteries for green cars.…

BY MARK GODFREY

IT has not traditionally featured on prospectors’ radar but Mongolia is quickly emerging as an Asian oil exporter. Thanks to rising oil demand from China, the Petroleum Authority of Mongolia has inked production-sharing agreements on 12 oil fields with explorers from north America, Australia and China.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

THE NEW team of European Union (EU) Commissioners due to assume office for the next five years on February 1 are expected to revamp the EU’s nanotechnology legislation, an issue of critical importance to the personal care product industry.…