Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Commission-funded report has claimed that technological advances have made it feasible to roll-out the next phase of offshore wind turbines, which could generate 100 MW, dwarfing the capacity of the current 80 MW models.

The Concerted Action on Offshore Wind Energy in Europe (CA-OWEE) project has concluded that “the physical and environmental challenges are within the grasp of the offshore and wind energy industries,” although there are still problems posed by “market uncertainties.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has approved the lending of Euro 300,000 to help finance a Euro 1.8 million feasibility study into the viability of extracting strontianite ore at Kangankunde, in Malawi, southern Africa, and then processing it into marketable strontium carbonate.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Space Agency is offering to check how countries are implementing environmental treaties such as monitoring the growth of forests under the Kyoto Protocol or their rate of shrinkage under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Its Treaty Enforcement Services using Earth Observation can use ESA satellites to check the extent of national woodland stocks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Space Agency is to use its satellites to check the implementation of environmental treaties, monitoring forest growth under Kyoto, their shrinkage under the Convention to Combat Desertification and the survival of wetlands under the Ramsar Convention.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lankan legislators are considering proposals to create a powerful national electricity regulator, which would combine the functions of the Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. This new Power Supply Committee would have an expanded remit, being tasked with ensuring the smooth operation of electricity transmission in a country where cuts in service are common.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is piling political pressure onto industries, especially fossil fuel electricity generators, which pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, to force them to clean up their processes, adding costs to their bottom line.

In a move that will only serve to make CHP and renewable plants more competitive by comparison, the Commission is preparing a raft of legal cases against eight European Union Member States, to force them to monitor and restrict their production of key greenhouse pollutants.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AMERICA’S Environmental Protection Agency is looking to add certain waste materials, now classified as hazardous, to their programme promoting alternative fuels.

The EPA is trying to expand the country’s use of gasification, a process that puts materials under high temperatures to convert them into synthetic gas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation meeting has issued detailed recommendations on how to improve industrial relations in the oil and gas production and refining industries. The paper concludes that industrial relations in the sector will become more complex as it juggles environmental and social concerns with cost reduction.…

Keith Nuthall
NOONE should ever accuse the European Commission of fighting shy of regulation, and given that proposals on promoting shipping safety are generally framed with good intentions, it would be fair to say that Brussels at least tries to improve standards.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
A FINE-GRAINED red mud left after alumina has been extracted from bauxite is showing promise as a way of cleansing waste- water, a potential new environment-friendly market for the mineral.

The residue can remove phosphorous and heavy metals from water with a lower pH level than normal, which can then be released within quality limits.…