A Vast Vineyard of Solar Electricity Kramer Junction in the sunny state of California

As forests and fossil fuels diminish, look to solar energy as one of the most promising sources of alternative energy.

India’s Central Arid Zone Research Institute

“At the present rate of energy consumption, the reserve of fossil fuels of the entire world can be exhausted in 50 to 100 years,” said Dr. M. N. Nahar, principal scientist of the Division of Agriculture and Energy at the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI). “There is an urgent need to harness solar energy and other alternative energy sources.”

Unlike natural gas, coal, or nuclear power, solar power requires no fuel, works without polluting the air or leaving behind dangerous radioactive waste, and is extremely plentiful. Researchers estimate that the sun produces enough energy in a single second to meet the needs of all humanity for 2000 years. “The surface of the Earth receives an amount of solar energy equivalent to roughly 10,000 times the world energy demand,” wrote Erik Lysen in the January 2003 issue of Renewable Energy World magazine.

Figuring out how to harness it has already been accomplished, to some extent. Solar technology is currently divided into two categories, thermal and photovoltaic. Thermal solar power uses the heat of the sun, and photovoltaics, or PV, is the technology that converts its light directly into electricity.

LABORATORY PV EFFICIENCY PROGRESS

In the last twenty years of the 20th century photovoltaic panel efficiencies doubled

A photovoltaic panel consists of several connected 0.6-V dc PV cells, which are made out of a
semiconducting material, generally mono- or multi-crystalline silicon. The thin layer of silicon is sandwiched between two metallic electrodes, and the cells are usually encapsulated behind glass to make them weatherproof.

Multiple PV panels can be then connected to form an array, capable of providing sufficient power for everything from common electrical applications like single-household electricity to Olympic swimming pools, apartment or industrial buildings. The average lifetime of a PV system is about 20 years, and it can be used in combination with conventional power or alone.

The only problem is that, although in some cases it is becoming competitive, solar power is generally still slightly more expensive than tapping into conventional electricity. The process of constructing PV cells is somewhat complicated and delicate, and there is also a considerable loss of materials. Multi-crystalline silicon wafers are obtained from ingots grown by casting liquid silicon in a large container followed by controlled cooling, a technique less complicated than the pulling of single-crystalline rods. Then, in sawing the thin layer of crystalline silicon, about 20% of the material is lost as “sawdust”.

Efficiency is also not high, although it has been progressively increasing. A solar cell made of multi-crystalline silicon, which accounts for most of the PV panels currently in use and production, converts sunlight to electricity at about 13.5% efficiency. Mono-crystalline silicon, which is more difficult to produce, can achieve about 15%; in both cases, clouds and night time also rob the cell of a further 65%.

USA’s Dept. of Energy

One way to reduce PV costs is to use materials other than silicon as semiconductors, like amorphous silicon and cadmium telluride (CdTe). Although government grants are keeping the fire going, the technology is moving slowly, and thin-film PV panels are hard to mass-produce cost-effectively because of the difficulty of coating large areas of glass. “It is my opinion that crystalline- silicon technologies will dominate for at least the next 10 years,” said Jeffrey Mazer of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Solar Energy Technologies in Washington.

There is one instance, however, in which PV energy is already cheaper than using fossil fuels. If a location is not currently connected to the “grid,” that is, if no power lines are there, it is less expensive to install PV panels than to either extend the grid or set up small-scale electricity production with a diesel or other generator. the average cost of extending those power lines ranges from $20,000 to $80,000 per mile, a cost the consumer usually has to bear. At this price, eliminating a power line extension of even one mile could well pay for the PV system for someone who can easily afford it– or make electricity possible for someone who can’t.

A “Solar Yard” in the sunny state of Rajasthan, India

Approximately two billion people, or about 1/3 of the global population, residing primarily in developing countries, are not connected to the grid, and may never be; in this area particularly solar is the energy source of the future, as these places develop. “For electricity production in rural areas in developing countries, solar energy is the cheaper alternative,” said Nahar. Indeed, the demand for PV is growing faster outside than inside the U.S.

Photovoltaics first came into use in 1958 when NASA needed a feasible power source for its spacecrafts and satellites, and has been used for this purpose ever since.

Other current uses of PV solar panels include powering watches and pocket calculators, powering the lamps of some remote lighthouses, and solar-energy systems in homes and buildings in Western countries. In the United States and Europe alone, about 15,000 vacation homes are equipped with PV systems; some environmentally-conscious consumers are willing to pay more for clean energy.

The popularity of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV’s), in particular, has grown considerably in recent years. BIPV’s are PV devices designed directly into building materials like roofs, shingles, and siding, which offer electricity and aesthetics, eliminating the need for mounted solar panels.

The cost of a BIPV system is also partially offset by replacing the costs of conventional construction materials. The system helps insulate and protect roofing structures, and BIPV life expectancies range in excess of 30 years, 33% higher than normal solar panels. There are currently more than 3,000 BIPV systems installed in Germany, and Japan has a program that plans to build 70,000 new BIPV buildings.

In terms of overall installed PV capacity, India comes fourth after Japan, the US and Germany (Indian Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources 2002). “India is the only country which has a separate ministry for alternative energy,” Nahar said. “Government support and subsidies have been a major influence in our progress.”

India is also in a good position because of the intense heat. “Arid regions receive plentiful solar radiation,” he said. In computed global solar radiation of arid stations in the Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana, it was found that Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, receives the maximum radiation at 6.27 kWh/m2 per day; the average daily duration of bright sunshine in Jodhpur, Rajasthan is 8.9 hours.

Flag of India

- A Solar Still - Why not combine in one module a distallation unit, thermal & photovoltaic collectors, & runoff capture?

“Thermal solar energy can be used for water heating, cooking, drying, water distillation, refrigeration, and space heating and cooling,” continued Nahar. One of the most crucial of these uses is cooking, as half the total energy consumed in developing countries is used in the domestic cooking sector; there are currently over 500,000 solar cookers in use in India, according to Nahar, including the world’s largest solar cooking venue in Tirupati, which provides food for over 15,000 people each day.

Solar dryers, for dehydrating vegetables, and solar water heaters are also becoming popular. “Conventional water heaters require copper piping,” Nahar said. “We have developed models using gerberized steel.” These water heaters are currently used in hotels and hospitals, providing up to 100,000 litres of water per day; the cost of these is also decreasing steadily (Figure 3).

Another important area of development is that of solar stills, by which the acute draught and shortage of potable water, currently the cause of many physical disorders, can be alleviated.

MEGAWATTS OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY INDIA - INSTALLED THRU 1999

India Has Many Alternatives For Renewable Energy

In the latest models of solar stills, presuming the potable limit to be 1500 PPM TDS, as much as 50 litres per day of potable water can be made available from raw water with salinity of 5000 PPM TDS by installing a solar still of capacity 35 litre/day. If the per person requirement for drinking and cooking is 5 litres/day, this is enough for a family of 10.

Income can also be derived from solar stills. Considering the cost of the still, interest and maintenance, solar distilled water costs Rs. 0.98/litre, and the current market rate of distilled water is Rs. 3/litre. A solar still for the production of rose water has also been developed, which can be quite profitable. A unit with glass area 0.6 m2 costs only Rs. 900. Although irrigation facilities are required, the unit produces approximately 36 litres of rose water per month. The current market rate for rose water is Rs. 50/litre, which means that in the first month the unit has paid for itself– twice.

Other important areas of alternative energy development are those of wind power and biogas. Biogas plants have become increasingly prevalent–The present capacity of biomass-based power generation totals 358 MW and 42.8 MW biomass gasifier power has been installed and regarding wind power India keeps fifth place after Germany, the US, Denmark and the UK with a total wind power generation of 1507 MW (MNES 2002).

“The future of solar energy is bright,” Nahar said. “In the last 20 years, the cost of conventional power has been going up, and the cost of solar energy has been coming down.”

Brook and Gaurav Bhagat are writers and independent filmmakers based in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India.

EarthWorks Founder and CEO Jonathan Brewer

Wouldn’t it be better to clean and reuse contaminated soil?

What if toxins could be inexpensively removed from soil, on-site, instead of being hauled to a landfill? This is the vision that inspired Jonathan Brewer to found EarthWorks Environmental in 1998, and in barely four years his small company has treated over 50 million pounds of contaminated soil. Based in Sacramento, California, Brewer’s company offers a unique and patented innovation, whereby mining equipment used to crush ore is adapted to grind up soil so that chemical or biological reagents can be sprayed onto the fine particles, neutralizing the toxins. This new approach to soil remediation is again attracting customers faster than Brewer can serve them, allowing him to live his dream of “growing and becoming financially successful by cleaning up the planet.”

Mainstream methods of soil remediation either require permanent, and very expensive, removal of the contaminated soil, or they require “washing” the soil in cumbersome tanks. Brewer’s machines are fully self-contained, and can be easily transported directly to the contaminated sites, where the soil requiring treatment can be scooped onto a conveyance hopper and fed through the grinders and sprayers, coming out the other end completely treated. Where a soil washing system might be capable of cleaning 500 tons of soil per day, Brewer’s latest machine can clean 200 tons of soil or more per hour! “We can eliminate any toxin for which there is a chemical or biological methodology to degrade,” said Brewer, and that’s almost everything out there.

Contaminated Soil Awaiting Treatment in Gillette, Wyoming

Earthworks Environmental has gotten off to a good start, with four machines now in service and contracts in-process throughout the western United States. But there is huge, explosive potential for a machine that can recycle contaminated soil into clean topsoil for roughly a third the cost of today’s conventional practice of removing and sequestering contaminated soil. Brewer is holding onto a classic example of a disruptive, revolutionary technology, an invention that will not only turn the soil remediation industry on its ears, but also one that can greatly accelerate cleanup of polluted lands worldwide; a solution that cheaply creates clean earth again, instead of expensive removal and relocation of toxic waste.

The Treatment Begins EarthWorks Machines Process Over 200 Tons Per Hour

For three years Jonathan Brewer has built his business like an entrepreneur, reinvesting his profits into refining his product, winning new business, growing slowly. Meanwhile the commercial potential and the environmental benefits for his revolutionary process call for rapid growth, requiring huge investments. EarthWorks is always on the lookout for strategic partners who are preparing to invest in conventional soil washing technology. EarthWorks offers a revolution in soil recycling to such an investor.

Treated Soil Comes off an EarthWorks Machine

EarthWorks Environmental’s machines are mobile, flexible and fast, they clean and recycle the soil instead of sequestering it as toxic waste, and the process is much cheaper. A strong financial partner could acquire EarthWork’s Environmental and deploy their machines worldwide in a very short time. EarthWorks has had courtships with investors and partners where they would acquire the right to the patents, the equipment, and the company but to-date EarthWorks remains independent and growing their business the old fashioned way, by delivering jobs well done to a growing clientele. EarthWorks is actively marketing equipment and licenses to environmental contractors around the world.

EarthWorks mobile soil cleaning systems can be carted around a continent on rail cars and by truck. Wherever they go, clean earth is left in their wake, instead of toxic landfills. These machines and their many variations hold immense promise not only for the industrial nations, but throughout the developing world where their low cost and quick implementation make them especially attractive.

Soil After the EarthWorks Process Clean Enough to Use as Topsoil

EarthWorks offers soil cleaning solutions that are so much more cost-effective than traditional methods, that by implementing this more efficient solution, additional resources that would have been required for soil treatment can be redirected into the local communities. This altruism resonates with Brewer and is part of his criteria to find the right company to bring EarthWorks into the big leagues.

It isn’t every day an entrepreneur comes up with an innovation that proves to be both profitable and promising a better future for humanity. Equally unusual is the entrepreneur who, having the fortitude to prove their product’s worth against entrenched competition, is able to let go when the time is right, and sell their company to a partner with the financial network to introduce his product to the world. Ideally, companies like Brewer’s EarthWorks will soon find investor partners that add the resources and international partnerships he needs, and also share his altruistic vision of how to use his product to improve the lot of civilization.

Kids Sort Trash Lessons start early in life all recycling is good…

Governments across the European Union and America have announced plans to require more recycling.

The European Union has ordered the citizens of the United Kingdom to roughly double their recycling rates by 2008, while the city governments of New York and Seattle have proposed mandatory expansions of existing recycling programs.

These moves are not based on new developments in resource conservation; instead they - like other mandatory recycling programs - rest on misconceptions of mythic proportions. This article discusses the most egregious of these myths.

MYTH 1: OUR GARBAGE WILL BURY US

All of America’s garbage for the next century could fit in just one landfill, only about 10 miles square

Since the 1980s, people repeatedly have claimed that the United States faces a landfill crisis. Former Vice President Al gore, for example, asserted we are “running out of ways to dispose of our waste in a manner that keeps it out of either sight or mind.”

This claim originated in the 1980s, when the waste disposal industry moved to using fewer but much larger landfills. The Environmental Protection Agency, the press, and other commentators focused on the falling number of landfills, rather than on their growing overall capacity, and concluded that we were running out of space. The EPA also underestimated the prospects for creating additional capacity.

In fact, the United States today has more landfill capacity than ever before. In 2001, the nation’s landfills could accommodate 18 years’ worth of rubbish, an amount 25% greater than a decade before. To be sure, there are a few places where capacity has shrunk. But the uneven distribution of available landfill space is no more important than is the uneven distribution of auto manufacturing: Trash is an interstate business, with 47 states exporting the stuff and 45 importing it. Indeed, the total land area needed to hold all of America’s garbage for the next century would be only about 10 miles square.

MYTH 2: OUR GARBAGE WILL POISON US

The claim that our trash might poison us is impossible to completely refute, because almost anything might pose a threat. But the EPA itself acknowledges that the risks to humans (and presumably plants and animals) from modern landfills are virtually nonexistent: According to the EPA’s own estimates, modern landfills can be expected to cause 5.7 cancer-related deaths over the next 300 years - just one death every 50 years. To put this in perspective, cancer kills over 560,000 people every year in the United States.

Older landfills do possess a potential for harm to the ecosystem and to humans, especially when built on wetlands or swamps, because pollutants can leach from them. When located on dry land, however, even old-style landfills generally pose minimal danger, in part because remarkably little biodegradation takes place in them.

Modern landfills eliminate essentially any potential for problems. Siting occurs away from groundwater supplies, and the landfills are built on a foundation of several feet of dense clay, covered with thick plastic liners. This layer is covered by several feet of gravel or sand. Any leachate is drained out via collection pipes and sent to municipal wastewater plants for treatment. Methane gas produced by biodegradation is drawn off by wells on site and burned or purified and sold.

MYTH 3: PACKAGING IS THE PROBLEM

RECYCLING RATES - USA 2000

Cardboard is recycled at three times the rate for glass; the worth of glass recycling is debatable.

Contrary to current wisdom, packaging can reduce total rubbish produced. The average household in the united States generates one-third less trash each year than does the average household in Mexico, partly because packaging reduces breakage and food waste. Turning a live chicken into a meal creates food waste. When chickens are processed commercially, the waste goes into marketable products (such as pet food), instead of into a landfill. Commercial processing of 1,000 chickens requires about 17 pounds of packaging, but it also recycles at least 2,000 pounds of by-products.

The gains from packaging have been growing over time, because companies have been reducing the weight of the packages they use. During the late 1970s and 1980s, although the number of packages entering landfills rose substantially, the total weight of those discards declined by 40 percent. Over the past 25 years the weights of individual packages have been reduced by amounts ranging from 30 percent (2-liter soft drink bottles) to 70 percent (plastic grocery sacks and trash bags). Even aluminum beverage cans weigh 40 percent less than they used to.

MYTH 4: WE MUST ACHIEVE “TRASH INDEPENDENCE”

Numerous commentators contend that each state should achieve “trash independence” by disposing within its borders all of its rubbish. But, as with all voluntary trade, interstate trade in trash raises our wealth as a nation, perhaps by as much as $4 billion. Most of the increased wealth accrues to the citizens of areas importing trash.

Not only is the potential threat posed by modern landfills negligible, but transporting rubbish across state lines has no effect on the environmental impact of its disposal. Moving a ton of trash by truck is no more hazardous than moving a ton of any other commodity.

MYTH 5: WE SQUANDER IRREPLACEABLE RESOURCES WHEN WE DON’T RECYCLE

In fact, available stocks of most natural resources are growing rather than shrinking, but the reason is not recycling. Market prices are the best measure of natural resource scarcity. Rising prices imply that a resources is getting more scarce. Falling prices imply that it is becoming more plentiful. Applying this measure to oil, we find that over the past 125 years, oil has become no more scarce, despite our growing use of it. Reserves of other fossil fuels as well as other natural resources are also growing.

Thanks to innovation, we now produce about twice as much output per unit of energy as we did 50 years ago and five times as much as we did 200 years ago. Optical fiber carries 625 times more calls than the copper wire of 20 years ago, bridges are built with less steel, and automobile and truck engines consume less fuel per unit of work performed. The list goes on and on. Human innovation continues to increase the amount of resources at our command.

MYTH 6: RECYCLING ALWAYS PROTECTS THE ENVIRONMENT

Recycling is a manufacturing process with environmental impacts. Viewed across a wide spectrum of goods, recycling sometimes cuts pollution, but not always. The EPA has examined both virgin paper processing and recycled paper processing for toxic substances and found that toxins often are more prevalent in the recycling process.

Often the pollution associated with recycling shows up in unexpected ways. Curbside recycling, for example, requires that more trucks be used to collect the same amount of waste materials. Thus, Los Angeles has 800 rubbish trucks rather than 400, because of its curb-side recycling. This means more iron ore and coal mining, steel and rubber manufacturing, petroleum extraction and refining - and of course extra air pollution in the Los Angeles basin.

MYTH 7: RECYCLING SAVES RESOURCES

It is widely claimed that recycling “saves resources.” Proponants usually focus on savings of a specific resource, or they single out particularly successful examples such as the recycling of aluminum cans.

But using less of one resource generally means using more of other resources. Franklin Associates, a firm that consults on behalf of the EPA, has compared the costs per ton of handling rubbish through three methods: disposal into landfills (but with a voluntary drop-off or buy-back program, and an extensive curbside recycling program.

On average, extensive recycling is 35 percent more costly than conventional disposal, and basic curbside recycling is 55 percent more costly than conventional disposal. That is, curbside recycling uses far more resources. As one expert puts it, adding curbside recycling is “like moving from once-a-week garbage collection to twice a week.”

MYTH 8: WITHOUT FORCED RECYCLING MANDATES, THERE WOULDN’T BE RECYCLING

This view reflects ignorance about the extent of recycling in the private sector, which is as old as trash itself. Scavenging may, in fact, be the oldest profession. In the 19th century, people bid for the right to scavenge New York City’s rubbish, and Winslow Homer’s 1859 etching, Scene on the Back Bay Lands, reveals adults and children digging through the detritus of the Boston city dump. Rag dealers were a constant of American life until driven out of business by the federal Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939, which stigmatized products made of recycled wool and cotton. And long before state or local governments had even contemplated the word recycling, makers of steel, aluminum, and many other products were recycling manufacturing scraps, and some were even operating post-consumer drop-off centers.

Recycling is a long-practiced, productive, indeed essential, element of the market system. Informed, voluntary recycling conserves resources and raises our wealth. In sharp contrast, misleading educational programs encourage the waste of resources when they overstate the benefits of recycling. And mandatory recycling programs, in which people are compelled to do what they know is not sensible, routinely make society worse off. Market prices are sufficient to induce the trashman to come, and to make his burden bearable, and neither he no we can hope for any better than that.

Daniel K. Benjamin is professor of economics at Clemson University, a senior associate of the Political Economy Research Center (PERC), and a regular PERC columnist. This essay is adated from a longer paper, “Eight Great Myths of Recycling,” which is available from PERC.

Building a Path to Ecological Restoration An Institute in India Fights the Desert

Editor’s note: Deserts spread but deserts are not inevitable. Restored ecosystems, managed by humans, can reclaim desertified land through harvesting and storing more rainwater, planting hardy trees that none-the-less yield a crop, and sustainable farming and grazing areas. Such a practice may not stop every desert, but it beats using the land for overgrazing livestock, allowing excess water to run-off each year, and allowing all the trees to die. If tomorrow trees were planted this way everywhere, it might certainly make a positive difference in global climate change. A variety of new farming and forestry technologies and water harvesting practices combine to fight deserts; many of these combinations and recipes for restoration are only now being developed and documented. In India, a country experiencing desertification, an institute in Jodpur, Rajasthan, is pioneering many interesting ways to fight the desert..

Agriculture is not a dependable proposition in this area– after the rainy season, at least 33% of crops definitely fail, stated Dr. Pratap Narain, director of the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), based in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Animal husbandry, trees and grasses, intercropped with vegetables or fruit trees, is the most viable model for arid, drought-prone regions.

Nand Kishore Jaisalmeria, a local farmer who has won national awards for his progressive approach to agriculture, said current drought conditions have cost him a 30-40% loss.

The Great Indian Desert Stretches over much of Northwest Central India (Scale: 100 miles = 41 pixels)

Arid regions of Western Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Southern parts of Haryana receive low precipitation (under 40 CMS. normally) with high evapotranspiration due to high solar radiation and wind speed. The region faces frequent droughts. Overgrazing due to the high animal population, wind and water erosion, mining and other industries are serious land degradation processes, according to Dr. Narain.

“Certain oceanographic features may be the cause of the current drought and shift in climate,” he said. “We don’t have good oceanographic stations yet; we can only offer medium-range weather forecasting, which means about 15 days in advance. We can’t say when the monsoon, or any other rain will come.”

In the last 15-20 years, the Rajasthani desert has seen many changes, including a manifold increase of both the human and animal population. Animal husbandry has become popular due to the difficult farming conditions. At present, there are ten times more animals per person in Rajasthan than the national average, and overgrazing is also a factor affecting climatic and drought conditions.

Central Arid Zone Research Institute

Since its establishment in 1959, CAZRI, funded primarily by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, has been working under the mandate of undertaking basic and applied researches in order to contribute to the development of sustainable farming systems in the arid ecosystems.

In 2001, CAZRI established five multi-purpose tanks of 50,000 litre capacity to help meet drought needs, for which the cost was shared with farmers. Three 20-meter deep infiltration wells were established to enhance groundwater recharge, and subsurface barriers across the ephemeral stream increased well yield from 28% to 53%. Vegetative barriers, perhaps the most non-invasive way to conserve water, prevent runoff, and increased the yield of crops like pearl millet and mung bean in some areas from 30 to 50%.

In August of 2002 CAZRI held a drought management conference to discuss what they should reccomend that the goverment do in terms of drought-proofing and prevention. The scientists concluded that crops requiring less water should be cultivated, and that rooftop rainwater harvesting systems should be mandatory in the construction of new buildings. This water can be used for crops.

Newly Planted Budding Ber Trees

In the short term, it was agreed at CAZRI’s 2002 Conference that relief work must be done, like supplying grain and fodder for animals, and cleaning existing wells. For the long term, however, issues like how land-use policies might be adjusted and how people can be encouraged to grow more grasses and legumes came up.

“Right now survey teams are collecting data from farmers,” said Dr. Narain. “We want to fuse technology with the indigenous wisdom of farmers, and learn how they are coping with the drought. After surveying, we will make a publication, and then submit it to the goverment.”

Dr. Narain emphasized, however, that CAZRI is primarily an agricultural research institute. Construction is the responsibility of the state government. Technology is developed at CAZRI, and then the state mechanism for distribution takes over. As he puts it “Our work is in planning, not execution.”

Improved varieties of crops like low-rainfall grasses, for example, particularly Dhaman (Cenchurs cilaiaris) & Sewan (Lasiurus sindicus) have been developed in seed and pellet form which can be sown by helicopter, according to Dr. Nairain.

The scientists of CAZRI have successfully developed and improved dozens of traditional and non-traditional crops/fruits, such as Ber trees (like plums) that produce much larger fruits than before (lemon-size) and can thrive with minimal rainfall. These trees have become a profitable option for farmers. One example from a case study of horticulture showed that in situation of budding in 35 plants of Ber and Guar (Gola, Seb & Mundia variety developed in CAZRI), using only one hectare of land, yielded 10,000 Kg. of Ber and 250 Kg. of Guar, which translates into double or even triple profit.

The Drought-Resistant Kejari Tree

Acacia Senegal, a tree imported from Africa 25 years ago, has adapted well to the Indian desert. CAZRI has developed ethophil injection, an etheline compound which increases the gum production of the tree by 25-35%. This gum is used for eating and in various medicines.

Technology is transferred via field days, farmers’ fairs, exhibitions, training, and on-farm trials. It adopted the new technology developed by CAZRI in 1976 by budding an improved variety of Ber,” said Mr. Jaisalmeria, a local farmer. “It started giving good results in 2-3 years and gave a new crop idea to contemporary farmers.”

He said the CAZRI ber trees had helped prevent soil erosion, and proved to be one of his most drought-resistant crops, along with indigenous trees like Neem, Khajeri and Rohira. “Now 1,000,000 hectares of land (even sand dunes) is being cultivated which was not of any use before,” he said.

One major area of CAZRI’s achievement is the rehabilitation of wastelands created by the large-scale mining of minerals like limestone and gypsum, which are found in abundance in arid zones.

Technologies integrating suitable plant species, soil amendments and water harvesting have been developed, and many such wastelands have been successfully revitalized. Furthermore, scientists have identified several species of trees that can be planted on land contaminated by chemicals used in printing and dyeing clothes.

Sand Dunes Cover 58% of Rajasthan

About 58% of the area of arid Rajasthan is occupied by highly mobile sand dunes, a serious danger to farms, canals, highways, and generally everyone living in the arid regions, and are a contributing factor to increased desertification. The institute has established shelterbelts consisting of three rows of trees: a central row of tall trees like Albizzia lebbek, with one row of branching trees like Acacia tortolis, Cassia siamea or Prosopis juliflora on either side. These shelterbelts have proved to reduce wind velocity by 20-46%, and soil loss by 76%. To date over 16,000 ha of land has been stabilized using this method.

Also contributing to combatting desertification is CAZRI’s long-going project of mapping the desert, and identifying and understanding the processes leading to desertification. Using sattelite imagery, the extent of soil movement has been quantified, and underground courses of rivers like Saraswati have been located.

These discoveries were confirmed through geophysical depth sounding, and later successfully used for groundwater exploration.

In the area of livestock management, which is an important source of sustenance for farmers in drought years, an animal feed block compression machine was developed in 2002 which compresses the feed 3-3.5 times, producing blocks of 2.5 kg weight. This reduces the costly burden of transporting large quantities of bulky animal feed. The machines now are being manufactured by private companies.

CAZRI scientists have also recently identified a new breed of sheep, Parbatsar, which has a higher growth rate, milk yield and duration of lactation. A technique of ensiling surplus fodder, using over-fermented milk, urea and molasses, has been developed.

Hindi Newspaper Dainik Bhaskar

Another recent discovery, heralded by Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi national newspaper, is the development of fresh water fish that can survive in brackish (salty) water. Dr. Narain explained that Panaeus monodon shrimp and Seabass fish fry were reared with 92% survival and an average weight of 38 GMs and 12 GMs respectively in 140-150 days. Grey mullet fish could be grown to 1.4 GMs in 39 days in winter at 12-18 degree centigrade in waters up to 45 parts per thousand salinity. On March 16, a fair was held for over 300 participants, sharing this technology and seeds with willing farmers.

“We have contacted the Fishery Department and banks to help with financing,” said Dr. Narain. “Farmers will need to make fish ponds. CAZRI can give low-profit or free prawn seeds.”

The recent discovery of the Dhingri Mushroom, which can be grown easily in arid regions, also proves to be a profitable new crop. Mushrooms were previously transported from remote areas, and are therefore expensive here.

Other findings include finding of anti-HIV constituents viz. Betulinic acid (BA), oleanolic acid (OA) and ursolic acid (UA) which were extracted and isolated by column chromatography, using standard protocol from Tecomella Undulata (Rohira). However, this is only a preliminary finding, caution researchers, which is currently being clinically tested by the Central Drug Research Institute, Lukhnow.

Although CAZRI is doing a great favour to the farmers in this region, still the regular drought and the poverty make the difference. And the rain is the thing which brings smile on the faces.

Brook and Gaurav Bhagat are writers and independent filmmakers based in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India.

Planting New Mangrove Forests

Many of us don’t realize how lucky we are to have access to all the water we want. Showering or bathing every day, dishwashing with the faucet on full blast, or owning a swimming pool is unthinkable in many countries. Water is not divided equally around the world. While Americans happily feed koi in backyard ponds, others in the Middle East or Africa, for example, have to wait for a truck to deliver their monthly supply of water. Walking five miles to the nearest community well and back is not an uncommon practice in these regions. “I’m not convinced that there are water shortages as much as there are problems with water distribution” says Linda Platt, an editor at the Political Economy Research Center (PERC), who like many of us, believes that many regions are at a disadvantage when it comes to water availability for farming, drinking, or simple hygiene.

With oceans covering more than 70% of the earth’s surface, it is ironic that usable water is not an abundant commodity. Less than 1% of water on the planet comes in the exploitable form of lakes, streams and groundwater. The potential of saltwater has been contemplated for years, but only recently have there been advances in operations that utilize this abundant resource.

Eritrea has deserts and coastline perfect for salt water agriculture

Carl Hodges, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Arizona, came up with an ingenious plan to overcome the freshwater shortages that many farmers face in arid countries. This plan, financed by University of Phoenix founder John Sperling, came in the form of Seawater Farms. “This project is still in the experimental stages,” says Linda Platt, editor of PERC, “but Seawater farms seems to have found a way to produce environmental goods without overexploitation of the environment.” Seawater Farms, established in the small African country of Eritrea, uses saltwater to sustain an array of shrimp, fish and plants. Amazingly, it doesn’t stop there: The remaining water even irrigates and sustains wetlands and mangrove forests that naturally occur in the region. They have also planted numerous trees in the hopes of establishing habitats for the fauna in the region.

“The life the mangroves support is tremendous,” says Jugal Tiwari, staff ecologist of the Seawater Farms and the Seawater Forests Initiative. “I have seen at least 100 species of insects, including 4 species of butterflies and 12 species of moths. Doves, Warblers and Prinias nest in the mangroves a well, and there are at least 14 different kind of crabs, including fiddler crabs. This year over 1 million seedlings were raised by the foresters of Seawater Forests Initiative. Each of the 15,000 mangrove plants we have planted in the 10 hectares of area is supporting a lot of life.”

“The number of bird species that have come to inhabit our farm has grown from an estimated dozen to well over 200,” says Howard Weiss, also of the Seawater Forests Initiative.

Mangrove Forest in Eritrea

“The mangroves are equally important in sequestering the atmospheric carbon and making environment pollution free,” says Jugal Tiwari, “We are basically a group of people who think global and take the challenge of converting the so called coastal wastelands (4.2 million hectares of such coastal wastelands in Eritrea) into green land using just the ocean’s salt water. As you know fresh water in such areas is a limiting factor and so deficient that people can’t find enough water to survive.”

The farming system is quite effective: Untreated salt water is brought inland through a 3-mile long canal to salicornia fields which, unlike most crops, are able to grow efficiently in this salty environment. The principal field crop, Salicornia, provides a gourmet vegetable from its young shoots. The mature plant provides seed that produce a fine, edible oil and a high protein meal. There is also a large amount of biomass, which can be used for animal fodder, particleboard, and firebricks.

Not all seawater flows directly to these plants; some diverges and flows into shrimp tanks and later 3 salt lakes containing different species of fish. The shrimp species Penaeus vannamei is the gem of Seawater Farms Eritrea aquaculture. This species tolerates variations in salinity, temperature, pH and oxygen levels that allow it to be as suited to farming as it is profitable. Another species of shrimp, Penaeus indicus, arrived in seawater farms unexpectedly through the seawater canals connecting the farms to the red sea. This added little bonus, with its popular flavor, has been a big boost to Seawater Farms’ business.

The Tilapia Fish is Farmed Worldwide

Fish were also incorporated into this intricate project. Originally, the plan was to just farm the tilapia fish. This useful species, naturally occurring in the Middle East and Africa is now farmed worldwide. At seawater farms, these fish are not just a food product; Their skin is similar to leather when dried and is used to make a variety of products whereas the leftover heads are recycled for shrimp feed. Another species of fish, the milk fish or chanos chanos, unexpectedly rode in on the seawater stream and has now established itself in the shallow waters of the mangrove park in addition to the tilapia. This is yet another bonus for the Farm.

The waste from the shrimp and fish is carried by water to fertilize the salicornia fields. This versatile agricultural system has worked extremely well, while the reestablished wetland parks, created by the overflowing seawater, are very much appreciated by wildlife residing in the area. No seawater is wasted either: It is absorbed by the soil and returns to its starting point-the red sea.

Unfortunately, Seawater agriculture can only “be confined to coastal deserts because if seawater were brought inland, it would ruin the land unaccustomed to the high salinity. Saltwater agriculture further inland would be a disaster” says Emanuel Epstein, a professor and highly respected researcher of plant biology at the University of California, Davis.

Salt Water Agriculture A Field of Salicornia

Epstein has also had a fair amount of success with saltwater agriculture during the 1970s and 80s. “Why not start out with plants that are already economically useful such as wheat and rice which feed 2/3 of mankind instead of imposing economic usefulness on other plants such as salicornia,” says Epstein. “I was fairly successful in harvesting barley, wheat and tomatoes selected and bred for salt tolerance.” The scheme discussed [regarding salicornia] starts with naturally occurring wild plants. “An alternative approach,” continues Epstein, “is to start with established crop species, such as wheat or rice, which are salt sensitive, and by means of genetic and molecular biological methods engineer salt tolerance into them. The feasibility of this approach was demonstrated over 30 years ago at Bodega Marine Laboratory, with wheat, barley, and tomatoes and the likelihood of success has greatly improved since then as a result of the spectacular advances in molecular biology.”

Seawater Farms currently focuses on salicornia fields but genetic research funded by John Sperling is being done in the hopes of using other more ‘profitable’ species in this type of agriculture.

Seawater Farms is both ecologically acceptable and profitable. The first shrimp harvest, for example, was worth nearly 12 million dollars. Seawater Farms has also revolutionized coastal agriculture as we know it. It has given hope to farmers who are limited by the lack of freshwater available while the Seawater Forests Initiative has breathed life into forests that reside in an otherwise dry, desert environment.

EMAIL TO THE EDITOR

—–Original Message—–

From: Jane Poynter [mailto:anon@anon.com]

Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 4:57 PM

To: ed@ecoworld.com

Subject: Seawater Farms and Forests

In your great article about salt tolerant crops, featuring Seawater
Farms Eritrea and Seawater Forests Initiative, I would like to point out
a discrepancy in the quote by Epstein regarding genetically engineering
standard crops, such as wheat and tomatoes, for salt tolerance. He is
referring to something quite different from what salicornia can do. Salt
tolerance in his context means plants that can grow in water that would
be too salty to grow normal agricultural crops, but is far less saline
than pure seawater by many parts per thousand. Salicornia bigolovii,
which has been bred to produce a high quality oil seed, grows on pure,
untreated seawater. Something quite different altogether.

Jane

Capitalism leads to wealth, wealth leads to investment, investment spawns innovation, and through glorious creative destruction, today’s innovations surpass and replace yesterday’s, creating more wealth. Through capitalist initiative, civilization has advanced beyond the wildest imaginings of our forbears. Today we cure diseases that were incurable. We cultivate miracle crops to feed the world. There is no problem in that cannot eventually be solved if we just give capitalist entrepreneurs free rein.

Yet in spite of compelling evidence, the capitalist system remains challenged. Globalization, privatization, the growth of intellectual property law, industrialization, mechanization, and free trade have all spawned resistance. Voices raised include socialists, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, humanitarians and even other capitalists.

The following Capitalist Myths, each embraced by far too many capitalists, dangerous when adopted blindly, can be amended or eliminated through more serious debate. Capitalism is a powerful force for positive change, but cannot realize its full potential unless it acknowledges and confronts its myths, and assimilates positive ideas from belief systems besides its own.

Myth #1
Global Free Trade is Always Best

What is Fair and Free Trade? Read “Global Exchange”

Not always. While a world of unfettered free trade can create faster overall economic growth, that same growth can cause some societies and countries to become worse off. Suddenly introduced global free trade can turn an entire country’s economy and fledgling local industries upside-down. Foreign investment often focuses on over-development of single commodities that can go bust. Increased foreign investment and global trade usually ride into a country alongside debt. Going into countries using international legal weaponry to enforce free flow of capital and foreign ownership of local assets isn’t always best. Alongside free trade there is fair trade, an equally elusive and worthy goal.

Myth #2
Cheaper is Always Better

Price competition is a pillar of capitalism, but many measures of value do not immediately or easily translate into quantities of money. How can the happiness of a people, or the health of an ecosystem appear on the financial statements of a multinational corporation? Hire lower-paid employees and lay them off and move to another country as soon as it’s cheaper there, then move again. Mechanize the workplace and make workers commodities. Log forests on cheap land, pay massive short-term profits into dividends and close the company. Strip-mine oceans with driftnets 50 miles long and kill off the final scattered fish with high-tech sonar detection systems. Capitalist competition means more, cheaper, faster; cheaper goods, cheaper shelter, and cheaper protein, but it’s not always better.

Myth #3
Capitalism has European Roots

Only some capitalists are European. The functions of capitalism; property ownership, monetary exchange, trade, competition, value creation and entrepreneurship, easily predate Europe and exist and originate from most everywhere. Private individual wealth and multinational corporations come from diverse cultures. That the Europeans have been successful capitalists doesn’t mean they invented capitalism, and it doesn’t automatically consign capitalism to European values and prerogatives. Critics of capitalism point their fingers at the west more than the west deserves. Capitalism is part of human nature.

Myth #4
Intellectual Property is Sacred

Where does public domain begin? Read “Monocultures of the Mind”

Absolutely not! Patents for inventions that incorporate life forms, mimic natural processes or copy native remedies and recipes are walking on legal thin ice. “Business method” patents are complete baloney and should be repealed. Maybe copyrights last too long, and royalties cost too much. The public domain is under attack and it’s shrinking. Farmers who save and reuse seed from their own crops, inadvertently or effortlessly cross-pollinated with windblown genetic material that somebody patented should not be prosecuted. Open source legal precedents are already set in the software industry. Stakes are high. Intellectual property law run rampant becomes an expensive and devastating tool for oligarchic and other vested interests to outlaw competition. How capitalist is that? It’s time to reverse this trend. There is an intangible commons, too.

Myth #5
Industrialization is the Only Alternative

From a global perspective industrialization is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean developing countries should develop now or else. Countries that would have enjoyed relative stability if they’d never industrialized can be sorely disrupted by sudden financial flight. Single commodity economies with debt service blow in the wind. When a country commits to industrialize they place high bets in limited areas and they run this risk. Moreover, because global productivity constantly improves, especially in the high-tech era we live in, the longer a country waits to develop, the less they will have to pay for their new industries. Countries should not be rushed into industrialization because it’s supposedly in their interests.

Myth #6
Property is Sacred.

Who Owns the Oceans? Read “David Brower’s Legacy”

Never. Too much of the property we might consider sacred is also shared between us. If the air is unhealthy for people to breath, or the water too poisonous for fishermen to fish, some property owner’s prerogative, and resultant pollution, is definitely not sacred. Productive assets necessary to society, especially when controlled by monopolies, cartels, or foreign financial interests, must be regulated to ensure sustainable practices and a safety net for the poor. Property rights defenders are correct to call regulations “takings,” but that per se is not at issue. Governments must regulate trade to enforce “free trade,” they must regulate commerce to encourage and enable competition, and they should help protect the weak; all of which can translate into “takings” in some form. The only question is when, and how much.

Myth #7
Democracy-Capitalism is the End-Point of Civilization

Really now? Then go explain how corporate welfare fits into this rosy picture, for starters. Democracy-Capitalism has today’s media and mainstream academic endorsements, but utopia nonetheless eludes modern civilization. To strive for democracy-capitalism, ideally, is an ongoing fight against tyranny and oligarchy from any group, creed or political ideology. Capitalists can be tyrants. Democracies can be belligerent. The form of capitalism and the ethics of democratic societies are diverse and subtle and need constant reexamination. Congratulating democracy-capitalism as the end-point of civilization shouldn’t discourage or take the place of relentless investigation and reporting, healthy dissent, and meaningful public debate.

Myth #8
Privatize Public Works

Can Everything be Privatized? Read “The Giants of Water”

It depends. Many if not all public works provide necessities such as water and energy that cannot be found anywhere else. These necessities should be offered free to those who cannot afford to pay. Privately operated public works, owned by foreign interests, could in unregulated free-trade environments be managed as cash-cows, exporting profits into a multi-national conglomerate instead of back into the local economy. There is no monopoly on corruption, which can affect private corporations inside or outside a country just as severely as it might affect public administrations anywhere. Public works can succeed as mostly public or mostly private operations.

Myth #9
Maximize Quarterly Profits

This is a canard disguised as a rationalization turned into an obligation compelling a property owner to cut down all the trees in their forest, or pump out all the water from their aquifer, selling to the highest bidder as quickly as possible. Every industry has its culprits, compulsive competitors who cut every corner, cook the books, betting the farms, heedless of the ultimate payback. In the name of short-term gain people can become puppets and chattel, worthy enterprises ignored and abandoned, and the earth stripped. In the long run human rights always prevail, ecosystems are stewarded, and business is sustainable. It is much easier for a long-term capitalist to profit without creating victims and collateral damage. If all that really mattered were to maximize quarterly profits the world would already be a wasteland.

Myth #10
Greed is Good

Pure crap. Greed is a sin, not a virtue, but it can be confused and conflated with one of capitalism’s moral appeals; that capitalism offers, hopefully, a competitive and pluralistic game where no one sinful, awful faction can ever dominate. In this pragmatic model greed is not good it is contained. But capitalism, ideally, also depends on a totally voluntary moral framework and consensus in societies that greed is not good. Only then does capitalism better avoid caricature and condemnation. Only then do capitalist visions have more universal appeal and overall joy.

Capitalism at its best is the engine that will bring peace and prosperity to humanity, eliminate poverty and disease, and protect the earth. But building enthusiasm for capitalism throughout the world requires patience and compromise, possibly slower but more sustainable economic and corporate growth, and more diverse patterns of ownership.

To proliferate faster, more capitalists might prefer not myths that only emphasize the economic game, but instead visions of a better world. Visions where most everyone, especially the avid capitalists, believe that humanity and ecology weigh in equally alongside winning.

Ed Ring is Editor and CEO of EcoWorld Inc., publisher of www.EcoWorld.com.

Five Megawatt Offshore Wind Turbines Are Now Being Installed

Options for exploiting the energy available from the world’s oceans include offshore wind, wave and tidal stream energy. Offshore wind is by far the closest to commercial exploitation, but the range of possibilities is surprisingly broad.

Offshore wind is set for rapid development and could become fully commercial in 15-20 years. However, both wave and tidal stream energy face one of the so-called ‘valleys of death’ in the development of successful innovation - that between the prototype and wide utilisation. Some, perhaps many, of the current companies and designs will fall by the wayside. Nevertheless, wave and tidal hold considerable promise for the longer term.

Extracting clean and economically viable energy from the world’s oceans has fascinated researchers and engineers for centuries. The first patent on a wave energy device was taken out in 1799, and more than 300 such devices have been patented since. Commercial application has been limited to a small number of devices that use wave energy to power navigation buoys. However, concerns over climate change may fuel progress. All of the marine renewables offer energy with low environmental impact and near-zero emissions.

European Union

While estimates of resources available depend upon assumptions about technology and the availability of suitable sites, all options are able, in principle, to provide large amounts of electricity. Global resources have not been mapped in detail, but studies of EU and UK resources provide an indication of the scale of the potential. Offshore wind could provide 900 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year in Western Europe, and wave 50-700 TWh/year in UK waters alone. Tidal resources appear more modest: 48 TWh has been identified in EU waters, but at present only limited sites have been considered. (UK electricity consumption is around 380 TWh/year.)

Here is an assessment of the economic prospects for deriving energy from ocean wind, waves, and tides.:

OCEAN WIND ENERGY

>

Maritime Denmark is a World Leader in Low-Cost, Large-Scale Wind Energy

Offshore wind has benefited from progress made onshore over the last 20 years. Costs have fallen dramatically - in good locations it is almost competitive with conventional energy sources. Turbines have grown from less than 100 kilowatts (kW) to 1 megawatt (MW) or more. Offshore wind farms under development feature turbines of 2 MW, and 3-5 MW turbines are widely predicted to become available soon. Large turbines are essential if offshore wind is to deliver energy at acceptable cost, and this is one reason why the stage is set for developments offshore.

Offshore wind involves additional costs in installation, cabling and maintenance, with existing plants generating at 4.5-7 US cents per kWh - twice the cost of developments on land. However, wind regimes are typically more stable offshore and the absence of noise constraints means turbines can spin faster, which raises efficiency and reduces costs. Current developments in turbine design, experience in installation and operation, and economies of scale as the industry expands, suggest costs will fall. Costs halved between Denmark’s Vindby development in 1991 and its recent Horns Rev project. A recent study for the UK government concluded that offshore wind costs are likely to fall to 3-5 US cents per kWh by 2020. Although less than 100 MW of offshore wind is currently installed worldwide, this is expected to grow to 3 gigawatts (GW) by 2005 because individual offshore wind farms can be large. Several developments of 100-500 MW are being built.

OCEAN WAVE ENERGY

Power generation using wave energy is at a much earlier stage of
development. Wave energy offers more predictable outputs than wind, but in early 2003
there was only around one megawatt of generating capacity installed worldwide, all of it essentially with demonstration prototypes. Proposed projects are likely to take this to about 6 MW over the next few years. The wave industry is characterised by a wide variety of novel devices
and a large number of small firms. Devices can be classified by generic technology type, though there is some overlap:

Types of Wave Energy Devices:

Inexhaustible Electricity from Wave Energy Can Already Cost Under $.06 per Kilowatt Hour

* Pneumatic devices, such as the oscillating water column (OWC), use wave motion to compress and decompress air, and drive a turbine.

* Float-based devices utilise a buoyant float moving with the waves, reacting against a sea bed anchor in order to harness energy.

* Spillover devices utilise wave height to replenish a reservoir of seawater, which runs a turbine.

* Raft-type devices use the relative motion of adjacent rafts or pontoons to harness wave energy.

* Moving-body devices articulate in the water, inducing motion, which may be used to drive a hydraulic motor.

Commercial-scale wave energy is yet to become a reality and as such empirical evidence on costs is limited. Of those devices that have been deployed (for the most part near-shore and shoreline OWC devices), costs are in the region of 6-8 US cents per kWh. Three designs - the Limpet, Osprey and Pelamis - have secured support from the Irish and Scottish renewables schemes - though supplementary investment has also been required (for example, EU grants). The other devices are still at the research stage, though some are much closer to commercial deployment than others. (Float based devices are already in use for niche applications such as navigation buoys.) The Osprey is designed to provide a mounting platform for wind turbines and hence offers the prospect of the first hybrid wind-wave device. Hybrids have the potential to improve the utilisation of sub-sea power connections and to raise the ratio of output to construction cost.

OCEAN TIDE ENERGY

A Seabed-Mounted Tidal Energy System is now being tested off the U.K.’s Shetland Islands

Tidal stream devices extract energy from the diurnal flow of tidal currents (caused by the gravitational pull of the moon). Unlike wind and wave power, tidal streams offer entirely predictable output. However, as the lunar cycle is of around 25 hours’ duration, the timing of peak outputs differs by around an hour each day and tidal energy cannot be guaranteed at times of peak demand.

Typically, tidal turbines, similar in appearance to wind turbines, are mounted on the seabed. They are designed to exploit the higher energy density, but lower velocity, of tidal flows compared to wind. Tidal stream differs from established technology for exploiting tidal energy (eg estuarine tidal barrages, such as the 240 MW barrage operating in France) in that tidal flows are not captured and controlled by means of a large dam-like structure. Rather, tidal turbines operate in the free flow of the tides, meaning that large construction costs and disruption of estuarine ecosystems associated with barrages may be avoided. However, as tidal streams are a diffuse form of energy and the purpose of the barrage is to concentrate tidal flow, this also means that large numbers of turbines, spread over relatively large areas of seabed, are required if significant amounts of energy are to be extracted.

Until recently, the diffuse nature of the resource, combined with the relatively high costs of engineering and installing turbines able to withstand the rigours of the sea, confined tidal stream to university laboratories. However, several large grid-connected demonstration projects are expected to enter the water in the near future. Tidal stream is thus a few years behind wave energy.

Seabed-Mounted Tidal Energy Lowering A Tidal Propeller Marine Current Turbines

Marine Current Turbines is about to field test a submerged 300 kW tidal turbine off Devon in the United Kingdom, and a seabed-mounted system called Stingray is being tested off the Shetlands. Both have EU and UK government funding. A novel device called the Rochester Venturi, which uses tidal flow to draw a working fluid through turbines mounted onshore and hence has no moving parts under water, is also expected to enter large-scale demonstration soon. The manufacturers of all these devices expect to deliver
energy at a cost of 10-14 US cents per kWh, falling to below 6 US cents as
experience grows and technologies mature

About the Author:
Gordon Feller is the CEO of Urban Age Institute (www.UrbanAge.org). During the past twenty years he has authored more than 500 magazine articles, journal articles or newspaper articles on the profound changes underway in politics, economics, and ecology - with a special emphasis on sustainable development. Gordon is the editor of Urban Age Magazine, a unique quarterly which serves as a global resource and which was founded in 1990. He can be reached at GordonFeller@UrbanAge.org and he is available for speaking to your organization about the issues raised in this and his other numerous articles published in EcoWorld.

Vendana Shiva curriculum vitae

Time magazine depicted her as a hero who “has made it her mission to fight for social justice in many arenas” and a major environmentalist who is leading a noble fight for “the preservation of agricultural diversity.”

However, some advocates of biotechnology have expressed different views. For Michael Fumento, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, “if developing world farmers took her one-tenth as seriously as do Western activists, her proclamations would lead inexorably to massive famine. She was born into wealth and her soft palms have never worked a plow. Hunger to her is something she reads about in the newspapers.”

The controversial figure in question is the well-known physicist and writer Vandana Shiva, from Doon Valley, India. For more than twenty years, she has been dealing with issues like sustainable development, biodiversity, ecofeminism and globalization through international publications, books and lectures at conferences and universities worldwide.

Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Ecology

In 1982 she established the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an organization which works with local communities in India to promote sustainable agriculture. A member of the Indian National Environmental Council and ecology adviser to the Third World Network, Vandana Shiva has been involved in many international NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) and forums, such as the International Forum on Globalization and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Indian author is also one of the leaders of the global citizen movements against water privatization. In March this year, as the Third World Water Forum was taking place in Kyoto, she co-organized the People’s National Water Forum in India, which issued a declaration of commitment to keep water as a common good.

“Ending the water crisis requires rejuvenating ecological democracy”, she wrote in her recent book Water Wars. “Water can be used but not owned. People have a right to life and the resources that sustain it, such as water. With globalization and privatization of water resources, new efforts to completely erode people’s rights and replace collective ownership with corporate control are under way”.

Along these same lines, Vandana Shiva criticizes the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) because “its rules are shaped entirely by corporations without any input from NGO’s, local governments or national governments”. In her opinion, services related to water, the environment, health and education should not be subject to the WTO’s “unregulated power to hijack common resources”. Shiva sees the international treaties on intellectual property rights (such as TRIP under GATT) as an attempt by a few multinational corporations to seize the rights to life.

In her book Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Shiva describes patents on seeds and life forms as a new form of colonialism. “Corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta are pirating centuries of farmers’ innovation and patenting rice, cotton, mustard, corn, soya and practically all other food crops.” When Texan company Rice Tec claimed exclusive rights as makers, producers, sellers, distributors of seeds, plants and grains of the Basmati rice variety, the Research Foundation engaged them in a Supreme Court battle. RiceTec was eventually forced to give up the title of its patent.

“Seed, the source of life, has become a source of death in the hands of global seed and biotechnology corporations. Thousands of farmers have committed suicide since multinational corporations entered the seed sector,” Shiva wrote in a recent article.

Navdanya

Transnational corporations are introducing GM crops to local farmers, promising increased resistance to pests and higher yields, she explained. The farmers are forced to buy new seeds every year, because these genetically engineered plants are sterile. If the crops fail, the poor farmers are left with unpayable debts, no food and no hope for the future. To counter this, Vandana Shiva started Navdanya (”nine seeds”), a movement which enables farmers to access native seeds for free through community seed banks and seed exchange networks and go back to organic farming. Navdanya is also an organic farm, with an attached college, called the Bija Vidyapeeth, which means the “School of the Seed.” The school offers courses on several topics related to sustainable development and ecology, with internationally renowned lecturers.

Bija Vidyapeeth

All these initiatives are intended to promote biodiversity conservation. In Vandana Shiva’s vision of the world, “diversity is wealth, not a threat. Weaving harmony in agriculture implies bringing back the diversity which creates pest - predator balance and organic methods of breeding and production which produce resilient plants.” Navdanya, she says, has already rescued more than 3,000 rice varieties.

Rice is particularly important in India, where 200,000 rice varieties existed before the “Green Revolution” brought intensive monocultures and pesticides. In several of her books, including The violence of the Green Revolution and Monocultures of the Mind, Vandana Shiva described how the “reductionist paradigm”of the Green Revolution perpetrated violence to the Earth as well as to women and children.

“Suddenly agriculture in India was no longer the entire community working with the land in peaceful ways, it was men reduced to pesticide sprayers and tractor drivers. The women were left with no role in agricultural production. They had been turned into the dispensable sex, and having been made redundant, they were being killed in the womb”, she explained in Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, describing the startling practice of “female feticide.”

Diverse Women for Diversity

The Indian author and activist was one of the founders of “Diverse Women for Diversity”. Vandana Shiva and the other women who started this project, Beth Burrows, Christine von Weizsaecker and Jean Grossholtz, think that it is vital to coordinate women’s grassroots movements so that their voice can be heard at an international level. They feel that women need to speak out for life, for cultural and biological diversity as a response to the threats posed by globalization. “The current globalization is based on the patriarchal paradigm of control, which requires uniformity. It is based on Cartesian reductionism and the Baconian ‘rape of nature’ as the ‘masculine mode’ of knowing.”

Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association

Speaking at a conference on organic farming in Maine, Vandana Shiva said: “For us weeds are the basis of our survival, because weeds are what nature gives us in her generosity. They’re the medicinal plants. Lots of landless women in India make a living by having access to the free greens in the free commons. And that’s the fodder that goes to feed their one goat, their one cow, that then feeds their children. But all these weeds, this amazing diversity - and our studies show 250, 350 species on farms which have the generosity to be at peace between species - according to Monsanto, all these weeds are stealing the sunshine!”

In an article on biotechnology she wrote: “Global traders controlling production and distribution worldwide need square tomatoes and tomatoes that don’t rot. Small farmers and consumers looking for fresh produce do not. People need locally produced food, consumed as close as possible to the point of production.”

While it may be true that she has never worked a plow or gone hungry, and her idea of reintroducing trade barriers to protect domestic agriculture may be extreme, some of Vandana Shiva’s views on farming, ecology and patriarchy make sense and her works are definitely worth reading.

About the Author:

Paolo Scopacasa is a journalist based in Milan, Italy. After completing his studies in 1995 with a master’s degree in Conference Interpreting from the University of Strasbourg, France, Scopacasa has worked as an interpreter and translator in English, German and Italian. Since 2000 Scopacasa has been working as a freelance journalist, covering mainly environmental issues for Italian web magazines such as e-gazette, LifeGate Magazine and Blue Planet.

Black Rhino Charge photo: WildAid

A Black Rhino lazily reaches for leaves along the shady trees in Zimbabwe, Africa. The 3,000 pound male suddenly lifts his head as an all too familiar scent reaches his gaping nostrils. He takes a step back and raises his ears to trace the location of the invaders who remain undetected by his weak eyes. The rhinoceros has become ill-tempered and wary with these constant interruptions. The animal senses the location of the predator and snorts a warning. He sees a blurry object step out of the bushes spurring the rhino to lower his head and break into a gallop with the intention of goring the intruder at almost 30mph. But the bullets that tear through his hide are faster than he could ever be, and the animal crashes to the ground with a bellow.

Peter Knights, co-director and founder of WildAid (www.wildaid.org), an international environmental organization dedicated to savings the world’s wildlife from extinction, estimates “that 100 years ago 100,000 rhinos roamed over vast lands in Africa and Eurasia.” The 5 species of Rhino that remain now number less than 19,000 and are restricted to fragmented habitats in Africa, India and South East Asia. The need for land by the world’s growing human population is a major threat to the rhino’s natural habitats. Fragmented land also reduces the effectiveness of protected areas which rhinos often move out of while foraging. Sadly, few species of rhino survive outside of national reserves and parks. Hunting and illegal poaching, by those seeking to sell the valuable rhino horn in the foreign market, is presently the greatest threat to the already limited rhino populations.

Helping an injured Rhino photo: WildAid

Rhinos are one of the largest land mammals. Unfortunately, their large size and predicable habits make them vulnerable targets. “Rhinos tend to make daily visits to the same watering hole, for example, where they are easily picked off by awaiting poachers (World Wildlife Fund).” In recent decades rhinos have been hunted to the point of near extinction. The
World Wildlife Fund (www.wwf.org), calculated that “since 1970 the world’s rhino population has declined by 90 percent.”

The five remaining species of rhino fall into three distinct subfamilies, one extended to Africa and the other two to Asia. All species are threatened with extinction:
3,100 Black Rhino, 8,400 southern White Rhino, 30 northern white rhino, under 2,400 Indian Rhino, around 400 Sumatran Rhino, and 70 Javan rhino exist today.

Reasons for decline:
With most rhinos reaching an average age of 40, adult mortality is low and the rhinos slow reproductive rates reflect this trait. Breeding rhinos give birth to a single calf every two and a half to three years, so that the maximum rate of population growth is under 10% a year. When humans hunt the animals in numbers that exceed this threshold, which is often the case, populations are driven downwards. Hunters only care about the number of buyers on the rhino market and ignore the few number of rhinos trying to survive in the wild.

A White Rhino at Rest photo: Mike Matson, Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Rhinos are being forced into extinction due to the high demand of their horns in China and neighboring countries in the Far East. Horns are primarily bought for their use in traditional medicines and their aesthetic value in such forms as dagger handles-a symbol of masculinity in Yemen.

A rhino horn is simply a hollow structure formed by thickly matted hair follicles that grow from the head. The entire horn is composed of the protein keratin. Keratin, a very common protein, is found in hooves, fingernails and in the outer covering of cattle and antelope horns, yet only the rhino horn has healing powers associated with it.

The efficiency of the rhino horn as a drug is an invented myth, but the fact remains that rhino horns are a much sought after product, fetching prices as high as 3,000 dollars a horn.

Rhino horns are used to treat numerous ailments such as fevers, strokes, AIDS, epilepsy and many others. With many people holding on to the hope that a “rhino horn potion” will cure them of their illness, the demand for the product is constantly high. Rhinos are becoming rarer and the value of the horn rises as a result. Because of increasing prices on the black market, poaching becomes more aggressive and high prices also give entrepreneurs the incentive to pay peasant farmers a sum much higher than they could ever earn in an honest days work to hunt the animals.

Two Rhinos Rest photo: Mike Matson, Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Michael ‘T Sas-Rolfes, author of Rhinos: Conservation, Economics and Trade-Offs, states that “Most parks and wildlife agencies have insufficient funds to protect their rhino populations adequately; rural people in many countries are so poor they will risk their lives to poach rhinos for seemingly low rewards.”

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) stated that “between 1990 and 1992, at least 100,000 items of rhino products were recorded in trade with almost all of it exported from China. Trade record Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC) estimates that up to 300kg of rhino horn, which accounts for around 100 African rhino deaths, are consumed in South Korea every year. Conservation agencies in Africa and Asia are fighting a losing battle.

Conservation Efforts:
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s rhinos in Zimbabwe were dehorned in the hope that it would make them worthless to poachers. WildAid member Peter Knights explains that “dehorning strategies were unsuccessful. Individuals were usually snared rather than shot [especially in Africa],” and the rhino was caught regardless of whether there was a horn present or not. Also, “the rhino horns were generally sold for use in Chinese medicines, and it doesn’t matter if it is the whole horn or not since the horn is ground up anyway.” Another problem with this strategy, says Knights “is that hunters often kill animals just to raise the price of the horns on the black market”.

Rhino Mother and Calf photo: WildAid

Michael ‘T Sas-Rolfes claims that “ideally, most rhinos should be privately owned, and ranched to supply their horn and other products to market; this is the approach that is most likely to prevent them from becoming extinct in the wild.” This strategy has been implemented successfully with the southern White Rhino, which is now often described as the “African cow” in reference to its cattle like behavior and eating habits.

Other “strategies that have been successful so far are intense protection zones,” says Knights. “Rhinos are generally restricted to smaller reserves to make monitored and reinforcement easier and this [conservation effort] has reduced hunting dramatically.”

WildAid also campaigns to the public to increase awareness and reduce demand for rhino horn. This has also proven effective in reducing trade.

These magnificent creatures are on the brink of extinction but few people who purchase rhino horns realize it or don’t want to acknowledge this fact. Only when the demand for rhino horn ceases will rhinos have a chance for complete recovery.

Rhinos of Africa:
The African black rhino was formerly the most abundant species with a population of 60,000 in 1970. Yet widespread poaching and habitat destruction has reduced the population to 3,500 individuals, with various races of black rhino (such as the Cameroon Black Rhino) highly threatened. At a weight of nearly 1.3 tons (3,000 pounds), the adults are formidable animals and are rarely taken as prey in the wild. The drastic decline in numbers is entirely blamed on human influence.

Black Rhino Grazing photo: WildAid

All species of Black rhino are renowned for their aggressive charges at intruders, including vehicles. This defensive behavior, in addition to the bush areas it inhabits, deterred human hunters until recently. The White Rhino generally has a milder temperament and is more gregarious than other species. With adult males reaching weights of up to 2.3 tons (5,000 pounds), the White Rhino is also the largest of all rhinos. It is considered the third largest land-mammal alive today, only outweighed by the two species of elephant.

At the turn of the century, the southern White Rhino had been reduced to 50 animals, which all resided in the Umfolozi Reserve in South Africa. Under careful protection and conservation efforts, their numbers have steadily increased to about 8,400 individuals. The southern White Rhino has been successfully reintroduced to many areas where hunters had previously exterminated the species, such as in Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The Northern White Rhino, another subspecies of White Rhino, is another story: It remained fairly abundant until the late 1960s, but has now been almost completely exterminated with only 20 animals confined to the Garamba National Park in northern Zaire. In 1984 15 individuals existed in the Democratic republic of Congo, this number increased to about 30 in the late 1990s and was considered a success story. Unfortunately the numbers have once again declined and conservation efforts are threatened by political conflicts and instability in the region. The only consolation in this case is that further losses have been halted with frequent monitoring of the few remaining individuals.

Rhinos of Asia:
The Sumatran rhinoceros (or “hairy rhinoceros”) is the only living representative of two-horned rhinos in Asia. It generally weighs in at 800 kilograms (1,750 pounds) and is sparsely covered in brownish hair. It occupies mountainous forests in Sumatra and other parts of Southeast Asia. 600 to 1000 Sumatran Rhinos lived during the 90’s. The 400 individuals that remain today are extremely vulnerable to both poaching and logging and are currently thinly scattered through Malaysia and neighboring countries.

The Indian rhino is one of the two one-horned rhinoceroses in Asia. It rivals the white rhino in size. A prominent characteristic of the species is its extremely thick skin that is arranged in plates along its body, similar to a suit of armor. Surviving Indian rhinos are protected in reserves in northeast India and Nepal. Fewer than 2,000 individuals presently exist.

The Javan rhino, another one-horned individual, occupies the lowland forests that remain in Southeast Asia. Little is known about this species, and there are no specimens in zoos. It is the rarest species alive today, with a total population of 70 individuals. All animals are confined to a single reserve at the western tip of Java.

Sources:

- WildAid, www.WildAid.org

- TRAFFIC, www.traffic.org

- World Wildlife Fund, www.wwf.org

- International Rhino Foundation, www.rhinos-irf.org

- SOS Rhino, www.sosrhino.org

- World Wildlife Fund, www.wwf.org

- White Rhino Project, www.mokolodi.com/rhinos.htm

- Namibian Black Rhino Project, www.namibiarhinos.com

- Rhino Resource Center, www.rhinoresourcecenter.com

- Rhinos: Conservation, Economics and Trade-Offs

- Michael John ‘T Sas-Rolfes

- Institute of Economic Affairs 1995

- The Encyclopedia of Animals

- Gogger, Gould, Forshaw, McKay

- Fog City Press 2002

An enlightened mystic of this age, Osho, has proclaimed that the third world war can happen due to water– or, rather, the lack of it. The statistics say the same thing: as the share of fresh water per person decreases globally, and the population demanding it increases, there are bound to be conflicts which, as history dictates, can lead to military action and, ultimately, even a world war.

As the world population surpasses 6 billion, underground water levels are falling on every continent, most people on Earth are not getting enough water for the basic necessities of life. Rivers are drying up before they reach the sea, and plants and animals are undoubtedly suffering too.

India

China, India, and the U.S. claim half the world’s population, and provide half of the global food supply as well. In the past, irrigated farming has been plagued with problems like waterlogging, salting, and silting. Now, thanks to science and technology, there is another price to be paid– it is possible to dig ever deeper for water with more powerful pumps, but the cost is aquifer depletion.

Hydrologists define a country as suffering “water stress” when the amount of fresh water per person drops below 1,700 cubic meters per year. In recent times the number of people facing water stress has reached almost one billion, which will increase to 3 billion by 2025 according to the current trend of growing population. This means people affected by water stress will not get enough water for their daily life– cooking, drinking, bathing, etc.

In India, where one-sixth of the world population is living, the water acquired by underground pumps is twice as much as the aquifer recharge from rainfall. The well-known international water research group,

International Water Management Institute, has
estimated that the grain harvest of India could be reduced by up to 25% as a result of aquifer depletion. In a country which is producing 18 million people per year– as much as the entire continent of Australia– this is, for some, a death sentence.

Drought

Other than the Eastern states and the Southwestern coast, which get 300-1,000 cms (120-400 inches) of annual rainfall, most of the Indian regions are getting rain under 40-300 cms (16-120 inches) annually. The driest regions are Western Rajasthan and a few parts of Gujarat, receiving 0-40 cms (0-16 inches) of yearly rainfall as well as Leh in Kashmir. Snowfall is limited to Himalayan mountain range, whose runoff provides valuable water for most of the country’s rivers. As an estimate India receives 70 cms (28 inches) average annual rainfall.

By the time the Ganga (Ganges) River reaches the Bay of Bengal, in the dry season, it is severely depleted, leaving little for Southeastern farmers. 90% of the rain in the Gangetic plains is not harvested or used, and flows into the Bay of Bengal.

India receives 420 million hectare- meters (mham) of water each year: 400 mham from precipitation and the remaining 20 mham as surface water, coming from rivers outside the country. This is equivalent to 4,200 cubic kilometers of water. At least 40% of this water is flowing out to sea and to neighboring countries.

In 1955, India’s per capita water availability was 5,300 cubic meters (cu.m.). Currently this figure is only about 2,000 cu.m., as compared to the global average of 7,420 cu.m and, in Asia, 3,240 cu.m. Statistics say that by the year 2025 the number can drop as low as 1500 cu.m. due to rising population levels, urbanization and systemic abuses of water.

If more rain is harvested, and more efficient methods of rain harvesting are implemented, the 40% of water that is flowing unused from the country can be utilized, as well as lessening the risk of floods and national problem of water stress.

The ancient ways of harvesting rain were quite efficient. Water was everyone’s business, unlike the present age, when, in towns, water is simply expected to flow from the tap, and if it doesn’t, it is the fault of city corporations run by the government. A few of these ancient ways are still practiced in villages, without any new energy or developments.

Inside a dry Talab

The main traditional method of rain harvesting in India is Talab or Kundi. This way is easiest, as any open place with diameter near about 100 meters or more can work for it. The land is sloped towards the center which can be cemented or lined with limestone to support the rain water flow in the middle, where a well lies. Covering the well from the top is also beneficial as it keeps the water clean and protects it. Even with only 10 cms (4 inches) of rainfall, as in Jaisalmer district right in the heart of the desert in the Westernmost state Rajasthan, 1 million liters of water are available year-round.

One other good example of this method of rain harvesting is the 500-year-old fort of Chittor in Rajasthan, where the builders of this fort made tanks to save the precious rainwater. It was built on a good height where the people living in the fort did not have access to the town’s groundwater or any streams. Yet, the tanks were so efficient that the fort never ran out of water, even though the town did in drought years.

In Jodhpur, the second largest city in Rajasthan, there are several talabs. Two, Ranisar and Padamsar, were also made over 500 years ago, by the builders of the famous Meharangarh Fort, and rarely run out of water.

Water harvesting has traditionally meant valuing the raindrop, and being continuously conscious of water conservation in daily life; this value has grown back in many residents of Chennai. The simple urban rain harvesting system they are using there is quite low in cost. The water falling on the roof of the buildings is collected and stored in a ground-level well via pipelines. This well can generally provide water around the year. The water in the well is being cleaned before pumping by alum, which is good enough for drinking and cooking. Water used for bathing and washing clothes is drained into another storage sump after being subjected to organic treatment. About 40% of this water is used for flushing toilets and the rest is used to water the gardens. This new move has made these people free of water shortages and the Chennai Municipal Corporation has made it mandatory for all new buildings to install this low-cost system.

Another large-scale method for the conservation and distribution of water is to build dams and canals. 9% of the world’s large dams, according to the World Commission on Dam Report 2000, are Indian, numbering 4291; 3596 (73%) of these dams are located in the three Western agricultural states, one of which is Rajasthan.

The Indira Ghandi Canal

One of India’s most remarkable examples of water management is Rajasthan Nahar (canal), now known as Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojna (canal project) or IGNP. In a state where the annual rainfall is just 10-65 cms (4-26 inches), fresh water is precious thing.

The creation of IGNP commenced in 1958, and construction and expansion of the canal system continue today. Its aim is to use approximately 90% of the surplus water of Ravi and Byas rivers, which are fed by runoff from the Himalayas. The construction of IGNP was planned in two stages. The total length of the main feeder and distribution canals is currently about 7000 kms.

Although the funds invested in IGNP in the last ten years alone total almost 32000 million Rupees, the benefit-cost ratio is near 3:1, calculated on the basis of annual agricultural production. 1500000 ha land is being irrigated due to IGNP, which is about 8% of the total sown area of Rajasthan.

Yet the unconscious behavior of human beings is destroying the natural balance. Global warming, pollution, the decay of the Ozone layer and deforestation etc., all cause the snowfall over the Himalayan region to be severely affected (sometimes greatly increasing and vice versa), which is the source of most of the Indian rivers. The result of this is the endangerment of human, plant and animal life, either by drought or by flooding.

Trikal, meaning a drought of three consecutive years, is what the state of Rajasthan now faces; other parts of India also share this condition. This year’s meager “rainy season” could hardly have been called such– in certain areas the rainfall was the lowest it has been in 100 years. The effects of such a drought are widespread, causing scarcity of drinking water, inflation due to poor crop yields, and even severe rationing of electricity due to the sinking water table. This year’s warm winter temperatures, as of December 20, broke records of 150 years.

Many Rajasthani towns and cities, now in a state of emergency, are forced to rely on the government’s reallocation of drinking water via tankers and water trains, and the quality of drinking water has in some areas decreased as well, causing illness.

Long-term solutions to the Indian and essentially global water crisis include tackling the problem of overpopulation in order to decrease the demand for water. In addition, not only new ways of water conservation are needed, but in fact the old ways of water consciousness, of recognizing the true value of what makes up not only 70% of our planet, but up to 80% of our own bodies: water.

The sacred nature of water in Indian consciousness is well-known, but a shift in viewpoint is essential: the obvious example is the Ganga (Ganges) River, famous for being simultaneously the world’s holiest and most polluted body of water. Rather than seeing water as a purifying element to be used and thrown away, it must be understood to be as precious as life itself.

Brook and Gaurav Bhagat are writers and independent filmmakers based in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India.