At a time when excessive pressures on the earth’s land and water resources are of growing concern, there is a massive new demand emerging for cropland to produce fuel for cars—one that threatens world food security. Although this situation had been developing for a few decades, it was not until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when oil prices jumped above $60 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices climbed to $3 a gallon, that the situation came into focus. Suddenly investments in U.S. corn-based ethanol distilleries became hugely profitable, unleashing an investment frenzy that will convert one fourth of the 2009 U.S. grain harvest into fuel for cars.

The United States quickly came to dominate the crop-based production of fuel for cars. In 2005, it eclipsed Brazil, formerly the world’s leading ethanol producer. In Europe, where the emphasis is on producing biodiesel, mostly from rapeseed, some 2.4 billion gallons were produced in 2009. To meet its biodiesel goal, the European Union, under cropland constraints, is increasingly turning to palm oil imported from Indonesia and Malaysia, a trend that depends on clearing rainforests for oil palm plantations.

The price of grain is now tied to the price of oil. Historically the food and energy economies were separate, but now with the massive U.S. capacity to convert grain into ethanol, that is changing. In this new situation, when the price of oil climbs, the world price of grain moves up toward its oil-equivalent value. If the fuel value of grain exceeds its food value, the market will simply move the commodity into the energy economy. If the price of oil jumps to $100 a barrel, the price of grain will follow it upward. If oil goes to $200, grain will follow.

From 1990 to 2005, world grain consumption, driven largely by population growth and rising consumption of grain-based animal products, climbed by an average of 21 million tons per year. Then came the explosion in grain used in U.S. ethanol distilleries, which jumped from 54 million tons in 2006 to 95 million tons in 2008. This 41-million-ton jump doubled the annual growth in world demand for grain almost overnight, helping to triple world prices for wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans from mid-2006 to mid-2008. A World Bank analyst attributes 70 percent of the food price rise to this diversion of food to produce fuel for cars. Since then prices have subsided somewhat as a result of the global economic downturn, but they are still well above historical levels.

From an agricultural vantage point, the world’s appetite for crop-based fuels is insatiable. The grain required to fill an SUV’s 25-gallon tank with ethanol just once will feed one person for a whole year. If the entire U.S. grain harvest were to be converted to ethanol, it would satisfy at most 18 percent of U.S. automotive fuel needs.

Projections by Professors C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer of the University of Minnesota in 2003 showed the number of hungry and malnourished people decreasing steadily to 2025. But their early 2007 update of these projections, which took into account the biofuel effect on world food prices, showed the number climbing rapidly in the years ahead. Millions of people living on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder, who are barely hanging on, are losing their grip and beginning to fall off.

Since the budgets of international food aid agencies are set well in advance, a rise in food prices shrinks food assistance. The World Food Programme, which is now supplying emergency food aid to more than 30 countries, cut shipments as prices soared. Hunger is on the rise, with some 18,000 children dying each day from hunger and related illnesses.

The emerging competition between the owners of the world’s 910 million automobiles and the 2 billion poorest people is taking the world into uncharted territory. Suddenly the world is facing an epic moral and political issue: Should grain be used to fuel cars or feed people? The average income of the world’s automobile owners is roughly $30,000 a year; the 2 billion poorest people earn on average less than $3,000 a year. The market says, let’s fuel the cars.

For every additional acre planted to corn to produce fuel, an acre of land must be cleared for cropping elsewhere. But there is little new land to be brought under the plow unless it comes from clearing tropical rainforests in the Amazon and Congo basins and in Indonesia or from clearing land in the Brazilian cerrado. Unfortunately, this has heavy environmental costs: a massive release of sequestered carbon, the loss of plant and animal species, and increased rainfall runoff and soil erosion.

While it makes little sense to use food crops to fuel cars if it drives up food prices, there is the option of producing automotive fuel from fast-growing trees, switchgrass, prairie grass mixtures, or other cellulosic materials, which can be grown on wasteland. The technologies to convert these cellulosic materials into ethanol exist, but the cost of producing cellulosic ethanol is close to double that of grain-based ethanol. Whether it will ever be cost-competitive with ethanol from grain is unclear.

There are alternatives to this grim scenario. The decision in May 2009 to raise U.S. auto fuel efficiency standards 40 percent by 2016 will reduce U.S. dependence on oil far more than converting the country’s entire grain harvest into ethanol could. The next step is a comprehensive shift to gas-electric plug-in hybrid cars that can be recharged at night, allowing most short-distance driving—daily commuting and grocery shopping, for example—to be done with electricity. An even more fundamental need is to restructure transportation systems to provide far more options than the personal automobile.

As the leading grain exporter and ethanol producer, the United States is in the driver’s seat. It needs to make sure that efforts to reduce its heavy dependence on imported oil do not create a far more serious problem: chaos in the world food economy. The choice is between a future of rising world food prices, spreading hunger, and growing political instability and one of more stable food prices, sharply reduced dependence on oil, and much lower carbon emissions.

“We live in Nuclear Free New Zealand right? Well, kinda. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act established NZ’s nuclear free zone but as it stands allows uranium ore concentrate, or yellowcake, to enter NZ.

ERMA, the Environmental Risk Management Authority have approved to routinely, through to 2014, tranship yellowcake stored in drums through the Ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Nelson and Napier from Australia en route to the United States and other nations.

It’s a type of powder that then gets turned into either fuel rods or enriched uranium for different uses. It is radioactive, but not massively so and ERMA has approved the shipments saying the risks are extremely low.

The risks locally probably are smaller than say oil tankers, or the plutonium MOX shipments through the Tasman, but on principal I oppose the transhipments. I believe it undermines New Zealand’s proud nuclear free history and the blood, sweat and tears of activists in the 80s who fought to entrench our nuclear free status on the world stage.”

Full article

And Environment Minister Nick Smith’s response to questions regarding this:

“He revealed that since the 1970s radioactive uranium ore concentrate has been passing through New Zealand waters and Ports without successive Government’s even being aware till March this year. Were there any standards regarding the handling of radioactive shipments adhered to over the last twenty years or were we just lucky?

Smith tried to downplay the risks by saying that a New Zealander would have to eat yellowcake to be adversely affected.

I’ve always said the risks to the health and environment of New Zealanders aren’t massive, but the principle is that nuclear free New Zealand should not be part of the nuclear supply chain.

The extraction and end use of uranium pose enormous ethical questions for NZ. We don’t say that as long as a nuclear bomb isn’t detonated in NZ, it can be brought into NZ, so why would we say that as long as uranium is kept in drums on a ship, can it be brought to NZ.

The extraction of uranium has caused enormous health and political problems for Australia. The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in Queensland and the Northern Territory is banning its members from working on uranium mines or within the nuclear energy industry. They call it the asbestos of the 21st centuary and site the health risks it poses on its workers.”

Full article

“The harnessing of solar energy is expanding on every front as concerns about climate change and energy security escalate, as government incentives for harnessing solar energy expand, and as these costs decline while those of fossil fuels rise. One solar technology that is really beginning to take off is the use of solar thermal collectors to convert sunlight into heat that can be used to warm both water and space.

China, for example, is now home to 27 million rooftop solar water heaters. With nearly 4,000 Chinese companies manufacturing these devices, this relatively simple low-cost technology has leapfrogged into villages that do not yet have electricity. For as little as $200, villagers can have a rooftop solar collector installed and take their first hot shower. This technology is sweeping China like wildfire, already approaching market saturation in some communities. Beijing plans to boost the current 114 million square meters of rooftop solar collectors for heating water to 300 million by 2020.

…

In Europe, where energy costs are relatively high, rooftop solar water heaters are also spreading fast. In Austria, 15 percent of all households now rely on them for hot water. And, as in China, in some Austrian villages nearly all homes have rooftop collectors. Germany is also forging ahead. Janet Sawin of the Worldwatch Institute notes that some 2 million Germans are now living in homes where water and space are both heated by rooftop solar systems.

…

We now have the data to make some global projections. With China setting a goal of 300 million square meters of solar water heating capacity by 2020, and ESTIF’s goal of 500 million square meters for Europe by 2020, a U.S. installation of 300 million square meters by 2020 is certainly within reach given the recently adopted tax incentives. Japan, which now has 7 million square meters of rooftop solar collectors heating water but which imports virtually all its fossil fuels, could easily reach 80 million square meters by 2020.

If China and the European Union achieve their goals and Japan and the United States reach the projected adoptions, they will have a combined total of 1,180 million square meters of water and space heating capacity by 2020. With appropriate assumptions for developing countries other than China, the global total in 2020 could exceed 1.5 billion square meters. This would give the world a solar thermal capacity by 2020 of 1,100 thermal gigawatts, the equivalent of 690 coal-fired power plants. This would account for more than half of the Earth Policy Institute’s renewable energy heating goal for 2020, part of a massive effort to stabilize our rapidly changing climate by slashing global net carbon emissions 80 percent within the next decade.

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Read the full release here

The Bill gives effect to the recommendations from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report Smart electricity meters: How households and the environment can benefit (June 2009). Dr Jan Wright has expressed disappointment that householders are being told by electricity companies they can’t have a really smart electricity meter installed. Meters with the capability to enable consumers to minimise power costs can be installed, and as well as saving households money, this would benefit the nation, making better use of electricity generating capacity (delaying the need for more power stations) and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas stations. The cost of ensuring meters have this capability when they are installed is very low; retrofitting them later is expensive.

A smart meter identifies consumption of electricity in more detail than a conventional meter, and communicates that information to the utility provider. Traditional electrical meters only measure total consumption and as such, provide no information of when the energy was consumed. Smart meters provide an economical way of measuring this information, allowing price setting agencies to introduce different prices for consumption based on the time of day and the season.

Smart electricity meters and an interactive power grid will allow power companies to impose variable or time-of-day pricing, providing an incentive to either use less power altogether or less during peak hours. Combined with smart appliances, this would make for a formidably economic home network. Smart appliances have the ability to “talk” to the power grid and each other, in order to minimise peak hour power usage. For example, if you were to turn on your oven to cook a meal when electricity rates are high, your stove will literally tell your refrigerator to delay defrosting or adjust its temperature until dinner is served. Likewise, the washing machine will send a signal to the dishwasher to switch on once the clothes are done.

The bill places obligations on providers of smart meters to inform consumers about particular features: An industry participant who installs, services or upgrades a smart meter in any domestic premises must offer an in-home display, a smart meter capable of measuring separately both import and export of electricity, and the choice between a fixed charge or a cost reflective tariff.

“The Bill ensures smart meters really will be smart and that consumers are offered a choice of tariffs and information that give them power to control their electricity costs,” MP David Clendon said.

Green press release

Churches in Transition is a broad, interdenominational alliance, which aims to “help people involved in Churches in Transition Towns to help each other.”  It was launched in Devon, a Transition Town, in November 2009.  Christian Ecology Link are encouraging individuals and their churches to start an ‘ecocell’ study course in lifestyle change, and take part in online conversations and collective spiritual discipline for Lent.

The Transition Towns movement, started in Ireland in 2005, and now expanded to towns and cities throughout the world (including a few in New Zealand), seeks to equip communities with the means to withstand the challenges of climate change and peak oil. It promotes sustainable, low-energy living and reduced reliance on oil and its products, through collective projects such as community gardens, recycling, and business waste exchange (matching the waste of one industry with another industry that uses this waste).

Central to the concept of Transition Towns is the idea of local people working together.  As a key community group within many towns/cities, it naturally follows that successful transition initiatives will include the participation of Christians and other faith groups.

For more information on Churches in Transition, visit Christian Ecology Link

You can find more information on Transition Towns here and here

To see an example of how its done, watch this video from Campbell Live: Raglan as a Transition Town

Pledge and Reward scheme:

NEC is introducing a voluntary Pledge scheme whereby Nelson individuals, households, businesses and eventually schools can make pledges to reduce their carbon emissions in key area such as Energy, Transport, Water, Waste, Food and Biocapacity. The Pledges are at different levels – from no cost or effort to more cost or effort. The greater the effort the greater the Reward. These Rewards have to be compatible with the idea of sustainability and be goods or services provisioned locally and so support local business. The purpose of the Reward systems is to encourage and incentivize long-term behavioural change towards sustainable life-styles.

The launch of the CRRS:

The NEC and the Nelson City Council will be launching CODE:RED on 13^th  March 2009 in Nelson’s Founders Heritage Park.

From 3 pm there will be a Community launch in the Energy Centre- an interactive “how to” expo around the key themes above. It is not a trade show but rather a whole of community awareness building and, hopefully, behavior changing event. The idea is also to demonstrate to people that there is a great deal happening locally in terms of ideas, technology, experience and production in the sustainability arena. Each display will have a themed Pledge above it so that attendees can make a pledge to eg “Reduce my energy consumption by…” on the day and qualify to enter a prize draw. There will also be lots of fun, music, theatre, quizzes and prizes to be won by the whole family.

Car travel has become cheaper and cheaper in the UK over the past few decades, so no wonder road transport is keeps rising. I wonder what comparable stats for NZ are. Similar, I would imagine. Any transport gurus out there have stats on this?

Greater Wellington Regional Council is hosting public meetings in Wellington and Kapiti later this month to discuss public transport fares, including how they should be set and what proportion should be user-pays. You are warmly invited to attend.

The meetings will be chaired by Peter Glensor, Chair of Greater Wellington’s Transport and Access Committee. He wants to hear your ideas about Greater Wellington’s fares policy, and explore changes informally before a formal consultation process gets under way next year as part of the Long Term Council Community Plan process.

Council’s current fares policy is that passengers pay about 50 percent of the cost of public transport services, ratepayers paid about 25 percent and central government paid 25 percent. Do you think this is about right or could the propotions be changed?

The meeting will also consider concession fares and the basis on which they’re set. Should they be based on your ability to pay, your age, or the time of day you’re travelling? Could fares be more family friendly? What’s the impact of the new SuperGold Card free off-peak fares for people over 65?

Come along and tell us what you think. And please pass this message on to anyone you know who may be interested.

For more information, please contact Philippa Lagan at Greater Wellington, ph: 04 803 0380 or e: philippa.lagan@gw.govt.nz

Created by: Helen Chapman 

Greater Wellington Regional Council is hosting public meetings in Wellington and Kapiti later this month to discuss public transport fares, including how they should be set and what proportion should be user-pays. You are warmly invited to attend.

The meetings will be chaired by Peter Glensor, Chair of Greater Wellington’s Transport and Access Committee. He wants to hear your ideas about Greater Wellington’s fares policy, and explore changes informally before a formal consultation process gets under way next year as part of the Long Term Council Community Plan process.

Council’s current fares policy is that passengers pay about 50 percent of the cost of public transport services, ratepayers paid about 25 percent and central government paid 25 percent. Do you think this is about right or could the propotions be changed?

The meeting will also consider concession fares and the basis on which they’re set. Should they be based on your ability to pay, your age, or the time of day you’re travelling? Could fares be more family friendly? What’s the impact of the new SuperGold Card free off-peak fares for people over 65?

Come along and tell us what you think. And please pass this message on to anyone you know who may be interested.

For more information, please contact the Greater Wellington Regional Council