The plight of water is gaining speed across the world as communities are starting to face the stark reality of a potential global water shortage. Garden like Descanso are setting the benchmark for sustainable public recreational areas and many more will be following suit.

Nowhere in the West is sustainable gardening a harder sell than in Southern California. Public gardens preach conservation, but their grounds are surrounded by turf. The message to visitors: Eastern-style, highly irrigated gardening is not just OK here, it’s the way it’s done.
And so, it is beyond refreshing, more like happy dance exciting, that Descanso Gardens has begun what will be a long-range overhaul in which water conservation is the central theme. The messaging will start with the landscaping.

After five years work poring over conservation possibilities, Descanso has a mission involving truly progressive goals, which include irrigation of its 150 acres with locally harvested water, capturing storm water with bioswales, generating enough solar power to take Descanso facilities off the electricity grid and composting all its own green waste.

Some of the parkway replanting should be complete by June. This change alone, Brown estimates, should save 600,000 gallons of water a year. By contrast, the long-range plans anticipate water savings in the millions of gallons. Under Portico’s conceptual plan, the garden’s current annual use of almost 25 million gallons could be cut to roughly 19 million. These savings become much more meaningful when you consider that by better managing native water, the garden could eliminate its current draw of 9 million gallons a year of water expensively treated to potable standards, but then squandered on irrigation.

Source: latimesblog

The centre harvests all the rain that falls on its roof and sends this water by gravity to the rainwater storage tanks. From here is it pumped back into the building as fresh water. The water that is used for showering and washing hands gets send to a Water Rhapsody grey water system where the water is treated and then reused to flush the numerous toilets in the building.

The sensitive ecosystem surrounding Ecology Park benefits greatly from the water conservation systems as the majority of the water is reused and significantly less water than usual is send to the sewer. By fitting these systems, False Bay Ecology Park is demonstrating its commitment to reducing wasteful water consumption habits and educating the surrounding community the value of this precious resource.

While we have done much to protect our resources, events like Earth Day remind all of us of our constant responsibility to establish a new generation of sustainable living and business operations, with respect for the Earth and dedication to improve our environment as a year-round commitment. Today, people, organizations, and governments throughout the world pause to celebrate what has been done and identify what remains to be done to protect the water, air, and land that sustain us and our communities.

Source:n Huffington Post.

Water Rhapsody, a South African company providing water conservation systems ans services have been involved in  building awareness around the importance of water conservation in our water scarce country. They specialize in optimizing water consumption, making use of rainwater harvesting technologies, grey water irrigation and sanitation and water efficient fittings.

To find out how much water you could save, contact your nearest Water Rhapsody dealer for a free water audit.

This story from the Fin24.com

Cape Town – Deep below the dry soils of the Karoo lies a wealth of natural gas that Sasol and Shell plan to exploit using new technology that has revolutionised the American gas market over the past five years.

Ebbie Haan, the managing director of Sasol Petroleum International, said the clay like shale, which is rich in organic material, has an ability to collect natural gas.

The former South African oil exploration company, Soekor, which today forms part of PetroSA, last did exploration in the Karoo in the 1960s and certainly found gas – but not enough to be regarded as commercially viable.

But mine-development technologies and geoscientists’ skills related to rock characteristics have since considerably improved.

In the United States small exploration companies have managed, using innovative techniques like horizontal drilling and the injection of water and sand at exceptionally high pressure, to extract the gas trapped between layers of shale, by introducing cracks through which the gas can rise to the surface.

For Sasol it is important to exploit more natural gas, which produces far less greenhouse gas than the company’s carbon-intensive coal-to-fuel process.

Sasol and Eskom – the two single-largest emitters of greenhouse gas in South Africa – are under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint in order to help achieve government’s carbon-reduction targets.

This is a great step forward for South Africa, seeing the commitment of individual companies take responsibility to reduce our countries carbon footprint. If South Africa is to reach our reduced carbon foot print I feel it is imperative that more businesses, large and small, do their part in assure our carbon goal.

• These are some of the projects that as on the table already.

•  Eskom has a 3.2 MW demonstration wind farm at Klipheuwel in the Western Cape.

• The 4-turbine, 5.2MW Darling wind farm in the Western Cape started producing electricity in 2008 and remains the country’s only commercial wind farm.

•  Irish company Mainstream Renewable Energy, in partnership with local outfit Genesis Eco-Energy, are planning to build some 18 wind farms in the Eastern, Western and Northern Cape, including 30 and 40 MW projects near Jeffrey’s Bay and Colesberg respectively.

• Eskom has proposed a 100 MW wind farm at Koekenaap near Vredendal in the Western Cape.

• Belgian company Electrawinds recently announced a partnership deal for a 25-turbine wind farm at Coega in the Eastern Cape.

• The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality plans to build a wind farm with at least 10 turbines.

• UK-based Renewable Energy Systems has proposed to install around 300 MW of wind energy projects in the Western and Eastern Cape.

• The planned St Helena Bay wind farm on the West Coast is expected to produce 50 to 80 MW of electricity.

• A 300 MW wind farm project near Caledon in the Western Cape was announced earlier this year.

• The Tsitsikamma Community Wind Farm project in the Eastern Cape aims to produce about 40 MW by 2013.

• In October last year, government and the Clinton Foundation signed an agreement to establish the country’s first “solar park”, which is to deliver up to 5 000 MW of solar electricity to the national grid.

• Cape Town start-up Aurora Power Solutions is developing a 200 MW portfolio of solar power projects.

• Eskom is planning a 100 MW concentrated solar power demonstration plant near Upington.

• A factory for thin-film solar panels is to be built in Paarl.

For household water saving ideas and systems click on these links for more information, grey water reuse, rainwater harvesting.

or

Contact Alje van Hoorn for obligation free quotes on grey water reuse and rainwater harvesting systems.

The number of households that have taken up Eskom’s solar water geyser subsidies has rocketed in the past month since the utility more than doubled the geyser subsidy from around R2 500 to around R7 000. This means that almost half of the cost of the solar geyser will now be covered by Eskom. When Eskom launched its solar water subsidy programme at the start of 2008, it aimed to subsidise 1 million geysers nationally over five years. But in the first two years of the subsidy’s being in place, only 2 000 households had taken up the offer.

After Eskom announced the big subsidy increases in mid-January, it received 762 applications for subsidies in a month.

About 40 percent of a household’s electricity bill goes to pay for heating the geyser.

“With the increased subsidies, Eskom pays almost half the cost of the solar geyser. We were motivated to increase the subsidy by a growing concern that we needed to save electricity more aggressively,” said Andrew Etzinger, a general manager at Eskom. “We need to get 200 000 installed a year.

“With the bigger subsidies, the householder will recover his investment within five years, and then be getting free hot water.”

Etzinger said the electricity saving on a million solar water geysers would amount to 650MW. This is equivalent to one third of the power generated by Koeberg’s two nuclear reactors.

The money to pay for the subsidies will come out of Eskom’s electricity price hikes.

“It was part of our demand-side management programme, which formed part of the application to Nersa, so the cost will be recovered through the new tariffs.

“It is a lower cost alternative to building a new power station.”

The amount of the subsidy varies in relation to the amount of electricity the geyser saves. Those which save the most receive the highest subsidy. All have to be SABS approved

“Householders can go online to www.eskom.co.za/dsm and they will see suppliers in their region and different makes and sizes.

“You choose a supplier, he installs the geyser, you pay the full cost and you both fill in the form he has. You send this, with proof of residence, to the Deloitte branch in your area, and if it is all correct, the turn-around time to get your subsidy is two weeks,” Etzinger said.

For household water saving ideas and systems click on these links for more information, grey water reuse, rainwater harvesting.

or

Contact Alje van Hoorn for obligation free quotes on grey water reuse and rainwater harvesting systems.



2.  New GE Study Shows Canadian Wind Farms’ Profits Would Exceed Government Investment – General Electric has released a study which shows if the Canadian federal government invested $1.5 billion CDN in developing wind farms, it would recoup its costs and earn revenue within 25 years.  Stimulate the economy and generate clean energy, not a bad political move.

3.  Italian Solar Market is Hot – Last November the Italian solar market grew by more than 10% alone.  This growth has not been lost on solar companies. SunPower Corp. recently purchased SunRay Renewable Energy in large part because of its strong connections in the Italian solar industry.  Analysts expect Italy’s solar capacity to increase 50% by the end of 2010.

4.  Fuel From Fish Tank Residue: The Latest Look At Algal Biofuel’s Potential – Sandia Laboratories has stated that algae has the potential to displace large amounts of diesel and jet fuel in the near future as long as it can crossover some key obstacles.

5.  UNEP Report Shows Current Emissions Targets Are Not Enough to Prevent Devastating Climate Change – The United Nations Environmental Programme has released a report which indicates that the emissions pledges made in the Copenhagen Accord will not prevent a global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius — the tipping point for global warming.

6.  Pepperbox Studio Makes Music Using Renewable Energy – Ever wondered what it would be like to live completely off-the-grid?  Well, musician Kristina Stykos from Vermont can let you know.  Stykos runs her home and recording studio on energy generated from solar, wind, and biomass.  She also has incorporated some important energy efficiency measures.

7.  U.S. Department of Energy Reports on Environmental Effects of Hydropower – Marine energy technologies such as wave and tidal power are viewed as a gold mine of untapped energy potential.  Yet, there are still many questions about the nascent technologies, particularly if the machinery will hold up.  The U.S. Department of Energy looks at an important question that has not come to the forefront:  the environmental effect of putting massive machines in the oceans.

8.  American Utilities: Hot for the Smart Grid and Warming to Renewable Energy – A new survey shows that American utilities are investing more capital and resources in information technology and smart grid development than ever before.  They are also increasing their renewable energy portfolios, albeit with a little less enthusiasm.

9.  ADM: The Greening of Big Agro – ADM has made a name for itself as the middle-man in the agriculture business.  Now, it wants to become the super-man of the ethanol business.  It is the world’s largest corn ethanol producer and it is now engaged in serious development of advanced biofuels.

10. Government Study Shows U.S. Wind Resources Larger than Previously Estimated – The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has discovered that American wind resources are enormous.  The NREL’s study revealed that America’s continental, onshore wind resources could generate almost 37,000,000 gigawatt-hours annually.  This is more than nine times current U.S. electricity consumption.  Imagine what the wind resources would look like if the U.S. ever got moving on its offshore wind development?

This story from energyboom.com

For household water saving ideas and systems click on these links for more information, grey water reuse, rainwater harvesting.

or

Contact Alje van Hoorn for obligation free quotes on grey water reuse and rainwater harvesting systems.