Sustainability Momentum Sdn Bhd

                                                                              Photo Credit: Michiganradio.org

A new study by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire US, has found evidence that suggests warmer sea surface temperatures may increase the ability of fish to accumulate mercury. The scientists studied the Killifish, found in most parts of the world, under varying temperatures in the lab and in salt marsh pools. The results of the study showed that fish in warmer water ate more but grew less and had higher methylmercury levels in their tissues, suggesting that increases in their metabolic rate caused the increased mercury uptake. This means that the inevitable warming of our oceans could present a higher risk to the health of some consumers of seafood as the mercury rises up the marine food chain.

The A14 will become the U.K’s first Internet-connected road, as its government tries new ways to tackle congestion and road safety. The project uses sensors which will be placed along the A14 that will be able to transmit data on traffic, creating a “smart” road that can send messages to a driver’s mobile phone alerting them to upcoming traffic. This technology could in the future be used to automatically control the speed of vehicles. The trial project is currently being run by BT and Cambridge technology specialists Neul, as well as UK’s Department of Transport.

On October 1 2013, the United States federal government entered a government shutdown, forcing all non-essential US government agencies to be suspended and sending home an estimated 1.2 million federal employees. From an environmental perspective, the US government shutdown has halted climate research, closed all national parks and reduced the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) workforce by 93.5%. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will have to shut down its 12 marine sanctuaries and call its research ships back into port. The shutdown is also going to hit renewable energy projects hard. All current work on offshore renewable energy projects will be suspended. No one knows how long this shutdown will last, however it is everyone’s hope that compromises are made in Congress and that the government is back up and running as soon as possible.

A recent report by Reef Check Malaysia (RCM) states that the widespread growth of algae is smothering and killing coral reefs at Pulau Perhentian, an island known for its tourism off the coast of Terengganu, Malaysia. RCM says that since 2009, there has been a noticeable decline in the area of hard corals in Perhentian to just 36% (fair condition) in 2011. This decline corresponds with a period of consistently high (though fluctuating) levels of algae on the reefs. Sewage pollution around Perhentian is thought to be the main reason for this algae growth, with only 2 out of the 13 resorts surveyed, found to have adequate sewage treatment systems.

                                                               Photo Credit: J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

In California, fuel made of methane from landfills and other waste sources are being sold to the market at the same price as conventional natural gas fuel and cheaper than diesel. As an added bonus, methane fuel burns 90% cleaner than diesel. An ideal way to go green – taking care of more than one problem at a time.

Picture Credits : Markus Schreiber and Financial Post

 

IKEA, famous for its one-stop centres for all things trendy and Scandinavian, now offers its customers solar PV Panels that can be bought off the shelf and installed in two days. The roll-out of this new service starts in IKEA stores in Britain from 30 September 2013.

Photo Credit:     Solartribune

In an effort to help the PV manufacturers in China, which have been hit hard by market overcapacity, declining demand and international trade disputes with the United States and European Union, the government has announced a 50% refund on Value Added Tax for the PV manufacturers starting effective 1st October 2013 until 31st December 2015.

Picture Credit: K.Denault / UCSB

1,639 logs will be extracted and cleared from 150 hectares of the pristine Tawau Hills Park in Sabah’s east coast. The area will be logged to make way for Malaysia’s first geothermal plant. The RM500-million geothermal plant will have the capacity of 30MW and is being built by Tawau Green Energy Sdn Bhd, which has signed a 21-year power supply deal with Sabah Electrictity Sdn Bhd last year. Tawau Hills Park was established in 1979 and was gazetted to protect water catchment resources for Tawau Town and the Semporna Peninsula. At least 7 major rivers originate here. Sabah has received some RM340,000 in royalties from timber extracted from the area.

Engineers in Japan have managed to harness the energy leaking from microwave ovens to power small devices such as oven thermometers, cooking timers and digital scales. The researchers studied the energy leakage from a range of ovens to see what useful power levels might be harvestable to replace button cell batteries in kitchen gadgets. To harness that energy, they designed a power harvester (the size of a US quarter) that was combined with a 1-cm-long microwave antenna to generate an electric current that could charge a circuit. By leaving gadgets close enough to the microwave, they would be gradually charged up enough to operate. The harvester is also small enough to be embedded in most kitchen gadgets.