The Punjab Energy Development Agency has released a draft green hydrogen policy aiming to achieve a green hydrogen and ammonia production capacity of 100 kilo tonnes per annum by 2030. The policy proposes extending incentives under the existing “Punjab Industrial and Business Development Policy 2022” to new green hydrogen and …
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ANDERS WIJKMAN the first World Water Forum was organised in Marrakesh, Morocco, on March 21-22, 1997, as one in a series of meetings preceding the un General Assembly Special Session (ungass) on a five-year follow-up to the unced. One of the objectives of the forum was to mobilise political support …
IN A development having far-reaching implications, dam critics and proponents from all over the world agreed to work together to set up an independent commission to review the world's dams at a workshop in Gland, Switzerland, on April 10- 11. The top-level commission will review the social, economic and environmental …
Biologists in Australia and Japan have genetically engineered tobacco plants so that they destroy their own seeds. They say the same technique should work in citrus crops. Anna Koltunow of the division of horticulture of the CSIRO, Australia's national research agency in Adelaide, and Fumio Takaiwa of Japan's National Institute …
A LARGE number of tea gardens in Darjeeling have switched over to organic tea. No inorganic fertilisers, pesticides and wcedicides are used. The planters only use bio-compost, biomass-based mulching is being used as fertilisers. Similarly, only neem-based pesticides and weedicides like Neerrigold and Neemazol are used. Organic tea is meant …
two Indian scientists, Rustum Roy of Pennsylvania State University and Pravin Mistry of qqc Process, Dearborn, Michigan, both in the us, are spearheading a cheaper and more flexible process to boost the worldwide demand for synthetic diamonds. A process that creates pure diamonds and binds it to a surface with …
With its total peatland extending over 26 million ha, Indonesia has the world's fourth largest reserves of peat. This Indonesian peat has a calorific value of 22 mega joules per kg. Experts say that at an average depth of six metres, the peat produced from an area of this size …
ANIL K RAJVANSHI can India's dependence on imported fuels to meet her energy needs be reduced? The answer seems to lie in the creation of energy self-sufficient talukas (administrative blocks comprising about 100 villages) through biomass-based systems of energy generation, as suggested by a recent study by the Nimbkar Agricultural …
Technology that could reduce the amount of time taken to manufacture an aircraft by at least 20 per cent is being assessed by aerospace groups around the world. The companies hoping to cut years from design schedules include India's Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, British Aerospace, France's Airbus Industries and Indonesia's Industri …
mike bugara, a villager of Mount Kenya in Kenya, has been an ardent conser-vationist. Inspired by the papyrus of the ancient Egyptians who made paper from leaves of maize, banana and eucalyptus trees, Bugara opted for an indigenous material: elephant dung! He boiled pot-fulls of elephant dung in his yard …
why do humans behave so differently from one another? Behavioural scientists say that a study of this variation is a rather controversial one even while it is exciting. They say that if you look hard enough, genetic influence on behaviour can be easily identified. For example, variation in personality traits …
One of the principal barriers to providing electricity to low-income households is the high cost of connection and wiring of the house. Also, as power meters are expensive to instal, the users are not able to keep an account of the electricity consumed by them and often end up using …
the Viviendas del Hogar de Cristo (Christ's home dwellings, or chd ) housing project in Ecuador is a housing development organisation with a difference: it builds homes from locally-produced bamboo panels as a solution to the dreadful housing conditions of poor people living in Guayaquil. Simple and easy to construct, …
Engineers have long dreamed of semiconductor chips that could handle both optical and electrical signals. But silicon hasn't been practical for processing pulses of tight. And the semiconductor materials -such as gallium arsenide - are expensive or very fragile. Now, hybrid optoelectronic chips have just moved closer to reality. Researchers …
A CHUNK of the earth's crust off Canada's west coast is beginning to disappear, says a report by North American geologists. The fragment, known as the 'Explorer plate', is fusing with its neighbouring plates to form a new plate boundary and will cease to exist independently. This is the first …
OVER the years, parts of the ocean floor have been sinking below the surface in the stately cycle of plate tectonics. But where do these great slabs of oceanic plate go, and what happens to them inside the earth? Some geologists have suggested that the mantle is divided into two …
while the world is still debating the future of nuclear power, Sweden has decided to phase out its large nuclear power industry. The decision has sparked strong protests from citizens, opposition parties, trade unions and industries. The government intends to close down at least two of the country's 12 nuclear …
amid growing awareness of the need for environmental protection and energy conservation measures, consumer electronics firms in Japan are lining up to enter the market for solar-power generation systems. Manufacturers are especially targeting the market for residential solar-power generation systems, encouraged by the Japanese ministry of international trade and industry's …
Iraq is facing lawsuits claiming billions of dollars in compensation by Kuwait and its allies including the US, for environmental damage caused during the Gulf War. Iraqi troops are alleged to have unloaded millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf waters in January 1991 and set fire to more …
