My Green Element » Tuesday Headlines

It is an interesting experience when you observe current and pending solutions to a modern day dilemma, like sustainability, being vastly improved upon using ideas from great 20th century minds. Modern day science, and its implementation, can be carried out in a remote area of the world, where tribes still conduct life under the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The Indonesian Island of Sumba is located southeast of the more popular island of Bali - roughly a one hour flight from one to the other. Once belonging to the Dutch West Indies, this unique culture is historically known for its sandalwood exports, but more interestingly for its continued use of megalithic burials and a brutal game called pasola, where local tribes fiercely compete on horseback with spears.These three combined elements (past inventions, sustainability and Sumba itself) are all playing out thanks to a trailblazer from New Jersey, named Claude Graves. He was enticed into the area by a major US construction company, to supervise offshore oil production rigs. Claude spent years traveling and working throughout Indonesia. A time came when he and his wife, Petra, found themselves exploring the profoundly undiscovered island of Sumba, trekking and camping their way along the rugged coast line, fighting off malaria, learning the language, embracing sensitivities of the local cultures and falling in love with their soon to be new home.

Fast forward to the famed surf, dive and fishing eco-resort of Nihiwatu, softly opened by Claude and Petra in 2001, as a realized vision and an example of how a world-class hotel could be run, while at the same time focusing on offsetting the negative effects of tourism and man-made activities. Their commitment has led to a 14-room property, which operates entirely on four bio-diesel generators fuelled from coconuts - producing 75 percent less carbon emissions then petrol-diesel.

The problem is, business is booming and expansion is inevitable. Plans being considered include two additional separate ‘villages’ for new guest rooms, pools, spa and fitness rooms, bar and lounge areas. This would push the current setup and energy supply to its limit, due to the growing distance of the resort from some of its suppliers, requiring substantial financial upgrades.

Creative and forward thinking

In an amazing twist, the solution can be found with great inventions created in the roaring twenties. A creative and forward thinking company in the US, recently supported with a substantial investment from a former co-founder of a popular sporting eyewear company, has had the insight to look back into history, and discover opportunities in expired patents, from well known inventors and scientists such as Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. They’ve hired former NASA scientists to tackle the challenge of converting these patents, which to date are only available in vastly large, impractical dimensions, into more workable models, which are proportionate, efficient, and economical. Sumba is entering the 21st century. To be continued…

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May 19, 2010

What now? Obama, the Gulf Oil Spill and Canada

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 8:17 pm

By Olga Orda

The devastation of the gulf oil spill begs the question: what now?

In a provocative New York Times, author and journalist Thomas L. Friedman goes against the grain and media banter to say that the oil spill has not been Obama’s Katrina. Rather, Friedman argues that the spill has been President Obama’s “environmental 9/11″ and that Obama seems intent on squandering his 9/11 with a Bush-level ‘failure of imagination’. According to Friedman, this failure of imagination was Bush’s inability, after 9/11, “to mobilize the country to get behind a really big initiative for nation-building in America” and adopt a gasoline tax.

While an Obama supporter, Friedman plays devil’s advocate throughout the op-ed only to make it clear that what he really wants is to see is an Obama “End to Oil Addiction Act” and a strategy to back it up. Radical? Perhaps, but Friedman lays down some bold ideas on the table at a time when the gulf oil spill is raising a myriad of concerns across the nation.

Then, there is Canada and the oil sands: both the elephant in the room and now, thanks to some careful positioning and uncanny timing by the oil sands industry, the so-called ’solution’ to the post-gulf oil spill.

A report released by U.S. based Cambridge Energy Research Associates claimed that depending on the rate of growth, oil sands crude could eventually supply 20 to 36 per cent to the world’s largest consumer by 2030.

“The fact that oilsands by themselves — were they a country — are set to become the largest single source of U.S. crude oil imports this year, emphasizes the importance they have attained as a supply source for the United States,” according to Cambridge chairman Daniel Yergin in a news release. “It also shows how integrated Canada and the United States are in terms of energy, as in their overall economies.”

The same day, the New York Times released an article arguing that the oil sands are the next big risk and are attracting more scrutiny. This comes at a time when the Obama administration is reviewing a Canadian company’s request to build a new 2,000-mile underground pipeline that would run from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast that could be a major boost to America’s access to oil.

In an increasingly tight decision making framework and escalating risks around getting more out of our precious resources domestically, it is time to make the case for a nation run on cleaner, greener and domestic energy resources. The rewards? Job creation for hundreds of thousands of North Americans, a stimulus to the economy and energy independence.

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