According to a report by the European Academies Sciences Advisory Council (EASAC), these methods are considered “technologically feasible, but integrated operation on commercial-scale power stations remains to be demonstrated.” Improvements in the reduction of electricity costs are expected in the next 20 years due largely to substantial technological improvements.

Transport of CO2 can be done by pipeline or by ship, with the latter favored for small and remote offshore locations or in start-up phases. Europe will need to develop an integrated and cross-border structure to transport CO2, from capture to storage sites, which is a major logistical challenge, but not a technically insurmountable one.

With regards to CO2 storage, it is important to assure the safety of the sites and to convince public opinion in order to gain its support for the development of CCS in Europe. Attention has to be given to establish adequate storage sites in which to inject CO2 without hazarding environmental risks and this can take years.

With regards to its costs and the possibility to create new jobs, Derek Taylor from DMT Energy Consulting points out that “because of the relatively high CO2 concentrations in the waste gases produced in some industrial sectors, the application of CCS could be economically more attractive than for parts of the power sector and present early deployment opportunities.”

In 2009, six CCS projects were selected by the European Commission for funding under the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR) for a total of €1 billion. The European countries involved most in CCS include: Poland, Spain, UK, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

The EASAC report recommends achieving the adequate funding for EU demonstration plants to show the range of technologies and application options. To avoid that carbon-intensive industries relocate to less regulated regions, well-designed packages of regulatory financial measures have to be applied and the EU has to promote high levels of environmental protection on a global scale.
CCS is a sector that needs massive investments and promotion work to provide its effectiveness. It is one case where the EU can show its effectiveness in coordinating and regulating a process that involves all its members, but first it is necessary that it becomes well understood and accepted.

CCS can help reduce CO2 emissions in sectors such as heavy industry, iron, and steel production which are notoriously energy demanding. While coal consumption in Europe has declined in the twenty-first century, dependence on fossil fuels remains a major obstacle for the transition to a low- carbon economy in Europe. If done efficiently, CCS is one way of diminishing emissions.

Writer: Edoardo De Silva is energy assistant as Revolve.

]]> http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/19/can-europe-capture-carbon/feed/ 0 http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/18/fishing-on-lake-kivu/ http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/18/fishing-on-lake-kivu/#comments Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:05:39 +0000 Revolve http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/?p=5620

Fishing on Lake Kivu, shared by Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Source: K. Hayes Pact.

]]> http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/18/fishing-on-lake-kivu/feed/ 0 http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/18/scenes-of-malta/ http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/18/scenes-of-malta/#comments Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:51:40 +0000 Revolve http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/?p=5602 This series of images is complementary to the feature on “Malta: Confronting Water Challenges” that appeared in Revolve’s Spring 2013 issue on pages 68-74.

About Peter Easton. Peter Easton is a British, but Brussels-based, hydrogeologist and water resources consultant of 25 years experience. Work has taken him to many countries to study water issues in a wide range of geographies and climates, including the Middle East, much of Europe and Malta. He is also a keen photographer. Peter has strong family connections to Malta through his wife, with the common Maltese family name of Portelli and three Malta-born grandparents.

To learn more about Peter Easton, please visit: www.photoeaston.com  | www.watersustain.com

One Solar, Nevada, USA.

Among the top solar energy companies in 2012 figured: Chinese Suntech, the world’s largest silicon solar panel producer; North American First Solar, appreciated for having the fastest energy payback when compared to other photovoltaic systems; Japanese Sharp Solar, with 50 years of developing the fast growing local solar market; and the Chinese Yingli Green Energy, which has taken advantage of cheaper labor and low material costs typical of most Chinese manufacturers to focus on innovation in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Chinese solar panel giant, Wuxi Suntech, declared bankruptcy in March 2013. As a major subsidiary of New York-listed Suntech Power, the company was founded in 2001 and was based in the city of Wuxi in east China. Responsible for more than 95% of Suntech Power’s products, it reached a total production capacity of 2.4 gigawatts (GW) in 2012.

The company was a victim of the downsizing of the photovoltaic industry, reporting a 14% year-over-year decline in revenues to $134 million (-75% operating margin) and a net loss of $104 million. High prices for materials and wrong investments of tens of millions dollars to develop thin film cells and industrial over-capacity also contributed to bankruptcy. Wang Bohua, secretary-general of the China Photovoltaic Industry Alliance (CPIA) remains optimistic, despite downsizing production capacity, and believes that “more competitive companies will arise in the coming years, thanks to booming domestic demand.”

Rooftop on-grid. Project Within Factory. Source: Hanwha SolarOne.

Another Chinese solar panel producer, Hanwha SolarOne Co. (HSOL), is enjoying more success thanks to an increase of shipments to South Africa, the United States and the Middle East, as well as bolstering prices in Japan. The company felt the effects of the general downturn in 2012 that was considered a tremendous challenge for solar energy with significant industry over-capacity and regulatory changes in key markets “leading to a slowdown in demand accompanied by rapidly decelerating prices”, as Hanwha SolarOne Chairman and CEO Ki-Joon Hong pointed out.

The difficult situation was however the same for almost all companies and despite the setbacks, SolarOne managed to achieve progresses in several areas such as in improving quality and product features, introducing new products, diversifying the sales base into new emerging growth markets and securing financing from domestic and external sources. SolarOne plans to ship 1,300 megawatts (MW) to 1,500 MW in 2013, compared with 829.8 MW last year.

Developing solar power has slowed but is expected to continue growing in the next years. Innovations in technology and financing will lead to cost reductions for solar power in the long-term. While Chinese companies are struggling to improve their balance sheets, undoubtedly as more and more countries invest into solar energy the market will become increasingly competitive.

Edoardo De Silva is energy assistant at Revolve.

Source: NASA

Video of perpetual oceans:

Revolve interviews Dr. William Payne, Director of CGIAR Dryland Systems research program.

Palouse hills, Washington, USA.
Source: Chris Devaraj, Flickr.

What challenges affect dryland systems and how can research benefit individuals affected by them?

There are some major ecological and social challenges that affect dryland systems. On the ecological scale, some of the big issues are land degradation, climate change, drought, over-exploitation and water shortage. On the social scale: urbanization, population pressure, dis-enfranchisement of certain community members such as women and children, civil unrest and political strife…

Community-based research fosters participation of individuals in the involvement of stakeholders and the identification of research problems, implementation of research agendas, evaluation of research results, and active participation in what we call “out-scaling”. One relatively new mechanism is to involve new individuals by the creation of new innovation platforms.

What benefits derive from protecting biodiversity and how can the resilience of species living in dryland areas be improved?

One example is the positive role that biodiversity plays in counter-acting land degradation. Biodiversity can also serve as a source of resilience because it reduces risks to external shocks such as drought or pestilence. Another specific role is in the maintaining genetic diversity among certain crops, which can then be drawn upon to develop improved varieties. This is especially so when there is gene flux between domestic crops and wild relatives. Examples are pearl millet and barley which, when cultivated in areas near their genetic origin (West Africa for pearl millet, the Middle East for barley), they continue to exchange genes with wild species. This provides a source of genes to address new stresses through breeding, such as those associated with climate change.

Plant breeding is one of the many ways to genetically improve species by incorporating any number of desirable traits. The most important one historically has been yield. Modern varieties of wheat and rice, for example, yield several times what older varieties yielded. Other desirable traits include drought tolerance, salt tolerance, and disease tolerance. These help modern varieties to produce grain in environments in which older varieties could not. There are also qualities related to cooking, food processing, and nutrition that can be incorporated into traditional varieties to improve their desirability or marketability.

Tractor cultivating fields in the Negev Desert on the Kibbutz Sde Boker in Israel.
Source: Tpmartins, Flickr

What are the causes of biophysical and non-biophysical limits and how can research reduce the negative trends of climate change?

There are several different causes that create limits for the communities living in dry areas. Sometimes they have to deal with social barriers related to gender, age, ethnicity, and societal class distinction. Other times there are financial barriers such as lack of credit or other financial resources. There are also important limitations imposed by disparity in education… Research can reduce these limits by providing  better access to information. A simple example is access to accurate market prices for selling produce. Before cell phone and internet, farmers used to depend upon the honesty of local traders for a fair market price. Now they can use cheap technology to obtain accurate market information. Information is critical to gain access to any number of other technologies. To effectively gain benefits from fertilizer usage, for example, information on price and proper application is needed. Similarly, such technologies can be used to gain knowledge on the availability of various financial tools. The Dryland System research program has a communication strategy that will provide access to knowledge on policies, education and a range of technologies.

What approaches can enhance the resilience of dryland systems, and how valuable are they on a global scale in responding to climate change?

Innovations can increase resilience among rural communities, such as diversification of what is produced on farms through alternative crops or livestock. Diverse cropping systems are less vulnerable than monocultures to system shocks such as drought or market price volatility. There are also innovative systems that can be used to collect and store water within farming systems, which can then be used to mitigate the effects of drought on food security. And there are several financial tools that can be used to improve resilience, such as crop and livestock insurance, or the use of community warehouses to store grain and thus mitigate the effects of market fluctuations.

Intensification of production can put pressure over scarce resources available in dryland areas, and thereby actually increase risk. So one must be careful about the technologies that are introduced. But there are methods of sustainably increasing production that do not increase risk. Parkland agroforestry systems in West Africa, for example, use certain tree species to provide improved microclimate and nutrient inputs for crops, therefore reducing water consumption and increasing water-use efficiency. The system also increases soil fertility, provides food for livestock, and reduces erosion. In effect a more sustainable system is created because it is more productive and more environmentally sound.

This aerial photograph starkly shows the historical limits of the Nile floodplain and the desert beyond. The floodplain’s limits or borders have not changed with the construction of the Great Aswan Dam. Soil located beyond the green floodplain is of poor quality and cannot produce any crops.
Source: Andrew Griffith, Flickr.

Are national governments and international institutions responsive to combining technologies and practices working in specific agro-ecosystems?

This depends on each respective government: some are very responsive to the needs of their people and some are obviously less so. Governments are more stable if populations are better fed and have viable livelihoods. ICARDA is one of the international institutions that can create “technology and policy packages” to address problems in dryland areas. The Dryland Systems research program is a mix of international and national institutions, including research institutions and development organizations. As a research program, Dryland Systems does not have the financial means to bring about development goals, so we need international partners to bring our research findings to scale to have impact. This can be through various means, including capacity-building. We also seek to partner with international institutions from the private sector to make these “technologies and policy packages” available to the hundreds of millions of poor working in dryland agriculture.

Interview by Marcello Cappellazzi, assistant researcher at Revolve.

In many European cities, most buildings of tomorrow are already built. In Brussels, the renewal of the building stock reaches 1% of all buildings each year: it could take 100 years to replace or renovate the entire buildings. There are too many offices and too little housing space. Is functional conversion the key to the problem?

Anders Böhlke provides insights into the need to convert more empty office space into new lodging functions to help confront exponential demographic growth with three concrete examples that have already been carried out: a conventional one-family apartment, a retirement home, and an art school.

Aerial view of downtown Brussels. Source: BLOM 2004/2013.

As the Capital of Europe, Brussels has experienced tremendous growth in the office building sector since the 1960s. As the market went international, many new professions appeared in the real estate industry; demand kept growing with the expansion of EU institutions and the successive European enlargements. For many years now, the pace has slowed and more than 10% of total offices are vacant (available, on the market, or unoccupied). There is too much office space for diminishing demand. This phenomenon is not foreseen to shrink, mainly for two reasons:

•  Today’s economic context is not conducive to new settlements from local or international companies. EU institutions also rationalize their implementations, as do companies. The actual demand in office space is mainly a replacement demand: companies move to new offices, leaving old ones behind.
•  Since the design and techniques of office buildings evolved considerably throughout the last decades, the obsolescence of office buildings accelerates. Occupiers move easily to find better, well-equipped, up-to-date spaces.

Simultaneously, Brussels is facing a large demographic challenge. There is a need for at least 7,000 new housing units each year, but production is only two times that rate. Real estate developers have typically concentrated on traditional housing, and are beginning to look at other housing segments: elderly homes, student housing, and new hotel concepts.

If empty office space is available while population growth continues to increase demand, then converting office space into housing is an obvious response to address this challenge.

*

Adaptive reuse consists of recycling old buildings for a new use. This is not a new phenomenon, in Brussels or elsewhere. The renewal of cities and neighborhoods has often been based on the mutation of preexisting functions. In New York City, the first lofts appeared in buildings in which industrial or commercial activities were no longer viable. The Highline, an abandoned railway became a famous city park. An old office building became the Calhoun private school. In London, the Tate Modern Museum settled in an old power station. In Brussels, an old custom rail building became offices and shops, stores became museums and nowadays offices become housing units.

Many houses in Brussels are at least a hundred years old. If they have been upgraded technically or refurbished, their layout has stayed relatively stable and has adapted easily to different functions: from one family home, to small offices, day nursery or divided into apartments. Typically, housing in Brussels shows adaptability.

On the contrary, office buildings have considerably evolved throughout the last decades, matching new occupier’s needs (EU institutions) and following the evolution of work, workspace organization, technical progress, and information and communication technologies.

Obsolescence is not directly proportional to age. Recent buildings are in general much more specific and therefore less flexible than before. Old office buildings from the 1950s and 1960s make often better homes than the ones build thereafter, only because their layouts an structures are simple.

The new construction and/or refurbishment of office buildings are considered outdated by the occupiers and the market at a higher rate than before. The lifetime of a building’s use and function is much shorter than the shell – the actual building. And it is shrinking. Building lifespan was around 50 years after World War II and reaches only 15 years today.

Often offices are located in “grapes” or in central business districts (CBD). In Brussels, they are the two main offices districts: the European Quarter and the North District. Converting buildings in office districts is coherent with the political will to encourage the requalification of the monofunctional administrative areas. Implementing other functions such as housing in those neighborhoods helps increase their attractiveness.

Office conversion is also an important way to include an efficient concept of the energy embodied in buildings: “gray energy”. Re-occupation of empty buildings is a very important saving compared to energy put into the process demolition and reconstruction.

Brussels has seen numerous office buildings conversion.

The analysis of realized projects shows that mainly up-market apartments have been produced so far through this process. This is due mostly to the high cost of the transformation works. This fact shows the limit of the practice because housing is not just about one-family homes.

The lack of social housing, student housing and elderly homes is important in Brussels: demand is huge and waiting lists grow each year. Social housing represents around 8% of the total housing stock, which is 2-3 times less than in neighboring European cities, such as Amsterdam, Paris, or London.

The future of office conversion relies largely on types of unconventional housing and other facilities, such as schools, which derive from necessary demographic adaptation. Adapting to existing shells, conversion projects will have to optimize the respective layouts – sometimes rethinking the way we live, proposing new ways of designing space.

4 Solutions

• Improve access to information: In real estate, data is less accessible than in other sectors and sometimes difficult to compare (different methods of calculating surfaces, vacancy rates, facial rents vs. real rents…)
• Fight against empty buildings: Identifying those buildings, putting additional taxes on empty space, you can encourage and support studies of convertibility.
• Move to convertibility: Designing projects to fit the rules of housing and offices, you can facilitate future transformation facing the evolution of needs.
• Facilitate the conversion: By knowing the occupiers needs, implementing incentives for studies and analysis, you can accelerate building permits for conversion.

Writer: Anders Böhlke is an architect based in Brussels. He manages the Executive Master in Real Estate at the Saint-Louis University in Brussels and works as an analyst at C.L.I. urban think tank.

About the book:

Yesterday’s Offices, Today’s homes is based on the analysis of a sample of some 200,000 m² of offices converted over the past 15 years in Brussels and showcases 25 examples of transformation in three main axes: the agents of change, the motivations for the transformations, and the location criteria. Based on Brussels advanced knowledge on the subject and other experiences of large European cities, this book considers the future of functional mutations in the city and the appeal to achieve the objectives of diversity and sustainable development. The book should help encourage the owners of empty buildings to examine the potential for reuse of the property efficiently and profitability.

To order a copy, contact: info@cli.be
Authors: Christian Lasserre, Pierre Laconte, Anders Böhlke, Béatrice Dooreman.
Editor: Region Bruxelles-Capitale
Available in French and Dutch with an insert in English.

Read full article in Revolve #7 Spring 2013, pages 32-38.

]]> http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/07/brussels-why-so-empty/feed/ 0 http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/06/competing-cars-for-a-cleaner-asia/ http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/2013/06/06/competing-cars-for-a-cleaner-asia/#comments Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:23:25 +0000 Revolve http://www.revolve-magazine.com/home/?p=5552 South Korea has chosen to take the hydrogen path and China the electric route; both are positive trends for cleaner urban transport, writes Rajnish Ahuja.

Roewe e50. Source: Car News China.

South Korea is one of the developed economies in Asia that has been the forerunner in research and development for a more sustainable future. In particular, Korea is leading in pilot projects for hydrogen-powered vehicles.

The Nuclear Hydrogen Development and Demonstration Project is one of the current hydrogen and fuel cell research and development programs ongoing in South Korea, spanning a period of 22 years (2004-2026).

Under the South Korean hydrogen fleet program of four years (August 2006 to July 2010), 30 passenger cars and four buses were tested with a total budget of $46.6 million, where half the cost was covered by government and the other half by the private sector. Hydrogen pump stations were operational at 11 sites and the total distance travelled by the above mentioned fleet was 1,297,799 km (806,587 miles). In the next phase, that spans three years (December 2010 – December 2013), 2 more hydrogen stations have been added.

The development of hydrogen stations across South Korea was charted out in 3 phases by the Korean government. Under Phase1 (2012), 12 stations were planned; Phase 2 (2015), 43 stations are planned; and under Phase 3 (2030), 500 stations have been planned.

The first hydrogen-powered car set for mass production rolled off the assembly line in South Korea in the first week of May 2013. The vehicle is a Sports Utility Vehicle by Hyundai called the ix35 Fuel Cell that creates only water in its exhaust.

Source: Hyundai.

As the global manufacturing hub, China has been making and promoting electric vehicles (EV) as a solution to reduce green house gas emissions from vehicles. Subsequently, China has come down from the top of the ladder after being tagged as world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter for years.

With government subsidies, EV buyers in Shenzhen are offered some of the highest subsidies in the country (for example: RMB 120,000 per vehicle for Battery Electric Vehicle passenger cars). There are 16,000 charging piles which have been built by the State Grid and Southern Power Grid combined in 2011. China has almost 180 million fully electric two-wheelers which surpasses the number of vehicles in any other EV fleet with 8,733 battery electric vehicles sold in 2012.

Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) deployment is yet another step that requires developing new infrastructure. Public EVSE deployment should be driven as much as possible by authentic data on EV driver location and travel patterns, infrastructure utilization, and charging behavior to ensure that equipment is placed in relevant locations.
This will avoid over-investment that may result in unused assets. Research institutions and government have a role in gathering and sharing such data, which can be collected through demonstration projects and other research initiatives. Examples of existing data-driven demonstration projects include China’s “Tens of Cities, Thousands of Vehicles” program that has had mixed results.

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South Korea’s hydrogen path and China’s electric vehicle route seek a common objective to reduce carbon emissions and improve sustainable urban transport. Both developments are important in addressing local problems related to incremental population growth and congested urban transport.

Writer: Rajnish Ahuja is regional manager for India|Asia at Revolve.