ECOLOGY

GRAIN STOCKPILES AT LOWEST LEVEL IN 25 YEARS

KEVIN MORRISON, FINANCIAL TIMES - The world's stockpiles of wheat are at
their lowest level in more than a quarter century, according to the US
Department of Agriculture, which on Thursday slashed its forecasts for
global wheat and corn production. The lower forecasts were largely
attributable to the severe drought in Australia. . .

To add to the global supply concerns, Ukraine has introduced licenses
and quotas on its wheat exports, effectively bringing shipments to a
standstill. This has already halted Ukrainian wheat shipments of 50,000
tons to India. The USDA also lowered wheat output for China, Brazil and
the European Union.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0c021878-5a16-11db-8f16-0000779e2340.html

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UTILITY TO START BUYING COW MANURE FOR ENERGY

REUTERS - Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said Thursday it will purchase
natural gas from cow manure produced at dairy farms in California to
fuel power plants. The utility, a subsidiary of PG&E Corp., will buy the
gas from Environmental Power Corp., a renewable energy developer based
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. . . The deal is for the purchase of up to
8,000 decatherms per day of pipeline-quality gas. Financial terms and
the length of the gas purchase agreement were not disclosed.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=
2006-10-12T184432Z_01_N12256222_RTRIDST_0_ENERGY-PG-E.XML&rpc
=66&type=qcna

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WHAT IF HUMANS WERE FORCED TO LEAVE THE EARTH?

NEW SCIENTIST - Humans are undoubtedly the most dominant species the
Earth has ever known. In just a few thousand years we have swallowed up
more than a third of the planet's land for our cities, farmland and
pastures. By some estimates, we now commandeer 40 per cent of all its
productivity. And we're leaving quite a mess behind: ploughed-up
prairies, razed forests, drained aquifers, nuclear waste, chemical
pollution, invasive species, mass extinctions and now the looming
specter of climate change. If they could, the other species we share
Earth with would surely vote us off the planet.

Now just suppose they got their wish. Imagine that all the people on
Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away
tomorrow, transported to a re-education camp in a far-off galaxy. . .
Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the
planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air
and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities
crumbled back to dust.

"The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook
starts to get a lot better," says John Orrock, a conservation biologist
at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa
Barbara, California. . .

If tomorrow dawns without humans, even from orbit the change will be
evident almost immediately, as the blaze of artificial light that
brightens the night begins to wink out. Indeed, there are few better
ways to grasp just how utterly we dominate the surface of the Earth than
to look at the distribution of artificial illumination (see Graphic). By
some estimates, 85 per cent of the night sky above the European Union is
light-polluted; in the US it is 62 per cent and in Japan 98.5 per cent.
In some countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium and the
Netherlands, there is no longer any night sky untainted by light
pollution. . .

With no one to make repairs, every storm, flood and frosty night gnaws
away at abandoned buildings, and within a few decades roofs will begin
to fall in and buildings collapse. . . But even though buildings will
crumble, their ruins - especially those made of stone or concrete - are
likely to last thousands of years. . .

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19225731.100

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BRITISH CIVIL ENGINEERS SAY IT'S TIME TO THINK ABOUT DRINKING SEWAGE

BBC - Britain should tackle future droughts by recycling more sewage
effluent as drinking water, civil engineers say. . . The Institution of
Civil Engineers also called for a 20% rise in water prices to fund
improved supply. . . South East England was in the grip of water
shortages over the summer, with one company enforcing a drought order
controlling use of water and a number of others enforcing hosepipe bans.
As well as increasing use of effluent, ICE said it was time to fund new
reservoirs, desalination plants to remove salt from water, and pipelines
from wet regions like mid-Wales to the South East. . .

ICE water board chairman John Lawson said: "Effluent water reuse is
still a relatively untapped way of providing drinking water to meet
growing long-term needs." Turning effluent into drinking water involves
a sieving and chemical cleaning process of waste water so it can be
pumped into rivers and then taken back into the water purification
process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/6056206.stm

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ENERGY FROM MELON RINDS

MICHAEL KANELLOS, CNET - University of California, Davis wants to light
the world with old melon rinds. The university will show off an
experimental facility that takes wilted lettuce, fish heads and other
leftover food bits and turns it into biogas, a combination of natural
gas and carbon dioxide. Separating the CO2 leaves commercial grade
natural gas.

The technology, called an anaerobic phased solids digester, has been
licensed from the university and adapted for commercial use by Onsite
Power Systems. In the digester, microbes eat the garbage and give off
valuable gases.

Several companies are experimenting with figuring out ways to exploit
waste products as an energy source. Natural gas releases fewer
pollutants than coal or car gas. And the fuel stock costs little to
obtain and has little independent value. Who wants a chewed up piece of
meat that got spit out into a napkin, after all? In fact, garbage costs
money to get rid of, so using it as fuel can cut other operational
costs.

http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6128182.html?part=rss&tag=6128182&subj=news

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