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-- a _kt75 | reprint Download the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q04/2013 Submit your Abstract for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes Scientists in Shanghai are attempting a breakthrough in nuclear energy: reactors powered by thorium, an alternative to uranium. The project is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a government body with close military ties that coordinates the country's science-and-technology strategy. The academy has designated thorium as a priority for China's top laboratories. The program has a budget of $350 million. And it's being spearheaded by the influential son of a former Chinese president. But even as China bulks up its military muscle through means ranging from espionage to heavy spending, it is pursuing this aspect of its technology game plan with the blessing - and the help - of the United States. China has enlisted a storied partner for its thorium push: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The U.S. gove...

-- a _kt75 | reprint The European Union scaled back its long-term climate and energy ambitions on Wednesday, proposing less stringent targets than in the past, because of tougher economic conditions and the need to curb rising energy costs. The European Commission – the bloc’s executive – said EU governments should face a single binding target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 to a volume that is 40 percent lower than 1990 levels. That represents a doubling of the goal in the existing 2020 target, but it is still below what some scientists and environmentalists say is needed to prevent the worst effects of climate change and is less than some policymakers wanted. “What we are presenting today is both ambitious and affordable,” Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told a news conference in Brussels as the goals were unveiled. The Commission’ 2030 strategy statement reflects a new sense of pragmatism at a time when European growth is slow and the EU’...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet There is not a single future of mobility. Transport will vary according to settlement size, geography, culture and the existing infrastructure and services that will evolve to provide future mobility. There tends to be a future view of mobility that centres around high-rise megacities and high-tech transport systems - hover cars, jet packs, railroads in the sky. This view has remained the same for almost a century - but I believe the future is oversold and under-imagined. The world's population is growing and becoming more urban. There are currently seven billion people living on the planet, with just over half in urban areas - but beware the word urban, it has no single definition and can refer to quite small settlements. Only 5% of the world's population live in megacities (using the UN definition of more than 10 million people). In Europe, two thirds of the urban population live in settlements of fewer than...

-- a _kt75 | reprint supporting information: [ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ], [ 4 ], [ 5 ]   Tweet The global energy map is changing, with potentially far-reaching consequences for energy markets and trade. It is being redrawn by the resurgence in oil and gas production in the United States and could be further reshaped by a retreat from nuclear power in some countries, continued rapid growth in the use of wind and solar technologies and by the global spread of unconventional gas production. Perspectives for international oil markets hinge on Iraq’s success in revitalising its oil sector. If new policy initiatives are broadened and implemented in a concerted effort to improve global energy efficiency, this could likewise be a game-changer. On the basis of global scenarios and multiple case studies, this World Energy Outlook assesses how these new developments might affect global energy and climate trends over the coming decades. It examines their impact on the critical c...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet How can you design a city by designing a car? Today’s automobiles are driven by an increasing number of users who live in cities. The United Nations reported in 2007 that migration patterns and population growth have created an equal split between inhabitants of cities and rural areas for the first time in human history. This general trend will continue for the next several decades and will produce a very urbanized world. In 1950, New York City was the only megacity on the planet, with 10 million occupants. Today, there are 25 megacities that are mostly in developing countries. To verify this trend, we need only to look at the rapid urbanization in China to see the mass migration of the rural poor to urban areas for economic opportunity. Population experts project that most of the urban growth will occur in Asia and Africa for the next several decades. Simultaneously, humanity’s thirst for personal mobility wil...

-- a note from _kt75   Key words : Mobility, Sustainability, Hydro-, Wind-, Solar power, Railways, Transport Downloads (problems ? contact: kt75@gmx.ch ) Server 1 | 2 Server 3   Summary It is a popular misconception that a certain good , for example a certain transport service possesses an inherent sustainability per se. Attended is this perception by the widespread belief that technical/technological development (i.e. any kind of tools, standards, etc.) more or less guarantees the sustainability of a certain good. Such technical measures in addition to e.g. environmental standards, labels, certificates, protocols, might be helpful to facilitate the sustainable use of a certain good, if applied appropriately and if – in addition to the economic dimension - also the technical, environmental and geo-political dimensions of a certain good are considered in a comprehensive way. Decisive however, for successful and robust, thus sustainable development accor...

-- a note from kt75 A number of recent studies on the towing of arctic sea-ice report new all-time lows of ice coverage [ 1 ]- [ 4 ]. Similar effects have been reported previously for glaciers, e.g. in the Swiss Alps [ 5 ], [ 6 ]. The global warming (climate change) has been identified as one of the primary reasons for the reduction in ice-coverage with obvious consequences, e.g. for regional and local weather conditions. In addition to this economic implications are expected as well [ 7 ]-[ 9 ].  Further readings: [ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ], [ 4 ], [ 5 ], [ 6 ], [ 7 ], [ 8 ], [ 9 ] kt75 :  http://kt-75.blogspot.ch/

-- an SWM THiNKTANK article edited: 2012-05-25 (ws), Sustainability and 'growth' (as observed and interpreted today) is a contradiction. The first term has (under today's conditions) nothing to do with the latter and vice versa. Why is this the case? First of all 'growth' (up to now and prevailing) refers to a purely quantitative growth. For example, the GDP [ 1 ], mobility growth [ 2 ], car market growth [ 3 ]-[ 6 ], profit growth [ 7 ], unemployment growth [ 8 ]. A return to growth (away from the current 'anemic growth' [ 9a ]-[ 9c ]) is reported [e.g. 9 ] which, however, may have disadvantageous consequences, i.e. another growth in CO2-emissions despite a decrease [ 10 ]. The list could easily be expanded.  The overall impression from the above brief list however is, that the society is inescapable doomed to grow, in particular (and actually exclusively) in quantitative/physical terms/dimensions. Cancer, perhaps a rather drastic neverthel...