Committee of Supply Debate 2010: Environmental Policies under the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources

Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, and Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, gave their speeches during the Committee of Supply Debate under the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) yesterday. The speeches address various environmental policies, including:

• Sustainable Development – Overall Approach to Resource Efficiency and Mitigating Climate Change
• Improving Energy Efficiency
• Singapore’s Vulnerability to Climate Change
• Managing Our Water Resources
• Recycling and Waste Minimisation
• Building Up R&D and Manpower Capabilities in Clean Environment and Water Sectors
• Dengue
• Sustaining Public Cleanliness
• Licensing Elderly Tissue Paper Peddlers
• Noise
• Enhancements to Food Hygiene Regime
• ABC Waters Programme

Here are some key points that they raised: Read more

The Water-Energy Nexus: Saving Water and Energy in Rice Production

March 10, 2010
10:00 am	to	12:00 pm

Venue: ESI Conference Room, 29 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Block A #10-01, Singapore 119620

Speaker: Dr. Bas Bouman, International Rice Research Institute, Los Banos, Philippines

The water-energy nexus is an understudied field. To oversimplify the issue, water is needed to produce en-ergy and energy is required to process and move water. Given this reality, there is a positive co-relation be-tween water and energy and thus, by default, between water consumption and greenhouse emissions. Con-sequently, efforts to decrease water consumption globally must be an integral part of the global efforts for mitigating the devastating greenhouse emissions and particularly global warming.

Added to growing consumption of water for personal and industrial purposes, food production is account-ing for major global water requirements. While many varieties of agricultural products of global demand (e.g., wheat and corn) are water-intensive, rice is especially so requiring much larger amount of water dur-ing the course of its production. It is therefore more energy-intensive than many other crops. Against this background, efforts to reduce water consumption for cultivating rice are especially important given the sheer size of the undertaking as the land used globally for such cultivation is about 150 million hectares producing around 600 million tons of rice for global consumption.

Visit the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) website for details and registration.

Source: Energy Studies Institute

Clean Coal and Biomass Cogeneration Plant by Tuas Power: A Chronology

This is a chronology of the news and responses on Tuas Power’s clean coal and biomass cogeneration plant.

14 Mar 08 – Tuas Power sold to China Huaneng Group (Temasek successfully completes divestment of Tuas Power by Temasek Holdings)

27 Mar 08 – Tuas Power announced that it is looking at building a $2 billion coal-fired plant (Tuas Power may build $2b coal-fired plant by Business Times)

2 Apr 08 – We think it is highly possible that Tuas Power would take the coal route and expressed our concerns (Red dot goes black? by AsiaIsGreen)

26 Sep 08 – Tuas Power announced plans to build a $2 billion steam and electricity production plant to run on clean coal and biomass on Jurong Island (Tuas Power to build $2b ‘clean’ plant by Straits Times) Read more

Possible Environmental Crises Facing Singapore and Appropriate Responses: The Case of the Poh Ern Shih Buddhist Temple

September 8, 2009
10:00 am	to	11:30 am

Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

Speaker: Mr Lee Boon Siong, Honorary President and Director, Poh Ern Shih Temple

The Poh Ern Shih Temple (Temple of Thanksgiving), built in 1954, is an ecologically friendly Buddhist temple located at Chwee Chian Hill, off Pasir Panjang Road, Singapore. In 2000, the Directors decided that the temple had to be redesigned to deal with the rising costs of water, electricity and an over-dependence on fossil fuel. It was noted that environmental degradation had been increasing over the decades and that adopting ecologically friendly technologies was the way to go in the age of rising global temperatures and climate change.

This seminar will focus on Poh Ern Shih Temple’s efforts to protect the environment. The temple takes advantage of Singapore’s abundant sunlight to produce: (i) Electricity by employing three different kinds of solar energy cells – Polycrystalline, Monocrystalline and Amorphous Cells (ii) Hotwater from Solar Heat Collector Cells in Solar Panels, and (iii) Night Lighting of its landscaping and common corridors with batteries charged by electricity collected from hybrid sets of wind/solar energy units.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s abundant rainfall has made it possible to (i) Irrigate the temple grounds (ii) Generate electricity via the deployment of Micro Hydrogenerators for charging the batteries of in-house motorized wheelchairs and lighting for its landscaping and common corridors as well as (iii) Conserve, collect and convert the rainwater to drinkable water by deploying Reverse Osmosis Techonology in Portable Filtration/UV Units available overseas in the event of natural disasters.

Finally, the temple is able to leverage on the abundance of a renewable resource, bamboo, (i) to reduce the culling of our valuable forests by deploying bamboo for all the temple’s new furniture wherever possible since it is readily available from neighbouring states and is a 5-year renewable resource as compared to a 100 year old or 300 year old oak or teak tree and (ii) to reduce the pollution from the steel industries, by making all its in-house new wheelchairs from bamboo.

For details and registration, visit the ISEAS website.

Source: ISEAS

PURE – Lifestyle Magazine by PUB

PURE is a quarterly water-themed lifestyle magazine by PUB. Over the past 3 years, we read it frequently for the water lifestyle stories, water-saving tips, water attractions, and the latest water happenings. The magazine also features several MediaCorp artistes and their thoughts on water. And of course, there’s our favourite Water Wally.

We like PURE for its easy reading and attractive design, and also the fact that it manages to “educate” on water issues and conservation through a fun lifestyle approach, unlike other typical government publications. For its approach, PURE was given an Honourable Mention in the category of Corporate Publications in the Asia Pacific PR Awards 2008.

For the latest issue and onwards, PURE will be published on recycled paper and printed using soy inks. It’s also smaller in size. Get your copy today at selected MRT stations, public libraries and schools. You can also subscribe to the e-copy of PURE by sending an email with your name and date of birth to pub_pure@pub.gov.sg. You can download past issues of PURE here.

We feel that besides PUB’s technology advancements and the multiple awards won over the last five years, PUB has also been great in public awareness and water campaigns. All thanks to the PUB’s all-female communications team. They deserve their winning of the overall Grand Prize in London in the Golden World Awards for Excellence 2008 for their communications programme. And they should serve as an example of how the civil service can and should better communicate their programmes and campaigns.

Water Policy Dialogue

June 25, 2009
9:30 am	to	5:30 pm

The Institute of Water Policy (IWP) is organising a Water Policy Dialogue on 25 June 2009 at the National University of Singapore, Bukit Timah Campus. If you’re interested in attending, pls register your attendance with IWP at iwplkyspp@nus.edu.sg. There will be a series of speakers covering the following themes:

1. Water Policy Dialogue | Water Governance

9.30 am – 2.00 pm

The Auditorium

2. Asian Water Review | Patterns, Achievements and Challenges

2.00 pm – 3.30 pm

Manasseh Meyer Building Room 3-1

3. Good Practices for Urban Water Management in Asia

3.50 pm – 5.30 pm

Manasseh Meyer Building Room 3-1

Gallup Videos on Water Quality, Air Quality and Public Transportation in Singapore

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Video source: Gallup

China’s Dead Lakes

This article first appeared in Greenpeace China.

Beijing, China – In the summer of 2007 a thick toxic blanket of blue-green algae covered Tai Lake (Taihu) in Jiangsu province. The government earmarked billions of renminbi to clean it up but next year the same thing happened again. What is going wrong?

The problem is the intense amounts of chemical fertilisers in use.

These leak into the lake and are one of the main causes of poisonous algal blooms.

Unless farmers start using less chemical fertilisers and start practicing eco-agriculture China’s lakes and rivers will continue to be poisoned.

Year after year. Read more

Photos of Marina Barrage

The Marina Barrage was officially opened last Friday, together with the launch of the annual Clean and Green Singapore. The new Marina Barrage is a 350-meter wide dam built across the Marina channel, forming Singapore’s first reservoir in the city and our 15th reservoir with a catchment area of one-sixth the size of Singapore.

The Marina Barrage serves several benefits such as increasing our water supply with the Marina Reservoir meeting more than 10% of our current water demand, alleviating flooding in the low-lying areas in the city, and serving as a lifestyle attraction with recreational activities such as windsurfing and kayaking.

We visited the Marina Barrage over the weekend and took some photos:

Bird’s-eye view of the Marina Barrage building (photo of a banner)

Read more

The Story of E-waste in Pakistan

Robert Knoth of Greenpeace tells the story of e-waste in the Karachi district of Lyari through his photographs.

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