‘Water Footprinting’ to Deal With Demand for Supplies
I.H.T. Special Report: Business of Green
‘Water Footprinting’ to Deal With Demand for Supplies
By TANAYA MACHEEL
Published: November 29, 2010
NEW YORK — A water-use report issued in September by Coca-Cola with the Nature Conservancy found that 518 liters of freshwater are required to produce just one liter of its Minute Maid orange juice, and 35 liters are needed to produce a half liter of Coca-Cola.
A growing awareness of just how much water it takes to produce everyday consumer goods is inspiring a rising interest in “water footprinting” — akin to carbon footprinting — as a tool to analyze and guide the development of new technologies, water infrastructure investment and policies aimed at coping with the world’s rising water demand.
Conceptually, the water footprint is similar to that of carbon — an impact indicator based on the total volume of direct and indirect freshwater used in producing a good or service. There is a difference, however. Unlike carbon in the atmosphere, fresh water resources are localized, not global.
“Water is not carbon,” said Jason Morrison, program director at the Pacific Institute, a research organization in Oakland, California, that studies resource sustainability issues. “Whatever you might say about the validity of carbon credits, it will be extremely hard to have that amount of success in the water area because, volumetrically, one volume of water has a different meaning in one part of the world versus another.”
Still, in July, Veolia Water North America, a water and wastewater utility based in Chicago, and part of the French utility Veolia Environnement, presented its water impact index. The company said it was the first indicator to provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of human activity on water resources.
“Current water footprints focus almost exclusively on volume,” said Laurent Auguste, the company’s president and chief executive. Volume, he said, is “a good indicator to raise awareness, but not sufficient to represent the impact on a water resource.”
The volume of water needed to produce a carton of orange juice or a bottle of Coca-Cola, for example, may be fixed; but the actual effect on a freshwater resource, and the local environment, can vary tremendously — including the amount of energy and raw materials used and the chemical and other waste contaminants created in the process.
To give a fuller view, Veolia’s index integrates other variables, including resource stress, water quality and competing consumption needs with existing volume-based water measurement tools.
Some analysts, however, question the usefulness of that approach.
Claudia Ringler, a senior research fellow in Montreal with the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Washington, said water footprinting was a good concept in theory, but less so in practice. “It’s almost impossible to do a comprehensive analysis,” Ms. Ringler said. “One has to be very careful before drawing conclusions based on it.”
David Zetland, an economist and the author of a forthcoming book, “The End of Abundance: Your Guide to the New Economics of Water Scarcity,” said footprinting would serve little purpose unless, for a start, water was priced according to its value.
If water were appropriately priced, he said, the price of consumer products would reflect the amount of water used in making them. Since most consumers either would not understand footprinting, or would not care, Mr. Zetland said, they would almost always pay more attention to the price of what they bought than to a certificate on the label.
From the point of view of producing companies, he added, if water supplies were free, or nearly so, water footprinting and investments in water efficiency would remain superfluous. “Water footprinting has no operational, economic or social value to companies if the cost of labor and equipment to reduce water consumption exceeds the cost of the water saved,” Mr. Zetland said.
The basic problem, he said, is that the price of water rarely reflects its value or scarcity. “The price for most products combines value to consumers with the cost of production and delivery,” Mr. Zetland said. “Since the price of water only reflects the cost of delivery — the water itself is free — we don’t pay a price that reflects its value or scarcity.”
Still, not all experts are so dismissive. Even though water footprinting is still in its infancy, and there is no common agreement on what variables should be taken into account, tools like the Veolia index could help to map the relative risks associated with water use in specific locations, said Mr. Morrison, the Pacific Institute program director.
With water-related risk likely to become more pronounced over time, he said, “there is a lot of value to water footprinting, no matter how you define it.”
A recent report by the institute, prepared for the United Nations Environment Program, evaluated different water-accounting tools and found that many, though still evolving, would be essential to companies in their water risk and impact assessments and water management, Mr. Morrison added.
Water footprinting has also spawned interest in markets as a possible driver for smarter water use. Water markets are full of distortions, said Ms. Ringler, the International Food Policy research fellow, and it is almost impossible to create a real competitive international market. But there are examples of successful in-country water markets, she added, citing river basins in Australia and Chile.
Michael Van Patten is chief executive and founder of Mission Markets, a financial services company that operates Earth, a multi-environmental credit exchange regulated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the United States. “We might be several years away, but the potential is huge,” he said. “The world knows we have a huge water problem, and no one knows how to solve it yet. This is one way to approach it.”
His idea is to develop tradable credits from the offsets of localized water projects. These could be bought by companies, countries or any community with a direct effect on the water supply. While there is no regulation in the United States to drive such a market, credit programs, if managed properly, could help to encourage environmental protection by reducing the costs involved, said Christian Holmes, a senior adviser for energy and environment at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Still, said Charles Iceland, an associate with the World Resources Institute, water is a highly political topic, and allocation decisions cannot be made on the basis of economic efficiency alone.
“Whatever management scheme you devise must have equity built into it,” Mr. Iceland said, “so that people have their human right to water.”
Being Too Clean Can Make Young People Sick
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2010/2010-11-29-094.html
Being Too Clean Can Make Young People Sick
ANN ARBOR, Michigan, November 29, 2010 (ENS) – Age seems to matter when it comes to the health effects of environmental toxicants. Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of bisphenol A among adults may harm the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests.
Triclosan is a chemical compound used in products such as antibacterial soaps, toothpaste, pens, diaper bags and medical devices.
Bisphenol A is found in many plastics and used as a protective lining in food cans.
Both of these chemicals are in a class of environmental toxicants called endocrine disrupting compounds, which are believed to negatively impact human health by mimicking or affecting hormones.
Using data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, University of Michigan researchers compared urinary bisphenol A and triclosan with cytomegalovirus antibody levels and diagnosis of allergies or hay fever in a sample of U.S. adults and children over age six.
Allergy and hay fever diagnosis and cytomegalovirus, CMV, antibodies were used as two separate markers of immune alterations.
“We found that people over age 18 with higher levels of BPA exposure had higher CMV antibody levels, which suggests their cell-mediated immune system may not be functioning properly,” said Erin Rees Clayton, research investigator at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and first author on the paper.
Researchers also found that people age 18 and under with higher levels of triclosan were more likely to report diagnosis of allergies and hay fever.
There is growing concern among the scientific community and consumer groups that these endocrine disrupting compounds are dangerous to humans at lower levels than previously thought.
“The triclosan findings in the younger age groups may support the hygiene hypothesis, which maintains living in very clean and hygienic environments may impact our exposure to micro-organisms that are beneficial for development of the immune system,” said Allison Aiello, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and principal investigator on the study.
As an antimicrobial agent found in many household products, triclosan may play a role in changing the micro-organisms to which we are exposed in such a way that our immune system development in childhood is affected.
“It is possible that a person can be too clean for their own good,” said Aiello, who is also a visiting associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard.
Previous animal studies indicate that bisphenol A and triclosan may affect the immune system, but this is the first known study to look at exposure to BPA and triclosan as it relates to human immune function, Aiello said.
One surprise finding is that with bisphenol A exposure, age seems to matter, said Rees Clayton. In people 18 or older, higher amounts of BPA were associated with higher CMV levels, but in people younger than 18 the reverse was true.
“This suggests the timing of the exposure to BPA and perhaps the quantity and length of time we are exposed to BPA may be affecting the immune system response,” Rees Clayton said.
This is just the first step, she said, but a very important one. Going forward, researchers would like to study the long-term effects of BPA and triclosan in people to see if they can establish a causal relationship.
One limitation of the study is that it measured disease and exposure simultaneously and thus shows only part of the picture, Aiello said.
“It is possible, for example, that individuals who have an allergy are more hygienic because of their condition, and that the relationship we observed is, therefore, not causal or is an example of reverse causation,” Aiello said.
The paper, “The Impact of Bisphenol A and Triclosan on Immune Parameters in the U.S. Population,” appears in the current online issue of the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives.”
Expert on hydraulic fracturing will speak at LCCC
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/expert-on-hydraulic-fracturing-will-speak-at-lccc-1.1067623
Expert on hydraulic fracturing will speak at LCCC
Published: November 23, 2010
Dr. Anthony R. Ingraffea, Ph.D., the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, will give a presentation on “Unconventional Gas Plays: Information for an Informed Citizenry” at 7 p.m. Dec. 16 in Luzerne County Community College’s Educational Conference Center in Nanticoke.
Ingraffea is an expert on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” which involves cracking underground rocks by means of high-pressure streams of water. A main use of the technique is for horizontal natural gas drilling.
Ingraffea, graduate students and research assistants make up the “Cornell Fracture Group,” which has as its mission “to create, to verify, and to validate computational simulation systems for fracture control in engineered systems,” according to its Web site, www.cfg.cornell.edu.
The group does testing and computer simulations of complex fracturing processes in a variety of materials. Applications include assessing damage tolerance in aircraft, and determining the causes of failure in bridges and dams.
Ingraffea’s presentation is sponsored by the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, a group of area residents concerned about potential problems caused by natural gas drilling.
For information, contact the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition at 570-266-5116, gdacoaltion@gmail.com, or www.gdacoalition.org.
EPA Will Test 134 More Chemicals for Endocrine Disruption
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2010/2010-11-17-092.html
EPA Will Test 134 More Chemicals for Endocrine Disruption
WASHINGTON, DC, November 17, 2010 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified a list of 134 chemicals that will be screened for their potential to disrupt the endocrine system.
Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interact with and possibly disrupt the hormones produced or secreted by the human or animal endocrine system, which regulates growth, metabolism and reproduction.
“Endocrine disruptors represent a serious health concern for the American people, especially children. Americans today are exposed to more chemicals in our products, our environment and our bodies than ever before, and it is essential that EPA takes every step to gather information and prevent risks,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
“We are using the best available science to examine a larger list of chemicals and ensure that they are not contaminating the water we drink and exposing adults and children to potential harm,” she said.
EPA is already screening an initial group of 67 pesticide chemicals. In October 2009, the agency issued orders to companies requiring endocrine disruptor screening program data for these chemicals.
The agency will begin issuing orders requiring data for the second group of 134 chemicals beginning in 2011.
The chemicals listed include those used in products such as solvents, gasoline, plastics, personal care products, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals.
On the list for testing is benzene, a known carcinogen used as an industrial solvent and in the production of drugs, plastics, synthetic rubber, and dyes.
Perchlorate, used in fireworks and rocket fuel, is on the list and so is ethylene glycol, an organic compound widely used as an automotive antifreeze.
The list includes chemicals that have been identified as priorities under the Safe Drinking Water Act and may be found in sources of drinking water where a substantial number of people may be exposed, the EPA said today.
The pharmaceutical chemicals to be screened include two of the best known and most widely used drugs in the United States – erythromycin and nitroglycerin.
Erythromycin is an antibiotic used to treat bronchitis; diphtheria; Legionnaires’ disease; whooping cough; pneumonia; rheumatic fever; and venereal disease; as well as ear, intestine, lung, urinary tract, and skin infections.
Nitroglycerin spray and tablets are used to treat episodes of angina, or chest pain, in people who have coronary artery disease, narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart.
The list also includes pesticide active ingredients that are being evaluated under EPA�s registration review program to ensure they meet current scientific and regulatory standards.
The data generated from the screens will provide systematic scientific information to help EPA identify whether additional testing is necessary, or whether other steps are necessary to address potential endocrine disrupting chemicals.
EPA also announced today draft policies and procedures the agency will follow to order testing, minimize duplicative testing, promote equitable cost-sharing, and to address issues that are unique to chemicals regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
After public comment and review, EPA will issue test orders to pesticide registrants and the manufacturers of these chemicals to compel them to generate data to determine whether their chemicals may disrupt the estrogen, androgen and thyroid pathways of the endocrine system.
Deepwater Horizon Spill Report Blames BP, Contractors, Government
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2010/2010-11-17-01.html
Deepwater Horizon Spill Report Blames BP, Contractors, Government
WASHINGTON, DC, November 17, 2010 (ENS) – Lack of a systematic approach to well safety, numerous flawed decisions, plus technical and operational breakdowns all contributed to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and massive spill from BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, says a scientific committee of the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council in a report released today.
“Important decisions made to proceed toward well abandonment despite several indications of potential hazard suggest an insufficient consideration of risks,” said Donald Winter, former secretary of the Navy, professor of engineering practice at the University of Michigan, and chair of the 15-member study committee.
“It’s also important to note that these flawed decisions were not identified or corrected by BP and its service contractors, or by the oversight process employed by the U.S. Minerals Management Service and other regulatory agencies,” said Winter.
The committee was convened at the request of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to conduct an independent and science-based investigation into the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that amounted to 4.9 million barrels before the well was capped on July 19. The oil spread across a vast expanse of the gulf, causing widespread fisheries closures and fouling hundreds of miles of shoreline and wetlands. Read more
Unanimous Vote for Stronger Well Construction Standards
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/newsroom/14287?id=15270&typeid=1
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11/18/2010
DEP Secretary Praises Unanimous Vote for Stronger Well Construction Standards to Prevent Gas Migration, Protect Public and Environment
Regulations Move to Attorney General for Approval
HARRISBURG — A set of new standards that will make natural gas wells safer were approved unanimously today on a vote of 5-0 by the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission, Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said today.
Hanger praised the IRRC vote, saying the new regulations will, among other things, impose more stringent construction standards on gas wells, making them less likely to allow natural gas to escape and contaminate water supplies or cause safety concerns.
The final-form regulations now go to the state Office of Attorney General for final review and approval. The regulations were deemed approved by the House and Senate Environmental Resources and Energy committees.
“When gas migrates from a poorly constructed gas well through the ground, it can contaminate water supplies or build up to explosive levels in water wells or even homes,” said Hanger. “These strong rules will eliminate or significantly reduce the problem of gas migration from poorly designed or constructed gas wells, as long as the rules are followed or enforced.”
Hanger added that the new rules also will require drillers to report production and waste volumes electronically and to submit a detailed report of the chemicals they use in the hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – process. In addition to these important provisions, operators will be required to keep a list of emergency contact phone numbers at the well site and follow a new set of instructions on what steps to take in the event of a gas migration incident.
The regulations also include provisions clarifying how and when blow-out prevention equipment is to be installed and operated.
The Environmental Quality Board approved the regulations on a final vote of 15-1 in October, after receiving nearly 2,000 public comments during the comment period and a series of five public hearings. A majority of the comments supported the new regulations.
In drafting the regulations, DEP also met with numerous oil and gas operators, industry groups and environmental groups to discuss the regulations in detail.
The department used the public’s input to make several important changes to the regulations, which further improved the well-design requirements to prevent gas migration incidents, including:
· A provision that requires operators to have a pressure barrier plan to minimize well control events;
· A provision that requires operators to condition the wellbore to ensure an adequate bond between the cement, casing and the formation;
· Provisions that require the use of centralizers to ensure casings are properly positioned in the wellbore; and
· A provision that improves the quality of the cement placed in the casing that protects fresh groundwater.
Once all reviews and approvals are obtained, the regulations will go into effect upon publication in the PA Bulletin.
For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa,us, and select “Public Participation.”
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120
CONTACT:
John Repetz, Department of Environmental Protection
717-787-1323
Pittsburgh Bans Natural-Gas Drilling
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703628204575619030758449248.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Pittsburgh Bans Natural-Gas Drilling
By KRIS MAHER
NOVEMBER 16, 2010
Pittsburgh’s city council voted 9-0 Tuesday to ban natural-gas drilling within city limits, citing health and environmental concerns, becoming the first city in Pennsylvania state to do so.
Many rural towns and landowners around the state have embraced gas exploration into the massive Marcellus Shale formation, as an economic boon. But others fear drilling could damage drinking-water supplies and shouldn’t be conducted in highly populated areas because of the risk of accidents and emissions from equipment.
Industry groups said they were disappointed but didn’t expect the ban to have a significant impact on gas exploration in Pennsylvania because there were no imminent plans by companies to drill in the city.
Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group, said companies wouldn’t challenge the ban. “I don’t anticipate that individual companies would step into that fray,” she said. “There are lots of other places where development is welcome.”
The ban, however, could create uncertainty. “While no one is interested in drilling in the city of Pittsburgh, it’s a bad precedent,” said Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources Corp., which operates rigs in southwest Pennsylvania. He said the company worked “to develop ordinances that provide us with predictability and local governments with reasonable regulations.”
Pittsburgh’s move comes as the incoming governor signals changes in the industry’s favor. Republican Gov.-elect Tom Corbett has said he would lift a moratorium on natural-gas drilling on state lands put in place by outgoing Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell. Mr. Corbett also has said he opposed a severance tax on natural-gas extraction.
Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com
Halliburton unveils website with fracking details
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN1526804120101115?sp=true
Halliburton unveils website with fracking details
By Ayesha Rascoe
Mon Nov 15, 2010 8:36pm GMT
* Halliburton outlines chemicals in 3 fracking products
* EPA issued subpoena for Halliburton on fracking fluids
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Halliburton (HAL.N: Quote) unveiled a new website on Monday offering some details about the mix of chemicals used in a natural gas drilling technique, as the company attempts to allay public concerns about the impact of the practice on drinking water.
The new website outlines the make-up and concentration of the chemicals contained in three of its products commonly used for hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania.
(Website: http://www.halliburton.com/hydraulicfracturing )
“We believe this effort represents an important and substantive contribution to the broader long-term imperative of transparency,” David Adams, a Halliburton vice president, said in a statement.
The move follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last week to subpoena Halliburton to force the company to turn over information about the chemicals it produces for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. [ID:nN0983184]
But Halliburton said the website is not a response to EPA’s actions or meant to satisfy the agency’s demands.
“That was not the intent. What we’ve done is try to provide information in a way that the public can understand,” a Halliburton spokeswoman said on a conference call.
Fracking is a process that injects a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to stimulate oil and natural gas production. [ID:nN18229665]
Although it has been around for decades, use of the drilling practice has exploded in recent years as companies use it to extract unconventional yet abundant reserves of shale gas.
The expansion of shale gas drilling in states such as Pennsylvania has raised ire of some homeowners in areas near gas development, who complain the drilling has contaminated their drinking water.
Environmental groups have called for more federal oversight of the practice and complete disclosure of all the chemicals involved.
Energy companies argue that the practice is safe, pointing out that it is done thousands of feet below ground, much deeper than most water sources.
In response to public concerns, some companies have begun attempting to make information about the chemicals used in fracking more accessible to the public.
Halliburton said its website, which does not list the chemicals used in individual well sites, will expand in the future to include details about fracking fluids for every state where the company’s services are used. (Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Fixes: Clean Water at No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits
Fixes: Clean Water at No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits
By By TINA ROSENBERG
Published: November 15, 2010
In America, I turn on the faucet and out pours water. In much of the world, no such luck. Nearly a billion people don’t have drinkable water. Lack of water ─ and the associated lack of toilets and proper hygiene ─ kills 3.3 million people a year, most of them children under five.
Lack of access to clean water is one of the world’s biggest health problems. And it is one of the hardest to solve. Lots of different groups dig wells and lay pipes ─ but the biggest challenge comes after the hardware is in.
The villages of Africa and South Asia are littered with the ghosts of water projects past. A traveler winding through the dirt roads and trails of rural India or Ethiopia will find wells, pumps and springs with taps ─ but most of the wells will be contaminated, the pumps broken, the taps rusted away. When the British group WaterAid began its work in the Konso district of southwestern Ethiopia in 2007, the first thing it did was look at what had come before. It found that of 35 water projects built in the area, only nine were functioning.
Pieter Bauermeister Water must be transported by hand when there is an absence of fresh water in villages. These women in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, trek one and a half hours to gather water from Nongoma, a larger town.
People who work on providing clean water in poor countries estimate that about half the projects fall into disrepair soon after their builders move on. Sometimes someone loots the pump. Or it breaks and no one knows how to fix it. Or perhaps spare parts are available only in major cities. Or the needed part costs too much for the village to afford ─ even if it is just a few dollars.
Unlike one-shot vaccines, water systems need to function all day, every day, forever. So sustainability ─ the issue we find so important that it started off the Fixes series ─ is particularly crucial. It’s important to donors, who don’t want to see their money wasted. It’s important to the groups that do the work: no project is successful unless it’s taken over by local people to run. And it’s most crucial to villagers themselves, who grow cynical about promises after they see project after project inaugurated only to fail.
Now there’s a new way to save water projects from an early death: make clean water a for-profit business, charging people an unusual price: zero. Several multinational companies, such as Bechtel and Suez, already run for-profit water systems in cities around the world. These companies have attracted a lot of criticism, especially for the way they treat rural people and slum dwellers. The companies have little incentive to lay pipes to reach people who are far away, and if they do, they charge very high prices. I’m talking about something different: a water business run by a company that has headquarters in Switzerland, Vestergaard Frandsen, that plans to provide clean water to some of the world’s poorest people and charge them nothing.
Where will the profits come from? Polluters.
What will make this work are the global carbon credit markets. These markets were established after the 2007 Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The markets provide a way for wealthy countries and corporations to offset their emissions of these gases by financing other projects that will reduce emissions. Projects can be awarded credits if auditors certify they will cut carbon emissions ─ for example, a new wind energy plant whose output will replace coal energy. These credits can then be purchased by polluters, be they countries, companies or individuals. The system is highly controversial, as it allows wealthy countries to go on polluting as long as they can pay others to cut back for them. But it does provide financial incentives for the creation of green projects.
Most of the projects that have won certification from the carbon markets are big energy plants in India and China. Less than three percent of the credits come from projects in Africa, and none of them help people get clean water. But one of the carbon credit markets does grant credits for cookstoves that use solar energy instead of wood or coal.
Vestergaard Frandsen’s idea is similar. By giving people an alternative to boiling water in order to purify it, it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in countries where trees are scarce. Boiling water is harmful for many reasons. Burning coal produces greenhouse gases, and certain ways of burning wood can, too. The indoor pollution created by burning wood or coal is a prime cause of respiratory disease. The constant need for wood is deforesting poor countries. Women who are already spending hours collecting water must spend additional hours collecting firewood as well. From the standpoint of the carbon credit markets, however, the key point is that boiling water will eventually create demand for fossil fuel, as many areas are running out of trees. So for many reasons, finding a usable alternative to boiling is good for people and good for the earth.
Now it can be good business as well. If you are a hiker or camper, you may have heard about Vestergaard Frandsen’s LifeStraw. It’s a hollow stick equipped with a series of filtering membranes. You put the end of the stick in a river or puddle ─ or a toilet, for that matter ─ and suck on it. By the time the water hits your lips, it is clean and safe ─ its filters are fine enough to trap virtually all bacteria, viruses and parasites. The product has a bigger cousin called the LifeStraw Family. You hang it on your wall, pour dirty water in the top, open the tap and clean water comes out the bottom. No power or replacement parts are required. Each unit cleans about 18,000 liters of water ─ enough for a family for three years. The market cost of the unit averages out at a penny per ten liters of water purified.
Vestergaard Frandsen will distribute the LifeStraw Family for free. It is helping to sponsor a traveling campaign through the western part of Kenya set for April, 2011, that will reach 4 million families. The campaign bundles various products ─ each family that attends will get insecticide-treated bednets to protect against malaria, AIDS tests and counseling and a free LifeStraw Family.
The company is on the way to getting approval from one of the carbon credit markets for the LifeStraw Family, and expects to win it in February. Approval will provide a way for Vestergaard Frandsen to recoup its $24 million initial investment and to turn the product into a sustainable business ─ at no cost to users. It will earn credits for preventing greenhouse gas emissions, credits that polluters will then buy. The company will open free repair shops across western Kenya. Every three years, at the end of the units’ lifespan, it will replace them at no charge.
Why would a for-profit business do all this? Because the amount of carbon credits it receives depends on how much boiling it prevents ─ and therefore, how much water is purified. (Periodic audits will answer these questions.) The more the product is used, the more credits Vestergaard Frandsen is awarded, and so the more money it makes. So it has a strong financial incentive to maximize the number of families using the purifiers and keep them working properly.
You will notice that this financing method pays for performance. Normally, water projects get financing from donors up front. Whether they end up working or lasting is rarely even measured, because there is no cost for failure. But the carbon credit market penalizes failure. Vestergaard Frandsen also now has a good monetary reason to improve the product ─ to create one, for example, that can be refurbished instead of replaced, or one that lasts longer than three years. This kind of incentive is a rarity with products that are given away.
One problem that the LifeStraw program does not address is water collection: someone still has to fetch water to pour through it. Getting water is staggeringly burdensome — in southwestern Ethiopia, I met women who spend eight hours a day or more each day traveling back and forth to the river with 50-pound yellow plastic jerry cans on their backs. The need to help mom while she fetches water is a primary reason that many girls don’t go to school. Fetching water enslaves women.
But if the LifeStraw Family succeeds as a profitable business, it is possible that the carbon credit markets could also be used to finance many different types of projects. On Saturday, I’ll write about the wider possibilities. For villagers in Africa, however, none would be as important as using them to finance traditional water projects ─ ones like wells with pumps that do bring water closer to its users. After all, a family that used to boil river water is also cutting down on its emissions when its village gets a clean-water well. If running water pumps in rural Africa suddenly becomes good business, pumps will proliferate ─ and they will be maintained.
Tina Rosenberg won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” She is a former editorial writer for The Times and now a contributing writer for the paper’s Sunday magazine. Her new book, “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World,” is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.
60 Minutes’ segment taking a look at Marcellus Shale
http://www.timesleader.com/news/TV_report__focuses_on__gas_drilling_11-14-2010.html
Posted: November 15, 2010
TV report focuses on gas drilling
Industry supporters, opponent comment on Sunday’s ’60 Minutes’ segment taking a look at Marcellus Shale development.
STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com
A primetime network news show’s look at the pros and cons of the natural gas drilling phenomenon in the United States that aired on Sunday left people on both sides of the issue satisfied with fair coverage but concerned that comments from those who were interviewed were misleading or inaccurate.
An approximately 20-minute segment of the Emmy Award winning CBS news program “60 Minutes” titled “Shaleionaires!” featured correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewing a drilling company executive, some farmers who struck it rich by leasing their farms for drilling as well as some Pennsylvania residents who say their water was contaminated by natural gas drilling activities.
Though the segment didn’t cover any ground that hasn’t already been reported in newspapers covering issues surrounding drilling into the shale formations deep beneath parts of Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, Louisiana and West Virginia, it certainly increased exposure to those issues.
“Natural gas has been the ugly stepchild of our national energy debate,” Stahl said in her opening remarks, explaining that it never “enjoyed the political muscle” of oil or coal or “(captured) the imagination like solar panels and wind farms.”
Now, she said, that stepchild is being touted as the “hope of the future, the answer to our energy problems” and has been creating “shaleionaires” – land owners who stand to make hundreds of thousands if not millions on royalties for leasing their land to the gas extraction companies.
Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon told Stahl the United States has “the equivalent of two Saudi Arabias of oil in the form of natural gas.” Stahl noted natural gas is a much more clean burning fossil fuel, with nearly half the carbon emissions of coal and no mercury.
Stahl said 10,000 wells will be drilled in northwest Louisiana in some of the poorest communities in the country before interviewing two Louisiana farmers who struck it rich overnight, one having made $400,000 in royalties and a second who made nearly $2 million.
Stahl compared the phenomenon to a “good, old-fashioned gold rush,” having brought more than 57,000 local jobs to the region. She visited with residents of Dimock Township in Susquehanna County, which she likened to a “ghost town.”
She explained the process of hydraulic fracturing, the process of pumping millions of gallons of water with sand and some chemicals into the ground to stimulate the release of gas, and listened to Dimock residents tell how their water wells were contaminated with methane after the process began in their community.
One resident held a lighter to a jug he was filling with water from his well and flames shot out.
Chris Tucker, of EnergyInDepth.org, an organization that promotes the benefits of natural gas drilling, said the segment was “fairly balanced,” although the show didn’t get everything right.
“I think they did a great job of telling the story of real people, everyday people, all across the country whose lives have changed for the better thanks to the development of this clean, American resource,” Tucker said.
“They didn’t quite get it right when they attempted to venture into the regulatory history of hydraulic fracturing. The reality is that fracturing technology is among the most thoroughly regulated procedures that takes place at the wellsite, which is a big reason why it’s been able to compile such a solid record of safety and performance over the past 60 years of commercial use.”
Travis Windle, representing the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said “having ‘60 Minutes’ underscore the enormously positive benefits of this revolution … speaks to how transformational this development is for our nation.”
It’s also important for viewers to understand, Windle said, that Pennsylvania has a long and well-documented history of naturally occurring methane entering private water wells.
“It will take private water well standards and fact-based reporting on pre-existing methane in water wells from shallow sources of contamination to demonstrate how safe shale gas development is,” he said.
Tom Jiunta, founder and president of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, provided a viewpoint from the opposite end of the spectrum.
While McClendon noted that natural gas is a clean burning fuel, scientists, Jiunta said, have estimated that the diesel fumes from the thousands of trucks that transport the water and machinery, the diesel engines from the compressor stations used to pump the gas through the pipelines and the engines used for drilling and hydraulic fracturing, along with the natural leakage involved in methane escaping from the pipelines make the process one of the dirtiest.
And while McClendon said natural gas could free the nation from foreign oil dependence, Jiunta said he “did not mention that they have already sold some of their gas leases to foreign companies, which in effect means we will be dependent upon foreign companies for our own natural gas that we will have to buy back on the open market.”
Jiunta said Chesapeake sold part of the Eagle Ford Shale enterprise in South Texas to China, calling it “the biggest acquisition of a U.S. oil and gas asset by a Chinese company.”
As for the shaleionaires, Jiunta said their neighbors “won’t have the luxury … of moving away if the water supplies become tainted.”