Trash to cash: Norway leads the way in turning waste into energy

Trash to cash: Norway leads the way in turning waste into energy
Helen Russell | guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 June 2013 15.17 BST

For a country blessed with bountiful oil supplies, it may appear incongruous. But Norway is importing as much rubbish as it can get its hands on, in an effort to generate more energy by burning waste in vast incinerators.

The Eurotrash business may sound like an unpromising enterprise, but it's one that is increasingly profitable. The UK paid to send 45,000 tonnes of household waste from Bristol and Leeds to Norway between October 2012 and April this year. "Waste has become a commodity," says Pål Spillum, head of waste recovery at the Climate and Pollution Agency in Norway. "There is a big European market for this, so much so that the Norwegians are accepting rubbish from other countries to feed the incinerator."

Welcome to Victoria, no wind farms allowed

Welcome to Victoria, no wind farms allowed
Posted by Alexander White

Welcome to my home state of Victoria, Australia's hub of art and culture, lane-way cafes and wonderful coffee, Aussie Rules football, themiraculous leadbeater's possum, and magnificent forests.

And also, after law changes in 2011, one of the most difficult places in the world to build a wind farm.

Back in 2011, the then-premier of Victoria, Ted Baillieu, enacted lawsthat, according to The Conversation website, effectively imposes a blanket ban on wind farms in many parts of the state:

They effectively give the owners of any dwelling within 2km of a proposed wind farm the power to decide whether or not the development should proceed.

The laws were part of the conservative Liberal-National coalition's 2010 election platform to "restore fairness and certainty to the planning process for wind farms". The laws have definitely provided certainty.

A closer look at Edinburgh's new Innertube bike map

Edinburgh's cycle recycling charity The Bike Station has finally unveiled its Innertube map.

As previewed on the Guardian Edinburgh blog recently, the map aims to promote off-street cycling. 30,000 copies are being sent to residents in the city.

It will be followed later this year by an interactive version of the map, aiming to give locals more control over the maintenance of the routes. Anyone will be able to update the map with geo-tagged reports of problems on the paths, pictures, videos and stories.

For Full Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/edinburgh/2011/feb/25/edinburgh-cycling-innertube-map-bike-station

Anumakonda Jagadeesh comments:

Excellent planning. Bicycles are in great use in China, India, Indonesia etc. nobody thought of the plan like the one presented. Infact bicycle is the clean energy mode of travelling and transportation (Three wheeler).