modsquad commented : This fella says plastic bags simply aren’t that big of a problem! Plastic bags ban is no sure bet to help environment When the city council in Austin, Texas passed a single-use plastic shopping bag ban in 2013, it assumed environmental benefits would follow. The calculation was reasonable enough: fewer single-use bags in circulation would mean less waste at city landfills. Two years later, an assessment commissioned by the city finds that the ban is having an unintended effect — people are now throwing away heavy duty reusable plastic bags at an unprecedented rate. The city’s good intentions have proven all too vulnerable to the laws of supply and demand. What’s true for Austin is likely true elsewhere. Plastic bag bans are one of America’s most popular environmental measures of recent years: since San Francisco became the first US city to implement a ban in 2007, more than 100 other US cities have joined the cause. [b:h2028xs5]While it’s been relatively easy to rally consensus around these bans, however, it’s been far harder to achieve significant results.[/b:h2028xs5] Part of the problem is that — despite the world-saving rhetoric that typically promotes and supports plastic bag bans — plastic bags simply aren’t that big of a problem. According to the national data recorded by the EPA in 2013, the weight of single-use plastic shopping bags amounted to around 0.28% of the total municipal solid waste that Americans generate. A more finely tuned litter survey in Fort Worth, Texas (reported in the Austin assessment) found that just 0.12% of the weight of litter in the city (which does not have aban) comes from single-use bags. Nonetheless, as proponents of bag bans rightly point out, weight isn’t the only measure of environmental impact. Single-use plastic bags pose outsized problems in the form of visual pollution on the landscape — South Africans joke that plastic bags are their “national flower,” due to their propensity to hang on branches — and damage and delays at high-tech recycling centres. (Reusable bags usually aren’t eligible for recycling, but when they end up at centres by mistake, they often wrap around and jam moving equipment.) Single-use bags can also pose health hazards to wildlife and livestock — during a recent trip to Dubai, I heard a plastic recycler lament that ranched camels frequently die from ingesting the plastic bags that are constantly catching flight in the desert wind — and even when they do wind up at landfills, they take centuries to decompose. There’s little doubt that targeted bans can mitigate these kinds of effects by cutting down on the use of reusable bags in the first place. In Austin, for example, a post-ban survey found that single-use plastic bags accounted for only 0.03% of the total litter collected in the city in 2015. Assuming the pre-ban rate was closer to the 0.12% in nearby Fort Worth, that marks a roughly 75% reduction of single-use plastic bags in Austin’s landfills. [b:h2028xs5]But, as the Austin assessment pointedly notes, reducing the use of a product that’s harmful to the environment is no guarantee of a positive environmental outcome.[/b:h2028xs5] Among the main environmental benefits of Austin’s ban was supposed to be a reduction in the amount of energy and raw materials used to manufacture the bags. To that end, the city encouraged residents to instead use reusable bags. Those bags have larger carbon footprints, due to the greater energy required to produce their stronger plastics, but the city figured the overall impact would be lower, as consumers got acquainted with the new, more durable product. What the city didn’t foresee is that residents would start treating reusable bags like single-use bags. The volume of reusable plastic bags now turning up at the city’s recycling centres has become “nearly equivalent to the amount of all of the single use bags removed from the recycling stream as a result of the ordinance implemented in 2013”, according to the assessment. And those lightly used bags are landfill-bound, because recycling isn’t any more cost-effective for reusable plastic bags than the single-use variety. Some of these issues could be addressed through the increased use of reusable canvas bags. [b:h2028xs5]But canvas is even more carbon intensive to produce than plastic; studies suggest consumers would need to use a single canvas bag around 130 times before they start achieving any net environmental benefit as compared with a single-use plasticbag. [/b:h2028xs5]And, for some consumers, the higher price for canvas bags may be prohibitive, in any case. Austin deserves to be commended for its candid assessment of what its plastic bag ban has actually accomplished; it’s probably not the only city where a ban has produced unintended environmental consequences. That shouldn’t deter the scores of other cities in the US and elsewhere considering their own plastic bag bans. But it should encourage a more thorough and realistic assessment of what such a ban can actually accomplish, and what damage it might inflict along the way. When it comes to environmental policy, good intentions often aren’t good enough. ©2015 Bloomberg View Adam Minter is an American writer based in Asia, where he covers politics, culture, business and junk. 20/08/15

Wizard commented : To Thailand Minister Of Power Why I like Geo Thermal and Makes me exited when I wake up each day. Geothermal energy - natures heat from the earth - it is free and todays energy markets it beats the door down on environmental and economic advantage over fossil and nuclear energy sources. Geo Thermal Heat from the earth can be used as the biggest energy source in the modern World, from large Offshore power stations to small and relatively simple pumping systems. My Panda 1 design for 2500MW or enough power for large city of 1 million homes. This heat energy, geothermal renewable at source, can be found almost anywhere—as far away as remote deep wells in China and Indonesia and as close as the soil in our Garden. Tapping geothermal energy is an affordable and sustainable solution to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and the global warming and public health risks that result from their use. I wish that all Governments of this World would Try to take onboard for the benefits of the Country they serve and stride in new paths of Renewable HP Steam producing Generation investments. Three different types of power plants - dry steam, flash, and binary - are used to generate electricity from geothermal energy, depending on temperature, depth, and quality of the water and steam in the area. In all cases the condensed steam and remaining geothermal fluid is injected back into the ground to pick up more heat. In some locations, the natural supply of water producing steam from the hot underground magma deposits has been exhausted and processed waste water is injected to replenish the supply. Most geothermal fields have more fluid recharge than heat, so re-injection can cool the resource, unless it is carefully managed. Dry Steam Power A dry steam power plant uses dry steam, typically above 235°C (455°F), to directly power its turbines. Dry steam is steam that contains no water droplets. All of the molecules are in a gaseous, as opposed to liquid, state. Dry steam plants are used where there is plenty of steam available that is not mixed with water. This is the oldest type of geothermal power plant and is still in use today. Dry steam plants are the simplest and most economical of geothermal plants. However, they emit small amounts of excess steam and gases. The geothermal plants at The Green land Geysers are dry steam plants. Flash steam Flash steam power use hot water above 182 °C (360 °F) from geothermal reservoirs. The high pressure underground keeps the water in the liquid state, although it is well above the boiling point of water at normal sea level atmospheric pressure. As the water is pumped from the reservoir to the power plant, the drop in pressure causes the water to convert, or "flash", into steam to power the turbine and or generators. Any water not flashed into steam is injected back into the reservoir for reuse. Flash steam plants, like dry steam plants, emit small amounts of gases and steam. Flash steam plants are the most common type of geothermal power generation plants in operation today. Binary-cycle The water used in binary-cycle power plants is cooler than that of flash steam plants, from 107 to 182 °C (225-360 °F). The hot fluid from geothermal reservoirs is passed through a heat exchanger which transfers heat to a separate pipe containing fluids with a much lower boiling point. These fluids, usually Iso-butane or Iso-pentane, are vaporized to power the turbine. The advantage to binary-cycle power plants is their lower cost and increased efficiency. These plants also do not emit any excess gas and, because they use fluids with a lower boiling point than water, are able to utilize lower temperature reservoirs, which are much more common. Most geothermal power plants planned for construction are binary-cycle. Main Advantages Geothermal energy offers a number of advantages over traditional fossil fuel based sources. From an environmental standpoint, the energy harnessed is clean and safe for the surrounding environment. It is also sustainable because the hot water used in the geothermal process can be re-injected into the ground to produce more steam. In addition, geothermal power plants are unaffected by changing weather conditions. Geothermal power plants work continually, day and night, making them. a fantastic proposition to investors and from an economic view, geothermal energy is extremely price competitive in some areas and reduces reliance on fossil fuels and their inherent price unpredictability. It also offers a degree of scalability: a large geothermal plant can power entire cities while smaller power plants can supply more remote sites such as rural villages. The SPGAsia Concept is to use the old wellhead Platforms and Refurbish the old well bore hole with Heat resistance liner and introduce Topside Control in its Harness and Steam Process insure the safety of the sea water returns back to the Sea clean and Risk free. Typical costs are 400M/700M for each Plant offshore Gary B Edwards Managing Director Member International Geo Thermal Consultants Subsea Power Group Asia Co.,Ltd