Introduction to Operation OASIS

The massive waste water problem that currently pollutes our bathing waters costing £billions to process throughout the world can be used to irrigate and reforest desert coastlines to induce rainfall.

Our aim is to use the return ballast capacity of super crude carriers which currently transport sea water half way around the world at great financial and environmental cost. This ballast is discharged into the sea, often introducing invasive marine species which affects the stability of indigenous species of flora and fauna.

The E.U. is legislating against this practice and tanker operators will be forced to seek an alternative.

Operation OASIS offers an exciting opportunity for ballast water. Transporting treated waste water to irrigate and reforest arid coastlines to induce rainfall has to be the way forward.

One tanker loaded with 300000 cubic meters of treated waste water would support 57 hectares of forest for a whole year.

Reclaiming deserts to enable people to feed themselves and grow great forests will offset the carbon emissions from shipping.

With global food shortages upon us we are already feeling the strain on our pockets in the developed world and renewable resources are in rapid decline. Drought is affecting all major food producing countries and wells are running dry. Water scarcity poses major problems for us and our children. We need to act fast in order to avert a major global catastrophe.

When the mighty river Amazon dries up and it's fish stocks die it is time to take stock on how we manage our fragile environment. For more detailed information visit our website and forum at: http://www.operationoasis.com

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Mabinogogiblog: Fredome symposium on global reafforestation

Mabinogogiblog: Fredome symposium on global reafforestation: "I went up to London yesterday. London was OK in its way, still an awful lot of people there with little means of support, still chaos in mov..."

APPCCG-FREdome Carbon Cycling successful presentation at the Houses Of Parliament 18th November 2010

http://www.box.net/shared/gzqilkibpj

Al list of downloadable documents from our recent presentation of Carbon Cycling introducing the scope of the OASIS Solution to mitigate climate change.


 The meeting was attended by professors, doctors, scientists, environmentalists, politicians, the young and the not so young.

 Emerging from the meeting we now have a panel of experts who have offered their services and support for the concept of returning the waste water from Europe to the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East to reforest the coastline and alter the local climate, causing rain to fall more frequently on land that has inherent water scarcity.


 This was a truly fantastic day for all peoples.

 We are putting together a new website titled http://www.operationoasis.com Watch this space for more exciting news about this application of common sense which solves many emerging serious global problems, including famine, floods and drought.

 Turning excess carbon emissions and a major pollution problem into profitable renewable materials, food, employment, by reclaiming arid waste lands,  while resolving the carbon emissions from shipping, providing shipping owners with a profitable paid return cargo, instead of using sea water as ballast (current practice) must be achieved!
We simply cannot afford to fail!

Monday 8 November 2010

Greening the Namibian Desert: An African Success Story - South African Institute of International Affairs

Greening the Namibian Desert: An African Success Story - South African Institute of International Affairs

Greening the Namibian Desert: An African Success Story

A determined entrepreneur turns an arid landscape into a burgeoning vineyard
SUN-scorched and starved of rain, Namibia's endless desert and scrubland is an unforgiving place for a determined farmer with a dream. Only 2% of the country receives enough rain to grow crops. Irrigation from rivers is possible only along a few border rivers in the far north and south and borehole irrigation is prohibitively expensive.

Yet Dusan Vasiljevic, a lone entrepreneur with a feel for horticulture and global markets, observed that Namibia's mild coastal climate was perfect for growing table grapes for Europe at times of the year when they are most vulnerable to frost elsewhere in the world. Since first connecting those dots in 1988, Vasiljevic - and those who have followed in his footprints - built a new agricultural industry from scratch on land that received less than 50mm of rainfall a year.


Spreading the benefits

Vasiljevic's market knowledge and contacts paid off handsomely. Fresh table grapes sell wholesale for about $3,800 per tonne (after duty) in Europe, and these good prices allowed Vasiljevic to restructure his debt and start planting new vineyards. Today, about 75% of all Namibian table grape sales are to the EU.

Following his initial success, Aussenkehr Farms planted more vineyards, and currently has 350 hectares under production. Vasiljevic sold some land to the Namibian Government at a reduced price, and the parastatal agency the Namibia Development Corporation has planted more vineyards, as has a black empowerment corporation (the Namibia Grape Company (NGC), supported by the Government Institution Pension Funds of Namibia) on 360 hectares adjacent to Aussenkehr. The government is also developing new production areas on the farm Tandjeskoppie, next to Aussenkehr with assistance from the Arab Development Bank, and plans another 5,000 hectares under irrigation.

'Quite a few other farmers, although not on the same scale, have followed his example and have learned from him how to produce and successfully export table grapes of high quality standards worldwide,' said de Naeyer. 'Namibian grapes are well sought after in the European and Asian markets before and around Christmas time.'

Total Namibian table grape production has grown from 1,000 tonnes produced by Aussenkehr's first 150 hectares in 1991 to more than 12,000 tonnes in 2003. The approximate value of these exports is about N$180 million ($29 million).

Roughly 3,500 new permanent employment opportunities have been created by the table grape industry with another 7,000 workers employed as part-time harvesters for three to four months a year. The industry is the largest employer in the impoverished, underdeveloped Karas Region where Aussenkehr is situated. For every 1,000 tonnes of table grapes Namibia has produced and exported, an estimated 300 new permanent and 600 part-time jobs were created, and these workers earn a total of about N$6,000,000 (about $967,000).

Methane Power in Melbourne Australia

The Eastern Treatment Plant in Melbourne's southeast treats around 41 percent of Melbourne's sewage and services about 1.5 million people in Melbourne's south-eastern and eastern suburbs. It's now partly powering itself by using biogas and it's further reducing the likelihood of odor leaving the plant with a biofilter. http://www.melbournewater.com.au/

Video Link

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Anaerobic Digestion News: Did You Know that Thames Water Burns Its Sludge (i...

Anaerobic Digestion News: Did You Know that Thames Water Burns Its Sludge (i...: "Thames Water achieved a saving of £15m on its electricity bill in 2008/9 by generating its own renewable power from its 13.6 million custome..."

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Did You Know that Thames Water Burns Its Sludge (it Also Digests It Too)

Thames Water achieved a saving of £15m on its electricity bill in 2008/9 by generating its own renewable power from its 13.6 million customer created sludge.

Britain's largest water and sewerage company generated a 14 per cent of its power needs from a combination of burning sewage sludge at some locations, and anaerobically digesting it at others, and then burning the methane derived from it.
Thames Water's Climate Change Strategy Manager, Dr Keith Colquhoun, is quoted as saying that their investment in renewable energy plants has been
"good news because we now treat 2.8 billion litres of sewage every day at our 349 sewage works. The solids in sewage have a high calorific content that we use to generate electricity.

"And this isn't a gimmick: as well as helping us to be more sustainable as a company, it also saves money - £15m less spent on energy last year alone, saving money for customers."

"Our goal is to cut greenhouse emissions by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 - that's about 200,000 tonnes less CO2. By using sludge derived power and other renewable energy sources, we're making significant progress towards this target after cutting emissions by five per cent in the past two years, despite grid energy becoming more carbon-intensive.

"Delegates at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit must face the fact that combating climate change is no longer about talk. It's about all of us taking action - and in our case, that includes sludge power."

Thames Water - which has the largest renewable electricity generation capacity inside the M25 motorway ring, excluding the commercial electricity generators - uses two methods to generate power from sewage:

1. Thermal destruction with energy recovery, where sewage sludge, which is the solid content of the sewage dried into blocks of 'poo cake', is burned to generate power; and
2. Anaerobic digestion, or (with) CHP (combined heat and power) generation, which is where methane derived from sewage sludge is burned to created heat, which in turn generates power.

The following Thames Water sewage works have AD/CHP plants: Maple Lodge (Rickmansworth), Mogden (Isleworth), Rye Meads (Herts), Deephams (Edmonton), Oxford, Reading, Long Reach (Dartford), Slough, Hogsmill (Kingston), Beddington (Surrey), Swindon, Bishops Stortford, Banbury, Aylesbury, Basingstoke, Bracknell, Camberley, Crawley, East Hyde (Luton) and Wargrave (Berks).

And the following two works use thermal destruction:

Beckton, in East London north of the River Thames, Europe's largest sewage works, which treats about 3.5 million people's waste every day; and Crossness, in East London south of the river, which treats the human equivalent of 2 million people's waste.

After it has been used to generate electricity, Thames Water then offers the remaining sewage sludge to farmers to use as fertiliser, or to developers as landscaping material or soil improver. In 2008/09 the firm put 100 per cent of its sewage sludge to beneficial use, sending none of it to landfill and as a result saving millions of pounds in UK landfill tax.

Further details about using sludge to generate power and Thames Water's 100 % win-win utilisation of sludge for renewable energy production can be found in the company's Corporate Responsibility Report