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Illegal Logging
| UK expertise can help cut carbon emissions |
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The Jakarta Post | Tue, 03/08/2011 11:04 AM | Business The Jakarta Post’s Hendarsyah Tarmizi and four other Indonesian journalists were invited by the UK embassy in Jakarta to visit London for first-hand information on the UK government’s investment trade policy. This is the last part of his two reports from the trip. Companies involved in green technology will gain many benefits from the new policy as they are among those who are believed to have a stronger competitive edge in the world, especially in the emerging markets. Indonesia could, for example, benefit from UK low-carbon industry to help achieve its commitment to reduce carbon emissions. RockTron’s technology could help meet the country’s goal. UK-based RockTron has developed a commercial mineral processing solution for the immense and growing environmental problem of coal-fired power station waste, called fly ash. Billions of tons of fly ash are dumped in long-term landfills worldwide. In Indonesia alone, an estimated 2 million tons of fly ash are currently produced a year, a figure predicted to doubled by 2013 due to the sharp increase in the number of coal-fired power plants in the country. “RockTron can transform fly ash into valuable eco-minerals on an industrial scale, with no solid waste stream,” RockTron head of marketing Peter Crofts said. He added that the recycled, low-carbon products can substitute traditional, more expensive fillers and extenders in the production of concrete products as well as polymers and coatings. Besides solving fly ash, it could also help ease problems caused by Indonesia’s increased cement use, which rose by 10.7 percent in 2010 and was projected to grow by between 7 percent and 8 percent annually for the next five years, he said. RockTron’s first cement plant license was granted to the Fiddler’s Ferry plant in the UK, which is now fully operational. The company has two plants under construction in Russia and another two are in preparation in Malaysia. Low-carbon home technology is another green concept that can be promoted in Indonesia to reduce carbon emissions. The technology was developed by BRE, one of a group of companies owned by BRE Trust, a charitable organization representing interests across the built environment sector. The organization provides consulting services to create better, safer and more sustainable products, buildings, communities and businesses, BRE marketing and communications head Peter White said. The BRE Innovation Park located outside London features a range of world-leading sustainable homes and buildings demonstrating diverse, innovative approaches to low-impact design and construction. The use of solar energy is relevant to Indonesia, which has conducted pilot projects in using solar energy both for generating electricity and for cooking or heating water. In addition to the low-carbon technology, Indonesia can also take advantage of small satellite technology developed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) to monitor tropical forests and natural disasters, which often hit the country. Illegal logging in the archipelago remains a major problem, bringing great loss and damage to the forests. In addition to the illegal logging, forest fires and peat forest fires, which hit many parts of the country nearly every year, such as in Riau province and Kalimantan, have further caused forest degradation and loss. Philip Davies, SSTL’s business development manager, said the company, one of the world’s major small satellite manufacturers, produced relatively low-cost satellites for a range of applications including Earth observation, science and communications. He said the company builds small, high-performance satellites and ground systems for a fraction of the price normally associated with space missions. Since 1981 SSTL has built and launched 34 satellites, as well as provided training and development programs, consultant services and mission studies for the European Space Agency, NASA, international governments and commercial customers, with its innovative approach that is changing the economics of space. SSTL is currently building NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X satellites. The first satellite will be used primarily for resource management and mapping Nigerian territory, while the second one will be launched into the Disaster Monitoring Constellation, where it will assist with disaster relief and global environmental monitoring campaigns alongside satellites from consortium members ASAL (Algeria), BLMIT (China) and Deimos Space (Spain), coordinated by SSTL’s subsidiary DMC International Imaging (DMii).
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