Todayonline:
IN A picture-perfect Singapore, environmentally speaking, people would cycle not just to the nearest MRT station but between towns; all homes would use energy-saving appliances; buildings would be “green” and solar panels would power our lives.
But is such a scenario sustainable, even if it is green?
For example, even as other countries have taken the plunge with feed-in tariffs to promote solar energy, the technology is still not price competitive and involves high capital cost.
“We have to bear in mind that solar is still two to three times what we pay for in grid power,” said Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran. Subsidies would “distort” market signals and consumer habits.
So, what kind of green initiatives would be worth going the distance for?
This is what the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development wantsSingaporeans to think about and give their views on, with its launch of www.sustainable-singapore.gov.sg yesterday.
Formed in February, the committee is co-chaired by National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan and Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim. Other members are Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Transport Minister Raymond Lim and Mr Iswaran.
With the population growing, said Mr Mah, there is a need to re-look balancing growth and sustainability, while ensuring high quality living.
Setting down the general path the Republic would take, Mr Shanmugaratnam promised that the measures “will be bold”. “We are not going to be puny in the way we go about this, but we’ll be pragmatic and we’ll weigh costs and benefits and make sensible judgements on how to prioritise and what to do, and so on.”
The Government is also mindful of inflationary pressures and does not want to “add to costs for either businesses or consumers”, he added. “Many of things we do will have benefits in the long-term. Some of it wouldn’t show up as benefits in the short-term.”
And so that Singaporeans will take ownership of such measures, the Government has moved away from the traditional top-down approach in such matters and is seeking their suggestions.
SUBHD: Goals at every level – from cycling to lightbulbs
One achievable goal, said Mr Lim, is re-looking the humble bicycle as something for everyone. To promote bicycles as a mode of transport between towns, more parking facilities could be added at MRT stations. “It’s a shift in the way we look at cycling,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Government will continue to address bigger issues, such as car emission levels, by looking at the costs and benefits involved.
Said Mr Shanmugaratnam: “For example, diesel cars: Should we phase in Euro IV and eventually Euro V, and accept that the existing stock of vehicles will continue to emit particulate matter at higher than desirable levels? Or do we go aggressive and require all the existing stock be converted, which will cost a lot of money?”
“That the kind of issue we are looking at: At significant cost, are the benefits worth it or should we just phase things out and allow for a more graduated move towards reduced emissions?”
Another conundrum: Going ‘green’ with buildings. As it is more expensive to retrofit than to build new buildings, there is the question of how much the Government should subsidise developers or building owners, bearing in mind that these parties will save costs in the long run.
But even as the Housing and Development Board, for one, looks at how to design new flats to be more energy efficient and retrofit existing blocks, the public must play its part in cultivating a sustainable lifestyle.
Said Dr Yaacob: “Conserve water, switch off when you don’t use the air-con, switch to more energy efficient appliances which are all in the market … If they (Singaporeans) choose to cycle and walk, it will help us. The Transport Ministry will provide the infrastructure, but we have to get Singaporeans onboard.”
And if the public and private sectors do not respond to public education, more aggressive measures can come in, suggested Singapore Environment Council president Howard Shaw.
Referring to the now-compulsory energy efficiency labelling for certain appliances, he told TODAY: “It started out voluntary but the private sector didn’t take it up, and as a result, consumers did not recognise its significance. So we had to take a drastic measure.”
- I fully agree to many of the measures mentioned in the article such as using bicycle as a mode of transport however more can be done to make Singapore truly sustainable in all sectors including energy, transportation, economy, food & water, manufacturing, living condition, peace, mental state of mind.
- Transportation
To promote bicycle as a viable alternative transport more can be added to the bicycle safety issue while riding on the road or pedestrian pathway. For example, a bicycle lane to cut through Singapore connected totally with parks dotted with bicycle facilities stations. Bicycle rental & shops, parking, maintenance, pumping station, water cooler, leg massager and many more can be along this “golden” interconnected national bicycle lane.
In order to make such lane possible the pedestrian pavement must be widen slightly and all obstacle removed that including big trees, make bicycle unfriendly curbs into gentle slopes, road signs and easy to read maps and many more can be seen in East Coast Park can be implemented easily.
This is a multi-billion dollars project that must be done as soon as possible until vehicles are no longer privately owned and only “critical life sustaining or business or public transport” related vehicles are on the road. This is to ensure we can reach the sustainability target at least by 2012.
- Energy
Energy comes in many forms such as fossil fuels, electricity, human movement, wave movement, geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear and many more exotic but not 100% cost effective or practical. But in the face of the future energy crisis situation, some drastic measures must be identified early as potential source of energy to run the whole country to become sustainable.Singapore is just like the trading hub in the 1985 movie “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” that can still function during extreme conditions provided that innovative energy source are identified. For the movie, they had used pigs “poop” to create methane gas to power their generators and provide essential energy. It may look trivial now to even consider “SHIT” as energy source but it may one day be a great alternative.
Human population in Singapore is increasing and we cannot dismiss the possibility of using human waste as both energy source and fertilizer, but this needs another major project to divert the sewage system to a power plant.
Solar panel may not be cost effective on HDB for now as the roof areas are simply too small to service the entire flats but we must not totally rule it out it’s uses for non-critical “individual” uses.
There should be more national window ledge installation services to allow individual to install “some” solar panels safely to prevent any killer litters. Even if the government don’t pay for it, individual who want “self finance” their own solar panels just for LED lights to light their rooms, living room or toilets should be encouraged instead of dismissed. It’s not cost effective but in times of extreme crisis…there may be people who totally cannot afford electricity at all in the future when they for example loses their jobs.
Now even Goggle, Inc is using solar panels on their roofs in the massive way to provide power for their campus. We cannot dismiss their “free” energy due to high cost now as we cannot determine if the cost of electricity can be as cheap as now. Looking at the electrical tariff of today, we are at the highest since 2001 due to the ever increasing oil prices.
Looking into the future, we can easily expect even higher electricity prices that may make solar panels more attractive then but it will be TOO LATE as the global demand for it will ensure a EVEN higher price to pay in the future.
Human movements to push doorways can be another source of energy, the Japanese had tried to experiment with this in their entrance of the train stations and I am not sure of their results. If millions of Singapore population goes through a thousands such “push” doorway each day….a significant combined power will be able to be produced.
Such power can be utilized to light up the public area used by the train stations, they will be able to switch back to the grid easily when the “free” energy runs below certain level.
Other renewable energy cannot be dismissed also, looking at the movie “THE MATRIX” we can also conclude human body heat can be sometimes excessive as well. Instead of using air-conditioner at home, we can use a heat absorbing bed that suck all these heat into a main heat to electricity generator.
Imagine the whole HDB contributing to one generator, it can at least light the public lights for free at night. The cost may seems totally impossible to reach but it’s a good idea when electricity price goes higher in the future.
There can be exercise stations to be converted into power generators, the idea of using a bicycle generator to power up electrical appliances is clearly shown in Singapore Science Centre that it works.
If a group of cyclist are paid to cycle at exercise “power generating stations” to charge battery for electric bicycles, there will be new revolution in electric bicycle usage. Jobs & cheap transportation for the poor but able people never look so attractive before.
There can be more solutions along these extreme lines like magnetic power, gravity…get people to run up a hill and jump on a pulley system to power a generator…etc is for the worst case scenario or for people to joke about their children future.
- Food
In the future of energy crisis, we can be affected easily by the high cost of imported food mainly due to the fact that the cost of agriculture are closely tied to “cheap fossil fuels”. Commercial fertilizers are made from Natural Gas, Pesticides are oil based, huge oil guzzling mega machines are used to plough, seed, harvest and transport the produce to the whole sale market.More oil are used to irrigate the farms, power up their modern farming machines that feed the cows/sheep/chickens automatically. More oil are again used to transport the food thousands of miles across the sea to reach your supermarket, wrap in oil made plastic and preserved in refrigerator that uses electricity. (20% oil, 80% natural gas in Singapore)
We can be out of “CHEAP” food imports from other countries and soon goes into hyper-inflation if there are zero or negligible LOCALLY produced food.
I proposed a dozen mega-multistory modern indoor-vertical greenhouse farms to be built across the small island to directly contribute to the food source and combat inflation of food cost.
The idea is not new but the viability of reflected lights by solar panels and charged batteries to light up indoor hydroponic farms is not impossible. Underground levels can be used to raise animal like chicken, duck and possibly other exotic animals for food.
- Water – Hyflux is doing a great favor in this sector to convert our waste water into “New Water”. It’s definitely going to the right direction now.
- Peace – comes naturally when the citizens are well fed and able to live comfortably without worries.
- Economy -
Is economic growth as important as social peace and sustainability? The very idea of sustainability comes in mind of conservation instead of consuming more goods or products. In light of the energy crisis, economic growth no longer plays major part in the country’s direction as it will NEVER be forever growing while the cost of oil goes skywards.We should concentrate on sustainability, conservation, living conditions of the people and curb over-population conditions. We can never be self sustainable if we don’t think in the wrong capitalist direction as we the people in Singapore did not really reuse, recycle, reduce to save COST for themselves but we do that for the “PROFITS” of some recycling companies that does not always clear the recycling bins frequently.
The brand new direction stated previously for bicycle, energy and food clear a path to better employment future with high paid farmers, cyclist-electric generators and other bicycle related services. These jobs may be more “relaxed” yet rewarding in the near future.
- State of mind -
The heart and mind of the people now are clearly in the “denial” mode or “The Matrix” mode that don’t even believe a single thing about the coming energy crisis.It will take serious governmental APPROVAL for the local state publication to announce the shocking revelation that the world oil supply is peaking in production and soon goes into inevitable decline. All other forms of ALTERNATIVE energy such as natural gas, nuclear, coal, tar sands, deep sea drilling, oil from unstable states and many more will slowly become more and more expensive due to high demand.
Natural gas in Indonesia is going into decline as Batam and Jakarta are experiencing multiple power failures. Batam had once threaten to cut off Singapore’s natural gas supply but unable to due to the fact it’s under contract and Indonesia are paid by Singapore at a higher price then Batam.
The fact that this natural gas decline in Indonesia had affected industries in the region may spell troubles for manufacturing cost and future inflation. Indonesia’s factories had to work during weekends to combat the blackout in the weekdays during “peak hours”.
Yes, the very idea that the future is bleak will shock many Singaporeans and citizens like never before. It might even crash the whole population “positive” minds and goes into “sustainability mode”. Yes, undesirable panic might be possible like panic hoarding of food and crazy people going depressed and commit suicides…disrupting MRT train services.
However, I do sincerely hope that the news will be more widespread to let the people KNOW that we will be in serious trouble if we don’t PREPARE for sustainability and like one of my friend told me…recently.
“Aiyah…it might happen..but what if it only happen in 50 or 100 years later…why should we panic now?”
Well, emergencies such as a single sudden spike in oil prices due to political tension can easily spark a energy crisis almost instantly collapsing the chain of distribution of goods (imports & exports). This will cause immediate shortages of both food and products, spike in electricity cost and hyper-inflation will occur within a few weeks to a month time.
One such political tension is IRAN…(no need to explain more…go research in this blog)
Like I had described above, all these are just pure ideas until it’s put into execution. Some may or may not be practical but it may save the people one day. There are more ideas at the back of my mind now but it’s 5.50am now and I can’t think properly.
Good luck and be prepared.
