Reasons for Carbon Project Development

Carbon projects are developed for reasons of voluntary environmental stewardship, as well as legal compliance under a Greenhouse Gas Cap & Trade program. Voluntary carbon (GHG) reducers may wish to monetize reductions in their carbon footprint by trading the reductions in exchange for monetary compensation.

The transfer of environmental stewardship rights would then allow another entity to make an environmental stewardship claim. There are several developing voluntary reduction standards that projects can use as guides for development.

Happy Birthday Mother Mary!

The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated each year on the eighth of September. Usually it is the custom of the church to celebrate the feast day of a saint on the date of their death as this is truly their "die natalis", the day remembered as their birth into everlasting happiness.

Mary, however, entered this world sinless through the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and is the firstborn of the redeemed. Her nativity is a cause for great joy as it is considered the" dawn of our salvation" as Pope Paul VI wrote in the document, Marialis Cultus in 1972.

Why So Much Interest To Build RE Power Plants?

Many of us are apparently surprised why there are a number of micro hydro power plant projects, plan to develop a wind park and tidal power in Catanduanes. Why the sudden interest of investors in power generation on the island?

Obviously, they are banking on the future of carbon credits in the international trading.

Carbon credits are a key component of national and international emissions trading schemes that have been implemented to mitigate global warming. They provide a way to reduce greenhouse effect emissions on an industrial scale by capping total annual emissions and letting the market assign a monetary value to any shortfall through trading. Credits can be exchanged between businesses or bought and sold in international markets at the prevailing market price. Credits can be used to finance carbon reduction schemes between trading partners and around the world.

There are also many companies that sell carbon credits to commercial and individual customers who are interested in lowering their carbon footprint on a voluntary basis. These carbon off setters purchase the credits from an investment fund or a carbon development company that has aggregated the credits from individual projects. The quality of the credits is based in part on the validation process and sophistication of the fund or development company that acted as the sponsor to the carbon project. This is reflected in their price; voluntary units typically have less value than the units sold through the rigorously-validated Clean Development Mechanism.

If you were an investor, would you sink-in nearly a billion peso CAPEX in Catanduanes without any assurance or guarantee provided by the provincial government on the future of your investment?

Development of Tidal Power Plant

Whenever I go to my cousin's prawn farm, I never failed to take a close look at the sluice gates everytime it is opened to release the stocked seawater inside the pond to either harvest prawns or to simply purge. At one time, I joked to him that he don't need a genset to energize his farm, but only sheer creativity.

What I was referring to my cousin at that time was, what technical people called, tidal/wave power. And surprisingly, there is an initiative from a fellow Catandunganon, coming from an academic organization who wants to develop a Tidal Power Plant.

"Tidal power, sometimes called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides into electricity or other useful forms of power.

Although not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Historically, tide mills have been used, both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of the USA. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times."

His proposed project and profile can be viewed at the 2008/09 Mondialogo Engineering Award website.

RELATED LINKS:

• Energy Dep’t Finalizing Deal to Develop Deep Ocean Power - The Department of Energy (DoE) said it is close to finalizing a contract with a US-based firm to develop deep ocean power technology.

Atypical Skin Moles

The atypical skin mole is a special kind of skin moles, with clinical and histologic features suggestive of an intermediate form between the common acquired skin mole and melanoma. atypical skin moles are important markers for both familial and nonfamilial melanoma. As many as 50% of patients with “sporadic” melanoma have been observed to have atypical skin moles.
The incidence of atypical skin moles in the general population has been estimated to be 1.8% to 10% and possibly as high as 19%. The presence of atypical skin moles has been established as an independent risk factor for melanoma, along with several other cutaneous traits, including red or blonde hair, solar lentigines, skin type 1 or 2, and increased numbers of common acquired skin moles. A clinical study has found the adjusted relative risk of melanoma to be 2 for a single atypical skin mole and 12 for 10 or more atypical skin moles. Another found a relative risk of 1.6 when one to four atypical skin moles were counted and 6.1 for five or more atypical skin moles. The risk ofmelanoma attributable to atypical skin moles may
be further exacerbated by the coexistence of other melanoma risk factors, such as skin type 1 or 2. The increased risk for melanoma is particularly true in the setting of the atypical skin mole syndrome (Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome). Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome encompasses individuals with multiple atypical skin moles arising sporadically or in a setting of a family history of atypical skin moles or melanoma. Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome has been divided into a number of forms. Type A is sporadic dysplastic skin mole without melanoma; type B is familial atypical skin mole without melanoma; type C is sporadic atypical skin mole with a personal history of melanoma; type D-l is familial atypical skin mole with one family member with melanoma; and type D-2 is familial atypical skin mole with two or more family members with melanoma. Meticulous screening of family members may demonstrate that presumptive cases of sporadic Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome are actually familial.
All patients with Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome have an increased risk for developing melanoma, although the magnitude of the risk varies among the Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome types. The relative risk of melanoma is least in patients with Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome types A and B, and has been estimated to be 7 with a cumulative lifetime risk of 6%. The relative risk of melanoma in type D-2 patients may be as high as 1000 or greater compared with the general population. Individuals with Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome also appear to be at an increased risk for multiple primary cutaneous melanomas.One study found a 35.5% cumulative 10-year risk of developing a secondmelanoma in those with Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome and a history of melanoma as compared with a 17% 10-year risk of developing a second melanoma in those with a history of melanoma butwithoutDysplastic Nevus Syndrome . Patients with Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome may also be at increased risk of conjunctival and intraocular melanoma. The recognition of Dysplastic Nevus Syndrome may allow early detection of melanoma and identi?cation of those at risk and provide the opportunity for the initiation of preventive measures.
A great deal of discussion has centered on the validity of the atypical skin mole as a distinct entity and its potential for progression to melanoma. Much disagreement over its nature stems from a lack of uniform clinical and histologic criteria to define it. In fact, even the term atypical skin mole has contributed to the controversy. Strictly speaking, the term atypical is a histologic one. The purist may object to the clinical description of a melanocytic skin mole as “atypical-looking". atypical skin moles generally demonstrate both clinical and histologic evidence of distorted and disordered architecture. A
statement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference in 1992 sought to eliminate the variability in nomenclature and recommended that the term dysplastic nevus be replaced with atypical mole and the histologic diagnosis be termed nevi with architectural disorder along with a description of the degree of melanocytic atypia. A 2004 survey revealed that the term dysplastic nevus remains commonplace.