from the ground Up

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, October 30 2008
Recycled copper slag plant prompted by last year’s sand supply crisis
THE building industry is taking steps to make itself more green with the opening yesterday of a new plant which will recycle used copper slag to make concrete.
The $6million facility in Sungei Kadut can process up to [...]

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, October 29 2008
UNDETERRED by gloomy sentiment in the local financial and private property market, Chinese firm QingJian Realty is launching Singapore’s fourth condo-style public housing project on Friday.
Natura Loft at Bishan, a project under the Housing Board’s Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS), will feature three 40-storey blocks of [...]

My jatropha story is not published yet so I can’t write too much about it. But leaving where I left off yesterday, on day 2, we left that desolate yet beautiful resort in Ngwe Saung and drove about two hours along bumpy roads to get to the Mawtin plantation near Pathein.

The broken bridge

The road was even bumpier than the main roads, mainly because it was mostly just a dirt track. At one point we had to get off the car, while the 4×4 drove across the river (thank goodness it was low tide) because the bridge had broken from when the cyclone hit and could not longer take the weight of a car. It was the only time I’ve ever appreciated the merits of a 4×4. But I was happy to get out to stretch my legs. If it weren’t so hot, I would have put on my asics and ran all the way to the plantation. Good marathon training.

When we reached the plantation, rows and rows of jatropha plants as far as our eyes could see greeted us. The green expanse before me stretched out forever, marked only by the different shades of green, gradients of the undulating hills. It wasn’t magnificently striking, but I was overwhelmed with a sense of serenity. And for once I really appreciated the peace and quiet it offered.

I wondered if National Geographic ever got the chance to film any of Myanmar’s wildlife - because I can bet my life on the amazing biodiversity they would discover. Come to think of it, although I watch that channel regularly, I have never once seen a documentary on Myanmar. I can imagine it must be extremely difficult to get permission. But it’s such a shame, because its countryside is so beautiful, untouched, and so vast, you wonder why there’s no mention of Myanmar’s forests as a major carbon sink in climate change talks. Its always Indonesia’s trees and the Amazon that’s mentioned and that needs to be saved.

The model eco-farm

Apparently in the surrouding forest there are wild elephants who come out at night, drawn out by the smell of beans that the farm grows on the plantation. The idea that wild elephants might just “visit”, somehow, struck me as a very romantic. Although, I don’t think the pigs thought so - because apparently the night before we visited, an elephant came in the middle of the night and the pigs got so scared they had a mini stampede and one piglet died from getting trampled on.

If you’re wondering why they had pigs there, it’s because the whole farm/plantation was planned like a model eco-farm. Some 650 local Burmese farmers and workers live in quarters built by the company and they are completely self-sufficient in that they even grow their own food, vegetables, rear their own animals for meals. They even ran the farm on electricity generated by burning biomass - rice husks. Part of their plantation is used to grow rice in padi fields. The bamboo they harvest from clearing the land is also made into eco-bamboo products by the workers in their spare time.

Thinking about it, it only made sense the farm should be self-sufficient, being in the middle of nowhere. Even Pathein - the nearest town, and Myanmar’s fourth largest city - was a bit of a drive away. Anyway, I have to admit I went there with my eyes open, as a naturally skeptical and impartial observer (job pre-requisites), but I left with a good sense that things were being done right and that they were really going about the planting in a responsible manner.

I had such an amazing time, touring the plantation, looking even at boring things like warehouses and tractors. The farm even had a clinic with its very own doctor in it. Malaria cases were tracked on a chart on a chalkboard and pills were neatly lined up on the side of the doc’s desk. The farmers’ families are also invited to live on site with them, such that the attap houses form a village with three generations from grandparents to grandkids. I spotted an old woman staring at me with curiousity, sitting in the doorway, with that pondering-about-life look and I gathered it mustn’t be a bad life, being able to live so close to nature, with your family around you. The kids run around, chasing the black kampung chickens, faced smeared with something the Burmese call “tan nah kah” which essentially is tree bark which they harvest from a local tree and smear on their cheeks as sun lotion. The locals I spoke to swear by it - it shields the sun’s harmful rays plus apparently has firming qualities. It’s true many of the locals have great skin. Shame I didn’t manage to secure bring some back. They tell me it’s only a matter of time before “tan nah kah” overtakes SKII as the leading Asian skin product.

More on the plantation will come later - I will only say that if I do get some time off in the near future, like a sabbatical of sorts, I would even go back to the plantation to live for a month, work up a good tan, plant some jatropha trees, mix with the locals, and just enjoy the nature around me. It was refreshing to be surrounded by trees instead of cars and urban concrete, where water was pumped from underground from a tank, and the eggs we ate were from free-range chickens chased around by carefree kids.

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, October 28 2008
THE financial crisis should not be an excuse for policy-makers and businesses to delay acting to fight climate change, a carbon markets expert said last week.
In fact, the crisis offers an opportunity for carbon markets to grow in tandem with the consolidated and restructured financial markets worldwide, [...]

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Have been traveling and swamped with work since I’ve been back that I’ve not had time to write anything else.

Went to Myanmar for work - which was supposed to happen earlier this year before Cyclone Nargis happened, and the experience was an eye-opener.

The photo on the left was taken on the first evening I was in Myanmar - on the west coast, at Ngwe Saung. It was desolate, there were only one family, and us, at this massive resort. The coast stretched for kilometres and there was an untouched beauty to it, with waves breaking on it so clean it would have been a surfer’s paradise anywhere else in the world. But because it was so isolated, it was all the more beautiful. We drove a back-breaking six hours on really bad roads that had been ruined by relief trucks carrying tonnes of goods for the cyclone victims. It was worse than riding a horse for hours (and I used to go horse-riding in England when I was studying so I know) we were bumped around safari-style and the driver we had must be a hamilton fan because he still kept up the speed and didn’t care much for the potholes on the road and sent us flying, heads hitting the ceiling of the car, about every five seconds.

We finally reached one of the jatropha plantations we were visiting (more on that later) and after that, we had to drive on long, winding cornwall-esque roads which made me feel really nauseous for one and half hours before reaching the resort where we were staying.

And when we reached there, the sun was just setting over the horizon on this long, beautiful beach - it made the rough journey worth it.

I will write more on my trip but there are a few observations I’d like to put on record:

There are so many misconceptions about the country - and so many misunderstandings about how it runs, and its people.

Burmese people are one of the most peaceful and contented lot I’ve seen for awhile - not such a bad thing, it might seem, for these people who have mostly escaped the full brunt of capitalism as we know it.

The sanctions hurt no one but the people - the junta don’t care for it, but the local people depend on foreign investment, better paying jobs and tourism to help uplift their poverty.

I am more convinced than ever, that Asean’s policy of inclusion regarding Myanmar is correct. There are many mainstream media critics who like to adopt a self-righteous tone whenever they discuss Asean’s inclusion of Myanmar. But having been there, I’m more convinced than ever that exclusion would only plunge the country into further isolation, with no reprieve for their people.

It was refreshing to be there for the five days - I was missing first-world comforts but in a way, it was liberating to be without it. It was also nice to see people being contented with their lot, and not running the rat race and chasing the dollar. The financial crisis had no effect on the atmosphere of the country and after one day, with no mobile signal whatsoever in the country, or communication to the outside world at large, I was beginning to feel like going back to basics isn’t such a bad idea after all.

I would encourage anyone who’s ever been interested to find out what the country is like to visit it as soon as they can. Forget what people say about boycotting the place. It’s a safe, very cheap for tourists, and you can boost local trade by travelling and eating everything local. The experience will be much more enriching than say, one weekend shopping trip to Hong Kong will ever do for you. And really, you can’t talk accurately about the country unless you’ve been there.

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 25 October 2008

[a Straits Times Saturday special report]

STANDING almost at its full 50-storey height today, the Housing Board’s iconic project Pinnacle@Duxton cuts an impressive figure in Tanjong Pagar’s urban landscape.
But more than just assembled steel and concrete, it symbolises a new era in Singapore’s public housing. The tallest HDB flats ever built, they come with premium finishes, and will be even more eye-catching once the criss-crossing of green sky-bridges linking its seven blocks is completed.
In many ways, the project represents HDB’s journey from a fast-and-furious builder of basic housing in the 1960s to one that provides homes catering to the higher aspirations of Singaporeans today.
But high aspirations also mean high prices.
Last month, the project smashed the record for the most expensive new HDB flats ever to be sold, sparking public debate over the affordability of HDB flats.

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, October 25 2008
[part of a Saturday special report]
Picture Caption: ’60s - Queenstown was one of the HDB’s earliest projects – the focus was on building basic flats with sanitation and electricity as quickly as possible.
’70s - The focus was on creating new towns, with parks and commercial and industrial [...]

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, October 11 2008
FOOD PRICES
As prices of rice and other raw materials fall, grocery bills may shrink in the coming months
AS RECESSION looms, one silver lining could be lower food prices in the coming months.
Global commodities have taken a beating in recent weeks as investment funds flee volatile markets and [...]

Much has been said about the passing of JBJ and I wouldn’t normally comment but came across this story The Economist wrote on him, which was concise and at the same time, poignant.

Here it is:

J.B. Jeyaretnam

Oct 9th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Joshua “Ben” Jeyaretnam, an opposition politician in Singapore, died on September 30th, aged 82

EVEN in appearance, he seemed rather out of place in Singapore’s gleaming, ultra-modern urban landscape. In the early 1980s bankers and stockbrokers on their lunch breaks would shuffle in embarrassment past a courteous, dignified figure, vaguely reminiscent, in his muttonchop whiskers, of a Victorian statesman—Gladstone, say. J.B. Jeyaretnam would be railing against the government of the People’s Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew and hawking the Hammer, the organ of his opposition Workers’ Party.

The government managed to ensure Mr Jeyaretnam was out of place in other ways, too. When, later that decade, The Economist’s correspondent in Singapore invited him to a party for a visiting editor, the gathering quickly polarised into two unequal camps. Few guests, even among the expatriate businessmen there, were willing to be seen mingling with him. It was hard to imagine him as a dangerous subversive. But that was how the government seemed to see him; and as it was leading Singapore to extraordinary prosperity and stability, it seemed wisest not to upset it.

Mr Lee regarded Mr Jeyaretnam with unabashed contempt, as an adhesive nuisance rather like chewing-gum (banned in Singapore). “All sound and fury”, he wrote in his memoirs, adding that Mr Jeyaretnam was “a poseur, always seeking publicity, good or bad”. Mr Lee decided, however, that he was useful as a “sparring partner” for young PAP politicians untempered in the struggle for independence. His son, Lee Hsien Loong, who is now prime minister, took an equally dim view. In a letter of condolence to Mr Jeyaretnam’s two sons, he accused their father of helping “neither to build up a constructive opposition, nor our parliamentary tradition.”

Yet, the younger Mr Lee added, one had to respect Mr Jeyaretnam’s “dogged tenacity”. It was indeed remarkable. Born to Christian parents during a family visit to Jaffna, the heartland of Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan) Tamils, he was brought up in Singapore and, after studying law in London, built a legal practice at home. But he dabbled in politics, not, as a sensible man would have done, as a PAP member, but in opposition, at a time when the ruling party had a monopoly of parliamentary seats. In 1971 he revived the moribund Worker’s Party and preached the socialist ideals he had picked up in post-war London.

He stood for parliament in three general elections and two by-elections, losing every time. He also began to lose money, in a series of libel suits. In 1976 he was found guilty of accusing Lee Kuan Yew of nepotism and corruption and of being unfit to be prime minister. Mr Lee was awarded damages and costs. Appeals—as far as the Privy Council in London—were all defeated. In all, Mr Jeyaretnam calculated that over the years he paid out more than S$1.6m (more than $900,000) in damages and costs, sometimes for remarks that in many democracies would not lead to libel actions but be regarded as part of the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary politics.

Bloodied but unbowed

The bills mounted after 1981 when, at the sixth attempt, he won a seat in parliament at a by-election in the Anson constituency. Mr Lee blamed the failings of the PAP candidate as a public speaker, and the relocation, to create a container-holding area, of some of Anson’s dockers, who were not given other homes. But in his memoirs he also admitted that, with the dissipation of the sense of crisis that had surrounded independence and the split from Malaysia in 1965, voters wanted an opposition voice in parliament. In the 1984 general election Mr Jeyaretnam held Anson with an increased margin.

He was soon back in court as well as in parliament, accused of misstating the Workers’ Party’s accounts. Found guilty of perjury in 1986, he was fined, served a month in jail, became ineligible to sit in parliament for five years and was disbarred from legal practice. Again, he took his appeal to the Privy Council, which in 1988 overturned his disbarment and ruled he was the victim of a “grievous injustice”. Singapore subsequently abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council.

Mr Jeyaretnam returned to the political fray, winning a seat in parliament again in 1997. He left it in 2001 and quit the Workers’ Party in disgust at its refusal to help him fight bankruptcy. But, stubborn to the core, he refused to admit he was beaten. Earlier this year he had cleared the bankruptcy, launched a new Reform Party, and readied himself for yet another tilt at the Lees and the PAP. But he was finding it harder to walk. His heart was weak, but he was loth to go through the surgery he needed. He soldiered on. The day before his death he was on his feet in court, arguing a case.

Mr Jeyaretnam never made a dent in the PAP’s power. Singaporeans know their government is efficient and clean, and that those who malign its leaders are likely to end up in court. Lee Kuan Yew argues that PAP ministers command respect because they are ready to be scrutinised, and that his libel actions were designed to defend the government’s reputation, not to silence the opposition. Certainly Mr Jeyaretnam, most distinguished of that tiny band, was never silenced. Lee Kuan Yew may have been infinitely the greater statesman, but some would have judged Mr Jeyaretnam the bigger man.

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, October 8 2008

TUAS Power has embarked on a green initiative that aims to help new building owners achieve higher environmental standards.
The service, called “Green Consultancy”, was launched yesterday on the first anniversary of the firm’s Green Programme, which provides subsidies to encourage clients to hold energy audits.
Tuas Power chief executive Lim Kong Puay said the Green Programme targets owners of existing buildings while the new service is directed at new owners.
It will identify and recommend improvements in buildings, guaranteeing them at least a Green Mark Gold rating. The Green Mark is Singapore’s green building rating system. All new buildings are required by law to achieve a basic Green Mark certification. A Gold rating takes the standard up a notch.
Tuas Power will foot up to 80 per cent of the consultancy costs – which can go up to hundreds of thousands of dollars – in the form of rebates in electricity bills. The new scheme, although just launched, has already been tried and tested by its first customer: Japanese insurance group Tokio Marine.
With help from Tuas Power’s green-consultancy arm, the redevelopment of Tokio Marine’s 18-storey headquarters on McCallum Street in the Central Business District has been awarded a Gold-plus rating from the Building and Construction Authority (BCA).
Tokio Marine’s chief executive Hiroshi Saito said the firm expects energy savings of 830,000 kwh and 5,400 cu m of water a year for its 150,000-sq ft premises – an annual bottom-line boost of $170,000.
It will also enjoy energy monitoring and management services from Tuas Power’s appointed energy services company, G-Energy Global, to ensure the building’s performance is up to scratch.
BCA chief executive John Keung said that Tuas Power’s initiative was a move in the “right direction” as buildings consume huge quantities of energy.
“It’s very useful to have a comprehensive design team on board early to take an integrated approach to green building design,” said Mr Keung.
Tuas Power is the only utilities provider to provide such green initiatives so far, said Mr Lim. And it is not new to environment-friendly ventures either.
The company is part of two joint ventures involved in waste recycling and developing tri-generation systems – producing electricity, steam and cooling water – for petrochemical and pharmaceutical firms.
It said last month that it will build Singapore’s first clean coal and biomass co-generation plant on Jurong Island for $2 billion.
The firm was acquired earlier this year by China Huaneng, China’s largest coal-fuelled power producer.
Mr Lim stressed that although coal has a higher carbon content than other fuel types, the plant compensates by being highly efficient, reducing carbon emissions. In terms of emissions, it is still lower than oil-fired plants, he said.
“I ensure you that Tuas Power embarks on projects in an environmentally responsible manner, that balances the cost competitiveness and security of supply,” Mr Lim said.
Tuas Power’s green initiatives stem from an “integrated approach” philosophy of meeting clients’ energy needs beyond being an “electricity provider”, said Mr Lim.
“We want to occupy this energy efficiency space in the energy industry. That way, we will keep relevant.”