KUMASI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - In a bid to help reduce the use of refrigerants, Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is establishing Refrigeration Centres of Excellence in parts of the country.Two centres are already up and running in Kumasi and Takoradi to serve the northern and southern sectors respectively. A third national centre will be commissioned in the capital city, Accra.Refrigerants are substances used in a cooling mechanism, such as an air conditioner or refrigerator, as the heat carrier which changes from gas to liquid and the back to gas in the refrigeration cycle.The chemical is known to contribute to the greenhouse gas effect, which adversely affect the ozone layer, global climate and human health.“The EPA has a responsibility to ensure the reduction in the use of refrigerants in order to avert ozone depletion and global warming,” said the Executive Director of EPA, Peter Abum Sarkodie. “By so doing, we will be helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 7 and 13 on affordable and clean energy, and climate change action, respectively.He added that the initiative will also enable the Agency “meet the obligations of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments; reduce energy demands, and help citizens to avoid premature demobilization of their equipment”.The refrigerant dynamicsChlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are synthetic substances used as refrigerants.Following the discovery that some of these chemical compounds may be harmful to the environment, they are being replaced with more environmentally-friendly alternatives.Production of new stocks of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) ceased in 1994. The slightly less ozone damaging Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) will phase out completely by 2020.With no chlorine in the mix, Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is safer for the environment. Air conditioners that run on these are more efficient, offer better air quality, increase comfort and improve reliability.Ghana ready for alternative refrigerantsGhana’s EPA says the country is ready and equipped to adopt alternative refrigerants, which include hydrocarbons and ammonia.The refrigeration centres of excellence, situated in three technical educational institutes, will impart the code of good refrigeration practices to both students and practitioners in the formal and informal sectors.The goal is to ensure the men and women who will install, service, repair and dismantle refrigerators and air-conditioning equipment are at the heart of the phase-out of HCFCs, and the introduction of energy-efficient and low global warming potential initiatives.“They need to be trained to cope with the specific properties of alternative refrigerants such as flammability, toxicity and high working pressures. They also need to understand the pros and cons of the different refrigerants and equipment that use them,” said Mr. Abum Sarkodie.The EPA is also pursuing a certification regime for technicians to ensure standards are upheld to make life more comfortable.

KIGALI, Rwanda (PAMACC News) - A beer making company in Rwanda is now producing energy from wastewater organic pollutants to power its boiler equipment.The Skol Brewery has partnered with the Global Water Engineering (GWE) to turn wastewater organic pollutants into biogas for internal use while achieving high environmental benefits.Rwanda has a strong need for sustainable technologies, with the World Health Organisation’s African Regional Office identifying, “Rwanda undoubtedly faces significant environmental challenges, and needs to invest significantly in adapting to current climate challenges as well as in adaptation to future climate change.”Water shortages are also a significant problem in Rwanda, with water needs in Kigali city being only met at 50% or less especially in dry season in a city with urbanization growth rate of more than 9% annually.Skol Brewery Rwanda’s new installation, incorporating some of the world’s most efficient and proven GWE waste-to-energy technologies, aligns Skol Brewery with top international environmental wastewater standards and demonstrates the company is taking important action to ensure the sustainability of its operations, says GWE Chairman and CEO Mr Jean Pierre Ombregt.The new process at the Kigali plant involves GWE’s globally distributed anaerobic waste digestion technology proven in more than 150 waste-to-green energy plants worldwide, including dozens of breweries. The technology not only improves sustainability outcomes, but also decreases operating costs.The anaerobic digestion technology is also integral to 415 high quality industrial wastewater and waste treatment plants in 62 countries, the benefits of which are applicable to any food and beverage, agribusiness or manufacturing operation with one or more organically loaded wastewater and waste streams.Skol Kigali’s new continuous system – which replaces an old sequential batch reactor – highly efficiently removes organic waste material from production wastewater, converting more than 90 per cent of the wastewater’s Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). The new wastewater treatment plant is a reliable method of turning organic waste into usable biogas.This organic material is transformed into biogas (mainly methane) to replace the need for an equivalent amount of fossil fuel to power the plant boilers equipment, while the treated wastewater effluent leaving the plant delivers high environmental benefits through achieving discharge limits of 250mg/L COD.The new process – now successfully in its first full year of operation – begins with pre-treatment, followed by a modern treatment line utilizing GWE’s robust ANUBIX™-B system at the heart of the operation. A sludge management and dewatering unit is also used to process any excess sludge.“The methane-rich biogas produced by the ANUBIX™ process is reused to power an existing boiler unit, replacing baseline power requirements, which is a further benefit to the brewery,” said Mr Ombregt.“Breweries, and other food and beverage companies, are often literally flushing money down the drain in the form of wastewater. They are spending money to treat or dispose of their waste water, when they could be treating it as a resource and turning waste water into a profitable source of energy,” he said.Because it is a continuous system, green energy can continue to be generated consistently. This base load…

GULU Uganda (PAMACC News) - Over one thousand Karamojong pastoralists facing severe starvation in Northern Uganda have been accused of destroying crops belonging to local farmers within parts of the region, as they move around with their livestock in search of water and greener pastures.According to Paul Lopuk, the community head of pastoralists in Karamoja,the herders have been sleeping in the jungles, many kilometers away from their homes in Kotido and Moroto districts in order to graze their livestock."About 1,000 of them have established makeshift settlements in Alebtong and Otuke districts in neighbouring Lango sub region, west of their home villages," said Lopuk.They are majorly grazing on stocks of standing dry grass left by waves of bush fire which sweep the region. They are grazing in Olilim and Omoro sub counties in Alebtong district. Security and local leaders have restricted them to graze in a small piece of land.Lopuk says the animals are unable to feed enough due to lack of adequate green grass. “We are encountering few nutritive young green grass upstream. The animals don’t prefer the grasses in the valleys which is why they stray into people’s gardens” he told PAMAAC News.When the livestock could no longer derive adequate water from the mud left in valley dams constructed by government of Uganda, the pastoralists started to slowly drift away west of their villages, kilometer by kilometer until the distance became too much for them to return home and eat or fetch food.Patrick Okello, a resident of Olilim says his three acres of Cassava have been destroyed by the pastoralists. He says besides interfering with the food security situation of the host communities, the pastoralists threaten women around water sources.Wafula Ogumbo John, the resident district commissioner of Otuke district where some of the pastoralists have arrived says pastoralists without food have resorted to stealing food from host communities. In Ogwette Sub County for example, several acres of cassava have been ransacked by the pastoralists. In Ogwette, communities preserve cassava seeds by leaving them in the gardens.Wafula says “in gardens run down by the pastoralists and their livestock, the cassava planting materials broken down have begun drying up. If not arrested, the communities will not have cassava planting materials when the rains return”. Cassava is a food security crop in this area.According to Wafula, sick pastoralists are exerting extra pressure on public resources such as water, health care, production and sanitation situation. The sick ones have begun turning up at health centers after spending days without proper food and shelter.“Medicines supplied to health center hosting the pastoralists are running out of supplies. We are working with Police to conduct surveillance and prevent the pastoralists engaging in criminal activities where they are seeking water and healthcare services among others” Wafula explained adding that 30 animals were stolen by the pastoralists from their host communities in Ogwette Sub County. They are yet to be recovered and handed back to their owners.Like in Alebtong district, some of the pastoralists have resorted to cheaply…

PAMACC, Abuja-NIGERIA After five decades of the creation of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), the basin is still characterised by increasing population and severe drought.Scholars believe that as the population growth rate increases from 40 million in 2010, to a projection of 62 million in 2030, the consequences of famine, water distribution problems, human and animal disease will also rise.They said these changes that have occurred could have been because of global climate change, fueled by accelerated population growth.They also averred that these factors were responsible for the accumulation of social tensions which could have led to the outbreak of the violent insurgency that the region is faced with lately.In 1992, a decision was taken to develop a master plan for the Lake Chad basin to include the establishment of an environmentally sound management of the natural resources of the Lake Chad conventional basin.The feasibility study for the water transfer from the Congo basin to the Lake Chad was the second priority project selected for implementation by the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC). A proposal to transfer water from Congo to the Lake Chad was submitted to the LCBC in 1984 at the height of the most severe drought affecting the Lake Chad basin.This proposal was approved and shared by the then President Mobuto Sese Seko of Congo, but was considered to be too big, hence a similar proposal of taking water from the Ubangi river to the Lake Chad was adopted by the Member-states of the LCBC.Raising an estimated 6 million USD for the pre-feasibility study of the Ubangu-Lake Chad Inter- Basin Water Transfer became a problem until the government of Nigeria under President Olusegun Obasanjo provided support and launched a diplomatic campaign to get the no-objection of the two Congos.The conduct of the feasibility study was awarded to a Canadian firm, CIMA International, with work commencing on the 13th of October 2009 for a period of 28 months.The study was concluded in 2011 with the conclusion that the Ubangi-Lake Chad Inter-Basin Water Transfer project is technically feasible and economically viable from the Congo basin via the State Ubangi river to Lake Chad through an inter-basin transfer, a pumping transfer via the Palambo dam and a gravity transfer through a deviation of the Koto River.This will increase the water level of the Lake by at least one meter in both the south and the north basins and increase the size of the Lake by about 5,000km square over a period of four to five years.The combined cost estimate of the projects for the transfer was put at USD 14.5 billion.The result of the study was endorsed by the 14th Summit of the Head of States and Government of the LCBC on 30th April 2012.Delivering a speech at the ongoing International Conference on Lake Chad in Nigeria, the Executive Secretary of the LCBC, Engr. Sanusi Abdullahi, said there was no solution to the shrinking of the Lake Chad that does not involve recharging the Lake with water from outside…