Bio-crude turns cheap waste into valuable fuel

CSIRO Australia and Monash University have developed a chemical process that turns green waste into stable bio-crude oil. The bio-crude oil can be used to produce high value chemicals and biofuels, including both petrol and diesel replacement fuels. The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste and the technology makes it economical to produce bio-crude in local areas for transport to a central biorefinery, rather than transporting bulky green waste to the refinery.

Antarctic research may hold more answers to climate change

A team of South African scientists from the CSIR and the University of Cape Town will join some 60 international scientists to investigate some of the biogeochemical processes that regulate ocean-atmosphere exchanges of carbon dioxide in the Southern Ocean to gain insight into its role in climate change. This research cruise forms part of a five-year French initiative conducted with a number of countries under the framework of the International Polar Year.

Electricity from a thin film

Teams of researchers all over the world are working on the development of organic solar cells. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems is presenting avenues towards industrial mass production at the world’s largest trade fair for nanotechnology which will take place in Tokyo in February. Organic solar cells have good prospects for the future as they can be laid onto thin films, which makes them cheap to produce. Established printing technologies could be employed for their production in the future. Organic solar cells are not intended to compete with classic silicon cells but could be combined sensors and electronic circuits on a small strip of plastic to form self-sufficient power Microsystems to provide a power supply for small devices.

General Publications: A collection of newsletters, Annual Reviews and a one-pager brochure describing the activities of the Alliance can be found on the website at http://www.research-alliance.net/information.html

GRA Nerve Centre contact details

The Nerve Centre of the Global Research Alliance (GRA), previously hosted by the CSIR, has relocated to The Innovation Hub. This first internationally accredited Science Park in Africa, situated across the road from the CSIR, is home to a regional centre of innovation and knowledge creation. The GRA Nerve Centre’s new contact details are as follows:

Enquiries:

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GRA Principals meet in Kuala Lumpur

The leaders from the nine GRA member organisations met in Kuala Lumpur on the 10th and 11th April to discuss the progress of the past year and to define the strategy for the coming year. The meeting was hosted by SIRIM-Berhad, the Malaysian member of the Alliance, and a fantastic programme was arranged for the delegates including a meeting with the Chairperson of the SIRIM Berhad Board, Dato’ Zulkifly Rafique and the Malaysian Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation YB Datuk Maximus Jonity Ongkili. The meeting was chaired by the President of the GRA, Dr Ramesh Mashelkar. Read more...

Symposium : Innovation-led Economy: Challenges Facing Government, Industry and the Community

In conjunction with the 7th Annual Meeting of GRA Principals SIRIM Berhad organised a symposium which was supported by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Dr Alfred Gossner a member of the Executive Board of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft delivered the keynote address on Experiences from Germany and Fraunhofer. Read more...

Paper presented at the ICTD 2007 Conference

A paper titled “Bringing Internet connectivity to rural Zambia using a collaborative approach” was presented at the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD 2007), held in Bangalore, India in December 2007. The paper was prepared by Linknet Zambia, the Meraka Institute in South Africa and the TNO in the Netherlands and was presented by Marijn Rijken of TNO. Read more...

Servers and Services

The Meraka Institute at the CSIR in South Africa hosted a workshop where servers and services were discussed. Attending the workshop were delegates from Linknet in Zambia and TNO in the Netherlands. This workshop forms part of the cooperation between Linknet, Meraka and TNO on the creation of low-cost wireless connectivity in Africa. Following the workshop the team from Linknet were able to implement telephone services in Macha, a rural village in Zambia and were able to make both local and international calls.

DFID Research Strategy 2008-2013

·Common Wealth – Economics for a crowded planet
Jeffrey Sachs

In this book Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s leading economists, analyses and addresses the great, and inter-connected, global challenges of the twenty-first century. A series of cascading threats to global well-being the most significant being environmental degradation and rapid population growth – bear down upon our increasingly crowded planet. All of them are solvable, Sachs argues, but potentially disastrous if left unattended. More...

·The war on want

An interesting editorial published in Nature Vol449 Issue 7165 of 25 October 2007 claims that ‘many ‘developing’ countries are much more developed than some people think. Their rapid progress should inspire scientists and their institutions to do more to confront global poverty.’ Click here to read the editorial.

·Global Economic Prospects 2008

The latest edition of this publication was released by the World Bank in January and the special topic for this edition is technology and its diffusion within the developing world. more ...

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