Wonders shall never end. Can you believe that some woman mix transformer oil with groundout oil and use it to try akara. Why would they do that? It will help prevent the groundnut oil from drying up. But transformer oil is toxic. It can cause cancer and organ failure. Why are people so stupid? Here is the news:
.

The Federal Government is making plans to prosecute users of PolyChlorinated Biphenyl (PCBs), popularly known as transformer oil, in frying “akara” (bean cake), plantain chips, chicken and other food items.

Prof. Babajide Alloy, a Consultant to the Federal Ministry of Environment, made the disclosure on Tuesday in an interview with newsmen on the sidelines of a workshop in Calabar.

According to him, the consumption of food prepared from the chemical substance will expose the public to cancers of the lungs, heart, kidney and liver diseases.

“For a long time, PCBs was the cooling liquid used in electricity transformers, until the world found out that this oil was toxic ,and is trying to phase it out

“Jail term awaits those caught using PCBs to fry akara, chicken and plantain chips at road side to sell to the public because the oil is toxic and carcinogenic.

“We found out that it is all over the place in Nigeria, dump-sites, and in old National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) compounds,” he said.

Alloy said a survey carried out by the ministry revealed that the oil was currently being used in making food like akara.

The consultant added that the unsuspecting public were being deceived by the likeness of the oil to the commonly used groundnut oil.

“Some food vendors now mix PCBs with groundnut oil to fry akara and sell to the general public.

“Of course, they may not know how hazardous what they are doing is. This exercise is to sensitise policy makers and everyone of this malaise.

“It is important to note that spillage of PCBs is always a danger when equipment is to be transported; it should, therefore, be transported only in sealed containers,” he said.

The workshop was organised for state councils, regulatory bodies, power operators and custom officers on application of PCBs regulations and guidelines for Environmentally Sound Management (ESM) of PCBs.

https://www.pulse.ng/news/local/fg-to-pr...il/mmj8ksm

Pls, who knows the best way to control flies in a poultry farm?

Hello. Please I want to be sure of what a woman told me. She said I shud not apppy npk to the cocoyams i planted. Ghat they will rot. How true?

*IDLE AND WASTED GENERATION?*

Topic 1:
Big brother Naija: Wunmi caught on camera having sex with Musa

Nigerians ??
Comments - 60.7k
Likes - 100.3k
Shares - 70.8k

Topic 2
Nigerian Govt signs power generation contract with Siemens to boost electricity.

Nigerians ??
Comments - 14
Likes - 12
Shares - 16

- Number of votes cast in ongoing Big Brother Nigeria = About 170m

- Total number of votes cast during General election 2019 = 27m

*IT'S JUST FUN?*
*NO!*
*BUT STUPIDITY.*

*See why*

Number of votes cast during “Big Brother Nigeria” = 170million votes @ N30 per sms for a show that contributes absolutely nothing but immorality to their lives .

SAD SUMMARY
170 Million votes Multiplied by N30 = N 5.1 billion and the winner got N90 million plus an SUV worth maybe N9m.
And the organisers smile to the bank on their stupidity !!!

It is neither a talent show or life enhancing or promoting show. A show where two adults are kept in a cage to freely give & take sex on National Television, while the organisers make more money from the youths.

If INEC organises general election this weekend and ask Nigerian youths to vote on their mobile phones @ N10 per SMS to elect leaders that will shape their futures & the country, they will ask Nigerian Government to credit their accounts first before they will agree to vote in that magnitude.

“Wasted Generation” ~ Prof. Wole Soyinka called them.

“A generation that play too much, sleep too much and engage in idle chatter and gossip" ~ Chief Obafemi Awolowo foresaw

“A generation of illiterate graduates” ~ Atiku Abubakar called them in 2016

A generation that never plan for tomorrow.... Hopeless generation. Oladosu Oluwafemi called them 2020

A generation that are constantly not concerned about the deteriorating conditions of their senses & not bothered about their own future~ Osquare78 knows them.

“Idle youths who sit and do nothing, but expecting everything from govt free” ~Buhari surmised about them

Brood of vipers...- John the Baptist called them



*Copied from whatsup*

*IDLE AND WASTED GENERATION?*

Topic 1:
Big brother Naija: Wunmi caught on camera having sex with Musa

Nigerians ??
Comments - 60.7k
Likes - 100.3k
Shares - 70.8k

Topic 2
Nigerian Govt signs power generation contract with Siemens to boost electricity.

Nigerians ??
Comments - 14
Likes - 12
Shares - 16

- Number of votes cast in ongoing Big Brother Nigeria = About 170m

- Total number of votes cast during General election 2019 = 27m

*IT'S JUST FUN?*
*NO!*
*BUT STUPIDITY.*

*See why*

Number of votes cast during “Big Brother Nigeria” = 170million votes @ N30 per sms for a show that contributes absolutely nothing but immorality to their lives .

SAD SUMMARY
170 Million votes Multiplied by N30 = N 5.1 billion and the winner got N90 million plus an SUV worth maybe N9m.
And the organisers smile to the bank on their stupidity !!!

It is neither a talent show or life enhancing or promoting show. A show where two adults are kept in a cage to freely give & take sex on National Television, while the organisers make more money from the youths.

If INEC organises general election this weekend and ask Nigerian youths to vote on their mobile phones @ N10 per SMS to elect leaders that will shape their futures & the country, they will ask Nigerian Government to credit their accounts first before they will agree to vote in that magnitude.

“Wasted Generation” ~ Prof. Wole Soyinka called them.

“A generation that play too much, sleep too much and engage in idle chatter and gossip" ~ Chief Obafemi Awolowo foresaw

“A generation of illiterate graduates” ~ Atiku Abubakar called them in 2016

A generation that never plan for tomorrow.... Hopeless generation. Oladosu Oluwafemi called them 2020

A generation that are constantly not concerned about the deteriorating conditions of their senses & not bothered about their own future~ Osquare78 knows them.

“Idle youths who sit and do nothing, but expecting everything from govt free” ~Buhari surmised about them

Brood of vipers...- John the Baptist called them



*Copied from whatsup*

Somewhere between three and four billion years ago, algae first appeared. This may not sound exciting, but it paved the way for life on earth and could ultimately point to part of the solution to today’s energy crisis.

Algae, along with other early organisms like cyaonobacteria, is photosynthetic. This means that it’s able to capture carbon and breath out oxygen in return. And we need oxygen to breathe. During the following billions of years, more photosynthetic organisms developed: plants.

The interesting thing about plants is that they convert CO2 into chemical energy - glucose - and produce water and oxygen. So basically plants do what we’re struggling to achieve, in a world threatened by climate change: they capture CO2, produce energy and keep our air clean and breathable. So why can’t we do the same thing? Well, we can’t “do” photosynthesis, but we can use it.

How it all started
At Wageningen University in the Netherlands, a crazy assistant professor, Bert Hamelers, thought that it should be possible to produce electricity from living plants, without harvesting them. He hired a Postdoc to do an experiment and he succeeded. They wrote a research proposal and hired a PhD-student to do more work on it: me.

I didn’t want to be in academia (who wants to be in a lab all day?) but not knowing what to do otherwise I ended up doing a PhD. Basically, my professor lured me into it by telling me that a spin-off company should be created from the research project, and he thought I would be fit to lead it. After just one month, I knew that I’d made the best decision of my life.

How it works

So how do you produce electricity with living plants? Simply by using the natural processes that already occur. In short: the plant produces organic matter via photosynthesis. Only part of this organic matter is then used for its own growth. The rest is excreted via the roots. Around the roots, bacteria feed on the organic matter and they release electrons. If you’re able to harvest the electrons into an electrode, you can couple the first electrode to a counter-electrode and build an electrical circuit, like in a battery. The electrons flow back into the natural system via the counter-electrode, so it’s completely circular.

Because we use the natural processes around the plant, nature is not harmed. It works day and night, summer and winter. It only stops when the plant and its surroundings completely dry up or freeze over. So wetlands would be the ultimate source of electricity. Probably the best thing about this technology is that it can be combined with existing applications for the same land. No more competing claims for food versus fuel: put both rice production and power on the same paddy
.
How we can use it
During my PhD, I worked on improving the power output from plants in the lab. At the same time I started a spin-off company, Plant-e, together with my colleague David Strik, to find applications for the technology. When I graduated in 2012 we launched the first product: a turning globe fuelled by the electricity from a plant. Unfortunately, at that time we couldn’t get the product produced so our first market entry failed. But we were able to attract some financing, so we hired some smart young people and worked on the next product.

In 2014 the first product was launched successfully: a modular system. Basically we sell planters with plants and wires that can be connected to LED lights, for example. This is not going to replace coal-fired power plants, but it’s a start. This is the first step towards using what nature has developed over billions of years, without interfering with nature.

The modular system can be used to set up small, self-powered sites in cities, but it is not scalable. So a new system is under development. This new system is a tube, which contains both electrodes and can be drilled horizontally in the root-zone of the plants. This way existing plants can be used to produce electricity and any wetland would ultimately be able to produce electricity.
The next energy revolution?

After wind, solar and hydropower, the full range of biomass sources are now ready for energy production. Our energy revolution has already started. We go from large scale to decentralized energy production, and we start to realize that no one individual source is going to save us.

It’s going to be the full range of alternative, renewable and sustainable technologies that are slowly replacing fossil fuels. I don’t think that one small company of five people in Wageningen, the Netherlands, is going to revolutionize our energy production. But I do want to be part of it.

Author: Marjolein Helder is the CEO of Plant-e, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. She is participating in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/r...ng-plants/

George Monbiot

Scientists are replacing crops and livestock with food made from microbes and water. It may save humanity’s bacon

Wed 8 Jan 2020

It sounds like a miracle, but no great technological leaps were required. In a commercial lab on the outskirts of Helsinki, I watched scientists turn water into food. Through a porthole in a metal tank, I could see a yellow froth churning. It’s a primordial soup of bacteria, taken from the soil and multiplied in the laboratory, using hydrogen extracted from water as its energy source. When the froth was siphoned through a tangle of pipes and squirted on to heated rollers, it turned into a rich yellow flour.

This flour is not yet licensed for sale. But the scientists, working for a company called Solar Foods, were allowed to give me some while filming our documentary Apocalypse Cow. I asked them to make me a pancake: I would be the first person on Earth, beyond the lab staff, to eat such a thing. They set up a frying pan in the lab, mixed the flour with oat milk, and I took my small step for man. It tasted … just like a pancake.

But pancakes are not the intended product. Such flours are likely soon to become the feedstock for almost everything. In their raw state, they can replace the fillers now used in thousands of food products. When the bacteria are modified they will create the specific proteins needed for lab-grown meat, milk and eggs. Other tweaks will produce lauric acid – goodbye palm oil – and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids – hello lab-grown fish. The carbohydrates that remain when proteins and fats have been extracted could replace everything from pasta flour to potato crisps. The first commercial factory built by Solar Foods should be running next year.

The hydrogen pathway used by Solar Foods is about 10 times as efficient as photosynthesis. But because only part of a plant can be eaten, while the bacterial flour is mangetout, you can multiply that efficiency several times. And because it will be brewed in giant vats the land efficiency, the company estimates, is roughly 20,000 times greater. Everyone on Earth could be handsomely fed, and using a tiny fraction of its surface. If, as the company intends, the water used in the process (which is much less than required by farming) is electrolysed with solar power, the best places to build these plants will be deserts.

We are on the cusp of the biggest economic transformation, of any kind, for 200 years. While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of our food will come neither from animals nor plants, but from unicellular life. After 12,000 years of feeding humankind, all farming except fruit and veg production is likely to be replaced by ferming: brewing microbes through precision fermentation. This means multiplying particular micro-organisms, to produce particular products, in factories.I know some people will be horrified by this prospect. I can see some drawbacks. But I believe it comes in the nick of time.

Several impending disasters are converging on our food supply, any of which could be catastrophic. Climate breakdown threatens to cause what scientists call “ multiple breadbasket failures”, through synchronous
heatwaves and other impacts. The UN forecasts that by 2050 feeding the world will require a 20% expansion in agriculture’s global water use . But water use is already maxed out in many places: aquifers are vanishing, rivers are failing to reach the sea. The glaciers that supply half the population of Asia are rapidly retreating. Inevitable global heating – due to greenhouse gases already released – is likely to reduce dry season rainfall in critical areas, turning fertile plains into dustbowls .

A global soil crisis threatens the very basis of our subsistence, as great tracts of arable land lose their fertility through erosion, compaction and contamination. Phosphate supplies, crucial for agriculture, are dwindling fast . Insectageddon threatens
catastrophic pollination failures. It is hard to see how farming can feed us all even until 2050, let alone to the end of the century and beyond.

Food production is ripping the living world apart. Fishing and farming are, by a long way, the greatest cause of extinction and loss of the diversity and abundance of wildlife.

Farming is a major cause of climate breakdown, the biggest cause of river pollution and a hefty source of air pollution. Across vast tracts of the world’s surface, it has replaced complex wild ecosystems with simplified human food chains. Industrial fishing is driving cascading ecological collapse in seas around the world. Eating is now a moral minefield, as almost everything we put in our mouths – from beef to avocados, cheese to chocolate, almonds to tortilla chips, salmon to peanut butter – has an insupportable environmental cost.

But just as hope appeared to be evaporating, the new technologies I call farmfree food create astonishing possibilities to save both people and planet. Farmfree food will allow us to hand back vast areas of land and sea to nature, permitting rewilding and
carbon drawdown on a massive scale.

It means an end to the exploitation of animals, an end to most deforestation, a massive reduction in the use of pesticides and fertiliser, the end of trawlers and longliners. It’s our best hope of stopping what some have called the “sixth great extinction”, but I prefer to call the great extermination . And, if it’s done right, it means cheap and abundant food for everyone.
Research by the thinktank RethinkX suggests that proteins from precision fermentation will be around 10 times cheaper than animal protein by 2035. The result, it says, will be the near-complete collapse of the livestock industry. The new food economy will “replace an extravagantly inefficient system that requires enormous quantities of inputs and produces huge amounts of waste with one that is precise, targeted, and tractable”. Using tiny areas of land, with a massively reduced requirement for water and nutrients, it “presents the greatest opportunity for environmental restoration in human history”.
Not only will food be cheaper, it will also be healthier. Because farmfree foods will be built up from simple ingredients, rather than broken down from complex ones, allergens, hard fats and other unhealthy components can be screened out. Meat will still be meat, though it will be grown in factories on
collagen scaffolds, rather than in the bodies of animals. Starch will still be starch, fats will still be fats. But food is likely to be better, cheaper and much less damaging to the living planet.
It might seem odd for someone who has spent his life calling for political change to enthuse about a technological shift. But nowhere on Earth can I see sensible farm policies developing. Governments provide an astonishing £560bn a year in farm subsidies, and almost all of them are perverse and destructive, driving deforestation, pollution and the killing of wildlife. Research by the Food and Land Use Coalition found that only 1% of the money is used to protect the living world. It failed to find “any examples of governments using their fiscal instruments to directly support the expansion of supply of healthier and more nutritious food.”

Nor is the mainstream debate about farming taking us anywhere, except towards further catastrophe. There’s a widespread belief that the problem is intensive farming, and the answer is extensification (producing less food per hectare). It’s true that intensive farming is highly damaging, but extensive farming is even worse . Many people are rightly concerned about urban sprawl. But agricultural sprawl – which covers a much wider area – is a far greater threat to the natural world. Every hectare of land used by farming is a hectare not used for wildlife and complex living systems.

A paper in Nature suggests that, per kilo of food produced, extensive farming causes greater greenhouse gas emissions, soil loss, water use and nitrogen and phosphate pollution than intensive farming. If everyone ate pasture-fed meat, we would need several new planets on which to produce it.

Farmfree production promises a far more stable and reliable food supply that can be grown anywhere, even in countries without farmland. It could be crucial to ending world hunger. But there is a hitch: a clash between consumer and producer interests. Many millions of people, working in farming and food processing, will eventually lose their jobs. Because the new processes are so efficient, the employment they create won’t match the employment they destroy.

RethinkX envisages an extremely rapid “death spiral ” in the livestock industry. Only a few components, such as the milk proteins casein and whey, need to be produced through fermentation for profit margins across an entire sector to collapse. Dairy farming in the United States, it claims, will be “all but bankrupt by 2030”. It believes that the American beef industry’s revenues will fall by 90% by 2035.

While I doubt the collapse will be quite that fast, in one respect the thinktank underestimates the scale of the transformation. It fails to mention the extraordinary shift taking place in feedstock production to produce alternatives to plant products, of the kind pioneered in Helsinki.

This is likely to hit arable farming as hard as cultured milk and meat production will hit livestock farming. Solar Foods thinks its products could reach cost parity with the world’s cheapest form of protein (soya from South America) within five years. Instead of pumping ever more subsidies into a dying industry, governments should be investing in helping farmers into other forms of employment, while providing relief funds for those who will suddenly lose their livelihoods.
Another hazard is the potential concentration of the farmfree food industry. We should strongly oppose the patenting of key technologies, to ensure the widest possible distribution of ownership. If governments regulate this properly, they could break the hegemony of the massive companies that now control global food commodities . If they don’t, they could reinforce it. In this sector, as in all others, we need strong anti-trust laws. We must also ensure that the new foods always have lower carbon footprints than the old ones: farmfree producers should power their operations entirely from low-carbon sources. This is a time of momentous choices, and we should make them together.

We can’t afford to wait passively for technology to save us. Over the next few years we could lose almost everything, as magnificent habitats such as the rainforests of Madagascar, West Papua and Brazil are felled to produce cattle, soya or palm oil. By temporarily shifting towards a plant-based diet with the lowest possible impacts (no avocados or out-of-season asparagus), we can help buy the necessary time to save magnificent species and places while these new technologies mature. But farmfree food offers hope where hope was missing. We will soon be able to feed the world without devouring it.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist. His film Apocalypse Cow is on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...ave-planet

Hi everyone. I am new here. I am a new animal sciences graduate intending to learn from those before me in the livestock business. I particularly need advice on which small I can start with a modest capital like say #300,000. Thank you all.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says it has disbursed N791 billion to over three million farmers across the 36 states, under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).

The Director, Development Finance Department of the bank, Mr Yusuf Yila, made this known on Friday in Abuja, during an interaction with newsmen.

Yila said the apex bank had reduced interest rate on the loan from nine per cent to five per cent, to encourage more farmers to have access to the credit.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the ABP was launched on Nov. 17, 2015 and designed to provide farm inputs and cash to Small Holder Farmers (SHFs).

The programme was intended to create a linkage between Anchor Companies involved in food processing and SHFs of the required key agricultural commodities, through commodity associations.

He said the programme had helped participating farmers to improve their yields, especially maize from initial two metric tons per hectare, to five metric tons per hectare, while that of rice to four metric tons per hectare.

Yela said the bank was also investing in reducing post-harvest loses of farm produce, by encouraging dry season farming , describing it as “better in reducing such losses.

“Agriculture works better in the dry season, because you cannot control water during the rainy season, but you can control it during the dry season by using irrigation.

“The bank is also building silos and irrigation dams to reduce losses,’’ he said.
Yila said the apex bank had also disbursed about N312 billion, in energy infrastructure support through National Mass Metering Programme.

He explained that the programme was initiated to bridge the six million metering gap in the country, adding that 670 thousand meters had been distributed across the country.

“We are also ensuring value addition in the scheme, by ensuring the meters are not fully imported but assembled in Nigeria.
“By that, we are creating thousands of jobs and also supporting economic diversification,’’ the director said.
(NAN).

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/08/food...m-farmers/

About 13 million people could suffer acute food insecurity in Northern Nigeria in the next few months, says the United Nations (UN) – Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Rhoda Dia, Project Manager, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – Global Environment Facility (GEF), in charge of the Resilient Food Security Project, gave out this information on Wednesday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Ms Dia said the warning had become imperative because the country was facing growing levels of acute food insecurity due to decades of insecurity across the country.
She said the insecurity had resulted in increasing poverty and economic crises.
The situation has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and recently, the series of clashes between farmers and herders, said Ms Dia.

She stated that women, girls and the elderly were the most vulnerable groups to climate change, adding that it was because they were highly exposed to climate risks.

Ms Dia said that the adaptive capacity of these groups was low, which according to her was constrained by poor quality of access to, and control of resources.

She added that they were more likely to live in poverty, as they were traditionally excluded from the decision-making process at local, national, and international levels.

“Food production requires the use of valuable resources such as land, ecosystems, water, energy among others and its wastage results in high water and carbon footprint losses,” Ms Dia said.

She said that the global estimate of agricultural waste produced yearly was approximately 1,000 million tonnes with a current market size for waste to energy of 30 billion dollars at a rate of 4.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, the project manager said that Nigeria’s palm oil production industry alone generated over 90 million tonnes of effluent annually.

“The country is also generating 4.34 million tonnes of rice straw and 0.9 million of rice husk, and has an estimated 19.5 million cows which also generate waste.

“With the increasing Nigeria population, it is projected that the quantity of agricultural waste generated in the country will triple in the coming decades,” she said.

Ms Dia said that with respect to agricultural waste, there existed the potential of resourcefully reusing the materials to reduce environmental harm and boost soil fertility and farm productivity.

She said that the time was ripe for the northern region to tap into the potential present in converting agricultural wastes to energy as well as other economically viable repurposed products.

Ms Dia said it was against this backdrop that Sonvisage Nig. Ltd. in collaboration with the UNDP- GEF- IAP Project was training extension agents from project communities.

She said the training was on Waste-to-Wealth that is, rice and groundnut waste re-purpose for self-reliance training.

The UNDP-GEF is currently training extension agents in Kano on how to turn waste to energy (briquettes making) and waste to animal feed (livestock and poultry).

On July 19, President Muhammadu Buhari blamed floods and insecurity for hampering his administration’s efforts at food security.
This is as the Central Bank announced on Wednesday that over N750 billion has been disbursed to three million farmers to boost food production in the country.

https://gazettengr.com/acute-hunger-loom...ia-un-fao/

South Korean students are being paid to use eco-friendly toilet that takes methane from poop to power building.

Using the bathroom could pay for your coffee at a university in South Korea, where human waste is being used to help power a science building.

Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in southeast Korea, has designed an eco-friendly toilet connected to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas and manure.

The BeeVi toilet — a portmanteau of the words 'bee' and 'vision' — uses a vacuum pump to send feces into an underground tank, reducing water use.
Once there, microorganisms break down the waste into methane, which becomes a source of energy for the building.
The gas powers a stove, hot-water boiler and solid oxide fuel cell.

'If we think out of the box, feces has precious value to make energy and manure,' said Cho. 'I have put this value into ecological circulation.'

The average adult defecates about 17 ounces a day, which can be converted to 13 gallons of methane, according to Cho.
That's enough energy to generate 0.5kWh of electricity, enough to charge your phone for an hour every day for a month or drive a car for about three-quarters of a mile.

Cho isn't just relying on altruism or environmental conscientiousness to get people to use his eco-toilet, either: He's devised a virtual currency, Ggool, ('honey' in Korean) and pays users, mostly students, 10 Ggool a day to hit the can.
The currency can be used to buy goods on campus—like freshly brewed coffee, instant noodles, fruit and even books.
The students can pick up the products they want at a special Ggool market and scan a QR code to pay for their goods.
'I had only ever thought that feces is dirty, but now it is a treasure of great value to me,' Heo Hui-jin, a postgraduate student at the university, said in the Ggool market. 'I even talk about feces during mealtimes, to think about buying any book I want.'
Not all efforts at creating environmentally friendly toilets have proven successful in the long run: in September, UK conservation group the Waterwise Project says dual-flush toilets, intended to save water is actually wasting billions of gallons every year, far more than they save.

Dual-flush toilets are prone to leaks, the group says, and are the leading culprit in the 88 million gallons of water wasted a day.

'Because so many dual-flush toilets flow continuously, that water loss is now exceeding the amount of water they should be saving nationally,' Andrew Tucker, water efficiency manager at Thames Water, told the BBC.

Popularized in the West in the 1980s, the two-button toilets were seen as environmentally friendly because they give patrons a choice of how much water to use: one button releases a full 1.6-gallons for solid waste, while the other just half of that for urine.

But Thames Water found as many of half of its customers used the wrong button—or pressed both simultaneously.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...rency.html

The Department of Petroleum Resources says the pump price of petrol in Nigeria may rise up to as much as N1000 per litre when the petrol subsidy regime comes to an end without an alternative energy source.
DPR Director, Sarki Auwalu, stated this while responding to questions and comments generated by a paper he delivered in Lagos, recently, at the Second Quarter, 2021 Business Dinner of Petroleum Club Lagos.
Responding to the subsidy concerns and the disparity in the petrol consumption figures given by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the DPR, Auwalu acknowledged that Nigeria was spending so much on petrol subsidy.

He said eliminating it would require making alternative fuel available to Nigerians and that failure to do that could plunge Nigerians into paying higher petrol prices when subsidy is removed.

According to a statement on the DPR website on Monday titled, ‘DPR: Without Alternative Energy, Petrol Price Will Rise On Subsidy Removal’, Auwalu stated that Nigerians may pay as high as N1, 000 to buy one litre of petrol in the country when subsidy on petrol is removed and when the alternative energy or autogas gas policy becomes fully operational.

He, however, said the alternative fuel regime comes with initial cost as it will lead to spending $400 to convert one vehicles from running on petrol or diesel to running on either Liquefied Natural Gas or Compressed Natural Gas.

Auwalu maintained that converting eight million public vehicles currently present in Nigeria to gas-powered will cumulatively cost $3.2 billion to achieve.

He said, “So, to eliminate subsidy, they don’t call it subsidy anymore now, it’s under-recovery of purchase. So, to eliminate under-recovery, what you need is alternative fuel. Without an alternative, you will subject people to higher prices and that is why we go for price freedom.

“As at today, there are 22 million cars in Nigeria. Eight million are for public use. Imagine if you want to convert every car into gas, the average cost of conversion is $400. Converting eight million cars requires $3.2 billion. To do that, there are a lot of environmental investors which can invest and recover from the sale of gas and we are encouraging that.

“Once that is achieved, you will see that PMS can be sold at N1,000. After all, the average distance covered by one-gallon equivalent when you compare it with LNG or CNG with respect to energy for mobility is 2.7 against one. One for PMS, 2.7 for LNG or CNG.
”So, with that advantage, you will see that it creates an opportunity for this industry again. The issue of subsidy, the volume will all vanish and that is what we are working towards.”

https://punchng.com/petrol-pricell-rise-...re-if-dpr/

AUGUST 14, 2020

The Tilapia Aquaculture Developers Association of Nigeria TADAN), n Monday, August 10, 2020, inaugurated a six-man executive committee as interim officials to pilot the affairs of the association at this early stage. They are to create a clear objective and catalyze the growth of improved Tilapia production in Anambra state.

This took place at the Anambra State Fisheries and Aquaculture Business Development Agency (FABDA) Boardroom, Government House Awka.

The stakeholders unanimously elected the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Anambra State Fisheries and Aquaculture Business Development Agency *(FABDA), Mr. Emeka Iloghalu (founder of the TeeMartins Aquaculture Group) as the interim Chairman and Mr. Gabriel Muoneke of Eze Azu farms Nteje as vice chairman.

Others are:
Anthony Odili of Chinyere Agro Industrial Farms Ltd, General Secretary, Innocent Okeke, Publicity Secretary, Anochie Chigozie of Gozanbee Farms Umunachi, Financial Secretary and Onwuazombe Somadina of Aqua Heritage Farms who emerged as the Welfare Officer.

Inaugurating the officials, the National President of TADAN, Dr. Remi Ahmed, represented by the Association’s vice president, Mr. Nurudeen Tiamiyu charged the excos to focus on advancing objective and visible growth of Tilapia Aquaculture in Anambra state.

He noted that TADAN is positioned to develop and grow Tilapia Aquaculture in the country and beyond and sustain it.
“Our direction”, according to him, “is to put Nigeria Tilapia production on the global map and today, Anambra state has joined the list of about ten already inaugurated TADAN chapters in Nigeria.

“The idea behind what we are doing is to teach our (Tilapia Fish) producers what they need to know through training at both local and international levels” he said.
On his part, the Chief of Staff to the Governor of Anambra state, Mr Primius Odili while congratulating the new officers said the state government is more interested in agriculture, especially fish farming.

The Chief of Staff at the inauguration of Anambra State Chapter of TADAN
Odili who pointed out that earlier before now, he was a bit skeptical about rearing Tilapia, said that the state is willing to compete favourably with the world in the production of Tilapia and other fish species. “Our people have neglected fish farming for so long a time but I’m optimistic that the state can key in properly with the modern technology in Tilapia production.

“Farming is for everybody and we should embrace it and that is why we encourage people to start something no matter how small. This is the main reason government recently launched what it called Ugbo Azuno which aims at providing alternative means of livelihood especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. We are launching operation feed Anambra to help salvage the situation”.

The Chief of staff who was appointed patron of TADAN Anambra state chapter said he is not unaware of some challenges confronting farmers globally but enjoined TADAN members in the state to form cooperatives for easy accessibility of funds and promised to make arrangement for off takers once the farmers can guarantee consistency, growth and sustainability.

The new chairman, Mr. Emeka Iloghalu in his acceptance speech, said the officials will do their best to represent TADAN very well in the state and as well grow the GDP of Tilapia FIsh in Anambra state and beyond.

Iloghalu in his earlier presentation disclosed that FABDA was created to grow the economy of the Fisheries and Aquaculture sector in the state for food and for wealth creation in the state.

He noted that the vision of the Governor in creating the Agency is to be the most visible and largest fish producing state in West Africa, adding that the state is determined to use the special technology to grow Tilapia and other fish species in the state.

http://www.tadan.org/tilapia-aquaculture...e-chapter/

We need govt’s urgent intervention to arrest situation —lawmaker cries out

We’ve swung into action —Kano Govt
THE fortunes of farmers in two Kano local government areas of Doguwa and Tudun Wada have been reversed by an invading army of locusts simply identified as ‘’Lopidster pest”.

The tiny enemies do not only stifle crops planted by the farmers but they also wreak havoc on farm produce, causing more losses to farmers and the communities.

Arewa Voice gathered that farm produce worth hundreds of millions of Naira have already been devoured by the malignant insects since they invaded the two LGAs about three weeks ago.

As a result of the invasion, AV learnt that major stables such as maize, sorghum and rice largely consumed in the state and most parts of the Northern region of Nigeria, have been significantly destroyed, thereby putting the state on the verge of famine.

A farmer, Abdu Umar, who runs a large farm in Doguwa, has expressed worry over the ugly development, likening the pattern of attack by the resurgent insects as a ‘wildfire’.

“The crop-eating pest attacks crops like wildfire. It destroys farms rapidly and can render a whole farm bare within minutes leaving the farmer with little or nothing,”
Umar lamented. “Last year, I harvested 200 bags of maize from my farmland but with this development, it has shattered my farmland and I can’t boast of a reasonable number of bags this year,” Umar said.

Umar’s story is not different from that of Abdulkadir Ismail, who said he lost all his farm produce cultivated on two of his farmlands to the invading insects.

Apparently worried by the development, the
lawmaker representing Doguwa Constituency in the state house of Assembly, Salisu Muhd Ibrahim, has presented an urgent motion before the assembly calling on the state government to as a matter of urgency intervene and arrest the situation.

Ibrahim noted that if something urgent was not done, the state and its people were likely to face acute food shortages next year. “The appalling thing is the insect attack major stables such as rice, sorghum, and maize which are most popular food consumed here. Once there is shortage of such crops which are stable, there is going to be food crisis”. Ibrahim said in his motion: “That is why we are appealing to the state government to as a matter of urgency send a team of experts to investigate and also come to our aid with insecticides to arrest the situation. It has devastated farmlands of so many farmers.
“You are aware that my constituency is one of the food baskets of the state and when you talk of the North and the country, Doguwa Local Government Area has a place in the map of food production,” Ibrahim said.

When Arewa Voice contacted the state Ministry of Agriculture on measures put in place to arrest the situation, the Director Agriculture Services, Abdulkadir Sunusi, said they had already swung into action. to address the situation.

Sunusi said already the ministry had deployed team of experts to the area to assess, identify the type of insect, the varieties of crops affected and the extent of damage done to the farms and the implications for the farming community in the state.

“We have sent our team to carry out an assessment of damage, variety, mode of infection and types of birds after which they are expected to submit a report and we would now carry out intervention.

“Already, we have secured insecticides to be sprayed on the farmlands,” the Director said.

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/07/food...e-insects/

Hello,
I would like to get some advice on how to get my biogas digester working. We installed it in a refugee camp and the feedstock is a blend of human waste and cow dung. Its been 2 weeks and there is still no gas. I have ensured there isn't any gas leakage by sealing all joints using araldite and silicon.

What can cause a cucumber plant to die just like this?

Attached Files

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Scientists from the Institute of Industrial Science , which is a part of The University of Tokyo, have designed a new technique for synthesizing concrete without cement.
Through a simple reaction in alcohol using a catalyst, the researchers directly bonded sand particles. This might not only reduce carbon emissions but also enable the construction of buildings and structures in desert regions, and even on the Mars or Moon.

Concrete is formed of two parts: cement (accountable for 8% of total global CO emissions) and aggregate (essentially made of gravel and sand).
In spite of the abundance of sand across the globe, the availability of sand for the production of concrete is quite restricted since sand particles should have a particular size distribution to make concrete flowable.

"In concrete, cement is used to bond sand and gravel. Some researchers are investigating how more cement can be replaced with other materials, such as fly ash and blast furnace slag, to reduce CO emissions, but this approach is unsustainable because the supply of these materials is decreasing owing to reduced use of thermal power systems and increased use of electrical furnace steel.
Yuya Sakai, Study Lead Author and Associate Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo"

Consequently, a new method is needed to synthesize concrete from inexhaustible materials with less impact on the environment.

Sakai added, “ Researchers can produce tetraalkoxysilane from sand through a reaction with alcohol and a catalyst by removing water, which is a byproduct of the reaction. Our idea was to leave the water to shift the reaction back and forth from sand to tetraalkoxysilane, to bond the sand particles with each other .”

A cup made of copper foil was placed in a reaction vessel with materials and sand, and the reaction conditions—like the amounts of alcohol, sand, dehydration agent and catalyst; the reaction time; and the heating temperature—were systematically altered.

Determining the correct proportion of chemicals and sand was crucial to achieving a product with adequate strength.

"We obtained sufficiently strong products with, for example, silica sand, glass beads, desert sand, and simulated moon sand. These findings can promote a move toward a greener and more economical construction industry everywhere on Earth. Our technique does not require specific sand particles used in conventional construction. This will also help address the issues of climate change and space development.
Ahmad Farahani, Study Second Author, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo"

The product will probably exhibit improved durability compared to traditional concrete since cement paste, which is comparatively weak against chemical attack and displays huge volume changes as a result of humidity and temperature, is not part of the product.
The study is slated for publishing in Seisan Kenkyu, Vol. 75, 2021, as a paper titled, “Production of Hardened Body by Direct Bonding of Sand Particles.”

Source: https://www.azobuild.com/news.aspx?newsID=23197

Here, I will post a collection on news that support the theory that says Islam is fighting to dominate Nigeria.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a bold, powerful statement to oppose Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi solemnly tore up the Bible after Trump was seen holding one up in front of a church.

At a press conference, the Speaker of the House held up a Bible and then ripped it in two, declaring that she was against anything Trump was associated with.

“If Trump is for the Bible, then I am against it,” she said as she struggled to rip the Bible in half. Finally, aides came to intervene, pre-ripping the spine of the Bible so it would be easier for her to tear. “All the books of the Bible are bad: Genesis, Joseph, the one with the big fish, even Hezekiah. We must stand against Trump’s bigotry by ripping up anything he claims to be for.”

California lawmakers passed a bill Monday that would reduce penalties for adults who have oral or anal sex with a willing minor child if the sex offender is within ten years of the age of the victim.

According to SB 145 , the legislation “would
exempt from mandatory registration” as a sex offender “a person convicted of certain offenses involving minors if the person is not more than 10 years older than the minor and if that offense is the only one requiring the person to register.”

The measure would allow a judge to decide if an adult who engages in oral or anal sex with a child must register as a sex offender if that person is within ten years of the age of the victim.

In January 2019, the San Francisco Examiner reported on the introduction of the bill by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D), who claimed the current law, which states oral and anal sex between an adult within ten years of the age of a willing minor requires the adult to be registered as a sex offender, discriminates against LGBT individuals.

The bill would put an end to “blatant discrimination against young LGBT people engaged in consensual activity,” Wiener said:
This bill is about treating everyone equally under the law. Discrimination against LGBT people is simply not the California way. These laws were put in place during a more conservative and anti-LGBT time in California’s history. They have ruined people’s lives and made it harder for them to get jobs, secure housing, and live productive lives. It is time we update these laws and treat everyone equally.
Currently in California, judges may decide whether adults who have “penile-vaginal intercourse” with minors close to their age must register as a sex offender.

Wiener said the current law targets LGBT individuals because they do not engage in penile-vaginal intercourse.

“This is such horrific homophobia,” Wiener said , according to the San Francisco Chronicle . “It’s irrational, and it ruins people’s lives.”

The Chronicle ‘s report stated that, in 1975, California decriminalized oral and anal sex between consenting adults, but adults who engaged in these practices with minors were treated as sex offenders.

In a tweet, Wiener urged his followers to read an Associated Press “fact check” story about the controversial bill that minimizes its impact with the headline, “Bill Would Not Legalize Pedophilia in California.”

“The bill is the subject of a massive misinformation campaign by MAGA/QAnon,” Wiener posted.

https://www.rapidgist.com/california-leg...-children/