TRAGEDY OF BHOTKHOLA,NEPAL

In the northen part of Gorkha(NEPAL), there lies Bhotkhola region. The people of Bhotkhola deprnd upon the Sayala forest for their livelihood. It is one of the largest natural resources of the country.Above Sayala,there used to be narrow,deeply cut swathe thrugh the mountain but now it has beome a broader,gentler moat with open spaces and scant pastures where yaks graze.The trek through it leads to Samagaon, at the foot of the Manaslu Glaciers,where the route curves northward to Samdo,the village on the eastern side of the Larkya la.
The Sayala forest is the main source of income for the villagers.In the past the dense forest has scare people to walk around and the sight of musk deer used to be very common.Now,the little destruction has turned into full scale destruction.There is now huge human settlement in the forest,musk deer no where to be seen.They also moved up to the higher mountains.
Deforestation in the Sayala forest is contuining.The villagers cut down the trees then the wood is taken to Tibet on yak's back.from Sayala forest it takes two days to reach Larke Bazar is an old market site where the yaks spend the night.From Larke Bazar,it takes two more days to reach Tibet.Once they reach Tibet they sell their wood and buy the basic things like rice,salt,barely etc.

Green business

Operating a green business is not only good for the environment but good for your business's bottom line because conserving resources and cutting down on waste saves money. The good news is that whether you run a home-based business or an off-site enterprise, there are simple things you can do to run an environmentally friendly business.
Recycling is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of being environmentally friendly. And recycling is important. But recycling is only one part of the environmentally friendly business equation. We can also take a large step towards being more environmentally friendly by reducing the amounts of waste in our offices and business operations.
Here are just ten easy-to-implement ideas for running a green business from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's Greening Operations guides that you can put into practice right now to make your office a more environmentally friendly place:
1. Turn off equipment when it's not being used. This can reduce the energy used by 25 percent; turning off the computers at the end of the day can save an additional 50 percent.
2. Encourage communications by email, and read email messages onscreen to determine whether it's necessary to print them. If it's not, don't!
3. Reduce fax-related paper waste by using a fax-modem and by using a fax cover sheet only when necessary.Fax-modems allow documents to be sent directly from a computer, without requiring a printed hard copy.
4. Produce double-sided documents whenever possible.
5. Do not leave taps dripping; always close them tightly after use. (One drop wasted per second wastes 10,000 litres per year.)
6. Install displacement toilet dams in toilet reservoirs. Placing one or two plastic containers filled with stones [not bricks] in the toilet's reservoir will displace about 4 litres of water per flush - a huge reduction of water use over the course of a year.
7. Find a supply of paper with maximum available recycled content.
8. Choose suppliers who take back packaging for reuse.
9. Instigate an ongoing search for "greener" products and services in the local community. The further your supplies or service providers have to travel, the more energy will be used to get them to you.
10. Before deciding whether you need to purchase new office furniture, see if your existing office furniture can be refurbished. It's less expensive than buying new and better for the environment.

Exploitation of renewable energy resource for sustainable development

The recent increase in energy costs, driven by a surge in oil prices, has increased world-wide efforts on the exploitation of renewable/wind energy resources for environment-friendly sustainable development and to mitigate future energy challenges. Moreover, experience in the wind energy industry has reached high levels in the field of manufacturing and application. This inevitably increases the merits of wind energy exploitation. In order to exploit wind resources, through the establishment of wind power plants, specific attention must be focused on the characteristics of wind and wind machines. The literature indicates that wind-energy resources are relatively better along coastlines. In the present study, long-term hourly mean wind speed data for the period 1986-2003, recorded at Dhahran (Eastern Coastal region, Saudi Arabia), has been analysed to examine the wind characteristics including (but not limited to): yearly/monthly/diurnal variations of wind speed, frequency distribution of wind speed, impact of hub-height/machine-size on energy production, etc. Data have been checked/validated for completeness. Data analysis indicated that long-term monthly average wind speeds ranged from 3.8 to 5.8 m/s. Concurrently, the study determined monthly average daily energy generation from different sizes of commercial wind machines (150, 250, 600 kW, etc.) to assess the impact of wind machine size on energy yield. The study also estimated annual energy production (MWh/year) from wind farms of different capacities (3, 6, 12, 24 MW, etc.) by utilising different commercial wind energy conversion systems (WECS). It was observed that, for a given 6 MW wind farm size, a cluster of 150 kW wind machines (at 50 m hub-height) yielded about 32% more energy when compared to a cluster of 600 kW wind machines. The study also estimated the cost of wind-based electricity (COE, US$/kWh) by using different capacities of commercial WECS. It was found that the COE per kWh is 0.045 US$/kWh for 150 kW wind machine (at 50 m hub-height) whereas COE was 0.039 US$/kWh for 600 kW wind machine (at 50 m hub-height). The study also dealt with wind turbine characteristics (such as capacity factor and availability factor). These characteristics are important indicators of wind turbine performance evaluation.
Keywords: wind characteristics; wind energy; hub-height; cost of energy; capacity factor, renewable energy