Singapore RIver- A little research.

River is always the mother who nurtures man and civilization. Back to the earliest civilizations that ever known: they were all built along river. Also, Singapore River was identified as the earliest settlement in Singapore. Many artifacts that belong to 14^th -16^th century were found along river, especially its upper stream. These founding convinced that the river was served as the source of food and water that supported early inhabitants’ everyday life. Singapore or better to be addressed as Temasek during that period was playing a role as entrepot under the rule of Srivijaya, Majapahit etc due to its geographical location that lies in the water path between China and India. As an ideal place of rest for the merchants, the river provided drinking water which is highly essential for them. However, Temasek’s function as an entrepot was lost as the rise of Melaka followed by Johor-Riau kingdoms from late 16^th to 18th century. Under the political circumstances that period of time, Temasek was sandwiched between different territories which caused it to be unstable from any kind of activities. After the colonial era began, it was finally the Dutch controlled the Malay Archipielago, but the Ducth was unable to discover the potential of Singapore as a perfect location of port. Singapore and of course, the Singapore river was kept silent and ‘disappears’ from any history record.

It was until 1819, a man with “extraordinary vision” - Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed on the island and assigned a role to the river (Chew, 2002). He signed a treaty with local ruler to gain the authority for the island development in order to build a world-class port city on the island. Under his systematically town plan, the river was only used as a nature boundary to separate different groups of people. He placed the European town and government at the north bank; ‘native’ population and Malay at the south of river bank; Chinese at the “ground below the bridge towards the river’s mouth” (Dobbs, 2003). It was obvious that Raffles had underestimated the true value of the river, but its significance cannot be hidden anymore as the time passed by. The river provided the wharf, shelter and store for the cargo that fit the commercial activities’ needs. As a Freeport that may maximize profit of merchants, more and more of them changed their base into Singapore. At the same time, Chinese, Indian and people from archipelago were migrated there and work as coolies, lighterman etc” (Dobbs, 2003). Warehouses were built along the bank; countless tongkang occupied the surface of the river especially the Boat Quay and Clark Quay. Eventually a lighterman industry was established; residential houses and hawker center were formed along the river bank. The population kept growing with an increasing rate. “Use of the river was pushed to its maximum between the opening of Suez Canal in 1869 and development of containerization in the 1970s” (Dobbs, 2003) .

At the late 1960s, the busy trading activities had polluted the river so much such that it was called ‘River of Death’ that unable to support life (Chan & Huang, 2005). Hence, starting in March 1969, the prime Minister- Lee Kuan Yew started his new policy to “clean-up” the river. Firstly, the cargo loading was relocated at Pasir Panjang and handled by PSA, since the lighter industry was identified as one of the major pollutant source. (Dobbs, 2002). Subsequently, hawkers, duck and pig farming were also being forced removed from the river side to eliminate the organic source of pollutant which turned the river water black in colour. After several years, the clean up mission was finally succeesful in 1987. In the effort of turning to ‘River of Death’ into a ‘River of Life”, the river therefore went through a redevelopment. “Under the Singapore River DGP (URA, 1994), the river was divided into 3 zones: Boat Quay that focuses on pubs, restaurants and boutique offices; Clarke Quay comprising a festival marketplace; and Robertson Quay as primarily residential” (Chang & Huang, 2005).

The most obvious observation which resulted from the history of the river is the distinct development between south bank and north bank at the river mouth during the colonial era. The residue old building showed that north bank is western denominated while south bank were occupied by Chinese, as the design style of the buildings shown. In addition, both old and present parliament house are located at the north bank, which is the legacy of Raffles’ town plan that the government base located at north bank. These historical buildings are now playing a totally different role they used to be, such as the old Parliament house is now the arts museum. Exception are religious places such as Po Chiak Keng temple that stand more than 120 years but still serving a relatively indifferent function. This is a typical example of culture heritage.

Singapore River definitely cannot be separated from the development of the Singapore. As Singapore exploits its strategic geographical location to serve as a port which forms the backbone of her economic, the river was indeed the main contributor until1980s. However, the boomed economic coupled with globalization change the fate of the river. The narrow river cannot afford the loading of cargo which kept increasing. As a result, the government took its original mission away and assigned another important role with it: build a new Singapore image and create a nationhood associated with it.


References:

Chang, T. C. & Huang, S. (2005, December). Recreating place, replacing memory: Creative destruction at the Singapore River. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, vol.46, pp267-280.

Chew, E. C. T. (2002). Raffles revisited: A review & reassessment of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), Raffles Town Club, vol. 6 (Jan-Mar 2002).

Dobbs, S. (2002, November). Urban redevelopment and the forced eviction of lighters from the Singapore River. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, vol. 23(2), pp 288-310.

Dobbs, S. (2003). The Singapore River: A social history 1819-2002. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003.

Waste disposal problem- How to slove it?

Currently, Malaysia is still using traditional waste method, mainly landfilling, as a way of disposing waste. However, no matter how much land the country owns, it will be exhausted one day. In other words, Malaysia might end up with no more area for landfilling. Clearly, now is the time of a systematic way in disposing waste should be introduced and well devolpoded in Malaysia.

First of all, the three-stream collection system shoud be introduced in Malaysia. Acccording to Collins.J (2002), this method is currently used in those high-achieving cities, such that waste being seperated into organics, dry recyclables and tricky residual. From there, we can make use of these wastes accordingly. For instance, orgainic waste may be used in producing fertilizer or even generates electricity. By the means of advanced technology, hydrocarbon which is the main composition among organic waste may be extracted from organic waste and then used as fuel to generate electricity, while the remaining residual may still be used as the raw material of fertilizer.

Meanwhile, dry recyclables will be sent to a collecting center and be further seperated to paper, plastic, metal, etc. These valuable resources will be sent to respective recyling center for direct recycling purpose. At the same time, the tricky residual, which composed by mainly chemical ingredient, should be handled carefully. Unlike the dry recyclable waste, most tricky residual can not be recycled. Hence, they should be chemically treated until they do not pollute the environment when disposed.

Also, according to Collins.J (2002), New Zealand is quite successful in the zero waste ambition. Malaysia should send a team there to learn their way of disposing waste, and apply what is practical to fit Malaysia's needs. It is always better to learn from other who is more experience, especially the succeed one.

Despite the technology used, what Malaysia really needs to learn is how to educate its people. This highly efficient way of disposing waste can't be used as long as people there do not take the initiative to seperate the waste themselves.

Source: Collins.J (2002, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean-up. The Guardian Weekly. p.25

The Chernobyl disaster. [ Upgraded ]

Essay Prompt: Choose one recent "engineering disaster" that has affected the environment in one country and explain how could it be avoided.

The Chernobyl disaster was the most serious nuclear plant accident in history. On 26 April 1986, together with the explosion of reactor Unit 4 in V.I. Lenin Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station, the radioactive material it released polluted almost all the countries in Europe. The city was abandoned as the area was contaminated with dense nuclide toxic. Overall, 56 people died within a few months, either due to the explosion directly or after being exposed to massive radiation doses (Uranium Information Centre, 2008). Also, it raised the possibility of the people who settled in the affected area getting cancer or passing other problems such as genetic defects to their children. These consequences were caused by the flawed reactor design, coupled with some consecutive serious mistakes that were made by the plant personnel. Obviously, the horrible disaster could have been avoided.

The RBMK-1000 reactor, which was designed in 1954 and operated safely for over 30 years, had several inbuilt design faults(Park, 1989). The combination of water coolant and positive void coefficient of the RBMK was the biggest design fault since that made the reactor just like a “time-bomb”(Park, 1989,p149). A modern reactor is either using gas coolant or set to negative void coefficient, which guarantee no repetition of Chernobyl-like explosion. Furthermore, the RBMK reactor should has more automatic safety features that could not be disabled by an operator, in order to minimizes man-made mistake, just like a modern reactor today. For instance, the control rods should be inserted into the reactor at once automatically when the temperature or pressure goes beyond the standard range, while ensuring the power supply of the control rods and the monitoring system. Therefore, the chance of explosion in modern nuclear plant that triggered by the reactor itself is almost nil.

At the same time, a nuclear power plant should not be built at a densely populated area to prevent people from the exposure of radioactive toxic. “A nuclear reactor site must have a population exclusion zone, for example, no population within 800 meters” (Ramsey & Modarres, 1998, p180). However, the initiative to prevent the material from spreading should be taken, as the disaster taught us. Hence, a fallout shelter which performs that task should be built in any nuclear based facilities, not just at a nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, the possibility of any external factors that affecting safe operation such as aircraft crashing or natural disasters should be taken into account in the design of a nuclear plant( Ramsey & Modarres, 1998). The plant building structure must have some ability to absorb external forces, for example the collision of aircraft or earthquake, and protection against fire in order to gain some buffer time for the automatic safety features to operate.

Another approach to prevent such a disaster from happening again is to ensure that all plant operators are familiar with the safety guidelines, in addition to the knowledge of nuclear science. Take UK as an example: their nuclear plant operators are highly trained graduates who need to work in Central Electricity Generating Board for several years before they receive strict training of nuclear plant operation (Park, 1989). Any newly constructed nuclear power plant should hire those experienced operators as their first badge operators. Also, all experiments with the reactor should be approved by more than one nuclear expert so that the experiment can be done safely. Since the disaster was begun by an unauthorized experiment with the reactor.

In conclusion, no matter how ‘safe’ a nuclear plant it declared, it is still a risky tool for human beings. Therefore, the ultimate method to prevent the disaster is, of course, not to build a nuclear plant at all! This is possible with the development of alternative energy source such as solar power and fuel cells.

References:

Mark Resnicoff.(n.d.) My visit to Chernobyl : 20 Years After the Disaster .Retrieved March 10, 2008, from

http://www.chernobylee.com/articles/chernobyl/my-journey-to-chernobyl-1.php

Park, C.C. (1989). Chernobyl: The long shadow. London and New York: Routledge.

Ramsey, C. B. & Modarres, M. (1998). Commercial nuclear power : Assuring safety for the future. Canada: John Wiley & Sons, INC.

Uranium Information Centre. (2008, Feb). Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 22: Chernobyl Accident .Retrieved March 10, 2008, from

http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htm

Draft

In Singapore and Malaysia, people pronounced 'tree' and 'three' in the same way which is totally wrong. When i showed this to one of my friend from China, he simply don't understand it.

save trees /= save 3s

"Saving Nature, But Only for man"-Charles Krauthammer

I would raise up both my hands for it.

Civilization is a process that destroy nature in order to cater human needs. Its motive is to build an environment that more comfortable for man. Human work hard for centuries to achieve that goal. Sarcastically, it also build an environment that not suitable for human at the same time. Polluted air, polluted water, polluted land, chemical composed food, climate change , and ozone depletion are typical examples.

Therefore, somebody realized it and shout out: " Hey, we can't let this continue; we must save the world! ". So, man began to study what is wrong. Since then, man created a new word-'recycle'. Recycling is recognized as a symbol of environmental friendly action. But is it just because of we want to preserve virgin forest? The answer is no. A simple answer is the cost of recycling is much more cheaper than if we produce the same thing from the raw material. It is a definite result from economic. Also, how many people are using solar power water heater which is more environmentally friendlier? You know the answer, since solar power heater is expensive.


After being educated, most people would agree 'green' is good and essential. But they will only practice it if and only if convenient and economical benefit.

ON YOUR MARK

Comparison and Contrast

Recycling has been identified as one way to conserve resources. How might the approach to recycling differ between a developed country and a developing country?

There are many differences between a developed country and a developing country in the effort of recycling. In Japan, trash is being categorized as either 'flammable' trash or 'inflammable' trash. A can recycle bin will be placed beside every aluminum can based vending machine. In Malaysia, you can hardly find a functioning recycle bin---there are recycle bin but either people don't use them or no clearance of the full bin. The basic difference is recycling is already assimilated in almost every Japanese's life where as in Malaysia it's just a start. Although children in Malaysia are being educated and encouraged to recycle, but the society as a whole doesn't has such awareness. A reusable or recyclable thing are indifference with other trash. It is also a consequence that Malaysia are so rich in resources until people just take it as granted and never appreciate it.

Problem-Solution

Choose one recent "engineering disaster" that has affected the environment in one country and explain how could it be avoided.

[Edited]

The Chernobyl disaster is the most serious nuclear plant accident in history. Together with the explosion of reactor unit-4, the radioactive material it released polluted almost all the countries in Europe. The city was abandoned; overall 56 people died within a few months. Also, it raised the possibility of the people live in affected area from getting cancer and even a handicapped baby. These impacts are caused by the flawed reactor design, besides some consecutive serious mistakes made by the plant operators. Obviously, the horrible disaster can actually be avoided. Modern reactor is highly emphasized with safety property. It was designed in such a way that zero radioactive material will be spread when it explode, even though the chance of explosion is almost null. On the other hand, in order to cease man made mistake, automatic safety property should be introduced. For instance, control rods will be inserted in reactor at once automatically when the temperature or pressure over the standard range, while ensure the power supply of control rod and monitoring system. The disaster had taught us that something should be done to prevent the radioactive material from spreading. Thus, a fallout shelter which performs the task should be build for any nuclear-based facilities, including nuclear power plant. Another approach to prevent the disaster happen is to ensure all plant operators are clear with the safety guidelines, besides the knowledge of nuclear science. The ultimate method to prevent the disaster is, of course, not to build a nuclear plant at all! This is possible with the development of alternative energy source such as solar power and fuel cell.

My blogging buddy was Tiffany. =)

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Here are some facts regarding Chernobyl power plant:

"The agreement to build the Chernobyl power plants dates from 1966, when the former Soviet Union decided to develop nuclear production of electricity. The RBMK reactor design also dates from this period. Six 1 000 MWe reactors were planned at that time.

Unit 1, which begin production in 1977, stopped in November 1996. In December 1997, it was decided to decommission.

Unit 2, which was first connected to the grid in December 1978, was stopped in 1991 after damage due to fire. The Ukrainian national authorities decided to definitely close this plant in March 1999.

Unit 3, which started in 1981 has had many shut downs for maintenance, inspections and repairs since 1997. In June 2000, the Ukrainian authorities decided to close it definitely on 15 December 2000.

Units 5 and 6 were under constructions at the site at the time of accident, but were never finished."

-http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c08.html

Cause-Effect

Deforestation has been pinpointed as a serious environmental problem in Southeast Asia. What are the causes/circumstances that give rise to this problem?

Deforestation is the permanent destruction of indigenous forests and woodlands. Research shows that more than 80 % of the Earth’s natural forests already have been destroyed. Currently, 12 million hectares of forests are cleared annually. Obviously, these are the results from human activities. The major cause of deforestation is logging, despite of legal or illegal. Overpopulation that happen in most country in SE Asia has urged the conversion of forests to agricultural land to feed growing numbers of people. In Indonesia, people are still using fire to clear forest for that purpose and sometimes it cause conflagration that burnt a large scale of forest. Millions of hectares of forest were burnt in 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2002. Construction industry, furniture, paper and even chopsticks manufacturing industry demand a huge number of trunks, causing many forests had been categorized as timber plantation land. As many countries in SE Asia are still developing country, timber is an important resource of national income. Unfortunately, current efforts of recycling paper and re-plantation of tree not able to slow down the rate of deforestation. What make thing worse is people simply don't like to recycle!!

Claymore

Claymore is a large 2-edged sword formerly used by Scottish Highlanders. Imagine you are the highlander and you slash it towards your enemy. If you are strong and skillful, your enemy shall be injured, but if you are not that good and the weapon repel back towards you, you will be in trouble.

The more powerful a tools is, the more danger and risky for you to use it. It is truth for a sword, and so does for a nuclear power plant.

After the Chernobyl disaster that happened in 1986, people treat nuclear energy as the Satan. However, the Ukraine government continued to use the same energy plant until it was fully closed at Nov 2000 .(Only the reactor 4 was exploded, the other 3 did not involve in that incident). This implied that Ukraine desperately need that energy, even though that disaster eventually killed a large amount of human due to the nuclear pollution to the land.

Have you ever done something to reduce the energy usage ? A simple habit such as switch off the light when you don't need it is not just helps to save your bill, but also helps to preserve the energy. For those who still unclear, the supply of electricity is actually determined by the demand.

We are the one who holds the responsibility of the exhausted resource ; we are the one who create the tendency of building a nuclear energy plant. No one will believe that Malaysia has the ability to build a nuclear plant now but please don't deny the possibility for the future.

I do hope that we can develop new technology to generates electricity so that we don't need to rely on such a risky tools.

Why not ??

It is not surprising that Malaysia will build a nuclear energy plant. Malaysia's petroleum will be exhausted within 1o years if there is no new oil field discovered. Hence, there is a need for Malaysia to seek for an alternative energy source. In fact, the cost of running a nuclear energy plant is much more economic compare with a fossil fuel energy plant. If we considering its' high efficiency , a nuclear energy plant is actually a good solution for energy source.For instance, the energy generated from 1g of Uranium 235 is equivalent to the energy gained from burning 230 tan of coals. On the other hand, it generates a reliable electricity and takes up a little space for the plant compare with solar or wind energy plant which are also alternatives. From the environmentally view, the nuclear plant does not emit massive carbon dioxide gas as fossil fuel energy plant does, which is the main cause of global warming. Furthermore, a well-designed nuclear energy plant will never emit harmful radiative rays to its surroundings.This is because after the reactor accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (26 April 1986), the safeness of a nuclear plant is highly emphasized to prevent the horrible disaster happens again. The only thing that we need to pay attention is how to deal with the nuclear waste and the high temperature cooling water. The former is the raw material of nuclear bomb and the latter can destroy the ecosystem where it being pour to.When there is a complete system to ensure that these waste can be treated safely, there is no reason why a nuclear energy plant shouldn't be build.

my blogging buddy: mr SAW

Nuclear plant in Malaysia??

There is a rumor that Malaysia will build a nuclear plant if the oil price exceed US 100 Dollars per barrel. Clarified by the Assistant Minister of Energy, Dato' Shaziman bin Mansor, Malaysia does not have that intention in the short run but there might be a possibility in the future. (Quote from Sin Chew Daily)
What is the rationale of developing nuclear energy plant instead of solar or wind energy plant which is more environmentally friendlier ?

My Life's Meaning

Hey, I'm not attempt to be a philosopher to teach you or to change your mind about what's your meaning of life, but just want to leave my first post as a brief introduce of myself (but the truth is I've been ordered to do so by dear BB sensei). Frankly speaking , until now I've already in my 21 ,i still don't know what's the meaning of my life. What I've done these years seem not much. Study study and study. I dislike this kind of life. So i joined many activity once i step my life into a foreign country. Ha, i just learned how to swim last week and now i can swim already! I'm also learning how to play guitar, how to use photoshop, and Aikido, while do some volunteer work at old folks home and become an active nussu SAVE member to convince people do something for our planet.....etc.But most important is to be with friends & family (lah). All these are so fun ! So my conclusion is, as long as I live happily and satisfy for what I'm doing now , who care the meaning of life? Let those philosopher study this question for the rest of their life since they have nothing better to do! And for me, as a engineer(future) I will only apply what i learned to build a better world ,that's reality. Who cares the meaning of life???