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world news Dialuna 4 Juli 2022

Regulator urges Germans to prepare for possible gas shortage

(AP) — Fearing Russia the fuel used to generate an event organized by the
might cut off natural gas electricity, power industry weekly newspaper Die Zeit
supplies, the head of Ger- and heat homes in the winter. on Saturday, according to
many’s regulatory agency German news agency dpa.
for energy called on resi- Russian state-owned energy
dents Saturday to save company Gazprom blamed a Habeck warned last month
energy and to prepare for technical problem for the re- that a “blockade” of the pipe-
winter, when use increas- duction in natural gas flow- line is possible starting July
es. ing through Nord Stream 1, 11, when regular mainte-
a pipeline which runs under nance work is due to start. In
Federal Network Agency the Baltic Sea from Russia to previous summers, the work
President Klaus Mueller Germany. has entailed shutting Nord
urged house and apartment Stream 1 for about 10 days,
owners to have their gas boil- The company said equip- he said.
ers and radiators checked and ment getting refurbished in
adjusted to maximize their Canada was stuck there be- The question is whether the
efficiency. cause of Western sanctions upcoming regular mainte- we shouldn’t make promises Hamburg’s state govern-
over Russia’s war in Ukraine. nance of the Nord Stream 1 if we’re not entirely sure we ment’s senator for the en-
“Maintenance can reduce gas gas pipeline will turn into “a can keep them.” vironment also expressed
consumption by 10% to 15% German leaders have rejected longer-lasting political main- concern and said he couldn’t
,” he told Funke Medien- that explanation and called tenance,” the energy regula- He said his agency “does not rule out that the northern
gruppe, a German newspaper the reductions a political tor’s Mueller said. see a scenario in which there German city would need to
and magazine publisher. move in reaction to the Eu- is no more gas coming to limit hot water for private
ropean Union’s sanctions If the gas flow from Russia Germany at all.” households in the event of a
Mueller said residents and against Russia after its attack is “to be lowered for a longer gas shortage.
property owners need to use on Ukraine. period of time, we will have Also on Saturday, German
the 12 weeks before cold to talk more seriously about chemical and consumer “In an acute gas shortage
weather sets in to get ready. Germany is dealing with “a savings,” he said. goods company Henkel said emergency, hot water could
He said families should start quasi economic warfare con- it was considering encour- only be made available at cer-
talking now about “whether flict” against the backdrop According to Mueller, in the aging its employees to work tain times of the day,” Jens
every room needs to be set at of the Russian invasion of event of a gas supply stop- from home in the winter as a Kerstan told weekly newspa-
its usual temperature in the Ukraine, said Vice Chancel- page, private households response to a possible supply per Welt am Sonntag.
winter -- or whether some lor Robert Habeck, who is would be specially protected, shortage.
rooms can be a little colder.” also Germany’s economy and as would hospitals or nursing Last month, economy min-
climate minister and respon- homes. “We could then greatly re- ister Habeck activated the
The appeal came after Russia sible for energy. duce the temperature in the second phase of Germany’s
reduced gas flows to Germa- “I can promise that we will offices, while our employees three-stage emergency plan
ny, Italy, Austria, the Czech The Russian calculation is do everything we can to could heat their homes to for natural gas supplies,
Republic and Slovakia ear- to “destroy the unity and avoid private households the normal extent,” Henkel warning that Europe’s big-
lier this month, as European solidarity of the country” being without gas,” he said, CEO Carsten Knobel told gest economy faced a “crisis”
Union countries scramble to through high energy prices adding: “We learned from daily newspaper Rheinische and storage targets for the
refill storage facilities with in Germany, Habeck said at the coronavirus crisis that Post. winter were at risk.

How a favela in Rio got its clean water back, for $42,300

(AP) — Butterflies and income Enchanted Valley its 40 families. “It was harder back then to biodigester, where sewage
waxbills flit through the community – which drew make people aware, show is ingested by anaerobic mi-
Enchanted Valley just out- its name from a nearby resi- It started full operations in that everyone would ben- croorganisms. Remaining
side Rio de Janeiro’s Ti- dential project – but the util- June, and is the first inde- efit,” he told The Associated fluids then proceed to snake
juca Forest National Park. ity never connected it to the pendently built biosystem Press as he walked through beneath the constructed wet-
There are fruit trees, a city’s sewage network. Waste for an entire Brazilian favela, the community. land, getting cleansed by fer-
nearby waterfall and a was contaminating the lo- according to Theresa Wil- tilizing the plants above.
commanding view out cal environment and putting liamson, executive director He found allies among re-
over the Atlantic Ocean. residents’ health at risk. at Catalytic Communities, a searchers of Pontifical Cath- The full price of the sys-
But for decades something nonprofit that supports the olic University of Rio de tem was about 220,000 reais
was spoiling the idyll: the So the community set out to underserviced communi- Janeiro, where he had been ($42,300). That’s one quarter
stench of raw sewage. solve the problem on its own ties. And it could serve as an working as an administra- what it would have cost to
by building a biodigester and example for rural hamlets tive assistant. They secured run pipes through the forest
Electricity arrived in the late artificial wetland to process across Brazil. According to money from Rio state’s down to the existing sew-
20th century to the low- all sewage generated by all of official data, 45% of Brazil- foundation for the support age network at sea level, ac-
ians’ sewage isn’t collected. of research to complete a first cording to Leonardo Adler,
phase in 2015, and more re- founding partner of of Taboa
The Enchanted Valley proj- cently German and Brazilian Engenharia, which oversaw
ect is years in the making. nonprofits Viva Con Agua the technical side of works.
The president of the local and Instituto Clima e Socie-
residents’ association, Otávio dade to connect every home, The federal government
Barros, brought a group of with additional funding from has a plan to improve sew-
tourists to a waterfall down- Catalytic Communities. age treatment throughout
hill in 2007 and, when they Brazil, which it is pursuing
wanted to bathe in its waters, Barros labored alongside through private concessions
he told them they couldn’t; five other residents from the of large urban areas. But that
all the community’s sew- neighborhood for months, approach doesn’t help small,
age flowed through that cas- including some three weeks isolated communities like
cade. The seed of an idea was during which time they were Enchanted Valley, where the
planted, though, and he start- just breaking through rocks smell of sewage is now gone
ed drumming up support. to create a pathway for new and its nearby waterfall is
pipes. They lead to the domed clean for bathing.