Day 011 - 12 Jul 94 - Page 55


     
     1        A.  The worldwide figures were taken from this book which
              is the report of the World Meteorological Organisation
     2        United Nations Environmental Programme, and this, in fact,
              gives, if I can find the right page, an estimate in 1990
     3        of sources and sinks of methane worldwide.  At that time
              the world estimate was down as 40 terograms of methane
     4        which can be related to a million tonnes, if you like, but
              the error bars were between 20 and 70.
     5
              In other words, the minimum that had been estimated was 20
     6        terograms and the maximum 70, which is why I said there
              was a considerable error in whatever value you choose to
     7        put on landfill sites because they are very badly
              documented, and the rate at which they start leaking
     8        methane depends upon the particular type of biodegradable
              material which has gone into the landfill site.
     9
              If we take the United Kingdom figures which are probably
    10        better, in that the United Kingdom is better documented,
              we actually find in that case -- if you will bear with me,
    11        my Lord?
 
    12   MISS STEEL:  I do not know whether this matters.  Really what
              I was after was you gave some figures for rice production?
    13        A.  The rice production figure ------
 
    14   Q.   And I just wondered whether you had the comparable figures
              for -----
    15        A.  The rice production figures are also taken from the
              IPCC scientific assessment and the annual release there
    16        was down as 110 terograms of methane and the error range
              was given as 25 to 170, with the comment made that as
    17        India and the People's Republic of China have almost no
              statistical information on this published, that it is
    18        almost entirely worked on the estimate of the consumption
              of rice by people in those countries as the population has
    19        increased, and the fact that rice is now doubled cropped.
              In other words, there were two sets of crops produced from
    20        the paddy fields per annum whereas in the mid-1940s, in
              fact, you only got one rice crop per annum.  Therefore, on
    21        the basis that you are producing more rice because you are
              producing it twice as often, an estimate has been made
    22        for, assuming that the amount of methane produced in the
              production of rice scales with the rice amount, than that
    23        is the amount of methane that you will get.  This is just
              a paraphrase of what it actually says in the book.  If you
    24        want, it is actually on page 20, section 1.3.3.2.
 
    25   Q.   I am not particularly wanting to go into a lot of detail.
              I was just trying to get the comparable figure.  I did not 
    26        know whether he had a chart which all those figures in 
              that also gave the landfill figures. 
    27
         MR. RAMPTON:  I am sorry, Professor Duxbury, do you think it
    28        would be perhaps helpful, my Lord, if Professor Duxbury
              handed that book -- she will have to give it back -----
    29
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am not sure that Miss Steel is asking more
    30        than to look in -----
 

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