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November 29, 2010
(Editor's Note: Rather than simply
dispensing the news (as found) as we have for years now, we will
from now on inject our own thoughts as time and energy permits.)
Saying ‘yes’ is one of the dominant tropes of
American life....You might even say — and some historians have —
that Americans themselves have been pre-selected for their
optimism:...Google’s chiefs are striving to build a culture
of yes, but most of America is living in a culture
of no: banks aren’t lending, businesses aren’t
hiring and consumers aren’t spending. That’s true of
much of Europe, too: the latest act in the sovereign
debt crisis has pushed the continent deeper into its
new age of austerity.
The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts
to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more
than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years
and hired several high-profile former government officials to
advance their causes in Washington, government records show.
When it comes to solar cells, everyone is chasing the highest
conversion efficiency. Although we’ve seen conversion
efficiencies of
over 40 percent achieved with multi-junction solar cells in
lab environments, Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab is bringing this
kind of efficiency to mass production with the announcement of
its C3MJ+ solar cells which boast an average conversion
efficiency of 39.2 percent.
Contagion from the European debt crisis could infect U.S.
markets, and if it does, it will happen fast, says John Bogle,
founder of the Vanguard asset-management firm.
European markets have taken a beating lately due to concerns
that economic crises in Ireland will spread to countries such as
Spain and Portugal.
Ireland has accepted a bailout package to rescue its banking
sector, but the problem with European bailouts...
This famous beach resort, which will next week host international
climate change talks, was itself born from the destruction of a
potent resource to fight global warming.
The announcement came as the leaders of both countries met in St.
Petersburg to expand bilateral trade and energy-cooperation between
the countries, according to an AFP report on Tuesday.
As it becomes ever more clear that Congress has retreated from
climate change legislation faster than a Greenland glacier,
cities and states are starting to focus on adapting to the
inevitable.
Although some world leaders have declared that no meaningful
agreement will be produced, a senior U.N. official said the talks
can produce significant progress on forest protection, aid for
developing nations and technology sharing. U.N. Assistant
Secretary-General Robert Orr told reporters that enough issues are
close to resolution, “that an important outcome could be achieved.”
It's estimated that around 2.6 billion people
around the world make do without any sanitation, including more
than 10 million in the slums of Kenya. Still more have to use
thinly disguised holes in the ground. A group of MIT students
have joined forces to try and create a sustainable toilet
solution for those in need.
The growing outrage over the Transportation
Security Administration’s new policy of backscatter scanning of
airline passengers and “enhanced pat-downs” brings to mind these
wise words from President Ronald Reagan: “The nine most terrifying
words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m
here to help you.’”
Dual-axis tracking systems generate more power
than fixed arrays by continuously positioning the PV array so
that the incident angle of solar energy is 0°.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1) allows
taxpayers eligible for the federal
business energy investment tax credit (ITC) to take this credit
or to receive a grant from the U.S. Treasury Department instead
of taking the business ITC
As you know, we do not think the Senate Food Safety bill will
make food safer; quite the contrary. At least we have succeeded
in removing the very worst parts of it. Together we have worked
to modify language that would have committed the US to
harmonization of food and especially supplement rules with the
rest of the world similar to those in Europe, where attempts are
being made to regulate away natural health. Working with the
natural health community, we also succeeded in winning inclusion
of the Tester amendment with its protection of small farmers.
Concentrations of the main greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
have reached their highest level since pre-industrial times, the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday.
They're hiding under your sink, deep in the basement and out in
your garage. They seem to be multiplying and most of them are
green, for gosh sakes!
They are cleaning products.
The latest Word from DC: the
Senate schedule, which showed the Monday session starting at
9:30 AM and taking up S.510 after "morning business" now shows
the morning session starting at 2 PM -- this means lots of
"back-room" wheeling and dealing as the Bigs try to rescue their
fake "food safety" bill
Weaning Kentucky from its overwhelming dependence on
coal-generated electricity offers economic opportunities and job
growth, according to a new report from the Berea-based Mountain
Association for Community Economic Development.
A peer-reviewed report on the fate of the oil released during the BP
Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico generally confirms the
percentages initially announced by the US government in August, the
government said November 23.
There have been a number of stories recently about how turbine
noise impacts people who live close to wind farms. Inevitably,
the conversation comes back to whether the turbines are too
loud.
Measuring decibel levels is extremely important, as
it is an objective way to compare the sound to
everything else around us.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said
on Tuesday that more oil from the BP spill was chemically dispersed
than previously estimated but it made no changes to its estimate of
how much oil surged into the Gulf of Mexico and how much was
captured.
Unrest in Nigeria's
Niger Delta could pose a strong threat to the government,
weakening its authority ahead of the presidential elections scheduled
for January 22, 2011 and bring the oil industry to a stand-still.
Concerned about your heart?
You should be . . .
Heart disease is the No.1 killer in America. And this is true for not
only men but also women.
In fact, heart disease kills more women each year than all cancers
combined. And yes, that includes breast cancer.
In what is one of the most serious border incidents since the
1950-53 war, North Korea fired dozens of shells at a South Korean
island near the countries' disputed maritime border, killing two
South Korean marines and injuring 18 others, four of them seriously.
Yesterday the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU)
approved a 15-year PPA for National Grid to purchase the power
and RECs generated by Cape Wind. This is yet one more step
forward for the 420-MW project, which has been in the works for
almost 10 years.
Thanks to a new bill signed into law by Gov.
Edward Rendell, Pennsylvania has become the latest state to
mandate electronics recycling.
It's that time of year when pundits forecast trends. Pike
Research appears to be first out of the gate, so we'll pass them
the crystal ball today. Of course, they work pretty hard to
quantify market directions, so this isn't a séance but the
synthesis of key findings from their 2010 output.
“The numbers so far have shown that the Irish
banking system has been bleeding deposits,” El-Erian said in
Bloomberg Radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom
Keene. “It will seriously undermine the prosperity of this
country for a generation.
Unlike traditional insulation that blocks all
heat equally, this innovative wall insulation material absorbs
heat during the day to keep the interior cool and slowly
releases the stored heat at night to warm the building when the
sun goes down.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans have
been strong advocates for Indian self-determination for decades,
but change is in the air, according to a new research paper by
top scholars. With the U.S. House of Representatives shifting
overwhelmingly toward the GOP after the fall elections, Indians
are left watching whether some disconcerting trends will
continue.
A new report puts combined annual revenue for
the waste management industry in the United States at $75
billion per year, according to First Research.
This is ambition with a capital A. Universities
in Japan and Algeria have teamed up on a project that aims to
solve the world’s energy problems. Called the Sahara Solar
Breeder Project, the plan is to build manufacturing plants
around the Sahara Desert and extract silica from sand to make
solar panels, which will then be used to build solar power
plants in the desert.
WITH ENERGY COSTS
STILL RISING AND energy regulations still in flux, industry
regulators find themselves struggling to guide their states’
energy policies during a period of great uncertainty. The
nation’s energy future looks more green, but the way to reach
that path still lacks clarity.
In a never-ending quest to eliminate human contact with germs,
science has given society a number of hygienic chemicals. Among these
chemicals are Triclosan, found commonly in anti-bacterial soaps,
toothpaste, and many other products, and Bisphenol A (BPA), found in the
protective lining of food cans. A new study from researchers at the
University of Michigan (UM) in Ann Arbor suggests that these chemicals
may be detrimental to the immune system and cause
allergies.
Hardly a year ago, contractors who specialize in green energy
were joyful even while the construction industry as a whole was
reeling from the effects of the recession.
Cotton has held an important significance for
mankind for thousands of years. The earliest traces of cotton
were found in caves in Mexico that proved to be over 7,000 years
old, and 3,000 years ago Egyptians were growing, spinning and
weaving cotton cloth.
Tapping the Earth's ocean tides for affordable, renewable energy
could ultimately meet 10 percent of America's electricity needs,
advocates say.
Several decisions go into a utility's decision
to acquire solar energy, including the operations and
maintenance costs of ownership. The Electric Power Research
Institute has considered the issue with a recent report on the
industry's best practices
A typical American household spends about 90 percent of their
food budget on processed foods, and are in doing so exposed to a
plethora of artificial food additives, many of which can cause
dire consequences to your health.
A thousand square kilometers of the Alaskan tundra
burned in September 2007, a single fire that doubled the area burned in
the region since 1950. However, a new study in the Journal of
Geophysical Research finds that the fire was even more unprecedented
than imagined: sediment cores found that it was the most destructive
fire in the area for at least 5,000 years and maybe longer.
The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled plans to begin
issuing new offshore wind energy leases as soon as next year under
an accelerated approval process.
30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.40 percent with an
average 0.8 point for the week ending November 24, 2010, up slightly
from last week when it averaged 4.39 percent. Last year at this
time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.78 percent.
After receiving funding the the government, 11 navy sites are
set to go solar and to save more than $800,000 yearly.
The U.S. Senate today unanimously approved
legislation to resolve major water claims in the State of
Arizona and provide a reliable source of drinking water to the
White Mountain Apache Tribe.
Global grain production will tumble by 63 million metric tons
this year, or 2 percent over all, mainly because of weather-related
calamities like the Russian heat wave and the floods in Pakistan,
the United Nations estimates in its
most
recent report on the world food supply. The United Nations had
previously projected that grain yields would grow 1.2 percent this
year.
The global average temperature has increased over the past 160
years, but short-term trends in temperature and sea ice seem to be
at odds with each other and need more research, the UK Met Office's
Hadley Center said.
World temperatures could soar by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees
Fahrenheit) by the 2060s in the worst case of global climate
change and require an annual investment of $270 billion just to
contain rising sea levels, studies suggested on Sunday.
November 23, 2010
Former U.S. Vice President
Al Gore reportedly has had a change of heart on ethanol, telling
a conference on green energy in Europe that he only supported tax
breaks for the alternative fuel to pander to farmers in his home
state of Tennessee and the first-in-the-nation caucuses state of
Iowa.
Proposals rife with geological information and community support
letters were submitted to the FutureGen Alliance Nov. 15, putting
six communities in the competition for the coveted FutureGen
underground carbon dioxide storage hub.
The European Union's bailout of Ireland may give short-term
relief to markets, but despite euro zone hopes, may not prevent
markets from pushing Portugal to get EU assistance too, unless a
more general solution is found soon.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Saturday in
Barstow after samples of the city's water supply were found to be
contaminated with a chemical used in rocket fuel and defense
manufacturing.
As numerous cities get set to levy
voter-approved taxes on medical marijuana retailers, some
municipalities in Northern California are already moving
aggressively toward creating government-sanctioned marijuana
farms to help supply them.
Investors are worried about Ireland’s banks – and rightfully
so, with some estimates placing their bad debts at around $80
billion.
Coaxing China into a global grand bargain to fight climate change
that also satisfies the United States and other rich nations
threatens to be even more daunting and elusive than fixing the
economic rifts dividing them.
A U.S. congressional report that called on Washington to do
more to force China to increase the value of its currency
constitutes interference in Beijing's internal affairs, the
Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday.
Renewable Portfolio Standard Dead, for now
Even renewable energy's back-up plan for federal
support appears to be off the table.
Costs of combating global warming will rise inexorably if the
world fails to cap greenhouse gases by 2015, but new technologies
can curb the price, the head of the U.N. climate panel said on
Monday.
You might think that politicians have enough on their plates trying
to fix the economy, fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dealing with
humanitarian crises in Haiti and Pakistan, and other matters of national
import. But money talks, especially in politics, and a tiny bug is
causing a big ruckus on Capitol Hill.
Ever since the abortion debate burst on the American political scene in
the wake of the Roe v Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, women
have voted more Democratic than men. Particularly unmarried women
have since typically backed Democratic candidates - attracted by their
pro-choice positions - by between ten and twenty points in each
election.
Environmental groups and power companies are touting the benefits
of emissions-free electric vehicles as a way to cut pollution in
Texas.
But do electric vehicles, especially in Texas where much
electricity is generated with coal, simply move emissions from the
tailpipe to the smokestack?
WADE USA and the U.S. Clean Heat & Power Association (USCHPA) today
released a study that examines the effect of an expanded investment tax
credit on the deployment of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in the United
States. The study highlights the current obstacles
the CHP industry faces due to economic uncertainties, volatile energy
prices, regulatory barriers and lack of financing.
Global emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide are likely to reach record levels in 2010, according to
research led by the University of Exeter, published today in the
journal "Nature Geoscience." The 2009 drop in emissions due to
the global financial crisis will be more than offset by renewed
growth in fossil fuel burning in 2010.
During the heart of the recession in 2009, CO2
emissions fell as economic activity slowed. Now that the world
is seeing modest signs at recovery, the pace of economic
activity has picked up and so have the CO2 emissions.
Global use of materials—the food, feed, forest
products, metals, and minerals that constitute the foundation of
modern economies—was up 2.7 percent in 2007, the latest year for
which global data are available. The 2007 pre-recession
expansion was the fifth consecutive year of relatively robust
global growth in materials use.
'AUSTRALIAN farmers are looking for the same
thing that American farmers need, and that is to farm
profitably, and build soil and heal the land while farming.''
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., has a powerful ally as he asks for
answers about a decision on the future of Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the new head of the House's Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, signed a letter with Hastings on
Friday requesting the release of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
decision.
The electric transmission grid is a crucial component of
modern society – much like the cornerstone of a building,
transmission is the foundation that supports activity in
virtually all areas of the energy sector. Industry and
government leaders are increasingly finding that, in order to
reap the full benefits of renewable energy and smart grid
technologies, the capacity and information-carrying ability of
transmission systems much be expanded substantially.
US authorities are on the hunt for a radioactive
mouse living in the grounds of a historic nuclear weapon production
plant.
Radioactive mouse droppings were discovered in the grounds of the
Hanford nuclear plant in Washington state.
It comes two weeks after a radioactive rabbit was captured on the
same site,..
Backers and critics of the proposed Taylorville Energy Center are
ratcheting up campaigns to win legislative support as Illinois'
first clean-coal project faces judgment day in Springfield.
Ireland begins two nervous weeks of political maneuvering on
Tuesday as the government dares the opposition to block an
austerity budget on which a multi-billion euro EU/IMF bailout is
riding.
After weeks of denying it needed a financial
rescue, the Irish government this morning agreed to a
humiliating bailout to keep its banking system solvent
As controversy swirls over the use of full-body scanners at U.S.
airports, the former security director for Israel’s national airline
says airline security in America is an “illusion” and the U.S. should
profile passengers to ensure safety.
Japan, which imports more than 95% of its carbon-based fuel
needs in the form of oil, gas or coal, has for decades looked
for the means to reduce its reliance on foreign suppliers and
increase its energy security.
For several years now, Environmental Working Group (EWG) has
been warning of the risks associated with bisphenol A (BPA) -
especially the BPA in baby bottles, sippy cups and cans of
infant formula. EWG has also been a leader in trying to get
state and federal agencies to regulate this hazardous chemical.
The tour started with a conventionally built
home that has solar panels, a wind turbine, and a backup
generator.
Cape Wind passed another major milestone today with the approval
by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) of the
15-year Power Purchase Agreement with National Grid to buy Cape
Wind's energy, capacity and renewable energy credits.
A national panel appointed to study nuclear waste disposal
options will tour Savannah River Site, and possibly Plant Vogtle,
during a visit that has been scheduled for Jan. 6-7, according to
the U.S. Department of Energy.
Never mind that he couldn't persuade even a top heavy Democratic
Congress to pass either program. Or that public opinion polls show
massive rejection of both measures. Or that each is a sure job
killer by itself -- and together, they are even worse. This
arrogant, ideologically-driven radical is determined to have his way and
the public be damned!
It's too early to say for sure, but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden could
very well go down in the history books as the man who saved the
Internet.
There is considerable amount of uncertainty concerning the
environmental impacts that animal hormones have on surface water.
Higher concentrations of hormones in waterways have been found to
cause physiological and sexual impairment in fish and other aquatic
species. However, a study from the University of Delaware that
examined estrogen concentrations runoff from agricultural fields
fertilized with chicken manure found that it is as much about the
application of the manure as it is about the measurement of the
types of estrogen.
Communities are gearing up to implement the
state’s new medical marijuana law, but a lot of how it will work
is still unknown, according to town and Navajo County officials.
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member
Susan Collins, R-Me., Wednesday — as well as all four witnesses
at a Committee hearing on a new cyber security threat — said the
public and private sectors must work together to deter the very
real possibility of cyber attacks on the operating systems of
the nation's critical infrastructure — not just by a recently
discovered worm, known as Stuxnet, but also by far less powerful
threats.
President Barack Obama will be asked – again – for a formal and
public apology to Indian country on behalf of the U.S.
government for past atrocities, said Don Coyhis, whose White
Bison Inc. made a cross-country trek in 2009 fruitlessly seeking
such an acknowledgment.
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility's latest list of
dairy processors in the largest 100 that have gone rBGH-free
continues to grow.
The new Basel III banking rules will leave the biggest U.S.
banks short of between $100 billion and $150 billion in equity
capital, with 90 percent of the shortfall concentrated in the
top six banks, the Financial Times said, citing research from
Barclays Capital.
A key Republican on Thursday asked lawmakers to consolidate
energy oversight in the House of Representatives into one powerful
energy committee.
From a barge floating above the deepest point on earth, a
research team hopes to drill through half a million years of history
to uncover secrets of climate change and natural disasters.
Moscow is "closely watching" Europe's shift to
renewable energy and foresees continued demand for gas to
balance fluctuations in green energy output, Russian Energy
Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Monday
the Senate Food
Safety bill (S. 510) will not
include those obscene ten-year jail sentences for food and
supplement manufacturers who violate complicated FDA rules.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar met with oil and gas companies
that work in the Gulf of Mexico's shallow waters on Monday, but the
talks did nothing to jump start drilling activity as the industry
had hoped.
A little more than a year ago, Sen. Barbara Boxer staged a rally
on the Capitol grounds to introduce the most ambitious effort in the
nation's history to curb climate change. On Thursday, the newly
re-elected California Democrat and environmental champion was
thinking smaller - a lot smaller - about what Congress might
accomplish on the global warming front.
The wind industry is putting on a brave face. It
says that the results midterm election translate
into support for renewable energy. At the federal
level, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)
is pushing for an extension of tax incentives.
A new Pike Research survey finds that 44 percent of consumers are
“extremely” or “very” interested in purchasing a plug-in electric
vehicle (PEV) with a driving range of 40 to 100 miles and an electricity
cost equivalent of $0.75 per gallon but unproven technology and
reliability concerns may be major roadblocks to demand.
It's become the key question bandied about
in energy circles: Which sector has received the most government help?
Fossil fuels get five times the subsidies, say wind advocates - a point
quickly countered by free marketers who note that coal and natural gas
produce a lot more electricity than wind.
When the first immigrants from Europe arrived on the North
American shores, they were homeless and hungry. They survived
thanks to the generosity and kindness of Native peoples, who
helped them through the first brutal northeastern winter and
shared traditional methods of agriculture that would sustain
them through future seasons.
More than half the TARP banks have repaid the money and the
Treasury Department has netted a $28 billion profit so far. The
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. also has brought in $12 billion
on its guarantee program while the Federal Reserve "may have
made" an additional $20 billion, according to Dick Bove, who
incidentally isn’t a friend of the banking system but analyzes
it.
After declining from 2004 to 2007, global unemployment took an
upturn in 2008 and then sharply rose to 212 million in 2009. For
mid-2010, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that
210 million people were unemployed. This compares with a range of
170–190 million jobless persons during the previous decade. The
global unemployment rate rose from 5.7 percent in 2007 to 6.6
percent in 2009.
The US Chamber of Commerce Friday said the Environmental Protection
Agency is "overstepping its bounds" as it considers whether to regulate
coal combustion waste as a hazardous material.
Enough plutonium and uranium to make 775 nuclear
weapons has been removed from the BN-350 fast reactor in
Kazakhstan, built to breed plutonium for the Soviet Union's
nuclear weapons program, and placed in a secure storage facility
to keep terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons.
This past week, Vice President Joe Biden added his voice to the growing
number of those calling for
Congress to extend its Treasury Grant program for Renewable Energy
projects.
November 19, 2010
Progress in advance biofuels has been slow for the past two
years. But industry leaders reported a quickening pace towards
commercialization last week in San Francisco at Advanced
Bioenergy Markets, one of the last major gatherings of industry
CEOs before the close of the year.
An international collaboration of 15 research institutions have
produced and trapped antimatter atoms for the first time ever. The feat
was part of the ALPHA experiment, which is being conducted at
Switzerland’s CERN particle physics laboratory. It could be a step
towards answering one the biggest cosmological questions of all time.
In the headlines lately has been news of China's
monopoly of rare earth elements (REE), adding to China's growing
clout. It would increase their leverage should they choose to
reduce exports, causing REE prices to soar. The United States
imports almost all of its REE from China, putting it in a
position of geopolitical weakness.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of what the anti-science
crowd successfully labeled ‘Climategate’. The media will be doing
countless retrospectives, most of which will be wasted ink, like
the Guardian’s piece — focusing on climate scientists at
the expense of climate science, which is precisely the kind of
miscoverage that has been going on for the whole year!
A new report from the Worldwatch Institute
argues that assuring all women have access to contraception and
taking steps to improve women's lives should be among key
strategies in the fight against global climate change.
the premier source for clean-tech job seekers, employers, and
recruiters. Search current openings among the job categories
listed below.
Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's
Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of
climate change, a study showed on Monday.
As Thanksgiving and the holiday season
approaches, it is time to say just how much we appreciate our
readers and your participation in our forums. I'm a very lucky
fellow to be able to write an energy column to a highly educated
audience that is able to challenge me at every turn. It's made
me better - and better able to prod the audience
Climate change could lead to colder winters in northern regions,
according to a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research on Tuesday.
The disarray stemming from flawed foreclosure documents could
threaten major banks with billions of dollars in losses, deepen
the disruption in the housing market and hurt the government's
effort to keep people in their homes, according to a new report
from a congressional watchdog.
We end today's show with a figure who's been
called the poet-philosopher of the ecology movement. Author and
activist Derrick Jensen has written some 15 books critiquing
contemporary society and the destruction of the environment.
Fast growing small- to medium-sized private
enterprises are a key driver of clean-tech job creation in the
U.S. and beyond. SJF Institute, along with our affiliated
venture capital fund SJF Ventures, has assisted and invested in
many such sustainable companies over the past 11 years.
Lack of a systematic approach to well safety,
numerous flawed decisions, plus technical and operational
breakdowns all contributed to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig
explosion and massive spill from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf
of Mexico, says a scientific committee of the National Academy
of Engineering and National Research Council in a report
released today
Strong demand for crudes loading from the Persian Gulf by Chinese,
Indian and Japanese refiners is continuing while supply is starting to
run out, market sources said.
Lie #1: Industrial Food is Cheap
Lie #2: Industrial Food is Efficient
Energy storage will soon become an essential element of the smart
grid, especially as more power generation from inherently
interimittent sources such as solar and wind come online. So what's
so cool about energy storage? Analysts see a strong, upcoming demand
for energy storage as part of the grid.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
recently released two peer reviewed reports concerning dioxins
emitted during the controlled burns of oil during the Deepwater
Horizon BP spill. Dioxins are a category that describes a group
of hundreds of potentially cancer-causing chemicals that can be
formed during combustion or burning. The reports found that
while small amounts of dioxins were created by the burns, the
levels that workers and residents would have been exposed to
were below EPA's levels of concern.
A new report from the inspector general of the
U.S. EPA on the lack of sufficient monitoring of water supplies
provides more reason for Americans to consider using "final
barrier" technology in their homes, according to the Water
Quality Association.
“The legislation follows a spate of national outbreaks of food
poisoning linked to items as varied as eggs, peanuts and spinach, in
which thousands of people were sickened and more than a dozen died.
Ford 6.8-liter V-10 engine is specially
prepared to burn hydrogen as a fuel but is based on the same modular
engine series that powers many Ford products
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's plan to rejuvenate
the economy by having the Fed buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds
is coming under renewed attack — this time from fellow
Republican economists.
It’s not often that you hear about an invention that was
modeled after bird poop, but there’s a first time for
everything. In fact, this fecally-inspired device could
ultimately be responsible for reforesting billion of acres of
parched land, and it just won Popular
Science’s Best Invention 2010 award. It’s called the
Groasis Waterboxx, and it’s a low-tech product that helps seeds
or saplings grow into strong trees in eroded, arid and rocky
environments.
In response to action by leading U.S.
environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is taking action to keep pollution from coal plant
smokestacks out of America's waterways.
The FDA wants us to believe that seafood from the Gulf of
Mexico is safe to eat less then six months after the area
experienced the greatest environmental disaster in U.S history. The
Food and Drug Administration continually shows disregard to the
health of individuals for the sake of business and this is just
another low. More then 200,000,000 gallons of crude oil and
2,000,000 gallons, possibly more, of dispersants have contaminated
the waters your suggested dinner lives in.
Arpaio said the posse would work with sheriff's deputies in
operations targeting smugglers and businesses suspected of employing
illegal immigrants in the county, among other duties.
A hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle uses a
traditional ICE that has been modified to use hydrogen fuel. The U.S.
Department of Energy's FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies Program has
identified hydrogen-powered ICE vehicles as an important mid-term
technology on the path to the hydrogen economy.
Every student who
took Econ 101 and stayed awake during the lectures learned that the
Federal Reserve has the power to create credit figuratively “out of thin
air.” The A-students also learned that the commercial banking system,
not individual banks, under the fractional-reserve system that
we and every other developed economy has also has the power to
figuratively create credit out of thin air if the Federal
Reserve first provides the “seed” money to do so
Researchers from Tokyo City University and the National Traffic
Safety and Environment Lab in Japan are developing a multi-cylinder
direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) hydrogen internal combustion
engine (ICE) for application in heavy-duty vehicles. The project
aims to deliver a hydrogen ICE system combining high power output
and low NOx generation.
A pioneering lighting system that kills the
superbugs breeding in hospitals has been developed by
researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. The LED
technology, which can be used with or instead of conventional
lighting, decontaminates the air and exposed surfaces by bathing
them in a narrow spectrum of visible-light wavelengths, known as
HINS-light.
Replacing petro-chemical-based plastics with
plant-based alternatives is a growing area of research. One
popular form of plant-derived plastic is Poly(lactic) acid, or
PLA, a type of biodegradable plastic that is currently used to
make bottles, bags and is woven into fibers to make clothes in
place of polyester.
As China clamps down on its exports of rare earth, makers of
batteries, wind turbines and other products are looking for ways to
redesign them to use less of the increasingly costly materials.
Prices have surged for these minerals, used in everything from
iPods to fluorescent light bulbs, since authorities in Beijing
slashed their rare earth exports by 40 percent this summer, saying
China needed them for its own economic development.
The prolonged economic downturn has slowed
progress on development of a new generation of
nuclear power plants in the United States, according
to an executive with Exelon, which operates the
largest nuclear fleet in the United States and the
third largest in the world.
The Transportation Security Administration says
airline passengers won't get out of body imaging screening or
pat-downs based on their religious beliefs.
Renewable energy advocates, now facing Republican control of the
House of Representatives next year, are decoupling from efforts to curb
greenhouse gas emissions and retooling some of their long-standing
proposals as they look for ways to win.
Solar wind speed has increased to about 550 km/s over the past 24 hours. Observations suggest that this increase is in response to a high-speed stream associated with coronal hole number 78 in the northwest hemisphere. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit reached high levels during the period. The geomagnetic field is
expected to be mostly quiet.
Environmental scientists at Clemson University have received a
three-year, $1.2M grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study
how plutonium, a byproduct of used nuclear fuel, interacts with
soil.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday launched an international
organization to tackle climate change with leaders from regional
governments in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and the United
States.
A new report requested by Congress is raising
questions about the safety of a high-security laboratory that
the federal government plans to build in Kansas to study
dangerous animal diseases.
The price of solar panels tumbled in the waning years of the
2000s, yet prices for large-scale solar arrays contracted by
California utilities rose in 2009, a ratepayer advocate group said.
The more environmentally conscious among us
still driving gasoline-powered cars often feel a pang of guilt
as we turn on the air-conditioning on a hot day, knowing that
we’ve just significantly reduced the fuel efficiency of the
vehicle and sent more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
An engineer and manager from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory in Golden, Colo., said Monday an energy transition is
needed to reduce air pollution and foreign oil use and increase
energy security through renewable energy.
Coal-fired power plants in Texas are responsible for dozens of
bad air days in neighboring states each year, according to a new
analysis released by an environmental group Tuesday.
As the backlash over more intrusive airport security methods increases,
the tech site Gizmodo has published 100 of 35,000
low-resolution body scans that were saved improperly during screenings
at the U.S. courthouse in Orlando. Federal officials have claimed that
such "advanced imaging technology" could not store images.
Despite the delays, the so-called “Food Safety Modernization Act”
(S.510) remains a major threat to local food networks and market-based
food systems. S.510 empowers
the FDA with totalitarian authority over the whole gamut of food,
and would give the regulatory agency the ability to wantonly impose
burdensome requirements on even the smallest of food processors, e.g. a
local family farm.
Natural
health diets depend completely on the honeybee. Industry money
infiltrates science once again, as the likeliest culprit behind
the worldwide collapse of bee colonies is revealed—and it’s not
what the New York Times reported!
To decrease the transportation sector's reliance on gasoline, viable
alternatives must be found. Ultracapacitors — energy storage systems
with very high energy density — might be a technology that drives
Americans into a future free of the pump.
Though the massive glaciers of the greater Himalayan region are
retreating slowly, development agencies can take steps now to help
the region's communities prepare for the many ways glacier melt is
expected to impact their lives, according to a new report. Programs
that integrate health, education, the environment and social
organizations are needed to adequately address these impacts, the
report states.
With a bruising national election out of
the way, and Republicans and Democrats showing little inclination to
embrace, how will a national energy policy emerge?
Will renewable portfolio standards continue to be cobbled together
state by state, as has been the case for a number of years? About 30
states now embraced such standards.
Or will a national renewable portfolio standard come out of Congress?
U.S. taxpayers are about $10 billion in the red
on their
General Motors Co. investment after Wednesday's initial public
offering. Whether the Treasury can ultimately break even will depend on
how GM shares perform over the next few years.
The Senate rejected new and draconian jail terms for food and
supplement producers in its Food Safety Bill. The Leahy bill has
since been used as a vehicle to bring the jail terms ( already
included in the House Food Safety bill, which passed) back into the
Senate.
A boost in U.S. auto fuel economy standards
slashed carbon dioxide emissions by 14 percent per mile over the
last six years and reduced gasoline use by 16 percent, the
government said on Wednesday
Typical U.S. homes will reduce their energy bills the most by
generating their own power, rather than implementing energy
efficiency measures, a White Paper suggests.
30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.39
percent with an average 0.9 point for the week ending November
18, 2010, up from last week when it averaged 4.17 percent. Last
year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.83 percent.
The world's oil suppliers will struggle to meet Asia's growing demand
for products in the long term, resulting in sharp upward spikes in
prices over the next two decades, industry consultancy FACTS Global
Energy said in a brief this week.
The police agencies of the world are supporting
INTERPOL's Environmental Crime Programme in an historic display
of consensus. Delegates attending INTERPOL's General Assembly in
Doha, Qatar last week voted unanimously in favor of a resolution
encouraging greater global policing efforts to stem
environmental crimes.
November 16, 2010
Old and new Washington collided on Capitol Hill Monday, and new won.
Within moments of flicking on the Senate lights, Sen. Mitch McConnell
announced that when it came to pork barrel politics he had changed his
mind. The Senate's staunchest fan of so-called earmarks reversed course
and supported a ban on those special spending requests, a bow to the tea
partiers and others in the populist, antiestablishment wave that gave
the GOP control of the House and six more seats in the Senate.
Dust storms scour Iraq. Freak floods wreak havoc in Saudi Arabia and
Yemen. Rising sea levels erode Egypt's coast. Hotter, drier weather
worsens water scarcity in the Middle East, already the world's most
water-short region.
Some say that solar energy is in a dark place.
Others say that brighter days are ahead. While a bad economy has
dampened investment in most new enterprises, green energy has
fared relatively okay. Investors have rewarded solar the most.
Historical ecology of the Andes indicates desert-like setting
on the horizon
Catastrophic drought is on the near-term horizon for the capital
city of Bolivia, according to new research into the historical
ecology of the Andes.
Glaciers of large mountain regions contribute, to some extent
considerably, to the water supply of certain populated areas.
However, in a recent study conducted by Innsbruck glaciologists and
climatologists it has been shown that there are important regional
differences. The results of the study are published in the
scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
No, I am not talking about the Democratic Party. I am
talking about the mainstream commentators on the Federal
Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing, or QE2. In their
defense, perhaps one of the reasons they don’t get is because
the way the Fed, itself, marketed it. This might suggest that
the Fed doesn’t really get it either.
On July 29, 2010, Californians for Green Dentistry launched an
initiative to ban dental mercury, creating mercury-free dental zones
in California. The pilot project was the city of Costa Mesa, a
forward-thinking city of 113,000+ residents in Orange County.
The hydro-dependent Pacific Northwest is far
from the center of America's coal country, but a debate over the
future of one coal-fired power plant in Oregon is reverberating
across the country.
Wikipedia defines “economic bubble” (which it also says is
sometimes referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble,
a price bubble, a financial bubble, a speculative mania or a
balloon) as: “trade in high volumes at prices that are
considerably at variance with intrinsic values. It could also be
described as a trade in products or assets with inflated
values.”
In the past 15 years, we have seen a tech bubble, a real-estate
bubble, a leverage bubble and probably a government-bond bubble.
A handful of swing-state Democrats hold the cards
when it comes to blocking the Obama administration’s
climate change policies.
When Congress passed the landmark stimulus bill in 2009, more
than $90 billion was targeted at clean energy -- the largest
investment of federal dollars in the energy sector ever. Nearly $3
billion was awarded to the Bay Area from the Department of Energy
alone.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu may be a Nobel prize-winning
physicist, but he doesn’t believe he has all the answers.
Electric cars are no longer the playthings of the rich and
curious, the Marshes say. Paul and Cindi are among more than 20,000
other plug-in pioneers, ready to receive the first wave of the
relatively affordable, all-electric Nissan Leaf sedan. Deliveries
begin next month, and other zero-emission models are expected to
follow.
There's no need to choose whether the economic
glass is half full or half empty; it's both. For those who see things
half full:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
has finalized greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting requirements for
the petroleum and natural gas industries as part of the
mandatory reporting program. The petroleum and natural gas
industries emit methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases...
U.S. environmental regulators said on Wednesday they will not
force coal plants and manufacturers to adopt specific technologies
to cut greenhouse gas output, but will push them to become more
energy efficient in order to comply with looming climate rules.
When Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston
Harbor and ignited the Civil War in April 1861, the then-three-story
federal garrison used candles or oil lamps for lighting.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that grass-roots
conservatives are “almost certainly” on the verge of winning “a
great victory” in the form of a ban on all earmarks in the House
of Representatives.
Experts in the safety of genetically modified (GM) organisms
have expressed concern over the release of GM mosquitoes into
the wild on the Cayman Islands, which was publicized
internationally only last month - a year after their initial
release.
Hybrids are three of the four vehicle segments
with the greatest drop in resale value this year...
The United States must move to rein in its massive budget
deficits or it faces the risk of a bond market crisis, former
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Sunday.
"We've got to resolve this issue before it gets forced upon
us," Greenspan said of the ballooning U.S. debt levels.
The United Nations and its partners have
finalized a $164 million plan to support the government of
Haiti's response to the current cholera epidemic. To date, more
than 12,000 Haitians have been hospitalized, and over 800 people
have died, the UN reports.
The International Energy Agency's latest monthly oil market
report, released late last week, highlights one of the
surprising difficulties in interpreting oil market
forecasts: the difference between world oil demand in outright
terms and the implied year-on-year growth.
In simple terms, you might think that the focus should surely
be on the outright demand figure, regardless of whether the
forecast is rising.
The Federal Reserve has tipped its hand. The central bank
unveiled a plan to print money to the tune of $600 billion
between now and June.
Why are they doing this? Well, they’ve shot all of their bullets
in their “interest-rate gun” and that hasn’t worked in turning
the economy around.
Hundreds are expected to arrive Monday morning at the Charleston
Civic Center for a court-ordered mediation of claims they suffered
health problems from polluted mine run-off water.
Depending on which poll or talking head you trust, the
November 2010 Republican election landslide was based on the
following: lack of jobs (driven by layoffs and illegal hiring),
diminished support for Obamacare (driven by a majority of U.S.
citizens against socialized medicine), fiscal chaos (driven by
unrestrained federal spending), weakened economy (driven by fear
of further downturns), and/or disgust with the elitist attitude
of Barack Obama (driven by presidential disdain for small towns
and small businesses).
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics,” said Mark Twain.
Government statistics seems to fall somewhere between the
last two.
Why?
The major industrial economies of Australia, India, China and USA
have been rated as ‘high risk' in a new study evaluating the
vulnerability of 159 countries to water stress, whilst the regions
of the Middle East and North Africa are highest overall risk.
Last week’s election showed strong signs of an increased
focus on our debt problems and genuine concern by many
candidates on reducing the debt.
Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, are reported as
increasing both geographically and in frequency along populated
coastlines. Bargu's research shows that the ubiquitous diatom
Pseudo-nitzschia – an alga that produces the neurotoxin, domoic
acid, or DA, in coastal regions – actually also produces DA at
many locations in the open Pacific.
Like DDT before it, a new class of insecticides known as
neonicotinoids is believed to be causing drastic population declines in
bird species. It is so effective at killing insects, that it has
deprived birds of their basic food. Some scientists also believe they
are behind the decline in bee populations in Europe and the United
States known as honey-bee Colony Collapse Disorder.
Studies now show that the brain does have
the capacity to regenerate. Within each of our brains, there is
a population of neural stem cells which are continually
replenished and can differentiate into brain neurons. You can
encourage this regeneration by taking simple and healthful steps
such as being more active and watching how you eat.
map
With political support now on both sides of the aisle on Capitol
Hill, nuclear energy's long-awaited American "renaissance" is
lacking one positive factor: the economy.
The bus stops before a barbed wire gate at Surry Power Station,
less than a mile from the James River.
Inside the fence, on a concrete pad the size of a football field,
is nearly 1.9 million pounds of radioactive nuclear waste.
President Barack Obama made a much-publicized visit to a mosque
during his recent stay in Indonesia, but he has yet to visit a single
Jewish synagogue since taking office.
Crude Oil Production Rose 140,000 Barrels Per Day From
September
President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans
are talking the same talk when it comes to energy bill
compromises.
Now let's see what happens when they get into a room
together.
I’ve spent years reading about economics. Call me a nerd but I
enjoy understanding how the economy works. But monetary policy? It’s
pretty much voodoo to me. I’ve been doing a lot of reading to try to
understand why the Fed is doing what it’s doing. Either I’m failing
to understand it, or the Fed has put us on a collision course with
high inflation and a worthless dollar.
Economist Robert Reich says that the report from President
Barack Obama's commission on reducing the deficit largely
ignores the biggest driver of future deficits — the relentless
rise in healthcare costs coupled with the pending corrosion of
77 million boomer bodies.
"This is 70 percent of the problem, but it gets about 3 percent
of the space in the draft," Reich writes in his blog.
C-class flares likely for the next 3 days. isolated periods of unsettled conditions at mid and high latitudes. The geomagnetic field is expected to be mostly unsettled to active with a slight chance for an isolated period of minor storming over the next 3 days (16-18 November).
A leading House Republican climate skeptic on
Monday called for his party to preserve a global warming
committee created by Democrats so Republicans can use it to rein
in the Obama administration on the issue.
The price of electricity has shot up faster in
Wisconsin than in all but five other states since 2000, which
could pose a threat to the state's economic competitiveness, a
new analysis by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance says
...with great lucidity, in June of 2005, Sir John penned a
memorandum to friends and family that is uncanny and prophetic
in its vision of what would happen to the U.S. and global
economy.
The first two words — so pithy yet so powerful — are bolded
and highlighted on his original document. They read, simply:
“Financial Chaos.”
A former president of India says satellites could harvest the sun's
energy from space and beam it to Earth to solve the global energy
crisis.
It's become the key question bandied about in
energy circles: Which sector has received the most
government help? Fossil fuels get five times the
subsidies, say wind advocates - a point quickly
countered by free marketers who note that coal and
natural gas produce a lot more electricity than
wind.
Dust storms scour Iraq. Freak floods wreak havoc
in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Rising sea levels erode Egypt's
coast. Tuvulu and the Seychelles may disappear
altogether as hey submerge into the ocean. A comprehensive
vulnerability index suggests you move to Scandinavia, Ireland or
Iceland as slightly safer places. The teeming plains of Asia are
at greater risk in the next 30 years. Ten of the 16 most
vulnerable countries are in Asia where high populations, low
lying land and potential water shortages will plague more than
other places and people.
As many of you know, the value of the U.S. dollar, compared
to a basket of other major world currencies, fell sharply during
the past five months in response to traders’ expectations that
the Federal Reserve would begin a second wave of quantitative
easing.
So what would happen to all the cancer doctors,
pharmaceutical companies, cancer treatment centers, diagnostic centers,
hospitals, researchers, cancer nonprofits, and other cancer-related
vendors if scientists actually did find a cure for cancer?
Not only is Earth's surface warming, but the troposphere -- the
lowest level of the atmosphere, where weather occurs -- is
heating up too, U.S. and British meteorologists reported on
Monday.
Real-estate mogul Donald Trump is fed up with China’s unfair trading
practices, and he’d be happy to see the United States retaliate in kind.
The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people
without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3
rate), but also counts "marginally attached workers and those
working part-time for economic reasons."
Although the United States is still the
world’s #1 economy, it’s increasingly feeling the heat of the
Chinese dragon, breathing down its neck....As the US-economy
continues to stagnate, lifting the all inclusive U-6 jobless
rate to 17.1% of the workforce, the Obama administration and
Congress are starting to wage an increasingly hostile war
against China
Defying Models, Particles Make Some Regions Drier, Others
Wetter
Scientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can
affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and
cool the air.
November 12, 2010
Funding of $100 billion a year by 2020 to help
developing nations deal with climate change is "challenging but
feasible" a high-level advisory group convened by United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.
Increasing investor demand for agricultural land and the
funneling of big money into farms is raising questions about whether
small, family-sized operations can survive.
The national electorate has spoken. So, too, have
the people of California. They overwhelmingly
rejected the efforts to sideline the state's global
warming law in which critical new details are to be
unveiled soon.
Chemicals used to keep grease from leaking
through fast food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags are
migrating into food, being ingested by people and showing up as
contaminants in blood, according to new research at the
University of Toronto.
EPA to Decide Soon on Hazardous Waste Classification
The Environmental Protection Agency has a big
choice to make: to regulate coal ash as a hazardous
waste or to continue to oversee it as a solid waste
with some added enforcement. Public comments end
this month with a decision expected in December.
Solar energy and biofuels are on track to become
economically competitive against conventional power sources
within a few years to a decade, the Boston Consulting Group said
on Wednesday
Quick! True or False: Global warming
will be good for farmers because they'll be able
to grow more corn.
Know the answer?
Offshore oil and gas producers warned of a de facto
moratorium on deepwater drilling in the US Gulf of Mexico as the
Department of the Interior lifted a formal moratorium in effect
since shortly after the Apr. 20 blowout of the Macondo well in
5,000 ft of water off Louisiana.
The biggest automotive revolution since horseless carriages first
rumbled along rutted roads is about to take place -- and you'll have
to strain to hear it.
That's because the first mainstream electric cars in nearly a
century will be hitting the streets over the next couple of months,
and their electric motors are as eerily quiet as they are
tailpipe-emission-free.
Priest Wasseem Sabeeh was halfway through Sunday
Mass, in Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, when an explosion
shook the church. Suddenly men with guns yelling Islamic prayers
burst into the church. They fired at the priests, congregants,
even murals of Mary and the saints.
Walk barefoot on an asphalt road and you'll soon realize how good the
substance is at storing solar heat – the heat-storing qualities of
roadways has even been put forward as an explanation as to why cities
tend to be warmer than surrounding rural areas. Not content to see all
that heat going to waste, researchers from the University of Rhode
Island (URI) want to put it to use in a system that harvests solar heat
from the road to melt ice, heat buildings, or to create electricity.
With Republicans now in control of the US House of Representatives
and a narrower Democratic majority in the US Senate owing to the midterm
elections, the administration of President Barack Obama is likely to
rely more heavily on executive and regulatory powers to move its agenda
forward, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute said
Thursday.
Global upstream capital spending is likely to
grow by 5% this year to exceed $380 billion, but global spending
may require another three years to return to record 2008 levels,
energy consultants Wood Mackenzie said Thursday.
The Federal Reserve is rigging the stock market to boost the
economy, and the consequences may be dire, says Jeremy Grantham,
chairman of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo.
When it comes to stocks, “What I worry about most is the Fed’s
activity,” he tells CNBC.
“QE2 is just the latest demonstration.
Excessive groundwater development represents a greater threat
to nearby rivers and streams during dry periods (low flows) than
previously thought, according to research released recently by
CSIRO.
If you are a Health Care Worker: health care giver,
physician, student or in any allied health and wellness
profession, take the Health Keepers Oath now to prevent the
Medical System from becoming a tool to imprison and kill as
happened in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union… or as is
happening now in Chinese-occupied Tibet and elsewhere.
The Hopi Tribal Council approved a resolution
that will keep the Homolovi Ruins State Historic Park open,
allowing safeguards and protection of the cultural and religious
site.
Greater Portland will become the northern end of an evolving
"hydrogen highway" along the East Coast if a Connecticut company
moves ahead with plans to build a filling station here for a coming
generation of fuel-cell-powered electric vehicles.
Italy will soon be able to claim a new "first":
the A18 Catania-Siracusa motorway, a 30km addition to Sicily's
600km motorway network, will be a fully solar-powered motorway,
the first in its kind.
A new initiative to fight climate change and
conserve forests by leaving oil in the ground has taken off in
Ecuador, which hopes that other
countries will contribute to a fund and share the costs of forgoing oil
revenues.
The sensor, developed at Tel Aviv University by Professor Fernando
Patolsky, uses nanotechnology to achieve its high level of precision. It
can detect a variety of explosives types, especially TNT. Typically,
machines that are used to trace the explosive are costly, take a long
time, are bulky, and require expert analysis. The new machine developed
by Patolsky is inexpensive, quick, easy, and can be held by hand.
On the same day Californians voted against Proposition 23, a
ballot measure which would have effectively frozen the state's
pioneering climate and energy legislation, regulators in New
Mexico approved a set of comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions
reduction regulations that are more aggressive than any other
such rules in the country.
If you're like many Americans, you're hoping that a
new Congress and President in 2012
will repeal President Obama's health reform law. But, no matter who is
in the White House
and controls Congress, they won't be able to repeal. Tucked into the
1,000-plus pages of
the bill is a provision setting up a board called the Independent
Payment Advisory Board.
German police cleared roadblocks and carried off protesters to
enable a convoy of nuclear waste from France to reach a German
storage site on Tuesday, ending a tortuous five-day odyssey.
After days of largely peaceful stand-offs between anti-nuclear
demonstrators and police, trucks with 11 containers of waste
completed the last 20 km (12 mile) leg of the trip from the town of
Dannenberg to the storage site in Gorleben.
Six inches in length, the weld flaw is believed to penetrate more
than 70 percent of the metal on the recirculation nozzle.
President Obama's last-ditch attempt to turn out his voter base worked
-- and changed the 2010 election from a tsunami of epic proportions into
a mere catastrophe for the Democrats.
For some, 2009 was the hangover, for others it
spelled readjustment and recovery. Platts Top 250 Global Energy
Rankings for 2010 might be taken as a survivors’ guide to the
financial crisis.
Around 1 in 300 people who are infected with HIV are able to
bear the infection without progressing to illness and can delay the
start of treatment. Bruce Walker has been researching this mystery
actively since 2006 and has finally found his answer. It seems as
simple as a cellular game of hide and seek.
Though digging through shale for oil and gas began more than
100 years ago, it has only recently become something that people
flock to, not very different from the gold rush of days gone by.
Looking at the success of the US, where shale gas is expected to
rise from 42% of total gas production to 64% by 2020, the whole
world is looking at shale with new eyes. Australia, Europe,
China and India are all looking to shale to deliver their
own golden eggs. But is it really possible to duplicate the
success seen in the US elsewhere in the world?
The first portion of U.S. reconstruction money
for Haiti is on its way more than seven months after it was
promised to help the country rebuild from the Jan. 12
earthquake.
Texas officials said Wednesday that they would refuse to
implement a program that regulates the largest industrial sources of
greenhouse gas emissions, despite new federal rules that give wide
leeway to states to implement the program.
Recently the American people redrew the country's political
landscape. As you know by now, a huge wave of voter anger swept the
nation — and swept the Democratic Party from control in the House of
Representatives. Democrats held on to a reduced majority in the
Senate but fell short of the sixty votes needed to pass most bills.
A
combination of the high oil price, energy security and concern about
global warming and climate change have lead to a major focus on finding
alternative fuels for transportation and in particular for aviation.
The main environmentally friendly solution in the short to medium term
is provided by biofuels. The two main sustainable biofuel options
are algae and halophytes, salt tolerant plants grown in wasteland and
deserts and irrigated with saline or sea water. Whilst current
alternative fuel studies include algae, the potential offered by
halophytes is being overlooked. The urgency of developing and certifying
fuels derived from sustainable sources is underlined.
ONE THIRD OF OUR
ECONOMY THRIVE ON MAKING PEOPLE SICK AND FAT. Big Farming grows
500 more calories per person per day than 25 years ago because
they get paid to grow extra food even when it is not needed.
Foreclosed homes make up 25 percent of all
home sales today, and the nation's supply of foreclosed properties is
likely to remain high in the months ahead given the current pace of the
economic recovery. This inventory needs to move through the system
before we can begin to see a sustainable housing recovery.
While universalising the right to food opens up
possible paths to challenge the unequal social relations which govern
the food economy, narrowing the right by 'targeting' social groups which
are 'truly deserving' may well provide a tool to manage and legitimise
those inequities, says Ananya Mukherjee
When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and
Afghanistan. But the bigger war is the war against the planet. This war
has its roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical
limits - limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to greed and
economic concentration.
The 75-page report, complied by a seven-member panel
reporting to the United Nations Security Council, states
that North Korea is involved in "nuclear and ballistic
missile-related activities in certain countries, including
Iran, Syria and Myanmar" and that special attention should
be given by all member countries to inhibit such activities.
30-year
fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.17 percent with an average 0.8
point for the week ending November 11, 2010, down from last week when it
averaged 4.24 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM
averaged 4.91 percent.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced
today a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to help
rural homeowners lower energy costs by making cost-effective
improvements to their homes.
Federal workers were kept in the dark about possible health risks
from a plant making parts for nuclear weapons next door to their
Kansas City offices, according to an inspector general's report
released on Monday.
The construction or expansion of coal terminals in the US Pacific
Northwest is inevitable, Cloud Peak Energy CEO Colin Marshall said
Thursday, as building Asian demand for Western US coal outstrips the
region's existing port capacity.
...with a home energy score between 1 and 10,
and shows them how their homes compare to others in their
region. The report includes customized, cost-effective
recommendations that will help to reduce homeowners' energy
costs and improve the comfort of their homes.
Part 2
In Part 1 of this article, we looked at how lab and commercial
efficiencies are growing in crystalline, CIGS and amorphous
solar cells. Now we'll take a look at how increasing
efficiencies have boosted cadmium telluride
The White House garden may be green and unsullied by agricultural
chemicals, but Obama's United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA)
just forked over $180,000 to fund an agribusiness-backed smear
campaign against the Environmental Working Group's (EWG)
A few weeks ago I attended the inaugural
Distribution Technology and Innovation Summit (DTI) in Las
Vegas. The focus of the conference was on the current state of
the Smart Grid market with presentations from utilities, trade
groups, and state and federal regulators. In the meetings and
social receptions, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting
someone who was talking about DOE funding, state regulatory
approval and Smart Grid project “definitization”.
More large solar projects have been approved by the
federal government on public lands in the West. One
result, assuming they are all built, will be a
contemporaneous test of how each concentrating solar
power (CSP) technology performs.
Staffers in energy advisor Carol Browner's
office at the White House rewrote a report on the Obama's
administration's six-month deepwater drilling moratorium to give
the impression it was peer-reviewed and approved by experts when
it was not, according to an official assessment released
Wednesday.
Scientists launched a $600 million global initiative on Wednesday
to raise rice yields and reduce the impact of rice production on the
environment, which they said could also help 150 million people
escape poverty by 2035.
November 9, 2010
Green-e Certified renewable energy and carbon offset sales
increased 43% in 2009, according to the Center for Resource
Solutions (CRS), the nonprofit that manages the certification
program.
The increase in green energy sales volume is equivalent to over
18 million MWh of renewable energy generation.
After criticism for engaging in a $600 billion "quantitative easing"
program, in which the Federal Reserve will buy U.S. Treasury debt,
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has invoked the name of Milton
Friedman to defend his actions.
The Biofuels Digest's take on the recent EBI report that
concludes meaningful Algae commercialization will take 10 more
years.
Arizona Public Service Company has entered into an agreement to
purchase Southern California Edison's ownership in Units 4 and 5 of
the Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington, N.M. If the
transaction gains approval from state and federal regulators, APS
will close the plant's older, less efficient Units 1, 2 and 3 and
install additional emission controls on the remaining units, the
company announced today.
Nearly 200,000,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf
of Mexico due to the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig
explosion 6 months ago. A federal judge has now ordered that cement
poured by Haliburton be tested. Both BP and Haliburton were aware
of the cement’s instability both before and after it was poured, it
is now being pin-pointed as the cause of the explosion.
The thinking might have been: Build it, and they will come.
The Chinese government built it from the ground up, a sprawling city
complete with museums, library, opera house, and homes and apartments
for 300,000 people.
But they didn’t come, and today the city stands like a ghost town in
the grasslands and desert of Inner Mongolia.
In a few months, SUNY Potsdam will have the capability to produce
70 percent of its electricity on campus.
The green car wars have started.
After years of anticipation, major automakers are setting their
electric vehicles loose on the market, leaving consumers to figure
out whether the cars will get them where they want to go.
Native American voters played an important role
this election season, helping some non-Indian politicians get
elected in state and national elections. However, Indian
candidates did not fare as well, performing poorly at polls
across the nation.
This year’s tumultuous midterm election cycle
cut deeply into the ranks of moderates on Capitol Hill, helping
usher in a Congress that scholars say could produce the most
partisan voting pattern since the Civil War era. The lack of
moderate voices has led to fears that lawmakers will be
deadlocked over an array of issues, even though a large swath of
voters tell pollsters they want compromise — and progress.
According to new research from IHS Emerging Energy Research,
there are more than 45 wave and tidal prototypes expected to be
ocean tested in 2010 and 2011 signaling that the ocean power
industry may be set to take off over the next year.
The
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing its list of the
top 50 organizations using the most renewable electricity. The Green
Power Partnership’s top purchasers use more than 12 billion
kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to avoiding the
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity use of more than 1
million average American homes. Green power is generated from renewable
resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, and low-impact
hydropower.
A newly released two-year outlook conducted for
oil majors and refiners worldwide predicts that ethanol’s
growing market share, combined with expanding U.S. refinery
operations, will cut the need for gasoline imports by more than
half of 2008 levels within the next two years.
The European Union sees the United States "disappearing as a
partner" in international climate talks after President Barack Obama
suffered setbacks in midterm elections, the EU's top climate
official said on Friday.
The federal government has paid out well over $1 billion to 250,000
deceased individuals over the past decade — and can’t figure out how to
fix the problem, according to a new report from Sen. Tom Coburn.
A nuclear waste train inching through Germany was unlikely to
reach its destination until Monday after massive protests along
every foot of railway line.
A new turbine design by Alden Research Laboratory may
go a long way in providing safe passage for fish. The slower
rotating turbine has just three blades, improving fish survival
without a loss of generation.
The U.S. Department of Defense may emulate efforts at Fort Bliss
as it works to become more energy efficient, an assistant secretary
of the Army said Thursday.
Papandreou
says voters want his government to continue trying
to pull country out of severe financial crisis
The presidential commission investigating the April 20 explosion of
the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico cited a misread test
as one likely cause of the disaster.
A cholera outbreak in Haiti has killed more
than 500 people, the World Health Organization
said Sunday.
More than 7,000 people have fallen ill with
the waterborne disease in a country now cleaning
up from flooding brought on by Hurricane Tomas
last week.
The storm hit parts of western Haiti on
Friday and is blamed for eight deaths.
While the
food versus fuel debate continues to put crop-based
biofuel
production on the back burners it might just be Cannabis sativa
that blazes the competition. Researchers at University of
Connecticut have found that industrial hemp has properties that
make it viable and even attractive as a raw material, or
feedstock, for producing biodiesel.
Many Americans complain about the loss of freedom in our
country today, but Hillsdale College is actually DOING something
about it.
The Pierce County sheriff’s office says an
intruder was shot and killed during a home invasion robbery near
Puyallup early Wednesday morning and police are searching for a
second suspect involved in the invasion robbery.
Because the government is supposed to make sure
that it is. And they do this by using independent science to
evaluate food safety. So what happens when government scientists
and food inspectors aren't able to do their jobs? When their
work is under pressure from corporate interests? Unfortunately,
it can be deadly.
With midterm elections complete and a GOP House in place, the
newcomers have the opportunity to either push forward or detain
renewable energy policy.
Wisconsin's oldest nuclear reactor, located at the Point Beach
power plant, turns 40 next month. The state's two other reactors --
a second one at Point Beach, plus one at Kewaunee -- will turn 40 in
a few years.
the I.R.S. has denied a request from the
American Academy of Pediatrics to reclassify breast-feeding
costs as a medical care expense. Acne creams covered? Yes.
Denture Adhesive? Yes. Coverage for breast feeding support costs
that run $500-$1000 per year? No.
The new company will develop and market highly
sustainable non-edible vegetable oil to be used for the
production of second generation biofuels.
- The oil is from the jatropha curcas bush which additionally generates
a considerable amount of biomass that can be used for steam and electric
power cogeneration.
- The jatropha plant will be cultivated on barren land in the Yucatan
state of Mexico.
Bryce Canyon National Park is known for its unique geology and
sprawling landscape. During the Ice Age, glaciers sliced through the red
stone leaving behind odd shapes and beautiful scenery. But the park's
beauty doesn't disappear once the sun sets, in fact, it lights up.
30-year fixed-rate mortgage
(FRM) averaged 4.24 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week
ending November 4, 2010, up slightly from last week when it averaged
4.23 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.98
percent.
A national epidemiologic
study finds a strong, consistent correlation between adult diabetes and
particulate air pollution that persists after adjustment for other risk
factors like obesity and ethnicity, report researchers from Children's
Hospital Boston. The relationship was seen even at exposure levels below
the current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety limit
U.S. consumers looking to get Nissan's all-electric Leaf will have
to wait another year, after dealers sold this year's entire shipment
before the zippy sedan even hit showrooms, the company said on Nov. 1.
Workers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant detected radioactive water
seeping from a leaky pipe in the complex Sunday, forcing the plant to
shut down to make repairs. The Nuclear Regulatory Comission said the
public was not in any danger.
In his first press conference following midterm elections,
President Obama admitted the obvious: that he will have to change
plans for addressing climate change and energy policy.
When writer Anton Chekhov arrived on the Russian island of Sakhalin
in 1890, he was overwhelmed by the harsh conditions at the Tsarist penal
colony.
More than a century on, Sakhalin's prisoners have been replaced by
oil and gas workers, most of whom seem to agree that Chekhov's
description still fits.
A popular new law that bars Oklahoma courts
from considering Islamic law, or Shariah, when deciding cases was put on
hold Monday after a prominent Muslim in the state won a temporary
restraining order in federal court.
Police arrested a half-dozen protesters Monday morning for
blocking traffic to the $130 million Rollins Mountain wind project
as part of what organizers called an attempt to halt the project's
potentially disastrous environmental impact.
Mississippi drivers spent nearly two and a half
times more of their income for gasoline compared to their
Connecticut counterparts, based on an income analysis released
by the Natural Resources Defense Council today.
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, says the Federal Reserve will
eventually self-destruct because of its efforts to revive the
U.S. economy with more monetary easing.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed a
seismological "speed gun" which takes multiple seismic readings of
single events to determine how quickly the Earth's mantle is moving.
While the instruments used to measure this movement aren't hand-held or
new to the field, the way that the data is interpreted is ground
breaking.
Despite disturbing claims about the impact of uranium, ten-thousand
proposals for exploration in the Grand Canyon area have been submitted.
A key fuel for nuclear power, the US must now decide between full scale
uranium mining, partial mining or a twenty year moratorium. Leana Hosia
investigates.
World energy demand will grow 130-fold over the next
century. That astronomical growth will occur if the world's
economic growth, fueled by the rise of China, India and other
developing nations, averages 5 percent annually, says David
Dyer,..
Hefty tax credits and utility rebates have helped fuel a
sun-powered boom that has solar arrays sprouting up on rooftops and
carports in Tucson and across Arizona.
South Korea has found an undetermined amount of rare earth
minerals in a deposit in the eastern Gangwon province, state-run
Korea Resources Corp (KORES) said on Monday.
The discovery came amid lingering tension over China's controls
of its rare earth supplies, which account for 97 percent of global
output.
Days after the Obama administration asked a federal court not to
stop U.S. EPA's climate program from taking effect on Jan. 2, a
coalition of 20 states and 13 environmental groups has pledged its
support for the agency, saying that despite "extravagant claims of harm"
from industry, the new greenhouse gas regulations would hardly hurt
them.
The geothermal industry has begun an unprecedented expansion starting
this year, as a record 7, 875 MW of geothermal projects broke ground,
the Geothermal Market Update reports this week.
Ethanol from corn and sugar cane? Beyond passé at this point,
with major environmental, land use, and food security concerns.
Second-generation biofuels, made from non-food crops and wastes?
So 2008.
The next big thing in biofuels? Algae.
The Quechan Tribe claims the Secretary of the
Interior rushed through approval of a giant solar power project
in the desert and ignored potential damage to the tribe's
cultural artifacts and the desert's sensitive flora and fauna,
including an endangered lizard that appears in the tribe's
creation story.
With solar power plants requiring large areas
which aren't usually available in or close to urban areas,
Sweden-based architect Mans Tham proposes cities like Los
Angeles take a different road – covering the city’s freeways in
solar panels.
Come summer, anyone buying a new TV will be able to compare its
energy efficiency with that of other models, thanks to a new rule
issued last week by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Mounting US crude stocks and lower inventories
at NYMEX's delivery point
in Cushing, Oklahoma, kept the front of the NYMEX futures curve
in a well-worn
and tight range last week.
U.S. drones are currently used in "surveillance operations"
in Yemen, its foreign minister says
Three decades after the Three Mile Island accident seemed to
doom the nuclear power industry, the idea of a nuclear renaissance
has been gaining public acceptance as a way to generate energy
without greenhouse gas emissions and meet the nation's electricity
demands.
But not one new plant is even close to being built.
Leading economies should consider adopting a modified global
gold standard to guide currency rates, World Bank President
Robert Zoellick said on Monday in a surprise proposal before a
potentially acrimonious G-20 summit.
Anthropologist Dr Timothy Taylor argues that humans, as the weakest
of the great apes, became the dominant species due to our use of
technology. Taylor’s recent book
The Artificial Ape, convincingly postulates that we are
biologically a product of technology
A US-born radical cleric who belongs to the al-Qa'ida offshoot
behind the recent foiled cargo bomb plot has told Muslims they
are free to kill American "devils'' at will in a video posted on
extremist websites.
November 5, 2010
The researchers from the
University of Oxford aren’t suggesting electric shocks for
anyone about to sit their math exams but say the findings could
lead to treatments for the estimated 20 percent of people with
moderate to severe numerical disabilities.
Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both
crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others
are assessed, British scientists said Monday.
The Arab world, one of the driest regions on the planet, will tip
into severe water scarcity as early as 2015, a report issued on
Thursday predicts.
With the third quarter of 2010
behind us our local market is beginning
to starkly contrast the news coming out
of the national level:
The findings of the committee,
based on wide ranging criteria, apply scientific methodology to
answering the perpetually vexing question of exactly how much
harm certain drugs do to their users and those around them.
The American Water Works Association (AWWA) recently announced it
will lead a ground-breaking new study on how municipalities forecast
water demand within the context of anticipated climate change.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, fresh from announcing
new measures to support the U.S. economy, said the central
bank's aggressive monetary policy will not spark unwanted
inflation in the future.
House Republican Leader John Boehner is claiming a voter
mandate to roll back the Obama administration's health care
overhaul, calling it a "monstrosity."
The presumptive next speaker of the House told reporters
Wednesday morning the Republican takeover of the House and its
success in narrowing the Democratic Senate majority was proof
that "the Obama-Pelosi agenda" was rejected by the American
people.
Scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), assisted
by colleagues from the University of Illinois, have successfully
mimicked the process of bone formation in the laboratory. A cryoTitan
electron microscope was used to capture the process in great visual
detail and the results, which contradicted previous assumptions, could
be applied to areas other than medicine.
The Obama administration has hailed the Chevy Volt as the electric
savior of the American auto industry, but in fact it’s not an
all-electric car and gets nowhere near the mileage General Motors
claims.
Waning investor interest in clean energy contrasted sharply with
enthusiasm for coal on Thursday as shares in Enel Green Power fell
on their debut while Coal India's soared.
Plug-in electric vehicles have the potential to account for 9% of all
automobile sales in 2020 and 22% of sales in 2030, according to research
company Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
The giant
Straddling Bus we reported on earlier this year could be headed to the
U.S. This week the inventor of the bus, Mr. Song Youzhou,
announced that his Shenzhen-based company is aiming to form
partnerships or licensing agreements with specialized
manufacturers to build the vehicle for the American market.
If everything goes according to plan, most of the 257-acre site
of Zion's retired nuclear power station will be ready for a new use
by 2020.
The Earth will take 100,000 years to recover from global warming
if mankind continues to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,
geologists have warned.
Boston University’s Laurence Kotlikoff made headlines recently with his startling calculation of the real debt facing U.S. taxpayers — $202 trillion. It’s not a hard figure to reach, he says, if you take the
facts about our spending seriously and honestly.
Energy Northwest's nuclear power plant near Richland has been
rated as one of two nuclear plants in the nation that are in
greatest need of operational and human performance improvement.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has denied a petition calling for a ban on the
manufacture, use and processing of lead in fishing gear.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lawyers are seeking to
combine a series of lawsuits by state regulators and coal industry
groups that oppose the Obama administration's crackdown on
mountaintop removal coal mining.
Republicans have gained control of the U.S. House of
Representatives, picking up at least 60 seats and virtually
destroying President Barack Obama's hopes of moving on comprehensive
energy legislation in the new Congress.
The Federal Reserve is expected to announce a controversial
policy on Wednesday to buy billions more dollars of government
bonds in an attempt to breathe new life into the struggling U.S.
economy.
Pests . . .
I don't like 'em and I'm sure you don't either.
You don't want to sink your teeth into a juicy apple or an ear of
corn — and find yourself biting into an unsavory worm.
You don't want to take a sunset stroll around your neighborhood just
to find yourself mercilessly attacked by hungry, disease-causing
mosquitoes.
In the span of just over 24 hours, California won two big victories this
week. On Monday Nov. 1, the San Francisco Giants defeated the Texas
Rangers to win the World Series by a convincing four games to one. And
on Tuesday Nov. 2, California voters delivered a similarly resounding
victory to the state's clean-energy economy in the nation's most
important vote for clean tech, defeating Proposition 23 by an
overwhelming 61-39 percent margin.
The ability to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere to help
prevent climate change is a global issue. The challenge is to use
materials that can capture the CO2 and easily release it
for permanent storage.
For those of us who want to see the role of the State reduced in the
bedroom, the boardroom, and the war room, election day always brings
mixed feelings. However, the one outcome that sometimes cheers us
up happened this week: one party in control of the presidency and the
other in control the Congress. What is often called “gridlock” is
often good for freedom, at least in relative terms, since it checks the
power of any either party to ram through its nearly-always anti-freedom
agenda.
Political gridlock is supposed to be good for business. If
bickering lawmakers can't agree on anything, the thinking goes,
they can't pass laws and regulations that make the economy
worse.
Global biofuel production rose in 2009 to a
total of 92.8 billion liters from 84.7 billion liters in 2008, a
9.6-percent increase. This was a far smaller increase than the
nearly 44 percent jump from 2007 to 2008, largely due to the
worldwide recession and lower Brazilian production.
Nick Mudrinich likens solar energy to the country song "Take This
Job and Shove It."
If more people used solar, he said, they "could tell OPEC to take
their oil and shove it."
Despite poor housing
sales this past spring, the residential real estate market fundamentally
seems to have found stability. Significant growth in housing will, of
course, likely wait for years, and there is no mistaking the risks,
especially if banks fail to manage foreclosures and the effective
“shadow inventory” of unsold homes. But for all the potential pitfalls
and the lack of growth, probabilities still suggest that the economy has
already passed through the ugliest period for housing and that the
healing has begun.
Professor Cliff Ricketts preferred the fuel efficiency of a 1994
Toyota Tercel when compared to other used cars. That's why he gutted
its gas tank and fuel lines in favor of water tanks and solar cells.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's
long-awaited report, Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security is
out. The recommendations contained within will take some time to
digest, but will still offer concise steps for both utilities
and smart grid technology manufacturers to follow...
Is reality a 3D hologram of a 2D universe? This
is a question that the researchers are asking almost a hundred
years after physicist Max Planck came up with the idea of a
finite measurement of distance, leading to the concept of Planck
distance and Planck time.
It seems like déjà vu: The 1970s are here again. Economic malaise,
stubbornly high inflation, a polarized political environment — we even
have Jimmy Carter again in the White House!
ITT Corporation (NYSE: ITT) today announced the results of its
Value of Water Survey, a nationwide poll that included
registered voters and industrial and agricultural businesses, and
measures how the public values water and their level of awareness of
the nation's aging water infrastructure. The results show that a
majority of the American public desires reform and is willing to pay
more now to ensure that they have access to clean water in the
generations to come.
Kamakura Corporation announced
Tuesday that the Kamakura index of troubled public companies
deteriorated for the third consecutive month in October, rising
a very significant 1.17% to 11.10%.
"Instead of looking outside of the state, Ohio
companies, such as Owens-Illinois, can now utilize a valuable
resource -- locally recycled glass materials from Ohio´s
community recycling programs -- which provides economic as well
as environmental benefits to Ohioans," said Gov. Ted Strickland.
La Niña is expected to last at
least into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2011. A large majority
of models also predict La Niña to become a strong episode...
In
late 2006, the Environmental Working Group released their latest
report on the average pesticide content of common fruits and
vegetables.
Seventh Generation, the nation´s number one
brand of non-toxic household and personal care products,
reported that it has brought the post-consumer recycled plastic
content of three of its product bottles up to an industry first
90%.
MIT researchers have developed a portable, solar-powered
water desalination system that could provide water in disaster
zones and remote regions around the globe (Image: Steven
Dubowsky, Amy Bilton and Leah Kelley)
Three years ago a government report
found the FDA completely lacking in scientific expertise. The
agency’s response? Hire scientists from Big Pharma!
More than half of the current members of the U.S. Senate are worth at
least $1 million — and seven of the 10 richest members of Congress are
Democrats.
In a
national survey of U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers conducted by Grant
Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd,
30% are planning on reducing health care benefits, 23% are planning on
reducing bonuses and 18% will be reducing stock options/equity based
compensation.
Excess nitrogen from agricultural and urban lands is
contaminating groundwater, streams, lakes and estuaries, where it
causes harmful algal blooms and contributes to fish kills.
Cost-effective approaches to removing this nitrogen from
croplands and urban stormwater runoff before it reaches sensitive
water bodies have been elusive.
In its first year of implementation, New York´s expanded beverage
container deposit law, known as the "Bottle Bill", the state has
collected more than $120 million in unclaimed deposits and has helped
boost plastic recycling rates nationally.
The Obama administration is crediting its stimulus plan with creating
up to 50,000 jobs on 70 wind farms — even though nearly half were built
before the stimulus cash began to flow.
Oil climbed to a six-month high above $84 for a second straight
session after an industry report showed declines in U.S.
inventories across fuel categories, a sign chronic oversupply
may subside at the world's top user.
Soon, workers at the nuclear-powered plant will unload more than
60 spent fuel assemblies from a 18-foot cask into the grid-like
racks of the power station's spent fuel storage pool, said Neil
Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Wind-turbine maker Suzlon Group will idle its Pipestone, Minn.,
plant, putting 110 workers out of jobs, because the once-booming
U.S. wind energy market has lost headway.
U.S. small-business owners believe a U.S. economic recovery
is unlikely to accelerate before the second half of 2011 amid
worries about issues such as healthcare costs, according to a
quarterly survey.
Unlike many other states, Massachusetts significantly reduced
mercury emissions coming from electric power plants and incinerators
in recent years.
New Region 1121 (S20E70) was numbered today and
produced a C1 flare Solar activity is expected to be low
with a slight chance of moderate conditions for the
next three days (05-07 November).
he geomagnetic field was at quiet to unsettled levels. A period
of unsettled conditions was observed. The geomagnetic field is expected to be mostly quiet for the next three days
(05-07 November).
Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who
predicted the global financial crisis, said the world’s advanced
economies will show “anemic” growth, while Japan is an “accident
waiting to happen.”
"It's a beautiful image...It's taking a waste product and then
driving down the highway with it."
In the northwestern United States, the city of Seattle requires
its residents to separate food waste from the rest of their trash.
The food gets recycled into compost for lawns, gardens and, soon,
into electricity.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today approved the Genesis
Solar Project, a 250 megawatt facility that will use parabolic
trough solar thermal technology to produce enough clean energy to
power 75,000 - 187,500 homes and generate 1,085 jobs at peak
construction and 50 permanent positions.
"This nation is on a course where if we don’t do something about
it, get federal situation, the fiscal policy [under control],
we’re Greece. We’re a banana republic," Gregg told CNBC.
Investors bought in to the
Federal Reserve's new plan to stimulate the economy, pushing
broad stock market indexes to their highest levels since the
worst of the financial crisis more than two years ago.
The Federal Reserve is about to take a huge risk
in hopes of getting the economy steaming along again. Nobody is
sure it will work, and it may actually do damage
America's first commercial-scale geothermal power plant was built in
1960 at the Geysers. But 50 years on, the industry is still experiencing
growing pains.
FUSION
POWER HAS LONG HELD THE promise of
providing a safe, clean and inexhaustible supply for
all the world's energy needs far into the future.
Some would say fusion power has held the promise for
too long.
Growing fast but choking on smog is just not good enough for a
new "green development" index that China launched on Thursday.
It sounds like a bad April Fool’s joke, but
it’s not. On the first of April next year, thousands of products
associated with traditional medicine will become illegal throughout
the European Union.
Food produced in the tropics comes with high carbon emissions and low
crop yields, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In the most comprehensive and detailed study
to date looking at carbon emissions versus crop yields, researchers
found that food produced in the tropics releases almost double the
amount of carbon while producing half the yield as food produced in
temperate regions. In other words, temperate food production is three
times more efficient in terms of yield and carbon emissions.
A widely agreed international target to avoid dangerous global
warming must take account of local impacts and may need to change, said
the chief scientist at the MetOffice Hadley Center, Britain's biggest
climate research center.
Virgin Galactic's first generation of commercial space vehicles now
have somewhere to land with the completion of the runway at
Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Labor on Wednesday took the
unprecedented step of going to federal court to close down a
Kentucky coal mine owned by Massey Energy Co., and promised
similar action involving other mines deemed dangerous to
miners.
This afternoon, the Fed announced
purchases of $600 billion of longer-term U.S. Treasury bonds by
the end of the second quarter of 2011 and reconfirmed that the
Fed funds rate will remain in the target range of 0% to 0.25%
"for an extended period.” The Fed will continue its program of
reinvesting the proceeds from agency debt and agency-backed
securities into longer-term U.S. Treasuries.
The U.S. government will spend $511 million to expand its
embassy in Kabul, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday, describing
the work as a demonstration of America's long-term commitment to
Afghanistan.
In an effort to overcome one of the main
drawbacks of battery electric vehicles, Volvo is initiating
development of a hydrogen fuel cell that is expected to increase
an electric car’s operating range by up to 250 km (155 miles).
In a 9-0 decision in Lummi Indian Nation v.
State, et al , the Supreme Court found that the MWL does not
violate the separation of powers clause of the U.S. or state
constitutions or the right to due process.
From
The Farm To The Dump: There´s an interesting
article in yesterday´s New York
Times about how much food is wasted in the U.S.
It´s a shocking amount, no matter how you slice it: "By most
estimates, a quarter to half of all food produced in the United States
goes uneaten."
What's the most environmentally
friendly industry? If you go by Newsweek's always intriguing Green
Rankings for 2010, the answer is overwhelmingly technology firms. But
examining the list a little more closely hints at a more complex answer
about corporate waste and recycling.
Last night an unprecedented number of climate contrarians were swept
into office.
How did we get to such a place where attacking scientists and
their work is not only acceptable, but helps win elections? And more
importantly, what is UCS going to do about it?
Mankind is moving buckets and buckets of water from
land to the ocean.
A conciliatory White House said on Thursday it was willing to
negotiate with Republicans on tax cut extensions, but Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell took a hard line against
compromises with President Barack Obama in a new Congress.
In this series of articles on the state of clean energy jobs in
the U.S., we delve into the clean energy job market outlook for
2011. Here the focus is on manufacturing.
Two days after an historic mid-term election, a
huge pall is hanging over the White House. The same angst that
swept President Obama into office two years ago is now working
to clean house in Congress, literally
In researching for my series on jobs in renewable energy in the U.S.,
I turned up some very interesting information. First, it’s clear
that clean energy is creating jobs. In 2010, the solar industry
created 50,00 jobs according to the first ever national solar jobs
census that was conducted by The Solar Foundation, Green LMI, Cornell
University and others. In total there are 93,000 people employed
in the solar industry right now.
November 1, 2010
The change in the ice mass covering Antarctica
is a critical factor in global climate events. Scientists at the
GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences have now found that
the year by year mass variations in the western Antarctic are
mainly attributable to fluctuations in precipitation, which are
controlled significantly by the climate phenomenon El Nino.
About 600 of California's major polluters -- from oil refineries
to power plants and factories -- will face mandatory limits on the
amount of greenhouse gases they emit, starting Jan. 1, 2012, under
rules released Friday by state air regulators.
Island Green Energy (IGE) has submitted a
proposal to convert in excess of 40,000 tonnes of municipal
solid waste (MSW) per year to provide power to St. Lucia's
electricity grid as the initial base operation.
Weather and renewable energy supplies across much of western
Europe could be hit this winter by the North Atlantic Oscillation
(NAO), a phenomenon that can exert a powerful influence over
temperature and rainfall.
Meteorologists say a negative NAO usually points to colder,
calmer and drier winters in northern Europe and wetter, windier
weather across the Iberian Peninsula and Italy as westerly winds
from the Atlantic are pushed south.
America is becoming less reliant on its
long-time mainstay, coal-fired electric power generation. Total
coal consumption in the electric power sector this year is
expected to reach 998.8 million tons,
Advocates
warn that many indigenous peoples in Colombia still face the danger
of extinction due to an increase in homicides, threats and instances
of forced displacement.
Back then I did not fully realize that soil is home to an
incredible web of life and that it is the foundation of the
ecosystem.
Coda Automotive is an American company through and through, with
headquarters in California and possibly a factory in Columbus to
make batteries for electric cars, said CEO Kevin Czinger.
Strangely enough Edison had one of the first
electric vehicles and Detroit made them until World War II. Then
they died until in the 1990s some electric battery driven cars
were recreated as something brand new to the marketplace. Then
they withered and were reborn again in the present age of
locomotion.
Modern
societies need energy to function. When supply is disrupted, life can
come to a grinding halt. What are the threats and how are countries
responding?
A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector from Atlanta is
overseeing repairs at a Florida Power & Light Co. nuclear plant
after workers discovered a quarter-sized hole earlier this week in
the steel liner of a reactor containment building, an NRC spokesman
said Thursday.
The road to the clean energy economy is getting
a little bumpy as one of its most prominent champions said China
is using illegal subsidies to export solar panels and wind
turbines.
Government officials and aid partners in earthquake- and
cholera-ravaged Haiti scrambled on Monday to prepare crowded quake
survivor camps and coastal towns for a possible hit by a hurricane
later this week.
Slight deflation is just as acceptable as low inflation, said
a senior Federal Reserve official who has persistently dissented
against Fed easy money policies, repeating that further easing
would be dangerous.
Meat production is said to create a staggering 18 percent of the
world's carbon emissions.
But in a new book being released in February 2011, Meat: A
Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie claims that eating moderate
amounts of meat could be greener than going vegan.
Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted on Thursday for the second time
in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death
toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western
islands reached 377.
Insurgents seized control of a church in central
Baghdad on Sunday, taking hostages during evening mass after
attacking a checkpoint at the Baghdad Stock Exchange.
ABU SAMI, a Christian Iraqi, whose wife was
unharmed in an attack on a Baghdad church she was inside;
militants took the church hostage for four hours, leaving at
least 52 people dead
This coming Tuesday millions of Americans will go to the
polls. And, sadly, millions will not know what their Congressman
stands for!
Well, the League of American Voters has provided
easy-to-read, one-page Voter Guides for every member of the
House of Representatives.
Nearly 200 nations agreed on Saturday to a sweeping plan to stem
the loss of species by setting new 2020 targets to ensure greater
protection of nature and enshrine the benefits it gives mankind.
The PM will be assessing
the U.S. political climate in the wake of the electoral tsunami
expected to hit Congressional Democrats on Tuesday. Will
Congress be more staunchly and consistently pro-Israel?
Using this new test in the Gulf scientists have
tested 1,735 tissue samples including more than half of those
collected to reopen Gulf of Mexico federal waters. Only a few
showed trace amounts of dispersants residue...
In the highly competitive photovoltaic product
market, manufacturers are pressured daily by the burgeoning
demands of end-users to get new products developed,
independently certified and to market quicker than ever before.
Americans are drinking a lot of bottled water:
8.3 billion gallons — about 26 gallons per person — in 2006. And
they are spending a lot of money for this myth of purity packed
in plastic.
Solar activity was low. A C1 flare was observed. The geomagnetic field was at quiet levels. The geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels, with a slight chance for active conditions during the next three days (02 - 04 November). The increase in activity is due to a recurrent coronal hole high-speed stream.
Americans unhappy with the economy are poised to hand control of the
House of Representatives to Republicans in Tuesday elections that are
shaping up as a rebuke of President Barack Obama, a Reuters/Ipsos poll
found on Monday.
Fifty percent of likely voters said they will choose a Republican
candidate when they vote while 44 percent said they will pick a
Democrat, the national survey showed.
...He said he thinks solar panels are "ugly" and
should be as hidden from public view as possible.
But many other town officials said they think that embracing
solar technology -- even in a visible way -- adds to the area's
character.
The Everglades is an extensive wetland system that is actually a sixty
mile wide, extremely shallow river that flows from Lake Okeechobee over
100 miles to Florida Bay. Over-development from sugar producers and
urban sprawl have put tremendous stress on the entire ecosystem by
draining the land and channeling the water. Now, after decades of
restoration efforts, the state of the Everglades is beginning to
improve.
Many Democrats are nervous about Election Day, but some are
especially nervous.
The United States is saying that China is
subsidizing its wind and solar equipment makers, which is
hurting American manufacturers. That complaint is now in the
investigatory stage and may be presented to the World Trade
Organization.
China gave repeated assurances at an Asia-Pacific summit in Hanoi
that ended on Saturday that it would remain a "reliable supplier" of the
high-tech ores used in lasers, superconductors, computers and other
electronics.
Nevertheless, Japan and other countries, including the United States,
say they want to diversify their sources of supplies.
Bottled water is a huge industry, and a
profitable one. Last year it netted $10 billion in the US, but
there are signs that the industry is slowing. Restaurants have
turned away from pricey bottled water, and consumers have
returned to tap water to save money.
Over the next two years, Ford will introduce several electric
vehicles, including the Transit Connect Electric small commercial
van, Focus Electric passenger car and a plug-in hybrid. The Transit
Connect Electric and Focus Electric will use no gasoline....
About 300 charging stations per month are being installed around
the country, according to Ford.
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