Topping off the warmest decade in history, 2010 experienced a global
average temperature of 14.63 degrees Celsius (58.3 degrees Fahrenheit),
tying 2005 as the hottest year in 131 years of recordkeeping.pan
The striped bass is in trouble again.
job seekers need engineering degrees and experience for more
technical jobs or a manufacturing or skilled trades background
for production work, according to executives and human resource
managers.
Jatropha, a biofuel-producing plant once touted as a wonder-crop,
is turning out to be much less dependable than first thought, both
environmentalists and industry players say.
China’s president, Hu Jintao, stated this past weekend that
the international flexible exchange-rate financial system is
unfair and a “product of the past,” and that actions taken by
the U.S. Federal Reserve have led to rising inflation rates in
China.
In its recent monthly report, the International Energy Agency
said China would see its demand rise 5% to 9.79 million b/d in
2011 from 9.34 million b/d in 2010.
Scientists say a warmer world will cause more intense drought,
floods, cyclones as well as rising sea levels and the insurance industry
says the number of weather-related disasters has already soared over the
past several decades.pan
The decision by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative to delay its
$6 billion Cypress Creek project threw the future of coal-fired
electricity generation into doubt.
Natural disasters caused $109 billion in economic damage last
year, three times more than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing
most of the cost, the United Nations said Monday.
Under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, the red carpet was rolled out for
initiatives to burn wood and other forms of biomass to produce energy.
"It's a common misconception that the human impact on climate
began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the
industrial era," ...
Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that
reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas
emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming,
disaster appears imminent.
Environmental conservation groups sued the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency on Thursday to force it to tighten regulation
of pesticide use, arguing that the agency was not consulting
wildlife officials
From now on, it may cost towns more to build industrial-sized wind
turbines.
Given the abundant evidence available, both for cold fusion in
general and for the recent Italian 10 kW demonstration in particular,
why is it that mainstream science's first reaction has to be crass
criticism instead of curiosity and tentative support?
Pakistan:The country can save up to 10 percent energy by using
geothermal energy for heating and cooling of buildings, which
can be used for industrial sector in future.
A report released yesterday by Ernst & Young in cooperation with
the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) shows that, after a brief
pause in 2009 and a modest rebound in 2010, the world’s 60
largest economies will continue to globalize steadily between
now and 2014, driven by the continued global economic recovery,
technological innovation and the rise of the emerging market
GMO’s in India is a sorted tale of corporate aggression and
destitute farmers so in debt from season after season of failed
crops that there has been a suicide epidemic as people see no
way out of their poverty.
California's unemployment rate has hovered
around 12.4 percent for almost a year. But a new report released
late Tuesday shows that green jobs continued to grow amid the
downturn.pan
What would it take to switch the country’s entire energy
infrastructure to renewables like wind and solar by 2030?
Iranian authorities
have hanged two men convicted of taking part in protests following
the disputed presidential election in 2009.
Defending new regulations on the emission of greenhouse gases
will be a top priority for the Obama administration this year as
challenges emerge, a senior U.S. Justice Department official said on
Thursday.
Seeing the 2 bladed fan would have driven him quickly into
hysterics.
The answer is a 10 bladed fan in a 12 blade configuration.
Late last year, a Loretto-based trucking company began hauling waste
coal to the Colver Power Project plant, which burns the material to
generate power for resale.
In order for a solar cell to be as efficient as possible, the
last thing it should be is reflective – after all, light should
be getting absorbed by it, not being bounced off. With that in
mind, a few years ago a group of Japanese scientists set out to
create an antireflective film coating for use on solar cells.
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi said Monday that he expected oil
markets this year to be in balance and price stability to continue at
2010 levels, though he expressed concern at what he said was pressure
exerted on prices by speculators and futures market investors.
Nowhere in America are there more people without electricity than
on tribal lands. Despite the fact that the Navajo and Hopi tribes
are the major electricity producers for the entire Southwest, nearly
18,000 rural Navajo homes do not have electrification or basic human
services.
Nepal on Friday said it has had to cut power supplies for 12 hours
per day due to falling levels in the reservoirs which feed the country's
hydroelectric power plants.
If two coal-to-synthetic gas plants are built in the state,
Illinois consumers can expect to pay as much as $191 more a year
to heat their homes beginning around 2015 and continuing for
roughly two decades
We all know that certain pieces of music can evoke strong
emotional responses in people. Now, a research team from
Canada's McGill University has uncovered evidence that reveals
exactly what causes such feelings of euphoria and ecstasy and
why music is so important in human society. Using a combination
of brain scanning technologies, the study has shown that the
same neurotransmitter which is associated with feeling pleasure
from sex and food is released in the brain when listening to
good music
The Arctic Ocean needs tough new shipping rules as a rapid thaw
opens the remote, icy region and brings risks of disasters on the
scale of the Titanic, politicians and experts said on Monday.n="left"
But, let’s take a look at a number you don’t hear much about,
especially from the stock-market cheerleaders, that is very
telling about the actual state of the economy and why
homebuilders are having so much trouble building homes and
apartments.
Bedbugs are coming back with a vengeance, and a new study out of
Ohio State University says that pesticides and insecticides are
at least jointly responsible for spawning a new breed of mutant
bedbugs that is genetically-resistant to the very chemicals
commonly used to eradicate it.
Who will speak for the citizens of the United States
if not our elected officials? Last year, anyone concerned
about their health and access to nutritious food and natural
medicine watched in horror as the government passed landmark
legislations that will give them unconstitutional jurisdiction over
essential items for a healthy life.
Gold should build on last year's stellar gains in 2011 to hit record
highs, boosted by low interest rates, dollar weakness and lingering
worry over growth in major economies, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday.
With all the troubles that raw milk producers have had recently
as the FDA hones in on the rise of its sale, it is certainly
refreshing to see a win on the side of food freedom.
Region 1147 produced a few low-level B-class flares and remains an Hsx-alpha group.. slight chance for an isolated M-class flare.The geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet levels, with isolated unsettled levels possible at high latitudes, for the next three days (25-27 January)..
Well into the 20th century, the Maya of Mexico and Central
America were forced to work as virtual slaves—deforesting their
own lands, no less, as well as working in the mines and the
fields.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today two new
initiatives to promote tribal energy development and continue
strengthening the partnership between the Department of Energy
and tribal nations.
Situated in Peace Park, just across from the World Cup Stadium
in Seoul, stands a functional art installation that lets
citizens know about the quality of air in their city. The Living
Light canopy consists of blocks representing each section of the
city where an air monitoring station is situated.
Despite four years of economic malaise, Californians have been
installing solar panels at the speed of light, pushing down subsidies
and creating turmoil in the solar installation industry, according to
some industry observers.
The clean and plentiful sunshine of New Mexico is now producing
electricity for some 9,000 homes as the Cimarron Solar Facility has
begun commercial operation. At 30 megawatts, Cimarron is among the
nation's largest solar photovoltaic plants.
Now that 2010 has gone down as one of history's hottest years, many
states are choosing not to wait for Congress to tackle global warming
and are taking their own steps to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Meteorologists at Freie Universität have found a
correlation between warming in the stratosphere and cold or warm
winter periods. They observed that there is an
increased number of stratospheric warmings, when the
heat flow from the North Atlantic into the atmosphere
is increased. Trends for winter temperatures can be derived from
these new findings
Texas Lt Gov David Dewhurst, a Republican, is developing a plan
to provide financial and regulatory incentives for retiring some
of the state's oldest and least efficient coal-fired power
plants
World efforts to slow deforestation should do more to address
underlying causes such as rising demand for crops or biofuels,
widening from a U.N. focus on using trees to fight climate change, a
study said Monday.
The Waste Hits The Fan: The city of Columbus is withholding
sewer service from the developer of a proposed casino until casino
officials allow the city to annex the site on which the facility is to
be built.
Some Himalayan glaciers are advancing despite an overall
retreat, according to a study on Sunday that is a step
toward understanding how climate change affects vital river flows from
China to India
It sounds like a sci-fi thriller: Dangerous gases build up in a giant
drum of nuclear waste. It explodes and spews contamination, threatening
workers or the public. Or it cripples a facility that cost taxpayers
$12.2 billion.
January 21, 2011
Arizona has become
a national leader in the gun rights movement in recent years as the
state enacted law after law to protect the people's right to bear arms
nearly anywhere, at anytime.
The Sahara Forest Project’s (SFP) first facility will be
located on a 2,000,000 square meter (21,527,821 sq. ft.) plot of
land in Aqaba, a coastal town in the south of Jordan where it
will be a test bed for the use of a combination of technologies
designed to enable the production of fresh water, food and
renewable energy in hot, arid regions.
Pumped storage hydro uses gravity to store energy that is
sourced from the grid by raising water to a higher altitude,
creating potential energy. That potential is then converted to
electricity when the water returns to its original level,
passing through a turbine on the way. Storage capacity can be
increased by adding mass and/or the storage height.
Arizona will dramatically reduce its energy use, pioneer a
new business model for state utility companies and save
ratepayers billions of dollars, thanks to new policies passed by
Arizona’s public utility commission, national energy and
environmental groups said in a joint statemen
Call2Recycle collected 6.7 million pounds of rechargeable
batteries for recycling last year, a 10.1% increase from
previous years.
The batteries were collected from a network of 30,000 retail stores,
business locations and municipal drop sites, the company said.
The oceans contain around 36,000 gigatons of carbon, mostly in the
form of bicarbonate ion (over 90%, with most of the remainder being
carbonate).
Inorganic carbon, that is carbon compounds with no carbon-carbon or
carbon-hydrogen bonds, is important in its reactions within water. This
carbon exchange becomes important in controlling pH in the ocean and can
also vary as a source or sink for carbon.
Investigators say the clerk pulled out a samurai sword, and
chased Vinson out of the store into the parking lot. After a
scuffle, authorities say the clerk made an attempt to corner Vinson,
but the suspect was able to get away.
There are 17 elements classified as Rare Earths. Rare Earths
aren't really rare. It's just rare to find them in
commercial-grade ore.
Energy is the second biggest expenditure in school budgets today, so
school officials are looking for ways to make buildings more energy
efficient as a means of cutting expenses.
infrastructure and unlock gigawatts of wind power capacity.
That's the message some businesspeople and energy experts sent during
a briefing Wednesday in the General Assembly Building.
It can cost consumers a little less to run solar water heaters built
into their homes than to run the heaters on conventional energy, said
Etan Gumerman, a Duke University researcher.
Is this the end of water fluoridation?
Fluoride is added to 70% of U.S. public drinking water supplies.
Engineers have been working on plans to create a capsule-shaped
reactor that would be moored on the sea floor several miles off the
coast, the company said.
Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is really the only large-scale
electricity storage technology widely used today, with over
120,000 megawatts of capacity worldwide. There's just a few
hundred megawatts of other energy storage technologies deployed
globally in the form of compressed air storage, sodium-sulphur,
lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, and redox flow batteries.
Silver is a known killer of harmful bacteria, and has already
been incorporated into things such as
antibacterial keyboards,
washing
machines,
water filters, and
plastic coatings for medical devices. Now, scientists have
added another potential product to the list: silver
nanoparticle-impregnated “killer paper" packaging, that could
help keep food from spoiling.
Despite major regional diversity, there appears to be a growing
will among Latin American policy makers and business leaders to make
countries in the region a much more attractive proposition for
renewable energy developers. Wind power in particular has the
advantage that it's a good fit for hydropower – Latin America's
primary electrical generation method.
Four different global temperature records show the Earth is
warming.
Nigeria has began to solicit bids for the nation's decrepit power
grid, an offer that could be worth billions for private investors
and that many hope will end frequent blackouts and erratic service
in Africa's most populous nation.
Central Maine Power Co. is rejecting calls to allow some customers to
opt out of its "smart meter" installation program.
Pirates took a record 1,181 hostages in 2010 as ship hijackings in
waters off Somalia escalated, a global maritime watchdog said Tuesday.
Solar PV installations could see double-digit growth in 2011, to
reach 20.5 GW and take the total installed capacity to 58 GW by the
end of the year.
30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.74 percent with an
average 0.8 point for the week ending January 20, 2011, up from last
week when it averaged 4.71 percent. Last year at this time, the
30-year FRM averaged 4.99 percent.
The 90's was the decade of German dominance in wind. The 2000's
saw the emergence of America as a leader in installations. And
as the new decade unfolds, the balance of power is shifting to
China.
In some ways, what solar does is help make the grid obsolete, at
least in the way we've thought of it – as the be-all and end-all of
an electric-powered lifestyle.
The United States can't compete with China and should
consider taxing Chinese imports to level the playing field, says
real-estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump.
A tax on Chinese imports would enable the U.S. to repay Chinese
lenders and would create jobs.
On the flip side, just the mere threat of such a tax would force
the Chinese to unveil more favorable trading terms with the
United States.
While gas prices may fall as low as $2/MMBtu this year, analyst
James Crandell said power generators switching to cheaper gas
from coal will provide the buffer that prices need to stay in
the $4/MMBtu range
Total US propane and propylene inventories fell 5.4 million barrels
during the reporting week ended January 14, according to data released
Wednesday by the US Energy Information Administration.
Tehran has 'technical
ability' to make highly enriched uranium, say experts, as efforts
turn to disrupting supply of other materials
the premier source for clean-tech job seekers, employers, and
recruiters. Search current openings
among the job categories listed below.
January 18, 2011
Habitat
alteration, simply put, is a change to a
particular environment. What is unclear from its designation, however,
is the adverse affect changes — big or small — have on the broader
environment and related plant and animal life.
According to The
Nature
Conservancy, habitat alteration, along with invasive
species, are the two main causes of fish
extinction
There is no massive ice melt taking place except on the Western fringes,
90% of ice sheets are thickening and the same per-centage of glaciers
are growing.
(Editor: Included for perspective.)
According to a new paper published in Science, current carbon
accounting methods significantly overstate the amount of carbon that can
be absorbed by forests, plains, and other terrestrial
ecosystems. That is because most current carbon
accounting methods do not consider the methane and
carbon
dioxide released naturally by rivers, streams, and
lakes.
Fossil fuel investments will continue to outstrip low-carbon
alternatives this year, darkening a sector struggling to shake off
the financial crisis and sagging political momentum on climate
change.
Natural wealth lies underground in Navajo and Apache counties.
It isn't gold or silver or even buried treasure but potash, an
essential crop fertilizer.
Australian floods wreaked fresh havoc on rural communities in the
south on Sunday, leaving a trail of destruction across four states,
at least 17 dead and the prospect of reconstruction of historic
proportions.
A West Virginia bill to be introduced early this week aims to give a
state agency the power to grant some coal mining permits and
circumvent stalling by the EPA.
On the eve of a U.S. visit, Chinese President Hu Jintao made
the boldest statement yet on the future of the U.S. dollar as a
reserve currency, calling the current global monetary exchange
system “a product of the past” while promoting his own country’s
currency as a replacement.
A Chinese trade mission has signed $600 million
in deals with U.S. companies ahead of President Hu Jintao's visit to
Washington this week and a separate delegation will look into other
opportunities, the government said Tuesday.
Italian inventor, Andrea Rossi, claims to have an industrial
product ready to manufacture that produces large amounts of energy
reliably, safely, and much cheaper than coal or natural gas power.
It utilizes the fusion of hydrogen and the common element nickel at
relatively low temperatures.
According to Food Safety News, "Congressman
Jack Kingston (R-GA), the new chair of the appropriations subcommittee
overseeing the budgets for FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
is still seriously questioning whether the new law deserves funding,
considering the national debt that is spiraling out of control.
Last year tied with 2005 as the warmest on record, according to
U.S. agencies, but is likely to be overtaken soon by the next year
with a strong El Nino weather event, experts said on Thursday.
A Schuylkill County hydrogeologist said a state agency for which he
used to work ignores its own policies when permitting strip mines to
be filled with coal ash.
Reading the morning paper while behind the wheel of your car
might sound like surefire recipe for disaster, but in the
not-too-distant future it might just become a safer and more
economical option than actually doing the driving yourself.
Home charging stations aren't included in the purchase price
of the growing numbers of electric vehicles from major
automakers, so unless you live next door to a
public charging station or are one of the 4,400 Volt owners
to snap up a
free one from GM, you’ll be forced to shell out some extra
cash if you want a faster charging option than is possible with
the included 120-volt cable. At least
Ford’s
home charging station for its new Focus Electric is shaping-up
to be little cheaper and more flexible than some competitor
offerings.
Over the years science has gleaned an enormous amount of
knowledge from the humble fruit fly.
African-American voters are finally getting the facts about
the Republican Party and beginning to turn away from their
traditional pattern of voting for Democrats, Atlanta talk radio
host Herman Cain tells Newsmax.TV. The former CEO said talk
radio has been key to this transformation and that is why
liberals are seeking to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine.
Rising wholesale prices for food and energy are putting
pressure on manufacturers and retailers to pass higher costs to
customers. It's a trend that could raise inflation in the United
States and slow economies in Asia and Latin America.
Creating new well-paying
jobs to spur the economic recovery remains a central
concern globally and in the US. The Great Recession has left many
professionals and their families struggling to make ends
meet for over two years. This jobless recovery is likely to be
the longest recovery since the Great Depression.
International Energy Agency chief Nobuo Tanaka warned on Monday of
tighter oil supply over the next year, thanks to a more robust global
economic recovery and declining oil inventories in the industrialized
world.
So many people have been yelling the warning… but the
world has not taken heed.
This is not fear mongering this is fact. The earth
changes we will experience in the next 2 years are going happen 100
times faster than the most pessemistic appraisals. The web-bots have
pointed to a Global coastal event, Remote viewers have seen it and
the Super Rich are getting ready. We are now at the tipping point.
At least 527 people have lost their lives as mudslides
brought down by weeks of rain struck three towns in the Serrana
region of southeastern Brazil on Wednesday. The death toll is
expected to rise when search and rescue teams reach remote
villages cut off by the slides.
The new Republican Party chairman's celebration may be
short-lived.
From the get-go, Reince Priebus faces a ton of tough tasks in
the wake of Michael Steele's troubled tenure.
A recent article published January 15th
by NOAA speaks of a super-storm threat to California. Scientists say
a plausible super-storm that could devastate California would be fed by
an "atmospheric river" moving water at the same rate as 50 Mississippi
rivers discharging water into the Gulf of Mexico.
The dean of a research institute at the core of Abu Dhabi's
green-energy city said Sunday the government remains firmly
committed to renewable power after recent shifts in the ambitious
project's goals.
OPEC started 2011 with two clear
warnings, one from the International Energy Agency and one from the US
Energy Information Administration, as oil prices continued to climb,
repeatedly breaking upward through fresh two-year highs.
Oil market fundamentals do not
fully explain the recent surge in crude prices to their highest levels
in more than two years, OPEC said January 17, insisting that a
combination of high inventories and ample surplus capacity ensured "an
adequate cushion of supply” to meet market needs.
Republicans are pushing the vote to repeal Obamacare on Wednesday.
This is a critical time in our nation’s history, as Obamacare will .
. .
For the first time in more than a century, wild buffalo from the
nation's last purebred herd will be permitted to roam free in
Montana outside the bounds of Yellowstone National Park.
Solar activity remained at very low levels. Occasional B-class flares were observed...The geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet levels for the next three days (18-20 January)..
Climate change could make a sea in southern Scandinavia too warm
for Atlantic cod and rising water temperatures may be stunting the
growth of young fish, a study showed on Monday.
Southern Nuclear, the company that operates Farley Nuclear Plant in
Houston County, wants the federal government to make good on a
decades-old promise to create a centralized nuclear waste storage
facility.
Shrinking ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is reflecting
ever less sunshine back into space in a previously underestimated
mechanism that could add to
global warming, a study showed.
For years -- even decades --
Earth Policy
Institute president and
Grist
contributor Lester Brown has issued Cassandra-like warnings
about the global food system. His argument goes something like
this: Global grain demand keeps rising, pushed up by population
growth and the switch to more meat-heavy diets; but
grain production can only rise so much, constrained by
limited water and other resources. So, a food crisis is
inevitable.
At least one local couple is expecting a foreclosure notice any
day. The IRS has garnished their wages and even tried to get at
their 401K.
There is a serious risk that the world will experience
significant water, food, and energy shortages over the next ten
years, and it is likely that economic growth will suffer as demand
for basic resources soars.
Many of the world’s foremost influencers and thought leaders on
renewable energy, including heads of state, policy makers,
government officials, business leaders, technologists,
financiers and academics have travelled from all over the world
to Abu Dhabi to debate, discuss and promote the challenges and
solutions relating to the world’s energy needs.
A federal appeals court will begin hearing oral arguments on March
22 in a lawsuit brought in part by Aiken County against the
Department of Energy for stopping plans toward a nuclear waste
repository at Yucca Mountain.
January 14, 2011
Last year tied for the warmest since data started in 1880,
capping a decade of record high temperatures that shows mankind's
greenhouse gas emissions are heating the planet, two U.S. agencies
said.
Every technology must compete against an incumbent: Transistors
fought vacuum tubes; optical fibers fought copper wires in
communications; and today, superconductors are facing off against
copper cables in the electricity transmission space.
The worst flooding in the Australian state of Queensland in 50
years could push up the nation's fruit and vegetable prices by as
much as 20 to 30 percent, lifting inflation and potentially
dampening retail spending.
Britain's beekeepers are at war over their association's
endorsement for money of four insecticides, all of them fatal to
bees, made by major chemical companies.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it easier
for utilities to meet the standard for renewable energy production,
a proposal that conservationists say would make the standard
meaningless.
...brain diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's now occur:
- Earlier in life . . .
- More frequently . . .
- To a much more severe degree . . .
A lot of energy has been devoted to the "Buy American" clause in
a bill signed by President Obama last week that requires the
Defense Department to buy U.S.- made solar panels. It's a sexy
subject because it stirs passionate debates about fair trade and
protectionism and how China's growing political and economic
clout is scaring a lot of people.
Cape Wind completed its Federal permitting process today with the
receipt of a final permit from the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), continuing the project's forward progress to creating jobs and
increasing energy independence from the 468 megawatt offshore wind farm.
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. will build and operate a new fast-fill
compressed natural gas fueling station in Egg Harbor Township,
N.J., for the Atlantic City Jitney Association.
It highlighted the
Catch-22 facing developers of this new breed of power plants: The
steep price of building so-called clean coal plants deters
investment -- but the cost won't come down until companies can prove
the technology works, which requires actually building and operating
plants.
When discussing centralized v. decentralized solar power,
there’s an inevitable comparison between solar thermal electric
power and solar photovoltaic (PV). But the fact is that
solar thermal power – or concentrating solar power (CSP) – can
also be done in a distributed fashion.
Unless House Republicans want to trigger a civil war within their party,
they must accompany any expansion of the debt limit with serious cuts in
spending. While the old, complacent GOP establishment would have gone
along with a clean debt-limit bill, the new, fiery Tea Party folks won't
have it.
The amount of dust in the
Earth's
atmosphere has doubled over the last century,
according to a new study; and the dramatic increase is influencing
climate and ecology around the world.
University of Utah researchers developed a new concept in water
treatment: an electrobiochemical reactor in which a low electrical
voltage is applied to microbes to help them quickly and efficiently
remove pollutants from mining, industrial and agricultural
wastewater.
There are many human-related causes of bird mortality including
buildings, outdoor cats, pesticides, communication towers,
automobiles, wind farms, and lead poisoning from spent
ammunition and lost fishing tackle."
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) of the
Executive Yuan said the first successful marine water quality
monitoring it conducted in the Spratly Islands in September 2010
showed that water quality at all monitoring points around Taiping
Island and Central Reef are qualified with Taiwan's A type standards
of marine environmental quality, making it an unpolluted sea area.
In response to news reports, about e-waste recycling programs
sending their waste to China for processing, the Sanitation
Districts of Los Angeles County announced today that all of the
e-waste collected at the weekly Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors sponsored Household Hazardous/E-Waste (HHEW)
Collection Events is, and has been, recycled entirely within the
United States.
If buildings are living organisms, as energy-efficiency gurus
like to say, then the Portland Opera's three-floor headquarters and
rehearsal space in Southwest Portland is bipolar, vacillating
between frenetic activity and somnolence.
In a finding that gives new meaning to the adage, "waste not,
want not," scientists are reporting that household sewage has
far more potential as an alternative energy source than
previously thought. They say the discovery, which increases the
estimated potential energy in wastewater by almost 20 percent,
could spur efforts to extract methane, hydrogen and other fuels
from this vast and, as yet, untapped resource.
Oil rig drilling in the US is climbing into the stratosphere
while hitting another new high, while horizontal drilling for
both oil and natural gas has become not only the preferred
drilling direction but broke usage records last week, according
to the venerable Baker Hughes rig count.
Emerging-market stocks are slumping into the New Year as food
and energy inflation hit hard, especially in frothy Southeast
Asia.
“There is a definite change on the horizon in the oil and gas
sector that mirrors the larger economy”
Moody's said that the U.S., along with Germany, France and the
U.K., risks losing its "Aaa" rating if health care and pension
subsidies aren't reined in.
A new law signed into effect at the beginning of the year allows
consumers to take advantage of solar panel energy, even if they do
not have solar panels on their property.
OPEC started 2011 with two clear
warnings, one from the International Energy Agency and one from the US
Energy Information Administration, as oil prices continued to climb,
repeatedly breaking upward through fresh two-year highs.
"The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery.
This is a wake-up call to the oil consuming countries and to the oil
producers," Birol said.
“After this shocking tragedy,” says Palin, “I listened at first
puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the
irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion
blame for this terrible event."
The number of U.S. homes receiving a foreclosure filing will
climb about 20 percent in 2011, reaching a peak for the housing
crisis, as unemployment remains high and banks resume seizures
after a slowdown, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
Solar activity remained very low. Region 1146 (N23E06) is the
only spotted region on the visible disk. Geomagnetic field
activity was at quiet levels. Geophysical Activity
Forecast: Geomagnetic field activity is
expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels for days one and two (14
- 15 January) as a recurrent coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS)
becomes geoeffective.
Materials that can repair themselves are generally a good thing,
as they increase the lifespan of products created from them, and
reduce the need for maintenance.
Climate change has likely intensified the monsoon rains that have
triggered record floods in Australia's Queensland state, scientists
said on Wednesday, with several months of heavy rain and storms
still to come.
Loughner had been invited to attend a “Congress on the Corner”
event held by Giffords in August 2007 at the Foothills Mall in
Tucson. Investigators found that Loughner had written “I planned
ahead,” and “My assassination” and “Giffords” along with what
appears to be Loughner’s signature on an envelope he had in a
safe at his home.
Solar-power arrays have sprouted up on rooftops and parking garages
across Tucson and Arizona.
Electric power. We flip a switch, turn it on, take it for granted.
The lights, the microwave, the flat-screen TV; and now the Leaf or Volt
or some other electric car.
But in Africa, electricity remains a rare, hard-earned luxury.
Blackouts as long as 12 hours are common, even in the large cities,
while homes in villages far off the grid are warmed by wood fires and
glow to kerosene light.
No left turn. That is the simple concept behind the Superstreet
traffic design which promises significantly faster travel times,
plus a drastic reduction in auto-collisions and injuries. These
superstreets are ground level streets – not raised freeways or
highways – that allow for greater volume of thru-traffic by
re-routing traffic from side streets that would normally be
trying to get across the main road.
Texas lost a third round Wednesday in its legal fight to halt federal
regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
Texas had asked the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit to block a program that awards construction permits to major
sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as cement kilns and oil
refineries. Every other state has begun the permit program or allowed
EPA to award permits for them.
Here's exciting news for anyone who's been watching the fledgling
efforts to promote tidal power in the U.S.: A New York energy
company that has been testing tidal power in the East River has
filed a formal application to install 30 underwater power turbines
in the East Channel of the river.
Facing huge budget difficulties, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been
showing other states how to survive -- namely, by taking on the
government-employee unions.
"If you put a label on
genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and
crossbones on it."
...characterized U.S. economic activity as continuing to “expand
moderately” during the reporting period. Overall conditions and
activity were noted to have improved by some degree in all 12
districts, a step up from the last report in which two Districts
cited “mixed” business conditions.
Investigating and litigating the Gulf of Mexico spill will be the
"top enforcement priority" in 2011 for the US Department of Justice's
environment and natural resources division, Ignacia Moreno, an assistant
attorney general, said Thursday.
US oil and natural gas drilling in 2010 rose over the previous year
but still remains "far" below the high-flying levels seen in 2008,
according to the American Petroleum Institute's 2010 Quarterly Well
Completion Report for fourth quarter 2010, released Tuesday.
Ultimate Ultimatum: The city of Austin, Texas, is creating a
reality TV show aimed at urging residents to reduce the amount of trash
they generate.
If anyone wants to see a real live mortgage meltdown in progress, they
should visit Florida where, according to the American Securitization
Forum, more than 50% of securitized non-agency Florida residential
mortgages are greater than 60 days past due.
That means that at least 50% of all borrowers included in the data
didn’t make their mortgage payments in November and December.
In my world, a 50+ percent non-payment rate qualifies as a bona fide
“melt-down”.
Over the last couple of years, there has been very little talk of
India becoming one of the biggest markets for concentrating solar
power (CSP). Today, however, many factors are coming together which
show me that the country will start to lead the industry.
Wind power continued as a growing force in electricity production in
Texas in 2010, accounting for 7.8 percent of generation for the
power grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas,
which manages 85 percent of the state's electric load.
January 11, 2011
“Small businesses and lenders who serve small businesses have had
to deal with the economic reality of limited borrowing and lending for
the last three years. They may feel that a similar reality has eluded
the Federal government and it is time to start owning up.”
Ohio's manufacturers have embraced alternative energy, with 169
businesses making materials used to produce solar or wind energy,
according to a new analysis by the Environmental Law and Policy
Center.
Recent diebacks of aspen trees in the U.S. West may end up
increasing the risk posed by a lethal human pathogen, a new
study suggests.
It is not receiving nearly enough attention in the mainstream media,
but a disturbing development is underway in the Middle East:
followers of Jesus Christ in the epicenter have endured a dramatic
surge of violence and persecution at the hands of religious and
political extremists in recent weeks and months.
What if this and that... The art of prediction is one that often fails
and only the test of time will show who is right and who is wrong.
Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of
the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice.
The FDA has been controlling the market of
natural supplementation and vitamins, suppressing free speech by not
allowing suppliers and manufacturers to state the potential health
benefits of a product on its label. A federal case brought against
the FDA by Alliance for Natural Health-USA (ANH-USA) and other
plaintiffs have made some powerful headway against the agency this
gag order and the emerging science behind healthy foods and dietary
supplements.
“In case you are having trouble getting lawyers to volunteer to
defend the FDA, it’s not that hard, really, for a well-trained
lawyer to set aside his or her feelings, thoughts and humanity
to just express the client’s inner truth. Sort of like
channeling… Their case is practically ready-made, they’d just
need to fill in the details. Basically it boils down to the
following, which came to me in a dream… where I thought I saw a
40-foot stone owl in some dark Grove somewhere, acting as the
FDA’s counsel and intoning…”
The USDA is
ready to deregulate GE alfalfa, even though the EIS raises grave
concerns. There’s still time to stop it—if we act quickly!
The free energy community has a lot more than just a small
solution to a bunch of major problems. It could mark a major
turning point in human destiny. It can bring profound hope,
which itself has tremendous value in bolstering the human
spirit.
Why then does likelihood of war between Israel and Iran seem to be
declining for 2011?
Just days after President Barack Obama announced U.S. support
for the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at
the White House Tribal Conference Dec. 16, the Pueblo of Jemez
and the Santa Fe National Forest entered into a historic
agreement that gives the Jemez nation decision making powers
over its aboriginal lands and provides a model implementation of
the indigenous human rights document.
Rising food prices are stoking global inflation with many
agricultural commodity markets driven higher by bad weather in
key producing countries, a senior trader at JPMorgan said.
How free can a country be when a parent is forced to make a
choice of either poisoning their child or being sent to jail, even
threatened to have the child taken from them? In a disturbing case
of judicial over-reaching, Michelle Cochrane was sentenced to make
that choice by Jackson County, MI, Judge Susan Beebe; get your 2
year old vaccines, or else!
On New Year's Eve, over 3,000 red-winged blackbirds inexplicably
plummeted to their deaths from the skies over Arkansas. They may
have struck something while in the air such as lightning or
hail. It is also possible that the ground itself caused their
deaths, and they were merely rendered unconscious while flying
by some mysterious force.
The 2010
scientific expedition undertaken by the European program called
Mediterranean En-Dangered (MED) reveals that 250 billion
microplastics could be found in the Mediterranean Sea.
In an undated posting on Governor Jerry Brown's campaign web site,
the then candidate called for building 12,000 MW of distributed
generation out of 20,000 MW of new renewable generation.
Higher prices for gasoline are likely to prompt Americans to demand
that the federal government provide more access to oil and natural gas
reserves onshore and offshore, a former oil industry executive and new
member of Congress said Sunday.
Every Republican member of Congress should sign the following pledge,
being promulgated by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform:
"I promise not to vote for any expansion of the federal debt limit
unless it is preceded or accompanied by significant cuts in federal
spending."
The Republicans are planning to stop Obamacare in
its tracks, and the vote may come as early as Wednesday.
Government monitoring of what Americans are doing in
cyberspace has moved a bit closer to reality, as President
Barack Obama announces plans to hand over authority to create an
Internet ID for all Americans to the U.S. Commerce Department, a
White House official tells
CBS News.
In what seems to be a diplomatic effort at extreme political
correctness and a nod to gay rights groups, the Obama
administration is removing the words “mother” and “father” from
U.S. passport applications and replacing them with “gender
neutral” terminology. Mom and dad will now be referred to rather
coldly as “parent one” and “parent two.”
Based on discussions
with numerous U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials and
analysts, I concluded that the prospect of war between Iran and
Israel in the first six months of 2011 had diminished and that
there was a growing sense that the West’s
covert war to slow Iran’s bid for nuclear weapons was working.
Solar activity remained very low with occasional low-level
B-class flares. Geomagnetic field activity was at mostly
quiet levels.
About 2 decades ago, scientists coined the term "snowball Earth" to
describe a period about 700 million years ago when glaciers apparently
smothered the planet even at latitudes near the equator. However, new
evidence from ancient rocks bolsters the notion that some of the world's
seas remained unfrozen during this global deep freeze, striking a blow
against the controversial idea that the planet was completely swaddled
in ice at the time.
The solar industry is off to a good year.
Not only have state and federal regulators given many proposed projects
the go-ahead but federal lawmakers have also extended some critical tax
breaks that make the financing of those deals possible.
With the Fed’s successful attempts to boost the stock and
bond markets using quantitative easing (buying government bonds
with printed money) they have increasingly taken on the role of
a guarantor of the asset values of stocks and bonds.
If all the food in the world were shared out evenly, there would
be enough to go around. That has been true for centuries now: if
food was scarce, the problem was that it wasn't in the right
place, but there was no global shortage. However, that will not
be true much longer.
The conventional wisdom of the media establishment that strident
and outspoken political debate catalyzes violence is an
absurdity! Telling people to "kill pigs" as the sixties
radicals did, in fact, encouraged violence. But vigorous
political debate and strongly or even passionately held views
have nothing whatever to do with the decision of some nut to
kill a Congressman or a president.
I like to follow financial commentary, just to get a feel for
psychology.
What I found interesting is that on the recent small climb in
rates to 3.50 percent to from 2.70 on the 10-year Treasury bond,
many were talking about good value in Treasurys.
The United States doesn't have the infrastructure to meet the
federal mandate for renewable fuel use with ethanol but could
meet the standard with significant increases in cellulosic and
next-generation biofuels, according to a Purdue University
study.
electronics recycling in Wisconsin, which recently became the
24th state to ban or restrict disposal of electronic devices in
landfills. The main message of the piece is that Wisconsin´s new
law is creating a bonanza for companies involved in the
recycling chain
Dr. Ron Paul: the FDA engages in “abuse of power…”
You of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
leadership are little more than political hacks, which means that
you are little more than prostitutes for the Multi-National
Corporate Persons who would poison you and your children while they
poison us and ours.
The uranium industry is striking a bullish tone amid resurgent
prices and a welcoming atmosphere in the top state for uranium
reserves.
Companies touted plans to mine more uranium in Wyoming during a
Wyoming Mining Association news conference Thursday.
January 7, 2011
The FDA has just notified small pharmacies that they will no
longer be allowed to manufacture or distribute injectable
vitamin C—despite its remarkable power to heal conditions that
conventional medicine can’t touch.
The American Lung Association has released its list of eleven
biggest 'clean air' events of 2010. Eight events marked
milestones that provide greater protection from dangerous air
pollutants, while three represented delays that have
life-threatening consequences.
US crude stocks dropped a steep 7.511 million barrels to 337.057
million barrels with a sharp decline in imports contributing to the
inventory draw the week ending December 31, an analysis of the oil data
released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute showed.
Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to
infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent
of its coal mines, which fuel Asia's steel mills, to grind to a
halt, Queensland's premier said on Wednesday.
Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, center, is surrounded
by supporters in the Shiite city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100
miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011. Al-Sadr,
who led several Shiite uprisings against American forces in Iraq
before going into exile in neighboring Iran almost four years
ago, has returned to Iraq, officials said Wednesday.
Investors in U.S. debt around the world are
worryingly near a "psychological breaking point" that
could force a "run on the bank" against Treasurys.
Many of Western Pennsylvania's 16 coal-fired power plants have been
charged repeatedly for violations of their air or water pollution
permits and paid relatively small penalties, according to a
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review of federal and state environmental
agency data.
Our world is dotted by various cones and calderas in and around
the multiple plate boundaries that crack their way through our
planet's outer shell like the ones in a dropped china plate.
Along with earthquakes, these zones of tectonic activity produce
most of the world's volcanoes
xcess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has certainly become an
environmental concern in recent years, but researchers from
Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and
Energy Technology are now experimenting with a process that uses
CO2 to process plastic products in an environmentally-friendly
fashion.
A bill which would have authorized construction of a $3.5 billion
clean coal technology plant in Taylorville has failed in a vote in
the Illinois Senate.
Wind Capital Group's Lost Creek wind farm could play a significant
role in the finances for some DeKalb County tax districts this year.
Will solar panels be able to self-replicate? Will power
electronics make it easy to swap in more efficient panels?
Here's a look at some big ideas for the future of solar energy.
Drivers headed northwest along U.S. Route 180 from Flagstaff to
the Grand Canyon travel through an eerie landscape amidst the
otherwise lush and verdant Coconino National Forest.
Given the fact that the world markets are so highly
dependent on fossil fuels and that the costs of these
are becoming epileptic, for economies and consumers, the
outlook for renewable looks promising.
Most people who follow renewable energy have heard of biogas by now,
yet the origins and uses of biogas remain mysterious to many. Biogas
is unusual in that its use predates the use of fossil fuels. In
fact, it is older than fossil fuels completely. The microorganisms
that create biogas are among the oldest life forms on earth, over
three billion years older than the plants and animals that became
today's fossil fuels. Biogas not only provides excellent,
clean-burning energy that can replace fossil fuels in the future,
but in many places it already is.
"As I was researching it, looking at how I could help my own
family, it struck me that there wasn't a one-stop spot to help
people figure out what they could do," said Carter...
Huge questions loom over the world of energy in
2011.
How they are handled will determine the fate of
multi-billion dollar energy corporations, the
pocketbooks of consumers, the fortunes of the
overall economy and the quality of the environment.
Perhaps you have a friend, a work colleague
or even a family member who still isn’t convinced about
Climate Change? Well help is now at hand!
Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to
Talk to a Climate Sceptic," a series by Coby Beck
containing responses to the most common sceptical
arguments on global warming.
This week the New York Times published an
intriguing article on Iraqi efforts to preserve, protect,
restore and rebuild the ancient city of Babylon...
President Barack Obama and the Democrats will face a
newly invigorated House Republican leadership this week
with sweeping plans for congressional investigations
into a wide range of issues.
The current ENSO model forecasts
have not changed significantly compared to last month. La Niña
is currently near its peak and is expected to persist into the
Northern Hemisphere spring 2011 at a lesser intensity.
The North Atlantic Current is Gone
EDITOR: We've been waiting for this report for a while
now.
The blowout of BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico last April was
due to a "failure of management" on the part of BP, Transocean and
Halliburton, as well as a failure by government regulators, and could
occur again if significant reforms are not adopted, the National Oil
Spill Commission has concluded.
In a memo obtained by Media Matters, Fox News Vice President Bill
Sammon ordered his reporters last year to
question global
warming, citing conspiracy theories about climate scientists based
on hacked emails. Weeks before the leaders of the entire world
gathered to address global warming pollution in Copenhagen...
Researchers at the University of Buffalo have announced a
breakthrough that promises to improve both solar energy and
hydrogen fuel production
New York City residents now face a $100 fine if they don’t fully
encase their discarded mattresses and box springs in plastic.
President Obama signed into law Tuesday legislation that
represents the first major overhaul of the nation's food-safety
infrastructure since 1938, but the presumed incoming Republican
chairman of the agriculture subcommittee says he may not fund
it.
The spread between Brent and WTI always has been a key
industry benchmark. Traditionally, WTI was more than Brent, but
this is no longer the case. In fact, WTI has now declined to
about $5/b less than Brent, a tremendously wide gap.
Rain and severe flooding in Queensland, Australia, have driven
international seaborne metallurgical and thermal coal prices higher,
boosting US prices in an already tight global marketplace.
Solar activity was at very low levels during the period with
only a few low-level B-class events observed. a chance for
C-class activity The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels all three days of the
forecast period (06 - 08 January).
A researcher funded by the National Science Foundation say
claims about the scope of the Pacific Garbage Patch are greatly
exaggerated.Those claims include that the patch spreads plastic
contamination over an area twice the size of Texas, that plastic
outweighs plankton in the areas and that the amount of contamination has
been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s.
Former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul warned
Wednesday that even if Republicans fulfill their pledge
to slash $100 billion in federal spending, the United
States still only has a one in 10 chance to avert an
economic catastrophe.
U.S. researchers say they've produced a new class of solar cells that
can repair themselves much like plants do through photosynthesis.
By using carbon nanotubes and DNA...
Influential economist Jeremy J. Siegel says he
remains a long-term bull on the stock market, but he
points to several “scary scenarios” that keep him awake
at night.
As the Motor City in Detroit undergoes real
changes, Energy Central decided to check into
Southern California to see how the electric vehicle
is unfolding there.
* Private U.S. employers added 297,000 jobs in December
* Sharpest jump on record, eclipsed economists' estimate
* Stocks pare losses; U.S. dollar extends gains
Water conservation and reclamation continues to be a topic in the
news. The United Nations predicts that severe water shortages
affecting at least 400 million people today will affect 4 billion
people, more than half of humanity, by 2050. Prevention of the
looming water crisis should receive top priority, according to UN
Secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon.
Coal's future is directly correlated to the
development of new technologies that scrub it of all
harmful emissions as well as those that would
capture and bury carbon emissions. That's what a
broad task force has concluded.
U.S. mine regulators scored a victory this week over big coal
producer Massey Energy Co. in federal court and say they are poised
to use a long-ignored portion of mine safety law to haul operators
of other troubled mines into court.
For the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day,
the world's worst food crisis in a generation is a matter of
survival.
The U.S. national debt has surpassed $14 trillion for
the first time ever, the Treasury Department reports.
Just seven months ago, the country's national debt hit
$13 trillion and is presently on track to break the
$14.294 trillion debt ceiling signed into law by
President Barack Obama in February.
The
minutes of the December 14, 2010 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)
meeting provided a slightly more upbeat assessment of the near-term
outlook. Although given that the improvement was considered "modest",
little change to the statement was deemed necessary, and the Fed
remaining comfortable with the range of 0% to 0.25% for the fed funds
target and keeping the program to buy $600 billion in U.S. Treasury
bonds intact.
Republicans took control of the US House of Representatives Wednesday
and their dual goals of slashing federal spending and eliminating what
they call "job-killing" government regulations could significantly alter
US energy and climate-change policy.
Nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, has increased by more
than 20 percent over the last century, and nitrogen in waterways is
fueling part of that growth, according to a Michigan State
University study.
YOU... and a
WHALE
This
is a story for our times, bringing together how
we can "right" our relationship with all life
and receive one of the greatest gifts in return
- gratitude. PLEASE READ THIS!!!
January 4, 2011
A calendar unites the people and the land.
Rich in celebration and tradition, calendars have long
served as the centerpoint of culture.
It was another tough year for the coal industry.
In the last 25 months not one coal-fired power plant broke
ground for construction in the United States. In 2010 alone a
total of 38 proposed plants were erased from the drawing board,
the most ever recorded in a single year.
Biofuel derived from crops such as switchgrass
certainly holds promise, although some critics maintain that
such crops use up too much agricultural land – land that could
otherwise be used for growing food crops. A genetic discovery
announced this Tuesday, however, reportedly allows individual
plants to produce more biomass.
Earlier this month, as Congress argued over tax cuts, Georgia's
energy industry quietly kept its fingers crossed.
Energy-related tax benefits were also in the tax deal that Congress
eventually approved, said Stephen Smith, director of the Southern
Alliance for Clean Energy.
Military aircraft flew supplies to an Australian town slowly
disappearing under floodwaters, as authorities warned on Monday that
record floods that have devastated the northeast were far from over.
MidAmerican
Energy and
Siemens Energy, Inc. have entered into a turbine supply agreement
for 258, 2.3-megawatt turbines – a total of 593.4 megawatts, which is
enough to power 190,000 homes. The turbines will be erected in Cass,
Adams, Marshall, Calhoun and Adair counties during 2011.
The first target is a year away, and no one is clear how to meet
it, or even to measure progress. The legislature could tweak the
2006 law that created the requirement, but previous attempts have
hit political walls.
Hey America! Are you ready to get wonky on global
warming?
After a year that started with fallout from the
“Climategate” e-mail release, saw the cap-and-trade bill
die in Congress, and ended with a gang of Republican
climate skeptics winning House and Senate seats, global
warming experts are going back to basics.
Lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs in the Cobell settlement have taken to court to argue that the
many millions they are scheduled to receive is too little, but
they’ll take it if they can get it.
2010 was one of those rare fascinating
years in which many economists found out that the theories they
had been taught at university were so far from reality that they
had to backtrack on many of their predictions within a few days
of issuing them
A Rhode Island company is planning to use a
relatively new design for offshore wind platforms to build a
large wind farm 18 to 27 miles off the coast of Rhode Island and
Massachusetts.
... In one year the moon circles the earth 13 times in one year?
... In the current global standard calendar, a month doesn't correspond
to one natural cycle?
In choosing where to live, Arizonans generally consider school
district boundaries, relative property tax rates, crime statistics, and
the like. One factor that ought to figure into the decision is which
utility company supplies the power.
For all the complexities and undeniable risks in
the current macroenvironment, the outlook is reasonably upbeat.
Continued, if slow, economic growth will raise earnings and, in
time, gradually will begin to improve the labor market.
Inflation, though a longer-term risk, will remain well contained
in the coming year.
Almost every day, we hear about advances in the
development of practical electric cars. Those advances won’t
mean much, however, if no one is buying the things.
The Obama administration has greatly overstated the possible economic
benefits of recycling toxic coal ash, a move that is delaying -- and
could possibly scuttle altogether -- tougher regulations on the handling
and disposal of power plant wastes, according to a report from a
coalition of environmental groups.
In Greeley County in western Kansas, voters last week
overturned a 12-year-old referendum that prohibited large hog
farms from locating there.
Some Florida businesses are squeezing a trickle of fuel from
algae, claiming they can help power the world. But right now, a few
expensive drops in the bucket are all they have to show.
Exposure to fluoride may lower children's
intelligence says a study pre-published in Environmental Health
Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences (online December 17, 2010).
It’s been a dynamic past 12 months on the energy front. The
massive Gulf oil spill dominated much of the news cycle. And while
Democratic efforts to pass comprehensive climate change legislation
in the Senate failed, the Obama administration is moving ahead with
plans to use its existing powers to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions.
Just seven months after breaking ground on construction CPV
Renewable Energy Company has
announced that the Keenan II wind farm is now fully operational
and is feeding renewable, clean energy to the electric grid in
Oklahoma.
Despite a December order by the US Environmental Protection Agency,
methane gas found in two private water wells in Parker County, Texas,
might not have come from nearby natural gas wells drilled by Range
Resources, a local water quality official said Monday.
According to the report,
Global Geothermal Power and Heat Pump Market Outlook:
(2010-2015), with 37% of the world's geothermal energy
supply,
Europe is the current geothermal market world leader followed by the
Americas and Asia.
It is widely agreed that strategies addressing climate change through
the adoption of renewable energy technologies cannot succeed without the
active participation of governments and regulators. While it has been
estimated that 80 percent of investment in renewable energy technologies
will come from private sources, it is unlikely that such large-scale
commitments on the part of private investors will occur without strong
signals of support from policymakers.pan
An novel way of comparing solar power with nuclear power finds that
solar easily bests nuclear. Ken Zweibel has an analysis at The Solar
Review that compares the two kinds of electrical energy, in terms of how
much power is packed into each gram of its respective material: cadmium
telluride, versus uranium.pan
Volcanoes emit CO2 and SO2: carbon dioxide and
sulphur dioxide are the main gases that might be construed to
cause global warming or pollution. Volcanoes emit around
100,000,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. Compare that to man-made
emissions of CO2 which comes to about 10,000,000,000 tonnes of
CO2 per year. So volcanoes emit around 1/100th of CO2
that we do and are therefore insignificant in terms of global
warming.
Japanese researchers have used nanotechnology to
develop a process which resembles something out of a 16th
Century alchemy textbook. Although not producing gold, as was
the aim of the alchemists, the scientists have discovered a
technique that allows otherwise inert elements to be combined to
form new intermediate alloy-elements.
Californians can start saying goodbye to traditional 100-watt
incandescent light bulbs now that the state has become the first in the
country to require a new standard for the screw-base bulbs.
During the past few weeks, numerous politicians
stated that the recent passage of the Tax Relief,
Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation
Act of 2010, which extends all of the Bush-era tax cuts
for the next two years, will cause the U.S. federal
budget deficit to rise by more than $700 billion during
the next 10 years.
When combined with the already-completed Whitinsville/Sutton,
Mass. installation the projects in Revere, Haverhill and Everett
will generate a total of 3.4 megawatts of solar power, thereby
eliminating a collective 3.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide
emissions per year, the company said.
Natural disasters killed some 295,000 people
around the world last year, "an exceptionally high number of
fatalities," according to one of the world's largest insurers.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
researchers are using the tools of synthetic biology to engineer
new microbes as an alternative to yeast that can quickly and
efficiently forment complex sugars into advanced biofuels.
The Washington Post has announced that in 2010,
not a single new coal-fired power plant was constructed in the
United States. This marks the second year in a row in which this
has occurred.
A number of suits challenge the nascent Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) effort to reduce greenhouse emissions, but the agency has
actually been prodded into action by
lawyers
from states and environmental groups from the
other side.
Peruvian Native groups
have in the past three months retaken efforts in the Amazon to
prevent the transit of ships as their means to push for several
demands in the first intensification of such actions since similar
blockades of rivers and roads in June 2009 led to fighting with
police that caused 34 deaths.
Jan. 2 isn’t just your ordinary Sunday.
It’s the day the Obama administration will
officially start regulating greenhouse gas
emissions, and critics have issued dire
predictions of economic destruction.
Without maps or GPS, great white sharks travel
thousand of miles round-trip from California to Hawaii or
Australia to South Africa.
Senator John Thune had a challenge for renewable
energy developers the other day - to work to remove regulatory
barriers to clean energy development. The problem would have
widespread support in any forum since projects take years to
develop and exorbitant costs drive up project prices and delay
deployment.
Solar activity remained at very low levels.
Geomagnetic field activity is
expected to be at quiet levels during days 1 - 2 (04 - 05 January).
A federal effort to spur offshore wind power now
aims to guide developers through the process in
about two years.
In the two years since a series of solar plant proposals have come
forward in the San Luis Valley, concerns with their potential water use
havesubsided.
The solar industry is off to a good year. Not
only have state and federal regulators given many proposed
projects the go-ahead but federal lawmakers have also extended
some critical tax breaks that make the financing of those deals
possible.
A decade-old law that gives criminal immunity to
some people who defend themselves with knives, fists, sticks or
guns is rearing its head more frequently in Volusia County
courtrooms.
China has refused repeated U.S. requests to eliminate export
restraints on rare earths that have rattled its trading partners,
the U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Thursday.
The fate of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be
center stage in January when the Obama administration makes its
required Congressional recommendations about what to do about
the two companies.
It´s a Gas: The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh is
installing an anaerobic biodigester and power generator to
convert food and yard waste into heat and electricity for the
campus
[editor's note: Why is it always prospectively a "crisis"
or "catastrophe" to limit government spending in any way, but
business
as usual to steal double-digit percentages of incomes from their
actual earners? - TLK]
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