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Today's News from
ArizonaEnergy.org
Find out what's
going on in our area and around the World from an "energy"
perspective!
for Link, click Headline
The Power of Gratitude: It's About What
You Have, Not What You're Going to Get
With the hustle and bustle of everyday
life, it's easy to forget about what and
who you're grateful for.
December 28, 2012
Americans are still hesitant about recycling their old mobile
phones.
Almost 2 out of 3 households in America – 62% to be exact –
are hoarding their old cell phones instead of recycling them,
according to a
recent survey from mobile-phone security company
Lookout Mobile.
Other Sheriffs are also considering
participation in this proposed program. The proposal is that any
school that wishes to do so, may designate the Principal or
another designee to receive training in the use of firearms and
how to handle emergencies such as that which occurred in
Newtown. The training would be provided by personnel of the
Attorney General’s Office, and of the cooperating Sherriff’s
Offices. The training would be free to the schools. The
designated individual (no more than one per school) would then
be authorized to keep a firearm locked in a secure place, and
would have adequate communication to be alerted to an emergency
in any part of the school.
In the city where a protest over
tax policy sparked a revolution, modern day tea party activists
are cheering the recent Republican revolt in Washington that
embarrassed House Speaker John Boehner and pushed the country
closer to a "fiscal cliff" that forces tax increases and massive
spending cuts on virtually every American.
After adopting an ambitious fuel-economy standard this year,
the government and environmental advocates now face the
more-complicated challenge of meeting the goals.
A new report by the Consumer Federation of America says that
demand for hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles is growing and
will be sufficient to meet expected changes in the auto
industry, but some experts disagree with this outlook.
Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, has long been viewed as a likely
candidate to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
While United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice more recently had
been viewed as the top contender for the post, she withdrew her
name from consideration on Thursday after months of criticism
for her response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi.
And eventually, Roane County will have a nearly 400-acre park
here with boat docks and ball fields.
That day will signify the Kingston ash spill's final cleanup
-- give or take about 30 years and at least $10 million worth of
environmental monitoring.
Global average temperatures are
rising in most places, but the rise is not uniform. In western
Antarctica, temperatures have risen significantly over an
extended period. In a finding that raises further concerns about
the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise, a new
study by the University of Colorado University Corporation for
Atmospheric Research in Boulder finds that the western part of
the continent's ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much
warming as previously thought.
Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s
Investors Service are cutting corporate debt ratings at the
fastest pace since 2009 as a global economic slowdown and record
borrowing erode credit quality.
A decision by House Republicans to
cancel a vote on House Speaker John Boehner's fiscal-cliff
proposal increases the chances the U.S. economy will plunge into
a recession next year, said Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of fund giant
Pimco.
Town officials have rejected participating in a state
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection pilot program
that would use $20 million in state money to create micro-grids
across Connecticut.
Micro-grids are small, on-site energy-generation facilities
intended to power small-scale areas like neighborhoods or
municipal complexes. The idea of developing a micro-grid pilot
program came out of the panels that Gov. Dannel Malloy convened
in the aftermath of 2011's Tropical Storm Irene and the October
snowstorm that left hundreds of thousands of Connecticut
residents without power, some for as long as 10 days.
Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans now
think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a
serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about
it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.
A corporate-funded think tank
compared climate scientists to terrorists.1 Extremists sent
threats to a British researcher, telling him to kill himself and
that they wished someone would shoot him between the eyes.2
Egypt's
president ordered parliament's upper chamber to convene after
the release of official results of a referendum on an
Islamist-backed constitution that gives temporary legislative
powers to the traditionally toothless chamber.
In
response to a court order, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) today finalized an update to its national air
quality standards for harmful fine particle pollution (PM2.5),
including soot, setting the annual health standard at 12
micrograms per cubic meter. By 2020, ninety-nine percent of U.S.
counties are projected to meet revised health standard without
any additional actions
In reflecting on the SVT E-Cat
program, I can't help but think that this has to change some
minds in favor of the E-Cat. The way I see it, this show has
confirmed a lot of what Andrea Rossi has been saying over the
last few months regarding the development of his technology and
business plan.
A controversial genetically
engineered salmon has moved a step closer to the consumer's
dining table after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said
Friday the fish didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the
environment or to humans who eat it.
As Congress struggles to avert the
year-end "fiscal cliff" of tax-and-budget policy, there's one
expiring tax law that isn't getting much press: The federal tax
credit that subsidizes wind-power production.
A majority of Americans have a
favorable view of the National Rifle Association, according to a
new Gallup poll.
The poll also found that views of the
gun advocacy group were more positive among gun owners, although
owners said the NRA did not always reflect their views.
Geithner, in a letter to
congressional leaders Wednesday, said the government will hit
its statutory debt ceiling Monday. To avert a default, the
Treasury will take action to create about $200 billion in
headroom under the debt limit.
I believe credit is due to those
who helped people better understand Maya's message. In fact, you
should not be surprised to hear that the people most upset about
all this Hollywood style propaganda are the Mayan elders
themselves. At first the elders really tried to get interested
people to understand what the 'transition' is meant to be and to
provide a way to give some form of tangible pathway. But when
venturing into the celestial world of less defined understanding
in the principles of quantum physics, dark matter, and ether -
one can easily sympathize with the majority of people who become
frustrated with not being able to interpret the Mayan message.
We’re down to the wire, folks. Not
just in terms of the 2012 calendar. Or the fiscal cliff talks.
But the opportunity for you to target gains of 26.8%, 55.1%, and
59.5% from the ongoing global banking crisis.
"Energy is the
issue of our time, both globally and here in Oregon," Kitzhaber
said in a press release. "No single issue will have a greater
impact on our state's economy, environment and quality of life
in the coming decade, and I am committed to pursuing the policy,
programs and practices needed to ensure we shape a prosperous
and sustainable future."
The Hawaiian Islands in the North Pacific are
dissolving from within and at some point in the future they
might fall off the map completely, geologists claim.
Researchers discovered that the mountains found
on Oahu (Koolau and Waianae), Hawaii’s third largest island, are
being eroded from within by groundwater. Thus, they are quite
likely to shrink as the years go by, and ultimately turn into
plains.
The researchers found that the risk
for contamination with pesticide residues was significantly
reduced with organic as opposed to conventional produce; in
addition, bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics were more
likely to be isolated from conventionally raised chicken and
pork products than from organic ones.
Ireland has long been portrayed as
a success story following its remarkable transformation from a
sleepy European isle into the “Celtic Tiger” -- one of the
fastest growing economies in the 1990s. An abrupt collapse in
the property market, however, coupled with a severe banking
crisis resulted in a sharp economic downturn in 2008. Since the
start of the financial crisis, successive Irish governments have
implemented stern austerity measures, removing 25 billion euros
from the economy through spending cuts and tax increases -- the
equivalent of 16 percent of economic output in 2011.
More than 4,000 times each year,
American surgeons make serious medical mistakes — operating on
the wrong site of a patient’s body, performing an incorrect
procedure, or leaving a sponge or towel still inside a person
after an operation — a new study has found.
If we look
around the Earth, we can see that Mother Nature has provided us
with many stored energy resources that can potentially be used
to power our world, such as the latent heat of water vapor or
the heat content of tropical ocean water.
Environmentalists say they will fight rule changes they
believe could further weaken North Carolina's protection against
industrial emissions of toxic air pollutants.
The North Carolina legislature this year exempted pollution
sources from state oversight if they are also covered by federal
rules and don't pose an "unacceptable risk" to human health.
There's no big smokestack. You also
don't see a bunch of workers scurrying around in hard hats. Rest
assured though, Warren County Public Schools has a power plant.
One new state law taking effect on
New Year's Day is intended to spur sales of solar energy
equipment, while another is aimed at helping craft brewers snip
unfavorable contracts with beer wholesalers.
The largest lithium-ion automotive
battery plant in the U.S. is located in Smyrna, Tenn. The
Nissan (IW 1000/26) plant- which is making battery components
for the ramp-up of production of the all-electric, zero-emission
2013 Nissan LEAF early next year – is one of three of its kind
in the world operated by a major automaker.
The country does not need “one more
law on top of 20,000 laws” that aims to control gun ownership in
response to the mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., the CEO of the National Rifle Association said
Sunday.
"The only thing that stops a bad
guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre,
chief executive of the National Rifle Association, noting that
banks and airports are patrolled by armed guards, while schools
typically are not.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will partner with
Johnson Matthey, a global specialty chemicals company, in a
five-year, $7 million effort to economically produce drop-in
gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from non-food biomass feedstocks,
the federal laboratory announced today.
[What this article also does is draw the attention of "some"
to the population that does NOT
have guns. Which houses are exposed!]
"Do you fools realize that you also
made a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have
no guns in them to protect themselves? What a bunch of liberal
boobs you all are," wrote one reader.
President Obama has identified
climate change as one of his top three priorities in his second
term after coming under fire from environmentalists for giving
the issue short shrift during the campaign.
President Obama says he wants to
raise taxes on the wealthy. But what he really wants is to
avoid spending cuts. By blaming the Republicans for refusing to
increase revenues from the rich (who are also the nation's
leading employers), he can avoid having a straight-out fight
over the size of government spending -- a battle he must lose
and look bad fighting.
In times past, political leaders
would lay out their domestic and foreign policies in clear,
coherent terms. President Barack Obama talks about getting our
fiscal house in order, but fails to propose any meaningful
spending cuts.
Jerome Segura, a senior security
researcher with the vendor Malwarebytes, has recently been
researching these sites, many of which operate underground on an
invitation-only basis, though an alarming number are publicly
available, including some hosted in the United States, Canada
and the United Kingdom.
The takeover, without which the
housing market could barely function, has occurred against a
backdrop of little planning or public discussion.
In
fact, nine out of every 10 new mortgages are now backed by the
U.S. taxpayer, up from three in 10 in 2006.
Solar Sector Changes Direction
Despite battling excess supply and the knock-on impact of
the global economic downturn on international markets, Q3
saw significant activity across China’s solar sector. However,
this is not the supply chain-driven growth of the last five
years, but a new dawn for the world’s largest solar
manufacturing economy. That the country is seeking to expand its
domestic solar demand to deal with oversupply and falling prices
has become well-known, but Q3 has shown that the Government is
willing to practise what it preaches in terms of implementing
policy.
October saw the official
implementation of Ley General de Cambio Climático, or the
“General Law on Climate Change,” The legislation, passed in June
this year, is one of the strongest national climate change laws
to date and represents a robust foundation for Mexico’s
transition to a low-carbon economy.
The issue of energy — hotly debated
throughout the election campaign and catalyzed by Hurricane
Sandy-emerged as a highly divisive topic. President Barack Obama
favored an “all of the above” approach in which clean
technologies play a starring role. Mitt Romney, meanwhile,
relegated renewables to the bench in favor of more traditional
fuels, making clear his intention to remove subsidies on clean
energy and help the oil and gas industry make the US energy
independent by 2020.
The largest solar event of the
period was a C1..There are currently 5 numbered sunspot regions
on the disk. slight Chance for an M-class flare. The
geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels
for days one and two (28 Dec, 29 Dec) due to effects from a weak
coronal hole high speed stream.
The nation’s three most productive
solar installation firms are under investigation for allegedly
exaggerating business costs to get larger cash payments through
a federal stimulus program.
Sen. Chuck Grassley tells Newsmax
that Congressional Republicans have a “great deal of leverage”
on President Obama because they can refuse to raise the debt
ceiling unless he agrees to spending cuts. Grassley also says
the president wants the nation to go over the fiscal cliff
because it will raise everyone’s taxes — then he can be seen as
saving the middle class by lowering their taxes in the new year.
The Iowa Republican also praised Grover Norquist for reminding
Congress we have a spending problem.
Rhode Island plans to install at
least 30 public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations next
year.
After a season of holiday revelry,
cold and flu season lurks around the corner ready to spoil all
the fun. But a new study finds that chicken soup can cure what
ails you, just like your mother told you.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the
atmosphere caused by human-driven emissions might lead to larger
sweet potatoes, a staple food for many African and Asian
countries, research reveals
Sweet potatoes could double in size with the increase in CO2
levels currently forecasted for the end of this century,
We've been down so long almost anything starts to look like up.
Be prepared for another few down years as the solar industry
rationalizes production and figures out how to make money
downstream; we've lost this profit-making capability upstream.
Since I don't have to worry about offending any customers,
suppliers, competitors or politicians this year, I can be more
candid than usual. The "oversupply" theme runs heavily
throughout this list, so without further ado, here are ten solar
predictions for 2013.
What’s more, I’m switching 100%.
The scale of strategic thinking
Republicans need is vastly larger and deeper than any current
proposal recognizes. The Republican National Committee will play
a particularly important role in gathering information,
encouraging analysis, hosting dialogues about key changes, and
helping implement strategies for victory in 2014 and 2016.
Libya: Benghazi Consulate Report
Misses the Mark
Phares: Constitution Vote Moving
Egypt Toward an Islamist State
Yemen: Distracting Military Shuffle
Opens Door for Al-Qaeda
Holy Land Tourism Falls, Hurting
Both Israelis and Palestinians
Choked by Higher Taxes, France’s
Wealthy Flee
By Refusing Foreign Troops, Mali
Would Destabilize Region
Falklands Dispute Pushing Argentina
to the Left
India Challenges China with New
ASEAN Pact
Turkey: Loss of Arbiter Role Boosts
Western Interests
LIBOR Scandal Deepens as UBS Under
Fire
US Shale Gas Boom Forces Trinidad
and Tobago to Regroup
Syria: Assad Regime Rapidly Losing
Support
UK and UAE Grow Closer Despite
Human Rights Concerns
Global Inventories: Still Working
Off the Excess
While the nation has been focused on new sources of
natural gas and shale oil, few noticed the slow decline of an
older energy source, nuclear power. Today, commercial nuclear
power is struggling to stay in the game.
The power markets
are hammering the nation's nukes. Over a decade ago, several
regions decided to create Regional Transmission Organizations
(or Independent System Operators) and use the market to set
power prices. Today, North America has ten independent
RTOs/ISOs, where wholesale power is auctioned every few minutes.
With Michigan becoming the 24th
state to adopt a right-to-work law, the handwriting is on the
wall: If you want to attract investment and create jobs, unions
are a barrier not a benefit.
Doctors are often able to save
lives by using the latest drugs and medical procedures. But
every once in a while, patients survive even when science shows
recovery is impossible.
A core issue -- whether the
"temporary" cask storage is becoming permanent -- was set aside
by the panel while its parent agency, the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, studies the problem across the nation. A
federal appeals court in June struck down the commission's waste
storage rules, forcing another look at the implications of
keeping radioactive waste at reactor sites for up to 60 years.
Republicans have a “nuclear option”
in the form of upcoming debt ceiling negotiations, billionaire
developer Donald Trump said Monday as he slammed the White
House's poor leadership on the fiscal cliff issue.
The United Nations Security Council
on Thursday authorized a military peacekeeping mission in Mali
to help the once-stable country retake its vast northern region
from Islamist rebels.
The Obama administration issued the
framework on Friday of a long-term study on whether fracking for
natural gas pollutes drinking water, but will not make
conclusions until 2014 about the controversial technique that is
helping to fuel a domestic drilling boom.
The United States on Tuesday
pressed forward with plans to slap steep punitive duties on wind
turbine towers imported from China at prices deemed unfairly
low, even as officials welcomed a high-level Chinese delegation
for trade and economic talks.
Over the past year or two, we've
written a lot about the drag that solar permitting processes
is having on the growth of the industry, and the efforts to
bring those costs down.
Now, a nationwide survey of
solar installers provides more clarity to the situation.
Antiquated and complex permitting processes are limiting
adoption of residential solar and discouraging installers from
expanding into new territories, according to a survey by Clean
Power Finance.
The U.S. federal government on
Wednesday announced a plan to manage energy drilling on part of
Alaska's North Slope, with the 23-million-acre National
Petroleum Reserve to be divided between areas available for oil
and gas leases and those that are protected from development.
-
Japan ranked highest in the world for both female and male
life expectancy
-
The United States spends $2.7 trillion annually -- TWICE the
amount per person as most other industrialized nations – on
health care, yet was ranked only 29th for male life
expectancy and 33rd for female
New scientific evidence shows the
natural cyclical patterns of warming and cooling trends has a
direct impact on the increase and decrease of earthquake and
volcanic activity. Researchers at GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for
Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) and Harvard University in
Massachusetts (USA) have now found strong evidence for this
relationship from major volcanic eruptions around the Pacific
Ocean over the past 1 million years. They have presented their
results in the latest issue of the international journal
"Geology".
The past year has brought about a boom of wind energy project
completions in the U.S. as developers have rushed to take
advantage of the Production Tax Credit (PTC). Meanwhile, Latin
American and Canada have also seen tremendous growth, signs that
wind energy in other parts of the Americas is healthy and
growing, despite what may happen near-term in the U.S.
World nuclear electricity-generating capacity
has been essentially flat since 2007 and is likely to fall as
plants retire faster than new ones are built. In fact, the
actual electricity generated at nuclear power plants fell 5
percent between 2006 and 2011.
Homes values gained an estimated 6
percent in the U.S. this year, the first increase since 2006, as
the housing market began to recover from its worst slump since
the 1930s, Zillow Inc. said.
December 21, 2012
The state Bureau of Consumer Protection, at odds with NV
Energy over the replacement of smart meters, has reached a
compromise to allow electric customers to keep their existing
analog meters -- but at a price.
Many customers objected to installation of the smart meters
on grounds that the radiation they emit can cause cancer and
other ailments.
Under the agreement reached by consumer protection and the
major electric company, those unhappy customers will be able to
retain their existing analog meters but they will have to pay an
up-front cost of $53.46.
Thousands of Americans are rushing
to their local gun stores to buy high-powered rifles and
ammunition in a bid to thwart a potential assault weapons ban in
the wake of last week’s Connecticut school massacre, Fox News
reports.
Another dock likely washed into the
Pacific Ocean following a devastating tsunami that hit Japan in
2011 has shown up on the West Coast.
This week, in a seemingly endless
stream of bank fraud news, UBS agreed to pay $1.5 billion in a
“settlement” to various regulatory agencies in the United
States, the U.K. and Switzerland. The fines are part of a
settlement of charges alleging the Swiss bank conspired to
manipulate the Libor interest rate.
Shares in Chinese solar companies soared after the government
allocated a further 7 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) of subsidies
for domestic installations this year, taking the year's total to
13 billion yuan ($2 billion), according to the official Xinhua
News Agency.
AVE works by introducing warm air
into a circular station, whereupon the difference in temperature
between this heated air and the atmosphere above creates a
vortex – or controlled tornado, which in turn drives multiple
wind turbines in order to create electricity. The vortex could
be shut down by simply turning off the source of warm air.
Some major news came out this week
from our friends Down Under. Two of Australia's largest grocery
chains have pledged to phase out factory-raised eggs and pork.
The two chains are Cole's the nation's largest, which will ban
these products starting January 1st, and Woolworths, who expects
to phase them out by the middle of next year. The two chains
combine to cover 80 percent of the nation's food market share.
Acid Mine Drainage is one of the
greatest environmental hazards that is associated with mining
processes and degrades more than 4,500 stream miles in the
mid-Atlantic region of the US alone. When water flows through
abandoned and active coal mines, a reaction occurs between the
water and the rocks containing sulfur bearing minerals. This
reaction has the ability to contaminate drinking water, disrupt
aquatic plants and animal reproduction, and corrode parts of
infrastructure due to the net acidity of the drainage.
The Benghazi mystery boils down to
one key question: On what basis did Hillary, Susan Rice, and the
president camouflage the terrorist attack on our consulate as an
over-reaction to a film about Mohammed?
Money managers are still bearish on
the global economy, though sentiment is improving, according to
the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey for
December.
A net 40 percent of the 255 managers polled
believe global growth will increase in the next year. While that
number is nothing to write home about, it’s up from 34 percent
in November and only 20 percent in October.
Next year will bring austerity and
rising interest rates, predicts Ray Dalio, founder of
Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund manager.
Plus, the Fed is out of bullets.
After years in development, Clean
Water Systems & Stores Inc has introduced a new water
purification system that removes a wide variety of contaminants
from contaminated well and surface waters using a combination of
hydrogen peroxide, ozone and UF technologies.
For a few years, matters involving
climate change have been nestled behind a darkening economy.
Now, though, the subject is re-emerging, hastened by Hurricane
Sandy and who will pay for the associated liabilities.
Uncommon weather events are occurring with increasing frequency
and are causing an enormous human toll and economic hardship.
The marketplace has become the first-responders here,
sidestepping a congressional stalemate. As such, insurers are
pricing climate change risks into their policies while
businesses are taking either mandatory or voluntary steps to cut
their emissions. The result is now the platform from which to
tackle the challenges posed by the earth's warming.
Declining yields for U.S. corporate
bonds have created the potential for a 'bond bubble' under which
a rising interest rate scenario could result in significant
valuation losses for institutional fixed-income investors,
according to a Fitch Ratings study.
...major concerns remain for the
U.S. banking industry in 2013 and beyond. Although earnings
generally beat forecasts in 2012, revenues were weak in
quarter-over-quarter and prior-year comparisons. For the most
part, U.S. banks met or exceeded earnings estimates by cutting
costs and reducing loan loss reserves as a result of their
efforts to shrink nonperforming loan portfolios. Demand for new
loans was moderate with most banks showing only modest portfolio
increases. And, the continuation of the Federal Reserve policy
keeping record low interest rates, compressed net interest
margin spreads in the second half of 2012, leading to lighter
revenues than previous quarters.
Geothermal capacity additions are on track to top 100 MW in
2012, making this year one of the best for geothermal deployment
in the last decade. This could be a tentative sign that
conditions have been improving for geothermal finance
(traditionally, finance has been one of the principal barriers
to the technology's wider adoption). Projects coming online this
year have demonstrated some creativity in leveraging financial
opportunities
Refineries are starting to crank
away, particularly in the US West Coast, where they’re operating
at rates not seen for more than two years.
Recent research shows that boys,
like girls, are beginning sexual development much sooner than
historically normal. Boys are now developing six months to two
years earlier than the medically accepted standard based on
previous studies Precocious puberty can affect both physical and
psychological health, including raising the future risk for
hormone-related cancers The trend raises serious questions about
environmental factors spurring this development, as it cannot be
explained through genetic changes
Europe has rejected 95% of the
health and nutrition claims under review. What does this mean
for us? The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) evaluated
2,037 health claims—that is, statements that a nutrient or food
contributes to or has a positive impact on a particular health
condition—and authorized the use of only 241 of them. Most of
the ones accepted were related to structure or function claims,
such as “calcium contributes to normal muscle function.”
U.S. mortgage finance giants Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac may have suffered more than $3 billion in
losses due to manipulation of the benchmark interest rate known
as Libor, according to an internal memo by a federal watchdog.
Fitch warned that the U.S. is more
likely to lose its top-notch "AAA" rating if lawmakers cannot
agree on how to cut the deficit and avoid the broad government
spending cuts and tax increases that go into effect next year if
no deal is reached.
Since 2008, the Fed has taken
repeated steps to stimulate the economy.
Stimulus tools
have included slashing benchmark interest rates to rock-bottom
levels to more unorthodox measures such as quantitative easing
(QE), under which Fed buys bonds such as Treasurys or mortgage
debt held by banks, pumping the financial system full of
liquidity in the process to make sure borrowing costs stay low
across the economy.
The Fed is currently running its
third round of QE in which it is buying $85 billion in
mortgage-backed securities and Treasury holdings a month from
banks.
Geomagnetic disturbances (GMD)
occur when solar storms on the sun’s surface send electrically
charged particles toward earth, where they interact with earth’s
magnetic field. This interaction potentially has implications
for the nation’s high-voltage transmission grid. GMD can send
geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) through transmission
lines, potentially through transformers and into the earth
through ground connections.
Geomagnetic disturbances can have a
serious effect on power systems. Currents induced in power lines
flow to ground through substation transformers. Here they cause
saturation of the transformer core which can lead to a variety
of problems. Increased heating has caused transformers to burn
out. Also, extra harmonics generated in the transformer produce
unwanted relay operations, suddenly tripping out power lines.
The stability of the whole system can also be affected as
compensators switch out of service. Such a sequence of events
led to the Quebec blackout of March 13, 1989, which left the
whole province without power for over 9 hours.
“Gun-control supporters have the
blood of little children on their hands,” Larry Pratt, the
group’s executive director, said. “Federal and state laws
combined to insure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult
had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were
murdered.
According to AVEtec founder Louis
Michaud's website, the vortex engine has the same thermodynamic
basis as the proven solar chimney except the physical tube of
the solar chimney is replaced with centrifugal force. There is
no need for a solar collector, as the solar collector is the
earth's surface in its unaltered state.
The
House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a $633 billion defense
bill for next year despite Pentagon complaints that it spares
outdated but politically popular weapons at the expense of the
military's ability to fight.
Without congressional action, more
than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts will start
taking effect in January, with the possibility of a recession in
the first half of 2013. The stalled U.S. budget talks won’t be
resolved until the last week of 2012 or early in 2013 as
lawmakers plan to leave Washington for the Christmas holiday.
What do we see for insurance
companies in 2013? It appears as though the scene is set for a
tremendous opportunity for mergers and acquisitions driven by
different issues in different market segments.
A medication at the center of a
recent court ruling turns out to be a completely natural
substance.
..no gun.
I was unarmed,
and if someone ran in and started shooting, I'd only be able to
cover my family while Steve pulled out his gun and protected us.
I'd be a LIABILITY rather than an ASSET.
EU Peace Prize: Another Nobel
Embarrassment
Should Japan Rearm to Counter
Chinese Imperialism?
Brazil: Court Decision Improves
Chevron’s Prospects
Researchers have discovered a
strong historical link between global temperature increases and
increases in volcanic activity
A solid majority of Americans
say they have received benefits from six of the nation’s
best-known federal entitlement programs, according to a survey
released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
Although legislative efforts to rein in the nation’s debt by
trimming programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
are closely associated with Republicans, patronage of the
programs is bipartisan, the survey data found.
The time for worrying about the
apocalypse is long over, and the National Museum of the American
Indian (NMAI) is here to tell us why.
Berkeley Lab researchers devise a new method to estimate
state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Using a new method for estimating greenhouse gases that
combines atmospheric measurements with model predictions,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers
have found that the level of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse
gas, in California may be 2.5 to 3 times greater than the
current inventory.
NATO’s Big New Idea Could Work to
Keep Alliance Strong
Cayman Islands: Leader Axed Over
Corruption, Chinese Influence
Engineers at the California
Institute of Technology (CalTech) and the University of
California at Berkeley have developed a nanofocusing waveguide,
a tiny passive plasmonic device which is capable of
concentrating light onto a spot a few nanometers in size.
The Australian company that owns Navajo Mine
said Wednesday it has reached a preliminary agreement to sell
the mine to the Navajo Nation.
BHP Billiton announced it has signed a memorandum of
understanding with Navajo officials to sell the 33,000-acre coal
mine east of Farmington to the tribe.
Several studies of the newest blockbuster drug for diabetes,
Januvia, have implicated these very common drugs to cause a
number of different cancers. They will likely be removed from
the market but perhaps not until they’ve killed many
Nigeria's oil production may fall
by 40% by 2020 without new investment in its key oil and gas
industry, analysts and industry officials say.
The
government's failure to introduce wide-ranging reforms in the
industry has put millions of dollars of investment on hold.
Norway, which has led developed
nations by investing billions of dollars to slow tropical
deforestation, announced plans on Wednesday to step up its
efforts as part of "first aid" to slow climate change.
President Barack Obama believes
he’s so mainstream, he would have been considered a moderate
Republican back in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s.
"President Obama launched an
interagency task force Wednesday to develop immediate reforms to
cure what he called a gun violence epidemic that is plaguing the
United States. ... White House officials say the eventual
package of proposals will likely include some new restrictions
on guns, particularly assault rifles, and high-capacity
magazines. But they say it will also likely involve measures
that touch on mental health initiatives and, perhaps, a
discussion on the depiction of violence presented in popular
culture."
Our stellar neighborhood is
becoming crowded courtesy of some newly discovered real estate.
Astronomers have uncovered evidence buried in the noise of
apparently empty data showing that five super-Earths are
orbiting the nearby...
Anti-gun hysteria is reaching a
fever pitch.
And President Obama just announced he's on
the warpath -- and he's not taking any prisoners.
Fellow
Patriot, this is an all-out EMERGENCY.
Everyone in Washington knows two things:
1.) Obama will try to wriggle out of
any spending cuts enumerated in the fiscal-cliff deal. We all
know from experience that whenever there is a 1-1 ratio between
spending cuts and revenue increases, the ratio falls apart in
reality. The tax increases slow the economy, curtailing growth
and increasing entitlement spending. Unless there is an
enforcement mechanism, spending goes up, not down.
2.) The Republicans will not refuse to
raise the debt limit and thus cause the nation to default. If
House Speaker John Boehner did not let the government shut down
over the 2011 continuing-resolution battle or the subsequent
debt-limit fight, he won't let it close down now.
The CitiSense sensor provides
smartphone users with real-time air quality readings for their
immediate environment
Nearly three out of every four
voters want Washington to slash spending, according to a new
Rasmussen Reports poll.
Overall 73 percent of likely
voters believe the federal government should cut its spending
rather than increase it, the survey reported.
Two religious-affiliated colleges
claimed a "major victory" Tuesday after a federal appeals court
ordered the Obama administration to verify that it is revising
the so-called contraception mandate in ObamaCare.
Part one: how much renewable
electricity capacity was installed worldwide at the end of 2011,
and which technologies were the most popular?
Part two: Hydropower falls behind
wind and biomass as growth dips
Part three: Wind market still on
the up and dominated by China
Criminals intent on stealing
millions of dollars from consumer bank accounts plan to unleash
a massive cyberattack on major U.S. banks, security firm McAfee
warns in a new report.
Solar panels that will take care of most of the town
government's electrical needs are lighting up.
"We're turning from a consumer of power to a producer of
power," town Supervisor Robert C. Best Jr. said. "We're not
going to make a lot of money, but it's good for the
environment."
Recent talk about the upcoming
fiscal cliff has caused many investors to reflect upon the real
long-term threats to their own portfolios. It occurred to me
that there are some striking similarities between the current
rate of return on a solar investment and the rate of return one
would have earned on a bond investment during the
high-interest-rate era of the late 80s. Many people are dead set
against bonds right now and for good reason — the fact is that
bonds, or any interest-bearing vehicles for that matter
(especially ones that are guaranteed like U.S. Treasury Bonds,
the most secure bonds in the world), are just not paying
anything. This certainly was not always the case.
Peak Farmland is a term used to
indicate that the amount of land needed to grow crops worldwide
is at a peak, meaning, no new farmland will have to be created.
A group of experts has even said that an existing area of
farmland more than twice the size of France will be able to
return to its natural state by the year 2060. The area is also
equivalent to all the arable land now in use in China. This is
due to rising yields and slower population growth. Their report
conflicts with a United Nations study which states that more
cropland will be needed to stem hunger and avert price spikes as
the global population pushes past 7 billion.
Such movement “rarely makes sense,”
said consultant Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates. But he noted
the US refining industry is using a record amount of its
capacity for this time of year, especially in the Midwest and US
Gulf Coast, and needs to send the excess somewhere. US Energy
Information Administration data released Wednesday put the
US-wide refinery run rate at 91.5%, but a peak 96.5% for the
Gulf Coast and 95.9% for the Midwest. The US West Coast was only
at 79.8%, but had above-average stocks of 32.64 million barrels.
According to Kommersant, the
hostages were abducted by one of the Syrian opposition groups.
Green Revolution refers to a series
of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives,
occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased
agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly
in the late 1960s. It forms a part of the neo-colonial system of
agriculture wherein agriculture was viewed more of a commercial
sector than a subsistence one. The Green Revolution has since
stagnated for key food crops in many regions of the world,
according to a study published in the Dec. 18 issue of Nature
Communications by scientists with the University of Minnesota’s
Institute on the Environment and McGill University in Montreal,
Canada.
Salinity is the saltiness or
dissolved salt content (such as sodium chloride, magnesium and
calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates) of a body of water. Salinity
is an ecological factor of considerable importance, influencing
the types of organisms that live in a body of water. As well,
salinity influences the kinds of plants that will grow either in
a water body, or on land fed by a water (or by a groundwater).
For ages salinity was mostly affected by slow geologic type
processes. The ocean's salinity field is driven primarily by
evaporation, precipitation, and river discharge, all key
elements of the Earth's hydrological cycle. Observations show
the salinity field has been changing in recent decades but more
rapidly than expected and by mad made effects.
Clean Energy Collective opened the
first phase of a nine-acre solar garden Tuesday that will be
capable of producing 500 kilowatts of power when operating at
capacity, said company founder Paul Spencer. That is enough
electricity to power 100 homes. The 2,210 solar panel garden is
south of the Stratmoor Valley subdivision off Interstate 25 near
South Academy Boulevard.
With energy policy turning into one
of the focal points of Sunday's Lower House election, more than
1,000 people opposed to atomic power staged a march in Tokyo on
the eve of the poll to demand a nuclear-free society.
Swiss bank UBS agreed to a $1.5
billion fine on Wednesday after admitting to fraud and bribery
in a deepening scandal over the rigging of global benchmark
interest rates.
US home buyers have come to expect
constantly declining mortgage rates. After all, any recent
increases in mortgage rates have been fleeting - just waiting a
month or two would generally result in a lower rate. That
expectation of cheaper mortgages has resulted in higher
sensitivity to rate fluctuations. And now that the 30-year rate
has stopped declining, some buyers are sitting back and waiting
for the rate to go lower.
One of the "side effects" of the
Fed's monetary expansion is all the capital flowing into spread
products, particularly corporate credit. Corporate bond yields
are hitting record lows across the ratings spectrum. An average
junk bond in the Merrill HY index now yields some 6.3%.
Existing home sales in the US rose
by 5.9% to 5.04 million annualized units in November 2012 from
the revised 4.76 million (previously was 4.79 million) reported
in October. Market expectations had been for sales to rise to
4.90 million in November.
"The U.S. government's short stint
in the auto business is coming to an end. The Treasury
Department said Wednesday that it will sell its remaining stake
in General Motors by early 2014, writing the final chapter of a
$50 billion bailout that saved the auto giant but stoked a
heated national debate about the government's role in private
industry."
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey®
(PMMS®), showing fixed mortgage rates mixed following data
reports on inflation and the housing construction market. The
30-year fixed moved up averaging 3.37 percent, while the 15-year
fixed eased to 2.65 percent, both remaining near their record
lows.
The fact of the matter is that more
laws and more control don’t equal more safety and security. If
you need proof, just look at Chicago...
It might be a cliche amongst gun
owners, but arguing that guns cause murders is very much like
arguing that spoons make people fat, or cars make drunk driving
possible
The first major winter storm of the season, which started
Tuesday in the Rocky mountains, could dump more than a foot of
snow in some areas of the central Plains late Wednesday, the
National Weather Service said.
"It has evolved into a full-fledged blizzard around the
Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas border area..." said Alex
Sosnowski, meteorologist for Accuweather.com. "It's a pretty
nasty storm."
December 18, 2012
Climate scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
and in England report the first conclusive evidence that Arctic
hurricanes, also known as polar lows, play a significant role in
driving ocean water circulation and climate.
Though it seems like an oxymoron, Arctic hurricanes happen,
complete with a central "eye," extreme low barometric pressure
and towering 30-foot waves that can sink small ships and coat
metal platforms with thick ice, threatening oil and gas
exploration.
The U.S. economy is already being
hurt by the "fiscal cliff" standoff in Washington, Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday. But Bernanke said
the Fed believes the crisis will be resolved without significant
long-term damage.
Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto
Protocol took legal effect on Saturday, December 15. Canada is
the only nation out of more than 180 to legally exit the treaty
that governs greenhouse gas emissions.
The results of Business
Roundtable’s (BRT) fourth quarter 2012 CEO Economic Outlook
Survey show CEOs’ expectations are largely unchanged, with a
slight decline in expectations for sales and capital spending
and a slight rise in expectations for hiring. This follows a
significant drop in expectations in the third quarter of 2012.
“CEOs anticipate continued slow overall economic growth
for the next six months and have slightly lower expectations for
sales and capital expenditures”
Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets or
the CLOUD is an experimental facility being run at CERN by
Jasper Kirkby to investigate the microphysics between galactic
cosmic rays (GCRs) and aerosols under controlled conditions. The
experiment began operation in November 2009. But there are other
important experiments taking place at CERN, including research
designed to help resolve one of the biggest uncertainties of
climate change — how clouds form and what role they play in
regulating Earth’s temperature.
Under a court order, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency today finalized an update to its
national air quality standards for harmful fine particle
pollution (PM2.5), including soot.
Never before has green gas been
produced on such a scale. And, with the opening of the green gas
station a sustainable cycle has become full circle. From garbage
collection all over town to filling up a tank at Orangegas'
green gas station.
Given that rogue nuclear tests are
always conducted underground, the search for them has focused on
efforts to refine the identification of characteristic seismic
signatures. Now, researchers at Ohio State University (OSU) have
discovered new detection methods in unlikely places – the
rejected noise in GPS measurements and radio astronomy.
If the glut of companies billing
themselves as "solutions" providers is any indication, the world
has no shortage of problems.
Banning gun-free zones and allowing
teachers to carry concealed weapons could help eliminate mass
shootings at schools, John R. Lott, one of the nation's leading
gun experts, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview Saturday.
International climate scientists are more certain than ever
that humans are responsible for global warming, rising sea
levels and extreme weather events, according to a leaked draft
report by an influential panel of experts.
The early draft, which is still subject to change before a
final version is released in late 2013, showed that a rise in
global average temperatures since pre-industrial times was set
to exceed 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, and may reach 4.8 Celsius.
Idle No More is a cry for justice
that has spread across Canada, flowing into the United States
and other global countries. This age old resistance began
centuries ago as Indigenous nations and their lands, suffered
the impacts of exploration, invasion and colonization.
The operator of a Japanese nuclear
power plant that blew up after a tsunami last year said on
Friday its lack of safety and bad habits were behind the world's
worst nuclear accident in 25 years, its most forthright
admission of culpability.
A leaked early draft of the UN’s
latest climate change study shows human activities to be
responsible for climate warming that will take centuries to
reverse, even if greenhouse gas emissions were to stop right
now.
There are a lot of things that
helped make America into a great nation. Although many of these
ideals have been forgotten or even consciously tossed to the
side, it does not change the fact that they were the foundation
that this country was built on. Our Christian values provided a
moral compass for nearly two centuries, and our persistence and
hard work allowed us to conquer any obstacles in our path. But
today I want to take a look at the ingenuity of the American
people.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who been an advocate of
the recent oil and gas boom that could upend U.S. energy policy,
says he will keep spreading his message when he leaves office.
Schweitzer, whose tenure as governor will end next month due
to state term limits, said the wave of drilling across his state
could be a model of how to eliminate the nation's dependence on
foreign fuel - if lawmakers would just get out of the way.
Indonesia has identified the bird
flu virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of ducks over
the past few weeks as a virulent type which is new to the
country.
The slaughter of 20 children and numerous teachers and
other adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary was horrifying beyond
belief — yet what makes it worse is that it isn’t an isolated
incident...
Why is all this happening? In large part because we are
engaged in moral and spiritual disarmament.
The United States and Germany are sending Patriot missiles
and troops to the Turkish border, a warning to Syria's besieged
President Bashar al-Assad.
The
surface-to-air interceptors would be "dealing with threats that
come out of Syria," said U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Threats would include Syrian strikes inside Turkey and fighting
between the government and rebels that extends into Turkey.
In the aftermath of Hurricane
Sandy, Consolidated Edison (NYSE:ED) (ConEd) is evaluating
whether to underground the entirety of its distribution network,
an undertaking that would cost $40bn.
Gedgaudas, a certified nutritional
therapist and neurofeedback specialist, says that a high-fat,
moderate-protein, starch-free diet – along with nuts, seeds and
seafood – helped Paleolithic man develop the physical makeup we
still have today. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t have the
carbohydrates, particularly grains and legumes, and processed
foods that are today’s diet staples. Today, as we become more
dependent on that starch-heavy diet, our bodies as well as our
minds are becoming less healthy.
When corporate tax rates are lower
than individual tax rates, investment as a percentage of income
will rise. This will enable productive and sustainable business
development, thereby enhancing economic growth for society — one
that benefits the poor, the middle class and even the upper
class, since more consumers will be available to purchase
products.
A common industry practice puts
consumers at higher risks for eating food contaminated by deadly
pathogens -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If you're middle-aged or older, how
easily you can sit on the floor and then rise is a strong
indication of how long you will live, finds a new study.
The sitting-rising test reveals a
person's level of musculoskeletal fitness, explained Dr. Claudio
Gil Araujo and colleagues at the Clinimex Exercise Medicine
Clinic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Nigeria and US Reluctant to Label
Boko Haram a Terrorist Group
Little Azerbaijan Poses a Major
Challenge to Iran
Malaysia: An Emerging Market
Success Story?
Tensions Rise as China Makes Bold
Moves in Disputed Territories
With energy policy turning into one of the focal points of
Sunday's Lower House election, more than 1,000 people opposed to
atomic power staged a march in Tokyo on the eve of the poll to
demand a nuclear-free society.
"Japan will face a crossroads tomorrow," Yuko Tanaka, a
professor at Hosei University, told a crowd of hundreds who
gathered in Hibiya Park, Chiyoda Ward, on Saturday ahead of the
march.
We are seeing some dissent among
the Fed officials with respect to last week's decision.
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said he plans to demand an
extension of the wind energy production tax credit on the Senate
floor Thursday, a tax credit he feels has been instrumental in
creating jobs in New Mexico.
On his weekly radio call, Udall pleaded his case for the
extension of the tax credit in an attempt to save it before it
expires at the end of the year.
The USDA will invest $10 million in research grants to drive
production of bioenergy and bio-based products.
The research is intended to lead to the development of
sustainable regional systems and jobs. Further, producing clean
energy in the U.S. will loosen dependence on foreign oil and
give rural communities the injection they need to boost their
economies.
Right now, those winds seem to be
blowing in the wrong direction for the projects. With the U.S.
Senate and House struggling to strike a deal to avoid a fiscal
cliff of automatic spending cuts and tax increases, chances
worsen for extending a federal renewable energy production tax
credit that expires Dec. 31.
A majority of the world’s largest
companies are not waiting for governments to mandate renewable
energy and lower greenhouse gas emissions, they are taking it
upon themselves to act first. A new report from investment and
conservation organizations shows that more than half of the
Fortune 100 and more than two-thirds of the Global 100 have set
carbon emissions reduction commitments, renewable energy
commitments or both.
December 14, 2012
With an eye toward seizing
opportunities in 2013, a majority of senior finance executives
in the U.S. plan to invest in their companies to drive growth
and expect to achieve higher revenues and profits next year.
Moody’s Analytics released Chief
Economist Mark Zandi’s US economic outlook for 2013. According
to “U.S. Macro Outlook 2013: Poised for Liftoff,” fiscal policy
will continue to drag on US growth in 2013, but the economy
should gain traction by the second half of year, powered by a
reviving private sector.
The head of the Bank of England
warned on Monday that too many countries were trying to weaken
their currencies to offset the impact of the slow global economy
and the trend could grow next year.
Some MBS settlements have now been
reflected on the Fed's balance sheet, as agency paper holdings
increase.
Bank reserves are also gradually
moving up, though still down for the year. So far the growth in
reserves has been underwhelming.
There are limits to how much aid
the Federal Reserve can provide to the U.S. economy, Fed
Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Wednesday as he urged
politicians to tackle a year-end fiscal cliff that could derail
the country's gradual recovery.
California is poised to meet its
renewable energy target in the next eight years with a
"comfortable margin" to spare as regulators work to promote
projects that also help increase "green" jobs in the state.
Nearly 70 percent of chief
financial officers of US companies believe the US economy will
either improve or remain stable during the next six months,
according to the 2012 Fall CFO Survey from Grant Thornton LLP.
The survey findings reveal that 39 percent of respondents
believe the state of the US economy will remain the same in the
first half of 2013, while 30 percent believe it will improve. Of
those surveyed, 31 percent said it will worsen, which is an
increase of ten percentage points from the firm’s 2012 Summer
CFO Survey findings.
New research from the Economic
Policy Institute (EPI) finds that if federal investment in clean
technology returns to 2009 levels, 2013 job gains would almost
equal those from canceling the $54 billion cut to defense
spending scheduled for 2013 under the Budget Control Act.
Here in the US, we have been
debating various issues concerning natural health: Will we
retain access to a wide variety of dietary supplements in
high-nutrient-level dosages? Will we be able to access
nutritious, healthy foods, or will selection and quality
diminish because of industry or government control? Will we
finally achieve mandatory labeling for GMOs? We naturally think
that, if we are able to convince our policymakers, our rights
will be protected. But we could be wrong. We have to keep a
close eye on what happens overseas too.
If you take daily aspirin for heart
health – as 20 percent of Americans do – it’s crucial that you
take the right kind, says a top cardiologist.
Drought continued to expand through
many key farming states within the central United States in the
past week, as scattered rainfall failed to replenish parched
soils, according to a report issued Thursday by state and
federal climatology experts.
European gas markets have lost over
10 years of growth, with demand back to the levels of the 1990s,
Professor Jonathan Stern of the Oxford Institute for Energy
Studies told the UK House of Lords EU energy subcommittee
Wednesday.
In an unprecedented step, the
Federal Reserve said on Wednesday it would hold interest rates
near zero until it hit the specific target of a 6.5 percent U.S.
jobless rate, and it pledged to keep pumping more money into the
economy.
The central bank said Wednesday it
will buy $45 billion a month of Treasury securities starting in
January, expanding its asset-purchase program, and for the first
time linked the outlook for its main interest rate to
unemployment and inflation targets. The purchases will add to
the $40 billion a month it is buying of mortgage debt.
“What really happens, and this is critically important, is that
the Treasury issues bonds and the Fed buys them and then it
remits interest to the Treasury,” Gross, who runs the $285
billion Total Return Fund, said in an interview on Bloomberg
Television with Betty Liu. “It means the Treasury is issuing
debt for free. There are complications. Inflation is one of the
complications.”
Quick question. Your state has
good sunshine, lots of open rooftops, and the cost of solar
energy has been falling by 10% per year. Do you think it will
take 13 years to double the 10 megawatts (MW) of installed solar
power?
The
constitutional standard for all search warrants is probable
cause of crime. FISA, however, established a new,
different and lesser standard – thus unconstitutional on its
face since Congress is bound by, and cannot change, the
Constitution – of probable cause of status.
Baseline-MOCON, Inc., a subsidiary
of MOCON (NASDAQ: MOCO), launches a new fast, accurate and
cost-effective way to measure live bacteria loads and improve
disinfection efficiency for water environments. For the first
time, bacteria can be measured in as fast as 45 minutes vs. the
24-48 hours needed with traditional methods.
A vigorous effort to house the homeless has been countered
somewhat by a sluggish economy.
The federal government and local communities have greatly
increased the number of beds available to the homeless over the
last four years, either through emergency shelters or through
government-subsidized apartments and houses. But the struggling
economy contributed to the number of homeless people in the
United States remaining stable between January 2011 and January
2012.
The amount
of power required to keep the Internet up and running is an
afterthought for most of us. Truth be told, most of us are more
concerned with how much power’s left in our laptop, tablet, or
smartphone than what it’s taking to power the website we want to
visit.
The Cappa compact hydropower generator can deliver 250 W
of electricity
Despite being the most widely used form of renewable energy
worldwide, hydroelectricity is generally reserved for
large-scale commercial installations built around massive dams..
India will take up for review its
dependence on Iranian crude oil in the new year, India's foreign
minister Salman Khurshid said Thursday, Press Trust of India
reported.
Experts at the Natural Resources
Defense Council today unveiled a groundbreaking proposal to
sharply cut carbon pollution from America's power plants,
featuring a unique federal-state partnership and flexibility for
plant owners that will hold down costs and improve Americans'
health.
Renewable energy in emerging countries is expected to
increase significantly by 2020, according to GlobalData.
This projection is based on the rapidly expanding economies
of China and India. According to the research, India, Mexico,
China, South Africa, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia will more than
triple their combined installed renewable energy capacity...
Japan's second quarter GDP was
revised from +0.1% to -0.1%. This barely makes a difference to
Japan's overall economic situation, other than the fact that it
puts it officially in recession (two consecutive quarters of
declining GDP).
A Chinese military
surveillance plane entered what Japan considers its airspace
near disputed islands on Thursday, the Japanese Defense Ministry
said, an escalation in an already tense standoff over the
territory. Japan scrambled fighter jets in response, but the
Chinese plane left before they arrived, according to Japanese
authorities.
“You’re an employer. Every day you
hear ‘the economy’s going over a fiscal cliff. Tax hikes and
spending cuts will kill the economy,’” he writes on Forbes.com.
That fear makes companies start firing their workers. Other
firms see less demand as a result, and they start doing the same
thing, Kotlikoff says.
A group of U.S. lawmakers said on
Wednesday that they plan to push ahead in the new year to change
the tax code so renewable energy projects could qualify for
beneficial tax structures commonly used by pipelines and other
energy-related companies.
The United States is poised for
strong economic growth if political leaders can just move the
nation beyond the current "debilitating" budget uncertainty, the
chief executive and chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp said on
Thursday.
"We expected to see a fairly placid
radiation belt system," Baker reports. "Instead, we see that the
belts have been extraordinarily active and dynamic during the
first few weeks. We're looking in the right places at the right
times." The twin probes, built and managed for NASA by the Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel,
Md., contain identical sets of five instrument suites. These
suites have confirmed previous hypotheses about the belts'
behavior, while also revealing that the belts are a far more
dynamic and changing environment than previously thought.
NYMEX January crude futures settled
98 cents higher at $86.77/barrel Wednesday, as the entire oil
complex received a boost from the US Federal Reserve's move to
continue its quantitative easing program to stimulate the
economy.
January heating oil settled 3.98 cents higher at
$2.9668/gal and January RBOB settled 3.6 cents higher at
$2.6465/gal.
Online sellers are strongly opposed
to any proposal that would provide for a nationwide sales-tax
collection requirement, with an overwhelming majority saying
that such a mandate would hurt their business, according to a
new survey conducted by EcommerceBytes.
OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna on
December 12 agreed to maintain their current combined 30 million
b/d crude output ceiling into 2013 and temporarily solved the
politically difficult problem of choosing a new secretary
general by extending Abdalla el-Badri's tenure for one year
It seems the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Order 1000 has caused the energy
industry nothing but headaches since its July 2011 introduction.
The challenges within Order 1000 have created a significant
ripple effect throughout the transmission industry, stretching
from planning to rate setting to construction and maintenance.
Researchers have found an
eco-friendly alternative to the metal ores currently favored in
the electrodes of lithium-ion batteries. The new non-toxic and
sustainable battery uses purpurin, a red/yellow dye extracted
from the root of the madder plant that has been used for dying
cloth for at least 3,500 years – meaning the substance can
simply be grown rather than mined.
The Fed will be undertaking an even
more aggressive expansionary policy than originally announced in
September. Balance sheet will expand dramatically and so will
the reserves and the monetary base. Treasuries sold off again
today with higher inflation expectations
Although critics of renewable
energy may claim that it isn't reliable enough to power a grid,
a new study gives proponents of clean power – such as wind and
solar – fresh ammunition to respond. A thorough analysis carried
out by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical
Community College concluded that renewable energy could reliably
power a large electrical grid 99.9 per cent of the time by 2030,
at a cost that matches today’s electricity prices.
Residential installations of solar PV hit a record high in the
third quarter of 2012, according to a new report published by
GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
The US Solar Market Insight: Third Quarter 2012 reports that
more than 118 MW of solar PV capacity was added to the United
States residential sector in Q3, a growth of 12 percent since
last quarter and the strongest showing ever in a single quarter.
The San Diego Zoo, part of Smart
City San Diego, is among one of the first to implement a
solar-to-EV project where 10 canopies provide 90 kW to charge
electric vehicles.
The solar industry needs cost
reductions in order to overcome diminished subsidies and regain
profitability, and these reductions could be closer than we
think, according to Lux Research.
SUGAR has also been found to be
behind the underlying cause of many serious health issues
Nearly three in five New York City grocery stores and
restaurants that sell seafood have mislabeled part of their
stock, substituting varieties that could cause health problems,
according to a new study.
Some 39 percent of the fish obtained for the study by the
ocean conservation group Oceana was inaccurately identified,
Oceana said. Sometimes cheap fish is substituted for more
expensive varieties or plentiful species for scarce ones.
The Colorado River – which is the
lifeblood to 40 million people and no less than 22 tribes –
stands to fall at least 3.2 million acre-feet short of its
users’ needs by 2060. And even the most ambitious water-saving
strategies won’t fully ease the strain.
The trick
here is its special day-night band. Where a camera captures a
whole picture in one exposure, the day-night band produces an
image repeatedly by scanning a scene and resolving it as
millions upon millions of individual pixels. After that, the
system reviews the amount of light in each pixel and, if it’s
very bright, a low-gain mode prevents the pixel from being
over-saturated. If, on the other hand, the pixel is very dark,
the signal gets amplified.
Texas landowner Michael Bishop, 64,
an analytical chemist and former U.S. Marine, has been granted a
temporary restraining order that halts construction of
TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline across his land while a judge
considers Bishop’s charges of fraud against the company.
Until now, the work of the UN
negotiators who are pondering how to regulate the Internet has
been shrouded in secrecy. But as 1,950 delegates from 193
countries gather this week in Dubai to consider 900 proposals to
regulate the Internet, their game is becoming clear.
The Fed has announced that in
addition to the $40 billion of monthly MBS purchases, it will
also commence $45 billion in treasury purchases. This
unprecedented open-ended program will swell bank reserves and
ratchet up the monetary base.
Summary: Make no
mistake, the forces of darkness will be back. We The Internet
will be waiting for them. This is our playing field, our rules.
Our Internet.
North Korean Missile Launch Could
be US Intelligence Failure
US Gives Blackwater Another Chance
in Afghanistan
Italy: Monti Could Return As Prime
Minister
Syria: The End of the Assad Regime
is in Sight
Shifting Leftward, Romania Heeds
the Call of a New Generation
Russia: Increasing Espionage to
Steal Naval Secrets
Losing Out in Europe, Gazprom Turns
to Asia
Venezuela: Infighting Likely As
Chavez's Health Worsens
As Hurricane Sandy was wreaking havoc on the East Coast,
commentators on Fox News repeatedly claimed that the storm had
"nothing to do with climate change."
Hurricane Sandy's impact was undeniably worse because of
rising sea levels caused by global warming—but because our
opponents are desperate to keep science out of our political
discourse, they tried to hide this fact from you and me. That's
not just misleading. It's dangerous.
Obama's popularity and his party's
political fortunes might not survive the fruits of his recent
victory. If he cows the Republicans into giving him a tax
increase on the upper brackets, he will lose the fig leaf he
uses to disguise his true intentions. Until now, taxing the rich
has been his answer to everything.
According to new research from
Germanwatch and the Climate Action Network Europe, which ranks
the climate protection performance of the 58 highest emitters
worldwide, the U.S. has seen emissions reductions, but these
could be just smoke and mirrors.
The Union of Concerned
Scientists has a practical plan to cut U.S. oil use in half over
the next 20 years, which will save billions of dollars
each year, dramatically cut global warming emissions, and ease
many other serious problems, including oil spills, the high cost
of oil and gas price spikes, and health threats from air
pollution that have become the all-too-familiar face of oil.
Summary: The U.S. has
just announced that, "U.S. cannot sign revised
telecommunications regulations in their current form."
Summary of Economic Projections shows mild downward revisions
to the ranges.
The overview of Federal Open Market Committee
(FOMC) participants’ assessments of appropriate monetary policy
shows majority expect policy firming in 2015.
The research reveals that
high-income countries have proven best at managing the
transition to a new energy architecture based on strong energy
policy coupled with multiple energy resources that delivers
inexpensive, plentiful and relatively clean power, and generated
large national revenues.
As a stalemated Congress shies away
from taking serious action on climate change, environmentalists
are focusing on potential Cabinet openings at the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department of Energy that could
further their efforts.
The peak oil folks have been saying it for years, but now a
Wall Street house is sending out a caution flag as well.
One of the arguments long made by followers of peak oil is
that organizations such as the International Energy Agency count
crude and natural gas liquids equally.So the world market of 89
million b/d of liquids contains mostly energy-intensive
versatile hydrocarbons such as crude oil–versatile in the sense
that they can be processed to make products that do everything
from propelling cars to making carbon black–and a lesser amount
of NGLs with a far more limited use.
According to Consumer Reports, 69 percent of all raw pork
samples tested were contaminated with the dangerous bacteria
Yersinia enterocolitica, which can cause fever and
gastrointestinal illness. Ground pork was more likely than pork
chops to be contaminated
With the 2012 coming to a close and
2013 about to emerge, Washington is full of prognosticators. In
the energy world, questions abound. But perhaps none have
generated as much controversy as the production tax credit given
to wind, which expires at year-end.
In an unusual move a trade group,
the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), said it is willing
to accept a gradual phase-out of a major tax incentive.
December 11, 2012
As soon as the election returns
were in, the United States voted to reopen negotiations on the
Small Arms Treaty from which it had backed off in the summer of
2012. Now the Treaty is slated for signature in March of 2013.
Talks between President Barack
Obama and House Speaker John Boehner on a deal to avoid the
fiscal cliff have turned more “serious,” aides said on Monday —
but each side wants the other to be more specific about tax
revenues and entitlement cuts.
New markets have ricocheted across the
renewables sector, injecting some much-needed optimism and
competition into an industry that remains scarred by the
enduring legacy of the financial crisis.
Emerging markets are already learning from their
predecessors’ mistakes, with many opting for capacity
tenders in favor of financial incentives.
The anti-fracking (hydraulic
fracturing) movement has gone global. From the U.S. to the EU,
protests are increasing in momentum. Hydraulic fracturing has
existed for decades, with much success in some instances, but
protestors have managed to succeed with moratoriums, delays,
suspensions and bans on further drilling -- in just two years.
The Sun is a bit over 4.5 billion
years old, leading many to think of all stars as billions of
years in age. Astronomers have now demonstrated that isn't
always the case.
Look for long-term mortgage rates
to remain near their record lows for the first half of 2013,
then rising gradually during the second half of the year, but
remaining below 4 percent.
At the end of another
lavishly-funded U.N. conference that yielded no progress on
curbing greenhouse emissions, many of those most concerned about
climate change are close to despair.
The Republican Party and stupid
statements by some candidates are to blame for GOP losses in
last month's congressional elections, the former leader of a tea
party group said Monday.
Utilities recognize this is “a new
world,” Batz said during TransmissionHub’s TransForum East in
Arlington, Va., on Dec. 6. “This is not your parents’ utility
anymore. There are new threats [and] new threat actors. Security
is a marathon, except unlike a 26-mile marathon, I do not see an
end in sight. It’s a marathon and we have to do [things] today
to respond to today’s risks.”
Egypt's Islamist president has
given the army temporary power to arrest civilians to help
secure a constitutional referendum seen by the Muslim
Brotherhood as a triumph for democracy and by its liberal foes
as a religious straitjacket.
The Annual Energy Outlook
2013 (AEO2013) Reference case recently released by the U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) presents updated
projections for U.S. energy markets through 2040. These
projections include only the effects of policies that have been
implemented in law or final regulations.
Recent research from the U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) presents findings
showing how evolving consumer preferences, improved technology,
and economic changes are pushing the nation toward more domestic
energy production, greater vehicle efficiency, greater use of
clean energy and reduced energy imports.
Wind power projects around the
country are grinding to a halt due to uncertainty over the
future of the production tax credit for such projects.
Amid the fiscal cliff drama on Capitol Hill, there's a
behind-the-scenes push to extend a lucrative tax credit that has
helped propel the recent boom in the U.S. wind industry.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers aims to attach a one-year
extension of the credit, slated to expire at the end of
December, to a broad budget deal that would avert the fiscal
cliff's tax increases and spending cuts. But what if Congress
and President Obama can't reach an overall deal?
A five-day meeting on fisheries
ended last week (6 December) amid complaints that big fishing
nations have blocked efforts to curb tuna overfishing and
ignored scientific advice.
Food allergies are on the rise,
affecting 15 million Americans. And according to a new study
published in the December issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma
and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American
College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), pesticides
and tap water could be partially to blame.
Rich countries spend five times
more on fossil-fuel subsidies than on aid to help developing
nations cut their emissions and protect against the effects of
climate change, the Oil Change International campaign group
said.
President Barack Obama “guarantees
a permanent war” with Republicans by forcing the party’s hand on
the issue of income-tax hikes on top earners, former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday.
“The president won,”
Gingrich said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president has a
very clear, simple position. He wants to prove he can dominate,
and he proves he can dominate by getting the rates up, and he
has a veto pen.”
With most of us in the developed
world more concerned about the flow of electricity to power our
computers, TVs and all manner of other wonders of the modern
age, it’s easy to forget the massive impact resulting from one
of the first widespread public uses of electricity – the humble
incandescent light bulb. With a large proportion of the world’s
population still lacking reliable access to electricity, the
GravityLight hopes to bring the benefits of environmentally
friendly artificial light to the developing world
An eclectic collection of organizations opposes the wind
production tax credit.
Some, such as FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union,
disagree with the policy for mostly financial reasons, as it
provides a 2.2-cent tax deduction for every kilowatt-hour of
energy produced by wind companies. Others object mainly to how
the credit helps grow an industry they feel destroys nature's
beauty by placing windmills across the landscape.
The tiny freshwater polyp Hydra is
a remarkable creature. It does not show any signs of aging and
appears to be immortal. Researchers from Kiel University have
examined this phenomenon and uncovered an important link to the
aging process in humans that could lead to the development of
advanced rejuvenation therapies.
Using the power of the sun and
ultrathin films of iron oxide (commonly known as rust),
researchers at the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology,
have found a novel way to split water molecules to hydrogen and
oxygen. The breakthrough, published this week in the scientific
journal Nature Materials, could lead to less expensive, more
efficient ways to store solar energy in the form of
hydrogen-based fuels. This could be a major step forward in the
development of viable replacements for fossil fuels.
Following are major decisions by
almost 200 nations at U.N. meeting on climate change in Doha,
Qatar, November 26 to December 7:
One side wants to rein in entitlements to deal with the
budget deficit. The other side insists that any such moves be
accompanied by higher taxes on the wealthy.
That may sound like the ongoing fiscal battle in Washington,
but actually describes the situation in Britain.
The difference is that Britain has already raised taxes on
the wealthy, with a telling result: The government actually lost
revenue.
Countries and operators that are
embarking on the global development of shale gas resources can
benefit from the United States’ experience in water management
from shale gas operations, according to a new report from
Accenture
Many times we feel that, in the
grand scheme of things, we individually are insignificant little
cogs who don't contribute much (if anything) to the universe at
large. We get up in the morning, go through our day, come home,
and go to bed each night.
Michigan police are bracing for
another wave of demonstrations today and Tuesday in Lansing,
where protests broke out last week related to right-to-work
bills making their way through the legislature.
The
National Aeronautics & Space Agency (NASA) revealed today that
it is working on a "new form of energy" that can transmutes
common materials to a "different element" and that can replace
fossil fuels for use in homes, space and other transportation
systems and infrastructure. A patent for the work was filed by
NASA in October.
The system is initially designed to
convert 10,000 tons of waste per year; a planned January 2013
upgrade will boost that amount to 40,000 tons per year, making
it the largest commercial high solids waste-to-energy system in
the United States, according to the company.
Rescue workers searched on Thursday
through thick mud, broken homes and fallen trees for survivors,
two days after a typhoon swept the southern Philippines killing
nearly 400 people and leaving at least as many missing.
Someone sitting through oral arguments this morning at the DC
Circuit without any knowledge of biofuels might come away
asking: “So, you’re telling me the Environmental Protection
Agency requires refiners to blend a certain type of fuel into
gasoline, but that fuel doesn’t exist? And the only time someone
made that fuel in the US, they exported it to Brazil?”
Yep and yep.
Ecuador has quietly withdrawn its candidacy for the post of
OPEC secretary general, a decision apparently made some time
back but not made public until December 4.
That leaves OPEC’s top three producers–Saudi Arabia, Iraq and
Iran–fighting for the organization’s top administrative post...
As part of their argument for
higher taxes on the wealthy, Democrats argue that the economy
was doing swimmingly in the 1950s, when the top marginal rate
was 91 percent.
But a look at the numbers shows that the
wealthy weren’t actually paying more taxes then than they are
now, says Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Capital.
Senate Democrats are attempting to force a vote on climate
change through an amendment to the defense authorization bill.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) amendment calls for the
U.S. to “assess, plan for, and mitigate the security and
strategic implications of climate change” out of concern for
national security.
The Senate passed an amendment to
the defense bill Thursday that would strike the prohibition on
biofuel refinery construction.
Shale gas may not just be a boon to
U.S. energy developers and their industrial users. It may also
be desired by enterprises based in Asia and Europe -- something
that is one-step closer to reality now that a report issued by
the U.S. Department of Energy has given such exports a favorable
review.
A strong quake centered off northeastern Japan shook
buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a
one-meter tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima
disaster, but there were no reports of deaths or serious damage.
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3...
Renewable energy has the potential to power a large electric
grid fully 99.9 percent of the time economically by 2030, U.S.
researchers say.
A study by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical
Community College suggest a well-designed combination of wind
power, solar power and storage in batteries and fuel cells would
nearly always exceed electricity demand at costs comparable to
today's electricity expenses, a university release reported
Monday.
Venezuela: Chavez Probably Lied
About His Cancer to Win Re-Election
India: Wary of China but Pakistan
and Domestic Problems Hinder Strong Response
Algeria: A Natural Ally In The War
On Terror
Former Ambassador: Greece is Not
Financially Viable
Iranian Nuclear Program Advances
Despite New Diplomacy
Syria: Rebels Gain Strength with
New Military Council
As a global forum to promote
economic cooperation among the world’s biggest
Argentina: Chevron-YPF Deal in
Trouble
What kind of developments will lead to EV
batteries that are safer and deliver more energy?
The requirement for EV safety becomes a high-profile
topic when a tragic event reaches the front pages.
Attention focuses on the battery and high-voltage
electrics of any EV involved in an accident or fire.
Photographs of an electric vehicle burned to its frame
rails and sitting on its wheel rims is a magnet for
horror-inducing headlines. Reactions range from, “Why
are we wasting money on these death traps,” to,
“Accidents can happen,” and, “We’re working to eliminate
them completely.”
You know technology is maturing
when you start to see second and third-generation products. That
might well be the case for LED bulbs.
HSBC and Standard Chartered, the
two biggest UK banks by market value, are to pay more than
$2.5bn in fines as part of record settlements with US
authorities over money laundering allegations.
Peru is set to embark on a major expansion of gas operations
in the Camisea region in the Amazon - a move which could
decimate Indigenous peoples, both those in 'voluntary isolation'
and others in the early stages of contact.
The birth rate in the United States dropped to the lowest
level ever recorded last year, led by a significant plunge in
births to foreign-born women.
The overall birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women of
prime childbearing age, 15 to 44 years. That is the lowest rate
since at least 1920, the earliest year for which there are
reliable numbers, according to a new report from the Pew
Research Center.
Global climate change talks are now
underway in Doha, Qatar and are focusing on crafting solutions
to issues presented in earlier meetings. The 194 nations now
present are discussing an array of thorny matters that most
notably include the ways and means by which the developed world
will assist those less developed.
November 2012 non-farm payroll
employment rose by a greater than expected 146,000 following
gains of 138,000 and 132,000 in October and September,
respectively.
The Treasury Department's stock
offering would generate about $7.8 billion in gains based on
Monday's $33.36 closing price of AIG shares...
"The fact that the United States
government had to put forward $180 billion and had to remain a
significant investor in a financial institution the size of AIG
speaks to the depths and nature of the crisis we faced four
years ago and its long aftershocks," Angelides said.
There is a rallying cry for the wind industry: "20 percent by
2030."
It is a reference to the goal of having one-fifth of the
United States' power produced by windmills within the next 18
years. The goal was set after former President George W. Bush
made a comment about America's need to diversify its energy
portfolio during his second term.
Approximately 3 percent of the nation's electricity currently
comes from turbines. Building that capacity and aiming for the
long-term goal has made a large economic impact.
President Obama’s re-election is having little effect on
efforts to roll back state laws mandating the use of green
energy. The Heartland Institute is now teaming with the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to try and repeal those
standards, arguing that they are increasing the cost of
electricity.
Our bright, shiny technology future is getting a bright,
shiny new fuel cell to go with it.
Yale University engineers have developed a process to create
micro fuel cells made of glass. The tiny gizmos hold the
potential for durable, less expensive energy sources in an array
of consumer products.
December 7, 2012
The Ecosystem Services Unit of
Winrock International (WI) and Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC)
today announced they have reached scientific consensus on gross
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from tropical
deforestation. The analysis provides a crucial piece of
information that now allows policymakers to confidently set
targets for emissions reductions based on scientifically derived
benchmarks.
Apple plans to double the size of
its Catawba County fuel cell project, the nation's largest such
venture not run by an electric utility, to 10 megawatts.
Imagine if the water you drank
contained an invisible drug…
A drug so harmful that it's been proven to
cause serious health issues, including damage to your bones and
teeth, as well as your kidneys, thyroid, pineal gland, and even
your brain.
A drug so pervasive that 41% of all
American children between the ages of 12 to 15 show visible
signs of having been needlessly overexposed it. With recent
international studies indicating that even small dosages can
lower IQ in our kids.
A drug so unregulated that the FDA's
official classification is "Unapproved New Drug." And yet, it's
still pumped into the water supply of over 180 million
Americans, including infants and the elderly, with no way to
control who gets it, how much they get, or what effect this mass
dosing has on any given individual.
Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel
that can be extracted from sources including natural gas,
biomass, coal and water. One of the major problems in making it
a viable alternative fuel is storage – the atoms are so tiny
that they can easily escape from many kinds of containers. Also,
hydrogen is more volatile than petrol.
U.S. coal exports to Canada totaled
3.2 million short tons and represented roughly 5 percent of the
66.2 million short tons of total U.S. coal exports during the
first half of 2012, according to EIA’s Quarterly Coal Report.
With technologies like horizontal
drilling and hydraulic fracturing driving a boom in production
of tight oil from shale in the United States, the mounting costs
of oil for our climate and economy presents a far more urgent
challenge than does concern about a dwindling supply.
Regardless of where our oil comes from, it causes a host of
problems that we can best address by using less.
A row over who will pay for dealing
with the accelerating impact of climate change soured U.N.
debate in Doha, where a final day of haggling was expected to do
nothing to curb greenhouse gas pollution.
CSU's Department of Soil and Crop
Sciences, along with Chuck Rhoades from the U.S. Forest Service,
will study the potential impact of climate change on water
quality affecting more than 25 million who rely on the forest's
headwaters as their drinking water source.
Will the prophecies regarding the
future of Damascus come true in our lifetime? Are current events
in Syria foreshadowing prophetic events?
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
today issued an urgent warning to government leaders as the
annual United Nations climate negotiations kicked into high gear
in Doha. “Let us be under no illusion,” he said. “This is a
crisis. A threat to us all. Our economies. Our security. And the
well-being of our children and those who will come after.”
Drought continued to expand through the central United States
even as winter weather sets in, wreaking havoc on the nation's
new wheat crop and on movement of key commodities as major
shipping waterways grow shallow.
Unseasonably warm conditions have exacerbated the harm caused
by the lack of needed rainfall. The average temperature for the
contiguous United States last month was 44.1 degrees Fahrenheit,
2.1 degrees above the 20th century average...
“Fixing
insulation and leaky windows isn’t as sexy as saying, ‘Look at
our new solar installation,’ but for every $1 spent you will
save more on energy efficiency than a solar array.” –
The US market posted an enormous
jump in gasoline stocks last week, as reported by the Energy
Information Administration’s latest survey. Part of the reason
was reduced demand, but refiners also appear to be reacting to
strong margins by increasing their rates.
Crude oil production, especially
from tight oil plays, rises sharply over the next decade.
Domestic oil production will rise to 7.5 million barrels per day
(bpd) in 2019, up from less than 6 million bpd in 2011.
Motor gasoline consumption will be
less than previously estimated ... reflecting the introduction
of more stringent corporate average fuel economy (CAFE)
standards. Growth in diesel fuel consumption will be moderated
by the increased use of natural gas in heavy-duty vehicles.
it is considered unlikely that a
fully coupled El Niño will develop during the next several
months. ENSO-neutral is now favored through the Northern
Hemisphere winter 2012-13 and into spring 2013
bank reserves are basically holding
flat...
University of Michigan researchers are conducting a detailed
study of the potential environmental and societal effects of
hydraulic fracturing, the controversial natural gas drilling
process known as fracking.
In hydraulic fracturing, large amounts of water, sand and
chemicals are injected deep underground to break apart rock and
free trapped natural gas. Though the process has been used for
decades, recent technical advances have helped unlock vast
stores of previously inaccessible natural gas, resulting in a
fracking boom.
GE's fabric-covered blade is
reminiscent of the fabric-covered wings used on World War I
fighter planes
The Obama administration is ready
to go over the fiscal cliff if it doesn't get its way when it
comes to raising taxes on wealthier Americans, said Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner.
WE all know (or should
know) by now that the carbon dioxide we produce when we burn
fossil fuels and cut down forests is the planet’s single largest
contributor to global warming. It persists in the atmosphere for
centuries. Reducing these emissions by as much as half by 2050
is essential to avoid disastrous consequences by the end of this
century, and we must begin immediately.
ABC News reports that House
Republicans have a doomsday plan in mind should the fiscal-cliff
talks fail to reach an agreement: total surrender!
Republican leaders of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce
Committee wrote a Nov 30 letter to U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to follow up on prior requests
that the agency make certain information relating to rule making
activities publicly available.
In an effort to improve transparency for taxpayers, committee
leaders previously requested EPA post rule making petitions and
notices of intent to sue to the agency's website, but they said
the agency has yet to take action.
Millions of your fellow Americans are worried as ObamaCare’s
massive and radical changes begin to take hold.
Here’s what’s happening right now:
Recently researchers at Georgia
Institute of Technology have come up with what they believe is a
more efficient approach. They have developed a self-charging
power cell that directly converts mechanical energy to chemical
energy. The cell stores the power until it is released as an
electrical current.
A new report reveals the significant potential for using
hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve the
efficiency of renewable technologies, including wind and solar
power.
"Hydrogen: untapped energy?", the latest technical report
from the Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers (IGEM),
explores how hydrogen can be used as a carrier to store energy
produced from a wide range of primary sources, and to power
applications including electric vehicles, heating and power
generation.
Iran is considering basing its
budget for the year beginning in March 2013 on a crude export
volume of just 1 million b/d.
Egypt: Protests Grow Over Morsi’s
Actions, New Constitution
Syria: Rebels Winning Cyber War
Australia Risks a Crisis with High
Spending and Regulation
Could U.S. Warnings Over Syria’s
Chemical Weapons Backfire?
China Aims to Dominate Asia with
New Aircraft Carrier
Tunisia: Angry, Unemployed Youth
Threaten Stability
China: New Leadership Strikes New
Tone, but Little Chance for Substantive Change
Brazil’s Economy Stalls, Raising
Fear And Hope
Europe: Natural Gas Import Options
Grow
Northeastern Japan was jolted by a
powerful earthquake at 5:18 pm Friday, local time. The quake
produced small tsunami waves along the east coast of Honshu
island. Japan’s Meteorological Agency has now lifted all tsunami
warnings and advisories for the region.
"There's a lot of reasons for
cities to take on initiatives like this, to find alternative
resources, energy resources" Brady said. "And sometimes it can
be motivated also by financial (gain) ... but in the end we also
know it's just part of the right thing to do to be a good global
citizen managing our resources."
With a week left to act, agricultural leaders in Congress are
still deadlocked on two major issues for a new U.S. farm bill,
cuts in crop subsidies and reductions in food stamps, said two
of the four key negotiators on Thursday.
But the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture
committees suggested that recent talks had yielded at least some
progress.
After a long eight-year wait, the
building of Australia's Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)
telescope has finally reached completion.
“Our most important finding, in
fact, was that compensation restrictions led to a more efficient
allocation of the TARP funds,” said Cadman, an assistant
professor of Accounting at the David Eccles School of Business.
“It’s not that we want to argue that asset relief should always
come with ways to limit executive compensation, but in this case
those limits actually helped the government allocate TARP funds
more efficiently.”
The worst potential scenario for sea level rise around the US
coastline this century is more than two meters, says an
authoritative report issued today by NOAA's Climate Program
Office.
Regardless of how much warming occurs over the next 100
years, sea level rise is not expected to stop in 2100.
More than 8 million people in the US live in areas at risk of
coastal flooding. Along the Atlantic Coast alone, almost 60
percent of the land that is within a meter of sea level is
planned for further development, with inadequate information on
the potential rates and amount of sea level rise.
Recently, some of the most far left
progressives in Congress have formed a 'Gang of Six". Together,
they have vowed that tax increases on those making over $250K
(but note, Obama has now changed it to those making over $200K)
is just the beginning. So far, over 112,000 people have signed
our petition for NO NEW TAXES
Norway has promised $1 billion each
to Brazil and Indonesia for protecting their tropical
rainforests and warned Jakarta earlier this year that its
progress in reforming its forestry sector will not be sufficient
to meet its pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent by
2020.
The Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) today announced a proposal it claims will cut
carbon emissions at U.S. power plants by 26 percent and
stimulate more than $90 billion dollars in renewable energy and
efficiency investments by 2020.
An anti-nuclear activist told US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Wednesday he believes an
option that would see the US build no more nuclear power plants
or extend the licenses of current units should be the preferred
alternative in a generic environmental impact statement the
agency is developing for a revised rule on spent fuel storage.
Impassioned sponsors of the bill
understand the crisis facing Native American languages today.
Many languages are endangered and could very well disappear in
the next decade if something isn’t done to pass them on to
younger generations.
US regional banks have
over-reserved for loan losses during 2009-2010 period, expecting
a wave of defaults. Default rates however have been lower than
projected and banks have been releasing these reserves into
earnings in the past couple of years. According to Credit
Suisse, that trend is expected to continue.
Renewable energy enjoyed
substantial progress in 2012, but the market in general is still
struggling to balance the potential benefits of green power with
the challenges of managing renewable energy regulation,
integration and cost.
Special report. Part one: how much renewable electricity
capacity was installed worldwide at the end of 2011, and which
technologies were the most popular?
A large filament eruption was
observed. An associated CME was observed in LASCO C2 and
C3 imagery. There are currently 4 numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. The geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet
to unsettled levels for days one and two (07 Dec and 08 Dec) due
to possible CME effects. A return to quiet levels is expected on
day three(09 Dec).
We’re all carrying around some
cringe-inducing memories that we’d rather forget. But for those
suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), recalling
certain memories can provoke fearful, emotional experiences. By
the same token, some memories can remind those battling drug
addiction of the rewarding effects of the drug and trigger a
relapse. Researchers at Canada’s Western University have found a
way to effectively block these types of memories that could lead
to better treatments for both conditions.
Cleantech consulting firm Kachan &
Co. has released research that it says will call into question
some of cleantech's traditional leading indicators of health,
predicts risks will develop within the solar and wind sectors.
Researchers at the University of
Waterloo have built what they claim is the most accurate
simulation of a functioning brain to date. Despite a seemingly
unimpressive count of only 2.5 million neurons, (the human brain
is estimated to have somewhere nearing 100 billion neurons),
Solar panels have sparked a debate
between homeowners and a city code that may not be ready for
them.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) power has the potential to be a
game-changer with regard to interconnection matters, Charlie
Smith, executive director, Utility Variable-Generation
Integration Group, said Dec. 5.
During his presentation at TransmissionHub’s TransForum East
in Arlington, Va., Smith noted that in Germany, while it took 30
years to develop 30 GW of wind, it took only five years to
develop that same amount of solar.
he installed price of solar
photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the U.S. fell substantially
in 2011 and through the first half of 2012, according to
research from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory.
The "magnetic highway" is a place
in the far reaches of the solar system where the Sun's magnetic
field connects to the magnetic field of our galaxy Milky Way.
This connection allows charged particles from inside the
heliosphere (the magnetic bubble that surrounds the Sun) to zoom
out - and it allows charged particles from outside to stream in.
When Voyager 1 is in the magnetic highway, onboard particle
sensors can directly sample material from beyond our solar
system.
Pentagon sources tell NBC News that
the Syrian military is awaiting final orders to launch chemical
weapons against its own people after precursor chemicals for
deadly sarin gas were loaded into aerial bombs. NBC's Jim
Miklaszewski reports.
Syrian CW Reports Could be Ploy for
Asylum for Assad
France: How the Conservatives are
Helping Hollande
North Korea Isolated Amid Planned
Missile Launch
Despite Rising Anti-Semitism,
Europe Still Friend to Israel
Yesterday, tens of thousands of
anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters swept up to the gates of the
presidential palace in Cairo, furious about a proposed
Constitution that was written with limited, if any, input from
the revolutionary political groups that spearheaded the protests
that drove Hosni Mubarak from power in Feb. 2011.
We live in a nation torn between
conflicting ideals. Thankfully, there are principles that the
United States was founded on that remain constant in our society
today, but there are also generational values that change over
time. Some for the better, and some for the worse of our
society…
Tel Aviv University team uses NASA satellites to measure
pollution hovering over world's megacities
The thickest layers of global smog — caused by traffic,
industry, and natural minerals, among other factors — are found
over the world's megacities. But getting an accurate measurement
of pollution is no easy task. On-the-ground monitoring stations
do not always provide the most accurate picture —monitoring
stations depend heavily on local positioning and some cities put
stations in urban centers, while others build on the edge of a
city.
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey®
(PMMS®), showing fixed mortgage rates little changed
and remaining near their record lows helping to keep homebuyer
affordability high and attractive to those looking to refinance.
In a historical moment of unanimous agreement -- an
eye-opening 397-0 vote -- the U.S. House of
Representatives voted today to approve a resolution pushing the
U.S. government to fight the United Nations in its bid to
control and change the Internet at the WCIT-12 summit, currently
under way in Dubai.
The unanimous vote is meant to send a signal -- as a show of
strength -- to other countries meeting at the telecommunications
summit that both the White House and its lawmakers oppose any
role the U.N. might take in Internet governance or regulation.
Approximately two-thirds of the world's population, or 4.6
billion people, will experience water stressed conditions within
the next decade. These conditions stem from water demand that
exceeds the available amount during a certain period or when
poor quality restricts its use.
Research from Sensus of more than 180 utilities globally
reveals that these utilities are losing a collective $9.6
billion each year from leaked water.
The Era of Peak Water Is Here
The global water services industry is set to double to $1
trillion in annual revenues by 2020 as companies address the
growing problem of water scarcity, according to a new BofA
Merrill Lynch Global Research report called “A Blue Revolution –
global water” based on the collective views of 35 analysts,
covering 60 companies from 18 countries. The report is the
latest thematic megatrend piece from BofA Merrill Lynch Global
Research following previous reports on obesity,
energy efficiency, safety and security and a previous report on
water.
Now that all the data is in, the
fundamental reason for Romney's defeat is apparent, if largely
unreported. It is not just that blacks, Latinos, and single
women showed up in record numbers at the polls. It's that
whites didn't.
The final numbers suggest that 91.6
million votes were cast by whites -- seven million less than the
98.6 million that were cast in 2008!
December 4, 2012
A new study just released indicates
the June 2012 discovery by a team of Japanese scientists showing
a spike in carbon-14 found in tree rings dating between 774-775
AD - was most likely caused by a CME (coronal mass ejection).
Until now, the 1859 "Carrington Event" has been documented as
the largest solar event to hit Earth ever recorded.
“Climate change is taking place
before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the
concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have
risen constantly and again reached new records,” said World
Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
"The California Right to Know
Genetically Engineered Food Act" — was defeated, 52 percent to
48 percent. If it had been approved, California would have been
the first state to mandate the labeling of genetically
engineered food.
Supporters of the initiative were mostly
organic-food proponents hailing from across the country. They
have not given up. Since the defeat, they have been spending
time picking up the pieces, beginning and continuing similar
campaigns in other states, especially Washington.
As the nations of the world
struggle in Doha to agree even modest targets to tackle global
warming, the cuts needed in rising greenhouse gas emissions grow
ever deeper, more costly and less likely to be achieved.
Applying scientific answers to the
consumer question, "What do our food choices have to do with
heat, hurricanes, floods, and droughts?", the CGIAR Research
Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
is launching today a set of "Big Facts" that highlight the
complex relationship between agriculture and climate change.
The electrified version of Chevy’s
gasoline-powered Spark “also benefits from the technologies and
experience of its big brother, the Chevrolet Volt,” Fletcher
said. “The engineering team was able to reduce development time
and cost by using many of the same components and systems from
the Volt.”
City officials estimate at least
12,000 New Yorkers are trying to survive in unheated,
flood-damaged homes, despite warnings that dropping temperatures
could pose a health risk. Many families have returned to coastal
homes contaminated with mold or filled with construction dust.
We'll start in a cornfield — we'll call it an Iowa cornfield
in late summer — on a beautiful day. The corn is high. The air
is shimmering. There's just one thing missing — and it's a big
thing...
...a very big thing, but I won't tell you what, not
yet.
Carbon dioxide emissions from
industry rose an estimated 2.6 percent in a weak global economy
this year, a study released on Monday showed, powered by rapid
emissions growth in China and India, which may add urgency to
U.N. climate talks in Doha.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
has selected 66 cutting-edge research projects as part of its
Advanced Research Projects Agency -- Energy (ARPA-E). The
projects will a cumulative total of $130 million in funding for
transformational, breakthrough technologies that show
fundamental technical promise but are too early for
private-sector investment.
I have been a professional investor
for the last 19 years and have made countless capital-allocation
decisions, probably 90 percent or more of which have been
profitable.
While many economists are calling
for an increase in the retirement age to ease financial pressure
on the entitlement system, University of Texas economist James
Galbraith goes in the opposite direction.
He thinks the
retirement age — now 67 for full Social Security benefits —
should be lowered, at least temporarily.
FBIs (Full Blooded Indians) get weary of hearing about the
vicissitudes facing mixed-blood Indians, for understandable
reasons. FBIs bear the brunt of anti-Indian racism.
“Race,” having no freestanding reality, is most often conflated
with color, and so racial stigma follows color.
Then there’s the history of colonists searching for Indians
to sell out tribal interests. Who hangs around the fort but
mixed-blood political shape shifters?
Despite the lack of attention paid
to the issue during this year’s presidential campaign (at least,
before Sandy came along), Barack Obama’s first term was a bit of
a quiet revolution for climate change policy in America.
-
The classic 175 year old Western toilet may be in part
responsible for increasing bowel and pelvic problems,
including constipation, hemorrhoids, colitis, appendicitis,
colon cancer and others
-
Modern toilets place you in a sitting position as opposed to
the more traditional squatting position with your knees to
your chest; sitting to empty your bowel results in more
straining because your intestinal organs are not in an
optimal position for elimination
-
Squatting actually straightens your rectum, relaxes your
puborectalis muscle, and allows for complete emptying of
your cecum and appendix without straining, which prevents
fecal stagnation and the accumulation of toxins in your
intestinal tract
-
Squatting has been scientifically shown to relieve
constipation and hemorrhoids, but additional research needs
to be done
-
Non-westernized societies, in which people squat, do not
have the high prevalence of bowel disease seen in developed
nations; in some cultures with traditional lifestyles, these
diseases are uncommon or almost unknown
As another United Nations Climate
Change Conference gets under way in Qatar, the Global Renewable
Fuels Alliance (GRFA) criticized G20 leaders for failing to hold
up their commitment to phase out the costly fossil fuel
subsidies that hurt developing economies and slow the
development of alternative fuels. According to the IEA, fossil
fuel subsidies reached over half a trillion dollars this past
year, with latest estimates showing subsidies reaching $523
billion in 2011, up from $412 billion in 2010.
-
Evidence shows drug companies frequently hide vital
information about their drugs in order to get it on the
market and keep it there
-
Nearly 40 years’ worth of research has yielded no evidence
whatsoever to support the hypothesis that depression is
caused by abnormalities in your serotonin system.
-
For 40 years, the priority of the sugar industry has been to
cast doubt on studies suggesting sugar can make you ill and
obese. Meanwhile, according to some estimates the US health
system spends about $150 billion a year on sugar-related
diseases
-
To protect business, the industry has bought scientists and
hired powerful lobbyists to ensure sugar would not be
subject to legislative restriction
-
Since 1970, obesity rates in the United States have more
than doubled and diabetes has tripled. In order to make any
appreciable dent in the current trend, severe sugar and
fructose restriction is an absolute must
India is looking at an "energy
revolution", and Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology will be
at the heart of it, according to research from Frost & Sullivan.
Currently, 20 percent of building electricity consumption can be
attributed to lighting systems.
On November 26, 2012, the Secretary
of the Interior announced in a press release that the Cobell litigation is final
and the department will implement the final steps for the
settlement payment.
A group of scientists in the top
U.S. grain-growing state of Iowa said on Monday that this year's
harsh drought was a sign of things to come and should spur more
action to prepare for the challenges of a warming climate.
"What role will the United States play-if any-in the end
times?" asks reporter Troy Anderson in the new issue of a
Christian magazine. "When New York Times best-selling author
Joel C. Rosenberg tells audiences that America isn't mentioned
in Bible prophecy, many are stunned and ask how the wealthiest,
most powerful nation in history isn't a specifically defined
player in the last days."
Manufacturing unexpectedly
contracted in November to its lowest level in more than three
years, as companies worried about whether lawmakers in
Washington could reach a budget deal in time avert a crisis that
many fear could lead to a recession.
A new online briefing from a
high-level panel of experts, including a former director of the
CIA, unmasks the growing threat posed by an increasingly
troubled China.
North Korea: Kim Turns to Purges to
Solidify His Power
Europe Trails US in Fight Against
Foreign Trade Corruption
Kuwait: Unrest Will Continue After
Low Turnout Election
Japan: More Gridlock After Ruling
Party Loses Next Election
Recent research by the World Energy
Council (WEC) revealed the top 10 countries in sustainable
energy system performance -- the top 10 performing countries in
order are Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Finland, New
Zealand, Denmark, Japan, France and Austria.
The Navajo Nation is still trying
to eke out a deal on Little Colorado River water rights,
although an ambitious goal of trying to get it through during
Congress’ Lame Duck session is looking unlikely.
Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)
released its 2011 Energy Efficiency and Consumption Trends data
for major home appliances. The data is based on 2011 shipments
of major appliances and shows a continuing trend of decreased
energy consumption.
Wind farms and airports don’t mix.
Unfortunately, when the blades are turning on wind turbines, the
motion can interpreted as aircraft on air traffic control radar
screens. Needless to say, the results of such confusion could
potentially be catastrophic – or at the very least, they could
make things much more stressful for already-frazzled air traffic
controllers. UK tech firm Aveillant, however, claims that its
Holographic Radar system is the solution to the problem.
Australia has unveiled a new radio
telescope in the remote outback that will give the world a
vastly improved view of the Sun and much faster warnings on
massive solar storms. Solar flares and CMEs (coronal mass
ejections) produce an eruption of charged particles that can
wreck havoc on Earth's magnetic field.
Grover Norquist, the founder of
Americans for Tax Reform, predicted a tea party backlash that
would dwarf the movement’s success in the 2010 midterm elections
if President Barack Obama pushes the nation over the “fiscal
cliff.
President Obama is offering a $6
billion investment in clean energy infrastructure in the
Asia-Pacific region under the US-Asia Pacific Comprehensive
Partnership for a Sustainable Energy Future.
President Obama has signed into law
a bill that requires U.S. airlines be excluded from European
carbon emissions fees.
Residents of states that refuse to
set up health insurance exchanges under Obamacare are set to be
hit with higher premiums under new rules announced by the Health
and Human Services Department.
Insurance companies will
be charged 3.5 percent of any premiums they sell through the
federal exchanges, the department announced Friday.
Washington should stop fighting the
"fiscal phantom" of the deficit and start worrying about the
coming "austerity bomb," warns Paul Krugman in his New York
Times column.
The "deficit scolds," as Krugman calls
them, say a growing deficit will prompt “a run on Treasury
bonds, interest rates will spike and the U.S. economy will
plunge back into recession.” So we must slash spending and
increase revenue to reduce the deficit.
The Metcalf Institute at the
University of Rhode Island recently held the second in series of
seminars on climate change. Here are a few noteworthy points
that were offered Nov. 30 by 15 scientists, engineers, planners
and other experts:
Major nations' policies are
inadequate to limit global warming and the United States is off
track even in carrying out its weak pledge to limit greenhouse
gas emissions, a scientific scorecard showed on Friday.
By turning off an immune system
transmitter in mice with an Alzheimer’s-like condition,
scientists have been able to greatly reduce the accumulation of
an abnormal protein known as amyloid-ß in the animals’ brains.
Previous studies have shown that the protein plays a central
role in Alzheimer’s disease. It is hoped that the research may
ultimately point the way towards a method of preventing or
treating the disease in humans.
For the second year in a row,
Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas is the richest member of
Congress, with a reported net worth of $305 million — the first
time a Washington lawmaker has surpassed the $300 million mark.
Extracting shale oil from oil shale
is more potentially costly than the production of conventional
crude oil both financially and in terms of its environmental
impact. Deposits of oil shale occur around the world, including
major deposits in the United States of America. Estimates of
global deposits range from 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels. This
obviously will change the picture of global economics and
politics.
Preventing surgery-linked
infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out
some simple measures can make a big difference.
Emerging markets are forecast to
help bring stability to ailing solar industry in Europe, with up
to 12 GW of new photovoltaic (PV) capacity added in 2017 up from
just 1.6 GW in 2012, according to research from IHS.
Some bunker fuel demand has been
diverted to other ports as numerous container ship terminals at
the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California remain
closed due to a labor strike, market sources said Monday.
Distributed generation resources
should be viewed as a near-term solution to meet Southern
California's energy requirements in light of the prolonged or
permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,
a new briefing paper by the Rocky Mountain Institute argues.
When it comes to exercise, you really
can get too much of a good thing.
That’s the key finding of a new report
that suggests prolonged high-intensity workouts — lasting more
than an hour each day — do more harm than good and can shorten
lifespan.
An Arizona alternative-energy
company has not backed away from plans for a potential solar
farm in Forsyth County, though it is on the backburner.
The chairwoman of a key US Senate
committee Thursday called Superstorm Sandy a "turning point" in
the debate over climate change while another committee member
said the views of climate change deniers should no longer be
tolerated.
As the discussion/debate between
thinker and author Robert Bryce and entrepreneur Jigar Shah at
the Platts Global Energy Forum was drawing to a close, Shah
spoke from the perspective of an entrepreneur who has devoted
much of his career to renewable energy development.
Behind a dangerous new test approved by the FDA is a new drug by
the same company. Meanwhile, new research offers better natural
solutions.
Now we have a constant media drumbeat that Republicans will
have to cave to President Obama's demands or they will bear
responsibility for going over the fiscal cliff.
President Obama has increased his demands for more taxes and
more spending.
The Left, both the politicians and the news media, have
created a mythical threat which can only be solved by
Republicans surrendering their principles and abandoning their
allies.
Yet the fiscal cliff is entirely a manufactured threat.
Two Federal Reserve regional bank
presidents this weekend backed additional accommodation to bring
down 7.9 percent unemployment with the planned expiration later
this month of an easing program known as Operation Twist.
The
White House and its allies are weighing military options to
secure Syria's chemical and biological weapons, after U.S.
intelligence reports show the Syrian regime may be readying
those weapons and may be desperate enough to use them, U.S.
officials said Monday.
As Superstorm Sandy and its
aftermath prompt more Americans to call for action tackling
global warming, Environment America released a new Environment
America Research & Policy Center report today showing how
current power generation from wind energy prevents as much
global warming pollution as taking 13 million cars off the road
each year.
The Volcker Rule, which would
restrict banks from trading their own money for profits in
capital markets, is already changing Wall Street behavior even
though the rule isn’t in effect yet, said the rule’s architect,
Paul Volcker.
The Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “Food Code”) is a collection
of internationally adopted food standards, guidelines, codes of
practice, and other recommendations which supporters hope will
become a global standard and also facilitate international
trade.
Fearful of the financial
repercussions of a protracted wave of business failures, central
bankers have sought to suppress the incidence of default in
recent years, primarily by maintaining artificially low interest
rates. This has contributed to the creation of ‘zombie
companies’ -- businesses that can only afford to service their
debts, paying interest but not reducing their principal loan
amounts.
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