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Today's News from
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Find out what's
going on in our area and around the World from an "energy"
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“ We learned to be patient
observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the
crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl
ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But
above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its
indomitable spirit. ”
—Tom Brown, Jr., The Tracker
March 30, 2012
Carbon offset developer
NativeEnergy and a group of corporate leaders in sustainability
are collaborating to help build two wind turbines in Iowa, a
landfill gas-to-energy project in Oklahoma, and a farm methane
reduction project in Pennsylvania. By working together, these
brands will provide an economic boost to local communities and
cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 400,000 metric tons.
Through purchases of NativeEnergy's Help Build™ carbon offsets,
the companies have provided critical upfront funding for the
projects.
As aluminum recycling continues to
expand, so could the impurities and contamination that are found
in scrap material unless measures are taken to prevent it,
according to a recent study.
Tucson Electric Power (TEP) is
partnering with Areva Solar and incorporating steam solar
generators into its Sundt generating station, which will boost
generation capacity during peak demand by 5 MW without
increasing emissions.
Hint: it helps you lose weight and live longer, it’s
enjoyable, you probably don’t do it nearly enough, and there’s
important new research about it that you need to know.
This week, lawmakers in Denmark
agreed upon a new set promotion programs for efficiency and
renewable energy that will put the country on a path to getting
100 percent of electricity, heat and fuels from renewable
resources by 2050
The first 250 U.S. Marines will
arrive next month in northern Australia where a permanent joint
training hub will be based, but a proposal to build a U.S. air
base on a remote Australian island in the Indian Ocean is not
yet a priority, Defense Minister Stephen Smith said Wednesday.
After the latest extended blackout,
Attorney General Martha Coakley says the time has come to demand
more accountability from power utilities by implementing a new
reporting system that would let the public track how much the
utilities are spending on infrastructure improvements.
As the California Low Carbon Fuel
Standard heads toward a possible legal resolution later this
year, one of the many changes from its earlier version is that
crudes produced in the state won't have the same sort of special
status under the new rules that they did in the regulation's
formative years.
Summary: Cybersecurity advisor
Richard Clarke is warning the U.S. that its major companies are
being regularly infiltrated by Chinese hackers employed by the
Chinese government to steal R&D.
Progress in the design of
metamaterials has been impressive. A negative index of
refraction (3) is an example of a material property that does
not exist in nature but has been enabled by using metamaterial
concepts. As a result, negative refraction has been much studied
in recent years ..
For those of you who think
creativity in generating energy means wind farms and
photovoltaic panels, your minds are about to be blown. And
before you close your browser window, I promise not to mention
the word “algae.” Oops.
Salary of retired US Presidents .............$180,000 FOR
LIFE
Salary of House/Senate .................$174,000 FOR
LIFE This is stupid
Salary of Speaker of the House
......$223,500 FOR LIFE This is stupid
Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders .. $193,400 FOR LIFE This is stupid
Average Salary of a teacher ................ $40,065
Average Salary of Soldier
DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN ………………..
$38,000
I think we found where the cuts should be made!
Forgive me for once again stating
the obvious: but chemical pesticides really are toxic. And to
add insult to injury, they only work about 65% of the time. It
goes downhill from there because over time, bugs develop a
resistance to chemical pesticides so that you have to use more
and more to get the same effect… or switch to a different,
equally dangerous chemical.
Any time a renewable energy or
natural gas advocate proclaims that gradually switching entirely
to renewables or gas is the answer to the future of power
generation, I can’t help but stifle a chuckle. If there’s
anything the power industry has taught me over the last couple
years, it’s that electricity is reliable and sustainable when it
comes from a number of sources – not just one or two.
Oxford Resource Partners, a
Columbus-based coal company, is having a rough month.
New coal-fired power plants would
be all but abolished in favor of a big bet on natural gas under
a new Environmental Protection Agency rule unveiled Tuesday.
Summary: A Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) executive says “we’re not winning” the
hacker war. He warns that FBI’s current model to fight hackers
infiltrating governments and companies is “unsustainable.”
Can’t get what you want by legitimate means? Just try an
end-run around the system!
The FDA has submitted its budget
funding request for FY 2013. That request includes $220 million
in food facility registration fees. FDA would use the money to
“increase its capacity to establish an integrated national food
safety system and further strengthen food safety inspection.”
Altaeros Energies have created a
floating wind turbine that produces low cost, renewable energy
"We need solutions that are economically, socially and
environmentally sustainable -- many of which are now at hand,"
said Alexander Ochs, Director of Worldwatch's Climate and Energy
Program and author of Worldwatch's Sustainable Energy Roadmap
reports.
According to the report, by embracing an integrated mix of
renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid technologies,
countries can put their energy systems on a more sustainable
path while developing economically.
In Japan, the wood from
decommissioned nuclear power plants, even some that contains
radiation, will serve as feedstock to new biomass power plants.
bacteria found in soil called Mycobacterium has been found to
effect the same neurons as Prozac, offering people a natural
lift in mood. This is just one more great reason to get out in
the garden and grow your own foods. Not a green thumb? Just
spending time in areas with rich soil will allow you to breath
in these great benefits
Daniel Byman, author of the 2007
book "The Five Front War: The Better Way to Fight Global Jihad,"
told LIGNET this week that while the fight against Al Qaeda is
going “reasonably well,” the bigger picture is “troubling,” with
jihad spreading and more people in Arab countries blaming the
United States for their troubles.
Republicans are forcing President
Barack Obama to pay a political price for telling Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have more “flexibility”
on missile defense policy after November’s election.
The
remark has enabled the GOP not only to label the president a
flip-flopper but also to pose the ominous question: What else is
he hiding until after the election?
The Henry Hub is the pricing point
for natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York
Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).
Hunger robs people of health,
vitality, and eventually, their life. The very old and the very
young are among the first to die without food—sometimes, within
just a few days. Next to fall are those who are ill. Then
pregnant women and nursing mothers. If hunger is prolonged, only
the strongest survive.
Top leaders at the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, already under fire from lawmakers
in the wake of the “Fast and Furious” debacle, also get harsh
marks from the men and women who serve under them, according to
an internal survey.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO),
the operator of a damaged Japanese nuclear power plant, will
this week request a capital injection of 1 trillion yen (12.07
billion dollars) and more than 800 billion yen in additional
cash assistance from the state-backed nuclear compensation fund,
a news report said Tuesday.
A
week has passed since the auction for Greek CDS...in our minds,
the most striking thing about the entire situation was the
wholesale shift in sentiment regarding the potential risks of a
credit event. In the space of a few months, it went from being a
big issue to a non-issue
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) released yesterday
its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for March showing
signs the housing market is awakening from its depression-like
condition of the past few years and beginning, though slowly, to
make a nascent recovery.
According to a wide range of reports, several nuclear bombs
were “lost” for 36 hours after taking off August 29/30, 2007 on
a “cross-country journey” across the U.S., from U.S.A.F Base
Minot in North Dakota to U.S.A.F. Base Barksdale in Louisiana.
[1] Reportedly, in total there were six W80-1 nuclear warheads
armed on AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACMs) that were
“lost.” [2] The story was first reported by the Military Times,
after military servicemen leaked the story.
Dominion power reported two events
over the weekend at North Anna Power Station to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
The rockets carry an onboard
chemical which, when released, form clouds revealing wind
patterns at outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere
Low-level radioactive waste from
Nebraska Public Power District's nuclear facility may soon be
heading to Texas.
The district's board of directors
approved an agreement last month that would send a portion of
the low-level waste from Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville
to a storage facility outside Andrews, Texas.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has thrown out claims from several groups opposing the
Davis-Besse nuclear power plant's re-licensing that wind, solar,
or other "alternative" energy sources could replace the plant's
electricity generation capability.
The new grocery store in my neighborhood certainly looks
amazing at first glance. All the aisles are loaded with neatly
faced rows of produce and brightly colored boxes of essentials.
Cute little signs proclaim that things are "organic" or
"all-natural" and of course, "good for you!!!" to take home and
eat.
It really does look great... so it's a pity it's nothing more
than a marketing illusion.
Solar activity has been at low levels. There were six
C-class flares over the past 24 hours. Solar activity is
expected to be low with a chance for an isolated M-class flare.
The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet for the next three
days (30 March - 1 April)
The federal agency charged with
ensuring mine safety failed to enforce laws that might have
prevented the Upper Big Branch mine explosion that killed 29
coal miners and seriously injured two others, according to an
independent assessment of the 2010 incident.
More than two-thirds of Americans
disapprove of the way President Barack Obama is handling high
gasoline prices, although most do not blame him for them,
according to a Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Tuesday.
Sixty-eight percent disapprove and 24 percent approve of how
Obama is responding to price increases that have become one of
the biggest issues in the 2012 presidential campaign.
Special conservation zones known as
marine protected areas provide many direct benefits to fisheries
and coral reefs. However, such zones appear to offer limited
help to corals in their battle against global warming, according
to a new study.
To protect coral reefs from climate
change, marine protected areas need to be complemented with
policies that can meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
researchers said.
World leaders gathered in Seoul,
South Korea for a two-day nuclear summit this week but produced
only a vague, non-binding communique pledging to “secure all
vulnerable nuclear material in four years.” Regional threats –
especially rogue state nuclear programs -- played a major role
in the failure of the summit and are likely to stymie future
efforts until strong leaders emerge to confront these issues.
People who ate chocolate a few
times a week or more weighed less than those who rarely
indulged, according to a U.S. study involving a thousand people.
Deep below Minnesota's often-frozen
surface lies a boiling-hot, pollution-free energy source just
waiting to be tapped.
We need to show the "powers that
be" on earth that we are sick of being slaves and dumbed down to
accept the idea that exotic free energy is impossible. We need
to show the "powers that be" in heaven that we deserve these
technologies and that we are not going to further destroy the
earth with the empowerment they will provide.
Drugs and medical products have the
ability to improve your health if they work, or seriously injure
or kill you if they are dangerous. We've all seen the headlines
of what happens when the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's)
safety system breaks down: antibiotics that cause liver damage,
pain medications that increase the risk of heart attack, and
more.
Notice how the US economic data
coming out lately has been quite mediocre relative to
expectations? For example, today's pending home sales came in
-0.5% vs. +1% expected. Dallas Fed manufacturing activity came
in at 10.8 with 16 expected. Citi has an index that tracks
economic data surprises. Here is the definition:
Hydrogen carries a well deserved
reputation for being the clean fuel, and offering a route away
from the continuous polluting cycle associated with mainstream
fuels such as petrol and diesel. There is, however, a challenge
for both commercial and private users of fuel to gain an
understanding of hydrogen, the readiness of the associated
technology, and the economics. This is a challenge that ITM
Power has sought to address head on.
Electrolysis has a significant role
to play in enabling more renewable energy to be accepted by the
electricity grid. At times of excess supply, the electricity can
be converted to hydrogen at a high efficiency. The hydrogen can
be exported from the energy sector to the transport sector,
seeding an infrastructure of clean fuel. At times of high
electricity demand, the electrolysis systems can be turned off.
This control can be exercised by the grid operators or utility
companies remotely.
The range of physical phenomena
that scientists are trying to "cloak" objects from has a new
entry - heat.
French researchers have shown how to apply
the ideas of "optical cloaking" - the endeavour to make a Harry
Potter-style cloak - to the thermal world.
For better health, try standing up
more, a new study suggests. Those who spend 11 or more hours a
day sitting are 40 percent more likely to die over the next
three years regardless of how physically active they are
otherwise, researchers say.
If every energy industry
representative and every politician uses the term "clean energy"
freely, how do we know what it really means?
United
States Senator Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman
Bingaman (D-NM) has just introduced his clean energy standard
legislation, and yes, it has every energy source in it, except
energy efficiency. Can a clean energy standard include all
energy sources - and should it?
You probably already know that a
healthy diet is a powerful weapon for fighting off dementia as
you age, but recent studies have shown that certain special
foods have amazing powers to keep the brain healthy. Some, such
as the compound curcumin, which is found in the spice turmeric,
even help control the devastating plaques associated with
Alzheimer's.
On Friday, Illinois banking
regulators closed the thirteenth bank of 2012 leaving uninsured
depositors of New City Bank in the lurch. The institution was
shuttered without a buyer to acquire its deposits. This is only
the second time since January 2011 that the FDIC was not able to
find another institution to assume a troubled bank's deposits.
The United States asked France to
join it for a possible emergency oil stock release, the French
Energy Minister said on Wednesday,
The U.S. banking industry’s modest
turnaround continues, according to a new analysis by Weiss
Ratings, a leading independent rating agency of U.S. financial
institutions. Increased profitability, growth in loan volume,
and a decline in nonperforming loans are among the signs
pointing to the industry’s improved performance following the
financial crisis that began in 2008.
Here is a follow-up to the post on the declining US coal
demand. As natural gas hits a new low today, the pressure on US
coal industry increases further.
To view the “Natural gas
nearby futures contract (Bloomberg)” graph
The Conference Board’s measure of
US consumer confidence dipped 1.4 points to 70.2 points in March
2012, which was in line with market expectations for a reading
of 70.1.
The current employment differential was unchanged at
-31.6, although the “jobs plentiful” component reached its
highest level since September 2008.
“We will hear argument this morning in Case Number 11-398,
Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida”. With
these words Chief Justice Roberts started potentially the most
important litigation to have been heard recently in this grand
setting.
Whether you are a health care or insurance professional, a
consumer or political junkie, the Court’s decision will
ultimately affect you. For example, in early trading this
morning, the shares of UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Humana (HUM)
and Aetna Inc (AET) were up as much as four percent.
America's wind industry is
simultaneously on course for a record-breaking year of
installations and on the brink of catastrophe – and a lot has to
do with the boom and bust of the Production Tax Credit (PTC).
The American offshore wind market, which has yet to install a
turbine anywhere in coastal waters, took a big step forward this
week with state approval of a single 5-megawatt (MW) prototype
off the coast of Virginia.
World temperatures have remained
virtually unchanged in the past 10 years despite predictions of
global warming and America’s mildest winter in decades,
Princeton physics professor William Happer contends.
Dr Craig Hollabaugh has created a
system that keeps the roots of his plants warm and cozy during
the coldest months using electric heat cables running under sand
on which the pots are placed
What kind of crazy world do we live
in when, in a western democracy that is fully vested in 21st
century technology, your dog or cat can get better, more
immediate medical attention and treatment than you? What kind of
lunacy would relegate a human being to certain death through
astronomical waiting periods for the most basic of services
(such as diagnostics) while at the same time allowing those same
machines and technologies to be available for the diagnosis and
treatment of the same diseases in animals... but without the
wait.
March 27, 2012
One soldier was an American.
Afghan security forces shot and
killed three international troops Monday, one of them an
American, in two attacks. They were the latest in a rising
number of attacks in which Afghan forces have turned their
weapons on their foreign partners.
Another "sagebrush rebellion" is
spreading through legislatures in Arizona and other Western
states with a series of formal demands that the federal
government hand over title to tens of millions of acres of
forests, ranges and other public lands.
Under much discussion
today--including a back-and-forth on CNBC--is an Associated
Press story and its analysis into the price of crude and its
relationship to the retail price of gasoline.
This speech from Charlie Chaplin
comes from a movie created at the end of the Nazi era as a
satire against the evil regime. A comedian for all intensive
purposes, Charlie Chaplin was also wise, the words offered here
are some of the most stirring ever to have been spoken in front
of a camera.
Bernanke said consumer demand
remains weak relative to its level before the Great Recession.
He noted that other contributors to economic growth — including
borrowing and trade — have declined.
Bottlenose dolphins in Barataria
Bay, Louisiana, are showing signs of severe ill health,
according to NOAA marine mammal biologists and their local,
state, federal and other research partners.
Barataria Bay,
located in the northern Gulf of Mexico, received heavy and
prolonged exposure to oil during the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill.
Accelarated climate change, driven
by human activity, has led to soaring temperatures around the
world and the decade between 2001 and 2010 was the warmest ever
recorded in all continents of the globe, according to a new
report released by the World Meteorological Organization.
By 2050, global average temperature
could be between 1.4°C and 3°C warmer than it was just a couple
of decades ago, according to a new study that seeks to address
the largest sources of uncertainty in current climate models.
That's substantially higher than estimates produced by other
climate analyses, suggesting that Earth's climate could warm
much more quickly than previously thought.
Spanish bonds extended a slide that
was triggered earlier this month after the country was chided by
euro-zone authorities over the government's unilateral decision
to revise up its budget deficit target for this year. With
concerns over Greece abating after a crucial debt exchange went
through, Spain is increasingly being seen as the next flashpoint
in the euro zone.
The solar flares of early March,
plus a few others that have occurred since, are steadily
igniting the northern lights this year. With the advent of
spring, that activity will intensify as the aurora reaches its
brightest season. This year and next, with the sun’s activity
spikes as part of its 11-year cycle, that is going to be even
more pronounced.
The last winter crops are in from
the garden, and in spite of mild weather in some parts, it may
still be a little too early to plant anything in your neck of
the woods. This slack time can be frustrating for gardeners. It
can also be an excellent opportunity to plan how to handle next
season’s harvest so you have more of your own produce to eat
during the next slack time. Once the harvest is rolling in, you
may not have much time to weigh your options.
Stale bread, banana peels, coffee
grounds and other food waste will be transformed into green fuel
for Oslo's city buses starting next year. The Norwegian
capital's new biogas plant will supply the fuel and also provide
nutrient-rich biofertilizer for agriculture.
"As tax cuts expire and spending
falls, the economy will be hit with a 3.5 percent decline in
gross domestic demand," Blinder writes in The Wall Street
Journal.
There are nearly 450 nuclear
reactors in the world, with hundreds more being planned or under
construction. There are 104 of these reactors in the United
States and 195 in Europe. Imagine what havoc it would wreak on
our civilization and the planet's ecosystems if we were to
suddenly witness not just one or two nuclear meltdowns, but 400
or more! How likely is it that our world might experience an
event that could ultimately cause hundreds of reactors to fail
and melt down at approximately the same time? I venture to say
that, unless we take significant protective measures, this
apocalyptic scenario is not only possible, but probable.
A new Pennsylvania law endangers
public health by forbidding health care professionals from
sharing information they learn about certain chemicals and
procedures used in high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing.
The procedure is commonly known as fracking.
Scientific estimates differ but the
world's temperature looks set to rise by six degrees Celsius by
2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to rise
uncontrollably.
"The Congressional Budget Office
predicts that, under current law, the revenue of the federal
government will rise from $2.4 trillion in the current fiscal
year, which ends in September, to $2.9 trillion in the following
fiscal year," Feldstein writes in the Financial Times.
Organic solvents were detected at
high concentrations in 18 percent of the aquifer system used for
public supply in the San Fernando and San Gabriel basins.
However, groundwater is not directly used as drinking water;
water purveyors may treat groundwater before delivering it to
customers to ensure compliance with water quality standards.
Iraq’s fugitive vice-president has
demanded that global human rights groups investigate whether one
of his bodyguards was tortured to death.
Islamic law will not be enshrined
in Tunisia's new constitution, preserving the secular basis of
the North African nation, Tunisia's ruling Islamist Ennahda
Party said Monday
Japan is set to lose total nuclear
output on May 5 -- if there are no restarts of nuclear reactors
in the country by then -- as Hokkaido Electric said Monday it
has decided to start scheduled maintenance at its Tomari plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, the
operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima power plant, shut its
last operating nuclear reactor on Monday for regular
maintenance, leaving just one running reactor supplying Japan's
creaking power sector.
One thing that continues to shock
me about the United States is that politicians on both end of
the aisle continue to be bought off by the oil lobby.
Islamists are poised to dominate a
panel that is to draft the country’s constitution. The
constitution has been the subject of heated debate since
president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster last year.
Extreme weather events over the
past decade have increased and were "very likely" caused by
manmade global warming, a study in the journal Nature Climate
Change said on Sunday.
Scientists at Germany's Potsdam
Institute for Climate Research used physics, statistical
analysis and computer simulations to link extreme rainfall and
heat waves to global warming. The link between warming and
storms was less clear.
Unfortunately, due to decades of
professional and media misinformation, the typical American
believes they should avoid the midday sun and need to use
sunscreen before, and several times during, sun exposure.
Unfortunately, this is a prescription for minimizing vitamin
D levels and all its widely appreciated benefits.
Pacific Gas & Electric is agreeing
to pay $170 million to help both San Bruno, Calif. and the
victims of a 2010 pipeline explosion there. That disaster cost
eight people their lives, resulted in numerous burn victims and
wiped out 38 homes.
A new method to make better use of
vast amounts of data related to global geography, population and
climate may help determine the relative importance of population
increases vs. climate change.
The Obama administration offered
new guidance Friday on where wind farms should be located to
reduce the number of bird deaths while promoting increased use
of wind power.
This past month I’ve found myself
neck deep in thinking and talking about genetic engineering. Not
about the science, but about the current state of affairs.
Recently the unrestricted approval of Round-Up Ready alfalfa,
the legal battles around sugar beets, and the pending approval
of genetically engineered (GE) salmon have brought the
uncertainties, dangers and influence of such technology back
into focus, renewing discussions about how to protect ourselves
and our future.
The 2,800 scientists, policymakers
and business representatives opened their four-day conference
with a reading of Earth's vital signs and an ominous prognosis,
"without immediate action, societies everywhere face an
uncertain future on what may become a much hotter planet."
If you have been following and
researching the disastrous effects that Obamacare will have on
our nation, you may be aware that the U.S. Supreme Court is
having hearings for three days from Monday, March 27th through
March 29th, to rule on the constitutionality of this law.
Tritium is partly responsible for
the 14% to 220% increase over otherwise anticipated cases of
childhood leukemia that persistently occur in and around NPPs
worldwide
Solar activity is expected to be
low with a chance for an M-class flare. The geomagnetic field is
expected to be mostly quiet on 27 March, increasing to unsettled
to active conditions on 28 and 29 March due to a solar sector
boundary followed by a negative polarity coronal hole.
Russia has taken back 1.6 tons of
highly enriched uranium which is removed from reactors abroad,
the Russian State Atomic Agency Rosatom said Friday.
"Russia has removed 1.6 tons of uranium from various countries.
Using modern technology, this is enough to produce 65 to 100
nuclear warheads," said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom
A University of Delaware
oceanographer has stumbled upon an unusual aid for studying
local waterways: radioactive iodine. Trace amounts of the
contaminant, which is used in medical treatments, are entering
waterways via wastewater treatment systems and providing a new
way to track where and how substances travel through rivers to
the ocean.
The separatist New Black Panther
Party, described as a hate group by a civil rights organization,
is standing by its $10,000 bounty offer for the capture of the
man who shot Trayvon Martin, despite vehement opposition from,
among others, Martin's family.
The Presidio Group LLC released its
Automotive Retail M&A Report for Year End 2011.
“All of
the factors we saw driving M&A activity in the first half of
2011 remained in force through the balance of the year, and they
appear to be gaining strength in 2012”
The NYMEX gasoline futures price
hit another recent high last week and is sure to push up
gasoline prices at the pump. This development will add to the
lingering concerns about the nascent US consumer recovery.
Progress Energy customers saved an
average of $235 a year by switching to solar thermal water
heater, representing an average annual savings of 63 percent on
the water heater portion of their power bill.
Propane doesn’t degrade over time
and there’s nothing you need to add to it to make it last
longer. It will last indefinitely. You biggest problem is
keeping the tank used to store it in good shape, along with the
valves in the tank. Propane
Venus, the moon and Jupiter are
closing in for yet another love triangle on March 26, official
sky observers say. And this will be their last, since Jupiter
flits off to its far-flung orbit as March flows into April, and
the three are not due to meet in Mother Earth’s sky for quite
some time.
If you ask most doctors to describe
the function of vitamin C in the body, they will say that it’s
an antioxidant, or that it prevents scurvy. In fact, many in the
medical establishment are of the opinion that unless the levels
of vitamin C in the diet are severely deficient — that is, low
enough to bring on scurvy — there is no real risk.
The effort to recall Republican
Gov. Scott Walker has been so all-consuming in Wisconsin that
the upcoming presidential primary election is attracting little
interest among voters or political activists in the Badger
State.
Wells Fargo & Co. made a record
$2.8 billion in loan commitments and financing to projects and
businesses having a direct impact on the environment last year.
March 23, 2012
World Water Day is a chance to stop
and realize that humanity is facing a frightening water
crisis...
The people hardest hit by the water
crisis are in developing countries -- places it is easy for many
world leaders (and the rest of us) to overlook. And even the
number of those without clean water -- last tallied at 884
million -- can be hard to grasp.
Solar3D believes it has discovered
a silicon solar cell design that can produce 200 percent of the
power output of conventional solar cells and has completed a
detailed simulation analysis comparing this solar cell with
conventional solar cells to verify this claim. The results
confirm the claim, according to the company.
By eliminating material losses,
improving packaging efficiencies and determining cost-effective
alternative uses for raw materials and byproducts, the Leuven,
Belgium-based beer manufacturer said it is making progress
toward its three-year global environmental goals set in 2009 as
part of its Better World commitment, according to a news
release.
Aspirin, the 3-cent painkiller
whose origins can be traced to Hippocrates, reduces the chances
of developing or dying from cancer earlier than previously
thought and also prevents tumors from spreading, studies showed.
On what meteorologists consider the
first day of spring, record highs were set in dozens of central
and eastern cities, from International Falls, Minnesota on the
Canadian border to Lexington, Kentucky in the south, according
to the National Weather Service.
Standing in front of a row of
pipes, President Barack Obama pledged on Thursday to accelerate
approval of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline,
seeking to deflect criticism that his rejection of the full
project helped create a climate for high gasoline prices.
The Australian government has
approved a bill creating the country's first nuclear waste dump,
over the objections of aboriginal and environmental groups and
the Australian Greens.
“It’s a special day,” Larry Wetsit
said. “Our people have been waiting and praying about this for a
couple hundred years. My relations, there were hundreds of them,
starved on several occasions here as we were placed on the
reservation. It was all about having no buffalo. That was the
low part in our history, the lowest we could go. This is a start
on the road to recovery.”
Research by East Carolina
University faculty and students has confirmed that oil from the
April 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
did reach the ocean’s food chain... the researchers found that
crude oil from the spill entered the food chain through the
tiniest of organisms, zooplankton, which forms the base of the
food chain in marine ecosystems.
Many of us look at the landscape of
government, the government bureaucracy, the reach of lobbyists
and corporatists, and the diminishing impact we have on our
elected officials, and we wonder if there is anything that we
can do to restore accountability to civil authorities.
The illusion of a unified and
stable Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was dispelled this past
week as once powerful leaders were purged in the greatest
political turmoil China has suffered since the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989. The tension is so palpable that there were
even wild rumors spreading over the Internet of a coup and tanks
rolling into the streets of Beijing.
The study found that without action
to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions, the global average
temperature could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the
century causing ocean acidification, sea level rise, marine
pollution, species migration and more intense tropical cyclones.
It would also threaten coral reefs, disrupt fisheries and
deplete fish stocks.
Hacktivists are proving hard to
combat, suggests a study of data breaches
Hacktivists
stole more data from large corporations than cybercriminals in
2011, according to a study of significant security incidents.
The annual analysis of data breaches by Verizon uncovered a
huge rise in politically motivated attacks.
The subject of extreme weather is
of great importance because it provides a tangible illustration
of climate change. The average person understands that the
increasing number of record-breaking heat waves and tornadoes
are more than isolated weather events, they reflect a changing
climate. This point was born out in a recent study, which showed
that more Americans are accepting the reality of climate change.
The natural gas industry defends
hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, as safe and
efficient. Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy
Research, a pro-industry non-profit organization, claims
fracking has been “a widely deployed as safe extraction
technique,” dating back to 1949. What he doesn’t say is that
until recently energy companies had used low-pressure methods to
extract natural gas from fields closer to the surface than the
current high-pressure technology that extracts more gas, but
uses significantly more water, chemicals, and elements.
Few people stop to consider what
would happen if, in an instant, the magic went away. If our
advanced technology were suddenly and completely destroyed, how
would we manage to survive? A nuclear EMP could make the magic
go away. I hope it never happens, and I don't think that it is
at all inevitable. It makes no sense, however, to be blind to
the danger. It is both much less likely to happen -- and also
less likely to have a catastrophic impact -- if, both as a
civilization and as individuals, we are prepared for an attack
on our advanced technology.
Utilizing biotech
"drought-tolerant" corn to boost global food production would be
a less-effective tactic than planting conventional corn and
improving agronomic practices, a veteran plant scientist said on
Tuesday...."It is a modest benefit and a real benefit and a step
forward. But it is really kind of a baby step,
Greenpeace reiterated its call for
an end to deforestation in Brazil by 2015 and globally by 2020
during its launch of an awareness-raising expedition down the
Amazon River aboard the Rainbow Warrior.
Already, somewhere between 900
million and a billion people are chronically hungry, and by 2050
agriculture will have to cope with these threats while feeding a
growing population with changing dietary demands. This will
require doubling food production, especially if we are to build
up reserves for climatic extremes.
You say most of history we've lived
in balance, but when have we stepped out of balance and
collapsed?
Well, there have been four collapses in
Northern Europe. The first such collapse was round about 3000BC,
and that was due partly to climate change the temperature got a
great deal warmer but also to the fact that we had deforested
the uplands, where we lived. By 3000BC we had completely changed
the forest and the woodland nature of Britain, and the same is
true for most parts of Northern Europe. The climate changed, the
soil blew away, we had not kept the hedges or the shrubs or the
tree cover to ensure the soil stayed. It's very difficult to
say, but it would appear that probably around about one-third of
the population died of starvation as a result of the collapse of
that agricultural system.
If a crisis over Iran curbs the
supply of liquefied natural gas while Japan's nuclear fleet is
shut, it could cause an economic impact greater than that from
the March 2011 earthquake, the former executive director of the
International Energy Agency said Thursday.
I live on an organic farm in North
Carolina, so I don't spend much time roaming my local Walmart
looking for produce. But on a recent trip to Austin, Texas, I
decided to stop by a busy supercenter to see how the company was
going about its well-publicized push to sell more local and
organic food.
I saw an add on coast to coast
about free energy.
And I thought to my self - George Noory
and his crew would not put up this if it was a scam.
So I
bought the "blue print" on the Johnsonmotor and after that I go
into your website, telling me its a scam.
Kauai Island Utility Cooperative
will "indefinitely defer" the installation of smart meters for
any ratepayers who object to the devices, company officials
announced after a federal lawsuit was filed by a KIUC member
attempting to block the project.
Terrorist organizations and
sovereign governments have attacked the U.S. financial system in
the past and may do it again to destroy the U.S. dollar's status
as global reserve currency, says author Kevin Freeman.
Solar panel manufacturers are still
optimistic of winning substantial duties on solar panel imports
from China, despite an initial U.S. government ruling that many
found surprisingly low, the lead attorney for the industry group
said on Wednesday.
Medical waste found on the side of
a Newfoundland road likely fell off the back of a truck,
officials told local news media.
U.S. researchers say they've
identified a new thermoelectric material that may lead to
efficient conversion of heat into electricity and vice versa.
President Obama and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton are increasingly moving to strip America
of vital defense capabilities through a web of international
treaties and agreements. Already, Clinton is negotiating a code
of conduct in outer space that would effectively ban our
capacity to destroy satellites and put interceptor missiles in
space.
Over 900 Pakistani women were
killed last year in the name of honour for allegedly shaming
their families, while nearly 4,500 others were the target of
domestic violence, the country’s top rights watchdog said in a
report Thursday.
Palestinians are losing access to
water sources in the West Bank as Israeli settlers take over
springs. The settlers use threats, intimidation and fences to
ensure control of water sources near the settlements, finds a
new United Nations survey released today.
Scientists have succeeded in
endowing graphene with yet another useful property. Already, it
is the thinnest, strongest and stiffest material ever measured,
while also proving to be an excellent conductor of heat and
electricity. These qualities have allowed it to find use in
everything from transistors to supercapacitors to anti-corrosion
coatings. Now, two materials engineers from Stanford University
have used computer models to show how it could also be turned
into a piezoelectric material – this means that it could
generate electricity when mechanically stressed, or change shape
when subjected to an electric current.
If you've filled up your gas tank
recently, you don't need the newspapers to tell you gas prices
are on the rise. But oil and gas prices are in the news, and
politicians are grabbing headlines with plans that they claim
will bring immediate relief at the pump. But these plans always
fall short while real, long-term solutions are often missing
from the conversation.
There is no "silver bullet"
solution to high gas prices, but there are practical steps we
can take to begin the transition from our oil-based
transportation system.
Everyone uses batteries at some
point in their lives. Whether it is for your Game Boy,
flashlight, or an electric can opener of some sort, batteries
are very useful in our lives during this 21st century,
electronic based culture. However, most people do not even
fathom where the batteries even come from. So there is a chance
that some people will be shocked to find out that some new kinds
of renewable batteries are made with trash. But when two
European scientists combined chemicals and waste, there was a
way to make batteries more environmentally friendly.
Let’s face it ... there are people
surviving in countries without our level of technology to help
them at all. They do just like we did before the industrial age
and modern conveniences. They search for hours for usable wood,
often settling for dried dung to feed their cooking fires.
That’s when I learned that many aid organizations are supplying
these people with solar ovens instead. And my curiosity was
piqued.
Cattle graze on dry land in
Chihuahua February 17, 2012. A severe drought in Mexico that has
cost farmers more than a billion dollars in crop losses alone
and set back the national cattle herd for years
When federal prosecutor Eduardo
Santos de Oliveira heard in November about an oil spill in a
Chevron field off Brazil's coast, he was determined that, this
time, the polluters wouldn't wiggle from his grip.
Germany's Solarhybrid company has
filed for insolvency, court officials said Wednesday -- the
third company in Germany's once booming solar-power sector to
fail in four months.
Thousands of police today
surrounded thousands of anti-nuclear protestors demonstrating
against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Idinthakarai. In
the afternoon, 10 people were arrested, including three protest
leaders, for holding demonstrations without permission and
preventing KNPP officials from discharging their duty.
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey
(PMMS), showing mortgage rates continuing to follow bond yields
higher amid improving economic data. The average 30-fixed rate
mortgage averaged 4.08 percent for the week clearing the 4
percent barrier for the first time since October 27, 2011, when
it averaged 4.10 percent.
US coal production totaled about
18.8 million st in the week ended Saturday, 11.7% below output
in the comparable week of 2011, the Energy Information
Administration said Thursday.
Fresh water supplies are unlikely
to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing political
instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food
markets, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment released on
Thursday.
The Chinese solar companies named
in the dispute -- including Suntech, Trina Solar and Yingli --
have denied the allegations against them. Helena Kimball, Yingli
Solar's head of marketing, has previously vowed to "mount a
vigorous defense" against the charges.
The Supreme Court ruled on
Wednesday that landowners can sue to challenge a federal
government compliance order under the clean water law, a
decision that sides with corporate groups and puts new limits on
a key Environmental Protection Agency power.
Fitch Ratings expects smart meters
will play a growing role in federal and state regulatory and
political policymaking, future retail rate design and system
reliability standards, according to a report published today.
Ensuring universal access to water
and using it wisely in agriculture is essential to end famine,
drought and political instability, United Nations officials said
today, emphasizing that countries must strive to provide water
to all their citizens to achieve a sustainable future.
The fertilizer industry is very
concerned and engaged in the issue of nitrate contamination in
California's groundwater supplies, according to Richard Cornett,
communications director for the Western Plant Health Association
in Sacramento, a trade group that represents fertilizer
companies, manufacturers and retailers.
March 20, 2012
In recent years, a wave of highly
sophisticated computer viruses and cyber attacks has created new
security threats that policymakers and analysts are just
beginning to understand. The greatest concern is that the United
States will be suddenly struck by a “cyber Pearl Harbor”—an
event that could shut down or destroy significant parts of the
nation’s digital-based infrastructure. LIGNET takes a closer
look at a real and growing threat that has not received the
attention it deserves.
Red mud, a by-product of alumina industries, can be
'carbonised'for safe handling and the resulting material can be
used to treat water contaminated with heavy metals, say
scientists.
Red mud, so called for its reddish iron content, turns into
'carbonised' red mud (CRM) that is enriched with carbon when it
is used as a catalyst for 'cracking' methane and other
hydrocarbons into different products.
America’s divisive election year
politics have once again turned energy into a wedge issue, with
gas prices, pipelines, and clean technologies becoming mere
talking points.
A strange thing is happening in and
across Indian country: the number of federally recognized tribal
nations continues to increase—the Tejon people of California
were readmitted to the ranks in early January of this year,
bringing the number of such groups to 566—while the population
figures for existing federally recognized native peoples
continues to decline because of the ongoing number of
disenrollments of tribal members.
A project from a team of
researchers from Imperial College London, the University of
Manchester and Durham University beat more than 2,000 other
proposals to receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation to develop a prototype system for recovering
drinkable water and harvesting hydrogen energy from human faecal
waste. The researchers believe the technology could provide an
inexpensive device for people in the developing world to
generate clean water and energy from waste and a sustainable
source of hydrogen energy that could be used to power homes in
developed countries.
Security professionals have solved the mystery of
the Duqu cyberweapon's programming language, and in doing so
have confirmed the long-believed theory, and fear, that its
creators are experts.
Analyzing the code, which now seems to have been built using
a customized object-oriented version of the venerable
programming language C,..
Netanyahu and his cabinet are feeling increasingly confident
they decisively neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat for years
to come.
A fundamental overhaul of global environmental governance is
needed now to avoid dangerous "tipping points" in the Earth
system, 32 social scientists and researchers from around the
world conclude in a new paper published Friday in the journal
"Science."
These conclusions are reinforced by a new 40-year-outlook
report just issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development, OECD, whose 34 members include the world's
largest economies.
As the wind rattled the metal
siding of his outbuilding, Tony Broshes nodded toward his
Champaign County farm field and explained why he will allow a
skyscraper-sized turbine to be built there. In his mind, the
wind is just another crop.
Allowing end-use customers retail
access to the grid and the ability to actively respond to load
changes would save billions of dollars, according to FERC
Chairman Jon Wellinghoff.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday night put the
country's southwest region on the highest possible security
alert level, hours after a teacher and three children were
gunned down at a Jewish school in Toulouse.
The incident at
the Ozar Hatorah school marked the third time in the past 10
days that a gunman on a motorcycle has fired on minorities in
the region.
Twin Creeks Technologies is a new
startup that says it has sliced the price of producing solar
panels in half—using an ion cannon. According to the company, it
can produce solar cells for about 40 cents per watt compared to
the 80 cents it costs now.
The history of a changing climate
has been officially re-written following the release of new data
from Russia and bases within the Arctic Circle. Scientists have
now calculated that 2010 has overtaken 1998 to now be the
warmest year on record, followed in second place by 2005 as 1998
is pushed into third place. The recalculation of the annual
global mean temperature records follows the release of weather
data from more than 600 locations around the Arctic Circle.
What was killing all
those honeybees in recent years? New research shows a link
between an increase in the death of bees and insecticides,
specifically the chemicals used to coat corn seeds.
Gardening programs have been
popping up in prisons across the United States and can be found
from Rikers to San Quentin. Inmate gardening programs offer a
wide range of benefits to both the inmates themselves and the
surrounding communities.
In a 9-0 vote, the state supreme court said the Mississippi
Public Service Commission’s May 2010 approval failed to satisfy
state law that the plant would benefit the utility’s customers,
and sent the case back to the PSC.
Mississippi Power is already constructing the 582 MW
integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power plant...
Some conservative groups are
concerned that the order, which Obama signed on Friday, gives
the president absolute control over all the country’s natural
resources in case of a natural disaster or during a time of war,
fueling speculation that the Obama administration is making
preparations for war with Iran.
France has announced today that it
is imposing a new temporary ban on Monsanto's MON810 maize in
the interests of protecting the environment.
On Saturday, March 17, 2012, the
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) said it was informed
of a moderator leak on Bruce A Unit 2 as it was being re-started
following refurbishment. The CNSC said Bruce Power staff took
the appropriate action and returned the unit to the shut down
state while they investigated the cause. The leak was determined
to be inside confinement and has been isolated. There was no
release to the environment and no plant worker received any
dose.
The mountain pine beetle epidemic
is considered to be the largest forest insect blight in North
American history. In the past, the pine beetles played a humble
role, attacking old or weakened trees, making room for new
healthy trees. The changing climate has turned their seemingly
benign role into something much more insidious. An explosion in
pine beetle size and numbers has forced them to turn their
attention to healthy trees. Furthermore, they are reproducing
twice as much as normal. Once thought to only produce one
generation of tree-killing offspring per year, new research now
shows that some populations are producing two generations per
year, potentially increasing overall population by 60 times.
House Republicans on Tuesday will
propose a dramatic reshuffling of the tax code, suggesting
collapsing individual tax brackets into two brackets with lower
tax rates and slashing the top corporate tax rate.
A Russian military unit has arrived
in Syria, according to Russian news reports, a development that
a United Nations Security Council source told ABC News was "a
bomb" certain to have serious repercussions.
For the predicted hydrogen economy
to become a reality, fuel cells must become more efficient and
cost effective. Researchers from the University of Central
Florida (UCF) claim to have addressed both these problems by
creating a sandwich-like structure that allows more abundant
materials to be used as catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells.
For a few homeowners, having a smart meter doesn't seem like
a bright idea.
They're worried about privacy, health risks and their lack of
choice in the matter.
For an old guy, the grid that
transports the electrons that keeps the lights is in decent
shape. But it still needs to stretch out and beef up. That’s
pretty much what an analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology has concluded.
The United States has enough deep saline aquifers to store a
century's worth of carbon dioxide emissions from its coal-fired
power plants, a study shows.
While efforts to reduce greenhouse gases have focused on
sources of clean energy, such as wind or solar power, "one thing
that's not going away is coal" because it's such a cheap and
widely available source of power,..
And while I enjoy growing all these
vegetables, taking care to weed and hoe, feed and fertilize, I
have to confess... my pride and joy are my tomatoes.
A federal government decision to
allow a Wyoming tribe to kill two bald eagles for a religious
ceremony is a victory for American Indian sovereignty as well as
for long-suppressed religious freedoms, the tribe says.
Caught off guard by President
Obama’s late-2011 pivot to the Pacific, China has responded with
another large increase in official defense spending. This year’s
11.2 percent increase comes on the heels of President Obama’s
recent shift of US foreign policy away from the Middle East and
towards China’s desired sphere of influence in the Pacific, a
move that has prompted consternation from Chinese officials.
Ministers and heads of delegations
from 130 countries at the World Water Forum have issued a
declaration urging the upcoming UN Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable
Development to speed action that provides the poor with access
to clean water and sanitation and fixes worsening problems of
water scarcity and pollution.
March 16, 2012
Today, you can buy just two bags of groceries for the same
amount of money that got you three bags full a year ago. Average
global food prices have soared a whopping 37% since last June.
And there's no end in sight. In fact, food prices rose more
in 2011 than in any other year since 1974.
How are American families doing it?
Many aren't.
California row-crop farmers are now
required to test their private wells for nitrate, a widespread
groundwater contaminant linked to over-fertilization.
Cleaning your plate may not help feed starving children
today, but the time-worn advice of mothers everywhere may help
reduce food waste from the farm to the fork, help the
environment and make it easier to feed the world's growing
population.
Hard data is still being collected, but experts at the
Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago this week said an
estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of the food produced in the
world goes uneaten.
The world's water supply is being
strained by climate change and the growing food, energy and
sanitary needs of a fast-growing population, according to a
United Nations study that calls for a radical rethink of
policies to manage competing claims.
A move to close the Strait of
Hormuz would be "suicide" for Iran, which is deeply reliant on
the waterway for its own critical imports of food and other
basic needs, Fereidun Fesharaki, chairman of energy consultancy
FACTS Global Energy, said March 13.
Even with strong bipartisan support
among governors, the business community, and many members of
Congress, a small group of anti-clean energy opponents have held
up passage of the production tax credit.
With President Barack Obama and
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta not ruling out military action
against Iran and Syria, Congress is once again trying to figure
out its role in war making.
Big Ag wants you dependent on them
for your food and the government wants you dependent on them for
everything else. Urban and suburban sprawl has overtaken much of
what used to be farmland in this country, and people feel less
and less empowered to take care of themselves.
Isn't it
time we pushed back? Isn't it time that we rebelled against this
paradigm?
NRG Energy filed a notice Wednesday
to mothball the Dunkirk plant -- one of the state's bigger power
plants with a generating capacity of 535 megawatts -- because
low natural gas prices have made it uncompetitive in today's
lower-cost electricity market.
So far this year, U.S. power
generation and coal shipments are down compared with the same
period in 2011, according to weekly reports from the Edison
Electric Institute and the American Association of Railroads
Global greenhouse gas emissions
could rise 50 percent by 2050 without more ambitious climate
policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy mix,
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
said on Thursday.
Several environmental groups are
suing the government to curb pollution of the Mississippi River
with fertilizers and other contaminants blamed with creating a
"dead zone" the size of Massachusetts in the Gulf of Mexico.
Electronic waste is piling up in
West Africa at the rate of up to a million metric tonnes a year.
In five West African countries - Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana,
Liberia, and Nigeria - between 650,000 and one million tonnes of
domestic e-waste are generated each year, concludes a report
prepared by the Secretariat of the Basel Convention.
Utilities are concerned with the
expiration of federal incentives for renewables and how they
will meet state-mandated renewable portfolio standards (RPS),
but PA Consulting Group says utilities will just have to adapt
and find a way to recover the high cost of renewables.
Shale gas may have lots of
possibilities, including the potential to cause smaller
earthquakes. That’s why Ohio’s conservative governor implemented
a moratorium on all shale-related activity at one of the state’s
locations while Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources enacted
new rules to mitigate the chance of self-induced tremors.
New regulations, including those
outlined in the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul legislation as
well as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, are also
preventing smaller banks from lending to smaller businesses,
which further prevents job-creating endeavors from getting off
the ground.
“The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District meets tomorrow to
discuss the application from British firm Oxitec to release
genetically engineered mosquitoes in the Florida Keys.
“We cannot stress strongly enough how dangerously misguided
this application is. Oxitec hopes to use the neighborhoods and
precious ecosystem of the Keys as their private, for-profit
laboratory.
The United States, Japan and
European Union plan to bring a new trade case against China over
its export restrictions on rare earth minerals used in a variety
of high-tech and clean energy products, senior administration
officials said on Monday.
Summary:
The Jester has detailed a sophisticated attack he put
together last week that stole personal data stored on
smartphones belonging to various individuals on his very own
“shit-list.”
SolarWord, a Germany solar cell
manufacturer, has filed a petition with the U.S. Department of
Commerce that, if successful, would increase prices for solar
cells and panels and reduce the solar industry's job growth in
America.
More critically, this petition has become the
first shot heard around the world in an emerging trade war
between the United States and China. SolarWorld's petition is
harmful to the U.S. solar industry as a whole, and a trade war
would be a major setback for solar in competing with fossil fuel
generated
Infections gained in hospitals and
nursing homes led to more than double the number of U.S. deaths
from stomach inflammation that causes vomiting and diarrhea, a
report by U.S. health officials found.
The natural gas industry is technologically capable of
tapping vast shale gas resources in the United States, but it is
unclear if all companies can successfully manage the complex
array of environmental and social risks that could impede
profitable extraction. Companies also vary in the quality,
quantity and timeliness of their disclosure regarding shale gas
activities, and generally need to replace anecdotal descriptions
of some innovations with consistent and comprehensive data
across their operations.
Idaho Power Co. is seeking
permission to stop buying renewable energy through the federal
Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). The utility
has said that it is paying excessive prices for power that comes
from renewable resources.
Dialog between producing and
consuming countries has failed to de-politicize oil to the
extent that had been expected, Iranian oil minister Rostam
Ghasemi told the International Energy Forum, a talking shop for
producers and consumers, March 14 in Kuwait.
Japan stopped for a moment on
Sunday to mark the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and
tsunami that leveled northeastern Honshu Island, left 16,000
people dead and 3,000 others missing, and precipitated the
world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
The sustainability movement is
approaching a tipping point, with seven out of 10 companies now
placing it on their permanent management agenda, according to a
new report.
Boosting solar cell efficiency is
seen as a key factor in making them more practical, but there is
another way of looking at the matter ... if the price
of those cells were lowered, we could generate more power simply
by using more of them. That’s where Mississippi-based Twin
Creeks Technologies comes into the picture. The company has
developed a method of making crystalline silicon wafers which it
says could reduce the cost of solar cell production by half.
The Armenia Tree Project's
18-year-long effort to reforest the Caucasus country with tree
planting, environmental education, and sustainable development
was rewarded this week with a $1.2 million grant from the
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Anything can fail. Nuclear reactors
are built to last and designed to run safely with extensive
safeguards. Yet what would happen if one failed in your US
neighborhood such as as the Fukushima reactor did as a a result
of a major earthquake? A new mapping tool was released by the
Natural Resources Defense Council which illustrates the
potential radiological impacts of a severe accident at the
nation’s nuclear reactors and flags risk factors associated with
each individual site. A future severe nuclear accident at a U.S.
nuclear power plant is a possibility. In 2011 five nuclear power
plants in the United States lost primary power due to earthquake
or extreme weather events, including tornados, hurricanes, and
flooding. Fortunately the designed backup power systems kicked
in at these plants and a disaster was averted.
Eighty percent of the world's
nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, raising safety
concerns, a draft U.N. report says a year after Japan's
Fukushima disaster.
With all the talk lately of Maya-predicted doom, and the
scientific naysaying of same, one wonders where, if anywhere,
the grain of truth lies.
For European descendents, prophecy is where religion, the
environment and politics meet. But for First Nations and other
aboriginal peoples, they are one and the same—a fusion of
spirituality, environmental awareness and leadership, the
starting point for healing the world.
A composting operation near
Portland, Ore., has taken some heat since the city´s recently
mandated composting program began.
Since Dec. 1, more
than 320 odor complaints have been filed against North
Plains-based Nature’s Needs, a subsidiary of Recology Inc. The
complaints started shortly after Portland’s residential food
scraps composting system launched, the Portland Tribune
reported.
“The Fed is keeping rates
artificially low in order to bolster debtors, and it is
creditors that are paying the costs for that," El-Erian tells
CNBC. "That is what is being done to deal with the debt overhang
and at the same time to try and promote growth."
Solar activity was moderate,
produced an M1, Type II radio sweep, a CME visible on STEREO
Ahead and Behind. The geoeffectiveness of this CME is under
review. Solar activity is expected to continue at low to
moderate levels for the next three days with a slight chance for
an isolated X-class flare.Geomagnetic activity is expected to be
at unsettled to active levels and up to minor storm
The U.S. solar energy industry
installed a record 1,855 MW of photovoltaic (PV) capacity in
2011, more than doubling the previous annual record of 887 MW
set in 2010, according to a U.S. Solar Market Insight report.
The solar installations represent a 109 percent growth rate in
2011 and marks the first time the U.S. solar market has topped 1
GW in a single year.
International sanctions aimed at
slashing Iran's main economic lifeline, its oil revenues, could
have an impact on the country's export volumes well beyond the
500,000 b/d of crude that a European Union ban will displace
from July.
Nearly four million Americans are at risk of severe flooding as
climate change raises sea levels and intensifies storm surges
during the coming century, new research indicates.
Two studies, published today in the journal "Environmental
Research Letters," provide evidence that sea levels are rising,
creating higher and higher floods that will inundate much of the
low-lying coastal United States.
Senate lawmakers rejected a one-year extension for the
Production Tax Credit. The PTC was attached as an amendment to
the two-year highway bill.
The extension failed on a 49-49 vote. It needed to gain 60
votes in order to pass under a Senate agreement.
I work hard - and I imagine I'll
work a lot harder when the global economy truly breaks down. At
the end of a long day living off the grid, cold-soaking some
freeze dried foods to keep myself alive sounds pretty grim.
That's not the future I want.
“This issue of Harvard Business
Review is filled with smart ideas on how to restore American
competitiveness. We think this is the number one issue for this
election year, and we are excited to get it in the hands of top
business leaders and policy makers”
Although spring makes its official
debut next week, it appeared in many parts of the United States
ahead of schedule — following the fourth warmest winter on
record — and got the allergy season off to an early start. If
the sneezing and wheezing seem more severe than usual, it's not
your imagination.
Spring floods are a common
situation. This is due to winter snowfall melting from where it
had accumulated and adding to the normally higher spring rain
storms. Last winter was fairly warm and snowfall did not
accumulate, For the first time in four years, no area of the
country faces a high risk of major to record spring flooding,
largely due to the limited winter snowfall, according to the
NOAA’s annual Spring Outlook, which forecasts the potential for
flooding from April to June.
The General Assembly adopted a
resolution Wednesday recognizing the wind-energy industry in the
state on the heels of a vote in the U.S. Senate that threatens
to cripple it.
The street sweeper is part of a
project to practically test the feasibility of hydrogen-powered
vehicles under real-world conditions and the results from the
trial indicate that, although hydrogen-powered vehicles can save
energy, are environmentally friendly, and technically feasible,
the prices of fuel cells, pressurized storage tanks and electric
drives must all drop significantly before such vehicles are
cost-effective.
A new study highlights the growing
danger of respiratory disease as the Earth gets warmer. Higher
temperatures, in and of itself, do not make a person more likely
to come down with something like asthma, allergies, infections
and the like. The danger will come from the increase in ground
level ozone in urban areas, higher particulate matter in
drought-stricken areas, and the ranges of communicable diseases
expanding into the higher latitudes.
The concept may be strange to some, but enthusiasm for
electric cars exists both in government and the industry.
"What we're hearing from auto dealers is they're not going to
sell the cars where there isn't the infrastructure," said Anne
Hunt, environmental policy director in the mayor's office.
A capacitor is not a battery and is
of a more temporary nature. Electrochemical capacitors (ECs),
also known as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors, differ from
regular capacitors that you would find in your TV or computer in
that they store substantially higher amounts of charges. They
have garnered attention as energy storage devices as they charge
and discharge faster than batteries, yet they are still limited
by low energy densities, only a fraction of the energy density
of batteries.
There is growing evidence of health
hazards associated with genetically modified (GM) food and feed,
which ISIS has reviewed extensively over the years. Health
hazards linked to Bt toxins include organ damage in lab animals,
diarrhoea, increased water consumption, decrease in liver
weight, damage and death of human kidney cells in culture,
allergies in humans, changes in blood chemistry, and mass deaths
of sheep grazing on Bt crops residues:
It is true that so-called
entitlement programs are growing as a share of the federal
budget and the national economy. Along with spending on national
defense and interest on the federal debt, spending on
entitlement programs consumes the overwhelming majority of the
federal budget. But a close look at the data shows that it’s not
a voter sense of entitlement that is driving the process. Quite
the contrary.
The United
States must start thinking about how to secure Syria’s nuclear
program and to locate the missing uranium and nuclear
weapons-related technology before they can find their way into
the hands of the Iranians or terrorist groups,...
“Biofuels continue to grow in
importance as the rising price of oil impacts every aspect of
the global economy, so today’s sessions covering the latest in
aviation, sustainability, and investments were critical to
finding solution to our global energy needs,” said Claire Poole,
Event Director, Green Power Conferences, organizer of the
conference. “The level of discussion and debate already
throughout the show is a sign of how important these issues are,
and why there is so much interest and revived investment in new
energy solutions.”
Since President Obama took office,
the U.S. national debt
has increased by $5 trillion. That's
a 50% increase in government
debt in four short years.
"Massive inflation" is poised to
strike the U.S. economy and the best hedge against galloping
prices won't be gold but real estate, says the sector's mogul
Donald Trump.
The U.S. economy is recovering
"pretty well" and trying to juice it up by allowing a little
extra inflation would be disastrous, said Paul Volcker, the
former Federal Reserve chairman known for successfully reining
in double-digit inflation.
"If we fail today to make water an
instrument of peace, it might become tomorrow a major source of
conflict," warns UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova in her
foreword to the UN World Water Development Report released today
at the opening of the World Water Forum in Marseilles.
"Freshwater is a core issue for sustainable development - and it
is slipping through the cracks."
Let me start with
the relationship between government employee unions and our
elected officials. On paper, it is true, mayors and governors
sit across the table from city and state workers collectively
bargaining for wages and benefits. On paper, this makes them
management—representing us, the taxpayers. But in practice,
these people often serve more as the employees of unions than as
their managers. New Jersey has been telling here. Look at our
former governor, Jon Corzine
The book, "Where Does My Garbage
Go?" will be published in English with a Dari translation and
distributed to school children as part of a public education
campaign in Kabul to raise awareness for the need to keep the
city clean, EIA said.
For the third straight year, China
led the charge, installing a whopping 18,000 MW for a total wind
capacity of 63,000 MW.
March 13, 2012
A year ago, Japan depended on its
54 reactors for 30 percent of its electricity; only two of them
remain open. Japan could become the first industrial society to
enter the postnuclear age.
The Obama administration is getting
some much-needed good news about a pair of companies supported
through its embattled green-energy programs.
Two Energy
Department-backed companies that had filed for bankruptcy say
their financial outlook is improving.
Adding two new chemical groups to
regular aspirin (pictured) results in NOSH-aspirin that shrinks
tumors and curbs cancer cell growth
Sales of such electric vehicles as
the Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, and Chevy Volt are on the rise,
and so, too, is the need for a comprehensive recycling strategy
once their batteries wear out. The rechargeable batteries used
in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs)
are expected to last eight to 10 years, after which they must be
replaced. But there is still an open question about what to do
with these partially spent batteries once the time comes.
Although this is slightly heavier
than a calendar page, the beginning of the next Mayan long count
cycle will be little more complicated than flipping from
December to January.
Many American women are using skin
creams and lotions as well as other personal care products that
are contaminated with poisonous mercury, says a spokesperson for
the FDA. Most of the products are made outside the country and
are sold online as well as in many ethnic neighborhoods across
the United States.
Asian currencies added to last
week’s losses after reports over the weekend signaled China’s
economy slowed last month, damping the demand outlook for the
region’s exports.
Ball State University in Indiana is
building the largest closed geothermal heat pump system in the
US.
It replaces four antiquated coal boilers and will
provide heating and cooling for 47 buildings on 730 acres -
almost half the campus. The $70 million project will save $2
million a year in operating costs.
In this one stroke,
the university is cutting its greenhouse gas footprint in half.
Even engineers sometimes get
confused by energy-related terms such as VAR, Watt-hour, and
power factor. Here’s help sorting out the differences.
A battle is brewing between the
solar industry and utilities over "net metering," a popular
policy that allows homeowners, school districts and businesses
to offset the cost of their electric use with the rooftop solar
power they generate and export to the grid.
Go Army is going green, and a reservist base in Dublin could
lead the way.
With its own mini power plant that looks like it's straight
from a science-fiction flick and enough solar potential to power
nearly 1,000 average-size homes, Camp Parks is shooting to
become the model for the U.S. military's quest to become energy
self-sufficient.
Chinese central bank officials have
suggested the renminbi is no longer significantly undervalued
after six years of gradual appreciation, citing the country's
large trade deficit in February.
The rare, two-day argument began
with a challenge to EPA's December 7, 2009 finding that
emissions of six GHGs, including carbon dioxide, "may reasonably
be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger
public welfare." This "endangerment finding" is the cornerstone
of all subsequent action by EPA to regulate GHGs. The Court
appeared reluctant to second-guess the science behind EPA's
determination or to consider non-scientific factors as a basis
for overturning it, noting that the Supreme Court had already
rejected such lines of argument in its 2007...
Want to beat the high price of
gasoline? Here’s another idea: Gas-to-liquids, or GTL, which is
a fuel substitute that could ease the demand for pure crude as
well as provide productive uses for stranded natural gas.
It’s expensive. But it’s an arrow in the energy quiver.
Those pesky standards which make
appliances, lights and other equipment more efficient, which the
current GOP loves to hate, will save US homeowners and
businesses $1.1 trillion through 2035, reports the ACEEE in
their latest report.
Does trading a gasoline power
source for an electric one really help the environment?
A coming wave of electric vehicles
poses no threat to the electrical system in Illinois, according
to a report issued Friday by the Illinois Commerce Commission,
the body tasked with regulating utilities.
American households waste more than
1 trillion gallons of water each year due to leaky pipes,
toilets, showerheads and other fixtures, but fixing leaks can be
easy and inexpensive.
Emergencies never happen on a
schedule or when it's most convenient. In fact, most emergency
situations occur at the most inopportune times and when you
least expect them. It doesn't matter whether the emergency
you're facing is personal, local, state-wide, or encompasses the
nation--the point is that being prepared is essential.
A year removed from a scare in
Japan after a massive tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-Ichi
nuclear facility, the safety and security of nuclear power has
become a discussion point nationwide. Cleanup and
decontamination from the meltdown could take years, or decades,
and will continue to fuel international debate on the safety of
nuclear power.
With gas prices soaring to historic
highs, Austin Energy is providing unlimited “electric fuel” from
100% GreenChoice® renewable energy at more than 100 plug-in
electric vehicle (PEV) charging stations for less than $5 per
month.
Germany's solution to a large part of its energy dilemma may
lie in a muddy field in desolate, windswept flatlands in the
northeast.
In an area 75 miles north of Berlin that until now has
attracted more birdwatchers than cutting-edge industries...
The complete melt of the Greenland ice sheet could occur at
lower global temperatures than previously thought, a study in
the journal Nature Climate Change showed on Sunday, increasing
the threat and severity of a rise in sea level.
Substantial melting of land ice could contribute to long-term
sea level rise of several meters, potentially threatening the
lives of millions of people.
A "green" light bulb that won a
U.S. government award of $10 million may have trouble attracting
buyers because of its $50 price tag, retailers say.
Activists protested near the San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on Sunday morning, recognizing
the first anniversary of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear reactor and continuing a grass-roots push
against nuclear energy.
Nearly four decades after President Richard Nixon called for
the United States to wean itself off foreign oil, many energy
and political leaders are preparing to declare independence.
Increased domestic oil and natural gas drilling, reduced
energy consumption and the promise of alternative fuels have
reversed decades-old trends and caused domestic energy
production to increase and oil imports from outside of North
America to drop.
"I am 100 percent sure that we can be energy independent in
North America," said Harold Hamm, CEO of Oklahoma-based
Continental Resources Inc. "We're estimating that in the next 10
years we can be there. It might come sooner than that."
Iran and India have agreed to boost
bilateral trade and replace the dollar partially with the rupee
in their transactions as Tehran seeks to bypass international
sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, state media
reported.
High fuel prices are pushing up
overall prices despite what officials at the Federal Reserve
say, according to international investor Jim Rogers.
The
Federal Reserve often focuses on core inflation, which is
stripped of volatile food and energy items, when setting
monetary policy, pointing out that headline inflation remains
within comfort zones.
Sunspots? Black holes? Comets? What
will the apocalypse bring? To hear the New Agers tell it, we are
doomed. But in the year running up to the next Winter Solstice,
on December 21, 2012, the impending changeover to we know not
what is already causing buzz, plus hotel reservations. But the
voices of reason warn that this is not much more than a
long-term game of telephone.
The U.S. Army, Pacific, on
Wednesday unveiled a fleet of 16 General Motors’
hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles, the world’s first military
fleet of fuel cell vehicles. Each branch of the military is
evaluating the vehicles in real-world use.
In a nutshell - it's safe to make
plans for December 22. NASA's Don Yeoman's gives insight that
he say debunks some end of the world scenarios diehard Mayan
Apocalypse observers believe.
With gasoline prices nearing $4 a
gallon, people are clamoring for relief. More drilling is one
answer. But so too is shifting over to natural gas to move cars
and trucks. There’s plenty of it in the ground, especially with
newer drilling technologies that can access the once hard-to-get
shale gas. While that obstacle has been overcome, others remain
standing: The lack of fueling stations and the relative high
cost of a natural gas vehicle compared with a conventional one.
During one of President Obama’s
factory visits -- some might call it a campaign stop -- he joked
that he would buy an electric car in about five years, or after
his second term. That was just before GM, which makes the Chevy
Volt, said it would suspend production of the car for five weeks
Ohio state regulators announced
tough new regulations on Friday after concluding that the
injection of wastewater underground as part of the controversial
gas-drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”
had almost certainly caused a dozen earthquakes near one well.
A nationwide poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research found
that practically all groups of Americans favor mandating the
E-Verify system, a free tool that will reduce the presence of
illegal aliens in Arizona's workforce. The poll, conducted on
February 16, 2012, found that 78% of likely voters favor the use
of mandatory worker verification, which will open up more
Arizona jobs for unemployed Arizona residents.
Coal is one of the biggest sources
of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. The good news is that
coal's share of monthly power generation in the U.S. decreased
to below 40 percent in November and December 2011, according to
the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The last time
coal's share of total generation fell below 40 percent for a
monthly total was March 1978.
In a couple weeks, the northern
hemisphere will be entering the spring season, and now is a good
time to reflect on this winter. For some, it feels like spring
has already been here, and soon summer will be approaching. That
is because for many Americans, it was the winter that never was.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), it was not the warmest winter in recent history, but it
does rank pretty high. Furthermore, this winter will be marked
for its amazing lack of snowfall, especially when compared with
last year.
There's a thriving cottage industry devoted to debunking Robert
Bryce of the Manhattan Institute. Last October, Bryce said be
believed a still-unproven experiment with neutrinos called our
entire scientific understanding of global warming into question.
Energy
storage systems allow businesses and consumers to keep excess
energy generated when energy is in low demand and then use it
during periods of peak demand, reducing consumers’ electricity
bills, greatly enhancing the reliability of alternative energy
sources, and making our electric grid more efficient and
secure.
Solar activity is expected to be
low with a chance for moderate levels. A slight chance for an
isolated X-class flare The geomagnetic field ranged from quiet
to major storm levels with isolated periods of severe storm
levels. Solar wind speeds reached up to 775 km/s during the
event. The greater than 10 MeV proton event at geosynchronous
orbit
remains near 10 pfu as of forecast issue. The greater
than 2 MeV
electron flux at geosynchronous orbit reached high
levels during the
period.
...when it comes to financing his
campaign, Romney has courted a key symbol of Washington's
establishment: its lobbyists, the quietly powerful forces who
are hired to try to influence government decisions.
Worst violence in 6 months.
* More than 150 rockets and
missiles have been fired from Gaza at southern Israel in the
last 3 days.
* On Sunday alone, about 50 rockets were
fired at Israel.
President Nicolas Sarkozy,
recasting himself as France's saviour from low-cost competition
and high immigration, threatened to disregard European
limitations on protectionism as he sought to give his
re-election campaign a second wind on Sunday.
Saving biodiversity -- the vast and
essential variety of the natural world -- will be expensive, at
an estimated $300 billion a year for the next eight years. But
losing it would cost even more, in terms of disease, hunger,
poverty and diminished resilience to climate change, according
to the new chief of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.
The former California Governor heads new initiative to build
“Sustainia” – the world’s first realistic model of a sustainable
world in 2020 – and identifies the companies and persons who can
make it real.
When at least 80 tornadoes rampaged across the United States,
from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, last Friday, it was more
than is typically observed during the entire month of March,
tracking firm AccuWeather.com reported on Monday.
According to some climate scientists, such
earlier-than-normal outbreaks of tornadoes, which typically peak
in the spring, will become the norm as the planet warms.
Using sea breezes to make
electricity for Southern states could take another decade, but
to industry proponents, wind power is a more realistic
proposition than many people realize.
The issue: Should the government
impose tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels to protect U.S.
manufacturing jobs? Or would trade barriers backfire and stall
the momentum of a small but fast-growing sector of the economy?
The global market for solar
photovoltaics increased from $71.2 billion in 2010 to $91.6
billion in 2011. While total market revenues were up 29 percent,
installations climbed more than 69 percent from 15.6 gigawatts
in 2010 to more than 26 GW worldwide last year due to rapidly
declining solar costs.
A solar storm that shook the Earth's magnetic field on
Thursday spared satellite and power systems as it delivered a
glancing blow, although it could still intensify until early
Friday, space weather experts said.
The geomagnetic storm surging from the sun was initially
expected to be strong enough to disrupt power grids, airplane
traffic and space-based satellite navigation systems. But
government scientists on Thursday downgraded their prediction on
the intensity of the storm - a big cloud of charged particles
spawned by two solar flares.
Renewable energy mandates have been
around for about 10 years, pioneered by the states with
important milestones coming due in the next few years.
Tesla’s $109,000 Roadster suffers a
potentially debilitating problem with its lithium-ion battery
pack. If the car is left alone and the battery is totally
discharged, the owner is left with a “brick,” as Tesla itself
describes the condition. The car is immobile: the
wheels lock and the car can’t be pushed, towed, or rolled
anywhere. The only fix is to replace the battery pack, a $40,000
option.
Water accounts for about ½ of a
thousandth of the Earth's total mass, despite the fact that
roughly 70% of the planet's surface is covered by this substance
so vital to survival. Indeed, water is a relatively "rare
substance" on our "Blue Planet".
As predicted, the PSI results have
triggered a Credit Event. Greece is officially in default.
Again, the reason for the big fuss (with some in the financial
media completely confused) about the 85% vs. 95% is that 85%
would have resulted in CACs while 95% would not have. That's
because 95% would have given Greece enough of a debt reduction
without the need for CAC.
You have noticed that
everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because
the power of the world always works in circles, and everything
tries to be round. In the old days all our power came to us from
the sacred hoop of the nation and so long as the hoop was
unbroken the people flourished. – Black Elk, from the book
Black Elk Speaks.
It appeared that US natural gas
production would rise forever. Nobody thinks it's done
increasing, but for now, it might be taking a breather. In the
New Frontiers column from Platts Oilgram News, Starr Spencer
takes a look.
Gun-grabbers around the globe
believe they have it made.
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton recently announced the Obama Administration will be
working hand-in-glove with the UN to pass a new “Small Arms
Treaty.”
Disguised as an “International Arms Control
Treaty” to fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and
“international crime syndicates,” the UN Small Arms Treaty is in
fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
Not many investors are aware of it,
but the U.S. defense contractors are hidden investment plays in
the widening use of renewable energy. That’s because the U.S.
military is way ahead of almost every other organization in
pursuing a clean energy policy that’s critical for the operation
of its bases — with the assist of some defense contractors that
usually provide aircraft, weapons, missiles and specialized
technological systems and services.
Tensions increase as nine children
among 16 shot dead by lone gunman in Zangabad village in
Kandahar
Wind generation in the U.S. increased 27 percent in 2011 as
compared with that of 2010, continuing a trend of rapid growth,
the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a
report on Monday.
Federal production tax credits and grants for electricity
from certain renewable sources as well as state-level renewable
portfolio standards have encouraged both capacity additions and
increased generation from wind and other renewable sources, the
agency said.
If we fail today to make water an
instrument of peace, it might become tomorrow a major source of
conflict," warns UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova in her
foreword to the UN World Water Development Report released today
at the opening of the World Water Forum in Marseilles.
"Freshwater is a core issue for sustainable development - and it
is slipping through the cracks."
Thanks to the extraordinarily cruel
and vindictive actions of the LA County and Ventura County
District Attorneys' offices, California is rapidly losing its
reputation as a state that promotes a healthy lifestyle.
Instead, the state is becoming increasingly known as "the
torture state" where senior citizen farmers and fresh food
advocates are imprisoned, tortured, and charged with felony
crimes for making fresh milk available to customers.
Members of President Barack Obama's
cabinet on Monday outlined what they see as the administration's
energy accomplishments, including policies to boost US oil and
gas production, cut foreign imports, develop advanced fuels and
spur renewable generation.
The document -- and its
language of "historic achievements" -- will no doubt fuel
Republican attacks that Obama's policies have hampered, not
helped, the energy sector.
Yemeni military officials said
Saturday that two U.S. airstrikes killed at least 18
al-Qaida-linked militants in an evening attack on a central
province that had been partly overrun by the group earlier this
year.
Industry organizations that include
NEMA have commented on new building code proposals in California
that, in the name of energy efficiency, would require permits
for something as simple as changing the ballast in a fluorescent
light fixture. On the face of it, a building permit for a
ballast changeout does seem ridiculous. As a practical matter,
many people won’t pay much attention to the rule, which is a bit
of a problem in itself. Rules which are not or cannot be
enforced create a scofflaw culture, and insidiously, reward
those who skirt the rules with greater economic efficiency. This
is exactly what’s happened in the small HVAC industry in
California, and regulators are having a tough time getting a
handle on it.
Ohio environmental regulators
introduced tighter requirements for the Class II disposal wells
used to store wastewater from shale oil and gas wells Friday,
after scientists determined that a series of earthquakes near
Youngstown occurred after injected wastewater found a previously
unknown fault in the bedrock at the bottom of the 9,184-foot
deep Northstar 1 well.
March 9, 2012
The Henry Hub is the pricing point
for natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York
Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).
Utilities working with customers to
deliver energy-efficiency savings can add window film to the
list of cost-effective solutions. A comprehensive analysis of
wind film found it to be the most cost-effective energy saving
choice for Californians when used in retrofit applications on
homes and buildings...
The Obama administration has used a
variety of regulatory agencies, including the Environmental
Protection Agency and other means, to violate the law at least
21 times, Republican attorneys general in nine states allege in
a report.
Afghanistan's president on Tuesday endorsed
a "code of conduct" issued by a council of clerics that
activists say represents a giant step backward for women's
rights.
The devastating disaster in
Fukushima, Japan nearly one year ago showed us that, while the
likelihood of a nuclear power plant accident is low, its
consequences can be grave. The truth is, an accident like the
one at the Fukushima Daiiachi nuclear plant could happen here.
An equipment malfunction, a fire, a natural disaster or
terrorist attack, or even human error could, separately or in
combination, lead to a nuclear crisis.
Twelve Member States exceeded one
or more of the emission limits set by the EU National Emission
Ceilings (NEC) Directive, according to recent official data for
2010 reported to the European Environment Agency (EEA). In some
instances the limits were exceeded by significant amounts.
... it is clear that fundamental
changes are underway in America’s energy supply and demand
structure. While these changes will take decades to play out,
the trends show that the U.S. is moving away from its
consumer-oriented energy structure towards an economy that shows
an interest in energy production, and even exports.
One area of neglect is in cyber-security. Last month,
according to the Wall Street Journal, National Security Agency
Director General Keith Alexander warned of threats to the grid
by the hacker group Anonymous. According to Alexander, within
one to two years, Anonymous could have the ability to cause
power grid failure through cyber-attacks.
Energy companies are in the energy
business, not the swaps business, these groups claim. With
potentially tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars at
stake, energy firms should be regulated as energy firms, not
swap dealers.
The US Senate on Thursday defeated
a proposal to ban exports of crude carried by the proposed
Keystone XL pipeline and any petroleum products refined from
that Canadian oil.
Scientists have found a way to
trick the immune system into accepting organs from a mismatched,
unrelated organ donor, a finding that could help patients avoid
a lifetime of drugs to prevent rejection of the donated organ.
The medical industry’s obsession with bigger, more powerful
(and above all, patentable!) medicines may lead to killer
pandemics.
High costs of energy due to a severe drought that has severely
impaired hydro power plants coupled with restrictions in the
capacity of transmission systems has once again put renewable
energy in the sight of authorities as a way to decrease reliance
of hydro and coal-based electricity.
China will soon resume the approval
and construction of nuclear power plants, senior officials said
during the plenary session of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee yesterday.
For the first time ever, Hillsdale College is offering a
no-cost 10 week online Constitution course based on the course
Hillsdale College students must complete, in order to graduate.
The debate over whether large dams are renewable power
sources took a twist Monday.
Two Modesto-area lawmakers said utilities should get at least
some credit for these plants under the state's mandate for at
least 33 percent renewables by 2020.
"At present, water pricing barely
covers the cost of maintenance and operations, let alone
upgrading or extending the system. However, while the water
industry hasn't been a front runner in leading with
technological advances, the potential for consumer prices to
rise and the ever increasing demand for infrastructure is likely
to drive much greater investment in technology."
Dozens of people were killed or wounded in a complex attack
in the northern city of Tal Afar. At least 23 Iraqis were killed
and 44 more were wounded overall. Meanwhile, the P.K.K.
kidnapped five of Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani’s
relatives.
Sandia researchers have discovered
a new family of Metal-based Ionic Liquids (MetILs), that could
allow electric vehicles to recharge their batteries with a
simple refill
Outright European gasoline prices
surged on the back of rallying crude prices to fresh 10-month
highs Thursday, as cracks remained broadly supported throughout
the day on concerns about future supply, traders said.
Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s delay in
compensating victims of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No.
1 nuclear power plant is hindering evacuees ability to return
home.
Though it happened more than 6,000 miles away, the disaster
last year at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has had a
significant impact at the Millstone Power Station that will
continue into the foreseeable future.
"We're still learning from that event," ...
The global oil and gas industry
boasts enormous potential for raising the capital needed to
finance its future, including growing desire by China for
investments in North America, financial experts on a panel at
the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston agreed Tuesday.
"There is a wall of money ready to come into North America
from the national oil companies," said William Wicker, vice
chairman for investment banking at Morgan Stanley.
This
is the Jewish holiday that celebrates the remarkable story of
how the Lord used two faithful believers — Mordechai and Esther
— and a movement of prayer and fasting to save the Jewish people
from an evil Persian regime determine to annihilate them. The
Bible tells believers throughout the ages to celebrate this
important holiday.
Expressing serious concerns about
the objectivity and quality of the U.S. intelligence community's
analysis, Peter Hoekstra, former chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, is calling for a red team — an
independent panel of experts — to review the information on
Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and issue its own report
that might be compared and contrasted with the latest National
Intelligence Estimate issued jointly by the 16 intelligence
agencies.
Parker Hannifin Corp. says a
hydraulic hybrid drive system being tested on garbage trucks in
Florida has reduced fuel consumption by an average of 43% when
compared to traditional diesel trucks.
According to Michael Stephen,
chairman of Symphony Environmental, India´s plastic litter
problem could be solved by using his company´s oxo-biodegradable
d2w additive.
Thousands of tons of waste plastic are
despoiling India´s streets, fields, beaches and countryside, and
India´s railways are visible from the moon because of the
plastic waste at the sides of the tracks, he explained, adding
that Symphony´s d2w technology would solve this problem.
Increasing governmental support, industrialization and demand
for fresh water to drive India water desalination industry in
coming years.
Farmers build own effluent reuse
system for crop irrigation
A year after Fukushima, a majority
of the people in Japan have turned against the continued use of
nuclear energy and there are no strongly pro-nuclear political
voices, but zero nuclear power generation is not an option, a
Japanese nuclear expert said Thursday.
La Niña is expected to transition
to ENSO-neutral conditions by the end of April 2012.
La Niña
weakened during February 2012, as near- to- above average sea
surface temperatures (SST) emerged in the eastern equatorial
Pacific Ocean
Foreigners convicted of sexually
abusing children in Moldova will be mandatorily castrated,
according to new legislation introduced Tuesday.
At least five Native Americans were
arrested in South Dakota on Monday after a six-hour standoff
that temporarily blockaded trucks from moving equipment thought
to be destined for the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Biblical story tells of a Persian
tyrant who wanted to "annihilate" the Jews.
All
the signs to me look like Israel is going to war with Iran, and
soon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strikes me as a
man who has made his peace with the task ahead of him, a man who
now believes his nation is capable of winning a war with Iran
and has made all of the preparations necessary to strike if need
be.
When the United Nations process on
climate change unveiled the program known as Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) three years
ago, it was hailed by its architects as “an effort to create a
financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering
incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from
forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable
development.”
Water fluoridation was introduced to the United States in the
1940s as a way to use waste product from the manufacture of
aluminum, a waste product that was expensive to dispose of and
which was harming cattle and farmland. Since then, the federal
government has taken the stance that the fluoridation of
drinking water, which conveniently disposed of the waste, is
vitally important to help prevent tooth decay; the CDC called it
one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th
century. But the the latest scientific studies have finally made
the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) change their tune on how
much fluoride is safe.
A major new survey of the likely
effects of climate change on India's water resources published
recently identifies huge challenges to maintaining adequate
supplies in the next few decades, but argues that these can be
overcome with an integrated, multi-sectorial approach that takes
into account water use from farm to river basin level.
Consideration of a regulatory
framework for a proposed nuclear power plant has set off a large
reaction, including competing ads and a planned 'zombie' march.
The NRC said 88 nuclear reactors
fully met all safety performance objectives and were inspected
by NRC using the normal detailed level inspection program.
Under political fire from
Republicans for high US gasoline prices, President Barack Obama
Wednesday announced several new initiatives that are designed to
boost the use of cars and trucks that run on electricity,
liquefied natural gas and other alternative fuels.
Rising gasoline prices at the pump
have cost the United States $170 million a day since New Year's
Eve, says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price
Information Service in New Jersey.
"This poll indicates that the
majority of Ontarians clearly believe wind energy is a safe form
of electricity generation despite a minority voice that suggests
otherwise. We will continue to ensure wind energy is developed
in a safe and responsible manner for the benefit of all
Ontarians," said Robert Hornung, president of CanWEA.
By 2035, U.S. electricity demand
will increase by 25 percent; by 2050, all present U.S.
electricity-generation power plants will need to be replaced,
according to a new report from the American Security Project
(ASP), a non-profit, non-partisan public policy and research
organization. Today's energy situation is "geopolitically,
environmentally, and economically unsustainable," according to
the report.
The accident at Fukushima I in
Japan last year has not caused a "significant retraction" in
nuclear power programs in countries outside Europe, except in
Japan itself, the World Energy Council said in a report issued
Friday. But the report said the accident has caused the global
industry to refocus on nuclear safety.
Georgia Power plans to use a
chemical to slow the growth of trees near power lines on St.
Simons Island as a way to save money and make driving safer for
motorists.
To hear the media tell it, our lives are in jeopardy if we
drink unpasteurized milk. But the facts tell the opposite story.
A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) declares that raw milk “cannot be considered
safe under any circumstances,” and essentially advocates for
stricter laws and enforcement against raw milk on the state
level.
"We are the energy transition!" read one of the many placards
hoisted in the air at the Germany-wide "Stop the Solar Energy
Exit" demonstration at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on Monday.
According to the event's organizers, 11,000 people were on hand
for the protest against the Merkel government's energy policies.
Lower emission from power plants in 2009 was driven by
competitive pricing of natural gas versus coal, experts say.
A ban on the export of electronic
waste to developing countries could be susceptible to challenge
by a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel, a report by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) said.
Solar activity was high. There were
five M-class x-ray events during the past 24 hours, all from
Region 1429 (N17E31). The largest event was an M2, CME.
The geomagnetic field ranged from quiet to active levels with
isolated minor storm periods at high latitudes. The greater than
2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit reached high levels
the CME that occurred on 04 March (associated with the M2 x-ray
event).
"We have industries in this state
that need stability from a state policy on renewable energies,"
Schultz said. "I don't have a problem with a study into the
possible effects of wind energy, but this would have thrown us
into limbo again."
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency has approved the 2010 list of waters in New Jersey that
are considered either impaired or threatened by pollutants.
CPUC scaled back its ambitions just
months after ruling in favor of the mandate. Regulators voted to
require the utilities to offer customer delayed smart meter
installation. A step shy of a full-scale opt-out program, the
formal Delayed Installation Program (DIP) requirement was
designed to ease customer concerns regarding smart meters and
buy time until more information and research could be done
regarding possible negative affects of smart meters.
NV Energy's smart meters have been
installed at 750,000 residences over the past 18 months, and the
utility says it has another 150,000 to go. The devices, which
can be read remotely, are supposed to save money, allow
customers to better monitor their energy usage and allow the
utility to spot outages before customers call. What's not to
love? Well, some conspiracy-minded Nevadans see a threat to
health and privacy.
The coronal mass ejection (CME)
associated with the R3 (Strong) Radio Blackout event from 0024
UTC March 7 (7:24 p.m. EST March 6) continues to affect the
Earth and G3 (Strong) storming levels have now been observed.
The magnetic field orientation needed to cause strong
geomagnetic storming finally occurred overnight, so although it
got off to a slow start, levels have reached what was predicted.
While hydrogen is considered a
"clean" fuel because the only waste product it generates is
water, the conventional way to produce it relies on electricity,
which is usually produced through the burning of fossil fuels.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD),
have now developed a "3D branched nanowire array" that they
claim could cheaply and cleanly deliver hydrogen fuel on a mass
scale.
Solar power works best of course
where the sun is brightest. However, another major factor is the
capital cost for a solar installation. If your are poor, you
cannot get started easily. One of the big opportunities positive
climate action has presented the developing world is the chance
to leapfrog a generation of energy technology straight into
clean, green generation without the intervening capital
intensive and dirtier aspects of energy technology
A Super Tuesday primary night that
was supposed to bring clarity to the Republican nomination fight
instead left things nearly as muddled as ever, as the 10 states
voting across the country scattered every which way and the most
important battleground, Ohio, handed Mitt Romney only the
narrowest of victories.
Contrary to Industry Predictions, Reactor Disaster Seen As
Having a "Lasting Chill" on Perceptions;
It's Not All Fukushima: 3 in 5 Americans Less Supportive Due
to Woes of U.S. Nuclear Industry in Last Year.
--potatoes have spread to every
corner of the globe. China and India now plant more potatoes
than Ireland, Peru, or even Idaho. Yukon Gold may be popular in
American grocery stores for baking and mashing, but there are
also Desirees, All Blues, German Butterballs, Purple Vikings,
Rose Finn Apples, and many, many more.
Global LPG supply growth rate
depends on developments in segments of the oil and gas industry:
rising oil production in the Middle East, refinery expansions in
Asia, and shale gas development in North America. Remember, LPG
is a byproduct of processing hydrocarbons: from oil wells, from
gas wells, and in the refining process.
Consolidation in the solar sector
continues to evolve. In
the latest chapter for consolidation in the solar industry,
Solon has agreed to be bought by Microsol, a solar cell
manufacturer based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for an
undisclosed amount.
US crude oil inventories rose a
smaller-than-expected 832,000 barrels last week as refiners
increased runs despite softening demand, data Wednesday from the
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed. The rise
occurred as stocks jumped in Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery
point of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) futures
contracts, to their highest level in more than eight months.
Overall U.S. investor optimism has
surged to +40, back up to the February 2011 level and a
significant jump from -45 recorded in the September poll,
according to the February Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and
Retirement Optimism Index.
A general says as planes and ships have been diverted to
operations around the world, the number of Latin America-U.S.
drug interdictions has fallen.
The designs of the Fukushima
reactors closely resemble those of many U.S. reactors. And while
most U.S. reactors are not subject to the one-two punch of
earthquake and tsunami that struck at Fukushima, they are
vulnerable to other severe natural disasters—or to a terrorist
attack, which could create similarly serious conditions.
Nuclear power plants must be
capable of responding to major emergencies at more than one
plant simultaneously and of maintaining safety system operations
during extended power outages.
Last year Google announced its power purchase agreement for
the output of an Oklahoma wind farm. So why is Oklahoma such a
good place for renewable energy developments?
More scientists are getting closer
in the search for the "God particle" of physics that would help
explain the fundamentals of the universe, but they haven't found
it yet.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, "Investment in
biomass and waste-to-energy is projected to increase from $14bn
in 2010 to $80bn by 2020".
U.S. regulators said soft drinks
from PepsiCo Inc and Coca-Cola Co posed no health risk, contrary
to a U.S. watchdog group that reported several popular brands
contain high levels of a chemical linked to cancer in animals.
Renewable energy technologies have
certainly come into the limelight in the last decade or so, and
so too has the debate surrounding them, especially on cost. The
skeptics remain large in number, and in some cases for good
reason. While hydropower, onshore wind power – and to some
extent parts of the solar PV sector – have proven themselves
technologically (and economically) in some countries, there is
still some way to go for other technologies. Even though their
promise and potential look good.
Which energy technology really is the most economical,
cost-effective solution for the long term? In this second
installment, we look at renewable energy cost examples, LCOE and
the importance of taking risk into account.
WaterAid welcomes the news that the
world has met its goal to halve the proportion of people without
safe drinking water by 2015. The international non-profit
organization has called for a renewed effort to reach the 780
million people still waiting for water.
Swiss engineering bureau Zorg
Biogas AG, specializing in construction of biogas plants,
announced a breakthrough in biogas technology. Innovative
solution, developed by the company's experts, allows recycling
of municipal solid waste with the latter production of
compressed biogas and electricity. The cost of biogas plants
using new technology will also be substantially cheaper.
March 6, 2012
American Indians across the
internet are flocking to the website of Texas Hunt Lodge
today—and not because they’re planning a hunting trip. No,
they’re alarmed by a page on the site dedicated to the White
Buffalo Hunt Package, which advertises a chance to kill a white
buffalo for $13,500.
American consumers say they
continue to strongly favor solar power, wind turbines and
greener cars as energy solutions, but their overall support for
clean energy concepts is eroding, Pike Research finds.
The slippage is among the more striking trends seen in the
latest Energy & Environment Consumer Survey from Pike, which
annually queries U.S. adults about their perceptions and
awareness of energy concepts
Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) floated highly
anticipated legislation Thursday to reduce power plant pollution
by mandating greater use of low-carbon energy sources.
A plant that converts used cooking
oil into biodiesel opened in Bridgeport's West End neighborhood
Monday. Initially, the plant should produce 1 million gallons of
biodiesel a year, enough to heat about 550 average-sized homes
in Connecticut. It has the capacity to produce 3 million gallons
a year.
Global climate change is "not an
abstract problem," and action must be taken now to reduce the
amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
BP's shares surged early Monday
after the oil major announced late Friday that it had reached a
$7.8 billion settlement with the largest group of plaintiffs for
claims arising from the Macondo Deepwater Horizon accident and
oil spill in 2010.
With the nation facing $1T in water
infrastructure improvements in the next 20 years, a group of
federal, non-profit, and local organizations are asking mayor's
across the nation to compete next month to see who can inspire
the most residents in their cities to become the most "water
wise."
For the first time in eight years,
the Chinese government announced that its growth rate would fall
below 8 percent and openly admitted that its economy was
imbalanced and in need of restructuring. China has acknowledged
the need to reorient its economy towards domestic consumption
and away from investment and exports, but has failed to deliver
on similar promises in the past. Despite strong foreign exchange
reserves, China must now address the consequences of two decades
of a policy of promoting exports and questionable investments in
state-led construction and infrastructure projects.
The Japanese are considered
reserved. It is that characteristic for which that government
and its utility are being sharply criticized, all in the context
of the Fukushima nuclear accident almost a year ago.
The U.S. Department of Energy has
given the green light for three companies to partner with the
Savannah River Site in Aiken to potentially locate mini-nuclear
reactors there.
“The great body of our
citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle
practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well
as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus,
and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace
in the world. The first step – in the direction of preparation
to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should
come – is to teach men to shoot!” — Theodore
Roosevelt
While some in the natural gas industry may think they
have gone the extra mile in making public information about
the chemicals used in fracking fluids, the fact is many
people don't think the industry has come close to meeting
their concerns.
Go to any public hearing on drilling and sooner or later
someone in the audience will express worry about what
drillers are putting deep underground. Members of Congress
attending a House subcommittee hearing in Steubenville,
Ohio, in February were told by witnesses they strongly
object to fracking because they believe it posses a serious
threat to their water supplies.
The shock at the gas pump has many drivers thinking electric.
That, combined with a growing trend in environmental
responsibility, has brought a plethora of all-electric cars and
hybrids, to the marketplace.
Elevated carbon dioxide concentrations can increase carbon
storage in the soil, according to results from a 12-year carbon
dioxide-enrichment experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The increased storage of carbon in soil could help to slow
down rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
U.S. limits on greenhouse gas
emissions face a challenge in federal court this week from more
than 100 industry groups and several U.S. states, the latest
high-profile effort to halt or overturn the Environmental
Protection Agency's rules.
Maryland residents do not have to
provide a "good and substantial reason" to legally own a
handgun, a federal judge ruled Monday, striking down as
unconstitutional the state's requirements for getting a permit.
Humans ought to change their eating
habits to successfully meet the 2050 targets set out in the
European Commission's resource efficiency roadmap, writes Oliver
Smith.
EPA's new label will show potential
buyers they can save $9,700 in fuel costs over the course of
five years compared with the average new vehicle. That amount
will rise with higher gas prices.
At first glance, there´s nothing
out of the ordinary about the gentle roaming hills at the Tifft
Nature Preserve in Buffalo, N.Y.
The grass-covered
mounds, which make up 42 acres at the 264-acre preserve, are a
distinct shift from the otherwise flat terrain, with the highest
one providing a view of the Buffalo skyline to the north and
across Lake Erie to Ontario from the second highest point in the
city, 634 feet.
Yet beneath the surface of this
picturesque scene lies 2 million cubic yards of municipal solid
waste.
Brent Beasley loved his Chevy Volt
electric car even before gasoline seemed headed for $4 a gallon.
Now he's enjoying it even more.
For the first time, this morning in Georgia, the question of
Obama’s eligibility to serve, became official. No longer the
stuff of speculation, no longer dismissible by liberals as
something which will never be heard in court, Obama’s
eligibility became a matter of an official court record.
What does it mean?
GE Energy Financial Services, part
of General Electric (GE.N), said on Wednesday it bought a stake
in a large U.S. solar power project for $100 million, bringing
its investments in the sector to $1.4 billion in the last year.
The Prairie State power plant, set
amid farm fields and woods in southwestern Illinois, will start
producing power soon, beginning a life of burning local coal
that's expected to last until at least the 2040s.
Large-scale green energy systems can affordably replace
fossil fuel as the world's primary source of electricity within
20 years, new research from the United States weather office
suggests.
Two environmental groups on
Thursday filed a notice of intent to sue the Environmental
Protection Agency over a water permit involving the Valley Power
Plant in Milwaukee.
The Republican chairman of the U.S.
House tax-writing committee questioned why Obama administration
spending estimates for insurance subsidies under the health-care
law rose by $111 billion from a year ago.
The Hope Creek nuclear power
station in South Jersey was shut down at 11:02 a.m. Sunday, two
days after the failure of a recirculation pump.
Scientists say they’ve discovered
mankind’s oldest ancestor—Pikaia gracilens. The rarely
found 505 million-year-old fossil of a two-inch worm found only
in the Burgess Shale fossil beds, located on a ridge between Mt.
Field and Wapta Mountain in British Columbia, Canada’s Yoho
National Park.
For both Israel and Cyprus,
connecting the countries through an underwater cable will foster
more than just electrical stability for two energy islands - it
will further the sense of "duty and friendship" between two
allies...
A Japanese team has invented a
portable device that painlessly causes people to stop talking
Kamakura Corporation reported
Thursday that the Kamakura index of troubled public companies
improved, falling 0.25% to 7.02% in February. The index has
deteriorated in seven of the last ten months. The index hit an
intra-month high of 7.42% on February 15 while having an
intra-month low of 6.84 on three different occasions. There was
less volatility in the index during February compared to the
prior month.
Failure to build a liner in a pond
on a We Energies construction site was a "significant factor" in
the collapse of a bluff next to the Oak Creek power plant that
sent a mixture of coal ash and dirt into Lake Michigan on
Halloween, state regulators have found.
“Like in 1933, gold will be
purchased back by the government” because eventually the
financial mess will be so bad that gold prices “will go
ballistic, and the government will take away something from a
minority, and not many people own gold."
Mesa is preparing to bolster
incentives to residents and businesses who want to cut their
electric bills by installing solar panels.
Like other U.S. nuclear plant
owners, Xcel Energy is buying more diesel pumps and portable
generators that could be quickly deployed at its Monticello and
Prairie Island plants if all backup electricity went out, as it
did at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The Iwanuma city government plans
to build a mega solar power plant on farmland rendered useless
by salt damage and subsidence as a result of the March 11
earthquake and tsunami.
The latest in an ongoing series of
studies by the Brookings Institute shows that the number of
Americans who believe that the planet is warming is on the rise.
Sixty-two percent of U.S. residents now believe in human-caused
global warming, which is up from a low of 50% in spring 2010.
Residents of Pilsen and Little
Village celebrated a victorious end to their long fight for
cleaner air on Thursday, exultant over the deal that will shut
down two coal-fired power plants that have for years been
unwelcome neighbors.
Solar-powered electricity prices
could soon approach those of power from coal or natural gas
thanks to collaborative research with solar start-up Ampulse
Corporation at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Lawyers representing claimants
against BP in the consolidated federal Macondo damages case said
Monday that they were generally pleased with the proposed
settlement announced late Friday by the company and the lead
plaintiffs' attorneys. Monday was the first business day that
attorneys not part of the Plaintiffs Steering Committee could
have their staffs study the proposed settlement, and also the
first chance to contact many clients.
Despite a glowing report from the
governor's Scientific Advisory Panel on Offshore Energy, wind
turbines most likely won't be constructed off the North Carolina
coastline for at least another five years, experts say.
The NRC’s approval February 9 of
licenses for Southern Co.’s planned two nuclear units was
welcomed by the industry and its allies, but even the strongest
supporters said the agency’s decision will not overcome economic
obstacles to the addition of more than four or five nuclear
units this decade.
The price of gasoline at the pump
is skyrocketing and is expected to flatten the upward trend on
the stock market charts, thus maybe even stalling the economic
recovery from the Republican recession of 2009 and 2010. In a
strange twist, this is making many millionaire and billionaire
stockholders happy. Why? Because President Obama will get the
blame, and perhaps if we are in an economic nosedive come
election time, Obama will be defeated.
High levels of pollution
may be turning the planet's oceans acidic at a faster rate than
at any time in the past 300 million years, with unknown
consequences for future sea life, researchers said Thursday.
The acidification may be
worse than during four major mass extinctions in history when
natural pulses of carbon from asteroid impacts and volcanic
eruptions caused global temperatures to soar, said the study in
the journal Science.
Exelon Nuclear has added seven
mobile, high-volume diesel-driven pumps at its nuclear energy
facilities, among thousands of equipment purchases, upgrades,
and validations completed at Exelon's 10 plants in the year
following the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
The sun is truly an eternal
presence in our sky, its tides of life-giving heat and light
washing across the surface of our small blue planet each and
every day. Starlight literally permeates every fiber of our
beings, and without the sun’s energy to provide the earth’s
surface with sustenance this would be a cold, dead world indeed.
OriginOil, developer of a
breakthrough technology to convert algae into renewable crude
oil, today announced a new company study indicating for the
first time that algae producers worldwide can now make
transportation fuels cost-effectively themselves.
If the United States is to see a
nuclear power renaissance, rate increases in many states will
kick in long before the plants are operational. For utility
customers in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida they already
have.
Georgia Power, part of Southern Co., announced a
monthly increase of 57 cents for the average customer beginning
January 2012 for financing two additional nuclear reactors at
Plant Vogtle near Augusta. The first such increase, $3.73, took
effect in January 2011.
Long dry spells have been a problem
in various parts of the world including China, Africa, Russia,
Australia, the southern and western United States, and Western
Europe. Many are hoping that this is just a cyclical nuisance
and not evidence of a permanent change in climate patterns.
England in particular is used to being a damp and rainy island,
but has been surprised now with three straight winters of
drought-level precipitation. The first to notice and be affected
by the changing levels of rainfall are the farmers. However, now
public officials are beginning to worry about the long-term
stability of their water supplies and the effects that lower
rainfall will have on the environment as a whole.
Scientists at the U.S. Geological
Survey have, for the first time, demonstrated how aquifer
composition can affect how excessive levels of phosphorous (an
essential nutrient contained in fertilizers) can be carried from
fertilized agricultural fields via groundwater to streams and
waterways. This finding will allow for more informed management
of agriculture, ecosystem, and human water needs.
If you have been watching National
Geographic’s Doomsday Prepper series, you’ve probably
seen a few ideas that you wanted to try to implement in your own
storage preparations. At least a show or two got you wondering
about the feasibility of some of the stuff these preppers are
doing. One thing that piqued my interest was from the episode
that showed the woman oiling her eggs in order to preserve them
for long-term storage.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on
Sunday claimed victory in Russia's presidential election before
tens of thousands of cheering supporters, even as the opposition
and independent observers insisted the vote had been marred by
widespread violations.
This appears to all be part of
California's open war on family farming and real food. Observers
present at the hearing described the ambush as something "done
out of pure unadulterated intimidation" by a rogue government
that has abandoned all law.
In a turbulent year for America’s
economy, domestic ethanol production was a shining light of hope
for hundreds of thousands of American families all across the
nation in 2011.
Reported Arizona cases of a
potentially fatal disease spread by ticks have increased
steadily over the past decade and spiked within the last two
years. With temperatures warming, state and federal officials
say those heading into the outdoors should be aware of the
danger.
The dark clouds hanging over the
defunct Evergreen Solar plant in Devens may soon disperse.
Southern California Edison (SCE)
continues to perform extensive testing and inspections of the
steam generators at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
This comes as an Afghan security
officer recently shot dead two US military advisers inside the
Afghan Interior Ministry complex.
In other words, the dark matter
core may be associated with a filament aligned with the
direction of observation and not be at the center of the
cluster. However, it is only a theory with no solid proof yet.
I would like to slap those folks
silly in Washington D.C. What sort of fantasy bubble do they
live in? I guess it's easy to be blasé about the struggles of
American families when you can just rob from the depleted
coffers of the U.S. Treasury at will, when you can vote a pay
raise for yourself whenever you feel the gym membership and
restaurant tab is pinching your pocketbook just a little more
than you feel comfortable with, and when working for a living is
a concept that you have no real-life experience with or is a
long-forgotten memory shrouded in a hazy mist of forgetfulness.
The suggestion that Keystone XL
might be used only as a highway to bring Canadian crude to the
Gulf of Mexico for export has long been touted by its opponents
as a reason to fight the project. This blog from the National
Resources Defense Counsel is a good example of the
export-focused argument that Keystone XL opponents are making in
their battle against the project.
In 2011, American renewable energy
investment in solar and wind technologies dominated the global
market, propelling the United States past China into the
leadership position, according to Ernst & Young’s latest
quarterly
The fruits of UNA's solar lab --
solar ovens, water distillers, dehydrators and other equipment
-- sit under the sun in an open lot outside the university's
physics department. Madriz gives a tour of the facility to
demonstrate methods for harnessing the sun's heat and power.
Low US natural gas prices
"frighten" coal-fired generators more than new Environmental
Protection Agency regulations, because they "could hasten more
coal plant retirements than environmental rules alone," Barclays
Capital analysts said Friday.
In 2011, American renewable energy
investment in solar and wind technologies dominated the global
market and put the U.S. in the top leadership position,
according to Ernst & Young's last quarterly Renewable Energy
Country Attractiveness Index (CAI).
The US tripled its ethanol exports last year and shot past
Brazil as the world's top supplier of the corn-based fuel. The
new title came with a bummer of a door prize: a European
Commission trade complaint investigating possible dumping and
unfair subsidies.
Higher energy consumption and
warmer weather drove up total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 3.3
percent to 6.866 billion tonnes between 2009 and 2010, the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in its latest
emissions inventory report released Monday.
The U.S. exported more gasoline,
diesel and other fuels than it imported in 2011 for the first
time since 1949, the Energy Department said.
House Bill 485 would ban batteries
from landfills immediately, recyclable materials including
plastic and glass containers, cardboard, paper and other
products by July 1, 2015, yard waste by July 1, 2016, and all
organic materials by July 1, 2020.
In closing I will just say that regardless of how the media
and government try to shape the public perception of this case,
I am convinced that Umar was given an intentionally defective
bomb by a U.S. Government agent and placed on our flight without
showing a passport or going through security, to stage a false
terrorist attack to be used to implement various government
policies.
The effect this matter has had on my life has
been astounding and due to this case, I will never trust the
government in any matter, ever.
Shell said
its goal for the new plant, using a process similar to the one
being used in Madison, is to explore the use of a variety of
feedstocks, using sugars from plants that include non-food
cellulosic alternatives, to produce gasoline, diesel and jet
fuel.
Washington's newest and largest
wind farm -- the Lower Snake River Wind Facility-Phase I --
today began commercial operations, providing Puget Sound
Energy's 1.1 million electric customers with more renewable,
emissions-free power.
Waste Management will eventually have nothing but compressed
natural gas refuse trucks for all their garbage and recycling
services. Valley Metro has been running CNG and LNG
for years.
Thirty-seven people across five
states have died and hundreds were injured as nearly 100
tornadoes ripped across America's heartland Friday, spawned by a
powerful thunderstorm system stretching from the Gulf Coast to
the Great Lakes.
BP and other energy companies are
funneling millions into building and operating wind farms in
West Texas, helping to transform oil country into one of the
nation's leading hubs for green energy production.
News that 100,000 fishermen and oil
spill workers settled with BP for $7.8 billion rather than going
to trial suggests a lesson from the Valdez spill: Drawn-out
litigation can become its own tragedy.
March 2, 2012
Edison Mission Energy said on Wednesday that it has been
unable to raise financing for $700 million in scrubber
installations and other air pollution control upgrades at the
EME Homer City plant in Indiana County.
The move raises questions about the plant's future.
A proposed $13 billion clean-energy
state bond issue got the green light from the Ohio Ballot Board
yesterday. Supporters can now begin gathering the 385,253 valid
signatures of registered Ohio voters necessary to put the issue
on the ballot. It would ask voters to amend the state
constitution to require an expenditure of $13 billion over 10
years on wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy
resources. A coalition of environmental groups immediately
raised serious questions about the proposed amendment.
Tapping into Africa's renewable
energy could transform living standards across the continent,
according to a report that has mapped the potential of
renewables in the region. The report aims to help African
governments set up renewable energy plans, and has called for
the urgent transfer of relevant knowledge to research and
technology partners in Africa.
One of the primary concerns with
owning an electric vehicle is cost of the battery, the range it
offers, and the time it takes to recharge. Those concerns will
be significantly lessoned with the development of a new
lithium-ion battery. Designed by scientists at Envia Systems, a
US-based company, the new battery has roughly twice the energy
density of existing rechargeable batteries. Such an innovation
could greatly increase the range of electric cars as well as cut
the price of the battery packs in half.
Using antibiotics in meat causes
farmers to develop drug-resistant infections known as superbugs,
a new study says. The study, published in the journal mBio,
looks at a strain of MRSA that causes skin infections and
sepsis, the New Scientist reported. The study authors, a team
lead by Paul Keim of the Translational Genomics Research
Institute, were able to trace the drug-resistant infections to
the common practice of putting antibiotics in livestock feed.
Arizona Public Service Co.
announces a Request for Proposal (RFP) from solar developers and
installers to construct a 14-megawatt solar photovoltaic
facility -- financed by APS through the company's AZ Sun
Program.
The Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) seemed happy with a report from mining operation J.R.
Simplot Company—but other scientists were unnerved by the
two-headed trout.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke on Wednesday offered a tempered view of the U.S.
economy, pouring cold water on the notion recent upbeat signs
herald a stronger recovery.
Markets for turbines of less than
100 kW offer huge potential for growth if government incentives
are set up, according to GlobalData's report on the sector.
The push for a Production Tax Credit (PTC) extension continued
on Capitol Hill with bipartisan contingents in both the House
and Senate recently calling for action.
The World Bank today announced the
Global Partnership for Oceans, gathering governments,
scientists, advocacy organizations, the private sector and
international public institutions to confront the increasingly
urgent issues of over-fishing, marine degradation, and habitat
loss.
Midwest Generation is planning to
close down two coal-fired power plants in Illinois sooner than
originally planned as part of a deal with environmental groups
and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The regulation of greenhouse gas
emissions is part of the presidential campaign. It’s also back
before a federal court, which will decide if the Environmental
Protection Agency has overstepped its bounds.
The ongoing debate over online
privacy is in the spotlight once again. However, this time, it's
the White House that's at the center of the controversy.
Vladimir Putin will almost
certainly win Russia’s March 4 presidential election, but his
next term in office will be challenged by a newly vocal Russian
citizenry. They rose up to protest the nation’s rigged
parliamentary election late last year and are poised to do the
same if Putin is elected under a cloud. Whatever happens, Russia
stands poised for rapid transformation, which is bad news for
Putin.
The Japanese government withheld information about the full
danger of last year's nuclear disaster from its own people and
from the United States, putting U.S.-Japanese relations at risk
in the first days after the accident, according to an
independent report released Tuesday.
The report, compiled from interviews with more than 300
people, delivers a scathing view of how leaders played down the
risks of the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant
and secretly considered evacuating Tokyo following the massive
March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Egyptian officials said Wednesday
that they would lift a travel ban barring seven Americans from
leaving the country during the politically charged prosecution
of four American-financed nonprofit groups here, apparently
resolving a crisis that threatened to break the country’s
30-year alliance with Washington.
Unemployment in the 17-member
eurozone jumped to a record high of 10.7 per cent in January,
underlining the challenge facing European leaders as they
gathered in Brussels for a summit dedicated to restarting the
continent’s economy.
The director of the FBI told an
annual gathering of cyber-security professionals on Thursday
that the agency needs the private sector to help combat what he
believes is becoming the nation's No. 1 threat.
Federal officials have dropped consideration of almost
100,000 acres from a swath of ocean between Rhode Island and
Massachusetts that is being eyed for potential offshore wind
energy projects.
The area under consideration now includes more than 164,000
acres of federal water southwest of Nomans Land between Martha's
Vineyard and Block Island.
The Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) is looking for contractors to construct temporary
emergency camps inside the United States which can be ready for
occupancy within a 72 hour time period and used to house
emergency responders as well as “displaced citizens”.
The Union of Concerned Scientists
has documented 15 "near-misses" at 13 U.S. nuclear plants during
2011 and evaluates the response of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to each event in a report released today.
The first full-energy shots from
the electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher captured from a
high-speed camera
The fossil fuel sectors are
fighting back against a wave of popular sentiment that they say
is ill-founded. The oil, gas and coal industries say that their
products are abundant and reliable, allowing this nation to
achieve its economic well-being.
A new research study shows
genetically engineered food (GE) causes cellular damage. On
February 15, 2012, the Journal of Applied Toxicology released an
important study on damage done to human cells by GE food. This
food carries the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis ( Bt )
insecticide and the herbicide 'Roundup' glyphosate gene traits.
A push to allow new financing
options for renewable energy such as solar panels got a push
back from Georgia Power.
Given the low interest rates and plummeting prices for solar
energy equipment, it would seem a good time for investing in
solar power generation. GE Energy Financial Services, for one,
has been pursuing solar deals actively and on Wednesday it
announced a $100 million equity investment in a solar power
plant in Arizona.
...Gingrich says he thinks military
spending should rise some and that the U.S. should
"recapitalize" its Air Force, meaning investment in new
generations of equipment.
Inspired by the fluid that wraps
your brain in a protective, wet blanket, Multi-directional
Impact Protection System (MIPS), which is the name of both the
technology and the company behind it, claims to offer superior
protection for your head. Major helmet manufacturers are
starting to turn on to what is self-hailed as the "next
generation" of helmet design.
The Subcommittee on Water Resources
and Environment, chaired by U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH), held a
hearing this morning to review innovative approaches for
financing community water infrastructure projects. This
morning's hearing was the first in a two-part series of hearings
on the subject, the second of which is tentatively scheduled for
March.
The House of Representatives
approved a bill on Monday that outlaws protests in instances
where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you
even know it.
The HoverMast is a hovering
surveillance machine that can be deployed from a small vehicle
such as an armored SUV. The machine, developed by Sky Sapience
and currently at the prototype stage, can be deployed to an
altitude of up to 50 meters (164 feet) within 10-15 seconds.
Iran has offered Pakistan 80,000
b/d of crude oil on a three-month deferred payment plan, a
government official said Wednesday.
Iran will accept gold and other
currencies in place of dollars in an effort to end-run financial
sanctions put into place by the United States and the European
Union. Besides blocking oil sales, the two have made it harder
for buyers of Iranian oil to use dollars to buy, despite oil
being priced internationally in dollars.
Japanese refiners have stepped up
efforts to get an additional force majeure clause included in
Iranian crude oil contracts that could be invoked if tankers
cannot call on Iran's ports to lift barrels because of the loss
of insurance cover, sources close to the matter told Platts
Thursday.
The Motorcyclist Liberty
Restoration Act currently before the Tennessee legislature would
put an end to the helmet requirement for motorcycle riders 21
and older. Even though no state has repealed a helmet law since
Pennsylvania did it in 2003, the rising popularity of
libertarian ideas gives the anti-helmet movement a boost.
Medical associations in the state are keeping a close watch on
the legislation, which will be discussed Tuesday during a noon
hearing before the House transportation subcommittee.
Walk into your local grocery store's produce department, and
you'll be bombarded with marketing messages telling you how
fresh and healthy the fruits and veggies are.
Too bad it's all a big fat lie.
This rather novel solar collector
draws inspiration from the lotus flower to provide small-scale
solar energy - both electric and thermal - to domestic and small
business users.
The media is fixated on the GOP
primaries and the American presidential campaign and giving
scant attention to Russia's upcoming election on Sunday, March
4th. But the Russian vote may prove to be a bigger deal than our
own.
State senators gave final
legislative approval today to a major change in South Dakota’s
concealed weapon laws: Adults wouldn’t need to apply for a
permit anymore.
In exchange for food. Despite
the State Department's announcement Wednesday that North Korea
has agreed to suspend its uranium-enrichment program and
long-range missile tests, Obama administration officials stress
that the concession marks only modest progress toward its goal
of denuclearizing North Korea.
North Korea will receive 240,000
tons of food aid from the United States in return for halting
weapons tests and allowing inspectors back into one of its
nuclear facilities in a deal announced on February 28. The
agreement was hailed by the press as a major breakthrough in
long-stalled nuclear talks, but several similar agreements have
fallen through in the past after North Korea was caught
cheating. Even if the North Koreans keep their word, the
agreement covers only the Yongbyon nuclear complex — other
nuclear facilities in North Korea will continue to operate and
will not be subject to IAEA inspections, leading many to ask
what the United States really gained.
Could North Korea print millions
upon millions of nearly undetectable fake U.S. $100 bills and
get away with it? They already do, points out one counterfeiting
expert. And they seem poised to do more.
The Obama Administration announced
a privacy plan last week in hopes of increasing protections for
consumer privacy. The Administration has been working toward
this effort for several months and has created a framework
consisting of a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, a
multi-stakeholder process to determine how the rights will apply
to the context of business, an adequate enforcement model, and a
commitment to strengthen interoperability between the privacy
standards in the U.S. and its global partners.
If the United States is to see a
nuclear power renaissance, rate increases in many states will
kick in long before the plants are operational. For utility
customers in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida they already
have.
A Hadley gym is the first private
group fitness studio in the state to capture clean, renewable
energy from high-intensity indoor cycling workouts.
Prudential Capital Group provided
financing in the form of $121 million of long-term senior notes
to LS Power for a new solar power generating project in Maricopa
County, Ariz.
Bill Shearer has seen his monthly
electric bill top $500 on occasion, but those days are just
about over.
Food waste is an untapped energy
source which mostly ends up rotting in landfills thereby
releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Food waste is
difficult to treat or recycle since it contains high levels of
sodium salt and moisture, and is mixed with other waste during
collection.
There’s another exciting and
invigorating development taking place this year. It is one that
proves renewable energy has made it to the mainstream and it is
happening in December.
Homeowners associations are notoriously resistant to solar,
often banning roof-top installations that conflict with their
aesthetic values. But what if you could install an invisible
solar system on your home that no one knows is there?
President Obama is trying to
renovate the country’s intricate tax system. He won’t succeed in
time for the November election. But he might pull it off if he
sticks around and can build on the existing bipartisan support
to accomplish just that.
Commonly prescribed sleeping pills
boost the risk of dying more than 300 percent, even among people
who take fewer than 18 a year, says a study published in the
online journal BMJ Open. The risk is even higher for those who
take them more often. In addition, sleeping pills boost the risk
of developing cancer.
Debris washed out to sea by the
tsunami that hit Japan nearly a year ago has been making its way
slowly across the Pacific Ocean, and according to an AP report
some of it could reach remote islands north of Hawaii “any day
now.” The debris is not expected to reach the atolls of Hawaii
until late 2012 or early 2013. Sometime after that, some amount
of debris will likely wash up on the west coast of the United
States.
Power generated by the Sorrento
Solar Farm will have no negative impacts on Progress Energy
Florida's transmission system, a study by the utility shows.
Fewer emissions from U.S. power plants in 2009 were the
result of cheaper prices of natural gas, reducing the industry's
reliance on coal, researchers say.
As the United States tumbled into economic recession in that
year, CO2 greenhouse gas emissions also fell by 6.59 percent
relative to 2008, but the recession was not the main cause,
researchers at Harvard University said.
"Syrian forces overran a longtime
rebel enclave in the battleground city of Homs, the government
said Thursday, as the United Nations Security Council called on
Syrian authorities to allow immediate humanitarian access to
conflict-ridden areas of the country. The occupation of Homs'
Baba Amr neighborhood, which became an international symbol of
resistance, is an important victory for the Syrian military,
though rebels continue to battle government forces in other
parts of Homs and elsewhere in the country."
It's no secret our grandparents
know how to do a lot more than the current generation. My own
grandmother bakes with no recipes, cans food worth fighting
over, and seems ready for anything all the time.
Fuel at home or work without
interrupting your schedule! Cut out the middle man and save
money using your own natural gas supply from your regulated
utility!!
Some people have a cool, gloomy
room in their house that receives little if any direct sunlight,
even though it has a window. Should you be one of those people,
and you want to save electricity, perhaps a home heliostat is
what you need. Heliostats are motorized mirrored devices that
move to compensate for the changing angle of the Sun as it moves
across the sky, reflecting its rays onto a fixed target such as
a window, photovoltaic panel, or solar oven.
The United States is "the Saudi
Arabia of natural gas" and has no business buying pricey oil
from OPEC producing-nations, says real estate mogul and one-time
presidential hopeful Donald Trump.
Supply issues stemming
from Middle East unrest coupled with refinery closures in the
United States have lifted gasoline prices to a nationwide
average of more than $3.70 a gallon, with most experts
predicting that figure will easily top $4 a gallon.
A new study led by the Georgia
Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a
relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and
widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The
study's findings could be used to improve seasonal forecasting
of snow and temperature anomalies across northern continents.
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey®
(PMMS), showing fixed mortgage rates moving slightly lower for
the week and remaining near their 60-year lows helping to keep
homebuyer affordability high.
USCHPA Executive Director Jessica Bridges today commended Senate
Energy & Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman
(D-NM) for introducing legislation to establish a national Clean
Energy Standard (CES) that aptly recognizes the energy and
environmental benefits of combined heat and power (CHP) and
effectively incentivizes greater deployment of CHP in the
American marketplace.
US crude imports from Canada
climbed to a record high 2.436 million b/d in December, data
released by the US Energy Information Administration showed
Wednesday.
In an attempt to cut already too rapid approval times for
genetically engineered seeds in half, the US Department of
Agriculture will, under forthcoming rules (expected in March),
give GE seed companies—including the Monsanto Company—faster
regulatory reviews
The US government on Thursday
pushed back against a prominent analyst's argument that major
shifts in pipeline flows have left the country's emergency oil
stockpile unable to quickly inject supplies into the market when
needed.
Ed Morse, Citi Group's managing director and
global head of commodity research, said last year's sale of 30.6
million barrels of stockpiled crude demonstrated the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve's increasingly limited takeaway capacity.
After getting burned buying fake
renewable fuel credits, US refiners have increased their
scrutiny of biodiesel producers by visiting plants, examining
feedstocks and sticking to larger, established players.
US Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman on Thursday
introduced a clean energy standard that would require the
largest utilities to obtain by 2015 a percentage of the
electricity they sell from clean energy sources, including
renewables, natural gas, nuclear power and coal plants equipped
with carbon capture and storage.
The U.S. Treasury warned foreign
banks on Wednesday they could now be blocked from the country's
financial system if they continued to deal with Iran's central
bank for their non-oil transactions.
Based on current projections of
population and economic growth, water use will be 40% greater in
2030 than the current sustainable supply, and a third of the
world's population--mostly in developing countries--will face a
deficit larger than 50%, according to a report just published on
RatingsDirect. The report, titled, "Is The U.S. Water Sector
Approaching A Tipping Point?" says that such a projected supply
gap would be alarming under any conditions, but it is even more
so considering that the water utility sector has historically
been afflicted with insufficient planning, underinvestment, and
inefficient markets.
Weale observes that recent indicators of economic activity
have been positive and expresses concern about the persistence
of inflation. Overall, he does not at present see any case for
extending the asset programme further and notes that “the yield
curve suggests that an increase in Bank Rate is not fully priced
in until mid-2014. But, obviously, if the very real risks I see
about inflation do materialise, then it is perfectly possible
that the first rise will come earlier than that.”
Footsteps downstairs in the hallway. The sound of a gun
cocking. Then silence.
His heart was pounding. What to do?
He had a gun, but he never really thought he'd have to use
it. At least, not like this
It was almost like a bidding war at
the Platts North American Crude Marketing conference in Houston
on its first day today, with bullish projections flying around
the room on the ultimate impact the shale revolution would have
on US and North American liquids production.
I am a taxpayer in
the People’s Republic of New Jerseystan. That makes me an
authority on how public sector unions—especially at the state
and local level—are thwarting economic growth, strangling the
middle class, and generally hijacking the democratic process to
serve their own ends rather than the public.
The risk to endangered wood storks
and Everglades snail kites, as well as bald eagles and flocks of
other birds flying over western Palm Beach County prompted the
Sierra Club, Audubon of Florida and other environmental
advocates that normally support alternative energy to oppose the
wind farm.
"We need more wind (energy)
throughout our country and less fossil fuels," Zoning Commission
Chairwoman Sherry Hyman said Thursday.
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