By Mike Robbins
Hydrogen -- Star Gas, Everywhere, Yet Unseen. Sunlight is its Child.
(Haiku by Stephen Wetlesen)
August 30, 2013
This sprawling metropolis of
honking cars and 22 million
harried people has been
brought to its knees, not by
an earthquake or its ominous
smoking volcanoes, but
rather a small contingent of
angry school teachers.
Anthony Weiner is having
such a hard time generating
support for his limp
campaign that he has
resorted to paying a
rent-a-crowd firm to provide
"supporters" for his events,
The Post has learned.
Last week the US
appeals court ruled in favor
of the NY-law bond houldouts
(a group of bondholders who
did not participate in the
swap some years back when
Argentina defaulted),
forcing Argentina to make
payments on these bonds. And
paying these dollars will be
a material burden on
Argentina, who has limited
foreign reserves.
Five Arkansas residents who
sued two oil companies
claiming wastewater disposal
wells from fracking caused
earthquakes that damaged
their homes settled with the
companies for an undisclosed
sum on Wednesday, according
to U.S. court documents and
the plaintiffs' lawyers.
Analysts say the deal would
tighten military ties
between Washington and
Jakarta. But human rights
activists are concerned
about what the helicopters
could be used for.
And as it turns out, the
U.S. is now installing one
solar photovoltaic (PV)
system every four minutes as
well. If market growth
continues at its current
pace, the American solar
industry could be installing
a system every minute and
twenty seconds by 2016.
Angela Merkel's "green
revolution" risks becoming a
victim of its own success.
Seduced by generous
subsidies, Germans are
embracing the ambitious
project with such fervor -
installing solar panels on
church roofs and converting
sewage into heat - that
instead of benefiting from a
rise in green energy, they
are straining under the
subsidies' cost and from
surcharges.
A drill that simulated a
terrorist attack on
FirstEnergy Corp.'s Beaver
Valley nuclear power plant
in Beaver County has found a
security shortcoming for the
second year in a row,
according to preliminary
findings released by the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
Standalone biopower
facilities have the
potential to bring hundreds
of megawatts of power online
with each installation and
can optimize existing
industrial processes, such
as combined heat and power
(CHP), reducing coal
emissions through
co-firing. While biopower
is currently limited as a
subsidy-dependent
enterprise, technological
breakthroughs and the
expansion of international
trade in biomass pellets are
expected to lead to
sustained growth in the
sector. In fact, worldwide
revenue from biomass power
generation will reach $11.5
billion annually by 2020,
according to Navigant
Research.
Invoking the specter of the
Iraq war, British lawmakers
on Thursday rejected
military action in Syria,
dealing a stunning blow to
Prime Minister David Cameron
and effectively ruling
Washington’s staunchest
military ally out of any
U.S.-led strike.
Nuclear regulators on Monday
slapped another citation
against the Tennessee Valley
Authority for a safety
violation at its Browns
Ferry nuclear plant, but
officials said the incident
last December was of "low to
moderate significance."
The way the modern world is
growing, there is enormous
importance of water
conservation, to ensure
water availability for our
future generation and to
conserve energy. There are
countless ways to conserve
water during a typical day.
As evidence mounts that
excessive use of light is
harming wildlife and
adversely affecting human
health, new initiatives in
France and elsewhere are
seeking to turn down the
lights that flood an
ever-growing part of the
planet.
Last month, France —
including the City of Light
— grew darker late at night
as one of the world's most
comprehensive lighting
ordinances went into effect.
We know that pollution is
bad for us, don't we? And we
guess that living in areas
with high levels of
pollution is probably not
good for our health, but we
need to live near our job,
and populated areas offer
more employment opportunity,
recreational and cultural
opportunities and other
advantages. But at what
cost? And what can we do to
reduce the levels of
pollution without
significantly changing the
life styles we have all
become accustomed to? Before
we consider draconian
changes, we would like to
know just how bad it is.
Unquestionably, the
power industry needs to cut
emissions, modernize the
grid and increase capacity
as the economy recovers and
demand grows. The public
conversation inevitably
turns to renewable sources,
substituting gas for coal,
smart grid innovations and
the ever-green topic of a
nuclear renaissance. Often
lost in the discussion is
the topic of efficiency.
With its decision today to
ditch its Vermont Yankee
facility, Entergy Corp. will
now join a growing list of
utility companies that have
made similar moves. The
Entergy facility, which had
just renewed its license two
years ago, is citing low
natural gas prices as a key
factor.
The federal government is
pressing ahead with plans to
crack down on air pollution
in Yellowstone County,
despite protests from the
state.
The Environmental
Protection Agency earlier
this week announced that the
area around the J.E. Corette
power plant had failing
levels of sulfur dioxide.
The Denver Post
is reporting that U.S.
Attorneys are receiving new
marching orders from the
Dept. of Justice regarding
pot legalization in
Washington and Colorado.
“The guidance — the
details of which were
provided by a Justice
Department official who
spoke on condition of
anonymity — is a significant
rewrite of the federal
approach to marijuana
prosecutions in states that
have loosened laws around
cannabis,” John Ingold
reports.
French prosecutors have
confirmed that they are
conducting a preliminary
investigation into whether
the U.S. National Security
Agency violated French law
by secretly collecting
personal data.
Hoping to run the county on
less coal severance funds,
Magistrate David Kennedy
said at a recent Harlan
Fiscal Court meeting that
he's predicting "it's going
to get worse for the county,
because that is what
everybody is telling him in
Frankfort."
The hotly debated biomass
power plant is up and
running.
About 2 years after
construction started, the
100-megawatt Gainesville
Renewable Energy Center
began generating electricity
shortly before 5 p.m. on
Aug. 16.
Researchers in the key
corn-growing state of
Illinois are finding
significant damage from
rootworms in farm fields
planted in a rotation with a
genetically modified corn
that is supposed to protect
the crop from the pests,
according to a new report.
I've reviewed many existing
patents, and I find many of
them have significant
overreach. They patent
things that are obvious or
just different. Many patents
are just engineering, not
fundamental invention. This
creates a huge domain for
disputes, and their
associated costs.
Findings from a study of
mothers and their exposures
during the first trimester
of pregnancy suggest that
higher nitrate intake from
drinking water sources might
be associated with some
types of defects in babies.
Published recently in
Environmental Health
Perspectives, the study took
place in Iowa and Texas
-
Mice fed a diet
containing 25 percent
sugar – the equivalent
of three cans of soda
daily – were twice as
likely to die as mice
fed a similar diet
without sugar
-
In 1700, the average
Englishman ate four
pounds of sugar a year.
This has increased
steadily to reach 77
pounds of sugar annually
for the average American
today
-
This excessive sugar
consumption is being
increasingly linked to
health problems like
high blood pressure,
obesity, diabetes, heart
attack and more
-
It’s likely that the
less sugar you eat, the
better; I advise keeping
your total fructose
consumption below 25
grams per day
The auto industry
has become enamored with
hydrogen fuel
Most of the world's major
automakers, including
Toyota, Honda, Hyundai,
Daimler, and General Motors,
are working to develop some
form of hydrogen-powered
vehicle. These vehicles are,
essentially, electric as the
fuel cells they are equipped
with are used to generate
the electrical power that
these vehicles use. The
benefit that fuel cells have
over conventional
lithium-ion batteries lies
in their performance,
durability, and ability to
operate for prolonged
periods of time.
Iran plans to test about
1,000 advanced uranium
enrichment centrifuges it
has completed installing, a
UN nuclear report showed, a
move likely to worry Western
capitals hoping for a change
of course under the
country's new president.
Car bomb blasts and other
explosions tore through
mainly Shiite districts
around Baghdad during
morning rush hour Wednesday
in a day of violence that
killed at least 80,
intensifying worries about
Iraq's ability to tame the
spiraling mayhem gripping
the country.
Thousands of Israelis are
lining up for gas masks or
ordering them by phone,
spurred on by fears that any
Western military response to
last week's alleged chemical
weapons attack in Syria
could ensnare their own
country in war.
Japan's nuclear regulator
said on Wednesday it has
officially raised the
severity rating of the
latest radioactive water
leak at the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant to
Level 3 on an international
scale for radiological
releases.
Tepco was nationalized last
year and receives public
funds to pay compensation to
the 160,000 people who had
to flee their homes after a
2011 earthquake and tsunami
caused three reactor
meltdowns in the worst
nuclear disaster since
Chernobyl in 1986.
It's a little more complex
than making instant oatmeal,
but scientists from GE and
Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
may have just the recipe for
next-generation electric
vehicle (EV) batteries that
achieve desired driving
range and cost for
consumers.
Environmental advocates
delivered a report on the
climate effects of the
Keystone XL tar sands
pipeline to President Barack
Obama today, with the
intention of giving the
President all the
information he needs to
reject the pipeline.
Rupee in free fall,
stagflation setting in,
risks of sovereign downgrade
and investor panic rising.
This is beginning to
sound like a broken record,
but India's currency has
come under severe pressure -
again. India's central bank,
the RBI, seems to have
completely lost control over
the rupee.
I see tribal
governments justifying their
existence by reference to
tradition and hiding their
misdeeds behind tribal
sovereignty, while they
provide nothing for the most
traditional people among us
and fail to assert
sovereignty for any purpose
but short-term gain.
The loss of a nuclear power
plant that once provided
Vermont with one-third of
its electricity won't affect
the region's power supply,
according to energy
officials.
For
most of us, it seems like
common sense: reduce energy
use and see a reduction in
operational costs.
Unfortunately, it’s really
not so simple. While the
low-hanging fruit like
lighting switch-outs and
weatherization are fairly
achievable, for most
business owners, investments
in big-ticket items (like a
generator or advanced energy
management system) can be
harder to
justify—particularly in lieu
of our current economic
crisis.
From New York to
Virginia, dead dolphins have
been washing ashore in
unusually large numbers this
summer. As of Aug. 20,
nearly 300 stranded
bottlenose dolphins had been
reported in the region,
according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, nearly seven
times more than normal in
some places.
As experts continue to
investigate the cause, the
leading contender is an
infection called
morbillivirus. Related to
human measles and canine
distemper, the virus seems
to cause sporadic epidemics
among dolphins. Many years,
there are no detected cases,
but when the virus hits, it
can hit hard
The number of children on
Medicaid taking
antipsychotic drugs has
tripled in just ten
years—and shockingly, many
of them are under the age of
three.
Mercury found in high levels
in deep Pacific Ocean fish
such as swordfish has a
chemical fingerprint, and it
implicates coal-burning
power plants in Asia,
according to a new study.
University of Michigan
researchers and their
University of Hawaii
colleagues say they've
solved the longstanding
mystery of how mercury gets
into open-ocean fish, and
their findings suggest that
levels of the toxin in
Pacific Ocean fish will
likely rise in coming
decades.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service will propose
increased recovery territory
for Mexican gray wolves in
Arizona and New Mexico and
will drop plans to capture
wolves entering these two
states from Mexico, under
two agreements reached today
between the agency and the
nonprofit Center for
Biological Diversity.
Moore's Law -- the ability
to pack twice as many
transistors on the same
sliver of silicon every two
years -- will come to an end
as soon as 2020 at the 7nm
node, said a keynoter at the
Hot Chips conference here.
The contracts are part of
the Department of Defense
(DOD)’s $7 billion Renewable
and Alternative Energy Power
Production program. The
first technology,
geothermal, was awarded on
May 3. The remaining
technologies – wind and
biomass – will be awarded on
a staggered schedule by the
end of 2013.
The Navy's use of advanced
biofuels could help spur
private-sector investment,
said Dennis McGinn,
President Obama's newly
confirmed assistant
secretary of the Navy for
energy, installations, and
environment.
Neighbors of a
soon-to-be-shuttered Greene
County power plant filed a
federal lawsuit against its
owner and hope to gain
class-action status in their
complaint over pollution.
A political hacktivist group
that has the backing of the
Syrian president apparently
hit The New York Times,
along with Twitter and The
Huffington Post UK edition.
Maj. Nidal Malik
Hasan was sentenced to death
Wednesday for killing 13
people and wounding 32
others in a 2009 shooting
rampage at Fort Hood, Tex.,
the worst mass murder at a
military installation in
U.S. history.
Officials of New Mexico and
the Navajo Nation have
weighed in to oppose a move
by Arizona regulators to
open the state's retail
electric markets to
competition, contending it
would likely result in the
closure of the Four Corners
power plant and decimate the
area's economy.
- Heart disease:
597,689
- Cancer: 574,743
- Chronic lower
respiratory diseases:
138,080
- Stroke
(cerebrovascular
diseases): 129,476
- Accidents
(unintentional
injuries): 120,859
- Alzheimer's disease:
83,494
- Diabetes: 69,071
- Nephritis, nephrotic
syndrome, and nephrosis:
50,476
- Influenza and
Pneumonia: 50,097
- Intentional
self-harm (suicide):
38,364
The study paves the way for
the next generation of
portable water purification
devices, which could provide
relief to the 780 million
people around the world who
face every day without
access to a clean water
supply.
Marijuana is the most
popular illegal drug used
worldwide, but addictions to
popular painkillers like
Vicodin, Oxycontin and
codeine kill the most
people, according to the
first-ever global survey of
illicit drug abuse.
According to the latest
issue of the U.S. Energy
Information Administration's
(EIA) "Electric Power
Monthly," with preliminary
data through to June 30,
2013, renewable energy
sources (i.e., biomass,
geothermal, hydropower,
solar, wind) provided 14.20
percent of the nation's net
electric power generation
during the first half of the
year. For the same period in
2012, renewables accounted
for 13.57 percent of net
electrical generation.
Renewable energy sources
(i.e., biomass, geothermal,
hydropower, solar, wind)
provided 14.20 percent of
the nation's net electric
power generation during the
first half of 2013,
according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration
(EIA). For the same period
in 2012, renewables
accounted for 13.57 percent
of net electrical
generation.
Renewable energy deployment
is possible even with delays
in transmission grid
expansion. Deployment of
renewables can still take
place within the next 15
years, according to a recent
study by Ecofys energy
consultants -- the
installations would just
have to be distributed more
evenly across the country to
save costs.
Big changes are on the way
for China’s power sector,
new analysis predicts, with
renewables set to play a
central role.
C1 event observed.
There are currently 3
numbered
sunspot regions
on the disk. Solar
activity is expected to be
very low
with a chance
for a C-class flares on days
one, two, and three (30 Aug,
31 Aug, 01 Sep). No 245 MHz
Noise Storms Observed.
The California nuclear
industry has received $8.21
billion in federal subsidies
over the last 50 years,
according to a report from
DBL Investors, a double
bottom line venture capital
firm. The report compares
federal subsidies for
nuclear energy to those
provided for distributed
solar energy.
Nuclear energy has received
four times more federal
support than distributed
solar over a period six
times as long,..
The Rim fire has expanded
to cover more than 180,000
acres and encroach further
into Yosemite National Park,
and the Geronimo Hotshots
elite Native firefighting
team has sprung into action.
Hailing from the San
Carlos Apache Indian
Reservation, the team is one
of seven American Indian
elite firefighting crews in
the U.S.
.
Brain-to-brain interfacing –
it’s previously been
accomplished between two
rats, but now it’s been
achieved between two humans.
Rajesh Rao, who studies
computational neuroscience
at the University of
Washington, has successfully
used his mind to control the
hand of his colleague,
Andrea Stucco. The two were
linked via a Skype
connection.
Live in a large city like
New York, London, Beijing or
Mumbai, and you are likely
exposed to more air
pollution than people in
smaller cities in
surrounding areas. But
exactly how a city's
pollution relates to the
size of its population has
never been measured, until
now.
Resembling an underwater
kite and comprised of a
carbon-fibre wing with a
turbine slung underneath
rather like a gondola, the
so-called Deep Green device
is secured to the seabed
with a tether and moves in a
figure of eight-shaped path
in the tidal or ocean
current.
A critical water source
for U.S. farmers and
ranchers is being depleted
at a rapid rate and nearly
70 percent of it will
disappear within the next 50
years if the current trend
does not change, according
to a report issued this
week.
Thirty percent of the
groundwater from a critical
portion of what is known as
the High Plains Aquifer
already has been pumped and
another 39 percent will be
depleted over the next five
decades,..
The U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) gave an
additional $20.5 million in
funding to The Babcock &
Wilcox (B&W, NYSE: BWC)’s
small modular nuclear
reactor project in
Tennessee.
With the latest
allocation, the DOE has
given $101 million to date
for the project. The first
installment of $79 million
was allocated by the DOE
upon the signing of a formal
agreement with B&W mPower in
April 2013.
Air pollution causes about
200,000 early deaths each
year in the United States,
according to a new study
(http://Air pollution causes
about 200,000 early deaths
each year in the United
States, according to a new
study from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
(MIT). Researchers at MIT's
Laboratory for Aviation and
the Environment, say
emissions from road
transportation is the
leading single cause of
pollution, contributing
53,000 premature deaths, and
that electrical power
generation causes another
52,000.
Homeowners can relax, say
U.S. energy researchers who
found wind turbine farms do
not impact values of nearby
properties.
"Although there have been
claims of significant
property value impacts near
operating wind turbines that
regularly surface in the
press or in local
communities, strong evidence
to support those claims has
failed to materialize in all
of the major U.S. studies
conducted thus far,"..
Buyer bee-ware.
That’s the bottom line of
a recent study claiming that
many plants touted as
“bee-friendly” are actually
deadly, because they’ve been
pre-treated with pesticides
shown to harm and kill bees.
The billing arrangement,
called net metering, helps
solar customers like Barnard
pay off their installation
costs even faster because of
the greater monthly savings.
But APS says net metering
doesn't recover the fixed
costs of transmission lines
and other infrastructure
that solar customers still
use. It is proposing to cut
by more than half ...
The old saying
“fighting fire with fire”
may be true or not depending
upon the situation, but if
someone told you the best
way to fight (carbon-based)
gas is with another gas, you
might raise a skeptical
eyebrow or two. But that’s
exactly what a Swedish
engineering company is
claiming: successful capture
of carbon from carbon-based
greenhouse gases via the use
of a hydrogen-based gas.
"Rebels and local residents
in Ghouta accuse Saudi
Prince Bandar bin Sultan of
providing chemical weapons
to an al-Qaida linked rebel
group.
[Ed: mysteriously the
website of the publisher of
this article is now down.]
In looking at the executive
summary of this year’s State
of the Water Industry
(SOTWI) report, I noticed
some very familiar themes,
but I was also struck by a
few surprises. The most
startling revelation is that
80 percent of utilities (at
least those that were
surveyed) are losing money
on the services they
provide. For explanation,
look no further than the top
two challenges cited in the
list compiled below. Couple
the high cost of
infrastructure repairs with
the fact that the public
takes water services for
granted (and thus is
resistant to paying more)
and it’s no wonder utilities
are operating in the red.
Solving this “value of
water” conundrum would go a
long way toward resolving
the omnipresent funding
issue by getting us closer
to full-cost pricing on
rates.
Many a demand/supply PV
industry participant has met
their Waterloo/Alamo —
choose your dramatic
historical analogy — on the
issue of pricing strategy.
Figure 1(below) is a
snapshot of PV industry
average selling prices (ASP)
for modules and demand for
module products (as well as
systems) from 2002 through
2012.
Citing references to the
success of the Erie Canal in
New York in 1815, Mr. Harris
discussed the parallels to
New Mexico today, including
the scoffers, challenges and
decisions a single state can
make. Julia Frayer of London
Economics discussed the
economic value to the state
that could occur should such
a system be constructed.
Concentrating photovoltaics
involve the use of lenses or
mirrors to gather sunlight
and concentrate it on PV
cells. The idea is to focus
the concentrated sunlight on
super-high-efficiency cells,
to achieve maximum power
output with minimal PV
material.
The United States and France
today issued the Joint
Statement on Civil Liability
for Nuclear Damage that sets
forth the common views of
the United States and France
on civil nuclear liability,
including their support for
establishment of a global
nuclear liability regime
allowing for adequate
compensation to victims of a
nuclear accident, as called
for in the International
Atomic Energy Agency's
(IAEA) Action Plan on
Nuclear Safety
US threats to launch air
strikes within days trigger
demand by Ban Ki-moon for
early assessment of
inspectors' findings
Even as more than a dozen
regional power markets,
state groups and others
across the country launch
studies on the
interdependence of the gas
and electric sectors, an
official in the pipeline
industry is urging them to
avoid focusing on analysis
at the expense of action.
US government inspectors
have been dispatched to
examine rail cars carrying
crude from the Bakken shale
to determine whether the
cars contain the type and
grade of oil indicated on
shipping papers, the head of
the Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety
Administration said
Thursday.
A new project managed by the
U.S. Endowment for Forestry
and Communities and
supported by a grant from
the Sustainable Forestry
Initiative (SFI) will engage
forest landowners and water
utilities to support
innovative ways to promote
watershed protection and
maintenance on privately
owned forest lands.
Water vapor, also known as
humidity, is Earth’s most
important and abundant
greenhouse gas, says water
and health researcher Sharon
Kleyne...
Kleyne is concerned about Al
Gore’s emphasis on CO2, and
his failure to mention water
vapor as a greenhouse gas,
because her own research has
produced evidence that as
Earth’s climate changes, the
air’s humidity also changes.
Rather than use the
technique for harm, he
reported the flaw to the
Facebook security team.
Unfortunately, the team
ignored his report, and
that’s where things got
interesting.
You might argue that the
Geysers only came on in 1960
and that he is talking about
America, not the world — but
if Italy can run a
geothermal plant that long
there is no reason the U.S.
can't. After all, it is the
same technology. Other than
the accessibility of
geothermal resources,
location is irrelevant.
Would some of their
labels say, “Brewed with
pure Rocky Mountain spring
water, GMO corn syrup, and
fish bladder”?
If you like to kick back
now and then with a cold
one, you may not have given
much thought to what’s in
the bottle or can. Perhaps
you were reassured by ads
with wholesome images of
sparkling mountain streams
and barley rippling in the
breeze, or by slogans like
“Budweiser: The Genuine
Article.”
The reality is far less
appetizing.
-
Coca-Cola Co. has
launched a new ad
campaign to assure
consumers that its no-
or low-calorie beverages
containing the
artificial sweetener
aspartame are a safe
alternative
-
There are no studies
showing the use of diet
drinks for foods lowers
ones weight. In fact,
calorie counting as a
weight loss strategy has
been firmly debunked by
research.
-
It is far more important
to look at the source of
the calories than
counting them. You get
fat because you eat the
wrong kind of calories,
and artificial
sweeteners cannot fool
your body
-
Despite being promoted
for weight loss, foods
and beverages with
artificial sweeteners
have never been proven
to help weight loss. In
fact studies that look
at this actually find
artificial sweeteners
promote weight gain
-
Research has also
demonstrated that
aspartame worsens
insulin sensitivity to a
greater degree than
sugar, which is quite
the blow for diabetics
who obediently follow
the recommendation to
switch to diet sodas to
manage their condition
-
Aspartame has also been
found to cause cancer,
such as leukemia,
lymphoma, and other
tumors, in laboratory
animals
Meatpacking giant Tyson
recently grabbed headlines
when it announced it would
no longer buy and slaughter
cows treated with a
growth-enhancing drug called
Zilmax, made by pharma
behemoth Merck. Tyson made
the move based on "animal
well-being" concerns, it
told its cattle suppliers in
a letter, adding that "there
have been recent instances
of cattle delivered for
processing that have
difficulty walking or are
unable to move."
August 27, 2013
A homeowner in Jefferson
County thwarted three
suspects from stealing his
tools after he held the trio
at gunpoint, freezing them
dead in their tracks until
sheriff's deputies could
arrive to haul them to jail,
Chief Deputy Randy Christian
said.
The state is asking the
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to hold its
potential hearings about the
licensing of Yucca Mountain
as a high level nuclear dump
in Las Vegas.
The state Attorney
General's Office and the
Agency for Nuclear Projects
submitted their request
Friday to the regulatory
commission, which has been
ordered by a federal appeals
court to resume hearings.
A Bitcoin trade group met
with members of the U.S.
Treasury Department’s
Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network, regulators and
law-enforcement officials to
discuss the digital
currency.
Oil from the collision of
two vessels off the coast of
Cebu Province that killed
dozens of people last Friday
is still spreading to nearby
shorelines as government
workers and local residents
struggle to contain it.
The refrigeration units used
in cold transport trailers
are typically powered by
small diesel engines, which
use up non-renewable fuel
and release greenhouse
gases, just like their big
brothers. The US Department
of Energy, however, is
looking into an alternative.
As part of a two-year pilot
project, it’s equipping four
such trailers with
clean-running hydrogen fuel
cells.
Though the first curbside
recycling programs appeared
in the early 1970s, some
North American cities are
still without citywide
residential recycling
programs four decades later.
A dam that has blocked
Maryland’s Patapsco River
for nearly 100 years will be
removed shortly, utilizing a
$3.57 million grant awarded
by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s
Restoration Center to the
nonprofit organization
American Rivers.
In October, 1675 (Just
five months after the start
of the King Philip’s War,
1675-1676) some 500 Nipmucks
from what is now South
Natick were forcibly removed
to Deer Island, a barren
strip of land off Boston
Harbor, as a concentration
camp for Indians (later it
would become a holding area
for Irish immigrants fleeing
the Great Famine (1800s), a
major hospital (1847), a
prison (c. 1882-1988), and
now a wastewater treatment
facility and national park),
was established by the
Massachusetts Council that
same year.
It turns out that all the
bad things commonly
attributed to non-raw
chocolate bars, such as
cavities, weight gain and
diabetes, are actually
caused by the dairy, sugar
and others fillers added
to the dark chocolate.
-
In the documentary Fast
Food Baby, three
families struggle with
feeding their kids an
unhealthy diet and start
the journey toward
healthier eating
-
Many diseases that once
only plagued middle-aged
or older adults,
including obesity, type
2 diabetes, high blood
pressure and even liver
disease, are now
plaguing kids, largely
due to poor diet
-
The best time to shape
your kids' eating habits
is while they're still
young, as kids learn
very quickly to prefer
certain tastes and
textures, and these can
last a lifetime.
-
Offering healthy foods
to your children
regularly is one of the
most important parenting
decisions you can make;
and remember that it can
take up to 15
‘exposures’ before your
child accepts a new
healthy food
-
“Fast Food, Fat Profits”
explores the complex
reasons why so many
Americans are overweight
and sick – and it
largely boils down to an
overreliance on cheap,
highly processed food
-
Many on the most limited
food budgets, such as
those who receive food
assistance dollars, live
in "food deserts" –
areas without grocery
stores, and perhaps only
a convenience store or a
fast-food restaurant
where they can purchase
their food
-
The food system is very
much stacked against
healthy eating … and
healthy people, instead
promoting obesity, heart
disease and diabetes
through a diet reliant
on high fructose corn
syrup, sugar, soy, corn
and grains
-
There’s a revolving door
between the food
industry and the
government, with some
government officials
working for the very
food companies they are
supposed to be
regulating
-
Avoiding processed food
requires a change in
mindset, which is not
always an easy task, but
it can be done
Energy efficiency is vital
to the success of any
off-the-grid homesteading
project. When you try to
make a go of it without the
phony sense of dependability
offered by your local
utility company, power
resources become so precious
that every bit of energy you
waste undermines your
chances of ultimate success.
DTE Energy Company
subsidiary DTE Gas is
providing residential
customers pipeline-quality
natural gas that has been
converted from landfill gas
via a $22 million biomethane
project.
The American leaders seem
to live in a fantasy world
in which America is all
powerful, our definition of
legitimacy is
unchallengeable, and our
right to take risks with the
lives of other people is
unquestioned.
Both Democratic and
Republican leaders (and
their allies in the news
media) seem to have no sense
of the realities facing the
Egyptian military.
A toxic waste spill, the
largest of its kind in North
America, has destroyed a
chunk of landscape in
northern Alberta.
"The substance is the
inky black colour of oil,
and the treetops are brown,"
reported The Globe and
Mail in a recent story.
“Across a broad expanse of
northern Alberta muskeg, the
landscape is dead. It has
been poisoned by a huge
spill of 9.5 million litres
of toxic waste from an oil
and gas operation in
northern Alberta, the third
major leak in a region whose
residents are now
questioning whether enough
is being done to maintain
aging energy
infrastructure."
Serious Republican
conservatives finally
understand that we must rein
in the NSA and correct the
abuses which have been
exposed by Edward Snowden
and by news reporting ever
since. These hawks -- men
like Senators Lindsay Graham
(R-SC) and Jim Inhofe
(R-Okla) -- know that we
need the NSA to continue to
be effective in countering
terrorism but that, to
preserve that mandate in a
democracy, it has to be
restrained and reformed.
The operator of Japan's
wrecked Fukushima nuclear
plant was careless in
monitoring tanks storing
dangerously radioactive
water, the nuclear regulator
said on Friday, the latest
development in a crisis no
one seems to know how to
contain.
One of the smallest
animals around poses one of
the largest problems for
electric companies.
Squirrels, typically
docile and harmless, are the
exact opposite when it comes
to their effects to utility
companies across the nation
-- and in Kinston.
A recent study, published
in Environmental Science and
Technology journal and
funded by NASA Carbon Cycle
& Ecosystems, the National
Foundation’s Long Term
Ecological Research Program,
and The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation reported that
human activity is a major
factor behind acid rain and
alkalinization of 97
different waterways along
the east coast.
Alkalinity is a measure
of water's ability to
neutralize acid. In excess,
it can cause ammonia
toxicity and algal blooms,
altering water quality and
harming aquatic life.
Increasing alkalinity
hardens drinking water,
causing pipe scaling and
costly infrastructure
problems. And, perhaps most
alarming, it exacerbates the
salinization of fresh water.
Coal continues to be
squeezed by cheap gas, weak
power demand, ever-tougher
environmental standards and
markets that often don't
adequately reward fuel
diversity or capacity needs.
Milan's stock exchange has
closed sharply lower amid
heightened concerns about a
government crisis following
Silvio Berlusconi's
definitive conviction for
tax fraud.
By now, this shouldn't be
a surprise. The National
Security Agency spied on the
internal videoconferencing
system used by United
Nations officials by
decrypting it last year,
according to German magazine
Der Spiegel.
The disclosure came from
documents leaked by Edward
Snowden...
They call it Fly Ash Flu.
It's the name some
workers at the Kingston ash
spill site gave health woes
they say they incurred from
prolonged exposure to a
witch's brew of toxic
substances in coal ash.
Andrea Rossi’s e-cat low
energy nuclear reaction
(LENR) device is undergoing
extended testing in the
United States, the inventor
revealed. Rossi didn’t say
where in the USA the testing
was being done or who was
conducting the tests. He did
state that no information
about the tests will be
released until they are
completed. Three e-cat units
were shipped to the U.S. in
April.
"With more than 1,500 wells
in the backlog, if all wells
in the backlog were brought
online within a year,
production growth could
exceed the growth
experienced in 2012,"
Barclays analyst Shiyang
Wang said in a note to
clients.
Wang said she
expects production from the
Utica and Marcellus shales
to grow another 46%, 3.6
Bcf/d, this year to 11.44
Bcf/d and another 29%, 3.3
Bcf/d, in 2014.
In the aftermath of a heart
attack, cells within the
region most affected shut
down. They stop beating. And
they become entombed in scar
tissue. But now, scientists
at the Gladstone Institutes
have demonstrated that this
damage need not be permanent
-- by finding a way to
transform the class of cells
that form human scar tissue
into those that closely
resemble beating heart
cells.
Amid ongoing U.S. government
mass surveillance claims,
the DHS and FBI are more
aware than ever of its use
of the Android platform, and
the vulnerabilities that go
with it.
Researchers at MIT have come
up with a new design for a
rechargeable flow battery
that does away with the
expensive and ineffective
membrane of previous
designs. The device could
prove the ideal solution for
effectively storing energy
from intermittent power
sources such as solar and
wind power.
NASA will be putting another
eye on potentially dangerous
asteroids in September when
it reactivates the retired
Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE). The space
telescope, which was
deactivated in 2011, will
use its infrared instruments
to carry out a survey of
near-Earth asteroids that
may pose a threat to our
planet.
-
Although touted as
superior, new 3D
mammograms
(tomosynthesis) appear
to have no diagnostic
advantage over standard
mammograms, and pose a
much higher risk
-
Tomosynthesis exposes
you to two to three
times the radiation
because it is typically
done in addition to your
standard mammogram; it
also involves breast
compression, which gives
tumor cells an
opportunity to spread
-
Due to the higher
radiation exposure,
tomosynthesis presents
an even greater cancer
risk for dense-breasted
women, whose breast
cancer risk is already
four to six times higher
than average
-
A recent study found
that eliminating
unnecessary CT scans for
children would prevent
3,020 children from
developing
radiation-induced
cancers each year
-
Another study found that
95 percent of childhood
cancer survivors develop
chronic health problems
as adults, compared to
about 38 percent of
adults in the general
population
The operator of Japan's
crippled Fukushima nuclear
plant said on Thursday new
spots of high radiation had
been found near storage
tanks holding highly
contaminated water, raising
fear of fresh leaks as the
disaster goes from bad to
worse.
A new study in California
found bisphenol A in all
samples of umbilical cord
blood obtained from pregnant
women, suggesting universal
fetal exposure. More than
one-third of the samples had
levels comparable to or
higher than levels
associated with health
effects in animals.
Not only do buildings
consume 40 percent of the
country's energy, but they
use vast amounts of another
precious resource -- water.
Buildings with cooling
towers typically use 28
percent of their daily water
for cooling. As drought
conditions persist across
many parts of the country, a
new suite of tools could
help utilities save U.S.
commercial facilities save
up to 28 billion gallons of
water annually and reduce
water demand by 14 to 40
percent.
Most of us are good
citizens. And yet. What if
the government is listening
in, or watching, or
scanning, and some algorithm
triggers an investigation
and some quota-happy g-man
decides to make one of us a
pet project?
Radiation levels in Tokyo
are no different from those
of other major world cities
and the worsening crisis at
Japan's Fukushima nuclear
plant should have no impact
on the city's bid to host
the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo's
governor said on Friday.
Unlike electric facilities
that run on coal and natural
gas, nuclear energy plants
will never run out of fuel.
Indeed the uranium to power
those plants is abundant and
relatively clean when
burned. But that will soon
change.
The public comment period
for the Department of
Interior Bureau of Land
Management's (BLM) second
version of its Proposed "Oil
and Gas; Hydraulic
Fracturing on Federal and
Indian Lands" rule, which
apply to more than 750
million acres of public
lands and minerals, is now
closed and the Obama
Administration has received
nearly 1 million comments
from passionate people
across the country -- the
bulk of which ask Obama to
stop fracking on public
lands.
Pilgrim Nuclear Power
Station remained offline
Friday after an emergency
manual shutdown Thursday
morning. A tripped breaker
on Thursday cut off power to
pumps supplying water to aid
in the cooling of the
reactor, spurring the
shutdown.
A few years ago, Jim Vich
would not have dreamed of
setting up an elaborate trap
to catch wild hogs.
But that was before
Oklahoma was invaded by a
plague of pigs that devour
crops, uproot pastures,
destroy wildlife habitats,
spread disease to humans and
animals, kill trees and even
knock over cemetery stones.
If there’s one theme
that seems to run through
many of our articles on
Off the Grid News, it’s
that there is no blanket,
one-size-fits-all
preparedness checklist that
fits everyone’s need. Some
of you are city dwellers,
and if things get tough, you
really need a bug-out
location to go to. Your
storage capacity is limited
and your homesteading
capabilities are fairly
non-existent.
As a lobbyist in New York's
statehouse, Stephen Acquario
is doing pretty well. He
pulls down $204,000 a year,
more than the governor
makes, gets a Ford Explorer
as his company car and is
afforded another
special perk:
Even though he's not a
government employee, he is
entitled to a full
state pension.
Researchers at Northwestern
University have discovered
new ways of utilizing the
properties of naturally
occurring polyphenols found
in green tea, red wine and
dark chocolate. Dissolving
polyphenol powders in water
with a small amount of salt
instantly produces
transparent coatings that
kill bacteria on contact,
have antioxidant qualities
and are non-toxic. The
sticky nature of polyphenols
and the low cost of
materials could open the
door to a wide range of uses
for these coatings.
The 7.48 maf release is the
lowest since the filling of
Lake Powell in the 1960s,
Reclamation said, and is
expected to cause Lake Mead
to decrease an additional
eight feet during 2014.
Those who are
responsible for permitting
site specific or linear
facilities are well aware
that, in today's environment
of regulatory requirements,
polarized politics and
litigation, citizen
opposition to proposed
projects can be daunting.
Determined citizens have
successful track records of
delaying projects, driving
up costs, and blocking
projects that are
technically sound and
necessary. To relegate the
causes of citizen opposition
to a few selfish people who
do not want the project in
their backyards is to miss
the crux of grassroots
citizen activism, as China
has just recognized with a
major policy announcement.
Indiana regulators approved
a plan for Indianapolis
Power & Light Co. to invest
$511 million in pollution
controls at its Petersburg
and Harding Street
coal-fired power plants. The
controls are expected to
reduce mercury emissions by
80 percent at both plants.
Renewable energy projects
accounted for nearly 50
percent of new capacity in
the U.S. in 2012, according
to a report released this
week from Ernst & Young LLP.
That includes a record
13,124 MW of wind power
capacity and 3,313 MW of
solar power capacity.
The report states that
$44.2 billion was invested
in clean energy...
By 2025, wind and solar
electricity generation could
become cost competitive
without federal subsidies,
according to a new
Department of Energy study
conducted by the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL). That is, if new
renewable energy development
occurs in the most
productive locations.
Solar activity has been at
very low levels for the past
24
hours. There are
currently 3 numbered sunspot
regions on the disk.
CONTINUED ALERT: Electron
2MeV Integral Flux exceeded
1000pfu. No 245 MHz
Noise Storms Observed.
Assad's allies say military
move would have serious
consequences as West weighs
punishment for alleged gas
attack.
Russia and Iran have given
fresh warning to the United
States and its allies
against a military
intervention in Syria.
The California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC)
has mandated that utilities
throughout the state
increase their use of energy
storage technologies,
spurring thermal energy
projects across Southern
California.
Here we go again.
While the early part of the
US Midwest summer has been
fairly benign for crops,
farmers' luck has run out in
late August. The central
part of the US is
experiencing a broad heat
wave, putting a number of
crops at risk.
Speculative money has
become visibly short rate
products. As discussed this
week there still seems to be
a broad bearish sentiment on
treasuries - in spite of the
massive selloff. The charts
below show speculative net
positions in LIBOR futures
("ED") and the 10yr note
futures ("10s").
New research demonstrates
that triggering an
out-of-body experience (OBE)
could be as simple as
getting a person to watch a
video of themselves with
their heartbeat projected
onto it. According to the
study, it's easy to trick
the mind into thinking it
belongs to an external body
and manipulate a person's
self-consciousness by
externalizing the body's
internal rhythms.
Wouldn't it be great to have
abundant, clean power that
doesn't contribute to
climate change? That is the
promise of fusion power.
Practical fusion power
remains elusive, but
advances in creating
self-sustaining fusion
reactions and harnessing its
power continue to occur
There are a few other
examples of foods that
keep–indefinitely–in their
raw state: salt, sugar,
dried rice are a few. But
there’s something about
honey; it can remain
preserved in a completely
edible form, and while you
wouldn’t want to chow down
on raw rice or straight
salt, one could ostensibly
dip into a thousand year old
jar of honey and enjoy it,
without preparation, as if
it were a day old. Moreover,
honey’s longevity lends it
other properties–mainly
medicinal–that other
resilient foods don’t have.
Which raises the
question–what exactly makes
honey such a special food?
The Vikings “discovered”
Canada in the same way that
Christopher Columbus
“discovered” America and the
British “discovered”
Australia—that is, not at
all. Depending, of course,
on your point of view. Much
of the history you probably
know is crafted from a
strictly European point of
view, so from that
perspective, all of these
wild lands were conquered by
valiant European explorers
and sailors. But from a less
Euro-centric version of
history, one that treats all
humans equally and doesn’t
totally ignore the existence
of a wide range of advanced
cultures, Europeans actually
didn’t do all that much
discovering.
Researchers have finally
found out why the jade-green
cup appears red when lit
from behind
The Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA) board of
directors has approved a
$10.5 billion fiscal year
2014 budget and a 1.5
percent retail rate increase
-- the first in two years.
The rate adjustment will add
about $1.50 to the monthly
power bill of a residential
consumer using 1,000
kilowatt-hours of
electricity.
Discussing the matter in a
40 minute phone call on
Saturday night, President
Barack Obama and British
Prime Minister David Cameron
agreed in principle to start
attacking Syria within the
next two weeks. France, long
calling for such a war, is
also reportedly in on the
idea.
In a letter filed with
Interior late Friday, six
Democrats, including
Representative Peter
DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat
and the committee's ranking
member, took aim at what
they see as weak rules on
chemical disclosure and well
safety for fracking on
federal and Indian lands.
Tobacco packaging warning
messages have recently been
required on cigarettes and
other tobacco products in
many countries worldwide in
an effort to enhance the
public's awareness of the
harmful effects of smoking.
In a similar fashion, a
Canadian campaign is calling
for all gasoline pumps to
have warming labels on
nozzles to inform consumers
on the effects fuels have on
climate change.
Scientists have reportedly
told locals that the
sinkhole will continue to
grow for years, as it
reaches its final shape and
size. The sinkhole
was probably caused by
extensive mining in the
area, according to
Mike Ludwig from Truthout:
-
Organic egg farmer Alvin
Schlangen was found
guilty of five criminal
misdemeanor chargers for
providing and delivering
foods, including raw
milk, to private buying
club members; he was
fined $300 and faces one
year probation
-
He was charged with
similar charges in
September 2012 but was
found not guilty
-
Another small farmer,
Michael Hartmann, is
being accused of selling
raw milk that led to an
outbreak of E. coli in
Minnesota in 2010, even
though state officials
never found the bacteria
in any of Hartmann’s
products
-
The war against raw milk
and other small farmers
is an issue of
government and big
business trying to
interfere with your
right to access pure
food from the producers
of your choice
At nearly 200 square
miles, the massive fire is
swallowing everything in its
path, threatening more than
4,500 homes, buildings and
campsites and burning more
than 125,000 acres.
On Saturday night,
officials in San Francisco
were monitoring the
situation closely.
August 23, 2013
A Video news perspective
worth viewing.
We believe that EIA's
estimates in past issues of
the "Annual Energy Outlook"
for future electrical
generation from renewable
energy sources in the
near- and mid-term
have been unreasonably low
and have not been borne out
by actual experience.
Arizonans for Electric
Choice & Competition (AECC)
members and retail
competition advocates Direct
Energy, Noble Americas
Energy Solutions and
Constellation NewEnergy have
filed comments with the
Arizona Corporation
Commission (ACC) urging the
commission to move forward
with opening Arizona's
electricity markets to
competitive suppliers.
Arizona Attorney General Tom
Horne and Secretary of State
Ken Bennett have joined
forces with the state of
Kansas in suing the
Elections Assistance
Commission (EAC).
“Banks are in a precarious
reputational position with
consumer confidence low,
accountholder trust high and
fraud attacks on the rise in
the United States”
It almost goes without
saying that our children
blindly follow our example
as parents. Even more
weighty than that is the
reality that they also trust
us...almost without
question.
This
un-ignorable fact of
parenthood has forced me to
ask myself a hard question:
Am I worthy of the trust
of my family?
The shortest description
of the Hyperloop is Musk's
own bon mot: "It's
a cross between a Concorde,
a rail gun, and an air
hockey table."
A slightly more complete
description of the concept
is that of an elevated,
reduced-pressure tube that
contains pressurized
capsules driven within the
tube by a number of linear
electric motors. These
capsules move with very
little friction or drag
owing to air bearings that
ride on the inner surface of
the tube, and a combination
of active and passive means
to reduce the negative
effects of choked airflow on
the transportation system.
California is currently
implementing a broad range
of costly and often
conflicting regulatory
programs with little
discussion among
policymakers about the
cumulative impact of these
actions and having
unintended consequences.
That is the contention of a
newly formed group of
statewide associations,
local business groups,
elected officials, and
industry leaders calling
themselves Californians for
Affordable & Reliable Energy
(CARE).
With a fatal injury rate of
27.1 per 100,000 workers in
2012, the category of refuse
and recyclable material
collectors ranked just
behind structural iron and
steel workers and just ahead
of electrical power line
installers and repairs, the
federal government said.
A recent report prepared
under a contract for the
Pentagon by the Nuclear
Proliferation Prevention
Project (NPPP) contends that
nuclear facilities across
the United States are
woefully unprepared for
credible terrorist attacks.
To the contrary, the U.S.
Federal Bureau of
Investigation, U.S.
Department of Homeland
Security and the Progressive
Policy Institute hail
nuclear power plants as the
best-defended and secure
facilities among the
nation's critical
infrastructure.
A three-judge panel for the
3rd Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled today two plaintiffs
can file a lawsuit over
pollution from a power plant
even if the plant is
compliant with the Clean Air
Act, stating the act serves
as “a regulatory floor”
rather than a ceiling and is
meant to impose minimum
standards only.
Data from a
government-sponsored survey
indicates that psychedelic
drugs like LSD, magic
mushrooms, and peyote do not
increase a person’s risk of
developing mental health
problems.
“Everything has some
potential for negative
effects, but psychedelic use
is overall considered to
pose a very low risk to the
individual and to society,”
...
What's killing the East
Coast dolphins?
The carcasses of dozens of
the marine mammals, seven
times more than normal, have
been washing up on beaches
this summer, and scientists
are struggling for answers
to the die-off.
On March 15, 2013, at 2:54
a.m. EDT, the sun erupted
with an Earth-directed
coronal mass ejection (CME),
a solar phenomenon that can
send billions of tons of
solar particles into space
and can reach Earth one to
three days later and affect
electronic systems in
satellites and on the
ground. [Just isn't "large"]
Environmental economists
have identified August 20 as
“Earth Overshoot Day,” the
day when humanity has
consumed as much renewable
natural resources as the
planet can regenerate in one
year.
The energy industry is
facing an imminent shortage
of executive talent as well
as a lack of employees with
the required competencies
needed to compete in the
global marketplace. This is
what a national survey of
executives in the oil and
gas industry conducted by
The Alexander Group reveals.
Water and energy
conservation are two of the
biggest challenges for
businesses in a modern world
of shrinking resources,
tighter government
regulations, and a steady
increase in global
population.
Today investors
focused on the broad support
for tapering in the July
FOMC minutes, driving
treasury yields sharply
higher.
Environmental groups rallied
today ahead of a Florida
State Senate Select
Committee public meeting,
demanding that government
act to stop toxic algae
slimes that are sickening
people and killing dolphins,
manatees, birds and fish in
two areas of the state.
The operator of Japan's
crippled Fukushima nuclear
plant said on Monday two
workers were found to be
contaminated with
radioactive particles, the
second such incident in a
week involving staff outside
the site's main operations
center.
Should the United States
look to Europe to determine
whether progressive
renewable energy policies
are worth pursuing?
Government subsidies there
are playing a big part, all
in an effort to help the
continent reach its goal of
increasing its renewable
generation mix from 7
percent today to 20 percent
by 2020.
Below is a graph
showing the performance of
the S&P Developed Broad
Market Index (BMI). It
represents stocks of some 26
developed markets around the
world. Just like the S&P500
in the US - though not to
the same extent - the index
has had a tremendous rally
since the beginning of 2009.
When enough raindrops fall
over land instead of the
ocean, they begin to add up.
The power locked up in the
tide-wave that surges round
the earth every day, powered
by earth-moon orbital
interaction, is massive.
This ‘tide-wave’ is
unrelated to a so-called
tidal wave or tsunami that
results from a seismic
disturbance – rather we're
talking energy-generation
power.
Somewhere, right now,
hundreds of Big Pharma lab
techs are downing their
sixth cup of coffee for the
day, working sunup to
sundown with the same
trillion-dollar dream --
they want to be first to
develop a pill that cures
cancer.
But
according to a shocking new
study from Seattle,
something far more sinister
may have emerged from some
of those Big Pharma labs...
those very same techs may
have brought every woman's
worst nightmare to life.
Solarcentury seems to get
that. It intends to turn its
solar farms into wildlife
sanctuaries in which
bumblebees, butterflies, and
other insects can thrive.
This is especially important
due to the dwindling bee
population. It has already
started converting its solar
farms into wildlife
sanctuaries. However, it
recently decided to
accommodate bees and
butterflies.
India's solar sector is
witnessing a fierce battle
among states to set records
in solar energy production.
Japan's nuclear watchdog
said on Wednesday it is
concerned that more storage
tanks at the wrecked
Fukushima nuclear plant will
spring leaks, following the
discovery that highly
contaminated water is
leaking from one of the
hastily built containers.
Japan's nuclear crisis
escalated to its worst level
since a massive earthquake
and tsunami crippled the
Fukushima plant more than
two years ago, with the
country's nuclear watchdog
saying it feared more
storage tanks were leaking
contaminated water.
Japan will raise the
severity rating of a recent
toxic water leak at the
destroyed Fukushima nuclear
plant to level 3, or
"serious incident", on an
international scale for
radiological releases,
underlining the deepening
sense of crisis at the site.
The nation's big
coal-burning power plants
are not ready to become
dinosaurs.
Utilities are making
substantial investments to
keep their largest coal
generating stations
operating for decades - and
emitting millions of tons of
carbon dioxide annually.
I
don’t see any major
Geomagnetic storms
occurring.
The
maximum “Kp” index is 5 over
the next 3 days. That
corresponds to a “G1” NOAA
scale which is a minor
storm. We have been having
them all the time, with no
major impact other then
light shows.
Maryland’s state motto is
“Strong Deeds, Gentle
Words.”
Last week, the state’s farms
got a taste of what that
means: On Tuesday, Maryland
implemented a ban to end the
use of an arsenic additive
commonly included in chicken
feed, making it the first
state ever to do so.
Monsoon rains reinforced
by a tropical storm flooded
half the Philippine capital
in just 24 hours, triggering
landslides and killing at
least seven people,
officials said on Tuesday.
At least 40,000 people
sought shelter in government
evacuation centers across
the main island of Luzon and
more than double that number
moved to relatives' or
friends' homes for safety as
schools and government
offices shut for a second
day.
A homeowner
in Northeast Montgomery
County fatally shot an
ax-wielding man in the
shooter’s yard late Friday
night, according to the
Montgomery County Sheriff’s
Office.
No charges
have been filed
against the
35-year-old
homeowner.
On Feb. 9, the temperature
in Boston dipped 15 degrees
below freezing. Much of New
England was under the white
embrace of a brutal
nor'easter, and electric
utilities and gas companies
struggled to keep their
power lines pumping heat and
light.
Abraham Lincoln said you
can't fool all of the people
all of the time. But I'd
like to think that if ol'
Abe was still around filling
out that old stovepipe hat
of his, he'd have this pearl
of wisdom for those soulless
food conglomerates trying to
shove genetically modified
(GM) food down our throats:
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip
said, ‘The underlying issue
is groundwater is completely
unregulated and companies
can come in and lay the
groundwork for the
privatization of fresh
water. At this point we’re
saying we take issue with
what’s happened and we’re
serving notice’.
San Francisco City Attorney
Dennis Herrera is demanding
that Nevada reimburse
California cities and
counties for treatment of
about 500 indigent
psychiatric patients who
were given one-way bus
tickets to the Golden State
in recent years.
A drug known as SR9009,
which is currently under
development at The Scripps
Research Institute (TSRI),
increases the level of
metabolic activity in
skeletal muscles of mice.
Treated mice become lean,
develop larger muscles and
can run much longer
distances simply by taking
SR9009, which mimics the
effects of aerobic exercise.
If similar effects can be
obtained in people, the
reversal of obesity,
metabolic syndrome, and
perhaps Type-II diabetes
might be the very welcome
result
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation
Authority now says a leak of
radioactive water from a
tank at the damaged
Fukushima Daiichi plant
Monday is a “serious
incident” not just an
“anomaly” as it was
originally classified on an
international scale.
The High-Altitude Water
Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma Ray
Observatory has begun formal
operations at its site in
Mexico. HAWC is designed to
study the origin of very
high-energy cosmic rays and
observe the most energetic
objects in the known
universe
From his house on the banks
of the North River, state
Rep. John Keenan can see the
sun rise over the tall
stacks of Salem Harbor
Station, the coal- and
oil-burning power plant.
The same Minnesota farmer
acquitted in Minneapolis
this past December for raw
milk-related violations was
convicted last week in St.
Cloud for a related list of
offenses. Alvin Schlangen of
Freeport and his Freedom
Farms Co-op did not fare
anywhere near as well in his
home county last week as he
did in the big city last
winter.
The federal government
has been underpricing its
coal in southeastern
Montana's Powder River Basin
for decades, and it's time
to stop the giveaway to the
coal industry, a pair of
experts said Wednesday.
"The government was
supposed to drive the (coal)
leasing program that would
maximize return (for the
public)," said Mark
Squillace, director of the
Natural Resources Law Center
at the University of
Colorado. "Instead, the
process is driven by the
coal industry.
We now have a
confirmation that US housing
demand in July was boosted
by fear of higher rates.
July existing home sales
spiked to a new
post-recession high.
Yesterday, a coalition of
276 environmental and
consumer groups descended
upon Lafayette Square,
calling upon President Obama
and the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) to ban
fracking on federal lands.
According to a report
released by the Natural
Resources Defense Council
(NRDC) last year, 40 percent
of food in the United States
goes uneaten. Americans
throw away about US$165
billion worth of food each
year—or about 9 kilograms of
food per person each
month—which then ends up in
landfills, where it accounts
for about a quarter of U.S.
methane emissions.
C4 event observed.
There are currently 9
numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (23
Aug), unsettled to minor
storm levels on day two (24
Aug) and quiet to minor
storm levels on day three
(25 Aug).
La Nina changed rainfall
patterns all over our
planet, moving huge amounts
of Earth's water from the
ocean to the continents. The
phenomenon was short-lived,
however.
By mid-2012, global mean
sea level had resumed its
long-term mean annual rise
of 0.13 inches (3.2
millimeters) per yea
A leading seismologist
has linked the process of
shale gas fracking with more
than 100 earthquakes that
blighted a city in the US
Midwest within the space of
just 12 months.
Since records began in
1776, the Ohio city of
Youngstown had never
experienced a single
earthquake, until a deep
injection well was built to
pump waste-water produced by
fracking in neighboring
Pennsylvania.
Hold on. We are about to get
a blast from outer space,
literally. The sun has
released super-heated
particles that are expected
to hit earth by Friday. They
are called geomagnetic
disturbances that can
destroy satellites and power
grids.
Syria's main opposition
group accused the government
of "massacring" more than
1,300 people in chemical
weapons attacks near
Damascus, as the UN Security
Council called for "clarity"
and expressed "strong
concern" over the
allegations.
-
Happiness cannot be
achieved by attaining
certain goals or
amassing wealth; true
happiness is a state of
mind
-
If you want to be truly
happy, you’ve got to
look to yourself because
true happiness comes
from within
-
Comparing yourself to
others, listening to
negative people,
forgetting to be
grateful and not acting
on your dreams are
examples of “sin” that
get in the way of
happiness
Emerging markets
currencies are getting
hammered across the board
today on the back of the
FOMC minutes. Many are
touching multi-year or even
all-time lows. Here are some
examples of the dollar
strengthening against some
major EMG currencies:
Deployment of clean energy
technology continues to rise
in the United States, with
renewables accounting for
nearly 50 percent of added
capacity, according to Ernst
& Young. But some states are
more attractive than others
when it comes to investing
in clean technology.
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture's (USDA) is
making investments of more
than $21 million into energy
projects nationwide to help
agricultural producers and
rural small businesses
reduce their energy
consumption and costs, use
renewable energy
technologies in their
operations and/or conduct
feasibility studies for
renewable energy projects.
- Existing home sales
in the US jumped to 5.39
million annualized units
in July 2013 from June’s
revised 5.06 million
sales (initially
reported as 5.08
million). Market
expectations going into
the report had been for
sales of 5.15 million
annualized units.
- The month’s supply
of unsold homes held
steady at 5.1 in the
month and remained well
below the historical
average of 6.4 months as
tight supply conditions
in the resale market
persist.
- The median price of
existing homes increased
13.7% on a
year-over-year basis,
which was the fastest
pace of annual price
growth since October
2005.
The Federal Open
Market Committee (FOMC)
members viewed the
information received during
the period since the June
2013 FOMC meeting as
suggesting that economic
activity had expanded at a
modest pace. There was also
the acknowledgement that
“labour market conditions
showed further improvement
in recent months” although
with the caveat that the
unemployment rate remained
“elevated.”
As the wind power industry
matures, wind forecasting
technologies are becoming
critical to integrating
greater amounts of variable
wind energy into the grid.
Currently meteorological
towers, or met towers, are
the predominant forecasting
solution, but these towers
will increasingly give way
to remote sensing devices,
such as sound detection and
ranging (sodar) and light
detection and ranging
(lidar) systems, according
to Navigant Research.
August 20, 2013
“Choosing snacks that are
rich in healthy fat and
fiber helps keep craving at
bay so you’ll actually eat
less at meals,” says
Orlando-based nutritionist
Tara Gidus. “About five
minutes after fat enters the
stomach, a hormone called
enterogastrone is released,
causing it to empty at a
much slower rate. Thus you
feel fuller, longer.
-
The US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) is
warning that
acetaminophen (Tylenol)
products may cause three
serious skin reactions,
two of which typically
require hospitalization
and can be fatal
-
The most serious skin
reactions linked to
acetaminophen are
Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
(SJS) and Toxic
Epidermal Necrolysis
(TENS), both of which
often start with
flu-like symptoms and
can cause the top layer
of your skin to slough
off, exposing you to a
serious risk of fatal
infections
-
The skin reactions can
occur at any time after
taking acetaminophen,
even if you’ve taken the
drugs with no issue in
the past
-
Other drugs, including
NSAIDs, penicillins and
anticonvulsants are also
linked to potentially
fatal skin reactions
-
Acetaminophen-containing
products are also the
number one cause of
liver failure in the US
Analysis of an ice core
taken by the National
Science Foundation- (NSF)
funded West Antarctic Ice
Sheet (WAIS) Divide drilling
project reveals that warming
in Antarctica began about
22,000 years ago, a few
thousand years earlier than
suggested by previous
records.
This timing shows that
West Antarctica did not
"wait for a cue" from the
Northern Hemisphere to start
warming, as scientists had
previously supposed.
Research at the University
of Sheffield, published in
the latest issue of
Water Science and
Technology: Water Supply,
points the way to more
sophisticated and targeted
methods of ensuring our
drinking water remains safe
to drink, while still
reducing the need for
chemical treatments and
identifying potential
hazards more quickly.
There were many pioneers who
pushed recycling forward.
Here is a small sample of
those who helped advance the
movement.
CIA admits role in 1953
Iranian coup
The CIA
has publicly admitted for
the first time that it was
behind the notorious 1953
coup against Iran's
democratically elected prime
minister Mohammad Mosaddeq,
in documents that also show
how the British government
tried to block the release
of information about its own
involvement in his
overthrow.
The process of compiling
this report - with several
hundred scientists, 195
governments and over 100
non-governmental
organisations involved - has
been particularly leaky,
with at least three
confidential drafts being
made public in the last
year.
Astronomers have discovered
a 'magnetar' at the center
of our Milky Way. A
'magnetar' is a type of
neutron star with an
extremely powerful magnetic
field. They produce
high-energy electromagnetic
radiation - particularly
cosmic rays and gamma rays.
This pulsating magnetar has
an extremely strong magnetic
field enabling researchers
to investigate the direct
vicinity of the black hole
at the heart of the Milky
Way galaxy.
A Cairo court yesterday
ordered former President
Hosni Mubarak’s release from
prison, and militants in
Sinai killed 26 police
officers as the death toll
from six days of unrest in
Egypt approached 1,000.
The Cairo criminal
court’s order to free
Mubarak, who was toppled in
2011, threatens to inject
new tensions in the standoff
between the Muslim
Brotherhood and the
military-supported interim
government.
The key event in the history
of human genetic science was
to be nurtured with
financial and political
support from the tobacco
industry. Between 1960 and
1998 the tobacco industry
furnished around 1,000
British and U.S. genetic
researchers with an
estimated 370 million
research dollars[1]. The
industry aim was to grow
human genetics into the
cornerstone of a scientific
tobacco PR strategy to
portray lung cancer as
originating in genetic
weakness and not cigarettes.
-
Low levels of the
omega-3 fat DHA were
associated with poorer
reading, memory and
behavioral problems in
healthy school-aged
children
-
Children who consumed an
omega-3 fat supplement
as infants scored higher
on rule learning,
vocabulary and
intelligence testing at
ages 3-5
-
Previous studies have
also found children with
attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD) and related
behavior/learning
disabilities are more
likely to have low
omega-3 fat levels, as
well as benefit from
supplementation
-
I recommend
supplementing with
animal-based omega-3
fats like krill oil
before and during
pregnancy, and while
breastfeeding (infants
receive DHA through
breast milk); as soon as
your child can safely
swallow a capsule, he or
she can start taking a
high-quality,
animal-based omega-3
supplement
To protect bees and other
pollinators, the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency has developed new
pesticide labels that
prohibit use of some
neonicotinoid pesticide
products where bees are
present. Environmentalists
want the agency to take
these pesticides off the
market.
European forests are showing
signs of reaching a
saturation point as carbon
sinks, a study has
suggested.
Since 2005, the amount of
atmospheric CO2 absorbed by
the continent's trees has
been slowing, researchers
reported.
Large-scale infrastructure
projects will be prioritized
with extreme weather and
climate change in mind,
according to a new report
issued this morning by the
federal Department of
Housing and Urban
Development.
Gunmen shot dead a secular
female politician from
Pakistan’s troubled
northwest after breaking
into her home at night,
police said yesterday.
Najma Hanif, 35, was a
senior member of the Awami
National Pary (ANP) which is
known for its outspoken
views against the Taliban
and backed military
operations against the
insurgents while it ruled
the restive Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province.
Scary isn’t it?
Without any gold in Fort
Knox, the United States has
nothing backing the dollar
but faith.
Here’s
what Wall Street Daily
analysts have confirmed…
The U.S. government has
NOT
done a public audit of the
gold in Fort Knox since
1974. Policymakers have
ignored all requests for a
new audit, too.
Just weeks after the utility
backtracked from earlier
statements and acknowledged
radiated water was flowing
into the Pacific Ocean at a
rate of 300 tons a day, it
has found another leak from
a storage tank.
One of the reasons for
the slow US recovery has
been weaker than usual
government spending. The
weakness started with fiscal
consolidation at the state
and local level, driven by
sharp declines in tax
revenues. The negative
impact on the economy is now
more pronounced at the
federal level. In previous
recoveries government
expenditures provided
cushion to the economy,
while in this recovery the
net impact of government
activity creates a drag. Of
course the recent tax
increases have not been
helpful either.
The partner of the Guardian
journalist who has written a
series of stories revealing
mass surveillance programmes
by the US National Security
Agency was held for almost
nine hours on Sunday by UK
authorities as he passed
through London's Heathrow
airport on his way home to
Rio de Janeiro.
(NaturalNews) More and more,
our collective activism is
reshaping the world economy
to punish criminal
corporations and demand
transparency on topics like
GMOs, drug patents, animal
cruelty and more. And we are
winning on every front!
This past week saw a
flurry of news where big
corporations like Merck and
Monsanto were handed
groundbreaking defeats
thanks to consumer activism.
When the SHTF, what will you
do when you cannot call the
fire department? Thwarting a
roaring blaze from
swallowing up you home and
carefully stored preps is
one of the least discussed
preparedness plans we should
be making. During a recent
Off The Grid News
radio show, Brian Brawdy and
I talked about the very real
fire dangers should a solar
flare or EMP attack take
down the power grid.
By 2050, the UN expects that
there will be almost 10
billion people on the Earth.
This poses some serious
practical questions, not
least among which is how
we'll put food into 2.5
billion or so extra tummies
(especially given that we
don't adequately fill all of
the 7-plus billion we
already have). If you're yet
to hear alarming phrases
like "food security" and
"sustainable
intensification" you've
probably been living under a
rock.
I have just filed the
FIRST class action law suits
against Barack Hussein Obama
to stop his mad NSA spy
scheme that's targeting YOU
and your family right now
While there is still
some debate about the degree
to which higher rates are
impacting housing demand,
there is no question about
the drop off in refinancing
activity. The refinance
applications index is down
60% from a year ago. The
(poorly designed) chart
below from MND shows the
refinance index and the 30yr
mortgage rates.
Scientists have discovered a
vast plume of iron and other
micronutrients more than
1,000 km long billowing from
hydrothermal vents in the
South Atlantic Ocean. The
finding, soon to be
published in the journal
Nature Geoscience, calls
past estimates of iron
abundances into question,
and may challenge
researchers’ assumptions
about iron sources in the
world’s seas.
On a calm winter's day in
Norway two years ago, the
sea suddenly started to boil
and rise, sending freak
waves rolling onto nearby
shores and mystifying
residents. Turns out, the
massive magnitude-9.0
earthquake that shook Japan
in 2011 also triggered these
surprise seiche waves, a new
study shows.
The Pennsylvania Public
Utility Commission (PUC) is
weighing two settlements
with two electric generation
suppliers (EGS) over
informal investigations into
alleged suspect marketing
practices.
Pennsylvania and New
York State may border each
other but they are a
thousand miles apart in
terms of their philosophies
about hydraulic fracturing.
Pennsylvania has been
plowing ahead and has become
one the nation’s leading
natural gas producers while
New York is still debating
whether to ease its ban on
fracking.
"Our focus is not on how
little waste we create
rather focus on all the time
and money we have saved by
not buying stuff that just
gets thrown out," Shawn
Williamson said in an email
to WRN. "It's all a matter
of smart design and
education."
Regulators filed the two
complaints August 16 in Wake
and Mecklenburg counties
seeking a state Superior
Court order to require the
utility to address
groundwater and wastewater
violations at 12 sites the
utility uses to store coal
ash residuals.
C2 event observed.
There are currently 10
numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. Solar activity is
expected to be low with a
chance for M-class flares on
days one, two, and three (20
Aug, 21 Aug, 22 Aug).
-
The documentary Rise of
the Superbugs details
why antibiotic overuse
is leading to the
emergence of deadly
superbugs
-
New Delhi
metallo-beta-lactamase
1, or NDM-1, is a gene
that confers ‘super
resistance’ to a growing
number of lethal
antibiotic-resistant
bacterial infections in
India and at least 35
other countries
-
Extensively
drug-resistant
tuberculosis (XDR TB),
which has a 40 percent
mortality rate, is also
on the rise around the
globe
-
Drug companies have
little financial
incentives to create new
antibiotics to replace
those that germs have
grown resistant to,
therefore few new
alternatives are in the
works
-
We’re now facing the
perfect storm to take us
back to the
pre-antibiotic age, and
if this occurs
significant casualties
are to be expected.
Thankfully, there is a
lot you can do to take
control of your health
and fend infection off
naturally.
When a meteor exploded
over the Russian city of
Chelyabinsk in February,
pieces of the bus-sized
space rock hit the ground
while its detonation
shattered windows, set off
car alarms and injured more
than 1,000 people.
Masked in the chaos,
however, was an enormous
plume of dust that the
Russian meteor left behind
in Earth's atmosphere. This
cloud, which had hundreds of
tons of material in it, was
still lingering three months
after the Feb. 15 explosion,
a new study has found.
Residents in a southern
Japanese city were busy
washing ash off the streets
Monday after a nearby
volcano spewed a record-high
smoke plume into the sky.
Sakurajima, one of
Japan's most active
volcanoes, experienced one
of its most powerful
eruptions in decades Sunday,
sending an ash plume as high
as three miles into the air.
The tools behind Snowden’s
wiretapping
claim...According to The
Guardian, the NSA uses a
“widest reaching” program
called XKeyscore to tap into
phone numbers, email
addresses, log ins, and user
activity.
Kurdish militias battled
al-Qaida-linked rebel groups
in northeastern Syria on
Tuesday in the latest round
of heavy fighting that has
helped fuel a mass exodus of
civilians from the region
into neighboring Iraq,
activists said.
Clashes between Kurdish
fighters and Islamic
extremist rebel groups have
sharply escalated in Syria's
northern provinces in recent
months. The violence, which
has left hundreds dead,
holds the potential to
explode into a full-blown
side conflict within Syria's
broader civil war.
Tesla unveiled the East
Bay's only supercharger
station at its factory
Friday, providing its
electric car owners with a
more powerful charging
option and moving the
all-electric company closer
to its goal of creating a
nationwide network.
-
The National Cancer
Institute has suggested
narrowing the definition
of “cancer,” as mounting
research shows that many
harmless tumors are
being overtreated,
thereby causing more
harm than good
-
About one-third of women
currently diagnosed with
breast cancer have
harmless tumors that
pose no threat to their
life
-
Only ONE out of 2,000
women screened regularly
for 10 years will
benefit from screening
due to early detection
of breast cancer while
10 healthy women will be
misdiagnosed and treated
unnecessarily
-
Research into the health
of our ancient ancestors
suggests that cancer is
a manmade disease—a
byproduct of a variety
of harmful
environmental- and
lifestyle factors
-
Preventing breast cancer
is far more important
and powerful than simply
trying to detect it
after it has already
formed. My top tips on
how to help prevent
breast cancer are
included
-
Your body consists of
over 99 percent water
molecules, but the water
in your cells is not
regular water, but
highly structured water
with special properties
-
There is a fourth phase
of water, not H2O but
H3O2, and can be called
living water. It’s more
viscous, dense, and
alkaline than regular
water; has a negative
charge, and can hold
energy, much like a
battery, and deliver
energy too
-
The key ingredient to
create this highly
structured water is
light, i.e.
electromagnetic energy,
whether in the form of
visible light, or
infrared wavelengths,
which we’re surrounded
by all the time
-
One reason why infrared
saunas make you feel so
good is because your
body’s cells are deeply
penetrated by infrared
energy, which builds and
stores structured water.
The same goes for light
therapy, spending time
in the sun, and laser
therapy
-
Besides optimizing your
drinking water by
vortexing, you can help
support your body’s
negative charge by
connecting to the Earth,
which also has a
negative charge. This is
the basis of the
earthing or grounding
technique
-
Many of the foods
commonly considered to
be “health foods” are
not good for your health
-
Eleven of the most
common unhealthy “health
foods” are
discussed—including
fruit juices, whole
grains, agave nectar,
vegetable oil and sports
drinks
-
Real health foods are
fresh whole foods, grown
sustainably and
preferably locally with
the laws of nature in
mind, free from
pesticides, fertilizers,
growth hormones,
antibiotics,
preservatives and other
chemicals
Many economists have
been expecting the housing
boom to provide a visible
lift to the US economy. So
far the results have been
underwhelming. In spite of
strong homebuilder optimism,
housing starts remain
subdued. The momentum we saw
in late 2012 has dissipated
and last year's forecasts
(for example Goldman
and ISI Group) turned
out to be too optimistic.
In recent months the
US equity markets have
become increasingly
sensitive to movements in
treasury yields..In fact the
correlation between the
S&P500 and the 10yr treasury
yield hit a new
post-recession low (higher
yields driving stock prices
lower).
Freddie Mac (OTCQB:
FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its
Primary Mortgage
Market Survey®
(PMMS®), showing average
fixed mortgage rates largely
unchanged from the previous
week after bouncing around
over the past few weeks on
market speculation that the
Federal Reserve will taper
in its upcoming September
monetary policy committee
meeting.
The three-judge panel for
the 2nd Circuit said Aug. 14
that Entergy had already
filed its application for a
20-year license extension
with NRC before lawmakers
started consideration of
state law saying the company
could not run the 600-MW
unit beyond March 2012
without state legislature
approval.
This week marks the tenth
anniversary of one of the
worst power outages in the
United States, during which
tens of millions of
Americans were affected
across parts of Ohio,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, New
York, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and New Jersey.
The Economic Benefits
of Increasing Electric Grid
Resilience to Weather
Outages report finds
that grid resilience is
increasingly important as
climate change increases the
frequency and intensity of
severe weather and estimates
the economic impact of power
outages on the nation’s
economy.
-
Swedish fashion giant
H&M is the world’s
largest user of organic
cotton, but in 2010 it
was revealed that some
of their ‘organic’
cotton contained
genetically modified
material
-
H&M now requires
products containing
organic cotton have a
transaction certificate
issued by a third-party
certifier to verify the
content of the organic
fiber
-
Cotton is considered the
world’s dirtiest crop
due to the cotton
industry’s heavy use of
hazardous herbicides and
insecticides
-
The introduction of
genetically modified Bt
cotton only added to the
problem, requiring even
more pesticides,
creating super-pests and
putting Indian farmers
into debt who bought
into biotech’s false
promises – which is why
many are now committing
suicide
-
Choosing organic cotton
for your clothing has
far-reaching
implications and helps
the environment, small
farmers and your own
personal health
August 16, 2013
Drop that window dressing --
that frame could soon go
bare. Researchers say they
have created a new kind of
"smart glass" -- one that
can, at the flip of a
switch, block heat and still
stay transparent, or grow
dark to reduce the sun's
glare.
The operator of Japan's
crippled Fukushima nuclear
plant is preparing to remove
400 tons of highly
irradiated spent fuel from a
damaged reactor building, a
dangerous operation that has
never been attempted before
on this scale.
Containing radiation
equivalent to 14,000 times
the amount released in the
atomic bomb attack on
Hiroshima 68 years ago, more
than 1,300 used fuel rod
assemblies packed tightly
together need to be removed
from a building that is
vulnerable to collapse,
should another large
earthquake hit the area.
After years of urging by
the solar industry, the
White House confirmed
Thursday that American-made
solar panels are being
installed on the First
Family's residence as part
of an energy retrofit that
will improve the overall
energy efficiency of the
historic building.
Climate change activists,
environmentalists and solar
advocates applauded the
move.
I bet if Big Pharma could
get away with it, it would
bring new medicines to
market the same way a new
pope is elected. We'd all
gather in throngs outside
some drug company
headquarters until puffs of
white smoke poured from the
chimney, and some
billion-dollar wonder drug
appeared on the balcony.
There's only one problem
with that, when it comes to
treating today's most
painful and life-threatening
diseases, the best cures
often don't come from a Big
Pharma lab.
In fact,
sometimes they come from a
Native American lodge.
Rebates for residential
solar power from the
California Solar Initiative
(CSI) are winding down --
almost four years early --
as officials and regulators
statewide wrestle with how
to continue support for
consumer-scale solar and the
California solar industry,
according to the California
Center for Sustainable
Energy (CCSE). Customers of
the state's investor-owned
utilities (Pacific Gas &
Electric, Southern
California Edison, and San
Diego Gas & Electric) and
municipal utilities qualify
for cash back incentives for
their solar installations
through the California Solar
Initiative. The CSI rebate
program began in 2007 and
was supposed to be a 10-year
program.
China is to fast-track
expansion and investment in
energy saving technologies
in an attempt to tackle its
worsening pollution
problems.
China's cabinet, the
State Council, recently
announced plans to make the
energy saving sector a
"pillar" of the economy by
2015. In a statement the
council said that under the
new plan the environmental
protection sector will grow
by 15% on average annually,
reaching an output of 4.5
trillion yuan (£474 billion
/ $438 billion USD).
Despite a slowed growth
rate, China will continue to
be the largest wind power
market in 2020, as it
attempts to reduce its
carbon footprint while
increasing electricity
production in rural areas,
according to research and
consulting firm GlobalData.
China doubled its cumulative
wind capacity every year
between 2006 and 2011 at a
compound annual growth rate
of 76 percent, according to
the research. China, along
with the US, Germany, UK,
Italy, Spain and India,
accounted for 74 percent of
global installed wind
capacity in 2012, the firm
says.
Despite challenging market
conditions, bankruptcies and
consolidation, key
indicators show signs of
improvement in the clean
tech sector, according to
EY’s newly released annual
cleantech industry
performance report.
Vermont's attempts to close
its lone nuclear power plant
were deceptive and
misleading, a federal
appeals court ruled
Wednesday in largely
upholding a lower-court
ruling against the state.
Gold climbed to the
highest level in
three weeks on signs
of increased
physical and
investment demand as
the dollar weakened.
Global consumers
aggressively ramped up
purchases of physical
gold in the April-June
period, led by
opportunistic buyers in
emerging markets at a
time when the precious
metal suffered a record
quarterly loss, the
World Gold Council (WGC)
said on Thursday.
The summer of 2013 has been
another severe fire season
for the United States, a
trend that has insurance
companies bracing for a new
normal: higher rates of
property damage as Americans
move to wildfire-prone areas
in ever greater numbers.
Here's a Utube video
that is
very "interesting".
The Justice Department and
FBI have quietly
acknowledged they grossly
overstated the scope of a
mortgage fraud crackdown,
which the administration
heralded with much fanfare a
few weeks before last year's
presidential election.
Protests by supporters of
ousted Islamist President
Mohamed Morsi turned violent
across Egypt on Friday, with
witnesses reporting four
dead in central Cairo and at
least 12 killed in northern
cities as the Muslim
Brotherhood staged a “Day of
Rage.”
In fact, if you lumped every
American who is in prison --
all 2.3 million -- together
into one city, it would rank
just above Houston, Texas as
the fourth largest in the
United States. It would be
larger than the populations
of San Francisco, Boston,
Denver, and Orlando
combined.
There were many Native
resistance fighters from the
1500s to the 1800s who made
a name for themselves in our
country’s volatile
history—ICTMN continues its
list of historic notable
Natives.
-
A coronary bypass costs
over $100,000 in the US
but only $1,583 in India
– and efforts are
underway to lower costs
there to just $800
-
The US spends more on
health care than the
next 10 biggest spenders
combined, while ranking
last in terms of quality
of care among
industrialized countries
-
About 600,000 Americans
travel abroad to receive
lower-cost medical care
every year, and this
number is growing by
about 20 percent
annually
-
Americans are being
overcharged for often
sub-par medical care, as
well as given
unnecessary tests and
procedures alarmingly
often
-
Take control of your
health to stay well and
avoid falling victim to
the broken health-care
system
On July 29, 2009, at a news
conference in New Delhi,
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton proudly announced
that "Vital Voices Global
Partnership," an NGO that
she said she had "founded",
had partnered with Standard
Chartered Bank to promote
women's causes throughout
Asia.
The most ambitious
radiation clean-up ever
attempted has proved costly,
complex and time-consuming
since the Japanese
government began it more
than two years in the wake
of the Fukushima nuclear
meltdown. It may also fail.
Doubts are mounting that
the effort to decontaminate
hotspots in an area the size
of Connecticut will succeed
in its ultimate aim - luring
more than 100,000 nuclear
evacuees back home.
As the number of coal mining
jobs continues to decline
throughout the U.S., more
unemployed miners are
finding work above ground —
in the clean energy
industry, ironically.
In a telephone press
conference this morning,
Elon Musk, the many-faceted
founder of PayPal, Tesla
Motors, and SpaceX, expanded
his earlier Hyperloop reveal
by announcing that he will
develop and construct a
Hyperloop demonstrator. He
believes that a properly
funded consortium would take
about seven years to build a
commercial Hyperloop.
If NASA has anything to
say about it, Kepler is
down, but not out. At a
press teleconference on
Thursday it announced that
it has abandoned efforts to
repair the damaged unmanned
probe, which was designed to
search for extrasolar
planets and is no longer
steady enough to continue
its hunt. But the space
agency is looking into
alternative missions for the
spacecraft based on its
remaining capabilities.
The National Security
Agency has broken privacy
rules or overstepped its
legal authority thousands of
times each year since
Congress granted the agency
broad new powers in 2008,
according to an internal
audit and other top-secret
documents.
Most of the infractions
involve unauthorized
surveillance of Americans or
foreign intelligence targets
in the United States, both
of which are restricted by
statute and executive order.
They range from significant
violations of law to
typographical errors that
resulted in unintended
interception of U.S. e-mails
and telephone calls.
More than 10 years after the
9/11 hijackers considered
flying a passenger jet into
a Manhattan area nuclear
reactor, U.S. commercial and
research nuclear facilities
remain unprotected against
the theft of bomb-grade
material to make nuclear
weapons and sabotage
intended to cause a reactor
meltdown, according to a new
report prepared under a
contract for the Pentagon by
the Nuclear Proliferation
Prevention Project (NPPP) at
the University of Texas at
Austin's LBJ School of
Public Affairs.
A shift to small modular
reactors (SMR) is unlikely
to breathe new life into the
U.S. nuclear power industry,
according to a report issued
today by the nonprofit
Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research
(IEER), since SMRs will
likely require tens of
billions of dollars in
federal subsidies or
government purchase orders,
and create new reliability
vulnerabilities and serious
concerns in relation to
safety and proliferation.
The New York State Energy
Research and Development
Authority (NYSERDA) has
raised $24.3 million in its
first-ever issuance of
revenue bonds to finance
loans for New York consumers
for residential
energy-efficiency
improvements.
A strange, pulsing star
has revealed a powerful
magnetic field around the
giant black hole at the
heart of Earth’s Milky Way
galaxy, scientists say.
The finding may help shed
light on how the galaxy's
supermassive black hole
devours matter around it and
spits out powerful jets of
superhot matter, the
researchers added.
EPA chief Gina McCarthy said
Wednesday that the Obama
administration is finished
waiting for Congress to act
on climate change and plans
to bypass the legislative
branch in developing a
federal response.
Patriot Coal Corp. and the
union representing thousands
of employees and retirees
tentatively resolved a
bitter dispute over pay and
benefits in a bid to help
the struggling coal producer
emerge from bankruptcy.
Have you seen petroglyphs in
Zion National Park and
elsewhere and wondered how
old they were? Their ages
vary, of course, and some
may be of recent origin.
Others, however are truly
very old.
A new high-tech
analysis led by a University
of Colorado Boulder
researcher shows the oldest
known petroglyphs in North
America, which are cut into
several boulders in western
Nevada, date to at least
10,500 years ago and perhaps
even as far back as 14,800
years ago.
European Union rules to be
published over the coming
weeks could make it easier
to justify using taxpayers'
money to fund new nuclear
power, which would pitch
major EU powers against each
other.
The Interior Department is
working to approve 20,000
megawatts of renewable
energy production on public
lands by 2020 and is taking
a "landscape-level" approach
to do this.
C2 event observed.
There are currently 7
numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. Solar
activity is expected to be
low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (16 Aug, 17
Aug, 18 Aug). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (16
Aug), quiet to unsettled
levels on day two (17 Aug)
and quiet levels on day
three (18 Aug).
Nuclear industry boosters
and S.C. lawmakers were
encouraged Tuesday by a
court ruling they hope could
restart the stalled Yucca
Mountain atomic waste dump
so that utilities will have
a place to send high-level
radioactive refuse from
power plants.
Restoring the site of the
shuttered San Onofre nuclear
power plant to "green field
status" is expected to cost
up to $4.1 billion, but
could be accomplished in as
little as 15 years, energy
officials told state
lawmakers Tuesday.
Southern California Edison
told a California Senate
energy committee that it may
cost $4.1 billion and take
15 years to decommission the
San Onofre Nuclear
Generating Station,
according to television
station ABC 10 news.
Two weeks after Spain's
government slapped a series
of levies on green energy,
Inaki Alonso hired two
workmen to remove the solar
panels he had put on his
roof only six months
earlier.
"The online classified
service Craigslist has cost
US newspapers at least $5
billion in revenue since
2000, researchers say. The
study, to be published in
the journal Management
Science covering the period
2000 to 2007, found
Craigslist has had a huge
impact on local US
newspapers, which have in
the past relied heavily on
classifieds.
The study shows "that added
sugar consumed at
concentrations currently
considered safe exerts
dramatic impacts on
mammalian health," the
researchers said in the
study, published in the
journal Nature
Communications. "Many
researchers have already
made calls for reevaluation
of these safe levels of
consumption."
Suncor Energy Inc, Canada's
largest integrated oil
company, said on Tuesday it
was treating water from a
roadside ditch near its
refinery in Sarnia, Ontario,
after the chemical benzene
was found in two water
samples.
Reducing the amount of
short-lived emissions like
soot and methane alone won't
limit global warming as much
as originally believed,
according to research from
Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL).
Soot remains in the
atmosphere for a couple
weeks; methane remains for
up to a decade. These are
both considered relatively
short periods, making them
"short-term climate
forcers." The better-known
and perhaps most dangerous
climate change culprit,
carbon dioxide, can stay in
the atmosphere for
1,000-plus years.
The retail sales measure
from the Commerce Department
survey came in below
expectations today with 0.2%
month-over-month change vs.
0.3% expected. Given that
the numbers missed the
forecast, why then did
treasuries sell off sharply
after the release
Last week's headlines were
rather alarming, quoting
"something big is about to
happen to the Sun." Yes it's
big, yes it's about to
happen, but what does this
mean to you-me-and Earth
itself? In short, the
flipping of the Sun's
magnetic field in-itself is
no big deal. It happens
approximately every 11
years. However, the current
trend reflects warming and
cooling trends of the past.
Nearly eight years ago,
Upper Cape Cod Regional
Technical School raised an
80-foot wind turbine so
students could learn about
renewable energy on their
own campus.
But in recent years, the
German-made Aircon turbine
began to lose its luster...
The
UN refugee agency says an
unusually large wave of
Syrian families has been
pouring into Iraq's
Kurdistan region this week.
In a much-anticipated
decision, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit has ruled
that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) was wrong
to stop reviewing the
application for the proposed
Yucca Mountain spent fuel
site in Nevada because it
lacked funding to finish the
job.
European imports of ultra
low sulfur diesel from the
US were seen at 1.5 million
tons in August, holding
steady month on month amid
continued prompt supply
tightness in Europe, traders
said Thursday.
The Washington Post is
the latest media company
to be targeted by the
Syrian Electronic Army
Websites belonging to the
Washington Post, CNN, and
Time magazine have been
attacked by supporters of
Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad.
I mean you no harm. If
I meant you harm, I would
start by using your name.
Every literate Cherokee
knows your name. At the time
before the Trail of Tears,
the Cherokee Nation had a
higher literacy rate than
the white settlers and gold
seekers who coveted the
Cherokee homelands. We
cannot match that literacy
rate even today, but most of
us do read and write.
Electric cars account for
fewer than 0.05 percent of
passenger vehicles in the
United States today, but
Michael Kintner-Meyer
envisions a future where
plug-ins rule the roads.
The proliferation of
electric cars will bring
benefits -- like lower
tailpipe emissions -- but
could also create unique
headaches...
The 15-year fixed rate
mortgage is popular.
Last quarter, a growing
number of U.S. households
refinanced out of 30-year
fixed rate mortgages, and
into 15-year and 20-year
ones. More refinancing
households moved to shorter
loan terms than during any
quarter since 2011.
Low mortgage rates are
part of the reason. The HARP
refinance program is the
other.
Xcel Energy has proposed the
fourth wind project in its
Upper Midwest service
territory in the past month,
which it contends will
reduce customer costs and
lower carbon emissions.
August 13, 2013
Rumors have been
circulating for some time in
the media that China is
considering scrapping the
one-child policy that was
launched back in 1979. But
the nation's official paper
suggested last week that
although plans to change the
policy are being developed,
it may be some time before
changes are in fact
implemented.
If you're a candy lover who
winces with guilt each time
you indulge in your favorite
treat, take heart: Candy may
actually be good for you.
Although dark chocolate
candy has the most proven
health benefits, other
favorites such as peppermint
have real advantages as
well. So, enjoy your treat —
in moderation, of course —
and check out the ways candy
can improve your health.
Those in the natural gas
business are feeling a bit
heady nowadays. But those
with links to the automotive
sector are saying that
American roads are wide
open.
Increasing
demand for the now
inexpensive and relatively
abundant natural resource is
not just breathing new life
into the power industry but
it is also doing the same in
the vehicle sector as well.
Estimates are that the cost
of compressed natural gas
used in cars, buses and
light trucks is about a
third that of gasoline.
Arizona Attorney General Tom
Horne is today announcing a
law suit against the Federal
Justice Department for undue
delay in handling Arizona’s
request for acceleration
status in the processing of
capital punishment appeals,
through the federal process
known as Habeas Corpus.
Arizona amended its capital
case procedures years ago to
meet Congress’s requirements
for accelerated status, but
the Justice Department’s
failure to act has deprived
the State of the benefits
Congress intended in the
form of streamlined
procedures.
"It is morally
reprehensible, and legally
questionable, that South
Carolina would take these
measures when all parties
involved were well aware of
Dusten Brown's legal
obligation to complete
National Guard duty,"
Clinton said in a statement.
Fracking boom sucks away
precious water from beneath
the ground, leaving cattle
dead, farms bone-dry and
people thirsty.
The latest GDP number
out of Greece looks more
promising than in the past
(assuming it is to be
trusted). The GDP contracted
by only 0.2% (SA) from the
previous quarter and 4.6% on
a year-over-year basis...
The Greek government wants
to use this opportunity to
obtain yet another bailout
loan from the EU/IMF. In
spite of this slowdown in
GDP contraction and a
somewhat better fiscal
deficit, the Greek
government is expected to
run out of money by the end
of next year.
China has a fascinating
portfolio of energy usage;
filled with much potential,
but also filled with various
challenges. The simple fact
is that China continues
rapid industrialization to
meet the demands of its 2.1
billion citizens, as scores
of people are transitioning
from traditional means of
agriculture to a more modern
way of living.
China's apparent oil demand
in July rose 6.6% year on
year to 41.52 million mt or
an average 9.82 million b/d,
according to Platts'
estimates based on recently
released preliminary
government data.
Apparent oil demand was,
however, 1.7% lower than the
9.99 million b/d seen in
June.
China plans to accelerate
investment in technology to
save energy and tackle the
dire pollution blamed for a
series of health crises that
have generated widespread
public anger.
The government has been
increasingly alarmed by
social unrest caused by
environmental disasters and
threats to public health,
often the result of the
country's breakneck
industrial expansion and
mass migration to new
cities.
As older coal power stations
are replaced either by new
more efficient coal power
plants, or by cleaner
natural gas, wind and solar
facilities, North America
and Europe will dominate
decommissioning activity
where coal plants have been
operating for decades and
now face increasing
environmental regulations,
according to research from
Visigonian. In the United
States, decommissioning will
also be driven by the shale
gas revolution, which is
making coal power plants
less economic than cleaner
gas powered plants.
Solar prices are coming way
down while the technologies
to deliver the product are
fast improving. But not all
ideas are created equal. The
question now is whether
developers will focus on
rooftop solar panels or
whether they will renew
their efforts in
utility-scale solar power.
Workers at the state's
coal-fired power plants are
all worried about the same
thing: whether they will
lose their jobs.
Collectively, the 13
plants employ about 2,000
people and contribute more
than a billion dollars to
the Illinois economy in the
form of their payrolls as
well as the taxes they pay
and the purchases they make
from suppliers. The impact
on local economies where the
plants are located could be
significant because they
often are major employers.
Across the United States,
2012 was the warmest year on
record, and globally, 2012
was among the 10 warmest
years on record, according
to the 2012 State of the
Climate report issued
Tuesday by the American
Meteorological Society.
In Washington state, the
best all-electric cars cause
so little carbon pollution
that it's like getting 383
miles per gallon of fossil
fuel, even if you take into
account the energy it took
to make the battery.
This is because
three-fourths of the state's
electric supply is generated
by river dams.
Many people had been
envisioning Hyperloop as
something akin to a giant
vacuum tube with
electromagnetically-suspended
capsules running inside of
it – these capsules would be
loaded with passengers and
simply be sucked along.
The United States is
aggressively exploiting its
shale gas resources, while
Europeans are content to
keep their environmentalists
happy and import natural
gas. On the smart grid
front, European and American
utilities are both speeding
deployment of smart grid
technologies, according to
David Walker, chief
executive officer of DNV
KEMA Energy &
Sustainability.
Radioactive groundwater
leaks from the damaged
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant are increasing
every day, and Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has
ordered the government to
step in to help plant’s
operator, Tokyo Electric
Power Company deal with the
radioactive flood.
A "materially larger
increase" in natural gas use
by US utilities could occur
between 2015 and 2020 if the
US Environmental Protection
Agency adopts tougher new
air quality standards
governing CO2 emissions for
fossil fuel plants,
Bernstein Research said in a
report Friday.
New study shows that heat
flow from the mantle
contributes to the ice melt.
The Greenland ice sheet
is melting from below,
caused by a high heat flow
from the mantle into the
lithosphere. This influence
is very variable spatially
and has its origin in an
exceptionally thin
lithosphere. Consequently,
there is an increased heat
flow from the mantle and a
complex interplay between
this geothermal heating and
the Greenland ice sheet. The
international research
initiative IceGeoHeat led by
the GFZ German Research
Centre for Geosciences
establishes in the current
online issue of Nature
Geoscience (Vol 6, August
11, 2013) that this effect
cannot be neglected when
modeling the ice sheet as
part of a climate study.
Hazardous waste removal is
about more than just
removing and transporting
hazardous substances from
one site to another.
Hazardous waste services
also include the cleaning of
drinking water in water
treatment facilities. The
buildup of oily sludge in a
facility can hinder the
process of water treatment,
causing health and
environmental issues. The
cleaning and vacuuming
services offered by
hazardous waste removal
companies help treatment
facilities run at optimum
levels and keep the public
safe.
Bahrain is on “high
alert” following an oil
spill in the Arabian Gulf,
also called the Persian
Gulf, which authorities say
was deliberately caused by
an Indian ship.
The Indian-flagged crude
oil tanker Desh Shanti was
caught dumping oil near
Iranian waters on Tuesday
after ignoring official
communications from
concerned authorities, says
a report in the “Gulf Daily
News.”
On July 29, 2013, the
Supreme Court of Israel
ruled that new regulations
require Israel to stop
adding fluoride chemicals
into public water supplies
in one year, reports the
Fluoride Action Network
(FAN).
Drained by development and
nearly destroyed under
Saddam Hussein’s regime, the
Central Marshes of Iraq have
now been declared the
country’s first national
park. The Iraqi Council of
Ministers approved the
designation on July 23.
Mexico’s contentious
political landscape is
transforming now into a
battle over economic ideals.
At issue is the debate over
the nation’s state-owned gem
and whether the government
there will be able to sell
private stakes to foreign
investors, which include
those U.S.-based oil and gas
giants.
Four turbines at the Smøla
wind farm in Norway are to
have one rotor blade painted
black to see whether
increasing the visual
contrast of the turbine
against its background might
help to reduce bird strikes.
There’s something comforting
about a map with “You are
here” marked on it, but not
when the arrow points to a
spot where giant asteroids
are whizzing by like cannon
balls in a pirate movie.
NASA has released a map of
the inner Solar System
showing the orbits of the
1,400 Potentially Hazardous
Asteroids (PHA) known as of
early this year.
NYMEX September crude
futures settled 14 cents
higher at $106.11/barrel
Monday as supply concerns
from Libya lent support to a
market weighed down by
bearish economic data.
Both the Hydropower
Regulatory Efficiency Act of
2013 and the
Bureau of Reclamation Small
Conduit Hydropower
Development and Rural Jobs
Act were signed into
law by President Barack
Obama earlier today.
Petron Corporation has
acknowledged its pipeline in
Cavite Province leaked half
a million liters of diesel
fuel into Manila Bay which
affected over 30 villages in
the province. Petron is the
largest oil refining and
marketing company in the
Philippines, supplying more
than a third of the
country’s oil requirements.
Japanese prosecutors are
unlikely to indict former
prime minister Naoto Kan,
utility executives or
regulators over their
handling of the 2011
Fukushima nuclear crisis,
rejecting complaints filed
over the world's worst
atomic disaster since
Chernobyl, the Asahi
newspaper reported.
The largest solar event of
the period was a M1 event
observed at 12/1041Z from
Region 1817 (S23E07). There
are currently 5 numbered
sunspot regions on the disk.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (13 Aug, 14
Aug, 15 Aug). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and two
(13 Aug, 14 Aug) and quiet
to unsettled levels on day
three (15 Aug).
Despite recent
demonstrations by the US
Navy, we still think of
laser weapons as being
things of the future.
However,
previously-classified
British documents prove that
not only were the major
powers working on laser
weapons in the 1970s and
80s, but that they were
already being deployed with
combat units in war zones.
Russia is set to sign an
agreement with Iran to build
the country's second nuclear
power plant, outgoing
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Salehi said.
-
Researchers analyzed
pollen from bee hives
and found 35 different
pesticides along with
high fungicide loads.
-
Each sample contained,
on average, nine
different pesticides and
fungicides, although one
contained 21 different
chemicals.
-
While previously assumed
to be safe for bees,
bees fed pollen
contaminated with high
levels of fungicides had
a significant decline in
the ability to resist
infection with the
Nosema ceranae parasite,
which has been
implicated in Colony
Collapse Disorder (CCD)
-
In the US, the “Save
America’s Pollinators
Act” has been
introduced; if passed,
this bill, HR 2692,
would require the EPA to
pull neonicotinoid
pesticides, also
implicated in bee
die-offs, from the
market until their
safety is proven
Over a year ago, the
Savannah River National
Laboratory announced plans
to bring small modulator
reactors to the Site. Now, a
report advocates against the
use of such reactors.
Solar industry
representatives are calling
for TVA to up the size of
its Green Power Providers
program after the federal
utility had contracted for
all the 2.5 megawatt
capacity of the program
within the day it opened,
Aug. 1.
South Korea has warned of
serious power shortages this
week amid an expected rise
in summer temperatures and
as the resources-starved
country struggles to keep up
with demand after six
nuclear plants have gone
off-line.
The energy ministry said
it may take emergency
measures such as rolling
power cuts to avoid a repeat
of 2011 blackouts which cut
electricity to businesses
and homes across the
country.
The Sun’s giant magnetic
field is forecast to reverse
itself sometime in November
or December with
consequences for the entire
solar system, according to
measurements from
NASA-supported
observatories. Such solar
disturbances can cause
geomagnetic storms in
Earth’s magnetic field,
affecting communications,
power lines and satellites.
“It looks like we’re no
more than three to four
months away from a complete
field reversal,” says solar
physicist Todd Hoeksema of
Stanford University. “This
change will have ripple
effects throughout the solar
system.”
-
While
naturally-occurring
arsenic in groundwater
is one of the most
common sources of
exposure,
hydrofluorosilicic acid
(fluoride) added to
drinking water is
commonly contaminated
with toxic arsenic
-
According to recent
research, diluted
fluorosilic acid adds,
on average, about 0.08
ppb of arsenic to your
drinking water
-
Low-level chronic
exposure to arsenic can
lead to a wide variety
of health problems,
including chronic
fatigue, reproductive
problems, reduced IQ and
other neurological
problems, and various
cancers
-
As petition urges the
EPA to change the source
of fluoride in US
drinking water, as the
most commonly used form,
hydrofluorosilicic acid,
increases lung and
bladder cancer risk
-
Switching from
hydrofluorosilicic acid
to pharmaceutical-grade
fluoride could save the
US $1-6 billion annually
and prevent an estimated
1,800 cases of lung and
bladder cancer
I’ve gotten to where I don’t
even want to watch the news
anymore. There is a systemic
cancer of corruption that
has infected our government
on every level, from local
governments to state
governments, and throughout
every facet of the federal
level that exists. I really
think these people have
become elitist ignoramuses,
and there is nothing more
useless than an elitist
politician.
Wind energy is getting a
nice tail wind now that the
U.S. Department of Energy
has released some info
showing that the sector has
shown strong growth and has
created thousands of jobs.
But the agency is also
forewarning that the
expected expiration of
valuable tax incentives
will, in turn, create new
head winds.
A nuclear power plant in
Taiwan may have been leaking
radioactive water for three
years, according to a report
published by the
government's watchdog,
adding to uncertainty over
the fate of a new fourth
nuclear power plant.
As a Mohawk historian
who uses wampum belts to
tell our story, I have
always loved the Two Row
Wampum Belt and its metaphor
of the native canoe and
European ship sailing side
by side down the river of
life. Nothing pleases me
more to see this acted out
in modern times on the
Hudson River this summer,
with parallel rows of
canoes, kayaks and
watercraft—including an
impressive, newly-carved
dugout canoe serving as
flagship. The principles of
peace and friendship are
exactly what the original
wampum belt weavers had in
mind when the Two Row was
first made, and those
principles are
well-represented by the
paddlers today.
The promise of the
WindTronics-made Honeywell
Wind Turbine was that the
power was generated at the
tip of the blades rather
than at the hub so it could
produce electricity even at
low wind speed. However,
reviews of the turbine in
Consumer Reports and other
publications noted the
product failed to live up to
the manufacturer’s claims
and suffered from quality
issues.
Civilization depends on the
Global Positioning System
for everything from
precision armaments to
finding the location of the
nearest pizza shop. Indeed,
access to GPS's strengths
and capabilities has grown
so fast that little concern
about its weaknesses has
penetrated the public
consciousness. Fortunately,
assistant professor Todd
Humphreys' team at the
University of Texas at
Austin continues to arrange
splashy demonstrations of
GPS spoofing. His latest is
to covertly alter the course
of an oceangoing yacht.
A 27-year-old U.S. program
intended to warn the public
of the presence of hazardous
chemicals is flawed in many
states due to scant
oversight and lax reporting
by plant owners, a Reuters
examination finds.
One of the key reasons
for the mediocre economic
growth in the US has been
the ongoing weakness in
household wages. As the
chart below shows, US median
inflation-adjusted household
income (red line) remains
well below pre-recession
levels (the chart also
appropriately shows U6
unemployment).
A woman last seen clinging
to a tree along the swollen
banks of a rising creek is
the only person still
unaccounted for from a
Colorado flash flood and
mudslide that killed at
least one person,
authorities said on Sunday.
August 9, 2013
Let’s continue with
our tour of monuments and
memorials around Turtle
Island.
Outside the Capitol in
Denver, Colorado the bronze
figure of a Union soldier
still stands, gun in hand.
The statue was unveiled in
1909 and has four tablets on
the stone under the
sculpture listing those who
died in the area
battles—Sand Creek is listed
among them.
This article is
written in anticipation of
the U.S. Department of
State’s plan to convene a
“listening session” this
fall with American Indian
leaders. The meeting, which
will be held at the U.S.
Department of the Interior
Building in Washington, will
focus on two matters. The
first is a 2014 meeting of
the United Nations General
Assembly called a UN High
Level Plenary Meeting, “to
be known as the World
Conference on Indigenous
Peoples.” The second focus
of the State Department
meeting is the
implementation of the UN
Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples.
Of course, scientists have
long known that our
emissions of increasing
levels of carbon dioxide and
other heat-trapping gases
into the atmosphere warm the
planet like a blanket,
raising global temperatures.
They have known, too, that
some of that extra heat
evaporates water from the
ocean and soil into the
atmosphere. Thus, as average
global temperatures rise,
the warmer atmosphere tends
to also hold more
moisture—about 4 percent
more per degree Fahrenheit
temperature increase.
Only months after utility
Thames Water signed an
agreement to help power a
new facility with fats, oils
and grease (FOG), it has
removed a bus-sized lump of
food fat from a sewer in
Kingston, Surrey.
The utility described the
“fatberg” as a lump of
wrongly-flushed festering
food fat mixed with wet
wipes.
Drinking two cups of hot
chocolate a day may help
older people keep their
brains healthy and their
thinking skills sharp,
according to a study
published in the August 7,
2013, online issue of
Neurology®, the medical
journal of the American
Academy of Neurology.
News stories about hackers
successfully taking control
of cars, using old Nintendo
game pads, have been popping
up on the Internet over the
last few weeks.
The car hackers were
actually two security
researchers -- Charlie
Miller, a security engineer
at Twitter, and Chris
Valasek, director of
security intelligence at
IOActive. These two white
hats used a grant from the
Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) to
suss out how to hack into
the network of electronic
control units (ECUs) used in
modern cars and see what
mischief they could do once
they gained access.
Simply put, using
off-the-shelf components,
their system involves a
starter motor that turns a
flywheel which turns two
generators. Once the
generators are up to their
rated speed, one of the
generators powers a drive
motor which, once it is up
to speed, takes over for the
starter motor, to turn the
flywheel. With the starter
now disconnected, the
generators provide usable
energy, in addition to
powering the driver motor as
well as recharging the
batteries that powered the
starter motor.
By creating a small
electrical field that
removes salts from seawater,
chemists at The University
of Texas at Austin and the
University of Marburg in
Germany have introduced a
new method for the
desalination of seawater
that consumes less energy
and is dramatically simpler
than conventional
techniques. The new method
requires so little energy
that it can run on a
store-bought battery.
My culture teaches
that as an Ojibwe I have an
inherent obligation to not
only protect myself, my
family, and my tribe but
ultimately all humanity,
including the environment
that sustains us. We are
spirit beings who came into
this world to live the human
experience. That spirit is
love and it resides in our
hearts.
In letters published this
week by Science and Nature,
22 flu scientists make a
case for launching
potentially risky
gain-of-function experiments
involving the H7N9 avian
influenza virus. In 2011,
such experiments which
involve giving aa virus
characteristics it does not
yet have in nature, such as
the ability to infect new
species�spaarked a global
controversy over researc
More Americans are
installing wind turbines
near their homes, farms and
businesses to generate their
own energy, according to
research from the Department
of Energy and Pacific
Northwest National
Laboratory which indicates
strong growth in the U.S.
distributed wind energy
market.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, one of the
best known doctors in
America, has issued a very
public apology for
previously opposing medical
marijuana. He offers a
well-reasoned and
well-researched case for his
change of opinion that is
worth a read.
The Alliance for Rural
Electrification (ARE)’s
objective is to stimulate
economic development through
the promotion of off-grid
renewable energy
technologies for rural
electrification in
developing countries and
emerging markets. While
often grid extension is not
a feasible option,
decentralised solutions are
often the better alternative
to alleviate energy poverty:
they are cost-effective over
the system’s lifetime,
easy-to-deploy, install and
maintain and their design
can be tailored to demand
needs. Plus, these regions
offer abundant renewable
energy resources.
EOG Resources is reaping
such high volumes of liquids
from key US resource plays
that it has raised its 2013
year-over-year production
growth target for oil and
condensate to 35% from 28%,
its executive chairman said
Wednesday.
At the
same time, the company is
projecting its natural gas
liquids production will rise
14% this year above last
year's level, up from an
earlier-targeted 10%, Mark
Papa said in a quarterly
earnings conference call.
While global climate change
is still widely disputed,
indications of warming
oceans are evident as major
shifts in marine life are
being reported off the
coasts of Australia. In
turn, major ecosystems,
including cold-water marine
habitats, as well as human
recreational and commercial
activities are at risk.
A leaked document reveals
what we've suspected all
along: Big Government has
become Big Brother, and YOU
are in the crosshairs. Every
single email and cell phone
call you make is being
recorded - AND THEY DON'T
EVEN NEED A WARRANT.
Freddie Mac, the
government-owned mortgage
finance company, on
Wednesday said it is
considering legal action
against Richmond,
California, if the city uses
eminent domain to seize
mortgages of local residents
who owe more than their
properties are worth in a
bid to keep them in their
homes
France's highest
administrative court
rejected on Thursday a
government ban on growing
Monsanto's MON810
genetically modified maize
(corn).
In its ruling, the
Conseil d'Etat said under
European Union law such a
measure could only be
imposed in an emergency or
if there was a serious
health or environmental
risk.
Tokyo Electric Power Co,
the operator of the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant,
said on Wednesday that it
cannot confirm the exact
volume of contaminated
groundwater that is leaking
into the ocean.
The Japanese government
believes
radiation-contaminated water
has been leaking into the
Pacific Ocean at a rate of
300 tons a day, an industry
ministry official told
reporters on Wednesday.
Gazprom still thinks that it
is not sleeping through a
shale gas revolution,
despite President Vladimir
Putin's declaration in April
to the Russian parliament
that shale gas is a real
danger. His close ally Igor
Sechin, head of the state
oil company Rosneft agrees
that Gazprom risks losing
markets.
Just two years after picking
Aurora, Colo., over the
Capital Region for a mega
solar panel fabrication
plant, General Electric Co.
has dumped the business.
A new study suggests that
technology to capture
greenhouse gas emissions
from coal-fired power plants
may be more ready for wide
deployment than industry
officials and political
leaders in coal states would
have the public believe.
The new review, published
last week in the journal
Energy Policy, found that
most experts on the process
don't question the
"readiness" of carbon
capture and storage, or CCS,
technology.
Chair Lamar Smith and fellow
Republicans have issued the
House science committee's
first subpoena in 21 years,
demanding that raw data from
two key studies on the
health effects of air
pollution be made public.
The same research came under
attack in the late '90s, but
subsequent studies have
confirmed its groundbreaking
findings on the link between
soot in the air and death
rates.
But one important thing that
is not covered by
your fine organization very
often is the true meaning of
"I shot to Stop" vs. "I
shot to Kill."
Today we saw another
confirmation that the UK's
placement on the economic
cycle curve in the "recovery
acceleration" section is
quite reasonable. The
KPMG/REC employment report
for the UK showed something
we haven't seen in a while -
strong hiring demand.
In the fall, as this
valley’s rice paddies
ripened into a carpet of
gold, inspectors came to
check for radioactive
contamination.
Onami sits just 35 miles
northwest of the wrecked
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant, which spewed
radioactive cesium over much
of this rural region last
March. However, the
government inspectors
declared Onami’s rice safe
for consumption after
testing just two of its 154
rice farms.
Worldwide, invasive alien
species are second only to
habitat destruction in
reducing the planet's
biodiversity. Their effect
is especially potent on
islands. Cats, rats, weasels
and stoats wreak havoc on
native faunas which evolved
in the absence of predatory
mammals.
Glyphosate, the active
ingredient in Roundup, is
the most popular herbicide
used worldwide. Monsanto
asserts it is not toxic to
humans, but here a new study
proves otherwise.
A new computer model may
help U.S. nuclear power
plants, including the North
Anna Power Station here,
better understand earthquake
hazards.
The future of the nuclear
energy industry in Florida
appears to be dimming.
Duke Energy Corp. last
week announced it had
indefinitely postponed plans
to build two new reactors in
sparsely populated Levy
County, Fla., on the Gulf
Coast, citing federal
licensing delays and
economic concerns.
When an oil spill occurs at
sea, there are already a
number of possible options
for gathering the oil that
floats in a layer on the
water’s surface. Some of the
oil also forms into tiny
suspended droplets, however,
which have proven much more
difficult to gather. Now,
Chinese scientists have
developed what could be a
solution – and it owes a
debt to the humble cactus
needle.
Large trees store up to half
the above-ground biomass in
tropical forests,
reiterating their importance
in buffering against climate
change, finds a study
published in Global Ecology
and Biogeography.
When Robin Garlish spoke out
against pollution in the
Illinois River on Wednesday
morning, she came armed not
with numbers and names of
toxic metals, but with
pictures.
The Minnesota Public
Utilities Commission (PUC)
today is deliberating a rate
hike sought by Xcel Energy
Inc. and could deliver a
decision as soon as this
afternoon that affects the
finances of 1.2 million
electric customers in the
state.
Minutes after posting this,
I was notified that the
“near miss” was bogus, and
the Washington Examiner
pulled the story. However,
I’m going to keep this story
up as it was, just to remind
us that such a thing really
is something we need to be
thinking about.
Solar activity has been at
very low levels for the past
24 hours. There are
currently 7 numbered sunspot
regions on the disk. The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on day one
(09 Aug), quiet to minor
storm levels on day two (10
Aug) and unsettled to minor
storm levels on day three
(11 Aug).
A new study has backed an
earlier finding by the U.S.
State Department that the
proposed Keystone XL
pipeline will have "no
material impact" on U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions, a
crucial factor the White
House is expected to weigh
when it decides whether to
approve the project.
Lavabit, the
security-conscious email
provider that was the
preferred email service of
NSA leaker Edward Snowden,
has closed its doors, citing
US government interference.
... Under current US law,
requests for information by
US intelligence agencies
often carry a gag order that
forbids the party receiving
the request from disclosing
what information was
requested, or even that a
request was made at all. The
gag orders can be challenged
by appealing to the shadowy
Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC),
which operates in complete
secrecy, but such appeals
are seldom granted."
California is no stranger to
rolling blackouts. When
Charles and Elke Hewitt
installed a solar electric
system with batteries for
emergency backup power on
their home this April, they
were shocked when Southern
California Edison rejected
their application for grid
connection under their net
metering program. And the
Hewitt family was not alone.
Soon all homeowners with
solar electric systems with
battery backup in California
could be affected by
Edison’s stance on backup
power.
As more consumers are
switching to solar,
NerdWallet has released its
findings for the best states
for residential solar
energy.
Sir Alexander Fleming
discovered the antibacterial
power of the mold
Penicillium notatum in 1928.
Even though it was a natural
healing agent effective in
destroying Staphylococcus
aureus and other noxious
bacteria, the pharmaceutical
industry got hold of
nature’s bounty and it
became — along with multiple
other Big Pharma inventions
— the nightmare of modern
antibiotics, causing as many
problems for mankind as they
were supposed to help.
Because of the overuse of
antibiotics, super-bugs have
developed that are resistant
to all but the most powerful
drugs, whose side effects
are often dangerous.
While commodity prices
remain under pressure, a
couple of developments are
beginning to provide support
in certain sectors. One
example is copper, which is
up some 3% on the day.
US coal production in the
week that ended Saturday
totaled about 20 million st,
4% below output in the
previous week and 0.4% below
that of the comparable week
of 2012, the Energy
Information Administration
said Thursday.
EIA,
which bases its estimates on
railcar loading data, said
production east of the
Mississippi River totaled 8
million st in the week ended
Saturday, while output west
of the Mississippi totaled
12 million st.
Federal scientists
investigating an unusually
high number of dead
bottlenose dolphins washing
up on the East Coast said on
Thursday the carcasses are
showing up at a rate that is
seven times higher than
usual.
More than 120 dead
animals have been discovered
since June from New Jersey
to Virginia, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's Fisheries
Service said.
The country stands at a
critical crossroads. Many
aging, water-intensive power
plants are nearing the end
of their lives. The choices
we make to replace them will
determine the water and
climate implications of our
electricity system for
decades to come.
Today’s electricity
system cannot meet our needs
in a future of growing
demand for power, worsening
strains on water resources,
and an urgent need to
mitigate climate change.
Output of renewable energy
systems can change
significantly within short
periods due to environmental
conditions -- like clouds
that cover the sun or wind
that stops blowing --
causing voltage swings on
distribution lines. To
realize the potential of
renewable energy, the
intermittency challenges
renewables pose must be
addressed. The Western
Electric Industry Leaders
(WEIL) Group is attempting
to do just that.
The United States installed
more wind generation in 2012
than any other nation and
Oklahoma now ranks sixth in
the country in wind
capacity, the federal Energy
Department said Tuesday.
The reactor's return to full
service follows Xcel's
disclosure in July that the
costs of the five-year
project to upgrade the
reactor had doubled.
Originally budgeted at $320
million, the project was
said to have climbed to
nearly $640 million.
August 6, 2013
Leaving aside the question
of whether they're good or
bad for a moment, what
exactly are GMOs, and which
foods are they in?
GE rice may soon be
approved for human
consumption.
State-level support for
encouraging utilities (and
by association their rate
payers) to become more
energy-efficient continues
to grow, reports Innovation
Electricity Efficiency
(IEE), part of the Edison
Foundation.
The
budgets for these programs
rose 27% to $6.9 billion
last year and could exceed
$14 billion by 2025, reports
IEE.
CNN's Jake Tapper broke new
ground yesterday by
reporting that there were 35
CIA operatives on the ground
in Benghazi at the time of
the September, 2012 raid.
But the questions loom: What
were they doing there? And
why was the Administration
so desperate to cover-up
their presence that it
administered polygraph tests
to stop leaking and had
agents use aliases?
There are many good reasons
for capturing carbon dioxide
emissions from coal power
plants. Regrettably, the
prevention of climate change
is not one of them.
Since the 1970s, over 4,000
miles of pipelines in North
America have transported
carbon dioxide from natural
gas purification, coal
gasification, and natural
sources to conventionally
depleted oilfields.
Water-miscible CO2 flooding
revitalizes these reservoirs
by significant incremental
amounts.
Multinational companies
in China say they are being
forced to pick sides in a
turf war between two major
financial regulators
fighting over which agency
will drive currency and
capital account
liberalization.
The conflict between the
People's Bank of China
(PBOC) and the State
Administration of Foreign
Exchange (SAFE) risks
undermining confidence in
the country's commitment to
pulling down barriers that
will finally open up the
economy, analysts say.
On July 26, 2013, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit upheld a 2009
lower court jury's $104.69
million damage award against
Exxon Mobil Corp. for
contaminating New York
City's groundwater with the
gasoline additive methyl
tertiary butyl ether
("MTBE").
When the House voted to
repeal the employer mandate
and the individual mandate
in Obamacare a few weeks
ago, I
wrote that we would look
back on it as the beginning
of the end of Obamacare.
Only 12 percent of Americans
favor implementing the
individual mandate next
year. People understand the
law is unworkable.
St. Lawrence County dairy
farmer Jon R. Greenwood is
ready to turn on the switch
on an anaerobic digester
that will take the methane
produced by manure from his
cows and turn it into
electricity.
Driven by feed-in tariffs
(FIT) and the
commoditization of
photovoltaic (PV) modules
along with innovative
leasing programs for
residential solar
installations, distributed
solar PV systems are
expected to see double and,
in some countries,
triple-digit growth over the
next five years, according
to Navigant Research.
I have seen a child’s
behavior change for the
worse after eating
poor-quality foods. What
constitutes poor-quality
food? Any food that is made
from refined products,
including refined sugar,
salt, oils, and flour, as
well as food that contains
artificial preservatives and
sweeteners is low quality.
Eating poor quality food
leads to poor behavior and
poor health. Eating
nutritious food does the
opposite.
The U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) has been
overestimating the impact
energy-efficiency standards
for appliances and other
products have on prices,
according to research from
the American Council for an
Energy-Efficient Economy
(ACEEE) and the Appliance
Standards Awareness Project
(ASAP).
FBI agents hoping to
investigate and take down
criminal organizations
allowed their informants to
break the law more than
5,000 times in a single
year, according to
newly-released documents.
The FBI began tracking
crimes by informants more
than a decade ago after it
let mobster James “Whitey”
Bulger operate his crime
ring in exchange for
information on the mafia,
USA Today reports in an
exclusive story.
Alaska's summer heat wave
has been pleasant for humans
but punitive for some of its
fish.
Overheated water has been
blamed for large die-offs of
hatchery trout and salmon
stocks in at least two parts
of the state as hot, dry
weather has set in,
according to the Alaska
Department of Fish and Game.
The market for residential
photovoltaic (PV) energy
storage systems is expected
to boom in the coming years,
with cumulative
installations totaling 2.5
GW by 2017, according to
IHS. Germany will lead the
growth, which will be driven
by the changing nature of
feed-in tariffs.
Fuel from water? A form of
Alchemy? Researchers have
been trying for years to
find a limitless,
environmentally benign
source of fuel.
Now a
University of Colorado
Boulder team has developed a
radically new technique that
uses the power of sunlight
to efficiently split water
into its components of
hydrogen and oxygen, paving
the way for the broad use of
hydrogen as a clean, green
fuel.
Warming oceans are
causing marine species to
change their breeding times
and shift their habitats
toward the poles much faster
than land-based species,
finds new research by
scientists at 17
institutions across the
world.
The researchers warn that
these big shifts in the
timing of major events could
produce disruption to ocean
food webs, affecting all sea
life, as well as humans who
depend on the sea for food.
-
Many olive oil brands
are rancid, moldy or
spoiled, sometimes
before the bottle is
ever opened
-
Olive oil is also highly
perishable, making it
vulnerable to oxidation
when it’s exposed to
air, light or heat
-
Olive oil is one of the
most commonly
adulterated foods and is
often diluted with less
expensive oils like
soybean oil (that is not
listed on the label);
choose trusted brands
only
-
Olive oil is excellent
for cold dishes but
should not be used for
cooking
-
When you walk barefoot,
free electrons are
transferred from the
earth into your body,
and this grounding
effect is one of the
most potent antioxidants
we know of.
-
Inflammation thrives
when your blood is
thick, and you have a
lot of free radical
stress, and a lot of
positive charges in your
body. Grounding
effectively alleviates
inflammation because it
thins your blood and
infuses you with
negatively charged ions
through the soles of
your feet.
-
Surfaces that allow for
proper grounding include
sand, grass, bare dirt,
and untreated concrete,
brick and ceramic tile.
Leather-soled shoes also
allow you to ground
while walking, whereas
rubber-soled shoes
disconnect you from the
earth and block
beneficial electron
transfer.
-
Grounding helps thin
your blood by improving
its zeta potential,
which means it improves
the energy between your
red blood cells.
Research has
demonstrated it takes
about 80 minutes for the
free electrons from the
earth to reach your
blood stream and
transform your blood.
-
Grounding is
contraindicated if you
take Coumadin, as it may
thin your blood too
much.
Solar and wind continue to
dominate investment in new
renewable capacity. Global
use of solar and wind energy
grew significantly in 2012.
Solar power consumption
increased by 58 percent, to
93 terrawatt-hours (TWh),
while wind power increased
by 18.1 percent, to 521.3
TWh.
Secretary of the Interior
Sally Jewell signed a
historic agreement July 30
at the Department of the
Interior that will guarantee
water rights for the White
Mountain Apache Tribe of
Arizona and provide water
security for the city of
Phoenix and other downstream
water users.
The House threw a wrench in
President Barack Obama's
climate change initiative
Thursday with a vote to
limit the government's
ability to enact
environmental regulations.
The bill establishes a
non-hazardous regulatory
framework to govern the
disposal of coal combustion
residuals, while ensuring
that a minimum federal
requirement for the disposal
of coal combustion residuals
is implemented and that the
beneficial uses of coal
combustion residuals can
continue.
According to the Colorado
County Sheriff’s Office, the
couple had been held at
gunpoint by the suspects
inside their home just north
of Columbus. They were then
forced to drive to the First
National Bank of Eagle Lake
in Columbus.
The ability to learn and
remember is a vital part of
any animal's ability to
survive. In humans, memory
also plays a major role in
our perception of what it is
to be human. A human is not
just a survival machine, but
also reads, plans, plays
golf, interacts with others,
and generally behaves in a
manner consistent with
curiosity and a need to
learn.
Forgetting where we put
the keys is a standard part
of the human condition,..
Iran’s new president on
Sunday called on the West to
abandon the “language of
sanctions” in dealing with
the Islamic Republic over
its contentious nuclear
program, hoping to ease the
economic pressures now
grinding its people.
The International Energy
Agency (IEA) has released a
World Energy Outlook Special
Report warning the world
that current climate change
policies are on track to far
exceed the goal of limiting
temperature rise to 2°C. ..
Models Might Be Wrong...or
they might be right, or
there might be other
evidence.
The Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC)
has approved a stipulation
and consent agreement under
which JPMorgan Ventures
Energy Corporation (JPMVEC)
will pay $410 million in
penalties and disgorgement
to ratepayers for
allegations of market
manipulation stemming from
the company's bidding
activities in electricity
markets in California and
the Midwest from September
2010 through November 2012.
JPMVEC admits the facts set
forth in the agreement, but
neither admits nor denies
the violations.
The "miss" has sent mortgage
rates of all types lower.
Conforming, FHA, VA and USDA
mortgage rates are dropping.
Jumbo mortgage rates are
falling, too.
Back to the E-Cat —
Rossi’s Level of
Satisfaction is ‘Top’ -
It’s not as easy as it once
was to get Andrea Rossi to
talk about his work. It
appears that his new
partners have put some
restrictions on what he can
publicly state — actually
not very surprising
considering the way
corporations go about their
business in highly
competitive environments.
Rossi has made it... (E-CatWorld;
July 26, 2013)
It doesn't
always take an elaborate
imaging scan or expensive
lab test to reveal a serious
illness.
"There are simple tests
that you can do yourself
that can give you
important clues about
your health," Dr. Samuel
Jacobson, M.D., a
critical care specialist
in Boca Raton, Fla.,
tells Newsmax Health.
The Long Island Power
Authority (LIPA) is
restructuring the incentives
associated with its solar
programs. ...
LIPA has lowered its rebates
to $0.99/AC watt (equivalent
to $0.75 per DC watt for a
typical system) for
residential customer-owned
or leased solar systems. In
addition, LIPA has lifted
its contractor cap for the
amount of solar systems
allowed per company.
Meteor activity kicks into
high gear in August as seen
from the northern
hemisphere. The main reason
for all this activity is the
Perseid shower that peaks on
August 12. This shower is
active most of the month and
remains above the level of
the sporadic background for
a week centered on August
12. The sporadic activity is
also near maximum as seen
from the northern hemisphere
and is now more than double
the rates from just three
months ago
-
A new class of drugs
known as PCSK9
inhibitors promises to
reduce LDL cholesterol
levels to previously
unheard of lows,
dropping your level
below 50. These drugs
will undoubtedly kill
many before the risks
are fully realized
-
Your body needs
cholesterol for the
production of cell
membranes, hormones,
vitamin D, and bile
acids that help you to
digest fat
-
If your levels get too
low, you increase your
risk of dementia,
violent and aggressive
behavior, depression,
suicide, cancer,
Parkinson’s disease—and
likely heart disease, as
a result of cholesterol
sulfate deficiency
-
Statin drugs, which one
in four adults over 45
are using to protect
their heart health, can
paradoxically have
significantly
detrimental effects on
your heart health
-
The most effective way
to optimize your
cholesterol profile and
prevent heart disease is
via diet and exercise
A new technique developed by
a University of Colorado
Boulder team converts
sunshine and water directly
into usable fuel. The
technique involves
concentrating sunlight in a
solar tower to achieve
temperatures high enough to
drive chemical reactions
that split water into its
constituent oxygen and
hydrogen molecules. In this
way, the team says it should
be able to cheaply produce
massive amounts of hydrogen
fuel.
Study shows solar for 1,000
homes would require 32 acres
While the yuan is trading
around 6.13 to the dollar,
the PBoC is guiding the
currency weaker. The
so-called PBoC "midpoint" is
now at 6.1817 - a level not
seen since May. The currency
is allowed to trade 1%
higher or lower than the
level set each morning by
the central bank. The
current trading level is
0.8% stronger than the
midpoint.
Within
the unseen sphere of
medical science (that
is, the world of bench
research), we find that
cures and
prevention of a number
of common cancers
already exist — even for
advanced
metastatic (spreading)
cancers.
Medical
oncologists are trained
to juggle chemotherapy
agents and use
radiation, yet they have
little
interest in medical
knowledge outside of
these areas. Most
orthodox medical
journals admit that for
major cancers, these
traditional treatments
have been failures,
because their widespread
use hasn’t changed
mortality rates.
Radioactive groundwater at
the crippled Fukushima
nuclear plant has risen to
levels above a barrier being
built to contain it,
highlighting the risk of an
increasing amount of
contaminated water reaching
the sea, Japanese media
reported on Saturday.
Removing weeds can be
annoying, especially in an
area with a lot of plants.
Ring Weeder slips over the
user's index finger and
allows for precision weed
pulling all the way down to
the root.
An important transition
is underway with the
integration of renewables
into the grid. But often
overlooked and seldom
appreciated is the
tremendous potential of
geothermal energy.
Unfortunately for those
in the industry, this fate
is justified. Geothermal is
not an enticing new source
of generating energy
competing for attention with
the ranks of distributed
fuel cells, advanced solar
PV or next generation wind
turbines -- far from it.
Many jurisdictions around
the world are encouraging
the installation of roof-top
solar panels by providing a
number of financial and
regulatory support
mechanisms. These include
direct grants to reduce the
cost of installation,
guaranteed prices for solar
power sold back into the
grid, and "net metering"
whereby only the net flow of
electricity from the grid to
the residence can be charged
for by the utility company.
We need to move to a
renewable energy base.
Much has been written in the
last decade about the
potential of Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
as a new diagnostic and
therapeutic tool in clinical
neurophysiology. TMS is a
painless and non-invasive
technique for stimulating
cortical tissue by means of
magnetic induction. TMS has
been used to map the motor
cortex by recording evoked
responses, and appears to
show potential for treating
certain brain disorders,
from Parkinson's disease to
depression.
Somewhere in the South
Pacific, thousands
of miles from the nearest
landfall, there is a fishing
ship. Let’s say you’re on
it. Go onto the open deck,
scream, jump around naked,
fire a machine gun into the
air — who will ever know?
You are about as far from
anyone as it is possible to
be.
But you
know what you should do? You
should look up and wave.
Crude oil that spilled
from a pipeline in the Gulf
of Thailand on Saturday has
blackened the majority of
coral reefs near Koh Samet
island’s Ao Phrao Beach and
has spread to smaller
islands nearby, according to
local officials.
Around 50,000 liters (420
barrels) of crude oil
spilled into the sea from a
pipeline unloading an oil
tanker around 20 kilometers
(12 miles) off the coast of
Rayong province and 230 km
(140 miles) southeast of the
Thai capital, Bangkok.
-
Cabbage is a potent
medicinal food that
plenty of research shows
prevents cancer, in
large part due to its
high concentrations of
antioxidants,
anti-inflammatory
compounds and
glucosinolates
-
Cabbage is rich in
vitamin K1 and B
vitamins, which many are
deficient in
-
Cabbage has been shown
to help heal stomach
ulcers and offers
benefits to digestion
-
Cabbage should be cooked
only lightly, eaten raw
or fermented to obtain
the most nutrients
After spending $1 billion in
Maine to build 11 projects,
wind energy companies have a
problem: The transmission
lines connecting them to the
New England grid sometimes
are too weak to carry all
their power.
The argument that the
federal government needs to
leave the oversight of
hydraulic fracturing to
states is an old one, but
the volume seems to have
been cranked up on Capitol
Hill in recent weeks.
The interesting thing
this time around is that no
one seems to be arguing
back.
Often called the love
hormone, oxytocin has shown
the ability to enhance
social bonding, decrease
anxiety and encourage an
overall feeling of
satisfaction with life. A
new study out of
Northwestern University,
however, finds that this
ancient hormone has a dark
side, and is capable of
strengthening unpleasant
memories, fear, and anxiety.
This Jeckyll and Hyde
behavior results from the
fact that oxytocin has a
general strengthening effect
on social memories, without
regard to their polarity.
Years of consolidation,
capacity cuts, fuel
efficient planes and other
cost controls helped jet
fuel prices glide downward
in 2013. But some US markets
have still felt turbulence.
US airlines are
filling up planes with
passengers at a record
level. Despite that demand,
the US Gulf Coast region,
which produces half of the
nation’s jet fuel, started
2013 spot trading for
typical 25,000-barrel lots
at $3/gal and ended July 31
at $2.945/gal, according to
Platts data.
-
A new study highlights
how agricultural
subsidies that favor
corn, soy and grains are
fueling the obesity
epidemic, putting small
farms out of business
and discouraging
sustainable, biodiverse
farming
-
Farm subsidies are no
longer based on need;
mega-farms receive an
annual fixed cash
payment based upon the
number of acres on the
farm, which are given
whether they need them
or not
-
Large corporate farms
receive the majority of
farm subsidies while the
bulk of small farmers
receive little or none
-
Farm subsidies are
already in the budget;
redesigning the system
to provide incentives to
farmers growing healthy
crops and using
sustainable farming
methods may help fight
obesity and protect the
environment
New report calculates
flaring of gas from North
Dakota fracking industry
leading to greenhouse gas
emissions equivalent to
putting one million cars on
the road.
The full scale of the gas
flaring undertaken by the
North Dakota fracking
industry has been laid bare,
after a new report suggested
the practice resulted in
approximately $1bn of gas
being wasted last year.
For
years, power companies have
watched warily as solar
panels have sprouted across
the nation’s rooftops. Now,
in almost panicked tones,
they are fighting hard to
slow the spread.
Alarmed by what they
say has become an
existential threat
to their business,
utility companies
are moving to roll
back government
incentives aimed at
promoting solar
energy and other
renewable sources of
power. At stake, the
companies say, is
nothing less than
the future of the
American electricity
industry.
...new Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani, you know the
media is calling him a
"moderate." Is he? And does
his rise to power mean Iran
is likely to abandon its
nuclear ambitions?
The world installed 31,100
megawatts of solar
photovoltaics (PV) in
2012—an all-time annual high
that pushed global PV
capacity above 100,000
megawatts. There is now
enough PV operating to meet
the household electricity
needs of nearly 70 million
people at the European level
of use. While PV production
has become increasingly
concentrated in one
country—China—the number of
countries installing PV is
growing rapidly. In 2006,
only a handful of countries
could boast solar capacity
of 100 megawatts or more.
Now 30 countries are on that
list, which the
International Energy Agency
(IEA) projects will more
than double by 2018.
Xcel's 2014 Renewable Energy
Standard compliance plan
proposal "takes aim at net
metering" and does not
"fairly value" the benefits
of rooftop solar, according
to the advocate groups,
including Advanced Energy
Economy, Clean Energy
Action, Clean Power Finance,
COSEIA (Colorado Solar
Energy Industries
Association),
EnergyShouldBe.org,
Environment Colorado, SEIA,
Sierra Club, and Vote Solar.
Several solar manufacturers
are also part of the
opposition.
August
2, 2013
Carving the faces of
“founding fathers” who
weren’t good for Indian
policy into sacred
mountains, having to walk by
a monument of a man who was
responsible for the death of
countless Indigenous
Peoples, building statues of
men who killed countless
Natives… why are there so
many monuments for those who
don’t deserve it?
The U.S. biodiesel industry
has reached a new production
record for the first half of
the year, according to
figures from the
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). Driven by
strong federal policy aimed
at diversifying the
transportation fuels market,
the biodiesel industry is on
pace for its best year ever,
according to the EPA.
Poland, one of the
heaviest polluters in
Europe, will become even
dirtier now that its shale
gas ambitions have faded and
it turns to cheap domestic
lignite coal to secure its
energy supply.
Poland already relies on
coal to produce more than 90
percent of its electricity
and is home to the European
installation that emits the
most carbon dioxide -
utility PGE's lignite power
plant in Belchatow.
Melting permafrost may
release catastophic amounts
of methane
Last week, the journal
Nature published a new paper
warning of a $60 trillion
price tag for a potential 50
Gigatonne methane pulse from
the East Siberian Arctic
Shelf (ESAS) over 10-50
years this century. The
paper, however, prompted
many to suggest that its
core scenario - as Arctic
permafrost thaws it could
increasingly unleash
dangerous quantities of
methane from sub-ice methane
hydrates in as quick as a
decade - is implausible.
“This decision neither
acknowledges congressional
intent or the horrific past
that caused these
protections for our kids to
be put in place to begin
with,” Penobscot Chief Kirk
Francis wrote in an e-mail
to tribal colleagues and
Indian Country Today Media
Network. “This decision also
tells me that all the
rhetoric about tribal
nations being recognized as
sovereigns rings very hollow
today after so much hope and
optimism that we are making
huge strides.
What if a company that you
thought you could trust,
knowingly sold you a
medicine for your child that
they knew had the potential
to give your child HIV? How
would you react? What if a
government agency that
claims the responsibility
for protecting you from such
treachery, not only looked
the other way, but was
complicit in this exchange?
Boulder should pursue an
aggressive goal of reducing
its greenhouse gas emissions
80 percent by 2050, and it
can do that without extreme
austerity if it can add a
lot of renewable energy in
the next decade through a
municipal utility, City
Council members said Tuesday
night.
BP is digging in for a long
legal battle over the Gulf
of Mexico oil spill, Chief
Executive Bob Dudley said on
Tuesday after compensation
costs soared for a second
straight quarter.
Breakdown
of
GMO
Labeling
Laws
in
Each
Country
With the continued fight for
GMO labeling and ultimately
the discontinuance of GMOs
altogether, we are
protecting not only our own
rights, bodies and our
children, but also
generations to come.
Are you aware of the GMO
labeling laws implemented
around the world? While the
United States and Canada
have virtually no GE food
labeling laws, countries
like Russia, Australia,
Italy, and more have
mandatory labeling of nearly
all GE foods. Just
below you can view a global
map of all the countries and
their current status with GE
labeling laws.
City leaders in Richmond,
Calif., said Tuesday that
they would take the first
steps towards potentially
seizing underwater
mortgages, becoming the
first city to pilot an
unorthodox use of eminent
domain to tackle blight left
by the housing bust.
To avoid “widespread
disorder and violence,” the
Chilean government must stop
applying an anti-terrorism
law against its Mapuche
indigenous people, who are
fighting to recover their
ancestral lands, warns a
United Nations human rights
and counter-terrorism
expert.
The controversial law
dates from General Augusto
Pinochet’s 1973-90
dictatorship. It is now
being used by the government
of billionaire President
Sebastian Pinera.
Wild animals in national
parks are dying by the
hundreds under the wheels of
visitors’ cars, according to
road-kill records from
Yellowstone, Yosemite and
Grand Teton national parks
released today by Public
Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, PEER.
The National Park Service
has no policies or guidance
addressing road-kill, so
individual parks are left on
their own.
Pushing back against
congressional Republicans
and others who claim the
Obama administration is
determined to cut coal out
of the nation's energy mix,
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest
Moniz on Thursday told
reporters that the fuel can
continue to play a key role
in powering the nation.
Two companies involved in
the 2010 BP Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico, the largest
in U.S. history, have
attempted to withhold
evidence from investigating
authorities, but one must
now produce the documents
sought, and the other is
being penalized for
destroying a separate set of
evidentiary facts.
Lacing up those sneakers may
be the better than popping
pills, when it comes to
fighting Alzheimer’s
disease. That’s the key
conclusion of new research
by the University of
Maryland School of Public
Health that found regular,
moderate exercise improves
memory and cognitive
function in people at risk
for Alzheimer's in ways no
drug can.
Developing countries should
speed up the withdrawal of
highly hazardous pesticides
from their markets following
the death of 23 children
from contaminated food in
India, the United Nation's
Food and Agriculture
Organization said on
Tuesday.
Northern California’s
Salinas Valley is often
dubbed America’s salad bowl.
Large growers there have
long relied on thousands of
seasonal workers from rural
Mexico to pick lettuce,
spinach and celery from
sunrise to sunset. Many of
these workers seem destined
for a life in the fields.
But a program that helps
field workers, like Raul
Murillo, start their own
farms and businesses is
starting to yield a few
success stories.
Deepwater Wind New England
is the winner of the first
competitive lease sale of
renewable energy in U.S.
federal waters, pledging
approximately $3.8 million
for two sites in an auction
yesterday (July 31) by the
U.S. Department of Interior
(DOI) and Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management (BOEM).
Ford Motor Co, the
second-largest U.S.
automaker, will offer this
fall an F-150 pickup truck
that can run on compressed
natural gas to take
advantage of the resurgence
in truck demand.
The move also allows Ford
to capture consumers'
interest, as rivals General
Motors Co and Fiat SpA's
Chrysler Group LLC sell
revamped versions of their
trucks to U.S. car shoppers.
Ford is expected to
introduce its overhauled
truck next year.
-
Depression affects 10
percent of Americans at
some time in their life,
and the number of
Americans diagnosed with
depression increases by
about 20 percent
annually
-
There’s a growing
acceptance that
maintaining good
physical health and
spending time outdoors
can significantly lower
your risk of developing
depression in the first
place
-
80 percent of gardeners
report being “happy” and
satisfied with their
lives, compared to 67
percent of
non-gardeners; 87
percent of those who
garden more than six
hours a week report
feeling happy, compared
to those spending less
time in their gardens
-
100 percent of
volunteers interviewed
during an outdoor
conservation project
agreed that
participation benefited
their mental health,
boosted self-esteem and
improved confidence
Although hydropower remains
the world's leading
renewable energy, solar and
wind continue to dominate
investment in new renewable
capacity and are quickly
becoming the highest-profile
renewable energy sources,
according to Worldwatch
Institute.
Those solar panels or
radiant-heated stone floors
could help snag a larger
home loan under legislation
now pending in the U.S.
Senate.
The SAVE Act would
require Fannie Mae, Freddie
Mac and the Federal Housing
Administration _ about 90
percent of the mortgage
market _ to add energy
efficiency to their
underwriting policies.
Solar and wind continue to
dominate investment in new
renewable capacity. Global
use of solar and wind energy
grew significantly in 2012.
Solar power consumption
increased by 58 percent, to
93 terrawatt-hours (TWh),
while wind power increased
by 18.1 percent, to 521.3
TWh.
A July explosion at a
natural gas rig off the
Louisiana coast will create
challenges but won't hurt
the momentum for Hercules
Offshore Inc., an executive
said...
The incident is considered
under control. No injuries
or significant environmental
damage resulted from the
accident.
Findings from a study of
mothers and their exposures
during the first trimester
of pregnancy suggest that
higher nitrate intake from
drinking water sources might
be associated with some
types of defects in babies.
Published recently in
Environmental Health
Perspectives, the study took
place in Iowa and Texas. The
investigators used data from
participants of the National
Birth Defects Prevention
Study and linked mothers’
addresses to their drinking
water sources and respective
nitrate content. They also
accounted for reported use
of bottled water.
Human rights and
self-determination are hot
issues as nations debate the
application of the UN
Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples: Is the
Declaration a revolutionary
challenge to the colonial
system that dominates
Indigenous peoples? Or a
modest proposal to
accommodate Indigenous
peoples within state
structures?
Hoskie grabbed his
work gloves, his sandwich,
and put that third piece of
Spam in his mouth and walked
out the door and then south
to the main highway. It was
still before dawn, but he
knew this path well and
could hear the crunch of the
dirt as he walked.
US Secretary of State John
Kerry arrived here Wednesday
for consultations with the
newly-elected government in
Pakistan and nudge it to
eliminate terrorist
safe-havens ahead of the
withdrawal of US-led troops
from neighbouring
Afghanistan.
According to Jeff Masters,
chief meteorologist of
Weather Underground, the
dust should temporarily cool
the Atlantic tropical region
where powerful storms start
popping up at this time of
year.
Mexico's opposition
conservative party proposed
sweeping energy reform on
Wednesday to change the
constitution to allow more
private investment and
promote competition, while
the ruling party is expected
to present its own plans for
an overhaul next week.
A proposal has been
submitted to the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for
consideration in developing
the final Best Available
Retrofit Technology (BART)
rule to allow for the
continued delivery of
electricity from the Navajo
Generating Station (NGS) in
Arizona while achieving
significant air pollution
reductions.
While aboriginal children
died of tuberculosis in the
1930s and 1940s, Canadian
health officials tried out
experimental vaccines on
infants rather than
ameliorate the conditions of
poverty that sparked that
and a host of other
illnesses.
These revelations, while
not new, have re-emerged in
the wake of the discovery
that nutritional experiments
were conducted on First
Nations children in the
1940s.
A top secret National
Security Agency program
allows analysts to search
with no prior authorization
through vast databases
containing emails, online
chats and the browsing
histories of millions of
individuals, according to
documents provided by
whistleblower Edward
Snowden. The NSA boasts in
training materials that the
program, called XKeyscore,
is its 'widest-reaching'
system for developing
intelligence from the
internet. The latest
revelations will add to the
intense public and
congressional debate around
the extent of NSA
surveillance programs.
After the Vietnam War, the
Pentagon reflected on its
wartime policies and
military tactics and came to
understand that they fanned
public distrust in the
military which, in turn,
limited public support of
their actions. Our defense
leaders grasped that they
needed to modify their
tactics and policies in
order to rebuild public
confidence and soon military
prestige was restored and
the military's effectiveness
returned.
A top Obama administration
official is pushing back
against critics of the
president’s signature
health-care reform law,
saying that implementation
is 'on track' and that the
law will benefit average
families. The ACA calls for
individuals who lack health
insurance to sign up through
an exchange -- with the
enrollment process for 2014
starting Oct. 1 -- or to pay
a tax penalty if they don’t
buy coverage. President
Obama’s vision is that the
law, known as Obamacare,
will sharply reduce the
share of Americans who lack
insurance, due to this
mandate on individuals
coupled with subsidies to
help lower-income families
pay for coverage.
Solar activity has been at
very low levels for the past
24 hours. There are
currently 7 numbered sunspot
regions on the disk.
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on days one
and three (02 Aug, 04 Aug)
and quiet to active levels
on day two (03 Aug).
A U.S. district court on
Wednesday overturned a
Federal Reserve rule capping
the debit card fees that
banks collect from
merchants. The judge ruled
that the Federal Reserve
improperly set the caps too
high after an extensive
lobbying campaign by the
banking industry. Under the
rule, banks can charge
retailers as much as 21
cents a transaction. The
court ruling was a victory
for the many retailers that
had complained that the cap
on the interchange fee, or
'swipe fee,' is too high."
[editor's note: If you think
a fee is "too high," don't
buy the good or service
involved ... duh! There's no
requirement that a business
accept debit cardsl if the
retailers don't want to pay,
they should just put "cash
only" signs in their
windows.
A new contract has been
announced between the
Southern Research Institute
and the Research Partnership
to Secure Energy for America
(RPSEA) -- under the
Unconventional Resources
Program -- to develop and
demonstrate the performance
of technologies that will
advance shale gas hydraulic
fracturing water treatment
in order to produce National
Pollution Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES)
quality water.
The NSA has asked Microsoft,
AOL, Yahoo, and other
Internet service providers
(ISPs) to turn over the
passwords of their
customers. For now, the
companies have refused but
the pressure is mounting.
If NSA gets your
password, it can pose as you
and access your email
accounts and even your
financial records. We must
stop this new snooping.
In many cities, violence
spikes with the temperature.
Some social scientists say
that the same could be true
globally, proposing that
climate change could lead to
escalating violence. Now, a
study published online this
week in Science
tries to quantify the
increase.
Between 1995 and 2004, there
was a revolution in wind
turbine design in which
variable-speed,
pitch-controlled (VSPC)
machines outcompeted the
early fixed-speed,
stall-controlled (FSSC)
machines in the marketplace,
rising from 14% to 73%
market share. The variable
speed concept was invented
simultaneously on both sides
of the Atlantic, giving the
impression that the “selfish
invention” was just an idea
whose time had come.
The
Colorado is “a tidal river”
explains deBuys, going on to
note, “these days, the tides
of the Colorado are not
lunar but Phoenician.” As
demand rises from Phoenix,
AZ, water levels dip and ebb
in response.
Razorbills, Puffins,
Terns, Guillemots --
thousands of seabirds flock
to Maine islands each
summer. They socialize, lay
eggs, feed their chicks, and
as the summer cools into
autumn, they depart.
Biologists have witnessed
this natural cycle for
decades as they've worked to
restore seabird colonies off
the east coast. Yet little
is known about what happens
when the birds leave the
islands, in the hours that
they forage for their chicks
and during the winter
months, when they migrate.
TransCanada will proceed
with its Energy East
pipeline project to ship
crude oil from Western
Canada to refineries and
export terminals in the east
of the country, the company
said Thursday.
TransCanada said its
decision to go ahead with
the project was based on
"binding, long-term
contracts" from producers
and refiners after a recent
open season concluded with
firm commitments for about
900,000 b/d of capacity.
Police said one of the
suspects grabbed the tenant,
21-year-old Dmitri Lawrence
Brown, by the throat, forced
him down, then put a hand
over his eyes while the
other two suspects attempted
to steal jewelry from the
apartment. As the suspects
were leaving, Brown was able
to get up and grab a gun,
police said. He then shot
and killed the suspect who
had been holding him down,
police said
American and European
companies still lead the
latest ranking of
utility-scale solar project
developers to be published
by Wiki-Solar. However,
Chinese players are leaping
up the rankings.
With US natural gas storage
inventories already at 2.845
Tcf with three months left
in the refill season,
estimates for season-ending
levels may need to be
revised upward if forecasts
for milder weather come to
pass, analysts said this
week.
Summer came in
like a lamb and may exit the
same, but overall the
weather has "just not been
as hot as last year," noted
analyst Martin King at
FirstEnergy Capital.
The bill is aimed at
commercializing marine and
hydrokinetic energy, which,
unlike traditional
hydropower, generates energy
from waves, currents and
tides without the use of a
dam, which the senators said
could reduce a project's
environmental impact.
How did life on Earth get
started? Three new papers
co-authored by Mike Russell,
a research scientist at
NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., strengthen the case
that Earth's first life
began at alkaline
hydrothermal vents at the
bottom of oceans. Scientists
are interested in
understanding early life on
Earth because if we ever
hope to find life on other
worlds -- especially icy
worlds with subsurface
oceans such as Jupiter's
moon Europa and Saturn's
Enceladus -- we need to know
what chemical signatures to
look for.
In what officials are
calling a historic day for
offshore renewable energy,
the federal government on
Wednesday auctioned off more
than 164,000 acres of ocean
southwest of Martha's
Vineyard to a wind energy
developer.
Unlike the park's popular
and famous Old Faithful
geyser, which spews water
like clockwork every
hour-and-a-half, no one
knows when Steamboat will
erupt next.
In the past, it's gone as
long as 50 years without a
major event. In 1964, it
erupted a record 29 times.
The last blast came in 2005.