By Mike Robbins
Hydrogen -- Star Gas, Everywhere, Yet Unseen. Sunlight is its Child.
(Haiku by Stephen Wetlesen)
August 29, 2014
Using a tethered airship
floating high up among the
clouds, the Air HES concept
is designed to yield both
clean water and electricity
by harvesting and condensing
water vapor, which it uses
to spin up an electric
turbine generator to create
power. The developers behind
the concept claim to have
built a prototype to test
their theory and have also
conducted feasibility
studies into upping the
scale of their device to
produce economically viable
levels of water and power.
The compound in question,
agaratine, is most commonly
found in the
mushrooms belonging to the
genus Agaricus.
This includes the common
white or button
mushroom—your everyday
supermarket variety that is
commonly found raw at
restaurant salad bars:
In a quest to make Austin
Energy the greenest utility
in the nation, the Austin
City Council will consider a
proposal Thursday that would
require the utility to more
aggressively invest in
renewable energy, with an
ambitious goal of reducing
its greenhouse gas emissions
to zero by 2030.
When organic materials in
landfills decompose, methane
gas is created.
Traditionally, landfill
owners have allowed methane
gas to seep into the
atmosphere, contributing to
global warming, or in some
cases, have burned the gas
as a waste product. Methane
can be converted into energy
by drilling pipes into the
landfill. Through these
pipes methane is directed
into a gas turbine or
internal combustion engine
which converts the gas into
electricity. The electricity
can either be used on-site
or sold to the local
electric utility and fed
into the grid.
The California Assembly
and Senate have voted
unanimously in favor of
Senate Bill 1414, which will
accelerate the use of demand
response that will allow
people and technology,
rather than power plants, to
meet California's rising
electricity needs.
With a 79-0 vote from the
Assembly and 36-0 vote from
the Senate, elected
officials made it
resoundingly clear that
California prioritizes clean
energy technologies and
seeks to make the state's
power grid more reliable and
economical through the use
of demand response.
Today, the Autism Media
Channel released a short
video where CDC
whistle-blower Dr. William
Thompson states, in a phone
call to Dr. Brian Hooker,
that injecting mercury into
pregnant women creates a
“clear and present danger”
to the unborn child.
Thimerosal, a form of
mercury used as a
preservative in vaccines,
was removed from most
childhood vaccines a few
years ago, but is still in
the annual flu shot, which
is recommended for pregnant
women.
The new rating is C. This
means that the institution
offers fair financial
security, is currently
stable, and will likely
remain relatively healthy as
long as the economic
environment avoids the
extremes of inflation or
deflation. In a prolonged
period of adverse economic
or financial conditions,
however, we feel this
institution may encounter
difficulties in maintaining
its financial stability.
...combines advanced
mechanical and air moving
technologies to automate the
repetitive, laborious, and
inefficient tasks of safely
moving large volumes of
soiled linen and waste out
of hospitals.
A new 'State of the World's
Rivers' database shows how
the world's rivers have been
impoverished by dams and
their ecosystems devastated
- and provides a valuable
resource to help save river
basins that remain in good
health.
A newly-exposed report by
Diablo Canyon's lead nuclear
inspector shows that the
twin reactors are unsafe,
writes Karl Grossman. An
earthquake on nearby
geological faults could
trigger a Fukushima-scale
accident causing 10,000
early fatalities. The
owner's response? Apply to
extend the site's operation
for another 20 years.
As aftershocks of the 6.0
Napa earthquake that
occurred Sunday in
California continued, the
Associated Press revealed a
secret government report
pointing to major earthquake
vulnerabilities at the
Diablo Canyon nuclear plants
which are a little more than
200 miles away and sitting
amid a webwork of earthquake
faults.
To truly support free
speech, people must first be
willing to defend the right
of a person they “hate” to
state an honest opinion
without fear of retribution,
according to comedian Jim
Norton. Though he is known
for being funny, Norton took
a strikingly serious tone
when we asked him about his
thoughts on speech
repression and the policing
of unpopular or
controversial beliefs.
Nothing makes Norton’s
uncompromising stance on
free speech more clear than
his comedic bit about “Duck
Dynasty” star Phil
Robertson, which he
performed in front of a
howling audience in Addison,
Texas, on Saturday. In it,
he bashes and defends
Robertson simultaneously
over his position on gay
marriage.
Although the granite
mountains of Maine may be
spectacular, they may be
hiding a secret that's
affecting the IQs of
residents: Fluoride leaches
from the granite and drains
into the private wells that
provide drinking water for
many of Maine's communities,
leaving many with
dangerously high levels,
says an article in the
Scientific American.
Political rhetoric in the
United States, particularly
on the right, has a strong
tendency to focus on the
incomparable economic
freedom of Americans and
American businesses. They
portray the rest of the
world as more socialistic
and the American system as
the closest thing to a free
market economy operating in
the world. Yet that is far
from the truth. In fact,
America is swiftly being
supplanted as a preferred
place of business by many
other countries in the rich
world.
During Sunday's 6.0
magnitude earthquake, some
$75,000 worth of bottles of
wine, rum and whiskey flew
off the shelves of Aiyaz
Masani's liquor store in
Napa, California. He
estimates about half his
inventory was damaged,
winding up in three-foot
piles in the aisles.
But that financial hit is
far from enough to convince
him to buy earthquake
insurance for Redwood
Liquor. That would mean
forking over about 7 to 8
percent of his insured value
of $100,000 in premiums
alone, he said.
Facial recognition has been
a hot-button issue where
Google Glass is concerned.
The idea of strangers
identifying and streaming
your online details in the
time it takes to wander past
them in the street would be
a little unsettling for
most. Fraunhofer is quick to
emphasize, however, its
software can't determine a
person's identity, it purely
analyzes their emotions in
real-time, with none of the
information ever leaving the
device. All the calculations
are carried out in real-time
by the CPU integrated in the
eyewear.
Four years in, the Energy
from Coffee Wastewater
project led by UTZ
Certified, the
Netherlands-based
sustainability program, has
proven that it is possible
to generate energy, tackle
climate change and protect
water resources by treating
discharges from coffee
mills.
A young woman arrived at the
Kenema Government Hospital
in Sierra Leone in late May.
She had a high fever and had
just suffered a miscarriage.
In the course of her
treatment, doctors
discovered she was infected
with Ebola...
Google has taken the lid off
a previously secret project
that is being run out of its
semi-secret Google X
research arm. Project Wing
is focusing on the
development of "a delivery
system that uses self-flying
vehicles." In other words,
unmanned drones intended to
autonomously deliver
packages where and when
they're needed.
The Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act
(PPACA or Obamacare) became
law in early 2010. Arguably,
it is the single greatest
assault on the right of
individuals to control their
own bodies that America has
seen in decades. Few matters
are more intimate than
medical choice; it includes
decisions about giving
birth, having sex and the
time to die. Obamacare is a
Kafkaesque mass of
regulations that usurp these
choices in the guise of
providing them. Obamacare
nationalizes the body of
every American and assumes
the power to determine life
or death.
Thus far, most of the
challenges to nationalizing
health care have been around
the edges or based on
technicalities.
Hawaiian Electric Co. wants
65 percent of its power to
come from renewable sources
by 2030, cut customer bills
by 20 percent, convert
remaining power plants to
liquefied natural gas and
charge customers with
rooftop solar much more
ISIS is now the wealthiest
terrorist organization on
the planet, according to
Foreign Policy. And the Al
Qaeda offshoot has the
ambition and perhaps even
the organization needed to
put its piles of oil and
smuggling-related profits to
work, as its several-hundred
page-long annual report from
this past March
demonstrates.
Iceland raised its alert
warning level to maximum on
Friday after what it called
a small eruption in the
Bardarbunga volcano system
but said there was no sign
of ash that could affect air
travel in Europe.
Reykjavik's Meteorological
Office said that a fissure
eruption began in a lava
field north of the
Vatnajokull glacier, which
covers part of Bardarbunga
system, just after midnight
local time. The risk of an
ash cloud is highest in case
of a sub-glacial eruption.
When Republican Rep. Jeb
Hensarling sat down with
colleagues and constituents
at a recent Chamber of
Commerce lunch in Dallas,
the first question he faced
was whether Congress planned
to address immigration
policy and a burgeoning
border crisis.
Apple's a hardware company,
Microsoft's a software
company, and Google makes
almost all of its income
from advertising. All three
companies have been trying
for years to diversify their
revenue streams. How's that
working out?
There has been a second
leak of briny wastewater
from oil production on the
Fort Berthold Indian
Reservation, this time 3,000
barrels, or 126,000 gallons.
As with the last
time—when a million gallons
of the stuff leaked from an
underground pipeline and
possibly into the lake
supplying the reservation’s
water—the leaky line
occurred near the town of
Mandaree, North Dakota, and
is owned by Arrow Water LLC,
a subsidiary of Crestwood
Midstream Partners LP, which
is based in Houston.
On Monday, a
5-year-old Native American
boy was sent home on his
first day of school and
ordered to cut his hair
short because it allegedly
violated district policy,
the boy’s mother said.
From 2011 to 2021, Public
Service Electric and Gas
Company (PSE&G) investments
in New Jersey's electric
transmission network will be
a powerful stimulant of the
state's economy, according
to an analysis by Rutgers
University.
Specifically, the report
found that the company's
10-year, $8.1 billion
transmission investment
program will support 6,000
jobs annually -- generating
more than $4.3 billion in
salary and benefits and more
than $640 million in state
and local government
revenue.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) has
approved a final rule on the
environmental effects of
continued storage of spent
nuclear fuel and will lift
its suspension of final
licensing actions on nuclear
power plant licenses and
renewals once the rule
becomes effective -- marking
the end of a two-year effort
to satisfy a remand by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia
Circuit.
The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission approved a final
rule Tuesday that
essentially concludes
nuclear waste can be stored
on-site for 160 years or
more after a reactor has
shut down...
The NRC's action sparked
some frustration among
Pilgrim Nuclear Power
Station watchdogs.
The Plymouth plant, owned
and operated by Entergy
Corp. , currently has more
than 3,000 spent fuel rods
stored in pools, and hulking
dry casts are being
constructed to increase the
plant's capacity for spent
fuel storage.
As a result of
energy-efficiency projects
completed by the New York
Power Authority (NYPA) at
100 state and municipal
facilities in the first half
of 2014, New York State
taxpayers will save $4
million annually and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by
nearly 14,650 tons a year --
the equivalent of removing
more than 3,000 vehicles
from the road.
Ancient nomadic people knew
a thing or two about living
off-grid, so it makes sense
that Scottish company Trakke
drew on the traditional
Central Asian yurt for
inspiration when designing a
modern shelter. The Jero
yurt can serve as an extra
bedroom, a basic off-grid
dwelling, or a glamping
retreat. The company also
says it's towable by bike
and can be assembled in a
few hours without any tools.
The process was developed
by a team led by Oak Ridge
scientists Parans
Paranthaman and Amit Naskar.
It involves pretreating the
tires and then using
pyrolysis – the
decomposition of organic
materials by heat in the
absence of oxygen – to
recover pyrolytic carbon
black material from the
rubber.
Carbon black is similar
to the graphite commonly
used in battery anodes,
although unlike graphite,
it’s man-made.
The number of coal mines
idled in the first half of
2014 slowed compared to
second half of 2013, due in
part to cold winter weather
in early 2014 providing
support for a rise in prompt
month prices for both Powder
River Basin and Central
Appalachia coal. Although
the total number of mines
idled in the first half of
2014 was only 64 -- compared
to 112 in the second half of
2013 -- Appalachian mines
again shouldered most of the
burden.
-
A new study found
reduced levels of
circulating testosterone
were associated with
increased phthalate
exposure in several key
populations, including a
24-34 percent decline in
testosterone levels in
boys aged 6 to 12
-
It is believed that
phthalates may have
adverse hormonal effects
because they reduce
testosterone synthesis
by interfering with an
enzyme needed to produce
the male hormone
-
Declines in testosterone
levels among men have
been noted for decades,
along with a rise in
related health problems
such as reduced semen
quality and genital
deformities in newborn
boys
-
During fetal
development, low
testosterone can lead to
incomplete formation of
the sex organs, and
during puberty it may
permanently affect
growth and development;
in adults, low
testosterone may lead to
decreased sex drive,
depression, weight gain,
and more
-
You can minimize your
phthalates exposure by
choosing natural
personal care products
and avoiding the use of
PVC plastics; adults can
also optimize their
testosterone levels
naturally by following a
healthy lifestyle
Princeton University
professor Robert George
warned Wednesday that the
Islamic State will carry out
“mass slaughter in the
United States” if it is not
soon “destroyed as a
fighting force.”
C1 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a slight
chance for an M-class flare
on days one and two (29 Aug,
30 Aug) and likely to be low
with a slight chance for an
M-class flare on day three
(31 Aug). The geomagnetic
field is expected to be at
quiet to active levels on
day one (29 Aug) and quiet
to unsettled levels on days
two and three (30 Aug, 31
Aug). Protons greater than
10 Mev have a slight chance
of crossing threshold on
days one and two (29 Aug, 30
Aug).
A
faster, cheaper way to
manufacture silicon solar
cells, partially funded by
the Energy Department and
fine-tuned at its National
Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL), has won a coveted
R&D 100 award as one of the
top technology innovations
of 2013.
Crystal Solar's
approach to growing
high-quality,
high-efficiency silicon
wafers at 100 times the
usual throughput and
half the cost could be a
game-changer, creating
American jobs and
stemming the flow of
solar cell manufacturing
overseas, says T.S.
Ravi, chief executive
officer of the Santa
Clara, California-based
company.
Disaster relief and
espionage are two of the
most commonly cited motives
behind cutting-edge robotics
research. We’ve heard it all
before, many,many times. One
team from the North Carolina
State University decided to
do things differently;
rather than build these
robots from scratch, they
decided to cybernetically
enhance the miniature flying
drones already available in
our backyard: insects.
Their research,
published in the online
Journal of Visualized
Experiments (JoVE), reveals
how to monitor the
electrical signals moths use
to control their flight
muscles and how to
manipulate these muscles at
will. The goal of the
research is to create
organic “biobots” that can
be remotely controlled using
implanted electronics and
enhanced with sensors to aid
in post-disaster
reconnaissance.
New roads long enough to
girdle the Earth 600 times
are expected to be built by
2050 and better planning is
needed to protect the
environment while also
raising food production, a
study showed on Wednesday.
The study in the journal
Nature showed that roads can
aid farmers, especially in
developing nations where
food production is held back
by a lack of access to
markets or to fertilisers
and other technologies.
JPMorgan declined to
comment on whether it
was a victim of hacking,
while saying the bank
has multiple layers of
defense to fend off data
thefts. Photographer:
Peter Foley/Bloomberg
Russian hackers
attacked
JPMorgan Chase &
Co.and
at least four
other banks this
month in a
coordinated
assault that
resulted in the
loss of
gigabytes of
customer data,
according to two
people familiar
with the
investigation.
Ukraine’s president today
declared that a "Russian
invasion" of his country was
underway and the United
Nations' Security Council
called an emergency session
to discuss the latest crisis
involving allegations of
Russia's overt support for
Ukrainian rebels.
A new emissions-free device
created by scientists at
Stanford University uses an
ordinary 1.5-volt battery to
split water into hydrogen
and oxygen at room
temperature, potentially
providing a low-cost method
to power fuel cells in
zero-emissions vehicles and
buildings.
Yes, you have a temporary
advantage over those tier
one brands that do or will
have tariffs imposed, but
you’re not the only
tariff-free brand on the
block, and — wait!
Looky-looky over there! Many
more bankable solar panel
brands, including the
Chinese, are moving into new
facilities outside of the
dreaded tariff zone. In
perhaps a year or less, so
much for your tariff-free
pricing advantage.
A school district outside
Dallas will reportedly
continue to allow some
teachers to carry guns in
school, and posted signs on
school campuses warning that
teachers "may use whatever
force is necessary to
protect our students."
Syria’s civil war
continues to spill over
towards Israeli-held
territory – with reports of
President Assad’s jets
shelling rebel positions
close to the occupied Golan
Heights.
They are battling al
Qaeda’s Syria wing – the Al
Nusra Front – and other
Islamist insurgents who are
said to have seized a border
crossing, amid fierce
fighting in the strategic
area.
A rebel source insists
the Islamists are holding
their ground despite the
heavy bombardment.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a
staunch supporter of the
Second Amendment, is no
longer permitted to carry a
concealed handgun after
being slapped with a felony
indictment for alleged abuse
of power, according to state
law. Further, federal law
also apparently prohibits
the governor from purchasing
firearms or ammunition.
The National Security
Agency is secretly providing
data to nearly two dozen
U.S. government agencies
with a “Google-like” search
engine built to share more
than 850 billion records
about phone calls, emails,
cellphone locations, and
internet chats, according to
classified documents
obtained by The
Intercept.
The documents provide the
first definitive evidence
that the NSA has for years
made massive amounts of
surveillance data directly
accessible to domestic law
enforcement agencies.
Planning documents for
ICREACH, as the search
engine is called, cite the
Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Drug
Enforcement Administration
as key participants.
ICREACH contains
information on the private
communications of foreigners
and, it appears, millions of
records on American citizens
who have not been accused of
any wrongdoing. Details
about its existence are
contained in the archive of
materials provided to
The Intercept by NSA
whistleblower Edward
Snowden.
To be a big government
bureaucrat you have to have
two skills:
1) Covering
your butt, and 2) Putting
out fires. You don't
actually have to DO
anything, as long as you lie
low and move problems along
down the line.
And
that's exactly what the
Department of Veterans
Affairs is trying to get
away with right now. Oh,
I'll admit it's an
impressive looking dance. It
seems like a lot is
happening. But all they've
really been doing is dodging
blame for the death of 40
veterans.
Butts
covered! Mission
accomplished!
- ‘Natural’ skincare
products only need to
contain 1% of
natural ingredients to
be called ‘natural’.
- You absorb up to 60%
of any product applied
to your skin.
- You can absorb up
to 2kg of
chemicals through
your skin each year.
Researchers working at
Michigan State University
(MSU) have created a
completely transparent solar
collector which is so clear
that it could replace
conventional glass in
windows. The new devices –
dubbed transparent
luminescent solar
concentrators – have the
potential to not only turn
windows into solar electric
generators, but the screens
of smartphones, vehicle
glazing, and almost anything
else that has a see-through
surface.
Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko called an
emergency security meeting
to defend against what he
called a “de facto” Russian
incursion after separatists
gained ground in intensified
fighting.
Poroshenko canceled a
state visit to Turkey to
coordinate Ukraine’s
military response to the
“sharp deterioration” of
events in rebel-held
territory, he said on his
website today. Stocks and
futures from Moscow to New
York extended declines.
The Ebola epidemic in
West Africa could infect
over 20,000 people and
spread to more countries,
the U.N. health agency said
on Thursday, warning that an
international effort costing
almost half a billion
dollars is needed to
overcome the outbreak.
The World Health
Organisation (WHO) announced
a $490 million strategic
plan to contain the epidemic
over the next nine months,
saying it was based on a
projection that the virus
could spread to 10 further
countries beyond the four
now affected - Guinea,
Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Nigeria.
In the first half of 2014 US
wind energy hit 5 percent,
while solar more than
doubled.
According to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration
(EIA)'s latest "Electric
Power Monthly" report, with
data for the first six
months of 2014, renewable
energy sources (i.e.,
biomass, geothermal,
hydropower, solar, wind)
provided 14.3 percent of net
U.S. electrical generation.
Conventional hydropower
accounted for 7.0 percent,
while non-hydro renewables
provided an even larger
share at 7.3 percent.
Some five months after
Microsoft ended support for
Windows XP, a developer is
preparing to make an
unofficial service pack for
the 13-year-old OS available
on general release.
Climate change is aiding
shipping, fisheries and
tourism in the Arctic but
the economic gains fall
short of a "cold rush" for
an icy region where
temperatures are rising
twice as fast as the world
average.
A first cruise ship will
travel the icy Northwest
Passage north of Canada in
2016, Iceland has
unilaterally set itself
mackerel quotas as stocks
shift north and Greenland is
experimenting with crops
such as tomatoes.
Instead of criticizing
President Barack Obama's
lack of an effective
national security policy as
the terrorist threat of the
Islamic State grows in Syria
and Iraq, it might be
helpful to imagine the
speech President Ronald
Reagan would have given in
response to the videotaped
beheading of James Foley
-
Flame-retardant
chemicals are ubiquitous
in most couch cushions
(and mattresses), and
can easily migrate from
the foam and into
household dust
-
Children often pick up
dust on their hands and
transfer it into their
mouths
-
Researchers detected a
flame-retardant chemical
called TDCIPP in 100
percent of study
participants
-
The study found the
average concentration of
flame retardants in
children was close to
five times that of their
moms
-
Children who wash their
hands at least five
times a day have 30
percent to 50 percent
lower levels of flame
retardants on their
hands than children who
wash their hands less
frequently
-
Sitting on your couch
for extended periods of
time is also linked to
health problems,
including heart disease,
diabetes, and premature
death, especially if you
don’t interrupt your
sitting with
intermittent movement
August 26, 2014
MIT researchers develop a
system that creates
personalized climates around
individuals — an alternative
to heating entire buildings.
At
a 'die-in' outside a Chicago
Home Depot on August 16,
activists protest the
pesticides thought to be
causing mass bee deaths.
(Alex Kogan)
On Saturday,
activists in cities from
Dallas to Melbourne,
Australia, “swarmed the
globe” in an
international rally to
save the world’s bees.
Opposition to President
Obama's threat of an
Executive Amnesty for
possibly millions of illegal
aliens continued to heat up
this week as many of you
faxed, phoned, and visited
district offices of your
Members of Congress.
Savvy participants in the
electric vehicles business
see beyond the obvious
e-bikes, e-cars and e-buses
where little money is made.
The other half of the value
market is where most of the
profits will be made and it
is replete with new
sub-markets coming from
nowhere. They are tracked by
the uniquely detailed
analysis and forecasting of
IDTechEx which currently
covers 37 categories of
electric vehicle land, water
and air - a number that
increases every year as
significant new markets kick
in.
Many people have been
trying to get their head
around what the ‘Rossi
Effect’ is. What could be
going on inside the E-Cat
reactor to generate so much
energy without the problems
associated with the nuclear
and chemical reactions that
are currently used?
If Rossi won’t tell us
what is going on (he says
that at some point he will,
but we’ve been waiting for
years to learn about his
theory), maybe it’s better
to ask him what’s not
going on. Which is something
that a reader on the Journal
of Nuclear Physics just did:
The Atlantic Ocean has
masked global warming this
century by soaking up vast
amounts of heat from the
atmosphere in a shift likely
to reverse from around 2030
and spur fast temperature
rises, scientists said.
The theory is the latest
explanation for a slowdown
in the pace of warming at
the Earth's surface since
about 1998 that has puzzled
experts because it conflicts
with rising greenhouse gas
emissions, especially from
emerging economies led by
China.
A package of bills aimed
at regulating
drought-parched California's
stressed groundwater
supplies has come under fire
from agricultural interests,
injecting doubt into the
measures' fates in the
waning days of the state's
legislative session this
week.
The bills, which would
allow the state to take over
management of underground
aquifers and water accessed
via wells, tighten oversight
of water at a time when
groundwater levels are
shrinking in the third year
of a catastrophic drought.
China's news agency,
reported Sunday (Aug. 24)
that China's home-grown
operating system will be
unveiled in October this
year.
Xinhua quoted Ni Guangnan
of the Chinese Academy of
Engineering saying that the
OS will be first seen on
desktop devices and later
expanded to smartphones and
other mobile devices.
US Congressman stonewalled
by the CDC:...
If this CDC scientist
steps forward into the
light, he could cause a
firestorm. The CDC would
immediately, of course,
reject his claims.
They would say something
like this: “Yes, it’s true
that, ten years ago, we
studied autism and the MMR
vaccine, but the whole
thrust and pattern of the
data we compiled had to be
considered, not just one
piece. We did look at all
the data, and we reached the
correct conclusion. There is
no evidence that the MMR
vaccine causes autism.”
William W Thompson, PhD…the
CDC whistleblower…was
escorted off the premises of
the CDC campus yesterday
afternoon. This is what a
source has just told me.
The Western Area Power
Administration service
territory encompasses a
transmission system spanning
15 states and 1.5 million
square miles, serving 700
preference customers and
numerous open access
transmission customers who
rely on the existing
infrastructure for their
power.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest
Moniz championed the use of
nuclear power and urged
politicians and leaders in
the energy industry to adapt
and modernize energy
production to help minimize
the fallout from global
warming.
A senior federal nuclear
expert is urging regulators
to shut down California's
last operating nuclear plant
until they can determine
whether the facility's twin
reactors can withstand
powerful shaking from any
one of several nearby
earthquake faults.
About 400,000 tons of fly
ash is planned to fill the
6.2-acre pit in Mount Carmel
Township over 10 years -- or
40,000 tons each year. It's
located at a Gilberton Coal
mine site just east of Route
901 in the area of the
former Locust Summit breaker
on the Merriam Mountain. Fly
ash will be hauled there
beginning this fall.
There are several
possibilities for furthering
the efficiency and energy
output of fuel cell systems
that could be incorporated
into the processes used for
fuel cell energy production.
Below are three areas for
exploration in this
relatively new arena:..
At a time when renewable and
sustainable energy is a
growing concern in our
economies and ecosystems,
fuel cells are holding out
promising returns.
The new venture will be
located at the Saratoga
Technology + Energy Park, a
state-owned business park
off Route 9 that sits next
to the Luther Forest
Technology Campus where
GlobalFoundries is located.
It might be good idea to
start thinking about it.
There is more to a cup of
coffee than just the 125 ml
of water poured into a
cafetiere: an astounding 140
litres of water is needed to
grow the coffee beans for
one cup. The production of
one hamburger requires 17
times more: 2,400 litres.
Just 1 kg of cotton
(think a pair of jeans)
requires 10,000 litres of
water for growing cotton,
dying and washing.
Lower rates of asthma and
other health problems are
frequently cited as benefits
of policies aimed at cutting
carbon emissions from
sources like power plants
and vehicles, because these
policies also lead to
reductions in other harmful
types of air pollution.
But just how large are
the health benefits of
cleaner air in comparison to
the costs of reducing carbon
emissions? MIT researchers
looked at three policies
achieving the same
reductions in the United
States, and found that the
savings on health care
spending and other costs
related to illness can be
big — in some cases, more
than 10 times the cost of
policy implementation.
Ecoterrorists, saboteurs,
orphans, activists muck
through their separate
realities. 'This project is
terrifying—the idea of what
the world would become.'
More and more people are
living in our cities. They
are great places to live,
exciting, good jobs, great
night life, but also
sometimes congestion and
unhealthy air quality. The
latter problems are
improving, however. Efforts
to make cities livable
without driving are paying
off. Bike lanes, bike
sharing, and efforts to
reduce auto traffic and
congestion are helping to
improve the air quality in
our cities.
Libya's crude production has
continued to rise, reaching
630,000 b/d late Monday, a
spokesman for state-owned
National Oil Corp said.
The country's oil
production has been ramping
up since July, with all its
export terminals, including
the eastern ports of Es
Sider and Ras Lanuf, back
under state control and
operational.
However,
not all oil fields are back
in operation.
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake
struck southern Peru on
Sunday, shaking the capital
Lima 300 miles away but
triggering no widespread
damage or injuries.
If this is true, its a
wonder nobody knew anything
about this until it starts
to be revealed this late in
the game. Pelosi's "we have
to pass it to find out
what's in it" is more true
now than ever before!
Sales of new homes
slipped to a 4-month low in
July, despite the lowest
mortgage rates more than a
year.
According to the U.S.
Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD),
412,000 new homes were sold
on a seasonally-adjusted,
annualized basis in July;
and the national supply of
new homes for sale reached a
multi-year high.
More than a month after a
million gallons of briny
wastewater leaked from an
underground pipeline on the
Fort Berthold Reservation in
North Dakota, a tribal
environmental official said
he’s still seeking
confirmation that the spill
did not enter the
reservation’s water supply.
It was one of the largest
spills in an oil field in
the state’s history,
according to the Associated
Press, and the two-mile-long
flow of saltwater left a
swath of dead grass, bushes
and trees. Discovered on
July 8, it had probably been
under way since the Fourth
of July weekend, authorities
estimated.
Synthetic biology may one
day save the world. In the
meantime, it's making a
better-tasting vanilla
bean...
Whereas garden-variety
genetic engineers busy
themselves moving genes from
one organism into another—to
create tomatoes that don't
bruise easily, for
example—synthetic biologists
generate new DNA sequences
the way programmers write
code, creating new
life-forms.
An oil pipeline spill that
contaminated a river in the
northern Mexican state of
Nuevo Leon will take months
to clean up, the country's
top water authority said on
Thursday.
-
Plants are capable of
communicating with each
other via extensive and
complex networks, and
can warn each other of
the presence of pests.
In response, the plants
will mount natural
defenses against the
infestation
-
When a bug such as a
caterpillar chews on a
plant’s leaf, the plant
“hears” the vibrations
of the chewing, and
produces chemicals to
defend itself from
further harm
-
These chemicals are also
what give a plant many
of its medicinal
qualities, such as
glucosinolates, which
have anti-cancer
properties, and other
antioxidants
-
This research even
suggests that minor pest
attacks may play an
important role in
encouraging plant growth
that have higher levels
of (to humans) important
nutrients
Those Natives told
me—if I get a chance to
write about this—to express
that they understand the
family’s profound sense of
loss and grief. They were
very clear when telling me
that they stand with the
people of Ferguson. They
recognize this—this looks
familiar. Maybe that’s why
so many Native people are
standing with the frustrated
and grieving folks of
Ferguson. Maybe that’s why
so many are up in arms about
this recent unnecessary
death of yet another brown
person.
The view from Britain was
startlingly different than
the view from Martha’s
Vineyard, where President
Obama is vacationing.
There is a consensus in
Britain that at least 500
young Brits have gone to the
Middle East as jihadists.
The contamination of Toledo,
Ohio's water supply by the
algae-bloom-derived toxin
microcystin reinforces the
value of harvesting
rainwater to provide
distributed sources of safe
water. The mission of the
501(c)3 ARCSA is to promote
sustainable rainwater
harvesting practices to help
solve potable, non-potable,
stormwater and energy
challenges throughout the
world.
A
well-designed, installed and
maintained rainwater
harvesting system can
provide significant amounts
of high-quality water for
potable and non-potable,
residential and commercial
use...
Was Charles Schumer Too
Honest?..recent support for
fracking, and the natural
gas industry itself, might
help lead the way towards a
full-blown spike in the
acquisition and usage of
this commodity. New York
Senator Chuck Schumer (D)
recently appeared on MSNBC's
Morning Joe show and talked
about fracking. When asked
if he would support fracking
in New York, he stated,
M3 event observed. M5
event observed previous day.
Solar activity is likely to
be moderate with a slight
chance for an X-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(26 Aug, 27 Aug, 28 Aug).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on days one
and three (26 Aug, 28 Aug)
and quiet to minor storm
levels on day two (27 Aug).
Protons have a slight chance
of crossing threshold on
days one, two, and three (26
Aug, 27 Aug, 28 Aug).
Waste
heat can generate
significant energy
It has been estimated
that more than half of U.S.
energy usage is wasted as
heat — for instance, from
vehicles and heavy
equipment. Mostly, this
waste heat simply escapes
into the air. But that’s
beginning to change, thanks
to thermoelectric innovators
such as Massachusetts
Institute of Technologies
Professor Gang Chen.
Most people following the
E-Cat story are aware that
we’re in a lull in the
action as we wait for the
long anticipated report, and
the unveiling of the first
commercial plant. I hope
this period won’t go on for
too long, but it will take
as long as it takes, and I’m
certainly not going anywhere
during this time of
waiting. Rossi says that
during this time his
attention is focused almost
exclusively on the 1 MW
plant, but there have been
some questions on the
Journal of Nuclear Physics
about an interesting
phenomenon that Rossi has
reported about — that the
E-Cat give off an
electomagnetic force.
Today Andrea Rossi
announced on the Journal of
Nuclear Physics what would
appear to be an important
development in the
commercialization of the
E-Cat. In a comment about
the use of multiple reactors
inside each E-Cat plant,
Rossi made this comment:
Last, but not least:
our modules of E-cats
and Hot-cats have been
certified.
Small island states facing a
"frightening" rise in sea
levels will seek investments
in everything from solar
energy to fisheries to boost
their economies at a U.N.
summit next week...
Many islands from the Indian
Ocean to the Caribbean are
suffering erosion and
coastal flooding from storm
surges as global warming
raises sea levels by melting
ice from the Himalayas to
Greenland.
The sun seems to finally
be shining on solar power.
After decades of being
little more than an
optimistic dream, solar
power is finally getting
close in price to other
energy sources, say
installers.
The cost of solar
photovoltaic panels has come
down sharply in the last two
years, putting solar power
within shouting distance of
making business sense in
Kansas, say installers.
-
A new study finds girls
are developing breasts
earlier than ever
before; American boys
and girls are entering
puberty about five years
younger than they did in
1920
-
Obesity is identified in
this study as the most
significant factor
driving these disturbing
trends in premature
sexual development;
overweight girls develop
breasts about a year
earlier than
normal-weight girls
-
Besides contributing to
precocious puberty,
obesity raises your
child’s risk for insulin
resistance and type 2
diabetes, cardiovascular
disease,
gastrointestinal
problems, respiratory
problems, and increased
fractures
-
Obesity and toxic
chemicals in our food
and environment are two
sides of the same coin;
endocrine disrupting
chemicals wreak havoc on
normal sexual
development and disrupt
hormones that regulate
metabolism
-
Precocious puberty has
been associated with
certain cancers,
depression, anxiety,
substance abuse, eating
disorders, premature
sexual activity,
behavioral problems,
poor self-esteem, and
poor academic
performance
1. Nuclear Power electricity
production peaked in 2005 in
terms of gross energy
produced. 1996 was the year
when the highest percentage
(17.6 percent) of the
world’s electricity was
produced by nuclear power
plants.
2. The number of nuclear
reactors in operation today
is 388 — down from a high of
438 in 2002.
On January 31st,
Maryland-based Clean
Currents shut its doors for
good.
The renewable
energy supplier sent a minor
shockwave through the
industry when it abruptly
announced it could no longer
serve its 8,000 residential
and business customers.
Speaking to journalists
about the closure, the
company president said 'the
financials were fine. None
of us suspected that we
would be out of business in
a week.'
Clean
Currents was a casualty of
wholesale price volatility
during the Polar Vortex cold
snap, which sent
temperatures plummeting
overnight in early January
and massively disrupted life
on the East Coast and
Mid-Western states.
Nuclear power is
slowly going out of style.
Back in 1996, atomic energy
supplied 17.6 percent of the
world's electricity. Today
that's down to just 10.8
percent — and it could drop
even further in the years
ahead.
Many reactors are closing —
and new reactors have been
bogged down by delays
A coverup in New Jersey left
ratepayers without knowledge
that their water contained
elevated levels
of tetrachloroethene.
A group of global biotech
crop companies won a court
victory on Monday that
blocks enactment of a law
passed last year limiting
the planting of biotech
crops and use of pesticides
on the Hawaiian island of
Kauai.
U.S. Magistrate Judge
Barry Kurren of the U.S.
District Court in Hawaii
ruled that the law passed in
November by local leaders on
the island was invalid
because it was pre-empted by
Hawaii state law.
The US import tariffs that
have been imposed on Chinese
and Taiwanese solar modules
and cells will mean higher
prices for US consumers. It
will also cost thousands of
US jobs. Firstly, the US
Government did not think
this through thoroughly
enough. They have acted in
such a way that relations
between China and the US
will be further strained and
the solar industry in the US
will be damaged.
A federal nuclear inspector
urged U.S. regulators to
shut down a California
nuclear power plant until
tests showed its reactors
could withstand shocks from
nearby earthquake faults,
according to the Associated
Press and an environmental
group.
At WEFTEC 2014, Schneider
Electric will debut its
growing portfolio of
Variable Speed Drives and
showcase a new potential for
how drives can be leveraged
in the water industry.
According to the Solar
Energy Industries
Association (SEIA), Verizon
is on track to become the
number one solar power
producer among all U.S.
communications companies.
The prediction is based,
in part, on Verizon's
announcement that it will
invest nearly $40 million to
expand the on-site green
energy program it launched
in 2013...
-
Scientists report that
one in five people are
especially appetizing to
mosquitoes because of
the type of bacteria
that colonizes their
skin
-
Mosquitoes are also
attracted to certain
chemical compounds on
your skin, carbon
dioxide, movement, and
heat; they can sniff you
out from 50 yards away
-
Protecting yourself from
bites will help prevent
mosquito-borne illnesses
such as encephalitis,
yellow fever, malaria,
West Nile virus, and
dengue
-
Most commercial
repellents contain DEET;
many studies suggest
DEET may have
potentially harmful
effects, including brain
cell damage
-
A variety of suggestions
are given for how to
make your own natural
mosquito repellent, as
well as safe and
soothing remedies for
bites
Wind electricity costs have
dropped to about 2.5 cents
per kilowatt hour, a highly
competitive price in some
parts of the country.
August 22, 2014
Recently you sent us a
letter encouraging us to
renew our lapsed membership
in AARP by the requested
date. This isn't what you
were looking for, but it's
is the most honest response
I can give you. Our coverage
gap is a microscopic symptom
of the real problem, a
deepening lack of faith.
While we have proudly
maintained our membership
for years and long admired
the AARP goals and
principles, regrettably, we
can no longer endorse its
abdication of our values.
Your letter stated that we
can count on AARP to speak
up for our rights, yet the
voice we hear is not
ours.
Though the act of designing
and creating a fully
functional hover bike may
seem technologically
Herculean, there’s no
practical barrier to making
it happen, at least not with
the quadrotor design Chris
Malloy and his team are
working on with the
Hoverbike. While public
skepticism may be a
significant barrier, the
real challenge is bringing
together existing
technology, while making the
vehicle safe, practical and
economically viable.
Both outdoor and indoor air
pollution have been linked
to respiratory diseases such
as asthma, as well as
strokes, cancer, and heart
disease. In April, WHO
issued a public statement
citing poor air quality,
inside and out, as one of
the largest risks to health
worldwide.
Drug-resistant bacteria, or
so-called superbugs, pose a
very real threat to public
health. The over
prescription and consumption
of antibiotics has
contributed to a resilient
new breed of germs that
could see minor infections
once again evolve into
life-threatening conditions.
The latest development in
the fight against this
threat comes from scientists
at Queens University in
Belfast, who have produced
an antibacterial gel capable
of breaking through a
protective casing and
killing off certain types of
drug-resistant bacteria.
Firefighters successfully
stopped a coal-waste fire
from smoldering out of
control, the state
Department of Environmental
Protection said
Tuesday....Burning trash
sparks most coal fires in
the state, according to the
DEP. Left unchecked, coal
fires can smolder for years
and cost millions to
extinguish.
The reliability was
wondrous. From any phone in
any corner of the U.S., one
could reach any other corner
of the U.S. Who could
quarrel with the perfection
that was the Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN)?
But then the industrial
order changed...
Arizona Public Service (APS)
decided this week that they
would like to get into the
rooftop solar business. I
think they should too, but
not like this. Their
proposal is terrible for
customers.
In 2004, California
Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) passed the least-cost
best fit (LCBF) rule as part
of California’s Renewable
Portfolio Standard
procurement. This statute
required utilities to select
renewable resources that
have the lowest cost and
that best fit their system
needs.
While this rule had good
intentions, it also had
unintended side effects.
$7 billion of it will go to
consumers faced with
financial hardship
$10 billion of it will go to
the government.
One of two Americans
treated for the Ebola virus
expressed his gratitude to
Emory University Hospital
and those who have prayed
for him Thursday morning as
the hospital announced his
release. Then, Dr. Kent
Brantly asked for continued
support for those in West
Africa still fighting the
virus and hugged all 26
members of his medical team
at the hospital.
“Today is a miraculous
day.” Brantly said. “I am
thrilled to be alive, to be
well and to be reunited with
my family.”
The California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC)
has released a snapshot that
shows the state's
investor-owned utilities
(IOU) are aggressively
pursuing renewable energy in
order to meet the goals of
one of the most ambitious
Renewables Portfolio
Standards (RPS) in the
country. The RPS requires
IOUs, electric service
providers, and community
choice aggregators regulated
by the CPUC to procure 33
percent of retail sales per
year from eligible renewable
sources by 2020.
China, the world’s biggest
carbon emitter, accelerated
solar power installations in
the first half, adding
enough capacity in the
period to equal Australia’s
entire supply of power from
sunlight at the end of last
year.
China
added 3.3 gigawatts of
solar capacity in the
six months ended June
30, double last year’s
additions, the National
Energy Administration
said today in a
statement. China now has
23 gigawatts of solar
power supply, almost
seven times as much as
Australia, which is
described by its own
government as the
world’s highest
recipient of radiation
per square meter.
The Chinese government has
shown strong support for
nuclear power as part of the
country's energy mix in its
efforts to decrease air
pollution from coal-fired
plants. This year alone,
China has brought three new
reactors online, totaling
3.2 GW of capacity,
according to research and
consulting firm GlobalData.
Climate change will slash
up to nine percent off the
South Asian economy every
year by the end of this
century if the world
continues on its current
fossil-fuel intensive path,
the Asian Development Bank
warns in a new report.
The human and financial
toll could be even higher if
the damage from floods,
droughts, and other extreme
weather events is included,
the bank says.
Duke Energy is again in the
spotlight after
approximately 5,000 gallons
of fuel oil at the W.C.
Beckjord Station was spilled
into the Ohio River about 20
miles southeast of
Cincinnati. The oil spill
comes just six months after
a spill of more than 30,000
tons of coal ash and 27
million gallons of
contaminated water at the
Duke Energy Cape Fear plant
into the Dan River in North
Carolina.
Scientists from our
Department of Chemical
Engineering have developed a
low-cost device that could
be used in developing
countries to monitor the
quality of drinking water in
real time without costly lab
equipment.
Not only is there an
electrical component to the
universe, but they posit
that 98% of the universe is
comprised of dark plasma.
Omitting this from the
dialogue is like trying to
do chemistry without talking
about the electron.
Mortgage rates are mostly
unchanged after the Fed
Minutes' release. 30-year
mortgage rates are near
14-month lows.
Dominion Virginia Power's
plan to close its coal-fired
power plant on the Elizabeth
River would leave nearly a
million tons of fly ash in a
waste dump that has leaked
arsenic and other
contaminants into
groundwater for more than a
decade, company documents
show.
Pennsylvania officials have
reached an agreement with
environmental groups to
temporarily rein in the
expansion of fracking in the
state...
Fracking is big business in
Pennsylvania. ..Pennsylvania
has 59 operators and 6,391
active wells, the report
said.
Building on five previous
sales held under the Obama
Administration's Outer
Continental Shelf Oil and
Gas Leasing Program for
2012-2017 (Five-Year
Program) -- which have
offered more than 60 million
acres for development, and
garnered $2.3 billion in bid
revenues -- the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management
(BOEM) has auctioned 21.6
million acres in its Western
Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale
238.
Gaza gunmen killed 18
alleged spies for Israel on
Friday, including seven who
were lined up behind a
mosque and shot after midday
prayers, in response to
Israel’s deadly airstrikes
against top Hamas military
commanders.
Some doctors really mean
it when they say they do not
take health insurance. For
others, it is more of a
nuanced statement.
Consumers trying to
decipher the difference have
to ask a lot of questions to
figure out how to manage
their bills.
Owners of coal- and natural
gas-fired power plants in
Illinois told regulators
Monday that they should look
to other generators to
reduce the state's carbon
footprint.
The video opens with a
message from the Islamic
State, attacking President
Barack Obama for recently
directing airstrikes against
the terror group.
Islamic State militants are
the most dangerous threat
America has faced in years,
top US officials have
warned.
Defence Secretary Chuck
Hagel said US strikes had
weakened IS in Iraq, but the
group could be expected to
regroup.
America's top general
Martin Dempsey said IS
fighters could not be
defeated without attacking
its base in Syria.
North Carolina
legislators hope to vote
Wednesday on a revived
coal-ash bill as their
session winds down, House
and Senate leaders said
Tuesday.
Both versions of the bill
put Duke Energy on track to
drain its 33 N.C. ash ponds
within 15 years. But
last-minute differences
derailed the bill on Aug. 1
and appeared unlikely to be
resolved before a special
session in November.
One of the international
cyberattacks came in the
form of a phishing scam sent
to 215 NRC employees — a
dozen of whom clicked the
link, thus providing
sensitive information to the
hackers.
Other attacks arrived via
a compromised PDF attachment
sent to NRC employees and
workers in employee contact
lists. One worker opened the
attachment, which infected
the employee's computer.
The oil complex turned a
corner during mid-afternoon
US trade Thursday, with
NYMEX October crude settling
51 cents higher at $93.96/b.
The U.S. Coast Guard closed
a 15-mile stretch of the
Ohio River on Tuesday after
at least five thousand
gallons of fuel oil spilled
from a 60-year-old power
plant owned by Duke Energy
20 miles east of Cincinnati,
Ohio.
A crack in a heater that
raises the temperature of
water fed into the reactor
caused operators to power
down the Pilgrim Nuclear
Power Station this weekend
and go off the grid. On
Monday, there were no
answers as to when the plant
could return to capacity.
An appeal to the DEP
permit was filed in December
2009 by Robert Gadinski, a
Lavelle resident and
licensed geologist, along
with Lavelle residents Joan
and Frank Burke. They feared
the potential environmental
impact on their residential
water wells. It was denied
by a state Environmental
Hearing Board in May 2013.
The board's ruling says
the project would improve
water quality by preventing
the flow of surface water
into an underground mine
pool, and would also improve
drainage and restore surface
contours. Public safety
would be enhanced by filling
the pit, preventing someone
from falling in.
This could be a classic
win-win solution: A system
proposed by researchers at
MIT recycles materials from
discarded car batteries — a
potential source of lead
pollution — into new,
long-lasting solar panels
that provide emissions-free
power.
M3 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (22 Aug, 23
Aug, 24 Aug). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (22
Aug) and quiet levels on
days two and three (23 Aug,
24 Aug).
Five climate scientists
warned Florida Governor Rick
Scott in a meeting on
Tuesday that a steadily
rising ocean was a major
threat to the state's
future, urging it to become
a leader in developing solar
energy and other clean power
sources.
The Republican governor,
who disputed the human
impact on climate change in
his 2010 campaign, agreed
recently to meet with the
scientists after his main
Democratic challenger for
re-election this year,
former Governor Charlie
Crist, proclaimed himself a
firm believer in global
warming.
The
solar industry is facing a
looming shortage of
photovoltaic panels,
reversing a two-year slump
triggered by a global glut.
The
oversupply pushed prices
through the floor,
making solar power more
competitive and driving
up demand. It also
dragged dozens of
manufacturers into
bankruptcy, and slowed
capital investment at
the survivors. With
installations expected
to swell as much as 29
percent this year,
executives are bracing
for the first shortfall
since 2006.
Just how much Arctic
permafrost will thaw in the
future and how fast
heat-trapping carbon dioxide
will be released from those
warming soils is a topic of
lively debate among climate
scientists. To answer those
questions, scientists need
to understand the mechanisms
that control the conversion
of organic soil carbon into
carbon dioxide gas. Until
now, researchers believed
that bacteria were largely
responsible.
In a new study that may
greatly add to our
understanding of the drivers
behind climate change,
researchers from Lund
University in Sweden claim
to have accurately
reconstructed solar activity
levels during the last ice
age. By analyzing trace
elements in ice core samples
in Greenland and cave
mineral formations in China,
the scientists assert that
regional climate is more
influenced by the sun than
previously thought.
The energy storage era is
upon us. States like
California and New York have
adapted energy policies that
will make it possible to
economically deploy storage
systems, while technology
advancements have boosted
performance and trimmed
costs. For the first time in
history it will become
feasible to store electric
energy.
With incredible technology
at our fingertips,
scientists are now more than
ever before striving to
understand the mind, looking
to answers questions such
as: “How quickly can the
brain think?” and “How does
the mind work?” Are we
getting any closer to having
these questions answered?
It's not just Toledo
struggling with blue-green
algae.
Most recently, toxic
blooms appear to be growing
on the Cape Fear River in
North Carolina despite the
fact that the area showed no
signs of algae last year.
"Authorities say that
potentially toxic blue-green
algae that forced officials
in Toledo, Ohio, to shut
down that city's water
system have been found in
the Cape Fear River. But
officials with area water
utilities say there is no
immediate cause for
concern," WRAL reported.
Their study took
measurements of mercury from
fish purchased at retail
seafood counters in 10
different states show the
extent to which mislabeling
can expose consumers to
unexpectedly high levels of
mercury, a harmful
pollutant.
The U.S. government has
raised concerns about
Israel's arrest of a
Palestinian teenager with
American citizenship whose
cousin was burned to death
by Israeli extremists
earlier this summer.
The bald eagle may no
longer be at risk of
extinction, but the U.S.
effort to protect the
national bird became harder
on Wednesday.
A federal appeals court
revived a religion-based
challenge to a U.S.
regulation that allows only
members of Indian tribes
recognized by the government
to possess the birds'
feathers, so long as they
first obtain permits.
The "head scab" fungus can
produce vomitoxin, a
chemical that is poisonous
to humans and livestock when
consumed at high levels.
This year, soft red winter
wheat has been hit badly by
the fungus, which develops
when it rains during the
crop's key growing period.
* Crude runs at 8.74
million b/d, counter to
analysts expectations
*
USGC imports up despite LOOP
closure as Saudi, Mexico
flows rebound
* Cushing
stocks up, weighing on
prompt NYMEX WTI, easing
strong backwardation
* US
Atlantic Coast gasoline
stocks recover on higher
imports
* US distillate
demand continues over 4
million b/d for
third-straight week
Crude runs at US
Gulf Coast refineries hit a
record high last week, up
177,000 b/d to 8.74 million
b/d, weekly Energy
Information Administration
oil data showed Wednesday.
The
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
will increase its water
releases from Lake Powell to
Lake Mead in Water Year
2015, following the recent
completion of its monthly
operational study.
The release will
increase from 7.48
million acre-fee (maf)
in Water Year 2014 to
8.23 maf in the coming
year, the agency said,
with Lake Mead operating
under normal conditions
in Calendar Year 2015.
Water users in the Lower
Colorado River Basin and
Mexico will also receive
their full water orders.
In the early solar PV days,
trackers were a necessity to
maximize the energy output
from very expensive solar
modules. Unfortunately, in
those days trackers were
mechanically complex and
unreliable (remember TV
antenna rotors?), and the
control systems were
expensive and finicky. As
solar module pricing
declined, the interest in
trackers for small systems
began to wane.
The United States has
reduced its biofuels target
for 2014 from 18.2 billion
to 15.2 billion gallons,
while the European Union has
lowered its ceiling on
food-based biofuels used in
the transportation fuel mix
from 10 percent to 7 percent
-- both moves that slow the
urgency around the
industry's growth and
biofuels' role in wider
renewable targets, according
to research and consulting
firm GlobalData.
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has
shaved 3 billion gallons
from this year's biofuels
goal...
-
Garden use leads to
decreased levels of
agitation or anxiety
among dementia patients
-
Gardening is one of the
most potent
stress-relieving
activities there is and
leads to lower levels of
the stress hormone
cortisol than other
activities, including
reading
-
Mycobacterium vaccae, a
type of bacteria
commonly found in soil,
has been found to
“mirror the effect on
neurons that drugs like
Prozac provide”
-
The microbes help to
stimulate serotonin
production, helping to
make you feel happier
and more relaxed.
-
In one animal study,
mice that ingested
mycobacterium vaccae had
a demonstrated reduction
in anxiety and improved
learning
August 19, 2014
Adding certain salts to the
anodes of lithium-based
batteries has been found to
increase their useful life
by a very large factor
After 20 years in their
house, Jaime and Juana
Coronel lost it to
foreclosure when Jaime’s
landscaping work dried up in
the recession and the couple
fell behind on payments.
As the eviction process
dragged on, the Coronels
regained their financial
footing and wanted to buy
the house back from its new
owner, Fannie Mae. The
mortgage finance firm was
eager to offload the modest
ranch house in a working
class suburb just east of
Los Angeles.
“We asked, ‘Why don’t you
sell it to us?’ ” Juana
said.
The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers announced in a
legal settlement Monday that
it will immediately notify
the conservation group
Columbia Riverkeeper, which
filed the lawsuit, of any
oil spills among its eight
dams on the Columbia and
Snake rivers in Oregon and
Washington.
Presently in the Top 5
listing due to being
available in the market and
contributing to a
significant improvement in
power.
Onboard electrolysis creates
oxygen and hydrogen.
Unsaparated, it's also
called Brown's gas or HHO.
By then adding this to the
fuel, the mileage of an
engine can be significantly
improved.
To hire new employees, line
up power contracts, set up
billing and dispatch
operations, and do all the
work necessary to take over
Xcel Energy's electricity
distribution system, Boulder
expects to spend
"significantly more than we
have been spending on an
annual basis so far," city
spokeswoman Sarah Huntley
said.
For example, General Flynn
says plainly the United
States is not safer today
than it was before 9/11:
Finland has never been able
to extricate itself
economically or politically
from the mood swings of the
giant next door, and it's
already taking a hit from
the latest crisis.
The first sale of a one
megawatt E-Cat plant took
place on October 28th, 2011,
after a successful test of
the system was performed by
the customer. Andrea Rossi
is now accepting additional
orders for E-Cat plants from
serious, qualified parties.
Are you a forward thinker
that desires to "ride the
wave" of technological
innovation?
Africa's elephants have
reached a tipping point:
more are being killed each
year than are being born, a
study suggests.
Researchers believe that
since 2010 an average of
nearly 35,000 elephants have
been killed annually on the
continent.
They warn that if the
rate of poaching continues,
the animals could be wiped
out in 100 years.
Workers at a
state-of-the-art solar plant
in the Mojave Desert have a
name for birds that fly
through the plant's
concentrated sun rays —
"streamers," for the smoke
plume that comes from birds
that ignite in midair.
Federal wildlife
investigators who visited
the BrightSource Energy
plant last year and watched
as birds burned and fell,
reporting an average of one
"streamer" every two
minutes, are urging
California officials to halt
the operator's application
to build a still-bigger
version.
The national lead-free law
that went into effect in
January 2014 arrived with a
certain amount of confusion
tied to it. What does “lead
free” really mean? What
constitutes a pipe, pipe
fitting, plumbing fitting,
or fixture? How are
lead-free products
identified? How is the law
enforced?
N.C. Senate leader Phil
Berger said Friday he would
still like to complete coal
ash legislation in November,
despite signs from the House
that won't happen.
Forbes Magazine is known for
its lists of the wealthiest
people and companies.
Frequently they use their
influence to slyly support
their big dollar buddies in
the biotech industry.
Forbes successfully plumbed
a new depth with an
attack on Consumer
Reports magazine last
week.
Consumer Reports did an
article ranking different
milk substitutes for its
readers. In that report,
they (gasp) referred to the
inclusion of GMOs as a “con”
in their review on soy milk.
This caused Forbes
Magazine to
release the hounds in
defense of genetically
modified foods everywhere.
With organic comprising
4% of all U.S. food sales –
nearly $35 billion – I was
shocked to learn that 45% of
Americans are seeking out
organic food.
But this isn’t just
people of real means. 42% of
Americans with a household
income of under $30,000 are
also seeking out organic
food.
Water goes through a one-way
check valve into a chamber.
Once it goes above a certain
mark, the Brown's gas is
ignited to push the water
through a second one-way
check valve exiting the
system.
Late last year the
Indian Law and Order
Commission (“Commission”)
released “A Roadmap for
Making Native America Safer”
(“Report”), with over 40
unanimous recommendations to
make Indian country safer
and more just for all U.S.
citizens, and to reduce the
unacceptably high rates of
violent crime in Indian
country.
The federal government sent
urgent notices to 310,000
people who obtained
Obamacare coverage through
HealthCare.gov asking them
to provide "citizenship or
immigration data" or lose
their healthcare by the end
of next month.
Former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton stuck
taxpayers with at least
$55,000 in charges to cover
part of the cost of her
international book tour,
including a $3,668-hotel
stay and more than $5,000
for rental vans,
The traditional home
refinance has changed.
The result of
extra-forgiving loan
programs including HARP 2.0,
the VA-to-VA refinance, and
the FHA Streamline
Refinance, today's
underwater homeowners are
getting access to low rates
which would have been
unavailable just a few years
ago.
Environmentalists warn us
that apocalypse awaits.
Economists tell us that
minimal fixes will get us
through. Here's how we can
move beyond the impasse.
Iceland's Met Office on
Monday raised its risk level
to the aviation industry for
an eruption at its
Bardarbunga volcano to
orange, which is the fourth
level on a five-grade
scale...
There has been intense
seismic activity at
Bardarbunga since August 16,
although there are no signs
of eruption yet.
“We say to the powerful, to
the companies and to the bad
governments, headed by the
criminal chief of the
paramilitaries, (President)
Enrique Pena Nieto, that we
do not surrender, we do not
sell out and we do not give
up,” the statement vows...
More than 1,600 people
attended the gathering in
the Zapatista base community
of La Realidad, including
1,300 Mayan Zapatista
supporters from Chiapas.
Coming from all corners of
the nation, the CNI
delegates represented more
than two dozen indigenous
groups, among them the
Raramuri, Huichol,
Purepecha, Mixteco, and
Tzotzil Maya.
"I could end the deficit in
5 minutes," he told CNBC.
"You just pass a law that
says that anytime there is a
deficit of more than 3% of
GDP, all sitting members of
Congress are ineligible for
re-election.
Did you know that your Heinz
ketchup, which the company
claims is ‘all natural,’ is
really full of toxic,
genetically modified
ingredients? It’s bursting
with GM corn, which contains
at least 5 things that
really shouldn’t be in a
food condiment.
Floods triggered by heavy
rains have inundated nearly
200 villages in northern
India, killing at least 21
people and leaving thousands
homeless, officials said on
Sunday, as forecasts for
more rain prompted fresh
flood warnings.
For the 14th straight
week, 30-year mortgage
rates averaged four-and-a
quarter percent or better,
as the benchmark rate opens
this week near a 60-week
best. Today's home buyers
can afford more home; and,
today's existing homeowners
have new opportunities to
make a refinance.
Millions of Americans and
farmers don't want GMOs.
Apparently, USDA doesn't
care.
Despite its own admission
that it will cause an up to
sevenfold increase in
chemical pesticide use, the
United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) is poised
to approve a new type of
genetically engineered seed
built to resist one of the
most toxic weedkillers on
the market.
-
The food you eat plays a
major role in your
health, and the health
of the average American
is a testament to the
abject failure of
processed foods to
support good health
-
The Greenhorns
demonstrates how we can
collectively transform
the current industrial
monoculture,
chemical-based
agricultural paradigm
into a healthier, more
sustainable way of
feeding ourselves
-
People across America
are starting to reinvent
our food system by
growing their own food,
and starting up new
farms, in ever-growing
numbers
-
Not only do using
organic principles
improve the quantity,
but it also improves the
quality of the food
you’re growing
Solar activity has been at
very low levels for the past
24 hours. The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (19
Aug), quiet to minor storm
levels on day two (20 Aug)
and quiet to unsettled
levels on day three (21
Aug).
In a major test of
carbon-dioxide-storage
technology, more than
865,500 tons of this gas has
been injected since 2011
into the Mount Simon
sandstone, a porous
sedimentary-rock formation.
So far, there has been no
leakage or other adverse
impacts, according to Robert
Finley of the Illinois State
Geological Survey.
For carbon storage to
make a big difference in the
battle against global
warming, fossil-fuel plants
all over the world would
have to find such sites to
store their emissions.
At carefully selected
sites, it is considered
likely that 99 percent or
more of the C02 would be
retained for more than 1,000
years, according to a 2005
report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
-
US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention
(CDC) has raised its
level of emergency
alertness to “Level 1”
in response to the Ebola
virus, following
outbreaks in West Africa
-
Affected areas include
Guinea, Sierra Leone,
Liberia, and Nigeria.
Two infected American
aid workers have been
brought back to the US
for treatment
-
The outbreak involves
Zaire ebolavirus, which
produces symptoms within
six to 16 days of
infection. The virus
leads to severe
immunosuppression, but
most deaths are
attributed to
dehydration caused by
gastric problems
-
The West African
outbreak is spreading
via contact with bodily
fluids from an infected
person. Those at
greatest risk are women
caring for sick
relatives, those
handling the dead, and
health care workers
-
A number of fast-tracked
vaccines are in the
works. There are
tremendous hazards
inherent with
fast-tracking vaccines,
and US regulations
already place ALL the
risk on the public
receiving the vaccine
Regarding possible testing
at SRI, McKubre noted that
at their facility in Menlo
Park, they presently do not
have the capability to
handle the hydrogen flow
rates that SHT is producing.
They would need a scaled
down version, reducing it by
10-15 times. At SHT's
present output rate, there's
a facility in Washington
D.C., with a 30-40 foot dome
roof, capable of handling
that much hydrogen
production for indoor
testing.
McKubre was glad to hear
they have international
patents and not just U.S.
patents, which could
otherwise be subjected to
U.S. National Security gag
order.
South Korea could run out
of spent nuclear fuel
storage capacity by 2016 and
needs to find additional
space soon.
According to Reuters, at
the end of 2013, the country
has 13,254 tonnes of spent
fuel stored at nuclear power
plant sites. Many of the
reactors were temporarily
shut down due to replacement
parts supplied with fake
certificates since 2012, and
the government has been
under pressure to
permanently shut down all 23
reactors. The reactors
generate about 750 tonnes of
spent fuel each year. Korea
Hydro and Nuclear Power Co.
Ltd. operates the country’s
nuclear plants.
Under threat from rising
sea levels and tsunamis, the
authorities of a provincial
capital in the Solomon
Islands have decided to
relocate from a small island
in the first such case in
the Pacific islands.
Choiseul, a township of
around 1,000 people on Taro
Island, a coral atoll in
Choiseul Bay, is less than
two meters (6.6 feet) above
sea level. Its vulnerability
to storm surges and tsunamis
caused by earthquakes is
expected to be compounded in
the future by rising seas.
A group of dancers from a
local Ohio strip club, as
well as its owner, are sick
and tired of the tactics of
a local church’s
parishioners and its pastor
who has made it their goal
to shut the place down. So
they showed up to Sunday
worship to protest. And they
stripped off their tops to
do it.
A whiff of chlorine is
virtually synonymous with
taking a dip in a swimming
pool. While it helps to kill
off bacteria, it also serves
as a subtle reminder that
you are wading around in
chemically treated water (if
tasting the odd mouthful
just isn't enough).
Switzerland's Naturbad
Riehen swimming pool is
entirely chemical-free,
relying instead on a
biological filter system to
provide clean and natural
water for thousands of
patrons, no itchy red eyes
in sight.
Tokyo Electric Power
Company (TEPCO) is
installing two systems at
the Fukushima Daiichi plant
in Japan that should
significantly improve water
management at the site.
"The two systems aim to
further control the amount
of radioactive material
released from the site,"
TEPCO said.
The subdrain system,
which has been restored,
needed to be repaired after
the March 2011 disaster.
According to a report from
the World Nuclear News,
the system will capture
500 to 700 tons of
groundwater daily, which
will then be treated.
Europe's ageing nuclear
fleet will undergo more
prolonged outages over the
next few years, reducing the
reliability of power supply
and costing plant operators
many millions of dollars.
Nuclear power provides
about a third of the
European Union's electricity
generation, but the
28-nation bloc's 131
reactors are well past their
prime, with an average age
of 30 years.
The chain between factory
farms and contaminated
drinking water is a long
one. It starts with confined
animal feeding operations
(CAFOs), where animals are
kept in close quarters in
order to maximize
production. This generates a
huge volume of waste, which
is stored in massive lagoons
like the one seen above.
That waste isn't treated,
however, and when those
lagoons overflow or
contaminate groundwater, the
result is a release of waste
filled with a variety of
potentially infectious
organisms — and nutrients
that algae and plants love
to feed on.
-
Trees and forests in the
US removed 17.4 million
tons of air pollution in
2010, with human health
effects valued at $6.8
billion
-
Although this pollution
removal equated to an
average air quality
improvement of less than
1 percent, its effects
on human health were
significant, especially
in urban areas
-
The health impacts of
trees on air pollution
resulted in the
avoidance of more than
850 deaths, 670,000
cases of acute
respiratory symptoms,
430,000 incidences of
asthma exacerbation, and
200,000 school days lost
-
Trees remove air
pollution primarily by
uptake of pollutants via
leaf stomata (pores on
the outer “skin” layers
of the leaf)
-
Houseplants can be
living air purifiers for
your home; NASA
recommends using 15 to
18 "good-sized"
houseplants in 6- to
8-inch diameter
containers for an
1,800-square-foot house
Those are the
cancer treatments most of us
are familiar with, and in
many cases, even all three
combined are not enough to
provide a complete cure. But
a new and innovative
approach may enable
oncologists to add another
option to the list. An
artificial magnetic
bacterium was recently
created in a Spanish
laboratory that, when
ingested, can work as a
magnetically charged compass
that targets tumors and
destroys them by spinning so
fast the tumors heat up and
melt.
It’s based on
an experimental treatment
methodology called “magnetic
hyperthermia” that exposes
tumors filled with magnetic
nanoparticles to an
alternating magnetic field.
So far, most tests have been
on cancer-stricken mice.
Future North Sea oil and gas
revenues could be as much as
six times higher than the UK
Office of Budget
Responsibility has forecast
due to a low estimate of
future total production, a
report from N-56 said
Monday.
N-56, an
apolitical business-led
initiative which provides
independent analysis of
Scotland's current economic
position, said in the report
that oil and gas revenues
from the North Sea could
total GBP365 billion ($609
billion) by 2040, more than
six times the amount
forecast by the OBR of GBP57
billion, if a series of
recommendations outlined in
the report were implemented.
The deadly Ebola virus is
spreading rapidly in West
Africa and the main concern
is its spread from its point
of origin and be carried
possibly to other countries,
including the Middle East.
With the death toll
rapidly nearing the 1,000
mark, West Africa’s latest
Ebola virus epidemic is
already the worst outbreak
of its kind to occur
according to the World
Health Organization and
other international public
health bodies.
The power generation
sector's annual use of
natural gas in the
contiguous United States
will increase to 1,600
million MWh by 2040, an
average annual increase of
1.3%, the US Energy
Information Administration
said Friday.
Total US
gas production is expected
to increase 56% to 37.54
Tcf/year over that same
period from 24.06 Tcf/year
in 2012, largely because of
the development of shale
gas, tight gas, and offshore
natural gas resources, the
EIA said.
Nearly three in 10 surfers
admit they knowingly surf
during health advisories -
nearly the same amount that
chooses not to surf during
periods of elevated
bacteria. About 40 percent
of surfers said they were
unaware if they had ever
surfed during an active
health advisory.
August 15, 2014
Hundreds of mothers,
sisters and daughters have
taken up arms and devoted
their lives to protecting
Iraq’s Kurdish population
against the threat of the
Islamic State.
Known as the women
peshmerga of the 2nd
Battalion, the group is made
up of 550 female fighters
led by Col. Nahida Ahmad
Rashid, Barcroft reports.
In an heartening sign, most
Americans think the
country's economic problems
are solvable. The problem is
they have little confidence
Congress will solve them.
For the 18th month in a row
starting in November 2012,
“Saudi America” took the top
spot again in April as the
No. 1 petroleum producer
in the world.
During the 2004 to 2008
period before America’s
shale boom started, Saudi
Arabia routinely produced 2
– 3 million more barrels of
petroleum products a day
than the US.
The Bureau of Land
Management is looking to
reduce uncertainty regarding
how impacts from solar
development in the San Luis
Valley's public lands might
be mitigated.
While there are no
pending proposals for the
20,000 acres the agency has
designated specifically for
solar development, the
agency initiated the study
in February and hopes to
complete it by early summer
2015.
Canada will donate at least
800 doses of an experimental
Ebola vaccine to the World
Health Organization, WHO, to
fight the current outbreak
of the deadly Ebola virus in
West Africa, Canadian Health
Minister Rona Ambrose said
Tuesday.
Low rainfall linked to
the El Nino weather
phenomenon has led to
drought in parts of Central
America, causing widespread
damage to crops, shortages
and rising prices of food,
and worsening hunger among
the region's poor.
An unusually hot season
and extended dry spells have
brought drought to areas in
eastern and western
Guatemala and El Salvador,
southern Honduras and
northern and central
Nicaragua, destroying
swathes of bean and maize
crops, the region's staple
foods, and putting pressure
on subsistence farmers and
food prices.
“The label if
‘unrecognized’ dehumanizes
our tribes and puts us in a
‘less than’ category even
though many of us, including
the Winnemem, have a
well-documented history as a
tribe,” Sisk said in a
statement announcing her
presentation.
Sisk will be among dozens
of representatives of
Indigenous Peoples and
nations who are in Geneva
August 11-16 to participate
in CERD’s review of the
United States’ efforts to
eliminate discrimination in
the nation.
Green Mountain Power
(GMP) has begun construction
on a "solar + storage
microgrid" project in
Rutland, Vt., which is being
partially funded a
federal-state-NGO
partnership involving the
State of Vermont; the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE),
Office of Electricity; and
the Energy Storage
Technology Advancement
Partnership (ESTAP) -- a
project managed by Clean
Energy States Alliance and
Sandia National
Laboratories. Microgrids
like these can keep critical
facilities, such as
emergency shelters,
firehouses and fueling
stations, operating during
power outages.
In a decision that affects
automakers around the world,
the Appellate Body of the
World Trade Organisation,
WTO, has ruled that China’s
export duties and quotas on
rare earth elements are not
justified for reasons of
environmental protection or
conservation policy.
At least a thousand car
parts use rare earth
elements. For instance, they
go into the permanent
magnets, rechargeable
batteries and regenerative
braking systems for hybrid
and electric vehicles, as
well as the catalytic
converters in petrol-powered
cars.
The city recently joined
the effort to oppose a
Canadian power company's
proposal to store
radioactive waste 2,200 feet
underground and within a
mile of the Lake Huron
shoreline.
Last week, the city
council approved a
resolution opposing the
construction of the nuclear
waste repository, which
according to recent
estimates would store 7
million cubic-feet of low-
to intermediate-level waste
that can remain toxic for
more than 100,000 years.
Ontario Power Generation has
eyed a location for the
storage site near
Kincardine, Ontario -- in an
underground limestone rock
formation about 55 miles
east of Huron County.
Municipal politicians in
a region of Ontario that is
home to one of the world's
largest nuclear power plants
violated provincial law by
holding secret meetings over
the storage of radioactive
waste, an outside
investigation has found.
The probe followed
complaints about years of
undocumented discussions
between the mayors who sit
on Bruce County council and
nuclear-waste
representatives searching
for a permanent storage
site.
Southern California
Edison Co. will pay a
$24.5-million fine for
regulatory violations
related to 2011 windstorms
and an electrocution
incident in San Bernardino,
the state Public Utilities
Commission announced
Thursday.
The fine came after a
multiyear investigation into
a Jan. 14, 2011, downed
electric transmission line
that started a small fire in
San Bernardino County and
resulted in the
electrocution of three
family members.
Energy advocacy groups are
asking state regulators to
reject a long-range power
plan filed by Public Service
Company of New Mexico until
a decision is made on how
the utility will replace
electricity from its primary
coal-fired plant.
Energy Secretary Ernest
Moniz traveled to
southeastern New Mexico on
Monday to visit the
government's troubled
nuclear waste dump and talk
with residents about the
mysterious radiation leak
and truck fire that have
shuttered the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant
indefinitely.
The U.S. Department of
Energy has issued a final
environmental impact
statement allowing the $2.2
billion project to construct
an underground and
underwater, 333-mile power
line from Quebec to New York
City to move forward. The
Champlain Hudson Power
Express, as the project is
called, is being developed
by Albany-based Transmission
Developers Inc.
Despite unanswered questions
about Florida Power & Light
Co.'s voluntary solar
program, the Florida Public
Service Commission Tuesday
approved the optional $9
-a-month solar fee in a 4-1
vote.
There were more than two
million job postings in the
green energy sector in the
first and second quarters of
2014 -- an increase of 87.5
percent from the first and
second quarters of 2013 --
according to Ecotech
Institute's Clean Jobs
Index.
Multiple media outlets
report that Hamas’s
offensive tunnel network –
now known to have been
composed of over forty
attack tunnels dug
underneath Israel’s border
with the Hamas-controlled
Gaza Strip – was set to be
activated during the Jewish
High Holidays (September
24th) as a mass terror
attack.
The attack was meant to
generate as many as ten
thousand casualties, men,
women and particularly
children and hundreds of
captives. Explosives were
particularly placed
underneath kindergartens to
make certain that these
“institutions” would be the
first struck, even before
any thing else.
Researchers have
discovered that the world's
energy needs could easily be
met by harnessing the power
potential of high-altitude
winds.
Developers in an emerging
field known as airborne wind
energy envisage using
devices that might look like
parachutes or gliders to
capture electricity from the
strong, steady winds that
blow well above the surface
in certain regions.
While logistical
challenges and environmental
questions remain, scientists
at NCAR, the University of
Delaware, and the energy
firm DNV GL have begun
examining where the
strongest winds are and how
much electricity they might
be able to generate.
The US is poised to
'deregulate' GMO corn,
soybean and cotton varieties
resistant to the herbicides
2,4-D and dicamba. The
result will be a big
increase in the use of those
herbicides, as high as 600%.
Only a huge public outcry
can now stop the
GMO-herbicide juggernaut.
The US Department of
Agriculture (USDA) has
issued its final
Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) and proposed
approval for new GMO corn
and soybean varieties
genetically engineered to be
resistant to the toxic
herbicide 2,4-D.
More than two weeks into the
nation’s first criminal
trial stemming from a
nationwide outbreak of a
foodborne illness, jurors
learned that U.S. food
safety often relies on the
words of manufacturers
rather than actual federal
oversight.
In the nick of time, a
railroad has agreed to step
up coal deliveries to
Dairyland Power
Cooperative's 379-MW Genoa
No. 3 baseload power plant
in southwestern Wisconsin,
likely allowing the facility
to avoid a threatened idling
this winter and utility a
descent into uncharted
reliability waters.
The Terminator — that
relentless, seemingly
indestructible villain of
the 1980s action movie — is
back. And he is living amid
the soybeans at Harper
Brothers Farms..
“You swear that you killed
it,” said Scott Harper, Dave
Harper’s son and the farm’s
28-year-old resident weed
expert. “And then it gets a
little green on it, and it
comes right back.”
Botanists call the weed
palmer amaranth. But perhaps
the most fitting, if less
known, name is carelessweed.
In barely a decade, it has
devastated Southern cotton
farms and is poised to wreak
havoc in the Midwest — all
because farmers got
careless.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki has said that it
will take a federal court
ruling for him to leave
power, defying the
president's decision to task
a rival with forming the
next government.
Iraq's
new prime minister-designate
says he is committed to
fighting corruption and
uniting the Iraqi people in
the face of terrorism.
In a
statement released by his
media office Friday, Haider
al-Abadi says his Cabinet
will be based on "efficiency
and integrity, to salvage
the country from security,
political and economic
problems."
Incumbent Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki announced
late Thursday that he will
not seek a third term in
office, moving to defuse a
political crisis that had
plunged the country into
uncertainty as it fights a
Sunni insurgency.
The United States is
badly lagging behind the
rest of the developed world
in addressing climate change
and generating renewable
energy, former President
Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.
Carter, speaking to the
American Renwable Energy Day
Summit in Aspen, Colo. ,
said a tax on carbon
emissions was the "only
reasonable approach" to
combat climate change.
The President
"is not going to
be able to stay
consistent or
coherent with
his climate
commitment if
we're investing
in fossil fuel
infrastructure,"
said FOE's Luísa
Abbott Galvão.
The climate
impacts of the
proposed
Keystone XL tar
sands pipeline
could be worse
than thought, a
new analysis
shows.
A deal was reached late
Wednesday in
drought-stricken California
on a plan to improve water
supplies that was mired in
regional and party politics
for a year, Republican
leaders said.
The legislature scheduled
a vote Wednesday night to
place before voters in
November a $7.7 billion plan
to sell bonds to pay for
reservoirs and other
projects, spokesmen for
Senate Republican leader Bob
Huff and Democratic leader
Darrell Steinberg said.
Man-made greenhouse gas
emissions have become the
dominant cause of melting in
glaciers from the Alps to
the Andes that is raising
world sea levels, a study
said on Thursday.
Human emissions accounted
for an estimated 69 percent
of loss of ice from glaciers
from 1991-2010, overtaking
natural climate variations
that had been the main
driver of a retreat since
the mid-19th century,
researchers wrote in the
journal Science.
More than 1,000 people have
been killed by Ebola in West
Africa, according to the
latest data from the World
Health Organization. Some
1,069 of the 1,975 people
infected with the disease
have died, with 128 new
cases and 56 deaths between
August 10 and 11 alone.
North
Carolina's environmental
agency told Duke Energy on
Wednesday to submit plans
for removing coal ash from
four high-priority power
plants.
The letters follow on
Gov. Pat McCrory's executive
order on ash after state
legislators left Raleigh two
weeks ago without completing
an ash-disposal bill.
The U.S. Department of
Health & Human Services has
announced that $332.2
million in premiums will be
refunded to consumers
following its analysis of
the 2013 year-end data
insurers are required to
file under the Affordable
Care Act commonly referred
to as Obamacare.
Health insurers are, with
few exceptions, required to
spend between 80-85 percent
of the premiums they collect
on medical expenses. If an
insurer fails to meet the
requirements, it must refund
the difference to
policyholders either
directly or through a
premium adjustment. The
intention is to help keep
some control over the
previously out of control
growth in the cost of health
insurance.
A Virginia Tech scientist
has discovered a potentially
new form of plant
communication, one that
allows them to share an
extraordinary amount of
genetic information with one
another.
The finding by Jim
Westwood, a professor of
plant pathology, physiology,
and weed science in the
College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences, throws open
the door to a new arena of
science that explores how
plants communicate with each
other on a molecular level.
It also gives scientists new
insight into ways to fight
parasitic weeds that wreak
havoc on food crops in some
of the poorest parts of the
world.
A persistent failure by
federal lawmakers to protect
the nation’s electric grid
from attack isn’t stopping
private sector efforts to
prevent damage from a
nuclear blast....
But state level efforts
are under way to protect the
grid against solar flares
and electromagnetic pulses.
As security experts work
to raise awareness about
surviving the potential
destruction — caused by a
shockwave after an explosion
on the surface of the sun or
nuclear weapons detonated in
the Earth’s upper atmosphere
— private companies are
building technologies aimed
at preventing the resultant
damage.
Thousands of oil train
tankers soon to be deemed
obsolete in the United
States are unlikely get a
second life in Canada's oil
sands industry, undercutting
a U.S. government forecast
that the costly cars will
continue in use in the
energy sector.
If thousands of obsolete
tank cars are scrapped, it
could add hundreds of
millions of dollars to the
cost of the proposal,
industry officials said -
unwelcome news for
regulators trying to craft a
safety plan that does not
add crippling costs to
industry.
For thousands of years,
Native communities in the
Americas sustained
themselves through a rich
variety of complex food
systems, each adapted to
local cultural and
environmental conditions.
The traditional ways of
planting, gathering, fishing
and hunting led to balanced
diets, good health and
enduring cultures.
Today, American Indians,
Alaska Natives and Native
Hawaiians suffer from
alarmingly high rates of
diabetes, heart disease and
other diet-related illness.
Among American Indian
children, 31.2 percent of
four-year-olds are obese, a
higher rate than for any
other racial or ethnic group
in the United States. Tooth
decay is five times higher
among Native children ages
two to four than the U.S.
average. At the same time,
the poverty rate in Indian
Country is 27.3 percent,
nearly twice the national
rate.
U.S. coal production is
expected to increase in
2014, but natural gas will
retake the lead in 2015 as
coal plant retirements
continue and natural gas
prices decrease.
Coal consumption is
predicted to increase 2.5
percent to 949 MMST in 2014
due to higher electricity
demand and power industry
natural gas prices that are
22 percent above their 2013
level, according to the U.S.
Energy Information
Administration (EIA)’s Short
Term Energy Outlook.
However, as coal retirements
begin, the implementation of
the Mercury and Air Toxics
Standard, electricity sales
growth slows and natural gas
prices decrease, the use of
coal is projected to
decrease 2.7 percent in
2015.
The projected Henry Hub
spot prices are expected to
average $4.46/MMBtu in 2014
and $4.00/MMBtu in 2015, the
outlook said.
Ebay Inc’s
PayPal is in talks with
Coinbase Inc and other
bitcoin transaction
providers to integrate the
virtual currency within its
Braintree payments system,
The Wall Street Journal
reported on Thursday.
Executives at PayPal,
which owns the service that
handles payments for
startups from room-bookings
network AirBnB to
car-on-demand service Uber,
have not struck any
agreements, the Journal
cited people familiar with
the matter as saying.
Traveling at 50 miles per
hour the aid convoy left a
military base in Voronezh,
Russia before dawn, the New
York Times reports.
The vehicles had been held
there for over a day
following outcry from the
Ukrainian government, and as
Western officials voiced
suspicions they could be
cover for a potential
invasion.
But it now appears that
the convoy will be permitted
to enter Ukraine. The
President of Ukraine, Petro
Poroshenko, said Wednesday
the trucks could cross
following inspections by
officials from Ukraine and
the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in
Europe.
Saudi Arabia handed over
a check for $100 million to
U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon on Wednesday to help
finance the U.N.'s center to
combat global terrorism.
The U.N. chief welcomed
the gift at a ceremony in
his office and said the
recent upsurge in terrorism
in a number of countries and
regions — most dramatically,
the Islamic State extremist
group's takeover of a large
swath of Syria and Iraq —
"underscores the challenge
before us."
San Diego Gas & Electric
(SDG&E) became the first
utility in the country to
gain approval from the
Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) to
test-drive drones. The
utility has been granted a
Special Airworthiness
Certificate that allows it
to operate drones for
research, testing, and
training flights in Eastern
San Diego County. Test
areas are located in zones
measuring 2.5 miles long by
a half mile wide, and
include no businesses or
residences.
Sen. Bob Casey and a group
of fellow Democrats want to
quadruple the increase the
White House requested for
the Department of Labor
budget to fight a backlog of
coal miners' black lung
benefits cases.
A team of international
researchers has developed a
molecule capable of
triggering cancer cell death
by carrying chloride into
cancer cell membranes. The
molecule flushes the cells
with salt and causes them to
self-destruct, potentially
paving the way for new types
of anti-cancer drugs.
Certified results of the
June 24 runoff show Cochran
defeated McDaniel by 7,667
votes. But McDaniel says his
campaign found thousands of
irregularities, including
about 3,500 people who voted
in the June 3 Democratic
primary and June 24 runoff.
Mississippi voters don't
register by party, but such
crossover voting is
prohibited.
When asked what the five
most important markets were,
the respondents named 46
different countries. Germany
was named most frequently,
followed by Spain – then
came Italy and the United
Arab Emirates. The fact that
so many companies do
business successfully in
Germany can be attributed to
its large and relatively
advanced solar thermal
market. The large number of
companies that identified
Germany as their most
important market can be
chalked up, at least in
part, to the fact that of
the 31 companies taking part
in the survey, six were
German.
Once upon a time when a big
power plant retired, it was
replaced by one as big or
bigger. But not anymore.
Energy efficiency is
increasingly reducing the
need for more power. And
when it is needed,
distributed generation may
be enough.
The Tibetan plateau,
whose glaciers supply water
to hundreds of millions of
people in Asia, were warmer
over the past 50 years than
at any stage in the past two
millennia, a Chinese
newspaper said, citing an
academic report.
Temperatures and humidity
are likely to continue to
rise throughout this
century, causing glaciers to
retreat and desertification
to spread, according to the
report published by the
Chinese Academy of Sciences'
Institute of Tibetan Plateau
Research.
Current culprits could be
unmetered connections, leaks
or a combination of the two,
Tom Holder, director of the
city’s Department of Public
Services, told the
newspaper.
In an effort to get to
the bottom of the mystery of
the missing water, the
department is installing
devices to measure how much
water is going where in
different neighborhoods.
The presence of triclosan
in soaps and consumer
products ranging from
cutting boards to pencils
means constant exposure to a
chemical linked to a wide
range of adverse health
effects. New data to be
presented at the
248th National Meeting and
Exposition of the American
Chemical Society, the
world’s largest scientific
society, reveals that 100%
of pregnant women in a
multiethnic urban population
in Brooklyn, New York tested
positive for triclosan in
their urine. In half of the
pregnant women tested, the
chemical also showed up in
umbilical cord blood.
The United States completed
the destruction of all 581
metric tons of a precursor
chemical for sarin gas from
Syria, the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) announced
Wednesday.
The
chemicals were trans-loaded
onto the U.S. maritime
vessel Cape Ray in early
July and destroyed with
neutralization technology
aboard the ship while
sailing in international
waters of the Mediterranean
Sea.
The
process was monitored and
verified by a team of OPCW
inspectors.
An underground nuclear waste
dump in New Mexico where
operations were suspended
after a radiation leak is of
crucial importance to the
United States and its
reopening is a top priority
for the Energy Department,
the head of the agency said.
With the signing of
the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty
in 1848 and the Gadsden
Purchase in 1853, the U.S.
and Mexican governments
agreed upon an official
border that separated the
two countries. With this
line in the sand now
official, many tribes were
now literally split in half.
Hydrogen fuel cell
vehicles could soon gain
ground on electric cars in
the race to develop
zero-emission cars,
according to a new report.
The auto industry is
seeing a convergence of
factors that make fuel cell
cars more viable, according
to the Institute of
Transportation Studies at UC
Davis.
Major automakers are
pushing the technology.
Hyundai began leasing its
Tucson fuel cell crossover
in Southern California
earlier this year, targeting
the handful of communities
that have hydrogen fueling
stations. Toyota and Honda
plan to bring out their
first mass-market fuel cell
vehicles next year.
In an era of high energy
costs, developments in wind
technology have made wind
energy among the most
affordable and desirable
forms of renewable energy.
In fact, Global Industry
Analysts, Inc. (GIA) expects
cumulative capacity of wind
power to more than double by
2020.
Small wind turbines are
being increasingly deployed
for powering homes, offices
and small businesses and GIA
predicts offshore wind farms
to outpace land-based wind
turbine production by 2015.
August 12, 2014
The full extent of the
troubles that have befallen
the Yazidi people of
northern Iraq has not yet
come to light, but the
fighting for their land
continues. Meanwhile, Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki
refused to consider stepping
aside for Iraq’s sake. At
least 938 people were
killed and 107 more were
wounded.
Many of the dead are
Yazidis, dying from exposure
were they have taken refuge
or by execution at the hands
of the Islamic State.
Several bombs in Baghdad
took more civilians lives.
..
Past the razor wire and
security checkpoints that
guard Missouri's first and
only nuclear power plant,
there's an empty gravel lot
where a second reactor was
to have been built.
A slew of negative economic
surprises across the
Eurozone is pointing to
significant challenges the
area faces on its road to
recovery.
Deal allows 2,500 American
Marines and air force
personnel to train Down
Under...
Hagel said the deal
emphasised Washington’s
“rebalance” towards the
Asia-Pacific, saying the
United States was a Pacific
power holding about 200
ships and more than 360,000
personnel in the region.
Honey bees are known for
their fascinating social
structure. A honey bee
colony is in fact a
well-organized machine,
running on good
communication, defense and
division of labor. As social
insects, honey bees have
also been shown the
communicate to their fellow
foragers, a dance to tell
their counterparts where
food is located.
But listening to other
bees isn't always the name
of the game. Sometimes the
honeybee just wants to do
its own thing.
A 1.25-million gallon
manure digester near
Waunakee won't resume
operations until authorities
determine the cause of an
explosion and fire that
destroyed its outer roof
early Wednesday, sending up
a plume of smoke visible for
miles.
The blast was the latest
in a series of problems at
the Clear Horizons LLC
biodigester, which generates
electricity by burning
methane that bubbles out of
farm manure.
As part of the aviation
industry’s efforts to use
biofuels to drive down its
carbon footprint, Boeing has
announced a collaboration
with South African Airways
and SkyNRG to produce
aviation fuel from a new,
virtually nicotine-free
tobacco plant. Test farms
are already up and running,
with Boeing hoping to use
local tobacco growing lands
and expertise to produce
sustainable biofuel without
impacting food-bearing crops
or encouraging smoking.
Grappling with its worst
energy crisis in more than a
decade, Brazil is making its
first big move to develop a
local solar power industry
that could help reduce its
dependence on a battered
hydro power system.
In October, Brazil will
hold an auction to negotiate
energy to be produced
exclusively by solar farms,
the first ever of the kind
in the South American
country.
By the end of 2014, Pacific
Gas and Electric Company
(PG&E) will have replaced
all 2,243 miles of its cast
iron gas distribution pipe,
which can be prone to leaks,
with new modern materials --
making PG&E one of the first
utilities of comparable size
and age to complete such an
action. The utility, which
already ranks in the
nation's top 10 percent in
maintaining a small number
of minor leaks in its
backlog, says it will also
achieve a near-zero backlog
by the end of 2014.
Coal producer Alpha Natural
Resources said Wednesday
that about 500 workers will
lose their jobs. A spokesman
cited diminishing reserves,
sluggish markets and
restrictive federal
Environmental Protection
Agency regulations.
Turning what seemed like
a science fiction tale into
reality, an unmanned probe
swung alongside a comet on
Wednesday after a 4-billion
mile (6.4-billion kilometer)
chase through outer space
over the course of a decade.
Europe's Rosetta probe
will orbit and study the
giant lump of dust and ice
as it hurtles toward the sun
and, if all goes according
to plan, drop a lander onto
the comet in the coming
months.
Over the past three months,
the year-over-year growth in
credit card debt has
exceeded wage growth in the
United States. This is the
first time we've seen this
trend since the Great
Recession. While it clearly
indicates improved US
consumer confidence (and all
the spending helps boost
China's trade surplus), in
the long run this is not
going to be sustainable.
With so many day-to-day
concerns vying for
attention, many farmers may
not have the time to stop
and research alternative
ways to address their energy
needs and rising utility
costs. While having heard
that renewable energies,
such as solar or wind
energy, are becoming
increasingly popular, there
does not seem to be a way
for them to reap the
benefits without a
significant amount of
capital available. However,
due to advancements in
technology and market
availability due to new
leasing models, distributed
generation is changing the
way farmers gain access to
and manage their cost of
power.
Wall Street rallied on
Friday after Russia said it
ended military drills near
Ukraine, soothing investor
nerves over regional
tensions, but bond yields
fell in key markets
worldwide after U.S.
President Barack Obama
authorized air strikes in
Iraq.
Schools have closed,
there are house-to-house
searches for the sick,
and the death toll
continues to rise from
the Ebola epidemic
sweeping West Africa. In
Sierra Leone, the
president has declared a
state of emergency over
the disease, which is up
to 90 percent fatal.
Here in the U.S. there
is growing concern about
the threat in the wake
of reports that a man
with the virus nearly
boarded a plane bound
for Minneapolis,
potentially carrying the
disease to America.
Gas pumps still rule the
roadways, but
electric-vehicle chargers
are moving up fast, being
added by the dozens in
California, the world's No.
1 electric-vehicle market.
In the last 20 years, the
charging stations have
evolved from novelties
scattered across California
to commonplace at airports,
businesses, freeway rest
stops and big-city parking
garages.
Summer heatwaves and
downpours have become more
frequent in the northern
hemisphere this century,
apparently because extreme
weather can get trapped for
weeks in the same place in a
warming world, a study
showed on Monday.
Disruptions to the jet
stream, which forms huge
meandering waves as it blows
at high altitude around the
planet, and cold air from a
thaw of Arctic ice may
explain why weather systems
are stalling more often, the
scientists wrote.
A Navajo lawsuit to force
the federal government to
honor tribal claims to the
Colorado River was dismissed
on procedural grounds in
federal court earlier this
month.
On the one hand, the
lawsuit’s fate doesn’t have
a direct bearing on Navajos’
rights to water from
Colorado River. On the
other, it casts doubt on
whether those rights will
ever actually be quantified.
Florida Power and Light
may operate cooling canals
around Turkey Point at
higher temperatures, nuclear
regulators say, despite a
festering algae bloom that
has clogged the waterway,
made water hotter and
threatened to shut down two
reactors.
Cooling the nuclear
reactors in southern
Miami-Dade County with
hotter water from the canal
won't pose a risk to safety
or harm the environment, the
regulators said in response
to an application from the
utility last month to
increase water temperatures
to 104 degrees. Several
times this summer, with
power demand high, FPL
reported that canal water
approached or exceeded a
100-degree limit, which
requires the reactors to be
shut down.
In its new Report on the
Economic Well-Being of U.S.
Households, the Federal
Reserve Board provides
insight into numerous topics
of current relevance to
household finances. These
topics include housing and
living arrangements, credit
access and behavior,
education and student loan
debt, savings, retirement
and health expenses.
For vegetable farmers Jason
and Jennifer Halvenston what
started off as a front yard
vegetable garden soon turned
into a legal battle with the
city of Orlando Florida. The
city was acting more like an
HOA than a responsible
government in what
essentially turned out to be
a battle of aesthetics. The
city was actually attempting
to fine the couple $500 per
each day if they did not
remove the garden.
Grid reliability
increasingly depends on
where you live. A new study
conducted by Christensen
Associates Energy Consulting
for the nonpartisan Electric
Markets Research Foundation
has found that keeping the
lights on is more likely in
traditionally regulated
markets in the South,
Southwest and Northwest than
in restructured markets in
California, Texas, the
Midwest and on the East
Coast.
Fewer than 17,000 HARP
2.0 loans closed in
May 2014, the fewest in
any one month in more than
two years.
Fewer HARP closings
doesn't diminish the
program's importance,
however. In many states,
HARP loans still account for
more than one-fifth of all
refinance activity; plus,
more than 3.1 million HARP
loans have closed nationwide
The algae bloom apparently
occurred because of high
levels of phosphorous due to
artificial fertilizer runoff
from large scale farms, as
well as from sludge from
sewage treatment plants.
'Many energy prices in many
countries are wrong. They
are set at levels that do
not reflect environmental
damage, notably global
warming.'
Iraq's president snubbed
incumbent Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki and picked
another politician Monday to
form the next government,
setting up a fierce
political power struggle
even as the country battles
extremists in the north and
west.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis
have taken refuge on a
mountain in Sinjar province
after Islamic State fighters
overran their town and other
areas, pushing out Kurdish
paramilitary
forces... Unlike
Christians, who have been
told they must either pay a
religious tax or convert to
Islam to avoid death, the
Yazidis are considered by
Sunni militants to be
infidels who
deserve extermination.
The optimism of mainstream
economists is rather
curious. Economics appears
to be right up there with
faith-healing as the most
optimistic profession on the
planet.
Oil now moves in sufficient
quantities (via Seaway and
other infrastructure) to the
Gulf Coast as well as to
Midwest refineries to
stabilize and even cut
inventory in storage.
US refineries are now
pumping at record levels, as
lower US crude feedstock
costs contribute to refinery
profitability.
Solar growth across the
nation has been strong, with
New York setting a
particularly impressive
example -- 30 percent in
2013 -- according to a
report conducted by Frontier
Group for Environment New
York Research & Policy
Center. New York's progress
on solar has helped fuel a
tripling of solar energy
nationwide between 2011 and
2013, growing statewide from
175 MW to 250 MW.
A toxic red tide continues
to bloom and expand in the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico
as it nears the coast of
South Florida. Officials say
the maroon-tinged algae
bloom is one of the largest
Florida's waters have seen
in a decade.
Mississippi's Republican
Party announced late
Wednesday that it would not
hear Chris McDaniel's
challenge of his loss to
Sen. Thad Cochran in the
June runoff, and told him to
go to court instead.
In a letter to McDaniel's
attorney, the state's GOP
chairman, Joe Nosef, said it
wasn't possible for the
party's committee of 52
volunteers to pore over his
voluminous challenge in a
prudent manner.
Can mindfulness practice
(meditation) help vanquish
mental disorders? According
to the National
Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH), 7.7 million
Americans suffer from
schizophrenia and bipolar
disorder – approximately
3.3% of the US population
when combined. Of these,
approximately 40% of the
individuals with
schizophrenia and 51% of
those with bipolar are untreated
in any given year, but
with the new studies being
presented by Juan Santoyo
and his peers, there
could be strong scientific
proof that meditation could
help even the most
debilitating psychological
disorders.
Major oil and gas
companies are taking on an
increasing share of debt in
order to maintain drilling
momentum, according to data
from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.
Beginning around 2010,
energy companies have been
increasing their spending,
particularly in the United
States, as the tight oil
revolution took off. Major
firms snatched up acreage in
oil-rich shale formations
like the Bakken and the
Eagle Ford and began
drilling at a frenzied pace.
Some of the upgrades in the
building of the smart grid
include the installation of
devices such as the
IntelliRupter. Once
installed on select
telephone poles in the area,
the high-tech equipment can
detect trouble on the line
and automatically adjust
power flow. The result is
that fewer customers may be
without electricity when
trouble strikes.
A commonly held belief that
global warming will diminish
oxygen concentrations in the
ocean looks like it may not
be entirely true. According
to new research published in
Science magazine, just the
opposite is likely the case
in the northern Pacific
Ocean, with its anoxic zone
expected to shrink in coming
decades because of climate
change.
-
Systemic neonicotinoid
pesticides have been
increasingly blamed for
bee deaths, prompting
the European Union (EU)
to ban them for two
years to study their
involvement with large
bee kills
-
The concern now is that
these studies will be
heavily biased with
industry funding, as the
UK’s Department for
Environment Food and
Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
has indicated corporate
funding from insecticide
makers will be allowed
-
The UK’s Environmental
Audit Committee (EAC)
has reacted to the new
government report,
calling for unbiased bee
research to protect
bees, the environment
and food supplies
-
An independent review by
29 scientists with the
International Union for
the Conservation of
Nature (which looked at
800 studies) found
neonicotinoids are
harming bees,
butterflies, earthworms,
snails, birds, and more
-
Neonicotinoids were also
detected at nine
Midwestern stream sites
sampled during the 2013
growing season,
indicating their
widespread environmental
risks
Fracking is not practiced in
North Carolina, but that has
not kept a heated debate on
the issue from breaking out
in this state.
The folks who successfully
crowdfunded a DIY singing
Tesla coil kit last year
have taken to Kickstarter
again to bring a smaller
version into production.
Like its older and bigger
brother, the tinyTesla
shoots out bolts of
artificial lightning while
playing MIDI music using the
electricity itself. It looks
like that polyphonic MIDI
version of Danger High
Voltage by Electric Six
might just come in handy
after all.
-
Medical doctors, MDs,
and doctors of
osteopathy, known as
DOs, have similar
training requiring four
years of study in the
basic and clinical
sciences, and the
successful completion of
licensing exams
-
One of the major factors
that separates DOs from
MDs is that osteopathic
physicians are trained
in an approach that
focuses on treating the
person as a whole,
rather than just
treating individual
symptoms
-
In addition to the
conventional medical
curriculum, DOs also
receive in-depth
training in manipulating
the musculoskeletal
system, which includes
nerves, muscles, and
bones
-
At present, 22 percent
of all new medical
school graduates come
out of osteopathic
schools
-
A majority of DOs end up
as primary care and
family physicians. This
is becoming increasingly
valuable, as experts
predict a shortage of
more than 45,000 primary
care physicians in the
US by 2020
Even when the sea looks
clean, its surface can be
flecked with tiny fragments
of paint and fiberglass.
That's the finding from a
study that looked for
plastic pollution in the
uppermost millimeter of
ocean. The microscopic
fragments come from the
decks and hulls of boats,
and they could pose a threat
to tiny creatures called
zooplankton, which are an
important part of the marine
food web.
C1 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a chance
for a C-class flares on days
one, two, and three (12 Aug,
13 Aug, 14 Aug). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and three
(12 Aug, 14 Aug) and quiet
to unsettled levels on day
two (13 Aug).
Russia on Thursday began
rolling out a sweeping
embargo on food imports from
the United States, members
of the European Union and
allied nations in response
to those countries' economic
sanctions for Moscow's
aggressiveness in Ukraine.
Taking a small daily dose
of aspirin can significantly
reduce the risk of
developing — or dying from —
bowel, stomach and
esophageal cancer, according
to a large review of
scientific studies.
Researchers who analyzed
all available evidence from
studies and clinical trials
assessing benefits and harm
found that taking aspirin
for 10 years could cut bowel
cancer cases by around 35
percent and deaths from the
disease by 40 percent.
If you've ever tried to
retrieve an object that's
floating away in a lake or
the ocean, then you'll know
how frustrating it can be,
trying to draw that item
towards you. According to
research recently conducted
at The Australian National
University (ANU), however,
it's possible to move such
objects in whichever
direction you wish – as long
as you can generate the
right type of waves.
Police and soldiers in
Sierra Leone blockaded rural
areas hit by the deadly
Ebola virus on Thursday, a
senior officer said, after
neighbouring Liberia
declared a state of
emergency to tackle the
worst-ever outbreak of the
disease, which has killed
932 people.
Anybody who knows Zuni
Pueblo knows that this
remote village is far away
from mainstream economic
opportunities and is
supported largely by tourist
money. Beautiful place,
beautiful art. Lots of
artisans. Lots of poverty.
Just like many of our
homelands—powerful,
beautiful, yet broke.
SolarCity executives are
sticking with their forecast
that demand for its solar
systems will continue to
rise rapidly -- the
fundamental underpinning of
its plan to open a massive
solar panel factory in
Buffalo.
The company's
installations doubled in the
second quarter to 107
megawatts, and SolarCity
said it expects
installations to reach 500
megawatts to 550 megawatts
this year. In 2015, it
expects its installations to
nearly double again, rising
to 900 megawatts to 1
gigawatt, or 1,000 watts.
Many retiring nuclear and
coal power plants may not
need to be replaced on a
megawatt-to-megawatt basis
-- as technologies and
distributed generation (DG),
coupled with soft energy
demand growth, enable
utilities to replace
retiring plants with ones
that produce less energy,
according to Black & Veatch.
During July 2014,
above-average sea surface
temperatures (SST) continued
in the far eastern
equatorial Pacific, but near
average SSTs prevailed in
the central and east-central
equatorial Pacific
The FOMC continues to insist
that the Fed Funds Target
rate rather than the reverse
repo program...will play a
central role in the upcoming
rate normalization. Let's
revisit the concept of the
Fed Funds arbitrage...to
show why that's a problem.
The Fed Funds rate
(currently at about 9bp) is
determined by the overnight
interbank lending market in
which banks provide
liquidity to each other.
The U.S. government is
creating a safe place for
bees in national wildlife
refuges by phasing out the
use of genetically modified
crops and an agricultural
pesticide implicated in the
mass die-off of pollinators.
The U.S. Department of
Commerce (DOC) has released
its preliminary findings for
both the anti-subsidy (CVD)
and anti-dumping (AD)
investigations concerning
Chinese and Taiwanese solar
PV components. These
investigations came about as
a result of complaints, led
by SolarWorld, of perceived
unfair competition.
Water utilities have been
at the center of
international political
unrest this year as a result
of the "water war" in
Crimea.
"Crimeans voted to break
off from Ukraine and join
Russia. Their vote
represents the
re-establishment of a
historic cultural
relationship. But take away
the emotional side of the
Crimean referendum and
reality hits home -- the
economic challenges that are
yet to knock on their door,"
CNN reported.
Water service is among
the major challenges.
US credit growth continues
to accelerate, reaching the
highest year-over-year pace
since the Great Recession...
In 2012 the growth was
primarily driven by
corporate debt (chart below)
as banks remained cautious
on real estate and consumer
lending. While corporate
loan growth remains strong -
at around 11% per year -
other sectors are now
experiencing faster credit
expansion.
The U.S. Treasury wants
to increase its daily cash
holdings, a measure that
would help Washington pay
its bills during a crisis, a
senior official said on
Wednesday.
If adopted, the new
policy would help the
government in the event an
emergency shut down markets
and left Washington unable
to borrow money to pay
creditors and other
obligations.
The world’s worst outbreak
of Ebola that has killed
nearly 1,000 people in West
Africa represents an
international health
emergency and could continue
spreading for months, the
World Health Organization
said on Friday.
Nigeria became the third
African nation, after Sierra
Leone and Liberia, to
declare a national emergency
on Friday as the region’s
healthcare systems struggle
to cope with the advance of
one of the deadliest
diseases known to man.
There is often
misunderstanding of lemon’s
pH outside the
body versus inside the body.
Let’s get this straight and
expound on 10 benefits of
regularly taking lemon juice
with warm water (note: NOT
equal to lemonade!)
Wind power has always
been important in Denmark's
energy generation mix. By
the end of 2014 it will
become the country's largest
source of electricity
generation, supplying over
11.6TWh.
In Denmark more than 66%
of its conventional thermal
generation comes from coal,
and in turn conventional
thermal generation accounts
for 48% of total energy
production. As Denmark
implements its renewable
energy policies usage of
fossil fuels will diminish,
and by 2030 electricity
generated from coal will
decline 60% from 12.3TWh in
2013 to 4.9TWh.
Aug 5, 2014
New research has found rapid
warming of the Atlantic
Ocean, likely caused by
global warming, has
turbocharged Pacific
Equatorial trade winds.
Currently the winds are at a
level never before seen on
observed records, which
extend back to the 1860s.
The increase in these
winds has caused eastern
tropical Pacific cooling,
amplified the Californian
drought, accelerated sea
level rise three times
faster than the global
average in the Western
Pacific and has slowed the
rise of global average
surface temperatures since
2001.
So does it make any sense
to you that my entire
security system can be
compromised by a single
$10.00 piece of equipment
that can be bought on
amazon.com?
A recent article
published on
Forbes.com exposed a massive
flaw in most major home
security systems:
China said it had
dispatched thousands of
armed police, soldiers and
firefighters to the scene.
Premier Li Keqiang visited
the town on Monday, Xinhua
said, urging a quick rescue
for those missing and
trapped by debris.
The quake, in a remote
part of Yunnan province,
caused thousands of
buildings, including schools
to collapse, the official
Xinhua news agency reported
At a news conference at the
Colorado State Capitol in
Denver, Hickenlooper
announced the creation of a
task force "charged with
crafting recommendations to
help minimize land use
conflicts that can occur
when sitingoil and gas
facilities near homes,
schools, businesses and
recreationalareas."
Lots of people walk
around all day with
their trusty water
bottle in hand to make
sure they stay hydrated.
But many experts say
they are actually making
themselves more
– not less – dehydrated.
How can this be?
It’s because they are
drinking water that is
too acidic
From medical bills to gym
membership fees, increasing
numbers of us can't meet our
debts.
A new study by the Urban
Institute says that over 35
percent of Americans have
debts and unpaid bills that
have been reported to
collection agencies. This
means the bill is so overdue
(generally at least 180
days) that the account has
been closed and placed in
collections.
That comes to 77 million
souls who face the sleepless
nights and anxiety that
comes from an inability to
meet debt obligations. These
citizens owe an average of
$5,178 each (median $1,349).
The study, published in
Continental Shelf Research,
shows for the first time
that local coastal defences,
such as sea walls, could
cause tides to change
dramatically. It suggests
flood defences need to be
reassessed on an
international scale as they
may lead to an increased
risk of flooding.
"My friends and I would
go on the top of trees in
our neighborhood. We could
see the lake clearly from
that point," said the 32
year-old farmer who grows
wheat and beets.
"Now, there is no water
left and our whole ecosystem
is messed up," he told
Reuters by telephone from
his home, which once stood
one km (half a mile) from
the lakeshore.
Water shortages have long
been a problem for countries
across the Middle East,
where a high birth rate,
rising consumption and poor
management has strained
already scarce resources.
But Iran has fared among the
worst.
- Almost 12
years after it was
published, 28 pages of a
9/11 intelligence report
are still classified,
but some congressional
members are pushing for
declassification.
- According to
former Sen. Bob Graham
(D-Fla.), who has seen
the entire document, the
classified pages expose
“a larger effort to
cover up Saudi activity
in 9/11.”
When many people think
of radiation exposure,
they think of mushroom
clouds following a
nuclear explosion. The
truth is, though, we're
all exposed to radiation
each and every day
through the environment
— the Earth itself emits
radiation — and through
choices we make, such as
using cellphones.
The consequences of
overexposure can be
deadly. Radiation is a
known cause of cancer,
and the National
Institutes of Health
believes that it's the
source of up to 10
percent of invasive
cancers.
Rescuers in India waded
waist-deep through swirling
sludge to dig their way into
dozens of submerged homes on
Thursday and find more than
100 people swallowed up by a
landslide that flattened
almost an entire village.
The confirmed death toll
was 35 from Wednesday's
landslide on a hill above
Malin village, said H.H.
Chauhan, deputy director of
health services in the
district where the village
is located.
Most indigenous people
would agree, until the
mainstream “gets it,” change
in the world will not occur.
These days, Philip Whiteman
Jr., Northern Cheyenne, and
Lynette Two Bulls, Lakota,
are doing their best to help
the mainstream "get it." The
good news is that they do,
and are asking for more.
Millions of jellyfish-like
creatures have washed up on
beaches along the U.S. West
Coast over the past month,
giving the shoreline a
purple gleam and, at times,
an unpleasant odor, ocean
experts said on Thursday.
Mississippi Power said
Monday it will convert a
total of four
coal-firedunits at Plant
Watson and Plant Greene
County to natural gas as
part of a comprehensive
settlement agreement it has
reached with the Sierra
Clubregarding the utility's
integrated gasification
combined-cycle project
inKemper County.
The mostly Indian and
European tourists were
returning to Kathmandu after
hiking expeditions in Tibet
when heavy rains triggered
the landslide, blocking the
Arniko highway to the
capital and forcing them to
take refuge in Tatopani town
on the Nepal-Tibet border.
Officials said more than
400 hikers and their guides
were picked up by
helicopters and brought to
Kathmandu on Sunday and
another 200 people were
evacuated on Monday.
Until yesterday, every
physicist was laughing at
this engine and its
inventor, Roger Shawyer.
It's called the
EmDrive and everyone
said it was impossible
because it goes against
classical mechanics. But the
fact is that the
quantum vacuum plasma
thruster works
and scientists can't explain
why.
The bill, known as the
Unlocking Consumer Choice
and Wireless Competition
Act, reverses a decision
made by the Library of
Congress two years ago that
said it was illegal for
consumers to "unlock" their
cell phones for use on other
networks without their
service provider's
permission. That means that
providers like AT&T or
Verizon could legally keep a
consumer's phone "locked,"
in which case the person
would face large costs
switching carriers or
attempting to link to other
carriers overseas while
traveling.
C3 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (05 Aug, 06
Aug, 07 Aug). he geomagnetic
field is expected to be at
quiet to unsettled levels on
day one (05 Aug) and quiet
levels on days two and three
(06 Aug, 07 Aug). Protons
greater than 10 Mev have a
slight chance of crossing
threshold on days two and
three (06 Aug, 07 Aug).
Biologists at The Scripps
Research Institute have
identified a new “on-off
switch” that activates a
powerful calorie-burning
process in brown fat cells.
The research, published
online in the
Proceedings of the
National Academy of
Sciences, sheds
light on how brown fat —
which naturally raises
metabolism and burns
energy — stimulates
weight loss and may also
protect against
diabetes.
It was aliens, or maybe a
meteorite or a gas
explosion.
Those were some of the
initial explanations for why
three sinkhole-like craters
gaped open in the Siberian
permafrost, spawning a wave
of Internet videos and
frightening headlines about
catastrophic releases of
methane from a "dragon
breath" of the Earth. Now,
some scientists who have
visited the holes, or have
just monitored them via
media reports, say there may
-- with an emphasis on may
-- be a warming component to
their formation.
In a new study conducted
by researchers tasked with
studying of the root causes
and consequences of
terrorism in the U.S. and
abroad, the sovereign
citizen movement was
perceived to be the gravest
terrorist threat, rivaling
Islamist extremists and
militia/patriot groups.
According to National
Consortium for the Study of
Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism —better known as
START— sovereign citizens
were the top concern of law
enforcement, even as a
belief that some domestic
groups including the KKK,
Christian Identity, and
neo-Nazis represent less of
an actual terrorist threat
when compared to a previous
study.
Many studies have shown
the potential for global
climate change to cut food
supplies. But these studies
have, for the most part,
ignored the interactions
between increasing
temperature and air
pollution -- specifically
ozone pollution, which is
known to damage crops.
A new study involving
researchers at MIT shows
that these interactions can
be quite significant,
suggesting that policymakers
need to take both warming
and air pollution into
account in addressing food
security.
Electric car batteries are
about to get cheaper and
more abundant. Panasonic
Corporation and Tesla Motors
signed an agreement Thursday
detailing their cooperation
to construct and operate the
Gigafactory, a $5 billion,
large-scale lithium-ion
battery manufacturing plant
in the United States.
Ethanol was supposed to be
good for the environment,
lower gas prices and
increase energy security but
the costs of the unintended
consequences may outweigh
the benefits. Expanded corn
production is reducing
wildlife habitat nationwide.
Monarch butterfly
populations dropped from 231
million in 2007 to 33
million in 2013.
In case you haven't heard,
500,000 people have been
left without drinking water
in the city of Toledo, Ohio,
and store shelves there have
been stripped bare of water.
"Residents of Toledo,
its suburbs and small areas
of southeastern Michigan
began lining up for water
Saturday after news of the
contamination surfaced,"
reports USA Today. (1) "Ohio
Gov. John Kasich declared a
state of emergency for
Lucas, Wood and Fulton
counties and deployed the
National Guard to get water
and meals ready to eat, or
MREs, to the area."
The water in Toledo has been
contaminated by a toxic
poison produced by "algal
blooms" in Lake Erie. But
here's what no one in the
mainstream media is telling
you: What causes algal
blooms in Lake Erie?
Agricultural pollution
At the Native American
Star Knowledge Conference
held in South Dakota in
June, 1996, senior Oglala
Sioux spiritual elder
Looks-For-Buffalo (Floyd
Hand) revealed that ancient
prophecies are now coming
true. These prophecies,
heralding immense changes
for humankind, point to the
imminent return of the Star
Nations, what the white man
would call extraterrestrial
cultures.
Ecologists may be
underestimating the impact
of logging in old-growth
tropical forests by failing
to account for subtleties in
how different animal groups
respond to the intensity of
timber extraction, argues a
paper published today in the
journal Current Biology.
The US import tariffs that
have been imposed on Chinese
and Taiwanese solar modules
and cells will mean higher
prices for US consumers. It
will also cost thousands of
US jobs. Firstly, the US
Government did not think
this through thoroughly
enough. They have acted in
such a way that relations
between China and the US
will be further strained and
the solar industry in the US
will be damaged. It is
incredible that one (German)
company, Solar World, has
managed to influence the
Department of Commerce in
the US to implement what can
only be described as
protectionism of their
uncompetitive business. They
have not acted in defense of
the US solar industry but
merely acted to prop up
their failing business
model. I for one would like
to see the industry boycott
Solar World’s products.
Their actions will be
detrimental to the US solar
industry as a whole and we
should send them a clear
message that we do not agree
with what they have done. By
not selling or promoting
their products will
hopefully ensure their
demise and then we can lobby
the US government to remove
these punitive, destructive,
unfair tariffs.”
Aug 1, 2014
-
Even the simplest of
foods – apples, oranges,
and chicken, for example
– are commonly altered,
treated with chemicals,
or even injected with
artificial coloring
-
Farm-raised salmon are
fed synthetic “pigment
pellets” to turn their
flesh pink; without
them, farmed salmon
would be an unappetizing
grey color
-
Some Florida oranges are
sprayed with Citrus Red
No. 2, an artificial dye
that’s been linked to
tumors in animal studies
-
Many produce items are
coated in wax that may
be petroleum-based and
can lock in pesticide
residue and debris
-
The US Department of
Agriculture (USDA)
permits poultry
producers to put poultry
through an antimicrobial
wash, using chlorine and
other chemicals to kill
pathogens – a practice
that is banned in the
European Union
Our parents and grandparents
may shake their heads every
time we grab our smart
phones to get turn-by-turn
directions or calculate the
tip. But when it comes to
life skills, our
great-grandparents have us
all beat. Here are some
skills our
great-grandparents had 90
years ago that most of us
don’t.
Putting off expensive
measures to curb climate
change will only cost the
United States more in the
long run, the White House
said on Tuesday in a report
meant to bolster a series of
actions President Barack
Obama has proposed to
address global warming.
"Each decade we delay
acting results in an added
cost of dealing with the
problem of an extra 40
percent," said Jason Furman,
chairman of Obama's Council
of Economic Advisers.
At least six militants
were killed when Pakistan's
military thwarted an attack
on its check posts near the
Afghan border, officials
said Wednesday.
"About 70 to 80
terrorists physically
attacked the posts, six
terrorists were killed and
nine injured due to an
effective response by
Pakistani troops," a
security official said.
Indigenous people crossed
from Peru into Brazil
looking for help to combat
illegal loggers and drug
traffickers, researchers say
One of Brazil's most
prominent indigenous leaders
has called for police
protection following a
series of death threats.
Davi Kopenawa of the
Yanomami tribe in the Amazon
rainforest said armed men
had raided the offices of
lawyers working with him. He
said they were hired gunmen
who had asked for him and
wanted to kill him. In
February a major operation
began to evict hundreds of
gold miners from Yanomami
land. 'Money for gunmen' .
An Arizona bill,
sponsored by Rep. Paul
Gosar, R-Prescott, is
calling for more renewable
energy pilot programs on
federal lands, making the
state the “solar capital of
the world,” according to an
Arizona official.
Senior energy programs
manager for the Governor’s
Office on Energy Policy Eric
Fitzer and La Paz County
Board of Supervisors
Chairman D.L. Wilson
testified in support of bill
H.R. 596 on Tuesday in front
of a subcommittee, asking
for additional federal land
to be leased to expand and
encourage renewable energy
development. According to
the bill, royalties from
energy sales would be shared
with state, local and
federal governments. In
addition, 25 percent of the
proceeds from the projects
would be placed in a
conservation fund.
The same utility that fought
residential rooftop solar,
now wants to sell it to its
customers.
Arizona Public Service Co.,
the first U.S. utility to
charge extra fees for
customers with solar
systems, is requesting
permission to own its own
residential systems and to
pay rent for the rooftops.
Arizona Public is
seeking regulatory
approval to install 20
megawatts of residential
solar systems on about
3,000 homes, according
to a July 28 filing with
the Arizona Corporate
Commission. The
Phoenix-based unit of
Pinnacle West Capital
Corp. is proposing to
pay $30 a month for 20
years for use of
consumers’ roofs.
Clean Edge’s recently
released 2014 U.S. Clean
Tech Leadership Index finds
the U.S. clean-tech market
making impressive strides in
many areas, while still
hampered by inaction and
inertia in others. As has
been the case in recent
years — even with
encouraging national-level
initiatives from the Obama
administration — states and
cities continue to be where
most of the action is.
Researchers are using
hydrogen created as a
by-product in sodium
chlorate production to power
a pilot plant.
By-products are common to
most industries. Some are
harmless, some dangerous and
others useless. Others are
simply under-utilized. VTT
Technical Research Centre of
Finland is using hydrogen
generated as a by-product of
the sodium chlorate
production process in its
pilot-scale power plant to
produce electricity.
The director of the
Central Intelligence Agency,
John Brennan, issued an
extraordinary apology to
leaders of the US Senate
intelligence committee on
Thursday, conceding that the
agency employees spied on
committee staff and
reversing months of furious
and public denials.
Brennan acknowledged that
an internal investigation
had found agency security
personnel transgressed a
firewall set up on a CIA
network, which allowed
Senate committee
investigators to review
agency documents for their
landmark inquiry into CIA
torture.
Climate modelers from the
University of New Hampshire
have shown that the most
likely explanation for the
initiation of Antarctic
glaciation during a major
climate shift 34 million
years ago was decreased
carbon dioxide (CO2) levels.
The finding counters a
40-year-old theory
suggesting massive
rearrangements of Earth's
continents caused global
cooling and the abrupt
formation of the Antarctic
ice sheet. It will provide
scientists insight into the
climate change implications
of current rising global CO2
levels.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said
Monday he is optimistic an
expanded incentive package
for Silevo and its potential
acquirer, SolarCity, to
build a sprawling solar
panel factory in South
Buffalo will be worked out.
The Supreme Court upheld the
individual mandate citing
Congress's tax-writing
authority, the lawsuit
noted. But the federal
appeals court said
Obamacare's purpose is not
to raise revenue, so it did
not have to originate in the
House...
A federal appeals court on
Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit
that sought to invalidate
the president’s health-care
reform law on grounds that
the massive piece of
legislation did not
originate in the House of
Representatives as required
by the Constitution.
Dominion says it has made
continued progress in
executing its business plan,
minimizing the environmental
impact of its operations. In
fact, in 2013, Dominion
produced 50 percent of its
electricity it produced from
carbon-free nuclear and
renewable energy, according
to its Citizenship &
Sustainability Report (CSR).
The U.S. Department of the
Interior has announced
another $187,500 in funding
for the Colorado-Big
Thompson Project water
system. This is in addition
to the $152,000 Interior's
Bureau of Reclamation has
already committed as part of
the state's Western
Watershed Enhancement
Partnership.
Farmers and landowners want
to lower fuel and feed
costs, explore feed and
fertilizer co-products, be
more self-sufficient, and
rely less of fossil fuels.
Biomass grass crops can be
established on marginal
lands and processed as a
fuel replacement for heating
oil or propane, or as an
addition to wood chips or
pellets.
The manager of the Fukushima
No. 1 nuclear plant admitted
Thursday that some of the
tanks built to store the
radioactive water churned
out each day are made with
used parts but insisted
their quality is fine for
the purpose.
The Solar Energy Industries
Association (SEIA) has
released a study prepared by
the Brattle Group, which
takes an in-depth look at
Germany's solar support
programs and how the United
States can benefit in the
long term by applying
lessons learned.
A recent venture from the
Cummings Center bio and
clean-tech incubator aims to
reinvigorate an old
renewable power resource:
water..."This is zero
emission,
100-percent-renewable
power," said Chris Conover,
the chief marketing officer.
Howard County, Maryland,
Bureau of Utilities recently
completed the $92-million
Addition No. 7 project at
the Little Patuxent Water
Reclamation Plant (LPWRP) to
improve the quality of the
plant’s effluent discharge
and to reduce harmful
nutrients reaching
Chesapeake Bay. The
project’s various increments
took over five years to
complete and incorporated
innovative design solutions
and state-of-the-art
technologies for
denitrification, aeration
and disinfection. The
project presents a model for
Maryland’s 66 largest
wastewater treatment plants
and possibly procurement of
municipal facilities
elsewhere facing
increasingly stringent
regulatory changes.
Nearly half of the Obama
administration’s 4,000
regulations since 2012 were
illegally imposed by
skipping the required
congressional review, the
Washington Post
reported — and there’s not
much Congress or the courts
can do about it.
Oh, people. I”m about to
reveal something to you that
has taken me months to work
up the nerve to confess Are
you ready for this? {I’m not
sure I am, but here goes…} I
haven’t used toothpaste in
over a year.
Civilian and security forces
suffered little today, but
the Iraqi government
reported that 147 militants
were killed in various
locations. Only one
policeman was killed and 10
others were wounded.
Meanwhile, ISIS released a
video displaying part of
their grim occupation.
-
Investigators have
raised the possibility
that Alzheimer’s disease
may be linked to eating
meat from animals raised
in confined animal
feeding operations
(CAFOs)
-
The same foreign,
infectious protein
responsible for Mad Cow
Disease in cows, and
Chronic Wasting Disease
in deer and elk, also
appears to play an
important role in
Alzheimer’s
-
The common denominator
between Mad Cow and
Chronic Wasting Disease
is CAFO farming
practices that include
forcing natural
herbivores to eat animal
parts
-
When a foreign protein
is introduced, your body
will respond with
inflammation. Chronic
inflammation, we know,
is a hallmark of most
degenerative diseases,
including Alzheimer’s
-
The only differentiating
factor between Mad Cow
infection and
Alzheimer's is the time
it takes for symptoms
and death to occur. Up
to 13 percent of all
"Alzheimer's" victims
are thought to really
have Mad Cow infection
-
In June, as many as 84
scientists and staff
members at a US Centers
for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) biolab
were exposed to live
anthrax
-
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden,
head of the CDC, has now
issued a report that
admits to sloppy work
ethics at the lab
-
The report also admits
to three additional
incidents. In 2006, the
CDC “accidentally”
shipped live anthrax to
two different labs; a
third erroneous shipment
involved live botulism
bacteria
-
CDC scientists shipped
deadly H5N1 avian
influenza samples to a
Department of
Agriculture poultry
research lab in May.
They were supposed to
send a far more benign
variety for study
-
Scientists at an NIH lab
recently discovered
nearly 330 unapproved
vials of an array of
deadly pathogens,
including smallpox,
dengue, and spotted
fever, in a cold-storage
room
Current mortgage rates
are dropping after the
July Non-Farm Payrolls
report release.
Two-hundred-nine thousand
persons were added to U.S.
payrolls last month, with a
net fifteen-thousand person
revision made to the
releases of the two months
prior. Total jobs created
are mostly in-line with Wall
Street's expectations for
the report.
Mortgage interest rates
are improving on the
release. Rates remain near a
14-month low.
Existing nuclear energy
plants provide one-fifth of
the country's electricity,
are part of our diverse
energy mix and help lower
the cost of generating
electricity for consumers by
more than $93 billion a
year, according to an IHS
Energy report. However,
current market conditions
could lead to a less-diverse
power supply -- which could
include a reduction in the
nation's nuclear plants --
meaning serious economic
consequences in terms of
lost GDP and jobs. A diverse
energy mix helps consumers
by producing lower, less
volatile power prices, among
other economic benefits.
Islamist militants took
control of the biggest
special forces base in
Libya's eastern city of
Benghazi on Tuesday after a
battle that killed 30
people, a special forces
officer said.
Soldiers abandoned their
base after heavy shelling,
according to Saiqa Special
Forces officer Fadel Hassi.
Rockets and warplanes
were deployed, Hassi said,
as fighting continued
overnight in an attempt by
government troops to regain
control of the base.
Benghazi has become the
epicenter of fighting
between government special
forces, who have teamed up
with troops loyal to rogue
former general Khalifa
Haftar, and the coalition of
the Islamic groups Benghazi
Shura Council and Islamist
Ansar al Sharia.
Washington has the second
lowest energy prices for
consumers in the 50 states,
which includes electricity,
natural gas and fuel. Idaho
was listed at 17th in a new
survey by Wallet Hub, an
online financing company.
Its team of experts
researched energy prices at
the consumer level in the
U.S.
But with those lower
energy prices in Washington
and Idaho, the two states
rank in the top 10 for
electricity consumption per
consumer.
Summary: US law
can apply anywhere in the
world, so long as a
technology company has
control over foreign data, a
court rules. ..
The logic of the court is
that because the
US-headquartered software
giant controls the data it
stores overseas, its foreign
subsidiary companies are
just as applicable to US
law.
The Unit 2 reactor at the
Millstone Power Station shut
down Saturday afternoon for
the fourth time this year
because of a problem with a
water pump.
The shutdown occurred
after a backup pump that
recirculates water failed
during routine testing,
plant spokesman Ken Holt
said today.
Two more craters of
unknown origin have been
spotted in Russia's Siberia
region, weeks after a
similar-looking hole was
found in the isolated
northernmost area, a local
paper reported.
The Siberian Times, an
English-language newspaper,
published pictures of two
new giant holes discovered
by reindeer herders, one
located in the Yamal and the
other in the Taymyr
peninsula, both above the
Arctic circle.
Effective energy policies,
economies of scale and new
technologies have achieved
something remarkable: solar
energy production is now at
the scale and cost necessary
to be competitive with, if
not cheaper than retail
electricity from utilities.
Solar energy is becoming
part of the mainstream.
Families, schools and
businesses are going solar
in record numbers
nationwide, even as
incentives decrease. Now
that we’ve built this new
energy economy, it’s
critical that we keep the
way clear for Americans to
keep going solar.
Net-metering policies are an
instrumental piece to this
puzzle that deserve a closer
look.
A new study has examined the
potentially disastrous
implications that a
combination of global
warming and air pollution
could have on crop yields by
the year 2050. The research
is one of the first projects
to take into account a
combination of the two
dangers, and highlights the
humanitarian crisis that
could arise should the
threat not be tackled
head-on.
Tests of water off the
U.S. West Coast have found
no signs of radiation from
Japan's 2011 Fukushima
nuclear disaster, although
low levels of radiation are
ultimately expected to reach
the U.S. shore, scientists
said on Tuesday.
Results obtained this
week in tests of water
gathered by an Oregon
conservation group and
tested by East Coast
scientists came in as
expected with no
Fukushima-linked radiation,
and five more tests are
planned at six-month
intervals to see if
radiation levels will climb.
Antiwar.com has determined
that at least 5,207
people were killed and 2,018
more were wounded during
the month of July. Our
analysis of the figures is
below. Also, the Kurdish
government is asking the
U.S. government for
weaponry, and the Mosul
Brigades appears to be
quickly gathering strength.
If both groups gain
reinforcements, it could
mean higher figures for
August.
Panasonic Corp. agreed to
help set up the battery
factory that Tesla Motors
Inc. Chairman Elon Musk
needs to sell more electric
cars, without settling its
share of the investment
costs.
Panasonic will build
cylindrical lithium-ion
cells and provide
equipment, machinery and
other tools for Musk’s
“Gigafactory,” the
Osaka, Japan-based
company said today in a
joint statement with
Tesla. The companies
said they were still
discussing the details,
including Panasonic’s
financial contribution
to the facility, which
Tesla has estimated
could cost as much as $5
billion by 2020.
M2 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (01 Aug, 02
Aug, 03 Aug). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on day one (01 Aug)
and quiet to active levels
on days two and three (02
Aug, 03 Aug).
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden
said Thursday, July 31 that
the recent events around the
Ukraine crisis, including
the crash of flight MH17 and
the subsequent US and EU
sanctions against Moscow,
were a "game-changer" from
an international political,
economic and trade point of
view.
Shipments of liquid nuclear
waste over the Peace Bridge
could begin as soon as
September 2015, the office
of Rep. Brian Higgins said
Thursday as the Buffalo
congressman demanded that
the federal government do a
full environmental review of
the shipments before they
begin.
The Silent Power
PC uses an open-air
metal foam heatsink
for passive cooling
The Silent Power PC
is claimed to be the
first high-end PC able
to ditch noisy electric
fans in favor of fully
passive cooling. In
place of a conventional
fan, the unit uses an
open-air metal foam
heatsink that boasts an
enormous surface area
thanks to the open-weave
filaments of copper of
which it is composed.
The Silent Power
creators claim that the
circulation of air
through the foam is so
efficient in dissipating
heat that the exterior
surface temperature
never rises above 50° C
(122° F) in normal use.
On Friday evening the U.S.
Department of Commerce (DOC)
announced its preliminary
findings in the antidumping
duty (AD) investigations of
imports of some crystalline
silicon PV products from
China and Taiwan. Most solar
products entering the U.S.
market from China and Taiwan
will now face import duties.
New figures released by the
Solar Electric Power
Association (SEPA) reflect
the central role utilities
will continue to play in the
growth and change of the
U.S. solar industry in
emerging trends that have
been identified as current
and future market drivers,
according to the
organization.
Stanford University
researchers claim to have
created the first stable
pure lithium anode in a
working battery by using
carbon nanospheres as a
protective sheath to guard
against degradation. As a
result, the researchers
predict that commercial
developments may eventually
result in anything up to a
tripling of battery life in
the not-too-distant future.
Some prescription drugs
dull your senses—and weaken
your body’s ability to
repair itself.
Recent Duke University
research showed that
enhancing the taste and
smell of foods for patients
in a retirement home
resulted in stronger immune
systems. (In a side benefit,
they also got better grip
strength in both hands!) In
other studies, this same
group of researchers found
that flavor-enhanced foods
increased the flow of
saliva and, more
importantly, salivary IgA
(immunoglobulin A—the body’s
natural antibiotic to fight
pathogenic bacteria).
Industry dumped over 206
million pounds of toxic
chemicals into U.S.
waterways in 2012, according
to a new report by the
advocacy group Environment
America Research and Policy
Center...
The Great Lakes were among
the hardest hit, swallowing
8.39 million pounds of toxic
chemicals in 2012. The
Chesapeake Bay took in 3.23
million pounds; the Upper
Mississippi River absorbed
16.9 million pounds; and the
Puget Sound swallowed
578,000 pounds.
Energy use in the U.S. can
be split into two large
(very, very large) pies. One
is electricity for use in
homes, buildings, and
industry, and the other is
transportation, which is
powered primarily by liquid
fuels (gasoline and diesel)
from oil. There are some
exceptions, and small
overlapping fuel uses —
direct industrial use of
liquid fuel (a fairly
significant quantity), some
liquids burned to make
electricity (this used to be
a significant amount, but is
now only a very small
amount), and now a very
small amount of electricity
used to power electric
vehicles (EVs).
They prevent $7 billion in
health costs every year by
filtering air pollution—not
to mention their
psychological effects. New
research says the closer you
can live to trees, the
better off you are.
'How
much
white
are
you?'
said
the
Wampanoag
to
the
Pilgrim.
All Native
Americans have
had those
encounters --
meeting a
stranger of a
different race
who reacts to
Indian-ness with
a predictable
comment about
your racial
makeup, or a
common
misconception
about Indians,
or a (probably
false) story
about his or her
grandmother.
It's weird, it's
sometimes
offensive, it's
sometimes oddly
touching.
Although
the company has not
confirmed it, there is a
report that Toyota Motor
Corp. is planning to name
its $69,000 fuel-cell car
Mirai, the Japanese word for
future. (Credit:
Bloomberg News)
Toyota Motor Corp. is
planning to name its $69,000
fuel-cell car Mirai, the
Japanese word for future, a
person familiar with the
decision said.
Power generation in the UK
from renewables jumped 30%
in 2013, with wind
generating a record level of
30.5 TWh, according to the
Department of Energy and
Climate Change Thursday.
Renewables accounted for
14.9% of electricity
generated in the UK during
2013 at 53.7 TWh, the DECC
report said, with supply
from wind and solar
increasing steadily since
2000 due to a rise in
installed capacity.
New herds of genetically
pure wild bison may once
again roam vast expanses of
the American West where the
iconic animal has been
absent since the end of the
19th century, under a
tentative plan federal
officials advanced on
Wednesday...
Dozens from the Yellowstone
herd have been relocated to
two Montana American Indian
reservations in recent
years. Park officials,
wildlife advocates and
Native American groups are
now eager to restore wild
bison to more of their
native habitat.
Flooding is increasing in
frequency along much of the
U.S. coast, and the rate of
increase is accelerating
along the Gulf of Mexico and
Atlantic coasts, a team of
federal government
scientists found in a study
released Monday.
The Federal Open
Market Committee (FOMC) met
expectations and cut a
further $10 billion from the
pace of monthly asset
purchases. Beginning in
August 2014, the Fed will
purchase $10 billion of
agency mortgage-backed
securities (MBS) and $15
billion of longer-term
Treasuries per month, which
will be down from $15
billion and $20 billion,
respectively. No change was
made to the fed funds target
range of 0.00% to 0.25%. The
most significant difference
in today’s statement was the
Fed’s acknowledgement that
the downside risk to the
inflation outlook “has
diminished somewhat.”
The advance estimate of
second-quarter 2014 gross
domestic product (GDP)
growth was 4.0%, which was
well above market
expectations for a 3.0%
increase. This followed a
2.1% drop in the first
quarter that was slightly
smaller than the 2.9% drop
previously reported
(first-quarter 2014 growth
was revised as part of the
historical benchmark
revisions released alongside
this morning’s advance
second-quarter 2014 report).
The US nuclear power
industry has so far spent
about $3 billion taking
actions and making plant
modifications to address
lessons learned from the
2011 Fukushima I accident in
Japan, a utility official
told the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission during
a briefing Thursday.