By Mike Robbins
Hydrogen -- Star Gas, Everywhere, Yet Unseen. Sunlight is its Child.
(Haiku by Stephen Wetlesen)
June 27, 2014
Award-winning
book
highlights
Turtle
Island's
foremost
indigenous
environmental
warriors,
Conforming 30-year fixed
rate mortgage rates fell
0.03 percentage points last
week to reach 4.14%, on
average, nationwide. The
average 15-year fixed rate
mortgage rate fell 0.08
percentage points to 3.22%.
Bills are going up across
the country. "More than
one-fifth of U.S. water
utilities may need to
increase rates at least 10
percent annually over the
next decade to cover costs
primarily from aging
infrastructure," Bloomberg
recently reported, citing
the same research.
Independent science shows
that Americans' consumption
of sugar laden-foods is
making us sick. Yet, despite
what reliable science and
public health information
suggests, it has become an
uphill battle to create
policies in the United
States that would increase
our access to healthier food
or help us know the truth
behind how much "added
sugars" is actually in our
food.
A major battle may be
percolating between water
utilities and the energy
industry.
There appears to be a
"growing conflict between
some water systems and
pipeline companies," the
Wall Street Journal
recently reported.
Naysayers, you're on. If
you're convinced that
climate change isn’t
man-made, a physicist in
Texas wants to hear from
you. Bring your virtual
chalk, polish up your math,
hone your argument and prove
your point. Your time won’t
be misspent: If you can
irrefutably prove your
hypothesis, he’ll pay you
$10,000.
The effort by New England
governors to promote
construction of electric
transmission lines and a new
natural gas pipeline into
the region has been shrouded
in secrecy, according to the
Conservation Law Foundation,
which on Tuesday released
documents it obtained as
part of a Freedom of
Information request.
Researchers at the
International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis
(IIASA) have conducted a
study to examine the
potential for solar power to
provide reliable electricity
around the clock, every day
of the year. The team found
that a large, distributed
network of concentrated
solar power (CSP) plants in
the Mediterranean basin or
the Kalahari desert in
southern Africa would be
able to consistently run at
80 percent of maximum
capacity or more throughout
the year regardless of time
of day, season, or weather
conditions.
On June 17, an FDA advisory
panel moved closer to full
FDA approval on VBLOC—a new
implant designed to curb
appetite by electrocuting
stomach nerves. The device
is implanted under the skin
of the chest, and delivers
electrical shocks down the
two trunks of the vagus
nerve (the nerve that
controls the digestive
system, heart, lungs, and
some glands). The jolts stun
nerves around the stomach,
decreasing hunger pangs and
simulating a feeling of
fullness
Big sodas can stay on the
menu in the Big Apple after
New York state's highest
court refused Thursday to
reinstate the city's
first-of-its-kind size limit
on sugary drinks. But city
officials suggested they
might be willing to revisit
the supersize-soda ban.
Earlier this month the House
Appropriations Committee
reconfirmed its support for
the Yucca Mountain nuclear
waste facility by pledging
another $205m to the
long-delayed program.
However, with $billions
already spent on Yucca
Mountain, alternative sites
coming to the fore and a
rise in early NPP shutdowns
increasing the need for
ISFSIs to hold spent fuel
indefinitely, the back-end
of the nuclear lifecycle is
facing more scrutiny than
ever before
Despite their significantly
higher market penetration in
U.S. homes, consumer
electronics (CE) amazingly
account for a lower
percentage of electricity
usage per household than
three years ago, according
to research conducted by the
Fraunhofer Center for
Sustainable Energy Systems
on behalf of the Consumer
Electronics Association
(CEA). The research attempts
to quantify the electricity
consumption of CE products,
including televisions, game
consoles, set-top boxes
(cable, satellite, telco and
stand-alone), computers and
peripherals, computer
speakers, monitors, home
audio, smart phones, tablets
and networking equipment.
The Environmental Protection
Agency's recently released
plan to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions from
existing power plants could
provide a boost to nuclear
power.
EPA's Clean
Power Plan, which aims to
reduce CO2 emissions 30% by
2030, sets individual CO2
reduction targets for each
state and gives states
latitude in how they propose
to meet those goals.
France announced on Monday a
package of tax breaks and
low-cost loans to improve
insulation in buildings and
boost investment in
renewable energy, which is
supposed to provide 40
percent of the country's
electricity by 2030.
A decades-old fuel leak at
Kirtland Air Force Base
(KAFB) in New Mexico has
contaminated the soil and
appears to be a threat to
the nearby municipal
drinking water supply. "The
KAFB jet fuel spill—the Air
Force calls it a 'leak'—is
the largest toxic
contamination of an aquifer
in U.S. history, and it
could be twice the size of
the Exxon Valdez disaster,"
the Albuquerque Alibi
reported.
Afghan presidential
candidate Abdullah Abdullah
– whose allegations of mass
fraud have injected
uncertainty into a
close-fought election – has
met with the Afghan
electoral commission, the
United Nations said today,
in what’s seen as a bid to
defuse tension.
In the first quarter of
2014, GDP shrunk 2.9
percent and most of the
reason is because
health-care spending
declined. That doesn’t
mean we’re in for a
recession though.
Obamacare did help
crash the economy. Only
not in the way its
critics thought it
would.
The Solar Wind Downdraft
Tower is the first hybrid
solar-wind renewable energy
technology in the market.
The patented structure (see
figure) comprises a tall
hollow cylinder with a
water injection system near
the top and wind tunnels
containing turbines near the
bottom.
Prominent Shiite leaders
pushed Thursday for the
removal of Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki as
parliament prepared to start
work next week on putting
together a new government,
under intense U.S. pressure
to rapidly form a united
front against an unrelenting
Sunni insurgent onslaught.
Attention, binge TV
watchers: New research
suggests that long stretches
spent glued to the tube may
be more than just a guilty
pleasure -- they could also
shorten your life.
The study of more
than 13,000 seemingly
healthy adults in Spain
found that those who
spent more than three
hours a day watching
television had double
the risk of early death
compared to those who
watched less than an
hour a day.
The American Council On
Renewable Energy (ACORE) has
released a report exploring
key issues, and providing
recommendations related to
evolving utility and other
business models for
renewable energy.
A solar installation built
on a former 29-acre
municipal landfill that has
since been capped and
covered with soil in the
town of Scituate,
Massachusetts has been
chosen from a pool of 21
finalists to receive a 2014
"Photovoltaic Project of
Distinction" award from the
Solar Energy Industries
Association (SEIA) and the
Solar Electric Power
Association (SEPA).
Chancellor Angela Merkel
said on Wednesday she would
push back decisively against
the European Commission if
it raises further objections
to Germany's system of green
power subsidies.
"You can't simply start
to question support systems
which have been in place for
years without thinking about
how we make the transition.
We'll campaign for that
decisively in Europe," she
said in a speech to the
Bundestag lower house of
parliament.
The state legislators from
the Mexican State of Sonora
traveled to Tucson to
complain about Arizona's new
employer crackdown on
illegal's from Mexico. It
seems that many Mexican
illegal's are returning to
their hometowns and the
officials in the Sonora
state government are ticked
off. A delegation of nine
state legislators from
Sonora was in Tucson on
Tuesday to state that
Arizona's new 'Employer
Sanctions Law' will have a
devastating effect on the
Mexican state.
The popular conception of
the Neanderthal as a
club-wielding carnivore is,
well, rather primitive,
according to a new study
conducted at MIT. Instead,
our prehistoric cousin may
have had a more varied diet
that, while heavy on meat,
also included plant tissues,
such as tubers and nuts.
The N.C. Senate gave
final, bipartisan approval
Wednesday to a 15-year plan
to close Duke Energy's coal
ash ponds in the state,
sending the measure to the
House.
The unanimous vote
included several changes to
the bill, including more
explicit standards for
closing Duke's 33 ponds in
response to environmental
advocates' complaints.
Large cities occupy
only 1 percent of global
land surface, but draw water
from almost half of that
surface
As more people move to
urban areas, cities around
the world are experiencing
increased water stress and
looking for additional water
supplies to support their
continued grow.
More than four decades after
construction began at the
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant,
nearly 3,200 TVA and
contract employees are
working around the clock to
finish what should be
America's first new nuclear
reactor of the 21st century.
On the longest day of the
year in the Northern
Hemisphere, June 21, NRG
Energy generated more than
1,200 MW of solar power --
enough electricity to
support more than one
million homes. Since the
beginning of the year, NRG's
utility-scale solar
facilities have collectively
produced more than 957,000
MWh of electricity from 12
major projects.
President Obama asked
Congress Thursday for $500
million to train and arm
members of opposition forces
in Syria, part of an effort
to stem insurgent violence
that has spilled over into
neighboring Iraq...
Potential recipients of the
money — opponents of the
Syrian government headed by
Bashar al-Assad — will be
vetted, officials said.
Lawmakers have expressed
concern that weapons and
money sent to Syrian rebels
might wind up with enemies
of the United States.
The Pentagon reported that
about 40 surveillance
flights a day have been
being conducted, and the
Predators will be
“augmenting” the US flights
over Iraq.
C2 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low
with a
chance for a C-class flares
on days one, two, and three
(27 Jun,
28 Jun, 29
Jun).The geomagnetic field
is expected
to be at
quiet to unsettled levels on
days one and three (27 Jun,
29
Jun) and quiet to
active levels on day two (28
Jun).
In the wake of the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA) proposed
regulations surrounding
emissions from fossil-fueled
power plants, comes a report
which assesses the
implications of such
policies. The report,
released by the Institute
for Energy Research (IER),
calls for an immediate
moratorium on closure of
coal plants to protect
reliability, and maintain
affordability and security
of the nation's energy
system.
The Institute for Energy
Research released today a
report assessing the
implications of the federal
government's anti-coal
policies. The report,
"Protect the American
People: Moratorium on Coal
Plant Closures Essential,"
was co-authored by Dr. Roger
Bezdek and Dr. Frank
Clemente and comes in the
wake of the EPA's newly
proposed greenhouse gas
regulations, which will
force electricity providers
to reduce their emissions of
carbon dioxide.
Recently, eight
European bison were released
into the German wild. This
tiny herd has produced two
calves and had one death, so
their number now stands at
nine. Yet even that tiny
contingent is being
protested by neighboring
landowners who claim the
bison have damaged trees and
trampled crops and may carry
diseases. Sound familiar?
A
senior lawmaker said the
move, which Putin had
requested, should be seen as
an act of goodwill to help
facilitate peace efforts in
Ukraine, where Moscow sees
itself as the defender of
the rights of the large
Russian-speaking minority.
But he said the authority
could be reinstated at short
notice.
Where there's a need,
there's a scam. After all,
there's a reason that we
have the phrase "snake oil
salesman" in the lexicon.
And the greater the need,
the greater the scam
opportunities it seems.
Snake oil salesmen used good
marketing shtick to prey on
the sick; today's scammers
use technology to spread
their cons across the
population a bit more
objectively-and power has
certainly been a part of a
con artist's favored target
market.
Drones and what role they
should play in society have
been a hot item in Seattle
for quite some time. Last
year, former Seattle Mayor
Mike McGinn ordered the
Seattle Police Department to
abandon its plan to use
drones after an uproar from
citizens and privacy
advocates.
-
95 percent of Americans
use an electronic device
within one hour of going
to sleep, which could be
interfering with their
body’s circadian rhythm
-
Exposure to even small
amounts of light from a
television, your
computer, tablet, or
smartphone can interfere
with your body’s
production of melatonin,
which helps regulate
your sleep-wake cycle
-
People who use their
computer for playing,
surfing, or reading on
the Web, or those who
use their smartphones
for the same purpose, as
well as texting, are
more likely to report
symptoms of insomnia
-
People exposed to
radiation from their
mobile phones for three
hours before bedtime had
more trouble falling
asleep and staying in a
deep sleep
-
Turn off electronic
gadgets at least an hour
prior to bedtime, and
install a low-wattage
yellow, orange, or red
light bulb if you need a
source of light for
navigation at night
A core facet of
Chancellor Merkel's historic
"Energiewende" clean energy
transition, Germany has led
the world in driving
adoption of solar energy
technology and systems.
Although it is now pulling
back hard on incentives, the
market momentum created by
its precedent-setting solar
energy feed-in tariff (FiT)
persists.
Three national solar
energy records were set in
Germany over the past two
weeks.
According to Tony Clifford,
CEO of Standard Solar and a
keynote speaker during
PVAmerica 2014, which opened
in Boston on Monday, solar
PV could see some difficult
times in the near future,
many of which are out of the
industry’s control.
Sunni militants in Iraq
took control of several
small oil fields and
targeted one of the
country’s largest air bases
Wednesday, while a suicide
bomb blast rocked an outdoor
market just south of the
capital of Baghdad.
The militants, led by the
Islamic States of Iraq and
Syria/Levant, also known as
ISIS, overran the Ajeel oil
site 19 miles outside of
Tikrit, an engineer at the
facility told Reuters.
-
Studies are starting to
confirm lingering
suspicions that
aspartame may play a
role in the development
of Alzheimer’s disease
-
The key mechanism of
harm appears to be
methanol toxicity—a
much-ignored problem
associated with
aspartame in particular
-
In recent research,
methanol-fed mice
presented partial
“Alzheimer’s
disease-like symptoms,”
while rhesus monkeys fed
methanol developed
persistent pathological
changes related to the
development of
Alzheimer’s
-
Humans are the only
mammals who are NOT
equipped with a
protective biological
mechanism that breaks
down methanol into
harmless formic acid.
This is why animal
testing of aspartame
does not fully apply to
humans
-
Recent research also
suggests that sucralose
(Splenda) may have
neurotoxic effects
The Supreme Court on
Thursday limited the
president’s power to fill
high-level vacancies with
temporary appointments,
ruling in favor of Senate
Republicans in their
partisan clash with
President Barack Obama.
Cellphones and
smartphones generally cannot
be searched by police
without a warrant during
arrests, the Supreme Court
ruled unanimously Wednesday
in a major victory for
privacy rights.
Ruling on two cases from
California and
Massachusetts, the justices
acknowledged both a right to
privacy and a need to
investigate crimes. But they
came down squarely on the
side of privacy rights.
Surging environmental
crime, from illegal logging
to elephant poaching, is
worth up to $213 billion a
year and is helping to fund
armed conflicts while
cutting economic growth, a
U.N. and Interpol report
said on Tuesday.
The study, released
during a U.N. meeting of
environment ministers in
Nairobi, called for tougher
action to prevent crimes
such as illegal logging,
fishing, mining, dumping of
toxic waste and trade in
rare animals and plants.
Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO) said difficulties to
freeze standing water are
being confused with an ice
wall project at the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant.
TEPCO said workers with
Kajima Corp. started the
process of freezing
approximately 11,000 tonnes
of radioactive standing
water in tunnels under two
reactor buildings. TEPCO
said running water under
Unit 2 is preventing the
water from freezing. TEPCO
said it hopes to remove the
standing water by the end of
fiscal year 2014.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Motors, announced that Tesla
patents are now joining the
open source movement, for
the advancement of electric
vehicle technology. Musk
said Tesla Motors was
created to accelerate the
advent of sustainable
transport. If we clear a
path to the creation of
compelling electric
vehicles, but then lay
intellectual property
landmines behind us to
inhibit others, we are
acting in a manner contrary
to that goal. Tesla will not
initiate patent lawsuits
against anyone who, in good
faith, wants to use our
technology.
New independent report
identifies challenges facing
U.S. businesses and
policymakers; describes
strategies to avoid
significant,
unequally-spread economic
disruptions.
The
American economy faces major
risks from climate change,
including damaging coastal
storms, growing heat-related
mortality, and declining
labor productivity,
according to an independent
report released today by
business, education and
political leaders.
House Oversight and
Government Affairs Committee
Chairman Darrell Issa
(R-Calif.) on Wednesday said
he would begin contempt
proceedings against the
Environmental Protection
Agency for failing to give
the committee documents it
started asking for six
months ago.
The first of a new
generation of genetically
modified crops is poised to
win government approval in
the United States, igniting
a controversy that may
continue for years, and
foreshadowing the future of
genetically modified crops.
The agribusiness industry
says the plants—soy and corn
engineered to tolerate two
herbicides, rather than
one—are a safe, necessary
tool to help farmers fight
so-called superweeds. The
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and
Department of Agriculture
appear to agree.
Small is BIG. Small
modular reactors with
outputs in the double- to
triple-digit megawatt range
increasingly are being eyed
as a way to drive down the
costs, speed deployment and
give a boost to nuclear as
an energy source going
forward.
At the 2014 PVAmerica
Conference an Expo keynote,
Governor Deval Patrick took
the stage to explain why
Massachusetts has become one
of the top solar states in
the nation: forward
thinking.
Texas cotton growers are
petitioning the
Environmental Protection
Agency to let them use
propazine, an
alternative herbicide to
Monsanto’s glysophate, which
is currently used,
to combat a “super weed”
that has developed
resistance to it. According
to the Weed Science Society
of America, these
herbicide-resistant weeds
were first reported in the
1950s — soon after farmers
began using the first major
synthetic herbicides — and
are on the rise.
Greater Duckweed (Spirodela
polyrhiza) — one of the
smallest and simplest
freshwater plants known —
generally gets a bad rap.
That’s because the
millimeter-sized floating
plant thrives on the worst
sort of livestock and human
wastewater, basically
garden-variety sewage. In
fact, in the South Pacific,
New Zealand and Australia,
it’s frequently used to
clean such wastewater.
U.S. law enforcement
officials have been finding
“cheat sheets” along the
border used by illegal
immigrants to try to stay in
the United States and not
get deported after they’ve
been caught. The notes,
believed to be supplied by
human trafficking groups,
give pointers in Spanish on
what immigrants should say
when confronted by border
authorities.
As a shaky cease-fire in
the east entered its final
hours Thursday, thousands of
Ukrainians in cars stuffed
with belongings lined up at
the border to cross into
Russia, some vowing never to
return.
Many said they were most
frightened for their
children and desperate to
take them to safety.
The Advanced Energy Economy
(AEE) has launched a tool
that will make navigating
state energy policy easier
for those in the industry. A
fully integrated set of
online tools, PowerSuite,
tracks energy legislation
and regulatory proceedings
across all 50 states.
A UC Riverside-led project
has received $12 million
over four years from the
U.S. Department of Energy --
the largest single federal
grant the campus has ever
received -- to improve the
nation's energy production
and usage. Spearheaded by
UCR Professor of Physics
Jing Shi, the project,
"Spins and Heat in Nanoscale
Electronic Systems" , seeks
to convert excess energy in
spinning electrons into
electricity and increase
efficient heat conduction in
nanoscale computer
applications.
The uprising against GMOs
has grown loud, while
government approval for GMO
use has grown ever so…quiet.
USDA approval of
second-generation GMOs snuck
by without so much as a
sound. Bayer CropScience,
the second largest
agrichemical company, got
the USDA stamp of approval
on its new GMO soybean
plant, designed to resist a
toxic herbicide called
isoxaflutole (IFT). IFT has
been labeled “a probable
carcinogen” by the
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and its
increased use will, without
a doubt, cause widespread
damage to human health, as
well as irreparable
environmental consequences.
America’s reliance on
secretive drone missile
strikes against terror
suspects has set a
“dangerous precedent” that
could be imitated by other
countries and trigger wider
wars around the world,
former senior US officials
said in a report on
Wednesday.
Home Depot and other U.S.
companies are working to
eliminate or limit use of a
type of pesticide suspected
of helping cause dramatic
declines in honeybee
populations needed to
pollinate key American
crops, officials said on
Wednesday.
The moves include
requiring suppliers to label
any plants treated with
neonicotinoid, or neonic,
pesticides sold through home
and garden stores.
Annual property losses
from hurricanes and other
coastal storms of $35
billion; a decline in crop
yields of 14 percent,
costing corn and wheat
farmers tens of billions of
dollars; heat wave-driven
demand for electricity
costing utility customers up
to $12 billion per year.
These are among the
economic costs that climate
change is expected to exact
in the United States over
the next 25 years, according
to a bipartisan report
released on Tuesday. And
that's just for starters:
The price tag could soar to
hundreds of billions by
2100.
The old adage, "it's not
the heat, it's the
humidity," will come into
play more often and in more
places because of climate
change, with life-altering
results in southern U.S.
cities from Miami to Atlanta
to Washington and even
northern ones such as New
York, Chicago and Seattle.
"As temperatures rise,
toward the end of the
century, less than an hour
of activity outdoors in the
shade could cause a
moderately fit individual to
suffer heat stroke," said
climatologist Robert Kopp of
Rutgers University, lead
scientific author of the
report. "That's something
that doesn't exist anywhere
in the world today."
In the wild, gorillas are
turning into primitive
engineers as the newest
field findings show that
some of these large primates
have taught themselves how
to dismantle poaching traps
in Africa.
June 24, 2014
Everyone is familiar with
Google's flagship services,
like Search, Gmail and Maps.
Even blue-sky projects like
its internet balloon and
self-driving cars are
well-known. But there are
plenty of remarkable Google
services that many people
just don't know about. Here,
Gizmag looks at 10 of them.
6.2 - KERMADEC ISLANDS,
NEW ZEALAND
6.2 - KERMADEC ISLANDS,
NEW ZEALAND
6.0 - RAT ISLANDS,
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
6.9 - RAT ISLANDS,
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
6.6 - RAT ISLANDS,
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
...after taking an arthritis
drug called tofactinib
citrate, the man not only
grew a full head of hair,
but also eyebrows,
eyelashes, facial hair, and
body hair, Yale researchers
reported.
The United Nations on
Wednesday said Australia was
making progress to preserve
the Great Barrier Reef, a
key tourist attraction that
environmentalists say faces
threats from industrial and
agricultural development...
The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation is
concerned over proposed
coastal developments,
including the building of
ports and natural gas
facilities.
-
Garden hoses are not
intended for drinking
water, so there are no
regulations about what
kinds of chemicals can
be in them
-
One-third of the hoses
tested contained high
levels of one or more
chemicals of concern,
including phthalates,
bisphenol-A (BPA), flame
retardants, and heavy
metals
-
When water from a hose
that was left out in the
sun was tested, it
contained BPA levels up
to nine times higher,
and phthalate levels two
times higher, than
federal drinking water
standards
-
Look for garden hoses
made from natural rubber
or labeled “drinking
water safe” or at least
“lead free”
-
You can significantly
reduce your toxicant
exposure via your garden
hose by letting the
water run until it’s
cold before using it
A bird advocacy group
sued the U.S. government on
Thursday over rules it says
loosen protections for
eagles killed by wind
turbines, arguing they
threaten decades of
protection that saved the
bald eagle, America's
national emblem, from
extinction.
The American Bird
Conservancy filed suit in
federal court in California
to challenge the
authorization of 30-year
permits to renewable energy
developers to accidentally
kill protected bald and
golden eagles, which may die
as a result of collisions
with towering wind turbines.
Unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) are currently being
considered for many
applications, although one
factor that a lot of people
tend to gloss over is the
aircrafts' limited battery
range – being able to stay
airborne for only 10 to 30
minutes at a time definitely
limits their usefulness.
Researchers at MIT, however,
are developing a possible
solution. They're working on
a fixed-wing UAV that can
perch on power lines and use
their emitted magnetic
fields to recharge its
battery, before continuing
on its way.
The Border Patrol on Sunday
canceled flights scheduled
to bring nearly 300 Central
American migrants from south
Texas to California for
processing, but the plans
could be reinstated, an
official said.
It was unclear why Monday's
flights for San Diego and El
Centro, about 100 miles of
east of San Diego, were
shelved, said Ralph DeSio, a
spokesman for Customs and
Border Protection, the
Border Patrol's
parent agency.
California water
utilities are trying to
crack down on leaks as they
face the effects of the
record-breaking drought.
The dry spell has been
rough on water
providers. "The prevailing
sunny and dry conditions —
notwithstanding a few brief
storms in February and March
— have forced 30 public
water utilities to date in
the hardest hit areas,
mostly in central and
northern California, to
impose or prolong mandatory
water conservation measures,
according to the Association
of California Water
Agencies," GreenBiz
reported.
This week, the Ayatollah
Khamenei revealed his latest
thinking on the subject.
“Iran’s supreme leader is
promising a world free of
infidels and nonbelievers
with the coming of the
Islamic messiah, Mahdi, a
9th-century descendant of
the prophet Mohammad whom
the Shiites refer to as the
12th Imam,” writes Reza
Khalili, the former Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps
operative who became a
double-agent against Iran
for the CIA.
oal is in a good position to
keep its majority share of
the U.S. power market, based
on winter 2014 consumption
and inventory data from
Bentek Energy. U.S. coal
consumption in winter
2013-2014 increased 17
percent from winter
2012-2013 -- to 74.1 million
short tons per month.
Similarly, coal-fired
generation accounted for an
estimated 44 percent of the
total U.S. power stack,
compared to 41 percent
during the previous two
winters, according to
Bentek.
-
Coca-Cola, which is part
owner of the organic
brand Honest Tea, has
donated millions of
dollars to anti-GMO
labeling campaigns to
make sure genetically
engineered ingredients
remain hidden
-
Conflicting interests
between Honest Tea and
Coca-Cola appear to have
resulted in false
statements that are
anything but
transparent. In fact,
public statements by the
Honest Tea CEO may even
constitute an SEC
violation
-
The Grocery
Manufacturers
Association of America
is suing Vermont in an
effort to overturn the
first
no-strings-attached GMO
labeling in the US
-
The GMA, whose 300-plus
members include
Monsanto, Coca-Cola, and
General Mills, is also
pushing a Congressional
bill that would block
states from passing GMO
labeling laws
-
In response, you can
join the Organic
Consumers Association’s
nationwide boycott of
ALL GMA member brands
and products, including
organic brands
Several Montana residents
have struck gold, but not in
the way they might have
wanted to.
It appears gold flakes
may be entering their homes
through their water.
"The epidemic is out of
control," Dr. Bart Janssens,
director of operations for
Doctors Without Borders,
said in a statement.
There have been 567 cases
and 350 deaths since the
epidemic began in March,
according to the latest
World Health Organization
figures.
A fighter plane taking off
from a strike carrier is a
dramatic sight – not the
least because of the woosh
and plume of steam as the
catapult blasts the aircraft
into the air. In a few
years, such launches may
still be dramatic, but
they’ll also be a bit
quieter and very plume-free.
That’s because the US Navy
has completed testing of its
Electromagnetic Aircraft
Launch System (EMALS);
clearing it for use on the
new Gerald R Ford-class
aircraft carriers.
As part of the Obama
Administration's commitment
to a strong and secure power
grid, the Energy Department
today announced more than
$10 million for projects
that will improve the
reliability and resiliency
of the U.S. electric grid
and facilitate quick and
effective response to grid
conditions. This investment
which includes six projects
across five states-
California , Hawaii ,
Missouri , North Carolina
and Washington - will help
further the deployment of
advanced software that works
with synchrophasor
technology to better detect
quickly-changing grid
conditions and improve
day-to-day grid reliability.
[Ed: Too
little, too late.]
NRG Energy Services LLC, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of
NRG Energy Inc., will
restart the Aspen Power
biomass plant in Lufkin,
Texas, which has been shut
down since fall 2012, as
well as operate and maintain
the facility once online to
provide clean, renewable
power for the Texas market.
The plant, which first began
operation in August 2011 as
the first wood-based biomass
power plant in the state, is
overseen by InventivEnergy,
a clean energy consulting
and asset management firm.
Heavy rains across the
northern U.S. Midwest this
week flooded corn and
soybean fields, damaging
crops, and raised river
levels which could slow some
grain shipments by barge for
the next two weeks.
Parts of Iowa, Minnesota,
South Dakota and Nebraska
that received 5 to 10 inches
of rain in the past week-the
equivalent of about two
months' of rainfall-are
expected to benefit from
drier weather next week,
said Josh Senechal,
agricultural meteorologist
for Freese-Notis Weather
While many pharmaceutical
medications are disruptive
to the overall functioning
of the body, numerous herbs
actually support the natural
healing powers of our own
bodies. Herbs can be so
effective at healing that we
are still using them even
after thousands of years.
Photos from Congressman
Henry Cueller's (D-Texas)
trip to the U.S.-Mexico
border in South Texas
provide some more details on
exactly what's happening
down there. Contrary to
statements made by both the
Obama Administration and
pro-amnesty advocates, the
border crisis is much more
than women and children
trying to escape violence
and a bad economy in Central
America.
Russia and Iran have
reached the final agreement
to build two new nuclear
power plants.
The Spokesman of the
Atomic Energy Organization
of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz
Kamalvandi told ISNA on June
23 that Tehran and Moscow
started negotiations about
building new nuclear power
plants (NPP) several months
ago and the "final
agreement" about
construction of two NPPs has
been achieved.
Israeli warplanes bombed
a series of targets inside
Syria early Monday, the
Israeli military said, in
response to a cross-border
attack that killed an
Israeli teenager the
previous day.
In all, Israel said it
struck nine military targets
inside Syria, and "direct
hits were confirmed." The
targets were located near
the site of Sunday's
violence in the Golan
Heights and included a
regional military command
center and unspecified
"launching positions." There
was no immediate response
from Syria.
The justices said that the
Environmental Protection
Agency lacks authority in
some cases to force
companies to evaluate ways
to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions. This rule applies
when a company needs a
permit to expand facilities
or build new ones that would
increase overall pollution.
Carbon dioxide is the chief
gas linked to global
warming.
News comes ahead of June
30th deadline but opponents
say regime using new gas
instead
The remaining 7.2 per cent
of Dr Assad’s declared
1,300-tons of chemical
weapons material was shipped
from Syria’s Latakia port
today to be neutralised
aboard the US vessel Cape
Ray and then destroyed at
commercial facilities in
Europe and the US, the
United Nations and the
Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) said in a
joint statement.
The most populous U.S.
state is in the third year
of a crippling drought that
has forced ranchers to sell
cattle for lack of grazing
land, and farmers to let an
estimated 400,000 acres
normally devoted to crops go
fallow.
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture said Thursday
that while all of the state
remains in a severe drought,
the portion of the state in
what is considered an
"exceptional drought"
increased in the past week
from about 25 percent to
about 33 percent.
At its 82nd Annual U.S.
Conference of Mayors meeting
yesterday, the nation's
mayors renewed their
longstanding commitment to
fight climate change by
reducing carbon emissions,
promoting energy
independence and efficiency
and developing renewable
energy.
Hope was in the air along
with the smoke on Sunday
June 22 as firefighters all
but put out the bulk of the
Assayii Lake Fire on the
Navajo Nation.
Although the fire had
grown to 14,712 acres from
13,450, the number of
personnel required to fight
it dropped to 597, down from
last week’s 867, according
to InciWeb. And by Sunday
June 22 the blaze was 60
percent contained.
They concluded that eagles
were feeding on gut piles
from deer and other animals
left behind by hunters after
examining the remains from
25 animals and found that
they had from as little as
one fragment to as many as
107 fragments per pile. It
only takes a little to be
toxic to an eagle, and one
that is suffering the
effects of poisoning is a
heartbreaking sight.
Despite high upfront capital
costs, geothermal power is
the only form of renewable
electricity capable of
achieving high capacity
utilization and supply base
load -- putting it in a
unique market position and
allowing it to compete with
conventional and
non-conventional sources of
power generation.
With 15 US nuclear power
plants in DECON or SAFSTOR,
plus another 14 due to reach
the end of their original
design life within the next
10 years, decommissioning
and used fuel management are
dominating utilities’ and
major contractors’ forward
strategies.
Sirens blared, warnings
were issued and many people
rushed to shelters as the
weather radar warned the
funnel cloud brewing would
be massive and deadly.
But Yellowman and a small
group of the elders huddled
to perform an ancient ritual
that would turn the tornado
away.
"We spoke to it in our
language," he said.
The talks started Monday in
Donetsk, the biggest city in
the rebellious east.
Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko laid out his
peace plan Friday, declaring
a unilateral cease-fire in
fighting to uproot the
mutiny that has engulfed the
nation's industrial east for
the past two months.
Russian welcomed the peace
plan, but urged the
Ukrainian government to
engage in talks with the
insurgents, who have
declared their regions
independent, seized official
buildings and fought
government troops.
WHAT YOU
DON’T KNOW CAN HURT YOU
In the heavily fracked
Keystone State, the economic
interests of frackers trump
the health concerns of
residents.
That much is abundantly
clear in the wake of
an extraordinary story
by StateImpact Pennsylvania,
which interviewed two
retired state health
department workers. The
former workers say they were
ordered to not return the
phone calls of residents who
complained that nearby
fracking was harming their
health. Instead, they were
told to pass messages on to
their superiors, who
apparently never returned
the calls either. The health
workers were also given a
list of fracking-related
“buzzwords” to watch out fo
If Americans under
correctional supervision
counted as a city of their
own, they would form the
largest city in the United
States after New York. ..
Our corrections system is
not correcting. Within three
years of being released from
prison, nearly half of
prisoners are convicted of
another crime with one out
of every four ending up back
in prison.
When a typical
bureaucracy does its job
this badly, it wastes money,
time and paper. The
corrections bureaucracy, in
failing to correct the large
majority of inmates in its
charge, not only wastes
money but also wastes lives,
families and entire cities.
The changing of the
racist name of the
Washington Redskins football
team is looking more and
more certain -- to everyone,
that is, except the team's
own honchos. Owner Dan
Snyder stated just over a
year ago, "We will never
change the name of the team
... It's that simple. NEVER
— you can use caps."
Sportscaster Al Michaels,
who has talked with Snyder
on the subject, says the
owner "basically said [the
team would change its name]
‘over my dead body.'"
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 (24 Jun,
25 Jun, 26 Jun). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on days one
and two (24 Jun, 25 Jun) and
quiet levels on day three
(26 Jun).
More than 400 large U.S.
military drones have crashed
in major accidents around
the world since 2001, a
record of calamity that
exposes the potential
dangers of throwing open
American skies to drone
traffic, according to a
yearlong Washington Post
investigation.
Since the outbreak of the
wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, military drones have
malfunctioned in myriad
ways, plummeting from the
sky because of mechanical
breakdowns, human error, bad
weather and other reasons,
according to more than
50,000 pages of accident
investigation reports and
other records obtained by
The Post under the
Freedom of Information Act.
The man began to walk
away, when , police say, he
turned around and said "I
bet you don't have one of
these", pointing a gun in
his direction.
The guest did have "one
of these," and began firing
at the suspect. He
reportedly hit the man at
least once.
Pregnant women who lived
in close proximity to fields
and farms where chemical
pesticides were applied
experienced a two-thirds
increased risk of having a
child with autism spectrum
disorder or other
developmental delay,
according to a new study.
The research discovered
the associations were even
stronger when the exposures
occurred during the second
and third trimesters of the
women's pregnancies.
Tobey Curtis, one of the
government scientists who
worked on the study, said in
an interview his team could
only capture trends in shark
abundance and the study
could not be used to
estimate the total number of
sharks in the Atlantic's
northwest region, which
extends from the U.S. East
Coast.
"We don't know what
portion of the total
population we're
documenting," he said.
A Sudanese woman on death
row for apostasy had her
sentence cancelled and was
ordered released by a
Khartoum court on Monday,
the country’s official news
agency reported.
Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO) said difficulties to
freeze standing water are
being confused with an ice
wall project at the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant.
TEPCO said workers with
Kajima Corp. started the
process of freezing
approximately 11,000 tonnes
of radioactive standing
water in tunnels under two
reactor buildings. TEPCO
said running water under
Unit 2 is preventing th
The ALPS removes all types
of radioactive materials
except tritium from toxic
water generated in the
process of cooling the
Fukushima nuclear reactors
that suffered meltdowns in
the 2011 nuclear crisis.
Saying that he was
“shocked” over the decision,
Texas Agricultural
Commissioner Todd Staples
said in a letter on Monday
that Chipotle’s recent
decision to import beef from
Australia rather than Texas
is “misguided” and
“irresponsible.”
Chipotle will reportedly
begin sourcing grass-fed,
healthier beef from
Australia.
IT experts have already
labeled the IRS’ “dog ate my
homework” excuse
as ludicrous, and now
evidence has come to light
that the IRS has had a
contract with an email
archiving company, Sonasoft,
since 2005.
The company even tweeted
about the arrangement back
in 2009.
FATCA Comes Online July 1,
2014
Two extensions have been
granted by the U.S. Treasury
before FATCA, Foreign
Account Tax Compliance Act.
Very recently, notable
organizations including the
American Bankers
Association, Clearing House
Association, International
Bankers Association,
Securities Industry and
Financial Markets
Association as well as
foreign governmental bodies
are seeking a further
delay. However, the U.S.
Treasury and the Internal
Revenue Service had now
clearly stated on 30 January
2014 that there will be no
further extensions.
In recent weeks, Clear
Creek in southwest Missouri
became the site of a "fish
kill investigation," as OzarksFirst put
it.
Locals noticed in May
that the creek was filled
with dead fish. State
officials say contaminated
wastewater was to blame.
An investigative report
by the Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) said that
"Tyson Foods leaked ammonia
into a creek killing
thousands of fish,"
Riverfront Times reported.
US coal stockpiles
essentially held steady at
141 million st in the week
that ended Thursday, but are
likely to begin declining in
the coming weeks as coal
burn increases with summer
demand, according to Bentek
Energy.
Bentek, a
unit of Platts, said Friday
it estimates US coal
stockpiles will decline to
137.8 million st in the
final week of June and 136.1
million st in the first week
of July, based on increased
coal consumption.
The pharmaceutical
industry makes its giant
profits by making us sick. A
whistle-blower with 35 years
working for Big Pharma is
now speaking out about their
practices.
This could be the most
powerful and corrupt
industry in the world. It
kills more people then it
saves. It is not news to say
that Big Pharma’s interest
is ultimately, if not
exclusively, in their
profits by keeping people
sick and ignorant by
controlling the “sick care”
system and the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA).
Wikileaks published an April
draft of a critical section
of pending “trade” deal
called the Trade in Services
Agreement, which is being
negotiated among 50
countries, including the US,
the member nations of the
EU, Australia, Canada,
Chile, Costa Rica, Hong
Kong, Iceland, Israel,
Japan, Liechtenstein,
Mexico, New Zealand, Norway,
Panama, Peru, South Korea,
and Switzerland. TISA would
liberalize, as in reduce the
ability of nations to
regulate, a large range of
services.
June 20, 2014
The discovery of antibiotics
is one of the most important
breakthroughs of the 20th
century. But their
effectiveness and low cost
has led to their overuse,
resulting in the worrying
rise of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria, or so-called
superbugs. Researchers at
the University of East
Anglia (UAE) in England have
now uncovered an Achille's
heel in the bacterial cell
defenses that could mean
that bacteria wouldn't
develop drug-resistance in
the first place.
An SNL Energy analysis of
average coal employment data
from the U.S. Mine Safety
and Health Administration
shows the average number of
employees in the one-year
period ended March 31 fell
about 8.3 percent year over
year to 79,658 employees.
For the first quarter,
the analysis found the
average employee count at
U.S. coal mines was 76,012,
the lowest level since at
least first quarter 2009.
The Associated Press,
MSNBC and other news media
are sticking to the story
that President Barack Obama
is only the fourth president
to visit a reservation. I
say at least seven, more
likely eight.
So one by one here goes
the documentary evidence
(for those who care).
The Antarctic shore is a
place of huge contrasts, as
quiet, dark, and frozen
winters give way to bright,
clear waters, thick with
algae and peppered with
drifting icebergs in summer.
But as the planet has warmed
in the last two decades,
massive losses of sea ice in
winter have left icebergs
free to roam for most of the
year. As a result, say
researchers reporting in the
Cell Press journal Current
Biology on June 16, boulders
on the shallow seabed --
once encrusted with a rich
assemblage of species in
intense competition for
limited space -- now mostly
support a single species.
The climate-linked increase
in iceberg activity has left
all other species so rare as
to be almost irrelevant.
Arizona Public Service
Co. announces a Request for
Proposal (RFP) from solar
developers and installers to
construct two 10-megawatt
solar photovoltaic
facilities - financed by APS
through the company's AZ Sun
Program.
The RFP began on June 16,
and interested parties are
encouraged to participate in
a bidder's webinar on June
23. Additional information
about the webinar and the
RFP is available online at
aps.com/rfp.
India occupies just 2
percent of the world's
territory but is home to 17
percent of its population,
leading to over-use of land
and excessive grazing. Along
with changing rainfall
patterns, these are the main
causes of desertification.
"Land is becoming barren,
degradation is happening,"
said Prakash Javadekar,
minister for environment,
forests and climate change.
"A lot of areas are on the
verge of becoming deserts
but it can be stopped."
Boston is home to New
England’s oldest and largest
water and sewer systems,
which are owned, maintained
and operated by Boston Water
and Sewer Commission.
Established in 1977, BWSC
continues to provide water
and sewer services to more
than one million people
every day.
Canadian aboriginal groups
plan lawsuits and direct
actions to prevent the
completion of the Northern
Gateway pipeline
First Nations groups have
vowed to fight the Canadian
government’s approval of a
planned pipeline with
lawsuits and direct action.
They say Tuesday’s decision
violates their
constitutional rights
because the government
failed to consult tribal
bands, the basic units of
government for First Nations
in Canada.
At the heart of this
state-of-the-art wastewater
treatment operation is the
Remo-Frit RAPTOR system.
Inaugurated this year, the
system converts nearly all
of the potentially
environmentally harmful
organic content of the solid
wastes into green
electricity and valuable
fertilizer products. What's
more, the RAPTOR process is
complemented by (and
integrated with) a
high-efficiency GWE
wastewater treatment plant
to achieve the very high
wastewater quality standards
and the optimum biogas
production efficiencies
specified by Remo-Frit.
Afghan presidential
candidate Abdullah Abdullah
said on Wednesday that he
had suspended work with the
country’s electoral bodies
and asked them to stop
counting votes because of
widespread fraud.
“The counting process
should stop immediately and
if that continues, it will
have no legitimacy,”
Abdullah told reporters.
Abdullah’s refusal to
work with the country’s
election commissions has
pushed the country into a
deeper political crisis just
days after the runoff vote.
Climate change is a
growing threat to tourism,
from thawing ski resorts to
coral reefs hit by warmer
seas, and the industry
itself should do more to
curb its soaring greenhouse
gas emissions, a study
showed on Tuesday.
Tourism's greenhouse gas
emissions, on current rising
trends buoyed by ever more
travel, are set to reach
about 10 percent of the
world total by 2025 from
between 3.9 and 6 percent
now, it said.
The outsized,
hump-shouldered bruins were
hunted, trapped and poisoned
to the edge of extinction in
the lower 48 states before
being added to the federal
endangered and threatened
species list in 1975.
The Center for Biological
Diversity argued in a formal
petition submitted to the
U.S. Interior Department
that grizzlies should be
restored to their native
range in such places as
California's Sierra Nevada
and the Grand Canyon in
Arizona.
The areas, it said, still
contain large tracts of
undeveloped habitat favored
by the bears.
The number of deaths
involving commonly
prescribed painkillers is
higher than the number of
deaths by overdose from
heroin and cocaine combined,
according to researchers at
McGill University. In a
first-of-its-kind review of
existing research, the
McGill team has put the
spotlight on a major public
health problem: the dramatic
increase in deaths due to
prescribed painkillers,
which were involved in more
than 16,000 deaths in 2010
in the U.S. alone.
Currently, the US and Canada
rank #1 and #2 in per capita
opioid consumption.
DTE Electric, Michigan's
largest power utility with
more than 2.1 million
customers, plans to retire a
third of its coal-fired
generation, more than 2,000
MW, by 2025, and rely more
on natural gas and
renewables, mostly wind, the
company said.
As a
result, the utility is
seeking bids to acquire a
natural gas-fired plant to
meet future Midcontinent
Independent System Operator
resource adequacy
requirements, according to a
request for proposals.
Scarce farmland has been
eroded for decades by
relentless population growth
and urban sprawl, and the
pace of unlicensed building
exploded since 2011 when the
overthrow of President Hosni
Mubarak led to a security
vacuum.
El Paso Electric Company
(EPE) will be coal-free by
2016 and, in less than one
year, has doubled its
utility-scale solar
portfolio -- positioning it
well to meet new carbon
standards proposed by the
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
In a move that experts
say could set a national
precedent, the Environmental
Protection Agency is
withdrawing part of its
approval of a safe drinking
water act exemption for
uranium mining in Goliad
County.
An EPA official said
there is not enough data to
determine whether a
previously approved area is
serving as a current source
of drinking water.
The central banker
described the U.S. economic
growth as having "rebounded"
recently, after having
"slowed sharply" during the
winter months. The group
acknowledged inflation rates
as less-than-optimal, and
announced the next phase of
its QE3 taper, to begin in
July.
QE3 is a economic
stimulus program which aims
to suppress U.S. mortgage
rates. As the size of QE3
shrinks, mortgage rates are
expected to rise. The
July taper marks the
fifth round of reductions to
the QE3 program.
The federal government is
nearing final approval of a
$554 million settlement with
the Navajo Nation of the
tribe’s claim that the
government mishandled
royalties on tribal mineral
resource contracts for
decades.
The Navajo Nation Council
voted 13-3 to approve the
deal June 6, when it was
signed by President Ben
Shelly and sent to
Washington for final
approval from the
departments of Justice,
Interior and Treasury.
Islamist-led militants
and pro-government forces
are engaged in fierce
battles for the Baiji oil
refinery and Tal Afar
airport in northern Iraq.
Baiji, Iraq's biggest
refinery, is surrounded by
the rebels, who say they
have seized most of Tal Afar
airport.
The fighting comes a day
after the US said it would
send some 300 military
advisers to help the fight
against the insurgents.
States are walking a
tightrope "between the
positive economics that flow
from shale gas development
and public concerns with
regard to the environment
and scientific uncertainty,"
the attorneys said.
They categorized state
regulations of fracking
wastewater as "reactive" to
public concern,
"restrictive" to fracking
operations, or
"facilitative" of the energy
industry.
Giant moths are making a
mass appearance in Southeast
Asia.
The moths, Lyssa Zampa,
are startlingly large. Their
wingspans can grow up to six
inches. They aren't
poisonous, and they aren't
known to carry diseases.
But, in Malaysia and
Singapore, there are a lot
of them—an unusually heavy
presence. There are so many
giant moths swarming parts
of these countries that
thousands of them managed to
disrupt a soccer match.
UK intelligence service GCHQ
can legally snoop on British
use of Google, Facebook and
web-based email without
specific warrants because
the firms are based abroad,
the government has said.
Classed as "external
communications", such
activity can be covered by a
broad warrant and
intercepted without extra
clearance, spy boss Charles
Farr said.
Hawaii’s lead utility
Hawaiian Electric (HECO) and
other utilities in the
islands have found that
solar photovoltaics
installations have grown far
faster than their isolated
grids can adapt to the
intermittent flood of peak
time energy. With an
electricity tariff at least
double the U.S. average,
fuel-constrained Hawaii is a
rare and now leading U.S.
market where solar has
reached parity with other
energy costs.
Helping farmers
around the globe apply more
precise amounts of
fertilizer nitrogen can
combat climate change.
That's the conclusion of
a study published this week
in the journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of
Sciences. In the paper,
researchers at Michigan
State University (MSU)
provide an improved
prediction of nitrogen
fertilizer's contribution to
greenhouse gas emissions
from agricultural fields.
-
Since its inception, the
USDA has been granted
powers by both Congress
and presidential
executive orders that
have made it the
policy-setter for both
agricultural policies
and nutritional
guidelines
-
USDA policies have been
heavily influenced by
the food industry, and
for the last 100 years,
its nutrition guidelines
have been a direct
result of an effort to
boost farm economics
-
Agricultural subsidies
are in large part
responsible for
promoting and worsening
the US obesity epidemic
-
The USDA-run Smart
Snacks in School program
encourages “healthy
choices.” But the
“smarter, healthier”
choices promoted are
actually processed
foods, including junk
foods like tortilla
chips, and artificially
flavored water
-
If you want optimal
health, you need to
return to a diet of
real, whole foods—fresh
organic produce, meats
from animals raised
sustainably on pasture,
and raw organic milk and
eggs
Concentrations of dissolved
solids, a measure of the
salt content in water, are
elevated in many of the
Nations streams as a result
of human activities,
according to a new USGS
study. Excessive
dissolved-solids
concentrations in water can
have adverse effects on the
environment and on
agricultural, domestic,
municipal, and industrial
water users.
Celebration spread
throughout Indian country
June 18 given a ruling from
the United States Patent and
Trademark Office canceling
the Washington Redskins
trademark registration.
The revocation of six of
the team’s trademarks was
necessary, the USPTO ruled,
because the football team’s
name is “disparaging to
Native Americans.”
Environmentalists in
Illinois expected a battle
royal over their call for a
statewide ban on
"microbeads" -- tiny bits of
plastic used in personal
care products such as facial
scrubs and toothpaste that
are flowing by the billions
into the Great Lakes and
other waterways. Discovered
only recently, they're
showing up inside fish that
are caught for human
consumption, scientists say.
But instead of
resisting, leading
companies quickly
collaborated on a ban
that was enacted by the
state legislature this
spring. And with similar
measures now pending in
at least three other
large states and in
Congress, the extinction
of microbeads is taking
shape as one of the
unlikeliest events in
the politics of nature:
A low-stress compromise
by interest groups that
are often at each
other's throats.
A new invention known as
a Virtual Curtain tries to
take some of the effort out
of treating wastewater by
enlisting contaminants as
cleaning agents.
"Using wastewater to
clean itself is the premise
of new Australian technology
that relies on the formation
of compounds called
hydrotalicites, and which
results in less sludge than
traditional water treatment
with lime. In one test, the
equivalent of 20
Olympic-sized swimming pools
of wastewater were treated,
with final sludge reductions
of up to 90 percent," Gizmag
reported.
The
US has told senior Iraqi
officials that the Prime
Minister, Nouri al-Maliki,
must leave office if it is
to intervene militarily to
stop the advance of Sunni
extremists, The
Independent has learnt.
The Sunni community sees Mr
Maliki as the main architect
of its oppression and the
Americans believe there can
be no national
reconciliation between Sunni
and Shia unless he ceases to
be leader of the country.
Luke Air Force Base and the
state's largest electric
utility provider, Arizona
Public Service, have
partnered on a new solar
power plant to be built on
100 acres of land located on
the Base. Construction of
the 10-megawatt facility -
part of the APS AZ Sun
Program - is expected to
begin in the fourth quarter
of this year.
North Carolina Sen. Tom
Apodaca and Senate Leader
Phil Berger proposed a new
bill on Monday in front of
the Senate committee that
would prevent wet coal ash
from leaking toxins into
groundwater or nearby
rivers.
The bill, if approved,
would close unlined coal ash
ponds in the state within 15
years, and prohibit storing
wet coal ash in such basins.
Researchers at the
University of California,
Riverside have developed a
silicon anode that would
allow us to charge
lithium-ion batteries up to
16 times faster than is
currently possible. The new
design relies on a
three-dimensional,
cone-shaped cluster of
carbon nanotubes that could
also result in batteries
that hold about 60 percent
more charge while being 40
percent lighter.
Instead of having to
drill and fill cavities,
dentists could head them off
at the pass with a new
technique that accelerates a
tooth’s natural healing,
King’s College London
announced this week.
The technique, called
electrically accelerated and
enhanced remineralization,
is being developed by
Reminova Ltd., a spinoff of
King’s College London. It is
painless and could be
brought to market within
three years, the college
said in a statement.
The White House on
Tuesday unveiled efforts to
expand protection of vast
areas of the Pacific Ocean
controlled by the United
States from over fishing and
environmental damage.
President Barack Obama's
proposal, to go into effect
later this year, would
create a vast marine
sanctuary and is part of an
effort to safeguard more
ocean territory, which is
under threat from several
factors, including
overfishing and climate
change, the White House
said.
In May, oil production
from the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) rose for
the third consecutive month
to total 29.97 million
barrels per day (b/d) -- up
250,000 b/d from April,
according to a Platts survey
of OPEC and oil industry
officials and analysts.
The call on OPEC crude is
30.7 million b/d for the
third and fourth quarters of
2014, according to the
International Energy Agency.
The coal industry has
achieved stunning growth in
the last decade, largely due
to increased demand in
China. But big changes in
China’s economy and its
policies are expected to put
an end to coal’s big boom.
The Federal Reserve
officials continue to debate
the level of slack in US
labor markets. And a large
number of economists,
analysts, and investors
believe that there are so
many discouraged workers
sitting on the sidelines,
companies have a nearly
unlimited pool to draw from
- even as hiring improves.
After all, just look at the
labor participation rate.
C4 event observed.
There are currently 7
numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. There was also a
24 degree filament eruption
between 19/1530-1655 UTC
centered near S01E12.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one
and two (20 Jun, 21 Jun) and
likely to be low with a
chance for M-class flares on
day three (22 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and two
(20 Jun, 21 Jun) and quiet
to unsettled levels on day
three (22 Jun) with the
arrival of a geoeffective
high speed solar wind
stream.
Researchers at Columbia
University School of
Engineering performing a
large-scale measurement
study on the Google Play
marketplace have revealed
crucial security problems,
including secret key data
stored by developers in
their apps that, if stolen,
could be exploited to steal
user data from the likes of
Amazon and Facebook.
*Politics playing
increasing role in world
energy markets
*Expensive
US, Asian gas Europe's only
real alternative to cheap
Russian supplies
*Call
for new global institute to
balance markets
Russia is not
seeking to dominate global
energy markets and is
focused on fundamental
market mechanisms, as
politics plays an
increasingly significant
role in international energy
cooperation, Russian energy
minister Alexander Novak
said Thursday.
Summer travelers won’t be
happy to hear this news:
come July, airline tickets
will be more expensive.
Fliers with long
layovers could face even
higher prices.
But they can’t blame the
airlines for the increase.
Transportation Security
Administration fees
The poison ivy itch of
summer could become a thing
of the past for the millions
of people who are allergic
to the plant if the findings
by Virginia Tech researchers
are commercialized.
Scientists in the
Virginia Tech College of
Agriculture and Life
Sciences have found a
naturally occurring fungus
that grows on the fleshy
tissue surrounding the
plant’s seed, potentially
giving homeowners and forest
managers the ability to rid
landscapes of the pernicious
pest.
Here are some humorous
examples of the scripted
talking points of the
mainstream news. I've seen
more serious examples of
this, too.
The "news" is
scripted....don't believe
me?...what these videos
Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) is
tired of hearing excuses
about why it has taken so
long for money from the $3.4
billion Cobell trust
settlement to make it into
the hands of Native
Americans.
The United States is at the
tip of the iceberg when it
comes to energy storage
innovation. Although the
sector has made strong
advances in recent years, we
are just at the beginning of
a wave of technological
innovation and
implementation. According to
the global research firm
IHS, the U.S. energy storage
market will grow to 1.7
gigawatts in 2017 and should
hit 2.5 GW by 2020. This
impressive growth is in part
due to the rapid expansion
of distributed solar and
supportive legislation set
in place in the strongest
U.S. PV market — California.
The agency blames budget
constraints.
As a result, seniors
seeking information and help
from the agency are facing
increasingly long waits, in
person and on the phone, the
report said
In an exclusive interview
with EnergyBiz, Dulani this
week said that the U.S.
government trade fight
against China, spurred by
his company, has been a
success and is much
appreciated.
Prices for Chinese solar
panels shipped into the U.S.
will increase by an average
of 14 percent because of
import duties that may be
announced later this year,
GTM Research said in a
report today.
That will
mean a roughly
10 cents-a-watt
increase in the
price of solar
panels from
China and will
“in a lot of
cases negate the
price advantage
the Chinese have
had,” said
Shayle Kann,
vice president
of research at
GTM Research in
Boston.
Solar Wind Energy's
Downdraft Tower generates
its own wind that is
directed down the hollow
tower and through turbines
placed around its base
A major feature film is in
development about the man
who gave the world light.
The man who invented the
20th Century, a man you may
not have heard of before.
I'm talking about "Nikola
Tesla".
Texas water utilities are
struggling in the face of a
record-breaking drought.
"More than 30 small Texas
public suppliers could run
out of drinking water in 45
to 90 days as the state’s
drought worsens," the
Associated Press reported in
late May.
State officials said no
residents would go without
water. If a supplier runs
out, the water could be
trucked in.
graphic depiction
Hoping to pick up some
chocolate, apples, lemons or
watermelon during your next
outing to the supermarket?
What about an iced coffee
with a splash of cream?
Bees, beetles, butterflies
and their pollinating
brethren are essential in
the production of nearly 75
percent of our crops, and
without them, you could
count out all those foods --
and many, many others.
Pollinators are dying off
in record numbers...
A team of seven UCLA
environmental science
students has created a
website that shows how
emissions from local
factories are impacting air
quality in Los Angeles
County.
Cal EcoMaps, launched
this month, features an
interactive map with
detailed information about
172 facilities representing
the top four emitting
industries — petroleum,
primary metals, fabricated
metals and chemical
production.
Duties of up to 35 per cent
to be imposed on select
Chinese solar technology
imports.
After reviewing the
petition brought by
SolarWorld, the U.S.
Department of Commerce
recently announced it
will impose anti-subsidy
duties against US
imports of Chinese solar
technology products and
block state-sponsored
Chinese solar producers
from evading US duties
on their solar panels by
outsourcing production
of photovoltaic cells to
third countries, such as
Taiwan.
A notable share of
U.S. small businesses and
middle-market companies are
obtaining credit from
non-bank providers. The most
troubling news for banks—and
possibly for regulators:
nine out of 10 companies
that borrowed from these
alternative lenders say
they’ll look to tap non-bank
providers for credit again
in the future.
The demand for
cyber-security experts in
the high-paying private
sector is creating stiff
competition for the best and
the brightest and leaving
key government positions
unfilled.
Under new plan, states would
have the flexibility to
choose the right mix of
generation using, for
example, diverse fuels,
energy efficiency and
demand-side management.
The US Environmental
Protection Agency, at the
direction of President Obama
and after an unprecedented
outreach effort, has
released the Clean
Power Plan proposal, which
for the first time cuts
carbon pollution from
existing power plants --
the single largest source of
carbon pollution in the
United States. Today's
proposal will protect public
health, move the United
States toward a cleaner
environment and fight
climate change while
supplying Americans with
reliable and affordable
power, the Administration
said.
The Federal Open
Market Committee (FOMC)
meeting resulted in a
further $10 billion
reduction in the pace of
monthly asset purchases.
Beginning in July 2014, the
Fed will purchase $15
billion of agency
mortgage-backed securities
(MBS) and $20 billion of
longer-term Treasuries per
month, which would be down
from $20 billion and $25
billion, respectively. No
change was made to the fed
funds target range of 0.00%
to 0.25%.
'Ignoring the potential
increase in methane
pollution from future LNG
exports won't make climate
change go away—it will only
make its impacts more
deadly.
As the Obama administration
inches toward a major
expansion of natural gas
exports, one of the
thorniest questions is how
that growth will affect
greenhouse gas emissions,
possibly worsening the
problem of global warming.
June 17, 2014
-
One key aspect of eating
healthy is eating
non-adulterated
foods—foods that are as
close to their natural
state as possible. If
you do that, then
basically everything you
eat is a "superfood"
-
15 food items are
included. Keep these on
hand so that you always
have healthy key
ingredients to choose
from for cooking and
snacking
-
Overall, fresh herbs and
sprouted seeds,
especially sunflower
seeds, have the
potential to
dramatically boost your
overall nutrition
-
Top protein choices
include organic,
pastured meats, eggs,
and organic whey protein
-
Healthy fat items
include raw dairy
products, butter,
macadamia nuts, avocado,
coconut oil, and canned
Alaskan salmon
The west coast of the United
States is being absolutely
fried by radiation from the
Fukushima nuclear disaster,
and the mainstream media is
not telling us the truth
about this. What you are
about to see is a collection
of evidence that is quite
startling. Taken
collectively, this body of
evidence shows that nuclear
radiation from Fukushima is
affecting sea life in the
Pacific Ocean and animal
life along the west coast of
North America in some
extraordinary ways. But the
mainstream media continues
to insist that we don’t have
a thing to worry about.
Swathes of north India
are sweltering under the
longest heatwave on record,
triggering widespread
breakdowns in the supply of
electricity and increasingly
angry protests over the
government's failure to
provide people with basic
services.
The power crisis and
heatwave, which some
activists say has caused
dozens of deaths, is one of
the first major challenges
for Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, who was elected three
weeks ago partly on promises
to provide reliable
electricity supplies.
— and One Congressman Says
It’s ‘Only a Matter of Time’
Before More Attackers
‘Exploit This Vulnerability’
A 50,000 gallon diesel fuel
tank at a critical
transformer substation south
of Tucson near a border town
that has been the center of
immigration news lately was
the target of an attack last
week, but the make-shift
bomb failed to cause a major
explosion or power outage.
The discovery and
examination of the ancient
Mexican skeleton, Naia, has
led scientists to once again
rethink the origins of
American Indians. While
there has been a rancorous
debate over some details
regarding who the first
peoples of the Americas
might have been, the broader
context is usually the
Bering Strait Theory, the
idea that Paleoindians
walked from Asia over an
ancient land bridge
approximately 15,000 years
ago. Among scientists, this
theory appears unshakable,
despite the lack of
scientific evidence to
support it. Indeed, a host
of scientific evidence, from
linguistics to genetics,
does not support the theory.
During a Q&A session,
President Obama said
executive action isn’t
enough. “If public opinion
does not demand change in
Congress, it will not
change,” Obama said. “We
don’t have enough tools
right now to make as big a
dent as we need to.”
Obama went on to say,
“Now it’s hard to get even
the most minor legislation
passed and we should be
ashamed.”
Here’s what some readers
of TheBlaze had to say about
the issue..
To grasp the difficulties
Mexico faces in capitalizing
on a North American shale
boom, just wander into the
dusty landscape due south of
the U.S. border.
On one side of the fence,
thousands of wells work
around the clock in Texas to
produce record volumes of
shale oil and gas,
transforming towns like
Carrizo Springs in a
modern-day gold rush.
A clinical trial involving
nearly 300 men and women
residing in one of China's
most polluted regions found
that daily consumption of a
half cup of broccoli sprout
beverage produced rapid,
significant and sustained
higher levels of excretion
of benzene, a known human
carcinogen, and acrolein, a
lung irritant. Researchers
from the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health, working with
colleagues at several U.S.
and Chinese institutions,
used the broccoli sprout
beverage to provide
sulforaphane, a plant
compound already
demonstrated to have cancer
preventive properties in
animal studies.
A California wildfire
that has already destroyed
three structures and
blackened some three square
miles of forest land near
Sequoia National Park was
threatening 1,000 more homes
on Monday, officials said.
More than 1,100
firefighters were battling
the so-called Shirley Fire,
which erupted on Friday
evening on the park's
outskirts northeast of
Bakersfield and prompted the
evacuation of several
foothill communities.
A Colorado man loses custody
of his children after
getting a medical marijuana
card. The daughter of a
Michigan couple growing
legal medicinal pot is taken
by child-protection
authorities after an
ex-husband says their plants
endangered kids.
And police officers in New
Jersey visit a home after a
9-year-old mentions his
mother's hemp advocacy
at school.
The governor of Santiago
has asked Chileans to
refrain from lighting up
their barbecue grills while
they watch the World Cup
soccer tournament, as air
pollution in the capital has
worsened.
"We have air problems. Do
not light a wood fire, no
bonfires, no barbecues,"
Governor Claudio Orrego said
at the weekend, as the local
government issued an
environmental alert,
restricting traffic and
banning outdoor sports at
schools.
The Beijing Municipal
Environmental Bureau
revealed late on Friday that
12,599 formal complaints
about smog were lodged by
members of the public from
January to May, 124 percent
higher than the same period
of last year.
Beijing, routinely
shrouded in hazardous smog,
has been on the front line
of a "war against pollution"
declared by Premier Li
Keqiang in March in a bid to
head off growing discontent
about the state of the
country's skies, rivers and
soil.
Attorneys for a 20-year-old
accused of trying to ignite
a bomb in downtown Chicago
won't be granted what would
have been unprecedented
access to secret
intelligence-court records,
the U.S. 7th Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled Monday,
reversing a trial court and
handing a major victory to
the government.
The City of Chicago and the
Citizens Utility Board (CUB)
has formally requested a
probe of the Illinois
electric market. The move is
unprecedented, prompted by
reports of confusing offers
from alternative suppliers,
misleading pitches, and
prices up to six times
higher than the utility
rate.
Scientists on Friday said
massive amounts of water
appear to exist deep beneath
the planet's surface,
trapped in a rocky layer of
the mantle at depths between
250 miles and 410 miles (410
km to 660 km).
But do not expect to
quench your thirst down
there. The water is not
liquid - or any other
familiar form like ice or
vapor. It is locked inside
the molecular structure of
minerals called ringwoodite
and wadsleyite in mantle
rock that possesses the
remarkable ability to absorb
water like a sponge.
According to the Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), these
illnesses cause 48 million
Americans (1 in 6) to get
sick each year, including
128,000 hospitalizations and
3,000 deaths. Two of the
seven proposed rules pertain
to water and water-related
equipment; with the comment
periods on both of those
rules now closed, their
impact will soon be felt by
food processors.
Increasingly, wipes are
causing serious issues for
wastewater treatment system
operators. Many of the
wipes entering the sewage
system are not dispersible
and technically not
flushable. The term
“flushable wipes” was
spawned in the 1980s, when a
consumer products company
brought a latex bonded
airlaid wet wipe with
polyester fibers onto the
market. The wipe was
considered “flushable” since
it could transit through the
toilet, but with all those
polyester fibers it was not
dispersible.
What challenges are ahead
for the utility business
model?
There's a lot of activity in
the energy efficiency space,
the distributed generation
space with microgrids,
demand-side management and
different regulatory
structures. You see a lot of
interesting dynamics as
relates to the industry. Our
view is that we need to be
proactively looking at what
the threat to the business
model and the monopoly will
be technologically and
public policy-wise, as well
as from a regulatory
standpoint, both at the
federal and the state level.
The island of Kauai,
Hawaii, has become Ground
Zero in the intense domestic
political battle over
genetically modified crops.
But the fight isn’t just
about the merits or
downsides of GMO technology.
It’s also about regular old
pesticides.
The four transnational
corporations that are
experimenting with
genetically engineered crops
on Kauai have transformed
part of the island into one
of most toxic chemical
environments in all of
American agriculture.
“The fate of billions of
poor people and the state of
the planet depend on the
success of our efforts,” UN
Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon told leaders of the
Group of 77 and China at
their summit meeting Sunday
in Santa Cruz.
The leaders ended their
two-day summit on Sunday by
adopting the Santa Cruz
Declaration, which covers
sustainable development,
climate change, technology,
economy, trade, the
building of democratic
institutions, eradication of
poverty and inequality,
inclusion of women in
development and global
economic governance.
The U.S. is in the midst of
a public health epidemic due
to poor diet. While much of
the focus has been on
obvious culprits such as
sugary soft drinks and fast
food, dairy foods often get
a pass. The dairy industry,
propped up by government,
has convinced us of the
health benefits of milk and
other dairy products. But
the context of how people
consume dairy matters.
A new study by
researchers at the
University of Bristol and
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
has shed light on how
different species of marine
organisms are reacting to
ocean acidification.
Since the Industrial
Revolution, nearly 30 per
cent of all the carbon
dioxide produced by manmade
emissions has been absorbed
by the ocean, causing a drop
in pH of ocean surface
waters: ocean acidification.
The Internal Revenue
Service has guidelines that
require all IRS employees to
keep printed copies of all
work-related emails.
That means even if the
IRS did experience a
computer crash that makes it
unable to retrieve certain
emails to and from former
IRS employee Lois Lerner, as
the IRS is claiming, those
emails should have been
printed out and kept on file
by Lerner. And if Lerner
failed to do that, she
violated IRS rules.
The latest ISIS onslaught
sent hundreds of families
fleeing, Anatolia reported.
The radical Sunni Muslim
group is known for its
barbaric treatment of foes,
especially Shiite Muslims.
The fall of Tal Afar, about
260 miles northwest of the
capital, Baghdad, came a day
after the group posted
online images depicting the
gruesome executions of
dozens of captive Iraqi
troops.
The radioactive sludge
will be transferred to a
modern waste treatment
plant, which is expected to
reach operation in 2015,
according to project
manager, Chris Plane.
"However, before the pond
water can be drained, the
radioactive sludge has to be
removed. This sludge is
similar in consistency to
tomato ketchup and lies at
the bottom of the 7m-deep
pond," said Dorothy Gradden,
head of the Pile Fuel
Storage Pond.
High sulfur bunker fuel in
the port of Los Angeles hit
a three-year low for the
second straight day Monday
amid slumping demand and
stiffened competition.
Platts assessed IFO 380
CST Los Angeles at $504/mt
ex-wharf, a $4.50 drop from
Friday. The fall marks the
lowest level for high sulfur
bunkers in the southern
California port since the
product was assessed at
$504/mt ex-wharf on November
30, 2010, Platts data
showed. It is the latest
multi-year low for an
increasingly competitive
market.
A Woodward man isn't worried
about rising gas prices.
He's figured out how to keep
his car running without it.
Instead of the pump, Herb
Hartman heads to the
chopping block. "We call it
a gasifier because it
changes mass to gas, or
smoke," he says. He'll tell
you all about it –- his
wood-fired 1991 Cadillac. "A
full hopper will go about
fifty miles," he says,
"depending on how you drive
it."
He’s ambitious, backed by
100 researchers,
environmentalists and
communications
professionals, and he’s only
19.
Boyan Slat is the
president and founder of the
Ocean Cleanup and creator of
a technology he says can
clean half the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch in a decade.
He first presented his idea
at a TEDx talk in the
Netherlands two years ago,
and is now preparing to
attend the “Our Ocean”
conference hosted by U.S.
Secretary of State John
Kerry.
If the significance of
California's water needs
were not already clear, it
now appears that the thirst
of the state is literally
moving mountains.
"The Sierra Nevada
Mountains are getting
higher, and they are being
pushed by human activity,"
Capital Public Radio
recently reported, citing a
new article published in the
journal Nature. "Geologists
are testing to see if the
trends increase as people
pump more water to cope with
drought."
Researchers already knew
that the mountains were
rising...
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has
taken down the patents
posted at the California
headquarters of his luxury
electric car company.
Instead the innovative CEO
wants to allow other
electric vehicle
manufacturers to use his
technology to advance
sustainable mobility
worldwide.
“Yesterday, there was a
wall of Tesla patents in the
lobby of our Palo Alto
headquarters. That is no
longer the case. They have
been removed, in the spirit
of the open source movement,
for the advancement of
electric vehicle
technology,” Musk said
Thursday.
NASA's first spacecraft
dedicated to measuring
carbon dioxide levels in
Earth's atmosphere is in
final preparations for a
July 1 launch from
Vandenberg Air Force Base,
California.
The Orbiting Carbon
Observatory-2 (OCO-2)
mission will provide a more
complete, global picture of
the human and natural
sources of carbon dioxide,
as well as their "sinks,"
the natural ocean and land
processes by which carbon
dioxide is pulled out of
Earth’s atmosphere and
stored.
Carbon dioxide, a
critical component of
Earth's carbon cycle, is the
leading human-produced
greenhouse gas driving
changes in Earth’s climate.
A green light to allow
New Zealand's Trans Tasman
Resources Ltd to start
iron-ore dredging off the
country's west coast will
encourage others looking to
mine copper, cobalt,
manganese and other metals
deeper on the ocean floor
but worried about regulatory
hurdles.
Along the Pacific Rim of
Fire, as deep as 6,000
metres underwater, volcano
crusts, "black smoker"
chimneys and vast beds of
manganese nodules hold
promise for economic powers
like China and Japan as well
as many poor island states
busy pegging stakes on the
ocean floor.
The National Mining
Association (NMA) has laid
out its reasons policymakers
should reject the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA) proposed
guidelines for regulating
fossil-fueled power plants
emissions. By minimizing
coal's role in the energy
mix, NMA claims, the
standard will reduce
America's diverse and
low-cost energy resources,
which are critical to
supporting the economy.
The Environmental Quality
Board (EQB) has adopted a
final rulemaking increasing
unconventional well permit
fees and went into effect
over the weekend, on
Saturday, June 14, according
to the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP). The
increase is expected to
result in additional annual
revenue of about $4.7
million,...
Oil futures held near
nine-month highs Monday on
concerns that escalating
violence in Iraq could
spread to the country's
oil-producing southern
region.
ICE August
Brent settled 48 cents
higher at $112.94/barrel.
The front-month contract
reached $113.28/b during the
session, near Friday's
nine-month high of $114.68/b
-- the highest level for a
front-month contract since
September 2013.
-
Longtime MMR vaccine
advocate Dr. Gregory
Poland now says the
measles-containing MMR
shot often fails to
protect against measles
and that recently
reported measles
outbreaks in highly
vaccinated societies
occurs primarily among
those previously
vaccinated
-
The MMR vaccine is
unlikely to eradicate
measles globally because
even after two doses,
nearly 10 percent of
children do not have
vaccine strain measles
antibodies.
-
Serious vaccine
reactions continue to be
reported; a new father
in Australia became
paralyzed after
receiving a B. pertussis
(whooping cough) vaccine
in order to visit his
newborn son in the
hospital nursery
-
The parents of Saba
Button reached a
settlement with the
vaccine’s manufacturer
and the Australian
government after it was
ruled that she suffered
permanent brain and
organ damage after
getting the Fluvax shot
when she was 11 months
old
-
If you’re a parent
considering vaccination
for your children, or an
adult considering
vaccination for
yourself, you need to
defend your right to
exercise informed
consent so you can make
an independent,
empowered decision to
protect your health
While penguins have adapted
to extremely cold weather,
harsh winters are still
difficult for populations
especially when it comes to
breeding and finding food.
So with warming climates on
the horizon, are penguin
populations going to be
better off? Not necessarily.
However, a new study does
reveal that penguin
populations over the last
30,000 years have benefitted
in some ways from climate
warming and retreating ice.
M1 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be moderate with a slight
chance for an X-class flare
on day one (17 Jun) and
expected to be low with a
chance for M-class flares
and a slight chance for an
X-class flare on days two
and three (18 Jun, 19 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on day one
(17 Jun) and quiet levels on
days two and three (18 Jun,
19 Jun). Protons have a
slight chance of crossing
threshold throughout the
period (17-19 Jun).
Russia's cutoff of
natural gas supplies to
Ukraine on Monday is a
reminder that Ukraine is
still highly dependent on
its powerful neighbor.
"They're going to need
the gas, there's no question
about it," said Ian
Brzezinski, an analyst at
the Atlantic Council who was
deputy assistant secretary
of Defense for Europe and
NATO under former president
George W. Bush.
"Santa Barbara is unique in
one sense: It's currently
preparing to refurbish and
restart the city's water
desalination plant, which
has sat idle for nearly two
decades," CBS News reported.
The Charles Meyer
Desalination Plant, offline
since the '90s, is expected
to provide a capacity of
3,000 acre-feet of drinking
water per year.
More evidence is
emerging in support of the
growing skills mismatch in
the United States. Job
vacancy rates are rising
much faster than hiring
rates and the NFIB survey
shows smaller firms are
having a tough time filling
some openings.
The Supreme Court on Monday
deemed “straw” purchases of
guns illegal, delivering a
huge win to advocates of
stricter gun controls.
In a 5-4
decision, the court
concluded that one legal gun
owner may not acquire a
firearm on behalf of another
— a practice known as
"straw" purchasing.
Now in its fourth year,
Syria's conflict has spilled
far beyond the country's
borders to shake the
foundations of the Middle
East.
Last week, an al-Qaida
breakaway group known as the
Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant, which holds much
of northern and eastern
Syria, overran huge swaths
of neighboring Iraq and
captured the country's
second-largest city.
This film, released by
MASIPAG in October 2013, is
based on a study done by
MASIPAG on the
socio-economic impacts of GM
corn on farmers' lives and
livelihoods after more than
10 years of commercial
growing of Bt corn. In the
film, farmers explain how
they became indebted because
of the rising cost of GM
corn seeds and the
increasing cost and quantity
of inputs being used.
The Federal Reserve is
widely expected to announce
another $10 billion monthly
reduction in quantitative
easing in Wednesday's FOMC
statement. But the focus
will be on the Fed's
economic assessment, which
could end up dramatically
realigning investor
expectations about when the
Fed will hike rates.
Outsourcing has been a
common practice in the
photovoltaic industry
since…always. Ignoring it in
favor of reporting higher
shipment numbers has been a
common practice
since…always. There is more
outsourcing now than there
was ten years ago because
the industry is bigger. When
the PV industry was at
megawatt levels, outsourcing
was at megawatt levels. Now
that the industry is at
gigawatt levels, outsourcing
is at gigawatt levels.
Today’s outsourcing is also
more acceptable — in the
past everyone did it
quietly, today it is out in
the open. Yet despite this
openness and acceptability,
double counting continues
and the industry continues
to be oversized.
Bank-held consumer
credit in the US continues
to rise. It's impossible to
tell from this weekly data
what portion is credit cards
debt vs. auto and other.
This of course does not
include any new student
loans, which are all held by
the federal government. With
wage growth remaining tepid,
the consumer is starting to
put on some leverage.
More than 4,000 pounds of
beef have been recalled by a
Missouri-based meat
processing company over
fears of Mad Cow disease.
The meat was prepared at
Fruitland American Meat in
Jackson, MO and sent 34
Whole Foods stores in the
Northeastern territory of
the U.S. as well as being
distributed to a restaurant
in New York City and a
restaurant in Kansas City.
The situation in Iraq
continues to unravel. The
nation's government and some
in the media are calling
this a "terrorist
insurgency". In reality what
we have is a large armed
Sunni group, supported by
militant factions from
Syria, quickly gaining
ground against
the Shia-controlled
government forces. It's a
civil war. Many
Shia families are leaving
Baghdad as the Sunni
militants advance. And now
Iran is getting militarily
involved in an attempt to
defend Shiite interests in
Iraq.
June 13, 2014
The most common
recommendation made by
health experts in the area
of produce selection is to
choose “organic” varieties
for maximum health benefits.
We trust organic label
certifications because they
are supposed to comply with
organic standards set by
national governments and
international organizations.
Synthetic pesticides and
chemical fertilizers are not
allowed in organic
practices, but that’s not
always the case. Research by
a Food Inspection Agency in
Canada has found that nearly
half the organic fresh
fruits and vegetables tested
in the past two years
contained pesticide
residue, violating maximum
allowable limits for the
presence of pesticides, the
data shows.
The Brazilian Judiciary
determined to reduce the
level of electromagnetic
pollution generated by power
lines to standard adopted by
Swiss law (1.0
microtesla)...
The electromagnetic fields
generated by power lines
that cross these areas is 10
times greater than the level
determined by the court. The
judgment of the Court of
State of São Paulo (Tribunal
de Justiça de São Paulo) has
determined that the
concessionaire of electric
power reduces the
electromagnetic field
generated by power lines
that pass through these
neighborhoods.
Warren Buffett briefly lost
track of how many billions
of dollars his Berkshire
Hathaway Inc. is spending to
build wind and solar power
in the U.S. That didn’t stop
him from vowing to double
the outlay.
Describing the company’s
increasing investment
in renewable energy at
the Edison Electric
Institute’s annual
convention in Las Vegas
yesterday, Buffett had
to rely on a deputy,
Greg Abel, to remind him
just how much they’d
committed: $15 billion.
China's hints that it
will cap its soaring
greenhouse gas emissions and
a U.S. plan to cut emissions
in the power sector, while
representing a shift, do not
add up to a strong cure for
global warming by the
world's top two emitters.
Other nations have hailed
Washington and Beijing for a
newfound commitment to
tackle climate change.
Governments are working on a
deal, due in Paris in late
2015, to slow rising
temperatures to avert more
heatwaves, floods and rising
seas.
Following the installation
of one of its units in the
Maldives, German thermal
desalination provider memsys
claimed it has developed
“energy positive
desalination”, suggesting
the technology can actually
generate operators a net
saving for every cubic metre
of water produced in
combination with generators.
Two armed criminals
reportedly put a gun to a
17-year-old girl’s head on
Monday night as she was
outside retrieving something
from a car. The man, whose
intentions still aren’t
entirely clear, then ordered
the teenager to take them
into her house — a decision
that would prove to have
deadly consequences.
First commercial
advanced biorefinery to
exclusively use municipal
solid waste to produce
advanced biofuels and
chemicals
"Our breakthrough technology
uses garbage instead of
fossil sources for the
production of chemicals and
liquid transportation fuels.
We are proud of the
inauguration of our first
full-scale biorefinery
facility as it is the
culmination of more than 10
years of disciplined efforts
to scale up our technology
from pilot and
demonstration, to commercial
scale, said Vincent Chornet,
President and CEO of
Enerkem. The completion of
this game-changing facility
is by far one of the most
significant development the
waste and biorefinery
sectors have seen yet.
The European Union has
agreed a new law to
strengthen safety standards
and improve supervision of
nuclear facilities in
response to lessons learned
from the Fukushima nuclear
disaster in Japan, the
European Commission said on
Wednesday.
In March 2011, an
earthquake and tsunami
caused the world's worst
nuclear accident in 25
years, spewing radiation
over a swathe of Fukushima
and forcing 160,000 people
from their homes.
A decades-old fuel leak at
Kirtland Air Force Base
(KAFB) in New Mexico has
contaminated the soil and
appears to be a threat to
the nearby municipal
drinking water supply. "The
KAFB jet fuel spill—the Air
Force calls it a 'leak'—is
the largest toxic
contamination of an aquifer
in U.S. history, and it
could be twice the size of
the Exxon Valdez disaster,"
the Albuquerque Alibi
reported.
US midstream company Global
Partners LP announced plans
Wednesday to build a new
crude transportation system
in the prolific Bakken
shale, along with expanded
North Dakota storage for the
oil.
According to sources
familiar with the company,
Google has set its sights on
transforming the delivery of
electrons.
Google Inc. plans a deeper
push into the $363.7 billion
U.S. power-sales market by
working on tools that help
utilities deliver
electricity to homes and
businesses more efficiently,
people with knowledge of the
matter said.
The Louisiana legislature is
considering measures aimed
at holding water utilities
to higher standards and
protecting residents from
tainted tap water.
Before net metering, the
only way to store
daytime-produced solar
energy was to use a battery
storage system. These
systems — generally composed
of a bank of lead-acid
batteries, a charge
controller, solar panels and
an inverter — continue to be
popular for off-grid use.
However, net metering is
more efficient (zero
round-trip energy loss) and
less expensive (no batteries
or maintenance required), so
the fastest growth over the
last decade has been in
grid-connected net metered
systems.
In a development that is
going to shake the
Republican Establishment to
its foundations, Republican
House majority leader Eric
Cantor has been defeated:
with a little more than 60
percent of the vote in,
David A. Brat, a professor
of economics and a trenchant
critic of the National
Security Agency’s spying on
American citizens is
clobbering the pro-NSA
Cantor with a little less
than 60 percent of the vote
so far.
Not long after the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) approved the
use of neonicotinoid
insecticides, bee colonies
began disappearing in the
U.S. “Neonics” weaken the
immune systems of bees.
Forager bees bring
pesticide-laden pollen and
nectar back to the hive, and
six months later the bees
fall prey to natural bee
infections.
We know
neonics play a role in
Colony Collapse Disorder.
And we know that Big Ag is
the Biggest User of the
pesticides. According to an
article in
Mother Jones,
“virtually the entire US
corn crop—which covers more
than 90 million acres, far
more than any other crop—is
grown with seed treated with
Bayer's chemical.”
A Southern California
motorist drove off the lot
of a Hyundai Motor Co
dealership on Tuesday in a
zero-emissions car touted by
the automaker as marking the
commercial debut of
mass-produced hydrogen
fuel-cell vehicles in the
United States.
State energy and
air-quality officials hailed
the occasion in Tustin,
California, about 35 miles
(56 km) southeast of Los
Angeles, as a milestone in
efforts to curb tailpipe
pollution that accounts for
about a third of
California's greenhouse gas
emissions.
The hydrogen economy sounds
great, and has ever since it
was first proposed in the
1970s. The tricky bit is how
to get there, because
without the necessary
infrastructure, a fuel cell
car that runs on hydrogen is
little more than a
conversation piece. As
Hyundai delivers its first
Tucson Fuel Cell CUV to its
new lessee, Timothy Bush,
the South Korean carmaker
unveiled its plan to
jump-start the hydrogen car
economy by giving the fuel
away to its customers.
Iran, after talks with
senior U.S. officials,
questioned whether a July
deadline for a nuclear deal
with world powers will be
met, fueling doubts on the
outcome as France spoke out,
saying talks on curbing
Tehran's uranium enrichment
had "hit a wall".
Iran's talks with six
major powers on curbing its
nuclear program in exchange
for an end to Western
sanctions could be extended
for six months if no deal is
reached by a July 20
deadline agreed by all
parties, a senior Iranian
official said.
In another step towards
reversing degenerative
vision loss, scientists said
Tuesday they had coaxed stem
cells into growing into a
tiny, light-sensing retina
in a lab dish.
The study is an important
technical feat in using
reprogrammed cells, whose
discovery in 2006 has
unleashed huge interest,
they said.
But instead of
acknowledging the vaccine’s
problems, the CDC and
mainstream media blame
people who don’t vaccinate.
Mumps is a nasty virus—it
can cause fever, headache,
and painfully swollen
glands. In serious cases, it
can cause meningitis,
deafness, and even
testicular inflammation.
Mumps is also easily spread
through mucus: if an
infected person sneezes,
coughs, or even talks, they
can pass it on.
The sun is putting on a
fireworks show again.
NASA cameras captured images
of what the agency is
calling at least two
"significant" solar flares.
The first one peaked at 7:42
a.m. ET Tuesday, followed by
a second, lesser blast at
8:52 a.m. ET.
The short-lived explosions
were expected to disrupt
high-frequency radio
communications on Earth,
although NASA scientists
said they pose no threat to
humans. Even with all its
power, the sun doesn't have
enough energy to hurl a
fireball 93 million miles at
the Earth.
-
An estimated 110,000
Americans die as a
result of obesity each
year. Worldwide, obesity
claims an estimated 3.4
million lives annually
-
One-third of all cancers
are directly related to
excess weight
-
The number of overweight
or obese people around
the world has almost
tripled, from 857
million in 1980 to 2.1
billion in 2013
-
Of the more than 180
countries analyzed, the
US carries the heaviest
obesity burden, followed
by China and India
-
Obesity is usually the
result of inappropriate
lifestyle choices, such
as eating too much
processed foods (high in
carbs and low in healthy
fats), and not fasting
enough
A new type of quantum dot
could lead to cheaper solar
cells and better satellite
communication.
Researchers at the
University of Toronto have
manufactured and tested a
new type of colloidal
quantum dots (CQD), that,
unlike previous attempts,
doesn't lose performance as
they keep in contact with
oxygen. The development
could lead to much cheaper
or even spray-on solar
cells, as well as better
LEDs, lasers and weather
satellites.
Electric utilities'
traditional business model
is being shaken up by
distributed energy resources
(DER), which include
renewable sources of energy,
such as solar PV, and allow
residential customers to
generate some of their own
electricity and sell
unneeded power back to the
utility. The latest
technologies are now more
affordable, driving growing
interest and adoption by
residential customers who
see an opportunity for
greater control of their
energy consumption.
M2 event observed.
There are currently 10
numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. IB. Solar
Activity Forecast: Solar
activity is likely to be
moderate with a chance for
X-class flares on days one,
two, and three (13 Jun, 14
Jun, 15 Jun). he
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on days one
and two (13 Jun, 14 Jun) and
quiet to unsettled levels on
day three (15 Jun). Protons
have a chance of crossing
threshold on days one, two,
and three (13 Jun, 14 Jun,
15 Jun).
Rockline Industries
announced today that it has
installed the nation’s
largest single geothermal
heating and cooling system
for use in a production
facility. The 1.2 million
square foot plant, located
in Booneville, Ark., is the
first and only production
facility to be heated and
cooled by geothermal
technology and is expected
to reduce Booneville’s
reliance on overall energy
and natural gas by 65
percent.
With some in the
agricultural industry
heavily opposed to an
outright ban on
neonicotinoids, scientists
have started searching for
alternatives to help our
bees, and it turns out that
one of the world's most
dangerous spiders, the
Australian funnel web
spider, may have a secret
lurking in its venom.
Poolaw is concerned
with the story’s suggestion
of forced Indian/white
relations. "I don't know
what these [Christian]
people are going to think of
my people when ‘The End’
flashes across the screen.
Sex abuse is going to be
their first thought. That’s
the only thing that bothers
me. To my estimation, we
weren't like that," she
says.
At least 36 people were
killed and 69 more were
wounded, officially.
However, more were killed as
several northern cities,
including Mosul, fell into
militant control.
Militants certainly
conquered fresh areas in
their quest for Mosul,
but one security official
went as far as describing
the city as already "lost."
Most of the security
checkpoints are now held by
the militants, and over
2,000 prisoners have been
freed from two jails.
Pension fund managers are
investing more in solar
energy, undeterred by
declining returns because
the industry is considered a
safe alternative to
traditional securities such
as government bonds.
That’s
the conclusion of
executives from two of
the biggest Chinese
solar panel
manufacturers, which
have listed their shares
in New York. Trina Solar
Ltd. said it’s seeing
more interest from fund
managers, and Wuxi
Suntech Power Co Ltd.
said these managers
accept returns as low as
1.7 percent.
A high-stakes fight that
mixes renewable power,
international relations and
cyberespionage threatens to
slow the American solar
industry's rapid growth.
Last week, U.S.
Department of Commerce
officials tentatively agreed
to slap tariffs as high as
35 percent on much of the
solar equipment American
companies import from China.
Concern over school
shootings recently led a
middle school teacher in
Iowa to take definitive
action, inventing a new
device that helps educators
protect students and
faculty, alike.
Called “The Sleeve,” the
product is a 12-gauge carbon
steel case that can handle
550-foot pounds of force.
Placed on a door’s closer
arm, it prevents intruders
from entering classrooms,
WQAD-TV reported.
The 2014 hurricane season is
now underway, and the U.S.
Energy Information
Administration (EIA) is
making it possible to track
the power plants, oil
refineries, major electric
transmission lines, and
other critical energy
infrastructure that are in
the path of potentially
devastating weather activity
from all types of mobile
devices and tablets -- using
the EIA's Energy Mapping
System and Energy
Disruptions web page.
At a recent summit in New
York's financial district,
the news was pay now or pay
much more later. Speaker
after speaker either showed
scientific evidence of
potential disasters due to
sea level rise or the
enormous costs that are sure
to follow the new reality of
disaster brought about by
the most costly storms,
Hurricanes Katrina and
Sandy.
"We are well past the
point of excusing our
coastal fate on unintended
consequences,” said Val
Marmillion, managing
director of the America's
WETLAND Foundation (AWF).
Produced waters are those
volumes of water that are
typically recovered during
oil and gas exploration,
development, or production.
The USGS has updated the
USGS National Produced
Waters Geochemical Database
and Map Viewer to include
trace elements, isotopes,
and time-series data, as
well as nearly 100,000 new
samples with greater spatial
coverage and from both
conventional and
unconventional well types,
including geothermal.
Using too much fertilizer is
a very bad idea. It doesn't
help crops, and in fact can
be harmful to them. Excess
fertilizer runs off and
contributes to river and
stream contamination and a
new study shows that it is
bad for the climate too!
But farmers sometimes
think that if some is good,
more MUST be better!
A U.S. federal judge has
denied ExxonMobil Corp's bid
to dismiss a government
lawsuit and instead ordered
the oil giant to hand over
documents going back decades
on a pipeline that ruptured
last year and inundated an
Arkansas town with oil.
U.S. District Judge
Kristine Baker ruled on
Tuesday the company must
hand over requested
information on the entire
850-mile (1,370-km) Pegasus
pipeline, which spilled
about 5,000 barrels of crude
oil in a residential
neighborhood in Mayflower,
Arkansas, in March 2013.
A federal judge is expected
to decide on whether the
state of Utah and Uintah
County can proceed with a
lawsuit against the US
Bureau of Land Management,
which claims that the BLM
has been unfairly limiting
oil and gas development on
federal lands since the
start of the Obama
administration.
The
outcome of the case could
determine whether the BLM
has the discretion to
restrict oil and gas
development on millions of
acres of federal lands in
Utah that have wilderness
characteristics but have not
officially been designated
as wilderness.
A warming world could
pose a risk of more frequent
catastrophic flooding but
also be a long-term boon for
Vermont farmers and a
shorter-lived thrill for its
skiers, according to a state
report released on Tuesday.
The Vermont Climate
Assessment found that higher
rates of precipitation
expected to come with
climate change could bring
heavier winter snows over
the next 25 years, good news
for ski resorts until the
state becomes too warm to
sustain significant amounts
of snow.
According to a new study
conducted in Phoenix by
Arizona State University
researchers, so much wasted
heat is emitted by air
conditioning units that it
actually raises the city's
outdoor temperature at night
by 1-2.7 degrees!
Consequently, these warmer
temperatures may encourage
individuals to further their
demands and energy use of
their air conditioners.
White House spokesman Josh
Earnest said Tuesday that
President Barack Obama is
“always” looking for
opportunities to act
“unilaterally” again on
guns, though he would prefer
to work with Congress.
As housing price
appreciation slows, some
media outlets are calling
the situation an outright
"panic". Others are pointing
to tight credit conditions
hitting property developers:
Oceans cover three quarters
of the Earth’s surface,
contain 97 percent of the
Earth’s water, and represent
99 percent of the living
space on the planet by
volume. But human pressures,
such as overexploitation,
illegal fishing,
unsustainable aquaculture,
marine pollution, habitat
destruction, alien species,
climate change and ocean
acidification are taking
their toll.
Yesterday, June 10, 2014,
President Obama signed into
law a $12.3 billion water
resources bill that will
improve U.S. infrastructure,
contribute to economic
growth and bolster
international trade.
The Water Resources Reform
and Development Act of 2014
(WRRDA) reforms how the
federal government funds and
selects critical water
infrastructure projects
throughout the nation, and
streamlines the
environmental review and
permitting process to
decrease wait times when
undertaking water
infrastructure construction
projects.
June 10, 2014
Medical health authorities,
including doctors, nurses,
and other members of the
allopathic fraternity,
employ a number of
strategies designed to
elicit parental submission
to vaccine guidelines.
Currently, parents are
expected to grant
authorities permission to
toxify their children’s pure
and sacred little bodies
with more than 30 blends of
rare germs, bacteria, and
other foul substances — all
before they enter school!
One of the questions
discussed was "how is this
increased spending
financed?". It's a fair
question, given the
painfully slow wage growth
in the US.
On Friday we got
our answer. US consumer
credit outstanding
spiked way above
expectations. While the
media focused on the
jobs report, this was
the key news item:
Angolan oil minister Jose
Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos
said Tuesday he was
satisfied with current crude
oil prices and that he
expected OPEC to maintain
its output ceiling at 30
million b/d at talks in
Vienna on Wednesday.
"Prices are OK. We don't
expect anything to happen at
this meeting," he told
reporters on arrival in the
Austrian capital.
The documentary Fed Up,
released in theaters on
May 9, untangles the roots
of obesity in America’s
youth. Directed by Stephanie
Soechtig and narrated by
Katie Couric, Fed Up
does not shrink from telling
viewers how the government’s
decades-long capitulation to
Big Food and its lobbyists
has fostered an epidemic of
excess pounds. The national
focus on diet, diet foods
and exercise is not abating
the obesity epidemic and
actually making it worse,
charges the film.
The right-leaning leaders
of Canada and Australia,
both under pressure over
their environmental records,
on Monday said action to
fight climate change should
not harm their nations'
economies.
The Obama administration
last week unveiled
regulations that would force
the U.S. power sector to cut
carbon dioxide output 30
percent by 2030 from 2005
levels.
River levels across the
Balkans region are expected
to fall further this week,
reverting to near normal
levels for this time of
year, hydrological forecasts
show.
As California struggles
through its third year of
drought, nearly half of
state residents said they
would be willing to pay
higher water bills to ensure
a more stable supply, a new
poll showed on Friday.
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC)
confirms fourth death due to
the rare and fatal brain
disorder associated with
meat intake from cows with
BSE or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy better known
as "mad cow disease."
-
It is a human right to
exercise voluntary,
informed consent to
medical risk taking,
including taking risks
with pharmaceutical
products like vaccines
-
In America, parents of
minor children have the
legal right and
responsibility to make
medical risk decisions
for their children
-
In America today, some
citizens are being
discriminated against
and persecuted for
following their
conscience and making
vaccine choices that do
not conform with federal
health policy
-
In May, the Colorado
legislature became the
first to vote to
preserve the personal
belief exemption to
vaccination without
modification
-
A pro-education,
pro-vaccine choice
message sponsored by the
National Vaccine
Information Center will
be featured in New York
City through mid-July
Barbados, a small Caribbean
island at the forefront of
the fight against climate
change, today hosted this
year’s World Environment
Day, leading United
Nations-wide efforts to draw
attention to the plight of
the world’s small islands at
risk of being lost to
sea-level rise.
Over the last 100 years,
the global sea level has
risen by 10 to 25
centimeters, or up to about
10 inches.
The amount of electricity
generated from coal in the
Electric Reliability Council
of Texas rose in May,
retaking the lead from
natural gas, according to
data released by the grid
operator.
ERCOT's
2014 Demand and Energy by
Month report released Friday
shows energy consumption
across the regional
transmission organization's
footprint totaled 27.33
million MWh in May, down
0.3% from 27.42 million MWh
in May 2013.
Proposed federal rules
that would cut carbon
pollution by 30 percent
nationwide drew complaints
last week from coal and
power companies, whose
officials say that more
government oversight is
another dagger in the heart
of an industry bound by
regulations for decades.
But both industries have
survived regulations before,
and the new limits won't
strike a fatal blow, policy
experts say.
In the town of Aipir,
Colombia, the temperature
can often get as high as
45ºC (113ºF), yet few of the
residents have a reliable
source of electricity. So,
pulling an ice-cold beverage
out of the fridge isn't
really an option. Coca Cola
and the Leo Burnett Colombia
advertising agency therefor
devised a "Bio Cooler" for
the town – it reportedly
chills cans of Coke, without
using electricity.
Pork producers across the
United States have long kept
their sows in small, barred
stalls or crates, with so
little space they can’t turn
around.
The sows here at
Cargill’s sprawling hog
complex mill about in pens,
snorting and jostling. Some
just flop on the concrete
floor to rest. It’s not Club
Pig, but at least the
animals get some room.
Water concerns are festering
for a proposed Southern
Arizona copper mine, as
well. Its potential
neighbors worried about
whether it will soak up all
the local water. ..
Local businesses are worried
that the copper mine will
use up too much water in the
area. "This picturesque
valley in Southern Arizona,
20 miles from Tucson, has
enough water for one of the
world’s biggest pecan farms
or a new copper mine—but
maybe not both," the report
said.
There’s no question that we
live in the age of
information. What we do
with that information is
often what really matters.
Take the utility industry
for example. Utilities
worldwide are adopting
communications systems to
improve operations and
customer service. These
communication networks are
the transportation system
for a growing volume of
data.
California, Texas and
Florida lead the U.S. with
the most registrations of
fuel-efficient clean diesel
and hybrid passenger
vehicles, according to
research by the Diesel
Technology Forum. The
analysis is based on data
that includes the
registration statistics of
all passenger vehicles --
cars, SUVS, pickup trucks
and vans -- that were
compiled by R.L. Polk and
Company in all 50 states and
the District of Columbia
through December 31, 2013.
-
In addition to seafood,
mercury is now found at
alarming levels in many
other species, including
shorebirds, songbirds,
bats, and insects
-
Mercury-exposed birds
have reduced
reproductive success
even at the lowest dose
of mercury exposure --
the equivalent of less
than the amount found in
a can of tuna)
-
Some birds tested had
mercury levels so high
that 20 percent of their
offspring would not
survive, while more than
half of bats tested had
enough mercury to cause
behavioral changes
-
Dentist offices are the
largest source of
mercury in wastewater
entering publicly owned
treatment works, due to
their use of mercury for
amalgam fillings
-
About 50 percent of the
mercury entering
municipal wastewater
treatment plants can be
traced back to dental
amalgam waste, making
the need to phase out
amalgam fillings all the
more urgent
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency today issued updated
draft advice on fish
consumption. The two
agencies have concluded
pregnant and breastfeeding
women, those who might
become pregnant, and young
children should eat more
fish that is lower in
mercury in order to gain
important developmental and
health benefits. The updated
draft advice is consistent
with recommendations in the
2010 Dietary Guidelines for
Americans.
The immigrants, mostly from
Central America, are
crossing the border in
Texas, which can't cope with
them. So they're being sent
to Arizona, which has more
processing capacity. It's
unclear whether the
transfers will continue, but
the Arizona governor is
furious.
The federal government is
clashing with New Mexico
over who regulates a small
spring-fed stream.
"Decades in the making,
the dispute in Otero County
centers on whether the U.S.
Forest Service has the
authority to keep ranchers
from accessing Agua
Chiquita, which means Little
Water in Spanish. In wet
years, the spring can run
for miles through thick
conifer forest. This summer,
much of the stream bed is
dry," the Associated
Press reported.
Thwaites Glacier, the
large, rapidly changing
outlet of the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet, is not only being
eroded by the ocean, it's
being melted from below by
geothermal heat, researchers
at the Institute for
Geophysics at The University
of Texas at Austin (UTIG)
report in the current
edition of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of
Sciences.
The findings
significantly change the
understanding of conditions
beneath the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet where accurate
information has previously
been unobtainable.
Despite its many advantages,
natural gas is losing ground
globally to its rivals while
buyers and sellers struggle
to agree on what constitutes
a fair price, the
International Energy Agency
said in a report published
Tuesday.
Global warming is causing
trillions of dollars of
damage to coral reefs,
aggravating risks to
tropical small island states
threatened by rising sea
levels, a U.N. report said
on Thursday.
The rise in sea levels
off some islands in the
Western Pacific was four
times the global average,
with gains of 1.2 cms (0.5
inch) a year from 1993 to
2012, due to shifts in winds
and currents, said the
United Nations' Environment
Programme (UNEP).
Scientists analyzed almost
half a million fish bones to
shed light on the population
history of Pacific herring
(Clupea pallasii) in the
North Pacific Ocean. Their
paper, published in the
journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS) reveals a decline of
unprecedented scale. It
suggests that while the
abundance of Pacific herring
does fluctuate naturally,
their numbers have fallen
precipitously since
commercial fishing started
targeting the species in the
19th century.
Brazil's success in reducing
deforestation in the world's
largest rainforest has been
much heralded, but progress
may stall unless farmers,
ranchers and other land
users in the region are
provided incentives to
further improve the
environmental sustainability
of their operations, argues
a study published this week
in the journal Science.
-
The documentary
Consuming Kids reveals
the shrewd practices of
the multi-billion dollar
marketing machine
designed to turn your
kids into loyal,
lifelong consumers who
will also influence how
the entire family spends
its money
-
Children age two to 11
now see an average of
more than 10 television
food ads per day.
Ninety-eight percent of
food advertisements
viewed by children are
for products that are
high in fat, sugar, or
sodium. Most are also
low in fiber
-
A UN official recently
warned that obesity is a
bigger global health
threat than tobacco use,
and that this fact isn’t
taken as seriously as it
should be
-
He urges nations to
place stricter
regulations on unhealthy
foods, restrict junk
food advertising, and
amend agricultural
subsidies that make
unhealthy processed
foods cheaper than
healthy foods
Large cities occupy
only 1 percent of global
land surface, but draw water
from almost half of that
surface
As more people move to
urban areas, cities around
the world are experiencing
increased water stress and
looking for additional water
supplies to support their
continued grow.
Plants make and store energy
from the sun using a process
called photosynthesis. This
process has evolved on
planet earth over millions
of years. How can we mess
with plant DNA to improve on
what nature has evolved?
“Each act of vandalism
is a selfish disregard of
the aesthetic, spiritual and
scientific values that
constitute our collective
past,” Spangler, executive
director of the Colorado
Plateau Archaeological
Alliance, told Deseret
News. “These sites are
non-renewable resources, and
the damage done can never be
completely repaired.”
C9 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares and a slight
chance for an X-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(10 Jun, 11 Jun, 12 Jun).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one, two, and
three (10 Jun, 11 Jun, 12
Jun). Protons have a slight
chance of crossing threshold
on days one, two, and three
(10 Jun, 11 Jun, 12 Jun).
Watered down, heated,
pressurized honey not real
at all
Much of the honey hitting
supermarket shelves is
derived from an ultra
filtering procedure that
heats honey to high
temperatures, forcing the
natural substance at high
pressure through extremely
small filters to remove
pollen. In this way,
manufacturers conceal the
identity of the source of
the honey, which is a
technique used by the
Chinese, who have illegally
dumped tons of their honey
on the U.S. market for
years. The Chinese are
responsible for dumping
dangerous antibiotics,
artificial sweeteners, and
leeching copious amounts of
heavy metals into imported
honey products.
Scott Brusaw envisions a
future where the roads are
paved not in gold but with
solar panels.
His idea, which seemed an
unlikely dream just a few
weeks ago, has received a
huge boost from social
media, especially from a
slick, ultra-hip video that
has been viewed more than 15
million times on YouTube.
A high-stakes fight that
mixes renewable power,
international relations and
cyberespionage threatens to
slow the American solar
industry's rapid growth.
Last week, U.S.
Department of Commerce
officials tentatively agreed
to slap tariffs as high as
35 percent on much of the
solar equipment American
companies import from China.
The Affordable Care
Act—Obamacare—remains a hard
sell in Indian country.
The first comprehensive
report from government data
show that key measures, such
as the purchase of
insurance, reflect only
about 3 percent of eligible
American Indians and Alaska
Natives buying from a
marketplace exchange. The
result is that more than a
billion dollars in tax
credits—as well as
additional tens of millions
of increased funding for the
Indian health system—is left
behind and unclaimed.
A faulty blowout
preventer and weaknesses in
how companies analyze
potential hazards in
offshore oil and gas
operations contributed to BP
Plc's deadly Gulf of Mexico
oil spill more than four
years ago, the U.S. Chemical
Safety Board said on
Thursday.
Despite tougher
regulations, a slew of other
investigations and an
ongoing federal civil trial
with potentially billions of
dollars at stake, companies
may still drill without
demonstrating that they have
adequate barriers in place
to prevent deadly accidents,
the agency said.
The biggest worry
weighing on the nation’s
food industry may not be
drought in the West,
farmworker shortages or
turbulent international
trade negotiations, but a
change in the regulatory
code in Vermont.
Under a law signed this
month, the tiny New England
state, population 626,000,
will soon require that food
companies tell consumers
which products on grocers’
shelves have genetically
modified ingredients. In
doing so, Vermont could
force food growers,
processors and retailers to
upend how they serve
hundreds of millions of
customers nationwide.
The law puts Vermont at
the forefront of a national
movement that major food
processors and agricultural
companies are doing their
utmost to kill.
Many cities struggle with
crumbling water
infrastructure, but almost
nobody had it as tough as
Milwaukee this month.
"Milwaukee Water Works
utility crews and outside
contractors are repairing an
extraordinary number of
water main breaks, most of
them on the northwest side,
after a south-side pumping
station was shut down
because of a leak in a water
main," the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel reported.
At least 33 water mains
broke in a two-day period,
Carrie Lewis, superintendent
of the Milwaukee Water
Works, told the Journal
Sentinel. Later counts
had the number at 50.
Rising temperatures in
Texas typically means one
thing -- the need for more
energy to accommodate the
use of air conditioners.
For coal-fired power
plants like the Oklaunion
Power Station, that also
means the need to have water
to generate electricity. The
plant in May drew an average
of 3.8 million gallons daily
from Lake Diversion, which
is fed by Lake Kemp.
Oceans cover three quarters
of the Earth’s surface,
contain 97 percent of the
Earth’s water, and represent
99 percent of the living
space on the planet by
volume. But human pressures,
such as overexploitation,
illegal fishing,
unsustainable aquaculture,
marine pollution, habitat
destruction, alien species,
climate change and ocean
acidification are taking
their toll.
June 6, 2014
With the release of the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA) proposed
guidelines under Section
111(d) of the Clean Air Act,
the Brattle Group has
released a compendium of its
studies examining the
effects of a potential
carbon pollution standard.
These studies cover a range
of possible rulemaking
options pertaining to carbon
emissions in a wide variety
of power markets across the
United States, including
cap-and-trade programs,
renewable energy programs,
and carbon control measures.
California lawmakers and
the governor's office said
Thursday that they're making
a major effort to lure a
Tesla Motors electric-car
battery factory to the
Golden State.
A bipartisan pair of
state senators -- Senate
President Pro Tem Darrell
Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and
Ted Gaines (R-Rocklin) --
are sponsoring "urgency"
legislation, expressing
"intent to provide financial
and regulatory incentives to
expedite groundbreaking and
construction of the plant in
California."
Tiger Group's Remarketing
Services Division and Aaron
Equipment Company Inc. will
auction off the assets
activated carbon processing
facility and a biomass power
plant here formerly owned by
Big Island Carbon LLC. in
Hawaii, by order of the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court.
Researchers now say in a
revealing Nature paper that
the most significant health
threat from climate change
has started to happen.
Crops that provide a
large share of the global
population with most of
their dietary zinc and iron
will have significantly
reduced concentrations of
those nutrients at the
elevated levels of
atmospheric CO2 anticipated
by around 2050, according to
research by Israeli
scientists published in
Nature this month.
Phillips said he doesn't
believe in gay marriage and
he refused to sell them a
cake.
"We would close down the
bakery before we would
complicate our beliefs,"
Phillips said after the
hearing, according to CBS
Denver. Phillips also
admitted he had refused
service to other same-sex
couples.
A judge previously ruled
a business owner cannot
refuse service to a customer
on the basis of sexual
orientation. Phillips
appealed to the commission,
but it upheld the decision.
Special interests may
soon dictate what Internet
content you are able to
access.
On its most basic level,
net neutrality is the idea
that all Internet content
should be treated equally by
Internet service providers
(ISPs), with no website or
company getting preferential
treatment. But newly
released Federal
Communications Commission
(FCC) draft rules makes a
mockery of the idea of
“neutrality.”
You may think Europeans are
more sophisticated than you
Americans. Well, it turns
out that when it comes to
utility customer psychology,
we are pretty much the same
as our cousins in the US of
A.
There are some
pertinent universal truths
for the utility industry.
Customers don't like you.
It's true. They feel
powerless against the mighty
utility which almost always
holds the whip hand: they
decide the price and
customers have to stump up.
They feel they have no real
choice about this; it's
certainly true this is an
industry whose participants
offer, at base,
undifferentiated products.
(There are no premium
electrons or value-range CH4
molecules.)
U.S. energy-related
carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions in 2013 were 10
percent lower than 2005
levels, according to the
U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA).
Emissions in 2013 were
approximately 2 percent
above 2012 levels and 1.5
percent below 2011 levels.
Different regions in the
U.S. generally showed a
downward trend of CO2
emissions, but at variable
rates, the report said. The
report uses Wyoming, North
Dakota and West Virginia as
examples of states that have
higher and less efficient
energy use in more sparsely
populated areas and more
coal-reliant electricity
generation. By comparison,
Nevada reduced its coal use
and increased its use of
geothermal and solar energy.
The regulatory cycle never
stops, but the pace of it
dictates that there are no
surprises when federal
mandates are finally issued
to drinking water utilities.
No surprises, that is, if
you have an eye on the
process. To that end, let’s
look at which contaminants
are on the U.S. EPA’s radar,
as reported by Eric
Burneson, division director
for Standards and Risk
Management at the EPA’s
Office of Ground Water and
Drinking Water (OGWDW).
Burneson recently spoke at a
gathering of the Water and
Wastewater Equipment
Manufacturers Association to
deliver an update.
After the US EPA
announced their plan to cut
US power plant emissions 30%
by 2030, the European Union
(EU) reacts, praising the
Emission Performance
Standard (EPS) for its
vision while serving as a
"positive signal" to other
countries.
'This proposed rule is
the strongest action ever
taken by the U.S. government
to fight climate change,"
the EU's climate action
commissioner, Connie
Hedegaard said in a reaction
statement. "If implemented
as planned, this measure
will help the country meet
its 2020 emissions target."
By 2020 there will be 11.3
gigawatts of electric
storage installed globally,
according to Jim Rogers, the
former CEO of Duke Energy.
It will be a part of
the profound change coming
to the electric utility
sector, Rogers told the
meeting of the Energy
Storage Association in
Washington on Thursday.
"Our challenge is to
accelerate it and make money
accelerating it," Rogers
said.
Ukrainian government
forces battled separatists
with artillery and automatic
weapons on Wednesday in a
second day of fighting in
and around Slaviansk,
forcing many residents to
flee.
The Kiev government,
trying to break rebellions
by pro-Russia militias, said
over 300 rebels had been
killed in the past 24 hours
in the "anti-terrorist
operation" centred on the
eastern town, a
strategically located
separatist stronghold.
The department said it is
considering a plan to ship
the nuclear waste from
Germany to the Savannah
River Site, a federal
facility in South Carolina.
The 310-acre site already
holds millions of gallons of
high-level nuclear waste in
tanks. The waste came from
reactors in South Carolina
that produced plutonium for
nuclear weapons from 1953 to
1989.
The guidelines will
include environmental audits
and a ban on drilling in
areas where water is
protected. Germany's ruling
parties had promised in
their coalition agreement
last year to set a legal
framework for fracking.
Hydraulic fracking
involves pumping water and
chemicals at high pressure
through drill holes to prop
open rocks. Many Germans
oppose it due to
environmental worries,
especially fears about
possible contamination of
drinking water.
Global warming should be
a concern for regions
relying on snowmelt as a key
water source, according to
new research published in
the journal Nature
Climate Change.
"A new study by
researchers at the
University of Bristol shows
how this precipitation
greatly affects the amount
of water flowing through
rivers in these regions. If
climate change reduces the
amount of snowfall, the
amount of water in
reservoirs will also
lessen," International
Science Times
reported.
-
People who drank a
beverage containing
green tea extract showed
increased connectivity
between the parietal and
frontal cortex of the
brain
-
The increased activity
was correlated with
improved performance on
working memory tasks
-
The researchers believe
the results suggest
green tea may be useful
for treating cognitive
impairments, including
dementia
-
Green tea may also be
beneficial for heart
health, bone health,
type 2 diabetes, weight
loss, vision health, and
more
-
Much of the research on
green tea has been based
on about three cups
daily, which is easily
attainable for most
people
Climate change may be
taking a hidden toll on
intact rainforests in the
heart of the Amazon, finds a
new study based on 35 years
of observations.
The research, published
in the journal Ecology,
focused on the ecological
impacts of fragmentation but
unexpectedly found changes
in the control forests.
These shifts, which included
faster growth and death
rates of trees, increased
biomass accumulation, and
proliferation in vines, may
be linked to rising carbon
dioxide concentrations in
the atmosphere, according to
George Mason University's
Thomas Lovejoy, who
initiated the study in the
late 1970's.
In the shadow of Paradise
Fossil Plant's aging
smokestacks, where white
steam and carbon dioxide
rise into the sky, outdated
coal-fired generators are
being replaced with one that
runs on natural gas.
The change in Muhlenberg
County, once the nation's
top producer of coal, is
emblematic of what's been
happening across the U.S. as
natural gas becomes cheaper
and electric utilities try
to meet stiffer carbon
emissions rules the Obama
administration announced
this week.
Testing conducted by the
Norwegian Consumer Council
(Forbrukerrådet) found
endocrine-disrupting
chemicals in children’s
clothes from major
Scandinavian clothing chains
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M),
Cubus and Kappahl. The study
found potentially harmful
chemicals in every third
item of clothing tested.
The last of 29 Navajo
Americans who developed a
code that helped Allied
forces win the second World
War died in New Mexico on
Wednesday at the age of 93,
local media reported.
A major water
infrastructure bill finally
cleared the finish line in
Congress after months of
heated debate. The Water
Resources Reform and
Development Act (WRRDA)
passed by a vote of 91 to 7,
Reuters reported.
"The U.S. Senate [on May
22] overwhelmingly approved
legislation that authorizes
spending on inland waterways
and port infrastructure, and
tackles flood protection and
measures to limit damage
from storms," Reuters
reported. The final step is
a signature from President
Obama, which is expected.
In recent months the
ECB has been dismissing
reports showing declining
inflation in the Eurozone.
Officials have been calling
the situation "transient".
"Just wait until after
Easter," and all will be
well... . But the inflation
report out of Germany shows
that there is nothing
transient about euro area's
disinflationary pressures.
Yesterday the U.S.
Department of Commerce
announced that it would
impose preliminary
countervailing duties (CVD)
on Chinese-manufactured
solar modules in an effort
to close the loophole that
was created when it imposed
initial tariffs on
Chinese-manufactured solar
cells back in 2012.
Natural gas is poised to
be one of the biggest
winners of the Obama
administration's new plan to
slash carbon dioxide
emissions, accelerating the
electric sector's move away
from coal toward the
cleaner-burning power
source.
Despite a modest climb in
coal use for electric
generation in 2013, it
already has fallen out of
favor in the power
generation, as utilities
turn to natural gas for its
cheaper, lower-emission
profile.
An Obama Administration
proposal to slash carbon
dioxide emissions from U.S.
power plants is prompting
fierce debate in coal-heavy
Michigan, with proponents of
the new regulations saying
they will open the way to
thousands of greener-energy
jobs and others fearful of
rising electricity rates and
reduced competitiveness.
In recent years, in many
parts of the world, natural
gas supplies have increased
due to new pipelines and
hydraulic fracturing,
leading to reduced prices
for natural gas and wider
geographic availability of
vehicle refueling. As a
result, interest has been
renewed in utilizing natural
gas as a transportation fuel
to reduce both the use of
oil and greenhouse gas
emissions, driving the light
duty (LD) natural gas
vehicle (NGV) market.
Scientists at the
University of East Anglia
have found two new
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
and one new
hydrochlorofluorocarbon
(HCFC) in the atmosphere.
The research, published
today, comes after another
four man-made gases were
discovered by the same team
in March.
Scientists made the
discovery by comparing
today's air samples with air
collected between 1978 and
2012 in unpolluted Tasmania,
and samples taken during
aircraft flights.
Nigeria's crude oil exports
to the US have dropped
significantly following the
surge in shale oil
production by the Americans,
Nigerian oil minister
Diezani Alison-Madueke has
said.
Pharrell Williams
appears on a special-edition
cover of Elle UK's
July issue wearing a feather
headdress, and Natives are
not at all "Happy" about it.
In fact, they're tweeting
their disgust on Twitter
using the hashtag #NOThappy
-- a reference to Pharrell's
mega-hit "Happy."
Cutting Emissions Isn't
Enough, We Must Also
Sequester Carbon to Avert
Climate Disaster
At least half the
once-thriving fruit and nut
orchards in Khost in
southeast Afghanistan have
been destroyed, and the rest
have fallen into disuse
through neglect, according
to residents of the
province.
Fruit and nut plantations
planted during the
three-decade-long rule of
Afghanistan’s last king,
Mohammad Zaher Shah,
survived until the civil war
of the early 1990s.
Thereafter, the
disintegration of any kind
of organized government led
to years of neglect of these
large-scale state ventures.
Public Service Company of
New Mexico plans to build
four more solar power plants
at a cost of $79 million to
help it meet the state
standard for renewable
energy in 2016.
The additional
10-megawatt solar power
plants will raise the
company's solar capacity to
107 megawatts, which could
provide the power used by
40,000 average homes in a
year.
New measures to reduce
electricity use could curb
growth in Texas' peak power
demand by as much as half
over the next two decades,
reducing the need to build
new generating capacity and
lowering ratepayers' bills,
a new report says.
Texas' power market could
restrain peak demand by
5,000 to 7,000 megawatts
through 2032 by exploiting
new energy efficiency and
through demand-response
programs that rein in power
use when demand is highest,
the consulting firm Brattle
Group said in a report
Tuesday.
Rice University
scientists are announcing a
carbon capture breakthrough
that looks like a promising
replacement for more costly,
energy-intensive processes.
The porous material created
by the researchers
sequesters carbon dioxide
(CO2) at ambient temperature
with pressure provided by
the wellhead and lets it go
once the pressure is
released.
In Anbar, a suicide bomber
successfully assassinated
the head of the Ramadi Sahwa
group. Bombers, meanwhile,
struck in Kirkuk and Hilla.
Thanks to a recently-signed
five-year lease agreement
between Florida Atlantic
University (FAU) and the
U.S. Department of the
Interior's Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management (BOEM),
researchers at FAU's
Southeast National Marine
Renewable Energy Center
(SNMREC) will soon embark
upon installation of the
world's first offshore test
berth for small-scale ocean
current turbines -- a goal
FAU has been working to
achieve since 2007.
The news could not
have been any worse.
In a deeply troubling
decision, the U.S.
Department of Commerce today
imposed new tariffs on solar
modules from China that
threaten to derail the rapid
growth of the U.S. solar
industry.
Commerce will
immediately impose
countervailing duty tariffs
ranging from 18.56 to 35.21
percent. Equally troubling,
Commerce issued a broad
preliminary scope decision,
although the Department
indicated that it will
continue to review comments
on this issue.
This video takes us on a
journey back through time to
discover how our need for
energy and the importance of
managing our waste have
become intrinsically linked.
Some economists have
raised concerns that the
Fed's experimental reverse
repo program (RRP) could
crowd out banks. The latest
data from Barclays shows
that as RRP expanded, money
market funds have been
placing a greater percentage
of their overnight liquidity
with the Fed rather than
with banks.
Sunpower CEO Tom Werner says
the energy storage industry
should prepare to face the
same boom, bust,
stabilization path that
solar experienced throughout
the last seven years. But if
the industry is smart, it
will survive and flourish
together with solar.
Battery technology has come
a long way since the days
when your granddad had to
periodically peak under the
hood to add water to his
lead-acid battery.
Even a
decade ago, the idea
that battery banks would
soon be “smoothing
energy flow” between the
electricity produced by
wind and solar farms and
the utility grid was
almost inconceivable.
But batteries are now
being harnessed to
regulate and store the
inherently variable
energy output from wind
and solar projects
worldwide.
On the heels of the EPA’s
new carbon rules proposed by
President Obama on June 2, I
wanted to take a closer look
at a potential disruptive
technological breakthrough:
taking CO2 waste streams and
turning them into saleable,
value-added feedstocks.
Certainly, the deployment of
renewables, energy
efficiency, smart grid, and
energy storage technologies
offer some of the most
cost-effective options for
dramatically reducing
emissions. But if you
believe that fossil fuel
power plants (along with
other large-source emitters
like steel and cement
producers) will remain a
part of our industrial
ecosystem for some time to
come, then capturing and
utilizing C02 from these
emitters is an important and
critical piece of the
carbon-management
equation.
Barbados, a small Caribbean
island at the cutting edge
of the fight against climate
change, will be hosting this
year's World Environment
Day, leading United
Nations-wide efforts to draw
attention to the plight of
the world's small islands
potentially in peril of
being lost to sea-level
rise.
Washington announced plans
on Monday to cut emissions
from power plants by 30
percent below 2005 levels by
2030, as the centerpiece of
a U.S. policy to fight
climate change.
The US Environmental
Protection Agency's proposed
carbon emissions guidelines
issued Monday would have the
biggest impact on
Appalachian and Powder River
Basin thermal coal
producers, though the latter
may be able to soften the
impact if port capacity
becomes available on the US
West Coast, Moody's
Investors Service said.
Southwestern water
agencies, facing severe
drought, have teamed up with
the Mexican government to
consider building a
desalination plant in Mexico
to supply water to U.S.
customers.
The agencies serving San
Diego, Los Angeles, Las
Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson
are heading up the project,
along with Mexico.
Pavlof Volcano, which has
been spewing ash and lava
for years in an uninhabited
region nearly 600 miles (966
km) southwest of Anchorage,
began erupting with new
intensity this week and
prompted Alaska scientists
to issue their highest
volcanic alert in five years
on Monday.
The California drought
has given rise to an unusual
sort of crime: water theft.
"It's amazingly easy to
steal water from a
California stream. Even in
this epic drought, the state
has no way of monitoring
exactly who is tapping into
its freshwater supplies and
how much they take," the
Fresno Bee reported.
Water theft comes in many
shapes and sizes.
June
3, 2014
The Afghan president is
angry at being kept in the
dark over a deal to free
five Taliban leaders in
exchange for a captured U.S.
soldier, and accuses
Washington of failing to
back a peace plan for the
war-torn country, a senior
source said on Monday.
The five prisoners were
flown to Qatar on Sunday as
part of a secret agreement
to release Army Sergeant
Bowe Bergdahl, who left
Afghanistan for Germany on
the same day.
A special issue of the
Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society A has
been published today (Monday
2 June) which brings
together a collection of
papers on many of the
unresolved issues relating
to the Southern Ocean.
Professor Michael Meredith
from the British Antarctic
Survey was a guest editor on
the issue; 'The Southern
Ocean: new insights into
circulation, carbon and
climate'.
Some flights between
Australia and southeast Asia
and all domestic flights
operating out of Darwin
airport in the country's
north were canceled on
Saturday after the eruption
of Sangeang Api in
Indonesia's south produced a
large cloud of ash.
Several possibly coordinated
bombings took place south of
Baghdad today, while clashes
and shelling continued in
Anbar province. The usual
scattered attacks occurred
as well.
In the world of fast food,
Chipotle's unique approach
to sourcing ingredients has
earned us a lot of
attention. Our vision is to
change the way people think
about and eat fast food, so
nothing is more important to
us than serving our
customers fresh, delicious
ingredients that are raised
responsibly and prepared
using classic cooking
techniques.
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA)
proposed rule for new coal
plants has been called a
"war on coal" because it
will require the
installation of costly,
unproven carbon capture and
sequestration -- technology
which many utilities can
neither afford nor implement
-- resulting in a ban on the
construction of new coal
plants, according to the
Center for Regulatory
Effectiveness (CRE). CRE is
calling for a change from a
"war on coal" to a "war by
coal" in which the coal
industry exercises its legal
rights.
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has
finalized standards under
section 316(b) of the Clean
Water Act, which will have
significant consequences to
large power plants. The rule
is intended to protect fish
and other aquatic life from
cooling water systems at
generation facilities and
factories.
Google is being
flooded with so-called
"right to be forgotten"
requests shortly after
allowing European users to
file claims.
In just the first 24
hours claims could be
filed, RT reports Google
received 12,000 requests
from people who wanted
certain information removed
from the search engine. At
this point, Google says
Germans have filed the most
requests.
It comes after the EU's
highest court ruled search
engines like Google, Bing
and Yahoo must allow people
to have the "right to be
forgotten."
-
A report on global food
waste suggests that up
to half of the food
produced in the world
today is wasted, never
reaching a human mouth
-
In spite of the fact
that there is more than
enough food produced
globally to feed every
single man, woman, and
child, 2.3 million
children still die of
hunger every year
-
Farmers typically assume
that 20 to 40 percent of
their produce will never
go to market, even if
it’s perfectly fit for
human consumption
-
Food waste costs $165
billion annually, plus
another $750 million to
dispose of it; it also
consumes 25 percent of
our freshwater and four
percent of our oil
-
One dozen tips are
provided to help you
reduce your own food
waste, including
strategic shopping,
vacuum packing, and
composting
Artificially replicating the
biological process of
photosynthesis is a goal
being sought on many fronts,
and it promises to one day
improve light-to-energy
efficiencies of solar
collection well beyond
what's possible with
photovoltaic cells. One of
the first steps on the road
to achieving this objective
is to imitate the mechanisms
at work in the transfer of
energy from reception
through to output.
Cars that drive hundreds
of miles on a tank of
hydrogen and spew nothing
from the tailpipe but water
will hit the market this
month in California.
But it wasn't customer
demand that drove automakers
to build fuel-cell cars - it
was basic economics, with a
nudge from regulation.
California and other
states are pushing
automakers to offer cars
that don't contribute to
global warming. Many
companies turned to electric
cars and plug-in hybrids
in response
If the U.S. scales up small
modular reactors (SMR) in an
effort to avert climate
change, they will "choke off
the funding and policies
that have allowed renewable
energy to expand at record
levels, while SMRs will
suffer all of the same woes
that have plagued large
nuclear reactors," according
to research by Dr. Mark
Cooper, senior fellow for
economic analysis at the
Institute for Energy and the
Environment, Vermont Law
School.
Housing in the US
continues to lag the
nation's overall economic
expansion. The pending home
sales report was quite
disappointing, with
month-over-month growth of
0.4% vs. the expectations of
1%. While the "post-winter"
recovery has taken place
across much of the US
economy, it remains absent
in the housing sector. To be
sure, apartment construction
and rental business is doing
quite well. The single
family unit market however
continues to struggle.
Mercury tests conducted on
vaccines at the Natural News
Forensic Food Lab have
revealed a shockingly high
level of toxic mercury in an
influenza vaccine (flu shot)
made by GlaxoSmithKline (lot
#9H2GX). Tests conducted via
ICP-MS document mercury in
the Flulaval vaccine
at a shocking 51 parts
per million, or over
25,000 times higher than the
maximum contaminant level of
inorganic mercury in
drinking water set by the
EPA.
Nigerian police said Monday
they have banned protests in
the capital demanding that
the government rescue more
than 200 girls still held
captive by Boko
Haram militants.
The protests have
"degenerated" and are "now
posing a serious security
threat," Abuja police
commissioner Joseph Mbu said
in a statement.
Oil and gas production is a
colossal, fast-evolving, and
wide-ranging industry that
is shaped by significant
market drivers, is vital to
the global economy, and
represents the world's
largest industry in terms of
capital value. Like the
industry itself, water and
wastewater treatment in oil
and gas is broad and
complex, with numerous
issues, and spanning several
areas -- from the upstream
and downstream segments to
conventional oil and gas to
the unconventional plays
including shale gas and
liquids, coalbed methane,
tight gas, and heavy oil,
among others.
A
Pentagon investigation
concluded in 2010 that Army
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked
away from his unit, and
after an initial flurry of
searching the military
decided not to exert
extraordinary efforts to
rescue him, according to a
former senior defense
official who was involved in
the matter.
Climate engineering is
unlikely to provide an
effective or practical
solution to slowing global
warming, according to a new
study.
Reducing the release of
carbon remains the only
likely answer to tackling
climate change ahead of
fanciful projects such as
positioning giant mirrors in
space to reduce the amount
of sunlight being trapped in
the earth's atmosphere or
seeding clouds to reduce the
amount of light entering
earth's atmosphere.
After months of blocking any
Security Council action on
Ukraine, Russia called an
emergency meeting of the
U.N.'s most powerful body
Monday to introduce a
resolution demanding an
immediate halt to deadly
clashes in eastern Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov said Moscow
wants Security Council
action to end weeks of
violence in Russian-speaking
eastern Ukraine between
government troops and
pro-Russian insurgents, a
move immediately denounced
by the United States as
"hypocritical."
Scientists at the Fudan
University in Shanghai,
China, have developed a
high-performance Li-ion
battery made of carbon
nanotube fiber yarns.
Roughly one 1 mm in
diameter, the fiber shaped
lithium-ion batteries are
reported lightweight enough
to create weavable and
wearable textile batteries
that could power various
devices. The researchers say
that the yarn is capable of
delivering nearly 71 mAh/g
of power, and can also be
woven into existing textiles
to create novel electronic
fabrics.
A new vaccine study
published in Molecular
and Genetic Medicine is
bringing to the forefront
the disturbing connection
between the dramatic
expansion in the quantity of
routine childhood vaccines
administered and a
corresponding increase in
inflammation-associated
disorders.
Freddie Mac this week
released its
Multi-Indicator Market
Index(SM) (MiMi(SM))
showing the U.S. housing
market overall largely flat
compared to the prior month
and especially since last
year at this time. Of those
markets that are improving
or experiencing a stable
range of housing activity,
most are benefiting from the
energy boom taking place
along the country's
mid-section.
US natural gas demand would
increase 3.29 Bcf/d by 2020
as a result of the US
Environmental Protection
Agency's newly released plan
to cut carbon dioxide
emissions from power plants
30% from 2005 levels by
2030.
After 2020, gas
demand would fall as energy
efficiency measures reduced
power demand, the EPA said.
US gas demand averaged just
under 71 Bcf/d in 2013,
according to the Energy
Information Administration.
In a secret 72-hour blitz
over the weekend, the FBI,
several foreign governments
and a host of security firms
dismantled what officials
say is the most
sophisticated operation ever
to commandeer private
computers and siphon tens of
millions of dollars from
American bank accounts.
US authorities have said
they are considering
allowing the film and
television industries to use
drones.
The Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) said
there could be "tangible
economic benefits", but
cautioned safety hazards
must be "mitigated".
Seven aerial video and
photography firms have
petitioned the FAA for
exemptions to the agency's
current ban on commercial
drone use.
The FAA did not set a
timeline for determining the
exemptions.
A new report on U.S. power
plant emissions from the
country's top 100 electric
power producers shows a
downward trend in nitrogen
oxides (NOx), sulfur
dioxides (SO2), mercury and
carbon dioxide (CO2) since
2000, with CO2 emissions
decreasing 13 percent
between 2008 and 2012. The
findings show that the
industry is already shifting
toward a combination of
increased energy efficiency
and lower carbon fuel
sources, which should help
it meet new Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)
carbon standards expected to
be announced on June 2.
The United States installed
1,330 MW of solar
photovoltaics (PV) in the
first quarter of 2014,
driven by strong
year-over-year growth in the
utility and residential
markets, according to GTM
Research and the Solar
Energy Industry Association
(SEIA). For the first time,
the U.S. installed more
residential PV than
commercial (232 MW vs. 225
MW, respectively), due to
ongoing strength in the
residential sector and
volatility in the
non-residential market.
However, despite the decline
in non-residential
installations, GTM Research
and SEIA expect the market
to rebound and exceed the
residential market in 2014
annual PV installations.