Aug 16, 2008
Worrying invasive snail found in Lake Michigan
Associated Press: Scientists worry that a rapidly reproducing, tiny invasive snail recently found in Lake Michigan could hurt the lake's ecosystem. The New Zealand mud snail joins a long and growing list of nonnative species moving into the Great Lakes, threatening to disrupt the food chain and change the local environment. Scientists checking Lake Michigan water samples earlier this summer found a population of the New Zealand mud snail, the Illinois Natural History Survey said. They grow to ...
¶ 8/16/2008 06:35:00 AM 0 Comments
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Aug 15, 2008
Carbon sequestration WILL increase overall pollutants
¶ 8/15/2008 01:35:00 AM 0 Comments
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Power plant emissions that cause acid rain, water pollution and destruction of the ozone layer may actually be made worse by capturing the CO2 and pumping it deep underground, a new study reported online and in an upcoming International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control suggests.
This increase of other emissions is largely because collecting and burying CO2 — a process called carbon sequestration — requires additional energy, new equipment and new chemical reactions at the plants. And using current technology, meeting all of these requirements releases extra pollutants.
“Other studies mostly just look at one aspect, the carbon capture,” says study co-author Joris Koornneef, an environmental scientist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “This is a first step in trying to quantify the [environmental] trade-offs.”
Captured CO2 must be compressed to about 100 times atmospheric pressure (which takes energy), transported to a suitable underground reservoir (which takes energy) and pumped into the ground (which takes energy). A coal-fired power plant that sequesters its CO2 must burn about 30 percent more coal than conventional plants to cover these energy needs. And that extra coal must first be mined (which has environmental effects) and transported to the plant (which takes fuel) — the list goes on and on.
Even with this extra burden, a CO2-burying plant emits between 71 and 78 percent less CO2 than a normal coal-fired plant for each unit of usable electricity produced, Koornneef and his colleagues report. But when the researchers factored in all the “cradle to grave” pollution of a CO2-burying plant, emissions of acid rain-causing gases like nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides were up to 40 percent greater than the total cradle-to-grave emissions of a modern plant that doesn’t capture its CO2.
Bush signs bill banning lead from children's toys
¶ 8/15/2008 01:30:00 AM 0 Comments
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WASHINGTON — President Bush on Thursday signed consumer-safety legislation that bans lead from children's toys, imposing the toughest standard in the world.
The new law prohibits lead, beyond minute levels, in products for children 12 or younger. Lead paint was a major factor in the recall of 45 million toys and children's items last year, many from China.
Both houses of Congress approved the bill by overwhelming margins two weeks ago.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates there are about 28,000 deaths each year linked to unsafe products, including toys, in the United States. More than 33 million people were injured last year by consumer products.
The bill also bans a chemical called phthalates that is widely used to make plastic products softer and more flexible.
Source: Associated Press
U.S. driving drop exceeds the 1970s' total decline
¶ 8/15/2008 01:18:00 AM 0 Comments
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June 2008 saw another sharp drop in vehicle miles travelled (aka VMT) according to the Federal Highway Administration’s monthly report on “Traffic Volume Trends.”
Americans drove 4.7 percent less, or 12.2 billion miles fewer, in June 2008 than June 2007 — beating the record-setting drop of March (see here).
The moving 12-month trend-line is startling and again makes clear $4 a gallon is the first (but not the last) genuine tipping point for U.S. drivers:
Aug 11, 2008
Kids Health... I've made some mistakes, but things are looking up.
¶ 8/11/2008 06:12:00 AM 0 Comments
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Philips future is LED...
Fans of L.E.D.’s Say This Bulb’s Time Has Come
“We are not spending one dollar on research and development for compact fluorescents,” said Kaj den Daas, chairman and chief executive of Philips Lighting. Instead, the bulk of its R.& D. budget, which is 5.2 percent of the company’s global lighting revenue, is for L.E.D. research. Philips is betting the store on the L.E.D. bulbs, which it expects to represent 20 percent of its professional lighting revenue in two years.
In some types of commercial buildings, L.E.D.’s are rapidly replacing older products. The industry seems convinced that new lower-cost L.E.D. bulbs, with their improved efficiency, will eventually become the chief substitutes for incandescent bulbs in homes.
By lighting all of the building’s exterior and most of its interior with L.E.D.’s, Sentry spent $12,000 more than the $6,000 needed to light the facility with a mixture of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. But using L.E.D.’s, the company is saving $7,000 a year in energy costs, will not need to change a bulb for 20 years and will recoup its additional investment in less than two years. “I’d do it again,” Mr. Farrell said. “It was a no-brainer.”
What Mr. Farrell found was a light source that many of the biggest bulb manufacturers are now convinced will supplant incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent bulbs.
The L.E.D., a type of semiconductor, generates light when an electric current is passed through positive and negative materials. Typically, a compact fluorescent bulb uses about 20 percent of the energy needed for a standard bulb to create the same amount of light. Today’s L.E.D.’s use about 15 percent. Next-generation bulbs still in the labs do even better.
“The Marcus Center lighting will require no maintenance for 15 years,” Mr. Gregory said. “That’s a dream for a lighting designer.”
¶ 8/11/2008 03:25:00 AM 0 Comments
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CLEAN HOME COULD GIVE CHILD ASTHMA
In the past, research has suggested that creating a clean home may stop a child being exposed to bacteria.
HOUSEPROUD (By Victoria Fletcher, Health Editor)
Mothers-to-be could be condemning their children to lives of illness. Despite believing that they are creating a bug-free environment safe for their children, the women may be exposing them to harmful chemicals. Researchers suggest that in the long-term, the mothers could increase their children’s risk of asthma by as much as 41 per cent.
They then compared the results with the mothers’ exposure to household chemicals.
The study found that the more chemicals that mothers were exposed to, the higher the chance of children suffering from wheeziness.
Toddlers up to 18 months old saw their risk of wheezing rise by 41 per cent. By 30 months, this had increased to 43 per cent. After this age and up to seven, the risk increased by almost 70 per cent.
In the past, research has suggested that creating a clean home may stop a child being exposed to bacteria.
But although this sounds good news, it may prevent children from building up a natural immunity to bugs, increasing their chances of suffering asthma later.
The latest research suggests that it could be the direct effect of chemicals in cleaning fluids which is to blame after coming into contact with the foetus or the new-born baby.
Dr Alexandra Farrow, whose study was published in the European Respiratory Journal, said: “Previous research has shown that a child’s risk of developing asthma is lower if he or she is exposed to bacteria in early life.
“This is probably because it assists in the development of a child’s immune system.
¶ 8/11/2008 02:47:00 AM 0 Comments
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China's pollution goes global
¶ 8/11/2008 01:50:00 AM 0 Comments
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Well, the Olympics have started - so has the "Great Wall of GreenWashing"
More than 500,000 trees were planted in and around Olympic venues and on the Olympic green. There will be 500 alternative energy vehicles operating within the Olympic Village and some of the fans that attend the Olympic competitions in Beijing may ride to the events in one of the 1000 new Beijing public transportation vehicles that run on biodiesel. The renewable energy vehicles being used at the Olympics include 20 hydrogen fuel cell, 55 electric and 25 hybrid passenger vehicles. In Qingdao, the Olympic Sailing Center, which was constructed at a cost of more than 11 million Yuan [US $1.6 million], uses solar power technology to operate the air conditioning system.
As is so often the case in China, the Summer Olympics in Beijing present two contradictory views of China's environmental and energy stewardship. Will China's future development realize the promise of the enlightened environmental and energy infrastructure now on display at the Olympic venues as China’s pollution goes global?
The Australian Financial Review last Friday in their Review section republished Jacques Leslie’s cover story in the February edition of Mother Jones entitled The Last Empire: China’s Pollution Problem Goes Global. It’s over 9000 words, but it’s well worth a look.
Leslie tells of Mao’s assault on the environment when he launched the “backyard furnace” campaign. Some 90 million peasants set up mini steel smelters stripping 10% of China’s trees within a few months to fire them in order to produce unusable steel. Mao also launched the “Kill the Four Pests Campaign” resulting in the mass killing of sparrows followed by a great locust plague. The consequent harvest failure and famine saw between 30 and 50 million Chinese die, according to Leslie.
Yet the Mao era’s ecological devastation pales next to that of China’s current industrialization. A fourth of the country is now desert. More than three-fourths of its forests have disappeared. Acid rain falls on a third of China’s landmass, tainting soil, water, and food. Excessive use of groundwater has caused land to sink in at least 96 Chinese cities, producing an estimated $12.9 billion in economic losses in Shanghai alone. Each year, uncontrollable underground fires, sometimes triggered by lightning and mining accidents, consume 200 million tons of coal, contributing massively to global warming. A miasma of lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide, and other elements of coal-burning and car exhaust hovers over most Chinese cities; of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, 16 are Chinese.
The government estimates that 400,000 people die prematurely from respiratory illnesses each year, and health care costs for premature death and disability related to air pollution is estimated at up to 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Four-fifths of the length of China’s rivers are too polluted for fish. Half the population—600 or 700 million people—drinks water contaminated with animal and human waste. Into Asia’s longest river, the Yangtze, the nation annually dumps a billion tons of untreated sewage; some scientists fear the river will die within a few years. Drained by cities and factories all over northern China, the Yellow River, whose cataclysmic floods earned it a reputation as the world’s most dangerous natural feature, now flows to its mouth feebly, if at all. China generates a third of the world’s garbage, most of which goes untreated. Meanwhile, roughly 70 percent of the world’s discarded computers and electronic equipment ends up in China, where it is scavenged for usable parts and then abandoned, polluting soil and groundwater with toxic metals.
Robert Merkel told us last year of an environmental disaster that killed 750,000 Chinese. The Chinese government persuaded the World Bank to suppress the story because it could cause social unrest. It seems their fears were justified.
Please read full by Big Gav
Short sighted special interests
By David Dempsey
To paraphrase Senator John McCain... "It's not a question of whether or not we'll use the natural gas under Lake Erie. We're already doing that," Sonney said. "It's a question of whether we control our own destiny and harvest our own energy assets to our benefit or continue to leave energy resources in the hands of others."
Actually, it's a question of whether we're going to be stampeded into drilling under the Great Lakes for negligible short- and long-term public benefit to satisfy a special interest. If the modest amount of energy under the Great Lakes is valuable now, it will be more valuable later.
The drill now mantra is tiresome and bogus.
¶ 8/11/2008 01:40:00 AM 0 Comments
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WI Global Warming Task Force: all cost, no benefit
A squeak of protest from Wisconsin -- by Jim Ott, formerly a meteorologist with WTMJ-TV (Channel 4)
The editorial mentioned the "recommendations" of the task force regarding nuclear energy. In fact, the task force states on page 49 that, "This recommendation is not a recommendation by the Task Force that a new nuclear power plant be built." The easiest way to reduce greenhouse gases - increased use of nuclear energy - is clearly not a priority of the task force.
And, like the task force, the Journal Sentinel fails to make any mention of the potential cost to you or to our state's economy if the "recommendations" are enacted into law. Isn't this important information? Would you be willing to pay $6 a gallon for gas to fight global warming? How does a 40% increase in the cost of electricity sound? The price of virtually everything would rise. Last year, Wisconsin's economy grew by a paltry 1%. What will raising prices, taxes and the cost of doing business do to Wisconsin's economy?
It's important to understand that if the task force's recommendations are adopted, we all will be forced to make dramatic changes in how we live. The state will interject itself into every facet of our lives, including but not limited to requiring an energy audit when we sell our homes, telling farmers what to feed their cows, adjusting the school funding mechanism, mandating what type of lighting landlords must install and maybe even regulating how many miles we can drive our cars - all in the name of "fighting global climate change."
Finally, any effort by an individual state to address global warming is pointless. Even if Wisconsin's greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced to zero, there would be no measurable impact on global atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and therefore no measurable effect on global temperatures. So a cost/benefit analysis of the task force's recommendations reveals major increases in prices and taxes for consumers, massive growth in state government rules and regulations and no impact or benefit to Earth's climate.
Regardless of how you feel about "global climate change," the task force's recommendations are a recipe for disaster.
Read more from Milwauke jsonline.com
¶ 8/11/2008 01:37:00 AM 0 Comments
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McGreenwashing
McDonald's and Greenwashing
Environmental News Network: McDonald's, the world-famous fast-food chain best known for its golden arches and Big Macs, bills itself as a leader "in environmental conservation." A few weeks ago I walked into a McDonald's restaurant for the first time in a year and ordered the new sweet tea drink. To my surprise the drink comes in a styrofoam cup. Styrofoam is also known as polystyrene, which is made from styrene. According to the Environmental Justice Network, styrene is "known to indiscriminately attack tissue ... Link
¶ 8/11/2008 12:41:00 AM 0 Comments
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Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe going brown
¶ 8/11/2008 12:34:00 AM 0 Comments
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Mike Rowe on the environment.
So you’re sympathetic to the cause, but critical of what exactly - the execution?
If we’re talking about the importance of cleaning up after ourselves and leaving a light footprint, I’m all for it. But really, I’m tired of being lectured by people who care more for the planet than the people on it. There’s a lot of “inconvenient truth” in the environmental movement, and a ton of manipulation. That leads to hypocrisy and opportunism. Mainly though, I’m just appalled by their choice of color. I mean seriously - green? What were they thinking?
So you’re not impressed with the efforts of people like Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio?
I’m not going to question anyone’s agenda or motive. But I strongly suspect that millions of responsible Americans who see themselves as environmentally conscious have been turned off by the marketing of green, and might feel uneasy about falling in line behind movie stars and politicians. Celebrities might generate awareness, but flying around in private jets and being famous doesn’t help our environment. Picking up other people’s garbage does.
Aren’t you famous?
Please. I’m on the cover of a supplement. And I’m interviewing myself.
I always liked Mike ;-)
Aug 10, 2008
A hundred billion dollars for Nuclear Power
The answer is perhaps as high as a hundred billion dollars.
¶ 8/10/2008 06:07:00 AM 0 Comments
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Just number folks...
The answer is perhaps as high as a hundred billion dollars.
From 1948 to today, nuclear energy research and development exceeded $70 billion, whereas research and development for renewables was about $10 billion. From 2002 to 2007, fossil fuels received almost $14 billion in electricity-related tax subsides, whereas renewables received under $3 billion.
..The benefit of this indirect subsidy has been estimated at between $237 million and $3.5 billion a year
testimony that nuclear power is "the beneficiary of some $100 billion in direct and indirect subsidies since 1948."
A 1992 U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis, Federal Energy Subsidies: Direct and Indirect Interventions in Energy Markets [PDF], calls Price-Anderson, "A Federal regulation that continues to have a cost-reducing effect on the nuclear power industry." According to the EIA analysis:
EIA determined that the value of the subsidy to the nuclear industry as a whole was roughly $30 million per reactor per year, or $3 billion annually ($1991). The full subsidy value of the Price-Anderson Act from its inception through today thus likely exceeds a hundred billion dollars.
Aug 8, 2008
Big bottled water still get FREE water from great lakes
If the compact passes in its present form, corporations will be exempt from adhering to the bill's most integral part: the ban on Great Lakes water exportation. Corporations like Nestle, Coca-Cola and Pepsi will still be able to draw off water and sell it for profit all over the country in a variety of products. David Dempsey reports
¶ 8/08/2008 12:42:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Going Nuclear? Yes, If You Are Looking To Get Elected
¶ 8/08/2008 12:27:00 AM 0 Comments
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Because we look for easy answers and easily forget our past...
Even under the best peak uranium conditions Nuclear only buys a little time and will have no negligible payback within that lifetime. However, even minor mistakes in the nuclear energy field could have a infinite detrimental impact on our people and planet.
Nuclear energy questions the public needs answers for:
- How much viable uranium exists for the worlds demand (and what will be the cost)?
- How much debt is the nuclear industry in (and how heavy is it subsidized)?
- What is the current state of safety and environmental impact or our existing facilities and waste?
- How much does it cost to run, maintain and regulate this industry vs. net energy gains (after -yield costs)?
Four simple questions with hopeless answers under the current state.
Aug 6, 2008
Coal - Unstoppable future....
Does coal have a future?
Despite environmentalists' concerns, energy companies say they are racing to meet demand for coal, especially in developing countries where the fuel is cheap and plentiful even in a year where coal price rises have outstripped those of oil.
For protesters, the shiny black lumps of fossilized wood and plants are contributing to drastic climate change. For traders, coal is an energy no-brainer which offers a ray of hope for 1.6 billion people living without electricity.
They're probably both right.
By mid-century, the world may have an extra 3 billion people and four times the wealth but somehow it must also at least halve carbon emissions from its main energy source -- fossil fuels -- to rein in dangerous global warming, scientists say.
Power generation accounts for about two-fifths of global emissions, from burning fossil fuels, of the main man-made greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and coal for most of that.
"You've got to say -- 'Right, here's the line in the sand, we're going to stop it here because it's madness to continue',"
"It doesn't paint a very good picture of the future for carbon emissions but there is no other real choice -- coal is one of the few fuel sources which has a real capacity to expand," said Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities research at Merrill Lynch.
FUTURE
Despite such apparent setbacks, coal's future looks safe.
In the United States utilities are building 28 coal-fired plants and another 66 are in early planning, as gas price hikes motivate new interest.
In developing nations, growth is rampant. Poor grid access coupled with frequent blackouts, rapid economic growth and plentiful fuel are driving a frenzy to build new power plants which take just 21 months to build in China.
Over the past three years, China has added each year new coal plants equivalent to Britain's entire electricity-generating capacity. India has approved eight "ultra mega" plants which will add nearly half again to its present generating capacity.
Even in the oil-rich Middle East, the United Arab Emirates ordered the Gulf's first coal plant last month.
The biggest brake on these plans is not climate protests but a shortage of steam turbines, with a three-year backlog in the U.S. and Europe following exceptional demand and a 12-18 month lag between order and delivery in China, say utilities.
BAD'er FUTURE
Confronted by this scramble, politicians and scientists are reviewing an untested technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS) which could trap and bury underground, in disused oil wells and coal seams, the carbon emissions from coal plants.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) says CCS equipment must be fitted to all the world's coal plants to halve carbon emissions by 2050, widely held as a minimum climate change goal.
But the agency's own scientists express personal doubts that this is achievable.
"I don't think in my lifetime I will ever see more than 50 percent of the coal-fired plants in China being fitted with CCS," said 45-year-old Sankar Bhattacharya, senior IEA coal analyst, adding that many of China's new power plants will be in centers of population far from potential CO2 storage sites.
CCS is untested for good reason. The technology will add about $1 billion to the capital cost of a power plant, not including efficiency losses which will demand a quarter more coal burn just to maintain output, and extra water for steam to make up the lost power.
Read full here (Reuters) - By Gerard Wynn and Jacqueline Cowhig
¶ 8/06/2008 06:43:00 AM 0 Comments
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Yucca nuke waste now at $96.2 billion Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal: The Bush administration sharply increased its cost estimate for building and operating the first national repository for spent nuclear fuel, throwing a potential curveball into the political debate over the project's future. The Department of Energy said that building the planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- as well as operating it and transporting spent nuclear fuel there -- will cost $96.2 billion through the time it is sealed in 2133. That represents an increase of .. WSJ Link
¶ 8/06/2008 12:31:00 AM 0 Comments
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Aug 5, 2008
Companies Agree To Cut Cancer-Causing Chemicals In Potato Chips
"The companies agreed to reduce this carcinogenic chemical in fried potatoes -- a victory for public health and safety in California," said Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. "Other companies should follow this lead and take steps to reduce acrylamide in french fries and potato chips."
The state of California has settled lawsuits against Heinz, Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods and Lance Inc. after the companies agreed to slash levels of the cancer-causing chemical acrylamide in their potato chips and French fries.
"The companies agreed to reduce this carcinogenic chemical in fried potatoes -- a victory for public health and safety in California," said Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. "Other companies should follow this lead and take steps to reduce acrylamide in french fries and potato chips."In 2005, the attorney general sued McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, KFC, Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods, Lance, Procter & Gamble and Heinz, for selling potato chips and French fries containing high levels of acrylamide, a chemical known to the state to cause cancer.
Acrylamide is a by-product of frying, roasting and baking foods -- particularly potatoes -- that contain certain amino acids. In 2002, Swedish scientists discovered high levels of cancer-causing acrylamide in fried potato products.
Frito-Lay will pay $1.5 million in penalties and costs, $550,000 will be forgiven if it can reduce acrylamide in its products in half the time required by the settlement. It will pay an additional $2 million if it fails to reduce acrylamide in the required time. Kettle Foods will pay $350,000 in penalties and costs, while the much smaller Lance, Inc., will pay $95,000 in fees and costs.
The state also reached agreement with Heinz, Inc., the manufacturer of Ore-Ida frozen French fries and tater tots, which will pay $600,000 in penalties and costs and will change its fried potatoes to contain 50 percent less acrylamide.
Brown said he will work with the companies to find a way to effectively give consumers information about the acrylamide in their products, while at the same time preventing undue public alarm and unnecessary warning signs concerning foods that contain insignificant amounts of the chemical.
Read full from consumeraffairs
¶ 8/05/2008 05:29:00 AM 0 Comments
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Aug 4, 2008
Al Gore Hope To Escape Dying Planet
Young Gore sets out for his new home, where the sky is clear, the water is clean, and there are no Republicans.
Young Gore sets out for his new home, where the sky is clear, the water is clean, and there are no Republicans. EARTH—Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.
"I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen," said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. "They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn't they heed me before it was too late?"
Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity's hubristic folly.
"There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race,"
Read full From the onion
¶ 8/04/2008 06:41:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
UK in 'delusion' over global emissions
¶ 8/04/2008 02:03:00 AM 0 Comments
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The U.S. economy and population has expanded at a robust rate for any advanced economy while leading the world in emission reductions. But, the UK has been living under a delusion over its claim to be cutting greenhouse gases...
They show that instead of falling since the 1990s, UK greenhouse emissions have been growing in line with the economy.
This is dependent on emissions from aviation, shipping and imported goods being counted.
At the moment they are excluded under the internationally agreed system for carbon accounts.
They are a massive blow to the British government which claimed to have grasped the Holy Grail of climate policy - de-coupling economic growth from emissions growth.
The government has known about this for a very long time but has just refused to face up to it - Stuart Bond, WWF
The government has known about this for a very long time but has just refused to face up to it - Stuart Bond, WWF
An SEI report to be published shortly by the campaign group WWF will suggest that the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions are 49% higher than reported emissions.
And a recent little-noticed report for the government department Defra showed that rather than going down 5% as ministers claimed, CO2 emissions have gone up 18% between 1992 and 2004 when all emissions are counted.
This confirms, as BBC News pointed out last year, that the UK's apparently virtuous carbon cuts have only been achieved because we are getting countries like China to do our dirty work.
"The government has known about this for a very long time but has just refused to face up to it.
"There is no way the government can hope to achieve any of its emissions targets without cheating unless it changes its policies on encouraging flying and hoping to satisfy people's insatiable demands for buying more and more stuff."
"There's a very fundamental problem here that no-one really wants to talk about."
Aug 3, 2008
Doyle Says 'No' to Coal Plant: Cleaner Heat Wanted for State, UW Buildings
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gov. Jim Doyle announced Friday that the state will not permit a coal-fired heating plant for government and university buildings in downtown Madison. The decision is a reversal of the governor's previous support of power plants fueled by coal, including the new plants under construction in Oak Creek. Environmentalists hailed the move as a turning point in their battle to stop construction of coal-fired power plants, but a state Department of Administration spokeswoman ... Link
¶ 8/03/2008 06:09:00 AM 0 Comments
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Jul 28, 2008
What do they know Nuclear power? Little...
VIA - "Nuclear Bomb".
No nuclear power plants have been ordered in this country for three decades. Once touted as "too cheap to meter," nuclear power simply became "too costly to matter," as the Economist put it back in May 2001.¶ 7/28/2008 06:54:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Yet growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel plants has created a surge of new interest in nuclear. Wired magazine just proclaimed "Go nuclear" on its cover. Environmentalists like Stewart Brand and James Lovelock have begun embracing nukes as a core climate solution. And GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who has called for building hundreds of new nuclear plants in this country, recently announced he won't bother showing up to vote on his friend Joe Lieberman's climate bill because of insufficient subsidies (read "pork") for nuclear power.
What do they know that scores of utility executives and the Economist don't? Nothing, actually. Nuclear power still has so many problems that unless the federal government shovels tens of billions of dollars more in subsidies to the industry, and then shoves it down the throat of U.S. utilities and the public with mandates, it is unlikely to see a significant renaissance in this country. Nor is nuclear power likely to make up even 10 percent of the solution to the climate problem globally.
Why? In a word, cost. Many other technologies can deliver more low-carbon power at far less cost. As a 2003 MIT study, "The Future of Nuclear Energy," concluded: "The prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited" by many "unresolved problems," of which "high relative cost" is only one. Others include environment, safety and health issues, nuclear proliferation concerns, and the challenge of long-term waste management.
Since new nuclear power now costs more than double what the MIT report assumed -- three times what the Economist called "too costly to matter" -- let me focus solely on the unresolved problem of cost. While safety, proliferation and waste issues get most of the publicity, nuclear plants have become so expensive that cost overwhelms the other problems.
Einstein - cell phones can’t cause cancer.
CANCER: WHAT EINSTEIN KNEW ABOUT CELL PHONES.
By now everyone has heard the news frenzy over Ronald Herberman, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, advising faculty and staff to limit cell phone use because there is no proof that it's not a cancer risk. Nonsense! All cancer agents act by disrupting chemical bonds. In a classic 2001 op-ed LBL physicist Robert Cahn explained that Einstein won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that cell phones can't cause cancer. The threshold energy of the photoelectric effect, for which Einstein won the prize, lies at the extreme blue end of the visible spectrum in the near ultraviolet. The same near-ultraviolet rays can also cause skin cancer. Red light is too weak to cause cancer. Cell-phone radiation is 10,000 times weaker.
¶ 7/28/2008 06:37:00 AM 0 Comments
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By now everyone has heard the news frenzy over Ronald Herberman, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, advising faculty and staff to limit cell phone use because there is no proof that it's not a cancer risk. Nonsense! All cancer agents act by disrupting chemical bonds. In a classic 2001 op-ed LBL physicist Robert Cahn explained that Einstein won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that cell phones can't cause cancer. The threshold energy of the photoelectric effect, for which Einstein won the prize, lies at the extreme blue end of the visible spectrum in the near ultraviolet. The same near-ultraviolet rays can also cause skin cancer. Red light is too weak to cause cancer. Cell-phone radiation is 10,000 times weaker.
Jul 25, 2008
Battle to Save Lake Michigan Has Just Begun...
At a recent news conference and bill signing on the Lake Michigan shore near Saugatuck, Republicans and Democrats alike agreed that they had just saved the state’s water resources. The sentiment is wonderful, but that’s not what the legislation does.
More than 23 years after the signing of a regional pact to protect the Great Lakes and 10 years after a Canadian company proposed to capture and ship 50 freighters per year of Lake Superior water to Asia, Michigan politicians have just signed onto weak measures that will do as much harm as good.
After 10 years of effort, the Compact just consented to by Michigan specifically allows Great Lakes water to become a product – the direct opposite of what the public wanted. While proponents of the Compact say it bars major water exports, there’s a loophole – there is no limitation on the amount of water that can be removed and exported from the Great Lakes as long as it is done in containers of under 20 liters (5.7 gallons). And Michigan law specifically exempts packaged water from the ban on diversions.
Why this happened is less important than how to fix it. Most importantly, Michigan lawmakers need to know their job is far from done. It’s hardly begun. The state needs quickly to close the water-for-sale loophole. And if the Legislature and Governor won’t do it, the people should do it through a petition drive and referendum.
The alternative is more misleading news releases – and the slow draining of the Great Lakes for the benefit of a select few.
Read full By David Dempsey
¶ 7/25/2008 02:02:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
imbroglio - Pickens's plan
¶ 7/25/2008 01:56:00 AM 0 Comments
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While at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation conference in Ontario this past weekend, keynote speaker, the Discovery Institute's George Gilder, told what he thought of Pickens's plan, and he . . . well, was not impressed.
The word he used was "imbroglio."
I had to look it up: Pronounced - im·bro·glio
1: a confused mass
1: a confused mass
2 a: an intricate or complicated situation (as in a drama or novel)
b: an acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding
c: a violently confused or bitterly complicated altercation : embroilment
d: scandal 3a <survived the political imbroglio>
Yikes! What three syllable word did he use on Gore's plan?
A federal appeals court has upheld to regulate ballast water dumping into lakes
From David Dempsey A federal appeals court has upheld the authority of the Clean Water Act and U.S. EPA to regulate ballast water dumping into lakes. Meanwhile, two competing bills in Congress would mandate either EPA or the Coast Guard to take action on the problem. The bills have divided conservationists, some of whom doubt the Coast Guard can ever be expected to take strong action against the powerful shipping and port lobby.
¶ 7/25/2008 01:38:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Jul 24, 2008
"Fresh Scent May Hide Toxic Secret"
¶ 7/24/2008 01:33:00 AM 0 Comments
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"The scented fabric sheet makes your shirts and socks smell flowery fresh and clean. That plug-in air freshener fills your home with inviting fragrances of apple and cinnamon or a country garden. But those common household items are potentially exposing your family and friends to dangerous chemicals, a University of Washington study has found.
Trouble is, you have no way of knowing it. Manufacturers of detergents, laundry sheets and air fresheners aren't required to list all of their ingredients on their labels -- or anywhere else. Laws protecting people from indoor air pollution from consumer products are limited. When UW engineering professor Anne Steinemann analyzed of some of these popular items, she found 100 different volatile organic compounds measuring 300 parts per billion or more -- some of which can be cancerous or cause harm to respiratory, reproductive, neurological and other organ systems. Some of the chemicals are categorized as hazardous or toxic by federal regulatory agencies. But the labels tell a different story, naming only innocuous-sounding 'perfume' or 'biodegradable' contents."
Colbert Takes on Sierra Club and Environmentalism
On Monday, comedian Stephen Colbert had a fabulous interview with the Sierra Club's Carl Pope (h/t VIA Ecorazzi).
Enjoy:
Jul 23, 2008
Who needs coal when you can mine Earth's deep heat?
¶ 7/23/2008 01:33:00 AM 0 Comments
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SURROUNDED on all sides by desert, over 1000 kilometres from the nearest city, lies the tiny town of Innamincka, South Australia.
Innamincka has a permanent population of just 12, but each year up to 50,000 tourists swell their numbers, keen to experience the Australian outback, if not its lack of creature comforts. To keep these visitors cool, the tiny town runs up diesel bills of roughly $250,000 each year.
Come next January, however, the town could be powered for free, with electricity generated from heat mined from subterranean "hot rocks".
Conventional geothermal power taps hot water rising naturally to the surface from shallow beds of volcanic rock. By contrast, hot rock, or engineered geothermal systems, depend on heating water by circulating it through rock as far down as 5 kilometres, that has been shattered to make it porous. Source: newscientist
Most sunscreens ineffective or pose a health risk, says group
¶ 7/23/2008 01:22:00 AM 0 Comments
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Grist - Some 85 percent of 952 sunscreens tested are ineffective or contain potentially harmful chemicals, says this year's annual sunscreen review by the Environmental Working Group. Of 144 sunscreen products distributed by the top three leading brands -- Coppertone, Banana Boat, and Neutrogena -- only one meets EWG's criteria for safety and efficacy. The group raises especial alarm about common ingredient oxybenzone, which a handful of animal studies have linked to endocrine disruption. Some dermatologists accuse EWG's sun-protection rating system of lacking scientific rigor, but the group says it extensively reviewed medical literature on sunscreens and stands behind its data. If you're rushing out to buy one of the 28 sunscreens that fall under both the Effective and Low Hazard rubric, buy a hat too -- dermatologists stress that sunscreen without other sun-avoidance precautions may not have much of an effect on skin cancer.
USA is the Number One Biggest Wind Energy Producer
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) announced today that the USA has overcome Germany as the biggest generator of wind energy electricity in the first half of 2008. This milestone, which was not expected until the end of 2009, comes as a result of the higher average wind speeds in the USA, since Germany is still the leader in installed capacity....
¶ 7/23/2008 01:08:00 AM 0 Comments
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First U.S. Town Powered Completely By Wind
A map published by the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that northwest Missouri has the state's highest concentrations of wind resources and contains a number of locations that are potentially suitable for utility-scale wind development. The four turbines that power Rock Port are part of a larger set of 75 turbines across three counties that are used to harvest the power of wind.
¶ 7/23/2008 12:36:00 AM 0 Comments
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Rock Port, Mo., has an unusual crop: wind turbines.
The four turbines that supply electricity to the small town of 1,300 residents make it the first community in the United States to operate solely on wind power.
"We're farming the wind, which is something that we have up here," Crawford said. "The payback on a per-acre basis is generally quite good when compared to a lot of other crops, and it's as simple as getting a cup of coffee and watching the blades spin."
And the turbines have another benefit besides produces clean energy: MU Extension specialists said that the Missouri wind farms will bring in more than $1.1 million annually in county real estate taxes, to be paid by Wind Capital Group, a wind energy developer based in St. Louis.
"This is a unique situation because in rural areas it is quite uncommon to have this increase in taxation revenues,"
The turbines will also provide savings to rural electric companies and will provide electric service for at least 20 years, the anticipated lifetime of the turbines.
"Anybody who is currently using Rock Port utilities can expect no increase in rates for the next 15 to 20 years,"
Jul 22, 2008
VIDEO - conclusive proof of global warming
More conclusive proof of global warming
I find this even more compelling than “Revealing Evidence Proves Global Warming.”
I find this even more compelling than “Revealing Evidence Proves Global Warming.”
Labels: Global Warming or Just HotAir
¶ 7/22/2008 09:22:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Jul 21, 2008
Judge Allows Suit on Lead in Lipstick
¶ 7/21/2008 02:09:00 AM 0 Comments
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"Class action against a top manufacturer of women's perfumes and makeup has been given the green light to proceed in the United States. The legal action is against the major luxury goods company giant LVMH and concerns lipstick produced for Dior which has been found to contain unacceptably high levels of lead. Dior's Addict Positive Red lipstick apparently contains double the safe level of lead and is at the centre of the case but is by no means the only culprit. The high lead levels were revealed following scientific investigations in October last year on behalf of the U.S. consumer group The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics which tested 33 brand-name lipsticks and found two-thirds contained detectable levels of lead; of those, half were above the lead limit for lead in candy. ... A call by LVMH that the lawsuit filed against it in November be thrown out, has been rejected by a Chicago court, which now allows the case to proceed." The story appeared in Australia's News-Medical.net July 20, 2008.
Jul 20, 2008
POPULATION: U.S BIRTHS SET RECORD.
The U.S. population clock is at 304, 633,590, but the scary number is the growth rate, 4,315,000 births in 2007, more than double the number a century ago, and topping the number born in 1957 at the height of the post-war baby boom. ...birth rates for females ages 15 to 19 fell below rates for older women ages 35 to 39.
The biggest factor by far is immigration. The birth rate among Hispanic immigrants far outpaces the modest 2.1 average births per women. A decade ago, Hispanics made up 40 percent of the nation's increase in population. From 2000 to 2004, that number jumped to 49 percent. The ethnic group has more than three times the growth of the national population ...
Asian immigration now mirrors what Hispanic growth once was, with new immigrants coming from countries like India, China and the Philippines, Mr. Passel said. The Asian growth rate is a close second to the Hispanic rate and is also more than three times the growth of the national population.
Though immigration among Hispanics peaked about five years ago, it continues at a steady pace, Mr. Passel added. But Hispanic babies born in the United States now outnumber new immigrants. One in five children under 18 is Hispanic, according to census figures.
An estimated 41.3 million residents living in the United States legally or otherwise are Hispanic. Experts say younger voters may energize the Hispanic voting bloc, "As this population gets older, it will become a much more powerful political force," said Audrey Singer, an immigration fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Also from NY Times
¶ 7/20/2008 08:42:00 AM 0 Comments
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China will bring gasoline demand tsunami
¶ 7/20/2008 06:16:00 AM 0 Comments
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Beware of 900 million Chinese driving cars
"Since 2000, coal prices are up 400 percent, uranium is up 1,000 percent, natural gas is up 300 percent, and oil is up 600 percent," according to Jigar Shah, founder and chief strategy officer for SunEdison in Beltsville, Md.
"Since 2000, coal prices are up 400 percent, uranium is up 1,000 percent, natural gas is up 300 percent, and oil is up 600 percent," according to Jigar Shah, founder and chief strategy officer for SunEdison in Beltsville, Md.
I've given considerable thought to a lecture I heard 25 years ago given by Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Bartlett's hypothesis is simple: We are using fossil fuels at an exponential rate. He said that between 1950 and 1960, the world used as much fossil fuels as it did in all the previous years of civilization. According to him, the world's use of fossil fuels has doubled every decade, or so, since.
The professor predicted production of crude oil would peak in 2004 and then drop off rapidly until it's gone. I fear we're feeling the irreversible impacts of a world running out of gas that Bartlett anticipated.
It is estimated that there are 60 million cars on the road in China today. By the end of 2010, that number is expected to grow to 130 million cars and if the Chinese ever reach the ratio of one car for every 1.3 people that now exists in the United States, they will have 900 million cars on the road, according to Martin Calkins, of University of Massachusetts-Boston.
I'm willing to bet that by the time that happens, the Chinese will be driving electric cars because the world will be out of gas.
Jul 19, 2008
GORE plan- A bar too high, set up an inevitable failure.
¶ 7/19/2008 05:55:00 AM 0 Comments
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GRISTY ... the 10-year deadline seems a little insane. Gore's insistence on it's practicality is somewhat puzzling to me. But I certainly don't mind crazy goals. CNET wore its shock on its sleeve with Neal Dikeman's piece, "Is Al Gore Nuts?" Perhaps so -- that may not be such a bad thing -- but Dikeman does address the valid point that a goal too ambitious is likely to be forgotten:
That statement is about like challenging your 2 year old to finish college by the time she is 12. Not exactly practical, more than a little crazy, and likely to be either ignored, or if you push it, to cause lots of therapy sessions by the time she is 8.
A bar too high will set up an inevitable failure. But, is a failure of say 70 percent renewable electricity by 2020 all that bad? It's much more aggressive than the G8's half-off reduction.
California Uses More Gas Than China
California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California's 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China's! (Or Russia's. Or India's. Or Brazil's. Or Germany's.)
That's according to the California Energy Commission's State Alternative Fuels Plan, which was posted online last Christmas Eve (pdf). The whole report makes for some fascinating reading because it's a blueprint for a low-carbon and renewable transportation fuel future. The dominant takeaway: it ain't going to be easy.
One more choice statistic: gasoline usage in California has increased 50 percent, that's 10 6.7 billion gallons, since 1988. Has there been anything close to a commensurate increase in quality of life here to accompany that rise in energy use?
But China's oil thirst is growing -- to almost 20 billion gallons in 2007 -- and perhaps as early as this year, China's 1.3 billion people will overtake California's 37 million people in total gasoline and diesel usage.