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Recent News:
from Scientific American: Eternal Fascinations with the End: Why We're Suckers for Apocalyptic Endings You might think that the enterprise of science, with its method and its facts, would inoculate us against the most extravagant doomsday obsessions. But it doesn't. If anything, it just gives us more to worry about. Some of the most fervent and convincing doomsayers, after all, are scientists. Bill Joy, co-founder and former chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, has warned that of out-of-control nanobots could consume everything on earth. Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has publicly offered a bet that a biological catastrophe--accidental or intentional--will kill at least one million people by 2020 (so far, no takers). Numerous climatologists sound the alarm about the possibility of runaway global warming. They all stand on the shoulders of giants: British economist Thomas Malthus predicted in the 19th century that the rise in population would lead to widespread famine and catastrophe. It never happened, but that didn't stop Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich from renewing the warning in his 1968 book The Population Bomb when he predicted that global famine was less than two decades away. Catastrophe didn't arrive then, either, but does that mean it never will? Not necessarily. Still, people often worry disproportionately about disasters that are unlikely to occur.... Some researchers think that apocalyptic dread feeds off our collective anxiety about events that lie outside our individual control.... The desire to treat terrible events as the harbinger of the end of civilization itself also has roots in another human trait: vanity.... Our fears of the apocalypse may in the end mirror the most fundamental fear of all: fear of our own mortality.
from Jeffrey Sachs, in Scientific American: The Deepening Crisis: When Will We Face the Planet's Environmental Problems? During the four years of this column, the world's inability to face up to the reality of the growing environmental crisis has become even more palpable. Every major goal that international bodies have established for global environmental policy as of 2010 has been postponed, ignored or defeated. Sadly, this year will quite possibly become the warmest on record, yet another testimony to human-induced environmental catastrophes running out of control. This was to be the year of biodiversity. In 2002 nations pledged, under the auspices of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, to slow significantly the planetary loss of biodiversity by 2010. This goal was not even remotely achieved. Indeed, it was barely even noticed by Americans: the U.S. signed the convention in 1992 but never ratified it. Ratification fell victim to the uniquely American delusion that virtually all of nature should be subdivided into parcels of private property, within which owners should have their way.... The Senate, true to form, sustained its 18th year of inaction on global warming since ratifying the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.... Fifth, vested corporate interests have mastered the dark arts of propaganda, and they can use their deep pockets to purchase a sea of deliberate misinformation to deceive the public.
from New Scientist: For self-healing concrete, just add bacteria and food Like living bone, concrete could soon be healing its own hairline fractures - with bacteria in the role of osteoblast cells. Worked into the concrete from the beginning, these water-activated bacteria would munch food provided in the mix to patch up cracks and small holes. Concrete reinforced with steel forms the skeleton of many buildings and bridges. But any cracks in its gritty exterior make it vulnerable: "Water is the culprit for concrete because it enters the cracks and it brings aggressive chemicals with it," says Henk Jonkers of Delft University of Technology in Delft, the Netherlands. These chemicals degrade both concrete and steel.... To find bacteria that are happy in such an alkaline environment, Jonkers and his colleagues looked to soda lakes in Russia and Egypt where the pH of the water is naturally high - and found that some strains of Bacillus thrived there. Moreover, the bacteria can take on a dormant spore state for long periods - up to 50 years, according to Jonkers - without food or water. He compares them to seeds waiting for water to germinate. To keep the spores from activating in the wet concrete mix, and to keep them and their calcium lactate food from affecting the quality of the concrete, Jonkers and his colleagues first set both into ceramic pellets 2 to 4 millimetres wide and then added them to the concrete.
from Upshot: Noted anti-global-warming scientist reverses course With scientific data piling up showing that the world has reached its hottest-ever point in recorded history, global-warming skeptics are facing a high-profile defection from their ranks. Bjorn Lomborg, author of the influential tract "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has reversed course on the urgency of global warming, and is now calling for action on "a challenge humanity must confront." Lomborg, a Danish academic, had previously downplayed the risk of acute climate change. A former member of Greenpeace, he was a vocal critic of the Kyoto Protocol -- a global U.N. treaty to cut carbon emissions that the United States refused to ratify -- as well as numerous other environmental causes.
from Washington Post: Judge rejects Ken Cuccinelli's probe of U-Va. global warming records A Virginia judge on Monday dismissed a civil subpoena issued by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II to the University of Virginia that had sought documents related to the work of a global warming scientist and former university professor.... Cuccinelli, a vocal global warming skeptic who has contended that climate scientists have colluded to skew data, said he thinks that the documents are key to deciding whether to launch a fraud investigation into Mann's work. He said he plans to reissue the demand, crafting it with the judge's ruling in mind. He indicated that he might appeal portions of the ruling.
from New York Times: Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists' biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative. For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter. After years of legal entanglements arising from environmental messes and increased scrutiny of banks that finance the dirtiest industries, several large commercial lenders are taking a stand on industry practices that they regard as risky to their reputations and bottom lines.
from Discovery: 9 Essential Clothing Repair Skills - Make Your Clothes Last Longer! One of the best ways to buy less stuff is to buy fewer, but higher quality items, and to keep them in good repair. This is very true for clothing, and by learning a few simple skills, you can keep your clothes looking and fitting great, longer. These skills are also important to learn if you have kids -- the things they manage to do to clothes are just amazing sometimes. Save money, save your clothes -- here are nine simple skills to learn.
from New York Times: Pacific Hot Spells Shifting as Predicted in Human-Heated World Federal researchers have published work concluding that a particular variant of the periodic El Niño warmups of the tropical Pacific Ocean is becoming more frequent and stronger. The pattern appears to fit what is expected from human-driven warming of the global climate, said the researchers, Tong Lee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Michael McPhaden of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.... "The two threads of evidence together-from data and from computer models--suggest that climate change is affecting El Nino, rather than a natural variation in El Nino causing trends that may appear as if they are the result of man-made climate change. We can't be 100 percent certain that this interpretation is correct because the data are limited and the models are imperfect. But it provides us a plausible working hypothesis for further investigation into the nature and impacts of a changing face to El Nino."... "To add to that, some folks have suggested the possibility of natural variability in causing the warming (for example, we just happen to capture the rising part of a 60-year natural cycle). While that is possible, the so-called Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index that is used to characterize decadal and multi-decadal variability of the Pacific Ocean has not shown a significant increasing or decreasing three-decade trend from the 1980's to the 2000's (it's dominated by quasi-decadal fluctuation since 1980). So it's difficult to blame the El Niño change to PDO."
from Planet Green: Mobile Farm Trucks Bring the Produce to the People [I]t isn't surprising that some clever entrepreneurs are capitalizing on both trends by bringing farm fresh produce to those in both urban and rural areas. They are calling themselves Mobile Farm Trucks or Mobile Farmers' Markets, and they don't just cater to high-end shoppers, but provide low-income residents with affordable, fresh produce, grown using sustainable and/or organic methods. For example, in New York City, the Holton Farms Mobile Farm Truck has taken to the streets. Not a mobile farm stand, but a CSA on wheels. As they say on their site, "... The Farm Truck allows us access to neighborhoods throughout the Five Boroughs without having to open a store." The Farm Truck is run by sustainable farmers who partner with other farms and artisan producers to bring other products to its members including ice cream, cheeses, breads, coffee, grains, and soaps. They are still working on getting the appropriate permits to sell to non-CSA members and they are also accepting Food Stamps and discounting their prices by 20 percent for low-income New Yorkers.... Last year, Maine's Jordan Farm started a Mobile Farm Stand that travels to senior housing sites in South Portland and to Portland and Scarborough businesses. Using a renovated school bus, they offer the same fresh produce that is available at their farm stand in Cape Elizabeth. Like Holton Farms, Jordan's Farm uses sustainable farming practices, and also brings products from other producers in their area, including eggs, cream, butter, meat, cheese, pasta, honey, and maple syrup.
from New York Times: Enviro Groups Cheer as Scientist Bombards Atrazine Manufacturer With Profane E-Mails It sounds like fodder for a PR flap that might benefit the leading producer of the controversial herbicide atrazine: reams of explicit, taunting e-mails sent to company employees by a professor whose research on the health risks of their product had won nationwide notice.... Hayes' e-mails to Syngenta officials date to 2002, according to a 102-page file the atrazine manufacturer posted to its website to buttress an ethics complaint filed against the tenured biology professor last month. His communiques run the gamut from spoken-word poetry to music lyrics -- Phil Collins, Tupac Shakur and other artists are quoted -- to profane intimations of violence against Syngenta officials. The company's latest complaint furthers its long-simmering feud with Hayes, who has become an outspoken critic of atrazine after years-long research that found the weed killer disrupting the sexual development of frogs, in some cases turning male subjects into females. But the intensely personal clash over Hayes' e-mails, described by a Sygenta lawyer as "aggressive, unprofessional, and insulting," is failing to cut into his support from environmental and farmworker advocates who have helped amplify his warnings about the herbicide's human health risks.... "This is straight out of big tobacco's PR handbook," said Pesticide Action Network North America spokeswoman Heather Pilatic. "The news Syngenta is trying to distract people's attention from, as we're heading into the fall and the tail end of EPA's review, is that atrazine is a serious contaminant."... "I'm not offended by the term 'activist,'" Hayes said. "I am biased because I've seen the data. ... I'm biased in that I don't want [atrazine] in my water. Why shouldn't I make that research available to others?"
from Church of England, via Christian Ecology: Bellringing for Biodiversity, Sept. 22 Church bells across the country will ring in tune with the United Nations next month to mark crucial international talks on biodiversity. As the bells toll at the UN headquarters in both New York and Nairobi, bell ringers from small parish churches to large cathedrals and minsters are being encouraged to ring on September 22. 2010 is the UN's International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) and the Church of England is one of the official partners in the UK. The UN General Assembly will discuss for the first time ever the crisis affecting the world's biodiversity on September 22, underlining the importance of how plants, animals and life as we know it are all linked and the loss of one species through human actions can affect many others.... "Ringing the church bells is a great way for the wider community to be reminded and to celebrate the beauty of creation. Rural churches are at the heart of village life and their churchyards are part of the collective history and memory of that community. Celebrating the biodiversity of countryside and churchyard will bring a community together and ringing the bells is a very prominent way of doing it."
from ScienceDaily: Electricity Collected from the Air Could Become the Newest Alternative Energy Source But new evidence suggested that water in the atmosphere really does pick up an electrical charge. Galembeck and colleagues confirmed that idea, using laboratory experiments that simulated water's contact with dust particles in the air. They used tiny particles of silica and aluminum phosphate, both common airborne substances, showing that silica became more negatively charged in the presence of high humidity and aluminum phosphate became more positively charged. High humidity means high levels of water vapor in the air ― the vapor that condenses and becomes visible as "fog" on windows of air-conditioned cars and buildings on steamy summer days. "This was clear evidence that water in the atmosphere can accumulate electrical charges and transfer them to other materials it comes into contact with," Galembeck explained. "We are calling this 'hygroelectricity,' meaning 'humidity electricity'."... These are fascinating ideas that new studies by ourselves and by other scientific teams suggest are now possible," Galembeck said. "We certainly have a long way to go. But the benefits in the long range of harnessing hygroelectricity could be substantial."
from Guardian: British Gas launches solar panels scheme with '1000 pounds a year profit' claim More than 12 million homeowners would be in line to save up to 1,000 pounds a year, should they install solar panels, says British Gas. The utility firm is the latest in a host of companies offering to install electricity-generating systems on homes to take advantage of a government scheme that pays the owners of solar panels for the 'renewable' electricity they generate. The sudden allure of solar power is less to do with planet-saving and more to do with companies or individuals banking the lucrative feed-in-tariffs (Fits) for every unit of electricity generated - currently 41.3p per KWh, irrespective of whether you consume the power at the time or not. British Gas says the Fits payments can be worth 1,000 pounds per annum, though with export tariffs (for power not used) added, they can be worth even more. They are guaranteed by the government for 25 years, are payable via the utility company, and will rise in line with inflation. British Gas has entered the market with the launch of two schemes. If you opt for its "rent-a-roof" scheme, it will install solar panels on your roof for free and you will benefit from the electricity you generate during the day. The installation is free but you will not own the panels and so British Gas will pocket the Fits cash for the length of the scheme - 25 years. The rent-a-roof deal is limited to the first 1,500 British Gas customers who apply. Alternatively, you can install your own solar panels and British Gas will offer you a two-year interest-free loan, supplied by Hitachi Capital, with which to borrow the upfront costs. You will receive the feed-in-tariffs as well as benefit from the generation of cheaper power. BG says the upfront cost generally ranges from 10,000 pounds to 15,000 pounds depending on the size of the roof.
from New Scientist: Pee is for power: Your electrifying excretions Urine might not pack the punch of rocket fuel, but what it lacks in energy density it makes up for in sheer quantity. It is one of the most abundant waste materials on Earth, with nearly 7 billion people producing roughly 10 billion litres of it every day. Add animals into the mix and this quantity is multiplied several times over. As things stand, this flood of waste poses a problem. Let it run into the water system and it would wipe out entire ecosystems; yet scrubbing it out of waste water costs money and energy. In the US, for instance, waste water treatment plants consume 1.5 per cent of all the electricity the country generates. So wouldn't it be nice if, instead of being a vast energy consumer, urine could be put to use. That thought occurred to Gerardine Botte, a chemical engineer at Ohio University in Athens, during a discussion in 2002 with colleagues about possible sources of hydrogen for use in fuel cells.
from New Scientist: Biosemiotics: Searching for meanings in a meadow Biology, of course, already concerns itself with information: cell signalling, the genetic code, pheromones and human language, for example. What biosemiotics aims to do is to weave these disparate strands into a single coherent theory of biological meaning.... "Biosemiotics", then, might sound like the name of some arcane mix of biological science and linguistic philosophy. Luckily, though, the true message of biosemiotics is clear: we may do better to stop thinking about the biological world solely in terms of its physical and chemical properties, but see it also as a world made up of biological signs and "meanings".... For von Uexküll, both views were wrong. Each creature in the meadow lived in "its own world filled with the perceptions which it alone knows", and it was in accordance with that experiential world - and not the entirety of the whole, unseen but physically existing world - that the creature had to coordinate its actions to eat, flee, mate and sustain itself.... [Pierce] saw logic as a formal doctrine of signs, and his theory of signs is important in modern biosemiotics. Most of us naively conceive of a "sign" as standing for something concrete: a red traffic light for most of us simply means "stop". In other words, the two things - a sign and its meaning - are directly connected in a sign relationship. Peirce, however, saw a sign as representing a relation between three things.
from ACS, via EurekAlert: Self-cleaning technology from Mars can keep terrestrial solar panels dust free Imagine keeping dust and grime off objects spread out over an area of 25 to 50 football fields. That's the problem facing companies that deploy large-scale solar power installations, and scientists today presented the development of one solution -- self-dusting solar panels ― based on technology developed for space missions to Mars. In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they described how a self-cleaning coating on the surface of solar cells could increase the efficiency of producing electricity from sunlight and reduce maintenance costs for large-scale solar installations.... The self-cleaning technology involves deposition of a transparent, electrically sensitive material deposited on glass or a transparent plastic sheet covering the panels. Sensors monitor dust levels on the surface of the panel and energize the material when dust concentration reaches a critical level. The electric charge sends a dust-repelling wave cascading over the surface of the material, lifting away the dust and transporting it off of the screen's edges. Mazumder said that within two minutes, the process removes about 90 percent of the dust deposited on a solar panel and requires only a small amount of the electricity generated by the panel for cleaning operations.
from PhysOrg: Solar-powered toothbrush doesn't require toothpaste Researchers have designed a toothbrush that cleans teeth by creating a solar-powered chemical reaction in the mouth, doing away with the need for toothpaste. Dr. Kunio Komiyama, a dentistry professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, designed the first model of the unconventional toothbrush 15 years ago. Today, Komiyama and his colleague Dr. Gerry Uswak are seeking recruits to test their newest model, the Soladey-J3X. The toothbrush, which is manufactured by the Shiken company of Japan, will soon be tested by 120 teenagers to see how it compares to a normal toothbrush. The Soladey-J3X has a solar panel at its base that transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire. The electrons react with acid in the mouth, creating a chemical reaction that breaks down plaque and kills bacteria. The toothbrush requires no toothpaste, and can operate with about the same amount of light as needed by a solar-powered calculator. The researchers have already tested the toothbrush in cultures of bacteria that cause periodontal disease, and demonstrated that the brush causes "complete destruction of bacterial cells," Komiyama said. Last month, the researchers presented their research at the FDI Annual World Dental Conference in Dubai, where their poster won first prize out of 170 entries.
from Guardian: Rwanda harnesses volcanic gases from depths of Lake Kivu In a world first, the barge is extracting gases that are trapped deep in Lake Kivu's waters like the fizz in a champagne bottle. Methane, the main constituent of natural gas used for household cooking and heating, is then separated out and piped back to the rugged shore where it fires three large generators. The state-owned Kibuye Power plant is already producing 3.6MW of electricity, more than 4 percent of the country's entire supply. But the success of the pilot project, and the huge unmet demand for power in Rwanda -- only one in 14 homes have access to electricity -- has encouraged local and foreign investors to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to new methane plants along the lakeshore. Within two years, the government hopes to be getting a third of its power from Lake Kivu, and eventually aims to produce so much energy from methane to be able to export it to neighbouring countries. "Our grandfathers knew there was gas in this lake but now have we proved that it can be exploited," said Alexis Kabuto, the Rwandan engineer who runs the $20m Kibuye project. "It's a cheap, clean resource that could last us 100 years."
from BusinessGreen: Scientists brew up powerful whisky biofuel Biofuels made from whisky by-products could be available on Scottish roads within a few years after a team of researchers at Edinburgh Napier's Biofuel Research Centre this week filed for a patent for the new fuel. The team, which is now planning to form a spin-off company to commercialise the fuel, used pot ale waste liquid and spent grains known as draff from Diageo's Glenkinchie Distillery to develop a method of producing butanol. The researchers said the resulting biobutanol produces 30 per cent more output power than ethanol and can be used by conventional cars without any changes to the engine. They also predicted that the fuel will have minimal impact on the environment compared to first generation biofuels made from energy crops as it will draw on the 1,600 million litres of pot ale and 187,000 tonnes of draff produced by the Scottish malt whisky industry each year.
from Reuters: World 2009 CO2 emissions down 1.3 percent Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2009 fell 1.3 percent to 31.3 billion tonnes in the first year-on-year decline in this decade, German renewable energy institute IWR said on Friday. The Muenster-based institute, which advises German ministries, cited the global economic crisis and rising investments in renewable energies for the fall in emissions.... China in 2009 was in top position with 7.43 billion tonnes after 6.81 billion in 2008, followed by the U.S. with 5.95 billion (6.37 billion 2008). Russia was in third position, just before India, and followed by Japan. Global investments in solar and wind power were helped by lower equipment costs as the crisis led to price cuts, IWR said. But it reiterated its earlier suggestions that, in order to put brakes on the rising fossil fuels usage and to stabilize global CO2, it recommends that global annual spending on renewables be quadrupled to 500 billion euros ($644.2 billion). Global CO2 emissions are still 37 percent above those in 1990, the basis year for the Kyoto Climate Protocol.
from Yale360: Low-Cost Solar Array Developed for Residential Installation A Seattle-based company says that it has developed an inexpensive do-it-yourself solar power technology that will enable homeowners to install solar panels on their roofs and then connect them to their power supply by simply plugging a cord into a regular electrical outlet. The company, Clarian Power, is touting its Sunfish system -- with prices beginning at $799 -- as a major advance in reducing the high cost of installing home solar power systems, which typically start at $10,000. Clarian says its Sunfish system does not require a dedicated control panel and has built-in circuit protection, and thus does not require an electrician for installation. Users would mount up to five solar panels anywhere on the house, and plug the device into any outlet. The system is Wi-Fi enabled, enabling users to monitor the performance with online software such as the Google PowerMeter. The largest module will be able to generate 150 kilowatt hours per month, company officials say, so it would take five to six modules to produce the roughly 900 kilowatts used by an average American home.
from New York Times: Portugal on track for 45 percent renewable energy this year Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal's dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects -- primarily harnessing the country's wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves. Today, Lisbon's trendy bars, Porto's factories and the Algarve's glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal's grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago. Land-based wind power -- this year deemed "potentially competitive" with fossil fuels by the International Energy Agency in Paris -- has expanded sevenfold in that time. And Portugal expects in 2011 to become the first country to inaugurate a national network of charging stations for electric cars.
from ApocaDocs: ApocaDocs implements time machine: 'Today, one year ago, two years ago' Travel through time to an earlier, but no less toxic era. Remember back when humans thought weather extremes were random? When we still imagined that oil spills could be controlled? When we were in such a fevered state of hope and change that it seemed we might actually discover a new way of living? The ApocaDocs time machine: just below the search box on the home page.
from Telegraph.co.uk: Price of red meat likely to push more people towards fish and vegetarian diet Fish is likely to become a larger part of the British diet because it is one of the few foodstuffs that has fallen in price in recent years, research suggests. The price of fish has fallen by eight per cent over the past three years as the cost of meat has surged by 10 per cent. The trend reflects the high price of grain and fossil fuels, which are needed to raise pigs and cattle. In comparison, fishing the oceans requires no feed input and less fuel. Health and environmental concerns are also contributing to the changing consumption patterns. A newly published retail index shows fish is one of the few grocery products that has become cheaper. The price of staples such as bread and eggs increased by 18 per cent since 2007 and tea is up 30 per cent, according to figures compiled by price comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk.
from Reuters: FDA OKs new "morning-after" pill Health officials on Friday approved a new, longer-lasting "morning-after" pill to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. The prescription drug, called ella, is made by French company HRA Pharma and will be sold in the United States by Watson Pharmaceuticals. It is the first emergency contraceptive approved since a five-year battle under the Bush administration ended with limited over-the-counter sales and age checks by pharmacists for a rival pill. Ella has been shown to prevent pregnancy for up to five days after unprotected sex.
from Marketplace: A green way to dispose human remains ...Cutting carbon emissions, greenhouse gasses, has become a goal that reaches into every corner of life. And now, it seems, death. Six states in this country have approved a new, low-carbon way to dispose of human remains. Resomation is being offered as an alternative to cremation -- reducing the body to a mixture of liquid and minerals...The process was developed by a Scottish firm. With zero carbon emissions and using seven times less energy than cremation, this... would make for the greenest of funerals...but many people recoil from it for other reasons. Resomation produces a kind of powder, which can be tastefully placed in an urn and given to the bereaved. But it also leaves a fluid -- and that, it has been suggested, might be washed down the drain.
from McClatchy Newspapers: EPA requires cleanup of mercury from cement plants The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced the nation's first limits on mercury emissions from cement plants. The decision also will require reductions of other harmful pollutants from cement plants, including soot, also known as particle pollution, which is linked to asthma, heart attacks and premature deaths for people with heart and lung diseases. The rules are part of a broader EPA air-cleanup plan. Next year the agency will put the first nationwide controls on mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from a much larger source, coal-fired power plants. The federal government presently doesn't require power plants to control mercury and other toxics. Coal-fired power plants are the source of 51 percent of the manmade mercury emissions in the U.S, followed by industrial and other boilers, at 15 percent. Cement kilns are third, with 7 percent, according to the EPA.
from SciDev.net: Scientists reject aerosol geoengineering Geoengineering schemes that could help some countries deal with global warming could have the opposite effect in others, according to a study.... Previous studies only examined a small number of scenarios for [Solar Radiation Management (SRM)] and did not look at how those impacts would differ on regional level. But a study published in the August issue of Nature Geoscience examined the effects of 54 different approaches to deflecting solar radiation on 23 macro-regions of the world and found that the impacts of SRM could vary at regional levels. Pumping aerosols into the atmosphere, for example, would have different effects on climate in China and India. The differences would grow with time, posing challenges to international governance of such interventions. The analysis showed that while a given action could restore climate in both countries to the baseline before man-made global warming, by the 2070s, the strategies needed to achieve the same results in different countries would conflict with each other.
from LiveScience: Rare Coral Discovered in Pacific Ocean What could be the world's rarest coral has been discovered in the remote North Pacific Ocean. The Pacific elkhorn coral (Acropora rotumana) - with branches like an elk's antlers - was found during an underwater survey of the Arno atoll in the Marshall Islands. Corals are tiny creatures that live in skeleton-covered colonies, creating the illusion that a coral community is one single organism. This newfound coral colony may be the first time this species has been spotted in more than 100 years, according to researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) in Queensland, Australia.
from Bill McKibben, in TomDispatch: We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any More I'm a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.... The task at hand is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone -- beginning with the president -- to start explaining that basic fact at every turn.... Step two, we have to ask for what we actually need, not what we calculate we might possibly be able to get. If we're going to slow global warming in the very short time available to us, then we don't actually need an incredibly complicated legislative scheme that gives door prizes to every interested industry and turns the whole operation over to Goldman Sachs to run. We need a stiff price on carbon, set by the scientific understanding that we can't still be burning black rocks a couple of decades hence.... That undoubtedly means upending the future business plans of Exxon and BP, Peabody Coal and Duke Energy, not to speak of everyone else who's made a fortune by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer for the byproducts of their main business. Instead they should pay through the nose for that sewer, and here's the crucial thing: most of the money raised in the process should be returned directly to American pockets.... Which leads to the third step in this process. If we're going to get any of this done, we're going to need a movement, the one thing we haven't had.
from Guardian: Ecuador signs $3.6bn deal not to exploit oil-rich Amazon reserve Ecuador, home of the Galapagos Islands, the Andes mountain range and vast tracts of oil-rich rainforest, yesterday asked the world for $3.6bn not to exploit the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha oil block in the Yasuni national park. A knockdown price, it said, considering the oil alone is worth more than $7bn at today's prices. The 407m tonnes of CO2 that would be generated by burning it could sell for over $5bn in the global carbon markets. But neither the oil block nor the park is for sale, and under the terms of a unique, legally binding trust fund set up yesterday by the government and the UN, the oil and the timber in Yasuni will never be exploited. Instead, donor countries, philanthropists and individuals around the world are being invited to pay the money in return for a non-exploitation guarantee.... Conservation groups have been staggered by the biological riches in the park, which is situated at the intersection of the Amazon, the Andes and the equator. It was recently found to have 650 species of tree and shrub within a single hectare - the highest number in the world and more than in the whole of north America. In addition, it has more than 20 threatened mammal species, including, jaguars, otters and monkeys, and several hundred bird species.
from Telegraph.co.uk: What Lies Beneath The Sea: Census of Marine Life The Census of Marine Life also points to the effect of so-called "alien species" being found in many of the world's marine ecosystems. The Mediterranean has the largest number of invasive species - most of them having migrated through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. So far, more than 600 invasive species have been counted, almost 5 per cent of the total marine creatures in the Mediterranean. Those annoying jellyfish on the Spanish holiday beaches may be sending us a message, or at least a warning. In recent years there have been other jellyfish "invasions". In 2007, 100,000 fish at Northern Ireland's only salmon farm were killed by the same "mauve stingers" that are affecting the Spanish beaches. The swarming jellies covered 10 square miles of water. In 2005, and again last year, Japanese fishermen battled swarms of giant Nomura jellyfish, each measuring six feet across and weighing 200kg. Once seen infrequently, they now regularly swarm across the Yellow Sea, making it impossible for Japanese boats to deploy their nets. One fishing boat capsized after the jellyfish became entangled in its nets. There is evidence that the global jellyfish invasion is gathering pace. As Mediterranean turtles lose their nesting sites to beach developments, or die in fishing nets, and the vanishing population of other large predators such as bluefin tuna are fished out, their prey is doing what nature does best: filling a void. Smaller, more numerous species like the jellyfish are flourishing and plugging the gap left by animals higher up the food chain. According to the Spanish environment ministry: "Jellyfish blooms have been increasing in recent years, and one of the suggested causes is the decline in natural predators - as well as climate change and pollution from land-based sources."
from American Society of Agronomy, via EurekAlert: Is biochar the answer for ag? Scientists demonstrate that biochar, a type charcoal applied to soils in order to capture and store carbon, can reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and inorganic nitrogen runoff from agriculture settings. The finding will help develop strategies and technologies to reduce soil nitrous oxide emissions and reduce agriculture's influence on climate change.... The study revealed for the first time that interactions between biochar and soil that occur over time are important when assessing the influence of biochar on nitrogen losses from soil. The scientists subjected soils samples to three wetting-drying cycles, to simulate a range of soil moistures during the five-month study period, and measured nitrous oxide emissions and nitrogen runoff. Initially, biochar application produced inconsistent effects. Several early samples produced greater nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching than the control samples. However, during the third wetting-drying cycle, four months after biochar application, all biochars reduced nitrous oxide emissions by up to 73 percent, and reduced ammonium leaching by up to 94 percent. The researchers suggest that reductions in nitrous oxide emissions and nitrogen leaching over time were due to "ageing" of the biochars in soil.
from Wired Science: Controlling Soot Might Quickly Reverse a Century of Global Warming "Soot has such a strong climate effect, but it has a lifetime in the atmosphere of just a few weeks. Carbon dioxide has a lifetime of 30 to 50 years. If you totally stop CO2 emissions today, the Arctic will still be totally melted," said Stanford University climate scientist Mark Jacobson. If soot pollution is immediately curtailed, "the reductions start to occur pretty much right away. Within months, you'll start seeing temperature differences."... Soot comes from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and also from the burning of wood or dung for fuel. Crop residue and forest-burning are another major source. When aloft, the dark particles absorb sunlight, raising local temperatures and causing rain clouds to form, which in turn deprive other areas of moisture. When soot lands on snow or ice, its effects are magnified, because melts reveal fresh patches of heat-absorbing dark ground. In 2003, a NASA simulation blamed soot for 25 percent of the past century's observed warming. A study last year suggested that soot was responsible for almost half of a 3.4-degree Fahrenheit rise in average Arctic temperatures since 1890 -- a greater rise than anywhere else on Earth. Soot also appears to be a culprit in drastic melts of Himalayan glaciers which provide water to much of South Asia, and in disrupting the monsoon cycles on which the region's farmers rely. The United Nations puts the soot-related death toll at 1.5 million people annually. ... If soot disappeared overnight, average global temperatures would drop within 15 years by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, maybe a little more. "It's low-hanging fruit," said Jacobsen. "It's straightforward to address, and it can be addressed."
from AP, via PhysOrg: Cleanup of Mich. river oil spill will take months Officials investigating the cause of a huge oil spill along a major river in southern Michigan say it will take months to clean up the mess, and damage to wetlands and wildlife may last considerably longer.... EPA chief Lisa Jackson said she was "very confident" the oil would not reach Lake Michigan, where the river empties about 80 miles from where the spill has been contained.... Federal and company officials said they were close to reaching the 40-foot section of pipe containing the break, which has been inaccessible because it's in a marshy, oil-covered area. Only when the pipe is reached will it be certain that the leak has stopped, said Ralph Dollhopf, EPA's on-scene coordinator.... The bigger problems for fish may come within a week or so, if the oil spill results in decreased water oxygen levels. Wesley said insects, algae, frogs and turtles along the river have been killed in high numbers - which could hurt the fish food supply. "The effects are probably going to be more long-term," Wesley said. "We probably won't know the full effects for weeks or months or years."
from Reuters, via Scientific American: EPA denies challenges to greenhouse gas rule The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected 10 petitions challenging EPA's 2009 finding that climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and the environment. The EPA received petitions questioning the scientific basis for the so-called endangerment finding -- which cleared the way for the EPA to curb carbon dioxide emissions -- from Texas and Virginia and groups like the Ohio Coal Association.... "The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. "These petitions -- based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy -- provide no evidence to undermine our determination."
from ACS, via EurekAlert: The fungus among us: A new way of decomposing BPA-containing plastic Just as cooking helps people digest food, pretreating polycarbonate plastic -- source of a huge environmental headache because of its bisphenol A (BPA) content -- may be the key to disposing of the waste in an eco-friendly way, scientists have found. Their new study is in ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. Mukesh Doble and Trishul Artham note that manufacturers produce about 2.7 million tons of plastic containing BPA each year. Polycarbonate is an extremely recalcitrant plastic, used in everything from screwdriver handles to eyeglass lenses, DVDs, and CDs. Some studies have suggested that the BPA may have a range of adverse health effects, sparking the search for an environmentally safe way of disposing of waste plastic to avoid release of BPA. The scientists pretreated polycarbonate with ultraviolet light and heat and exposed it to three kinds of fungi -- including the fabled white-rot fungus, used commercially for environmental remediation of the toughest pollutants. The scientists found that fungi grew better on pretreated plastic, using its BPA and other ingredients as a source of energy and breaking down the plastic. After 12 months, there was almost no decomposition of the untreated plastic, compared to substantial decomposition of the pretreated plastic, with no release of BPA.
from Reuters: Toxic fish could help Obama hit 2020 climate goal A proposed rule on mercury, a pollutant bad for fish and the people who eat too many of them, could help the Obama administration get near its short-term climate goal -- even if Congress fails this year or next to pass a bill tackling greenhouse gases directly... The EPA has begun to take steps on regulating greenhouse gases from autos, power plants and factories. But it is the agency's looming rules on mainstream pollutants, those that can cause diseases, that may limit carbon dioxide emissions the most.
from Scientific American: Gee Whiz: Human Urine Is Shown to Be an Effective Agricultural Fertilizer ...environmental scientists at the University of Kuopio in Finland, grew the beets as an experiment in sustainable fertilization. They nourished the root vegetables with a combination of urine and wood ash, which they found worked as well as traditional mineral fertilizer... Urine is chock full of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, which are the nutrients plants need to thrive--and the main ingredients in common mineral fertilizers. There is, of course, a steady supply of this man-made plant food: an adult on a typical Western diet urinates about 500 liters a year, enough to fill three standard bathtubs. And despite the gross-out potential, urine is practically sterile when it leaves the body....
from Science Daily: Graphene Organic Photovoltaics: Flexible Material Only a Few Atoms Thick May Offer Cheap Solar Power A University of Southern California team has produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that the researchers say have great potential for a new breed of solar cells. "Organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells have been proposed as a means to achieve low cost energy due to their ease of manufacture, light weight, and compatibility with flexible substrates," wrote Chongwu Zhou, a professor of electrical engineering in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, in a paper recently published in the journal ACS Nano.... But what graphene OPVs lack in efficiency, they can potentially more than make [up] for in lower price and, greater physical flexibility. Gomez De Arco thinks that it may eventually be possible to run printing presses laying extensive areas covered with inexpensive solar cells, much like newspaper presses print newspapers. "They could be hung as curtains in homes or even made into fabric and be worn as power generating clothing. I can imagine people powering their cellular phone or music/video device while jogging in the sun," he said.
from FECYT, via EurekAlert: CO2 reduction policies in Spain strengthen the services sector A study by the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) has analysed the expected economic impact in Spain of the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) set by the Kyoto Protocol for the period 2008-2012 and for the phase afterwards or post-Kyoto phase. In addition, the services sector will come out on top in comparison to sectors such as industrial or energy sectors. "CO2 restriction policies in Spain have an impact on the economy, in other words, making it lean more towards an economy of services. The weight of the industry and energy sectors is reduced, and this is due to the fact that there is a change in production and consumption patterns resulting from CO2 which will come at a price", Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino, author of the study and researcher for BC3 explains to SINC.... "The conclusion is that if technology evolves following the current trend the best option is above all to reduce emissions rather than postpone it in time because the difference in costs is relatively insignificant. However, if technology evolves in a more radical way and in the short-term, for example, with new batteries to produce electric cars that are much cheaper than the current ones or substantial advances arise in renewable energy to replace other technology, it would be more profitable to delay the reduction of emissions.
from Environmental Health News: New membrane makes fresh water from sea and sewage feasible Researchers at Yale University have developed a custom membrane that can clean and purify water from oceans, salty ground water or sewage water with far less energy input than currently is required to do a similar job. The membrane may be a big step forward in reaching the goal of reliable and affordable sources of fresh water. Finding sustainable sources of clean drinking water is a major global challenge, especially in most of the developing world. The need is apparent in both urban areas, due to growing population and demand, and rural regions, where sometimes scarce water supplies are quickly drying up. As fresh water becomes more scarce, desalination and filtering will be increasingly necessary to satisfy the world's unquenchable thirst for this precious commodity. Yet, neither of the existing desalination technologies -- distilling sea water water vapors by boiling then collecting the water vapors or reverse osmosis where water is pushed through membranes to filter the salt -- are feasible on a large scale. Both require high amounts of energy to either boil the water or create pressure.
from London Independent: Curry spices for cows and sheep could cut methane emissions Curry spices could hold the key to reducing the enormous greenhouse gas emissions given off by grazing animals such as sheep, cows and goats, scientists have claimed. Research carried out at Newcastle University has found that coriander and turmeric -- spices traditionally used to flavour curries -- can reduce by up to 40 per cent the amount of methane that is produced by bacteria in a sheep's stomach and then emitted into the atmosphere when the animal burps. Working rather like an anti-biotic, the spices were found to kill the methane-producing "bad" bacteria in the animal's gut while allowing the "good" bacteria to flourish.
from Chicago Tribune: Meat with antibiotics off the menu at some hospitals The evening's menu featured grass-fed, antibiotic-free beef over pasta, fresh seasonal vegetables and fresh organic peaches -- items right at home in the city's finest restaurants. Instead, the dishes were prepared for visitors, staff and bed-bound patients at Swedish Covenant Hospital. The Northwest Side hospital is one of 300 across the nation that have pledged to improve the quality and sustainability of the food they serve, not just for the health of their patients but, they say, the health of the environment and the U.S. population.
from The Daily Climate: New conservation model emerges in Canada's boreal The scale of the conservation effort is staggering: 470,000 square miles - half the size of the Louisiana Purchase, five times the size of the U.S. national park system - forever shielded from logging, mining and damming. It is part of an ongoing and unprecedented drive to protect Canada's northern boreal forests, peat bogs, wetlands and tundra - a drive that is also changing how land managers view their stewardship, civic leaders approach economic growth and companies view their bottom line. And for the first time, some of the protections have a climate component. "It's our gift to future generations," said Alan Latourelle, chief executive officer of Parks Canada, the agency managing the nation's parks, which is in the process of doubling their size. "We're the last generation that can do that."
from New York Times: Rethinking the Measure of Growth ...Gross domestic product has come in for some particularly hard knocks since the global financial crisis, notably after a report last year whose co-author was Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, that said reliance on gross domestic product had blinded governments to the increasing risks in the world economy since 2004. Overlooking that risk has possibly cost future economic growth, the report said, and has contributed to a looming environmental crisis. "Market prices are distorted by the fact that there is no charge imposed on carbon emissions," the report said. "Clearly, measures of economic performance that reflected these environmental costs might look markedly different from standard measures."
from London Independent: Waste Britain: UK's emissions could be cut at flick of a switch Simple measures such as turning electrical appliances off at the mains and installing energy-efficient lightbulbs could slash the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 megatonnes a year, or up to one third, according to new research which says that cutting electricity consumption is up to 60 per cent more effective than previously thought. Such basic lifestyle changes would be the equivalent of removing about 10 large gas-fired power stations from operation.
from University of Colorado at Boulder via ScienceDaily: Sea Levels Rising in Parts of Indian Ocean; Greenhouse Gases Play Role, Study Finds Newly detected rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean, including the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, appear to be at least partly a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases, says a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. The study, which combined sea surface measurements going back to the 1960s and satellite observations, indicates anthropogenic climate warming likely is amplifying regional sea rise changes in parts of the Indian Ocean, threatening inhabitants of some coastal areas and islands, said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Weiqing Han, lead study author. The sea level rise -- which may aggravate monsoon flooding in Bangladesh and India -- could have far-reaching impacts on both future regional and global climate.
from IRIN: Look beyond "cost-benefit" analysis in adaptation You can put a price tag on the cost of building a dyke to protect people from sea-level rise brought on by climate change, but not on how they will benefit from it, say the co-authors of a new paper calling on countries not to restrict themselves to cost-benefit analysis.... Quantitative cost-benefit analysis is "information-intensive", making it expensive to use in small-scale projects, so planners at community level usually do not use it. Besides, "Some development NGOs take the view that the local people should usually decide themselves what they want to invest in, using their own criteria," said Berger and Chambwera.... "The problem is that in our society the language with the most weight is that of money, so there will always be pressure to reduce the complexity of decision-making to tallying up the costs and benefits in some oversimplified currency metric."
from Chemical and Engineering News: Power From Entropy During lectures, Bert Hamelers displays two photos side by side: One is of the Hoover Dam, a thundering cascade of water. The other is of the River Rhine flowing gently into the North Sea. It might not seem intuitive, but each system has comparable power-generating capacity, says Hamelers, an assistant professor at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. The Hoover Dam already generates enormous amounts of hydroelectricity every day. Scientists could extract just as much power by harnessing the entropy created when the Rhine's fresh waters mix with salty waters, he says. In Environmental Science and Technology (DOI: 10.1021/es100852a), Hamelers and colleagues introduce a new technology to convert into electricity the entropy created when two solutions of different salt concentrations come together.
from New York Times: Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon? As a climate change prevention strategy, carbon capture and storage is nowhere near ready for prime time. On the storage side of the equation, major questions remain on how and where to sequester the billions of tons of gas produced by power plants and industry every year. Another stumbling block, known as the parasitic energy cost, is the amount of energy needed to strip carbon out of power plant emissions. Carbon capture technologies being tested today, like amine scrubbing, exact an energy penalty as high as 30 percent, a vast and perhaps untenable expense to utilities and society. Yet a breakthrough in chemistry may be able to radically reduce the cost of stripping carbon from power plant emissions, potentially making carbon capture and storage a far more realistic climate change solution. That is the hope, at least, of researchers studying a remarkable class of materials called metal-organic frameworks.... A single gram, unfolded and flattened, could cover a football field. And most promisingly, these crystals can be adjusted to absorb specific molecules like carbon dioxide.... "We think we can modify the surface so it will cause just the carbon dioxide to stick," Dr. Long said in an interview. "It would be a sort of carbon-dioxide selective sponge."
from SolveClimate: IEA: $46 Trillion Roadmap for Halving Global Emissions a "Bargain" Memo to the planet from the International Energy Agency: Buckle down and speed up the nascent low-carbon revolution. Top thinkers from the energy watchdog presented an ambitious 40-year pathway to halve the world's carbon emissions during a Thursday rollout at the National Press Club. Indeed, weaning the globe of its fossil fuel dependency will require ingenuity, cooperation and tens of trillions of dollars. But IEA maintains that bumping up investments in renewables, nuclear power and a smart electric grid, and perfecting technologies such as carbon sequestration are the most reasonable and reachable course available to keep Earth's temperature stable and arrest the severe impacts climate scientists agree are imminent--and already occurring.... In addition, the plan counts on the rather rapid maturation of a technology still in the test phases--carbon capture and sequestration. The catch is that IEA's proposal calls for constructing 30 new nuclear plants and outfitting 35 coal-fired plants with the technology to capture carbon emissions and bury them underground every year through 2050.
from Guardian: Green tech investment surges Global venture capital investment in green technology companies reached $4.04 billion in the first half of 2010, exceeding -- slightly -- the record set in the boom year of 2008, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte. Venture investment in the second quarter rose to $2.02 billion, up 43 percent from the year-ago quarter. Investments in the first half of the year spiked 65 percent from the same period in 2009. "There's been a very clear resurgence in solar activity and that is largely responsible for the strong quarter," Richard Youngman, the Cleantech Group's head of global research, said on a conference call Thursday.... Despite the recession, corporate America poured a record $5.1 billion into green tech companies in the first half of 2010, a 325 percent increase from a year ago.
from SciDev.net: Algae trials test 'wonder food' status of spirulina A blue-green algae rich in protein could help curb global malnutrition if a US$1.7 million cultivation project in Chad -- due to end in December -- proves successful. Dubbed a "miracle food" this cyanobacterium -- known as spirulina -- has been eaten around the world for centuries. Analyses by industry and university laboratories reveal that almost 70 per cent of its dry weight is protein. It also has a small environmental footprint, needs little water, and can be cultivated in salty conditions harmful to other crops.... "It might seem bitter at first, but you get used to it," said Hereta Taher, a spirulina grower from Chad. Another reason could be the lack of political interest. In Chad people drive up to six hours to buy spirulina 'cakes' from more than 1,500 women involved in its cultivation. Ousmane Issa Mara, a village chief in the north of Kanem region said the food is a miracle, giving energy and restoring appetites.
from PhysOrg: Nutrients, viruses and the biological carbon pump Adding nutrients to the sea could decrease viral infection rates among phytoplankton and enhance the efficiency of the biological pump, a means by which carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, according to a new mathematical modelling study. The findings, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, have implications for ocean geo-engineering schemes proposed for tackling global warming. Tiny free-floating algae called phytoplankton dominate biological production in the world's oceans and sit at the base of the marine food web. Their population dynamics are controlled by sunlight, nutrient availability, grazing by tiny planktonic animals (zooplankton) and mortality caused by viral infection. "Viruses are the most abundant organism in the world's oceans, and it is thought that all phytoplankton species are susceptible to infection. Our aim was to model the interaction between viruses, phytoplankton, zooplankton grazing and nutrient levels".... The researchers took an 'eco-epidemic' modelling approach, taking into account the mutual interaction between the effects of ecology and disease epidemiology. This approach has been used previously to model the effects of infection by pathogens on the population dynamics of mammals and invertebrate animals.... Artificial enhancement of the biological carbon pump by fertilizing the oceans with nutrients has been proposed as a possible geo-engineering 'fix' for global warming caused by the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources. "The decrease in viral infection rates caused by artificially adding nutrients to the sea could in the future benefit humans by increasing the efficiency of the biological carbon pump, making these proposed ocean geo-engineering schemes more viable," said Dr Rhodes.
from AIP, via EurekAlert: Study shows stability and utility of floating wind turbines Wind turbines may be one of the best renewable energy solutions, but as turbines get larger they also get noisier, become more of an eyesore, and require increasingly larger expanses of land. One solution: ocean-based wind turbines. While offshore turbines already have been constructed, they've traditionally been situated in shallow waters, where the tower extends directly into the seabed. That restricts the turbines to near-shore waters with depths no greater than 50 meters -- and precludes their use in deeper waters, where winds generally gust at higher speeds. An alternative is placing turbines on floating platforms, says naval architect Dominique Roddier of Berkeley, California-based Marine Innovation & Technology. He and his and colleagues have published a feasibility study of one platform design -- dubbed "WindFloat" -- in the latest issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy... By testing a 1:65 scale model in a wave tank, the researchers show that the three-legged floating platform, which is based on existing gas and oil offshore platform designs, is stable enough to support a 5-megawatt wind turbine, the largest turbine that currently exists. These mammoth turbines are 70 meters tall and have rotors the size of a football field. Just one, Roddier says, produces enough energy "to support a small town."
from ApocaDocs: PANIQuiz for June 21-27 available What are Vietnamese seafood companies doing in response to the shrimp shortage? Eminent Australian scientist Frank Fenner predicts humans will go extinct how soon? For May 2010, where were the global temperature anomalies mostly found? How much faster than the rate of recharge is Texas using the Ogallala Aquifer?
from SciDev.net: Potato battery could help meet rural energy needs The holy grail of renewable energy research may lie in the cooking pot, according to scientists. The search for a cheap source of electricity for remote, off-grid communities, has led to batteries that work on freshly boiled potatoes. One slice of potato can generate 20 hours of light, and several slices could provide enough energy to power simple medical equipment and even a low-power computer, said a research team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. "The technology is ready to go," co-researcher Haim Rabinowitch told SciDev.Net. "It should take an interested body only a short while, and very little investment, to make this available to communities in need." ... The device had the same basic components as conventional batteries, consisting of two electrodes separated by an electrolyte (the potato). Each battery powered a small light for 20 hours, after which a new slice could be inserted.... Potato batteries are estimated to generate energy at a cost of approximately US$9 per kilowatt hour (kW/h), which compares favourably with the best performing 1.5 volt (AA) alkaline cells -- or D cells -- which generate energy at US$50/kWh.
from Smithsonian, via EurekAlert: Biodiversity's holy grail is in the soil The experiments show that underground organisms are key to the maintenance of species diversity and patterns of tree-species relative abundance. The detrimental effects of soil organisms from adult trees not only explain seedling growth and survival patterns, but moreover that these effects are much more severe for seedlings of rare species than for seedlings of common species.... "Two completely different approaches--analysis of long-term forest dynamics observations and direct experiments on Panama's Barro Colorado Island--are telling us to look for the answer under the ground. Scott's experiments provide a direct comparison across species of how much their seedlings suffer from a sort of 'self inhibition' mediated by these soil organisms." Biologists refer to soil as a "black box" because it is notoriously difficult to study a tangle of roots, bacteria, fungi, tiny insects and other creatures without isolating or changing them. Very similar results in the greenhouse and in the field reveal that plant interactions with soil biota alone--not nutrients, insects, mammals or above-ground diseases--are sufficiently powerful and specific to explain why multiple species co-exist and importantly the strength of those interactions can be measured and plant species that are most abundant are least influenced by the soil biota around their parents. "We have dealt yet another blow to the ailing Neutral Theory of Biodiversity, which is premised on the idea that all species are the same," said Herre. "These two publications provide strong evidence that there are stabilizing mechanisms that maintain diversity, and thus that neutral dynamics do not explain plant species diversity and abundance."
from Penn State, via EurekAlert: Discovery of how coral reefs adapt to global warming could aid reef restoration Discovering how corals respond to ocean warming is complicated because corals serve as hosts to algae. The algae live in the coral and feed on its nitrogen wastes. Through photosynthesis, the algae then produce the carbohydrates that feed the coral. When this complex and delicate symbiosis is upset by a rise in ocean temperature, the coral may expel the algae in a phenomenon known as coral bleaching, which may cause the death of both algae and coral. The challenge is to figure out why some corals cope with the heat stress better than others.... "Our study shows that the response of larvae to changing conditions depends upon where the parent colonies lived," says Baums. "Clearly the coral larvae from Mexico and Florida respond differently to heat stress, even though they belong to the same species, showing adaptations to local conditions. The two populations have different adaptive potential."... "Variation among populations in gene expression offers the species as a whole a better chance of survival under changing conditions," Baums said. "We might be able to screen adult populations for their ability to produce heat-resistant larvae and focus our conservation efforts on those reefs."
from Reuters, via DesdemonaDespair: Methane in Gulf of Mexico 'astonishingly high' - Nearly a million times above background levels Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler, just back from a 10-day research expedition near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas are "astonishingly high." Kessler's crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BP's broken wellhead. "There is an incredible amount of methane in there," Kessler told reporters in a telephone briefing. In some areas, the crew of 12 scientists found concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal. "We saw them approach a million times above background concentrations" in some areas, Kessler said. The scientists were looking for signs that the methane gas had depleted levels of oxygen dissolved in the water needed to sustain marine life. "At some locations, we saw depletions of up to 30 percent of oxygen based on its natural concentration in the waters. At other places, we saw no depletion of oxygen in the waters. We need to determine why that is," he told the briefing.
from National Research Council, Ocean Studies Board: Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean Some of the strongest evidence of the potential impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems comes from experiments on calcifying organisms; acidifying seawater to various extents has been shown to affect the formation and dissolution of calcium carbonate shells and skeletons in a range of marine organisms including reef-building corals, commercially-important mollusks such as oysters and mussels, and many phytoplankton and zooplankton species that form the base of marine food webs. It is important to note that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is rising too rapidly for natural, CaCO3-cycle processes to maintain the pH of the ocean.... Ocean acidification may affect wild marine fisheries directly by altering the growth or survival of target species, and indirectly through changes in species' ecosystems, such as predator and prey abundance or critical habitat.... Beyond the value of commercial or recreational shellfish harvests, shellfish resources such as oyster reefs and mussel beds provide valuable ecosystem services.
from University of Alberta, via EurekAlert: Life of plastic solar cell jumps from hours to 8 months The research groups' development of an inexpensive, readily available plastic solar cell technology hit a wall because of a chemical leeching problem within the body of the prototype. A chemical coating on an electrode was unstable and migrated through the circuitry of the cell. The team led by U of A and NINT chemistry researcher David Rider, developed a longer lasting, polymer coating for the electrode. Electrodes are key to the goal of a solar energy technology, extracting electricity from the cell. Prior to the polymer coating breakthrough the research team's plastic solar cell could only operate at high capacity for about ten hours. When Rider and his research co authors presented their paper to the journal, Advanced Functional Materials, their plastic solar cell had performed at high capacity for 500 hours. But it kept on working for another seven months. The team says the unit eventually stopped working when it was damaged during transit between laboratories.
from via DesdemonaDespair: You should totally apologize to BP 
I'm sorry that slavery was abolished. You could definitely use the free labor right now... I'm sorry, BP, that I don't have a car, because if I did, I could buy your gas, increase your profits and do my part in helping you pay for this most unfortunate natural disaster that has struck... Dadgummit! I'm just so sorry BP. We should be thanking you since you've made getting oil so much more convenient.
from Politico: Henry Waxman puts Big Oil on trial Henry Waxman's war on Big Oil has begun. The California Democrat, along with Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), will force top oil executives to defend or condemn industry practices and profits, according to series of pre-hearing questions obtained by POLITICO, foreshadowing an intense, made-for-TV hearing Tuesday that could create an iconic Washington moment for the petroleum industry... BP may be first in the line of fire, but experts said the whole industry will be on trial Tuesday. Executives from BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron are scheduled to testify.
from AP, via PhysOrg: Japan may quit whaling commission if ban stays put Japan is considering withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission if no progress is made toward easing an international ban on commercial whaling, its fisheries minister said Tuesday.... The proposal to allow commercial whaling has drawn criticism from all sides and drawn fresh attention to the whaling issue. The foreign minister of New Zealand and Australia's environment minister are due to attend next week's meeting.... Japan's whaling program includes large-scale scientific expeditions to the Antarctic, while other whaling countries mostly stay along their coasts. Opponents call Japan's scientific research hunts a cover for commercial whaling.
from National Geographic News: Ecuador Puts a Price Tag on Untapped Oil In the coming weeks, Ecuador aims to sign a unique agreement to forgo drilling for oil in a huge plot of this rain forest in exchange for money. The idea is that contributions from industrialized nations and, potentially, from corporations would make up for the badly needed petroleum revenue that the South American nation would lose by keeping the fossil fuel underground....If it comes together, some hope that the so-called YasunÃ-ITT Initiative -- named for the area's Ishpingo, Tiputini, and Tambococha oil fields --could be a model for combating global warming.
from SciDev.net: Low-cost solar solution could empower off-grid poor A low-cost, plastic solar lamp could provide affordable lighting for millions living in rural off-grid areas across Africa. The lamp is made from polymer solar cells and although it is not as efficient as similar technologies, it could prove more affordable, according to its developers.... Several versions of the lamp are under development, following trials on a prototype in Zambia in 2009. One, a pocket-sized torch that could be used for night-time navigation, is ready to be rolled out commercially and Krebs is confident that it could be produced for as little as 3 Euros (around US$4). He suggested that 'microfinance' schemes, where people collaborate to buy a lamp which they can share, would be useful for people who cannot afford this initial outlay.... Solar lighting is an important alternative to the kerosene lamps currently used in off-grid developing areas, said David Battley from charity SolarAid, based in the United Kingdom, which promotes the use of solar energy to help reduce global poverty and climate change.
from New York Times: Twilight of the Coal Era? On Monday, Siemens is announcing [pdf] that it has won contracts to supply five new high-efficiency gas plants to Progress Energy at two sites in North Carolina that have old coal-fired generators. The H.F. Lee Energy Complex, near Goldsboro, has three coal-fired generators that began operating in 1951, 1952 and 1962. The three coal-fired generators at the Sutton plant, near Wilmington, went into service in 1954, 1955 and 1972. The six plants are among 11 that Progress owns in North Carolina that do not have sulfur scrubbers. The company has said it will eventually close all 11. "I think they came to the conclusion with all the uncertainty, and the likelihood that the rules for pollutants like mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides will be further tightened, it's not worth spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the back end" of an old power plant, Mr. Zwirn said. What is more, he said, in the decades that a new plant would run, there is a possibility that restrictions will be imposed on carbon dioxide emissions. Per kilowatt-hour generated, the new gas-fired generators will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent and nitrogen oxides by 95 percent from levels produced by their coal-fired predecessors. Nearly 100 percent of sulfur dioxides will be eliminated, and all of the mercury, Siemens said.
from PhysOrg: Professor to present vision for zero-carbon future for UK Professor Seamus Garvey, of the University's Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, will speak on the potential of vast floating offshore 'energy farms' off the UK coastline, which could produce 'green' electricity at a fraction of the cost of its nearest competitors. Professor Garvey said: "Imagine for a moment that renewable energy was the cheapest way to source power and that this power could be dispatched on demand. Imagine further that the landscape did not have to be blighted by man-made structures to gather that power. "The impact on the world would be profound: secure low-cost energy supplies for most countries, reduction in the environmental assault that is most mining and oil/gas extraction and some hope of curtailing climate change not dependant on politics."... The technology is centred on a simple premise -- using giant wind turbines to compress and pump air into huge undersea Energy Bags™ anchored to the seabed -- or geological formations where deep water is not available. The high pressure air would be expanded in special turbo-generator sets to provide electricity as required -- not just when the wind is blowing.
from Chatham House / Lloyd's of London: Sustainable Energy Security: Strategic Risks and Opportunities for Business # Businesses which prepare for and take advantage of the new energy reality will prosper - failure to do so could be catastrophic # Market dynamics and environmental factors mean business can no longer rely on low cost traditional energy sources # We are heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike # Business must address energy-related risks to supply chains and the increasing vulnerability of 'just-in-time' models # Investment in renewable energy and 'intelligent' infrastructure is booming. This revolution presents huge opportunities for new business partnerships
from TreeHugger: Reforestation & Biochar: Two Geoengineering Methods That Won't Cause More Harm Than Good Geoengineering has been a slow burning controversy for some time now, with some truly wacky ideas proposed, as well as some which take a more sober look at the prospect of intentionally tinkering with the climate to stop the effects of human activity disturbing it in the first place. Let's look at a couple of those geoengineering methods which won't cause more harm than good: Biochar and Reforestation/Afforestation.... Biochar is essential using charcoal made through pyrolysis of biomass and then burying it mixed in with the soil. It has a long history of use in Amazonia, where it's known as terra preta, for its benefits in making soil more fertile. In regards to long-term carbon storage potential, biochar can work on a millennial scale with, in most cases, no negative soil side effects. Some estimates show biochar having the potential to sequester one billion tons of CO2 each year.
from BusinessGreen: Clean tech patents enjoy record quarter The number of clean tech-related patents granted in the US hit record levels during the first quarter of the year, according to new figures released last week, further fuelling optimism that the sector is recovering strongly from the recession. The Clean Energy Patent Growth Index report from intellectual property law firm Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti found that 379 clean tech patents were granted in the US during the first three months of the year, representing the highest quarterly value since the index began. The performance marked an improvement of more than 50 per cent year on year and a 12 per cent increase in patents compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. According to the report, fuel cell technologies dominated the list, with 208 patents granted during the first quarter, while the number of patents granted to solar and hybrid and electric vehicle technologies also rose.
from BusinessGreen: Only business can save us now It has been a sobering week for anyone with an interest in the low-carbon economy. While the good news continues to pour in for individual firms and countries, the prognosis for the international climate talks that reconvened in Bonn on Monday looks as bleak as at any point in the past two years. Anyone hoping that a line had been drawn under the acrimonious row that marred the final few days of the Copenhagen summit would have been left disillusioned within minutes of the latest round of talks getting under way.... Barring miracles, the obstacles faced by the US climate bill and the UN climate negotiations look increasingly insurmountable. But climate change and its associated risks will not wait for us to complete our political machinations, which leaves us facing one crucial question: where will the miracles come from? The answer is the business community. Well, there's more stories than this -- but that was 75 of them! You may want to try the PANICloud for more specific topics! |
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