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“ Lose your
temper and you lose a friend; lie and
you lose yourself.
—Hopi Proverb
|
“ O Great Spirit,
help me always to speak the truth quietly, to
listen with an open mind when others speak, and
to remember the peace that may be found in
silence. ”
—Cherokee Prayer
May 25, 2012
Sunday was not the first time Joyce Johnson has been arrested
for standing her ground.
The 79-year-old Falmouth resident was arrested in 1988 at the
entrance to Otis Air National Guard Base while protesting the
deployment of Green Berets to El Salvador, she said Monday while
waiting to be arraigned for allegedly trespassing at the Pilgrim
Nuclear Power Station over the weekend.
Killer heat fueled by climate
change could cause an additional 150,000 deaths this century in
the biggest U.S. cities if no steps are taken to curb carbon
emissions and improve emergency services, according to a new
report.
The declining health of the world’s oceans is a global
concern. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a
set of rules for the use of the world's oceans, which cover 70
percent of the Earth's surface.
The Convention was concluded in 1982 to replace a group of
treaties adopted in 1958 that were out of date and unfavorable
to America's economy and security. UNCLOS came into force in
1994, and to date, 159 countries and the European Union have
joined the treaty. As of yet, the United States has not.
As
Al Fin pointed out
yesterday natural gas is priced to a barrel of oil equivalent at
about $10-$11 per the estimable Geoffrey Styles view,
something less than 10% of the cost of oil. For North Americans
adding a viable and hopefully low cost means to make use of gas
hydrates could be giant boost to low cost fuel sources and a
massive kick to the economy.
Chinese people have visited temples
and shrines atop Mount Hua or "Hua Shan" for thousands of years.
Tourists flock there, too, lured by the Hua's stunning beauty,
incredible views and awe-inspiring immensity (the steep cliffs
climb more than 7,000 feet into the sky.)
In announcing its decision to
officially end combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of
2014, NATO has all but admitted that it is exhausted after a
decade of war in that rugged, inhospitable nation. Departing
without a clear-cut victory to its credit and with difficult
budgetary challenges to confront at home, the alliance is now
weaker than it once was and this trend is likely to continue, as
LIGNET explains.
China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday said that after a
months-long investigation it has ruled that the United States
government broke World Trade Organization rules by supporting
six renewable energy projects through unfair grants.
It was another rough week for China's once booming solar
manufacturers, who are already reeling from overcapacity and
major subsidy drawbacks in the European market.
Australia's nascent shale gas
industry is still around 10 years from achieving any significant
level of production, according to industry consultants Wood
Mackenzie.
"We are just so early days -- to get any sort
of substantial production, you are going to have to drill lots
of wells, 50 to 100 at least...
Back in the day, I could eat pretty
much anything I wanted. Since I turned thirty, I definitely
noticed my metabolism slowing, and now I have to work extra hard
to maintain a healthy weight.
What really stinks is the
fact that avoiding sweets & fattening foods is no longer my only
concern!
Genetically modified organisms (GMO's)
WOW! What the heck is that?
Using the 2008 Beijing Olympics as
their laboratory, University of Southern California (USC)
researchers and colleagues have found biological evidence that
even a short-term reduction in air pollution exposure improves
one's cardiovascular health.
The two best shale gas innovations related to new products
and services or new technologies were:
- Holding multiple patents on ultra-high performance
polymers used by the oil and gas industry, Polymics Ltd.
developed a lightweight, reusable, leak-proof mat system
that effectively contains mud and fluids during pad
construction.
- The Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation
Institute at Penn State University developed a "patch box"
system for retrofitting diesel truck fleets utilizing
natural gas, addressing a critical transportation issue in
the industry.
Alaska has massive hydro, wind,
geothermal and other renewable resources, but the state's rural
villages are chained to diesel and suffer oppressive energy
costs they say threaten their existence. Lawmakers, energy
experts and Native leaders said Thursday it's a dire problem
with elusive solutions.
With the recent startup of the
Biomass Cogeneration Facility to provide clean energy to the
Savannah River Site, a coal-burning facility that powered the
site for 60 years is now preparing for deactivation.
In a 335-page ruling handed down
today, an Administrative Law Judge with oversight of the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) has upheld the right of pomegranate juice
manufacturer POM Wonderful to tell consumers about the health
benefits of its juice.
Scientists have for the first time
succeeded in taking skin cells from patients with heart failure
and transforming them into healthy, beating heart tissue that
could one day be used to treat the condition.
The commission clarifies language
that will unlock gigawatts of distributed solar in the state.
Carbon dioxide emissions result from the burning of
petroleum, coal and natural gas. With growing environmental
standards, there is an interest in keeping carbon dioxide
emissions to a minimum. Instead of capturing and burying the
carbon, Elton proposed using those releases to create "syngas,"
which could then be converted into transportation fuels.
"While you can achieve the goal of making 'syngas,' using
carbon to do so is not now commercially viable because it is
still too expensive," Elton told Forbes.
A new government study says that
allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire and a scheduled round of
automatic spending cuts to take effect would probably throw the
economy into a recession.
A stalemate over how to tackle a
series of fiscal deadlines at year's end would likely push the
United States economy into recession in the first half of next
year, the Congressional Budget Office warned.
A wave of
U.S. tax hikes and automatic spending cuts — dubbed the "fiscal
cliff" — are set to take effect in January unless Congress and
the White House agree on ways to delay or revise at least some
of them.
More than 150,000 additional Americans could die by the end of
this century due to excessive heat caused by climate change,
finds a new report based on peer-reviewed science.
Of the 40 cities studied, the three with the highest number
of projected heat-related deaths through the end of the century
are: Louisville, Kentucky with 19,000 deaths, Detroit, Michigan
with 18,000 deaths and Cleveland, Ohio with 17,000.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology
said the climate models it monitors indicate a possible return
of the El Nino weather pattern, often linked to heavy rainfall
and droughts, in the second half of 2012.
There are several ways to remove
CO2 from a stack gas. None have reached a commercial basis yet
due to the expense of the processing. The current method of
removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the flues
of coal-fired power plants uses so much energy that no one
bothers to use it. So says Roger Aines, principal investigator
for a team that has developed an entirely new catalyst for
separating out and capturing CO2, one that mimics a naturally
occurring catalyst operating in our lungs. With this success,
the Laboratory has become a world leader in designing catalysts
that mimic the behavior of natural enzymes.
The Southeast, the top
power-consuming region in the US and the leader in coal-to-gas
switching, is poised to become a gas-on-gas battleground as
Marcellus producers aim to win market share from other shale
basins and traditional Gulf supplies.
Mr. President, today [May 24, 2012]
I'm offering an amendment to the FDA. I'm troubled by images of
armed agents raiding Amish farms and preventing them selling
milk directly from the cow. I think we have bigger problems in
our country than sending armed FDA agents into peaceful farmers'
land and telling them they can't sell milk directly from the
cow.My amendment has three parts.
Genscape, a company whose many
activities include flying around Cushing, Oklahoma and figuring
out from the sky how much oil is in the ocean of storage tanks
there, has been taking a look at the Seaway Pipeline.
An appeals court on Tuesday upheld
a $3.4 billion settlement of a class-action lawsuit over
mismanagement of government trust funds for hundreds of
thousands of Native Americans, ruling that it was fair,
reasonable and adequate.
You might think that a coal-burning
locomotive built in 1937 had nothing left to offer the modern
rail industry, short of being a nice museum piece. In the case
of Locomotive 3463, however, that appears to be far from true –
now in the hands of engineers from the Coalition for Sustainable
Rail (CSR), it is set to become the world’s first carbon-neutral
higher-speed locomotive. It won’t be electric, however. Instead,
it will run on steam generated by the burning of biocoal.
Sometimes
calculating efficiency can be difficult. Do you rely just on the
cost associated with your achieving your ultimate goal? Does it
make more sense to look a little deeper and assess the impact of
your choices to determine whether the route that looks the
cheapest carries with it unintended consequences—consequences
that could trigger even more expensive fixes at a later date?
And what about the influences that are more difficult to
quantify: those environmental, political, or human
resource-related hazards and half steps?
Faced with water shortages in its
sunny south, Spain has become a European trendsetter
in harnessing seawater for human use and is an
industrial leader in desalination.
In other increasingly dry regions of southern Europe,
desalination offers promise for farmers and households that
compete for freshwater, say advocates who also see the
technology as both economically vital to the European Union
and an answer to its long-term water security.
Leading academic and industry experts have validated
BlackLight's new process that directly produces electric energy
from the conversion of water vapor to a new, more stable form of
Hydrogen. Experts agree that BlackLight's 'Hydrino theory'
represents a fundamental breakthrough in clean energy
technology.
Europe's long-suffering refining
industry is facing a new threat from the boom in US shale oil
and gas which could see a surge in US light fuel production
erode Europe's traditional export market for gasoline, the
deputy head of Europe's refining industry association Europia
said Wednesday.
A diet can't save them now. Time to get that defibrillator
ready.
Imagine being told that you will likely suffer a heart
attack, yet not how big it will be or how serious. If you could
get your arms around the enormity of the news, you'd want to
know whether your body could stand the shock and what the
aftermath of the attack would look like.
This is exactly what is going on today in policy circles --
and beyond -- as the world monitors the developments in Greece
with a growing feeling of helplessness and concern. Recognition
is spreading that Greece faces the rapidly rising probability of
another default and, critically this time around, a potential
exit from the eurozone. And governments in Europe, and
increasingly elsewhere, are wondering what this means for them.
Despite significant concessions
made to Iran by the United States, France, and the UK during
multilateral talks this week on Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran
refused any deal unless all sanctions against it are first
dropped, a demand the West rejected. While the participants
agreed to meet again in Moscow next month, Iran’s intransigence
and word that it continues to expand its uranium enrichment
program has left tensions at a high level and raise the chances
of an Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
You would think the FDA would obey
a judge’s ruling on qualified health claims. Think again.
According to its advocates, we need LOST for a variety of
reasons. One of them concerns the oil and gas resources located
in the outer limits of our continental shelf. The treaty’s
proponents say we can obtain legal title to it only by signing
on to the treaty.
“If the United States does not ratify this treaty, our
ability to claim the vast extended continental shelf off Alaska
will be seriously impeded,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana
Republican.
If you are a small player in the U.S. clean energy market, you
are having a harder and harder time finding capital to continue
to fund your business, despite that fact that your domestic
market is seen as the one with the largest potential for growth.
So what do you do? According to Third Way, a political think
tank, you look to foreign investors.
What’s going on in the fuel cell
world these days? Those in the communications arena are saying
that life is only getting better while those using the
technology for on site generation are still trying to make
headway.
Fuel cells can be used to fuel vehicles and to
provide power to industry. And, they can be applied as well to
telecom businesses, particularly for those niches that can’t
afford to lose communications with those in the field: Think
disaster relief or military missions.
Thanks to this decision, Americans
have spent the last twenty years as unwitting guinea pigs in a
massive, uncontrolled, and involuntary experiment on the
long-term health effects of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs).
Few in Europe are happy to admit it, but Italy is looking
disturbingly similar to Greece these days. Mass youth
unemployment, an over-regulated bureaucratic economy and a shaky
financial sector have crippled the fiscal health of both
countries; both now face a future of austerity and stagnation.
And the similarities became even more pronounced late last year,
when technocratic governments (charged with implementing
European policies) replaced popularly elected leaders in both
countries, becoming caretakers until the next election.
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey
(PMMS), showing the record lows for average fixed mortgage rates
holding steady for the week. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage
ticked slightly down to 3.78 percent and 15-year fixed-rate
mortgages remained unchanged from last week at 3.04 percent.
A beekeeper of 58 years wants to
know how an unelected state agency, which appears to answer to
no one, can come in and destroy years of research, equipment,
and bees without due process and even without a search warrant.
Has recent loose interpretations of the Constitution and the
power of the federal government spilled over into state
governments, who now think they can act with impunity and shut
down any business that happens to question an agency’s validity,
credentials, or findings? Is the era of big bully government
upon us?
ICE Brent crude for July fell $3 to
$105.41/barrel during Wednesday afternoon US trading, as
eurozone worries increase and Iran tensions relax.
The
decline in Brent prices comes as bearish US oil inventory data,
released Wednesday by the US Energy Information Administration,
weighs on crude markets in the US.
The United States contractually
owes tribal nations. “Indian benefits” is a misnomer for the
debt owed to Native peoples. The federal government pledged
through laws and treaties to compensate for land exchanges
accomplished through the forced removal of tribal nations from
their original homelands. Unfortunately, payment is commonly
expressed as “benefits.” This term—benefits—implies giving
assistance, subsidy, or even charity, rather than deserved
reimbursement. The Department of Interior even describes the
obligated recompense for American Indians as benefits on its
webpage.
• Dated Brent hit a 3.5 year high
in March, buoyed by political tensions between the West and Iran
and lower production in many countries.
• It has since
declined to its lowest level since late January due to fears
about the economy, but remains well above $100/barrel
Iraq’s surging oil production may
soon exceed that of Iran—the world’s fifth largest oil producer
in 2011—and help avoid global oil supply disruptions in the
event of a future crisis in the Persian Gulf region. But Iraq’s
domestic problems persist, including political infighting,
infrastructure deficiencies, revenue allocation disputes and
security shortfalls, all of which might sabotage the country’s
export aspirations and reverse the current positive trend.
By not joining Law of the Sea,
we’ve dealt ourselves out of the game that’s unfolding right in
front of us. Let me give you a few examples:
The Supreme Court ruled on
Thursday that a criminal defendant may be retried even though
the jury in his first trial had unanimously rejected the most
serious charges against him. The vote was 6 to 3, with the
justices split over whether the constitutional protection
against double jeopardy barred such reprosecutions.
Highlights this week include Rossi's claim to have achieved
600 °C, his positive response to Hank Mills agreeing to post
more data; speculation about how the Greek crisis will effect
Defkalion; video of Brillouin's reactor in operation; video of
Mitch Swartz's reactor in operation; new NASA video about LENR.
Libya is preparing for its first
national elections in 60 years, but with many parts of the
country now under the control of local militias, ensuring the
elections are free and fair will be a challenge, maybe too great
a challenge.
The majority of Americans (58
percent) think that protecting the environment improves economic
growth and creates new jobs. The results are from a recently
released poll by Yale University and George Mason University's
climate change communication program. Only 17 percent of the
poll's respondents think that environmental protection hurts the
economy and job growth, and 25 percent think there is no effect.
When there is a conflict between protecting the environment and
improving the economy, 62 percent think it is more important to
protect the environment, and only 38 percent thought economic
growth is more important.
Fitch Ratings believes results from
capital market activities of major U.S. banks have the potential
to decline meaningfully in 2Q12. Market concerns over Europe
have resurfaced in 2Q12, and the recently announced JPMorgan
Chase (JPM) losses have magnified overall market uncertainties.
Consequently, the current quarter has been characterized by
general spread widening in fixed income markets and more
difficult equity markets.
The present world market for
chemicals to combat air pollutants is $13.8B but will be growing
at a healthy eight percent per year over the next five years.
The larger ($24B) water treatment chemicals market will be
growing by six percent per year (real dollars). These are the
latest findings by McIlvaine Company through extracting
forecasts from a number of its market reports.
Montgomery County, Md., has set a
70% waste diversion rate goal by the end of 2020, County
Executive Ike Leggett announced.
The Masai warriors cut striking
figures as they played the game in their red traditional
garments, complete with headgear and decorative jewelry. Their
only concessions to the standard white cricket uniform were the
shin guards, and in a bid to gain traction on the pitch, their
sandals were replaced with modest sporting footwear.
Initial estimates for first-quarter
2012 economic growth was 2.2 percent, slower than the previous
quarter, but better than three of the past four quarters.
It's true that the low price of natural gas is partially to
blame for the downturn in the coal industry, said Mike Miller,
senior vice president with Marshall Miller and Associates, an
engineering and geological consulting firm based in Bluefield,
Va.
But, he said, if it weren't for increasing federal government
regulation, utilities wouldn't be switching so quickly from coal
to gas.
Recently, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the
non-governmental organisation Wetlands International launch ‘The
Organic Soils and Peatlands Climate Change Mitigation
Initiative’. The Initiative has been established to increase
awareness about how the conservation, restoration and
sustainable use of peatlands can reduce global greenhouse gas
emissions, and to facilitate strategic actions that can lead to
measurable progress in this area.
‘Largest known chemical
wave’ caused previously unrecognized effects, said Sandia
researcher
A Sandia modeling study contradicts
a long-held belief of geologists that pore sizes and chemical
compositions are uniform throughout a given strata, which are
horizontal slices of sedimentary rock.
North Korea on Tuesday vowed to
push ahead with its nuclear program because of what it called
U.S. hostility, as an outside analysis of satellite images
suggested it has ramped up work at its nuclear test site over
the past month.
At the Group of 8 (G8) meetings
this past weekend, President Obama and the leaders of the rest
of the world's richest nations abandoned their governments'
previous commitments to donate $7.3 billion a year to end hunger
in Africa, after disbursing only 58 percent of the total pledge
of $22 billion and giving less than 6 percent in new money they
pledged three years ago.
Moving
quickly to stem a controversy, President Barack Obama on
Thursday nominated an expert on nuclear waste to lead the
federal agency that regulates the nation's nuclear power plants.
The recent passage of the 2012-14
state budget included millions of dollars in coal severance
funds for the state's coal counties, but some officials fear
that these counties may not receive all the coal severance money
that was allocated to them, while others say there will be a
long-term effect to local funding.
A Pakistani
doctor who helped the CIA find Osama Bin Laden has been jailed
for at least 30 years, officials say.
Shakil Afridi was charged with treason and tried under the
tribal justice system for running a fake vaccination programme
to gather information.
A new U.S. Defense Department
report on the threat from China paints a detailed picture of a
modernizing Chinese military that remains committed to achieving
a comprehensive capacity for "localized" and "regional wars."
Most notably, the report states that the continued
transformation of the Chinese military and broader espionage
efforts “represent a growing and persistent threat to [the]
U.S.”
Plants absorb carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere. Exactly how fast this might occur is not clear.
The capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to absorb carbon dioxide
emissions from human activity may be greater than previously
thought, according to a new study published in Nature Climate
Change, which looks at how plants react to environmental change.
The authors say these results improve our ability to look into
the planet's future and predict the magnitude of climate change
before it happens.
Two manmade pollutants known best
as threats to human health have just been charged with two more
offenses: shifting rainfall patterns and mucking with food
production.
For the first time since the state's electricity rate caps
expired in 2010, PPL Electric will raise its "price-to-compare"
rates beginning June 1.
But even with the 15 percent increase...
A first-of-its-kind commercial
supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station
following a successful liftoff early Tuesday, opening a new era
of dollar-driven spaceflight.
Senator Dick Durbin is once again
attempting to get rid of your supplements, and it may happen
today, unless you act NOW.
Qatari Oil Minister Mohammed
al-Sada said Wednesday that oil markets were currently well
supplied and there was no shortage anywhere in the world,
official Qatar news agency QNA reported.
The "right of innocent passage" is the right of any nation's
ships to traverse continuously and expeditiously through the
territorial waters of a coastal nation, subject to certain
conditions.1 Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, such passage
is conditioned on passing in a manner that isn't threatening to
"sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence"
or the "good order and security" of that nation.
By this
definition, if the Law of the Sea Treaty was a ship, it would
fail to qualify.
I’m glad Depp was cast as Tonto and I can’t think of anyone
better to portray him. Tonto is a character that is and always
has been a simulation of Indigenous-ness. He was created out of
lies and cultural misconceptions and that, I think, is how he
should remain. As we all know, the word “tonto” is a Spanish
word that translates to “stupid” in English. So that, for
starters, is an indication of the motivation behind the
development of the character.
Tonto is the epitome of Indigenous cultural misrepresentation
in cinema, and a symbol of everything Hollywood has ever done
wrong to Natives.
Solar activity was low. A few
nominal C-class flares were observed during the period. he
geomagnetic field is expected to be mostly quiet on day 1 (25
May).
Coastal seagrass can store more heat-trapping carbon per
square mile (kilmometre) than forests can, which means these
coastal plants could be part of the solution to climate change,
scientists said in a new study.
Even though seagrasses occupy less than 0.2 percent of the
world's oceans, they can hold up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon
per square kilometer, a global team of researchers reported
Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Today, Maryland Governor Martin
O'Malley signed into law the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard
for Solar Energy and Solar Water Heating Systems bill (Senate
Bill 791 and House Bill 1187), which accelerates the target date
for achieving the state's renewable portfolio standard
two-percent solar carve-out by two years and ensures the
industry maintains positive, year over year job growth. This
bill will create 10,000 new local jobs between now and 2018,
with a strong concentration in an industry that needs jobs the
most - the construction industry.
State environmental officials may
introduce new regulations to avoid placing wind turbines that
exceed the state's acceptable noise threshold near residential
neighborhoods.
“Earlier this year, we demonstrated
that as a group the stocks of utilities that scored highly in
Target Rock’s sustainability rankings outperformed companies
with lower sustainability performance over the ten years ended
December 31, 2011,”
"The first 72 hours
after a disaster are critical... Maintain enough non-perishable
food for each person for at least 72 hours."
The solution to looming global
warming? Easy. Reduce man-made emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)
by cutting down on the use of fossil fuels -- coal, petroleum
and natural gas. Leave them in the ground. The replacement?
Renewables such as solar and wind power. If we phase in natural
energy sources quickly enough, we may be able to avert
catastrophic climate change.
The head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency says he will sign an agreement soon with
Iran over its nuclear program, a sign that Iran may have agreed
to broader inspections.
The number of bogus renewable fuel
credits in the market could double to nearly 300 million in the
coming months as investigations keep rooting out fraud in the US
biodiesel industry, four Republican lawmakers said Thursday.
Flanked by piles of tires and with
the Albright Power Plant behind him, U.S. Senate-hopeful John
Raese attacked President Barack Obama, Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson and his rival -- Sen.
Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. -- for creating "a complex set of standards
designed to make coal generated power obsolete.
The Coalition for American Solar
Manufacturing (CASM) today calls on U.S. solar-industry trade
associations to fulfill their pledges of neutrality in a
solar-technology trade dispute by ceasing to endorse avenues for
China to evade full accountability to well-established world
trade laws and agreements.
Earth Networks has released its 2012 Atlantic Hurricane
Season Forecast.
The company's WeatherBug Meteorology Team is forecasting a
near-normal Hurricane Season in the Atlantic Basin even though
the season started early with the formation Tropical Storm
Alberto on the northeast Florida Coast in May. Hurricane season
typically starts in June.
Driver in Florida can't be cited
for using his lights to communicate
Oceans cover about 72 percent of
Earth's surface area and there are an estimated 250,000 marine
species. "Yet, despite its importance, marine biodiversity has
not fared well at human hands," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
said today in his message to mark the International Day for
Biological Diversity.
While the levellised cost of
electricity from onshore wind power continues to fall, reaching
grid parity with coal, gas and nuclear in some places, the same
cannot be said of all wind farms everywhere.
As it turns out, viruses may turn
out to be great energy harvesters, according to scientists at
the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.
The average annual dose from
natural background radiation is about 2.4 mSv globally, with a
typical range of 1-10 mSv in various regions, according to the
124-page report.
The experts based their assessment
on data available up to last September on the amount of
radioactivity in air, soil, water and food supplies after the
disaster.
In the quest to "level the playing field," the 31 percent
anti-dumping tariff announced Thursday was a good start, said
SolarWorld President Gordon Brinser, but even more is needed to
bring the industry back into balance.
Belectric is being called "the
first company in the world" to install more than 1 GW of
photovoltaic (PV) power with the commissioning of multiple PV
systems earlier this week. The capacity compares to the system
output of a large conventional power plant.
May 22, 2012
n the first study of its kind in
Australasia, scientists have used 27 natural climate records to
create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the
region over the last 1000 years.
Averaging the global land and ocean
as a whole, the combined land and ocean surface temperature
during April 2012 was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20th
century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F), marking the fifth warmest
April since records began in 1880 and the 326th
consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th
century average.
Shiite Muslims in Bahrain took to
the streets last week to voice their anger over plans by
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
states to form a political union. Iran has also responded to
plans for the new union with anger, and endorsed the Shiite
majority in Bahrain that is protesting. There’s a lot at stake,
as pro-democracy movements could cause more political upheaval
in Bahrain, were the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based.
While there are plenty of ways to
make carbon-based products from CO2, these methods
usually require a lot of energy because the CO2
molecules are so stable. If the energy comes from the burning of
fossil fuels, then the net result will be more CO2
entering the atmosphere. Now a material scientist at Michigan
Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that
not only soaks up CO2, but also produces useful
chemicals along with significant amounts of energy.
Residential electricity prices are expected to spike by more
than 10 percent beginning in 2015, with consumers paying between
$150 and $330 a year more than this year, as coal plants, the
least expensive producers of electricity, continue to close.
Analysts who follow electricity pricing will have a firmer
idea Friday of how much consumers' bills will go up. It's the
day the agency that manages the electric grid, known as the PJM
Interconnection, will announce the results of an annual auction
that reserves power three years in advance.
With a small staff, the environmental crimes unit of the
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental
Control is always looking for ways to do more with less.
"With only 11 people statewide, the officers can check the
areas, but it's impossible to be everywhere all the time," said
James Faedtke, chief of the unit.
But now they can.
Energy efficiency is gaining momentum in states traditionally
ranked in the bottom ten of the annual "State Energy Efficiency
Scorecard" (i.e.,
Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming).
According to a new report, "Opportunity Knocks: Examining
Low-Ranking States in the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard,"
each of the states examined in the report have successfully
improved their energy efficiency in at least some way.
A slowdown in China poses the
biggest threat to the global economy and not a Greek exit from
the eurozone, says economist and investor Marc Faber, publisher
of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report.
Greece is teetering
on abandoning the eurozone, which could roil global markets.
With the Northwest poised to become the country's leading
coal-export region, fights are emerging on several fronts.
On the table are proposals to capitalize on Asia's thirst for
cheap energy by building a half-dozen terminals in Washington
and Oregon that would export coal from the Rockies.
Some FishHawk Ranch residents are
scrambling to divert a proposed high voltage power line corridor
away from their homes.
Long Island, N.Y., becomes one of the first places in the
U.S. to adopt the newly made-over CLEAN model to promote solar
energy.
A new study from the University of
California, Davis, provides a deeper understanding of the
complex global impacts of deforestation on greenhouse gas
emissions.
A bipartisan coalition of former
U.S. ambassadors urged President Obama Thursday to drastically
cut dependence on foreign oil in order to help reign in the
country’s trade deficit.
Researchers at the University of
Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, have tested equipment in space
that would provide a platform for solar panels to collect energy
and beam it back to Earth through microwaves or lasers.
Leaders of the world's most developed economies, the Group of
Eight, have agreed to phase out government subsidies for coal,
oil and gas and pursue sustainable energy and low carbon
policies "in order to tackle the global challenge of climate
change."
Hosted by President Barack Obama at the presidential retreat
Camp David in the Maryland woods near Washington, DC, the
leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the
United Kingdom and the European Union met on Friday night and
continued working through Saturday, issuing a declaration on
Saturday night.
Recent parliamentary elections in
Germany’s most populous state of Schleswig-Holstein saw the rise
of the Pirates, a political party that advocates internet
freedom and transparency in the political process. The sudden
emergence of the Pirate Party signifies German voters’ weariness
with the traditional parties and also a rapidly changing
political dynamic in Germany. It also points to the development
of a larger movement building in Europe where existing political
parties are failing to connect with a growing number of
citizens.
The global economy is gradually gaining momentum, but the
recovery is fragile, extremely uneven across different regions
and could be derailed by the crisis in the euro area, according
to the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook.
"With slow growth, high unemployment and limited room for
manoeuvre regarding macroeconomic policy space, structural
reforms are the short-run remedy to spur growth and boost
confidence”, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said during the
launch of the report in Paris.
In a dramatic development on
Saturday, Greece’s three-day-old parliament was dissolved by
President Karolos Papoulias, clearing the way for a fresh
election on June 17. At stake is nothing less than Greece’s
membership in the eurozone as well as the survival of the EU
Fiscal Pact. In this analysis, LIGNET investigates the
implications of what is likely to come.
The chart below shows current Greek
liabilities to the official sector. Note that if you add in the
liabilities to the private sector outside of Greece (such as
€130 billion of Greek banks' liabilities to other nations in the
Eurozone, new Greek bonds held outside of Greece, debt of
corporations and households held by non-Greek banks, etc.), the
number will easily exceed half a trillion euros. Greece will
either convert these liabilities to drachmas or simply default
on them - there is no other choice.
If you look closely at most plastic
products — including containers — you will find a triangle with
a number in the middle. These numbers indicate what the plastic
is made of, and whether or not the product is “safe” to recycle.
But they also tell you if the plastics
contain endocrine disruptors. These are chemicals we are exposed
to every day that have been linked to breast and prostate
cancer, widespread thyroid disorders, and problems with
fertility. Endocrine disrupters, such as bisphenol A (BPA),
triclosan, and phthalates, have a similar chemical structure to
the body’s own hormones, and research has shown that they can
interfere with the body’s signaling pathways by binding to
hormone receptors.
We have been hearing about the
health benefits of tea for years now. Whether, black, green, or
white, tea is a powerhouse of nutrients, antioxidants, and other
compounds. And it tastes delicious and provides a little boost
of caffeine and the comfort that only a warm beverage can bring.
Numerous medical studies have found that tea contains compounds
that exhibit anti-cancer properties. This does not mean that
drinking tea will prevent anyone from getting cancer, but it
certainly can’t hurt. Other potential benefits include
supporting and maintaining weight loss, reducing the risk of
heart disease, preventing diabetes, and lowering cholesterol.
Rabbits can make up an important
part of homesteading. They provide an excellent source of meat
and nutrition as well as fur and skin. They are fairly
inexpensive to keep, raise, and breed compared with other
livestock. And, they breed easily and quickly, providing you
with plenty of animals each year. Even if you are not ready yet
to use rabbits for all that they have to offer, getting a pair
and breeding them to raise bunnies is a great lesson for your
kids and you can sell the offspring for some extra money.
The decision clears the way for the
project to move forward with the environmental review necessary
to grant the company, Atlantic Grid Holdings, LLC, a
right-of-way for the proposal to build a “backbone” transmission
line that would enable up to 7,000 megawatts of wind turbine
capacity to be delivered to the grid.
...Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez
has cemented an alliance with Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and his terrorists to base missiles in South America
that can hit American cities.
The Iranian-Venezuelan
alliance first came to public view when U.S. counter-terrorist
officials thwarted an Iranian-Venezuelan plot to use Mexican
drug cartel operatives to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to
the U.S.as he ate in a DC restaurant.
Researchers at the Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have created a new
piezoelectric nanogenerator that promises to overcome the
restrictions found in previous attempts to build a simple,
low-cost, large scale self-powered energy system.
Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director
of natural resources and environment, said in written testimony
submitted to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment:
“The Green River Formation — an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of
sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and
Wyoming — contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale.
A new geothermal company has a
technology that makes carbon capture more cost-effective because
it produces revenue-generating electricity from the sequestered
carbon.
North Korea’s bizarre decision to
seize three Chinese fishing boats and mistreat their crews is an
indication that Pyongyang’s unpredictable policies of
provocation and intimidation will continue under new leader Kim
Jong Un. This incident suggests the potential for additional and
more dangerous North Korean provocations, including a nuclear
test or deadly naval skirmishes with South Korea.
By 2015, the United States will
face a shortfall of nearly 30,000 primary care physicians, due
largely to Obamacare — and a shortage of 65,800 by 2025, the
Association of American Medical Colleges predicts.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we passed a
rule mandating that all new federal buildings had to be
carbon-neutral by 2030? The feds buy and build a lot of
real estate. An effort to wring fossil-fuel energy out of those
buildings — by increasing their efficiency and supplying them
with renewables — would seriously bolster domestic markets for
efficiency and distributed energy. Beyond that, it would serve
as a proving ground and an example for the communities where
those buildings are located. It would be galvanizing.
The U.S. stock market is "freaking
out" over concerns Greece will exit the eurozone, and rightly
so, but better days lie around the corner, says Jim O'Neill,
chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
The struggling U.S. economy has been particularly hard on
young people — Americans ages 18 to 29 are suffering higher
unemployment and underemployment rates than other age groups, a
new Gallup poll reveals.
Unemployment among young adults stood at 13.6 percent in
April, up from 12.5 percent in March and the same as in April
2011.
Any experienced chicken farmer will
tell you, the relative contentment of the birds can be gauged by
the sounds they’re making. While this has generally been
accepted as anecdotal folk wisdom, a team of scientists from the
Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia
are now trying to scientifically verify it. They’re hoping that
their research could lead to better living conditions for the
animals, lower costs to farmers, and higher productivity.
Idacorp, the parent company of
Idaho Power Co., caught heat inside and outside its annual
meeting Thursday for relying on coal for nearly half of its
power generation.
Solar activity was very low. The
geomagnetic field was at quiet to active levels. A weak
interplanetary shock was observed at the ACE spacecraft at
21/1844Z. An associated sudden impulse of 34 nT was observed.
A recurrent coronal hole high speed streams (CH HSS) move into a
geoeffective position.
Rumors of hyperinflation and the
total collapse of the dollar have been circulating for years.
Now, after five years of a steadily worsening economy, we may
finally be standing on the precipice of a dramatic economic
collapse.
As Spain's banking sector continues
to deteriorate, rumors are beginning to spread of a possible run
on banks with depositors withdrawing some billion euros from a
single bank.
Russia is planning to start
performance testing next year on a prototype of a new fighter
jet that is intended to be Russia’s counterweight to America’s
F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, both built by Lockheed Martin
(LMT). The T-50, a prototype for the Sukhoi PAK FA, is the first
new combat aircraft Russia has built since the fall of the
Soviet Union and is evidence that Russia’s military is
experiencing a reemergence. It is also evidence that U.S.
efforts to “reset” its relationship with Russia have been
unsuccessful. It’s clear, Russia still sees the United States as
its rival and competitor.
What are pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device
companies trying to buy with $700,000,000? Massive influence
with our government.
The national debate over clean energy, greenhouse gases and
the economy flared at a Senate hearing Thursday as lawmakers
considered Sen. Jeff Bingaman's proposed clean energy standard
for utilities.
Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee, has tried for years to persuade
Congress to force utility companies to provide more power from
clean, or renewable, sources. But Republican senators on the
committee made it clear Thursday that the New Mexico lawmaker
can't count on passage of his bill in the narrowly divided
Senate before he retires at the end of the year.
It all centers on shale gas and the
chemicals used to ply loose the commodity that is embedded in
rocks and deep underground. While the industry says that such
drilling methods are safe and that they present no danger to the
public, environmentalist and community activists counter that
the process is destroying their drinking water. Just how this
issue is resolved will have huge implications on the country’s
energy picture -- one estimated to see shale gas comprise 46
percent of all natural gas production by 2035.
Category R2 (Moderate) radio
blackouts were observed on 17 May due to flare activity from
active sunspot Region 1476.
Category S1 (Minor) radiation
storms were observed on 17 and 18 May due to solar activity from
active sunspot region 1476.
Category S2 (Moderate)
radiation storms were observed on 17 May due to solar activity
from active sunspot Region 1476.
More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious
crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23
years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities.
There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations
of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up.
The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled
by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on
Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law,
is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled.
The annual survey, "reSources
2012," found that 9 out of 10 companies have electricity usage
and energy management goals; 66 percent identifying cost-cutting
as their primary motivation. Further, 85 percent see reducing
electricity costs as essential to staying financially
competitive, a 9 percent increase from 2011; 81 percent view
reducing electricity costs as essential to their image.
Agriculture is key to the
successful development and commercialization of clean, abundant,
renewable, domestic energy and bio-based products in the United
States. This is the sentiment coming from several organizations
in an effort to convince the House Agriculture Subcommittee on
Conservation, Energy and Forestry to reauthorize Farm Bill
energy programs and provide them with mandatory funding.
A Special Report On the Fukushima
Nuclear Catastrophe
Most of the world community is
still unaware of the extremely profound and far-reaching effects
that the Fukushima nuclear disaster has had. If the nations of
the world really understood the implications of the actual
‘fallout’ – past, current and future – the current nuclear
energy paradigm would be systematically shut down. For those of
us who are in the know, it is incumbent upon each of us to
disseminate the relevant information/data necessary to forever
close down the nuclear power industry around the globe.
Seventy-four percent of financial
executives received an increase in their salary in the last
year, compared to 66 percent in 2011 and 43 percent in 2010,
according to the findings of an annual survey issued by Grant
Thornton LLP and Financial Executives Research Foundation
(FERF). While the estimated average salary increase was 4
percent, versus the 3 percent last year, public companies were
awarded a slightly higher increase than private companies.
American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro says plans for a
military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities are “fully
available” and “ready.”
In remarks aired by Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday, Shapiro
said: “It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and
through the use of pressure than to use military force. But that
doesn’t mean that option is not fully available — not just
available, but it’s ready.
The two largest electric companies
in West Virginia say millions of dollars of upgrades approved by
the region's grid operator will maintain reliable electric power
supplies in the wake of recently announced power plant
retirements.
May 18, 2012
Six out of 34 heads of prefectures
and municipalities where nuclear power plants are located favor
restarting suspended nuclear reactors if they meet government
safety standards, according to a survey conducted by The Yomiuri
Shimbun.
The U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday announced stiff
anti-dumping tariffs of around 31 percent on crystalline silicon
solar panels imported from China, leading to a new round of
concerns on how the duties will impact the growing American
solar industry.
Bayer's neonicotinoid pesticides,
which now coat upwards of 90 percent of US corn seeds and seeds
of increasing portions of other major crops like soy, have
emerged as a likely trigger for colony collapse disorder.
About 100 people packed a meeting
room in the City Hall Annex for a public hearing on whether the
Bridgeport Harbor Power Station, the last coal-burning power
plant in Connecticut, should have its operating permit renewed.
As
groundwater is pumped for irrigation, drinking water, and
industrial uses, the water doesn't just seep back into the
ground -- it also evaporates into the atmosphere, or runs off
into rivers and canals, eventually emptying into the world's
oceans. According to a new study from the American Geophysical
Union, this water adds up. The research suggests that by 2050,
groundwater pumping will cause a global sea level rise of about
0.8 millimeters per year.
With Congress considering drastic
cuts to national clean water protections, and rivers nationwide
facing threats from natural gas drilling, pollution, and new
dams, American Rivers today released its annual list of
America’s Most Endangered Rivers. American Rivers named the
Potomac River, known as ‘the nation’s river’ as it flows through
the capital, the most endangered in the country. While the
Potomac is cleaner than it used to be, the river is still
threatened by urban and agricultural pollution– and it could get
much worse if Congress rolls back critical clean water
safeguards.
Oil prices continue plunging,
hitting five-month lows recently and market watchers are bracing
for further losses.
Escalating European debt fears, a
cooling Chinese economy and sustained headwinds slowing U.S.
recovery are sending U.S. crude futures to below $95 a barrel
from over $110 in March.
On May 20 a great celestial event
will take place: The moon will obscure the sun—almost. Although
the moon made its closest approach to Earth for the year a
couple of weeks back, it has now receded to the point where its
disk will not quite cover the sun.
Seven months after a trade investigation was launched, American
solar companies and Chinese solar manufacturers will finally get
a clear picture of the challenges ahead.
Speaker John Boehner has set the
House on a collision course with the Obama administration,
insisting that he won’t allow an increase in the debt ceiling
unless the raise is offset by an equal or greater amount of
spending cuts.
An oil spill was discovered off
Brazil's coast near the country's Espirito Santo state, Brazil's
Navy said on Thursday, the latest in a series of spills that
have raised questions about the safety of a massive expansion of
the country's oil production capacity.
The bill would bar Chinese-made
solar panels from qualifying for a 30 percent tax credit for
buying and installing solar panels. The IRS allows tax breaks
for solar panels regardless of where they are made.
If the vote were today, it would pass!
Current polls show a majority of California voters support
the Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.
Unfortunately, the biotech industry is spending millions of
dollars to convince California consumers they don’t really want
GMO labeling.
Not only do the FBI and Secret
Service have standing authority to jam signals, but they along
with state and local authorities can also push for the shutdown
of cell towers, thanks to a little-known legacy of the Bush
administration: “Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 303," which
lays out the nation’s official “Emergency Wireless Protocols.”
Senior finance executives worldwide are expressing moderate
optimism about the prospects for economic growth over the next
twelve months. Investments in expanded operating capacity,
research and development, and mergers and acquisitions are on
the table as finance executives dip into their companies’ cash
stockpiles. Hiring is also on the rise, with a majority of
finance executives planning to increase headcount over the next
twelve months.
China’s central bank cut the amount
of cash that banks must hold as reserves on Saturday, freeing an
estimated 400-billion yuan ($63.5 billion U.S.) for lending to
head-off the risk of a sudden slowdown in the world’s
second-largest economy.
In his remarks to the media, as
prepared for delivery, at the World Renewable Energy Forum today
in Denver, Colorado, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu highlighted
Colorado's leadership in the clean energy economy and the Obama
Administration's commitments to strengthening U.S. leadership in
the global clean energy race. Specifically, he called on
Congress to act on clean energy tax credits that will help
American companies continue to create jobs and produce clean,
renewable power for our economy.
Kinder Morgan has proposed a coal export terminal at the port
capable of exporting 15 million tons of coal annually. A second
phase of the project would double the export capacity.
"Under the terms of our lease, we have the opportunity to
review and evaluate impacts on our facilities," Steve Corson,
spokesman for PGE, told Energy Prospects West. "Our
evaluation of Kinder Morgan's proposal is that it would not be
compatible with our existing plants. The coal dust would be a
problem."
A new UCS report shows how some
drug companies have ghostwritten scientific articles,
passing them off as the work of independent scientists,
undermining our drug safety system and endangering Americans’
health.
Once upon a time, tasters were
employed by the well-to-do, in order to check that their food or
drink wasn't poisonous. Today, there are electronic biosensors
that can do more or less the same thing. Unfortunately, as was
no doubt sometimes the case with the tasters, the biosensors
can’t always give us immediate results. Additionally, they’re
usually only able to test for specific substances, and not
simply for “anything that’s toxic.” An experimental new device
known as the Dip Chip, however, is said to address both of those
problems.
Aside from arable land, most farm
crops require significant amounts of water, fertilizer,
nutrients and pesticides to grow. While specialized breeding is
often used to help produce plants that require less of these
inputs, Purdue University researcher Burkhard Schulz has found a
way to create tiny versions of plants that suffer no reduction
in yield through the addition of a cheap and widely available
chemical.
Near the rock-strewn scene of a
bloody anti-army protest, Islamist, liberal and other
politicians sat with ruling generals this month to haggle over
Egypt's future after its first presidential vote since Hosni
Mubarak's fall.
Fears Greece will default and roil
markets worldwide is fueling global demand for safe and liquid
Treasury bonds, which is pushing long-term interest rates down
and making life easier for many in the U.S., experts tell the
Christian Science Monitor.
The number of extreme rainstorms -
deluges that dump 3 inches or more in a day - doubled in the
U.S. Midwest over the last half-century, causing billions of
dollars in flood damage in a trend climate advocates link to a
rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
Look quickly at the Fahrradi
Farfalla FFX and you might mistake it for a limited edition
Ferrari. Scan a little more closely, though, and you'll notice
the thin, hollow wheels and barren interior. Something is
certainly amiss, and it's because the FFX isn't one of the
world's most exotic supercars. It's one of the world's most
exotic bicycles.
Honolulu became the final county in
Hawaii to ban plastic bags, making it illegal to hand out them
out at any grocery store in the state.
Wind energy just got a nice bump.
It came after a key federal agency authorized a project funded
in part by Google to lay the groundwork for an underwater power
line. The off-shore wind deal, known as the Atlantic Wind
Connection, could start putting steel in the ocean by 2014
Greece will go to the polls for the
second time in less than two months on June 17, the Athens News
Agency said Wednesday, as fears grew of more instability over
the country's eurozone future.
The world of money and stocks is
going crazy. We see economic indicators which tell us that we
are not recovering from this current
recession/depression (it's one or the other, depending on who
you talk to), yet the stock market keeps spasming up and down.
(Actually, if you look at the Dow Jones graph, it looks more
like a heart patient in the midst of arterial defibrillation at
its worst.) What in the world is going on in the world of
finance and economics?
The FOMC viewed that the economy “had been expanding
moderately” in the inter-meeting period and generally agreed
that the economic outlook was “broadly similar” to March.
Cyberthreats against the United
States from many nations are growing, but Iran may be emerging
as the nation most likely to engage in cyber warfare against
critical U.S. infrastructure systems, including the U.S. power
grid. Iran’s cyber warfare capabilities lag behind those of
China and Russia, but one expert claims, “what it lacks in
capability, it makes up for in intent.” Iran also reportedly is
heavily investing in a “cyber army.”
Japan's largest power utility Tokyo
Electric Power Company said Friday that it will be able to meet
electricity demand in the peak July and August summer months,
even though all of its 13 nuclear power plants are shut.
Libya is currently pumping nearly
1.5 million b/d of crude and expects to achieve "normal" pre-war
production levels of 1.6 million b/d by mid-2012, Abdulbaset
Abadi, a member of the oil committee at the National
Transitional Council, said Wednesday.
This story is directed to anyone
out there in our audience who is interest in making aviation
history, not to mention breakthrough energy history.
A
group up in Montana has a hydroxy system that gives amazing
results in improving mileage and horsepower and reducing
emissions
With melting sea ice opening up
previously inaccessible parts of the Arctic Ocean, the fishing
industry sees a potential bonanza. But some scientists and
government officials have begun calling for a moratorium on
fishing in the region until the true state of the Arctic fishery
is assessed. When scientists with the Circumpolar Biodiversity
Monitoring Program began tracking 323 vertebrate species across
the entire Arctic several years ago, most assumed that many fish
and animals would not fare well in a region where rapid warming
is causing such profound changes.
JPMorgan's $2 billion trading loss
couldn't have come at a worse time, as it will give regulation
champions fodder to hogtie the banking sector and possibly speed
up the implementation of the Volcker Rule, which would ban banks
from trading with their own money for their own benefit, says
star Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney.
They say nothing can get done in Washington, D.C. on the issue
of clean energy, which has become a political lightening rod
over the last year. With Congress at a high watermark of
partisanship, accusations abound on Capitol Hill that American
energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and the
policies that support them are job killers and a money-wasting
hoax on taxpayers. And yet, there's reason for optimism about
energy innovation in this country. Why? Because the most
powerful force in the world, the U.S. military, is mobilizing on
a clean energy mission — and I believe they're going to win this
war.
America is changing. As of July
2011, 50.4 percent of children under age 1 in the US were
members of minority groups. In the under-5 group in 2011, 49.7
percent were minorities.
Average rates for 30-year and 15-year
fixed mortgages fell to record lows for a third straight week.
The steady decline has made home-buying
and refinancing more affordable than ever for those who can
qualify.
For over 500 years, the Wixaritari Indians of Mexico have
suffered from poverty, malnutrition and racism - today, they are
also victims of global climate change.
For this ancient indigenous people living in the Sierra Madre
Occidental mountain range of northwestern Mexico, droughts are
growing more severe and more frequent, until now many
communities have little or no water supply.
Potentially hazardous asteroids
(PHAs) are a subset of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that have the
potential to come within five million miles (eight million
kilometers) of Earth, and are of a size large enough to make it
through Earth’s atmosphere to cause significant damage on a
regional, or greater, scale. NASA’s asteroid-hunting NEOWISE
mission has now provided the best estimate yet of the number of
PHAs in our solar system, along with their origins and the
potential dangers they might pose.
Earth's ecosystems keep soaking up more carbon as greenhouse
gases accumulate in the atmosphere, new measurements find.
The research contradicts several recent studies suggesting
that "carbon sinks" have reached or passed their capacity. By
looking at global measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide,
the new work calculates instead that total sinks have increased
roughly in line with rising emissions.
A new retinal prosthesis could
allow the blind to see, by using pulses of near-infrared light
to activate the retinal neurons in their eyes
While the conventional thinking has
been that obesity is a medical problem unto itself, two recent
studies indicate that it’s possible to be overweight and be
perfectly healthy — and the new research may change the way we
think about our body weight.
the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), which used to
be the American Dietetic Association, is working state by state
to create a legal monopoly and shut out certified nutritionists
who may be more qualified. The organization sponsors bills which
ensure that only AND-registered dietitians can offer key
nutrition services to the public.
PJM Interconnection this month
passed the one gigawatt (GW)--one billion watts - milestone for
solar power installed in its region. One gigawatt of electricity
generated would power between 800,000 and one million homes.
I can't put my finger on what's
going on with the world right now, and nobody's given me the
insider's guide to the universe yet. Experts are throwing out
all kinds of predictions, but the only thing you can count on is
that nobody but God really knows what's going to happen next.
I don't know any of the answers, and my nerves have me
expanding the one place in the world I honestly feel at ease.
I'm adding on to my garden.
Monsanto’s Mon810 corn, genetically
engineered to produce a mutant version of the insecticide Bt,
has been banned in Poland following protests by beekeepers who
showed the corn was killing honeybees.
It might be called “Ripple Through
Economics.” It’s in reference to the fall in demand for domestic
coal and how it is affecting the railroad industry that carries
such fuel from the mine mouth to the utilities that burn it.
Solar power gathered in space and
sent back to Earth through microwaves or lasers could provide
the renewable energy of the future, Scottish engineers say.
Backers of the US ethanol and
refining sectors clashed Tuesday over the influence renewable
fuels have on prices at the retail gasoline pump.
Solar activity was at high levels.
Associated with the flare was Type II
(645 km/s) and IV radio
sweeps as well as a partial halo CME. Solar activity is
expected to be at predominantly low levels with a slight chance
for M-class activity for all three days of the period (18 - 20
May). a shock enhancement in the interplanetary magnetic
field is expected from the event. Further analysis is pending.
The geomagnetic field was at quiet to active levels. An
isolated active period was observed. The geomagnetic field
is expected to be mostly quiet during the first half of day 1
(18 May). Around mid to late on day 1, a shock arrival is
expected from the partial halo CME associated with the 17 May M5
flare. Active to minor storm conditions are expected. Early on
day 2 (19 May), unsettled to active conditions are expected,
returning to quiet to unsettled levels by the end of the day.
Quiet to unsettled conditions are expected on day 3 (20 May).
Eating too much sugar can eat away
at your brainpower, according to US scientists who published a
study Tuesday showing how a steady diet of high-fructose corn
syrup sapped lab rats' memories.
While millions of dollars have been
spent on clearing the 1,730 square kilometres (667 sq. miles)
planted with landmines in Iraq, only a fraction of the work has
been done although the 10-year deadline for demining the country
expires in 2018.
Two
things stand out:
1. Spanish banks are now borrowing record amounts from the
Banco de España (the Eurosystem). The total is 1.15 trillion
Euros. As discussed earlier a good portion of the collateral
are the banks' own bonds guaranteed by the government.
2. Target2 liabilities of Banco de España continue to
grow, indicating further flight of capital out of Spain.
PBoC, China's central bank, is
having trouble stimulating lending. The trouble now seems to be
more demand driven, as the economic slowdown sets in.
Lowering your carbon footprint and
reducing greenhouse gasses may become as simple as painting your
home or office, thanks to breakthrough research from the
University of Notre Dame. The researchers, led by Professor
Prashant Kamat, have created a new solar paint dubbed
Sun-believable, which is laced with power producing
nanoparticles capable of producing electricity. With the ability
to generate renewable energy from this new, less invasive
method, bulky solar panels as we know them today may soon become
relics destined for the museum.
In the early hours of Saturday
morning, a rocket is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral
in Florida on a mission to deliver a capsule full of supplies to
the International Space Station.
Governments met in Bonn Monday to
tackle curbing global greenhouse gas emissions and helping
developing countries adapt to the unavoidable effects of climate
change. During the next 10 days, they will work towards writing
a global, legally-binding climate agreement, extending the Kyoto
Protocol into a second commitment period, and building funding
support for developing nations to US$100 billion a year by 2020.
The number of students wishing to
enter nuclear technology-related courses has been decreasing
since the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1
nuclear power plant.
It is believed the Ethiopian
ancestors of today’s Oromo tribe were the first to discover the
energizing effect of the coffee bean.
Drinking a cup of java three times
daily may decrease your risk of dying from common causes.
In a primary election race for
Oregon's top law enforcement post, the candidate who pledged to
protect medical marijuana patients scored a decisive victory
Tuesday night over a rival who led a cannabis crackdown last
year.
Temperature can be an essential
element of the taste experience. Food and drink that in a given
culture is traditionally served hot is often considered
distasteful if cold, and vice versa. For example, alcoholic
beverages, with a few exceptions, are usually thought best when
served cold, but soups—again, with exceptions—are usually only
eaten hot.
It's easy to understand why E-Verify has widespread support in
Arizona, especially with tens of thousands of Arizona residents
struggling to find a full-time job. E-Verify is the smart and
sensible approach to immigration enforcement that many in
Arizona have demanded, yet Senators McCain and Kyl have ignored
these concerns. Among likely voters who expressed an opinion:
- 94% of Republicans support E-Verify
- 84% of Independents support E-Verify
- 81% of Democrats support E-Verify
Central to the successful operation
of any Tesla coil is the high voltage switch which needs to be
tough enough to cope with the repeated switching of tens of
thousands of volts and around 2,000 ampere of current, as well
as being able to take some modest heat generation in its stride.
Flickenger's switch housing is custom-made from porcelain and
contains a pair of tungsten welding electrodes. Once tweaked and
tested, the new switch was installed inside the gun's housing
along with a CPU cooling fan for drawing hot ions out of the
switch to help create bigger, rapid lightning bolts.
A medical kit is not a fashion
statement! Just imagine you slip and fall somewhere in the
backcountry, and against everything you have ever been taught,
you trekked out alone. You need to patch up a bad gash on your
thigh. You reach into your kit and everything is jostled around
from the tumble. You can't find what you need, so you begin to
panic.
“We used to live sustainably, and
only took what we needed from the land. We need to get back to
that.” These words by Chief Gordon Planes inspired the T’Sou-ke
First Nation in Sooke, British Columbia, to implement an
ambitious project to re-build their traditional ways, at the
same time making their community one of the greenest in Canada.
France's Total said it had succeeded in stopping the gas leak
at its well at the Elgin platform in the North Sea after it
pumped heavy mud into it.
During the coming days, teams of experts from Total and
specialist contractors will closely monitor the well to confirm
the success of the move, the company said on its website on
Wednesday.
British scientists have abandoned
an experiment to test the possibility of spraying particles into
the upper atmosphere to stem global warming, largely due to
concerns over a patent for some of the technology, the project's
leader said.
"Already results show these new
light fixtures are saving energy — 57 to 60 percent — compared
to the old mercury vapor and high pressure sodium lights," said
Mayor Gray. "Imagine how much energy we could save if we expand
this program to all 70,000 street and alley lights across the
District. That would be a great down payment on a truly
Sustainable D.C.
While many government officials
nervously await the outcome of the November elections and
speculate as to its implications for the cleantech sector, one
federal department is likely to be relatively unaffected
regardless of the outcome: Defense.
Retail spending inched up 0.1% in April 2012, which was in
line with market expectations, and followed solid 0.7% (revised
from 0.8%) and 1.0% (was 1.1%) gains in March and February,
respectively.
If not older coal technology, then
what is the future of electric generation? That’s the question
that many utilities are asking themselves as well as their
regulators and their customers. And while the most conspicuous
answer is a smooth transition over to natural gas, it is not the
only solution
Despite the lethargic economy and
slow demand growth, public service commissioners in the United
States aren't holding utilities back from making investments --
and in some cases they are encouraging them to invest more in
their states. But the commissions are being extra diligent in
asking the utilities to prove a project's economic worthiness
and, in turn, are trying to better convey to ratepayers why the
investments are necessary.
Duke Energy Indiana’s coal-fired
Gallagher plant will be supplied by spot purchases, if any,
throughout the rest of 2012 because higher per-unit fuel costs,
low forward power prices and the retirement of two units at the
end of January.
There have been a flurry of studies
recently extolling the falling cost of some renewables compared
to traditional fuel sources. At the same time, as the previous
article in this series highlighted, counter claims abound.
Renewables – notably wind power – are commonly cited as a key
cause for rising electricity bills for consumers.
Pennsylvania consumers could see
their electric, natural gas and wastewater bills go up next year
because of a new state law that allows utility companies to
raise rates to pay for infrastructure improvements.
Firefighters struggled against strong winds on Thursday to
halt the advance of Arizona wildfires that have charred over 30
square miles of dry ponderosa forest, brush and grass, and a
blaze in nearby Colorado swelled overnight.
Over 1,000 firefighters in the two states battled at least
five major blazes from the ground while air tankers and
helicopters made water and fire retardant drops.
Biodiversity has decreased by an average of 28 percent
globally since 1970 and the world would have to be 50 percent
bigger to have enough land and forests to provide for current
levels of consumption and carbon emissions, conservation group
WWF said on Tuesday.
Unless the world addresses the problem, by 2030 even two
planet Earths would not be enough to sustain human activity, WWF
said..
Colloidal silver is a powerful healer, despite irrational FDA
opposition to it.
Silver has been used medicinally throughout
the ages, with great success. And now some very promising
research is being done on silver as a cancer treatment.
In a new LIGNET interview, senior
analyst Dr David Wurmser assessed the drubbing that Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies took in a May 4
parliamentary run-off election from allies of Iranian Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reflected not simply political
disagreements but a wider and irreconcilable religious
disagreement that threatens the rule of the Iranian mullahs and
“could ultimately rip apart the regime.”
May 15, 2012
Increasingly, new technologies such
as advanced batteries, compressed air energy storage (CAES),
flywheels, thermal storage and advanced forms of pumped storage
are being deployed globally in energy storage projects.
What would you do if all the food
around you were suddenly contaminated? What if every bite you
took increased your risk of getting a deadly disease? What if
dangerous poisons were in your milk, your meat, and your
vegetables? Would you have a backup plan? Or would you face the
impossible dilemma of eating toxic food or starving to death?
A return of the El Nino weather pattern may threaten food
output in Asia, the world's top producer of rice and palm oil,
but drier conditions in some areas could also benefit crops such
as coffee and cocoa and keep global prices in check.
With memories of the devastating El Nino in the late 1990s
still fresh in their minds, farmers are braced for the return of
the weather anomaly, which can bring drought in some places and
heavy storms in others.
Although forecasters say it is too early to say whether a
full-blown El Nino is on the way, several models in Australia
and India show warming of the Pacific Ocean after two straight
years of La Nina that resulted in excessive rainfall.
The End Polluter Welfare Act would
end fossil fuel subsidies, and save over $10 billion a year and
more than $110 billion over 10 years. Senator Bernie Sanders
(I-VT) and Rep. Keith Ellison announced they would introduce the
bill to Congress during a press conference with 350.org. The
bill would specifically end tax breaks for fossil fuel
companies, plus eliminate special financing, end taxpayer funded
R&D, and set fair royalties policies.
It is good to see businesses
identifying processes to minimize their waste streams at the
back end. It is also great to see that businesses see the
material at the beginning of their production process and put
effort out to find alternative material or reduce the amount
needed.
A decade at war has made Marines mean on the battlefield. Now
to get lean, the Corps is becoming Green.
Marines have become exceedingly lethal, but all that deadly
precision comes with a heavy burden -- a lot of fuel and extra
batteries to carry, said Col. Bob Charette, director of Marine
Corps Expeditionary Energy Office.
In its quarterly report to the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Southern Co. (NYSE:
SO) said the consortium in charge of building two new
Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power reactors at Plant Vogtle in
Georgia has informed the company it will cost an additional $400
million to complete the reactors by the scheduled completion
date.
The U.S. economy may be improving
but Americans are still bogged down by massive debt burdens with
little or no savings, a study finds.
One out of five
families owes more on credit cards, medical bills, student loans
and other unsecured debt than they have in savings, according to
a new University of Michigan study, USA Today reports.
Radiation Map Real Time
After test-driving the
soon-to-go-on-sale Ford Focus Electric at a promotional event
downtown on Thursday, Matt Hrna was impressed with its quick
acceleration. It has more pickup than the four-cylinder
gasoline-powered car he now owns.
As summer approaches, retailers are feeling the heat from
volatile fuel prices. A study by BDO USA, LLP found that while
the economy remains the top risk for the nation’s largest
retailers, concerns over the cost of fuel prices outpaced
unemployment for the first time since 2009. Of the 99 percent of
retailers citing general economic conditions as a risk, 71
percent point to fuel prices as a primary reason, up from 58
percent last year. With tepid progress in job reports, 68
percent of retailers note lingering concerns over unemployment,
but the risk is down from its peak in 2010 (70 percent).
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction.
It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent
interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said
that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves
“regardless of what we do.”
Greek exit from the Eurozone may be
the only way the nation could gain some control over its
monetary system. Given the complete "credit isolation" of
Greece's banks and the private sector from the rest of the
Eurozone, the ECB is powerless to improve liquidity conditions
in that nation. Some of the ECB's policymakers are beginning to
agree.
The rapid deployment of
electric-vehicle charging stations across Hawaii is putting the
state ahead of the curve in the "chicken and egg" dilemma that
has slowed the acceptance of EVs in other markets.
Just as water pollution is
contamination of the water, noise can be considered
contamination of the air waves. From a cognitive standpoint,
there exists an optimal level of ambient noise. Too far above or
below this level will cause focus and creativity to drop off. In
this sense, noise is like pollution of the mind. A new study
from the University of Illinois shows that ambient noise is a
major factor affecting creative cognitive abilities. It is
something that advertisers and marketers should be especially
attuned to in marketing their products to the public.
Does the presence of a blue bin –
on campus, at work or in the home – somehow encourage people to
generate more waste and use more resources? It sure looks like
it.
Japan's Mount Fuji may be sitting
on a large, active fault that could trigger a magnitude-7
earthquake, changing the shape of the mountain and devastating
nearby communities, the education ministry said on Thursday.
The growth of the wind power sector is at a crossroads, with
a divided Congress deadlocked on whether to renew a key subsidy
that has helped drive the industry's growth.
But a slowdown in wind farm construction won't deter
Mukwonago startup firm Gearbox Express, which has invested more
than $9 million to ready itself to help the wind power sector
move through an inevitable challenge -- gear failures.
The house where Dixie Ellis lives with her mother is perched
on a mesa above town. It is a steep hike up the hill from Lake
Powell, the second-largest man-made reservoir on the continent,
and an easier walk up Arizona 98 from the Navajo Generating
Station, one of the country's largest coal-fired power plants.
"Tourists ask me about it," Ellis said, nodding at the three
774-foot smokestacks that rise into the northern sky from the
power plant less than 3 miles down the hill. "I tell them we
don't even have running water or electricity. They can't believe
it."
New Navy estimates showing many
more dolphins, whales and other marine mammals could be hurt by
sonar off Hawaii and Southern California caused alarm among
environmentalists on Friday. The Navy, for its part, emphasized
those were worst-case estimates and that the numbers cover a
much larger testing area than before.
Practical laser weapons came
another step closer to reality recently as defense contractor
Northrop Grumman tested the latest version of its Firestrike
solid-state lasers. On May 1st, the company announced that it
had completed trials at its Redondo Beach laboratory of a more
powerful and rugged generation of its slab lasers, that combine
with improved sensor capacities to create a general laser
component that can provide the military with a wide range of
greatly enhanced defensive and offensive laser capabilities.
Yesterday, we held a national
briefing about the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) new
carbon pollution standard that will protect our health and
reduce global warming. High level officials from the EPA and
White House shared with Union of Concerned Scientists supporters
how critical it is for citizens like you to write personal
comments in support of the new standard.
During World Wars I and II, private
citizens were encouraged to plant Victory gardens in an effort
to support the war effort and take the strain off the food
industry, providing more food for citizens living at home.
Little gardens popped up all over the country and they were
called Victory gardens because people envisioned a victorious
end to strife, sadness and hardship. Victory gardens in the U.S.
produced a staggering 40% of the food supply. The Victory garden
campaign resulted in 5 million gardens tended by over 20 million
Americans, providing over $1.2 billion in food by the end of
WWII.
OPEC said on May 10 that rising crude production from its own
members and higher oil supply from non-OPEC producers would be
more than enough to meet the needs of world oil markets this
year.
It noted that OECD stocks had risen contra-seasonally to
"comfortable levels" above the five-year average in the first
quarter and were equivalent to 59 days of forward cover, while
the supply/demand balance also suggested a "substantial" build
in stocks outside the OECD, particularly in China.
Osram Sylvania has been in touch to
tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its
Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a a
warm color appearance of 2700 K - the most compelling spec we've
seen
For most of us fighting the battle
of the bulge, fat is an enemy that must be reigned in to a
healthier – and less noticeable – level. But there are actually
two types of fat – or adipose tissue – found in mammals: white
and brown. While white fat stores calories and is the culprit
behind love handles, brown fat’s primary function is to generate
heat to keep the body warm through the burning of fats in a
process known as thermogenesis. Therefore, the ability to
activate brown fat in the body could provide a means to fight
obesity and keep the weight off. Now scientists have discovered
a protein that could allow them to do just that.
Here's the way it should
be:
Let's put the seniors in
jail and the criminals in nursing homes
There are a few scales that one can
use to measure radiation. Depending upon your application, one
scale may be better than the others.
Arizona
is one of 13 states that lead the nation in evaluating the
effectiveness of state tax credits intended to boost business,
according to a recent study.
Solar activity was low. Two
CMEs were observed, neither appears to have a potential
earthward. slight chance for an M-class flare. The
geomagnetic field is expected to be unsettled to active on day 1
(15 May), with the anticipated arrival of a CME observed on 12
May
Sir Richard Branson believes that
the ideal way for Spain to get out of its current morass of
national debt, savage austerity cuts, and social turmoil would
be to legalize and tax marijuana.
Brown, rolling plains that seem to
stretch on to eternity are suddenly broken by the brilliant blue
of Lake Titicaca. The lake, which sits on the border between
Peru and Bolivia, has supported indigenous farming and fishing
communities for thousands of years. But what was once a sacred
place to the Inca is now in danger from pollution, as population
growth in the Titicaca watershed overwhelms the area’s
infrastructure.
Sandia National Laboratories and
the Department of Energy and DVN KEMA have released a tool that
makes it easier for utilities, developers, and regulators to
conduct a quick, high-level analysis of energy storage options
and determine the value of energy storage technologies for a
specified application.
As President of Forgotten People, I believe that the Navajo
and Hopi people are enduring still with the impacts of the
Former Bennett Freeze, and relocation environmental,
sociological, economic disparity and injustices, as a result of
current and future energy production strategies.
With all the talk about JPMorgan's
losses out of the CIO's office, nobody is discussing the money
the firm made on Friday due to the accounting magic called DVA.
After all, CIO's positions were (at least in principle) meant to
act as an offset to this earnings volatility.
A proposal by California Public Utilities Commission
President Michael Peevey to change the way that "net metering"
is calculated is the latest skirmish in the war between the
state's largest utilities and the fast-growing rooftop solar
industry.
Net metering, a popular policy that has been in place in
California for 15 years, allows homeowners, school districts and
businesses to offset the cost of their electric use with the
rooftop solar power they generate and export to the grid.
Utilities give solar customers a credit on their monthly bill
during sunny months when they generate more power than they use,
and those credits can offset higher consumption of
utility-generated electricity in winter.
Despite strong opposition from
environmentalists, the state Assembly on Thursday approved
controversial legislation that allows a solar energy developer
to bypass local agencies in seeking to build a large-scale power
plant in a valley that is home to desert tortoises, golden
eagles and bighorn sheep.
A new report from a Brussels-based
think tank says Chinese government agencies are exacerbating
tensions in the South China Sea. As relations worsen between
China and its South China Sea neighbors, some analysts say
Beijing governmental agencies with little experience in foreign
affairs are jockeying for influence, presenting inconsistent
policies
A new report from Standard & Poor’s
estimates up to $46 trillion in
refinancing and new financing
needs by companies during the next four
years — and credit
markets may not be able to handle it, the Business
Insider
reports.
The superbugs have met their match.
Conceived at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), it comes in
the form of a coating which has a magnetic-like feature that
attracts bacteria and kills them without the need for
antibiotics.
Roundup Ready soy is now being cultivated on a massive scale
across the globe, along with the exponentially increasing use of
the herbicide Roundup. Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soy beans are
genetically modified to survive otherwise lethal doses of
glyphosate, the active ingredient in the company's herbicide
Roundup.
Dangerous, high-voltage power lines
aren't stopping thieves from stealing or trying to steal copper
and other metals that can be sold for scrap, and PPL officials
are concerned.
Concerned about increased electric
transmission costs in New England, the senior Democrat on the
House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee on Friday
urged the chairman of the US Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission to use greater care in determining whether electric
transmission rate incentives are really needed for projects. The
letter also questioned whether all of the incentive rates FERC
has thus far granted for projects, such as rate of return on
equity adders, were necessary.
The average US citizen is willing
to pay 13 percent more for electricity in support of a national
clean-energy standard (NCES), according to new research
published by Yale and Harvard researchers. Americans, on
average, are willing to pay $162 per year in higher electricity
bills to support a national standard requiring that 80 percent
of the energy be clean, or not derived from fossil fuels.
Support was lower for a national standard among nonwhites, older
individuals and Republicans.
If the United States ever weans itself off foreign oil, it
could have utilities like National Grid to thank.
That may not seem logical considering that National Grid
delivers natural gas and electricity to homes and businesses,
while it is gasoline-powered cars and trucks that drive much of
the demand for oil.
Waste Management Inc. is greatly
expanding the company's fleet of compressed natural gas-powered
collection vehicles in the Houston area and opening a new
station in Conroe, Texas.
May 11, 2012
The 13-acre solar farm, which will
generate 3 megawatts and power up to 500 homes, falls in line
with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's energy plan, which calls
for solar projects to be constructed on landfills and
brownfields instead of other available land.
For algae to power our cars and
planes, production needs to be low carbon and cost effective,
which means working with natural processes, not against them,
say scientists.
China maintains its position atop
the All renewables index for another quarter; however, there are
signs that the rapid growth of its renewables industry is
slowing...The US remains in second place, increasing its score
by two points to take it to 68 points in the All renewables
index.
U.S. crude oil stocks rose 3.652
million barrels during the week that ended May 4 as imports
rose, mainly from Saudi Arabia, data released Wednesday from the
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed.
The Doctrine of DIscovery and its
medieval precepts must be discarded, First Nations and allied
groups said at the 11th Session of the United Nations Permanent
Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII).
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has told the UN Security
Council his Syria peace plan may be the "last chance" to avoid
civil war as the government pursues attacks on civilians.
Mr Annan gave a dire assessment of the situation in Syria as
he briefed the 15-nation council on his efforts to get president
Bashar al-Assad to carry out his six-point plan.
U.S. Army scientists are
researching methods to harness the sun and wind to ease the
burdens associated with transporting fossil fuels to dangerous
areas.
Contrary to many anti-aging pills
and creams, avocados are extremely inexpensive and also quite a
delicious addition to any seasonal meal. The best part, however,
is that they are actually effective in fighting both again and
bolstering your immune system to fight off disease — no
expensive medical interventions required.
Global investors give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
his highest approval rating since 2009 and expect him to take
further action this year to accelerate a revival in the U.S.
economy and financial markets.
Bernanke, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney
said he wouldn’t reappoint for running too lax a monetary
policy, receives a favorable assessment from three of four of
those surveyed in the latest Bloomberg Global Poll.
Electric vehicles (EVs) burn no
gasoline and have no tailpipe emissions, but producing the
electricity used to charge them does generate global warming
emissions. The amount of these emissions, however, varies
significantly based on the mix of energy sources used to power a
region's electricity grid.
Chinese investors have acquired a
61.5-MW wind project in Texas and plan to install 17 wind
turbines of 3.6 MW each that will have the largest output per
turbine of any in the US, a wind developer who helped arrange
the deal said Tuesday.
A federal appeals court says
illegal immigrants don't have a right to own firearms under the
U.S. Constitution
NYMEX June crude and ICE June Brent
futures continued their selloff Tuesday, while NYMEX June RBOB
and heating oil rallied to settle higher ahead of the release of
the American Petroleum Institute's weekly oil inventory report.
Water systems around the world are
under increasing pressure due to demands from continued
industrialisation and urbanisation; growing populations; and
increasing pressure on agricultural systems. This is driving the
early stages of a revolution in the technologies and business
models used in the water industry. Desalination is already part
of this mix, but could the technologies' high demand for energy
open up a new market for renewable energy technologies?
The housing crisis is affecting
Tampa Bay area residents in unprecedented ways, and it is more
evident than ever that we need both economic and environmental
solutions to support energy innovations for Florida's long-term
sustainability and prosperity.
For many dams currently being removed in the U.S., the primary
reason behind this work is the need to protect fish and restore
their habitat. This article provides case studies of the
removals under way and the context under which these decisions
were made.
ExxonMobil Corp will need federal
approval before it can restart its damaged North Line pipeline
in Louisiana, where a leak in late April resulted in a spill of
more than 1,800 barrels of crude, the U.S. Pipeline and
Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said on
Wednesday.
Constrained public budgets and a
growing recognition at the local level of the importance of
infrastructure — combined with lack of action at the federal
level — are causing states, regions and cities across the U.S.
to seek innovative infrastructure approaches and solutions.
Local governments are utilizing a range of strategies, including
ballot measures taken directly to the public, increased
utilization of technology and pricing, and public-private
partnerships...
The Federal Reserve has for the
first time given approval for a large Chinese bank to purchase a
U.S. bank. It also gave approval to two other large Chinese
banks to expand their operations in the United States.
The United States government has
issued recommendations on the proper amount of exercise required
for adults to stay healthy. The recommendations were created by
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP). They
say that adults between ages 18 and 64 should get about four
hours of physical activity each week
Vegetarians and vegans can put up
quite the convincing argument when it comes to what they are
passionate about - not eating meat. Several have even appeared
on this site. With all due respect to them, in the interest of
fairness there is another side to the story. Humans are
omnivores designed to use both animals and plants as food.
Entirely removing one or the other can not only be detrimental
to human health, but, if done on a mass scale, could even have
environmental consequences.
Global surplus refining capacity
could reach around 6 million b/d by 2016 unless more refineries
are shut down or current plans for new plants are not scaled
back, the International Energy Agency said Friday.
Representatives of international
solar photovoltaic (PV) companies have formed the Global Solar
Council – a CEO-level industry coalition to “expand the global
deployment of solar energy in a sustainable and cost-competitive
way”.
We use ground water for many
purposes. Large-scale groundwater extraction for irrigation,
drinking water or industry may result in an annual rise in sea
levels of approximately 0.8 mm, accounting for about one-quarter
of total annual sea-level rise (3.1 mm). According to
hydrologists from Utrecht University and the research institute
Deltares, the rise in sea levels can be attributed to the fact
that most of the groundwater extracted ultimately winds up in
the sea. The hydrologists explain their findings in an article
to be published in the near future in the journal Geophysical
Research Letters. Alternately severe ground water extraction
near the sea will also tend to have the sea water replace the
ground water table.
Global funding for carbon capture
and storage technology, a tool for the reduction of greenhouse
gas emissions, remained unchanged at US$23.5 billion in 2011 in
comparison to the previous year, according to a new report from
the Worldwatch Institute. Although there are currently 75
large-scale, fully integrated carbon capture and storage
projects in 17 countries at various stages of development, only
eight are operational—a figure that has not changed since 2009.
Semprius Inc's high concentration
photovoltaic (HCPV) solar modules have been named among MIT
Technology Review's top 10 emerging technologies for 2012.
A natural disaster sparked the re-emergence of Japan as a ripe
renewable energy market. Now, a political shakeup could have
similar effects 6,000 miles away in France.
More and more countries are banning imports of American food
products for safety reasons.
Last week, Indonesia became the first country to halt imports
of US beef following the discovery of an American dairy cow
infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy. The disease is fatal to cows and can cause a
deadly brain disease in people who eat tainted beef.
Lost in the hoopla surrounding
China’s remarkable economic growth over the last two decades has
been a similar pattern of success in Vietnam. Rising out of the
ravages of war and poverty, it now stands poised to become the
next “Asian Tiger”—an economic powerhouse with 90 million
people. Inflation and other looming problems, however, might get
in the way, as LIGNET explains.
Iran’s recent parliamentary
elections resulted in significant gains for Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the expense of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, reinforcing Khamenei’s strong political support
among the ruling elite and the clerics. Regional concerns about
Iran will continue after the election but it could have a longer
term effect on the Iranian opposition, especially among Iranian
youth.
The Iranian oil ministry has given
an Iranian oil products exporting union, a private
establishment, permission to sell up to 20% of Iranian crude oil
as a way of bypassing international sanctions on dealings with
state-owned entities, the students' news agency ISNA reported
Wednesday.
Is BP behind us or is it an
election year? Alaskans, at least, are saying that if Royal
Dutch Shell is allowed to explore for oil and gas off its
coastline then it would be a bountiful supply line as well as a
huge job creator.
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu unveiled a revamped coalition government on Tuesday
.... In a stunning reversal, Netanyahu called off plans to hold
early parliamentary elections and struck an agreement with the
rival Kadima Party. Netanyahu now presides over a coalition with
94 seats in the 120-member parliament, one of the broadest
governments in Israeli history."
Highlights this week include Defkalion releasing photos of
their recent 3rd-party testing lab set-up as well as of their
manufacturing plant being built in Xanthi, Greece; Rossi's claim
of "stability at 'very high' temperatures; several reports on
the LENR conference in Turin.
Low-temperature geothermal could be
just what the industry needs to make a leap forward, but it
needs research and technology support to get there.
Treated sewage sludge, yard and
food waste in Minnesota will soon commingle and be turned into
compost.
Scientists are predicting the
disappearance of another vast ice shelf in Antarctica by the end
of the century that will accelerate rising sea levels.
When a dentist drills out the
decayed section of a tooth that has a cavity, it’s important
that they also remove the bacteria that caused the decay in the
first place – or at least, that they remove as much of it as
possible. If they don’t, the bacteria can get reestablished,
causing the filling to fail. Now, scientists from the University
of Maryland’s School of Dentistry have developed a new
cavity-filling system that they say will not only kill virtually
all residual bacteria, but also help the tooth to regrow some of
the tissue that was lost to decay.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has denied a petition from a Newburyport-based nuclear watchdog
group and others that want to prevent nuclear power plants from
applying for license extensions any sooner than 10 years before
existing licenses expire.
Gamesa and a development partner
are suspending further development of an offshore wind turbine
off the coast of Virginia, citing the massive amounts of capital
needed to pursue a project with a cloudy future due to uncertain
federal support.
Crude oil output from the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) climbed
320,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 31.71 million b/d in April from
31.39 million b/d in March, a just-released Platts survey of
OPEC and oil industry officials and analysts showed.
World oil demand is expected to
rise to 88.67 million b/d this year, up 900,000 b/d from 87.77
million b/d in 2011, OPEC said Thursday in its latest monthly
oil market report.
Senate Bill 2109 pertains to the
Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of
2012, which aims to settle water rights in the Little Colorado
River watershed, a tributary of the Colorado River in northeast
Arizona. While the proposed settlement does secure all the
unappropriated water in the basin for the Navajo tribe and
promises water development projects for dry areas of the
reservation, opponents don’t like some of the tradeoffs.
Contracts signed for wind turbines in the second half of 2011
for delivery in 2013 fell 4% to €0.91 million/MW from 6 months
earlier, with overcapacity and new players keeping prices for
utility-scale wind turbines down, according to Bloomberg New
Energy Finance's Wind Turbine Price Index (WTPI).
Did you know that you and I take
part in the 1% each and every day of our lives? It's true, we
do. Young, old, rich poor-- we all take part in it. In fact...
wars have been waged over the 1%. People have fought and died to
own a part of the 1%. Empires have been destroyed. Millions of
lives have been lost. All over just getting their hands on this
1% commodity.
The 1% that I'm talking about is
drinkable water.
"Alarming amount" of plastic having ecosystem-wide effects.
Plastic garbage in the ocean has increased 100-fold in the
past 40 years and could have ecosystem-wide impacts, according
to a study released Tuesday.
Large demonstrations were held
Sunday in Moscow and other Russian cities, heralding the return
of Vladimir Putin as president. Putin remains by far Russia’s
most important and powerful political figure, but his popularity
has dropped sharply and he now confronts formidable domestic
opposition in the form of a newly vocal middle class. Which side
will win this tug of war? LIGNET takes a closer look.
An effort to require Missouri
utilities to increase reliance on renewable energy has fallen
short.
Solar activity has been at high
levels for the past 24 hours with multiple M-class solar flares
observed. Associated with these events, were discrete
frequency radio bursts, Tenflares, and even a Type IV radio
sweep. Region 1476 has shown mixed growth and shear effects
across the polarities as it continues to evolve. A weak Earth
directed CME was observed. Solar activity is expected to
be at moderate levels with a slight chance for X-class events
for the next three days (11 - 13 May)
The geomagnetic field has been at
quiet to active.
"The U.S. government will make a
$15.1 billion profit from the bailout of insurer AIG, according
to a congressional watchdog panel's report. The Government
Accountability Office said Monday that the size of the profit
will be determined by the long-term health of American
International Group, the timing of the Treasury's sale in the
stock and AIG's share price." (05/08/12)
I will admit it. I've never been much of a fan of beans. Yes,
they're cheap. Yes, they keep. Yes, they're nutritious. But
taste wise? Meh. Sure, I have a few bags of dried beans in my
survival stash, but they'd be the last thing I'd go for.
And then, two things happened simultaneously to change my
mind about beans.
Moscow is investing significant
effort in opening its Arctic oil and gas reserves to exploration
by major international oil companies in an attempt to expand its
oil industry while acquiring much-needed technological training.
As foreign companies salivate over the opportunity to expand
their access to Russia’s reserves, they are likely to give
Moscow significant concessions.
Political analyst and Democratic
pollster Doug Schoen tells Newsmax that Tuesday’s defeat of
six-term Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar in his party’s own primary
will reverberate throughout the United States.
Scientists from 15 countries are
calling for a better political response to the provision of
water and energy to meet the challenge of feeding a world of 9
billion people within 30 years.
"The would-be suicide bomber in a
plot by al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate was planted in the group by
an allied intelligence agency or turned into an informant early
in the conspiracy, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The CIA and
its foreign partners tracked the plot for several weeks and then
managed to get the informant to deliver the bomb outside Yemen,
possibly to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, sources
said."
Both manufacturers and
environmentalists are now left “scratching their heads” after
the Obama administration has proposed new shale gas rules. Some
businesses are befuddled why this kind of oversight is not left
exclusively to the states while all greenies want to know why
certain drillers are opposed to federal standards.
The company that owns the Badger,
the last coal-fired ship on the Great Lakes, is facing another
deadline. Unless the U.S. Congress intervenes or the U.S. EPA
relents, this season could be the Badger's last. The EPA has
given the ship's owners until Dec. 15 to stop dumping coal ash
into Lake Michigan.
A study by the University of Tennessee's Baker Center for
Public Policy says that solar energy is subsidized at about the
same rate as other energy sources.
The industry "is consistent with the less-than-smooth paths
that many American industries have traveled as they entered the
mainstream of commerce," the study said. It added that solar
power was in a stage "where government incentives can be most
critical in helping new energy technologies become significant
sources of energy production."
A fast-spreading plague of "super weeds" taking over U.S.
farmland will not be stopped easily, and farmers and government
officials need to change existing practices if food production
is to be protected, industry experts said on Thursday.
"This is a complex problem," said weed scientist...
Tenaska Inc., the Nebraska-based company seeking to gasify
coal to generate electricity in Downstate Taylorville is ready
to take coal off the table.
Instead, it may power its plant from old fashioned natural
gas in an attempt to win votes for its project, according to a
source close to the deal.
The average American alone watches
4.7 hours of television a day, and our children watch over 53
hours a week. We are a nation captivated by the technological
Eden we've created, not realizing it's a prison that is anything
but Paradise.
The week is only about 3/5 over,
but there already have been numerous developments regarding the
West's continuing pressure on various countries, mostly Asian,
to either cap their Iranian purchases at prevailing levels, or
reduce them.
The United States is stuck in its
worst recovery from an economic downturn since World War II and
probably won't see meaningful improvement this year as
businesses put investing on hold to see how presidential
elections unfold, says real estate magnate Donald Trump.
While emerging markets like Turkey and the country of Georgia
are booming, the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is limping
along.
In 2011, American renewable energy
investment in solar and wind technologies dominated the global
market and put the U.S. in the top leadership position,
according to Ernst & Young's last quarterly Renewable Energy
Country Attractiveness Index (CAI).
US Secretary of the Interior Ken
Salazar Tuesday, in what he called an "historic event," agreed
to allow a large-scale natural gas project to go forward in an
environmentally sensitive area of northeastern Utah.
The United States posted a budget
surplus for the first time in 42 months in April on a rise in
tax receipts and a drop in government spending, although it
partly reflected a shifting of some payments to other months.
The chief US regulator for offshore
energy, Tommy Beaudreau, Wednesday said he was working with the
Department of Defense to resolve conflicts with the military so
that parts of the Virginia Coast might someday be open to oil
and natural gas exploration.
The military has objected to
exploration along 80% of the Virginia Coast, homebase to the
Navy's 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, among other military installations.
The warning reads as follows:
“Your public water supply is fluoridated. According
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if your
child under the age of 6 months is exclusively consuming
infant formula reconstituted with fluoridated water, there
may be an increased chance of dental fluorosis. Consult your
child’s health care provider for more information.”
Like the U.S., Spain got caught up
in the real estate boom, but the Spanish banking system and
broader economy suffered much more than that of the U.S., home
to a much larger and much more diverse economy.
Who consumes the most?
You can find out through a project
from Virginia-based Lexington Institute's EnergyTrends.org.
According to the data resource, California, Colorado and
Massachusetts are the nation's leaders for renewable energy.
Further, Wyoming and West Virginia generate the most electricity
from coal per capita.
From record floods to crippling droughts and wildfires, a
natural swing in Pacific Ocean temperatures can trigger climate
chaos around the globe.
The El Nino ocean-weather pattern is linked to droughts in
Australia and floods in parts of South America, while its
sibling La Nina causes the opposite, with the two phenomena
occurring at irregular intervals.
May 8, 2012
Eighteen companies and several
federal agencies are part of a proposed $5.5 million settlement
related to the past discharges of hazardous substances into the
lower Ashtabula River and Harbor in northeast Ohio, the state's
attorney general announced.
"The one thing we seem to have in abundance out here is
wind," said Tim Bradshaw, Eastern Iowa Airport director.
And with that gift from Mother Nature comes potential.
Calpine has won permits from air quality regulators to build
two new geothermal power plants at The Geysers in Sonoma County,
a $700 million project that will generate nearly 100 megawatts
of electricity.
The first plant could start production in 2014 if Calpine can
negotiate contracts to sell the renewable energy.
This distance from mainstream
mindsets isn't new - prepared minds have been holding their own
out in the wilderness for centuries. It's not an easy road.
We're the flies in the ointment, the nails sticking out ... so
everyone takes a turn at picking at us or beating us down to try
and make us conform.
A CES is a policy that requires
covered electricity retailers to supply a specified share of
their electricity sales from qualifying clean energy resources.
The impacts of a CES can vary substantially based on
specification of policy details, and this analysis applies only
to the specification designated in Chairman Bingaman's 2012
request and the associated bill, the Clean Energy Standard Act
of 20122
(BCES12), as described below:
The presence of recycling bins
seems to give people an excuse to use more resources, according
to new research.
The landscape for solar power is changing, and the leaders of
two Knoxville solar companies are altering their focus to adapt
to the shift.
Ignited by federal stimulus dollars, the industry has enjoyed
three years of federal and state incentives that have, for the
most part, dimmed. And last year, TVA scaled back its
incentives, limiting the most generous payments to systems
producing less than 50 kilowatts of power. That's left many in
the industry to predict few, if any, large commercial
installations will be built in the near future.
A mixed portfolio of energy options
has allowed Americans to enjoy long-term economic growth and
prosperity. The federal government has engaged directly in
developing each energy resource in the mix, although the dollar
value estimates of this federal support vary considerably. In
this report, we focus on a relatively new addition to the energy
portfolio—solar power.
Eight U.S. and German automakers have agreed to utilize a
fast-charging technology that recharges EV batteries in just 15
to 20 minutes.
Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche
and Volkswagen have agreed to support a harmonized single-port
fast charging approach - called DC Fast Charging with a Combined
Charging System - for use on electric vehicles in Europe and the
United States.
More than 80% of builders say
energy-efficient features are now pervasive in new homes and are
making their construction greener than just two years ago, a new
report finds.
Murray explained why the coal industry in crisis.
"The average cost of coal-fired electricity in America has
been $0.04 per kilowatt hour. This compares to $0.22 per
kilowatt hour for wind and solar electricity." However, because
of increased regulation and costs, "Families living on an income
of less than $50,000 have historically paid 12 percent of their
after-tax income for energy. Already, in 2012, it is projected
to be 21 percent." This makes the on-going availability of low
cost, coal-fired electricity even more important to our nation's
economic recovery.
Murray cautioned that from a global context, China is
bringing new 500 MW coal-fired power plants online every week.
At the FBI's explosives lab in
Virginia, experts are picking apart a sophisticated new al-Qaida
bomb to figure out whether it could have slipped past airport
security and taken down a commercial airplane, U.S. officials
confirmed late Monday.
Reliable, low cost energy can be a
competitive advantage in attracting capital investment to a
community. Energy availability is key to the economic growth and
prosperity of both our communities and our nation. So much so,
that ensuring an uninterrupted supply of energy can easily be
(and is) viewed as a matter of national security.
The United Kingdom's Health
Protection Agency (HPA) issued a report last month that said
studies haven't shown convincing evidence that cellphones
increase the risk of brain tumors or any other type of cancer.
But they added a word of caution stating: "However, as this is a
relatively new technology, the HPA will continue to advise a
precautionary approach and keep the science under close review."
EU nations have yet to come up with a plan on how to fill a
multi-billion euro fund to help tackle climate change, even as
the region's executive body hosts talks with countries likely to
bear the brunt of extreme weather.
The European Union recommitted to providing 7.2 billion euros
($9.4 billion) for the fund over 2010-12, according to draft
conclusions seen by Reuters ahead of a meeting of EU finance
ministers next week.
France handed the presidency Sunday
to leftist Francois Hollande, a champion of government stimulus
programs who says the state should protect the downtrodden — a
victory that could deal a death blow to the drive for austerity
that has been the hallmark of Europe in recent years.
CNET learns the FBI is quietly
pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social
networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is
asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those
backdoors mandatory.
The Heatstick from Danish company
Heatgear attempts to give backpackers and military personnel a
better alternative to the camping stove. Not only is it
lightweight, but this flameless heat source can also cook while
you hike.
* Anti-austerity
votes in Greece, France push euro lower
* Greece
uncertainty biggest blow to common currency
* Euro break
below $1.30 opens door to test of 2012 low
SP500 futures have dropped 14.5
points (over 1% from Friday's close) on the back of the French
election results. This brings the US equity market to the lowest
level in 2 months.
What do France and the United
States have in common? A presidential election occurring in the
same year. In other words, be careful not to draw too many
parallels between the two.
For both France -- for that
matter all of Europe -- and the United States, the key divide
among the parties is whether the way out of the tunnel is
through austerity or stimulus. And, if it is the latter, where
should that money be directed?
The radioactive Fukushima Genie is
out of the bottle and is primed to accomplish a worldwide
disaster. If the roof of Reactor building #4 collapses, a
building that is now seismically rated at zero, a pool of 1563
spent fuel rods perched 100 feet above the ground would also
collapse ~ resulting in a gusher of global radiation that would
put most of the world’s human and biological populations at
severe risk.
John Noble, a sixth generation dairy farmer, got his first
taste of the benefits of biogas about a decade ago, when he
installed a small system on his Wyoming County farm.
Now, Noble and a host of investors, including a handful of
local farm families, are getting into biogas in a big way.
The Global Smart Grid Federation
(GSGF), a collaboration among national and regional smart grid
associations from around the world, announced the release of its
inaugural report on the global state of smart grid.. The report
investigates the key challenges facing deployment of smart grid
as well as highlights leading projects from around the world.
The report is based on extensive research from current GSGF
member markets; Australia, Canada, Continental Europe, Great
Britain, Ireland, Korea, Japan and the United States.
According to ASCE's analysis of the nation’s transmission,
generation and distribution systems, extending current
investment trends for these assets through 2020 shows an
anticipated investment of $566 billion, but also reveals a $107
billion shortfall compared to needs.
The owner of the Hydrogen Energy
California (HECA) project in Kern County has filed with the
California Energy Commission an amended application for
certification of the plant, underscoring its commitment to
building the 300-megawatt power plant.
India is considering integrating
Israeli water technologies into a national initiative to clean
up the polluted Ganges River, which provides water for 40
percent of India's population in 11 states through which it
flows.
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, has said he wants the country's general election to
be held on 4 September, more than a year early.
Although Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated reason for calling early elections
is to bring more stability to the government, the move may be an
attempt to cash in on his high approval ratings to counter
growing opposition from former senior Israeli officials and the
United States to a possible plan to launch an airstrike against
Iran this fall.
Japan's public sector has been the
beneficiary of extremely low rates for quite some time. With the
central bank financing new debt issuance by "printing" more yen,
rates are expected to stay low in the near term.The public
sector however has become complacent about its ability to borrow
at these low rates (with the 10-year JGB now yielding less than
0.9%) going forward.
If you're aiming to add a few more
years to your lifespan, researchers suggest lacing up your
running shoes and taking regular, gentle jogs a few times a
week.
The energy hot potato known as the
Keystone XL pipeline was back to the State Department, which
announced Friday that it had received a new application from
developer TransCanada that includes a reworked route through
Nebraska.
Hairline cracking was discovered in
the building, the outer concrete shell around the reactor
chamber, also known as the containment building, in early
October when a hole was cut through the structure to replace the
plant's reactor head.
The City of Los Angeles has more
than 12,000 acres of prime space for solar development on the
rooftops of local homes, businesses and multi-family buildings,
with capacity to create as much as five gigawatts of clean,
locally generated power, according to the Los Angeles Business
Council. This massive amount of solar-ready rooftop space is
equivalent to nearly 20 square miles.
A recent federal inspection of the Palisades nuclear power
plant uncovered more federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission
violations.
The NRC this week released the report on the first quarter
inspection of the Entergy-owned plant along Lake Michigan in
Covert Township.
In hopes of increasing wind energy
production in New Mexico while protecting wildlife and habitat,
a coalition of energy companies, conservation groups and
government agencies have come up with recommendations.
A demonstration by at least 20,000
people on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration as president
turned into a battle with police Sunday after some protesters
tried to split off from the approved venue and march to the
Kremlin.
New research supports the theory
that early Mars had a thick, wet atmosphere, and a climate
similar to the Earth’s climate now.
Anyone living near an airport will
tell you that combustion engines can be pretty noisy things. The
combustion process in jet and other industrial engines can
generate sound waves so powerful they can cause intense
pulsations that can shake the engine and accelerate mechanical
failure. Using a sponge-like material, researchers at the
University of Alabama have managed to significantly quiet
combustion at the source, providing the potential to make work
environments safer, extend the life of valuable equipment, and
maybe let those living near an airport sleep a little easier.
The shutdown of Japan's last
working nuclear power plant and the government's failure to
convince a wary public about restoring production at dozens of
reactors leaves the world's third largest economy facing another
summer of severe power shortages.
Modifications to the city's
century-old zoning law to promote energy efficient and
solar-powered buildings will save residents $800 million a year.
NYMEX June crude settled 55 cents
lower at $97.94/barrel Monday after dipping to its lowest level
in more than four months.
The selloff is a continuation
of one that started late last week as eurozone debt worries
moved to the forefront again.
The plastic debris problem in the
ocean could be worse than some studies have estimated, according
to a new report...That meant decades of research on plastic
marine debris may in some cases vastly underestimate the true
amount of plastic debris in the oceans,
Cheryl Bormann turned up to
Saturday’s hearing wearing a full-length hijab, even though she
is not a Muslim, and called for other females in the courtroom
to dress more “appropriately.”
A mild winter also contributed to
power sales falling $2 million short of what was expected.
EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse), also
sometimes known as "NEMP" (Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse), was
kept secret from the public for a long time and was first
discovered more or less by accident when US Military tests of
nuclear weapons started knocking out phone banks and other
equipment miles from ground zero.
Hundreds of coal train opponents rallied through downtown
Bellingham Saturday, May 5, in protest of a proposed coal export
terminal at Cherry Point.
More than 450 people, under the banners of several local
anti-coal groups, marched from City Hall to Maritime Heritage
Park at noon.
Radiator Labs heavily insulated
housings physically cover radiators like this one, trapping heat
in the system, and strictly controlling the amount that is let
into the room
Solar activity has been at moderate
levels for the past 24 hours. CME was observed in STEREO A
imagery but after analysis, it was determined to not have an
Earth-directed component. Solar activity is expected to be
at low to moderate levels for the next three days (08 - 10 May).
a coronal hole high-speed stream (CH HSS) moves
into a
geoeffective position.
I will admit it. I've never been
much of a fan of beans. Yes, they're cheap. Yes, they keep. Yes,
they're nutritious. But taste wise? Meh. Sure, I have a few bags
of dried beans in my survival stash, but they'd be the last
thing I'd go for.
In an effort to preserve landfill
space and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, officials in
Massachusetts are preparing to ban hospitals, universities,
hotels, large restaurants and other big businesses from tossing
food waste into the trash, the Boston Globe reported.
Yesterday in France, President
Nicolas Sarkozy lost his bid for another six year term in the
Elysee Palace as a heavy turnout of voters cast a majority of
their ballots for the challenger, Francois Hollande, the leader
of the Socialist party. Now that the Sarkozy era is officially
over, LIGNET looks ahead to a new Hollande administration and
what it will mean for Europe.
Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali
Naimi told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday that current oil prices
are "too high" and need to come down.
Researchers at the University of
Hull are developing a way to produce constant supplies of
sterile water, powered simply by sunlight and air. The device is
aimed at remote communities where conventional systems using
chemicals or electricity are not a viable option. The research —
funded by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust — will make use of
molecules which, in response to sunlight, produce a form of
oxygen that is highly toxic. Lead researcher from Hull’s
Department of Chemistry, Dr Ross Boyle, originally developed
these molecules to attack cancer cells, but has spotted a new
application for their use in the developing world.
On Monday, May 7, Secretary of the
Interior Ken Salazar will visit the Enbridge Silver State North
Solar Project where he will "flip the switch" on the first
large-scale solar energy project located on U.S. public lands to
deliver power to American consumers.
Imagine that you're sitting in your house like you are now
(surfing on the computer). Then, suddenly, you hear an explosion
overhead. You look outside. A strange cloud has formed in the
sky.
And then your computer starts acting up like it never
has before. Perhaps you try your cell phone with the same
result.
It's a very complicated question.
Because in answering that
question you're dealing somewhat
theoretically that nothing
should be that nature does not
re-create. Except for perhaps volcano rock, that everything
usable in nature – it has an ecological purpose.
Socialist Francois Hollande swept to victory in France's
presidential election on Sunday in a swing to the left at the
heart of Europe that could start a pushback against German-led
austerity.
Hollande beat conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by a
decisive 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent, based on partial results,
bringing the centre-left back to government after a decade in
opposition.
The device is aimed at remote communities where conventional
systems using chemicals or electricity are not a viable option.
The research – funded by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust – will
make use of molecules which, in response to sunlight, produce a
form of oxygen that is highly toxic.
Lead researcher from the Department of Chemistry, Dr Ross
Boyle, originally developed these molecules to attack cancer
cells, but has spotted a new application for their use in the
developing world.
Indigenous delegates will come away from the 11th Session of
the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII)
with a deeper understanding of the centuries-old ideology that
continues to deprive them of full human rights, freedom and
self-determination.
The Doctrine of Discovery, a 500-year-old Christian dogma
that justified the genocide of millions of non-Christian peoples
around the world—and continues to justify the expropriation of
their lands and the domination of their societies...
More than a year after the triple
meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the Japanese
government, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) present similar assurances
of the site's current state: challenges remain but everything is
under control. The worst is over.
Reactor 4: The Most Imminent Threat
The spent fuel in the hobbled unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi not
only sits in an elevated pool outside the reactor core's
reinforced containment, in a high-consequence earthquake zone
adjacent to the ocean -- just as nearly all the spent fuel at
the nuclear site is stored -- but it's also open to the elements
because a hydrogen explosion blew off the roof during the early
days of the accident and sent the building into a list.
Thousands of Japanese marched to celebrate the switching off
of the last of their nation's 50 nuclear reactors Saturday,
waving banners shaped as giant fish that have become a potent
anti-nuclear symbol.
Japan was without electricity from nuclear power for the
first time in four decades when the reactor at Tomari nuclear
plant on the northern island of Hokkaido went offline for
mandatory routine maintenance.
As the first generation Toyota
Prius hybrid cars begin to hit 11 years old, the number of used
hybrid batteries showing up in the waste stream is expected to
skyrocket in the coming years, officials from Toyota said.
Food prices may stabilize at high levels and keep government
import bills near a record, increasing the risk of social unrest
in the world’s least developed countries, the United Nations
said.
The UN Food & Agriculture Organization is asking
international lenders to accelerate the release of funds to help
poor countries cope with high food costs through subsidies and
avert riots, Hiroyuki Konuma, assistant director general at the
FAO, said in an interview.
Today Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club released
the Coal Finance Report Card 2012, their third annual ranking of
the largest financiers of mountaintop removal coal mining and
coal-fired power plants.
The report looks at the stated
policies for mountaintop removal and coal financing from each of
the largest US Banks and assigns a letter grade to how well they
uphold these policies based on investments, transactions and
ownership of coal mining and coal burning utility companies.
Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey
(PMMS), showing average fixed mortgage rates finding new
all-time record lows continuing to help keep homebuyer
affordability high. The 30-year fixed averaged 3.84 percent,
down from its previous all-time record low of 3.87 percent last
registered on February 9, 2012. The 15-year fixed averaged 3.07
percent, also dropping below its previous all-time record low of
3.11 percent set April 12 of this year. The 1-year ARM also
averaged a new all-time record low in the PMMS at 2.70 percent
The Obama administration unveiled
long-awaited rules on Friday to bolster oversight on public
lands of oil and natural gas drilling using fracking technology
that has ushered in a boom in drilling but also triggered
environmental protests.
Vermont is poised to become the first state to ban a
controversial natural gas drilling technique known as fracking.
The Legislature finished work on the measure Friday, and it's
on its way to Gov. Peter Shumlin for his signature.
The American Water Works
Association (AWWA), the authoritative resource on safe water,
today kicked off Drinking Water Week 2012 with a call to
“Celebrate the Essential” throughout North America.
On September 27th of 2010, the
world’s largest solar-powered boat – the TÛRANOR PlanetSolar –
set out from Monaco on a quest to become the first boat to sail
around the world using nothing put the power of the Sun. This
afternoon it successfully completed that quest, arriving back in
Monaco after 18 months spent circumnavigating the planet.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit could rule within the next few
months on whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) should
be forced to reopen its license case for the Yucca Mountain
spent fuel repository in Nevada, even though the Obama
administration has no interest in developing the much-debated
nuclear waste site.
May 4, 2012
Some hardships in life can be met through strong will and
hard work. As a Navajo, I think of the many thousands of
families on our reservation in New Mexico and Arizona who’ve
long lived without access to electricity service or running
water, and still do.
But now there’s a very different kind of hardship facing
families in our region: increasing numbers of children and
elders suffering from asthma and other respiratory problems.
A survey found Americans are using less cash today than they
did 10 years ago - and it's no surprise the survey's sponsor,
MasterCard, was promoting the results. The credit card company's
World Beyond Cash survey asked respondents about the growing
trend towards a cashless society.
...Warmann said the crude slate
would be altered to include more North Sea barrels, and crude
from the Bakken. That latter statement could be taken as a sign
that the economics of moving Bakken crude to the Northeast by
rail, and then either barge it down the Hudson or take it right
to the Philadelphia area by train, are still workable
With the Seaway Pipeline about to
be reversed, last week's record all-time high stocks at Cushing
may prove to be a difficult mark to top. But for now, it's the
highest level ever.
The nine million people in Ho Chi
Minh City throw away 60 metric tonnes of plastic bags every day,
the department said, discarding them in the nearest street,
gutter, canal or tossing them into the Saigon River.
Cities generate an estimated 70
percent of energy-related greenhouse gases and with China set to
increase its number of urban residents by 350 million over the
next 20 years, the Bank says the case for urgent action is
strong.
Plants like ragweed are in pollen
overdrive from very favorable weather, while stinging insects
like yellow jackets and hornets are findings new homes farther
north. More people are becoming susceptible to allergies over
time as pollen seasons are getting longer.
An
invention that will solve the world's energy problems?
Or just
a modern version of the bluff with a perpetual motion machine?
The
Italian physicist Andreas Rossi has demonstrated his device ECAT
multiple times, but
researchers have not f the
tt see exactly how it works.
While
Rossi p on the st
on r that he's
on lt several commercial
versions of ECAT is growing skepticism.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic found
that although both exercising your mind and exercising your body
will combat memory loss, combining the two boosts the effects of
both in a synergistic interaction that protects brain function
in people over the age of 70.
The fastest growth in U.S.
manufacturing in 10 months gave stocks a lift Tuesday and pushed
the Dow Jones industrial average to its highest close in more
than four years.
Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers opened a
Charlotte conference Tuesday on so-called "smart grid"
technology by saying the energy industry must continue to tout
energy efficiency gains in the face of vocal opposition to the
new technology.
The Black Mountain Solar Project
under construction in Mohave County is expected to achieve
commercial operation in October of this year. UniSource Energy
Services (UES) will purchase the power generated at the Black
Mountain site through a 20-year power purchase agreement.
Hundreds of demonstrators extended
their sit-in outside Egypt's defense ministry to a sixth day
Thursday, as organizers called for mass protests following
violence that killed at least 11 people.
The coalition of
political and civil groups -- known as the Board of Trustees of
the Revolution -- condemned the clashes in Cairo's Abaseya area
Wednesday and demanded the resignation of the government.
The ongoing rapid industrialization
of the world's advanced developing economies means global
emissions of heat-trapping gases will by the end of the decade
exceed safe levels by far more than previously expected,
according to a report published Friday.
Forty-five areas across the country
are not meeting the latest government standards for ground-level
ozone or smog, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said
Tuesday.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) today published a list of 28 chemicals and two
viruses that approximately 6,000 public water systems will
monitor from 2013 to 2015 as part of the agency’s unregulated
contaminant monitoring program, which collects data for
contaminants suspected to be present in drinking water, but that
do not have health-based standards set under the Safe Drinking
Water Act.
Managers of the state's primary
electricity grid expect to avoid rolling blackouts this summer
but not without calling on Texans to turn up their thermostats
and conserve power during peak usage on the season's hottest
afternoons.
As you know, we're pumping too much
carbon into the atmosphere and it's having a dangerous effect on
our climate. On March 27 the EPA released a draft
standard that will limit carbon pollution from new power plants.
This standard is a historic step down the road toward a cleaner,
healthier, and more modern energy future for America.
Exxon Mobil Corp has shut the
160,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) North Line crude oil pipeline in
Louisiana after a leak spilled 1,900 barrels of crude oil in a
rural area over the weekend, affecting a conduit that supplies
the nation's third-largest refinery.
FDA promised not to enforce the NDI
guidance until it was final. Last Friday, they broke that
promise.
The specific provision that FDA has decided to
enforce is the one that says synthetic botanicals will no longer
be considered New Dietary Ingredients and must never be sold as
supplements, only as drugs.
The mine was one of nine coal mines
and two other mines to receive surprise inspections in March,
based on past poor performances on compliance issues. Mine
Safety and Health Administration inspectors issues 187
citations, 25 order and two safeguards to the coal mines, while
the other mines received 35 citations.
Your person freedom
is, once again, in serious jeopardy. Food freedom is a major
battle ground for all freedom and NOT having the right to know
what is in your food, because corporations want to hide their
food contamination, is a perfect example.
Your food is
contaminated by GMOs that can, quite literally, damage every
cell in your body. Consumers do not want to eat that
stuff. Corporations do not want them to know that they ARE
eating it so they make it impossible label it.
With hydraulic fracturing, or
“fracking” – the use of high pressure water to help extract
previously inaccessible shale gas – eager to replicate its
success outside the U.S., the market for water treatment will
grow nine-fold to $9 billion in 2020. This expansion will spur
technology innovation and novel thinking about water disposal
and reuse, but the field is rapidly growing overcrowded,
creating significant risk for new entrants, Lux Research said in
a report.
There was no change in
concentrations of chloride, dissolved solids, or nitrate in
groundwater for more than 50 percent of well networks sampled in
a new analysis by the USGS that compared samples from 1988-2000
to samples from 2001-2010. For those networks that did have a
change, seven times more networks saw increases as opposed to
decreases.
"Demand for hybrid vehicles is at
its all-time high as gas approaches $4," he said. "Our Toyota
Prius is wildly popular. Even truck buyers are looking for
six-cylinder or eco-boost engines."
Real, live material has been
cascading for weeks. From elite, take-a-bullet-for-the-president
Secret Service agents catnapping in a Cartagena, Colombia,
five-star hotel with pricey hookers while prepping security for
POTUS about to attend a lackluster Latin summit with 30 heads of
state, to U.S. Government Services Administration workers
whooping it up with taxpayers' money at an extravagant Las Vegas
"retreat," there was no shortage of whoop-ti-do material for
Broadway.
Some of Greenland's glaciers are
moving about 30 percent faster than they did 10 years ago,
contributing to rising global sea levels, but that still may not
be enough to reach the most extreme projections for 2100,
scientists reported on Thursday.
Movie
“Horse You See is a film that
celebrates life and the Navajo language, and shows us what is
the essence of being a horse." -Melissa Henry (Director) HORSE
YOU SEE Awarded Best Children's Film, Talking Circle Indigenous
Film Festival 2009
Genetically engineered ingredients
show up in most of the processed foods in your shopping cart.
Yet their long-term health effects remain unknown. The debate:
Should those ingredients be labeled?
Most clean energy technologies are
not being deployed quickly enough despite technological
progress, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA),
which is urging governments to accelerate the use of clean and
renewable energy.
As fruit matures, it releases a gas
known as ethylene, that causes the ripening process to begin.
Once that process is under way, more ethylene is released,
kicking the ripening into high gear. Currently, produce
warehouses use expensive technologies such as gas chromatography
or mass spectroscopy to measure ethylene levels, in order to
gauge the ripeness of fruits that are in storage. A scientist
from MIT, however, is developing small, inexpensive ethylene
sensors that could be used in places such as supermarkets.
There, they could let shopkeepers know which batches of fruit
need to sold the soonest, in order to minimize spoilage.
Japan has been generating
electricity from nuclear power since 1966. Prior to the
Fukushima Daiichi disaster in March 2011, the country had 50
operating reactors that generated over 44,000 MW, or about 30
percent of the nation’s demand. Plans were in place to increase
the share of nuclear power generation to 40 percent by 2017.
"The U.N. peacekeeping chief said
Tuesday that U.N. military observers in Syria are reporting
cease-fire violations from the government and opposition and he
demanded an immediate halt to all violence. Herve Ladsous
refused to say which side was responsible for the most
violations. But he said the unarmed observers have documented a
number of Syrian heavy weapons deployed in populated areas --
including armored personnel carriers and Howitzers -- despite
the government's claim that it had withdrawn tanks and troops
from cities and towns as required under international envoy Kofi
Annan's peace plan."
Consistent with the demise of La
Niña, enhanced trade winds and reduced convection over the
central equatorial Pacific were much weakened during April, and
the area of enhanced convection that had previously dominated
the western Pacific and Indonesia became disorganized
I have for some time been analyzing
the “ecology of fear” and the climate of hatred it generates to
feed the growing menace of presumably random acts of violence in
Arizona such as last year’s shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
When we consider the pattern it seems less random and more like
a systematic campaign of violence against immigrants, many of
them our Native brothers and sisters from displaced communities
in Mexico and Guatemala. Right-wing militias are not just
perpetrating the violence; it is also part and parcel of a
growing use of deadly force by the border patrol and other law
enforcement officers.
Edison International announced
Wednesday that Midwest Generation will shutter Chicago's Fisk
and Crawford coal plants in September, ahead of schedule and
years before state-imposed deadline to clean up or shut down the
plants.
A new study has shown that
transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can prevent
migraines from occurring
The findings "dispel the notion
that this is a rare problem" and "leave no excuse for preterm
births to remain a neglected problem," said Joy Lawn, a director
of global evidence and policy for Save the Children and
co-editor of the report.
"Richardson and Trevor Garms, 17,
broke into a home in the 5800 block of Garfield Street at 2:15
p.m. April 9. The two men alleged[ly] boasted beforehand that
they were planning to steal a flat-screen television and an Xbox
360. Garms was distracted and yelling at Richardson, allowing
the woman to grab the gun unnoticed, according to court
documents. 'Garms then put the gun to the back of the victim's
neck and began trying to force her onto the ground. Thinking
Garms was going to kill her, she fired one shot at him and he
stumbled back,' according to court documents. 'She began begging
him to leave, but he came back towards her and she fired again.
...'"
New Energy Systems Trust (NEST) is
an association for matching up the best exotic free energy
technologies, business professional services, financing,
licensees, and customers (which includes everyone).
Nothing can put a dampener on a
summer holiday like a coliform bacteria outbreak. But even worse
than being told to keep out of the water in the event of an
outbreak is not being told to keep out of the water in
the event of an outbreak and ending up paying the price.
Researchers at McMaster University have now developed a paper
strip test that is cheap to produce, extremely portable, simple
to use, and detects E. coli in water in 30 minutes.
This technology has been used
successfully to treat sea water collected near the discharge
from a nuclear power plant and liquid animal wastes. Additional
investigations on other systems are ongoing. The design is
robust in terms of handling scaling salts. Membrane distillation
can utilize waste heat from a variety of sources, prevent
thermal pollution and operate at essentially atmospheric
pressure.
Arizona Public Service (APS) on May
2 said Unit 3 at the 4,000 MW Palo Verde Nuclear Generating
Station returned to service April 17, marking the completion of
the unit’s 16th planned refueling outage. The Palo Verde station
is 55 miles west of Phoenix, Ariz.
I think that we have the perception
that if we make all the right arrangements and have all our
supplies and preparations in place, that no matter what happens
- whether it's a biological attack, a terrorist attack, economic
collapse, an EMP burst, or whatever - that we'll be able to
continue life as we know it and it'll be just a minor
inconvenience.
We really don't have a clue what living
"off the grid" really means or entails.
The petroleum complex settled down
Wednesday, as poor economic data and a bearish US Energy
Information Administration oil inventory report weighed on
futures prices.
We have been told that a fight
against “terrorism” is the reason why the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) was passed by Congress, and signed by
President Obama on December 31, 2011. The legislation authorizes
the U.S. military, at the direction and discretion of the U.S.
President, to indefinitely detain United States citizens and
lawful residents, without charge or trial.
As part of an ongoing effort to
bring about a global phase-out of HFCs, the Environmental
Investigation Agency (EIA) has filed a formal petition asking
the Environmental Protection Agency to require an end for nearly
all uses of the most commonly used fluorocarbon in the U.S.,
HFC-134a.
Plants are flowering faster than
scientists predicted in response to climate change, research in
the United States showed on Wednesday, which could have
devastating knock-on effects for food chains and ecosystems.
Solar activity has been at low
levels for the past 24 hours. Multiple C-class events were
observed. There are currently seven sunspot region.
Solar activity is expected to be at low levels with a slight
chance for M-class events for the next three days (04 - 06 May).
The geomagnetic field is expected to be at mostly quiet levels
The world's largest untapped source of solar energy doesn't lie
on the vast sands of the Sahara or even atop the high chaparral
of the desert Southwest. Instead, it stretches across at least
23 million square miles of earth's tropical oceans; the
uppermost layers of which make a prime natural source of thermal
energy.
EIA projects that the
technology-neutral, inclusive design of the legislation will
lead to substantial amounts of new clean energy from a wide
range of sources, including wind, solar, natural gas and nuclear
power.
The shale energy boom is fuelling a rise in the burning of
waste gas after years of decline, a World Bank source told
Reuters ahead of the release of new data, giving
environmentalists more ammunition against the industry.
Global gas flaring crept up by 4.5 percent in 2011, the first
rise since 2008 and equivalent to the annual gas use of Denmark,
preliminary data from the World Bank shows.
A study by the Wildlife
Conservation Society documents that intense development of the
two largest natural gas fields in the continental U.S. are
driving away some wildlife from their traditional wintering
grounds.
The paper's hypothesis is that a
sun storm of sizable proportion took place on, 1998, causing a
disturbance in the Earth's geomagnetic field from Nov. 7 through
9. Harris proposes the disturbance produced geomagnetic-induced
currents, which on Nov. 10, 1998, may have resulted in the
dislodging of a stainless steel bolt at Seabrook Station's
generator step-up transformer, which increases the voltage of
electricity that generators produce to appropriate levels for
transmission to the grid.
The predawn raid was followed by
the closure of the university, sending ripples across Syria as
some in the opposition wondered aloud whether the major city was
finally fully joining the uprising.
“There are a lot of really bad
things that can happen” from misuse of testosterone, said
Sabanegh. “I think it is a highly addictive drug and I think we
need to be very careful about treating patients appropriately.”
The FIRST line of defense? Going
OFF-GRID!! It is the GRID (read: high voltage lines above
ground) that will deliver the greatest damage!!
Tomorrow, on May 2, the campaign
will be turning in enough signatures to put the California Right
to Know GMO labeling initiative on the ballot—nearly one MILLION
signatures!
Alleged
evidence for nuclear reactions in solids to breathe new life
into an idea believed dead
The cold
fusion is tainted with a stigma - wrongly, are some of
researchers.
Recent
experiments show, in their eyes that they may cause in metals
with low energy nuclear reactions.
The
established research remains skeptical.
...Fowler had become
a standard-bearer for towns looking to become green town by
going grid neutral, or producing as much or more power than it
uses. They looked at a variety of renewable energy technologies,
from putting the 2,400 tons of cow manure that are produced
every day in Fowler into an anaerobic digester to make methane
gas, to a wind farm to bedecking town buildings and grounds with
solar panels.
Thunderstorms result from the rapid
upward movement of warm, moist air. They can occur inside warm,
moist air masses and at fronts. As the warm, moist air moves
upward, it cools, condenses, and forms cumulonimbus clouds that
can reach heights of over 20 kilometers.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych today launched
construction of the New Shelter Confinement that will be placed
over the damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The construction launch was timed to mark the 26th
anniversary of the explosion and fire in Chernobyl Unit 4 that
resulted in the world's worst nuclear power plant accident.
Billions of federal taxpayer
dollars are used to subsidize unhealthy, processed foods instead
of the fruits and vegetables recommended for a healthy diet. But
it doesn't have to be this way.
Congress is currently
debating practical changes to agricultural policies that can
shift priorities to provide greater support to healthier food
and healthier farms.
Vermont has one of highest
philosophical exemption rates among the states that allow it,
and the percentage of vaccinated children is below the national
average. Yet Vermont is ranked as the country’s “healthiest”
state! Clearly, Vermonters want health freedom on vaccine
choice.
Warm ocean currents flowing beneath
ice shelves are the main cause of recent ice loss from
Antarctica, concludes a study by an international research team
published today. The finding brings scientists closer to
providing reliable projections of future sea level rise.
Obama appears to be hemming in Israel at every turn. Case in
point: A report in which unnamed US officials allege that Israel
has obtained access to bases in Azerbaijan, on Iran's border.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sustainability
is based on one simple principle: "Everything that we need for
our survival and well-being depends, either directly or
indirectly, on our natural environment. Sustainability creates
and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can
exist in productive harmony that permits fulfilling the social,
economic and other requirements of present and future
generations."
This week, Spain’s government
released devastating economic news, revealing that the country
has fallen into a double-dip recession. Plagued with a terrible
unemployment picture (one in four are out of work) and
contracting economic activity, Spain could be the next domino to
fall in the EU’s debt crisis, but a bailout this time around
from Brussels is fraught with dangers not present before, as
LIGNET explains.
May 1, 2012
PwC has surveyed and conducted follow up focus groups with
900 Midwest energy consumers to determine their attitudes toward
energy. The survey reveals that age is a factor when it comes to
energy priorities.
Although focus group participants expressed equal interest in
a lot of areas, key distinctions between younger and older
individuals ages 18 to 64 emerged.
Last week that giant multinational
of aluminum production Alcoa announced its new "smog-eating"
architectural panels - in other words cladding stuck to a
building's exterior that can remove pollutants from the
surrounding air. The aluminum panels, branded Reynobond with
EcoClean technology, have a titanium dioxide coating which
breaks down pollutants in direct sunlight.
The bill we've grown to fear is
much, much closer to being a reality in our lives with the
passing of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act
(CISPA), courtesy of the House of Representatives. The
controversial bill passed with a vote of 248-168, giving us a
clear indication of how much our elected leaders value your
Internet privacy.
That is, they don't.
Corals, trees and marine sediments,
among others, are direct evidence of the climate of the past,
but they are not the only indicators. A team led by Spanish
scientists has interpreted records written in Iraq by Arabic
historians for the first time and has made a chronology of
climatic events from the year 816 to 1009, when cold waves and
snow were normal.
Researchers at the National
Institutes of Health have discovered how exposure to arsenic can
turn normal stem cells into cancer stem cells and spur tumor
growth. Inorganic arsenic, which affects the drinking water of
millions of people worldwide, has been previously shown to be a
human carcinogen. A growing body of evidence suggests that
cancer is a stem-cell based disease. Normal stem cells are
essential to normal tissue regeneration, and to the stability of
organisms and processes. But cancer stem cells are thought to be
the driving force for the formation, growth, and spread of
tumors.
Tourists have long known Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County as
Amish Country, but what was life like before the horse-and-buggy
rides?
The answer will come this fall in the form of a permanent
outdoor exhibit that will showcase the history and culture of
American Indians and their influence on Central Pennsylvania
during the colonial period.
Everybody knows that coal provides the cheapest electricity
in the US and that renewables have a ways to go before they can
be cost-competitive without subsidies.
Or do they?
Everyone knows that strawberries
and blueberries are good for you. Now a new study by researchers
at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) has found that eating as
little as two servings of flavonoid-rich strawberries and/or
blueberries a week can delay memory decline in older women by
over two years.
You see, brain diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
now occur:
- Earlier in life . . .
- More frequently . . .
- To a much more severe degree . . .
Clean tech could come crashing
down. That’s what some heavy hitters are saying, noting that if
the level of federal subsidies given to such enterprises takes a
precipitous fall then it will also bring down some of tomorrow’s
companies.
British environmental expert James
Lovelock now admits he was an “alarmist” regarding global
warming — and says Al Gore was too.
West Virginia's congressional
delegation splintered somewhat Thursday over an issue that
previously had united them -- preventing federal regulators from
labeling coal ash as hazardous waste.
Earlier in 2012, the shareholder
advocacy group As You Sow filed a resolution asking Duke Energy
to prepare a plan to reduce exposure to the costs and risks
associated with continued reliance on coal. The resolution also
asks Duke to report back to shareholders at the utility's annual
meeting on May 3rd regarding the progress that has
been made in meeting the risk-reduction goals in the plan.
Investors will also vote on the resolution at this time.
As part of the SunShot Initiative,
the Energy Department today announced $9 million available this
year to help utilities and grid operators better forecast when,
where, and how much solar power will be produced at U.S. solar
energy plants. Enhanced solar forecasting will allow power
system operators to integrate more solar energy into the
electricity grid, and ensure the economic and reliable delivery
of renewable energy to American families and businesses.
What the company is calling the
"largest flow battery system in the world" has received approval
from Southern California Edison (SCE) to begin full operation.
Natural gas is winning the energy race but the competition is
on its heels. While coal, nuclear and green fuels would like to
catch it, its chief rival appears to be the environmental groups
that want it to invest in safer drilling technologies.
At issue are the production methods used to extract shale gas,
which is located a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Concerns
exist on a number of fronts that include the release of methane
gases, which are shorter-lived than that of carbon dioxide but
that are considered to be much more potent. As such, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency has issued new rules to minimize
such leaks.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) released an updated list of the Top 50 Green Power
Partnership organizations voluntarily using clean, renewable
electricity from resources such as solar, wind, and low-impact
hydropower.
The fallout from Fukushima is
starting to snowball. Japan now has to make some decisions,
namely whether to restart some of its nuclear plants or to rely
more heavily on fossil fuels to cool homes this summer.
Farmers, the self-described new green pioneers, are
increasingly turning to alternative energy to lower costs, solve
problems, boost efficiency and shrink their environmental
footprint.
Fuel cells, biogas, cogeneration and solar arrays
are some of the newer energy generators growers are using,
despite the risk and significant time and money commitments.
Yet the rewards make the investments largely worth it in cost
savings, new customers, notoriety and a foreknowledge about
future environmental requirements, growers say.
An over-weight individual is not
necessarily more unhealthy than one who is slimmer, but the
epidemic of obesity in the US and the dire health consequences
of a 'fast food nation', supported by an industrial farm system
are putting enormous strains on the lives of millions and
helping to explode costs in an already inefficient health care
system. The trend towards increased obesity occurs throughout
the society, but is perhaps most troubling perhaps for the
impact its having on school children.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based company
plans to further decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills
by 10% per vehicle by the end of this year.
Wind power installations recovered somewhat in 2011 as
economic stimulus programs wound down and states strove to meet
their renewable energy mandates.
The U.S. wind industry
installed 6,816 MW in 2011, 31% higher than 2010, for a total of
46,916 MW installed in the U.S. to date, according to the
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) annual report, released
April 12.
No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due
to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best
predictions about global warming might be incorrect. (Credit:
Image courtesy of Rice University)
In what he called his Earth Week
agenda, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state will spend hundreds of
millions of dollars to make public buildings more
energy-efficient, as well as invest in new labs for solar and
wind energy, and push small solar energy systems for homes and
businesses.
Maine regulators have directed three utilities to buy 4
megawatts (MW) of tidal electricity from Ocean Renewable Power
Company, making it the first state to commercialize ocean
energy.
Installation of the first unit began in March and in Cobscook
Bay and will be finished by late summer, feeding electricity to
the grid by October 1.
Honda has unveiled a demonstration
house in Saitama, Japan, to showcase and test its new Honda
Smart Home System (HSHS). Featuring a line-up of innovative
energy production, management and conservation solutions, the
company hopes HSHS will free homeowners from the constraints of
on-grid living somewhat, give them a leg up on self-sufficiency
when disaster strikes and help reduce carbon dioxide emissions
both at home and on the road by networking electric vehicles
into the mix.
The rise of maternal anti-nuclear
activism in Japan began shortly after the March 11, 2011
disaster, when the hundreds of thousands of residents of
Fukushima living outside the 20-kilometer evacuation zone were
told if was safe to stay. Soon after the plant failed, the
Japanese government raised the maximum limit of radiation
considered safe, from 1mSv (millesieverts) prior to March 11 to
20mSv. This new measure exposed (and exposes) the people of
Fukushima to doses 20 times higher than is normally considered
safe.
Online retailers and affiliate marketers scored a victory
this week in the ongoing fight over online sales taxes, with an
Illinois judge ruling that a law requiring out-of-state
merchants to collect the tax violates the Commerce Clause of the
U.S. Constitution.
Makers of electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind
turbines have seen a sharp decline in federal government
support.
"We're in new ground now. The president and the previous
president wanted to double the science budgets over a 10-year
period," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in Detroit in January.
"But that's not realistic anymore."
...we have proof that house plants
purify the air in our homes. We even have a ranking system to
determine which plants do the job the best.
Democrats are portraying oil and gas drillers as greedy
corporate pirates who are ripping off American consumers at the
pump and American taxpayers through long-held tax subsidies.
Republicans portraying President Barack Obama and
congressional Democrats as pawns of environmental extremists who
are responsible for rising gasoline prices because they have
stifled robust exploration of domestic energy sources and
heightened American dependence on unstable Persian Gulf sources.
European Union and US sanctions
targeting Iran's oil export revenues have yet to come fully into
force but have already led countries and companies to take steps
to reduce their purchases of crude from the Islamic Republic.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak
restated Israel's fears of a nuclear-armed Iran on Thursday
after his top general clashed with the government's line by
describing the Islamic republic as "very rational" and unlikely
to build a bomb.
The statement will hammer out steps
to increase bilateral cooperation toward such goals as expanding
renewable energy sources and stable, safe supplies of nuclear
energy.
“We have inflation in the U.S., and
it’s going to get worse,” Rogers says. And the Fed won’t be able
to do anything about it.
“They’ve printed staggering
amounts of money. They’ve taken staggering amounts of debt on
their balance sheet. Much of it is garbage,” Rogers says.
So he’s maintaining his commodity positions.
We're used to seeing solar arrays
in desert locations, but this initiative is looking to a new
frontier for solar energy - the rooftops of Los Angeles. The
recent approval of a Feed-in-Tarriff (FiT) rooftop solar program
known as CLEAN LA Solar by the Los Angeles Department of Water &
Power opens up over 12,000 acres of potential rooftop space for
solar development.
U.S. scientists say microscopic
folds on the surface of photovoltaic materials can significantly
increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells.
Physicists at the Delft University
of Technology, Netherlands, have achieved a milestone that might
soon revolutionize the world of quantum computing, quantum
physics, and perhaps shed new light on the mystery of the dark
matter in our universe. Experimenting with nanoelectronics, a
group led by Prof. Leo Kouwenhoven has succeeded in detecting
the elusive Majorana fermion in the laboratory, without the need
for a particle accelerator.
Firefighters and cops who raced to the burning World Trade
Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, will watch in one room at a
Brooklyn Army post, while 9/11 victims will watch from another.
Media, family members and members of the public can watch on
three separate screens at Fort Meade in Maryland.
Henry Russell's last words will not be forgotten.
Russell, one of 111 coal miners who died in the Federal No. 3
coal mine explosion at Everettville on April 30, 1927, left a
note for his wife.
The folks at NanoSpire seem to be on the cusp of something
huge in knowing how to accurately tame cavitation forces. Energy
is just one of the zillions of applications that range from
microsurgery to element production.
No matter what the power industry
headline these days, it seems the story behind the story is
natural gas.
It’s a busy news cycle for the electricity
trade press: Coal-fired utilities are howling about the new
carbon dioxide standard from EPA and the nuclear sector is
excited at the thought of NRC approving its second new nuclear
plant license this quarter.
Attention is now on “thorium,”
which can be used to generate nuclear energy and which is now in
favor among nuclear proponents who say that the threats of a
“meltdown” scenario would be averted. ..
thorium is a fertile but not
fissile material and cannot be used for fuel.
It must be
converted to uranium-233 by neutron bondbarment then recovered
by reprocessing
The Obama administration is
spending $8.3 billion to hide a key provision of Obamacare —
deep cuts in Medicare Advantage — until after the November
election.
I had two options: figure it out
and fix it, or get a part-time job to pay the electric bill...
So, I dug a little deeper. Next I
found the refrigerator and water heater to be the appliances
most responsible for our daily electricity use. Again, two
things my family wasn't willing to give up. But what I found
next was truly shocking. In the course of our family energy
audit, I uncovered some real, unsuspecting "energy
suckers"...and I had approximately 20 of them
living under my roof!
FreeStreet is a suspended street
lighting system, that doesn't require streetlight poles
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Mohamed El-Erian said the
U.S. economy is "having difficulty gaining traction" after a
government report showed U.S growth expanded less-than-forecast
in the first quarter.
The Federal Reserve is likely to provided additional
assistance if the U.S. economy weakens further, though there is
“no immediate need” to do so...
The US petrochemical industry is
enjoying a resurgence, thanks to expectations of abundant
supplies of domestic natural gas. But at what price of gas can
this expansion continue? And will US petrochemicals face
competition from other markets for natural gas?
Three dozen 43-foot-tall centrifuges swirl quietly in a
cavernous building in southern Ohio, ready to turn uranium
hexafluoride into the enriched fuel that can power America's
nuclear power plants.
They stand like stacks of poker chips on a table -- the ante
for what could be a $2 billion national gamble on nuclear
energy.
Energy company USEC wants federal loan guarantees to allow it
to build 11,000 centrifuges here, which would spin out enough
fuel to power about three dozen nuclear power plants non-stop.
But while plenty of politicians whose districts could benefit
from the project support it, the Piketon plant remains stymied
by a political standoff.
Small-business owners say they believe federal clean-energy
investment helps drive job creation and economic growth, even
with the cloud of Solyndra's bankruptcy hanging over them, a
recent poll of such enterprises in six U.S. states indicates.
Results indicate 71 percent of small-business owners think
government has a role in driving toward a cleaner, more
competitive economy, said advocacy group Small Business
Majority, which commissioned the survey.
Just five months after breaking
ground, the Town of Prescott Valley, Arizona, along with several
project partners, is now celebrating the completion of two major
solar projects that have been designed to serve them solar
energy for many years to come.
The company will begin by
collecting medical waste from Texas but eventually will accept
waste from as many as 38 other states. The majority of waste
disposed will be from Texas, officials told Reuters.
The
other sites in the U.S. to accept low-level radioactive waste
are in Barnwell, S.C., Richland, Wash., and Clive, Utah.
A 1,300-acre dump to bury low-level
radioactive waste has opened in a remote corner of west Texas,
the fourth U.S. site to allow such waste, despite concerns about
water seepage at the site, which sits above the huge and vital
Ogallala aquifer.
Current prices for renewable energy
certificates in the 17 markets assessed by Platts underline how
dramatically REC values vary across the United States and the
extent to which big differences in the way states design their
renewable portfolio standards determine supply and demand,
sometimes in combination with unanticipated market dynamics
Economist and former U.S. Secretary
of Labor Robert Reich says the double dip recession in Europe
could well cross the ocean to the United States.
"A
recession in the world's third-largest economy, combined with
the current slowdown in the world's second-largest (China),
spells trouble for the world's largest," Reich writes in his
blog.
Solar activity has been at low
levels, a long duration C3 x-ray flare, multiple C-class events,
Solar activity is expected to be at low levels for the next
three days (01 - 03 May). The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels.
Richmond Federal Reserve Bank
President Jeffrey Lacker said on Friday he believes the U.S.
central bank will have to raise interest rates in mid-2013, not
late 2014 as suggested in this week's policy decision.
new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the
Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan
over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states
that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their
Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their
peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation
poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced
evacuations away from their countries eastern most located
cities… including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.
In the wilderness of Washington
state's Olympic National Park, hydraulic hammers chip away at
the Glines Canyon Dam in the largest dam-removal project in U.S.
history.
Scientists have detected a
clear change in salinity of the world's oceans and have found
that the cycle that drives rainfall and evaporation has
intensified more than thought because of global warming.
The Senate Agriculture Committee on
Thursday preserved funding for several biofuels programs that
support the US Department of Agriculture's grants and loan
guarantees to cellulosic refineries.
Any ship, regardless of nationality
or type, running on Iranian origin bunker fuel will lose
protection and indemnity (P&I) cover once a European Union ban
on the transportation of Iranian crude oil and products comes
into effect on July 1, according to new directives sent to
shipowners by two international shipping groups.
"I WILL DECIDE WHAT ENERGY YOU
USE!"
U.S. Patent Office employee Tom
Valone is a whistle blower who actually prevailed. More people
like Tom need to challenge the system and tell the oil companies
to buzz off.
India's economic growth and political stability are at stake
in coming years if it does not change its approach to water
management, a member of its natural resources planning
commission told Reuters on Monday.
Mihir Shah, who has been asked by India's government to come
up with a new water resource strategy, said the sector needed to
become more sustainable, efficient and focused on how water is
used and how it reaches people.
nspiration, sometimes, can come
from the most unexpected places.
And so it was for Mark
Wiseman, founder of Eco2Go Recycling Solutions LLC, a new
company that´s devised a program to help locations
cost-effectively recycle cans and bottles when they have limited
day-to-day volumes.
Federal judges are again being asked to solve a difficult
problem that lawmakers can't fix: the decades-old morass of how
to handle tons of nuclear waste lying in temporary storage
around the country.
A panel of federal appellate judges on Wednesday will hear
arguments in a lawsuit filed by South Carolina and Washington
state seeking an end to a political stalemate that now could be
linked to the presidential election.
Older adults with salty diets may
have an increased risk of suffering a stroke, a new study
suggests. The new findings strengthen the case for heavy salt
intake as a stroke risk factor, according to Dr. Francesco P.
Cappuccio, of the University of Warwick in the UK, who wrote an
editorial published with the study in the journal Stroke.
Looking for an inexpensive and
effective way to quickly improve the quality of your drinking
water? According to a team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School
of Medicine, sunlight and a twist of lime might do the trick.
Researchers found that adding lime juice to water that is
treated with a solar disinfection method removed detectable
levels of harmful bacteria such as Escherichia coli (E. coli)
significantly faster than solar disinfection alone. The results
are featured in the April 2012 issue of American Journal of
Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
The report’s conclusions differ
sharply from the President’s “Blueprint,” alerting policy-makers
to the serious negative impacts the so-called bioeconomy will
have on forests, forest-dependent peoples, and biodiversity.
Economic recovery in the U.S. is a good thing, right? One
would think so, but not when it comes to greenhouse gas (GHG) or
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
According to new research by the Worldwatch Institute, the
beginning of economic recovery led to an unprecedented emissions
increase of 5.8 percent in 2010. In 2011, global levels of CO2
reached a high of 391.3 parts per million (ppm).
Energy independence and national security are often used in
the same phrase. But now when the words are spoken, it will
apply to the American military. The U.S. armed forces are
continuing their crusade to go green, not because it may be
vogue but because it will save lives.
Generating wind energy is
more than twice as cheap as solar photovoltaic (PV) energy
production, a study of alternative energy in six developing
countries has found.
Honey bees are the angels of agriculture, but they're
disappearing at a startling rate in a mysterious phenomenon
dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
Since 2007, North American honey bees are literally
disappearing without a trace. There are no massive dead bee
bodies appearing in or around the hives—the bees are simply
GONE, bewildering beekeepers and scientists alike.
In fact, serious honey bee die-offs have been occurring
around the world for the past decade. The U.S. and the U.K. both
reported losing a third of their honey bees in 2010.
Italy lost half of theirs.
Government regulations are always
controversial, as many claim they cause job losses and act as a
brake on economic activity. But when we are talking about the
basic necessities of life, clearly something must be done to
ensure that the American people have access to safe supplies of
the essential things they need to survive.
With short-term interest rates at historic lows, the European
Central Bank raising its rates, and ongoing speculation about
when they will rise in the U.S., Weiss Ratings analyzes how well
positioned the nation’s banks are to handle a rise in interest
rates.
There are no adverse environmental
impacts that would prevent the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
from issuing Progress Energy Florida licenses to build two
nuclear reactors at a proposed site in Levy County, NRC and the
US Army Corps of Engineers said Friday in a final environmental
impact statement.
Security at several airports in
Britain and elsewhere in Europe, and the Middle East, has been
increased, particularly on planes bound for America, and federal
air marshals have been shifted overseas in advance of the
anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, a year ago Tuesday.
The ways we buy and use electricity
are in the midst of a dramatic shake-up, according to the
Camas-based head of Underwriters Laboratories' global wind
energy efforts. And despite efforts to build this region's
eco-credentials, the Pacific Northwest is lagging behind a
number of California and Midwest communities, Jason Hopkins said
in a keynote address at Friday's Clean Energy Industry Buyers &
Sellers Forum in Portland attended by about 75 people.
Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate
pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over
the eastern United States -- that is, a cold patch where the
effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.
While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm
Earth's surface, tiny particles in the air can have the reverse
effect on regional scales.
Through his work on microbial fuel
cells (MFCs), Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental
Engineering at Penn State University, may be on the verge of
“changing the game” with regard to wastewater treatment. Logan
and his team are developing an MFC that uses the bacteria
already present in wastewater to generate electricity,
potentially resulting in tremendous energy savings for treatment
facilities.
The study results showed that
placing apple slices and carrot cuts in closer proximity to
participants increased intake of these healthy foods. Making
these foods more visible increased intake of apple slices but
not carrot cuts, possibly because fruits taste sweet and so may
be more tasty to the eye than bitter-tasting carrots. These data
are the first to demonstrate experimentally that the proximity
and visibility of fruits and vegetables can influence intake of
these foods.
Renewable energy generation has
grown nationally by 27% in the past three years, largely due to
federal policy support and favorable tax policies, recently
released data show.
According to the most recent issue of
the Monthly Energy Review by the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA), with data through December 31, 2011,
renewable energy sources expanded rapidly during the first three
years of the Obama Administration while substantially outpacing
the growth rates of fossil fuels and nuclear
The price of ammunition is at an all-time high and continues
to rise, but what are the catalysts for the rise? There are
several “reasons” for the rise—some tangible, some not.
Love him or hate him, the answer may be partially due to
President Barack Obama.
It appears as if organizers have
gathered enough signatures to put an initiative on the November
ballot in California which would require the labeling of
genetically engineered foods. Of all the efforts to date to
mandate such labeling, this initiative seems most likely to
succeed in a state known for its health consciousness and its
widespread organic agriculture (which doesn't permit genetically
engineered crops).
The team's analyses revealed that
in the 9-year period from 2003 through 2011, when more than 95%
of the turbines in the area were erected, the average nighttime
land-surface temperature during summer months in areas where
wind farms were located increased by 0.65°C more than did
temperatures in nearby areas without wind turbines.
April 27, 2012
The defeat of two conservative
House Democrats by more liberal opponents in Tuesday’s
Pennsylvania primary illustrates the strong hold the new health
care law still has over committed Democratic voters and
foreshadows an even more polarized Congress next year in the
aftermath of the latest round of redistricting.
We all know that using a stainless
steel or polycarbonate water bottle is much more eco than using
(and tossing) a disposable water bottle. It's kind of the trendy
thing right now. But do you really know just how much garbage
and energy that you're saving the Earth from? With the
999Bottle, it's easy to find out.
A study in the journal Cancer
shows that people who have had dental X-rays are more
likely to develop a type of brain tumor called meningioma than
those who have not.
A new biotech corn developed by Dow AgroSciences could answer
the prayers of U.S. farmers plagued by a fierce epidemic of
super-weeds. Or it could trigger a flood of dangerous chemicals
that may make weeds even more resistant and damage other
important U.S. crops.
Or, it could do both.
Just as Appalachian Power Co. customers are adjusting to an
average 7.4 increase in their electricity bills, another hike
could be on the way.
Appalachian announced today that it is
seeking to increase the assessment it charges customers to
recover higher costs of coal and other fuel.
If approved, the
increase would mean another 7 percent increase in monthly bills
for residential customers.
The Obama Administration took the outrageous step of suing
one of the 50 states for trying to enforce federal law. Arizona
has been hit disproportionately hard by illegal immigration and
the state had no choice but to pass SB 1070 to protect our own
citizens.
The return of a bumblebee species
extinct in the UK for nearly a quarter of a century has moved a
big step forward.
Canadian Solar, ESA Renewables and
Zep Solar, Inc. ("Zep Solar"), today announced the successful
completion of a 1.26MW commercial rooftop solar project in New
Bern, N.C., that provides clean, renewable solar energy to
approximately 100 homes.
For years experts have discussed the ecological impact of the
extended cultivation of energy crops. Scientists have now
developed a computer model that allows assessing the impacts and
comparing the effectiveness of strategies for the reduction of
risks for biological diversity. Conclusion: The extension of
bioenergy leads to problems to biological diversity in agrarian
regions. With different accompanying measures, such as the
conservation of near-nature areas...
China's apparent* oil demand in
March rose 3.3% year on year to 40.23 million metric tons (mt),
or an average 9.5 million barrels per day (b/d), a Platts
analysis of recent statistics released by the Chinese government
showed.
The March month figure means that
Chinese electricity demand in the first quarter of 2012 was 6.8%
higher on year at 1,165.5 TWh.
Chlorine Dioxide (ClO2) is a
powerful and selective biocide which will help remedy oral
conditions. You may also benefit from the selective oxidative
properties of ClO2.
Apart from cyber and national
security purposes, the bill would now allow the government to
use private information obtained through CISPA for the
investigation and prosecution of “cybersecurity crime,”
protection of individuals and the protection of children. The
new clauses define “cybersecurity crime” as any crime involving
network disruption or hacking.
Officials with the World Food
Programme plan to target 250,000 hungry people per month inside
the country until December 2012, based on a request by Syrian
Arab Red Crescent to increase emergency food distribution. This
would more than double the number of beneficiaries from the
100,000 Syrians now served each month, and the WFP plans to
reach 500,000 people in the next few weeks.
Google is already facing spasms of
suspicion and confusion as it tries to persuade people to
entrust their personal documents, photos and other digital
content to the company's new online storage service.
The letter from the chairman of the
Colorado River Indian Tribes was pleading and tough. It asked
President Obama to slow the federal government's "frantic
pursuit" of massive solar energy projects in the Mojave Desert
because of possible damage to Native American cultural
resources.
statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more
dangerous than gun owners.
Installing photovoltaic panels is
certainly the most common method of generating solar power on a
rooftop, and in fact many people might think it’s the only
method. There is, however, an alternative – photovoltaic
shingles. It makes sense, when you think about it ... why
install weatherproof shingles and solar panels
separately, if you could get one thing that combined both?
Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and Wiist and his
colleagues at the National Eagle Repository provide them with
feathers, wings and talons - and in some cases whole carcasses -
for religious rituals. But the Indians' demand outstrips the
repository's supply.
Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and
golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others. But it
gets more than 3,000 requests a year for whole birds or parts.
There are some 6,000 entries on the waiting list.
An active geological fault lies
directly beneath one of two reactors at a nuclear power plant in
western Japan, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
Their latest report says there might be safety concerns but
admits to being basically clueless about what, if anything, to
do.
U.S. companies build some of the
best-operating waste-to-energy plants in the world, an expert in
the industry said Monday, but they will have to cut construction
costs drastically to rival the growth that's happening in other
countries.
“I’m Chris Lewicki, and I’m an
asteroid miner!” These were the opening words spoken by the
President and Chief Engineer of Planetary Resources Inc., as the
asteroid mining company emerged from three years of silent
running to outline its plans to begin mining Near-Earth
Asteroids (NEAs) within the decade.
"Coal exports are rising as U.S.
electricity producers move away from coal in favor of natural
gas and renewable energy," Markey wrote in the letter to
Comptroller General Gene Dodaro. "With such rapid market changes
taking place, American taxpayers must be assured they are
receiving the full value for energy resources held in the public
trust, especially when mining companies are seeking to export
hundreds of millions of tons of coal for premium prices."
There's probably no other crop
that's so easy to grow productively in so many different
climates and conditions. History reveals just how vital the
potato has been to humankind - and how important it is to our
future.
A new study released at this week’s
International Polar Year Conference finds the energy dynamics of
the Arctic Ocean changing drastically, and in ways not foreseen
by previous climate change predictions....Inuit knowledge,
ranging from traditional ceremonies, to technologies, to
cultural expression and language, provides resources upon which
scientific investigators can draw to enhance their understanding
of the Arctic
The Michigan Supreme
Court says people can resist police officers who unlawfully
enter their homes.
In a 5-2 decision, the court ordered
that charges be dropped against Angel Moreno Junior, a western
Michigan man who was accused of obstructing officers at his home
in Holland. The officers were looking for someone and tried to
enter the home without a warrant.
Lower courts had upheld
charges of resisting police, based on a 2004 Supreme Court
decision, but justices on Friday said that case was wrongly
decided.
Renewable energy development on farmland is not easy money,
and there are many examples where farmers have got it horribly
wrong - leading to hugely inflated construction costs - because
they did not do their homework.
Continuing in this tradition,
we owe it to ourselves to pursue better energy — not just
cleaner, but cheaper, more stable and secure, and increasingly
more American. Nothing less than our nation’s status as an
innovation powerhouse hangs in the balance.
Water is used in many industrial processes for a wide
variety of applications including washing, diluting, cooling,
heating, transporting, sanitizing and processing. So much
water is required for these processes that the cost of
the
water as a raw material for the plant is becoming an
increasing concern especially with growing water scarcity
around the world.
Researchers at Purdue University in
the U.S. have developed a new method of harvesting vast amounts
of energy from waste heat. Using glass fibers dipped in a
solution containing nanocrystals of lead telluride, the team led
by Dr. Yue Wu is engineering a highly flexible thermoelectric
system that generates electricity by gathering heat from water
pipes and engine components.
The ongoing fiscal austerity debate
in the eurozone claimed another victim this week when Dutch
Prime Minister Mark Rutte resigned over his government’s failure
to come up with a budget plan for next year. Budget talks
collapsed when the parties that make up the ruling coalition
failed to agree on committing to policies set by Brussels.
Researchers find car exhaust causes more premature deaths
than car accidents
While solar power harnesses energy
produced by the Sun, fusion power seeks to harness the very
process used by the Sun to generate a practically limitless
supply of clean electricity. Despite decades of research and
numerous breakthroughs, “net-gain” nuclear fusion is yet to
appear. One of the hurdles is the so-called density, or
Greenwald, limit that sees the plasmas within experimental
fusion reactors (called tokamaks) spiraling apart and disrupting
the fusion process. Now scientists have come up with a new
theory as to why this occurs that, if proven, could provide a
way to clear the density limit hurdle.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
charged in an exclusive interview with Newsmax today that Mitt
Romney’s “Etch-A-Sketch” campaign strategy will only alienate
the conservative base he needs to defeat President Barack Obama
in November should he go on to capture the GOP nomination.
Of the world's nearly 45,000 cargo
ships, many burn a low-grade bunker fuel in their engines and
produce pollution equivalent to millions of automobiles. To help
reduce that toxic load and keep the price of shipping freight
reasonable, engineers at the University of Tokyo (UT) and a
group of collaborators have designed a system of large,
retractable sails...
Permafrost zones extend over 50% of
Canada's land area. Warming or thawing of permafrost due to
climate change could significantly impact existing
infrastructure and future development in Canada's north....
"This important research gives strategic assistance in
projecting how permafrost may change with the climate, as it
pinpoints important characteristics, and demonstrates how these
vary from place to place," says Burn. "The response of
permafrost to climate change is a critical factor Canadians must
anticipate if our northern infrastructure is to be adapted to
thawing ground."
Offshore wind technology is striving to reach new depths while
the solar industry is facing a challenge to make rooftop
installation easier than ever. Both announcements this week are
structured to clear some of the fundamental hurdles facing the
wind and the solar industries.
Apostasy is usually thought of as a
renunciation of religious faith. However, apostasy can take many
forms, which includes a total turning away from principles once
professed. We can still claim to be people of faith but deny the
inherent power of that faith. Even if we have no religious
faith, we can still claim to have principles, but use every
means of deception to wiggle around those principles.
A civil court recently sentenced
the widows and two grown-up daughters to 45 days in prison for
entering and living in Pakistan illegally. The judge ordered
their deportation on completion of the prison term, which began
on March 3 when the family was formally arrested.
Newmont Mining has shown its
"willingness" to improve the environmental mitigation plan for
its proposed gold mine known as Conga, Peru's government said on
Monday, as it seeks to overcome opposition to the mine.
The country’s two largest private
water utility companies are participants in a massive lobbying
effort to expand controversial shale gas drilling — a heavy
industrial activity that promises to enrich the water companies
but may also put drinking water resources at risk.
The American public is divided
about whether to eliminate federal subsidies for any form of
energy and is giving less support to nuclear power and U.S.
funding of renewable energy, a new poll has found.
Not only are doctors being advised
to reject chelation therapy—they’re being asked to report on
their colleagues who practice it.
Duluth was one of five municipal
areas named in the national report as a "cleanest city" for both
ozone and year-round particle pollution.
Solar activity was at low levels.
C1 x-ray events at 25/2242Z
and 26/1723Z respectively. Both
had associated CMEs but neither are
expected to be
geoeffective. Three consecutive CMEs appeared Solar activity is
expected to remain low with a slight chance for M-class activity
for the next three days (27 - 29 April). Solar wind speeds
have steadily decreased from approximately 730 km/s to
approximately 560 km/s. The geomagnetic field is expected to be
at quiet to unsettled levels with isolated active..
CONTINUED ALERT: Electron 2MeV Integral Flux exceeded 1000pfu
"Throughout his administration, but
particularly in recent weeks, President Obama has been passing
off campaign travel as "official events," thereby allowing
taxpayers, rather than his campaign, to pay for his reelection
efforts," the complaint letter by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
read.
The extended closure of the San
Onofre nuclear plant due to safety concerns has led some to
speculate -- or hope -- that the plant will be shuttered for
good, but the chief nuclear officer for plant operator Southern
California Edison said he doesn't believe the problems signal
the plant's demise.
Congress moved one step closer
Wednesday to overhauling the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service
by approving sweeping reforms to rebalance the mail agency’s
finances and help cut the size of its delivery network.
The nation would start looking for
one or more temporary storage sites to consolidate its high
level nuclear waste under a provision approved by the Senate
Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday.
Stopping oil and gas companies from
fracking shale rocks within 600 meters of aquifers could
virtually eliminate any risk of drilling operations leading to
contamination of drinking water, according to a new study led by
scientists from the UK's Durham University.
Single-stream recycling is making a
difference in Westport, Conn.
Since the town began a
single-stream system in July, recyclable collections jumped 167%
and will save the town $220,000, according to WestportNow.com.
While some utilities are still
pursuing full-scale plants, there is a parallel push for smaller
reactors that could be easier for utilities to finance and
minimize sticker shock for regulators and consumers. But despite
a lower total cost, there's no evidence yet that tiny fission
factories would be able to produce electricity at a competitive
cost in an era of abundant, cheap natural gas.
The former head of Charanka village
in Gujarat no longer seems to mind the harsh sun. His was a
nondescript village until it was identified as a solar hot
spot--a region with high "direct normal irradiance levels",
according to a 2010 feasibility report prepared by the Clinton
Climate Initiative. Charanka has seen a rush of activity since
then.
"Europe is similar to the Soviet
Union in the way that the euro crisis has the potential of
destroying, undermining the European Union," Soros said at a
debate on public policy in Budapest, according to The Wall
Street Journal.
Southern Company's natural
gas-fired combined-cycle power plants ran at a 70% capacity
factor in the first quarter, reflecting the Atlanta-based
utility company's shift toward natural gas.
Sorted recycling systems win out
over single-stream recycling in a head-to-head competition when
the municipal playing fields are even, according to a research
report that tracked outcomes in United Kingdom markets over a
four-year period
Changes in social status can alter the immune system,
according to a new study of monkeys that researchers say has
significant implications for how low socioeconomic status
affects human health.
What would a world leader do whose country possessed the
world's most abundant energy source: 15 times more abundant than
any other nation and fully onethird of the global supply; a
source directly linked to gross domestic product and economic
growth, with production growing steadily cleaner and safer?
Would the leader promote it, ignore it or shut it down?
Straining a shaky cease-fire even
further, Syrian government troops were accused Tuesday of
executing nine activists who met with UN military observers to
the central city of Hama.
The City Council majority went from
opposing the Surry County coal-fired power plant to possible
opposition in a meeting in which tensions ran high.
The worldwide problem of attracting
and retaining talent in the energy industry isn't any less acute
in Canada, and in particular, Alberta. In fact, Sean McBurney
thinks it is worse.
Independent analysis from investment banks and independent
market consultants has indicated a major drop in both physical
and financial market liquidity.
This drop was as high as 50% in 2011 year-on-year and may
indicate that confidence in the current benchmark has
considerably weakened.
This is an entire episode from
Jessie Ventura's TV publication.
It runs about 43 minutes.
The Solar Bike is one of the most
versatile modes of transportation you will ever encounter. First
and foremost, the Solar Bike is just that - a bicycle. But
that's just the beginning. The electric motor (powered by free
sunlight) turns an ordinary bike into a versatile, utilitarian
means of short-range transportation. It's specially designed to
work with our most popular solar generator, the PowerSource 1800
(more about that in a moment).
"Energy literacy" and "peak oil
literacy" should be requirements for pundits -- and for citizens
more generally. I've followed these issues for many years now
and it still amazes me how poor the knowledge of energy issues
is among even the chattering classes and punditry.
Whether early U.F.O. (Unidentified
Flying Object) accounts are accurate is open to speculation.
However, no one should make the mistake of assuming that U.F.O.
sightings over Indian country ended hundreds of years ago.
Natives still witness strange, unidentified flying objects in
the sky every year.
The UK has seen announcements worth £4.7 billion into
renewables, supporting 15,000, in the period April 2011 to
February 2012, and more is underway.
According to PwC U.S., North American power and utilities
mergers and acquisitions (M&A) declined in the first quarter of
2012 due to uncertainty over the economy.
Slow economic growth; natural gas prices at a 10-year low;
ongoing changes to environmental proposals; and the regulatory
process of recently announced transactions all contributed to
the downturn. Major deals continue to work through the approval
process today.
According to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), there are approximately 490,000 sites
and almost 15 million acres of potentially contaminated
properties nationwide. A new tool from the EPA and the U.S.
Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) tests these underutilized, contaminated lands for solar
and wind energy potential.
The US House Appropriations
Committee on Wednesday passed on to the full chamber a
Department of Energy spending bill that would cut $345 million
from the agency's fiscal 2013 budget, providing it with $26.1
billion, and would shift emphasis from renewable energy and
energy efficiency to fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The U.S. solar market's centre of gravity is shifting from
the southwest towards the east coast and Florida, in particular.
While traditional solar markets have relied on
distributed PV for most new capacity, these days it is the
centralised large-scale projects that are gaining traction
Venezuela imposed electrical power rationing nationwide this
week, government officials said.
The Ministry of Electricity said "rotating power outages of
20 minutes each" were implemented Monday and Tuesday afternoons,
Merco Press reported.
Warm ocean currents flowing beneath
ice shelves are the main cause of recent ice loss from
Antarctica, concludes a study by an international research team
published today. The finding brings scientists closer to
providing reliable projections of future sea level rise.
Strength training may help to
reverse memory loss in elderly women in early stages of
dementia, according to a new study.
Newt Gingrich, Lou Dobbs, Larry Kudlow, John Bolton, Dick
Morris, and other champions of freedom have united together to
reveal the truth about what happened behind closed doors on
Sept. 18, 2008 . . . and how we are in for at least 15 more
years of financial reckoning.
The wind power industry says that
uncertainty due to Congressional inaction on the extension of a
key tax credit set to expire at the end of the year is beginning
to cause layoffs.
More than 60 residents were evacuated from their homes near a
Chesapeake Energy-operated well that leaked natural gas and
drilling mud in Wyoming, the company said on Wednesday.
Chesapeake lost control of the well late on Tuesday while
installing a casing, which triggered the leak, the company said
in a statement. It wasn't clear how much gas or fluid escaped
the well. Local TV reports said the sound of natural gas rushing
from the ground could be heard miles away.
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