Archive for February 11th, 2010

Northeast starts snow clean-up; costs mount

Reuters: The U.S. Northeast began to dig out after two blizzards in a week brought the region to a standstill with record snowfalls, creating a multimillion-dollar mess for cash-strapped cities and states. From Washington to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, cities began to clean up and airports tried to reopen runways for flights possibly later on Thursday but residents were advised to stay home while crews tried to clear streets. Airlines, already facing economic troubles, were ...

Climate change affecting Kenya’s coffee output

Reuters: Climate change has affected Kenyan coffee production through unpredictable rainfall patterns and excessive droughts, making crop management and disease control a nightmare, a researcher said on Thursday. Intermittent rainfall in the 2007/08 crop year, for example, caused a terrible bout of the Coffee Berry Disease that cut Kenyan output 23 percent to 42,000 metric tons as farmers were caught out by rains and did not protect their crop in time. "We have seen climate change in ...

Arizona New Mexico border region targeted for CO2-based geothermal energy

Greenwire: A geothermal startup is hoping to use the world's most abundant greenhouse gas to extract heat buried deep below the Arizona high desert, while preventing millions of tons of the gas from ever reaching the atmosphere. Utah-based GreenFire Energy plans to tap naturally occurring carbon dioxide (C02) from the St. Johns Dome formation about a half-mile underneath the Arizona-New Mexico border near the town of Springerville, Ariz. The CO2, once compressed to a supercritical state, ...

United Kingdom: Solar panels and wind turbines on National Trust properties

Telegraph: The landowner already has 140 renewable energy projects installed on castles and mansions around the country. But with the Government offering to pay for any surplus energy fed into the grid and increasing concerns around climate change, the Trust is planning on expanding its green initiative to even more properties. The target to cut energy use by 50 per cent by 2020 will go beyond national targets and could save more than 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of ...

United Kingdom: 4,000 geese missing en route to feeding ground

Press Association: The hunt is on for a missing flock of one of the world's rarest birds. The big freeze has brought an unusually large number of light-bellied brent geese to the Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve in Northumberland. Around 4,000 geese have arrived at the island, which is used by the birds as a winter feeding ground, but the whereabouts of several thousand of them still remains a mystery. The world population of these small geese is estimated at only around 6,000 ...

Report: 38 per cent of land faces desertification

Business Green: Over a third of the world's land could be turned into desert, according to a new report published in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment that warns increased rates of desertification could have a huge impact on global food and water supplies. In a series of two papers, authors from the Institute of Agro Food Research and Technology (IRTA) included the impact of desertification in lifecycle analyses of land use impact to ascertain how much land was at risk. They ...

Boycott of oil sands fuel called ‘greenwashing’

Globe and Mail: Upscale U.S. grocer Whole Foods Markets WFMI-Q assures its eco-aware shoppers that its meat has no antibiotics, that its coffee and roses are fair-traded and, now, that its organic produce is delivered using oil-sands-free fuel -- for the most part. Whole Foods' trucks travel more than 35 million kilometres annually, delivering organic and natural products to its 284 North American outlets, items such as Manchego cheese from Spain and Himalania-chocolate-covered Goji berries from ...

Canada’s mild climate leaves Winter Olympics short of snow

Guardian: Providing snow in the midst of a Canadian winter ought to be relatively uncomplicated. But the efforts of the Vancouver games organising committee to ensure sufficient snow cover for the opening day on Friday could just about qualify as an Olympic event in its own right. They have tried airlifting snow by helicopter at five-minute intervals; hauling snow by the lorryload from three hours away; shooting ice and water out of a snow cannon; spreading layers of snow with a Zamboni ...

Biofuels in Europe

Environment Report: Farmers are finding they can make more money selling crops for energy than for food. A third of all corn grown in the US gets turned into ethanol. It's tough to balance the need for energy and food when millions around the world die from starvation each year. Still, farmers are reconsidering their roles - including in Germany. In the second part of our three-part series on biofuels in Europe, Sadie Babits meets with one German farmer who wants to make the switch and become an energy ...

United States: Los Angeles eyes Owens Lake for huge solar project

Reuters: An old battleground of California's water wars could turn into one of the largest solar farms in the world, with thousands of shiny black and blue panels mounted across the desiccated, salty white crust of Owens Lake. That's the plan by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the largest public utility in the United States. The project may eventually generate 3 to 5 gigawatts of power -- enough for 10 percent of California's power supply -- and include other ...