RSS Feed
Archive for August 17th, 2010
Tropical Glaciers in Indonesia May Disappear by the End of the Decade
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
Daily Climate: Glaciers in one of the world's last tropical ice caps will be gone within a matter of years, rather than the decades thought previously, according to an Ohio State University researcher who has spent his career probing the world's ice fields. When they go, a unique record of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon that drives climate patterns in the tropics could disappear, too, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson said. The cap, perched on a 16,000-foot-high mountain ridge in Indonesia, ...
Posted in 
New Public Road to Split the Serengeti?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
National Geographic: The Tanzanian government is moving forward with plans to build a public road through Serengeti National Park, despite conservationists' concerns that commercial traffic will disrupt the annual wildebeest migration and allow poachers better access into the park. During the migration, more than a million wildebeest follow a circular path through the Serengeti and up into Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, chasing grass and water as the seasons change. "Creating a commercial ...
Scientists Tussle Over Gulf Oil Tally
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
NYT: When the Obama administration released scientific findings early this month estimating that roughly three-quarters of the oil from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico had been captured, burned, dispersed, evaporated, degraded or dissolved in the water, a number of independent scientists cried foul, describing the report as premature and suggesting that it was portraying the ecological impact of the spill in an unduly rosy light. Now, a team of Georgia researchers has codified that ...
United States: Costs mount for Enbridge on spill, 2007 blast
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
Reuters: Enbridge Inc's struggles mounted on Tuesday as its U.S. affiliate said the oil spill that fouled a Michigan river system could cost as much as $400 million and regulators slapped it with a $2.4 million fine for a deadly 2007 explosion in Minnesota. Enbridge Energy Partners, the Houston-based operator of the U.S. part of the company's massive pipeline system, said total charges for the July 26 pipeline rupture near Marshall, Michigan, could be $300 million to $400 million, excluding ...
Scientists raise queries about Gulf oil left behind
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
Reuters: Two new scientific reports raised fresh fears on Tuesday about the environmental fallout from the world's worst offshore oil spill and questioned government assurances that most of the oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico was already gone. In one of the reports, researchers at the University of Georgia said about three-quarters of the oil from BP's blown-out Macondo well was still lurking below the surface of the Gulf and may pose a threat to the ecosystem. Charles ...
Groups warn oil spill may be worse than claimed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
AP: Researchers are warning that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a bigger mess than the government claims and that a lot of crude is lurking deep below the surface, some of it settling perhaps in a critical undersea canyon off the Florida Panhandle. The evidence of microscopic amounts of oil mixing into the soil of the canyon was gathered by scientists at the University of South Florida, who also found poisoned plant plankton -- the vital base of the ocean food web -- which they blamed on ...
Invisible Oil From Spill Could Still Pose Major Threat to Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
Time: Earlier this month the federal government released a report on the fate of the 4.9 million barrels of oil that had spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Interior Department estimated that 74% of the oil had either been directly captured, burned or skimmed, evaporated at the surface, been consumed by micro-organisms, or dissolved or dispersed into microscopic droplets under the ...
United Kingdom: Geothermal boss maps out Cornish ambitions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 17th, 2010
Business Green: The UK's first deep geothermal power plant could be up and running by 2013, after Cornwall Council last week gave the go-ahead for the pioneering 65MW project. UK-based Geothermal Engineering Ltd said it expects to begin drilling the first deep well at the proposed site on an industrial estate in Redruth early next year. The 4.5km-deep well is expected to access rocks that reach temperatures of up 200°C and is intended to be followed by two further wells. The completed facility ...