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Archive for August, 2010
Hot river forces costly cutback for TVA
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Times Free Press: The Tennessee Valley Authority has lost nearly $50 million in power generation from its biggest nuclear plant because the Tennessee River in Alabama is too hot. Unless the summer cools down, TVA could lose millions of dollars more, pushing up fuel costs and consumer electric bills even after seven consecutive monthly increases. The Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant near Athens, Ala., has operated at only about half power for most of the past month and could remain at reduced ...
Compensation Czar Takes Over BP Fund
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
National Public Radio: LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: Today, the man who managed the fund for 9-11 victims and pay packages for executives at bailed out companies officially takes over the BP claims process. Kenneth Feinberg will administer the $20 billion fund set to compensate oil-spill victims. And as NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports, the process is already under fire for being unfair. WENDY KAUFMAN: Kenneth Feinberg says he will make interim payments to eligible individuals within 48 hours. ...
As floodwaters recede, anger grows in northwest Pakistan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
McClatchy Newspapers: In the village of Drab Korona in northwest Pakistan, Sirajuddin returned to where his house had stood to salvage what he could. What he found was just a shallow muddy pool. "This was our house," the 30-year-old Sirajuddin, who goes by only one name as is common in the region, said as he pointed to the puddle. In northwest Pakistan, some villagers are returning home after the massive flooding only to find destruction and an absence of government help. The northwest ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on As floodwaters recede, anger grows in northwest PakistanEcuador: Yasuni and the New Economics of Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
CNN: Yasunà is both a place and a metaphor. The place is a UNESCO Biopshere Reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon where two indigenous communities, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane, live in voluntary isolation. Below the biosphere lie the oil fields Isphingo, Tambococha and Tiputini, abbreviated to ITT. Yasunà the metaphor is the initiative for paying to keep that oil underground and leave the biological and cultural diversity undisturbed. Upon learning of just these bare-bone ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ecuador: Yasuni and the New Economics of Climate ChangeUN official attacks international response to Pakistan floods crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Guardian: The British public is "shaming politicians across the world" with the generosity of its response to the devastating floods in Pakistan, the UK Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said today. The committee – the umbrella organisation for British aid agencies – said the crisis caused by huge monsoon rainfall in the last three weeks combined the scale of the Asian tsunami, the destruction of the earthquake in Haiti and the complexity of the Middle East. Its chief executive, ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on UN official attacks international response to Pakistan floods crisisHeavy rain brings floods and road chaos to southern England
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Guardian: Heavy rain has brought localised flooding and transport disruption to southern England, with forecasters warning of further heavy rainfall to come. Up to 4cm (1.5in) of rain – more than half the normal monthly total – fell on parts of the south in just a few hours overnight, and there were also gale force winds in places. The average August rainfall in southern England is 6-7cm. The Met Office issued severe weather warnings affecting six regions – Grampian, central ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Heavy rain brings floods and road chaos to southern EnglandWhite House, Critics Reach Stalemate in Dispute Over Oil Budget in Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Greenwire: Neither the White House nor critics of an Obama administration report is crying uncle in a dispute over a government report suggesting that three-fourths of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico is "gone." After being blasted by lawmakers, scientists and environmentalists in recent weeks, the administration is standing behind its claims that all but 26 percent of the oil is accounted for, despite widespread criticism that such a claim paints too rosy a picture of the situation in the ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on White House, Critics Reach Stalemate in Dispute Over Oil Budget in GulfPutin ponders climate change in Arctic Russia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Reuters: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traveled beyond the Arctic Circle on Monday to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer. Putin, who has in the past displayed a light-hearted approach to global warming by joking Russians would have to buy fewer fur coats, flew to a scientific research station in the Samoilovsky island at the delta of Siberia's Lena River. "The climate is changing. This year we have come to understand ...
Guyana: High prices triggering new gold rush
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Stabroeck News: Continually rising gold prices coupled with a highly successful 2009 for the industry appears to have triggered a fresh wave of investment interest in the sector by coastal businessmen who have traditionally paid little if any attention to the gold-mining industry; and according to Executive Secretary of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) Edward Shields Guyana's latest 'gold rush' could add to the already existing challenges facing the industry. "It would surprise ...
Russian Wildfires Retreat, but Economic Drivers Remain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 23rd, 2010
Variety: The wildfires that choked Moscow over the past two months were fueled primarily by peat bogs that were drained to make way for farms and houses. Peatlands around the world could accelerate climate change by unleashing more carbon dioxide than any single industrial sector. Ecosystem Marketplace examines the role that carbon offsets can play in heading off the disaster. Cool winds and rain have dampened the wildfires that filled Moscow with smog and filled our newspapers with images ...