Archive for September, 2010

Breaking Out of a Wind Ghetto

NYT: Saturated with too much energy from wind and water, the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in the Pacific Northwest, has been forced to look for outside help. For the moment its problems represent an extreme, but experts predict that other systems will find themselves in the same pickle as utilities build more wind machines in an effort to reach state-mandated quotas for renewable energy. Bonneville, which issued a report this month on its rough patch, went ...

BP spill released 4.4m barrels of oil into the ocean, study finds

Guardian: The starting up of the hype machine for Donald Rumsfeld's upcoming memoir has got me thinking about his famous line before the US invasion of Iraq. There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. In Rumsfeld's case, the former Pentagon chief was basically admitting, albeit in an extremely ...

Climate change and the Great Lakes

City Pulse: Climate change research done on the Great Lakes region is a hodgepodge and in most cases not very useful for policymakers. Researchers from Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Ohio State University seek to change that, thanks to a $4.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "There is a lot of climate research going on in the (Great Lakes) area that hasn't been very well coordinated,' said David Bidwell, program manager for the ...

Scientists give fresh estimate of Gulf oil spill

Reuters: Researchers weighed in on the controversial question of how much oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico during the BP Plc spill and said on Thursday the total amount was around 4.4 million barrels. The figure, derived using a technique called optical plume velocimetry, represents the first independent peer-reviewed study of the worst oil spill in U.S. history and conforms closely to the most recent estimate by government scientists. The spill began in April when a deepwater rig ...

Flooding Forces Evacuations In Wisconsin

National Public Radio: A powerful storm drenched parts of the upper Midwest on Thursday, flooding creeks and rivers and forcing more than half the residents of one Wisconsin town to evacuate their homes for higher ground. Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency and ordered the National Guard to Trempealeau County. Heavy rains there sparked mandatory evacuations for as many as 1,500 residents of Arcadia, a town of around 2,400 people 100 miles southeast of Minneapolis. Police officers in Arcadia ...

Dry Water Makes Waves in Fight Against Climate Change

Voice of America: Powdered material called "dry water," could provide a new way to store carbon dioxide in an effort to fight global warming. Dry water made some waves at a recent American Chemical Society meeting in Boston. The substance looks a lot like fine white sand, which isn't surprising since what makes it dry is that each tiny water droplet is covered with water-repelling silica, the stuff of ordinary beach sand. The coating makes it impossible for the water molecules to recombine and ...

Peru’s water protests halt tourism

Guardian: X

UN asks for action on nature loss

BBC: Governments must protect nature better in order to safeguard their countries' wealth, says the UN, as ministers meet for a day of talks on biodiversity. The session at UN headquarters co-incides with the final day of talks on the Millennium Development Goals, and the UN says the two issues are linked. Delegates are to discuss why they have failed to meet a 2010 target for curbing loss of biodiversity. Conservationists are calling for at least a 10-fold increase on ...

‘Extinct’ frogs haven’t croaked — scientists

AFP: Delighted conservationists announced on Wednesday they had found two species of African frog and a Mexican salamander that had been feared to extinct. The find was made by scientists combing some of the world's remotest sites on a quest to determine the fate of a hundred species of amphibians that have not been sighted for decades. "These are fantastic finds and could have important implications for people as well as for amphibians," said Robin Moore, who is organising the ...

Environment key to U.S. security: Congress briefing

Reuters: Environmental degradation and waning natural resources threaten U.S. security in the 21st century, in a shift from "kinetic" security threats, defense experts told a Capitol Hill briefing Wednesday. The loss of renewable natural resources, including forests, fresh water, fish and fertile soils, can drive political instability and conflict in the developing world, according to the briefing. "We can't just send in the Army and the Marines and the Air Force and the Navy to resolve ...