Archive for July 7th, 2011

Horn of Africa: From one drought to another

Guardian: Every day 1,000 Somalis stream across the Kenyan border to Dadaab, which is full to bursting with 367,000 people and already constitutes the largest refugee settlement in the world. They arrive malnourished and dehydrated but – after a walk lasting weeks – grateful that they have made it to a point where they will get food and water. The exodus is not the only indicator that a major food crisis is brewing in the Horn of Africa after the driest year for 60 years. In Somalia the price of the cereal...

EPA to test air in homes near Montana oil spill

Associated Press: The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will collect indoor air samples from homes downstream of a Yellowstone River oil spill after residents raised concerns about health risks from the tens of thousands of gallons of crude that poured into the watercourse. About 150 people showed up at an EPA meeting Wednesday night with questions about health risks, the duration of the cleanup, and whether the oil will permanently damage their livestock or property. George Nilson, 69, said the...

Yellowstone river oil spill throws spotlight on ExxonMobil and regulators

Guardian: An emergency response crew in Laurel, Montana, clean a section of the Yellowstone river affected by the ExxonMobil oil spill. Photograph: Reuters ExxonMobil and the Obama administration faced a growing credibility gap on Thursday over their management of a pipeline break that has fouled the Yellowstone river. Clean-up crews have yet to reach the site of the pipeline break nearly a week after the rupture, which leaked 42,000 US gallons (159,000 litres) of oil into the Yellowstone, one of the...

E.P.A. Sets New Standards for Coal-Burning Plants

New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued new standards for coal-burning power plants in 28 states that would sharply cut smokestack emissions that have polluted forests, farms, lakes and streams across the eastern United States for decades. The agency said that the new regulations, which take effect beginning in 2012, would cut emissions of soot, smog and acid rain from hundreds of power plants by millions of tons at a cost to utilities of less than $1 billion a year. The E.P.A....

Canada: Alberta sees mixed results in pine beetle battle

Reuters: Alberta reported mixed results on Thursday in its battle with the mountain pine beetle, with six million hectares of forest in the western Canadian province susceptible to attack. Milder winter temperatures allowed more beetles to survive in northwestern Alberta, which also remained at risk of continued migration of beetles from British Columbia, Alberta's Sustainable Resource Development Ministry said. The situation remained stable in central Alberta. Beetle survival rates were low in southwestern...

NJ hearing starts on nuke plant shutdown deal

Associated Press: It's the oldest nuclear power plant in America, and it recently leaked radioactive water into the ground that threatened drinking water in its southern New Jersey neighborhood. But people living near the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station packed a public hearing on its future Thursday, dismissing environmental concerns as "pseudoscience" and focusing on the jobs and tax revenues the plant provides. The hearing was called to discuss a key element of the deal reached last December to shut...

Iowa Plant Receives U.S. Backing To Convert Corn Waste into Motor Fuel

Yale Environment 360: The U.S. Department of Energy plans to make a $105 million loan guarantee to support the expansion of an Iowa ethanol factory into the nation’s first commercial-scale plant to convert corn waste into motor fuel. The Emmetsburg, Iowa plant, which is being built by Poet LLC, will convert corncobs, leaves, and husks rather than edible corn into about 25 million gallons of ethanol annually. If such production of cellulosic ethanol proves economically viable, it would reduce the use of corn for ethanol,...

Senators propose immediate end to ethanol credit

Associated Press: Two senators from ethanol-producing states are proposing to immediately end a tax credit for the corn-based fuel, agreeing to support shifting some of that money to debt reduction. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and John Thune of South Dakota, along with ethanol opponent Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, have proposed diverting $1.3 billion of the money remaining for the tax break this year to pay for debt reduction. And $668 million will be used for incentives for the ethanol and biofuels...

La Nina, blamed for U.S. South drought, may revive this autumn

Reuters: The La Nina weather anomaly blamed for one of the worst droughts in the southern United States could revive this autumn, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center forecast on Thursday. In its monthly report, the CPC said wind circulation consistent with La Nina was persisting in the central Pacific Ocean where the anomaly is usually born. "Combined with the ... lingering La Nina state of the atmosphere, the possibility of a return to La Nina during the Northern Hemisphere fall (of) 2011 has increased...

Haste vs. Procrastination on Nuclear Waste

New York Times: As I noted in Wednesday’s paper, companies that operate nuclear reactors are increasingly turning to dry casks to store nuclear waste. That`s because their spent fuel pools are full. And some experts suggest that such casks should be used more widely to reduce the amount of fuel in the pools as a safety measure. The idea is that with less fuel, spread out more widely, total heat production will be lower; that way, if a cataclysm like a tsunami or earthquake were to strike, it would take longer...