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Archive for July, 2011
NJ hearing starts on nuke plant shutdown deal
Posted by Associated Press: Wayne Parry on July 7th, 2011
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
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 7th, 2011
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,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Iowa Plant Receives U.S. Backing To Convert Corn Waste into Motor FuelSenators propose immediate end to ethanol credit
Posted by Associated Press: Mary Clare Jalonick on July 7th, 2011
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
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 7th, 2011
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...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on La Nina, blamed for U.S. South drought, may revive this autumnHaste vs. Procrastination on Nuclear Waste
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 7th, 2011
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...
Peru: Major Efforts Still Needed to Clean Up Lake Titicaca
Posted by Inter Press Service: Franz Chávez on July 7th, 2011
Inter Press Service: Efforts to combat pollution in Lake Titicaca, which straddles the borders of Peru and Bolivia high up in the Andes mountains, have shown slightly better results in Puno Bay on the Peruvian side, but have barely made a difference in Cohana Bay on the Bolivian side, according to local fishers and specialists interviewed by Tierramérica.
At 3,810 meters above sea level, Lake Titicaca is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. It has a total surface area of 8,562 square kilometers, of...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Peru: Major Efforts Still Needed to Clean Up Lake TiticacaGreenland’s ice sheets face new threat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 7th, 2011
ScienceNews: Scientists have uncovered a potentially potent risk to Greenland’s ice sheets during the next century and beyond: rapidly warming deep water. The subsurface ocean off Greenland is now expected to warm at roughly double the rate that is projected for such waters globally, including off the coast of Antarctica.
Calling the ocean “the 900-pound gorilla of global warming and climate change,” oceanographer Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., says he’s excited to finally...
Insect attacks among threat to US forests, worsened by drought, climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 7th, 2011
Associated Press: When defoliated trees are added to those killed outright, the acreage significantly damaged by insects since 2003 totals about 50 million -- 8 percent of forest area in the lower 48 states, the report says. The victims range from Rocky Mountain pine forests hammered by bark beetles to ash stands in Northeastern and Upper Midwestern states, where authorities have struggled to contain an emerald ash borer invasion.
By comparison, about 13 million acres were scorched by fires during the same period,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Insect attacks among threat to US forests, worsened by drought, climate change‘Radical’ changes needed to meet rising food demands: UN
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: Patrick Wall on July 7th, 2011
Christian Science Monitor: Current farming practices degrade the environment and contribute to global warming, which in turn reduces food production, according to the report. To feed a growing population, farmers around the world must increase food production by up to 100 percent by 2050 – but do so using sustainable methods, with a focus on small farming.
“The world now needs a truly green revolution in agriculture,” says the UN’s annual World Economic and Social Survey, which was released Tuesday.
Recent food shortages...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on ‘Radical’ changes needed to meet rising food demands: UNPhosphate: A Critical Resource Misused and Now Running Out
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Fred Pearce on July 7th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: If you wanted to really mess with the world’s food production, a good place to start would be Bou Craa, located in the desert miles from anywhere in the Western Sahara. They don’t grow much here, but Bou Craa is a mine containing one of the world’s largest reserves of phosphate rock. Most of us, most days, will eat some food grown on fields fertilized by phosphate rock from this mine. And there is no substitute.
The Western Sahara is an occupied territory. In 1976, when Spanish colonialists left,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Phosphate: A Critical Resource Misused and Now Running Out