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Archive for October 26th, 2011
A Carbon Culprit: Rivers and Streams
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
New York Times: The amount of carbon dioxide being released from streams, rivers and lakes is probably being undercounted by scientists modeling the earth`s carbon budget, a new study suggests.
The carbon dioxide emitted by inland waterways has only recently been included in assessments of global emissions over all. To date, it has mostly been measured in the form of carbon transfer from freshwater bodies to oceans.
But after looking at water chemistry data from 4,000 inland waterways, the study`s authors,...
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U.S. Geothermal Potential Mapped in New Interactive Database
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Google Earth Geothermal potential in the U.S. existing technologies. Researchers at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Geothermal Laboratory assembled geological data from 35,000 sites nationwide, including the depth and temperature of geothermal resources for each state. Those projections, which can be viewed using Google Earth software, suggest there is significantly more potential for geothermal energy than previously believed, particularly in the eastern two-thirds of the nation. While geothermal...
Namibian capital needs “water banks” for dry times
Posted by Reuters: Ed Cropley on October 26th, 2011
Reuters: Namibia's capital, Windhoek, is four years from running out of water should a recent pattern of above-average rains end and it needs to start filling aquifers artificially to counter the threat, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
With administrations across Africa struggling to meet the needs of rapidly urbanizing populations, the city of 300,000 in the middle of the arid southwest African nation serves as a perfect test case for better water management.
Every year, its people...
What would you say to the world’s 7 billionth person?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
Guardian: Next Monday, population experts predict that one of this year's 78 million new babies will be the planet's 7 billionth person. It's just 12 years since the 6 billionth was born, and only a little over two centuries ago that we reached the first billion.
In 1999, the Guardian asked the Indian-British novelist Salman Rushdie to write a letter to the 6 billionth child, in which he meditated on the role religion would play in their life:
There are those who say that the great wars of the new century...
Why Go for Mabira? It Has the Poorest Soils
Posted by Independent: Owen E. Sseremba on October 26th, 2011
Independent: Forest soils are only 'fertile' for one type of sustainable land use, that is; forestry.
Several writers on the contested give away of Mabira forest have not given the public: obvious, basic knowledge, and facts about the soil ecology of rain forests.
Mabira is a rain forest whose soils are very poor and cannot support agricultural production as it may seem. This is a fact that people often overlook. A basic understanding of forest soils, nutrient deposits locations, the root systems, tree...
The UN predicts the world’s population explosion: visualised
Posted by Guardian: Simon Rogers on October 26th, 2011
Guardian: X
China Takes Loss to Get Ahead in Desalination Industry
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
New York Times: Towering over the Bohai Sea shoreline on this city’s outskirts, the Beijiang Power and Desalination Plant is a 26-billion-renminbi technical marvel: an ultrahigh-temperature, coal-fired generator with state-of-the-art pollution controls, mated to advanced Israeli equipment that uses its leftover heat to distill seawater into fresh water.
There is but one wrinkle in the $4 billion plant: The desalted water costs twice as much to produce as it sells for. Nevertheless, the owner of the complex, a...