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Archive for February, 2012
United Kingdom: Nuclear power is an expensive gamble that may (or may not) pay off
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 17th, 2012
Guardian: Britain's energy future starts in Paris with David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy signing formal agreements for the UK and France to work together on nuclear power. Attention will soon shift to a 500-hectare (1,250-acre) plot in Somerset where the French state energy giant EDF hopes to start work on Hinkley C. If all goes to plan, the first nuclear power station to be built in Britain since 1995 will generate 2,000MW of electricity a year by 2018-2019.
The reality is that few, if any, of the world's...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: Nuclear power is an expensive gamble that may (or may not) pay offParaná River Not What It Used to Be
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 17th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Lower water levels and increasing pressure from overfishing in the Paraná river are causing an unprecedented decline in fish stocks in the river that is regarded as the second most biodiverse in South America after the Amazon river.
The problems faced by the Paraná river were described to IPS by experts studying this nearly 4,000-km river, which rises in southern Brazil at the confluence of the Grande and Paranaíba rivers, forms Argentina's northern border with Paraguay, then flows south though...
Scottish and Southern Energy’s £800m vision for hydro dam in Great Glen
Posted by Scotsman: Frank Urquhart on February 17th, 2012
Scotsman: ENERGY giant Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has revealed ambitious plans to build Scotland`s biggest hydro-electric scheme in the heart of the Great Glen.
The company’s green energy division, SSE Renewables, has submitted a planning application to the Scottish Government to construct a 600-megawatt power scheme above Loch Lochy, with depths of 230ft the third deepest loch in Scotland. Under the plans for the new “pumped storage” hydro-electric scheme, a 300ft high dam would be built at Coire...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scottish and Southern Energy’s £800m vision for hydro dam in Great GlenUnited Kingdom: Fears of severe drought recall the summer of 1976
Posted by Guardian: Jason Rodrigues on February 17th, 2012
Guardian: For readers of a certain age, 1976 will bring back memories of Fernando by Abba being played on transistor radios, Manchester United being humbled by lowly Southampton in the FA Cup final, inflation raging over 20%, and a blistering summer heatwave that dried up reservoirs and rivers for the first time in living memory.
With much of the country baked by temperatures of around 32C and not a drop of rain in sight, the Labour government led by Jim Callaghan began to panic, so much so that it considered...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Fears of severe drought recall the summer of 1976House passes Keystone bill, Senate action uncertain
Posted by Reuters: Roberta Rampton on February 17th, 2012
Reuters: The House of Representatives passed an energy bill on Thursday that would wrest control of a permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline away from President Barack Obama, who has put the project on hold.
The bill, part of a broader House Republican effort to fund highways and infrastructure projects, would also expand offshore oil drilling and open up parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
While approval of the Keystone measure by the House was widely expected,...
Water-Gate: Texas State Report on Dealing with Current and Future Drought
Posted by Think Progress: None Given on February 17th, 2012
Think Progress: Ironically, the cover of a major Texas report on drought and water planning points out that it`s been "dry" and "hot" and implies humans have some control over the state`s thermostat. But the report is silent on human contribution to the heat and drought now and in the future - and is thus dangerously misleading as a planning document.
Can a state devastated by its most severe hot-weather drought on record actually release a water-planning report on the future of drought in Texas that never mentions...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Water-Gate: Texas State Report on Dealing with Current and Future DroughtTighten fracking regulations, scientists urge US officials
Posted by Guardian: Ian Sample on February 16th, 2012
Guardian: An influential group of scientists has urged US officials to step up their policing of shale gas operations and to consider stronger regulations to reduce environmental and health risks at the facilities.
The scientists called on regulators to revisit, and in many cases beef up, their guidelines to avoid surface spills at shale gas works, and to ensure the safe storage and disposal of toxic fluids used in controversial hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations.
Though some US states have...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Tighten fracking regulations, scientists urge US officialsLow-carbon technologies ‘no quick-fix’: May not lessen global warming until late this century
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 16th, 2012
ScienceDaily: A drastic switch to low carbon-emitting technologies, such as wind and hydroelectric power, may not yield a reduction in global warming until the latter part of this century, new research suggests.
Furthermore, it states that technologies that offer only modest reductions in greenhouse gases, such as the use of natural gas and perhaps carbon capture and storage, cannot substantially reduce climate risk in the next 100 years.
The study, published February 16, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Low-carbon technologies ‘no quick-fix’: May not lessen global warming until late this centuryRising temperatures take their toll on rice pest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 16th, 2012
SciDev.Net: A warming climate and occasional extreme high temperature events in tropical countries are likely to limit both the survival and distribution of the brown planthopper, a pest that has devastated rice crops in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, according to UK researchers.
The scientists, based at the University of Birmingham, measured the upper thermal thresholds that could be survived by the brown planthopper, including the temperatures at which the insects became immobilised by heat stress,...
Desmond Tutu tells David Cameron tar sands threaten health of the planet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 16th, 2012
Guardian: Eight Nobel laureates including Archbishop Desmond Tutu have written to the prime minister to argue that oil derived from Canadian tar sands "threatens the health of the planet" and that the UK should support European moves to classify the controversial energy source as highly polluting.
A similar letter has been sent this week to the transport minister, Norman Baker, by the shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, asking him "to vote in favour of labelling oil from tar sands as highly polluting...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Desmond Tutu tells David Cameron tar sands threaten health of the planet