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Archive for September 6th, 2012
Drought hit Q3 farm income expectations in Midwest: Fed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 6th, 2012
Reuters: Farm income expectations in key Midwestern states for the third quarter have been badly dented by the harsh drought, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on Thursday.
Crops have been stunted by withering heat across the U.S. heartland, with corn and soybean yields hit hard. Hay and cattle farming have also suffered significantly.
Based on an Agricultural Finance Monitor survey of 88 agricultural banks in its district, with the exception of the Memphis, Tennessee,...
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NRC staff to review nuclear reactor waste storage rules
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 6th, 2012
Reuters: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) directed its staff on Thursday to start an environmental review into the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel, following a court ruling that led the agency to stop issuing new reactor licenses.
The NRC did not say when it would start issuing new reactor licenses again.
The NRC has more than a dozen reactor operating license renewal applications and a dozen new reactor license applications pending.
The NRC said it told its staff to develop an...
Shale: the hidden treasure that could transform Britain’s fortunes
Posted by Telegraph: Fraser Nelson on September 6th, 2012
Telegraph: For years, the countryside has had pitifully few friends in Westminster. The Labour Party had abandoned hope of winning votes there: its interest in rural England extended solely to imposing a fox-hunting ban. The Tory modernisers, meanwhile, took rural voters for granted, so felt able to pick fights over planning laws and ludicrously expensive railway lines. Both parties also allowed their environmental policy to be shaped by the prevailing fashion in London: so mainly concerns about carbon emissions...
Deforestation reduces rainfall in tropics, says study
Posted by SciDev.Net: Paula Leighton on September 6th, 2012
SciDev.Net: Large-scale deforestation in tropical rainforests can dramatically reduce rainfall rates both locally and thousands of kilometres away, according to a study published in Nature yesterday (5 September). This could have a potentially devastating impact on communities living in or close to the Amazon and Congo rainforests.
This drop occurs because deforestation reduces the natural recycling of moisture from soils, through vegetation, and into the atmosphere, from where it returns as rainfall.
When...
Drought Withers U.S. Corn Crop, Heats Debate on Ethanol
Posted by National Geographic: Bret Schulte on September 6th, 2012
National Geographic: Ethanol has been good to Galva, Iowa. This kernel of a community has grown almost 20 percent since the 2000 census, to 434 people-a growth spurt that locals attribute to a new golden age for corn and their very own ethanol plant, which opened in 2002.
The Galva plant has been a windfall to the area, thanks in part to the Renewable Fuel Standard that was adopted by the U.S. Congress in 2005 and expanded in 2007. The standard mandates that oil refiners blend 13.2 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol...
Rains From Isaac Don’t Put Much Dent in U.S. Drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 6th, 2012
Climate Central: Despite locally drenching rains from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac, the worst drought in more than 50 years is still firmly entrenched across much of the U.S.
According to the new U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, the numbers didn't change dramatically across the country, but the locations of the worst drought conditions did shift.
The remnants of Isaac eased the dryness dramatically in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Louisiana, while rains also moistened states in the mid-Atlantic...
Lebanon’s cedar trees threatened by climate change
Posted by Guardian: Alasdair Soussi on September 6th, 2012
Guardian: King Solomon used them in the construction of the temple that would bear his name, the Phoenicians used them to build their merchant ships and the ancient Egyptians used their resin in the mummification process. But now Lebanon's cedar trees (Cedrus libani), described in the Scriptures as "the glory of Lebanon" and by the 19th-century French Romantic poet, Alphonse de Lamartine, as "the most famous natural monuments in the world", face a new threat in the form of climate change.
Emblazoned on...
For Farms in the West, Oil Wells Are Thirsty Rivals
Posted by New York Times: Jack Healy on September 6th, 2012
New York Times: A new race for water is rippling through the drought-scorched heartland, pitting farmers against oil and gas interests, driven by new drilling techniques that use powerful streams of water, sand and chemicals to crack the ground and release stores of oil and gas. A single such well can require five million gallons of water, and energy companies are flocking to water auctions, farm ponds, irrigation ditches and municipal fire hydrants to get what they need. That thirst is helping to drive an explosion...
Canada: Shell approves $1.36bn oil sands carbon capture project for Alberta site
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 6th, 2012
Reuters: Shell has approved its planned $1.36bn Quest carbon capture and storage (CCS) project to cut emissions at an oil sands site near Edmonton, Alberta, by more than one-third.
The company said the facility will capture more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide annually and inject it 1.2 miles underground.
The project would be the first of its kind for the oil sands, the world's third-largest crude reserve after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
Oil sands projects, particularly upgraders such as this one...
Increasing demand and urbanisation challenge global food systems
Posted by AlertNet: Lisa Anderson on September 6th, 2012
AlertNet: With most of the world's arable land already in use, more efficient and sustainable methods of food production that provide higher yields are essential to feed an increasingly urban global population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, according to experts in food security.
"The way we produce food now is literally unsustainable,' said Charles Godfray, professor of zoology and director of the Martin Programme on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford.
Moreover, he said, the...