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Archive for August 5th, 2013
With Tar Sands Development, Growing Concern on Water Use
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Ed Struzik on August 5th, 2013
Yale Environment 360: Opposition to the mining of Alberta’s tar sands — and the Keystone and Gateway pipelines that would carry their oil to the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean — has largely been focused on the project’s greenhouse gas emissions and threats to pristine environments along the pipeline rights-of-way. But another serious issue is coming to the fore — the massive amounts of freshwater being used by the industry. In 2011, companies mining the tar sands siphoned approximately 370 million cubic meters of water...
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Pressure mounts on UK’s polluting water companies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2013
Guardian: On Sunday, I revealed in the Observer that the most persistent and frequent polluters of England's rivers and beaches are the nation's biggest 10 biggest water companies. I wrote: The companies, who are responsible for treating waste water and delivering clean supplies, have been punished for over 1000 incidents in the last nine years but fined a total of only £3.5m. The revelations have prompted deep concern that the financial penalties being levied are far too low to change the behaviour of an...
The rise and rise of American carbon
Posted by Guardian: Duncan Clark on August 5th, 2013
Guardian: You've probably heard that US carbon emissions have been falling. According to President Obama and energy commentators the world over, fracked shale gas has displaced dirty coal, in much the same way that fossil fuels undercut whale oil a century earlier. Out with environmentally unfriendly old technologies and in with cleaner and more efficient new ones. Everyone wins – including the climate, thanks to the fact that gas produces only around half as much CO2 as coal does for each unit of power or...
Can Farming Provide a Solution to Climate Change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2013
Scientific American: When the heavy rains came to Iowa this spring, corn farmer Dave Miller tilled the rolling portions of his 255-hectare plot. Cutting into the soil slows runoff and, particularly, prevents water from gouging big gullies in the fertile but softly held land. A few years back such tilling would have cost him money, thanks to an attempt to pair farmers improving the carbon management of their soils and companies looking to reduce pollution. "We know that raising soil organic matter is good for soil, good...
Neonicotinoids are the new DDT killing the natural world
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2013
Guardian: It's the new DDT: a class of poisons licensed for widespread use before they had been properly tested, which are now ripping the natural world apart. And it's another demonstration of the old truth that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. It is only now, when neonicotinoids are already the world's most widely deployed insecticides, that we are beginning to understand how extensive their impacts are. Just as the manufacturers did for DDT, the corporations which make these...
Fukushima radioactive water likely breached barrier: panel head
Posted by Reuters: Antoni Slodkowski and Mari Saito on August 5th, 2013
Reuters: Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an "emergency" that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country's nuclear watchdog said on Monday. This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters. Countermeasures planned by Tokyo...
Fracking will meet resistance from southern nimbys
Posted by Ecologist: Patrick Wintour on August 5th, 2013
Ecologist: Michael Fallon's comments in private meeting herald shale gas exploration from Hampshire to Kent that risks putting Tories on collision course with heartland support The energy minister Michael Fallon has warned privately that fracking might soon face fierce resistance from the middle classes in Conservative heartlands as he heralded further exploration across swaths of southern England. Fallon, a strong supporter of shale gas extraction, told a private meeting in Westminster: "We are going to...
UK: Fracking Will Meet Resistance from Southern Nimbys, Minister Warns
Posted by Guardian: Patrick Wintour on August 5th, 2013
Guardian: The energy minister Michael Fallon has warned privately that fracking might soon face fierce resistance from the middle classes in Conservative heartlands as he heralded further exploration across swaths of southern England.
Fallon, a strong supporter of shale gas extraction, told a private meeting in Westminster: "We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive."
Fallon, who is MP for Sevenoaks in Kent, said exploratory studies for...
TransCanada’s East Coast Oil Pipeline to Change Trade Dynamics
Posted by Reuters: Sabina Zawadzki and David Sheppard on August 5th, 2013
Reuters: TransCanada Corp's (TRP.TO) plan to build one of the world's longest oil pipelines has reverberations far beyond Canadian shores. The planned 2,700 mile pipeline, which will bring crude from Canada's energy capital of Alberta to refineries and ports on the East Coast, has the potential to upturn the dynamics of the North Atlantic oil trade squeezing out some imported crude to North America and revitalizing once-ailing refineries. The Energy East line could also reinforce North Sea Brent crude as...