RSS Feed
Archive for October 8th, 2013
In a Hot, Thirsty Energy Business, Water Is Prized
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2013
New York Times: WITH so much focus on carbon emitted from the nation's power plants, another environmental challenge related to electricity generation is sometimes overlooked: the enormous amount of water needed to cool the power-producing equipment.
In the United States almost all electric power plants, 90 percent, are thermoelectric plants, which essentially create steam to generate electricity. To cool the plants, power suppliers take 40 percent of the fresh water withdrawn nationally, 136 billion gallons...
Posted in 
Climate Change and Water Scarcity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2013
Environmental News Network: Using a novel methodological approach, scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have introduced new estimates on how climate change will affect water availability. Access to freshwater in Africa and the Middle East is known to be scarce, but the Siberian tundra and Indian grasslands also lack freshwater. These areas along with dry pockets across the globe are expected to expand and create implications for their habitats and communities. The new study predicts that if...
Chile glacier bill pits mines against water supply
Posted by Associated Press: Luis Andres Henao on October 8th, 2013
Associated Press: Just how to define a glacier is at the heart of a Chilean congressional battle that could determine the future of mining in the world's largest copper-producing country.
The revival of legislation to ban mining in glacial areas is spawning debate among miners, farmers and environmentalists about how to protect both vital water supplies and Chile's mining industry. If the bill passes, mining experts fear it could shutter multibillion-dollar mining projects and slow investment.
The key will be...
Flood Forensics: Why Colorado’s Floods Were So Destructive
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2013
National Public Radio: Parts of Colorado are still drying out after floods hit the state last month. Eight people died, and damage from the worst flooding in decades is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Scientists are now venturing into the hardest-hit areas to do a sort of "flood forensics" to understand why the floods were so bad. Geologist Jonathan Godt takes Peak Highway in northern Colorado up into the Rockies. The road there winds past ravines and streams where water is still rushing. Front-end loaders are...
Fracking the US trade deficit
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: David J. Unger on October 8th, 2013
Christian Science Monitor: Over the past decade, oil and gas production has surged at vast shale formations in Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere across the US. That has led to a rise in exports of petroleum products and a reduction in the amount of oil and gas the US imports from abroad.
It's one benefit of the domestic hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling revolution that has stirred passion on all sides of the debate over America's energy future. The costs are damage to local environments, critics...
Water Shortage Seen Worsening From Climate Change in Potsdam Study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2013
Bloomberg: Water scarcity will increase around the world due to climate change, with more than 500 million people affected if mean global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), based on modeling studies by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, or PIK. An additional 8 percent of humankind may face new or worse water scarcity with 2 degrees warming, the target set by international climate negotiators, the German government-funded institute wrote in a news release today....
Wendell Berry on Fossil Fuels, Sustainable Agriculture and ‘Runaway Capitalism’
Posted by Moyers & Company: None Given on October 8th, 2013
Moyers & Company: This week on Moyers & Company in a rare television interview, Moyers talks to visionary author and farmer Wendell Berry to discuss a sensible, but no-compromise plan to save the Earth. We also examine the critical role of honey bees in our food supply and the threats they face in The Dance of the Honey Bee. And after the antics in Washington this week, Moyers shares his views on the government shutdown. Wendell Berry, one of America’s most influential writers who has written more than 40 novels,...
Not far from Lake Michigan, city yearns for water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2013
Associated Press: Lake Michigan is just 15 miles from this city of 70,000 in the Milwaukee suburbs. But these days it seems like a gigantic, shimmering mirage, tantalizingly out of reach. The aquifer that has provided most of Waukesha's drinking water for the last century has dropped so far that what's left has unhealthy levels of radium and salt. The city would like to draw from the Great Lakes, just as more than 40 million people in eight states — from Minnesota to New York — and two Canadian provinces do every...
What are the potential impacts of climate change for the UK?
Posted by Guardian: Duncan Clark on October 8th, 2013
Guardian: Temperatures in the UK have risen by about one degree since the 1970s and, given the levels of greenhouse gas already in the atmosphere, further warming is inevitable over the next three decades or so. The amount of warming will depend on future emissions but even if emissions are cut quickly and sharply to avoid dangerous levels of climate change, there will be some unavoidable impacts that the UK will have to adapt to. The government's latest climate change risk assessment identifies flood risk,...
Phase Two Of BP Trial Focuses On Amount Of Spilled Oil
Posted by National Public Radio: Jeff Brady on October 8th, 2013
National Public Radio: In a New Orleans court room this week, BP and the federal government are arguing over how much oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2010, after the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 workers, oil flowed from the out-of-control well for nearly three months. Just how much oil spilled will be key in determining the amount BP will have to pay in federal fines and penalties.
Attorneys for the U.S. government and for BP both told a federal judge in opening statements on Monday that they have...