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Archive for February 4th, 2015
Judge allows hearings summer closings of New York nuclear plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 4th, 2015
Reuters: A judge in New York has ruled Entergy Corp cannot stop hearings on the state's plan to shut the company's Indian Point nuclear power plant for part of the summer to protect fish in the Hudson River.
In a ruling late Tuesday, an administrative law judge at the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) rejected Entergy's latest attempt to stop the state from shutting the plant, at least for part of the summer.
The ruling was the latest salvo in an eight-year battle between Entergy,...
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Farmers adapt to big rains but send trouble downstream
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 4th, 2015
Minnesota Public Radio: As rains have gotten heavier, Minnesota farmers in recent years have been expanding a 150-year-old drainage system, pulling billions of gallons more water off soggy land and letting the state's corn and soybean fields thrive. They have laid thousands of additional miles of water-absorbing plastic tubes underneath their fields and, as a result, they have pushed upward the number of bushels per acre of the crops that dominate Minnesota's agricultural landscape. They have held their own and even flourished...
As climate changes, cities grapple w/ big rains
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 4th, 2015
Minnesota Public Radio: In Duluth, city workers have replaced 8-foot culverts wiped out in a 2012 storm with two sections 10 feet wide, more than doubling their capacity.
In Minnetonka, the city is creating computer models to see where increased rainfall is putting the most pressure on its stormwater system.
In north Minneapolis, a street has been torn out to make room for huge tanks that can store stormwater and prevent it from overwhelming the city's system that drains into the Mississippi River.
In all three...
It’s time for California to end risky fracking
Posted by Sacramento Bee: Michael Brune on February 4th, 2015
Sacramento Bee: At the end of last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned hydraulic fracturing in New York, citing the threat it poses to public health. His state’s acting health commissioner put it this way: “The potential risks are too great. In fact, they are not even fully known.”
Here in California, however, fracking is already happening and is poised to spread more widely. A report released last month from the California Council on Science and Technology showed that as many as 175 new fracking wells are drilled...
Keystone would ‘significantly’ boost oil-sands emissions: Report
Posted by Globe and Mail: Shawn McCARTHY and Justin Giovannetti on February 4th, 2015
Globe and Mail: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has handed new ammunition to President Barack Obama in his battle against Congress over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. In a letter released Tuesday, the EPA disputed a key contention made by pipeline supporters – including the Harper government – that approving the project would have no impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Obama has said he would not approve the long-delayed pipeline if it would result in significant new amounts of carbon...
Facing the Truth About Climate Change
Posted by New Republic: Jeffrey Ball on February 4th, 2015
New Republic: In June 1975, a Yale economist named William Nordhaus published a paper for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, an Austrian think tank. In the paper, he put forward a theory about a potentially globe-altering climate-change Red Line--a threshold that, if crossed, could result in a fusillade of environmental dangers. Research suggested that a rise in carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels might melt the Arctic Sea ice, prompting a “dramatic” increase in rain and...