RSS Feed
Archive for February 25th, 2016
Coal, climate change clash in Colstrip
Posted by Great Falls Tribune: None Given on February 25th, 2016
Great Falls Tribune: Ashley Dennehy, 24, left this town of 2,300 to go to college, but coal and the quality of life it fuels brought her back.
Schools are great. A stone's throw from the Yellowstone River, recreational opportunities abound. Then there's the jobs.
Dennehy's husband, a mechanical engineer at the Rosebud Coal Mine, earns more than $70,000 a year. That's more than the state's median household income of $46,230, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
"Where are you going to find that?" said Dennehy,...
Posted in 
Unstoppable Texas gas leaks worse than California’s
Posted by Mint Press: Claire Bernish on February 25th, 2016
Mint Press: “Every hour, natural gas facilities in North Texas’ Barnett Shale region emit thousands of tons of methane -- a greenhouse gas at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide -- and a slate of noxious pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and benzene."
After the mammoth methane gas leak that spewed uncontrollably from a damaged well in California’s Aliso Canyon was finally capped last week, residents of nearby Porter Ranch began returning to their homes with trepidation. Lingering doubts over whether...
Drought adds fuel to fire as Zambia loses battle save forests
Posted by Reuters: Tendai Marima on February 25th, 2016
Reuters: Bare-chested, Alan Siyampondo shovels soil onto a smoking kiln stuffed with burning teak wood to produce a batch of charcoal in the heart of Dambwa Forest Reserve outside Livingstone. Nearby in the savannah woodland close to Zambia's southern border, another man prepares to turn his chopped logs into charcoal. Despite concerted efforts to reduce deforestation, this season's poor rainfall - influenced by the El Niño weather phenomenon – is causing food and power shortages that could force more Zambian...
Aerial vision captures bushfire devastation of Tasmania’s world heritage-listed forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 25th, 2016
Guardian: Footage shows the extent of the destruction caused by bushfires in the Australian state’s world heritage-listed wilderness. Unlike the country’s eucalyptus forests, which use fire to regenerate, these plants have not evolved to live within the cycle of conflagration and renewal. If they are burned, they die
Pulling water from thin air
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 25th, 2016
ScienceDaily: Organisms such as cacti and desert beetles can survive in arid environments because they've evolved mechanisms to collect water from thin air. The Namib desert beetle, for example, collects water droplets on the bumps of its shell while V-shaped cactus spines guide droplets to the plant's body. As the planet grows drier, researchers are looking to nature for more effective ways to pull water from air. Now, a team of researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences...
US shale giant quits fracking as OPEC policy bites
Posted by Arabian Business: Ed Attwood on February 25th, 2016
Arabian Business: One of America’s largest fracking companies, North Dakota’s Whiting Petroleum Corp, has said it will suspend all fracking in the latest sign that OPEC’s policy not to cut oil production is paying dividends.
Whiting said that it would spend 80 percent less this year, in what is the largest cutback to date by a major US shale company, Reuters reported.
The firm will cease fracking and completing wells as of April 1, while most of its $500 million budget will be spent on mothballing its drilling...