The Environment

$30.6M in Stimulus Funds Give US Hydroelectric Projects a New Spark

2009-11-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

Up to $30.6 million in economic stimulus funds will be used to finance seven hydroelectric projects nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The additional funding means Voith Hydro, a manufacturer of hydroelectric turbines, will be able to retain 40 jobs at its manufacturing facility in York, Pa. Thanks to $13 million in stimulus funding, those employees can resume work on two replacement turbines for Alcoa Inc’s Tapoco Cheoah hydro plant in Robbinsville, N.C.

"We’re going to bring America back to making things in this country," Secretary of Energy Kristina Johnson told workers assembled for the announcement on Nov. 4, 2009.

The other six projects selected for the federal funding are:

Alabama Power Company — up to $6 million for a project in Mitchell, AL - For a project that will increase efficiency and upgrade four units at three hydroelectric plants on the Coosa River by replacing 1940s to 1960s vintage turbines with new high-efficiency stainless steel turbines and runners. Generation will increase by 36,087 MWh annually (7.3% increase).

City of Tacoma, Department of Public Utilities - up to $4.67 million for a project in Potlatch, WA — To add two 1.8 MW Francis Turbines to the existing Cushman No. 2 Dam, adding 23,500 MWh of annual generation (14% increase) and 3.6 MW of capacity. In addition, the project will incorporate an upstream fish collection pool to enable reintroduction of native fish above the dam for the first time since the 1920s.

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Water Evaporates from the Climate Change Negotiating Text

2009-11-05T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Stockholm International Water Institute joined governments, NGOs and United Nations agencies this week in calling on negotiators working to develop a climate change deal in Copenhagen later this year to recognize the critical role of water in climate change adaptation.

Participants in a special Water Day event on Tuesday called for recognition that water is the primary way that climate change will impact people, society and ecosystems, due to predicted changes in its quality and quantity.

The way that water is managed in and between countries will be a critical component for the success of any efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change, according to the Stockholm International Water Institute. It will also be a vital consideration for many mitigation activities, including hydropower, agriculture and forestry projects.

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Over 17,000 species threatened by extinction

2009-11-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

A rare Panamanian tree frog, a rodent from Madagascar and two lizards found only in the Philippines are among over 17,000 species threatened with extinction, a leading environmental group said Tuesday.

The Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog, only discovered four years ago, is one of 1,895 amphibian species that could soon disappear from the wild because of deforestation and infection, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said.

The Switzerland-based group surveyed 47,677 animals and plants for this year's "Red List" of endangered species, determining that 17,291 of them are at risk of extinction.

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Dry California gets historic water deal

2009-11-04T15:01:00.000-08:00

California lawmakers on Wednesday passed an $11.1 billion overhaul of the state's antiquated water system in a bid to supply a soaring population while preserving a fragile environment.

After a long night of debate, the state Assembly voted in favor of the comprehensive package of water bills and a bond measure to fund them. The Senate also approved.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the five-bill package a wise investment in the state's future. "This is without any doubt the most comprehensive water infrastructure package that has passed here," Schwarzenegger said.

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Warming warning on Colorado River water

2009-07-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

There's a one-in-two chance that the water reservoirs of the Colorado River will dry up by 2050 if water management practices remain unchanged in our warming world, a new study finds.

Roughly 30 million people — including many in Arizona and Southern California — depend on the Colorado River for drinking and irrigation water.

The Colorado River system is enduring its 10th year of drought, with the reservoir system currently at 59 percent of capacity, about the same as this time last year.

Previous studies have warned of the potential for water shortages with the drier conditions in the West brought about by climate change. The region's growing population has also put pressure on the water supplies of the desert West.

The researchers, including Balaji Rajagopalan of the University of Colorado in Boulder, examined the effects of a range of reductions to the water flowing through the Colorado River and held in local reservoirs, as well as how different water management strategies might affect those water levels.

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Nike steps up to protect Amazon rainforest

2009-07-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

Citing a commitment to curbing deforestation, sportswear giant Nike Inc. says it will stop using leather from cattle raised in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.

In a statement, Nike said its Brazilian leather suppliers have until next July 1 to "create an ongoing, traceable and transparent system to provide credible assurances that leather used for Nike products is from cattle raised outside of the Amazon Biome."

"We understand how important rainforests are to the health of the planet and the implications deforestation has on climate change and global warming" the statement added.

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Chemical in plastic tied to preemie problems

2009-07-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

A chemical used in many plastic products and already under scrutiny for potential health risks is suspected of raising the risk of liver problems in premature babies, according to a new study.

The small study in a German hospital suggests a chemical known as a phthalate, used in some intravenous feeding bags and tubing, may raise preemies' chances for liver damage.

Rigorous research on phthalates' effects in humans is lacking, and at least one expert found the German study unconvincing. There is no solid proof implicating the phthalate studied, DEHP.

However, the researchers said their results show that hospitals treating newborns or preemies should turn to IV feeding equipment that doesn't contain DEHP. Some hospitals in the U.S. already have switched.

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Fertile Crescent 'will disappear this century'

2009-07-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

Is it the final curtain for the Fertile Crescent? This summer, as Turkish dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle, farmers abandon their desiccated fields across Iraq and Syria, and efforts to revive the Mesopotamian marshes appear to be abandoned, climate modellers are warning that the current drought is likely to become permanent. The Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation seems to be returning to desert.

Last week, Iraqi ministers called for urgent talks with upstream neighbours Turkey and Syria, after the combination of a second year of drought and dams in those countries cut flow on the Euphrates as it enters Iraq to below 250 cubic metres a second. That is less than a quarter the flow needed to maintain Iraqi agriculture.

Tensions have been growing since May, when the Iraqi parliament refused to approve a new much-needed trade deal with Turkey unless it contained binding clauses on river flows. But Turkey appears in no mood to compromise. In July, it announced the final go-ahead for yet another dam, the Ilisu on the Tigris.

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Powerful Ideas: Chicken Feathers Could Store Fuel

2009-07-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

Chicken feathers may help cars use hydrogen fuel in the future. The feathers would not be the fuel, but they could help store it, new research reveals.

Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, has long been touted as a clean and ample energy alternative to fossil fuels. When hydrogen reacts with oxygen, instead of yielding pollutants as fossil fuels do, it simply generates water.

Unfortunately, hydrogen is hard to store and transport. Hydrogen vehicles currently keep it in tanks in either liquid or pressurized gas form. As a pressurized gas, it takes up roughly 40 times as much space as gasoline, and as a liquid it needs to be kept at extremely low temperatures.

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New study backs UN panel on ocean rise

2009-07-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

The UN's climate panel has been backed over a key question as to how far global warming will drive up sea levels this century, a study published on Sunday says.

The UN experts are right that the oceans are unlikely to rise by an order of metres (many feet) by 2100, as some scientists have feared, it says.

But, its authors caution, low-lying countries and delta areas could still face potentially catastrophic flooding if the upper range of the new estimate proves right.

In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted oceans would rise by 18-59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.6 inches) by 2100.

The increase would depend on warming, estimated at between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (1.98-11.52 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, which in turn depends on how much man-made greenhouse gas is poured into the atmosphere.

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European Nations Wary on Environmental Protectionism

2009-07-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

European nations are wary about a perceived trend in France and the United States to use international competition as a reason to back off on Carbon reduction pledges. They are concerned that carbon tariffs could be used to fend off competition from countries which have not committed to reducing emissions, in effect triggering a green trade war.

So far, France has been the only European Union member state to openly rally for the introduction of border measures to secure the competitiveness of European industry against emerging economies. It put the measure on the table in 2008 when the EU was immersed in discussions on a revision of its emissions trading scheme (EU ETS).

Since agreement was reached on the EU revised directive in December 2008, carbon tariffs largely disappeared from debates until the US floated the idea in a draft climate bill. In the EU, meanwhile, France is having difficulty finding allies to rally around the cause.

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Nissan’s New Electric Hatchback

2009-07-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Nissan showed off its latest EV prototype today, a slick four-door, five-passenger hatchback that’s good for 100 miles and tells you when and where to charge up.

Although it’s just a mule wearing a Tiida body, the car provides the best glimpse yet of the production EV we'll see for the first time Sunday. Nissan plans to offer an all-electric vehicle in Japan and the United States next year, then roll it out globally in 2012.

"Nissan will be a leader in zero-emission vehicles," Toshiyuki Shiga said in Tokyo, according to Canadian Press. "EV is the answer."

Although most of the major automakers have promised to put EVs on the road within the next few years, Japan’s No. 3 automaker is placing the biggest bet on the technology. CEO Carlos Ghosn has made it clear he believes cars with cords are the future, and he has made developing such vehicles a top priority both within Nissan and Renault, its parent company. The company reportedly plans to build 100,000 EVs within the next two years. The Department of Energy recently loaned Nissan $1.6 billion to retool its factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, to produce electric cars and the batteries to power them.

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Beach Closing Days Nationwide Top 20,000 for Fourth Consecutive Year

2009-07-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

The water at American beaches was seriously polluted and jeopardized the health of swimmers last year with the number of closing and advisory days at ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches reaching more than 20,000 for the fourth consecutive year, according to the 19th annual beachwater quality report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

"Pollution from dirty stormwater runoff and sewage overflows continues to make its way to our beaches. This not only makes swimmers sick — it hurts coastal economies," said Nancy Stoner, NRDC Water Program Co-Director. "Americans should not suffer the consequences of contaminated beachwater. From contracting the flu or pink eye, to jeopardizing millions of jobs and billions of dollars that rely on clean coasts, there are serious costs to inaction."

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The shale revolution

2009-07-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, it looked as though the United States was running short of natural gas. Prices spiked as declining production in old fields collided with increasing industrial demand. Electric utilities shifted from 'clean' gas back to cheap coal, and suppliers began building terminals to import liquefied natural gas from abroad. Yet today, coal-fired power is again on the wane, ports for liquefied natural gas are idling below capacity, and the nation is awash with gas.

So what happened? Clearly, the threat of carbon regulation has curbed industry's appetite for coal, and the sagging economy has depressed energy demand across the board. But just as importantly, natural-gas production is again on the rise. Thanks to advances in drilling technology, including horizontal drilling and more effective rock fracturing, producers have at last unlocked the vast quantities of gas trapped underground in impermeable strata of shale.

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Chemical Industry Touts Carbon Emissions Saved By Chemical Products

2009-07-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

The International Council of Chemical Associations has released a report looking at the lifecycle impacts of products made from chemicals, showing how certain products can prevent and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The report looks at 2005 figures, stating that in that year, chemical products and technologies helped save more than two to three times as many CO2 equivalent emissions than they contributed to putting out. The report considers the entire lifecycles of the chemical products, from material extraction to disposal.

Between 1990 and 2005, the European Union's chemical industry's production increased 60 percent as total energy use stayed flat, reducing absolute GHG emissions by almost 30 percent.

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Exxon Plan to develop biofuel from algae

2009-07-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

Exxon Mobil Corp will invest $600 million over the next five to six years on trying to developing biofuel from algae, even though the oil major has said renewables will be only a small part of global energy supply.

Exxon, placing its largest financial bet on renewable fuels, is forming a research and development alliance with Synthetic Genomics Inc, a privately held company that focuses on gene-based research, the company said on Tuesday.

The project, which would cost billions to fully develop, is in its initial stages, so commercially viable biofuel made from algae would be many years away, Exxon told reporters on a conference call.

"We need to be realistic," said Emil Jacobs, vice president of research at Exxon. "This is not going to be easy, and there are no guarantees of success."

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Nitrites in Meats Fingered in Rise of Diseases

2009-07-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

The rising rate of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's may be linked to nitrites and related compounds -- found in hot dogs, bacon, potatoes and fertilizers, among other common products.

Nitrites are already known to cause cancer. A new study suggests that low doses of these chemicals can also have serious effects on the brain, that certain age-related diseases are caused by more than just aging, and that there might be simple things people can do to help prevent them.

The link is still in the hypothesis stage, experts say, and there's unlikely to be just one explanation for a host of complicated diseases. Still, lead author Suzanne de la Monte is already making efforts to avoid nitrates herself.

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First 'climate friendly' labels appear on foods

2009-07-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

SWEDEN is to become the first country to slap "climate-friendly" labels on food products. The hope is that the labels will prompt consumers to buy greener products, but there are worries that some companies may use the scheme to "greenwash".

A small milk producer north of Stockholm is expected to be the first company to sport the "climate-certified" tag. One way it cut its use of energy and nutrients was by switching from chemical-based fertilizers to manure.

The scheme is voluntary and firms must prove they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions in order to earn a label. "The only thing we're guaranteeing is that improvements have been made," says Anna Richert, an adviser to the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF), and head of the team developing the criteria for labeling products. "This could mean reductions in emissions of anything from 5 to 80 per cent."

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Are the deserts getting green?

2009-07-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

It has been assumed that global warming would cause an expansion of the world's deserts, but now some scientists are predicting a contrary scenario in which water and life slowly reclaim these arid places.

They think vast, dry regions like the Sahara might soon begin shrinking.

The evidence is limited and definitive conclusions are impossible to reach but recent satellite pictures of North Africa seem to show areas of the Sahara in retreat.

It could be that an increase in rainfall has caused this effect.

Farouk el-Baz, director of the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University, believes the Sahara is experiencing a shift from dryer to wetter conditions.

"It's not greening yet. But the desert expands and shrinks in relation to the amount of energy that is received by the Earth from the Sun, and this over many thousands of years," Mr el-Baz told the BBC World Service.

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Rainforests More Fragile Than Estimated

2009-06-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

The Amazon rainforest, one of the planet's most precious and besieged natural resources, is even more fragile than realized.

If the planet warms even a moderate amount, a new study predicts that as much as 40 percent of it could be condemned to vanish by the end of the century.

Chris Jones of the United Kingdom's Met Office and a group of researchers ran a computer simulation of Earth's climate that focused on how vegetation reacts to warming. They found that warming doesn't immediately kill off tropical trees -- it can take up to a century for the forests to respond fully.

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Crops face toxic timebomb in warmer world: study

2009-06-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

Staples such as cassava on which millions of people depend become more toxic and produce much smaller yields in a world with higher carbon dioxide levels and more drought, Australian scientists say.

The findings, presented on Monday at a conference in Glasgow, Scotland, underscored the need to develop climate-change-resistant cultivars to feed rapidly growing human populations, said Ros Gleadow of the Monash University in Melbourne.

Gleadow's team tested cassava and sorghum under a series of climate change scenarios, with particular focus on different CO2 levels, to study the effect on plant nutritional quality and yield.

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Dams Are Thwarting Louisiana Marsh Restoration, Study Says

2009-06-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Desperate to halt the erosion of Louisiana's coast, officials there are talking about breaking Mississippi River levees south of New Orleans to restore the nourishing flow of muddy water into the state's marshes.

But in a new analysis, scientists at Louisiana State University say inland dams trap so much sediment that the river no longer carries enough to halt marsh loss, especially now that global warming is speeding a rise in sea levels.

As a result, the loss of thousands of additional square miles of marshland is "inevitable," the scientists report in Monday's issue of Nature Geoscience.

The finding does not suggest it would be pointless to divert the muddy water into the marshes, one of the researchers, Harry H. Roberts, said in an interview. "Any meaningful restoration of our coast has to involve river sediment," said Dr. Roberts, a coastal scientist.

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Energy legislation could bring deep change

2009-06-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead.

It was late Friday when the House passed legislation that would, for the first time, require limits on pollution blamed for global warming — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Now the Senate has the chance to change the way Americans produce and use energy.

What would the country look like a decade from now if the House-passed bill — or, more likely, a watered-down version — were to become the law of the land?

"It will open the door to a clean energy economy and a better future for America," President Barack Obama said Saturday.

But what does that mean to the average person?

Energy touches every corner of the economy and in countless ways can alter people's lives.

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Pesky dolphins under siege from anglers

2009-06-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

Miles offshore, a fight is raging between angry anglers armed with guns and bombs and bottlenose dolphins, the marine mammals popularized in movies and TV shows like "Flipper."

Boat captains say dolphins, known for their toothy grins and playfulness, are growing increasingly aggressive in their quest for food, with some taking fish right off the hook — something that rarely happened just a few years ago.

In response, fishermen are pulling out everything from pipe bombs to .357-caliber Magnum pistols to fend them off — and breaking a federal law against harming the sea mammals.

The head of a national fishing organization, Bob Zales II, said the problem of bottlenose dolphins stealing fish has gotten "tremendously worse" in the last year. So have stories of retaliation by angry boat captains and ordinary anglers, who are paying hundreds of dollars for even short fishing trips because of high fuel prices.

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Mars Lake Held as Much Water as Lake Champlain

2009-06-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Nestled in a valley near the Martian equator, scientists have discovered the striking remnants of an ancient lake.

Though dry and frigid now, the traces it left behind hint at a water body younger than any other on the planet, and its sediments are a prime target for finding fossilized alien life.

When Mars coalesced billions of years ago it was much warmer, and probably wet. Features that appear to be eroded river deltas more than 3.7 billion years old dot parts of the planet's surface. Researchers have speculated they are evidence of lakes -- and primitive life may have once existed on the surface.

Now Gaetano di Achille and a team of researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder have found an ancient shoreline ringing Shalbatana Vallis, a gash in Mars' surface just east of the massive volcanic province, Tharsis Rise.

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Destroying Levees in Louisiana

2009-06-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

In the 1960s, a group of businessmen bought 16,000 acres of swampy bottomland along the Ouachita River in northern Louisiana and built miles of levee around it. They bulldozed its oak and cypress trees and, when the land dried out, turned it into a soybean farm.

Now two brothers who grew up nearby are undoing all that work. In what experts are calling the biggest levee-busting operation ever in North America, the brothers plan to return the muddy river to its ancient floodplain, coaxing back plants and animals that flourished there when President Thomas Jefferson first had the land surveyed in 1804.

The idea goes against the grain in Louisiana, where people have battled river flooding since colonial days. European settlers were often required to build levees to establish homesteading claims; in recent decades, landowners built levees to create farmland by the hundreds of thousands of acres. Hurricane Katrina brought a clamor for more and stronger levees to protect people and buildings farther south.

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Volcano Photo Reveals Shock Wave

2009-06-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

An amazing new picture from space reveals a volcanic eruption in its earliest stage, with a huge plume of ash and steam billowing skyward and creating a shock wave in the atmosphere.

Sarychev Peak on Matua Island is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, northeast of Japan.

The new photo was taken June 12 from the International Space Station. NASA says volcano researchers are excited about the picture "because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption."

Sarychev Peak on Matua Island is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, northeast of Japan. Astronauts took this photo of an eruption on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance; the surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption.

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Arctic nations say no Cold War; military stirs

2009-06-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

Arctic nations are promising to avoid new "Cold War" scrambles linked to climate change, but military activity is stirring in a polar region where a thaw may allow oil and gas exploration or new shipping routes.

The six nations around the Arctic Ocean are promising to cooperate on challenges such as overseeing possible new fishing grounds or shipping routes in an area that has been too remote, cold and dark to be of interest throughout recorded history.

But global warming is spurring long-irrelevant disputes, such as a Russian-Danish standoff over who owns the seabed under the North Pole or how far Canada controls the Northwest Passage that the United States calls an international waterway.

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San Francisco to Toughen a Strict Recycling Law

2009-06-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

San Francisco, which already boasts one of the most aggressive recycling programs in the country, has raised the ante, vowing to levy fines of up to $1,000 on those unwilling to separate their Kung Pao chicken leftovers from their newspapers.

The Board of Supervisors passed new recycling and mandatory composting rules on Tuesday in a 9-to-2 vote. The city already diverts 72 percent of the 2.1 million tons of waste its residents produce each year away from landfills and into recycling and composting programs. The new ordinance will help the city toward its goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2020, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment.

Under the new ordinance, residents will be issued three mandatory garbage bins: a black one for trash, a blue one for recyclables and a green one for compost.

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Hormone experts worried about plastics, chemicals

2009-06-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

Hormone experts said on Wednesday they are becoming worried by a chemical called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and which consumers are increasingly shunning.

They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects.

Studies presented at the group's annual meeting show BPA can affect the hearts of women, can permanently damage the DNA of mice, and appear to be pouring into the human body from a variety of unknown sources.

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Hybrid Vehicles That Are Even More Efficient

2009-06-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

One of the controllable causes of global warming is carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from burning fossil fuels. This process is precisely what enables most cars to function by means of combustion engines. In recent years, some companies in the automobile sector have brought out models that combine a standard combustion engine with an electric one. These are known as hybrids, and they produce less pollution. In his final thesis, Toni Font, who recently graduated from the ETSEIB, proposed a way to make these vehicles more efficient.

The proposal is based on one of the problems of conventional vehicles: the loss of kinetic energy during braking. This waste of energy leads to very high fuel consumption and, consequently, to an increase in CO2emissions. Under the supervision of Ramon Costa, lecturer at the Department of Automatic Control (ESAII), Toni Font has focused on solving this problem. According to Ramon Costa, "The project modifies the structure of conventional cars to introduce elements that help to recover lost energy and reinject it into the system. It is made up of two parts: one related to hardware components, and one to software components".

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U.S. EPA announces Palos Verdes Shelf proposed environmental protection plan

2009-06-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will host public meetings and accept public comments on its proposed Preferred Alternative plan that addresses the risks to human health and the environment at the Palos Verdes Shelf, located near Los Angeles, Calif.

The Palos Verdes Shelf site is a large area of DDT- and PCB-contaminated sediment located in the ocean off the coast of the Palos Verdes peninsula south of Los Angeles. The offshore site stretches from Point Fermin in the southeast to Redondo Canyon.

From 1947 to 1983, Montrose Chemical Corporation manufactured DDT at its plant near Torrance, California. The plant discharged wastewater containing the now-banned pesticide into Los Angeles sewers that emptied into the Pacific Ocean off White Point on the Palos Verdes Shelf (PVS). The DDT manufacturing process also resulted in groundwater and surface soil contamination on and near the Montrose plant property.

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Ancient Antarctic Mountains Found Under Miles of Ice

2009-06-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

Millions of years ago, rivers ran in Antarctica through craggy mountain valleys that were strangely similar to the modern European Alps, Chinese and British scientists reported on Wednesday.

In a study published by the British journal Nature, the scientists described a vast terrain that had been hidden beneath ice up to two miles thick for eons, until new imaging technology recently uncovered them.

"The landscape has probably been preserved beneath the ice sheet for around 14 million years," the paper said.

The imaging revealed "classic Alpine topography" similar to Europe's Alps, showing that rivers had once existed on Antarctica and had cut their way through the mountains. Later, these valleys were gouged and deepened by glaciers.

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Green energy overtakes fossil fuel investment, says UN

2009-06-05T18:00:00.002-07:00

Green energy overtook fossil fuels in attracting investment for power generation for the first time last year, according to figures released today by the United Nations.

Wind, solar and other clean technologies attracted $140bn (£85bn) compared with $110bn for gas and coal for electrical power generation, with more than a third of the green cash destined for Britain and the rest of Europe.

The biggest growth for renewable investment came from China, India and other developing countries, which are fast catching up on the West in switching out of fossil fuels to improve energy security and tackle climate change.

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EPA Joins Team Investigating Salinas Explosion

2009-06-05T18:00:00.001-07:00

Emergency responders from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Department of Fish and Game, Monterey County, and the Salinas Fire Department are working together to cleanup, investigate and assess environmental hazards that resulted from a May 29th explosion at a large warehouse in a Salinas, California industrial park.

Approximately 500 thousand gallons of liquids were discharged into a nearby storm drain, which leads to a reclamation ditch and eventually to Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing. The affected section of the ditch extends from Dayton Road to near Work Street.

Emergency responders have contained the contaminated water and are evaluating how to quickly cleanup the affected area in advance of predicted rain. Officials are taking water samples to monitor the green liquid in the ditch that runs for nearly 4 miles through Salinas.

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A World First — Tankers on Shore Power when at Dock

2009-06-05T17:59:00.001-07:00

A major source of air pollution in port areas comes from the giant vessels that tie up at their docks to load and unload cargo. That’s because the powerful diesel engines have to run continuously to keep the ships’ equipment and support systems operating. That also means continuous spewing of GHG and diesel particulate emissions into the local air.

A solution to this massive emissions problem has long existed but is not widely implemented because it involves expensive modifications both on-ship and to offshore facilities. It’s called shore power, which allows ships to shut down their diesel engines at berth and literally plug into the landside electricity grid, thus improving air quality.

But slow change is better than no change: BP America and the Port of Long Beach Wednesday opened the world’s first oil tanker terminal equipped with shore power plugs.

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U.S. tells California to cut water use to save fish

2009-06-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

Californians' thirst for water has pushed salmon and other fish to the brink of extinction, a federal agency ruled on Thursday as it directed officials to cut water supplies to cities and farms to save several species.

California's rivers used to brim with trout, salmon, sturgeon and more, but the federal, state and local governments built a monumental system of dams and pipelines in the most populous that turned a desert into productive farmland and left some rivers dry.

The state faces a water crisis and a third year of drought. Add climate change and a growing population to the mix, and the fate of some salmon runs looks untenable without change, the National Marine Fisheries Service said in a report ordered as part of a long-running court battle over the salmon.

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Study Shows Longer Summers Are Killing Coral

2009-04-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

To the list of climate change's victims, you can now add the suffering Gorgonia. Scientists at Spain's Higher Council of Scientific Investigation (CSIC) have discovered that lengthening summers in the Mediterranean are having dire effects on the familiar fan-shaped coral, as well as on many other kinds of marine invertebrates. In a study published April 14 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they argue that for the Gorgonia and its kin, longer summers equal nothing short of mass death.

The climatological finding isn't new. For years now, scientists around the world have recognized that global warming affects the seasons, triggering springtime events like the flowering of plants as much as six weeks earlier than normal, and pushing the arrival of fall ever further back in the calendar. Lengthening summers have translated not just to more days of warm temperatures but more drought and wildfires as well.

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Ancient Ecosystem Discovered Beneath Antarctic Glacier

2009-04-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Scientists have found life in an ecosystem trapped underneath a glacier in Antarctica for nearly 2 million years. The microbes, they suggest, are surviving the dark, oxygen-free waters by drawing energy from sulfur and iron. The findings provide insight into how life may have survived "Snowball Earth"--periods when some scientists speculate that the planet was entombed in ice--and hint at the possibility of life in other inhospitable environments, such as Mars and Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

Researchers have found microbial life surviving in the most unusual places: the depths of cold and dark oceans, seething geothermal vents, and the deepest layers of permafrost. And ever since scientists discovered Antarctica's dark and mysterious subglacial lakes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they've wondered if microbes could make a life for themselves there too. But the challenges of drilling through kilometers of ice and concerns about contaminating these pristine lakes have curtailed previous efforts to find out.

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New study warns damage to forests from climate change could cost the planet its major keeper of greenhouse gases

2009-04-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

The critical role of forests as massive "sinks" for absorbing greenhouse gases is "at risk of being lost entirely" to climate change-induced environmental stresses that threaten to damage and even decimate forests worldwide, according to a new report released today. The report will be formally presented at the next session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) taking place 20 April-1 May 2009 at the UN Headquarters in New York City.

"Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change — A Global Assessment" was coordinated by the Vienna-based International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) through the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), an alliance of 14 international organizations that each has substantial forestry programs.

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From Russia With Love: Gazprom Gas Headed to California

2009-04-10T18:41:00.000-07:00

The world's largest gas producer and the world’s largest natural-gas market have finally come together. Gazprom and Shell announced a deal that will send gas from Russia's far east to LNG terminals on the U.S. West Coast.

Granted, the volumes are tiny—one analyst figures the Gazprom shipments might make up about 0.5% of U.S. gas demand. But finding new customers and especially getting a foot in the U.S. market, the world’s most liquid for natural gas, has long been an aspiration of Gazprom.

Still, the deal does raise the question—does the U.S. need to import gas, especially from Russia? A big chunk of President Obama's energy policy hinges on reducing dependence on foreign energy, especially oil. One of T. Boone Pickens' latest television ads mocks Europe’s dependence on fickle supplies of Russian gas, contrasting that with the U.S., "where we have a choice."

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Obama climate adviser open to geo-engineering to tackle global warming

2009-04-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Mooted geo-engineering fixes for climate change include placing mirrors in space that reflect sunlight from the Earth. Photograph: Blue Line Pictures/Getty Images

The global warming situation has become so dire that Barack Obama's chief scientific adviser has raised with the president the possibility of massive-scale technological fixes to alter the climate known as 'geo-engineering'.

John Holdren, who is a member of the president's cabinet, said today the drastic measures should not be "off the table" in discussions on how best to tackle climate change. While his office insisted that he was not proposing a dramatic switch in policy, Holdren said geo-engineering could not be ruled out.

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Warming Takes Center Stage As Australian Drought Worsens

2009-04-03T13:17:00.002-07:00

On March 28, for the first time in anybody’s memory, the floodlights surrounding the soaring white shells of the Sydney Opera House were temporarily extinguished, part of Earth Hour, an international event spanning 88 countries and 24 time zones to prompt world leaders to take action on global warming.

Although iconic buildings in Paris, New York, London, and Tokyo were similarly darkened, arguably none of these symbols was as apt as the unnerving black space that suddenly opened on the shores of Sydney’s harbor. Perhaps more than any industrialized nation, Australia is contending with the increasingly dangerous effects of hotter, dryer, and more unpredictable weather patterns — changes that many of the country’s leading scientists and politicians now attribute to shifting weather patterns, at least in part due to climate change.

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CDC: Rocket fuel chemical found in baby formula

2009-04-03T13:17:00.001-07:00

Traces of a chemical used in rocket fuel were found in samples of powdered baby formula, and could exceed what's considered a safe dose for adults if mixed with water also contaminated with the ingredient, a government study has found.

The study by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked for the chemical, perchlorate, in different brands of powdered baby formula. It was published last month, but the Environmental Working Group issued a press release Thursday drawing attention to it.

The chemical has turned up in several cities' drinking water supplies. It can occur naturally, but most perchlorate contamination has been tied to defense and aerospace sites.

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Rainforests may pump winds worldwide

2009-04-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

THE acres upon acres of lush tropical forest in the Amazon and tropical Africa are often referred to as the planet's lungs. But what if they are also its heart? This is exactly what a couple of meteorologists claim in a controversial new theory that questions our fundamental understanding of what drives the weather. They believe vast forests generate winds that help pump water around the planet.

If correct, the theory would explain how the deep interiors of forested continents get as much rain as the coast, and how most of Australia turned from forest to desert. It suggests that much of North America could become desert - even without global warming. The idea makes it even more vital that we recognise the crucial role forests play in the well-being of the planet.

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Ice-free Arctic Ocean Possible In 30 Years, Not 90 As Previously Estimated

2009-04-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

The amount of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice at the end of summer by then could be only about 1 million square kilometers, or about 620,000 square miles. That's compared to today's ice extent of 4.6 million square kilometers, or 2.8 million square miles. So much more open water could be a boon for shipping and for extracting minerals and oil from the seabed, but it raises the question of ecosystem upheaval.

While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 assessed what might happen in the Arctic in the future based on results from more than a dozen global climate models, two researchers reasoned that dramatic declines in the extent of ice at the end of summer in 2007 and 2008 called for a different approach.

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U.S. cuts red tape on offshore renewable energy

2009-03-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

With the aim of ending a regulatory turf war, U.S. government agencies on Tuesday said they would work together to cut red tape and spur development of offshore renewable energy projects.

Under the agreement, the Interior Department will have jurisdiction over offshore wind and solar energy projects, while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will oversee offshore projects that generate electricity from wave and tidal currents.

"This agreement will help sweep aside red tape ... our renewable energy is too important for bureaucratic turf battles to slow down our progress," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

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Growing pollution leads to 'global dimming'- study

2009-03-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Visibility on clear days has declined in much of the world since the 1970s thanks to a rise in airborne pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.

They described a "global dimming" in particular over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, while visibility remained relatively stable over North America and improved over Europe, the researchers said.

Aerosols, tiny particles or liquid droplets belched into the air by the burning of fossil fuels and other sources, are responsible for the dimming, the researchers said.

"Aerosols are going up over a lot of the world, especially Asia," Robert Dickinson of the University of Texas, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

Dickinson and two University of Maryland researchers tracked measurements of visibility -- the distance someone can see on clear days -- taken from 1973 to 2007 at 3,250 meteorological stations worldwide.

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Global warming leaving its mark on polar bears

2009-03-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Potentially fatal to the polar bear, global warming has already left its mark on the species with smaller, less robust bears that are increasingly showing cannibalistic tendencies.

Top experts who gathered this week in Tromsoe in northern Norway to discuss ways of protecting the species sounded alarm bells over the dramatic consequences of the melting ice.

"We don't have hard evidence about climate change but we have evidence about the numerous symptoms of climate change on polar bears," Andrew Derocher, chair of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, an international network of researchers, said.

The primary observation is that as the sea ice shrinks away, so are the polar bears -- they're not growing as big as they used to.

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Oil-Soaked Australian Beaches Named Disaster Zones

2009-03-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Authorities declared a disaster zone Friday along a stretch of some of Australia's most pristine and popular beaches after tons of fuel oil that leaked from a stricken cargo ship blackened the creamy white sand for miles.

The government of northeastern Queensland state denied it had acted too slowly to stop an environmental disaster, and threatened the shipping company with a multimillion-dollar compensation lawsuit.

National parks at Moreton and Bribie islands just north of the state capital of Brisbane were worst hit by oil spilled from the container ship Pacific Adventurer on Wednesday, and oil washed ashore in pockets along the popular Sunshine Coast.

The potential for long-term environmental damage was not clear. The affected area is far to the south of the Great Barrier Reef, which was not under threat.

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Trade Concerns Raised in U.S. Climate Debate

2009-03-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and U.S. legislative leaders are discussing the inclusion of tariffs in the country's climate change policy, the Democratic Congressman said yesterday.

Although sparse on details, Brown said he and California Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, have spoken about trade provisions he described as "border equalization" measures.

"If a U.S. company, say a steel mill in Ohio, if their cost goes up dramatically for cutting carbon, it's one more reason to think they're not going to be competitive.... They lose jobs. [The state] loses manufacturing," Brown said during an event on green jobs hosted by theWorldwatch Institute and Heinrich Böll Foundation. "We need some guarantee that my state will not be overwhelmed by the costs [of a climate change bill]."

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Solar Power For $2 A Day

2009-03-05T17:12:00.000-08:00

Imagine a solar panel as affordable as a fancy new bicycle. A panel designed so simply that you can install one (or more) yourself, just outside your windows, in the course of an afternoon.

That's the concept behind Oakland, Calif.-based Veranda Solar, a start-up founded last year by Capra J'neva and Emilie Fetscher, recent graduates of the product design program at Stanford University. J'neva and Fetscher dreamed up attractive, flower-shaped solar panels as part of their master's project at the design school. "We created a starter solar system that expands as your budget does," J'neva says.

Their plan is to sell Veranda panels at roughly $600 each later this year, provided it raises more funding. The panels snap together, so people will be able to buy just one to start and add more later on if they like. The solar inverter, which converts the direct current (DC) electricity from the panels to alternating current (AC) electricity that can be used in the electric grid, plugs right into a wall socket.

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Europe’s new climate gambit - shifting the heat onto developing nations?

2009-03-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

European environment ministers, who today discussed Europe’s proposals for the Copenhagen climate summit in December, appear to be backtracking from a UN agreement by which developed countries take the lead on climate action.

The ministers, meeting as the EU Environment Council, call on developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15-30% from expected levels by 2020 — while the EU has set itself a 20% reduction target from 1990 levels, which should increase to 30% when the global deal is agreed.

Rather than strengthening their own targets, EU Ministers called upon a number of developing countries to consider taking on binding emissions caps. Other developing countries are also being asked to elaborate plans for low carbon development by 2012, but the EU Ministers have only pledged to provide support for the development of these plans to Least Developed Countries — rather than all developing countries.

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Coral atolls and sea level rise

2009-03-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

MUCH has been written of late regarding the impending demise of the world's coral atolls due to sea level rise.

Recently, here in the Solomon Islands, the sea level rise has been blamed for salt water intrusion into the subsurface "lens" of fresh water under some atolls.

Beneath the surface of most atolls, there is a lens shaped body of fresh water which floats on the seawater underneath.

The claim is that the rising sea levels are contaminating the fresh-water lens with seawater. These claims of blame ignore several facts. The first and most important fact, discovered by none other than Charles Darwin, is that coral atolls essentially "float" on the surface of the sea.

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Parks that can move when the animals do

2009-03-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

When scientist Dee Boersma first arrived to Punta Tombo, Argentina, in the early 1980s, the colony of Magellanic penguins there was 300,000 breeding pairs strong. Since then, they’ve declined by more than 20 percent. Dr. Boersma faults competition from fishermen, pollution in the form of oil dumped at sea, and climate change for the decline.

But while the Punta Tombo colony is shrinking, others farther north are growing. The penguins’ shifting range underscores how climate change isn’t always a drop-dead-from-the-heat affair. And it raises questions about how to protect threatened — and mobile — marine species as they adjust.

Changing weather patterns have shifted upwelling currents, the productive areas that support large anchovy schools, northward. On average, Punta Tombo penguins must now swim 25 miles farther for a meal — 50 miles total — compared with a decade ago. Some penguins have simply established new colonies closer to their food source, welcome evidence of their ability to adapt.

Read Article Environmental News Network

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Polar Research Reveals New Evidence Of Global Environmental Change

2009-02-26T17:14:00.000-08:00

Multidisciplinary research from the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 provides new evidence of the widespread effects of global warming in the polar regions. Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic, as well as global ocean and atmospheric circulation and sea level.

These are but a few findings reported in “State of Polar Research”?, released February 25 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU). In addition to lending insight into climate change, IPY has aided our understanding of pollutant transport, species’ evolution, and storm formation, among many other areas.

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U.S. gas drilling boom stirs water worries

2009-02-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

On a snowy hillside in rural southwest Pennsylvania, Larry Grimm drives his truck up a steep gravel track to a hilltop reservoir surrounded by orange plastic fencing and "keep out" signs.

The pond supplies water pumped from a local creek to the natural gas wells that are springing up throughout Mount Pleasant Township, where Grimm is the municipal supervisor.

Range Resources Corp, the Texas company that has drilled 68 wells in the township, needs millions of gallons of water for "hydrofracking," a process that forces a chemical-laden solution deep into the rock, allowing natural gas to be released.

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Global seed vault marks 1-year anniversary with four-ton shipment of critical food crops

2009-02-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

Four tons of seeds - almost 90,000 samples of hundreds of crop species - from food crop collections maintained by Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, USA, and three international agricultural research centers in Syria, Mexico and Colombia, were delivered today to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as it celebrated its one-year anniversary. The repository, located near the village of Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, has in one year amassed a collection of more than 400,000 unique seed samples — some 200 million seeds.

"We are especially proud to see such a large number of countries work quickly to provide samples from their collections for safekeeping in the vault," said Norwegian Agriculture Minister Lars Peder Brekk. "It shows that there are situations in the world today capable of transcending politics and inspiring a strong unity of purpose among a diverse community of nations."

Read Article Environmental News Network

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Study urges U.S.-China climate change summit

2009-02-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

The United States and China should hold a summit featuring an agreement on climate change, helping to create international support for a new global pact by the end of 2009, a former White House adviser said on Thursday.

China and the United States have often been icy rivals over trade and security, and they are also the world's top two emitters of the greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that are stoking global warming.

Kenneth Lieberthal, a former National Security Council officer on Asia in the Clinton administration and now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said the two powers should make fighting global warming a centerpiece under President Barack Obama.

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Smart Roads. Smart Bridges. Smart Grids.

2009-02-19T17:30:00.000-08:00

Federal, state and local governments are about to pour tens of billions of dollars into the nation's infrastructure. The big question: Will we simply spend the money the way we've been doing for decades -- on more concrete and steel? Or will we use it to make our roads, bridges and other assets much more intelligent?

Imagine highways that alert motorists of a traffic jam before it forms. Or bridges that report when they're at risk of collapse. Or an electric grid that fixes itself when blackouts hit.

This vision -- known as "smart" infrastructure -- promises to make the nation more productive and competitive, while helping the environment and saving lives. Not to mention saving money by making what we've got work better and break down less often.

But fail to upgrade, advocates warn, and the country may be locked into the old way of building for decades to come.

Read Article Wall Street Journal

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Sun, Wind, Now Waves & Tides Fuel Growth at Iberdrola

2009-02-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

Spain's Iberdrola Renovables is among a growing crop of EU companies leading the drive to develop renewable power projects and new technology. The company last week released a strong performance report for 2008, results that highlight how new legislation at the EU, national and local levels is working hand-in-glove with private sector companies' efforts to reshape power markets and industry across the 27-member bloc of nations.

European companies have taken the lead when it comes to developing wind, solar and marine power projects and technology, not only within the EU, but increasingly in the US and other markets around the world.

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Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel

2009-02-19T17:27:00.000-08:00

Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates.

Such devices offer a new way to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions onglobal climate, says Craig Grimes, from Pennsylvania State University, whose team came up with the device.

Although other research groups have developed methods for converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds like methane, often using titanium-dioxide nanoparticles as catalysts, they have needed ultraviolet light to power the reactions.

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Permafrost Is Thawing In Northern Sweden

2009-02-19T17:26:00.000-08:00

Areas with lowland permafrost are likely to shrink in northern Sweden. Warmer summers and more winter precipitation are two of the reasons. This is shown in a new dissertation from Lund University in Sweden.

Permafrost is ground that is frozen year round at least two years in a row. North of the Arctic Circle permafrost is common due to the cold climate. For several years, physical geographer Margareta Johansson at Lund University has studied lowland permafrost in peat mires surrounding Abisko. Permafrost is on the edge of its range there. Johansson states that permafrost is being affected by climate changes.
“At one of our sites, permafrost has completely disappeared from the greater part of the mire during the last decade,”? she says.

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The tiny, slimy savior of global coral reefs?

2009-02-11T14:27:00.000-08:00

Coral reefs, already declining in many areas around the world, face even tougher times ahead, say scientists. Warming and increasingly acidic oceans, combined with other stresses could conceivably spell the end for reefs as we know them, they warn.

But Andrew Baker, a scientist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, has a more optimistic view. He thinks that corals have an innate — if limited — capacity to adapt to rising temperatures. And he theorizes that people may be able to help them along.

Earlier this year, Mr. Baker, a 2008 Pew Fellow, launched a project to study the relationship between reef-building coral polyps (a relative of jellyfish) and their symbiotic algae. In exchange for a safe place to live, the algae (called zoo xanthellae) supply their hosts with energy in the form of sugar. But higher temperatures can cause the coral-algae symbiosis to break down. During a so-called bleaching event, corals lose their algae and, greatly weakened, can die.

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Countries Turn to Green Jobs for Economic Growth

2009-02-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

With the U.S. Congress expected to pass its financial stimulus package this week, the world's largest economy will join a growing list of governments that are banking on green jobs as a way out of crippling economic recession.

If Congress agrees upon an array of proposed infrastructure projects and tax cuts, the United States would join China, Japan, South Korea, and several European Union member countries in what will likely be the largest series of clean energy and energy efficiency investments in history.

"Green economic stimulus packages are springing up around the world," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, at a green jobs conference in Washington, D.C., last week. "We have no other option but to go this direction because any other direction will lead us into further decline."

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ALASKA VOLCANO Hole Now Football Field Size

2009-02-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

Volcanic smoke and gas from two new holes eat through snow and ice high on Alaska's Redoubt Volcano on Saturday—one of them about the size of a football field.

"Things are shifting" on, and in, the 10,197-foot (3,108-meter) volcano—considered the ninth most dangerous in the U.S.—said geologist Kristi Wallace of the Alaska Volcano Observatory, who was on a survey flight over the two big fumaroles yesterday (Redoubt Volcano satellite map).

Surrounding ice is melting rapidly, and the gases have now been confirmed to include carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide—adding to evidence that a magma chamber is creeping upward, she said.

Read Article National Geographic

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Trees Migrating North Due to Warming

2009-02-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

Other than the Ents of Lord of the Rings fame, trees generally aren't known for their mobility. So news that some tree species may be headed north at an average clip of 62 miles (100 kilometers) a century may come as a surprise.

At that rate, stands of yellow birch in the U.S., for example, may move well north of the Canadian border by the early 2100s.

That's the finding of a new study led by the U.S. Forest Service, which concludes that a few dozen tree species in the eastern U.S. are moving north at an unexpected rate, likely due to global warming.

In a paper appearing this month in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, the study authors documented the northward march of 40 major tree species over 30 eastern states based on the distribution of seedlings versus mature trees.

Read Article National Geographic

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Disable Fly-outMarketplace

2009-02-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

A holding tank at a Caterpillar facility in a Chicago suburb broke Sunday, spilling about 65,000 gallons of oil sludge and contaminating a 3-mile section of the Des Plaines River, officials said.

The substance was reported to be hydraulic and cutting oil, said Maggie Carson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

"It is being contained, and there is no evidence of a fish kill or harm to water fowl," Carson said in an e-mail.

Most of the sludge spilled on land, but 6,000 gallons seeped into Des Plaines River water, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer William Mitchell said. He said the oil waste poses no risk to human health but could be dangerous to animals in the contaminated area.

Read Article MSNBC

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U.S. stimulus would cut climate emissions: report

2009-02-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

Energy efficiency and conservation proposals in President Barack Obama's original economic stimulus plan would cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions by 61 million tonnes a year, a new report says.

That would be equivalent to eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions from electricity used in 7.9 million U.S. homes or taking 13 million cars off the road, the analysis of the recovery plan's carbon footprint found on Thursday.

The report was commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace and produced by climate and energy consulting firm ICF International.

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Fires, floods pressure Australia govt on climate

2009-02-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

Australia's deadliest wildfires increased pressure on the national government to take firm action on climate change on Monday as scientists said global warming likely contributed to conditions that fuelled the disaster.

At least 130 people were killed in wildfires, set off by a record heatwave in southern Victoria state over the past week days, while large areas of Queensland state remain flooded by tropical downpours.

Scientists said Australia needed to prepare for more extreme weather events due to global warming, while the Greens and environmentalists said the fires and floods proved the government needed to toughen its targets to curb Greenhouse emissions.

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New Fuels for Fuel: Making it from Waste

2009-02-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

Enerkem, a Montreal maker of biofuels and green chemicals, says it's nearly ready to start cranking out second-generation biofuels on a commercial scale. The company's approach is to turn waste materials (it's starting with old utility poles) into a synthetic gas "syngas," which it will then use as a chemical feedstock for making both ethanol and methanol, using a gas-to-liquid conversion. But—and here's where it gets very promising-the company claims it will eventually be able to use municipal waste (all the stuff that's left over after recycling and composting) into syngas.

Enerkem has plans to ramp up from its initial annual production of 1.3 million gallons in order to take a bite out of demand. Canada is targeting a standard of at least 5 percent ethanol content in the gasoline and diesel sold to drivers in the country by 2010, and the Energy and Independence Security Act of 2007 mandated that 36 billion gallons of ethanol be produced by 2022. But 22 billion of those must come from non-corn sources.

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More Extreme Weather In The Arctic Regions

2009-02-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

A new study published in Climate Dynamics by Erik Kolstad and Thomas J. Bracegirdle reveals that one of the most visible signs of climate change is the dramatically reduced ice cover in the Arctic. The retreat of the sea ice leads to rapid changes in the weather conditions in these areas.

The study reveals that regions that have been covered by sea ice until now will be exposed to new kinds of severe weather. This may have dire consequences for human activities in the Northern regions.

The study was led by a member of the International Polar Year project IPY-THORPEX (THe Observing system Research and Predictability EXperiment). The main focus of the project is to study extreme weather phenomena from the inside, with the purpose of acquiring new knowledge in order to improve weather forecasts.

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Disable Fly-outMarketplace

2009-02-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

ABOARD RESEARCH VESSEL POINT LOBOS, Off the California Coast - A crane on a ship deck hoisted a 502-pound video camera and plopped it into the ocean for a 3,000-foot descent to the world of neon-glowing jellyfish, bug-eyed red rock cod and other still unknown slithery critters.

The so-called Eye-in-the-Sea camera would be added to the first observatory operating in deep sea water and become part of a new kind of scientific exploration to assess the impacts of climate change on marine life.

"Bye bye," said marine scientist Edith Widder, who supervised the deployment last month as the bulking Web camera splashed into the water and disappeared into blackness. "Hope it works."

Read Article MSNBC

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75 Countries Sign onto New Clean Energy Agency

2009-02-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the first multinational agency focused solely on spreading clean energy across the globe, officially launched this week.

The expectations are that the agency will help governments and private industry to expand renewable energy installments throughout the industrialized world, where investments are already on the rise, while also assist the developing world acquire the expertise to establish its own clean energy industries.

"IRENA will help to remove the many obstacles which up to now have delayed the rapid expansion of renewables," said Sigmar Gabriel, the German federal environment minister, in a conference address [PDF]. "The market is still distorted by subsidies for conventional energies, technological know-how is inadequate, information is not always correct."

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Obama's newest energy focus: appliances

2009-02-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Eager to show action on energy savings for consumers and reduced warming emissions for the planet, President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered quicker, and in some cases new, efforts to make many appliances much more energy efficient.

"This will save consumers money, this will spur innovation and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy," Obama said in remarks at the Energy Department, where he briefed staff on his plan for a new energy economy.

In a presidential memorandum, Obama instructed the Energy Department to set rules by August for nine appliances, among them: ovens (including microwave ones), lamps, beverage vending machines, residential dishwashers, commercial boilers and commercial air conditioners.

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Obama moves to let states cap car emissions

2009-01-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

Plunging into energy and climate change policies, President Barack Obama on Monday moved to give states a freer hand in curbing greenhouse gas emissions from cars, and to enact tighter fuel-efficiency standards that could remake the auto industry.

Obama stressed that his goal is to work with carmakers on key administration goals: energy independence and combating global warming.

"Let me be clear: Our goal is not to further burden an already struggling industry," Obama said at the White House. "It is to help America's automakers prepare for the future."

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Gore urges 'decisive action' on global warming

2009-01-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

Arguing that recent climate signals are cause for greater alarm, former Vice President Al Gore testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday that lawmakers must "take decisive action this year" to curb carbon emissions.

Gore urged lawmakers not to be sidetracked by the current financial crisis, adding that a bill capping greenhouse gas emissions is needed this year if the United States is to play a leading role in negotiations for a new international climate treaty.

Gore was invited to testify before the committee by its chairman, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who said he wanted to send the message that his panel would be "super-focused" on rejoining those international talks.

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Green dilemma over plans to harvest power of the sea

2009-01-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

BRITAIN'S environmental movement was yesterday presented with its starkest choice yet: whether or not to support the world's largest ever renewable energy project which will result in unprecedented ecological damage to one of our most important natural habitats.

The giant £20bn Severn barrage, which would stretch 10 miles from Lavernock Point near Cardiff to Brean Down near Weston-super-Mare, would harness the tides to generate up to 5 per cent of the UK's electricity needs - the equivalent of eight typical coal-fired power stations. This is crucially important in the fight against climate change.

But environmentalists fear that by completely blocking the Severn Estuary, the barrage would destroy vast areas of mudflats and mashes, which are key feeding grounds for tens of thousands of wading birds, and prevent migratory fish such as salmon from ascending rivers to spawn. Other environmentalists think such a large project would divert resources away from other key renewable technologies such as wind power.

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Much High Fructose Corn Syrup Contaminated With Mercury, New Study Finds

2009-01-28T17:51:00.000-08:00

Mercury was found in nearly 50 percent of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), according to a new article published today in the scientific journal, Environmental Health. A separate study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brandname food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient-including products by Quaker, Hershey's, Kraft and Smucker's.

HFCS use has skyrocketed in recent decades as the sweetener has replaced sugar in many processed foods. HFCS is found in sweetened beverages, breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS. Consumption by teenagers and other high consumers can be up to 80 percent above average levels.

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Capturing Carbon Emissions”?in Cement?

2009-01-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

Stepped on for more than 2,300 years, cement rarely gets the respect it deserves.

The versatile construction ingredient has been commonplace since the Roman Empire, but production has boomed in recent decades, rising nearly 400 percent since 1970. Global cement output may reach 5 billion metric tons by 2030, driven mainly by growth in the top two producing countries, China and India, according to a December WWF report.

In much of the world, replacing traditional wooden or earthen structures with concrete - the hardened mix of the cement powder, aggregate, and water - is a sign of wealth and prosperity. But cement manufacture is among the most energy-consuming and polluting industrial processes.

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Palm Oil Frenzy Threatens to Wipe out Orangutans

2009-01-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.

Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his "angels," is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.

Galdikas worries many questions may never be answered. How long do orangutans live in the wild? How far do the males roam? And how many mates do they have in their lifetime?

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Novel crop-cooling technique could mitigate climate change

2009-01-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

Planting crop varieties that better reflect sunlight back out to space could reduce summertime temperatures by more than one degree Celsius in some parts of the world, researchers announced yesterday (15 January).

The reduction, they say, would at certain latitudes be equivalent to a seasonal offset of about 20 per cent of the regional warming expected by the end of this century due to the build-up of carbon dioxide.

Researchers from the United Kingdom say that such a plan could be achieved without disrupting food production, either in terms of yield or the types of crops grown.

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Schools going green with paperless fliers; Online notices save kids' backpacks for academic purposes

2009-01-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

Schools have long relied on one emissary to deliver paperwork into parents' hands: students' backpacks.

But driven by environmental and economic concerns, many schools now are posting notices online, instead, to remind parents of next week's dance recital or alert them to a new program at the local library. One school described the effort as taking back the backpack for academic concerns.

Libertyville Elementary School District 70 switched to paperless fliers when students returned to class Monday, continuing an effort that began last year with the debut of electronic school newsletters. Officials of the north suburban district expect they may reach more parents of their roughly 2,650 students with the new distribution channel.

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Bug enzyme generates fuel from water

2009-01-14T11:31:00.000-08:00

Light-powered, bacterial enzyme-containing nanoparticles that release hydrogen from water could lead the way to new strategies for generating the energy-rich gas.

The lack of low-cost ways to create hydrogen gas is one of the main barriers to the dream of economies fuelled by hydrogen not oil.

A class of enzymes called hydrogenases are used by organisms to convert hydrogen ions to hydrogen gas during anaerobic - without oxygen - respiration. These enzymes have long interested chemists searching for alternatives to existing, expensive, platinum-catalysed hydrogen generation.

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In California, Hot and Dry Conditions Stir Drought Concerns

2009-01-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

The past two days have felt like summer in California, as unseasonable warmth sweeps the state -- possibly presaging a third straight year of drought, a worrisome possibility for a state already hit hard by the economic downturn.

Another dry year could mean water rationing for businesses and individuals. It could also slow business expansion and affect the agricultural industry, ski resorts and efforts to keep firefighting costs down, after a year in which state and federal officials spent $1 billion combating wildfires.

Temperatures jumped to 90 degrees in parts of California on Monday and Tuesday. With no rain forecast for the next week, the state is on track for one of its driest Januarys ever, said state climatologist Michael Anderson.

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Motorola Introduces Phone Made From Recycled Water Bottles

2009-01-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

Motorola Inc. introduced a cell phone made from recycled plastic water bottles.

The MOTO W233 Renew's plastic housing is not only made of recycled material, but the company said the device is the first "carbon neutral" phone.

"Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation," Motorola said in a press release.

The box the phone comes in is also made from recycled material, according to the media release. There is also a postage-paid box inside the package made of recycled paper that customers can mail their old phones back to Motorola for recycling.

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Bush protects unique areas across the Pacific

2009-01-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

President Bush on Tuesday established three new national monuments in the Pacific Ocean, setting aside for permanent protection pristine coral reefs, the world's deepest underwater canyon and marine environments teeming with tropical fish, sea turtles, manta rays and giant clams.

Ranging from the seven-mile-deep Mariana Trench near Guam to the tiny Palmyra Atoll 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, the new monuments are spread out across the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from the California coast.

But despite their remoteness, they have close links with Bay Area marine scientists, who cheered the news.

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Sempra solar energy project makes advances in costs

2009-01-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

Generating clean electricity that's as cheap as power from fossil fuels is the Holy Grail of green-energy companies. A new solar project powering California homes appears to be closing in on that prize.

Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy in San Diego, just took the wraps off a 10-megawatt solar farm in Nevada. That's small by industry standards, enough to light just 6,400 homes. But the ramifications are potentially huge.

A veteran analyst has calculated that the facility can produce power at a cost of 7.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, less than the 9-cent benchmark for conventional electricity.

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Soot tops NASA's climate blacklist

2009-01-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

Governments could slow global warming dramatically, and buy time to avert disastrous climate change, by slashing emissions of one of humanity's most familiar pollutants soot according to NASA scientists.

A study by the space agency shows that cutting down on the pollutant can have an immediate cooling effect and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution at the same time.

At the beginning of the make-or-break year in international attempts to negotiate a treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol, the soot removal proposal offers hope of a rapid new way of tackling global warming.

Governments have long experience in acting against soot.

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A Cleaner Way to Keep the City Running

2009-01-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

FOR centuries, grist-grinders and sailors have exploited the wind. Now, New York developers, homeowners and city leaders might be coming around.

A handful of buildings are already drawing electricity from wind turbines, which typically resemble table fans, or mounted airplane propellers.

Unlike some of the skyscraping versions that dot rural hillsides, small turbines supply power directly to homes without first sending it through a utility company’s lines.

One major sticking point in the city is that densely packed buildings tend to scatter breezes, making it tough to capture steady gusts. Although this and other kinks need to be addressed before the widespread rollout of small turbines is possible, there are signs of gains.

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Billion-gallon sludge flood could change utility

2008-12-29T17:11:00.000-08:00

The spill of more than a billion gallons of coal ash from a power plant in East Tennessee may change the way the nation's largest government-owned utility stores coal waste.

Roane County officials are pushing the Tennessee Valley Authority to quit using large retention ponds filled with water and fly ash, a byproduct of coal-fired power plants.

One of the ponds burst Dec. 22 at a plant roughly 35 miles west of Knoxville, sending a flood of gray sludge over about 300 acres and destroying three homes along the Clinch River.

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EPA sued over mountaintop mining rule

2008-12-29T17:07:00.000-08:00

Environmentalists sued the Bush administration on Monday, trying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from changing a rule they say keeps mining waste from entering mountain streams.

"The notion that coal mining companies can dump their wastes in streams without degrading them is a fantasy that the Bush administration is now trying to write into law," said Judith Petersen of Kentucky Waterways Alliance, one of the groups that sued in U.S. District Court in Washington.

At issue is mountaintop mining, in which forests are clear cut and holes are drilled to blast apart rock. Massive machines then scoop coal from the exposed seams. The rock and dirt left behind is dumped into adjacent valleys, changing the natural shape of the earth, lowering the height of the mountain and covering streams.

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Canadians Set Up First Solar Powered Community In North America

2008-12-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

A new Canadian neighborhood is North America's first solar-powered community. The community, named the Drake Landing Solar Community (DLSC) is located in the town of Okotoks, Alberta, and consists of 52 houses all powered by solar (what else?) energy.

The system that links the community together is ingenious. It stores the summer months’ excess energy underground for it to be put to use in the extremely cold winter months that Alberta is notorious for. A total of 800 solar panels located on garage roofs throughout the community generate 1.5 megawatts of thermal power during a typical summer day, the project’s organizers say.

They started testing on June 21 last year, the summer solstice. It was a glorious day and the first results were that the stored energy captured was exactly as had been calculated. Now the engineers say that in five years' time they'll be able to capture enough summer energy to provide more than 90% of the space heating needs of the homes during the winter months. The houses sold like hot cakes and the last one was occupied in October this year.

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Abrupt climate shifts may move faster than thought

2008-12-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

The United States could suffer the effects of abrupt climate changes within decades—sooner than some previously thought--says a new government report. It contends that seas could rise rapidly if melting of polar ice continues to outrun recent projections, and that an ongoing drought in the U.S. west could be the start of permanent drying for the region. Commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the report was authored by experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and other leading institutions. It was released at this week's meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Many scientists are now raising the possibility that abrupt, catastrophic switches in natural systems may punctuate the steady rise in global temperatures now underway. However, the likelihood and timing of such "tipping points," where large systems move into radically new states, has been controversial. The new report synthesizes the latest published evidence on four specific threats for the 21st century. It uses studies not available to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose widely cited 2007 report explored similar questions. "This is the most up to date, as it includes research that came out after IPCC assembled its data," said Edward Cook, a climatologist at Lamont-Doherty and a lead author of the new study.

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Panda diplomacy: China's goodwill gift to Taiwan

2008-12-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

A Taiwanese plane arrived in the Chinese city of Chengdu on Monday to pick up a pair of giant pandas, a goodwill gift from Beijing and the latest sign of improving ties between the political rivals.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, whose names said together mean "unite," will be flown to Taiwan on Tuesday with steamed corn buns and fresh bamboo in their luggage and a standby supply of air-sickness pills.

China had offered the pandas as a goodwill gift in 2006 as part of a charm offensive after decades of saber rattling. Taiwan's then anti-China president declined the gift.

Beijing has given pandas to nine countries, including Japan, North Korea, the United States and the former Soviet Union, since 1957.

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Tiny Saturn Moon ID'd As Good Candidate For Alien Life

2008-12-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus may be one of the best candidates for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

Scientists for the first time have gathered comprehensive evidence suggesting Enceladus may have all the necessary ingredients to harbor life in the ocean beneath its icy crust.

Particles in a large plume of water vapor emanating from the surface suggest the moon has an active ocean that circulates life-sustaining nutrients picked up from the rocky interior below.

"The plume is our smoking gun," said astrobiologist Christopher Parkinson of the University of Michigan. "It gives you a hint about what's going on inside."

Life could arise in these conditions, or it could arrive from elsewhere in the galaxy, Parkinson said Monday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

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Three Gorges Dam tested as water rises

2008-12-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

Rising water levels in China's giant Three Gorges Dam have triggered dozens of landslides in recent months, damaging houses, land and infrastructure worth millions of dollars, state media said on Thursday.
In July, China finished evacuating residents from the last town to be submerged by the massive 660-km (400-mile) long reservoir on the Yangtze River, ending an exodus of some 1.4 million people that began four years ago.

The 2,309-meter-long dam, the world's largest, aims to tame the river and provide cheap, clean energy for the country's rapid development.

But critics say rising water levels in the reservoir are eroding already fragile slopes and triggering landslides which could worsen as levels reach their maximum height next year.

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Fund to help poor countries cope with climate clears hurdle

2008-12-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

A fund designed to help poor countries in the firing line of climate change cleared a key hurdle at UN talks on Friday, opening the way to its launch next year, delegates said.

But developing nations complained the fund fell far short of their needs and accused rich countries of welshing on their promises.

Agreement by ministers on the final day of the talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) takes the much-heralded Adaptation Fund a major step towards launching operations.

The Fund is designed to help developing countries launch projects and build skills that will shore up their defences against climate change.

Mounting temperatures, stoked by heat-trapping fossil-fuel pollution, are expected to boost water scarcity, sea levels and the frequency of storms, floods and drought.

The Fund's operational start has been held up by several issues.

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In "eat local" movement, Cuba is years ahead

2008-12-16T16:57:00.000-08:00

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba planted thousands of urban cooperative gardens to offset reduced rations of imported food.

Now, in the wake of three hurricanes that wiped out 30 percent of Cuba's farm crops, the communist country is again turning to its urban gardens to keep its people properly fed.

"Our capacity for response is immediate because this is a cooperative," said Miguel Salcines, walking among rows of lettuce in the garden he heads in the Alamar suburb on the outskirts of Havana.

Salcines says he is hardly sleeping as his 160-member cooperative rushes to plant and harvest a variety of beets that takes just 25 days to grow, among other crops.

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Los Angeles Seeks to Add 1.3 Gigawatts of Solar Power by 2020

2008-12-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently announced plans for Los Angeles to supply 10% of its electricity generation from solar power. Dubbed "Solar LA", the ambitious plan would create the largest installed base of solar power of any city in the world.

Mayor Villaraigosa told reporters at the plan's unveiling last month, "Our solar initiative is the largest of any kind anywhere in the world. When it takes full effect, LA will have 1,280 megawatts more capacity -- more than exists in the entire United States today."

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