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Nuclear Power – environmental advantages

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:19:29 +0000

Renewable energy and nuclear power increasingly factor into the evolving American energy equation to replace polluting coal. Even some environmentalists acknowledge that nuclear is a viable emissions-free option to dirty coal while renewable-energy technologies continue to advance. Nuclear fission reactors generate electrical power by splitting the atomic nuclei of uranium. This process creates a massive amount of heat — thermal energy — and radiation. The resultant heat is in turn utilized to make steam from water that then moves turbine blades to drive generators to produce electricity.

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Nuclear Power – environmental advantages

U.S. CO2 emissions to stay below 2005 levels

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:02:20 +0000

U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions will be 7 percent lower than their 2005 level of nearly 6 billion metric tons in 2020 as coal’s share of electricity production continues a steady descent over the next two decades, according to new government data. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an early version of its annual energy outlook on Monday, which predicted a slowdown in growth of energy use over the next two decades amid economic recovery and improved energy efficiency. The report highlights the fact that carbon-intensive coal generation will see a major decline in the power sector in the coming decades, which will ensure energy-related CO2 emissions will not exceed 2005 levels at any point before 2035. The report also showed that emissions per capita would fall an average of 1 percent per year from 2005 to 2035 as the new federal standards, state renewable energy mandates and higher energy prices would temper the growth of demand for transportation fuels.

UN launches International Year of Sustainable Energy for All

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:19:34 +0000

United Nations’ officials [this week] launched the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All with a call on governments, the private sector and civil society to help expand energy access, improve efficiency and increase the use of renewables. Globally, one person in five still lacks access to modern electricity and twice that number – three billion people – rely on wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating.

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UN launches International Year of Sustainable Energy for All

Mexico pipeline oil spill may take month to clean

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:24:25 +0000

Two weeks after a pipeline leak in coastal Mexico sent oil gushing into a river, state oil monopoly Pemex has recovered about two-thirds of the spilled crude, but the full clean-up could take another month. Mexico’s environmental protection agency, Profepa, is supervising containment of the 1,500-barrel spill that killed fish, injured wildlife and left greasy slicks in the Coatzacoalcos river. “Right now it is more about containing the emergency,” Profepa official Sergio Herrera told Reuters. “There will be further actions to clean the river, the banks of the river, and the zone where the damage has happened.” Pemex blamed the December 31 leak in Veracruz state on vandalism. Fuel thieves routinely tap into Mexico’s network of pipelines to steal oil and gas for sale on the black market, often causing small spills. The company has contracted 140 workers to clean up the mess, which it said was mostly contained in a lagoon near the affected valve.

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Mexico pipeline oil spill may take month to clean

Atmospheric Particles causing more rain

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:24:24 +0000

A rise in the atmosphere of aerosols – miniscule particles which include soot, dust and sulphates – has led to more rainfall in certain parts of the world and could provide vital clues for future climate predictions, a scientific study shows. A deeper understanding of rainfall patterns would aid scientists’ ability to predict changing trends in the climate. Aerosols can be produced from burning coal or gas, industrial and agricultural processes or by the burning of forests. As well as being harmful for human health, they are blamed for causing air pollution such as smog and smoke. “For a range of conditions, increases in aerosol abundance are associated with the local intensification of rain rates,” said the study published in Nature Geoscience by scientists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute, NASA, and other institutions.

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Atmospheric Particles causing more rain

US EPA issuing new Air Quality rules

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:18:34 +0000

The Environmental Protection Agency is introducing its most ambitious clean air rules in decades, though it is making some concessions to election-minded Republicans who oppose them. The EPA, facing backlash from heavy industry, has delayed several of the rules and made adjustments in others. Some industry groups say the rules will cost companies billions of dollars and increase power bills for consumers. The EPA says money saved on healthcare costs will be greater than the amount polluters will need to invest in retooling plants to meet the new standards. So far, the major delay in the rules has been President Barack Obama’s backtracking in September on smog pollution, which came as a disappointment to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Below are important dates for the clean air rules: 2011: CROSS STATE AIR POLLUTION RULE Finalized by the EPA in July, this rule aims to slash air pollution that blows downwind from coal-fired power plants in the eastern United States. Two days before it was to take effect, a U.S. federal appeals court delayed the implementation, pending further review, after power generators complained about the deadline. The first phase of regulation had been set to begin on January 1, 2012, and the second two years later.

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US EPA issuing new Air Quality rules

Obama is hanging out at the EPA today

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:13:53 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. President Obama and the EPA have not had an entirely uncomplicated relationship during his tenure, but in the face of a GOP candidate field that is almost uniformly anti-environment, the president is throwing his lot in with clean air and water regulations. He's making a trip to EPA headquarters this afternoon to thank employees for their work, notably the new mercury standards . The visit marks Obama’s latest push to show support for the agency in the aftermath of the White House’s decision last year to scuttle EPA’s planned smog regulations amid constant and aggressive attacks from Republicans. Obama will travel to EPA headquarters “to address the men and women of the agency, and thank them for their hard work protecting the air our children breathe and the water we drink,” the president’s daily schedule says. Of course, some people are already spinning this as Obama and Lisa P. Jackson having a champagne jam while burning oil company execs in effigy and dancing on the backs of unemployed people specially hired for the occasion: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who shepherded bills through the House last year to block the EPA rules, claimed over Twitter that Obama would visit EPA to “tout its job-destroying agenda.” The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group, similarly claimed that Obama and EPA will “celebrate job-destroying regulations.” But, you know, whatever. The man is just showing some appreciation for the agency that made America look a little less like this .

U.S. becomes first country on Earth to limit catch size for all fish

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:33:39 +0000

by Christopher Mims. In a rare bipartisan move — the policy was initiated under George W. Bush and finalized under Obama — the federal government has enacted catch size limits in order to prevent overfishing of coastal seas, reports the Washington Post . “It's something that’s arguably first in the world,” said Eric Schwaab, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's assistant administrator for fisheries. “It's a huge accomplishment for the country.” Five years ago, Bush signed a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which dates to the mid-1970s and governs all fishing in U.S. waters. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers joined environmental groups, some fishing interests and scientists to insert language in the law requiring each fishery to have annual catch limits in place by the end of 2011 to end overfishing. Up to this point, the nation's regional fish management councils ignored scientists and the other pencil-necks who said the limits they set were unsustainable and would lead to crashing populations, as well as crashing revenue for the fishermen who rely on them. But the regional councils signed off on these laws, so they seem to have finally become convinced that having fish in the future is worthwhile, even if it means you get fewer fish right now — a lesson the rest of us learned when we were 7 and ate all our Halloween candy at 10 p.m. on Oct. 31. A lot of Congresspeople never learned it, though, because they always get all the candy they want via either bribing people for it or holding their breath until they get more. So naturally some of them are already fighting to undo these landmark laws.

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U.S. becomes first country on Earth to limit catch size for all fish

Monsanto won’t have to clean up dioxin in West Virginia

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:19:57 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. West Virginia continues to win the game of exposing human beings to extremely hazardous conditions in exchange for working-class pay, then telling them to deal with it when they get sick. The latest example of this behavior doesn't even have to do with coal, but with Monsanto and Agent Orange. For 30 years, the Monsanto plant in a town called Nitro (named after the chemicals produced there! For real!) produced a defoliant ingredient that would later be used in Agent Orange. But the herbicides made in Nitro were contaminated with dioxin, which meant that Nitro residents were exposed to the toxic chemical beginning in the late 1940s. Dioxin has been connected to every bad health impact imaginable—for adults, problems like cancer and immune suppression, and for kids, problems like birth defects and learning disabilities. And now, because of the way West Virginia law works, the most that the citizens of Nitro can ask from the company is that it covers the cost of medical testing fees. Monsanto is going on trial for polluting Nitro, but judges threw out the part of the case having to do with property remediation. That means the jury won’t even be able to consider whether the company should pay for cleaning up the town. The lawyers fighting Monsanto are taking the issue to the state's Supreme Court, but the moral of the story seems to be: If you have to make a deal with Monsanto or any other corporation ever, don't do it in West Virginia.

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Monsanto won’t have to clean up dioxin in West Virginia

The only defense of electric cars you really need

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:07:33 +0000

by Christopher Mims. Maggie Koerth-Baker is one of the most responsible energy journalists on the planet, in part because she writes for the blog of all blogs, BoingBoing, which has never felt the need to cloak its writers' opinions in trumped-up objectivity and false balance. So it was refreshing to see her refute the latest turd lobbed over the wall by the Internet's favorite tabloid, Gawker Media: ” You Are Not Alone. America Hates Electric Cars .” Forming interest groups around your own misbegotten prejudices is nothing new, so kudos (I guess) to author Joel Johnson for remembering that the shortest route to pageviews is to tap into America's bottomless well of reactionaries who are fundamentally ill at ease in the face of change. The debate over electric cars — and everything they imply — is going to come to a boil again and again, as the 21st-century equivalent of buggy-whip makers either get ahead of larger trends in oil and carbon prices or are swallowed by them. Which is why it's so fortunate that it was Koerth-Baker who addressed this piece and not me. She's much, much more reasonable, and it's worth reading her response in full . Her basic points are straightforward and worth repeating: Most Americans (more than 80 percent, in fact) live in cities, and this trend is only accelerating. Sure, people out on the open prairie won’t get much use from a limited-range car, but the average commute is well within the range of a Nissan Leaf.

Coal-burning energy company demands more regulation

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:38:13 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. Baltimore company Constellation Energy has retrofitted two coal-burning power plants in anticipation of new EPA emissions laws. Now a lawsuit has delayed the new regulations from being enacted, and Constellation is pissed; if they're going to shell out $885 million to be in compliance, by god everyone else should have to, too. So they're flipping a Uie from usual energy company behavior, and agitating for stricter rules . The new technology allows Constellation's plants to produce 90 percent less nitrogen oxide and 95 percent less sulfur, plus way less of all the other gross stuff too. But it also takes more energy to run the retrofitted plants, plus the whole installation was expensive. So if everyone else gets to delay compliance, Constellation is at a disadvantage — the only thing they come out ahead on is environmental brownie points, and energy companies literally could not care less about those. Essentially, Constellation is like the kid who objects to getting an extension on a paper because he finished by the original deadline. Everyone hates that brown-noser! But on the other hand, it's an interesting indication that regulations might make companies police each other, so that nobody takes advantage of loopholes unless they bring enough for the entire class. Maybe this is just me, but all I can think about is the idea of breeding an animal that WANTS to be eaten:

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Coal-burning energy company demands more regulation

Critical List: Toxic chemicals on the rise; baby seals in trouble

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:53:24 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. The EPA may retest water in Dimock, Pa., where residents have linked polluted water to fracking operations. In its first round of testing the town's water, the EPA declared it safe. GM is fixing up the Volt in order to avoid in real-life battery fires like the ones that started during testing. As winter sea ice disappears in the Arctic, fewer baby harp seals are making it . The amount of toxic chemicals shunted into the environment went up 16 percent between 2009 and 2010, according a new EPA report . The president of the Maldives has a message for Australia : The entire population of his country is probably there if their islands sink, so get ready. Scientists are making progress on carbon capture technology, which is good news if you believe that the world’s not going to give up coal.

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Critical List: Toxic chemicals on the rise; baby seals in trouble

Photos: What America looked like before the EPA

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:21:27 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. In 1972, the year-old EPA had photographers traverse the country to document the (often dire) state of the environment. This project, Documerica, was “the visual echo of the mission of the EPA,” according to one photographer. Now, 40 years later, archive specialist Jerry Simmons has unearthed the photos and put them online at the National Archives website and on Flickr . It's a time capsule of life before the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Some of the photos show positive action — a ” city farmer ” in Boston, for instance, or a guy riding his bike to sidestep fuel shortages. Some record daily life, and some of them show that even without federal protection, a lot of America is still pretty beautiful . And the rest … look like this. (Click the photos for more information.)

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Photos: What America looked like before the EPA

Rick Perry advocates solution to climate problem he doesn’t believe in

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:59:41 +0000

by Christopher Mims. Of all the GOP candidates, Rick Perry has been perhaps the most fervently dismissive of the reality of human-caused climate change. So why does his energy plan include a provision for “clean coal” technology, which is used to capture carbon dioxide and pump it underground? Confusion in Perry's assessment of the climate and energy nexus extends to his energy plan, which says that “we must continue to invest in clean coal technology through research and development tax incentives.” If, as Perry has claimed, climate change is a baseless hoax, it makes no sense that he should advocate for a technology explicitly designed to capture and sequester carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants for the sole purpose of averting the warming effect of those emissions. The logical conclusion would be that Perry and his campaign don't even know what “clean coal” technology is. Maybe Perry just figures that sticking the word “clean” in there will help his insatiable coal hunger go over better with voters. But in that case he should probably go for a positive adjective that doesn’t ALREADY MEAN SOMETHING, like maybe “delicious coal” or “sexy coal.”

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Rick Perry advocates solution to climate problem he doesn’t believe in

EPA Air Quality rule on coal plants delayed

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:41:47 +0000

A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday issued a last-minute order to delay the January 1 implementation of stricter federal limits on pollution from coal-fired plants, providing a temporary win for utilities worried about the cost of implementation. In a blow to environmental groups, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a request to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, pending further court review. The EPA finalized the rule in July, setting much stricter limits on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants in 27 states to protect the health of residents in states downwind from the emissions. “The EPA firmly believes that when the court does weigh the merits of the rule it will ultimately be upheld,” the agency said in a statement after the court’s decision.

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EPA Air Quality rule on coal plants delayed

How India is winning the future with solar energy

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:48:03 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. India set a goal to build 20 gigawatts of solar — an enormous amount — by 2020. The haters said at first that the country might not make it, but lately India's plan is seeming smarter than anyone imagined . Plus, it's creating jobs — both in India and in America! What's leading to its success? Government subsidies that are aggressive … but not too aggressive. Subsides are creating both demand and enough competition to keep prices down. Private sector support. Indian banks are beginning to see solar as a desirable investment, since, like toll roads, they're infrastructure projects that offer predictable profit over a large number of years. Renewable requirements, first for state-run utilities and now for all state-run companies. That means even coal-fired power plants might have to invest in renewables. India has incredible solar energy resources — it's usually sunny there for more than 80 percent of the year — and it needs people to build up and maintain infrastructure, so these projects are providing jobs as well as power. Not just techy energy jobs, either; one dusty solar farm needs workers to mop its 36,000 solar panels regularly. And since Indian projects have favored Made-in-the-U.S.A. thin-film solar panels (the country's leading solar supplier is Arizona-based First Solar), growth in the subcontinent is fueling job creation here.

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How India is winning the future with solar energy

Map shows when rooftop solar will be cheaper than grid electricity

admin — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:56:56 +0000

by Christopher Mims. What happens if and when current subsidies for solar panels are phased out? Doesn't matter — the cost of solar photovoltaics continues to fall even as the cost of grid electricity continues to rise, which means eventually the two trends will meet and it will make more sense to put panels on your roof than to continue sending a check to your utility company. In San Diego, this will happen sometime around 2013, according to a new animated map from John Farrell at Energy Self-Reliant States . The high cost of grid electricity and the fact that San Diego gets 367 days of sunshine a year will make it the first city where solar is cheaper. By 2020, most of the major metropolitan areas in California, the southwest and a swath from Philly to Providence will have reached “grid parity.” Even Texas, a state where electricity is fairly cheap thanks to an abundance of coal and wind farms, will have cities where it makes more sense to go solar. By 2027, 150 million people — half the present population of the US — could profitably go solar and never look back. Even the CEO of the utility company NRG says many of his customers will be able to switch to solar power within the next three to five years . Sounds like a revolution. This isn't, by the way, an argument for eliminating federal and state subsidies for solar power. Every nascent energy industry has received such funds (nuclear being a prime example), and even entrenched fossil fuel energy sources continue to get enormous subsidies, making the energy market anything but a level playing field. Continued solar subsidies are essential to maintain the momentum of an industry that has the potential to completely transform how we produce and consume electricity in this country. (Which is precisely why the big-money-entrenched interests in the fossil fuels and other energy industries hate it.) h/t Yale e360

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Map shows when rooftop solar will be cheaper than grid electricity

Historic Mercury Regs from EPA a Boon for Health, the Environment and Jobs

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:39:26 +0000

A few small drops of mercury can contaminate a 20-acre lake and the fish that happen to reside there, thanks to coal-fired plant emissions. That’s a major reason why the EPA’s decision to regulate the emissions of mercury, lead and other toxic pollutants from coal- and oil-fired plants is a major victory for the health and environmental welfare of the nation. And please ignore the scare tactics from Big Coal and right-wing politicos about blackouts, job losses and energy security risks as a result of the rules.

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Historic Mercury Regs from EPA a Boon for Health, the Environment and Jobs

Power plant rules unveiled: Higher bills, cleaner air

admin — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:20:50 +0000

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday unveiled rules for coal-fired power plants that mean costly investments passed on to consumers, but also health benefits. Hundreds of older plants — which together make up the largest remaining source of unchecked toxic air pollution in the United States — will have to cut emissions or shut down.

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Power plant rules unveiled: Higher bills, cleaner air

Critical List: The shortest day of the year; some grey wolves to come off endangered species list

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:44:56 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. Today marks the solstice : the shortest day of the year and the beginning of winter. Things will only get better from here on out, as long as by “things” you mean “the amount of daylight available in the Northern hemisphere.” Grey wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin will be taken off the endangered species list . A 40,000-barrel oil spill in Nigeria could be the area's worst in a decade . In a climate-changed world, fewer malaria parasites are infectious, which means fewer people could get malaria . (Stand by for Rush Limbaugh complaining that liberals and Al Gore just want us all to have tropical diseases.) In China, police tear-gassed people protesting a coal-fired power plant in Guangdong. Texas scientists who were fighting with the state's environmental department over a climate change study will finally be able to publish the results .

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Critical List: The shortest day of the year; some grey wolves to come off endangered species list