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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

Ancient Lake Vostok

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:19:28 +0000

After 20 years of drilling, a team of Russian researchers is close to breaching the prehistoric Lake Vostok, which has been trapped deep beneath thick ice layers (2 miles thick) in Antarctica for the last 14 million years. Lake Vostok is actually the third largest lake in the world, measured by the amount of water it holds. In the early 1990s, the Russians re-created a history of the Earth’s atmosphere throughout the past 400,000 years — a record of our planet’s air during the past four ice ages. The lakes are rich in oxygen (making them oligotrophic), with levels of the element some 50 times higher than what would be found in your typical freshwater lake. The high gas concentration is thought to be because of the enormous weight and pressure of the continental ice cap.

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Ancient Lake Vostok

Study Reveals Impacts of Environmental Changes on Southern Ocean Food Web

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:55:55 +0000

In January of this year, a comprehensive study of animals in the Southern Ocean was completed, showing that the region is under threat from climate change. The scientific journal Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography featured the findings of an international group of researchers who wrote over 20 papers about the effects on the Scotia Sea food web by above average water temperatures.

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Study Reveals Impacts of Environmental Changes on Southern Ocean Food Web

Europe to target pharmaceutical pollution with new water quality rules

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:02:04 +0000

The European Commission has unveiled a new set of water pollution rules, which will for the first time include certain pharmaceutical products. The Commission is proposing to add 15 chemicals to the list of 33 pollutants that are currently monitored and controlled in EU surface waters. The popular pain-relieving drug Diclofenac is one of three pharmaceuticals to be put on the European water watch-list, which law-makers say is another step towards improving the quality of rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The 15 substances include industrial chemicals as well as compounds used in biocides and plant protection products. They have been selected on the basis of scientific evidence that they may pose a significant risk to health.

Early Ice Ages

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:35:18 +0000

New research led by scientists from Oxford University and Exeter University has shown that the invasion of the land by plants in the Ordovician Period (488-443 million years ago) cooled the climate and may have triggered a series of ice ages. During this period sea levels are very high and at the end of the period there was a mass extinction event. At the beginning of the period, around 480 million years ago, the climate was very hot due to high levels of CO2, which gave a strong greenhouse effect. The marine waters are assumed to have been around 45°C, which restricted the diversification of complex multi-cellular organisms. But over time, the climate become cooler, and around 460 million years ago, the ocean temperatures became comparable to those of present day equatorial waters. The dramatic cooling of the planet between 300 and 200 million years ago was also the result of the evolution of large plants with large rooting systems that caused huge changes in both of these processes. In the current results it was shown that the appearance of the first land plants had a similar effect and much earlier in time.

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Early Ice Ages

Do Pollutants Cause Breast Cancer?

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:30:27 +0000

Breast cancer is partly caused by toxic chemicals in the environment, according to a recent study by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). These pollutants are surprisingly common, and most women are exposed to them from a variety of sources. Carcinogenic pollutants come from radiation and from consumer products. They are in household cleaning products, microwaves, cosmetics, hairsprays, and refrigerators. These chemicals seep into water as runoff from landfills, affect people as well as animals, and have been shown to cause breast cancer in women. The Breast Cancer Action Foundation believes that the environmental factor has been overlooked in research, and that its influence has been grossly underestimated.

Carbon Link to Snowball Earth reassessed

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:41:36 +0000

In a study published in the journal Geology, scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science suggest that the large changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates which occurred prior to the major climatic event more than 500 million years ago, known as ‘Snowball Earth,’ are unrelated to worldwide glacial events. “Our study suggests that the geochemical record documented in rocks prior to the Marinoan glaciation or ‘Snowball Earth’ are unrelated to the glaciation itself,” said UM Rosenstiel professor Peter Swart, a co-author of the study. “Instead the changes in the carbon isotopic ratio are related to alteration by freshwater as sea level fell.”

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Carbon Link to Snowball Earth reassessed

Cooling Lagoons aim to reduce thermal discharges to marine ecosystems, improve efficiency

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:41:35 +0000

Gulf countries that lack freshwater resources rely deeply on seawater desalination to meet their daily needs and cool down thermal generation plants. According to Gulf News, the United Arab Emirates alone uses four trillion litres of Gulf seawater each year to cool down its power plants, foundries and desalination plants. The byproduct of these operations produces a hot briny fluid that is then pumped back into the Gulf, seriously compromising coral reefs and the overall marine ecosystem. But Crystal Lagoons – the same people who were behind the worlds largest artificial lagoon planned for the Red Sea, is marketing a new closed-loop cooling system that would ensure that no more water would have to be extracted from the Gulf to cool down industrial plants! Thermal power plants require water for cooling, but disposing of that water back into the Gulf is not only harmful to the marine ecosystem, according to Crystal Lagoons, it is also a waste of thermal energy.

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Cooling Lagoons aim to reduce thermal discharges to marine ecosystems, improve efficiency

The Era Of Cheap Water Is Over: Deloitte

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:16:30 +0000

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) today launched the Water Tight 2012 report, which explores the future of the global water sector in the year ahead. The report examines how major global trends such as population growth, increasing economic development, and urbanization, coupled with the changes in climate patterns, underscore the importance of effective public policy and private sector water stewardship in managing this finite and shared resource. The growing demand for water is making conservation and efficient use central issues, particularly as governments, utilities, and the private sector come under increasing pressure to be stewards of this precious and shared resource. The report states that a clearer water pricing will play an important role in how customers better manage their water usage. “There is a compelling case for utilities either to increase water prices or create a better pricing system that addresses scarcity issues, allows them to invest in the replacement of ageing infrastructure, and provides them with a satisfactory financial return,” says James Leigh, Global Leader for Water, DTTL. “Increasing water prices, however, is a difficult political decision, as domestic water usage is considered a basic human right. As such, raising awareness of water related issues and educating the public about the necessity of more effective water pricing is crucial.”

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The Era Of Cheap Water Is Over: Deloitte

The Era Of Cheap Water Is Over: Deloitte

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:16:30 +0000

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The Era Of Cheap Water Is Over: Deloitte

Energy Conservation in Our Artificial Habitats

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:44:58 +0000

The outside world may be unforgiving, but science and technology has made comfortable artificial environments with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). HVAC has made it possible for us to live almost anywhere on the planet. Las Vegas was once a barren desert, but is now teeming with people, lights, and imported water.

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Energy Conservation in Our Artificial Habitats

Ocean Acidity

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:44:57 +0000

Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world’s oceans. This is part of the natural recycling of carbon. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water’s acidity (lower pH), which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks, resulting in the potential loss of ecosystems. The extent to which human activities have raised the surface level of acidity, however, has been difficult to detect on regional scales because it varies naturally as well as due to man made sources from one season and one year to the next, and between regions, and direct observations go back only 30 years.

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Ocean Acidity

Arsenic cancer risk still high decades later in Chile

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:43:00 +0000

People exposed to very high levels of arsenic in Chilean drinking water back in the 1950s and 60s are still showing a higher-than-normal risk of bladder cancer — years after the arsenic problem was brought under control, a new study shows. The findings are not surprising, researchers say, since the cancer would take decades to emerge. But the results underscore the importance of continuing to screen high-risk people for bladder cancer, according to lead researcher Dr. Fernando Coz, a professor of urology at the Universidad de Los Andes in Santiago de Chile. The study, reported in the Journal of Urology, focused on people in the Antofagasta region of Chile. In the 1950s and 60s, drinking water in the region became contaminated with high levels of arsenic. Arsenic is semi-metallic element found in rock, soil, water and air. It is also released into the environment through industrial activities, and can be found in products like paints, dyes and fertilizers. High exposure has been linked to several cancers, including tumors of the bladder, liver and lungs.

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Arsenic cancer risk still high decades later in Chile

Magnet Soap

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:42:58 +0000

A University of Bristol team has dissolved iron in liquid surfactant to create a soap that can be controlled by magnets. The discovery could be used to create cleaning products that can be more easily removed after application and used in the improved recovery of oil spills at sea. Scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a soap, composed of iron rich salts dissolved in water, that responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution. The soap’s magnetic properties were proved with neutrons at the Institut Laue-Langevin to result from tiny iron-rich clumps that sit within the watery solution. The generation of this property in a fully functional soap could reduce environmental concerns over the use of soaps (lingering soap residue) in oil-spill clean ups and revolutionize industrial cleaning products.

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Magnet Soap

Permafrost

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:02:22 +0000

In geology, permafrost, cryotic soil or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water (0 °C or 32 °F) for two or more years. Ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of the ground material. A pioneering airborne electromagnetic survey in the Yukon Flats near Fort Yukon, Alaska, by the U.S. Geological Survey has yielded unprecedented images of the presence and absence of permafrost to depths of roughly 328 feet. The airborne survey captured images of permafrost over a substantially larger area, and with greater data density, than has been previously achieved using sparse boreholes and ground-based geophysics.

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Permafrost

Huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:56:48 +0000

A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower the temperature of Europe by causing an ocean current to slow down, British scientists said Sunday. Using satellites to measure sea surface height from 1995 to 2010, scientists from University College London and Britain’s National Oceanography Center found that the western Arctic’s sea surface has risen by about 15 cms since 2002. The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8,000 cubic km, or about 10 percent of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off. The rise could be due to strong Arctic winds increasing an ocean current called the Beaufort Gyre, making the sea surface bulge upwards. The Beaufort Gyre is one of the least understood bodies of water on the planet. It is a slowly swirling body of ice and water north of Alaska, about 10 times bigger than Lake Michigan in the United States. Some scientists believe the natural rhythms of the gyre could be affected by global warming which could have serious implications for the ocean’s circulation and rising sea levels.

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Huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding

Biofuel breakthrough: kelp could power cars

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:56:47 +0000

Scientists have devised a new way to produce ethanol directly from seaweed, offering the potential to generate biofuels that don’t compete with terrestrial food production and won’t suck up scarce freshwater, reports a study published today in Science.

Italy risks worst environmental disaster in decades

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:48:23 +0000

Italy risks its worst environmental disaster in more than two decades if the 2,400 tonnes of thick fuel in the capsized Costa Concordia pollutes one of the Mediterranean’s most prized and pristine maritime reserves. Seven days after the 114,500 tonne liner capsized off the Tuscan coast, its vast wreck is shifting precariously on an undersea ledge, threatening to slide further and undermining plans to pump the oil out safely. The ship keeled over after striking a rock and is now lying on its side on a shelf in about 20 meters of water off the little island of Giglio. Eleven people were killed and 21 are still unaccounted for. With hopes of finding any survivors all but gone, experts warn that beyond the loss of lives, this could turn into Italy’s worst maritime environmental emergency since the sinking of the Amoco Milford Haven, loaded with 144,000 tonnes of oil, off the coast of Genoa in 1991. The clean up of that area was completed in 2008, 17 years after the accident, and the Haven shipwreck is still on the seabed, said Luigi Alcaro, head of maritime emergencies at ISPRA, Italy’s government agency for the environment.

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Italy risks worst environmental disaster in decades

Acid Rain Change

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:06:06 +0000

Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. Measurable improvements in air quality and visibility, human health, and water quality in many acid-sensitive lakes and streams, have been achieved through emissions reductions from electric generating power plants and resulting decreases in acid rain. These are some of the key findings in a report to Congress by the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, a cooperative federal program

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Acid Rain Change

Genetically Modified Plants To Resist Intense Drought

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:19:40 +0000

Israeli agro-biotechnology company, Rosetta Green, has developed a new technology to develop plants that are better able to withstand prolonged periods of severe drought. The company aims to develop new plant varieties resistant to harsh climatic condition, maintaining an increased yield. The company, based in Rehovot, Israel, experimented on tobacco plants that were irrigated with seawater instead of freshwater. The genetically modified plants created by the company were able to grow under seawater irrigation, as opposed to the control group of plants. According to the company’s CEO, Amir Avniel, “the frequent droughts afflicting the world in recent years and the motivation to expand to arid lands containing brackish water require the development of plant varieties resistant to drought and irrigation with salt water.” Rosetta Green is using a technology that can identify MicroRNAs, which are short RNA molecules that play an important role in the regulation of key genetic traits in major crops. The MicroRNAs identified by the company were used to develop prototype plants with significantly improved drought tolerance.

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Genetically Modified Plants To Resist Intense Drought