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Archive for March, 2011
Stemming reactor water leak ‘urgent’
Posted by BBC: Paul Rincon on March 30th, 2011
BBC: Water clear-up 'urgent' at reactor
The focus of efforts to stabilise the situation are now focussed on reactor 2
Tepco bailout speculation grows Inside the evacuation zone Japan quake: Aid worker's diary Q&A: Fukushima alert
At this stage, the announcement by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) that it will decommission four hobbled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Japan, is little more than a formality.
Their fates were more or less sealed when the company took a decision - a few days into...
Japan Plant Grapples With Contaminated Water
Posted by National Public Radio: Eliza Barclay on March 30th, 2011
National Public Radio: Nearly three weeks after the earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on an aging nuclear power plant on Japan's Pacific coast, officials handling the crisis face multiplying hurdles, making the end goal of a stable facility with a functioning cooling system seem further from reach.
The cores that house nuclear fuel are damaged in several of the plant's six reactors, and radioactive material continues to trickle from them, forcing officials to consider increasingly extreme ways to take back control....
Finally, California Finds a Surplus: 50 Feet of Snow
Posted by New York Times: JESSE McKINLEY on March 30th, 2011
New York Times: Sure, fine, California may have its problems right now. There is the budget, yes, what with that pesky $26.5 billion deficit, and the legislative stalemate with its, you know, stalemate-ness. Unemployment is still high, and so is anxiety, about everything from housing prices to radioactive clouds drifting over from Japan.
But California has at least one thing going for it at the moment: Mother Nature. This winter, the state, which had been stuck in a prolonged drought, was positively walloped...
Alaska Clash Over Resources and Rights Heats Up
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2011
New York Times: Anyone interested in learning more about the distinctive flora and fauna here in the Last Frontier will want to pick up a copy of an unconventional new field guide: the 2010 Annual Report of the Alaska Department of Law.
Just published in January, the report, on Page 21, tells the fascinating tale of the Cook Inlet beluga whale — specifically of Alaska’s legal battle to remove it from the federal endangered species list. On Page 22, it recounts the state’s continuing fight to remove protections...
Calculating Livestock Numbers By Weather And Climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2011
redOrbit: Ranchers in the central Great Plains may be using some of their winter downtime in the future to rehearse the upcoming production season, all from the warmth of their homes, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) soil scientists.
The ranchers would use the GPFARM (Great Plains Framework for Agricultural Resource Management)-Range computer model to see which cattle or sheep stocking rate scenarios are sustainable. Soil scientists Gale Dunn and Laj Ahuja with USDA's Agricultural Research...
Drought In Amazon Could Lead To Accelerated Global Warming
Posted by IBTimes: Gabriel Perna on March 29th, 2011
IBTimes: A new study reveals a drought last year in the Amazon basin caused the forest to lose significant levels of vegetation, which in turn could accelerate the pace of global warming.
The study, conducted by an international team of scientists and funded by NASA, uses specific satellite imaging data provided by the agency to draw its conclusions. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellites provided more than a decade's worth of...
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Comments Off on Drought In Amazon Could Lead To Accelerated Global WarmingAs Algae Bloom Fades, Photosynthesis Hopes Still Shine
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2011
GreenWire: Bioengineer Jeff Way has seen what happens when the claims of algae biofuel companies get ahead of the science, when their promises of "renewable diesel" slam into the realities of engineering.
He's been to the bankruptcy auction.
Once the standard-bearer for the algae revolution, GreenFuel Technologies failed almost two years ago. Spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the company promised to convert waste carbon dioxide into fuel-producing algae. It opened a celebrated --...
Bills, Baby, Bills
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2011
New York Times: Frustrated by the Obama administration’s slow pace in restarting offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon accident last year, Republicans in Congress are proposing a range of bills to force the administration to accelerate the granting of drilling permits and open new offshore areas to oil and gas exploration.
Getty Images Representative Doc Hastings is sponsoring three bills that would rewrite offshore drilling rules.
The new drilling measures are part of a concerted...
The story of the barefoot engineers
Posted by Wired UK: None Given on March 29th, 2011
Wired UK: In a remote village in northwestern India, a rural college aims to lift people out of poverty by passing on traditional knowledge and skills.
The Barefoot College, based in Tilonia, relies on peer-to-peer learning to train locals to become engineers, communicators, accountants and more, using simple technologies such as mobile phones and personal computers (PCs). Now, it is getting ready to open its first branch in Africa.
"It's a model that people understand, it's not complicated. It respects...
More science needed for tackling disasters, says report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2011
SciDev.Net: Science and technology will be essential for anticipating and responding to disasters, according to a review of the humanitarian practices of one of the world's leading national aid agencies, the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Natural disasters are killing more people each year, with climate-related disasters alone predicted to affect 375 million a year by 2015. Finding new ways of tackling them is essential, according to the Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, launched...
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