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Archive for March, 2011
Fukushima engineers hampered by lack of power in fight to cool reactors
Posted by Guardian: Ian Sample on March 28th, 2011
Guardian: The central problem behind almost every hurdle faced by the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been – and remains – a lack of power supply. Since electricity was knocked out by the tsunami it has been impossible to run the pumps that cool the reactor cores and circulate water around storage pools used to keep spent fuel rods cold.
Last week engineers succeeded in connecting power to some of the reactors, but three remain in a dangerous and precarious state. The fuel rods inside reactors...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Fukushima engineers hampered by lack of power in fight to cool reactorsBill Clinton takes on Brazil’s megadams, James Cameron backs tribal groups
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2011
Mongabay: Former US President, Bill Clinton, spoke out against Brazil's megadams at the 2nd World Sustainability Forum, which was also attended by former California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and film director, James Cameron, who has been an outspoken critic of the most famous of the controversial dams, the Belo Monte on the Xingu River.
As reported by Forbes, in a speech delivered on the last day of the forum last week, Bill Clinton said, "You need electricity and you need to preserve the forest....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Bill Clinton takes on Brazil’s megadams, James Cameron backs tribal groupsGoogle Earth reveals stark contrast between Sarawak’s damaged forests and those in neighboring Borneo states
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2011
Mongabay: Google Earth reveals stark contrast between Sarawak's damaged forests and those in neighboring Borneo states
Logging roads and damaged forest in Sarawak compared with the healthy forest of Brunei. Photo courtesy of Google Earth.
Images from Google Earth show a sharp contract between forest cover in Sarawak, a state in Malaysian Borneo, and the neighboring countries of Brunei and Indonesia at a time when Sarawak's Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud is claiming that 70 percent of Sarawak's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Google Earth reveals stark contrast between Sarawak’s damaged forests and those in neighboring Borneo statesOf Nuclear Power, Risk and Meteorites
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2011
New York Times: As my colleagues Matt Wald, John Broder and I write in Science Times, weighing the risks associated with nuclear power against other forms of electricity is, at least for regulators and actuaries, a highly academic exercise.
But for others -- particularly those living in the shadow of nuclear reactors -- it is an intensely personal affair.
Rochelle Becker, a grandmother and local activist, lives in Grover Beach, about 14 miles down the California coast from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station,...
Brazil: How to save the Pantanal and increase profits for the cattle industry
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2011
Mongabay: Continuous versus rotational grazing. Photo courtesy of: Eaton, D. P., Santos, S. A., Santos, M. C. A., Lima, J. V. B. and Keuroghlian, A. 2011. Rotational Grazing of Native Pasturelands in the Pantanal: an effective conservation tool. Tropical Conservation Science. Vol. 4 (1):39-52.
The Pantanal spanning Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is the world's largest wetland--the size of Florida--and home to a wide-variety of charismatic species, such as jaguars, capybaras, and giant anteaters. However,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Brazil: How to save the Pantanal and increase profits for the cattle industryResearchers look into Wisconsin climate report implications
Posted by Ashland Current: None Given on March 28th, 2011
Ashland Current: Ask a roomful of Wisconsinites if they think the climate has changed during their lifetimes and the response is often a unanimous yes, says the Unversity of Wisconsin - Extension.
While most people remember stories from their parents and grandparents about how bad--or good--the weather used to be, UW-Madison scientists have documented the changes in Wisconsin's climate that have occurred over the past 60 years. These include a 1.3-degree-Fahrenheit increase in the annual average temperature (2.5...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Researchers look into Wisconsin climate report implicationsCanada: Ottawa fights EU’s dirty fuel label on oil sands
Posted by Global and Mail: Shawn McCARTHY on March 28th, 2011
Global and Mail: The European Union is preparing to slap a dirty fuel label on Canada's oil sands, a move that would increase political pressure on Europe's major oil companies to curb their investments in the Alberta projects.
The Conservative government has been lobbying furiously to prevent the EU from targeting the oil sands -- so much so that one member of the European Parliament has condemned Canada's intervention as "unacceptable.'
After backtracking in the face of Canadian opposition, Europe's environment...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Ottawa fights EU’s dirty fuel label on oil sandsShift in boreal forest has wide impact
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2011
Daily Climate: Boreal forests across the Northern hemisphere are undergoing rapid, transformative shifts as a result of a warming climate that, in some cases, is triggering feedback loops producing even more regional warming, according to several new studies.
The climate has shifted. It's done. It's clear. - Glenn Juday, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees, according...
Japanese nuclear plant says partial meltdown caused water contamination
Posted by Guardian: Justin McCurry and Suzanne Goldenberg on March 28th, 2011
Guardian: High levels of radioactivity in water leaking from a reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant resulted from a partial meltdown of fuel rods, Japanese officials have said, amid growing fears that radiation may also have seeped into seawater and soil.
Contamination in a pool of water in the turbine building of the No 2 reactor was found to be 100,000 times normal levels, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said.
On Sunday, the firm said the figure was 10m times higher,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Japanese nuclear plant says partial meltdown caused water contaminationHighly radioactive water leaks from Japanese nuclear plant
Posted by Reuters: Kiyoshi Takenaka and Yoko Kubota on March 28th, 2011
Reuters: Highly radioactive water has leaked from a reactor at Japan's crippled nuclear complex, the plant's operator said on Monday, while environmental group Greenpeace said it had detected high levels of radiation outside an exclusion zone.
Reflecting growing unease about efforts to control the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi complex, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) had appealed to French companies for help, the Kyodo news agency said.
The plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, was...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Highly radioactive water leaks from Japanese nuclear plant