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Archive for August 29th, 2012
Chile hails groundbreaking deep geothermal well
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on August 29th, 2012
BusinessGreen: Plans to build the first fully operational deep geothermal well in South America have taken a major step forward after developer GeoGlobal Energy (GGE) finished a test drilling programme in Chile.
GGE Chile, a subsidiary of Maryland-based GGE, confirmed this week that it has successfully completed an exploratory drilling program on the northwestern flank of the Tolhuaca mountain in southern Chile.
The company said it had demonstrated that the production and injection wells are capable of supporting...
Sweden to Fund Innovations in Water Sector
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 29th, 2012
Inter Press Service: When the international community was struggling to ward off a potential decline in development aid in early 2000, it came up with a novel idea: a proposal for "new and innovative sources of financing", including a tax on airline tickets and a levy on foreign exchange transactions.
The funding, mostly from the tax alone, first proposed at the 2002 U.N. conference on Financing for Development, has already generated over 11.7 billion dollars, according to the World Bank.
And now, the Swedish government...
Study: Climate change threatens Atlantic seashores
Posted by USA Today: Wendy Koch on August 29th, 2012
USA Today: Climate change is already hurting seven national seashores on the Atlantic Coast and threatens to submerge some of their land within a century, according to a report Wednesday by environmental groups.
In five of the seven parks, more than half of the land lies low enough (less than 3.3 feet) to risk becoming submerged by the year 2100, says the report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Those parks include Fire Island in New York, Assateague Island...
Antarctic breeding penguins vanishing
Posted by LiveScience: Jeanna Bryner on August 29th, 2012
LiveScience: In the first complete survey of chinstrap penguins' breeding across Deception Island in the Antarctic, scientists have found a significant number of the chic birds have disappeared from the breeding grounds since the 1980s.
The largest colony, called Baily Head on Deception Island, which is located in the Antarctic's South Shetland Islands, saw a drop of more than 50 percent over the past two decades, the researchers added.
The culprit? The scientists point to climate change.
The study,...
With West Nile On The Rise, We Answer Your Questions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 29th, 2012
National Public Radio: This year is on track to be the worst ever for West Nile virus in the United States. Here are the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
1,590 reported cases, nearly 500 more than a week ago for a rise of 44 percent.
889 cases, or 56 percent, involve severe neurological disease.
66 deaths, compared to 41 last week.
Every state except Alaska and Hawaii has reported West Nile virus in people, birds or mosquitoes. "We expect the number of cases will rise through...
Antarctic Methane: A New Factor in the Climate Equation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 29th, 2012
Climate Central: Climate scientists have long fretted about the hundreds of billions of tons of methane frozen under the floor of the Arctic Ocean. If the water warms enough, some of that methane could escape. Nobody knows how soon or how quickly such a release might happen, but since methane is a far more potent heat-trapping gas than the more familiar carbon dioxide, it could add to the temperature increase already under way thanks largely to human emissions from fossil fuel burning.
But frozen Arctic methane...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Antarctic Methane: A New Factor in the Climate EquationSlow-Moving Hurricane Isaac Pummels Louisiana
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 29th, 2012
Climate Central: Although it made landfall more than 12 hours earlier, Hurricane Isaac continued to pummel southern Louisiana Wednesday morning as the huge Category 1 storm stalled in its motion to the northwest.
New Orleans' system of flood-protection levees and canal floodgates, upgraded to the tune of $14.5 billion after the system's catastrophic failure due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, continued to hold against the wall of water pushed onshore by the storm -- a surge that reached 11 feet in Shell Beach, La.,...
Potential methane reservoirs beneath Antarctica
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 29th, 2012
ScienceDaily: The Antarctic Ice Sheet could be an overlooked but important source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, according to research published August 29 in Nature and conducted by an international team led by Professor Jemma Wadham from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences.
The new study demonstrates that old organic matter in sedimentary basins located beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been converted to methane by micro-organisms living under oxygen-deprived conditions....
Thomas Ball’s best photograph: Canada’s oil sands in Alberta
Posted by Guardian: Sarah Phillips on August 29th, 2012
Guardian: In August 2007 I travelled to northern Alberta in Canada, to photograph the mining of oil sands. The owner of this mine, Syncrude, is the largest and oldest of the oil sands companies, producing more than 350,000 barrels a day. Oil sands release three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil sources, and the extraction process has turned vast swaths of boreal forest into a desert-like landscape, pockmarked by toxic lakes. I wanted to show how desperate things have become that we are using...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thomas Ball’s best photograph: Canada’s oil sands in AlbertaVast methane reservoir could be beneath Antarctic ice
Posted by Independent: John Von Radowitz on August 29th, 2012
Independent: A vast reservoir of the potent greenhouse gas methane may be locked beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, a study suggests.
Scientists say the gas could be released into the atmosphere if enough of the ice melts away, adding to global warming.
Research indicates that ancient deposits of organic matter may have been converted to methane by microbes living in low-oxygen conditions.
The organic material dates back to a period 35 million years ago when the Antarctic was much warmer than it is today...