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Archive for July, 2015
Small scale hydropower can provide stream new jobs to rural regions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2015
Guardian: Micro-hydro, the generation of electricity from small streams, has begun to take off in rural Wales. The country’s geography makes small-scale hydropower a viable alternative source of energy and, for struggling rural areas, a source of income and jobs.
Wales has long exploited its natural advantages in waterpower, from pre-industrial mills to six large hydropower schemes today. The vast Dinorwig plant alone generates 1,728MW, meeting peak-time electricity demand across the country. A typical...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Small scale hydropower can provide stream new jobs to rural regionsAnnual checkup Earth’s climate says we’re in hotter water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2015
Associated Press: In their annual, detailed physical of Earth's climate, scientists say the world is in increasingly hot and rising water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Meteorological Society's annual state of the climate report delves into the details of already reported record-smashing warmth globally in 2014, giving special attention to the world's oceans. NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report, said the seas last year "were just ridiculous." ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Annual checkup Earth’s climate says we’re in hotter waterBig Hydro Threatens to Wipe Out Little Hydro in Malaysia
Posted by National Geographic: Christina Nunez on July 16th, 2015
National Geographic: Nestled within the rain forest of Malaysian Borneo, a handful of villages are so remote they don't even have roads. They do, however, have electricity.
The villages draw on the nearby Papar River's current to generate enough power to run lights, refrigerators, and phone-chargers for up to 50 households. The systems, dubbed "microhydro," are small-scale versions of the same hydroelectric dams that help power large cities.
Now, however, a controversial proposal to build a bigger dam threatens...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Big Hydro Threatens to Wipe Out Little Hydro in MalaysiaHeavier rains mean more toxic blooms for Lake Erie
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2015
Climate Central: Come September, Lake Erie might face a toxic algae bloom that could rival the record-setting spread of scum that happened in 2011. And such blooms could become more common as the warming climate fuels more downpours that wash bloom-fueling fertilizers into the lake. The forecasts for a severe bloom this year, made in early July by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and regional partners, was based on the considerable rains that fell in June and washed a large load...
Seven more Alberta counties consider declaring states agricultural disaster
Posted by Edmonton Journal: None Given on July 16th, 2015
Edmonton Journal: Seven more Alberta counties are considering declaring states of agricultural disaster as persistent dry weather threatens the livelihoods of farmers across the province. Leduc, Athabasca, Northern Lights, Northern Sunrise, Barrhead, Westlock and Thorhild counties all have votes planned in the next few weeks on weather to make that step. Tuesday, Parkland County west of Edmonton and McKenzie County in northern Alberta announced they had declared a disaster. A declaration of a state of...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Seven more Alberta counties consider declaring states agricultural disasterTo save water, new Calif homes will have less lawn
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2015
LA Times: The sprawling suburban lawn - a symbol of the good life in postwar California - moved a step closer Wednesday to being consigned to the history books.
The California Water Commission, responding to a fourth year of drought, approved sharp new limits on the amount of water that can be used on landscapes surrounding newly constructed buildings, such as houses, businesses and schools.
The revised ordinance will limit grass to about 25% of a home's combined front, back and side yards in all new...
After Years of Drought, Wildfires Rage in California
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2015
New York Times: The Lake Fire started just before 4 p.m. on June 17. If rain and snow had arrived as scheduled in the winter, it might have been done in a day, at a cost of just a few acres. But with the drought turning soil to dust and trees to tinder, the fire, still smoking, has consumed a swath of national forest roughly the size of San Francisco. It has become the first big wildfire of a California season that threatens to become a terror. Between Jan. 1 and July 11, California fire officials have responded...
Walker wants be ‘polluter in chief’
Posted by Aspen Times: None Given on July 16th, 2015
Aspen Times: Aw, jeez , now Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is running, formally, for the top job in the U.S., a fact that should make everybody, old and young alike, tremble uncontrollably.
Everyone except his Republican buddies, I guess, since they are greeting his candidacy with high-fives and whoops of joy at the idea of his becoming "Polluter In Chief."
After doing everything he could to ruin the State of Wisconsin, he wants to turn his spotlight of destruction on the entire country by somehow fooling...
Mercury scrubbers at power plant lower other pollution too
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 15th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Air pollution controls installed at an Oregon coal-fired power plant to curb mercury emissions are unexpectedly reducing another class of harmful emissions as well, an Oregon State University study has found. Portland General Electric added emission control systems at its generating plant in Boardman, Oregon, in 2011 to capture and remove mercury from the exhaust. Before-and-after measurements by a team of OSU scientists found that concentrations of two major groups of air pollutants went down...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Mercury scrubbers at power plant lower other pollution tooHydraulic fracturing linked to increases in hospitalization rates in the Marcellus Shale
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 15th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Hospitalizations for heart conditions, neurological illness, and other conditions were higher among people who live near unconventional gas and oil drilling (hydraulic fracturing), according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University published this week in PLOS ONE. Over the past ten years in the United States, hydraulic fracturing has experienced a meteoric increase. Due to substantial increases in well drilling, potential for air and water pollution posing a health...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Hydraulic fracturing linked to increases in hospitalization rates in the Marcellus Shale