Category Archives: industry apologists

Fukushima Update – Mutated butterflies…oh my

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I was going to put up a piece by a woman in Austin today about recycling electronics and then start in on global warming and the drought here in Illinois but then this popped up. I mean it is the biggest nuclear disaster of this decade and the effects of the radiation are going to be with us for thousands of years. So just like the Ukrainian wolves that we have been watching, the Japanese butterflies bear watching too.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57492524/report-mutated-butterflies-found-near-fukushima/

August 13, 2012 10:52 PM

Report: Mutated butterflies found near Fukushima

Disaster in Japan

(CBS News) A group of scientists in Japan made a surprising discovery by finding large numbers of specimens of pale grass blue butterflies that had mutated.

In a report in the Scientific Reports journal, the scientists said their research concluded that “that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.” The scientists said their findings were not expected.

“It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation,” lead researcher Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, told the BBC. “In that sense, our results were unexpected.”

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Solar And Coal – You would not think they go together

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I say this is a stretch. It is just the coal companies to throw a little sop to what “green” means. You judge for yourself.

http://www.earthtechling.com/2010/07/hybrid-solar-coal-plant-being-tested-in-colorado/

Hybrid Solar Coal Plant Being Tested In Colorado

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As much as we all want coal as an energy source to go away completely, we also know it will take the government and private sector sometime (too long in our opinion) to fully move to clean energy sources. In the meanwhile, methods need to be developed which can minimize the impact of fossil fuel usage on the environment. One such pilot project is going on near Grand Junction, Colorado, at Xcel Energy’s Cameo Generating Station using a unique solar-coal hybrid design.

Xcel Energy said it has connected a parabolic-trough solar technology system developed by Abengoa Solar to its coal power plant. This system concentrates solar energy to provide heat for producing supplemental steam for electric power production, which Xcel Energy feels will help lower the usage of coal as an energy source at this facility while also testing the commercial viability of concentrating solar power thermal integration and lowering carbon dioxide emissions.

This project is believed to be the world’s first known demonstration of the hybrid solar-coal approach using the parabolic-trough solar approach. It is part of a larger program by Xcel Energy to test promising new technologies with potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions and result in other environmental improvements. The company said this program allows it the opportunity to test these technologies and evaluate their cost, reliability and environmental performance at a demonstration scale before determining whether they should be deployed more widely

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Go there and judge for yourself. More next week.

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Refineries Shut Down All Over The Country – Is this a coincidence

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Come on. 4 refineries in a 4 state region are effected at the same times by “disasters” that would be easy to contrive. In 2 of the biggest markets in the country, the Great Lakes Region and California. Can that be an accident? Looks highly suspicious to me. One thing is for sure everybody is loving those rising gas prices besides the drivers and President Obama. Maybe that is what they are after, defeating Barack Obama and electing one of their own, Mittens Romney.

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/fire-is-latest-pollution-1494592.html

Fire is latest pollution problem at Chevron plant

National / World News 12:06 p.m. Thursday, August 9, 2012

By JASON DEAREN

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A massive Chevron oil refinery fire that sent hundreds of people rushing to hospitals and is pushing West Coast gas prices higher was just the latest pollution incident at the facility that records show has increasingly violated air quality rules over the past five years.

The refinery is one of three such facilities near San Francisco that rank among the state’s top 10 emitters of toxic chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory.

Chevron’s Richmond refinery — the scene of Monday’s fire that shrouded the area in black smoke — has been cited by San Francisco Bay area regulators for violating air regulations 93 times in the past five years.

The number has increased from 15 violations in 2007 to 23 in both 2010 and 2011. The refinery is also the state’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to state regulators.

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Go there and read. State Fair starts today so I may be gone  for a couple of days. More tomorrow.

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Over 900 Million People Without Power – 3 times the number of people in the US

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I think somewhere the God’s are laughing at me. Really, I keep trying to post stories about large solar facilites and the news gets in the road. I mean this is actually a huge story. I can not remember a time that this many people who had electricity lost it.

http://www.startribune.com/business/164247506.html?refer=y

Power grids across northern and eastern India fail in massive, cascading blackout

Article by: RAVI NESSMAN , Associated Press

NEW DELHI – India’s energy crisis cascaded over half the country Tuesday when three of its regional grids collapsed, leaving more than 600 million people without government-supplied electricity in one of the world’s biggest-ever blackouts.

Hundreds of trains stalled across the country and traffic lights went out, causing widespread traffic jams in New Delhi. Electric crematoria stopped operating, some with bodies half burnt, power officials said.

The massive failure — a day after a similar, but smaller power failure — has raised serious concerns about India’s outdated infrastructure and the government’s inability to meet its huge appetite for energy as the country aspires to become a regional economic superpower.

Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde blamed the new collapse on states taking more than their allotted share of electricity.

“Everyone overdraws from the grid. Just this morning I held a meeting with power officials from the states and I gave directions that states that overdraw should be punished. We have given instructions that their power supply could be cut,” he told reporters.

The new power failure affected people across more than a dozen states — more than the entire population of the European Union. The blackout was unusual in its reach, although its impact was softened by Indians’ familiarity with frequent blackouts and the widespread of backup generators for major businesses.

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Nuclear Power – On time and under cost

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Yah right. That is so laughable. Even after they announced that they were going to try to bring 5 nuclear plants on line there were no commercial backers and so the price went up before they even started. It has been all downhill since then.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/news-guide-building-nuclear-power-plants-16750327#.T_2tBZGkNyU

News Guide: Nuclear Industry Facing Cost Pressures

By The Associated Press
July 10, 2012 (AP)

Q: How many nuclear plants are under construction in the U.S.?

A: Three. Two nuclear reactors are being built at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia. Two more reactors are under construction at Plant Summer in central South Carolina. A fifth reactor mothballed in 1985 is being finished at Plant Watts Bar in Tennessee.

Q: How often are nuclear plants built?

A: The last nuclear plant built in the United States was the existing reactor finished at Watts Bar in 1996.

Q: How much does a nuclear plant cost?

A: Billions of dollars. Nuclear plants are among the most complicated and expensive infrastructure projects in the world. The plants require incredible amounts of design and engineering work and must be built to exacting safety standards. Federal inspectors can require that parts of the plant be ripped out and replaced if they don’t meet muster. The plants require huge amounts of metal, concrete, cables and wires. Building two Westinghouse Electric Co. AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle is supposed to cost roughly $14 billion, though the final expenses could be more.

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Go there and read the rest. More tomorrow.

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Carbon Sequestration The Way It Should Be Done – I am not a huge fan of this but

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The method they are using here is preferable to simply drilling a well anywhere and trying to bury it in the ground. The oil in spent fields never will get out and there was plenty of pressure, so this at least seems safe.

http://www.cbs19.tv/story/18856255/doe-notice-advances-development-of-indiana-gasifications-co2-pipeline

DOE Notice Advances Development of Indiana Gasification’s CO2 Pipeline

Information contained on this page is provided by companies via press release distributed through PR Newswire, an independent third-party content provider. PR Newswire, WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

SOURCE Indiana Gasification

Transporting CO2 to Gulf States Could Boost U.S. Oil Production by 20 Million Barrels a Year

ROCKPORT, Ind., June 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Indiana Gasification welcomed today’s Federal Register publication by the U.S. Department of Energy of an amended notice of intent (NOI) to include an approximately 440 mile CO2 pipeline in the environmental impact statement (EIS) required for DOE financial backing of IG’s state-of-the-art clean fuels facility.

The DOE publication marks the most recent regulatory development in support of the plant, which will be the cleanest coal-fired facility ever built in the United States. In the last two months, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management has filed a proposed clean air permit with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and issued a draft Clean Water Act permit.

In the Notice of Intent, the Department of Energy acknowledges that the proposed project with the CO2 pipeline qualifies for financing under the 2008 appropriations act providing authority for industrial gasification activities. Further, the DOE has determined that the project meets two goals of the Title XVII Loan Guarantee Program, encouraging the commercial use of new or significantly improved technology and achieving substantial environmental benefits.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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XL Pipeline Will Not Help The US – And when a 16 yr. old girl points it out

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They TRASH her. I posted this mainly because her points are valid. But read the comments. These are seriously brutal comments, by trolls, aimed at a 16 year old girl. This is what the energy business has sunk too.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/06/keystone_xl_pipeline_wont_bene.html

Keystone XL pipeline won’t benefit American families or the environment

Published: Sunday, June 17, 2012, 5:00 AM     Updated: Sunday, June 17, 2012, 12:35 PM

By Emilie Winn

As a 16-year-old high school student, I am deeply concerned about the long-term effects of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on my and subsequent generations. This pipeline would transport tar sands 2,000 miles from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Producing synthetic oil from tar sands generates around three times the amount of greenhouse gases as regular oil production. TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline proposal, was ordered by the government to dig up 10 sections of the Keystone I pipeline after testing showed that the steel used was possibly defective. The company plans to use steel from the same manufacturer for the Keystone XL pipeline. In addition, the Keystone I pipeline has seen 12 spills in a single year. The idea of this level of error at a much higher magnitude is horrifying.

One of the most cogent claims made about the proposed pipeline was the number of jobs it would create, which many supporters estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Yet data from the U. S. State Department and TransCanada itself has shown the project would provide up to 6,500 jobs during production and leave only hundreds of permanent jobs. The effect Keystone XL would have on unemployed Americans has been largely fictionalized. For the Keystone I pipeline in South Dakota, a shockingly low 11 percent of construction jobs were taken by South Dakotans. The majority of jobs that such projects create are taken by immigrants willing to do menial labor for low pay. And the vast majority of jobs are temporary.

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Will We Ever Live On The Moon – Humans prepare to trash the Solar System

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When I posted on the transit of Venus, I said that environmentalists are concerned about the environment and that does not end at the Earth’s atmosphere or the heliosphere of even our galaxy. Human’s track record ain’t great so far. We tend to just throw stuff out there because we can. We have fired rockets willy nilly at planets some of which landed successfully but will be on those planets forever. The ones that didn’t go so well are smashed all over the place. We trashed the moon and anyone flying by the Earth would just go EWWWWWW. Look at that mess. So now what is proposed – Mining and Manufacturing. Environmentally things we do just the bestest. This is not good. Double billing here. This guy:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/06/14/will-we-ever-live-on-the-moon/

wrote the op/ed piece here:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120613-will-we-ever-live-on-the-moon

This is not an attack on the writer by the way.

Will we ever… live on the Moon?

14 June 2012

by PHIL PLAIT

Will mankind once again walk on the lunar surface? I wouldn’t even hesitate to say “yes”, because the future is long, and who in the early 1950s would have dared to predict that we would even land a craft on the Moon within 20 years? But in this case, the answer probably isn’t as interesting as the question itself – more specifically, when, and why, and how will we do it?

I can think of many possible scenarios that could lead to us colonising the Moon: an extended economic boom that allows us to fund ambitious space exploration; a breakthrough in launch costs which makes them drastically cheaper; or the discovery of some vital natural resource on the Moon. But I don’t like betting on breakthroughs.

A better question is then: “What is a likely way we’ll end up with a human presence on the Moon?” Given what we know today and extrapolating from there, I have a thought on how this could happen.

Looking into the abyss

Before we talk about settling down on our rocky neighbour, we have to ask why we should head there in the first place.

Looking back on nearly 60 years of space exploration, the answer is obvious. Satellite communication. Weather prediction. Understanding of climate change. Instantaneous broadcasting of radio and television. Global positioning technology. Detailed mapping of the Earth. Environmental monitoring. Government intelligence gathering (which has prevented far more conflict than people credit it for). Disaster warning.

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Pretty Pictures Of Places That Use Too Many Scarce Resources Too Get Around

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Pretty much for the next couple of weeks I am going to post things that strike my fancy, that float my boat, and that pique my interest. I am returning to my google whoring headline grabbing self of 2007/2008. Yes sir, I am bored and I ain’t going to take it no more. Here are some pretty pictures of some popular places that pay several thousand dollars per household per year to do pretty simple stuff.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-cities-that-are-most-screwed-by-peak-oil-2012-5?op=1

The 10 Cities That Are Most Screwed By Peak Oil

Gus Lubin and Michael Kelley

May 13, 2012, 8:20 AM?

Gas prices may finally be cutting into American sprawl, as cities have started growing faster than suburbs and people are driving less than they used to.

So what happens if gas prices keep going higher?

You can’t live in a cities like Merriam, Kansas without driving everywhere, as Maggie Koerth-Baker observes in Before the Lights Go Out.

We looked at the cities that spend the most at the gas pump, with 2010 data from consumer data site Bundle. You can imagine what will happen in these places if prices double, triple or worse.

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Go there, read and look. More tomorrow.

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Conservation Of Energy In The Spring – Even Dominion gets into the act

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Dominion is an energy company so this is actually sort of progressive. I say sort of, because if they offered real programs for solar water heaters, solar photovoltaics and geothermal at the residential level they would be on the right path. But one baby step after another I guess.

http://e-conserve.blogspot.com/2009/03/spring-cleaning-add-energy-efficiency.html

Exploring ways to save energy, money and the environment

Join Dominion in sharing ideas about how to save energy and money while helping the environment. Learn more about energy conservation from our Energy Experts.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Spring Cleaning? Add energy efficiency to the “to do” list and save money.

‘Tis the season for the chore called Spring Cleaning. For me, I have to motivate myself to get ready to clean (not my favorite household chore). But this year I am thinking about it positively, thinking of all the energy I will save.

There are some chores you may want to add to your cleaning list that will help you save energy and money leading into the cooling season.

  • Dust the lamps and lightbulbs. The dust and grime on the bulb makes it dirty, reducing the amount of light it gives off.
  • Clean your air filter. Replacing air conditioning filters allows for the system to run efficiently.
  • Clean the air return vents. Make sure drapes and furniture aren’t blocking the vents.
  • Vacuum the refrigerator coils. The dust builds up, causing the fridge to run less efficiently.
  • Thoroughly dust electronics and then unplug them when not in use.
  • Scrub the tub and then install low flow showerheads.

For tips on how to save year round, you can visit our website at http://www.dom.com/.

Posted by Alison@Dom

Courtney@dom Energy Conservation Analyst

Stephen@dom Energy Conservation Analyst

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