https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution

Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages

Health hazard … pipes coming from a rare-earth smelting plant spew into a tailings dam on the outskirts of Baotou in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.

The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing.

The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou.

The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. “Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes,” says Li Guirong with a sigh.

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Go there and vomit. More next week.

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The post In The Race To Despoil The Environment, China Wins – They are First, Second and Third appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Solar panels are an increasingly important source of renewable power that will play an essential role in fighting climate change. They are also complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives—and right now, most of the world doesn’t have a plan for dealing with that.

But we’ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the total e-waste humanity produces each year, standard electronics recycling methods don’t cut it for solar panels. Recovering the most valuable materials from one, including silver and silicon, requires bespoke recycling solutions. And if we fail to develop those solutions along with policies that support their widespread adoption, we already know what will happen.

“If we don’t mandate recycling, many of the modules will go to landfill,” said Arizona State University solar researcher Meng Tao, who recently authored a review paper on recycling silicon solar panels, which comprise 95 percent of the solar market.

Solar panels are composed of photovoltaic (PV) cells that convert sunlight to electricity. When these panels enter landfills, valuable resources go to waste. And because solar panels contain toxic materials like lead that can leach out as they break down, landfilling also creates new environmental hazards.

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Go there and read. Demand that your municipality pass a law that solar panels do not go in the land fill. More next week.

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The post Solar Waste, What Shall We Do – I never dodge a bullet appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/22/875961137/the-worrisome-link-between-deforestation-and-disease?utm_source=digg

June 22, 20205:00 AM ET

Nathan Rott

In 2013, an 18-month-old boy got sick after playing near a hollow tree in his backyard in a remote West African village. He developed a fever and started vomiting. His stool turned black. Two days later, he died.

Two years and more than 11,000 deaths later, the World Health Organization put out a report saying the Ebola outbreak that likely emanated from that hollow tree may have been caused in part by deforestation led by “foreign mining and timber operations.”

The tree the boy played near was infested with insectivorous bats — bats that may have been pushed into the boy’s village because upward of 80% of their natural habitat had been destroyed.

“When you disturb a forest, it actually upsets, if you want, the balance of nature, the balance between pathogens and people,” says John E. Fa, a professor of biodiversity and human development at Manchester Metropolitan University, who was part of a team of researchers that linked recent forest loss to 25 Ebola outbreaks that have occurred since 1976.

A finding, he says, that showed a strong correlation between recent deforestation and disease outbreaks.

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Go there and Pray.  More next week.

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The post Habitat Destruction Squeezes Diseases Out Of Mammals – Then they invade humans and kill us appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://newrepublic.com/article/157078/climate-crisis-will-just-shockingly-abrupt?utm_source=digg

As governments around the globe debate how to respond both to the coronavirus itself and the economic chaos it has unleashed, a theme that’s come up over and over is how to prioritize what makes it into spending packages. In the United States, right-left fault lines have emerged over the question of bailing out emissions-heavy industries versus a greener stimulus. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a large-scale rollback of environmental regulations as a response to the pandemic—allowing many emitters to police themselves when it comes to pollution.

While some argue that the oxygen in the climate debate should be taken up by the pandemic instead, the two issues aren’t mutually exclusive, experts say. In a warming climate, more diseases are likely to emerge and spread, making climate change action an important part of addressing future health crises. Moreover, the perception that climate change isn’t as urgent as other crises may rely on misunderstandings about how climate-related changes will happen. The rate isn’t constant: Instead, there’s reason to believe everything from Arctic melt to Amazon deforestation might experience what’s known as “tipping points,” where small changes in nature shift into rapid and irreversible damage.

Greenland and Antarctica are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s, according to a new study in the journal Nature. Between 1992 and 2017, Greenland and Antarctica lost 6.4 trillion tons of ice. This falls under the worst-case scenario projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the effects are already being felt in many parts of the world. The IPCC predicts that by the end of the century, 400 million people around the globe could be at risk of coastal flooding every year from sea-level rise alone.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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The post I Am So Excited To Be Posting On Earth Day – The 50th Anniversary appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://go.savingmoneyweekly.com/content/DfEaqYxY5dwx5cu?cep=2iSzLCQN0QDlUE_kc09NvGhBKa4V9Ds1f1yyex-Z58wWB_8RM5YwHXsOKH9NWUtbuCUSEMRKHQ_0RlDGcUpFlJzGXzi4Q_p74VT-SWA2Q0i-Amg8DFsYirLyDONBCYYGMTX9V7TsDuuIZkSVuIL76ySCYwsuwsEUjTcMDlbbd79ETiuYdHHt5oGNQdr1l1eN7JPAsD9viwI-kdqmdTQvkbPd9bdjXInYoegmhpYVBIUXGEESFgLUY8_CvXOPm9Clow1QlJnEaHOjY_GdeJgzp5p53t2mhHj-vj1kxXzkn49xdzLAV9y76nAZJmRS3uV_nv_UPspIgPLK2NkkliRU4r8uXeozX-1H8ZniVXk_djgY91el84Pbh34N5ozleyRYFKReOdCJ-RDKkHh0ExgHan4LjC9L7uL56NKlOIASPj_sC4R9vbQtBfpCO51NEXXA5XZ8yx2ibfxptiiJ9r4pL9Gas3GK5szYiYN8yVYXopT4LgI9MXdJ2xGppP2wnfHhysBeE3FMbR4NJL1HDz8tfQ&lptoken=154f8257813173a793f7&adversion_id=4238759&ad_id=369037&budget_id=206702&adcampaign_id=150894&publication_id=2853&headline_id=1322572&content_id=279679&previewimage_id=333544&device=desktop

What is This Device?

It’s called ÖkoWatt and its tech was originally created by no other than the legendary Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist, Nikola Tesla.

Initially it was concealed from the general public because it offered average families the opportunity to save on their monthly energy costs. ÖkoWatt is a small, compact, affordable, and easy-to-use plug-in unit that stops unnecessary power from entering the electrical cables and overloading the network.

ÖkoWatt is your power company’s worst nightmare. They have been trying to hide ÖkoWatt from the everyday consumer and have even banned it in retail shops.

Big Energy is threatened by this device and its potential to cut into profits.

However, thanks to the Internet, the secret is out, and everyday people are now reaping the rewards of less power consumption overall, as well as that used by household appliances.

Bogus ‘Energy Saver’ Boxes Continue Targeting Online Shoppers

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Go to both places and read. More next week.

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The post OkoWatt Is A Scam – I do not care what you call it appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://logicmag.io/nature/what-green-costs/?utm_source=digg

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Go there and read. More next week, if there is a next week.

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The post The Darkside Of The Green Revolution – Lithium extraction really messes things up appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

There is this:

https://www.dw.com/en/new-delhi-schools-closed-as-air-pollution-worsens/a-51235841

Then there is this:

DW recommends

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Go there and read and read and read. More next week.

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The post Pollute Till People Die _ Why does every developing Nation have to go through this appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/business/murray-energy-coal-bankruptcy-pension/index.html

‘Nervous and scared.’ Coal workers fear for pensions after Murray Energy bankruptcy

By Matt Egan, CNN Business

Updated 10:43 AM ET, Fri November 1, 2019

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Go there and read. More next week. Coal is dying. YAA

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The post Murray Coal Goes Bankrupt – Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/pge-outage.html

PG&E Power Outage: Live Updates as Californians Face a Blackout

The second phase of a safety plan intended to prevent wildfires left hundreds of thousands more without electricity.

By Thomas Fuller

Right Now

Around 600,000 electricity customers were without power on Thursday morning.

The second phase of the shutdown cut power to about 250,000 more customers.

SAN FRANCISCO – Large areas of Northern California remained without power on Thursday as a major outage rocked the region for a second day. About 600,000 electricity customers were affected on Thursday morning after the state’s largest utility carried out the second phase of its intentional power cut.

Pacific Gas and Electric said extreme winds overnight forced the additional shutdown, which the utility organized to prevent equipment from sparking fires.

The second phase affected bedroom communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and added to the hundreds of thousands of customers who had lost power on Wednesday. As of Thursday morning, the company had restored power to 137,000 customer

And here is a map to see if you or someone you love is effected.

http://critweb-outage.pgealerts.com/?WT.mc_id=Vanity_pge-outages

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Go there and weep. More next week.

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The post Pacific Gas & Electric Cuts Power To 600,000 – They are bankrupt as well appeared first on Community Energy Systems.

https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/epa-proposes-reject-new-yorks-keep-it-ground-scheme

With this week’s EPA action, the comment period is now officially open for the public to weigh-in on whether it supports – or opposes – New York’s attempt to curtail or shut down legitimate business activities across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.  If you live in any one of these states, and particularly if you live near or work at any of the many facilities targeted (pages 33-42) by New York’s petition, now is the time for you to speak up.

Take a good look at the map below to see the locations of the many facilities targeted by New York’s petition.  Not surprisingly, power plants and refineries are major targets, but so are countless other facility types.  From a Pennsylvania facility that produces renewable energy from municipal waste to steel plants in Michigan to a box factory in rural Virginia, New York’s petition contorts the Clean Air Act well beyond the intended “major source or group of stationary sources” which are typically the subject of a state petition under Section 126.  Even a facility in western Indiana at Purdue University – which is more than 400 miles away from New York’s westernmost border – is targeted as a “bad neighbor” by New York’s complaint.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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The post The Things I Could Have Posted Today – Trump denies California’s ability to set fuel standards or Iran’s air strikes on the Saudi oil fields but appeared first on Community Energy Systems.