In an earlier newsletter I posted an article "By the Numbers" on Nuclear Power. Now republican lawmakers are campaigning on the need for 100 more nuclear power plants. Their reasoning is that it will cost billions to subsidize renewable energy. As posted earlier, one power plant could cost up to $25 Billion and take 10 years or more to build. They believe that $2.5 trillion and thousands of tons of nuclear waste is better for the country than renewable energy. You have to wonder why there are some that are abandoning the GOP.
'Climate change' forces Eskimos to abandon village
Climate Change Means Shortfalls In Colorado River Water Deliveries
International Code Council to Create Green Building Code
High-Speed-Rail Corridors
Architectural Billings Index Jumps 8 Points
'Moderately Large' Potential For Red Tide Outbreak In Gulf Of Maine Region
The Season Of Ticks: Could Climate Change Worsen Lyme Disease?
Bush Rule Allowing Coal Waste Valley Fills 'Legally Defective'
How Green Is The LEED Label?
All-electric cars about to be resurrected
Arctic CO2 levels growing at an 'unprecedented rate', say scientists
Republicans: Nuclear energy the way to stop climate change
A new light on saving energy
The electric car: a brief history and what's next?
The 14 best states for energy efficiency
'Climate change' forces Eskimos to abandon village
(CNN) -- The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground.
The community of the tiny coastal village of Newtok voted to relocate its 340 residents to new homes 9 miles away, up the Ninglick River. The village, home to indigenous Yup'ik Eskimos, is the first of possibly scores of threatened Alaskan communities that could be abandoned.
Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against summer deluges from ocean storm surges.
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Climate Change Means Shortfalls In Colorado River Water Deliveries
ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2009) -- The Colorado River system supplies water to tens of millions of people and millions of acres of farmland, and has never experienced a delivery shortage. But if human-caused climate change continues to make the region drier, scheduled deliveries will be missed 60-90 percent of the time by the middle of this century, according to a pair of climate researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.
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International Code Council to Create Green Building Code
"It has become clear to us that to advance the goal of achieving more sustainable building performance, some regulatory framework is needed for areas where market forces are not enough," stated Washington, D.C.-headquartered International Code Council (ICC) CEO Richard P. Weiland in a press release from the April 22 Earth Day session in the Chicago District Office, announcing initiation of a "Green Building Code Development Project" -- targeted at traditional and high-performance buildings -- which will set criteria to make green construction everyday practice.
The code will likely focus on energy and water-use efficiency, materials and resource conservation, indoor environmental quality and overall building impact on the environment, with residential issues addressed through ICC 700 -- the 2008 National Green Building Standard, developed in partnership with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and approved last January by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the first "green" housing rating system to earn its seal.
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High-Speed-Rail Corridors
Drawing on $8 billion from the federal economic stimulus, the Obama administration has laid out a blueprint for developing high-speed rail in 100- to 600-mile-long corridors around the country. The plan, which the U.S. Dept. of Transportation unveiled April 16, does not say which projects will be
funded. DOT will start awarding the first round of grants for ready-to-go upgrades to existing routes by late summer. A second phase would have a longer-range focus. However, carrying out the plan's lofty aims will require much more than $8 billion. It is uncertain where that new money will come from.
Still, it is clear is high-speed rail has barreled to a top place on the federal transportation priority list. Underlining the plan's importance, President Barack Obama appeared at DOT headquarters to endorse a program "to transform travel in America with an historic investment in high-speed rail."
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Architectural Billings Index Jumps 8 Points
The Architectural Billings Index (ABI) rose to 43.7 in March, up from 35.3 in February. It's the first time the score has landed above 40 since last September.
The inquiries score, which in February was 49.5, climbed to 56.6.
The index, one of the profession's leading economic indicators, reflects a nine- to 12-month lag time between architectural billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects produces the index based on surveys sent to architecture firms. A score above 50 indicates an increase in billings, and below 50, a decrease. In January, the billings score dipped to 33.3--a record low in the ABI's 13-year history.
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'Moderately Large' Potential For Red Tide Outbreak In Gulf Of Maine Region
ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2009) -- The potential for an outbreak of the phenomenon commonly called "red tide" is expected to be "moderately large" this spring and summer, according to researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and North Carolina State University (NCSU).
The researchers found concentrations of Alexandrium cysts -- the dormant seed-like stage of the algae's life cycle -- in the Gulf of Maine to be 40 percent lower than the historically high levels observed prior to last year's bloom, but still higher than the level preceding a major regional bloom in spring 2006 that closed shellfish beds from Canada to Massachusetts Bay.
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The Season Of Ticks: Could Climate Change Worsen Lyme Disease?
ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2009) -- In a finding that suggests how global warming could impact infectious disease, scientists from Yale University, in collaboration with other institutions, have determined that climate impacts the severity of Lyme Disease by influencing the feeding patterns of deer ticks that carry and transmit it.
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Bush Rule Allowing Coal Waste Valley Fills 'Legally Defective'
WASHINGTON, DC, April 27, 2009 (ENS) – A last minute Bush-era rule that allows coal mine operators to fill valley streams with waste rock whenever they consider alternative options to be too expensive is "legally defective" Interior Secretary Ken Salazar determined today.
Under the Bush rule, coal companies can dispose of excess mountaintop spoil in perennial and intermittent streams and within 100 feet of those streams.
Salazar directed the U.S. Justice Department to file a pleading with the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC requesting that the "stream buffer zone rule" be vacated due to this deficiency and remanded to the Department of the Interior for further action.
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How Green Is The LEED Label?
The biggest energy users in America are not cars and trucks - they're buildings. Buildings use about 40% of the nation's energy. In 2000, the US Green Building Council introduced a program that certifies "green" buildings. It's called LEED. That stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. A new version of the LEED standards is being released today, April 27. But Samara Freemark reports some critics see serious flaws in the LEED program:
Before LEED came around in 2000, developers didn't really spend a lot of time worrying about whether their buildings were green. They were designing and constructing buildings they could market. Green just wasn't a priority.
"It was always the last thing on the agenda for the staff meeting, because nobody really understood what success looked like."
Brendan Owens is a LEED spokesman. He says the people who came up with LEED wanted to change the culture of building in America. Make building ‘green' marketable.
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All-electric cars about to be resurrected
The all-electric car, which had a brief heyday less than a decade ago and then went the way of the dodo, killed off by the car companies, is about to make a comeback.
Charged up with lighter, more sophisticated and efficient batteries, and competitively priced with gasoline-driven and hybrid vehicles, the new offers will be marketed and sold primarily as second cars - for running errands, taking kids to school and the like. These silent electric autos will be plugged into home outlets at night and during the day will be able to travel 100 miles or more without stopping for a charge.
Nissan said recently it has developed a mas-market electric car, due out by the end of next year, that will seat five and can have its battery charged to 80 percent of capacity in 26 minutes. It will have all the amenities car buyers want, Nissan says, such as navigation, super stereo and heated seats, and will cost between $20,000 and $30,000.
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Arctic CO2 levels growing at an 'unprecedented rate', say scientists
Figures from a measuring station in northern Norway show that CO2 levels are increasing by 2-3 parts per million every year
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures released by an internationally regarded measuring station in the Arctic.
The measurements suggest that the main greenhouse gas is continuing to increase in the atmosphere at an alarming rate despite the downturn in dip in the rate of increase of the global economy.
Levels of the gas at the Zeppelin research station on Svalbard, northern Norway, last week peaked at over 397 parts per million (ppm), an increase of more than 2.5ppm on 2008. They have since begun to reduce and today stand at 393.7ppm. Prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 levels were around 280ppm.
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Republicans: Nuclear energy the way to stop climate change
The US should build 100 more nuclear plants rather than spend "billions in subsidies" for renewable energy if it is truly committed to lowering electric bills and having clean air, the Republicans say.
In the party's weekly radio and internet address, Senator Lamar Alexander said the United States should follow the example of France, which promoted nuclear power decades ago. Today, nuclear plants provide 80 percent of France's electricity, and the country has one of the lowest electric rates and carbon emissions in Europe, he said.
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A new light on saving energy
Some 80,000 dynamic street lights have been installed in Europe over the past few years. Quite a modest number if you consider that there are some 91 million light points in Europe. The city of Oslo alone has 54,000 street lights. A dynamic street light is a system that tells you exactly how much energy each single luminary is using and when its lamp needs to be replaced. It adapts the light intensity automatically to external factors such as the amount of daylight, weather conditions, road constructions or traffic density. Such adaptation (dimming) does not only prolong the lifetime of the lamp, it also saves energy. As each luminary is connected to a central database, it is possible to organize maintenance much more efficiently. The system shows when a lamp needs to be replaced. Replacing lamps in time saves a considerable amount of energy, since their efficiency decreases towards the end of their economic life. In addition timely replacement extends the lifetime of other street light components.
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The electric car: a brief history and what's next?
At the end of the 19th century, any vehicle not pulled by a horse or mule was considered an alternative power vehicle, powered by steam, electricity or gasoline. But oil was discovered in Texas in 1901 and by 1920, gasoline fueled internal-combustion engine vehicles dominated the marketplace. Electricity and steam powered vehicles became distant also-rans. Oil was cheap, effective, readily available and easily transportable. It was also dirty, noisy and smelly but these characteristics were minor in comparison with its cost and availability.
Electric cars were introduced in the first half of the 19th century. At the end of the 20th century, electric vehicles held most world speed and distance records. They were cleaner, quieter, easier to operate and easier to maintain than steam or gasoline fueled cars but had a fatal weakness: battery technology limited the driving range of electric cars to between 40 and 50 miles before needing a 6 to 8 hour charge. Electric vehicles continued to be manufactured in the U.S. through 1939.
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The 14 best states for energy efficiency
Once a "token gesture," energy efficiency is now increasingly becoming a "first fuel" -- the resource utilities seek before any other, even before renewable energy or other in-favor generation sources. So says the report, "Meeting Aggressive New State Goals for Utility-Sector Energy Efficiency: Examining Key Factors Associated with High Savings," issued today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Chances are you are experiencing the benefits of efficiency – or are about to do so – if you live in one of 14 states the report identifies as leaders: California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Wisconsin, New York, Oregon, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington, Texas, Iowa, Rhode Island, and Nevada.
These states show the biggest gains from efficiency. They also spend the most on programs and have the greatest legislative support.
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