- Ecology

Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:25:03 -0600

Former World Bank Chief On The West-East Wealth Transfer, And The Africa 'Problem'

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:01:01 -0700

The Big Fix

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:05:01 -0700

Japan's Radioactive Waters

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:41:16 -0700

BP Oil Disaster NOT OVER! THE BIG FIX

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:29:47 -0700

The Real Dirt On Farmer John

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:16:28 -0600

Robyn O'Brien - The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:42:26 -0600

Bulletproof Human Skin Made Via Spider Silk Protein

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:17:36 -0600

Source:The Daily Mail - August 16, 2011

Researchers genetically engineered goats to produce milk which is packed with the same protein as silk spiders.

Once this is milked out it can be spun out and weaved into a material that is ten times stronger than steel.

The fabric can then be blended with human skin to make what the scientists hope will be tough enough to stop even a bullet.

Dutch researcher Jalila Essaidi said the 'spidersilk' project was called '2.6g 329m/s' after the weight and the velocity of a .22 calibre long rifle bullet.

Working with the Forensic Genomics Consortium in the Netherlands, she said the goal was to replace the keratin in our skin with the spider’s silk.

The first stage involves growing a layer of real skin around a sample of the bulletproof skin, which takes about five weeks.

Essaidi said that the project was making science fiction a reality, even if the tests results were not yet perfect.

She said that silk has a long history of using battle in combat and that Genghis Khan once issued all his horsemen with silk vests as an arrow hitting silk does not break, meaning you can tease it out.

‘Imagine a spidersilk vest, capable of catching bullets, the modern day equivalent of Genghis Khan’s arrows,’ she said.

‘Now, let’s take this one step further, why bother with a vest: imagine replacing keratin, the protein responsible for the toughness of the human skin, with this spidersilk protein.

‘This is possible by adding the silk producing genes of a spider to the gnome of a human: creating a bulletproof human.

‘Science-fiction? Maybe, but we can get a feeling of what this transhumanistic idea would be like by letting a bulletproof matrix of spidersilk merge with an in vitro human skin.’

Bullet proof vests have been around for decades but skin that can stop them has only been the preserve of science fiction.

The most famous example is Superman, or the Man of Steel - bullets simply ricochet off of him.

German Village Produces 321% More Energy Than It Needs!

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:37:10 -0600

Source: Inhabitat - August 21, 2011

Ok, those Germans are just showing off now. Not only has the nation announced plans to shut down all of its nuclear power plants and started the construction of 2,800 miles of transmission lines for its new renewable energy initiative, but now the village of Wildpoldsried is producing 321% more energy than it needs! The small agricultural village in the state of Bavaria is generating an impressive $5.7 million in annual revenue from renewable energy.

It’s no surprise that the country that has kicked butt at the Solar Decathlon competition (to produce energy positive solar houses) year after year is the home to such a productive energy-efficient village. The village’s green initiative first started in 1997 when the village council decided that it should build new industries, keep initiatives local, bring in new revenue, and create no debt. Over the past 14 years, the community has equipped nine new community buildings with solar panels, built four biogas digesters (with a fifth in construction now) and installed seven windmills with two more on the way. In the village itself, 190 private households have solar panels while the district also benefits from three small hydro power plants, ecological flood control, and a natural waste water system.

All of these green systems means that despite only having a population of 2,600, Wildpoldsried produces 321 percent more energy than it needs – and it’s generating 4.0 million Euro (US $5.7 million) in annual revenue by selling it back to the national grid. It is no surprise to learn that small businesses have developed in the village specifically to provide services to the renewable energy installations.

Over the years the village’s green goals have been so successful that they have even crafted a mission statement — WIR–2020, Wildpoldsried Innovativ Richtungsweisend (Wildpoldsried Innovative Leadership). The village council hopes that it will inspire citizens to do their part for the environment and create green jobs and businesses for the local area.

As a result of the village’s success, Wildpoldsried has received numerous national and international awards for its conservation and renewable energy initiatives known as Klimaschutz (climate protection). The council even hosts tours for other village councils on how to start their own Klimaschutz program. The Mayor has even been doing global tours ever since the Fukushima disaster.

Mayor Zengerle has gone to Romania, Berlin and the Black Sea Region to speak about how these places can transform their communities and make money in the process. Speaking to Biocycle, Mayor Zengerle said, “The mitigation of climate change in practice can only be implemented with the citizens and with the Village Council behind them 100 percent of the way. This model cannot be forced from only one side. We often spend a lot of time talking to our visitors about how to motivate the village council (and Mayor) to start thinking differently. We show them a best practices model in motion and many see the benefits immediately. From the tour we give, our guests understand how well things can operate when you have the enthusiasm and conviction of the people.”

Farmageddon - Movie Trailer

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:59:50 -0600

Farmageddon - Movie Trailer from Kristin Canty on Vimeo.

Macondo Rises Again

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:48:30 -0600

Source: Stuart Smith - August 17, 2011

Oil from the Macondo Well site is fouling the Gulf anew – and BP is scrambling to contain both the crude and the PR nightmare that waits in the wings. Reliable sources tell us that BP has hired 40 boats from Venice to Grand Isle to lay boom around the Deepwater Horizon site – located just 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The fleet rushed to the scene late last week and worked through the weekend to contain what was becoming a massive slick at the site of the Macondo wellhead, which was officially “killed” back in September 2010.

The truly frightening part of this development, as reported in a previous post (see below), is the oil may be coming from cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by the work BP did during its failed attempts to cap the runaway Macondo Well – and that type of leakage can’t be stopped, ever.

Catch up on how this could possibly be happening – again – by reading or re-reading my July 25 post below. Stay tuned as we will be all over this story as it continues to develop.

Is BP’s Macondo Well Site Still Leaking? Fresh Oil on the Gulf Raises Concerns and Haunting Memories

Fresh oil is surfacing all over the northern quadrant of the Gulf of Mexico. Reports of slicks that meander for miles and huge expanses of oil sheen that look like phantom islands are becoming common, again. Fresh oil, only slightly weathered, is washing ashore in areas hit hardest by last year’s massive spill, like Breton Island, Ship Island, the Chandeleurs and northern Barataria Bay. BP has reactivated its Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) program to handle cleanup. It’s a sickeningly familiar scene that has fishermen, researchers and public officials searching for answers, as haunting memories of last year’s calamity come roaring back.

The fifty-thousand-dollar question, of course, is where is all the new oil coming from?

One theory: The Macondo Well site, located just 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, is still leaking untold amounts of oil into the Gulf. Some argue that the casing on the capped well itself is leaking. Others believe oil is seeping through cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by months of high-impact work on the site, including a range of recovery activities (some disclosed, some not) as well as the abortive “top kill” effort.

In January 2011, a prominent “geohazards specialist” wrote an urgent letter to two members of Congress – U.S. Reps. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and John Shimkus, chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy – suggesting that the Macondo site is leaking oil like a sieve. Here’s an excerpt from that letter (see it in its entirety at link below):

There is no question that the oil seepages, gas columns, fissures and blowout craters in the seafloor around the Macondo wellhead… have been the direct result of indiscriminate drilling, grouting, injection of dispersant and other undisclosed recover activities. As the rogue well had not been successfully cemented and plugged at the base of the well by the relief wells, unknown quantities of hydrocarbons are still leaking out from the reservoir at high pressure and are seeping through multiple fault lines to the seabed. It is not possible to cap this oil leakage.

BK Lim, the letter’s author, has more than 30 years of experience working inside the oil and gas industry for companies like Shell, Petronas and Pearl Oil.

More from Mr. Lim’s letter:

The continuing hydrocarbon seepage would have long term, irreversible and potentially dire consequences in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico)…

The letter is dated Jan. 14, 2011 – and we’ve been seeing more and more evidence that the scenario Mr. Lim describes is indeed taking place deep below the Gulf’s surface.

For example, on March 28, 2011, Paul Orr and his team from the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper – an organization I’ve worked with frequently over the course of the last year – conducted a 50-mile boat patrol and sampling tour of Breton Sound, which lies just off the southeast coast of Louisiana. The excursion was prompted by multiple, increasingly frantic, reports of oil in the area by fishermen and others, including On Wings of Care pilot Bonny Schumaker, who has dozens of Gulf flyovers under her belt.

Mr. Orr took a sample from the southern end of Breton Island National Park – and sure enough, lab-certified tests results established a fingerprint match to BP’s Macondo Well (see link to my previous post and test results below).

The most alarming part of the finding was not simply that the Breton Island sample had BP’s fingerprint on it, but that the test results were nearly identical to those from the fresh oil seen in the early days of the BP spill – instead of the heavily weathered and degraded oil we’ve come to expect in recent weeks and months.

Those test results seem to disprove the other theory surrounding this spate of recent “fresh oil” reports. That is: All the oil BP strategically sunk to the seafloor with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant is beginning to break free and rise to the surface en masse, and in turn, blacken the coastline with fresh oil. According to civil engineer and petroleum expert, Marco Kaltofen, oil that has been lying on the seafloor for several months would be much significantly more weathered than the fresh oil we’re seeing more and more of.

As you’ll notice from the histograms, the Breton Island sample mirrors the submerged oil sampled from Pensacola Bay on Nov. 5, 2010 (see link to original post with histograms below) and a sample taken from Panama City Beach on July 14, 2010. You don’t have to be a marine biologist to see that this is the same oil with nearly identical weathering.

So we had fresh oil with BP’s signature on it coming ashore in March – more than eight months after the Macondo Well was capped. And since then, members of my team and other researchers have reported fresh oil, of the “only slightly weathered” variety from Grand Isle to Pensacola. One charter boat fishing captain, who frequents the waters around Louisiana’s barrier islands, is describing the current, hauntingly familiar situation on the Gulf as the “second wave” of the BP disaster.

Fukushima Update - 50 Years To Clean - Power Rationing

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:40:44 -0600

Texas In Drought, Faces Rolling Blackouts

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:04:08 -0600

Source: The Daily Mail - August 5, 2011

Electricity officials in heatwave-hit Texas have warned of impending rolling blackouts from power shortages as the U.S. state struggles to cope with the relentless scorching temperatures.

Texans have turned to air conditioners in huge numbers in a bid to beat one of the hottest summers on record in America's second most populous state.

But bosses for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) say the soaring power demand in the face of the brutal heatwave has left the state one power plant shut-down away from rolling blackouts.

Temperatures in Texas are currently topping 100F (37.8C) and have been soaring for well over a month.

Record highs have also been recorded this week in nearby states Oklahoma and Arkansas as the relentless heatwave spreads across southern America.

In Forth Smith and Little Rock, Arkansas, the mercury hit 115F on Wednesday.

ERCOT, which runs the power grid for most of Texas, cut power to some large industrial users after electricity demand hit three consecutive records this week alone.

The grid operator now faces rolling blackouts similar to those which hit Texas during a bitter cold snap in February.

Although the electricity firm have done their best to regulate power use and prevent shortages, experts admitted a further shut-down is a possibility.

Arshad Mansoor, senior vice president at the Electric Power Research Institute, said: 'You always have to expect the unexpected can happen.
'A unit can shut. The wind may not blow.'

Ice storms in February crippled dozens of power plants, forcing ERCOT to impose rolling blackouts for hours as electric power demand outstripped supply.

Power usage in ERCOT reached its highest level ever on Wednesday at 68,294 megawatts, almost four per cent over last year's peak.

The Texas grid faces at least one more day of extreme stress before temperatures cool slightly over the weekend.

Temperatures in Houston, the state's biggest city, should return to near normal levels in the upper 90s over the weekend, according to AccuWeather.com.

The state's biggest power generators, including units of Energy Future Holdings, NRG Energy, Calpine Corp and others, have been running flat out to cash in real-time prices that have hit the $3,000/MWh cap in recent days.

But the state's reserve margins have been running razor thin. On Wednesday ERCOT came within 50 megawatts of interrupting flows to industrial customers.

One megawatt powers about 200 homes in Texas during hot weather when air conditioners are running for long periods.

Kent Saathoff, ERCOT's vice president of system planning and operations, said more generation supplies would help, but added that state power generators cannot be expected to prepare for every extreme in weather.

He said: 'You have to determine if it is worth spending millions or billions to avoid a one in 10-year event.'

With record-breaking demand came record-breaking prices. Prices for Thursday power topped $400 per megawatt hour, the highest in at least a decade. Friday's power prices approached $600.

Real-time prices also hit the $3,000 market cap over the past few days.
ERCOT has about 73,000 MW of natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear and wind generating facilities, but not all of that capacity is available all the time.

Texas has the most wind power in the country, but the wind does not blow during the summer. Ercot said it got about 2,000 MW from wind during the peak hour on Wednesday.

Arnie Gundersen - Update On Fukushima - Black Rain

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:28:58 -0600

Ex Japanese Nuclear Regulator Blames Radioactive Animal Feed on "Black Rain" from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

The Perennial Plate: Brothers

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:39:54 -0600

The Perennial Plate Episode 61: Brothers from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.