Oil and Chemical Spills: Federal Emergency Response Framework (PDF)
Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists)
Thousands of oil and chemical spills of varying size and magnitude occur in the United States each year. A recent spill of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol into the Elk River in early January 2014 in and near Charleston, WV, illustrates the potential magnitude of such incidents that can have broad impacts on local populations. When a spill occurs, state and local officials located in proximity to the incident generally are the first responders and may elevate an incident for federal attention if greater resources are desired. In the case of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol spill in West Virginia, President Obama issued a federal emergency declaration on January 10, 2014, to provide alternative water supplies to affected individuals. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also is supporting state efforts to respond to the spill.
The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, often referred to as the National Contingency Plan (NCP), establishes the procedures for the federal response to oil and chemical spills. The scope of the NCP encompasses discharges of oil into or upon U.S. waters and adjoining shorelines and releases of hazardous substances into the environment. The NCP was developed in 1968 and has been revised on multiple occasions to implement the federal statutory response authorities that Congress has expanded over time. Three federal environmental statutes authorized the development of the NCP: the Clean Water Act, as amended; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, as amended; and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
Forget earthquakes and tsunamis: one of the fastest-growing threats to nuclear operations could come from blobby, brainless creatures.
As threats go, the humble jellyfish hardly looks like a formidable opponent.
With a body that is between 95% and 98% water, plus no digestive or nervous system, the average Cnidarian would seem unlikely to imperil mankind's mightiest power generating systems, for example. But you might be surprised.
In September a swarm of moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita), a species that is not even dangerous to swimmers, took on one of the biggest nuclear plants on the planet… and won.
The umbrella-shaped creatures clogged a cooling water intake at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden and forced operator E.ON Kärnkraft Sverige to shut down the third reactor, cutting off 1,450MW of generation for several days.
Nor was this the first time jellyfish had struck a nuclear power plant. Oskarshamn had experienced the problem previously, in 2005. The following year Chubu Electric Power Co's Hamaoka plant in Japan had to cut its power output while dealing with a jellyfish blockage.
And in 2011, moon jellyfish swarms caused shutdowns at EDF Energy's Torness Power Station in Scotland, UK, and at Florida Power & Light's St. Lucie plant on Hutchinson Island in the US.
Cooling water
EDF Energy had to manually shut down both units at the plant "due to the high volumes of jellyfish fouling the cooling water screens," said the operator, adding that the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation had been briefed on developments.
"Reduced cooling water flows due to ingress from jellyfish, seaweed and other marine debris are considered as part of the station's safety case and are not an unknown phenomenon. At no time was there any danger to the public.
"There are no radiological aspects associated with this event and there has been no impact to the environment."
Three local trawlers ultimately helped clear the jellyfish from the vicinity of the Scottish plant. Meanwhile the Palm Beach Post provided a graphic account of the St. Lucie incident.
"Travelling through the pipes at about 4.6 mph, the jellyfishes' poisonous tentacles broke off," it said. "Trash rakes and large, rotating metal screens that prevent debris from getting into storage tanks could not keep pace with the influx of dying and dead jellyfish."
- See more at: http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/supply-chain/jellyfish-impact-nuclear-plant-operations
RESEARCH TRIANGLE, N.C., Jan. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Industrial Heat, LLC announced today that it has acquired the rights to Andrea Rossi's Italian low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) technology, the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat). A primary goal of the company is to make the technology widely available, because of its potential impact on air pollution andcarbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and biomass.
"The world needs a new, clean and efficient energy source. Such a technology would raise the standard of living in developing countries and reduce the environmental impact of producing energy," said JT Vaughn speaking on behalf of Industrial Heat (IH).
Mr. Vaughn confirmed IH acquired the intellectual property and licensing rights to Rossi's LENR device after an independent committee of European scientists conducted two multi-day tests at Rossi's facilities in Italy.
The published report by the European committee concluded, "Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources" [referring to energy output per unit of mass]. The report is available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3913. In addition, performance validation tests we conducted in the presence of IH personnel and certified by an independent expert.
In the South Coast region, which includes Los Angeles and Orange counties, the number of high-ozone days has dropped 21% since 2003 and state officials now estimate about 60% of people — including all coastal residents — live where smog meets federal health standards. But 6 million people in inland areas still live with unacceptably smoggy air.
In the San Joaquin Valley, only one-quarter of the population enjoys air quality that meets federal health standards for ozone. Though the number of high-ozone days in the valley has fallen 35% since 2003, some 3 million people live in areas where smog levels are too high, according to the air board's estimates.
A former Sony TV factory near Pittsburgh is coming to life again after lying idle for four years. Whirring robotic arms have started to assemble a new kind of battery that could make the grid more efficient and let villages run on solar power around the clock.
Aquion, the startup that developed the battery, has finished installing its first commercial-scale production line at the factory, and is sending out batteries for customers to evaluate. It recently raised $55 million of venture capital funding from investors including Bill Gates. The money will help it ramp up to full-speed production by this spring.
Jay Whitacre, the Carnegie Mellon professor of materials science and engineering who invented the new battery, says it will cost about as much as a lead-acid battery—one of the cheapest types of battery available—but will last more than twice as long. And while lead is toxic and the sulfuric-acid electrolyte in lead-acid batteries is potentially dangerous, the new battery is made of materials so safe you can eat them (although Whitacre says they taste terrible). Nontoxic materials are also a good fit for remote areas, where maintenance is difficult.
Most importantly, by providing an affordable way to store solar power for use at night or during cloudy weather, the technology could allow isolated populations to get electricity from renewable energy, rather than from polluting diesel generators. Combining solar power and inexpensive batteries would also be cheaper than running diesel generators in places where delivering fuel is expensive (see "How Solar-Based Microgrids Could Bring Power to Millions").
The batteries could allow the grid to accommodate greater amounts of intermittent renewable energy. As Aquion scales up production and brings down costs, the batteries could also be used instead of a type of natural gas power plant—called a peaker plant—often used to balance supply and demand on the grid. When recharged using renewables, the batteries don't need fuel, so they're cleaner than the natural gas power plants.
"What happens as the cooling begins, the jet stream moves from west to east in very large waves, but the amplitude, that is the north-south orientation of those waves, increases. It's called a meridional pattern of weather, and that's why you see the record colds that you had in the U.S. recently, but also record warms," Ball explained.
"Look at eastern Australia as an example, or Siberia earlier in the winter. So if you imagine these waves where you've got cold air pushing toward the equator in one area, you've also got warmer air pushing further toward the poles in other areas. That's why you've got this increasing variability of the weather," said Ball, who noted that history tells us exactly what these conditions mean.
"If you look at the historic record, and I mean going over 10,000 years, this pattern occurs as the earth starts its cooling down process. And that's what's going to happen," he said. "We're going to be in this cooling until at least 2040."
Please continue reading
http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/big-chill-expected-to-stay-until-2040/
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) – Explosions in two U.S. states, one at an animal feed plant in Nebraska and another at a steel plant in Oklahoma, killed at least four people and injured almost a dozen on Monday, authorities said.
An explosion and fire flattened part of an animal feed plant in Omaha, Nebraska, killing two people and injuring at least 10 others, authorities said.
In the Omaha incident, about 38 employees were working at the International Nutrition plant at midmorning when there was an explosion and part of the building collapsed, interim Fire Chief Bernard Kanger told a news conference.
One body has been recovered and the other is expected to be recovered on Tuesday from the industrial accident, Kanger said. Of the 10 injured, four were in critical condition, he said.
All employees have been accounted for, but authorities are not sure if there were any visitors in the plant, he said.
In a separate incident, two workers likely "burned to death" when a furnace exploded at about 4 p.m. local time at an Oklahoma steel plant, a Marshall County Sheriff's Office dispatcher said.
A third person was injured at Mid American Steel and Wire in Madill, Oklahoma, but treated for burns and released from a local hospital, said Madill Fire Department Fire Chief Keith Pruitt.
Since 2010, India has hiked installed solar power capacity from a meagre 17.8 megawatts to more than 2,000MW, official figures show, as part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's aim to make "the sun occupy centre-stage" in the country's energy mix. Key to the progress has been a rapid fall in the cost per unit of solar electricity to close to what is known as "grid parity" -- the cost of conventional electricity generated by carbon-gas emitting coal. ... The next stage of expansion will see India build the world's largest solar plant to generate 4,000MW on the shores of a saltwater lake in the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan, which should drive solar power costs even lower. Operators believe economies of scale from the 280-billion-rupee ($4.4 billion) Sambhar plant to be constructed over the next seven years will reduce prices to 5.0-5.5 rupees a kilowatt-hour. "This is the first project of this scale anywhere in the world" and "is expected to set a trend for large-scale solar power developments," said Ashvini Kumar, director of Solar Energy Corp, one of five public utilities that will run the plan... Shared via feedly // published on Peak Energy // visit site
Oakland, Calif. – The chemical company Chemtura sued the state of California yesterday seeking to block new fire safety regulations that would permit furniture production without toxic flame retardants.
The new rules, which Gov. Jerry Brown put into force last November would allow furniture manufacturers to meet California's fire safety standards without using fire retardants chemicals, including those manufactured by Chemtura.
"This lawsuit is a blatant attempt to protect the company's profits under the guise of concern for public safety," said Renee Sharp, EWG's director of research. "If successful, this lawsuit would undermine one of the most important environmental and public health victories of 2013 – Gov. Brown's move to revamp the state's outdated and problematic fire safety standards. Previous fire safety rules did not effectively protect us from fire dangers, but they did contaminate our bodies and those of our children with chemicals linked to cancer and other serious dangers to health."
The new regulations are expected to have a significant impact nationwide for Chemtura' future profits because California, with 10 percent of the U.S. population, has so much purchasing power that most furniture makers fabricate their products to comply with the state's flammability standards.
Environment News Service], January 15, 2014 (ENS) – Proposed large-scale mining in Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed would pose risks to the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery and Alaska Native cultures dependent on salmon, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concludes in its final Bristol Bay Assessment released today.
The report, titled "An Assessment of Potential Mining Impacts on Salmon Ecosystems of Bristol Bay, Alaska," is a scientific report, not a decision document, Dennis McLerran, regional administrator for EPA Region 10, told reporters on a conference call.
"The assessment is a technical resource for governments, tribes and the public as we consider how to address the challenges of large-scale mining and ecological protection in the Bristol Bay watershed," said McLerran.
"Over three years, EPA compiled the best, most current science on the Bristol Bay watershed to understand how large-scale mining could impact salmon and water in this unique area of unparalleled natural resources," McLerran said.
They are identified as mineral development areas by the State of Alaska."Our report concludes that large-scale mining poses risks to salmon and the tribal communities that have depended on them for thousands of years," said McLerran. "It really is an extraordinary place."
MIT Technology Review: At a pilot plant in Menlo Park, California, a technician pours white pellets into a steel tube and then taps it with a wrench to make sure they settle together. He closes the tube, and oxygen and methane—the main ingredient of natural gas—flow in. Seconds later, water and ethylene, the world's largest commodity chemical, flow out. Another simple step converts the ethylene into gasoline.
The white pellets are a catalyst developed by the Silicon Valley startup Siluria, which has raised $63.5 million in venture capital. If the catalysts work as well in a large, commercial scale plant as they do in tests, Siluria says, the company could produce gasoline from natural gas at about half the cost of making it from crude oil—at least at today's cheap natural-gas prices.
If Siluria really can make cheap gasoline from natural gas it will have achieved something that has eluded the world's top chemists and oil and gas companies for decades. Indeed, finding an inexpensive and direct way to upgrade natural gas into more valuable and useful chemicals and fuels could finally mean a cheap replacement for petroleum.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) WaterSense program is rolling out the WaterSense H2Otel Challenge! I encourage you to help recruit your lodging industry clients to encourage their participation in this excellent program.
I'm excited about WaterSense – it's poised to become a brand as well recognized as Energy Star. Our region isn't as pervasively sensitive to water conservation as some more parched areas of the country, but our drought episodes of recent years have created a greater awareness of the importance of becoming more parsimonious (there's your word for the day) in our water use.
Your program is one that has worked to promote resource conservation for many; this sector is trying to meet an increased demand for green lodging. As you know, hotel facility managers often don't have the resources or information they need to reduce their impact on the environment. EPA is launching the H2Otel Challenge to help lodging facilities save water, energy, and money—and I believe that your program benefits from helping to promote this effort.
WaterSense is encouraging lodging facilities to take the "guest work" out of saving water by challenging them to "ACT" (assess, change, and track):
EPA is offering a series of webinars and tools to help participating hotels learn how to assess water use in their facilities; identify savings opportunities; calculate the simple payback period for their investments; and track their results.
Your first "ask" of your lodging industry customers is a simple first step for promoting change: Interested hotels only need to take a pledge on the WaterSense website.
Join WaterSense Today
You may not yet know your organization is eligible to become a WaterSense promotional partner. Joining WaterSense is free and easy! WaterSense partnership connects you to a network of utilities, local governments, manufacturers, retailers and distributors, builders, and other organizations working to promote the WaterSense label and water efficiency. You will gain exclusive access to outreach and marketing resources to help you promote the H2Otel Challenge, WaterSense labeled products, and water efficiency. We encourage you to submit apartnership agreement to start benefiting from these resources today.
Informational Webinar
To learn more about WaterSense, the H2Otel Challenge, and how WaterSense can assist you in bringing the Challenge to your members, please register for our informational webinar on Thursday, January 16, 2014, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Central. For more information about saving water in hotels and other buildings, visit WaterSense at Work: Best Management Practices for Commercial and Institutional Facilities.
If you have any questions, please contact the WaterSense Helpline at watersense@epa.gov or 866-WTR-SENS (987-7367). I know they look forward to partnering with you!
