A Material That Could Make Solar Power “Dirt Cheap” | MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review...Researchers developing the technology say that it could lead to solar panels that cost just 10 to 20 cents per watt. Solar panels now typically cost about 75 cents a watt, and the U.S. Department of Energy says 50 cents per watt will allow solar power to compete with fossil fuel.

In the past, solar researchers have been divided into two camps in their pursuit of cheaper solar power. Some have sought solar cells that can be made very cheaply but that have the downside of being relatively inefficient. Lately, more researchers have focused on developing very high efficiency cells, even if they require more expensive manufacturing techniques.

The new material may make it possible to get the best of both worlds—solar cells that are highly efficient but also cheap to make.

One of the world's top solar researchers, Martin Green of the University of New South Wales, Australia, says the rapid progress has been surprising. Solar cells that use the material "can be made with very simple and potentially very cheap technology, and the efficiency is rising very dramatically," he says.

Perovskites have been known for over a century, but no one thought to try them in solar cells until relatively recently. The particular material the researchers are using is very good at absorbing light. While conventional silicon solar panels use materials that are about 180 micrometers thick, the new solar cells use less than one micrometer of material to capture the same amount of sunlight. The pigment is a semiconductor that is also good at transporting the electric charge created when light hits it.

"The material is dirt cheap," says Michael Grätzel, who is famous within the solar industry for inventing a type of solar cell that bears his name. His group has produced the most efficient perovskite solar cells so far—they convert 15 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity, far more than other cheap-to-make solar cells. Based on its performance so far, and on its known light-conversion properties, researchers say its efficiency could easily rise as high as 20 to 25 percent, which is as good as the record efficiencies (typically achieved in labs) of the most common types of solar cells today. The efficiencies of mass-produced solar cells may be lower. But it makes sense to compare the lab efficiencies of the perovskite cells with the lab records for other materials. Grätzel says that perovskite in solar cells will likely prove to be a "forgiving" material that retains high efficiencies in mass production, since the manufacturing processes are simple.

Please continue reading at: MIT Technology Review 

Sweden does not have enough garbage and imports it but fortunately they are paid to take garbage [feedly]

Due to Sweden's innovative waste-to-energy program and highly efficient recycling habits, the Scandinavian nation faces an interesting dilemma. They have run out of trash.

Only four percent of Sweden's waste ends up in landfills while the EPA reports over half of the waste produced by U.S. households ends up in landfills.

In order to continue fueling the waste-to-energy factories that provide electricity to a quarter of a million homes and 20 percent of the entire country's district heating, Sweden is now importing trash from the landfills of other European countries. In fact, those countries are paying Sweden to do so.

Countries are paying Sweden to get rid of a source of fuel they themselves produced so that Sweden can continue to have the energy output they need. You don't have to be an economist to know that's one highly enviable energy model. Aside from the economic benefit, Sweden's system of sustainability clearly has vast environmental benefits. Aside from traditional recycling programs, their waste-to-energy system ensures minimal environmental impact from the country's waste.

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Healthier for people, more environmentally friendly and more efficient fish farming that is independent of any wild fish feedstocks

Australian CSIRO scientists have perfected the Novacq™ prawn feed additive. Farmed prawns fed with Novacq grow on average 30 per cent faster, are healthier and can be produced with no fish products in their diet, a world-first achievement in sustainability. 

Until now, Australian prawn farmers have needed to feed their prawns with a pellet that includes some sustainably sourced fish meal or fish oil, in order to ensure that the prawns grew fast, and were a healthy and high quality product for consumers.

Novacq is an entirely natural food source based on the smallest organisms in the marine environment, the marine microbes which are the foundation of the marine food pyramid.

Production of Novacq relies on the controlled production of these marine microbes. CSIRO researchers have discovered how to feed and harvest them, and convert them into a product that can then be added to feeds as a bioactive ingredient, like a dietary supplement for prawns.

Including Novacq in the diet of farmed prawns has shown for the first time that fish meal and fish oil can be completely replaced in the prawn diet, potentially freeing the prawn aquaculture industry from reliance on wild fishery resources.

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China's Pollution Fighting Budget Will Have to Be Bigger than its Military Budget

China will spend $275 billion over the next five years improving air quality—roughly the same as the GDP of Hong Kong, and twice the size of the annual defence budget [40% of the defence budget over the same five years]. China is also spending to clean up water pollution. 

China plans to invest 2.3 trillion yuan ($375 billion) in energy saving and emission-reduction projects in the five years through 2015 to clean up its environment. This is about 54% of the projected $685 billion that China will spend on its military over 5 years. The plan, which has been approved by the State Council, is on top of a 1.85 trillion yuan investment in the renewable energy sector. Combined the energy saving and emission-reduction projects and the renewables buildup is $675 billion. China would benefit more by shifting military budget into pollution fighting. China has sufficient military and has nuclear and military to deter any attack and to meet basic military goals. China's pollution is harming its economy now and harming the health of everyone and killing upwards of 1 million people each year.

The health costs of air and water pollution in China amount to about 4.3 percent of its GDP. By adding the non-health impacts of pollution, which are estimated to be about 1.5 percent of GDP, the total cost of air and water pollution in China is about 5.8 percent of GDP.

China's economy will go from $8.5 trillion this year to about $12-20 trillion in 2018 (depending upon RMB currency appreciation). The cost to China will be $490 billion to 1.2 trillion in each of the years. It will be in the range of $3-5 trillion over the 5 year timeframe.

In January 2013 the air of Beijing hit a level of toxicity 40 times above what the World Health Organization deems safe. A tenth of the country's farmland is poisoned with chemicals and heavy metals. Half of China's urban water supplies are unfit even to wash in, let alone drink. In the northern half of the country air pollution lops five-and-a-half years off the average life.

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How unsustainable our techno future is...25 times more power efficiency is needed for exaflop supercomputers with reasonable energy needs

How unsustainable our techno future is...An exascale system built with NVIDIA Kepler K20 co-processors would consume about 150 megawatts. That's nearly 10 times the amount consumed by Tianhe-2, which is composed of 32,000 Intel Ivy Bridge sockets and 48,000 Xeon Phi boards.

Theoretically, an exascale system – 100 times more computing capability than today's fastest systems – could be built with only x86 processors, but it would require as much as 2 gigawatts of power.

That's the entire output of the Hoover Dam.

Instead, HPC system developers need to take an entirely new approach to get around the power crunch, Dally said. The NVIDIA chief scientist said reaching exascale will require a 25x improvement in energy efficiency. So the 2 gigaflops per watt that can be squeezed from today's systems needs to improve to about 50 gigaflops per watt in the future exascale system.

Relying on Moore's Law to get that 25x improvement is probably not the best approach either. According to Dally, advances in manufacturing processes will deliver about a 2.2x improvement in performance per watt. That leaves an energy efficiency gap of 12x that needs to be filled in by other means.

Dally sees a combination of better circuit design and better processor architectures to close the gap. If done correctly, these advances could deliver 3x and 4x improvements in performance per watt, respectively.

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Bill Gates Promotes Vaccine Projects, Swipes At Google

In a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Bill Gates discussed his Foundation's work to eradicate polio and malaria, while suggesting that vaccine programs and similar initiatives to fight disease and poverty will ultimately do much more for the world than technology projects devoted to connecting everybody to the Internet. While Gates professes his belief in the so-called digital revolution, he doesn't think projects such as Google's Internet blimps (designed to transmit WiFi signals over hundreds of miles, bringing Internet to underserved areas in the process) will do the third world nearly as much as good as basic healthcare. "When you're dying of malaria, I suppose you'll look up and see that [Internet] balloon, and I'm not sure how it'll help you," he said. "When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there's no website that relieves that." Gates then sharpened his attack on the search-engine giant: "Google started out saying they were going to do a broad set of things. They hired Larry Brilliant, and they got fantastic publicity. And then they shut it all down." Google focusing on its core mission is fine, he added, "but the actors who just do their core thing are not going to uplift the poor." The Microsoft co-founder also has no intention of following Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other tech entrepreneurs into the realm of space exploration. "I guess it's fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air," he said. "But it's not an area that I'll be putting money into."

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60% of Federal Student Loan Borrowers, or 17 million, don't pay the US government a single cent!

...Said otherwise, of the 28 million Americans with federal student loans, 60%, or 17 million, don't pay the US government a single cent!

  Only 40% Of Federal Student Loan Borrowers Are Currently Making A Payment | Zero Hedge | shared via feedly mobile

Why we can kiss the US economy goodbye

By Wayne Allyn Root...The results are in. The picture is grim. 

Here are some frightening economic numbers to think about the next time ....mainstream media tells you that we are in "recovery."

First, almost 50% of Americans have less than $500 in savings. Not surprisingly 1 out of 3 residents of Obama's home state of Illinois live in poverty. A mind numbing 4 of 5 Americans are either experiencing poverty, foreclosure or welfare, or will in their lifetime. Four out of five.Say goodbye to the myth of the American Dream. It's only a nightmare now.

Ditto for the American middle class. Obama has massacred them. Our middle class now ranks 27^thin the world. 

...More grim news just in: Auto sales are collapsing. Construction jobs are falling off a cliff. And U.S. factory orders just suffered the biggest drop in a year.

Almost 80% of the jobs created in Obama's America are part-time jobs that won't pay the bills of an average middle class lifestyle.

What about jobs? Isn't that picture getting rosier by the minute? 

Well actually, no. Let's analyze the REAL numbers: Since the start of 2013 we've gained 953,000 jobs, but amazingly 731,000 of them are crummy low-wage part time jobs. That means almost 80% of the jobs created in Obama's America are part-time jobs that won't pay the bills of an average middle class lifestyle.

High quality jobs under Obama they are losing out by 10 to 1 versus crummy low-paying jobs. Facts don't lie: So far this year over 246,000 low-paying waiter or bartender jobs have been added to the U.S. economy, versus only 24,000 high-paying manufacturing jobs.

How bad is it? Well here's a Hall of Fame Triple Play:

The Obama administration just hired a company to promote ObamaCare over the phone to Americans -- guess what? Even those jobs are part-time, with no health insurance!

The head of the IRS just testified in front of Congress that he'd rather keep his own health insurance, rather than switch to ObamaCare. The IRS is in charge of ObamaCare, and even they don't want any part of it.

And, the second biggest employer in America is now a temp agency! 

Good luck looking for a quality job in this Obama economy.

Still not convinced? 

Food stamp rolls are growing seventy-five times as fast as employment. The national debt has increased by 50% under Barack Obama. Obama promised to reduce health insurance bills for an average American family by $2,500 per year, instead your health bills went up by $3,000 per year. 

Meanwhile, labor participation by men is at the lowest rate ever measured – since they started tracking it in 1948. And here's the clincher: 90 million able-bodied, working-age Americans are not working.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/08/05/why-can-kiss-us-economy-goodbye/

U.S. has most people in prison of any country despite crime rates declining 25%

Which country in the world has the most people in prison?

You might think it would be China (with 1+ billion people and a restrictive government) or former Soviets still imprisoned in Russia.

Wrong. The United States has the most people in prison by far of any country in the world. With 5% of the world's population, we have 25% of the world's prisoners – 2.3 million criminals. China with a population 4 times our size is second with 1.6 million people in prison.

In 1972, 350,000 Americans were in imprisoned. In 2010, this number had grown to 2.3 million. Yet from 1988 – 2008, crime rates have declined by 25%.

Isn't anyone in the liberal media interested in why so many people are in prison when crime has dropped? WTF "liberal media"?

Source: Wikipedia/Justice Policy Institute Report.

Where the jobs went... about 20% of the labor force disappeared overseas. Outsourcing of America #greed

Where the jobs went.

Outsourcing (or offshoring) is a bigger contributor to unemployment in the U.S. than laziness.

Since 2000, U.S. multinationals have cut 2.9 million jobs here while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg as multinational corporations account for only about 20% of the labor force.

When was the last time you saw a front-page headline about outsourcing?

Source: Wall Street Journal via Think Progress.

Nuclear Plant Safety Enhancements - Fukushima lessons learned and plant safety enhancements presentations

Fukushima lessons learned and plant safety enhancements presentations.

Case Study: The Duke Energy Implementation Plan

and Lessons Learned from Fukushima Accident and Application to Brazilian Nuclear Power Plants

If you have had problems viewing the presentations you can access both presentations here: http://www.nuclearenergyinsider.com/us-plant-safety-enhancements/content2.php 

Senator Barbara Boxer's Own Experts Contradict Obama On Global Warming - Forbes

During yesterday's Environment and Public Works hearings, Sen. David Vitter asked a panel of experts, including experts selected by Boxer, "Can any witnesses say they agree with Obama's statement that warming has accelerated during the past 10 years?"

For several seconds, nobody said a word. Sitting just a few rows behind the expert witnesses, I thought I might have heard a few crickets chirping, but I couldn't tell for sure. We'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt and count the crickets in the "maybe" camp.

After several seconds of deafening silence, global warming activist Heidi Cullen, who formerly served as a meteorologist for the Weather Channel, attempted to change the subject. Cullen said our focus should be on longer time periods rather than the 10-year period mentioned by Obama. When pressed, however, she contradicted Obama's central assertion and said warming has slowed, not accelerated.

Several minutes later, Sen. Jeff Sessions returned to the topic and sought additional clarity. Sessions recited Obama's quote claiming accelerating global warming during the past 10 years and asked, "Do any of you support that quote?"

Again, a prolonged and deafening silence ensued. Neither Cullen nor any of the other experts on the panel spoke a word, not even in an attempt to change the subject.

Navigated from Senator Barbara Boxer's Own Experts Contradict Obama On Global Warming - Forbes 

$60 trillion reasons to Worry About an Arctic Methane Bomb.

Mother Jones: It was a stunning figure: $60 trillion.

Such could be the cost, according to a recent commentary in the journal Nature, of "the release of methane from thawing permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea, off northern Russia...a figure comparable to the size of the world economy in 2012." More specifically, the paper described a scenario in which rapid Arctic warming and sea ice retreat lead to a pulse of undersea methane being released into the atmosphere. How much methane? The paper modeled a release of 50 gigatons of this hard-hitting greenhouse gas (a gigaton is equal to a billion metric tons) over the space of 10 years between 2015 and 2025. This, in turn, would trigger still more warming and gargantuan damage and adaptation costs.

The $60 trillion figure went everywhere, and no wonder. It's jaw dropping. To provide some perspective, 50 gigatons is ten times as much methane as currently exists in the atmosphere. Atmospheric methane levels have more than doubled since the industrial revolution, but this would amount to a much sharper increase in a dramatically shorter time frame.

According to the Nature commentary, that methane "is likely to be emitted as the seabed warms, either steadily over 50 years or suddenly." Such are the scientific assumptions behind the paper's economic analysis. But are those assumptions realistic—and could that much methane really be released suddenly from the Arctic?

Please continue reading at:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/arctic-methane-hydrate-catastrophe

Metabolix engineers plants to make cheaper, cleaner bioplastic

Petroleum-based plastic may be fantastic, but due to the durability that makes the material so popular it may take hundreds of years to break down. Plastic made from renewable biomass, known as bioplastic, is a biodegradable alternative to fossil fuel versions. A company called Metabolix, based in Cambridge (MA), has been working on a technology to genetically engineer plants such as switchgrass to create a biodegradable polymer that can be extracted directly from the plant... Continue Reading Metabolix engineers plants to make cheaper, cleaner bioplastic 

Researchers preserve cancer-fighting properties in frozen broccoli

Broccoli is one of those foods we're told to eat as youngsters because it's good for us. Unfortunately, researchers at the University of Illinois (U of I) found some of that goodness, namely the vegetable's cancer-protective benefits, doesn't survive the process its subjected to before reaching the freezers at supermarkets. Thankfully, the researchers followed up their initial research and found a simple way to preserve broccoli's cancer-fighting properties... Continue Reading Researchers preserve cancer-fighting properties in frozen broccoli 

Toxin Found in Most U.S. Rice Causes Genetic Damage - | DiscoverMagazine

It's been more than a decade since scientists first raised an alarm about arsenic levels in rice—an alarm based on the realization that rice plants have a natural ability to absorb the toxic element out of the soil.

Since then study after study has confirmed that rice products contain more arsenic than those of any other grain. In response, consumer health advocates have pushed for regulatory agencies to set a safety standard for rice (more on that story in my forthcoming feature story in the October 2013 issue of Discover).

China, a high rice-consumption country, has already moved to do so. The World Health Organization is currently taking comments on a proposed safety standard. And last year—in a somewhat grudging response to pressure from activist groups in this country—the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it was also studying the issue.

Waiting for Regulation

And studying and studying, apparently. Although the FDA released some data on arsenic contamination of rice last fall—in direct response to a comprehensive report on the issue from Consumers Union researchers—the agency has yet to provide any further information or to set a deadline on when it might set a protective limit.

In frustration, public health researchers at Consumers Union and the attorney general of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, last month wrote to the FDA asking why the agency was moving so slowly to protect American consumers, underlining the point that the agency's preliminary results found the taint of arsenic in pretty much every rice product tested.

In the weeks since then the FDA has neither budged nor attempted to clarify the situation for the public. A story on the subject by the Chicago Tribunenoted that when queried the FDA refused to provide any information (my experience with this agency, by the way). And the USA Rice Federation insisted,  "no arsenic related health effects from eating rice are known" (also my experience with the association).

However those assertions—and the agency's apparently reluctant approach—may need revising: A study released last week has shown the first direct link between rice consumption and arsenic-induced genetic damage.

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Global Water Shortages Grow Worse but Nations Have Few Answers | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network [feedly]

Scientific American - As we have been hearing, global water shortages are poised to exacerbate regional conflict and hobble economic growth. Yet the problem is growing worse, and is threatening to deal devastating blows to health, according to top water officials from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) who spoke before a House panel hearing today.

Ever-rising water demand, and climate change, are expected to boost water problems worldwide, especially in countries that are already experiencing shortages. Globally, the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water by 2015, but it still must make strides to improve global sanitation, says Aaron Salzberg, the State Department's Special Coordinator for Water Resources. In addition to supply problems, unclean water causes more than four billion cases of diarrhea a year which lead to roughly 2.2 million deaths, and most are in children under the age of five.

"The magnitude of it is extraordinary." says Christian Holmes, global water coordinator for USAID.

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Renewable energy? Burning US forests in UK power stations

Excerpt: Environmentalists are trying to block the expansion of a transatlantic trade bringing American wood to burn in European power stations. The trade is driven by EU rules promoting renewable energy to combat climate change. … The implications are complicated and disputed, but it is clear that EU leaders did not have burning American wood in mind when they mandated that 20% of Europe's energy should come from "renewable" sources.

Read on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22630815

 

Still Have Doubts Combustible Dust is Primarily a Fire Problem? Combustible dust exposure: lessons learned

Still Have Doubts Combustible Dust is Primarily a Fire Problem?

All these catastrophic ComDust related incidents resulting in fire-fighter injuries and fatalities began as a Level One (fire) and escalated into a Level Three (primary explosion). 

Use the HAL Chart to minimize severity of consequence.

http://www.slideshare.net/watermon/hal-chart

Combustible dust exposure: lessons learned 

Firefighting operations can inadvertently increase the chance of a combustible dust explosion if they: Use tactics that cause dust clouds to form or reach the explosible range; use tactics that introduce air, creating an explosible atmosphere;... 

http://www.ishn.com/articles/96472-combustible-dust-exposure-lessons-learned

Molten Salt Reactor review with benefits like very little waste and 2000 energy return on invested energy

The non-profit Weinberg Foundation has a 23 page report on the status and background on Thorium Fuelled Molten Salt Reactors.

Thorium-fuelled Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) offer a potentially safer, more efficient and sustainable form of nuclear power. Pioneered in the US at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the 1960s and 1970s, MSRs benefit from novel safety and operational features such as passive temperature regulation, low operating pressure and high thermal to electrical conversion efficiency. Some MSR designs, such as the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), provide continuous online fuel reprocessing, enabling very high levels of fuel burn-up. Although MSRs can be fuelled by any fissile material, the use of abundant thorium as fuel enables breeding in the thermal spectrum, and produces only tiny quantities of plutonium and other long-lived actinides.

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Greentec Awards could not handle the truth that Molten Salt Reactors would be good for the environment and that German Public liked it, but a German Court Overturns disqualification

The Dual-Fluid Reactor, a MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) was entered into the Greentec contest by Berlin's Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics. MSRs and other advanced nuclear designs auger a CO2-free energy future and represent clear improvements in nuclear safety, efficiency, and waste management when compared to conventional nuclear. The Dual-Fluid Reactor (DFR) can also be used as a source of industrial process heat to make hydrogen and synthetic fuels.

Greentec did not like a result from voting in the court of public opinion. Then they decide to cheat to boot the voting winner. Then they lost in a real legal court.

Clearly, a significant portion of the German public understands this. The Dual-Fluid Reactor (DFR) made it to the finals on the strength of an open, online voting round. Under the rules of the competition, GreenTec judges select two finalists in each of the contest's eight categories, and the public selects the third.

On June 4, Dual fuel Molten salt was disqualified and denominated by the jury, with no explanation.

Outrage ensued, as DFR supporters accused GreenTec of changing the voting rules to suit their own interests.

German blogger Rainer Klute - a regular commenter on Weinberg blogs - noted:

"People who had campaigned for the award and for the DFR were heavily shocked. Not only they found the decision as such completely incomprehensible, but also the procedure to make it. Changing rules in the course of the game is something that is usually considered less than fair. Most of us (but obviously not all) learned this early in our childhood. No wonder the award's makers were criticized violently in blogs and social media, especially on their own Facebook page."


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It's a $6 trillion dollar market.... The User's Guide to Energy

Alexis Madrigal explains how energy really works in America  Read more

The energy system is vast. How big? It's a $6 trillion dollar market. Trillion! Such a big industry consumes vast amounts of natural resources and processes them through a dizzying array of infrastructure. And all that stuff working together keeps us zipping across cities and nations, while pulling power from the grid to power anything from a lightbulb to a computer.

But despite all the complexity, there are some basics that make the rest of it all easier to understand. So, in our new video series, we tried to break down some of the fundamentals of the American energy system. We're going to break down the numbers on how Americans use energy and dive to the microscopic level to see the components of crude oil.

...So, we asked six basic questions about energy, and answered them in animated explainers voiced by me and (beautifully) illustrated byLindsey Testolin. This is our first deep collaboration with The Atlantic's new, expanded video team, and we couldn't be happier about how it came out. Stay tuned for the videos and several other posts in this special report.

In response to explosion at fertilizer plant, president Obama orders review of all chemical facilities

"Less than four months after a fertilizer plant explosion leveled the town of West, Tex., President Obama ordered federal agencies Thursday to review safety rules at chemical facilities nationwide," David Jackson reports for USA Today. In an executive order, Obama wrote: "Chemicals, and the facilities where they are manufactured, stored, distributed, and used, are essential to today's economy. Past and recent tragedies have reminded us, however, that the handling and storage of chemicals are not without risk." (Texas Tribune photo by David Bowser: Amarillo facility, near residences, houses ammonium nitrate)

The explosion in West, where 2,400 tons of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate was being stored, killed 15 people, injured more than 200, damaged or destroyed at least 150 buildings, and caused $100 million in property damage. At least 800,000 people live within one mile of sites that store similar chemicals, and many small towns and cities, especially in the south and southwest, have largestockpiles of ammonium nitrate.

"The executive order also calls for better coordination among federal, state and local agencies in the regulation of chemical plants," Jackson reports. Obama wrote: "The federal government has developed and implemented numerous programs aimed at reducing the safety risks and security risks associated with hazardous chemicals. However, additional measures can be taken by executive departments and agencies with regulatory authority to further improve chemical facility safety and security in coordination with owners and operators."

Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement: "As I told the president, the EPA has not updated its alert since 1997, and the best practices recommended by other federal agencies such as OSHA are not being uniformly followed. This progress shows that when we use our mandated oversight role to solve serious problems facing the American people -- and the President agrees with our solutions -- we can move forward without changing laws to protect our families and communities." (Read more)

Duke Energy Scraps Plans For Florida Nuclear #Energy plant, Forced To Delay Others

According to the Associated Press, 'The largest utility in the U.S. is scuttling plans to build a $24.7 billion nuclear power plant in a small Gulf Coast county in Florida, the company announced Thursday. Duke Energy Corp. said it made the decision because of delays by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in issuing licenses for new plants, and because of recent legislative changes in Florida.' Meanwhile, 'Duke Energy's plans to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina have been delayed by federal regulators who say budget cuts and changes to the plans require more time. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Duke in a letter that a final hearing on plans to build the William S. Lee nuclear plant in Cherokee County would have to wait until 2016. The original target had been this past March.

Read more of this story at Slashdot. Visit website

Lab-Grown Beef Burger To Debut On Monday to produce meat without slaughtering animals.

If you take some scientists' word for it, the biggest agricultural revolution since the domestication of livestock is starting on Monday — in an arts center in London. At a carefully orchestrated media event, Dutch stem cell researcher Mark Post is planning to present the world's first test-tube hamburger. Its patty — financed by an anonymous billionaire — is made from meat that Post has laboriously grown from bovine stem cells in his lab at an estimated cost of $375,000, just to prove a point: that it is possible to produce meat without slaughtering animals.  
  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sweden: Peak Garbage “There’s a European waste market — it’s a commodity,”

Via: New York Times: This is a city that imports garbage. Some comes from England, some from Ireland. Some is from neighboring Sweden. It even has designs on the American market.

"I'd like to take some from the United States," said Pal Mikkelsen, in his office at a huge plant on the edge of town that turns garbage into heat and electricity. "Sea transport is cheap."

Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn.

The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people. Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply. "Northern Europe has a huge generating capacity," said Mr. Mikkelsen, 50, a mechanical engineer who for the last year has been the managing director of Oslo's waste-to-energy agency.

Yet the fastidious population of Northern Europe produces only about 150 million tons of waste a year, he said, far too little to supply incinerating plants that can handle more than 700 million tons. "And the Swedes continue to build" more plants, he said, a look of exasperation on his face, "as do Austria and Germany."

Stockholm, to the east, has become such a competitor that it has even managed to persuade some Norwegian municipalities to deliver their waste there. By ship and by truck, countless tons of garbage make their way from regions that have an excess to others that have the capacity to burn it and produce energy.

"There's a European waste market — it's a commodity," said Hege Rooth Olbergsveen, the senior adviser to Oslo's waste recovery program. "It's a growing market.

...In a hierarchy of environmental goals, Mr. Haltbrekken said, producing less garbage should take first place, while generating energy from garbage should be at the bottom. "The problem is that our lowest priority conflicts with our highest one," he said.

Where the economy really is ....off the charts

From Off the Charts Blog

 

 

Procedures for EPA study of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources.

To require certain procedures in the conduct by the Environmental Protection Agency of its study of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources.

Jul 30, 2013, H.R. 2850 — Introduced in House by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

...as the "EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Study Improvement Act". SEC. 2. EPA HYDRAULIC FRACTURING RESEARCH. In conducting its study of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources, with respect to which a request for information was issued under Federal Register Vol. 77, No. 218, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall adhere to the following requirements: (1) Peer review and information quality.--Prior to issuance and dissemination of any final report ...

...Probability, uncertainty, and consequence

In order to maximize the quality and utility of information developed through the study, the Administrator shall ensure that identification of the possible impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources included in such reports be accompanied by objective estimates of the probability, uncertainty, and consequence of each identified impact, taking into account the risk management practices of States and industry. Estimates or descriptions of probability, uncertainty, and consequence shall be as quantitative as possible given the validity, accuracy, precision, and other quality attributes of the underlying data and analyses, but no more quantitative than the data and analyses can support.

Please read full at: 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr2850ih/xml/BILLS-113hr2850ih.xml

US Student Loans are more than China’s Total External Debt

The total outstanding US student-loan debt stood at $986 billion at the end of the first quarter of this year.

China's total external debt stands at 710,700,000,000 US dollars

Read more »

Nitrogen fixing bacteria will enable all plants to get nitrogen without fertilizer

A major new technology has been developed by The University of Nottingham, which enables all of the world's crops to take nitrogen from the air rather than expensive and environmentally damaging fertilizers.

Nitrogen fixation, the process by which nitrogen is converted to ammonia, is vital for plants to survive and grow. However, only a very small number of plants, most notably legumes (such as peas, beans and lentils) have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria. The vast majority of plants have to obtain nitrogen from the soil, and for most crops currently being grown across the world, this also means a reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

Professor Edward Cocking, Director of The University of Nottingham's Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation, has developed a unique method of putting nitrogen-fixing bacteria into the cells of plant roots

Read more »

Chemical company breaks new ground, creates fuel from waste

Chemical company INEOS Bio"announced Wednesday that it had produced commercial quantities of ethanol from wood waste and other nonfood vegetative matter," Matthew Wald reports for The New York Times. So far, only a small amount has been produced, but "if ethanol can be produced at reasonable cost from abundant nonfood sources, like yard trimmings or household trash, it could displace fuel made from oil, and that oil, and its carbon, could stay in the ground, reducing the amount greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, experts say."  

"The Department of Energy hailed the development as the first of a kind," Wald reports. Energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, said in a statement: "Unlocking the potential for the responsible development of all of America's rich energy resources is a critical part of our all-of-the-above energy strategy."  

Using methane gas from a nearby landfill, "The process begins with wastes — wood and vegetative matter for now, municipal garbage later — and cooks it into a gas of carbon monoxide and hydrogen," Wald reports. "Bacteria eat the gas and excrete alcohol, which is then distilled. Successful production would eliminate some of the 'food versus fuel' debate in the manufacturing of ethanol, which comes from corn." Peter Williams, chief executive of INEOS, told Wald, "Biomass gasification has not been done like this before, nor has the fermentation." (Read more)

Unsustainable: 110 million in the U.S. on entitlements with only 115 million full-time jobs in the U.S. paying in

Here are the sobering facts about the number of workers and those drawing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid entitlements in the U.S. While the government claims to have a "trust fund" to pay for Social Security and Medicare, this is illusory propaganda. There are no funds set aside to pay these entitlements--they are "pay as you go" programs funded by current tax revenues. If the tax revenues don't cover the programs' expenses, the Treasury sells bonds, i.e. issues debt to pay the entitlements.

Social Security (SSA) has 61 million beneficiaries as of March 2012.

Medicare has 49 million beneficiaries as of November 2011.

Medicaid has over 50 million beneficiaries; another source puts the current number at 58 million.

Kaiser Family Foundation says roughly 7 million "dual-eligibles" who receive both Medicaid and Medicare, so let's use the data point of 50 million Medicaid-only recipients.

We can assume that most people drawing Medicare benefits also draw Social Security, while the 8+ million drawing disability from Social Security are also covered by Medicaid.

However you slice it, there are roughly 60 million people drawing Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and another 50 million Medicaid recipients for a total of 110 million people drawing significant entitlements.

As I have noted here many times, there are only 115 million full-time jobs in the U.S.

That means the ratio of workers to recipients of significant "pay as you go" entitlements is roughly 1-to-1: 115 million full-time workers and 110 million people drawing Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

These programs consume the majority of the Federal budget. The Federal government spends around $3.7 trillion and collects around $2.6 trillion in taxes, so the basic deficit is $1.1 trillion. Off-balance sheet "supplemental appropriations" mean the real deficit is actually considerably higher.

Social Security costs $817 billion, Medicare and Medicaid costs total about $800 billion annually, and program outlays rise every year. The Pentagon/National Security budget is around $690 billion.

As I detailed in The Fraud at the Heart of Social Security (January 17, 2011), the program paid out $707 billion in 2010 and collected $631 billion in taxes, a $76 billion shortfall for 2010. The current program (2012) cost is $817 billion, a leap of $100 billion in a few short years as Baby Boomers flood into the program.

Of the roughly 150 million workers in the U.S., 38 million earn less than $10,000 per year, 50 million earn less that $15,000 a year and 61 million earn less than $20,000 annually. All these numbers are drawn directly from Social Security Administration payroll data.

100 million wage earners, or 2/3 the entire workforce, earn less than $40,000 per year.

Please read on at:http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay12/unsustainable-Medicare5-12.html

National Energy Tax Repeal Act (S. 1324) - To help “children in poor families were four times as likely to be in fair or poor health as children that were not poor”;

National Energy Tax Repeal Act (S. 1324)

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113s1324is/xml/BILLS-113s1324is.xml

To prohibit any regulations promulgated pursuant to a presidential memorandum relating to power sector carbon pollution standards from taking effect.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

July 18, 2013

Mr. Barrasso (for himself, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Alexander, Mr. Paul, Mr. Blunt, Mrs. Fischer, and Mr. Crapo) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

A BILL

To prohibit any regulations promulgated pursuant to a presidential memorandum relating to power sector carbon pollution standards from taking effect.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the "National Energy Tax Repeal Act".

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

(a) Findings.—Congress finds that—

(1) on June 25, 2013, President Obama issued a Presidential memorandum directing the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations relating to power sector carbon pollution standards for existing coal fired power plants;

(2) the issuance of that memorandum circumvents Congress and the will of the people of the United States;

(3) any action to control emissions of greenhouse gases from existing coal fired power plants in the United States by mandating a national energy tax would devastate major sectors of the economy, cost thousands of jobs, and increase energy costs for low-income households, small businesses, and seniors on fixed income;

(4) joblessness increases the likelihood of hospital visits, illnesses, and premature deaths;

(5) according to testimony on June 15, 2011, before the Committee on Environment and Public Works of the Senate by Dr. Harvey Brenner of Johns Hopkins University, "The unemployment rate is well established as a risk factor for elevated illness and mortality rates in epidemiological studies performed since the early 1980s. In addition to influences on mental disorder, suicide and alcohol abuse and alcoholism, unemployment is also an important risk factor in cardiovascular disease and overall decreases in life expectancy.";

(6) according to the National Center for Health Statistics, "children in poor families were four times as likely to be in fair or poor health as children that were not poor";

(7) any major decision that would cost the economy of the United States millions of dollars and lead to serious negative health effects for the people of the United States should be debated and explicitly authorized by Congress, not approved by a Presidential memorandum or regulations; and

(8) any policy adopted by Congress should make United States energy as clean as practicable, as quickly as practicable, without increasing the cost of energy for struggling families, seniors, low-income households, and small businesses.

(b) Purposes.—The purposes of this Act are—

(1) to ensure that—

(A) a national energy tax is not imposed on the economy of the United States; and

(B) struggling families, seniors, low-income households, and small businesses do not experience skyrocketing electricity bills and joblessness;

(2) to protect the people of the United States, particularly families, seniors, and children, from the serious negative health effects of joblessness;

(3) to allow sufficient time for Congress to develop and authorize an appropriate mechanism to address the energy needs of the United States and the potential challenges posed by severe weather; and

(4) to restore the legislative process and congressional authority over the energy policy of the United States.

SEC. 3. PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the head of a Federal agency shall not promulgate any regulation relating to power sector carbon pollution standards or any substantially similar regulation on or after June 25, 2013, unless that regulation is explicitly authorized by an Act of Congress.

EPA Final Rule on Conditional Exclusions from Solid Waste & Hazardous Waste for Solvent Contaminated Wipes

Conditional Exclusions from Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste for Solvent Contaminated Wipes 

40 CFR Parts 260 and 261  [EPA-HQ-RCRA-2003-0004; FRL-9838-2]  RIN 2050-AE51 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is publishing  a final rule that modifies its hazardous waste management regulations for solvent contaminated wipes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Specifically, this rule revises the definition of solid waste to conditionally exclude solvent contaminated wipes that are cleaned and reused and revises the definition of hazardous waste to conditionally exclude solvent-contaminated wipes that are disposed. The purpose of this final rule is to provide a consistent regulatory framework that is appropriate to the level of risk posed by solvent-contaminated wipes in a way that maintains protection of human health and the environment, while reducing overall compliance costs for industry, many of which are small businesses. 

DATES: This final rule is effective on January 31, 2014.

Please read on at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2013-18285.pdf