Drugs in Drinking Water: A New EPA Study Finds More Than We Knew

New Republic...We know how the drugs get there: Our bodies release them when we urinate or flush old drugs down the toilet. And it's well known by now that pharmaceuticals are affecting fish, frogs and lobsters­—small amounts of estrogen cause male fish to develop eggs, for instance. But the impact on human health is unclear. Although research on pharmaceuticals in the water supply began almost a decade ago, no one seems to know which compounds need to be removed or how to remove them from the water safely. And no one seems to know which government agency should step forward and take action.

"All of these drugs out there on the market are going to be discharged into the environment and we don't know what the effects are, because there's no requirement to do an assessment on the front end," said Nick Schroeck, executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in Detroit.

"We're not trying to scare anyone, but we need to know what these chemical compounds will do to the environment and what are the long-term effects for humans. No one seems to know."

The new study, which will be released in January in the journalEnvironmental Pollution, was obtained by The New Republic. Conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, it is the largest study of water coming out of wastewater treatment plants.

It looked at samples from 50 large-size wastewater treatment plants nationwide and tested for 56 drugs including oxycodone, high-blood pressure medications, and over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol and ibuprofen. More than half the samples tested positive for at least 25 of the drugs monitored, the study said. High blood pressure medications appeared in the highest concentrations and most frequently.

"We were surprised to find that many drugs occurring across all the wastewater plants," said Mitchell Kostich, the EPA research biologist who led the study. "We were also surprised to see so many drugs of a particular class—the high blood pressure medications—appear at those levels across the board."

Please continue reading from Drugs in Drinking Water: A New EPA Study Finds More Than We Knew | New Republic | shared via feedly mobile

Newly Discovered Greenhouse Gas "7,000 Times More Powerful than CO2"

This story first appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A new greenhouse gas that is 7,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth has been discovered by researchers in Toronto.

The newly discovered gas, perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), has been in use by the electrical industry since the mid-20th century.

The chemical, that does not occur naturally, breaks all records for potential impacts on the climate, said the researchers at the University of Toronto's department of chemistry.

"We claim that PFTBA has the highest radiative efficiency of any molecule detected in the atmosphere to date," said Angela Hong, one of the co-authors.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found PFTBA was 7,100 times more powerful at warming the Earth over a 100-year time span than CO2.

Please continue reading Shared via feedly // published on MoJo Articles | Mother Jones // visit site

73% of wind farms reaching the end of their warranty period servicing to hit $6 billion by 2025

With 73% of wind farms reaching the end of their warranty period by 2015 – and annual O&M services expenditure in the U.S. predicted to reach $6 billion by 2025 – an effective O&M strategy is critical. 

Annual U.S. O&M services expenditure is expected to double from $3 billion (2012) to $6 billion (2025) - representing a growth in overall U.S. O&M wind expenditure from 12% to 29% in the same period

Meaning, that wind farm owners now face critical decisions about O&M in both the near term and long term: the success of those decisions will significantly affect both the operational performance and ultimately the long-term value of wind owners' collective investment, which over the past five years represents roughly US$70 billion....

See presentation here:

http://www.windenergyupdate.com/operations-maintenance-usa/presentations/2013/day1/2.E.ON-EDF-Renewables.pdf

"Winter is Coming" - Russian Scientists say “we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years”

Russia's Pulkovo Observatory: "we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years"

Scientists at Russia's famous Pulkovo Observatory are convinced that the world is in for a period of global cooling.

"Journalists say the entire process is very simple: once solar activity declines, the temperature drops. But besides solar activity, the climate is influenced by other factors, including the lithosphere, the atmosphere, the ocean, the glaciers. The share of solar activity in climate change is only 20%. This means that sun's activity could trigger certain changes whereas the actual climate changing process takes place on the Earth".

Solar activity follows different cycles, including an 11-year cycle, a 90-year cycle and a 200-year cycle. Yuri Nagovitsyn comments.

"Evidently, solar activity is on the decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn't bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years. The period of low solar activity could start in 2030-2040 but it won't be as pervasive as in the late 17th century".

Even though pessimists say global cooling will hamper exploration of the Arctic, experts say it won't. Climate change and the resulting increase in the thickness of the Arctic ice cover pose no obstacles to the extraction of oil and gas on the Arctic shelf. As oil and gas reserves of the Arctic sea shelf are estimated to be billions of tons, countries are demonstrating more interest in the development of the Arctic. Climate change will also have no impact on the Northern Sea Route, which makes it possible to cut trade routes between Europe, Asia and America. Professor Igor Davidenko comments.

"The Northern Sea Route has never opened so early or closed so late over the past 30 years. Last year saw a cargo transit record – more than five million tons. The first Chinese icebreaker sailed along the Northern Sea Route in 2012. China plans it to handle up to 15% of its exports".

Please read on at: 

http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_04_22/Cooling-in-the-Arctic-what-to-expect/

Urban Car Use Declines As Biking and Public Transit Rise in the U.S.

Americans in urban areas are driving less, biking more, owning fewer cars, and using public transportation more frequently, according to new research by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). The number of people driving to work fell in 99 of 100 major urban areas between 2006 and 2011, and the number of miles driven by car fell in three-quarters of the cities studied over that time, the PIRG study showed. The proportion of people biking to work increased in 85 of 100 cities, while the number of miles traveled on public transit increased in 60 of 98 cities. Meanwhile, the number of people working from home grew in all 100 cities, the report said. From 2004 to 2012, Please continue reading Shared via feedly // published on Yale Environment 360 // visit site

If you can’t afford to own, you can rent. But what if you can’t afford to rent, either? Millions of Americans are in precisely that situation,

Via Bloomberg BusinessWeek,

If you can't afford to own, you can rent. But what if you can't afford to rent, either? Millions of Americans are in precisely that situation, according to a study released today by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The availability of apartments, especially cheaper ones, hasn't nearly kept up with demand, and the problem has worsened since the 2007-09 recession, the study says.

Please continue reading from Harvard Study Finds: The Rent Is Way Too High 

New formula for fast, abundant hydrogen production may help power fuel cells

Nature produces hydrogen through "serpentinization." When water meets the ubiquitous mineral olivine under pressure, the rock absorbs mostly oxygen (O) atoms from H2O, transforming olivine into another mineral, serpentine -- characterized by a scaly, green-brown surface appearance like snakeskin. The complex network of fracturing and created by serpentinization also creates habitat for subsurface microbial communities. Image from Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada. Credit: Matt Schrenk, Michigan State University 

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-12-formula-fast-abundant-hydrogen-production.html#jCp

Hope Creek Nuclear Plant Shut Down for Second Time in One Week

...a recirculation pump, according to the NRC, causing a reactor level swell and shrink that triggered the reactor protection system. Levels recovered, and safety systems performed as expected.

Read full at: http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2013/12/09/hope-creek-nuclear-plant-shut-down-for-second-time-in-one-week-120901.aspx

Killing Cancer By Retraining the Patient's Immune System

There's an interesting story on CNN about the University of Pennsylvania'shuman trial results on curing intractable cancer by retraining the patient's own immune system. Quoting: 'Nick Wilkins was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 4 years old, and when the cancer kept bouncing back, impervious to all the different treatments the doctors tried, his father sat him down for a talk. John Wilkins explained to Nick, who was by then 14, that doctors had tried chemotherapy, radiation, even a bone marrow transplant from his sister. ... A few months later, Nick traveled from his home in Virginia to Philadelphia to become a part of the experiment. This new therapy was decidedly different from the treatments he'd received before: Instead of attacking his cancer with poisons like chemotherapy and radiation, the Philadelphia doctors taught Nick's own immune cells to become more adept at killing the cancer. Two months later, he emerged cancer-free. It's been six months since Nick, now 15, received the personalized cell therapy, and doctors still can find no trace of leukemia in his system. ... Twenty-one other young people received the same treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and 18 of them, like Nick, went into complete remission -- one of them has been disease-free for 20 months.'

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California: Threat Of ‘Dead Zone’ Developing Off Sonoma Coast

Threat of 'dead zone' developing off Sonoma Coast... unprecedented mass of oxygen-poor water off the Sonoma Coast, a phenomenon that could harm the region's prized Dungeness crab and other marine life.

Scientists at the Bodega Marine Laboratory, who were the first to detect the hypoxic (low-oxygen) waters, aren't calling it a "dead zone" yet, despite the similarity to a lethal condition along the Oregon coast for the past 12 years and forecasts that it will occur worldwide with global warming.

"There's nothing dead," said John Largier, an oceanographer at the UC Davis research facility on Bodega Head. But equipment on a bright yellow buoy anchored about a mile offshore has recorded dissolved oxygen levels low enough to cause "significant distress" for some marine organisms, he said.

Oxygen-poor water is common in deep water of the open ocean, but until this year had never been documented over the continental shelf close to the Sonoma coast, he said.

500 trillion tons of fresh water under the ocean's continental shelf in giant aquifers

Nature - Offshore fresh groundwater reserves as a global phenomenon

The flow of terrestrial groundwater to the sea is an important natural component of the hydrological cycle. This process, however, does not explain the large volumes of low-salinity groundwater that are found below continental shelves. There is mounting evidence for the global occurrence of offshore fresh and brackish groundwater reserves. The potential use of these non-renewable reserves as a freshwater resource provides a clear incentive for future research. But the scope for continental shelf hydrogeology is broader and we envisage that it can contribute to the advancement of other scientific disciplines, in particular sedimentology and marine geochemistry.

Vast freshwater reserves have been discovered under the ocean floor which scientists believe could sustain future generations.

Australian researchers claim to have found 500,000 cubic kilometres (500 trillion tons) of freshwater buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and South Africa. The water could be accessed using the technology of deepwater oil drilling rigs. The infrastructure of pipelines could be setup to access millions of tons per day.

The discovery comes as United Nations estimates suggest water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of the population of the world over the last century.

Please continue reading published on Next Big Future // visit site

China doubles renewable energy pace as record pollution chokes Shanghai

Over the past 10 months China has added renewable energy sources to its power grid at double the pace of 2012, according to its National Energy Administration (NEA). The renewable energy push, part of a massive effort to cut air pollution in China's large cities, has added more than 36 gigawatts of clean energy capacity so far this year, Bloomberg News reports. Hydroelectric power grew by 22.3 gigawatts in the first 10 months of 2013, new nuclear energy installations totaled 2.2 gigawatts, solar 3.6 gigawatts, wind 7.9 gigawatts. China's solar energy capacity could triple from 2012 levels to 10 gigawatts by the end of the year, while wind and nuclear power capacity could increase by 22 and 17 percent, respectively, the NEA said. That should offer some relief from China's choking air pollution. In Shanghai, schoolchildren were ordered indoors today as air pollution reached extremely hazardous levels, exceeding World Health Organization health guidelines for fine particulate matter by 24 times.

Please continue reading, Shared via feedly // published on Yale Environment 360 // visit site

Camp Lejeune water contamination linked to birth defects | Reuters

Reuters - Water pollution at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina has been linked to increased risk of birth defects and childhood cancers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A study released by the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substance & Disease Registry on Thursday confirmed a long-suspected link between chemical contaminants in tap water at the Marine Corps base and serious birth defects such as spina bifida

It also showed a slightly elevated risk of childhood cancers including leukemia.

Dr. Vikas Kapil, a medical officer and acting deputy director of the CDC agency that produced the study, said it surveyed the parents of 12,598 children born at Lejeune between 1968 and 1985, the year most contaminated drinking water wells at Camp Lejeune were closed.

 Please continue reading from Camp Lejeune water contamination linked to birth defects | Reuters | shared via feedly mobile

Gut Microbes Linked to Autism-Like Symptoms in Mice

Many physicians and parents report that their autistic children have unusually severe gastrointestinal problems, such as chronic constipation or diarrhea. These observations have led some researchers to speculate that an ailing gut contributes to the disorder in some cases, but scientific data has been lacking. Now, a provocative study claims that a probiotic treatment for gastrointestinal issues can reduce autismlike symptoms in mice and suggests that this treatment could work for humans, too.

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U.S. Measles Cases Triple In 2013, morons not getting vaccinated

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control have announced that measles cases in the U.S. spiked this year, rising to three times their recent average rate. It's partly due to a greater number of people traveling to the U.S. when they're infectious, but also because a frustrating number of people are either failing to have their children vaccinated, or are failing to do so in a timely manner. Dr. Thomas Friedman said, 'Around 90 percent of the people who have had measles in this country were not vaccinated either because they refused, or were not vaccinated on time.' Phil Plait adds, 'In all three of these outbreaks, someone who had not been vaccinated traveled overseas and brought the disease back with them, which then spread due to low vaccination rates in their communities. It's unclear how much religious beliefs themselves were behind the outbreaks in Brooklyn and North Carolina; it may have been due to widespread secular anti-vax beliefs in those tight-knit groups. But either way, a large proportion of the people in those areas were unvaccinated.'

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Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai

theguardian.com

Shanghai authorities ordered schoolchildren indoors and halted all construction on Friday as China's financial hub suffered one its worst bouts of air pollution, bringing visibility down to a few dozen meters and obscuring the city's spectacular skyline.

The financial district was shrouded in a yellow haze and noticeably fewer people walked the city's streets. Vehicle traffic was thinner, as authorities pulled 30% of government vehicles from the roads. They also banned fireworks and stopped all public sporting events.

Protective masks and air purifiers were selling briskly at local stores.

"I feel like I'm living in clouds of smog," said Zheng Qiaoyun, a local resident who kept her 6-month-old son at home. "I have a headache, I'm coughing, and it's hard to breathe on my way to my office."

Please continue reading from Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai | Environment | theguardian.com | shared via feedly mobil

More electric MINI cars in China meansmore demand for electricity from coal-burning power plants blamed for much of Beijing's chronic air pollution.

usatoday.com... With big names like Victory Bull, Power Pioneer and Constant Wealth, the small vehicles satisfy a growing desire in China for cheap transportation.

Almost 100 different makers of the vehicles have emerged in recent years in east China's Shandong province, says state-run Beijing Daily newspaper. Manufacturers sold more than 20,000 vehicles last year, far outpacing China's paltry sales of full-speed electric cars. In 2015 sales are expected to hit 300,000, and rise to 1 million by 2020.

...Prized in poorer communities for their price tag, minicars are a hit in megacities like Beijing because they don't come under the limits imposed on drivers of larger gas vehicles to cut down on traffic and pollution.

Minicar drivers don't have to wait years to win a license plate in a lottery, and they don't have to keep their vehicles off the road one day each working week as regular drivers do.

Wang Yufeng owns and rents out two Buick minivans, made by General Motors in Shanghai, but prefers his Rich Road minicar, a 4-door ultra-compact 3-wheeler.

"No other car is as convenient as this; I can drive and park anywhere, anytime, I have heating and a radio," says Wang, 49. "I wish the government would issue licenses and make these vehicles legal."

China appears to be going the other way, advising citizens not to buy the vehicles, especially for the elderly.

...A minicar "will be quicker and more environmentally friendly," says Han, although more minicars means more demand for electricity from coal-burning power plants blamed for much of Beijing's chronic air pollution.

Please read on at:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/12/05/china-electric-mini-cars/3846417/

New thermoelectronic generator: Heat energy efficiently converted to electricity

ScienceDaily: Thermionic generators use the temperature difference between a hot and a cold metallic plate to create electricity. "Electrons are evaporated or kicked out by light from the hot plate, then driven to the cold plate, where they condense," explained experimental solid-state physicist Jochen Mannhart of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany, the lead author of the JRSE paper. The resulting charge difference between the two plates yields a voltage that, in turn, drives an electric current, "without moving mechanical parts," he said.

..."Practical thermionic generators have reached efficiencies of about 10 percent. The theoretical predictions for our thermoelectronic generators reach about 40 percent, although this is theory only," noted Mannhart. "We would be much surprised if there was a commercial application in the marketplace within the next five years, but if companies that are hungry for power recognize the potential of the generators, the development might be faster."

Please continue reading from New thermoelectronic generator: Heat energy efficiently converted to electricity | shared via feedly mobile

EPA, USDA Roll Out Expanded Water Quality Trading can mean a better bottom line for farmers and ranchers

Farm Futures: "EPA is committed to finding collaborative solutions that protect and restore our nation's waterways and the health of the communities that depend on them," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. "We're excited about partnering with USDA to expand support for water quality trading, which shows that environmental improvements can mean a better bottom line for farmers and ranchers."

Cost savings and other economic incentives are key motivators for parties engaged in trading, the agencies said, noting that water quality trading can also provide additional environmental and economic benefits, such as air quality improvements, enhanced wildlife habitat, carbon capture and storage, and new income and employment opportunities.

Please continue reading from EPA, USDA Roll Out Expanded Water Quality Trading - Farm Futures | shared via feedly mobile

70,000 metric tons of America’s nuclear waste crisis - there's no place to store

Richard Brenneman - With 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste already accumulated and more being created every day, the nation faces a nuclear waste crisis because there's no place to store it all and a federal court has halted mandatory state storage fees until a disposal plan is up and running. 

From a must-read report in MintPress:

Developing Countries Will Consume 65% of the World's Energy by 2040

"China and India hold the world's fate in their hands as energy use skyrockets in poorer countries. "

The Energy Shift now under way is as much geographical as it is technological. Case in point: By 2040, the developing world will account for 65 percent of the world's energy consumption, according to a report released today by the United States Energy Information Administration.

That's up from 54 percent in 2010, and over the next three decades energy consumption is predicted to grow at a 2.2 percent annual clip in non-OCED (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. OCED nations – including Europe, the US, Canada and Australia – in contrast, will see their energy use increase by just 0.5 percent a year, roughly in line with population growth.

Please continue reading by Todd Woody - at The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/heres-why-developing-countries-will-consume-65-of-the-worlds-energy-by-2040/282006/

Coal companies look to cash in by capturing leaking methane from mines and selling carbon credits to California

Coal companies in Appalachia, hit harder by market and regulatory forces than any other region in the U.S., hope to cash in by selling captured mine methane to companies in California, "the only place in the U.S. where there is a limit and a price on carbon," Anya Litvak reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "There may be enough coal mine methane in the U.S. to offset 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over a 10-year period, according to the California Air Resources Board. At $10 a ton, that's $600 million in new money for coal companies and their project partners." 

The first project would be at Consol Energy's Enlow Fork mine in Washington County (Wikipedia map), which "would offset 201,000 tons of carbon dioxide," Litvak writes. How it works is that Verdeo, a developer of clean energy projects, would "pay Consol for the use of its ventilated air, destroy the methane in that airstream and sell the credits generated from that to companies in California. Because greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global, not regional, warming, projects anywhere in the U.S. qualify under California's system as long as they are approved by the California Air Resources Board."

And there's plenty of methane waiting to be sold. "The air coming out of the Enlow mine is about 0.8 percent methane, but there's 181,000 cubic feet of it being ventilated each minute," Litvak writes. At Consol's McElroy mine in Marshall County, West Virginia (Wikipedia map), "the air is 1.2 percent methane, and 209,000 cubic feet of it is released each minute. Destroying that methane offsets the emissions of a 50 megawatt coal plant each year."

The only hurdle is that critics "have argued that awarding credits to coal-mine methane would deflect resources from greener technologies with a more local impact," a fear that stalled a decision by the Air Resources Board in October, Litvak writes. But if the board approves a protocol, it will mean big money for coal companies, because of the higher cost of selling into the California carbon market. "For a project the size of Enlow or McElroy, the difference between selling on the voluntary market and selling into the California carbon market is the difference between $300,000 and $3 million a year." (Read more) published on The Rural Blog // visit site

Fukushimna update, 70% of Japan’s territory is polluted, will last approximately 300 years

More from microbiology Professor Kim Ik-joong: As the tainted water is spread over the ocean, we cannot rule out radioactive materials in fish from outside the eight prefectures, especially those from Hokkaido and Tokyo... It is true that about 70 percent of Japan's territory is polluted ... According to PNAS, a scientific journal published by Japanese scholars, about 20 percent of Japanese land, including Tokyo, is contaminated with highly toxic radiation. It is obvious that agricultural products are also contaminated as the land is polluted with radioactive materials. The contamination on land will last approximately 300 year...

Does being #GREEN can give people feelings of guilt, hopelessness; and self-equivocators, who become psychologically derailed by doubt.

ScienceDaily— Think you don't recycle enough? You're not alone. However, people's ability to overcome self-doubt plays a critical role in how successfully they act in support of environmental issues, according to a new study co-authored by management and organizational behavior scholars from Rice University, the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto.

The researchers examined the role of self-evaluations among those who support environmental issues and the evaluations' effect on supportive behaviors. Their study, "It's Not Easy Being Green: The Role of Self-Evaluations in Explaining Support for Environmental Issues," will be published in the February issue of the Academy of Management Journal. The co-authors are Scott Sonenshein, an associate professor of management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business; Katherine DeCelles, an assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources management at Toronto's Rotman School of Management; and Jane Dutton, the Robert L. Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Business Administration and Psychology at Michigan's Ross School of Business.

"Supporting social issues often requires perseverance from individuals who want to make a difference," the authors wrote. "Our research explains how the mixed self-evaluations of these individuals spring from their interpretation of issue-support challenges."

Sonenshein said people's support for environmental issues and their doubt in their behavior's effectiveness manifests itself in benign daily tasks such as recycling or the mode of transportation one chooses. "It's this ongoing challenge," Sonenshein said. "No matter what you do, the sense from the study is that it's never enough. (For example), you could drive your Prius to work or you could walk to work instead. It's this never-ending set of doubts of 'Am I doing enough to help the environment?' It turns out that people are very different in how they can respond to these kinds of persistent doubts. Some people are able to cope with that through building immunity through their self-assets, and other people, unfortunately, fizzle and burn out."

For their study, the authors first developed a theory about how supporters of environmental issues evaluate themselves in a mixed fashion -- positively around having strengths (self-assets) and negatively around questioning their performance (self-doubts). The authors then derived three profiles of environmental-issue supporters' mixed selves: self-affirmers, who positively channel doubt; self-critics, who respond to doubt with feelings of guilt and hopelessness; and self-equivocators, who become psychologically derailed by doubt.

Please read at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131202134848.htm

Welcome to the future of wastewater treatment, making energy and treating waste

ABC Environment ...Welcome to the future of wastewater treatment as Lundquist sees it. Current methods of wastewater treatment are costly and energy-intensive, so Lundquist believes that by using algae to treat wastewater, treatment plants could save on costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and recover key nutrients for reuse.

As a by-product, he says, the algae could be used to produce biofuels, a move that could see wastewater treatment plants go from energy consumers to net energy producers.

"You can use less electricity, you can recycle the water, the nitrogen and the phosphorus, you can keep mixing the algae into a fuel, and it keeps rolling on in an endless cycle," Lundquist says.

The key to treating wastewater with algae is raceways, small-scale artificial rivers consisting of a shallow network of looping ponds through which wastewater is passed. A paddlewheel gently pushes the water around the course, mixing the algae in as it goes.

The raceway design maximises exposure of algae to sunlight and fresh air, accelerating growth.

Lundquist has been engineering raceways for more than two decades. He says they are cheap to build and operate, yet they are highly efficient at treating wastewater. And the algal biomass produced is large enough to make the generation of biofuels viable.

Producing biofuels from algae is not a new concept, nor is using them for treating wastewater. But the idea of combining wastewater treatment with fuel production could be just the thing to remove the price barrier that has so far prevented the algal fuels industry from getting off the ground.

"People have been trying to produce biofuels from algae since the 1940s, but the problem remains that the cost is much too high," says Professor Michael Borowitzka from the Murdoch University Algae R&D Centre.

Please read more by CHRISTOPHER DOYLE at:

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/12/02/3896391.htm

The Pacific is full of poisonous plastic, more than twice the size of Texas.

"Graham Land" A recent study by the University of Western Australia and CSIRO has found that Australia's waters are chock full of tiny pieces of plastic rubbish, about 4,000 per square kilometer. Nearly all of these microscopic particles come from consumer items like disposable water bottles, packaging and fishing equipment.

Australia's waters are not the worst in the world in terms of plastic pollution. The concentration is lower than in the Mediterranean Sea, for example, but low levels of recycling in Australia (20%) suggest that this problem will only get worse. The world's most shocking example, however, is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a concentrated area of oceanic trash twice the size of Texas. The patch is formed by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a vortex of ocean currents that acts as a whirlpool, drawing rubbish into its center. If you still haven't heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch perhaps you've had your head metaphorically buried in a pile of rubbish. Or maybe the media just isn't doing its job.

Please read more by at:

http://asiancorrespondent.com/116530/the-pacific-is-full-of-poisonous-plasti

EPA Final rule on Electronic Reporting under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

Pre-release — Final Rule — Environmental Protection Agency

 40 CFR Parts 712, 716, 720, 721, 723, 725, 766, 790, and 799 

 [EPA-HQ-OPPT-2011-0519; FRL-9394-6]  RIN 2070-AJ75 

Electronic Reporting Under the Toxic Substances Control Act 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: EPA is amending certain reporting requirements that were promulgated under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to require the use electronic reporting. EPA is requiring the use of electronic reporting in order to minimize the paperwork burden associated with the underlying regulatory requirements and to minimize the cost to the Federal Government of the creation, collection, maintenance, use, dissemination, and disposition of information. This action will also improve the quality and use of information to strengthen decision making, accountability, and openness in government and society, as well as provide for the timely dissemination of public information and in a manner that promotes the utility of the information to the public and makes effective use of information technology. 

Please read on at:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2013-28510.pdf

USPS knowingly and willingly did not complete necessary facility safety repairs welcoming, injuries and OSHA violations

"The Postal Service spent $266 million (29 percent) below the industry average did not complete 19,033 of 106,615 repairs (18 percent) during FYs 2011 and 2012. These repairs were needed at 8,800 facilities with an estimated cost of more than $271 million. Fifty percent of these incomplete repairs represented safety, security, and potential future major repairs; and 16 percent of these repairs were potential OSHA violations. "..."In addition, these incomplete repairs could result in potential OSHA fines of up to $2.9 million. See Appendix B."

Read full at:

http://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2013/sm-ar-14-002.pdf

Recording of Green Chemistry webinar by Dr. Bruce Blumberg

Green Chemistry Advocate

s:

 

The video recording of the webinar presentation by Dr. Bruce Blumberg (University of California) is now available on the Michigan

Green Chemistry Clearinghouse YouTube Channel at:

http://youtu.be/unTOLE9yn-k

 

The webinar entitled "Transgenerational Inheritance of Prenatal Obesogen Exposure" was broadcast on October 31, 2013 as a part of the Phone Seminar Series on Green Chemistry hosted by the Great Lakes Green Chemistry Network and the Michigan Green Chemistry Clearinghouse.

 

The PDF of Dr. Blumberg's presentation can be found here.

 

Regards,

 

 

www.migreenchemistry.org

migreenchemistry@gmail.com

Power struggle: Green energy versus a grid that's not ready

latimes.com...Green energy is the least predictable kind. Nobody can say for certain when the wind will blow or the sun will shine. A field of solar panels might be cranking out huge amounts of energy one minute and a tiny amount the next if a thick cloud arrives. In many cases, renewable resources exist where transmission lines don't.

"The grid was not built for renewables," said Trieu Mai, senior analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The frailty imperils lofty goals for greenhouse gas reductions. Concerned state and federal officials are spending billions of dollars in ratepayer and taxpayer money in an effort to hasten the technological breakthroughs needed for the grid to keep up with the demands of clean energy.

Making a green energy future work will be "one of the greatest technological challenges industrialized societies have undertaken," a group of scholars at Caltech said in a recent report. The report notes that by 2030, about $1 trillion is expected to be spent nationwide in bringing the grid up to date.

The role of the grid is to keep the supply of power steady and predictable. Engineers carefully calibrate how much juice to feed into the system as everything from porch lights to factory machines are switched on and off. The balancing requires painstaking precision. A momentary overload can crash the system.

California has taken some of the earliest steps to address the problems. The California Public Utilities Commission last month ordered large power companies to invest heavily in efforts to develop storage technologies that could bottle up wind and solar power, allowing the energy to be distributed more evenly over time.

Whether those technologies will ever be economically viable on a large scale is hotly debated. The commission mandate nonetheless requires companies to produce enough storage by 2024 to power about 1 million homes.

"Energy storage has the potential to be a game changer for our electric grid," Commissioner Mark Ferron said.

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http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-grid-renewables-20131203,0,1019786.story#axzz2mOXmmWAQ

Microplastic transfers chemicals, impacting health: Plastic ingestion delivers pollutants and additives into animal tissue

Microplastic transfers chemicals, impacting health: Plastic ingestion delivers pollutants and additives into animal tissue

With global production of plastic exceeding 280 metric tons every year, a fair amount of it makes its way to the natural environment. However, until now researchers haven't known whether ingested plastic transfers chemical additives or pollutants to wildlife. A new study shows toxic concentrations of pollutants and additives enter the tissue of animals that have eaten microplastic.

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Harvesting Power When Freshwater Meets Salty

As a way to generate renewable electricity, researchers have designed methods that harvest the energy released when fresh and saline water mix, such as when a river meets the sea. One such method is called pressure-retarded osmosis, where two streams of water, one saline and one fresh, meet in a cell divided by a semipermeable membrane. Osmosis drives the freshwater across the membrane to the saltier side, increasing the pressure in the saline solution. The system keeps this salty water pressurized and then releases the pressure to spin a turbine to generate electricity. Now a team at Yale University has created a prototype device that increases the power output of pressure-retarded osmosis by an order of magnitude. At a full-scale facility, the estimated cost of the electricity generated by such a system could be 20 to 30 cents per kWh, approaching the cost of other conventional renewable energy technologies.

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Regulator shuts down five operators for ignoring safety audit deadline, not complying with the Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) requirements of the Workplace Safety Rule established in 2010.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has cited 12 offshore operators in total for not complying with the Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) requirements of the Workplace Safety Rule established in 2010.

Under the SEMS requirements operators had to set up a company-wide Safety and Environmental Management System by November 15, 2011 and submit an initial audit of that system by November 15, 2013.

One day after the deadline BSEE directed five companies to halt operations altogether because they failed to demonstrate that they even had a SEMS plan. The companies were given three days to reach a safe point in their operations before stopping work.

BSEE said that because most of the companies are conducting plugging and abandonment or other decommissioning activities, the impact of this enforcement on hydrocarbon production is "minuscule". 

Seven additional companies submitted plans but failed to complete the audits before the Nov. 15 deadline.

They must immediately provide BSEE with a copy of their SEMS program and have the company CEO certify under oath that their company has implemented it. Their audits must be submitted "without further delay".

Please read on By Rod Sweet at: http://social.decomworld.com/regulation-and-policy/regulator-shuts-down-five-operators-ignoring-safety-audit-deadline

99 Percent Of New Electric Capacity Installed In October Comes From Renewable Energy

ThinkProgress: The U.S. added 699 megawatts of new capacity to produce electricity in October and 99 percent, or 694 MW, came from renewable sources, according to a study from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The other five megawatts came from oil.

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New energy conversion principle may double efficiency of today's engines

ScienceDaily...This new compressive combustion principle was formulated by Professor Naitoh through the development of a new thermofluid dynamics theory, as well as thought experiments, supercomputer simulations, and high-speed airflow experiments drawing on that theory. The fundamental principle is that while thermal efficiency can be raised by reaching a high compression ratio, achieved through pulsed collisions of multiple high-speed jets of an air-fuel gas mixture at microscopic regions in the central area of a combustion chamber, expanded uses and ranges of application were attained with the further addition of 3 new measures. This method is also considered to be lower in cost than batteries, as well as having possibilities for noise reduction and the potential to eliminate the need for cooling mechanisms. 1. Prototype engine for automobiles 2. Prototype engine for aircraft

If the effectiveness of this principle can be confirmed through combustion tests, it will not only open up the doors to new lightweight, high-performance aerospace vehicles, but would also lead to prospects of next-generation, high-performance engines for automobiles. The maximum thermal efficiency of present-day gasoline engines for automobiles is on the order of 30%, believed to fall to a level as low as 15% in states from idling to low-speed city driving. Therefore, if automobiles could be equipped with "low-cost, ultimate-efficiency engines," reaching a stand-alone thermal efficiency of 60% or higher over a wide range of driving conditions, it is believed that a substantial fuel consumption superior to that of current hybrid system automobiles could be a reality. Furthermore, if such automobiles, equipped with these high-efficiency engines, could be used to generate power at individual households, it would open up possibilities for improving the total energy efficiency of our entire society (The photographs above are of primary prototype engines produced to confirm the new principle, at the beginning of combustion testing).

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