Wind Power Is Cheaper Than Coal, Leaked Report Shows

Slashdot: A leaked report shows wind is the cheapest energy source in Europe, beating the presumably dirt-cheap coal and gas by a mile. Conventional wisdom holds that clean energy is more expensive than its fossil-fueled counterparts. Yet cost comparisons show that renewable energy sources are often cheaper than their carbon-heavy competition. The report (PDF) demonstrates that if you were to take into account mining, pollution, and adverse health impacts of coal and gas, wind power would be the cheapest source of energy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New Spheromak Fusion reactor concept called a Dynomak could be cheaper than coal

University of Washington engineers have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

UPDATE- the technical details and proposed timeline are provided in the next nextbigfuture article

The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results Oct. 17 at the International Atomic Energy Agency's Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The UW's design is known as a spheromak, meaning it generates the majority of magnetic fields by driving electrical currents into the plasma itself. This reduces the amount of required materials and actually allows researchers to shrink the overall size of the reactor.

New Energy and Fuel reports the concept entails a recently discovered imposed-dynamo current drive (IDCD) and a molten salt (FLiBe) blanket system for first wall cooling, neutron moderation and tritium breeding. The feasibility of the energy generating system is made possible from newly available materials and an ITER-developed cryogenic pumping system - See more at: 

The Dynomak will have very high neutron wall loading and FLiBe blanket which offers most attractive blanket power density, which is also an economic metric for power plant considerations. Imposed-Dynamo Current Drive (IDCD) perturbs and sustains a stable spheromak equilibrium, avoiding severe confinement quality limitations apparent in previous dynamo-driven experiments. IDCD enables energy efficient current drive when compared to conventional current drive methods, further reducing the recirculating power fraction

Fusion Engineering and Design - The dynomak: An advanced spheromak reactor concept with imposed-dynamo current drive and next-generation nuclear power technologies

Read more » at Next Big Future

Germany Reaches 74% Renewable Energy During May Weekend

Inhabitat has a look at Germany's increasing takeup of renewable energy - Germany Was Powered by 74% Renewable Energy Last Weekend.

According to think tank Agora Energiewende, Germany's renewable usage set a new record on Sunday when wind, solar, biomass, and hydro energy supplied a bulk of the country's energy. Information supplied by the group shows that the combined contribution of renewables reached 43.54 gigawatts between noon and 1 p.m. That equates to almost three quarters of the country's demand.

Agora Energiewende has noted, however, that the inability of some baseload generators to switch themselves off meant that a record level of more than 10 gigawatts of surplus capacity at its peak was exported to neighboring markets.

Germany has always been among Europe's leaders when it comes to solar energy, and this weekend was no exception with its output at 15.2 gigawatts at its peak. That said, the output is just half its rated peak capacity—which is more than 33 gigawatts—but then most of the northern part of the country was covered in cloud.

Please read full and follow at: Peak Energy

Drought is putting California hydroelectric power in danger

Think Progress - California's ability to produce renewable energy from hydroelectric dams has been significantly hampered over the last few years because of an increasingly severe and widespread drought, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. 

The drought, which began in 2011 and is now covering 100 percent of the state, is drying up the reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams. The reservoirs create power when the force of the water in them is released onto turbines. When there is less water, there is also less pressure to spin those turbines, thereby decreasing the amount of renewable electricity that can be produced. 

Hydroelectric power used to account for 20 percent of California's in-state electricity generation for the first six months of each year from 2004 until 2013, the EIA said. But during the first six months of 2014, hydropower generation was halved, making up only 10 percent of California's in-state electricity generation. 

Please continue reading from:  

 http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/07/3576715/california-drought-hydropower/

Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline

ExtremeTech: Andrea Rossi's E-Cat — the device that purports to use cold fusion to generate massive amounts of cheap, green energy – has been verified by third-party researchers, according to a new 54-page report. The researchers observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, or "far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume." The researchers were also allowed to analyze the fuel before and after the 32-day run, noting that the isotopes in the spent fuel could only have been obtained by "nuclear reactions" — a conclusion that boggles the researchers: "… It is of course very hard to comprehend how these fusion processes can take place in the fuel compound at low energies."

Please read full and follow at: 
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/191754-cold-fusion-reactor-verified-by-third-party-researchers-seems-to-have-1-million-times-the-energy-density-of-gasoline

How Oil & Gas Waste Became Exempt From Federal Regulation

In the small town of Nordheim, Texas, residents are trying to stop a commercial oil and gas waste facility proposed for a large plot of land less than a mile away. They worry that the Texas wind will carry toxic air emissions into the town and across the campus of the local school. The residents' effort is hampered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision in 1988 to classify most oil and gas waste as "non hazardous," even though it contains chemicals, including benzene, that are known to cause health problems. The industry lobbied hard for the non-hazardous classification, arguing that the cost of treating the waste as hazardous would be exorbitant. Here's a look at how the exemption came about, and a recent effort to repeal it. 

Please continue reading from:   How Oil & Gas Waste Became Exempt From Federal Regulation

Why Is The World Bank Failing On Energy Poverty?

World Bank energy investments are categorically failing to end energy poverty. That's the stark finding of a new report released by Sierra Club and Oil Change International which measures how multilateral development banks (MDB) fare on their efforts to end energy poverty. The report benchmarked recent MDB investments in clean energy access against the breakdown of needed investment called for in the International Energy Agency's (IEA) "Energy for All" scenario. In that scenario, universal energy access is achieved by 2030. As it stands, if the "Energy for All" scenario is going to succeed, it will require 64 percent of all new investments be used to fund the fastest, cheapest, and most effective source of energy that will help energy poor populations get on to the energy ladder. That source of energy? Distributed off-grid and mini-grid clean energy systems for those living Beyond the Grid.  Please continue reading from: Why Is The World Bank Failing On Energy Poverty?

Methane emissions in Four Corners 80 percent higher than EPA estimates, study says

A study by NASA and the University of Michigan published on Thursday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters says that levels of methane in the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona connect are 80 percent higher than Environmental Protection Agency estimates, Seth Borenstein reports for the San Francisco Chronicle. (NASA photo: Four Corners is a major hot spot for methane emissions)

The high level of methane "is likely leakage from pumping methane out of coal mines," Borenstein writes. Data taken from 2003 to 2009 "found atmospheric methane concentrations equivalent to emissions of about 1.3 million pounds a year."

"The amount of methane in the Four Corners—an area covering about 2,500 square miles—would trap more heat in the atmosphere than all the carbon dioxide produced yearly in Sweden," Borenstein writes. "That's because methane is 86 times more potent for trapping heat in the short-term than carbon dioxide." (Read more) 

Canada will have pipeline 50% bigger than Keystone XL running oilsand oil to the eastcoast by 2018

Next Big Future: Energy East is an improbable pipeline that has a high probability of being built. It will cost C$12 billion ($10.7 billion) and could be up and running by 2018. Its 4,600-kilometer (2,858-mile) path, taking advantage of a vast length of existing and underused natural gas pipeline, would wend through six provinces and four time zones. It would be Keystone on steroids, more than twice as long and carrying a third more crude. 

The natural gas pipeline is underused because of the shale gas boom in the United States.

Its end point, a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, operated by a reclusive Canadian billionaire family, would give Canada's oil-sands crude supertanker access to the same Louisiana and Texas refineries Keystone was meant to supply. 

Canada wants more than one pipeline out of the oilsands in Alberta. Having a major pipeline in the bag and large rail facilities provides leverage in other pipeline negotiations.

Read more »

The ominous math of the Ebola epidemic and What it would take to Contain

​When the experts describe the Ebola disaster, they do so with numbers. The statistics include not just the obvious ones, such as caseloads, deaths and the rate of infection, but also the ones that describe the speed of the global response.

Right now, the math still favors the virus.

Global health officials are looking closely at the "reproduction number," which estimates how many people, on average, will catch the virus from each person stricken with Ebola. The epidemic will begin to decline when that number falls below one. A recent analysis estimated the number at 1.5 to 2.

The number of Ebola cases in West Africa has been doubling about every three weeks. There is little evidence so far that the epidemic is losing momentum.

"The speed at which things are moving on the ground, it's hard for people to get their minds around. People don't understand the concept of exponential growth," said Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Exponential growth in the context of three weeks means: 'If I know that X needs to be done, and I work my butt off and get it done in three weeks, it's now half as good as it needs to be.' "

To halt the spread of Ebola, many more people need to be isolated in treatment centers according to CDC models. View Graphic

Frieden warned Thursday that without immediate, concerted, bold action, the Ebola virus could become a global calamity on the scale of HIV. He spoke at a gathering of global health officials and government leaders at the World Bank headquarters in Washington. The president of Guinea was at the table, and the presidents of Liberia and Sierra Leone joined by video link. Amid much bureaucratic talk and table-thumping was an emerging theme: The virus is still outpacing the efforts to contain it.

"The situation is worse than it was 12 days ago. It's entrenched in the capitals. Seventy percent of the people [who become infected] are definitely dying from this disease, and it is accelerating in almost all settings," Bruce Aylward, assistant director general of the World Health Organization, told the group.

Please read full at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-ominous-math-of-the-ebola-epidemic/2014/10/09/3cad9e76-4fb2-11e4-8c24-487e92bc997b_story.html

13th Report on Carcinogens released, 243 new listings

This month the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the 13th Report on Carcinogens (RoC). The RoC is a science-based, public health document prepared by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) that identifies substances in our environment considered to be cancer hazards. Four substances are newly reviewed for this edition of the RoC, bringing the cumulative report total to 243 listings.

“Identifying substances in our environment that can make people vulnerable to cancer will help in prevention efforts,” said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). “This report provides a valuable resource for health regulatory and research agencies, and it empowers the public with information people can use to reduce exposure to cancer causing substances.”

The Report on Carcinogens is a congressionally mandated report prepared for the HHS Secretary by NTP. The report identifies agents, substances, mixtures, or exposures in two categories: known to be a human carcinogen and reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen. The new report is available at http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/roc13 .

A listing in the report indicates a cancer hazard, but does not by itself mean that a substance will cause cancer. Many factors, including the amount and duration of exposure, and an individual’s susceptibility to a substance, can affect whether a person will develop cancer.

Why natural foods may not be natural

Environmental News Network - A wide variety of packaged food that carry the label "natural" on US supermarket shelves were found to contain substantial amounts of genetically modified organisms, according to Consumer Reports.

Tests on dozens of common food products including breakfast cereals, crisps and infant formula found almost all of them contained recognizable levels of GMOs.

The research results has led to Consumer Reports to now call for the mandatory labeling of GMOs in food and a ban on the "natural" label, which suggest products don't contain the controversial ingredients.

A recent survey of 1,000 American adults conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center showed that a majority of people — 64 percent — mistakenly equate "natural" with no GMOs. The same survey also showed that nearly three-quarters of all Americans are seeking foods produced without genetically modified organisms. 

Please continue reading from:   http://www.enn.com/environmental_policy/article/47914

Greening deserts are very bad for the fish in the oceans

Next Big Future interviewed Jason McNamee, former Director and Operations Officer of the Haida Salmon Restoration project and now Scientific Advisor to the World Aquarium and Conservation for the Oceans Foundation. Jason provided a lot of information and I will provide a series of articles related to his information. He educated me about processes in the deep ocean (100 miles from the coast) and how more still needs to be learned. Nextbigfuture covered how the 120 ton iron fertilization in 2012 increased salmon catches in 2013 and 2014.

Most people have been hearing warnings about desertification and how the deserts are increasing. Actually the deserts are becoming more green and are producing less dust. This is driving the steady reduction of iron into the oceans by about 1% per year. 42% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that plants in the desert need to breathe less and keep more water. Less dust from the desert means less iron into the ocean. Iron shortage in the ocean is the key factor that is reducing algae and plankton in the ocean. There is plenty of nitrogen and phosphorous. Less algae and plankton causes reduction in the amount and size of fish.

China has massive projects to spray the desert with bacteria and carpet bomb the desert with seedling plants.

Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface

About 3% is icecap and ice sheets.

Fish supply the greatest percentage of the world's protein consumed by humans.

Deserts cover about one fifth of the Earth's land area and occur where rainfall is less than 50 cm/year.

Sahara desert supplying the Atlantic with dust and iron

Read more »

[University of Wisconsin-Madison awarded $3.3 million for project that produces chemicals from biomass.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been awarded up to $3.3 million for a project that would produce chemicals from biomass.

The grant was one of five announced Thursday by the U.S. Energy Department. The agency awarded a total of $13.4 million for projects that aim to help develop advanced biofuels as well as biioproducts, the agency said.

"These products not only will help reduce carbon emissions, but also advanced the department's work to enable the production of clean, renewable and cost-competitive drop-in biofuel at $3 per gallon by 2022," the agency said.

Please read full and follow at: 
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/business/278694571.html?ipad=y

Ampy converts a half-hour jog into three hours of battery life

Gizmag 

Kinetic chargers have been around for a few years, but have typically been big and bulky. Ampy is much smaller and fashionable enough to wear around... Continue Reading Ampy converts a half-hour jog into three hours of battery life 
Related Articles:

• The nPower PEG: US$150 kinetic energy harvester charges smartphones off-the-grid
• Brother's Vibration Energy Cell batteries to shake up power generation for low power devices
• nPower PEG uses motion to charge mobile devices
• RCA Airnergy claims to charge gadgets using ambient WiFi signals
• The Etive kinetic energy charger gives power walking a whole new meaning
• It's all in the wrist: The Voltmaker kinetic smartphone charger

Occupational Health and Safety Guide for small employers

The International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH)  has developed an occupational health and safety guide for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries.

Dr. Tee Guidotti of ICOH’s Scientific Committee on Occupational Health and Development, who led development of the guide, encourages WHWB members and partners to use the guide in our work and distribute it widely to the target audience. “All we ask,” says Dr. Guidotti, “is that 1) the content of the document not be changed (except for translation), 2)  it be made available free or for very low cost, 3) ICOH be kept informed on how it was used and the outcome, and 4) however it is distributed, full credit be given to ICOH and to the authors as listed in the Guide.”

The OH Guide is designed to be a practical introduction to the basics of worker health protection for SMEs.  It is also intended for multinational employers to use in promoting worker health protection among their vendors and contractors. French, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and Chinese versions are in the works.

You can access the Guide, evaluation survey, an Executive Summary and project description at this link.
https://app.box.com/s/f4urnjs6hkuxrlfy56pm

Source: Workplace Health Without Borders

Health Professionals needed to help with Ebola crisis

AmeriCares is seeking help to staff a team to combat Ebola in Liberia.

Individuals  interested in serving in the fight against, and treatment of, Ebola in Liberia are asked to register to create a profile along with their resume/CV in the AmeriCares online jobs portal.
https://careers-americares.icims.com/jobs/1181/ebola-treatment-unit-staff---liberia/job

More information is available in this document.
https://app.box.com/s/0c6fpm7oda5asmvree0x

WHO is also seeking health professionals to help with Ebola. See http://www.icohweb.org/site_new/multimedia/news/pdf/Strengthening%20HS%20and%20IPC%20in%20affected%20countries.pdf

Source Workplace Health Without Borders

Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) Water Audit Webinar - Oct. 21 at 11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. (web only)

“Water Use and Conservation on Illinois College Campuses: The Ripple Effect”

 

The Illinois Green Economy Network (IGEN) and the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) are partnering to train college faculty and staff to conduct water audits on their campuses, increasing knowledge about water on college campuses, and furthering ISTC’s goal of reducing water consumption in Illinois by One Billion Gallons. To do so, IGEN and ISTC will implement a three-phase program. In the first phase of the program, IGEN will cohost a webinar with ISTC to educate interested colleges on the basics of water audits. The webinar will cover the following information:

• Details of what a comprehensive water audit encompasses: the built environment, the campus landscaping, and the local topography/watershed;
• Where to find specific information on water use on a college campus: what bills, what departments have information, what is metered, etc.;
• Potential benefits of water audits: how to save money, water, and energy, and the environmental impacts; and
• Overview of the next phases of the program and how to participate.

 Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) Water Audit Webinar – Oct. 21 at 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. (web only)

Speakers will be: Megan Chery, Manager of Alliance for Water Efficiency; Aaron Dunbaugh, Director of Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago; and Michelle Maddaus, Founder and Civil Engineer with Maddaus Waste Management.

 

Please register to attend the webinar at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/154690976. For additional information visit http://www.igencc.org/node/1115.

 

Russia, which holds a fifth of the planet's forests, could run out of wood.

It seems unfeasible that Russia, which holds a fifth of the planet's forests, could run out of wood.

And yet it is happening, at least with commercially usable forests, environmental analysts say.

The Russian logging industry will face lack of harvestable timber in 10 to 20 years, a short time by the standards of an industry naturally tied to slow tree growth cycles, according to their consensus.

"We are already past the point of no return," Konstantin Kobyakov, who oversees the protection of high conservation value forest at WWF Russia, told The Moscow Times.

To keep the logging industry on the rails, Russia needs to go from extensive to intensive forest management — i.e. from clearing forests once and moving to new territories to replanting them, industry players and officials agree.

But the process requires massive reform and multibillion-dollar investment that would take decades to recoup — neither of which is likely to materialize anytime soon, given Russia's flagging economy and dismally unstable investment climate.

"No one needs a crisis, but it looks like that is the only way we'll learn," Kobyakov said in a telephone interview earlier this month.

Too Far for Business

Russia had about 8.8 million square kilometers of forests as of 2010, according to a 2012 study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO.

This is 20 percent of the world's total and more than any other country. Brazil is second with some 5.1 million square kilometers.

But Russia only accounted for some 4 percent of the global logging output, the FAO study said.

Easily accessible forests in Russia are shrinking rapidly, said Artyom Savko, a spokesman for Ilim Group, Russia's biggest papermaker with an annual output of 2.6 million tons.

The Russian logging industry was thriving from the 1940s through the 1970s, mainly on forest reserves in the central European part of the country.

But those reserves are long depleted. In the northwestern Republic of Karelia, a former hotbed of the industry that housed more than a hundred logging settlements, only two such villages survive.

Russia's main sources of timber now are in Siberia, the Far East and the country's European North.

But the cost of shipping timber across hundreds and thousands of kilometers of roadless terrain can be too high to render logging profitable in large parts of those regions, said Savko, whose company's business is centered in the Arkhangelsk and Leningrad regions of northern European Russia and the Irkutsk region of eastern Siberia.

Russia lost about 10 percent of its remaining virgin forest in 2000-13, according to a study by Moscow-based NGO Transparent World.

Some forests cleared between 1940 and 1970 have actually regrown enough to be cleared again, said WWF's Kobyakov. But those offer mostly aspen or birch — which, despite being considered the archetypal national tree in Russia, is subpar timber compared with many conifers, which are in increasingly short supply, experts said.

Please continue reading from: 

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/news//business/article/russia-is-running-out-of-forest/508149.html

UW fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal | UW Today [feedly]

Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true – zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.

CLICK TO EXPAND

U of Washington

The UW's current fusion experiment, HIT-SI3. It is about one-tenth the size of the power-producing dynomak concept.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven't penciled out. Fusion power designs aren't cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results Oct. 17 at the International Atomic Energy Agency's Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

"Right now, this design has the greatest potential of producing economical fusion power of any current concept," said Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics and an adjunct professor in physics.

The UW's reactor, called the dynomak, started as a class project taught by Jarboe two years ago. After the class ended, Jarboe and doctoral student Derek Sutherland – who previously worked on a reactor design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – continued to develop and refine the concept.

The design builds on existing technology and creates a magnetic field within a closed space to hold plasma in place long enough for fusion to occur, allowing the hot plasma to react and burn. The reactor itself would be largely self-sustaining, meaning it would continuously heat the plasma to maintain thermonuclear conditions. Heat generated from the reactor would heat up a coolant that is used to spin a turbine and generate electricity, similar to how a typical power reactor works.

"This is a much more elegant solution because the medium in which you generate fusion is the medium in which you're also driving all the current required to confine it," Sutherland said.

Please continue reading from: 
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/10/08/uw-fusion-reactor-concept-could-be-cheaper-than-coal/

India Leading World In Consumer LED bulb use seeking them at $0.16

The first LED lamp made in India, in 2010, was sold for Rs.1,200, the ministry said.

EESL has already completed a number of projects to retrofit existing streetlights to LED streetlights as well as a 750,000 LED bulb replacement project for households in Puducherry, the statement said.

"Increase in domestic demand would further reduce cost of LED bulbs with larger production capacities getting created in India," it said.

All lighting manufacturers have established domestic manufacturing facilities for LED-based lighting system, and have started training programmes for engineers and demonstration programmes in various buildings to showcase this technology, it added.

During the Durga Puja celebrations last week, a neighbourhood association in south Kolkata had erected a puja pandal that contained, and was illuminated by, 16,000 LED bulbs manufactured by a reputed multinational in India.

Please continue reading from: 
https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/power-ministry-sell-led-bulbs-142619307.html

anti-oxidants can nullify the very real anti-aging benefits of exercise.

The natural foods industry is deep into the anti-aging business, and it's all based on two lies—one about pesticides and toxins, the other about anti-oxidants.  Neither toxins nor oxidation are the reason that we get old, and we can't live longer by eating less toxins or more anti-oxidants.  In fact, toxins in small quantities stimulate the body's longevity pathways, and anti-oxidants can nullify the very real anti-aging benefits of exercise.

People who are fanatical about clean air and organic food don't live to extraordinary ages.  Animals raised in a super-clean, toxin- and pathogen-free environment actually die earlierthan animals raised with bugs and dirt.

Anti-oxidants have been tried in animal experiments and human studies, and they don't extend life.  In a definitive study, 29,000 Finnish men were given anti-oxidant vitamins in the 1990s, until the experiment was called off for ethical reasons.  It turned out people taking the vitamins were dying at a higher rate than the placebo group.

"Natural anti-aging" is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.  There are plenty of good reasons to eat organic.  Support more sustainable farming practices.  The vegetables taste better.  There's more nutritional value and it might even be healthier, especially for young people.  But natural foods are not part of the recipe for a longer life.

In fact, there is plenty you can do to slow down aging and improve your odds for a long life, but the best practices aren't particularly "natural".  Weight loss, fasting and short bursts of vigorous, all-out exercise are high on the list.  There are also some hormones and two prescription drugs* (long out of patent) that seem to work.  The easiest thing you can do to improve your odds is to take tiny doses of aspirin and mega-doses of vitamin D. (Much more here.)

Please continue reading from: 
http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/10/08/anti-aging-oxymorons-anti-oxi-morons/

Chemical bans have Ozone level improving

Christian Science Monitor - High in Earth's stratosphere, a protective shield of naturally occurring ozone is showing the first signs of recovery, with full recovery expected over much of the planet by midcentury, including the Arctic. Antarctica should catch up a few years later.

That's the assessment some 300 scientists have offered to countries who are party to the 1987 Montreal Protocol and related agreements – the latest in a series of quadrennial reports on the state of the planet's stratospheric ozone.

The protocol bans the production of chlorine- and bromine-based gases such as chlorofluorocarbons and halons, once widely used for tasks ranging from refrigeration and launching deodorant from spray cans to fire suppression. Overall, about 100 chemicals are covered under the protocol. Recommended: Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz

Once these gases reach the atmosphere, they persist for decades to be lofted into the stratosphere, where they break up ozone molecules. These molecules – made of of three oxygen atoms – absorb the most biologically damaging form of ultraviolet radiation that reaches Earth from the sun.

The protocol's goal is to restore stratospheric ozone concentrations to 1980 levels by around 2050, following a steep decline between 1960 and the early 1990s at latitudes spanning the globe from Stockholm to the Southern Ocean. Stratospheric-ozone concentrations bottomed out over Antarctica around 2000 in a feature that became known as the continent's ozone hole.

Although overall ozone levels had dropped 3 to 4 percent by the time the brakes on ozone-depleting chemicals took hold, concentrations of these chemicals could have risen 10 times by 2050, triggering substantial further decline.

Now, mid-latitude ozone concentrations are expected to reach 1980 levels between 2040 and 2060. 

Please read full and follow at: Christian Science Monitor

"We live in a financial, capitalistic age, we do not live in a scientific or technological age,"

Computerworld -- Though it seems as if we're surrounded by innovative products, services and technologies, there's a growing counter argument that we're living in a dismal era. Science is hated. Real technological progress has stalled. And what we call innovation today really isn't very innovative.

Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, billionaire investor and author, is among those challenging the notion of innovation and progress. Thiel, who earned undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, spoke at the Gartner Symposium/IT this week about why the march of progress seems to have stalled.

"We live in a financial, capitalistic age, we do not live in a scientific or technological age," said Thiel. "We live in a period were people generally dislike science and technology. Our culture dislikes it, our government dislikes it."

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First U.S. Ebola Patient Dies in Texas

Thomas Duncan, the ebola patient being treated in Texas, has died. "It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement. If he had survived, he could have faced criminal charges in both the US and Liberia for saying on an airport screening questionnaire that he had had no contact with an Ebola patient.UPDATE: Reports of a possible second Ebola victim in Texas are coming in. From the article: "The patient was identified as Sgt. Michael Monning, a deputy who accompanied county health officials Zachary Thompson and Christopher Perkins into the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed in Dallas. The deputy was ordered to go inside the unit with officials to get a quarantine order signed. No one who went inside the unit that day wore protective gear."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tune in for @sustainablog New Focus: Waste (Not!)

Notice the changes we've made? A new design, a new logo? Is that significant? You betcha! For 11 years, I've kept a general sustainability focus: if it's green, it works. Now that doesn't mean we've always done the same things: the early years were definitely reflective of my time in academia, and more recent ones have focused on living a more sustainable lifestyle (and reaching a broader audience). Of course, we're always checking the numbers to see what resonates with people. After a lot of consideration, and a month of testing and transition, I've decided to focus sustainablog on the topic of waste.

Why waste? I've always been fascinated by the innovations surrounding the things we've usually thrown "away." Whether poop to power, or crafty upcycling, or throwing food scraps into a methane digester, I'm intrigued by the innovations surrounding our waste streams, and how we find use for these materials that would've gone into a landfill (or the ocean, or to a village in Africa, etc.) just a few years ago. Of course, many of these materials still go into landfills, or the ocean, or villages in the developing world, and we'll dig into those stories, also. But, mostly, we're really interested in how "waste" spurs the imagination, at the individual, community, and corporate level.

So, what does this mean for you? It does mean you'll see more business/industry posts: we'll be keeping an eye on developments in the waste industries. But we'll also stick with ways that individuals and households can minimize their trash streams through reduction, reuse, recycling, and upcycling. If it involves keeping materials out of landfills, or our water and soil, or poor developing world communities, we're interested… We'll focus primarily on solid/material wastes, but won't ignore things like water and energy… we'll often pass those along to sister sites in the Important Media network better able to cover them, though.

So, come along with us: if you know of a good story along these lines, share it. Or just check in every day to see what we've found, and tell us what you think about it.

Image credit: Shutterstock

The post sustainablog's New Focus: Waste (Not!) appeared first on Sustainablog.

Please read full and follow at: Sustainablog

Soccer, Cancer and Artificial Turf

NBC: Soccer coach Amy Griffin was in a Seattle hospital visiting a young goalie who was receiving chemotherapy when a nurse said something that made the hair on Griffin's neck stand up.

It was 2009. Two young female goalies Griffin knew had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Griffin, associate head coach for the University of Washington's women's soccer team, had started to visit the women and other athletes in local hospitals, helping them pass the time during chemo with war stories from her three decades of coaching.

That day, the nurse looked down at the woman Griffin was sitting with and said, "Don't tell me you guys are goalkeepers. You're the fourth goalkeeper I've hooked up this week."

Later, the young woman with the chemo needle in her arm would say, "I just have a feeling it has something to do with those black dots."

Artificial turf fields are now everywhere in the United States, from high schools to multi-million-dollar athletic complexes. As any parent or player who has been on them can testify, the tiny black rubber crumbs of which the fields are made — chunks of old tires — get everywhere. In players' uniforms, in their hair, in their cleats.

Watch NBC Nightly News for More on Concerns about Synthetic Fields

But for goalkeepers, whose bodies are in constant contact with the turf, it can be far worse. In practices and games, they make hundreds of dives, and each plunge sends a black cloud of tire pellets into the air. The granules get into their cuts and scrapes, and into their mouths. Griffin wondered if those crumbs – which have been known to contain carcinogens and chemicals – were making players sick.

"I've coached for 26, 27 years," she said. "My first 15 years, I never heard anything about this. All of a sudden it seems to be a stream of kids."

Since then, Griffin has compiled a list of 38 American soccer players — 34 of them goalies – who have been diagnosed with cancer. At least a dozen played in Washington, but the geographic spread is nationwide. Blood cancers like lymphoma and leukemia dominate the list.

Please read full and follow at: NBC

China Has Overtook U.S. as World’s Largest Economy

Business Insider: China just overtook the US to become the world's largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Chris Giles at the Financial Times flagged up the change. He also alerted us back in April this year that it was all about to happen.

Basically, the method used by the IMF adjusts for purchasing power parity, explained here.

The simple logic is that prices aren't the same in each country: A shirt will cost you less in Shanghai than San Francisco, so it's not entirely reasonable to compare countries without taking this into account. Though a typical person in China earns a lot less than the typical person in the US, simply converting a Chinese salary into dollars underestimates how much purchasing power that individual, and therefore that country, might have. The Economist's Big Mac Index is a great example of these disparities.

So the IMF measures both GDP in market exchange terms, and in terms of purchasing power. On the purchasing power basis, China is overtaking the US right about now and becoming the world's biggest economy. Please read full and follow at: Business Insider

Power plant standards could save thousands of U.S. lives every year

Power plant standards could save thousands of U.S. lives every year
Source: Harvard, Syracuse, Boston Universities

ower plant standards to cut climate-changing carbon emissions will reduce other harmful air pollution and provide substantial human health benefits, according to a new study. The research shows that, depending on the policy options included in the final Clean Power Plan, the power plant standards could prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospitalizations, and hundreds of heart attacks in the United States every year.

In the new study, Health Co-benefits of Carbon Standards for Existing Power Plants, scientists at Harvard, Syracuse, and Boston Universities analyzed three options for standards to reduce carbon pollution from power plants. They modeled air quality and health benefits for these scenarios and compared them to business as usual in the year 2020. The analysis is called a "co-benefits" study because it focuses on the added benefits of a carbon standard that come from reducing other harmful power plant emissions such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. These pollutants are precursors to smog and soot that cause heart and lung disease, exacerbate asthma, and contribute to premature death.

Please read full and follow at:  
http://fulltextreports.com/2014/10/06/power-plant-standards-could-save-thousands-of-u-s-lives-every-year/

"Nobody Has Any Idea How Disastrous It's Going To Be" Warns California Water Expert

Zero Hedge: Newly released images created from NASA satellite data illustrate the staggering effect the California drought has had on groundwater supply in the state. As Mashable's Patrick Kulp explains, the images show the amount of water lost over the past 12 years, with different colors indicating severity over time. "Nobody has any idea how disastrous it's going to be," Mike Wade of California Farm Water Coalition told the Associated Press, as RT reports a growing number of communities in central and northern California could end up without water in 60 days due to the Golden state's prolonged drought. While California is bearing the brunt, experts note "We're seeing it happening all over the world, in most of the major aquifers in the arid and semi-arid parts of the world."

Via Mashable,

California is currently experiencing the third year of one of the most severe short-term droughts ever recorded. Data from U.S. Drought Monitor shows that as of Sept. 30, 82% of the state is facing extreme or exceptional drought conditions.

 

But the state is not the only area being plagued by critical drops in groundwater reserves. Data collected by GRACE indicates that the supply of groundwater is in decline worldwide, especially in regions that rely on it most.

 

"We're seeing it happening all over the world. It's happening in most of the major aquifers in the arid and semi-arid parts of the world where we rely on those aquifers. But we're able to see now the impact we're having on this over exploitation," Famiglietti told Science Magazine.

But it's getting extremely serious in California (as RT reports),

A growing number of communities in central and northern California could end up without water in 60 days due to the Golden state's prolonged drought.

 

There are now a dozen of small communities in Central and Northern California relying on a single source of water – which has the water resources board concerned they will not have any at all in two months' time.

 

At a mobile home park north of Oroville, more than 30 families are severely cutting back. The water supply is so tight it is shut off entirely between 10 pm and 5 am, according to CBS Sacramento. The families are relying on one well – all the others have dried up – and have to drive five miles to buy drinking water for themselves and their animals.

*  *  *

In conclusion...

"Nobody has any idea how disastrous it's going to be," Mike Wade of California Farm Water Coalition told the Associated Press. 

Please read full and follow at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-05/nobody-has-any-idea-how-disastrous-its-going-be-warns-california-water-expert

Cities likely to run out of water first

Ecowatch - A study done at the Environmental Hydrology Laboratory at the University of Florida ranks the 225 American cities with populations greater than 100,000 on fresh water availability and vulnerability. And while many of the most vulnerable cities are in the southwest, as one might expect with drought conditions sweeping California and Texas, there are some surprises.

The study rates ten cities as having a high level of vulnerability. San Antonio, with a metro area population of just under 2.3 million, comes in at 225. But it's followed by Miami, Florida, at 224 the second most vulnerable city. The largest metropolitan area threatened is Los Angeles, ranked 220 in terms of water security.

The other U.S. cities bringing up the rear are Lincoln, NE (223), San Jose, CA (222), San Diego, CA (221), Salt Lake City, UT (219), Riverside/San Bernadino, CA (218), Mission Viejo, CA (217) and El Paso, TX/NM (216). Other areas with a population of more than a million that face lesser but still high threats of water depletion are New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Tampa/St. Petersburg.

"High-ranking cities tend to be adjacent to very large lakes, such as the Great Lakes, and large rivers, such as the Mississippi or Columbia," says the study.

"For example, the highest-availability city (Duluth, MN) is the only U.S. city on Lake Superior, the third-largest freshwater body in the world (by volume). The other Great Lakes have smaller volumes and are shared by more (and larger) cities. Low-ranking cities are often found in arid regions (for example Los Angeles and Las Vegas), have low storage per capita (for example Miami and Atlanta) or share sources with multiple other cities (for example Chicago and Tallahassee)." 

Please continue reading from:   http://ecowatch.com/2014/09/03/city-water-supply-drought/

Drug companies testing vaccine to treat deadly virus that has killed eight million pigs

A pair of drug manufacturers are testing a vaccine that could help slow a deadly virus that is ravaging the pork industry. Harrisvaccines Inc. and Zoetis Inc. have received conditional regulatory approval "to market vaccines for porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, which has spread to 31 states and killed millions of young pigs since it was first identified in the U.S. in April 2013," Kelsey Gee reports The Wall Street Journal. "At least two other drug makers—Merck & Co. and Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH—say they are researching potential vaccines for PED." 

"The virus is fatal only to young pigs and poses no threat to human health or food safety, according to scientists," Gee writes. "PED has reduced U.S. hog supplies, raising costs for meat processors, retailers and consumers. Average retail pork prices jumped 12 percent in the 12 months through August to a record $4.20 a pound, according to federal data." (Journal graphic)

Major pig producers "are experimenting with the vaccines, though many in the industry say they don't expect them to become panaceas because previous vaccines for similar swine viruses have had limited success," Gee writes. "According to industry estimates, roughly eight million pigs have died from the virus since it was first discovered in the U.S., with some farms experiencing repeat outbreaks."

"U.S. pork production has fallen 1.8 percent this year, according to the USDA, lifting futures prices for slaughter-ready hogs to a record $1.33875 a pound in July," Gee writes. Prices have eased in the past two months, in part because fewer PED outbreaks occurred this summer compared with the start of the year. That is likely because warmer temperatures make it harder for the virus to survive, according to veterinarians." (Read more) 

Solar Could Lead In Power Production By 2050

Slashdot: Solar power could be the leading source of electricity compared with other renewables and conventional sources of power, such as oil and coal, according to a pair of reports from the International Energy Agency. PV panels could produce 16% of the world's electricity, while solar thermal electricity (STE) is on track to produce 11%. At the end of 2013, there had been 137GW of solar capacity deployed around the world. Each day, an additional 100MW of power is deployed. One reason solar is so promising is plummeting prices for photovoltaic cells and new technologies that promise greater solar panel efficiency. For example, MIT just published a report on a new material that could be ideal for converting solar energy into heat by tuning the material's spectrum of absorption. Ohio State University just announced what it's referring to as the world's first solar battery, which integrates PV with storage at a microscopic level. "We've integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost," said Yiying Wu, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio State.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mapping the Spread of Drought Across the U.S. - NYTimes

NYTimes.com

By MIKE BOSTOCK and KEVIN QUEALY UPDATED September 8, 2014

Maps and charts updated weekly show the latest extent of the drought in the United States.

DROUGHT SEVERITY

April-now

Less

More

Droughts appear to be intensifying over much of the West and Southwest as a result of global warming. Over the past decade, droughts in some regions have rivaled the epic dry spells of the 1930s and 1950s. About 33 percent of the contiguous United States was in at least a moderate drought as of September 2.

Things have been particularly bad in California, where state officials have approveddrastic measures to reduce water consumption. California farmers, without water from reservoirs in the Central Valley, are left to choose which of their crops to water. Parts of Texas, Oklahoma and surrounding states are also suffering from drought conditions.

The relationship between the climate and droughts is complicated. Parts of the country are becoming wetter: East of the Mississippi, rainfall has been rising. But global warming also appears to be causing moisture to evaporate faster in places that were already dry. Researchers believe drought conditions in these places are likely to intensify in coming years.

There has been little relief for some places since the summer of 2012. At the recent peak this May, about 40 percent of the country was abnormally dry or in at least a moderate drought.

Please read full and follow at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/mapping-the-spread-of-drought-across-the-us.html