The Last Taboo... Population.

MotherJones - What unites the Vatican, lefties, conservatives, environmentalists, and scientists in a conspiracy of silence? Population.

"Overpopulation, combined with overconsumption, is the elephant in the room," says Paul Ehrlich, 42 years after he wrote his controversial book, The Population Bomb. "We don't talk about overpopulation because of real fears from the past—of racism, eugenics, colonialism, forced sterilization, forced family planning, plus the fears from some of contraception, abortion, and sex. We don't really talk about overconsumption because of ignorance about the economics of overpopulation and the true ecological limits of Earth."

"... India, the dynamics of overpopulation and overconsumption are most acute, where the lifelines between water, food, fuel, and 1.17 billion people—17 percent of humanity subsisting on less than 2.5 percent of the globe's land—are already stretched dangerously thin. India's population is projected to surpass China's by 2030 in a country only a third China's size—adding 400 million citizens between now and 2050. But that's the mid-level projection. A slight uptick in global fertility, and it may be home to a staggering 2 billion people by 2050. Here, before anywhere else on Earth, the challenges of 20th-century family planning will become a 21st-century fight for survival."

Core differences about how the population issue is viewed have reinforced the paralysis. Conservationists tended to frame the issue as people vs. nature, while human rights activists found this analysis simplistic and even racist, failing to address what they saw as the core problems of poverty and environmental injustice. Yet they in turn have tended to deny the limits of growth. Add the tension between rich and poor nations, and the issue quickly becomes radioactive. "In the developing world," says Kavita Ramdas, the president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Global Fund for Women, "the problem of population is seen less as a matter of human numbers than of Western overconsumption. Yet within the development community, the only solution to the problems of the developing world is to export the same unsustainable economic model fueling the overconsumption of the West."

Please read full at MotherJones

Haase Comment:

I do not believe "Population" is a problem that can not be fixed, yet it can not be ignored. 

If every life was treated with the care, compassion and consideration it deserves our current population would be 4 Billion. Nearly 2 billion of worlds population are born into neglect, poverty and unwanted homes in arid lands that offer no hope or future. Education, compassion and incentives for self preservation are key.

Fusion update- cheaper discoveries & N.Korea triumphant?

M. Simon at IEC Fusion Technology The Italians and Russians are working on a cheaper version of ITER.

• 

  Russia and Italy have entered into an agreement to build a new fusion reactor outside Moscow that could become the first such reactor to achieve ignition, the point where a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining instead of requiring a constant input of energy.
  
  The design for the reactor, called Ignitor, originated with MIT physics professor Bruno Coppi, who will be the project's principal investigator.
  
  Bruno Coppi was an associate of Dr. Robert Bussard (of Polywell fame) when they worked together on the Riggatron concept [pdf]

• National Lab Discovers New Pathway To Commercial Nuclear Fusion Power Prospects for low-cost, clean energy through nuclear fusion just got brighter, thanks to a lucky discovery at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. A research team led by noted physicist Dr. Franklin Felber has taken a big step towards meeting two of the greatest technological challenges of pulsed power for fusion – current amplification and pulse compression. The team's discovery was published in Physical Review Letters.

And the land with the dumbest man claims success in nuclear fusion – North Korea on Wednesday claimed it had carried out a nuclear fusion reaction that could lead to a limitless supply of clean energy -- a process that the world's scientists have so far yet to achieve. 

Physicists worldwide are striving to develop a nuclear fusion power plant, a project which the International Atomic Energy Agency terms "a great challenge". 

But North Korea said it had triumphed using its own technology.

DNA Test Kit Will Sell At Walgreens starting in Mid May

From Next Big Future
Pathway Genomics with have genetic testing kits selling at Walgreens Pharmacy.
Walgreen will start offering the kits in about 6000 stores (It will not be available in New York because of a state law)

* Walgreen plans to offer Pathway's Insight Saliva Collection Kit at retail from $20 to $30. The saliva test, which will be done at Pathway's labs, will cost between $79 and $249. Genetic tests typically cost about $300.

Conditions Included in Your Report
Age-related macular degeneration
Alzheimer's disease, late onset
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sporadic)
Asthma
Atrial fibrillation
Breast cancer (females only)
Colorectal cancer
Coronary artery disease
Diabetes, Type 1
Diabetes, Type 2
Glaucoma
Hypertension
Leukemia, chronic lymphocytic
Lung cancer
Melanoma
Multiple sclerosis
Myocardial infarction
Obesity
Osteoarthritis
Parkinson's disease
Peripheral arterial disease
Prostate cancer (males only)
Psoriasis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Systemic lupus erythematosus
Ulcerative colitis
And many more...

Forty years of WI cleaner air and Clean Air Month

WDNR - With each breath of air, Wisconsin residents have good reason to celebrate the accomplishments of 40 years of cleaner air, according to state environmental officials. May is Clean Air Month and 2010 is the 40th anniversary of the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970.

"We breathe cleaner air today because of 40 years of action on air pollution -- a success story for all of us," noted Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank.

Governments and industries throughout the United States have addressed high, peak levels of air pollution in areas that caused acute health effects. But the scientific understanding of air pollution and its health effects has grown and health researchers say people would benefit from even lower levels of air pollution. Technology to further reduce air pollution levels is also improving.

Wisconsin has taken a number of steps to reduce air pollution, including:

• Sulfur dioxide emissions from electric utilities in the state were 46 percent lower by 1990 after passage of Wisconsin's groundbreaking acid rain law in 1986 and the acidity of precipitation in the state had decreased accordingly.
• All 11 southeastern counties identified as not meeting the federal one-hour standard for ozone levels in 1993 now do meet that standard. The six counties listed as severe nonattainment areas met the one-hour standard two years ahead of the mandated date of 2007.
• A mercury pollutant rule, adopted in 2008 under Gov. Jim Doyle's directive, has the state's four major utilities on track to reduce their mercury emissions by 40 percent by the end of this year. It also requires the large coal-fired power plants to reduce mercury by 90 percent by 2015 or meet that target six years later but also reduce multiple pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.

"Emissions from all sources contributing to ozone and fine particle pollution declined more than 30 percent between 1990 and 2005 alone." Frank said. "Businesses, home owners, local governments, commuters and others are committed to become more energy efficient in order to further reduce emissions and benefit from the savings."

During the month of May and throughout the rest of 2010, the DNR will be celebrating Clean Air Month and the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act.

Read more Highlights at WDNR and  Air Management Program

A prescription for early death...drugged culture

If the average person was told of the massive toll that prescription drugs take on their liver, kidneys and cardiovascular system... they would take ALL precautions first and use drugs as only a LAST resort.

It is why this will be the first generation outlived by their parents.

Image from the GOOD 

“Drugged Culture” ...direct advertising to consumers has increased demand for medications and the use of psychiatric prescription drugs — in 2009 there were more psychiatric prescriptions written than people in the US totally ignores the fact that, for many psychiatric drugs, treatment is determined by trial and error…

Read and comment at SociImages

US dependence on foreign energy... now more than ever.

Boing2 A capsule summary of the energy policies of the last 8 US presidents from Michael Milken's presentation at the global conference on "America's Energy Future."

* In 1974 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources, President Richard Nixon said, "At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need."

* In 1975 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources, President Gerald Ford said, "We must reduce oil imports by one million barrels per day by the end of this year and by two million barrels per day by the end of 1977."

* In 1979 with 40.5% of oil from foreign sources, President Jimmy Carter said, "Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 – never."

* In 1981 with 43.6% of oil from foreign sources, President Ronald Reagan said, "While conservation is worthy in itself, the best answer is to try to make us independent of outside sources to the greatest extent possible for our energy."

* In 1992 with 47.2% of oil from foreign sources, President George Bush said, "When our administration developed our national energy strategy, three principles guided our policy: reducing our dependence on foreign oil…"

* In 1995 with 49.8% of oil from foreign sources, President Bill Clinton said, "The nation's growing reliance on imports of oil…threatens the nation's security…[we] will continue efforts to…enhance domestic energy production."

* In 2006 with 65.5% of oil from foreign sources, President George W. Bush said, "Breakthroughs…will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

* In 2009 with 66.2% of oil from foreign sources, President Barack Obama said, "It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil while building a new energy economy that will create millions of jobs."

But they get an "A" for effort! A history of false starts for US energy independence

BP's Deepwater drilling rig had warning signs

Boing2 - a report that a particularly intense burst of natural gas caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to be shut down over fears of an explosion "just weeks before a similar release succeeded in destroying and sinking the platform and sent millions of gallons of oil on a collision course with Louisiana and the rest of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico."

Nuke the Gulf oil leak?

Bonig2 - Crazy, but it has been done: " the Soviet Union, a major oil exporter, used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities. The first happened in Uzbekistan, on September 30, 1966 with a blast 1.5 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and at a depth of 1.5 kilometers. KP also notes that subterranean nuclear blasts were used as much as 169 times in the Soviet Union to accomplish fairly mundane tasks like creating underground storage spaces for gas or building canals."

Update: Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says

Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast under the gulf. The nuclear option was not — and never had been — on the table, federal officials said.

“It’s crazy,” one senior official said.

Government and private nuclear experts agreed that using a nuclear bomb would be not only risky technically, with unknown and possibly disastrous consequences from radiation, but also unwise geopolitically — it would violate arms treaties that the United States has signed and championed over the decades and do so at a time when President Obama is pushing for global nuclear disarmament.

"Oil dispersant treatment toxic effect is double."

While the US oil spill is no Chernobyl, it is still toxic: biologist
"There will be no Chernobyl in the Mississippi Delta," Gulf Coast Research Laboratory marine biologist Joe Griffitt told AFP Friday, referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine that killed at least 4,000 people and contaminated over two million.

"But my concern is that the oil - which is a toxic substance - could have a very negative impact on shrimps, fish, oysters and crabs in the Delta. The development of the young, the juveniles - if exposed to oil - could be very strongly impacted."

Swamps and marshes in the Mississippi Delta provide 40 percent of US seafood production.

Even when there is a lower concentration of toxic products, organs can be damaged.

"If you take a fish, and oil - too much oil - finds its way into his organism, the liver is not able to detoxify the oil anymore," the biologist said. "The same goes for other organs like the brain and the gonads. The development of the young can also be damaged, and that's my main concern."

He noted that dispersants like Corexit used to halt the spread of the oil were also nefarious to sealife.

"Those products don't make the oil go away," Griffitt said. "It just falls to the sea bottom. That's where you'll find the sediments and the larvae. So the toxic effect is double."

Please read full at independent

OSHA Only a Tiny Dent in Huge Health Standard Backlog

The new regulatory agenda for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will result in new worker protections against at most a small handful of health hazards by the end of the presidential term, leaving untouched the absence of standards for thousands of chemicals and hundreds of existing standards that are much weaker than needed to protect workers, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). While OSHA is beginning some new initiatives, it is also pushing back the deadlines for completing some ongoing health standards.

Published in the Federal Register on April 26, 2010, the OSHA regulatory agenda lays out what new rules the agency expects to finalize and under what schedule. The agenda does outline a new initiative on infectious disease control for health workers and begins a long process for issuing an omnibus "injury and illness prevention program standard" (that would, much like the food safety rules industry now operates under, allow each company to write its own plant-specific plans). At the same time, it would extend the rulemaking process for stricter limits on beryllium and silica – a substance whose dangers have been known since the Roman Empire.

This latest semiannual agenda is the third attempt by the Obama administration to lay out its plans. While a contrast from the almost total inaction during the last several years of the Clinton administration and all the Bush years, even if OSHA meets all its new deadlines, it will promulgate at most two or three new health standards by the time of the 2013 Inauguration.

• Look at the OSHA regulatory agenda (PDF)
• Compare the yawning regulatory backlog in exposure limits
• Read David Michael's explanation via web-chat 
• See the PEER plan for Putting the "H" Back in OSHA

Source DocUticker

Cost of Fire up 86% or 2.5% of nations GDP

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) released a new report today, Total Cost of Fire in the United States, which finds that in 2007, after adjusting for inflation, the core total cost of fire has increased by 86 percent since 1980.

The complete total cost of fire for 2007 is estimated at $347 billion, making up approximately 2.5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

The complete total cost of fire is defined as the sum of economic loss (e.g., property damage, business interruption), human loss (e.g., lives lost, medical treatment, pain and suffering), and the cost of provisions to prevent or mitigate the cost of fire (e.g., fire departments, insurance, and fire protection equipment and construction).

Other key findings from the report:

• Although the core total cost of fire increased, the economic loss due to fire decreased by 13 percent since 1980, totaling at $18.6 billion.
• The total cost of direct property damages, reported or unreported, totaled at $16.6 billion. This figure represents 90 percent of the economic loss. The other 10 percent represents indirect losses, such as business interruption.
• Human losses are estimated at $42.5 billion. Full Report

Source DocUticker

Population degradation of society for VA

Population the 800lb gorilla...

 "Estimating Impacts of Population Growth on Ecosystem Services for the Community of Albemarle County and Charlottesville, VA," produced by Advocates for Sustainable Albemarle Population, as far is known, is the first such study ever undertaken to examine the effects of a community's projected growth on its ecosystem services, and to suggest projected population sizes at which essential ecosystem services are threatened or impaired.

This research examined the effects of local population increases on a selection of ecosystem services, including water and air related services

Excerpt: "At a 50% increase in population, services within the developing sub-study areas begin to decline markedly. Up to a 125% population increase, degradation of ecosystem services is contained within the developing sub-study areas; as population exceeds this threshold degradation becomes widespread, impacting all of the rural areas. It is important to emphasize that ecosystem degradation occurs unevenly across the study area. While ecosystem services at the level of the entire study area appear to be sustainable up to a 125% population increase due to the continued functioning of the rural areas, this masks the degradation that is occurring in the developing areas.

"The results of this . . . study clearly indicate that if growth continues, planners will have to balance the needs of the human population with local ecosystem health. We note that while careful development can continue in the short term, it clearly cannot be sustained forever without sacrificing important ecosystem services.

Read more from prorevnews

"There was zero sign of humans, but plastic was already there."

There are just so many examples of the principle of there really being no 'away' when it comes to plastic waste.

The great state- and small country-sized floating plastic garbage patches in the Pacific and Atlantic are gaining publicity, but here's another example. In this video from the Plastic Pollution Coalition, globetrotting surfing legends Chris and Keith Malloy point out that even on the remotest beaches on the planet they've found plastic litter. 

VIA TreeHugger

New idea may save H2 & Wind future

Next100 - Cheaper Way to Split Water
The current tech to make H2 is immensely expensive to ever dream of replacing current energy sources... and while finding a cheaper way to make H2 will help its future, cheaper electrolysis could also be an ideal companion to a big wind farm that produces lots of energy at times when it's not otherwise needed. Divert that energy to splitting some water into hydrogen and oxygen and voila, you could have an excellent source of standby energy--just like a big battery--available when energy demands peak but the winds die down.

Next100... a new discovery from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) of an effective replacement for platinum as a catalyst for the production of hydrogen from water could be a very big deal indeed. If hydrogen could be produced cheaply enough, it could be used for clean electric power generation or as a transportation fuel. The only byproduct would be water vapor.

A team at LBNL says it has identified a molybdenum compound that works about as well as platinum but costs only one-seventieth as much.

"In addition," said Hemamala Karunadasa, one of the co-discoverers, "our catalyst does not require organic additives, and can operate in neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water, the most abundant source of hydrogen on earth and a natural electrolyte. These qualities make our catalyst ideal for renewable energy and sustainable chemistry."

LBNL scientists aren't the only ones seeking a breakthrough in cheaper catalysts. Other academic scientists have their eyes on cobalt compounds and on ceramic materials that could replace platinum in fuel cells. 

Finding a workable and far cheaper catalyst for electroloysis would be a huge achievement but wouldn't revolutionize the energy industry overnight. That's because hydrogen is an energy carrier, like electricity, not an energy source, like the sun or fossil fuels. Even with a good catalyst, hydrogen takes more energy to produce than it delivers back as energy when burned or fed into a fuel cell. Thus the so-called "hydrogen economy" would require major new infrastructure for hydrogen production, gas storage and gas transportation, all of which make it an expensive proposition. - Read full at Next100

Inhabitat - Diapers into Energy Source

Inhabitat - Maybe Gross, but diffidently genius!

Wearing adult diapers just got a whole lot cooler — a Japanese company called Super Faith has developed a miraculous system that turns used diapers into a clean fuel source in about 24 hours. The elderly care industry in Japan is growing and along with it the number of disposable adult diapers. Super Faith has figured out a way to divert the smelly waste from the landfill and use it for a cleaner cause. Read more and see pics at Inhabitat

Green manufacturing shift to China

Next100: As China goes, so goes the planet Earth.

...China's environmental course will make or break global efforts to coordinate an effective means of controlling greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Bottom line: it's easy to sound virtuous in a survey. What counts is where you put your money. The world is waiting to see which way China goes.

Further evidence that the center of gravity for green manufacturing may shift to China comes from a new survey by Ernst & Young. Six in ten Chinese respondents said they would consider buying an electric or hybrid vehicle—nearly five times more than those surveyed in the United States, Japan or Western Europe. (Fewer than one in four in the United States say they would consider buying an electric car anytime soon.) Chinese respondents were also much more likely to favor subsidizing local charging stations to make electric vehicles more practical. 

Now for a reality check. From Bloomberg comes news today that "Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. dealers in Beijing say they don't have enough sport-utility vehicles in stock to meet demand, while hybrid models are selling at loss-making discounts."

Honda sold only 193 hybrid Civics in China last year, making it the company's worst-selling model there, even at one-third off list price. In contrast, Honda has a two-month backorder for its CR-V SUVs.

Please full at Next100

Quote of the week... Get used to it, baby

If there were an easier available place to find new oil than a mile beneath the sea, they'd be drilling there. - Get used to it, baby. 

Related Quote :Oil Spill Much Worse Than We've Been Told: "Official Estimates for the Flow of Oil ... May be Just a Drop in the Bucket"... lead government official responding to the spill - the commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen - as stated: If we lost a total well head, it could be 100,000 barrels or more a day.

Feeling Like A Loser? Go Outside For 5 Minutes

Consumerist Researchers from the University of Essex have found that as little as 5 minutes outside can improve your self esteem and mood, say Reuters.

The study concluded that 5 minutes in a park was beneficial.

They found that the greatest health changes occurred in the young and the mentally ill, although people of all ages and social groups benefited. The largest positive effect on self-esteem came from a five-minute dose of "green exercise."

The most positive effect came from green areas with water, but any park or grassy, green area will do... so if you've got one of those handy, walk around out there for 5 minutes, then come back an tell us if it worked.
Five minutes in the green can boost self esteem [Via Reuters]

Happy Mothers Day - Mines #1 ... Yours is 28th

While my MOM is #1  the U.S. ranked No. 28 in the survey.

 

GreenChange The rate of maternal mortality in the U.S. (one in 4,800), as well as the country's less generous maternity leave policies, were responsible for the low ranking.  

A U.S. woman is more than five times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, or Italy, and 10 times more likely than a woman in Ireland, the survey finds. The U.S. also scored poorly on the mortality rate of children under age 5. In the U.S., eight of 1,000 children die before reaching age 5, the survey shows.Read more from WebMD - Best and worst places to be a Mom...

Greece, UK, Spain... then U.S. Dominos

Here is a table from my friends at Variant Perception in London, from data from The Economist. Notice that France is over 8%. Germany is almost 6%. Wow.

 I reproduced graphs that projected interest-rate payments as a percentage of GDP rising rather dramatically over the next 30 years, to levels that, quite frankly, cannot be tolerated by the markets. Long before we get to the place where we in the US are paying 20% of our GDP in interest (which would be about 80% of our tax collections, even with much higher tax rates) the bond market, not to mention taxpayers, will revolt.

... the current course is not sustainable. And to get back to a level of debt-to-GDP that countries “enjoyed” as recently as 2007 requires such massive structural surpluses as to boggle the mind. And that is with rather optimistic growth assumptions that... are not very likely.

You can read last week’s letter at http://www.2000wave.com/article.asp?id=mwo043010. The discussion of the BIX paper is in the last half of the letter.

Now, we come to the section where they talk about the risks associated with the fiscal deficits. And by the way, we should note that 25 of 27 European countries are running deficits in excess of 3% of GDP. Ireland has a deficit of 14.3%. Portugal is at almost 10%. Greece is almost 14%.

Read full at ritholtz.com

Aging obese generation making any healthcare unsustainable

Chart from CDC says enough...I think it's fun to look at the anti social trend chart trend next to this one.

Anyone else see a correlation?

800 years of oil supply before we run out?

Alan Caplan May be wrong about oil, but is he right about renewables?

Caplan - Some believe we’ve found all the world’s oil reserves already...Others point to a trillion barrels of the sticky stuff, known to be sitting under the oilsands right here in Alberta plus an estimated several trillion barrels more not yet scooped out.

There’s a huge glut of natural gas; witness current low gas prices mainly due to the recent discovery and recovery methods from shale formations and the fact that no one in the industry predicts major upward price adjustments anytime soon.

Peak oil theorists have been wrong at least 10 times since the 1970s. We have, maybe, 800 years of supply before we run out if we find no more reserves, an unlikely possibility.
Solar and wind energy are, so far, so expensive to construct and operate compared to oil, gas, coal, nuclear or hydro-generated power, they’re at least a decade away from general use. To boot, they don’t produce sustainable energy when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow.

Both wind and solar produce excess energy, which can be stored and traded to public electric grids. Again, storage is expensive to build and maintain, requiring substantial government or electric system subsidies to make the trades viable. While it would be nice, they just aren’t viable for ordinary folks yet. And ordinary folks, unfortunately, pay for those subsidies and trade-offs.
Environmentalists say our oilsands are dirty and want them shutdown — pointing out that current technology produces massive amounts of CO2 and kills ducks that land on tailings ponds. One wonders if the so-called environmental disaster of the oilsands is anywhere near the ongoing catastrophe from BP’s offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
The renewable sectors will refine their technologies too, reducing costs and increasing production consistency.
We won’t run out of oil, gas or coal. Their use will decline as renewables become more viable and cost effective and they become more efficient. So it’s only a matter of time until there’s a new mix of energy sources. We’ll preserve the reserves.

That ought to suit both environmentalists and the dinosaurs.

Read full from Peak Oil? Not everyone is buying it

OIL Stunning Statistic of the Week

• $75 million: The liability cap for BP for the Gulf oil spill, for damages such as lost wages and economic suffering
• $5.6 billion: BP's first-quarter profits, a 135 percent increase over the first quarter of 2009

OIL Quote of the Week  Gulf spill will "forever" change drilling-BP exec

Related: Gulf incident prompts policy-change efforts   as Obama suspends new Virginia offshore drilling bid

Arctic drilling opponents gain momentum from Gulf oil spill

And Shell: We're ready to drill Arctic Ocean while Alaska struggling 21 years after Exxon spill

And please visit EPA's Web site on BP Oil Spillwww.epa.gov/bpspill

Report - Drinking Water & Watersheds Widely Contaminated by Hormone Disrupting Pesticide, Atrazine

...according to a new report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Sadly, new data doesn’t point to new results — atrazine can be found everywhere we look,” said Jennifer Sass, PhD, NRDC Senior Scientist and an author of the report.“

 

Banned by the European Union, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters and is a known endocrine disruptor, which means that it affects human and animal hormones. Last year, NRDC’s Poisoning the Well report shined a bright light on widespread contamination of American drinking water by the pesticide atrazine.

An EPA investigation of the chemical kicked off soon after the report was released and magnified by prominent media coverage, with expert meetings being held all last week in DC. The report authors today released Still Poisoning the Well, which uses updated data and new scientific research to show that the vexing problem continues throughout the Midwest and southern United States.

Atrazine season is here, and while it is great to see the U.S. EPA revisiting the registration of this pesticide, until they change monitoring policy high concentrations in drinking water will continue to be ignored,” said Sass. This exposure could have a considerable impact on reproductive health. Scientific research has tied this chemical to some ghastly impacts on wildlife and raises red flags for possible human impacts.”

The report reveals that all of the watersheds monitored by EPA and 80% of the drinking water sampled tested positive for atrazine. Contamination was most severe in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. An extensive U.S. Geological Survey study found that approximately 75 percent of stream water and about 40 percent of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas contained atrazine, and according to the New York Times, an estimated 33 million Americans have been exposed to atrazine through their drinking water systems. Full Report

Via DocUticker

Related: Underground "Fossil Water" Running Out

experts say ancient freshwater was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers. And like oil, no one knows how much there is—but experts do know that when it's gone, it's gone. "You can apply the economics of mining because you are depleting a finite resource,"

Radioactive water from nuclear power plant reaches major New Jersey aquifer

Radioactive water that leaked from the nation's oldest nuclear power plant has now reached a major underground aquifer, at concentrations 50 times higher than those allowed by law, that supplies drinking water to much of southern New Jersey, the state's environmental chief said Friday. Please read more at GreenChange

 

The radioactive water leaks were found just days after the plant got a new 20-year license in 2009 that environmentalists had bitterly fought for four years. Those problems followed corrosion that left the reactor's crucial safety liner rusted and thinned.

Department spokesman Lawrence Ragonese said there are several potential ways to address the contamination... No option has yet been decided upon.

"It's a sad day when the 'wait and see' approach taken in response to yet another 'trust us' from Exelon results in exactly what we feared , contamination of one of the most significant aquifers in the region," she said.

In Deep Water: Can we afford to spill any oil?

Informationisbeautiful

Environmentally caused cancers are "grossly underestimated"

THIS IS A MUST READ - .I.E gov, edu and public safety officials who read this blog.

The 240-page report by the President's Cancer Panel is the first to focus on environmental causes of cancer. The panel, created by an act of Congress in 1971, is charged with monitoring the multi-billion-dollar National Cancer Program and reports directly to the President every year.

The President's Cancer Panel: Environmentally caused cancers 'needlessly devastate American lives.' The panel, appointed by President Bush, told President Obama that the federal government is missing the chance to protect people from cancer by reducing their exposure to carcinogens. In its letter, the panel singled out bisphenol A, a chemical used in polycarbonate plastic and can linings that is unregulated in the United States, as well as radon, formaldehyde and benzene.

Environmental exposures "do not represent a new front in the ongoing war on cancer. However, the grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the National Cancer Program," the panel said in its letter to Obama that precedes the report. "The American people – even before they are born – are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures."

The panel criticized regulators and industry for using "woefully outdated" estimates of environmentally caused cancers to set regulations and "to justify its claims that specific products pose little or no cancer risk."Some experts are concerned that the report might just sit on a shelf at the White House. But Clapp said the findings are so strongly stated that he is confident the report will be useful to some policymakers, legislators and groups that want tougher occupational health standards or other regulations.

"We're not going to get any better than this," Clapp said. "This goes farther than what I thought the President's Cancer Panel would go. I'm pleased that they went as far as they did."


Environmental health scientists said they hope the report raises not just the President's awareness of environmental threats, but the public's, since most people are unaware of the dangers.

"This report has stature," Schettler said. "It is a report that goes directly to the president." Environmental Health News

inked VIA GreenChange

System Stores Wind and Solar Power in the Form of Natural Gas, to Fit Neatly Into Existing Infrastructure

PopSci our infrastructures are far better tuned for the hydrocarbon fuels of the past century than the renewables of the next. So why don't we just make fuels that work in our existing technology from renewable energy? A German-Austrian research collaboration has engineered a means to turn electricity from wind a solar resources into carbon-neutral natural gas that can be stored and deployed within existing natural gas infrastructure.

The process hopes to create the storage capacity for renewable power sources that they so sorely lack. When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, excess power is siphoned off and used to split water through electrolysis. But rather than storing the hydrogen gas for use in fuel cells -- technology that, while potentially game-changing, is not widely employed -- a simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide is used to generate CH4, or a synthetic version of methane.

That methane can be stored in existing natural gas facilities for use when renewable fuel sources are having an off day. Those supplies could also be used as a heat source during cold winters or burn in natural gas powered car engines. The synthetic methane does release carbon emissions into the air, but since the CO₂ used to make the synthetic methane is pulled from the atmosphere rather than the ground, the process only returns the carbon it initially pulled out.

And keep in mind this is envisioned as a backup storage system rather than a shift to a natural gas economy. On breezy, sunny days the synthetic methane stays in its tanks and the world turns on carbon-free power. The team has a demo plant up and running in Stuttgart, and a larger double-digit megawatt system is planned by 2012. Read more at Fraunhofer

VW Twincharger may kill hybrids or just help...

Electric cars haven't killed the engine as we know it, yet. In fact, the century-old technology is getting stronger every year

With all the focus on hybrids and electric cars, you might assume that the internal combustion (IC) engine was headed for extinction. Yet more than 99 percent of the world's new cars still use one. That includes conventional hybrids, whose batteries and electric motors derive their energy entirely from gasoline. Even those automakers who are most bullish on alternative energy say that the IC engine will remain their primary propulsion system for decades.

And that's not necessarily bad news. Some IC powerplants achieve near-zero emissions of pollution-generating compounds (they will still emit carbon dioxide), and VW has a new 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine delivers up to 172 horsepower, more than many engines that are 50 percent bigger. Yet the Twincharger still manages close to 45 miles per gallon on the highway in European models like the Golf hatchback.

Read more at PopSci The Internal Combustion Engine Is Not Dead

Algae Cleans Water, Then Transforms into Organic Fertilizer

USDA Algal blooms that feed on nutrient-rich manure and fertilizer runoff can deplete oxygen in the water when they die, creating inhospitable dead zones -- but the same green scum might also serve as a preventive solution upstream. A microbiologist with the U.S. Agricultural Research Service used algae to recover almost 100 percent of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients from manure, and suggested that the dried-out algae can then act as slow-release fertilizer for farms.

The solution offers better management of the cycle of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients which plants depend on. Experiments have shown that algae can capture 60 to 90 percent of nitrogen and 70 to 100 percent of phosphorus from a mixture of manure and fresh water, as proved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on four dairy farms.

The system is practicable now. Farmers would have to set up algal turf scrubber (ATS) raceways covered with nylon netting to serve as a platform for algae to grow upon. The capture costs of around $5 to $6 per pound of nitrogen and $25 per pound of phosphorus is about the same as other manure-management practices.

But Walter Mulbry, the USDA microbiologist, also showed that corn and cucumber seedlings could thrive on an organic fertilizer made from the dried-out algae. That might allow farmers to recoup even more of the costs from the ATS system, or perhaps turn a profit if the price is right.

Mulbry has already begun another study to see whether fertilizer made from chicken and poultry litter can also benefit from the algae cleanup system. And he has also begun studying whether the ATS systems can remove nitrogen and phosphorus from estuaries that flow into the Chesapeake Bay, so that they could clean up runoff that has already made it into the water system.

Algae's versatility has already won over scientists who see it as the biofuel of the future, and the tiny plant organisms have also been proving their worth in scrubbing carbon dioxide and nitrous gas from industrial smokestacks. A company called Algenol has even looked to using algae-derived plastic as a replacement for petroleum-derived plastic.

More Via PopSci ....Even the U.S. Department of Energy and various branches of the U.S. military have begun seriously exploring algae-derived solutions. If that doesn't entirely ensure a clean future, it at least suggests a future with a scummy color palette ranging from pale to bright green.

Free Energy - simple methane digester

Afrigadget is a great web site for low tech solutions that you can use off the grid.  Let's face it, there is not much high tech in Africa outside the big cities.

So 'scuse me for mentioning it but  Afrigadget's latest story  has come up with a neat way of turning chicken sh1t into chicken salad – otherwise known as a DIY methane digester. It reports that "David from Kenya" has made a digester that works mainly on "livestock faeces".  It is made from an old oil drum.

The balloon shows that gas is being produced. The costs for the drum and professional valves may already be too high for some, and the design isn't that optimal. They intend to add a storage drum with a water-filled header tank for constant pressure and the loading & desludging processes obviously still require some work.

He shovels the "faeces" in there and  the resulting gas is carefully kept under constant pressure so it can be used for cooking or lighting.

The trick is the pressure mechanism. When the digester produces methane, a  balloon is puffed up. The Digester needs a storage drum and a water-filled header tank to maintain constant pressure through the entire process.

David is also working on the "loading and desludging" process (otherwise known as shovelling s**t) to make his digester more efficient. But you can read all about it here.

VIA OffGrid

For domestic biogas digesters, with floating dome storage tank, see… http://solarcities.blogspot.com/

Epic War and Energy Bill

40 Years in the making.... at some point we have to understand these are three wars we'll never win...

“Its mother is a scooter. Its father is a car.” –BB1 Concept Car

Peugeot BB1 Concept car is an electric car born from a mix and match of a scooter & a car. Designed to tackle all issues of the modern world faced by people on a daily basis in order to offer maximum versatility…More photos & info after the jump.

Waukesha bypass battle to balance nature and traffic

Environmental protection and traffic flow could emerge as conflicting priorities with a wetland in the way of a Waukesha bypass.
"They really need the highway to go in," said David Bahl, plant manager at Weldall Mfg. Inc. and a member of the planning group. "But my first concern is doing it without destroying the wetlands."

The project does not have a proposed route, but a conceptual plan from Waukesha County showed the highway passing through the Pebble Creek wetland at the southern end of the study area. Planning panel member Joe Banske said he refuses to sacrifice wetland protection for a road.

A bypass built near Pebble Creek could harm the town of Waukesha's water quality and quantity, said Banske, a town resident and organizer for Bypass the Bypass and Save our Town.

"I'm going to stand very strongly on the absolute protection of the shallow aquifer and the ability for it to regenerate," he said, "because it is the only one that supplies the town, because without it, the town is in great peril.

"That may sound dramatic, but without it, where does the town go for water?"
Please read full at DailyReporter

Bladeless Wind Turbine to Replace Bladed Wind Turbine

The Fuller Wind Turbine that is bladeless wind turbine developed by Solar Aero has been patented by a company in New Hampshire. Fuller Wind Turbine will replace the weakness of bladed wind turbines such as noise, radar interference, visual pollution and wildlife injuries but still produce high efficiency.

Actually the Fuller Wind Turbine is based on a 1913 Tesla patent which modified for wind generation applications. Besides bladeless, the turbine assembly also protected by a house and has only one turbine-driveshaft which rotates. Equipped with inlet and outlet filters, turbine would be safe for wild birds, including bats.

According to the companies, the turbine will be easier in the treatment because using magnetic bearings and its located at ground level, no routine maintenance-tower. The turbine will move as it adjusts to track the wind.

Fuller Wind Turbine would be very suitable for use near military surveillance and radar installations, where moving blades is likely to cause disruption. The turbine is expected to deliver power at a cost comparable to coal-fired power plants or capable to generate electricity up to 10 kW output.

Read More by AltEnergy