text
string | id
string | dump
string | url
string | file_path
string | language
string | language_score
float64 | token_count
int64 | score
float64 | int_score
int64 | tags
list | matched_keywords
dict | match_summary
dict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
the energy [r]evolution
The climate change imperative demands nothing short of an Energy [R]evolution. The expert consensus is that this fundamental shift must begin immediately and be well underway within the next ten years in order to avert the worst impacts. What is needed is a complete transformation of the way we produce, consume and distribute energy, while at the same time maintaining economic growth. Nothing short of such a revolution will enable us to limit global warming to less than a rise in temperature of 2° Celsius, above which the impacts become devastating.
Current electricity generation relies mainly on burning fossil fuels, with their associated CO2 emissions, in very large power stations which waste much of their primary input energy. More energy is lost as the power is moved around the electricity grid network and converted from high transmission voltage down to a supply suitable for domestic or commercial consumers. The system is innately vulnerable to disruption: localised technical, weather-related or even deliberately caused faults can quickly cascade, resulting in widespread blackouts. Whichever technology is used to generate electricity within this old fashioned configuration, it will inevitably be subject to some, or all, of these problems. At the core of the Energy [R]evolution there therefore needs to be a change in the way that energy is both produced and distributed.
4.1 key principles
the energy [r]evolution can be achieved by adhering to five key principles:
1.respect natural limits – phase out fossil fuels by the end of this century We must learn to respect natural limits. There is only so much carbon that the atmosphere can absorb. Each year humans emit over 25 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent; we are literally filling up the sky. Geological resources of coal could provide several hundred years of fuel, but we cannot burn them and keep within safe limits. Oil and coal development must be ended. The global Energy [R]evolution scenario has a target to reduce energy related CO2 emissions to a maximum of 10 Gigatonnes (Gt) by 2050 and phase out fossil fuels by 2085.
2.equity and fairness As long as there are natural limits there needs to be a fair distribution of benefits and costs within societies, between nations and between present and future generations. At one extreme, a third of the world’s population has no access to electricity, whilst the most industrialised countries consume much more than their fair share.
The effects of climate change on the poorest communities are exacerbated by massive global energy inequality. If we are to address climate change, one of the core principles must be equity and fairness, so that the benefits of energy services – such as light, heat, power and transport – are available for all: north and south, rich and poor. Only in this way can we create true energy security, as well as the conditions for genuine human wellbeing.
The Advanced Energy [R]evolution scenario has a target to achieve energy equity as soon as technically possible. By 2050 the average per capita emission should be between 1 and 2 tonnes of CO2.
3.implement clean, renewable solutions and decentralise energy systems. There is no energy shortage. All we need to do is use existing technologies to harness energy effectively and efficiently. Renewable energy and energy efficiency measures are ready, viable and increasingly competitive. Wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies have experienced double digit market growth for the past decade.
Just as climate change is real, so is the renewable energy sector. Sustainable decentralised energy systems produce less carbon emissions, are cheaper and involve less dependence on imported fuel. They create more jobs and empower local communities. Decentralised systems are more secure and more efficient. This is what the Energy [R]evolution must aim to create.
To stop the earth’s climate spinning out of control, most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves – coal, oil and gas – must remain in the ground. Our goal is for humans to live within the natural limits of our small planet.
4.decouple growth from fossil fuel use Starting in the developed countries, economic growth must be fully decoupled from fossil fuel usage. It is a fallacy to suggest that economic growth must be predicated on their increased combustion.
We need to use the energy we produce much more efficiently, and we need to make the transition to renewable energy and away from fossil fuels quickly in order to enable clean and sustainable growth.
5.phase out dirty, unsustainable energyWe need to phase out coal and nuclear power. We cannot continue to build coal plants at a time when emissions pose a real and present danger to both ecosystems and people. And we cannot continue to fuel the myriad nuclear threats by pretending nuclear power can in any way help to combat climate change. There is no role for nuclear power in the Energy [R]evolution.
|
<urn:uuid:b6cc700a-55c3-47a6-baaf-dbe7c04a4b04>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.energyblueprint.info/1332.0.html?L=0
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.938335
| 982
| 3.3125
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change",
"co2",
"global warming",
"renewable energy"
],
"nature": [
"ecosystems"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 5,
"weak": 0,
"total": 5,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
What is Rainwater Harvesting?
Rainwater harvesting is an ancient practice of catching and holding rain for later use. In a rainwater harvesting system, rain is gathered from a building rooftop or other source and is held in large containers for future use, such as watering gardens or washing cars. This practice reduces the demand on water resources and is excellent during times of drought.
Why is it Important?
In addition to reducing the demand on our water sources (especially important during drought), rainwater harvesting also helps prevent water pollution. Surprised?
Here’s why: the success of the 1972 Clean Water Act has meant that the greatest threat to New York’s waterbodies comes not from industrial sources, but rather through the small actions we all make in our daily lives. For example, in a rain storm, the oil, pesticides, animal waste, and litter from our lawns, sidewalks, driveways, and streets are washed down into our sewers. This is called non-point source (NPS) pollution because the pollutants come from too many sources to be identified. Rainwater harvesting diverts water from becoming polluted stormwater; instead, this captured rainwater may be used to irrigate gardens near where it falls.
In New York City, keeping rainwater out of the sewer system is very important. That’s because the city has an old combined sewer system that uses the same pipes to transport both household waste and stormwater to sewage treatment plants. During heavy rains, the system overloads; then untreated sewage and contaminated stormwater overflow into our rivers and estuary, with serious consequences:
Who is Harvesting Rainwater in New York City?
Back in 2002, a drought emergency pushed many community gardens to the brink of extinction. For the first time in twenty years, community gardeners were denied permission to use fire hydrants, the primary source of water for most community gardens. This crisis led to the formation of the Water Resources Group (WRG), an open collaboration of community gardening and environmental organizations. With help from the WRG, rainwater harvesting systems have now been built as demonstration sites in twenty NYC community gardens.
At community gardens that harvest rainwater, rain is diverted from the gutters of adjacent buildings and is stored in tanks in the gardens. A 1-inch rainfall on a 1,000-square-foot roof produces 600 gallons of water. The tanks are mosquito proof, so the standing water does not encourage West Nile virus. Because rainwater is chlorine free, it is better than tap water for plant growth, meaning healthier plants. And it’s free!
What are Other Cities Doing?
Many cities have adopted creative, low-cost ways to stop wasting rainwater by diverting it from their sewage systems and putting it to use where it falls. Here are some examples:
What Can I Do?
Spread the word! Educate those around you on the importance of lifestyle decisions.
Tell people not to litter, dump oil down storm drains, or overfertilize their lawns.
Install a rainwater harvesting system at your home, school, business, or local community center.
Contact your local elected officials, and let them know you support rainwater harvesting!
Supporting rainwater harvesting Jade Boat Loans
|
<urn:uuid:14a860e9-8430-426b-8c1a-80c7f022fb96>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.waterresourcesgroup.org/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.942301
| 671
| 3.890625
| 4
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"drought"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft is expected to discover its 1,000TH comet this summer.
The SOHO spacecraft is a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency. It has accounted for approximately one-half of all comet discoveries with computed orbits in the history of astronomy.
"Before SOHO was launched, only 16 sun grazing comets had been discovered by space observatories. Based on that experience, who could have predicted SOHO would discover more than 60 times that number, and in only nine years," said Dr. Chris St. Cyr. He is senior project scientist for NASA's Living With a Star program at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "This is truly a remarkable achievement!"
About 85 percent of the comets SOHO discovered belongs to the Kreutz group of sun grazing comets, so named because their orbits take them very close to Earth's star. The Kreutz sun grazers pass within 500,000 miles of the star's visible surface. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, is about 36 million miles from the solar surface.
SOHO has also been used to discover three other well-populated comet groups: the Meyer, with at least 55 members; Marsden, with at least 21 members; and the Kracht, with 24 members. These groups are named after the astronomers who suggested the comets are related, because they have similar orbits.
Many comet discoveries were made by amateurs using SOHO images on the Internet. SOHO comet hunters come from all over the world. The United States, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, and Lithuania are among the many countries whose citizens have used SOHO to chase comets.
Almost all of SOHO's comets are discovered using images from its Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument. LASCO is used to observe the faint, multimillion-degree outer atmosphere of the sun, called the corona. A disk in the instrument is used to make an artificial eclipse, blocking direct light from the sun, so the much fainter corona can be seen. Sun grazing comets are discovered when they enter LASCO's field of view as they pass close by the star.
"Building coronagraphs like LASCO is still more art than science, because the light we are trying to detect is very faint," said Dr. Joe Gurman, U.S. project scientist for SOHO at Goddard. "Any imperfections in the optics or dust in the instrument will scatter the light, making the images too noisy to be useful. Discovering almost 1,000 comets since SOHO's launch on December 2, 1995 is a testament to the skill of the LASCO team."
SOHO successfully completed its primary mission in April 1998. It has enough fuel to remain on station to keep hunting comets for decades if the LASCO continues to function.
For information about SOHO on the Internet, visit:
Explore further: Long-term warming, short-term variability: Why climate change is still an issue
|
<urn:uuid:78cbe1bd-1849-4138-b59a-5521e93122a3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://phys.org/news4969.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.943417
| 663
| 4
| 4
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To establish in office; install.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To set or place; establish, as in a rank or condition.
- To invest.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To set, place, or establish, as in a rank, office, or condition; to install; to invest.
- From in- + state. (Wiktionary)
“North Carolina improved to 21-1 in instate tournament games, including 6-0 in games played here - home to Atlantic Coast Conference rival Wake Forest.”
“While this was not a war, the instate was the same.”
“But, the difficult national environment for Democrats coupled with a surge in Republican energy instate -- the result of the passage of a stringent immigration bill -- quickly turned the race into a serious contest.”
“Soccer Board of Directors voted to re-instate the provisional sanction.”
“After a first refusal, Obama says he'll now re-instate solar water heating to the White House roof, and will add photo-voltaic cells that will generate electricity.”
“If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change and avoid climate disaster, we need to instate a moratorium on drilling in the Arctic.”
“I think only money from instate sources should be allowed to pay for the campaign.”
“This seems like more of a power play to me: they want a worldwide governing body to oversee this and have them instate rules in place that will change our lives forever.”
“It's time to re-instate the tax breaks from the 2000-2004 period and we all have to face the fact that these bills must be paid.”
“Then if Congress really thinks this is incorrect, they can re-instate them.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘instate’.
The only letters without a "satine" bingo possibility: J, Q, Y
Words found through Wordie's random word function. I didn't take phrases, foreign, misspelled, or madeupical words, so I looked at about 200 words to assemble this list.
I was surprise...
Looking for tweets for instate.
|
<urn:uuid:7182c3f0-5278-41e6-ae9b-bc961c31adc2>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.wordnik.com/words/instate
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.933995
| 497
| 2.984375
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Japan has been hit by the worst crisis since 1945, as an earthquake and tsunami have killed 10,000, destroyed tens of thousands of buildings, displaced hundreds of thousands, and left millions without power or water. As the nation braces for more aftershocks, people have resorted to using sea water in an attempt to prevent a nuclear meltdown from adding a third catastrophe, which has already leaked and caused a mass evacuation. According to Greenpeace,
"We are told by the nuclear industry that things like this cannot happen with modern reactors, yet Japan is in the middle of a nuclear crisis with potentially devastating consequences…The evolving situation at Fukushima remains far from clear, but what we do know is that contamination from the release of Cesium-137 poses a significant health risk to anyone exposed. Cesium-137 has been one if the isotopes causing the greatest health impacts following the Chernobyl disaster, because it can remain in the environment and food chain for 300 years.”
Whereas the first two catastrophe’s were natural and unpredictable, a nuclear meltdown is entirely unnatural and entirely predictable. According to the local anti-nuclear group, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre,
The nuclear crisis comes a month before the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the largest nuclear meltdown in history, which showered Europe in a radioactive cloud causing a quarter of a million cancers, 100,000 of them fatal. As of this writing the disaster in Japan is already the third worst in history, behind Chernobyl and the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in 1979, and comes only 12 years after a fatal overexposure of workers at a nuclear plant in Tokaimura, Japan. Even without the inherent risk of a meltdown, nuclear power is a threat to health. The problem is not just the few terrible times when they don't work, but the daily experience of when they do work. As climate campaigner George Monbiot wrote more than a decade ago,
“The children of women who have worked in nuclear installations, according to a study by the National Radiological Protection Board, are eleven times more likely to contract cancer than the children of workers in non-radioactive industries. You can tell how close to [the nuclear plant in] Sellafield children live by the amount of plutonium in their teeth.”
Add to this the morbidity and mortality or working in uranium mines and the dangers of disposing of radioactive waste, and you have negative health impacts at every stage of nuclear power (for a summary see the UK’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). Despite this, governments have invested massively in the nuclear industry and globalized the risk. Canada has exported nuclear reactors while building seven of its own, and despite concerns about safety the Ontario government plans on investing $36 billion into nuclear power at the same time as its backing off wind power.
REASONS AND EXCUSES
While nuclear power is a clear and present danger to the health of the planet and its people, it is a thriving industry driven by economic and military competition. Vandana Shiva—who studied nuclear physics and now leads the climate justice movement in India—has exposed the hypocrisy of US hostility to Iranian nuclear power when it is doing the same thing to promote nuclear power and weapons in India as a bulwark against China:
As Shiva summarized in her book Soil Not Oil, “nuclear winter is not an alternative to global warming”, and it is a tragedy that Japan has become the test case against both military and civilian arms of the nuclear industry--from the atomic bomb 65 years ago to the nuclear meltdown today. But instead of admitting the problems of nuclear power, the nuclear industry and its supporters have greenwashed it and presented it as a solution to global warming. Some environmentalists, such as Gaia theorist James Lovelock, have fallen prey to these claims. Lovelock, whose ideas are driven by apocalyptic predictions and an extreme pessimism, has gone so far as to claim that “nuclear power is the only green solution”.While former US president George Bush defended his country’s 103 nuclear power plants as not producing "a single pound of air pollution or greenhouses gases”, Dr. Helen Caldicott has refuted the claim in her important book Nuclear Power is Not the Answer, which proves that even without meltdowns nuclear power is a threat to the planet:
The false dichotomy between carbon emissions and nuclear power is also refuted by those developing the Tar Sands, who have proposed using nuclear power to pump Tar Sands oil.
PEOPLE POWER, GREEN JOBS
Fortunately there are growing anti-nuclear campaigns uniting indigenous groups, NGOs and the broader climate justice movement to challenge nuclear power in all its stages—from mining to use to waste disporal. As Vandana Shiva writes in Soil Not Oil,
Meanwhile in Canada indigenous groups are leading opposition to transportation of nuclear waste through the Great Lakes and their surrounding communities, declaring “what we do to the land, we do to ourselves.” Last year the German government extended nuclear power against the will of the majority but after news of the leak in Japan, 50,000 people formed a human chain from a nuclear reactor to Stuttgart demanding an end to nuclear power.
Uniting these campaigns with the labour movement raises the demands of good green jobs for all, to transform our oil and nuclear economy into one based on ecological and social sustainability and justice. Instead of the billions in subsidies for the nuclear industry, governments could be investing in solar, wind and clean electricity, while retrofitting buildings, which could solve the economic and climate crises without the inherent dangers of nuclear power. As Greenpeace wrote,
"Our thoughts continue to be with the Japanese people as they face the threat of a nuclear disaster, following already devastating earthquake and tsunami. The authorities must focus on keeping people safe, and avoiding any further releases of radioactivity...Greenpeace is calling for the phase out of existing reactors, and no construction of new commercial nuclear reactors. Governments should invest in renewable energy resources that are not only environmentally sound but also affordable and reliable.”
|
<urn:uuid:f8f50eee-35e0-4fe2-8425-891ee98718b0>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://yourheartsontheleft.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuclear-meltdown-is-not-alternative-to.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.947521
| 1,235
| 3.1875
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate justice",
"global warming",
"renewable energy"
],
"nature": [
"ecological"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 3,
"weak": 1,
"total": 4,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Barbara Heath Land Race – 2012
By the time Barbara Heath visited Horsham, the town and the surrounding Wimmera District of Western Victoria were in the process of recovering from a decade-long drought. To inform her work, which was initially to address issues of drought, Heath held a number of planned and fortuitous conversations with the assistance of Horsham Regional Art Gallery staff, which came to focus on the changes in agricultural practices in the area.
The list of people with whom Heath consulted is lengthy, but Dr Bob Redden, curator Australian Temperate Field Crops Collection of the Grains Innovation Park became her main contact. In an email of August 2011, Dr Redden wrote to Heath: ‘Now with unprecedented population levels and growth, there is a risk of disconnect and taking food supply for granted, even with climate change. Humans will need to change if they wish to continue their increasing diverse interests, but will need to prioritise agricultural research, better understanding our available genetic resources, plant growth and development, and imaginative paths to harnessing science and truly earn the title ‘Homo sapiens’.
Land race is a direct response to the urgency of maintaining biodiversity. Agriculture today requires economies of scale that change the social landscape and limit population diversity. This results in the erasure of many small communities, loss of connection to the past and cultural loss. Dr Redden explained his department’s work to ensure plant gene diversity by sourcing and saving seed from land race crops. ‘Land race’ is the term used to describe heritage seed varieties now being displaced by International Seed Uniformity Standards.
Heath’s Land Race series shows distinct levels, from biodiversity in the soils to the patterns of farming practices above. Each Land Race also features a remnant plant species that reaches up and through the tractor track patterns: briar, apple and aloe.
There are numerous hero shots (one above) and details prepared (below), we will wait for the show to get under way and publicise a little later. The preliminary research is in an earlier blog post – click here.
2 Responses »
|
<urn:uuid:c1e616f0-c628-4e79-8c4f-63212b07cee3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://viewersite.wordpress.com/2012/02/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941399
| 434
| 3
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change",
"drought"
],
"nature": [
"biodiversity"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 3,
"weak": 0,
"total": 3,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Human expansion and interference have detrimental effects as civilizations continue to encroach on previously undisturbed habitats. As a result, many species of animals and plants must struggle to survive.
Biodiversity reveals the important role each of these life forms plays in its ecosystem as well as the irreversible and extensive consequences that would result from a massive loss of biodiversity. It explores the ecological and evolutionary processes, how these processes depend on the cohabitation of a wide range of life forms within an ecosystem, and how the existence of these diverse organisms maintains a crucial stability in the natural world. Beginning with an introduction to biodiversity, this new volume discusses its importance and history, the difficulties in maintaining it, and past and current efforts to protect ecosystems from greater destruction. It examines five specific case studies, including the United States, Indonesia, New Zealand, Madagascar, and Costa Rica, describing the current status and history of biodiversity, obstacles, and conservation efforts in the country at hand.
Maps. Index. Bibliography. Glossary. Chronology. Tables and graphs.
About the Author(s)
Natalie Goldstein is a freelance writer who has written numerous books for the educational market, including textbooks and teacher's guides for the middle school and encyclopedias for the high school. She also wrote Globalization and Free Trade and Global Warming in the Global Issues series.
Foreword author Julie L. Lockwood is director of the graduate program in ecology and evolution and associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University. She is the coauthor of Avian Invasions: The Ecology and Evolution of Exotic Birds and Invasion Ecology.
|
<urn:uuid:8e291587-fa26-42d6-8a00-914854f8bb35>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.infobasepublishing.com/Bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=0816082421&eBooks=0
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.926621
| 333
| 3.734375
| 4
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"global warming"
],
"nature": [
"biodiversity",
"conservation",
"ecological",
"ecosystem",
"ecosystems"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 5,
"weak": 1,
"total": 6,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Participatory Video created by members of various indigenous communities in Itogon, Philippines, tracking the impacts of large-scale mining and now climate change on their environment and culture.
This film was created by members of various indigenous communities in the Cordillera region of the Philippines, during a Participatory Video project facilitated by InsightShare. The participants were taught to use video cameras during an intensive 9-day PV workshop in the barangay of Garrison, in Itogon, and created this 24-minute film to communicate the devastating impacts of large-scale mining wrought on their communities by various companies over the years, and now the increasingly alarming impacts of climate change.
This project was part of Conversations with the Earth project. Launched in April 2009, Conversations with the Earth is a collective opportunity to build a global movement for an indigenous-controlled community media network. CWE works with a growing network of indigenous groups and communities living in critical ecosystems around the world, from the Atlantic Rainforest to Central Asia, from the Philippines to the Andes, from the Arctic to Ethiopia. Through CWE, these indigenous communities are able to share their story of climate change. Through the creation of sustainable autonomous indigenous media hubs in these regions, CWE fosters a long-term relationship with these communities, based on principles of local control and supporting indigenous media capacity.
|
<urn:uuid:8e21dd22-c3b3-4956-ade9-66549e3c9812>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.insightshare.org/watch/video/voices-experience
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.953949
| 274
| 2.953125
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change"
],
"nature": [
"ecosystems"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Does exercise help you detox?
Explore This Story
The word “detoxification” is flung around the fitness community as frequently as kettlebells.
Yoga teachers regularly speak of detoxifying twists, aerobics instructors of detoxifying sweat, dieters of detoxifying fasts. But health professionals are skeptical.
“If you start talking about exercising to detoxify, there’s no scientific data,” said Dr. Elizabeth Matzkin, chief of women’s sports medicine at Harvard Medical School. “The human body is designed to get rid of what we don’t need.”
The same applies to fasting.
“No good scientific data supports any of those cleanses, where you drink juice, or (only) water for a week,” she said.
Exercise is important, Matzkin added, because it enables our body to do what it is made to do, but the kidneys and colon get rid of waste. The role of exercise in that process is unclear.
“In general exercise helps our lungs; kidneys get rid of things that can cause us onset of disease,” she said.
A healthy lifestyle — eating healthy, drinking plenty of water and exercising — is important to detoxifying because it enables our body to do what is intended to do.
“As for specific yoga moves, I’m not so sure,” she said.
Yoga instructor and fitness expert Shirley Archer, an author and spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise (ACE) said the theory behind the effectiveness of detoxifying twists in yoga is that they squeeze the organs, which push the blood out so fresh blood can rush in.
“Better circulation equals better health,” said Archer, who is based in Florida. “If detox means to eliminate from the body what it no longer needs, then certain yogic practices can help.”
She said yogic deep breathing with strong exhalations can empty the lungs of unneeded carbon dioxide and allow for a fresh breath of more oxygenated air. “This nourishes all of our cells,” she said. “It is also a method of cleansing because better circulation equals better health.”
Meditative movement practices, such as yoga and tai chi, she added, can detox your attitude because they require staying in the present moment and discourage dwelling on the past.
Last summer, celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson began taking groups of 40-odd women on what she calls Detox Weeks, which involve at least three hours of workouts each day, as well as lectures on fitness and nutrition aimed mainly at encouraging lifestyle changes.
Similar weeks in other cities are planned for 2013.
“Women work out and think ‘Why can’t my love handles, muffin tops go away’?” said Anderson, creator of the Tracy Anderson Method and a co-owner, with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, of fitness centres in Los Angeles and New York. “The most important thing is if you can become a consistent exerciser.”
“A good workout is not five to 10 yoga poses,” she explained. “You have to learn to scale up your endurance. If you can only jump for five minutes straight, we’ll go to 10 minutes, then 20 minutes.”
Anderson said she uses the term detoxification broadly to include everything from working up a good sweat to clearing the mind of destructive thoughts.
“Detoxification is a big topic,” she said.
Nancy Clark, a registered dietitian in Boston, Massachusetts and a member of the American College of Sports Medicine, said the body generally does a fine job of detoxifying itself through the liver and kidneys. Sweating has nothing to do with it.
“When you sweat you really don’t detoxify anything,” she explained. “If someone goes on a crash diet, then maybe toxins are released but then the body would take care of them. When you sweat you lose sodium.”
- NEW RCMP probing Senate expense scandal, Senate speaker says
- NEW Mayor Rob Ford fires chief of staff Mark Towhey
- Toronto terror suspect asks for defence lawyer who is guided by ‘holy book’
- Updated London attack: Two more people arrested, police say
- Tim Bosma homicide: Second suspect Mark Smich appears in court
- Updated City councillor Paul Ainslie's licence suspended after roadside check
- DiManno: No matter how it seems on Planet Ford, it’s over
- Updated As world gawks at Rob Ford scandal, Toronto police wait and watch
|
<urn:uuid:2acad750-3515-4c82-bebf-b9def96040ac>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2012/12/17/does_exercise_help_you_detox.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.948638
| 975
| 2.578125
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
As the years tick by with most of the planet doing little in the way of reducing carbon emissions, researchers are getting increasingly serious about the possibility of carbon sequestration. If it looks like we're going to be burning coal for decades, carbon sequestration offers us the best chance of limiting its impact on climate change and ocean acidification. A paper that will appear in today's PNAS describes a fantastic resource for carbon sequestration that happens to be located right next to many of the US' major urban centers on the East Coast.
Assuming that capturing the carbon dioxide is financially and energetically feasible, the big concern becomes where to put it so that it will stay out of the atmosphere for centuries. There appear to be two main schools of thought here. One is that areas that hold large deposits of natural gas should be able to trap other gasses for the long term. The one concern here is that, unlike natural gas, CO2 readily dissolves in water, and may escape via groundwater that flows through these features. The alternative approach turns that problem into a virtue: dissolved CO2 can react with minerals in rocks called basalts (the product of major volcanic activity), forming insoluble carbonate minerals. This should provide an irreversible chemical sequestration.
The new paper helpfully points out that if we're looking for basalts, the East Coast of the US, home to many of its major urban centers and their associated carbon emissions, has an embarrassment of riches. The rifting that broke up the supercontinent called Pangea and formed the Atlantic Ocean's basin triggered some massive basalt flows at the time, which are now part of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, or CAMP. The authors estimate that prior to some erosion, CAMP had the equivalent of the largest basalt flows we're currently aware of, the Siberian and Deccan Traps.
Some of this basalt is on land—anyone in northern Manhattan can look across the Hudson River and see it in the sheer cliffs of the Palisades. But much, much more of it is off the coast under the Atlantic Ocean. The authors provide some evidence in the form of drill cores and seismic readings that indicate there are large basalt deposits in basins offshore of New Jersey and New York, extending up to southern New England.
These areas are now covered with millions of years of sediment, which should provide a largely impermeable barrier that will trap any gas injected into the basalt for many years. The deposits should also have reached equilibrium with the seawater above, which will provide the water necessary for the chemical reactions that precipitate out carbonate minerals.
Using a drill core from an onshore deposit, the authors show that the basalt deposits are also composed of many distinct flows of material. Each of these flows would have undergone rapid cooling on both its upper and lower surface, which fragmented the rock. The core samples show porosity levels between 10 and 20 percent, which should allow any CO2 pumped into the deposits to spread widely.
The authors estimate that New Jersey's Sandy Hook basin, a relatively small deposit, is sufficient to house 40 years' worth of emissions from coal plants that produce 4GW of electricity. And the Sandy Hook basin is dwarfed by one that lies off the Carolinas and Georgia. They estimate that the South Georgia Rift basin covers roughly 40,000 square kilometers.
The authors argue that although laboratory simulations suggest the basic idea of using basalts for carbon sequestration is sound, the actual effectiveness in a given region can depend on local quirks of geology, so pilot tests in the field are absolutely essential for determining whether a given deposit is suitable. So far, only one small-scale test has been performed on any of the CAMP deposits.
Given the area's proximity to significant sources of CO2 and the infrastructure that could be brought into play if full-scale sequestration is attempted, it seems like one of the most promising proposals to date.
PNAS, 2010. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913721107
|
<urn:uuid:0f4b5328-483d-437b-b4b6-8cf4bfa3968b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://arstechnica.com/science/2010/01/pangea-era-rift-makes-east-coast-perfect-for-carbon-storage/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.944768
| 823
| 3.90625
| 4
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide",
"carbon sequestration",
"climate change",
"co2"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 4,
"weak": 0,
"total": 4,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Bundelkhand’s ravine wastelands. Photo: Keya Acharya/IPS
BUNDELKHAND, India – Narrow, cobblestoned lanes separate the rows of mud houses with cool interiors and mud-smoothened patios, some with goats tethered to the wooden posts. This is Tajpura village, deep in this water-stressed, drought-prone region of northern India.
An area of stark beauty marked by deep ravines in central India, Bundelkhand spans the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The ruins of stone fortresses dotting the landscape betray a history of constant warfare just as the remnants of water courses and irrigation systems speak of peaceable and prosperous times gone by.
Bundelkhand suffers from manmade problems, starting with the government’s misplaced land and water policies that have worsened an already stressed climatic situation caused by prolonged droughts and erratic rainfall.
Air dropping of ‘Prosopis juliflora’ seeds as a soil-conservation measure in the 1960s resulted in the plant becoming an invasive species that killed indigenous shrubs and trees, making the soft soils of the ravines leach water rapidly and turned vast areas into wastelands.
Thoughtless promotion by the government of water-intensive crops like mentha (mint) encouraged richer farmers to dig deep tube wells while neglecting groundwater recharge, resulting in a disastrous lowering of the water table.
Marginalised farmers, unable to afford expensive infrastructure and inputs, suffer as groundwater depletion adds to problems caused by the ancient rainwater storage and distribution systems going defunct.
Drought is now a familiar spectre in this region and less than half of its one million hectare arable spread is now cultivable, causing distress to its mainly farming population of 50 million people.
“What you have is very high water consumption in an area suffering from water crisis,” says Anil Singh, coordinator of Parmarth, an organisation working to revive traditional systems of water and cropping among marginalised communities that inhabit the ravines of Bundelkhand.
In Tajpura village, as though in denial of Bundelkhand’s stark conditions, 36-year-old Mamtadevi, wife of Ajan Singh, serves up a meal of steaming hot chappatis (Indian flat bread) smeared with clarified butter, a cool, green salad and a dish of smoked brinjal, boiled potato, fresh tomato and green chilli.
“That extra taste in the vegetables is because they are grown sustainably and without chemicals,” explains Mamtadevi.
Ajan Singh and Mamtadevi were among the first to adopt Parmarth’s ‘low external input sustainable agriculture’ (LEISA) which is now standing them in good stead as rainfall becomes scantier and average temperatures rises.
LEISA involves such practices as efficient recycling of nitrogen and other plant nutrients, managing pests through natural means, maintaining ideal soil conditions and ensuring that local farmers are aware of the environment and the value of preserving ecosystems.
The soundness of this method shows in the freshness of Ajan Singh’s vegetable crops, in biodiversity conservation through the use of hardy indigenous seeds and avoiding chemicals for maintaining soil health.
Ajan Singh is also able to beat the vagaries of the weather and this year’s drought, caused by failure of the monsoons, holds no great terror for him or for other farmers who follow LEISA.
Bhartendu Prakash, steering committee member of the Organic Farmers Association of India (OFAI) and in-charge of its northern branch based in Bundelkhand, says the region was hit by frost last winter but organic farmlands using LEISA were the least affected.
“I did not know this system previously. I would grow ‘gehu’ (wheat) and manage 200-300 kg on this same plot,” says Ajan Singh.
Parmarth helped the community in contouring the lands for rainwater run-off and storage and constructed a well for irrigation. Its volunteers also taught farmers like Ajan Singh how to make vermicompost and set up pheromone traps to catch insects.
Most farmers though, already had their own methods of making biopesticide – usually a mix of neem leaves and garlic soaked in buffalo buttermilk. “But before the pheromone traps were laid, the spraying had to be done once every three days, now once a week is enough,” says Mamtadevi.
By 2009, the couple’s vegetables had such a reputation for quality that they sold at the local market 10 km away at higher than prevailing rates, earning them nearly 80,000 Indian rupees (then approximately 1,800 dollars) yearly.
Three years later, Ajan Singh bought another ‘bigha’ (approximately 2.2 acres) of land. He now takes his produce to two markets and also sells milk from five buffaloes that he bought with his earnings.
Fifteen more farmers from Tajpura are now following Ajan Singh’s methods.
Along with this, the women of the community have banded together into self-help groups that maintain a savings and loan account to assist women find simple livelihood alternatives like livestock rearing.
The women also run a grain bank that sells surplus grain in the open market and give grain free to distressed families in times of need.
“We are now trying to link the community to government schemes wherever possible, such as obtaining sprinklers, and getting some benefit from the state-run Bundelkhand Relief Package which does help with drought-proofing,” says Anil Singh who works for Parmarth.
Released in 2009 by the federal government, the package worth 1.5 billion dollars supports rainwater harvesting, proper utilisation of river systems, irrigation canals and water bodies over a three-year period.
But Bundelkhand’s natural farming methods need to get more support as the funding period comes to an end.
“Bundelkhand is too entrenched in northern Indian chemical farming methods,” says OFAI’s Prakash. In contrast, OFAI is deluged with requests for training in organic farming methods from farmers in Punjab and Haryana, the ‘mother zone’ of the so-called ‘green revolution’ that transformed agriculture in India after introduction in the 1960s.
Rajesh Krishnan, campaigner for Greenpeace in India, is optimistic that the government will see the wisdom of promoting organic agriculture as a counter measure to the numerous fallouts of chemical agriculture that fuelled the green revolution.
Krishnan is hopeful for the probable financing of sustainable agriculture in India’s 12th Five- Year Plan, due to be rolled out in November.
Prakash is confident that sustainable agricultural farming will survive through a growing demand for organically-grown crops.
|
<urn:uuid:34eabe1a-7864-4b64-9b8b-dce88b0f492c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://climate-connections.org/2012/08/22/india-beating-the-weather-with-sustainable-crops/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.945803
| 1,469
| 2.96875
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"drought"
],
"nature": [
"biodiversity",
"conservation",
"ecosystems",
"invasive species",
"soil health"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 6,
"weak": 0,
"total": 6,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Scientists have long projected that areas north and south of the tropics will grow drier in a warming world –- from the Middle East through the European Riviera to the American Southwest, from sub-Saharan Africa to parts of Australia.
These regions are too far from the equator to benefit from the moist columns of heated air that result in steamy afternoon downpours. And the additional precipitation foreseen as more water evaporates from the seas is mostly expected to fall at higher latitudes. Essentially, a lot of climate scientists say, these regions may start to feel more like deserts under the influence of global warming.
Now scientists have measured a rapid recent expansion of desert-like barrenness in the subtropical oceans –- in places where surface waters have also been steadily warming. There could be a link to human-driven climate change, but it’s too soon to tell, the scientists said.
[UPDATED below, 3/6, 1 p..m] Read more…
|
<urn:uuid:71855304-2f8a-4425-8945-02a9b90be1ae>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/deserts/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.922368
| 203
| 3.078125
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change",
"global warming"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
The Seine, the scenic river running through Paris, has inspired artists, attracted tourists and served as the soul of the city, and now it will also be a source of renewable energy. Paris officials have announced a plan to place river turbines beneath four bridges on the Seine.
The Pont du Garigliano, Pont de la Tournelle, Pont Marie and Pont au Change will each have two turbines installed underwater at their base. These bridges were chosen because the speed of the current accelerates in those locations. While river currents don't produce the kind of electricity that wave power can, the current-harvesting technology has come a long way and more devices are being introduced that can generate energy from even the slowest moving waters.
City officials have put a call out to power companies to come up with the best plan for installing the turbines, with a winner being chosen in January and installations starting next spring.
via The Guardian
written by Quiet-Environmentalist, June 29, 2010
written by David Brockes, July 08, 2010
|< Prev||Next >|
|
<urn:uuid:e338e7ab-37e4-40ee-98f0-254c81baa630>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3207-paris-putting-turbines-in-the-seine
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.954137
| 220
| 2.953125
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"renewable energy"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
- Yes, this is a good time to plant native grass seed in the ground. You may have to supplement with irrigation if the rains stop before the seeds have germinated and made good root growth.
- Which grasses should I plant? The wonderful thing about California is that we have so many different ecosystems; the challenging thing about California is that we have so many different ecosystems. It’s impossible for us to know definitively which particular bunchgrasses used to grow or may still grow at your particular site, but to make the best guesses possible, we recommend the following:
- Bestcase scenario is to have bunchgrasses already on the site that you can augment through proper mowing or grazing techniques.
- Next best is to have a nearby site with native bunchgrasses and similar elevation, aspect, and soils, that you can use as a model.
- After that, go to sources such as our pamphlet Distribution of Native Grasses of California, by Alan Beetle, $7.50.
- Also reference local floras of your area, available through the California Native Plant Society.
Container growing: We grow seedlings in pots throughout the season, but ideal planning for growing your own plants in pots is to sow six months before you want to put them in the ground. Though restorationists frequently use plugs and liners (long narrow containers), and they may be required for large areas, we prefer growing them the horticultural way: first in flats, then transplanting into 4" pots, and when they are sturdy little plants, into the ground. Our thinking is that since they are not tap-rooted but fibrous-rooted (one of their main advantages as far as deep erosion control is concerned) square 4" pots suit them, and so far our experiences have borne this out.
In future newsletters, we will be reporting on the experiences and opinions of Marin ranchers Peggy Rathmann and John Wick, who are working with UC Berkeley researcher Wendy Silver on a study of carbon sequestration and bunchgrasses. So far, it’s very promising. But more on that later. For now, I’ll end with a quote from Peggy, who grows, eats, nurtures, lives, and sleeps bunchgrasses, for the health of their land and the benefit of their cows.
“It takes a while. But it’s so worth it.”
|
<urn:uuid:c183066d-32a9-42eb-91b6-191fdb0980c2>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://judithlarnerlowry.blogspot.com/2009/02/simplifying-california-native.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.956731
| 495
| 2.515625
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon sequestration"
],
"nature": [
"ecosystems"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Locating thermophiles in other parts of the universe could very well aid in the search for extraterrestrial life. Most people have agreed that if life is found among the stars, it will be microbial (at least in the near-term future). Many individuals have also suggested that intelligent life forms might very well be extinct in other parts of the universe. If scientists could locate thermophile microbes, they could piece together an archaeological picture of once powerful civilizations.
Taiwan is well known for its hot springs. Most tourists that visit the island end up visiting at least one. Many people like to take relaxing baths in them. Hot springs can be great for people with arthritis. New research is proving that they can also be a great place to find astrobiological data.
Photosynthetic thermophiles that live in hot springs may potentially be removing significant amounts of industrially produced carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They’ve thrived because of fundamental changes to the atmosphere caused by humanity. In fact, there are some scientists who feel that these microbes could play a vital role in regulating the planet’s climate. That role might become increasingly important in the future.
Planets that were once inhabited by industrially developed civilizations that have since passed might be teeming with life similar to these. If a planet was sufficiently changed by another race of beings, it could have ultimately favored the development of these tiny beings. They could indicate that intelligent lifeforms once inhabited a planet, and that planet could be different today than it was in the past.
While discovering a planet full of microbes would be initially interesting, in the future it could be a relatively common occurrence. Therefore, news services of the future might very well pass by such stories after a few weeks – much like they do today with the discovery of new exoplanets. Finding sufficient numbers of photosynthetic thermophiles would be telling about the history of a world, but it would also require a great deal of geological activity. Then again, there’s nothing to say that other civilizations wouldn’t also have the ability to increase the amount of geological activity on other planets. They might even do it on purpose, as a way of terraforming for instance.
For that matter, humans might want to give that a try. Venus is superheated because of thermal runaway as a result of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If water were transported to that very hot world, colonists could use the resulting geysers to grow bacteria that would absorb the atmospheric gas.
Leu, J., Lin, T., Selvamani, M., Chen, H., Liang, J., & Pan, K. (2012). Characterization of a novel thermophilic cyanobacterial strain from Taian hot springs in Taiwan for high CO2 mitigation and C-phycocyanin extraction Process Biochemistry DOI: 10.1016/j.procbio.2012.09.019
|
<urn:uuid:fb936873-c4b3-4301-85c5-1bd5eb0d9a9c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://wiredcosmos.com/2012/10/18/searching-for-extraterrestrial-microbes/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.96284
| 601
| 3.8125
| 4
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide",
"co2"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
of lakes dot the marshy Arctic tundra regions. Now, in the latest addition to
the growing body of evidence that global warming is significantly affecting
the Arctic, two recent studies suggest that thawing permafrost is the cause
of two seemingly contradictory observations both rapidly growing and
rapidly shrinking lakes.
Thawing permafrost is altering the lakes that dominate Arctic landscapes, such as this one in western Siberia. Courtesy of Laurence C. Smith.
The first study is a historical analysis of changes to 10,000 Siberian lakes over the past 30 years, a period of warming air and soil temperatures. Using satellite images, Laurence Smith, a geographer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues found that, since the early 1970s, 125 Siberian lakes vanished completely, and those that remain averaged a 6 percent loss in surface area, a total of 930 square kilometers.
They report in the June 3 Science that the spatial pattern of lake disappearance suggests that the lakes drained away when the permafrost below them thawed, allowing the lake water to seep down into the groundwater. However, the team also found that lakes in northwestern Siberia actually grew by 12 percent, and 50 new lakes formed. Both of the rapid changes are due to warming, they say, and if the warming trend continues, the northern lakes will eventually shrink as well.
These two processes are similar, in that were witnessing permafrost degradation in both regions, says co-author Larry Hinzman, a hydrologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, who in previous studies documented shrinking lakes in southern Alaska. In the warmer, southern areas, we get groundwater infiltration, but in the northern areas, where the permafrost is thicker and colder, its going to take much, much longer for that to occur. So instead of seeing lakes shrinking there, were seeing lakes growing.
That finding is consistent with the second study, which focused on a set of unusually oriented, rapidly growing lakes in northern Alaska, an area of continuous permafrost. Jon Pelletier, a geomorphologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, reports in the June 30 Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface that the odd alignment of the lakes is caused not by wind direction but by permafrost melting faster at the downhill end of the lake, which has shallower banks.
Since the 1950s, scientists have attributed the odd alignment of the egg-shaped lakes to winds blowing perpendicularly to the long axes of the lakes, which then set up currents that caused waves to break at the northwest and southeast ends, thus preferentially eroding them. The prevailing wind direction idea has been around so long that we dont even think about it, Smith says, but Jons [Pelletier] work is challenging that. Its a very interesting paper.
Wind-driven erosion occurs in the Great Lakes, but at rates of about a meter a year. The Alaskan oriented thaw lakes grow at rates of 5 meters or more per year. Pelletier says this rate difference suggests a different process is at work.
According to the model, the direction and speed of growth depend on where and how quickly the permafrost thaws, which is determined by two factors: how the water table intersects the slope of the landscape and how fast the summer temperature increases. If the permafrost thaws abruptly, the shorter, downhill bank is more likely to thaw first. The soggy soil slumps into the water, and the perimeter of the lake is enlarged. Its not just the [global] warming trend, but also how quickly the warming takes place in the summertime, Pelletier says.
Hinzman says that the lakes are just one part of the Arctic water cycle, which has seen an increasing number of perturbations in recent years. The whole hydrologic cycle is changing and this is just one component of that.
Understanding how the hydrologic cycle is changing is important, Hinzman says, because the amount of freshwater runoff into the Arctic Ocean impacts global ocean circulation and the amount of sea ice, thus affecting climate worldwide. If global warming continues to the point where permafrost goes away, there will be fewer lakes, Smith says. And a drier, less marshy Arctic could alter weather patterns and ecosystems, researchers say, affecting everything from the subsistence lifestyle of native people to the hazard of fire on the tundra.
Geotimes contributing writer
Back to top
|
<urn:uuid:5fdf99e1-ac10-4897-aae4-baeb9600a36e>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.geotimes.org/sept05/NN_arcticlakes.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.945934
| 921
| 3.59375
| 4
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"global warming",
"permafrost"
],
"nature": [
"ecosystems"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 3,
"weak": 0,
"total": 3,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
- For other places called Lodi, see Lodi.
Lodi is a town in Lombardy, Italy, on the right shore of the river Adda. It is the capital of the province of Lodi.
The commune has an area of 41,42 sq. km; population (2001) 40,805. Its name is pronounced by Italians as LAW-dee.
It was a Celtic village that in Roman times was called in Latin Laus Pompeia (probably in honor of the consul Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo) and was known also because its position allowed many Gauls of Gallia Cisalpina to obtain Roman citizenship. It was in an important position at the crossing of vital Roman roads.
In became a Catholic diocese and its first bishop, Saint Bassiano , (319-409), is the patron saint of the town (celebrated on January 19).
A free Comune (municipality) around 1000, it fiercely resisted the Milanese, who destroyed it in April 24 1158. Frederick Barbarossa re-built it on its current location.
Starting from 1220, the Lodigiani (inhabitants of Lodi) spent some decades in realizing an important work of hydraulic engineering: a system of miles and miles of artificial rivers and channels (called Consorzio di Muzza) was created in order to give water to the countryside, turning some arid areas into one of the (still now) most important agricultural areas of the region.
Lodi was ruled by the Visconti family, who built a castle.
In 1423, the antipope Antipope John XXIII, from Lodi's Duomo, launched his bolla by which he convened the Council of Constance (end of the Great Schism).
In 1454 representatives from all the regional states of Italy met in Lodi to sign the treaty known as the peace of Lodi, by which they intended to work in the direction of Italian unification, but this peace lasted only 40 years.
The town was then ruled by the Sforza family, France, Spain, Austria. In 1786 it became the eponymous capital of a province that included Crema.
On May 10, 1796: Battle of Lodi: the young Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte won on the river Adda his first important battle, defeating the Austrians and later entering Milan. This is why in many towns there are streets dedicated to the famous bridge (for instance in Paris 6th arrondissement, Rue du Pont de Lodi).
In 1945, the Italian petrol company Agip, directed by Enrico Mattei, started extracting methane from its fields, and Lodi was the first Italian town with a regular domestic gas service.
|
<urn:uuid:c3de8023-c4eb-43a2-b824-c31a8b54402c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Lodi%2C_Italy
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.974739
| 576
| 2.671875
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"methane"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
This multimedia lesson for Grades 7-10 explores the physical forces that act in concert to create snowflakes. Students build an apparatus that creates conditions similar to a winter cloud and produce their own snow crystals indoors. By watching the snow crystals grow, they learn about how snowflake size and shape is determined by the forces that act on water molecules at the atomic and molecular levels. Digital models and snowflake photo galleries bring together a cohesive package to help kids visualize what's happening at the molecular scale.
Editor's Note: This lab activity calls for dry ice. See Related Materials for a link to the NOAA's "Dry Ice Safety" Guidelines, and for a link to snow crystal images produced by an electron microscope.
Lewis structures, VSEPR, condensation, covalent bond, crystals, electron sharing, ice, physics of snowflakes, snow formation, valence electrons, valence shell
Metadata instance created
January 2, 2013
by Caroline Hall
January 2, 2013
by Caroline Hall
AAAS Benchmark Alignments (2008 Version)
4. The Physical Setting
4B. The Earth
6-8: 4B/M15. The atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace amounts of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases.
4D. The Structure of Matter
6-8: 4D/M1a. All matter is made up of atoms, which are far too small to see directly through a microscope.
6-8: 4D/M1cd. Atoms may link together in well-defined molecules, or may be packed together in crystal patterns. Different arrangements of atoms into groups compose all substances and determine the characteristic properties of substances.
6-8: 4D/M3cd. In solids, the atoms or molecules are closely locked in position and can only vibrate. In liquids, they have higher energy, are more loosely connected, and can slide past one another; some molecules may get enough energy to escape into a gas. In gases, the atoms or molecules have still more energy and are free of one another except during occasional collisions.
9-12: 4D/H2. The number of protons in the nucleus determines what an atom's electron configuration can be and so defines the element. An atom's electron configuration, particularly the outermost electrons, determines how the atom can interact with other atoms. Atoms form bonds to other atoms by transferring or sharing electrons.
9-12: 4D/H7a. Atoms often join with one another in various combinations in distinct molecules or in repeating three-dimensional crystal patterns.
12. Habits of Mind
12C. Manipulation and Observation
6-8: 12C/M3. Make accurate measurements of length, volume, weight, elapsed time, rates, and temperature by using appropriate devices.
<a href="http://www.compadre.org/precollege/items/detail.cfm?ID=12568">WGBH Educational Foundation. Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2010.</a>
Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? (WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston, 2010), WWW Document, (http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/).
Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. (2010). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from WGBH Educational Foundation: http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/
WGBH Educational Foundation. Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2010. http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/ (accessed 21 May 2013).
Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes?. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2010. 21 May 2013 <http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/>.
%T Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? %D 2010 %I WGBH Educational Foundation %C Boston %U http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/ %O application/pdf
%0 Electronic Source %D 2010 %T Teachers' Domain: Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? %I WGBH Educational Foundation %V 2013 %N 21 May 2013 %9 application/pdf %U http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/lsps07.sci.phys.matter.lpsnowflakes/
Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications.
|
<urn:uuid:dbafed73-0f12-4aa3-a008-e9f488788ed7>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.compadre.org/precollege/items/detail.cfm?ID=12568
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.817584
| 1,122
| 4
| 4
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
NPP launched Oct. 28, 2011. It is a first step in building the next satellite system to collect data on climate change and weather conditions.
Teachers to put science to the test in a microgravity environment aboard the agency’s reduced gravity aircraft.
01.25.12 - NASA Explorer Schools held a live video chat on Jan. 25, 2012 with Josh Willis who answered questions about sea level rise and global climate change.
01.12.12 - NES held a video webchat Jan 12, 2012 with Dr. Bill Cooke and Rhiannon Blaauw. They answered questions about meteors, meteorites and comets and their potential danger to spacecraft.
12.13.11 - Danielle Margiotta joined NES on Dec. 13, 2011 and answered student questions about how NASA engineers prepare satellites to endure the harsh environment of space.
11.23.11 - NASA Explorer Schools held a video chat on Nov. 23, 2011 with Zareh Gorjian for a look at NASA's computer graphics area.
11.03.11 - On Nov. 3, 2011, NASA's Deputy Director of Planetary Science, Jim Adams answered student questions about NASA's recent planetary mission discoveries and upcoming launches. Adams discussed his career path and some of the most rewarding moments in his 22-year career with NASA.
10.13.11 - In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Dr. Félix Soto Toro joined NES on Oct. 13, 2011, for our first live bilingual video chat. Students asked questions of this astronaut applicant and electrical engineer and found out what it was like for Soto to grow up in Barrio Amelia Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, with few advantages. They also learned what inspired him to pursue a career with NASA. A video or transcript of this chat will be posted at a later time.
02.17.11 - Being a scientist doesn't always mean spending your days in a lab. For NASA microbial ecologists, going to work might mean climbing aboard a research vessel, or collecting marine and soil samples in the Andes, Mexico, or even in Europe and Africa! Students were able to find out what it's like to hunt microbes around the globe with Angela Detweiler and Dr. Lee Bebout. Chat transcripts are now available.
03.29.11 - The NES project invited all K-12 students to participate in a one-hour-long NASA career panel video webchat on March 29, 2011. This year's panelists were three outstanding women who have chosen to pursue careers in science and engineering. A transcript and/or video will be posted at a later time.
|
<urn:uuid:dd7f67ea-0969-440f-8e56-c9e1e3d6d1aa>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/nes2/home/new-promo-coll_archive_5.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.939101
| 543
| 2.765625
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change",
"sea level rise"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
A new world record wind gust: 253 mph in Australia's Tropical Cyclone Olivia
The 6,288-foot peak of New Hampshire's Mount Washington is a forbidding landscape of wind-swept barren rock, home to some of planet Earth's fiercest winds. As a 5-year old boy, I remember being blown over by a terrific gust of wind on the summit, and rolling out of control towards a dangerous drop-off before a fortuitously-placed rock saved me. Perusing the Guinness Book of World Records as a kid, three iconic world weather records always held a particular mystique and fascination for me: the incredible 136°F (57.8°C) at El Azizia, Libya in 1922, the -128.5°F (-89.2°C) at the "Pole of Cold" in Vostok, Antarctica in 1983, and the amazing 231 mph wind gust (103.3 m/s) recorded in 1934 on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Well, the legendary winds of Mount Washington have to take second place now, next to the tropical waters of northwest Australia. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that the new world wind speed record at the surface is a 253 mph (113.2 m/s) wind gust measured on Barrow Island, Australia. The gust occurred on April 10, 1996, during passage of the eyewall of Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Olivia.
Figure 1. Instruments coated with rime ice on the summit of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. Image credit: Mike Theiss.
Tropical Cyclone Olivia
Tropical Cyclone Olivia was a Category 4 storm on the U.S. Saffir-Simpson scale, and generated sustained winds of 145 mph (1-minute average) as it crossed over Barrow Island off the northwest coast of Australia on April 10, 1996. Olivia had a central pressure of 927 mb and an eye 45 miles in diameter at the time, and generated waves 21 meters (69 feet) high offshore. According to Black et al. (1999), the eyewall likely had a tornado-scale mesovortex embedded in it that caused the extreme wind gust of 253 mph. The gust was measured at the standard measuring height of 10 meters above ground, on ground at an elevation of 64 meters (210 feet). A similar mesovortex was encountered by a Hurricane Hunter aircraft in Hurricane Hugo of 1989, and a mesovortex was also believed to be responsible for the 239 mph wind gust measured at 1400 meters by a dropsonde in Hurricane Isabel in 2003. For reference, 200 mph is the threshold for the strongest category of tornado, the EF-5, and any gusts of this strength are capable of causing catastrophic damage.
Figure 2. Visible satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Olivia a few hours before it crossed Barrow Island, Australia, setting a new world-record wind gust of 253 mph. Image credit: Japan Meteorological Agency.
Figure 3. Wind trace taken at Barrow Island, Australia during Tropical Cyclone Olivia. Image credit: Buchan, S.J., P.G. Black, and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Australia's Northwest Shelf", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Why did it take so long for the new record to be announced?
The instrument used to take the world record wind gust was funded by a private company, Chevron, and Chevron's data was not made available to forecasters at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) during the storm. After the storm, the tropical cyclone experts at BOM were made aware of the data, but it was viewed as suspect, since the gusts were so extreme and the data was taken with equipment of unknown accuracy. Hence, the observations were not included in the post-storm report. Steve Buchan from RPS MetOcean believed in the accuracy of the observations, and coauthored a paper on the record gust, presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston (Buchan et al., 1999). The data lay dormant until 2009, when Joe Courtney of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was made aware of it. Courtney wrote up a report, coauthored with Steve Buchan, and presented this to the WMO extremes committee for ratification. The report has not been made public yet, and is awaiting approval by Chevron. The verified data will be released next month at a World Meteorological Organization meeting in Turkey, when the new world wind record will become official.
New Hampshire residents are not happy
Residents of New Hampshire are understandably not too happy about losing their cherished claim to fame. The current home page of the Mount Washington Observatory reads, "For once, the big news on Mount Washington isn't our extreme weather. Sadly, it's about how our extreme weather--our world record wind speed, to be exact--was outdone by that of a warm, tropical island".
Comparison with other wind records
Top wind in an Atlantic hurricane: 239 mph (107 m/s) at an altitude of 1400 meters, measured by dropsonde in Hurricane Isabel (2003).
Top surface wind in an Atlantic hurricane: 211 mph (94.4 m/s), Hurricane Gustav, Paso Real de San Diego meteorological station in the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on the afternoon of August 30, 2008.
Top wind in a tornado: 302 mph (135 m/s), measured via Doppler radar at an altitude of 100 meters (330 feet), in the Bridge Creek, Oklahoma tornado of May 3, 1999.
Top surface wind not associated with a tropical cyclone or tornado: 231 mph (103.3 m/s), April 12, 1934 on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
Top wind in a typhoon: 191 mph (85.4 m/s) on Taiwanese Island of Lanya, Super Typhoon Ryan, Sep 22, 1995; also on island of Miyakojima, Super Typhoon Cora, Sep 5, 1966.
Top surface wind not measured on a mountain or in a tropical cyclone: 207 mph (92.5 m/s) measured in Greenland at Thule Air Force Base on March 6, 1972.
Top wind measured in a U.S. hurricane: 186 mph (83.1 m/s) measured at Blue Hill Observatory, Massachusetts, during the 1938 New England Hurricane.
Buchan, S.J., P.G. Black, and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Australia's Northwest Shelf", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Black, P.G., Buchan, S.J., and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Tropical Cyclone Eyewall Mesovortex: A Physical Mechanism Explaining Extreme Peak Gust Occurrence in TC Olivia, 4 April 1996 on Barrow Island, Australia", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
|
<urn:uuid:3cf8391c-7628-4b73-b23d-af8d16292401>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1420&page=7
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.924488
| 1,482
| 2.984375
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"2°c",
"extreme weather"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
July 18, 2012
Since the Industrial Revolution, ocean acidity has risen by 30 percent as a direct result of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation. And within the last 50 years, human industry has caused the world’s oceans to experience a sharp increase in acidity that rivals levels seen when ancient carbon cycles triggered mass extinctions, which took out more than 90 percent of the oceans’ species and more than 75 percent of terrestrial species.
Rising ocean acidity is now considered to be just as much of a formidable threat to the health of Earth’s environment as the atmospheric climate changes brought on by pumping out greenhouse gases. Scientists are now trying to understand what that means for the future survival of marine and terrestrial organisms.
In June, ScienceNOW reported that out of the 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide released annually through fossil fuel use, one-third of those emissions diffuse into the surface layer of the ocean. The effects those emissions will have on the biosphere is sobering, as rising ocean acidity will completely upset the balance of marine life in the world’s oceans and will subsequently affect humans and animals who benefit from the oceans’ food resources.
The damage to marine life is due in large part to the fact that higher acidity dissolves naturally-occurring calcium carbonate that many marine species–including plankton, sea urchins, shellfish and coral–use to construct their shells and external skeletons. Studies conducted off Arctic regions have shown that the combination of melting sea ice, atmospheric carbon dioxide and subsequently hotter, CO2-saturated surface waters has led to the undersaturation of calcium carbonate in ocean waters. The reduction in the amount of calcium carbonate in the ocean spells out disaster for the organisms that rely on those nutrients to build their protective shells and body structures.
The link between ocean acidity and calcium carbonate is a directly inverse relationship, which allows scientists to use the oceans’ calcium carbonate saturation levels to measure just how acidic the waters are. In a study by the University of Hawaii at Manoa published earlier this year, researchers calculated that the level of calcium carbonate saturation in the world’s oceans has fallen faster in the last 200 years than has been seen in the last 21,000 years–signaling an extraordinary rise in ocean acidity to levels higher than would ever occur naturally.
The authors of the study continued on to say that currently only 50 percent of the world’s ocean waters are saturated with enough calcium carbonate to support coral reef growth and maintenance, but by 2100, that proportion is expected to drop to a mere five percent, putting most of the world’s beautiful and diverse coral reef habitats in danger.
In the face of so much mounting and discouraging evidence that the oceans are on a trajectory toward irreparable marine life damage, a new study offers hope that certain species may be able to adapt quick enough to keep pace with the changing make-up of Earth’s waters.
In a study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies found that baby clownfish (Amphiprion melanopus) are able to cope with increased acidity if their parents also lived in higher acidic water, a remarkable finding after a study conducted last year on another clownfish species (Amphiprion percula) suggested acidic waters reduced the fish’s sense of smell, making it likely for the fish to mistakenly swim toward predators.
But the new study will require further research to determine whether or not the adaptive abilities of the clownfish are also present in more environmentally-sensitive marine species.
While the news that at least some baby fish may be able to adapt to changes provides optimism, there is still much to learn about the process. It is unclear through what mechanism clownfish are able to pass along this trait to their offspring so quickly, evolutionarily speaking. Organisms capable of generation-to-generation adaptations could have an advantage in the coming decades, as anthropogenic emissions push Earth to non-natural extremes and place new stresses on the biosphere.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
|
<urn:uuid:d5fc8f97-1ffe-4404-b9ee-d359c5162435>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/07/ocean-acidity-rivals-climate-change-as-environmental-threat/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.938541
| 860
| 3.796875
| 4
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide",
"climate change",
"co2"
],
"nature": [
"deforestation"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 4,
"weak": 0,
"total": 4,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Proceedings of the 2005 Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference
KPLU (NPR): Marine Conference
SEATTLE, WA (2005-03-30) The Puget Sound is in trouble and hundreds of scientists are gathering this week in Seattle to discuss why and what can be done to fix the problem. KPLU environment reporter Steve Krueger has this preview of what lies ahead.
Also posted on:
By Peggy Andersen
SEATTLE - During the great annual gray whale migrations between feeding grounds in the north Pacific and breeding spots off Mexico, about 200 individuals apparently take up "seasonal residence" in the Pacific Northwest, scientists say.
Six gray whales, for example, have been spotted around Whidbey Island nearly every spring since 1991, says biologist John Calambokidis of Olympia-based Cascadia Research. Other small groups of gray whales return annually to preferred spots along the coasts of Oregon and British Columbia.
"In recent years, we've done a much better job identifying these seasonal resident animals," Calambokidis said. In some cases, "we have evidence they don't go to Alaska. They migrate south to the breeding grounds but seem to make this their primary feeding area."
Also, he said, unusually high numbers of beached grays reported in the spring of 1999 and 2000 apparently did not mark the start of a population decline for gray whales.
"The mortality since then has been very low," he said.
Calambokidis presented recent research about grays as the Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference got under way Tuesday at the downtown Washington State Convention Center. The three-day session, featuring scores of scientists on a range of topics, is sponsored by the state's Puget Sound Action Team and Environment Canada.
In a brief luncheon address, Gov. Christine Gregoire said she's making "real science" a priority in making decisions about the environment. There need not be a conflict between business and the environment, she said - businesses are drawn to the region for its quality of life.
Historically, Calambokidis said, gray whales that ventured inland were likely more vulnerable to shore-based hunters than those that swam farther offshore, churning all the way north to the Bering and Beaufort seas of Alaska and the Chukchi Sea off Siberia.
A gray whale calf emerges to be touched by tourists in Ojo de Liebre lagoon in Baja California Sur, Mexico, in March 1999 during the great annual gray whale migration between feeding grounds in the North Pacific and breeding spots off Mexico.
(Associated Press file photo)
The ones that stop in the Northwest tend to not have as many young as the larger population, he said. Determining the gender of the seasonal residents is a work in progress, but females with calves tend to start the migration late and inland stops "may not be advantageous" for them, Calambokidis said.
Some of the returnees move on in early summer and may in fact head north, he said. Some only drop in once or twice. Grays seen farther inland, in central and south Puget Sound, tend to be stragglers foraging for food - sometimes desperately - that rejoin the migration if they can.
There was a surge in reports of dead, beached gray whales five years ago, when population estimates peaked at about 27,000 and the Makah Indian Tribe moved to reaffirm its whaling rights under an 1855 treaty.
While most whale deaths occur in the ocean, the 50 carcasses found on Washington state shores alone in 1999-2000 may have marked a converging of two extremes, Calambokidis said: The whale population reaching its maximum carrying capacity and a natural downturn in the cyclical availability of food and prey.
Many researchers believe both the high population number and the big die-off were "blips," Calambokidis said.
"That's why there was a dramatic event, instead of a gradual tapering off." Records from around the Northwest indicate that the "major mortality event" was a very isolated incident, he said.
On average, Washington state has four gray whale beachings a year, based on reports from the regional stranding network that has been in place since the 1970s, Calambokidis said.
"We haven't really changed our response to strandings," he said. A beached whale carcass as long as 40 feet is hard to miss in a populated area, while dead whales on remote stretches of beach may go unnoticed.
Gray whales, the first creature listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act, were decimated by commercial whaling that peaked in the late 19th century.
Recent gray whale counts conducted along the migration route suggest the population may have settled at about 17,000 animals - roughly the pre-whaling total, Calambokidis said.
The grays' removal from the Endangered Species List in 1994 prompted the Makah to reclaim whaling rights after 70 years. The issue has been bogged down in federal court appeals since the tribe killed a single whale in May 1999.
Antiwhaling activists characterized "resident" gray whales as a separate population that warranted special protection. Some definitions of Makah whaling grounds limited the tribe to offshore whales, while others allowed whaling some distance into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the waterway that divides the United States and Canada before making a sharp right into Puget Sound.
"Now that we have accurate evidence of their abundance ... it would allow someone to make estimates of what level of kills could come from that group," Calambokidis said. "We have a much more solid basis of information for either side in that debate."
On the Net:
By SUSAN GORDON
Gov. Christine Gregoire promised Monday to take action to protect and restore Puget Sound.
She told a gathering of 600 environmental scientists and others at a U.S.-Canadian research conference that the Sound's health is both central to Washington's future prosperity and a legacy important to future generations.
"Only if we redouble our efforts will we succeed," she said.
Gregoire wants to boost spending on what she described as scientifically based solutions to problems such as pollution and environmental degradation.
She proposes to spend $31.5 million over the next two years to clean up mercury contamination, control the spread of toxic flame retardants, restore polluted shellfish beds and remove spartina, an invasive beach grass, among other things.
Her proposal includes $7.5 million for continuing scientific monitoring.
"We are going to invest and we are going to deliver," she said.
Gregoire has already proposed spending $5 million on the Hood Canal, where pollution has been blamed for an oxygen imbalance that has killed fish.
Gregoire's pledge to save the Sound came during luncheon speech at the Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference, a three-day event at the Washington State Trade & Convention Center in Seattle.
The annual conference brings together U.S. and Canadian scientists who present new scientific findings on some of the most pressing environmental problems facing the region.
Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound, was in the audience.
"It's music to my ears," she said of Gregoire's promise of action. "She's been around this issue long enough to know we need to do a lot more than studies and research."
The governor described the state's continuing population boom as a threat.
"We have met the enemy and the enemy is us," Gregoire said. "Our robust population leads directly to the health problems of the Sound,"
Over the past decade, Washington's population has grown by about 1 million, a 20 percent increase that means more sewage, more road runoff and more pressure on sensitive resources, she said.
Perhaps anticipating objections from the business community, Gregoire underscored the value of Washington's quality of life as a lure to enterprise.
She praised the work of scientists who have focused on both problems and solutions.
"Real science has got to be the key to our decisions with respect to the environment," she said. "Every time we make decisions based on science, the environment is always the winner."
Also Monday, she announced the reappointment of Brad Ack as director of the Puget Sound Action Team, which sets the state's environmental protection priorities for Puget Sound.
During her speech, she endorsed the team's seven-point plan for 2005-2007, which was released last December.
Gregoire told the Seattle audience her first brush with international environmental controversy came in 1988 when she was in charge of the state Department of Ecology. The barge "Nestucca" spilled 230,000 gallons of fuel oil that contaminated beaches from Grays Harbor County to Vancouver Island.
The oil spill roused the state's attention to the damage associated with the risks of oil transport. It also affected Gregoire's family, she said.
The governor recalled bringing her daughter Michelle, now 20, along when she visited a bird rescue operation.
It was "heart-wrenching," Gregoire said.
But the grim scene also influenced Michelle, who is now a college student majoring in environmental science.
What the plan would do
To view the strategy endorsed by Gov. Christine Gregoire to restore and conserve Puget Sound, go to www.psat.wa.gov/Publications/priorities_05/ Priorities_05_review.htm.
Gregoire made a commitment Monday to fund a two-year, seven-point action plan developed last year by the Puget Sound Action Team.
The team was created in 1996 to set priorities for Puget Sound environmental protection.
Susan Gordon: 253-597-8756
By Christopher Dunagan, Sun Staff
SEATTLE-- With science as a guiding light, political leaders must "redouble" their efforts to reverse a dangerous decline in the Puget Sound ecosystem, Gov. Christine Gregoire said Tuesday.
Gregoire expressed concerns about the deadly low-oxygen conditions that plague Hood Canal, and she said similar "dead zones" could develop in southern Puget Sound if people don't take appropriate action."
"We can do better," the governor said, addressing the Puget Sound and Georgia Strait Research Conference. "My friends, we have no choice. We have to do a lot better. It is not too late - but only if we redouble our efforts."
More than 700 scientists, policy makers and concerned individuals attended the first day of a three-day conference addressing scientific issues in Puget Sound and Canada's Georgia Strait. Close to 200 separate research topics are on tap for discussion at the event, which takes place every two years.
Gov. Christine Gregoire says pollution will create more 'dead zones' in Puget Sound unless action is taken now.
(AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Gregoire, former director of the Washington Department of Ecology, said Washington state residents are engaged in a fight against pollution, habitat destruction and declining fish and wildlife populations. But it simply isn't enough. Over the past 20 years, the state's own studies show that for every environmental success, there are new or growing problems for Puget Sound.
"We have a million more people putting demands on that fragile ecosystem," she said, "... and we will add a million more people."
Business owners want to come to Washington because they love the quality of life here, she said. But the challenge is for everyone to work together to improve the environment and leave things better for the next generation.
Gregoire told the scientists that research is essential. Because of dedicated scientific work, "we have a grasp today of the problems and some of the solutions."
She has called on the Legislature to create a new Washington Academy of Sciences to bring together the best minds in the state to provide answers to vexing questions.
"There were bright people who preceded me," she said, "and they couldn't solve the problem. We need new thinking ... When we make our decisions based on science, the environment is always the winner."
But Gregoire does not want to wait for the scientists to answer all the questions - which is why she demanded that the "action plan" for Hood Canal include projects for reducing nitrogen, believed to be at the heart of the problem.
The research conference, held at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, has been one of the few venues to bring together a cross-section of the scientific community studying Puget Sound. Issues range from killer whale behavior to the chemistry of sewage.
One group of researchers at Tuesday's session described an intensive effort to characterize the existing ecosystem in the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula. It will be important, they said, to study the changes after two dams on the river are removed in 2007.
One thing the research has revealed, said Jonathan Warrick of the U.S. Geological Survey, is that the river above the dams is starved for nutrients, essential to the entire food chain. In rivers without blockages, adult salmon carry nutrients in their bodies from the ocean to the upper watershed.
When salmon die, they feed organisms from the bottom of the food chain, as well as eagles and bears that then distribute the nutrients over a broader area.
Other sessions on Tuesday included a discussion of how climate change could alter salmon populations, a talk about gray whales and humpback whales visiting Puget Sound in recent years, and a presentation about an advanced computer model used to describe the movement of pollutants in Bremerton's Sinclair Inlet.
Reach Christopher Dunagan at (360) 792-9207 or e-mail email@example.com.
Copyright 2005, kitsapsun.com. All Rights Reserved.
By Larry Pynn
The shared waters of the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound are home to 63 marine species at risk, with over-harvesting, habitat loss, and pollution rated as the biggest threats, according to a research study being released at an international conference starting today.
The study by Joseph Gaydos and Nicholas Brown also finds that the four jurisdictions responsible for protecting marine species -- B.C., Washington state, and the Canadian and U.S. governments -- cannot reach consensus on the level of threat facing all of those 63 species.
Of the 63 species, Washington officially considered 73 per cent of them at risk, B.C. 50 per cent, the Canadian government 36 per cent, and the U.S. government 31 per cent.
As an example, B.C. lists 12 seabirds that neighbouring Washington state does not list, even though it is common for various species to fly back and forth across the international boundary.
The high number of species at risk in the region's marine waters are evidence of "ecosystem decay," the report's authors conclude, and reflect the need for the various levels of governments to work harder on conservation and to adopt an international ecosystem approach.
Gaydos and Brown are with the SeaDoc Society, a marine ecosystem health program administered through the University of California, Davis, Wildlife Health Centre, and based in Washington's San Juan Islands.
As of September 2004, the 63 species at risk consisted of 27 fish, 23 birds, nine mammals (including the grey whale, harbour porpoise, humpback whale, and killer whale), three invertebrates, and one reptile.
Within the Puget Sound-Georgia Basin marine ecosystem, the number of invertebrate species is much greater than vertebrate species, yet only three invertebrates are listed at risk -- Newcomb's littorine snail, Olympic oyster, and northern abalone -- suggesting the category is not receiving as much attention as it should.
The results of the study are being presented at the Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference running today through Thursday in Seattle and co-sponsored by Environment Canada.
Commenting on the study, Tony Pitcher, a professor at the University of B.C. Fisheries Centre, said in Vancouver that governments have been slow to adopt an ecosystem approach to marine management.
And while states and provinces can have different mandates, he agreed that the international border poses a political obstacle to good management of marine species, not just between B.C. and Washington, but between B.C. and Alaska on our north coast.
Pitcher also agreed that more research is needed on invertebrate species such as crabs, squid and octopus, and the roles they play in the greater ecosystem.
He added that despite the need for more work by Canadian and American authorities to reverse a decline in the health of our marine ecosystem, local waters are still in relatively good shape compared with other coastal areas in the Pacific Rim, including China, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
RISK TO SPECIES BY JURISDICTION:
The shared waters of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia are home to 63 marine species that are at risk, with overharvesting, habitat loss and pollution rated as the biggest threats, according to a study being released at an international conference today.
The results show "ecosystem decay" and reflect the need for B.C., Washington state, Canada and the U.S. to work together to adopt an international, cooperative ecosystem approach. The statistics below show the differing levels of risk to some species, assigned by just two of those jurisdictions.
Source: The SeaDoc Society, The Vancouver Sun FISH, REPTILES, BIRDS AND MAMMALS ON THE AT-RISK LIST:
Also posted on:
March 24, 2005
Tacoma, WA, Mar. 24 (UPI) -- Concentrations of the banned chemical PCB are at least three times higher in Puget Sound chinook salmon than in that from other areas, a report says.
That finding, from Sandie O'Neill, a scientist with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, measured chinook salmon from Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, coastal Washington and the Columbia River.
Her report prompted the state to begin its own research. Officials say there is no immediate cause for alarm, the Tacoma News-Tribune said Thursday.
O'Neill presented preliminary data to the state Fish & Wildlife Commission last October and plans to unveil more comprehensive research at the 2005 Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference next week in Seattle.
"The food chain in Puget Sound is significantly contaminated with PCBs and flame retardants," said Jim West, another state scientist.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are banned industrial compounds that build up in the food chain and can cause developmental and behavioral problems in children.
SUSAN GORDON; The News Tribune
Concentrations of banned chemicals that are particularly threatening to children are at least three times higher in Puget Sound chinook salmon than in chinook from other areas.
In light of that finding by a state Department of Fish and Wildlife scientist, state Health Department officials are conducting their own research. While they say there is no cause for alarm, health officials acknowledge they might revise fish consumption warnings in a few months.
"I don't think the data is clear enough yet," said Rob Duff, the Health Department's environmental health director.
Sandie O'Neill, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife scientist, has found PCB concentrations in Puget Sound chinook are three times higher than what others have measured in chinook salmon from Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, coastal Washington and the Columbia River.
O'Neill has studied PCBs in salmon since 1992. But comparable data from other researchers weren't available until recently, she said.
She first presented preliminary data to the state Fish & Wildlife Commission last October and plans to unveil more comprehensive research at the 2005 Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference next week in Seattle.
O'Neill's results underscore the persistence of dangerous contaminants in Puget Sound.
"The food chain in Puget Sound is significantly contaminated with PCBs and flame retardants," said Jim West, another state Fish and Wildlife Department scientist.
He recently discovered both pollutants in herring, a key component of the salmon diet.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are banned industrial compounds found worldwide that build up in the food chain and can cause developmental and behavioral problems in children.
Testing store-bought fish
Although PCBs are found in meat and dairy products, some health experts believe humans are most at risk from eating contaminated fish.
However, because fish are nutritious and contain fatty acids that lower cholesterol, many experts are reluctant to suggest consumption limits based on PCBs.
"These contaminants are in every fish and every person on the planet," Duff said.
Current state Health Department advisories warn about contaminated fish or shellfish in eight tainted locations around Puget Sound, including Tacoma's Commencement Bay.
But that advice, which doesn't mention salmon, is complicated and might not be sufficient, Duff said.
So Health Department researchers are testing store-bought fish for PCBs, mercury and flame retardants. The sampling list includes chinook salmon, catfish, pollack, red snapper, halibut, cod and flounder, Duff said.
After that analysis, due in about three months, state health officials could revise statewide fish consumption recommendations, Duff said.
PCBs, which cause cancer, are highly toxic compounds that can be transferred from mothers to children through breast milk. Once used to cool and insulate transformers and other electrical equipment, PCBs have been banned in the United States since 1977.
Because PCBs don't break down over time, they persist in air, water and soil. The PCBs also build up in the food chain, so top predators harbor high concentrations. Because of PCBs, orca whales are some of the world's most contaminated marine mammals.
In Puget Sound chinook, O'Neill measured average PCB concentrations of 53 parts per billion. That's like a spoonful of poison in a railroad tanker car full of water, but scientists believe the toxicity of the compound makes it notable.
In Puget Sound coho, O'Neill measured average PCB concentrations of 31 parts per billion.
"These are not screamingly high levels," Duff said.
Concentrations found in Great Lakes salmon have been many times higher.
But Puget Sound chinook, also known as king salmon, are far more contaminated than other types of salmon, such as pinks, sockeye and chum, O'Neill said. That might be because young chinook spend more time in the estuaries than other young salmon, which also feed lower on the food web.
Also, O'Neill said concentrations of PCBs in Puget Sound chinook are comparable to what others have measured in farmed Atlantic salmon from Norway and Scotland.
For years, scientists have known about excessive concentrations of PCBs in bottom-dwelling Puget Sound fish, particularly those inhabiting polluted industrial areas such as Commencement Bay in Tacoma and the Seattle waterfront.
For example, state researchers have found PCBs in concentrations of 121 parts per billion in rockfish and 62 parts per billion in English sole. Both were caught in Seattle.
Harbor seals also are contaminated.
The new research suggests that efforts to confine contaminated sediments in polluted areas such as Commencement Bay might not prevent PCBs from recycling through plankton and fish, said West, O'Neill's colleague at the Fish and Wildlife Department.
"We need to better understand the dynamic between contaminants trapped in sediments and those entrained in the (salmon) food web," O'Neill said.
Bill Sullivan, environmental director for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, said he wouldn't be surprised if contaminants leak out of disposal sites.
"Obviously, we have something very wrong in the interior Puget Sound," he said.
If state officials revamp fish consumption recommendations, Duff said special outreach efforts will be made to tribes and immigrant groups of Asians and Pacific Islanders. They often eat lots of fish and might be more vulnerable to injury than the mainstream population, he said.
Most Washington residents eat no more than two fish meals a week, and that's probably not enough to cause harm, he said.
On the net:
For state Health Department fish consumption recommendations, visit www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/oehas/EHA_fish_adv.htm.
Susan Gordon: 253-597-8756
March. 23-29, 2005
Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference: Literally hundreds of scientists and scholars converge on the Washington Convention and Trade Center for this environmental confab. The Wednesday evening forum, led by a panel of researchers and policymakers, is open to the public. 800 Convention Pl., 206-694-5000. Free. 7-9 p.m. Wed., March 30.
By Warren Cornwall
A prolific and potentially toxic fire retardant is showing up in Puget Sound marine life ranging from tiny herring to massive killer whales, raising alarms among scientists who warn it could become the next big toxic threat to underwater animals.
"We've got fireproof killer whales," said Peter Ross, a research scientist with the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Canada and an expert in toxic chemicals in marine animals. "We're concerned about this."
The problem appears greatest in south and central Puget Sound - where fish, seals and whales had higher levels of chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs.
Since the early 1980s, levels of those chemicals in southern Puget Sound harbor seals have soared, a sign of an emerging threat to local killer whales that also feed on fish, Ross said. The whales are on the verge of being listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
"I'm surprised at the rate of increase [of contamination]," said Sandie O'Neill, a research scientist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. "This is definitely an increasing concern, and that's what's getting everybody's attention."
Scientists are unsure how the chemicals are affecting marine life, or what threat is posed to people who eat contaminated fish. The state Department of Health hasn't established safety thresholds for food containing PBDEs.
A bromine-industry spokesman questioned whether the presence of PBDEs was cause for concern.
Production of some versions of the chemicals ended in 2004 because of health concerns. The most widespread version now is considered far less toxic, or not toxic at all, said John Kyte, executive director of the industry-backed Bromine Science and Environmental Forum.
"To simply say, 'We've found PBDEs' ... it's hard to make any meaningful judgment about whether this means anything."
But marine biologists worry the chemicals, used to fireproof everything from computers to mattresses, could interfere with neurological development or throw off an animal's hormones or immune system. PBDEs can linger in the environment for years, increasing the risk they will travel up the food chain as one animal eats another.
Toxic chemicals are considered one of the chief threats to the southern orcas. Their numbers have fallen from 99 in 1999 to 85 in 2004.
New research suggests those orcas may absorb much of the chemicals through the chinook salmon they eat. Puget Sound chinook had between three and five times higher levels of PBDEs and PCBs, a longstanding contaminant, compared with chinook from elsewhere, O'Neill said. This Puget Sound hot spot affects a number of marine creatures, according to studies by state, federal and Canadian agencies discussed yesterday at the Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference, a Seattle meeting of scientists studying the waters shared by Washington and British Columbia.
The fire retardant may wind up in Puget Sound through storm-water runoff; or after floating into the air and then falling into the water, where they can be absorbed by animals scouring the sediment for food; or by plankton, O'Neill said. PBDEs also have been found in house dust and in women's breast milk.
The state Department of Ecology last year called for a ban on PBDEs, except in cases where no replacement flame retardant is available. But the ban proposal has stalled in the state Legislature this year.
Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or firstname.lastname@example.org
Scientists find high concentrations of harmful flame retardants in Puget Sound fish and marine mammals. They say action is needed now.
SUSAN GORDON; The News Tribune
U.S. and Canadian scientists have found abnormal levels of harmful flame retardants in Puget Sound fish and marine mammals, including orca whales.
Scientists who presented their findings at the Puget Sound Georgia Basin Research Conference in Seattle on Wednesday said the results confirm the region's vulnerability to contamination from the unstable but increasingly common chemical compounds.
The findings also underscore the need for a safe substitute for the flame retardants frequently used in consumer electronics, upholstery and carpeting, they said.
The problem is polybrominated diphenyl ethers, also known as PBDEs. The chemicals cause learning and behavioral problems in laboratory rats and mice and might have a similar effect on people, health officials say.
Peter Ross, a Canadian marine mammal toxicologist, and Sandie O'Neill, a Washington fish biologist, said new research highlights the need for government action. O'Neill and Ross compared flame retardants to polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a banned industrial compound that poses similar health threats.
Similar research, first reported last week by The News Tribune, will be presented today at the conference that shows unusually high concentrations of PCBs in Puget Sound chinook salmon.
"It's a no-brainer. We banned PCBs and it's time to do something about PBDEs. If we wait to see health effects on fish, whales or people, it'll be too late," O'Neill said after her presentation. "We've got to turn off the tap now."
PBDEs break down over time, don't stick to the products in which they are used, attach to dust particles and wind up in foods such as fish and meat.
Ross, for his part, commended Washington state's effort to reduce the risks, saying action is necessary to protect the health of the region's dwindling population of orca whales, already heavily contaminated by PCBs.
Last year, then-Gov. Gary Locke ordered the state Department of Ecology to work with health experts to reduce the threat of harm from flame retardants.
Recently, state lawmakers introduced bills to ban PBDEs, but the measures have failed to move beyond legislative committees.
Earl Tower, a lobbyist for a coalition of chemical manufactures, said the two most controversial forms of the chemical - Penta and Octa - are no longer manufactured. The third, Deca-BDE, is used in the casings for computers, TVs and wiring. It is required by federal law to be used in airplanes and automobiles.
"Deca is not toxic. It's not bioaccumulative. There are no cases noted of any ill effects related to Deca," said Tower, who represents the industry-funded Bromine Science and Environmental Forum.
The proposal to ban Deca is "based on the precautionary principle that we don't know if it's a problem but it might be," Tower said, adding, "It's the most understood and most tested flame retardant."
O'Neill and Ross on Wednesday shared new evidence of abnormal levels of PBDEs in Puget Sound harbor seals, English sole, rockfish, herring, coho and chinook salmon.
O'Neill said she didn't find excessive amounts of the chemical in chum or pink salmon, which spend more time in the open ocean than in the Sound.
Ross presented results of research on harbor seals done in conjunction with Steven Jeffries, a state Fish and Wildlife Department marine mammal expert. Harbor seal pups captured on Gertrude Island, near Tacoma, also show higher levels of PBDE contamination than samples collected from other groups of seals in the north Puget Sound and British Columbia, Ross said.
Ross and O'Neill said their PBDE findings are consistent with a pattern of bioaccumulation high in the food chain previously seen in research on PCBs.
The United States banned PCBs almost 30 years ago because of the health risks.
Flame retardants are troublesome in part because they are unstable, said Denise Laflamme, a state Department of Health toxicologist who also spoke at the conference.
Flame retardants accumulate in fat, have been found in human breast milk and can be passed from mothers to their babies.
Since Locke's call for action in January 2004, Ecology Department officials have proposed a PBDE ban, but have not put it into place.
One lingering question is what would substitute for PBDEs now on the market, said Cheri Peele, an Ecology Department official working on the problem.
Flame retardant-to-human path unclear
Human health experts believe people are not exposed to the same high levels of flame retardants as have been proved to harm laboratory mice and rats, said Denise Laflamme, a state Department of Health toxicologist. But toxicologists also haven't figured out how the chemicals get into people, she said.
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, known as PBDEs, are present in many consumer products. Because flame retardants easily bind to dust, good housekeeping can reduce exposure, Laflamme said.
While fish is the most likely dietary source of flame retardants, they also have been found in meat and dairy products, she said. And despite the presence of flame retardants in breast milk, health officials still recommend breast feeding.
Health officials are studying the presence of flame retardants and other chemicals in fish and say they might change their advisories about fish consumption in the next few months.
On the Net
Susan Gordon: 253-597-8756
|
<urn:uuid:9a896490-858a-446e-9719-2c811279a311>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://depts.washington.edu/uwconf/2005psgb/2005proceedings/press.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.950253
| 7,061
| 2.515625
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change"
],
"nature": [
"conservation",
"ecosystem",
"ecosystem health",
"endangered species",
"habitat"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 5,
"weak": 1,
"total": 6,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
||This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2011)|
Nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, it has been defined to mean the accidental melting of the core of a nuclear reactor, and is in common usage a reference to the core's either complete or partial collapse. "Core melt accident" and "partial core melt" are the analogous technical terms for a meltdown.
A core melt accident occurs when the heat generated by a nuclear reactor exceeds the heat removed by the cooling systems to the point where at least one nuclear fuel element exceeds its melting point. This differs from a fuel element failure, which is not caused by high temperatures. A meltdown may be caused by a loss of coolant, loss of coolant pressure, or low coolant flow rate or be the result of a criticality excursion in which the reactor is operated at a power level that exceeds its design limits. Alternately, in a reactor plant such as the RBMK-1000, an external fire may endanger the core, leading to a meltdown.
Once the fuel elements of a reactor begin to melt, the fuel cladding has been breached, and the nuclear fuel (such as uranium, plutonium, or thorium) and fission products (such as cesium-137, krypton-88, or iodine-131) within the fuel elements can leach out into the coolant. Subsequent failures can permit these radioisotopes to breach further layers of containment. Superheated steam and hot metal inside the core can lead to fuel-coolant interactions, hydrogen explosions, or water hammer, any of which could destroy parts of the containment. A meltdown is considered very serious because of the potential, however remote, that radioactive materials could breach all containment and escape (or be released) into the environment, resulting in radioactive contamination and fallout, and potentially leading to radiation poisoning of people and animals nearby.
Nuclear power plants generate electricity by heating fluid via a nuclear reaction to run a generator. If the heat from that reaction is not removed adequately, the fuel assemblies in a reactor core can melt. A core damage incident can occur even after a reactor is shut down because the fuel continues to produce decay heat.
A core damage accident is caused by the loss of sufficient cooling for the nuclear fuel within the reactor core. The reason may be one of several factors, including a loss-of-pressure-control accident, a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), an uncontrolled power excursion or, in reactors without a pressure vessel, a fire within the reactor core. Failures in control systems may cause a series of events resulting in loss of cooling. Contemporary safety principles of defense in depth ensure that multiple layers of safety systems are always present to make such accidents unlikely.
The containment building is the last of several safeguards that prevent the release of radioactivity to the environment. Many commercial reactors are contained within a 1.2-to-2.4-metre (3.9 to 7.9 ft) thick pre-stressed, steel-reinforced, air-tight concrete structure that can withstand hurricane-force winds and severe earthquakes.
- In a loss-of-coolant accident, either the physical loss of coolant (which is typically deionized water, an inert gas, NaK, or liquid sodium) or the loss of a method to ensure a sufficient flow rate of the coolant occurs. A loss-of-coolant accident and a loss-of-pressure-control accident are closely related in some reactors. In a pressurized water reactor, a LOCA can also cause a "steam bubble" to form in the core due to excessive heating of stalled coolant or by the subsequent loss-of-pressure-control accident caused by a rapid loss of coolant. In a loss-of-forced-circulation accident, a gas cooled reactor's circulators (generally motor or steam driven turbines) fail to circulate the gas coolant within the core, and heat transfer is impeded by this loss of forced circulation, though natural circulation through convection will keep the fuel cool as long as the reactor is not depressurized.
- In a loss-of-pressure-control accident, the pressure of the confined coolant falls below specification without the means to restore it. In some cases this may reduce the heat transfer efficiency (when using an inert gas as a coolant) and in others may form an insulating "bubble" of steam surrounding the fuel assemblies (for pressurized water reactors). In the latter case, due to localized heating of the "steam bubble" due to decay heat, the pressure required to collapse the "steam bubble" may exceed reactor design specifications until the reactor has had time to cool down. (This event is less likely to occur in boiling water reactors, where the core may be deliberately depressurized so that the Emergency Core Cooling System may be turned on). In a depressurization fault, a gas-cooled reactor loses gas pressure within the core, reducing heat transfer efficiency and posing a challenge to the cooling of fuel; however, as long as at least one gas circulator is available, the fuel will be kept cool.
- In an uncontrolled power excursion accident, a sudden power spike in the reactor exceeds reactor design specifications due to a sudden increase in reactor reactivity. An uncontrolled power excursion occurs due to significantly altering a parameter that affects the neutron multiplication rate of a chain reaction (examples include ejecting a control rod or significantly altering the nuclear characteristics of the moderator, such as by rapid cooling). In extreme cases the reactor may proceed to a condition known as prompt critical. This is especially a problem in reactors that have a positive void coefficient of reactivity, a positive temperature coefficient, are overmoderated, or can trap excess quantities of deleterious fission products within their fuel or moderators. Many of these characteristics are present in the RBMK design, and the Chernobyl disaster was caused by such deficiencies as well as by severe operator negligence. Western light water reactors are not subject to very large uncontrolled power excursions because loss of coolant decreases, rather than increases, core reactivity (a negative void coefficient of reactivity); "transients," as the minor power fluctuations within Western light water reactors are called, are limited to momentary increases in reactivity that will rapidly decrease with time (approximately 200% - 250% of maximum neutronic power for a few seconds in the event of a complete rapid shutdown failure combined with a transient).
- Core-based fires endanger the core and can cause the fuel assemblies to melt. A fire may be caused by air entering a graphite moderated reactor, or a liquid-sodium cooled reactor. Graphite is also subject to accumulation of Wigner energy, which can overheat the graphite (as happened at the Windscale fire). Light water reactors do not have flammable cores or moderators and are not subject to core fires. Gas-cooled civilian reactors, such as the Magnox, UNGG, and AGCR type reactors, keep their cores blanketed with non reactive carbon dioxide gas, which cannot support a fire. Modern gas-cooled civilian reactors use helium, which cannot burn, and have fuel that can withstand high temperatures without melting (such as the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor and the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor).
- Byzantine faults and cascading failures within instrumentation and control systems may cause severe problems in reactor operation, potentially leading to core damage if not mitigated. For example, the Browns Ferry fire damaged control cables and required the plant operators to manually activate cooling systems. The Three Mile Island accident was caused by a stuck-open pilot-operated pressure relief valve combined with a deceptive water level gauge that misled reactor operators, which resulted in core damage.
Light water reactors (LWRs)
Before the core of a light water nuclear reactor can be damaged, two precursor events must have already occurred:
- A limiting fault (or a set of compounded emergency conditions) that leads to the failure of heat removal within the core (the loss of cooling). Low water level uncovers the core, allowing it to heat up.
- Failure of the Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS). The ECCS is designed to rapidly cool the core and make it safe in the event of the maximum fault (the design basis accident) that nuclear regulators and plant engineers could imagine. There are at least two copies of the ECCS built for every reactor. Each division (copy) of the ECCS is capable, by itself, of responding to the design basis accident. The latest reactors have as many as four divisions of the ECCS. This is the principle of redundancy, or duplication. As long as at least one ECCS division functions, no core damage can occur. Each of the several divisions of the ECCS has several internal "trains" of components. Thus the ECCS divisions themselves have internal redundancy – and can withstand failures of components within them.
The Three Mile Island accident was a compounded group of emergencies that led to core damage. What led to this was an erroneous decision by operators to shut down the ECCS during an emergency condition due to gauge readings that were either incorrect or misinterpreted; this caused another emergency condition that, several hours after the fact, led to core exposure and a core damage incident. If the ECCS had been allowed to function, it would have prevented both exposure and core damage. During the Fukushima incident the emergency cooling system had also been manually shut down several minutes after it started.
If such a limiting fault were to occur, and a complete failure of all ECCS divisions were to occur, both Kuan, et al and Haskin, et al describe six stages between the start of the limiting fault (the loss of cooling) and the potential escape of molten corium into the containment (a so-called "full meltdown"):
- Uncovering of the Core – In the event of a transient, upset, emergency, or limiting fault, LWRs are designed to automatically SCRAM (a SCRAM being the immediate and full insertion of all control rods) and spin up the ECCS. This greatly reduces reactor thermal power (but does not remove it completely); this delays core becoming uncovered, which is defined as the point when the fuel rods are no longer covered by coolant and can begin to heat up. As Kuan states: "In a small-break LOCA with no emergency core coolant injection, core uncovery [sic] generally begins approximately an hour after the initiation of the break. If the reactor coolant pumps are not running, the upper part of the core will be exposed to a steam environment and heatup of the core will begin. However, if the coolant pumps are running, the core will be cooled by a two-phase mixture of steam and water, and heatup of the fuel rods will be delayed until almost all of the water in the two-phase mixture is vaporized. The TMI-2 accident showed that operation of reactor coolant pumps may be sustained for up to approximately two hours to deliver a two phase mixture that can prevent core heatup."
- Pre-damage heat up – "In the absence of a two-phase mixture going through the core or of water addition to the core to compensate water boiloff, the fuel rods in a steam environment will heat up at a rate between 0.3 °C/s (0.5 °F/s) and 1 °C/s (1.8 °F/s) (3)."
- Fuel ballooning and bursting – "In less than half an hour, the peak core temperature would reach 1,100 K (1,520 °F). At this temperature the zircaloy cladding of the fuel rods may balloon and burst. This is the first stage of core damage. Cladding ballooning may block a substantial portion of the flow area of the core and restrict the flow of coolant. However complete blockage of the core is unlikely because not all fuel rods balloon at the same axial location. In this case, sufficient water addition can cool the core and stop core damage progression."
- Rapid oxidation – "The next stage of core damage, beginning at approximately 1,500 K (2,240 °F), is the rapid oxidation of the Zircaloy by steam. In the oxidation process, hydrogen is produced and a large amount of heat is released. Above 1,500 K (2,240 °F), the power from oxidation exceeds that from decay heat (4,5) unless the oxidation rate is limited by the supply of either zircaloy or steam."
- Debris bed formation – "When the temperature in the core reaches about 1,700 K (2,600 °F), molten control materials [1,6] will flow to and solidify in the space between the lower parts of the fuel rods where the temperature is comparatively low. Above 1,700 K (2,600 °F), the core temperature may escalate in a few minutes to the melting point of zircaloy [2,150 K (3,410 °F)] due to increased oxidation rate. When the oxidized cladding breaks, the molten zircaloy, along with dissolved UO2 [1,7] would flow downward and freeze in the cooler, lower region of the core. Together with solidified control materials from earlier down-flows, the relocated zircaloy and UO2 would form the lower crust of a developing cohesive debris bed."
- (Corium) Relocation to the lower plenum – "In scenarios of small-break LOCAs, there is generally a pool of water in the lower plenum of the vessel at the time of core relocation. Release of molten core materials into water always generates large amounts of steam. If the molten stream of core materials breaks up rapidly in water, there is also a possibility of a steam explosion. During relocation, any unoxidized zirconium in the molten material may also be oxidized by steam, and in the process hydrogen is produced. Recriticality also may be a concern if the control materials are left behind in the core and the relocated material breaks up in unborated water in the lower plenum."
At the point at which the corium relocates to the lower plenum, Haskin, et al relate that the possibility exists for an incident called a fuel-coolant interaction (FCI) to substantially stress or breach the primary pressure boundary when the corium relocates to the lower plenum of the reactor pressure vessel ("RPV"). This is because the lower plenum of the RPV may have a substantial quantity of water - the reactor coolant - in it, and, assuming the primary system has not been depressurized, the water will likely be in the liquid phase, and consequently dense, and at a vastly lower temperature than the corium. Since corium is a liquid metal-ceramic eutectic at temperatures of 2,200 to 3,200 K (3,500 to 5,300 °F), its fall into liquid water at 550 to 600 K (530 to 620 °F) may cause an extremely rapid evolution of steam that could cause a sudden extreme overpressure and consequent gross structural failure of the primary system or RPV. Though most modern studies hold that it is physically infeasible, or at least extraordinarily unlikely, Haskin, et al state that that there exists a remote possibility of an extremely violent FCI leading to something referred to as an alpha-mode failure, or the gross failure of the RPV itself, and subsequent ejection of the upper plenum of the RPV as a missile against the inside of the containment, which would likely lead to the failure of the containment and release of the fission products of the core to the outside environment without any substantial decay having taken place.
Breach of the Primary Pressure Boundary
There are several possibilities as to how the primary pressure boundary could be breached by corium.
- Steam Explosion
As previously described, FCI could lead to an overpressure event leading to RPV fail, and thus, primary pressure boundary fail. Haskin, et al. report that in the event of a steam explosion, failure of the lower plenum is far more likely than ejection of the upper plenum in the alpha-mode. In the even of lower plenum failure, debris at varied temperatures can be expected to be projected into the cavity below the core. The containment may be subject to overpressure, though this is not likely to fail the containment. The alpha-mode failure will lead to the consequences previously discussed.
- Pressurized Melt Ejection (PME)
It is quite possible, especially in pressurized water reactors, that the primary loop will remain pressurized following corium relocation to the lower plenum. As such, pressure stresses on the RPV will be present in addition to the weight stress that the molten corium places on the lower plenum of the RPV; when the metal of the RPV weakens sufficiently due to the heat of the molten corium, it is likely that the liquid corium will be discharged under pressure out of the bottom of the RPV in a pressurized stream, together with entrained gases. This mode of corium ejection may lead to direct containment heating (DCH).
Severe Accident Ex-Vessel Interactions and Challenges to Containment
Haskin, et al identify six modes by which the containment could be credibly challenged; some of these modes are not applicable to core melt accidents.
- Dynamic pressure (shockwaves)
- Internal missiles
- External missiles (not applicable to core melt accidents)
Standard failure modes
If the melted core penetrates the pressure vessel, there are theories and speculations as to what may then occur.
In modern Russian plants, there is a "core catching device" in the bottom of the containment building, the melted core is supposed to hit a thick layer of a "sacrificial metal" which would melt, dilute the core and increase the heat conductivity, and finally the diluted core can be cooled down by water circulating in the floor. However there has never been any full-scale testing of this device.
In Western plants there is an airtight containment building. Though radiation would be at a high level within the containment, doses outside of it would be lower. Containment buildings are designed for the orderly release of pressure without releasing radionuclides, through a pressure release valve and filters. Hydrogen/oxygen recombiners also are installed within the containment to prevent gas explosions.
In a melting event, one spot or area on the RPV will become hotter than other areas, and will eventually melt. When it melts, corium will pour into the cavity under the reactor. Though the cavity is designed to remain dry, several NUREG-class documents advise operators to flood the cavity in the event of a fuel melt incident. This water will become steam and pressurize the containment. Automatic water sprays will pump large quantities of water into the steamy environment to keep the pressure down. Catalytic recombiners will rapidly convert the hydrogen and oxygen back into water. One positive effect of the corium falling into water is that it is cooled and returns to a solid state.
Extensive water spray systems within the containment along with the ECCS, when it is reactivated, will allow operators to spray water within the containment to cool the core on the floor and reduce it to a low temperature.
These procedures are intended to prevent release of radiation. In the Three Mile Island event in 1979, a theoretical person standing at the plant property line during the entire event would have received a dose of approximately 2 millisieverts (200 millirem), between a chest X-ray's and a CT scan's worth of radiation. This was due to outgassing by an uncontrolled system that, today, would have been backfitted with activated carbon and HEPA filters to prevent radionuclide release.
However in case of Fukushima incident this design also at least partially failed: large amounts of highly radioactive water were produced and nuclear fuel has possibly melted through the base of the pressure vessels.
Cooling will take quite a while, until the natural decay heat of the corium reduces to the point where natural convection and conduction of heat to the containment walls and re-radiation of heat from the containment allows for water spray systems to be shut down and the reactor put into safe storage. The containment can be sealed with release of extremely limited offsite radioactivity and release of pressure within the containment. After a number of years for fission products to decay - probably around a decade - the containment can be reopened for decontamination and demolition.
Unexpected failure modes
Another scenario sees a buildup of hydrogen, which may lead to a detonation event, as happened for three reactors during Fukushima incident. Catalytic hydrogen recombiners located within containment are designed to prevent this from occurring; however, prior to the installation of these recombiners in the 1980s, the Three Mile Island containment (in 1979) suffered a massive hydrogen explosion event in the accident there. The containment withstood the pressure and no radioactivity was released. However, in Fukushima recombiners did not work due the absence of power and hydrogen detonation breached the containment.
Speculative failure modes
One scenario consists of the reactor pressure vessel failing all at once, with the entire mass of corium dropping into a pool of water (for example, coolant or moderator) and causing extremely rapid generation of steam. The pressure rise within the containment could threaten integrity if rupture disks could not relieve the stress. Exposed flammable substances could burn, but there are few, if any, flammable substances within the containment.
Another theory called an 'alpha mode' failure by the 1975 Rasmussen (WASH-1400) study asserted steam could produce enough pressure to blow the head off the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). The containment could be threatened if the RPV head collided with it. (The WASH-1400 report was replaced by better-based[original research?] newer studies, and now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has disavowed them all and is preparing the overarching State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses [SOARCA] study - see the Disclaimer in NUREG-1150.)
It has not been determined to what extent a molten mass can melt through a structure (although that was tested in the Loss-of-Fluid-Test Reactor described in Test Area North's fact sheet). The Three Mile Island accident provided some real-life experience, with an actual molten core within an actual structure; the molten corium failed to melt through the Reactor Pressure Vessel after over six hours of exposure, due to dilution of the melt by the control rods and other reactor internals, validating the emphasis on defense in depth against core damage incidents. Some believe a molten reactor core could actually penetrate the reactor pressure vessel and containment structure and burn downwards into the earth beneath, to the level of the groundwater.
By 1970, there were doubts about the ability of the emergency cooling systems of a nuclear reactor to prevent a loss of coolant accident and the consequent meltdown of the fuel core; the subject proved popular in the technical and the popular presses. In 1971, in the article Thoughts on Nuclear Plumbing, former Manhattan Project (1942–1946) nuclear physicist Ralph Lapp used the term "China syndrome" to describe a possible burn-through, after a loss of coolant accident, of the nuclear fuel rods and core components melting the containment structures, and the subsequent escape of radioactive material(s) into the atmosphere and environment; the hypothesis derived from a 1967 report by a group of nuclear physicists, headed by W. K. Ergen.
The geographic, planet-piercing concept of the China syndrome derives from the misperception that China is the antipode of the United States; to many Americans, it is the “the other side of the world”. Moreover, the hypothetical transit of a meltdown product to the other side of the Earth (i.e. China) ignores the fact that the Earth's gravity tends to pull all masses towards its center. Assuming a meltdown product could persist in a mobile molten form for long enough to reach the center of the Earth; gravity would prevent it continuing to the other side.
Other reactor types
Other types of reactors have different capabilities and safety profiles than the LWR does. Advanced varieties of several of these reactors have the potential to be inherently safe.
CANDU reactors
CANDU reactors, Canadian-invented deuterium-uranium design, are designed with at least one, and generally two, large low-temperature and low-pressure water reservoirs around their fuel/coolant channels. The first is the bulk heavy-water moderator (a separate system from the coolant), and the second is the light-water-filled shield tank. These backup heat sinks are sufficient to prevent either the fuel meltdown in the first place (using the moderator heat sink), or the breaching of the core vessel should the moderator eventually boil off (using the shield tank heat sink). Other failure modes aside from fuel melt will probably occur in a CANDU rather than a meltdown, such as deformation of the calandria into a non-critical configuration. All CANDU reactors are located within standard Western containments as well.
Gas-cooled reactors
One type of Western reactor, known as the advanced gas-cooled reactor (or AGCR), built by the United Kingdom, is not very vulnerable to loss-of-cooling accidents or to core damage except in the most extreme of circumstances. By virtue of the relatively inert coolant (carbon dioxide), the large volume and high pressure of the coolant, and the relatively high heat transfer efficiency of the reactor, the time frame for core damage in the event of a limiting fault is measured in days. Restoration of some means of coolant flow will prevent core damage from occurring.
Other types of highly advanced gas cooled reactors, generally known as high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) such as the Japanese High Temperature Test Reactor and the United States' Very High Temperature Reactor, are inherently safe, meaning that meltdown or other forms of core damage are physically impossible, due to the structure of the core, which consists of hexagonal prismatic blocks of silicon carbide reinforced graphite infused with TRISO or QUADRISO pellets of uranium, thorium, or mixed oxide buried underground in a helium-filled steel pressure vessel within a concrete containment. Though this type of reactor is not susceptible to meltdown, additional capabilities of heat removal are provided by using regular atmospheric airflow as a means of backup heat removal, by having it pass through a heat exchanger and rising into the atmosphere due to convection, achieving full residual heat removal. The VHTR is scheduled to be prototyped and tested at Idaho National Laboratory within the next decade (as of 2009) as the design selected for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant by the US Department of Energy. This reactor will use a gas as a coolant, which can then be used for process heat (such as in hydrogen production) or for the driving of gas turbines and the generation of electricity.
A similar highly advanced gas cooled reactor originally designed by West Germany (the AVR reactor) and now developed by South Africa is known as the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. It is an inherently safe design, meaning that core damage is physically impossible, due to the design of the fuel (spherical graphite "pebbles" arranged in a bed within a metal RPV and filled with TRISO (or QUADRISO) pellets of uranium, thorium, or mixed oxide within). A prototype of a very similar type of reactor has been built by the Chinese, HTR-10, and has worked beyond researchers' expectations, leading the Chinese to announce plans to build a pair of follow-on, full-scale 250 MWe, inherently safe, power production reactors based on the same concept. (See Nuclear power in the People's Republic of China for more information.)
Experimental or conceptual designs
Some design concepts for nuclear reactors emphasize resistance to meltdown and operating safety.
The PIUS (process inherent ultimate safety) designs, originally engineered by the Swedes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are LWRs that by virtue of their design are resistant to core damage. No units have ever been built.
Power reactors, including the Deployable Electrical Energy Reactor, a larger-scale mobile version of the TRIGA for power generation in disaster areas and on military missions, and the TRIGA Power System, a small power plant and heat source for small and remote community use, have been put forward by interested engineers, and share the safety characteristics of the TRIGA due to the uranium zirconium hydride fuel used.
The Hydrogen Moderated Self-regulating Nuclear Power Module, a reactor that uses uranium hydride as a moderator and fuel, similar in chemistry and safety to the TRIGA, also possesses these extreme safety and stability characteristics, and has attracted a good deal of interest in recent times.
The liquid fluoride thermal reactor is designed to naturally have its core in a molten state, as a eutectic mix of thorium and fluorine salts. As such, a molten core is reflective of the normal and safe state of operation of this reactor type. In the event the core overheats, a metal plug will melt, and the molten salt core will drain into tanks where it will cool in a non-critical configuration. Since the core is liquid, and already melted, it cannot be damaged.
Advanced liquid metal reactors, such as the U.S. Integral Fast Reactor and the Russian BN-350, BN-600, and BN-800, all have a coolant with very high heat capacity, sodium metal. As such, they can withstand a loss of cooling without SCRAM and a loss of heat sink without SCRAM, qualifying them as inherently safe.
Soviet Union-designed reactors
Soviet designed RBMKs, found only in Russia and the CIS and now shut down everywhere except Russia, do not have containment buildings, are naturally unstable (tending to dangerous power fluctuations), and also have ECCS systems that are considered grossly inadequate by Western safety standards. The reactor from the Chernobyl Disaster was a RBMK reactor.
RBMK ECCS systems only have one division and have less than sufficient redundancy within that division. Though the large core size of the RBMK makes it less energy-dense than the Western LWR core, it makes it harder to cool. The RBMK is moderated by graphite. In the presence of both steam and oxygen, at high temperatures, graphite forms synthesis gas and with the water gas shift reaction the resultant hydrogen burns explosively. If oxygen contacts hot graphite, it will burn. The RBMK tends towards dangerous power fluctuations. Control rods used to be tipped with graphite, a material that slows neutrons and thus speeds up the chain reaction. Water is used as a coolant, but not a moderator. If the water boils away, cooling is lost, but moderation continues. This is termed a positive void coefficient of reactivity.
Control rods can become stuck if the reactor suddenly heats up and they are moving. Xenon-135, a neutron absorbent fission product, has a tendency to build up in the core and burn off unpredictably in the event of low power operation. This can lead to inaccurate neutronic and thermal power ratings.
The RBMK does not have any containment above the core. The only substantial solid barrier above the fuel is the upper part of the core, called the upper biological shield, which is a piece of concrete interpenetrated with control rods and with access holes for refueling while online. Other parts of the RBMK were shielded better than the core itself. Rapid shutdown (SCRAM) takes 10 to 15 seconds. Western reactors take 1 - 2.5 seconds.
Western aid has been given to provide certain real-time safety monitoring capacities to the human staff. Whether this extends to automatic initiation of emergency cooling is not known. Training has been provided in safety assessment from Western sources, and Russian reactors have evolved in result to the weaknesses that were in the RBMK. However, numerous RBMKs still operate.
It is safe to say that it might be possible to stop a loss-of-coolant event prior to core damage occurring, but that any core damage incidents will probably assure massive release of radioactive materials. Further, dangerous power fluctuations are natural to the design.
Lithuania joined the EU recently, and upon acceding, it has been required to shut the two RBMKs that it has at Ignalina NPP, as such reactors are totally incompatible with the nuclear safety standards of Europe. It will be replacing them with some safer form of reactor.
The MKER is a modern Russian-engineered channel type reactor that is a distant descendant of the RBMK. It approaches the concept from a different and superior direction, optimizing the benefits, and fixing the flaws of the original RBMK design.
There are several unique features of the MKER's design that make it a credible and interesting option: One unique benefit of the MKER's design is that in the event of a challenge to cooling within the core - a pipe break of a channel, the channel can be isolated from the plenums supplying water, decreasing the potential for common-mode failures.
The lower power density of the core greatly enhances thermal regulation. Graphite moderation enhances neutronic characteristics beyond light water ranges. The passive emergency cooling system provides a high level of protection by using natural phenomena to cool the core rather than depending on motor-driven pumps. The containment structure is modern and designed to withstand a very high level of punishment.
Refueling is accomplished while online, ensuring that outages are for maintenance only and are very few and far between. 97-99% uptime is a definite possibility. Lower enrichment fuels can be used, and high burnup can be achieved due to the moderator design. Neutronics characteristics have been revamped to optimize for purely civilian fuel fertilization and recycling.
Due to the enhanced quality control of parts, advanced computer controls, comprehensive passive emergency core cooling system, and very strong containment structure, along with a negative void coefficient and a fast acting rapid shutdown system, the MKER's safety can generally be regarded as being in the range of the Western Generation III reactors, and the unique benefits of the design may enhance its competitiveness in countries considering full fuel-cycle options for nuclear development.
The VVER is a pressurized light water reactor that is far more stable and safe than the RBMK. This is because it uses light water as a moderator (rather than graphite), has well understood operating characteristics, and has a negative void coefficient of reactivity. In addition, some have been built with more than marginal containments, some have quality ECCS systems, and some have been upgraded to international standards of control and instrumentation. Present generations of VVERs (the VVER-1000) are built to Western-equivalent levels of instrumentation, control, and containment systems.
However, even with these positive developments, certain older VVER models raise a high level of concern, especially the VVER-440 V230.
The VVER-440 V230 has no containment building, but only has a structure capable of confining steam surrounding the RPV. This is a volume of thin steel, perhaps an inch or two in thickness, grossly insufficient by Western standards.
- Has no ECCS. Can survive at most one 4 inch pipe break (there are many pipes greater than 4 inches within the design).
- Has six steam generator loops, adding unnecessary complexity.
- However, apparently steam generator loops can be isolated, in the event that a break occurs in one of these loops. The plant can remain operating with one isolated loop - a feature found in few Western reactors.
The interior of the pressure vessel is plain alloy steel, exposed to water. This can lead to rust, if the reactor is exposed to water. One point of distinction in which the VVER surpasses the West is the reactor water cleanup facility - built, no doubt, to deal with the enormous volume of rust within the primary coolant loop - the product of the slow corrosion of the RPV. This model is viewed as having inadequate process control systems.
Bulgaria had a number of VVER-440 V230 models, but they opted to shut them down upon joining the EU rather than backfit them, and are instead building new VVER-1000 models. Many non-EU states maintain V230 models, including Russia and the CIS. Many of these states - rather than abandoning the reactors entirely - have opted to install an ECCS, develop standard procedures, and install proper instrumentation and control systems. Though confinements cannot be transformed into containments, the risk of a limiting fault resulting in core damage can be greatly reduced.
The VVER-440 V213 model was built to the first set of Soviet nuclear safety standards. It possesses a modest containment building, and the ECCS systems, though not completely to Western standards, are reasonably comprehensive. Many VVER-440 V213 models possessed by former Soviet bloc countries have been upgraded to fully automated Western-style instrumentation and control systems, improving safety to Western levels for accident prevention - but not for accident containment, which is of a modest level compared to Western plants. These reactors are regarded as "safe enough" by Western standards to continue operation without major modifications, though most owners have performed major modifications to bring them up to generally equivalent levels of nuclear safety.
During the 1970s, Finland built two VVER-440 V213 models to Western standards with a large-volume full containment and world-class instrumentation, control standards and an ECCS with multiply redundant and diversified components. In addition, passive safety features such as 900-tonne ice condensers have been installed, making these two units safety-wise the most advanced VVER-440's in the world.
The VVER-1000 type has a definitely adequate Western-style containment, the ECCS is sufficient by Western standards, and instrumentation and control has been markedly improved to Western 1970s-era levels.
Chernobyl disaster
In the Chernobyl disaster the fuel became non-critical when it melted and flowed away from the graphite moderator - however, it took considerable time to cool. The molten core of Chernobyl (that part that did not vaporize in the fire) flowed in a channel created by the structure of its reactor building and froze in place before a core-concrete interaction could happen. In the basement of the reactor at Chernobyl, a large "elephant's foot" of congealed core material was found. Time delay, and prevention of direct emission to the atmosphere, would have reduced the radiological release. If the basement of the reactor building had been penetrated, the groundwater would be severely contaminated, and its flow could carry the contamination far afield.
The Chernobyl reactor was an RBMK type. The disaster was caused by a power excursion that led to a meltdown and extensive offsite consequences. Operator error and a faulty shutdown system led to a sudden, massive spike in the neutron multiplication rate, a sudden decrease in the neutron period, and a consequent increase in neutron population; thus, core heat flux very rapidly increased to unsafe levels. This caused the water coolant to flash to steam, causing a sudden overpressure within the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), leading to granulation of the upper portion of the core and the ejection of the upper plenum of said pressure vessel along with core debris from the reactor building in a widely dispersed pattern. The lower portion of the reactor remained somewhat intact; the graphite neutron moderator was exposed to oxygen containing air; heat from the power excursion in addition to residual heat flux from the remaining fuel rods left without coolant induced oxidation in the moderator; this in turn evolved more heat and contributed to the melting of the fuel rods and the outgassing of the fission products contained therein. The liquefied remains of the fuel rods flowed through a drainage pipe into the basement of the reactor building and solidified in a mass later dubbed corium, though the primary threat to the public safety was the dispersed core ejecta and the gasses evolved from the oxidation of the moderator.
Although the Chernobyl accident had dire off-site effects, much of the radioactivity remained within the building. If the building were to fail and dust was to be released into the environment then the release of a given mass of fission products which have aged for twenty years would have a smaller effect than the release of the same mass of fission products (in the same chemical and physical form) which had only undergone a short cooling time (such as one hour) after the nuclear reaction has been terminated. However, if a nuclear reaction was to occur again within the Chernobyl plant (for instance if rainwater was to collect and act as a moderator) then the new fission products would have a higher specific activity and thus pose a greater threat if they were released. To prevent a post-accident nuclear reaction, steps have been taken, such as adding neutron poisons to key parts of the basement.
The effects of a nuclear meltdown depend on the safety features designed into a reactor. A modern reactor is designed both to make a meltdown unlikely, and to contain one should it occur.
In a modern reactor, a nuclear meltdown, whether partial or total, should be contained inside the reactor's containment structure. Thus (assuming that no other major disasters occur) while the meltdown will severely damage the reactor itself, possibly contaminating the whole structure with highly radioactive material, a meltdown alone should not lead to significant radiation release or danger to the public.
In practice, however, a nuclear meltdown is often part of a larger chain of disasters (although there have been so few meltdowns in the history of nuclear power that there is not a large pool of statistical information from which to draw a credible conclusion as to what "often" happens in such circumstances). For example, in the Chernobyl accident, by the time the core melted, there had already been a large steam explosion and graphite fire and major release of radioactive contamination (as with almost all Soviet reactors, there was no containment structure at Chernobyl). Also, before a possible meltdown occurs, pressure can already be rising in the reactor, and to prevent a meltdown by restoring the cooling of the core, operators are allowed to reduce the pressure in the reactor by releasing (radioactive) steam into the environment. This enables them to inject additional cooling water into the reactor again.
Reactor design
Although pressurized water reactors are more susceptible to nuclear meltdown in the absence of active safety measures, this is not a universal feature of civilian nuclear reactors. Much of the research in civilian nuclear reactors is for designs with passive nuclear safety features that may be less susceptible to meltdown, even if all emergency systems failed. For example, pebble bed reactors are designed so that complete loss of coolant for an indefinite period does not result in the reactor overheating. The General Electric ESBWR and Westinghouse AP1000 have passively activated safety systems. The CANDU reactor has two low-temperature and low-pressure water systems surrounding the fuel (i.e. moderator and shield tank) that act as back-up heat sinks and preclude meltdowns and core-breaching scenarios.
Fast breeder reactors are more susceptible to meltdown than other reactor types, due to the larger quantity of fissile material and the higher neutron flux inside the reactor core, which makes it more difficult to control the reaction.
Accidental fires are widely acknowledged to be risk factors that can contribute to a nuclear meltdown.
United States
There have been at least eight meltdowns in the history of the United States. All are widely called "partial meltdowns."
- BORAX-I was a test reactor designed to explore criticality excursions and observe if a reactor would self limit. In the final test, it was deliberately destroyed and revealed that the reactor reached much higher temperatures than were predicted at the time.
- The reactor at EBR-I suffered a partial meltdown during a coolant flow test on November 29, 1955.
- The Sodium Reactor Experiment in Santa Susana Field Laboratory was an experimental nuclear reactor which operated from 1957 to 1964 and was the first commercial power plant in the world to experience a core meltdown in July 1959.
- Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One (SL-1) was a United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor which underwent a criticality excursion, a steam explosion, and a meltdown on January 3, 1961, killing three operators.
- The SNAP8ER reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory experienced damage to 80% of its fuel in an accident in 1964.
- The partial meltdown at the Fermi 1 experimental fast breeder reactor, in 1966, required the reactor to be repaired, though it never achieved full operation afterward.
- The SNAP8DR reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory experienced damage to approximately a third of its fuel in an accident in 1969.
- The Three Mile Island accident, in 1979, referred to in the press as a "partial core melt," led to the permanent shutdown of that reactor.
Soviet Union
In the most serious example, the Chernobyl disaster, design flaws and operator negligence led to a power excursion that subsequently caused a meltdown. According to a report released by the Chernobyl Forum (consisting of numerous United Nations agencies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization; the World Bank; and the Governments of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia) the disaster killed twenty-eight people due to acute radiation syndrome, could possibly result in up to four thousand fatal cancers at an unknown time in the future and required the permanent evacuation of an exclusion zone around the reactor.
During the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, three of the power plant's six reactors reportedly suffered meltdowns. Most of the fuel in the reactor No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant melted. TEPCO believes No.2 and No.3 reactors were similarly affected. On May 24, 2011, TEPCO reported that all three reactors melted down.
Meltdown incidents
- There was also a fatal core meltdown at SL-1, an experimental U.S. military reactor in Idaho.
Large-scale nuclear meltdowns at civilian nuclear power plants include:
- the Lucens reactor, Switzerland, in 1969.
- the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., in 1979.
- the Chernobyl disaster at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine, USSR, in 1986.
- the Fukushima I nuclear accidents following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, March 2011.
Other core meltdowns have occurred at:
- NRX (military), Ontario, Canada, in 1952
- BORAX-I (experimental), Idaho, U.S.A., in 1954
- EBR-I (military), Idaho, U.S.A., in 1955
- Windscale (military), Sellafield, England, in 1957 (see Windscale fire)
- Sodium Reactor Experiment, (civilian), California, U.S.A., in 1959
- Fermi 1 (civilian), Michigan, U.S.A., in 1966
- Chapelcross nuclear power station (civilian), Scotland, in 1967
- Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant (civilian), France, in 1969
- A1 plant, (civilian) at Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia, in 1977
- Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant (civilian), France, in 1980
China Syndrome
The China syndrome (loss-of-coolant accident) is a fictional nuclear reactor operations accident characterized by the severe meltdown of the core components of the reactor, which then burn through the containment vessel and the housing building, then notionally through the crust and body of the Earth until reaching the other side, which in the United States is jokingly referred to as being China.
The system design of the nuclear power plants built in the late 1960s raised questions of operational safety, and raised the concern that a severe reactor accident could release large quantities of radioactive materials into the atmosphere and environment. By 1970, there were doubts about the ability of the emergency cooling systems of a nuclear reactor to prevent a loss of coolant accident and the consequent meltdown of the fuel core; the subject proved popular in the technical and the popular presses. In 1971, in the article Thoughts on Nuclear Plumbing, former Manhattan Project (1942–1946) nuclear physicist Ralph Lapp used the term "China syndrome" to describe a possible burn-through, after a loss of coolant accident, of the nuclear fuel rods and core components melting the containment structures, and the subsequent escape of radioactive material(s) into the atmosphere and environment; the hypothesis derived from a 1967 report by a group of nuclear physicists, headed by W. K. Ergen. In the event, Lapp’s hypothetical nuclear accident was cinematically adapted as The China Syndrome (1979).
The geographic, planet-piercing concept of the China syndrome derives from the misperception that China is the antipode of the United States; to many Americans, it is the “the other side of the world”. Moreover, the hypothetical transit of a meltdown product to the other side of the Earth (i.e. China) ignores the fact that the Earth's gravity tends to pull all masses towards its center. Assuming a meltdown product could persist in a mobile molten form for long enough to reach the center of the Earth; momentum loss due to friction (fluid viscosity) would prevent it continuing to the other side.
See also
- Behavior of nuclear fuel during a reactor accident
- Chernobyl compared to other radioactivity releases
- Chernobyl disaster effects
- High-level radioactive waste management
- International Nuclear Event Scale
- List of civilian nuclear accidents
- Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents
- Nuclear fuel response to reactor accidents
- Nuclear safety
- Nuclear power
- Nuclear power debate
- Martin Fackler (June 1, 2011). "Report Finds Japan Underestimated Tsunami Danger". New York Times.
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (2007). IAEA Safety Glossary: Terminology Used in Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (2007edition ed.). Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency. ISBN 92-0-100707-8. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
- United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) (2009-09-14). "Glossary". Website. Rockville, Maryland, USA: Federal Government of the United States. pp. See Entries for Letter M and Entries for Letter N. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
- Reactor safety study: an assessment of accident risks in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, Volume 1
- Hewitt, Geoffrey Frederick; Collier, John Gordon (2000). "4.6.1 Design Basis Accident for the AGR: Depressurization Fault". Introduction to nuclear power (in Technical English). London, UK: Taylor & Francis. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-56032-454-6. Retrieved 2010-06-05.
- "Earthquake Report No. 91". JAIF. May 25, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2011.
- Kuan, P.; Hanson, D. J., Odar, F. (1991). Managing water addition to a degraded core. Retrieved 2010-11-22.
- Haskin, F.E.; Camp, A.L. (1994). Perspectives on Reactor Safety (NUREG/CR-6042) (Reactor Safety Course R-800), 1st Edition. Beltsville, MD: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. p. 3.1–5. Retrieved 2010-11-23.
- Haskin, F.E.; Camp, A.L. (1994). Perspectives on Reactor Safety (NUREG/CR-6042) (Reactor Safety Course R-800), 1st Edition. Beltsville, MD: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. pp. 3.5–1 to 3.5–4. Retrieved 2010-12-24.
- Haskin, F.E.; Camp, A.L. (1994). Perspectives on Reactor Safety (NUREG/CR-6042) (Reactor Safety Course R-800), 1st Edition. Beltsville, MD: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. pp. 3.5–4 to 3.5–5. Retrieved 2010-12-24.
- ANS : Public Information : Resources : Special Topics : History at Three Mile Island : What Happened and What Didn't in the TMI-2 Accident
- Nuclear Industry in Russia Sells Safety, Taught by Chernobyl
- 'Melt-through' at Fukushima? / Govt. suggests situation worse than meltdown http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110607005367.htm
- Test Area North
- Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 11.
- Lapp, Ralph E. "Thoughts on nuclear plumbing." The New York Times, 12 December 1971, pg. E11.
- "China Syndrome". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved December 11, 2012.
- Presenter: Martha Raddatz (15 March 2011). "ABC World News". ABC.
- Allen, P.J.; J.Q. Howieson, H.S. Shapiro, J.T. Rogers, P. Mostert and R.W. van Otterloo (April–June 1990). "Summary of CANDU 6 Probabilistic Safety Assessment Study Results". Nuclear Safety 31 (2): 202–214.
- http://www.insc.anl.gov/neisb/neisb4/NEISB_1.1.html INL VVER Sourcebook
- Partial Fuel Meltdown Events
- ANL-W Reactor History: BORAX I
- Wald, Matthew L. (2011-03-11). "Japan Expands Evacuation Around Nuclear Plant". The New York Times.
- The Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005 (2006-04). "Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts". International Atomic Energy Agency. p. 14. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
- The Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005 (2006-04). "Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts". International Atomic Energy Agency. p. 16. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
- Hiroko Tabuchi (May 24, 2011). "Company Believes 3 Reactors Melted Down in Japan". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-05-25.
|
<urn:uuid:593ff668-f2a3-43a3-a234-69537b1789d6>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.934809
| 11,510
| 4.1875
| 4
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide"
],
"nature": [
"restoration"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Hot Weather Gets Scientists' Attention
Originally published on Wed July 11, 2012 5:30 am
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Across America people are sweltering through extreme heat this year, continuing a long-term trend of rising temperatures. Inevitably, many are wondering if the scorching heat is due to global warming. Scientists are expected to dig into the data and grapple with that in the months to come. They've already taken a stab at a possible connection with last year's extreme weather events, like the blistering drought in Texas. NPR's Richard Harris reports.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Weather researchers from around the world are now taking stock of what happened in 2011. It was not the hottest year on record, but it was still in the top 15. Jessica Blunden from the National Climatic Data Center says 2011 had its own memorable characteristics.
JESSICA BLUNDEN: People may very well remember this year as a year of extreme weather and climate.
HARRIS: There were devastating droughts in Africa, Mexico, and Texas. In Thailand, massive flooding kept people's houses underwater for two months.
BLUNDEN: Here in the United States, we had one of our busiest and most destructive seasons on record in 2011. There were seven different tornado and severe weather outbreaks that each caused more than a billion dollars in damages.
HARRIS: So what's going on here? Federal climate scientist, Tom Karl, said one major feature of the global weather last year was a La Nina event. That's a period of cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures and it has effects around the globe, primarily in producing floods in some parts of the world and droughts in others.
TOM KARL: By no means did it explain all of the activity in 2011, but it certainly influenced a considerable part of the climate and weather.
HARRIS: Karl and Blunden are part of a huge multinational effort to sum up last year's weather and say what it all means. They provided an update by conference call. Clearly, long-term temperature trends are climbing as you'd expect as a result of global warming. Tom Peterson from the Federal Climate Data Center says the effort now is to look more closely at individual events.
TOM PETERSON: You've probably all heard the term you can't attribute any single event to global warming, and while that's true, the focus of the science now is evolving and moving onto how is the probability of event change.
HARRIS: And there researchers report some progress. For example, last year's record-breaking drought in Texas wasn't simply the result of La Nina. Peter Stott from the British Meteorology Office says today's much warmer planet played a huge role as well, according to the study the group released on Tuesday.
PETER STOTT: The result that they find is really quite striking, in that they find that such a heat wave is now about 20 times more likely during a La Nina year than it was during the 1960s.
HARRIS: A second study found that an extraordinary warm spell in London last November was 60 times more likely to occur on our warming planet than it would have been over the last 350 years. But that's not to say everything is related to climate change. There's no clear link between the spate of tornadoes and global warming, and devastating floods in Thailand last year, turn out to be the result of poor land use practices.
Even so, Kate Willett of the British Weather Service says there is a global trend consistent with what scientists expect climate change to bring.
KATE WILLETT: So, in simple terms, we can say that the dry regions are getting drier and the wet regions are getting wetter.
HARRIS: This year's extreme events are different from last year's, but they all fit into a coherent picture of global change. Richard Harris, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
|
<urn:uuid:e8e46237-1e26-4326-b62c-a25477bd0d59>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://kacu.org/post/hot-weather-gets-scientists-attention
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.95642
| 822
| 3.15625
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change",
"drought",
"extreme weather",
"global warming"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 4,
"weak": 0,
"total": 4,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Climate change has already pushed the nation's wildlife into crisis, according to a report released Wednesday from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and further catastrophe, including widespread extinction, can only be curbed with swift action to curb the carbon pollution that has the planet sweltering.
Entitled Wildlife in a Warming World: Confronting the Climate Crisis, the report looks at 8 regions across the U.S. where "the underlying climatic conditions to which species have been accustomed for thousands of years," the report explains, have been upturned by human-caused climate change.
“Some of America’s most iconic species—from moose to sandhill cranes to sea turtles – are seeing their homes transformed by rapid climate change,” stated Dr. Amanda Staudt, climate scientist at the National Wildlife Federation.
Feb 15, 2013 Living on Earth: STARVING POLAR BEARS Polar Bears have long been the poster species for the problem of climate change. But a new paper in Conservation Letters argues that supplemental feeding may be necessary to prevent polar bear populations from going extinct. Polar bear expert Andrew Derocher from the University of Alberta joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss how we can save the largest bear on the planet.http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00007&segmentID=2
|
<urn:uuid:8f73ff6f-28d6-4d1c-b460-f3a592885a8d>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.scoop.it/t/why-has-putin-closed-the-archives-relating-to-the-holocaust-and-why-has-russian-joined-the-wto/p/3371169705/israel-shells-syria-and-gaza-sabbah-report
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.909329
| 286
| 3.265625
| 3
|
[
"climate",
"nature"
] |
{
"climate": [
"climate change"
],
"nature": [
"conservation"
]
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Pricing Carbon Emissions
A bill before Congress may prove a costly way to reduce greenhouse gases.
- Friday, June 5, 2009
- By Kevin Bullis
Experts are applauding a sweeping energy bill currently before the United States Congress, saying that it could lead to significant cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions and improve the likelihood of a comprehensive international agreement to cut greenhouse gases. "It's real climate-change legislation that's being taken seriously," says Gilbert Metcalf, a professor of economics at Tufts University. But many warn that the bill's market-based mechanisms and more conventional regulations could make these emissions reductions more expensive than they need to be.
The bill, officially called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is also referred to as the Waxman-Markey Bill, after its sponsors, Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.). The legislation would establish a cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, an approach favored by most economists over conventional regulatory approaches because it provides a great deal of flexibility in how emissions targets are met. But it also contains mandates that could significantly reduce the cost savings that the cap and trade approach is supposed to provide.
In a cap and trade system, the government sets a cap on total emissions of greenhouse gases from various industrial and utility sources, including power plants burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. It then issues allowances to polluters allowing them to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases; total emissions are meant to stay under the cap. Over a period of time, the government gradually reduces the cap and the number of allowances until it reaches its target. If companies' emissions exceed their allowances, they must buy more.
Economists like the system because companies can choose to either lower their emissions, such as by investing in new technology, or buy more allowances from the government or from companies that don't need them--whichever makes the best economic sense. It is meant to create a carbon market, putting a value on emissions.
In the proposed energy bill, the government will set caps to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 (compared with 2005 levels) and by 80 percent by 2050--targets chosen to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Setting caps will make electricity more expensive, as companies turn to cleaner technologies to meet ever lower caps or have to spend money to buy allowances from others with lower emissions. But the bill has some provisions for cushioning the blow, especially at first. For one thing, it gives away most of the allowances rather than charging for them, and it also requires that any profits gained from these free allowances be passed on to electricity customers. It also allows companies to buy "offsets" that permit them to pay to reduce emissions outside the United States.
If the program is designed right, there are fewer allowances than the total emissions when the program starts. At first, when the caps are relatively easy to meet, the prices for allowances on the carbon market will be low. But eventually, they will get higher as the allowances become scarcer. In an ideal world, companies will predict what the price of the allowances will be, and plan accordingly.
|
<urn:uuid:ecbdee27-d586-4d08-a03d-036829352851>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.technologyreview.in/energy/22755/page1/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955623
| 648
| 3.40625
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide",
"climate change"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 2,
"weak": 0,
"total": 2,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Vinca is very drought-tolerant and has an extremely long blooming season. It can also tolerate the highest temperatures we face during the summer growing season.
Great improvements have been made in vinca flower colors and varieties during the past 25 years. In the 1980s, gardeners had few choices in terms of vinca growth habits, flower colors or disease resistance. In the 1990s, new forms and new flower colors arrived with rapid expansion occurring between 2000-2005.
Vinca flower colors now include pink, deep rose, red, blush, scarlet, white, white with a red eye, lavender blue, peach, apricot, orchid, burgundy and many others. You can have vinca varieties that are upright and vinca varieties that are spreading. Plants generally grow 18-20 inches tall with a spread of 12-14 inches. Spreading types, though, have more trailing or ground cover habits and reach only 6-8 inches tall (at the most) with spreads of 18-14 inches.
We do have vinca problems in the landscape, and based on the number of calls with vinca issues this spring, this is a bad year for vinca. This is surprising considering we now have disease-resistant varieties and we had a very dry spring and early summer.
The main disease culprit is a fungus called Phytophthora, which always is present in our soils. It is often responsible for root rots and crown rots, and it attacks many types of plants. This fungus causes a disease seen shortly after planting, but it also can be found later in the year.
Rhizoctonia is another disease common on vinca in Louisiana. It normally shows up in the summer after plants are established. Plant pathologists can also find Botrytis (gray mold) and Alternaria (leaf spot) on vinca in summer and fall.
To get the best performance out of vinca in your landscape, consider the following LSU AgCenter recommendations:
•Begin with good quality plants. Inspect plants obtained from the greenhouse grower or retail garden center for healthy roots.
•Select a full-sun location. Vinca need at least eight hours of direct sun daily for optimum performance.
•Properly prepare the landscape bed to allow for drainage and aeration. Raise the bed at least 6 inches if drainage is questionable. If beds are already established, all debris from the previous planting needs to be removed. Possibly, mulch should be removed also and add another couple inches of landscape soil prior to planting.
•Although late April through early May is the ideal first planting date for the spring, you can continue planting vinca through the summer. The main thing to remember is that vinca love warm soil.
•Plant so that the top of the root ball is level with or slightly higher than the soil of the bed. Proper spacing also is important because a crowded planting limits air circulation and can create conditions more favorable to disease development. Space transplants at least 8-10 inches apart. The more quickly plants grow together, the higher the likelihood of disease moving through foliage later in the year.
•Mulch to decrease splashing of rainfall and irrigation water from soil onto the lower stems and foliage of the plants. Bedding plants should be mulched to a depth of about 1 inch. Pine straw is the preferred mulch material.
•Manage irrigation properly. This is the main culprit in plant decline in commercial landscape beds. Vinca need very little irrigation once they’re established. Avoid regular overhead irrigation. Even if the landscape bed drains very well, an adequate volume once a week is the most water that should be applied.
•Don’t plant periwinkles in the same bed year after year. Rotate them with other summer bedding plants that like sunny locations, such as blue daze, lantana, pentas, angelonia, scaevola, verbena, melampodium or sun-tolerant coleus.
Varieties of vinca available in Louisiana include Pacifica, Cooler, Mediterranean, Victory, Titan, Nirvana and Cora series. Cooler and Pacifica are older varieties that still perform well with correct care. Mediterranean vincas spread and should be planted only in hanging baskets and containers. Titans have the largest flowers of all the vinca groups. The newer and more expensive Nirvana and Cora vincas have genetic resistance to Phytophthora. A few other vincas we have evaluated at the LSU AgCenter recently are not being sold in any significant quantities in Louisiana.
It is late in the bedding-plant season, but pay attention to vinca in landscapes. Are you noticing them looking good or looking bad? Try to figure out why a particular planting is performing well or not performing well. Vinca can have trouble through the summer and fall if proper practices are not followed, so consider the above options to improve your success.
For more information, contact Dr. Chris Robichaux, county agent/area horticulturist, St. Martin/Iberia Parishes, at 332-2181 or 369-4440.
|
<urn:uuid:88214c93-2b8d-4d36-b4f0-52523683ad12>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.techetoday.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Vincas+vary+in+landscape+performance%20&id=14885411
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.943359
| 1,082
| 2.625
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"drought"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the launch of a website, DOepatents, which allows search and retrieval of information from a collection of more than 20,000 patent records. The database represents a growing collection of patents resulting from R&D supported by DOE and demonstrates the Department’s considerable contribution to scientific progress from the 1940s to the present.
“From helping the blind to see again to identifying hidden weapons through holographic computerized imaging technology, the U.S. Department of Energy has supported and will continue to support research addressing some of the world’s most pressing scientific challenges,” Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond L. Orbach said. “Content within DOepatents represents a truly impressive demonstration of DOE research and development and technological innovation.”
Highlighted at DOepatents is a compilation of noteworthy DOE innovations from the past few decades. These technologies have improved quality of life and provided national economic, health and environmental benefits. One such invention is the Artificial Retina, a collaborative research project between DOE national laboratories, universities and the private sector aimed at restoring vision to millions of people blinded by retinal disease. Another invention is the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s pioneering multi-junction solar cell. A cell based on this design set a world efficiency record in converting sunlight to electricity. The DOepatents database also includes inventions of Nobel Laureates associated with DOE or its predecessors such as Enrico Fermi, Glenn Seaborg and Luis Alvarez, along with other distinguished scientists.
patents consists of bibliographic records, with full text where available via either a PDF file or an HTML link to the record at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The DOepatents database is updated quarterly with new patent records. The website is updated on a regular basis with news and information about significant and recent inventions. Resource links for inventors are included at the site, as well as Recent Inventions and Patent News pages. DOepatents was developed by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and may be viewed at http://www.osti.gov/doepatents/.
OSTI, a part of the DOE Office of Science, accelerates discovery by making research results rapidly available to scientists and to the public. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the nation.
Jeff Sherwood, DOE, (202) 586-5806
Cathey Daniels, OSTI, (865) 576-9539
|
<urn:uuid:d8e7ee42-2942-4f4e-bc3f-b0ba6d06cc68>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://science.energy.gov/news/in-the-news/2007/09-18-07/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.913839
| 541
| 2.859375
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"renewable energy"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
Green building facts
- Buildings consume 32% of the world’s resources including 12% of fresh water and 40% of the world’s energy (7).
- In Australia commercial buildings produce almost 9% of our national Greenhouse gas emissions (8).
- To make way for the new Law School the Edgeworth David building and the Stephen Roberts lecture theatre were demolished in 2006. Over 80% of the materials from these buildings were recycled including the valuable copper from the roof of the lecture theatre
The new Law School Building
7. “Environmentally Sustainable Buildings: Challenges and Policies” OECD (2003)
8. “Australia State of the Environment Report” Department of Environment & Heritage (2001)
|
<urn:uuid:354e6914-456e-4541-8c57-6410f91b48cd>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://sydney.edu.au/facilities/sustainable_campus/buildings/index.shtml
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.917221
| 150
| 2.96875
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"greenhouse gas"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
I've heard that the "smog" in NYC actually helps plants and vegetables grow better. Is there any truth to this, or is it one of those things New Yorkers say to make themselves feel better, like "We have the best drinking water in the country"?
-Sarah from Astoria, NY
I'm sorry to burst your Big Apple bubble, but this is just wishful thinking. I'll start by blowing your mind and totally turning the question around: Do plants affect the air quality in polluted cities?
Trees planted in urban areas have actually been proven to reduce air pollution by doing what they do naturally, which is filter the air. Plants suck in carbon dioxide (along with the pollution) and release clean oxygen back into the environment. Woohoo, new clean air! But the flipside of all this is that the plant is sucking in polluted carbon dioxide. And that pollution has gotta end up somewhere...
Toxins pulled in from air, water and soil can eventually be transferred to the leaves and fruit of the plant. All plants are affected differently: Tomatoes, for example, harbor toxins in their leaves and not in their fruit, so you're safe if you're only eating the tomatoes and not the leaves like a weirdo.
Trees planted along the streets of NYC are actually chosen for their high rate of filtration. High filtering trees help clean the air better, but they also have a strong tolerance for pollution so they can survive the tough NYC air conditions. To learn more about trees planted in NYC, check out the Million Trees Initiative- you can request a tree to be planted on your block!
So, sorry Sarah... your New York City garden does not like the smog. But hey, at least you don't live in super-smoggy Los Angeles!
If anyone has a specific plant they're growing and would like to know how pollution is affecting it, comment below and I'll find the answer!
Have a question? Send it to Green Thumb Conundrums!
|
<urn:uuid:97e7c153-740f-4b5d-a696-770610ca12f4>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.farmtina.com/2010/05/green-thumb-conundrums-nyc-hearts-smog.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958358
| 414
| 2.5625
| 3
|
[
"climate"
] |
{
"climate": [
"carbon dioxide"
],
"nature": []
}
|
{
"strong": 1,
"weak": 0,
"total": 1,
"decision": "accepted_strong"
}
|
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
No dataset card yet
- Downloads last month
- 932