Date Posted: 03-Sep-2010

USA MOVES TO CLEAN AIR

U.S. regulators are moving to reduce the amount of dust floating in rural air.

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to tighten standards for the amount of harmful particles in the air, facing opposition from U.S. farming groups who call it an unrealistic attempt to regulate dust.

The EPA is reviewing its air quality standards to comply with the Clean Air Act that prescribes reevaluation every five years. The agency's scientific panel proposes either retaining or halving the current standard for coarse particles, commonly containing dust, ash and chemical pollutants--particles 10 microns or smaller in diameter, about one-tenth of human hair.

In scientific terms, the EPA is looking to either keep the standards at 150 micrograms per cubic meter or revise it down to 65 to 85 micrograms per cubic meter.

Environmental groups say these tiny elements could be harmful if not deadly for people, causing cardiovascular or respiratory problems.

"They are small enough that they bypass the natural defenses of the body and can be inhaled deeply into the lung," said Janice Nolen, the American Lung Association assistant vice president.

But for Kluthe, who lives a quarter of a mile away from any community, the health aspects mean little weighed against the possibility of costly dust control measures he may have to take, such as watering gravel roads or tilled soil.

"They need to get real," he said, echoing the messages the National Pork Producers and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association have been sending to the EPA.

But technically, EPA is obligated to rely on science when making its decisions, said John Walke, clean air director at the National Resources Defense Council.

"The EPA doesn't care where the pollution is coming from, and our lungs don't care," he said.

EPA will issue final proposed standards in late fall and at least until then, "it is too soon in the process to know" how EPA will enforce them, spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn said.

Meanwhile lawmakers have been complaining about the reach of EPA farming regulations. In a recent manifestation, Richard Lugar, a senior Republican Senator from Indiana, sent EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson a letter pleading for "common-sense" on dust regulations.

Date Posted: 02-Sep-2010

CHINA'S JAM MIRRORS ECONOMIC GROWTH

China recorded its worst ever traffic jam that stretched across 100 kilometres of a major highway leading to Beijing. China's jam is a mirror of the country's soaring economic development, writes Anna Crombie in the Weekend Daily Planet global newspaper.

The worst congestion through the 30-kilometer corridor on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway is used to transport coal from China's hinterlands to its eastern ports.

China has overtaken the US as the world's largest car market. The world's largest car market is indicative of the swelling of individual consumption. The bulk of China's energy demand comes from industry and infrastructure, but its communities are purchasing more air conditioners, microwave ovens, TV sets and computers than ever before that has pushed the demand for electricity sky high.

China's industrial economy depends on the movement of fuel.

Electricity usage has surged with country's economic growth growing well above 10 percent in all months this year.

Coal is the dominant fuel that 80% of China's power plants use.

According to the International Energy Agency, China's use of coal, oil, wind and other sources of power more than doubled in the past decade to reach the equivalent of 2.26 billion tons of oil in 2009, surpassing the US total of 2.17 billion tons.

The Chinese government has challenged this figure, but the data is seen to expose a major turning point for Asia where energy use is closely related to CO2 emissions and economic expansion.

China's dependency on imported oil reached 50% for the first time last year. In recent years, the country has also become a major importer of coal from Australia and its nuclear power plans have helped to push the price of uranium to unprecedented highs.

The rapid expanses of the Chinese economy is unprecedented in human history where huge factories have been built in the provinces to escape rising costs in the coastal zones that helped China become the world's largest exporter.

New high-speed rail links are shrinking distances for shuttling goods in and out of China's heartland. The move inland by manufacturers coincides with a parallel trend in urbanization.

Local governments are competing ferociously to build and expand cities on farmland to lure back millions of migrants from the coast in a project that could absorb more residents than the entire population of the United States in the coming decades.

China's central planners in Beijing want to engineer a shift to rebalance China's economy, to rely less on exports for future growth and more on domestic consumption.

Factories in coastal China have been powered by an army of 130 million migrant workers streaming in annually from inland Chinese provinces to three of southern China's most economically vibrant provinces - Guangdong, Fujian and Hunan.

The IEA forecasts that China's dependency on imported oil will rise to 75% by 2030 without a big push for renewable sources of energy. A major cause of August's record traffic was a dearth of rail capacity from Inner Mongolia to ports such as Caofeidian, Qinhuangdao and Tianjin, from where coal is trucked to power plants in southern China. The cross-country movement of fuel underlines the China's rapid development.

Meanwhile China's cityscapes have been transformed. Several Beijing skyscrapers have turned into 30- and 40-storey LED screens in the wake of the ancient capital's Olympic makeover into a super-modern urban metropolis. Here the government has backed renewable energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal power. China has announced it would support clean energy in the next decade by reducing its dependency on coal from 70% to 63% by 2015.

Date Posted: 02-Sep-2010

CARS IN USA LABELLED CLEAN

Cars in the United Sates will be graded A to D according to their energy efficiency.

The labeling program - as proposed by Obama administration - will be applied to mileage and emissions of gases that cause global warming.

The new car labels that will start with the 2012 model year would give consumers more information about the monetary -- and environmental -- costs of running their vehicles.

"New fuel economy labels will keep pace with the new generation of fuel efficient cars and trucks rolling off the line, and provide simple, straightforward updates to inform consumers about their choices in a rapidly changing market," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

The proposal requiring two labels would be a big change for consumers and the auto industry from the current single energy efficiency label required on all new cars and light trucks.

One label would measure fuel economy and, for the first time, tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, and combine those to come up with a letter grade ranging from the 'A+', the most efficient, to 'D', the least, reflecting the grading system common in American schools. No vehicle would get a failing grade.

Gina McCarthy, an EPA assistant administrator, said all-electric vehicles would get the top grade while plug-in hybrid cars, which are charged with an electric power cord and have small engines, would get an 'A'.

McCarthy said the EPA was in talks with carmakers on figuring out a miles per gallon equivalent fuel efficiency label for all-electric and mostly electric cars.

The second label on cars in the showroom would include miles per gallon for both city and highway driving, an annual fuel cost for driving the car, and how it compares among all types of vehicles.

The labels will provide consumers with an estimate of the expected fuel cost savings over five years compared with an average gasoline-powered vehicle of the same model year.

Date Posted: 01-Sep-2010

SHAKE-UP OF IPCC

A new report to the United Nations recommends a major shake-up of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The UN's climate panel has been under scrutiny after it asserted that climate change was already imploding on the planet resulting in more pressure for global action to limit carbon emissions.

In the run-up to last year's highly anticipated climate summit in Copenhagen, the IPCC was rocked by a scandal involving leaked emails which critics say showed panel members had skewed data.

The UN ordered a review and now that five-month study, by the InterAcademy Council, an organisation of the world's science academies, has been completed.

It recommends changes to the way the IPCC is run and the way its science is presented.

Changes recommended include setting up an executive committee to replace the panel's largely part-time structure, checks on conflicts of interest by board members, and stricter guidelines on source material.

Date Posted: 31-Aug-2010

SPECIES WILT TO EXTREME HEAT

Research has shown that only a few species of fish have been able to adapt to extreme climate change on the planet.

Apparently fish evolve faster than animals.

University of British Columbia evolutionary geneticist warns that any evolutionary jump carries with it a deadly price tag - a high mortality rate.

The latest findings of fish evolution from Canadian and European scientists suggest that some - but not all - animals will be able to change quickly enough to survive predicted climate change.

Most climate research in peer-reviewed science journals predicts global temperatures will gradually rise by several degrees in coming decades, accompanied by swings of extreme cold and heat.

Research showed that only 5% of fish species developed a tolerance for severe climate change.

The consequences of losing 95% might be catastrophic, because the remaining 5% might not be able to sustain the population.

However, more research is needed to determine whether such rapid evolution to cope with extreme climate change can occur in other species.

The rapid evolution by the marine fish in the study mirrored the 10,000-year-long evolution of freshwater stickleback in British Columbia - descendants of marine fish trapped inland at the end of the last Ice Age.

Humans also evolved over some 10,000 generations, since their first migration from Africa, raising the question of how many generations it might take for northern peoples to evolve genes that could cope with warmer climates experienced by their African ancestors.

As shown by the 95% mortality rate in the stickleback, such rapid evolution can make the population of a species extremely vulnerable.

Date Posted: 30-Aug-2010

SUDAN CRATER FOUND

Scientists using Google Maps have discovered a new crater like structure in the Bayuda Desert of Sudan.

If confirmed, it will be the second such discovery using the popular online mapping tool and could spawn a new generation of home-based amateur crater hunters.

Assistant professor Amelia Sparavigna from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy has detailed her discovery on the pre-press website arXiv.org.

She says she got the idea from Italian researcher Vincenzo de Micheles, who reported in the online journal Sciencemag that Google Earth images allowed him to identify an impact crater in the remote desert of southern Egypt in 2008.

Based on that observation, the 45-metre wide Kamil crater was confirmed, reasonably well-preserved, in the desert rocks.

Professor Sparavigna used satellite images obtained through Google Maps to study a ring structure enclosed by a bend in the River Nile.

Located between the fourth and sixth cataract, the area is characterised by basaltic rocks from ancient volcanoes.

Date Posted: 29-Aug-2010

NEW GERMAN COAL TAX

Germany is examining a new tax on coal used in power generation.

The tax is expected to offset tax breaks for large corporate energy consumers.

The German government hopes to save 1 billion euros next year and 1.5 billion in 2012 by reducing tax breaks for large corporate energy consumers, according to a draft law.

But it came under heavy fire from industry as well as from within its own parties.

A new coal tax would reduce the amount the government needs to save by cutting tax breaks for large corporates.

"My initial reaction would be very negative as it puts another levy on the energy industry and on customers and would make Germany less efficient and competitive," said Johannes Teyssen, chief executive of E.ON, the world's largest utility firm.

Earlier, E.ON said Germany's proposed tax on nuclear plant operators would hit its profits, may weigh on its credit rating and would force it to cut investments.