Sep 29 2011

Afghanistan Mineral Potential

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Mineral deposits can create jobs, industry, wealth and potentially pollution. It could help stabilize a war torn country such as Afghanistan. Working with the Department of Defense Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), members of the USGS Minerals Project assessed fuel- and non-fuel mineral resources of Afghanistan from October 2009 to September 2011 with the goal of identifying particular deposits that could be relatively easily developed.The team identified key Areas of Interest (AOI)—and subareas within them—that fit these criteria. The AOIs contain mineral reserves or resources that have been well-documented through sampling in trenches, drill holes, and/or underground workings. Most are accessible by existing roads. So to develop or not to develop.
Categories: News
Sep 23 2011

An Efficient Solar Harvest

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Solar power could be harvested more efficiently and transported over longer distances using tiny molecular circuits based on quantum mechanics, according to research inspired by new insights into natural photosynthesis. Incorporating the latest research into how plants, algae and some bacteria use quantum mechanics to optimize energy production via photosynthesis, UCL scientists have set out how to design molecular circuitry that is 10 times smaller than the thinnest electrical wire in computer processors. Published in Nature Chemistry, the report discusses how tiny molecular energy grids could capture, direct, regulate and amplify raw solar energy.
Categories: News
Sep 23 2011

Coral Reefs likely to disappear by the end of the century

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Coral reefs will be gone by the end of the century, according to a top UN Scientist. This would give coral reefs the dubious accolade of being the first entire ecosystem to have been destroyed by human activity. In the recently published book 'Our Dying Planet', Professor Peter Sale writes that coral reef ecosystems are very likely to disappear by the end of this century, in what would be "a new first for mankind – the 'extinction' of an entire ecosystem". Sale, who leads a team at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, reports that the decline in coral reefs is mainly due to climate change and ocean acidification. Other activities, including overfishing, pollution and coastal development, have also had a devastating impact on the world’s coral reefs. "We're creating a situation where the organisms that make coral reefs are becoming so compromised by what we're doing that many of them are going to be extinct, and the others are going to be very, very rare," says Sale.
Categories: News
Sep 23 2011

Hilary becomes Category 4 hurricane, Mexican coast on alert

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Hilary, a small but powerful storm, strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane late on Thursday as its core continued to move parallel to the southwest Pacific coast of Mexico. The storm was 85 miles southwest of the popular resort of Acapulco, packing maximum sustained winds of 135 miles per hour, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. "Some additional strengthening is possible on Friday. There will be some fluctuations in intensity during the next day or so," forecasters added. Hilary, now on the fourth rung of a five-step severity scale, is the seventh hurricane of the Pacific season. None has caused major damage so far.
Categories: News
Sep 22 2011

Is Climate Change Already Causing Violent Conflict?

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For years, the Pentagon has been saying that climate change is perhaps the biggest threat to American security of all. Back in 2004, a report commissioned by Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall, the man behind the restructuring of the US military under Donald Rumsfeld, predicted that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies." The report went on to declare that the threat to global stability posed by climate change was indeed greater than that of terrorism.
Categories: News
Sep 22 2011

Whales Mingle Across the Arctic

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The loss of Arctic sea ice is predicted to open up the Northwest Passage (the vast northern sea lanes above Canada presently choked off by ice), shortening shipping routes and facilitating the exchange of marine organisms between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Skeletons, DNA samples and harpoon heads have all suggested that bowhead populations living on each side of the continent did meet and mingle in the past. Previous satellite tracking has demonstrated that bowhead whales from West Greenland and Alaska enter the ice-infested channels of the Canadian High Arctic during summer. In August 2010, two bowhead whales from West Greenland and Alaska entered the Northwest Passage from opposite directions and spent approximately 10 days in the same area, documenting overlap between the two populations.
Categories: News
Sep 22 2011

Andrews Air Force Base

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Most people think of polluted sites as being something industry does. Not so. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it has signed an agreement with the Department of Defense to remediate Joint Base Andrews (formerly Andrews Air Force Base) located in Clinton, Md. Although cleanup activities have been on-going at the facility, the federal facility agreement ensures that cleanup actions proceed with EPA oversight within an enforceable framework, in a manner that protects the community and the environment. The agreement will also give the EPA and the Air Force the framework for investigating new and evolving contamination at the base as it is discovered.
Categories: News
Sep 22 2011

A View of Earth: PBS Offers Operators Manual

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What if there was a mobile app to help us understand our planet? A guide to tell us how to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and increase our use of renewable energy? PBS has answered this need with Earth: The Operators’ Manual—a visually stimulating and informative one-hour program on how science can help us respond to climate change and move toward clean, green energy solutions.
Categories: News
Sep 16 2011

Climate Warming: Who Thinks What

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Yale University has created a new poll based report, Politics & Global Warming, which describes how Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and members of the Tea Party respond to the issue of global warming. The results come from a nationally representative survey of 1,010 American adults, aged 18 and older, conducted April 23 through May 12, 2011. The samples were weighted to correspond with US Census Bureau parameters for the United States. The study shows majorities of Democrats (78%), Independents (71%) and Republicans (53%) believe that global warming is happening. By contrast, only 34 percent of Tea Party members believe global warming is happening, while 53 percent say it is not happening. While 62 percent of Democrats say that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, most Tea Party members say it is either naturally caused (50%) or isn’t happening at all (21%).
Categories: News
Sep 16 2011

Smart Energy Country Profile – South Africa

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South Africa is changing rapidly, and the ANC government of Jacob Zuma has big plans. This blog will examine the changing picture in terms of its energy supply and its plans to become a primary supplier to the growing global fuel cell industry. The South African economy is closely tied to the energy sector, with demand of 127.8 million metric tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) primary energy consumption (2007), which is growing at 4.4 percent a year.
Categories: News
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