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Nearly Half of Electricity at UK Businesses Wasted During Off Hours
9 hours 38 min agoA UK report says that nearly half of the electricity consumed by British businesses is wasted when employees are not at work. In an analysis of more than 6,000 smart meters, British Gas found that 46 percent
British Gas Evening energy use, Manchester of electricity use occurs from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., when most businesses are typically closed. Common examples of unnecessary electricity use include the lighting of parking areas during weekends, keeping the lights on at retail stores even after shopping centers are closed, and running vending machines around the clock. The UK utility also released a series of thermal images illustrating how much energy is lost from energy-inefficient buildings in London, Manchester, and Liverpool during the evening hours. According to British Gas, the average business could save £1,200 ($1,900) on its annual electricity bill by simply switching off the lights at parking lots during weekends. A recent report by Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute suggested that reducing energy waste will be a critical component of UK efforts to achieve its climate change targets.Categories: Environmental News
Nigerian Children Perish From Exposure to Lead in Gold Mining
10 hours 31 min agoLead contamination from hundreds of gold mines across northwestern Nigeria has caused the deaths of 400 children under the age of five and exposes thousands more children to lead poisoning, according to a report from the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch. Across
Human Rights WatchVIDEO: Nigeria lead-poisoning crisis the state of Zamfara, where hundreds of artisanal mines are now in operation, young children processing ore are exposed to toxic levels of lead, the report said. Many others are exposed when family members return home from work covered in the toxic dust, when lead-filled ore is crushed in their homes, or when exposed to contaminated water and food. In some villages, mortality rates were as high as 40 percent among children who showed signs of lead poisoning. “Zamfara’s gold brought hope for prosperity, but resulted in death and backbreaking labor for its children,” said Babatunde Olugboji, a deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. While governmental and international organizations have treated more than 1,500 children showing signs of acute lead poisoning, the report says thousands more children require chelation therapy to remove lead from their bodies.Categories: Environmental News
Political Discourse Driving Public Opinion on Climate, Report Finds
Mon, 02/06/2012 - 11:38U.S. opinion on climate change over the last decade has been affected more by the discourse of political leaders than by media reports about global warming or extreme weather events, according to a new study. Using results from 74 separate surveys conducted from 2002 to 2010, researchers compiled an index that measured the changing level of concern over global warming and its relation to weather events, access to scientific information, media coverage, advocacy group campaigns, and cues from major political leaders. More than any other single factor, the content and tone of political discourse about climate change impacted public opinion, according to J. Craig Jenkins, a sociologist at Ohio State University and co-author of the study, published in the journal Climate Change. “It is the political leaders in Washington who are really driving public opinion about the treat of climate change,” he said.
Categories: Environmental News
EU Wind Energy Capacity Grew 11 Percent in 2011, Report Says
Mon, 02/06/2012 - 10:55More than 9,600 megawatts of wind power capacity was installed in European Union member states in 2011, accounting for about 21 percent of all new power capacity installations, according to an industry report. EWEA New offshore wind farms in the UK and land-based projects in Sweden and Germany pushed EU member states to a combined 93,957 megawatts of wind power capacity, an increase of about 10.5 percent from 2010, according to the European Wind Energy Association. Overall, renewable energy installations accounted for more than 71 percent of all new installed power capacity, with more than 32,000 megawatts installed, according to the report. In the UK, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the offshore wind industry will unveil new policies today to encourage greater production of wind turbines within the UK, setting a new target requiring that more than half of the equipment for the next generation of wind farms will be made domestically.
Categories: Environmental News
In Fast-Track Technology, Hope For a Second Green Revolution
Mon, 02/06/2012 - 07:33With advances in a technique known as fast-track breeding, researchers are developing crops that can produce more and healthier food and can adapt and thrive as the climate shifts. BY RICHARD CONNIFF
Categories: Environmental News
Indian Clean-Energy Growth Was Fastest in World in 2011, Report Says
Fri, 02/03/2012 - 10:56Renewable energy investments in India increased by more than 52 percent in 2011, the fastest growth among major global economies, according to a new report. More than $10.3 billion was invested in renewable energy projects in India last year, with about $4.6 billion targeting wind energy projects and another $4.2 billion going toward solar projects, the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report said. For solar, that represented a seven-fold increase from 2010, when investments totaled about $600 million. According to a separate report, the declining price of solar panels has now made solar powera cheaper energy option than diesel generators in India. “India’s record performance in 2011, and the momentum it is carrying into 2012, is one of the bright spots in the clean energy firmament,” said Michael Liebreich, BNEF’s chief executive. According to the BNEF report, India is likely to exceed its target of adding 12.4 gigawatts of grid-connected renewable energy as set out in its current five-year plan, which ends next month.
Categories: Environmental News
Sierra Club Accepted Millions from Natural Gas Industry, Report Says
Fri, 02/03/2012 - 10:27The Sierra Club, the largest and oldest environmental group in the U.S., accepted more than $25 million from the natural gas industry from 2007 to 2010 while promoting the fuel as a “bridge” to a clean-energy future, according to a Time magazine report. The organization used the funds — which largely came from Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon — to support its Beyond Coal campaign. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club when the donations were made, was a vocal supporter of natural gas as a “bridge” fuel. He accompanied McClendon — whose company is deeply involved in extracting natural gas through the controversial process of hydrofracturing shale formations — on trips to promote natural gas over coal, though Pope never divulged the large anonymous donations from McClendon, Time reports. Michael Brune, who became executive director of the Sierra Club in 2010, persuaded the group’s board to stop taking money from McClendon and to refuse millions of additional dollars that McClendon was reportedly prepared to give the Sierra Club. He told Time, “The first rule of advocacy is that you shouldn’t take money from industries and companies you’re trying to change.”
Categories: Environmental News
Road-based Charging Network Could Charge EVs While They Drive
Thu, 02/02/2012 - 10:58U.S. researchers have designed a wireless charging system for electric vehicles they say could ultimately lead to all-electric highways capable of charging cars and
Sven Beiker/CARS/Stanford University Wireless electric car charger trucks as they drive down the road. The system, developed by a team at Stanford University, uses magnetic fields to transmit large electric currents between metal coils embedded a few feet apart under the surface of the road. Based on magnetic resonance coupling technology, the process involves one coil that is connected to an electric current, which generates a magnetic field that causes the second coil to resonate, triggering an invisible transfer of electrical energy. The developers say there is a potential to eventually create a wireless network across highway systems, a step that would drastically increase the range of electric vehicles since they would theoretically never have to plug into a charging station. “You could actually have more energy stored in your battery at the end of your trip than you started with,” said Richard Sassoon, managing director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project and co-author of the study published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.Categories: Environmental News
Harsh Roadside Environments Creating Hardy Salamanders, Study Suggests
Thu, 02/02/2012 - 10:57The old adage — “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” — seems to apply to salamanders evolving to survive in contaminated environments near roads. Yale University researcher Steven Brady compared Steven Brady/Yale University A spotted salamander salamanders breeding in roadside ponds with those breeding in woodland ponds, and he found that the roadside salamanders have a tough life. Only 56 percent of salamander eggs in roadside ponds survive the first 10 weeks, compared with an 87 percent survival rate for salamander eggs in woodland ponds. The roadside salamanders also experience higher mortality, grow at a slower rate, and are more likely to develop L-shaped spines and other disfigurements — all likely linked to roadside contaminants, especially concentrations of salt. Still, Brady found that when he transferred eggs from roadside ponds and woodland ponds to a neutral environment, the roadside eggs out-survived those of their forest cousins. “These animals are growing up in harsh environments where they face a cocktail of contaminants, and it appears that they are evolving to cope with them,” said Brady, whose study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Categories: Environmental News
Mysteries of Killer Whales Uncovered in the Antarctic
Thu, 02/02/2012 - 07:30Two of the world’s leading experts on the world’s top marine predator are now in Antarctica, tagging and photographing a creature whose remarkably cooperative hunting behavior and transmission of knowledge across generations may be rivaled only by humans. BY FEN MONTAIGNE
Categories: Environmental News
Earth’s First Plants May Have Triggered Ice Ages, Study Says
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 11:19The first plants to colonize the planet about 470 million years ago may have plunged Earth into a series of ice ages, according to a new study. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers suggests that the earliest plants — including the ancestors of today’s mosses — caused silicate rocks, such as granite, to release calcium and magnesium ions. This process removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and formed carbonate rocks in the oceans, a phenomenon that would have caused the global climate to cool by about 5 degrees C, researchers say. In addition, because new plants also extracted phosphorous and iron from the rocks, the plants would carry those elements into the seas after they died, fueling the growth of plankton that would ultimately sequester carbon at the sea bottom. “Although plants are still cooling the Earth’s climate by reducing the atmospheric carbon levels, they cannot keep up with the speed of today’s human-induced climate change,” said Exeter University researcher Timothy Lenton, the study's lead author.
Categories: Environmental News
New Gorilla Habitat Discovered Using Satellite Images
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 10:21Satellite and land surveys of the mountainous terrain along the Nigeria-Cameroon border have revealed that the world’s rarest gorilla, the Cross River gorilla, has access to more suitable habitat than previously believed, including vital corridors that allow the gorillas to move WCS A Cross River gorilla between regions in search of mates. Using satellite imagery and ground surveys, a team of researchers was able to map areas preferred by the critically endangered gorilla. To their surprise, researchers found evidence that the Cross River gorilla dwells in areas where there had been no recorded sightings, expanding their known occupied range by more than 50 percent. The study also found a high degree of connectivity between 11 areas where the gorillas are known to live. “The good news for Cross River gorillas is that they still have plenty of habitat in which to expand, provided that steps are taken to minimize threats to the population,” said the Wildlife Conservation Society's Andrew Dunn, co-author of the study, published in the journal Oryx. The Cross River gorilla is considered the rarest of the four sub-species of gorilla, with fewer than 300 living in the wild.
Categories: Environmental News
Tropical Forests Store More Carbon Than Previously Believed, Study Says
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 11:18A new analysis calculates that vegetation in the world’s tropical regions stores about 229 billion tons of carbon, which is about 21 percent more carbon than previously
Woods Hole Research Center Biomass in the Democratic Republic of the Congo believed. Using remote sensing satellite data — including cloud-penetrating LiDAR — and field observations from forests, woodlands and savannas across Africa, Asia, and South America, researchers say they were able to create the first “wall-to-wall” map depicting carbon density. According to their results, Brazilian rainforests store about 53.2 billion tons of carbon, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (22 billion) and Indonesia (18.6). “For the first time we were able to derive accurate estimates of carbon densities using satellite LiDAR observations in places that have never been measured,” said Alessandro Baccini of the Woods Hole Research Center the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The results could help improve the accuracy of reporting carbon emissions as part of the UN-based REDD initiative, which provides incentives to developing nations to prevent large-scale deforestation.Categories: Environmental News
Depictions of Natural World Declining in Children’s Books, Study Says
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 10:24A new study finds a significant decline in the depiction of the natural world and animals in U.S. children’s books in recent decades, a trend researchers say may reflect society’s increasing isolation from nature. In an analysis of 296 Caldecott Medal-winning books from 1938 to 2008, a team of researchers led by University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist J. Allen Williams Jr. found that images of natural environments and interactions with wild animals have declined steadily. Meanwhile, depictions of built environments, such as houses and buildings, have become increasingly prevalent since the late 1960s, according to the study published in the journal Sociological Inquiry. “These findings suggest that today’s generation of children are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it,” the authors wrote.
Categories: Environmental News
Wheat Yields in India May Drop Sharply as Region Warms, Study Says
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 11:10An analysis of satellite images has revealed that extreme temperatures are cutting wheat yields in northern India, indicating that the adverse impacts of rising temperatures on wheat production in warmer climes may be more severe than previously believed. Using nine years of imagery of India’s fertile Ganges plain, Stanford University researcher David Lobell found that wheat turned from green to brown earlier when average temperatures were higher, an indication that the warmer conditions are causing the crops to age prematurely. The effects were particularly strong when temperatures exceeded 34 degrees C (93 degrees F), Lobell found. He calculated that an average temperature increase of 2 degrees C could trigger a 50 percent greater yield loss than existing models suggest. Earlier studies calculated that wheat-growing areas could see yield drops of 5 percent for every 1 degree C that the average temperature rises above 14 degrees C. Wheat is the world’s second-biggest crop and provides about one-fifth of the world’s protein.
Categories: Environmental News
Renewable Energy Deals Surged 40 Percent in 2011, Report Says
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 10:13The value of renewable energy deals worldwide increased 40 percent in 2011, as solar, wind, and energy efficiency investments surpassed hydropower for the first time, a new report says. According to a report by PriceWaterHouse Coopers, deals for renewable energy reached $53.5 billion last year, compared with $38.2 billion in 2010, a rate of growth that reflects a maturing market. While hydropower projects have historically dominated deal flow in the renewable energy sector, wind, solar, biomass and energy efficiency outnumbered hydro seven to one in 2011, the report said. “The trend is all the more noteworthy given the uncertainy in the market and in government policies on renewables,” Paul Nillesen. PwC’s renewables partner, told Reuters. “We believe that deal flow will continue to be significant in the medium term.” In the U.S., energy developers installed 6,810 megawatts of new wind capacity in 2011 — 31 percent more than in 2010 — as the industry sought to capitalize on an expiring federal tax grant, according to a separate report.
Categories: Environmental News
A Vast Canadian Wilderness Poised for a Uranium Boom
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 07:30Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the largest undisturbed wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere. It also contains large deposits of uranium, generating intense interest from mining companies and raising concerns that a mining boom could harm the caribou at the center of Inuit life. BY ED STRUZIK
Categories: Environmental News
Wide Variety of Threats Wiping Out World’s Big Trees, Expert Says
Fri, 01/27/2012 - 10:21A litany of environmental threats, from forest fragmentation and logging to climate change and disease, are wiping out the world’s biggest trees, according to a published report. In forest ecosystems worldwide, research shows that giant trees have become particularly vulnerable to a changing environment, ecologist and tropical forest expert William Laurance writes in New Scientist magazine. Increased fragmentation has left big trees exposed to stronger winds, while dry conditions and warming temperatures have forced the giants of the forest to consume more energy simply to survive, allowing less energy for growth, Laurance writes. Climate change is also promoting the spread of exotic pathogens, such as Dutch Elm disease, which are devastating native forests. “The decline of big trees foretells a different world where ancient behemoths are replaced by short-lived pioneers and generalists that can grow anywhere, where forests store less carbon and sustain fewer dependent animals, where giant cathedral-like crowns become a thing of the past,” Laurance writes.
Categories: Environmental News
California ‘Clean Car’ Rules Mandate Boost in Electric Vehicle Sales
Thu, 01/26/2012 - 10:52California regulators are expected to pass new rules today requiring that 15 percent of all new cars sold by 2025 be powered by electricity, hydrogen, or other reduced-emission sources. The new rules proposed by the California Air Resources Board would also require a 75-percent reduction in smog-creating emissions from new cars, SUVS, pickups and minivans, and a 50-percent reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 2025. According to the board, the initiative would put about 1.4 million low-emission vehicles on California roads by 2025, compared with current levels of about 10,000. They predict the new rules will add about $1,900 to the price of a new car, but will save about $5,900 in fuel costs during the life of the vehicle. “This is a really large step. It’s transformational,” Tom Cackette, the board's chief deputy director, told the San Jose Mercury News. “Ten years from now the market is going to look quite a bit different.” The new standards will be introduced in 2018 and strengthened over the next seven years.
Categories: Environmental News
Safety of Nanotechnology Should Be Comprehensively Studied, Panel Says
Thu, 01/26/2012 - 10:08A U.S. scientific panel is calling for a systematic study of the growing use of nanomaterials in industry, saying little is known about the risk of the microscopic particles increasingly being used in everything from cosmetics to clothing and paint. The National Research Council (NRC), part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, noted that the use of nanomaterials — measured on the scale of billionths of a meter — is growing rapidly, rising from $225 billion in nanotechnology-based products in 2009 to an estimated $3 trillion by 2015. But the NRC said that little is known about the potential risks posed by nanomaterials, the pathways of exposure, and the severity of such exposure. The NRC called for a systematic research effort to identify sources of nanomaterials releases, the different industrial processes that affect exposure, and nanomaterial interactions from a sub-cellular to an ecosystem level. Nanomaterials — often made from minerals such as gold, silver, carbon, zinc, and aluminum — have unique electrical, chemical, and optical properties. “The number and variety of nanomaterials is just mind-boggling,” said Mark R. Wiesner, an engineering professor at Duke University and a panel member.
Categories: Environmental News