The environment thread

[StrangeSox]

 

 

World's oceans in 'shocking' decline

 

T

he oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.

 

In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history".

 

They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised.

 

The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.

 

The panel was convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), and brought together experts from different disciplines, including coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries scientists.

 

Its report will be formally released later this week.

 

"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.

 

"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.

[StrangeSox]

Nothing to see here.

 

Edit: Just a comment. This is a real impressive, detailed, thorough bludgeoning of the NRC by the AP. I'd consider contributing to them if they had a "paypal" link on the side for this one.

 

That's disconcerting.

 

The NEI's and the NRC's responses can be found here:

http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/dis...AP-article.html

Edited June 22, 2011 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

That's disconcerting.

 

The NEI's and the NRC's responses can be found here:

http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/dis...AP-article.html

Their response is equally disconcerting.

 

"But look how much money we're spending. These are big numbers. We must be doing a good job."

[Balta1701]

Meet Talisman Terry, the Friendly Fracosaurus.

 

[StrangeSox]

Their response is equally disconcerting.

 

"But look how much money we're spending. These are big numbers. We must be doing a good job."

 

Well that was to illustrate that they're spending a ton of money on safety (and security). They also claimed to be correcting many factual errors, like the fact that INPO really does track industry-wide safety and operational incidents.

[Balta1701]

Well that was to illustrate that they're spending a ton of money on safety (and security).

There's a classic technique here though...it's to overwhelm a person with numbers that they don't have any context for. They're spending "$5 billion in year x" and the amount they've spent has gone up every year. Well duh, with aging plants the amounts you spend on maintenance should go up. Is $5 billion a lot? I have no idea, and I have no basis even in the NEI's full letter to evaluate whether that is a high rate of maintenance or a lagging rate of maintenance at thsoe facilities.

 

It's like telling me "Adam Dunn is making $14 million a season" and asking me what place the White Sox are in.

[BigSqwert]

Meet Talisman Terry, the Friendly Fracosaurus.

 

Wow! I didn't know fracking created rainbows!

[Balta1701]

Wow! I didn't know fracking created rainbows!

I'm trying to figure out if I should spend a few hours pumping natural gas into the air and then pushing different amounts of light through to see if natural gas leaking out of the ground on a sunny day can actually produce a rainbow, but I suspect somehow there's a downside.

[StrangeSox]

There's a classic technique here though...it's to overwhelm a person with numbers that they don't have any context for. They're spending "$5 billion in year x" and the amount they've spent has gone up every year. Well duh, with aging plants the amounts you spend on maintenance should go up. Is $5 billion a lot? I have no idea, and I have no basis even in the NEI's full letter to evaluate whether that is a high rate of maintenance or a lagging rate of maintenance at thsoe facilities.

 

It's like telling me "Adam Dunn is making $14 million a season" and asking me what place the White Sox are in.

 

Fair enough, but the AP article makes it seem like plants don't do any maintenance at all.

 

Fort Calhoun and Cooper are in danger of flooding. Both are on the Missouri river.

 

http://iowaindependent.com/57641/flood-wat...ot-yet-critical

[Balta1701]

Fair enough, but the AP article makes it seem like plants don't do any maintenance at all.

 

Fort Calhoun and Cooper are in danger of flooding. Both are on the Missouri river.

 

http://iowaindependent.com/57641/flood-wat...ot-yet-critical

Last I read, Ft. Calhoun, the one that was really at risk of flooding, has successfully been shut down and probably will remain that way for much of the year.

 

That's not what I read in the AP article. The way I read it was...maintenance is lagging, the plants are getting older, and the NRC is turning the other way rather than requiring the level of maintenance that should be necessary in safely operating plants that are aging.

[StrangeSox]

Last I read, Ft. Calhoun, the one that was really at risk of flooding, has successfully been shut down and probably will remain that way for much of the year.

 

That's not what I read in the AP article. The way I read it was...maintenance is lagging, the plants are getting older, and the NRC is turning the other way rather than requiring the level of maintenance that should be necessary in safely operating plants that are aging.

 

Yeah Calhoun is offline. They just came out of an outage recently* (actually, they never powered up after the outage), so they can't even really take advantage of this. It's something like $1M/day they're not producing (general rule-of-thumb). We had to wait about 7 or 8 months last year for the river to drop low enough to get some measurements on a pipe, and it was already unusually high back in March.

 

The NRC (and industry group NEI) says "no we're not." I honestly do not have the expertise or information to judge the accuracy of the claims and haven't seen much independent analysis.

Edited June 22, 2011 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

It's something like $1M/day they're not producing (general rule-of-thumb)

Thankfully there is no such thing as externality costs to climate change.

[StrangeSox]

Thankfully there is no such thing as externality costs to climate change.

 

If there was some sort of carbon cap or tax, that'd be "good" power.

[BigSqwert]

Pythagoras Solar Turns Windows Into Panels Of Energy

 

A start-up in Northern California is working on creating "solar windows" that could act as solar panels at the same time as blocking sunlight from entering office buildings to reduce their energy needs, according to a Sunday story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

 

The company Pythagoras Solar is based in San Mateo, California, and it won an award from the "GE ecomagination Challenge," award of $100,000 last week for its idea.

 

The company makes a "window laced with solar cells," that could generate power for office buildings and shield offices from sunlight, thus reducing air conditioning costs.

 

The GE award is a "validation of three things -- that (the window) is unique, that it's feasible and it could have a big impact," Gonen Fink, Pythagoras' CEO told the Chronicle.

 

The technology is a class of equipment that seeks to replace parts of buildings with solar panels to generate energy. Other possibilities include window awnings and roofing tiles.

 

Some of Pythagoras' windows are already installed on Chicago's Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower.)

 

CEO Fink wouldn't reveal his system's cost per watt to the Chronicle, but he says that "for the typical customer" the system will pay for itself in three to five years.

 

He's excited about the technology, he says, because it could change the way buildings are built.

 

via

[bigruss]

via

This is the type of innovation that will not only have a large impact on the amount and source of energy we use, but should also be profitable. Great work by that company thus far and hopefully we continue to see more companies coming out with products like that.

[Balta1701]

Gov. Rick Perry is one of the worst climate deniers in any state governorship, he's literally asked his state to pray for rain, and in response the drought got worse.

 

Senator James Inhofe is the single worst climate denier in the Senate. He's from Oklahoma. Oklahoma is in the midst of its own record heat wave. Record heat waves give things like algae a fine environment to bloom, since they grow better with warm temperatures. Senator Inhofe went swimming in a lake with an algae bloom like he says he'd never seen before. His 13 year old granddaughter didn't go into the lake. Senator Inhofe made himself ill by swimming in a lake with an algal bloom that wouldn't have happened had it not been for the record heat wave.

[Balta1701]

Although I'm still convinced CCS will never be effective/profitable, it's still worth pointing this out since "Stopping research into it" is a direct result of the failure of Congress to act.

A major American utility is shelving the nation’s most prominent effort to capture carbon dioxide from an existing coal-burning power plant, dealing a severe blow to efforts to rein in emissions responsible for global warming.

 

American Electric Power has decided to table plans to build a full-scale carbon-capture plant at Mountaineer, a 31-year-old coal-fired plant in West Virginia, where the company has successfully captured and buried carbon dioxide in a small pilot program for two years.

[Balta1701]

You know why I've been skeptical about the "Links" of these things to cell phones? Although there has been cell phone expansion over the past few years, it's not as if there wasn't significant cell capacity a decade ago when there wasn't colony collapse disorder around. Furthermore, you'd expect geographic effects if there was a direct cell phone link...areas like around San Francisco should have huge problems while the Central Valley should be nearly spared, and I've never seen publications suggesting a geographic effect of cities on those.

 

Same thing for the reports about brain damage. People have been using cellular phone systems for 30 years...and honestly I'd bet that the older versions were much stronger microwave emitters than the recent versions, yet we haven't seen a huge spike in brain cancer over the last decade as far as I know. There ought to be a correlation here with something...if cell phone use is causing damage, then you ought to see correlations between cell phone use and the effects of that damage, either in time or in space or based on usage. If someone came out and alleged a correlation between cell phone use and autism rates, which have skyrocketed over the past 30 years, that would intrigue me a lot more, for example.

[BigSqwert]

Sure has been dangerously hot in many parts of the US for an extended amount of time. This just proves that climate change is a myth.

 

**goes off to pray for rain and milder temps**

[NorthSideSox72]

Sure has been dangerously hot in many parts of the US for an extended amount of time. This just proves that climate change is a myth.

 

**goes off to pray for rain and milder temps**

What's funny is, as silly as some people are for thinking what you are making fun of... the fact that you think a few days' worth of weather PROVES anything is equally silly.

 

[BigSqwert]

What's funny is, as silly as some people are for thinking what you are making fun of... the fact that you think a few days' worth of weather PROVES anything is equally silly.

Well our climate has been severe in every season going back some time. Think massive flooding and tornadoes in the spring and mega blizzards everywhere this past winter.

 

And who can forget the alarming rate of polar ice caps melting?

Edited July 18, 2011 by BigSqwert

[StrangeSox]

What's funny is, as silly as some people are for thinking what you are making fun of... the fact that you think a few days' worth of weather PROVES anything is equally silly.

 

I took it more as mocking the "ZOMG! There's still SNOW! Global Warming is a HOAXX!!!" crowd.

[mr_genius]

Meet Talisman Terry, the Friendly Fracosaurus.

 

 

haha. that's awesome.

[NorthSideSox72]

I took it more as mocking the "ZOMG! There's still SNOW! Global Warming is a HOAXX!!!" crowd.

So did I, but in doing so he was also seemingly pointing out ZOMG! HEAT WAVE!!!", which is equally silly.

 

[Balta1701]

Fascinating.

 

 

You actually cut your greenhouse gas emissions more by replacing beef/lamb with pork/chicken than you do by replacing pork/chicken with a vegan diet.