Poland fracking gas

Tornadoes rip through Poland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CPaUxb6RAg&feature=plcp

I wonder how many more of such events must happen before governments realize they cannot continue with fossil fuels.

Perceptions of Climate Change:
The New Climate Dice
5/1/2012

"Climate dice", describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons relative to climatology, have become progressively "loaded" in the past 30 years, coincident with rapid global warming. The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased. An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology. This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth's surface in the period of climatology, now typically covers about 10% of the land area. We conclude that extreme heat waves, such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, were "caused" by global warming, because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming. We discuss practical implications of this substantial, growing climate change
....
The increase, by more than a factor 10, of area covered by extreme hot anomalies (> +3σ ) in summer reflects the shift of the anomaly distribution in the past 30 years of global warming, as shown succinctly in Fig. 4. One implication of this shift is that the extreme summer climate anomalies in Texas in 2011, in Moscow in 2010, and in France in 2003 almost certainly would not have occurred in the absence of global warming with its resulting shift of the anomaly distribution. In other words, we can say with a high degree of confidence that these extreme anomalies were a consequence of global warming..
....
The other extreme of the hydrologic cycle, unusually heavy rainfall and floods, is also expected to be amplified by global warming. The amount of water vapor that the atmosphere holds increases rapidly with atmospheric temperature, and thus a warmer world is expected to have more rainfall occurring in more extreme events. What were "100-year" or "500-year" events are expected to occur more frequently with increased global warming. Rainfall data reveal significant increases of heavy precipitation over much of Northern Hemisphere land and in the tropics (3) and attribution studies link this intensification of rainfall and floods to human-made global warming (24-26).
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120105_PerceptionsAndDice.pdf

Betsy Isaacson takes cheap shot at JH Kunstler, above. In conclusion:

But there's a hypocrisy to Knustler's charge that we're a society more mired in fantasy than reality, when the art that surrounds his post-apocalyptic world plays off precisely our desire to envision ourselves in a world other than the real.

.

Dayum, Betsy... Constructing strawmen, are we? Summer doldrums?

The other day I stumbled upon The Hamilton Project's website. The organization is set up by a bunch of Clintonite Democrats, mostly protegées of Robert Rubin.
Call it the pro-business side of the Democratic party if you will.

Well, they've put up a so-called jobs gap calculator for the American jobs market.
They estimate how many jobs America would need (in absolute numbers) not only to recover the lost ones but also to catch up the people entering the workforce every month.

The assumption was that about 125,000 people entered the labor force every month. In the year 2000, the assumption used was 150,000 every month. Due to falling immigration levels(at least from Mexico) and people dropping out of the labor market or staying in college much longer to prolong the moment that they have to enter the workforce, the amount of new entrants have been calculated to have been fallen to a mere 88,000 a month.

That's a historic low. Even when adjusting for boomer demographics.
So the notion would be that because of such a low bar, wouldn't the jobs gap be closed quickly?

Well, take a look yourself:

http://www.hamiltonproject.org/jobs_gap/

The average jobs gains per month last year(when every single month is added and then averaged out) is about 153 thousand. So far this year, America is trending slightly below that.

You can calculate the pace it would take to close the gap, and needless to say, it is not pretty. Chances are very high that America has reached peak employment. And with the global slowdown around the corner, the jobs gap may not only stagnate, but actually fall further.

What this means to social stability I leave unsaid.

BP's historic data series on Malaysia has been drastically revised in last 2 yrs - oil production down, oil consumption up - changing the picture from a gradual decline in net exports to a collapse. There is no parallel for this in the local stats. I have shown the charts here: http://www.apolloinvestment.com/F120716.htm
Can anyone shed any light on these changes, or advise on authoritative sources?

Turning off nuclear power in Germany. The graph in this article

http://crudeoilpeak.info/germany-energy-transition

shows how much nuclear capacity is thrown away by prematurely turning off nuclear power plants.

This will lead to a triple energy crisis: peak oil, nuclear and then coal because nature will force us to turn off our coal fired power plants.

8/3/2010
NASA climatologist James Hansen at Sydney Uni: "Australia doesn't agree now that they got to stop their coal, but they are going to agree. I can guarantee you that within a decade or so because the climate change will become so strongly apparent that's going to become imperative"
20 seconds clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMD2sd0lPeg

The Big Heat

"Along with the heat and the drought and the super derecho, the country this summer is also enduring a Presidential campaign. So far, the words “climate change” have barely been uttered. This is not an oversight. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.

And so, while farmers wait for rain and this season’s corn crop withers on the stalk, the familiar disconnect continues. There’s no discussion of what could be done to avert the worst effects of climate change, even as the insanity of doing nothing becomes increasingly obvious."

Ah yes, When You Are Governed By Psychopaths things get not said.

Article on CNN Money claiming that the recession/anaemic recovery is not as bad as feared. Funny how they don't mention the fact that the Federal bean counters have been cooking the books to make growth seem better than reality.

The myth of the 'Zombie Economy' - CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Welcome to what's being called the "Zombie Economy."

The recovery seemed to be picking up in the winter, only to then taper off in the summer. Several major indicators are barely showing a pulse these days, leading many to compare the U.S. economy to the walking dead.

But the heart-stopping stall might not be quite as bad as it appears.

Recent data would seem to back up the 'zombie' theory. The economy was growing at a 3% rate at the end of 2011, only to fall below 2% in the first three months of this year. Several economists are now cutting their forecasts for second quarter growth closer to 1%.

US Navy ship 'fires on boat in Gulf'

A US ship has fired on a boat off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, US officials say.

The USNS Rappahannock fired on a vessel after it ignored warnings and rapidly approached the ship, a US Navy official said.

There is no confirmation of casualties although AP news agency reported one person had been killed and three hurt.

Tensions in the Gulf region are high after Iran recently renewed threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Lt Greg Raelson of the US Navy in Bahrain said that a security team on board the ship fired on a small motor boat after it disregarded warnings and "rapidly approached" the US ship near Jebel Ali, UAE.

"In accordance with navy force protection procedures, the sailors... used a series of non-lethal, preplanned responses to warn the vessel before resorting to lethal force," he said.

Quick economy question:

I keep hearing these ads on the radio about making small savings here and there. An example sited was to make coffee at home, instead of buying a five dollar coffee at the drive-thru.

The ads are paid for by the ad council, which I think is the government. Isn't this counterproductive? Don't they need us to borrow and spend more money into the economy? What the hell are they preaching savings for?

The New Gas Guzzlers
China, India, Brazil and other developing countries will soon consume most of the world’s oil. That’s alarming news for the U.S.

Starting next year, for the first time on record the wealthy nations of Europe, North America, and Japan will account for less than one-half the world’s oil usage, projects the latest Oil Market Report from the International Energy Agency.

That’s partially a reflection of the growing efficiency of wealthy nations, and partially a reflection of poor countries’ growing prosperity. But it’s also a specific challenge for the United States of America, which, unlike our smaller rich peers, has grown accustomed to thinking of itself as master of its own destiny. A world in which a majority of oil consumption is happening in China, India, and Latin America is a world in which America’s energy fate is driven by forces beyond our control. And we’re pretty far behind in preparing for it.

Oil prices could be rigged by traders warns G20 report

A report commissioned by the G20 group of the world's biggest economies has warned oil prices could be vulnerable to a Libor-style rigging scandal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18856018

Traders at various banks voluntarily report the prices they pay for oil contracts to Platts, Argus or one of their competitors. The price reporting agency use a number of trades to decide what the benchmark price, quoted to the outside world, should be.

IOSCO said that "this creates opportunity for a trader to submit a partial picture, i.e. an incomplete set of its trades in order to influence the assessment to the trader's advantage."

I wonder if there is a tipping point beyond which further reports of fraud and malfeasance causes confidence in the entire financial system to suddenly evaporate? History has shown, repeatedly, that once people decide their money is worthless then all bets are off. Literally.

Cheers,
Jerry

Shell Drill Ship Runs Aground in Unalaska

The Noble Discoverer appears to have run aground in Unalaska on Saturday afternoon.

Despite rain and 35-knot winds, more than a dozen residents came to Airport Beach to watch the Shell's contract tugboat Lauren Foss straining to pull the rig back out to sea.

... "Fortunately, where it got grounded, it was pretty soft in here," he says. "There's not a big bunch of sharp rocks out there. It's fortunate to have gone up here rather than out on the S-curves, where there's a lot of rocky areas that might compromise the hull."

Finland's TVO says nuclear reactor not ready in 2014

Monday's announcement marked only the latest in a string of setbacks for the construction project, which began in 2005, with the reactor initially supposed to begin producing electricity in 2009.

The Finnish EPR, which is an example of so-called third generation nuclear technology developed by Areva and which is set to have a capacity of 1,600 megawatts, was first delayed until November 2010, then to December 2011 and then to August 2014.

TVO said that the reactor being built in southwestern Finland known as Olkiluoto 3 would not be ready to produce electricity normally in 2014 as previously expected and that a new timetable had not been set, blaming its partners for the delay.

Frack the Border: Cartels Use Oil Boom to Move Drugs

According to a report from the Houston Chronicle, drug traffickers are using the state’s Eagle Ford Shale to move drugs. Cartels have stolen trucks belonging to energy companies, and have bribed truck drivers and contractors who have flooded the area for work. The cartels may also be cloning vehicles to resemble company trucks. This is while new roads sprouting along the oil and gas fields have inadvertently opened new routes around the Border Patrol’s highway checkpoints.

“[Traffickers] are using those roads to transport drugs, guns, ammo, you name it,” Albert DeLeon, chief deputy for the Dimmit County sheriff’s office, told Chronicle reporter Dane Schiller.

In March, police intercepted more than 18,000 pounds of marijuana in two trucks “on a private road leased to energy companies and carrying what looked like supplies used in oil field operations,” Schiller reported. In June, the Border Patrol busted an energy company worker hauling nearly two tons of pot, Schiller adds. And one year ago, the Border Patrol stopped a “bogus oil field truck” hauling marijuana.

Looks like this nugget was overlooked:

Death Valley sets world record for highest 24 hr average temperature 117.5 F

It also ties the world record for highest daily low temperature ever recorded 107 F...

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2153

Of course it proves nothing, but funny how the records have been falling of late, eh?

Sharing isn't always caring: Why don't consumers take care of their Zipcars?

The authors interviewed users of the Zipcar car sharing service and found that consumers do not feel any psychological sense of ownership.

"Our study challenges the romanticized view of access understood as a form of collaborative consumption and altruistically motivated. Instead, we show it to be the reverse, with everyone looking out for their own best interest and not connecting to the objects they are accessing, other consumers, or the company," the authors conclude.

New from Congressional Research Service [CRS] ...

Hydraulic Fracturing and Safe Drinking Water Act Issues

Historically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had not regulated the underground injection of fluids for hydraulic fracturing of oil or gas production wells. In 1997, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that fracturing for coal bed methane (CBM) production in Alabama constituted underground injection and must be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). … to address regulatory uncertainty the ruling created, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) revised the SDWA term “underground injection” to explicitly exclude the injection of fluids and propping agents (except diesel fuel) used for hydraulic fracturing purposes. Consequently, EPA currently lacks authority under the SDWA to regulate hydraulic fracturing, except where diesel fuel is used.

Several relevant bills are pending. H.R. 1084 and S. 587 would repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing operations established in EPAct 2005, and amend the term “underground injection” to include explicitly the injection of fluids used in hydraulic fracturing operations, thus authorizing EPA to regulate this process under the SDWA. The bills also would require disclosure of the chemicals used in the fracturing process. S. 2248 and H.R. 4322 would specify that a state has sole authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing on federal lands within state boundaries.

This report reviews past and proposed treatment of hydraulic fracturing under the SDWA, the principal federal statute for regulating the underground injection of fluids to protect groundwater sources of drinking water. It reviews current SDWA provisions for regulating underground injection activities, and discusses some possible implications of, and issues associated with, enactment of legislation authorizing EPA to regulate hydraulic fracturing under this statute.

Low Water Levels On The Mississippi River A Major Threat To Commerce: ‘This Is Absolutely Not Normal’

Companies operating along the Mississippi River are seeing a drastic cut in business as severe drought lowers water levels and makes shipping increasingly difficult.

As the water levels fall, barges have run aground near Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the water is already less than 5 feet deep, and shipping companies have been forced to curtail their business.

In response to the dramatically low water levels, companies have decreased the number of barges in operation. Without some steady rain soon, “the vast majority of commerce would have to stop,” says P.B. Shah, president of Ingram Barge Co., the largest barge company operating on the Mississippi river.

Ukraine, China sign $3.7 bil loan deal to move power plants from gas to coal

Who says coal is dead? Alternatively what happens when gas is no longer cheap? Ukraine and Germany are building new coal fired plant. In Australia the carbon tax is not enough to erase the 10X cost advantage of brown coal over gas. The two or three small coal plants that are to be retired were old and decrepit and would have retired anyway. The big brown coal plants (eg Hazelwood with 16 Mt CO2 per year) could be with us for another 20 years.

This is why international CO2 caps are better than taxes, provided they can't be scammed with bogus credits and free permits.

U.S., Israel now on same page regarding Iran: Clinton

"It's absolutely fair to say that we are on the same page at this moment trying to figure our way forward to have the maximum impact on affecting the decisions that Iran makes,"

Aircraft carrier USS Stennis going to Persian Gulf early, staying longer

The Pentagon is sending the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Persian Gulf region four months ahead of schedule for an eight-month deployment – twice as long as originally planned, defense officials told NBC News on Monday.

The major shift in the Stennis deployment is a response to steadily rising tensions over Iran's nuclear program, Iran's threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz over tighter international sanctions and the possibility that Israel may launch pre-emptive airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facility

Today, Pentagon spokesman George Little confirmed that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has agreed to a recent request from U.S. Central Command to maintain a two-carrier presence in the Middle East.

Pentagon Sends Carrier to the Middle East Early

... got popcorn?

Pipeline co. fined $5,000 for oil spill in Texas

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined Enterprise Crude Pipeline $5,000 for spilling some 4,200 gallons of crude oil into a Texas tributary that feeds into a major river.

The fine announced Monday is roughly $1.19 for each gallon of oil that ended up in Bull Creek, which spills into the Colorado River. The river is a major source of water for Texas, which is recovering from one of the worst droughts in its history.

The EPA reached an "expedited settlement" with Houston-based Enterprise. It says the company "certified it has investigated the cause of the spill" and cleaned it up.

Tropical butterfly discovered in Quebec a sign of warming

Giant swallowtails normally live in Central and South America. Starting in the late 1990s, they began showing up in North America as far north as the southern tip of Canada.

While other butterfly species are also edging northward at a rate of 16 kilometers (10 miles) per decade, the giant swallowtail is moving into new habitats at a rate 15 times faster than average.

Its range now extends a full 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) into areas previously too inhospitable to support a viable population.

Another post from Neven and colleagues at the Arctic Sea Ice blog. (h/t Climate Progress)

Petermann calves again

Petermann Glacier has calved another large ice island, about half the size
of the calving of two years ago, which amounts to about two Manhattans.

This second big calving (spotted this time by Arcticicelost80) is another spectacular event on Greenland this year, following retreats of the Jakobshavn Glacier and lowest reflectivity of the Greenland ice sheet on record, leading to unprecedented flooding in the southwest of Greenland. This calving was expected to happen, as the rift in the glacier has been there for years

This is what it looks like:

Might be time to do something?

good interview of William deBuys from Climate Progress- well worth a fulkl reading if you have the time. Some key quotes:

Almost all the ways we have of producing electricity require a lot of water, with photovoltaic and wind being exceptions for the most part. Coal-fired thermal production is very water intensive, nuclear is very water intensive. At same time dealing with our water resources is very energy intensive. Well over a fifth of all electricity in United States is used for moving water around.

The feedbacks reinforce each other. The more water you need the more electricity you need the more water you need etc. It’s not a sustainable relationship. We’ve got to break that circle at some point with renewables and new ways of water budgeting.

All those things are working against the interest of forest stability. Some people say the eco-zones are going to march up-slope in a formal manner; frankly I think that’s baloney. It presumes a couple of things. One is that the changes in the climate occur slowly enough that these slow growing plants can make the move. I think that’s ostensibly false. The changes are happening much too fast. It also presumes that as things move up-slope they have open opportunity to reestablish themselves. But that’s not how ecology works –there’s always something there. And that complicates the establishment of a new community.

And those who've pointed out civilian atomic powered ocean going ships for trade:
http://www.rt.com/news/iran-nuclear-ships-approves-238/

A parliamentary committee has pushed through a bill approving the nuclear merchant ships project, reported semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr.

How Broken Is the San Onofre Nuclear Plant?
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/How-Broken-is-the-San-Onofre...

The interesting part, other than a tabulating of 15,000 wear points, say 1,000 of them about half way through the tube wall, on 3,400 tubes, is a long comment by "Begoodto" AKA Dan Johnson.

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia showed no sign of cutting back supply in June following last month’s Opec agreement to rein in production, instead raising output by 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) from May to 10.1 million bpd (mbpd), an industry source said.

I was nearly chased out of here in 2005 or so for challenging the notion that Saudi was on the cusp of a precipitous decline. I thought the evidence pointed to them having some spare capacity, but a number of people were certain that the nosedive was imminent. Hubbert Linearizations were posted to "prove" that the Saudi decline was underway, and I went to great effort to debunk those models. In fact, I recall a couple of people saying that they would only be proven wrong if Saudi raised their production up to 10 million barrels per day. Someone in fact offered to bet me that Saudi would never raise production to that level.

Have posters here ever generally acknowledged that what was predicted here -- by the majority of people in fact -- about Saudi oil production was grossly in error? Or do people simply believe their predictions aren't wrong, but simply early? (Lots of wrong predictions about Russia too, but I never really argued that point with anyone).

I don't read through the comments every day, so this may have been discussed. And I am not posting this as an "I told you so." I am just curious as to whether the subject has been discussed, as I think there are valuable lessons that can be learned.

The State of Illinois revisited its Drought Preparedness and Response Plan (PDF Warning) in October of 2011.

Notably, these words appear in the document :-

"Humans often postpone dealing with issues that are not a current problem, especially when there is a cost
or effort involved. Time can slowly erase memories. It has been quite some time since the 1953-1955
drought and most of us have only read about the dust bowl era in the early 1930’s. Probabilities would
indicate that we are due for another drought of this magnitude."

It's reassuring to know someone was thinking ahead.

Towards the end, one can read this :-

"In addition to the technological changes, such as installing more water-efficient fixtures in homes,
conservation can be accomplished by encouraging behavioral changes in citizens and businesses. But in
many ways, technological changes are more easily accomplished. Bringing about behavioral changes in
the populace usually requires an acceptance that such changes are important to avoid a water crisis.

Citizens may be willing to sacrifice outdoor water use during periods of drought and potential shortage,
for example, but not so willing to do so on a full-time basis.

The impact of conservation on a community’s drought vulnerability may also depend on how the
community responds to the reduction in water use."

It seems only external events can usefully modify human behavior.

Free-Thinking and the future of human society:

http://www.alternet.org/visions/156227/we_need_free_thinkers_or_society_...

Seems to me that there is ample amount of debate space on TOD...it is a shame that the wider domain of TV, print and Internet mass-consumption media doesn't entertain open and honest discussions of important issues.

Fiscal Crisis in States Will Last Beyond Slump, Report Warns

WASHINGTON — The fiscal crisis for states will persist long after the economy rebounds as states confront financial problems that include rising health care costs, underfunded pensions, ignored infrastructure needs, eroding revenues and expected federal budget cuts, according to a report issued here Tuesday by a task force of respected budget experts.

“The ability of the states to meet their obligations to public employees, to creditors and most critically to the education and well-being of their citizens is threatened,” warned the two chairmen of the task force, Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor of New York, and Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The report ... also called into question how states will be able to restore the services and jobs that they cut during the downturn, ... “This is a fundamental shift in the way governments have responded to recessions and appears to signal a willingness to ‘unbuild’ state government in a way that has not been done before,” ...

If federal grants to the states were cut by just 10 percent, the report calculated, the loss to state and local government budgets would be more than $60 billion a year — which it said would be nearly twice the size of the combined tax increases that states enacted from 2008 to 2011 in response to their deepest fiscal crisis in more than 50 years.

Things are worse than they appear, the report contends.

http://www.statebudgettaskforce.info/wpcms/

Oil: Only part of the Arctic's massive resources

Encouraged by high commodity prices and shrinking sea ice, everyone from Big Oil to the cruise industry is eager to get in on the Arctic's riches.

... drip'n with greed

Sworn Declaration of Whistleblower William Binney on NSA Domestic Surveillance Capabilities

The following sworn declaration of William Binney, a former employee of the NSA and specialist in traffic analysis, was filed July 2, 2012 in support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s case against the National Security Agency (Jewel v. NSA) regarding their illegal domestic surveillance programs which, according to Binney “are consistent, as a mathematical matter, with seizing both the routing information and the contents of all electronic communications” inside the U.S.

... 4. One of my roles at the NSA was to find a means of automating the work of human analysts. I supervised and participated in the development of a program called “Thin Thread” within the NSA. Thin Thread was designed to identify networks of connections between individuals from their electronic communications over the Internet in an automated fashion in real time. The concept was for devices running Thin Thread to monitor international communications traffic passing over the Internet. Where one side of an international communication was domestic, the NSA had to comply with the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”). With Thin Thread, the data would be encrypted (and the privacy of U.S. citizens protected) until such time as a warrant could be obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Comi.

5. The advent of the September 11 attacks brought a complete change in the approach 18 of the NSA toward doing its job. FISA ceased to be an operative concern, and the individual liberties preserved in the U.S. Constitution were no longer a consideration. It was at that time that the NSA began to implement the group of intelligence activities now known as the President’s Surveillance Program (“PSP”). While I was not personally read into the PSP, various members of my Thin Thread team were given the task of implementing various aspects of the PSP. They confided in me and told me that the PSP involved the collection of domestic electronic communications traffic without any of the privacy protections built into Thin Thread.

The NSA has the capability to do individualized searches, similar to Google, for particular electronic communications in real time through such criteria as target addresses, locations, countries and phone numbers, as well as watch-listed names, keywords, and phrases in email. The NSA also has the capability to seize and store most electronic communications passing through its U.S. intercept centers. The wholesale collection of data allows the NSA to identify and analyze Entities or Communities of interest later in a static database.

... smile, and say cheese.

Global health impacts of the Fukushima nuclear disaster calculated

Radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may eventually cause anywhere from 15 to 1,300 deaths and from 24 to 2,500 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan, Stanford researchers have calculated.

The numbers are in addition to the roughly 600 deaths caused by the evacuation of the area surrounding the nuclear plant directly after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown. ... According to the model, the evacuation prevented at most 245 radiation-related deaths – meaning the evacuation process may have cost more lives than it saved.

To test the effects of varying weather patterns and geography on the reach of a nuclear incident, the two researchers also analyzed a hypothetical scenario: an identical meltdown at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, near San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Despite California's population density being about one-fourth that of Japan's, the researchers found the magnitude of the projected health effects to be about 25 percent larger.

The model showed that rather than being whisked toward the ocean, as with Fukushima, a larger percentage of the Diablo Canyon radioactivity deposited over land, including population centers such as San Diego and Los Angeles.

Report: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/TenHoeveEES12.pdf
also http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/fukushima.html

George Shultz on energy: It's personal

George Shultz leads a group preparing to propose a federal tax on carbon to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption, a seemingly unlikely policy from a Republican Party statesman

... Why did you get so involved in energy?

I've been worried about our energy problem for a long time. President Eisenhower said that if we imported more than 20 percent of the oil we use, we were asking for trouble with national security. By 1973, I'm secretary of the Treasury and we have the Arab oil embargo. They seek to deny us oil in order to change our policies. I thought then, you know, President Eisenhower knew something.

Digging up lessons from an ancient quake

The ground warping that Arcos measured around Bremerton was bigger than expected. That means the earthquake probably affected a wider swath of Western Washington than previously thought - which, in turn, nudges it toward the upper end of its estimated magnitude 7-7.5 range.

The study also underscores the fact that a repeat of the most recent Seattle fault quake, dated at about 930 A.D., would be catastrophic for the cities and ports that have sprung up since then, Walsh said. Tsunami modeling suggests waves up to 16 feet high would swamp harbors and waterfront property from Olympia to Everett.

If that's not enough, Arcos also unearthed evidence of another hazard. Lying atop the tsunami layer in the stream bank is a much thicker layer of mud - the signature of a massive landslide, probably shaken loose by the quake.

NREL helps cut building energy use in half

Don't Just Follow Code

The building code is the baseline for the least energy-efficient building an owner can construct. Fortunately, there is nothing in building codes to stop building owners and construction companies who want to go for the most energy savings they can find — and that's where the AEDGs [Advanced Energy Design Guidelines] can bridge the gap.

also http://www.nrel.gov/buildings/

London riots will happen again: expert

Professor Kessl explains: “As long as the politics in England go in the same direction as we have experienced in the last years: disrespecting people's everyday needs, demolishing the idea of the public and strengthening the consumer capitalism - the pre-conditions for a new political revolt are furthermore given. It's just the question of another "trigger" ...

Glyphosate-resistant 'superweeds' may be less susceptible to diseases

Scientists searching for clues to understand how superweeds obtain resistance to the popular herbicide glyphosate may have been missing a critical piece of information, a Purdue University study shows.

Most laboratory tests done to understand glyphosate resistance are done in sterile soil, void of microbes. Schafer said Purdue's findings, published online early in the journal Weed Science, show that those microbes may play a significant role in how glyphosate affects plants.

"Soil microbes can be minor to major contributors to how glyphosate is able to affect plants," Hallett said. "We may be selecting not only for glyphosate resistance, but inadvertently selecting for weeds that have disease resistance as well."

Report: HSBC allowed money laundering that likely funded terror, drugs

A "pervasively polluted" culture at HSBC allowed the bank to act as financier to clients moving shadowy funds from the world's most dangerous and secretive corners, including Mexico, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria, according to a scathing U.S. Senate report issued on Monday.

The report [link to PDF here] which comes ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, said large amounts of Mexican drug money was likely to have passed through the bank.

and from BBC US Senator says HSBC concealed Iran transactions

Banks = Organized Crime

also Dirty money thrives despite Mexico drug war

Crisis-hit Spaniards revive community spirit

The austerity-hit people of Spain are fighting back with a free food distribution scheme that relies on a co-operative effort between neighbourhood shopkeepers and local volunteers.

The shopkeepers don't see it as charity, more a community effort with mutual benefits, helping people who previously helped them build their business.

... not something Wal-Mart would do

Generation X is surprisingly unconcerned about climate change

Amid a summer of record-setting heat, a new survey finds that most of Generation X 's young and middle-age adults are uninformed and unconcerned about climate change.

"Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening and they don't spend much time worrying about it," said author Jon D. Miller.

Only about 5% of Gen Xers, now 32 to 52 years old, are "alarmed" and 18% "concerned" about climate change, reports the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research on Tuesday. Two-thirds, or 66%, of those surveyed last year said they aren't sure global warming is happening and 10% said they don't believe it's occurring.

The full report in online at: http://bit.ly/GenXReport0712

CAISO approaching 1GW solar electricity production

Nearly since becoming a member of TOD, I have regularly looked at CAISO as a way to see how solar power was doing in terms of their utility electricity production. Solar seems to be approaching a (to me) nice milestone of 1GW of contribution.

While quite a bit has been written about the bad soy and corn harvests in the US on ToD lately, some focus should also be on the big grain belt Ukraine-Russia-Kazakhstan, with more than 21% of the global wheat exports.

Russia: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-16/russian-wheat-crop-seen-fall...

The grain forecast was cut from a previous estimate of 49 million tons to 50 million tons, according to the ministry. In 2011-12 the country harvested 56.2 million tons of wheat and shipped more than 27 million tons of grains and legumes, according to state statistics data.

[...]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture sees Russia’s wheat exports at 12 million tons for the current season, down from 21.3 million tons in the year-ago period.

Ukraine: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-09/ukrainian-grains-harvest-yie...

Ukraine’s grain harvest yields are expected to fall 20 percent to 25 percent on average because of dry weather, said Tetiana Adamenko, head of the agro-meteorology department at the National Meteorology Center.

Kazakhstan: http://www.brecorder.com/agriculture-a-allied/183/1207986/

Hardest hit is Kazakhstan, expected to harvest 16.6 million tonnes of grain, down from 27 million tonnes in 2011, of which wheat may account for 14.8 million tonnes.

If the food prices rise as a result of many food exporters having problems, it could be very deleterious for the world's poor and for poor countries' stability. Buckle up for a long and hard winter...

Merkel warns of global warming if no climate accord

Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Monday that global warming will accelerate at a dramatic rate unless leaders reach a deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible.

"Time is of the essence," Merkel told an international conference in Berlin, where delegates from more than 30 countries are preparing for a major UN climate conference at the end of the year in Qatar.

Nature always finds a way ...

Vaccines Team Up to Generate Lethal New Chicken Virus

Vaccines are supposed to prevent disease. But two new strains of a nasty poultry disease that have been plaguing chickens in Australia since 2008 have been found to be hybrids of viruses from live vaccines. It is the first time such recombination has been seen between vaccine viruses in the wild.

In 2007, chicken farmers in Australia were using two commercial, live vaccines for infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), a lethal poultry disease, that were made from Australian strains of the virus. They then began using a third live vaccine containing a European strain. The following year, they began to see outbreaks of two new ILT strains.

Browning and colleagues have now sequenced the new viruses and found that in each case they arose when the European vaccine strain acquired genes from the Australian vaccine viruses. "We were quite surprised," he says. The newer strain is half European, half Australian, and has outcompeted the original strain – it now dominates outbreaks in Australia.

Live vaccine viruses are incapable of causing disease – but the hybrids were as deadly as wild ILT, killing 18 per cent of affected flocks.

... imagine a flu virus doing this

Seasonal flu vaccines protect against the three influenza viruses (trivalent) that research indicates will be most common during the upcoming season. The nasal-spray flu vaccine — a vaccine made with live, weakened flu viruses that is given as a nasal spray (sometimes called LAIV for “Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine”).

also Threatwatch: Florida's TB epidemic is bad news for all

Shell faces $5 billion fine over Nigeria Bonga oil spill

Nigerian regulators have told parliament that Royal Dutch Shell should be fined $5 billion for environmental damaged caused by an oil spill at its offshore Bonga field, one of the biggest in the history of Africa's largest energy industry.

The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) told a parliamentary committee on Monday that although last year's spill, estimated at around 40,000 barrels, was contained offshore, there was a serious environmental threat

Harvard used to be such a good school......

US geoengineers to spray sun-reflecting chemicals from balloon
Experiment in New Mexico will try to establish the possibility of cooling the planet by dispersing sulphate aerosols

Two Harvard engineers are to spray sun-reflecting chemical particles into the atmosphere to artificially cool the planet, using a balloon flying 80,000 feet over Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/17/us-geoengineers-spray-...

has X posted here lately about his crops? sorry I don't remember how to search for this

Aerographite: The World’s Lightest Material is 99% Air

Weighing in at just 0.2 milligrams per cubic centimeter, Aerographite is a jet-black sponge made up of porous carbon tubes interwoven at the nanoscale. The least dense solid ever, it is 75 times lighter than Styrofoam. "Our work is causing great discussions in the scientific community. Aerographite weighs [a fourth of the] world-record-holder up to now," said study co-author Matthias Mecklenburg of the Hamburg University,

Knustler (sic) predicts the repopulation of quaint old ports like Troy, New York, as the riverboat and rail trade revive. In his post-apocalypse, the beautiful buildings will be saved, while the strip malls and superhighways will fall.

This is gross ignorance and silliness from Huffington Post ... Kunstler is much more dystopian than that - and in fact his whole point (in all his writing, plain as day) is that returning to some made-by-hand, noble savage, survivable state post-apocalypse will be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for the vast majority of ill-prepared mall-waddlers.