Although President Barack Obama confidently assured world leaders last week that the U.S. was determined to combat global climate change, that resolve isn't shared in the U.S. Senate.
The chamber has instead been consumed by other domestic priorities — including the administration-backed push to overhaul health care — and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is months behind her original timetable for introducing legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
With all of the obstacles, it is increasingly likely the Obama administration will not have a new climate change law — or even a preliminary version passed by the Senate — to bring to international negotiations on a global warming pact this December in Copenhagen.
“I don't think there's any chance you can have a complete bill passed by the Senate and the House and signed by the president in time for him to head to Copenhagen with the bill in his coat pocket,” lamented Jim DiPeso, an environmentalist who backs the effort.
Even the odds of Senate passage are 50-50, DiPeso said, adding: “It's chancy that the Senate will pass a bill this year.”
Boxer and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., are set to introduce a climate change bill Wednesday, after months of delays and negotiations aimed at appeasing moderate Democrats worried that new emissions caps could impose hefty economic costs on the energy industry, struggling manufacturers and coal mining.
Boxer and Kerry are modeling their bill after a broad measure that passed the House in June and aim to get the legislation approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee by the end of October.
Other priorities
But that could be the end of the road for the bill this year. Top Democratic leaders who set the Senate schedule have signaled that other legislation deserves higher priority, including a financial regulatory overhaul, the health care measure and must-pass government spending bills. That could push climate change legislation into next year.
“We are going to have a busy, busy time the rest of this year,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “And of course … we still have next year to complete things if we have to.”
Environmentalists fret that if the climate change debate slips to 2010, election-year politics could make it much more difficult to pass.
“It's always harder to pass something this controversial and complicated in an even-numbered year,” said DiPeso, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, an environmental advocacy group.
Already, supporters of the House cap-and-trade plan, as it is known, are finding it a tough sell in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to shut down a filibuster and pass controversial legislation.
GOP nearly united
Republicans are nearly united in opposition to what they call a national energy tax that would mean higher costs for businesses and consumers nationwide. More than a dozen Democratic senators have expressed serious concerns on climate change legislation.
“When you look at the Senate dynamic, you hear a lot of senators from both parties … and particularly a lot of conservative Democrats, indicating they have real reservations,” noted Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes the House bill.
The Democratic differences on the issue pit Rust Belt and Midwestern states dependent on coal-fired power against coastal states with more developed renewable energy programs.
Rust Belt senators led by Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have said their support hinges on whether the bill includes protections to insulate steel and other manufacturers from the burden of competing with foreign companies in countries without more lenient greenhouse gas limits.
“It is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing,” Brown, Stabenow and eight other senators said in an Aug. 6 letter to Obama.
Meanwhile, senators from states that produce coal — as well as those that are heavily dependent on it for power — want to see safeguards to cushion business and residential consumers from skyrocketing electricity bills.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, insists that a climate change bill has to have bipartisan support to get through the chamber.
‘Clean coal'
He has been working with a group of mostly moderate Republicans on a possible compromise to boost nuclear power and “clean coal” technology that traps more of the greenhouse gases emitted when coal and other fossil fuels are burned. Those changes are key, he said, to winning some Republican support and getting a bill through the Senate.
To pass a Senate climate change bill, “we've got to do more than the House bill does to support nuclear energy and clean coal,” Lieberman said.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said “there is far from enough support” to get a climate change bill passed in the Senate.
“The Democrats don't have the votes,” he said. “There are too many newly elected Democrats in the Senate who don't want to go home and tell voters that they just voted for the largest tax increase in American history.”
Health care debate
The already uphill fight is complicated by the health care debate, which has distracted some key players.
The politics of health care also spill over into the climate change issue. Moderate Democrats who are already wary of the climate bill may be less willing to support the legislation after taking tough votes on a health care overhaul unpopular with some constituents.
Even moderate Republicans who could be persuaded to back a broad climate change bill could be turned off if the health care debate is too polarizing.
Lieberman said the two issues are inevitably linked. If Democrats are unable to pass a health care overhaul, he predicted, that could spell doom for climate change legislation.
“If that ends in failure, I think President Obama will come into this fight with less strength to do what he wants to do,” Lieberman said. “If this fails . . . it will be hard for climate change. Not impossible — but harder
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A family can produce energy
Sverre Simonsen shows a couple of journalists from the Danish home and lifestyle magazine ”Bo Bedre” around his house. At the same time, 20 journalists from all over the world are ringing the doorbell. All the visitors are the only drawback to being a test family in the plus energy house, says Sverre Simonsen.
He is the father in the test family of four, who have moved into the ”Home for life” house in the Aarhus suburb of Lystrup. They will spend the next year testing how it is to live in a house that produces more energy than the occupants consume.
The family have lived in the house for a few months and so far they have enjoyed their stay. The house, which is 195m 2 ,has a panoramic view of the sea, but that it not the only advantage.
”Our conscience is a little better living here compared to living in a normal house with greater energy consumption,” says Sverre Simonsen, who previously lived in a 1970s single-family house.
He is enthusiastic about showing people around the house, which uses solar cells, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps and special energy windows to produce all the energy for ventilation, heating and warm water and lighting.
The perspective for the plus energy house is very good, according to the Velfac company who have built the house in Lystrup. 40 percent of all European CO2 emissions come from buildings. Building new energy-friendly houses or energy renovating existing houses therefore has great potential.
The house in Lystrup costs approx 200.000 Euros more than an ordinary single-family house in the same area. On the other hand, the house will pay for itself within 40 years due to the energy savings. Velfac would, however, like to develop the concept further, so that the house can become a standard house, with a purchase price that is within the financial reach of middle class families.
He is the father in the test family of four, who have moved into the ”Home for life” house in the Aarhus suburb of Lystrup. They will spend the next year testing how it is to live in a house that produces more energy than the occupants consume.
The family have lived in the house for a few months and so far they have enjoyed their stay. The house, which is 195m 2 ,has a panoramic view of the sea, but that it not the only advantage.
”Our conscience is a little better living here compared to living in a normal house with greater energy consumption,” says Sverre Simonsen, who previously lived in a 1970s single-family house.
He is enthusiastic about showing people around the house, which uses solar cells, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps and special energy windows to produce all the energy for ventilation, heating and warm water and lighting.
The perspective for the plus energy house is very good, according to the Velfac company who have built the house in Lystrup. 40 percent of all European CO2 emissions come from buildings. Building new energy-friendly houses or energy renovating existing houses therefore has great potential.
The house in Lystrup costs approx 200.000 Euros more than an ordinary single-family house in the same area. On the other hand, the house will pay for itself within 40 years due to the energy savings. Velfac would, however, like to develop the concept further, so that the house can become a standard house, with a purchase price that is within the financial reach of middle class families.
Who's Looking At Natural Gas Now? Big Oil
In the energy world, Big Oil has long been the key player — with one notable exception: The natural gas business in the United States is dominated by small, independent companies. More than 80 percent of U.S. natural gas supplies are produced by companies with a market capitalization of less than $500 million. On average, these companies have only a dozen employees.
But their business is booming. New production techniques in recent years have enabled companies to extract natural gas from shale rock formations deep underground. As a result, estimates of accessible natural gas reserves have been revised dramatically upward. Small gas producers can justifiably take the credit for the transformation of their industry.
"The major oil companies haven't been paying attention to the U.S. for decades," says Robert Hefner, a 50-year veteran of the natural gas business with a company of his own, GHK Exploration, in Oklahoma City. "It's been a lot of independents like us that have found all this gas, developed the technology and made it happen."
But their business is booming. New production techniques in recent years have enabled companies to extract natural gas from shale rock formations deep underground. As a result, estimates of accessible natural gas reserves have been revised dramatically upward. Small gas producers can justifiably take the credit for the transformation of their industry.
"The major oil companies haven't been paying attention to the U.S. for decades," says Robert Hefner, a 50-year veteran of the natural gas business with a company of his own, GHK Exploration, in Oklahoma City. "It's been a lot of independents like us that have found all this gas, developed the technology and made it happen."
Water Found on the Moon
Shattering a long-held belief that Earth's moon is a dead and dry world, a trio of spacecraft uncovered clear evidence of water and hydrogen-oxygen molecules throughout the lunar surface.
"There's no question that there is OH [hydroxyl, which is made up of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom] and H2O on the moon," University of Maryland senior research scientist Jessica Sunshine told Discovery News.
"It's still pretty damn dry, drier than anything we have here. But we've found this dynamic, ongoing process and the moon was supposedly dead," she said. "This is a real paradigm shift."
Aside from scientific interest, finding water on the moon could impact plans for eventual human settlements beyond Earth, said geologist Paul Spudis, with the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute.
"It's a potential resource," Spudis told Discovery News. "If you think there's a long-term future in space, at some point you have to learn to use what you find in space to make new capabilities."
Scientists have suspected water could exist inside deep craters at the moon's poles that are never exposed to sunlight. The new research is surprising because it found chemical bonds between hydrogen and oxygen throughout the lunar surface. The concentrations appear denser near the polar regions.
How much water and hydroxyl is on the moon and where it came from remains a mystery.
Sunshine suspects hydrogen from the solar wind may be interacting with oxygen in lunar rocks to create trace amounts of water. She estimates that if you filled a soda bottle with lunar soil, there would be about an eyedropper's worth of water.
Whatever mechanism is driving the phenomena occurs only in daylight.
"When you think of evaporation and condensation, you have a day and night cycle. On the moon, it's happening all in the day. There are no changes at night," she said.
Though not understood, the phenomenon is widespread, encompassing an extremely shallow layer of lunar soil on a global scale.
"Every place on the moon, at some point during the lunar day, though not necessarily at all times, has water and OH," Sunshine said.
Also unknown is why the rocks and soil samples retrieved during the six Apollo expeditions to the moon between 1969-72 showed no obvious signs of interactions with water.
University of Hawaii geophysicist Paul Lucey suggests that some rare water-bearing minerals previously observed in lunar samples but dismissed as terrestrial contamination might, in fact, be indigenous.
"Perhaps the most valuable result of these new observations is that they prompt a critical reexamination of the notion that the moon is dry. It is not," Lucey said.
Evidence for a second and potentially richer source of water may come next month.
On Oct. 9, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will try to directly detect water by crashing a 2.5-ton dead weight into one of the moon's permanently shadowed craters so soil at the of the pit will be hurled into sunlight for analysis by several spacecraft and dozens of ground-based observatories.
The new research, based on observations from India's Chandrayyan-1 lunar orbiter and flybys of NASA's Deep Impact probe and Cassini spacecraft, appears this week in the online journal Science Express.
"There's no question that there is OH [hydroxyl, which is made up of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom] and H2O on the moon," University of Maryland senior research scientist Jessica Sunshine told Discovery News.
"It's still pretty damn dry, drier than anything we have here. But we've found this dynamic, ongoing process and the moon was supposedly dead," she said. "This is a real paradigm shift."
Aside from scientific interest, finding water on the moon could impact plans for eventual human settlements beyond Earth, said geologist Paul Spudis, with the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute.
"It's a potential resource," Spudis told Discovery News. "If you think there's a long-term future in space, at some point you have to learn to use what you find in space to make new capabilities."
Scientists have suspected water could exist inside deep craters at the moon's poles that are never exposed to sunlight. The new research is surprising because it found chemical bonds between hydrogen and oxygen throughout the lunar surface. The concentrations appear denser near the polar regions.
How much water and hydroxyl is on the moon and where it came from remains a mystery.
Sunshine suspects hydrogen from the solar wind may be interacting with oxygen in lunar rocks to create trace amounts of water. She estimates that if you filled a soda bottle with lunar soil, there would be about an eyedropper's worth of water.
Whatever mechanism is driving the phenomena occurs only in daylight.
"When you think of evaporation and condensation, you have a day and night cycle. On the moon, it's happening all in the day. There are no changes at night," she said.
Though not understood, the phenomenon is widespread, encompassing an extremely shallow layer of lunar soil on a global scale.
"Every place on the moon, at some point during the lunar day, though not necessarily at all times, has water and OH," Sunshine said.
Also unknown is why the rocks and soil samples retrieved during the six Apollo expeditions to the moon between 1969-72 showed no obvious signs of interactions with water.
University of Hawaii geophysicist Paul Lucey suggests that some rare water-bearing minerals previously observed in lunar samples but dismissed as terrestrial contamination might, in fact, be indigenous.
"Perhaps the most valuable result of these new observations is that they prompt a critical reexamination of the notion that the moon is dry. It is not," Lucey said.
Evidence for a second and potentially richer source of water may come next month.
On Oct. 9, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will try to directly detect water by crashing a 2.5-ton dead weight into one of the moon's permanently shadowed craters so soil at the of the pit will be hurled into sunlight for analysis by several spacecraft and dozens of ground-based observatories.
The new research, based on observations from India's Chandrayyan-1 lunar orbiter and flybys of NASA's Deep Impact probe and Cassini spacecraft, appears this week in the online journal Science Express.
Thinning Of Greenland And Antarctic Ice
The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise.
Reporting this week in the journal Nature, researchers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol describe how analysis of millions of NASA satellite measurements* from both of these vast ice sheets shows that the most profound ice loss is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea.
The authors conclude that this 'dynamic thinning' of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines, is penetrating far into the ice sheets' interior and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt. Ice shelf collapse has triggered particularly strong thinning that has endured for decades.
Image is a new comprehensive map of Greenland and Antarctica that shows extent of glacier thinning.
Reporting this week in the journal Nature, researchers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol describe how analysis of millions of NASA satellite measurements* from both of these vast ice sheets shows that the most profound ice loss is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea.
The authors conclude that this 'dynamic thinning' of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines, is penetrating far into the ice sheets' interior and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt. Ice shelf collapse has triggered particularly strong thinning that has endured for decades.
Image is a new comprehensive map of Greenland and Antarctica that shows extent of glacier thinning.
Water Contamination Concerns Linger For Shale Gas
Advances in technology have helped boost the growth of shale drilling in the United States over the past few years. But as the practice of harvesting natural gas embedded in shale rock deep below the Earth's surface has expanded, it has raised concerns about the impact this type of drilling has on the environment — especially on groundwater.
At issue is the practice of "hydraulic fracturing," which in combination with horizontal drilling is an essential part of the shale gas production process. The shale rock in which the gas is trapped is so tight that it has to be broken in order for the gas to escape. A combination of sand and water laced with chemicals — including benzene — is pumped into the well bore at high pressure, shattering the rock and opening millions of tiny fissures, enabling the shale gas to seep into the pipeline.
This fracturing technique has been in use since 1948, and industry sources say the procedure has been used in a million gas wells in the years since. But the practice has expanded in the past few years as energy companies began exploring shale formations.
The results have been so successful that energy analysts now see the development of shale gas reservoirs as a key step toward U.S. energy independence and a cleaner environment. When burned, natural gas produces about 25 percent less carbon dioxide than coal.
At issue is the practice of "hydraulic fracturing," which in combination with horizontal drilling is an essential part of the shale gas production process. The shale rock in which the gas is trapped is so tight that it has to be broken in order for the gas to escape. A combination of sand and water laced with chemicals — including benzene — is pumped into the well bore at high pressure, shattering the rock and opening millions of tiny fissures, enabling the shale gas to seep into the pipeline.
This fracturing technique has been in use since 1948, and industry sources say the procedure has been used in a million gas wells in the years since. But the practice has expanded in the past few years as energy companies began exploring shale formations.
The results have been so successful that energy analysts now see the development of shale gas reservoirs as a key step toward U.S. energy independence and a cleaner environment. When burned, natural gas produces about 25 percent less carbon dioxide than coal.
Costa Rica's Endanged Jaguars
One of the largest of Central American, and Costa Rica's largest, carnivores, an endangered species, it was once fairly common in coastal mangroves, lowland savannas, and wet and dry shrub lands and forest up to about 1000m elevation. But because its conspicuous tracks, the high value of its pelt, its reputation as a stock killer, and its vulnerability to hound pursuit and still hunting, this cat is now rare except in parts of large unhunted reserves. It occurs in Costa Rica on the Tortuguero, Santa Rosa, Corcovado and Rio Macho National Parks, and lower levels of Cordillera Talamanca.
Jaguars are rarely seen in daylight, but occasionally one suns on a cliff or log. They scratch tree trunks, but its not sure that they urine-mark objects or make territorial scratches on the ground. They are fairly aquatic and easily swim rivers, small lakes, and straits between mangrove islets. They favor damp sites such as streambeds in gallery forests, where footprints often reveal jaguar's presence, approximate size , and travels. At any season jaguars of any sex may roar at night.
Although jaguars seem to prefer peccaries as prey, they also take monkeys, agoutis, deer, birds, fish, lizard, turtles, and other animals. Mud tracks reveal feeding on dead fish, alligators, iguanas and any other carrion left by receding waters.
Jaguars seem not to avoid the scent of a man, and one may follow a man walking in a trail. Although unprovoked attacks on men are rare, in Panama a jaguar recently charged a man who was carrying a bag of trapped birds.
The season of births probably varies regionally. Gestation is about 3 months, and the usual litter is two. Apparently males take no part on the rising of the young, which may accompany the mother for a year. Females reach sexual maturity at about 3 years of age and do not breed in successive years if their young survive. The main threat to the remaining jaguars in Central America is the clearing of forest for crops and grazing. When roads penetrate a primitive zone, the jaguar and white-lipped peccary ( Tayassu pecari ) are the first mammals to disappear. Jaguars seem to be poor colonizers of cutover lands or new areas regardless of the abundance of prey there. Jaguars range from northern Mexico to northern Argentina. The puma has much greater ecological and geographic range and occurs along with jaguars throughout Costa Rica.
From: Eco Interacitve
Jaguars are rarely seen in daylight, but occasionally one suns on a cliff or log. They scratch tree trunks, but its not sure that they urine-mark objects or make territorial scratches on the ground. They are fairly aquatic and easily swim rivers, small lakes, and straits between mangrove islets. They favor damp sites such as streambeds in gallery forests, where footprints often reveal jaguar's presence, approximate size , and travels. At any season jaguars of any sex may roar at night.
Although jaguars seem to prefer peccaries as prey, they also take monkeys, agoutis, deer, birds, fish, lizard, turtles, and other animals. Mud tracks reveal feeding on dead fish, alligators, iguanas and any other carrion left by receding waters.
Jaguars seem not to avoid the scent of a man, and one may follow a man walking in a trail. Although unprovoked attacks on men are rare, in Panama a jaguar recently charged a man who was carrying a bag of trapped birds.
The season of births probably varies regionally. Gestation is about 3 months, and the usual litter is two. Apparently males take no part on the rising of the young, which may accompany the mother for a year. Females reach sexual maturity at about 3 years of age and do not breed in successive years if their young survive. The main threat to the remaining jaguars in Central America is the clearing of forest for crops and grazing. When roads penetrate a primitive zone, the jaguar and white-lipped peccary ( Tayassu pecari ) are the first mammals to disappear. Jaguars seem to be poor colonizers of cutover lands or new areas regardless of the abundance of prey there. Jaguars range from northern Mexico to northern Argentina. The puma has much greater ecological and geographic range and occurs along with jaguars throughout Costa Rica.
From: Eco Interacitve
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