In what may prove to be the first major breakthrough in the fight against the mysterious and controversial disorder known as chronic fatigue syndrome, researchers reported Thursday that they had found traces of a virus in the vast majority of affected patients.
The same virus has previously been identified in at least a quarter of prostate tumors, particularly those that are very aggressive, and has also been linked to certain types of cancers of the blood.
It remains possible that the virus, known as xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV, is a so-called passenger virus that is simply infecting patients whose immune systems have been suppressed by other causes. But the new findings were sufficiently alarming that the National Cancer Institute called together a group of experts in August to consider its potential effect on public health.
"We are in the very early days," said Stuart Le Grice, director of the National Cancer Institute's Center of Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Cancer Virology, who organized the meeting but was not involved in the new study. "The data need to be confirmed and repeated. . . . We need to know that it is a cause and not just a passenger. In a sense, we are at the same stage as we were when HIV was first discovered. Hopefully, we can take advantage of what we learned from working with it."
Le Grice emphasized, however, that traces of the virus had been found in blood samples preserved for 25 years. "This is not associated with a new and spreading disease. We are not on the verge of an epidemic," he said.
Chronic fatigue syndrome, which affects at least 1 million Americans and more than 17 million people worldwide, is characterized by debilitating fatigue, chronic pain and depression, as well as other symptoms. Many doctors have argued that it is not a real disorder because there have previously been no biochemical markers that characterize it. The only effective treatments are behavioral changes and antidepressants, and they are of limited benefit.
Chronic fatigue syndrome has been theoretically linked to a variety of other viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus and human herpesvirus 6, but none have been found in a significant proportion of patients. Today's findings could explain why.
Like HIV, which causes a constellation of symptoms, XMRV is a retrovirus; retroviruses are known to suppress the immune system, making it easier for other viruses to establish a beachhead.
Dr. William C. Reeves, who heads chronic fatigue syndrome research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cautioned against racing to conclusions based on the findings, even though he characterized them as promising.
"It is almost unheard of to find an association of this magnitude in any study of an infectious agent and a well-defined disease, much less an [ill-defined] illness like chronic fatigue syndrome," he said in an e-mail. It is extremely difficult to prove causation with a ubiquitous virus like XMRV, and it "is even more difficult in the case of CFS, which represents a clinically and epidemiologically complex illness," he said.
The new study was organized by Judy A. Mikovits, director of research at the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro Immune Disease, a small, 3-year-old institute on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.
Others involved in the study included cancer biologist Robert H. Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, who discovered XMRV three years ago and was the first to link it to prostate cancer, and Francis Ruscetti of the laboratory of experimental immunology at the National Cancer Institute, where Mikovits worked for 20 years.
The team reported in the online version of the journal Science that they found the virus in 68 of 101 blood samples from patients with the syndrome, but in only eight of 218 healthy patients.
In a telephone interview, Mikovits said they had also found antibodies against the virus in 95% of the chronic fatigue syndrome patients. Experts noted that no test was perfect at identifying all cases of an infection, and the antibody tests Mikovits used were being refined.
"My gut feeling is it's not a carrier virus," she said. "It's a human retrovirus, just like HIV, which is why all those other pathogens are not able to be controlled." The close association with chronic fatigue syndrome is important, she added, because "never before has there even been a biomarker in this disease."
The team concluded that the virus is not transmitted through the air. It is found in saliva and blood products, and the implication is that it is sexually transmitted, "but that has not been proven," Le Grice said.
Unfortunately, Reeves said, the major flaw of the study is that there is not enough information about how subjects were selected to rule out any bias in choosing them
Friday, October 9, 2009
Awaiting a puff of moon dust
In the predawn hours Friday, while those on the West Coast still snooze, a rocket is scheduled to punch a 13-foot-deep hole in a crater at the moon's south pole that hasn't seen sunlight in billions of years. The purpose: to find out whether ice lies hidden there.
NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which set out for the moon in June, made a late-course correction Tuesday to better position itself to steer the rocket into the 2-mile-deep crater Cabeus at 4:30 a.m. PDT on Friday.
Four minutes later, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will fly through the cloud of debris that will rise above the lunar surface and linger there briefly. As it passes through the cloud, the satellite's nine instruments will analyze the dust and debris for evidence of water, before crashing itself.
Back on Earth, amateur astronomers from Colorado to Silicon Valley are expected to turn their telescopes to the celestial show, even though it will last less than a minute.
Scientists preparing for the collision could hardly contain their excitement over what might turn up in that short time.
"The spacecraft is looking great. I don't think we could miss the moon now if we tried," said Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, which built the craft.
"It's our job to confirm there is water there," said Dan Andrews, the project manager at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which designed the spacecraft instruments. "But even if it's very dry, that's a good answer to have."
The LCROSS satellite was originally a $79-million add-on to the larger, $500-million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, whose mission is to map the moon. But the theatrical nature of the impact event has caught the public's attention.
Thousands are expected to show up Thursday night at the Ames complex south of San Francisco for an evening of music and movies that will culminate with a live video feed of the impact.
"It's kind of hard to keep on top of how much interest there is out there," Andrews said. "I've heard 10,000 are coming."
1999 discovery
For decades after the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, scientists considered the moon to be little more than a dry wasteland.
But in 1999, NASA's Lunar Prospector mission found evidence of hydrogen, a possible indicator of water, in permanently shadowed craters at both poles. Since then, other spacecraft have detected the same thing, leading scientists to wonder whether large stores of ice billions of years old are hidden in craters that never get sunlight.
According to scientists, water on the moon would be as valuable as gold. Not only would it be useful to drink, should President Obama continue former President George W. Bush's ambitious plan to build a lunar base there after 2020, but it could be broken down to make breathable air and even rocket fuel.
Transporting water to the moon, on the other hand, would cost $50,000 a pound.
The crater-observing satellite launched June 18 attached to a second spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Shortly after launch, the two separated.
The orbiter continued on to begin a yearlong mission to map the moon in search of landing sites for future lunar colonists.
The sensing satellite went into a long, looping orbit around the Earth to line itself up for Friday's impact.
Originally, spacecraft controllers had chosen a nearby crater, Cabeus A, as the target. But last week, they decided it wasn't as good a potential source for water as Cabeus, a 60-mile-wide valley near the moon's south pole.
Andrews said satellite controllers were aiming for a spot in the northwest region of the crater, where temperatures of minus 397 degrees Fahrenheit would ensure that any water would be frozen as hard as rock.
NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which set out for the moon in June, made a late-course correction Tuesday to better position itself to steer the rocket into the 2-mile-deep crater Cabeus at 4:30 a.m. PDT on Friday.
Four minutes later, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will fly through the cloud of debris that will rise above the lunar surface and linger there briefly. As it passes through the cloud, the satellite's nine instruments will analyze the dust and debris for evidence of water, before crashing itself.
Back on Earth, amateur astronomers from Colorado to Silicon Valley are expected to turn their telescopes to the celestial show, even though it will last less than a minute.
Scientists preparing for the collision could hardly contain their excitement over what might turn up in that short time.
"The spacecraft is looking great. I don't think we could miss the moon now if we tried," said Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, which built the craft.
"It's our job to confirm there is water there," said Dan Andrews, the project manager at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which designed the spacecraft instruments. "But even if it's very dry, that's a good answer to have."
The LCROSS satellite was originally a $79-million add-on to the larger, $500-million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, whose mission is to map the moon. But the theatrical nature of the impact event has caught the public's attention.
Thousands are expected to show up Thursday night at the Ames complex south of San Francisco for an evening of music and movies that will culminate with a live video feed of the impact.
"It's kind of hard to keep on top of how much interest there is out there," Andrews said. "I've heard 10,000 are coming."
1999 discovery
For decades after the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, scientists considered the moon to be little more than a dry wasteland.
But in 1999, NASA's Lunar Prospector mission found evidence of hydrogen, a possible indicator of water, in permanently shadowed craters at both poles. Since then, other spacecraft have detected the same thing, leading scientists to wonder whether large stores of ice billions of years old are hidden in craters that never get sunlight.
According to scientists, water on the moon would be as valuable as gold. Not only would it be useful to drink, should President Obama continue former President George W. Bush's ambitious plan to build a lunar base there after 2020, but it could be broken down to make breathable air and even rocket fuel.
Transporting water to the moon, on the other hand, would cost $50,000 a pound.
The crater-observing satellite launched June 18 attached to a second spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Shortly after launch, the two separated.
The orbiter continued on to begin a yearlong mission to map the moon in search of landing sites for future lunar colonists.
The sensing satellite went into a long, looping orbit around the Earth to line itself up for Friday's impact.
Originally, spacecraft controllers had chosen a nearby crater, Cabeus A, as the target. But last week, they decided it wasn't as good a potential source for water as Cabeus, a 60-mile-wide valley near the moon's south pole.
Andrews said satellite controllers were aiming for a spot in the northwest region of the crater, where temperatures of minus 397 degrees Fahrenheit would ensure that any water would be frozen as hard as rock.
The Centaur rocket that will hit the crater is the upper stage of the Atlas V that launched both spacecraft in June. Having used its fuel, it is now a 5,200-pound projectile.
About 10 hours before Friday's impact, the rocket will separate from the satellite and head directly for the crater.
Meanwhile, the satellite will maneuver itself into position to fly through the debris kicked up when the rocket crashes.
According to NASA, the rocket will be traveling about 5,600 miles per hour when it plunges into Cabeus. That will create a dust cloud rising as much as six miles above the lunar surface, providing a rare show for amateur astronomers with telescopes 10 inches or larger.
The collision can theoretically be seen throughout the Southwest and as far away as Hawaii, providing the observer has a large enough telescope at hand and good viewing conditions.
Mountaintops and valleys with little or no ambient artificial light are the best places to go. Because the debris cloud is expected to last less than a minute before settling back down on the lunar surface, viewers need to be punctual and have sharp eyes.
Palmdale gathering
Locally, the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club is hosting a viewing party at the Sage Planetarium at Cactus Intermediate School in Palmdale.
Members will set up telescopes outside, while NASA's broadcast of the event will be shown inside.
Scientists think the lunar water, if it's there, arrived the same way it did on Earth: through billions of years of bombardment by water-rich comets and meteors.
Any water that was deposited in sunlit places would quickly be lost to the moon's scorching daytime heat, which can reach 250 degrees Fahrenheit. But in shadowed craters, the water could remain as ice for eons.
Bernard Foing, the project scientist for the European Smart-1 spacecraft that took pictures of the crater several years ago, said the floor of Cabeus contained a number of small craters that appeared old enough to have trapped water from comets and water-rich asteroids.
Andrews said it could be days or weeks after the impact before scientists conclude that there is, or is not, water at the pole. Besides the crater-observing spacecraft, observatories around the world will be watching, along with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
If the satellite doesn't find water, that wouldn't be definitive proof it's not there. Besides mapping instruments, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter carries instruments that can search for evidence of water as it skims 30 miles above the lunar surface in the coming months.
Several weeks ago, research teams reported evidence that tiny amounts of water exist on the surface in some areas of the moon. But that is likely too little to be of practical use for future colonists.
About 10 hours before Friday's impact, the rocket will separate from the satellite and head directly for the crater.
Meanwhile, the satellite will maneuver itself into position to fly through the debris kicked up when the rocket crashes.
According to NASA, the rocket will be traveling about 5,600 miles per hour when it plunges into Cabeus. That will create a dust cloud rising as much as six miles above the lunar surface, providing a rare show for amateur astronomers with telescopes 10 inches or larger.
The collision can theoretically be seen throughout the Southwest and as far away as Hawaii, providing the observer has a large enough telescope at hand and good viewing conditions.
Mountaintops and valleys with little or no ambient artificial light are the best places to go. Because the debris cloud is expected to last less than a minute before settling back down on the lunar surface, viewers need to be punctual and have sharp eyes.
Palmdale gathering
Locally, the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club is hosting a viewing party at the Sage Planetarium at Cactus Intermediate School in Palmdale.
Members will set up telescopes outside, while NASA's broadcast of the event will be shown inside.
Scientists think the lunar water, if it's there, arrived the same way it did on Earth: through billions of years of bombardment by water-rich comets and meteors.
Any water that was deposited in sunlit places would quickly be lost to the moon's scorching daytime heat, which can reach 250 degrees Fahrenheit. But in shadowed craters, the water could remain as ice for eons.
Bernard Foing, the project scientist for the European Smart-1 spacecraft that took pictures of the crater several years ago, said the floor of Cabeus contained a number of small craters that appeared old enough to have trapped water from comets and water-rich asteroids.
Andrews said it could be days or weeks after the impact before scientists conclude that there is, or is not, water at the pole. Besides the crater-observing spacecraft, observatories around the world will be watching, along with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
If the satellite doesn't find water, that wouldn't be definitive proof it's not there. Besides mapping instruments, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter carries instruments that can search for evidence of water as it skims 30 miles above the lunar surface in the coming months.
Several weeks ago, research teams reported evidence that tiny amounts of water exist on the surface in some areas of the moon. But that is likely too little to be of practical use for future colonists.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Give forests back to local people to save them
Give tropical forests back to the people who live in them – and the trees will soak up your carbon for you. Above all, keep the forests out of the hands of government. So concludes a study that has tracked the fate of 80 forests worldwide over 15 years.
Most tropical forests – from Himalayan hill forests to the Madagascan jungle – are controlled by local and national governments. Forest communities own and manage little more than a tenth. They have a reputation for trashing their trees – cutting them for timber or burning them to clear land for farming. In reality the opposite is true, according to Ashwini Chhatre of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hand it over
In the first study of its kind, Chhatre and Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor compared forest ownership with data on carbon sequestration, which is estimated from the size and number of trees in a forest. Hectare-for-hectare, they found that tropical forest under local management stored more carbon than government-owned forests. There are exceptions, says Chhatre, "but our findings show that we can increase carbon sequestration simply by transferring ownership of forests from governments to communities".
One reason may be that locals protect forests best if they own them, because they have a long-term interest in ensuring the forests' survival. While governments, whatever their intentions, usually license destructive logging, or preside over a free-for-all in which everyone grabs what they can because nobody believes the forest will last.
The authors suggest that locals would also make a better job of managing common pastures, coastal fisheries and water supplies. They argue that their findings contradict a long-standing environmental idea, called the "tragedy of the commons", which says that natural resources left to communal control get trashed. In fact, says Agrawal, "communities are perfectly capable of managing their resources sustainably".
Flawed plans
The research calls into question UN plans to pay governments to protect forests. The climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December is likely to agree on a formula for a programme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. "There is a real fear that REDD will lead to dispossession of local communities [as] governments stake their claim on emissions reduction credits," says Chhatre.
Simon Counsell of the Rainforest Foundation UK is not surprised by the findings. "In Brazil and elsewhere, we know the most enduring forests are in indigenous reserves, like that run by the Kayapo in the eastern Amazon – the largest protected forest in the world."
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National
Obama Orders All Federal Agencies to Cut Greenhouse Gases
President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order Monday that requires federal agencies to set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2020 within 90 days.
The Executive Order also requires federal agencies to increase their energy efficiency, reduce the petroleum consumption of their fleets, conserve water, reduce waste, support sustainable communities, and leverage their federal purchasing power to promote environmentally-responsible products and technologies.
"As the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste, and use environmentally-responsible products and technologies," said President Obama.
"This Executive Order builds on the momentum of the Recovery Act to help create a clean energy economy and demonstrates the federal government's commitment, over and above what is already being done, to reducing emissions and saving money," he said.
The new Executive Order makes reducing greenhouse gas emissions a priority for the federal government, which occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services.
In his order, President Obama requires agencies to meet a number of energy, water, and waste reduction targets, including:
Implementation of the Executive Order will focus on integrating achievement of sustainability goals with agency mission and strategic planning to optimize performance and minimize implementation costs.
Stephen Russell, associate at World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, said federal agencies will have to rely upon a set of principles based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Public Sector Standard developed this summer by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development.
"Globally, the government sector is responsible for a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and the executive order sets an important milestone and example for the management of these emissions," said Russell. "Based on over 10 years of work on greenhouse gas accounting, the Public Sector Standard is central to helping governments meet their climate goals."
The Public Sector Protocol explains how public sector agencies can develop inventories of greenhouse gas emissions. It details accounting procedures, such as determining what emission sources should be included in an inventory, and how emission reduction targets can be set and tracked over time. It adapts the core accounting principles found in the WRI greenhouse gas Corporate Standard to the unique organizational and structural needs of public agencies at the local, state and federal levels.
Implementation will be managed through the previously-established Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, working in close partnership with the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality and the agencies.
Some recent examples of federal environmental stewardship include the planned construction of a 600-kilowatt wind turbine at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The 600-kW turbine installation, to be completed in spring 2011, is projected to supply up to 15 percent of the facility's annual electricity usage.
In Lakewood, Colorado, the U.S. General Services Administration's Denver Federal Center will be installing a seven megawatt photovoltaic system as part of a modernization effort. The project will provide a reliable utility infrastructure to service tenant agencies for the next 50 years. Covering 30 acres, the giant solar system will feed renewable energy back into the grid on weekends.
The Executive Order follows the president's Proclamation of October as National Energy Awareness Month. The president called on the people of the United States to mark the month by making clean energy choices that can both rebuild our economy and make it more sustainable.
Noting that the federal government is the largest consumer of energy in the United States, Obama said in the proclamation his administration is committed to lead by example in the use of clean energy and energy efficiency.
"We face a turning point in our Nation's energy policy," Obama said in the Proclamation. "We can either remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy technology. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc, or we can create jobs deploying low-carbon technologies to prevent its worst effects."
The Executive Order also requires federal agencies to increase their energy efficiency, reduce the petroleum consumption of their fleets, conserve water, reduce waste, support sustainable communities, and leverage their federal purchasing power to promote environmentally-responsible products and technologies.
 |
President Barack Obama (Photo: Office of the President) |
"As the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste, and use environmentally-responsible products and technologies," said President Obama.
"This Executive Order builds on the momentum of the Recovery Act to help create a clean energy economy and demonstrates the federal government's commitment, over and above what is already being done, to reducing emissions and saving money," he said.
The new Executive Order makes reducing greenhouse gas emissions a priority for the federal government, which occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services.
In his order, President Obama requires agencies to meet a number of energy, water, and waste reduction targets, including:
- 30 percent reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
- 26 percent improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
- 50 percent recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
- 95 percent of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements;
- Implementation of the 2030 net-zero-energy building requirement;
- Implementation of the stormwater provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, section 438; and
- Development of guidance for sustainable Federal building locations in alignment with the Livability Principles put forward by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Implementation of the Executive Order will focus on integrating achievement of sustainability goals with agency mission and strategic planning to optimize performance and minimize implementation costs.
Stephen Russell, associate at World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, said federal agencies will have to rely upon a set of principles based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Public Sector Standard developed this summer by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development.
 |
Headquarters of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation in Washington, DC. (Photo courtesy DOT) |
The Public Sector Protocol explains how public sector agencies can develop inventories of greenhouse gas emissions. It details accounting procedures, such as determining what emission sources should be included in an inventory, and how emission reduction targets can be set and tracked over time. It adapts the core accounting principles found in the WRI greenhouse gas Corporate Standard to the unique organizational and structural needs of public agencies at the local, state and federal levels.
Implementation will be managed through the previously-established Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, working in close partnership with the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality and the agencies.
Some recent examples of federal environmental stewardship include the planned construction of a 600-kilowatt wind turbine at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The 600-kW turbine installation, to be completed in spring 2011, is projected to supply up to 15 percent of the facility's annual electricity usage.
In Lakewood, Colorado, the U.S. General Services Administration's Denver Federal Center will be installing a seven megawatt photovoltaic system as part of a modernization effort. The project will provide a reliable utility infrastructure to service tenant agencies for the next 50 years. Covering 30 acres, the giant solar system will feed renewable energy back into the grid on weekends.
The Executive Order follows the president's Proclamation of October as National Energy Awareness Month. The president called on the people of the United States to mark the month by making clean energy choices that can both rebuild our economy and make it more sustainable.
Noting that the federal government is the largest consumer of energy in the United States, Obama said in the proclamation his administration is committed to lead by example in the use of clean energy and energy efficiency.
"We face a turning point in our Nation's energy policy," Obama said in the Proclamation. "We can either remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy technology. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc, or we can create jobs deploying low-carbon technologies to prevent its worst effects."
Green activists claim victory over coal power
(Susannah Ireland/The Times)
Climate change protesters have staged several spectaculars at Kingsnorth, like the one, above, in August last year
US Solar Decathlon seeks best sun-powered homes
– For the past week on the National Mall in Washington, international crews have been busy putting up structures for an event showcasing a radiant source of energy that some once revered as a god.
No, it is not a remake of President Barack Obama's inauguration but the Solar Decathlon, a biennial event that begins Thursday and this year puts modular, solar-powered homes through 10 tests to determine which is the new sun king.
Over the course of a week, teams of students from Canada, Germany, Spain and the United States will take part in competitions judging the houses they designed and built for everything from aesthetics to engineering to whether the water heating system can meet a couple's hot water needs.
Judges will determine whether the houses are properly fitted out with the modern conveniences most Westerners cannot live without, and whether the appliances consume less energy than those in the average US home.
The houses displayed on the Mall, the sprawling grassy esplanade between the US Capitol and the Washington Monument, are restricted to a footprint of 800 square feet (74.3 square meters) and are supposed to target a specific market.
Scores of teams applied to compete in this year's decathlon, but only 20 were accepted, including Team Beausoleil from the University of Louisiana, which built a house inspired by Cajun culture and facts of life in the southern US state, such as hurricanes.
The 5.5-inch (14-centimeter) insulated walls can resist winds of 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour, and the insulation would also "cut your energy rate by about half if the house's solar panels were not producing for the home," said Catherine Guidry, one of the students working on the home.
The house featured a porch -- almost a requirement in laid-back Louisiana -- with moveable doors so it can be closed off on all sides or open on two sides. Plants indigenous to Louisiana thrived in planters in the small garden.
"We wanted it to feel like Louisiana from the inside and outside," Guidry told AFP.
Team Germany, winner of the 2007 decathlon, has reconstructed a house whose exterior walls and louvered windows are covered with small integrated solar panels.
Like the Spanish team's abode, which features a large, raised moveable solar panel on the roof, the house was shipped across the Atlantic Ocean for the competition.
The entry from Cornell University students in New York state features three corrugated steel cylinders and walls insulated with five inches of soy-based foam and sky-lights in all three cylindrical rooms.
The house is visually striking and, according to Cornell architecture student Chris Werner, can hold its own in a new category in this year's decathlon -- the "net metering" contest, which measures the energy a house produces for or takes from the electricity grid during the competition.
Even the heat that gets trapped in the structure's steel exterior is used to heat water, said Werner.
And when Cornell put its house through its paces at last month's New York state fair, it achieved "net-zero or better the entire time," meaning it is efficient enough to not require energy from the grid, according to Werner.
After two years of work on their houses plus nearly two weeks of constructing and competing, the winners will take home "bragging rights and lots of good feelings about the last two years of our lives," he said.
They will also take home a little culinary insight into the regions represented by other competitors because the "home entertainment" category of the decathlon requires teams to cook dinner for members of rival line-ups.
The German team's menu will feature dumplings known as knoedeln, but no sauerkraut, said Sardika Meyer, a spokeswoman for the team.
No German beer either -- alcohol is banned at the competition.
The University of Arizona team, whose house is made up of four modules that look like glass-domed funicular railway cars, plans to treat guests to tamales -- the Mexican answer to chapatis -- filled with dried, shredded beef known as "machaca" and a cactus salsa.
And Team Beausoleil will serve up Louisiana specialties, including gumbo and bread pudding -- but has ditched the idea of serving fried alligator.
"We thought it might scare away the neighbors," said Geoff Gjertson, the team's faculty advisor.
No, it is not a remake of President Barack Obama's inauguration but the Solar Decathlon, a biennial event that begins Thursday and this year puts modular, solar-powered homes through 10 tests to determine which is the new sun king.
Over the course of a week, teams of students from Canada, Germany, Spain and the United States will take part in competitions judging the houses they designed and built for everything from aesthetics to engineering to whether the water heating system can meet a couple's hot water needs.
Judges will determine whether the houses are properly fitted out with the modern conveniences most Westerners cannot live without, and whether the appliances consume less energy than those in the average US home.
The houses displayed on the Mall, the sprawling grassy esplanade between the US Capitol and the Washington Monument, are restricted to a footprint of 800 square feet (74.3 square meters) and are supposed to target a specific market.
Scores of teams applied to compete in this year's decathlon, but only 20 were accepted, including Team Beausoleil from the University of Louisiana, which built a house inspired by Cajun culture and facts of life in the southern US state, such as hurricanes.
The 5.5-inch (14-centimeter) insulated walls can resist winds of 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour, and the insulation would also "cut your energy rate by about half if the house's solar panels were not producing for the home," said Catherine Guidry, one of the students working on the home.
The house featured a porch -- almost a requirement in laid-back Louisiana -- with moveable doors so it can be closed off on all sides or open on two sides. Plants indigenous to Louisiana thrived in planters in the small garden.
"We wanted it to feel like Louisiana from the inside and outside," Guidry told AFP.
Team Germany, winner of the 2007 decathlon, has reconstructed a house whose exterior walls and louvered windows are covered with small integrated solar panels.
Like the Spanish team's abode, which features a large, raised moveable solar panel on the roof, the house was shipped across the Atlantic Ocean for the competition.
The entry from Cornell University students in New York state features three corrugated steel cylinders and walls insulated with five inches of soy-based foam and sky-lights in all three cylindrical rooms.
The house is visually striking and, according to Cornell architecture student Chris Werner, can hold its own in a new category in this year's decathlon -- the "net metering" contest, which measures the energy a house produces for or takes from the electricity grid during the competition.
Even the heat that gets trapped in the structure's steel exterior is used to heat water, said Werner.
And when Cornell put its house through its paces at last month's New York state fair, it achieved "net-zero or better the entire time," meaning it is efficient enough to not require energy from the grid, according to Werner.
After two years of work on their houses plus nearly two weeks of constructing and competing, the winners will take home "bragging rights and lots of good feelings about the last two years of our lives," he said.
They will also take home a little culinary insight into the regions represented by other competitors because the "home entertainment" category of the decathlon requires teams to cook dinner for members of rival line-ups.
The German team's menu will feature dumplings known as knoedeln, but no sauerkraut, said Sardika Meyer, a spokeswoman for the team.
No German beer either -- alcohol is banned at the competition.
The University of Arizona team, whose house is made up of four modules that look like glass-domed funicular railway cars, plans to treat guests to tamales -- the Mexican answer to chapatis -- filled with dried, shredded beef known as "machaca" and a cactus salsa.
And Team Beausoleil will serve up Louisiana specialties, including gumbo and bread pudding -- but has ditched the idea of serving fried alligator.
"We thought it might scare away the neighbors," said Geoff Gjertson, the team's faculty advisor.
Seeking an Olympian achievement on climate change
A home destroyed by beach erosion in the Alaskan village of Shishmaref. It was evacuated because of global warming.
Next time, he should aim higher: He should try to help save the planet from global warming.
In December, representatives from 190 countries will meet in Copenhagen to start hammering out a new climate change treaty.
It’s crucial that those negotiations not meet the same fate as Chicago’s failed Olympic bid.
The evidence of man-made global warming is simply overwhelming, as virtually every national climatology and scientific society — including the U.S. National Academies of Science and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — have acknowledged. The planet is warming. The pace of change is occurring faster than even the worst-case scenarios had predicted.
To avoid the most serious consequences, developed and developing nations must act together to significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
The only reasonable hope of achieving that is a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Climate Accord, which will expire in 2012.
Mr. Obama clearly would have something to brag about at the meeting. He can point to significant efforts to curtail carbon-dioxide emissions, including two that have occurred in the last week.
Among those efforts are new regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions that were proposed last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
And a new bill introduced in the Senate would create market-based controls on carbon-dioxide emissions. The House already has passed a similar measure.
The new EPA regulations would apply to big power plants, oil refiners and manufacturing facilities that each release more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s the amount that would be generated by burning 131 rail cars of coal.
Those facilities together account for about 70 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. It is both logical and productive to start by regulating them.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced agreements with automakers that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks. That rule will take effect next year.
The Senate bill and proposed new EPA rules are not likely to win quick approval.
Industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is spearheading the opposition, already have begun running ads against the cap-and-trade bill.
But the chamber has suffered some high-profile defections as a result of its obstructionist efforts. Three large utility companies, the computer maker Apple and shoe giant Nike have resigned from the chamber in recent weeks.
Even without final approval of a cap-and-trade bill, Mr. Obama’s efforts to curtail U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will give him vastly more international influence when negotiators begin shaping details of the new agreement.
He probably will need it.
World leaders paid lip service to the need for reform during a U.N. summit on climate change in New York last month. But that rhetoric wasn’t matched by performance.
Channeling former President George W. Bush, China’s Hu Jintao pledged to reduce the “carbon intensity” of his country’s economy. Together, China and the United States account for about 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite the obstacles, Mr. Obama should do what it takes — including making a personal appeal — to move reluctant world leaders to reach an agreement.
Compared to the catastrophic environmental changes that scientists say climate change can unleash, another trip to Copenhagen is a small price to pay.
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