Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, has unveiled his department’s proposed five-year plan for granting offshore drilling leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. It schedules 15 potential lease sales for 2012 through 2017 – 12 in the Gulf of Mexico and three off the coast of Alaska.
European Pressphoto AgencyGovernment and industry officials from Germany, Russia, France and the Netherlands inaugurated the Nord Stream pipeline on Tuesday in a ceremony in Lubmin, Germany.The leaders of Germany and Russia inaugurate a $10.2 billion pipeline that links Western Europe directly with Siberia’s vast natural gas reserves for the first time. The pipeline will transport gas under the Baltic Sea from Vyborg, near St. Petersburg in northern Russia, to Lubmin, Germany. [Associated Press]
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey says the state plans to appeal a federal court ruling that dismissed its efforts to force owners of a coal-fired Pennsylvania power plan to reduce its pollution. At the same time, he says he does not support the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb interstate air pollution. [NJToday.net]
Over the objections of many environmentalists, federal regulators approve a $50 million installation of fabric over the Arkansas River in southern Colorado by the artist Christo. Mitigation measures attached to the decision include the protection of the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep that inhabit the river canyon. [The New York Times]
The conservationist Richard Leakey warns that Kenya has lost 60 percent of her natural pollinators, with severe implications for the country’s agricultural sector and for biodiversity. He blames harmful practices like the extensive use of fertilizer and chemicals, which enter waterways as well as soil. [Africa Science News]
Associated PressA grizzly near Beaver Lake in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
In Saturday’s paper, I wrote about the repercussions of Congress’s decision last April to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list through legislation. In the aftermath of that maneuver, viewed by many conservation groups as a debacle, some environmentalists wondered whether their organizations had gone too far in fighting to prevent the federal government from de-listing the wolf after the population expanded.
Because even the Fish and Wildlife Service believed that the wolf had recovered adequately, the legal challenge from environmentalists contributed to a backlash among ranchers, hunters and others, who turned to their elected politicians. Hence the congressional de-listing.
Now a very similar case is in the courts, in this case involving the grizzly bear.
In 2007, Fish and Wildlife Service biologists concluded that the grizzly bear and its habitat in the Great Yellowstone area had recovered sufficiently for the animal to be taken off the endangered species list. As part of the de-listing process, the species was placed under state management, with a detailed plan that was approved and shaped by federal bear biologists.
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Cassi Alexander for The New York TimesThe Tappan Zee Bridge, which bears far more traffic than it was designed for and is due to be replaced.
Replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge, which carries the New York State Thruway across the Hudson River between Westchester and Rockland Counties, is expected to be one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the New York region in coming years. Some experts have suggested including some green features, like tracks for commuter trains or a bus rapid transit lane.
Paul Feiner, the town supervisor in Greenburgh in Westchester County, also has a green idea: wind turbines.
Mr. Feiner says he wants a bridge that would “generate excitement.” Wind turbines would inspire the thousands of people who use it daily to conserve energy or embrace renewable energy, he suggests. It could even be a tourist destination.
The idea of replacing the bridge has been around for years, but the prospects for getting it done improved significantly last month when President Obama designated it, along with a handful of other projects nationwide, for “fast track” environmental approval.
Read more…
Daniel Griffin/Laboratory of Tree-Ring ResearchA cross section of a bristlecone pine with its annual growth rings.
As they struggle to understand modern climate change, scientists have long realized the importance of reconstructing past climate variability. That’s the only way to gain a sense of perspective, to understand how anomalous modern climate events are or aren’t.
Yet the field of “paleoclimatology” has been plagued by controversy, with reconstructions of past temperatures emerging as a particular target for climate-change contrarians.
The essential problem, of course, is that the temperature record that tells us the Earth is warming goes back only to about 1850, when observation stations systematically began keeping such data, and most other climate records are even shorter and spottier. Reconstructing climates prior to 1850 requires the use of “proxies” for temperature and rainfall, like tree rings and pollen grains in lake sediments.
Mark Losleben/Now comes a new installment in this literature that may be sobering for many people, particularly in the American Southwest. Led by Cody C. Routson, a graduate student at the University of Arizona, the paper supplies strong evidence of a half-century “megadrought” in the Southwest that occurred in the second century, with the driest stretch being a 25-year period from A.D. 148 to 173. (A summary of the paper is here, and readers with American Geophysical Union credentials can get the full paper here. A news release about the paper is here.)
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Associated PressA worker mopping up oil from a pipeline break in July in the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Mont.Exxon Mobil predicts it will pay $135 million for the cleanup of the Silvertip pipeline spill in the Yellowstone River in Montana, nearly three times its original estimate. The company is now removing parts of the damaged pipeline to analyze what caused the leak. [The Wall Street Journal]
Scientists set out from Cape Town on a research expedition to determine how deep-sea fishing is affecting marine life along the peaks rising from the floor of the southern Indian Ocean. [Associated Press]
Chinese state news media reports say that 10 percent of China’s farmland is heavily contaminated by heavy metals that seeped into the soil from contaminated water and poisonous waste. [Agence France-Presse]
Four North Carolina men face jail terms for illegally harvesting ginseng root in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The root, which is thought to treat problems like impotency and lethargy, sells for a retail price of about $800 an ounce, a park employee says. [The Knoxville News Sentinel]
As I wrote in Saturday’s paper, the growth of wind energy in the Pacific Northwest has sometimes resulted in more electricity generation than the Bonneville Power Administration can handle. So the agency is paying for a pilot program in which home water heaters and space heaters can be centrally controlled, and soak up excess power.
To deal with high generation from renewable sources at times of low demand, it would have to sign up thousands of households as participants. Yet the agency is also working with an industrial customer that could absorb much more.
The Nippon Paper Industries mill in Port Angeles, Wash., which makes paper for telephone books, has an average load of 53 megawatts, which is roughly 1,000 times the peak load of a typical house. But the mill’s load can run up to 73 megawatts.
One of the big electricity consumers at the plant is the pulping operation, which turns wood chips into an intermediate product on its way to becoming paper.
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Just as some hybrid cars move at low speeds solely on electricity, Boeing 737s can be made to do the same, reducing fuel burn and emissions, according to a company called WheelTug.
WheeltugAn electric motor system can drive a plane to and from the airport gate, reducing fuel emissions.On Monday, the company announced a tentative deal to equip 20 jets of the Israeli carrier El Al with a motor system that eliminates the need for a tug to pull the plane away from the airport gate.
The company sells a pair of electric motors embedded in the aircraft’s nose wheel that can be used to back the plane away from the gate, eliminating “pushback,” and then enable it to taxi out to the runway at a speed of up to 28 miles per hour.
The motors in the nosewheel run off electricity from a small engine in the back of the plane called the auxiliary power unit, which is generally used to keep the lights on and keep the plane ventilated when the main engines are turned off.
Isaiah W. Cox, the company’s chief executive, said the savings come from not having to use one or both of the main engines to taxi; each of those burns about 13 pounds of fuel per minute, or about two gallons. The auxiliary power unit burns about 4 pounds per minute, or a little more than half a gallon. In most cases, the auxiliary power unit is running anyway, he said.
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Thousands turned out on Sunday at the White House for a protest against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from the Canadian tar sands of Alberta some 1,700 miles to Texas. Opponents say that processing oil sands contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, and that the pipeline itself could threaten a precious aquifer.
Associated PressDemonstrators marching with a pipeline replica on Sunday in Washington.
Kenneth H. Thomas/Photo ResearchersOn the move in coming decades: the American bullfrog.The consequences of climate change for animals can seem very direct, as with polar bears in a warming Arctic. Others involve leaps, like the case of an invasive bullfrog: by 2080, it could splash into some of South America’s most ecologically rich protected areas, disrupting unique hotbeds of biodiversity. At least, that is the prediction of a new study in the journal PLoS One.
Worldwide, researchers have increasingly been focusing on how a changing climate has altered or is likely to alter migration patterns and the habitats that different species may find hospitable.
For example, one recent study suggests that more than a million giant king crabs have ventured into the warming waters of Palmer Deep in the Antarctic shelf in recent decades, destroying native sea life. (Colder waters may have kept these “skeleton-crushing predators” at bay for more than 14 million years, the report said.)
Another, a meta-analysis published in the journal Science, found that a host of animal and plant species were moving away from the equator at a striking speed (an average of eight inches an hour). They have moved farthest in regions where the most warming has occurred, the report said.
And then there is Lithobates catesbeianus (or Rana catesbeianus), commonly known as the American bullfrog.
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Bloomberg NewsAssorted computers at the Solyndra bankruptcy auction in Fremont, Calif.
There’s nothing like a financial train wreck to draw a crowd.
This week’s auction for industrial assets, office equipment and company T-shirts owned by the failed solar manufacturer Solyndra, which we previewed in Tuesday’s Times, was wildly successful, according to Ross Dove, a managing partner at Heritage Global Partners, which conducted the two-day event.
“We had over 1,000 people at the factory and 2,500 online. We had people from Tunisia, Beijing, Shanghai,” he said.
“Usually, at an industrial auction you get 100, 200, 300 people. We haven’t had that many people since Enron,” Mr. Dove added, referring to the 2002 auction, also overseen by the Dove family, of that failed company’s assets.
And, like the Enron auction, the Solyndra sale drew its share of ghouls attracted to the garish spectacle as well as serious buyers seeking discounts on slightly used robots, spectrometers and other industrial equipment.
Solyndra T-shirts and polo shirts sold for $18 and up. A company banner went for $400.
Monday, 1:13 p.m. | Updated And if you’re still hankering for some
Solyndra modules, eBay has some on offer.
“We sold a hard hat for $300 or $400,” Mr. Dove said. “We had bidding wars. We had items with 40 or 50 bidders. As auctioneers, we had a lot of fun.”
The highest-price single item was a scanning electron microscope that went for $270,000. (Before the auction, AQT Solar’s chief executive, Michael Bartholomeusz, told us that electron microscopes that retail for $600,000 to $1,000,000 can often be bought at auction for $250,000 to $750,000.)
The highest price fetched for a single lot of items was $1 million for a collection of spare Solyndra solar modules, according to Mr. Dove. Although Solyndra has been dogged by controversy and financial difficulties for years, it actually sold quite a lot of its products. The company shipped more than 500,000 modules over the last three years, and cumulative revenue since 2008 topped $250 million, according to bankruptcy documents.
Someone, clearly, wanted spare parts. Read more…
Jeff Topping for The New York Times Ponderosa pines, above, lodgepole pines and noble firs could become less common in northwestern forests thanks to climate change.Two new peer-reviewed studies, one about forests and the other about oceans, predict that existing ecosystems will rearrange themselves over the next 70-plus years in response to global warming.
In one of the studies, to be published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, scientists from Oregon, Montana and British Columbia write that northwestern forests removed from the climatic buffering effect of the Pacific Ocean will transform themselves to adapt to less rainfall as well as warmer temperatures at high altitudes.
Species that dominate sub-Alpine landscapes at high elevations, like the Ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine, will recede, the study predicts.
“At the same time, more temperate species such as Douglas fir, grand fir and western hemlock are favored to invade and eventually replace the current dominants,” the authors write.(The impact of beetles on forests of lodgepole pine was noted here a few months ago.)
Another study, by scientists associated with the Scottish Marine Institute and the Farallon Institute for Advanced Ecosystem Research, suggests that temperatures and ecosystems are changing even faster offshore.
A sudden rupture of a rock face in a coal mine in central China has killed four miners and trapped 50, Chinese news reports say. Last year, an estimated 2,400 people died in coal mine accidents in China as the industry rushed to meet the country’s growing energy demands. [Reuters]
Heavy air pollution over the Indian Ocean, India and Pakistan is creating atmospheric conditions that are intensifying cyclones and increasing the chances that they will reach land, scientists report in a new study. [The Guardian]
On another front, the influence of the Antarctic ozone hole on the Southern Hemisphere’s climate is slowly dissipating and will gradually be overtaken by human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, a study suggests. [PhysOrg.com]
A young great white shark that had been in captivity at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California died after being released into the Pacific a few days ago, the aquarium says. The museum has been tagging and tracking great whites, an endangered species, to better understand the threats to them. [The San Jose Mercury News]
Over the protests of its Democratic minority, a House subcommittee voted on Thursday to authorize the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee to subpoena documents from the White House related to the solar manufacturer Solyndra.
“We shouldn’t argue whether the American people, through this subcommittee, have the right to get those documents to determine what the facts are,’’ said Representative Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
John D. Dingell of Michigan, a Democrat and former committee chairman, said the authorization was “a fishing expedition.”
Solyndra, which went bankrupt in September, had received a $535 million federal loan guarantee. Industry analysts and government auditors have faulted the Obama administration for failing to properly evaluate the manufacturer’s business proposals or the state of demand in the solar energy market.
Read more…
Having heard public comments at meetings across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced its final research plan on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. The initial research results will be released to the public next year, and the final report is due in 2014, the agency said.
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The Obama administration announced its proposed five-year plan for offshore oil drilling, which calls for opening new areas in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska but bars development along the East and West Coasts.
Improper pressure and conflicts of interest have been alleged in the project, which would carry oil from Canadian tar sands to Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast.
Kweli gave birth at the Bronx Zoo only after some meticulous matchmaking. Her calf, M'bura, was introduced to visitors last week.A skittish species, related to the giraffe, is bred in captivity with a mix of patience, genetic know-how and romantic savoir-faire.
After experiencing energy excesses that could have caused blackouts, utilities in the Northwest asked consumers to participate in a program in which they store surplus electricity at home.
Environmental groups are mobilizing for a demonstration at the White House on Sunday against the proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline.
Legislation, lobbying, policy debates, regulation and international diplomacy.
A fifth-generation farmer in northern Maine shifts from corn rows, hay fields and dairy cows to growing organic vegetables and lots of garlic.
Trees, natural carbon sponges, help keep heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But insect and human threats are taking a heavy toll on them.
To prepare for changes along Washington’s Nisqually River, tribal leaders, private partners and government agencies are working to help the watershed and its inhabitants adapt.
With water increasingly scarce in the West, a new program is allowing some farmers to sell their allotment of it for whatever price they can find, but it comes with a hitch.
Felicity Barringer is a national environmental reporter based in San Francisco.
John M. Broder covers environmental politics and policy in Washington.
David Jolly covers European business and finance from Paris for the International Herald Tribune.
James Kanter covers the European Union for The International Herald Tribune in Brussels.
Leslie Kaufman is a national environmental reporter.
Clifford Krauss reports on the oil, coal and gas sectors from Houston.
Justin Gillis follows breakthroughs and policy controversies in environmental science.
Mireya Navarro covers environmental affairs in the New York metropolitan region.
Rachel Nuwer is a fall intern for the Green blog.
Elisabeth Rosenthal follows environmental developments across the globe.
Matthew L. Wald reports on national energy developments from Washington.
Bettina Wassener is based in Hong Kong and covers business and economics in the Asia-Pacific region for The International Herald Tribune.
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