Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Norway’s $860 Billion Fund Drops 52 Companies Linked to Coal
April 17th, 2016Via: Bloomberg: Norway’s $860 billion sovereign wealth fund unveiled the first list of miners and power producers to be excluded from its portfolio following a ban on coal investments. The 52 companies being barred include American Electric Power Co. Inc., China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd., Whitehaven Coal Ltd., Tata Power Co. and Peabody Energy Corp., […]
Japan Prepares for Release of Tritium from Fukushima Plant
April 12th, 2016Via: Japan Today: To dump or not to dump a little-discussed substance is the question brewing in Japan as it grapples with the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima five years ago. The substance is tritium. The radioactive material is nearly impossible to remove from the huge quantities of water used to cool melted-down […]
Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels
April 6th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Bloomberg: Wind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable. While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as […]
Dutch Government Considering Only Allowing Electric Vehicle Sales Starting in 2025
April 3rd, 2016I’d like to see people buying EVs, but not because that’s their only choice. I’m guessing that by 2025, electric vehicles will not only outperform gas models in every metric, they will be cheaper to buy, operate, maintain and insure. No maniac nanny state legislation necessary. Via: Electrek: After India evaluating a scheme for all […]
New Zealand: Council in Drought Prone Canterbury Consents to Foreign Company Extracting 40 Billion Litres of Water
April 3rd, 2016Meanwhile, west of Whangarei, Golden Bay and Hastings… Now that the New Zealand milk bubble has busted: How about water? Via: Stuff: A council in the drought-prone Canterbury plains is selling the right to extract 40 billion litres of pure, artesian water to a bottled water supplier. The Ashburton District Council is selling a section […]
Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant Leaking Tritium Into Biscayne Bay
March 9th, 2016Via: Miami Herald: A radioactive isotope linked to water from power plant cooling canals has been found in high levels in Biscayne Bay, confirming suspicions that Turkey Point’s aging canals are leaking into the nearby national park.
Fukushima Disaster Nearly Destroyed Japan, Government Nuclear Safety Adviser Majored in Economics
March 5th, 2016Most nuclear power plants in Japan remain offline. Via: NZ Herald: Japan’s prime minister at the time of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has revealed the country came within a “paper-thin margin” of a nuclear disaster requiring the evacuation of 50 million people. In an interview to mark the fifth anniversary of the disaster, Naoto […]
Zika: Gene Drive
February 8th, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review: A controversial genetic technology able to wipe out the mosquito carrying the Zika virus will be available within months, scientists say. The technology, called a “gene drive,” was demonstrated only last year in yeast cells, fruit flies, and a species of mosquito that transmits malaria. It uses the gene-snipping technology CRISPR […]
More Babies Are Being Born with Organs Outside Their Bodies, and Experts Have No Idea Why
January 25th, 2016Related? Pesticides in Paradise: Hawaii’s Spike in Birth Defects Puts Focus on GM Crops: At a Starbucks just outside Honolulu, Sidney Johnson, a pediatric surgeon at the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children who oversees all children born in Hawaii with major birth defects and operates on many, says he’s been thinking about pesticides […]
The Planet’s Fisheries Are In Even Worse Shape Than We Thought
January 20th, 2016Via: Huffington Post: The world’s oceans have been overfished far more than reported, according to a new study. The report, published in the journal Nature Communications, reanalyzed worldwide catch data and compared it to information that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations uses. Researchers found that from 1950 to 2010, up to […]
