Author Archives: Shicsshaw

Obama’s Organizing for Action Video Targets Climate Sceptics in Congress

by Shicsshaw Posted on April 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in the Guardian.

The campaign group formed to support Barack Obama‘s political agenda has launched an initiative to shame members of Congress who deny the science behind climate change.

In an email to supporters on Thursday, Organizing for Action said it was time to call out members of Congress who deny the existence of climate change, saying they had blocked efforts to avoid its most catastrophic consequences.

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Obama’s Organizing for Action Video Targets Climate Sceptics in Congress

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Fukushima Daiichi is undead

by Shicsshaw Posted on April 9, 2013

Fukushima Daiichi is undead

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was killed in early 2011 and has not produced power since. But it’s turned into a radioactive zombie, wreaking havoc long after its pulse flatlined.

Nuclear rods at the disabled plant must be kept cool to prevent them from triggering another nuclear meltdown. But the building that houses them has been wrecked by explosions and compromised by a rodent. Even pits that hold radioactive water at the site are failing.

From Reuters:

Two years after the worst nuclear disaster in a quarter of a century, Tepco is struggling with breakdowns and glitches in its jerry-rigged cooling system to keep reactors and spent fuel pools in a safe state known as cold shutdown.

About 120,000 liters (32,000 gallons) of water contaminated with radiation leaked from two giant pits over the weekend. The cooling system has broken down twice over the past three weeks.

The utility does not have enough sturdy, above-ground tanks it is building to take the water from the pits, a Tepco general manager, Masayuki Ono, said at a news conference at the company’s headquarters.

That story came out on Monday. Within a day, the situation had worsened. From the AP on Tuesday:

The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant says it has detected a fresh leak of radioactive water from one of the facility’s storage tanks.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. previously said that two of seven underground tanks at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been leaking since Saturday.

TEPCO said Tuesday that the latest leak involves a tank that was being used to take water from one of the two that were leaking. It said none of the radioactive water was believed to have reached the ocean.

Putting down this zombie might take more than a bullet in its brain. But we should probably start with that.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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blogs about ecology

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Fukushima Daiichi is undead

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How Fracking Causes Earthquakes, the Animated GIF

by Shicsshaw Posted on March 28, 2013

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Contributing writer Michael Behar has an intriguing feature today that details the science behind the link between injection wells and earthquakes. For a visual rundown of the fascinating process, check out the GIF below.

Drillers inject high-pressure fluids into a hydraulic fracturing well, making slight fissures in the shale that release natural gas. The resulting briny wastewater flows back up to the surface, where it is transported by truck or pipeline to nearby injection wells. The liquid is then pumped down the injection wells to a layer of deep, porous rock, often sandstone. Once there, it can flow in every direction, including into and around faults. Added pressure and lubrication can cause normally stable faults to slip, unleashing earthquakes.

Illustration: Leanne Kroll. Animation: Brett Brownell

Mother Jones
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How Fracking Causes Earthquakes, the Animated GIF

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Obama admin wants hundreds of tiny nuclear reactors built in U.S.

by Shicsshaw Posted on March 15, 2013

Obama admin wants hundreds of tiny nuclear reactors built in U.S.

By John Upton

Shutterstock

The Department of Energy is working on a strategy that could see as many as 50 small modular nuclear reactors built by the private sector every year by 2040. Many would be sold to the U.S. government; others would be exported and some more might even be imported.

The strategy is being pitched as a way to plug energy holes as the nation’s coal power plants are retired. Never mind all that cheap wind and solar that’s coming online, hey Obama?

From Greenwire:

“We have a vision of having a whole fleet of [small modular reactors] produced in factories,” [DOE nuclear power official Rebecca] Smith-Kevern told a regulatory conference in Bethesda, Md. “We envision the U.S. government to be the first users.”

DOE this week announced a second wave of million-dollar cost-share grants to help the industry design and license the modular reactors, which the administration defines as factory-built plants of less than 300 megawatts that are shipped by truck, barge or rail to construction sites for assembly.

The department awarded the first grants under its $452 million cost-share program to veteran reactor designer Babcock & Wilcox, which is building two small units at the Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Some are skeptical that these small reactors would be as cost-effective as the government anticipates:

Ed Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said capital cost per kilowatt — not the cost of building a reactor itself — is what matters.

“Small plants, of course, cost less than large plants, but they also generate less electricity,” Lyman said. “And with the economies of scale factor, small plants will cost more per kilowatt than large plants unless there is some major cost savings somewhere to offset this factor.”

If mini-reactors do spread far and wide, might we then start seeing some of the most darling nuclear meltdowns ever?

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

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blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

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Obama admin wants hundreds of tiny nuclear reactors built in U.S.

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Report: The CIA Increasing Operations in Iraq

by Shicsshaw Posted on March 12, 2013

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With the US military pretty much out, and with spillover from the conflict in Syria coming in, CIA operatives in Iraq are doing exactly what you’d expect them to do.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Central Intelligence Agency is ramping up support to elite Iraqi antiterrorism units to better fight al Qaeda affiliates, amid alarm in Washington about spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria, according to U.S. officials.

The stepped-up mission expands a covert U.S. presence on the edges of the two-year-old Syrian conflict, at a time of American concerns about the growing power of extremists in the Syrian rebellion. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the terrorist network’s affiliate in the country, has close ties to Syria-based Jabhat al Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front, an opposition militant group that has attacked government installations and controls territory in northern Syria…In a series of secret decisions from 2011 to late 2012, the White House directed the CIA to provide support to Iraq’s Counterterrorism Service, or CTS, a force that reports directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, officials said.

…

This shift to the CIA from the U.S. military in Iraq also is in line with the Obama administration’s goal of limiting the U.S. role in the Syrian conflict. The administration is providing nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, but refuses to send weapons, in part to avoid aiding extremist elements among rebel forces.

There are roughly 220 American military personnel in Iraq currently working for the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq—and after several military sites get shut down, the number is expected to drop to about 130.

The CIA’s ramped-up role comes nine months after officials signaled that the agency planned to cut its presence in Iraq to fewer than half that of wartime levels, when their station in Baghdad included over 700 agency personnel and ranked as the biggest CIA station on the planet. (“Right-sizing,” as Obama aides called the CIA drawdown.) Still, as senior US officials made clear last year, Baghdad will of course remain one of the agency’s largest stations in the world.

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Report: The CIA Increasing Operations in Iraq

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California town could require solar power on every new house

by Shicsshaw Posted on March 7, 2013

California town could require solar power on every new house

By Susie Cagle

With year-round high temperatures and less than two inches of rain on average a month, the desert town of Lancaster, Calif., just north of Los Angeles, seems like a great place for solar. But Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris isn’t taking any chances (which is exactly what you would expect from a mayor named R. Rex Parris).

Parris, a Republican, is “hell-bent on branding his sprawling Antelope Valley community not just as the solar capital of California but as the ‘solar energy capital of the world,’” according to Mother Nature Network.

The mayor is proposing a zoning change that would require houses built after Jan. 1, 2014, to include solar-power systems. Lancaster has long been a solar leader, but Parris is trying to take it to a whole ‘nother level, pending the city council’s vote.

From KCET:

The zoning changes would also streamline permitting for solar installations, and would implement a few other interesting requirements. For instance, as GreenTech Media reports, model homes in developments would have to display the kinds of solar available to different home designs, and developers building housing tracts in phases would need to build each phase’s solar capacity before moving on to the next phase.

Builders could also qualify by buying solar credits from other generating facilities, but they’d have to be within the city of Lancaster.

“I want to offer the builders some flexibility,” Parris told ReWire. “New developments require catchbasins for flood runoff, and the builders could put the solar panels there if they choose. Or they could use rooftops. Whatever works.”

“I believe global warming is going to be solved in neighborhoods, not by nations,” Parris continued. “I want Lancaster to be part of that.”

In an address at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi in January, the mayor acknowledged the flack he might get from the building industry: “We will just have to take the heat.” R. Rex Parris did not, in fact, drop the mic after that comment, but he really should have.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Watch: How Plastic Gets Recycled

by Shicsshaw Posted on March 5, 2013

We know that plastics are recyclable. We also know that it can be tricky to find recycling solutions for some types of plastics, easier for others, and that once it’s properly collected and processed, plastic can be turned into just about anything.

Exactly how plastics are physically recycled remains more of a mystery, but this entry in Recyclebank‘s “The Cycle” series sheds some light on the process:

Nate Lipka

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Van Jones: Keystone XL would be ‘the Obama Pipeline’

by Shicsshaw Posted on March 2, 2013

Van Jones: Keystone XL would be ‘the Obama Pipeline’

By Lisa Hymas

Activist and former White House adviser Van Jones came out swinging against the Keystone XL pipeline Friday night on CNN, warning that if it’s approved it would be a big black mark on President Obama’s legacy. His comments came a few hours after the State Department released a draft environmental impact statement finding that the proposed pipeline wouldn’t have excessive environmental or climate effects. Jones:

What happens if you’ve got the Obama Pipeline — now it’s the Obama Pipeline — and it leaks? His legacy could be the worst oil disaster in American farmland history. …

If after he gave that speech for his inauguration, the first thing he does is approve a pipeline bringing tar sands through America … the first thing that pipeline runs over is the credibility of the president on his climate policy. …

The Obama Tar-Sands Pipeline should not the legacy of the president that gave that speech.

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