GreenEnergy4.us

BP oil spill cleanup continues, three years after blowout

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

See original article here:

Posted in alo, Anchor, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged business & technology, commander, environmental, g & f, independent, louisiana, mexico, parish, president, solar | Comments Off

Italy seizes wind and solar trove from Mafia

by paczaizmon Posted on April 8, 2013

Italy seizes wind and solar trove from Mafia

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Congratulations are in order for Italy, which last week acquired 43 wind and solar energy companies.

But this was not the result of a public scheme designed to reign in carbon emissions or put Italians in control of their energy future. It was the court-ordered consequence of an organized crime investigation — the biggest ever seizure of Mafia-linked assets.

From Agence France-Presse:

Italian police have seized assets worth $1.7bn from a Sicilian renewable energy developer in the biggest ever seizure of mafia-linked assets.

The police said on Wednesday that the assets, which include 43 wind and solar energy companies, 98 properties and 66 bank accounts, belonged to Vito Nicastri, a 57-year-old businessman nicknamed the “Lord of the Wind” for his prominent role in the business.

“This is a sector in which money can easily be laundered,” Arturo de Felice, head of Italy’s anti-Mafia agency, told SkyTG24 news channel.

“Operating in a grey area helped him build up his business over the years,” De Felice said.

It might be tempting to feel sympathetic toward a guy who pours ill-gotten funds into renewable energy. That temptation might evaporate, however, once you find out about some of the awful crimes he is accused of committing. Such as murdering his pregnant girlfriend. And it’s not just that the Mafia was investing crime proceeds in renewable energy — it was scamming the public out of subsidies intended to promote wind energy. From The Independent:

Nicastri … invested money made from extortion, drug sales and other illegal activities for the Sicilian Mafia’s most sought-after fugitive, Matteo Messina Denaro, who is believed to be the [Mafia syndicate] Cosa Nostra’s head boss.

In 2010, it emerged that Cosa Nostra was attempting to take millions of euros from both the Italian government and the European Union by snatching the generous grants on offer for investment in wind power and environmentally-friendly business.

General Antonio Girone, then head of the national anti-Mafia agency DIA, said Mr Nicastri had built up a huge alternative energy business at the behest of the organised crime syndicate.

In addition to halting the giant eco-scam, Italian prosecutors said the seizure of 66 bank accounts, as well as property and businesses, would be another body blow to Cosa Nostra’s leadership, which is already reeling from dozens of high-profile arrests in the past ten years.

So congratulations, Italians. Courtesy of the ongoing takedown of a reportedly very bad person, you have become the collective owners of some serious renewable energy generation capacity.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

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

johnupton@gmail.com

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

Italy seizes wind and solar trove from Mafia

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Excerpt from:

Posted in ALPHA, alternative energy, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized, wind energy, wind power | Tagged alpha, climate & energy, european, felice, g & f, independent, italy, national, nicastri, Ona, solar, wind energy | Comments Off

Atmosphere Independent Temp / Humidity Controller

by 0c4g78x Posted on March 15, 2013

[amzn_product_post]

Posted in C.A.P. | Tagged /, atmosphere, controller, Humidity, independent, organic, organic gardening, Temp | Comments Off

Walmart’s big push into groceries is not good for small farmers

by sssaa Posted on February 5, 2013

Walmart’s big push into groceries is not good for small farmers

By Susie Cagle

Walmart StoresYes it’s cheap, but …

When you think of Walmart, you probably think of cheap Chinese products and labor. But about two-thirds of the money Walmart spends to stock up its U.S. stores now goes for domestic products. That’s because, over the last decade, Walmart has moved aggressively into the grocery sector, and most of our food items are grown and produced here in the U.S. Ten years ago, groceries made up less than 25 percent of the retail giant’s sales; they now make up 55 percent. From CNN:

Experts say that this shift was no accident. The nation’s largest retailer adapted to fit the needs of its cash-strapped customers in the midst of a slow economic recovery. Shoppers today are more concerned with buying basics like milk and bread than electronics and apparel, many of which are foreign-made, and the retailer is shifting focus to keep up.

“Consumers have been shopping more for ‘needs’ than for ‘wants,’ and that’s why groceries are still the number one thing in their budgets,” said Craig Johnson, president of independent consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. “In return, Wal-Mart has become a needs-oriented store.”

Walmart’s crushing the competition, with higher sales than Kroger, Safeway, and SuperValu grocery chains combined. Its house “Great Value” brand boasts the biggest sales of any food brand in the U.S. To assert its dominance in the grocery sector, Walmart “leverages its scale” so its suppliers can pay lower prices to farmers, as investing site Trefis reports — which is bad news for small farmers across the country. Sure, god made a farmer, but god also made an American profit motive. From NPR’s The Salt blog:

Wal-Mart claims its emphasis on local has saved customers over $1 billion while helping farmers. But Wyatt Fraas, of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyon, Neb., would like to see those benefits and cost savings broken down.

“Unfortunately, there’s so little definition and transparency about how that happens that we don’t really know if that happens or how that happens,” he said.

Of the eight farms highlighted on Wal-Mart’s locally grown web site, five are very large farms by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition, with annual sales in the millions of dollars.

Walmart’s claim that it supports small-scale farmers just doesn’t add up. One of the retail behemoth’s suppliers says that all farms, big or small, “have to modify their operations” if they want to succeed in this new age of Walmart groceries.

But LaDonna Redmond, a senior policy associate with the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, says it’s a slippery slope.

“That’s the question: Will it actually benefit [farmers], or will the situation turn out to be one where the benefit really is transferred to Wal-Mart?” Redmond says.

Oh come on, NPR, you don’t need to he-said she-said on this one. We know who benefits: Walmart sold $244 billion of groceries last year.

Finally, there’s this greasy little nugget: While Walmart is claiming a new allegiance to local foods and sustainability, it’s also adding more fast-food franchises to its stores. Take that, small farmers.

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

Walmart’s big push into groceries is not good for small farmers

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

See more here:

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged american, business & technology, cagle, competition, food, great, independent, redmond | Comments Off

More Hill staff go on to lobby for the oil industry, because this is how politics works

by HartkePoundstone568 Posted on January 15, 2013

More Hill staff go on to lobby for the oil industry, because this is how politics works

By Philip Bump

Here’s more of this nonsense. From The Hill:

The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) has hired a pair of House GOP staffers to promote oil-and-gas development in Western states and the Gulf of Mexico.

The industry lobbying group said Tuesday that it’s expanding its government affairs staff by adding Mallori McClure, who was an aide to Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), and Samantha McDonald, who worked for Rep. John Fleming (R-La.).

“Mallori’s and Samantha’s experience on Capitol Hill, both advising legislators who not only sat on the House Natural Resources Committee, but who represent important energy-producing states primes them perfectly to advocate for America’s independent oil and natural gas producers inside the Beltway,” said IPAA President Barry Russell in a statement.

Bullshit. Mallori and Samantha’s relationships on Capitol Hill prime them perfectly to advocate for the industry with their friends and former associates.

A 2010 report found that three out of every four oil industry lobbyists had previously worked for the government.

Even considering the generally friendly relationship between K Street and Capitol Hill, the number of well-connected oil lobbyists is remarkable. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics calculates that fewer than one in three registered lobbyists in 2009 had revolving-door connections — less than half the oil industry rate found by The Post.

Officials with the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that tracks Interior Department officials who cross over to the oil sector, said they were surprised by the findings. “With these numbers, you can see how the revolving door between the Hill and industry allowed problems in the agency to happen and not be addressed,” said Mandy Smithberger, an investigator for the group.

The Independent Petroleum Association of America is one of 195 organizations and companies lobbying on oil issues. The oil and gas industry employs 736 lobbyists. In 2012, those lobbyists have cost their clients $103 million. That is more than eight times the amount spent by environmental advocates in 2011.

And that explains that.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

More Hill staff go on to lobby for the oil industry, because this is how politics works

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Original post:

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged business, business & technology, capitol, energy, house, independent, mexico, politics, samantha, western | Comments Off

Sea-level rise could be way, way worse than we already thought

by greenenergy4 Posted on January 7, 2013

Sea-level rise could be way, way worse than we already thought

By Lisa Hymas

Petrov Stanislav

Could your city look like this in 2100 (assuming it hasn’t

looked like this already

It might be time to buy that dry suit you’ve had your eye on — or start saving up for a submersible.

“Glaciologists fear they may have seriously underestimated the potential for melting ice sheets to contribute to catastrophic sea-level rises in coming decades,” reports The Independent. Here’s more from NBC News:

Melting glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland may push up global sea levels more than 3 feet by the end of this century, according to a scientific poll of experts that brings a degree of clarity to a murky and controversial slice of climate science.

Such a rise in the seas would displace millions of people from low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, swamp atolls in the Pacific Ocean, cause dikes in Holland to fail, and cost coastal mega-cities from New York to Tokyo billions of dollars for construction of sea walls and other infrastructure to combat the tides.

“The consequences are horrible,” Jonathan Bamber, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol and a co-author of the study published Jan. 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change, told NBC News. …

The estimates are higher than the controversial figures in the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of up to 23 inches (59 centimeters) and higher than the unpublished estimates being prepared for the next IPCC report, said Bamber, who is a review editor for that document and has seen the estimates.

Add this to the growing pile of sobering sea-level studies, along with recent ones about how western Antarctica is warming three times faster than the rest of the world and polar ice sheets are melting three times faster than during the ’90s.

Oh, and that one about how historic sea-level rises have been linked to volcanic eruptions.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on

and

Google+

Sea-level rise could be way, way worse than we already thought

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Continued here:

Posted in GE, LG, Uncategorized | Tagged bangladesh, change, energy, grist, holland, independent, journal, nbc, ocean, people | Comments Off

Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 19, 2012

Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay

By Susie Cagle

It’s a salty Christmas miracle for Drakes Bay Oyster Company — albeit a temporary one.

two_wrongs

The bivalve purveyor in Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco, was set to be dissolved at the end of the year: equipment dismantled, employees laid off, land vacated. This was the plan all along for the feds, who had issued a 40-year lease to the company with the intent of its expiration on Jan. 1, 2013, at which time the land would be returned to federal wilderness and cute scampering seals on the Point Reyes National Seashore.

After the Interior Department refused to extend the company’s lease for another 10 years, Drakes vowed to fight the decision and filed suit. Now it’s reached at least a temporary agreement with Interior. From the Marin Independent Journal:

Under the agreement, the oyster company which has long been a fixture in Point Reyes National Seashore may continue activities involving planting and growing new oysters in the water at Drakes Estero, avoiding layoffs of one-third of its 30 employees right before the holidays …

Under the agreement, the oyster company has withdrawn its request for a temporary restraining order and instead will file a motion for a preliminary injunction challenging [Interior Secretary Kenneth] Salazar’s decision.

A hearing is set for Jan. 25 on the injunction.

Everyone loves them some seals, even in molting season (this is saying a lot, seals), and many environmentalists — the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, other usual suspects — support closing the farm, citing the importance of pure wilderness. But many other environmentalists support letting it stay, and their voices have grown stronger over the past couple of weeks. Writes Earth Island Journal editor Jason Marks:

Wilderness is all too rare (and becoming rarer) and we need more places that aren’t stamped with humanity’s insignia.

But Drake’s Estero is not that place. Having followed this controversy for years — and having spent several spells living in Point Reyes Station, the hamlet at the edge of the park — I strongly believe the oyster farm should stay.

It seems to me the debate over the ecological impact of Drakes Bay Oyster Company is all backwards. The issue isn’t whether shellfish farming is compatible with the ideal of wilderness. Rather, it’s whether a wilderness is compatible with the pastoral landscape that surrounds Drake’s Estero …

A National Academies of Science report from 2009 said the data on oyster farm-related harbor seal disturbance was so thin that it “cannot be used to infer cause and effect,” and called for “a more detailed assessment.” A professor from UC-Davis who reviewed the Park Service’s draft environmental impact study on the oyster farm removal observed that “impacts of oyster aquaculture on birds are speculative and unsupported by peer-reviewed publications.”

Some locals say the feds even took their comments out of context, misrepresenting them as being against the farm when they support it. One kayak touring company said paddling in the estero has only gotten more pleasant in recent years, under Drakes’ new ownership. “Not only have they cleaned and improved the physical location but they offer an educational and historical component that enhances our client’s experience of the area.” The kayakers also said they rely on the farmers for potential emergency rescue.

In the meanwhile, Drakes is still farming and harvesting per usual, and open for business. And if you’re feeling crafty, you can hit up its massive piles of castoff oyster shells and DIY one of these very eco-friendly holiday trees.

Peach Tree

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

Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

View post:

Posted in eco-friendly, GE, Uncategorized | Tagged business, california, christmas, company, independent, interior, natural, oyster, point, professor, sierra, technology | Comments Off

From farm to table, we’re losing tons of food

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 14, 2012

From farm to table, we’re losing tons of food

By Susie Cagle

Forty percent of the food we grow in the U.S. is wasted somewhere between the farm, the table, and the garbage can. There’s the stuff Americans allow to rot in their fridges (though I know you dear and conscientious readers would never do that), but there’s also tons of food lost on the farm and in the packaging process.

ECO City Farms

A new study from the Natural Resources Defense Council surveyed crop waste at farms in California’s Central Valley. From NRDC’s Switchboard blog:

Results are by no means conclusive due to the limited data set, but they do offer an anecdotal snapshot of the extent of losses that occur. They found that “shrink,” another word for lost product, could be as low as 1 percent for the crops which were studied and, depending on weather and market conditions of a particular year, as high as 30 percent. Losses for plums and nectarines were on the high side; head lettuce and broccoli losses (at least where the farmer was selling florets separately) were relatively low.

This can translate to a lot of food. If just 5 percent of the U.S. broccoli production is not harvested, over 90 million pounds of broccoli go uneaten. That would be enough to feed every child that participates in the National School Lunch Program over 11 4-ounce servings of broccoli.

It also translates to a lot of resources used for naught. For example, if just 5 percent of broccoli grown in Monterey County, California (producer of 40 percent of U.S. broccoli) is not harvested, that represents the wasted use of 1.6 billion gallons of water and 450,000 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer (a contributor to global warming and water pollution). And let’s not forget about the energy, pesticides, land, and other resources that went into growing that food.

This amount of crop shrinkage is staggering. And to some degree it’s our own damn fault for picking only the prettiest produce at the store — the uglies never even make it to the shelves. The NRDC also points to other factors: overplanting in an attempt to hedge against pests or weather but that can end up costing more than a loss might have; shortages of skilled farm labor; spoilage that prevents farms from donating unsellable stuff; and the horrors of the “spot market” …

… where products are traded for immediate delivery without forward contracts. Prices vary significantly in this market, and growers sometimes face a tough decision just prior to the harvest window. Low spot prices can mean that the costs of harvesting a crop and getting it to market outweigh the revenue from its sale. When this is the case, a grower may decide to leave entire fields of harvest-ready product unharvested. These fields are known as “walk-bys” in the industry, and are particularly prevalent in years of high supply.

Yes, who said capitalism wasn’t moral?

Food waste is hardly an American problem. The European Union is set on reducing its own food waste, which is currently 89 million tons annually. A new project called FUSIONS — Food Use Social Innovations by Optimising Waste Strategies — aims to reduce E.U. food waste by 50 percent by 2025.

In the U.K., government officials are shockingly indignant about food waste. From The Independent:

Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, deplored the amount of food we waste in a speech to the Federation of Women’s Institutes last week.

He singled out the “cult of perfection” that leaves no room in our supermarkets for ugly produce, but also said the following about the Nigellas and Jamies of this world.

“Cookbooks in the 1970s and 1980s always have had chapters on using up scraps and leftovers. But this stopped in the 1990s. That is a little tiny area where you can change culture. Lots of food can be rehashed together and it is perfectly good.”

How can we shift the tide stateside? NRDC points to needed policy and behavior changes (the prettiest apple doesn’t necessarily taste better than the homely one). There’s hope, too, in gleaners, which is a much more dignified term than “freegans.” Maybe that’s because they come from France.

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