The environment in the news friday, 09 July, 2010

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  The New York Times: Sudden Surplus Calls for Quick Thinking
  
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  The New York Times: Heat Islands: Cities Heat Quickly, Cool Slowly
  
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  Associated Press : East Coast seeks respite as temps soar above 100
  
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  Alaska’s News Source: Scorching temperatures returning to wilted East
  
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  The Toronto Star : Even the trains in the U.S. are feeling the heat
  
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  The Toronto Star: It’s hotter than they say
  
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  The Toronto Star: Pickering nuclear plant ordered to quit killing fish
  
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  Los Angeles Times: Oceans' growing carbon dioxide levels may threaten coral reef fish
  
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  Los Angeles Times: DWP scales back its Owens Lake solar test
  
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  Discovery News: Is Global Warming Causing the Heatwave?
  
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  Climate Wire: Researchers rush to fill Noah's ark seed bank while politicians bicker
  
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  Climate Wire: Calif. utility joins bid to defend climate law
  
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  Climate Wire: Smog contributes to drought -- research
  
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  Climate Wire: Leaked memo shows Canada isn't phasing out fossil fuel incentives
  

U.S. coverage:

The New York Times, 7 July 2010, by Matthew L. Wald

Engineers say that if the power grid becomes more reliant on renewable energy, a lot of new transmission lines will have to be built at some point or there will be unhappy consequences. Mostly this problem has been predicted rather than experienced. But the future may have arrived last month, when the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that oversees power transmission in the Pacific Northwest, had more energy than it could comfortably use.

The BPA is accustomed to a surplus of hydroelectric power in the spring, as the winter snow pack melts. Last winter there was only about 60 percent as much snow as usual, according to energy experts. But in the late spring heavy rain arrived. Unlike snow melt, which can be predicted by temperature, rainwater gives little warning. And suddenly there was a surplus.

“This year was a little more severe and a little more unexpected,’’ said Michael C. Milstein, a spokesman for the power administration.

In a normal spring, the BPA first shuts down its fossil-powered plants, then exports as much as it can so its neighbors can do the same. This year, he said, “we were essentially asking other utilities to shut down their thermal plants, and most of the coal and gas plants in the region were shut down. They were taking low or no-cost power from us.’’

When it runs out of neighbors that can take the power, the BPA can also let the extra water run down the dams’ spillways, bypassing the power-producing turbines. But that turns out to pose an environmental problem. Water that goes down the spillway gets frothy, and the excess air bubbles can kill salmon and steelheads, an endangered species in the upper Columbia River. So the BPA solved the problem by running all the water through the turbines, making power it didn’t need, Mr. Milstein said.

But beginning around June 8, the rainwater arrived along with an excess of wind power coming from the same storms that brought the rain. Pushing all the power it could to its neighbors, BPA had to turn to the only nuclear plant in the neighborhood, the Columbia Generating Station, and ask the operators to scale back.

This is unusual: nuclear plants are designed to run at 100 percent power and have trouble changing their power settings. “It turns out 100 percent till you shut it down to refuel,’’ said Rochelle Olson, a spokeswoman for the plant.

Columbia is accustomed to reducing power to 85 percent and sometimes 60 percent. In the following days, however, BPA asked the plant operators to go down to just 22 percent. “This year was extraordinary because it all came so heavy and so fast,’’ Mr. Milstein said.

Nuclear operators dislike running at partial power for several reasons. In some cases it makes for less efficient use of the uranium fuel. And one way that they justify their high construction cost is by running as many hours of the year as possible. Some new plant designs are intended to run at partial power at times, but existing plants are not made that way.

The problem seems poised to get worse. BPA is rapidly adding wind power, mostly to meet the renewable portfolio standard in California. But when more spring wind combines with spring runoff, there will be surpluses that cannot be exported over existing power lines, industry officials say.

The BPA is preparing a major report on the event, which lasted until June 13, and will look for solutions. “Maybe transmission lines are where to go next, or the smart grid,’’ Ms. Olson said.

In fact, Mr. Milstein said discussions were under way about beefing up connections to California. Another possibility is asking thousands of homeowners to let their electric companies take control of their electric water heaters, he added. When surplus power exists, the water heaters could heat the water hotter than normal, in effect turning them into storage batteries.

But for now, he said, “we happen to have all these renewable resources, and sometimes they don’t work exactly like we’d want them to.’’

The New York Times, 7 July 2010, by the Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- The high temperatures blanketing the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the country are making many people miserable. But those in New York City, Philadelphia and other dense, built-up areas are getting hit with the heat in a way their counterparts in less developed places aren't.

It's called the heat island effect.

Cities absorb more solar energy during the day and are slower to release it after the sun sets. That makes for uncomfortable nights and no real relief from the heat.

Because the cities haven't cooled down as much overnight, mornings are warmer and the thermometer goes right back up when the sun starts shining again.

Geography professor William Solecki says not getting that nighttime relief can make the high temperatures even more difficult for people to take.

6 July 2010, by David B. Caruso and Jim Fitzegerald, Associated Press Writers

It was also over 100 in cities from Richmond, Va., to Boston, and Providence, R.I., and Hartford, Conn., also set records.

With people cranking up the air conditioning, energy officials said there was tremendous demand for electricity, but the grid didn't buckle.

Few power problems were reported and the operators of the regional electrical systems that serve the Mid-Atlantic, New England and New York said they had ample capacity. Usage appeared to be falling just short of records set throughout the Northeast during a major heat wave in 2006.

Still, it was oppressive.

On the baking streets of the Bronx, 14-year-old Miguel Pena and 13-year-old Vincent Quiles walked their bicycles up a steep hill, white handkerchiefs around their heads to keep the sweat from their eyes.

"Man, this stinks," Miguel said. "We just got out of school and this is supposed to be when we have fun, but this is too much. We thought it would be cooler on the bike, but now we're going home. It's just too hot."

"You can't breathe out here," Vincent added.

In downtown Philadelphia, pedestrians and drivers appeared to move a little more slowly in the heat, which combined high humidity with clear sunny skies that made sidewalks hot and asphalt sticky.

"Hydrate," President Barack Obama reminded a group of reporters as they left the Oval Office at the White House.

Meteorologists in some places began calling the hot stretch a heat wave, a phenomenon defined in the Northeast as three consecutive days of temperatures of 90 or above. New Jersey's largest city, Newark, handily beat that threshold, hitting 100 for the third day in a row. Temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic region are expected to be in the high 90s to 100 again on Wednesday.

It was so hot that even machines had to slow down. Transportation officials cut the speed of commuter trains in suburban Washington when the tracks got too hot. Extreme heat can cause welded rails to bend under pressure.

Workers at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J., used tubs of ice cubes to help four sick or weakened seals keep cool.

It wasn't much easier on animal lovers. In Massachusetts, Katie Wright was determined to follow through on her promise to take her children to a zoo.

"It's pretty ridiculous," Wright said as her 3-year-old son Jackson and 2-year-old daughter Emery watched owls and hawks at the Massachusetts Audubon's Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary in Lincoln. "But we wanted to get out, so we brought hats, sunscreen, extra water and then promised the kids lunch at an air-conditioned restaurant."

At his Manhattan newsstand, a steel kiosk that soaks up sun like a sponge, vendor Sam Doctor said the only way to keep cool was to splash his head with water, but he acknowledged that his system wouldn't last. Both of his soda-cooling refrigerators had already conked out by midmorning.

"When it's 100 degrees out there, it's 110 in here," he said, still smiling as he served customers.

In Philadelphia, where the temperature was in the 80s before 7 a.m., 45-year-old Davey Adams waited in a subway station that was stagnant even before the morning commute began in earnest. He had spent the weekend in air-conditioned bliss at his son's house in New Jersey but had to return to his job Tuesday as a forklift driver in a warehouse.

He said he planned to use "cold water and a washcloth" draped over his head to keep cool.

In New York, 13 firefighters were treated at a hospital after suffering dehydration and exhaustion while battling a blaze in Queens. The 42-year-old lieutenant governor of Massachusetts spent Monday night in a hospital after marching in five parades in 90-degree heat.

Deaths blamed on the heat included a 92-year-old Philadelphia woman whose body was found Monday and a homeless woman found lying next to a car Sunday in suburban Detroit.

Even Queen Elizabeth II, a familiar visitor to exotic and steamy places, was subject to the grueling heat on her first visit to New York City in more than three decades.

Dressed in a summery floral dress and hat, the 84-year-old monarch paid tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, placing a wreath of flowers and chatting with victims' relatives.

"She's beautiful. She looks like she could be anybody's grandmother," said Debby Palmer, who lost her husband, Battalion 7 Chief Orio Palmer. "And she looks like royalty, because we're all sweating and she was quite the lady — no sweat whatsoever! Her lipstick was just so."

There was no end in sight.

The hot air is "sitting over the top of us, and it's not really going to budge much for the next day or two," said Brian Korty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Camp Springs, Md. After that, he said, a system coming in off the Atlantic Ocean would bring in cooler weather.

A certain segment of the public might look at the thermometer and blame global warming, but the two things aren't necessarily related, said Gavin Schmidt, at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University.

"One winter, one heat wave, one snowstorm is not significant. You need statistics over a decade," he said, noting that day-to-day weather and global temperature are two different things.

That said, he added, "the planet is getting warmer. 2000-2009 was the warmest since the 1850s. And the last 12 months seem to be the warmest."

So get used to it.

Scorching temperatures returning to wilted East

Alaska’s News Source, 6 July 2010, by JOANN LOVIGLIO, Associated Press Writer

The crux of the deadly heat was situated over the Philadelphia area, where an excessive heat warning was put into effect until 8 p.m. The National Weather Service said high humidity levels could make it feel as hot as Tuesday, when temperatures topped 100.

Sue Robels, 22, was getting out of the heat at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute science museum for an exhibit on Cleopatra.

"My apartment isn't air conditioned, so it's going to be museums, movies, Starbucks, anywhere else but at home today," she said.

It was already 71 degrees, hazy and humid before 7 a.m. Wednesday at a golf course in suburban Albany, N.Y., where gardener Sarah Breglia was bracing for another sweltering work day. She said her strategy was to drink lots of fluids and rely on water stations scattered around the Guilderland golf course.

"I try to stay in the shade in the afternoon," she said. "We do all the areas in the sun, all the sweeping, cleaning up, as early as possible. In the afternoon, we try to keep it cool."

Scattered power outages have affected customers up and down the coast and usage approached record levels. In the Washington, D.C., area, nearly 1,000 customers were without power Wednesday, while New Jersey's largest utility, Public Service Electric&Gas, reported about 6,500 customers without electricity. Consolidated Edison in New York said it was working to restore power to about 6,300 customers, down from outages to 18,700 customers Tuesday.

The heat also hampered train travel and forced nursing homes with power problems to evacuate. On New York's Long Island, the Red Cross said local merchants would help to distribute free bottled water to day laborers.

Tatiana Solis, 17, was getting ready to deliver newspapers Wednesday in New York City, where forecasters predicted a high of up to 99 degrees.

"I have asthma and when it's hot, it's too exhausting," she said. "I can't breathe."

Transportation officials cut the speed of commuter trains in suburban Washington, D.C., and New York when the tracks got too hot. Extreme heat can cause welded rails to bend under pressure. Some train service to New Jersey was canceled.

Rail riders in New Jersey and Maryland were advised to expect delays again Wednesday. Philadelphia's transit system said it was slowing trains to reduce the amount of electricity needed to run them.

In Park Ridge, N.J., police evacuated a nursing home and rehabilitation center after an electrical line burned out Tuesday evening. Patients from the nursing home and rehabilitation center were taken to hospitals and other nursing homes until power was restored Wednesday morning.

In Baltimore, a resident of the 190-bed Ravenwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center called 911 on Tuesday to complain of stifling temperatures, and paramedics discovered the air conditioning hadn't worked since Friday. Some residents gathered in an air-conditioned multipurpose room, but paramedics moved 40 of them elsewhere.

Residents of two Rhode Island beach towns, Narragansett and South Kingstown, were hit with an added layer of inconvenience: They were banned from using water outdoors and were asked to boil and cool their water before using it. The high temperatures combined with the busy holiday weekend for tourists created higher-than-expected demand, causing water pressure to drop and increasing the chance of contamination.

In Boston, the sweltering temperatures pushed a window-washing company to adjust its hours.

Victor Cruz, 24, usually starts his day with Cliffhangers Inc. at 6:45 a.m. But on Wednesday, he was washing ground floor doors and windows at Boston's Intercontinental Hotel starting at 4 a.m., so his day would end at noon, instead of 3:30 p.m.

"It's just exhausting," Cruz said, pining for the days he used to work in a bank. "I actually took Tuesday off because it was just too hot. When it's like this we'll sit in the van every so often with the air conditioner on for a few minutes just to cool down."

Deaths blamed on the heat included a 92-year-old Philadelphia woman whose body was found Monday and a homeless woman found lying next to a car Sunday in suburban Detroit.

Tuesday's hot weather broke records for the day in New York, where it hit 103, and in Philadelphia, where it reached 102.

Those cities and other dense, built-up areas are getting hit with the heat in a way their counterparts in suburbs and rural areas aren't. Cities absorb more solar energy during the day and are slower to release it at night.

With people cranking up the air conditioning Tuesday, energy officials said there was tremendous demand for electricity, but the grid didn't buckle. Usage appeared to be falling just short of records set throughout the Northeast during a 2006 heat wave.

Meteorologists in some places began calling the current hot stretch a heat wave, defined in the Northeast as three consecutive days of temperatures of 90 or above. New Jersey's largest city, Newark, handily beat that threshold, hitting 100 for the third day in a row. Temperatures throughout the Mid-Atlantic region were expected to be in the high 90s to 100 again Wednesday.

Even the trains in the U.S. are feeling the heat

The Toronto Star, 7 July 2010, by REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi

Much like Toronto and other parts of central Canada, extreme heat and humidity have draped the northeastern U.S. this week, pushing power companies to crank up power to cool the sticky masses.

The crux of the heat Wednesday was situated over the Philadelphia area, where an excessive heat warning was put into effect until 8 p.m. The National Weather Service said high humidity levels could make it feel as hot as Tuesday.
Tuesday’s hot weather broke records for the day in New York, where it hit 40C, and in Philadelphia, where it reached 39C.
Deaths blamed on the heat included a 92-year-old Philadelphia woman whose body was found Monday and a homeless woman found lying next to a car Sunday in suburban Detroit.

Scattered power outages have affected customers up and down the country’s eastern coast, and usage was approaching record levels. With people cranking up the air conditioning Tuesday, energy officials said there was tremendous demand for electricity but the grid didn’t buckle. Usage appeared to be falling just short of records set throughout the northeastern U.S. during a major heat wave in 2006.

It was so hot Tuesday that even machines had to slow down. Transportation officials cut the speed of commuter trains in suburban Washington, D.C., and New York when the tracks got too hot. Extreme heat can cause welded rails to bend under pressure. Some train service to New Jersey was cancelled.
It’s hotter than they say

The Toronto Star, 6 July 2010, by Joanne Wong

As it turns out, our complaints about the heat do have some merit.

David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, said temperatures reported on forecasts are actually measured in the shade. This means, depending on the intensity of the sun, you may be feeling an extra 6 to 8 degrees Celsius if you happen to be walking on the sunny side of the street.

So the 44C the humidex hit on Monday would have felt more like 50C had you been strolling down Yonge St. with the sun blazing down on you, said Phillips.

He explained that the measurement is taken in the shade because if the sun were shining on the thermometer and a cloud covered the area, the temperature shown would drop by about 8 degrees, then jump by 7 after the cloud passed. Since reported temperatures would bounce up and down, “homogeneous, uniform kind of conditions” — in a shaded, well-ventilated box — are needed for a thermometer.

The public is thus advised to remain in the air-conditioned indoors or at least shaded areas to avoid the extra heat stress to the body.

But relief is in sight. The rain forecast for Friday is expected to herald a “glorious” weekend of dryer, cooler weather with 28C highs and 17C lows.

Phillips said last year’s cooler summer temperatures delighted some older folks but became a “bummer of a summer” for the younger generation who had plans for camping and patio parties.

“This summer is making up for that part of the population that felt cheated the last two,” he said.

The summer should turn out to be hotter than normal, and similar heat waves will likely hit the city in the coming weeks, Phillips said.

However, future bouts should have less of a health impact because Torontonians will be used to it and know which cool places to seek out, he said.

“Just like how the first day of snow in the winter brings chaos on the roads, but by February we are all veterans since we’ve found where the snow tires are.”

Hopefully the mention of snow cooled you down a little.

Pickering nuclear plant ordered to quit killing fish

The Toronto Star, 6 July 2010, by Carola Vyhnak

The Pickering nuclear power plant is killing fish by the millions.

Close to one million fish and 62 million fish eggs and larvae die each year when they’re sucked into the water intake channel in Lake Ontario, which the plant uses to cool steam condensers.

The fish, which include alewife, northern pike, Chinook salmon and rainbow smelt, are killed when they’re trapped on intake screens or suffer cold water shock after leaving warmer water that’s discharged into the lake.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has told Ontario Power Generation, which operates the plant, to reduce fish mortality by 80 per cent. And in renewing Pickering A station’s operating licence last month, the nuclear regulator asked for annual public reports on fish mortality and the effectiveness of steps OPG is taking to reduce rates.

“Quite clearly we were talking about a lot of fish,” says a spokesperson for the commission, adding that while the kill has been going on “forever,” environmental issues were only recently added to licensing considerations.

But while the requirement for regular reports is a “huge start,” says an environmental watchdog, OPG hasn’t done enough to stop what he calls the “biggest killer of fish on the lake.”

A 610-metre barrier net it has strung in front of the channel is insufficient because it’s removed in winter and “does nothing about thermal pollution and nothing about larvae and eggs,” says Mark Mattson, president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, a grassroots charity working to protect the health of the lake.

“This is important to the lake’s ecosystem — the birds and people who eat the fish, and the commercial fishery,” he said in an interview. “What a terrible precedent it is that one of the biggest public corporations can just ignore the rules for fish and fish habitat in Canada.”

Mattson calls the plant’s cooling system the worst of available technologies.

“It sucks in clean water along with fish, eggs and larvae, then spits it back at close to hot-tub temperatures.”

The combined thermal plume from Pickering stations A and B ranges from 150 to 800 hectares at the water surface year round, and 50 to 300 hectares at the bottom during cold weather, he said.

But OPG denies plant operations are having an adverse effect on aquatic life or habitat and maintains there’s no evidence that thermal emissions are killing fish.

The agency installed the net and is monitoring mortality rates and lake temperatures because “we’re always looking for ways to reduce the impact on the environment,” said spokesperson Ted Gruetzner.

After four months, it’s too soon to say how effective the net is, but already fewer large fish are being seen. Small swimmers can still get through.

Installed last October, the net was removed for the winter because of the risks to divers doing maintenance work, Gruetzner explained, adding that fish are less likely to enter the channel in cold weather.

Noting that OPG spends more than $1 million a year on habitat projects in the province, he said the operator will consider stocking the lake with fish to replace those killed.

The nuclear safety commission told OPG in October 2008 to fix the problem, reducing mortality for adult fish by 80 per cent and for eggs and larvae by 60 per cent. Citing the company’s failure to protect the lake’s inhabitants, the commission called the fish kill “an unreasonable risk to the environment.”

The Darlington nuclear plant uses a different intake system that doesn’t draw fish in.
Oceans' growing carbon dioxide levels may threaten coral reef fish

Los Angeles Times, 6 July 2010, By Amina Khan

The greenhouse gas' ability to alter fish behavior for the worse points to an "unexpected potential impact of elevated carbon dioxide in the oceans," said Philip Munday, a marine ecologist at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia.

Much study has been done on the effects of ocean acidification on coral and shelled animals, but little on how the effects would manifest in other forms of marine life, said Munday, who led the study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "What we wanted to find out was how it affects those that don't have a skeleton on their outside."

The scientists put larval fish in water enriched with various levels of carbon dioxide, whose concentration in the oceans has been rising as a result of rising levels in the Earth's atmosphere. The lowest was 390 parts per million (the current level in the ocean) and the highest 850 ppm (which the scientists estimated would be the carbon dioxide level in the water by the end of the century if current trends continue). Then the scientists allowed each of the larval fish to pick a water source — one that had been scented with a predator's chemical signature or one that was clear of dangerous smells.

They did the experiment twice: once with baby clownfishes raised in captivity and once with wild-caught young damselfishes.

Many coral reef fish can smell nearby predators — a key ability, biologists said, given what an appetizing snack larval fish make for rock cod, dottybacks and other larger fish.

"They're kind of like Hershey's Kisses … everybody's after them," said Mark Hay, a marine ecologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the study.

Normally, larval fish would flee from the predator odors. But fish exposed to the highest levels of carbon dioxide in the experiment did not: They even seemed to be attracted to the very odor that should have set off their neuronal alarms.

The scientists then tested these fish in the ocean. They lopped off pieces of coral reef and moved them to empty spots in the sand, making temporary one-fish habitats. Experienced scuba divers discreetly watched each fish as it swam around its new home.

They found that the fish that had spent time in the highest levels of carbon dioxide ventured farther away from their coral and acted much more boldly than their counterparts in normal water — striking aggressively at food and exploring without trying to hide, for example. They were also five to nine times more likely to die.

In other words, merely having been exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide altered the behavior of the fish for some time after they were again in water with normal levels.

Hay said the study's findings raised questions — such as how carbon dioxide affects a fish's ability to smell and whether the findings are applicable to many other types of fish and marine life. But he said the study shows that the effects of greenhouse gases on marine life could be far more complex and far-reaching than thought.

"Most organisms don't have eyes, don't have ears — they rely extraordinarily deeply on those [chemical] cues to decide whether to eat the next thing or run from it or mate with it," he said. "Here's an example of dramatic alteration in the [biological] machinery … that would be catastrophic for young fish."

DWP scales back its Owens Lake solar test

Los Angeles Times, 6 July 2010, By Louis Sahagun and Phil Willon
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar-owens-20100706,0,3851625.story
Corrosive soil and wicked winds create unanticipated problems. So does a changing of the guard at the Los Angeles utility
Reporting from Lone Pine, Calif. —

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's ambitious plan to put solar panels on 80 square miles of dry lake bed and flatlands east of the Sierra Nevada range has run into a daunting problem: extremely caustic mud in an area where it hoped to build an 80-acre pilot project.

Preliminary engineering tests show that if solar panel platforms were placed at the southern end of the nearly dry 110-square-mile Owens Lake, they would sink as much as several inches into extremely corrosive soil.

The DWP now plans a much more modest five-acre pilot project on firmer sandy soil at the north end of the lake.

"It's going to be more challenging than we thought to do it on the lake bed," DWP engineer Bill Van Wagoner said in an interview. "But if everything pans out, the north end of the lake could potentially provide two square miles of solar development. We can always hope, right?"

The soil problem, however, is only one of several issues that have begun to raise fresh doubts about the entire project's pace and potential for generating clean energy and new jobs.

In February, then-DWP General Manager S. David Freeman made a rare visit to the Owens Valley to present the proposal to transform the lake bed and vast tracts of desert north of it into one of the largest sources of solar power in the United States.

The project, Freeman said, would generate jobs in financially struggling Inyo County, bring renewable energy companies to Los Angeles and generate more than 10% of all the power produced in California.

Environmentalists and health advocates were particularly pleased with promises that the project would save water by relying on solar panels, instead of huge pools of Owens River water, to limit choking dust storms that sweep across dry parts of the lake bed. Some of the saved water could be used to restore wetlands for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl.

But the prospects of developing solar arrays on Owens Lake have dimmed since Freeman stepped down as DWP chief in April.

In an interview, the DWP's new interim general manager, Austin Beutner, said that the utility still has plans to install solar arrays on the lake, but that the scope of that project would largely depend on the engineering challenges, cost and amount of renewable power the DWP would need from the Owens Valley.

Beutner said his plans for generating solar power include both the lake and DWP-owned desert highlands to the north and that, at this point, neither is favored over the other. Pilot solar arrays will be tested in both areas.

"We're looking at all the different possibilities," Beutner said. "This is going to unfold very slowly."

The viability of installing solar arrays on the lake bed would depend to a great degree on whether they can be designed to effectively slow the gale-force winds that sweep off the mountains to create hazardous dust storms in the region, he said.

"We have to look at what actually works," Beutner said. "Solar is one arrow in a quiver of possibilities that we're looking at, but it's certainly not the only solution."

Here in the dusty heart of the Owens Valley between the 14,000-foot Sierra Nevada on the west and the 11,000-foot Inyo Mountains on the east, that kind of talk has elicited disappointment and skepticism.

"It's a bit of a letdown," said Owens Valley botanist and environmental activist Michael Prather. "The thought of Owens Valley becoming a capital of solar energy production had triggered plans for training school kids to take solar jobs and of building warehouses and parking structures in a place where new jobs are all but nonexistent."

It is not the first time top Los Angeles officials have reneged on their grandiose plans for the Owens Valley.

In 2004, then-Mayor James K. Hahn heightened expectations by supporting an effort to hammer out a plan by the end of that year that would have eliminated the possibility of subdivisions on the 320,000 acres of watershed the DWP has owned for a century. After a tour of the valley less a month later, Hahn disappointed environmentalists by saying that he had no preferred plan and that the process would take "as long as it takes."

Although the technology exists to build solar array foundations capable of reducing sinking, coping with corrosive soil and blocking strong winds, Ted Schade, head of the regional air quality district, said, "The real question is this: Can Los Angeles afford it?"

Is Global Warming Causing the Heatwave?

Discovery News, 6 July 2010, by Michael Reilly

For years, climate scientists have been a study in extreme caution. Whenever a heatwave gripped some part of the world (like New York in 2006 or Europe in 2003), media types would call up science types and ask: "is this global warming?"

...to which the scientist would almost invariably respond: "Climate is not weather. While models suggest that rising carbon dioxide levels will lead to more frequent bouts of intense heat, individual heatwaves are controlled by a range of factors that have nothing to do with climate change," etc.

But evidence is piling up quickly that extreme heat -- like the blistering temperatures now descended across the eastern United States this week -- can indeed be attributed to human-induced global warming. And it's making scientists' natural penchant for caution increasingly untenable. Herewith, Tom Peterson's recent comments to The Project on Climate Science:

“We’re getting a dramatic taste of the kind of weather we are on course to bequeath to our grandchildren,” says Tom Peterson, Chief Scientist for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

Global warming deniers are sure to come flying from the nearest dark corner to cry "foul!" with some comment like, "every time there's a snowstorm, you say it doesn't disprove global warming, but then every time there's a heatwave, you say it PROVES global warming!"

Let's just head them off at the pass: there is some serious weight behind these claims.

First, it's not just heat. global warming has weighted the dice in favor of extreme rainfall events, too, including the floods that rocked Tennessee and Kentucky this spring. Witness Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research speaking recently to Joe Romm of Climate Progress:

There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.

And as Romm pointed out in his epic post yesterday, the ratio of record highs in the U.S. to record lows has been steadily increasing for decades. Even if one ignores the fact that 2010 is on pace to set a new high for the the hottest year on record -- that's for the whole planet, much of which is also experiencing record heat -- the overarching trend is pretty convincing:

And if we don't drastically change our behavior as a civilization soon, they're going to get worse.

Source: Climate Progess
Researchers rush to fill Noah's ark seed bank while politicians bicker

Climate Wire, 7 July 2010, Jeremy Lovell

WAKEHURST PLACE, England -- Scientists at the Millennium Seed Bank in this idyllic rural area some 30 miles south of London are racing against time to gather seeds from as many of the world's plant species as they can before habitat loss and climate change erases them from the face of the Earth.

In the decade since they started, it has been an uphill struggle against tight budgets, political whims and local suspicion. Now the toxic combination of the global recession, the rise of the climate skepticism, the failure to advance a global treaty and empty government coffers risk making it far harder.

"We are almost certainly looking at cuts. Rather than just standing still at a time when we need to be moving forward faster, we are going backwards," seed bank head Paul Smith told ClimateWire. "The problems are urgent and becoming more urgent."

"This is a utilitarian drive, not a bunny-hugging one. The vast majority of modern medicines have their basis in plants. Yet only one-fifth of plant species have been screened for pharmaceutical use. Who knows what miracle cures might be out there waiting to be discovered? But we are already losing species," he said.

"One-third of our collection has a known use, and that excludes undiscovered uses. This is a very pragmatic project," he added. "We prioritize useful or known threatened species. There are 20 species in the bank that are extinct in the wild and many more that are thought to be."

This Noah's ark for the world's flora already has in its icy vaults a total of 2 billion seeds from 30,000 species gathered from around the world, held in trust for the countries from which they came.

That represents just 10 percent of the 300,000 species that scientists calculate the world to hold. Even that figure is a guess, and likely to be a low one, at that, as new species are described and discovered every year.

'No reason' to lose another plant species

With predictions of climate change accelerating, Smith aims to raise that to 25 percent, or a further 45,000 species, by 2020. It's a tall order in the current political and financial climate, but one he insists is not negotiable.

"Future generations will judge us harshly if we fail. The loss of species equals the loss of our ability to adapt, and we have to adapt because there is already climate change in the system. This is common sense, and it is for the common good," said Smith.

"The big issues facing us all are food security, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, water security and climate change. We can't isolate ourselves from them. Plant-based solutions are part of these global environmental challenges.

"Technologically, there is absolutely no reason for us to lose another plant species. But with what is happening now, both financially and politically, it becomes increasingly likely that species will become extinct," he added.

The seed bank estimates that it will need about £100 million over the next decade to achieve its mission to rescue one-quarter of the world's plant species. It's a large bill at a time when governments around the world are facing serious financial problems -- especially that of the United Kingdom, which is a significant funder for the project -- and philanthropic sources are also drying up.

But Smith points out that the figure actually equates to just £2,000 per species.

Fearful of 'faddism'

The picture varies around the world, with both China and the United States maintaining funding flows for plant species collection, while in Africa, some projects have come to a dead stop.

In part, this is due to political changes of mind, and in part, it is because the seed bank is the main or sole funder of some of the projects, and its own future funding is uncertain.

"The financial side is the immediate problem, and the political standoff at and after Copenhagen doesn't help," said Smith, speaking of the U.N. climate negotiations in the Danish capital last year. "The politics has always been less than perfect. My fear is that it will get substantially worse. There has always been a problem of faddism in development policy."

The Millennium Seed Bank is cooperating closely with the food crop seed bank project on the frozen Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway, which holds samples of 526,000 unique crop varieties sent for safekeeping from existing collections around the world.

The drive behind the cooperation is the Crop Wild Relatives program, which is based on the premise that as food crops have been derived from once-wild species, they are likely to still have close links with them, although some key genetic traits such as hardiness and drought resistance might well have been bred out of the domesticated varieties.

So the Wakehurst Place scientists and seed collectors will index these wild relatives when they find them and therefore act as another crucial resource for the food crop scientists in Svalbard and elsewhere.

"Crops like the staples wheat and maize of today are a long way from what they used to be. Those lost genetic traits might prove vital in the coming changed climate," said Smith. "Also bear in mind that many of the food crops we take for granted now at home actually originated on other continents. For example, wheat originated in Egypt, and potatoes came from the Andes."

Mission impossible?

And some of the troubles to come are already visible.

In the United States, pine bark beetles have already devastated vast areas of woodland, and in the United Kingdom, the oak processionary moth has hit both trees and people, as the very fine body hairs of the caterpillars cause skin and respiratory problems.

The spread of both has been attributed to climate changes.

Facing the daunting array of difficulties, Smith is undeterred in what some may see as his mission impossible.

Wakehurst Place is aiming to cut its carbon footprint and its energy bill with a wind turbine, solar photovoltaic panels and a wood-gas-powered combined heat and power unit, all of which should help also raise its public profile as it continues the battle to save as many of the world's plants as it possibly can.

"My message to the politicians is this: The technological problems are surmountable. We have the networks and the momentum. The problems are urgent and getting more so. We need to scale up, not cut back. Give us the resources to get on with it, and we can do the job," he said.

Climate Wire, 7 July 2010, by Colin Sullivan, E&E reporter

SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has joined a campaign to defend the California's climate change law against a ballot measure that will ask voters to suspend it.

Officials at PG&E, which is the largest utility in California, yesterday confirmed a rumor that indicated the company would become the first major greenhouse gas emitter in the state to defend the law, also known as A.B. 32 (ClimateWire, July 2).

In explaining the move, PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee said the ballot measure -- Proposition 23 -- would suspend the climate law indefinitely and harm the state's emerging renewable energy sector. The argument refutes assertions by supporters of the referendum who insist it would halt emissions cuts only temporarily until the economic recession subsides.

"Studies show that unchecked climate change could cost California's economy alone tens of billions of dollars a year in losses to agriculture, tourism and other sectors," Darbee said in a statement. "Thoughtful and balanced implementation of A.B. 32 is one of the most important opportunities we have to avoid this costly outcome while spurring new clean-tech investment, innovation and job creation in California."

Backers of Proposition 23 counter that the measure would delay the law only until unemployment dips to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. The last time California's unemployment rate stayed below 5.5 percent for more than an entire year was for the four quarters ended June 2007.

The rate has now soared to over 12 percent, meaning more than 2 million Californians are unemployed.

A spokeswoman for PG&E would not say if the company would contribute money to the Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs campaign, which is seeking to defend A.B. 32 against a group called the California Jobs Initiative.

"We're still assessing the form of support we will provide to defeating the initiative," said PG&E spokesman Cynthia Pollard. "Any contributions we might make would come out of authorized shareholder dollars."

A spokeswoman for the California Jobs Initiative took issue with the indefinite claim put forward by PG&E and said the company is only doing what makes sense for its profit margin, given its guaranteed rate of return.

"What do they care if the utility rates go sky-high?" said Anita Mangels, communications director for the California Jobs Initiative, citing PG&E's 11.35 guaranteed rate of profit through the state Public Utilities Commission.

Smog contributes to drought -- research

Climate Wire, 7 July 2010, by Reno Gazette-Journal

Air pollution is contributing to drought, according to scientists at the Desert Research Institute in Colorado.

Sulfate, nitrate and possibly some organic compounds -- byproducts of any combustion process, including natural fires -- attract tiny bits of water moisture that evaporate before they can coalesce into rain droplets or snow. This cuts the amount of snowfall in half, and the amount of water stored in the snowpack by 25 percent, said scientists Randy Borys and Doug Lowenthal.

"Our research adds to the body of knowledge showing that, for many reasons, clean air is essential, not optional," Borys said.

He said air pollution does not create drought, which is caused by atmospheric conditions, but it does make the situation worse.
Leaked memo shows Canada isn't phasing out fossil fuel incentives

Climate Wire, 7 July 2010, by Mike De Souza, Canwest/Windsor Star

Despite promising to phase out subsidy programs for fossil fuels, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's administration continues to protect them.

That's according to a leaked document from a conference in Toronto last month that summarizes several measures from other countries to remove tax support for emissions-producing industries. Canada's submission included previously announced measures.

"Consistent with the goals set out in Advantage Canada [a 2006 strategic economic plan], Canada will continue to review its policies on an ongoing basis to ensure that they provide an internationally competitive economic environment, while achieving their aims in an efficient manner," said the annex, which was acquired by ClimateWire (ClimateWire, June 22).

Clare Demerse, associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, said the decision to not release the document reflected Harper's "decision to treat climate and energy issues as 'sideshows' at the Toronto G-20."

Last March, Canadian officials outlined several existing incentives for oil and gas companies and urged Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to "lead by example" and eliminate them at the G-20 conference. Environment Minister Jim Prentice lobbied Flaherty to take similar action in the budget.

Canada spends an estimated $2 billion a year subsidizing fossil fuel.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill coverage

• 
  U.S. coverage:
  
• 
  The Washington Post: Oil in Lake Pontchartrain stokes worries in New Orleans
  
• 
  The New York Times: Louisiana and Scientists Spar Over How to Stop Oil
  
• 
  The New York Times: BP's Hayward In MidEast Talks as Relief Well Advances
  
• 
  The New York Times: U.S. Seeks Advance Notice of BP Asset Sales
  
• 
  The New York Times: AP IMPACT: Gulf Awash in 27, 000 Abandoned Wells
  
• 
  Los Angeles Times: Oil spill reaches Lake Pontchartrain
  
• 
  The Seattle Times: AP IMPACT: Gulf awash in 27,000 abandoned wells
  
• 
  Los Angeles Times: Oil spill reaches Lake Pontchartrain
  

U.S. coverage:

The Washington Post, 6 July 2010, By Ylan Q. Mui and David A. Fahrenthold

Much of the oil gushing from the Deepwater Horizon explosion more than two months ago has washed ashore near small Gulf Coast towns that are at least a two-hour drive from New Orleans. But Lopez said he had long predicted that the leaking crude could make its way into the lake, especially after Tropical Storm Alex churned through the region last week.

On Friday, one of Lopez's assistants spotted tar balls along Cat Island, off the coast of Mississippi. By Sunday, evidence of the oil had traveled west, to a narrow waterway known as the Rigolets that feeds into Lake Pontchartrain. By Monday, tar balls were washing up near the Treasure Isle community in suburban Slidell, on the eastern edge of the lake.

Lopez said he notified authorities, who had also spotted the oil. He estimated the amount at less than 100 barrels (4,200 gallons) and said it was possible that the oil could move farther into the lake. In fact, he said, the direction of the wind could push it right up to the small beach near the University of New Orleans, where his office is located. He has tasked a staffer to begin walking the beach daily in search of tar balls.

Because the oil found thus far was a relatively small amount and highly weathered, Lopez said he did not expect it would cause much damage to the lake environment. But he said he was most concerned about the impact on the blue crabs, shrimp and fish that live in the lake when they are not in the Gulf. His group is seeking $7 million to fund a five-year impact study.

"It's a co-dependency," he said.

The wind was causing problems well out to sea as well. The area around the leaking wellhead, nearly 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, was buffeted Tuesday by strong, 20-knot winds and resulting waves that topped five feet high Tuesday. Those conditions were too rough for most of the "skimmer" boats assigned to the gulf, said Thad W. Allen, who has retired as a Coast Guard admiral but has stayed on as the national incident commander for the spill.

In addition, Allen said, the waves were delaying efforts to hook up a third siphon from the leaking well to a ship on the surface.

A ship called the Helix Producer has arrived at the site, with the capacity to increase the roughly 25,000 barrels a day (1.1 million gallons) being siphoned from the well to more than 53,000 barrels (2.2 million gallons). But connecting it to the siphon requires workers to descend to a platform just above the water's surface; if the waves are too high, the platform might be dangerously unsteady.

A National Weather Service forecast said waves are expected to remain this high until at least Thursday.

Allen spoke from BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston, where he was meeting with the oil company's leaders about what may be the next step to contain the leaking well.

That would entail removing the current containment cap, which fits over a stub of pipe leading out of the well's blowout preventer on the seafloor. This cap leaks on purpose: If oil doesn't seep out, officials fear that seawater will leak in and create slush-like "hydrates" that will gum up the system.

Allen said the next step is to replace that cap with a tighter-fitting one that would allow no oil to escape. But the process could take seven to 10 days, he said, during which oil would leak from the pipe stub. Now, he said, officials will debate when -- and whether -- to do it. He said that if the Helix Producer brings up enough oil, it may not be necessary to replace the cap.

"The question is, do we want to wait and look at the product" that comes up after the Helix Producer is connected?, Allen said.

In addition, Allen said that tar balls found along the Texas coast this week did not appear very weathered, making it unlikely that they had floated from the leaking well. Instead, he said, officials believe that they may have been accidentally carried to Texas by vessels working for the cleanup effort.


Louisiana and Scientists Spar Over How to Stop Oil

The New York Times, 6 July 2010, by John Collins Rudolf

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana supported the plan, and BP agreed to pay for the project, estimated to cost $30 million. By early June, about 100,000 tons of rock began being loaded onto barges on the Mississippi River for transport to the coast.

But over the weekend, the Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the project, citing environmental concerns, in particular the potential for the rock barriers to cause widespread erosion and the breaching of Barataria Bay’s existing barrier islands. The ruling echoed the sentiments of independent experts on coastal wetlands who had strongly objected to the plan.

Now the rock sits on 75 barges on the Mississippi River with no immediate use.

As the gulf oil spill enters its third month, Louisiana officials have grown increasingly enamored of large-scale engineering projects, like sand berms and rock walls, to keep the oil off their coast. But these projects, which demand the swift restructuring of eastern Louisiana’s dynamic and fragile coast, have brought the desires of state and local officials into sharp conflict not only with a complicated federal bureaucracy charged with protecting wetlands and estuaries, but also with an experienced and highly vocal community of local coastal scientists.

“They’re just sitting back criticizing,” said Deano Bonano, the emergency-preparedness director for Jefferson Parish, which borders Barataria Bay. “Where are they when it comes to protecting this bay?”

In a speech on Tuesday in New Orleans, Mr. Jindal said: “No one can convince us that rocks in the water are more dangerous than oil. That is absolutely ridiculous. The only people who believe that are the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., who can’t see the oil, smell the oil or touch the oil."

The scientists insist the rock plan was misguided.

“There was very strong scientific backing for not doing this,” said Denise Reed, a wetlands specialist and director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences in New Orleans. “This could really devastate our barrier shoreline, our first line of defense.”

For decades, the independent experts have worked hand-in-hand with the state and the federal government to save and restore Louisiana’s wetlands, which have lostroughly 1.2 million of acres to erosion since the 1930s and continue to disappear at the rate of 25 square miles every year.

It was these experts, along with their scientific peers in federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, who offered the strongest opposition to the proposed rock barrier. Many of those critiques were included in supporting documents released by the Army Corps of Engineers before the official ruling was announced.

The scientists explained to the corps how narrowing the inlets with rock would set the stage for the breaching of existing barrier islands during the region’s frequent storms. They warned that damage to these islands — which have buffered the impact of major storms like Hurricane Katrina — would prove difficult to repair, perhaps impossible, and would most likely outstrip any benefit to the wetlands gained by stopping the oil with the rock barriers.

Having raised their voices in objection, these coastal experts now bristle at the accusation that they are out-of-touch academics or pencil-pushing bureaucrats, as state and local officials have charged.

“It’s really offensive, I think, and not fair, to call the scientific community bureaucrats,” said Dr. Ioannis Y. Georgiu, a professor of marine engineering at the University of New Orleans. “We are being demonized.”

Yet by siding with federal agencies blamed from the beginning of the spill for a slow-footed and chaotic response — and for which resentment still lingers over the failings of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina — these coastal scientists have made themselves easy targets for leaders eager to portray themselves as stopping at nothing in the fight against the oil. For these politicians, swifter action is crucial.

“You don’t wait weeks and weeks for studies and federal permits in the middle of a war,” Mr. Jindal, a Republican, said in a speech on July 2. “You do what you need to do as quickly as possible to protect your land and your people.”

The local scientists argue that quick-fix solutions are being sold to the public with little firm evidence that they will succeed, and with potentially dire side effects being minimized and ignored. A lack of engagement of the scientific community has also bred frustration. On the rock barrier plan, for instance, coastal experts were consulted only after a local engineering firm had drafted the permit application and orders had been placed for thousands of tons of rock to dump in the inlets.

“We’ve got such a coastal brain trust here, and they’re being left out in the cold,” said Dr. Len Bahr, a coastal scientist and former director of the Louisiana Office of Coastal Activities. “To me that’s just unconscionable.”

Some coastal experts concede that the scientific community has been more reactive than proactive regarding the spill, and has often waited to be consulted on solutions rather than offering up its own innovative ideas to keep oil off the coast, a criticism that local officials have echoed.

“We want to prevent the damage — we don’t want to clean it up,” Mr. Bonano, the emergency-preparedness director, said. “That’s the big difference between us and them.”

As charges fly back and forth, the prospect for a détente between the federal government and the coastal science community on the one hand and state and local officials on the other remains cloudy at best. Even with the rock plan soundly rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers, officials in Louisiana, from the governor’s office down, continue to argue that the plan to build the rock dikes was scientifically sound, and vow to carry on their fight to see it carried out.

Mr. Jindal said in a statement Tuesday that officials would resubmit the plan.

“We’ve made countless revisions,” said Garret Graves, the director of the governor’s Office of Coastal Activities. “We jumped through all these hoops to address their concerns, only to wait a month and be rejected.”

Mr. Jindal’s office has also said the governor will keep pressing for the rock barrier.

Coastal scientists, for their part, say they are ready to start investigating other options for stopping the movement of oil into the bay.

“I just wish the energy would go into looking for alternatives, not into just banging on the table,” Dr. Reed, of the Pontchartrain Institute, said. “Laying rock across passes is not the only way to stop the oil from getting into the marshes.”