Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

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Solar power subsidies go wrong even in Australia

October 31, 2010

The evidence that subsidies are inherently unhealthy and can be counter-productive continues to grow :

Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports that in NSW

HOUSEHOLDS will pay an extra $600 on their electricity bill over six years to cover the $2 billion cost of the failure of the state government’s overly generous solar power scheme. If elected in March, the opposition will have the scheme, which runs to the end of 2016, reviewed by the auditor-general so that it can decide on its future.

From midnight last Wednesday, the government slashed from 60¢ to 20¢ per kilowatt hour the tariff paid to households installing solar panel systems because the surging number of applications has blown out the scheme’s cost.

In reports tabled in Parliament last week, the government disclosed that it had been advised that even after slashing the tariff for solar panels, it anticipated 777 megawatts of solar panels would be installed by the time the scheme closed. Already, 200 megawatts of capacity has either been installed or ordered. The reports detailed the total cost to households is forecast to reach $1975 million by 2017, placing a burden on homes at a time when power prices are rising sharply already.

The government refused to indicate when it first became aware that the initial 50-megawatt target had been breached, which triggered an automatic review of the scheme. The government began that review in August. However, Country Energy, one of the largest distributors in NSW, was informing solar industry officials as early as May that the target had already been reached. Even so, the government ”dithered until August” before holding its review, with the report only completed last week, opposition climate change spokeswoman Catherine Cusack said yesterday.

‘Labor’s billion-dollar blowout will be passed on to families who will pay at least an extra $100 per year on their electricity bills every year until 2017,” she said. The total cost to families in some regional areas could be $1000.

The NSW scheme paid existing solar clients 60¢ per kilowatt hour for all energy produced; other states have ”net” schemes that pay for surplus power after domestic use is taken off. NSW had the most generous scheme – now the least. Victoria’s net scheme pays 60¢ per kilowatt hour, Queensland pays 44¢ and Western Australia pays 40¢.

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Posted in Australia, Economy, Energy, Environment | 2 Comments »

Sweden: Opposition to wind power grows

October 30, 2010

Freely translated from Ny Teknik:

Opposition to wind power is now so extensive that it can be compared with nuclear public opinion as it was more than 30 years ago. Now opponents are kicking-off a campaign with the slogan “Wind power – no thanks.”

 

Wind Power - No Thanks

 

With 20 000 registered members and a symbol reminiscent of the 80’s symbol “Nuclear power – no thanks’, the Association for Swedish Landscape Protection is growing steadily as is the opposition to wind power.
“You can definitely compare today’s opinion with the movement against nuclear power, “said Karin Hammarlund, a researcher in landscape analysis at SLU, to the newspaper “Miljörapporten”
But there is one important difference between the protests against nuclear power and the resistance to wind power, says Karen Hammarlund.
“What is causing concern is not wind power technology in itself but how it affects the landscape and social structures”.
According to Elisabeth von Brömsen, chairman of  Swedish Countryside Protection, the resistance movement has this year gained about a thousand new members, both private individuals and associations.

It is beginning to get through, I think, that with the existing nuclear and hydro power available in Sweden, the role for intermittent wind power is marginal and primarily as an exercise in the following of  “fashion”. It has little to contribute to either generation capacity or transmission security. And it is expensive.

But the nuclear renaissance is continuing steadily anyway and history will probably show the “wind story” to be little more than a diversion from common sense for a decade or two.

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Posted in Energy, Engineering, Environment, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Nuclear Renaissance continues: Germany extends life of nuclear reactors

October 30, 2010

Der Spiegel:

Opponents of nuclear power suffered a setback in Berlin on Thursday as the federal parliament approved legislation that would effectively repeal Germany’s planned withdrawal from atomic power. Now nuclear plants can stay open an average of 12 years longer than originally planned.

Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, a member of Merkel’s CDU, countered  criticism by saying: “You are at a dead loss when it comes to energy policy.” He said the Greens, SPD and far-left Left Party were scaremongering and merely seeking to gain votes. “They are placing their party interests before the interests of the country,” he said. Röttgen also stated that his government’s energy plan — which foresees 80 percent of all electricity coming from clean energy sources by 2050 — was the most ambitious renewable energy program in the world.

The Green Party, in particular, sought in vain on Thursday to prevent the vote at the last minute.

Jörg van Essen, a senior party official with the FDP, angered many with his statement that, “it has never done any parliament in history good when a party appeared appeared wearing the same uniform,” a statement he made while staring at the Greens. Members of the party were angered by the statement, which they considered to be a comparison to the uniformed Nazi members of parliament during the Weimar Republic era.

Meanwhile, members of the government accused the Greens of disobeying parliament. “The Greens need to know one thing: The greater the racket they cause, the more damage they do to themselves in terms of how seriously they are taken outside,” said Peter Altmaier, a senior member of the CDU.

The quiet renaissance is continuing in other parts of Europe as well. The Financial Times points out that:

In Italy, which decommissioned its four power stations after the country voted for a moratorium following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the government is considering new nuclear power stations. Sweden has embarked on a similar path, voting earlier this summer to overturn a 30-year-old ban on new reactors. Neighbouring Finland has announced plans to build two reactors in addition to one already under construction. In the UK, the coalition government, is also backing new plants.

Several east European countries, many of which are dependent on gas imports from Russia, are also proposing new reactors.

“Globally, there is a nuclear revival,” says Colette Lewiner, head of the Energy and Utilities division at Capgemini, “but it is much bigger and sustained in Asian countries, in particular in China, which has proposals to put eight to nine reactors into operation a year.”

For Europe’s cash-strapped governments, hit by the credit crunch, extending the life of an existing reactor is much cheaper than building a new one. In France, for example, recent estimates suggested it would cost about €500m ($697m) to extend the life of a 1,000MW reactor for 20 years. This compares with a cost of about €3bn for the same capacity from a new one that would have a lifespan of about 60 years, says Ms Lewiner.

On the fuel supply side as well companies are developing strategies and positioning themselves to take advantage of the renaissance. From London South East comes the news that:

Severstal, the largest steelmaker in Russia, has made a bid approach for its first uranium asset in Spain, seeking to diversify its mining business and benefit from an expected rise in European demand for nuclear power.

Severstal has approached Berkeley Resources Ltd about a possible takeover of the uranium exploration company worth about A$304 million ($294.9 million), sending Berkeley shares sharply higher in London.  Severstal is considering a cash bid for Berkeley, also listed in Sydney, at A$2.00 (122 pence) per share, Berkeley said in a statement on Friday.

The big due diligence question will concern the start-up of a uranium concentrate line that is part of the Salamanca project, Renaissance Capital analyst Boris Krasnojenov said. The line operated for 16 years before closing in 2000 due to low uranium prices. ‘Some people believe that nuclear generation is the future for Europe because regulation measures linked to coal generation emissions will increase,’ Krasnojenov said.


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Posted in Energy, Engineering, Environment, Nuclear Power | Comments Off on Nuclear Renaissance continues: Germany extends life of nuclear reactors

La Niña Strengthens further

October 25, 2010

The NOAA has released its annual winter outlook.

The Pacific Northwest should brace for a colder and wetter than average winter, while most of the South and Southeast will be warmer and drier than average through February 2011. A moderate to strong La Niña will be the dominant climate factor influencing weather across most of the U.S. this winter.

“La Niña is in place and will strengthen and persist through the winter months, giving us a better understanding of what to expect between December and February,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center – a division of the National Weather Service. “This is a good time for people to review the outlook and begin preparing for what winter may have in store.”

“Other climate factors will play a role in the winter weather at times across the country,” added Halpert. “Some of these factors, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, are difficult to predict more than one to two weeks in advance. The NAO adds uncertainty to the forecast in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic portions of the country.”

This seasonal outlook does not project where and when snowstorms may hit or total seasonal snowfall accumulations. Snow forecasts are dependent upon winter storms, which are generally not predictable more than several days in advance.

 

Winter Outlook - Precipitation

NOAA Winter Outlook: Graphic NOAA

 

The beneficial effects of La Niña on the Indian monsoon have already been seen this year. But after the very cold winter in the Southern Hemisphere it remains to be seen if warm and dry conditions  are established in the South American summer now approaching.

From The Canadian Encyclopedia:

La Niña normally exerts much less of a global impact than El Niño, enhancing conditions that are more or less normal. Thus, under La Niña’s grip, normally wet Indonesia becomes wetter, and winters in Canada are often colder and snowier than normal. However, the weather associated with La Niña tends to be quite variable depending on such factors as its strength, the depth and geographic extent of the cool waters and the pre-existing atmospheric circulation. Among the normal weather effects of La Niña are wetter monsoons and flooding on the Indian subcontinent; torrential rains and floods in southeast Asia and northern and eastern Australia; cool and wet winters in southeastern Africa; and warm and dry conditions along the coast of Peru and Ecuador.

La Niña favours the formation of more and intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean. Three recent La Niña periods – 1988-89, 1995-96 and 1997-98 – were among the most active periods this century for Atlantic hurricanes.

North America typically feels the effects of La Niña during the winter and early spring. Wetter-than-normal conditions occur across the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and Alaska. On the other hand, it delivers drier, warmer and sunnier weather along the southern tier of the United States from California through Texas to Florida. Northern states west of the Great Lakes generally experience colder and snowier winters. During La Niña episodes, there is also a greater risk of wildfires in Florida and dryness in the North American plains. The great dust bowl drought of the 1930s is thought to have been caused by a decade of La Niña-like conditions and was likely responsible, in part, for the severe drought in the American midwest in 1988.

During La Niña winters in Canada, the jet stream assumes its more normal mid-continental location. Because the mild air and cold air are never too far away, winters usually comprise alternating bouts of freezing and thawing. Overall, in Western and Central Canada, most La Niña winters tend to be colder than normal by 1 to 2°C, and snowfall amounts are greater than normal from the interior of BC to the St Lawrence Valley. During 8 La Niña episodes since 1950, 6 of the winters across Canada were colder than normal (2 were near-normal) and 7 were snowier than normal.

 

Global La Niña effects: graphic nbc33tv.com

 

 

 

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Posted in Environment, Science, Weather | 1 Comment »

Following fiasco in Spain, electric car sales slump in the UK

October 23, 2010

 

G-Wiz Electric Vehicle parked outside 37 Savil...

G-Wiz Electric Car:Image via Wikipedia

 

In August it was apparent that Spain’s much-publicized plans to put thousands of electric cars on the road as part of a drive for a greener economy were way off target, with only 16 sold so far compared to the 2000 target for this year.

The Guardian reported today that

Sales of new electric cars in the UK plummeted by nearly 90% in 2009 compared with their peak in 2007, according to motoring trade association figures released this week. Just 55 of the green cars – whose fans include Boris Johnson, Jonathan Ross and Jade Jagger – were registered in 2009, in contrast to 397 in 2007, says the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

The huge fall is a blow to UK efforts to meet tough carbon emission cut targets in a decade, and comes just months before the government introduces a subsidy of up to £5,000 off new electric cars.

Nearly half of the electric vehicles sold last year were the tiny G-Wiz car. The latest modelhas a top speed of 50mph and a range of 48 miles between charges.

In January, the coalition will begin offering up to £5,000 towards the price of a series of newly launched electric cars, as part of a subsidy announced by the former Labour government. The Department for Transport (DfT) anticipates around 8,600 of the cars will be sold in the first year of the scheme. The government has so far committed £43m for the scheme to run until March 2012, with a review taking place in January 2012, but in yesterday’s spending review it talked of “supporting consumer incentives for electric and other low-emission cars throughout the life of this parliament,” suggesting the subsidy would continue after March 2012 though possibly at a lower rate.

In Spain the Industry Ministry’s plan was to have 2,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2010 and 20,000 electric and hybrid vehicles operating the following year.

I cannot help concluding that most of these highly artificial “green” subsidies – whether for cars or for solar energy or  for wind turbines – are badly thought through, are chasing a mirage and will be counter-productive.

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Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, UK | Comments Off on Following fiasco in Spain, electric car sales slump in the UK

Trade war! Cerium oxide price has risen 665% since April

October 22, 2010
Phase diagram of cerium in english

Phase diagram cerium: Image via Wikipedia

Freely translated from Dagens Industri

Cerium oxide, which is used to finish semiconductors and obtained from the rare earth element cerium, has risen in price from $ 4.70 per kg on April 20 to 36 U.S. dollars a kilo on Tuesday, October 19. An increase of 665 percent.

The price rise is primarily due to China scaling down its export quotas. In recent years there has been a gradual reduction of 5-10 percent per year, but in July alone it was reduced by 40 percent.  The country accounts for almost 95 percent of world supply of rare earths and in some cases almost 100 percent.

The official explanation from China is that the  country’s own industrial needs must be met first. These account  for 60 percent of global demand. Producing earth metals is a dirty business and China also gives environmental reasons as an explanation for the lower export quotas.

But many, especially in the U.S., suspect that it is a low-key trade war.

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Posted in China, Economy, Engineering, Environment, Technology | 2 Comments »

Microbes ate the oil and now plants clean up pollution

October 22, 2010

Not only do microbes eat up methane and other oil wastes faster than expected, it now seems that vegetation eats up air pollution to a much greater degree than thought. A new paper in Science finds that oxygenated volatile organic compounds (oVOCs) are taken up by deciduous plants at an unexpectedly fast rate–as much as four times more rapidly than previously thought.

T. Karl, P. Harley, L. Emmons, B. Thornton, A. Guenther, C. Basu, A. Turnipseed, K. Jardine. Efficient Atmospheric Cleansing of Oxidized Organic Trace Gases by Vegetation. Science, 2010; DOI: 10.1126/science.1192534

From Eurekalert:

“Plants clean our air to a greater extent than we had realized,” says NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, the lead author. “They actively consume certain types of air pollution.”

The research team focused on a class of chemicals known as oxygenated volatile organic compounds (oVOCs), which can have long-term impacts on the environment and human health. “The team has made significant progress in understanding the complex interactions between plants and the atmosphere,” says Anne-Marie Schmoltner of NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funded the research. The compounds form in abundance in the atmosphere from hydrocarbons and other chemicals that are emitted from both natural sources–including plants–and sources related to human activities, including vehicles and construction materials.

The compounds help shape atmospheric chemistry and influence climate.

Eventually, some oVOCs evolve into tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, that have important effects on both clouds and human health.

By measuring oVOC levels in a number of ecosystems in the United States and other countries, the researchers determined that deciduous plants appear to be taking up the compounds at an unexpectedly fast rate–as much as four times more rapidly than previously thought.

The uptake was especially rapid in dense forests and most evident near the tops of forest canopies, which accounted for as much as 97 percent of the oVOC uptake that was observed. Karl and his colleagues then tackled a follow-up question: How do plants absorb such large quantities of these chemicals?

The scientists moved their research into their laboratories and focused on poplar trees. The species offered a significant advantage in that its genome has been sequenced. The team found that when the study trees were under stress, either because of a physical wound or because of exposure to an irritant such as ozone pollution, they began sharply increasing their uptake of oVOCs. At the same time, changes took place in expression levels of certain genes that indicated heightened metabolic activity in the poplars.

The uptake of oVOCs, the scientists concluded, appeared to be part of a larger metabolic cycle. Plants can produce chemicals to protect themselves from irritants and repel invaders such as insects, much as a human body may increase its production of white blood cells in reaction to an infection.

But these chemicals, if produced in enough quantity, can become toxic to the plant itself.

 

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Posted in Air pollution, Environment, Science | Comments Off on Microbes ate the oil and now plants clean up pollution

Microbes consume methane 10 to 100 times faster than thought

October 20, 2010

 

Structure of the methane molecule: the simples...

methane: Image via Wikipedia

 

A follow up to my previous post:

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/microbes-ate-the-bp-oil-plume/

From EurekAlert:

Microbes may consume far more oil-spill waste than earlier thought

Microbes living at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may consume far more of the gaseous waste from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill than previously thought, according to research carried out within 100 miles of the spill site.

A paper on that research, conducted before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six months ago today, will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Deep-Sea Research II. It describes the anaerobic oxidation of methane, a key component of the Gulf oil spill, by microbes living in seafloor brine pools.

“Because of the ample oil and gas reserves under the Gulf of Mexico, slow seepage is a natural part of the ecosystem,” says Peter R. Girguis, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. “Entire communities have arisen on the seafloor that depend on these seeps. Our analysis shows that within these communities, some microbes consume methane 10 to 100 times faster than we’ve previously realized.”

Girguis is quick to note that methane is just part of what spilled from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well for three months earlier this year, and that the rate at which methane spewed from the damaged well far exceeds the flow that microbes would ordinarily encounter in the Gulf.

Key to the work by Girguis, Harvard research scientist Scott D. Wankel, and their colleagues was the ability to use on-site mass spectrometry to obtain direct, accurate measurements of seafloor methane. It’s been difficult to make such measurements because most tools don’t work accurately 5,000 to 7,000 feet below the surface, where pressures can reach roughly 220 atmospheres.

Using this new technique, the scientists were able to ascertain methane concentrations in brine pools surrounding gas seeps at the bottom of the Gulf — which were extremely high — as well as in the water column above the pools. Combining this data with measurements of microbial activity, they were able to extrapolate just how quickly the microbes were consuming the methane.

“In fact, we observed oxidation of methane by these microbes at the highest rates ever recorded in seawater,” Girguis says.

Methane is a greenhouse gas, up to 60 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Gigatons of the volatile gas are produced in seafloor sediments, above and beyond that generated by gas seeps that pockmark the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and other bodies of water. But, Girguis says, somewhere between the seafloor and the sea’s surface, much of the methane vanishes.

“We found that concentrations of methane in brine pools are tremendously high: five to six orders of magnitude higher than in the water column above,” Girguis says. “Mass spectrometry has given us a window on both the amount of methane diffusing into the water column and how much of this methane is consumed through anaerobic oxidation by microbes within the brine pool. It appears the microbes consume much of the methane, and the rest dissipates over time into the water column.”

A study published in the journal Science in August detailed a bacterial species reportedly able to degrade oil anaerobically in the Gulf. But a subsequent Science paper contended that these microbes mainly digested gases like methane, propane, ethane, and butane, not oil. The Deep-Sea Research II paper adds to scientists’ growing understanding of these species’ ability to degrade the byproducts of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Girguis and Wankel’s co-authors are Samantha B. Joye and Vladimir A. Samarkin of the University of Georgia, Sunita R. Shah of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Gernot Friederich of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and John Melas-Kyriazi of Stanford University.

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Posted in Environment, Science | 2 Comments »

Resource depletion is imaginary

October 19, 2010

 

Limits of growth

Doomsaying: Image by net_efekt via Flickr

 

“Humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain”

trumpets the WWF.

Similar headlines have been common-place for the last 40 years. “The Limits to Growth” in 1972 was not the first time such dire predictions were made. They only carried on from where Malthus left off with his  An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. And before Malthus there were plenty of alarmists and doom merchants  at least as far back as mankind has lived in complex societies where opportunists could exploit people by fears of catastrophes and impending doom.

Unfortunately, today’s so-called conservationists have descended to the level of doom “merchants”. Either they are propagating fears of humanity running out of food or oil or coal or metals or water or rare earths or they are screaming about the Earth running out of biological species or of polar ice or sustainability.

But I am not convinced.

Actually, mankind destroys nothing. At the elemental level we neither create or destroy anything (except in the use of nuclear energy where some elemental transformation takes place and where some little mass is converted to energy). All the metals we use or the fuels we use are merely transformed from one compound to another and occasionally some molecules are reduced to their elemental form. The Earth as a system loses only heat (and if the global warming maniacs are to be believed we are not even losing that). The mass of the earth changes only by the accretion of meteors and the leakage of atmosphere and this change is of no material significance.

All the elements that were available remain available. The forms of compounds that we currently use and which have been created slowly by slow natural processes may well be used up. But so what? Mankind has always used what is available and when natural rubber was not enough we made synthetic rubber. We usually take what is available and transform it into the form we want. We take metal oxides, reduce them to the elemental metals and then recombine them into the qualities of steel or alloys we need. We take oil and convert it into plastics. We take plant material and make paper. We take other plant material and make oils. We take sand and make glass. We take limestone and make cement or concrete. We are a carbon-based life form. We use carbon in all its forms as diamonds and all organic materials and now as graphene for nano-materials. We take oil and make food. Nearly all the drugs we use are synthesised.

Even if we restrict ourselves to the known form of the resources we use, we cannot forget that 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. We have not even begun to see what can be found there. Even the off-shore oil and gas we extract hardly scratches the (submerged) surface. We are crowding out some particular species but keep finding new ones. The number of mammals (but not necessarily species) in existence is increasing rather than reducing. The diversity of life in the sea is hardly touched.

The overwhelmingly pessimistic view of mankind and its future which drives the current-day conservationists to their creed of “stop everything” goes nowhere. “Stop the World, I wan’t to get off” is not something for me. A strategy for humanity – like any other strategy – cannot be based on “what not to do”.

I suppose it is the difference between an optimist and the doom sayers. I see no energy crisis – only some technological challenges to be met. I see no food crisis – only some tasks to be carried out, and these tasks do not need any technological breakthroughs. The Earth and the Sun will take care of climate as they see fit and our task is to adapt to whatever changes may come and not to waste our time in any futile attempt to try and control it. We could stop using all energy today and the Earth and the Sun will still cause climate change to happen and mankind is not even a bit player in that music.

I remain an optimist and I believe in the human ability to develop technology. As educational standards improve, human population will probably increase till about 2050, then reduce slightly from about 10 billion people and then stabilise at a very slow rate of growth. This development will be dynamically coupled to our rate of technological development which will continue but where we cannot predict the rate of breakthroughs appearing. A breakthrough in transportation methods (and since the invention of the modern internal combustion engine for transport in 1862, this is now overdue) or a breakthrough in food synthesising technology or finding new sources of energy (and I do not mean wind or solar) will have an obvious effect on quality of life and on rate of population growth.

A true environmentalist must be first concerned with the quality of life for humankind. The “environment” devoid of humans is no environment at all. I wish the so-called conservationists (who are not in my opinion true environmentalists) would stop telling me what not to do.

There is no resource crunch. There may come shortages of resources in the form we are used to but I have supreme confidence in our ability to develop the required technologies to keep improving on our quality of life – and to keep evolving.

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Posted in Behaviour, Engineering, Environment, Ethics, Evolution, Technology | 1 Comment »

Earth is starting to crumble due to global warming !

October 15, 2010

 

The Peteroa (burning bushes) volcano lies at t...

Planchón-Peteroa: Image via Wikipedia

 

Alarmism is alive and well at ENTRIX and at the New Scientist.

When in doubt it seems you can always get a paper published if you put it down to global warming. The key finding in this new paper seems to be that “large-scale glacial melting, including at the end of the Pleistocene, caused a significant increase in the incidence of large volcanic sector collapse and debris flows on then-active volcanoes”.

The Pleistocene is the period from  2.588 million to 12000 years ago. But since there is no explanation for the above finding there is no hesitation in jumping to the conclusion about the present “With current accelerated rates of glacial melting, glaciated active volcanoes are at an increasing risk of sector collapse, debris flow and landslide. These catastrophic events are Earth’s most damaging erosion phenomenon, causing extensive property damage and loss of life”.

The New Scientist then chips in with the headline “EARTH is starting to crumble under the strain of climate change”.

Daniel Tormey of ENTRIX, an environmental consultancy based in Los Angeles, studied a huge landslide that occurred 11,000 years ago on Planchón-Peteroa. He focused on this glaciated volcano in Chile because its altitude and latitude make it likely to feel the effects of climate change before others.

“Around one-third of the volcanic cone collapsed,” Tormey says. Ten billion cubic metres of rock crashed down the mountain and smothered 370 square kilometres of land, travelling 95 kilometres in total (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.08.003). Studies have suggested that intense rain cannot provide the lubrication needed for this to happen, so Tormey concludes that glacier melt must have been to blame. With global temperatures on a steady rise, Tormey is concerned that history will repeat itself on volcanoes all over the world.

He thinks that many volcanoes in temperate zones could be at risk, including in the Ring of Fire – the horseshoe of volcanoes that surrounds the Pacific Ocean . “There are far more human settlements and activities near the slopes of glaciated active volcanoes today than there were 10,000 years ago, so the effects could be catastrophic,” he says.

Maybe I am just a little cynical but I suspect that the author’s environmental consultancy business would be advantaged by getting a few more studies funded and that would be more likely if catastrophes were imminent. A clear case of a conflict of interest I would think.


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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Environment, Ethics | 3 Comments »

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