Posts Tagged ‘environment’

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Microbes ate the BP oil plume

September 12, 2010

There is still some oil left of course but “the micro-organisms were apparently stimulated by the massive oil spill that began in April, and they degraded the hydrocarbons so efficiently that the plume is now undetectable, said Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory”. These so-called proteobacteria — Hazen calls them “bugs” — have adapted to the cold deep water where the big BP plume was observed and are able to biodegrade hydrocarbons much more quickly than expected, without significantly depleting oxygen as most known oil-depleting bacteria do. Long before humans drilled for oil, natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico have put out the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill each year, Hazen said.

NewsDaily reports that “A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP’s broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes”.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/13/97433/heres-some-hope-for-gulf-spill.html

The hysteria surrounding the BP accident (almost as if it had been intentionally engineered) has focused on the photo opportunities presented by oil-coated birds and beaches and has almost obscured the fact that 11 people were killed. The accident has been dubbed “the greatest environmental disaster ever” and has been used as evidence of the evils of technology. It has not suited the environmental “do gooders” to acknowledge that “green” activities cause more damage in the Gulf of Mexico than accidental oil spills.

In the media, blame and the allocation of blame has been the order of the day rather than  analysis of the mistakes made and the engineering and technical lessons to be learnt.

That doesn’t mean there is no oil left from the 4.9 million barrels of crude that spilled into the Gulf after the April 20 blowout at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. The U.S. government estimated on August 4 that 50 percent of the BP oil is gone from the Gulf and the rest is rapidly degrading.

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Posted in Alarmism, Environment, Technology | 3 Comments »

A reprieve for incandescent bulbs?

September 2, 2010

I still have hope that the Edison bulb will survive – in spite of all the do-gooders who want to be Nanny.

New research may provide the answer.

http://www.greenzer.com/blog/blog_image_store/2009/09/eu-bans-incadescent-light-bulbs.jpg

According to an article in The New York Times,

Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge

“Researchers across the country have been racing to breathe new life intoThomas Edison’s light bulb, a pursuit that accelerated with the new legislation. Amid that footrace, one company is already marketing limited quantities of incandescent bulbs that meet the 2012 standard, and researchers are promising a wave of innovative products in the next few years.

“There’s a massive misperception that incandescents are going away quickly,” said Chris Calwell, a researcher with Ecos Consulting who studies the bulb market. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”

For lighting researchers involved in trying to save the incandescent bulb, the goal is to come up with one that matches the energy savings of fluorescent bulbs while keeping the qualities that many consumers seem to like in incandescents, like the color of the light and the ease of using them with dimmers.

“Due to the 2007 federal energy bill that phases out inefficient incandescent light bulbs beginning in 2012, we are finally seeing a race” to develop more efficient ones, said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Some of the leading work is under way at a company called Deposition Sciences here in Santa Rosa. Its technology is a key component of the new Philips bulb line.

Normally, only a small portion of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is converted into light, while the rest is emitted as heat. Deposition Sciences applies special reflective coatings to gas-filled capsules that surround the bulb’s filament. The coatings act as a sort of heat mirror that bounces heat back to the filament, where it is transformed to light.

Despite a decade of campaigns by the government and utilities to persuade people to switch to energy-saving compact fluorescents, incandescent bulbs still occupy an estimated 90 percent of household sockets in the United States. Aside from the aesthetic and practical objections to fluorescents, old-style incandescents have the advantage of being remarkably cheap”.

There is still hope.

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Posted in Business, Environment, Technology | 2 Comments »

Low energy bulbs – something wrong here.

August 31, 2010

This is in favour of the simple, cheap, traditional incandescent light bulb.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/07/article-1108775-02F409FC000005DC-572_468x313.jpg

I just do not like the new low energy bulbs — they are slow and the light they emit is cold and creepy.

Their claims of 5 or 8 or 10 year life cannot really be tested (there is no guarantee of course and if you drop one its life is over immediately). They are generally bulky and ugly.

They seem to have health risks (http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Study_warns_of_green_light_bulb_electrosmog_.html?cid=8584642)

and emit more mercury. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=aa7796aa-e4a5-4c06-be84-b62dee548fda

They are supposed to reduce man’s carbon footprint but this is a nonsense on three counts: firstly switching bulbs is almost insignificant in terms of reducing man-made carbon emissions which are in turn a very small part of total carbon emissions and  in any case the effect of CO2 on climate change is insignificant. This argument is not very convincing.

I cannot help feeling that somebody, somewhere is making a lot of money from this change of regulations and enforced switch to the new bulbs. My prime suspect is the lighting manufacturers and their bureaucratic symbiotes.


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Posted in Business, Energy, Environment | 2 Comments »

Wind Turbine blades a security threat?

August 31, 2010

Wind turbines are not without their problems –they are expensive, have to be shut down for strong winds, don’t like freezing weather, need back-up, weaken the grid they are connected in to, are dangerous to transport, can be very noisy and can be dangerous for large birds.

In addition it seems they pose a threat to the military.

The New York Times reports that Dr. Dorothy Robyn, deputy under secretary of defense, has declared that wind turbines pose an unacceptable risk to national security and military training in some areas–because  moving turbine blades can cause “blackout zones” where planes disappear from radar. And in certain cases,  turbine blades are indistinguishable from approaching planes.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/19/timestopics/windpower_395.jpg

Moving turbine blades can be indistinguishable from airplanes on many radar systems, and they can even cause blackout zones in which planes disappear from radar entirely. Clusters of wind turbines, which can reach as high as 400 feet, look very similar to storm activity on weather radar, making it harder for air traffic controllers to give accurate weather information to pilots.

Although the military says no serious incidents have yet occurred because of the interference, the wind turbines pose an unacceptable risk to training, testing and national security in certain regions, Dr. Dorothy Robyn, deputy under secretary of defense, recently told a House Armed Services subcommittee.

In 2009, about 9,000 megawatts of proposed wind projects were abandoned or delayed because of radar concerns raised by the military and the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a member survey by the American Wind Energy Association. That is nearly as much as the amount of wind capacity that was actually built in the same year, the trade group says.

As a result of the military’s opposition, Horizon Wind Energy recently withdrew three project applications in the area. AES Wind Generation said it found out in May, after nine years of planning, that the military had objections to its proposal to build a 82.5-megawatt, 33-turbine wind farm.

Wind Power apart from its cost and technical issues is not as benign as it might seem.


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“Thank god for BP”:Louisiana fishermen net more cash working for BP

August 24, 2010

There is always a silver lining – for some.

The FT reports:

The white shrimp season officially began this week in Louisiana, and at this time of year 46-year-old Mr Foret, a hardened Cajun shrimper from Houma in the Mississippi delta, would normally be out on the water plying the trade that has kept him and his family since he was 13. But now that he is a BP contractor through the oil company’s Vessels of Opportunity programme, designed to employ local fishermen in the oil spill clean-up operations, he earns more consistent money, and works a lot less than he used to. “BP is a very nice fella, and this is a guaranteed cheque,” he says, pointing to a huge yellow skin or “bladder” on his boat that is used to collect skimmed oil. “I’m sticking with this for as long as I can.”

Captain Michael Owen, better known as the big “O”, has been doing pretty well out of BP. For the past three months, he and his 24-foot fishing boat have been ferrying clean-up workers to parts of the Gulf affected by the oil spill. As a BP contractor, he does not have to worry about securing charter fishing contracts for small parties of tourists visiting the Mississippi delta, the business he ran until the oil spill. Nor does he have to stress over the pressure to find fish – redfish and speckled trout – for his demanding clients. “I’m super happy with BP,” he says. “And I’m not taking a cut [in pay].”

“It takes you three days to make that charter fishing,” says a charter fisherman from Port Sulphur about 30 miles up the road. “Thank god for BP.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/former-gulf-fishermenturn_n_691451.html

Gulf Coast Fisherman

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Ethanol more damaging to the Gulf than BP oil spill

August 8, 2010

Supposed environmental solutions often create new problems.

Dead zone in gulf linked to ethanol production

While the BP oil spill has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent U.S. history, a biofuel is contributing to a Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” the size of New Jersey that scientists say could be every bit as harmful to the gulf.

Each year, nitrogen used to fertilize corn, about a third of which is made into ethanol, leaches from Midwest croplands into the Mississippi River and out into the gulf, where the fertilizer feeds giant algae blooms. As the algae dies, it settles to the ocean floor and decays, consuming oxygen and suffocating marine life.

Known as hypoxia, the oxygen depletion kills shrimp, crabs, worms and anything else that cannot escape. The dead zone has doubled since the 1980s and is expected this year to grow as large as 8,500 square miles and hug the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Texas.

The gulf dead zone is the second-largest in the world, after one in the Baltic Sea. Scientists say the biggest culprit is industrial-scale corn production. Corn growers are heavy users of both nitrogen and pesticides. Vast monocultures of corn and soybeans, both subsidized by the federal government, have displaced diversified farms and grasslands throughout the Mississippi Basin.

“The subsidies are driving farmers toward more corn,” said Gene Turner, a zoologist at Louisiana State University. “More nitrate comes off corn fields than it does off of any other crop by far. And nitrogen is driving the formation of the dead zone.”

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Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Environment, Science | 2 Comments »

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