Rivers flowing into the sea offer vast potential as carbon-free energy source

A new genre of electric power-generating stations could supply electricity for more than a half billion people by tapping just one-tenth of the global potential of a little-known energy source that exists where rivers flow into the ocean, a new analysis has concluded. A report on the process, which requires no fuel, is sustainable and releases no carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas, appears in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.Menachem Elimelech and Ngai Yin Yip of Yale University explain that the little-known process, called pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO), exploits the so-called salinity gradient or difference in saltiness between freshwater and seawater.In PRO, freshwater flows naturally by osmosis through a special membrane to dilute seawater on the other side. The pressure from the flow spins a turbine generator and produces electricity. 

How Can we Separate Man Made Greenhouse Gases from Those Naturally Occurring?

A research team has developed a new monitoring system to analyze and compare emissions from man-made fossil fuels and trace gases in the atmosphere, a technique that likely could be used to monitor the effectiveness of measures regulating greenhouse gases. The University of Colorado Boulder-led team looked at atmospheric gas measurements taken every two weeks from aircraft over a six-year period over the northeast United States to collect samples of CO₂ and other environmentally important gases.Their method allowed them to separate CO₂ derived from fossil fuels from CO₂ being emitted by biological sources like plant respiration, said CU-Boulder Senior Research Associate Scott Lehman, who led the study with CU-Boulder Research Associate John Miller.The separation was made possible by the fact that CO₂ released from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas has no carbon-14, since the half-life of that carbon radio isotope is about 5,700 years - far less than the age of fossil fuels, which are millions of years old.

Big Solar

Solar power tends to be big because it covers  a large amount of area with its panels.  The world’s largest solar thermal power plant  is nearly double the size of the original largest in Denmark — is now online in Saudi Arabia, reinforcing the notion that this  Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil and a lot of sunlight.   As long as the sun shines this sort of power is virtually limitless.    Plentiful sun shines down on Saudi Arabia, and the panels that allow this project to run are massive. Each one covers 107 square feet  and weighs 375 pounds . The panels have a transparent coating to enhance their performance, and they also require a special mounting system to keep them bolted to the roofs when Saudi Arabia’s notoriously vicious sandstorms hit Riyadh.  These panels have a 95% absorption rate and weigh 170kg. They are 10 square meters wide by 5 square meters long and are especially designed to withstand the desert’s fierce sandstorms.

Allowing More Salmon to Spawn Creates a Win-Win for Humans and Ecosystems

Salmon spend most of their lives in the ocean, but return to their birthplaces in freshwater streams to spawn the next generation. These annual migrations up and down the inland rivers are well known and play a significant role in the ecosystem, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. However, there is a concern that humans are harvesting too many salmon, not allowing enough to return upstream to reproduce. This leaves little for the species which depend on the salmon runs such as grizzly bears. A new research study suggests that more Pacific salmon should be allowed to spawn in coastal streams, which would create a win-win for humans and the natural environment. The study was conducted by researchers from University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and Canada. Lead author, Taal Levi, notes that salmon fisheries are generally well managed. Those in charge determine how many salmon to allocate to spawning and how many to harvest. The concern is that the proportion of spawning to harvest is skewed and needs to be rebalanced for sustainability.

New National Park provides hope for world’s rarest wild cat

With fewer than 50 individuals remaining in the wild, the Amur leopard is thought to be the world's rarest wild cat, and the creation of a new protected area in Russia is an important step towards the conservation of this highly threatened species. Situated in Primorsky Province in Russia’s Far East, the 262,000 hectare Land of the Leopard National Park covers 60% of all remaining Amur leopard habitat and encompasses all known breeding grounds for this species. The establishment of Land of the Leopard National Park is certainly a positive step forwards, but care must be taken to ensure that preservation measures across the entire area are put into place to protect the health of the leopard habitat. Several military facilities are located within the Leopardoviy refuge, and poor forest management can aggravate the problem of forest fires in the area. Last month, almost 1,500 hectares of leopard habitat was destroyed as a result of a fire.

Climate Change Effects on Long Term Plant Growth in Arizona

Climate change around the world is not predicted to be uniform. Most places will get warmer, some will get more rain and others will get less. For areas of Arizona, warmer temperatures are expected to provide a boost in plant growth caused by a longer growing season and more carbon dioxide in the air. However, a new study from Northern Arizona University suggests the contrary. Warming temperatures will cause an initial boost in plant growth, but will quickly diminish over the years. This may lead to significant deterioration in future plant growth. Ecologists who took part in the study, subjected four grassland ecosystems to simulated climate change during the 10 year study. The first year witnessed a boost in plant growth, followed by nine years of progressively diminished plant growth until growth actually disappeared. A key finding was the role that the nitrogen cycle played. The warmer climates caused the nitrogen to cycle more quickly. Much of the nitrogen, rather than being available for plants, was washed away by rainfall, or converted to nitrogen gas and released into the atmosphere.

London to ban old black cabs!

London's taxi regulators are to withdraw 2,600 ageing black cabs in an attempt to reduce air pollution in the capital. No black cab over 15-years-old will be licensed by the Taxi and Private Hire Office — taking off the road 2,600 taxis this year. Now Mercedes-Benz has launched an initiative to help London cabbies keep the city moving and at the same time delivering cleaner air. Following discussions between Transport for London and Mercedes-Benz the new scheme will see cab drivers offered a £1,500 discount off the purchase price of a new low-emission Vito Euro 5 taxi in exchange for the driver agreeing to carry Mercedes-Benz advertising for 18 months.

Earth Warming Faster Than Expected

By 2050, global average temperature could be between 1.4°C and 3°C warmer than it was just a couple of decades ago, according to a new study that seeks to address the largest sources of uncertainty in current climate models. That's substantially higher than estimates produced by other climate analyses, suggesting that Earth's climate could warm much more quickly than previously thought. Many factors affect global and regional climate, including planet-warming "greenhouse" gases, solar activity, light-scattering atmospheric pollutants, and heat transfer among the land, sea, and air, to name just a few. There are so many influences to consider that it makes determining the effect of any one factor, despite years and sometimes decades of measurements, difficult. So we could say that Al Gores statements might come true.

Cloud forests may be particularly vulnerable to climate change

Mexico could lose nearly 70 percent of its cloud forests due to climate change by 2080, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change, that has implications for cloud forests worldwide. "Given the narrow environmental tolerance of cloud forests, the fear is that human-induced climate change could constitute an even greater peril [than deforestation] in the near future," says lead author Rocio Ponce-Reyes of the ARC Center of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and The University of Queensland in a press release. Cloud forests are usually defined as tropical forests growing at an altitude of more than 6,600-10,000 feet (2,500-3,000 meters) in elevation, where the forest receives most of its moisture from fog. Unique ecosystems, cloud forests harbor many species found no-where else including a wide variety of orchids, hummingbirds, and amphibians.

Rapid Pine Beetle Breeding Destroying Forests in the American West

The mountain pine beetle epidemic is considered to be the largest forest insect blight in North American history. In the past, the pine beetles played a humble role, attacking old or weakened trees, making room for new healthy trees. The changing climate has turned their seemingly benign role into something much more insidious. An explosion in pine beetle size and numbers has forced them to turn their attention to healthy trees. Furthermore, they are reproducing twice as much as normal. Once thought to only produce one generation of tree-killing offspring per year, new research now shows that some populations are producing two generations per year, potentially increasing overall population by 60 times. The mountain pine beetle affect the trees by laying their eggs under the bark. Their trees of choice include the ponderosa and lodgepole pine. A fungus is secreted by the beetle to protect the eggs from a counterattack by the tree through the use of tree pitch flow. The fungus also prevents water and nutrient transport within the tree.

Monarch Butterfly decline linked to genetically modified crops

A new study suggests that the increased use of genetically modified (GM) crops across the Midwestern U.S. may be causing a decline in monarch butterfly populations. From 1999 to 2010, a period when GM crops became more common on U.S. farms, the number of monarch eggs in the Midwest declined by 81 percent, according to researchers from the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University. The reason, according to the study, is the near-disappearance of milkweed, an important host plant for monarch eggs and caterpillars. The researchers attribute sharp declines in milkweed to widespread use of genetically modified corn and soybeans that are resistant to the herbicide, Roundup, which is then sprayed on fields, killing milkweed. Other experts say it is too early to link GM crops to population declines, suggesting that other causes, including damage to the butterflies’ wintering grounds in Mexico, may be a factor. In a separate study, U.S. researchers say early snowmelt in the Colorado Rocky Mountains may be causing a decline in populations of the Mormon Fritillary butterfly because the advanced melting is triggering a decline in the insect’s preferred flower species.

Visions for the Car-Free City

Some cities, such as London, have implemented a congestion toll on any vehicles entering the city center. Now there is a new group in the United Kingdom that wants to take it even further. Organized by the universities of Leeds, Oxford, East Anglia, Salford, and Manchester, along with local walkers and cyclers, the group "Visions 2030" want to transform four key UK cities. The goal is to make automobiles obsolete by 2030 in future UK cities, to the point where up to 80% of all travel is done by bike or on foot. The team will be submitting their visions to city planners, discussing how this goal might be achieved. The goal is to make automobiles obsolete by 2030 in future UK cities, to the point where up to 80% of all travel is done by bike or on foot. The team will be submitting their visions to city planners, discussing how this goal might be achieved.

Is America Beyond Peak Meat?

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average meat intake for Americans peaked at 184 pounds (84.5 kilograms) a person in 2004. Buy 2011, that amount dropped to 171 pounds, and projections for 2012 indicate even more of a decrease to 166 pounds per person this year. This recent trend mimics what occurred in the United States in the 1970s, when the average American's consumption of beef peaked at 91 pounds in 1976. As concerns over the effects of beef on health spiked, more consumers turned to poultry as a leaner alternative. What was once an average of a pound of poultry per month rose to a pound per month by the 1990s. That same decade, Americans began to eat more poultry by weight than beef, but now even that number is in decline.

Europe steps up challenge over China's rare metal restrictions

The European Union today launched a second challenge of China's export restrictions on raw materials including 17 rare earths, as well as tungsten and molybdenum, that are critical in the development of green technology. Together with the US and Japan, the EU formally requested dispute settlement consultations with China in the World Trade Organization (WTO). This follows a successful EU challenge at the WTO on similar restrictions for other raw materials earlier this year. China imposes a set of export restrictions, including export quotas, export duties and additional requirements that limit access to these products for companies outside China. These measures significantly distort the market and favour Chinese industry at the expense of companies and consumers in the EU.

California Nitrates

Nitrates are a common water pollutant most often associated with agricultural effluent and excess fertilizer. It is a common issue in many locations. One in 10 people living in California’s most productive agricultural areas is at risk of exposure to harmful levels of nitrate contamination in their drinking water, according to a report released today by the University of California, Davis. The report was commissioned by the California State Water Resources Control Board. Nutrients from human activities tend to travel from land to either surface or ground water. Nitrates in particular are removed through storm drains, sewage pipes, and other forms of surface runoff. Nutrient losses in runoff and leachate are often associated with agriculture. Modern agriculture often involves the application of nutrients onto fields in order to maximize production. However, farmers frequently apply more nutrients than are taken up by crops or pastures.

The Once Prolific Dugong

The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), was hunted to extinction in the 18th century. Smithsonian scientists have discovered that this was not always the case. According to the fossil record of these marine mammals, which dates back 50 million years ago, it was more common to find three, or possibly more, different species of seacows living together in one locality at one time. This suggests that the environment and food sources for ancient seacows were also different than today.  Today there are only four species of seacows; three species of manatees, which are found in different coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and one species of dugong, found along the coasts of the Indo-Pacific Ocean.

Solar Power in Poor Rural Areas

Solar power works best of course where the sun is brightest. However, another major factor is the capital cost for a solar installation. If your are poor, you cannot get started easily. One of the big opportunities positive climate action has presented the developing world is the chance to leapfrog a generation of energy technology straight into clean, green generation without the intervening capital intensive and dirtier aspects of energy technology. A British company thinks it has a potential and intriguing solution. Cambridge-based Eight19, named after the eight minutes and 19 seconds it takes light form the sun to reach earth, has developed this technology, and the business plan to tackle these challenges. Eight19 is developing a novel printed plastic solar cell technology based on organic semiconductor materials.

Did Meteorites enable life on earth?

 Evidence that there is more than one way to make crucial components of life increases the likelihood that life emerged elsewhere in the Universe, according to the research team, and gives support to the theory that a "kit" of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by impacts from meteorites and comets assisted the origin of life. In the study, scientists with the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., analyzed samples from fourteen carbon-rich meteorites with minerals that indicated they had experienced high temperatures in some cases, over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They found amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, used by life to speed up chemical reactions and build structures like hair, skin, and nails. Previously, the Goddard team and other researchers have found amino acids in carbon-rich meteorites with mineralogy that revealed the amino acids were created by a relatively low-temperature process involving water.

American Scientists Make Great Leap in Battery Technology

One of the primary concerns with owning an electric vehicle is cost of the battery, the range it offers, and the time it takes to recharge. Those concerns will be significantly lessoned with the development of a new lithium-ion battery. Designed by scientists at Envia Systems, a US-based company, the new battery has roughly twice the energy density of existing rechargeable batteries. Such an innovation could greatly increase the range of electric cars as well as cut the price of the battery packs in half.  The new battery can achieve an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram, double that of existing rechargeable batteries. The key was introducing manganese into the mix of materials used in the cathode, the electrode where the lithium ions congregate. Then, they added silicon to the anode, the electrode toward which the ions flow, producing the electric current. The costs of the batteries are cheaper per kilowatt-hour than standard lithium ion batteries. At $125 per kwh, they are less than half the cost. I found this interesting and if the other team would have found out about this in our debate they would have beaten us easily.

Get Ready for E-Bikes!

Greener than cars and healthier than the tube, the 'e-bike' looks set to become one of 2012's top travel trends. Although e-bikes have been around for a while, their true potential is only now becoming apparent, as Scott Snaith, owner of e-bike retailer 50cycles, explains. "The technology has come on leaps and bounds in the last two years or so. Now we've got batteries that can run for about 80 miles per charge, last four years and take over 1100 charges. And they're only about four to five kilogrammes heavier than a normal bike." The motor doesn't replace pedal power, but augments it — reducing toil for the rider and providing a welcome boost for steep hills, headwinds and long journeys, Snaith explains. "Basically, the e-bike is designed to flatten hills. It takes the hard part out of cycling, and reduces the fear of those steep climbs that can put people off making journeys by bike."

Shrinking Coyotes

Many animals used to be a lot bigger. When the last ice age ended more than 10,000 years ago, many large species of mammals went extinct and others underwent changes in appearance. What caused these evolutionary changes? A study by Julie Meachen of the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and Josh Samuels of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument reveals that gray wolves and coyotes, once more similar in size, took the extinction in different strides. The coyotes shrunk while the wolves did not. Coyotes changed from large, pack-hunting dogs to the smaller canines we know today and wolves essentially remained the same. Changes in body size occurred for coyotes because large prey and their large competitors were disappearing, the researchers find. Today's gray wolf is five to six feet from nose-to-tail; modern-day coyotes measure three to four feet. Gray wolves usually weigh 80 to 120 pounds; coyotes, in comparison, weigh a mere 30 to 40 pounds.

As Bear Population Grows, More States Look At Hunts

Wildlife officials don't usually base hunting policies on how the public feels about an animal. But the black bear seems to be different. The revered king of the forest has bounced back from near-extinction to being a nuisance in some areas. Some states are trying to figure out if residents can live at peace with bears, or if they'd rather have hunters keep numbers in check. In places like the Smoky Mountains, black bears have always been part of the landscape. But national parks are no longer the only places humans are running into black bears. Numbers from the Eastern seaboard to California have shot up in recent decades. Tennessee, for instance, now has an estimated population between 4-5,000, up from a few hundred in the 1970's. The relatively shy creatures have sauntered into areas where they're less welcome.

Mortality Rates Are Underestimated

Despite great medical advances that have lengthened human life spans, your chances of living a very long life may be lower than you'd hoped. That's the conclusion of a study by two longevity experts who reviewed the standard models that predict mortality rates and turned up a major error. Instead of confirming that death rates drop once people reach their 80s or 90s — as experts have assumed for many decades -- results showed that the risk of dying continues to increase each year, no matter how old people are. The findings, if confirmed, could affect calculations that determine Social Security payments, life insurance premiums, retirement savings strategies and more.

Costa Concordia disaster may get worse as ship appears unstable on the reef

The massive cruise liner is balancing on two rocks and has massive cracks. The stricken Costa Concordia cruise liner might soon collapse under its own weight. Although experts reassure that "no anomalies" are reported by the close monitoring of the hull and that the de-fueling operations run smoothly, with over 900 cubic meters of fuel pumped out so far, underwater images of the capsized ship appear to tell a different story. Three dimensional images realized by a sophisticated multi-beam sonar and laser technologies which can be used at depths of 1500 feet, revealed that the 950 foot-long, 116 foot-wide, 114,500-ton ship precariously sits on two pieces of rock.

Survival of Fish with Antifreeze in Antarctica

A unique group of fish that has evolved to live in Antarctic waters thanks to anti-freeze proteins in their blood and body fluids is threatened by rising temperatures in the Southern Ocean, according to a new study by Yale. The development of antifreeze glycoproteins by notothenioids, a fish family that adapted to newly formed polar conditions in the Antarctic millions of years ago, is an evolutionary success story. The three species of fish are an example of the diversity this lineage achieved when it expanded into niches left by fish decimated by cold water environment. Now the same fish are endangered by warming of the Antarctic seas.

Startup Develops Floating Solar Farm

While solar energy companies throughout the world are competing for the relatively few vast land areas required to house solar farms, Israeli startup Solaris Synergy has found a new terrain to use. Instead of a land-based solar system, the company decided to develop a water-based technology. In other words: a floating solar power plant.  According to the company, their solar-on-water solution dramatically lowers the cost of renewable energy production since the water surface is also used for cooling the solar panels. This cooling system keeps the silicon elements used as semiconductors at a low temperature and therfore increases their power generation efficiency and extends their lifespan.

High Productivity Farms may be Greener than Organic

While organic farms are great, new research finds that farms that aim for high food production using environmentally-friendly practices could be better for the environment than both organic and conventional farms. A new study, led by Oxford University scientists, compared the environmental impact of different farming systems. They found that 'integrated' farms that maximized crop yields while using environmentally-friendly techniques  such as crop rotation, organic fertilisers, over winter cover crops, and minimal use of pesticides  would use less energy and generate lower greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production than both organic and conventional farms.

Rising ocean acidity worst for Caribbean and Pacific

The current trend of increasing ocean acidification, which threatens fisheries around the world, is driven mainly by man-made changes and is higher even than that seen at the end of the last ice age, some 11,000 year ago, a study has said. Much of the carbon released by human activity ends up in the oceans, increasing their acidity and reducing the growth of corals and molluscs, which in turn may affect fisheries and aquaculture. Fisheries in the Pacific and the Caribbean may suffer the most in these regions, man-made acidification has already caused a 30 percent increase in the natural variation in ocean acidity.

Slash-and-burn 'improves tropical forest biodiversity'

A study suggests that slash-and-burn agricultural practices, banned by governments because of the risk of uncontrolled fires, provide better growing conditions for valuable new trees than more modern methods of forest clearance. Starting in 1996, researchers cleared 24 half-hectare areas of tropical forest in Quintana Roo state, in southern Mexico, using three methods: clear-felling, where most of the trees are cut down; bulldozing; and slash-and-burn, a practice common among smallholders, in which trees are felled, left to dry and then burned, to prepare the land for agriculture. Mahogany seeds and seedlings were then planted and, after 11 years, the researchers compared the sites and found that slash-and-burn techniques had provided the best growing conditions for mahogany.

Tree Rings and Volcanic Eruptions

 Counting the number of tree rings and observing the relative growth for each ting can give an age for when something happened. However, it may not be that simple. Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change, because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even absent growing seasons, according to climate researchers who compared tree-ring temperature reconstructions with model simulations of past temperature changes. Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings.  By accounting for these various effects in the tree growth model, the researchers were able to reproduce the reduced and smeared cooling seen in the actual tree-ring temperature reconstruction, including the near absence and delay of cooling following a massive eruption in 1258

Satellite Study Reveals Critical Habitat and Corridors for World's Rarest Gorilla

Conservationists working in Central Africa to save the world's rarest gorilla have good news: the Cross River gorilla has more suitable habitat than previously thought, including vital corridors that, if protected, can help the great apes move between sites in search of mates, according to the North Carolina Zoo, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and other groups. The newly published habitat analysis, which used a combination of satellite imagery and on the ground survey work, will help guide future management decisions for Cross River gorillas living in the mountainous border region between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Atlantic Sturgeon Declared an Endangered Species

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association today designated the Atlantic sturgeon an endangered species, providing it greater legal protections, following a petition the Natural Resources Defense Council submitted in September 2009.NOAA's Fisheries Service today announced four subpopulations or distinct population segments of Atlantic sturgeon, which are treated as individual species under the law, will be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. This marine animal is just one of the many animals that are being intruduced to the extinction list every couple of weeks.

Early Ice Ages

New research led by scientists from Oxford University and Exeter University has shown that the invasion of the land by plants in the Ordovician Period (488-443 million years ago) cooled the climate and may have triggered a series of ice ages. During this period sea levels are very high and at the end of the period there was a mass extinction event. At the beginning of the period, around 480 million years ago, the climate was very hot due to high levels of CO2, which gave a strong greenhouse effect. The marine waters are assumed to have been around 45°C, which restricted the diversification of complex multi-cellular organisms. But over time, the climate become cooler, and around 460 million years ago, the ocean temperatures became comparable to those of present day equatorial waters. The dramatic cooling of the planet between 300 and 200 million years ago was also the result of the evolution of large plants with large rooting systems that caused huge changes in both of these processes.

Huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding

A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower the temperature of Europe by causing an ocean current to slow down, British scientists said Sunday.The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8,000 cubic km, or about 10 percent of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off.The rise could be due to strong Arctic winds increasing an ocean current called the Beaufort Gyre, making the sea surface bulge upwards.