Thursday, 12 Jan 2006

OK, We'll Just Drill Over Here Instead

Bush administration opens up Alaska wildlife habitat to drilling

The Bush administration's lust for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge having gone unrequited, it's going to stick its derricks in some sloppy seconds: The Department of Interior is opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of other Alaskan wildlife habitat to drilling. The land around Teshekpuk Lake, about 200 miles west of the refuge, is part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska; it may contain up to 2 billion barrels of "economically recoverable" oil and 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The area is so rich in migratory waterfowl and caribou that even the Reagan administration protected it, as did the Bush the Elder and Clinton administrations. Staff at the Bureau of Land Management say the decision to clear the way for drilling was made at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney's super-secretive energy task force, which never met an ecosystem it wouldn't treat like a two-bit hooker.

Doin' What Comes Dastardly

Not-Kyoto climate pact meeting ends with much hot air

The U.S. and Australia today marked the end of the Asia-Pacific climate summit in Sydney by pledging $127 million to support technology projects that would lower greenhouse-gas emissions. Climate activists derided the commitment from the two big polluters as laughably small; the Kyoto Protocol, which both the U.S. and Australia have spurned, is expected to result in up to $12 billion being spent on clean-technology projects in developing countries by 2012. Enviros also say much of the newly announced funding will go to propping up dirty energy industries rather than promoting clean power sources like solar. The U.S. and Australia, for their part, contend the world should trust big business to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without any strong government regulations. Said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, "The people who run the private sector ... also have children and grandchildren, and they too live and breathe in the world and would like [climate change] dealt with effectively." Despite all evidence to the contrary.

Damn You, Bush!

Plants are major methane producers, new research says

Methane: it's not just from cow farts anymore. Apparently, ordinary plants emit significant amounts of the potent greenhouse gas. Clearly, all cows and plants must be killed. For the health of the planet! Ahem. Writing in Nature, German researchers suggest that the never-before-noted phenomenon -- which they stumbled on almost accidentally -- could account for 10 to 30 percent of the world's methane emissions. That might confound the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, which allow countries and companies to offset greenhouse-gas emissions by funding new forest planting and reforestation. There may already be some on-the-ground corroboration: Soon-to-be-released research reports high and heretofore unexplained levels of methane in the Brazilian Amazon. But that study's author, U.S. Forest Service researcher Michael Keller, is cautious about what it all means. "Until we know how this process works," says Keller, "it is really unwise to come to any conclusions."

Croak and Dagger

Mass frog die-offs linked to global warming

The mass disappearance of colorful harlequin frog species in Central and South America has long puzzled biologists, but research published in the latest issue of Nature fingers a culprit: global warming. (When in doubt ...) The deadly chytrid fungus that's killing off the tiny amphibians is flourishing in places where it's gotten warmer at night and cooler during the day -- conditions the study's authors say have most likely been created by increased cloud formation due to large-scale, human-caused global warming. The fungus is implicated in amphibian die-offs around the world. "Disease is the bullet killing frogs," says lead researcher J. Alan Pounds, "but climate change is pulling the trigger."

It's a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping!

Algae being harnessed to combat climate change and other eco-woes

Consider the algae. Three years ago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology rocket scientist Isaac Berzin had an idea: use the slimy plants to clean up emissions from power plants. Today, at a power plant next to MIT, tubes of healthy algae slurp up 40 percent of carbon dioxide and 86 percent of nitrous oxide before power-plant emissions are released into the atmosphere. Not only that, but harvested algae will squeeze out a combustible biofuel. The right type of algae can produce 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre, compared to soybeans' measly 60 gallons. What to do with the dried algae flakes left over from biodiesel squeezing? Process them into ethanol. And -- wait for it -- Berzin claims that the whole shebang can make a profit. His company, GreenFuel Technologies, is currently conducting trials and hopes to be in full production by 2009. Not bad for a plant with just one cell.