Friday, 27 Oct 2006

We Will Rebury You

Bush and Putin may look to store radwaste at site of Russian nuclear catastrophe

Besides the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the deadliest nuclear catastrophe in history happened ... no, not at Chernobyl, but in Chelyabinsk, Russia. In the mid-20th century, three disasters in the area spread contamination from a nuke-weapons complex, but the news was hushed up by the KGB and CIA. So what better place to store more nuclear waste? Thus seems to be the thinking of U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin as they strive to expand the use of nuclear power around the globe. To avoid messy plutonium situations á la North Korea, the Bush-Putin plan would require countries that import reactors to return spent fuel to the exporting country for reprocessing. A wee problem: Neither the U.S. nor Russia have civilian nuclear reprocessing facilities. Bush hopes to alter U.S. law to allow returned waste to go to Russia, most probably to Chelyabinsk -- where area residents are already "breathing highly radioactive air, drinking radioactive water, and burning radioactive wood in their fireplaces," says environmental chemist Marco Kaltofen. The U.S. Congress and Russian government will have opportunities to scuttle the plan.


What has six heads, six giant hearts, and a boatload of ambition? That would be this year's Brower Youth Award winners, who will be honored tonight for their work on environmental issues in their communities and across North America. Admirable, no? We don't know about you, but our bygone youthful days could best be described in one word: frittered. Sarah van Schagen shines a spotlight on the hardworking, non-frittering winners.

Crazed, Greedy Drilling in Texas? You Don't Say

Natural-gas drilling booms in Fort Worth

Forth Worth, Texas, lies atop a huge natural-gas field, and thus is at the center of the biggest urban drilling boom in the U.S. today. The city has leased more than 2,400 acres of public land for natural-gas development; over 600 wells have cropped up in the last year alone, and, says Mayor Mike Moncrief, "we've only just started." It's an economic jackpot for some Fort Worth residents and groups -- the American Cancer Society sold mineral rights to donated land for $5 million, and the Girl Scouts allowed drilling under a summer camp for an undisclosed amount. While residents have been assured that they're unlikely to even be aware of the excavation happening under their land -- thanks to new technologies, holes can be dug as much as a mile away and drills can go in horizontally thousands of feet under the earth -- some are worried about explosions, accidents, noise pollution, and exploitation. But for many, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, signing bonuses and promises of ongoing royalties outweigh the risks.


Will people ever be convinced that eating locally is more important than eating what's tasty, asks one reader of this week's InterActivist. The response from Bon Appétit's Maisie Ganzler? Local food does taste amazing. This week, Ganzler also nibbles on reader questions about marketing her company's social responsibility, purchasing humanely sourced meat and dairy products, pricing out the "true cost" of foods, and more.

Morgan Bang for the Buck

Morgan Stanley will invest $3 billion in carbon trading and offset projects

Investment giant Morgan Stanley announced today that it will invest $3 billion in carbon trading and offset projects over the next five years. Expecting a rush to purchase offsets as the Kyoto Protocol's 2012 deadline approaches, the bank is playing the middleperson -- buying offsets from emissions-cutting projects now, with the plan to sell them to governments and industry later. Most of the industrialized countries signed on to the Kyoto Protocol are lagging on meeting their emissions targets and will need to either buy other countries' rights to emit, or purchase carbon credits. The global carbon market jumped from $11 billion in 2005 to $21.5 billion in the first nine months of 2006. "We strongly support the use of market-based solutions to meet environmental policies and objectives," says the head of the bank's carbon-trading business. Especially when it means there's moola to be made.