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As an example, she sites a satellite called QuikSCAT. For the past decade, it's been sending back a stream of data about ocean winds and hurricanes, which are affected by the changing climate. But Kelly says the stream of data from that satellite could end any day now. "It's way past due," she says. "It's amazing that it still works."
In the 1980s and early 1990s, it looked like scientists were going to get the tools they needed to monitor climate change. NASA was designing and launching a good number of satellites equipped with sensors to monitor climate change.
But that ambitious program soon ran into budget cuts and delays, says Bruce Wielicki, a NASA climate scientist. And the satellite programs that did make it into orbit are now getting on the hoary side. With no replacements immediately in sight, "we're basically sitting at the edge of a cliff," Wielicki says.
By Jon Hamilton NPR Morning Edition, March 6, 2009
Cybercrime Threat Rising Sharply — The threat of cybercrime is rising sharply, experts have warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. They called for a new system to tackle well-organized gangs of cybercriminals. Online theft costs $1 trillion a year, the number of attacks is rising sharply and too many people do not know how to protect themselves, they said.
The Internet was vulnerable, they said, but as it was now part of society's central nervous system, attacks could threaten whole economies. The past year had seen "more vulnerabilities, more cybercrime, more malicious software than ever before", more than had been seen in the past five years combined, one of the experts reported. Risks discussed were Cybercrime, Weaknesses of the Internet System and the threat of Cyber Warfare.
Doc Sez: A discussion of potential, but difficult to implement solutions was discussed and documented at the conference. This is a global problem and as we’ve seen on control of (1) disease (bird flue, SARS), (2) defeating hunger, (3) freeing women from third-class citizenship or as being used as property, and (4) on nuclear proliferation global solutions are difficult to implement, at least until major damage has been done.
By Tim Weber — Business editor, BBC News Website, in Davos/a>
Dark Days for Green Energy — Wind and solar power have been growing at a blistering pace in recent years, and that growth seemed likely to accelerate under the green-minded Obama administration. But because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn, the opposite is happening: installation of wind and solar power is plummeting. Factories building parts for these industries have announced a wave of layoffs in recent weeks, and trade groups are projecting 30 to 50 percent declines this year in installation of new equipment, barring more help from the government.
Prices for turbines and solar panels, which soared when the boom began a few years ago, are falling. Communities that were patting themselves on the back just last year for attracting a wind or solar plant are now coping with cutbacks. Wind and solar developers have been left starved for capital. “It’s absolutely frozen,” said Craig Mataczynski, president of Renewable Energy Systems Americas, a wind developer. He projected his company would build just under half as much this year as it did last year . Renewable energy sources like biomass, which involves making electricity from wood chips, and geothermal, which harnesses underground heat for power, have also been slowed by the financial crisis, but the effects have been more pronounced on once fast-growing wind and solar. By KATE GALBRAITH (The New York Times) February 3, 2009
The Tiny, Slimy Savior Of Global Coral Reefs — Coral reefs, already declining in many areas around the world, face even tougher times ahead, say scientists. Warming and increasingly acidic oceans, combined with other stresses could conceivably spell the end for reefs, as we know them, they warn. Heat-tolerant algae could help the world's reefs adapt to climate change, University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science researcher says.
Andrew
Baker has a more optimistic view. He thinks that corals have an innate –
if limited – capacity to adapt to rising temperatures. And he theorizes
that people may be able to help them along. Earlier this year, Mr. Baker, a
2008 Pew Fellow,
Baker hopes to preempt such bleaching events, which have become more frequent in the past 50 years as temperatures have risen globally, by “inoculating” corals with a more heat-resistant strain of algae. About 10 years ago, Baker noted that some corals naturally hosted a more heat-tolerant strain of algae and could survive much higher ocean temperatures. In the Persian Gulf, for example, where temperatures routinely reach 93 degrees F. – high enough to cause bleaching elsewhere – heat-tolerant algae dominate in corals and the reefs are much more resistant to bleaching. Perhaps more important, certain corals appear to switch to this heartier alga (“clade D’) during warm years.
Why is it important that coral reefs survive? Coral reefs host the most diverse ecosystems in the oceans – or, arguably, anywhere on the planet. Earth has 34 major groups of animals, or phyla. Thirty-two exist in the ocean, compared with just 12 on land. Thirty live on coral reefs. People often call coral reefs the “rain forests of the ocean.” But as Osha Gray Davidson wrote in his 1998 book “The Enchanted Braid,” rain forests might better be called “the coral reefs of the land.”
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff, Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Study Reports Billions Needed to Deliver Wind Power to Eastern Interconnection — It’s all in the Grid that is now virtual. The Joint Coordinated System Plan (JCSP'08), the first step of a transmission and generation system expansion analysis of the majority of the Eastern Interconnection, estimates the electricity sector will need over $80 billion in new transmission infrastructure to obtain 20% of the region's electricity from wind generation. This initial, still controversial, analysis, which was performed with participation from major transmission owners and operators in the Eastern U.S., looked at two scenarios to examine transmission and generation possibilities between 2008 and 2024. The first, a Reference Scenario, assumes "business as usual" with respect to wind development, with approximately 5% of the region's energy coming from wind. The second was a 20% Wind Energy Scenario and was based on the U.S. Department of Energy's Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study.
We believe that, although JCSP'08 examined a small set of scenarios with limited variables, this study nonetheless gives a clear idea of the scale of commitment it will take to integrate large amounts of renewable resources into the grid," said John Bear, President and CEO of the Midwest ISO. "This is information we believe that our leaders need to consider as they begin work under a new administration and start defining our energy future."
JCSP'08 estimates that incorporating 5% wind energy (the "Reference Scenario") will require the addition of approximately 10,000 miles of new extra-high voltage transmission at a cost of approximately $50 billion, in addition to nearly $700 billion in total generation capital costs by 2024.
The 20% Wind Energy Scenario is estimated to require 15,000 miles of new extra-high voltage lines, at an estimated cost of $80 billion, in addition to $1.1 trillion in total generation capital costs by 2024. CARMEL, Ind., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire See Also: http://www.midwestmarket.org/; Microscopic Objects May Lead to Large Pollution Solution - These itty-bitty microbes are the most sophisticated chemists on Earth — scientists are forging a new partnership with bacteria. They call it metabolic engineering. Microbes are the most sophisticated chemists on Earth. We have used them for thousands of years to make fermented foods and, more recently, in some chemical manufacturing processes. Now microbial scientists want to carry that partnership to a new level. They are gaining a deeper understanding of microbes’ metabolic chemical skills with an eye to using those skills more effectively, and even reengineering them, to serve human purposes. These include making biofuels, cleaning up pollutants, even removing CO2 from the air.
Reports of research from two universities last month reflect that ambition. Kristala Prather at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology summed up these efforts succinctly, saying, “We’re trying to ask what kinds of things should we be trying to make, and looking for possible routes in nature to make them.” Meanwhile, MIT’s Catherine Drennan is working with bacteria that break down carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Some of them break down an estimated 1 billion tons of carbon monoxide in the environment each year, according to scientists at MIT. Professor Drennan wonders, “Can we use this chemistry to do the same thing?” That means understanding the nitty-gritty of how the bacteria’s chemistry works. Her team hopes to gain that understanding by deciphering the exact structure of the enzymes involved.
By Robert C. Cowen, Columnist for The Christian
Science Monitor
The ‘holy grail’ of biofuels now in sight: Long-promised cellulosic ethanol is in modest production, but hurdles remain. — With one foot planted in a pile of corn cobs, Mark Stowers explains how agricultural waste, transformed into ethanol, will turbo charge the US economy, boost its energy security, and help save the planet, too.
This holy grail of biofuels, called cellulosic ethanol, has been “five years from commercialization” for so long that even Dr. Stowers admits it’s become a joke. But now the research director for POET, the nation’s largest ethanol maker, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., says that despite bad economic news and major obstacles, cellulosics time is near. Other scientists agree.
Corn-based ethanol, which many critics argue does not do enough to slow climate change, is nearing US production limits. In Washington, cellulosic ethanol is gaining political traction. And cellulosic technology seems ready for prime time – at last. The proof, Stowers says, lies inside a nearby windowless, high-roofed single-story metal building. Filled with a maze of pipes and vats, this $8 million test facility is a miniature cellulosic ethanol plant that pumps out 20,000 gallons a year of nearly clear alcohol extracted from cobs like the ones beneath his feet.
But looking forward, biofuels could play a far larger role. By 2030, biofuels may reach 60 billion gallons, according to a new report released Feb. 10 by Sandia National Laboratory. That would require 480 million tons of biomass, including 215 million tons of dedicated energy crops like switch grass. Such fuel crops would require 48 million acres of what is now pasture or idle land, the report says. Such a shift would slash annual US tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions by 260 million tons a year – about equal to the emissions from 45 coal-fired power plants. Cellulosic ethanol feedstock crops would require little or no irrigation, a big advantage over corn. The cost: about $250 billion, the same or less than that of boosting US oil production by the same amount.
By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian
Science Monitor
See you all next month — Remember being energy efficient is less expensive than creating new energy sources —use what you have wisely.
Harry, aka doc_Babad |
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As Asia Continues to Advance
Rapidly, Its Energy Demands Continue to Soar — Asia is one of the largest and
fastest- growing consumers of global oil and gas imports. The decisions they
make to satisfy their energy needs over the next decade will have significant
security implications for the United States and elsewhere, potentially
impacting global prices, regional tensions, proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, and conventional arms. The Pacific Northwest Center for Global
Security, which is part of PNNL, is analyzing issues concerning energy security
in Asia with the goal of increasing awareness by policy makers and the public. 
plants could be the most
environmentally and economically favorable
option, researchers say. Native perennial plants could be used to makebiofuels that are not only more environmentally
sustainable, but more economically attractive to boot. Using a mixture of local
plants as fuel appears to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve local
water quality and biodiversity, according to US researchers at the Joint Global
Change Research Institute in Maryland.
"All the
indications are of huge change, and a huge response is needed if you want to
have polar bears beyond 2050," said Peter Ewins, the World Wildlife Fund's
Director of Species Conservation. National Parks have proven to be one of the
most important ways to protect and preserve natural areas and wildlife. First
established in the United States in 1872, national parks have since been
adopted internationally. But protecting an area outside of a single country's
borders could prove to be difficult.
launched a project to study the
relationship between reef-building coral polyps (a relative of jellyfish) and
their symbiotic algae. In exchange for a safe place to live, the algae (called
zooxanthellae) supply their hosts with energy in the form of sugar. But
higher temperatures can cause the coral-algae symbiosis to break down. During a
so-called bleaching event, corals lose their algae and, greatly weakened, can
die.