Rethinking NRC Policy
An NRC task force seems to be heading for some significant policy shifts in light of the Fukushima reactor failures, including tighter requirements for re-licensing and reduced reliance on voluntary guidelines. The two commissioners on the task force seem to be reassessing the Commission's previously nonchalant attitude toward extreme events. ClimateWire reports: NRC policy has not considered the risk that a natural disaster could cause an extended loss of outside el...
CONTINUE READINGSome Intriguing Statistics
I was recently paging through the new 2011-2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States (strange folk, we professors), and came up with some intriguing tidbits that I wanted to pass on: In the past fifty years, total water withdrawals have increased by 150% Carbon monoxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulates and nitrogen dioxide all declined from 2001-2007. The states with the highest toxic chemical releases in 2008 were Alaska (1st by a big margin), Indiana, Ohio...
CONTINUE READINGNational Academies Press makes reports available for free
Early this month, the National Academies Press, which publishes National Research Council reports like this recent one on America's Climate Choices, announced that it will make all pdf versions of its publications available for free downloads. Anyone who does research on environmental science or policy (among other topics) should be happy to hear this news. NRC reports are often key sources of "consensus" scientific opinion and/or important documents at the interface of ...
CONTINUE READINGNostradamus, I Ain’t
On Friday, I predicted that Senate Republicans would side with Grover Norquist against Tom Coburn and block repeal of one of the egregious ethanol subsidies now polluting both our tax code and our country. Well, so much for that: most Senate Republicans did the right thing and voted to remove the subsidy. In this case, it was the Democrats who voted to maintain the subsidy, along with farm state Republicans. Senate Democratic leaders argued that somehow the Cobu...
CONTINUE READINGAir Resources Board Releases New Environmental Assessment of Cap and Trade to Comply with Judge’s Order
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is covering all its bases in responding to a judge's order that CARB violated the California Enviornmental Quality Act (CEQA) in adopting its scoping plan to implement AB 32 (the state's climate change legislation). As I reported last week, CARB has won an order from the appeals court allowing the state to go forward in implementing its challenged cap and trade program. But to hedge its bets, the staff of the Ca...
CONTINUE READINGGoodby Ski Slopes, Hello Drought
Climate change means not only changes in temperature, but changes in precipitation. These precipitation changes are especially important in arid regions like the American West. There is reason to be concerned about the future of Western climate, according to the latest report from ScienceNow: The Rocky Mountains have lost an unusual amount of springtime snowpack over the past 30 years or so. During that interval, the average springtime snowpack—the accumulated snow...
CONTINUE READINGThe Attack on Scientific Freedom
A disturbing report from Science magazine: The news that Australian climate scientists were relocated into secure offices after receiving death threats and abusive e-mails became a political issue in parliament this week. . .. Contacted by ScienceInsider, a spokesperson for the Australian National University in Canberra said, "In response to increasing harassment, including death threats, nine staff working in the area of climate change were moved to a more secure locat...
CONTINUE READINGA GOP Ethanol Trap? Not Likely.
I hope I'm wrong. Jon Chait reports that Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will force a cloture vote on his proposal to eliminate the ethanol "blending" subsidy, which costs the government about $6 billion annually, is horrible for the environment, and is economically inefficient. His take is that this represents an ideological skirmish between Coburn and Wingnut Enforcer Grover Norquist, who forces GOP officeholders to sign a "no-tax" pledge that includes banning the el...
CONTINUE READINGWorse Than We Thought
Apparently, the Japanese nuclear crisis was worse than we thought. The Guardian reports: Molten nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is likely to have burned through pressure vessels, not just the cores, Japan has said in a report in which it also acknowledges it was unprepared for an accident of the severity of Fukushima. It is the first time Japanese authorities have admitted the possibility that the fuel suffered "melt-through" – a ...
CONTINUE READINGGrandfathering bad air: EPA exempts power plant from new climate and air quality rules
EPA has issued a controversial decision exempting a new, natural-gas power plant proposed for California's San Joaquin Valley, a region with some of the worst air quality in the country, from the most up-to-date Clean Air Act rules aimed at reducing climate emissions and the pollutants NO2 and SO2. Here's the E&E story, and here's the EPA decision, likely to be appealed within the agency to the Environmental Appeals Board, perhaps by Earthjustice. The que...
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