news20100317gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Carbon capture and storagre (CCS)]
Carbon capture storage will 'generate 100,000 jobs and £6.5bn a year'

Ed Miliband unveils strategy to encourage growth of unproven technology for next generation of coal-fired power stations
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010 10.56 GMT Article history

{{The Black Pump power plant in Germany which captures the greenhouse gases produced when fossil fuels are combusted.}
{Photograph}: Michael Urban/AFP/Getty Images}

The UK's carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector will be able to sustain 100,000 jobs by 2030 and generate up to £6.5bn a year, the government claimed today.

Unveiling a new strategy to encourage the growth of CCS, the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said it represents a "massive industrial growth opportunity".

The government also announced that Yorkshire and Humber had been chosen as the UK's first low-carbon economic area for CCS.

The region has been chosen because it combines the UK's largest cluster of industrial CO2 emitters, academic expertise and proximity to potential storage sites.

Yorkshire and Humber is well placed to benefit from jobs and investment that expansion in the CO2 storage industry will bring, Miliband said.

Announcing the new plan, the he said: "CCS presents a massive growth opportunity for the UK. We have a strong, established and skilled workforce in precisely the sectors needed to get CCS deployed at scale. And we have some of the best potential sites in Europe for CO2 storage under the North Sea."

Miliband added: "For the UK economy as a whole these benefits could be worth up to £6.5bn a year, sustaining jobs for up to 100,000 people, by 2030."

The launch of the strategy comes after two power companies were awarded funding last week to develop designs for power plants with CCS technology.

E.ON and Scottish Power are competing for government backing to build the UK's first CCS coal-fired power plant at either Kingsnorth, Kent or Longannet, Clackmannanshire, Scotland. The undisclosed amount of funding for each company, which is drawn from a £90m pot, will support detailed engineering and design work for the projects over the next 12 months.

After that, the government will announce the winner of the competition. Climate activists have predicted the Longannet site will become the "new Kingsnorth" if it goes ahead, a reference reference to E.ON's controversial coal-fired plant in Kent that sparked battles between protesters and police before E.ON finally shelved it.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has said four coal-fired power stations which demonstrate commercial-scale CCS on a section of the plant will be built, including the winner of the competition.

The development of the CCS plants will potentially be funded by a fossil fuel levy on energy companies.

The government has pledged no new coal-fired power stations will get the go-ahead without the technology, which could potentially reduce emissions by up to 90%.

But climate campaigners are concerned the scheme permits construction of coal-power stations which have the technology on only part of the plant, while the rest will continue to pollute.


[Environment > Wave, tidal and hydropower]
Ten sites named in £4bn UK marine energy project

Crown estate and Scottish government name 10 wave and tide power installations around Orkney islands and Pentland Firth
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 March 2010 18.06 GMT Article history

{{An aerial view of the world’s first wave-power plant, Portugal, similar to plans being considered in Scotland.}
{Photograph}: Joao Abreu Miranda}

The heavy Atlantic swell and some of the world's strongest tides are to be harnessed by a breakthrough scheme to generate clean marine energy off northern Scotland, with predictions it will rival the output of a nuclear power station.

The crown estate and Scottish government today unveiled a £4bn project to build 10 wave and tidal power sites around the Orkney islands and the Pentland Firth, with the potential to power up to 750,000 homes.

The devices deployed will include the Pelamis "sea snake", which uses the undulations of the sea surface to generate power, and the SeaGen tidal machine, which looks like an underwater wind turbine. In total, the machines will be able to produce up to 1.2GW of "green" energy, more than Dungeness B nuclear station in Kent.

The crown estate, which owns all the UK's seabed out to 12 nautical miles, said these projects were the world's first commercial wave and tidal power schemes. It is expected to announce new marine power sites in other parts of the UK later this year.

Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, said the announcement confirmed his prediction that the Pentland Firth region – where the north-east Atlantic meets the North Sea – would become the "Saudi Arabia" of marine energy.

The narrow sea channel has some of the most powerful currents and tidal surges in the world, with speeds up to 16 knots or 19mph recorded. The area also experiences some of the biggest waves in the UK.

Crown estate officials and the developers accepted these often dangerous waters posed significant engineering and safety challenges for the firms involved.

Salmond said some estimates suggested the waters could release up to 60GW of power – 10 times Scotland's annual electricity usage. Other studies suggest one-third of the UK's total electricity needs could be met by tidal power alone.

"This is a huge milestone on the way to making that dream a reality," Salmond said. "Today marks a major milestone in the global journey towards a low carbon future, with the commercial-scale deployment of marine renewables set to power our economies and help safeguard the planet for generations to come."

The schemes are expected to cost £4bn to install, and will require up to £1bn of extra investment – from public sources – to build new national grid connections, harbours and other infrastructure in Orkney and Caithness.

The 10 projects, several of which have already had investment from a £22m UK government marine energy fund, are evenly divided between wave and tidal power stations, with each type generating up to 600MW. The projects are being shared by three of the UK's largest power firms, E.ON, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), which already operates the UK's largest hydro schemes, and Scottish Power Renewables, a heavy investor in windfarms.

In most cases, the utility companies have formed joint ventures with four of the UK's leading marine energy firms, covering small areas of sea with up to 200 machines. They use a variety of techniques to capture the energy of the ocean.

Edinburgh-based company Pelamis Wave Power, whose sea-snake device is now being tested off the coast of Portugal, will have its own 50MW site in the Pentland Firth and share three other sites with SSE and Scottish Power on the west coast of Orkney's main island. Its new devices will each be 180 metres long and generate 750kW of electricity.

Also to use wave power is a more powerful version of Aquamarine's existing Oyster machine, in which a lever hinged at the ocean floor is pushed back and forth. It will be used for a 200MW station with SSE Renewables, and its 200 new 1MW machines are expected to start producing power by 2015.

OpenHydro, a large underwater turbine resembling a jet engine and bolted to the sea floor, is built by Cantick Head Tidal and will harness the firth's fierce tides at a 200MW site south of Orkney.

Another tidal machine, SeaGen, features two underwater propellers attached to a tall column anchored to the seabed. It will be installed by Marine Current Turbines off Orkney and at a 100MW site north-west of John O'Groats. SeaGen is currently on test at the "narrows" leading into Strangford Lough from the Irish Sea.

The marine announcement follows last month's confirmation that £75bn will be spent developing a much larger amount of offshore wind power – at least 25GW – at nine sites around the British Isles, including two off Scotland.

The several government projects are intended to increase the UK's renewable energy output, in a bid to cut the emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel power stations and to increase the country's energy security, as North Sea oil and gas declines.

Orkney islands' council is now planning to invest more than £20m to upgrade its harbours and port facilities to cope with the huge influx in industrial equipment, ships and workers involved in these projects, which will industrialise large areas of the coastline.

The islands are widely admired for their tranquillity and scenery but Stephen Hagan, the council's leader, said he believed most residents were keen to see the investment.

With other island councils in Scotland facing huge local unrest over plans for major onshore windfarms, he does not expect significant opposition on environmental grounds.

"I do genuinely think that people in Orkney feel that we have to get the balance right between the long term sustainability of the place and the environment. I think they see the development of marine renewables as a much better option than onshore wind," he said.

news20100317gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Media > Advertising Standards Authority]
Government to continue climate change ads despite criticism from watchdog

Department stands by climate change campaign as ASA bans press adverts that 'should have been phrased more tentatively'
Mark Sweney
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010 07.23 GMT Article history

{One of the ads by the Department for Energy and Climate Change that was criticised by the ASA.}

The government has pledged to continue its campaigns on climate change, despite the advertising watchdog banning two of its press ads.

Last October's £6m ad campaign, by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, has become a lightning rod for the politically charged debate over the issue.

The campaign, including a TV ad, four press ads and two billboard posters, prompted almost 1,000 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, denouncing it as misleading, scaremongering and distressing.

The ASA has today ruled that two of the press ads, which used nursery rhymes to push the message of climate change, were in breach of the advertising code.

As expected, the ASA ruling said that the language used to indicate how storms, flooding and heatwaves will increase "should have been phrased more tentatively". However, it added that the images of the UK flooding and of a drought "were not in themselves ... exaggerated or misleading".

"We stand by our campaign, we will continue to do this," said a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. "The ASA hasn't upheld any complaints about our TV advert, the reality of man-made climate change has not been challenged, nor has any of the imagery we used been called into question. The ASA has found against one word in our newspaper adverts and we'll take care to provide better explanation in any future advertising campaign."

Last month it emerged that the media regulator Ofcom had launched an investigation into the TV ad after receiving almost 700 complaints that the commercial was a form of political advertising by the government.

According to the Communications Act, the government is allowed to run advertising of a public service nature, such as warnings about obesity or drink driving, but is not allowed to run political ads that aim to "influence public opinion on a matter of public controversy".


[Environment > Conservation]
Wanted: more people to graze animals in New Forest

Conservationists earmark £16m to encourage a new generation of people whose ponies, pigs and cattle will preserve its rich biodiversity
Caroline Davies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010 Article history

For almost 1,000 years, the New Forest, one of England's most precious landscapes, has been shaped by the ponies and cattle that graze on its heathland and wood pasture.

Now a £16m conservation agreement, announced by Natural England, is designed to safeguard these traditional grazing methods to preserve the rich beauty of these acres where kings once went to hunt.

The money is intended to encourage the historic practice of "commoning", ancient rights that were granted to the people driven out of the forest by William the Conqueror and his son, Rufus. The environmental grants are intended to attract new, younger "commoners" to continue the traditions that have contributed to the rich biodiversity of the forest. Today, such methods are under threat.

Commoning dates back to the creation of the forest, which was designated for deerhunting by William in 1079. The king's creation of the New Forest saw the depopulation of many villages and the demolition of churches.

Rufus, his unpopular son, introduced harsh penalties for those living nearby who broke the forest law – with mutilation or even death as punishment for poaching or taking wood. Indeed, Rufus's death, in 1100 – he was hit by an arrow while hunting in the forest – is thought to have been murder, possibly a revenge killing. Out of this discontent, a system of commoners' rights was established – formalised in the 16th century – which still exists today.

A commoner is a person occupying land to which common rights are attached; today, about 800 houses and small holdings in the forest have such rights, although only around 500 of their owners exercise them. And most of those are aged over 50.

The rights include common of pasture, which permits ponies, horned cattle and donkeys to graze on the 45,000 acres of open forest. Goats are barred but, by historic practice, chicken and geese may wander freely. Around 5,000 such commonable animals are now turned out.

Common of mast is the right to turn out pigs in the forest during the pannage (traditional fattening) season, a 60-day period specified by the Forestry Commission. The pigs eat the green acorns, poisonous to cattle and ponies, although only a few hundred do so today.

The right of the common marl – the digging for clay in the forest – died out in the 19th century, and the right of turbary – to cut turf – is no longer practised. But about 100 properties still have the right of fuelwood (estovers) to collect timber. The common pasture of sheep is also practised by very few.

The practice of commoning is, however, unsustainable: young would-be commoners cannot afford properties or land for back-up grazing of stock when it is not in the forest. The money from Natural England aims to help, although the agri-environment schemes will apply only to common of pasture for ponies and cattle.

"This is a significant moment in the New Forest's long and illustrious history," said Poul Christensen, chair of Natural England. "By establishing a major source of funding for the forest's traditional agricultural practices, this agreement will help to preserve its distinctive environment for many years to come. It will also have a major impact on the restoration of special habitats, safeguarding the survival of popular wildlife and plants"

"We appreciate the vital role that commoners have played in protecting the forest for a thousand years, and we are delighted to be able to work with them to ensure they have the support they need to continue looking after this beautiful landscape."

Lyndsey Stride and her husband Robert, both 31, from Emery Down, are among the few young commoners who graze their cattle and ponies in the forest. They are lucky. Stride, a forest worker, comes from a family of commoners dating back to the Domesday Book. "But it is very difficult for young people," said his wife, an infant school teacher. She and her husband have set up a group to promote commoning among the young generation.

"Commoning has shaped the New Forest over hundreds of years," she added. "It is because of it that we have this beautiful landscape, a mosaic of pasture, heath and lawn. And it needs to be encouraged".

Once a source of timber for the navy's battleships, the New Forest is the largest lowland heath in Europe. It boasts some of the finest deciduous woodlands in southern England.

Dartford warblers, nightjars, many species of bat and the rare smooth snake can all be found here. The forest's unique array of plants and wildlife is recognised by its status as a site of special scientific interest and a national park.

Commoning is managed by the verderers of the New Forest. Oliver Crosthwaite Eyre, official verderer, said: "The thousands of ponies and cattle that roam free are essential for conserving the forest. In fact, it is their grazing that has created the landscape over hundreds of years. But all these animals have owners, and therefore the direct financial support that this scheme will give to them is invaluable."

news20100317gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Birds]
Scottish bird of prey poisonings rise to near record levels

Environment minister says 27 protected birds of prey were poisoned in 2009, one of the worst years on record for the crime
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 March 2010 17.48 GMT Article history

{{RSPB Scotland's head of investigations, Bob Elliot, holding a dead golden eagle found in Glen Orchy, Argyll, in 2009.}
{Photograph}: RSPB/PA}

The Scottish government has been accused of failing to tackle wildlife crime after the latest figures disclosed that 2009 was one of the worst years on record for bird of prey poisonings.

The Scottish environment minister, Roseanna Cunningham, said that 27 protected birds of prey were proven to have been poisoned last year, including two golden eagles, 19 buzzards and four red kites, in 22 separate incidents.

An updated map of persecution "hotspots" confirmed that the Angus glens in the southern Cairngorms, the Borders south of Edinburgh and Perthshire remained areas where the greatest number of confirmed incidents took place.

Cunningham admitted that after only 16 poisoning cases were detected in 2006, these "appalling crimes" marked a return to the high level

recorded in 2007, when 27 birds of prey were also poisoned, and close to the record figure of 34 in 2006.

Sporting estates and grouse moors are widely blamed for the problem, where birds of prey are seen by game managers as a threat to grouse,

pheasant and partridge stocks. The new figures showed that since 2005, 121 birds of prey had been poisoned – a statistic which does not

include trapping, shooting, nest disturbance and undetected incidents.

"This continued persecution of our precious wildlife is simply incomprehensible," Cunningham said. "Poisoning is an arbitrary method of killing which poses serious risks to other animals, and potentially people, in our countryside.

"The protection of Scotland's wildlife has never before occupied such a prominent position politically or in terms of the law. I am hugely grateful to those partners working together to tackle these appalling crimes and I hope that our joint efforts will result in a safer environment for our birds of prey."

The rise in poisonings came despite the attempts by the governing Scottish National party (SNP) and police to crack down on persecution. Elaine Murray, Labour's environment spokeswoman in the Scottish parliament, said: "In order to tackle poisonings, we have called for estates to be named and shamed where foul play is involved. The former [environment] minister Mike Russell pledged to get tough on wildlife crime but we've seen precious little action from the SNP. These figures today show it is time for robust action not just warm words."

The new figures have alarmed conservation groups, who fear the SNP's efforts to improve prosecution success rates have failed to be properly implemented.

Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species at RSPB Scotland, said: "Experience tells us that [these figures] represent just a fraction of the true scale of this illegal activity, which persist with shocking regularity in some areas of Scotland. We ask the authorities to deploy the full range of sanctions against the perpetrators of this indiscriminate activity."

Lord Hopetoun, director of the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association, the main landowners' organisation, said the high rate of incidents recorded could be due to increased awareness and policing. "Our position remains clear: wildlife crime should not be tolerated and should be punished accordingly," he said. "We remain committed to eradicating this scourge of our countryside."


[Environment > Activism]
Copenhagen activist trial: 'I can't see what evidence there is for the charges'

Australian honours student 'indignant' over charges of organising violence and disorder at climate summit as trial opens
Bibi van der Zee
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 March 2010 17.11 GMT Article history

{{Protesters march towards Bella Centre where the UN climate change Conference takes place to disrupt proceedings.}
{Photograph}: Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters}

Two environmental activists appeared in court today accused of terrorism-related offences during the Copenhagen climate summit in December.

Natasha Verco, an Australian honours student, and Noah Weiss, an American citizen who lives in Denmark, will face similar charges in a trial which is due to last all week.

Verco, who has organised non-violent direct action in her native country and who has been part of the Climate Justice Action (CJA) network in the lead-up to the summit in Copenhagen, has been charged with organising violence, organising public disorder, significant damage to property, and organising disorder during the international talks on climate change which took place in Copenhagen last year. If found guilty, Verco faces a maximum of twelve and a half years in prison.

Speaking a day ahead of the start of the trial, Verco recalled her arrest: "On December 13 I was riding my bike down by the Copenhagen lakes,and a plainclothes police woman jumped out at me and pushed me off the bike. She took me to an unmarked police van with six or seven plainclothes policemen. I asked them 'Are you randomly picking me up?' and they said 'No, we hunted you'. They held me by myself in an underground carpark for about 16 hours, I think. Then I was taken to Vester prison and held there for three weeks and two days. I was charged the day after I got to prison, but bail was refused because, they said, the investigation was ongoing and I would influence it if I was released."

Verco and Weiss say they both had their phones tapped, along with 17 other activists, which is legal under recently introduced terror legislation in Denmark. Verco said: "I feel nervous and indignant at the same time, I wonder what the hell they're going to argue because I can't see what evidence they've got for these charges. And looking back at the calls that they've taped, it feels very invasive. Under the new terror laws they can do this, but it seems to me that applying terror laws to activists is steadily eroding the base of our democracy."

Verco was heavily involved in organising the day of action on December 14, but was arrested before it happened. When it took place, she was still being held by police. "The police say that they prevented anything happening by taking me in. There was no violence, and no disruption of the public infrastructure, because they'd arrested me."

During the fortnight of talks, dozens of protests from the small to mass rallies of 40,000 people, took place; the Danish police arrested nearly 2,000 people. The police are now processing nearly 200 legal complaints about the treatment of the arrestees. Verco and Weiss were both involved with CJA, the network which helped to organise some of the protests during the talks, most notably the Reclaim Power demonstration outside the conference centre for the negotiations.

Apart from Weiss and Verconone of the other activists charged during the protests, including the Greenpeace Four who were arrested and held for three weeks after unfurling a banner during a black tie event, have yet had their court dates set.

news20100317gdn4

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Pollution]
China defends detention of lead poisoning victims who sought medical help

More than 50 villagers suffering from lead poisoning were detained after the bus taking them for health checks was stopped by police
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 March 2010 12.32 GMT Article history

{{Children at a village near the Wugang manganese smelting plant in Hunan province on 22 August, 2009. Hundreds of children in the province are suffering from suspected lead poisoning caused by the local factory.}
{Photograph}: Frederic J. Brown/AFP}

Chinese authorities have defended the six-month detention of lead poisoning victims who were seeking medical care, saying the punishment was necessary for "public education".

Police in Jiahe, Hunan province, blocked a bus carrying 53 villagers who were on their way to get health checks last September, according to Chinese media.

Mistakenly believing the villagers were planning to protest, the police have detained two of them for the six months since on the charge of "disrupting traffic". Though it has since been proved that they and their children were contaminated by illegal emissions of heavy metals from a smelting factory, the local government was unapologetic.

"We may have blocked the wrong visit, but they should not have been on that road," Li Ying, deputy secretary of Jiahe county political and legislative committee told the Beijing News, which today published an investigation into the incident.

Ou Shudong, the chairman of the local People's Congress, told the newspaper the police roadblock and detentions were justified. "The villagers' intentions were unclear. Even if they were going for a medical examination, they should have informed the government."

The story highlights the feudal control that local officials exercise in much of rural China. It also exemplifies the widespread strategy of stifling dissent by making an example of suspected ringleaders, a tactic known as "killing a chicken to scare the monkeys".

A Jiahe county report cited by the newspaper says the punishment of a few people "served the purpose of public education for the majority". The Guardian's calls to the county government, police bureau and communist party went unanswered.

The journalistic exposure of police tactics came amid a widening wave of heavy metal scandals. Since the first cases last summer, more than 3,000 children nationwide have been found to have unsafe levels of lead in their blood, forcing the closure of dozens of factories.

According to the environment ministry, 12 heavy metal pollutions incident were reported last year, prompting 32 public disturbances.

Amid widespread unease that the full scale of the problem has yet to emerge, the authorities face a growing environmental and public security challenge.

The factory in Jiahe was operated by Tenda Corporation, a company that had been ejected from other, wealthier areas because of its dire pollution record. Jiahe – one of China's poorest counties – allowed it to operate despite warnings from the local environmental department that the plant was breaking toxic emission regulations.

A gradual build-up of lead in the bloodstream can damage the nervous system and lead to anaemia, muscle weakness, arrested development and brain damage.

Local people complained of health problems and unusually belligerent behaviour and poor school grades among their children, but their petitions to the authorities were ignored for more than three years.

However, medical tests have proved their claims. The latest results, received on 24 February, revealed that 250 of the 397 children in the village had excess levels of lead in their blood. The victims included four of the five children of Liao Mingxiu, one of those still in police detention.

More lead poisoning cases are emerging elsewhere. This week, 88 children and six adults tested positive for lead poisoning in Longchang county, Sichuan province.

Seven children have been hospitalised for a week and more than 700 people are awaiting medical test results.

The source of the contamination, the Zhongyi Alloy factory, has since been closed.

"We have sent 10 doctors to the villages to explain the situation to residents," said Zheng Shili, propaganda director of Longchang government. "Public sentiment is basically calm."

Additional reporting by Han Ying

news20100317sn1

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[Science News for Kids]
FOR KIDS: Heaviest named element is official

Superheavy copernicum takes its place in the Periodic Table
By Stephen Ornes
Web edition : Monday, March 15th, 2010

{{Copernicus}
The element copernicum has 112 protons and is named for the 16th century scholar Nicolaus Copernicus (pictured).
Dumelow/Wikimedia Commons}

Everything on Earth that scientists can see, measure or study is made of atoms — and atoms are named by what type of element they are. You probably know the name of many elements, such as oxygen, gold or hydrogen. Others, such as cadmium or xenon, may sound strange and exotic. In any case, elements are everywhere: You, your shoes, your desk, cars, water, air — all made of elements.

Now, there’s a new kid on the block: Elements, meet copernicum.

This element was officially named on February 19, but the element itself isn’t new. German scientists made and observed it in 1996. But in the 14 years since then, other scientists have been working to study and validate the original findings. A scientific breakthrough is “validated” when other scientists can perform the same experiment and get the same results. Validation is an important part of the scientific process because it demonstrates that a scientific discovery was not a mistake.

All that hard work finally paid off when the element finally received its name, copernicum, from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (the organization in charge of making sure chemists all over the world use the same words to mean the same things.) Copernicum is named in honor of Nicolaus Copernicus, a 16th century Polish scholar who proposed that Earth orbits the sun (rather than that everything orbits Earth) and that Earth turns on its own axis. These ideas may seem obvious now, but in 16th century Europe, they were revolutionary.

Scientists organize all the elements on a chart called the Periodic Table. Each element gets a symbol and its own number, and copernicum gets the symbol Cn and the number 112. This number means that inside every atom of copernicum are 112 protons. Protons are particles inside the nucleus, or core, of every atom. The lightest element, hydrogen, has only one proton inside each atom.

Its 112 protons make copernicum the heaviest known element with a name. It was first observed by Sigurd Hofmann, a scientist at the Center for Heavy Ion Research, or GSI, in Darmstadt, Germany. Hofmann and his team created copernicum in the laboratory when they blasted atoms of lead (each with 82 protons) with zinc isotopes, kinds of zinc atoms that each had 30 protons.

This was no easy process: You can’t just shoot one atom at another and expect the atoms to buddy up. In 1996, Hofmann and his team had to figure out a way to get all the protons together — and stick. They used a machine, called the Universal Linear Accelerator, that can accelerate atoms up to 10 percent the speed of light. After a week of working on these high-speed collisions, Hofmann’s team found copernicum — even though it quickly vanished. Most of the superheavy elements in copernicum’s neighborhood — those that are heavier than uranium — tend to be unstable, which means they decay into smaller atoms quickly.

Now, 14 years after Hofmann’s experiment, other scientists are able to make copernicum and validate Hofmann’s original work. Scientists are excited about copernicum. If such a superheavy atom can be created, then even heavier elements might be waiting in the future. “One of the exciting things is, how far can we keep going?” says nuclear chemist Paul Karol of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

POWER WORDS (adapted from the Yahoo! Kids Dictionary)

element A substance composed of atoms all having the same number of protons in the nucleus. Elements cannot be reduced to simpler substances by normal chemical means.

atom A unit of matter, the smallest unit of an element, having all the characteristics of that element and consisting of a dense, central, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a system of electrons.

proton A stable, positively charged subatomic particle.

uranium A heavy, silvery-white, metallic element that is radioactive, toxic and easily oxidized. It has 92 protons in each atom.

news20100317sn2

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[Science News]
Intel Science Talent Search spotlights America's whiz kids

This year's winning high schooler takes top prize for work on space navigation
By Lisa Grossman
Web edition : 1:34 am Mar 17th 2010

Ten of the nation’s most innovative scientists convened in Washington this week to receive their version of Olympic Gold — temporarily putting aside their homework to do so.

Erika DeBenedictis, 18, of Albuquerque won first place in the Intel Science Talent Search, a prestigious competition for high school seniors, at a gala held the evening of March 16. DeBenedictis earned a $100,000 scholarship from the Intel Foundation for her work designing an autonomous navigation system that could help spacecraft travel swiftly and efficiently along an “interplanetary superhighway,” using planets’ gravity to catch a ride.

Second place and a $75,000 scholarship went to David Liu, 18, of Saratoga, Calif. Liu wrote software to automatically search and organize digital pictures. He trained a computer algorithm to recognize when certain features, like buildings, faces or the color green, were present in a picture, and wrote a program to display similar pictures in linked groups. Beyond organizing personal photo albums, the system could be helpful in medical imaging, space exploration and detecting threats to oil pipelines, Liu suggests.

Akhil Mathew, 18, of Madison, N.J., won third place and a $50,000 scholarship for his work on a class of complex numbers called Deligne categories, which combined algebraic geometry, representation theory and category theory. Mathew used a new mathematical method to show that, when certain conditions are met, the complex version of representation theory is not too different from the classical version. His method could be applied to other problems in mathematics, he says.

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, has administered the Science Talent Search since its beginning in 1942. The Intel Foundation sponsors the competition. Vying for more than $630,000 in scholarships and other awards, the 40 finalists in this year’s competition were selected from more than 1,700 entrants, and represented 36 high schools in 18 states. Science Talent Search finalists have gone on to win seven Nobel Prizes, 10 MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants, two Fields Medals and three National Medals of Science.

“This year’s Intel STS finalists are fully worthy successors to the impressive alumni who have come before them,” says Elizabeth Marincola, president of the Society for Science & the Public. “We firmly believe that whatever fields they each pursue, the discipline and rigor of the scientific training and thinking our finalists have already pursued will serve as a robust launch-pad to their success as professionals, and as citizens of our human community.”

The gala was the culmination of a weeklong visit to Washington for all finalists. The students presented their scientific projects to the public, the scientific community and the judges at the National Academy of Sciences on March 14. Students met with 50 members of Congress and John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. But the trip left time for fun as well, including a tour of the national monuments and a bowling excursion.

“The best part has been connecting with the other 39 finalists,” Liu says. “It’s such a collaborative atmosphere.”

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said, “These 40 Intel Science Talent Search finalists demonstrate that we have the capability in this country to cultivate the next generation of innovators, scientists and entrepreneurs. These young scientists are proof that curious, eager minds coupled with inspiring, knowledgeable teachers are the foundation for world-changing innovation.”

The award ceremony included a speech from Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who stressed the value of imagination in our increasingly well-connected world. “You as an individual can now act on your imagination farther, faster, deeper, cheaper than ever before,” he said.


Friedman also drew applause from the audience by emphasizing the importance of a liberal arts education. “Lord knows math and science are irreplaceable, and this is not an argument against that,” he said. “It's an argument for augmentation. Do not forget to take those liberal arts classes in college ... because they are actually critical sources of creativity and inspiration.”

Fourth place and a $40,000 scholarship went to Lynnelle Ye, 18, of Palo Alto, Calif., for her analysis of a two-person combinatorial game called Chomp, which she used to reliably predict the winner of the game in a certain set of circumstances.

Eric Brooks, 16, of Hewlett, N.Y., won fifth place and a $30,000 scholarship for investigating genetic factors associated with race that affect how likely prostate cancer is to metastasize.

Sixth place went to John Capodilupo, 18, of Grand Rapids, Mich., for a detailed statistical analysis of galaxy clustering that could be useful in removing noise from future galactic surveys. Seventh place went to Benjamen Sun, 17, of Grand Forks, N.D., for studying how dirt and debris in the street interact with rainwater. Both of these students were awarded a $25,000 scholarship.

Eighth through 10th place winners each won a $20,000 scholarship. They are Katherine Rudolph, 18, of Naperville, Ill., who studied the most efficient way to arrange spheres in n-dimensional space, a project which could have implications for supercooling liquids; Yale Fan, 18, of Beaverton, Ore., for showing how quantum computing could be used to explore what algorithms would be best at solving a class of problems known as “NP-complete”; and Linda Zhou, 18, of River Edge, N.J., who showed that silencing a gene that codes for a protein called hTERT reduces drug resistance and migration of cancerous cells.

Each of the remaining 30 finalists will receive more than $7,500 in awards.

The Glenn T. Seaborg award winner, Alice Zhao, was elected by the other finalists to give a speech at the gala. Zhao, who studied dynamical spraying of nanoparticles for her project, urged her fellow finalists to take initiative, become inspired, surround themselves with like-minded people and not to worry about the problems facing their generation — they’re in good hands.

news20100317sn3

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[Science News]
Physicists observe quantum properties in the world of objects

Demonstration ties the physics of the ultrasmall to the everyday
By Alexandra Witze Web edition : Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

{{{Quantum object}
A close-up view of the very small resonator, taken with a scanning electron microscope, used in the first demonstration of quantum behavior in an everyday object. The resonator is made of a thin film of aluminum nitride sandwiched between aluminum layers. The mechanically active part of the structure is the quadrilateral shape in the center.}
A. Cleland/UCSB}

Physicists have demonstrated behavior governed by rules of the quantum world, which operate at the level of atoms, in mechanical objects large enough to see.

The accomplishment fulfills a long-held dream to bridge the quantum and everyday worlds. One day, researchers say, mechanical devices in a laboratory might be manipulated according to the rules of single atoms — paving the way to quantum information processing or probing other unusual behaviors of the subatomic world.

“This is groundbreaking work,” says Markus Aspelmeyer, a physicist at the University of Vienna in Austria who was not affiliated with the work. “Now the door is open. Now the fun begins.”

{{High frequencySetting the resonator to a high vibration cycle, illustrated in this cartoon that shows the expansion and contraction cycle that occurs 6 billion times a second, enabled researchers to coax the material into a quantum ground state using just a commercial-grade refrigerator.}
A. Cleland/UCSB}

Multiple teams have competed for years to link the quantum and everyday realms by building a tiny vibrating device and draining out as much of its energy as physically possible, reducing it to the “quantum ground state.” Most groups have tried to do this by building ever more powerful refrigerators to chill the material down to nearly absolute zero, or zero on the Kelvin temperature scale.

But physicist Andrew Cleland of the University of California, Santa Barbara, decided instead to take a shortcut. “If I took a tuning fork and wanted to get it to the quantum ground state, I would have to cool it below 50 billionths of a kelvin,” he explains. “There is no technology that will allow you to do that, not now. But if you push the frequency of that tuning fork up” by orders of magnitude, “then you only have to cool it to 50 millionths of a degree above absolute zero.”

Thus, by choosing a material that vibrated at extremely high frequencies — in this case, 6 billion times a second — Cleland and colleagues were able to use a commercially available refrigerator to reach the quantum ground state, because they didn’t have to cool the system as much as they would with a material at lower frequency.

The researchers also figured out a way to measure activity using a quantum bit — a unit of quantum information—rather than light, which can impart energy back into the cooled-down system. “The real key for us getting this experiment to work was using this particular flavor of a quantum bit,” says Cleland.

In the end, the system that showed quantum behavior is a simple-looking film of aluminum nitride layered between two aluminum electrodes. Cleland and colleagues were able to show not only that the device had reached its quantum ground state, but that they could control it. The scientists created a phonon, the smallest measure of vibrational energy, and watched as it moved back and forth between the resonating device and the quantum bit, they report in a paper published online March 17 in Nature.

“There is huge potential for using these mechanical systems in the quantum regime,” says Aspelmeyer. “Now we have to exploit all the possibilities that we have.”

Potential applications, he says, include using arrays of these resonators to control multiple quantum systems in information processing or to test predictions about “Schrödinger cat” states — named for a hypothetical feline simultaneously alive and dead — in which a system exists in a mix of states known as a superposition. Cleland’s team showed, somewhat indirectly, that a form of superposition existed inside their resonator. If the researchers could make a resonator with longer-lasting vibrations, scientists might be able to test superposition on the macroscopic scale.

news20100317nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 16 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.128 News
Are the Universe's secrets hiding on a chip?

Topological insulator could help to test quantum field theory.
By Geoff Brumfiel

{{Topological insulators could be the next testing ground for particle physics.}
M. KULYK / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY}

An obscure class of materials could be used to simulate a slew of exotic particles predicted by physicists but never seen.

Preliminary results presented on 14 March on the eve of the American Physical Society's meeting in Portland, Oregon, suggest that a large enough chunk of a 'topological insulator' has been made to test some of the odd predictions of quantum field theory — a version of quantum mechanics that is commonly used in particle physics. The theory predicts the existence of a number of unusual particles, which if reproduced in the material could prove useful for future applications such as code-cracking quantum computers, or in spintronics — electronics that relies on particles' spin as well as their charge.

Now Laurens Molenkamp, a physicist at the University of Würzburg in Germany, believes that he has created a mercury telluride (HgTe) topological insulator thick enough to put the theory through its paces.

Topological insulators are materials that conduct electrons on the outside but act as insulators on the inside. The origin of that seemingly mundane property lies in the way that electrons move through the material. Electrons carry a quantum mechanical 'spin' that points either 'up' or 'down'. Spin is normally independent of an electron's motion, but inside topological insulators, electrons' spins are strongly related to how they move.

'Multiverse' on a chip

That relationship between spin and motion makes the insulators a good medium in which to model some formulations of quantum field theory, says Shoucheng Zhang, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University in California.

Quantum field theory has been extraordinarily successful in describing the Universe, but some of its predictions have proved difficult to verify. Some formulations suggest the existence of axions — weakly interacting particles proposed to account for unseen 'dark matter', which could make up almost a quarter of the Universe's mass. The theory also allows for the existence of magnetic monopoles, points of individual north and south that have never been seen in nature.

"We live in one kind of universe, but inside these solids you can create these unusual universes," says Ali Yazdani, a physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey. "That's cool."

{“We live in one kind of universe, but inside these solids you can create these unusual universes.”}

The particles wouldn't be the same as those predicted by quantum field theory — for instance, a study by Zhang and his colleagues shows that axions could be simulated as magnetic fluctuations inside a topological insulator¹. But the analogy could guide scientists on where to look for the particle's real equivalents in the Universe. Shining polarized light through the insulator could reveal telltale signs of axions. If axions really do exist, then the same signature might also appear in the cosmic microwave background radiation, the primordial radiation left over from the Big Bang.

Some of the proposed exotic particles could also have practical uses. One class, known as Majorana fermions, predicted to be very stable, could be used in quantum computers to store data.

Funky things

The HgTe used by Molenkamp is a well known topological insulator, but so far the topological insulating behaviour has been seen only along the edges of razor thin slivers of the material. In preliminary results presented at a tutorial ahead of the meeting, Molenkamp revealed evidence that electrons on the surface of his three-dimensional sample were behaving as though they were in a topological insulator. "If this is all working, we can experimentally check quantum field theory," he says.

If HgTe lives up to his expectations, Molenkamp says he may soon begin the search for the "funky things" predicted to reside inside it.

Yazdani, who works with an alternative class of materials based on bismuth, says that if Molenkamp has achieved the results he describes, this would be a significant step forwards for the field. But, he adds, "I haven't seen his data so I can't say how convincing it is."

Zhang says that the results are exciting. However, he acknowledges that although axions and monopoles might live in a topological insulator, that doesn't mean they'll exist in the real world. "It doesn't mean that we will see it in the Universe," he says. "But at least it tells us these equations are not crazy."

References
1. Li, R., Wang, J., Qi, X.-L. & Zhang, S.-C. Nature Phys. doi:10.1038/nphys1534 (2010).

news20100317nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 16 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/464338a
News
Cash crisis looms for vaccine drive

Rising demand for immunization programmes in developing countries could outstrip funding.
By Declan Butler

GAVI has immunized hundreds of millions of children.G. Pirozzi/PANOSUp to 4.2 million people, mostly young children, will die needlessly over the next 6 years unless donors fill a looming multibillion-dollar shortfall in the budget of the GAVI Alliance.

The warning from GAVI, which focuses on getting vaccines into low-income countries, is contained in advocacy documents it sent to its donors last weekend, in the run up to an extraordinary meeting due to be held on 25–26 March in The Hague, the Netherlands. It is the first time that the global-health partnership, based in Geneva, Switzerland, has brought together all of its major donors — countries and philanthropic organizations — at a single fund-raising event. It is also a sign of the current woes at the organization, which since its creation in 2000 has taken vaccination rates in low-income countries to record highs. "The funding crisis at GAVI is acute," says Daniel Berman, deputy director of the Access to Essential Medicines Campaign at the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières.

According to the World Health Organization, GAVI has immunized more than 250 million children and prevented some 5.4 million premature deaths over the past decade. But it now risks becoming a victim of its own success, with demand for its immunization efforts outstripping donor contributions just as the financial crisis has begun to bite.

The GAVI documents show that its projected spending for 2010–15 is US$7 billion, which, given existing and promised donations, leaves a $4.3-billion shortfall. If existing donors maintain their funding at current levels, the shortfall would shrink by $1.7 billion, leaving enough money to maintain existing programmes. But GAVI's future initiatives would stall. It had hoped to roll out two additional vaccines between now and 2015, spending $2.4 billion on a campaign against pneumococcal disease and $750 million to tackle rotavirus. Together, these would reduce pneumonia and diarrhoea, which are the top two vaccine-preventable causes of child deaths and account for around 40% of deaths in children under five — a key target in achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals on global health.

The fund-raising meeting will focus on soli­citing new donors to broaden GAVI's funding base. Around 80% of GAVI cash comes from a handful of country donors (see 'Few funders for vaccines'), which has left the alliance highly vulnerable during the global economic downturn to funding reductions by only a few nations.

GAVI is hoping that one of its key financial innovations, the International Finance Facility for Immunisation, will prove particularly recession-proof. The facility does not require countries to put money on the table immediately, but rather to make 10–20-year legally binding commitments, which the facility then borrows against on capital markets. New long-term pledges by countries or foundations could help the alliance to free up cash in the short term, says Joelle Tanguy, a GAVI spokeswoman.

The billion-dollar question is how much cash might be forthcoming from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a founder of GAVI that has pledged $1.55 billion to the alliance up to 2014. In January, the foundation promised $10 billion to support a ten-year effort to research, develop and deliver vaccines, but declined to comment on how much of that will go to GAVI. It will be difficult for donors at the Hague meeting to come to decisions without a firmer idea of any extra contribution by the foundation, says Berman.

GAVI's activities are widely applauded, but even supporters say that it could be doing more to make its funds go further. Vaccines amount to 80% of its costs, and Médecins Sans Frontières, for example, has criticized as "too lucrative for the drug industry" an 'advance market commitment' deal that GAVI and its partners signed in June 2009 to secure lower prices for pneumococcal vaccines. GAVI promised to guarantee a $1.5-billion market as an initial incentive to roll out the vaccines; in exchange, drug companies including GlaxoSmithKline agreed to charge $7 per dose for the first batches of vaccine and $3.50 in the longer term, compared with the $70 per dose charged in rich countries.

But GAVI should have got a better deal, says Berman. "The crisis is a good opportunity to make some reforms of how GAVI works," he says. He suggests that it needs to pursue more aggressive policies to promote greater competition between vaccine makers to further reduce prices. For example, the Meningitis Vaccine Project, funded by the Gates Foundation, is developing a meningitis vaccine that will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India in Pune, and will cost just $0.40 per dose. Tanguy says that GAVI's $7-billion projected spending up to 2015 already takes into account its goal of saving $1 billion on vaccines, and that cutting vaccine prices is "one of our critical strategies".

The US government should also help, according to Bill Gates, who testified at a US Senate committee hearing last week on President Barack Obama's global health plans. Although getting more US government money for global health would be an "uphill battle", he said, funding for GAVI should get high priority.

The Obama administration intends to spend $9.7 billion on global health in its 2011 budget, 80% of which would go towards fighting AIDS (through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and malaria. The budget includes a modest increase in GAVI funding, from $78 million to $90 million.

"An investment in GAVI will give American taxpayers the best bang for their buck," said Gates, "and the committee should consider increasing the level of funding beyond the administration's request."

news20100317nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 16 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/464336a
News
China debates university reform

Academics lobby for more autonomy, but fear losing powerful connections with government.
By David Cyranoski

{{Could Tsinghua University’s School of Life Sciences benefit from more freedom from government?}
Tsinghua University}

Most scientists in China agree that their university system is ripe for reform. They chafe under bureaucracy and targets that promote research quantity over quality. Now the government has asked them for ideas about how to achieve that reform — and sparked a heated debate.

At issue is the desire of many academics to secure greater autonomy for their institutions, allowing them to hire more freely and develop unique research specialities. But some argue that this autonomy will go hand in hand with losing crucial connections — and influence — with powerful government departments.

On 28 February, China revealed its National Outline for Medium and Long Term Educational Reform and Development, which will guide education over the next decade. The plan, open for public consultation until the end of March, says that annual investment in education should increase to 4% of gross domestic product (from 3.48% in 2008), and also calls for proposals for university reform that will make the higher-education sector more internationally competitive. On 5 March, Premier Wen Jiabao said that the plan should be implemented "promptly" once the consultation is over.

{“Universities should be cultivating their individual strengths.”}

Rao Yi, dean of Peking University's School of Life Sciences, and Shi Yigong, dean of Tsinghua University's School of Life Sciences in Beijing, had already set out their own ideas for reform the previous week in an article in the Renmin Ribao (People's Daily), the Communist party's daily newspaper. It was an abbreviated version of a letter sent to the premier, with whom they had previously discussed the matter, suggesting that the same autonomy that had been bestowed on Chinese agriculture and businesses in the 1980s, and led to rapid economic success, should also be granted to education. The scientists — who both returned to China after successful careers abroad — argue that micromanagement by university administrators acting on instructions from central government forces all universities to chase the same targets, leading to a "monotony of purpose". "Evaluating schools without much research capacity, whose strengths might lie elsewhere, by the number of papers produced could lead to rushed and exaggerated results," Shi and Rao wrote. Instead, "different universities should be cultivating their individual strengths".

By setting common targets regardless of size or resources, the Ministry of Education encourages a harmful standardization, agrees Rao Zihe, president of Nankai University in Tianjin. "Universities watch each other's success in living up to that standard. Sooner or later, they all start cloning each other," he says.

The education ministry also determines how many students each university should admit, and the basic curricula. These decisions, too, should devolve to the universities, say Shi and Rao Yi, with a board of directors drawn from the faculty able to oversee the process. This board would also select the university's president — subject to ministry approval — and individual faculties should have the freedom to decide who to appoint as professors.

China has the third-largest national science budget in the world, but most observers agree that results have not been commensurate with investment. A report released in February by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China ranked its homeland 13th out of 19 countries assessed for their "global science influence". Some scientists contacted by Nature suggest that trimming the influence of university bureaucrats with close ties to the ministry could help to tame the obsession with publication targets. The question is how.

One suggestion is to end the practice, started in 1999, of bestowing the administrative rank of vice-minister on the presidents of China's 31 leading universities. The titles are meant to recognize the importance of universities. "But some say it poisons the academic culture," says Xue Lan, a science-policy expert at Tsinghua University. "Professors come to think of rank rather than academic standards."

Such a change would signal that universities were focusing more on teaching and research, and less on administrative targets. But in a society that lauds Confucianism, with its emphasis on social hierarchy, a vice-minister post is a mark of a university's importance. "For university presidents, it gives them some power to relate to those outside academia," says Rao Yi.

Xue acknowledges that the status of vice-minister can be useful for university administrators. "No matter where you go in China, people pay attention to rank."

news20100317bbc1

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 22:04 GMT, Tuesday, 16 March 2010
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News
Copenhagen climate summit undone by 'arrogance'

{Western nations failed to understand how China works, says Lord Stern}

The "disappointing" outcome of December's climate summit was largely down to "arrogance" on the part of rich countries, according to Lord Stern.

The economist told BBC News that the US and EU nations had not understood well enough the concerns of poorer nations.

But, he said, the summit had led to a number of countries outlining what they were prepared to do to curb emissions.

Seventy-three countries have now signed up to the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, the summit's outcome document.

The weak nature of the document led many to condemn the summit as a failure; but Lord Stern said that view was mistaken.

"The fact of Copenhagen and the setting of the deadline two years previously at Bali did concentrate minds, and it did lead... to quite specific plans from countries that hadn't set them out before," he said.

{{The reality is different from half a year ago}
Gro Harlem Brundtland
UN special envoy on climate change}

"So this process has itself been a key part of countries stating what their intentions on emissions reductions are - countries that had not stated them before, including China and the US.

"So that was a product of the UNFCCC (UN climate convention) process that we should respect."

The former World Bank chief economist and author of the influential 2006 review into the economics of climate change was speaking to BBC News following a lecture at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

During the lecture, he compared the atmosphere at the Copenhagen summit to student politics in the 1960s - "chaotic, wearing, tiring, disappointing" - and said it was one in which countries had little room for real negotiating.

However, he said, it was vital to stick with the UN process, whatever its frustrations.

Twin tracks

Having failed to agree a treaty to supplant or supplement the Kyoto Protocol, and having failed to set a timetable for agreeing such a treaty, opinions are inevitably split on how countries seeking stronger curbs on greenhouse gas emissions should move forward.

{{It could have been much better handled by the rich countries}
Lord Stern}

Speaking in Brussels, Gro Harlem Brundtland - the UN's special envoy on climate change - suggested there would now be a twin-track approach, with some of the important discussions taking place outside the UNFCCC umbrella.

She also acknowledged that the talks had proved much more problematical than some governments - particularly in the EU - had anticipated.

"They got the message that it was much more complicated than [they had believed], and that they have to work with Brazil and China and others, not only in the broad framework of UN negotiations but also more directly and pragmatically," she said.

"The reality is different from half a year ago."

Lord Stern agreed that what he described as the "disappointing" outcome of the Copenhagen talks was largely down to rich nations' failure to understand developing world positions and concerns.

"[There was] less arrogance than in previous years - we have, I think, moved beyond the G8 world to the G20 world where more countries are involved - but [there was] still arrogance and it could have been much better handled by the rich countries," he said.

The EU limited its room for manoeuvre, he said, because too many of the leading political figures wanted to demonstrate that they were leading.

Brass from pockets

The most concrete part of the Copenhagen Accord is an agreement that richer countries should raise funds to help poorer nations adapt to climate impacts and "green" their economies.

Lord Stern is a member of the group set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise on how to raise $100bn (£66bn) per year by 2020 using various "innovative mechanisms" that could include taxes on international aviation and banking transactions.

But the immediate objective, he suggested, was to enact the short-term promise of providing $30bn over the period 2010-12 from the public purses of western nations.

If that money did not start to move fairly quickly, he said, that would further erode trust among developing countries.

Speaking in Brussels during a meeting with EU leaders, Mexico's environment secretary Juan Rafael Elvira endorsed the point.

"The developing world needs to see clear signals to have something in their hands at Cancun," he said.

The Mexican coastal city will host this year's UNFCCC summit.

"The developing countries want to see this money unblocked; the island nations especially are waiting for this funding," said Mr Elvira.

How and where these funds are to be disbursed has yet to be decided.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 10:56 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
Monkeys learn more from females

Monkeys pay more attention to females than to males, according to research.

Scientists studying wild vervet monkeys in South Africa found that the animals were better able to learn a task when it was demonstrated by a female.

The team compared animals' responses to demonstrations of a simple box-opening task, which was demonstrated either by a dominant male or female monkey.

Their findings are described in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Biologist Erica van de Waal, from the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, and her team, studied six neighbouring groups of wild vervet monkeys in South Africa's Loskop Dam Nature Reserve.

They gave the monkeys boxes containing fruit, which had doors on each differently coloured end.

During an initial demonstration, the researchers blocked one of the doors, so there was only one correct way to solve the box-opening puzzle and access the fruit reward.

For three of the groups, a dominant male monkey was selected as a "model" to demonstrate the task and for the other three a dominant female was chosen.

"The models learned by trial and error how to open the box," explained Ms van de Waal. "Once they understood how to pull or slide the door open we let them perform 25 demonstrations."

After this "demonstration phase", the other monkeys were far more likely to try - and to succeed in - opening the fruit box if their demonstrator was a female.

"We found that bystanders paid significantly more attention to female than male models," said Ms van de Waal.

"[This] seemed to be the only factor influencing this social learning."

Social bonds

Watching and learning from dominant females could be advantageous for the monkeys. While males tend to wander and find mates in other groups, females usually return to the group in which they were born.

"Females are core group members with higher social status than males, and more knowledge about food resources in the home range," explained Ms van de Waal.

She said the results revealed valuable insights into "the evolution of traditions and culture in species living in stable groups, including humans".
"To our knowledge, [this is] the first experimental field evidence for social learning in primates," she added.

"Experiments on social learning have been conducted mainly in captivity and it is time to know if the results are the same on wild animals."

news20100317bbc2

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 09:05 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Climate change 'exaggerated' in government adverts

Two government press adverts which used nursery rhymes to raise awareness of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

It said the advertisements went beyond mainstream scientific consensus in asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought.

A total of 939 people complained to the ASA about the "Act on CO2" campaign.

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the ads should have been "phrased better" but defended the campaign.

Three other advertisements, including a TV commercial, were cleared by the advertising watchdog.

The ASA ruled that the banned adverts, created on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to promote its carbon reduction initiative, made exaggerated claims about the threat posed to the UK by global warming.

{The climate change TV advert has been cleared by the ASA after complaints}

Two posters juxtaposed adapted extracts from popular nursery rhymes with text that warned about the dangers of global warning.

One of the banned adverts read: "Rub a dub, three men in a tub, a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change."

And a second said Jack and Jill could not fetch a pail of water because extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought.

The ASA upheld complaints against these two advertisements, saying a claim that "extreme weather events would become more frequent and intense" should have been phrased more tentatively.

It noted that predictions about the potential impact of global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "involved uncertainties" that had not been reflected in the adverts.

The advertising watchdog said the text accompanying the rhymes should have used more tentative language in both instances.

'Mistake'

However, the watchdog cleared complaints against a TV commercial, showing a young girl being read a nightmarish bedtime story by her father about a world blighted by climate change.

Mr Miliband said he accepted the ruling and admitted a mistake had been made in the type of language used.

{{FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME}}

"We should have phrased the advert better and we will do so in the future," he told the Today programme.

"We probably should have made it clearer that this was a prediction and we should have made it clearer the basis of the claim."

However, he said the watchdog had not questioned the "big picture" that "man-made climate change was happening".

Government had a duty to make people aware of the dangers of climate change and the campaign had been a success.

"What is the job of the government? It is to lead. Sitting in the position I do, meeting the scientists I do, who tell me about their great fears about climate change and the impact it will have on peoples' way of life and the very high likelihoods we will see the events we were talking about in those ads.

"Frankly it would be grossly irresponsible of me not to draw peoples' attention to that and not to explain how people can make a difference themselves."

The government would "continue to provide public information about the dangers of climate change", he added.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 01:35 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
By Matt McGrath
BBC environment reporter
Africans 'take blame for climate change'

{Africans are uncertain how to approach climate change issues}

Many Africans blame themselves for climate change even though fossil fuel emissions there are less than 4% of the global total, a new survey suggests.

The report, the most extensive survey ever conducted on public understanding of the issue, found that others blamed God for changes in weather patterns.

It suggests dealing with climate change poses similar challenges to HIV and Aids, as people lack key information.

It was carried out for the BBC World Service trust and the British Council.

It has become a well-worn truism of international climate politics that those that did the least to cause climate change are those set to suffer the most from it.

However the Africa Talks Climate Report indicates that this message hasn't got through to many of those bearing the heaviest consequences of rising temperatures across the continent.

Over 1,000 citizens in 10 countries took part in discussions to ascertain what Africans really know and understand about the climate.

Divine punishment

The report found a near-universal sense that what people call "weather" is changing and affecting lives.

But most of those interviewed did not connect these changes with global causes such as emissions of carbon dioxide.

Instead people tend to blame themselves or their peers for local environmental degradation and some see the changes as a form of divine punishment.

Anna Godfrey, research manager for the BBC World Service Trust, says this religious perspective could help in climate education.

"One of the big stumbling blocks is language with many people not understanding the terminology of climate change, and often there are no words for these concepts in local languages," said Ms Godfrey.

Some 200 opinion leaders were also interviewed for the report.

Some argued that the lack of appropriate information about rising temperatures is comparable to the early days of HIV/Aids where ignorance helped the rapid spread of the infection.

Often local government leaders were among those least informed about global climate change.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 10:56 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Ukrainians uncover Crimean British Navy vessel

{The Charge of the Light Brigade happened during the Crimean War}

Ukrainian archaeologists say they have identified the remains of HMS Prince, a British naval vessel that sank off Balaclava during the Crimean War.

The sinking, with all 150 men on board, caused outrage not only for the human toll, but because thousands of badly needed winter uniforms were also lost.

The ship had not been found since it sank during a storm in November 1854.

Other underwater expeditions have found parts of the ship, but it is the first positive identification.

According to Sergei Voronov, of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and the leader of the expedition, explorers discovered a plate fragment from the captain's mess last summer.

After months of meticulous cleaning, the fragment revealed the name of the company which owned the Prince before it was hired by the Royal Navy: the General Screw Steam Shipping Company.

Cold and disease

Now Mr Voronov and his colleagues are hoping to attract international interest to explore another ship which also sank during the Crimean War and is mostly intact.

The Prince was lost during a winter storm near the Crimean port city of Balaclava, during the historic siege of Sevastopol, which was part of the Russian Empire but is now located in Ukraine.

Its sinking unleashed an uproar in Britain, as troops were suffering from the extreme cold and widespread disease.

The Crimean War, which lasted from October 1853 to February 1856, pitted Russia against Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia.

It was during the Crimean War, at the Battle of Balaclava, that the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade took place which led to the deaths of 272 British soldiers.

The Crimean War is sometimes called the first modern war, and was the first to incorporate the tactical use of railways and telegraph, and was captured extensively in photographs.

news20100317reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON
Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:02pm EDT
Cap-trade plan in compromise climate bill

(Reuters) - A compromise climate control bill that could be sketched out next week in the U.S. Senate will be anchored by a "cap and trade" plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from utilities such as power plants, a key senator said on Monday.

"That's not to say there are not some details left to be resolved with utilities but the overall approach is that," the senator said during an interview with Reuters.

Under cap and trade, companies would have to obtain permits for every ton of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases they emit. The number of permits would steadily decline during the next 40 years and companies could trade those permits on a regulated financial market.

In a bid to rally support for passing a climate change bill, former President Bill Clinton will address Senate Democrats on Tuesday at their weekly luncheon, according to a leadership aide.

Even if legislation to tackle global warming by mandating carbon pollution reductions for the first time is unveiled, it is unclear whether such a bill will pass during this election year.

After a compromise Senate bill is crafted, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to take several weeks to analyze the economic impact of the proposals. If that goes well, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could try to schedule a debate and vote on the bill by mid-year.

The EPA says it will move to regulate carbon pollution on its own if Congress fails to pass legislation.

Democratic Senator John Kerry has been working with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman on a climate bill that they hope will attract the support of at least 60 of the Senate's 100 members.

They have been working behind closed doors for months now, meeting with corporate lobbyists, environmental groups and undecided senators from states where coal, a major source of emissions when burned, is important in the local economy.

But any climate control bill likely would raise energy prices as the country is forced to move to using more expensive alternative power sources, such as solar and wind. And that could make for a difficult vote for senators facing re-election during the current tough economic times.

SECTOR BY SECTOR

In an interview with Reuters, the senator said: "There's more certainty about cap and trade for utilities" than how the government would mandate carbon pollution reductions from other sectors, such as transportation and manufacturing.

A bill passed last June by the House of Representatives would set an economy-wide cap and trade program, including power companies, oil refineries and factories. Emissions would decline by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels under the House bill. Senators are looking at a similar target, which the Obama administration has embraced.

But an economy-wide cap and trade program did not appear to have enough votes to pass the Senate.

Instead, senators have been looking at a possible oil industry tax to help control carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Some senators from heavy manufacturing states have been pushing for a delay in carbon emission requirements for factories before moving to a cap and trade program or other mechanism.

The Senate compromise bill, which the senator said could be outlined sometime next week, will "be different ways to deal with different sectors. It's a step-by-step sectoral approach," the senator said.

Many Republicans, who oppose government mandating emissions reductions, have called cap and trade nothing more than "cap and tax." As a result, and because cap and trade is difficult to describe, senators have been looking for different names for the program.

"We probably won't use the word 'cap and trade'" in the legislation, the senator told Reuters.

If the United States manages to enact a domestic carbon-control law this year, it could boost the outlook for international talks set for late November in Mexico on a global warming pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Eric Walsh)


[Green Business]
Denise Luna
RIO DE JANEIRO
Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:58pm EDT
Brazil to invest $57 billion in electricity by 2013

(Reuters) - Brazil is expected to invest 100 billion reais ($57 billion) in its electricity sector from 2010 to 2013, of which the BNDES national development bank will finance 60 percent, the bank's energy department manager Alexandre Esposito said.

The Brazilian government has been acutely aware of the importance of expanding capacity in its electric energy sector since it had to ration energy in 2001-2002, which sent the economy into recession.

With the slow pace of bringing new large hydroelectric projects online, the government has put considerable effort in keeping investments in expansion moving given the expected surge in demand from the fast growing economy.

The upcoming 11,200 megawatt Belo Monte hydroelectric project planned for the Xingu River in the Amazon is expected to absorb 12 billion reais in financing from the bank.

The total cost of the project, which has taken over two decades to make it to auction and is due to go on the block by May, is valued by the government at nearly 20 billion reais.

From 2003 to 2009, the BNDES financed 60.7 billion reais in energy generation, transmission and distribution, the bulk of the 105 billion reais of total investments in the sector.

In 2009 alone, the bank provided credit for 15.5 billion reais for the sector, versus 16.7 billion reais in 2008.

The BNDES is still actively seeking to exit its 49.99 percent stake in Brasiliana, the holding company that controls AES Eletropaulo and AES Tiete. The stake has been on the market since before the global financial crisis worsened in 2008.

AES has first rights to buy the bank's share of Brasiliana but it also has "drag along rights" which permit it to any buyer to purchase 100 percent of Brasiliana.

"If we exit, the bank will earn a nice profit, but it depends on the time of the sale. If AES doesn't buy the stake, it will have to do a drag along," he said, adding that this would make it more difficult to find a buyer.

Esposito said that the recent return of AES' interest in investing in Brazil, which has weathered the global financial crisis superbly and whose economy is expected to grow 6 percent in 2010, was a surprise.

Analysts have been forecasting increased activity in mergers and acquisitions in Brazil's energy sector.

"AES went from a seller of assets to a buyer," he said.

(Writing by Reese Ewing; Editing by Marguerita Choy)


[Green Business]
Gabriela Baczynska
WARSAW
Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:57pm EDT
Poland moves to end dispute with EC on carbon

(Reuters) - Poland will ask the European Commission for a new carbon dioxide emission permits quota of 208.5 million tons a year, it said in a statement on Tuesday, in a compromise likely to help end a long dispute with Brussels.

Poland had originally requested 284.6 million a year of the permits, called EUAs, under the bloc's scheme to fight global warming. But it was only given 208.5 million by the European Commission.

A European tribunal then ruled that the decision to grant Warsaw the lower amount was unjustified, opening the way for new negotiations.

"We were arguing for more, but the Commission was arguing for an even tighter limit than 208.5 and that's what we have settled for," a Polish source close to the negotiations told Reuters.

Warsaw had originally sought the higher quota by saying its rapidly expanding economy and growing energy demand would suffer from tighter limits.

But the economic downturn brought a fall in energy demand and much slower economic growth, giving the European Commission arguments to propose still fewer of the permits to Poland for this accounting period, which ends in 2012.

"We agreed for 208.5 because we have signals from the Commission, that they would accept that. Soon we will get new emissions data from the real economy, which could give the EC arguments for further tightening of the limit," the source said.

Poland, the biggest ex-communist European Union member, relies for more than 90 percent of its electricity needs on highly polluting coal. (Additional reporting by Pete Harrison in Brussels, editing by Anthony Barker)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
MILAN
Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:58pm EDT
Italy to import renewable energy to hit 2020 target

(Reuters) - Italy would need to boost imports of renewable energy to meet a 17 percent target in its total energy use set by the European Union for 2020, Italian energy market operator GME said on Tuesday.

Italy will have to import 4 million tons of oil equivalent (toe) of green energy, including 2.9 million toe of befouls imported or produced in Italy from imported materials, GME said in a newsletter on Tuesday, citing Italy's plan sent to Brussels in February.

The document, which defines how Italy plans to reach its 2020 renewables target, said green electricity imports would have to amount to 1.1 million toe, which is equivalent to 13.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity output.

"The information which we sent to Brussels ... points out at a difficulty to reach the 17 percent target by using only national output from renewable sources," Luciano Barra, a senior energy department official at Italy's Economic Development Ministry, told the GME newsletter.

Italy should boost energy efficiency measures, he said.

Renewables account for 7 percent of total energy use in Italy. Energy sector operators have urged the government to introduce new incentives to increase green energy output and usage and bring Italy closer to the 2020 target.

Italy would need to invest in building power interconnections with Albania, Montenegro, Switzerland and Tunisia to boost renewable power imports, Barra said.

Green energy imports are expected to arrive through new interconnections in 2014 and increase by 2018 to help Italy cover 25 percent of its power demand from renewable sources under the EU target, Barra said.

About 50 percent of renewable power will be imported to Italy through new links to be built by national power grid operator Terna with Montenegro and Tunisia and the rest by new merchant lines, Barra said.

Terna is on track to build a 1,000 megawatt interconnection with Montenegro and a 1,000 MW link with Tunisia in time for 2020, Luigi de Francisci, director of Terna's regulatory affairs department, told the newsletter.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; Editing by Amanda Cooper)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:08am EDT
EU carbon stalls as used CERs sold on BlueNext

(Reuters) - European carbon emissions futures stalled on Wednesday after emissions exchange BlueNext suspended trading of certified emissions reductions after some recycled credits were sold on the market.

EU Allowances for December delivery inched up 5 cents to 13.03 euros ($17.80) a tonne at 1044 GMT (6:44 a.m. ET), hardly moving in the past hour's trade. Volume was low at 1,127 lots traded.

Certified emissions reductions on the European Climate Exchange (ECX) rose 6 cents or 0.53 percent at 11.40 euros a tonne.

BlueNext said on Wednesday some recycled CERs had been sold on the market and halted trade in CERs while it investigated the issue.

Last week, Hungary said it had sold 2 million emissions permits which its companies had already counted toward their carbon targets, raising concerns of double counting in the European Union scheme to fight climate change.

"Prices are slightly up, but nothing major. The market is still absorbing the news that CERs may have been resold," an emissions trader said.

ECX, Climex and Sendeco2 said they had not found any evidence of CERs being sold on either of their exchanges but were completing the necessary checks.

Traders called for the European Commission to clarify how it planned to resolve the issue.

"The EU Commission needs to communicate quick. Are we going to be able to trade CERs, even over the counter?" another trader said.

Barclays Capital analyst Trevor Sikorski doubted how much the Commission could do as it cannot stop the CER sellers.

"For me, this is more for exchanges to police now. If they aren't able to, you will see a movement off the exchange as people police it through their own documentation," he told Reuters.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Amanda Cooper)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:46am EDT
UK hung parliament a threat to new nuke plants

(Reuters) - Multi-billion pound investment in Britain's energy sector, particularly in nuclear plants, could be under threat in the event of a hung parliament, an executive from a utility planning to build them said on Tuesday.

Opinion polls suggest no political party may win an overall majority in the British elections, which are just weeks away, making the investment climate too risky for developers to push ahead with their plans.

"It could possibly make some investment inconceivable, for instance nuclear," RWE npower designate chief executive, Volker Beckers, told reporters on the sidelines of the Future of Utilities conference in London.

He said although the opposition Conservative Party supported the ruling Labour government's push to replace Britain's aging nuclear fleet with new reactors, it was unclear what stance a new government, that might include the Liberal Democrat Party, would take on nuclear power.

The Lib Dems oppose plans to build more nuclear power stations, which they say "will soak up subsidy, centralize energy production and hinder development of Britain's vast renewable resources."

Through its Horizon Nuclear Power joint venture with rival German utility E.ON, RWE plans build up to 6,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2025 at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in southern England.

Energy regulator Ofgem said last month Britain urgently needs to reform its power sector to ensure secure and sustainable energy supplies, warning that the closure of aging power stations demanded swift and far-reaching energy market reforms to meet tough environmental targets and keep the lights on.

(Reporting by Kwok W. Wan, writing by Daniel Fineren; Editing by Amanda Cooper)


[Green Business]
Ralph Jennings
TAIPEI
Wed Mar 17, 2010 5:43am EDT
Taiwan to use Africa as back door for carbon credits

(Reuters) - Taiwan said on Wednesday it would use countries in Africa to get its first carbon credits for international trade, a move seen as part of the island's long-term bid to participate in the United Nations.

Barred from U.N. membership by China, Taiwan plans to obtain carbon credits by setting up solar and biomass companies in cash-strapped African countries, the island's environmental protection agency said ahead of a summit in Taipei with climate leaders from eight nations.

African countries including Taiwan diplomatic allies Burkina Faso, Gambia, Swaziland and Sao Tome and Principe would get credits through the U.N. Clean Development Mechanism and pass them on to Taiwan, an EPA official said.

"Our country, if it can meet needs in Africa by assisting in the investment of solar energy or bio-energy to get carbon credits, in the future it can exchange them in international carbon markets," the EPA said in a statement.

Efforts to join the world carbon trade would boost Taiwan's profile as the island tries to win approval for some sort of U.N. role that has been repeatedly blocked by China.

"It's a first step, and they will succeed eventually," said Nathan Liu, associate international affairs professor at Ming Chuan University in Taiwan. "This is a trial balloon. If China doesn't raise its voice, it's an encouragement for Taiwan."

NO OBLIGATIONS

China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island.

The economic giant blocks Taiwan from any international bodies that require statehood as a condition to join.

As a consequence, the island is not part of the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.'s main weapon in the fight against climate change, and faces no U.N.-mandated emissions reduction targets.

But the EPA said on Tuesday the government would aim to cut emissions to 2005 levels by 2020 anyway, a reduction of at least 30 percent from projected levels.

Kyoto obliges nearly 40 industrialized nations to cut emissions. Under Kyoto, efforts to cut greenhouse gases can be outsourced to emerging countries through investment in clean energy projects registered under the Clean Development Mechanism.

Investors receive offsets in return, called Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), which can be used toward emissions reduction goals or sold for profit. December delivery CERs were trading around 11.30 euros ($15.56) a tonne on Wednesday.

In 2006, the International Energy Agency ranked Taiwan 22nd in the world for fuel-based carbon dioxide emissions at 270 million tonnes per year. It was No. 16 in terms of per-capita emissions, higher than Japan and South Korea.

Major CO2 polluters include Taiwan Cement, Taiwan Power and Formosa Plastics, the EPA says. It has not estimated how many credits Taiwan would seek from Africa or how much it planned to invest in those countries.

President Ma Ying-jeou has said he wants Taiwan's annual carbon dioxide emissions to fall to 214 million tonnes by 2025 and half that by 2050.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

news20100317reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
OSLO
Wed Mar 17, 2010 5:13am EDT
Eco group files lawsuit to halt REC's U.S. plant

(Reuters) - An environmental group has filed a U.S. lawsuit seeking to halt the construction and start-up of Renewable Energy Corporation's (REC) silicon plants in Moses Lake, Washington, the group said in a statement.

Norway-based solar energy components producer REC, which took analysts and investors on a tour of its Moses Lake facility on Tuesday, was not immediately available for comment.

The group, which calls itself "RECisEXCEPTIONAL," says REC's expansion project failed to comply with safety and environmental requirements under the federal Clean Air Act.

"The lawsuit seeks to halt the construction, start-up and operations of two industrial facilities, known as Silicon III and Silicon IV," said the suit, according to a copy of the document posted on RECisEXCEPTIONAL's website.

The suit was filed in the U.S. district court in Spokane, Washington, by attorney Gregory McElroy, the group said.

(Reporting by Wojciech Moskwa and Joergen Frich, editing by Will Waterman)


[Green Business]
LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, France
Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:33pm EDT
Sarkozy blames negligence for storm havoc

(Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy blamed negligence and bad planning for the damage caused by storms which broke Atlantic sea walls last month, unleashing floods that killed more than 50 people.

"This disaster is the result of a cascade of contentious decisions that went against common sense, of negligence, failure to respect regulations and expert advice that went unregarded," Sarkozy said in a speech to victims in western France.

Declaring he would "assume his responsibilities," Sarkozy said he would ensure that "all lessons were learned" from the disaster and would request local authorities to prevent zones devastated by the storm from being reoccupied.

The western regions of Vendee and Charente Maritime were the areas worst hit by the storm, which caught many people asleep in their beds when it hit.

Even before the storms, environmentalists and some government advisers had warned that several of the affected areas would be unsafe in the event of serious flooding and the disaster led to calls for a halt to building near the sea.

Sarkozy said central government would fund over 40 percent of a project worth billions of euros to overhaul the system of sea walls. It would also pay for half of the cost of emergency repairs to 150 km (93 miles) of levies damaged in the storm.

Sarkozy's center-right UMP party suffered a heavy defeat by the Socialists in the first round of regional elections on Sunday.

(Reporting by Yann Le Guernigou; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Louise Ireland)


[Green Business]
Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES
Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:18pm EDT
Parched California to get more water

(Reuters) - California's drought-baked cities and farms will get considerably more water this year than last from federal officials, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Tuesday, making good on forecasts issued in February after a series of strong winter storms.

Irrigation districts south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which represent farmers on the west side of the state's Central Valley, will get 25 percent of their contracted water allotment from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Salazar said, up from just 5 percent in February.

The increase was issued ahead of schedule and comes at a critical time for the Central Valley, which is one of the country's most bountiful agricultural regions. California, the No. 1 farm state, produces more than half the fruits, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States.

But Salazar said California, which has suffered through three years of drought that has prompted rationing, higher charges and mandatory conservation measures, must work out long-term solutions to its ongoing water crisis.

"We essentially are dealing with a system that is strained and in collapse and has no certainty with respect to water supply for both for agricultural and municipal use on the one hand and for environmental demands," Salazar said.

"Hopefully we will be able to work with the state of California, with all of the water users and members of California's (Congressional) delegation to fashion a long-term plan that's so badly needed," he said.

'GREAT CHALLENGES'

Salazar said the Bureau of Reclamation will, as forecast, supply most California users with 100 percent of the water they are contracted to receive. Irrigation districts north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta will get 50 percent of their contracted allotments, also up from 5 percent in February.

The state Department of Water Resources boosted its allocation for all users to 15 percent, up from 5 percent last year, but director Mark Cowin said hydrology conditions prevented the agency from increasing it even more despite the wet winter.

"It is clear that both the state and federal water projects face great challenges in delivering the amount of water that our farms, businesses and residents need this year," he said.

The state and federal water deliveries could change during the year, depending on weather, snowpack and runoff.

Dramatic cutbacks in water deliveries by the Bureau of Reclamation and Water Resources Department during the drought had idled thousands of farm workers and big areas of cropland.

Relief came when winter storms left several feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountain range that serves as the state's main source of surface water, although officials have stopped short of declaring the drought over.

The dire straits facing Central Valley farms had prompted U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein to draft controversial legislation that would have eased environmental restrictions to allow more water to be pumped out of the Delta for growers -- a plan she abandoned in February after the improved forecasts.

Feinstein called Tuesday's allotment "good news" for farmers seeking bank loans.

"I'm pleased that the Interior Department has recognized the urgency of the water crisis and worked quickly to provide this updated allocation announcement ahead of schedule," Feinstein said.

The state supplies more than 25 million people and over 750,000 acres of farmland with water from the Delta.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)


[Green Business]
BEIJING
Wed Mar 17, 2010 3:54am EDT
Severe drought cracks runway at China airport

(Reuters) - A severe drought in southwestern China has claimed a new victim -- a runway at one of the region's busiest airports.

A plummeting water table, combined with an increasingly busy timetable of take-offs and landings, has led to the cracks at the only runway for Kunming airport in Yunnan province, the state news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday.

"The drought has been especially bad this year in Yunnan, with the water table falling, and the runway has reached its operating capacity, which has caused some cracks in the surface," airport deputy general manager Pu Shanlei told Xinhua.

The runway will now be closed for repairs from midnight to 7:30 am every day until at least some time next month, the report added.

The drought is the worst in Yunnan in six decades, and has affected 85 percent of the province's agricultural land.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ken Wills and Ron Popeski)