[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Green Business > Environment]
Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:22pm EST
Alaska coast erosion threat to oil, wildlife
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A portion of Alaska's North Slope coastline is eroding at a rate of up to 45 feet a year, posing a threat to oil operations and wildlife in the area, according to a new report issued by scientists at the University of Colorado.
Warmer ocean water has thawed the base of frozen bluffs and destroyed natural ice barriers protecting the coast, causing large earth chunks to fall each summer, the scientists said.
"What we are seeing now is a triple whammy effect," study co-author Robert Anderson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado's Department of Geological Sciences, said. "Since the summer Arctic sea ice cover continues to decline and Arctic air and sea temperatures continue to rise, we really don't see any prospect for this process ending."
The scientists studied coastline midway between Point Barrow, the nation's northernmost spot, and Prudhoe Bay, site of the nation's biggest oil fields. The erosion, if it continues, could ultimately be a problem for energy companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc.
Findings were presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. They backed up other studies of erosion along Alaska's Beaufort Sea coastline.
A study by U.S. Geological Survey scientists published in February found that erosion along a stretch of Alaska coastline during 2002 to 2007 was twice as fast as in the period from 1955 to 1979. That USGS study also found erosion occurring at a rate of 13.6 meters (44.6 feet) annually from 2002 to 2007.
The three-year University of Colorado study aimed to examine how erosion is occurring, said co-author Irina Overeem, a scientist at the University's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
The scientists employed time-lapse photography, global positioning systems, meteorological monitoring, and analysis of sediment and sea-ice distribution.
Photographic images snapped every six hours during the around-the-clock sunlight of summer were particularly dramatic, Overeem told Reuters.
"There's a notching effect that just notches, notches, notches and then topples over," she said. "The cliffs are more than half ice -- they're basically dirty icebergs -- so warm water, stronger waves and higher wave action quickly carves them away," she said.
Although the study area holds no communities, there is infrastructure at risk, mostly abandoned military and oil-field sites and their associated waste dumps, the scientists said. Also at risk are ponds and lakes that support migratory shorebirds.
The threat of collapsing military and oil-field infrastructure, including toxics-laden waste, has prompted several government agencies to launch emergency cleanup programs.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management since 2005 has cleaned up three old, erosion-threatened wells and plans to start in on a fourth well later this winter, said Wayne Svejnoha, branch chief for energy and minerals. Each well cleanup takes about two months and costs $12 million to $14 million, Svejnoha said.
Erosion threats to shorebirds were confirmed by another federal manager.
"The erosion is very obvious," said Rick Lanctot, Alaska shorebird coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In some spots, saltwater has inundated lakes and ponds, killing off plants that birds eat, while heavy wave action has displaced driftwood used as nest sites, said Lanctot, who has worked there since 1991.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; editing by Bill Rigby, Gary Hill)
[Green Business > Environment]
Laura Isensee
LOS ANGELES
Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:06pm EST
California senator acts to widen desert protection
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill on Monday to set aside over one million acres of California desert for wildlife and scenic conservation, closing those areas to renewable energy companies hungry for sunny, wide-open spaces.
The measure marks the latest move by the California Democrat to protect ecologically fragile tracts of the Mojave Desert, putting conservation interests at odds with the search for large swaths of land suitable for solar power arrays and wind farms.
California has set some of the nation's most ambitious clean-energy goals, including a target to meet a third of the state's electricity needs from renewable resources by 2020.
But Feinstein has led efforts to prevent renewable energy expansion from spoiling pristine lands prized for their scenic values and regarded by scientists as crucial habitat for such species as bighorn sheep and desert tortoises.
"I strongly believe that conservation, renewable energy development and recreation can and must co-exist in the California desert," Feinstein said in a statement. She also was a chief sponsor of a 1994 law that bolstered protection for more than 7 million acres (2.8 million hectares) of desert.
Two energy projects that ran afoul of her efforts were canceled earlier this year -- a 500-megwatt solar thermal plant under development by BrightSource Inc and a sprawling solar complex planned by Stirling Energy Systems. Both concerns are privately held.
"We wanted to be respectful of what she's doing and it didn't make sense for us to develop that project further," said Stirling spokeswoman Janette Coates.
The Stirling project originally was planned for a panoramic stretch of desert called Sleeping Beauty Valley, included as part of the 941,000-acre (381,000-hectare) Mojave Trails National Monument now proposed by Feinstein's bill.
A second 134,000-acre (54,000-hectare) area near Joshua Tree National Park would be designated as the Sand to Snow National Monument. National monuments are similar to national parks and administered by the National Park Service.
The bill also would set aside 250,000 acres of public land as wilderness -- a more restrictive classification barring roads and permanent buildings -- near the U.S. Army's Fort Irwin training center; expand Death Valley National Park by 41,000 acres ; and add 2,900 acres to Joshua Tree Park.
BrightSource and Stirling are not alone. Various companies have filed more than 130 applications with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to build solar arrays or wind turbine farms in California's desert.
To help accommodate such demands, the U.S. Interior Department has designated 670,000 acres of land especially for potential solar energy production in six western states.
And the agency recently fast-tracked the permit process for more than 2.4 gigawatts worth of renewable energy projects in California alone, including another Stirling solar venture.
In her bill, Feinstein included provisions to ease the permit process for large wind and solar projects on public and private lands in the California desert.
(Reporting by Laura Isensee, editing by Steve Gorman)
[Green Business > Environment > COP15]
Peter Griffiths
LONDON
Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:27am EST
Gordon Brown says "handful" of states wrecked climate talks
LONDON (Reuters) - A handful of countries blocked a legally binding deal on climate change in Copenhagen and the talks process needs urgent reform to prevent something similar happening again, Britain's prime minister said on Monday.
Gordon Brown said the non-binding agreement achieved after rounds of talks in the Danish capital were "at best flawed, at worst chaotic."
"We will not allow a few countries to hold us back," he told an environmental meeting in London via a videolink from Scotland. He did not name those countries. "What happened at Copenhagen was a flawed decision-making process.
"We have just got to find a way of moving this process forward."
Writing in Monday's Guardian newspaper, British Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband blamed China for blocking emissions targets.
He also implicated Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba in the failure to strike a deal, aides told the paper.
China said it would treat talks on a binding global climate change pact in 2010 as a struggle over the "right to develop," a Chinese official said, signaling more tough deal-making will follow the Copenhagen summit.
China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activities and its biggest developing economy, was at the heart of the talks, and bared some its growing assertiveness in grinding late-night sessions.
Miliband later said "four or five countries out of 192" had stood in the way of a deal in Copenhagen.
"My biggest frustration was that we were not arguing about points of substance, we were arguing about procedures," Miliband told the meeting in London.
The summit in Copenhagen ended with a bare-minimum agreement on Saturday when delegates "noted" an accord struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that fell far short of original goals.
(Additional reporting by William James; Editing by Matthew Jones)
[Green Business > Environment]
Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:22pm EST
Alaska coast erosion threat to oil, wildlife
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A portion of Alaska's North Slope coastline is eroding at a rate of up to 45 feet a year, posing a threat to oil operations and wildlife in the area, according to a new report issued by scientists at the University of Colorado.
Warmer ocean water has thawed the base of frozen bluffs and destroyed natural ice barriers protecting the coast, causing large earth chunks to fall each summer, the scientists said.
"What we are seeing now is a triple whammy effect," study co-author Robert Anderson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado's Department of Geological Sciences, said. "Since the summer Arctic sea ice cover continues to decline and Arctic air and sea temperatures continue to rise, we really don't see any prospect for this process ending."
The scientists studied coastline midway between Point Barrow, the nation's northernmost spot, and Prudhoe Bay, site of the nation's biggest oil fields. The erosion, if it continues, could ultimately be a problem for energy companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc.
Findings were presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. They backed up other studies of erosion along Alaska's Beaufort Sea coastline.
A study by U.S. Geological Survey scientists published in February found that erosion along a stretch of Alaska coastline during 2002 to 2007 was twice as fast as in the period from 1955 to 1979. That USGS study also found erosion occurring at a rate of 13.6 meters (44.6 feet) annually from 2002 to 2007.
The three-year University of Colorado study aimed to examine how erosion is occurring, said co-author Irina Overeem, a scientist at the University's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
The scientists employed time-lapse photography, global positioning systems, meteorological monitoring, and analysis of sediment and sea-ice distribution.
Photographic images snapped every six hours during the around-the-clock sunlight of summer were particularly dramatic, Overeem told Reuters.
"There's a notching effect that just notches, notches, notches and then topples over," she said. "The cliffs are more than half ice -- they're basically dirty icebergs -- so warm water, stronger waves and higher wave action quickly carves them away," she said.
Although the study area holds no communities, there is infrastructure at risk, mostly abandoned military and oil-field sites and their associated waste dumps, the scientists said. Also at risk are ponds and lakes that support migratory shorebirds.
The threat of collapsing military and oil-field infrastructure, including toxics-laden waste, has prompted several government agencies to launch emergency cleanup programs.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management since 2005 has cleaned up three old, erosion-threatened wells and plans to start in on a fourth well later this winter, said Wayne Svejnoha, branch chief for energy and minerals. Each well cleanup takes about two months and costs $12 million to $14 million, Svejnoha said.
Erosion threats to shorebirds were confirmed by another federal manager.
"The erosion is very obvious," said Rick Lanctot, Alaska shorebird coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In some spots, saltwater has inundated lakes and ponds, killing off plants that birds eat, while heavy wave action has displaced driftwood used as nest sites, said Lanctot, who has worked there since 1991.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; editing by Bill Rigby, Gary Hill)
[Green Business > Environment]
Laura Isensee
LOS ANGELES
Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:06pm EST
California senator acts to widen desert protection
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill on Monday to set aside over one million acres of California desert for wildlife and scenic conservation, closing those areas to renewable energy companies hungry for sunny, wide-open spaces.
The measure marks the latest move by the California Democrat to protect ecologically fragile tracts of the Mojave Desert, putting conservation interests at odds with the search for large swaths of land suitable for solar power arrays and wind farms.
California has set some of the nation's most ambitious clean-energy goals, including a target to meet a third of the state's electricity needs from renewable resources by 2020.
But Feinstein has led efforts to prevent renewable energy expansion from spoiling pristine lands prized for their scenic values and regarded by scientists as crucial habitat for such species as bighorn sheep and desert tortoises.
"I strongly believe that conservation, renewable energy development and recreation can and must co-exist in the California desert," Feinstein said in a statement. She also was a chief sponsor of a 1994 law that bolstered protection for more than 7 million acres (2.8 million hectares) of desert.
Two energy projects that ran afoul of her efforts were canceled earlier this year -- a 500-megwatt solar thermal plant under development by BrightSource Inc and a sprawling solar complex planned by Stirling Energy Systems. Both concerns are privately held.
"We wanted to be respectful of what she's doing and it didn't make sense for us to develop that project further," said Stirling spokeswoman Janette Coates.
The Stirling project originally was planned for a panoramic stretch of desert called Sleeping Beauty Valley, included as part of the 941,000-acre (381,000-hectare) Mojave Trails National Monument now proposed by Feinstein's bill.
A second 134,000-acre (54,000-hectare) area near Joshua Tree National Park would be designated as the Sand to Snow National Monument. National monuments are similar to national parks and administered by the National Park Service.
The bill also would set aside 250,000 acres of public land as wilderness -- a more restrictive classification barring roads and permanent buildings -- near the U.S. Army's Fort Irwin training center; expand Death Valley National Park by 41,000 acres ; and add 2,900 acres to Joshua Tree Park.
BrightSource and Stirling are not alone. Various companies have filed more than 130 applications with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to build solar arrays or wind turbine farms in California's desert.
To help accommodate such demands, the U.S. Interior Department has designated 670,000 acres of land especially for potential solar energy production in six western states.
And the agency recently fast-tracked the permit process for more than 2.4 gigawatts worth of renewable energy projects in California alone, including another Stirling solar venture.
In her bill, Feinstein included provisions to ease the permit process for large wind and solar projects on public and private lands in the California desert.
(Reporting by Laura Isensee, editing by Steve Gorman)
[Green Business > Environment > COP15]
Peter Griffiths
LONDON
Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:27am EST
Gordon Brown says "handful" of states wrecked climate talks
LONDON (Reuters) - A handful of countries blocked a legally binding deal on climate change in Copenhagen and the talks process needs urgent reform to prevent something similar happening again, Britain's prime minister said on Monday.
Gordon Brown said the non-binding agreement achieved after rounds of talks in the Danish capital were "at best flawed, at worst chaotic."
"We will not allow a few countries to hold us back," he told an environmental meeting in London via a videolink from Scotland. He did not name those countries. "What happened at Copenhagen was a flawed decision-making process.
"We have just got to find a way of moving this process forward."
Writing in Monday's Guardian newspaper, British Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband blamed China for blocking emissions targets.
He also implicated Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba in the failure to strike a deal, aides told the paper.
China said it would treat talks on a binding global climate change pact in 2010 as a struggle over the "right to develop," a Chinese official said, signaling more tough deal-making will follow the Copenhagen summit.
China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activities and its biggest developing economy, was at the heart of the talks, and bared some its growing assertiveness in grinding late-night sessions.
Miliband later said "four or five countries out of 192" had stood in the way of a deal in Copenhagen.
"My biggest frustration was that we were not arguing about points of substance, we were arguing about procedures," Miliband told the meeting in London.
The summit in Copenhagen ended with a bare-minimum agreement on Saturday when delegates "noted" an accord struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that fell far short of original goals.
(Additional reporting by William James; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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