Voice of San Diego: Mexico’s Ocean Could Become U.S.’s Drinking Water

April 25th, 2011 | Environment | | Leave a comment

From the Voice of San Diego:

“Just before the toll road stretching south from Tijuana enters Rosarito Beach, it veers inland, away from beautiful blue-water views, swinging wide around an industrial power plant complex, all filled with metal smokestacks and white fuel tanks, a major source of Baja California’s electricity.

There, water suppliers from across the Southwest are studying what would be the first project of its kind: tapping Mexico’s ocean as a source of the United States’ drinking water.

Together with the Mexican government, the agencies supplying San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson are studying whether to build a seawater desalination plant in Mexico capable of producing 50 million gallons of water daily, enough to supply 112,000 homes, as a way of reinforcing water reliability in both countries. Water would either be pumped to the United States or swapped for the rights to some of Mexico’s share of the Colorado River.”

Continue reading at Voiceofsandiego.org

Continue reading Voice of San Diego: Mexico’s Ocean Could Become U.S.’s Drinking Water

Study: Shale Gas Emissions Exceed Those from Coal

April 13th, 2011 | Environment | | Leave a comment

From the New York Times:

"As I write in Tuesday’s Times, Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, concluded in an analysis published this week in a peer-reviewed journal, Climatic Change Letters, that somewhere from 3.6 percent to 7.9 percent of methane, the chief component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas, is leaking into the atmosphere at various points along the shale gas production life cycle.

This would make unconventional natural gas production — the sort associated with the contentious practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — worse than coal for the climate."

Click the link below to read the full report.

Continue reading Study: Shale Gas Emissions Exceed Those from Coal

German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel publishes the original NRC Assessment about Fukushima

April 8th, 2011 | Environment | | Leave a comment

From Der Tagesspiegel :

Read the NRC Report Here.

“Unfortunately, the report also shows that Tepco series of catastrophic errors made ??one and given false information has. For example, is only now clear that the reactor fuel rods 1 are likely to be in the dry – according to Tepco figures they were at least half covered with water cooling. Also, the question arises whether one much earlier instead of fresh sea water for cooling would not pick up – after all, is not just the northern Japanese nuclear power plant in the desert. Generally nervous right now makes the discovered fact that Tepco today without boric acid used!) In a reactor cooling water to avoid a re-criticality would be an essential standard procedure“

Continue reading German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel publishes the original NRC Assessment about Fukushima

Fresh close-up video of Fukushima destroyed reactor, firefighters at plant

March 23rd, 2011 | Environment | | Leave a comment

From RT: Tokyo’s utility company said on Wednesday that black smoke has been seen emerging from Unit 3 of the crippled nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, prompting a new evacuation of the complex. Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Co. said on Wednesday that workers from the entire Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been temporarily evacuated. Operators of the power station have been desperately trying to cool the reactors and spent fuel pools at the plant after it was damaged by this month’s tsunami, which knocked out power to the cooling systems.

Continue reading Fresh close-up video of Fukushima destroyed reactor, firefighters at plant