Constantine Alexander's Journal

Gulf of Mexico Oil slick threatens 'frightening' impacts

But Clifford Jones, an oil and gas engineering specialist from the UK's Aberdeen University, suggests it should not be considered in the same category as the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, with which it is regularly being compared.

via news.bbc.co.uk

White House Suspends New Drilling

As oil from a massive Gulf Coast offshore drilling disaster began to touch the shoreline, White House senior adviser David Axelrod announced on Good Morning America that "no additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what happened here." 

In response to the spill, Sierra Club has created an online Oil Spill Action Center with updated information, and volunteer sign-ups.  

Statement of Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune:

We are pleased that the White House is signaling a suspension of any new off-shore drilling during the investigation, but there should be no doubt left that drilling is too dirty and dangerous for our coasts and the people who live there. This offshore facility was supposed to be state-of-the-art. We've been assured again and again that the hundreds of offshore drilling rigs along our beaches are completely safe. Now, we've seen workers tragically killed. We've seen our ocean lit on fire, and now we're watching hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic oil seep towards wetlands and wildlife habitat.

This same disaster could happen at any one of the hundreds of drilling platforms off our coasts, at any moment. It could happen at the drilling sites they've proposed opening along the beaches of the Atlantic Coast.

We don't need to pay this price for energy. We have plenty of clean energy solutions already in place that will end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, create good, safe jobs, and breathe new life into our economy. We can save more oil through simple efficiency measures than could be recovered by new drilling on our coastlines.

This disaster changes everything. We have hit rock-bottom in our fossil fuel addiction. This tragedy should be a wake up call. It's time to take offshore drilling off the table for good. 

Oil Spill Facts:

• The oil spill exceeds the worst-case scenario predicted by BP when it filed its exploration plan with the government. The spill is estimated at roughly 210,000 gallons a day. In BP's exploration plan, the company outlined a worst-case scenario of 162,000 gallons a day.
• The disaster may have been prevented by a special shut-off switch, but BP did not purchase the switch and after drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore drilling, decided the device wasn't needed. [Wall St. Journal 4/30/2010]
• At its current rate, the spill could surpass by next week the size of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill that helped lead to the far-reaching moratorium on oil and gas drilling off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts
• Some estimates show it could take 3-4 months to contain the spill. By that time, the spill could exceed the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
• 59 Fatalities, More Than 1,300 Injuries, 853 Fires.  There have been nearly 60 casualties and more than 1,300 injuries on the rigs in the Gulf of Mexico alone since 2001.  “Working in the oil industry is more dangerous than working in coal mines.”   [CBS, 4/22/2010]

BP Facts:

• $5.6 Billion In Profits.  During the first quarter of 2010, “BP said its profit rose to $6.08 billion from $2.56 billion during the same period of 2009. Excluding the impact of energy prices on unsold inventories as well as $49 million of one-time items, and BP would have earned $5.65 billion, topping consensus estimates by about $900 million.”  Profits increased 135% from 2009.  [Bloomberg, 4/27/2010]
• 41% Raise For BP’s CEO.  “Chief Executive Tony Hayward's total remuneration and share awards rose 41% in 2009 on performance bonuses from improved operations which made the company one of the best performing oil majors in the fourth quarter, despite lower full-year profits due to the fall in the oil price.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/5/2010]
• $16 Million In Lobbying.  BP spent $16 million lobbying in 2009. [Opensecrets]
• $3 Billion In The World's Dirtiest Oil.  Meanwhile the company invested $3 billion in 2007 in the dirtiest source of oil on earth: Canadian tar sands. “The result will be the development of a major new Canadian oil field and the modernization and expansion of the Toledo refinery to allow far greater use of Canadian heavy oil and to increase clean fuels production by as much as 600,000 gallons a day.”  [Climate Progress, 12/18/2007]
• $900 Million In Alternative Energy Budget Cuts.  In 2009, BP cut its alternative energy budget to between $500 million and $1 billion from $1.4 billion in 2008.  “BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving “back to petroleum.” [The Guardian, 6/28/2009]

LIFE newsletter N° 04/10, April 2010

This month’s LIFEnews focuses on the publication of the latest European Red lists of endangered species. It highlights the threats facing Europe’s butterflies, dragonflies and beetles and presents a number of LIFE projects that have been working to improve the conservation status of these species. Additional projects covered are a LIFE Nature project investigating ways of avoiding cross-contamination with GMO crops and a LIFE TCY project developing a coherent soil monitoring system in Croatia.

Download this issue >>

Read more

March 2010: European sustainable energy initiatives
February 2010: UN’s International Year of Biodiversity

Japan obtains arrest warrant for anti-whaling group leader

"There is no doubt that the motives of the Japanese coastguard and the Japanese government are political," he said. "As long as there is a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, Sea Shepherd crew will continue to patrol and defend it."

via www.guardian.co.uk

Volcanic ash drives gyrfalcon falcon to Western Isles, UK

Volcanic ash from the eruption in Iceland has been suspected of driving the world's largest species of falcon to the Western Isles. The gyrfalcon, which has white plummage and a wingspan of more than 1.8m (6ft), has been seen on Lewis....

via news.bbc.co.uk

Purple Pokeberries hold secret to affordable solar power worldwide

Pokeberries the weeds that children smash to stain their cheeks purple-red and that Civil War soldiers used to write letters home could be the key to spreading solar power across the globe, according to researchers at Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials.

Nanotech Center scientists have used the red dye made from pokeberries to coat their efficient and inexpensive fiber-based solar cells. The dye acts as an absorber, helping the cell's tiny fibers trap more sunlight to convert into power.

Pokeberries proliferate even during drought and in rocky, infertile soil. That means residents of rural Africa, for instance, could raise the plants for pennies. Then they could make the dye absorber for the extremely efficient fiber cells and provide energy where power lines don't run, said David Carroll, Ph.D., the center's director.

"They're weeds," Carroll said. "They grow on every continent but Antarctica."

Wake Forest University holds the first patent for fiber-based photovoltaic, or solar, cells, granted by the European Patent Office in November. A spinoff company called FiberCell Inc. has received the license to develop manufacturing methods for the new solar cell.

The fiber cells can produce as much as twice the power that current flat-cell technology can produce. That's because they are composed of millions of tiny, plastic "cans" that trap light until most of it is absorbed. Since the fibers create much more surface area, the fiber solar cells can collect light at any angle from the time the sun rises until it sets.

To make the cells, the plastic fibers are stamped onto plastic sheets, with the same technology used to attach the tops of soft-drink cans. The absorber either a polymer or a less-expensive dye is sprayed on. The plastic makes the cells lightweight and flexible, so a manufacturer could roll them up and ship them cheaply to developing countries to power a medical clinic, for instance.

Once the primary manufacturer ships the cells, workers at local plants would spray them with the dye and prepare them for installation. Carroll estimates it would cost about $5 million to set up a finishing plant about $15 million less than it could cost to set up a similar plant for flat cells.

"We could provide the substrate," he said. "If Africa grows the pokeberries, they could take it home.

"It's a low-cost solar cell that can be made to work with local, low-cost agricultural crops like pokeberries and with a means of production that emerging economies can afford."

Contact: Ellen Sedeno
[email protected]
Wake Forest University

Climate change will speed spread of invasive fish to northern Europe

Spanish and French researchers have evaluated the spread of the invasive mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki, which is native to the United States and lives in Mediterranean rivers in Spain and France. The scientists warn that climate change will extend the current distribution area of this and other invasive species to the north.

The scientists at the University of Girona (UG) who coordinated this study say it is important to understand the interaction between climate change and invasive species. To this end, they have assessed the impact of geographical latitude on the vital features of Gambusia holbrooki and its rate of parasitic infestation in Europe.

"This study shows that temperature affects the abundance of this species, its reproduction and other characteristics of its life cycle", Emili Garca-Berthou, lead author of the study and a researcher at the UG's Institute of Aquatic Ecology, tells SINC.

The results, published recently in the journal Biological Invasions, show that gambusia is more abundant in its southern populations, where its reproductive effort is greater than in more northerly populations, meaning that this invasive species originating in the United States shows a "clear latitudinal variation in its life cycle and invasive success".

The author says it is "likely that climate change will enable this species to expand to areas further north than its current distribution area".

"Over a latitudinal gradient of more than 5, the abundance of this species in river mouths varies, as do its reproductive effect, its size at maturity and prevalence of parasites", the Catalan researcher adds.

The research team sampled a total of 929 gambusias in the summer of 2004 in the mouths (final 1,500 metres) of eight Mediterranean rivers from the south of France to Murcia.

The invasive path of gambusia

Aside from their overall effects on the trophic chain, gambusias and their most closely related species Gambusia affinis have caused the decline of many native fish and amphibian species worldwide.

Although this ecological impact has been "well documented" in the United States and Australia, other studies in Spain have used observational and experimental data to show that Gambusia holbrooki "competes with and displaces cyprinodontiform fish (small fish that live in fresh or brackish water), such as the Spanish toothcarp (Aphanius iberus) and the Valencia toothcarp (Valencia hispanica), both of which are endemic to the Peninsula and have seen their distribution area greatly reduced, now being considered to be in danger of extinction", explains Garca-Berthou.

The gambusia is currently one of the most widely distributed continental fish species, and has been introduced into more than 50 countries over every continent except Antarctica.

The species, which prefers warm waters, is abundant throughout all the countries in the Mediterranean basin, but has yet to become established in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany or the Nordic countries. "Its distribution is clearly limited by temperature", says the scientist.

Spain was the first European country in which Gambusia holbrooki was introduced, in 1921.

Contact: SINC
[email protected]
34-914-251-820
FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology

World governments fail to deliver on 2010 biodiversity target - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) --

Cambridge (United Kingdom), 29 April 2010- World leaders have failed to deliver commitments made in 2002 to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and have instead overseen alarming biodiversity declines. These findings are the result of a new paper published in the leading journal Science and represent the first assessment of how the targets made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have not been met.

via www.unep.org

Sea ice loss major cause of Arctic warming

"It was previously thought that loss of sea ice could cause further warming. Now we have confirmation this is already happening," said James Screen, a researcher at the University of Melbourne and co-author of the study.

via www.independent.co.uk

Japan targets anti-whaling chief for arrest

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's coastguard has obtained an arrest warrant for the head of radical anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd for allegedly ordering members of the group to obstruct Japan's whale hunt, domestic media said on Friday.

via www.reuters.com