Cover of From Eros to GaiaSolazyme to announce Navy contract for algae-based fuel
The new contract with the Navy is more than seven times the size of an initial 20,000-gallon contract awarded last year and completed this week. The Navy is eager to find alternatives to its HRF-76 Naval Distillate, the shipboard diesel that it uses to power gas turbines and boilers.
Halifax-based Ocean Nutrition Canada accidentally stumbled upon an oil-producing algae which creates oil at a rate 60 times greater than normal algaes.
According to Toronto Hydro's CEO Anthony Haines the electricity grid in Toronto can't handle the load of 10% of drivers buying and charging electric cars.
Cities in Canada suck up most of the electricity in Canada, but produce comparatively little despite lots of rooftop space for solar panels and windmills. The problem is that the electricity grid isn't setup or designed to be taking in that much energy from so many different sources, so having a network of solar and wind systems wouldn't work right now anyway because the electricity grid is too archaic.
Has climate change cut plankton’s oxygen production?
The particular study that troubled him was an assessment of ocean phytoplankton levels from 1899 to today published in top journal Nature. In it, Boris Worm and his colleagues at Dalhousie University, Canada, found that the populations of phytoplankton in the oceans had fallen 40% since 1950, crediting climate change as the cause of the decline. At the time Worm was widely quoted as saying that phytoplankton is responsible for producing “half the oxygen we breathe”.
On that basis, Mark Piore asked: “If phytoplankton produces half the oxygen we breathe and populations have fallen by 40%, then has total oxygen production fallen 20%?”
Leading physicist Freeman Dyson has also expressed his frustration that atmospheric oxygen levels are not monitored more closely. “The reservoir of oxygen in the atmosphere is large but not infinite,” he wrote in his book “From Eros to Gaia” in 1990. “Since eight tons of oxygen are used up for every three tons of carbon burned, and we are burning six gigatons of carbon per year, we might expect that the oxygen is being used up at the rate of about 13 parts per million per year. Thirteen parts per million should be measurable. Whether or not the general public is concerned, there are important scientific reasons for measuring the oxygen.”
Professional trolls*
People are reporting that they're getting these comments from … [a] company called Netvocates. The company … will defend your organization's reputation by sending people to fill blog comments with defenses.She cites some of the firm's promotional materials:
For many organizations, blogs represent an uncomfortable topic. Unlike traditional communication mediums, blogs frequently impact an organization and its products and image in uncontrolled and often unexpected ways. In addition, the sheer volume of blogs, message boards, and other discussion forums makes it difficult for organizations to effectively monitor the activity relevant to them.…there's also a group called the Rendon Group that is all about controlling public opinion on government actions thatpeople are reporting on their site meters. Considering that the Rendon Group has contracts from BushCo to spread pro-war propaganda, it's hard to imagine that they aren't also targeting left-leaning blogs, possibly trying to circumvent productive anti-war discussion by bomb-throwing and other nonsense.
Brazilian Indians held prisoner by gunmen
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6473?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SurvivalInternational+%28Survival+International%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
A large group of Guarani Indians in Brazil is being held prisoner by gunmen hired by ranchers. The gunmen have cut off the Indians’ access to food, water and health care since they surrounded their community one month ago.
Despite pleas from the Guarani for police assistance and urgent medical care, their community, known as Ypo’i, is still besieged.
News from the Guarani
- Film depicting Guarani plight wins prestigious award
25 June 2010 - Reports condemn appalling situation of the Guarani
1 June 2010 - Landmark trial of Indian’s ‘killers’ suspended
7 May 2010
Top stories now
- Mapuche hunger strike enters 65th day
14 September - Cartoon book satirizing ‘development’ launched in Malaysia
13 September - India forms new tribal council in wake of Vedanta victory
9 September - Penan tribe block logging roads in protest
8 September - Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18dairy.html?_r=1 - All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe. Runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely regulates only chemicals or contaminants that move through pipes or ditches, which means it does not typically apply to waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.
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