Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Kenya plans to boost geothermal generation capacity by 4,000 megawatts over the next two decades to ensure East Africa’s biggest economy has clean and reliable energy supplies, the Geothermal Development Co. said.
Three production sites at the Olkaria geothermal field, 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Nairobi, can now produce a combined 167 megawatts, against a national potential of 7,000 megawatts, said Silas Simiyu, chief executive officer of the state-run company that was set up in February. “There is a political push in Kenya to produce electricity that is more affordable, reliable and from green energy,” Simiyu said in an interview in Nairobi, the capital, yesterday.
Funds from Kenya’s government, private investors and donors totaling about $16 billion will be required to exploit the potential of a fault line in the earth’s surface that runs through Kenya over the next 20 years, he said. Kenya introduced power-rationing between August and October after drought cut output at hydro-electric plants, which account for more than 70 percent of installed power capacity. Article continues
The Green Confidence Index is a monthly snapshot of Americans' attitudes about and confidence in their leaders and institutions, nationally and locally, on the subject of environmental responsibility, as well as in their own understanding of issues and their willingness to make green purchasing choices. During October, the Index fell four points from a month earlier, from 103.6 to 99.5. The Index was set in July 2009 at 100.0.
According to Chief Research Officer Amy Hebard of Earthsense, whose company creates the Index: "Should we worry about a four-point drop in the Index? Not yet. Confusion in this market is broad and deep and, with the economy still in jitters, consumers' confidence in going green will take time to build before we realize the pent-up demand we've seen. As we approach the holiday season, a key question will be whether or not the drop we saw in October is the start of a downward slide or just a one-month blip." Article continues Sphere: Related Content
Recording hundreds of thousands of signals sent by satellite transmitters fitted on penguins, albatrosses, and marine mammals, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Birdlife International have released the first atlas of South America’s Patagonian Sea. The atlas contains the most accurate maps ever assembled for this ecosystem and shows key migratory corridors spanning from coastlines to deep-sea feeding areas off the continental shelf hundreds of miles away.
Data for the atlas was gathered by a team of 25 scientists working over a 10-year period. The team tracked 16 species of marine animals, which produced some 280,000 uplinks of data over the Patagonian Sea, a huge area ranging from southern Brazil to southern Chile. Called Atlas of the Patagonian Sea: Species and Spaces, the 300-page book was edited by Valeria Falabella and Claudio Campagna of WCS, and John Croxall of Birdlife International.
The atlas, which is in English and Spanish, will be used to help inform policy decisions in the region such as managing fisheries and charting transportation routes of oil tankers. This vast region, which spans 1.1 million square miles, is increasingly threatened by burgeoning development and overfishing. Article continues
The Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the federal Bureau of Land Management over its decision to allow a uranium mine to reopen north of the Grand Canyon. The group argues that the mine plan has expired and that the environmental analysis is outdated and Denison has not proven its claims.
Canadian mining firm Denison Mines Corp. received the final state permit needed to move forward on its Arizona 1 Mine in September. The BLM says Denison has an approved mine plan and should be allowed to resume operations.
The mine is about 20 miles from the canyon's northern border. Denison plans
NASA is on a crusade to debunk the myths surrounding December 12, 2012, and the impending doom that many believe will occur when the Mayan calendar comes to and end. NASA poses the question: remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will be another winter solstice, NASA says.
Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.Do you buy NASA's argument, or do you still expect to see catastrophe in 2012?
Q: Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
A: Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.
Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.
Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.
Q: Could a phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
"There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there..." - Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist
Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.
Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.
Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.
Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history. Source: NASA
Photo source: Scenes from the motion picture "2012." Courtesy Columbia Pictures Sphere: Related Content
The huarango is a storied Peruvian tree that can live for over a millennium and rests like a mirage amid the sand dunes just west of Ica, Peru. The tree has provided inhabitants of this desert with food and wood since before the Nazca civilization etched geoglyphs into the empty plain south of the city approximately 2,000 years ago. The depletion of the huarango, a giant relative of the mesquite tree of the American Southwest, around Ica is sounding alarm. The tree has survived the rise and fall of Pre-Hispanic civilizations and plunder by Spanish conquistadors, but the very survival of these trees of being pushed to the limits.
Villagers are cutting down the remnants of these once vast forests. They covet the tree as a source of charcoal and firewood. According to the New York Times, the depletion of the huarango is raising alarm among ecologists and fostering a nascent effort to save it. Many Peruvians view the huarango as a prime source for charcoal to cook a signature chicken dish called "pollo broaster." The long-burning huarango, a hardwood rivaling teak, outlasts other forms of charcoal. Villagers react to a prohibition by regional authorities on cutting down huarango with a shrug.Protecting the huarango groves is going to be an uphill battle in this impoverished desert climate. As David Beresford-Jones is an archaeologist at Cambridge University who co-authored the Nazca study, pointed out in an interview with the New York Times, “It takes centuries for the huarango to be of substantial size, and only a few hours to fell it with a chainsaw … The tragedy is that this remnant is being chain-sawed by charcoal burners as we speak.”
That the huarango survives at all to be harvested may be something of a miracle. Following centuries of systematic deforestation, only about one percent of the original huarango woodlands that once existed in the Peruvian desert remain, according to archaeologists and ecologists. Few trees are as well suited to the hyperarid ecosystem of the Atacama-Sechura Desert, nestled between the Andes and the Pacific. The huarango captures moisture coming from the west as sea mist. Its roots are among the longest of any tree, extending more than 150 feet to tap subterranean water channels. Source: NY Times
Photo credit: NY Times Sphere: Related Content
Hurricane Ida Heads for the Gulf of Mexico, Leaves Devastation in El Salvador -- 91 Dead, At Least 60 Missing
According to Reuters, the hurricane center set a hurricane watch from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Mexico Beach in northwestern Florida, but did not include the city of New Orleans. A hurricane watch means hurricane conditions are expected in the area within 36 hours. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, not taking any chances, declared a state of emergency on Sunday, allowing the government to mobilize troops and rescue workers. If Ida makes landfall in Louisiana it would be the first storm to strike the state since Hurricane Gustav came ashore in September 2008.
As of 4 p.m. EST (1800 GMT), Ida was 95 miles west-northwest of the western tip of Cuba, the hurricane center said. It was moving north-northwest near 10 mph and was forecast to turn toward the north over the next two days. Ida first became a hurricane on Thursday off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where heavy rains forced more than 5,000 people into shelters. Sphere: Related Content
