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Climate on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST: Tell President Obama About Coal River Mountain
Coal River Mountain and the Heathrow Airport runway remind me how important it is to keep our eye on the ball.
Coal River Mountain is the site of an absurdity. I learned about Coal River Mountain from students at Virginia Tech last fall. They were concerned about Coal River Mountain, but at that time most of them were working to support Barack Obama. They assumed Barack Obama would not allow such outrages to continue.
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Technology Review: Cheaper Fuel Cells
Researchers have shown that arrays of vertically grown carbon nanotubes could be used as the catalyst in fuel cells. The carbon nanotubes, which are doped with nitrogen, would be much cheaper and longer lasting than the expensive platinum catalysts used now.
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A possible solution to global warming may be further away than ever, according to a new report published in the journal Nature. Scientists measuring how much of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is locked away in the deep ocean by plankton when it dies found that it was significantly less than previous estimates.
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Smart Grid & Smart Cars | AlwaysOn
Last month one of the leaders in providing enabling technology for the smart grid, GridPoint, Inc., conducted a public demonstration of their “smart charging” software. This took place at an EV conference sponsored by the Electric Drive Transportation Association.
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America overtakes Germany as the world’s biggest wind-power market | Air force one | The Economist
IN ONE policy area, at least, there is good news for President Barack Obama: his pledge to find alternative energy sources to wean America off its dependence on foreign oil is already being put into action. Last year America ramped up wind-power capacity to 25 gigawatts (GW), overtaking the previous leader, Germany, according to new data from the Global Wind Energy Council
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Bush-era oil leases in Utah canceled – Environment- msnbc.com
In its first action to overturn Bush administration policies on energy, the Obama administration on Wednesday said it will cancel oil drilling leases on more than 130,000 acres near two national parks and other protected areas in Utah.
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Masdar City’s driverless podcars are more shuttle than Johnny Cab – Engadget
The future of urban transportation, a driverless taxi that will get you where you’re going without any unpleasant human interaction or labor disputes. This is the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) podcar from Zagato, a fully electric and fully automated taxi system set to shuttle people around Masdar City, that pledges to have no carbon footprint and no real roads, leaving these to buzz along underground at a leisurely 15 mph.
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Study suggests link between agricultural chemicals and frog decline
Around the world, amphibian populations are in decline, and scientists have not been able to figure out why. Now a study of leopard frogs in Pennsylvania has identified a possible culprit, and the ramifications are troubling, according to a Penn State ecologist.
Research conducted primarily at Penn State’s Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs in the summer of 2007 — described in a recently published article in the journal Nature — suggests that chemical pollution can increase often-deadly trematode (parasitic flatworm) infections in a declining amphibian species.
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Sea level rise could be worse than anticipated
f global warming some day causes the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to collapse, as many experts believe it could, the resulting sea level rise in much of the United States and other parts of the world would be significantly higher than is currently projected, a new study concludes.
The catastrophic increase in sea level, already projected to average between 16 and 17 feet around the world, would be almost 21 feet in such places as Washington, D.C., scientists say, putting it largely underwater. Many coastal areas would be devastated. Much of Southern Florida would disappear.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.