a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment
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Scientists have discovered the Arctic ocean seabed is leaking huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. The research published in the journal Science shows the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic shelf, which was thought to be a barrier sealing methane, is perforated. Read more here. (0)
NYT: Pachauri Faces Credibility Siege
The New York Times is reporting that: Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists. More here. (1)
Phil Jones Guilty, But
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny. B ut… Read more here. (0)
Banks Leave Carbon Market
Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012. Read more here. (0)
UK Met Office Can't Forecast Weather
The UK Met Office is debating what to do with its long-term and seasonal forecasting after criticism for failing to predict extreme weather. It was predicted that this winter would be warmer than average – yet it has been unusually cold. Read more here. (2)
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Posted by Charlotte Ramotswe, November 15th, 2008 - under News.
Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. Read more here.
This appears to be a pretty amazing breakthrough – described as ‘leapfrog technology’.
It seems the International Energy Agency were not planning on industry by-passing government – they predicted a drop in demand for nuclear energy see: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE4AB2QB20081112
This is not what I heard from Elizabeth Sellers, one of the managers of Idaho National Laboratories last Thursday at Utah State University. She said that the current cost of Nuclear power at 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) is not realistically going to be what we will have to pay in the future because all the current plants have been written off completely due to the fact we have not licensed or built any new nuclear plants for almost three decades. She has information that power from new nuclear power plants that are fully capitalized would cost over 10 times as much or 15-18 cents per kw hour and as far as I could tell from her presentation this was the cost to the utility or wholesale cost and was then marked up 4-5 fold to pay for getting it to the customer, my own estimation would be 60-80 cents per kwh (I currently pay about 8 cents). This is not competitive with coal at 2.25 cent per kWh and coal was fully capitalized funding new plants. When I asked her about it she said she did not know how to solve the “conundrum” financially, but she said only one coal plant in Illinois was licensed in the whole country during the last year because no one wants them in their backyard. From her comments, going off coal looks like a financial impossibility to me. Candles anyone??