Dr. Pennisi may love bats, but I adore jellyfish so I'm going to tell you a little bit about them. There are over 350 different species of jellyfish (some scientists contest there may be as many as 2,000 individual species) ranging from the minuscule Irocongi (about the size of your pinky fingernail) to the Lion's Mane Jellyfish (about the size of a refrigerator) . Jellyfish are about 95 - 98% water and have no bones, internal organs, blood, or really anything that would qualify them as an animal and yet they are a viable and necessary component of aquatic habitats. There are over 280 types of fish and other species such as leatherback sea turtles that eat jellyfish. Jellyfish reproduce asexually, and some species can live for so long in an environment that scientists have no way to gauge their lifespan.
So what, why is it important to know about jellyfish? Well it is important to understand the jelie's roll in marine ecosystems because it can help dictate whether or not our fishing industries can survive. In 2011 there was a blooming swarm of Nomura jellyfish (~440 lbs, 6 ft long) along coastal Japan. Millions of these jellyfish became entangled in fisherman's nets and with their massive weight ripped through most of them - creating millions of dollars worth of damages and causing a shut down of 90% of fishing industry in Japan which significantly impacted their economy. This has not been the only example of jellyfish swarming in such large quantities - with reasons estimated for their populace ranging from increasing sea temperatures due to global warming, to losing natural predators from over fishing. Jellyfish are incredibly resilient creatures - they can thrive in poor water quality, consume nearly anything of an appropriate size, can regrow appendages or parts of their body if injured, and when reproducing can do so in thousands at a time.
One of the most concerning factors about these jellyfish swarms is their effect on the fishing industry. Jellyfish typically feed on plankton - the same food that many commercially consumed fish eat as well. Because of over fishing by humans in the oceans there have been fewer and fewer fish to compete with for their food source so jellyfish are taking over the seas - and by doing so hinder the ability of fish populations to regain stability. What we need to take away from this is that our blatant overuse of commercial fishing has a significant impact on the marine ecosystems. As much as I love and admire these creatures it is not overall healthy for our oceans to be dominated by them. Pollution hurts our ecosystems and the fish and other marine species we want to preserve are more hurt by this than the jellyfish are as well.
~Brooke Welsh-Appleby
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
How Art and Gardening are Bring Cultures and Generations together
After Helen Fagan’s lecture on the needed acceptance of
diversity, I began my search for positive ways to expose and embrace cultures
other than my own. In an age where we have easy access to other cultures,
ideologies and expressions via the internet
Last spring, Sami Grover of treehugger.com posted a blog
about community gardening and the impacts it has on exposing generations to
different cultures through a common point: community gardening. A very
interesting inter-generational art and garden project, called Encounters Arts, A Little Patch of Ground, combine
art, gardening, culture, climate change and resiliency into a twenty week
project. Two diverse groups, one from a rural
background and another from an urban background, learn to grow food, cook and
eat as a community. Not only are these groups creating beautiful gardens for
the consumption of all but they are also making art and expression a focus
point. What more basic elements of culture are there than food and art? Food is
not the only thing fostering in these gardens. A Little Patch of Ground is also
fostering the growth of people, culture and acceptance.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
EPA Enforcement in 2012 Protects Communities From Harmful Pollution
Release Date: 12/17/2012
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released its annual enforcement results, showing significant environmental and public health protections achieved – a reduction of 2.2 billion pounds of air, water and land pollution, as well as 4.4 billion pounds of hazardous waste, and $252 million in civil and criminal penalties levied – while also focusing on enforcement efforts that reduce smaller amounts of pollution but have substantial health impacts in communities.
“Enforcement plays a vital role in protecting communities from harmful pollution,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “We are using vigorous enforcement, as well as innovations in monitoring and transparency, to reduce pollution violations, protect and empower communities and focus on the environmental problems that matter most.”
FY 2012 results include:
- Sustained and focused enforcement attention on serious violators of clean drinking water standards has resulted in improvements in compliance. The number of systems with serious violations has declined by more than 60 percent in the past three years as a result of combined federal and state enforcement work, protecting people’s health through safer drinking water.
- More than 67 percent of large combined sewer systems serving people across the country are implementing clean water solutions to reduce raw sewage and contaminated stormwater and more are underway. EPA is working with communities to design integrated solutions to these water quality problems, and incorporating innovative and cost effective green infrastructure to save money and achieve multiple community benefits.
- EPA is bringing criminal prosecutions where criminal activity threatens public health, like failing to use required pollution control equipment or knowingly violating pollution rules resulting in death or serious harm or falsifying pollution information. See a case example in Louisiana.
- EPA is advancing environmental justice by incorporating fenceline monitoring, which requires companies to monitor their air emissions and make that data available public, into settlements, ensuring that local residents have access to critical information about pollution that may be affecting their community. EPA also secured $44 million in additional investments through settlements for supplemental environmental projects that benefit impacted communities. See an oil refinery case example.
- EPA is increasing transparency to use the power of public accountability to help improve environmental compliance. EPA’s 2012 enforcement actions map provides information about violators in communities. EPA’s state dashboards and Clean Water Act pollutant loading tool provides the public with information about local pollution that may affect them and allows the public to take a closer look at how government is responding to pollution problems.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released its annual enforcement results, showing significant environmental and public health protections achieved – a reduction of 2.2 billion pounds of air, water and land pollution, as well as 4.4 billion pounds of hazardous waste, and $252 million in civil and criminal penalties levied – while also focusing on enforcement efforts that reduce smaller amounts of pollution but have substantial health impacts in communities.
“Enforcement plays a vital role in protecting communities from harmful pollution,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “We are using vigorous enforcement, as well as innovations in monitoring and transparency, to reduce pollution violations, protect and empower communities and focus on the environmental problems that matter most.”
FY 2012 results include:
- Sustained and focused enforcement attention on serious violators of clean drinking water standards has resulted in improvements in compliance. The number of systems with serious violations has declined by more than 60 percent in the past three years as a result of combined federal and state enforcement work, protecting people’s health through safer drinking water.
- More than 67 percent of large combined sewer systems serving people across the country are implementing clean water solutions to reduce raw sewage and contaminated stormwater and more are underway. EPA is working with communities to design integrated solutions to these water quality problems, and incorporating innovative and cost effective green infrastructure to save money and achieve multiple community benefits.
- EPA is bringing criminal prosecutions where criminal activity threatens public health, like failing to use required pollution control equipment or knowingly violating pollution rules resulting in death or serious harm or falsifying pollution information. See a case example in Louisiana.
- EPA is advancing environmental justice by incorporating fenceline monitoring, which requires companies to monitor their air emissions and make that data available public, into settlements, ensuring that local residents have access to critical information about pollution that may be affecting their community. EPA also secured $44 million in additional investments through settlements for supplemental environmental projects that benefit impacted communities. See an oil refinery case example.
- EPA is increasing transparency to use the power of public accountability to help improve environmental compliance. EPA’s 2012 enforcement actions map provides information about violators in communities. EPA’s state dashboards and Clean Water Act pollutant loading tool provides the public with information about local pollution that may affect them and allows the public to take a closer look at how government is responding to pollution problems.
Algae! A Bright Idea
Everyone has seen crank flashlights that run on electricity created turning a crank, but what about a lamp that runs just by breathing into
it? An algae powered lamped designed by
Mike Thompson does just that. All this
lamp requires to provide light are three simple elements: sunlight, water, and
CO2. Recent research from
Stanford University has found a way to steal electric current from algae. The process works by sending an electric
charge through the algae to stimulate them into overproducing electrons, which
can then be leached from the algae and stored in a battery. All
that the owner needs to do is place the lamp in the sunlight during the day and
breath into the handle to ensure an ample supply of CO2 for the
algae.
Mike Thompson is not the only
person working with algae-powered lights, though. French biochemist Pierre Calleja has
developed a streetlight also powered by algae.
This light is much larger though, and has the capability to absorb one
ton of CO2 per year, which is as much as the average tree absorbs
over its entire lifetime. This means
that one of these streetlights absorbs 150-200 times the amount of CO2
a tree does.
Algae powered lamps seem light a
bright idea for the future, along with a great way to reduce CO2. Feel free to check out the articles on treehugger.com through
these links:
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Problems with Wind Power
At the moment, there is a great deal of popular support for wind power in the United States, and in Nebraska in particular. Due to our impressive wind reserves, many organizations have advocated increasing our wind power as in an effort to decrease our reliance on coal. However, there is no real way for wind power to replace coal power.
There are two types of power plant: base load and peaking. Base load plants, such as coal and nuclear plants, are relatively difficult to turn on and off at a moment's notice, but can be used to produce relatively large amounts of power. These provide a certain, relatively constant level of power, but cannot compensate for rapid fluctuations. These fluctuations are usually at certain times of day (in England there is actually a statistically relevant increase in power consumption after people get off work, go home, and make tea,) so additional plants are made, called peaking plants to provide the extra power. This brings us to the first problem with wind. Wind is highly inconsistent, and cannot be predicted with any significant accuracy. As such, it is not a reliable source of energy, and cannot be used for base load power.
The second problem with wind power is economic. Wind power is simply too cost-ineffective to be worth using. A Vestas V100 1.8 megawatt turbine costs roughly $6,000,000.00 to purchase and install. However, most wind turbines, even in optimal locations only have a capacity factor (what percentage of the year they are producing power) on the order of 35% at an altitude of 50 meters. This means that an optimally-placed can only produce approximately 5,150 megawatts of energy in a year. Given the cost of energy in Lincoln is 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (public power is a wonderful thing, said turbine will generate $360,500 worth of electricity in a year. THis means it will take an average of nearly 17 years to pay for a turbine. Unfortunately, this is simply to cost-inefficient relative to, say natural gas to be worthwile, and is to irregular for major deployment
All that being said, wind power isn't a bad thing, it is simply not well-understood, and many people see it as being the best solution to a problem it is simply not capable of handling on its own. Ultimately, wind power is not capable of replacing coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, or natural gas as a major source of power in the United States
Sources:
http://www.umass.edu/windenergy/publications/published/communityWindFactSheets/RERL_Fact_Sheet_2_Community_Wind_Performance.pdf
http://www.neo.ne.gov/renew/windresources/NE_spd50m_0408052.pdf
http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/119.htm
http://gloucester-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/954
There are two types of power plant: base load and peaking. Base load plants, such as coal and nuclear plants, are relatively difficult to turn on and off at a moment's notice, but can be used to produce relatively large amounts of power. These provide a certain, relatively constant level of power, but cannot compensate for rapid fluctuations. These fluctuations are usually at certain times of day (in England there is actually a statistically relevant increase in power consumption after people get off work, go home, and make tea,) so additional plants are made, called peaking plants to provide the extra power. This brings us to the first problem with wind. Wind is highly inconsistent, and cannot be predicted with any significant accuracy. As such, it is not a reliable source of energy, and cannot be used for base load power.
The second problem with wind power is economic. Wind power is simply too cost-ineffective to be worth using. A Vestas V100 1.8 megawatt turbine costs roughly $6,000,000.00 to purchase and install. However, most wind turbines, even in optimal locations only have a capacity factor (what percentage of the year they are producing power) on the order of 35% at an altitude of 50 meters. This means that an optimally-placed can only produce approximately 5,150 megawatts of energy in a year. Given the cost of energy in Lincoln is 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (public power is a wonderful thing, said turbine will generate $360,500 worth of electricity in a year. THis means it will take an average of nearly 17 years to pay for a turbine. Unfortunately, this is simply to cost-inefficient relative to, say natural gas to be worthwile, and is to irregular for major deployment
All that being said, wind power isn't a bad thing, it is simply not well-understood, and many people see it as being the best solution to a problem it is simply not capable of handling on its own. Ultimately, wind power is not capable of replacing coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, or natural gas as a major source of power in the United States
Sources:
http://www.umass.edu/windenergy/publications/published/communityWindFactSheets/RERL_Fact_Sheet_2_Community_Wind_Performance.pdf
http://www.neo.ne.gov/renew/windresources/NE_spd50m_0408052.pdf
http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/119.htm
http://gloucester-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/954
Friday, February 22, 2013
Clean Coal
An article from the Environmental News Network announces that clean coal may now be a reality. The main method for acquiring energy from coal is combustion, and this creates a lot of pollutants that aren't easily contained and are very harmful to our environment. But a group of researchers at Ohio State University believe they may have developed a new way to get energy from clean coal. They have spent two years on this project and they were finally successful in creating clean coal energy chemically without combustion with the air and it has the ability to capture nearly 99% of the carbon dioxide produced from the reaction.
The process is called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping or CDCL, it combines iron oxide beads to carry oxygen to create the chemical reaction with coal. It is turned into a powder where it is then heated to high temperatures so the materials can react with each other. This method has several benefits because the carbon dioxide formed from the reaction rises to the top of the chamber where it is captured instead of being released into the air, and the water vapor formed from excess heat is used to power turbines to generate electricity. Furthermore they separate the carbon dioxide created so it can be recycled and the iron beads are re-oxidized allowing them to be re-generated.
This process meets all the necessary requirements set by the Department of Energy and is anticipated to continue to do so. Ohio State University is also planning for the pilot plant that will be located in Alabama at the US Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center to begin operating in late 2013. It seems to be a more efficient way to develop energy from coal and any method that could potentially lower the impact that coal pollution has on the environment is something to commend. This new study and other clean coal energy experiments are making people wonder if this could be the future of coal and hoping that this could really be a new revolutionary way to create energy from clean coal. Here is a link to the original article for more information, http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/45613.
The process is called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping or CDCL, it combines iron oxide beads to carry oxygen to create the chemical reaction with coal. It is turned into a powder where it is then heated to high temperatures so the materials can react with each other. This method has several benefits because the carbon dioxide formed from the reaction rises to the top of the chamber where it is captured instead of being released into the air, and the water vapor formed from excess heat is used to power turbines to generate electricity. Furthermore they separate the carbon dioxide created so it can be recycled and the iron beads are re-oxidized allowing them to be re-generated.
This process meets all the necessary requirements set by the Department of Energy and is anticipated to continue to do so. Ohio State University is also planning for the pilot plant that will be located in Alabama at the US Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center to begin operating in late 2013. It seems to be a more efficient way to develop energy from coal and any method that could potentially lower the impact that coal pollution has on the environment is something to commend. This new study and other clean coal energy experiments are making people wonder if this could be the future of coal and hoping that this could really be a new revolutionary way to create energy from clean coal. Here is a link to the original article for more information, http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/45613.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Mining Away the Hearts of Mountains
Mountaintop
removal mining is a coal mining practice taking place in the eastern United
States. This mining method includes several environmentally devastating steps:
removing all vegetation and topsoil in the area to be mined, and blasting off
600 or more feet of elevation. Huge machines are used to dig out the coal, replacing
the need for human workers, reducing economic benefits of the practice. Debris
is often poured into valleys resting near the mining site, regardless of what
ecological features are found there. Any
efforts to restore the mountains to their original pristine state are wasted;
once the mountain has been mined, it will always bear the scars.
For
more about the process: http://mountainjustice.org/facts/steps.php
The
fight against mountaintop removal has been long and grueling. While no
legislation has been put in place to ban the practice, individuals have
celebrated small victories. Many states where mountaintop removal occurs have
considered introducing bills to ban the use of mountaintop removal mined coal,
which may decrease the demand for the mined coal.
For
more on the legislative movements: http://ilovemountains.org/state-actions
Mountaintop removal mining is another ugly
consequence of the world’s continued demand for coal, the dirtiest of the
fossil fuels.
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