News Summary

2011 has been a year of unparalleled extremes: 12 disastrous weather events in the US so far this year have exceeded a billion dollars in property damage – an all-time record breaking number – and their estimated total $53 billion price tag doesn't include health costs.  

NRDC Extreme Weather Report 

EPA links fracking to contaminated water in Wyoming - Dangerous amounts of benzene found in a monitoring well 

http://bit.ly/tCJvDS

Obama: "Any Effort to Tie Keystone to the Payroll Tax Cut, I Will Reject" 

http://bit.ly/sNnKeZ

Obama secures commitment from CEOs to upgrade energy efficiency of 1.6 billion square feet of commercial buildings http://bit.ly/ueDlI5

The average distance traveled by nonlocal broccoli delivered to Virginia Tech was 2786.0 miles. This averaged to approximately 15.3 pounds carbon dioxide per pound of broccoli delivered. The distance traveled for local broccoli was 19.1 miles.  This averaged to 0.04 pounds of carbon dioxide per pound of broccoli delivered. 
FoodPrint Report

GOP tries to force Keystone XL Pipeline Approval in Tax Relief Bill - http://nyti.ms/rwiwmu

Middlebury Student accuses US of dragging its feet. Obama administration's special envoy's statement to delegates from more than 190 nations at the annual climate conference was disrupted by a 21-year-old Middlebury College junior, Abigail Borah, who told the assembly that she would speak for the United States because Mr. Stern had forfeited the right to do so.

"I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot," said Ms. Borah, who is attending the conference as a representative of the International Youth Climate Movement. "The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty."

Scores of delegates and observers gave her a sustained ovation. Then the South African authorities threw her out of the conference. "That's O.K.," Ms. Borak, who is from Princeton, N.J., said later by telephone. "I think I got my point across."

Obama secures CEOs commitment to energy efficiency

Obama secures pledges to improve energy efficiency by 20% for 1.6 Billion Square Feet of commercial buildings -  

That is the equivalent of 500 Empire State Buildings. 

President Obama announced commitments from 60 major CEOS, universities, mayors, labor leaders, and others to improve the energy efficiency of 1.6 billion square feet of commercial and industrial property. That's more square footage than 500 Empire State Buildings.

Refitting our nation's buildings to be more energy efficient will help businesses save money, create jobs for out-of-work construction workers, and help protect our environment. In fact, meeting President Obama's Better Building Initiative goal—improving energy efficiency in our commercial buildings 20 percent by 2020—will save businesses $40 billion per year and create 114,000 jobs.

President Obama knows that we can't wait on Congress to offer incentives for building owners to move forward with energy efficiency upgrades on their properties. That's why he partnered with the former President Bill Clinton and his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness to spur the $2 billion private sector investment that led to today's announcement. To jumpstart even more energy efficient upgrades, President Obama also directed Federal agencies to make at least $2 billion worth of energy efficiency upgrades in the next two years.

http://1.usa.gov/sjZNUA

Solar Power is Contagious!

Solar Power is Contagious, Study reports on the Peer Effects of Solar Panels http://bit.ly/uNIogO

The study notes that for every 1 percent increase in the number of installations in a single ZIP code, there's a commensurate 1 percent decrease in the amount of time until the next solar installation. 

Another Pipeline Leak

Colorado officials fear that vast amounts of petroleum have been leaking into the South Platte River from a broken pipeline at a refinery operated by tar sands producer Suncor.

The oily black sludge that's been seeping into the Sand Creek waterway is a gasoline-like substance containing benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, the EPA confirmed.

The confirmation only deepens the worst fears of environmental advocates concerned that the contamination of Sand Creek, a tributary of the South Platte River, could put the health hundreds of thousands of metro area residents at-risk.

"When you have a spill in a small spot that's potentially drifting down into a major river, you're talking about dozens of ditches, thousands of acres of farmland and even some municipal water supply sources that could be affected," said Bart Miller, the water program director at Boulder's Western Resource Advocates.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people who rely on this as a water source."

Colorado state health officials fear that a broken underground pipe that leads to a tank at a Suncor Energy refinery caused the leak of petroleum in Commerce City.

Hazardous Waste Corrective Action Unit supervisor Walter Avramenko says they're concerned because the reported break at the refinery is about a half-mile away from where an oily substance began seeping into Sand Creek earlier this week. 


KDVR News Report

Fukushima Update

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant says that molten nuclear fuel may have bored into the floor of the reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. 

TEPCO said that in the No. 1 reactor, the overheated fuel may have eroded the primary containment vessel's thick concrete floor, and it may have gotten almost within a foot of a crucial steel barrier.

The findings are the latest in a series of increasingly grave scenarios presented by TEPCO about the state of the reactors. The company initially insisted that there was no breach at any of the three most-damaged reactors; it later said that there might have been a breach, but that most of the nuclear fuel had remained within the containment vessels.

http://nyti.ms/voDqJT

Temperatures to rise 11 degrees

The International Energy Agency said that current global energy consumption levels put the Earth on a trajectory to warm by 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels by 2100, an outcome he called "a catastrophe for all of us."

Unless there is a shift away from some of the fossil fuel energy now used for electricity generation and transportation, Birol said, "the world is perfectly on track for a six-degree Celsius increase in temperature."

IEA has analyzed energy use and production for years, but this is the first year its officials have spoken this publicly about the need to shift gears.


Washington Post Article

Vampire Power

No - I'm not talking about Twilight... 

Toshiba introduced a TV that uses no standby power. It incorporates an Eco-Chip that stores enough power to respond to the remote and still provide an "instant-on" experience while using no standby "Vampire" power. 

Toshiba's Regza 32BE3 television, which will debut mid-December, includes a so-called "Eco Chip" that prevents the 32-inch HDTV from drawing any AC power after you mash off the power button on its remote.

Toshiba says its 32-inch Regza uses only 45kWh of power per year, 27 percent less than its 32-inch predecessor, the Regza 32A2, primarily thanks to its LED backlighting. LED-backlit LCDs are the most efficient TVs available today. Plasma screens, by comparison, use two to three times more power than an LCD to deliver an image of equal brightness.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/11/toshiba-eco-chip-tv/