Dogs threaten Bangladesh sea turtles

BBC News 23 Jan 08;

Volunteers are searching part of the south of Bangladesh to find dogs they believe are responsible for killing endangered turtles, officials say.

Experts say eggs laid on beaches by rare Olive Ridley turtles are being eaten by the dogs near the coastal town of Cox's Bazar.

They also say that the turtles are being killed after becoming caught up in fishermen's nets.

Olive Ridleys are well known for nesting on beaches in the region.

Experts say that in Bangladesh, that makes their eggs and hatchlings vulnerable to packs of hungry stray dogs that roam many of the country's built-up areas.

Poison

Hundreds of turtles that normally live deep in the sea come ashore from September to March to lay their eggs and bury them in the sand.

Their nesting zones along the Bay of Bengal are declared protected areas in Bangladesh and India.

Officials say they have now begun a programme to remove or exterminate about 300 of the dogs.

"We will only kill stray dogs which have been living in the wild and harming the turtles," Faruk Ahmed, an official from the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry, told the AP news agency.

He said the dogs not only destroy freshly laid eggs in the sand but also break into nearby hatcheries where the eggs are taken for protection.

Volunteers and conservationists on Wednesday began catching strays with long hooks and injecting them with poison.

The carcasses of the canines are buried in holes dug in the sand.

Conservationists say the turtles also get tangled in fine fishing nets cast near the shore.

Fishermen reportedly kill them because they do not want to damage their nets.

Olive Ridleys, which weigh 40-60kg (90-130lbs) each, are the smallest of all sea turtles, and are endangered throughout their habitat in the Indo-Pacific region.

They are particularly valued by hunters for their skin and meat.

Bangladesh kills wild dogs to save endangered turtles
Associated Press, International Herald Tribune 23 Jan 08;

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Volunteers and animal experts combed beaches along Bangladesh's southern coast Wednesday to catch and kill wild dogs that are threatening endangered sea turtles, conservation officials said.

Dozens of threatened Olive Ridley turtles that usually swim ashore to lay eggs on beaches have been found dead along the coast in recent weeks, the officials said.

In addition to pollution and the use of illegal fishing nets near the shore, stray dogs and wild foxes are responsible for destroying eggs and killing the dwindling turtle species in Cox's Bazar district, said M.A. Hannan, a wildlife conservation officer from the Environment Department.

At least 50 turtles — 25 last week alone — have been found dead so far this breeding season along the coast, 185 miles south of Dhaka, Hannan said.

Hundreds of turtles, which usually inhabit the deep seas, come ashore to lay and bury their eggs in the sand from September to March. Their popular nesting grounds along the Bay of Bengal are declared protected areas in Bangladesh and India.

But sometimes the turtles — which weigh up to 130 pounds each — get tangled in fine fishing nets cast near the shore, or are mauled by packs of dogs or foxes, which also eat the eggs and hatchlings.

Five spots along the 62-mile stretch from Cox's Bazar to Teknaf beach, and the offshore islands of Sonadia and St. Martin's, have been earmarked for the wild dog extermination operation, officials said.

"We will only kill stray dogs which have been living in the wild and harming the turtles," said Dr. Faruk Ahmed, an official from the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry.

Wild dogs destroy freshly laid eggs in the sand and also break into nearby hatcheries where the eggs are taken for protection, he added.

On Wednesday, local volunteers — supervised by dogcatchers brought from the capital — caught strays with long hooks and injected them with poison. The carcasses were then buried in holes dug in the sand.

Olive Ridleys, the smallest of all sea turtles, are endangered worldwide, Hannan said.

Bangladesh's government has launched a conservation project with the help of the U.N. Development Program to protect turtle eggs on beaches. The eggs are incubated in safe places, and the hatchlings are released back into the sea.

"We have already collected more than 1,500 eggs for breeding this year," Hannan said.

Associated Press writer Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka contributed to this report.

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Understanding Japan's whale ethics

Chris Hogg, BBC News 22 Jan 08;

I want to tell you something that until now I have kept to myself.

I have eaten minke whale. I have eaten it raw - small squares of the skin and the flesh served as sashimi with soy sauce and spicy wasabi on the side. And I have eaten it cooked - stir-fried with vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce.

I suspect there will be some people reading who are outraged - disgusted that I would eat whale meat.

Indeed, that is one reason why I have never mentioned it before. There are risks involved in such an admission.

Is it evidence that I have "gone native" after nearly two years of trying to make sense of this story from the Japanese point of view?

Well, no, the reality was that I felt I had no choice but to taste the whale.

'What about lambs?

I was in a diner in Tokyo owned by Michio Kono, a small man who has been in the restaurant business 30 years.

When we first arrived he was quite quiet, but when I began to talk to him about the rights and wrongs of whaling this diminutive chef exploded.

Now I do not speak much Japanese. My colleague was translating for me, but I did not need to be fluent to understand the extent of Mr Kono's anger and frustration at those who try to stop the Japanese whaling.



He ranted and raged, on and on, chopping his outstretched hand through the air vigorously as he made his points.

"What about lambs?" he asked. "You people eat lambs, we think lambs are cute but we don't try to stop you eating them."

Once the interview was over he insisted I try some whale myself. The look I got from my Japanese colleague suggested that "no" was not an option.

In truth I was curious. I chewed the raw whale. It was not great, but it was not awful either.

The stir-fried whale was better, but not something I would want to eat again in a hurry - not because of any ethical objections, more because of its very strong flavour which was only somewhat disguised by the sweet and sour sauce.

Those Japanese who support whaling believe that all western journalists are out to get them.

That means you have to do whatever you can to try to counter that impression if you are to have any chance of conveying their point of view to the wider world.

It was clear that eating Mr Kono's whale had the effect of mollifying him. Perhaps I was not out to stitch him up after all.

Diplomatic harm

The whaling industry here is backed by a small minority of Japanese, a part of the establishment which shouts loud and likes to frame this as an issue of sovereignty: "What right have other nations to tell us what we can and can't eat?"

The campaigners have powerful friends in politics and in the media.

The debate over the rights and wrongs of whaling gets little coverage in the papers here.

The boarding of a Japanese whaler by two environmental activists did make it onto the news bulletins but many Japanese journalists chose to brand the two men environmental terrorists.

And, as far as I am aware, no politician has yet been brave enough to stand up and question whether or not preserving the whaling industry is worth the damage it does to Japan's reputation overseas.

The unfortunate bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo who are required to defend whaling on our channels and those of other broadcasters often admit quietly, once the camera is switched off and the microphone unplugged, that this is not a subject they warm too.

Their frustration is not directed at the interviewers, who all too often give them a roasting, demanding they defend what to many is indefensible.

It is their fellow pen-pushers at the Fisheries Ministry who are making life difficult for them by continuing to prop up a whaling industry that sullies the reputation of Japan around the world.

War of words

Over the next few months the diplomats are likely to find it will only get worse.

A senior official from the Fisheries Ministry told me over lunch recently - fish but not whale this time - that Japan is serious about its threat to leave the International Whaling Commission unless it is reformed.

The Japanese are tired of the arguments between pro and anti-whaling nations.

They will do all they can he told me to try to reform the IWC from within, but if that does not work, perhaps within months, his officials will start planning a new body - a breakaway group for pro-whaling nations who want to return to the commercial hunting of whales.

The boarding of the Japanese whaling vessel by the environmental activists in the waters off Antarctica was just a skirmish.

The war of words about whaling here, there, on land and at sea, is likely only to get worse.

Read more!

Thousands rally for compensation over SKorea oil spill

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

SEOUL: Thousands of people hit by South Korea's worst oil spill staged an angry protest in central Seoul Wednesday to demand swift compensation.

Some 3,000 marine farmers and other residents carried oil-coated oysters, fish, anchovies and seaweed, while a few protesters pelted the headquarters of Samsung, operators of the barge which caused the spill, with oil-covered fish.

Others used hammers to smash Samsung-made washing machines, TV sets and refrigerators which they had brought to the rally.

Protesters demanded that parliament and Samsung, South Korea's biggest conglomerate, swiftly compensate them for their threatened livelihoods.

Three people in the worst hit district have committed suicide following delays by local officials in making payments, including one protester who drank poison and set himself on fire last week.

"Samsung Group should promise unlimited accountability and unlimited compensation," the crowd chanted at the rally outside Seoul railway station.

A few blocks away, scores of police buses barricaded the group headquarters. Thousands of riot police were on standby in the area.

The accident happened on December 7 when the Samsung barge carrying a construction crane snapped its towing cables to two tugs in rough seas and rammed the anchored 147,000-ton supertanker Hebei Spirit off the west coast.

The Hong Kong-registered tanker was holed in three places and spilt 10,900 tonnes of crude.

Scores of marine farms and miles of beaches, notably in Taean county about 110 kilometres (69 miles) southwest of Seoul, were devastated.

The central government sent about 60 billion won (63 million US dollars) from state coffers and private donations to the region. But regional authorities have been at odds as how to divide the money.

"We are in total despair," said fisherman Park Mong-Kyo, 52. "We just don't know how many more months or years we must go on like this."

Prosecutors on Monday indicted five people -- the skippers of the barge and of the two tugs and the tanker's captain and chief officer -- on charges of negligence and violating anti-pollution laws.

Samsung Heavy Industries and Hebei Shipping, a Hong Kong corporation which owns the tanker, were indicted on charges of violating anti-pollution laws.

Owners and managers of the tanker protested against the decision to charge its crew. Robert Bishop, CEO of British ship management company V.Ships, expressed "dismay and disappointment" in a statement.

Bishop said the Hebei Spirit crew had carried out all instructions from South Korean maritime authorities before the accident and taken every possible measure to minimise the outflow of oil afterwards.

He said evidence showed the captain "acted in an exemplary manner and in the highest possible traditions of the merchant marine."

The Hebei Spirit officers are charged with failing to follow safety orders from navigation authorities.

The owners and insurers of the tanker, along with the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, have set up a centre to handle damages claims.

Under an agreement with South Korea's maritime ministry, the insurer will pay up to 12 billion won towards the cost of cleaning up the shoreline. - AFP/ac

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15 whales die in New Zealand beach stranding

Yahoo News 22 Jan 08;

Fifteen pilot whales died in beach strandings Wednesday in southern New Zealand while rescuers refloated another 15 and monitored their progress toward safer waters, conservation officials said.

The whales, ranging from calves to 20-foot adults — were found beached at two locations on Farewell Spit on New Zealand's South Island, Conservation Department ranger Nigel Mountfort said.

Fifteen of the whales were dead when discovered. Rescuers helped refloat the remaining 15, but they remained in a tidal area where they risked beaching themselves again, Mountford said. A conservation worker was sent aboard a plane to monitor the bay for whales at risk of further stranding, he said.

Scientists are unable to explain why whales strand, but some believe it is caused by disorientation in their sonar sounding systems.

New Zealand has several mass strandings around its coastline each summer, with Conservation Department records showing more than 5,000 whale and dolphin strandings since 1840.

At least 15 whales die in New Zealand stranding
Yahoo News 23 Jan 08;

At least 15 pilot whales died and another 18 were in danger after stranding on an isolated New Zealand beach, authorities said Wednesday.

Six whales were initially found stranded Wednesday morning at Farewell Spit on the northwest of the South Island, and three died while the remainder were refloated, said Department of Conservation spokeswoman Trish Grant.

A larger pod of up to 30 were found nearby, of which 12 to 15 had died with about as many milling close to shore, Grant said.

The surviving whales were being monitored and there was a concern they could also become stuck on the beach.

"It all depends on which way the whales start to move," Grant said, adding that the whales would be in most danger at low tide.

Rough seas and strong winds were hampering attempts to keep a watch on the four to six metre (13 to 19 feet) long whales.

Whale strandings have been common in the area and about two years ago 25 pilot whales died after a pod of 129 beached at Farewell Spit.

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Saving Papua's rainforest is a hero's job

Marianne Kearney, Today Online 24 Jan 08;
Governor of Papua has an uphill task battling exploitative interests

Making his dream come true could be a nightmare but Mr Barnabas Suebu, the Governor of Papua — home to the most dense jungle in Indonesia, where stone-age warriors live among the most bio-diverse region in the planet — wants to preserve huge swathes of rainforest.

In fact, he wants to preserve 7 million ha — about 110 times Singapore's land mass.

Papua's forests have been carved up by Chinese, South Korean, Malaysian and local companies, and much of the logging is done illegally. Local companies then launder the logs and sell them at an astounding rate, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, which has been monitoring Papua's logging since 2002.

Greenpeace estimates that every hour, three football fields of forest are logged in Indonesia. In Papua, home to 42 million ha of forest, an estimated 7.2 million m3 of timber, much of it prized hardwood merbau, is being logged each year.

But Mr Suebu said almost none of this vast natural wealth and rapid exploitation has benefited local people. Papua is still one of Indonesia's most impoverished provinces, with 40 per cent of the 2.5 million people living on less than 50 US cents (72 cents) a day, according to the World Bank.

"The benefit for the local people is trivial but the impact is devastating. There is no benefit at all in plundering the forests," Mr Suebu told reporters, during the Bali climate change conference.

"A timber log is priced at US$10, but the price can climb to more than US$10,000 after being processed into wooden goods," he said, referring to an entire hardwood tree trunk. The governor said he has banned the export of unprocessed logs and will also ban the export of unprocessed palm oil. He said he plans to begin enforcing this proposal in January, regardless of the province's lack of palm oil processing plants, and any viable furniture or wood processing industry.

He has also signed a decree with his counterpart, the Governor of West Papua, agreeing to a moratorium on deforestation in the vast jungles covering the whole of the western and Indonesian part of Guinea Island.

In return, Papua is hoping to earn millions of dollars in carbon credits if First World countries eventually agree to pay forest-rich countries for not cutting down their trees. Mr Suebu and many environmental lobbyists were disappointed that the United Nations and countries attending the Climate Change Conference in Bali in December last year could not agree on a system that would reward countries for preserving their forests.

However, his environmental adviser, Ms Maria Latumahina, said the governor is confident that such a system will be agreed on by next year, when world leaders will meet again to hammer out an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.

In the meantime, the governor is working towards being able to trade its preserved forests on the voluntary global carbon market, where international companies have already begun buying up carbon credits — or preserved tracts of land — in order to give their companies some green kudos, said Ms Latumahina.

This also means drafting a raft of implementing regulations and a system to ensure any timber or timber product which leaves Papua is properly certified as sustainably harvested. Mr Suebu also wants to work out how to develop a forestry policy which can alleviate poverty.

Logging companies quickly persuaded traditional owners to sell off their logging rights for a song — leaving the Papuans landless and, pretty quickly, penniless. Unaware of the huge premium that merbau hardwood fetches on the international market, some tribal leaders sold their rights for as little as a few bags of rice.

But it is not the stone-aged warriors who will pose a problem for Mr Suebu's ambitious scheme but the modern ones; mainly the well-financed timber barons and those backing them. The military has been heavily involved for years in Papua's logging business, either directly as part of local companies or indirectly acting as "agents".

Mr Suebu, who was named Time magazine's environmental hero in a special issue last year, admitted he has a huge task on his hands. "I feel like I've been named a hero without going into the battlefield. The war is just about to start," he told reporters at the Bali conference.

Read more!

Brazil says Amazon destruction soars again

Reuters 24 Jan 08;

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The destruction of the Amazon forest surged over the last five months of 2007, the Brazilian government said on Wednesday, only months after hailing progress in curbing deforestation.

Deforestation in the Amazon, known as "the lungs of the world" for its ability to consume greenhouse gases and produce oxygen -- shot up from 94 square miles in August to 366 square miles in December.

That is four times as much as in the same period of 2004, the government said. It did not provide comparative data for 2005 or 2006.

"We've never before detected such a high deforestation rate at this time of year," Gilberto Camara, the head of the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which provides satellite imaging of the area, told a news conference in the capital Brasilia.

Between August and December, 1,250 sq miles of the world's largest rain forest was lost, and environment ministry officials said that preliminary figure was likely to double as satellite images with higher resolution are analyzed.

Joao Paulo Capobianco, the ministry's executive secretary, said the figures were "extremely worrying."

Only a few months ago, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva boasted about how Brazil managed to reduce deforestation by 50 percent in the two years through July 2007.

The government had said that policies such as more controls on illegal logging and better certification of land ownership were reducing the deforestation that has destroyed about a fifth of the forest -- an area bigger than France -- since the 1970s.

Conservationists have warned that the recent rise in grain prices would lead to an increase in the deforestation, as farmers and ranchers go deeper into the Amazon in search of cheap land.

Environment Minister Marina Silva said the government will decide on Thursday new measures to curb deforestation in the Amazon, whose destruction is a major source of carbon emissions that cause global warming.

(Reporting by Ray Colitt, writing by Inae Riveras, editing by Andrei Khalip and Stuart Grudgings)

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US could ban travel for Cambodians tied to illegal logging

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;

PHNOM PENH : The US has passed a law that could see travel bans for Cambodian officials accused of looting the country's natural resources, a move hailed Wednesday by conservationists as a strike against illegal logging.

The law, enacted in December, endorses calls by the US Congress to deny visas to Cambodian officials identified in a 2007 report by the environmental watchdog Global Witness as being guilty of plundering Cambodia's forests.

London-based Global Witness's caustic study, titled "Cambodia's Family Trees," accused a "kleptocratic" elite of systematically clearing Cambodia's woodlands.

It named several figures close to Prime Minister Hun Sen, including Forest Administration Director General Ty Sokhun and Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, as being directly involved.

In response, an outraged government last year banned the Global Witness report from Cambodia and continues to dismiss its allegations.

A Cambodian government spokesman could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the US legislation.

But the law "sends a clear message that the exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources by a small group of powerful individuals at the expense of the country's poor is unacceptable," Global Witness director Simon Taylor said in a statement received Wednesday.

The legislation, which authorises spending by Washington, instructs the US State Department to identify foreign officials, and their relatives, who are believed to have "been involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries."

It also endorses a congressional subcommittee recommendation to "prohibit corrupt Cambodian officials identified in the June 2007 Global Witness report... from entering the United States."

But it is unclear if the law will result in visa refusals for individual Cambodians.

US embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle told reporters that "there is no ban... no specific names have been given to the embassy."- AFP/yb

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New York mayor signs plastic bag recycling bill

Reuters 23 Jan 08;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill on Wednesday that forces large retailers to set up plastic bag recycling programs as part of the city's efforts to improve its environmental record.

The measure, which aims to reduce the number of bags handed out to city consumers from an estimated 1 billion a year, comes on the heals of other environmental initiatives including a mandate for more fuel-efficient taxis and a proposed congestion pricing plan designed to cut car traffic in Manhattan.

The bill requires all stores that occupy at least 5,000 square feet to implement bag recycling programs as well as make recycled bags available.

Supporters of the bill have said the cost to business would be minimal since recycling firms currently pay $100 a ton for plastic bags.

Environmentalists have targeted plastic bags as a scourge that take years to biodegrade and contaminate soil and water.

In March, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags from large supermarkets and the state of California enacted a law in July that requires large stores to take back plastic bags and encourage their reuse.

On Tuesday, Whole Foods Market Inc said it was aiming to stop using disposable plastic grocery bags in all of its 270 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom by Earth Day on April 22.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Robert Campbell and Todd Eastham)

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Olympics: China to divert Yellow River water for Beijing Games

Yahoo News 23 Jan 08;

China will begin diverting water from the Yellow River towards Beijing this month as part of a major project to boost dwindling supplies ahead of the Olympics, state press reported.

Up to 150 million cubic metres (5.3 billion cubic feet) of water will flow 399 kilometres (250 miles) along an ancient canal to Lake Baiyangdian, south of Beijing, over the next three months, the Dazhong Daily said.

"The plan to transfer water from the Yellow River to Lake Baiyangdian will be implemented to resolve the lake's water shortage crisis," the paper said on Monday.

At the same time, four reservoirs that naturally feed Baiyangdian, northern China's largest freshwater lake, will instead provide additional water for Beijing, which suffers chronic shortages, according to the paper.

The lake, about 70 kilometres from Beijing, has been decimated by environmental degradation for more than a decade as both water use and pollution has skyrocketed in tandem with China's booming economy.

The Yellow River diversion will begin in Liaocheng city in Shandong province in eastern China, the report said, citing the province's Yellow River Management Bureau.

It would then largely flow along the ancient "Grand Canal," one of China's earliest water projects, built nearly 1,400 years ago.

The first time such a transfer took place, in November 2006, it took 479 million cubic metres of water diverted at Liaocheng to supply 100 million cubic metres of water to Baiyangdian, the paper said.

The Yellow River, China's second largest and of huge symbolic and cultural importance, has itself been hit by rising water usage and has run dry short of the ocean for long periods in recent years.

Northern China is wracked with water shortages due to soaring demand, an ongoing drought and global warming. Per capita water usage in Beijing is already far below national averages.

Meanwhile, a separate project to divert Yellow River water to the Shandong city of Qingdao, where Olympic sailing events will take place, was completed last week, the paper said.

In that project, 105 million cubic metres of water was diverted from the Yellow River which eventually added some 70 million cubic metres into Qingdao's Jihongtan reservoir.

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Beijing Olympic water scheme drains parched farmers
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Read more!

Drought could force nuke-plant shutdowns

Mitch Weiss, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jan 08;

Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel

Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn't result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region's utilities may be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.

Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.

"Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel," said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. "You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants." He added: "This is becoming a crisis."

An Associated Press analysis of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought. All but two are built on the shores of lakes and rivers and rely on submerged intake pipes to draw billions of gallons of water for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants' turbines.

Because of the yearlong dry spell gripping the region, the water levels on those lakes and rivers are getting close to the minimums set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Over the next several months, the water could drop below the intake pipes altogether. Or the shallow water could become too hot under the sun to use as coolant.

"If water levels get to a certain point, we'll have to power it down or go off line," said Robert Yanity, a spokesman for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., which operates the Summer nuclear plant outside Columbia, S.C.

Extending or lowering the intake pipes is not as simple at it sounds and wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. The pipes are usually made of concrete, can be up to 18 feet in diameter and can extend up to a mile. Modifications to the pipes and pump systems, and their required backups, can cost millions and take several months. If the changes are extensive, they require an NRC review that itself can take months or longer.

Even if a quick extension were possible, the pipes can only go so low. It they are put too close to the bottom of a drought-shrunken lake or river, they can suck up sediment, fish and other debris that could clog the system.

An estimated 3 million customers of the four commercial utilities with reactors in the drought zone get their power from nuclear energy. Also, the quasi-governmental Tennessee Valley Authority, which sells electricity to 8.7 million people in seven states through a network of distributors, generates 30 percent of its power at nuclear plants.

While rain and some snow fell recently, water levels across the region are still well below normal. Most of the severely affected area would need more than a foot of rain in the next three months — an unusually large amount — to ease the drought and relieve pressure on the nuclear plants. And the long-term forecast calls for more dry weather.

At Progress Energy Inc., which operates four reactors in the drought zone, officials warned in November that the drought could force it to shut down its Harris reactor near Raleigh, according to documents obtained by the AP. The water in Harris Lake stands at 218.5 feet — just 3 1/2 feet above the limit set in the plant's license.

Lake Norman near Charlotte is down to 93.7 feet — less than a foot above the minimum set in the license for Duke Energy Corp.'s McGuire nuclear plant. The lake was at 98.2 feet just a year ago.

"We don't know what's going to happen in the future. We know we haven't gotten enough rain, so we can't rule anything out," said Duke spokeswoman Rita Sipe. "But based on what we know now, we don't believe we'll have to shut down the plants."

During Europe's brutal 2006 heat wave, French, Spanish and German utilities were forced to shut down some of their nuclear plants and reduce power at others because of low water levels — some for as much as a week.

If a prolonged shutdown like that were to happen in the Southeast, utilities in the region might have to buy electricity on the wholesale market, and the high costs could be passed on to customers.

"Currently, nuclear power costs between $5 to $7 to produce a megawatt hour," said Daniele Seitz, an energy analyst with New York-based Dahlman Rose & Co. "It would cost 10 times that amount that if you had to buy replacement power — especially during the summer."

At a nuclear plant, water is also used to cool the reactor core and to create the steam that drives the electricity-generating turbines. But those are comparatively small amounts of water, circulating in what are known as closed systems — that is, the water is constantly reused. Water for those two purposes is not threatened by the drought.

Instead, the drought could choke off the billions of gallons of water that pass through the region's reactors every day to cool used steam. Water sucked from lakes and rivers passes through pipes, which act as a condenser, turning the steam back into water. The outside water never comes into direct contact with the steam or any nuclear material.

At some plants — those with tall, Three Mile Island-style cooling towers — a lot of the water travels up the tower and is lost to evaporation. At other plants, almost all of the water is returned to the lake or river, though significantly hotter because of the heat absorbed from the steam.

Progress spokeswoman Julie Hahn said the Harris reactor, for example, sucks up 33 million gallons a day, with 17 million gallons lost to evaporation via its big cooling towers. Duke's McGuire plant draws in more than 2 billion gallons a day, but most of it is pumped back to its source.

Nuclear plants are subject to restrictions on the temperature of the discharged coolant, because hot water can kill fish or plants or otherwise disrupt the environment. Those restrictions, coupled with the drought, led to the one-day shutdown Aug. 16 of a TVA reactor at Browns Ferry in Alabama.

The water was low on the Tennessee River and had become warmer than usual under the hot sun. By the time it had been pumped through the Browns Ferry plant, it had become hotter still — too hot to release back into the river, according to the TVA. So the utility shut down a reactor.

David Lochbaum, nuclear project safety director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that nuclear plants are not designed to take the wear and tear of repeatedly stopping and restarting.

"Nuclear plants are best when they flatline — when they stay up and running or shut down for long periods to refuel," Lochbaum said. "It wears out piping, valves, motors."

Both the industry and NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said plants can shut down and restart without problems.

Read more!

UN warns of biofuels' environmental risk

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jan 08;
By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer2 hours, 44 minutes ago

The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Speaking at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries.

However, she said those benefits must be weighed against the pitfalls — many of which are just now emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane and other crops used to make biofuels.

"Biofuels have become a flash point through which a wide range of social and environmental issues are currently being played out in the media," Suzuki told delegates at the forum, sponsored by the U.N. and the Thai government.

Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.

She also said China and India could face worsening water shortages because biofuels require large amounts of water, while forests in Indonesia and Malaysia could face threats from the expansion of palm oil plantations.

"Particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, land availability is a critical issue," Suzuki said. "There are clear comparative advantages for tropical and subtropical countries in growing biofuel feed stocks but it is often these same countries in which resource and land rights of vulnerable groups and protected forests are weakest."

Initially, biofuels were held up as a panacea for countries struggling to cope with the rising cost of oil or those looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union, for example, plans to replace 10 percent of transport fuel with biofuels made from energy crops such as sugar cane and rapeseed oil by 2020.

But in recent months, scientists, private agencies and even the British government have said biofuels could do more harm than good. Rather than protecting the environment, they say energy crops destroy natural forests that actually store carbon and thus are a key tool in the fight to reduce global warming.

Some of those doubts were on display Wednesday at the U.N. forum, with experts saying many countries in Asia have rolled out plans to mandate biofuels for transport without weighing the potential risks.

Thailand, for example, is considering delaying the introduction of diesel blended with 2 percent biofuel for two months until April because of palm oil shortages, while the Philippines is considering shelving a biofuels law over concerns about the negative environmental effects.

India is facing criticism that its plans to plant 30 million acres of jatropha trees by 2012 for biofuel could force communities from their land and worsen deforestation. There are also concerns that it will be unable to find the 100 million acres of vacant land it needs to grow the shrub-like plants.

Varghese Paul, a forest and biodiversity expert with the Energy and Resources Institute in India, said dependence on a single species is dangerous.

"An outbreak of pests and diseases could wipe out entire plantations in one stroke," Paul said.

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Beijing to halve car traffic during Olympics

Tracy Quek, Straits Times 24 Jan 08;
Half of the city's 3.3 million cars will be grounded to cut pollution

BEIJING - BEIJING has settled on a plan to ground half of its cars to guarantee good air quality for the Olympics - about half a million more than the number it banned during a test last year.

At a four-day trial last August, Beijing yanked about a third of its 3.3 million cars off roads to see if the measure could be relied on to significantly alleviate air pollution and traffic congestion in the Chinese capital during the August Games.

The wider ban suggests that barring a third of the city's cars had not improved air quality or eased gridlock roads as much as desired, and that officials are hoping for better results with more cars left at home.

After last year's test, officials said that harmful pollutants in the air dropped by as much as 20 per cent, even though the skies remained visibly smoggy.

They also reported smoother flow of traffic in the Chinese capital, home to some 15 million people.

The temporary limit barred cars with licence plate numbers ending in odd or even numbers from entering the city on alternate days.

At that time, officials had refused to confirm if the same measure would be implemented in the run-up to and during the Games.

On Tuesday, Beijing traffic officials submitted their 50 per cent car ban plan to the advisory body to Beijing's Municipal Congress, which is having its annual legislative session, local media reported.

More public transport services would be provided during the ban.

The announcement of the move to limit car numbers coincided with the unveiling of a detailed national plan by the country's top environmental watchdog to rein in air and water pollution this year, in order to meet a national goal to cut pollution emissions by 10 per cent by 2010.

The measures - which include the shutting down of more heavy polluting and high energy consuming factories, improvement of sewage treatment facilities and strict limits on fish farms - are also to ensure a green Olympics, said Mr Zhou Shengxian, head of the State Environmental Protection Administration, at a work conference.

While the plan does not propose radically new clean-up actions, it reflects the will to rev up current efforts.

Officials have less than three years to achieve the 10 per cent emissions reduction target which Premier Wen Jiabao has said must be met.

The city of Beijing has, however, less than 200 days to clear the smog for the world's elite sporting event which runs from Aug 8 to 24.

But with still no dramatic difference in air quality, city officials are getting nervous.

On Sunday, Beijing's acting mayor Guo Jinlong said at the start of the city's legislative meeting that 'the task of controlling pollution and traffic congestion remains arduous'.

In recent months, a growing number of Olympic athletes have expressed reservations about taking part in some open-air events in the city.

Ethiopian long-distance champion Haile Gebrselassie became the latest athlete to contemplate pulling out of an event over health fears. He said yesterday that the pollution and August heat could keep him out of the Beijing Olympic marathon.

Meanwhile, Beijing is also busy cleaning up in other ways.

The city's top official and Olympics organising chief Liu Qi yesterday urged officials to 'solve the problem' of beggars and unlicensed businesses before the Games, but to be 'civilised' when enforcing the law.

Beijing has pledged to clear its streets of beggars and unregistered businesses, such as mobile snack vendors and hair salons acting as a front for prostitution.

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