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U.S. military jets, vehicles to run on biofuels and animal-corpse grease
Honeywell says the U.S. Air Force will buy 400,000 gallons of algae/weeds/corpse-fat jet fuel, and the U.S. Navy will take 190,000 gallons
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Mafia's new business: sinking nuclear waste at sea
The Sicilian Mafia had muscled in on the lucrative business of radioactive waste disposal; to increase the profit margin, mafia operatives blow up and sink the ships at sea rather than process the nuclear waste on board
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Methane mining in Africa could unleash deadly gas cloud
Lake Kivu, on the Rwanda-Congo border, contains a vast reservoir of dissolved methane; many companies are extracting the gas to burn for electricity production, and both Rwanda and Congo are aggressively courting further investment in extraction plants; scientists say that the rush to extract the methane might trigger an outburst of gas that could wash a deadly, suffocating blanket over the 2 million people
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Home power plants project unveiled in Germany
Two German companies unveil plans for installing gas-fired power plants in people’s basements; in the coming year the program will install 100,000 of the mini plants, producing among them 2,000 megawatts of electricity, the same as two nuclear plants
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Using waste to recover waste uranium
Researchers find that a combination of bacteria and inositol phosphate can be used to recover uranium from the polluted waters from uranium mines; method may be used to process nuclear waste
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Radiation is a constant presence in our lives
The normal radiation we are exposed to causes the following: For every 100 million people, there will be 4,100 fatal cancers, 2,500 nonfatal cancers, 4,600 genetic defects (not all of which are obvious); for every additional mrem per person per year, the above rates will increase .67 percent
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Scientists: Risky schemes may be only hope for cooling planet
The Royal Society says that many geo-engineering ideas to keep the planet cool may be risky, but they may also be the planet’s only hope if politicians fail to deal with climate change
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Climate models do not take inland water's carbon cycling into account
Streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands play an important role in the carbon cycle that is unaccounted for in conventional carbon cycling models; inland waters represent only 1 percent of the Earth’s surface, but their contribution to the carbon cycle is disproportionately large
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Saving the planet: Plan B
Top U.K. science organization calls for coordinated geoengineering efforts as Plan B for protecting the planet from the negative consequences of climate change
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How life will survival in a post-apocalypse blackout
What if asteroid impacts, massive volcanic eruptions, or large-scale wildfires were to plunge our planet into abnormal darkness” It happened several times in the past; life will continue with a little help from organisms that can switch to another source of energy while they wait for sunlight to pierce the darkness once more
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Cost versus safety debated at Albany, N.Y. chemical plant location
Greenpeace backs federal proposal for tougher chemical plant safety rules, but an Albany firm — and the chemical industry more generally — fear expense
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NASA short on funds to keep up with killer asteroids
NASA is charged with seeking out nearly all the asteroids that threaten Earth; trouble is, it does not have the money to do the job
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Republicans try to keep Yucca Mountain project alive
The Obama administration has signaled its intention to bring the curtain down on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project, but Republicans have not given up on it
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U.S. halts uranium mining at Grand Canyon
The Interior Department has barred the filing of new mining claims, including for uranium, on 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon
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New type of El Niño may mean more hurricanes make landfall
The form of El Niño may be changing potentially causing not only a greater number of hurricanes than in average years, but also a greater chance of hurricanes making landfall
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The long view
Study Reveals Climatic Fingerprints of Wildfires and Volcanic Eruptions
In research that could help elucidate humans’ role in global warming, scientists showed how three major natural events impacted global atmospheric temperatures.