Cantankerous Buddha: environment

Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts

20161211

The Refuge

20160530

600 tons of melted radioactive Fukushima fuel still not found, clean-up chief reveals

The Fukushima clean-up team remains in the dark about the exact locations of 600 tons of melted radioactive fuel from three devastated nuclear reactors, the chief of decommissioning told the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program in an exclusive interview.

The company hopes to locate and start removing the missing fuel from 2021, the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) chief of decommissioning at Fukushima, Naohiro Masuda, revealed.

The fuel extraction technology is yet to be elaborated upon, he added.

Following the tsunami-caused 2011 meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant uranium fuel of three power generating reactors gained critical temperature and burnt through the respective reactor pressure vessels, concentrating somewhere on the lower levels of the station currently filled with water.

The melted nuclear fuel from Reactor 1 poured out completely, estimated 30 to 50 percent of fuel from Reactor 2 and 3 remained in the active zone, Masuda said.

The official estimates that approximately “200 tons of [nuclear fuel] debris lies within each unit," which makes in total about 600 tons of melted fuel mixed up with metal construction elements, concrete and whatever else was down there....

https://www.rt.com/news/344200-fukushima-melted-nuclear-fuel/

20160523

Atmospheric aerosols can significantly cool down climate

It is possible to significantly slow down and even temporarily stop the progression of global warming by increasing the atmospheric aerosol concentration, shows a new study from the University of Eastern Finland. However, climate engineering does not remove the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The study used global climate models to analyse the ability of atmospheric aerosols to cool down the climate, as well as the consequences of their use. The study focused on methods of climate engineering, which intentionally and artificially increase the atmospheric aerosol concentration in order to cool down the climate.

Furthermore, the cooling effects of current atmospheric aerosol emissions were analysed. The study found that aerosol particles injected into the stratosphere proved extremely efficient in cooling down the climate. The method mimics massive volcanic eruptions which release aerosol particles into the stratosphere that reflect solar radiation back into space, thus cooling down the climate even up to years. Atmospheric aerosols injected into the troposphere, on the other hand, can effectively impact the climate through cloud formation. Atmospheric aerosols increase the number of cloud droplets in clouds and make them whiter, which means that they can more effectively reflect solar radiation back into space.

The study also showed that current traffic and industry induced aerosol emissions cool down the climate. However, their cooling effect on the global temperature is significantly smaller than the warming effect of current greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, it would be possible to harness, for example, global airline traffic and ship traffic for the purposes of atmospheric temperature regulation by increasing the sulphuric concentrations of fuels. This would make it possible to significantly increase stratospheric aerosol concentrations and cloud reflectivity in open sea. However, sulphuric concentrations of fuels would have to be increased beyond the levels defined in international agreements. In addition, the cooling effect would mainly be targeted at the northern hemisphere, which is responsible for a far greater share of global traffic than the southern hemisphere...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160519120731.htm

20160514

The Very Good Effect of More CO2

Ever since the late Margaret Mead organized a conference in 1975 to deliberately propagate an unscientific fear campaign, fraudulently claiming that manmade emissions of CO2 gases were endangering the global climate, the UN, countless NGOs and many governments have spent billions of dollars trying to find ways to reduce CO2 “man-made” emissions. In those days it was known as Global Warming until measured temperatures began falling, whereupon when the sponsors of the colossal scientific fraud changed the name to Climate Change. The campaign has largely failed, fortunately for the future of life on the planet. One indication of a return to scientific honesty is a study just published by Washington’s NASA on the effects of CO2 across the planet since the 1980s.

A new scientific study published in April in the journal Nature Climate Change reveals that between 25% up to possibly 50% of Earth’s vegetated lands have shown significant greening over the last 35 years. Moreover, the study says that the greening is largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The study was carried out by an international scientific team consisting of 32 scientific authors from 24 institutions in eight countries. They used satellite data from NASA’s goods Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. They found that the measured greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States. The research determined that increased “fertilization” by CO2 accounted for fully 70% of the planet’s increased greening area, with increased nitrogen deposition another 9%. That’s an impressive statistic...

http://journal-neo.org/2016/05/13/the-very-good-effect-of-more-co2/

20130825

Dead bees: More than 30 million found in Canada

Just weeks after tens of thousands of bumblebees, honeybees and lady bugs were found dead in an Oregon parking lot, more than 37 million bees have been found dead in Elmwood, Ontario, Canada, reports Collective Evolution.

As scientists struggle to find the cause of the massive die-offs, a phenomenon they call “colony collapse disorder,” Elmwood beekeeper Dave Schuit is pointing the finger at neonicotinoid pesticides. Schuit lost 600 hives.

Research suggests that even at nonlethal does, the world’s most popular class of pesticides can confuse bees’ navigation and make it hard for them to find home.

After a record-breaking loss of honeybees in the United Kingdom, the European Union hasbanned multiple pesticides, including neonicotinoid pesticides...

http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/the-daily-dose-blog-post?post=360eaab3-d646-40b2-9a98-cc3ee5896cc6&gt1=32236

20130729

White House warned on imminent Arctic ice death spiral

Senior US government officials are to be briefed at the White House this week on the danger of an ice-free Arctic in the summer within two years.

The meeting, hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President at the White House, is being organised by the Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) on behalf of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC). The IARPC, charged with coordinating federal research on the Arctic Ocean, is chaired by the National Science Foundation, and includes among its members Nasa, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.

This is the latest indication that US officials are increasingly concerned about the international and domestic security implications of climate change...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/may/02/white-house-arctic-ice-death-spiral