Environmental
Greenhouse Gases Heat Up China
April 12, 2013 8:06 am | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsChina, the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide, is directly feeling the man-made heat of global warming, scientists conclude in the first study to link the burning of fossil fuels to one country's rise in its daily temperature spikes.
Tyson Agrees To $4M Penalty To Resolve EPA Case
April 5, 2013 11:42 am | by Jim Suhr, Associated Press | News | CommentsThe U.S. government says Tyson Foods has agreed to pay roughly $4 million in civil penalties to settle alleged violations related to eight accidental releases of anhydrous ammonia that happened over a four-year span and caused one death.
GE Prepares For More Dredging On Hudson River
April 5, 2013 11:39 am | News | CommentsCrews are expected to begin a fourth season of dredging on upper Hudson River in early May if conditions are good. General Electric Co. released poly-chlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the river decades ago, and is dredging the river north of Albany as part of a federal Superfund project. The cleanup is expected to cost more than $1 billion.
Northeast Drilling Boom Threatens Forest Wildlife
April 3, 2013 7:57 am | by Kevin Begos, Associated Press | News | CommentsThreats to wildlife have flown largely under the radar. But as studies detail plans for thousands of miles of new pipelines and related infrastructure, the dangers to biologically rich forests that have rebounded since vast clear-cutting in the 1800s are taking on new urgency.
EPA: Dominion To Pay Fine, Cut Pollution At Plants
April 2, 2013 10:46 am | News | CommentsThe settlement announced Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department calls for Virginia-based Dominion to reduce air pollution at its Kincaid, Ill., and Somerset, Mass., plants, and to permanently retire its State Line, Ind., plant.
U.S. Grants Permit For $1.3B Fertilizer Plant In Iowa
April 1, 2013 12:47 pm | by Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press | News | CommentsThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the permit last week to the Iowa Fertilizer Company to build the plant near Burlington, as part of a deal to require workers to monitor the site to ensure the 320-acre site is not an Indian burial ground.
Court: EPA Can Stop Some Power Plant Modifications
March 29, 2013 2:17 pm | by John Flesher, AP Environmental Writer | News | CommentsGovernment regulators can try to halt construction projects at power plants if they think the companies didn't properly calculate whether the changes would increase air pollution, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, marking the latest twist in a decades-long fight over the Clean Air Act.
Honeywell Agrees To $3M Pollution Fine
March 29, 2013 7:55 am | News | CommentsThe agreement between federal authorities and Honeywell Resins and Chemicals LLC was filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond. The consent decree is subject to court approval. Along with paying the fine, the company agreed to improve the plant's air pollution control equipment and processes.
EPA Taking Aim At Auto Emissions, Sulfur In Gas
March 29, 2013 7:43 am | by Dina Cappiello, Associated Press | News | CommentsAn oil industry study says the proposed rule being unveiled Friday by the administration could increase gasoline prices by 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates an increase of less than a penny and an additional $130 to the cost of a vehicle in 2025.
Solar Powered Everything!
March 27, 2013 8:25 pm | by Chris Rendall, Mechanical Engineer, PCDworks | Articles | CommentsBesides cost, which unfortunately is still too high for most people to see a return on investment in a reasonable amount of time, the other big obstacle is rigidity. Rigidity is fine for things like a solar power plant or a space station, but it doesn’t work for everything.
EPA Settles With Goodrich Over Calif. Plant Water
March 27, 2013 10:46 am | News | CommentsThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that it has reached a settlement worth at least $21.5 million with aerospace supplier Goodrich Corp. that will require the company to clean up a Southern California industrial site where chemicals contaminated the water supply.
Study Finds Health Impacts Of Coal Power Subsidy To Industry
March 26, 2013 8:38 am | by Bob Weber, The Canadian Press | News | CommentsThe study also says the plants — many of which have decades to comply with new federal emissions rules — will also be behind thousands more hospital admissions and lost workdays. It concludes the cost of those health impacts amounts to a subsidy for generators because they don't have to pay for them.
Nuclear Waste A Growing Headache For South Korea
March 26, 2013 8:11 am | by Youkyung Lee, AP Technology Writer | News | CommentsNorth Korea's weapons program is not the only nuclear headache for South Korea. The country's radioactive waste storage is filling up as its nuclear power industry burgeons, but what South Korea sees as its best solution — reprocessing the spent fuel so it can be used again — faces stiff opposition from its U.S. ally.
Calif. Farmers Team Up To Convert Beets To Ethanol
March 24, 2013 8:52 pm | by Gosia Wozniacka, Associated Press | News | CommentsIf the demo project in Five Points succeeds, the farmers will build the nation's first commercial-scale bio-refinery in nearby Mendota to turn beets into biofuel. Europe already has more than a dozen such plants, but most ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn.
Beekeepers Sue EPA To Ban Pesticide
March 21, 2013 9:28 pm | by Gosia Wozniacka, Associated Press | News | CommentsIn the suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the group asks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to suspend the use of insecticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam — known as "neonicotinoids," a class of chemicals that act on the central nervous system of insects.
Both Sides Agree On Tough New Fracking Standards
March 20, 2013 1:54 pm | by Kevin Begos, Associated Press | News | CommentsIn an unlikely partnership between longtime adversaries, some of the nation's biggest energy companies and environmental groups have agreed on a voluntary set of standards for gas and oil fracking in the Northeast that appear to go further than existing state and federal pollution regulations.
NY Fracking Foes: Will Become Lobby If Necessary
March 19, 2013 9:19 am | by Michael Gormley, Associated Press | News | CommentsThe group and nearly 200 entertainers connected with it aren't currently registered lobbyists, which would require disclosure of how much money the group has raised and how it's been spent.
AP: Celeb Fracking Group Not Registered
March 18, 2013 1:35 pm | by Michael Gormley, Associated Press | News | CommentsDozens of celebrities may be running afoul of the law as they unite under the banner of one group that is seeking to prevent a method of gas drilling in New York state. Artists Against Fracking opposes hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and boasts members including Yoko Ono and actors Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon.
Cross-Country Car Trip Used Only Solar, Hydrogen
March 18, 2013 11:15 am | News | CommentsMiddle Tennessee State University fuels researcher Dr. Cliff Ricketts drove into Long Beach, Calif., having used only solar power and hydrogen to power his car. Ricketts and backup driver Terry Young of Woodbury finished their six-day journey Thursday afternoon. Ricketts said the accomplishment showed vehicles all over the country can be run on the sun and water.
Yamaha To Pay $2.2M In Calif Anti-Smog Case
March 12, 2013 12:21 pm | News | CommentsThe California Air Resources Board announced Monday that Yamaha Motor Corp. USA and Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. of Japan have agreed to a court-approved settlement to resolve allegations of illegal importation and sale of uncertified off-highway vehicles.
China Wrestles With Cost Of Cleaner Environment
March 12, 2013 8:48 am | by Joe McDonald, AP Business Writer | News | CommentsPollution and public frustration about it are hardly new to China. But now, the ruling party is under pressure from entrepreneurs and professionals who are crucial to its development plans and want cleaner living conditions. Pressure intensified after this winter's record-shattering smog in Beijing.
New Pollution Controls At Del. Steel Mill
March 11, 2013 7:43 pm | News | CommentsDelaware environmental officials say new pollution control equipment installed at a Claymont steel mill will help reduce air pollution in the area. Officials gathered at Evraz Claymont Steel on Monday to tout the completion of the $16.75 million pollution control system.
Illinois Deal On Fracking Could Be National Model
March 8, 2013 8:54 am | by Tammy Webber, Associated Press | News | CommentsIf approved by lawmakers, participants say, the rules would be the nation's strictest. The Illinois model might also offer a template to other states seeking to carve out a middle ground between energy companies that would like free rein and environmental groups that want to ban the practice entirely.
Recent Heat Spike Unlike Anything In 11,000 Years
March 7, 2013 2:16 pm | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsResearch released Thursday in the journal Science uses fossils of tiny organisms to reconstruct global temperatures back to the end of the last ice age. It shows how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until a dramatic spike in the 20th century.
Celebrity 'Fractivists': True Advocates Or NIMBYs?
March 6, 2013 8:24 am | by Jennifer Peltz and Kevin Begos, Associated Press | News | CommentsThe campaign has galvanized hundreds of thousands of followers, but as with many activist causes, the facts can get drowned out by the glitz. Now, some experts are asking whether the celebrities are enlightened advocates or NIMBYs — crying "Not in my backyard!" — even as their privileged lives remain entwined, however ruefully, with fossil fuels.
