By Patrick Barry Web edition
Science News
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Burying carbon dioxide from coal-fired plants could increase other pollutants. As pollution bad guys go, carbon dioxide may be the media darling, but trying to capture it and lock it away could allow other repeat offenders to go free.

Power plant emissions that cause acid rain, water pollution and destruction of the ozone layer may actually be made worse by capturing the CO2 and pumping it deep underground, a new study reported online and in an upcoming International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control suggests.

This increase of other emissions is largely because collecting and burying CO2 — a process called carbon sequestration — requires additional energy, new equipment and new chemical reactions at the plants. And using current technology, meeting all of these requirements releases extra pollutants. Read the complete Post.

Original post with slideshow

Some people get a little concerned about more electrics and electric-hybrid cars. That’s because 50% of electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. And, just about every state wants to build more power plants to meet peak demand.

The big automakers are working on coming up with plug in hybrids. By the end of 2010, G-M and Toyota plan to have cars you can plug in to charge up batteries, backed up with small gas powered engines. Lester Graham reports there are concerns about whether pollution from power plants will be any better than pollution from tailpipes:

A related article from USA TODAY
A related blog post from TreeHugger

Producer: Lester Graham
Release Date: August 25, 2008
Running Time: 3:11

by Staff Writers
New York (AFP) Aug 25, 2008Original article

VPO note - global warming and peak oil connect to create food shortages that are soon going to both trump and worsen political and religious conflicts between countries. Good example.

Wracked by drought, Iran has turned to the United States for wheat for the first time in 27 years, marking a setback for Tehran’s search for agricultural self-sufficiency.

According to a recent US Department of Agriculture report, Iran has bought about 1.18 million tonnes of US hard wheat since the beginning of the 2008-2009 crop season in June.

The number, which has been growing steadily all summer, already represents nearly 5.0 percent of US annual exports forecast by the USDA.

The last time Iran imported US wheat was in 1981-1982. Read the complete Post.

PIOTR DUTKIEWICZ
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
August 26, 2008 at 7:46 AM EDT
Original article

VPO note - this article is included not just because the recent mini-war in Russia may have simply been an attempt to diffuse the stigma or America’s war for oil in Iraq, but also because (like the war in Afghanistan) it’s likely to turn out to be as much about natural gas pipelines as anything else.

Some critics have pointed to the conflict in Georgia as another example of botched Bush administration foreign policy. But, in fact, America’s real strategy was brilliantly executed, and it achieved exactly the intended outcome. Unfortunately, it’s not an outcome that makes the world a safer place.

First, it’s important to note that this dispute is not about Georgia or South Ossetia, both victims of collateral damage in geopolitical manoeuvring. It is not about Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili miscalculating the Russian response to his attack or overestimating the amount of support he would get from the West - Mr. Saakashvili is really just a colourful bit player. Nor is this entirely a case of an emboldened Russia striking back at the West for its support of Kosovo independence, or the Orange Revolution, or the Eastern European missile-defence shield, though all of these things are factors.

Simply put, this was about the U.S. depositioning the only globally significant country that consistently challenges it on foreign policy issues, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was a successful but wrongheaded attempt to undermine Russia’s global status by setting a trap into which Russia had to fall. And it was about creating a villain for U.S. domestic political reasons. Read the complete Post.

24 Aug 2008 12:04:18 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Missy Ryan and Sattar Rahim
Original article

VPO note - Iraq, with the third largest oil reserves in the world, is demonstrating the next big issue to face Mankind: oil is want, but water is a need.

BAGHDAD, Aug 24 (Reuters) - At a communal water station in a Baghdad slum, a young boy’s skinny arms fly up and down as he uses a bicycle pump to coax water from the dry ground.

His efforts produce a languid stream that will tide over his family — and the families of the children waiting near him to fill their cooking pots — until the next day.

This is a daily ritual for millions of Iraqis who lack access to sufficient clean water and proper sewage five years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Water and sewage are perennial challenges in this arid country, where the overhaul of decrepit public works has been hindered by years of war and neglect.

Nearly a billion litres of raw sewage is dumped into Baghdad waterways each day — enough to fill 370 Olympic-sized pools.

The United Nations estimates that less than half of Iraqis get drinking water piped into their homes in rural areas. In the capital, people set their alarm clocks to wake them in the middle of the night so they can fill storage tanks when water pressure is under less strain.

New investments in water and sanitation are only slowly bearing fruit even as Iraq seeks to capitalise on a dramatic drop in violence over the past year.

Iraqi and U.S. officials have been working to refurbish existing water plants, distribution lines and sewage works, but they say major infrastructure improvements will take years. Read the complete Post.

By Christopher Swann
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Original article

VPO note - this is what happens when you don’t think of the Big Picture of Overshoot and all its consequences. The solution to one problem (like addressing poverty) makes another problem (like global warming) worse.

Once the new Tata Ultra Mega power plant in western India is fired up in 2012 and fully operational, it will become one of the world’s 50 largest greenhouse-gas emitters. And the World Bank is helping make it possible.

A year after World Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged to “significantly step up our assistance” in fighting climate change, the development institution is increasing its financing of fossil-fuel projects around the globe.

The $4.14 billion, coal-powered Ultra Mega plant will emit more carbon dioxide annually than the nation of Tunisia, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The World Bank in April agreed to provide $450 million in loans and guarantees for the project and also may buy a $50 million stake in it.

“The World Bank’s lending record does not match up to Zoellick’s rhetoric,” says Heike Mainhardt-Gibbs, a consultant to the Bank Information Center, a Washington watchdog group. “The institution is simply not slowing down its significant funding to fossil-fuel projects that will emit greenhouse gases for 20 to 40 years.” Read the complete Post.

Climate and Capitalism
July 10, 2008

Ecuadorian Assembly Approves Constitutional Rights for Nature

On July 7, the 130-member Ecuador Constitutional Assembly, elected countrywide to rewrite the country’s Constitution, voted to approve articles that recognize rights for nature and ecosystems.

‘If adopted in the final constitution by the people, Ecuador would become the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights,’ says Thomas Linzey, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

The following clauses will be included in the constitution that will be submitted to a country-wide vote, to be held 45 days after Assembly finishes its work later this month:
Chapter: Rights for Nature

Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution. Read the complete Post.

By Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist | 8/21/08 7:10 PM
Original article

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own. As he does it, it will be praised as a planet-friendly wind project. After he pulls it off, the media will deride it as craven capitalism. In truth, it is one the most audacious examples of politics for profit, showing how big government helps the biggest business steal from the rest of us. The plotline behind Pickens’ water-and-wind scheme is almost too rich to believe. If it were a movie script, reviewers would dismiss it as over-the-top.

The basic story amounts to this: Pickens, thanks to favors from state lawmakers whose campaigns he funded, has created a new government whose only voters are two of his employers; this has empowered Pickens to more cheaply pump water from an aquifer and, by use of eminent domain, seize land across 11 counties in order to pipe the water to Dallas. To win environmentalist approval of this hardly “sustainable” practice, he has piggybacked this water project onto a windmill project pitched as an alternative to oil. Read the complete Post.

Saturday 23 August 2008
by: Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service
Original article

VPO Note - as alarming as 2048 is as a date when we won’t have enough water globally, remember that water is local - shipping it globally depends on having cheap oil to do so, and cheap oil is likely to be in short supply long before 2048.

Stockholm - A spectre is haunting the cities and villages of most developing nations, warns a senior official of a World Bank-affiliated organisation.

“It’s the spectre of a food, fuel and water crisis,” says Lars Thunell, executive vice president of the Washington-based International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group.

“I believe we are at a tipping point,” he said, because the scarcity of water poses a threat to the food supply just when the agricultural sector is stepping up production in response to riots over food prices, growing hunger, and rising malnutrition.

Speaking at the conclusion of the weeklong Stockholm International Water Conference Friday, Thunell said the growing demand for water is outpacing supply. Read the complete Post.

August 23, 2008
By JAD MOUAWAD
NY Times
Original article

VPO Note - Hmm, okay, so when the price goes up, it’s speculation, but when the price goes down, it’s supply and demand?

Until recently, it seemed that oil prices could move in only one direction: up. But in the last few weeks, the great energy rally that kicked off at the beginning of the decade has shown signs of running out of steam.

A combination of weak economic growth, slowing demand and shifting perceptions has sent oil prices down 21 percent from last month’s peak. Prices have fallen in two of every three trading sessions this month despite hurricanes looming over the Gulf of Mexico’s offshore wells, a war in the Caucasus that threatens Caspian supplies and more violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta.

Only a short while ago, such events would have sent prices still higher. But energy markets, which for years had focused mainly on risks to supplies, have suddenly started paying attention to the impact that high prices are having on consumers. Read the complete Post.