http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2010…

AFP/Getty Images New buildings tower above boats on the Saigon vier in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese city says its economy grew by 8% last year. Vietnam’s economy lures some who left in the 1970s. By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY, August 18, 2010. HO CHI MINH CITY {who many call again Saigon}, Vietnam — At age 9, Johnny Tri Nguyen fled by fishing boat from this war-torn land of re-education camps and rationed food. He and his family were captured twice — and jailed — before finally escaping and establishing a life for themselves in California. Despite the harrowing experience, he holds little bitterness, just hope, for his homeland. After 17 years in the USA, he returned to Vietnam to make a movie based loosely on his grandfather’s life. “Much has changed, and the whole reason we left in the first place is no longer there,” says Nguyen, a Vietnamese actor and filmmaker known for his role in The Rebel, along with his stunt work in movies such as Spider-Man. “I find it very comfortable to live here now.” When the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, millions of Vietnamese fled a communist country whose growth had been stymied by war, oppression and uncertainty, seeking a better life for themselves and their children in the USA, Canada and Europe. Today, some of those who left years ago now look at Vietnam as a land of opportunity. At least 500,000 Viet Kieu, as they are known, return every year to this nation of 86 million, some to stay. “Vietnam’s economic reforms and growth as well as the recent economic downturn in America may be part of the reason” why a growing number of Viet Kieu are returning to the country, says Nguyen Manh Hung, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “There is a sentimental reason, too: the feeling of being at home in a familiar culture with a familiar way of life,” he says. REMITTANCES: Vietnamese abroad send money The return here of some Vietnamese-Americans comes as the Communist Party that runs Vietnam continues to loosen state controls on the economy in an attempt to boost the standard of living here. The fall of South Vietnam to the communist North in 1975 left the country bound by a totalitarian regime that stripped many people of their land and businesses. The legacy of the war and the party’s clampdown on free markets was rampant poverty. Change came in the mid-1980s, when Vietnam instituted reforms called doi moi that opened up the economy to foreign investment and introduced some forms of capitalism. Today, Vietnam’s economy is the one of the fastest-growing in Asia. It may eventually claim the mantle of the fastest-growing emerging economy, based on its growth between 2007 and 2050, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the financial advisory firm. ‘The best of both worlds’ Some of those returning are people who risked their lives to leave. Dang Tuyet Mai, who once was married to a former South Vietnamese prime minister, Nguyen Cao Ky, escaped by plane two days before the war ended. After three decades in the USA, Dang ventured back to her homeland to open a noodle shop. “It’s a mixed feeling being here,” admits Dang, whose former husband was a prominent figure in South Vietnam’s fight against communism. “But when you are Vietnamese, you always think of going back to the country where you were born.” During lunch time at her restaurant, Pho Ta, in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, the tables teem with Vietnamese businessmen and women. Steaming bowls of noodles are placed before them along with heaping mounds of fresh vegetables to dunk into the anise-scented broth. In a country where a bowl of pho can be found as easily as a hamburger in the States, Dang says hers stands out because of the homemade noodles, low fat content and a broth simmered over a low flame for 12 hours. “Even the Prime Minister of Vietnam (Nguyen Tan Dung) has eaten at my store,” says Dang, whose beauty first captivated the country in the 1960s when she was an Air Vietnam stewardess. Even today, some customers are drawn to Pho Ta to catch a glimpse of her. Dang is hoping the next celebrity to grace the restaurant will be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I really admire her, and I want to shake her hand,” Dang says. Clinton came to Hanoi in July for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but didn’t end up stopping by Ho Chi Minh City. Another local establishment, Pho 2000, gained followers and a new slogan, “Pho for the President,” after then-president Bill Clinton sampled a bowl there 10 years ago. Like many new returnees, Dang hasn’t committed to living full-time in Vietnam but spends a quarter of the year in Southern California with her daughter and granddaughters. Her ability to live in two countries — and to juggle dual cultures — isn’t suitable for the travel weary or the weak of heart. But for Viet Kieus such as Trung Dung, the founder of electronic payments company Mobivi, this freedom is a blessing. “I have the best of both worlds,” says Dung, 43, who spends up to 80% of his time in Vietnam and the rest in California, where his son and sisters live. The main draw of Vietnam, he says, is that it feels like home. But entrepreneurs like him also are captivated by the business opportunities stemming from a third-world country transitioning into one of the region’s most promising economic powerhouses. Dung is betting that as the country booms, its largely cash society will transition to electronic payments, benefiting companies such as Mobivi. “I was very fortunate in witnessing the Internet revolution (in the USA), and it was an incredible time to be in the Silicon Valley,” says Dung, who became a billionaire in his 30s after selling his software company, OnDisplay, to Austin-based Vignette Corp. “The same thing is happening in Vietnam. We’re at the very early phase of creating things that will be here for a long time.” ‘The culture is so rich’ As Viet Kieu flock to Vietnam, the government is encouraging them to start up businesses and buy real estate to power the economy. It’s also stepping up efforts to attract foreign companies. U.S. companies including Intel and General Electric have already established a presence here, and others are exploring the possibility, attracted partly by Vietnam’s highly educated, skilled and young population (a quarter of residents are under 15). Thuy Vo Dang, a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, believes the success of the government’s efforts to woo Viet Kieu will depend partly on its ability “to overcome the tension that still exists between the overseas community and the country.” “It’s one thing to welcome visitors,” she notes, but the government needs to address corruption, which is widespread and entrenched in Vietnam. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2009, based on surveys of international businesspeople, considers Vietnam one of the world’s most corrupt countries, with a ranking of 120 out of 180 countries. Property, construction and government contracts are reportedly riddled with bribery, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. The regulatory environment is not transparent and Vietnam’s legal system is not independent and hindered by corruption, it said. Oppression and lack of religious and political freedoms are also causing concern among some of the Viet Kieu. Some people interviewed said they felt constrained about discussing injustices for fear of offending the government and inviting actions against them or their businesses. The U.S. State Department has criticized Vietnam for its jailing of political opponents and especially Catholic priests and bloggers who speak out in favor of the kinds of basic freedoms the Viet Kieu have enjoyed in the West. The Viet Kieu, because they have citizenship elsewhere, generally enjoy more freedoms than Vietnam’s citizens. “The progress made on the economic front has not transferred in any way to human rights,” says Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch‘s Asia division. “There are still significant restrictions on freedom of association and independent trade unions, and the government uses very broad national security legislation to go after dissidents.” As a growing number of Viet Kieu invest in Vietnam, it’s creating jobs and fueling the country’s economy. But the investment may also be seen as “condoning the government’s lack of freedoms for the country,” Vo Dang warns. “Blind investment in the homeland could, in fact, create more problems than it solves.” Yet the lure of their homeland is so powerful that for some Viet Kieu, it trumps memories, beliefs and politics. Nguyen, the actor, remembers his family being so poor after the Vietnam War that he had to make his own toys from clay he dug up from nearby ponds. But what struck Nguyen when he first returned to Vietnam was not the vestiges of war lingering in every city’s memorials to the departed, but the connection he felt to the country and its beautiful scenery. “This culture is so rich in cinematic” promise, he says. On a sweltering July day, amid the ancient rock formations of Ninh Binh province in northern Vietnam, Nguyen’s brother-in-law, filmmaker Jimmy Nghiem Pham, seeks to capitalize on this cinematic promise. Between scenes of a new movie he’s helping produce —Khat Vong Thang Long, a film that commemorates the 1,000-year anniversary of the nation’s capital moving to Hanoi and is being made in cooperation with the government — Pham describes how Vietnam has become a “land of opportunity” for independent filmmakers. “If you don’t have a lot of money, Vietnam is the best place to make a movie,” says Pham, whose budgets have ranged from $15,000 to $1.6 million. A graduate of the film school at Cal State Long Beach, Pham lived in Southern California — home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the USA — for more than a decade before returning to Vietnam. He feels strong ties to both countries, but says matter-of-factly that “if my movie career is better, then I will stay here.” For Henry Hoang Nguyen, his ties to Vietnam are becoming more compelling than those to the USA. In the spring of 2001, Hoang Nguyen, 37, landed a New York-based consulting job for McKinsey & Associates that was to begin in the fall. But the start date was delayed by six months because of the economic hangover from the Internet bust. This gave him time to explore opportunities in Vietnam’s emerging telecom sector. Nine years and a few business opportunities later, Hoang Nguyen is now managing general partner of IDG Ventures, a $100 million venture capital fund focused on technology, media and telecom investments in Vietnam. He has married a Vietnamese woman who has no intention of leaving the country. And the former “all-American” kid is proudly rediscovering his extended family and his heritage. Being a generation removed from the war has given him an unvarnished appreciation for Vietnam — free from painful memories still in the minds of previous generations. “I don’t carry any burdens or feelings of negativity,” says Hoang Nguyen, whose parents left Saigon, the name locals still use to refer to Ho Chi Minh City, long before he was old enough to remember life there. “I just feel a real strong attachment and patriotism for Vietnam.” Such feelings are also felt by Viet Kieu David Thai, an entrepreneur who once dreamed about being a basketball player or snowboarder. Thai grew up in Seattle but came back to the country he left as a toddler to study Vietnamese civilization. Business opportunities conspired to keep him here, including the launch of a Starbucks-like chain, Highlands Coffee, and of American icon Hard Rock Cafe in Vietnam. Coming from Seattle, “I missed good coffee,” he says. But the overarching business goal, adds Thai, is “to build a national brand, to make Vietnam known for investment and business.” Yet for every tale of business success in Vietnam, there’s another tale of failure in a market laden with government restrictions. And for those who choose to live and work in this country, there are compromises to be made. Nguyen Qui Duc, who moved to Hanoi and started Tadioto bar and art gallery, doesn’t enjoy the same creative freedoms in Vietnam — a country where state censorship is widespread — that he had as a journalist and as an artist in the United States. Duc, who once hosted a radio show on Asian affairs in the United States, says he has learned to work within the system in Vietnam. “I can’t change the system, but I work with artists to express themselves,” he says. “Freedom of expression is getting better in Vietnam.” Despite the challenges, Nguyen Qui Duc says he’s glad he moved back because it has allowed him to rediscover the simplicity of life. “I’m 50 years old, and I’m riding a motorcycle,” he says. “In the States, I was tired of living a life where I never talked to my neighbors. I prefer life here where you can walk down the street and talk to people.”

From Alaska to Argentina in an Electric Sports Car.

Racing Green Endurance hopes to spin the experience into an electric car startup.

http://twitter.com/GreenTechnology

Michael Kanellos: August 3, 2010

 http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/r…

Austin, Tex.–They get pulled over quite a bit.

That’s the word from Alex Schey, the project manager of Racing Green Endurance, a group that is driving an electric sports car called the SRZero 16,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina.

“So far, we’ve been stopped by cops 15 times,” he said. “They just want to take pictures.”

The group — which grew out of work conducted by Schey and others at Imperial College London — designed the car to help make consumers aware that electric cars can be both functional and stylish. In addition to posting their own blog and conducting interviews, the drivers are being followed by a team filming a documentary that may air on BBC News in the future. When they finish in a few weeks, the group will then sit down, study the results and attempt to incubate a startup, possibly around the battery management system or the battery pack designed for the car. We met up with them in Austin at NI Week, a conference sponsored by test and measurement giant National Instruments. (NI supplied hardware for the battery management system; Racing Green Endurance created the software.)

“In the past, everyone had these perceived ideas that electric cars were boring and slow and had funny names,” he said.

The SRZero contains a 54 kilowatt-hour lithium ion phosphate battery, which is more than double the size of the battery of the Nissan Leaf and a single kilowatt-hour larger than the battery in the Tesla Roadster, and can drive 350 miles on a charge. They body of the car is a modified Radical SR8, one of the fastest gas-burning cars in the world.

While it can go farther than the Tesla Roadster on a single charge, the maiden version of the SRZero going to Argentina doesn’t accelerate like it, or even like a regular high-end sports car. It takes six to seven seconds to go from zero to 60 miles per hour. But that’s because the group deliberately left out the gearbox. The motor right now connects directly to the wheels. When the group completes the drive, a fixed-gear gearbox will be added that will allow the car to go from zero to 60 in three seconds.

“This smashes the Tesla in terms of range and it will smash the Tesla in acceleration,” he joked.

After Texas, the group will head to Mexico, Guatemala, the Central American chain, Colombia and other South American nations.

Eli Kintisch is reporter for Science Magazine and author of “Hack the Planet” released by Wiley April 19, 2010.

Bill McKibben, author of “EARTH: MAKING A LIFE ON A TOUGH NEW PLANET” and co-founder of 350.org, an organization that our readers know that we hold in very high esteem,  wrote about “HACK THE PLANET:”

“Anyone who considers themselves scientifically literate had better get versed in the new discipline of geo-engineering — or planethacking, as Eli Kintisch calls it in his nuanced and useful new account. This discussion is not going to go away anytime soon!”

Once the stuff of science fiction, geoengineering has come into the mainstream, with top scientists, the National Academy of Science and Congress investigating this radical concept.

please look at www.hacktheplanetbook.com

and if you need a contact – the book’s publicity is with Erin Beam of  ebeam at wiley.com

———————–

I got a few minutes late to the library’s lower level and so a nice size roomful of very mixed crowd – from the young shoeless intellectual in the front row to the spectacled white hair retiree in the back row. They all listened very intent and at the end asked good questions.

As my usual way, I went directly to the table loaded with the books for sale, took one and stood next to the wall – leafing from cover to cover. That is how I learned that the book starts with old-time friend Academician Yuriy Izrael from Moscow with whom I shared before the Rio Summit of 1992 two weeks in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, where local Professor Jose Oswaldo Carioca was preparing for a Brazilian submission to the upcoming UN Conference on Environment and Development. Since then I visited with Academician Izrael a couple of times in Moscow – the last time in Moscow during the September 29 – October 3, 2003 World Climate Change Conference where he was the head of the local organizing scientific committee and co-chair of the Conference, with Mr. A. N. Illarionov (Andrey Nikolayevich), the Adviser of then Russia President Vladimir Putin. Bert Bolin of Sweden, a pioneering climatologist and the first chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was the foreign co-chair of the event.

That was a very important meeting, with participants from over 100 countries, because it dealt with the crucial question – Will Russia Ratify the Kyoto Protocol? At the time Putin was relying on Yu. Izrael and Andrey Nikolayevich, and the world still thought that the KP is imperative for a Multilateral approach to Climate Change. With the US clearly out – Russia became all important in order to reach the magic number of ratifications so the KP gets into effect. Eventually it became Putins decision to say – DA – YES – while his two advisers still said NO!
That was real drama.

Somehow I still have my stash of papers from that meeting and I was looking now at hints at geoengineering in Russia’s position. But I did find a list of 10 questions Illarionov did put before the conference in his presentation that had the title: “Antropogenic Factors in Global Warming: Some Questions.” It was Bert Bolin, chair emeritus of IPCC, who gave the two answers with the last one answering to “How much will it cost.” This is fascinating history from the days we thought we had a plan – but the Russians seemingly were already convinced then that we really had no plan.

Strangely, when I looked up Google I found there on first page for Illarionov -

Answers to the questions raised by A.N. Illarionov during his talk …

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
Answers to Questions by A. Illarionov (Adviser of the President of Russian Federation). Moscow – World Climate Change Conference 2003 …
www.sysecol.ethz.ch/Articles_Reports/Illarionov_QandA_WCCC_2003.pdf

further: As a senior advisor to Russian President Putin, Illarionov was outspoken against Russia’s ratification of Kyoto. Despite Illarionov’s vocal opposition, Putin ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2004. In October 2006, Illarionov was appointed senior researcher of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity of the US libertarian think tank Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

————

The above was just an aside and I will get back to it after doing full justice by reading “Hack the Planet” as I am convinced that some form of geoengineering will eventually become part of humanity’s effort to put a lid – cap in BP’s language – in order to control the runaway increase of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Yuriy Izrael was talking of placing sulfur compounds in the upper atmosphere – others may have various sun deflectors in mind,
I for one may think that the Peter Glazer idea of concentrating sun light in outer space and beaming it back to earth might be a way to provide clean solar energy for our needs. I have no trust in the Carbon Capture and Sequestration concept – this because I do not think that we know how to do it and I mistrust those that promote the idea as it feels rather like an attempt to keep us away from research in positive directions that can wean us from our dependence on oil and coal. Further, it is clear that just companies like Haliburton and large oil companies will be the only ones to be able to implement these programs if there is ever some success with these ideas. This is also a geoengineering concept. Changing fish population in a pond is a case of forced change of nature and we have many examples that led to negative results because of unintended consequences.

Anyway – this is a large topic that serves our attention, so after talking to the great family of presenter Eli Kintisch – he was there with both his parents and kid brother – all knowledgeable in the subject – and to one of the people that asked questions, I continued to Piermont.

There it was all fun, but my connection to the book presentation is clear to me. It will eventually take a revolution to break down the Bastille walls of the anti-progress interests when dealing with climate change.

I saw in Piermont a friend from the UN, bought two interesting T-shirts and went home.

I still visited a great cooperative gallery – The Piermont Flywheel Gallery – that was about half works of Howard Berelson – a colorist with many scenes from East Africa.

He has a great painting from the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania – “Death in the Garden of Eden.” Was that bull failed also because of the high heat? Are the colors of the Hudson River Odyssey – another painting – so that we are reminded of the turning of our area into another hot Africa?

————————————

and if someone is interested in contacting Academician Izrael:

Yuri IZRAEL
Institute of Global Climate and Ecology
Glebovskaya str., 20B
107258 Moscow
RUSSIA
Tel: +(7 095) 1692430
Fax: +(7 095) 1600831
E-mail:  Yu.Izrael at g23.relcom.ru

and as an appetizer see the following:

The journal Russian Meteorology and Hydrology recently published a new kind of geoengineering study whose lead author is the journal’s editor, the prominent Russian scientist Yuri A. Izrael.

Izrael and his team of scientists mounted aerosol generators on a helicopter and a car chassis, and proceeded to blast out particles at ground level and at heights of up to 200 meters. Then they attempted to measure just how much sunlight reaching Earth was reduced due to the aerosol plume.

This small-scale intervention was effective, the Russian scientists say. And in an accompanying article on geoengineering alternatives, Izrael and colleagues note that “Already in the near future, the technological possibilities of a full scale use of [aerosol-based geoengineering] will be studied.”

——————

Above leads to brain storming:

Billionaire airline tycoon Richard Branson baldly told the press last year, ‘If we could come up with a geoengineering answer to this problem, then Copenhagen wouldn’t be necesary. We could carry on flying our planes and driving our cars.’

And what do you know – there is already a clear reaction to the geoengineering ideas:

But on the eve of this year’s UN-designated International Mother Earth Day, over 60 national and international organizations launched Hands Off Mother Earth (H.O.M.E.). The global campaign, now supported by the Ecologist, includes a website  handsoffmotherearth.org) where signatories upload photos of themselves with their hands up in a ‘stop’ gesture.

The campaign insists that a halt be placed on geoengineering experiments and that the ‘rights’ of Planet Earth be respected. ‘Not just human beings have rights, but the planet has rights,’ asserts Evo Morales, Bolivian president and host of the recently concluded Cochabamba Climate Change Conference in Bolivia. The first right, he says, is ‘the right for no ecosystem to be eliminated’. The second, ‘for Mother Earth to live without contamination’. The final statement by the 35,000 people attending Cochabamba called out geoengineering as a false solution to the climate problem.

19 July 2010

by Jan Lundberg

19 July 2010 Our Posting is in effect an amalgam of Jan Lundberg’s article at Culture Change http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/666/68/ and an older version that reached us earlier. We all want to really make it right in the Gulf. Will BP and the government handle it well enough? That’s in doubt. It’s actually up to us all. We need urgent environmental action especially involving energy consumption: let us cut oil use. – The grassroots coalition World Oil Reduction for the Gulf (WORG) has as its initial objective the promulgation and propagation of a powerful Resolution for immediate global remediation of the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. –

We all want to really make it right in the Gulf. Will BP and the government handle it well enough? That’s in doubt. It’s actually up to us all. We need urgent environmental action especially involving energy consumption: let us cut oil use.The grassroots coalition World Oil Reduction for the Gulf (WORG) has as its initial objective the promulgation and propagation of a powerful Resolution for immediate global remediation of the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. A sensible approach is to go after the low-hanging fruit, which WORG and many other advocates have identified. World Oil Reduction for the Gulf’s first purpose is to ecologically and numerically counteract the unprcedented millions of barrels of toxic oil and methane spewing into the Gulf waters and the atmosphere. The crisis may seem to abate, but it may not be possible to fully describe the long-term ecological and economic consequences with words, numbers and images. To act you need not go further than to read and distribute the WORG Resolution. See the document on our new webpage at www.WorldOilReduction.org. As specified, relatively simple measures can begin to bring U.S. oil consumption under control, if we move toward achieving a reduction commensurate with the near hundreds of millions of gallons of oil and unknown number of cubic feet of methane released by the Deepwater Horizon (Macondo) gusher. We cannot stop there. The Gulf disaster has opened the eyes of millions of people to the threat that oil poses to all aspects of life on our small planet. The crisis in the Gulf cannot “go away” any time soon, but some citizens may want to believe it — will they miss the opportunity to do something about the overall problem? Will ecological degradation reach the killing point world-wide, to finally wake people up when it is too late? If enough people begin to push their city councils to act — ordinances to follow the Resolution — we can achieve action also on the State level, finally causing the federal government to act in confirmation of a national movement. It seems obvious that for first states, Louisiana and Florida should be logical candidates, despite any anti-oil green tinge from cutting oil consumption: the “pain” of reducing oil use across the board would be distributed mainly beyond the Gulf. For a progressive proposal such as WORG to fly, it may have to be that a state like Vermont takes the plunge first. We invite you to join us in our attempt to have the U.S. finally address its oil and energy gluttony. This can affect positively other nations and the global economy. The standing of the U.S. today as most wasteful consumer can improve by offsetting the Gulf disaster on a barrel-to-barrel basis, by cutting petroleum use. The U.S. uses twice the energy of affluent West European countries per capita, largely due to massive pro-oil subsidies in the U.S. It is high time that the profligate U.S. cuts back now, when the planet is taking a big hit from greedy BP and from those tied to its fortunes (you and me?). WORG offers a choice of various kinds of cutbacks in oil use for communities to undertake. These cutbacks, requiring “sacrifice,” would in the aggregate potentially make up for the entire Gulf oil gusher — past, present and future — in a short time if they were even modestly implemented. They will be clearly set out: a Washington, D.C. think tank is preparing for WORG a special graph of U.S. oil consumption that shows some of the many ways to reduce oil consumption. They won’t all be on the pie chart, but these ways include: lessening car dependence through enhancing mass transit, bicycling, and car-pooling; purchasing less food shipped from thousands of miles away; banning some disposable plastics; adjusting thermostats; banning leaf blowers and discouraging power mowers; shutting BP’s unsafe refineries, and — last but not least — ending the wars for oil. Plugging the damaged well and cleanup are only the first step. President Obama has offered no leadership towards slashing oil use – except for calling for a clean energy future. We need action now, rather than waiting for results from long-term investment and faith in the free market and government. As an independent oil industry analyst I have been trying to do everything possible to bring culture change to the forefront. We stand a good chance now to do that through WORG. I hope you share our goals and will get involved. We have the WORG coalition counts as its members: Center for Biological Diversity RealitySandwich.com Population Press Hope Dance Culture Change and Dr. Brent Blackwelder, president emeritus of Friends of the Earth – U.S. ——————————————– To join WORG (no membership fee), consider the Resolution that we hope your city council and state will adopt. It is at www.WorldOilReduction.org. Let us know if you and your organization can be listed as a member or endorser of WORG. Your involvement in this cause as a WORG coalition member is most welcome. Very soon the website will be further developed for maximum participation and speedy actions for WORG participants. Besides signing up more groups and individuals, the task at hand requires networking, research, travel, and publicity. The present WORG coalition members will do their part. Meanwhile, prior to rapid deployment for our first city-council Resolution for world oil reduction for the Gulf, Culture Change is now the organization making the big initial push. So your generous donation to Culture Change today will support the early, rapid development of WORG. Please go to our donation page at culturechange.org/donate.html Thank you, Jan Lundberg independent oil industry analyst Publisher, Editor and Founder, Culture Change P.O. Box 4347, Arcata, CA 95518  http://www.culturechange.org Committee Against Oil Exploration (CAOE, pronounced K-O). www.WorldOilReduction.org jan “at” culturechange.org Further reading: On oil subsidies and more: “New thinking on BP spill: Declare a holiday!” by Brent Blackwelder,The Daly News: Energy Bulletin

El Nino and La Nina. What are El Nino and La Nina? El Nino – (El Nee-nyo) is the warming of water in the Pacific Ocean. La Nina – (Lah Nee-Nyah) is the cooling of water in the Pacific Ocean.

• El Nino was first discovered hundreds of years ago by fishermen off the coast of Peru.
• El Nino means “Little Boy” and was named after the Christ child, because it usually starts around Christmas.
• El Nino is officially called ENSO – El Nino Southern Oscillation.
• La Nina means “Little Girl.” It is also called El Viejo, which means “old man,” or an ENSO cold event.
• La Nina occurs roughly half as often as El Nino
• El Nino and La Nina are the most powerful phenomenon on the earth and alter the climate across more than half the planet.
• El Nino may be caused by underwater volcanoes in the Pacific.

 http://library.thinkquest.org/5818/elnin…

================================

THE LATEST NEWS:

El Niño  Has Ended. Possibility of La Niña Watched Closely. —-  WMO-892

Geneva, 6 July 2010 (WMO) – Following the rapid dissipation of El Niño in early May 2010, cool-neutral to weak La Niña conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific. These conditions are more likely than not to strengthen into a basin-wide La Niña over the coming months, according to the El Niño/La Niña Update issued today by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

La Niña is characterized by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific. It is the opposite condition of El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Both events can disrupt the normal patterns of tropical precipitation and atmospheric circulation, and have widespread impacts on climate in many parts of the world.

By mid-June, the sea-surface temperatures had decreased to approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius below normal over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, near the borderline of La Niña conditions. Further, below average sea temperatures exist beneath the surface of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.  Forecast models continue to predict further decreases in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperature. In particular, most dynamical models strongly favour further La Niña development.

While it is likely that La Niña conditions will further develop in the next several months, the timing and magnitude of such an event in 2010 are as yet uncertain, with no indications at this time of a particularly strong event in terms of sea-surface temperatures.

WMO prepares El Niño/La Niña Updates in collaboration with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), USA, by consulting climate prediction centres and experts around the world and facilitating the development of a consensus. WMO Members will continue to carefully monitor the situation in the tropical Pacific. The unusual climate patterns and extremes that occur in association with La Niña conditions also occur independently of La Niña, and therefore individual users of climate information should seek detailed interpretation for their locations and sectors. Over the coming months, the climate forecasting community will provide detailed interpretations of regional climate conditions through the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services.

For more information:

El Niño/La Niña Update, full report:

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/enso_update_latest.html

WMO is the United Nations’ authoritative voice on weather, climate and water.

For more information please contact:

Ms Carine Richard-Van Maele, Chief, Communications and Public Affairs, WMO.  Tel: +41 (0) 22 730 8315, Fax: +41 (0) 22 730 8027.  E-mail: cvanmaele@wmo.int

Web site: http://www.wmo.int

 http://planetark.org/wen/58569

Analysis: Silicon Valley All Aglow On Green Lighting.

by: Poornima Gupt
Date: 28-Jun-10, reporting from the Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley has seen the light, and it’s LED. {it is not just for the military anymore.}

The incandescent light bulb has had the global lighting market in its grip for more than 130 years, building into a more than $100 billion industry. But green concerns about efficiency spell an end to the era, and the U.S. technology capital sees light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, as the new king.

“Lighting is going to completely change over the course of this decade,” said Alan Salzman, chief executive of Silicon Valley-based venture fund VantagePoint Venture Partners.

His firm has $4.5 billion in committed capital in startups across different sectors, but lighting is an area he is very bullish on.

“The largest sector in terms of companies in our portfolio is lighting,” Salzman said.

While many love the look of the light cast by incandescent bulbs, none like the high energy bills. Nations around the world, including the United States, are phasing in efficiency standards that will eliminate the incandescents if no major energy improvements happen.

Investors are betting on other technologies taking hold.

Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs so far have been the only real alternative to conventional bulbs but they contain mercury and many don’t like the quality of the light.

LED lights, on the other hand, contain no mercury, have a long life and are very energy efficient.

LEDs, made of diodes or chips, have come a long way since the first practical LED was a developed in 1962. Its sole color was red. Now developers produce light colors across the spectrum.

They consume only about 20 percent of the energy used by incandescent bulbs. With about 20 percent of the world’s electricity used for lighting, switching to LEDs would generate significant energy savings and cut greenhouse gas emissions while nations debate how to price carbon dioxide pollution.

COST CHALLENGE

There is one major hurdle for mass adoption of LEDs — they cost too much. Experts say that for the market to take off, good quality LED lights need to available under $10. Current bulbs cost many times that.

Investors are betting heavily the cost will fall quickly as LED start-ups achieve scale and the technology advances.

“The market really started shifting in the last 12 months,” said Warner Philips, co-founder of LED start-up Lemnis Lighting and great grandson of the founder of Dutch electronics giant Philips Electronics.

Lemnis introduced its first LED bulb, called Pharox, that can go into a standard light socket about four years ago. The latest version can last around 25 years, based on four hours of daily operation, but it costs $25.

The price has halved in a short time. Lemnis had been selling LED bulbs around $50 only about six months ago and Philips expects the price to fall below the crucial $10 level soon.

“That will be probably be in the first half of next year,” he said.

BULLISH GROWTH PROJECTIONS

LEDs by 2020 will account for nearly half of the $4.4 billion U.S. market for lamps in the commercial, industrial and outdoor stationary sectors, predicted Pike Research, which tracks the market.

Even at the current high price, some commercial establishments and retailers are switching.

Late last year, retail giant Wal-Mart said it would install LEDs in 650 of its stores and picked Cree Inc, one of the few public companies in this space, to supply the lights.

Other companies switching to LEDs include coffee retailer Starbucks Corp, Red Robin restaurants and Yum! Brands Inc.

Cree’s shares hit an all-time high of $83.38 this April, rising almost 49 percent from the start of the year, partly due to bullish expectations on the LED market. The global economic slowdown has ratcheted back expectations, though, and sent shares down toward $65.

In the first quarter of 2010, venture capitalists invested $100 million in 14 LED lighting companies, up from $14 million in the same quarter a year ago, according to Cleantech Group.

California’s Bridgelux, which makes high-power LED chips specifically for the lighting industry, is in the process of opening a Silicon Valley plant and investors are eager to join in.

“We had a lot of people pounding on our doors,” said Chief Executive Bill Watkins.

 http://robertreich.org/post/604861772/bp…

BP Stands for Bad Petroleum

Saturday the White House warned BP that it expects the oil giant to pay all damages associated with the disastrous oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, even if the costs exceed the $75 million liability cap under federal law. BP responded Sunday saying its public statements are “absolutely consistent” with the Administration’s request.

———————-

Actually, who still remembers that BP wanted us to believe that the letter stand for “BEYOND PETROLEUM?”

In effect BP moved into solar energy and together with the Shell Oil Company became one of the first two oil companies that tried to be seen as ENERGY COMPANIES by going beyond oil. We gave them lots of credit – then watched how Shell was helping destroy Nigeria. BP on the other hand was indeed rather blameless at that time. Both, BP and Shell got into the “ENERGY” business because of push by British NGOs. It was the enlightened part of the UK that did the trick, while the enlightened part of the US had no chance whatsoever because of the hold the US oil industry has on Washington – Democrats or Republicans alike.   It was EXXONMOBIL that actively fought the manmade global warming / climate change “theory” and funded all those self styled scientists – in the US and in the UK – that made sure that the media will conclude that only death is proof of death – what I mean is that only when disaster has occurred this is the proof that we are on the path to a disaster.

OK, disaster is striking the Southern coast of the US and beyond while BP has $10.5 Billion to distribute as dividend to share-holders. This alone is good reason for the US Administration to take over BP as it is unacceptable to see these funds leave the company’s coffers with potential reparation bills amounting to more then twice that amount. The $69 million mentioned by President Obama as first payment requested from BP in order to compensate for the oil-spill is pittance to the real cost of redress in this case. Robert Reich has quite a few important points on these issues.

Let us conclude this introduction by saying that BP will yet turn the clock back to the idea of “Beyond Petroleum” by having proven with their lack of preparedness for this accident that this is the true path to a sane world of the 21st century.

———————-

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His “Marketplace” commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

: Is this realistic?

A: Not only realistic but it may become necessary – both operationally and politically. If the disaster continues to worsen, it’s untenable for a for-profit corporation to be in charge.

Q: But why should we expect government to do any better job than BP?

A: BP would still be at the job – and its expertise, equipment, and other assets would continue to be utilized. But the federal government would be in overall control of the operation – weighing public risks and benefits, deciding what resources are necessary, getting accurate information and disseminating it to the public.

Q: Why should we trust the government?

A: This isn’t an ideological contest about how little you trust a giant oil company versus the federal government. It’s a matter of accountability. BP’s primary responsibility is to its shareholders. And it will cut corners – as it has before – if that’s the best way to maximize the value of their shares. But only the government, through the President, is directly accountable to the American public, and responsible for protecting it.

Q: Under what legal authority could the President take control of BP’s North American operations?

A: Obama has implicit authority through laws and regulations dealing with offshore drilling, especially the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. By analogy, if a nuclear reactor were melting down, the President would use his regulatory authority over nuclear energy to take temporary control over the plant and the relevant parts of the corporation that ran it. President Truman seized the nation’s steel mills in 1952, arguing that the emergency of the Korean War necessitated it. (The Supreme Court ultimately blocked him but according to Justice Jackson, whose opinion was essentially the majority’s, that was because Truman had no statutory basis for the seizure, not even an implicit one. That isn’t the case here.)

Q: But BP is a British corporation. How can the U.S. government take control?

A: The nationality of a corporation’s shareholders has nothing to do with it. If it is operating within the jurisdiction of the United States and poses a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of Americans, a president would take control of its operations and assets in the United States.

Q: Do you really think Obama would do this? Wouldn’t he prefer to stay away from this mess and keep the responsibility squarely on BP?

A: He may not have much of a choice. If the disaster worsens and Obama doesn’t take control he risks inheriting the mantle of Katrina.

Q: What will force his hand?

A: The White House is already inching toward control. BP’s new admission that it can’t stop the leak until August has shocked a public already deeply distrustful of it. As new evidence emerges of the scale of the disaster, the pressure on the Administration to take full and open control will only grow. Last Saturday Energy Secretary Chu asked BP to cease its so-called “top kill” effort to stop up the gush because he and his team of scientists had concluded it was too risky. Now the White House has to decide whether BP’s continued use of highly toxic dispersants poses more of a threat to the public and the environment than a help. When do these decisions tip over into control? Any time now.

news@religionandecology.org

from: Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
Coordinators of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale
http://www.yale.edu/religionandecology

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created under President Richard Nixon. Since then it was all downhill. BP has now started to reeducate President Obama.

Our Deepwater wake-up call: Let’s rethink the trade-off between economic development and environmental protection.

- – - – - -

In the wake of Deepwater, let’s put the environment first

An oil-soaked bird struggles against the side of a ship near the oil-spill site. (Gerald Herbert/associated Press)

In June 1969, the stretch of the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga this way: “Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.”

The spectacle of a river in flames helped galvanize the environmental movement, and the following year, with Richard Nixon as president, the Environmental Protection Agency was established. In 1972, Congress passed the landmark Clean Water Act. Today, the Cuyahoga is clean enough to support more than 40 species of fish.

We still don’t know the full extent of the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico — the impact on avian and aquatic life, on fisheries, on tourism, on the delicate ecology of coastal marshes and barrier islands. We do know, though, that it is the worst oil spill in our nation’s history, far surpassing the Exxon Valdez incident. And maybe the shocking images from the gulf of dead fish, oiled pelicans and shores lapped by viscous “brown mousse” will refocus attention on the need to preserve the environment, not just exploit it.

“Drill, baby, drill” isn’t just the bizarrely inappropriate chant that we remember from the Republican National Convention two years ago. It’s a pretty good indication of where the national ethos has drifted. Environmental regulation is seen as a bureaucratic imposition — not as an insurance policy against potential catastrophe, and certainly not as a moral imperative.

Yes, many Americans feel good about going through the motions of environmentalism. We’ve made a religion of recycling, which is an important change. We turn off the lights when we leave the room — and we’re even beginning to use fluorescent bulbs. Some of us, though not enough, understand the long-term threat posed by climate change; a subset of those who see the danger are even willing to make lifestyle changes to try to avert a worst-case outcome.

But where the rubber hits the road — in public policy — we’ve reverted to our pre-enlightenment ways. When there’s a perceived conflict between environmental stewardship and economic growth, the bottom line wins.

Barack Obama is, in many admirable ways, our most progressive president in decades. But as an environmentalist, let’s face it, he’s no Richard Nixon. Before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded — allowing, by some estimates, as many as a million gallons of crude oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico each day for more than a month — Obama had announced plans to permit new offshore drilling. “I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything,” Obama said at the time. “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.”

Obama has wisely backed away from that decision. The technology involved in deep-sea oil drilling turned out to be far more advanced than the technology needed to halt a spill if something goes wrong — essentially, like engineering a car to double its top speed without thinking to upgrade the brakes. This oversight apparently wasn’t noticed by anyone who had the power to correct it.

Calls for Obama to somehow “take over” the emergency response ring hollow. Take it over with what? Hands-on intervention has never been government’s role in this kind of situation. BP and the other oil companies had the undersea robots and the deep-water experience. Other private companies owned and operated the skimmers that remove the oil from the surface. There is no huge government reserve of the booms that are needed to protect Louisiana’s beaches and marshlands; those are made by private firms and are being deployed by unemployed fishermen.

Obama has rethought his enthusiasm for offshore drilling. Now he, and the rest of us, should rethink the larger issue — the trade-off between economic development and environmental protection. In the long run, our natural resources are all we’ve got. Defending them must be a higher priority than our recent presidents, including Obama, have made it.

Energy policy is one of Obama’s priorities. He talks about “clean coal,” which I believe to be an oxymoron, and favors technologies — such as carbon capture and sequestration — that are new and untested. The environmental risks must be a central and paramount concern, not a mere afterthought. Let’s preclude the next Deepwater Horizon right now.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

===================================

But the Washington Post, afraid of looking too progressive in a Sarah Palin dominated US political backwaters town, has balanced above excellent article with a second one that caters to the political sharks. Please read the two articles not just as a sandwich were our future is the filling. Read it rather as an effort to blunt the call for non-fossil future. In effect, this second article is nothing less then the Hofmeister defense of BP which we posted as our original article after we listened to this former CEO of Schell Oil Company on his launch at the US Foreign Policy Association on his start of a book-release campaign in defense of Big Oil.

- – - – -

Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama’s tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we’ve had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

So we go deep, ultra deep — to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? All spills seriously damage wildlife. That’s a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?

Not that the environmentalists are the only ones to blame. Not by far. But it is odd that they’ve escaped any mention at all.

The other culprits are pretty obvious. It starts with BP, which seems not only to have had an amazing string of perfect-storm engineering lapses but no contingencies to deal with a catastrophic system failure.

• Carbon Management
• Energy Efficiency
• Green IT
• Green Building
• Corporate Sustainability
• Green Supply Chain

Latest Update: May 24, 2010, 3:07 PM

Twitter: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/r…

{some of the language we do not understand – but what we do understand is the importance of Tony Blair joining the GREENING effort}

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News |  Energy Efficiency

Michael Kanellos: May 24, 2010

Tony Blair Joins Khosla Ventures As Portfolio Comes out of Stealth.

Calera, Kior, Point Source Power, Soraa come out of hidey hole.

Sausalito–Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Britain and one of the all-star names on the public speaking circuit, has joined Khosla Ventures as a senior advisor.

Blair and Vinod Khosla made the announcement at a conference taking  place in Sausalito. (It’s taking place now, in fact, as I type. Bill Gates just popped in. Looks like he’s looking for the breakfast pastries.) Blair will advise on public policy issues. Khosla underestimated the importance of policy five years ago, he said.

“China and India will industrialize, but can they industrialize in a way that is sustainable and compatible with the challenges facing the environment,” Blair asked.

But perhaps more important for you readers, several of the portfolio companies at Khosla Ventures provided more details about their products. Here are some early tidbits for you:

–Kior, which has created a catalytic process to convert biomass into synthetic crude oil in a matter of minutes, is producing about 15 barrels of synthetic crude a day. That’s up from a few liters a day a year ago.

–EcoMotors, which has created an efficient opposed piston/opposed cylinder engine, has signed a deal with a Chinese car maker. Another deal may get signed in June. The engine weighs about half as much as a regular diesel engine, but gets double the mileage. It costs about 25 less to make than a regular engine. (Opposed piston/opposed cylinder engines were designed by Junkers before World War II but they weren’t particularly efficient.)

–Soraa and Kaai, two lighting and laser companies out of UC Santa Barbara, have merged. The combined company will produce green lasers for projectors and light bulbs that use 75 percent less energy than conventional bulb. They may sell the bulbs them under rental contracts.

–Calera, the controversial cement company, says it can make carbon sequestration profitable. “We can go into any venutre and make the sequestration of CO2 a profitable venture,” said CEO Brent Constanz. 36 billion tons of aggregate and limestone get mined a year. Calera can help get rid of that by mixing seawater to make calcium carbonate.

–New Pax, which specializes in designs that mimic functions found in nature, has created a air conditioner that uses 75 percent less energy than a conventional one.

–Gilad Almogy, who once oversaw the technical development of LCD tools for Applied Materials, is the founder of Cogenera, which will do solar electricity and hot water on a large scale.

–Meanwhile, Point Source Power is showing off a solid oxide fuel cell that fits inside of a Altoids tin. It costs $4 and can charge a phone. It will be sold in the third world. Individuals just toss it into a fire. It can be scaled up to a multi-kilowatt device.

 http://twitter.com/#search?q=us%20geothe…

 http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/mighty-r…

Mighty River invests in US geothermal plant.

State-owned power company Mighty River Power is investing in a geothermal power station being built in the United States which will use the same technology as its Kawarau and Nga Awa Purua stations.

Mighty River’s 25-percent owned GeoGlobal Energy has backed US geothermal energy company EnergySource, which is building the 49.9 megawatt Hudson Ranch Power I station in southern California.

GeoGlobal’s investment of up to $US107 million ($NZ145 million) provided most of the equity for the power station, and bought a 20% stake in EnergySource.

Mighty River’s New Zealand geothermal experience contributed to the tie-up with EnergySource, GeoGlobal president Michael Van Vleck said.

“Mighty River Power is the only company in the world to have built geothermal power stations within the past five years that use this particular technology, and the success of the

Nga Awa Purua and Kawerau projects was an important factor in EnergySource selecting GGE as an investor in the Hudson Ranch Power I Project,” he said.

Mighty River, among the world’s 10 largest geothermal operators, has contributed $US250m to the GeoGlobal Energy Fund.

Mighty River’s purchase of the GeoGlobal Energy stake, in 2008, was its first major offshore venture. GeoGlobal has since achieved success drilling in Chile.

The SOE is aiming to create a global geothermal business using its experience in geothermal construction, exploration and operation.

The 140MW Nga Awa Purua geothermal power station, near Taupo, became fully operational last month.

Today the media is full of analysis of last nights results of political Super-Tuesday and the consensus is that America wants Jobs not new policies. What that implies is that all the great ideas that President Obama brought to the White House are immaterial – all what counts is jobs. But what kind of jobs – is this just a return to pre-economy-downturn? To jobs in the industries of the past in a world of make believe that cannot anymore support US consumption? There must be a better way we say and we call it Sustainable Development. Are there listeners out there?

Luckily I just saw on CNN – “Energizing a state’s job market is challenging during tough economic times. See how New Mexico’s governor leads the charge to create thousands of new jobs from the brightest natural resource. CNN’s Tom Foreman reports.”

This was about New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former US Secretary of Energy and the former Chairman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico – he rode in to save the day that was described by all as the day America stood up to take on those rascals in Washington.

from ttp://twitter.com/govrichardson the “Great piece on CNN about recruiting clean energy companies to NM” http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2010/building.up.america/  about 1 hour ago via web

also “Promoting two Northern New Mexico clean energy projects today in Questa & Taos” 9:11 AM May 13th – web

What we saw was from Santa Fe how “Schott Solar” talks Sun = More $ + More Jobs.

Solar is a buffer against stagnation.

It occurred to me if President Obama will now decide to take on Washington by pushing stronger for an Energy and Climate outcome in order to answer the JOB ISSUE in a positive way?

I moved then to look up the following from Bill Scher’s daily reports and decided to share it with our readers.

His report on Clean Energy dates back to last week – that is pre-history to some of those loses last night – but our belief is that after the Bank Reform, still before November 2010, Washington must tackle the Climate Bill so that when the folks go home to ask to be reelected they have something in their hand. They just cannot ask for sympathy after stretching out an empty hand. Washington is them – the only fight they have ahead of them is the fight against themselves!

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Progressive Breakfast: Will Clean Energy Follow Bank Reform?

Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.

—-

This issue starts with the topic – “Weakening Wall St. Reform Amendments Loom” – and includes also – “Time For Wealth To Be Taxed Like Work” – we deleted both as our interest was in the Energy and Climate issue!

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill Released

Sen. Kerry explains details at Grist: “this bill creates a major — mandatory — pollution-reduction program that sends the needed price signal on carbon, with carbon allowances auctioned in a heavily regulated market that doesn’t allow any speculators access … imports from countries that aren’t doing what we’re doing will need to pay a fee at the border or we will give our producers the resources they would need to keep from having their production shifted overseas to avoid the cost of polluting … inspired in part by the great work of Sens. Maria Cantwell [D-Wash.] and Susan Collins [R-Maine] [the bill] sends the bulk of the proceeds from the sale of the pollution allowances back to the American people directly in the form of rebates … This bill does not take the EPA out of the mix on regulating carbon. In fact, it strengthens the Clean Air Act by expanding the authority of the EPA and making that authority permanent …”

President praises: “I look forward to engaging with Senators from both sides of the aisle and ultimately passing a bill this year.”

TNR’s Brad Plumer on how the bill differs from the House version: “The Senate bill refunds a greater share of the proceeds from selling carbon permits back to consumers—75 percent versus 45 percent in the House bill … The Senate bill exempts manufacturers from cap-and-trade until 2016, so in this sense it’s a little weaker on pollution targets … more support for nuclear power, natural gas vehicles, and offshore drilling … a lot weaker on renewable energy mandates and efficiency standards … stricter provisions for overseeing the carbon markets…”

Earth2Tech gets reaction from green power advocates: “…significant provisions for electric vehicle development, manufacturing and infrastructure … a renewable electricity standard … is not included … Not everyone shares the utilities’ perspective that Kerry and Lieberman’s proposal will protect consumers. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEE) criticized the legislators for ‘gutting the energy efficiency provisions in their bill,’ …

Tenuous enviro-business coalition behind bill: “While the green lobby is already firing up grass-roots support and running ads to advance the bill, getting the 60 Senate votes needed to pass it will require help from corporate lobbying shops … While most business groups were poring over the proposal before taking a firm stand on it, the nuclear industry wholeheartedly embraced it.”

The Hill summed up enviro reaction: “Even though several left-leaning environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and Public Citizen, issued sharply critical statements, a broad swath of green groups backed the measure moving forward while calling for changes to it.”

Neutrality from many corporate interests seen as victory. CQ: “Two industry groups that led opposition to the House bill — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute (API) — praised efforts to write a Senate bill that is friendlier to business. While neither group endorsed the Senate bill, their neutrality was taken as a victory by Senate aides who worked on the legislation.”

Senate leaders taking cautious approach. W. Post: “Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has made it clear that the climate bill needs to be within striking distance of 60 votes before he will bring it to the floor.”

Evangelical leader Joel Hunter, at climate bill announcement, urges Senate to put aside politics and protect God’s creation: “I don’t want to be standing before God on Judgment Day and be saying, ‘Gee the votes just weren’t there,”

Kerry insists Republicans are in play. The Hill quotes: “I have heard even several Republicans in these last days tell me in private that they are encouraged by what is in this bill, and they are anxious to review it and to work on it.”

Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard gets positive reacts from key Senators: “[Graham] kept the door to a yes-vote slightly open … Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), an opponent of offshore drilling … appears to be satisfied by the actual draft … Bingaman (D-NM) … has been agitating for the Senate to vote on his energy-only bill rather than pushing through a bill with a cap on carbon this year. Although this draft includes a cap, he at least appears open to it … Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) … seems upbeat though he said he still wants more protections for manufacturing…”

And ClimateWire picks up some negative reacts: “Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican whom Kerry has been seeking as a co-sponsor, said she remains concerned about ‘taxes’ … Cantwell, when asked by a reporter yesterday if it seemed like Kerry and Lieberman were bending to her concerns, said, ‘I doubt it.’”

GOP Sen. Voinovich opens the door a crack: “Voinovich, who is viewed as a possible swing vote, said the bill was put forward ‘in good faith and with much thought.’ But he also indicated he is leaning against it.”

Lieberman reminds obstructionists that the EPA won’t wait, on CNN: “There’s another clock ticking here besides the election. And it’s the clock that goes off on January 1 next year, when the Environmental Protection Agency has the power and has promised to begin to regulate greenhouse gas emissions – carbon pollution – by executive order.”

$6B in revenue from motor fuel pollution permit marked for transportation. Some say that’s not enough. CQ: “It is unclear how much money the motor fuels portion of the measure would raise in total, but transportation lobbyists said that in talks with Senate aides, the total has ranged from $20 billion to $60 billion. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) said all revenue raised from motor fuels should go into the [highway] trust fund…” Whereas Streetsblog finds transportation reformers pleased: “‘The authors deserve high praise for ensuring that revenues generated from the transportation sector go in part toward meeting the growing demand for more, better and cleaner travel options,’ Geoff Anderson, co-chairman of the advocacy group Transportation for America, said…”

TNR’s Brad Plumer says smart-growth proponents like the “holistic” transit approach: “… the climate bill also requires the Department of Transportation to develop a national plan for reducing emissions from the transport sector—everything from coordinating electric-car infrastructure, for instance, to setting standards so that, say, electric utilities and automakers are working together.”

“350″ standard not met says Citizens Climate Lobby’s Steve Valk: “Any legislation to address climate change needs to have the overarching goal of getting us back to 350 ppm of CO2 and keeping us there. But you’ll find no mention of this in the Kerry-Lieberman bill for one simple reason: There’s no way in hell their bill can achieve this goal. What’s really scary, however, is that most of the politicians in Washington are operating under the assumption that we don’t need to get to 350. The real eye-opener for me came last fall when a Senate aide I met with said we just need to keep CO2 under 450 ppm.”

SmartPower’s Brian Keane says “we can’t wait for perfect”: “The bill seems to strike the right balance – focusing on climate change, but understanding that fundamentally this also needs to be about job creation.”

Blog for Clean Air’s Frank O’Donnell worried about scaling back of EPA authority: “The ‘Task Force’ (which includes EPA, but also some historic enemies of clean-air controls) is told to explore ‘existing programs’ and regulations for coal-fired power plants and the ‘effect’ those programs could have on the transition to lower-carbon plants … the attacks on the Clean Air Act’s smog, soot and toxics safeguards for power plants are officially underway.”

BP’s “fail safe” was a leaky test version with a dead battery. W. Post:: “In a devastating review of the blowout preventer that BP said was supposed to be ‘fail-safe,’ …Stupak said that the committee investigators had also uncovered a document prepared in 2001 by the drilling rig operator Transocean that said there were 260 ‘failure modes’ that could require removal of the blowout preventer. ‘How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?’ Stupak said.”

Criminal charges in Gulf spill likely. McClatchy: “Federal investigators are likely to file criminal charges against at least one of the companies … raising the prospects of significantly higher penalties than a current $75 million cap on civil liability … under the Clean Water and Air Acts and other federal laws aimed at protecting migratory birds, an accidental oil spill of this magnitude could at least result in misdemeanor negligence charges.”

——-

The Black Caucus Has A Jobs Plan

Black Caucus stepping up pressure for summer jobs funding. CQ: “… it is insisting quite publicly that Democratic leaders not allow Congress to start the one-week Memorial Day recess before spending $1.5 billion on a youth summer jobs program … noting that the unemployment rate for African-American teens is around 40 percent. The need to help them get work is so urgent, these lawmakers say, that the money should be exempt from pay-as-you-go requirements…”

House considering $85B research bill. CQ: “The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act (HR 5116) is aimed at boosting U.S. economic competitiveness through federal support of various science and technology education and research programs. It would authorize the spending from fiscal 2011 through 2015 for programs at the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and certain Energy Department research programs … Democrats said that the bill would create jobs … Republicans, however, criticized the cost…”

Congressional TARP oversight panel questions small biz strategy. Bloomberg: “TARP programs so far have shown ‘poor performance’ in helping small businesses because of low participation from community banks and other factors including weak loan demand, the report released today showed. Also, the Treasury Department’s small-business assistance has focused on providing capital to banks that supply loans, rather than assistance to companies with the potential to create jobs.”

UAW concerned auto workers won’t rebound along with auto executives. NYT: “As one automaker, the Ford Motor Company, restores some perks for salaried workers, [incoming UAW President Bob] King is putting the companies on notice that he expects hourly workers to be given back some of the benefits they surrendered as the bottom lines of all three car companies improve … The union is expected to ask that some of its givebacks be reversed during contract talks with the carmakers in 2011…”

Is the economy going through a major restructuring, risking leaving millions of experienced workers behind? NYT: “Millions of workers who have already been unemployed for months, if not years, will most likely remain that way even as the overall job market continues to improve, economists say. The occupations they worked in, and the skills they currently possess, are never coming back in style. And the demand for new types of skills moves a lot more quickly than workers — especially older and less mobile workers — are able to retrain and gain those skills.”

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Breakfast Sides

Our government is back on the job protecting the public interest, and the corporate interests don’t like it. NYT: “The surge in rule-making has resulted from an unusual confluence of factors, from repeated outbreaks of food-borne illnesses to workplace disasters … Manufacturers, home builders, toymakers and others say that Washington has been overzealous about imposing new requirements … Obama administration officials reject the criticism, saying that the benefits associated with the dozens of major rules adopted between President Obama’s inauguration and the end of 2009 outweigh the costs by an estimated $3.1 billion…”

The immigrant crime wave used to justify Arizona’s anti-immigration law is a myth: “The main argument behind Arizona’s new law, SB 1070, is that the state’s presumed crime wave is linked to undocumented immigrants. But … crime across the state has consistently declined over the years despite an increase in the population.”

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News Alert: Top Interior official overseeing offshore oil and gas drilling to retire.
Monday, May 17, 2010
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Chris Oynes, the top Interior official who oversees offshore oil and gas drilling for the Minerals Management Service, announced Monday that he will retire on May 31, 2010. (Here we have the first insider to pay a price.)

Oynes, who oversaw oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico for 12 years before being promoted to MMS associate director for Offshore Energy and Minerals Management, has come under fire for being too close to the industry officials he regulated.

His announcement comes as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar unveiled a series of reforms on how the department will conduct onshore oil and gas drilling.

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ON CBS – FACE THE NATION, Sunday, May 16, 2010 – Senator Charles Schumer of New York had the following to say:

Schumer: Gulf spill makes passing climate bill more difficult.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would make passage of a climate bill this year more difficult because the bill includes a compromise allowing for the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described the spill as an “environmental disaster of gargantuan proportions,” and called for the administration’s response to be a “big part of the inquiry” into what happened. McConnell said “BP will pay for” the damage, but warned that raising the cap on damages too much would create a situation in which only large companies are able to extract oil and gas in the Gulf.


Schumer said that Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings “should not be a farce … they should talk about judicial ideology and philosophy.” He added that he hopes Kagan will be able to bring the court’s liberal and conservative factions together. McConnell said, “Republicans have treated Supreme Court nominees a lot better than Democrats have,” and added that he “can’t think of a single [Democratic] nominee treated like” Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito.

While noting that the question of where and how to try self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was still open, Schumer said, “the chances of him being tried in New York are close to zero.”

After retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) endorsed tea party favorite Rand Paul, the son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul who ran in 2008 for the Presidency, as his replacement in Tuesday’s primary, while Senator McConnell endorsed Paul’s opponent Trey Grayson.  McConnell said he will attend a GOP unity rally at the state Capitol on Saturday. He said the tea party movement is “going to really help” Republicans in November. Schumer predicted that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) will edge out his primary challenger, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) “by a little.”

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So, the hope is in cooperative programs with China and Indonesia – The Halting of Global Warming May Be Possible in a Business Context that is Transboundary. Pitty the loss of President Obama’s trip to Indonesia of two months ago, because of burning internal issues in Washington, at the time we said that President Obama could have revived the UNFCCC efforts by bringing in an Indonesian to head that Climate Change UN agency.

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Back to the BP accident:

People are asking why the industry was not better prepared to react in case of an accident? members of Congress hold hearings and find out that the federal regulatory agencies for minerals management actually had on the books all sort of regulations but nobody bothered enforcing them. Here comes the oil industry that made sue Washington does not bother them – and as could have been expected – the agencies had little interest to interfere with the oil companies.

The New York Times talks of technologies that were supposed to be in place, bur had not changed much in 20 years – booms, skimmers and chemical dispersants. now remember how further the drilling technology has advanced in these 20 years, and how further out into the sea, and how these drilling sites moved to much deeper wells, and it starts looking like criminal lack of supervision. Professor Robert G. Bea of the U. of California at Berkeley, who studies offshore drilling described what goes on now a s”some equivalent of a fire drill with paper towels and buckets for cleanup.” He said that for years the Minerals Management Service argued that “blow-out preventers were practically foolproof.” November 2009, Walter D. Cruickshank, the Deputy Director of MMS told a hearing that the wells had a safety devices to shut off the flow in emergencies. What they did not preict was that the whole rig will collapse. Now the Marine Spill Response Corporation, formed after the 21990 Exxon Valdez disaster, and using equipment and technology from 1990 vintage, is in charge. They where never given budget for research said Steve Benz, the group’s President, though he contended that with C-130 planes they are ahead of the regulatory agency.

President Obama finally came out blasting the “Cosy” relationship with the oil and gas industry, saying that federal government failures were partly to blame for the oil spill. Mr. OBAMA SAID THAT THE DAYS IN WHICH WASHINGTON REGULATORS WOULD ROUTINELY GRANT DRILLING PERMITS BASED ON LITTLE MORE THAN VAGUE ASSURANCES OF SAFETY WERE OVER.

The hearings showed that the books carried requirements for permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species and the agency warned about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf. The MMS allowed BP and dozens of other companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without getting first those permits. Also, doubts were expressed on Accuracy of Government’s Spill estimates – they were given as 5,000 barrels a day but are much larger – a huge plume  in the water is depriving oxygen from life in the gulf. Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, who is a specialist in analysing oil slicks, made calculations and gave notice of intent to sue the agency over its non-compliance with the law -It seems the agency thinks its mission is to help the oil industry evade environmental laws,” he said. One thing seems for sure – MMS will have to be broken up into a regulatory agency and a separate fee collecting office for the royalties – as if that could help. Really how do you get it to obey the already existing regulations?

Indeed – something is fishy with BP when the company, the rig owner – Transocean, and the drilling contractor – Halliburton of old fame, through accusations at each other, then the only immediate reaction in the US comes from Alaska interests that find Royal Dutch Shell of also potentially endangering the Alaska coast. We say here that these are coincidentally the two European companies that compete in the US for drilling sites with the US-based multinationals. Just going after these two companies and not even mentioning in the same context the US companies, might easily be interpreted a US oil-industry ploy to decrease competition. This is not a neat way of doing business either.

The CNN ireport – LIVING IN A TOXIC TOWN. CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta invite you to put on video what you know.
 http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories….

Living in a toxic town

Many residents of Mossville, Louisiana, suspect their proximity to more than a dozen chemical plants may be responsible for what they say are high rates of cancer and other diseases in the area.

Is there a place near you where pollution is making people sick? CNN is investigating the environment’s effects on health as part of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Toxic Towns USA special. We want you to join us in the newsgathering process.

“Put yourself on video and document conditions in your area, or take photos of what’s around you. Tell us what industrial or chemical pollution may be contributing to health problems for you and those you love, and be sure not to put yourself in a dangerous situation,” CNN writes.

“Tell us about toxic towns near you and Dr. Gupta may report on your community.”

from: http://baynature.org

specific - http://baynature.org/articles/jan-mar-20…

Taking the Heat Though we may not be able to detect it on a day-to-day
basis, climate change has come to the Bay Area and is already leaving
its mark on local ecosystems: rising tides in the Bay, increasingly
severe wildfires, acidification of ocean waters. While it may be too
late to avoid global warming’s early stages, there is a lot we can do
to both understand and mitigate its impacts on our landscapes and
watersheds. With the support of world-class research institutions and
an active environmental movement, Bay Area scientists are taking the
lead in this crucial effort.

–
Bay Nature Institute

Read More:  http://baynature.org/articles/jan-mar-20…

We write this after having witnessed the following:

Subtantialis Corporis Mixti
(Substantial Form of the Blended Body)

THE SYNERGIES EXHIBITION OF THE BASEL, ROTTERDAM AND STOCKHOLM CONVENTIONS.

on Friday, 7 May, 6:00 – 8:30 pm
Czech Center – 321 E. 73rd Street, New York, New York

The event is open to the public and will feature an informal talk by the
exhibition curator at 6:45pm accompanied by cocktail refreshment.

It was sponsored by The Czech Republic and organized by SAFE PLANET – the UN campaign for Responsibility on Hazardous Chemicals and Wastes on the occasion of the Eighteenth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 18).

For more information, please see the attached flyer.

Michael Stanley-Jones
Joint Services of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions
UNEP, Geneva
+41 79 730-4495 (Press enquires)
SafePlanet@unep.org

=== ===  ===

The three conventions mentioned are:

- The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous wastes and Their Disposal.    www.basel.int

- The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International trade.    www.pic.int

- The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.    www.pops.int

These are just three out of a dozen conventions – most of them dealing with specific chemicals – many with just single transition metals that are poisonous and harmful to humans and aspects of nature. The UN cannot regulate what is done in a particular country even when it impacts the whole world – but it can come up with conventions that try to regulate international trade – and sometimes plain dumping of hazardous materials somewhere outside the guilty country – we call this plain criminal activity that dumps these materials in the poorest region of a poor country.

UNEP Executive Director and UN-USG Ahim Steiner’s opening sentence for the exhibition’s catalog says: “The challenge of hazardous chemicals can appear invisible and remote to many of us. While science offers us the rationale and objective evidence of the risks, art connects the heart: In doing so it can move and mobilize each and all of us to act in new and transformative ways.”

Industrial interests tend to sweep these miseries under the rug – so to say – and people are left suffering terrible harm as a consequence. The UN may discuss this in its chambers, but unless people get the understanding why things happen to them, to their environment, or to something they care about – they will not act.

Chris Jordan, September 2009, photographed bodies of Albatross chicks that had dropped to their deaths on Midway Atoll, a remote marine sanctuary in the middle North Pacific. They had swallowed colorful bottle caps and cigarette lighters that their parents fed them because we threw them into the open sea.

Barbara Benish, from California but living now on in the Czech Republic close to the German border, takes to the plastic toy form of “Bruno” the dolphin of Bohemia discolored by chemicals like the real Dolphins of the polluted Mediterranean and compares them with the playing dolphins of the walls of 3,000 year old palaces of Knossos. Barbara is teaching environment to Czech children and to the children of the world. She was a university classmate of the organizer of this exhibition Michael Stanley-Jones whith whom she was in contact but did not see him for 25 years until last nights event. But Michael was not the curator of the show, that fell to a professional from Texas

Floyd Newsum shows a set of three panels that in the upper two halves are covered with an orange red to show the effect of global warming upon a young female figure, that happens to be African, that is depicted in the lower one third of the middle panel. Below these panels there are three objects, – a plastic football covered stuff that looks like pollution under the right side panel,  while under the left panel there is a model bath tub – the ocean – and in it a small plastic cut out in the shape of Texas – that is the size of Texas of a plastic-covered real life region in the middle of the Pacific.

The above  collage shocked me as I just saw in the Saturday New York Times – right there on front page – the spectacular red, orange and yellow colors of oil-in water – that is the play of light in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. How many poor girls in the US South will go hungry as their fisherman father will be out of work because we wanted that oil? I got my exhibit-update right there – the same day.

Lyn Randolph explores the Texas Gulf Coast in two large excellent paintings – “Endangered Species” in what seems an unexpected meeting of a female nude and Wooping Cranes – the woman seems to spy us and seems to be of the same endangered content as the birds. Here also we have very warm colored backgrounds but much more sharp colored center images.

Barbara Sprung and another Barbara Benish large paintings deal with vulnerable women that we have attacked by what we do to the environment – those are the turning-away wounded Venuses in our life. Their bodies might still look nice but were altered by chemicals.

Santiago Cardenas of Colombia does away with the body completely – he just shows a large coat on a hangar and an umbrella attached to a belt-loop.

Then a most surprising exhibit was by a delightful Pakistani lady that resides now in Indiana, Anila Quayyum Agha.

She showed a construct with letters that she named “My Forked Tongue.” and tried to convey the need for an international dialogue. She suspended letters in Urdu, Hindi and English and she told me it took 6 hours to mount the work here. She has dealt with political and gender issues in the land of her birth. Now she is Assistant Professor – Drawing- at the Herron School of Art and Design at the Indiana University in Indianapolis. I picked up a 40 page booklet of hers “Drawing the Invisible: Naratives of Gender, Community, and Home.” There is not a single depiction of the human body there – clearly something that has to do with her cultural background. She manages nevertheless, through color, painting, stitching, sewing, graphics… to convey the good side of humanity – what a refreshing experience after reading and hearing all the stuff about other Pakistanis in America! I spoke with her at somewhat at length and found easily that people that have a feel for humanity bind easily. This exhibit was a case in point.

The about 50 people present, many from the Czech community, but also with a sprinkling from the UN – like Matthias Kern, Programme Officer at the Basel Convention Geneva Based, Secretariat, had a good time listening to the curator, enjoying the good Czech Urquel Pilsener bier, and plainly chatting about the issues displayed. Barbara Benish was addressing everyone first in Czech language as that was a first good guess nevertheless. Luckily the Czech President Vaclav Klaus has not completely turned into his disciples the great majority of his nation. The spirit of Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Capek, Vaclav Havel is still alive.

This is a good piece on the engineering challenges presented in capping a spewing oil well 5,000 feet underwater.

‘Dome’ is a temporary method of containing gulf oil spill.

By Fred Tasker | The Miami Herald, Friday, May 7, 2010.

The 78-ton steel containment dome that crews lowered over the Deepwater Horizon site on Thursday night represents the best immediate chance to slow the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from the blown-out well.

But even if it works — a big “if” that may not play out for days — it’s still a temporary measure subject to weather and other conditions.

“A dome might slow the leak, but it can’t stop it,” said Dr. Philip Johnson, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Alabama.

The only permanent solution is to drill relief wells to shut off the flow, Johnson and other experts say. And BP says that will take three months. Because of that, a half-dozen other methods — from burning the oil to dispersing it with chemicals, continue at full speed.

Workers lowered the four-story dome onto the seabed surface late Thursday night, but said it will be Sunday or Monday before they will know if it’s working.

Oil has been leaking in three places since the April 20 explosion. One small leak was capped Wednesday. The containment box will be lowered over a much bigger leak in a pipe that’s responsible for about 85 percent of the oil that’s coming out.

“This kind of system worked very effectively after Hurricane Katrina,” said Greg McCormack, director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the University of Texas. “But it was in much shallower waters, mostly less than 200 feet deep.”

At 5,000 feet it will be much harder.

“It’s pitch black down there. There are no divers. And there are all kinds of currents,” McCormack said.

If the box being lowered Thursday can contain the bigger leak, a second box being built may be used to stop the smaller leak at the blowout preventer.

Even with two domes in place, the method depends on piping the oil up to a ship, which will siphon it into smaller ships to be carried away. But, Johnson notes, “if a hurricane comes, you’re in trouble.” Hurricane season starts in June.

Relief wells are the best solution, the experts say.

“It’s the standard method when you’ve lost control of high-pressure wells,” said Greg Pollock, head of the oil spill division of the Texas General Land Office.

BP began drilling the first of two planned relief wells near the broken well on Sunday. Tony Hayward, BP’s group chief executive, estimates it will take three months to complete.

One other alternative BP engineers are considering is to try to plug the leaking well from the top instead of drilling a relief well to cap it from the bottom. That would take two to three weeks.

Three months to drill a relief well is “an optimistic estimate,” says Dr. Don Van Nieuwenhuise, geology professor at University of Houston who helped drill two relief wells for an earlier Gulf oil well blowout. The oil in the area beneath the BP well is trapped in shale under great pressure.

Drilling into it could create new leaks if not done carefully, he said.

Ever since the oil rig exploded, dozens of BP and Coast Guard ships have been cruising through the oil slick on the surface of the Gulf spraying dispersants into it. Dispersants are mixtures of solvents, surfactants and other compounds that break up the surface tension of the slick, making the oil more soluble in water.

Wave action pulls the oil apart into even smaller droplets, which remain suspended beneath the water or fall to the ocean floor. It helps protect onshore birds and animals, but wildlife experts fear its effects on fish and other animals living beneath the sea, according to the National Academics of Science.

In another novel attempt to reduce oil damage, BP workers on Wednesday injected about 3,000 gallons of dispersant directly into the leaking well on the seabed.

So far, Coast Guard and BP vessels have used 190,285 gallons of dispersant and have another 55,611 gallons available, according to the Deepwater Horizon Response Operation.

The use of dispersants has won only grudging approval from environmentalists and even petroleum engineers.

“Dispersants are chemicals. Chemicals aren’t good in the environment. It’s a trade-off,” McCormack said.

Meanwhile, BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and an army of volunteers are using several other strategies to stop damage from the gushing oil.

• Controlled burning: On Thursday, favorable weather conditions finally allowed cleanup crews to conduct a controlled burn of oil on the surface. An earlier successful burn took place April 28, destroying thousands of gallons of oil, but rough weather had frustrated several attempts since.

In a controlled burn, boats maneuver through the oil slick towing buoyant, fire-resistant booms to gather the oil into a thick, flammable pool. When a “boomful” of oil is gathered, it is towed away and ignited. When an oil slick burns, residue hardens and drops to the ocean floor. • Oil-skimming boats: BP and the Coast Guard have at least 35 ships in the Gulf skimming the oil from the surface and pumping it into barges.

“Rough seas can limit its effectiveness, but you have to use every method available,” Pollock said.

• Floating booms: These are miles-long, 20-inch-tall devices of vinyl fabric with a foam float stitched inside for buoyancy that can be stretched along the water. They can help contain oil slicks at sea, redirect them into planned areas for recovery or disposal and hold them back from environmentally sensitive areas.

The Deepwater Horizon Response Operation reports that 535,870 feet of booms had been deployed, with another 664,9891 feet available. They are being used offshore in the Gulf to redirect the oil slick, and near shore to protect shorelines at six locations including Pensacola. For days, rough seas have disrupted many of the booms, hurting their effectiveness.

Despite all the efforts, there are no guarantees.

Said Pollock: “I just hope things can happen quick.”

We just picked this up on the internet for Governor Schwarzenegger:

“I withdrew my support for the T-Ridge project @naturalanthem. I just don’t think the reward is worth the risk and we see that in the gulf.”

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Checking out Edison’s new wind energy substation in the Mojave Desert. I love renewable energy! http://twitpic.com/1l0slp 3:03 PM May 4th via TwitPic

U.S. Oil Spill Hurting Energy Moves In Congress