Re: [Biofuel] The great biofuels scandal - Telegraph
Don't use land, use the sea. Seaweed biofuels: A green alternative that might just save the planet http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/01/seaweed-biofuel-alternative-energy-kelp-scotland Kelp Farming: More of plants energy goes into growth and carbohydrate production (doesn’t need to fight gravity). One species grows up to a foot/day. No fertilizer is necessary. Cleans up sewage areas. Cools the water to prevent hurricanes. Cools the water to restore krill/ plankton and other marine life. Absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Re-oxygenates dead zones. After kelp distillation the liquid stillage left over is excellent organic fertilizer. This would replace the toxic fertilizers now used and eliminate fertilizer plant explosions. Using American coastal areas for kelp farming would replace all transportation fuel for the US as well as a large chunk of natural gas and electricity. Needs to be implemented world-wide to slow effects of climate change. No farmland is required. Existing oil platforms could be converted to plants that process seaweed for alcohol and piped to shore. Jobs for fishermen and others. Neatly solves many problems in one stroke. Kelp is currently being farmed for food successfully in Maine, USA by Sarah Redmond, Seth Barker, Tollef Olson and Paul Dobbins and in Connecticut, USA by Dr. Charles Yarish. Kelp farming for fuel would slow the effects of climate change and get us off fossil fuels. This new industry needs to be funded and expanded worldwide. A free kelp farming manual may be downloaded here: http://www.oceanapproved.com/blog/ “To download a copy of our kelp farming manual, please click on the link below.” Ocean Approved OceanApproved_Kelp Manual Information on ethanol production and use can be found at: David Blume http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com All ‘problems’ with engines/vehicles have been worked out. Contact David for solutions. - Original Message - From: zeke Yewdall Sent: 12/18/13 12:40 PM To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] The great biofuels scandal - Telegraph A. Good to know Z Sent from my iPhone On Dec 18, 2013, at 5:59 AM, Keith Addison ke...@journeytoforever.org wrote: Hi all Bjorn Lomborg is, was, or used to be into various shades of global warming denial, depending, I think, on which way the wind's blowing. Recent big winds may have deepened his apparent shade of green. Professional contrarian, author of the infamous The Sceptical Environmentalist. He's a statistician, without environmental qualifications. At a promotional reading of his book in London in 2001 he had a cream pie thrown in his face by none other than Mark Lynas - he who recently changed coats to become a supporter of nuclear power. Maybe they deserve each other. I don't think we deserve either of them. More here: http://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=sustainablelorgbiofuel%40lists.sustainablelists.orgq=Lomborg All best Keith On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Bjørn Lomborg wrote: The costs of global climate policies is running at about $1billion every day. Wind turbines cost 10 times the estimated benefits in terms of emissions cuts, and solar panels cost close to 100 times the benefits. Yet, with spending on these technologies of about £136 billion annually, there are a lot of interests in keeping the tap open. But opposition to the rampant proliferation of biofuels also shows the way to a more rational climate policy. If we can stop the increase in biofuels we can save lives, save money, and start finding better ways to help. This is about investing in more productive agriculture that can feed more people more cheaply while freeing up space for wildlife. It seems to give a fairly rational explanation of how bad mega-biofuels are. then concludes with these two paragraphs which all of a sudden attack wind turbines and solar panels without giving any data to back up their fairly wild claims. And gives a fairly vague sentence about more production agriculture. Does that mean urban farms, edible landscapes or more intensive chemical use and GMO crops, or what I was pretty on to agreeing with everything he said till the end, but now I kind of question exactly where he's coming from and what his agenda is... Z ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
[Biofuel] Nuke waste con Game draft GEIS
Refer to NIRS or Beyond Nuclear for further information. Comments taken through Dec 20, 2013 at 11:59 pm. How to submit public comments to NRC re: its Nuke Waste Con Game draft GEIS http://www.beyondnuclear.org/radioactive-waste-whatsnew/2013/9/19/how-to-submit-public-comments-to-nrc-re-its-nuke-waste-con-g.html Public comments will be accepted by NRC through various means. Comments can be submitted online at http://www.regulations.gov , using Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246. Comments can be submitted via e-mail to rulemaking.comme...@nrc.gov , citing Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246. Comments can be snail-mailed to: Secretary; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff (cite Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246 at the top of your comments). Comments can be faxed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at (301) 415-1101, citing Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246. Comments can also be hand-delivered to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 AM and 4:15 PM Eastern Time on Federal workdays; telephone (301) 415-1677. painc...@mail.com Secretary; U.S. NRC Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246 RE: *Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS)* Feedback as follows: Close down all nuclear power plants starting with Mark I and Mark II’s and all plants using salt-water. Use HOSS until a repository is available. No interim storage facility should be allowed. All spent fuel in pools over five years old should be immediately removed and placed in HOSS. Plants should be closed to allow for fuel to start cooling. With climate change, these plants use up our water supply, increase the heat in our water supply thereby warming the planet and destroying our oceans, lakes and rivers. Nuke plants are grid dependent for cooling. When the grid goes down, there is only one week of diesel on site to provide back-up to cool the plants. The diesel generators have been known to fail. More Chernobyls and Fukushima’s are a certainty if we do not shut these plants down while we have some control and foresight. Nuke plants during normal operation release radionuclides into the air, water and land and we, as a race, are dying because of it. Nuke plants are not ‘green energy”. Sorry Senator Alexander but you are wrong. Please read Dr. Helen Caldicott’s book, NuclearPower Is Not The Answer and educate yourself. To power our 21st century we need renewables. Knowing that radionuclides such as Iodine-129 with a 1/2 life of 15.9 million years and Technetium-99 with a 1/2 life of 213,000 years will be contained in this repository and that nuclear waste must be isolated from the environment for at least 10 - 20 times the 1/2 life of the radionuclide, also known as it’s hazardous life, the law should be changed. Current law only states that high-level waste should be isolated from the biosphere for 10,000 years. Since we know this is impossible, we should at least admit that to ourselves and stop the deceit and cover-up.Are we as a nation capable of such an undertaking? Can we legitimately say it is in our people’s interest to keep generating nuclear waste? Do we have an obligation to the other people and creatures of this planet to stop making nuclear waste? Re-write this law with sanity at it’s core instead of madness. The repository should be designed to permit ongoing monitoring of containers to prevent leaks into our land, water and air and designed for retrieval and repackaging if leaks occur. Replaceable filters will be used to capture radioactive gas. Ongoing radiation monitors will be used on site as well as a citizens monitoring network in the surrounding communities. A system to deter wildlife will be in place powered by a renewable energy system. Site will be well marked to deter visitors and explanation of site posted in all languages. Site will be well guarded. Site may include separation of dry cask storage waste from liquid/ transuranic wastes to promote easier monitoring and replacement of containers. *Repository will not be sited until all nuclear power plants are closed and the generation of nuclear waste at commercial facilities ceases.* *Time line for this is five years.* Defense should phase out/ decommission nuclear weapons ASAP. The new organization should be enacted through the legislative branch, not the executive. More public hearings and public access to reports/ meetings is needed. The public has a right to comment on appointees. The agency should be in charge of all waste including low level waste buried in trenches, which needs to be exhumed. Acceptable exposure levels should be based on standards to protect the most vulnerable members of the community. The Price Anderson Act should be repealed. The nuclear facilities should have their own insurance of at least $1 trillion to $9 trillion per reactor
[Biofuel] EPA finds 33.5 million more fake ethanol credits | The Daily Caller
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/fraud-epa-finds-33-5-million-more-fake-ethanol-credits/ Fraud! EPA finds 33.5 million more fake biodiesel credits 3:20 PM 12/18/2013 Michael Bastasch The Environmental Protection Agency has invalidated 33.5 million renewable fuel credits sold by an Indiana-based biodiesel company for biofuels that were never produced. This is the fourth time the agency has had to take fraudulent credits off the market. Refiners are required to purchase renewable fuel credits (RINs) from biofuel producers to comply with the federal biofuel mandate. However, the biofuel credit market has been wrought with fraud as the EPA identified about 140 million fake RINs earlier this year. “This most recent indictment increases the total number of invalid RINs to over 170 million,” said Charles Drevna, president of the American Fuel Petrochemical Manufacturers. “We still, however, do not know the full scope of the fraudulent activities within the biodiesel industry except to recognize that it is extensive, pervasive and unfortunately not quantifiable since EPA does not provide details about its ongoing investigations.” The EPA’s filing against the former owners of E-Biofuels LLC follows charges levied against the company in September by the Justice Department. The DOJ accused the company of “falsely claiming its products qualified under government incentives for renewable fuels,” reports Bloomberg. Today biodiesel credits are worth about 40 cents each, meaning that the EPA’s actions could affect about $13.4 million worth of RIN’s, according to Bloomberg. Refiners must purchase RINs in order to comply with federal regulations in lieu of blending biofuels into gasoline, but are still fined by the EPA when they unknowingly purchase fraudulent credits. “EPA unfortunately continues to hold obligated parties responsible for illegal activities perpetrated by biodiesel producers such as E-Biofuels,” Drevna added. “In the absence of an EPA-approved affirmative defense tied to reasonable due diligence standards, the industry remains unfairly exposed to a system that actually penalizes the victim of fraud rather than focusing on the perpetrator of the crime.” The federal biofuel mandate, called the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), has come under fire recently from a wide variety of industries for causing food and fuel prices to spike as well as causing environmental harm. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been actively discussing how best to reform the mandate in order to ease economic and environmental damage caused by the mandate. “It is harming as many farmers as it helps, is becoming obsolete as an energy independence resource and increasing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Scott Faber, president of the Environmental Working Group. Even the EPA has admitted that the RFS is unworkable the way it is currently structured as it is forcing more ethanol onto the market than refiners can handle — a phenomenon called the “blendwall.” “We’re recognizing that the blend wall has been reached,” Christopher Grundler, head of the EPA’s transportation and air office, told senators in a hearing on the RFS. “Reaching the blend wall clearly presents constraints to using higher ethanol quantities because of the infrastructure and other market limitations,” Grundler said. While some industries and lawmakers are pushing for full repeal of the RFS, many are simply asking Congress to reform the mandate to ease economic pressures and address environmental damages. -- Darryl McMahon Failure is not an option; it comes standard. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Keystone XL Pipe Shuns Infrared Sensors to Detect Leaks - Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-17/keystone-xl-pipeline-shuns-high-tech-oil-spill-detectors.html Keystone XL Pipe Shuns Infrared Sensors to Detect Leaks By Rebecca Penty and Mike Lee Jun 18, 2013 5:19 PM ET TransCanada Corp. (TRP), which says Keystone XL will be the safest pipeline ever built, isn’t planning to use infrared sensors or fiber-optic cables to detect spills along the system’s 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) path to Texas refineries from fields in Alberta. Pipeline companies have been slow to adopt new leak detection technology, including infrared equipment on helicopters flying 80 miles an hour or acoustic sensors that can identify the sound of oil seeping from a pinhole-sized opening. Instead of tools that can find even the smallest leaks, TransCanada will search for spills using software-based methods and traditional flyovers and surveys. As pipelines multiply across North America to carry booming supplies of oil and natural gas, a series of recent spills and explosions are raising concerns about the safety of the conduits, including Keystone XL, which is awaiting U.S. government approval. “There are lots of things engineering-wise that are possible, that the industry doesn’t do,” said Carl Weimer, executive director of Pipeline Safety Trust, a fuel-transportation safety advocacy group in Bellingham, Washington. As pipeline executives say they’re changing their industry’s culture to tolerate zero incidents, companies aren’t spending on technology to catch even pinhole-sized leaks that can turn into bigger problems, Weimer said. Studying Leaks Though the so-called external leak detection tools have been recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, the Calgary-based company says they’re impractical for the entire project. At the EPA’s request, TransCanada is studying whether to add the systems in sensitive environmental areas, Grady Semmens, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail. “Leak detection is just one part of a safe pipeline,” Semmens said. “The No. 1 priority is to build a pipeline that prevents leaks.” Keystone XL is part of an additional 4.7 million barrels a day of new U.S. oil pipeline capacity expected to be built during the next two years, according to the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, a Washington-based industry group. About 19.2 million barrels of crude are transported each day in the U.S. Pipelines spilled an average of 112,569 barrels a year in the U.S. from 2007 to 2012, a 3.5 percent increase from the previous five-year period, according to U.S. Transportation Department figures compiled by Bloomberg. The department is studying leak detection as it considers new rules to improve safety. Equipment available to spot spills more quickly would have cut 75 percent off the estimated $1.7 billion toll in property damage caused by major incidents on oil lines from 2001 to 2011, consultants said in a December report prepared for the department. Internal Detection The figure doesn’t include cleanup costs in environmentally sensitive areas, fines, lost life and the potentially much bigger financial impact to operators related to investor concerns. Leak-detection technology consists of internal and external systems. Much of the newest technology tends to be for external monitors that look for leaks outside the pipeline, such as the infrared sensors and fiber-optic cables. Internal systems, most often employed by operators, rely on computer-based tools to remotely analyze flow data transmitted every few seconds by sensors along the conduit. Operators using software-based systems are alerted if pressure drops, indicating a possible leak. Leak Threshold Keystone XL would have to be spilling more than 12,000 barrels a day -- or 1.5 percent of its 830,000 barrel capacity - - before its currently planned internal spill-detection systems would trigger an alarm, according to the U.S. State Department, which is reviewing the proposal. In comparison, BP Plc (BP/)’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico was leaking at an estimated rate of about 53,000 barrels a day, according to a U.S. Interior Department report. “You’re talking about a system that isn’t going to be able to detect a leak that’s greater than half a million gallons a day,” said Anthony Swift, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group in Washington. The company’s leak detection specialist would be able to spot leaks “well below” the 1.5 percent threshold by analyzing trends in data collected over a period in time, said Vern Meier, vice president of pipeline safety and compliance at the company. TransCanada is seeking U.S. approval for Keystone XL amid heightened regulatory scrutiny following spills such as the 5,000 barrels leaked in March by Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)’s Pegasus line in Arkansas, and the 2010 rupture of an Enbridge Inc. (ENB) line in
