[GWSG] Nuke safety; use nukes; nukes safer; solar cheap peak load; heat masked; droughts; tundra burns; 54.5 mpg; green homes; slr

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Der Spiegel describes safety concerns at the TVA’s Watts Bar plant (and, by implication, in the US nuclear industry generally).  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,775209,00.html

2.  Jim Hansen argues strenuously for a carbon fee—and for nuclear power, and for the limited potential of renewable sources—in this personal and informal blog entry, “Baby Lauren and the Kool Aid”.  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf

3.  The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a new and much lower estimate of the human cost of a meltdown.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/science/earth/30radiation.html?_r=1

4.  Solar energy is a bargain now for peak load.  Thanks to Pam Ingram for the link.  http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/25/278369/this-looks-like-a-job-for-solar-pv-heat-wave-causes-record-breaking-electricity-demand/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

5.  About a third of additional global warming has been masked in the last decade by aerosols in the upper atmosphere, much of it from coal plants.  http://e360.yale.edu/digest/stratospheric_pollution_is_slowing_global_warming_study_says/3050/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29

6.  Wind turbines are getting bigger, smaller, and stranger.  One moves in a figure 8 like a bumblebee’s wings and another looks like Sauron’s eye.  They are also being adapted to locations in new places.   http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wind-power-sidebar-20110724,0,7458534.story

7.    NOAA publishes not only a US drought monitor but an outlook (currently, though the end of October).  Texas and some contiguous states are expected to remain in trouble, while Florida and much of the rest of the Southeast should improve.  An experimental forecast runs through October 2012 (on the “seasonal outlooks” tab).   http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/drought_assessment.shtml

8.  One tundra fire in the Arctic in 2007 released as much CO2 as the Arctic vegetation sequesters in a year.  A drier, hotter Arctic may well see more first, creating a new positive feedback.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14306781

9.  US auto manufacturer’s fleets must average at least 54.5 mpg by 2025.  http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2097499/obama-announce-fuel-efficiency-standards?WT.rss_f=&WT.rss_a=Obama+to+announce+new+fuel+efficiency+standards

10.  Gainesville Green allows you to compare the energy use of homes.  http://gainesville-green.com/

11.  A new study indicates that Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise during interglacial periods of the last 125,000 years was less than had been thought, which implies that the West Antarctic’s contribution was greater.  (We are now approaching the maximum interglacial temperature.)    http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/2087336/sea_level_rise_less_from_greenland_more_from_antarctica_than/index.html?source=r_science
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