[GWSG] US move/nonmove; Transatomic; more big storms; green jobs; Price of C; Indians contest pipelines; Germans out

[Tilley, Al]

1.  President Obama announced a plan to divert $2 billion in oil revenues to renewable energy research.  Some had hoped for a stronger move toward an energy transition.  http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/obama-proposes-major-new-renewables-research/   The administration appears to be delaying regulation of the emissions of existing power plants, but denies that it is stalling.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/15/us-usa-climate-power-idUSBRE92E0UJ20130315?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

2.  Transatomic, an MIT spinoff, proposes 500 megawatt nuclear reactors cooled by molten salt.  Benefits: half the cost of current standard reactors, greatly decreased waste, greatly increased safety, no cooling water use, and they can be produced in a factory.  The fuel is waste from current reactors.  It may take 5 years to develop detailed engineering plans.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that it will take 5 years after that to prepare regulations.  (Meanwhile, the administration is concentrating on producing the small conventional modular reactors.)  The Chinese hope to test a reactor similar to Transatomic’s by 2020 and have committed to producing these generation 4 reactors.  My hope is that the Chinese plans will exert enough pressure on our system to produce results before we have built a fleet of outrageously unsafe, dangerous, expensive water hogs.   http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512321/safer-nuclear-power-at-half-the-price/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-energy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130318

3.  A new hurricane model from the Niels Bohr Institute indicates that a degree of additional warming will increase the frequency of Katrina-level storm surges by a factor of 3-4, and 2 degrees of warming, by a factor of 10.  Sea level rise will add to the destructiveness.  Since 1923 we have had a Katrina-level event every 20 years but that is due to change.   http://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news13/more-hurricane-surges-in-the-future/

3.  In 2011 jobs grew at 4 times the rate of all other types combined, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  (The sequester will mean the cancellation of such reports in the future.)  http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-green-jobs-20130319,0,2962980.story

4.  This short on the Price of Carbon from the Climate Reality Project pleased me enough to pass it along.  http://climaterealityproject.org/the-price-of-carbon/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=carbon_launch

5.  An alliance of Canadian and US Indian tribes has vowed to block pipelines carrying tar sands oil through their territories.  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/canada-pipelines-aboriginals-idUKL1N0CCB7720130320

6.  Germany’s largest research institute has disassociated itself from the Canadian tar sands project because it feared for its reputation.  The article provides a general sketch of how things stand with tar sands.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/20/german-institute-canadian-tar-sands
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