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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The discovery of a grand-canyon sized valley under the West Antarctic ice helps explain why the area is losing mass at such a rate—the valley helps spread the effect of warming coastal waters to the inland—and will aid in projecting sea level rise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0727-grand-canyon-antarctica.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0727-grand-canyon-antarctica.html</font></a></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Scientists at UCLA have produced a photovoltaic polymeric film which is nearly transparent and stronger than silicon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>One use would be to produce electricity from windows but about any structural surface would apparently do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-ucla-transparent-solar-film-could-be-gamechanger-20120727,0,4271267.story"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-ucla-transparent-solar-film-could-be-gamechanger-20120727,0,4271267.story</font></a></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="3" face="Calibri"> </font></o:p></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>A number of advances at Georgia Tech support technology to capture CO2 at $100 a ton, with the prospect of cost reductions to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Sequestration is not addressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></font><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120724104647.htm"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120724104647.htm</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Restored mangroves store CO2 at a cost of $4-10 a ton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=restoring-mangroves-may-prove-cheap-way-to-cool-climate"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=restoring-mangroves-may-prove-cheap-way-to-cool-climate</font></a></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="3" face="Calibri"> </font></o:p></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Our best hope for avoiding runaway warming and building a sustainable economy may lie in a general demand that the government make conversion to clean energy its primary goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/10585-climate-change-and-the-next-us-revolution"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://truth-out.org/news/item/10585-climate-change-and-the-next-us-revolution</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Gus Speth and others have argued for this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>I recommend his new book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">America the Possible</i>, which advances a practical and transformational program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Speth is a Professor of Law at the U of VT and has led environmental<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>efforts at the international level since he was science advisor to the Carter administration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>While the release date is listed as September I have received my copy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.amazon.com/America-Possible-Manifesto-Economy-American/dp/0300180764/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343760216&sr=1-3&keywords=gus+speth"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.amazon.com/America-Possible-Manifesto-Economy-American/dp/0300180764/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343760216&sr=1-3&keywords=gus+speth</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Current Canadian experience shows that government climate action must be mandated and publicly tracked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Plan%20bureaucrats%20savvy%20climatechange%20risks%20easy%20ignore%20documents/7008023/story.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Plan%20bureaucrats%20savvy%20climatechange%20risks%20easy%20ignore%20documents/7008023/story.html</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Reactionary economic pressures may be expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>BC’s Prime Minister is conditioning participation in fashioning a national energy policy on a bigger cut of the proceeds from a tar sands oil pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>In the US, the XL pipeline keeps popping back up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Premier%20Christy%20Clark%20derails%20forge%20national%20energy/7000434/story.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Premier%20Christy%20Clark%20derails%20forge%20national%20energy/7000434/story.html</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Katherine Hamilton believes that we can move to an energy transition without politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>I wonder if she doesn’t mean that the current propaganda and economic pressures for inaction might be sidestepped by the urgency of the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>I notice Shell’s ad accompanying her article and am reduced to hoping that such ploys will be ineffective with a public which has become convinced of the need to move beyond fossil fuels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://energy.aol.com/2012/07/28/clean-energy-policy-reducing-climate-change-without-the-politic/"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://energy.aol.com/2012/07/28/clean-energy-policy-reducing-climate-change-without-the-politic/</font></a></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="3" face="Calibri"> </font></o:p></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>27 gigawatts of US coal fired power capacity, 8.5% of the total, is expected to retire in the next 5 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Suggested reasons are aging, cost, and regulatory pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7290"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7290</font></a></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="3" face="Calibri"> </font></o:p></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Calibri">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Fast neutron reactors use plutonium as a fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>In the short term the prepared plutonium poses an increased security risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>In the long term it will be recycled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>
As expensive as fourth generation reactors are, they would provide reliable and continuous power on a large scale.
</font><a href="http://e360.yale.edu/feature/are_fast-breeder_reactors_a_nuclear_power_panacea/2557/"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://e360.yale.edu/feature/are_fast-breeder_reactors_a_nuclear_power_panacea/2557/</font></a></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has released a report on the technical potential of renewable energy sources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The report does not address economic or market restraints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Solar has far and away the greatest potential in the US with 190,000 gigawatts, 150,000 of that in rural utility-scale photovoltaics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51946.pdf"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51946.pdf</font></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><font size="3" face="Calibri">
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