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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>An attempt by utilities and regulators in Michigan and Illinois to resist paying for transmission of wind energy into their states has been blocked in federal court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The effect is to enable plans for regional wind power and for the transmission of renewable energy generally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>States will not be able to favor local renewable energy in their renewable energy portfolio plans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></font><a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059982660"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059982660</font></a>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Three renewable energy projects totaling 520 megawatts have been approved in Arizona and Nevada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>One is a 100 mw concentrating solar project with power storage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/secretary-jewell-announces-approval-of-three-renewable-energy-projects-in-arizona-and-nevada.cfm"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/secretary-jewell-announces-approval-of-three-renewable-energy-projects-in-arizona-and-nevada.cfm</font></a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Two MIT nuclear engineering grads have worked up a modular molten salt 500 megawatt nuclear reactor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Like other Generation 4 plans, it is walk-away safe, uses spent fuel as input, and produces only low level waste, having gotten 96% of the energy out of the fuel in its process of boiling water to drive a turbine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Also like other Gen 4 plans, it faces technical and regulatory hurdles, but perhaps its time has come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The article explains the Gen 4 idea well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/06/a-new-way-to-do-nuclear.html?mbid=nl_Daily%20(265)"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/06/a-new-way-to-do-nuclear.html?mbid=nl_Daily%20(265)</font></a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>A report in the 3<sup>rd</sup> year of a 5-year NASA study of carbon release in the Arctic finds “amazing and potentially troubling” amounts, much more than models projected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130610.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130610.html</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Scientists will need further measurements to estimate the risk of a runaway feedback (with released carbon causing heat which releases yet more carbon and so on).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>If that were to happen the results could be more severe than we had anticipated, both because of the enlarged estimate of the amount of carbon stored in the Arctic and because new work raises the expected release rate.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></font><a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/ticking-arctic-carbon-bomb-may-b.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/ticking-arctic-carbon-bomb-may-b.html</font></a>
<font face="Calibri"><font size="3">I will pass on immediately whatever new info I get on this topic, and urge you to forward to me whatever might be of interest. <o:p></o:p></font></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>This <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Guardian</i> essay argues that internal surveillance by the US government in part anticipates hostility toward the government and corporations arising from climate crises, and in part is done on behalf of corporations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism</font></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><font size="3" face="Calibri">
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