With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/13/2012, 3:38pm PT  


TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
FACEBOOK: Green News Report
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: US solar industry fights off Republican attacks; US wind industry does, too; PLUS: Rightwing media FAIL in attacking the Chevy Volt --- again ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): NW wildfires vex crews; $50 solar-powered water purifier is so green it’s like a joke; America's first ocean-energy project now delivering; Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'; Ice floes continue to shut out Shell's Arctic drilling; Gaps in US nuclear regulations; US media climate change coverage drops further; Common railroad car increases risk of hazmat spills; Canadian mining company admits 100 years of polluting WA's Columbia River ... PLUS: Calculating the true cost of electricity ... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

  • B.C. Mining Giant Admits Polluting US Waters: (The Canadian Press):
    Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. has admitted in a U.S.
    court that effluent from its smelter in southeast British Columbia has polluted the Columbia River in Washington for more than a century.
  • Northwest Wildfires Vex Crews In Washington, Wyoming And Montana (AP)
  • Calculating the true cost of electricity: (Deutsche-Welle):
    Taking into account health and environmental damage, wind and solar power from new plants in Europe is actually cheaper than energy from coal and nuclear power plants, according to a new report.
  • $50 solar-powered water purifier is so green it’s like a joke (Grist)
  • A first for America: Ocean energy project now delivering clean electricity to U.S. electric utility grid (Portland Press Herald):
    Maine’s Ocean Renewable Power Company has started generating power for the grid from its tidal energy turbine on the bottom of Cobscook Bay near Lubec, in easternmost Maine. It is the first commercial tidal energy project to do so in North America, beating larger rivals who have tested or plan to test devices of their own in the Bay of Fundy region.
  • Warmer Temperatures Make New #USDA Plant Zone Map Obsolete (CUNY):
    Gardeners and landscapers may want to rethink their fall tree plantings. Warming temperatures have already made the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new cold-weather planting guidelines obsolete, according to Dr. Nir Krakauer, assistant professor of civil engineering in The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering.
  • VIDEO: Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions' (BBC):
    White ice reflects more sunlight than open water, acting like a parasol. Melting of white Arctic ice, currently at its lowest level in recent history, is causing more absorption. Prof Wadhams calculates this absorption of the sun's rays is having an effect "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man".
  • Ice Floes Freeze Arctic Drilling (Oceana):
    While oil spills occur nearly every day in the Gulf of Mexico, high winds, waves, fog and unpredictable ice floes promise to make drilling in the Arctic even more fraught with hazard.
    ...
    “There is no price tag on the Arctic,” [Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless] said. “No matter how much money the company spends or how many vessels it mobilizes, Shell should not be allowed put the Arctic Ocean at risk.”
  • Addressing a Gap in Nuclear Regulation (NYT Green):
    The question of a gap in regulations was first raised early this year by Gregory B. Jaczko, the commission’s previous chairman, who advanced the idea that the commission’s goals were so flawed that what transpired at Fukushima could have been judged to meet the agency’s safety standards.
  • ABC’s Blakemore: Climate Coverage Drop Due To ‘Disinformation And Intimidation Campaign’ Plus ‘Immensity’ Of Crisis (Climate Progress):
    Complaints include what seems to the scientists a willful omission of overwhelming evidence the new droughts and floods are worsened by man made global warming, and unquestioning repetition, gullible at best, of transparent anti-science propaganda credibly reported to be funded by fossil fuel interests and anti-regulation allies.
  • Common Rail Tanker Has Dangerous Flaw that Risks Hazmat Cargo Spills: (Minneapolis Star-Tribune):
    Republican Meteorologist to Mitt Romney: My Top Ten Reasons for Republicans to Accept Reality on the Climate (Huffington Post Green)
  • NYC Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn (NY Times):
    [E]ven as city officials earn high marks for environmental awareness, critics say New York is moving too slowly to address the potential for flooding that could paralyze transportation, cripple the low-lying financial district and temporarily drive hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
  • OP-ED: The Chemical Threat to America (Former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, NY Times):
    We considered using existing authority in the Clean Air Act to reduce the vulnerability of chemical facilities to acts of terrorism, primarily by requiring facilities to evaluate the use of safer chemicals and processes. After considerable internal discussion, however, we decided that the best way forward was to enact legislation that would give the E.P.A. additional authority to do so. Unfortunately, and much to my frustration, after a long, multiagency effort, the White House declined to endorse a draft bill, and Congress did not act on its own.

    This has now become a 10-year battle. Today, Congress is hopelessly gridlocked on extending the inadequate homeland security appropriations statute that currently regulates the industry.

  • China orders Renewable Energy Standard for wind energy (Reuters):
    China will order its dominant electricity distributors to source up to 15 percent of their power from renewable energy including wind, but slow compliance means it may be years before the country's struggling wind power developers benefit, industry executives say.
  • GM calls report of money-losing Volt sales 'grossly wrong' (LA Times) [emphasis added]:
    General Motors disputes a Reuters report that the automaker is losing $49,000 on each plug-in hybrid Volt sold. It accuses the news agency of using bad math.
    ...
    The automaker said the news agency incorrectly "allocated product development costs across the number of Volts sold instead of allocating across the lifetime volume of the program, which is how business operates."
  • Why GM Actually Is Getting Its Money's Worth From The Chevy Volt (International Business Times)
  • 5 Ways the Stanford Study Sells Organics Short (Mother Jones):
    In short, the authors' findings confirm what the Environmental Working Group, crunching USDA data, has been telling us for years: that organic fruits and vegetables harbor significantly fewer pesticide residues than their chemically grown peers.
  • Essential Climate Science Findings:
  • Share article...