Kingish.com It's a way of life

ScienceNews: The next generation of solar cells will be small. About the size of lint. But the anticipated impact: That's huge. Some of these emerging electricity-generating cells could be embedded in windows without obscuring the view. Engineers envision incorporating slightly larger ones into resins that would be molded onto the tops of cars or maybe the roofs of buildings. One team of materials scientists is developing microcells that could be rubber-stamped by the millions onto a yard of ...

Business Green: Rising energy prices and the Government's climate change policies will drive energy intensive industries overseas, warns a report published jointly today by the Energy-Intensive Users Group (EIUG) and the TUC. The Cumulative Impact of Climate Change Policies on UK Energy Intensive Industries cites steel making, ceramics, paper, cement and lime manufacture, aluminium and basic inorganic chemicals as industries based in the UK which face increases in their energy costs of up to 141 per ...

redOrbit: The terrestrial biosphere regulates atmospheric composition, and hence climate. Projections of future climate changes already account for "carbon-climate feedbacks", which means that more CO2 is released from soils in a warming climate than is taken up by plants due to photosynthesis. Climate changes will also lead to increases in the emission of CO2 and methane from wetlands, nitrous oxides from soils, volatile organic compounds from forests, and trace gases and soot from fires. All these ...

ScienceDaily: The memory of last winter's blizzards may be fading in this summer's searing heat, but scientists studying them have detected a perfect storm of converging weather patterns that had little relation to climate change. The extraordinarily cold, snowy weather that hit parts of the U.S. East Coast and Europe was the result of a collision of two periodic weather patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds. It was the snowiest ...

Scientific American: In a sweltering summer in New York City back in 1999, Yolanda Baldwin was eight months pregnant with her first child. She lived near a gas station and across the street from an intersection choked with exhaust-spewing cars and buses. Sometimes the air was so thick with pollution that she could see it, breathe it, smell it, even taste it. And she often wondered what it might be doing to her unborn child. Now Baldwin and several hundred other mothers whose sons and daughters have been ...

Reuters: Iran said today it was ready to return to talks on a nuclear fuel swap, a surprise that came shortly after the EU agreed tougher sanctions, including a block on oil and gas investment. Shortly after EU foreign ministers approved extra restrictions that went well beyond UN sanctions agreed last month, Iran said it was prepared to return to negotiations on a nuclear fuel swap "without conditions", according to the official IRNA news agency. Talking of a letter that Iran handed to ...

New York Times: Climate change legislation has been dying in the Senate for months now, but Harry Reid's decision to finally admit as much – in the midst of an endless East Coast heat wave, no less – has supporters of cap-and-trade casting about for somebody to blame. They've blamed the Obama administration, for prioritizing health care reform over an energy bill. They've blamed the American people, for being too concerned with economic issues to grapple with longer-term threats. And they've blamed figures ...

Guardian: British, American and Norwegian engineers are in a race to design and build the holy grail of wind turbines – giant, 10MW offshore machines twice the size and power of anything seen before – that could transform the global energy market because of their economies of scale. Today, a revolutionary British design that mimics a spinning sycamore leaf and which was inspired by floating oil platform technology, entered the race. Leading engineering firm Arup is to work with an academic ...

Reuters: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes to unveil his pared-back U.S. energy bill on Tuesday that focuses on reforming offshore oil drilling but Republicans were quick to dismiss its chances of passing. The bill would aim to hold BP Plc accountable for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill and boost investment in vehicles fueled by natural gas and electricity. Democrats, who last week abandoned a key Obama administration effort to forge a broad climate bill because of a lack of votes, ...

West Australian: Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has defended Labor's green credentials in the face of attacks by environmentalists frustrated by the lack of action on global warming, saying a carbon price will eventually be introduced. The Government has announced policies that offer cash handouts and tax breaks to motorists and building owners to cut greenhouse gases in the wake of its dumping of the emissions trading scheme, which was due to start next year but foundered in the Senate. Prime ...

Associated Press: Here's a look at Tony Hayward's tenure with BP: 1982: Hayward joins the company as a rig geologist in the North Sea. March 23, 2005: An explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City kills 15 people and injures 170. March 2006: More than 200,000 gallons of oil spill from a BP pipeline in Alaska, the largest-ever spill on Alaska's oil-rich North Slope. BP eventually pays about $20 million in fines. May 2007: Hayward, head of exploration and production, takes over as CEO ...

Independent (UK): Britain's offshore wind ambitions will face a £10bn funding gap within five years, energy experts will warn today, and the Government's legally-binding 2020 green targets will not be met unless the deficit can be closed. This comes a day after Energy Minister Chris Huhne revealed plans for a huge expansion of the UK's wind turbines, saying wind power would be an "important part" of meeting the country's energy demands in the future. A whopping £30bn of capital investment in ...

Daily Telegraph: NOT that she really needs another vote, the polls being where they now are, but Prime Minister Julia Gillard's climate speech last week absolutely guaranteed my support. "If we are re-elected," Gillard announced, "I will develop a dedicated process, a Citizens' Assembly, to examine over 12 months the evidence on climate change, the case for action and the possible consequences of introducing a market-based approach to limiting and reducing carbon emissions." Now, this I've just ...

Wikinews: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard presented the climate change policy for her upcoming federal election campaign in a press conference on Friday at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. The announcement resulted in a bipartisan opposition from both The Coalition and The Greens. Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin joins Friends of the Earth protester Bradley Smith and other critics in calling the updated climate change policy, which is set to include a 'Citizens ...

National Public Radio: July 25, 2010 According to a number of published reports, BP's Tony Hayward is out as the oil company's head. And he's far from the only casualty of the Gulf oil spill and its aftermath. In Washington, the disaster also helped sink congressional efforts for a comprehensive climate bill. Guest host Audie Cornish checks in with NPR congressional correspondent David Welna about how the bill died this past week, and what slim hopes are left for a revival. Copyright (c) 2010 ...

Mongabay: Not even intense international pressure, the BP oil spill, worsening floods, or the fact that the last six months have been the warmest on record globally was enough to push US climate legislation through the Senate. In the end the legislation died without a single Republican supporting it and a number of Democrats balking. Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, said they would continue to push climate legislation in the fall, but analysts say success then is unlikely given up-coming ...

San Francisco Chronicle: Letters to the editor 07.26.10 Obama's policy is a positive step for our seas 07.26.10 Climate change plan collapses in Senate 07.26.10 Educate, accommodate state's trained and jobless 07.25.10 There is plenty of blame to share for the political demise of climate change legislation in Washington. Timid Democrats, obstinate Republicans, a risk-averse White House and a sour public outlook that green groups couldn't counter. Each played a role. Following a health care fight, a $1 ...

Agence France-Presse: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard came out on top in a televised election debate against her conservative challenger on Sunday, but analysts said she failed to land a knockout blow ahead of polls. Gillard, the country's first female PM, won over the majority of swing voters who watched the debate for commercial television networks Seven and Nine -- with both studio polls also finding women preferred the former lawyer. But analysts said her rival Tony Abbott, a one-time ...

Financial Times: Increasing demand for alternative sources of energy in Asia is helping drive performance in the renewable energy sector, according to Impax Asset Management. Bruce Jenkyn-Jones, managing director of listed equities and investment manager at Impax Environmental Management, said his exposure to the region, at present about 20 per cent, would rise in the future. Europe has traditionally been the dominant market for renewables but, he argues, burgeoning economies such as India need ...

Des Moines Register: Some day, hay could be fuel for more than horses and cattle. Some Agriculture Department scientists say alfalfa could be a feedstock for ethanol fuel and offset some of the environmental problems associated with corn. The idea is to have Midwest farmers who now grow corn all the time or corn and soybeans in rotation to start growing corn and alfalfa. Critics question whether alfalfa could ever be an economical fuel crop for many farmers. But alfalfa can, like soybeans, ...