Enviru, which is looking for funding (Good Luck, Disco Duck) to retrofit 1 million auto rickshaws in India, held a race in Rotterdam in May. Final hype judging will take place later this month in India.

Elisabeth Rosenthal has an excellent video interview with Stef Van Dongen, director of Enviu. He “saw a huge opportunity to improve the environment and also to improve the life of the rickshaw drivers.” So, he established the “Hybrid Auto-Rickshaw Battle,” “challenging university teams in Holland and India to come up with a prototype for a cleaner rickshaw that reduces emissions and fuel use, and is also cheap to build.”

Public transportation in much of South and Southeast Asia is by Tuk-Tuk, or auto-rickshaw. “There are 3 million alone in India,” The ubiquitous two- and three-wheelers of ontribute massive amounts of pollution. Enviu established a competition to design a low emissions versions.

As Barcelona treehugger Petz Scholtus previously noted:

Enviu has already researched the auto rickshaw situation together with experts in Bangalore and Hyderabad, which proved the project to be more than worthwhile. Their study revealed that a hybrid auto rickshaw can increase a driver’s income to at least 35%, due to the money they save on fuel. Furthermore, the overall impact of upgrading one million TukTuks can reduce the CO2 emissions of each one by 40-60%.

Technically it is possible to design one upgrading system for all because the engines of auto rickshaws are generally of the same kind. The challenge also lies in making this system affordable for the current Tuk Tuk drivers around the world.

• Orbital Combustion Process
• EnviroFit Retrofit Kit
• Year Two, Challenge X, Hokie E85 Hybrid Design
• EcoMotors to offer Diesel Range Extender
• No Oil at All, Y’all

Now, for us old folks, an even greater threat than degradation of the atmosphere and catastrophic climate change from a continuation of business as usual practices… MORE GAS!

O.K., O.K., less drama, more data… The Pickens Press Corp (an elite unit of Boone’s Army) relays a Dallas Morning News editorial.

When a company the size of AT&T says it plans to make a massive investment in compressed natural gas-powered vehicles, the rest of us need to take notice.

The Dallas-based communications giant recently promised to spend $565 million over the next decade to buy 15,000 alternative fuel vehicles. At least $350 million of the investment, believed to be the largest of its kind by a U.S. company, will go toward purchasing 8,000 compressed natural gas vehicles.

This effort deserves immense praise. For the sake of national security and economic prosperity, the United States needs to wean itself from imported oil. And although natural gas is also a fossil fuel, it’s a step in the right direction.

Hm, now where have I heard those initials before? Ah, nevermind, back to technology in the pursuit of profit and power.

Efforts such as this one by AT&T can boost a technology that has been slow to take hold in the United States. Large companies often have thousands of fleet vehicles that they replace periodically. It makes perfect sense to replace aging dirtier-burning gasoline-powered vehicles with cleaner natural gas and hybrid varieties. Each drop of gasoline that isn’t burned benefits the environment and cuts the apron strings to foreign oil.

AT&T’s investment is just the latest validation of ideas coming from T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman who has become a Pied Piper for domestic energy independence. A year ago, Pickens introduced a broad energy plan that, among other things, would convert trucks and company fleets that burn diesel and gas into vehicles running on compressed natural gas.

At the time, many dismissed him as a shrewd, self-serving businessman who stood to profit handsomely if the country adopted his plan, which also included investments in wind and solar energy. Indeed, he has invested in companies that produce natural gas, sell natural gas vehicle fuel and build wind farms.

But Pickens also has pumped millions of dollars into efforts to encourage Americans to change their energy habits and has supported federal legislation designed to shift the nation from foreign energy sources. His advocacy has been bipartisan and broad: He has buttonholed mayors, business executives and lawmakers in his crusade to change the way Americans produce and use energy.

“During the 2004 presidential campaign, Pickens spent $3 million to help bankroll the Swift Boat organization, a group tied to supporters of President Bush that ran television ads questioning Kerry’s record as a swift boat commander during the Vietnam War. The ads were believed to have damaged Kerry in several battleground states, contributing to his narrow loss to Bush… Today, Pickens is bankrolling a much different kind of campaign.”

Still, the nation lacks a comprehensive network of natural gas refilling stations or, for that matter, many natural gas-powered cars and trucks owned by private individuals. That’s why it’s essential that operators of commercial fleets become an aggressive part of the solution. AT&T, for example, says it will help build about 40 compressed natural gas fueling stations.

The compressed natural gas industry also could use some help from Congress, namely the extension of natural gas fuel, vehicle and infrastructure tax credits for 18 years and incentives for auto manufacturers to produce natural gas vehicles.

Pickens deserves a big share of the credit for the progress so far. His relentless advocacy for this issue is part of the reason the nation is thinking about energy in new ways.

Yes, yes, I recall it was just two posts ago that this blog favorably reviewed the proposed development on public lands of combined cycle, solar thermal and natural gas turbine power plants. Nevertheless, mass development of NGVs is NOT a step in the right direction. Such an approach does away with the more favorable part of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) development, i.e., making efficient use of ubiquitous solar energy.

Rather, it commits development to more ICE. Internal combustion engines) have been significant contributors of human caused, carbon emissions, which some Congress critters have just caught on, might be, now they ain’t saying definitely, but just might be a problem, if those “other” countries start to misbehave! (Hawk-splut)

Bill Mauldin was most famous for his World War II cartoons depicting American soldiers, as represented by the archetypal characters Willie and Joe, two weary and bedraggled infantry troopers who stoically endure the difficulties and dangers of duty in the field.

Natural gas in D.C.

The Pickens Press Corps informs us dogfaces that a Senate version of H.R. 1835 is expected to be introduced this week and key provisions of the legislation encourage the use of natural gas.

• –Extend for 18 years the alternative fuel credits for natural gas used as a vehicle fuel, the purchase of natural gas-fueled vehicles, and the installation of natural gas vehicle refueling property credit.
• –Make all dedicated natural gas-fueled vehicles eligible for a credit equal to 80 percent of the vehicle’s incremental cost.
• –Make all bi-fuel/natural gas-fueled vehicles eligible for a credit equal to 50 percent of the vehicle’s incremental cost.
• –Allow the vehicle and infrastructure tax credits to count against the AMT provisions and make them transferable.
• –Provide grants for light- and heavy-duty natural gas vehicle and engine development.

Please note. While they may have constituted a partial solution, back in the 1970s, when America experienced its first gas crisis, such shenanigans now fail from an environmental perspective. The momentum to create multi-fuel vehicles is still business as usual with more image than substance about serious reduction of our excessive carbon footprint.

“Ah, the American Plan, eh?”

You bet your gas! Initially, the “Pickens Plan” called for “the U.S. to generate 22 percent of its electricity through wind and other sources.” Many, like this blog, enlisted when Boone became “a critic of U.S. dependence on oil and a champion of wind power.”

A further note… This post is subject to valid criticism. Isn’t choosing compressed natural gas rather than gas flaring other than BAU? Furthermore, don’t natural gas range extended vehicles have a better carbon footprint that many clunkers now on the road, especially when biogas from anaerobic digestion of waste is the fuel? While this blog would agree with such assertions, the larger question is whether you choose technology for personal profit over science in the service of humanity.

Even the most optimistic climate scientists say we have precious little time in which to enact bold policy change to mitigate the worst consequences of anthropogenic emissions. And, those scientists suggesting solutions affirm that renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, are right choices. So, General Pickens drops wind power development, and more Congress critters might agree with natural gas as a limited, local strategy. It may be a politically savvy move, Poseidon Adventure fans, it still is the wrong end of the Sinking Ship.

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In an interview with the New Scientist, Lovelock explains that his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, examines five dreaded positive feedback loops. Those processes, which now are underway, will become ferocious amplifiers of global heating.

If there is any doubt that these processes are underway, one need only look at sea-level rise, maintains Lovelock. Given the complexity of the millions of interactions, it is better to ignore year-to-year temperature fluctuations. Instead, watch the oceans, says Lovelock. Sea level rise is a trustworthy indicator of the “Earth’s heat balance.”

“Sea level rise is the best available measure of the heat absorbed by the earth because it comes from only two things,” he writes. “[These are] the melting of glaciers and the expansion of water as it warms. Sea level is the thermometer that indicates true global heating.”

Lovelock describes how the most important of these feedback loops already in motion—the loss of reflective ice cover, the death of carbon eating algae as oceans warm, and methane released by thawing permafrost—will soon accelerate the heating trend already underway, leading to sudden and dramatic shifts in global climate. Rather than the steady rise predicted by the UN’s IPCC, Lovelock is confident the change will resemble economic charts of boom and bust, full of sudden and unexpected discontinuities, dips, and jumps. “The Earth’s history and simple climate models based on the notion of a live and responsive Earth suggest that sudden change and surprise are more likely than the smooth rising curve of temperature that modelers predict for the next ninety years,” he writes.

“It’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth,” asserts Lovelock, whose latest book warns that cities and farmland will be lost to rising seas. At 4 °C, with endless heatwaves, there will be a drastic reduction in carrying capacity for much of the arable land on Earth. Human population will be unable to survive even with one-tenth of our current population.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia ASIN: 0465015492

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Nevertheless, it is potentially positive development, and it is news because his father was a humorous journalist. Professor Romm notes that, at present, one of the most economical forms, which development of renewable energy can take, is a power plant that uses a combination: solar thermal/natural gas.

Utilities are willing to invest in ISCC (Integrated Solar Combined Cycle), whereby recovery of heat from a gas turbine is combined with solar thermal energy and used to power a steam turbine, because combined cycles show the highest system efficiencies.

Natural gas essentially is below ground energy (read from the Bad Place). Yet, when there is an absence of solar energy, for the sake of improved efficiency, there is a need to maintain system enthalpy, either by using stored, thermal energy or creating more thermal energy. Thus, there is a reason to include natural gas.

And, there are some additional advantages to such integrated, solar thermal electric power generation.

“It makes Boone happy?”

Well, maybe… Certainly, federal grants for utility scale, solar thermal help to sweeten the pot. But also, natural gas fired generators are an existing technology; there is the potential to include natural gas harvested from anaerobic digestion of waste; and, natural gas can be used in fuel cells now being developed for energy production.

Relative Size of Circles Reflects MWh/yr Potential Generation
(Orange = solar; Blue = wind; triangles = geothermal sites)

BLM (Bureau of Land Management) has nearly 160 active solar project applications, “with a projected capacity to generate 97,000 megawatts of electricity” — equal to nearly 30% of the nation’s household electrical consumption.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) [have] announced a series of initiatives to ‘fast-track’ those projects.

Climate Progress Guest Blogger Craig Severance describes such development as “key low-carbon bridging technology… which can provide fully dispatchable all-weather power available 24/7 with total generation costs of 7 to 8 cents per kWh.” So, such sustainable, utility-scale, energy supply is becoming more practical for certain regions. Whereas, a characteristic of “below-ground” energy is dwindling EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). “At some point,” writes Ulf Bossel, “neither increased prices nor increased energy conversion efficiency can overcome” when “an energy source becomes an energy sink.”

The use of two turbines makes for an additional, significant cost. You might think that some clever federal policy might provide some incentives, both financially and from a public relations perspective, to shutting down the dirtiest coal plants and re-tooling the steam turbines for use in plants designed for Integrated Solar Combined Cycle.

Other related CP posts

• “New natural gas supplies — great for low-cost climate action, bad for coal”
• “Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload — a core climate solution.”

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1. 1Fast-Track initiatives of up to 100,000 MW of solar energy on Western lands

• Federal Grant for Utility Scale Solar Thermal
• Solar Thermal Electric Power Plants
• Commitment to a Clean Energy Future
• SolarReserve
• Integrated Solar, Florida?

As repeatedly noted, they, i.e., almost the entire Senate, have chosen to ignore their official responsibility to respond to degradation of the atmosphere brought about by anthropogenic emissions. This is even after the Administration released a study, which represented the compilation of work done by 12 federal agencies, among them the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, NASA, and Department of Commerce.

“Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal. The global warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), with additional contributions from the clearing of forests and agricultural activities.”

Thomas Schueneman noted that the report focused upon “specific geographic regions, economics sectors, and facets of society, the study is aimed at providing the best and latest information for society, government, and individuals.”

Key Findings

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
   Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. (p. 13)
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
   Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow. (p. 27)
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
   Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. (p. 41-106, 107-152)
4. Climate change will stress water resources.
   Water is an issue in every region, but the nature of the potential impacts varies. Drought, related to reduced precipitation, increased evaporation, and increased water loss from plants, is an important issue in many regions, especially in the West. Floods and water quality problems are likely to be amplified by climate change in most regions. Declines in mountain snowpack are important in the West and Alaska where snowpack provides vital natural water storage. (p. 41, 129, 135, 139)
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
   Agriculture is considered one of the sectors most adaptable to changes in climate. However, increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production. (p. 71)
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
   Sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal areas at increasing risk of erosion and flooding, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Pacific Islands, and parts of Alaska. Energy and transportation infrastructure and other property in coastal areas are very likely to be adversely affected. (p. 111, 139, 145, 149)
7. Threats to human health will increase.
   Health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts. (p. 89)
8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
   Climate change will combine with pollution, population growth, overuse of resources, urbanization, and other social, economic, and environmental stresses to create larger impacts than from any of these factors alone. (p. 99)
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
   There are a variety of thresholds in the climate system and ecosystems. These thresholds determine, for example, the presence of sea ice and permafrost, and the survival of species, from fish to insect pests, with implications for society. With further climate change, the crossing of additional thresholds is expected. (p. 76, 82, 115, 137, 142)
10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.
    The amount and rate of future climate change depend primarily on current and future human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases and airborne particles. Responses involve reducing emissions to limit future warming, and adapting to the changes that are unavoidable. (p. 25, 29)

“In the last two years,” writes Joseph Romm, “our scientific understanding of business-as-usual projections for global warming has changed dramatically.” Yet denial by members of Congress persists at a time when “inaction is inexcusable” and insufficient measures, malignant

Furthermore, if the conclusions drawn from climate models are correct, and, so far, the forecasts have erred on being too conservative, then by the time that the corrupt influence of the carbon/nuclear lobby over our government is counteracted, it will be too late. A rise in global temperatures and a concentration of carbon emissions in the atmosphere will be such that abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts will occur which will be harmful and in some cases catastrophic to life on the planet as we know it.

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To this blog, his objection seems pretty self-serving given that the United States prior refusal to agree to the Kyoto Accord and now with the chances of H.R.2454 gaining Senate approval equivalent to that of a snowball’s chance in a gasifier. We are a principle source of GHG and ecocidally refuse to place limits on anthropogenic emissions contributing to catastrophic degradation of the Earth’s atmosphere.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to Copenhagen…

But, upon what this blog really wanted to comment was the observation made by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) about H.R. 2454, “people deserve to know what’s in this pile of shit.” Rather than just add my $0.02 to the 1200 or so other responses to the HuffPo post, this post is praise for the Representative’s foresight.

Think about it. A big pile of crap can be feedstock for anaerobic digestion producing a digestate that can be used as fertilizer plus gases from which methane can be extracted. Such a process is much more environmentally responsible than… say a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands.

So, while “woefully inadequate when it comes to doing what scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change” or when it comes to satisfying the rest of the world that we are making any effort at all to reduce our per capita GHG emissions, H.R. 2454 as it left the House, and forthcoming “action” by the Senate does give the Congress critters the opportunity to show everyone just how corrupt they have become when life as we know it is in the balance.

• Bio-methane Transportation
• Comparison of Waste Streams as Feedstock and Different Methane Products
• Environmental Power Corporation
• ProBioGas
• Dutch Chicken Poop Power

What changes you shudder to ask? Well, as #1 W-M cheerleader Romm observed, the bill had a 10-20 percent chance of doing some good environmentally, so it will be the Senate’s job to eliminate even those slender odds.

Hey, kids! Guess what time it is? It’s Chernobyl Zombie Time. It’s Chernobyl Zombie Time.

How? HuffPo contributor Steve Kirsch gives¹ us “The Good News.” Nuclear is “a magical power technology.” It isn’t new. It’s old. And, now it’s fast, fast, fast. And, it’s clean, clean, clean!

IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) was developed by a team of hundreds of scientists working for more than 20 years at our top government national laboratory for nuclear energy (Argonne National Laboratory, at its branches in Illinois and Idaho).

The bad news is that the IFR development was abruptly canceled in its final stages in 1994. A decision was made in the early weeks of the Clinton administration by people who formerly worked for the oil and natural gas industry to cancel the project. The three reasons publicly given for canceling the program were all based on misconceptions. Since then we haven’t done a damn thing to exploit their marvelous invention. [Editor's comment: Hawk-sput!]

The convenient solution invented at Argonne is simple: instead of spending billions to dispose of our nuclear waste, we can re-use that “waste” to generate power by using advanced “fourth generation” nuclear power technology. Using just our existing nuclear waste, we can power the entire planet for centuries.

Not only is it a bargain in power, ‘Merika, it now is a way to dispose of the nuclear waste. (Solved that problem, eh?) Even better, the Senatorial sales pitch is that nuclear is clean energy. And, of course, living in the shadow of nuclear annihilation for 60 years, who could doubt that it contributes to our national security?

Climate realist Romm has asked why we still prop up an industry that can’t survive without the taxpayer swallowing the economic risk? I dunno, Joe, could it be that Senators and their supporters are well-invested in nuclear power? Is it because nukes are the Viagara for a faltering Empire?

At present, solar energy technology is more costly way of delivering electricity than nuclear energy. Still a major clue to current policy… Solar energy is ubiquitous, whereas uranium mines can be owned.

And, this blog wants to thank Steve Kirsch for solving one puzzle. For some time there has been that nagging question. Yes! We can… what?

Fast reactor nuclear power designs, such as the IFR, are more than 100 times more efficient than our existing light water nuclear reactors (LWRs). The waste they produce is minimal, short-lived, and relatively easy to safely store: a factor of 500 less in space-time requirements than the waste from our existing nuclear reactors. If an American used nuclear power their entire life, they would produce enough nuclear waste to fill a soda can.

So, as further corruption of H.R.2454 proceeds and “changing parts of the bill” includes 100 new nuclear reactors as a mainstay of alternative energy policy for the United States, you need not wonder, as Harvey Wasserman recently did,”who will pay for and insure them, where will the fuel come from and the waste go and who will protect them from terrorists.” As the saying goes, when you look around the poker table and you are unclear who the sucker is, dispense with any doubt, because it is you, the one not holding ACES.

“What this all boils down to is that what ACES is actually trying to achieve is investing in a new type of economy,” observed the naive student activist.

1. 1Climate Bill Ignores Our Biggest Clean Energy Source

• A Nuclear Engineering Challenge
• Corn, Coal or Chernobyl?
• Name Your Poison, Cowboy
• Ah, that bright green glow radiating from Senate chambers can mean only one thing
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“What is he on about now?”

The fight to end mountaintop removal, an incredibly destructive form of coal mining that accounts for only 7 percent of coal production in these United States.

“Fight! Fight!”

The Massey site is quite proximate to Marsh Elementary School, thus well-chosen as the spot for more arrests, to include the arrest of NASA’s chief climate scientist. By quite proximate we mean the elementary school playground, in which several hundred protesters gathered, is less than 300 feet away from Massey Energy’s Goals Coal preparation plant.

And, by everybody, that is to include, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Work Committee’s Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife. According to HuffPo contributors Bruce Nilles and Mary Anne Hitt¹, the subcommittee is holding a hearing: “The Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining on Water Quality in Appalachia.”

The hearing comes on the heels of major arrests during a mountaintop removal protest on Tuesday in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. NASA climate expert Dr. James Hansen, the actor Daryl Hannah, 94-year old retired Congressman Ken Hechler, and Goldman Prize winner Judy Bonds were among the two dozen people arrested in front of Marsh Fork Elementary School, which is located next to a coal processing plant and directly beneath a dam holding back billions of tons of mining waste. As Dr. Hansen told the Charleston (WV) Gazette:

“The reason I have come to West Virginia is that coal is the number one issue in solving the climate problem. It is the cause of half of the excess carbon in the atmosphere. And mountaintop removal is the place that we should start.”

Well, let us hope, Dr. Hansen that environmental justice prevails. Meanwhile, we move the scene from climbing a dragline and a massive protest to the first Senate subcommittee hearing ever on the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining.

But, first, a sip of water, as I am thirsty.

“Judge Turpin: Antagonist. A corrupt and depraved official. An upholder of justice who twists the system to serve his own ends.”

Speaking of water quality, “The Supremes” have been in the act, too, with a major decision. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case involving the Kensington Gold Mine in Alaska, ruling that the mine could dump all its waste into Lower Slate Lake even though all that waste will kill everything in the lake.

How is this related to mountaintop removal, rhetorically asks Matt Dernoga?

Because the justices referred to a Bush Administration era definition of “fill” under the Clean Water Act, a rule change made to accommodate coal companies that wanted to dump their mountaintop removal waste into streams.

This ruling is terrible news for those around Lower Slate Lake, but it also has national implications. The implications of this ruling increase the pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to restore the original definition of “fill” – if they do not, mining companies will continue dumping their waste into streams in Appalachia and beyond.

In this blog’s opinion, federal policy makers are missing a “twofer” here. They could be herding those geezers right into a Massey gasifier, producing CLEAN ENERGY FOR THE FUTURE and cutting HEALTH CARE COSTS at the same time. Let’s get those Yes Men thinking caps on, shall we!

1. 1From the Senate to the WV Coalfields, a Pivotal Week for Mountaintop Removal

• Hark! I hear the Roar of Distant Mountaintop Removal
• It’s Getting Even Worse
• Coal Ash Impoundments Too Dangerous
• Just a Minor Spill, No Big Back Room Deal
• Yellow Boy, Oh, Boy

In the left frame we have a caricature of the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson (D-MN), speaking to the Press, stating “My Farmers Don’t Like That“. He is wearing an ear tag.

Just more ABAUAAAE (Agri-Business As Usual And Above All Else).

In the right frame we have a caricature of Big Farm. From the office window we see a background that contains images of the carbon footprint of agri-business. In the foreground we are confronted by a steely eyed, pin-striped, greedy looking gent, sitting behind an imposing desk, wearing a straw hat, and saying E-I-E-I-O.

As previously noted, it is likely that the GOM (Gulf Of Mexico) Dead Zone will worsen since petroleum is important to the manufacturer of commercial fertilizers and feed lots are a principle source of manure. Ecologists attribute the worsening situation to commercial fertilizer runoff and animal manure discharge, compounded by human waste from urban areas in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi.

“Summertime satellite observations show highly turbid waters in the Gulf of Mexico which may include large blooms of phytoplankton extending from the mouth of the Mississippi River all the way to the Texas coast. When these blooms die and sink to the bottom, bacterial decomposition strips oxygen from the surrounding water, creating an environment very difficult for marine life to survive in. Reds and oranges represent high concentrations of phytoplankton and river sediment.”

The Energy and Global Warming News for June 19th encapsulated for us by Climate Progress includes a forecast that this summer, the ‘dead zone’ could be largest on record.

The Gulf of Mexico’s oxygen-depleted “dead zone” could be one of the largest on record this year, a federal scientific team said today.

Seasonal oxygen levels could drop too low to support aquatic life in an area the size of New Jersey, according to the team supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists forecast the dead zone at between 7,350 and 8,456 square miles, with a strong chance of it growing larger, given the recent flooding of the Mississippi River. The largest dead zone on record was 8,484 square miles in 2002.

• Coal Zombies and Corn Zombies
• 3 E’s for the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River Basin
• GOM, That’s a Big Balloon
• The COB Crowd Gets a Warning from the Ecological Society of America
• dead salmon carcases

Cool, fool! The Doomsday Clock has gone digital.

Outside Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, the billboard displays a running total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “The measurements track all long-lived greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols (24 gases excluding ozone and aerosols).”

“It will be a huge task to bring global emissions under control and my hope is that putting this data in the public view will spur both governments and markets to move us more quickly to a low-carbon economy,” said Parker.

1. 1World’s First Real-Time Carbon Counter Unveiled in New York

• Leapfrogging Technology
• Norway goes carbon-lean
• Truth in Biofuel Advertising?
• Carbon Trading Watch
• Quite Weak, Still Forward