http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Earth_Back-to-the-Future_2030-to-2039_18_212_712.html Press Review of the Earth from the most relevant websites. Keep in touch with the Earth and your future ! fr-FR http://www.earth-stream.com/logo-stream-Earth.png http://www.earth-stream.com Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:38:00 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Do-the-Anti-Aging-Drugs-Work-_18_212_712_233541.html March 20, 2035 - There was a lot of buzz around the life extension drugs that hit the market a decade ago. They didn’t promise you to live forever but they gave you a chance to maybe extend your life with an extra five to ten years. But do they work? Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:48:00 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Feed-in-tariffs-are-not-suppressing-innovation_18_212_712_232946.html George Monbiot is still trying wage class war on a false premiseRead the previous exchanges between Jeremy Legget and George Monbiot George Monbiot's third article on government grants for domestic solar panels ignores the errors that I and others have protested about in the opening assertion in his first article. He alleged that the UK government's feed-in tariff regime is "about to transfer £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes". In saying that, he managed to get three things wrong. The actual sum raised from the tariff levy from all electricity consumers, not just households, to 2030 will be £6.7bn; it will be spread over 20 years; and it will be more than offset – if the government is true to its word – by energy efficiency savings stimulated in parallel market-building schemes.Yet we see no retraction in George's latest, much less an apology for trying to turn feed-in tariffs into a new form of class war on a false premise.That was just where the problems began in the first article. In his third, he rewords many of his original mistaken views. I address those one by one on my website.The main new item in George's latest involves using a report from what he calls the "Ruhr University" to back his assault on the German feed-in tariff programme. He did not tell his readers – maybe he didn't know – that this study's "editorial office" is RWI, an organisation well known for being a thinktank helpful to the big German energy companies. There is an irony in a campaigner such as George deploying arguments against other campaigners using such a source. Elsewhere in his article George declares that "I detest the big energy companies that give us our electricity".Here is what the German ministry for environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety has to say about RWI's arguments against the feed-in tariffs (or the EEG, as they are known in Germany): "Whereas the International Energy Agency and the European Commission comment that the ... Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:42:37 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Study-Wind-Turbines-Can-Raise-Surrounding-Temperatures_18_212_712_232659.html Wind power is one of the largest sectors for renewable energy worldwide. The United States is hoping to attain at least twenty percent of their energy needs from the wind energy sector by the year 2030. Other countries and the European Union have similar aspirations. However, some researchers are looking at the potential side effects [...] Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:02:30 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Carbon-capture-storage-will-generate-100-000-jobs-o6-5bn-a-year-_18_212_712_232624.html Ed Miliband unveils strategy to encourage growth of unproven technology for next generation of coal-fired power stationsThe UK's carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector will be able to sustain 100,000 jobs by 2030 and generate up to £6.5bn a year, the government claimed today.Unveiling a new strategy to encourage the growth of CCS, the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said it represents a "massive industrial growth opportunity".The government also announced that Yorkshire and Humber had been chosen as the UK's first low-carbon economic area for CCS.The region has been chosen because it combines the UK's largest cluster of industrial CO2 emitters, academic expertise and proximity to potential storage sites.Yorkshire and Humber is well placed to benefit from jobs and investment that expansion in the CO2 storage industry will bring, Miliband said.Announcing the new plan, the he said: "CCS presents a massive growth opportunity for the UK. We have a strong, established and skilled workforce in precisely the sectors needed to get CCS deployed at scale. And we have some of the best potential sites in Europe for CO2 storage under the North Sea."Miliband added: "For the UK economy as a whole these benefits could be worth up to £6.5bn a year, sustaining jobs for up to 100,000 people, by 2030."The launch of the strategy comes after two power companies were awarded funding last week to develop designs for power plants with CCS technology.E.ON and Scottish Power are competing for government backing to build the UK's first CCS coal-fired power plant at either Kingsnorth, Kent or Longannet, Clackmannanshire, Scotland. The undisclosed amount of funding for each company, which is drawn from a £90m pot, will support detailed engineering and design work for the projects over the next 12 months.After that, the government will announce the winner of the competition. Climate activists have predicted the Longannet site will become the "new Kingsnorth" if i ... Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:33:20 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Will-fight-for-Pachauri-Ramesh_18_212_712_232230.html India Blooms News Service: Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said the UPA government will back Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman RK Pachauri on the Himalayan glacier issue. "We are backing the IPCC chairman and will fight any attempt to unseat him," Ramesh said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday. He further said the Fourth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggesting disappearance of Himalayan glaciers by 2035, was based on poorly ... Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:54:13 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Energy-Efficiency-Strategy-Could-Cut-Household-Bills-by-$450-a-Year_18_212_712_232177.html Aggressive federal energy efficiency policies, such as building codes and appliance standards, would put money in consumer wallets in every state. That's the message of a new report that adds to evidence of the economic potential of curbing energy use. Analysts at the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) calculated that U.S. citizens would save $301 to $451 annually on average on their utility bills in 2030, if the nation slashes projected energy use by 20 to 30 percent, or 1 to 2 percent per year. The report is one of the first to look at how strong federal efficiency policies would shrink home energy bills. Nationwide, households would save between $37 billion and $66 billion over two decades. The savings would be a "cushion to soften the blow" of costlier climate measures, said Mark Cooper, the study's author and research director at CFA, a consumer group of 300 organizations. "Efficiency lowers consumer bills, which provides an important cushion against other aspects of climate policy that might push bills up," Cooper wrote. To do the analysis, CFA looked to the states. The report is based on 24 state-level studies over 10 years and three recent reports from the National Research Council, McKinsey & Company, and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The level of achievement varies widely. The research reveals that around six states have been able to slash energy use by 1 to 2 percent over the past two decades. In the 10 states with the strongest efficiency policies, energy use grew by an average 2.6 percent from 1990 to 2007. In contrast, the most inefficient energy users saw a 16.7 percent leap. "The fact that a significant number of states have achieved a much higher level of efficiency is an indicator of the possibility for a much higher level of performance by all states," Cooper wrote. California is the stand-out example. Energy consumption there has been almost flat for 30 years, while at the same ti ... Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:11:43 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/IRONIC-Scientists-Find-Wind-Farms-Could-Actually-Raise-Temperatures_18_212_712_232036.html Researchers at MIT have discovered that it’s possible that a large scale installation of wind turbines can actually raise temperatures. Looking forward to the US goal of creating 20% of our power from wind by 2030, the researchers studied what would happen to the climate in the immediate area of the wind farm. They found [...] Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:57:12 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Carbon-Neutrality-as-Opportunity_18_212_712_231935.html Alex Steffen As you may have gathered, the idea of city-wide carbon neutrality by 2030 has gained a lot of steam here in Worldchanging's home base... Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:18:58 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Wind-resistance-Analysis-suggests-generating-electricity-from-large-scale-wind-farms-could-influence-climate_18_212_712_231697.html Physorg: Wind power has emerged as a viable renewable energy source in recent years -- one that proponents say could lessen the threat of global warming. Although the American Wind Energy Association estimates that only about 2 percent of U.S. electricity is currently generated from wind turbines, the U.S. Department of Energy has said that wind power could account for a fifth of the nation's electricity supply by 2030. But a new MIT analysis may serve to temper enthusiasm about wind power, at ... Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:28:02 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Nearly-half-of-Americans-believe-climate-change-threat-is-exaggerated_18_212_712_231348.html US belief in climate science lowest since polling began 13 years ago, with 31% saying the threat is 'definitely' a realityPublic belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming.Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll published today by Gallup said.It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media coverage of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia climate research unit and a mistake about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 in the UN's authoritative report on global warming."These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming," Gallup said.Half of Americans now believe there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Some 46% believe scientists are unsure about global warming, or that they believe it is not occurring. A UK poll last month showed adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44% to 31% over the past year."The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans' attitudes about global warming," Gallup said. "It may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect."The poll feeds into fears among some environmentalists that the furore over the hacked emails has given new fuel to opponents of action on climate change, and stopped short the momentum in Congress for passage of a clean energy law.A troika of Senators trying to draft a compromise climate bill that could get broad support said this week they may not be able to produce a draft until after the Easter recess, further reducing the chances of enacting legislation in 2010.Meanwhile, the Obama administration faces lawsuits from Virgi ... Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:07:15 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Solar-Energy-Could-Provide-10-of-U-S-Power_18_212_712_231242.html By 2030, solar power could meet as much as 10-percent of the need for electricity in America, claims a new report from a leading environmental advocacy group.The report, Building a Solar Future: Repowering America’s Homes, Businesses and Industry with Solar Energy, was presented on March 9, 2010 by Washington, D.C. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:02:51 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Solar-power-could-provide-10-of-US-energy-report_18_212_712_231035.html Agence France-Presse: The United States could source 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said Tuesday, winning support from a US lawmaker who wants to boost the number of US solar panels. The report, produced by the independent environmental group Environment America, was presented to Congress with backing from Senator Bernie Sanders who in February introduced legislation to install 10 million solar panels across the United States within a decade. Sanders praised the ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:20:29 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Report-Adds-Fuel-to-Sen-Schumer-s-Buy-American-Stimulus-Feud_18_212_712_230551.html The United States should act fast to build up the country's manufacturing industry for renewable energy systems or risk losing green jobs to China and other low-wage nations, according to a new report by advocacy organization Apollo Alliance and Good Jobs First, a labor-oriented research group. The report's recommendations include fixing the nation's renewable energy stimulus funding so recipients who relocate operations overseas are forced to repay their hefty government handouts. "We don't currently have the capacity to supply our own demand for clean energy products and systems," Sam Haswell, spokesperson for Apollo Alliance, told SolveClimate. The U.S. is currently importing about 70 percent of its renewable energy parts from foreign countries, according to the report. If that continues, the report estimates, the U.S. will lose out on 100,000 clean energy manufacturing jobs and nearly 250,000 by 2030. To gauge the direction of renewable energy manufacturing in America, the authors analyzed the list of winners of the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program, known as 48C credits. The $2.3 billion program, part of the 2009 Reinvestment and Recovery Act, provides a 30 percent tax credit for investments in new, expanded or re-equipped advanced energy manufacturing projects making materials for cleaner power generation. The report focused on wind and solar plants, which accounted for about 68 percent of the payouts. Ninety domestic and foreign parent companies have received funding to build solar and wind plants in America, the report found. Of that total, 25 are investing in similar factories in America's clean energy competitors: China, India, Mexico and Malaysia. In fact, several of these companies — including Colorado-based Advanced Energy Industries, Arizona-based First Solar, China-based Suntech Power and California's SunPower Corporation — are making low-wage nations their primary manufacturing hubs. This is especially ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:11:20 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Not-the-great-green-rip-off-by-George-|-Alan-Simpson_18_212_712_229995.html Monbiot has got it wrong: feed-in tariffs are not a waste of money. They work – just look at the German renewables industryThank goodness Jeremy Leggett stepped in to correct some of the inaccuracies in George Monbiot's piece. The errors, however, are even more extensive than Jeremy highlighted.It isn't often that Monbiot manages to get the politics, the details and the practicalities of an argument all wrong at the same time. He managed to do so, however, in his attack on the government's feed-in tariffs proposals for renewable energy.Germany: FiT for the futureThe most startlingly inaccurate of the claims made in his article is that Germany has "decided to sharply reduce the tariff it pays for solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the grounds that it is a waste of money". Ask the Germans. They will tell you that the reduced tariff rates for new installations are simply because the scheme has been a runaway success. In the four years since their introduction, the tariffs have created 300,000 new jobs and driven down the unit cost of solar panels to the point where they were starting to pay for themselves within a period of five to seven years.The whole purpose of FiTs is to develop a momentum for renewable energy technologies that will quickly turn them from innovations to mature market technologies. Far from being a waste of money, they have become one of the most powerful engines of German economic regeneration. Instead of having energy bills that pay for the import of non-renewable fossil fuels, Germany is now paying its own citizens to produce, install and maintain their own renewable energy systems.Monbiot complains that the scheme would cost up to £8.6bn. But this is the cumulative figure for up to 2030, not 2020. For households, the actual figure is far less. Industry picks up a much larger slice of the cost than domestic energy consumers. In any case, we should look at these numbers in a different perspective.UK citizens currently pay £3bn a year towa ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:37:23 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Hawaiian-Utility-Fights-Solar-Industry-Over-Private-Installations_18_212_712_229928.html If Hawaii's largest utility gets its way, the islands' abundant sunshine may be wasted. In February, the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) proposed a ban on a booming industry of rooftop solar installations, claiming that too much distributed power generation could destabilize the islands’ isolated power grids. It was forced to back off by the public backlash, but environmental groups and the solar industry say the utility is trying other tactics that will stifle the growth of renewable energy in the state. “Although HECO is backing away from doomsday for the local renewable industry at this point, all they did was defer the problem,” said Isaac Moriwake, an attorney for Earthjustice who is representing the Hawaii Solar Energy Association. “Instead of looking at the renewable energy companies going out of business immediately, we’re looking at that happening maybe in half a year or toward the end of the year. Now they’re facing the prospect of a slow strangulation instead of a shot to the head.” The battle over the islands' energy is just one example of efforts by some utility companies to control distributed power and its potential to eat into their profits. Hawaii, which currently gets more than 90 percent of its power from fossil fuels, has adopted some of the strongest renewable energy standards in the country. In 2008, the legislature approved a renewable portfolio standard requiring 40 percent of electricity to be produced by renewable sources by 2030. The state and the utilities entered into an agreement that same year that will require 40 percent of total electricity generation be from renewables, as well as 70 percent of all energy, including transportation, by 2030. Two renewable energy programs are at the heart of HECO’s attempt to block installations. One, the net energy metering program, has been running since 2001 and allows customers who install solar panels to offset the cost of their entire power bill. Another pr ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:20:14 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Australia-The-big-dry-ahead_18_212_712_229918.html Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Department of Water says a report on Western Australia's future water supply presents significant challenges. The CSIRO report found water levels in south western WA will fall by an average of 25 per cent by 2030 but it is predicting they could possibly fall by half. The report blames climate change since the mid 1970s for a big drop in rainfall and surface and groundwater yields. It says as a result, once abundant wetlands and perennial streams have, in the worst ... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:14:06 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/AT&T-Customers-Get-More-Mobile-Broadband-Coverage-in-Mount-Carmel_18_212_712_229724.html MOUNT CARMEL, Pa., March 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As part of its continuing network investment to support growing demand for advanced mobile devices and applications, AT&T* today announced the activation of a new third generation (3G) cell site in Mount Carmel that will enhance coverage for area residents and businesses along Routes 54, 61, 2032 and 3006, as well as in the Boroughs of Mount Carmel and Ashland, the town of Wilburton and neighboring areas of Mount Carmel and Conyngham Townships. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:09:12 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Major-change-is-needed-if-the-IPCC-hopes-to-survive_18_212_712_229559.html Well before the recent controversies, the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was marred by an unwillingness to listen to dissenting points of view, an inadequate system for dealing with errors, conflicts of interest, and political advocacy. The latest allegations of inaccuracies should be an impetus for sweeping reform. From Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkIt has been a rough couple of months for the climate science community. Last November someone stole or released over 1,000 e-mails from the University of East Anglia. The e-mails revealed that some scientists were so entrenched in battle with their scientific and political opponents that they lost their perspective, going so far as to suggest improperly influencing the scientific process of peer review and evading legal requirements to disclose their data upon request. Climate science took another hit soon thereafter when it became apparent that the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a number of embarrassing errors and an unacceptable amount of sloppy work, such as its erroneous prediction that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, rather than in several centuries or more.The IPCC's handling of the allegations of errors have compounded its problems. Its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, responded to the first public questions about the Himalayan glacier error by dismissing the allegations as "voodoo science" and the work of climate skeptics. Later, when the sheer weight of the evidence forced the IPCC to correct the erroneous claim in public, it was further revealed that IPCC authors had been aware of the error but were unable to get it changed prior to the report's publication and had remained strangely silent about it in the years since.As if this was not bad enough, Pachauri has faced a range of criticism for directing more than a quarter of a million dollars in consulting and appearance fees over the past several ... Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:35:25 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Getting-global-warming-right_18_212_712_229228.html Widely publicized errors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report on global warming prompt the organization to tighten its standards. In its 2007 report on the effects of global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that glaciers could vanish from the Himalayas by 2035. As has since been widely reported, with ill-disguised glee by many blogs and right-wing news outlets, this was a blunder. The prediction didn't come from a peer-reviewed scientific study but from a prominent Indian glacier expert who was quoted in a British popular science magazine -- and who now claims he never gave such a date. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:54:58 GMT http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2030-to-2039/Biotech-nanotech-and-synthetic-biology-roles-in-future-food-supply-explored_18_212_712_228785.html Some say the world's population will swell to 9 billion people by 2030, presenting significant challenges for agriculture to provide enough food to meet demand. Scientists explore ways biotechnology could provide healthy and plentiful animal-based foods to meet future demands.