‘Green News Report’ – June 9, 2009

IN TODAY’S AUDIO REPORT: Protesting in Peru; Settling with Shell; Pollution solutions in Long Beach; PLUS: Republicans vow to block climate legislation in the Senate …. All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (links below): Solar Everywhere! Innovations for roofs, roads & trains; Ocean trash hampering efforts in plane crash investigation; PLUS: High water footprint for biofuels…. See below for more Green News!

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today’s episode follow below…

• Inhofe’s plan: Stall climate action until the next president :
  
  Don’t be distressed when you see the House passes some kind of a cap-and-trade bill. It could be worse and she could still pass it, so it’ll pass there. The EPA has threatened to regulate this through the Clean Air Act. That isn’t going to work in my opinion because we can stall that until we get a new president—that shouldn’t be a problem. … But while the House will pass a bill… in the Senate, they’re not going to be able to pass it.
• 9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility
• Peru declares curfew after bloody clashes in Amazon jungle
• Up To 34 Reported Killed In Amazon Land Protest
• Shell settles Nigeria deaths case: Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to a $15.5m (£9.7m) out-of-court settlement in a case accusing it of complicity in human rights abuses in Nigeria
• “Crude” Tactics: Will Nigeria oil offensive backfire?
• The day oil was discovered in Nigeria: Chief Sunday Inengite remembers the day the foreigners who had come to his village in Nigeria’s Niger Delta struck oil
• Nigeria militant attack on Chevron shuts 100,000 bpd
• Grist.org: Climate bill would be a net gain for federal budget, says CBO:
  This analysis matters because cost is a key sticking point for a number of legislators, specifically moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats who have been known to hold up bills that are not deficit neutral. The Blue Dogs delayed an extension of tax credits for the renewable energy industry last year over concerns about how they would be paid for. So reassuring moderate Democrats that the climate bill won’t be a budget buster could help get them on board—though many of these lawmakers are from coal and oil states and so oppose the bill for other reasons too.
• CBO Director’s Blog: CBO’s First Cost Estimate of Cap-and-Trade Legislation for the 111th Congress
• The Congressional Budget Office on Climate Change: Overview, Studies, Science & Costs Estimates[emphasis added]:
  Global climate change is one of the nation’s most significant long-term policy challenges: Human activities are producing increasingly large quantities of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, and their accumulation in the atmosphere is expected to affect regional climates throughout the world. Although the economic and social costs from climate change remain highly uncertain, there is some risk that they will turn out to be quite large. The associated risks could be reduced by policies that reduced emissions of greenhouse gases.
• House climate bill would trim budget deficit, CBO says
• New Report Complicates Ag’s Assault on Biofuel Rules [emphasis added]:
  Their conclusion, vividly displayed in the graphs below: Policies that ignore terrestrial emissions [from land use changes] while capping fossil fuel emissions will lead to widespread deforestation, increase global carbon emissions and will actually hurt farming in the future.
• Dem leaders begin delicate moves with Ways and Means, Ag chairmen on cap-and-trade bill [emphasis added]:
  “We need to get this straightened out before we can deal with anything else,” [Rep. Earl] Pomeroy (D-N.D.) said. “Frankly, we’re having trouble thinking about the next step until we deal with this threat to the industry.”
• High-Stakes Quest for Permission to Pollute: Interest Groups Press Congress for Cap-and-Trade Allowances in Climate-Change Legislation
• Port of Long Beach takes ‘giant step’ toward pollution reduction: Port officials unveil what is billed as the world’s first electrical shore-side power system for tankers, which are notorious fuel guzzlers and air polluters
• Analysis Finds Elevated Risk From Soot Particles in the Air

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: More green news not covered in today’s audio report… See below!

• Flexible Solar Power Shingles Transform Roofs From Wasted Space To Energy Source
• Study Finds Water Footprint for Bioenergy Larger Than Other Forms of Energy; Bioelectricity the Smallest, Biodiesel the Largest
• Trash Mistaken for Air France Plane Debris
• Arizona’s Sun-Powered Train Proposal – “The Solar Bullet”
  
• Solar Cells Along Highways To Generate Power
  [T]he idea is to place those cells along highways to generate power for street lights or construction. The inventor says the circular solar collectors placed along a jersey wall gather much more energy than flat panels, even when its a dim day or at night.

  “Part of the ability we have that no other solar cell system in the world has is when headlights strike these tubes at night, they create electricity,” said Kahrl Retti, Solarroad Technologies.

  The electrawall also stores what it collects in batteries.

• Dust storms speed snowmelt in the West
  The dust is speeding up the runoff to rivers that supply millions of people with water and raising fears of an increasingly arid West.

  Twelve dust storms barreled into the southern Rockies from the deserts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico so far this year. In contrast, four storms hit the mountains all year long in 2003. Eight occurred in each of the last three years.