‘Green News Report’ – July 6, 2010

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: A solar boost from Obama; Tarballs in Texas; And a blimp to the rescue… PLUS: Record heat hits Northeast and climate scientists exonerated — AGAIN — but climate change deniers still report it this way [cue: crickets] … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): How does sewage treatment actually work?; Political protests over fuel costs idle much of India; Scrubbing CO2 from atmosphere would be a long-term commitment; China sentences Tibetan environmentalist to five years in prison; China fears consumer impact of growing middle-class on global warming; Judges nuke Obama’s plan to dump Yucca Mtn. dump; Detergent industry does the “impossible” — adopts voluntary ban on phosphates …PLUS: Retrofitting suburbia: The task at hand? …

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…

• “Heat Wave of Historic Proportions” Hits Northeast (CNN)
• Congo president to visit explosion site; 242 dead (AP)
• Obama Announces $2B Funding for First Large-Scale Solar Storage Plant in U.S.:
• WATCH: Obama announces $2 billion investment in solar PV manufacturing and the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use even at night. (Climate Progress)
• Obama’s July 4th weekly address fittingly focuses on clean energy (Huffington Post Green)
• Italy Beats USA With Three Times the Solar Installs Using Feed-in Tariffs (CleanTechnica):
  Thanks to a Feed-in Tariff program it began in 2007 that resulted in a sevenfold jump in installs, individual Italians are now installing solar on buildings at the astounding rate of 250 MW, or the size of a typical power station, every two months, in a seeming vindication of a policy that Al Gore recommended to congress in 2007, an “electranet” which would pay individuals for power supplied to the grid from their roofs.

  Italy is now building more solar power every month than California is in a year, Paul Gipe is reporting at Renewable Energy World.

• Climate Scientists Exonerated AGAIN
• Official Statement: Investigation of climate scientist at Penn State complete (Penn State University)
• READ the Full Report: Final Investigation Report Involving Dr. Michael E. Mann (Penn State University)
• Penn State clears Mann in Climate-gate probe (Washington Post Carbon)
• Michael Mann Exonerated as Penn State Inquiry Finds ‘No Substance’ To Allegations (Science)
• UVa lawyers: Investigation of Mann by Cuccinelli ‘unlawful’ (Charlottesville Daily Progress)
• Media Uproar After Coast Guard Enacts Buffer Rules, Fines
• Official Statement on concerns about recently enacted safety zones (Unified Command Deepwater Horizon Response)
• CORRECTION: Boom Vandalism and Mishaps Slow Response Effort (Unified Command Deepwater Horizon Response)
• LATEST on BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf
• Tar balls from oil spill found on Bolivar coastline (Houston Chronicle)
• Oil Contamination of Crab Larvae Could Be Widespread (Science)
• Airship to assist in Gulf oil spill response (Unified Command Deepwater Horizon Response)
• WATCH: Despite choppy Gulf weather, Adm. Allen optimistic for oil cleanup efforts (CNN)
• Latest Bird Count in BP Oil Disaster: BIRD CARE IN NUMBERS 2010 GULF OIL SPILL (International Bird Rescue Research Center)
• Governor Grandstand Bobby Jindal STILL Hasn’t Deployed National Guard Troops (Rolling Stone)
• Mississippi Governor ‘Shocked’ By Coast Guard’s Gulf Spill Coordination (NPR)
• BP used oil industry tax break to write off its rent for Deepwater rig (Think Progress):
  [T]he U.S. tax code is actually riddled with tax breaks for the oil industry, despite that industry’s record profits in recent years. Center for American Progress Senior Policy Analyst Sima Gandhi has counted nine different subsidies that the U.S. government gives to the oil industry, including refunds for drilling costs and refunds to cover the cost of searching for oil. If this corporate welfare were cut, it would save $45 billion per year….
• Oil industry ramps up opposition to repealing tax breaks: A powerful oil industry trade group is launching a broad new ad campaign to prevent legislation that ends billions of dollars worth of tax breaks from gaining political traction. (The Hill)
• As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies (NY Times):
  [A]n examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.
• BP wasted no time preparing for oil spill lawsuits (McClatchy DC):
  Five days after the April 20 blowout, [Florida attorney Robert J.] McKee said, he tried to hire a scientist who’s assisted him in an ongoing 16-year environmental lawsuit in Ecuador involving Dupont.

  “It was too late. He’d already been hired by the other side,” McKee said. “If you aren’t fast enough, you get beat to the punch.”

• Banned Trailers Return for Latest Gulf Disaster: One of Mr. Mason’s trailers, shown to a reporter, had an overpowering smell of formaldehyde inside and none of the required placards on the outside or inside indicating the formaldehyde risk or that it was not supposed to be used for housing. The trailer did, however, have a note taped inside to call FEMA. (NY Times)
• Agency Agreed Wildlife Risk From Oil Was ‘Low’: [i]n a letter dated Sept. 14, 2007, the wildlife agency agreed with the minerals service’s characterization that the chances that deepwater drilling would result in a spill that would pollute critical habitat was “low.”(NY Times)
• Cavuto fill-in Brian Sullivan wants to skip safety tests for skimmers “and just get ships out there” (Media Matters)

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…

• How Does Sewage Treatment Work?: Sewage treatment turns out to be a somewhat less nasty business than you probably thought. “We’re like a nation of 1-year-olds, throwing everything in the toilet.”… The sewer, person after person tells me, is for sewage. (Scientific American)
• Judges rule Obama can’t close Yucca Mountain nuclear dump: “Unless Congress directs otherwise, DOE may not single-handedly derail the legislated decision-making process by withdrawing the (Yucca repository) application. DOE’s motion must therefore be denied,” the judges wrote, adding that the DOE had weakened its arguments by “conceding that the application is not flawed nor the (Yucca) site unsafe.” (McClatchy DC)
• Finally! Detergent Industry Puts Voluntary Ban on Phosphates in Household Dishwasher Detergents: After Years of Saying it Can’t be Done: The American Cleaning Institute (ACI, formerly the Soap and Detergent Association), represents most of the soap-makers in the U.S., has announced a voluntary ban on phosphates in household dishwasher detergents. (Treehugger)
• China Fears Consumer Impact of Growing Middle-Class on Global Warming (NY Times):
  Already, in the last three years, China has shut down more than a thousand older coal-fired power plants that used technology of the sort still common in the United States. China has also surpassed the rest of the world as the biggest investor in wind turbines and other clean energy technology. And it has dictated tough new energy standards for lighting and gas mileage for cars.

  But even as Beijing imposes the world’s most rigorous national energy campaign, the effort is being overwhelmed by the billionfold demands of Chinese consumers.

  Chinese and Western energy experts worry that China’s energy challenge could become the world’s problem – possibly dooming any international efforts to place meaningful limits on global warming.

• Tibetan Environmentalist Jailed for Five Years: Picking up trash and planting trees sounds about as uncontroversial as activism can get, but an internationally recognized Tibetan environmentalist who had been organizing local villagers to do just that has has been sentenced to five years in jail for “inciting to split the nation” — a charge his supporters believe was trumped up after he accused a local police officer of poaching. (Treehugger)
• Scrubbing CO2 from atmosphere could be a long-term commitment (The Carnegie Institution)
• Political Protests Over Fuel Costs Idle Much of India
• VIDEO: We’ll try to get it done this weekend: Retrofitting suburbia: The task at hand?: “The big design and development project of the next 50 years is going to be retrofitting suburbia,” architect Ellen Dunham-Jones says in an interesting TED talk. (Grist)