Biofuel boost threatens even greater deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia: Study

JAKARTA — Global demand for biofuels containing palm oil looks set to grow sixfold by 2030, potentially driving the destruction of Southeast Asian rainforests the size of the Netherlands, a new report warns.  https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/biofuel-boost-threatens-even-greater-deforestation-in-indonesia-malaysia-study/
Article courtesy of Mongabay News by Hans Nicholas Jong

China says your recyclables don’t measure up

IT’S NOT APPARENT AT THE CURB yet, but recycling programs across Massachusetts are taking a big hit right now because of a new Chinese policy limiting the amount of contaminants the country will accept in shipments of waste paper and some other  scrap materials.
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/back-story/china-says-recyclables-dont-measure/
Article courtesy of Commonwealth Magazine by Bruce Mohl

14-mile dike could protect Greater Boston from sea level rise

Barrier would run from Cohasset to Swampscott

We propose building a 14-mile dike barrier between the shoulder highlands of Cohasset and Swampscott. The dike would be located some eight miles out from Deer Island, complete with residential and commercial developments, windmills, solar collector farms, and recreational areas. A simple dike barrier with a 200-foot-wide top and reaching 120 feet from seafloor to storm-surge top would require some 246 million cubic yards of material. Bi-directional locks could provide access for all crafts, protecting Boston’s commercial activity and its waterfront. integrity.  https://commonwealthmagazine.org/environment/14-mile-dike-protect-greater-boston-sea-level-rise/

Article courtesy of Commonwealth Magazine by Peter papesch, Franziska Amacher and A. Vernon Woodworth

Why Did Two-Thirds of These Weird Antelope Suddenly Drop Dead?

It took just three weeks for two-thirds of all the world’s saiga to die. It took much longer to work out why.

The saiga is an endearing antelope, whose bulbous nose gives it the comedic air of a Dr. Seuss character. It typically wanders over large tracts of Central Asian grassland, but every spring, tens of thousands of them gather in the same place to give birth. These calving aggregations should be joyous events, but the gathering in May 2015 became something far more sinister when 200,000 saiga just dropped dead. They did so without warning, over a matter of days, in gathering sites spread across 65,000 square miles—an area the size of Florida. Whatever killed them was thorough and merciless: Across a vast area, every last saiga perished. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/why-did-two-thirds-of-this-weird-antelope-suddenly-drop-dead/550676/

Article courtesy of The Atlantic Daily by Ed Yong

North America’s largest transit system is the acid test for electric buses

Compared with other bus system’s in North America, New York City’s is gigantic. It daily serves over two million passengers across all five boroughs with 5,700 buses, 330 routes, and 16,000 stops, and it operates in a uniquely hostile environment of stop-and-go traffic. The average NYC bus travels only 7.4 miles per hour—one of the slowest bus speeds in the US.  https://qz.com/1181012/nyc-is-piloting-electric-buses/
Article courtesy of Quartz by Karen Hao

On the Chesapeake, A Precarious Future of Rising Seas and High Tides

Maryland’s Dorchester County is ground zero for climate change on Chesapeake Bay, as rising seas claim more and more land. An e360 video explores the quiet beauty of this liquid landscape and how high tides and erosion are putting the bay’s rural communities at risk. http://e360.yale.edu/features/on-the-chesapeake-a-precarious-future-of-rising-seas-and-high-tides
 Article courtesy of Yale Environment 360 by Tom Horton

Turning Soybeans Into Diesel Fuel Is Costing Us Billions

This year, trucks and other heavy-duty motors in America will burn some 3 billion gallons of diesel fuel that's made primarily from vegetable oil. They're doing it, though, not because it's cheaper or better, but because they're required to, by law.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/01/16/577649838/turning-soybeans-into-diesel-fuel-is-costing-us-billions?utm_source=EHN&utm_campaign=eb4489de90-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8573f35474-eb4489de90-99402937
Article courtesy of WNPR/The Salt by Dan Charles

In Colorado, a glimpse of renewable energy’s insanely cheap future

In 2016, Xcel released its Colorado Energy Proposal, which was news in itself. [1/18/18: see clarification at bottom of post.] The proposal would shut down two coal plants in the state and replace their output with roughly 700 MW of solar, 1 GW of wind, and 700 MW of natural gas by 2023. That would put Xcel’s Colorado energy mix at roughly 55 percent renewables. (Xcel’s reasons for ramping up renewable energy are complex — part price, part taking advantage of federal tax credits, part public sentiment.)  https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/16/16895594/colorado-renewable-energy-future
Article courtesy of VOX by David Roberts

CARBON CAPTURE 'Revolutionary' pilot uses CO2 to drive turbines

On a 5-acre plot near Houston, a startup company is firing up a project that has been called "revolutionary" and a "breakthrough." It could change electricity forever, boosters say.

Whether that is wild hyperbole or a possibility will soon be clearer. The 50-megawatt demonstration from NET Power LLC in La Porte, now fully built after breaking ground two years ago, is the world's largest attempt to use carbon dioxide rather than steam to drive a turbine.

NET envisions burning natural gas in pure oxygen and producing CO2 ready for storage or use,  the need for a capture unit.  https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060071081

Article courtesy of E&E News by Christa Marshall

Toxic Thaw Syndrome

On a small island in the Beaufort Sea, brown muck slides down tall cliffs, oozes into mud pools, and slithers into the ocean. It’s summer, and the permafrost is thawing. As the sediment enters the sea, it clouds the coastal waters, releasing organic carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. But that’s not all.
“We find large amounts of mercury and other pollutants,” says geoscientist Hugues Lantuit. “Anything that is caught in the soils is going to enter the coastal ocean.”
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/toxic-thaw-syndrome/
Article courtesy of Hakai Magazine by Dan Zukowski

Rising CO2 affecting freshwater three times faster than saltwater

As carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere rise, more CO2 is absorbed into our oceans, making them more acidic. We know the problems this has caused in the saltwater environment. Now, rising CO2 levels are also affecting some freshwaters, too.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/rising-co2-affecting-freshwater-three-times-faster-than-saltwater/article/512113#ixzz54La7BPiW
Article courtesy of Digital Journal by Karen Graham

Virgin Hyperloop One is bringing Elon Musk's dream to life

When the hyperloop first sparked a frenzy in 2013, it was just an Elon Musk Big Idea—very exciting, maybe possible, definitely hard to believe. Now, five years on, a version of the futuristic, tube-based transportation system is taking shape in the Nevada desert. Some 35 miles north of Las Vegas, the terrain is all sand, rock, and spiky shrubbery, leading up to stunning reddish mountains on the horizon. It’s a world just isolated enough for Virgin Hyperloop One to build a giant white tube and not attract too much attention, apart from the few local tortoises that the secluded engineers have adopted.https://www.wired.com/story/virgin-hyperloop-one-engineering/
Article courtesy of Wired by Jack Stewart

Exposing the oceans' climate change secrets

In the 1990s, scientists were scrambling to fill a huge gap in the systems that measure the Earth's warming climate. Space satellites suggested the missing pieces might be found in the vast expanses of the world's oceans, which store more than 90 percent of the heat the planet receives from space
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060070737
Article courtesy of E & E News by John Fialka

Snowpack Near Record Lows Spells Trouble for Western Water Supplies

Months of exceptionally warm weather and an early winter snow drought across big swaths of the West have left the snowpack at record-low levels in parts of the Central and Southern Rockies, raising concerns about water shortages and economic damage.  https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15012018/snow-drought-ski-western-water-supply-risk-climate-change-economy
Article courtesy of inside climate news by Bob Berwyn

Ditch the Drive? Here’s What Americans Would Give Up to Live in Walkable Communities

Americans are parking their cars and stepping up to walkable communities—and increasingly, they don't mind giving up some living space to do so, a new report finds.
http://www.heritagesir.com/blog/ditch-the-drive-heres-what-americans-would-give-up-to-live-in-walkable-communities.html
Article courtesy of Realtor.com by Kathleen Lynn

The Bottom of The Ocean Has Started Sinking Under The Weight of Melting Glaciers

Existing assessments of sea level rise haven't factored in that as the total ocean mass increases due to melting glaciers and ice sheets, the weight of all that extra water pushes down on the sinking ocean floor, deforming the seabed – and disguising just how much the oceans are truly swelling.  https://www.sciencealert.com/bottom-ocean-literally-sinking-under-weight-melting-glaciers-climate-change
Article courtesy of Science Alert by Peter Dockrill

UNM meteorologist says Southwest ‘on front lines … of climate change’

ALBUQUERQUE — When the trees are bare, climate scientist and meteorologist David Gutzler has an unobscured view of the Sandia Mountains from his office window. On the second floor of The University of New Mexico’s Northrop Hall, the four seasons transform just beyond the glass. From this vantage point, since the mid-’90s, Gutzler has watched the effects of a warming climate on the state’s landscape.   http://www.santafenewmexican.com/life/features/unm-meteorologist-says-southwest-on-front-lines-of-climate-change/article_fc54bf18-c389-5862-b2bb-43e4666c4d19.html
Article courtesy of The New Mexican by Rebeca Moss