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Three Mile Island Veteran Optimistic on Fukushima Fuel Removal

      

Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato, in the orange helmet, inspects the contaminated water tanks at Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture on Oct. 15, 2013. Photograph: JIJI Press-Pool/AFP via Getty Images

bloomberg.com - by Jacob Adelman - October 17, 2013

The first removal of nuclear fuel rods next month from the stricken Fukushima atomic station should be successful based on findings that the rods -- each about twice the average weight of a sumo wrestler -- appear undamaged from an explosion at the site almost three years ago.

That’s the view of Lake Barrett, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official appointed last month as an adviser to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

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WHO - Global Alert and Response (GAR) - October 19, 2013

                                                 

(Click on the links below, then click on the Blue button to the right of each heading.)

CLICK HERE - Report of suspected polio cases in the Syrian Arab Republic - 19 October 2013 

CLICK HERE - Cholera in Mexico - 19 October 2013

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Chevron Goes to Trial in New York Over $18 Billion Ecuador Award

A Chevron gas station sign is pictured at one of their retain gas stations in Cardiff, California October 9, 2013. 
Credit: Reuters/Mike Blake

reuters.com - by Bernard Vaughan - October 14, 2013

(Reuters) - Chevron Corp will try to convince a U.S. judge this week that a group of Ecuadorean villagers and their U.S. lawyer used bribery to win an $18 billion judgment against Chevron from a court in Ecuador, in the latest chapter in a long-running fight over pollution in the Amazon jungle.

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CLICK HERE - Wikipedia - History - Lago Agrio Oil Field

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Increased Mercury Levels Near Tar Sands

priceofoil.org - by Andy Rowell - October 15, 2013

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Mercury Trends in Colonial Waterbird Eggs Downstream of the Oil Sands Region of Alberta, Canada

Scientists have released yet another academic study that indicates the growing ecological impact of the tar sands.

They measured the amount of mercury in birds eggs downstream from the tar sands and compared them to eggs some distance away from the polluting region.

What they found was that the eggs of certain species of predatory birds living downstream from the tar sands were found to have “statistically significant increases” of the dangerous heavy metal, mercury.

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Cyclone Phailin (India) - Crisis Maps and Resources

http://google.org/crisismap/2013-phailin http://google.org/crisismap/a/gmail.com/2013-phailin-cyclone

The Crisis Respone Google website has created crowd-sourced maps of volunteers offering shelter in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Clicking on the shelter or red cross gives more details about the shelter and hospital in the area. The maps are also highlighting the intensity of the cyclone at different spots. All the data shown on the map is crowdsourced from publicly visible webpages of news websites, forums, social media, blogs, Wikipedia and government sites.

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Earthquake Alert in Philippines

      

gdacs.org - October 14, 2013

 

This earthquake can have a high humanitarian impact based on the Magnitude and the affected population and their vulnerability.

  • Earthquake Magnitude 7.1M, Depth:20km
  • on 15/10/2013 00:12 UTC
  • 5600343 people within 100km

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

(ALSO SEE USGS INFORMATION HERE)

 

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France Cements Fracking Ban

      

Anti-fracking protesters in La Petite Brosse, outside Paris. Photograph: Pierre Andrieu/AFP/Getty Images

A law prohibiting fracking for shale gas has been upheld by France's constitutional court, citing environmental protection

theguardian.com - October 11, 2013

France's constitutional court has upheld a ban on hydraulic fracturing, ruling that the law against the energy exploration technique known as "fracking" is a valid means of protecting the environment.

The court in Paris said on its website on Friday that the 2011 law "conforms to the constitution" and is not "disproportionate".

France banned fracking in 2011 and cancelled exploration licences held by companies including Schuepbach and Total SA, the country's biggest oil company, after protests by environmental groups.

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To meet emissions goals, the U.K. is reluctantly turning to fracking of shale gas.

Image: Fracking fight: In mid-August, the energy company Cuadrilla Resources suspended operations of this exploratory shale gas drilling site in southeast England after protests from residents and environmentalists.

Image: Fracking fight: In mid-August, the energy company Cuadrilla Resources suspended operations of this exploratory shale gas drilling site in southeast England after protests from residents and environmentalists.

technologyreview.com - September 10th, 2013 - Peter Fairley

Proposed U.K. government policies to encourage hydrofracking of natural gas ignited a firestorm of protest this summer, with critics complaining that they were not consulted and that rules will restrict local planners’ authority. But the country appears to have few other options. The United Kingdom is in an energy quagmire that is forcing it to turn to shale gas.

The country’s aggressive carbon emissions goals call for the U.K.’s power supply to be virtually carbon-free by 2030.

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Climate Change Will Bring Conditions Outside Historical Variability In Coming Decades


Video: A video report on the predicted climate shifts.

huffingtonpost.com - October 9th, 2013 - Andrew Freedman

The mean annual climate of the average location on Earth will slip past the most extreme conditions experienced during the past 150 years and into new territory by between 2047 and 2069, depending on the amount of climate-warming greenhouse gases that are emitted during the next few decades, a new study found. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, used a new index to show for the first time when the climate — which has been warming during the past century in response to manmade pollution and natural variability — will be radically different from average conditions during the 1860-2005 period.

The study shows that tropical areas, which contain the richest diversity of species on the planet as well as some of the poorest countries, will be among the first to see the climate exceed historical limits — in as little as a decade from now — which spells trouble for rainforest ecosystems and nations that have a limited capacity to adapt to rapid climate change.

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