Wind power green but costs more green

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Wind power green but costs more green LONDON (UPI) -- Wind power, while good for the environment, carries a price tag twice that of a natural gas- or coal-fired power station, British researchers say. A report by the U.K. Energy Research Center said Britain's massive expansion of wind farms, both offshore and on land, was based on underestimated costs of wind power in the mid-2000s, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday. Over the next 10 years, the British government plans to build up to 10,000 new wind turbines to meet tough climate change targets, the newspaper said. Instead of the predicted falling costs, in the last five years the cost of buying and installing turbines and towers at sea has gone up 51 percent, the report said. Once the bill for building and maintaining an offshore wind farm is spread over the 25-year lifespan of a typical installation, each kilowatt hour of electricity costs 24 cents. That's nearly twice as expensive as electricity from conventional coal and gas power stations, which costs 13 cents, and more than nuclear, which costs 16 cents, the report said. Copyright 2010 by United Press International
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Predictions of oil on Atlantic beaches off WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Predictions this summer of oil-fouled beaches across Florida and all the way up the East Coast from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill got it wrong, scientists say. National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Synte Peacock said that as of Friday there have been no reports of oil or residue from the spill anywhere along the East Coast, USA Today reported. A June 2 NCAR press release said oil was "likely to reach Florida's Atlantic coast within weeks. It can then move north as far as about Cape Hatteras, N.C., with the Gulf Stream." So where's the oil on the East Coast? "First of all, we never claimed to be making a forecast," NCAR's Peacock, who worked on the prediction, said. "It was always discussed as a possible scenario. We made it very clear from the outset that it is not possible to predict or forecast ocean currents on timescales of more than days into the future." The predictions of oil making it all the way around Florida affected the state's tourism this summer, Chris Thompson, CEO of state tourism board Visit Florida, said. The forecasts planted a "seed of doubt" in potential vacationers' minds, and even now people are still less inclined to travel to Florida because of the spill, he said. So was the prediction overstated? No, says Peacock. "It was just what was stated: a range of possible scenarios for the dispersal. We used the best available climate model to simulate the likely pathways … at the site of the BP spill," she said. Copyright 2010 by United Press International
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World's oldest trees under threat FORT COLLINS, Colo. (UPI) -- The oldest trees on the planet, some almost 5,000 years old, are under threat from two enemies in their Western U.S. mountain sanctuaries, scientists say. Bristlecone pines, including one tree named Methuselah that is 4,800 years old, are up against two enemies: white pine blister rust, an Asian fungus that came to the United States from Asia by way of Europe 100 years ago, and an outbreak of native pine bark beetle accelerated by warming in the high-elevation West, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Bristlecone pines grow at high elevations in California, Nevada and Utah. Blister rust is a new threat for the bristlecones. It spread to Europe from Asia in the 19th century and entered the East and West Coasts of North America around the turn of the last century on nursery trees. Only now is it reaching the high-elevation bristlecone. "Neither the bristlecones nor their ancestors have been faced with a disease like this, and they have not evolved tolerances," Anna Schoettle, a Forest Service ecologist in Fort Collins, Colo., said. "So really we're in uncharted territory," she said. The fungus and the beetles together are especially deadly, Schoettle said. "Blister rust kills young trees rapidly," she said. "The mountain pine beetle only kills the larger trees, but those are the trees that produce the seeds. "So when you have a combination of blister rust and the beetle, that severely constrains recovery of the population." Copyright 2010 by United Press International
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Scientists study ash of Iceland eruption LONDON (UPI) -- British researchers say their study of ash from the eruption of an Iceland volcano will yield clues to how the material spreads in the atmosphere. Atmospheric ash from the eruption of the volcano in March caused chaos, shutting down large areas of European air space and disrupting air travel, the BBC reported. Samples of ash retrieved from U.K. soil after the eruption came in a vast array of shapes and sizes, Susan Loughlin, head of volcanology at the British Geological Survey, said. Some of the individual grains of ash retrieved are less than one micron in diameter, while some of the clumps of ash are as large as 200 microns, about twice the width of a human hair, she said. The samples gathered in the United Kingdom will be compared with those recovered in Iceland to determine how the plume formed into aggregates and fell to ground. The plume made its way to Britain over the course of some 12 hours. Understanding how quickly aggregation occurred and how much fine ash remained in the sky will prove vital, Loughlin said. "What we want to know is how much ash is left up in the plume because that's what the civil aviation authorities are interested in. "What we need to understand is how that plume evolves through time and how that fine ash is removed from the air," she said. Copyright 2010 by United Press International
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