bananas
bananas's JournalElectric utilities back Republicans in Senate elections
Electric utilities back Republicans in Senate elections
By Claire Cameron
June 6, 2014
Dive Brief:
- The Republican party are increasingly winning the financial backing of U.S. energy companies in the run up to the 2014 mid-term elections. Republicans need six seats to take control of the Senate majority.
- Political action committees (PAC) for the electric utility industry have given 63% of their donations on Republican candidates in this election cycle. Oil and gas companies spent an even greater proportion, with 83% of total spending going to Republicans.
- In contrast, environmental groups are giving more to Democrats, with billionaire investor Tom Steyer pledging $100 million in donations for candidates with pro-climate action policies through his NextGen Climate Action Committee super-PAC.
Dive Insight:
- At the last mid-term elections, electric utilities spent 55% of their money on Democrats and 43% on Republicans. Since then, the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have proposed new rules aimed at curbing CO2 emissions from new and existing power plants. The Republican party has been outspoken in decrying these rules, saying they undermine the energy industry and raise electricity prices for consumers.
Recommended Reading:
- Bloomberg Businessweek: Energy Industry Places Big Bets on Republican Senate Victory
EMC2 has published a polywell preprint on arXiv
High Energy Electron Confinement in a Magnetic Cusp Configuration
Jaeyoung Park, Nicholas A. Krall, Paul E. Sieck, Dustin T. Offermann, Michael Skillicorn, Andrew Sanchez, Kevin Davis, Eric Alderson, Giovanni Lapenta
(Submitted on 1 Jun 2014)
We report experimental results validating the concept that plasma confinement is enhanced in a magnetic cusp configuration when beta (plasma pressure/magnetic field pressure) is order of unity. This enhancement is required for a fusion power reactor based on cusp confinement to be feasible. The magnetic cusp configuration possesses a critical advantage: the plasma is stable to large scale perturbations. However, early work indicated that plasma loss rates in a reactor based on a cusp configuration were too large for net power production. Grad and others theorized that at high beta a sharp boundary would form between the plasma and the magnetic field, leading to substantially smaller loss rates. The current experiment validates this theoretical conjecture for the first time and represents critical progress toward the Polywell fusion concept which combines a high beta cusp configuration with an electrostatic fusion for a compact, economical, power-producing nuclear fusion reactor.
Via http://talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5425
Watch 'The Beast' Asteroid Fly Past Earth On This Livestream Right Now
Watch ‘The Beast’ Asteroid Fly Past Earth On This Livestream Today
A 1,000 foot-wide asteroid nicknamed “the Beast,” will travel peacefully past earth Thursday, sailing just three lunar distances from our planet’s surface. The celestial observation network Slooh will live webcast the Beast’s journey beginning at 2:30 p.m. EDT.
These rocky celestial objects are fairly common, but the Beast (formally known as HQ124) is notable for its proximity and its immense size.
“HQ124 is at least 10 times bigger, and possibly 20 times, than the asteroid that injured a thousand people last year in Chelyabinsk, Siberia,” Bob Berman, an astronomer with Slooh, told National Geographic.
John Oliver Tells Charlie Rose He Did Not Crash FCC Website
John Oliver Tells Charlie Rose He Did Not Crash FCC Website: Video
By LISA DE MORAES, TV Columnist | Wednesday June 4, 2014
HBO’s Last Week Tonight host John Oliver this morning told CBS This Morning that he did not not crash the FCC‘s website when his show did its “deep dive” story about the FCC and net neutrality last Sunday. “We didn’t crash their web site, Charlie — that’s a huge accusation,” Oliver told Charlie Rose after Rose reported that Oliver’s show had just that. “We merely pointed people to their website and told them why they should be angry about it, and they went in droves.” Watch here:
UK will have to gamble with nuclear safety to provide power, analyst warns
Source: Guardian
Britain may have to stretch safety limits on nuclear power stations to keep the lights on, warned a leading energy analyst on Wednesday.
Dorian Lucas, a nuclear specialist at energy consultancy, Inenco, made his comments after it was revealed that power group, EDF, had won permission to change the rules for its Dungeness B station.
<snip>
The atomic power station in Kent has come to an agreement with the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) that it can have the margin increased on the shrinkage of the graphite bricks inside the reactor from 6.2% to 8%.
The bricks are losing weight due to decades of radiation but a spokeswoman for EDF said the new limit was only a "teeny little step" that was well within the most conservative safety case.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/04/uk-may-need-to-gamble-with-nuclear-safety-to-avoid-blackouts
Horror on board Plymouth nuclear submarine as crew battles to survive
Source: Plymouth Herald
A “CATASTROPHIC” systems failure on board a Devonport-based nuclear submarine caused a mass-casualty incident, The Herald can today exclusively reveal.
When HMS Turbulent’s air conditioning plants malfunctioned during a deployment in the sweltering heat of the Indian Ocean, it resulted in 26 casualties.
Eight of those casualties were in a ‘life-threatening’ condition.
Temperatures inside the boat soared to 60 degrees Celsius with 100 per cent humidity as the crew battled to fix the problem miles from land.
With the three-year anniversary of the previously unreported incident having just passed, Ryan Ramsey, the submarine’s Commanding Officer at the time, today revealed: “I genuinely thought there was going to be a loss of life on board. People were going to die.”
<snip>
Read more: http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Horror-board-Plymouth-nuclear-submarine-crew/story-21181219-detail/story.html
Via http://nuclear-news.net/2014/06/05/nuclear-submarine-commander-reveals-horror-of-2011-accident/
For the world to see: No politics in space (ISS crew embrace)
ISS crew members were asked whether US-EU-Russia tensions over Ukraine influenced their relations. Here is their emphatic answer.
Obama points to Vermont as a model for carbon reduction
Source: Vermont Digger
The Obama administration’s proposed crackdown on carbon emissions cited Vermont’s environmental policies as an example for how coal states can achieved necessary greenhouse gas reductions.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday released details of a proposed regulation requiring states to come up with a plan to collectively cut the nation’s carbon emissions by 30 percent of 2005 levels by 2030.
Vermont does not generate electricity from coal and is the only state not required to come up with a plan (the District of Columbia is also exempt). The ruling targets coal-powered electric plants that are the nation’s leading source of carbon emissions, but it is intended to give states flexibility to find ways to cut carbon emissions.
The ruling cites Vermont’s energy efficiency program as an example of how states can reduce carbon emissions. The state’s regulated efficiency utility, Efficiency Vermont, offers rebates and incentives for energy-efficient appliances, among other efforts.
<snip>
Read more: http://vtdigger.org/2014/06/02/obama-points-vermont-model-carbon-reduction/
Space Adventures has second customer for lunar flyby.
Re: "Space Adventures" has a customer for the lunar Soyuz!
« Reply #199 on: 05/31/2014 02:10 PM »
Seems the big news have missed this
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/05/29/commspace-update/
Looks like Space Adventures have found a second customer for the Soyuz Moon flyby.
The Nun Behind Bars in Brooklyn (Sister Megan Rice)
The Nun Behind Bars in Brooklyn
by Helen Young
Posted: 05/27/2014 Updated: 05/30/2014
You could call it a homecoming of sorts, but without the welcome home party. After growing up in the shadow of Columbia University in Manhattan's Morningside Heights, serving the Catholic Church as a biology teacher in Africa for more than 40 years, and a peace activist in Nevada, 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice has landed back in New York City. She's at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. It's Sunset Park, but without the grass and trees.
<snip>
Since her conviction last year Sister Megan has spent time in a number of prisons in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and now New York. She told me she ministers to the women by listening to their stories and sharing in the emotional pain. "Clearly these are the most vulnerable people in society. They are those who cannot find the jobs. The jobs are not being created, and many of them, because of that, fall into the drug industry just to survive, to buy diapers for their children. As we know the military budgets are eating up everything and have for so long, " says Sister Megan.
<snip>
Besides comforting the women trapped in the system... there are the letters. Sister Megan told me during a recent phone call from MDC Brooklyn that she does not have enough time in the day to attend to the flood of letters that are sent to her. Since she can't respond to each one individually, she's enlisted a circle of six friends (one jokingly describes herself as Sr. Megan's secretary) to disseminate her response letters. Recently this circle sent out 120 letters.
<snip>
From behind bars she continues to follow events in the outside world. And, ever the teacher, in her letters she counsels her supportive community on how best to keep moving forward on the issue closest to her heart:
"And in the what can we be doing now? category, we can begin by signing the petition at www.nuclearzero.org in support of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which has filed suit in the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal District Court against the nine nuclear-armed nations for "failure to comply with their obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to pursue negotiations for the world wide elimination of nuclear weapons."
<snip>
[hr]
Helen Young is producing the documentary "Nuclear Insecurity" on nuclear disarmament activists, including Sister Megan, and the policy experts on the frontlines of the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
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