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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for December 2, 2013.
Posted: 02 Dec 2013 16:25:40
ARB Newsclips for December 2, 2013. This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office of Communications. You may need to sign in or register with individual websites to view some of the following news articles. CAP AND TRADE Australia Urged to Buy Carbon Credits for Cheaper Emission Curbs. Buying carbon credits near record low prices in global markets would cost-effectively ensure Australia meets its pledge to cut emissions by 5 percent, an industry group told the nation’s new government. Purchasing carbon credits from the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism would give the government an insurance policy if its plans for reducing emissions fall short…Posted. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2013-12-02/australia-urged-to-buy-carbon-credits-for-cheaper-emission-curbs.html Australia’s Pollution Plan Starts to Look Like Trading. Australia’s newly elected leaders, claiming a mandate to dump the old government’s climate policies, would actually protect programs the defeated Labor party was using to prepare for emissions trading. Environment Minister Greg Hunt is working to shield the agencies that monitor and regulate greenhouse gases from cuts proposed for other climate units, according to a policy paper he issued on Oct. 24. Posted. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-01/australia-s-pollution-plan-starts-to-look-like-trading.html Green for Green: The Buyers That Stand Behind Forest Carbon. It might not be immediately apparent why insurance giant Allianz, retailer Marks & Spencer, energy company Eneco, airline Qantas or Brazilian cosmetics producer Natura Cosméticos would invest their money in forest carbon offsets – sometimes from projects on the other side of the world – but they do. Our most recent State of the Forest Carbon Markets Report tracked 19.7 million tonnes of forest carbon offsets that companies had purchased voluntarily. Posted. http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/article.page.php?page_id=10084§ion=news_articles&eod=1 AIR POLLUTION U.S. environment chief to share air pollution lessons with China. China can learn from U.S. struggles to reduce pollution as it confronts recent high-profile incidents of poor air quality paralyzing major cities, the top U.S. environmental regulator said on Monday. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy spoke ahead of a visit to Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese locations next week. "While I am all too well aware of the severe air quality challenges that China now faces…Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/02/us-usa-climate-china-idUSBRE9B10TO20131202 New car engines emit more harmful particles than predecessors –study. New-generation petrol engines of passenger cars emit about 1,000 times more particles, including carcinogens, than traditional petrol engines, a study by German researchers showed. Faced with strict CO2 limits, carmakers have downsized engines to cut emissions and new gasoline direct injection (GDI) petrol engines may be in almost all new petrol cars sold in Europe by the end of the decade…Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/caremissions-study-idUSL5N0JC35120131127 Shanghai Warns Children to Stay Indoors on Air Pollution. Shanghai warned children and the elderly to stay indoors as the level of the most harmful pollutants exceeded more than 10 times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization. The air pollution index in the nation’s commercial hub exceeded 300 as of 1:41 p.m., placing it in the “severe” range and the highest of six levels, the Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center said on its website today. Posted. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-01/shanghai-warns-kids-elderly-to-stay-indoors-on-severe-pollution.html EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to talk emissions in China. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy is heading to China in hopes of strengthening air pollution and climate change goals overseas. McCarthy, who told reporters the trip is about "engagement" more than securing "commitments," said the recently concluded United Nations climate negotiations in Warsaw, Poland, and mounting public pressure in China to improve air quality will serve as the backdrop. Posted. http://washingtonexaminer.com/epa-administrator-gina-mccarthy-to-talk-emissions-in-china/article/2540030 Builders mount challenge to air-quality guidelines. The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge by the building industry to new air-quality guidelines for Bay Area construction projects. But a lawyer for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said Tuesday's court order, which granted review on only one of several issues raised by the California Building Industry Association, will allow the guidelines to take effect for the first time since the district adopted them in 2010. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Builders-mount-challenge-to-air-quality-guidelines-5017817.php APCD study to be reviewed at meeting. Over the last year, implementation has been under way of the San Luis Obispo County Air Pollution Control District’s Rule 1001 that requires the Off-Highway Vehicle Division of State the California Department of Parks and Recreation to mitigate the silica dust coming from its park on the Dunes. Recently, APCD director Larry Allen told the board of directors the State Parks Department has not been complying with Rule 1001. Posted. http://www.theadobepress.com/articles/2013/12/01/columns/versaw/versaw.txt CLIMATE CHANGE Green Desert: All signs point to climate change. In the immediate aftermath of the devastation of the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan, the media predictably ran to weather and other scientific experts to ask what if any role climate change may have played in the storm that killed more than 5,200 people and left millions still homeless. The first cautious answers were, not much. Posted. http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013311300038 DIESEL EMISSIONS Truckers offered good faith agreement. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) announced that it will provide relief to truckers working to meet state deadlines for upgrades to their aging diesel fleets. The relief is detailed in a regulatory advisory, which recognizes good faith efforts of a fleets to meet upcoming compliance deadlines. The advisory also provides early access to planned regulatory changes to be considered by the board in April. Posted. http://www.record-bee.com/news/ci_24613644/truckers-offered-good-faith-agreement California’s Clean Diesel Program to Play Key Role in Lowering Emissions. Two highly successful air quality programs designed to lower emissions from older diesel engines were included in a major legislative package signed into law by Californian Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 28. “The $2 billion ten-year package included continued funding for two major California clean diesel programs — the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program and AB 923…Posted. http://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/Californias-Clean-Diesel-Program-to-Play-Key-Role-in-Lowering-Emissions/21645/ Truckers protest outside Port of Oakland. Truck drivers and their supporters picketed at the Port of Oakland on Wednesday over an impending deadline to upgrade their trucks to meet clean air standards and what they said were long wait times to pick up loads. Television news footage showed Oakland police keeping dozens of protesters away from the entrance to one of the port's terminals in the morning. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Truckers-protest-outside-Port-of-Oakland-5016413.php FUELS Jerry Brown followed to events, heckled by California environmentalists over fracking. Gov. Jerry Brown, who championed environmental causes when he was governor before and made global warming a focus of his current administration, has been targeted in recent weeks by an increasingly vocal group of activists whose animosity would once have appeared improbable. Environmentalists frustrated with Brown’s permissiveness of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking…Posted. http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/02/5961428/jerry-brown-followed-to-events.html#storylink=cpy Idaho Power gets OK for WY coal plant project. Idaho Power Co. can spend tens of millions to clean up its Wyoming coal-fired power plant and expect ratepayers to cover the project's cost, but regulators want quarterly updates on whether these emission-control investments continue to make sense as federal environmental rules change. Announced Monday by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission…Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Idaho-Power-gets-OK-for-WY-coal-plant-project-5028590.php VEHICLES Era of hydrogen fuel cell cars begins next year. The moment was pure Schwarzenegger. In April 2004, California's then-governor paraded before the press a specially equipped Toyota Highlander that ran on hydrogen and spat nothing out the tailpipe but water. Fuel cell cars, he said, would soon appear on California's roads, helping the state wean itself off of oil and fight global warming. Speaking to a pack of dignitaries and reporters at UC Davis, he committed California to building up to 200 hydrogen fueling stations by 2010…Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Era-of-hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars-begins-next-year-5026289.php Air agency pushing new-car plan for poor. One longtime critic of federal transportation spending once concluded that it would be less expensive for the government to buy every new transit rider a Jaguar XJ8 than it would be to build certain new rail systems. Unfortunately, California officials may not have realized that the idea of buying people new cars wasn’t a serious proposal as much as a way to illustrate a point about excessive spending. The California Air Resources Board is now embarking on a program that would help poor people buy energy-efficient vehicles. Posted. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/dec/01/tp-air-agency-pushing-new-car-plan-for-poor/ GREEN ENERGY Student fossil-fuel divestment movement persists. The student campaign to press colleges and universities to divest from fossil fuels is entering a new phase, now that administrators at several top schools have said no. Students say the refusals from schools including Harvard, Brown and Cornell have been both a shock and a motivation for the campaign, which is active at more than 200 schools. Posted. http://online.wsj.com/article/APa76f528b683149939003b788158f3285.html?KEYWORDS=air+pollution http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Student-fossil-fuel-divestment-movement-persists-5025722.php Prying Loose the H from H20. Despite its grim associations with bombs and zeppelin disasters, hydrogen remains handy stuff, useful for oil refining and ammonia synthesis. It is also a promising source of energy. The problem is that, to obtain it, you need fossil fuel, which costs money and produces emissions. If only we could find a better way to pry hydrogen loose from oxygen, it would be as plentiful as water. Scientists at Stanford University have taken a step in that direction by developing a low-cost, sun-powered, corrosion-resistant "water splitter" made of silicon and nickel. Posted. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304465604579220261040615056#printMode Urban Schools Aim for Environmental Revolution. Nothing seemed special about the plates from which students at a handful of Miami schools devoured their meals for a few weeks last spring — round, rigid and colorless, with four compartments for food and a fifth in the center for a carton of milk. Looks, however, can be deceiving: They were the vanguard of what could become an environmental revolution in schools across the United States. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/us/urban-schools-aim-for-environmental-revolution.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print Clean energy company wins Tulsa startup contest. CleanNG LLC, whose invention could revolutionize compressed natural gas vehicles, raced ahead of the competition to cross the finish line as the $30,000 grand-prize winner of the Tulsa Community College StartUp Cup. "It's really exciting for us, and I think this is the cash we need to get over the hump and to start generating sales and getting this business up and going," said Michael Tate, co-founder and chief operations and communications officer with CleanNG. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2013/11/30/3059857/clean-energy-company-wins-tulsa.html#storylink=cpy Dairy digesters convert cow manure into clean electricity. SMUD enlists cows at two Galt dairies to produce more than just milk. The typical dairy cow produces six to seven gallons of milk each day. She also generates 120 pounds of manure and urine every day. Now, with dairy digesters recently installed at two dairies in Galt, neither product goes to waste. In fact, cow waste produces electricity that keeps the milk in your refrigerator cold. Posted. https://www.smud.org/en/about-smud/news-media/news-releases/2013-11-07-dairy-digester.htm OPINIONS ‘Climate Casino’: An Overview of Global Warming. I’ve long looked at global warming as a worthy topic that I should try to wrap my mind around. Although I knew I needed to dig deeper, I never truly understood why. Until now. “The Climate Casino,” by William Nordhaus, provided compelling answers to my unanswered questions in a comprehensive and lucid way. It is a one-stop source on global warming, seen through the prism of a brilliant economistPosted. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/business/climate-casino-an-overview-of-global-warming.html?_r=0 Letter: Carbon tax would help environment. Professor Natalie Mahowald, who contributed to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, says, "We should focus on what potential solutions to climate change would improve our lives in other ways, and thus should be encouraged no matter what." A simple carbon tax would put consumers in the position of choosing the solutions they are willing to tolerate because it will save them money by reducing their carbon costs. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Letter-Carbon-tax-would-help-environment-5026582.php Don’t light that fire. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District says our air is so bad that we can’t burn wood in our fireplaces in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. It’s because of particulate matter, or stuff in the air, such as the dust kicked up during the nut harvest. Most of it, though, comes from wood smoke, and most of that comes from chimneys. Such restrictions irritate a lot of people, especially those who realize that similar restrictions don’t apply to Bay Area residents whose fireplace pollution often blows over into the valley. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2013/11/29/3061040/dont-forget-neighborsas-you-shop.html#storylink=cpy BLOGS Cal State San Bernadino adds FuelCell technology. A new 1.4-megawatt utility-owned fuel cell, provided by Danbury-based FuelCell Energy, has started operation at Cal State University San Bernardino. A Direct Fuel Cell DFC1500 power plant, a joint project with Southern California Edison, has been integrated into the campus’s central plant, generating electricity to the utility grid with waste heat to the campus at no cost to the university. Posted. http://blog.ctnews.com/financialmines/2013/12/02/cal-state-san-bernadino-adds-fuelcell-technology/