Cascading blackouts hit Europe

admin /7 November, 2006

A sudden loss of power in Germany threw the European power grid out of balance and caused computer systems to switch off power to some customers as far away as Italy and France, reported The Australian (7 November 2006, p.9).

Chain reaction: The power cut was believed to have been caused by technical problems with German power lines, which led to a chain reaction of energy shortfalls across Europe.

Source of cascade? A 380,000-volt line was turned off to let the Norwegian Pearl, a newly built cruise ship, pass on its way from the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg to the North Sea. The loss of power may have overstretched other power lines.

E.ON still uncertain: "Such switch-offs have been undertaken repeatedly in the past without any problems," German company E.ON said in a statement. “It is still unclear where and how the acute fault occurred half an hour after the switch-off. E.ON is working flat out to obtain a detailed analysis."

Supervisory body needed? Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said the blackout indicated that Europe needed its own electricity supervisory authority. Firefighters in Paris responded to nearly 40 calls from people stuck in lifts. More than 100,000 people were affected in Italy, mainly in Turin.

"House of cards": Pierre Bornard, a management board member of French power supplier RTE, described the event as a "house of cards" phenomenon.

The Australian, 7/11/2006, p.9

Source: Erisk Net  

Study shows global fish stocks heading for

admin /7 November, 2006

In order to establish whether diversity matters in the sea as well as on land, 11 marine biologists, along with three economists, have spent the past three years crunching all the numbers they could lay their hands on, reported
The Economist (4/11/2006, p.85).

Sources for fish study: These ranged from the current United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s database to information hundreds of years old, gleaned from kitchen records and archaeology. The results of their comprehensive analysis have been published in Science.

Biodiversity matters: Marine biodiversity, they report, matters because it is variety per se that delivers services – such as maintaining water quality and processing nutrients – to humans as well as the goods people reap from the sea.

Results replicated across four groups: The latest study, led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, gathered the available material into four separate groups. The researchers found the same result from different pools of data, in different types of marine ecosystems and at different scales.

Ecosystem thrives with more species: In the first, the marine ecologists re-examined 32 small-scale experiments in which researchers had altered the variety of sea life and recorded what happened. Overall, each of the six ecosystem processes examined – which included the maintenance of stability and improved water quality – worked better when there were more species than when there were fewer.

Water quality declines as diversity decreases: Analysing these data revealed that estuaries and coastlines are less able to maintain, for example, water quality as the number of species found within them declines.

Humans face flooding, algal blooms: Going back over several centuries, when biodiversity falls, people desert the beaches, coastlines become more liable to flooding and blooms of algae are more likely to gain a footing.

Historical UN databases used: That theory was tested on a third group of data-records kept by the United Nations from 1950 to 2003 of the fish and invertebrates caught in large expanses of the ocean all around the world. These data make up 83% of all records of all catches of fish over the past half-century.

Diversity defends against over-exploitation: Dr Worm and his colleagues discovered that the more species an ocean region has, the more robustly it seems to cope with over-exploitation.

Govts need single-species focus rethink: The findings suggest that governments should rethink the way they try to manage fisheries. Marine reserves are common in the tropics, but policymakers in temperate countries tend to focus on one species at a time to control numbers of that species caught.

Ecosystems more important than quotas: They might do better to spend more time thinking about ecosystems and less haggling over quotas.

The Economist, 4/11/2006, p.85

Source: Erisk Net  

Bracks pledges $1000 rebates for water tanks

admin /7 November, 2006

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks had to interrupt his election campaign for the Prime Minister’s water crisis meeting, with water conservation already a focus of attention in the coming state poll, according to The Age (6/11/2006, p.7).

Tank rebate doubled: The Premier sought to boost Labor’s environmental credentials on 5 November by promising a $1000 rebate for people who connected water tanks to their toilets and laundries. The subsidy, applying to water tanks of 5000 litres or more, was more than triple the current rebate and more than double the $500 offered by the Liberals.

Savings of 50,000L a year: Water Minister John Thwaites said water tanks connected to toilets and laundries saved up to 50,000 litres of water a year. Other initiatives in Labor’s $60 million water conservation policy included:
# All homes to have triple-A shower heads and dual-flush toilets before sale by 2008.
# $10 million to extend the water-rebate scheme for water-saving products over the next four years.
# $20 million to create a "small towns water quality fund" to help rural communities improve water quality and upgrade septic tanks.

Nats want compulsory tanks: Nationals leader Peter Ryan said the rebate discriminated against country families because households on non-reticulated water supplies were excluded. He was to release a policy on 6 November calling for compulsory rainwater tanks in new homes.

The Age, 6/11/2006, p.

Source: Erisk Net  

This was a guilty verdict on America as well

admin /6 November, 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1959051.ece

So America’s one-time ally has been sentenced to death for war crimes he committed when he was Washington’s best friend in the Arab world. America knew all about his atrocities and even supplied the gas – along with the British, of course – yet there we were yesterday declaring it to be, in the White House’s words, another "great day for Iraq". That’s what Tony Blair announced when Saddam Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground on 13 December 2003. And now we’re going to string him up, and it’s another great day.

Of course, it couldn’t happen to a better man. Nor a worse. It couldn’t be a more just verdict – nor a more hypocritical one. It’s difficult to think of a more suitable monster for the gallows, preferably dispatched by his executioner, the equally monstrous hangman of Abu Ghraib prison, Abu Widad, who would strike his victims on the head with an axe if they dared to condemn the leader of the Iraqi Socialist Baath Party before he hanged them. But Abu Widad was himself hanged at Abu Ghraib in 1985 after accepting a bribe to put a reprieved prisoner to death instead of the condemned man. But we can’t mention Abu Ghraib these days because we have followed Saddam’s trail of shame into the very same institution. And so by hanging this awful man, we hope – don’t we? – to look better than him, to remind Iraqis that life is better now than it was under Saddam.

Iceberg warning for ships in Southern Ocean

admin /5 November, 2006

An iceberg warning has been issued for ships in the Southern Ocean after more than 100 were sighted on Friday just south of New Zealand. "We were surprised by the number of them and by how far north they were," said squadron leader Andy Nielsen, the captain of the New Zealand Air Force Orion which Continue Reading →

U.S. speeds attack plans for North Korea

admin /5 November, 2006

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Pentagon has stepped up planning for attacks against North Korea’s nuclear program and is bolstering nuclear forces in Asia, said defense officials familiar with the highly secret process.
    The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the accelerated military planning includes detailed programs for striking a North Korean plutonium-reprocessing facility at Yongbyon with special operations commando raids or strikes with Tomahawk cruise missiles or other precision-guided weapons.
    The effort, which had been under way for several months, was given new impetus by Pyongyang’s underground nuclear test Oct. 9 and growing opposition to the nuclear program of Kim Jong-il’s communist regime, especially by China and South Korea.