As always, cross-posted on GreenState
Oil folks not interested in drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The major oil companies are largely uninterested in drilling in the refuge, skeptical about the potential there. Even the plan's most optimistic backers agree that any oil from the refuge would meet only a tiny fraction of America's needs.[...]
How much oil lies beneath the wilderness where the administration wants to permit drilling? Advocates cite a 1998 government study that estimated the part of the refuge proposed for drilling might hold 10 billion barrels of oil. But only one test well has been drilled, in the 1980's, and its results are one of the industry's most closely guarded secrets.
A Bush adviser says the major oil companies have a dimmer view of the refuge's prospects than the administration does. "If the government gave them the leases for free they wouldn't take them," said the adviser, who would speak only anonymously because of his position. "No oil company really cares about ANWR," the adviser said.
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New project to restore the Aral Sea
Desiccation has been eating at the Aral Sea for 30 years, turning a bountiful source of fish into a salty, inhospitable body of water. The sea shrank by 75% and split into two parts joined by an isthmus: the Small Aral in the north, which includes Akespe, and the Big Aral in the south.[...]
The World Bank agreed to finance a [...] dike [and] major works aimed at doubling the flow of the Syr Darya, the main river that feeds into the Small Aral. The $85 million project, now under way, "is the biggest attempt to repair a damaged lake that we've seen so far," says Philip Micklin, an Aral Sea specialist at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. The new dike and sluice are to be completed this summer. Within 3 years, the Small Aral is expected to rise at least 3 meters and cover about 1000 square kilometers of now-dry former seabed, extending its surface by 25%.
The water's rise is also expected to increase rainfall, improve pastureland, and cut down on dust storms. Fish and other freshwater aquatic life forms that retreated into the Syr Darya delta when the sea became too salty are expected to return, perhaps including the commercially valuable caviar-yielding ship sturgeon.
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Brazil promises to reduce deforestation
Destruction of Brazil's Amazon rain forest will slow down in 2005 after the murder of a U.S. nun prompted the government to launch an unprecedented crackdown on illegal loggers and ranchers, the head of Brazil's environment agency said on Monday.[...]
"This is the turning point," said Luiz Fernando Krieger Merico, interim president of Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA, told Reuters in an interview. "There will be a noticeable fall (in deforestation) between 2004 and 2005...this decline will be progressive from now on," Krieger said.
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Turtle sanctuary grows from wreckage of tsunami
Conservationists want to turn a popular Malaysian beach hit by the tsunami into a protected nesting area for endangered sea turtles, which hatched there for the first time in over a decade - probably because of a drop-off in tourists after the disaster.
More than 30 baby Olive Ridley turtles were found Feb. 16 crawling on Tanjung Bungah beach, a popular stretch of resorts and seaside condominiums on northwestern Penang island, said Mashhor Mansor, a professor of biological sciences in the Malaysian University of Science. "Marine turtles are very sensitive to human disturbances, so we want this place to be a sanctuary to let nature take its course," Mashhor said .
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Renewable energy: big in Germany
Germany's wind power expansion pushed renewable energy's share in overall electricity use up by nearly a fifth last year, official data showed on Tuesday.
Wind, hydro and other renewable plants produced a total of 56 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity or 9.3 percent of power consumed in Germany in 2004, the environment ministry and renewable energy groups said in separate statements. This was up compared to a 7.9 percent share in 2003.
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The uplifting quote of the week
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
