Oil giant Total UK today admitted health and safety breaches in connection with the massive Buncefield oil depot explosion.

It entered written pleas of guilty to two charges under the Health and Safety Act, and one of polluting water under the Water Resources Act.

Four other companies, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd, British Pipeline Agency Ltd, TAV Engineering Ltd and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd, pleaded not guilty to breaking health and safety laws.

Total is not expected to be sentenced until trials are held for the other companies.

The case at the Old Bailey was brought by the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency.

A series of explosions, including one major one, ripped through the depot in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, on 11 December, 2005.

Widely thought to be the largest ever explosion in peacetime Europe, it measured 2.4 on the Richter scale and could be heard 125 miles away.

AFP - China should cut its carbon intensity by four to five percent each year from 2005 baseline levels, state media reported, citing a proposal by a leading government-led think tank.

The proposal comes ahead of a key meeting in Copenhagen next month where China -- now the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases -- will face pressure from rich nations to make firm commitments to combat climate change.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Italy was meant to reduce its emissions to 482 million tons by 2012, 6.5 percent below the 1990 figure. This means it will have to cut emisisons by over 10 percent in the next three years if it is to meet its commitments.

Under the Kyoto agreement, Spain was allowed to boost its output of greenhouse gases by 15 percent - to take into account its relatively underdeveloped economic situation in the 1990s.

But the country's subsequent economic boom led to a staggering  52.6 percent explosion in emissions. This leaves Spain with the challenge of slashing emissions by a quarter over the next three years.

Denmark has managed to cut output by four percent, but it is still way off its 21 percent Kyoto target.

English winegrowers are benefiting from global warming and their reputation is improving fast. Despite the rain, some British vintners dream of competing with France's Champagne region.

AFP - A super-fast, space-age powerboat which scythes through waves and smashed the round-the-world record is set to be unleashed on Japanese whalers next month, activists said on Friday.

The tri-hulled, kevlar-and-carbon vessel, which can manage speeds up to 50 knots (57 miles/93 kilometres per hour), will chase the controversial boats during their annual hunt in seas south of Australia.

AFP - Swine flu is thought to have killed nearly 4,000 people in the United States, including more than 500 children, health officials said after a new counting method yielded an estimate six times higher than the last.

The new system is based on more precise figures provided by 10 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. The previous estimated death toll from H1N1 was 672.

AFP - A billion-euro (1.5-billion-dollar) European spacecraft designed to rendezvous with a comet will skim past Earth on Friday on a final, eagerly-awaited swing by, enabling it to gain speed for a date in deep space in 2014.

European Space Agency (ESA) scientists are relishing the moment when they get to see their cherished baby, Rosetta, which was hoisted aloft in 2004 in one of the most extraordinary missions in space history.

Marine biologist Fleur Van Duyl from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is fascinated by the energy budgets that support coral reefs in this impoverished environment. According to van Duyl's former student, Jasper De Goeij, Halisarca caerulea sponges grow in the deep dark cavities beneath reefs, and 90% of their diet is composed of dissolved organic carbon, which is inedible for most other reef residents. But when De Goeij measured the amount of carbon that the brightly coloured sponges consumed he found that they consume half of their own weight each day, yet they never grew.

What were the sponges doing with the carbon? Were the sponges really consuming that much carbon, or was there a problem with De Goeij's measurements? He had to find out where the carbon was going to back up his measurements and publishes his discovery that sponges have one of the fastest cell division rates ever measured, and instead of growing they discard the cells. Essentially, the sponges recycle carbon that would otherwise be lost to the reef. De Goeij publishes his discovery on November 13 2009 in The Journal of Experimental Biology.

snip snip

The sponges were shedding the newly divided cells, which other reef residents could now consume. 'Halisarca caerulea is the great recycler of energy for the reef by turning over energy that nobody else can use [dissolved organic carbon] into energy that everyone can use [discarded choanocytes],' explains De Goeij.

Mass budget calculations, validated with satellite gravity observations [from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites], enable us to quantify the individual components of recent Greenland mass loss. The total 2000-2008 mass loss of ~1500 gigatons, equivalent to 0.46 millimeters per year of global sea level rise, is equally split between surface processes (runoff and precipitation) and ice dynamics. Without the moderating effects of increased snowfall and refreezing, post-1996 Greenland ice sheet mass losses would have been 100% higher. Since 2006, high summer melt rates have increased Greenland ice sheet mass loss to 273 gigatons per year (0.75 millimeters per year of equivalent sea level rise). The seasonal cycle in surface mass balance fully accounts for detrended GRACE mass variations, confirming insignificant subannual variation in ice sheet discharge.

I refuse to quote the Science Daily article when it has as title Greenland Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Ever.

Because of the growing need for near-term, feasible, greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement options (1), there is increasing interest in the scale and cost-effectiveness of potential emission reductions from destruction of ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) (2). Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ODSs not only damage stratospheric ozone, but also are powerful GHGs, with global warming potentials (GWPs) up to 11,000 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) (3). The Montreal Protocol eliminates production of these chemicals but does not control their emissions or require destruction of ODSs produced before phaseout deadlines. The Kyoto Protocol targets emissions of CO2 and other non-ODS GHGs. Because of these regulatory gaps, large quantities of ODSs remain in legal use or storage in older refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment, building and appliance insulation, fire suppression systems, and government and industrial stockpiles (4). Without requirements or incentives for destruction, these ODSs will ultimately be released to the atmosphere and contribute to anthropogenic climate change.

One more example why a single-minded focus on CO2 is stupid for writing policies on mitigating the anthropogenic contributions of green house gasses.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will soon launch an ambitious plan to boost its solar power generation from 3 MW to 20,000 MW by 2022, the minister for new and renewable energy said on Friday.

"The amount which we are going to talk about is huge. I can only say that much," Farooq Abdullah, told reporters, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to announce its new policy next week.

The policy framework, known in official circles as "the National Solar Mission," will address the high cost of manufacturing solar panels as well as the high price of solar power, Abdullah said. A rough rule of thumb is that one megawatt of coal generating capacity costs about $1 million to build, while solar capacity costs roughly double that.

"Our job is to bring the costs down. Whether we are going to give concession on import duties, whether we are going to give a sizeable subsidy to purchase solar power, all will be outlined in the mission," he said.

India struggles with a severe shortage of electricity, with peak power falling about 12 percent below demand. Rolling blackouts are common and businesses rely heavily on backup generators. The country has set a target to build 78,700 megawatts of new power capacity in the five years ending in 2012, but top officials have said India will fall short of that target.