Commission to publish draft law on how to deal with nuclear waste by the end of the year. The European Commission will propose a law intended to harmonise how countries manage radioactive waste by the end of the year, Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced today. Speaking at a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Paris, Barroso said that radioactive waste was "a major pre-occupation" for the public and promised that the Commission would publish a draft law on nuclear waste management before the end of the year.
The European Commission will propose a law intended to harmonise how countries manage radioactive waste by the end of the year, Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced today.
Speaking at a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Paris, Barroso said that radioactive waste was "a major pre-occupation" for the public and promised that the Commission would publish a draft law on nuclear waste management before the end of the year.
Pesticides are agents designed to rid targeted portions of the human environment of undesirable critters - such as boll weevils, roaches or carpenter ants. They're not supposed to harm beneficials. Like bees. Yet a new study from China finds that two widely used pyrethroid pesticides - chemicals that are rather "green" as bug killers go - can significantly impair the pollinators' reproduction. .... Ping-Li Dai of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science and the Ministry of Agriculture led a team of researchers at those Beijing institutions together with a physiologist from the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai. The team investigated sublethal effects of bifenthrin and deltamethrin. Bifenthrin is used to kill everything from termites around homes to fire ants, corn pests and the mites that attack fruit trees. Deltamethrin is targeted at aphids, mealy bugs, whitefly, fruit moths, caterpillars on field crops, roaches, horseflies, mosquitoes and fleas. After first establishing the dose that would kill no more than five percent of exposed bees, the researchers laced sugar water near bee hives with either of the pyrethroids at that tolerable dose. Worker bees had access for 20 days to the pseudo-nectar in each of three successive years. Queens in each colony were dosed every five days over each treatment period. Studied bees had no access to outside nectar during the trial periods. Compared to queens receiving clean sugar water, those in the pyrethroid groups were substantially less fecund. For instance, clean queens in 2006 laid a little more than 1,200 eggs each day, compared to not quite 900 a day in the bifenthrin group and roughly 600 per day in the deltamethrin group. In general, the weight of eggs laid was higher in the pyrethroid-treated hives, but the hatch rate of pyrethroid-exposed eggs was significantly depressed. It varied by year, but in 2008, for instance, 88 percent of eggs in the control hives hatched versus 71.4 percent of those in the bifenthrin-treated hives and 80.5 percent of the deltamethrin-treated bees. The success rate of hatchlings, that is the share that reached adulthood, varied from 75 to 95 percent in the control hive - making it between 20 and 40 percentage points higher than in hives where bees had been exposed to a pyrethroid. Dai and colleagues report their findings in the March Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry. The bottom line, Dai's team concludes: "The impact of pesticides on the colony may be severe."
....
Ping-Li Dai of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science and the Ministry of Agriculture led a team of researchers at those Beijing institutions together with a physiologist from the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai. The team investigated sublethal effects of bifenthrin and deltamethrin. Bifenthrin is used to kill everything from termites around homes to fire ants, corn pests and the mites that attack fruit trees. Deltamethrin is targeted at aphids, mealy bugs, whitefly, fruit moths, caterpillars on field crops, roaches, horseflies, mosquitoes and fleas.
After first establishing the dose that would kill no more than five percent of exposed bees, the researchers laced sugar water near bee hives with either of the pyrethroids at that tolerable dose. Worker bees had access for 20 days to the pseudo-nectar in each of three successive years. Queens in each colony were dosed every five days over each treatment period. Studied bees had no access to outside nectar during the trial periods.
Compared to queens receiving clean sugar water, those in the pyrethroid groups were substantially less fecund. For instance, clean queens in 2006 laid a little more than 1,200 eggs each day, compared to not quite 900 a day in the bifenthrin group and roughly 600 per day in the deltamethrin group. In general, the weight of eggs laid was higher in the pyrethroid-treated hives, but the hatch rate of pyrethroid-exposed eggs was significantly depressed. It varied by year, but in 2008, for instance, 88 percent of eggs in the control hives hatched versus 71.4 percent of those in the bifenthrin-treated hives and 80.5 percent of the deltamethrin-treated bees.
The success rate of hatchlings, that is the share that reached adulthood, varied from 75 to 95 percent in the control hive - making it between 20 and 40 percentage points higher than in hives where bees had been exposed to a pyrethroid. Dai and colleagues report their findings in the March Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry.
The bottom line, Dai's team concludes: "The impact of pesticides on the colony may be severe."
After Boom and Bust, Solar Power Has a Place in the Spanish Sun - NYTimes.com
... "Even though incentives can create bubbles and bursts, without them this industry won't take off," she [Cassidy DeLine, who analyzes the European solar market for Emerging Energy Research, a firm based in Cambridge, Mass] said. "The U.S. is really behind Europe on this, and if we wait until solar is cost-competitive on its own, we may miss the boat and an opportunity to shape the market." The most robust Spanish solar companies survived the downturn, have restructured and are re-emerging as global players. <...> ... Experts predict that, possibly by next year, Italy will be the first place where solar-generated electricity will not need subsidies to compete with electricity from fossil fuel. Italy has abundant sun and sky-high energy rates, given that it imports most of its fossil fuel. Even with the reduced incentives and local economic downturn, the solar industry gave Puertollano [Spain] something of a face-lift and, potentially, a new economic future. Research institutes there are developing cutting-edge technologies. Unemployment, though now up around 10 percent, has not returned to the 20 percent figure. The city is home to a number of solar businesses: a new 50-megawatt thermal-solar plant owned by the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola created hundreds of jobs. ...
The most robust Spanish solar companies survived the downturn, have restructured and are re-emerging as global players.
<...>
... Experts predict that, possibly by next year, Italy will be the first place where solar-generated electricity will not need subsidies to compete with electricity from fossil fuel. Italy has abundant sun and sky-high energy rates, given that it imports most of its fossil fuel.
Even with the reduced incentives and local economic downturn, the solar industry gave Puertollano [Spain] something of a face-lift and, potentially, a new economic future. Research institutes there are developing cutting-edge technologies. Unemployment, though now up around 10 percent, has not returned to the 20 percent figure. The city is home to a number of solar businesses: a new 50-megawatt thermal-solar plant owned by the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola created hundreds of jobs. ...
... Experts predict that, possibly by next year, Italy will be the first place where solar-generated electricity will not need subsidies to compete with electricity from fossil fuel.
