Green Environment

State-owned China Resources (836) (Holdings) Co. plans to combine two of its Hong Kong-traded subsidiaries amid a shift from coal-fired power, sending shares in its electricity generation unit down as much as 11 percent. China Resources Power Holdings Co., an electricity generator, will offer HK$24.64 a share for all the shares of China Resources Gas Group Ltd. (1193), a natural gas distributor, both companies said in a joint statement to Hong Kong’s stock exchange today. There will be no cash alternative for the deal, which values China Resources Gas at HK$54.8 billion ($7.1 billion). The offer represents a 13 percent premium to China Resources Gas’s closing share price May 3, its last day of trade before both stocks were suspended. The integration of the two units comes amid pressure in China to reduce pollution by shifting to cleaner fuels such as natural gas. Shares of China Resources Power, which largely uses coal for electricity generation, fell the most since November 2008 percent in morning trading in Hong Kong. via China Resources Utility Units Combine in Shift From Coal – Bloomberg.

After a two-year battle with cancer, Joseph Fitzgerald was determined to leave his final resting place to Mother Nature. On a quiet February day in rural Florida, Fitzgerald’s body was carried through the Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery on a bamboo stretcher made by family members. In an ecologically approved “green burial,” he was laid to rest on a plot of land surrounded by oak trees and Spanish moss he picked out just months before his passing in a grave that was dug by hand just two days prior. Green burial options have become a small but growing trend in the U.S. funeral industry, with an increasing number of funeral homes offering eco-friendly services and about 30 green cemeteries across the country, according to the Green Burial Council, or GBC, a non-profit organization operating in the United States, Canada and Australia. via Green Burials Catch On In The U.S..

Hoping to start composting but not sure where to begin? Already composting but not getting the results you want? Want answers to your composting questions? Come to Cymple Gardens (formerly Gardener’s Edge) Sunday May 19 for an intimate, 1-hour workshop led by Compost Experience Officer Chris Cano of Gainesville Compost. You’ll learn in one hour what has taken us 3 years to learn! When: 12 p.m. Sunday, May 19 Cost: $5 in advance or $10 at the door Where: 5408 NW 8th Ave, Gainesville, Florida 32605 via Composting 101 Workshop at Cymple Gardens | Gainesville Compost.

The story seems simple enough. First, on Wednesday a study came out that found 97% consensus on human-caused global warming in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It was by our friends at Skeptical Science, John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli. Then on Thursday, President Obama tweeted the study to his 31,000,000 (!) followers: So how does the ever-shrinking Washington Post report the story? With the headline, “Obama tweet gets Australian researcher 31.5 million followers on Twitter.” #FAIL And just to be clear that the WashPost is in fact as confused and innumerate as their headline suggests, the story asserts: That tweet, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, led 31,541,507 people to decide to follow Australian climate change researcher John Cook on Twitter. The Herald didn’t, however, make such a transparently silly claim. Their headline read, “Obama gives Aussie researcher 31,541,507 reasons to celebrate.” Ten seconds on the interwebs will reveal that Cook has 6,560 followers. But then we’ve suspected for a while that the Washington Post doesn’t employ any fact checkers. Nor does it have a single editor who understood enough about social media to realize instantly that the headline — and hence the story — must be wrong. No wonder the MSM is collapsing in the face of the new media onslaught. Note: As of Saturday morning, the story is still uncorrected.

Opine away!

Joseph Mikrut, a graphic designer and one of the owners of Anamaya Yoga Resort in Montezuma, Costa Rica, has finished constructing what may very well be the world’s first treehouse shaped in the form of an icosahedron. The treehouse is suspended from cables strung between four melina trees, around 20 feet off the ground, and it moves slightly in the wind, making it feel similar to a being on a boat. And the treehouse is situated just high enough that it enhots spectacular views of the mountains to the north. Read the rest of This Unique Icosahedron-Shaped Treehouse in Costa Rica Cost Just $5,000 to Build Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: Anamaya Yoga Resort, Costa Rica, Icosahedron Treehouse, Joseph Mikrut, Latin America, Rancho Delicioso, tree house, treehouse, treehouse design, Treehouses, yoga retreats

Come join Forage Farm to celebrate what’s great about our community! Live music geared toward kids from great local bands, local food, arts and crafts, nature walks, food and garden workshops, kids activities, and more! All proceeds from event benefit Forage outreach programs and the Gainesville Seed Library!  Tickets sold at the door $15.  Kids under 5 are free.  For more information, email anna@foragefarm.org. via School’s Out Farm Festival June 8 | Forage Farm.

The U.K.’s two largest water companies warned today that sewer flooding would worsen should people flush wet wipes in toilets and wash grease down sinks. United Utilities Plc (UU/), the biggest publicly traded water utility in Britain, spends 20 million pounds ($31 million) a year on 53,000 blockages, it said in a website statement. Thames Water Utilities Ltd., with 14 million customers in London and parts of the Home Counties, said half of its 7,000 blockages a month are due to items that shouldn’t be flushed. Sewers aren’t designed to take more than toilet paper, water and human waste, Rob Smith, Thames Water’s chief sewer flusher, said in the statement. “We’re seeing more and more fat and wet wipes, which should never be flushed even if the packaging says ‘flushable,’ ending up in our sewers.” via Water Firms Warn of Sewer Flooding From Grease, Wipes – Bloomberg.

The Panama Canal is taking preventive measures to reduce water use as a drought prompts electricity rationing in Central America’s fastest-growing economy. Hydraulic assistance to lift boats as they exit canal locks has been temporarily suspended and two boats will be permitted in a lock at once rather than just one, the Panama Canal Authority said in an e-mailed statement. The Canal Authority has also limited electricity use at its Atlantic and Pacific facilities, according to the statement. No restrictions on ship transit have been adopted. “The decrease in rainfall will continue a few more days,” Presidential Minister Roberto Henriquez said in a statement. “For that reason, it is necessary for the government to implement measures to ration as much as possible and urge all citizens of the country to reduce energy consumption to overcome the current situation.” via Panama Canal Cuts Water Use as Drought Prompts Energy Rationing – Bloomberg.

Exporting natural gas just got easier. This afternoon, the Department of Energy approved the second application for a facility to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) worldwide. Today’s approval to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day goes to Freeport LNG Expansion, on Quintana Island in Texas, for 25 years. The approval process now moves to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions (FERC), so the company is not in the clear yet. Several companies have received nearly two dozen permits from DoE to export LNG to countries with which the U.S. has a free trade agreement (FTA), but the approval process has been much slower for permits to export to non-FTA countries. 19 facilities that want to export LNG to non-FTA countries are still under review by the Energy Department — including a joint project between ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum. The natural gas industry is booming in the United States, largely due to the practice of fracking, which opened up large parts of the country to extraction previously thought uneconomical to drill. Natural gas can be transported via pipeline across land, but when companies want to export the fuel overseas, they have to use ships. Since natural gas (mostly methane) in gas form would require a large ship to transport, it must be cooled and liquefied before it can be exported across an ocean. In the last decade, companies built facilities to import natural gas because the U.S. expected lower production than what fracking actually allowed. Once the shale gas boom sharply increased domestic production, they have tried to turn those import terminals into export terminals. Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal, the first facility to receive DoE approval to export to non-FTA countries, is one example of this. The reason for the delay of such applications is due to opposition largely from the chemical industry, which fears that exports will lead to an increase in the price of natural gas (which it uses for industrial purposes), and those who care about carbon emissions and the environment, who point out that the U.S. still does not know the consequences that exports will have on carbon emissions. Congressman Ed Markey, running for John Kerry’s old senate seat in Massachusetts, said today that “The Department of Energy still doesn’t even know what the impact of natural gas exports will be on domestic businesses and consumers, but they are approving more exports anyway.” If the U.S. is increasing exports, it becomes even more critical to ensure that the natural gas obtained through hydraulic fracturing is as safe as possible, with zero fugitive emissions. Yesterday the Interior Department released draft fracking rules, and there are some easy ways (5 in fact) to make the rules adequately protect Americans and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is one thing to argue for weak safeguards to give Americans access to “cheap energy” — it is another to argue for weak rules that poison the air and water to export the energy to other countries. The net climate effects of LNG exports depend largely on the energy currently used by the importing country — what the gas will replace. Coal-heavy economies that replace their coal with natural gas should see lower emissions, but this transition could threaten more valuable transitions to renewable energy. The Energy Department said in today’s approval that “the exports proposed in this Application are likely to yield net economic benefits to the United States.” Left unsaid is the fact that the more fossil fuels left in the ground, the easier it is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which would benefit the economy in myriad ways.