Baby Panda Debut at the San Diego Zoo

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Tiny school donates tons of food

By MEGHA SATYANARAYANA  

SANTA CRUZ — A tiny school of 27 students has raised more than 8,500 pounds worth of food for the Second Harvest Food Bank in Watsonville.

Empire Acade m y, a sixth through 12th grade private school, spent about three months last fall on various fundraising proj­ects throughout the com­munity for the school-cen­tered Grind Out Hunger project.

Totals are still being counted, but Empire Academy looks to be the top-performing school for 2009, said Bly Morales, food bank food drive and events manager. This would be the third year the students have won the contest, which comes with a $600 prize from sponsor Santa Cruz Skate Shop.

“We’re helping the com­munity in the way we need it,” said Daniel Gar­cia- Estuesta, a 15-year­old sophomore at Empire Academy.

He said the students picked the project because it benefits local people, some of whom are “getting kicked out of their houses and stuff.”

During one day of wrap­ping gifts for donations, the students raised about $500, said Sinda Merritt, school director. Other fundraising efforts included manning large barrels outside local grocery stores, and going door-to-door asking busi­nesses for help. The project teaches the students about leadership and managing large proj­ects, Merritt said. She said it’s an eye-opening expe­rience for her students, some of whom may have attention deficit-hyperac­tivity disorder, dyslexia or autism.

It exposes children to hunger as a local issue, said Lisa Allyn, develop­ment director for the food bank.

“They are their friends and neighbors in need of food,” she said. “If we educate them while they are young, when they all become adults, they are food bank supporters.”

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel 1/6/10

Trash to gas: Methane from landfills fuels garbage trucks

By JASON DEAREN  - Associated Press

 

 

LIVERMORE — Hun­dreds of trash trucks across California are rumbling down city streets using clean fuel made from a dirty source: garbage.

The fuel is derived from rotting refuse that San Francisco and Oakland residents and businesses have been discarding in the Altamont landfill since 1980. Since November, the methane gas created from decaying detritus at the 240-acre landfill has been sucked into tubes and sent into an innovative facil­ity that purifies and trans­forms it into liquefied natu­ral gas.

Almost 500 Waste Man­agement Inc. garbage and recycling trucks run on this new source of envi­ronmentally friendly fuel instead of dirty diesel.

In a state that has passed the most stringent green­house gas reduction goals in the United States, the climate change benefits of this plant are twofold — methane from the trash heap is captured before entering the environment and use of the fuel produc­es less carbon dioxide than conventional gasoline.

“We’ve built the larg­est landfill-to-LNG plant in the world; this plant produces 13,000 gallons a day of LNG,” said Jessica Jones, a landfill manager for Houston-based Waste Management. “It will take 30,000 tons a year of CO2 from the environment.”

Altamont is one of two California landfills mak­ing LNG; the other is a smaller facility about 40 miles south of Los Angeles. Other natural gas facilities are being planned by Waste Management at some of the 270 active landfills nation­wide, and the number could grow quickly as communi­ties seek to reduce green­house gas pollution.

In 2009, the U.S. Environ­mental Protection Agency counted 517 active land­fill energy projects in the nation’s approximately 1,800 operational munici­pal landfills. That was up almost 50 percent from 2000, and 28 percent from 2004.

Landfills have plenty of the ingredients to produce methane. Bacteria break down the food scraps, paper, lawn trimmings and other organic waste dumped there. Over time, the material ferments, releasing methane and other gases. About 50 per­cent of the gas emitted from landfills is methane. It is 21 times more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere, the EPA said. “Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide,” Tom Frankiewicz, program manager for EPA’s Land­fill Methane Outreach Pro­gram in Washington, said in an e-mail. “Methane is also the main component of natural gas, so by captur­ing and using methane as an energy source you get an even bigger bang for the buck.”

At the Altamont land­fill, seagulls hover over the sprawling complex, set among the rolling green hills and wind farms of the Altamont pass about 50 miles east of San Francis­co. Dotted throughout the facility are more than 100 wells with black tubes that vacuum up methane from the heap.

The LNG is then pumped into the garbage and recy­cling trucks at a company fueling station in Oakland, while vehicles elsewhere in California get their gas at specially equipped sta­tions.

The Altamont site has had a methane-fueled elec­tric power plant since 1989 that can power 8,000 homes a day. Hundreds of other landfills in the U.S. also use methane.

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Sun, wind and wave-powered: Europe unites to build renewable energy 'supergrid'

Alok Jha

It would connect turbines off the wind-lashed north coast of Scotland with Germany's vast arrays of solar panels, and join the power of waves crashing on to the Belgian and Danish coasts with the hydro-electric dams nestled in Norway's fjords: Europe's first electricity grid dedicated to renewable power will become a political reality this month, as nine countries formally draw up plans to link their clean energy projects around the North Sea.

The network, made up of thousands of kilometres of highly efficient undersea cables that could cost up to €30bn (£26.5bn), would solve one of the biggest criticisms faced by renewable power – that unpredictable weather means it is unreliable.

With a renewables supergrid, electricity can be supplied across the continent from wherever the wind is blowing, the sun is shining or the waves are crashing.

Connected to Norway's many hydro-electric power stations, it could act as a giant 30GW battery for Europe's clean energy, storing electricity when demand is low and be a major step towards a continent-wide supergrid that could link into the vast potential of solar power farms in North Africa.

By autumn, the nine governments involved – Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland and the UK – hope to have a plan to begin building a high-voltage direct current network within the next decade. It will be an important step in achieving the European Union's pledge that, by 2020, 20% of its energy will come from renewable sources.

"We recognise that the North Sea has huge resources, we are exploiting those in the UK quite intensively at the moment," said the UK's energy and climate change minister, Lord Hunt. "But there are projects where it might make sense to join up with other countries, so this comes at a very good time for us."

More than 100GW of offshore wind projects are under development in Europe, around 10% of the EU's electricity demand, and equivalent to about 100 large coal-fired plants. The surge in wind power means the continent's grid needs to be adapted, according to Justin Wilkes of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). An EWEA study last year outlined where these cables might be built and this is likely to be a starting point for the discussions by the nine countries.

Renewable energy is much more decentralised and is often built in inhospitable places, far from cities. A supergrid in the North Sea would enable a secure and reliable energy supply from renewables by balancing power across the continent.

Norway's hydro plants – equivalent to about 30 large coal-fired power stations – could use excess power to pump water uphill, ready to let it rush down again, generating electricity, when demand is high. "The benefits of an offshore supergrid are not simply to allow offshore wind farms to connect; if you have additional capacity, which you will do within these lines, it will allow power trading between countries and that improves EU competitiveness," said Wilkes.

The European Commission has also been studying proposals for a renewable-electricity grid in the North Sea. A working group in the EC's energy department, led by Georg Wilhelm Adamowitsch, will produce a plan by the end of 2010. He has warned that without additional transmission infrastructure, the EU will not be able to meet its ambitious targets. Hunt said the EC working group's findings would be fed into the nine-country grid plan.

The cost of a North Sea grid has not yet been calculated, but a study by Greenpeace in 2008 put the price of building a similar grid by 2025 at €15bn-€20bn. This would provide more than 6,000km of cable around the region. The EWEA's 2009 study suggested the costs of connecting the proposed 100GW wind farms and building interconnectors, into which further wind and wave power farms could be plugged in future, would probably push the bill closer to €30bn. The technical, planning, legal and environmental issues will be discussed at the meeting of the nine this month.

"The first thing we're aiming for is a common vision," said Hunt. "We will hopefully sign a memorandum of understanding in the autumn with ministers setting out what we're trying to do and how we plan to do it."

All those involved also have an eye on the future, said Wilkes. "The North Sea grid would be the backbone of the future European electricity supergrid," he said. This supergrid, which has support from scientists at the commission's Institute for Energy (IE), and political backing from both the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Gordon Brown, would link huge solar farms in southern Europe – producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat to boil water and drive turbines – with marine, geothermal and wind projects elsewhere on the continent. Scientists at the IE have estimated it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and the deserts of the Middle East to meet all Europe's energy needs.

In this grid, electricity would be transmitted along high voltage direct current cables. These are more expensive than traditional alternating-current cables, but they lose less energy over long distances.

Hunt agreed that the European supergrid was a long-term dream, but one worth making a reality. The UK, like other countries, faced "huge challenges with our renewables targets," he said. "The 2020 target is just the beginning and then we've got to aim for 2050 with a decarbonised electricity supply – so we need all the renewables we can get."

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Family's 'Angel' dog saves boy from cougar attack

From Cheryl Robinson, CNN

(CNN) -- One lucky boy in Canada can say without a doubt that he has his own personal guardian angel -- not of the spiritual kind, but of the furry.

On Saturday an 18-month old golden retriever saved her owner from being attacked by a cougar while in the backyard of their home in Boston Bar, British Columbia, about 130 miles north of Vancouver.

The dog -- named Angel -- leaped into action and threw herself between her owner, 11-year-old Austin Forman, and the cougar that was charging at him.

Sherri Forman, Austin's mother, said her son was outside with Angel around 5:30 p.m. gathering firewood from their backyard. She explained that Angel normally runs around and plays when she is outside, but on this afternoon she was behaving differently.

"He had come in at one point to tell me how cute Angel was being because she was sticking pretty close to him in the yard, which was unusual for her," Forman told CNN.

In hindsight she realizes that Angel was protecting her son from an unseen danger.

When the cougar charged, Angel ran to protect the boy.

"She intercepted the cougar," Forman said. "Austin came into the house very upset, and I had to get him to calm down so I could understand what he was saying. Finally he said 'there's a cougar eating Angel.'"

Angel and the cougar fought under the family's deck, while Austin's mother called 911 for help. A constable was in the area and able to make it to their home and kill the cougar quickly.

Forman said when her nephew pulled the cougar's body off Angel, who at first appeared fatally injured, the dog sucked in a "big breath of air and then got up." Ever the protector, Angel "walked to Austin, sniffed him to make sure he was alright, then sat down." Despite receiving a few deep bites and scratches Angel's prognosis is good.

"She had some pretty nasty injuries across the front of her head and neck" said veterinarian Jack Anvik who is treating Angel at the Sardis Animal Hospital. "If there had been enough time for the two of them together the cougar would have probably killed the dog," he told CNN.

According to his mother, Austin is so thankful for Angel's bravery that he "went to town with his grandpa and bought a huge steak for her."

"I feel very good now that we know she's alive and the fact that she saved me and survived is amazing," Austin told CNN.

And Angel appears to be in good spirits while she recovers at the Animal Hospital.

"She's a golden retriever," Anvik said. "They're always happy."

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Mistletoe cures woman's cancer after she shuns chemotherapy

A cancer sufferer has told how mistletoe saved her life after she shunned conventional treatments.

Joan van Holsteijn put her faith in the healing properties of the plant, which is more commonly associated with Yuletide romance.

She turned down potentially life-saving chemotherapy and instead had injections of misteltoe.

Amazingly, it has worked wonders: the tumours in her leg are now gone and she's well on the road to recovery.

Mrs van Holsteijn, from Milltimber in Aberdeenshire, said: 'I owe my life to misteltoe. I feel so grateful and well and healthy. I've got my life back, all thanks to the plant.

'I have never had it in the house before but this year I've got a sprig of misteltoe at my front door. I want everyone to know about it.'

The 53-year-old, originally from Holland, sought medical advice after a painful lump the size of an egg developed on her leg. Doctors diagnosed her with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Her specialist recommended doses of chemotherapy. But Joan, a therapist at the Camphill special needs school, didn't want to go down that route.

She said: 'I was very scared. I was scared of the cancer, and scared of chemo because you can become so ill from it.

'It runs down to your immune system to the point where you don't feel well. Even if you get better from the cancer you still have to deal with the treatment.

'Usually patients try chemotherapy then mistletoe, but I didn't want to do that.'

She was given injections of a medicine made from mistletoe berries at Park Attwood Clinic in Birmingham.

Within six months the lump on her leg had shrunk. After 18 months it was gone completely, along with other tumours.

She said: 'My doctor told me just to try chemo and nothing else.

'But after I started the mistletoe he was very supportive. I've been back several times for body scans and the tumours have all gone now.

'All that's left behind is scar tissue. I feel absolutely fantastic.'

Mrs van Holsteijn, who lives with husband Simon, 48, and daughter Lisa, 14, is now clear of cancer, but will require further check-ups to ensure it doesn't return.

Debbie Thomson, chief executive of cancer charity Clan, said her organisation used misteltoe in its doctor-run clinics.

She said: 'Misteltoe therapy is both supportive and complementary and helps to reduce the indirect effects of cancer.

'It is assumed that surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are important first-line and supportive tools for the treatment of cancer.'

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