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newsclips -- Newsclips for August 30, 2011.

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 11:58:56
California Air Resources Board News Clips for August 30, 2011.  

This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
of Communications.  You may need to sign in or register with
individual websites to view some of the following news articles.

AIR POLLUTION

Pittsburgh-area coke shop fined $114K for smog.  The Allegheny
County Health Department has fined a Pittsburgh-area coke plant
$114,000 for repeated air pollution violations.  Officials with
Shenango Inc. on Neville Island, just west of the city, did not
immediately return calls Tuesday.  Posted.  
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_18787972

FUELS

Exxon Wins Prized Access to Arctic With Russia Deal. The American
oil company Exxon Mobil won a highly coveted prize in the global
petroleum industry on Tuesday by striking an agreement to explore
for oil in a Russian sector of the Arctic Ocean that is opening
for drilling even as Alaskan waters remain mostly off limits. The
agreement seemed to supersede a similar but now-defunct
partnership that Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft, reached
with BP earlier this year. Posted. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/business/global/exxon-and-rosneft-partner-in-russian-oil-deal.html?hp

California Fuel Switchover Issues. The California Air Resources
Board (ARB) created regulations for vessel emissions reductions
for California waters as part of its continued mission to improve
air quality around the state. The new requirements came into
effect in July 2009, under California Code of Regulations (CCR),
Section 2299.2, Fuel Sulfur and Other Operational Requirements
for Ocean Going Vessels within California Waters and 24 Nautical
Miles of the California Baseline. Posted.
http://www.maritime-executive.com/pressrelease/california-fuel-switchover-issues

VEHICLES

Portland Plans for Transit All Powered by Electricity. To drivers
passing by on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the structure
rising above the parking lot is mostly unremarkable. But to the
eco-elites who gathered in this green-leaning city in June for
its unveiling, it represented a blueprint for the filling station
of the future. The roof of the 12-foot-tall steel canopy, built
by EV4 Oregon, is covered with solar cells that generate power
for a pair of ECOtality Blink Level 2 electric-vehicle chargers
at the base. Posted. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/automobiles/portland-plans-for-transit-all-powered-by-electricity.html?scp=9&sq=vehicles&st=cse

Calif. Lawmakers Re-Calibrate Inflation Law. Re-calibrate. That's
what California legislators did last week to their already
controversial law that requires all automotive service providers
to check customer tire inflation pressures. On Aug. 24, both
houses of the California legislature unanimously passed a second
bill that requires tire and auto service providers have and
utilize tire gauges that are accurate within +/- 2 psi. Gov.
Jerry Brown signed the bill into law on Aug. 25. Posted.
http://www.tirereview.com/Article/91140/calif_lawmakers_recalibrate_inflation_law.aspx

GREEN ENERGY

In Seattle, work starts on 'greenest' office building. The
Bullitt Center is billed as the first commercial building
designed to carry its own environmental weight. It'll be six
stories, but expectations are sky-high. These days, there are
plenty of "green" buildings, with solar heating, insulated
windows, self-generated electricity. But what would it take to
construct an office building at competitive leasing rates that
generated its own energy and processed its own waste — for 250
years? Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-green-building-20110830,0,7620689,print.story

Ivanpah plant closer to completion. Ivanpah - A white crane
towers over the Mojave Desert floor where hundreds of workers
gather below and inside a hulking gray structure that is part of
a multi-million dollar bet that solar energy will prove a
reliable technology for powering California homes and businesses.
Sitting on 3,600 acres of public land near the Nevada state line,
the solar project - its formal name is the Ivanpah Solar Electric
Generating Station - has been under construction for nearly a
year. Posted. http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_18783438?source=rss

MISCELLANEOUS

New Director for Air Pollution Control District. Monday, August
22, the Santa Barbara Air Pollution Control District Board
announced the appointment of Louis David Van Mullem, Jr. as its
new District Director and Air Pollution Control Officer. After
his first day on the job, he said he predicted a bright future
for him and his team. “It’s like drinking water out of a fire
hose. I really had a good first day,” he said. “I met everybody,
and what a fantastic team. It’s a great group. I’m going to have
a lot of fun, and we’re going to have a lot of fun together.”
Posted.
http://www.independent.com/news/2011/aug/30/new-director-air-pollution-control-district/

OPINIONS

Republicans Against Science. Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah
governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for
the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad,
because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about
the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science
party.” This is an enormously important development. And it
should terrify us. Posted. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html?src=me&ref=general

Our View: High-speed rail needs leadership. Gov. Jerry Brown is
stepping in to fill a void that has been hampering progress on
the system. California's high-speed rail project once was the
political darling of the state -- so much so that voters approved
a $10 billion bond for the project. But as economic conditions
deteriorated, and cost estimates increased, opponents began
picking apart the project. It didn't help that the California
High- Speed Rail Authority was politically tone deaf and didn't
know how to respond to opponents. Posted.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2011/08/30/2022388/our-view-high-speed-rail-needs.html

FACT CHECK: Bachmann energy claims oversimplified. America's
energy future can't be unlocked as simply as Republican
presidential candidate Michele Bachmann makes it sound when she
depicts the nation as the "king daddy dogs" of energy. Even if
environmentalists folded and Washington regulators got out of the
way, much of the energy is too expensive for companies to
develop. Posted. 
http://www.nctimes.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/article_4dd88ae3-b4d3-5acb-8ab7-8275b2ce1a19.html
http://www.modbee.com/2011/08/30/1836600/fact-check-bachmann-energy-claims.html

Port-suit folly. Wasting public funds on pointless court battles
will not unclog the traffic at Riverside railroad crossings. And
the City Council should avoid tossing money into needless
crusades driven by political posturing. The Riverside City
Council last week dropped the city's lawsuits against the ports
of Los Angeles and Long Beach . The city sued the ports in 2009,
charging that port expansion plans failed to address the effects
of resulting train traffic on Riverside. Posted. 
http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_D_op_30_ed_portsuit1.2d9af49.html

BLOGS

MIT researchers improve upon methods to model urban air
pollution.  Researchers at MIT have developed a new detailed
air-quality model to simulate the effects of physical, chemical,
and meteorological processing of highly reactive trace species in
urban areas. The new metamodel is capable of efficiently
simulating the urban concentration, surface deposition, and net
export flux of these species that are important to human health
and the global climate.  Posted. 
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/08/mit-20110829.html

Panda Poop Could be the Key to Cheap and Efficient Biofuel
Production.  Giant Pandas are well-loved for their distinctive
appearance and sedentary nature. Now they will receive even
greater adoration and attention for their bowel-based
contribution to the development of a clean energy future. In a
national meeting at the American Chemical Society, researchers
presented a study identifying panda poop as a source of
enzyme-producing bacteria that breaks down plant materials in a
way that is useful for biofuel production.  Posted. 
http://inhabitat.com/panda-poop-unlocks-the-possibility-of-cheap-and-efficient-biofuel-production/

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