• Interior Department Digs Up Geothermal Opportunities
  
• Government Seeks More Efficient Energy Permitting
  
• Union Workers and Ponca Indians To File Clean Air Lawsuit
  
• Study Finds Yellowstone Carnivores Still Need Protection
  
• Cloned Pigs Are Not the Same
  
• Helping Monarchs With Their 3,000 Mile Migration
  
• Researchers Aim to Upgrade Plastics Recycling
  
• Bush Administration Encourages Earth Day Celebration
  

Interior Department Digs Up Geothermal Opportunities

Prepared by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the report was undertaken as part of President George W. Bush's national energy policy.

"This report will help us to make important decisions for the development of domestic sources of energy," said Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson.

The report, titled "Opportunities for Near-Term Geothermal Development on Public Lands in the Western United States," lists 35 sites in 18 planning units throughout six western states that have high potential for near term geothermal development.

The agencies used Geographic Information System (GIS) data to assess the geothermal energy potential of BLM lands in the Western United States. The BLM administers some 261 million acres of federal lands, most of it in 12 Western states.

Of the 35 "top pick" sites identified in the report, 10 are in Nevada, nine in California, seven in Oregon and three in New Mexico, Utah, and Washington. BLM officials say these sites have the greatest geothermal potential for rapid development in terms of power generation.

Geothermal resources range from shallow ground to hot water and rock several miles below the Earth's surface, and even farther down to the extremely high temperatures of molten rock called magma. Using geothermal heat pumps, direct use applications and power plants, this energy can be converted into heat and electricity. It is not widely used in the United States, but it holds the promise of a potentially clean energy source.

Currently more than two thirds of the "top pick" areas are addressed in existing BLM Land Use Plans. Once environmental analysis is complete, according to BLM officials, these areas would be ready for the geothermal industry to develop.

"These areas that are high in geothermal sources will provide a unique opportunity for development of clean geothermal power that will help to create jobs and provide for rural economic development," Watson said. "Developing our geothermal sources will also help to reduce America's dependency on foreign sources of energy."

Government Seeks More Efficient Energy Permitting

According to BLM officials, these approaches advance the administration's goal of encouraging increased energy development without compromising environmental protection.

"These innovative strategies will update the permit application process while ensuring protection of cultural and other resources on the public lands," said BLM Director Kathleen Clarke.

One change will be to bundle applications for permits to drill together, allowing master drilling plans for wells and facilities in close proximity. The rules do not explain how many applications can be bundled.

Among other changes, the new policies allow the simultaneous processing and completing of environmental analyses on multiple permit applications with similar characteristics.

It calls for BLM staff to perform environmental assessment for entire oil or gas fields instead of for individual wells. Although these initiatives make some environmentalists nervous, Bush administration officials say these practices will improve protection of the environment, reduce paperwork, and eliminate redundancy in project analyses.

"Overall, the new policies will help implement the National Energy Policy," Clarke explained. "These important steps move us toward a much improved method of working with our energy partners across the country and ensure a reliable supply of affordable energy for America's families and businesses."

As an attempt to demonstrate greater consistency in approval criteria, BLM officials will now be required to provide copies of applications that they approve.

And under the initiative, the BLM will form a working group to revise and update planning information for the oil and gas industry, in an attempt to help the industry better understand the agency's surface operating standards.

Union Workers and Ponca Indians To File Clean Air Lawsuit

PACE and Ponca Tribe representatives served the Continental Carbon Company, and its Taiwan based parent companies China Synthetic Rubber Corporation and Taiwan Cement Corporation, with its formal intent to sue. The filing is a required prerequisite to a federal lawsuit that citizens can bring against pollution violators when they believe that government agencies have failed to enforce the law.

The Continental Carbon Company is the fourth largest domestic U.S. producer of carbon black used in tires and its Ponca City plant has the capacity to produce some 280 million pounds of carbon black per year.

The groups allege that the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has not been enforcing environmental laws and is practicing environmental racism by siding with Continental Carbon.

"Government officials would never tolerate this same pollution in their own communities," said Ron Sherron, director of the Ponca Office of Environmental Management.

PACE officials contend that DEQ's Executive Director Steven Thompson and other agency staff have refused recent requests to meet with the representatives of the citizen groups and ignored an invitation to attend an April 8 public hearing sponsored by the Ponca Tribe.

The EPA sent four representatives to the hearing and both the Oklahoma attorney general's office and the state environmental secretary agreed to follow up with meetings in the near future.

According to the union and tribal representatives, the alleged violations include the company's failure to comply with specific permit provisions and other authorizations, and with failing to control carbon black emissions that damage the local water supply, public health and property.

All three of Continental Carbon's plants in the United States are the subject of environmental lawsuits, according to PACE officials. The companies other two plants are in Phenix City, Alabama and Sunray, Texas.

Study Finds Yellowstone Carnivores Still Need Protection

A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) appearing in the journal "Biological Conservation" finds that neither species may be fully recovered because they appear not to be fully integrated into the ecosystem.

Bush administration officials have cited rising population levels of the Yellowstone grizzlies and wolves as evidence of conservation success that merits delisting both species. But the study's authors contend that an increase in numbers does not correlate to full ecological recovery.

By studying how these predators interact with moose populations, the authors found that predator/prey relationships in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem may show signs of dysfunction.

"The current justification that Yellowstone grizzly bears and wolves should now be removed from their protected status because we have enough of both species now is incomplete," said WCS researcher Joel Berger, one of the coauthors of the recent study. "Recovery should be defined by a suite of ecological processes rather than a simple headcount."

Berger explained that the scents of predators are one of several indicators that help biologists understand when carnivores are more fully integrated into the system. Other markers of recovery include restored vegetation communities, birds that rely on these, and the behavior of other prey species.

For the past 75 years, moose in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have lived largely free of these endangered predators and the study's authors found that when they exposed moose to predator sounds and smells, they observed little reaction.

By contrast, moose living in mainland Alaska, where predators have existed without interruption, showed signs of agitation when exposed to predator sounds and smells and often attempted to flee.

"Grizzly bears and wolves in Wyoming are currently protected under the Endangered Species Act, which specifies that recovery includes both the species and the ecological functions it once performed," said Berger. "If these species are delisted, as may be the case in the near future, it will lead the public to the possibly wrong conclusion that grizzly bears and wolves in Wyoming have recovered."

Berger and coauthor Sanjay Pyare conclude that the classification of endangered species should include a more complex definition of ecological recovery to ensure that large carnivores become truly restored components of functioning ecosystems.

Cloned Pigs Are Not the Same

"We demonstrated in our behavioral paper that the behavior of clones is not identical," explained Jorge Piedrahita, professor of molecular biomedical sciences at NC State. "They are not homogeneous, so you cannot expect your cloned pet to behave like your original pet, even discounting environment. We have cloned animals that were raised in the same environment and they still did not act the same."

Piedrahita's study on cloned pig behavior is in the current edition of "Applied Animal Behaviour Science" and is the first published research on the behavior of cloned mammals. The study focused on two litters of cloned female pigs and two control litters of purebred pigs - these groups were compared on a number of criteria such as food preferences and temperament.

The physical study, published in "Biology of Reproduction," is the first research study on clone physiology that included control subjects, according to the research team. These pigs were compared using a series of physiological and genetic parameters, with results indicating that while cloning creates animals within the normal phenotype - the appearance of an organism with respect to a group of characters - it increases the variability associated with some traits, Piedrahita explained.

"That means that you can not use cloned animals to reduce the size of groups involved in animal experiments," Piedrahita said.

The researchers believe the implications of these study are far reaching and expose the myth that cloned animals will physically and behaviorally identical.

"The technology of cloning has been sold to the public as a way of creating a group of identical animals and, as such, there are companies that have been set up around this concept, especially for pet cloning," Piedrahita said. "The implication is that your cloned pet is going to behave and look like the one you already have and that will not be the case."

Helping Monarchs With Their 3,000 Mile Migration

Milkweed is the sole food source for Monarch caterpillars, which transform into the familiar and beautiful yellow and black butterflies.

"Monarchs are making a comeback but they need our help to cultivate food for their young in order to make their full annual migration from Central Mexico to Canada and back," said Christopher Singer, founder of Live Monarch Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protect the species.

The organization's efforts have increase in the wake of a devastating die off of Monarch butterflies in early 2002, when some 220 million to 280 million Monarch butterflies died from unseasonably cold temperatures in their over wintering sites in central Mexico. Conservationists estimate that as much as 85 percent of the North American Monarch population was wiped out by this tragedy.

The monarch is one of the longest migrating species on Earth, a remarkable feat for a fragile and tiny insect. Beginning in August, millions of monarch butterflies from Canada and the eastern United States migrate from their summer feeding and mating grounds to the Oyamel fir forests high in the Transvolcanic Mountains west of Mexico City.

The forests provide a cool and moist environment that shelters the butterflies from extreme temperatures. The monarchs from dense clusters on the trees in the forest with as many as 10 million or more per hectare. After a relatively inactive few months at these winter sites, the monarchs return to their summer feeding and mating grounds in late February and March.

Planting milkweed provides additional food for the migrating butterflies - individuals interested in receiving free milkweed seeds can send visit the foundation's Web site for more information.

Researchers Aim to Upgrade Plastics Recycling

The group set out to tackle the recycling challenge of the familiar soda bottle, which is made of a common plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Recycling these bottles is a challenge because of contaminants and impurities - but this is what the researchers believe they can tackle.

"We are trying to develop a process where we can take waste polymer and convert it back into the material from which it was made. In the process, all the impurities are removed from the polymer," said George Roberts, a North Carolina State University professor of chemical engineering. "Ideally, this should be done in a single step because the economics have to make sense for the process to have widespread applicability."

Roberts said the process has two elements. First, a machine called a "twin-screw extruder" processes the polymer, melting the PET and creating very thin films.

These films allow the interfacing of the high molecular weight polymer with another material, either ethylene glycol or methanol, Roberts explained, that will reduce the molecular weight of the polymer substantially.

In the second step, supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) is combined with the ethylene glycol or methanol. This reduces the viscosity, or stickiness, of the polymer and makes it easier to process. At the end of the process, the CO2 is vented from the extruder and run through a condenser, where dissolved impurities can be removed, Roberts explained, and then the CO2 is then recycled.

"The basic reaction of ethylene glycol with the polymer is known, but our preliminary data say that this enhanced reaction is several orders of magnitude faster when done in the extruder with supercritical CO2 than if it is run conventionally," said Roberts. "That translates into lower cost."

Twin-screw extruders are common in the workplace, according to the research team, so these machines can be reconfigured to use supercritical CO2. There remains work to be done on how a range variables, including the rate of flow of polymer, amounts of C02, the benefits and costs of using ethylene glycol or methanol, affect the processing.

"To our knowledge, the machines in the marketplace have never been used for this purpose, but they can be modified for this process," said Roberts. "Part of our research involves configuring the existing machines so they can give optimal performance."

Bush Administration Encourages Earth Day Celebration

The 33th Earth Day will be officially celebrated worldwide on April 22, 2003 - the annual celebration of the environment was founded by former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970.

According to administration officials, the site is the first interagency effort to create a "comprehensive federal resource for citizens" interested in taking part in Earth Day and other year-round environmental activities.

In the announcement of the site, President George W. Bush asked all federal agencies to support volunteer service this Earth Day.

"In the three decades since the first Earth Day celebration, our air is cleaner, our water is purer, and our natural resources are better protected," Bush said in a prepared statement. "We have learned from our successes and are putting that experience to work at the federal, state and local government level."

"Additionally, all Americans can help protect our natural resources by being good stewards of our air, water, and land," said Bush.

The site is searchable by state and region so that individuals can find community service opportunities and Earth Day events where they live. The site offers downloadable classroom curricula and additional information on the environment, including outlines of the administration's environmental initiatives.

The Bush administration has been sharply criticized by environmentalists for many of these initiatives, which critics believe favor industry and polluters over environmental protection and public health.

Officials with the administration say the President is balancing environmental and economic interests and contend that voluntary private public partnerships are often the most effective means of encouraging conservation and environmental protection.

"On Earth Day 2003, we celebrate not only the accomplishments of the past three decades but also the promise of the future represented by a growing partnership between the government and the people to conserve our air, our water, and our land and its wildlife," said Interior Secretary Gale Norton. "With the encouragement of federal and state governments, citizen-conservationists across America are the driving force behind thousands of projects to protect and restore our natural resources."

The U.S. government's Earth Day site can be found at www.earthday.gov.

Additional information Earth Day celebrations and events can be found at www.earthday.net.