EASY energy savings
Mother Earth News has an amazing article about eight really cheap, really easy things you can do to save money on your energy bill. The author spent about $400 to make energy efficiency upgrades, and ended up saving $907 on his energy bill that year. It’s a pretty good, quick return on investment. Here’s the rundown list of the upgrades. Go check the article for in-depth explanations of each one.
Environmental chemicals may cause earlier puberty
Scientists studying puberty in girls have found that it’s more common now for girls as young as 7 or 8 to begin developing breasts, which is a concern because it may increase their lifelong chances of getting breast cancer.
He said it was possible that environmental chemicals were also playing a role, and added that he and his colleagues were now studying the girls’ hormone levels and lab tests measuring their exposures to various chemicals.
“It’s certainly throwing up a warning flag,” Dr. Biro said. “I think we need to think about the stuff we’re exposing our bodies to and the bodies of our kids. This is a wake-up call, and I think we need to pay attention to it.”
A car that runs on poo
Now this is a smart idea. A company has figured out a way to power a vehicle using methane harvested from sewage plants. I wonder what the car smells like though?
… according to GENeco, “waste flushed down the toilets of 70 homes in Bristol is enough to power the Bio-Bug for a year, based on an annual mileage of 10,000 miles.”
Reports of serious problems in other Transocean rigs
Transocean, the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon before it exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, may have systematic problems that contributed to that failure and also places other Gulf rigs in danger. These are serious accusations that the New York Times has uncovered after securing confidential Transocean documents.
Some workers said the company was systematically deferring maintenance to save money.
“This rig is getting $550,000 per day; unless it’s a sink that needs fixing it isn’t getting fixed,” said a worker from the Marianas about the maintenance concerns. “They won’t send the rig to the shipyard for major refurb that is required in certain areas.”
5 million barrels in the Gulf
The latest scientific estimates indicate that five million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil disaster.
Nearly five million barrels of oil have gushed from BP’s well — and about 800,000 have been captured by containment efforts —since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, according to the latest data. That amount outstrips the estimated 3.3 million barrels spilled into the Bay of Campeche by the Mexican rig Ixtoc I in 1979, previously believed to be the world’s largest accidental release.
Video on chemicals in cosmetics