Environmental News

With both Danube and Rhine so low, some new responses are being done now

Europe drought threatens energy, shipping and growth

Unsurprisingly it is seen with a climate-change perspective. May be justified. Both these rivers have gone low before (long records exist), but not, I think, both at the same time. Canal connection allows water transfer if one is low and the other high (if countries were to agree). Not this year.

 

See US’ new 2026 >1megawatt electron pushers here:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/

And earlier years also. Not a .gov site at risk of disappearing, as it includes COAL.

I feel communion with ancestors who burned things by necessity. Sites like this help to ground us, as Human Enterprise begins to advance beyond burning.

 

Cruise ships are getting cleaner:

Viking Glory | Viking Line

(I took that ride Stockholm to Turku)

 

Thar be whales:

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-commercial-whaling-erased-blue-fin.html

 

2025 August fine weather and calm seas. That ship has twirly propeller mounts and was extremely manueverable.

--
Iceland was cool and damp, which is pretty much high summer there.

 

Action at Hanford:
Team Boosts Radioactive Waste Removal From Underground Tanks at DOE Hanford Site | Engineering News-Record

To my knowledge Oak Ridge and Savannah River are the other radioisotope storage 'hot spots'. Not on my current to do list to work out what and how much are where. But information required to do that might be moving into 'more secure storage'. Maybe faster than the isotopes themselves.

 

I have written here before about one inadvertent release of 14-carbon as CO2 that happened at Oak Ridge. It was unimportant as a human health risk because inhaled CO2 is not retained. But it was enough to radioactively label leaves growing in nearby forests. Some of those leaves were collected and that was how the leak was identified and stopped.

The collected leaves were subsequently used in decomposition experiments and generated useful results. Publications resulting had some very careful wording in their 'Methods sections

The Oak Ridge boys were unwilling to share leaves with me (I asked).

 

The Apophis Encounter in 2029

Mark 2029 April 13 on your calendars for closest approach of near-Earth asteroid Apophis.





It is about 340 meters diameter and closest means about 38,000 km. By comparison geostationary satellites are about 35,000 km. Other sources say 32,000 km closest, and we will see how it goes. Europe, the Americas, and Africa will face its closest, but everyone should have a look for days before and after.

Apophis velocity is 12.5 km/sec. It has density of 1.95 grams per cubic cm. Density of typical rocks is 2.2 to 2.5 and iron is >7.8. Apophis is thus a rock pile loosely held together by self gravity.

Apophis will loose some ‘dust’ that may/should be visible to eyes. I have not seen suggested that it could be crumbled by Earth’s gravity while ‘in the well’. Maybe a little bit.

Several launch missions may go to Apophis, described in Li et al. 2026 attached.

This is the biggest and closest near-Earth-asteroid we will witness, unless something comes from the blind (Sun) side.

Do look up.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1140935

 

More on meteors:
New study reveals how space rocks become meteorites | EurekAlert!

 

Wind turbines vs. raptors:
Turbine tactics: biologists successfully alert golden eagles to wind turbines using new deterrent system | EurekAlert!

--
Recently I read but did not post here about raptor electrocution by powerlines in Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Few or no trees, so they build nests on poles. Does not always work for them.