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Last Updated: Nov 18th, 2008 - 10:15:44 |
DOI Earmarks Land for Geothermal Energy Development
The Department of the Interior will make available more than 190-million acres of federal land in 12 western states for geothermal energy development. A department environmental impact statement identifies 118 million acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and 79 million acres of National Forest System lands that could be opened to future geothermal leasing. The statement says this could potentially lead to 5,540 megawatts of new geothermal power capacity by 2015.
DOI will amend 122 BLM land use plans to allow for geothermal development, while allowing the Forest Service the discretion of evaluating geothermal leasing and considering whether to amend its land use plans. The document also includes site-specific environmental analyses for 19 pending geothermal lease applications for seven sites in Alaska, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the Interior Department's estimates of potential geothermal power production may actually be low. In late September, the USGS released its first assessment of geothermal resources in more than 30 years and found that identified geothermal resources in the West could produce nine thousand MW of power, while another 30 thousand could be generated from conventional geothermal resources that have not yet been discovered.
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Cow Power” Continues to Grow
The Central Vermont “Cow Power” program is touted as being the nation’s first manure-based farm-to-consumer energy program. Begun in 2004, the program continues to grow. The most recently added membership is the U.S. Forest Service’s Rutland headquarters. Forest Service Supervisor Meg Mitchell says - enrolling in “Cow Power” had a great impact. We are supporting a working landscape, helping to improve water quality and removing methane from the atmosphere.
The Cow Power process is simple: manure and other agricultural waste are held in a sealed concrete tank at the same temperature as a cow’s stomach, 101 degrees. Bacteria digest the volatile components, creating methane and killing pathogens and weed seeds. The methane, which is roughly 20 times more harmful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere, fuels an engine/generator.
CVCP customers can choose to receive all, half or a quarter of their electrical energy through Cow Power, and pay a premium of 4 cents per kilowatt hour. That fee goes to participating farm-producers, to purchase renewable energy credits when enough farm energy isn’t available, or to the CVPS Renewable Development Fund. That fund provides grants to farm owners to develop on-farm generation. Farm-producers are also paid 95 percent of the market price for all of the energy sold to CVPS.
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Chinese Melamine Problems Continue
The use of melamine as a food additive may have been going on for some time now in China. And even if there has not been a cover-up, it appears to have been kept a secret. The Hong Kong government now admits that melamine has seeped into large parts of China’s food and feed industry – posing health hazards to consumers.
Just this past week, a brand of chicken eggs from China’s leading egg processor, Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group, was removed from the shelves in some stores after Hong Kong food safety regulators found excessive levels of melamine in the company's eggs.
Authorities in the eastern city of Hangzhou recalled another company's eggs while Hong Kong's government said tests on eggs from two more processors found excessive amounts of melamine. There have been no reports of illnesses from the new contamination.
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| Bill Bullard, R-CALF CEO |
Second Lawsuit Filed
R-CALF USA and the Organization for Competitive Markets have filed a suit in the U.S. District Court – Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, against the proposed acquisition of National Beef Packing Company by Brazilian-owned meatpacker JBS. This suit joins a suit filed earlier by the U.S. Department of Justice and 17 state attorneys general.
R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard believes this new suit will assist the government’s case - because we can fully represent the views and competitive concerns of farmers, ranchers and feeders who are most affected by this merger.
The government’s lawsuit focuses primarily on the impacts on fat cattle and consumers. Bullard says the R-CALF USA/OCM lawsuit further addresses the impacts on feeders and other cattle. The suit also explains how packers use captive supplies to leverage down prices and how this negatively impacts the price for all classes of cattle.
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New Hairy Vetch Varieties Licensed
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| Hairy Vetch |
The Agricultural Research Service has entered into licensing agreements with four seed distributors interested in marketing two new varieties of hairy vetch. Hairy vetch is a common cover crop planted in the fall that lies dormant throughout the winter and flowers in the spring. It can be tilled into the soil or rolled onto the soil surface, leaving a mat of protective stems that hold in moisture, prevent weed growth and curb erosion.
The two new varieties, Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity, are hardier and flower earlier than traditional varieties, adding up to two weeks to the growing season for corn, tomato, pumpkin and other summer crops.
Organic farmers have been using hairy vetch for decades because it adds nitrogen to the soil without the use of synthetic or manufactured fertilizers. But earlier flowering varieties had limited use north of Maryland because they cope poorly with northern winters. The new varieties allow farmers to grow earlier-flowering vetch as far north as Ithaca, New York.
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