10 Worst Energy-Related Diasters of 2011

9. Coal Mine Explosion, Salinas, Mexico

Young Mexican miner hauling coal out of a mine shaft. Image credit: Mexico National Commission on Human Rights.

On May 3, 2011, a coal mine in Sabinas, Mexico exploded killing 14 miners and injuring one. Safety standards in Mexico's coal industry are less than adequate. Small coal mines often escape inspection and fall outside of any regulation. Workers are usually teenagers under 18, equipped with basic tools and no helmets. As a result, major accidents such as the one in Sabinas are not uncommon. In 2006, a coal mine explosion killed 65 miners -- the worst in Mexico's history. Since 2006, it is believed another 40 people have been killed in local mines.

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10 Worst Energy-Related Disasters of 2011

10. Rena Oil Spill Off Coast of New Zealand

Image credit: Jeanfrancois Beausejour via Flickr

On October 5, 2011, a cargo ship ran itself aground in the Astrolabe Reef. Carrying 1,700 tons (83,300 barrel equivalent) of oil onboard, the 775-foot Rena leaked almost one-quarter of its fuel, 400 tons (28,000 barrels) into the ocean. The spill led to beach closures and the death of thousands of birds, fish, and other sea-life. 

Rena's spill has been labelled New Zealand's Worst Maritime Environmental disaster of all time.

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Reader's Review: Dinosaurs in Alaska! Awesome!

By shines177 "Bibliophile"

OK...I've been a dinosaur fan since I was a kid, so perhaps I'm a bit biased. It is very hard to find a good, believable dinosaur read, and I was thrilled when not only I found a new dino novel, but one that delivered all that I wanted!

I've read through the reviews and see a few disgrundled reviewers who apparently look for high literary fiction (translation: "boring classics"). This is a gritty, smart adventure novel of the near future where an urgent need for oil coincides with the shutdown of foreign sources. One source: A new mother lode in our own country. But to harvest the black gold, one must figure out how to deal with the most fearsome predators the world has ever seen. When modern technology fails, you turn to the wisdom of the ancients...

It's adventure, escapism, romance, and just pure FUN. I enjoyed the roller coaster read, and will soon be re-reading it again.

One last thing: I have hiked the area in the book many times. There are broad, huge valleys in the preserve that have likely never been trod by a human foot recorded history. Who knows? ;)

Converting Energy Waste into Electricity and Heat

Energy recycling wiz Tom Casten explains how to capture power that goes up in smoke

• By Bruce Hathaway

... Smithsonian's Bruce Hathaway recently spoke with CHP expert Tom Casten, chairman of a Chicago company called Recycled Energy Development (RED). Casten has spent three decades promoting the recycling of otherwise wasted industrial energy. He has testified before Congress numerous times and is the author of Turning Off the Heat: Why America Must Double Energy Efficiency to Save Money and Reduce Global Warming. Running a profitable CHP company is important to Casten, who has an MBA from Columbia. But his background as an Eagle Scout also explains his passion for reducing global warming: he abides by the slogan, "leave the campground cleaner than we found it."


Read Interview Here

Outlining Olorotitan

The reconstructed skeleton of Olorotitan, from Godefroit et al., 2012.

Olorotitan was one of the most elegant dinosaurs of all time. The 26-foot-long hadrosaur, found in the Late Cretaceous rocks of eastern Russia, had the typical deep tail, beefy legs and slender arms of its kin, but a fan-shaped crest jutting out of the back of the dinosaur’s skull gave it a striking profile. As with its North American cousins Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus, the hollow head ornament is what makes this dinosaur stand out.


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Reader's Review: Captivating!

by  Jan Zollar

Finally! The opportunity to read the much anticipated novel Fossil River is here! The Memorial Day holiday weekend was the perfect time to for me to cuddle up in a comfy chair and become totally engrossed in the story. Trouble is, I found myself on the edge of my seat! Jock Miller puts you right in the middle of the action. You feel like you know the characters personally and are pulling for their success and survival.

I would strongly recommend this novel as an exciting read. From now on, I know I will always wonder if I am alone when I am out in the woods!

World’s Worst Power Outages

Operating Without Power, 1965

Photograph by Ted Russell, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Doctors use temporary lighting to perform brain surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City during the great blackout of 1965. More than 30 million people in parts of Canada and several Northeastern U.S. states were left without power for up to 13 hours on November 9, 1965, after the lights went dark during the evening rush hour. A faulty or improperly set safety relay at an Ontario power station was blamed for sparking a southbound power surge that overwhelmed systems from Vermont to New Jersey. Human operators were also faulted for responses that failed to contain the crisis.

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Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: Pedopenna

Pedopenna (Greek for "feathered foot"); pronounced PED-oh-PEN-ah

Habitat:
Woodlands of Asia

Historical Period:
Late Jurassic (150 million years ago)

Size and Weight:
About 3 feet long and 5-10 pounds

Diet:
Probably omnivorous
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Long legs; long claws on hands; feathers

About Pedopenna:

For the past 25 years or so, paleontologists have driven themselves crazy trying to figure out where the dinosaur evolutionary tree ends and the bird evolutionary tree begins. A case study in this ongoing state of confusion is Pedopenna, a tiny, birdlike theropod that was contemporary with two other famous Jurassic dino-birds, Archaeopteryx and Epidendrosaurus. Pedopenna clearly had many birdlike features, and may have been capable of climbing (or fluttering) into trees and hopping from branch to branch. Like another early dino-bird, Microraptor, Pedopenna may have sported primitive wings on both its arms and its legs.

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Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer and book author; one of his specialties is explaining scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and professional audience.

Bob Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer books that range across the expanse of science, biology, history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).

World’s Worst Power Outages

India, 2012

Photograph by Channi Anand, AP

A girl prepares food by candlelight in Jammu, India, on August 1, 2012. India's massive power failures on July 30 and 31 were unprecedented in size and left 670 million people without electricity across the nation's north and east.

Before power was restored on August 1, about half of all residents of India—nearly 10 percent of the entire world's population—were left in the dark by a cascade of collapsing regional systems. The outage's exact cause may be debatable, but the ultimate source of trouble was predictable: India's power structure is often unable to meet peak power demands. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for a $400 billion investment to help increase the capacity and reliability of India's power grid, but the country's efforts to build "ultra-mega" coal plants have hit economic snags, while its effort to build the world's largest nuclear power plant faces protests and delays.

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Reader's Review: Captivating!

By Zman1950

Finally! The opportunity to read the much anticipated novel Fossil River is here! The Memorial Day holiday weekend was the perfect time to for me to cuddle up in a comfy chair and become totally engrossed in the story. Trouble is, I found myself on the edge of my seat! Jock Miller puts you right in the middle of the action. You feel like you know the characters personally and are pulling for their success and survival.

I would strongly recommend this novel as an exciting read. From now on, I know I will always wonder if I am alone when I am out in the woods!

Jan Zollar

Afghan Energy

Without a national power grid, some isolated communities in Afghanistan rely on wind and solar systems to generate affordable energy.    

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Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: Oviraptor

Oviraptor (Greek for "egg thief"); pronounced OH-vee-rap-tore
 
Habitat:
Deserts of Asia
 
Historical Period:
Late Cretaceous (85-75 million years ago)
 
Size and Weight:
About 8 feet long and 75 pounds
 
Diet:
Probably meat
 
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Sharp, toothless beak; probably feathers
 
About Oviraptor:

Talk about a bum rap: when the first fossil of Oviraptor was unearthed, sitting atop a clutch of fossilized eggs, the eggs were thought to belong to an entirely different kind of dinosaur, Protoceratops (specimens of which had been found in the immediate vicinity). Naturally, it was assumed this new specimen had stolen the eggs, hence its name, Greek for "egg thief." (See 10 Facts About Oviraptor and a gallery of Oviraptor pictures.)

Although it's still stuck with its inaccurate name, Oviraptor has since been completely vindicated. Paleontologists now believe that the "guilty" specimen had actually been brooding its own eggs, and earned its notoriety simply by being a good mother (or possibly a good father, since males of the species could conceivably have taken part in child-rearing).

Beyond this little snafu, Oviraptor was one of the most birdlike of all dinosaurs, with a sharp, toothless beak and (probably) a coat of feathers. This theropod didn't have wings, but it seems to have been a short step away (in evolutionary terms) from the first flying birds. (By the way, confusingly enough, Oviraptor doesn't technically count as a true raptor, the breed of dinosaurs most famously represented by Deinonychus and Velociraptor.)

 _______________________________________________________________
Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer and book author; one of his specialties is explaining scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and professional audience.

Bob Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer books that range across the expanse of science, biology, history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).

What is the Future of Energy?

Courtesy of: Cambridge University

Three academics look at wind power, carbon capture and storage and material efficiency as examples of how we can cut our C02 emissions

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Reader's Review: A Suspense/Thriller That is Riveting

Suspense/Thriller Junky? This is a MUST READ

By Lauren E Miller (Colorado)

"I am a non-fiction reader, I have been for 20 years. With that said, I am a dinosaur addict so I am on full board with any movie or book that weaves the dinosaur theme in. Fossil River is a fiction read that caught my attention from the first page until the last, however it is laced with factual information throughout which as a non-fiction reader, I gravitate towards. I was on a long flight and I figured I would just start with the first couple of pages, I was hooked and read the entire book in one sitting. I can't wait for the movie, this is a story whose time has come and a must read for anyone who enjoys being hooked at the beginning through the end. A suspense/thriller that is riveting. At one point I noticed my eyes had dried out and then I realized I hadn't blinked for 10 pages. Step aside Jurassic Park, your rival has just entered the ring."