Just when you thought the future was in carbon capture and sequestration (and that’s true), comes more information from the “new EPA” under Administrator Lisa Jackson and President Barack Obama.

The agency, which has already begun the process of regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, is now going after runoff.

It seems the same scrubber technology that’s helping clean up power plant emissions creates toxic residue that’s stored in ponds or flushed to waterways. The target of concern is selenium, which can accumulate in fish tissue like mercury.

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Is the world warming, cooling or does it matter? Most of us will say it matters, a lot, at least in public anyway. And especially if you are hoping to pay rent or retire one day with a career based around the belief that Amsterdam, New York and Dubai will no longer exist unless we cut greenhouse gases and stop the icecaps from melting. But what has happened now that the earth cooled over the past year? Not to mention former NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson’s claim last year that now that she is “no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding” that she can publicly say that she “remains skeptical.” Recently the name was changed from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ – what is really going on? Or does it matter?

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Courtesy U. of Minnesota

Exit up ahead: A University of Minnesota study has concluded that corn-based ethanol is no better than gasoline.

The Star Tribune says ethanol may even be a bigger polluter, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and particulate matter. Cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass and other plant materials is far better for human health, the scientists say.

But the Renewable Fuels Association claims the study is flawed. Among other things, it assumes that grassland will be taken out of the federal Conservation Reserve Program to make more corn-based ethanol. The RFA says most of the increase in corn production in the U.S. has been through higher yields rather than conversion, and there’s no peer-reviewed evidence for the study’s methods. (see the pdf).

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