At the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, just off the coast of Maine, a tidal power system built and operated by the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) draws energy from currents created as 100 billion
tons of water flow into and out of the bay.
More than 3,000
tons of water flow over Niagara Falls every second.
Not exact matches
As I read reports about the release
of more than 11,000
tons of radiation - laced
water into the sea from the damaged nuclear plant in Japan, I recalled reporting I did more than a decade ago on the many uses
of silt barriers — essentially curtains suspended in
water — to hold back everything from oil slicks to the bursts
of polluted runoff
flowing into coastal
waters from city storm drains after heavy storms (the
water can be pumped and treated once the system is not overloaded).
Similarly, U.S. annual grain exports
of 90 million
tons of grain represent 90 billion
tons of water, an amount that exceeds the annual
flow of the Missouri River.
The heat emissions alone, (along with the geothermal heat
flow), are enough to account for the rise in temperature
of air, land, and
water that we experience as well as the melting
of glaciers at a rate
of one trillion
tons a year.
(11/15/07) «Ban the Bulb: Worldwide Shift from Incandescents to Compact Fluorescents Could Close 270 Coal - Fired Power Plants» (5/9/07) «Massive Diversion
of U.S. Grain to Fuel Cars is Raising World Food Prices» (3/21/07) «Distillery Demand for Grain to Fuel Cars Vastly Understated: World May Be Facing Highest Grain Prices in History» (1/4/07) «Santa Claus is Chinese OR Why China is Rising and the United States is Declining» (12/14/06) «Exploding U.S. Grain Demand for Automotive Fuel Threatens World Food Security and Political Stability» (11/3/06) «The Earth is Shrinking: Advancing Deserts and Rising Seas Squeezing Civilization» (11/15/06) «U.S. Population Reaches 300 Million, Heading for 400 Million: No Cause for Celebration» (10/4/06) «Supermarkets and Service Stations Now Competing for Grain» (7/13/06) «Let's Raise Gas Taxes and Lower Income Taxes» (5/12/06) «Wind Energy Demand Booming: Cost Dropping Below Conventional Sources Marks Key Milestone in U.S. Shift to Renewable Energy» (3/22/06) «Learning From China: Why the Western Economic Model Will not Work for the World» (3/9/05) «China Replacing the United States and World's Leading Consumer» (2/16/05)» Foreign Policy Damaging U.S. Economy» (10/27/04) «A Short Path to Oil Independence» (10/13/04) «World Food Security Deteriorating: Food Crunch In 2005 Now Likely» (05/05/04) «World Food Prices Rising: Decades
of Environmental Neglect Shrinking Harvests in Key Countries» (04/28/04) «Saudis Have U.S. Over a Barrel: Shifting Terms
of Trade Between Grain and Oil» (4/14/04) «Europe Leading World Into Age
of Wind Energy» (4/8/04) «China's Shrinking Grain Harvest: How Its Growing Grain Imports Will Affect World Food Prices» (3/10/04) «U.S. Leading World Away From Cigarettes» (2/18/04) «Troubling New
Flows of Environmental Refugees» (1/28/04) «Wakeup Call on the Food Front» (12/16/03) «Coal: U.S. Promotes While Canada and Europe Move Beyond» (12/3/03) «World Facing Fourth Consecutive Grain Harvest Shortfall» (9/17/03) «Record Temperatures Shrinking World Grain Harvest» (8/27/03) «China Losing War with Advancing Deserts» (8/4/03) «Wind Power Set to Become World's Leading Energy Source» (6/25/03) «World Creating Food Bubble Economy Based on Unsustainable Use
of Water» (3/13/03) «Global Temperature Near Record for 2002: Takes Toll in Deadly Heat Waves, Withered Harvests, & Melting Ice» (12/11/02) «Rising Temperatures & Falling
Water Tables Raising Food Prices» (8/21/02) «
Water Deficits Growing in Many Countries» (8/6/02) «World Turning to Bicycle for Mobility and Exercise» (7/17/02) «New York: Garbage Capital
of the World» (4/17/02) «Earth's Ice Melting Faster Than Projected» (3/12/02) «World's Rangelands Deteriorating Under Mounting Pressure» (2/5/02) «World Wind Generating Capacity Jumps 31 Percent in 2001» (1/8/02) «This Year May be Second Warmest on Record» (12/18/01) «World Grain Harvest Falling Short by 54 Million
Tons:
Water Shortages Contributing to Shortfall» (11/21/01) «Rising Sea Level Forcing Evacuation
of Island Country» (11/15/01) «Worsening
Water Shortages Threaten China's Food Security» (10/4/01) «Wind Power: The Missing Link in the Bush Energy Plan» (5/31/01) «Dust Bowl Threatening China's Future» (5/23/01) «Paving the Planet: Cars and Crops Competing for Land» (2/14/01) «Obesity Epidemic Threatens Health in Exercise - Deprived Societies» (12/19/00) «HIV Epidemic Restructuring Africa's Population» (10/31/00) «Fish Farming May Overtake Cattle Ranching As a Food Source» (10/3/00) «OPEC Has World Over a Barrel Again» (9/8/00) «Climate Change Has World Skating on Thin Ice» (8/29/00) «The Rise and Fall
of the Global Climate Coalition» (7/25/00) «HIV Epidemic Undermining sub-Saharan Africa» (7/18/00) «Population Growth and Hydrological Poverty» (6/21/00) «U.S. Farmers Double Cropping Corn And Wind Energy» (6/7/00) «World Kicking the Cigarette Habit» (5/10/00) «Falling
Water Tables in China» (5/2/00) Top
of page
Reports from scientists monitoring the situation indicate that a chuck
of ice the size
of Manhattan (100 sq. kilometers) is about the fall off, with the suspected cause being at least partially to do with increasing
flows of warm
water moving up the coast due to the region's changing climate, New Scientist reports.Large chunks
of ice break off the Petermann glacier all the time, but with a chunk this size breaking away — this 5 billion
tons of ice is about half
of the glacier's annual
flow — it's unlikely that current rates
of snowfall elsewhere on the glacier will be able to make up for it.