Vibrant cardinal flowers will remain in bloom now through fall and are a welcome nectar source!
Photo: Gray hairstreak on cardinal flower courtesy of Vicki DeLoach/Creative Commons.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Cardinal Flowers
From U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region:
Vibrant cardinal flowers will remain in bloom now through fall and are a welcome nectar source!
Photo: Gray hairstreak on cardinal flower courtesy of Vicki DeLoach/Creative Commons.
Vibrant cardinal flowers will remain in bloom now through fall and are a welcome nectar source!
Photo: Gray hairstreak on cardinal flower courtesy of Vicki DeLoach/Creative Commons.
Obama’s battle against global warming: Hope vs. reality | Miami Herald
What is the Clean Power Plan?
It’s the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s plan to attack climate change by reducing carbon pollution. This is the first time the Environmental Protection Agency will require a reduction in carbon emissions from power plants, which are responsible for some 40 percent of such U.S. emissions.
What would it do?
Obama’s battle against global warming: Hope vs. reality | Miami Herald
Monday, August 3, 2015
North Las Vegas Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgraded with GE’s LEAPmbr* Technology
From GE:
North Las Vegas Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgraded with GE’s LEAPmbr* Technology
July 29, 2015
- New Facility Will Have Reduced Energy and Maintenance Costs
- LEAPmbr Technology Enables the City of North Las Vegas to Operate the Plant More Efficiently, While Increasing Productivity
TREVOSE, PA.—July 29, 2015—GE (NYSE: GE) today announced it provided the city of North Las Vegas, Nevada, with its high-performance LEAPmbr* membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology for an upgrade to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. By using GE’s LEAPmbr system, the city will reduce its energy and maintenance costs including an estimated 29 percent reduction in membrane scour energy costs. The upgraded water reclamation MBR facility, one of the largest in the United States, treats the municipal wastewater for more than 300,000 of North Las Vegas’ residents and processes up to 25 million gallons of wastewater per day.
With GE’s LEAPmbr and ZeeWeed* 500 membranes, the newly upgraded facility can more efficiently treat the city’s wastewater. Historically, the city of North Las Vegas relied on the city of Las Vegas to treat its wastewater, but in 2012, North Las Vegas built its own plant using GE ZeeWeed membranes and MBR technology. The city then upgraded the facility with LEAPmbr technology three years later to provide the same treatment capacity and high-treated water quality while reducing energy and maintenance costs and increasing productivity.
“Environmental and economic concerns led us to upgrade our wastewater treatment plant with GE’s LEAPmbr technology, which provided us with a more energy-efficient and cost-effective way to operate our facility,” said Dave Commons, water reclamation facility administrator for North Las Vegas. “The retrofit will give us a 29 percent energy reduction on membrane aeration and will save more than $100,000 per year in energy and maintenance costs.”
GE’s LEAPmbr aeration technology provides optimal energy usage by reducing membrane air scour costs along with essentially eliminating cyclic valve maintenance. In addition, the plant’s advanced SCADA system allows the city of North Las Vegas to have minimal staffing at the plant and the wastewater treatment facility can be controlled remotely.
“LEAPmbr is our latest innovation in membrane technology and upgrading to it gives the city of North Las Vegas a more cost-effective and energy-efficient method of aeration. Additionally, LEAPmbr improves water quality, increases water treatment capacity and offers the lowest life cycle costs available from any MBR technology,” said Yuvbir Singh, general manager, engineered systems—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water.
Specifically for the project, GE retrofitted the existing membrane cassettes by supplying LEAPmbr retrofit kits. This allowed the plant to take advantage of the lower air and energy requirements while continuing to get the full life cycle operation out of the originally installed membranes.
LEAPmbr builds on 25 years of experience to deliver the most advanced MBR solution to date. At the core of LEAPmbr is GE’s ZeeWeed 500 membrane, an advanced ultrafiltration technology that separates solids, bacteria and viruses from water or wastewater. GE’s ZeeWeed ultrafiltration membranes offer an unmatched combination of performance, energy efficiency, durability, ease of operation and reliability. More than 1,000 plants worldwide use this technology to produce superior quality water.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) imagines things others don’t, builds things others can’t and delivers outcomes that make the world work better. GE brings together the physical and digital worlds in ways no other company can. In its labs and factories and on the ground with customers, GE is inventing the next industrial era to move, power, build and cure the world. www.ge.com
About GE Power & Water
GE Power & Water provides customers with a broad array of power generation, energy delivery and water process technologies to solve their challenges locally. Power & Water works in all areas of the energy industry including renewable resources such as wind and solar; biogas and alternative fuels; and coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy. The business also develops advanced technologies to help solve the world’s most complex challenges related to water availability and quality. Power & Water’s six business units include Distributed Power, Nuclear Energy, Power Generation Products, Power Generation Services, Renewable Energy and Water & Process Technologies. Headquartered in Schenectady, N.Y., Power & Water is GE’s largest industrial business.
Follow GE Power & Water and GE’s water business on Twitter @GE_PowerWater and @GE_Water.
Sage Grouse
From the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mountain-Prairie Region:
The #SageGrouse mating dance is one of the most stirring wildlife spectacles in the West.http://bit.ly/GrSageGrouse
The #SageGrouse mating dance is one of the most stirring wildlife spectacles in the West.http://bit.ly/GrSageGrouse
Importance of Coral Reefs
From the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS):
Breaking Wave — An underwater photo of a wave breaking over a coral reef on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. This photo shows how the high hydrodynamic roughness of live, healthy corals causes friction that induces breaking of waves over coral reefs, and reduces wave energy at the shoreline that can cause flooding and island overwash.
Coral reefs, under pressure from climate change and direct human activity, may have a reduced ability to protect tropical islands against wave attack, erosion and salinization of drinking water resources, which help to sustain life on those islands. A recent paper by researchers from the Dutch independent institute for applied research Deltares and the USGS gives guidance to coastal managers to assess how climate change will affect a coral reef’s ability to mitigate coastal hazards. Photo credit: Curt Storlazzi, USGS.
You can learn more about this topic at:http://on.doi.gov/
#USGS #science #coral #ocean #islands #hazards#wave #ClimateChange #environment #tropical
Breaking Wave — An underwater photo of a wave breaking over a coral reef on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. This photo shows how the high hydrodynamic roughness of live, healthy corals causes friction that induces breaking of waves over coral reefs, and reduces wave energy at the shoreline that can cause flooding and island overwash.
Coral reefs, under pressure from climate change and direct human activity, may have a reduced ability to protect tropical islands against wave attack, erosion and salinization of drinking water resources, which help to sustain life on those islands. A recent paper by researchers from the Dutch independent institute for applied research Deltares and the USGS gives guidance to coastal managers to assess how climate change will affect a coral reef’s ability to mitigate coastal hazards. Photo credit: Curt Storlazzi, USGS.
You can learn more about this topic at:http://on.doi.gov/
#USGS #science #coral #ocean #islands #hazards#wave #ClimateChange #environment #tropical
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Rare crocodile nest discovered on Virginia Key | Miami Herald
To the surprise of biologists, a Virginia Key beach restored to lure sea turtles has become an incubator to some unlikely babies: rare American crocodiles.
Last month, the baby crocs hatched from the first nest ever documented on the urban island that links the city of Miami to Key Biscayne. After incubating for 84 days, a team from theUniversity of Florida and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science helped tag 13 crocs on July 26.
Rare crocodile nest discovered on Virginia Key | Miami Herald
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